Part 11

It was Willings, the surgeon he had known at Chickamauga, and Crittenden called him by name.

"No, I'm not dead--I'm not going to die."

Willings gave an exclamation of surprise.

"Well, there's grit for you," said the other surgeon. "We'll take him next."

"Straighten _him_ out there, won't you?" said Crittenden, gently, as the two men stooped for him.

"Don't put him in there, please," nodding toward the trench behind the tents; "and mark his grave, won't you, Doctor? He's my bunkie."

"All right," said Willings, kindly.

"And Doctor, give me _that_--what he has in his hand, please. I know her."

* * * * *

A tent at Siboney in the fever-camp overlooking the sea.

"Judith! Judith! Judith!"

The doctor pointed to the sick man's name.

"Answer him?"

But the nurse would not call his name.

"Yes, dear," she said, gently; and she put one hand on his forehead and the other on the hand that was clinched on his breast. Slowly his hand loosened and clasped hers tight, and Crittenden passed, by and by, into sleep. The doctor looked at him closely.

He had just made the rounds of the tents outside, and he was marvelling. There were men who had fought bravely, who had stood wounds and the surgeon's knife without a murmur; who, weakened and demoralized by fever now, were weak and puling of spirit, and sly and thievish; who would steal the food of the very comrades for whom a little while before they had risked their lives--men who in a fortnight had fallen from a high plane of life to the pitiful level of brutes. Only here and there was an exception. This man, Crittenden, was one. When sane, he was gentle, uncomplaining, considerate. Delirious, there was never a plaint in his voice; never a word passed his lips that his own mother might not hear; and when his lips closed, an undaunted spirit kept them firm.

"Aren't you tired?"

The nurse shook her head.

"Then you had better stay where you are; his case is pretty serious. I'll do your work for you."

The nurse nodded and smiled. She was tired and worn to death, but she sat as she was till dawn came over the sea, for the sake of the girl, whose fresh young face she saw above the sick man's heart. And she knew from the face that the other woman would have watched just that way for her.

XIII

The thunder of big guns, Cervera's doom, and truce at the trenches. A trying week of hot sun, cool nights, tropical rains, and fevers. Then a harmless little bombardment one Sunday afternoon--that befitted the day; another week of heat and cold and wet and sickness. After that, the surrender--and the fierce little war was over.

Meantime, sick and wounded were homeward bound, and of the Crittendens Bob was the first to reach Canewood. He came in one morning, hungry and footsore, but with a swagger of importance that he had well earned.

He had left his Young Captain Basil at Old Point Comfort, he said, where the boy, not having had enough of war, had slipped aboard a transport and gone off with the Kentucky Legion for Porto Rico--the unhappy Legion that had fumed all summer at Chickamauga--and had hoisted sail for Porto Rico, without daring to look backward for fear it should be wigwagged back to land from Washington.

Was Basil well?

"Yas'm. Young Cap'n didn' min' dat little bullet right through his neck no mo'n a fly-bite. Nothin' gwine to keep dat boy back."

They had let him out of the hospital, or, rather, he had gotten out by dressing himself when his doctor was not there. An attendant tried to stop him.

"An' Young Cap'n he jes drew hisself up mighty gran' an' says: 'I'm going to join my regiment,' he says. 'It sails to-morrow.' But Ole Cap'n done killed," Bob reckoned; "killed on top of the hill where they druv the Spaniards out of the ditches whar they wus shootin' from."

Mrs. Crittenden smiled.

"No, Bob, he's coming home now," and Bob's eyes streamed. "You've been a good boy, Bob. Come here;" and she led him into the hallway and told him to wait, while she went to the door of her room and called some one.

Molly came out embarrassed, twisting a corner of her apron and putting it in her mouth while she walked forward and awkwardly shook hands.

"I think Molly has got something to say to you, Bob. You can go, Molly," she added, smiling.

The two walked toward the cabin, the negroes crowding about Bob and shaking him by the hand and asking a thousand absurd questions; and Bob, while he was affable, was lordly as well, and one or two of Bob's possible rivals were seen to sniff, as did other young field hands, though Bob's mammy was, for the first time in her life, grinning openly with pride in her "chile," and she waved the curious away and took the two in her own cabin, reappearing presently and walking toward the kitchen.

Bob and Molly sat down on opposite sides of the fireplace, Bob triumphant at last, and Molly watching him furtively.

"I believe you has somethin' to say to me, Miss Johnson," said Bob, loftily.

"Well, I sut'nly is glad to welcome you home ag'in, Mistuh Crittenden," said Molly.

"Is you?"

Bob was quite independent now, and Molly began to weaken slightly.

"An' is dat all you got to say?"

