Rainbow's End Part 32

"Did you cry?" O'Reilly smiled; and the lad nodded reluctantly.

"Did he cry?" Judson echoed. "Why, we thought we were attacked. He put the whole camp in an uproar."

"What was the trouble, Jacket?"

"I--I was--" The boy's smooth brown cheeks paled, and his moist eyes dilated at the memory. "I ain't scared of any-------Spaniard when he's ALIVE, but--it's different when he's dead. I could see dead ones everywhere!" He shuddered involuntarily. "They fetched me to General Gomez and--Caramba! he's mad. But after I tell him what I seen in the dark he say I don't have to go back there no more. He let me go to sleep 'longside of his hammock, and bimeby I quit cryin'. I ain't never stood no picket duty since that night. I won't do it."

It was plain that discussion of this unhappy subject was deeply distasteful to the youthful hero of Pino Bravo, for he edged away, and a moment later disappeared. "Queer little youngster," Captain Judson said, meditatively. "He idolizes you."

O'Reilly nodded. "Yes, poor little kid. I wonder what will become of him after the war? After the war!" he mused. "I wonder if it will ever end."

"Humph! If we had more generals like Gomez and Garcia and Maceo--"

"We've got three better generals than they."

"You mean---"

"Generals June, July, and August."

"Oh yes!" The artilleryman nodded his understanding. "There's no end of yellow-jack among the Spaniards. Speaking of that, what do you think of Miss Evans's work in the field hospitals?"

Judson s.h.i.+fted his weight so that his eyes could rest upon a white tent which showed through the greenery at a distance; it was the one tent in all the encampment, and it had been erected that very morning to shelter Norine Evans, but just arrived from headquarters in the Cubitas hills. The captain's lids were half closed; his heavy, homely face was softened by a peculiar rapt expression. He did not seem to expect an answer to his question.

"I don't think much of it," O'Reilly confessed.

"You don't!" Judson brought himself back to earth with a start. "Humph!

Well, I think it's perfectly wonderful. I think she's the most wonderful woman, and--" His voice died out; he turned once more in the direction of the tent.

O'Reilly smiled, understanding now the reason for his companion's reckless, almost frenzied use of soap and water that morning, and his cheerful stoicism in the hands of a volunteer barber more accustomed to the uses of a machete than a razor.

Evidently Judson had fallen, too--along with Major Ramos, and Colonel Lopez, and Leslie Branch, and all the rest. Well, it was to be expected. Before he had been a week in Cuba O'Reilly had noticed that Miss Evans was a mystery and a delight to nearly every man she met.

"So YOU'VE got it, eh?" he inquired.

"Got what?" Judson did not turn his eyes.

"It."

"It? If you can't talk English, talk Spanish."

O'Reilly was not perturbed by this gruffness. "I think her presence here is the silliest, the most scandalous thing I ever heard of," said he. "The idea of a girl of her accomplishments, her means, alone in Cuba! Why, it's criminal!"

Judson's gunny-sacking hammock bulged beneath him. It threatened to give way as he sat up with a jerk and swung his bare legs over the side. His face was dark; he was scowling; his chin was pugnaciously outthrust and his voice rumbled as he exclaimed:

"The deuce it is! Say! I don't like the way you talk about that girl."

"You don't, eh?" O'Reilly eyed him quizzically. "Would you care to have your sister do what she's doing?"

"That's not the point. You can't compare her with ordinary women."

"Well, this isn't an ordinary environment for a woman, no matter who she is. These Cubans are bound to talk about her."

"Are they?" Judson glared at the speaker. "I'd like to hear 'em. I'd like to see somebody get fresh. Why, SAY!"--he clenched his powerful hands--"I'd fill their hospitals until they bulged." After a moment he continued: "I s'pose it's natural for you to worry, since you're responsible for her being here, in a way, but--" His tone changed, he relaxed and lay back in his hammock. "Oh, well, you're about the only man I can't hate."

"Jealous, are you? I didn't know you were in so deep."

The other shook his head. "Oh, I'm daffy. D'you think she'd have me?"

"Not a chance."

"Hey? Why not? I'm a good big husky--I'll get a Government job when the war is over and---"

"That's just the trouble. She'll fall for some poor, sickly unfortunate, with one leg. She's the sort that always does. She's the sort that has to have something to 'mother.' Lord, I'd give a good deal to see her safely back in New York!"

Judson, it seemed, had a better understanding of artillery than of women; he pondered O'Reilly's statement seriously, and his face clouded.

"Some sickly fellow. Some fellow like Branch, eh?" After a moment he continued, more hopefully: "Well, it won't be HIM; he'll soon be dead.

There's some consolation in that. I could almost--"

O'Reilly motioned for silence, for at that moment Branch himself approached, his long face set in lines of discontent, even deeper than usual. He had been wandering about the camp in one of his restless fits, and now he began:

"Say, what do you think I've been doing?"

"I dun'no'," Captain Judson answered, morosely. "Cheering the sick and wounded; shedding smiles and suns.h.i.+ne as usual, I suppose?"

"Hunh! You're a funny guy, aren't you?--about as comical as a chloroform cone. You make me laugh, you do--just like a broken leg.

Well, I've been looking up some grub for Miss Evans, and I can't find any."

"Can't find any?"

"Nothing fit for her to eat. You don't expect her to live on this infernal, eternal, and internal beef stew." Branch shuddered and gagged slightly. "I've eaten parts of animals that were never intended to be eaten. This rebel grub is killing ME. What'll it do to her?"

"Didn't Major Ramos bring anything along?" O'Reilly asked.

"He says there's a famine at Cubitas."

"We'd better look into this," Judson exclaimed, and, finding that his clothes were dry, he hurriedly began to dress himself.

Together, the three men made an investigation of the camp's resources, only to discover that Branch was right. There was, indeed, but little food of any kind, and that little was of the coa.r.s.est. Ordinarily, such a condition of affairs would have occasioned them no surprise, for the men were becoming accustomed to a more or less chronic scarcity of provisions; but the presence of Norine Evans put quite a different complexion upon the matter. They were still discussing the situation when Miss Evans, having finished her afternoon nap, threw open the flaps of her tent and stepped out.

When she had listened to the account apologetically submitted by her three friends, she drew her brows together, saying, plaintively: "Oh dear! We've been going short for a week, and Major Ramos told me we'd fare better when we got here. I had my mouth all set for a banquet.

Couldn't you even find the poor dog a bone?"

Norine was thinner and browner than when she had come to Cuba, but she in no way showed the effect of any serious or continued lack of nourishment. In fact, a simple diet and an outdoor life had agreed with her amazingly.

"I'm afraid the cupboard is bare," O'Reilly acknowledged.

"They're getting ready to slaughter another guttapercha ox," Branch said, gloomily. "He's a veteran of the Ten Years' War. That means STEW again! STEW! One puncture-proof, rubber ox and a bushel of sweet-potatoes for four hundred men!"