“Fair,” drawled Craig, bolting an unchewed segment and choking a little. “How’s the twist?”
“Fine,” said Alden; “tastes like stable-sweepings.”
They smiled at each other across the stream.
“Sa-a-y,” drawled Craig with his mouth full, “when yew’re out of twist, jest yew sing out, sonny.”
“All right,” replied Alden. He stretched back in the shadow of a sycamore and watched Craig with pleasant eyes.
Presently Connor had a bite and jerked his line into the air.
“Look yere,” said Craig, ‘that ain’t no way foh to ketch ‘red-horse.’ Yew want a ca’tridge on foh a sinker, sonny.”
“What’s that?” inquired Connor suspiciously.
“Put on a sinker.”
“Go on, Connor,” said Alden.
Connor saw him smoking and sniffed anxiously. Alden tossed him the twist, telling him to fill his pipe.
Presently Connor found a small pebble and improvised a sinker. He swung his line again into the muddy current with a mechanical sidelong glance to see what Craig was doing, and settled down again on his haunches, smoking and grunting.
“Enny news, Alden?” queried Craig after a silence.
“Nothing much — except that Richmond has fallen,” grinned Alden.
“Quit foolin’,” urged the Southerner; “ain’t thar no news?”
“No. Some of our men down at Long Pond got sick eating catfish. They caught them in the pond. It appears you Johnnys used the pond as a cemetery, and our men got sick eating the fish.”
“That so?” grinned Craig; “too bad. Lots of yewr men was in Long Pond, too, I reckon.”
In the silence that followed, two rifle-shots sounded faint and dull from the distant forest.
“‘Nother great Union victory,” drawled Craig. “Extry! extry! Richmond is took!”
Alden laughed and puffed at his pipe.
“We licked the boots off of the 30th Texas last Monday,” he said.
“Sho!” exclaimed Craig. “What did you go a lickin’ their boots for? — blackin’?”
“Oh, shut up!” said Connor from the bank, “I can’t ketch no fish if you two fools don’t quit jawin’.”
The sun was dipping below the pine-clad ridge, flooding river and wood with a fierce radiance. The spruce needles glittered, edged with gold; every broad green leaf wore a heart of gilded splendour, and the muddy waters of the river rolled onward like a flood of precious metal, heavy, burnished, noiseless.
From a balsam bough a thrush uttered three timid notes; a great gauzy-winged grasshopper drifted blindly into a clump of sun-scorched weeds, click! click! cr-r-r-r!
“Purty, ain’t it,” said Craig, looking at the thrush. Then he swallowed the last morsel of muddy hard-tack, wiped his beard on his cuff, hitched up his trousers, took off his green glasses, and rubbed his eyes.
“A he-cat-bird sings purtier though,” he said with a yawn.
Alden drew out his watch, puffed once or twice, and stood up, stretching his arms in the air.
“It’s four o’clock,” he began, but was cut short by a shout from Connor.
“Gee-whiz!” he yelled, “what have I got on this here pole!”
The ramrod was bending, the line swaying heavily in the current.
“It’s four o’clock, Connor,” said Alden, keeping a wary eye on Craig.
“That’s all right!” called Craig; “the time’s extended till yewr friend lands that there fish!”
“Pulls like a porpoise,” grunted Connor, “damn it! I bet it busts my ramrod!”
“Does it pull?” grinned Craig.
“Yes, — a dead weight!”
“Don’t it jerk kinder this way an’ that,” asked Craig, much interested.
“Naw,” said Connor, “the bloody thing jest pulls steady.”
“Then it ain’t no ‘red-horse,’ it’s a catfish!”
“Huh!” sneered Connor,—” don’t I know a catfish? This ain’t no catfish, lemme tell yer!”
“Then it’s a log,” laughed Alden.
“By gum! here it comes,” panted Connor; “here, Alden, jest you ketch it with my knife, — hook the blade, blame ye!”
Alden cautiously descended the red bank of mud, holding on to roots and branches, and bent over the water. He hooked the big-bladed clasp knife like a scythe, set the spring, and leaned out over the water.
“Now!” muttered Connor.
An oily circle appeared upon the surface of the turbid water, — another and another. A few bubbles rose and floated upon the tide.
Then something black appeared just beneath the bubbles and Alden hooked it with his knife and dragged it shoreward, It was the sleeve of a man’s coat.
