a rale fire ye've got. Divil a better has ould Jimmy himself (our
colonel). Ye've heard tell of the turkeys, then, and the pois?"
"Yes. Bully for the folks at home!" says Charley. "The notion of
turkey next Thursday has done me good already. I was thinking I'd go to
hospital to-morrow, but now I guess I won't."
"Hoshpital! Kape clear av the hoshpital, Char-les, dear. Sure, they'd
cut a man's leg off behind the ears av him for to cure him av
indigestion."
"Is it going to rain all night, Barney?"
"It is, bad 'cess to it; and to-morrow and the day afther, I'm thinkin'.
The blackness av night is outside; be jabers! you could cut it like turf
with a shpade! If it wasn't for the ould fort flamin' out wanst in a
whoile, I'd be thinkin' I'd never an oi in my head, barrin' the fires in
the tints far an' near gives a bit of dimness to the dark. Phwat time
is it?"
"Quarter to twelve, Barney."
"Troth, then, the relief will be soon coming. I must be thramping the
mud av Virginia to save the Union. Good-night, byes. I come to give
yez the good word. Kape your heart light an' aisy, Char-les, dear.
D'ye moind the turkeys and the pois? Faith, it's meself that has the
taste for thim dainties!"
"I don't believe I'll be able to eat a mite of the Thanksgiving," says
Charley, as we hear Barney _squ-ush_ away; "but just to see the brown on
a real old brown home turkey will do me a heap of good."
"You'll be all right by Thursday, Charley, I guess; won't you? It's
only Sunday night now."
Of course I cannot remember the very words of that talk in the night, so
many years ago. But the coming of Barney I recollect well, and the
general drift of what was said.
Charley turned on his bed of hay-covered poles, and I put my hand under
his gray blanket to feel if his legs were well covered by the long
overcoat he lay in. Then I tucked the blanket well in about his feet
and shoulders, pulled his poncho again to its full length over him, and
sat on a cracker-box looking at our fire for a long time, while the rain
spattered through the canvas in spray.
My "buddy" Charley, the most popular boy of Company I, was of my own
age,--seventeen,--though the rolls gave us a year more each, by way of
compliance with the law of enlistment. From a Pennsylvania farm in the
hills he came forth to the field early in that black fall of '64,
strong, tall, and merry, fit to ride for the nation's life,--a mighty
wielder of an axe, "bold, cautious, true, and my loving comrade."
We were "the kids" to Company I. To "buddy" with Charley I gave up my
share of the hut I had helped to build as old Bader's "pard." Then the
"kids" set about the construction of a new residence, which stood
farther from the parade ground than any hut in the row except the big
cabin of "old Brownie," the "greasy cook," who called us to "bean--oh!"
with so resonant a shout, and majestically served out our rations of
pork, "salt horse," coffee long-boiled and sickeningly sweet, hardtack,
and the daily loaf of a singularly despondent-looking bread.
My "buddy" and I slept on opposite sides of our winter residence. The
bedsteads were made of poles laid lengthwise and lifted about two feet
from the ground. These were covered thinly with hay from the bales that
were regularly delivered for horse-fodder. There was a space of about
two feet between our bedsteads, and under them we kept our saddles and
saddle-cloths.
Our floor was of earth, with a few flour-barrel staves and cracker-box
sides laid down for rugs. We had each an easy-chair in the form of a
cracker-box, besides a stout soap-box for guests. Our carbines and
sabres hung crossed on pegs over the mantel-piece, above our Bibles and
the precious daguerreotypes of the dear folks at home. When we happened
to have enough wood for a bright fire, we felt much snugger than you
might suppose.
Before ever that dark November began, Charley had been suffering from
one of those wasting diseases that so often clung to and carried off the
strongest men of both armies. Sharing the soldiers' inveterate prejudice
against hospitals attended by young doctors, who, the men believed, were
addicted to much surgery for the sake of practice, my poor "buddy"
strove to do his regular duties. He paraded with the sick before the
regimental doctor as seldom as possible. He was favored by the
sergeants and helped in every way by the men, and so continued to stay
with the company at that wet season when drill and parades were
impracticable.
The idea of a Thanksgiving dinner for half a million men by sea and land
fascinated Charley's imagination, and cheered him mightily. But I could
not see that his strength increased, as he often alleged.
