Part 2 (2/2)

When the messenger had been stationed to keep intruders away, the Captain said: ”You will leave tonight. Take the Wartrace road out of Shelbyville and walk about a mile and a quarter. When you come to a fork in the road go into the trees and wait until you're picked up. You should be there at eight o'clock. You understand?”

”Yes, sir.”

”Repeat my instructions.”

Tom repeated them without fault.

”Good! Wait here for a moment.” The Captain left the tent. He returned presently with the Major of the battalion and another Captain. From the box where the doc.u.ments of Company B were kept, he produced enlistment papers. For several minutes, while Tom stood tense and erect, the Captain wrote. The other two officers talked in an undertone.

”Sign here,” said the Captain. Tom signed. The Major picked up the paper and glanced through it.

”Hold up your right hand,” said the Major. Then Tom heard the oath which bound him to serve the United States of America honorably as a soldier.

”I do,” he replied, and let his hand drop to his side again.

The two officers signed the papers, shook hands with him, nodded to Captain Moffat and left the tent. It all happened so quickly that Tom could scarcely realize that he was now a soldier. When he had entered the tent he was a civilian, bound merely by promises of service; now he was a soldier, without a uniform, to be sure, but none the less a soldier. His eyes dimmed and he looked away from the Captain.

Captain Moffat folded the paper, returned it to the box, and faced Tom. He looked at him thoughtfully for a few seconds; then placed his hands upon his shoulders.

”Private Tom Burns,” he said softly. ”Good luck to you. It will be Second Lieutenant Tom Burns if this expedition is a success. Good luck, my boy, and may G.o.d be with you.” He took Tom's hand and shook it.

And then Tom found himself walking down the street of Company B-a soldier of Company B-and he scarcely knew that his feet were treading ground.

There were two men in the tent, talking with Bert, and Tom waited impatiently for them to leave.

”Tonight,” he said shortly, as the tent flap dropped behind them.

”Tonight?”

”Yes.”

They sat silently until Bert exclaimed, ”I envy you! You're the luckiest boy in the world, walking right into such a chance as this.”

”I wish you were going.”

”So do I.”

Silence overcame them again.

”I'd better write a letter home,” Tom said presently. ”I'll say that I've enlisted and let it go at that.”

It was shortly before six o' clock when Tom left camp. He went to the store in Shelbyville, claimed the suit he purchased two days before, and induced the proprietor to let him make the change in the back room of the store. He made a bundle of the clothes he had discarded, left them at the store saying that he would call for them in a few days, then went out on the one street of the village. It was deserted; the good citizens of Shelbyville were at dinner, and a few soldiers who had come to the village to make purchases were hurrying back to camp to be there when mess call sounded. In the excitement of his departure Tom had forgotten that he must eat, but, with a half-hour to spare before starting for the meeting place, he returned to the store and stuffed his pockets with food. Then, with a hunk of cold meat in one hand and a slice of bread in the other, he walked down the village road, eating his supper as he went. Near the edge of the village he saw two men ahead of him, and he wondered if they too were members of the expedition. They stopped, leaning against a fence, and eyed him as he went by.

Dusk came, and then darkness. The sky was overcast, but occasionally the moonlight flashed through a break in the clouds, showing the road before him. Walking was difficult, for the half-dried mud was slippery, and the broad wheels of wagons had made deep ruts. Several times he stumbled, and once he wrenched his ankle. He made his way more carefully after that, sometimes feeling out the ground with the toes of his boots before he placed his weight forward. The thought of being disabled before he had really started on the adventure, of going back to camp to commiserate with Bert over sprained ankles, filled him with dread. The deepest ruts turned away from the main road to a farm house: a dog barked, and Tom hurried forward. Several hundred yards further along the road, he thought he saw a man who moved behind a tree and hid. He did not stop to investigate.

Tom paused for a moment at the fork of the road; then went forward breathlessly. Between the bushes which lined the edge of the fork stood several tall trees, with their trunks lost in black, ragged undergrowth. In the darkness he made out a trail. Again he paused, straining for the slightest sound. As he took a step forward he heard someone say:

”h.e.l.lo, there!”

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