It was raining heavily and I fastened my overcoat to the neck as I came
down the steps of the Government Building. Pushing through the crowds
and clanging electric cars, at the Smithfield Street corner, I turned
toward Penn Avenue and the Club, whose home is in a big, old-fashioned,
grey-stone building--sole remnant of aristocracy in that section where,
once, naught else had been.
For three years I had been the engineer officer in charge of the
Pittsburgh Harbor, and "the navigable rivers thereunto belonging"--as
my friend, the District Judge, across the hall, would say--and my
relief was due next week. Nor was I sorry. I was tired of dams and
bridges and jobs, of levels and blue prints and mathematics. I wanted
my sword and pistols--a horse between my legs--the smell of gunpowder
in the air. I craved action--something more stirring than dirty banks
and filthy water and coal-barges bound for Southern markets.
Five years ago my detail would have been the envy of half the Corps.
But times were changed. The Spanish War had done more than give straps
to a lot of civilians with pulls; it had eradicated the dry-rot from
the Army. The officer with the soft berth was no longer deemed lucky;
promotion passed him by and seized upon his fellow in the field. I had
missed the war in China and the fighting in the Philippines and, as a
consequence, had seen juniors lifted over me. Yet, possibly, I had
small cause to grumble; for my own gold leaves had dropped upon me in
Cuba, to the disadvantage of many who were my elders, and, doubtless,
my betters as well. I had applied for active service, but evidently it
had not met with approval, for my original orders to report to the
Chief of Engineers were still unchanged.
The half dozen "regulars," lounging on the big leather chairs before
the fireplace in the Club reception-room, waiting for the dinner hour,
gave me the usual familiar yet half indifferent greeting, as I took my
place among them and lit a cigar.
"Mighty sorry we're to lose you, Major," said Marmont. "Dinner won't
seem quite right with your chair vacant."
"I'll come back occasionally to fill it," I answered. "Meanwhile there
are cards awaiting all of you at the Metropolitan or the Army and Navy."
"Then you don't look for an early assignment to the White Elephant
across the Pacific?" inquired Courtney.
"Good Lord!" exclaimed Hastings, "did you apply for the Philippines?"
"What ails them?" I asked.
"Everything--particularly Chaffee's notion that white uniforms don't
suit the climate?"