Читать книгу Captain Jinks, Hero - Ernest Howard Crosby - Страница 17

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ARIAN Hunter was, as we have already surmised, a lady of experience. She was possessed, as is not uncommonly the case with young ladies at East Point, of an uncontrollable passion for things military. Manhood and brass buttons were with her interconvertible terms, and the idea of uniting her young life to a plain civilian seemed to her nothing less than shocking. The pleasures of her first two or three summers at East Point and of her first half-dozen engagements had partaken of the bliss of heaven. The engagements had never been broken off, they had simply dissolved one into the other, and she had felt herself rising from step to step in happiness. Naturally her conquests filled her with a supreme confidence in her charms. She was not especially fickle by nature, but she discovered that a first-class cadet, particularly if he was an officer and had black feathers in his full-dress hat, was far more attractive to think of than a supernumerary second lieutenant assigned to duty in some Western garrison. Gradually, however, she found herself less certain of winning whom she would. The competition of young girls some two or three years her junior became threatening. She was obliged to give up cadet officers for privates, and then first-class privates for third-class privates, as the hotel waiter had explained to Sam. At the time of Sam's arrival at the Point she was having more difficulty than ever before, and she became thoroughly frightened. She took up with Saunders because he alone came her way, but the engagement was a poor makeshift, and she could not get up any enthusiasm over it. She could hardly pretend to be in love with him, and she felt conscious that she had a foolish prejudice in favor of straight noses. What was she to do? If she was to marry at all in the army—and how could she marry anywhere else?—she must soon make up her mind. Her experience now stood her in good stead. Had she not seen these very first-class cadet officers only three years before as mere despised "beasts," doing all kinds of drudgery for their oppressors? Had she not seen her fiancé, Saunders, himself, a short twelvemonth ago, with nose intact, slinking like a pariah about the post? She had learned the lesson which the younger girls had yet to learn, that from these unpromising chrysalises the most gorgeous butterflies emerge, and like a wise woman she began to study the fourth class. Sam stood out from his fellows, not indeed as supremely handsome, altho he was not bad-looking, but rather as the soldier par excellence of his class. Marian was an expert in judging the points of a soldier, and she saw at once that he was the coming man. She could not make his acquaintance or speak to him, but she could smile and thus lay the foundations of success for next year. It would be easy thus to reach the heart of a lonely "beast." And she smiled to a purpose, and it was that smile that won the untried affections of Sam Jinks.

When June at last came and the new fourth-class men began to arrive, Sam felt a new life surge into his soul. For a year he had been duly meek and humble, for such it behooved a fourth-class man to be. Now, however, he began to entertain a measureless pride, such being the proper frame of mind of a man in the upper classes. He watched the hotel sedulously to learn when Miss Hunter had made her appearance. One morning he saw her, and she smiled more distinctly than ever. He knew that his felicity was only a short way off. He must wait two weeks until the graduation ball and the departure of the old first class; then he could undertake to supplant the absent Saunders, who probably knew the history of Miss Hunter and was not unprepared for his fate.

Meanwhile great events had occurred, and thrown East Point into a state of excitement. The country was at war. Congress had determined to free the downtrodden inhabitants of the Cubapine Islands from the tyranny of the ancient Castalian monarchy. A call for volunteers had been issued, and the graduating cadets were to be hurried to the seat of war. During this agitation news arrived of a great naval victory. The mighty Castalian fleet had been annihilated with great loss of life, while the conquerors had not lost a man and had scarcely interrupted their breakfast in order to secure this crushing triumph. It was in the midst of such reports as these that the susceptible hearts of Sam Jinks and Marian Hunter came together. The graduating class had gone, and Sam had for two days been a full third-class man. For the first time he had occupied the front rank at dress-parade, and seen clearly the officer in command, the adjutant flitting about magnificently, the band parading up and down and turning itself inside out around the towering drum-major, the line of spectators behind, the bright faces and gay parasols, and among them the black eyes of Marian looking unmistakably at him. When at the end of the parade the company officers marched up to salute and the companies were dismissed, Sam saw a member of the new first class talking to her. He was now on an equality with all the cadets, and he boldly advanced and asked for an introduction. At last he had her hand in his, and as he pressed it rather harder than the occasion warranted, he felt his pressure returned. Sam's fate was sealed. He made no formal proposal, it was unnecessary. The engagement was a thing taken for granted. It was a novel experience for Marian as well as for Sam, as now for the first time she meant business. It is impossible in cold ink to reproduce the ecstasies of those many hours on Flirtation Walk, during which Sam opened his heart. For the first time in his life he had found a person as deeply interested in military matters as he was, and as much in love with military glory. He told her his whole history, including the lead soldiers and the Boys' Brigade. He laid bare to her his ambition to be a perfect soldier—a hero. He told her how disappointed he was to find no other cadet so completely wrapped up in his profession as he was, and how in her alone he had now realized his ideal not only of womanhood, but also of appreciation of the soldier's career. He rehearsed the thrilling experiences of hazing, and went over the fight in detail and told her how Saunders had brought it about.

