Tom of the Raiders Part 2

"No! Ask him now, before he decides on someone else!"

Tom clapped his cousin on the shoulder, hurried out of the tent and up the company street.

CHAPTER TWO

THE RAIDERS START

"Come with me," said Captain Moffat, as he emerged from Bert Brewster's tent. Tom had been waiting outside, while Bert and the Captain were talking. He had recognized several men from Cleveland in the company and had tried to carry on a conversation with them. But conversation was impossible. His mind was too full of hopes and plans to recall the news from home. Now, as he walked up the company street, he wondered what the Captain was thinking. Would he be allowed to take Bert's place? He hazarded a glance at the Captain's face, but he could find no answering expression there-always the same stern mask, from which black eyes flashed. Tom could feel his heart pounding as they entered the Captain's tent.

"Sit down," said Captain Moffet, pointing to a box. He called his messenger. "I don't want to be disturbed for a few minutes."

"Very good, sir," answered the messenger. He stationed himself a few yards in front.

"It strikes me," the Captain said, as he sat in a folding chair directly before Tom, "that you are entirely too young to be sent out on such an expedition as this. But I like to know that you volunteer for it. It gives me a comfortable feeling to have men in my company who are always ready for anything that comes up, who are perpetual volunteers for the dangerous jobs."

Tom felt his heart sink. Then he wasn't to be allowed to go! This was simply a nice way of telling him that he couldn't!

"But, Captain," he said explosively, "I'd rather do this than anything else on earth. I am young-I'll admit that-but that'll make me all the more valuable. If it comes to carrying messages, I can run for miles without stopping. Why, I can move faster and fight harder just because I am young! Please give me the chance!"

The Captain looked at him narrowly. "You really want to go, don't you?"

"Yes!" Tom almost shouted.

"All right," said the Captain, rising from his chair. "You are going." Tom wanted to thank him, but he was speechless. "You will hold yourself in readiness for orders." The Captain had become the quiet, stern military man again. "You will let it be known that you are here to visit your cousin, and when you leave camp you will say that you are returning home."

"Yes, sir."

"In the meantime, provide yourself with some rough clothes at Shelbyville, and some heavy shoes. I will provide you with a revolver. That will be all now."

"Yes, sir."

Tom hurried back to his cousin's tent in a daze.

The next afternoon at the general store in Shelbyville he bought a rough suit, and a heavy pair of shoes. "Just wrap the suit up," he told the clerk, "I'll be in for it tomorrow, or the next day. I'll wear the shoes." He tramped back to Murfreesboro, displayed his pa.s.s to the Sentry, and went to Bert's tent.

"The doctor has been in again," Bert told him. "He says that my ankle will be well in a week or so."

"Good!" exclaimed Tom. "Look at my pretty little shoes." He displayed the heavy, rough boots he had bought at Shelbyville.

"You ought not to start in those things," advised Bert. "New shoes will cripple you. Here, we'll trade." He produced a pair which had been worn soft in miles of marching. "And here's a waterproof cape for you."

"No, I don't want to take your things."

But Bert insisted. "I know this sort of life. You take 'em and don't argue."

Bert had told him all that he knew of the raid, but, as he remarked, "that's little enough." None of the men who had volunteered knew the details of the expedition: they knew only that they were to accept orders from an unknown man, follow him blindly and willingly into whatever he might lead them. It was to be a raid of great importance, a raid that might change the course of the war if it proved successful. So great was the secrecy that no man knew who his companions were to be. All of them, as Tom, were waiting for orders to be given without knowing when the orders would come, nor what they would be. Tom spent hours, when his cousin's tentmates were away, studying the map, memorizing minute details of it.

Orders came on his third day at camp. He was clearing away the tin plates and cups from which they had been eating dinner, when the Captain's orderly appeared at the door of the tent. "Cap'n wants to see you immediately."

Tom and Bert exchanged a glance; then Tom followed the messenger to the Captain's tent.

