Читать книгу The Call of the South - Robert Lee Durham - Страница 4

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The President had called upon the Governors for troops; and the brilliantly lighted armory was crowded with the citizen-soldiers who followed the standards of the 71st Ohio, waiting for the bugle to call them to order for the simple and formal ceremony of declaring their desire to answer the President's call.

A formal and useless ceremony surely: for it was a foregone conclusion that this gallant old regiment, with its heroic record in two wars, would volunteer to a man. It was no less certain that, presenting unbroken ranks of willing soldiers, it would be the first selected by the Governor to assist Uncle Sam's regulars in impressing upon the Kaiser the length and breadth and thickness of the Monroe Doctrine.

For many bothersome years the claimant nations had abided by the Hague Tribunal's award, though with evidently decreasing patience because of Venezuela's lame compliance with it. Three changes of government and dwindling revenues had made the collection of the indebtedness by the agent of the claimants more and more difficult. Finally on the 6th of January, 191-, Señor Emilio Mañana executed his coup d'état, overthrew the existing government, declared himself Protector of Venezuela, and "for the people of Venezuela repudiated every act and agreement of the spurious governments of the last decade," seized the customs, and gave the agent of the creditor allies his passports in a manner more effective than ceremonious: all of this with his weather eye upon the Monroe Doctrine and a Washington administration in some need of a rallying cry and a diverting issue.

The Kaiser's patience was exhausted, and his army and navy were in the pink of condition. On the 10th of January his ministers informed the allies that their most august sovereign would deal henceforth with Venezuela as might seem to him best to protect Germany's interests and salve the Empire's honour.

In less than a week the President sent to Congress a crisp message, saying that the Kaiser and the great doctrine were in collision. The Senate resolution declaring war was adopted after being held up long enough to permit fifty-one Senators to embalm their patriotism in the Congressional Record, and, being sent to the House, was concurred in in ten minutes after the clerk began to read the preamble.

The country was a-tremble with the thrill and excitement of a man who is preparing to go against an antagonist worthy of his mettle, and in the 71st's armory a crowd of people jammed the balconies to the last inch. The richly varicoloured apparel of the women, in vivid contrast to the sombre walls of the armory, the kaleidoscopic jumble and whirl of soldiers in dress uniforms on the floor, the frequent outbursts of hand-clapping and applause as favourite officers of the regiment were recognized by the galleries, the surging and unceasing din and hubbub of the shouting and gesticulating mass of people on floor and balcony, gave the scene a holiday air which really belied the feelings of the greater number both of soldiers and onlookers. There was a serious thought in almost every mind: but serious thoughts are not welcome at such times to a man who has already decided to tender his life to his country, nor to the woman who knows that she must say good-bye to him on the morrow. So they both try to overwhelm unwelcome reflections by excited chatter and patriotic enthusiasm. They will think of to-morrow when it comes: let the clamour go on.

On the very front seat and leaning over the balcony rail are seated three women who receive more than the ordinary number of salutes and greetings from the officers and men on the floor. Two young women and their mother they are, and any one of the three is worthy of a second glance by right of her looks. The mother, who, were it not for the becoming fulness of her matronly figure, might be mistaken for an elder sister of the older daughter, has a face in which strength and dignity and gentleness and kindliness and a certain air of distinction proclaim her a gentlewoman of that fineness which is Nature's patent of nobility. The older daughter is a young woman of eighteen years perhaps, inheriting her mother's distinction of manner and dignity of carriage, and showing a trace of hauteur, attributable to her youth, which is continually striving with a spirit of mischief for possession of her gray eyes and her now solemn, now laughing mouth. The younger daughter, hardly more than a child, has an undeveloped but fast ripening beauty which her sister cannot be said to possess. They have gray eyes and erect figures in common; but there the likeness ceases. The younger girl's mass of hair, impatient of its braids, looks black in the artificial light; but three hours ago, with the setting sun upon it, a stranger had thought it was red. Her skin indeed, where it is not tinted with rose, is of that rare whiteness which sometimes goes with red hair, but never unaccompanied by perfect health. She has been straining her eyes in search of some one since the moment she entered the gallery, and finally asks impatiently, "Why doesn't papa come out where we can see him? The people would shout for him, I know."

"Don't be a fidget," answers her sister in a low voice, "he will come presently;" and continues, "I declare, mamma, I believe Helen thinks all these soldiers are just for papa's glorification, and that if papa failed to volunteer the country would be lost."

"Well, there isn't any one to take his place in the regiment, for I heard Captain Elkhard say so."

"Captain Elkhard would except himself, I suppose, even though he thought like you that papa is perfection."

"Yes, and I suppose that you would except Mr. Second Lieutenant Morgan, wouldn't you? Humph! he is too young sort, too much like a lady-killer to be a soldier. I don't care if I do think papa is perfection. He is most—isn't he, mamma?"

