Under Fire

C >> Charles King >> Under Fire

Pages:
1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | 15 | 16 | 17 | 18 | 19 | 20 | 21 | 22 | 23 | 24 | 25 | 26 | 27 | 28 | 29 | 30 | 31 | 32

"I will be your messenger, Miss Loomis," said Davies, "as the attendant
doesn't seem to have returned, and then I can let Mrs. Davies know that
I shall come here again, myself."

As he sped along the row, note and medicine phial in hand, Davies was
surprised to see his captain's storm-door wide open and a light shining
through the transom within. A light was moving through the parlor, too,
but Davies paid no further heed, left the note and medicine in Mrs.
Cranston's hands with brief explanatory word, then hurried back to
Boynton's quarters. He had turned down the light when he went out for
his walk and had left his wife in the darkness of her room, trying,
presumably, to go to sleep. He found the lights turned on again, and
Almira, a heavy shawl bundled about her shoulders, sitting with white,
scared face, trembling and twitching, at the big coal base-burner in
what was called the parlor.

"Why, Mira!" he cried. "What has happened? Are you ill?" And he bent
over as though to fold her in his arms, but she shrank away.

"Don't!" she cried. "I was frightened. You--you were gone so long. I
thought you'd never come back." Then to his utter amaze she burst into a
wild fit of hysterical weeping. "Oh, take me away,--take me away from
this dreadful place, or I shall die,--I shall die!"

CHAPTER XIV.

Mr. Davies was very late in returning to the hospital that night. For
nearly half an hour Almira sobbed and shivered and refused to be
comforted, and yet failed to explain. To his urgent plea to be told the
cause of her fright and distress she could give no intelligible reply.
"Oh, I don't know. I heard noises, or voices, or something. I was
all--all unstrung, I suppose. You--you talked to me so strangely, so
cruelly the other night, and I've--I've been thinking of it all day--all
day, and when you went away--and didn't come back, I--I thought all
sorts of things. I supposed you'd gone there, you know where,--to those
women,--those women who despise me and show it." It brought on fresh
moans and tragic wringing of hands, and new outpouring of salty tears
when he presently told her where he had been, but she would not listen
to the cause of his detention at the hospital. It was more than enough
that he had been out walking with her,--with _her_, in the dead of
night. That seemed the only fact she cared to grasp, and that she
crooned over with bitter wailing until his patience was exhausted.

"This is childish and absurd!" he said. "It is unworthy of you, my wife,
and unjust to Miss Loomis as well as unjust to me. It is not possible
that this has caused all your terror and distress. What noises--what
sounds did you hear?"

But these now she had forgotten. In the light of his confession, as she
termed it, all other calamities had faded into naught. He gradually
calmed her sufficiently to induce her to return to bed, but when he
announced that he must go again to the hospital to see how Brannan was
getting on, her lamentations were piteous. In vain he reminded her that
Brannan was her own cousin, the only son of her aunt and benefactress.
She would listen to none of it. Brannan was only an excuse to enable him
again to go and meet Miss Loomis, and finally, with white face and set,
rigid lips, Davies turned and left the house, walking rapidly to the
hospital.

Miss Loom is still bent over the patient, who seemed now dozing. Dr.
Burroughs sat beside her at the moment, but had been away, he explained,
to see old Fritz again. A new attendant, a shy, awkward young fellow
from Devers's troop, was hovering about the bedside, and Davies glanced
at him inquiringly. "What became of Paine?" he asked, and the steward
shook his head and shrugged his shoulders.

"Captain Devers took him away," was the answer. The doctor arose and
stood by Davies a minute.

"I don't know what to make of that captain of yours," he said. "Either
he or I will keep out of this hospital in future. He came here and
'raised Cain' with my steward to-night, all on account of Brannan; then
went over to the troop barracks foaming like a mad bull. I fancy he
means to make it rather lively for you."

"Never mind me, doctor, so long as this poor boy's coming out all right.
How is he?"

"Doing nicely now, but--I wish I'd understood the case before. I'm bound
to say Captain Devers misled me entirely. _She's_ the doctor he needed,"
said he, with a jerk of his head towards the grave, beautiful girl
bending over the soldier's pillow, one hand still slowly, tenderly
stroking back the dark hair about his temples.

