Читать книгу Bugles in the Afternoon - Ernest Haycox - Страница 7

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LIEUTENANT GARNETT moved rapidly over the parade toward Officers' Row, preoccupied and scowling, with the shock of the meeting still affecting him, with fear still a sharp sensation in him. As he came before General Custer's house, he paused to pull himself straight, to compose the expression on his face and to make a few quick jerks at the tail of his coat. Once more in trim, he crossed the porch with his cap removed and tucked in the crook of his left arm.

Mrs. Custer met him, touched his elbow and led him forward to the crowd arranged in groups around the room. She was a demure woman, quietly charming and with a light and softhearted manner of meeting people. She said: "I believe you know everybody, except perhaps our very young and very pretty guest from Bismarck."

She paused before Josephine Russell, who was seated on the piano stool. Lieutenant Garnett's back sprung into a tenser arch, like a race horse waiting the drop of the barrier; his deep-set and slightly mournful eyes saw the girl's prettiness and the hunting instinct in him rose and fashioned a flashing smile, and all the proper gestures of gallantry; he made a show in his uniform—the long straight sweep of his trousers with their broad yellow stripes, the tight brass-buttoned coat above which lay the white wing collar and black cravat. He had a long wedge of a face with an olive pallor which no amount of sun changed and this, against the intense blackness of his wavy hair, made him an extremely-striking man.

"Josephine," said Mrs. Custer, "let me present Mr. Garnett. This is Josephine Russell." And then, because Mrs. Custer had a motherly instinct for the men of the command, and loved to makes matches, she added with her air of bright and gentle interest, "Mr. Garnett is so wedded to his profession that I fear he has never had time for ladies."

Lieutenant Garnett gave Mrs. Custer a quick glance, suspecting irony; but he saw only a very human pleasure on the face of the commanding officer's wife and so turned and made his distinguished bow. "I must warn you. Miss Russell. There are many bachelors and you will be rushed."

"Ah," said Mrs. Custer, "all the eligible bachelors of the post have rushed her."

"I propose to join their ranks immediately," said Garnett.

Josephine acknowledged the compliment with a smile; she sat with her hands on her lap, pleasantly reposed. Her hair lay darkly back on top of her head, exposing the small and dainty ears with their pearl pendants. She had a soft roundness to her bosom, and she had a reserve in her eyes; and the shadow of strength and intensity behind her smiling greatly intrigued the lieutenant. She said: "The gallantry of the Seventh is well known, Mr. Garnett."

Mrs. Custer went away and for a little while the lieutenant tried his best wares on Josephine, idly but deceptively probing and drawing her out, testing the metal in her, searching for some entry through her vanity, her weaknesses, her romantic notions or her pride. He was a clever man and presently when the general's brother, Captain Tom Custer, came up—a slim, restless man with a boyish and daredevil face topped by lank light hair—the lieutenant passed on to pay his respects to the other officers and their ladies. The general was in a corner, having some sort of tactical discussion with Major Reno and Captain Weir of D Company and the tawny Yates who was commander of F. Garnett left that weighty circle to itself, said a few words to Algernon Smith and Mrs. Smith, joined in with Calhoun and Edgerly for a moment—the latter as handsome a man as himself—and so, punctiliously leaving his word and his smile from person to person, he came finally to Major Barrows and his lady, the major being here on tour of duty from the inspector general's department.

The major was on the small and lean side, leaf brown and quiet of face, very soft of voice and with a taciturn cast to his eyes. A small mustache and imperial gave a tempered sharpness to an otherwise gentle set of features, and his manner in addressing Garnett had a kind of formal courtesy. "Good evening, Mr. Garnett. A pleasant evening."

"Pleasant, but there's a chill in it. Winter's coming."

"Always does," said Major Barrows, inflecting a most commonplace remark with his dryness.

