Atlantic Narratives Part 23

'That will do.' snorted the Meter. 'March your company back to barracks!'

Ruggs replaced his whistle in his pocket in a hang-dog way which showed that he was convinced that his doom was sealed.

'Squads right!' he commanded. 'As you were! I mean, squads left!--Oh, steady! Squads right about! March!'

The company, at route step, had become a ripple of mirth from end to end.

'O Ruggsie!' shouted the Duke, 'I know a good civilian tailor!'

The remark brought on a quant.i.ty of local laughter, and Naughty did not help matters much by starting, 'Keep the home fires burning.'

That evening the flank of Company Number 1 individually condoled with Ruggs, who was trying to decipher how he could be so full of so many different kinds of mistakes.

'He's got the raspberry all right,' commented the Duke, before a large group, including Ruggs.

The 'raspberry,' be it said, was the name applied to the Sword of Damocles suspended by the Meter. When he called a failing candidate into the orderly room and implied that a resignation would be in order, that lost soul was known the company over as 'getting the raspberry,' or 'rasp.'

II

Just before taps, after life had become subdued through study, the small red-headed form of Squirmy was observed making its way to the centre of the long room. He was dressed in a black overcoat fished from the bottom of a trunk. A white tie torn from a stricken sheet made a flaring bow at his neck, and goggles and an old cap-cover served as headgear. He carried in his hand a Webster's Unabridged, which he placed on an old box previously used for the same purpose.

'_St!_ The Exhorter of Squad 21!' came in whispers from a dozen throats; and the room became still.

Squirmy searched his half-dressed congregation witheringly over the tops of his spectacles. Then from his small body proceeded slow tones of thunder,--

'And the Lord said unto Moses, "Squads right!" (Dramatic pause.)

'But Moses--not being a military man--commanded, "Squads left!" (Longer pause.)

'And great--was the confusion--among the candidites.

'Peace be with you,' he concluded, pointing an accusing finger at Ruggs; and the company went to bed holding their abdomens.

After the last drill on Sat.u.r.day Alice arrived with her machine, chauffeur, and chaperone. When she spied Ruggs across the parade, with twenty-two pounds of office flabbiness gone, his hardened muscles holding his shoulders and neck erect underneath his khaki, an unmistakable admiration filled her wide hazel eyes.

For a moment his gladness was unalloyed, and the disappointments of crowded barracks and tangled drills faded utterly away. But as the day wore on, the pleasure grew limp in the face of the bleak future. His mind was repeatedly met with the question, 'Shall I tell her?' and he always turned on himself with the reply, 'I am not yet through.'

The unacknowledged dullness between them finally drove them into the distraction of a movie theatre. There, in the darkness, she caught stealthy glimpses of his tightened jaw and distressed face.

'It's going to be very hard on him; he'll be so disappointed,' she said to herself.

At the same time, while apparently following the antics of Mary Pickford, he was thinking, 'It's going to be so hard on her! She'll be so disappointed in me!'

When she had gone, and he found himself once more seated on his bunk in desolation, he berated himself violently:--

'I must have treated her badly. This will not do. I've never given up before. I've got to pull myself up to my best if it's only a corporal's job. It's better to be a _man_ than a higher-up anyway. Good G.o.d, I can serve better by going where I'm put than where I want to _be put_! True patriotism, after all, is filling the niche, whatever--'

'Say, Ruggsie,' burst in the Duke from the side door, 'big doin's here Monday. Big review for a Russian general. This company is goin' to be divided into two--A and B companies.'

Ruggsie was silent.

'Don't you care anything about it?' continued the Duke.

'I'm not interested in reviews--to be frank.'

'Say, old fellow, you don't need to get so down because you tied up that drill the other day. Course, there's a great deal to know about this military game. At first I was pretty green myself. May be in a second camp you can get onto the stuff.'

Ruggs was not desirous of discussing the matter with the Duke, who, having been given the natural opportunity, filled the gap with conversation.

'You know the Meter called me and that Reserve Lieutenant Sullivan into the orderly room and told us we were goin' to be in command of the two companies. He went over with us just how we were goin' to do. He's a first-rate chap--the Meter is. First we line up along the road near the gate, and then we march to the parade-ground and review. I know every command I'm goin' to give right down in order--could say 'em off backwards. That's the way to know your drill.'

At supper the Duke leaned over the table toward Vance, a broker from Wall Street who had spent the previous summer at Plattsburg, and observed confidentially,--

'Do you know, Vance, I'd like to have you as my first lieutenant when I'm a captain. You suit me O.K. I like the way you drill.'

Vance, immaculately neat and clean-shaven, acknowledged the remark with a bow and went on eating. Mortimer, just out of Dartmouth, aged twenty-two, gazed at the Duke with that deference with which Gareth first looked upon Lancelot.

At three o'clock Monday afternoon the twenty companies of the training camp were drawn up ready to display themselves to the Russian general.

Automobiles were parked thickly on the roadways, making a black, gray, and brown banded circle around the parade-ground. Under the dense fringe of trees, the many-colored gowns of the women edged the green like a thick hedge of sweet peas. The heat and stillness had settled down over the camp tensely.

The dignitary, eagerly awaited, was overdue. The Duke, as he wiped the perspiration from his hat-band in front of the long column of companies standing at ease, congratulated himself on the certainty with which he would give the appropriate commands at various points before him on the level stretch of gra.s.s. Conscious fingering of his pistol-holster indicated his belief in the Meter's choice.

A half-hour pa.s.sed and the general had not arrived. All at once, the band, contrary to plan, started to move diagonally across the parade-ground. A mounted orderly popped out from a group of regular officers and galloped straight toward the Duke.

'The major's compliments,' he announced. 'The ceremony along the road-side will be dispensed with. You are to march your company to the line for review at once, sir.'

The field music struck up adjutant's call, which was the signal for the first company to form line.

'Squads left!' shouted the Duke in most military fas.h.i.+on.

It was the command that he had rehea.r.s.ed to start the company from the roadway to the ceremony proper--the opposite direction from the one toward the spot where the line should now be formed.

'March!' he added, without seeing his error. And the company wheeled off toward the woods away from the visitors, away from the band, away from everybody.

'd.a.m.n me!' he muttered, looking back over his shoulder at the vanis.h.i.+ng goal. Then he roared, 'Column left! March!'

Again he had steered the head of the column in an opposite direction from the one intended. B and C companies were now directly between his objective and his organization, which was marching farther away with every step. He realized that he had taken time enough to be well on the way toward, instead of away from, the spot where the adjutant was waiting for him.

'Squadsleftmarch!' he bellowed desperately.

The company, in the shape of an L, not having completed the turn in column, now accordioned its flanks toward each other, intermingling inextricably. The organization became at once a crowd of fellows with rifles.

'Halt! Halt! Halt!' the Duke exploded; and immediately fell into helpless bewilderment.

There was a dreadful pause, during which beads of perspiration dropped from his face, making black spots on his starched clothing. His arm and fingers twitched and he blinked horribly.

'What a steadying influence he'll have on Vance!' whispered some one near Ruggs, who, through compa.s.sion, was unable to feel mirthful.