Chapter 7

from Guam, but he will get the letter eventually, if he lives."

Anita rose and walked back home through the icy mist. Mrs. Fortescue was in the shaded drawing-room seated at her harp, playing soft chords and arpeggios, with Colonel Fortescue leaning over her chair. If was a picture Anita had often seen, and at those times, from her childhood and from Beverley's, they were made to feel that they were secondary, and even the After-Clap was superfluous. Nevertheless, Anita walked into the room. The Colonel and Mrs. Fortescue started apart like young lovers.

"I have been to see Mrs. Lawrence," said Anita, "and she asked me if I would write a letter for her. She didn't, of course, tell me not to say anything about it to you, mother and daddy, but I would rather not tell you to whom the letter is to be written. You must trust me, my own dear daddy. It is a very simple letter, just to say that Lawrence has disappeared and Mrs. Lawrence and the little boy are in kind hands."

"Of course we trust you," answered Colonel Fortescue, smiling. "You are a very trusty person, Anita."

"Like my father and mother," answered Anita, and ran out of the room. As they heard her light step tripping up the stairs, the father and mother looked at each other with troubled eyes.

"It is to Broussard," said the Colonel, remembering his last interview with him. "I think Broussard steadily befriended Lawrence and his wife."

Mrs. Fortescue's candid eyes grew clouded.

"It is a strange intimacy," she said.

"It's all right," unhesitatingly replied the Colonel.

"Oh, well," said Mrs. Fortescue, touching the harpstrings, "If you are fomenting a love affair between Anita at Fort Blizzard and Broussard in the tropics, it is your affair."

"Elizabeth," said the Colonel, "I am not a person to foment love affairs, or any other private and personal affairs."

"I said _if_ you were fomenting a love affair, John," replied Mrs. Fortescue; and then there was no more music from the harp, the Colonel going into his office and Mrs. Fortescue to the After-Clap's nursery.

In her own little room Anita was already hard at work on her letter to Broussard. It was a very short and simple letter, telling exactly, and only, what Mrs. Lawrence had asked, and it was signed "Sincerely Yours." But when it was to be sealed Anita's insurgent heart cried out to be heard, and she added a little postscript, which read:

"Gamechick is very well and sends his love. I ride him nearly every day."

Anita would not trust her precious letter to the mail orderly, or even Sergeant McGillicuddy or Kettle, but throwing her crimson mantle around her, she slipped out, in the cold mist, to the letter box. For one moment she held the letter poised in her hand before it took its flight toward the tropics; Anita's tender heart went with the letter.

A fortnight later, the March sun having come in place of the February snows, Mrs. McGillicuddy succeeded in dragging Mrs. Lawrence out of doors, one day about noon, and after placing her on a bench in the glow of the light, went off to look after the eight McGillicuddys, the little Lawrence boy, and the After-Clap, none of whom could have got on without her. Colonel Fortescue, coming out of the headquarters building, and going to his own house, passed Mrs. Lawrence, sitting on the bench. The Colonel, who knew her well enough by sight, raised his cap and, stopping a moment, asked courteously after her health.

"I am better," replied Mrs. Lawrence, "and I want to thank you for your kindness in letting me stay in the quarters. I will not trespass any longer than I can help."

"May I ask," said the Colonel, kindly, "if you have any friends with whom I could help you to communicate?"

Mrs. Lawrence smiled as she answered:

"I have relatives, if that is what you mean. But I do not care to communicate with them. Please understand me that I do not, for a moment, admit that my husband is a deserter."

"I wish I could think he was not," said Colonel Fortescue, "but unfortunately, his misconduct----"

Colonel Fortescue caught himself; he had done what he seldom did--used the wrong word. Mrs. Lawrence struggled feebly to her feet, the divine obstinacy of a loving woman shining in her melancholy eyes.

"Stop!" she cried, "I can't allow any one, even the Colonel of the regiment, to disparage my husband before my face."

"I beg your pardon," said Colonel Fortescue, "I regret the word I used."

Mrs. Lawrence, inclining her head, sank, rather than sat, upon the bench.

"Perhaps I should not have spoken so," she said, in a composed voice, "as my husband was only a private, and you are the Colonel; but I think you understand that I was neither born nor reared to this position."

