Under Fire Part 8

"Well, I swear!" exclaimed the major. "Didn't you understand me to say I wanted to hear all about his march as soon as he finished supper?"

"I certainly did," replied Captain Truman, with an accent on the I that meant volumes.

"So did I," growled Hastings; but he never could bear Devers, who was persistently distorting or misunderstanding the orders the adjutant was compelled to convey to him.

"Well, let him sleep," said Warren, finally. "I suppose he's tired out, and very probably Davies will speedily come in."

But midnight came and no Davies. Out on the prairie--now dimly lighted by the rays of the waning moon--the pickets at the east had descried no moving objects. Every now and then the yelp of a coyote on one side of camp would be echoed far over at the other. These, with an occasional paw or snort from the side-lined herd, and the murmuring rush of the river over its gravelly bed, were the only sounds that drifted to the night-watchers from the sleeping bivouac. Towards one o'clock the sergeant of the guard came out to take a peep. Later, about two, Lieutenant Sanders, officer of the guard, a plucky little chap of whom the men were especially fond, made his way around the chain of posts and stayed some time peering with his gla.s.s over the dim vista of prairie to the eastward.

"I declare I thought I saw something moving out there," he muttered, after long study. "Are you sure you've seen or heard nothing?" he inquired of the silent sentry.

"Not a thing, lieutenant, beyond coyotes or Indian signals, I can't tell which. They keep at respectful distance, whatever they are."

"Well, even if Mr. Davies's horses were too used up to come, the couriers ought to have got back long ago. Tell them to find me as soon as they come in," said he, and went back to his saddle pillow in the heart of the grove. At its edge a solitary figure was standing gazing out into the night.

"That you, Sanders?" hailed a voice in low tone.

"Yes," answered the lieutenant, shortly, for he recognized Devers and he didn't like him.

"Isn't Davies in yet?"

"No, and it's two o'clock."

"Oh, he'll turn up all right," said the captain, in airy confidence. "It was all absurd sending him out to scout a smoke,--as if we hadn't seen and smelled smoke enough this summer to last a lifetime. He's probably camped down the valley somewhere, and they're all waiting for morning.

I'm not worrying about him."

"No, I judge not," muttered Sanders to himself, as he trudged on in the dark. "You're simply keeping awake for the fun of the thing." But even Devers got to sleep at last, and when he woke it was with a sudden start, with broad daylight streaming in his eyes, and stir and bustle and low-toned orders and rapid movement among the men, and Hastings was stirring him up with insubordinate boot and speaking in tones suggestive of neither respect nor esteem.

"Come, tumble up, captain; we're all wanted; Davies has been cut off and ma.s.sacred."

Already his orderly had led up the captain's horse, p.r.i.c.king his ears and sniffing excitedly around him, and with trembling hands the young German was dragging out from among the blankets the captain's saddle, the hot tears falling as he stooped. His own brother was of Davies's party. Devers was on his feet in an instant, dismayed, and, buckling on his revolver, he went striding through the trees to where Warren stood, pale and distressed, questioning a haggard trooper,--one of the couriers sent on for Davies the previous evening. Devers burst in with interrupting words, and was instantly coolly checked.

"Never mind now, captain. Mount at once and get your men in saddle." Nor would Warren see or speak with him, as with a hundred troopers at his heels--all whose horses were even moderately fit for a ten-mile trot--the major led the way down the valley, a few eager scouts cantering on before. All Devers could learn as they jogged along was that Tate, one of the couriers, had ridden in at seven on an exhausted mule to say that not until after dawn had they found Davies's party,--seven of them,--stone dead, stripped, scalped, gashed, mutilated almost beyond recognition, far out on the slopes east of that fatal spur over which the September sun had risen before he came, leaving his stunned comrade trailing hopelessly behind.

CHAPTER IX.

