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Found in the Philippines: The Story of a Woman's Letters, a novel by Charles King |
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Chapter 6 |
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_ CHAPTER VI The great thoroughfare of that wonderful city, seated on more than her seven hills, and ruling the Western world, was thronged from curb to curb. Gay with bunting and streamers, the tall buildings of the rival newspapers and the long facades of hotels and business blocks were gayer still with the life and color and enthusiasm that crowded every window. Street traffic was blocked. Cable cars clanged vainly and the police strove valiantly. It was a day given up to but one duty and one purpose, that of giving Godspeed to the soldiery ordered for service in the distant Philippines, and, though they hailed from almost every section of the Union except the Pacific slope, as though they were her own children, with all the hope and faith and pride and patriotism, with all the blessings and comforts with which she had loaded the foremost ships that sailed, yet happily without the tears that flowed when her own gallant regiment was among the first to lead the way San Francisco turned out en masse to cheer the men from far beyond the Sierras and the Rockies, and to see them proudly through the Golden Gate. Early in the day the guns of a famous light battery had been trundled, decked like some rose-covered chariot at the summer festival of flowers, through the winding lanes of eager forms and faces, the cannoneers almost dragged from the ranks by the clasping hands of men and women who seemed powerless to let go. With their little brown carbines tossed jauntily over the broad blue shoulders, half a regiment of regular cavalry, dismounted, had gone trudging down to the docks, cheered to the gateway of the pier by thousands of citizens who seemed to envy the very recruits who, only half-uniformed and drilled, brought up the rear of the column. Once within the massive wooden portals, the guards and sentries holding back the importunate crowd, the soldiers flung aside their heavy packs, and were marshalled before an array of tempting tables and there feasted, comforted and rejoiced under the ministrations of that marvelous successor of the Sanitary Commission of the great Civil War of the sixties--the noble order of the Red Cross. There at those tables in the dust and din of the bustling piers, in the soot and heat of the railway station, in the jam and turmoil at the ferry houses, in the fog and chill of the seaward camps, in the fever-haunted wards of crowded field hospitals, from dawn till dark, from dark till dawn, toiled week after week devoted women in every grade of life, the wife of the millionaire, the daughter of the day laborer, the gently born, the delicately reared, the social pets and darlings, the humble seamstress, no one too high to stoop to aid the departing soldier, none too poor or low to deny him cheer and sympathy. The war was still young then. Spain had not lowered her riddled standard and sued for peace. Two great fleets had been swept from the seas, the guns of Santiago were silenced, and the stronghold of the Orient was sulking in the shadow of the flag, but there was still soldier work to be done, and so long as the nation sent its fighting men through her broad and beautiful gates San Francisco and the Red Cross stood by with eager, lavish hands to heap upon the warrior sons of a score of other States, even as upon their own, every cheer and comfort that wealth could purchase, or human sympathy devise. It was the one feature of the war days of '98 that will never be forgotten. At one of the flower-decked tables near the great "stage" that led to the main deck of the transport, a group of blithe young matrons and pretty girls had been busily serving fruit, coffee, bouillon and substantials to the troopers, man after man, for over two hours. There was lively chat and merry war of words going on at the moment between half a dozen young officers who had had their eyes on that particular table ever since the coming of the command, and were now making the most of their opportunities before the trumpets should sound the assembly and the word be passed to move aboard. All the heavy baggage and ammunition had, at last, been swung into the hold; the guns of the battery had been lowered and securely chocked; the forecastle head was thronged with the red-trimmed uniforms of the artillerymen, who had already been embarked and were now jealously clamoring that the troopers should be "shut off" from the further ministrations of the Red Cross, and broadly intimating that it wasn't a fair deal that their rivals should be allowed a whole additional hour of lingering farewells. Lingering farewells there certainly were. Many a young soldier and many a lass "paired off" in little nooks and corners among the stacks of bales and boxes, but at the table nearest