Uncle Sam's Boys as Sergeants: or, Handling Their First Real Commands

CHAPTER XII
HAL RIDES INTO TREACHERY

AT one-thirty the gates of the ball grounds were thrown open.

A long programme lay before the assembled regulars, so the tournament was to begin at two o'clock.

The same performance was to be repeated in the evening, under brilliant electric lighting.

As they left the camp tables, however, the men moved about rather dejectedly.

The unexpected competition with the big circus had spoiled their hopes of winning round after round of delighted applause from huge crowds.

Yet barely were the gates to the grounds open when the soldiers began to take notice.

In an instant after opening there was a big rush at the gates. Men and women, boys and girls, crowded and jostled to get into the grounds.

"They'll stop coming in two minutes, at this rate," grumbled Sergeant Hupner.

Yet he proved a poor prophet. By quarter of two nearly every one of the more than twenty thousand seats for spectators had been filled. Five minutes after that not a seat could be had, even by squeezing. Just before two o'clock ten thousand more spectators had crowded in, standing wherever they could find the space.

Outside the crowd still pressed. Thousands simply had to be turned away.

Every officer present now wore a quiet smile that hid his delight under an orderly appearance.

"I wonder if the circus has a crowd like this?" gasped Sergeant Hupner, his astonished gaze roving over the densely packed masses of humanity.

An artillery band was playing at its loudest and gayest.

"I wonder," repeated Sergeant Hupner, "if the circus is playing to a crush like this."

No; it wasn't. Over under the Howe and Spangleton big-top, with its plain and reserved seats for eighteen thousand people, consternation prevailed.

The Army had proved the winning attraction for Denver's amusement-seeking crowds!

Only some eleven hundred and fifty people had paid to see the afternoon performance at the circus. In chagrin, the management hurriedly passed in free some two hundred more loungers on the lot.

"I never even dreamed of a streak of luck like this!" grumbled Proprietor Howe to his partner, Spangleton.

"I hope we'll never meet it again. What has struck us this blow under the belt?"

"The confounded regular Army," growled Howe. "I've just telephoned over, and I hear that folks are packed in so tightly at the Army show that the people are able to breathe only half the usual number of times to the minute."

"Then they'll hit us just as bad to-night," growled Spangleton. "Howe, with the Army to play against, we'd save money by pulling down our tents now and striking the rails for the next stand."

Just a minute or so before two o'clock the artillery band left the bandstand and marched back to camp.

Now, all in an instant, the military parade formed.

At the head was the cavalry band, followed by a squadron (two troops or companies) of splendidly mounted fighting men, their accoutrements jingling.

As the cavalry, its band blaring joyously, passed out before the people, the Signal Corps men followed on foot. Now the artillery, preceded by a mounted band that was just now silent, swung into line. Right behind the artillery, with its men perched up on the seats, their arms folded, or else driving the horses from saddles, came more men on foot, the ordnance detachment.

Now a third band, the Thirty-fourth's, marched on to the scene, silent, like the artillery musicians. After the third band in the line came the first battalion of the Thirty-fourth – at its head Colonel North and Major Silsbee, with their respective staffs, all on horseback. And now behind them marched, with the precise, easy rhythm of the foot soldier, the four companies, A, B, C and D, all moving like so many fine, automatic, easy-jointed machines.

The mounted detachments had brought forth rounds of rousing applause as they swept by, but when the infantrymen – the real, solid, fighting wall of the Army came in view, its men moving with the perfectly gaited, steady whump, whump! of superbly marching men, the spectators began to yell in frantic earnest.

The cavalry band ceased its stirring strain. Instantly the mounted drum major of the artillery swung about on his horse, holding up his baton, then bringing it down with the signal, "play."

As the artillery band blazed forth in a glory of rousing melody the noise of people's feet increased.

By the time that the infantry marched past the central portion of the great mass of civilians it was the turn of the Thirty-fourth's band. Every spectator, nearly, was now standing, stamping, waving. Cheer after cheer went up.

It seemed as though human enthusiasm could not know greater bounds. Faint echoes must have reached the distant, nearly empty circus big-top. Yet the breathless thousands had caught, as yet, but the first tame pageantry of this glimpse of the glory of armed men.

Just before B company, as it swung along at the good old regular gait, one excited onlooker hurled a well-filled wallet – the only sign left him for showing his utter enthusiasm.

