Chapter 8

It must have been then that for the first time I saw the wistful look come into his eyes, and suddenly felt deeply sorry for him and wished that I might dare to tell him so. I was not sorry for any act or speech of mine. They had attacked me, and I had only defended myself. I was not repentant for anything I had said; my sorrow was for what I read in the General’s eyes as he sat staring out into the valley. It was the saddest and loneliest look that I had ever seen. There was no bitterness in it, but great sadness and weariness and disappointment, and above all, loneliness, utter and complete loneliness.

He glanced up and saw me watching him, and for a moment regarded me curiously, and then, as though I had tried to force my way into his solitude, turned his eyes quickly away.

I had forgotten that I was a suspected spy until the fact was recalled to me at that moment by the reappearance of Major Reeder. He came bustling past me, carrying as I saw, to my great indignation, the sword which had been presented to my grandfather, and which my grandfather had given to me. I sprang after him and twisted it out of his hand.

“How dare you!” I cried. “You have opened my trunk! How dare you pry into my affairs? General Laguerre!” I protested. “I appeal to you, sir.”

“Major Reeder,” the General demanded, sharply, “what does this mean?”

“I was merely seeking evidence, General,” said Reeder. “You asked for his papers, and I went to look for them.”

“I gave you no orders to pry into this gentleman’s trunk,” said the General. “You have exceeded your authority. You have done very ill, sir. You have done very ill.”

While the General was reproving Reeder, his eyes, instead of looking at the officer, were fixed upon my sword. It was sufficiently magnificent to attract the attention of anyone, certainly of any soldier. The scabbard was of steel, wonderfully engraved, the hilt was of ivory, and the hilt-guard and belt fastenings were all of heavy gold. The General’s face was filled with appreciation.

“You have a remarkably handsome sword there,” he said, and hesitated, courteously, “--I beg your pardon, I have not heard your name?”

I was advancing to show the sword to him, when my eye fell upon the plate my grandfather had placed upon it, and which bore the inscription: “To Royal Macklin, on his appointment to the United States Military Academy, from his Grandfather, John M. Hamilton, Maj. Gen. U.S.A.”

“My name is Macklin, sir,” I said, “Royal Macklin.” I laid the sword lengthwise in his hands, and then pointed at the inscription. “You will find it there,” I said. The General bowed and bent his head over the inscription and then read the one beside it. This stated that the sword had been presented by the citizens of New York to Major-General John M. Hamilton in recognition of his distinguished services during the war with Mexico. The General glanced up at me in astonishment.

“General Hamilton!” he exclaimed. “General John Hamilton! Is that--was he your grandfather?”

I bowed my head, and the General stared at me as though I had contradicted him.

“But, let me tell you, sir,” he protested, “that he was my friend. General Hamilton was my friend for many years. Let me tell you, sir,” he went on, excitedly, “that your grandfather was a brave and courteous gentleman, a true friend and--and a great soldier, sir, a great soldier. I knew your grandfather well. I knew him well.” He rose suddenly, and, while still holding the sword close to him, shook my hand.

“Captain Heinze,” he said, “bring out a chair for Mr. Macklin.” He did not notice the look of injury with which Heinze obeyed this request. But I did, and I enjoyed the spectacle, and as Heinze handed me the camp-chair I thanked him politely. I could afford to be generous.

The General was drawing the sword a few inches from its scabbard and shoving it back, again, turning it over in his hands.

“And to think that this is John Hamilton’s sword,” he said, “and that you are John Hamilton’s grandson!” As the sword lay across his knees he kept stroking it and touching it as one might caress a child, glancing up at me from time to time with a smile. It seemed to have carried him back again into days and scenes to which we all were strangers, and we watched him without speaking. He became suddenly conscious of our silence, and, on looking up, seemed to become uncomfortably aware of the presence of Aiken and the two officers.

“That will do, gentlemen,” he said. “You will return with Mr. Aiken after roll-call.” The officers saluted as they moved away, with Aiken between them. He raised his eyebrows and tapped himself on the chest. I understood that he meant by this that I was to say a good word for him, and I nodded. When they had left us the General leaned forward and placed his hand upon my shoulder.

“Now tell me,” he said. “Tell me everything. Tell me what you are doing here, and why you ran away from home. Trust me entirely, and do not be afraid to speak the whole truth.”

I saw that he thought I had left home because I had been guilty of some wildness, if not of some crime, and I feared that my story would prove so inoffensive that he would think I was holding something back. But his manner was so gentle and generous that I plunged in boldly. I told him everything; of my life with my grandfather, of my disgrace at the Academy, of my desire, in spite of my first failure, to still make myself a soldier. And then I told him of how I had been disappointed and disillusioned, and how it had hurt me to find that this fight seemed so sordid and the motives of all engaged only mercenary and selfish. But once did he interrupt me, and then by an exclamation which I mistook for an exclamation of disbelief, and which I challenged quickly. “But it is true, sir,” I said. “I joined the revolutionists for just that reason--because they were fighting for their liberty and because they had been wronged and were the under-dogs in the fight, and because Alvarez is a tyrant. I had no other motive. Indeed, you must believe me, sir,” I protested, “or I cannot talk to you. It is the truth.”