Connor dropped his ramrod and gaped at the thing: Alden would have loosed it, but the knife-blade was tangled in the sleeve.
He turned a sick face up to Connor.
“Pull it in,” said the older man,— “here, give it to me, lad—”
When at last the silent visitor lay upon the bank, they saw it was the body of a Union cavalryman. Alden stared at the dead face, fascinated; Connor mechanically counted the yellow chevrons upon the blue sleeve, now soaked black. The muddy water ran over the baked soil, spreading out in dust-covered pools; the spurred boots trickled slime. After a while both men turned their heads and looked at Craig. The Southerner stood silent and grave, his battered cap in his hand. They eyed each other quietly for a moment, then, with a vague gesture, the Southerner walked back into his pit and presently reappeared, trailing his rifle.
Connor had already begun to dig with his bayonet, but he glanced up at the rifle in Craig’s hands. Then he looked suspiciously into the eyes of the Southerner. Presently he bent his head again and continued digging.
It was sunset before he and Alden finished the shallow grave, Craig watching them in silence, his rifle between his knees. When they were ready they rolled the body into the hole and stood up.
Craig also rose, raising his rifle to a “present.” He held it there while the two Union soldiers shovelled the earth into the grave. Alden went back and lifted the two rifles from the pit, handed Connor his, and waited.
“Ready!” growled Connor, “aim!”
Alden’s rifle came to his shoulder. Craig also raised his rifle.
“Fire!”
Three times the three shots rang out in the wilderness, over the unknown grave. After a moment or two Alden nodded good night to Craig across the river and walked slowly toward his rifle-pit. Connor shambled after him. As he turned to lower himself into the pit he called across the river; “Good night, Craig!”
“Good night, Connor,” said Craig.
AN INTERNATIONAL AFFAIR
“... Brown-bear clam’ de ole fence rail,
Rabbit holler; “Whar y oh tail?...”
Banjo Song.
I.
When the gunboats entered Sandy River, Cleland’s regiment was ordered to garrison and reconstruct the forts at the Landing, evacuated by the Confederate troops as soon as the gunboats crossed the bar.
The gunboats tossed a few shells after the leisurely retreating Confederates, then dropped anchor below the Landing, and waited for something to turn up. A week later they steamed out of the river, promptly stuck on the bar, churned and thrashed and whistled and signalled, and finally slid out into blue water where a blockade runner tempted them into a chase that contributed to the amusement of the Southern Confederacy.
By Thanksgiving time, Cleland’s regiment had finished the forts at Sandy Landing. Cleland did it because he was told to, not because either forts or town were of the slightest military value to anybody. The Landing itself was a skunk-haunted village, utterly unimportant as supply depot, strategical pivot, or a menace to navigation. It was a key to nothing; its single railway led nowhere, its whisky was illegal, illimitable, and atrocious.
Cleland’s report embodied all of this. He was ordered to hold his ground, establish semaphores, and plan
t torpedoes. So he built his semaphores as directed, planted torpedoes, and reported. Twenty-four hours later orders came to go into winter-quarters. Then he was notified that he was to be reinforced, so he built barracks for two more regiments, as directed, and wondered what on earth was coming. Nothing came except the two regiments; one arrived on the first of December, by rail, — an Irish regiment; — the other turned up a week later in two cattle trains, band playing madly from the caboose. It was a German regiment full of strange oaths — and aromas.
Now Cleland was enlightened; he understood that the Landing was to be used as a species of cage for these two foreign regiments, raised, Heaven knows where, and destined to prove a nuisance to any army that harboured them. The Irish possessed an appalling record of pillage, bravery, and insubordination. The German regiment, raised “to march mit Siegel,” had an unbroken record of flight to its discredit. It had run at Grey’s Ford, at Crystal Hill, at Yellow Bank, and at Cypress-Court-House. It fled cheerfully, morning, noon and night; its band stampeded naively and naturally; it always followed its band, adored by all; and the regiment bore no rancour when scourged in general orders. Fallbach was its colonel, — known to the sarcastic and uninstructed as Fallback, — a rosy, short-winded, peaceful Teuton, who ran with his regiment every time, and always accepted censure with jocular resignation.
“Poys will pe poys, ain’t it?” he would say with a shrug; “Der band iss a fine band alretty. Dot trombone iss timid, und der poys dey follow der trombone.”