Garnett, usually extraordinarily attentive to the ladies, talked on with the major for a full minute or more before turning his head and looking down at Mrs. Barrows; and then gave her a smile and a word, nothing more. She looked up at him, a woman somewhat younger than her husband, still of feature and with only her eyes showing much expression. She sat back in the chair, her head rested against it so that her throat revealed its ivory lines. Her lids dropped and for a moment her lashes touched as she watched this man—darkly, indifferently, strangely.

The major divided an inexpressive glance between them and then thought to say: "You have met, have you not?"

The major's wife smiled slightly. "Of course. Two or three times."

"My memory for things social has grown rusty," apologized the major. He sought his coat for a cigar, cast a glance at the general and his party and made a little bow to be excused, going over to join that discussion. Garnett thrust his arms across his chest, matching the depthless inspection of the woman with one of his own. In the little pocket of her throat he saw her heart beating and he knew he had stirred her. He had met her at a party like this only a month before, had smiled at her; he had sat beside her at Major Tilford's dinner slightly later, studying her silence and her indifference until he knew what it was. This was his third meeting and he understood what his method was to be with her; it was to be dark and somber, with soft words carrying more in tone than in meaning. The major's wife, he guessed was a lonely woman with unspent emotions.

"Do you enjoy it here?" he asked.

"Yes," she said, and continued to watch him out of her half-closed eyes! It was a challenge to be met and he murmured: "Of what are you thinking?"

"Many things."

"Have you walked through these shadows, late at night, by yourself?"

"Yes. Often."

"I know what you have felt. I know what you have thought," he said.

"Do you?" she asked. Her eyes grew wider and a slight warmth escaped her control and showed on her lips. He watched her suppress it, he heard practicalness return to her voice: "You are gallant, Mr. Garnett."

He had interested her but, like a wise campaigner, he did not overdo his pressing; he nodded and turned back to join Calhoun and Edgerly who stood before Josephine. Presently the talk of the older officers interested him and he drifted that way. Weir was speaking:—

"It is absurd to suppose that the Sioux, having had their best country in the Black Hills opened up to the white miner, will not brood upon it. We have respected no treaty we ever made with them. They know we never will. What good is a treaty, solemnly made in Washington, when a month later five hundred white men cross the deadline? The prospector, the emigrant and the squatter have a hunger for gold and land that we cannot stop by treaty. We have spent two years trying to run the whites out of country which we have promised shall be the Indian's. It is an impossible job. The Indian knows we will continue to back him westward until we have pushed him into the ocean. All the Sioux leaders see it. They will make a stand. Of course there will be a campaign next year."

"If so," said Custer, "we shall decisively defeat them."

"I wish," said Weir, "I were as optimistic. All this summer the traders have been freighting repeating rifles up the Missouri, trading for fur. Winchesters and Henrys. They are better arms in many ways than ours. Did I tell you that last week when I took out my company for target practice one third of all our carbines jammed after the fifth shot?"

"Tell your recruits to keep the breech mechanism clean."

"That is not the trouble. These cartridges have got a lot of soft base metal in them. The cartridge expands quickly and sticks in the breech. The extractor tears through the rim of the shell—and there's a gun you've got to hack at with a pocket knife."

"Major," said Custer to Barrows, "I wish you'd stress things like that in your report to the department. I have written so many critical letters that I'm regarded as a dangerous and undisciplined officer. I am heartsick at the things I see which I cannot improve. Things which lead a very slimy trail right back to Washington."

Mrs. Custer overheard him and gave him a wifely side glance. But the general, impetuous in any kind of attack, used his words as he would have used a saber. "The post-trader situation is rotten. It is corrupt, it is venal. The prices charged by the post trader here are outrageous. Do you know what his excuse is? It is that his expenses in getting the job were so enormous that he must recoup himself. Why were they enormous? Because there are gentlemen in Washington who sell these post-traderships to the highest bidder. How can such a situation exist? Because there exists a corrupt ring in Washington, so protected by extremely high-placed officials that they cannot be touched."

