Whip and Spur

by George E. Waring

WETTSTEIN.

It is a pleasant thing to be a colonel of cavalry in active field-service. There are circumstances of authority and responsibility that fan the latent spark of barbarism which, however dull, glows in all our breasts, and which generations of republican civilization have been powerless to quench. We may not have confessed it even to ourselves; but on looking back to the years of the war, we must recognize many things that patted our vanity greatly on the back,—things so different from all the dull routine of equality and fraternity of home, that those four years seem to belong to a dreamland, over which the haze of the life before them and of the life after them draws a misty veil. Equality and Fraternity! a pretty sentiment, yes, and full of sensible and kindly regard for all mankind, and full of hope for the men who are to come after us; but Superiority and Fraternity! who shall tell all the secret emotions this implies? To be the head of the brotherhood, with the unremitted clank of a guard’s empty scabbard trailing before one’s tent-door day and night; with the standard of the regiment proclaiming the house of chief authority; with the respectful salute of all passers, and the natural obedience of all members of the command; with the shade of deference that even comrades show to superior rank; and with that just sufficient check upon coarseness during the jovial bouts of the headquarters’ mess, making them not less genial, but void of all offence,—living in this atmosphere, one almost feels the breath of feudal days coming modified through the long tempestuous ages to touch his cheek, whispering to him that the savage instinct of the sires has not been, and never will be, quite civilized out of the sons. And then the thousand men, and the yearly million that they cost, while they fill the cup of the colonel’s responsibility (sometimes to overflowing), and give him many heavy trials,—they are his own men; their usefulness is almost of his own creation, and their renown is his highest glory.

I may not depict the feelings of others; but I find in the recollection of my own service—as succeeding years dull its details and cast the nimbus of distance about it—the source of emotions which differ widely from those to which our modern life has schooled us.

One of the colonel’s constant attendants is the chief bugler, or, as he is called in hussar Dutch, the “Stabstrompaytr”; mine was the prince of Trompaytrs, and his name was Wettstein. He was a Swiss, whose native language was a mixture of guttural French and mincing German. English was an impossible field to him. He had learned to say “yes” and “matches”; but not one other of our words could he ever lay his tongue to, except the universal “damn.” But for his bugle and his little gray mare, I should never have had occasion to know his worth. Music filled every pore of his Alpine soul, and his wonderful Swiss “Retreat” must ring to this day in the memory of every man of the regiment whose thoughts turn again to the romantic campaign of South Missouri. What with other buglers was a matter of routine training was with him an inspiration. All knew well enough the meaning of the commands that the company trumpets stammered or blared forth; but when they rang from Wettstein’s horn, they carried with them a vim and energy that secured their prompt execution; and his note in the wild Ozark Hills would mark the headquarters of the “Vierte Missouri” for miles around. From a hill-top, half a mile in advance of the marching command, I have turned the regiment into its camping-ground and dismounted it in perfect order by the melodious telegraphy of Wettstein’s brazen lips alone.

That other chief attribute of his, Klitschka, his little beast, stayed longer with me than his bugle did, and is hardly less identified with the varied reminiscences of my army life. I bought her, as a prize, with the original mount of the regiment, in Frémont’s time, and was mildly informed by that officer that I must be careful how I accepted many such animals from the contractor, though a few for the smaller men might answer. Asboth, Frémont’s chief of staff, with a scornful rolling up of his cataract of a mustache, and a shrug of his broad, thin shoulders, said, “Whyfor you buy such horses? What your bugler ride, it is not a horse, it is a cat.” His remark was not intended as a question, and it ended the conversation. Months after that, he eagerly begged for the nine-lived Klitschka for one of his orderlies; being refused him, she remained good to the end. She was an animal that defied every rule by which casual observers test the merit of a horse; but analytically considered she was nearly perfect. Better legs, a better body, and a better head, it is rare to see, than she had. But she lacked the arched neck and the proud step that she needed all the more because of her small size. By no means showy in figure or in action, it took a second look to see her perfect fitness for her work. Her color was iron-gray, and no iron could be tougher than she was; while her full, prominent eye and ample brain-room, and her quick paper-thin ear, told of courage and intelligence that made her invaluable throughout four years of hard and often dangerous service. Like many other ill-favored little people, she was very lovable, and Wettstein loved her like a woman. He would never hesitate to relax those strict rules of conduct by which German cavalrymen are supposed to govern themselves, if it was a question of stealing forage for Klitschka; and he was (amiable fellow!) never so happy as when, from a scanty supply in the country, he had taken enough oat-sheaves to bed her in and almost cover her up, while other horses of the command must go hungry; and was never so shaken in his regard for me as when I made him give up all but double rations for her.

Double rations she often earned, for Wettstein was a heavy youth, with a constitutional passion for baggage out of all proportion to his means of transportation. Mounted for the march, he was an odd sight. Little Klitschka’s back, with his immense rolls of blankets and clothing before and behind, looked like a dromedary’s. Planted between the humps, straight as a gun-barrel, the brightest of bugles suspended across his back by its tasselled yellow braid, slashed like a harlequin over the breast, his arms chevroned with gorgeous gold,—Wettstein, with his cap-front turned up so as to let the sun fall full on his frank blue eyes and his resolute blond mustache, was the very picture of a cavalry bugler in active campaign.

Smoking, gabbling, singing, rollicking, from morning until night, and still on until morning again if need be, he never lost spirit nor temper. He seemed to absorb sunshine enough during the day to keep every one bright around him all night. When at last his bugle had been stilled forever, we long missed the cheer of his indomitable gayety; wearying service became more irksome than while his bubbling mirth had tempered its dulness; and even little Klitschka, although she remained an example of steady pluck, had never so potent an influence as while he had put his own unfailing mettle into her heels. After she was bequeathed to me, she was always most useful, but never so gay and frisky as while she carried her own devoted groom. No day was too long for her and no road too heavy; her brisk trot knew no failing, but she refused ever again to form the personal attachment that had sealed her and Wettstein to each other.

The two of them together, like the fabled Centaur, made the complete creature. He with the hardened frame and bright nature of his Alpine race, and she with her veins full of the mustang blood of the Rocky Mountains, were fitted to each other as almost never were horse and rider before. Their performances were astonishing. In addition to a constant attendance on his commander (who, riding without baggage, and of no heavier person than Wettstein himself, sometimes fagged out three good horses between one morning and the next), the Trompaytr yet volunteered for all sorts of extra service,—carried messages over miles of bad road to the general’s camp, gave riding-lessons and music-lessons to the company buglers, and then—fear of the guard-house and fear of capture always unheeded—he never missed an opportunity for the most hazardous and most laborious foraging.