E-text prepared by Juliet Sutherland, Emmy, and the Project Gutenberg
Online Distributed Proofreading Team (https://www.pgdp.net)
Note: Project Gutenberg also has an HTML version of this
file which includes the original illustrations.
See 27679-h.htm or 27679-h.zip:
(https://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/2/7/6/7/27679/27679-h/27679-h.htm)
or
(https://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/2/7/6/7/27679/27679-h.zip)
UNCLE SAM'S BOYS AS SERGEANTS
Or
Handling Their First Real Commands
by
H. IRVING HANCOCK
Author of Uncle Sam's Boys in the Ranks, Uncle Sam's Boys on Field Duty,
Uncle Sam's Boys in the Philippines, The Motor Boat Club Series, The
High School Boys' Series, The West Point Series, The Annapolis Series,
The Young Engineers' Series, Etc.
Illustrated
[Illustration: "Hey, You Idiot!" Howled Hinkey.
_Frontispiece._]
Philadelphia
Henry Altemus Company
Copyright, 1911, by
Howard E. Altemus
CONTENTS
CHAPTER PAGE
I. "TIPPED OFF" BY WIG-WAG 7
II. LIEUTENANT "ALGY" JOINS THE ARMY 23
III. THE FIRST BREATH AGAINST A SOLDIER'S HONOR 42
IV. LIEUTENANT ALGY'S INSPIRATION 54
V. CORPORAL HAL'S ADMISSION 63
VI. THE SQUAD ROOM TURNS COLD 77
VII. RACKING THE NEW SERGEANT 85
VIII. ASTONISHMENT JOLTS MR. FERRERS 93
IX. PRIVATE HINKEY DELIVERS HIS ANSWER 103
X. SERGEANT OVERTON AND DISCIPLINE 112
XI. WHEN HINKEY WON GOOD OPINIONS 119
XII. HAL RIDES INTO TREACHERY 127
XIII. CHASING A SPEEDING DESERTER 142
XIV. ALGY COMES TO A CONCLUSION 153
XV. PLANNING FOR THE SOLDIER'S HUNT 162
XVI. HAL'S GUN MAKES THE REST CURIOUS 172
XVII. BIG GAME AND A NIGHT IN CAMP 182
XVIII. HOLDING UP A CAMP GUARD 194
XIX. WHEN THE LAST CARTRIDGE WAS GONE 203
XX. THE EIGHTH MOCCASIN APPEARS 212
XXI. THE ENEMY HAS HIS INNINGS 219
XXII. THE NAVY HEARD FROM 225
XXIII. THE UNITED STATES SERVICES FIGHT TOGETHER 235
XXIV. CONCLUSION 244
Uncle Sam's Boys as Sergeants
CHAPTER I
"TIPPED OFF" BY WIG-WAG
LIEUTENANT POPE, battalion adjutant of the first battalion of the
Thirty-fourth United States Infantry, looked up from his office desk as
the door swung open and a smart, trim-looking young corporal strode in.
Pausing before the desk, the young corporal came to a precise, formal
salute. Then, dropping his right hand to his side, the soldier stood at
attention.
"Good morning, Corporal Overton."
"Good morning, sir."
"What do you wish?"
"I have been making inquiries, sir," continued Corporal Hal Overton,
"and I am informed that you have some signaling flags among the
quartermaster's stores."
"I believe I have," nodded Lieutenant Pope.
"I have come to ask, sir, if I may borrow a couple of the flags."
"Borrow? Then, Corporal, I take it that you do not want the flags for
duty purposes?"
"Not immediately for duty purposes, sir. Corporal Terry and myself would
like to practise at wig-wagging until we become reasonably expert.
Sergeant Hupner is an expert at wig-wagging, I understand."
"Yes, indeed," agreed Lieutenant Pope heartily. "Even in the Signal
Corps of the Army there are few better signalmen than the sergeant."
