above its doorway, upon the blank, white wall, a plain, black letter
_A_. It almost seems as though the painter had thought to transcribe
there, “All hope abandon”--and then had relented, after outlining
the initial letter of the grisly legend. Perhaps he well might have
finished his work, for those who enter that quiet room are borne
thither because their days are nearly numbered.
On that afternoon there was but one patient in Ward _A_. He seemed
content to lie motionless, watching with drowsy, half-closed eyes the
play of a stray shaft of sunlight upon the snowy counterpane. Beside
him, steadily swinging a fan, sat a white-robed nurse. The long June
day was wearing slowly on towards its ending.
In through the casement to the westward there came a soft breath of
flower-scented air. The nurse felt its caress upon her cheek, and laid
aside her fan. Then, with a little sigh of relief, she rose from her
chair, and quietly stole over to the window for a moment’s glance out
into the garden which lay below.
She was standing there when her trained ear caught the sound of a
restless movement upon the cot. “A glass of water, please,” murmured
the sick man, as she turned and came quickly towards him.
“Thank you,” said he, after a long, grateful draught from the glass
which she had held to his lips. “I must be a terrible nuisance to you.
But,” he added, in a lower tone, “it’ll not be for much longer, please
God!”
“_Sh-h!_” said the nurse, reprovingly. “You mustn’t say that. I can’t
see, I’m sure, why it should be thought that nurses are intended more
for ornament than use. Not,” with a smile, “but that we’re flattered by
that view of the situation.”
“But really and truly,” she went on, picking up the fan, “we should
grow terribly tired of the monotony if it weren’t for the relief that
comes from doing these little things.”
“I suppose I must believe you,” said the sick man, smiling faintly
in his turn. “And if--‘really and truly’--it will serve to break the
monotony, I’ll venture to ask you to do me one more favor. About that
packet of trinkets that I--”
“Oh, how stupid of me!” exclaimed the nurse, hastily rising from her
chair. “The superintendent sent them in while you were taking your
nap.” With the swift, noiseless step of one long trained in hospital
service she crossed the room, and took from the mantel a small package.
“Here they are,” said she. “Shall I take them out for you?”
At his nod of assent she deftly untied the faded blue ribbon with which
the packet was secured, removed the tissue-paper covering, and brought
to light a jewel-case, in which lay three military decorations--the
badge of the Loyal Legion, the plain, bronze star of the Grand Army,
and the enamelled Maltese cross of the old 19th Army Corps.
One by one she laid the medals upon the thin hand feebly outstretched
over the white coverlid, and for a moment the sick man’s tired eyes
kindled as he gazed upon them. But the feeble hand relaxed, the eyes
quickly became dim again. “Ah, well,” he said, a bit huskily, “I’m
through--through with all that now. And I’ve no son--there’s no one to
care--no one to whom I can leave these things. You’ll see that some one
pins them on my breast when--when I’m carried out?”
“Yes,” said the nurse, gathering up the medals as she spoke, “I’ll be
very careful about having it done.” And then she added quietly, “I’ll
attend to it myself.”
“I’m wofully helpless,” said the man upon the cot apologetically; “may
I trouble you to hand me the photograph?”
The nurse drew from beneath his pillow a faded and worn morocco case,
opened it, and handed it to him. Then she turned away and made pretence
of busying herself about some little matter, while her charge looked
long and wistfully upon the picture of a woman’s face that smiled back
at him from its resting place within the leathern frame.
The sick man sighed, but not unhappily. A look of peace came upon his
worn face, and a smile--a wonderfully tender smile--hovered about his
lips.
“Will you put the medals under my pillow?” said he, as the nurse came
towards the bed. “Thank you. Really, you’ve been very kind to me. I’d
like to tell you how grateful I am for it all--but may be I needn’t. My
mind’s quite at rest now: those letters that you wrote for me settled
the last of my worries. And now I’m not sure--I think--think that
perhaps I could sleep again for a little while.” He wearily turned his
head to one side, resting it upon the palm of his hand. And within the
hand, pressed close against his cheek, lay the photograph in its worn
and faded case.
The nurse smoothed out the pillow, passed her hand gently over the
iron-grey hair that clustered thickly above his forehead, and taking
her place by the bedside, once more began to swing the fan slowly to
and fro.
In the great, white room the shadows deepened as the sun went down.
The sick man was breathing regularly, but very lightly. He had fallen
asleep. Once the silent watcher saw his lips move, and caught the sound
of murmured words: then all was still again. The fan swung slowly back
and forth--still more slowly--and then it stopped.
