THE DRUMS ROLL

There was a rolling echo on the right of the division, as if a troop of horse had passed over a distant bridge. When Ira Parcel raised his eyes from the mess-fire he saw the drummer lads of the regiment scurrying toward the colors, slinging their instruments into place as they assembled. A preliminary rat-a-tat and a dressing of ranks was ended by a sharp order, then the drumheads burst into a roar that lifted the hair at the nape of Parcel’s neck. The challenge, taken up at a dozen quarters, ran swiftly through the brigade, jumped from division to division and ended in a crashing reverberation that shook the whole camp. Men stirred from the noonday lassitude and ran here and there to rejoin their commands. It was the beat of the general, signal for the army of Washington to strike tents.

Parcel held his seat by the fire; the five other men sprawled around the blaze made no move to rise. Indeed, a singular indifference pervaded the whole regimental street, a fact explained when the observer’s eye, dizzy with row upon row of tenting, came to the bare foreground where not a strip of canvas was to be seen for two hundred yards. Somewhere a mistake or an accident had delayed the baggage wagons belonging to battalion, and the unlucky members of it had been compelled to sleep beneath the stars. Tod Barkeloo, stretched on the ground beside Parcel, grinned humorlessly.

“Let ’em beat as thunderin’ long as they please,” he muttered, stretching his arms until his great muscles pushed at the barriers of a torn cotton shirt.

A middle-aged Yankee with a thin, bloodless nose shook his head.

“Wal, if we hev went an’ lost all our belongin’s we ain’t goin’ to be fretted with packin’ it airy time the army moves. Seems powerful queer. D’ye suppose the teamsters made off to the plagued British? Never saw the teamster yet I’d trust a broken bar’l stave with.”

“Oh, they’ll show up,” rejoined Barkeloo, “after we take our death o’ chills. Many’s the day Tod Barkeloo’s kicked himself fer a cussed fool not to jine the wagons er the horse. Beats marchin’ all holler.”

“Ye’ve fared a sight worse,” said the Yankee, tweaking his nose. “When I come to think o’ all the mud we hev cruised through this month past—”

“Aye, my mind’s on it now. Come what please, Tod Barkeloo’s nigh lost his taste fer war. Do’ee hear—I’m a man to want a bit o’ fightin’ now an’ then.”

Silence fell over the group. Parcel dragged a pan of melted butter from the edge of the fire and, while the group watched, stretched his right foot forward, rolled back the breeches’ leg from a badly scarred knee and began to rub the butter grease into it, now and then flinching at the pressure of his palm. Barkeloo, covertly examining the scar, compared it with a bullet wound and found his curiosity rising.

“Fall an’ cut it?” he demanded.

“Run a pitchfork through it on the farm,” replied Parcel, dark face sharply fixed on his labor.

The brisk October wind fanned ashes around the circle. Confusion was abroad; staff officers galloped past and wagons groaned up the streets. Barkeloo absorbed the information with internal dissatisfaction. He belonged to that class of men who take personal offense at mystery and ever since Parcel’s arrival in the company a week before he had been striving to reconcile the man’s story with certain inconsistencies his sharp ears and eyes had noted.

He was not overly large, this Parcel, and when he had walked into the American camp one week before it had been with a stiff swaying gait to his right leg and clothing half rustic and half military. He admitted no knowledge of military life save what he had gained from service in county militia; yet to Barkeloo he carried himself like a Philadelphia macaroni, and when he spoke it was in a manner Barkeloo recognized as usually belonging to gentlemen. Many strange characters came and vanished in the course of a month’s march, yet the big fellow, who was as shrewd as he was illiterate, sniffed at something hidden. The man was no farmer, he decided; and as for previous military experience, he had an opinion about that, too.

He rolled on his side, grumbling.

“Marchin’ again. Ain’t we been marchin’ ever since Brandywine? First one way, then t’other. Back an’ for’d like stray cows! My ——, I’m tired o’ pluggin’ britches deep in mud! Crossing an’ recrossin’ the river so many’s the time that there ain’t been a dry spot on me two weeks come this night! An’ what’s come o’t?”

“Why,” replied the Yankee, tweaking his nose, “it ain’t right fer you ner me to say what’s to come of it. That’s the ginral’s affair. We hev to walk er wade er crawl, accordin’ to command.”

