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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 14 |
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_ CHAPTER XIV Mid October. The Queen of the Fleet, the finest transport of the Pacific service, thronged with boys in blue at last ordered on to Manila, lay at the wharf at Honolulu, awaiting her commander's orders to cast loose. In strong force, and with stentorian voices, the Primeval Dudes joined in rollicking chorus to the crashing accompaniment of their band and, when they could take time to rest, the crowd ashore set up a cheer. The Hawaiian National Band, in spotless white, forming a huge and melodious circle on the wharf, vied with the musicians from the States in the spirit and swing of their stirring airs. "Aloha Oe! Aloha Oe!" chorused the surging throng, afloat and ashore, as wreaths and garlands--the leis of the islanders--were twined or hung about some favorite officer or favored man. The troops still held to service in Hawaii shouted good will and good-by to those ordered on to the Philippines. The Dudes of the Queen, and the lads from the prairies and the mountains on other transports anchored in the deep but narrow harbor, yelled soldierly condolence to those condemned to stay. The steam of the 'scape pipe roared loudly and belched dense white clouds on high, swelling the uproar. Dusky little Kanaka boys, diving for nickels and paddling tireless about the ship, added their shrill cries to the clamor. The captain, in his natty uniform of blue and gold, stepped forth upon the bridge to take command, and raised his banded cap in recognition of the constant cheer from the host ashore and the throng of blue shirts on the forecastle head. Then arose another shout, as a veteran officer, in the undress uniform of a general, appeared upon that sacred bound, and, bowing to the crowd, was escorted by the captain to the end overlooking the animated scene below; and then the signal was given, the heavy lines were cast off and hauled swiftly in, the massive screw began slowly to churn the waters at the stern, and gently, almost imperceptibly at first, the Queen slid noiselessly along the edge of the dock, to the accompaniment of a little volley of flowers and garlands tossed from eager hands, and a cheer of godspeed from the swarm of upturned faces. And then there uprose another shout, a shout of mingled merriment, surprise and applause; for all on a sudden there darted up the stairway from the crowded promenade deck to the sacred perch above, defiant of the lettered warning, "Passengers are not allowed upon the Bridge," a dainty vision in filmy white, and all in the next moment there appeared at the General's side, smiling, bowing, blowing kisses, waving adieux, all sparkle, animation, radiance and rejoicing, a bewitching little figure in the airiest, loveliest of summer toilets. The Red Cross nurses on the deck below looked at one another and gasped. Two brave army girls, wives of wounded officers in the Philippines, who, by special dispensation, were making the voyage on the Queen, glanced quickly at each other and said--nothing audible. The General, lifting his cap, but looking both deprecation and embarrassment, fell back and gave his place at the white rail to the new arrival, and colored high when she suddenly turned and took his arm. The captain, trying not to see her or to appear conscious of this infraction of a stringent rule and invasion of his dignity, grew redder as he shouted rapid orders and swung his big, beautiful ship well out into the stream. The guns of the Bennington boomed a deafening salute as the Queen turned her sharp nose toward the open sea; and almost the last thing Honolulu saw of her human freight was the tiny, dainty, winsome little figure in white, waving a spotless kerchief as in fond farewell. Once clear of the narrow entrance the big troop ship headed westward toward the setting sun, shook free the reins, as it were, and, followed by less favored craft, sped swiftly on her way, Witchie Garrison, the latest addition to the passenger list, entirely at home, if not actually in command. Leaning on the General's arm an hour later and deftly piloting that bewildered veteran up and down the breezy deck, she came, just as she had planned to come, face to face once more with Stanley Armstrong. Well she knew that under the escort of that exalted rank she was safe from any possibility of cross question or interference. Well she knew that had he heard of her sudden determination to go to Honolulu she could not have escaped stern interrogation, possibly something worse; and her heart failed her when she realized that the man who had gauged her shallow nature years before, now held a lash over her head in the shape of the paper that mad vanity had prompted her to write and send to the officer of the guard the day that Stewart sailed. What madness it was, indeed, yet how could she have dreamed it would fall into the hands of the man of all others she feared and respected--the one man who, had he but cared, could years ago have had her love, the man who, because he cared not, had won her hate! And, now that he held or had held this paper--nothing less than a forged order in her husband's name as aide-de-camp to General Drayton, she could have cowered at his feet in her terror of him, yet braved him with smiles, sweetness and gayety, with arch merriment and joyous words, quitting for the moment the General's arm that she might extend to him both her little white-gloved hands. Gravely he took the left in his left while with the right he raised his forage cap in combined salute to the woman and to his superior