"Ole Miss said I must tell you that I was mighty--mean--to--you--when you went--to--de wah, an' that--I'm sorry."

"Well, _is_ you sorry?"

Molly was silent.

"Quit yo' foolin', gal; quit yo' foolin'."

In a moment Bob was by her side, and with his arm around her; and Molly rose to her feet with an ineffectual effort to unclasp his hands.

"Quit yo' foolin'!"

Bob's strong arms began to tighten, and the girl in a moment turned and gave way into his arms, and with her head on his shoulder, began to cry. But Bob knew what sort of tears they were, and he was as gentle as though his skin had been as white as was his heart.

* * * * *

And Crittenden was coming home--Colour-Sergeant Crittenden, who had got out of the hospital and back to the trenches just in time to receive flag and chevrons on the very day of the surrender--only to fall ill of the fever and go back to the hospital that same day. There was Tampa once more--the great hotel, the streets, silent and deserted, except for the occasional officer that rode or marched through the deep dust of the town, and the other soldiers, regulars and volunteers, who had suffered the disappointment, the heat, sickness, and hardship of war with little credit from the nation at large, and no reward, such even as a like fidelity in any path of peace would have brought them.

Half out of his head, weak and feverish, Crittenden climbed into the dusty train and was whirled through the dusty town, out through dry marshes and dusty woods and dusty, cheerless, dead-flowered fields, but with an exhilaration that made his temple throb like a woman's.

Up through the blistered, sandy, piney lowlands; through Chickamauga again, full of volunteers who, too, had suffered and risked all the ills of the war without one thrill of compensation; and on again, until he was once more on the edge of the Bluegrass, with birds singing the sun down; and again the world for him was changed--from nervous exaltation to an air of balm and peace; from grim hills to the rolling sweep of low, brown slopes; from giant-poplar to broad oak and sugar-tree; from log-cabin to homestead of brick and stone. And so, from mountain of Cuba and mountain of his own land, Crittenden once more passed home. It had been green spring for the earth when he left, but autumn in his heart. Now autumn lay over the earth, but in his heart was spring.

As he glanced out of the window, he could see a great crowd about the station. A brass band was standing in front of the station-door--some holiday excursion was on foot, he thought. As he stepped on the platform, a great cheer was raised and a dozen men swept toward him, friends, personal and political, but when they saw him pale, thin, lean-faced, feverish, dull-eyed, the cheers stopped and two powerful fellows took him by the arms and half carried him to the station-door, where were waiting his mother--and little Phyllis.

When they came out again to the carriage, the band started "Johnny Comes Marching Home Again," and Crittenden asked feebly:

"What does all this mean?"

Phyllis laughed through her tears.

"That's for you."

Crittenden's brow wrinkled in a pathetic effort to collect his thoughts; but he gave it up and looked at his mother with an unspoken question on his lips. His mother smiled merely, and Crittenden wondered why; but somehow he was not particularly curious--he was not particularly concerned about anything. In fact, he was getting weaker, and the excitement at the station was bringing on the fever again. Half the time his eyes were closed, and when he opened them on the swiftly passing autumn fields, his gaze was listless. Once he muttered several times, as though he were out of his head; and when they drove into the yard, his face was turning blue at the lips and his teeth began to chatter. Close behind came the doctor's buggy.

Crittenden climbed out slowly and slowly mounted the stiles. On the top step he sat down, looking at the old homestead and the barn and the stubble wheat-fields beyond, and at the servants coming from the quarters to welcome him, while his mother stood watching and fondly humouring him.

"Uncle Ephraim," he said to a respectful old white-haired man, "where's my buggy?"

"Right where you left it, suh."

"Well, hitch up--" Raincrow, he was about to say, and then he remembered that Raincrow was dead. "Have you got anything to drive?"

"Yessuh; we got Mr. Basil's little mare."

"Hitch her up to my buggy, then, right away. I want you to drive me."

The old darky looked puzzled, but Mrs. Crittenden, still with the idea of humouring him, nodded for him to obey, and the old man turned toward the stable.

"Yessuh--right away, suh."

"Where's Basil, mother?"

Phyllis turned her face quickly.

"He'll be here soon," said his mother, with a smile.

The doctor looked at his flushed face.

"Come on, my boy," he said, firmly. "You must get out of the sun."

Crittenden shook his head.

"Mother, have I ever done anything that you asked me not to do?"

"No, my son."

"Please don't make me begin now," he said, gently. "Is--is she at home?"

"Yes; but she is not very well. She has been ill a long while," she added, but she did not tell him that Judith had been nursing at Tampa, and that she had been sent home, stricken with fever.

The doctor had been counting his pulse, and now, with a grave look, pulled a thermometer from his pocket; but Crittenden waved him away.