The prairie sod was torn by the hoofs of a hundred ponies. That was evident. All around a little sink in the surface at a distance of several hundred yards the warriors must have dashed and circled for full an hour. Here along the rim of the shallow basin, each behind the bloated and stiffening carca.s.s of his horse,--each surrounded by threescore copper sh.e.l.ls, showing that he had fought till hope and ammunition both were gone,--lay the poor remains of the gallant boys who had ridden silently away in obedience to their orders on the previous afternoon,--recognizable now only by their teeth or some still ungashed body mark. How long they had pluckily, cheerily held out, confident of the speedy coming of the comrades from over that westward spur, and therefore less miserly of their lead and eager to stretch some of their yelling foes upon the sward, could now only be conjectured. Little by little their fierce, defiant fire had slackened. Little by little confidence had waned, and doubt and dread replaced it. Some, probably, had been earlier shot by the storm of centring bullets; some, possibly, had sent their last shot into the reeling brain,--death by one's own hand being better at least than by slow and fiendish torture; and at last, probably just at dusk, the triumphant savages were able to close in upon their helpless prey and reap their reward of scalps and plunder and wreak their fury on a mute and defenceless foe.

But in a search of full an hour not a sign had Warren's best scouts discovered of Davies or his companion. The Indian trail, that of a war-party of at least fifty or sixty braves, led away southward again, into and through the timber in the distant river bottom, and there it became scattered, most of the party seeming to have ridden on towards the reservation in the darkness of the night, while others turned up-stream, and their pony-tracks led towards the point where Warren's battalion had bivouacked. These were probably the causes of the flitting shadows Sanders had detected far out on the prairie,--these the owls and coyotes whose weird cries had at intervals disturbed the silence of the night. Solemnly, sadly, now, the burial-parties labored. The soil was comparatively soft in the neighboring ravine,--much more so than higher up the slopes where the two crack shots had fallen earlier in the afternoon,--and here, with picket-pins and a spade or two which happened to be with the pack-train, a trench was scooped out, into which the poor remains were lowered and then covered with stones, dragged from the depths of the neighboring _coulee_. It took some hours to finish the sad duty, and meanwhile sharp-eyed scouts were busily occupied striving to determine what had become of Davies and Sergeant McGrath.

In this work the major himself took the lead, and here Devers's statements had to be drawn upon. Old Indian-fighters pointed out many a significant sign to sustain the theory that the fight must have lasted full an hour,--the trampled condition of the turf,--the quant.i.ties of sh.e.l.ls lying behind every little hummock or ridge in the surrounding prairie that commanded the position of the defence or afforded shelter from its fire. Down in the very ravine in which the bodies were buried, full four hundred yards from the scene of their desperate stand, the soft, sandy soil was pawed and trodden by waiting war-ponies, whose riders, lying flat on their stomachs along the bank above, had kept their watch upon the besieged, firing whenever head or hand appeared above their carca.s.s fortification. The whole ingenuity of the Indian plan became apparent as the situation was studied. Noting after ten o'clock that morning that the battalion was no longer marching due south, but had turned, heading southwest straight away for the landmark of the valley,--that distant, black, pine-crested peak,--the lurking warriors had devised their scheme to lure a scouting detachment away from the support of the column. Far down in the river bottom, ten miles away to the left of the trail, they had built at the springs a "shack"

from the relics of some miner's outfit captured thereabouts earlier in the summer, and waiting until the head of the column was approaching the crest of the water-shed to the north, set fire to their pile and then secreted their main body in a deep ravine to await results, while small parties were thrown well forward to pick off venturesome individuals, if only such rode out in reconnoissance. If the white chief "bit" and detached a small party, then every effort was to be made to keep the battalion occupied and interested,--to draw it along, if possible, towards the southwest,--just a few daring spirits devoting themselves to this duty, while the stronger party, keeping in hiding until they lured it far beyond rescuing distance, gradually encircled the isolated squad and at last pounced upon their prey. It is no new device. It was to prevent just such a play that Warren had ordered Devers with his troop to keep midway, holding Davies's little party in sight and support and the main column in communication. Had Devers obeyed the instructions given him and gone on down along that jutting spur instead of far to the west of it, the catastrophe would have been averted,--the Indian attack, even if attempted, could have been beaten off.

