The Code of the Mountains Part 21

For a long while, the boy from Troublesome stood breathing heavily. To have his regiment sail away without him, to lose both revenge and partic.i.p.ation in the service which had filled his life with a new interest, were intolerable. Again he seemed thwarted.

"Henry Falkins, I'm a-goin' ter git ye. Ye kain't never make no peace with me--but es long as we stays hyar in camp I gives ye my hand on a truce. An' ef we gits fightin', maybe I'll wait tell ther war's over."

Into his tone crept the death-note of finality. "But some day I'm a-goin' ter git ye."

"That's all," p.r.o.nounced the major briefly. "Report to your sergeant."

The boy from Troublesome saluted stiffly and left the tent.

CHAPTER XVII

It was not until summer waned to autumn and autumn pa.s.sed into winter that the order came which slipped the leash and brought a day of departure.

The high-landers wore the appearance of veterans now, as they marched down to the crowded wharves, loaded with their field-equipment, and went across the gang-plank to the decks of the transport. The mountain men were still rough of exterior, though very smooth and soldierly to an eye that had seen them in their "original sin" of heathenish beginnings.

Lucinda Merton was in San Francisco on the day that the _Indiana_ sailed. She and perhaps Henry Falkins knew why she had crossed the continent. As the regiment from bluegra.s.s and mountains filed in their long lines over the side, she stood on the transport deck with the colonel and one of his majors and looked on. What things the lovers said that day, in the moments they stole alone, were their own secrets, but the girl's eyes and lips were smiling, and the eyes of the young major were full of light when he slipped into his blouse-pocket a small leather case--and a photograph. It was to smile at him over many campfires in the islands.

Yet, with a teasing laugh and a certain pride of section, the girl compared the central Kentuckians with the leaner, harder men of the hills, and announced:

"Those mountaineers of yours still cry out for the curry-comb, Henry."

It was the colonel who answered her. He, too, was gazing down with a smile wrinkling the corners of his eyes. The colonel, for all his Chesterfieldian polish, could judge a horse or man in the raw.

"They're a s.h.a.ggy herd," he mused quietly, "exceedingly s.h.a.ggy and unkempt. My barbarians, I call them, Lucinda. They are men with the bark on--but men." He paused, and the smile became a contented grin. "If there's a chance to baptize them, you'll hear of them again."

"For it's Tommy this an' Tommy that, an' 'Tommy 'ow's yer soul?'

But it's 'Thin red line of 'eroes' when the drums begin to roll."

Then came days of blue wastes and sparkling wake; days of lazy lounging on swinging decks and under awnings, and at night the phosphor-play of the Pacific and stars that hung low and softly l.u.s.trous. Often Private Newt Spooner surprised himself, as he leaned with his bare fore-arms resting on the rail, to find that his thoughts, instead of busying themselves with war or vengeance, were going strangely back to the added room of the smoky cabin on Troublesome and the girl who sat before the fire in the long evenings when the wind wailed through the dead timber.

The logs were blazing there on the hearth he had built for her.

One morning the men crowded and jostled at the rail to gaze ahead where the hunched shoulders of Corregidor Island raised themselves like a crouching sentinel, at the gate of Manila Bay.

If the men of the s.h.i.+rt-tail battalion had feared the dull routine of garrison duty, they were to be pleasantly disappointed. In those late January days the impending storm which the Honorable Emilio Aguinaldo was brewing for the invaders of his "republic" hung imminent on the horizon of the future.

The mountaineers went into quarters in the Binondo district of the city, but more than two score of them were always on the line of outposts which lay around Manila, resting its left on the salt marshes by the sea, and its right on the sea again at the end of a six-mile arc.

The Kentuckians rubbed elbows with a trim and seasoned command of regulars near the extreme left. To the front beyond the nipa houses and their palm-fringed gardens, lay unseen the parallel, intrenched lines of the Insurgents.

As yet there had been no clash, but each dawn brought expectancy.

Private Newt Spooner, carrying his rifle on sentry duty, often glimpsed their straw hats and brown faces, above the trench embankments, and glared across the intervening s.p.a.ces. Occasionally, too, when regimental officers rode along the front on inspection of outposts, Newt saw the figure of his major. Then his embryonic hatred for the brown men, who lay masked at the back of these palms and rice paddies a few hundred yards away, pa.s.sed into total eclipse behind a fiercer emotion.

