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Waring's Peril, a fiction by Charles King |
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Chapter 6 |
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_ CHAPTER VI And all day long the storm beat upon the substantial buildings of the old barracks and flooded the low ground about the sheds and stables. Drills for the infantry were necessarily suspended, several sentries, even, being taken off their posts. The men clustered in the squad-rooms and listened with more or less credulity to the theories and confirmatory statements of fact as related by the imaginative or loquacious of their number. The majority of the officers gathered under the flaring lamp-lights at the sutler's store and occupied themselves pretty much as did their inferiors in grade, though poker and punch--specialties of Mr. Finkbein, the sutler--lent additional color to the stories in circulation. From this congress the better element of the commissioned force was absent, the names, nationalities, and idiomatic peculiarities of speech of the individual members being identical in most instances with those of their comrades in arms in the ranks. "Brax" had summoned Minor, Lawrence, Kinsey, and Dryden to hear what the post surgeon had to say on his return, but cautioned them to keep quiet. As a result of this precaution, the mystery of the situation became redoubled by one o'clock, and was intensified by two, when it was announced that Private Dawson had attempted to break away out of the hospital after a visit from the same doctor in his professional capacity. People were tempted out on their galleries in the driving storm, and colored servants flitted from kitchen to kitchen to gather or dispense new rumors, but nobody knew what to make of it when, soon after two, an orderly rode in from town dripping with mud and wet, delivered a note to the colonel, and took one from him to Mr. Ferry, now sole representative of the officers of Battery "X" present for duty. Ferry in return sent the bedraggled horseman on to the battery quarters with an order to the first sergeant, and in about fifteen minutes a sergeant and two men, mounted and each leading a spare horse, appeared under Ferry's gallery, and that officer proceeded to occupy one of the vacant saddles, and, followed by his party, went clattering out of the sally-port and splashing over to the levee. Stable-call sounded as usual at four o'clock, and, for the first time in the record of that disciplined organization since the devastating hand of Yellow Jack was laid upon it the previous year, no officer appeared to supervise the grooming and feeding. Two of them were at the post, however. Mr. Doyle, in arrest on charge of absence without leave, was escorted to his quarters about four-fifteen, and was promptly visited by sympathizing and inquisitive comrades from the Hotel Finkbein, while Mr. Ferry, who had effected the arrest, was detained making his report to the post commander. Night came on apace, the wind began to die away with the going down of the sun, the rain ceased to fall, a pallid moon began peering at odd intervals through rifts in the cloudy veil, when Cram rode splashing into barracks, worn with anxiety and care, at eleven o'clock, and, stopping only for a moment to take his wife in his arms and kiss her anxious face and shake his head in response to her eager query for news of Waring, he hurried down-stairs again and over to Doyle's quarters. All was darkness there, but he never hesitated. Tramping loudly over the gallery, he banged at the door, then, turning the knob, intending to burst right in, as was the way in the rough old days, was surprised to find the bolt set. "Doyle, open. I want to see you at once." All silence within. "Doyle, open, or, if you are too drunk to get up, I'll kick in the door." A groan, a whispered colloquy, then the rattle of bolt and chain. The door opened about an inch, and an oily Irish voice inquired,-- "Hwat's wanted, capt'in?" "You here?" exclaimed Cram, in disgust. "What business have you in this garrison? If the colonel knew it, you'd be driven out at the point of the bayonet." "Sure where should wife be but at her husband's side whin he's sick and sufferin'? Didn't they root him out of bed and comfort this day and ride him down like a felon in all the storm? Sure it was the doughboys' orders, sir. I told Doyle the capt'in niver would have----" "Oh, be quiet: I must see Doyle, and at once." "Sure he's not able, capt'in. You know how it is wid him: he's that sinsitive he couldn't bear to talk of the disgrace he's bringin' on the capt'in and the batthery, and I knowed he'd been dhrinkin', sir, and I came back to look for him, but he'd got started, capt'in, and it's----" "Stop this talk! He wasn't drinking at all until you came back here to hound him. Open that door, or a file of the guard will." "Och! thin wait till I'm dressed, fur dacency's sake, capt'in. Sure I'll thry and wake him." And then more whispering, the clink of glass, maudlin protestation in Doyle's thick tones. Cram banged at the door and demanded instant obedience. Admitted at last, he strode to the side of an ordinary hospital cot, over which the mosquito-bar was now ostentatiously drawn, and upon which was stretched the bulky frame of the big Irishman, his red, blear-eyed, bloated face half covered in his arms. The close air reeked with the fumes of whiskey. In her distress lest Jim should take too much, the claimant of his name and protection had evidently been sequestrating a large share for herself. "How on earth did you get here? Your house was flooded all day," angrily asked Cram. "Sure we made a raft, sir,--'Louette and me,--and poled over to the levee, and I walked every fut of the way down to follow me husband, as I swore I would whin we was married. I'd 'a' come in Anatole's boat, sir, but 'twas gone,--gone since last night. Did ye know that, capt'in?" A groan and a feverish toss from the occupant of the narrow bed interrupted her. "Hush, Jim darlin'! Here's the capt'in to see you and tell you he's come back to have you roighted. Sure how could a poor fellow be expected to come home in all that awful storm this mornin', capt'in? 