"Ned, you bet I'll be on hand when them turkeys are served out," he
would say. "You won't need to carry my Thanksgiving dinner up from
Brownie's. Say, ain't it bully for the folks at home to be giving us a
Thanksgiving like this? Turkeys, sausages, mince-pies! They say there's
going to be apples and celery for all hands!"
"S'pose you'll be able to eat, Charley?"
"Able! Of course I'll be able! I'll be just as spry as you be on
Thanksgiving. See if I don't carry my own turkey all right. Yes, by
gum, if it weighs twenty pounds!"
"There won't be a turkey apiece."
"No, eh? Well, that's what I figure on. Half a turkey, anyhow. Got to
be; besides chickens, hams, sausages, and all that kind of fixin's. You
heard what Bill Sylvester's girl wrote from Philamadink-a-daisy-oh? No,
eh? Well, he come in a-purpose to read me the letter. Says there's
going to be three or four hundred thousand turkeys, besides them
fixin's! Sherman's boys can't get any; they're marched too far away, out
of reach. The Shenandoah boys'll get some, and Butler's crowd, and us
chaps, and the blockading squadrons. Bill's girl says so. We'll get
the whole lot between us. Four hundred thousand turkeys! Of course
there'll be a turkey apiece; there's got to be, if there's any sense in
arithmetic. Oh, I'll be choosin' between breast-meat and hind-legs on
Thanksgiving,--you bet your sweet life on that!"
This expectation that there would be a turkey apiece was not shared by
Company I; but no one denied it in Charley's hearing. The boy held it
as sick people often do fantastic notions, and all fell into the humor
of strengthening the reasoning on which he went.
It was clear that no appetite for turkey moved my poor "buddy," but that
his brain was busy with the "whole-turkey-a-piece" idea as one
significant of the immense liberality of the folks at home, and their
absorbing interest in the army.
"Where's there any nation that ever was that would get to work and fix
up four hundred thousand turkeys for the boys?" he often remarked, with
ecstatic patriotism.
I have often wondered why "Bill Sylvester's girl" gave that flourishing
account of the preparations for our Thanksgiving dinner. It was only on
searching the newspaper files recently that I surmised her sources of
information. Newspapers seldom reached our regiment until they were
several weeks old, and then they were not much read, at least by me.
Now I know how enthusiastic the papers of November, '64, were on the
great feast for the army.
For instance, on the morning of that Thanksgiving day, the 24th of
November, the New York Tribune said editorially:--
"Forty thousand turkeys, eighty thousand turkeys, one hundred and sixty
thousand turkeys, nobody knows how many turkeys have been sent to our
soldiers. Such masses of breast-meat and such mountains of stuffing;
drumsticks enough to fit out three or four Grand Armies, a perfect
promontory of pope's noses, a mighty aggregate of wings. The gifts of
their lordships to the supper which Grangousier spread to welcome
Gargantua were nothing to those which our good people at home send to
their friends in the field; and no doubt every soldier, if his dinner
does not set him thinking too intently of that home, will prove himself
a valiant trencherman."
Across the vast encampment before Petersburg a biting wind blew that
Thanksgiving day. It came through every cranny of our hut; it bellied
the canvas on one side and tightened it on the other; it pressed flat
down the smoke from a hundred thousand mud chimneys, and swept away so
quickly the little coals which fell on the canvas that they had not time
to burn through.
When I went out towards noon, for perhaps the twentieth time that day,
to learn whether our commissary wagons had returned from City Point with
the turkeys, the muddy parade ground was dotted with groups of shivering
men, all looking anxiously for the feast's arrival. Officers frequently
came out, to exchange a few cheery words with their men, from the tall,
close hedge of withering pines stuck on end that enclosed the officers'
quarters on the opposite side of the parade ground.
No turkeys at twelve o'clock! None at one! Two, three, four, five
o'clock passed by, and still nothing had been heard of our absent
wagons. Charley was too weak to get out that day, but he cheerfully
scouted the idea that a turkey for each man would not arrive sooner or
later.
The rest of us dined and supped on "commissary." It was not good
commissary either, for Brownie, the "greasy cook," had gone on leave to
visit a "doughboy" cousin of the Sixth Corps.
"You'll have turkey for dinner, boys," he had said, on serving out
breakfast. "If you're wanting coffee, Tom can make it." Thus we had to
dine and sup on the amateur productions of the cook's mate.
