The Complete Works of Stephen Crane (195 page)

A black hour came finally, when the men were not fit to have their troubles increased. The enemy made a wild attack on one portion of the oval, which was held by about fifteen men. The remainder of the force was busy enough, and the fifteen were naturally left to their devices. Amid the whirl of it, a loud voice suddenly broke out in song:

“When shepherds guard their flocks by night,

All seated on the ground,

An angel of the Lord came down

And glory shone around.”

“Who the hell is that?” demanded the lieutenant from a throat full of smoke. There was almost a full stop of the firing. The Americans were somewhat puzzled. Practical ones muttered that the fool should have a bayonet-hilt shoved down his throat. Others felt a thrill at the strangeness of the thing. Perhaps it was a sign!

“The minstrel boy to the war has gone,

In the ranks of death you’ll find him,

His father’s sword he has girded on

And his wild harp slung behind him.”

This croak was as lugubrious as a coffin. “Who is it? Who is it?” snapped the lieutenant. “Stop him, somebody.”

“It’s Dryden, sir,” said old Sergeant Peasley, as he felt around in the darkness for his madhouse. “I can’t find him — yet.”

“Please, O, please, O, do not let me fall;

You’re — gurgh — ugh — —”

The sergeant had pounced upon him.

This singing had had an effect upon the Spaniards. At first they had fired frenziedly at the voice, but they soon ceased, perhaps from sheer amazement. Both sides took a spell of meditation.

The sergeant was having some difficulty with his charge. “Here, you, grab ‘im. Take ‘im by the throat. Be quiet, you devil.”

One of the fifteen men, who had been hard-pressed, called out, “We’ve only got about one clip a-piece, Lieutenant. If they come again — —”

The lieutenant crawled to and fro among his men, taking clips of cartridges from those who had many. He came upon the sergeant and his madhouse. He felt Dryden’s belt and found it simply stuffed with ammunition. He examined Dryden’s rifle and found in it a full clip. The madhouse had not fired a shot. The lieutenant distributed these valuable prizes among the fifteen men. As the men gratefully took them, one said: “If they had come again hard enough, they would have had us, sir, — maybe.”

But the Spaniards did not come again. At the first indication of daybreak, they fired their customary good-bye volley. The marines lay tight while the slow dawn crept over the land. Finally the lieutenant arose among them, and he was a bewildered man, but very angry. “Now where is that idiot, Sergeant?”

“Here he is, sir,” said the old man cheerfully. He was seated on the ground beside the recumbent Dryden who, with an innocent smile on his face, was sound asleep.

“Wake him up,” said the lieutenant briefly.

The sergeant shook the sleeper. “Here, Minstrel Boy, turn out. The lieutenant wants you.”

Dryden climbed to his feet and saluted the officer with a dazed and childish air. “Yes, sir.”

The lieutenant was obviously having difficulty in governing his feelings, but he managed to say with calmness, “You seem to be fond of singing, Dryden? Sergeant, see if he has any whisky on him.”

“Sir?” said the madhouse stupefied. “Singing — fond of singing?”

Here the sergeant interposed gently, and he and the lieutenant held palaver apart from the others. The marines, hitching more comfortably their almost empty belts, spoke with grins of the madhouse. “Well, the Minstrel Boy made ’em clear out. They couldn’t stand it. But — I wouldn’t want to be in his boots. He’ll see fireworks when the old man interviews him on the uses of grand opera in modern warfare. How do you think he managed to smuggle a bottle along without us finding it out?”

When the weary outpost was relieved and marched back to camp, the men could not rest until they had told a tale of the voice in the wilderness. In the meantime the sergeant took Dryden aboard a ship, and to those who took charge of the man, he defined him as “the most useful ——  —— crazy man in the service of the United States.”

VIRTUE
IN
WAR

I

Gates had left the regular army in 1890, those parts of him which had not been frozen having been well fried. He took with him nothing but an oaken constitution and a knowledge of the plains and the best wishes of his fellow-officers. The Standard Oil Company differs from the United States Government in that it understands the value of the loyal and intelligent services of good men and is almost certain to reward them at the expense of incapable men. This curious practice emanates from no beneficent emotion of the Standard Oil Company, on whose feelings you could not make a scar with a hammer and chisel. It is simply that the Standard Oil Company knows more than the United States Government and makes use of virtue whenever virtue is to its advantage. In 1890 Gates really felt in his bones that, if he lived a rigorously correct life and several score of his class-mates and intimate friends died off, he would get command of a troop of horse by the time he was unfitted by age to be an active cavalry leader. He left the service of the United States and entered the service of the Standard Oil Company. In the course of time he knew that, if he lived a rigorously correct life, his position and income would develop strictly in parallel with the worth of his wisdom and experience, and he would not have to walk on the corpses of his friends.