File after file of foot soldiers stepped over this wallet, yet, if one of the infantrymen knew it was there, not one of them let any sign escape him. Discipline was absolutely perfect. These marching men of rifle and bayonet swept on, heads up, eyes straight forward, every file in flawless, absolute alignment.

And so the wallet was passed over and left behind while the crowd, staring at this unexpected scene of soldierly discipline, went wilder than before, in a frantic acclaim that was granted from the soul.

A policeman, standing at the edge of the crowd, picked up the wallet, returning it to its somewhat disappointed owner.

When the parade had swept around the field, each band playing in its turn, the crowd settled back with a sigh, as though satisfied that the greatest sight on the programme had been witnessed.

Yet hardly was there a pause. A troop of cavalry came forward, now, at the trot. All the evolutions of the school of the troop, mounted, were now gone through with. All the swift, bewildering changes of the cavalryman's manual of arms were exhibited.

Single riders and squads exhibited some of the prettiest work of the cowboy, for the American cavalryman has learned his riding and his daring from the best work of generations of cowboys.

Men rode two, and then three horses, at once, standing on bareback and leaping their animals over gates, ditches and hedges.

Down at the far end of the wheel a squad of cavalrymen halted, dismounted, unlimbered their carbines, and began firing at a squad of cavalrymen who galloped toward them from the other extremity of the field. Three of the men fired upon toppled and fell from their saddles to the dust with wonderful realism, while startled "ohs!" came from the eager onlookers.

Just behind this detachment rode more cavalrymen at the gallop. Three of these men, without seeming effort, swung down from their saddles, while their mounts still galloped, picked up the "dead or wounded," and then these horses, guided by their riders, wheeled and made fast time with the mock "casualties" to the rear.

It was a wonderful sight. Now, the audience began to come somewhere near its actual limits of enthusiasm.

Other yet more wonderful feats of skill and precision by the cavalry followed. Ere the "yellow-legs" had retired, momentarily, from the field of display, every small boy in the crowd – and many a large one – had decided that the life of the trooper must be his.

Then the flying artillery came on to the field, amid clouds of dust, the urgings of drivers, the sharp commands of officers and the pealing commands of bugles. For the first time in their lives the spectators realized how like lightning the American artillery moves, and how speedily it gets into deadly action. It was a pity that none of the fine marksmanship with the field cannon could be shown. The audience had to be satisfied with salvo after salvo fired with blank cartridges at imaginary enemies.

Then next the scene swiftly changed to a well-simulated one of battle, in which all arms engaged. "Under heavy fire" the engineers threw a bridge swiftly across a wide ditch representing a stream. While this was going on Signal Corps men laid wires and had telephone and telegraph instruments in operation from the firing line to the rear.

More of it came when the squadron of cavalry, at one end of the field, and backed by the signal and ordnance detachments, now bearing rifles, impersonated a hostile advance, firing volleys and "at will" at the artillery and infantry, posted to repulse them.

It took the breath of the spectators away. For now they gazed upon the grim realities of war, save for the actual deaths and manglings which all knew must follow such fierce firing when done in reality.

It was some minutes afterward before the smoke cleared away from over the field sufficiently to allow all to see the next spectacles. But all onlookers now felt the need of a brief rest from such sensations.

There were a host of features to the rousing programme, and not a spectator but thrilled and throbbed, and thanked his lucky stars that he was here, at the show, the spectacle of a lifetime!

Feature after feature followed, in a swiftly-moving, tightly-packed programme lasting three hours. The riot drill, showing with vivid effect how a battalion of regular infantry can move through a densely packed mob, brought forth tumultuous cheers. When the cheering had subsided such shouts as these were offered by excited spectators:

"Bring your anarchists here to-night, and show them this!"

"Never get into a riot unless you go with the regulars!"

It was truly an Army afternoon. All such afternoons are, for the average American knows truly nothing about his own Army. When he sees it actually at work he becomes, for the time at least, an "Army crank."

There were many features in which only one, or a few men, figured importantly. One of these was now about to be offered. On the programme it bore the title, "the bicycle dispatch rider."

No name was set opposite this title, but the man who had been selected for the work was Sergeant Hal Overton.

At the far side of the field the scene had been arranged. It represented a hill road, over which the dispatch bearer must ride at breakneck speed. For picturesque purposes Hal wore a surgeon's field case, hanging over one shoulder by a strap. In actual war time his real dispatches would have been hidden somewhere in his clothing, his shoes, or what-not place of concealment.

