Part 8 (2/2)

The regiment ascended a superior height, and found trenches and dead men. They took seat with the dead, satisfied with this company until they could get their wind. For thirty minutes purple-faced stragglers rejoined from the rear. Colonel Sponge looked behind him, and saw that Richie, with his staff, had approached by another route, and had evidently been near enough to see the full extent of the Kickers'

exertions. Presently Richie began to pick a way for his horse towards the captured position. He disappeared in a gully between two hills.

Now it came to pa.s.s that a Spitzbergen battery on the far right took occasion to mistake the ident.i.ty of the Kicking Twelfth, and the captain of these guns, not having anything to occupy him in front, directed his six 32's upon the ridge where the tired Kickers lay side by side with the Rostina dead. A shrapnel came swinging over the Kickers, seething and fuming. It burst directly over the trenches, and the shrapnel, of course, scattered forward, hurting n.o.body. But a man screamed out to his officer: ”By G.o.d, sir, that is one of our own batteries!” The whole line quivered with fright. Five more sh.e.l.ls streaked overhead, and one flung its hail into the middle of the 3rd battalion's line, and the Kicking Twelfth shuddered to the very centre of its heart, and arose, like one man, and fled.

Colonel Sponge, fighting, frothing at the month, dealing blows with his fist right and left, found himself confronting a fury on horseback.

Richie was as pale as death, and his eyes sent out sparks. ”What does this conduct mean?” he flashed out between his fastened teeth.

Sponge could only gurgle: ”The battery--the battery--the battery!”

”The battery?” cried Richie, in a voice which sounded like pistol shots.

”Are you afraid of the guns you almost took yesterday? Go back there, you white-livered cowards! You swine! You dogs! Curs! Curs! Curs! Go back there!”

Most of the men halted and crouched under the las.h.i.+ng tongue of their maddened general. But one man found desperate speech, and yelled: ”General, it is our own battery that is firing on us!”

Many say that the General's face tightened until it looked like a mask.

The Kicking Twelfth retired to a comfortable place, where they were only under the fire of the Rostina artillery. The men saw a staff officer riding over the obstructions in a manner calculated to break his neck directly.

The Kickers were aggrieved, but the heart of the colonel was cut in twain. He even babbled to his major, talking like a man who is about to die of simple rage. ”Did you hear what he said to me? Did you hear what he called us? _Did you hear what he called us?_”

The majors searched their minds for words to heal a deep wound.

The Twelfth received orders to go into camp upon the hill where they had been insulted. Old Sponge looked as if he were about to knock the aide out of the saddle, but he saluted, and took the regiment back to the temporary companions.h.i.+p of the Rostina dead.

Major-General Richie never apologised to Colonel Sponge. When you are a commanding officer you do not adopt the custom of apologising for the wrong done to your subordinates. You ride away; and they understand, and are confident of the rest.i.tution to honour. Richie never opened his stern, young lips to Sponge in reference to the scene near the hill of the Rostina dead, but in time there was a general order No. 20, which spoke definitely of the gallantry of His Majesty's 12th regiment of the line and its colonel. In the end Sponge was given a high decoration, because he had been badly used by Richie on that day. Richie knew that it is hard for men to withstand the shrapnel of their friends.

A few days later the Kickers, marching in column on the road, came upon their friend the battery, halted in a field; and they addressed the battery, and the captain of the battery blanched to the tips of his ears. But the men of the battery told the Kickers to go to the devil--frankly, freely, placidly, told the Kickers to go to the devil.

And this story proves that it is sometimes better to be a private.

”AND IF HE WILLS, WE MUST DIE.”

A sergeant, a corporal, and fourteen men of the Twelfth Regiment of the Line had been sent out to occupy a house on the main highway. They would be at least a half of a mile in advance of any other picket of their own people. Sergeant Morton was deeply angry at being sent on this duty. He said that he was over-worked. There were at least two sergeants, he claimed furiously, whose turn it should have been to go on this arduous mission. He was treated unfairly; he was abused by his superiors; why did any d.a.m.ned fool ever join the army? As for him he would get out of it as soon as possible; he was sick of it; the life of a dog. All this he said to the corporal, who listened attentively, giving grunts of respectful a.s.sent. On the way to this post two privates took occasion to drop to the rear and pilfer in the orchard of a deserted plantation.

When the sergeant discovered this absence, he grew black with a rage which was an acc.u.mulation of all his irritations. ”Run, you!” he howled.

”Bring them here! I'll show them--” A private ran swiftly to the rear.

The remainder of the squad began to shout nervously at the two delinquents, whose figures they could see in the deep shade of the orchard, hurriedly picking fruit from the ground and cramming it within their s.h.i.+rts, next to their skins. The beseeching cries of their comrades stirred the criminals more than did the barking of the sergeant. They ran to rejoin the squad, while holding their loaded bosoms and with their mouths open with aggrieved explanations.

Jones faced the sergeant with a horrible cancer marked in b.u.mps on his left side. The disease of Patterson showed quite around the front of his waist in many protuberances. ”A nice pair!” said the sergeant, with sudden frigidity. ”You're the kind of soldiers a man wants to choose for a dangerous outpost duty, ain't you?”

The two privates stood at attention, still looking much aggrieved. ”We only--” began Jones huskily.

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