the staging all seemed gay good humor. A merry little woman with straw-colored hair and pert, tip-tilted nose and much vivacity and complexion, had apparently taken the lead in the warfare of chaff and fun. Evidently she was no stranger to most of the officers. Almost as evidently, to a very close observer who stood a few paces away, she was no intimate of the group of women who with good right regarded that table as their especial and personal charge. Her Red Cross badge was very new; her garb and gloves were just as fresh and spotless. She had not been ladling out milk and cream, or buttering sandwiches, or pinning souvenirs on dusty blue blouses ever since early morning. Other faces there showed through all their smiles and sweetness the traces of long days of unaccustomed work and short nights of troubled sleep. Marvelous were Mrs. Frank Garrison's recuperative powers, thought they who saw her brought home in the Primes' stylish carriage, weak and helpless and shaken after her adventure of the previous day. She had not been at the Presidio a week, and yet she pervaded it. She had never thought of such a thing as the Red Cross until she found it the center of the social firmament after her arrival at San Francisco, and here she was, the last comer, the foremost ("most forward" I think some one described it) in their circle at one of the most prominent tables, absorbing much of the attention, most of the glory, and none of the fatigue that should have been equally shared by all. "Adios!" she gayly cried as the "assembly" rang out, loud and clear, and waving their hands and raising their caps, the officers hastened to join their commands. "Adios, till we meet in Manila." "Do you really think of going to the Philippines, Mrs. Garrison?" queried a much older-looking, yet younger woman. "Why, we were told the General said that none of his staff would be allowed to take their wives." "Yet there are others!" laughed Mrs. Garrison, waving a dainty handkerchief toward the troops now breaking into column of twos and slowly climbing the stage. "Who would want to go with that blessed old undertaker? Good-by--bon voyage, Geordie," she cried, blowing a kiss to the lieutenant at the head of the second troop, a youth who blushed and looked confused at the attention thereby centered upon him, and who would fain have shaken his fist, rather than waved the one unoccupied hand in perfunctory reply. "When I go I'll choose a ship with a band and broad decks, not any such cramped old canal boat as the Portland." "Oh! I thought perhaps your husband--" began the lady dubiously, but with a significant glance at the silent faces about her. "Who? Frank Garrison? Heavens! I haven't known what it was to have a husband--since that poor dear boy went on staff duty," promptly answered the diminutive center of attraction, a merry peal of laughter ringing under the dingy archway of the long, long roof. "Why, the Portland has only one stateroom in it big enough for a bandbox, and of course the General has to have that, and there isn't a deck where one couple could turn a slow waltz. No, indeed! wait for the next flotilla, when our fellows go, bands and all. Then we'll see." "But surely, Mrs. Garrison, we are told the War Department has positively forbidden officers' wives from going on the transports"--again began her interrogator, a wistful look in her tired eyes. "I know I'd give anything to join Mr. Dutton." "The War Department has to take orders quite as often as it gives them, Mrs. Dutton. The thing is to know how to be of the order-giving side. Oh, joy!" she suddenly cried. "Here are the Primes and Amy Lawrence--then the regiments must be coming! And there's Stanley Armstrong!" Far up the westward street the distant roar of voices mingled with the swing and rhythm and crash of martial music. Dock policemen and soldiers on guard began boring a wide lane through the throng of people on the pier. A huge black transport ship lay moored along the opposite side to that on which the guns and troopers were embarked, and for hours bales, boxes and barrels had been swallowed up and stored in her capacious depths until now, over against the tables of the Red Cross, there lay behind a rope barrier, taut stretched and guarded by a line of sentries, an open space close under the side of the greater steamer and between the two landing stages, placed fore and aft. By this time the north side of the broad pier was littered with the inevitable relics of open air lunching, and though busy hands had been at work and the tables had been cleared, and fresh white cloths were spread and everything on the tables began again to look fair and inviting, the good fairies themselves looked askance at their bestrewn surroundings. "Oh, if we could only move everything bodily over to the other side," wailed Madam President, as from her perch on a stack of Red Cross boxes she surveyed that coveted stretch of clean, unhampered flooring. "And why not?" chirruped