The world outside seemed very beautiful in the June twilight, and the
confinement, by contrast, became doubly irksome. The nurse slipped
quietly over to the open window. She was standing there when the house
surgeon came briskly into the room. “S-sh!” said she, turning at the
sound of the footsteps, and raising a warning hand. “He’s asleep.”
But the surgeon already was standing beside the cot. He gave one keen
glance at the form lying before him, and placed his hand over the
heart. Then he straightened up and turned towards the nurse. His face
had become grave. “Yes,” said he, in answer to the look of anxious
inquiry; “yes, he’s asleep. I hadn’t looked for this before tomorrow,”
he went on quietly, “but he’s--he’s asleep, as you say.”
Dimness had come with the failing light, but it was not so dark that
the doctor and the nurse could not see upon the dead man’s face the
calm smile of perfect peace. “See,” whispered the nurse, gently drawing
the photograph from its resting place--and as she held the picture
towards her companion she gave a little sob. “Yes, I see,” said the
surgeon, softly. “I know his story.” And then in a lower tone he added,
“He’s asleep at last. _God send him rest!_”
* * * * *
It was nearing nine o’clock. Colonel Elliott glanced at his watch, and
then leaned back in his chair with the comfortable consciousness that
his evening’s work was over. One by one he had gone through the pile of
papers that he had found upon his desk. He had written, “Respectfully
forwarded, approved,” upon each in its turn, and now they were ready to
go to the adjutant, to be entered up and sent along upon their sluggish
travels “through channels.”
The colonel gathered the scattered documents into a bunch, snapped a
rubber band about them, and then called, “Orderly!”
“Take these papers to the adjutant,” said the chief, as a soldier
stepped promptly into the room, with his hand at his cap. “Then find
Major Pollard, and say to him, with my compliments, that I’d like him
to report to me here.”
The orderly saluted, and disappeared. The colonel bit the tip from a
cigar, lighted it, and then drew from his pocket a half dozen letters.
Rapidly running through them, he picked out one, tossed it upon his
desk, and then, letting his head fall back, he fixed his eyes upon the
ceiling, and smoked away in thoughtful silence.
Along the broad corridors of the armory echoed the steady tramp of
feet, the rattle of arms, and the sharp commands of the line officers,
for it was a regular drill-night of The Third, and four of the
regiment’s twelve companies were at work in the great hall lying beyond
the administrative rooms. Presently, above the hum of the other sounds,
the colonel heard quick, firm footsteps approaching his door, and in a
moment Major Pollard and Van Sickles, of the staff, came into the room.
“You sent for me, Colonel?” said the major, inquiringly.
“Yes,” said the chief, adding, as Van Sickles made a motion as if to
withdraw, “I’d like to have you stay, Van. I’ve something to tell
that’ll answer a question you once asked me.”
Both drew up chairs. The colonel passed over his cigar case, and then
said, “A year ago you fellows got me to talking, one night up in The
Battery, about something that happened while I was out with the ‘Old
Regiment.’ As I recall it, I told you a yarn about the resurrection of
Bob Sheldon, and you, Van, asked me, when I’d finished, what had become
of Bob since the war. Do you remember?”
“Sheldon?” said Van Sickles. “Oh, yes. He was the man that was brained
by a splinter of shell, and afterwards came to time all right. Your old
captain, wasn’t he? Yes, I remember.”
“Well,” said the colonel slowly, “I had a letter from him this
morning--and he’s dead.”
“Not really!” said Van Sickles, as the chief made this odd
announcement. “Well, I’m sorry on your account, sir.”
“He’s dead, poor old Bob!” said the colonel, resting his elbow upon the
edge of his desk and letting his chin drop into the palm of his hand.
“Yes, he’s got his papers at last. And now, Van, I can take up the
story that I left unfinished. It was incomplete then, but now the last
chapter’s been written.”
“You’ve had the first of it already,” went on the chief, settling
back in his chair. “Here’s the rest of it--and the last of it. You’ll
listen, too, Pollard.
“I’ve told you already, I think, that Bob Sheldon and I were the
closest of friends. I stood up with him when he was married to his
Nell--his ‘little Nell’--the girl whose name came to his lips when
he lay in delirium after the shell had struck him down. Poor little
Nell--poor old Bob! Well, all the trouble’s ended at last.
“The friendships that are made in active service are lasting ones.
