hands behind his head, and comfortably leaning back in his chair. "In
camp, last summer, we had the athletic fever pretty badly, and the way
all hands went in for games of various sorts was a caution."
"'Games of various sorts,'" echoed Pollard, winking at the paymaster,
and making motions as if dealing a pack of invisible cards. "That's
not bad, Bones."
"_Out-door_ games of various sorts," amended the surgeon. "Cork up,
will you, and don't let these sailors carry away wrong impressions of
us."
"All right, old man," replied Pollard, catching Sam's eye, and
holding up one finger to denote drought; "only don't be so ambiguous
in your remarks. But really, we did have lots of athletic enthusiasm,
last camp, and it was very tiring to see the boys all sweating after
some record or other--when they were off duty--instead of lying 'round
in their tents and keeping cool."
"The cavalry fellows," resumed Bones, "didn't seem able to muster
much talent in the way of track athletes, and for a time they
weren't in it at all. But one night, between tattoo and taps, little
Whateley--second lieutenant, you know, of 'H' troop--came riding down
the lines, stopping at all the regimental headquarters, and finally he
brought up at our marquee.
"A few of us were sitting there, smoking a good-night pipe before
turning in, and we made him dismount before telling us his errand.
Well, I ordered up a little prescription for him, to counteract the
effects of the night air, and when he'd got back his breath--"
"Gad!" put in one of the visitors, "is _that_ the way your doses work,
doctor?"
"Did I say it was the prescription?" inquired the doctor, unclasping
his hands, and leaning forward to take a pipe from the table. "He
might have been out of breath from riding so far. Anyway, he got his
breath back, as I've stated, and used it to remark that the cavalry
took a deep interest in military sports, and had chipped in to buy
a silver tankard to be ridden for by the mounted officers in the
brigade. And he further said--with a grin, too, confound his youthful
impudence!--that he knew we could enter some mighty fine material, for
the reputation for horsemanship of our field and staff was more than
local.
"Now, that last insinuation was too much, and we told him that he
needn't worry--we'd be represented. So off he rode, declining to
take another dose of my good medicine, though I told him that the
prescription read, 'Repeat as required,' which meant once in five
minutes. Well, after he'd gone, we began to talk it all over, and the
discussion as to who best could afford to run the risk of breaking his
neck for the glory of the regiment and the good of the service was an
animated one, you'd do well to believe."
"Yes--and I remember the extreme modesty with which everybody
suggested some other man for that distinction," remarked the colonel
in a reminiscent way, "and how you all fell over each other in your
anxiety to let somebody else do the riding and gather in the glory."
"Well, I'd been detailed as Field Officer of the Day for the date
the race was scheduled," Major Pollard hastened to explain; while
Langforth promptly came in with the remark, "And I hardly had got into
shape from my winter's attack of grippe."
"There, _there_!" exclaimed the colonel, with a wave of his hand, "we
don't care to have all that over again. For my own part, I couldn't
ride because--well, because it hardly would do for a regimental
commander to so far forget himself as to go in for anything of that
sort. See?"
"In other words, six of us didn't dare to go in, and the remaining
half-dozen were afraid to," said the surgeon, drawing up one foot to
rest it easily across his knee. "Well, it all ended in my being chosen
by acclamation to represent the glorious Third, and, though I wasn't
exactly 'impatient to mount and ride,' yet I made the best of it, and
tried to pretend that I was."
"It seems to have been acknowledged that you were the best rider in
your regiment," suggested one of the visitors.
"Oh, I hardly should care to claim so much as that," replied Bones,
with a glance at his brother officers, "but I've been nine years
in the service without falling off my horse--and that's a pretty
fair record for a staff officer of volunteers. Well, as I've said,
I was elected without a dissenting voice--except my own--and the
ill-concealed joy of Wilder, our assistant surgeon, was something
worth seeing. He's looking for promotion, you know, and a casual
broken neck on my part would have given it to him."
"Pardon the interruption," interposed the colonel, blandly, "but there
will be a vacancy for Wilder, and very soon, too, if you cast any more
reflections upon the horsemanship of my military family."
"Gracious! did I?" asked Bones, hastily. "Impossible! Why, we all
ride, and ride well; all except the adjutant. _He can't!_"
"Pardon me again, doctor," said the colonel, sighing wearily, "but the
adjutant can ride, too. I've _seen_ him."