Of a sudden the Thirty-fourth's band turned loose into a dashing gallop played at faster time than usual. It was the signal for Sergeant Hal to mount his wheel and ride as for life.

Something in the speed, the dash, the evident purpose of the young soldier caught the hearts of the spectators as soon as Hal started. He had not gone fifty yards on his way before the cheering once more burst forth.

At the outset were some little gaps in the path, representing brooks and rills. Over these Sergeant Hal sped as if they did not exist, while little upward spurts of water helped out the illusion.

Ahead of the young military bicyclist now appeared a plain fence, some four feet high. Hal Overton rode at this with all the speed his flying feet could impart to the pedals. He appeared bent on violent collision with the fence.

Indeed, he rode at the palings as though he could not stop. Yet, when almost in the act of collision, Sergeant Hal made a flying leap from his wheel, which he tossed over the fence. In two incredibly swift movements he was over the fence. His wheel hardly seemed to have fallen at all, so swiftly did the young sergeant have it going again. He made a flying leap to the saddle, and was again pedaling desperately, while five or six shots to the rear filled out the illusion of a dispatch bearer being pursued by enemies.

That trick at the fence instantly took hold of the younger male portion of the audience. Denver boys saw wherein young soldiers were taught things about bicycle riding that were not known among civilians.

Hardly was Sergeant Hal going at full speed again when another obstacle loomed up in his way. This was an intrenchment front, sloping as he approached it, but with a sheer drop of some three feet on the other side.

Straight up the slope dashed Hal Overton. For a fraction of a second, as he left the top of the barrier, his wheel looked more like an odd airship, but now the forward wheel struck the ground beyond once more, the rear wheel swiftly following, and the dispatch rider was going onward faster than ever.

The small boys now led in the noise that came from the spectators' seats.

Just ahead lay the greatest peril of the path for the military dispatch rider. Here, in the hill scene, had been cut an actual gully, some eighteen feet deep, and fully twelve feet across.

Just a few minutes before a squad of soldiers had placed across this gully the trunk of a tree, shorn of its limbs and trimmed down close.

As Sergeant Hal now approached this tree trunk, which was not, at its thickest part, more than a foot in diameter, his purpose dawned upon the watching thousands.

This tree trunk represented the only possible way of getting over the gully.

Surely, the young rider would slow down, dismount, take the wheel on his shoulders and cross the slim bridge on foot.

But the crackling out of more shots behind him told the onlookers that the young dispatch rider in Uncle Sam's khaki uniform must make great haste.

Hal lay on harder than ever on his pedals. His speed carried to the onlookers the reality of a desperate race of life and death.

Close to the nearer edge of the gully stood a solitary figure, that of Corporal Noll Terry, who had had charge of the men laying the tree trunk across the gully.

Noll still stood by, watching, ready to be at hand if anything happened. One other man watched, though from a considerable distance.

This man was Private Hinkey, who alone knew the secret of his willing industry since reaching this camp.

Hinkey, unseen by others, had managed treacherously to "fix" the log in a manner that had defied detection.

"There'll be an end to the sergeant kid, in two seconds more!" gloated the rascal.

Sergeant's Hal's forward wheel struck the log, throwing full weight upon it. There was a snapping crackle, then a shriek from thousands.

For the log had snapped in two, and Sergeant Hal Overton, thrown head downward, was on his way to a broken neck at the bottom of the gully.

CHAPTER XIII
CHASING A SPEEDING DESERTER

INSTEAD of one, there were two flying bodies headed toward the gully's bottom. Corporal Noll Terry, standing there, had heard the ominous crackle of snapping wood.

If there is one thing that a soldier is taught above another, it is to think and move swiftly at a critical moment.

Noll saw the tree trunk sag downward, in just the fraction of a second ere it broke.

Nor did Corporal Terry wait to see more.

With his eyes on his bunkie, Terry made a prompt leap downward.

He had the advantage of landing on his feet. He was jarred, but there was no time to stop to think of that.

At a bound he was far enough forward, his arms outstretched, to swing hold of head-downward Hal Overton.

The impact might have been too much. Sergeant Hal might even yet have landed on his head. But, as he threw him arms around Hal, Corporal Terry threw himself over backward.

He fell with a thump, but was shaken up – no bones broken.

Sergeant Hal landed on top of his bunkie unhurt.

In an instant they separated, each leaping to his feet.

The falling halves of the tree trunk had fallen perilously close to the boyish non-coms., yet by a stroke of good fortune neither of the comrades had been struck.