Mrs. Garrison, from a similar perch, a tier or two higher. "Here are men enough to move mountains. All we have to do is to say the word." "Ah, but it isn't," replied the other, gazing wistfully about over the throng of faces, as though in search of some one sufficient in rank and authority to serve her purpose. "We plead in vain with the officer-of-the-guard. He says his orders are imperative--to allow no one to intrude on that space," and madam looked as though she would rather look anywhere than at the animated sprite above her. "What nonsense!" shrilled Mrs. Garrison. "Here, Cherry," she called to a pretty girl, standing near the base of the pile, "give me my bag. I'm army woman enough to know that order referred only to the street crowd that sometimes works in on the pier and steals." The bag was duly passed up to her. She cast one swift glance over the heads of the crowd to where a handsome carriage was slowly working its way among the groups of prettily dressed women and children--friends and relatives of members of the departing commands, in whose behalf, as though by special dispensation, the order excluding all but soldiers and the Red Cross had been modified. Already the lovely dark-eyed girl on the near side had waved her hand in greeting, responding to Mrs. Garrison's enthusiastic signals, but her companion, equally lovely, though of far different type, seemed preoccupied, perhaps unwilling to see, for her large, dark, thoughtful eyes were engaged with some object on the opposite side--not even with the distinguished looking soldier who sat facing her and talking quietly at the moment with Mr. Prime. There was a gleam of triumph in Mrs. Garrison's dancing eyes as she took out a flat notebook and pencil and dashed off a few lines in bold and vigorous strokes. Tearing out the page, she rapidly read it over, folded it and glanced imperiously about her. A cavalry sergeant, one of the home troop destined to remain at the Presidio, was leaning over the edge of the pier, hanging on to an iron ring and shouting some parting words to comrades on the upper deck, but her shrill soprano cut through the dull roar of deep, masculine voices and the tramp of feet on resounding woodwork. "Sergeant!" she cried, with quick decision. "Take this over to the officer in command of that guard. Then bring a dozen men and move these two tables across the pier." The cavalryman glanced at the saucy little woman in the stunning costume, "took in" the gold crossed sabres, topped by a regimental number in brilliants that pinned her martial collar at the round, white throat, noted the ribbon and pin and badge of the Red Cross, and the symbol of the Eighth Corps in red enamel and gold upon the breast of her jacket, and above all the ring of accustomed authority in her tone, and never hesitated a second. Springing to the pile of boxes he grasped the paper; respectfully raised his cap, and bored his stalwart way across the pier. In three minutes he was back--half a dozen soldiers at his heels. "Where'll you have 'em, ma'am--miss?" he asked, as the men grasped the supports and raised the nearmost table. "Straight across and well over to the edge," she answered, in the same crisp tones of command. Then, with total and instant change of manner, "I suppose your tables should go first, Madam President," she smilingly said. "It shall be as you wish about the others." And the Red Cross was vanquished. "I declare," said an energetic official, a moment later, leaning back on her throne of lemon boxes, and fanning herself vigorously, "for a whole hour I've been trying to move that officer's heart and convince him the order didn't apply to us. Now how did--she--do it?" "The officer must be some old--some personal friend," hazarded the secretary, with a quick feminine comprehensive glance at the little lady now being lifted up to shake hands with the carriage folk, after being loaded with compliments and congratulations by the ladies of the two favored tables. "Not at all," was the prompt reply. "He is a volunteer officer she never set eyes on before to-day. I would like to know what was on that paper." But now the roar of cheering and the blare of martial music had reached the very gateway. The broad portals were thrown open and in blue and brown, crushed and squeezed by the attendant throng, the head of the column of infantry came striding on to the pier. The band, wheeling to one side, stood at the entrance, playing them in, the rafters ringing to the stirring strains of "The Liberty Bell." They were still far down the long pier, the sloping rifles just visible, dancing over the heads of the crowd. No time was to be lost. More tables were to be carried, but--who but that--"that little army woman" could give the order so that it would be obeyed. Not one bit did the president like to do it, but something had to be done to obtain the necessary order, for the soldiers who so willingly and promptly obeyed her beck and call were now edging away for a look at