When Cleland understood that the authorities had rid themselves of the two regiments by interring them at Sandy Landing, he wrote a respectful protest, was snubbed and ordered to begin housekeeping for the winter, which meant that his regiment was now on police duty, stationed at the Landing to keep the peace between the Germans and their Irish neighbours.
Trouble began promptly; Bannon, colonel of the 1st Irish, met Fallbach of the 1st Jagers, and mispronounced his name with an emphasis unmistakable. An hour later the two regiments knew the war was on and made preparations accordingly. Hogan of the 10th company, crossing the street, hustled Franz Bummel of the Jagers and called him a “dootch puddy-fud!”
Quinn, listening to the Jagers’ band concert that afternoon, whistled “Doolan’s Wake,” and imitated Fritz Klein’s piccolo, aided and abetted by Phelan and McCue. That night there were three scuffles and a fight, and the provost-marshal had his work cut out for him.
Little by little the two regiments were installed in distant sections of the town. Cleland dealt justice untempered with mercy, and the rival regiments understood that their warfare would have to be carried on by stealth.
When Phelan, Quinn, Hogan, and McCue were released from the guard-house, they rejoiced with their comrades of the ioth company, and prepared future calamity for the Jagers. But Fate was against them. Their regimental fetish, a strong young goat, disappeared, and that night the Jagers were reported to have revelled in a strangely suggestive stew.
A day or two later, Quinn, fishing for suckers in the Sandy River, was assaulted by three Jagers, his fishpole and three fish confiscated, and he himself ducked amid grunts of universal satisfaction.
The fury of the 10th company passed all bounds when Quinn was relegated to the guard-house for conduct unbecoming a soldier; but the Teutons never strayed from their barracks except in force, and, as night leave was forbidden both regiments, the 10th company hesitated to inaugurate riot by daylight.
Quinn, squatting in the guard-house found plenty of leisure to hatch revenge. He did not waste thought on mere individual schemes for assault and battery; he meditated a master stroke, a blow at the entire regiment calculated to tear every Teuton bosom. The two objects most cherished by the Jagers were their cat and a disreputable negro who cooked for the colonel. How to combine damage to these centres of Teutonic affection occupied Quinn’s waking hours. To kidnap the cat; that was not enough, — the Teutons must be beguiled into eating their cat — and liking it too. How? Quinn sucked at an empty pipe and brooded. Bribe the negro Cassius, first to kidnap the cat, then to cook it? Quinn writhed maliciously at the prospect; he hated Tom, the black and white cat who sang every night on the Jagers’ barrack roof — sang to each individual star in the firmament to the indignation of every Irishman in Sandy Landing.
When Quinn emerged from the guard-house he took council with Phelan and McCue; and that evening Hogan was despatched to tempt Cassius with promises and a little cash.
The affair was easier than Hogan had dared hope; Cassius took the cash and promised to betray, and Hogan, lips compressed, to stifle all outward mirthful symptoms, went back to the barracks where Quinn, Phelan, and McCue sat waiting in pessimistic silence.
“He’ll not kill the cat,” said Hogan, “he’ll fetch ut in a bag to the shanty foreninst the hill, — d’ye mind the hut, McCue?”
“I do,” said McCue impressively.
“Thin be aisy,” continued Hogan; “we’ll skin ut an’ co-ook ut an’ the naygur can take the stew to thot Dootch runaway sodger, Fallback, bad cess to him an’ his! Pass th’ potheen, McCue.”
“Sure there’s not stew in wan cat for all!” objected Phelan.
“There is! There is,” said Quinn; “there’s cats in town to be had for the askin’, an’ nary a Dootchman will starve! Usha! but they’ll be crazy, th’ omadhouns!”
“‘Twill choke them,” said Phelan.
“Did they choke wid the goat they shtole?” demanded McCue angrily.
“I met Bummel an’ Klein,” continued Quinn: “Sure, T sez, ‘’tis dhirty thricks ye play on the Irish.’
‘Phwat’s that?’ sez Klein. ‘Ye ate our goat,’ sez I. Wid that they grinned an’ me phist hurrt wid the timptayshun of Bummel’s nose.”
“‘Sure,’ sez I, ‘’tis frinds we should be!’
‘Sorra th’ day!’ sez Klein. ‘Phvvy not?’ sez I. ‘Ye hate us an’ bate us,’ sez Klein; ‘I’ll not thrust ye, Mike Quinn.’
