Under Fire. Charles KingЧитать онлайн книгу.
hush and awe rewarded the mandate, followed up the order with the military Milesianism, "Youse fellers wants to keep your mouths shut barrin' you're atin'." The wounded in the Pullman ate and drank gratefully and heartily at the lieutenant's expense, and these are matters the rank and file remember. Lance Corporal Brannan, made comfortable for the night in the sleeper, had a few murmured words with the dark-eyed and more intelligent-looking of the two recruits before they were remanded to their own car for the night, where they went, and, after the manner of their kind, one of them bragged not a little over the bully supper they had had with the lieutenant. "Enjoy it while you can, me bucks," was the caustic comment of a fellow-recruit who had all the ear-marks and none of the credentials of previous service about him. "It's the last of that sort of hobnobbing you'll ever see."
For upwards of an hour during the night, while Mrs. Cranston lay peacefully sleeping, Mr. Davies and Miss Loomis sat in conversation in the opposite section. Tibbetts, who would fain have enjoyed such a privilege, found no opportunity. Somewhere towards ten o'clock he came quickly in. Davies read official matter in the captain's manner as he approached the section, and rising, stood attention, cadet-like, when addressed.
"Mr. Davies, while I think everything will go quietly with those fellows from this on, I wish to take all necessary precautions. I will divide the night with you. After two o'clock I wish you to go through the cars once every two hours and see that the recruits are quiet and the guard alert, also to step outside to the platform when we stop at stations. Better turn in now and get what sleep you can."
But though promptly at two o'clock the young officer aroused the captain, who was dozing in the smoking-room, he himself had had little sleep. The events of the day, the novelty of his position, the desire to see something of the strange, half-settled land so recently the roaming-ground of Indian and buffalo through which they were steadily rolling, and which lay outspread, weird and ghostly, in the summer moonlight—these and thoughts of home and the rapidly nearing possibilities of frontier warfare, all combined to make him wakeful. He was only getting sleepy when he should have been wide awake. Captain Tibbetts was an old campaigner and awoke from his doze with a start, shook himself together, and said he'd take a turn through the car before undressing for the night. In a moment or two he returned, the first sergeant with him, and this faithful old soldier was rewarded by a long pull from the captain's canteen before returning to the recruit car.
"Do you know anything about that young fellow—ever meet him before?" said Tibbetts, indicating with a nod the recruit corporal, who, with a pillow under his head and his feet on the opposite seat, was now curled up in slumber.
"No, sir," answered Davies.
"Well, he's a man of good education and family, if I'm not mistaken. I'm told he's been on duty as clerk at the depot, and 'twas he who made out the rolls. It will be long before he can write again. Better leave him at Sanders." As he spoke the captain was holding out the well-filled flask in one hand, the cup in the other. Davies took neither. "Won't you have a nip?" asked the senior. "It'll help you to keep awake."
"Thank you, sir, I never have, and don't care to begin."
Tibbetts began screwing on the cap, looking his man over as he did so.
"I believe you're right," said he, "and if I were to begin over again I'd do the same. But we were all taught the other way fifteen years ago." He paused as though he half wanted to say more, but finally turned away and disappeared in his section.
Obedient to his instructions, Davies made frequent tours through the cars, and scouted the outside of the train at every stop. The night passed, however, in perfect peace. The dawn came hours before the train was due at Sidney, where coffee was again to be served. Only one incident occurred to give him food for new thought. Towards four o'clock he returned to the sleeper after an absence of some ten minutes, just as the train pulled slowly away from one of those little prairie stations, and as he entered the dimly-lighted aisle he saw that Brannan was not in his place. Standing at Mrs. Cranston's section farther on, a little phial and medicine-glass in her hand, her dark hair falling in heavy braids down her back, attired in a loose, warm wrapper, was Miss Loomis, calm, yet evidently anxious. Beyond her hovered Brannan, holding the captain's flask.
"What is it?" asked Davies. "Can I be of assistance?"
"Mrs. Cranston woke up in some pain," was the answer. "I know just what to do for her. Thank you, corporal, I believe we won't need the flask.—He thought I needed it," said she, turning to Davies. And Brannan, going to the captain's section, slipped his prize back into the little russet leather satchel and shoved it underneath the berth. Davies looked at him in some surprise, but made no comment.
"I am sorry I was not here to help you," said he. "Did you have to wake him—Brannan?"
"He was awake. A soldier was in here speaking with him when I heard Mrs. Cranston, just after we stopped at the last station. We were there several minutes, were we not?"
"Yes, taking on water; but Captain Tibbetts gave orders that no man should leave his car. Who was the man who came in here, corporal?" asked he of Brannan.
"I—I couldn't give his name, sir," was the answer, in evident embarrassment. "He came in just the minute the lieutenant got off at the station. He was only in here a few seconds, sir."
"What did he want?" asked Davies.
"He—wanted something of the captain, sir, but I told him the captain was asleep."
Davies hastened through the passage and across the jolting platform to the next car ahead.
"Sergeant," said he, "what man went through here into the sleeper when we stopped last station?"
"No man, sir," said the non-commissioned officer, stoutly.
"But there must have been—or no, perhaps he could have run along the left side of the train from a forward car and jumped on the platform. I didn't think of that. Did you see or hear no one?"
"I heard some one on the platform of the sleeper, sir, but I thought it was the lieutenant."
Going forward Davies met with no better success. The guard at each door was positive no man had gone out. Then, unless there were collusion on the part of the sentries, he must have slipped through some window, said Davies to himself. Miss Loomis was still up and rearranging Mrs. Cranston's pillows when he returned.
"Did you ascertain anything?" she asked.
"Nothing. They all deny any knowledge of such a thing."
"Do you know, I thought there was something strange about it. The man seemed hurried and excited, talked low and fast, and when Brannan refused or seemed to refuse what was asked, I heard him say, 'Well, you'll be a sorry man if you don't.'"
But of this threat Brannan denied all knowledge whatsoever. Davies, feeling sure that the young soldier was concealing something, decided to ask no more questions inviting more lies, but to wait and report the affair to the captain after breakfast. This time the sergeants did not overlook the lance corporal in the distribution of coffee and rations. Davies found that Miss Loomis had just finished dressing and bandaging the wound when he returned to the sleeper shortly after they resumed the journey. The soldier looked gratefully into her face as he turned away, and murmured something the young officer could not hear. "Yes, I understand," said Miss Loomis in reply.
A moment later she accosted him. "I'm going to ask you something that may sound very strange," she said, and her color heightened and the lids swept quickly over her eyes, "yet—I believe you won't misunderstand. I want you to do something—or rather not to do something—for me. You were going to tell Captain Tibbetts about that affair of last night—that other soldier's coming in here, were you not?"
"I certainly was."
"Well—please don't."
CHAPTER V.
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