Si didn't know till he found out by experience how hard it was to "ketch up" when a soldier once got behind on the march. Si was too fat for a good roadster, but it didn't take a great while to work off his surplus flesh. Shorty was tall and slim, mostly bone—one of the sort that always stood the marching best, crept up to the Orderly and told him that he would have to stop and puff a while and give his blisters a rest. He'd pull up with Co. Q in an hour or so.
"Better not, Si" said the Orderly; "ye know it's agin orders, and the rear-guard 'll punch ye with their bay'net's if they catch ye stragglin'."
But Si concluded that if he must die for his country it would be sweeter to do so by having a bayonet inserted in his vitals, and then it would be all over with at once, than to walk himself to death.
So he gradually fell back till he reached the tail of the company. Watching his opportunity, he left the ranks, crept into a clump of bushes, and lay down, feeling as if he had been run through a grist-mill. Soon the rear-guard of the 200th came along, with fixed bayonets, driving before them like a flock of frightened sheep a motley crowd of limping, groaning men, gathered up by the roadside.
Si lay very still, hoping to escaoe discovery; but the keen eye of the officer detected the blue heap among the bushes.
"Bring that man out!" said he sternly to one of the guards.
Poor Si scarcely dare to breathe. He hoped the man would think he was dead, and therefore no longer of any account. But the soldier began to prod him with his bayonet, ordering him to get up and move on.
"Look-a-here, pard," said Si, "don't stab me with that thing! I jest can't git along any furder till I blow a little. You please lemme be, an' I'll do as much for you. P'rhaps some time you'll get played out and I'll be on the rear-guard. The Cap'n 'll tell me ter fotch ye 'long, an' I'll jest let ye rest, so I will!"