"Will you say good-night to her for me and escort her home? Mrs. Davies
is not well and I must return to her," said Davies, "that is,--unless I
am needed here."

"No, go by all means. Only I may need you at the colonel's office in the
morning when this thing has to be fought out. Dodge your captain,
meantime, if you can."

"I know of no reason why I should dodge him or anybody," said Davies,
with rising color. "I have done no wrong."

But on the steps without, as he hurried away, the lieutenant met a man
who differed with him as to that--who differed with most people as to
everything, and that he had been working up the case in his own mind
against his subaltern there was no room for doubt.

"By what right, sir, do you assume to over-ride my authority and undo my
orders? Time and again last summer I had occasion to caution you against
interference in the handling of the men and the management of the troop,
and now no sooner do you rejoin than here you are taking advantage of my
being probably abed and asleep to countermand my positive instructions
and overthrow my efforts at discipline."

Without one word of reply Mr. Davies assumed the position of attention
and stood like a soldier before his furious commander. "I say again,
sir," began Devers, "that you have deliberately sought to deride my
authority and have connived at the disobedience of my orders. You knew
perfectly well what orders I had given in the case of Brannan, and you
dared to set them aside."

Still not a word in reply.

"This silence is contemptuous. Why don't you speak, sir?"

"I simply deny each and every allegation, Captain Devers."

"Denial is ridiculous, Mr. Davies! Haven't I the evidence of my own
senses,--of the steward and the attendant? Don't I know? By God,
sir----"

"One moment. Oblige me, captain. I wish to behave with all deference and
respect, but when you use blasphemy----"

"Oh, blasphemy be damned! Don't attempt to teach me! I've had too much
of your puritanical, psalm-singing business. I condoned your wretched
misconduct of last September in the hope that you might do better, but
now the time has come for you to be given the lesson you deserve. Things
have reached a pretty pass when an officer who leads his men into ambush
and then deserts them in their extremity----"

"Captain Devers!"

"No dramatics now. You're not in the pulpit----" The steward came forth
at the moment, and with instant modulation of tone Devers went on. "You
may not realize what you have done, but you have done it all the same,
despite every effort of mine to teach you the proper course----What is
it, steward?" he broke off, as though suddenly aware of that official's
presence.

"The doctor's compliments, sir, and the new man the captain has sent
over to relieve Paine seems to lack intelligence; he won't do at all as
an attendant."

"Tell the doctor I sent the best I had, and that he begged to be
relieved because he couldn't serve so many masters. When the post
surgeon hears of this night's work he will doubtless have his say as to
the manner in which his subordinates have trifled with their duties. I
will make no change.--You appear to be waiting, Mr. Davies. That's all,
sir, for to-night. You may go."

With a face almost as white as the snowy expanse of the parade, the
lieutenant still stood there, quivering with wrath and wrong. He looked
as though a torrent of reply were trembling on his lips, yet by supreme
effort he curbed the impulse. His chest heaved once or twice. His lips
were twitching. His hands were clenched and convulsive, but at last,
with one long look into his captain's eyes while the latter was going on
to say something about the necessity of his junior's accepting his
admonition in proper spirit, Davies turned abruptly and sprang down the
steps. Two soldiers stood there in the dusk, where they must have heard
every word that was said. One was the new company clerk, Howard, the
other Paine. Neither lifted a hand in salute to the officer. Both turned
their backs and feigned to be deeply interested in conversation of their
own.

It was Mr. Hastings's duty that week to supervise reveille roll-call and
attend morning stables. He was surprised, therefore, as he went bounding
over the parade, to see his junior sub on the porch wrapped in a heavy
overcoat. Presently, after reporting to the post adjutant, as was the
local custom, the various officers came scattering back to their own
firesides, the infantry subs to turn in for another snooze, the cavalry
to swallow a cup of coffee before going down to stables. Sanders hailed
the lonely figure with characteristic levity.

"Hello, 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 cocktail," 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 space 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 space 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 sturdy 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 shifting 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 knob 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 passed 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 sturdily 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 sunshine, 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 shining 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 hobnobbing 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 massive 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
embarrassment 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 embarrassing
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.

Pages:
1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | 15 | 16 | 17 | 18 | 19 | 20 | 21 | 22 | 23 | 24 | 25 | 26 | 27 | 28 | 29 | 30 | 31 | 32