‘Take me hand,’ sez I, extindin’ me fingers; wan touch of nature, me lad. ’Tis a crool war entirely, an’ it’s frinds we’ll be, an’ no favor!’
‘Prove ut,’ sez he. ‘I wull,’ sez I, ‘an’ be th’ same token ’tis huntin’ we go this day week, so look fur a Christmas dinner to shame the Pope’s cook.’
‘A dinner,’ sez he, ‘wid th’ town betchune us!’
‘Ye’ll dine wid us, yet,’ sez I. ‘An’ how,’ sez he, a lickin’ the chops av him. ‘Whin ye dine wid the Irish ye should have a long spoon,’ sez I, laughin’ friendly like. ‘We’ll sind ye a shtew, me b’y, if God sinds us the rabbits.’ Thin,’ continued Quinn, “we parrted genteel; an’ they’ll hear we have lave to hunt on Christmas day — musha, bad luck to th’ Dootch scuts!— ’tis cats they’ll be eatin’ this blessed hour come Christmas, an’ may the howly saints sind them the black cramp of Drumgoole!”
II.
Christmas eve, while Hogan and Phelan lay slumbering, and Quinn and McCue walked their rounds, gloating over revenge, Cassius the disreputable sat in the kitchen of the Jager barracks counting the advanced payment of cash received from Hogan, and leering at the black and white tom-cat who dozed peacefully by the dying fire.
“Pore ole Tom,” muttered Cassius guiltily, “hit’s gwinter ‘sprise dishyere kitty.’Spec ole Tom gwinter git riled.”
The cat opened its yellow eyes.
“Gwinter ‘sprise ole Tom,” repeated Cassius, compassionately pursing up his lips.
The cat began to purr.
“Pore ole Tom,” sighed the darkey, tremulous with remorse.
The cat rose and began to march around, purring and hoisting an interrogative tail.
Cassius continued to bemoan Tom’s fate and recount the money until he had hardened his heart sufficiently. Finally he pocketed the coins, wiped his eyes, and approached the cat with seductive caution. Tom permitted caresses, courted further endearments, and suffered himself to be seized and dropped into a potato sack. But, once imprisoned, he scramble
d and squalled and clawed until Cassius, unable to bear the sight and sound of Thomas’s distress, deposited the sack in the pantry and fled from the barracks to the street.
Guilt weighed heavily on the darkey’s soul; he shuffled along, battling with conscience, trying to think of some compromise to save the cat and his money at the same time. Moonlight flooded hill and valley; he heard the sentries calling from post to post, the stir of the horses in the artillery stables across the square, the creaking of leafless branches overhead. He went around to the chicken coop; he often went there to enjoy the thrill of a temptation that he dared not succumb to, also to keep stray cats from doing murder on their own account. For, though he dared not steal a single chicken, he could at least have the bitter pleasure of foiling the feline marauders of Sandy Landing. This he was accustomed to do with a tin box, placed on its side, a trip-stick, a string, and a bit of bone for bait. Cat after cat he had trapped and committed to the depths of Sandy River, highly commended by his colonel and the rank and file of the Jagers. Now, as he stepped softly around the corner, his eyes fell on a black and white object, stealing toward the window where the long tin box stood temptingly baited. The next instant the trip-stick clicked, the weighted box-lid fell and snapped, and Cassius seized the box with a chuckle of triumph.
“Cat! Cat!” he repeated, addressing the frantic inmate of the box, “doan’ yoh count yoh chickens fore dey’s hatched!—”
Cassius stopped short, pulsating with a new idea. Why sacrifice Tom when here was a victim ready at hand, doubtless provided by Providence in the nick of time to save a poor darkey from treachery? And it was a kind of treachery that even Cassius found uncongenial.
“Pit-a-pat! Pit-a-pat!” mocked Cassius derisively listening to the manœuvres of the imprisoned victim; “Stop dat scratchin’ on de box! He! He! He! I’se gwineter let ole Tom outen de bag, — pore ole Tom! Dishyere nigger ain’t no Judas! Lan’s sakes! — dat ole cat smell kinder funny!”
He wrinkled his nose, sniffed, turned a pair of startled eyes on the big box under his arm, then a sickly smile of intelligence spread over his face and he placed the box gently on the ground.
Works of Robert W Chambers Page 1099
