THE DRUMMER OF COMPANY E.

New Zealand Graphic, Volume XIII, Issue VIII, 25 August 1894, Page 180

THE DRUMMER OF COMPANY E.

By

ROBERT HOWE FLETCHER, U.S. ARMY.

• HERE are two descriptions of Fort Sahatlin, one official, the other unofficial. The * official description ’ (1870) states that * this military post is located in lat. 40° 32' N., long. 40° W. ,* that is to say, ‘ on the Sahatlin Indian Reservation, in Idaho territory, on the left bank of Sahatlin Creek, three miles from its confluence with the Koos kooskie River. The nearest telegraph station is 100 miles from the post, the nearest railroad seven days’ staging. The surrounding country forms a portion of the great plains of the Columbia. The race of the land is bare except for a sparse growth of bunch grass, and is marked by abrupt depressions and canyons, through the bottom of the streams flow.’

Semi officially it may be added that these lowlands beat likeness to nothing so much as a calm ocean, rolling and swelling in unutterable barrenness and desolation. But if the wayfarer should follow down one of these creases between the hills, winding in and out, he will finally, much to his surprise, be disgorged into one of those ‘ depressions through which a stream flows.’ Here, indeed, is a different prospect, a rich bottom land with a green ribbon of trees spread through it, and Indian wickiups and herds of Cayuse ponies dotting its narrow length; and so inclosed is this valley that the wayfarer may well be troubled to know how he got in or how he will get out, the entrance being lost in the general sameness of the two walls of bare, rolling hills which guard the course of the stream. To follow down the creek is to come to its mouth, to follow it up is to go into the mountains; first into the timber and then into a wild region of rocky desert split with mighty canyons. Canyons like that of the * Snake,’ sjnuous, tortuous, deep and dark, with precipitous sides of basaltic trap, around the bases of which the river slinks quickly and silently until, maybe, its course is checked by a sudden turn, or fallen boulders, and it then snarls and snaps and tear a at the obstacle until, with a hoarse roar, it passes on and sullenly hides itself in its lair once more, between the black walls of its inaccessible caverns. But despite the savage dosolation of these mountain fastnesses it is hard to choose between them and the wearisome monotony of the dry, rolling prairies of the lowlands. Indeed, the only choice for a living place is the narrow, sunken valleys of little streams like the Sahatlin, wherein the military post of Fort Sahatlin is tucked away. Fort Sahatlin, the ‘official description ’ goes on to relate, is 700 feet above sea level; its mean temperature in summer is 70°, in winter, 34°; the prevalent winds are from the south and west. The climate is healthful, there being no prevailing diseases. The report does not give the reading of the wet and dry bulb thermometer, probably because at the time the report was made there was none, the hospital steward having broken it the year before, and although the post surgeon had entered it on his annual requisition it had not as yet been supplied. But the average yearly rainfall is cited as being 16 36 inches. And this ends the * official description.’ Ihe unofficial description of Fort Sahatlin is not published, nor is it easy to obtain, being based altogether upon the private opinion of the garrison. Under that heading, first of all to be considered are the enlisted men, and what they think no one is really supposed to know except the first sergeant, and the first sergeant never permits himself

to give expression to the opinion of the barrack room except when asked for it by his captain in the cause of discipline. Briefly, however, it was pretty generally understood that the enlisted men agreed in pronouncing Fort Sahatlin • the jumping off place of the universe.’ Now, exactly what was meant by the ‘ jumping-off place of the universe’ it was left to the drummer of company E. to show, and the manner in which he showed it it is the purpose of this chronicle to relate. . * I confined Musician Morrow last night, sir, by order of the lieutenant,’ said the first sergeant, saluting, as he delivered the morning report to Lieutenant Humphrey, at that officer’s quarters. * What for!’ said the lieutenant temporarily commanding Company E, as he dipped his pen in the ink preparatory to signing his name in the book. * For being ont of quarters, sir, after taps,’ replied the sergeant.

‘ Where was he !* said the lieutenant, dashing off his signature with the indifference of a man who knows beforehand what the answer will be.