"So I understand, sir. Corporal Terry and I are delighted at the idea of
having the sergeant instruct us."
"But what do you want to do, especially, with flag signaling?" inquired
the quartermaster.
"It is simply, sir, that we want to make ourselves better soldiers."
"It is rarely that we find better soldiers than Terry and yourself,"
replied the quartermaster, with a friendly smile. "But you are quite
right, none the less. A soldier can never know too much of military
duties. I see no objection whatever to your having the flags, but as
they are not a matter of ordinary issue, I think it better for me to
seek Major Silsbee's authority for issuing them."
"Would it have been better if I had gone to the battalion commander in
the first place, sir?"
"No; whenever you wish anything in the Army it is usually better to go
direct to the officer who has that thing in charge in his department,
save when it is something that you are expected to draw through your
company officers."
"It was Captain Cortland who sent me to you, sir, but he said he had no
authority to draw a requisition for signal flags."
"You have taken the right course, Corporal. If Major Silsbee is in his
office it will take but a moment more."
While the young corporal remained at attention Lieutenant Pope turned to
his telephone and called for the battalion commander.
"It's all right, Corporal," nodded the lieutenant, hanging up the
receiver. Then he wrote on a slip of official paper. "Here is an order
on which the quartermaster sergeant will issue you two signal flags. You
are, of course, responsible for the flags, or for the value."
"Yes, sir. Thank you, sir."
Five minutes later Corporal Hal Overton stepped briskly from the
building in which the quartermaster's stores were kept. Under his left
arm he carried two signal flags, rolled and attached to short staffs.
"Noll hasn't shown up yet. I hope he won't be long," murmured Hal,
gazing across the parade grounds in the direction of the barracks of
enlisted men. "Bunkie and I have a lot to do to-day."
Readers of the preceding volumes in this series will need no
introduction to Corporals Hal Overton and Noll Terry, of the
Thirty-fourth United States Infantry.
The headquarters battalion to which these two earnest young soldiers
were attached was still stationed at Fort Clowdry. Readers of "UNCLE
SAM'S BOYS IN THE RANKS" are familiar with the circumstances under which
Overton and Terry first enlisted at a recruiting office in New York
City. These same readers also know how the two young soldiers put in
several weeks of steady drilling at a recruit rendezvous near New York,
where they learned the first steps in the soldier's strenuous calling.
Our readers are also familiar with all the many things that happened
during that period of recruit instruction, and how Hal and Noll, while
traveling through the Rockies on their way to join their regiment, aided
in resisting an attempt by robbers to hold up the United States mail
train. Our readers are well aware of all the exciting episodes of that
first garrison life, including the life and death fight that Hal Overton
had with thieves while he was on sentry duty in officers' row, and of
the efforts of one worthless character in the battalion to discredit
and disgrace the service of both splendid but new young soldiers.
In the second volume, "UNCLE SAM'S BOYS ON FIELD DUTY," our readers were
admitted to equally exciting scenes of a wholly different nature. This
volume dealt largely with the troops while away in rough country, under
practical instruction in the actual duties of soldiers in the field in
war time. Just how soldiers learn the grim business of war was most
fully set forth in this volume. Among other hosts of entertaining
incidents our readers will recall how Hal, on scouting duty, robbed the
"enemy's" outpost of rifles, canteens and secured even the corporal's
shoes. Some of Hal's and Noll's other brilliant scouting successes are
therein told, and it is described how Hal and Noll finally gained the
information that resulted in their own side gaining the victory in the
mimic campaign. That volume also told how Lieutenant Prescott, aided by
Soldiers Hal and Noll, succeeded at very nearly the cost of their lives
in arresting a notorious and desperate criminal for the civil
authorities, and how all this was done in the most soldier-like manner.
It was such deeds as the scouting and the clever arrest that resulted in
the appointment of the two chums as corporals. Then there was the
affair, while the regulars were on duty in summer encampment with the
Colorado National Guard, in which Hal and Noll, acting under impulses of
the highest chivalry, got themselves into trouble that came very near to
driving them out of the service.
