“But you mustn’t permit them to force me into the army,” whispered Tom to his father. “If you do, you will always be sorry for it, because you will never see me again.”
In a dazed sort of way Tom reported to the major, and then tried to hide himself in a corner of the office where he would be out of sight of his tormentors, but he was quickly routed from there by one of the major’s men, who told him to go outside where he would be under the eye of the guard. Of course his appearance was the signal for another outburst from the veterans, but he wisely tried to drown their gibes by entering into conversation with a conscript who looked as disconsolate and wretched as Tom himself felt. His father had given the bundle into his keeping, and taken his place outside the guards with the rest of the exempts, and Tom began to realize how it seemed to be alone in a crowd. Rodney and Ned did not come near him, and that made him angry and threaten vengeance. They might at least shake hands with him and assure him of their sympathy, Tom thought, but if they had been foolish enough to attempt it, it is more than probable that he would have turned his back upon them. More than that, Rodney Gray was not a hypocrite. Having had the most to do with the breaking up of Tom’s company of Home Guards, he would have uttered a deliberate untruth if he had said he was sorry to see him conscripted. He wasn’t; he would have been sorry to see him stay at home.
“And when he reaches the camp of instruction I hope some strict drill-sergeant will put him through an extra course of sprouts to pay him for the mean trick he tried to play on Dick Graham,” said Rodney to his friend Ned. “I could have told things that would have got all the Pinckney guards down on him if I had been so disposed, and now I am glad I didn’t do it. There he goes. Good-by, Tom Randolph.”
“Fall in!” shouted a stentorian voice. “Not off there, but here, with the right resting where I stand. Haven’t you Home Guards been drilled enough to learn how to fall in in two ranks? Face out that way toward the hitching-rack. Now listen to roll-call!”
In ten minutes more the conscripts had answered to their names and were headed toward Camp Pinckney, marching in a crooked straggling line with their bundles on their shoulders and armed guards on each side of them. There were forty-five in all, and two-thirds of them were Home Guards. There were many sober and tearful faces among the spectators when they moved away, and even the discharged veterans must have taken the matter seriously, for they did not utter one taunting word.
CHAPTER II.
LAMBERT’S SIGNAL-FIRE.
A few of Tom Randolph’s fellow-sufferers had repeatedly declared in his hearing that they never would be taken to Camp Pinckney alive; but when the roll was called inside the stockade at sunset the following day, their dreary, toilsome march having been completed by that time, every one of them answered to his name. Not one of their number had made his escape, and indeed it would have been foolhardy to attempt it, for the guards were alert and watchful, and it was whispered along the line that they had strict orders to shoot down the first man who tried to break away.
Not to dwell too long upon this part of our story, it will be enough to say that Tom Randolph remained in the camp of instruction for two solid months, during which time he suffered more than he thought it possible for mortal man to endure. He was given plenty to eat, such as it was, but scarcely a night passed that he was not aroused from a sound sleep to go on post or to repel an assault that was never made, and during the day-time he was drilled in the school of the soldier and company, and in the manual of arms, until all the muscles in him ached so that he could not lie still after he went to bed. Every hour in the day indignities were put upon him that caused his blood to boil, and he made matters worse by resenting them on the spot, the result being that he did more police duty than any other man in camp. Time and again he sought an interview with the commandant, intending to complain of his treatment and ask when he might look for his release, but he never saw the general except from a distance, and then was not permitted to approach him. All this while his father, who visited him at irregular intervals, bringing news from the outside world, was doing his best; but there were so many difficulties in his way, and so much red tape to be gone through, that he found himself balked at every point, and it is a wonder he was not tempted to give it up as a task beyond his powers.
“You see Roach’s books show that I claimed exemption for Larkin, and I’m afraid that’s against us,” he said to Tom one day, after talking the matter over with General Ruggles.
“But you have as much right to change your mind as other folks, I suppose,” replied Tom.