"If you say so, I suppose I'm not to dispute it," rejoined the
surgeon, meekly. "But, if he's such a good rider, don't you think
it was just a little rough on him to take him up four flights of
stairs, as you did only last week, and introduce him to the wooden
vaulting-horse in the regimental gymnasium?" The colonel laughed at
this recital of the latest headquarters' joke, and Bones continued,
"Well, even if the adjutant _is_ rather amateurish in his riding, he
at least is entitled to some of the credit for winning the cup, for he
furnished my mount.
"You see, Charley had a horse, last camp, that suited him 'way down to
the ground. His walking gait was the poetry of motion; in fact, it was
hard to get him to move at any faster pace. But somehow, by slapping
him with the reins and clucking to him, like a woman calling hens,
Charley sometimes managed to get him into a lope that was just about
as easy as a rocking-chair, and didn't seem to cover ground much more
rapidly than a rocking-chair could. We used to suggest that spurring
would be a more military method of getting the beast under way, but
Charley always replied that spurs were unnecessarily cruel things,
and that he hadn't the heart to do anything to interrupt the _entente
cordiale_ existing between him and his charger."
"Wasn't it a ratty-looking beast, though!" put in Langforth, setting
down his mug and laughing aloud. "We christened him 'Acme,' he was
such a perfect skate."
"'Handsome is as handsome does,'" quoted Bones, sententiously.
"His performances were remarkable, but he _wasn't_ much on beauty,
especially at that point of his anatomy where about a square foot
of hide and hair was lacking. However, we got around that blemish
by borrowing some axle grease from one of the battery drivers and
painting the bare spot so thoroughly that the rest of his hide looked
dingy by contrast.
"Now, 'Acme' had one little peculiarity that nobody knew anything
about; nobody, that is, except Charley and me. You couldn't touch him
with a spur on either flank without making him wheel half 'round to
the opposite side and bolt for all that was in him. It was a pleasant
little trick and one that would throw a man every time unless he knew
what was coming. I know that to be a fact because, well, because he
threw _me_ in that way, the very first day we were in camp."
"Thought you'd been nine years in the service without ever being
thrown," remarked Hotchkiss, with the air of one scoring a good point.
"Oh! no, I never said that," explained the imperturbable doctor,
turning this thrust harmlessly aside. "If you recall my words you will
remember that I said I'd never _fallen_ off; to be thrown off is a
very different matter."
"Ah! I see. Pardon my carelessness," said the discomfited naval
visitor. "We fellows that go down upon the sea in ships aren't very
well up, I fear, in these nice distinctions of the land service."
"Naturally not," said the surgeon, "and of course it's excusable; but
you readily will notice the distinction, which really is as great as
that between being in mid-ocean and being 'half-seas over' would be,
in your own case.
"Now, I recalled that little experience of mine with the adjutant's
horse, and it occurred to me, when I was casting about for a mount,
that if I only could manage to keep my seat while he was executing
his diabolical half-face, I should have a dead cinch on the cup; for
when he _did_ run, after one of those performances, he ran like the
very devil."
"He did, indeed," said the colonel, smiling as if at some remembrance.
"It was on Wednesday night that little Whateley dropped in on us,"
Bones continued, "and the race was on the card for Friday noon. That
was on 'Governor's Day,' you know, and the camp was sure to be crowded
with visitors. Pleasant outlook for me, wasn't it?
"Well, on Thursday morning I borrowed 'Acme', and rode a couple of
miles out of camp to a big hay-field I knew of, because I wished to
make sure, by a strictly private trial, that my little scheme was in
reliable working order. It was. Everything went to a charm. I got a
firm grip on the pommel and gave 'Acme' the spur; whereupon he spun
half 'round, and was off like a wild engine on a drop grade. Yes,
he was off, but, better still, I was _on_, and when finally I got
him into his rocking-chair lope, I started back for camp, pretty
well satisfied with my experiment; and all the way along the road
I couldn't help grinning at the thought of the sensation that was
brewing for the next day."
"Well, it _was_ a sensation, and that can't be disputed," commented
Pollard, as the surgeon paused for a moment. "We all backed you and
'Acme'; not because we had any particular expectations, but just out
of loyalty to the old regiment, and because the odds were so inviting.