officer. Gravely and almost instantly he released it, and listened in helpless patience to her torrent of playful words; but his eyes were on the General's face as though he would ask could he, the General, know the true character of the woman he had honored above all her sisterhood on board, in thus taking her to the bridge whereon neither officer nor man nor nurse nor army wife had presumed to set foot on all the six days' run from San Francisco, as though he would ask if the General knew just what she was, this blithe, dainty, winsome little thing that nestled so confidingly--indeed, so snugly--close to his battered side, and who had virtually taken possession of him in the face of an envious and not too silent circle of her own sex. Truth to tell, the Chief would rather have escaped. He was but an indifferent sailor, and the Queen's long, lazy roll over the ocean surges was exciting in his inner consciousness a longing for cracked ice and champagne. He had known her but the few days the Queen remained in port, coaling and preparing for the onward voyage across the broad Pacific; but a great functionary of the general government had told him a pathetic tale the very day of his first peep at the Royal Hawaiian Hotel, had given him a capital dinner at that famous hostelry, whereat she appeared in charming attire, and in a flow of spirits simply irresistible. Her sallies of wit had made him roar with delight; her mimicry of one or two conscientious but acidulated dames who had come over on the Queen, bound as nurses for Manila, had tickled him to the verge of apoplexy; but when later she backed him into the coolest corner of the "lanai" with the plash of fountain close at hand, and the sweet music of Berger's famous band floating softly on the evening air, and told him how her father had loved to talk of his, the General's, dash and daring in the great days of the great war, and led him on to tell of his campaigns in the Shenandoah and the West, listening with dilated eyes and parted lips, the campaigner himself was captivated, and she had her will. A great senator had told him how she had come thither to nurse a gallant young officer in her husband's regiment, how she had pulled the boy through the perils of brain fever until he was now convalescent and going on to rejoin his comrades in Manila, and she, she was pining to reach her husband now serving on General Drayton's staff. Other women were aboard the Queen; could not General Crabb find room for her? It is hard for a soldier to refuse a pretty woman--or a prominent member of the committee on military affairs. There was not a vacant stateroom on the ship. Officers were sleeping three or four in a room, so were the Red Cross nurses; and the two army wives already aboard had been assigned a little cubby-hole of a cabin in which only one could dress at a time. There were only two apartments on the big craft that were not filled to their capacity--the room occupied by that sea monarch, the captain, and that which, from having been the "Ladies' Boudoir," had been fitted up for the accommodation of the General. The piano had been wheeled out on deck, the writing table stowed away, and a fine new wide brass bedstead, with dainty white curtains and mosquito bar, a large bureau and a washstand had been moved in, and these, with easy-chairs, electric fans, electric lights and abundant air, made it the most desirable room on the ship. Even Armstrong, colonel commanding the troops aboard, was compelled to share his little cabin with his adjutant, and the General's aides were bundled into a "skimpy" box between decks. There really seemed no place for Mrs. Garrison aboard, especially when it was found that the passenger list was to be increased by three, a surgeon and two officers going forward from Honolulu; and one of these was our old friend and once light-hearted Billy Gray, now nearly convalescent, but weak and, as all could see, feverishly eager to get on to Manila. All this was explained to the senator. It was even suggested that there was room for Mrs. Garrison on the Louisiana, a safe old tub, if she was slow; but Mrs. Frank looked so pathetic and resigned when this arrangement was suggested that no one had the hardihood to actually dwell upon it, and the senator said it was a shame to think of it. With whom of her own sex could she associate on that long, hot voyage ahead of them? Why not transfer some of the Red Cross nurses to the Louisiana? Mrs. Garrison had no objections, but they had; and the surgeon in charge made prompt and vigorous protest. He knew Mrs. Frank, and she knew him and did not in the least despair. She still had a plan. There was a cozy dinner one evening--just the evening before the departure of the Queen, and the gallant captain of the ship, the veteran General, the quartermaster in charge of transportation, the member of the senate military committee, some charming girls,--but none so charming as Mrs. Garrison,--were of the party. There was some sentiment and much champagne, as a result of which, at one A.M., the big-hearted sea monarch aforementioned swore by the bones of his ancestors in the slimy grasp of Davy Jones that that sweet little woman shouldn't have to go a-begging for accommodations on his ship. If the General would condescend to move into his room, by thunder, he'd sleep up in his foul-weather den next the chart room, and Mrs. Garrison--God bless her!