"The horrid wretch!" she exclaimed, throwing her arms about his neck and kissing him. "I'm so glad they didn't break your nose."

"Are you really?" he asked, and as he read the truth in her eyes a weight was rolled from his soul.

He showed her the little lead officer with the plume, which he always carried as a mascot in his breast-pocket, and also the two hazing photographs which kept it company. She was delighted with them all.

"Oh! you will be a hero," she cried. "I am sure of it, and what a time we shall have of it, you dear thing!"

With his spare time thus occupied Sam did not see much of Cleary, who now shared another tent. One afternoon late in September he was on the way to the gate of the hotel grounds where he was accustomed to wait until Miss Hunter came out and joined him, when Cleary called him aside.

"Sam," he said, "I've got something of importance to say to you. Can't you come with me now?"

"Can't," said Sam. "Miss Hunter's waiting for me."

"Well, then, beg off to-morrow afternoon. I must have a long talk with you."

"All right," answered Sam reluctantly. "If I must, I must, I suppose."

The next day found Sam and Cleary walking alone in the woods engaged in deep conversation.

"Sam, what would you say to going to the war?" asked Cleary.

"I'd give anything to go!" exclaimed Sam.

"You wouldn't want to stay on account of that girl of yours?"

"No, indeed; she would be the first to want me to go."

"Then why don't you go?"

"How can I?" said Sam. "We've got three more years here. That ties us down for that time, and by the time that's over the war will be over too."

"That's what I think, and I'm sick of this place anyhow. I'm going to resign."

"Resign!" cried Sam. "Resign and give up your career!"

"Not altogether, old man. Don't get so excited. What's the use of staying here? We'll get sent off to some out-of-the-way post when we graduate, and perhaps we'll get to be captains before our hair is white, and perhaps we shan't; and then if a war breaks out we'll have volunteers young enough to be our sons made brigadiers over our heads. Aren't they doing it every day? I'm not going to waste my life that way. I want to go to the war now, and I mean to go as a newspaper correspondent."

"Oh, Cleary!" exclaimed Sam reproachfully.

"Tut, tut, Sam. You're not up to date. We've got no field-marshals in our army and the newspaper correspondents take their place. Their names are better known than the generals, and they advertise each other and get a big share of the glory; and then they can always decently step aside when they've got enough. They needn't stay on the fighting-line, and that's a consideration. No, I'm sick of ordinary soldiering, but I'm willing to be a field-marshal. My father has an interest in the Metropolitan Daily Lyre, and I've written to him for an appointment as correspondent in the Cubapines. What I've learned here will help me a lot. But I want you to go with me."

"Me? Go with you? Do you think I'd be a newspaper correspondent?"

"No, of course not. It never entered my head. But why don't you get a commission in the volunteers from your uncle? He can get just what he wants, and they're talking of him for Secretary of War. All you've got to do is to resign here and apply for a commission as colonel. Then you'll probably land as a major, or a captain at any rate. By the time the war is over, you'll be a general, if I know you, and then you can be appointed captain in the regular army on retiring from the volunteers, when our class is just graduating. You're just made for a successful soldier. You've got the ambition and the courage, and you've got just the brains for a soldier. You don't want to remain a lieutenant until you are fifty, do you?"

There was great force in Cleary's argument, and Sam knew it. East Pointers were scandalized at the manner in which outsiders were jumped into important commands in the field, and when engagements took place the volunteers came in for all the praise, while the regulars who did almost all the work were hardly mentioned.

"I'll think it over," said Sam. "I'll speak to Marian about it. It's very kind of you to think of me."

"Not a bit," said Cleary. "I'm looking out for myself. If you go as a major and I go as correspondent, I'll just freeze to you and make a hero of you whether you will or not. I'll make your fortune, and you'll make mine. I'll see that you get a chance, and I know that you'll take it if you get it. You're just cut out for it. Now get permission from the young woman and we'll call it a go."

The following afternoon Sam walked over the same ground, but this time it was Marian who accompanied him. She was enthusiastic over Cleary's proposition.