A roar of applause drowns the mother's amused assent; and they look up to see this father, the colonel of the 71st, uncover for a moment to the noisy greeting whose vigour seems to stamp with approval his younger daughter's good opinion of him. In a moment a trumpet-call breaks through and strikes down and overwhelms all this clamour of applause, and there is no sound save the hurrying into ranks of the men on the floor. Then comes the confused shouting of a dozen roll-calls at once, the cracking of the rifle-butts on the floor, the boisterous counting of fours, a succession of sharp commands and trumpet-calls,—and the noise and confusion grow rapidly less until only is heard the voice of the adjutant as he salutes and presents the regiment in line of masses to the colonel, saying, "Sir, the regiment is formed."

A short command brings the rifles to the floor, and there is absolute quiet as every one waits to catch each word that its commander will say in asking the regiment to volunteer. But Colonel Phillips knows the value of the psychological moment and the part that emotion plays in patriotism, and he does not intend to lose a feather-weight of force in his appeal to the loyal spirits of his men. So he brings the guns again quickly to salute as the colour-guard emerge from an office door behind him, bearing "Old Glory" and the 71st's regimental colours; and, turning, he presents his sword as the field music sounds To the Colour and the bullet-torn standards sweep proud and stately to their posts in the centre battalion. This sudden and unexpected adaptation of the ceremony for The Escort of the Colour, which for lack of space is never attempted in the armory, is not without effect. The men in the ranks, being restrained, are bursting to yell. The onlookers, free to cheer, cannot express by cheap hand-clapping what wells up in them at sight of the flags, and they, too, are silent. When the rifle-butts again rest on the floor the Colonel begins his soldierly brief address:

"The President has asked the Governor for six regiments. While under the terms of their enlistment he could name any he might choose, he prefers volunteer soldiers as far as may be. So you are here this evening to indicate the extent of your willingness and wishfulness to answer the President's call. I need make no appeal to you. The 71st is a representative regiment in its personnel. Its men are of all sections and classes and parties. My mother was a South Carolinian, my father from Massachusetts. Your colour-sergeant is a Texan, and your regimental colours are borne by a native of Ohio, grandson of him who placed those colours on the Confederate earthworks at Petersburg. You in the aggregate most fitly represent the sentiment of the whole people of this union of states. This sentiment is a loyalty that has never to this moment failed to answer a call to arms. It is not to be supposed that the present generation is degenerate either in courage or patriotism. When the trumpet sounds forward the ranks will stand fast, and such as for any reason may not volunteer will fall out to the rear and retire."

At the lilting call there was silence for ten seconds, in which not a breath was taken by man or woman in the house: then the galleries broke out to cheer. Not a man had moved; though not a few felt as did Corporal Billie Catling, who remarked to his chum when the ranks were dismissed, "It's going to be devilish hard for my folks to get along without my salary; but to fall out to the rear when that bugle said 'forward'—damned if I could do it."

One of the most deeply interested spectators of the scene in the armory had stood back against the wall in the gallery during the whole time, and had apparently not wished to be brought into notice of the crowd, mostly women, packed in the limited gallery space. His goodly length enabled him to see over the heads of the other spectators everything of interest happening on the floor. A long overcoat could not conceal his perfectly developed outlines; and many heads were turned to look a second time at him, attracted both by his appearance and by the fact that he seemed to be an utter stranger to every one around him, not having changed his position nor spoken to a soul since coming up into the gallery. He was broad of shoulder, full-chested, straight-backed, with a head magnificently set on; and had closely cropped black hair showing a decided tendency to curl, dark eyes, evenly set teeth as white as a fox-hound's, a clean-shaved face neither full nor lean, and pleasing to look upon, a complexion of noticeable darkness, yet all but white and without a trace of colour. While nine-tenths of the people who saw him that evening had no impression at all as to his race or nationality, an observant eye would have noted that he was unobtrusively but unmistakably a negro.

He had been quite unconscious of anything around him in his absorbed interest in the ceremony below him. This manifest interest was evidenced by his nervous hands which he clinched and opened and shut as varying expressions of enthusiasm, resentment and disappointment, humiliation, disdain and determination came and went over his face. He, Hayward Graham, had applied to enlist in this regiment a month before, and had been refused admission because of the small portion of negro blood in his veins,—and that in a manner, too, that added unnecessary painfulness to the refusal. He rather despised himself for coming to witness the regiment's response to the call for troops, but his patriotic interest and his love for his friend Hal Lodge, who had loyally assisted his effort to enlist in the 71st, overcame his pride, and he had come to see the decision of Hal's enthusiastic wager that nine-tenths of the regiment would volunteer.

The first trumpet-call had stirred his enthusiasm, only to have it turned to chagrin and resentfulness when the roll-calls brought to him the realization that his name was not among the elect, and the black humiliation of the thought that he might not even offer to die for his country in this select company because he was part—so small a part—negro; and he gnawed his lips in irritation. But when the flags had come in so suddenly—he involuntarily straightened up and took in his breath quickly to relieve the smothering sensation in his throat, and forgot his wrongs in an exaltation of patriotic fervour.

He stood abstracted for some time after the outflow from the galleries began, and came down just behind the three women of the Colonel's family. At the foot of the stairs Lieutenant Morgan met the party and said, "Mrs. Phillips, the Colonel told me to bring you ladies over to his office."

"So that's the Colonel's wife and daughters," thought Graham, as he passed out into the street. "Where have I seen that little one?"