--could take the General's room, and be queen of the ship--queen of the Queen--queen of queens--by Jupiter! and here's her health with all honor! A soldier, of course, could be no less gallant than a sailor, especially as the captain's room was a bit better than the "Boudoir," and had an ice chest and contents that the veteran campaigner was bidden to consider his own. The agreement was clinched that very night before the party broke up; and little Mrs. Frank shed tears of gratitude upon the General's coat sleeve and threw kiss after kiss to the handsome sailor as she hung over the balusters of the broad veranda and waved them away in their swift-running cabs, and then danced off to her room and threw herself on the bed after a mad pirouette about the spacious apartment, and laughed and laughed until real tears trickled from her eyes, and then gave orders to be called at seven o'clock. She meant to be up and aboard that ship with all her luggage before sense and repentance could come with the morning sun--before either soldier or sailor could change his mind. To the amaze of the women already aboard, to the grave annoyance of Colonel Armstrong, to the joy of poor Billy Gray, and the mischievous merriment of several youngsters on the commissioned list, Mrs. Frank Garrison, the latest arrival, became sole occupant of the finest room on the ship; and it was a bower of lilies and tropical fruit and flowers the breezy day she sailed away from the bay of Honolulu. No time need be wasted in telling the effect of this "assignment to quarters." Prolific a source of squabble as is the custom ashore it becomes intensified afloat, and, when coupled with it, came a shaking up and rearrangement of seats at table, all hope of harmony vanished on the instant. The two brave young army girls still retained their seats at the captain's table; but two most estimable young women, Red Cross nurses, were dropped therefrom and transferred to that of the second officer on the port side, much to the comfort of a rather large percentage of their sisterhood who had regarded their previous elevation with feelings of not unmixed gratification. Then officers who had been seated with the General's staff had to vacate in favor of Mrs. Frank and Dr. Prober and Lieutenant Billy Gray, whose father and the chief were long-time chums, and the Red Cross nurses who had been at the first officer's table fell back to that of the third. It was every bit as good as the other, but it didn't sound so, and they couldn't see it; and there were faces sour as the product of the ship's baker when that evening all hands went down to dinner, and the silence maintained, or the ominously subdued tone of the talk, at the other tables, was in marked contrast with the hilarity that prevailed where sat the gray-haired, ruddy-cheeked old chief and the laughing coterie that listened to the fun that fell from the lips of Witchie Garrison. Armstrong, silent and somber, at the captain's right, looking forward from time to time, saw only one face at the General's table that was not lighted up with merriment; it was the face of the boy he envied, if envy of this kind ever entered into his heart, and he wondered as he looked at Billy's curly head what could have come over that glad young life to leave so deep a shadow on his handsome face. One night, just one week later, Armstrong's eyes were opened. More than once in the meanwhile he had invited the young officer's confidence, and Billy, who three months earlier had been all gratitude and frankness, protested there was nothing on his mind. He had been very ill, that was all. As to Canker's charges they were simply rot. He hadn't the faintest inkling what had become of the purloined letters any more than he had of the whereabouts of his Delta Sig friend, young Morton, now officially proclaimed a deserter. But Armstrong heard more tales of Witchie's devotions to him in his illness, and the slow convalescence that ensued, noted how the boy's eyes followed her about the deck, and how many a time he would seek her side, even when other men were reading, walking or chatting with her. Armstrong looked with wonderment that was close allied to incredulity and pain. Was it possible that this blithe lad, who had won such a warm interest in the heart of such a girl as Amy Lawrence, could be forgetful of her, faithless to her, and fascinated now by this selfish and shallow butterfly? It was incredible! But was it? The days had grown hotter, the nights closer, and the air between decks was stifling when the sea rolled high and closed the ports. Officers had taken to snoozing up on deck in steamer chairs. By an unwritten law the port side of the promenade deck was given up to them after eleven at night; but the women folk had the run of the starboard side at any hour when the crew were not washing down decks. Armstrong had been far forward about two o'clock one breathless night to see for himself the condition of things in the hospital under the forecastle. The main deck was crowded with sleeping forms of soldiers who found it impossible to stand the heat below; so on his return, instead of continuing along the gangway, he decided to climb the iron ladder from the main to the promenade deck. It would land him at the forward end on the starboard side. There he could smoke a cigar in peace and quiet. It was high time everybody was asleep. But as his head and eyes reached the level of the deck he became suddenly aware of a couple huddled close together in the shelter of a canvas screen, and under the steps leading aloft to the bridge. He knew Gray's voice at once, and Gray was pleading. He knew her tones of old, and she was imperative, and listening with obvious impatience, for, almost at the instant of his arrival, she spoke, low, yet distinctly. "Do as I say; do as I beg you when we reach Manila, and then come--and see how I can reward." _ |
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