“The truth!” exclaimed Laguerre, fiercely; and as he raised his eyes I saw that they had suddenly filled with tears. “It is the first time I have heard the truth in many years. It is what I have preached myself for half a lifetime; what I have lived for and fought for. Why, here, now,” he cried, “while I have been sitting listening to you, it was as though the boy I used to be had come back to talk to me, bringing my old ideals, the old enthusiasm.” His manner and his tone suddenly altered, and he shook his head and placed his hand almost tenderly upon my own. “But I warn you,” he said, “I warn you that you are wrong. You have begun young, and there is yet time for you to turn back; but if you hope for money, or place, or public favor, you have taken the wrong road. You will be a rolling-stone among milestones, and the way is all down hill. I began to fight when I was even younger than you. I fought for whichever party seemed to me to have the right on its side. Sometimes I have fought for rebels and patriots, sometimes for kings, sometimes for pretenders. I was out with Garibaldi, because I believed he would give a republic to Italy; but I fought against the republic of Mexico, because its people were rotten and corrupt, and I believed that the emperor would rule them honestly and well. I have always chosen my own side, the one which seemed to me promised the most good; and yet, after thirty years, I am where you see me to-night. I am an old man without a country, I belong to no political party, I have no family, I have no home. I have travelled over all the world looking for that country which was governed for the greater good of the greater number, and I have fought only for those men who promised to govern unselfishly and as the servants of the people. But when the fighting was over, and they were safe in power, they had no use for me nor my advice. They laughed, and called me a visionary and a dreamer. ‘You are no statesman, General,’ they would say to me. ‘Your line is the fighting-line. Go back to it.’ And yet, when I think of how the others have used their power, I believe that I could have ruled the people as well, and yet given them more freedom, and made more of them more happy.”

The moon rose over the camp, and the night grew chill; but still we sat, he talking and I listening as I had used to listen when I sat at my grandfather’s knee and he told me tales of war and warriors. They brought us coffee and food, and we ate with an ammunition-box for a table, he still talking and I eager to ask questions, and yet fearful of interrupting him. He told of great battles which had changed the history of Europe, of secret expeditions which had never been recorded even in his own diary, of revolutions which after months of preparation had burst forth and had been crushed between sunset and sunrise; of emperors, kings, patriots, and charlatans. There was nothing that I had wished to do, and that I had imagined myself doing, that he had not accomplished in reality--the acquaintances he had made among the leaders of men, the adventures he had suffered, the honors he had won, were those which to me were the most to be desired.

{Illustration: The moon rose over the camp ... but still we sat.}

The scene around us added color to his words. The moonlight fell on ghostly groups of men seated before the camp-fires, their faces glowing in the red light of the ashes; on the irregular rows of thatched shelters and on the shadowy figures of the ponies grazing at the picket-line. All the odors of a camp, which to me are more grateful than those of a garden, were borne to us on the damp night-air; the clean pungent smell of burning wood, the scent of running water, the smell of many horses crowded together and of wet saddles and accoutrements. And above the swift rush of the stream, we could hear the ceaseless pounding of the horses’ hoofs on the turf, the murmurs of the men’s voices, and the lonely cry of the night-birds.

It was past midnight when the General rose, and my brain rioted with the pictures he had drawn for me. Surely, if I had ever considered turning back, I now no longer tolerated the thought of it. If he had wished to convince me that the life of a soldier of fortune was an ungrateful one he had set about proving it in the worst possible way. At that moment I saw no career so worthy to be imitated as his own, no success to be so envied as his failures. And in the glow and inspiration of his talk, and with the courage of a boy, I told him so. I think he was not ill pleased at what I said, nor with me. He seemed to approve of what I had related of myself, and of the comments I had made upon his reminiscences. He had said, again and again: “That is an intelligent question,” “You have put your finger on the real weakness of the attack,” “That was exactly the error in his strategy.”

When he turned to enter his tent he shook my hand. “I do not know when I have talked so much,” he laughed, “nor,” he added, with grave courtesy, “when I have had so intelligent a listener. Good-night.”

Throughout the evening he had been holding my sword, and as he entered the tent he handed it to me.

“Oh, I forgot,” he said. “Here is your sword, Captain.”

The flaps of the tent fell behind him, and I was left outside of them, incredulous and trembling.

I could not restrain myself, and I pushed the flaps aside.

