"Fall in, Company D!" shouted the orderly.
"Fall in, men," shouted the captain; "we're going to be attacked at once!"
Amid the confusion of so sudden a summons at midnight, there was some lively scrambling for guns, bayonets, cartridge-boxes, and clothes.
"I say, Bill, you've got my coat on!"
"Where's my cap?"
"Andy, you scamp, you've got my shoes!"
"Fall in, men, quick; no time to look after shoes now. Take your arms and fall in."
And so, some shoeless, others hatless, and all only half dressed, we formed in line and marched out and down the road at double-quick for a mile; then halted; pickets were thrown out; an advance of the whole line through the woods was made among tangled bushes and briers, and through marshes, until, as the first early streaks of dawn were shooting up in the eastern sky, our orders were countermanded, and we marched back to camp, to find—that the whole thing was a ruse, planned by some of the officers for the purpose of testing our readiness for work at any hour. After that, we slept with our shoes on.
But poor old Peter Blank,—a man who should never have enlisted, for he was as afraid of a gun as Robinson Crusoe's man Friday,—poor old Peter was the butt for many a joke the next day. For amid the night's confusion, and in the immediate prospect, as he supposed, of a deadly encounter with the enemy, so alarmed did he become that he at once fell to—praying! Out of consideration for his years and piety, the captain had permitted him to remain behind as a guard for the camp in our absence, in which capacity he did excellent service, excellent service! But oh, when we sat about our fires the next morning, frying our steaks and cooking our coffee, poor Peter was the butt of all the fun, and was cruelly described by the wag of the company as "the man that had a brave heart, but a most cowardly pair of legs!"