Barkeloo sat up, blood rising to his cheeks. He was a tall creature with the sinews of a giant. When he moved his arms sudden ridges sprang across his chest, visible through the torn shirt. Nature had been kind to him up to his head, but there had done a hideous piece of sculpturing. The chin was square and protruding, the lips abnormally thick. Cheek-bones, very high and prominent, sloped the skin sharply toward a pair of deep eye-sockets, within which was a dull gray gleam. Somewhere in youth he must have been through a severe accident for the nose was flattened against the face and all around it were small white pits, giving him, rightly or wrongly, the air of brutality.

“What’s to come o’t?” he repeated angrily. “’Tis a man’s right to ask. ’Twas the design to keep the English —— out o’ Philadelphia. An’ what happened? We goes forward, then we goes back. We dodges, an’ swims a river, no sooner gettin’ over than we swims back! ——, what a month ’tis been. An’ for all o’t, Ginral Howe takes the town with nary so much as a pistol shot. Oh fine!”

The Yankee gaped, displaying a set of broken teeth. His eyes sought the fire, and by and by he answered, mildly dogged—

“’Twas for a purpose, I vow.”

Parcel, finished with the butter grease, set the pan away. Barkeloo stared at him with brooding eyes.

“Beyond my sight—that purpose. Ye may put it down there’s been bad general’s play sum’ere.”

Parcel’s eyes flashed and he scowled unexpectedly at Barkeloo. The latter had got thoroughly entangled in his grievance and could not clear himself. At last he came bluntly to the point.

“I’ll fight so long’s the next dandy when there’s a fight to be found, but if you should ask me plain I’ll tell you—Washington wants firmness. High time fer the great man to make way fer younger blood.”

Parcel spoke gustily—

“I will not allow General Washington to be insulted in my presence, sir!”

Barkeloo’s eyes widened.

“Eh? Hear ye! That be a poor way to speak to Tod Barkeloo! Insult?——! Let it stand then! High time, s’I, the great ’un sh’d retire to his Martha an’ chase foxes. He wants decision. D’ye hear it, farmer?” Barkeloo thrust his chin out, putting undue accent on the last word.

The middle-aged man coughed; the rest of the group looked on with an intense interest.

“I could wish,” said Parcel very slowly, “that you had some claim to intelligence. You are not fit to black that man’s boots. His is a task you have no comprehension of, and never will. Sit down, yokel! You have bullied this mess quite long enough!”

The quiet man instantly touched the trigger of Barkeloo’s rage. A movement brought the big one upright, lowing like a bull.

“——, I’ll bash in yer ribs! Talk’ee to Tod like ’at?”

His foot shot forward, aimed at the reclining Parcel. All of a sudden the scene was shrouded in dust and ashes. Parcel had rolled, arms out. Barkeloo came to earth with a ringing cry in his throat. The Yankee, peering across the fire, blew through his bloodless nose and clicked his broken teeth hard together, almost snarling. The dust eddied in the wind and was whipped away, revealing both men upright. Tod Barkeloo stood with his bayoneted gun to the fore, the muscles of his neck snapping out like taut cables.

“Talk’ee to Tod like ’at? I’ll bash’ee!”

“’Vast there, feller!” moaned the Yankee, unconsciously ducking.

Parcel bent, hand stretching to the blaze. An oak limb, burning brightly at one end, flared through the air as Tod Barkeloo stabbed out with the bayonet. Gun and cudgel came together with musket-like report. Parcel’s arm and shoulders moved. The musket flew from Barkeloo’s hand and struck the ground. And, while the big man stood there, amazed, arms aimlessly apart, the cudgel leaped again and in one lightning slash on the cotton shirt left a smudged, diagonal track from shoulder to hip.

Parcel stepped back and let the tip of the cudgel fall to earth. His hat was gone and the string that held his hair in a club had given way, leaving it to ruffle at every puff of the October wind. The fine somber face was still sharpened by anger, and although he was dressed roughly and the cudgel in his fist smoked and smoldered, it took only a stroke of the imagination to make him out the fashionable young gentleman resting on his blade.

“Were this thing,” said he, moving the cudgel, “a sword, friend bully, your bowels would be on the ground—deserved treatment for a man who fights with his feet! If other gentlemen chose to accept your manners, ’tis their own affair. But let me have civility. As for the general, he is too great and good a man to have fools drag his name into question.”

Barkeloo’s arms dropped. Parcel threw the cudgel in the fire and walked off, the injured leg making a circle forward and outward. Within a dozen paces the anger had given way to self-reproach.

