Under Fire Part 13

"h.e.l.lo, Parson! Up for all day and meditating a sermon?"

Davies ignored the question and went straight to business. "I want to see Captain Cranston as soon as possible. Does he go to stables this morning?"

"Never misses 'em. What's up? Hope Mrs. Davies isn't ill."

"Mrs. Davies isn't very well, but it's on personal business I want to see the captain. I'll go down with him."

"Come over to my house and have some coffee, or a c.o.c.ktail," said Sanders, with cheery hospitality. "Just what you need, old man. You look as if you'd been dragged by the heels through a knot-hole."

"Barnickel is making some coffee for me, thank you, Sanders. It will pull me together all right, I fancy." And Sanders went whistling on. The world and its cares, the flesh and the devil all dropped lightly on the shoulders of this young sinner, and either rode there or fell to the ground unnoticed. Garrison days were but a merry-go-round with him. "If that's a specimen of the bridegroom cometh," said he to himself, "I've got no more use for matrimony than I have for the catechism." And doubtless to this gay and nonchalant spirit the deeply religious temperament of the Parson seemed a sombre and repellent thing,--a thing to be lamented, yet indulged as something too solemn or sacred for remonstrance.

The morning air was bitter and Davies felt his toes and fingers tingling. The boards cracked and snapped under his tread, so, rather than disturb Almira, he stepped out on the walk and began pacing up and down, still burning with indignation over the events of the previous night. There had been a fresh fall of snow Sunday morning, and though the walks and paths were cleared, the soft white mantle lay like a glistening carpet over the parade and prairie and along the slanting roofs of the quarters. There was an open s.p.a.ce of sixty feet from outer wall to wall along officers' row, and a paling or picket fence, running at right angles to the roadway in front, divided this s.p.a.ce equally, so that each set of quarters had its own yard. Davies had remarked with a smile the previous evening, the contrast presented by the Leonards's yard at the west end and his at the east of the double set in which they lived. Leonard's yard was criss-crossed, cut up in every direction by tracks of sled-runners and st.u.r.dy little rubber boots. His own lay like a flawless sheet without even a kitten's footprint to mar its virgin surface. Now as he strode rapidly westward again and came in front of the Leonard playground, he noted once more the traces that spoke so eloquently of happy, healthy childhood, of rosy cheeks and sparkling eyes and merry laughter. Then he turned back to his own, still tramping briskly in the endeavor to send the blood to his finger-tips, and then coming in view of what at nightfall had been an unbroken coverlet of snow, Davies stopped short, amazed. Straight from the corner at the front where the fences met, straight as a lance, went the footprints of a man, in long, unhesitating stride, to a point immediately underneath the closed blinds of the window behind which his wife now lay placidly sleeping. Davies stood and studied the tracks a moment, then went to the point of meeting of the front fence,--a flat-topped affair,--with its picketed offshoot. Beyond doubt the maker of those tracks had swung himself over the fence at that point, dropped lightly to the ground inside and gone straightway to that side window. There he must have stood a moment or two, for the snow was trampled. Thence the tracks led around to the back of the house. Returning to his gate and hall-way, Davies tiptoed noiselessly through the little dining-room to the kitchen in the shed at the back. There Barnickel was sleepily starting a fire, and the door leading into his little den farther back discovered the soldier blankets of his bunk tumbled over as though he had just arisen.

The door to the yard was still bolted. Davies slipped the bolt and stepped out on the plank walk leading from the kitchen to the gate in the rear fence. These had been tramped by many feet in that direction, and by only one pair in the other. Coming around from the side of the house were the tracks of the same foot gear, the heavy soldier arctics worn then by officers and men alike, that he had marked at the front.

They led to a point underneath the rear or north window of Almira's room, and there, after evident s.h.i.+fting and tramping of a minute or two, had turned sharply away, led straight past the kitchen door and were lost in the general run of those towards the gate.

"What time did you come in to bed last night, Barnickel?" asked the lieutenant, at the kitchen door.

"About 10.30, sir. I'd been over to Sergeant Walsh's quarters. I went in to see if the lieutenant wanted anything, sir, but he'd turned down the lights and gone out."

"Yes. And now did you hear any noise,--any footsteps?"

"No, sir. Only Mrs. Davies, sir; she was stirring round, excited like, and peeped out of her room to ask did I know where the lieutenant was."

"Did you come in through the front hall or the back way?"

"The back way, sir. There's standing orders against enlisted men crossing the parade or bein' on the officers' sidewalk."

Davies paused a minute. "Give me your broom," said he, and taking it through the partly opened door he carefully turned the k.n.o.b behind him, swept away the traces leading to the rear window, swept and obliterated those at the back and side, as far as and including those under the east window, then, tossing the broom to the door, strode round the house to the front just as stable call was pealing, and Captain Cranston in huge beaver skin overcoat and cap came forth into the frosty day. The instant he caught sight of Davies the captain hastened to him and drew his arm within his own.