"I do understand," replied Colonel Fortescue, "and some one has done you a very great wrong in bringing you to this post; but you may depend upon it that neither you nor your child shall suffer for the present, and I hope you will soon be well."

"It is my heart that is more ill than my body," replied Mrs. Lawrence, and the Colonel passed on.

The tragedy of a desertion is very great, and as Colonel Fortescue said, tragedies grow more intense in the fierce cold of winter, and Mrs. Lawrence and the beautiful little boy were, in themselves, living tragedies. Sergeant McGillicuddy, too, had a tragic aspect. In spite of all the Colonel could say, the Sergeant still accused himself of being the cause of Lawrence's desertion. McGillicuddy's bronzed face, like a hickory nut, grew so haggard, his self-reproaches so piteous, that Colonel Fortescue thought it well to give him a positive order to say nothing of the circumstances that led up to Lawrence's striking him. The Sergeant begged to be allowed to tell the chaplain about it; to this Colonel Fortescue consented, and McGillicuddy had a long conversation with the chaplain.

"The Colonel says, sir," McGillicuddy declared mournfully to the chaplain, "as it is the damned climate,--excuse me, sir,--that makes everybody queer."

"I'll excuse you," replied the chaplain, who had the same opinion of the Arctic cold as Colonel Fortescue. "I think the cold gets on men's nerves and makes them queer."

However, the chaplain had the power to console, and McGillicuddy became a trifle more resigned, and even had a faint hope of Lawrence's return, caught from Mrs. McGillicuddy's report of Mrs. Lawrence's fixed belief that Lawrence would come back and give himself up. One great consolation to the Sergeant was, to spend a large part of his pay in comforts for Mrs. Lawrence and clothes and books and toys for the little Ronald. Mrs. McGillicuddy, who had reasoned out a very good solution of McGillicuddy's troubles, encouraged him in his kindness to Mrs. Lawrence and the boy, so that the old rule of God making the devil work for Him was again illustrated; much good came to those whom Lawrence had deserted.

The chaplain thought it a good time to preach a sermon on loyalty, and on the very Sunday after Colonel Fortescue had talked with Mrs. Lawrence, the congregation that crowded the chapel heard an exposition of what loyalty meant, especially loyalty to one's country. Among the most attentive listeners was Kettle, whose honest black face glowed when the chaplain proclaimed that every man owed it to his country to defend it, if required. When the congregation streamed out of the chapel, Mrs. Fortescue stopped a moment to congratulate the chaplain on his sermon. Behind her stood Kettle, who was never very far away from Miss Betty.

"I listen to that sermon, suh," said Kettle, earnestly, to the chaplain, "and it cert'ny wuz a corker, suh."

"That is high praise," answered the chaplain, "I would rather an enlisted man should tell me that a sermon of mine was a corker, than for the archbishop of the archdiocese to write me a personal letter of praise."

Just then the chaplain, who was accused of having eyes in the back of his head, saw something directly behind him. No less than four of the seven McGillicuddy boys were altar boys, wearing little red cassocks and white surplices in church. They were supposed to leave the cassocks and surplices in the sacristy, but Ignatius McGillicuddy, aged ten, had sneaked out of the sacristy, still wearing his red cassock, and, seeing the chaplain passing out of the gate, thought it safe to begin an elaborate skirt dance, in his cassock, and making many fancy steps, with much high kicking, while the skirt of his cassock waved in the air. In the midst of his final pirouette, he caught the chaplain's stern glance fixed on him. Instantly Ignatius appeared to turn to stone, and the vision of a switch, wielded by Mrs. McGillicuddy's robust arm, passed before his eyes. He was immensely relieved when the chaplain said, grimly:

"Ten pages of catechism next Sunday."

Kettle went home and was very solemn all day. Not even the After-Clap's pranks could make him smile, nor were the After-Clap's orders always orders to him that day. In the late afternoon Mrs. Fortescue, seeing Kettle seated in a corner of the back hall, and evidently in an introspective mood, asked him:

"What's been the matter with you all day, Kettle?"

"I'm a-seekin', Miss Betty," Kettle replied solemnly.

"What are you seeking?" Mrs. Fortescue inquired.

"Seekin' light, Miss Betty," answered Kettle. "I'm seekin' light on my duty to my country, arter the chaplain done preached to-day."