A multitude of woful rumors concerning the absent turkeys flew round
that evening. The "Johnnies," we heard, had raided round the army, and
captured the fowls! Butler's colored troops had got all the turkeys,
and had been feeding on fowl for two days! The officers had "gobbled"
the whole consignment for their own use! The whole story of the
Thanksgiving dinner was a newspaper hoax! Nothing was too incredible for
men so bitterly disappointed.
Brownie returned before "lights out" sounded, and reported facetiously
that the "doughboys" he had visited were feeding full of turkey and all
manner of fixings. There were so many wagons waiting at City Point that
the roads round there were blocked for miles. We could not fail to get
our turkeys to-morrow. With this expectation we went, pretty happy, to
bed.
"There'll be a turkey apiece, you'll see, Ned," said Charley, in a
confident, weak voice, as I turned in. "We'll all have a bully
Thanksgiving to-morrow."
The morrow broke as bleak as the preceding day, and without a sign of
turkey for our brigade. But about twelve o'clock a great shouting came
from the parade ground.
"The turkeys have come!" cried Charley, trying to rise. "Never mind
picking out a big one for me; any one will do. I don't believe I can
eat a bite, but I want to see it. My ain't it kind of the folks at
home!"
I ran out and found his surmise as to the return of the wagons correct.
They were filing into the enclosure around the quartermaster's tent.
Nothing but an order that the men should keep to company quarters
prevented the whole regiment helping to unload the delicacies of the
season.
Soon foraging parties went from each company to the quartermaster's
enclosure. Company I sent six men. They returned, grinning, in about
half an hour, with one box on one man's shoulders.
It was carried to Sergeant Cunningham's cabin, the nearest to the parade
ground, the most distant from that of "the kids," in which Charley lay
waiting. We crowded round the hut with some sinking of enthusiasm.
There was no cover on the box except a bit of cotton in which some of
the consignment had probably been wrapped. Brownie whisked this off,
and those nearest Cunningham's door saw disclosed--two small turkeys, a
chicken, four rather disorganized pies, two handsome bologna sausages,
and six very red apples.
We were nearly seventy men. The comical side of the case struck the
boys instantly. Their disappointment was so extreme as to be absurd.
There might be two ounces of feast to each, if the whole were equally
shared.
All hands laughed; not a man swore. The idea of an equal distribution
seemed to have no place in that company. One proposed that all should
toss up for the lot. Another suggested drawing lots; a third that we
should set the Thanksgiving dinner at one end of the parade ground and
run a race for it, "grab who can."
At this Barney Donahue spoke up.
"Begorra, yez can race for wan turkey av yez loike. But the other wan
is goin' to Char-les Wilson!"
There was not a dissenting voice. Charley was altogether the most
popular member of Company I, and every man knew how he had clung to the
turkey apiece idea.
"Never let on a word," said Sergeant Cunningham. "He'll think there's a
turkey for every man!"
The biggest bird, the least demoralized pie, a bologna sausage, and the
whole six apples were placed in the cloth that had covered the box. I
was told to carry the display to my poor "buddy."
As I marched down the row of tents a tremendous yelling arose from the
crowd round Cunningham's tent. I turned to look behind. Some man with a
riotous impulse had seized the box and flung its contents in the air
over the thickest of the crowd. Next moment the turkey was seized by
half a dozen hands. As many more helped to tear it to pieces. Barney
Donahoe ran past me with a leg, and two laughing men after him. Those
who secured larger portions took a bite as quickly as possible, and
yielded the rest to clutching hands. The bologna sausage was shared in
like fashion, but I never heard of any one who got a taste of the pies.
"Here's your turkey, Charley," said I, entering with my burden.
"Where's yours, Ned?"
"I've got my turkey all right enough at Cunningham's tent."
"Didn't I tell you there'd be a turkey apiece?" he cried gleefully, as I
unrolled the lot. "And sausages, apples, a whole pie--oh, say, ain't
they bully folks up home!"
"They are," said I. "I believe we'd have had a bigger Thanksgiving yet
if it wasn't such a trouble getting it distributed."
"You'd better believe it! They'd do anything in the world for the
army," he said, lying back.
"Can't you eat a bite, buddy?"
"No; I'm not a mite hungry. But I'll look at it. It won't spoil before
to-morrow. Then you can share it all out among the boys."
