A Court of Inquiry Part 27

"I believe that was worse than mine," commented Cyrus reflectively.

"I should say it was. If you don't think so, try it."

"Dinner, boys," said their father's voice at the door, and they lost no time in responding. When they had taken their seats and the waiter came for Cornelius's order, that youth simply pushed the card of the elaborate menu to one side, and said emphatically, quite without his customary drawl: "Bring me everything, and twice of it."

"Me, too!" said Cyrus, with enthusiasm.

IV

HALF A LEAGUE ONWARD

The Rev. Arthur Thornd.y.k.e stirred at his desk with a vague impatience on account of a little droning sound which had been bothering him for the last ten minutes without his realizing what it was. He recognized at last that it was the boy David, in the alcove, where he had asked to be allowed to stay, promising not to bother Uncle Arthur with his work. For Uncle Arthur was very busy with his Memorial Day address. At least he was struggling desperately to be very busy with it, although so far he had succeeded only in spoiling half a dozen sheets of paper with as many inadequate introductions.

"For you see, Major," Arthur Thornd.y.k.e had explained to the boy, when he had come tap-tapping on his crutches into his uncle's study that morning, "this is such very new business to me. I'm having a pretty hard time trying to think of anything good and fine enough to say to the men in blue--and gray--and brown, for we have all sorts here, you know."

It was true that Uncle Arthur was a very boyish-looking uncle; but he was tall and big, and he had been preaching for a year now, and David thought that he preached very good sermons indeed. Besides, he had been in the Spanish War, one of the youngest privates in Uncle Stephen's company, and he ought to know all about it, even though he had really been in very few engagements.

"I guess you can do it, Uncle Arthur," said David comfortingly. "And I'll keep very still in the alcove. I would play somewhere else, only, you see, it's the only window that looks out over the square, and my playing is out there."

Uncle Arthur had not taken time to ask him what he meant, but afterward, when the little droning sound had begun to annoy him, he found out. He peeped in between the curtains of the alcove, and saw at once what was out in the square. It was the major's "regiment." To other people the square might have seemed to be a very quiet place, full of trees and May sunshine, with a few babies and nurses and placid pedestrians as its only occupants. But Uncle Arthur perceived at once, from the aspect of the major, that it was a place of wild carnage, of desperate a.s.sault, of the clash and shock of arms.

The major stood erect, supported by one crutch. The other crutch was being waved in the air, as by one who orders on a ma.s.s of fighting men.

From the major's lips issued the subdued but pa.s.sionate words:

"Flash'd all their sabres bare, Flash'd as they turned in air Sabring th' gunners there, Charging an army, while All th' world wonder'd: Plunged in th' batt'ry-smoke Right through th' line they broke; Cossack an' Russian Reeled from th' sabre-stroke Scatter'd an' shunder'd.

Then they rode back, but not----"

The boy's voice wavered. Uncle Arthur saw him put up a thin hand and wipe his white little brow. Major David's plays were always intensely real to him.

"_Not--the six hundred_," he murmured, and sank down on the window-seat, gazing mournfully out over the square. But in a moment he was up again.

"Cannon to right of 'em," he began again, sternly. "Cannon to left of 'em----"

Uncle Arthur crept away without bidding him remember his promise. What is a Memorial Day address beside the charge of a Light Brigade?

It was only two days after this that David's mother summoned David's four uncles to a conference. David had no father. There was a granite boulder up in the cemetery which ever since David was four years old--he was ten now--had been draped once a year with a beautiful silken flag.

All the Thornd.y.k.e men had been soldiers, and David's father had died at the front, where the Thornd.y.k.e men usually died. It was a matter of great pride to David every year--that silken flag.

David's four uncles were all soldiers--in a way. There was Uncle Chester; he had been breveted colonel at the close of the Civil War, and Colonel Thornd.y.k.e he was--against his will--always called still.

Next came Uncle Stephen; he was a captain of artillery in the regular army, and had lately come home on a furlough, after three years' service in the Philippines. Then there was Uncle Stuart, just getting strong after an attack of typhoid fever. In a week he would be back at West Point, where he was a first cla.s.sman and a cadet lieutenant. As for Uncle Arthur, David always regretted deeply that he was no longer in either volunteer or regular army, although he took some comfort from the fact that Uncle Arthur sometimes told him that he had never felt more like a soldier than he did now.

It was a hasty and a serious conference, this to which Mrs. Roger Thornd.y.k.e had summoned her dead husband's three brothers and his uncle.