One night when not on outpost duty, Newt lay on his cot in the company-room of the Binondo barracks. The boy was watching the shadows that wavered on the whitewashed wall, and his face wore a lowering scowl. Top-Sergeant Peter Spooner glanced at that scowl, and a faint frown crossed his own features.

Captain Sparvin of B Company had developed into a fair officer, and in actual service a wider gulf yawned between the men who held commissions and those who held warrants than had been the case back in the hills where the company was born. Yet Sparvin more and more depended on the Deacon, and more and more left company affairs in his capable hands. The company's efficiency and deportment were the first sergeant's care.

Charges were preferred or dismissed at Sergeant Spooner's suggestion.

When a "non-com" vacancy occurred, the man suggested by Black Pete was usually selected to fill it. And to the confidence of the officers was added a sort of idolatry on the part of the enlisted men. It is quite likely that had B Company been out on detached service, and had Sergeant Spooner given a command contradictory to his superior, even after these months of discipline, B Company would have followed the sergeant. Yet Sergeant Spooner had his problem, and that problem was his kinsman, Newt. When Newt scowled in that fas.h.i.+on the top-sergeant was troubled with apprehension. One crazy man in one crazy moment can do things which cannot be undone. Yet there was no outward ground for complaint or charges. In the entire outfit was no more efficient soldier than Newt.

None answered more intelligently or with a snappier quickness to commands; none kept his kit in more perfect order; none was more soldierly. The problem was intangible in its outward manifestations, but the sergeant knew that the boy was "bidin' his time."

After "taps" the company-room quieted save for snores and heavy breathing. But Newt, lying quiet on his cot, still staring at the shadows on the whitewashed wall, was not asleep, and Sergeant Peter Spooner was not asleep. The tropic night-quiet had settled over the empty streets of the city, and the footsteps of occasional pedestrians only emphasized the deep silence.

Suddenly there came to the ears of the private and the ears of the sergeant a far-away, but insistent sound, almost a ghost-sound in the vagueness with which it drifted across the roofs from the north. Yet it brought them both to their feet, and in an instant both stood together by the window. Now it was plain enough, and began swelling from a purring rattle to the crescendo of an approaching wind storm. Somewhere out there in the far distance was the constant splatter of Mausers like rain on a tin roof.

Instantly Sergeant Spooner was arousing B Company and turning them out.

From the streets, too, five minutes ago quiet with a cemetery stillness, came a confusion of shouting and rus.h.i.+ng, punctuated by the sounds of slamming doors and creaking shutters. Presently the clatter of hoofs and the brazen signals of bugles gave official notice of immediate action.

The men of B Company were dressing with the hurry of firemen, and Sergeant Spooner said quietly:

"Well, boys, the feud has bust loose."

Then, almost as suddenly as the clamor of the streets rose, it died again, and the city lay silent once more except for the distant, unending roar of musketry.

At regimental headquarters officers were gathering, and companies were falling in under the vigorous exhortation of non-coms. Newt Spooner saw Major Falkins hurry into the room, through whose open door he could see Private Watson at a telegraph key. The major was buckling his saber-belt as he went. About the instrument pressed a cl.u.s.ter of battalion and company officers, crowding eagerly up for news and orders. In a subtle fas.h.i.+on the news from within floated out and communicated itself to the lines of men impatiently shuffling their feet in the streets. The fighting was all along the north front. That was where the Fifth Kentucky's outposts were stationed. That growing volume of Mauser argument, with the duller rumble of the Springfields, probably told of the Kentuckians holding hard against the pressure. Why did not the line fall into column and move forward? Why did they stand here waiting when they were needed there? Then came a rumor from the telegraph key that only two battalions were to go forward, while the third remained in town with the reserves.

That report sent a low grumble through the ranks. In the very rattle of tin-cup on haversack and rifle-b.u.t.t on cobbles was a note of deep discontent. Newt could see through the open door the figure of Major Falkins leaning anxiously over the instrument. Then he saw him turn to come out with a smile. Brief staccato orders broke from captains and lieutenants and the s.h.i.+rt-tailers were swinging down the Calle Lemeri, with the bluegra.s.s battalion at their backs. The streets gave back hollow, ghost-like echoes to the rattle of their accouterments and the quick rhythm of their step. Clearer and noisier to the front rose the insistent drumming of the fight, and the men from the hills and lowlands were going at last into action.