"Not yet, Doctor; not yet," he said, and stopped a moment to control his voice before he went on.

"I know what's the matter better than you do. I'm going to have the fever again; but I've got something to do before I go to bed, or I'll never get up again. I have come up from Tampa just this way, and I can go on like this for two more hours; and I'm going."

The doctor started to speak, but Mrs. Crittenden shook her head at him, and Phyllis's face, too, was pleading for him.

"Mother, I'll be back in two hours, and then I'll do just what you and the doctor say; but not now."

* * * * *

Judith sat bare-headed on the porch with a white shawl drawn closely about her neck and about her half-bare arms. Behind her, on the floor of the porch, was, where she had thrown it, a paper in which there was a column about the home-coming of Crittenden--plain Sergeant Crittenden. And there was a long editorial comment, full of national spirit, and a plain statement to the effect that the next vacant seat in Congress was his without the asking.

The pike-gate slammed--her father was getting home from town. The buggy coming over the turf made her think what a change a few months had brought to Crittenden and to her; of the ride home with him the previous spring; and what she rarely allowed herself, she thought of the night of their parting and the warm colour came to her cheeks. He had never sent her a line, of course. The matter would never be mentioned--it couldn't be. It struck her while she was listening to the coming of the feet on the turf that they were much swifter than her father's steady-going old buggy horse. The click was different; and when the buggy, instead of turning toward the stable, came straight for the stiles, her heart quickened and she raised her head. She heard acutely the creak of the springs as some one stepped to the ground, and then, without waiting to tie his horse, stepped slowly over the stiles. Unconsciously she rose to her feet, not knowing what to think--to do. And then she saw that the man wore a slouch hat, that his coat was off, and that a huge pistol was buckled around him, and she turned for the door in alarm.

"Judith!"

The voice was weak, and she did not know it; but in a moment the light from the lamp in the hallway fell upon a bare-headed, gaunt-featured man in the uniform of a common soldier.

"Judith!"

This time the voice broke a little, and for a moment Judith stood speechless--still--unable to believe that the wreck before her was Crittenden. His face and eyes were on fire--the fire of fever--she could not know that; and he was trembling and looked hardly able to stand.

"I've come, Judith," he said. "I haven't known what to do, and I've come to tell you--to--ask----"

He was searching her face anxiously, and he stopped suddenly and passed one hand across, his eyes, as though he were trying to recall something. The girl had drawn herself slowly upward until the honeysuckle above her head touched her hair, and her face, that had been so full of aching pity for him that in another moment she must have gone and put her arms about him, took on a sudden, hard quiet; and the long anguish of the summer came out suddenly in her trembling lip and the whiteness of her face.

"To ask for forgiveness," he might have said; but his instinct swerved him; and--

"For mercy, Judith," he would have said, but the look of her face stopped the words in an unheard whisper; and he stooped slowly, feeling carefully for a step, and letting himself weakly down in a way that almost unnerved her again; but he had begun to talk now, quietly and evenly, and without looking up at her.

"I'm not going to stay long. I'm not going to worry you. I'll go away in just a moment; but I had to come; I had to come. I've been a little sick, and I believe I've not quite got over the fever yet; but I couldn't go through it again without seeing you. I know that, and that's--why--I've--come. It isn't the fever. Oh, no; I'm not sick at all. I'm very well, thank you----"

He was getting incoherent, and he knew it, and stopped a moment.

"It's you, Judith----"

He stopped again, and with a painful effort went on slowly--slowly and quietly, and the girl, without a word, stood still, looking down at him.

"I--used--to--think--that--I--loved--you. I--used--to--think I was--a--man. I didn't know what love was, and I didn't know what it was to be a man. I know both now, thank God, and learning each has helped me to learn the other. If I killed all your feeling for me, I deserve the loss; but you must have known, Judith, that I was not myself that night. You did know. Your instinct told you the truth; you--knew--I loved--you--then--and that's why--that's why--you--God bless you--said--what--you--did. To think that I should ever dare to open my lips again! but I can't help it; I can't help it. I was crazy, Judith--crazy--and I am now; but it didn't go and then come back. It never went at all, as I found out, going down to Cuba--and yes, it did come back; but it was a thousand times higher and better love than it had ever been, for everything came back and I was a better man. I have seen nothing but your face all the time--nothing--nothing, all the time I've been gone; and I couldn't rest or sleep--I couldn't even die, Judith, until I had come to tell you that I never knew a man could love a woman as--I--love--you--Judith. I----"

He rose very slowly, turned, and as he passed from the light, his weakness got the better of him for the first time, because of his wounds and sickness, and his voice broke in a half sob--the sob that is so terrible to a woman's ears; and she saw him clinch his arms fiercely around his breast to stifle it.