* Well, sir,’ replied the sergeant, with slight hesitation, * be wasn’t anywhere to speak of, only just sitting out on the barrack porch, in the dark, looking over to where some of the officers and ladies was talking on the steps of the lieutenant’s quarters.’ *ls that all that he was doing!’ said the lieutenant, looking up. ‘ Well, sir,’ said the sergeant, * you see it ain’t the first time, and what’s more, perhaps if he had been ont in the brush gambling, or over at the sutler's store, drinking, I wouldn’t a’ thought so much of it. But when I asked him why he wasn’t in hie quarters, he up and answered me that he was tired of being in his q uarters. “It’s lonesome,” says he. “ Lonesome I” says I, “ what do you mean by that ! Ain’ttherefcrty menin there to keepyoucompany?” “Yes,” says he, “ that’s just it.” “ Well," says I, not knowing what to make of it, “what is it you’re doing here, at any rate!” “ I ain’t doing anything,” says he, “ only listening to them talking and laughing and singing over there. It’s pleasant to hear, though there’s the length of the parade ground between them and me.” “ Well,’’ says I, “ the guardhouse is a little nearer, and moreover, maybe you won’t be so lonesome there, so come along And so I took him over to the guardhouse. The fact is, lieutenant, he’s been acting queer lately. He seems sort ov’ dissatisfied, and I’ve been minded to speak to the lieutenant of it. He don’t care for his grub and he don’t care for drinking or amusing himself with the men in any sociable way, but goes off mooning by himself when he ain’t on duty. And some of the noncommissioned officers have heard him say that he was getting tired of this sort of life, and it looks a good deal like he was getting ready to desert.’ * Very well, sergeant,’ said the lieutenant, * you did right, of course. Just give my compliments to the officer of the day and ask him to send Morrow over to me, and I’ll have a talk with him.

And the sergeant, saluting, departed, while the lieutenant, after a few moments’ meditation, turned once more to his writing. Presently the door of an adjacent room opened and Mrs Humphrey came in, and leaning over her husband’s shoulder whispered mysteriously in his ear, ‘Breakfast is ready, Dick.’

Mrs Humphrey had married the lieutenant less than a year before, while he was on recruiting service in New York, of which fact her youth and elaborate breakfast gown were in evidence. The lieutenant replied to her confidential announcement as became a young husband, but was interrupted by a stern rapping on the outer door. • Come in 1’ be said brusquely, turning back to his desk. The door opened and the sergeant of the guard stood there with his white gloved hand at his gun in salute. * Prisoner Morrow has permission to see the lieutenant,’ he said.

* Yery well, sergeant, send him in and wait outside.* Another armed salute and, the sergeant stepping back, the drummer advanced into the room with his cap in his hand and his eyes on the floor. He was a dark, slender lad of eighteen, with a long, rather womanish face, not handsome, but interesting by reason of the trouble and melancholy upon it. ‘ Well, Morrow,’ said the lieutenant, ‘ what have you got to say for yourself !' * Nothing, sir,’ replied the drummer. * Why were you out of your quarters last night!’ * I wasn’t doing any harm, lieutenant.’ * That is not what I asked you,’ said the lieutenant. _ • Well, sir,’ said the boy. moving his bead from side to side in a sort of protest, • I—l got tired of being with the men all the time, and I heard the piano playing over at the officers’ quarters, and I j ust sat out there ’cause—’cause ’ ‘ Because he was lonely, Dick, poor fellow ! Don’t yon understand !’ burst forth Mrs Humphrey, in a voice full of sympathy. The drummer looked up at the lady quickly, and as his eyes met hers his face flushed and his gaze dropped to the floor again. The lieutenant quietly laid his hand on his

wife’s, with a warning pressure. •See here, Morrow,’ he said sternly, •this sort of thing won’t do at all ! You have no business to be out of your quarters after taps, you know that perfectly well. The next time that it occurs I shall prefer charges against you. I intend to overlook it this time, because I have had no reason to complain of you before. But after guard mount I want you to put in a pass for twenty four hours and go to Pack City. You are moping around the post tx> much, and I want you to brace up and come back ready to do your duty like a man. So now go, and let me bear no more of this nonsense. Sergeant of the guard, take the prisoner busk to the guardhouse.’ As to what the officers, who are next to be considered in the garrison, thought unofficially of Port Sahatlin, that is even more difficult to learn than the opinion of the enlisted men, because it is against the customs of the service for an officer to complain of bis surroundings. And so their ideas will have to go unrecorded. But this does not hold good with the last and not least important remaining portion of the garrison, namely, the officers’ wives. Indeed, there is no difficulty in obtaining their opinions, because, as a rule, they express them freely. Therefore it was that Mrs Humphrey—who, as has been said, had married her uniformed husband in all the beguilements of New York society, and was new to the hard realities of sei vice on the frontier— Mrs Humphrey, commenting on the drummer’s case, declared that she was not surprised at the men calling Sahat lin * the jumping off place ’ ; to her the valley seemed more like a grave that hadn’t been filled in than anything else. But to this Mrs Flynn objected. Mrs Flynn was the wife of the commanding officer, and an old campaigner. She bad bjen courted by her husband when she was a laundress and he was a private in Fetlock’s troop of the old 13th dragoons, and she had continued to serve as a laundress for the troops for ten years after her marriage, while Flynn, under her wifely care and encouragement, was gradually promoted to be corpora], then sergeant, then first sergeant, until the war of the rebellion broke out, when be got his commission as second lieutenant, and Mrs Flynn ceased to cleanse the blue shirts of the 13th dragoons. At the end of the war Fiynn found himself a captain of the 16:h cavalry, with one leg shorter than the other, and a scar on his cheek which the hair of his beard refused to cover, and with it all commanding officer of Fort Sahatlin ; while Mrs Flynn, with the weatherworn face that comes of twenty five years of service from the Rio Grande to the British line, found herself the * commanding < flicer’s lady.’