"The very man I want to see, and you are waiting for me!"

"Yes. I presume you know why."

"I've heard. Come with me to stables, by way of the hospital. I want to see how Brannan pa.s.sed the night."

"I cannot go in, captain. I am virtually forbidden further connection with the case."

"I understand, but I am not included in the order, and wouldn't heed it if I were." Plainly Captain Cranston was in aggressive mood. Other officers, issuing from their quarters, set forth across the parade, but catching sight of the popular troop commander, pulled up as though to wait for him, then looked surprised to see him earnestly talking with the pale-faced subaltern, going straight on eastward. Directly in front of Devers's house they met that officer himself, a bundle of papers in his hand. In the "Tactics" of the day one of the foremost paragraphs read, "Courtesy among military men being indispensable, it is enjoined on all officers to salute each other on meeting, the junior tendering the first salute," or words to that effect, but it was a rule far more honored in the breach than the observance. The post commander was about the only one to receive such recognition from his juniors, all others, as a rule, contenting themselves with a jovial "'Morning, Jack." "How are you, major?" and, possibly, an off-hand and perfunctory touch of the cap. Only among sticklers for military propriety like Leonard was the salute tendered to superiors. In nine cases out of ten it meant, when given, that personal relations were strained. Approaching the battalion commander Mr. Davies looked him straight in the eye and raised his gloved right hand to the cap visor. Cranston, with the most off-hand nod imaginable, gruffly and shortly said, "Good-morning," without so much as a tempering "sir" or "captain," and hurried st.u.r.dily by. Devers flushed, looked after the two an instant as though tempted to call, then turned back across the parade and was presently swallowed up in the door-way of the troop office.

Leaving Davies outside, Cranston ran into the hospital, and presently reappeared. "Sleeping quietly," said he, "and the poor devil would have been in the terrors of delirium tremens if Devers's orders had been carried out and the doctor hadn't been sent for. Now tell me the whole story. Agatha has told me her version."

Lashed tight to the heavy picket rope, the horses were revelling in the keen morning air and slanting suns.h.i.+ne, nipping at each other's noses, challenging, with sparkling eye and tip-tilted ear, each well-known face and form of officer or man to caress or frolic, snapping and squealing at each other across the line, occasionally rearing and plunging in uncontrollable jollity. Bending to their work in their white stable frocks and overalls, the men were making brush and currycomb fly over the s.h.i.+ning coats of their pets, carefully guarding, however, the long, thick winter crop of hair, for no man could say how soon they might have to take the field and face unsheltered the keen Dakota blasts. The frosty quadrangle was merry with musical tap, tap of the metal comb, and the snort and "_purr_" and paw of hoof of the spirited bays. Little Sanders, an enthusiastic horseman, was darting in and out among his charges, praising this man's work, condemning that, and occasionally seizing brush and comb himself and giving a practical lesson to some comparative novice. And, leaving matters for the nonce to his subaltern, Cranston paced gravely up and down, Davies by his side, absorbed in close converse. Captain Devers left his line to Mr. Hastings and did not appear at stables at all. "That means he's concocting an epistle," said Hastings, with a grin. "He's hobn.o.bbing with his new pet, Howard, and somebody'll get the benefit of an official letter this morning."

"We expect you to breakfast," said Cranston, as he bade the lieutenant good-by at the gate, "and I hope Mrs. Davies is feeling all right now."

But Mrs. Davies was not. She was so far from well that she had decided to remain in bed. No, she wanted no breakfast, no doctor, no anybody.

All the same, Mrs. Cranston sent her a dainty tray on which was displayed a most appetizing little feast, and Almira's resolution gave way at sight of it. Wisely Mrs. Cranston refrained from calling, but other women were presently on hand to cheer and sympathize when at ten o'clock the commanding officer's orderly appeared with the commanding officer's compliments and he desired to see Mr. Davies at the office.

"Precisely as I told you," said Cranston, who was waiting for him on the walk without. "It was best to let Devers make the attack. Now for the defence."

Colonel Stone was at his desk. "Come in, Cranston," he called, as he caught sight of the soldier he so much liked. "I want to see you, too.

Er,--come in, Mr. Davies," he added in a tone less cordial and more official. "Orderly, ask Mr. Leonard to step in here. Then shut the door and remain outside. Er--sit down, gentlemen, er--sit down."

And then in came Leonard, silent, even saturnine; a ma.s.sive fellow with a mind as broad as his shoulders, a head full of reading and research and knowledge of his profession, but the quietest man in the garrison withal, and Leonard simply bowed to the new-comers, dropped into the chair indicated by his commander, then dropped his eyes upon the floor and waited.