Since the last rousing scenes in and near Denver, something more than a
year had passed. It was now the beginning of the fall of the year
following when Corporal Hal Overton, with the signal flags under his
arm, waited near the parade ground for that other fine young soldier,
Corporal Noll Terry.
A year of busy life it had been, though in the main uneventful. Our two
young corporals had spent most of their time since in perfecting
themselves in the soldier's grim game. They were now looked upon as two
of the very finest and staunchest young soldiers in the service.
"Oh, there comes Noll at last," muttered Corporal Overton some minutes
later. "And it's high time, too, if he has any regard for the sacredness
of a soldier's punctuality. But he's leaving the telegraph office. I
wonder if the dear old fellow has been getting any bad news from the
home town?"
Corporal Terry, as he came briskly along the smooth, hard walk of a
well-kept military post, looked every inch as fine a soldier as his
chum. By this time Noll was just as thoroughly in love with all that
pertained to the soldier's spirited life as was Overton.
"Think I was never coming?" hailed Noll gayly.
"I began to wonder if you weren't losing sight of the sacredness that is
supposed to be attached to a soldier's appointment," said Hal dryly.
"I am afraid I have been so carried away with a new chance that I've
treated you just a bit shabbily," Corporal Noll admitted.
"Think no more of it," begged Hal. "I got the flags."
"So my eyes tell me."
"And what have you been up to, Noll?"
"Oh, the greatest chance!" glowed Terry. "You know how hard I have been
plugging away at telegraphy in spare time during the last few months?"
"Of course."
"Well, Lieutenant Ray is through with his tour of duty as officer in
charge of our telegraph station, and Lieutenant Prescott has succeeded
him for the next tour."
"Yes."
"I've been over to the telegraph office to interview Lieutenant
Prescott, whom I saw going in there. Prescott is a grand young officer,
isn't he?"
"Every man in the battalion knows that," Hal agreed heartily, for,
indeed, there were no two more popular young officers in the service
than Lieutenants Prescott and Holmes, of B and C Companies,
respectively.
Readers of our "HIGH SCHOOL BOYS' SERIES" and of the "WEST POINT SERIES"
know all about Dick Prescott and Greg Holmes, once leaders among High
School athletes and afterwards among the brightest and finest of West
Point cadets. Prescott and Holmes were now fully launched in their
careers as Army officers.
"Lieutenant Prescott has given me a really bully chance," Noll went on
happily.
"Did you ask him for it?" suspected Corporal Hal shrewdly.
"Well, I--er--er--hinted some, I guess," responded Noll, with a quiet
grin. "But if you want things in this world aren't you a heap more
likely to get them by asking than by keeping quiet?"
"Surely. But go on and tell me what it is that you got."
"I haven't exactly got it yet," Noll continued. "But Lieutenant Prescott
is going to recommend me for it, and ask Captain Cortland's permission."
"I guess you'll get it, then," nodded Hal Overton. "Mr. Prescott's
superior officers think so highly of him that he usually doesn't have
to beg very hard to get what he wants. And--what is it?"
"Why, old fellow, I'm to be relieved from most other duties and placed
in charge of the telegraph office. You know, there are two soldiers
stationed there as day operators, and one as night operator. And I'm to
be there in charge night and day."
"Good business," nodded Hal, "if you don't have to keep up night and day
as well."
"Oh, no; I'm to be merely responsible to the lieutenant for the proper
management of the office. I'm not to be tied down so very closely, after
all, and I'm to have the proper amount of leave for recreation and all
that sort of thing."
"When do you begin?"
"Day after to-morrow, at nine in the morning."
"You won't be on guard duty while this other detail lasts?"
"No."
"Too bad," muttered Hal. "Of course I may be wrong, but to me the
thorough study of real guard duty is one of the most important things in
a soldier's profession."