But he was not happier. Part of his heart was in a barracks, and it was not enough to discourse of the old regiment over the port and cigars to ears which were polite enough to betray a languid ignorance. Finally came the year 1898, and Gates dropped the Standard Oil Company as if it were hot. He hit the steel trail to Washington and there fought the first serious action of the war. Like most Americans, he had a native State, and one morning he found himself major in a volunteer infantry regiment whose voice had a peculiar sharp twang to it which he could remember from childhood. The colonel welcomed the West Pointer with loud cries of joy; the lieutenant-colonel looked at him with the pebbly eye of distrust; and the senior major, having had up to this time the best battalion in the regiment, strongly disapproved of him. There were only two majors, so the lieutenant-colonel commanded the first battalion, which gave him an occupation. Lieutenant-colonels under the new rules do not always have occupations. Gates got the third battalion — four companies commanded by intelligent officers who could gauge the opinions of their men at two thousand yards and govern themselves accordingly. The battalion was immensely interested in the new major. It thought it ought to develop views about him. It thought it was its blankety-blank business to find out immediately if it liked him personally. In the company streets the talk was nothing else. Among the non-commissioned officers there were eleven old soldiers of the regular army, and they knew — and cared — that Gates had held commission in the “Sixteenth Cavalry” — as
Harper’s Weekly
says. Over this fact they rejoiced and were glad, and they stood by to jump lively when he took command. He would know his work and he would know
their
work, and then in battle there would be killed only what men were absolutely necessary and the sick list would be comparatively free of fools.

The commander of the second battalion had been called by an Atlanta paper, “Major Rickets C. Carmony, the commander of the second battalion of the 307th —— , is when at home one of the biggest wholesale hardware dealers in his State. Last evening he had ice-cream, at his own expense, served out at the regular mess of the battalion, and after dinner the men gathered about his tent where three hearty cheers for the popular major were given.” Carmony had bought twelve copies of this newspaper and mailed them home to his friends.

In Gates’s battalion there were more kicks than ice-cream, and there was no ice-cream at all. Indignation ran high at the rapid manner in which he proceeded to make soldiers of them. Some of his officers hinted finally that the men wouldn’t stand it. They were saying that they had enlisted to fight for their country — yes, but they weren’t going to be bullied day in and day out by a perfect stranger. They were patriots, they were, and just as good men as ever stepped — just as good as Gates or anybody like him. But, gradually, despite itself, the battalion progressed. The men were not altogether conscious of it. They evolved rather blindly. Presently there were fights with Carmony’s crowd as to which was the better battalion at drills, and at last there was no argument. It was generally admitted that Gates commanded the crack battalion. The men, believing that the beginning and the end of all soldiering was in these drills of precision, were somewhat reconciled to their major when they began to understand more of what he was trying to do for them, but they were still fiery untamed patriots of lofty pride and they resented his manner toward them. It was abrupt and sharp.

The time came when everybody knew that the Fifth Army Corps was the corps designated for the first active service in Cuba. The officers and men of the 307th observed with despair that their regiment was not in the Fifth Army Corps. The colonel was a strategist. He understood everything in a flash. Without a moment’s hesitation he obtained leave and mounted the night express for Washington. There he drove Senators and Congressmen in span, tandem and four-in-hand. With the telegraph he stirred so deeply the governor, the people and the newspapers of his State that whenever on a quiet night the President put his head out of the White House he could hear the distant vast commonwealth humming with indignation. And as it is well known that the Chief Executive listens to the voice of the people, the 307th was transferred to the Fifth Army Corps. It was sent at once to Tampa, where it was brigaded with two dusty regiments of regulars, who looked at it calmly, and said nothing. The brigade commander happened to be no less a person than Gates’s old colonel in the “Sixteenth Cavalry” — as Harper’s Weekly says — and Gates was cheered. The old man’s rather solemn look brightened when he saw Gates in the 307th. There was a great deal of battering and pounding and banging for the 307th at Tampa, but the men stood it more in wonder than in anger. The two regular regiments carried them along when they could, and when they couldn’t waited impatiently for them to come up. Undoubtedly the regulars wished the volunteers were in garrison at Sitka, but they said practically nothing. They minded their own regiments. The colonel was an invaluable man in a telegraph office. When came the scramble for transports the colonel retired to a telegraph office and talked so ably to Washington that the authorities pushed a number of corps aside and made way for the 307th, as if on it depended everything. The regiment got one of the best transports, and after a series of delays and some starts, and an equal number of returns, they finally sailed for Cuba.

