LITMIR.BIZ

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of it they found a row of six cabs.

      The drivers on top were filled with a mighty curiosity. They had driven hurriedly from the adjacent ferry-house when they had seen the first running sign of an accident. They were straining on their toes and gazing at the tossing backs of the men in the crowd.

      The wanderers made a little detour, and then went rapidly towards a cab. They stopped in front of it and looked up.

      “Driver,” called the tall man, softly.

      The man was intent.

      “Driver,” breathed the freckled man. They stood for a moment and gazed imploringly.

      The cabman suddenly moved his feet. “By Jimmy, I bet he’s a gonner,” he said, in an ecstacy, and he again relapsed into a statue.

      The freckled man groaned and wrung his hands. The tall man climbed into the cab.

      “Come in here,” he said to his companion. The freckled man climbed in, and the tall man reached over and pulled the door shut. Then he put his head out the window.

      “Driver,” he roared, sternly, “839 Park Place—and quick.”

      The driver looked down and met the eye of the tall man. “Eh?—Oh—839? Park Place? Yessir.” He reluctantly gave his horse a clump on the back. As the conveyance rattled off the wanderers huddled back among the dingy cushions and heaved great breaths of relief.

      “Well, it’s all over,” said the freckled man, finally. “We’re about out of it. And quicker than I expected. Much quicker. It looked to me sometimes that we were doomed. I am thankful to find it not so. I am rejoiced. And I hope and trust that you—well, I don’t wish to—perhaps it is not the proper time to—that is, I don’t wish to intrude a moral at an inopportune moment, but, my dear, dear fellow, I think the time is ripe to point out to you that your obstinacy, your selfishness, your villainous temper, and your various other faults can make it just as unpleasant for your ownself, my dear boy, as they frequently do for other people. You can see what you brought us to, and I most sincerely hope, my dear, dear fellow, that I shall soon see those signs in you which shall lead me to believe that you have become a wiser man.”

      THE END OF THE BATTLE

      (Also published as “And If He Wills, We Must Die”)

      A sergeant, a corporal, and fourteen men of the Twelfth Regiment of the Line had been sent out to occupy a house on the main highway. They would be at least a half of a mile in advance of any other picket of their own people. Sergeant Morton was deeply angry at being sent on this duty. He said that he was over-worked. There were at least two sergeants, he claimed furiously, whose turn it should have been to go on this arduous mission. He was treated unfairly; he was abused by his superiors; why did any damned fool ever join the army? As for him he would get out of it as soon as possible; he was sick of it; the life of a dog. All this he said to the corporal, who listened attentively, giving grunts of respectful assent. On the way to this post two privates took occasion to drop to the rear and pilfer in the orchard of a deserted plantation. When the sergeant discovered this absence, he grew black with a rage which was an accumulation of all his irritations. “Run, you!” he howled. “Bring them here! I’ll show them—“A private ran swiftly to the rear. The remainder of the squad began to shout nervously at the two delinquents, whose figures they could see in the deep shade of the orchard, hurriedly picking fruit from the ground and cramming it within their shirts, next to their skins. The beseeching cries of their comrades stirred the criminals more than did the barking of the sergeant. They ran to rejoin the squad, while holding their loaded bosoms and with their mouths open with aggrieved explanations.

      Jones faced the sergeant with a horrible cancer marked in bumps on his left side. The disease of Patterson showed quite around the front of his waist in many protuberances. “A nice pair!” said the sergeant, with sudden frigidity. “You’re the kind of soldiers a man wants to choose for a dangerous outpost duty, ain’t you?”

      The two privates stood at attention, still looking much aggrieved. “We only—” began Jones huskily.

      “Oh, you ‘only!’” cried the sergeant. “Yes, you ‘only.’ I know all about that. But if you think you are going to trifle with me—”

      A moment later the squad moved on towards its station. Behind the sergeant’s back Jones and Patterson were slyly passing apples and pears to their friends while the sergeant expounded eloquently to the corporal. “You see what kind of men are in the army now. Why, when I joined the regiment it was a very different thing, I can tell you. Then a sergeant had some authority, and if a man disobeyed orders, he had a very small chance of escaping something extremely serious. But now! Good God! If I report these men, the captain will look over a lot of beastly orderly sheets and say—‘Haw, eh, well, Sergeant Morton, these men seem to have very good records; very good records, indeed. I can’t be too hard on them; no, not too hard.’” Continued the sergeant: “I tell you, Flagler, the army is no place for a decent man.”

      Flagler, the corporal, answered with a sincerity of appreciation which with him had become a science. “I think you are right, sergeant,” he answered.

      Behind them the privates mumbled discreetly. “Damn this sergeant of ours. He thinks we are made of wood. I don’t see any reason for all this strictness when we are on active service. It isn’t like being at home in barracks! There is no great harm in a couple of men dropping out to raid an orchard of the enemy when all the world knows that we haven’t had a decent meal in twenty days.”

      The reddened face of Sergeant Morton suddenly showed to the rear. “A little more marching and less talking,” he said.

      When he came to the house he had been ordered to occupy the sergeant sniffed with disdain. “These people must have lived like cattle,” he said angrily. To be sure, the place was not alluring. The ground floor had been used for the housing of cattle, and it was dark and terrible. A flight of steps led to the lofty first floor, which was denuded but respectable. The sergeant’s visage lightened when he saw the strong walls of stone and cement. “Unless they turn guns on us, they will never get us out of here,” he said cheerfully to the squad. The men, anxious to keep him in an amiable mood, all hurriedly grinned and seemed very appreciative and pleased. “I’ll make this into a fortress,” he announced. He sent Jones and Patterson, the two orchard thieves, out on sentry-duty. He worked the others, then, until he could think of no more things to tell them to do. Afterwards he went forth, with a major-general’s serious scowl, and examined the ground in front of his position. In returning he came upon a sentry, Jones, munching an apple. He sternly commanded him to throw it away.

      The men spread their blankets on the floors of the bare rooms, and putting their packs under their heads and lighting their pipes, they lived an easy peace. Bees hummed in the garden, and a scent of flowers came through the open window. A great fan-shaped bit of sunshine smote the face of one man, and he indolently cursed as he moved his primitive bed to a shadier place.

      Another private explained to a comrade: “This is all nonsense anyhow. No sense in occupying this post. They—”

      “But, of course,” said the corporal, “when she told me herself that she cared more for me than she did for him, I wasn’t going to stand any of his talk—” The corporal’s listener was so sleepy that he could only grunt his sympathy.

      There was a sudden little spatter of shooting. A cry from Jones rang out. With no intermediate scrambling, the sergeant leaped straight to his feet. “Now,” he cried, “let us see what you are made of! If,” he added bitterly, “you are made of anything!”

      A man yelled: “Good God, can’t you see you’re all tangled up in my cartridge belt?”

      Another man yelled: “Keep off my legs! Can’t you walk on the floor?”

      To the windows there was a blind rush of slumberous men, who brushed hair from their eyes even as they made ready their rifles. Jones and Patterson came stumbling up the steps, crying dreadful information. Already the enemy’s bullets were spitting and singing over the house.

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