When the ‘Old Regiment’ came back, after doing its share of the work
of hammering our erring brothers into a peaceful state, Bob was on
the roster as major, and I’d been given his old company. But it never
occurred to either of us, when off duty, that such a thing as rank had
any existence. It was ‘Bob’ for him and ‘Harry’ for me, and he’d have
thought me crazy if I’d addressed him as ‘Major’ except when I was at
the head of my company.
“I’ll be older than I am now before I forget the day that we were
mustered out. We’d gone to the front with something over the full
thousand: there were three hundred and sixty of us, rank and file, when
we came home again. For we’d been a fighting regiment from start to
finish, and the hard knocks of four long years had cut the original
roll to ribbons. Those were the days when veteran regiments were
allowed to dwindle down to skeletons, through battle and disease, while
the recruits that should have been turned over to them to stop the
gaps were herded together in one raw, half useless lump, given a fresh
regimental number and a stand of colors bright and crisp from the shop,
and then bundled off to where there was _fighting_ to be done--and all
because some ambitious politician felt that a pair of eagles would be
becoming to his peculiar style of corpulent beauty.
“We had a royal welcome home. I needn’t tell you what battles were
gilded on the stripes of the old flag, because you know well enough the
sort of record that we fellows made when cutting out the pace for you
youngsters. We’d done our work, and we knew that we’d done it well, and
we felt that the people knew it, too. And when we made our last march,
that day, through the swarming streets, we took as rightfully ours the
cheers that went up as the wreck of the ‘Old Regiment’ followed the
faded colors home again.
“Then came the final breaking up; the time when ‘break ranks’ meant
that regimental line never would be formed again. I remember how, for
the last time, we presented to the colors--the ragged, blood-streaked
scraps of silk whose worn folds told our whole war story. Bob turned
to me when the tattered old things were being carried away from us
forever. His face was working, and--I doubt, though, if he knew it--a
big tear was rolling down each gaunt, sun-burned cheek. I--well, I was
sobbing like a child, I’m not ashamed to say. So were the boys at my
back--God bless ’em!
“‘Bob,’ says I, trying to swallow the lump in my throat, ‘Bob, old man,
what’s left for us now?’ He turned in his saddle and looked across the
parade to where a group of white gowns--his Nell was there, with the
colonel’s wife and a lot of other women--had gathered to watch the last
act in our war drama. ‘What’s left?’ says he, turning to me again,
‘What’s left? Why, _everything_!’ And though the tears still glistened
at the corners of his eyes, his face shone with the light that has but
one meaning.
“Well, we of the ‘Old Regiment’ shook hands, and drifted back to our
places in civil life. There are easier things than dropping the customs
of the service, and taking up the monotony of everyday existence. It
came hard at first, but we managed it somehow.
“Bob was married. He wouldn’t let a week go by, after we were mustered
out, before he had that much of his career settled. I volunteered to
stand by him to the last, and he held me in reserve as best man until
the knot was safely tied. It was a military wedding. Nearly all the
officers of the ‘Old Regiment’ were there. It was a dingy looking lot
of uniforms that gathered in the little church, but the men inside the
faded blue coats were all right.
“It wasn’t long before I followed Bob’s example. Then life ran on
smoothly with us both for a long stretch of years. To be sure, we
missed the excitement of the old days; but I’d come ’round to Bob’s
view of life, and was willing to admit that there was a good deal left
to live for, after all. There are several queer things about war: one
of ’em is the way in which it teaches old soldiers to appreciate the
comfort of peace.
“Yes, life ran on smoothly for a time,” repeated the colonel with a
sigh; “and then came trouble, big trouble for poor Bob. He had one
child, a boy. He was a bright, sturdy chap. Bob really believed that
the world revolved ’round him. But just after he’d had his tenth
birthday, he died.
“It was terribly rough! Bob had planned to send the youngster to ‘The
Point,’ when the proper time came; and he’d talk to me by the hour of
the pride he’d feel when he had a son in the service. ‘Harry,’ he’d
say, when we’d be smoking our old pipes together, ‘you and I were good
enough soldiers according to our lights: we could fight just as nastily
as though we’d been in the business for a lifetime. But when it came
to the fine points of the profession, we weren’t quite up to concert
pitch; the fellows from ‘The Point’ scored on us then. Now, there’s
going to be another war some day. It’s a long way ahead, and it’s two
to tuppence that we’ll not be in it. But I want to feel that the name
of Sheldon will be on some regiment’s roster then--and I’m thinking
that little Bob’ll take care of that for me.’
