“Mind you don’t lie.”
“I’m not lying. Should think you could see I’m American.”
“Guess you are. Guess you’re O. K., Jerry. I’m Hannibal Moss, drummer boy, Company A, Eighth United States Infantry,” said the boy, with a little swagger of importance. “That’s what. Best company in the best fighting regiment of the whole army. What you intend to do? Join us?”
“I’d like to, mighty well.”
“Where’ve you been since you got in?”
“Out there with the sailors and the big guns. That’s where I landed. But they sent me back.”
“Oh, that’s the navy battery. What’d you think of it?”
“They’re the biggest guns I ever saw.”
“Guess they are. Guess they’ll fix those dons—blow their walls to pieces. They’re sixty-eight-pounder shell guns and thirty-two-pounder solid shot fellows. You bet! The army’s got some just as big, but they haven’t come yet, so the navy’s going to help us out. We’ve a battery of twenty-four-pounders out there, though. Only seven hundred yards from the walls. Wait till you hear the music.”