"Thank you, old bunkie! The best ever!" glowed Hal, as without a backward look he raced to pick up his wheel. "Hurt?"

"Not a bit," gasped Noll, his wind jarred out of him for the moment.

"Then I'll finish the ride!"

To the thrilled, throbbing spectators there did not come a thought of "accident."

Clearly this whole splendid scene had been only a glimpse of practical military training.

It had all been planned, of course, so the audience supposed, that the tree trunk should snap and that the other young sergeant should be there to perform the swift work of rescue.

Even at that it was a wonderful sight, and again the spectators were on their feet, cheering more hoarsely than ever.

Yet hardly had they started to cheer when, some how, in a way they did not quite grasp, Sergeant Hal Overton had climbed up out of the gully, carrying his wheel with him.

Now he was mounted again! On the further side of the gully the young Army dispatch rider was racing forward again.

His wheel, somewhat damaged by the fall, was moving stiffly now, but Overton put into his pedaling every ounce of energy left to him.

In another moment he was out of sight, his dispatch-bearing ride ended, and the band leader stopped his musicians.

In this startling scene the onlookers felt that they had viewed the best piece of individual daring of the afternoon.

Little did they guess that they had seen the failure of a scoundrel's dastardly attempt to end Sergeant Overton's life.

But grizzled old Colonel North, of the Thirty-fourth United States Infantry, knew better.

"Cortland," he remarked, turning to B Company's captain, "just as soon as the last number is over I want you to make an instant and red-hot investigation of that accident to Sergeant Overton. Report to me as soon as you have even the trace of a suggestion to make."

"Yes, sir; and I have one suggestion to make now," replied Captain Cortland.

"What is it?"

"I ask you, sir, to oblige me very greatly by promising a warrant at once for Corporal Terry's promotion to sergeant."

"By Jove, young Terry earned it!" agreed Colonel North.

"Yes, sir; and, to my way of thinking, he did more. He proved that B Company cannot afford to be without a sergeant of his proved calibre."

"Go to Wright, the battalion adjutant, then, and tell him, with my compliments, to prepare an order at once, for reading at the dress parade which is to end up the afternoon's show."

"Very good, sir."

"And, Cortland, ask Wright, as a personal favor to me, to read the order slowly and distinctly, so that the audience can grasp the fact that they've witnessed a deed of heroism and its prompt reward in the Army."

"A splendid idea, sir!"

At the close of the afternoon's fast and furious work came a spectacle such as doubtless no one in the audience had ever seen before.

The three fighting arms of the service – artillery, cavalry and infantry – combined at dress parade.

The ceremony, as enacted that afternoon, possessed all the fervor and solemnity of a religious rite.

When it came to the publication of orders appointing Corporal Oliver Terry a sergeant in recognition of unusual bravery and judgment in saving a comrade's life, only a small percentage of the on-looking, listening thousands grasped the importance or meaning of the promotion of one young soldier.

No matter! All would read about it in the Denver papers the next morning.

At the firing of retreat gun three military bands combined in the playing of "The Star Spangled Banner."

Then, as the troops marched off, all was over as far as the audience was concerned.

Captain Cortland, however, had no sooner dismissed his company than he turned back to the field, to go to the gully to investigate the matter of the broken log. Lieutenant Prescott went with him.

Over back of one of the cook tents, however, a plain soldier man was already arriving at the truth.

"Hinkey, come over here!" called Private Slosson.

There was something in this soldier's voice which made Private Hinkey feel that perhaps it would not be altogether wise to disregard this request that sounded so much to him like an order.

"Hinkey," continued Private Slosson, "'twas a near escape from breaking his neck that Sergeant Overton had this afternoon."

"That's no concern of mine, I guess," murmured Hinkey.

"Then it ought to be," retorted Private Slosson with considerable warmth. "Hinkey, you had me guessing yesterday and this forenoon, you were so full of industry. And that put me in mind. I saw you coming down from near the gully this morning, and you had something hidden under your coat."

The fingers that held Hinkey's cigarette began to tremble.

"What do you mean, Slosson?"

"Well, first of all, the thing you had under your coat was a saw. I saw you hide something under the woodpile here, but I'm so dumb that I didn't think much of it at the time. Now, the log over the gully was a spruce log, wasn't it?"

"I don't know."

"Well, I do," replied Slosson, "and we haven't been using much spruce timber around here, either. So I looked over the saw. Hinkey, between the teeth is quite a little bit of what looks mighty like spruce sawdust. Queer, ain't it?"