“I beg your pardon, General,” I stammered.

He had already thrown himself upon his cot, but he rose on his elbow and stared at me.

“What is it?” he demanded.

“I beg your pardon, sir,” I gasped, “but what did you call me then--just now?”

“Call you,” he said. “Oh, I called you ‘captain.’ You are a captain. I will assign you your troop to-morrow.”

He turned and buried his face in his arm, and unable to thank him I stepped outside of the tent and stood looking up at the stars, with my grandfather’s sword clasped close in my hands. And I was so proud and happy that I believe I almost prayed that he could look down and see me.

That was how I received my first commission--in a swamp in Honduras, from General Laguerre, of the Foreign Legion, as he lay half-asleep upon his cot. It may be, if I continue as I have begun, I shall receive higher titles, from ministers of war, from queens, presidents, and sultans. I shall have a trunk filled, like that of General Laguerre’s, with commissions, brevets, and patents of nobility, picked up in many queer courts, in many queer corners of the globe. But to myself I shall always be Captain Macklin, and no other rank nor title will ever count with me as did that first one, which came without my earning it, which fell from the lips of an old man without authority to give it, but which seemed to touch me like a benediction.

. . . . . . . . . .

The officer from whom I took over my troop was a German, Baron Herbert von Ritter. He had served as an aide-de-camp to the King of Bavaria, and his face was a patchwork of sword-cuts which he had received in the students’ duels. No one knew why he had left the German army. He had been in command of the troop with the rank of captain, but when the next morning Laguerre called him up and told him that I was now his captain he seemed rather relieved than otherwise.

“They’re a hard lot,” he said to me, as we left the General. “I’m glad to get rid of them.”

The Legion was divided into four troops of about fifty men each. Only half of the men were mounted, but the difficulties of the trail were so great that the men on foot were able to move quite as rapidly as those on mule-back. Under Laguerre there were Major Webster, an old man, who as a boy had invaded Central America with William Walker’s expedition, and who ever since had lived in Honduras; Major Reeder and five captains, Miller, who was in charge of a dozen native Indians and who acted as a scout; Captain Heinze, two Americans named Porter and Russell, and about a dozen lieutenants of every nationality. Heinze had been adjutant of the force, but the morning after my arrival the General appointed me to that position, and at roll-call announced the change to the battalion.

“We have been waiting here for two weeks for a shipment of machine guns,” he said to them. “They have not arrived and I cannot wait for them any longer. The battalion will start at once for Santa Barbara, where I expect to get you by to-morrow night. There we will join General Garcia, and continue with him until we enter the capital.”

The men, who were properly weary of lying idle in the swamp, interrupted him with an enthusiastic cheer and continued shouting until he lifted his hand.

“Since we have been lying here,” he said, “I have allowed you certain liberties, and discipline has relaxed. But now that we are on the march again you will conduct yourselves like soldiers, and discipline will be as strictly enforced as in any army in Europe. Since last night we have received an addition to our force in the person of Captain Macklin, who has volunteered his services. Captain Macklin comes of a distinguished family of soldiers, and he has himself been educated at West Point. I have appointed him Captain of D Troop and Adjutant of the Legion. As adjutant you will recognize his authority as you would my own. You will now break camp, and be prepared to march in half an hour.”

Soon after we had started we reached a clearing, and Laguerre halted us and formed the column into marching order. Captain Miller, who was thoroughly acquainted with the trail, and his natives, were sent on two hundred yards ahead of us as a point. They were followed by Heinze with his Gatling guns. Then came Laguerre and another troop, then Reeder with the two remaining troops and our “transport” between them. Our transport consisted of a dozen mules carrying bags of coffee, beans, and flour, our reserve ammunition, the General’s tent, and whatever few private effects the officers possessed over and above the clothes they stood in. I brought up the rear with D Troop. We moved at a walk in single file and without flankers, as the jungle on either side of the trail was impenetrable. Our departure from camp had been so prompt that I had been given no time to become acquainted with my men, but as we tramped forward I rode along with them or drew to one side to watch them pass and took a good look at them. Carrying their rifles, and with their blanket-rolls and cartridge-belts slung across their shoulders, they made a better appearance than when they were sleeping around the camp. As the day grew on I became more and more proud of my command. The baron pointed out those of the men who could be relied upon, and I could pick out for myself those who had received some military training. When I asked these where they had served before, they seemed pleased at my having distinguished the difference between them and the other volunteers, and saluted properly and answered briefly and respectfully.