In bitterness of spirit the major was riding over the field, too full of exasperation as yet to trust himself to send for and speak to his subordinate, even when he felt that he must hold conference with him in order to determine how best to direct the search. Twice or thrice had Devers essayed to open communication with his chief and impress him with his views, but Warren had sent him word by Hastings to supervise at the designated point--which he himself selected--the burial of the men, while he, the major, went on with the search. Time and again it was noted how often Devers would climb the bank and anxiously gaze off to the west toward that fatal curtain,--the spur that separated him from the sacrificed detachment the night before. What his thoughts were could only be conjectured, but little Sanders seemed to hit pretty near the mark when he confided to Hastings that Differs didn't seem to care a d.a.m.n whether Warren followed the Indian trail or not; what he was afraid of was that the major would "get onto" his own. And indeed as the morning wore on it began to look as though that were what the major was bent on doing. The scouting-parties had come back with their report of what they had found in the river bottom, and by this time Warren with his escort was three miles over to the west and slowly searching along the east face of the spur, peeping into every hollow and depression that might shelter a human form and looking everywhere for the print of horses' hoofs. At ten o'clock he had sent to Devers for some intelligent non-commissioned officer who could point out about where they had last seen Davies as he crossed the ridge returning to his men at sundown, but Devers very plausibly responded that while it might not be difficult to do so from where they parted, "just over on the west side," it couldn't be reliably done from so far to the east. The reply must at least serve to delay matters awhile, and every moment was of value to Devers.

His own theory was that, as twilight was setting in as Davies recrossed the ridge, everything beyond in the low grounds was in deep obscurity.

The attack had probably begun about the time the young officer, with Murray, first crossed the ridge in obedience to the captain's orders to report to him in person. Less than an hour, Devers thought, elapsed before he could again have come within sight of the spot where he left his little command. By that time all was practically over. In the gathering darkness and in the glut and greed of their savage triumph the Indians had crowded about the victims. Davies and the sergeant, returning, had been allowed unmolested to make their way well down toward the scene. The fire in the bottom was fed to lure them on (it was still smouldering when Warren's men trotted thither in the morning), and the two had either been captured alive and run off with the main body to grace the stake at the scalp-dance to be held with fiendish rejoicing somewhere beyond danger of interruption, or else, warned in some way, the two had sought to escape, and had been headed off and killed in some of the still unexplored ravines or _coulees_ farther to the southwest.

In either case, provided the major did not persist in his investigation and so discover how very far Devers had led his troop away from sight or support of Davies's men, and how utterly he had failed to carry out his orders, the captain felt tolerably confident that all the blame would be landed where it properly belonged,--on the shoulders of the dead and defenceless lieutenant, whose reluctance to undertake the duty many had observed, and whose womanish swoon at sight of the slaughtered men had not only proved his unfitness for frontier service, but long delayed his return to his party. Devers had always said Davies was entirely overrated by the colonel and Truman and others; he had held all summer that the lieutenant was a "molly-coddle;" he had been reproved more than once for what they termed his injustice to his subaltern, and now Davies had proved just exactly what he knew he would prove,--a carpet knight, a prayer-meeting soldier, with neither grit nor brawn nor backbone; and if he was killed, at least he had died in time to save the regiment from having to blush for him in the future. Devers had served throughout the war of the rebellion in a regiment that saw no end of hard fighting, but always when he happened to be on sick-leave or detached service of some kind, for in all of his years of service no man in his grade or corps had so seldom been under fire, either in the South or on the plains.

With abilities unquestioned and opportunities second to none, it was nevertheless observed of him at the close of the four years' struggle that there, at least, was a man who hadn't even mustering or recruiting service to fall back upon when "brevets" went scattering broadcast over the army, showering like the rain upon the just and the unjust. He had lived all through it without having become distinguished for anything that might become a man, winning a name for himself princ.i.p.ally for consummate skill in getting out of what he was told to do without getting into a sc.r.a.pe or out of the service. He became a tremendous paper-fighter in the days that followed, however, and like some of our war generals, could find the weak points in the armor of his comrades if he couldn't in that of the enemy. He became a club-room critic of other fellows' campaigns, companies, or conduct, as probably the most effective way of diverting attention from his own. He sneered at the war record of every contemporary who had achieved rank superior to his own, as with hardly an exception every one of them had done so, and made the burden of his song among the younger men the blunders, faults, and follies of the elders. Without a drop of Irish blood in his veins, he inspired the belief that he must be own cousin to the newly-landed Hibernian who announced himself as "agin the governmint," for post and regimental commanders without exception found him the most adroit, crafty, sinuous, and troublesome of captains,--one who was forever doing something to try them, yet nothing on which they could try him. Well he knew his unpopularity and sagely judged his opportunities. The liberties he had dared with Warren he would not now have ventured with Riggs, or Black Bill, or old Tintop, one and all of whom had learned to know him well, and would have been prepared for some such betrayal of the trust reposed in him.