“What a —— fool, Jerry, my lad. Making a public display is the one thing you should be avoiding. ——! I must use discretion. I could wish that prying lout anywhere but in this brigade.”

His progress was arrested by a voice.

“Parcel—a word with you.”

Glancing up, he saw the captain of the company, a stout Jerseyman by the name of Throop, beckoning from an improvised seat on a stump. He turned his course reluctantly, composing his features.

“In signing you,” said the captain, watching him with a sharp eye, “I neglected to ask the name of your closest people. Matter of record, you understand, in case you’re put out of action.”

“I have no people, sir,” said Parcel, after a moment’s hesitation.

“Then your own home, sir.”

“It could be of no consequence,” replied Parcel. “But I have a farm—in Monmouth County.”

The captain nodded. Parcel stood obediently at hand while the officer ruminated. He spoke again, with more ceremony than usual.

“I was witness of the last part of your little affair, sir. Though I can not condone brawling in my company, yet I could wish Barkeloo had been tamed earlier. A most overbearing creature to his companions. What I wished to say is that I lack non-commissioned officers. Brandywine lost me a good many men and the recruits leave me little to choose from. It is my desire to make you a corporal.”

Parcel moved in surprize.

“I have no training, sir.”

“Gad, neither have the most of my men. But you have qualities that wear well with the tabard.”

Parcel shook his head, displaying considerable agitation.

“I must beg to be excused.”

“On what grounds, sir?”

“I have no taste for it.”

The captain shrugged his shoulders and studied his man at some length.

“Well, it is your choice. The reason is unusual.”

He dismissed Parcel, watching him limp away in such haste that the stiff leg dragged behind.

“I’ll be bound,” muttered Throop, “if he hasn’t seen service somewhere and taken a most extreme dislike to authority. ’Tis his own affair. ——! there goes officer’s beat again.”

He slipped from the stump and went toward the sagging roof of the colonel’s marquee, wondering how long it would be before the rheumatism would force Major Tinney from the service, thereby leaving open the road of promotion to a certain worthy senior captain—being no other than Throop himself. These reflections banished Parcel’s case from his mind.

But Tod Barkeloo was of another mind. After the fight he wandered away from the mess-fire in a turbulent state, glowering at all whom he passed and not checking his pace until he found himself well beyond the limits of the brigade. Being an entirely emotional creature, he was thoroughly the victim of the incessant gusts of temper that left him unreasoning and half blind. Once he found himself stumbling into a work party, and an officer growled at him in a manner that made him swing around with raised fists. But a second glance bade him be cautious; he turned off to another part of the encampment, while his temper simmered and at length subsided, leaving him crafty.

“Eh, I may be a yokel, but I c’n smell a rat as well as any. How did that macaroni come to be so handy with a stick if it wa’n’t for knowin’ o’ the world? An’ if he be a farmer, how comes he by that knowin’? ’Tis a story that hangs poor. It may be he’s no soldier, but old Tod’s got proof t’other way. Takes a shrewd liar to bind the eyes o’ Tod.”

Squeezing his hand into a pocket, he brought forth a pewter button.

It was such a button as men wore on the coats of their regimentals, as large as Tod’s thumbnail and stamped with an anchor, representing the organization to which the owner had belonged. Barkeloo studied it through narrowed eyes. That button had fallen from some of Parcel’s effects one evening, and Barkeloo, with instinctive guile had put a foot on it and retrieved it silently. Now, suddenly coming to a decision, he flipped the button in the air, caught it, and strode down a little valley, across a field toward a remote part of the camp.

“Seems like ’tis from a New England battalion. Well, Mister Parcel, if that be yer name, we’ll pry a leetle. My notion is the word spy fits ye clost enough.”

His path took him through the picket line where the earth was churned to mud beneath the hoofs of a thousand horses and mules. It was such a scene of apparent confusion as Barkeloo had never before witnessed and he stopped to view it. Harness brass glinted under a mild, ineffectual sun. Men swore so foully that Tod, foul-mouthed himself, was abashed. Out of the turmoil groaned wagon after wagon, laboring through the mire to every quarter of the area. Other vehicles, loaded, stood motionless in long lines. At every interval officers galloped by, and above the shouts of teamsters and the bray of mules and the grinding of brakes he heard familiar commands.

The loaded wagon columns began to move. Tod felt the urge of time and went on.