When the messenger had been stationed to keep intruders away, the Captain said: "You will leave tonight. Take the Wartrace road out of Shelbyville and walk about a mile and a quarter. When you come to a fork in the road go into the trees and wait until you're picked up. You should be there at eight o'clock. You understand?"

"Yes, sir."

"Repeat my instructions."

Tom repeated them without fault.

"Good! Wait here for a moment." The Captain left the tent. He returned presently with the Major of the battalion and another Captain. From the box where the doc.u.ments of Company B were kept, he produced enlistment papers. For several minutes, while Tom stood tense and erect, the Captain wrote. The other two officers talked in an undertone.

"Sign here," said the Captain. Tom signed. The Major picked up the paper and glanced through it.

"Hold up your right hand," said the Major. Then Tom heard the oath which bound him to serve the United States of America honorably as a soldier.

"I do," he replied, and let his hand drop to his side again.

The two officers signed the papers, shook hands with him, nodded to Captain Moffat and left the tent. It all happened so quickly that Tom could scarcely realize that he was now a soldier. When he had entered the tent he was a civilian, bound merely by promises of service; now he was a soldier, without a uniform, to be sure, but none the less a soldier. His eyes dimmed and he looked away from the Captain.

Captain Moffat folded the paper, returned it to the box, and faced Tom. He looked at him thoughtfully for a few seconds; then placed his hands upon his shoulders.

"Private Tom Burns," he said softly. "Good luck to you. It will be Second Lieutenant Tom Burns if this expedition is a success. Good luck, my boy, and may G.o.d be with you." He took Tom's hand and shook it.

And then Tom found himself walking down the street of Company B-a soldier of Company B-and he scarcely knew that his feet were treading ground.

There were two men in the tent, talking with Bert, and Tom waited impatiently for them to leave.

"Tonight," he said shortly, as the tent flap dropped behind them.

"Tonight?"

"Yes."

They sat silently until Bert exclaimed, "I envy you! You're the luckiest boy in the world, walking right into such a chance as this."

"I wish you were going."

"So do I."

Silence overcame them again.

"I'd better write a letter home," Tom said presently. "I'll say that I've enlisted and let it go at that."

It was shortly before six o' clock when Tom left camp. He went to the store in Shelbyville, claimed the suit he purchased two days before, and induced the proprietor to let him make the change in the back room of the store. He made a bundle of the clothes he had discarded, left them at the store saying that he would call for them in a few days, then went out on the one street of the village. It was deserted; the good citizens of Shelbyville were at dinner, and a few soldiers who had come to the village to make purchases were hurrying back to camp to be there when mess call sounded. In the excitement of his departure Tom had forgotten that he must eat, but, with a half-hour to spare before starting for the meeting place, he returned to the store and stuffed his pockets with food. Then, with a hunk of cold meat in one hand and a slice of bread in the other, he walked down the village road, eating his supper as he went. Near the edge of the village he saw two men ahead of him, and he wondered if they too were members of the expedition. They stopped, leaning against a fence, and eyed him as he went by.

Dusk came, and then darkness. The sky was overcast, but occasionally the moonlight flashed through a break in the clouds, showing the road before him. Walking was difficult, for the half-dried mud was slippery, and the broad wheels of wagons had made deep ruts. Several times he stumbled, and once he wrenched his ankle. He made his way more carefully after that, sometimes feeling out the ground with the toes of his boots before he placed his weight forward. The thought of being disabled before he had really started on the adventure, of going back to camp to commiserate with Bert over sprained ankles, filled him with dread. The deepest ruts turned away from the main road to a farm house: a dog barked, and Tom hurried forward. Several hundred yards further along the road, he thought he saw a man who moved behind a tree and hid. He did not stop to investigate.

Tom paused for a moment at the fork of the road; then went forward breathlessly. Between the bushes which lined the edge of the fork stood several tall trees, with their trunks lost in black, ragged undergrowth. In the darkness he made out a trail. Again he paused, straining for the slightest sound. As he took a step forward he heard someone say:

"h.e.l.lo, there!"