"I don't know," replied Private Hinkey, speaking bravely, though his face now looked bloodless and his lips were quivering.

"Spruce sawdust in the saw you handled," continued Slosson mercilessly. "And say, the saw cut in the log over at the gully was pasted with putty, and then bark bits stuck on, to hide the cut. Wasn't that the way it was done?"

"How should I know?" snarled Private Hinkey, trying to glare back into the accusing eyes of Private Slosson.

"Why I asked," continued the latter soldier, "was because I've just been taking a look at the service clothes you wore this morning, and I find putty marks in several places on the trousers."

Hinkey realized that he had been unmasked. Moreover, only one look into Slosson's eyes was needed for making sure that the accusing soldier was not going to keep still about it.

With a sudden snarl of rage, Hinkey sprang forward, driving his hard right fist squarely into Slosson's left eye and knocking that soldier down.

Then, without loss of a second, Hinkey made a dive for the nearest gate of the grounds. As he ran at top speed Private Hinkey then and there, so far as he was personally concerned, ended his connection with the regular Army of the United States.

Private Slosson, holding his eye and feeling weak and dizzy, shouted:

"Some one run after Hinkey, B Company, and catch him!"

The call brought several men, among them Lieutenant Hampton, of B Company.

"What has Hinkey done?" demanded the lieutenant, running up.

"He knocked me down, and then deserted, sir."

"Why, my man?"

"Because he fixed the tree trunk in the way that nearly cost Sergeant Overton his life, and I just showed Hinkey that I had all the proof. You'll not see the fellow again, sir, unless you're swift."

Lieutenant Hampton bounded to the gateway. Down the street he saw Private Hinkey, running like a deer and already near a street corner.

Hal Overton was the only sergeant close enough for the lieutenant's purpose.

"Sergeant Overton, take four men, pursue Hinkey and bring him back here," ordered Lieutenant Hampton.

Hal reached the gateway just in time to see Hinkey running around the street corner.

In a twinkling Hal and four soldiers were hot-foot after the suspected deserter.

But Hinkey was out of sight now. As he reached the middle of the block into which he had turned, a man in his shirt sleeves, standing idly in a doorway called out softly:

"Jump in behind me, comrade, if you're in trouble and being chased."

Hinkey stopped pantingly, giving the man a swift look. That glance was enough to show the deserting soldier that he had met a kindred spirit.

"Thanks. I'll accept," muttered Hinkey, darting into the doorway.

The man who had hailed him pulled the door shut just before Sergeant Hal and four soldiers ran around the corner above.

"What's that soldier been doing that ran by here so fast?" called the citizen in shirt sleeves.

"Which way did he go?" asked Hal swiftly, halting just an instant.

"See the next corner?"

"Yes."

"Your man turned there – to the left. You fellows will have to double your speed if you're ever going to catch that soldier."

"Put on all the steam you can, men," Hal called back over his shoulder as he once more started in what he believed to be pursuit.

Chuckling softly, the citizen opened the door, closed it again and went inside to tell Hinkey why he had saved him.

It was a full hour before Sergeant Hal Overton again reported back at camp on the grounds.

He had come back at last, forced to admit himself baffled.

"You did all you could, Sergeant," replied Captain Cortland, who had just returned to the company street. "Hinkey will be caught, sooner or later."

Then, turning to First Sergeant Gray, who had just come up, Captain Cortland smiled as he added:

"Sergeant Gray, I wonder if Hinkey is still running. If he runs long enough he'll probably fall in with some muck-raking magazine writer, who'll get out of Hinkey a startling story of why some soldiers insist on deserting the Army."

"Captain," replied Sergeant Gray, "I could tell those magazine writers a good deal about why men desert from the Army, sir. But the magazine writers wouldn't want my story of why men desert."

"What would your story be, Sergeant?"

"Why, sir, I'd tell those writers – and prove it by the records – that the men who desert from the Army are the same worthless, skulking vagabonds who are always getting bounced out of jobs in civil life because they're no good anywhere."

"That's the whole story, Sergeant Gray," nodded Captain Cortland.

"I know it, sir; I haven't been in the Army all these years not to have found out that much."

Just then Noll Terry appeared on the scene, wearing his newly won sergeant's chevrons.

Captain Cortland's inquiry into the cause of the accident to Sergeant Overton was concluded by taking the sworn testimony of Private Slosson. The papers were then filed away to be used in case the deserter Hinkey should be apprehended.