“It was cruel work for poor Bob when we laid the little fellow away,
and my heart went out to him in his trouble. But there was a heavier
blow yet to fall. Two years after we’d buried the boy, I stood by Bob’s
side and gripped his arm while his wife’s coffin was being lowered into
the grave. My God! I learned then what despair meant. When all was
over, Bob clung to me, and asked the question that I’d put to him on
the day they took our old colors from us. ‘Harry,’ he said, almost with
a groan, ‘Harry, what’s left for me now?’ And before I could think of
the words that I wanted, he answered his own question with, ‘_Nothing!_’
“And then I lost him for a time. He simply dropped everything and went
away. For three years he was abroad, and from time to time I’d hear
from him. But the letters were hopelessly unhappy, and I knew that he’d
not recovered from the wrench that he’d got. Then came four months of
silence.
“I was beginning to get alarmed at not hearing from him, when, one
fearfully hot day in August, I looked up from my work, and saw him
standing by the desk in my office. ’Pon my soul, I couldn’t have been
blamed for thinking that I saw his ghost! He was haggard and thin, and
his eyes had a troubled, haunted look that made my heart ache for him.
“‘I’m back again,’ he said, holding out his hand. ‘It’s hot, isn’t it?
I’m going to ask you a favor, Harry. The old house over in Cambridge
has been closed ever since--ever since I went away, and I’m going there
this afternoon: will you go with me?’
“I hadn’t lunched, but he seemed feverishly impatient to be off, and
fairly dragged me along with him. We took a cab, and started on the
long, hot ride. I did all the talking on the way: he sat silently by
me, and his face wore a look that made me terribly uneasy.
“When we were nearly at the end of our ride I happened to catch sight
of a doctor’s sign upon the door of a house, and to my surprise I saw
that it bore the name of the assistant surgeon of the ‘Old Regiment.’
A sudden idea came to me, and I made the cabman pull up, explaining to
Bob that I’d a message to leave for a friend. I was pretty sure that
he’d not notice anything: the look in his eyes told me that his mind
was busy with something besides his surroundings.
“Running up to the door, I pulled the bell in a way that meant
business, and in a very short time I’d explained matters to the doctor.
We agreed between us that the heat and the strain of coming back to the
desolate home might work upon Bob in a fashion that, coupled with the
effect of his old wound, would bring on bad results. So we arranged
that the doctor should follow, in about a quarter of an hour, and drop
in at Bob’s house as if by accident. It was a clumsy sort of scheme,
I must confess, but it was the best that I could think of under the
circumstances.
“Bob and I drove on. When we reached the house, he tried to unlock the
door, but his hand shook so pitifully that I took the key from him, and
let him in. The house was hot and close, and the air musty with the
damp of long disuse. It _was_ a mournful home-coming, and I felt that
it couldn’t help doing harm of some sort to poor Bob.
“We went about from room to room. I opened a window here and there, for
though the outside air was torrid anything seemed preferable to the
closeness of those long untenanted walls. Bob moved in a dazed sort of
way, as if he were walking in a dream. I’d tried to find out if he had
any definite object in coming, but he answered me incoherently, and I
gave up my questioning.
“We’d been there for a full quarter of an hour when the door-bell rang.
It sounded queerly, that tinkling peal in the silence of the deserted
house. Bob jumped as if he’d been struck, when he heard the bell.
‘What’s that?’ he said nervously.
“‘I’ll go to the door,’ says I, knowing well enough what it meant.
‘Thank you,’ said Bob; ‘if it isn’t too much bother. I don’t care about
seeing any of the neighbors just yet. I’ll run upstairs for a second,
and you can call me when the coast’s clear.’
“I opened the door, and there stood the doctor. ‘Hello, Elliott!’ he
sang out, in a purposely loud voice, ‘_You_ here? I happened to be
passing, and noticed that the windows were open. Has the major come
back?’ He stepped into the hall, and I closed the door behind him.
‘Yes, he turned up to-day,’ said I, also very loudly and distinctly.
‘He’ll be glad to see you. Funny coincidence, your dropping in on us
this way. Sort of regimental reunion, eh? We’ll have to--’
“I stopped right there. A pistol shot rang out in one of the upper
chambers, and after it came the sound of a heavy fall. ‘God! we’re
too late,’ gasped the doctor. But he rushed for the stairs without an
instant’s hesitation, and I tore up after him.