II

Now Gates had a singular adventure on the second morning after his arrival at Atlanta to take his post as a major in the 307th.

He was in his tent, writing, when suddenly the flap was flung away and a tall young private stepped inside.

“Well, Maje,” said the newcomer, genially, “how goes it?”

The major’s head flashed up, but he spoke without heat.

“Come to attention and salute.”

“Huh!” said the private.

“Come to attention and salute.”

The private looked at him in resentful amazement, and then inquired:

“Ye ain’t mad, are ye? Ain’t nothin’ to get huffy about, is there?”

“I —— Come to attention and salute.”

“Well,” drawled the private, as he stared, “seein’ as ye are so darn perticular, I don’t care if I do — if it’ll make yer meals set on yer stomick any better.”

Drawing a long breath and grinning ironically, he lazily pulled his heels together and saluted with a flourish.

“There,” he said, with a return to his earlier genial manner. “How’s that suit ye, Maje?”

There was a silence which to an impartial observer would have seemed pregnant with dynamite and bloody death. Then the major cleared his throat and coldly said:

“And now, what is your business?”

“Who — me?” asked the private. “Oh, I just sorter dropped in.” With a deeper meaning he added: “Sorter dropped in in a friendly way, thinkin’ ye was mebbe a different kind of a feller from what ye be.”

The inference was clearly marked.

It was now Gates’s turn to stare, and stare he unfeignedly did.

“Go back to your quarters,” he said at length.

The volunteer became very angry.

“Oh, ye needn’t be so up-in-th’-air, need ye? Don’t know’s I’m dead anxious to inflict my company on yer since I’ve had a good look at ye. There may be men in this here battalion what’s had just as much edjewcation as you have, and I’m damned if they ain’t got better
manners
. Good-mornin’,” he said, with dignity; and, passing out of the tent, he flung the flap back in place with an air of slamming it as if it had been a door. He made his way back to his company street, striding high. He was furious. He met a large crowd of his comrades.

“What’s the matter, Lige?” asked one, who noted his temper.

“Oh, nothin’,” answered Lige, with terrible feeling. “Nothin’. I jest been lookin’ over the new major — that’s all.”

“What’s he like?” asked another.

“Like?” cried Lige. “He’s like nothin’. He ain’t out’n the same kittle as us. No. Gawd made him all by himself — sep’rate. He’s a speshul produc’, he is, an’ he won’t have no truck with jest common —
men
, like you be.”

He made a venomous gesture which included them all.

“Did he set on ye?” asked a soldier.

“Set on me? No,” replied Lige, with contempt “I set on
him
. I sized ‘im up in a minute. ‘Oh, I don’t know,’ I says, as I was comin’ out; ‘guess you ain’t the only man in the world,’ I says.”

For a time Lige Wigram was quite a hero. He endlessly repeated the tale of his adventure, and men admired him for so soon taking the conceit out of the new officer. Lige was proud to think of himself as a plain and simple patriot who had refused to endure any high-soaring nonsense.

But he came to believe that he had not disturbed the singular composure of the major, and this concreted his hatred. He hated Gates, not as a soldier sometimes hates an officer, a hatred half of fear. Lige hated as man to man. And he was enraged to see that so far from gaining any hatred in return, he seemed incapable of making Gates have any thought of him save as a unit in a body of three hundred men. Lige might just as well have gone and grimaced at the obelisk in Central Park.

When the battalion became the best in the regiment he had no part in the pride of the companies. He was sorry when men began to speak well of Gates. He was really a very consistent hater.

III

The transport occupied by the 307th was commanded by some sort of a Scandinavian, who was afraid of the shadows of his own topmasts. He would have run his steamer away from a floating Gainsborough hat, and, in fact, he ran her away from less on some occasions. The officers, wishing to arrive with the other transports, sometimes remonstrated, and to them he talked of his owners. Every officer in the convoying warships loathed him, for in case any hostile vessel should appear they did not see how they were going to protect this rabbit, who would probably manage during a fight to be in about a hundred places on the broad, broad sea, and all of them offensive to the navy’s plan. When he was not talking of his owners he was remarking to the officers of the regiment that a steamer really was not like a valise, and that he was unable to take his ship under his arm and climb trees with it. He further said that “them naval fellows” were not near so smart as they thought they were.