She felt the need of all their counsel, for she had a grave question to settle. She was a young woman with a sweet decisiveness of character all her own, yet when a woman has four men upon whom she can call for wisdom to support her own judgment, she would be an unwise person to ignore that fact.

"It's just this," she told them, when she had closed the door of Arthur's study, where they had a.s.sembled. "You know how long we've been hoping something could be done for David, and how you've all insisted that when Doctor Wendell should decide he was strong enough for the operation on the hip-joint we must have it. Well, he says a great English surgeon, Sir Edmund Barrister, will be here for just two days.

He comes to see the little Woodbridge girl, and to operate on her if he thinks it best. And Doctor Wendell urges upon me that--it's my chance."

She had spoken quietly, but her face paled a little as she ended. Her youngest brother-in-law, Stuart, the cadet, himself but lately out of hospital, was first to speak.

"When does he come?"

"To-morrow."

"Great guns! The little chap's close up to it! Does he know?"

"Oh, no! I wouldn't tell him till it was all arranged. Indeed, I wasn't sure whether----"

"You'd better tell him at all? Oh, yes, you will, Helen; the major mustn't stand up to be fired at blindfold." This was from Captain Stephen, the only one of the four now in active service.

"You all think it's best to have it done?"

"Why, it's as Wendell says: now's the chance to have the best man in that line. You can rest a.s.sured the Woodbridges would never stop at anything short of the finest. Besides, the Englishman's reputation is international. Of course it must be done." This was Stuart again. The cadet lieutenant had already acquired the tone of command--he was an excellent cadet lieutenant.

But Mrs. Thornd.y.k.e looked past Stuart at her Uncle Chester, Colonel Thornd.y.k.e, Civil War veteran. It was upon his opinion that she most relied. He nodded at her.

"He's right, Nell," he said. "It's our chance. The boy seems to me in as good condition for it as he'll ever be." He spoke very gently, for to his mind, as to them all, rose the vision of a delicate little face and figure, frail with the frailty of the child who has been for six years a cripple.

So it was decided, with few words, that the great surgeon should see David upon the morrow, to operate upon him at once if he thought wise, as the local surgeon, Doctor Wendell, was confident he would. Then arose another question: Who should tell David?

"Somehow I think," said Mrs. Thornd.y.k.e, looking from one to another of the four who surrounded her, "it would be easier for him from one of you. He thinks so much of your being soldiers. You know he's always playing he's a soldier, and if--if one of you could put it to him--in a sort of military way----"

She stopped, for this time her lips were really trembling. They looked at one another, the four men, and there was not a volunteer for the task. After a minute, however, Arthur, lifting his eyes from the rug which he had been intently studying, found the others were all facing him.

"You're the one," said Captain Stephen Thornd.y.k.e.

"I think you are," agreed Colonel Chester Thornd.y.k.e.

"It's up to you, Art," declared Cadet Lieutenant Thornd.y.k.e, with his usual decision of manner.

So, although Arthur protested that he was not as fit for the mission as any of the others, they would not let him off.

"You're the one he swears by," Stephen said, and Stuart added:

"Put on your old khaki clothes, Art; that'll tickle the major so he won't mind what you tell him."

It was a suggestion which appealed to the young clergyman as he lay awake that night, thinking how he should tell the boy in the morning. It seemed to him somehow that it would take the edge off the thing if he could meet David in the old uniform which the child was always begging to see.

Just before he fell asleep he thought of his Memorial Day address. Since the morning, day before yesterday, when David's play had interrupted his first futile efforts at it, he had found no time to work on it. He had had a wedding and two funerals to attend, besides having to look after the preparation for his Sunday services. The following Sat.u.r.day would be Memorial Day. Meanwhile--there was David.

The next morning Mrs. Thornd.y.k.e, on her way to Arthur's study to tell him that the doctor had telephoned that he would bring the English surgeon to the house at eleven o'clock for the preliminary examination, ran into a tall figure in a khaki uniform, a battered slouch hat in his hand.

"Why, Arthur!" she cried, then added quickly: "Oh, my dear, that's just what will please him! I'm so glad it's you who are to tell him--you'll know how."

"I don't know how," said her brother, and she saw that his eyes were heavy. "But I expect the Commander-in-Chief will show me how." And with these words he went into his study and closed the door for a moment before David should come, in order that he might get his instructions from headquarters.