"Peggy, you mustn't talk like that," Tony warned me. "If you do, I can't go on."
"Forgive me," I said, and let him hold my hand, happy for a moment in the belief that he was soothing me.
"You know—you've heard, I guess, that Vandyke was in command last night, because the colonel had a touch of the sun? But that isn't the right way to begin my story. I'm hanged if I know how to begin it! We were up there on the hill with the guns, on guard; I mean I was, and the men. And March came along, and strolled off again a little way with his field glasses. Maybe thirty or forty yards distant, he was. I wasn't noticing anything—felt rather sleepy, and was trying all I knew to keep awake. I was in charge of the guns, you see. I guess I was thinking about you. I generally am. Anyhow, the first thing I knew, March hurried back. He seemed queer and excited, and stood still a minute as if he was struck all of a heap. Then to my amazement he rapped out an order to load and fire number one and number two guns, aiming at a spot just beyond the bridge. But before we'd had time to do more than gasp—I and the gunners—he changed his order, and commanded us to fire blank. Lord, that was a relief—though even blank would be bad enough for the lot of us if it turned out that March had gone suddenly mad. You fire blank for a salute, you know: but Mexico wasn't likely to take it as a compliment! Luckily we'd some rounds of blank, served out to us in case we might need to send a scare and not a peppering across the river. There was nothing for it but to obey orders, though I couldn't help thinking about 'The Charge of the Light Brigade,' when every one knew that some one had blundered. March shouted out, 'Go slow!' And you bet we did go slow! It seemed as if he must be off his head—or somebody else was—for so far as we could tell—and it was a fairly clear night—there wasn't a sign of trouble on the other side of the river.
"We'd only fired the three shots, when Major Vandyke pounced on us, ordered us to stop, and wanted to know what the devil and all his angels March was up to. 'Carrying out your orders,' said March. 'That's a da——' but what's the use of repeating to you, Peggy, what they said to each other? The principal thing is, Vandyke denied having given any order to fire, and cursed March for all he was worth. Said he might be the cause of bringing us and Mexico to grips over the incident. Then he dashed off in his automobile, which was waiting for him under the hill (he'd been in it, you know, or he couldn't have got to the spot so soon); you must have read that in the papers; and so much of their story was true. Whatever you may think of Vandyke, Peggy, that was man's size work! He took his life in his hands, the way the Mexicans must have been buzzing in their wasp's nest over there, after the hot water we'd thrown on it."
"It was the sort of thing he'd love to do," I said implacably. "The theatrical thing. He must have known, too, that the man driving the car was the one in greater danger. But he didn't drive!"
"He never does drive. He didn't just funk it at that one time; it's his habit. I've always heard him say he hated to drive a car. Too lazy! Anyhow, there was the very dickens to pay. Before leaving the hill for his dash across the river he'd told March to consider himself under arrest——"
"How dared he?" I fiercely wanted to know. "That wasn't his business."
"Oh, yes it was! He's March's superior officer. Besides any officer has the right, if—but I won't worry your head with military rules and regulations! What you want to know is, how this affects Captain March, don't you?"
"Yes, that's the great thing to me," I admitted. "Tony, will it ruin him?"
"It's early days to say as much as that, yet. It all depends on the result of the court-martial."