Looking at the turkey, the sick lad fell asleep. Barney Donahoe softly
opened our door, stooped his head under the lintel, and gazed a few
moments at the quiet face turned to the Thanksgiving turkey. Man after
man followed to gaze on the company's favorite, and on the fowl which,
they knew, tangibly symbolized to him the immense love of the nation for
the flower of its manhood in the field. Indeed, the people had
forwarded an enormous Thanksgiving feast; but it was impossible to
distribute it evenly, and we were one of the regiments that came short.
Grotesque, that scene? Group after group of hungry, dirty soldiers,
gazing solemnly, lovingly, at a lone brown turkey and a pallid sleeping
boy! Very grotesque. But Charley had his Thanksgiving dinner, and the
men of Company I, perhaps, enjoyed a profounder satisfaction than if
they had feasted more materially.
I never saw Charley after that Thanksgiving day. Before the afternoon
was half gone the doctor sent an ambulance for him, and insisted that he
should go to City Point. By Christmas his wasted body had lain for
three weeks in the red Virginia soil.
*THE SWARTZ DIAMOND*
The Boer puzzled us. It was not because he loomed so big in the haze
against the sunset; but he seemed at a mile's distance to detect us. We
thought the cover perfect, for the hackthorn tops were higher than our
horses' heads. If he from so far could see patches of khaki through
bushes, his eyes must be better than our fieldglasses. If he did not
see us, why did he wave his hat as in salutation?
"Maybe he only suspect one patrol at de ford. Vat you t'ink, Sergeant
McTavish?" said Lieutenant Deschamps to me.
"Perhaps he thinks some of his own kind may hold the ford," I suggested.
The others said nothing. They were fifteen French Canadians, including
Corporal Jongers. We lay still behind our prone horses, and kept our
Krags on the Boer.
He seemed to diminish as he advanced slowly from the mirage, but still
he looked uncommonly big--and venerable, too. His hair and beard grew
long and white, though he sat up as alert as any young man. At ten
yards a pack-pony followed him. When half a mile away the burgher
raised both hands above his head.
"He come for surrender, you t'ink, sergeant?" Lieutenant Deschamps is a
gentleman. Because I was of another race he always treated me with more
than the consideration due to a good non-com. Or possibly it was
because he knew I had been advocate in Montreal before joining the
mounted Canadian contingent.
"Better keep down and keep him covered," I replied. "That may be a
signal." I stared about the horizon. The veldt was bare, except for
the straggle of hackthorns fringing the curve about the ford. There
could be no other Boer within three miles of us, unless hidden by the
meanderings of the Wolwe, which runs twelve feet below the plain. But
we had searched ten miles of its bed during the day. Westward lay the
kopjes from among which the old Boer had apparently ridden.
He came calmly down the breach of the opposite bank and as far as the
middle of the brawling shallow within fifty yards of us before Deschamps
cried "Halt!" At the word we sprang up, accoutrements rattling, horses
snorting. The old burgher looked up at us quizzically, passing his hand
down his beard and gathering its length above his mouth before he spoke.
"Take care some of those guns don't go off," he said, with no trace of
Dutch accent.
"You surrender?" Deschamps stepped forward.
"Sir, I am going to Swartzdorp. Did you not see me hold up my hands?"
"But for sure you could not see us here?"
He smiled and pointed up to the sky. In the blue a vulture swung wide
above us. "So I knew," said the burgher, "Khakis were hiding. Boers
would have come out. They would have recognized me."
"Your name?"
"Emanuel Swartz."
"_Bon_! The great landowner! I have much pleasure to see you. Come
in, monsieur. Eef only you brought in your commando, how glad!"
"They may come yet," he said. "It depends." He shook his rein, and the
big bay brought him up the breach into the midst of us. The pack-pony,
which had imitated his halt, followed.
"You will not stop me. I have private business at Swartzdorp," he said.
"Truly I regret," said Deschamps. "But my orders! Here you must stay,
monsieur, this night. To-morrow General Pole. He will be most glad to
parole you, I have hope."
"Oh, very well, lieutenant," said Swartz, philosophically. "I dare say
he won't send me to St. Helena." He dismounted, leaving his Mauser
strapped to his saddle. Then he handed me his bandoleer. "I make you
welcome to my pack also," he said hospitably. "There's some biltong and
meal. Perhaps it will improve your fare."
"It will be poor stuff if it doesn't," I told him.
"You give your parole, sir?" asked Deschamps.
"For the night, yes. I will not try to escape."