He had worried Black Bill--long time his post commander--to the verge of exasperation with his perpetual hair-splitting and quibbling. He had played his last trump with Tintop early in the campaign, and received that grizzled veteran's rasping intimation that one more experiment would lead to arrest and court-martial, and received it with every appearance of amaze and pain, which might have been effective had not Hastings been called upon beforehand to give his version of the affair that led to it. It was one of those constantly recurring examples of Devers's "cussedness" which led many a stout cavalry officer to set forth just what he'd do with Devers if he only had him under his command, yet the very men so confident they could bring him to time were not infrequently the ones who subsequently found him too adroit for their straightforward methods. Black Bill told Tintop that Devers was as bad as the Irishman's flea,--put your thumb on him and he isn't there.

"I'll cinch him," said Tintop in reply, "if he tries any of his d.a.m.ned nonsense on me." But with every intention of doing his level best, "Topsy" little knew the infinite resources of the man.

One of Devers's idiosyncrasies was a hatred of doing things as anybody else did them. This in a service where absolute uniformity was expected was prolific of no end of chafing. In every garrison where his troop was stationed he had become notorious. If the other companies turned out in white gloves at retreat, Devers's would come in gauntlets. When dress parade, dismounted, was ordered at Fort Birney one mild November evening, he marched his men out in arctics and fur caps, and claimed that to be the proper full dress for the season. When Colonel Emerson in regimental orders lauded the devotion of Sergeant Foley, who swam the icy Missouri with despatches from Captain Cameron's beleaguered command, and ordered a handsome collar to be made by the regimental saddler to be worn thereafter by his gallant gray, now transferred to the band because of the cuts and scars he had received in that fierce campaign, Devers similarly decorated Trumpeter Finnegan's bull terrier "Mike," who swam the Mini Ska in pursuit of his master the night of the wintry dash on Tall Bull's village, and gravely paraded "Mike" with the troop next muster day. These and a score of similarly annoying yet hardly punishable attempts to bring ridicule upon or run counter to the orders of his commanders, had actually rendered some of his seniors so averse to having him under them that it often resulted in his being given independent details, lonely detachment duty, "one-company posts," and similar isolation which almost any other officer would have shrunk from, but that Devers really seemed to enjoy, and, from having been so much his own commanding officer, he was all the less fitted to render prompt and cheerful obedience to others when they again had to have him. With any command greater than that of a single troop he had never been intrusted. There was no end of speculation and chaff around the camp-fires, therefore, early in the summer, when Devers, most unwillingly, it was said, was hauled in from some outlying post where he had nothing to do but hunt, eat, and sleep, and reported for duty on what turned out to be the toughest of Indian campaigns. What was worse, he was ordered to report to Tintop, and now, said the boys, there _will_ be fun.

Well, there was. It took a week of persistent "cinching" to get Devers and his troop to understand that they were no longer an independent body, but must serve under the orders of a colonel or major. He had at first been put in Bell's battalion, and every time the colonel pointed out a fault Devers "thought" that was as Major Bell wanted it, and when Bell called his attention to some irregularity, Devers had understood Colonel Winthrop to say that that was the way it should be done. Bell finally said that he'd be d.a.m.ned if he wouldn't rather have no command at all than one with Devers in it. The first day Devers's horses were herded to graze far out on the slopes,--five hundred yards beyond those of any other troop,--and Tintop said he wished Captain Devers hereafter not to allow his herd to be driven beyond those of the rest of the regiment. Next day they were kicking up a dust not fifty yards from Tintop's tent,--as far inside the cordon as they had been outside before,--and Devers plausibly explained that he wanted to be sure he wasn't too far away. The third day, after a long march with Indians on every hand, Tintop ordered "double guards and side lines when the herds went out to graze." The horses of the other troops were ridden out by the men to good grazing-ground some five hundred yards from the bivouac fires, and there the riders slipped off and the side lines were slipped on; but Devers's horses were side-lined as soon as unsaddled, and then the poor brutes, thus hobbled fore and aft, were driven, painfully lurching, out to graze. Tintop boiled over at the sight of so unhorsemanlike a proceeding and rode wrathfully at Devers to rebuke him.

