Waring's Peril

by Charles King

"I wish I knew, colonel. His horse came back without him, as you doubtless saw, and, as he hasn't appeared, I'm afraid of accident."

"How did he come to leave his post, sir? I have no recollection of authorizing anything of the kind."

"Certainly not, colonel. He rode back to his quarters with my consent before adjutant's call had sounded, and he should have been with us again in abundant time."

"That young gentleman needs more discipline than he is apt to receive at this rate, Captain Cram, and I desire that you pay closer attention to his movements than you have done in the past.—Mr. Drake," he said to his adjutant, who was tripping around after his chief afoot, "call on Mr. Waring to explain his absence in writing and without delay.—This indifference to duty is something to which I am utterly unaccustomed," continued Braxton, again addressing Cram, who preserved a most uncompromising serenity of countenance; and with this parting shot the colonel turned gruffly away and soon retook his station at the reviewing point.

Then came the second hitch. Minor had had no experience whatever, as has been said, and he first tried to wheel into column of companies without closing ranks, whereupon every captain promptly cautioned "Stand fast," and thereby banished the last remnant of Minor's senses. Seeing that something was wrong, he tried again, this time prefacing with "Pass in review," and still the captains were implacable. The nearest one, in a stage whisper, tried to make the major hear "Close order, first." But all the time Brax was losing more of his temper and Minor what was left of his head, and Brax came down like the wolf on the fold, gave the command to "Close order" himself, and was instantly echoed by Cram's powerful shout "Limber to the rear," followed by "Pieces left about! Caissons forward!" Then in the rumble and clank of the responding battery, Minor's next command was heard by only the right wing of the battalion, and the company wheels were ragged. So was the next part of the performance when he started to march in review, never waiting, of course, for the battery to wheel into column of sections. This omission, however, in no wise disconcerted Cram, who, following at rapid walk, soon gained on the rear of column, passing his post commander in beautiful order and with most accurate salute on the part of himself and officers, and, observing this, Minor took heart, and, recovering his senses to a certain extent, gave the command "Guide left" in abundant time to see that the new guides were accurately in trace, thereby insuring what he expected to find a beautiful wheel into line to the left, the commands for which movement he gave in louder and more confident tone, but was instantly nonplussed by seeing the battery wheel into line to the right and move off in exactly the opposite direction from what he had expected. This was altogether too much for his equanimity. Digging his spurs into the flanks of the astonished sorrel, he darted off after Cram, waving his sword, and shouting,—

"Left into line wheel, captain. Left into line wheel."

In vain Mr. Pierce undertook to explain matters. Minor presumed that the artilleryman had made an actual blunder and was only enabled to correct it by a countermarch, and so rode back to his position in front of the centre of the reforming line, convinced that at last he had caught the battery commander.

When Braxton, therefore, came down to make his criticisms and comments upon the conduct of the review, Minor was simply amazed to find that instead of being in error Cram had gone exactly right and as prescribed by his drill regulations in wheeling to the right and gaining ground to the rear before coming up on the line. He almost peevishly declared that he wished the colonel, if he proposed having a combined review, would assume command himself, as he didn't care to be bothered with combination tactics of which he had never had previous knowledge. Being of the same opinion, Braxton himself took hold, and the next performance, though somewhat erroneous in many respects, was a slight improvement on the first, though Braxton did not give time for the battery to complete one movement before he would rush it into another. When the officers assembled to compare notes during the rest after the second repetition, Minor growled that this was "a little better, yet not good," which led to some one suggesting in low tone that the major got his positives and comparatives worse mixed than his tactics, and inquiring further "whether it might not be well to dub him Minor Major." The laughter that followed this sally naturally reached the ears of the seniors, and so Brax never let up on the command until the review went off without an error of any appreciable weight, without, in fact, "a hitch in the fut or an unhitch in the harse," as Doyle expressed it. It was high noon when the battalion got back to barracks and the officers hung out their moist clothing to dry in the sun. It was near one when the battery men, officers and all, came steaming up from the stables, and there was the colonel's orderly with the colonel's compliments and desires to see Captain Cram before the big battery man had time to change his dress.

Braxton's first performance on getting into cool habiliments was to go over to his office and hunt through the book-shelves for a volume in which he never before had felt the faintest interest,—the Light Artillery Tactics of 1864. There on his desk lay a stack of mail unopened, and Mr. Drake was already silently inditing the summary note to the culprit Waring. Brax wanted first to see with his own eyes the instructions for light artillery when reviewed with other troops, vaguely hoping that there might still he some point on which to catch his foeman on the hip. But if there were he did not find it. He was tactician enough to see that even if Cram had formed with his leading drivers on line with the infantry, as Braxton thought he should have done, neither of the two methods of forming into battery would then have got his guns where they belonged. Cram's interpretation of the text was backed by the custom of service, and there was no use criticising it further. And so, after discontentedly hunting through the dust-covered pages awhile in hopes of stumbling on some codicil or rebuttal, the colonel shut it with a disgusted snap and tossed the offending tome on the farthest table. At that moment Brax could have wished the board of officers who prepared the Light Artillery Tactics in the nethermost depths of the neighboring swamp. Then he turned on his silent staff officer,—a not unusual expedient.