His cordial, easy accents came with a certain surprising effect from one
who was so unkempt and, in spite of his years, so formidable. I had
never before seen one of the great Boer land-owners. In his manner one
could perceive, if not a certain condescension, at least the elevated
kindness of a patriarchal gentleman accustomed to warm by affability the
hearts of many descendants and dependents. About Swartzdorp we had
heard much of his English mother, his English wife, and his lifelong
friendship with English officers and gentlemen. It did not seem
surprising that he should have come in voluntarily now that Bloemfontein
and Pretoria were in Lord Roberts's hands.
It was cold for us in khaki that evening by the Wolwe, though we did not
lack overcoats. The spruit tinkled icily along patches of gravel in the
blue clay, and late June's high moon seemed pouring down a Canadian
wintriness. "No fire," ordered Deschamps, lest far-sighted Boer parties,
skilled in surprises, might locate us. But the old burgher showed how
to make small glowing heaps of dry offal, which had been plentifully
left of old by troops of deer and antelope coming to drink at the
spruit. Over one of these tiny smokeless fires our lieutenant sat with
the prisoner. I think I see again the reflection of the little flame
flickering on the old giant's enormous beard and shapely outspread
hands.
We had supped heavily on his meat and meal, but sleep in that nipping
air came by dozes only, and drowsiness departed when digestion had
relieved repletion. At midnight, when the vedettes were changed and the
moon sagged low, we all were more wakeful than early in the evening.
There had been little talk, and that in the low voices of endurance; but
now Deschamps and Swartz fell into discourse about the Kimberley mines.
This led to discussing the greater diamonds of South Africa, and so on
till the burgher began a story stranger than fiction:
"One of the biggest stones ever taken from blue clay is still uncut. It
has never been offered for sale. Near this very place it was found by
Vassell Swartz, my cousin. The man is not rich even for a Free State
burgher. He is fond of money. He believes his diamond to be worth
twelve thousand pounds. No man could wish harder to sell anything. And
yet he has not offered it. He has not even shown it. His wife has not
seen it. He has had it constantly near him for eleven years. He has
handled it frequently--in its setting. But he has not ventured to look
at it since the morning after he found it. You wonder at that. Is it
possible a rough diamond can shine so bright as dangerously to dazzle
the eyes? No; Vassell would be glad to stare at it all day. But its
setting prevents him. And yet he set it himself."
The old burgher paused and looked about on our puzzled faces with some
air of satisfaction at their interest.
"It is quite a riddle," said Deschamps.
"So it is. And I will make it harder. You have been told that we Boers
think nothing of killing Kaffirs? But all Swartzdorp could tell you
that my cousin Vassell could scarcely bear to let a Kaffir out of his
sight. That is mysterious? Well, I will not go on talking in parables.
I will tell you the thing just as I heard it from Vassell or know about
it myself.
"Eleven years ago, Vassell and his brother, my cousin Claas, went off as
usual to Makori's country beyond the Limpopo, elephant-hunting. Ivory
was so plenty that they trekked back a month earlier than they had
expected. On the return Vassell's riding-horse fell lame not long after
crossing this very Wolwe spruit by a higher ford. My cousin gave the
beast no rest till evening, and no attention until after they had made a
laager against lions and had eaten supper. Then he took a brand from
the fire and looked into the hoof. In it he found a whitish stone of
about the bigness of an elephant-bullet of six to the pound. It was of
the colour of alum, and in the torchlight it glistened as the scale of a
fish.
"Vassell had never seen a rough diamond. And he had heard of diamonds as
brighter than glittering glass. He thought only that the pebble was a
pretty stone. The man's heart was soft with nearing his wife and
children, so he slipped the pebble into his empty elephant-bullet pouch,
thinking to give it for a toy to his little Anna. There it lay
forgotten until his fingers went groping for a bullet at the next
daybreak. Kaffirs were then trying to rush my cousins' laager.
"Wild Kaffirs these were, driven from Kimberley for unruliness in drink.
They were going back to their tribe; they had come far without food, and
they smelled the meat and meal in the wagons--so Matakit afterward told.
But no hunger could have driven them against a Boer laager. They
mistook the wagons for the wagons of Englishmen."
The French Canadians smiled unoffended, but my jaws snapped. Swartz
turned to me courteously:
"They mistook the wagons for those of English traders unskilled in arms
and trekking provisions to the mines. Though their first rush showed
them their mistake, they went mad over their losses and came on twice
more. Then they guessed, from the way my cousins reserved their fire,
that their ammunition was low. So Matakit howled them on for a fourth
rush.