Pegleg dandled a pencil, end for end, between his fingers a minute, reflectively studying a knot-hole in the floor that yawned through a corresponding breach in the matting. Then he flung the stump of a cigar into a sawdust spittoon and began.

"Mr. Davies, I sent for you and I also invited in Captain Cranston because I want to hear your side of a singular case. In an official letter to the post adjutant, Captain Devers charges that you went to the post hospital last night, ordered the attendant out of the room, and proceeded to usurp control of a patient under the doctor's care,--that you deliberately overthrew his authority and actually told the attendant his orders were of no account. This, if true, is a most serious matter, but I have learned that there are many sides to a story. What is yours?"

"As briefly as possible, colonel,--and just as I answered Captain Devers,--I deny every such allegation."

"Well, you certainly went to the hospital?"

"I certainly did, sir; simply to get some medicine for Captain Cranston's little son and without an idea that Brannan was there."

"Then you didn't go with the purpose of seeing Brannan?"

"Certainly not, sir. I believed him to be at the agency until I heard his voice. I knew the young man well from an experience last summer and during the campaign."

"But what about ordering the attendant out?"

"That is absurd. I found--or rather"--and now the hot color of embarra.s.sment flew up to his pale forehead--"Miss Loomis, who is experienced in such matters, found Brannan in very dangerous plight,--his pulse nearly gone. He was verging, perhaps, on an attack of delirium. She considered, as did I, that the doctor ought to see him at once, and, as his quarters were at the nearest corner, barely two hundred yards away, she told the attendant to hurry for him. I should have done the same thing, but it was unnecessary. The attendant should have returned at once, but----"

"Well, didn't you undertake to administer brandy?"

"Not at all, sir. The doctor himself ordered that on his arrival."

"At your urging or suggestion?"

"I certainly approved it, sir, but I did not urge."

"Well, then, what does it mean--your having told the attendant his orders were of no account?"

"I did nothing of the kind, sir. The attendant once or twice began talking about his orders, but I had no time to listen. I did say, never mind your orders, or something like that, but he knew perfectly well what I meant. I inferred what the orders were,--I simply had no time to hear them."

"Well, the attendant declares, or at least Captain Devers says he declares, you twice choked him off when he tried to tell you what his orders were by saying he shouldn't mind such orders. Here, Leonard, the shortest way will be to read the whole letter. You do it." And slowly Leonard took the official sheet and began.

"POST ADJUTANT, FORT SCOTT, NEBRASKA.

"SIR,--It is with extreme regret that I feel it necessary to report to the commanding officer certain occurrences tending to the overthrow of good order and military discipline in the command. Yesterday morning there arrived from the Ogallalla Agency, Trooper Brannan of Troop 'A,' Eleventh Calvary, who had been ordered hither by Lieutenant Boynton as attendant or escort to the mail-rider. First Sergeant Haney reported to me at ten o'clock that the man had evidently been drinking on the way and was in an advanced stage of intoxication. On examination of the man I was convinced that he needed medical attendance rather than incarceration, and, instead of sending him to the guard-house, as is customary in such cases, caused him to be taken to the hospital, where under Dr. Burroughs's orders he was put to bed and an attendant from my troop was detailed with instructions to see that no stimulants of any kind were given him. All seemed to progress favorably until shortly after taps, when Trooper Paine, the attendant in question, reported to me that Lieutenant Davies, Eleventh Calvary, entered the ward, accompanied by a member of the household of Captain Cranston, declared the treatment of the patient unjustifiable and ordered him, the attendant, out of the room. On Paine's attempting to define his orders he was abruptly silenced and again ordered to leave. Being on duty under the instructions of superior authority, Trooper Paine again strove to explain his orders, and this time was curtly told that he should pay no heed to such instructions, and was then sent out of the hospital. The trooper called the doctor on his way and then, very properly, reported his embarra.s.sing dilemma to me. I closely questioned him, and there can be no doubt as to the language imputed to Lieutenant Davies, whose propensity to interfere in the discipline of the troop I had frequent occasion to notice and rebuke during the campaign of the past summer. As courteous and kindly admonition had no effect, and as the officer in question has seen fit to treat my words with apparent disdain, I am compelled to invoke the support of the post commander in suppressing the spirit of insubordination of which this is so flagrant an instance.

"Very respectfully, "Your obedient servant, "JARED B. DEVERS, "_Captain Eleventh Cavalry_."

When Leonard had finished reading he folded the paper and looked dreamily at the cobweb in the corner. He wished to be understood as having no opinion whatever to express. Cranston sat in silence with lips compressed under his heavy moustache. Davies never moved. His blue eyes were fixed unflinchingly on the swarthy face of the veteran adjutant until the latter had finished reading, then sought the eye of his commander as though for permission to speak.

"Well, Captain Cranston, what do you think of the letter?" asked Pegleg, after a moment's silence.

"I think it very ingenious, sir."