"Glad to hear it," responded Mrs. Fortescue. "Your duty at present is to look after the baby and me."

"Gord knows I does the bes' I kin," replied Kettle, raising his eyes, full of faith and love and simplicity, to Mrs. Fortescue's. "But the chaplain, he say we orter fight for our country; maybe at this heah very minute I orter be a-settin' on a hoss, a-shootin' down the enemies of my country."

"Well, Kettle," said Mrs. Fortescue, laughing, "as you can't ride and you can't shoot, I don't think you will ever do much damage to the enemies of your country."

Mrs. Fortescue passed on, laughing. But some one else had heard Kettle. This was Sergeant Halligan, a chum of Sergeant McGillicuddy, who had stopped at the Commandant's house on an errand. Sergeant Halligan, seeing no one around in that part of the house, winked to himself, and went up to "the naygur," as he, like Sergeant McGillicuddy called Kettle.

"I say," said the sergeant, in a whisper, "you're right about the chaplain's sermon. It's the duty of every man who can carry a gun to fight for his country. I saw the chaplain looking straight at you, and he was as mad as fire. A white-livered coward stands a mighty poor chanst of salvation, is what the chaplain thinks."

"Does you mean that?" anxiously asked Kettle.

"Don't I?" responded Sergeant Halligan, confidently. "Maybe you think it's hard lines to have to drill all day and walk post all night, but it's a merry jest compared with burning in hell fire. I'd ruther drill and walk post all my life than find myself in the lake of brimstone and sulphur that's a-waitin' for cowards."

"Tain't the drill and the walkin' post as skeers me," said Kettle, "but I ain't noways fond of guns. If it wasn't for them devilish guns I'd enlist, pertickler if they'd let me stay with Miss Betty and the baby."

"Sure they would," replied the artful Halligan with a wink. "The Colonel wouldn't disoblige his lady. You'd be detailed to work around the house here, and you'd look grand in uniform."

"You think so?" said Kettle, with a delighted grin, "I always did have a kinder honin' after them yaller stripes down my legs."

"And a sabre and a sabretache," continued the Sergeant. Times were sometimes dull at Fort Blizzard, and the men in the barracks could get a good many laughs out of Kettle as a soldier.

The yellow stripes down his legs and the sabre and sabretache were dazzling to Kettle, But an objection rose on the horizon.

"How 'bout them hosses?" he asked, "I ain't never been on no hoss sence the time when I wuz a little shaver, and the Kun'l--he wasn't nothin' but a lieutenant then--wuz courtin' Miss Betty, and he pick me up and put me on a hoss he call Birdseye. Lord! It makes me feel creepy now, to tink 'bout that hoss!"

"Oh, you needn't bother about horses," answered the Sergeant, cheerfully. "The Colonel could manage that, and you can wear your uniform just the same."

"I reckon I could ride a gentle hoss," ventured Kettle.

"'Course," replied the Sergeant confidently, "I think I can manage it with the orficer in charge of mounts. I could get the milkman's hoss for you. She is twenty-three years old and as quiet as an old maid of seventy-five; she wouldn't run away or kick, not even if you was to build a fire under her."

This seemed to dispose of the great difficulty in Kettle's mind, when the Sergeant suggested that he would see the milkman that very evening, and at nine o'clock the next morning, he would go to the officer in charge of mounts, and by ten o'clock Kettle, as soon as he had finished washing up the breakfast things and had taken the After-Clap for his airing in the baby carriage, could step down to the recruiting office and enlist.

Everything looked rosy to Kettle. That night, at dinner, Kettle was radiant and informed Mrs. Fortescue, between the fish and the roast, that he had "done found his duty and was a-goin' to do it."

Mrs. Fortescue had some curiosity to know what this new duty of Kettle's was, but Kettle maintained a mysterious silence, only admitting that it would not take him away from "Miss Betty and the baby."

Next morning, however, in the cold light of day, the proposition had lost something of its charms for Kettle. The yellow stripes down his legs did not appear quite so overwhelmingly fascinating. He remembered that Sergeant McGillicuddy was afraid to ride in the buggy behind the milkman's horse. Sergeant Halligan did not give Kettle any time to repent of his decision, and promptly appeared at ten o'clock and escorted Kettle to the recruiting office. The recruiting sergeant was on hand and Sergeant Halligan explained Kettle's martial enthusiasm. Something like a wink passed between Sergeant Halligan and Gully, the recruiting sergeant, who agreed to enlist Kettle, under the name of Solomon Ezekiel Pickup, as a unit in the army of the United States.