"Just think of it! You'll come back a hero and a general, and I don't know what not, and we'll get married, and the President will come to the wedding; and then we'll have our wedding tour up here, and the corps will turn out and fire a salute, and we'll be the biggest people at East Point. Won't it be splendid?"

"Perhaps, dear, I'll never come back at all. Who knows? I may get killed."

"Oh, Sam! if you did, how proud I'd be of it. I'd wear black for a whole year, and they'd put up a monument to you over there in the cemetery and have a grand funeral, and I'd be in the first carriage, and the flag would be draped, and the band would play the funeral march. Oh, dear! how grand it would be, and how all the girls would envy me!"

Tears came to her eyes as she spoke.

"Just think of being the fiancée of a hero who died for his country! Oh, Sam, Sam!"

Sam took her in his arms.

"You're my own brave soldier's wife," he said. "I'd be almost ready to die for you, but if I don't, I'll come back and marry you. I'll write to uncle for a commission to-night, and ask his advice about resigning here either now or later. It hardly seems true that I may really go to a real war." And his tears fell and mingled with hers.

Sam's uncle fell in readily with Cleary's scheme. He was a politician and a man of the world, and he saw what an advantage it would be for his nephew to seek promotion in the volunteers, and how much a close friend among the war correspondents could help him. Furthermore, he had heard of Sam's excellent record at East Point and was disposed to lend him what aid could be derived from his influence with the Administration. When Sam's father learned that his brother approved of the project, he offered no objection, and a few weeks after Cleary had broached the subject, both of the young men sent in their resignations, and these were accepted. Cleary left at once for the metropolis to perfect his plans, while Sam remained for a few days at the Point to bid farewell to his betrothed. His uncle had at once sent in his name to the War Department as a candidate for colonel of volunteers with letters of recommendation from the most influential men at the Capital. While Sam was still at East Point he saw in the daily paper that his name had been sent in to the Senate as captain of volunteers with a long list of others, and almost immediately he received a telegram from his uncle announcing his confirmation without question. On the same morning came a letter from Cleary telling him to come at once to town and make the final arrangements before receiving orders to join his regiment. We shall draw a veil over the last interview between Sam and Marian. She was proficient in the art of saying farewell, and nothing was lacking on this occasion to contribute to its romantic effect. They parted in tears, but they were tears of hope and joy.

Cleary met Sam at the station in the city and took him to a modest hotel.

"It's going to be bigger thing than I thought," he said, as they sat down together for a good talk in the hotel lobby, after Sam had made himself at home in his room. "I'm going to run a whole combination. I've got in with a man who's a real genius. His name's Jonas. He represents the brewers' trust, and he's going out to start saloons with chattel mortgages on the fixtures. It's a big thing by itself. But then besides that he's got orders to apply for street-railroad franchises wherever he can get them, and he is going to start agencies to sell typewriters and bicycles and some patent medicines, and I don't know what else. You see he wanted to represent the Consolidated Press as a sort of business agent, and The Daily Lyre belongs to the Consolidated, and that's the way I came across him. The fact is he represents pretty much all the capital in the country. It's a big combination. I'll boom him and you, and you'll help us, and then we can get in on the ground floor with him in anything we like. It's a good outlook, isn't it, hey? Have you got your commission yet?"

"No," said Sam, "not yet. My uncle wants me to come and spend a few days with him at Slowburgh to make my acquaintance, and the commission will go there. I'm to be in the 200th Volunteer Infantry. I don't quite understand all your plans, but I hope I'll get a chance at real fighting for our country, and I should like to be a great soldier. You know that, Cleary."

"Yes, old man, I know it, and you will be, if courage and newspapers can do it. I'm sorry you didn't get a colonelcy, but captain isn't bad, and we'll skip you up to general in no time. You've always wanted to be a hero, haven't you? Well, the first chance I get I'll nickname you 'Hero' Jinks, and it'll stick, I'll answer for it!"

"Oh! thank you," said Sam.

"Now, good-by. I'll come in for you to-morrow and take you in to see our war editor. He's a daisy. So long."

When on the morrow Sam was ushered into the den of the war editor, he was surprised to see what a shabby room it was. The great man was sitting at a desk which was almost hidden under piles of papers, letters, telegrams, and memoranda. The chairs in the room were equally encumbered, and he had to empty the contents of two of them on the floor before Sam and Cleary could sit down.

"Ah, Captain Jinks, glad to see you!" he said.

Sam beamed with delight. It was the first time that he had heard his new title—a title, in fact, to which he had as yet no right.