About them were dark streets with jalousies that clicked as anxious house-holders thrust out startled faces. From other streets they heard kindred sounds telling of other columns, battalions and regiments, moving in other currents to the support of their own outposts. The long, swinging step of the mountaineers carried them swiftly. The bluegra.s.s men had need to lengthen their stride to hold the pace, and from their ranks came a low hum of frank and eager excitement, but the high-landers marched in silence.

The First Nebraska had borne the brunt of the initial firing, but from that point it traveled along the whole insurrecto front as forest flames run in dry leaves, eating its way along a segment of five miles of trenches. As the battalions drew nearer and the chorus extended, the night rocked to the solid bellow of musketry, until individual reports were swallowed and lost in one deep and composite note.

The s.h.i.+rt-tail battalion at last left the ordered streets behind and began its journey through the spa.r.s.er-peopled environs. They hurried through villa-adorned suburbs, pa.s.sing old Spanish mansions. Now overhead they heard the whine of the Mauser bullets. These messengers went by with a spiteful song like a whispered shriek: they purred and whistled like a strangling human throat: they brought to the ear a ripping noise like the violent tearing of silk. They rattled nastily as they struck corrugated-iron roofs, and popped when they found billets in the walls of nipa houses.

A strange silence sat upon the marching column, or a silence which would have been strange, with less taciturn men, and they went as though they were going to mill with grain to be ground. As they were reinforcing outposts, no advance guard felt its way at the front. The colonel, major of the second battalion, and part of the staff, all mounted on Philippine ponies, rode a few paces ahead of the column. The way now led through scattered houses and straggling gardens, where ragged palm-fronds waved to the sea-breeze. From some of the windows came wails of fright as immured house-holders heard the popping of bullets against their frail habitations.

Suddenly, above the din of rifle-fire, rose a deep boom, followed by a rumble like the rail-song of a distant express. Two seconds later came a loud swish, and two or three of the frail nipa shacks to the left and rear collapsed as though a ten-pin ball had struck houses of cards. The column was under artillery fire, and should by all military theories deploy into open formation, instead of offering a compact target. But ahead lay an _estero_, or slough, which must be crossed on a bridge.

Beyond that were open fields with rice-d.y.k.es and cane--a place of comparative security not yet attained.

At the order "double-quick" ringing from the bugles, the column leaped eagerly forward to a clattering trot, but before they reached the bridge two more of the loud-throated roars gave warning, and two more of the solid shot plowed past, to demolish other houses perilously near by.

Henry Falkins looked back to see how his men were standing this initial test, and smiled, well satisfied.

Then the bridge was reached and crossed, and the command was spreading fan-like into open order. Now the bullets were not only giving voice overhead, but kicking up the dirt near at hand.

Out there in the darkness, now only a little way distant, lay the sixty or seventy men of the regimental outpost, who had been sustaining the onslaught from the trenches for an hour or more. One could mark their positions from the spitting tongues of their rifles, and as the two battalions deployed, creeping up, in open order, to reinforce and relieve them, they fell back nonchalantly, wiping the sweat out of their eyes, powder-grimed, and making brief comments to their fellows; comments perhaps mingled with such sense of patronage as men coming out of their baptism of fire may have for those just going in. Then, with business-like quiet, the battalions worked forward and lay down in the trenches, which had merely been a guard-line for weeks.

"Falkins," said Colonel Burford, as the two went along the regiment's length, "there's no use wasting ammunition shooting at a sky line. Those fellows over there are barely sticking their scalp locks over the trenches. They are merely peppering the night."

The major nodded, then with a grin suggested:

"Colonel, those boys have been under their first strain. They'll rest easier if they can shoot a few volleys--and it won't burn much powder."

So, the two battalions, as a matter of indulgence, were permitted to contribute a salute of challenge, and then, as the bugler sounded "cease firing," they were ordered to dispose themselves as well as they could in the trenches and behind the rice-d.y.k.es, and rest until morning.