A sudden illumination came to Kettle. "Yon c'yarn' enlist me in no white regiment," cried Kettle to Sergeant Halligan, "I'm a nigger and you have to put me in a nigger regiment."

"Oh, that's all right," responded Sergeant Halligan, airily, "we can get you in all right, and we'll be proud to have you. Won't we, Gully?"

"Certainly," replied Sergeant Gully, "we can fix that up. It's fixed up already."

The rapidity of the proceedings rather startled Kettle.

"But doan' the doctor have to thump me, and pound me, and count my teeth?" he asked. Kettle had not spent twenty years at army posts without finding out something.

"No, indeed," answered Sergeant Gully, who was a chum of Sergeant Halligan, "not with such a husky feller as you. I can thump and pound and count your teeth."

With that Gully made a physical examination of Kettle, and declared that no surgeon who ever lived would turn down such a magnificent specimen of robust manhood as Kettle.

All this was very disheartening to Kettle but seemed of great interest to Sergeant Halligan and his side partner, Sergeant Gully, and also to the orderly, who grinned sympathetically with the two sergeants.

"I say," said Sergeant Gully, "there's nothing doing here this morning and I'll just leave the orderly in charge and step in with you and introduce Private Pickup to the drill sergeant. The sergeant is a honey, but the bees don't know it."

Then, with Sergeant Halligan on one side of him and Sergeant Gully on the other, Kettle started across the plaza in the clear morning light for the great riding hall. By this time Kettle was thoroughly alarmed.

The sight of the class in riding, smart young privates, marching gaily into the drill hall, made Kettle feel very uneasy about the riding.

"How 'bout the milkman's hoss?" asked Kettle anxiously.

"The milkman's horse? The milkman's horse?" sniffed Sergeant Halligan, "D'ye think I'm an infernal fool to put such a proposition up to the orficer in charge of mounts? He'd kick me full of holes if I did."

"But I say," replied Kettle, spurred by fear, "you is a deceiver, suh--a deceiver, and I'm a'goin to tell the Kun'l on you and he'll do for you--that he will."

"Look-a-here, Solomon Ezekiel Pickup," shouted Sergeant Halligan savagely, "it's against the regulations to talk to your superior orficers so damned impudent, and I'm a going to prefer charges against you, and you can face three months in the military prison for it. And I'm a-thinkin' that Briggs, the drill sergeant, will put you on the kickingest horse in the regimental stables. Sergeant Gully here says the drill sergeant is a honey, but he's awful mistaken. I've known Briggs ever since we was rookies together, and he's a cruel man, and has caused the death of several rookies by his murderin' ways."

Just then the three came face to face with Sergeant McGillicuddy. In those days McGillicuddy's honest face was gloomy and he had not much spirit for jokes, but he laughed when Sergeant Halligan explained to him that Sergeant Gully had enlisted Kettle and had passed him both mentally and physically, and that he was then on his way to take his first lesson in riding.

Sergeant McGillicuddy went his way, laughing, for once in a blue moon, and Kettle, marching between the two sergeants, felt like a prisoner on his way to execution.

Arrived at the great drill hall, now dim and silent except for a batch of recruits, and Briggs, the drill sergeant, a trooper brought in Corporal, a handsome sorrel, and the model of a trained cavalry charger. The trooper at the same time handed the Sergeant a long whip. Corporal, the charger, understood as well as any trooper in the regiment what the crack of the whip meant, from walk, trot, to gallop. As Kettle appeared, almost dragged in by the two sergeants, a grin went around among the young recruits, ruddy-skinned and clear-eyed youngsters, well set up and worthy to wear the uniform of their country.

A whispered conversation followed among the three sergeants and although Kettle was not in uniform as the other recruits were, Sergeant Briggs, for a reason imparted to him by Sergeant Halligan, called out to Kettle:

"Here, Pickup, you get up, and you stay up, and if you don't you'll get a whack up!"

