“Thank you both,” said the chief, giving a hand to each. “I knew you’d help me out in this. Yes, I’ll order you out, Pollard. I’ll have the adjutant issue a special order at once. Perhaps you’d do well to speak to your company commanders about it now, before they dismiss. We’ll have the funeral on Sunday afternoon. I shall call on you, Van, for help in a number of little matters between now and then.”
Pollard left the room, going to pass word to his captains. The colonel and Van Sickles went to the staff-room, where the adjutant and sergeant major were wrestling with the never-ending “paper work” of regimental headquarters.
“Charley,” said the chief, as he came to the adjutant’s desk, “what was the number of the last regimental special order?”
“I think it was 48, sir,” said the adjutant, dragging the order-book from its resting place, and rapidly running over its pages. “Yes, 48 it was.”
“Then I’ll trouble you to make me out 49,” said the colonel. “Have it run something like this: ‘The 3rd Battalion will report to Major Pollard, on Sunday next, for the performance of escort duty at the funeral of Robert Hunnewell Sheldon, late major of this regiment when in the service of the United States, 1861–65.’”
* * * * *
It was a bright, warm Sunday. Against the cloudless sky the grim battlements of the armory towered up in bold relief. Upon the tiny flanking turret which caps one corner of the massive watch-tower, the half-masted flag hung down in drooping folds of white and red, unstirred by any passing breeze.
The streets were almost deserted. But within the great armory there was unwonted life and movement: and when the clocks of the city were striking the hour of three, the ponderous, iron-bound doors swung heavily apart, and, company by company, Major Pollard’s battalion of The Third came marching out, under the frowning archway and down the wide granite steps.
The major formed his command in line, facing the entrance. A moment later he brought the battalion to a “present,” faced about, and saluted, as six sergeants of the regiment came slowly down the steps, bearing out into the June sunlight a plain, black casket, which they placed in the waiting hearse.
Then came a handful of men in citizen’s dress, the survivors of the ‘Old Regiment’—grey-haired men, most of them, but all wearing proudly the bronze star, and the Maltese cross of their long-disbanded army corps. These were followed by the colonel and nearly all the officers of the active regiment, in full dress; for the story had spread through The Third, and—though the chief had expressed no formal wish—it somehow had become understood that he would be glad to have this mark of respect shown for the dead officer who had been his friend and comrade.