If I was proud of the men, I was just as pleased with myself, or, I should say, with my luck. Only two weeks before I had been read out to the battalion at West Point, as one unfit to hold a commission, and here I was riding at the head of my own troop. I was no second lieutenant either, with a servitude of five years hanging over me before I could receive my first bar, but a full-fledged captain, with fifty men under him to care for and discipline and lead into battle. There was not a man in my troop who was not at least a few years older than myself, and as I rode in advance of them and heard the creak of the saddles and the jingle of the picket-pins and water-bottles, or turned and saw the long line stretching out behind me, I was as proud as Napoleon returning in triumph to Paris. I had brought with me from the Academy my scarlet sash, and wore it around my waist under my sword-belt. I also had my regulation gauntlets, and a campaign sombrero, and as I rode along I remembered the line about General Stonewall Jackson, in “Barbara Frietchie.”

“The leader glancing left and right.”

I repeated it to myself, and scowled up at the trees and into the jungle. It was a tremendous feeling to be a “leader.”

At noon the heat was very great, and Laguerre halted the column at a little village and ordered the men to eat their luncheon. I posted pickets, appointed a detail to water the mules, and asked two of the inhabitants for the use of their clay ovens. In the other troops each man, or each group of men, were building separate fires and eating alone or in messes of five or six but by detailing four of my men to act as cooks for the whole troop, and six others to tend the fires in the ovens, and six more to carry water for the coffee, all of my men were comfortably fed before those in the other troops had their fires going.

Von Ritter had said to me that during the two weeks in camp the men had used up all their tobacco, and that their nerves were on edge for lack of something to smoke. So I hunted up a native who owned a tobacco patch, and from him, for three dollars in silver, I bought three hundred cigars. I told Von Ritter to serve out six of them to each of the men of D Troop. It did me good to see how much they enjoyed them. For the next five minutes every man I met had a big cigar in his mouth, which he would remove with a grin, and say, “Thank you, Captain.” I did not give them the tobacco to gain popularity, for in active service I consider that tobacco is as necessary for the man as food, and I also believe that any officer who tries to buy the good-will of his men is taking the quickest way to gain their contempt.

Soldiers know the difference between the officer who bribes and pets them, and the one who, before his own tent is set up, looks to his men and his horses, who distributes the unpleasant duties of the camp evenly, and who knows what he wants done the first time he gives an order, and does not make unnecessary work for others because he cannot make up his mind.

After I had seen the mules watered and picketed in the public corral, I went to look for the General, whom I found with the other officers at the house of the Alcalde. They had learned news of the greatest moment. Two nights previous, General Garcia had been attacked in force at Santa Barbara, and had abandoned the town without a fight. Nothing more was known, except that he was either falling back along the trail to join us, or was waiting outside the city for us to come up and join him.

Laguerre at once ordered the bugles to sound “Boots and saddles,” and within five minutes we were on the trail again with instructions to press the men forward as rapidly as possible. The loss of Santa Barbara was a serious calamity. It was the town third in importance in Honduras, and it had been the stronghold of the revolutionists. The moral effect of the fact that Garcia held it, had been of the greatest possible benefit. As Garcia’s force consisted of 2,000 men and six pieces of artillery, it was inexplicable to Laguerre how without a fight he had abandoned so valuable a position.

The country through which we now passed was virtually uninhabited, and wild and rough, but grandly beautiful. At no time, except when we passed through one of the dusty little villages, of a dozen sun-baked huts set around a sun-baked plaza, was the trail sufficiently wide to permit us to advance unless in single file. And yet this was the highway of Honduras from the Caribbean Sea to the Pacific Ocean, and the only road to Tegucigalpa, the objective point of our expedition. The capital lay only one hundred miles from Porto Cortez, but owing to the nature of this trail it could not be reached from the east coast, either on foot or by mule, in less than from six to nine days. No wheeled vehicle could have possibly attempted the trip without shaking to pieces, and it was only by dragging and lifting our Gatling guns by hand that we were able to bring them with us.

At sunset we halted at a little village, where, as usual, the people yelled “Vivas!” at us, and protested that they were good revolutionists. The moon had just risen, and, as the men rode forward, kicking up the white dust and with the Gatlings clanking and rumbling behind them, they gave a most war-like impression. Miller, who had reconnoitered the village before we entered it, stood watching us as we came in. He said that we reminded him of troops of United States cavalry as he had seen them on the alkali plains of New Mexico and Arizona. It was again my duty to station our pickets and out-posts, and as I came back after placing the sentries, the fires were twinkling all over the plaza and throwing grotesque shadows of the men and the mules against the white walls of the houses. It was a most weird and impressive picture.

The troopers were exhausted with the forced march, and fell instantly to sleep, but for a long time I sat outside the Town Hall talking with General Laguerre and two of the Americans, Miller and old man Webster. Their talk was about Aiken, who so far had accompanied us as an untried prisoner. From what he had said to me on the march, and from what I remembered of his manner when Captain Leeds informed him of the loss of the guns, I was convinced that he was innocent of any treachery.