It was a tedious chase, and only an extreme and unusual state of mind could have held the restless Tod to it, toiling from regiment to regiment and passing across the widely flung fires of the divisions. Thus, when he turned a street and came of a sudden upon a train of artillery standing in full readiness to move, guns hitched and the stalwart gunners standing by the long brass barrels, he triumphantly halted.

The members of the battery were not all dressed alike; for that matter few organizations of the army boasted uniformity in dress that ill-starred autumn. Some wore red and blue, some plain brown and each man seemed to make it a point of custom to have at least one individual and unmatchable piece of apparel. But among these were five or six robust fellows arrayed in a splendid red, brown and buff uniform topped by a jacked leather helmet on which was pressed a golden anchor. And Tod’s eyes, comparing his button with those anchors, knew his quest ended. He moved toward the foremost, speaking with an air of mystery—

“This button, now, ’tis of your own people?”

The artilleryman gave it a glance and nodded his gorgeous helmet. He was a true member of his corps and looked with some scorn on the shabby representative of the infantry. But Barkeloo was too busy with his deductions to notice the manner.

“Then, friend, did ye ever boast a gentleman by name o’ Parcel?”

“Parcel—no.”

“He’d be like to sport the air o’ a gentleman. A swordsman o’ parts, no doubt. A game leg, too, and a handsome rascal with a temper.”

The artilleryman stirred.

“Hold. A fellow with a dark, sharp face? Snappin’ black eyes?”

An officer galloped forward; men ran to their places at an order.

“Aye!” cried Barkeloo. “’Tis the scoundrel! Ye know him?”

“Lieutenant Jerry Caswell—” began the artilleryman and was summoned by a peremptory command.

Gunners sprang upon the horses and the pieces moved. The artilleryman dashed to his place, wasting no more words. Barkeloo cursed, watching the outfit rumble off, half inclined to follow after them. But he was checked by another beating of the drums. The sun stood half-way down the afternoon sky and all about him were signs of an impending march. Some outfits already were filing off to unknown destinations. A cavalcade, headed by a tall rail of a man with golden epaulettes, almost rode him down as he stood there dreaming. He flung himself back, spitting mud from his lips, hearing a command tossed upon his head.

“To your battalion, sir! ’Tis no time to be loitering!”

He was taken with the sudden fear that his company would be marching away without him, and though a rash braggart he had pride enough in his courage to abhor being considered a skulker on the eve of a march. Setting out at a brisk run, he traveled down one slope and up another, repassing the picket lines and veering toward his own quarter. Long before he arrived there he was badly winded, very hungry and tired of foot. But he had found a trace of Parcel’s past and his suspicious mind fed on it with relish. Coming into his own regimental street, he saw men busy about the fires, and when he reached his mess he walked into a whirlpool of rumor and speculation. From it he found that orders were out for each man to cook and carry extra rations. Glumly he set about his chores, grumbling beneath his breath.

“’Tis another night march, then. Oh, ——, but I’m gettin’ tired o’ all this shilly-shally!” Across the fire he saw Parcel rolling his blanket and a sense of victory filled him. “I’ll find the truth o’ that dandy’s past. T’morrer I’ll find that artilleryman again. A spy, —— his soul! I’d lay lawful money on it! Else why sh’d he be desertin’ one regiment fer another with nary a word to explain it? Going around lookin’ fer information!”

The Yankee, between mouthfuls of salt beef, was explaining his premonition.

“Wal, I hev been to sea many a year an’ I reckon I c’n smell foul weather comin’. Ye young uns with the vinegar in yer blood will hez it run out afore another night’s come.”

“What’s it to be, Abner?”

“Battle, boy. Foul weather daid ahaid.”

Laughter swept the circle. But Ira Parcel reached for his gun and began polishing the stock with his palm, sober and incommunicative.

The autumn day changed color. Without warning it was dusk, leaving a thousand fires to gleam fitfully beneath a very pale moon. As the shadows grew, a change came over the sky and a rack of clouds sailed beneath the clear light. On the right the drums muttered again and the waiting men fell silently into the ranks. The sergeant droned roll-call. Captain Throop appeared, a bulky shadow, in front of his company.

“This company will please to remember the general’s instructions as to night marching. It is particularly requested that the ranks keep well closed. No one is to drop from the line on pain of extreme punishment. Gentlemen will strictly observe the rule of silence. The army advances toward the enemy this night.”