'Tis for not comin' the colonel had him under arrest; but I tell him the capt'in 'll see him through." But Cram pushed her aside as she still interposed between him and the bed. "Doyle, look up and answer. Doyle, I say!" Again vehement protestations, and now an outburst of tears and pleadings, from the woman. "Oh, he can't understand you, capt'in. Ah, don't be hard on him. Only this mornin' he was sayin' how the capt'in reminded him of the ould foine days whin the officers was all gintlemen and soldiers. He's truer to ye than all the rest of thim, sir. D'ye moind that, capt'in? Ye wouldn't belave it, mabby, but there's them that can tell ye Loot'nant Waring was no friend of yours, sir, and worse than that, if ould Lascelles could spake now--but there's thim left that can, glory be to God!" "Oh, for God's sake shut up!" spoke Cram, roughly, goaded beyond all patience. "Doyle, answer me!" And he shook him hard. "You were at the Pelican last night, and you saw Mr. Waring and spoke with him. What did he want of you? Where did he go? Who were with him? Was there any quarrel? Answer, I say! Do you know?" But maudlin moaning and incoherencies were all that Cram could extract from the prostrate man. Again the woman interposed, eager, tearful. "Sure he was there, capt'in, he _was_ there; he told me of it whin I fetched him home last night to git him out of the storm and away from that place; but he's too dhrunk now to talk. Sure there was no gittin' down here to barx for anybody. The cabman, sir, said no carriage could make it." "What cabman? That's one thing I want to know. Who is he? What became of him?" "Sure and how do I know, sir? He was a quiet, dacent man, sir; the same that Mr. Waring bate so cruel and made Jeffers kick and bate him too. I saw it all." "And was he at the Pelican last night? I must know." "Sure he was indade, sir. Doyle said so whin I fetched him home, and though he can't tell you now, sir, he told me thin. They all came down to the Pelican, sir, Waring and Lascelles and the other gintleman, and they had dhrink, and there was trouble between the Frenchman and Waring,--sure you can't blame him, wid his wife goin' on so wid the loot'nant all the last month,--and blows was struck, and Doyle interposed to stop it, sir, loike the gintleman that he is, and the cab-driver took a hand and pitched him out into the mud. Sure he'd been dhrinkin' a little, sir, and was aisy upset, but that's all he knows. The carriage drove away, and there was three of thim, and poor Doyle got caught out there in the mud and in the storm, and 'twas me wint out wid Dawson and another of the byes and fetched him in. And we niver heerd of the murther at all at all, sir, until I came down here to-day, that's God's troot', and he'll tell ye so whin he's sober," she ended, breathless, reckless of her descriptive confusion of Doyle and Divinity. And still the Irishman lay there, limp, soggy, senseless, and at last, dismayed and disheartened, the captain turned away. "Promise to sober him up by reveille, and you may stay. But hear this: if he cannot answer for himself by that time, out you go in the battery cart with a policeman to take you to the calaboose." And then he left. No sooner had his footsteps died away than the woman turned on her patient, now struggling to a sitting posture. "Lie still, you thafe and cur, and swear you to every word I say, unless you'd hang in his place. Dhrink this, now, and go to slape, and be riddy to tell the story I give ye in the mornin', or may the knife ye drove in that poor mummy's throat come back to cut your coward heart out." And Doyle, shivering, sobbing, crazed with drink and fear, covered his eyes with his hands and threw himself back on his hot and steaming pillow. The morning sun rose brilliant and cloudless as the horses of the battery came forth from the dark interior of the stable and, after watering at the long wooden trough on the platform, were led away by their white-frocked grooms, each section to its own picket-line. Ferry, supervising the duty, presently caught sight of the tall muscular form of his captain coming briskly around the corner, little Pierce tripping along by his side. Cram acknowledged the salute of the battery officer of the day in hurried fashion. "Good-morning, Ferry," he said. "Tell me, who were there when you got Doyle away from that woman yesterday?" "Only the three, sir,--Mr. and Mrs. Doyle and the negro girl." "No sign of anybody else?" "None, sir. I didn't go in the house at all. I rode in the gate and called for Doyle to come out. The woman tried to parley, but I refused to recognize her at all, and presently Doyle obeyed without any trouble whatever, though she kept up a tirade all the time and said he was too sick to ride, and all that, but he wasn't. He seemed dazed, but not drunk,--certainly not sick. He rode all right, only he shivered and crossed himself and moaned when he passed the Lascelles place, for that hound pup set up a howl just as we were opposite the gate. He was all trembling when we reached the post, and took a big drink the moment he got to his room." "Ye-es, he's been drinking ever since. I've just sent the doctor to see him. Let the corporal and one man of the guard go with the ambulance to escort Mrs. Doyle out of the garrison and take her home. She shall not stay." "Why, she's gone, sir," said Ferry. "The guard told me she went out of the back gate and up the track towards Anatole's--going for all she was worth--just after dawn." "The mischief she has! What can have started her? Did you see her yourself, Sergeant Bennett?" asked the captain of a stocky little Irish soldier standing at the moment with drawn sabre awaiting opportunity to speak to his commander. "Yes, sir," and the sabre came flashing up to the present. "She'd wint over to the hospital to get some medicine for the lieutenant just after our bugle sounded first call, and she came runnin' out as I wint to call the officer of the day, sir. She ran back to the lieutenant's quarters ahead of me, and was up only a minute or two whin down she came again wid some bundles, and away she wint to the north gate, runnin' wild-like. The steward told me a moment after of Dawson's escape." "Dawson! escaped from hospital?" "Yes, sir. They thought he was all right last evening when he was sleeping, and took the sentry off, and at four this morning he was gone." _ |
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