* * * * *

It was the old story that night--the story of the summer's heat and horror and suffering--heard and seen, and keenly felt in his delirium: the dusty, grimy days of drill on the hot sands of Tampa; the long, long, hot wait on the transport in the harbour; the stuffy, ill-smelling breath of the hold, when the wind was wrong; the march along the coast and the grewsome life over and around him--buzzard and strange bird in the air, and crab and snail and lizard and scorpion and hairy tarantula scuttling through the tropical green rushes along the path. And the hunger and thirst and heat and dirt and rolling sweat of the last day's march and every detail of the day's fight; the stench of dead horse and dead man; the shriek of shell and rattle of musketry and yell of officer; the slow rush through the long grass, and the climb up the hill. And always, he was tramping, tramping, tramping through long, green, thick grass. Sometimes a kaleidoscope series of pictures would go jumbling through his brain, as though some imp were unrolling the scroll of his brain backward, forward, and sidewise; a whirling cloud of sand, a driving sheet of visible bullets; a hose-pipe that shot streams of melted steel; a forest of smokestacks; the flash of trailing phosphorescent foam; a clear sky, full of stars--the mountains clear and radiant through sunlit vapours; camp-fires shooting flames into the darkness, and men and guns moving past them. Through it all he could feel his legs moving and his feet tramping, tramping, tramping through long green grass. Sometimes he was tramping toward the figure of a woman, whose face looked like Judith's; and tramp as he could, he could never get close enough through that grass to know whether it was Judith or not. But usually it was a hill that he was tramping toward, and then his foothold was good; and while he went slowly he got forward and he reached the hill, and he climbed it to a queer-looking little block-house on top, from which queer-looking little blue men were running. And now and then one would drop and not get up again. And by and by came his time to drop. Then he would begin all over again, or he would go back to the coast, which he preferred to do, in spite of his aching wound, and the long wait in the hospital and the place where poor Reynolds was tossed into the air and into fragments by a shell; in spite of the long walk back to Siboney, the graves of the Rough Riders and the scuttling land-crabs; and the heat and the smells. Then he would march back again to the trenches in his dream, as he had done in Cuba when he got out of the hospital. There was the hill up which he had charged. It looked like the abode of cave-dwellers--so burrowed was it with bomb-proofs. He could hear the shouts of welcome as his comrades, and men who had never spoken to him before, crowded about him.

How often he lived through that last proud little drama of his soldier life! There was his Captain wounded, and there was the old Sergeant--the "Governor"--with chevrons and a flag.

"You're a Sergeant, Crittenden," said the Captain.

He, Crittenden, in blood and sympathy the spirit of secession--bearer now of the Stars and Stripes! How his heart thumped, and how his head reeled when he caught the staff and looked dumbly up to the folds; and in spite of all his self-control, the tears came, as they came again and again in his delirium.

Right at that moment there was a great bustle in camp. And still holding that flag, Crittenden marched with his company up to the trenches. There was the army drawn up at parade, in a great ten-mile half-circle and facing Santiago. There were the red roofs of the town, and the batteries, which were to thunder word when the red and yellow flag of defeat went down and the victorious Stars and Stripes rose up. There were little men in straw hats and blue clothes coming from Santiago, and swinging hammocks and tethering horses in an open field, while more little men in Panama hats were advancing on the American trenches, saluting courteously. And there were American officers jumping across the trenches to meet them, and while they were shaking hands, on the very stroke of twelve, there came thunder--the thunder of two-score and one salutes. And the cheers--the cheers! From the right rose those cheers, gathering volume as they came, swinging through the centre far to the left, and swinging through the centre back again, until they broke in a wild storm against the big, green hills. A storm that ran down the foothills to the rear, was mingled with the surf at Siboney and swung by the rocking transports out to sea. Under the sea, too, it sang, along the cables, to ring on through the white corridors of the great capitol and spread like a hurricane throughout all the waiting land at home! Then he could hear bands playing--playing the "Star-Spangled Banner"--and the soldiers cheering and cheering again. Suddenly there was quiet; the bands were playing hymns--old, old hymns that the soldier had heard with bowed head at his mother's knee, or in some little old country church at home--and what hardships, privations, wounds, death of comrades had rarely done, those old hymns did now--they brought tears. Then some thoughtful soldier pulled a box of hardtack across the trenches and the little Spanish soldiers fell upon it like schoolboys and scrambled like pickaninnies for a penny.

Thus it was that day all around the shining circle of sheathed bayonets, silent carbines, and dumb cannon-mouths at the American trenches around Santiago, where the fighting was done.