Charles King - A Trooper Galahad

"Life is full of ups and downs," mused the colonel, as he laid on the littered desk before him an official communication just received from Department Head-Quarters, "especially army life, – and more especially army life in Texas."

"Now, what are you philosophizing about?" asked his second in command, a burly major, glancing over the top of the latest home paper, three weeks old that day.

"D'ye remember Pigott, that little cad that was court-martialled at San Antonio in '68 for quintuplicating his pay accounts? He married the widow of old Alamo Hendrix that winter. He's worth half a million to-day, is running for Congress, and will probably be on the military committee next year, while here's Lawrence, who was judge advocate of the court that tried him, gone all to smash." And the veteran officer commanding the – th Infantry and the big post at Fort Worth glanced warily along into the adjoining office, where a clerk was assorting the papers on the adjutant's desk.

"It's the saddest case I ever heard of," said Major Brooks, tossing aside the Toledo Blade and tripping up over his own, which he had thoughtfully propped between his legs as he took his seat and thoughtlessly ignored as he left it. "Damn that sabre, – and the service generally!" he growled, as he recovered his balance and tramped to the window. "I'd almost be willing to quit it as Pigott did if I could see my way to a moderate competence anywhere out of it. Lawrence was as good a soldier as we had in the 12th, and, yet, what can you do or say? The mischief's done." And, beating the devil's tattoo on the window, the major stood gloomily gazing out over the parade.

"It isn't Lawrence himself I'm so – Orderly, shut that door!" cried the chief, whirling around in his chair, "and tell those clerks I want it kept shut until the adjutant comes; and you stay out on the porch. – It isn't Lawrence I'm so sorely troubled about, Brooks. He has ability, and could pick up and do well eventually, but he's utterly discouraged and swamped. What's to become, though, of that poor child Ada and his little boy?"

"God knows," said Brooks, sadly. "I've got five of my own to look after, and you've got four. No use talking of adopting them, even if Lawrence would listen; and he never would listen to anything or anybody – they tell me," he added, after a minute's reflection. "I don't know it myself. It's what Buxton and Canker and some of those fellows told me on the Republican last summer. I hadn't seen him since Gettysburg until we met here."

"Buxton and Canker be – exterminated!" said the colonel, hotly. "I never met Buxton, and never want to. As for Canker, by gad, there's another absurdity. They put him in the cavalry because consolidation left no room for him with us. What do you suppose they'll do with him in the – th?"

"The Lord knows, as I said before. He never rode anything but a hobby in his life. I don't wonder Lawrence couldn't tolerate preaching from him. But what I don't understand is, who made the allegation. What's his offence? Every one knows that he's in debt and trouble, and that he's had hard lines and nothing else ever since the war, but the court acquitted him of all blame in that money business – "

"And now to make room for fellows with friends at court," burst in the colonel, wrathfully, "he and other poor devils with nothing but a fighting record and a family to provide for are turned loose on a year's pay, which they're to have after things straighten out as to their accounts with the government. Now just look at Lawrence! Ordnance and quartermaster's stores hopelessly boggled – "

"Hush!" interrupted Brooks, starting back from the window. "Here he is now."

Assembly of the guard details had sounded a few moments before, and all over the sunshiny parade on its westward side, in front of the various barracks, little squads of soldiers armed and in full uniform were standing awaiting the next signal, while the porches of the low wooden buildings beyond were dotted with groups of comrades, lazily looking on. Out on the greensward, broad and level, crisscrossed with gravel walks, the band had taken its station, marshalled by the tall drum-major in his huge bear-skin shako. From the lofty flag-staff in the centre of the parade the national colors were fluttering in the mountain breeze that stole down from the snowy peaks hemming the view to the northwest and stirred the leaves of the cottonwoods and the drooping branches of the willows in the bed of the rushing stream sweeping by the southern limits of the garrison. Within the enclosure, sacred to military use, it was all the same old familiar picture, the stereotyped fashion of the frontier fort of the earliest '70s, – dull-hued barracks on one side or on two, dull-hued, broad-porched cottages – the officers' quarters – on another, dull-hued offices, storehouses, corral walls, scattered about the outskirts, a dull-hued, sombre earth on every side; sombre sweeping prairie beyond, spanned by pallid sky or snow-tipped mountains; a twisting, winding road or two, entering the post on one front, issuing at the other, and tapering off in sinuous curves until lost in the distance; a few scattered ranches in the stream valley; a collection of sheds, shanties, and hovels surrounding a bustling establishment known as the store, down by the ford, – the centre of civilization, apparently, for thither trended every roadway, path, track, or trail visible to the naked eye. Here in front of the office a solitary cavalry horse was tethered. Yonder at the sutler's, early as it was in the day, a dozen quadrupeds, mules, mustangs, or Indian ponies, were blinking in the sunshine. Dogs innumerable sprawled in the sand. Bipeds lolled lazily about or squatted on the steps on the edge of the wooden porch, some in broad sombreros, some in scalp-lock and blanket, – none in the garb of civil life as seen in the nearest cities, and the nearest was four or five hundred miles away. Out on the parade were bits of lively color, the dresses of frolicsome children to the east, the stripes and facings of the cavalry and artillery at the west; for, by some odd freak of the fortunes of war, here, away out at Fort Worth, had come a crack light battery of the old army, which, with Brooks's battalion of the cavalry, and head-quarters' staff, band, and six companies of the – th Infantry, made up the garrison, – the biggest then maintained in the Department immortalized by Sheridan as only second choice to Sheol. It was the winter of '70 and '71, as black and dreary a time as ever the army knew, for Congress had telescoped forty-five regiments into half the number and blasted all hopes of promotion, – about the only thing the soldier has to live for.

And that wasn't the blackest thing about the business, by any means. The war had developed the fact that we had thousands of battalion commanders for whom the nation had no place in peace times, and scores of them, in the hope and promise of a life employment in an honorable profession, accepted the tender of lieutenancies in the regular army in '66, the war having broken up all their vocations at home, and now, having given four years more to the military service, – taken all those years out of their lives that might have been given to establishing themselves in business, – they were bidden to choose between voluntarily quitting the army with a bonus of a year's pay, and remaining with no hope of advancement. Most of them, despairing of finding employment in civil life, concluded to stay: so other methods of getting rid of them were devised, and, to the amaze of the army and the dismay of the victims, a big list was published of officers "rendered supernumerary" and summarily discharged. And this was how it happened that a gallant, brilliant, and glad-hearted fellow, the favorite staff officer of a glorious corps commander who fell at the head of his men after three years of equally glorious service, found himself in far-away Texas this blackest of black Fridays, suddenly turned loose on the world and without hope or home.