"Oh, I've mastered guard duty pretty well," broke in Corporal Noll.
"Then I congratulate you," was Hal Overton's dry rejoinder. "I feel that
I'm only beginning to see the real niceties of the work of the guard."
"We've an hour left before the next drill," resumed young Corporal
Terry, after glancing at his watch. "Shall we go over and see if
Sergeant Hupner is ready to start breaking us in at wig-wagging?"
"That's what I've been waiting to do," Hal Overton rejoined.
"You don't seem to be a bit glad over my success in getting into
telegraphy," complained Noll.
"If it seemed that way, then it's because our tongues were too busy
otherwise," Hal answered. "Noll, I congratulate you from the bottom of
my heart, for you're plumb wild to know all about telegraphing."
"Only because it's of use in the military world," explained Corporal
Terry. "I wouldn't care a straw about being a telegraph operator in
civil life."
"You wouldn't care about being anything else in civil life, would you?"
"No," Corporal Noll admitted promptly. "After a taste of real soldiering
in the regular Army I don't see how on earth a fellow can be satisfied
with any other kind of life. That is, if a fellow has life, spirit and
red blood in him."
Sergeant Hupner proved not only to be disengaged, but ready to begin
the instruction of the aspiring young wig-waggers immediately.
It is really no part of an infantry soldier's duty to learn telegraphy,
but he is trained at times in the use of the wig-wag signal flags. In
the Army both telegraphy and signaling are work usually performed by
members of the Signal Corps. In the case of telegraphy, however, at an
infantry post where there is no detachment of Signal Corps men, then the
work at the telegraph instruments must necessarily fall upon infantry
soldiers, since some of the messages sent and received at a military
post cannot be intrusted to men who have not taken the oath.
"You take one of the flags, Corporal Overton," began Sergeant Hupner,
after stepping from barracks out into the open, "and I'll take the other
at the outset. Corporal Terry can look on at first. Now, a signalman, at
the beginning of his work, holds the flag straight up before him--so.
Each letter in the alphabet has its own series of numbers to stand for
it. These numbers are made by dropping the flag so many times to the
right or left of your body. Thus----"
Sergeant Hupner described some rapid sweeps with the flag to right and
left.
"A, B, C, D, E," he spelled along, as he signaled the letters.
"We know that part of it already, Sergeant," replied Corporal Hal.
"We've been studying the alphabet and the punctuation points in the
book."[A]
"Oh, I'll warrant that you've been studying the alphabet and everything
connected with it," replied Sergeant Hupner, with a smile. "And I don't
believe you'll need many points from me in order to become first-class
signalmen. Take this flag, Terry. Now, Overton, stand off there and
signal your full name to me. Spell out the letters slowly, so that I can
criticize you when necessary."
Despite his knowledge of the alphabet Hal naturally made a few blunders
at first.
"Your work lacks snap," remarked Sergeant Hupner. "Even when you spell
slowly you should bring the flag down smartly to either side. Like
this."
Sergeant Hupner illustrated briskly with his arms.
"Now send me the name of your regiment."
Hal did better this time.
"You'll soon have the hang of it," declared the sergeant encouragingly.
"Now, send me the same thing over again, but with more speed."
"Fine!" added Hupner when Hal had obeyed. "Now, Terry, we'll try you for
a few moments. What is your full name?"
Noll signaled it, making each letter carefully with the flag.
"Now tell me--with the flag--what you think of to-day's weather."
"Fine and cool," signaled back Noll.
Thus the instruction continued. Each young soldier improved a good deal
during that hour.
"Now, we'll call it off until to-morrow," remarked the sergeant at last,
and turned to re-enter barracks.
"How do you like it, Noll?" asked Overton.
"Oh, it's all right," admitted boyish Corporal Terry. "But I'd rather
have telegraphy. I don't see why you've been so wild over the wig-wag
flags."