The group of officers appeared mildly embarrassed. Major Barrows cast his reserved, taciturn glance at the general. "That is a risky thing for an army officer to say, Custer."

"I don't give a continental," said the general. "I personally know of a brother of one official—one of the highest in our land—" he checked himself, looked about the group with his bony, flushed face, and plunged on—"in fact the brother of the very highest public official of our land, who is receiving financial reward for using his indirect influence in assisting civilians to receive these post-traderships from the Department of Interior."

"Custer," said Major Barrows, "no army officer who wishes for a successful career can afford to question civil authority in Washington."

"I shall be in Washington soon," said Custer. "I shall mention the evil as I see it."

Mrs. Custer moved forward and lightly laid her hand on her husband's arm. "You must not ignore the rest of your guests," she said, smiling the dangerous subject away.

Custer immediately grew gentle at her touch. His sharp blue eyes sent a dancing glance around the room and saw his brother, Captain Tom Custer, seated alone in a rear corner of the room, hands over his stomach as he caught a bit of sleep.

"All right, Libby," he told his wife, "I'll be mealy-mouthed." But his eyes returned to the figure of Tom Custer and an edged grin formed beneath the tawny fall of his mustache; he made a signal at Lieutenant Edgerly, who came immediately near. He whispered something in Edgerly's ear. The lieutenant left the room at once.

Major Barrows said: "How certain are you of a spring campaign?"

"Wholly certain," said Captain Weir. "Nothing will stop the Sioux from defending their ground, if we push at them."

"How do you know you'll get orders to push at them?" asked Barrows.

Garnett had meanwhile drifted away and now was again in the corner with Mrs. Barrows. The major slightly changed his stand so that he saw them without turning his head greatly; he watched them as they talked, he watched his wife's face.

Weir said: "People on the frontier want to move west. They see the Indians barring their way. So they shoot a few Indians and then the Indians shoot them.

"That creates an incident. People here then cry to Congress and Congress puts pressure upon the War Department. We shall be sent out."

Major Reno had not spoken thus far. He was a stocky, rumpled figure, round and sallow of face with black hair pressed down upon his head and a pair of round recessed eyes, darkly circled. He seemed not wholly a part of the group; he seemed outside of it. But he said now: "It will not be a summer's jaunt. We shall face formidable resistance."

"Oh, pshaw," said Custer. "I know Indians. They will see us, and break. The question will not be one of fighting them. The question will be can we reach them soon enough to surround them before they break into little bands and disappear. I can take this regiment and handle the situation entirely."

"Your regiment," said Barrows, "has an average muster of sixty-four men per company. Full strength, you might take eight hundred men into the field. A third of those are apt to be recruits. It is not an extraordinary show of strength."

The general said, with his dogmatic certainty: "The Seventh can whip any collection of Indians on the plains," and turned to meet Edgerly, who had returned with a hank of clothesline. The general looked at his brother Tom, still snoozing in the chair, and chuckled as he took the line. He walked along the edge of the wall; he got down on his hands and knees and crept forward until he was behind Tom Custer's chair. Crouched there, he looped the clothesline around Tom Custer's boot at the instep, made a slip knot and softly drew it tight; then he crawled to a rear window, standing open to the night, and made the other end of the clothesline fast to the window's latch.

Edgerly had meanwhile brought in the guard trumpeter. The general tiptoed to the front of the room and whispered to the trumpeter; he went around to the other officers and softly spoke to them—with Majors Reno and Barrows alone standing indifferent and puzzled in the group. Edgerly closed the front door and the trumpeter retreated into the general's study. The rest of the officers had risen and were waiting Custer's signal.

Suddenly he cut his hand sharply down through the air, the trumpeter blasted boots and saddles into the room and the officers began to rush pell-mell for the door, shouting: "Sioux! Edgerly, get to your troop! They're attacking the back side! My God, they're coming down the hill by the hundreds!"