the newcomers, and Mrs. Frank Garrison, perched on the carriage step and chatting most vivaciously with its occupants and no longer concerning herself, apparently, about the Red Cross or its tables, had the gratification of finding herself approached, quite as she had planned, by two most prominent and distinguished women of San Francisco society, and requested to issue instructions as to the moving of the other tables. "Certainly, ladies," she responded, with charming smiles. "Just one minute, Mildred. Don't drive farther yet," and within that minute half a dozen boys in blue were lugging at the first of the tables still left on the crowded side of the dock, and others still were bearing oil stoves, urns and trays. In less time than it takes to tell it the entire Red Cross equipage was on its way across the pier, and when the commanding officer of the arriving regiment reached the spot which he had planned to occupy with his band, his staff and all his officers, there in state and ceremony to receive the citizens who came in swarms to bid them farewell, he found it occupied by as many as eight snowy, goody-laden tables, presided over by as many as eighty charming maids and matrons, all ready and eager to comfort and revive the inner man of his mighty regiment with coffee and good cheer illimitable, and the colonel swore a mighty oath and pounced on his luckless officer-of-the-guard. He had served as a subaltern many a year in the old army, and knew how it was done. "Didn't I give you personal and positive orders not to let anything or anybody occupy this space after the baggage was got aboard, sir?" he demanded. "You did, sir," said the unabashed lieutenant, pulling a folded paper from his belt, "and the Red Cross got word to the general and what the Red Cross says--goes. Look at that!" The colonel looked, read, looked dazed, scratched his head and said: "Well, I'm damned!" Then he turned to his adjutant. "You were with me when I saw the general last night and he told me to put this guard on and keep this space clear. Now, what d'you say to that?" The adjutant glanced over the penciled lines. "Well," said he, "if you s'pose any order that discriminates against the Red Cross is going to hold good, once they find it out, you're bound to get left. They're feasting the first company now, sir; shall I have it stopped?" and there was a grin under the young soldier's mustache. The colonel paused one moment, shook his head and concluded he, too, would better grin and bear it. Taking the paper in his hand again he heard his name called and saw smiling faces and beckoning hands in an open carriage near him, but the sight of Stanley Armstrong, signalling to him from another, farther away, had something dominant about it. "With you in a minute," he called to those who first had summoned him. "What is it, Armstrong?" "I wish to present you to some friends of mine--Miss Lawrence--Miss Prime--Mr. Prime--my old associate, Colonel Stewart. Pardon me, Mrs. Garrison. I did not see you had returned." She had, and was once more perched upon the step. "Mrs. Garrison--Colonel Stewart. What we need to know, Stewart, is this: Will all your men board the ship by this stage, or will some go aft?" "All by this stage--why?" But the colonel felt a somewhat massive hand crushing down on his own and forebore to press the question. Armstrong let no pause ensue. He spoke, rapidly for him, bending forward, too, and speaking low; but even as she chatted and laughed, the little woman on the carriage step saw, even though she did not seem to look, heard, even though she did not seem to listen: "An awkward thing has happened. The General's tent was robbed of important papers perhaps two days ago, and the guardhouse rid of a most important prisoner last night. Canker has put the officer-of-the-guard in arrest. Remember good old Billy Gray who commanded us at Apache? This is Billy Junior, and I'm awful sorry." Here the soft gray eyes glanced quickly at the anxious face of Miss Lawrence, who sat silently feigning interest in the chat between the others. The anxious look in her eyes increased at Armstrong's next words: "The prisoner must have had friends. He is now said to be among your men, disguised, and those two fellows at the stage are detectives. I thought all that space was to be kept clear." "It was," answered Stewart, "yet the chief must have been overpersuaded. Look here!" and the colonel held forth a scrap of paper. Amy Lawrence, hearing something like the gasp of a sufferer in sudden pain, turned quickly and saw that every vestige of color had left Mrs. Garrison's face--that she was almost reeling on the step. Before she could call attention to it, Armstrong, who had taken and glanced curiously at the scrap, whirled suddenly, and his eyes, in stern menace, swept the spot where the little lady clung but an instant before. As suddenly Mrs. Garrison had sprung from the step and vanished. _ |
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