This passed for a witticism to the recruits, who made it a point to laugh at all the drill sergeant's jokes. Kettle, with much difficulty, managed to climb on Corporal's back and crouched there in a heap. Corporal turned his mild intelligent eyes toward Sergeant Briggs, as much as to say:

"What kind of a fool have I got on my back now?"

"Take the reins and let her go, Gallagher!" said the sergeant with a crack of his whip.

Corporal, seeing his duty, did it. He started off in a brisk walk around the tanbark, and in twenty seconds he heard another crack, and still another, which sent him into a hard gallop. As the horse quickened his pace, Kettle dropped the reins, and grasping Corporal around the neck, hung on desperately as the horse sped around the great ellipse. At a word from Sergeant Briggs, the horse stopped and walked sedately to the middle of the hall. Kettle slipped off and staggered to his feet.

"Good Gord A'mighty," he groaned, to Sergeant Briggs, "I k'yarn' ride that air hoss, Mr. Briggs, and I ain't a goin' to, neither. Miss Betty, she tole me the way to surve my country wuz to look after the baby and her, so I'm jes' goin' to resign from the army and go home, 'cause it's scrub day."

"You go to the orficer of the day, and report yourself under arrest," promptly replied Briggs. "His office is in the headquarters building and he'll straighten you out, I'm thinkin'."

Kettle started off cheerfully enough, but instead of going to the headquarters building he made a bee line for the C. O.'s house, where he at once took off his coat and went down on his knees to scrub the pantry. Two hours afterward, when the drill sergeant's work was done in the riding hall and he discovered that Kettle had not reported himself to the officer of the day, the sergeant walked over to the C. O.'s house and sent in a respectful request to see the commanding officer.

"Come in, Sergeant," called out Colonel Fortescue, sitting at his desk.

"Beg your pardon, sir," said the Sergeant, once inside, "but I have come to you privately, to tell you about your man, known as Kettle. He came into the riding hall this morning, and Sergeant Gully and Sergeant Halligan said he enlisted. Of course, I know, sir, they couldn't enlist him, but I'm afraid I helped 'em on with the joke. Anyhow, I made him get on a horse, and it would have broke your heart, sir, to see such riding! Then he got sassy, and I told him, just to get rid of him, to report himself under arrest, but nobody hasn't seen him since."

At that moment, the new recruit was seen passing the window, and wearing blue over-alls, in which he did scrubbing. The Colonel tapped on the window and Kettle came in by the office entrance.

"What's this, Solomon, about your being saucy to Sergeant Briggs?" asked Colonel Fortescue, sternly.

"Well, suh, I enlisted," answered Kettle, promptly, "an' I done resigned. I tole that there Briggs man so, and lef' the drill hall and come home, 'cause it was scrub day."

"Three days in the guardhouse," thundered the Colonel, in a voice terrible to Kettle.

Sergeant Briggs, touching his cap, walked out, Kettle following him. At the door stood Mrs. McGillicuddy holding in her arms the After-Clap, in all his morning freshness, his little white fur cap and coat showing off his eyes and hair, so dark, like his mother's. The After-Clap gave a spring which he meant to land him in Kettle's arms, but Kettle, bursting into tears, would not take him.

"I k'yarn' take you now, honey," cried Kettle, wiping his eyes, "I'm a goin' to the guardhouse, my lamb, for three days and maybe I never see you no mo'."

The baby seemed to think this might be true, and set up a series of loud shrieks.

"Do you mean to say as you've tried to enlist?" cried Mrs. McGillicuddy, struggling with the baby and her astonishment and indignation all at once. "The idea of you being a soldier! It beats the band, it does!"

Sergeant Briggs, without giving Kettle time to explain further, marched him off, and Mrs. McGillicuddy went to report to Mrs. Fortescue, while Sergeant McGillicuddy appeared to report to Colonel Fortescue.

"I believe, sir," said the Sergeant confidentially, "as it's a crooked business about the naygur's wantin' to enlist. Gully and Sergeant Halligan was jokin', but it's mighty risky jokin' with the regulations."

So thought Sergeant Halligan and Sergeant Gully, when confronted with the Colonel. As they were two of the best sergeants in the regiment, the Colonel satisfied himself with a stern reprimand, which was not entered against them. But having sentenced Kettle to three days in the guardhouse for insolence to Sergeant Briggs, Colonel Fortescue thought it well to let the sentence stand.