Custer yelled, "Where's my hat? Reno, take the first troops assembled—Weir—" Somebody yanked open the front door and rushed out, shouting back: "Hurry up!" and hard after that a gun cracked through the night.

Tom Custer came up from his chair in one bound, roused out of his peaceful catnap. Reacting with an old soldier's pure impulse, he made a headlong rush for the door. Three steps took him to the end of the clothesline, which snapped tight and cut his legs from beneath him. He fell in one flat, long-bodied crash, face flat on the floor.

Everybody yelled in terrific delight and even Reno permitted himself a smile. General Custer staggered to the nearest wall and laid himself against it, laughing so uncontrollably that tears rolled along his face. Mrs. Custer, in all this pandemonium, stood still and smiled her gentle smile while Tom Custer, the holder of two Congressional medals of honor, sat up in the middle of the floor and unhooked the clothesline from his boot. He shook his head, staring at all the convulsed shapes around him; he pointed a finger at the general and shook his head, and began to grin. "That was a frivolous kind of amusement. I damned near shook out my teeth."

The general drew a handkerchief from his pocket and wiped away his ribald tears. Major Barrows looked at his wife, who rose; and the two made their expressions of pleasure and departed. Edgerly brought around a rig for Josephine. Gradually the rest of the visitors said good night and went away until the general and his wife were alone.

Mrs. Custer moved upstairs, leaving the general to a restless back-and-forth pacing. He had his hands clasped behind him and now and then stopped to rearrange some object on the table, to change the location of a chair, to lift or lower one of the frayed window shades; and then resumed his nervous traveling. Presently he passed through the doorless arch into a room whose walls were crowded with animal heads, guns and Indian relics. Two large pictures looked down upon his desk; one was of McClellan—to whom he gave a loyalty he seldom gave any other man—and one was of himself in his flamboyant uniform. He sat down and picked up a pen, and sighed his dislike for the chore before him. But physical energy nagged at him and so in a moment he resumed the article he was writing on frontier life for an eastern magazine, sending the pen across the page in a rapid plunging scrawl.

He worked for an hour, tense and aggressive in this thing as he was in all things and abruptly stopped and sat back, listening to the faint scratches of sound coming through the lonely house. Taps blew and the guard call went around. He fidgeted in the chair and lifted his voice: "Libby!"

She descended the stairs, wrapped in an old blue robe, her hair done back for the night and her eyes sleepy.

"Libby," he said, "how can I write if you're not around?"

She smiled at him and settled in a chair, all curled in it, and watched him as he read what he had written; she watched his face, her eyes soft and affectionate, and when he had finished she said: "That's very good, Autie."

"Is it?" he asked, like a small boy, anxious for praise. "Is it any good?"

"Nothing you put your hand to is not good."

"Then," he said, "I shall send it, though the Lord knows why they should want to pay me two hundred dollars for it. It will help out on our next trip east, old lady."

"Yes," she said, absent-mindedly. Her thoughts were elsewhere; they revealed a half fear on her face. "Autie—all this talk of a campaign next summer—do you think it will come?"

"I expect so."

"Then I hope winter never passes," she said, suddenly intense.

"Libby," he said, "you were a little cool toward Reno tonight."

"It is not in my heart to be nice to anybody who is not your friend."

"Still, he's an officer of this regiment. We must show no favorites. We must be the same to all."

"I'll try," she murmured.

He smiled at her and rose and went around to her. He lifted her out of the chair and carried her around the rooms, her small protests coming against his chest: "Autie—let me down. Autie—"

"Blow out the lamps," he said, and lowered her by the tables while she blew; and in the darkness he carried her up the stairs. "Autie," she murmured, "I'm too old a woman for such romantic foolishness."

"You are a child," said he.