“Poor old Bob was lying on his face, in the room that had been his
wife’s. His old army revolver lay smoking beside him, where it had
fallen when he dropped. The blood was streaming from his head, and the
first horrified glance showed me that the track of the bullet almost
exactly followed the scar left by the splinter of shell that had bowled
him over years before.
“The doctor went down upon his knees. Rapidly examining the bleeding
wound, he looked up at me and said grimly, ‘This is bad business,
Captain, bad business. But he’s failed in his undertaking. Nerves must
have gone back on him. That was a glancing shot: it didn’t penetrate.’
He rapidly ran his eye around the room. ‘See where it went?’ he said,
pointing to a ragged break in the plastering.
“We lifted Bob from the floor and laid him on the bed. The doctor went
to work and stopped the bleeding, talking softly to me all the while.
‘I don’t like it at all,’ he said. ‘He’ll not die from this, but I’m in
doubt about the effect it’ll have on his brain. It’s a nasty shock for
a man in his over-wrought condition. Queer, isn’t it, that I should be
patching up the same place that I worked over so long ago? He’s in for
brain fever, poor devil! It’s a hard thing to say, Elliott, but I’m not
sure that he wouldn’t have been luckier if his lead had gone straight
in.’
“Well, the rest of the story can be told in few words. Bob didn’t die.
The doctors pulled him safely through, and saved a life that might
better have been allowed to slip away. For when the fever that followed
upon the shock of the wound had burned itself out, the delirium
remained, and all that was left of as fine a man as ever served was a
hopelessly insane wreck.
“It’s twelve years since I’ve seen him. They wouldn’t let me come to
visit him at the asylum, fearing that the sight of me might affect
him unfavorably. Poor Bob! he’s been out of the world for all that
time--waiting to wear out! From time to time I’ve had reports from the
doctors, but never a cheering one until to-day, when I received a
letter from Bob himself--and by the same mail got word that death had
come at last to bring him his release.
“It seems that the end came very suddenly. There was a physical
collapse, as if his vital machinery had run down all at once. But at
the very last the cloud lifted from his mind, and before he died he had
become, mentally, almost his old self. It was on his last afternoon
that he dictated this letter to me.” The colonel leaned forward and
took the envelope from his desk. “I’m going to read you a paragraph or
two from it, because it concerns you, in a way.”
The colonel glanced at his two listeners. Van Sickles was smoking
calmly, as is his wont. Pollard’s cigar had gone out, and he was
bending forward in his chair, with his eyes expectantly fixed upon the
chief. It was evident that he was not a little moved by what he had
heard.
“Here’s what he says,” said the colonel, rapidly glancing through the
contents of one sheet, and beginning to read from the second: “‘They
tell me, Harry, that you’ve found it impossible to stay out of the
service, even in these peaceful times, and that you’ve a command of
your own--that it’s fallen to you to be at the head of the regiment
that’s keeping our old name and number alive. If that’s true, I’ve a
favor to ask from you. Don’t think it the whim of a madman, for it’s
not. To come to it at once, I want a major’s escort when they put me
away. It’s my soberly sane desire, and the last one that I shall have
in this world. You’ll see that I’m not disappointed? I knew you would,
and I’ll thank you in advance. Perhaps you’d do well to let the boys
of the ‘Old Regiment’ know when and where the funeral will be: some of
them might like to be there. But I’ll leave it all to you.’”
The colonel paused. His voice had become just the least bit unsteady.
To cover his feelings he struck a match, but forgot to apply it to his
cigar until it had burned down so far that he had to drop it hastily
upon the floor.
“Is that all, sir?” asked Pollard, when the colonel stopped reading.
“Perhaps I might give you the last paragraph,” replied the chief
huskily, again turning to the sheet that he held. “‘Good-bye, Harry,’
it runs. ‘I’m tiring fast, and the nurse says I must stop and rest.
You’ll remember about the escort? I’ve no family left, and few friends,
so I must look to you for everything. We’ll meet again sometime, I’ve a
firm conviction. Things will be happier then, and brighter. So good-bye
once more, old fellow, and God bless--.’” The colonel choked, and
stopped abruptly.
Major Pollard pulled himself up from his chair. “Will you order out my
battalion as escort, sir?” he asked earnestly. “I should consider it
a great honor, and I’m sure that the men would look at it in the same
way.”
“I hope you’ll find something for me to do,” began Van Sickles, coming
towards the colonel’s desk. “I’d be glad to help in any way; about
flowers, or music, or--”