I took ten out of Mixter, myself."
"Friday morning was cloudy," said the doctor, after he had brought
his pipe to a satisfactory glow, "and I half hoped that it would rain
before noon, for I was getting the least shade nervous. Everybody
around our headquarters was so very kind that it made me fidgety
as a school-girl. At breakfast, in mess, the colonel thoughtfully
opened an elaborate discussion about the proper form of ceremonies
at military burials. The adjutant, on his way to guard mounting,
stopped long enough at my tent to say that 'Acme' just had killed one
of the hostlers, and that the band had gone out of camp soon after
breakfast for the purpose of practising 'The Lost Chord.' And _you_,
Langforth--confound you! I haven't forgotten how you forged my name
to an order to have the brigade ambulance report to me at noon, the
very hour of the race.
"But somehow the morning went by, and at noon the sky was beautifully
clear, though the air was most horribly lifeless and hot. I dressed
up in full fig, helmet, sword, and all, according to the conditions,
mounted 'Acme,' and rode out upon the parade.
"Pretty nearly the whole brigade had turned out to see the fun, and
around the start the crowd was packed closely, while groups of men
were scattered here and there along the three furlongs of turf over
which the course had been laid out. I had supposed that there would
be, at the very least, half-a-dozen entries; but when I had succeeded
in manoeuvering 'Acme' through the crowd and up to the line, I found
awaiting me just one solitary horseman. It was Porter, captain of "H"
troop, and his mount was the same beautiful thoroughbred that he rides
from one year's end to the other.
"Wasn't I sick! I never had a patient who felt worse than I did then.
But there was no such thing as backing out at that stage of the game,
and so I looked as confident as possible, and happier, I hope, than
I felt. But when Porter saluted me, with an inquiring sort of glance
at my tired-looking mount, and a grin at my audacity in showing up on
such a beast, why, I swore under my breath that I'd send the spur into
poor old 'Acme' deeply enough to scratch his digestive apparatus."
"It was a funny contrast," laughed Langforth, with his mug in
mid-transit from the table to his lips. "Of course, Bones, you're a
better looking man, and all that, than Porter; but that horse of his
is a perfect picture for style, and when Charley's old skate ambled up
beside him we couldn't _help_ grinning, any of us. Do you remember,
Pollard, how that grease spot on 'Acme's' flank showed up?"
"Do I?" roared the major. "_Don't_ I! Why, Bowen, of the
brigade-staff, was standing next me, and when he caught sight of
that daub of axle-grease he punched me in the ribs and said, 'So you
fellows have black-leaded your craft, eh? Now, I call that blasted
unsportsmanlike! The other man hasn't worked any funny games like
that.'"
"That was all right!" said the surgeon, grimly, "I had _my_ fun
later--after the race was run.
"We lined up for the start, and it'll be a long while before I forget
the row it raised when I persisted in planting 'Acme' at right angles
to the course. Porter got mad, and announced that he'd come out to
race, and not to take part in a circus. Most of the brigade set me
down for being either sunstruck or drunk, but I wouldn't budge, and
neither would 'Acme.' Finally Porter growled out, 'Let's have this
nonsense over with! It isn't my fault that we can't have a race. Start
us, will you?' 'All ready, major?' the starter asked me. 'Confound it
all--yes!' said I, looking to see that all was clear around me, and
then getting a death-grip on the pommel.
"Down went the flag, and off went Porter at an easy gallop. Up came
my spurred heel, and off went 'Acme,' too, after a whirl-around that
took away the breath of everybody who saw the performance, and knocked
end-ways a couple of gunners who had edged in too close to the course.
Shades of night! How that old four-legger flew! I'd rammed my spur
home for business, and the way he responded beat even my wildest
expectations.
"It was the worst run-away ever seen in camp, and, before I knew it,
we'd passed Porter, passed the finish, passed the last tent in the
long brigade line, and passed the ditch at the end of the field; at
least, 'Acme' passed the ditch--_me_ they picked out of it."
"It certainly was a remarkable burst of speed," assented the colonel,
laughing until the tears stood in his eyes. "When we found that Bones
wasn't killed outright, we went for the cavalry fellows in every way,
shape, and manner that our combined talents could suggest, and if we
failed to make life a burden to them it wasn't for lack of trying.