MAJOR BARROWS moved slowly down the walk with his wife, silent as he usually was, preoccupied by his own reflections. Margaret Barrows did not disturb them for she was engaged in thoughts of her own, and so the two reached the house assigned to them. The major lighted the lamp and stood a moment by it, his taciturn eyes observing the willow shape of his wife as she moved about the room, the luminous gravity of her face, the shining in her eyes.

"Pleasant evening," he said.

"Yes."

"Custer was indiscreet. He always is. Nothing saves him but a reputation for dash. That will not save him forever, unless he grows humbler than he is now."

She moved toward him and watched him with that strange expression which always deeply disturbed him; for he was not a stupid man and he knew the depths of his wife's nature, and struggled in his own way to satisfy the rich, racy current of vitality within her. But the stiffness of his nature was a hard thing to change, so that he knew he could not satisfy the romantic side of her character. It troubled him that she stood here now and wanted only some little display of ordinary affection, some word that would please her; and the best he could contrive was a stolid, "I think I'll finish my smoke on the porch. You're a beautiful woman, Margaret. I was conscious of that tonight." He bent forward and kissed her and straightened. She stood a moment longer, permitting him to see the iron control come to her again, and he knew he had failed. She said: "Good night," and went into the bedroom.

The major walked to the porch and sat down, hooking his feet to the rail; there to brood over the fragrance of his cigar. Lieutenant Smith and his wife strolled past, on the way to their own quarters. Mrs. Smith's musical voice came to him. "Good night, Major."

He said, "Good night," and watched the two move through the shadows. They were a well-matched couple, a very gay and companionable woman and a very handsome man; after several years of married life they were still close to each other. Some marriages were like that, he thought, in which the dispositions, the tastes and hungers of two people were so perfectly matched that the union was indestructible. It was an uncommon thing, and a beautiful thing to see, and it made him keenly feel his own failure. Life was mostly humdrum, drudgery and tedious hours stretched end on end; for him that was well enough but for his wife it was a kind of suffocation against which she fought. She needed brightness and drama and moments when her cry for beauty would be answered. He thought: "If I could play the gallant part, if I could go to her as a swashbuckling man and sweep her up and arouse her and stir her all through—" But he shook his head, knowing he was not that kind of man; even if he tried to play the part it would not come off. Some men were born for one thing, some for another. As he sat there thinking of this and knowing his wife's terrible need for some kind of release, he felt a tragic unhappiness for her.

Lieutenant Smith and his wife moved into their quarters and made ready for bed. Smith said: "That was strong meat Custer was serving up—that talk about graft and scandal. All true, every word of it, but he's on dangerous ground talking about it."

"He loves dangerous ground," said his wife. She sat on a chair scarred by repeated ownerships and changes of station, before a bureau made of scrap lumber by some trooper of the command. There was a mirror one foot square on the wall and into this she looked as she took down her hair. It was another threadbare room to match all the threadbare rooms along Officers' Row, with a dull neutral wallpaper pasted against the uneven walls. The floor was bare boards painted brown and at the windows hung those same green sun-cracked shades which were to be seen in all the quarters. One austere army rule covered these habitations: No house should be better than another house and no family was to have more comforts than another family. Therefore all quarters were shabby and mean and without grace, except as the small pocketbook of the officer could improve them. In the East these houses would have been tenements belonging near the railroad track.

"So he does," said Smith. He pulled off his shoes, removed his shirt, and sat back to enjoy a last fragment of his cigar.

"I never cease to think of that," said Mrs. Smith.

"What?"

"All of you—forty officers and eight hundred men—are in the hands of one impulsive commander. When he courts danger for himself, he courts it for you."

"That's the way of soldiering. You're old enough a campaigner by now to know it couldn't be otherwise."

"I'm old enough a campaigner to know that no commander has the right to take risks for the fun of it, or for personal glory, or for newspaper stories back east, or to show his enemies what a great soldier he is."

He looked at his wife with some surprise. "How long have you been thinking these things?"

"A long while."

"You shouldn't harbor them in your head. It's been a long stretch for you out here in this dreary nowhere. I should have sent you east last fall."