"Why, colonel," said Devers, "I wouldn't have done it for the world, but Mr. Gray was so positive in saying it must be done when they went out, I couldn't do otherwise. Of course if he'd said when they _got_ out I----"

And though Tintop swore savagely through his teeth that Devers knew well just what was meant, as did every other troop commander, he couldn't prove it. Next day, before the side lines were put on, in some mysterious way Devers's herd was stampeded and ran six miles before they could be rounded up, and he explained it was all because they weren't side-lined in the first place, as they were always accustomed to being, and as the regulations required they should be in the Indian country.

This was another thing to make Tintop blaspheme. Every day for a week something was amiss, and, having gone to the length of his own tether, Devers took to saying that it was all Mr. Davies's fault or Sergeant Somebody's,--"Mr. Davies had just joined and was utterly inexperienced."

Then Tintop gave Devers positive orders not to content himself with telling people to do thus and so, but to see that the orders were obeyed, and Devers then took his pipe and his blankets and ostentatiously spent hours of the afternoon out on the open prairie, a monument to the severity and exactions of his colonel. And still the horses, all of them, got far out on the foot-hills, and Tintop ordered him a day or two later, when on Scalp Creek, not to let his herd get more than half a mile away from the troop fires, as they had no tents, and then Devers had his herd-guards build fires and boil coffee far out on the prairie, and claimed that those were his troop fires, and therefore his herd was within reasonable distance of them. Then Tintop swore another oath and ordered Devers not to let his horses graze more than half or less than quarter of a mile from his own head-quarters fire, and as there followed a few days of hot weather, Devers sent his herd to the foot-hills again, claiming that there was no longer a head-quarters fire to regulate by, which proved to be a fact, as in such warm weather there was no need of one. Then, one day, Tintop in so many words ordered the captain hereafter not to do as he thought, but simply as his colonel said, and this led to the final incident, still more side-splitting,--one that the boys in the regiment never tired of telling. Tintop with his battalion was sent on a seven days' scout, during which he ordered all the troop commanders, until further instruction, not to permit their herds to graze more than five hundred yards from camp. Three days later, what was his wrath to find Devers's herd almost a mile away down the stream, and close by the tents of Major Roome's battalion of Foot that had been for a week placidly awaiting the return of the cavalry! Tintop had halted and unsaddled some distance up-stream. There wasn't a shred of canvas with the regiment while on this brisk raid, nor was there need of it in such perfect weather, and Tintop with Gray by his side stood fuming in the midst of surrounding cook fires, when Devers came placidly up in obedience to the summons of the orderly, and many an ear was brought to bear and bets were given and taken that this time Devers would catch it and no rebate. "How is it, sir," demanded Tintop, "that in defiance of my positive orders you allow your herd to go so far away?"

"Why, colonel, you distinctly said they mustn't be herded over five hundred yards from camp. Of course if I'd been allowed to think I probably wouldn't have done it, but I sent mine down there accordingly.

That's the only _camp_ I see,--this is only a bivouac." And all Tintop could e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.e in response was, "Well, may I be d.a.m.ned!"

These and a host of similar stories had come to Warren's ears in the course of the campaign, and he had laughed at them as had everybody else, for after all no man could say that actual harm had occurred as a result of Devers's experiments. So curiously are we const.i.tuted that when it is only the commander who is braved or his adjutant who is ruffled, the bulk of the line can bear it with equanimity. Therefore, while Tintop, Black Bill, Riggs, and his seniors generally could never refer to Devers except with sympathetic swear words, there were not a few of the officers junior in rank to his who found no little fun in all these incidents. Like most stories in or out of the army, they were perhaps exaggerative, but, like smoke, they could not exist without smouldering fire. If there were any speculation about Devers in the regiment, it was as to how he would behave if he ever did get into a fight, or what would happen in the event of his some day squirming out of an order on which vital issues depended. "You'll go too far yet, Devers," said a soldier who strove conscientiously to be his friend and counsellor, "and when you do, where will be the commander under whom you have ever served to say a good word for you?"

