Читать книгу Trumpeter Fred: A Story of the Plains - King Charles, Various - Страница 2

IT was while stationed at old Fort Sanders that Waller's enthusiastic devotion to his new captain and his captain's family began. The former troop commander was ordered to the retired list, broken down by wounds, and the senior lieutenant stepped into his place. Waller bade farewell to his old captain with tear-dimmed eyes – they had served together for over fifteen years – and with much inward misgiving, but not the faintest outward show thereof, saluted the new arrival, a young officer but a soldier through and through; it was not a week before the sergeant had fully satisfied himself as to that. Presently the new captain's family reached the fort and took up their abode; a fair-haired, blue-eyed young mother with two children, a boy and a girl, the eldest being three years younger than Fred; and then began another and strong interest.

That very winter scarlet fever devastated the fort. Few children escaped the scourge. There were a dozen little graves in the cemetery out on the prairie when the long winter came to an end. There were two or three larger graves, and one of these held all that was mortal of Fred's loving mother; he and his stern, sad-faced father were now alone in the world.

And Captain Charlton's little household had not been spared. It was among the officers' quarters that the pestilence had first appeared. Frank and Florence Charlton were among the children earliest stricken. The servants fled the house, as frontier servants will, and their place was promptly supplied by Mrs. Waller. She and her husband would listen to no remonstrance, and Mrs. Charlton, overwhelmed with care and dread, was only too glad to have the strong, cheery army woman's help. Over the little brown cottage the shadow of death hovered for days before it was lifted and borne away, and when at last all danger was over and all was again all hope and peace the sergeant's wife went back to her own humble roof across the parade, and there suddenly sickened and died. When the scourge was finally swept from the garrison and the soft winds began to blow from the South, the stricken old soldier was glad of the chance to go with his troop into the field-service, and was almost happy in one thing. Mrs. Charlton had taken his boy as one of her own, and each day she was teaching him faithfully and well. When the troop rode away from Sanders Fred was left behind to occupy a little room under the captain's roof. "Remember, sir, you are sergeant of the guard, and that house and that household are your special charge for all summer long," were Waller's parting words to his boy.

Regularly as the mail reached the troop during its summer scouting Captain Charlton's home missives had their messages for Sergeant Waller; and soon, to his unspeakable joy, letters all his own, addressed in a round boyish hand that grew firmer every week, began to come as his share of the welcome package. Never would he presume to ask for news, yet the captain was not slow to notice how old Waller was sure to be busy close at hand when the home letters came, and prompt to answer, and with soldierly salute to stand erect before his young commander and strive not to show the pride and delight that tingled in every vein at the glowing words in which Mrs. Charlton told of his boy's rapid progress and his devotion to her and the children. His lip would quiver uncontrollably and his eyes fill; his hand might tremble as it touched the brim of his scouting hat, but the salute was precise as ever.

"I thank the captain, and beg to thank the captain's kind lady," was his invariable formula on such occasions. "I hope the boy will always do his duty."

And then he would face about and stride away with his head very high in the air and his eyes blinking hard, and almost immediately his voice would be heard sternly berating some trooper whose horse had tangled himself in his lariat, or whose "kit" was not stowed in proper shape about the saddle. It was his way of striving to hide the joy those messages brought him, and the men were quick to see through it all, and little "Reddy" Mulligan, reprimanded for the third time within a fort-night, started a laugh all through the bivouac by his whimsical protest:

"It's more good news you've been getting from Fred, sergeant, dear; isn't it now? Faith, I wish he'd play ye a thrick wanst in a while, like other byes. Maybe thin I'd be mintioned to the captain for a corporalship." And for once the veteran turned his back on the laughing troop conscious of defeat.

In '74 old Waller changed the yellow stripes and diamond of the first sergeantcy for the crimson and the star of the ordnance, and the troopers, one and all, said good-by to him with infinite regret. Perhaps Dawson, who was next in rank, may be excepted. He confidently expected to be promoted in Waller's place. But though a dashing soldier and a smart non-commissioned officer, he was not the stanch, reliable man the captain needed, and proved it by celebrating Waller's promotion in a very boisterous and unseemly manner. It was plain that he had been drinking heavily, and though Captain Charlton saved him from arrest and court-martial he would not promote him, and plainly, though privately, told him why. The troop knew it was for this reason, but Dawson swore it was all on account of Waller's influence against him when Sergeant Graham was named in regimental orders as the old veteran's successor.

That same summer, with firm hand and glistening eyes, Waller signed his consent to the enlistment of his son as trumpeter in the old troop. How he watched the boy's glowing face as the oath of enlistment, so often lightly spoken, was solemnly repeated, and Fred was bound to the service of his country. How he trembled from head to foot when, but a few weeks afterward and in the dead of night, Charlton and his men hurried forth to intercept a band of Indians who had swooped down upon the herders south of Laramie Peak. Waller could hardly buckle the cantle-straps of Fred's saddle as the little fellow, all eagerness, was bustling about his horse in the dim light of the stable lanterns. Yet when the captain and Lieutenant Rayburn came trotting briskly down the roadway and the men were silently "leading into line," it was the old sergeant's hand that grasped the boy's left foot and swung him lightly into his seat.

"Whatever happens, sir, mind you keep close to the captain," was his parting injunction to his boy. Then his heels came together with the old cavalry "click" and his twitching fingers were stiffened as they went suddenly up in salute to Mr. Rayburn, who bent down from his saddle to say that they would try and take good care of Fred. But Waller answered:

"I thank the lieutenant. The boy is a soldier now, sir. He must take his chances with the rest." Then with one lingering clasp of the trumpeter's hand, "Join your captain," he ordered, and turned away into the darkness.

But the sentry on No. 6 bore witness to the fact that the ordnance sergeant never went to bed again all that night, and the men sent to unload and store the ammunition that came next day from Rock Island Arsenal declared that old Waller was gruffer than ever. All the next night too, he was awake, waiting, watching for tidings from the North. Nothing came until sunset of the second day, just as the whole command was turning out for retreat parade, and then Corporal Rock rode in with dispatches and trotted straight to where the commanding officer was standing in front of the adjutant's office. All eyes were upon him as he threw himself from the saddle and handed the packet to the colonel. Half a dozen officers hastened to join their commander as he tore it open. The piazzas of the officers' quarters were quickly alive with ladies and children, breathlessly eager to hear the news. The colonel's orderly was seen hastening to the surgeon's house – that looked ominous – then Rock remounted; trotted to Captain Charlton's gate, where Mrs. Charlton was tremblingly awaiting him. "It's all right, ma'am," he hastened to say. "Leastwise the captain's safe, but Mulligan is shot – and Ryan and Sergeant Frazer." She hurried in the house with the precious letter he placed in her hands, and while several ladies hastened to join her, the messenger returned to the office.

All this while Sergeant Waller had stood like a statue under the tall white flag-staff where the non-commissioned staff assembled at retreat, watching every move with dry, aching eyes, and a face gray as his mustache.