She looked at him, disturbed yet affectionate. "You know we couldn't afford it. If we could have, I wouldn't have gone without you. What fun would that be?"

"Well," he said, "it would have been nearer possible last year than now."

"Are we broke?"

He grinned, taking it an easy way. "Just more broke than usual. That last change of station set us back a lot in railroad fare." He thought about it a long interval, then sighed and said, "Maybe someday the government will be generous enough to pay for the transportation of an officer's wife when she follows her husband from post to post." Then he added, "Not that I'm complaining. We have had good times. We're healthy. We sleep well. We have few worries."

"And when you die," said Mrs. Smith with a touch of irony, "the government will even be generous enough to bury you without expense."

"Ah, now," he said, and grinned, "you get that out of your head, old girl."

She was not a woman to complain and not a woman to fret with him or to add to his worries; yet tonight a good many small things seemed to collect in her mind and make her restless.

"I heard the general speak of a campaign next spring. Is it that certain?"

"Looks so. Government has been sending expeditions out there year after year without results. The Sioux grow more discontented. The settlers become more insistent on opening the country. We've been hearing that government intends to order all Sioux back to their reservations permanently. The Sioux will not comply. I think we shall see a big campaign, intended to end the question once and for all."

She sat still, thinking of his words; and her face darkened and he saw worry he had not seen before. It made him say again, very regretfully: "I wish I'd sent you back east for a vacation."

"No," she said, "it isn't that. I can't help thinking of the general's temper. He would throw this regiment away, all in a moment of recklessness."

"He would be at the head of it when he threw it," Smith gently reminded her.

"I believe," she said, "you'd appreciate a campaign full of fighting."

He gave that a moment's consideration and arrived at his basic belief in the matter. "After a winter of garrison confinement, I'm always glad to be riding out. But after a summer of eating dust I'm always glad to come back. No, I think I prefer easy ways to hard ones. But that's scarcely the point, is it? The government has trained me to take the hard ways. We're not in the hands of Custer, old girl. We're all in the hands of our country."

She shrugged her shoulders and went to bed. Smith finished his cigar and walked through the house in his nightgown, blowing out the lights; and came beside his wife. He put his arm around her. "You're a little blue tonight."

"I wish," she whispered, "I knew what was troubling me. It is there, but I can't name it. Sometimes it is a lump in my stomach."

"Maybe we'd better have Porter give you a looking-over."

"You idiot," she said, "you know I'm healthy as a horse," and moved against him.

After leaving Shafter, the young trooper—Frank Lovelace—walked into the night, his desires setting a compass course toward Suds Row. He thought of Shafter in youth's instinctively admiring way. He was greatly impressed by the sergeant's coolness and quietness under strain and he wistfully wished that he might have the same kind of qualities. His age made him dream of great things; and his vivid imagination placed him in the sergeant's shoes, so that he saw himself equally cool and brave and triumphant. This was the world he made for himself, but he was young and therefore he was unsure, not knowing his capacities and secretly doubting himself.

He turned into Suds Row and passed along the row of small houses occupied by the married sergeants. He had been walking rapidly; now he dropped to a slow saunter and began to whistle. When he passed the house of Mary Mulrane, he gave the lighted window a swift sidewise glance and saw Mary's father, old Mulrane who was a sergeant major, bowed over a paper on the table. Young Lovelace continued his stroll to the end of the row and stood a moment listening to the Missouri lap at the base of the bluff. He turned back. Mulrane's door had opened, letting out a bright gush of light; it closed again and he felt dispirited. But when he came abreast the house he found Mary waiting.

He turned in and saw her face pale in the shadows; he touched her with his hand and he drew her smile. He stood still, a wonder and a wanting rushing through him and setting off the purest and most violent kind of flame, and he drew a long sigh and thought of nothing to say. He saw the way she held up her head and he thought he might kiss her; but he never had kissed her and he didn't want her to think the wrong thing about him. She waited, watching him, the smile steady on her face. Presently she came from the wall and slipped her hand into his hand and walked back down the row beside him.

