Part 9 (1/2)

”Oh, you 'only!'” cried the sergeant. ”Yes, you 'only.' I know all about that. But if you think you are going to trifle with me--”

A moment later the squad moved on towards its station. Behind the sergeant's back Jones and Patterson were slyly pa.s.sing apples and pears to their friends while the sergeant expounded eloquently to the corporal ”You see what kind of men are in the army now. Why, when I joined the regiment it was a very different thing, I can tell you. Then a sergeant had some authority, and if a man disobeyed orders, he had a very small chance of escaping something extremely serious. But now! Good G.o.d! If I report these men, the captain will look over a lot of beastly orderly sheets and say--'Haw, eh, well, Sergeant Morton, these men seem to have very good records; very good records, indeed. I can't be too hard on them; no, not too hard.'” Continued the sergeant: ”I tell you, Flagler, the army is no place for a decent man.”

Flagler, the corporal, answered with a sincerity of appreciation which with him had become a science. ”I think you are right, sergeant,” he answered.

Behind them the privates mumbled discreetly. ”d.a.m.n this sergeant of ours. He thinks we are made of wood. I don't see any reason for all this strictness when we are on active service. It isn't like being at home in barracks! There is no great harm in a couple of men dropping out to raid an orchard of the enemy when all the world knows that we haven't had a decent meal in twenty days.”

The reddened face of Sergeant Morton suddenly showed to the rear. ”A little more marching and less talking,” he said.

When he came to the house he had been ordered to occupy the sergeant sniffed with disdain. ”These people must have lived like cattle,” he said angrily. To be sure, the place was not alluring. The ground floor had been used for the housing of cattle, and it was dark and terrible. A flight of steps led to the lofty first floor, which was denuded but respectable. The sergeant's visage lightened when he saw the strong walls of stone and cement. ”Unless they turn guns on us, they will never get us out of here,” he said cheerfully to the squad. The men, anxious to keep him in an amiable mood, all hurriedly grinned and seemed very appreciative and pleased. ”I'll make this into a fortress,” he announced. He sent Jones and Patterson, the two orchard thiefs, out on sentry-duty. He worked the others, then, until he could think of no more things to tell them to do. Afterwards he went forth, with a major-general's serious scowl, and examined the ground in front of his position. In returning he came upon a sentry, Jones, munching an apple.

He sternly commanded him to throw it away.

The men spread their blankets on the floors of the bare rooms, and putting their packs under their heads and lighting their pipes, they lived in easy peace. Bees hummed in the garden, and a scent of flowers came through the open window. A great fan-shaped bit of suns.h.i.+ne smote the face of one man, and he indolently cursed as he moved his primitive bed to a shadier place.

Another private explained to a comrade: ”This is all nonsense anyhow. No sense in occupying this post. They--”

”But, of course,” said the corporal, ”when she told me herself that she cared more for me than she did for him, I wasn't going to stand any of his talk--” The corporal's listener was so sleepy that he could only grunt his sympathy.

There was a sudden little spatter of shooting. A cry from Jones rang out. With no intermediate scrambling, the sergeant leaped straight to his feet. ”Now,” he cried, ”let us see what you are made of! If,” he added bitterly, ”you are made of anything!”

A man yelled: ”Good G.o.d, can't you see you're all tangled up in my cartridge belt?”

Another man yelled: ”Keep off my legs! Can't you walk on the floor?”

To the windows there was a blind rush of slumberous men, who brushed hair from their eyes even as they made ready their rifles. Jones and Patterson came stumbling up the steps, crying dreadful information.

Already the enemy's bullets were spitting and singing over the house.

The sergeant suddenly was stiff and cold with a sense of the importance of the thing. ”Wait until you see one,” he drawled loudly and calmly, ”then shoot.”

For some moments the enemy's bullets swung swifter than lightning over the house without anybody being able to discover a target. In this interval a man was shot in the throat. He gurgled, and then lay down on the floor. The blood slowly waved down the brown skin of his neck while he looked meekly at his comrades.

There was a howl. ”There they are! There they come!” The rifles crackled. A light smoke drifted idly through the rooms. There was a strong odour as if from burnt paper and the powder of fire-crackers. The men were silent. Through the windows and about the house the bullets of an entirely invisible enemy moaned, hummed, spat, burst, and sang.

The men began to curse. ”Why can't we see them?” they muttered through their teeth. The sergeant was still frigid. He answered soothingly as if he were directly reprehensible for this behaviour of the enemy. ”Wait a moment. You will soon be able to see them. There! Give it to them.” A little skirt of black figures had appeared in a field. It was really like shooting at an upright needle from the full length of a ball-room.

But the men's spirits improved as soon as the enemy--this mysterious enemy--became a tangible thing, and far off. They had believed the foe to be shooting at them from the adjacent garden.

”Now,” said the sergeant ambitiously, ”we can beat them off easily if you men are good enough.”

A man called out in a tone of quick, great interest. ”See that fellow on horseback, Bill? Isn't he on horseback? I thought he was on horseback.”

There was a fusilade against another side of the house. The sergeant dashed into the room which commanded that situation. He found a dead soldier on the floor. He rushed out howling: ”When was Knowles killed?

When was Knowles killed? d.a.m.n it, when was Knowles killed?” It was absolutely essential to find out the exact moment this man died. A blackened private turned upon his sergeant and demanded: ”How in h.e.l.l do I know?” Sergeant Morton had a sense of anger so brief that in the next second he cried: ”Patterson!” He had even forgotten his vital interest in the time of Knowles' death.

”Yes?” said Patterson, his face set with some deep-rooted quality of determination. Still, he was a mere farm boy.