Colonel Fortescue, in spite of being the commanding officer at one of the finest cavalry posts in the world, and whose word was law, could yet be made to feel domestic displeasure. The family at once divided itself into two camps, one on the Colonel's side and one on Kettle's. Anita, of course, sided with her father, and declared he had done perfectly right about Kettle, as he did about everything. Sergeant McGillicuddy was also a faithful adherent of the Colonel's in the wordless warfare that prevailed in the commanding officer's house for the three days in which Kettle enjoyed the hospitality of the guardhouse.

"Served the naygur right for sassing a sergeant," was Sergeant McGillicuddy's view. On the other side was arrayed, of course, Mrs. Fortescue, who outwardly observed an armed neutrality, but who called the Colonel "John" during the entire three days of Kettle's imprisonment. Colonel Fortescue retaliated by calling Mrs. Fortescue "Elizabeth."

There were frequent references, in the Colonel's hearing, to "Poor Kettle," and the After-Clap was not rebuked in his insistent demand for "my Kettle, I want my Kettle! Where is my Kettle?"

At intervals, from the time he waked in the morning until Mrs. McGillicuddy put him in his crib at night, the After-Clap was screaming for Kettle, and as the baby was extremely robust, his shrieks and wails for Kettle were clearly audible to the Colonel, sitting grimly in his private office, or at luncheon, or having his tea in the drawing-room. Colonel Fortescue, however, spent most of his time during those three days at the headquarters building or the officers' club. As for Mrs. McGillicuddy, she was openly on the side of Kettle and against the Colonel, and shrewdly surmised exactly what had happened about the enlistment, and also that Sergeant McGillicuddy was implicated with the other two sergeants in the outrage. Mrs. McGillicuddy boldly propounded this theory to Mrs. Fortescue while the latter was dressing for dinner on the first evening of Kettle's incarceration. The Colonel, in the next room, going through the same process of dressing, could hear every word through the open door.

"It's Patrick McGillicuddy that had a hand in it, mum," said Mrs. McGillicuddy wrathfully. "He's been takin' rises out of the naygur, as he calls Kettle, for twenty years, and he seen Sergeant Gully and Sergeant Halligan draggin' poor Kettle along to the riding hall. I seen Kettle when he run out, and McGillicuddy was a standin' off, a-laffin' fit to kill himself, and I know that Gully and Halligan has been jokin' Kettle and makin' him believe he has enlisted in the aviation corps and will have to go flyin', and Kettle's scared stiff."

"Poor Kettle," said Mrs. Fortescue softly, clasping her pearls about her white throat. "It's been a sad day to all of us, except the Colonel. Of course, I never attempt to criticise Colonel Fortescue's professional conduct, but I do feel lost without Kettle."

"Well, mum," replied Mrs. McGillicuddy, "I haven't been a sergeant's wife for twenty years without findin' out that nobody can't say a word about the orficers, but I do think, mum, as three days in the guardhouse for poor Kettle, who was bamboozled by Tim Gully and Mike Halligan, is one of the cruelest things a commandin' orficer ever done. Not that I'm a-criticisin' the Colonel, mum--I wouldn't do such a thing for the world."

"Nor would I," replied Mrs. Fortescue meekly, and fully conscious of the Colonel's presence in the next room, shaving himself savagely, "but three days for such a little thing does seem hard."

Colonel Fortescue ground his teeth and gave himself such a jab with his razor that the blood came.

This subtle persecution of the Colonel went on, with variations, for three whole days.

On the Friday when Kettle's time was up he was released and his return was hailed with open delight by his partisans, Mrs. Fortescue, Mrs. McGillicuddy and the After-Clap, and with secret relief by the Colonel, Anita and Sergeant McGillicuddy.

Kettle, on reporting to the Colonel, said solemnly, "Kun'l, I ain't never goin' ter try an' enlist no mo', so help me Gord A'mighty. An' I ain't a'goin' to pay no more 'tention to the chaplain's sermons, 'cause 'twuz that there chaplain as fust got me in this here mess, cuss him!"

This last was under Kettle's breath, and the Colonel pretended not to hear.