"For just one reason," responded Hal promptly. "Because it's all a part
of the soldier's life and duty. I mean to know every phase and detail of
the soldier's business that I can possibly pick up. And I hope you won't
back out, Noll."
"Oh, no; I'll stick," agreed Corporal Terry, though it sounded as if he
promised almost reluctantly.
Ta-ra-ta-ra-ta! The bugler was sounding the first call for drill. That
sent the two boyish young corporals quickly into barracks with their
signal flags, which they exchanged for their rifles.
Their old friend Hyman--no longer Private Hyman, but now, for three
months, Corporal Hyman--regarded them with indulgent eyes.
"You kids been out learning how to wave the shirt?" he queried.
"Yes," nodded Hal. Then, with pretended severity, he demanded: "Do you
think, Corporal Hyman, you have chosen a respectful enough manner in
addressing other corporals who rank you by virtue of prior appointment
to the grade?"
"Oh, nobody takes a corporal seriously except the corporal himself,"
drawled Hyman. "A corporal in the Army is only a small-fry boss. He's
handy to lay the blame on for things, and he doesn't dare to 'sass'
back. Neither does the corporal dare to 'take it out of' the private
soldiers in his squad, for, if he did, the privates would report him and
have him court-martialed. Kids, I'm growing rather tired of being a
corporal. I think I'll go to the colonel and----"
But whatever Hyman was going to do he did not explain, for the notes of
assembly rang out and all the men in the squad room hastened outside,
yet did it with that dignity and seeming deliberation that the soldier
soon acquires.
Drill was over in something like an hour. Hal and Noll returned to squad
room, where they spent some little time going over their equipment. Then
they sauntered outside, for there was still some time before the noon
meal at company mess.
"Look at Hyman, in that tree over yonder," said Hal, nodding in the
direction.
Corporal Hyman was sitting on one of the lower limbs of a tree some four
hundred yards away. It was close to the wall that ran along the front of
the reservation, and overlooked the road that came up from the town of
Clowdry.
"Yes," grinned Noll. "It's a favorite trick with old Hyman to get up in
a tree like that. Says he can think better that way than when he's
touching common earth. Hello, he has jumped down to the wall. There he
goes into the road outside."
"There was a cloud of dust along the road. I guess he's talking to some
one in a carriage or an automobile," guessed Hal.
"Well, it's of no interest to us," mused Noll.
But in that Corporal Terry was wrong.
"There's Hyman up on the wall again," reported Hal.
"So I see, and he's making motions this way."
"He's signaling," muttered Hal, watching the motions of Corporal Hyman's
right arm. He had started with that arm held up before his face. Now the
arm was falling rhythmically to left and right. "Why, Hyman is asking,
'Can you read this?'"
Then, raising his own arm, Hal signaled back:
"Yes."
Again Hyman's right arm was moving. Hal watched closely, spelling out
the wig-wagged signal:
"Pipe--off--what's--coming. Greatest--ever happened--in the--Army.
Don't--miss--it."
"Now, what on earth can that be?" queried Noll.
"It must be something unusual to rouse enthusiasm in a man like Hyman,"
laughed Hal.
And indeed it was something great that was coming. Corporal Hyman's
wig-wagging arm was moving again.
"Hustle--over--to--main--road."
Hal and Noll were instantly in motion. It must be confessed that they
were eager.
Little did they guess that the coming event was of a nature destined
soon to have the whole post at Fort Clowdry by the ears!
FOOTNOTE:
[A] It would be an excellent idea to reproduce the wig-wag alphabet,
with full directions for its use, in this volume of Mr. Hancock's, were
it not for the fact that alphabet and directions have just been
published in "The Battleship Boys' First Step Upward," which is the
second volume in Frank Gee Patchin's Battleship Boys' Series. Readers,
therefore, who would like to pick up this fascinating art of signaling
messages from distant points will do well to consult Mr. Patchin's
volume for simple and explicit directions.--EDITOR.