Well, Mrs Flynn, being an old campaigner, stood up stoutly in defence of Sahatlin. * Oho ! me dear,' she said, bridling with her head at the youthful wife of the infantry lieutenant, • ye don’t know when ye’re well off. The place has its inconvaniences for leddies to be sure, but it’s a good climate; niver too hot barrin’ whin the chinook blows, an’ thin ye can sake the seclusion of yer quarters ; an’ it’s niver too cold, exceptin’ on a day like that last winter whin the lieut’nint froze his fingers at guard mount, an’ sure he ought not to have inspicted tbe guns with naught but the white gloves on the hands of him ; an’ take it a 1 in all, it’s no such a bad sort of a place is Sahatlin, with a fine vege-

table garden at the back of it. And as for that drummer of Company E,’ continued Mrs Flynn, taking a long breath, •it’s like his impudence to be puttin’ on airs, as though the men was not good enough for the likes of him ! Him ! a music boy, that’s been raised in a camp and bis father a sergeant—sure I mind him well I And now, faith ! he’s setting up for a gentleman in nade of the divarsions of polite society. Humph ! the likes of that! ’Twarnt so in the old days.’ It was one summer’s evening, a week after the episode of the drummer’s arrest and release, when the officers and ladies were sitting on the steps of Lieutenant Humphrey’s quarters that these remarks were made. It was a still, sultry night, and the movements of Mrs Flynn's chair on the loose boards of the porch, as she energetically rocked and fanned herself, sounded like the working of a quartz mill. It was chinook weather, though the hot, dry wind bad not yet begun to blow, and the silence and the darkness had settled down into the valley undisturbed. There was an oppression in the air as though the wilderness was brooding over some evil secret, and it had its effects on the spirits of the little party, for after Mrs Flynn’s speech the conversation grew desultory and finally died out. At last one of the officers, with a valiant effort at cheerfulness, remarkeo, * Oh, well, if Sahatlin is a little bit quiet and lonely, there is something pleasant and restful about it, after all.’ And another promptly seconded this effort by adding, ‘ Do you notice what a sweet odour the trees are giving out tonight ?’ To which Mrs Humphrey lightly rejoined, ‘The silence may be restful, but I prefer the noise of Broadway, and as for the odour of the trees, I like sewer gas better.’ And while there was a laugh at this she arose and going into the house sat down in the darkness at the piano [which bad cost her busband half a year’s pay to get into the post] and played. She was a musician, and the piano translated her moods for her better than words. And that night, as the music came floating out of the open door and windows, it meant something to everyone who heard it, and that something had to do with the loneliness and silence of Sahatlin. In each it vaguely revived his secret life failure or disappointment, and with it a sense of rebellion against life as typified in these primeval solitudes of Sahatlin, against the lean, empty prairies and the withered, wrinkled hills, against the dark, secret canons and the all knowing, Sphinx-like mountains. It was the protest of the higher life of civilized humanity against the unsympathetic, material, earth life. It was the cry of the exiled human being for the society of its kind. It was—Hark ! What was that ?

The notes of the piano had gradually died away and even Mrs Flynn’s rocking chair had come to rest, when this sound, like the distant slamming of a door, had broken the stillness. Instantly the voice of the sentry at the guardhouse was beard calling out * Sergeant of the guard ! Number one 1’ A bar of light streamed out into the darkness as the guardhouse door opened and then disappeared as it shut, while the jangling of accoutrements was heard, as the sergeant, after a short conference with the sentry, crossed the parade ground in the direction of the men’s barracks. Li< u

tenant Humphrey, who wss the officer of the day, arose quickly from his lounging attitude on the porch, and, hooking his sword to his belt, stepped down on to the walk and stood there waiting. ‘What is it?’ exclaimed Mrs Humphrey, nervously, coming to the door. • What is the matter ?’

‘ Sure, it sounded like a shot 1’ said Mrs Flynn. • There goes someone running to the doctor’s quarters,’ she added. At the same time a little crowd ot men could be seen clustered about the lighted open doorway of the infantry barracks opposite. Then the jangling of accoutrements was beard crossing the parade ground once more, and the sergeant of the guard advanced out of the darkness towaid the anxious group on the porch. ‘ . n J speak to the officer ot the day ?’ he said. Walking a little distance away, out of hearing of the ladies, the lieutenant paused and said, • Well, sergeant, what is it ?’

‘ It's the drummer of Company E, sir,’ replied the ser geant. • He’s took his gun out of the rack and killed him self.’