Come over here," he continued, rising from his chair, and leading the
way to the opposite side of the room, where, in a double frame, there
hung upon the wall two large photographs. "These two pictures--which,
by the way, we consider priceless--tell the whole story. See that one?
Well, that's the enlargement of a snap-shot plate caught by one of our
color-sergeants when Bones was in full career. Observe the expression
of the face; and, above all, notice that grip on the pommel. Isn't it
all grand? Where should Sheridan's ride and Paul Revere's little trip
be classed beside _that_?"
"The other picture in the frame," said the doctor, with a pardonable
air of pride, "is a photo of the cup itself, and we all think a heap
of it. The fellows in the troop, you see, had been going the rounds of
the camp, and guying the life out of the Third--and me--for presuming
to enter against their crack horse, so the final result was just plain
joy for all hands at our headquarters.
"I was excused from parade that afternoon," he continued, knocking the
dead ashes from his pipe, "because I was a trifle tired, and more than
a trifle sore--in spots. Besides, it took one able-bodied darkey the
best part of that afternoon to clean the mud off my uniform, knock my
helmet out into shape, and straighten out the kinks in my scabbard.
"As for 'Acme': well, _he_ never turned a hair, and after a careless
sort of trot around the camp he came back to our stables, looking just
as unconcerned and sleepy as ever. But he lived high for the rest of
that tour of duty, and nobody seemed to care about referring to him
as a 'skate.'"
"'Sporting blood will tell,'" was Hatch's comment as the doctor led
the way to the chair where the overcoats lay piled. "I should think,
though, that the troopers would have challenged you to another go."
"They _have_ challenged us--and more than once," said the colonel,
as Sam held his coat for him, "but our invariable reply is that our
surgeon is too precious a bit of bric-à-brac to risk in any more
enterprises of that sort, and--as none of the rest of us care to
diminish Bones' glory--we have averaged up matters by keeping the cup
and conceding them the championship," and he moved towards the door,
stopping, however, with, "I wonder which owl this is?" as he caught
the sound of footsteps on the stairs outside.
"Good evening, Colonel," sung out the new arrival, the adjutant, as he
threw wide the door and stepped blinking into the room. "Hello, the
rest of you! Can't make you all out, it's so bright here--after the
stairs. What, all going?"
"Yes, it's a good hour beyond taps," replied the colonel.
"All right, sir; I'll go with you, if you'll wait for me to empty just
_one_," said the adjutant, drawing off his right glove. "It would be
too much to ask me to turn 'round and go down again without stopping
for a second wind. One up, Sam--right around; making six."
"What's new, Charley?" asked the doctor, as Sam made off towards the
base of supplies.
"Can't seem to think of anything," replied the adjutant, seating
himself easily upon the nearest table, upon which he began vigorously
to drum with his knuckles. "Hold on, though! Now I come to think of
it, I saw 'Acme' to-day. Yes, sir! And he was drawing a _hearse_,
too. _Yes_, sir! I followed the funeral a block, to make sure. Well,
here's to him!" and the late master of "Acme" emptied his pewter with
one long, breathless pull, while the doctor slowly drained _his_ mug,
saying with unsmiling solemnity, "To 'Acme.'"
FROM BEYOND THE PYRAMIDS
FROM BEYOND THE PYRAMIDS.
It was the evening after the battle at Farlow's Farm, and most of
us--what's that? You never heard of any such engagement? Now, isn't
that odd! Why, it was fought only last year, and for one whole day
the papers were full of it. Well, though I had no idea of putting a
preface to the story I started to tell, I suppose I must stop long
enough to explain why there was a fight, and how it happened that so
many of us--all of us, in fact--got back alive from it.
Once a year, you must know, there comes down from the State House, and
through "proper channels," a mandate directing each volunteer regiment
in the Commonwealth to arm and equip itself, ration and supply itself,
and bundle itself out into the country for what officially is known
as the Fall Drill. _We_ are rather apt to refer to an affair of this
sort as "going out with the regiment for the Autumn Manoeuvres,"
because, you see, this sounds more dignified, and lacks the baldness
of the official phraseology.
Now, an order for a Fall Drill means _war_; because it entails a long
day of marching, a prodigal expenditure of blank cartridges, and, at
headquarters, bother and worry beyond reckoning.