He said: "It's cold tonight. Aren't you cold?"

"No. I'm not cold at all."

"I should think you would be."

"It's pretty tonight."

"Yes," he said. "The darkness just kind of stretches away. Like it was moving." They came to the edge of the bluff and he reached down and got a chunk of earth; he threw it and waited, and long afterwards heard it strike the river. He said: "The river's always going somewhere. I wish I could get in a row boat and just drift. Next week, Yankton. Then St. Louis. Then New Orleans."

She didn't answer him and he felt her somehow draw away from him. She didn't stir, but she wasn't as near him as she had been. He could feel it distinctly. Then she said: "Do you want to go that bad?"

"Oh," he said, "it isn't that. I'd just like to be doing something. I'd like to see the country."

"The girls in the South," she said, "are supposed to be very pretty."

"I wasn't thinking of that," he answered at once. "I'd like—" But he didn't know what it was. It was something formless; it pushed at him and it pulled at him, it filled him up.

"You're funny," she murmured.

He looked at her and saw her smiling again. She was near him, she was watching him closely. He said: "It's tough to just stand around when everything is happening everywhere. I've got three more years to serve. When I get out, what'll I be? Nothing at all."

She murmured: "I think you're something."

He looked at her, his pulse beating faster. He waited a long while, on the edge of what he wanted; he felt himself shoved toward it but he knew he never would take the chance of making her think he was another easy trooper. She made a little motion with her head and she looked away from him a moment and took his hand again, standing still. "I get lonely too, sometimes," she said, and turned her face toward him. Suddenly a kind of terror went through him for what he knew he was about to do, but he couldn't help it. He put one arm around her and saw that she didn't draw back. Her face was still near him and just below him. He put both arms around her and kissed her. He was trembling, he was hot, he was cold. He squeezed her until a sigh came out of her; he felt the heat and the urgent sweetness of her mouth and it astonished him to realize she held him as tightly as he held her. He felt her fingers at the back of his neck.

She stepped away, looked at him a moment; she dropped her head against his chest and continued to hold him. He heard her murmur:

"Did you mean that, Frank? It wasn't just something you'd do to any girl if you got the chance?"

"Oh, no," he said, shocked.

"I'm glad. I wouldn't let anybody else do it."

They heard Mulrane calling in his thick Irish voice: "Mary," and turned to see the sergeant blocked against the light of his open door. Mary Mulrane softly laughed and seized young Lovelace's hand and walked up the street with him. Young Lovelace felt the sergeant's hard eyes on him, and was embarrassed. But Mary held his hand so that her father could see it.

"Going out like that," said Mulrane, "in a cold night without a coat. Where is your mind awanderin'?"

"It isn't cold," said Mary.

"Ah," said the sergeant, "it isn't cold, is it?" And he grunted something under his breath. "You come in. And you, Lovelace, you had better get back before you're picked up by the rounds. Taps will be blowin'."

"Yes," said Lovelace and started up the street. He had gone a few feet when he heard Mary murmur something. In another few feet the sergeant's voice came after him. "Come to Sunday supper, Lovelace."

"Thanks," said Lovelace, and went on. The earth came up and struck his boots; but it was soft—the earth was—and it seemed to roll and sink with his weight. The air was fine and cold and full of fine smells and the night's sky sparkled with its diamond stars. He could not breathe enough; he could not feel enough. Taps broke as he entered the barrack. Tinney saw him and Tinney gave him an evil grin. "Pickin' up your washin' again? I saw Purple down that way tonight. Maybe he was pickin' up his laundry too."

Lovelace said, "Ah," and turned to his bunk. But after the lights were out he lay on the bunk and was racked by doubt, by a deep hate of Tinney and Purple. He thought: "I've got to learn to fight." He lay still and suffered.