And now on this fatal September morning that ominous warning was ringing in his ears again and again. Down in the bottom of his brooding heart he knew, and well knew, that had he obeyed, as he should have obeyed, Warren's orders, this catastrophe could not have occurred, and that he more than any other man on earth was responsible for the death of these gallant fellows, who, whether they looked up to him or not, were by the stern discipline of the service dependent on him for the expected support. If he could realize this, how much the quicker would others be to attach the blame to him! how much the more necessary must it be to lose no time in diverting suspicion elsewhere! The fatal propensity to distort or disobey, which perhaps he could have downed had Tintop or Riggs been there, he could not resist with Warren,--an envied contemporary, presumably new to his idiosyncrasies. Nor would he, of course, even with him, have disobeyed could he have foreseen the fatal consequences. That would have been risking too much. But now that he had disobeyed, and in all probability would be held accountable for the catastrophe, his one road to safety and to acquittal lay in saddling all possible responsibility on some one else,--preferably Davies. This, if Davies were silent in death, would not be difficult. Whatsoever others might think or say, they could prove nothing. If, however, Davies turned up alive and alert, then matters might be grave indeed. No wonder he climbed again and again the westward bank and levelled his gla.s.ses at the dull-hued ridge against the brilliant westward sky, frequently giving vent to loud denunciation of the leaders in the mismanaged campaign. It was nearly ten o'clock before his dead were laid away,--before anything occurred that looked like discovery of the missing pair. Then came new excitement.

Far down toward the point where the distant spur seemed to sink to the general level of the prairie one or two of Warren's scouts could be seen rapidly spurring, as though in answer to signals. Presently they, too, began waving their hats to those searching higher up the ridge. Then all disappeared over on the westward side. Something evidently had been found, and Devers's men, their work completed, were grouped eagerly up the bank. Over half an hour in mingled hope and suspense they waited, and then there rode in a mounted messenger.

"The major's compliments to Captain Devers," he said, "and he'll wait for the captain and his troop over yonder. I'm to show the way."

"Have they found anything?" asked Devers.

"Yes, sir,--Mr. Davies; but he's more dead than alive. There is no sign of McGrath."

"Do you mean Mr. Davies is wounded?"

"No, sir. He seems just dazed-like."

"That's what I said all along," spoke the captain, loudly, so that it was heard by all the soldiers near at hand. "He never tried to rejoin his detachment. He never had any nerve. He probably saw what was going on and hid himself, never daring even to let us know. d.a.m.n these psalm-singing, Sunday-go-to-meeting soldiers anyhow! Here, Howard," he continued, turning to a young trooper who stood silently at his horse's head, "you come with me. Lead on, corporal. Sergeant Haney, mount the troop and follow." And with that the captain rode away.

For a moment, as the men were bringing up their horses and leading them into line, there was silence. Looking after the three hors.e.m.e.n now well out on the prairie to the west, the party saw that the messenger was riding some distance in advance, and that Howard, a recruit who joined with the detachment early in the campaign, was now side by side and evidently in conversation with the captain. It had been a summer of campaigning in which not only the nicer distinctions as between officer and man--not only all symbols of rank and uniform--had gradually disappeared, but with them, little by little, some of the first principles of good order and military discipline. Officers had been heard openly condemning or covertly sneering at the seniors in command.

It was not strange that the rank and file should fall into similar ways.

"Never had any nerve, is it?" muttered Private Dooley, after a moment.

"Boy and man I've soldiered in this regiment longer than you, Captain Differs, and I know an officer and a gentleman when I see wan, and it's the public opinion av more than wan private that there's more av both in that young feller's starvin' stummick than in your whole d.a.m.n overfed, bow-legged carca.s.s. How's that, Brannan?" said he, turning to his next neighbor, a wan, sad-faced recruit.

"Shut up there, Dooley!" ordered Sergeant Haney, briefly. "No more of that! Count fours."

CHAPTER X.