"I suppose Mr. Cleary has explained to you," the editor continued, "what our designs are. Editing isn't what it used to be. It has become a very complicated business. In old times we took the news as it came along, and that was all that was expected of us; but if we tried that way of doing things now, we'd have to shut up shop in a week. When we need news nowadays we simply make it. I don't mean that we invent news—that doesn't pay in the long run; people learn your game and you lose in the end. No, I mean that we create the events that make the news. We were running short of news last year, that's the whole truth of it; and so we got up this war. It's been a complete success. We've quadrupled our circulation, and it's doubling every month. We're well ahead of the other papers because it's known as our war, and of course we are expected to know more about it than anybody else."

"But I thought the war was to free the oppressed Cubapinos—an outburst of popular sympathy with the downtrodden sufferers from Castalian misrule," interposed Sam, flushing. "That's the reason why I applied for a commission, and I am ready to pour out my last drop of blood for my country."

"Of course you are, my dear captain; of course you are. And your ideas of the cause of the war, as a military man, are quite correct. Indeed, if you will read my editorial of yesterday you will see the same ideas developed at some length."

He pressed an electric button on his desk, and a clerk entered.

"Get me a copy of yesterday's paper."

In a moment it was brought; the editor opened it, marked an article with a dash of his blue pencil, and handed it to Sam.

"There," said he, "put that in your pocket and read it. I am sure that you will agree with every word of it. Your understanding of the situation does great credit to your insight. That is, if I may use the term, the esoteric side of the question. It is only on the external and material side that it is really a Daily Lyre's war. There's really no contradiction, none at all, as you see."

"Oh! none at all," said Sam, with a sigh of relief. "I never quite understood it before, and you make it all so clear!"

"Now you will be prepared by what I have said to comprehend that it's just in this line of creating the news beforehand that we want to make use of you, and at the same time it will be the making of you, do you see?"

"Not quite," said Sam. "How do you mean?"

"Why, we understand that you're a most promising military man and that you intend to distinguish yourself. Suppose you do, what good will it do, if nobody ever hears of it? Doesn't your idea of heroism include a certain degree of appreciation?"

"Yes."

"Of publicity, I may say?"

Sam nodded assent.

"Or even in plain newspaper talk, of advertising?"

"I shouldn't quite like to be advertised," said Sam uneasily.

"That's a rather blunt word, I confess; but when you do some fine exploit, you wouldn't mind seeing it printed in full in the papers that the people at home read, would you?"

"No-o-o, not exactly; but then I should only want you to tell the truth about it."

"Of course; I know that, but there are lots of ways of telling the truth. We might put it in at the bottom of an inside page and give only a stick to it, or we might let it have the whole first page here, with your portrait at the top and headlines like that"; and he showed him a title in letters six inches long. "You'd prefer that, wouldn't you?"

"I'm afraid I would," said Sam.

"Well, if you didn't you'd be a blamed fool, that's all I've got to say, and we wouldn't care to bother about you."

"I'm sure it's very good of you to take me up," said Sam. "Why do you select me instead of one of the great generals at the front?"

"Why, don't you see? You wouldn't make a practical newspaper man. The people are half tired of the names of the generals already. They want some new names. It's our business to provide them. Then all the other newspapers are on the track of the generals. We must have a little hero of our own. When General Laughter or General Notice do anything, all the press of the country have got hold of them. They've got their photographs in every possible attitude and their biographies down to the last detail, and pictures of their birthplaces and of their families and ancestors, and all the rest of it. We simply can't get ahead of them, and people are beginning to think that it's not our war after all. When we begin to boom you, they'll find out that we've got a mortgage on it yet. We'll have the stuff all ready here to fire off, and no one else will have a word. It'll be the greatest beat yet, unless Mr. Cleary is mistaken in you and you are not going to distinguish yourself."

"I don't think he is mistaken," said Sam solemnly. "I do intend to distinguish myself if I get the chance."

"And we'll see that you have the chance. It's a big game we're playing, but we hold the cards and we don't often lose. You're not the only card, to be sure. We've got a lot of men at the front now representing us. Several of our correspondents have made a hit already, and some of them have made themselves more famous than the generals! Ha, ha! Our head editor is going out next month, and of course we'll see to it that he does wonders. Hullo! there's Jonas now. Why, this is a lucky meeting. Here, Jonas. You know Cleary. Mr. Jonas, Captain Jinks. I'll be blessed if here isn't the whole combination."

Mr. Jonas, who had come into the room unannounced, and perched himself on the corner of a table, was a rather short man with a brown beard and eye-glasses, and wore his hat on the back of his head.