Yes, when one of these orders comes down to us we awake to an activity
which calls for the largest size of A in the spelling of it. The
quartermaster rises to a height of importance hard to estimate, while
his sergeant--upon whom devolves the bulk of the work--sinks into a
settled gloom of corresponding depth. The surgeons find themselves
pestered with requests to lay in a better brand of liniment than the
stuff they took out with them the year before, which, it unanimously
is asserted, was too blistering in its effect. The adjutant grimly
sits at his desk and wrestles with the "General Order" until he
reaches a state half-way between utter misery and hopeless atheism.
Why? Because he knows to a dead certainty that a copy of it will find
its way into every Sunday paper in town, and therefore tries with
might and main--to say nothing of the aid of the old order-files for
ten years back--to make of it a lucid and grammatical fragment of
English prose,--an attempt in which he most signally fails. And the
colonel: well, _he_ has the task of tasks, for it becomes his duty and
privilege to evolve the plan of campaign; and the campaign, mind you,
must be one that can be brought to a successful issue in a single day.
Think of it! Do you suppose Sherman, or even Grant himself, could have
met without concern such a demand upon strategic resources?
Days in advance of active operations, the field officers fill up their
cigar-cases and run out into the country to look over the ground;
constructing, upon their return, amazing maps, wherein--on generously
large sheets of brown wrapping-paper--a tangle of blue lines and
red ones serves to make plain the positions for the attack and the
defence. Remarkable productions, those maps!--with long straight
marks to indicate the roads, and zigzag lines to denote fences, and
aggregations of pretzel-like symbols to show where the woods lie; and
many a mystic sign besides to stand for as many more features in the
landscape. Oh, we couldn't do without the maps, for a campaign that
has to be settled between one sunrise and the next sunset must be
managed very understandingly; and yet all this doesn't seem to keep
the enlisted man from damning up hill and down both the maps and their
makers when he finds himself one of a skirmish-line stationed in what
ought to be a dry ditch, but isn't.
Well, last fall we got our annual order, went through with the usual
week's worry at headquarters, and then railroaded the regiment out to
Farlow's Farm for its day of field work. The fight was a stubborn one,
and the amount of powder burned was far in excess of anything before
known, for we had raised a regimental fund and had purchased with it
some odd thousands of cartridges in addition to the quantity issued by
the State.
The tide of battle swept back and forth until well into the afternoon,
but finally the smoke-cloud lifted--because there were no more
cartridges to be fired away--and in the lull a flag of truce was
sent by the lieutenant-colonel, who humbly begged permission to bury
his dead, and also announced his readiness to accept any decent
sort of terms, since the umpires had declared his four companies to
have been annihilated. Now, the lieutenant-colonel and his men, you
understand, represented the enemy, and since we had been devoting the
day to his destruction we sent up a mighty cheer when his submission
was made known, voted the whole affair an admirable illustration of
grand strategy, and prepared to leave the field to solitude and the
sorrowful contemplation of farmer Farlow, its owner.
We formed line, then broke by fours to the right, and started off
along the tree-shaded country road. Up at the head of the long
column the drums rolled and rattled, while the bugles and fifes
joined merrily together in the crazy, rollicking "Wild Irishman"
quickstep--an air which never fails to send the Third into its famous,
swinging gait. By turning in my saddle, as I rode in my place with the
staff, I could see the regiment behind me as it came solidly tramping
along--company after company of blue-clad men; rank on rank of snowy
helmets; file upon file of sloping rifle-barrels; and midway of all,
the colors, rustling their silken folds in time with the cadenced
tread of the men who bore them. Far in the rear glowed a ruddy October
sunset, making a fit background for the whole living, moving picture.
It was a stirring sight and a beautiful one, and I glanced back again
and again to see it, for the picturesque side of the service has a
peculiar charm for me.
"Jove! but that's pretty!" said Van Sickles, who rode next me on the
staff, reining his horse over a bit closer to mine, and nodding back
towards the following column. "People sometimes ask me what earthly
attraction I can find in volunteer soldiering. Well, a sight like
_that_ certainly has strong attractions for me," and he gave another
long look towards the rear.
"Yes, this is one of the things outsiders miss," said I, bringing
to bear upon the curb a light pressure, as I noticed that my horse
gradually was outstepping the others, "and taking it all together,
Van, the outsiders miss a great deal."