"Well, Jonas, how are things going?" asked the editor.

"A 1. Couldn't be better. I've just been down at Skinner's——"

"Skinner & Company, one of the biggest financial houses in the street," the editor explained to Sam.

"And they've agreed to go the whole job. First of all, it'll be chiefly trade. I showed them the contracts for boots and hats for the army, and they were tickled to death. They'll let us have as much as we want on them. I didn't have the embalmed-beef contract with me—it smells too bad to carry round in my pocket, hee-hee!—but I explained it to them, and it's even better. They're quite satisfied."

"And how is the beer business going?"

"Oh! that's a success already. Look at this item," and he pulled a newspaper from his pocket and showed it to the editor.

"One hundred more saloons in Havilla than there were at this time last year! Can that be possible?" ejaculated the latter.

"Yes, and I'm behind fifty-eight of them. That agent I sent out ahead is a jewel."

"Have you been up at the Bible Society?"

"Yes, and I've got special terms on a hundred thousand Testaments in Castalian and the native languages. That will awaken interest, you see, and then we'll follow it up with five hundred thousand in English, and it will do no end of good in pushing the language. It will be made the official language soon, anyway. What a blessing it will be to those poor creatures who speak languages that nobody can understand!"

"How is the rifle deal coming out?"

"Only so-so. The Government will take about three-quarters of the lot. The rest we'll have to unload on the Cubapinos."

"What!" exclaimed Sam, "aren't they fighting against us now?"

"Oh! we don't sell them direct of course," added Jonas, "but we can't alter the laws of trade, can we? And they require that things get into the hands of the people who'll pay the most for them, hey?"

"Naturally," said the editor. "Captain Jinks has not studied political economy. It's all a matter of supply and demand."

"I'm ashamed to say I haven't," said Sam. "It must be very interesting, and I'm much obliged to you for telling me about it."

"I suppose it's too early to do anything definite about concessions for trolleys and gas and electric-lighting plants," said the editor.

"Not a bit of it. That's what I went to see Skinner about to-day. I'm sounding some of the chief natives already, and our people there are all right. Skinner's lawyers are at work at the charters, and I'll take them out with me. We can put them through as soon as we annex the islands."

"But we promised not to annex them!" cried Sam.

The editor and Jonas looked knowingly at each other.

"The captain is not a diplomatist, you see," said the former. "As for that matter, a soldier oughtn't to be. You understand, Captain, that all promises are made subject to the proviso that we are able to carry them out."

"Certainly."

"Now it's perfectly clear that we can never fulfil this promise. It is our destiny to stay there. It would be flying in the face of Providence and doing the greatest injury to the natives to abandon them. They would fly at each other's throats the moment we left them alone."

"They haven't flown at each other's throats where we have left them alone," mused Sam aloud.

"I didn't say they had, but that they would," explained the editor.

"Oh! I see," said Sam, and he relapsed into silence.

"Talking of electric lights," continued Jonas, "I've got a book here full of all sorts of electric things that we'll have to introduce there. There's the electrocution chair; look at that design. They garrote people in the most barbarous manner out there now. We'll civilize them, if we get a chance!"

"Perhaps they won't have the money to buy all your things," remarked Cleary, who had been a silent and interested spectator of the interview.

"Yes," said Jonas, "we may have trouble with the poorest tribes. We must make them want things, that's all. The best way to begin is to tax them. I've got a plan ready for a hut-tax of five dollars a year. That's little enough, I should think, but some of them never see money and they'll have to work to get it. That will make them work the coal-and iron-mines. Skinner has his eye on these, too. When the natives once begin to earn money, they'll soon want more and then they'll spend it on us."

"But the Government there will be too poor to take up great public expenditures for a long time yet," said Cleary.

"Don't be too sure of that. They haven't even got a national debt. That's one of the first things we'll provide for. They're a most primitive people. Just think of their existing up to the present time without a national debt! They're mere savages."

"Well," said Cleary, rising, "I think we've taken enough of your valuable time and we must be off."

"Wait a moment," said the editor. "Have you explained all that I told you to the captain?"

"Not yet," answered Cleary, "but I'll do it now on the way to his hotel. He is going to leave town to-day, and he may be ordered to sail any day now. I will try to go on the same ship with him."

"Perhaps I can manage it, too," said Jonas, as he shook hands with the two friends, "if I can finish up all these arrangements. I must be on the ground there as soon as I can."

As Sam and Cleary left the room the editor and Jonas settled down to a confidential conversation, and there were smiles upon their lips as they began talking.