“That’s Old Grumps, of the Bloody Fourteenth,” he thought. “I’ve raided into his happy sleeping-grounds. I’ll draw on him.”
But Old Grumps, otherwise Colonel Lafayette Gildersleeve, had no rations—that is, no whiskey.
“How do you suppose an officer is to have a drink, Lieutenant?” he grumbled. “Don’t you know that our would-be Brigadier sent all the commissary to the rear day before yesterday? A eanteenful can’t last two days. Mine went empty about five minutes ago.”
“Oh, thunder!” groaned Wallis, saddened by that saddest of all thoughts, “Too late!” “Well, least said soonest mended. I must wobble back to my Major.”
“He’ll send you off to some other camp as dry as this one. Wait ten minutes, and he’ll be asleep. Lie down on my blanket and light your pipe. I want to talk to you about official business—about our would-be Brigadier.”
“Oh, your turn will come some day,” mumbled Wallis, remembering Gildersleeve’s jealousy of the brigade commander—a jealousy which only gave tongue when aroused by “commissary.” “If you do as well as usual to-morrow you can have your own brigade.”
“I suppose you think we are all going to do well to-morrow,” scoffed Old Grumps, whose utterance by this time stumbled. “I suppose you expect to whip and to have a good time. I suppose you brag on fighting and enjoy it.”
“I like it well enough when it goes right; and it generally does go right with this brigade. I should like it better if the rebs would fire higher and break quicker.”
“That depends on the way those are commanded whose business it is to break them,” growled Old Grumps. “I don’t say but what we are rightly commanded,” he added, remembering his duty to superiors. “I concede and acknowledge that our would-be Brigadier knows his military business. But the blessing of God, Wallis! I believe in Waldron as a soldier. But as a man and a Christian, faugh!”
Gildersleeve had clearly emptied his canteen unassisted; he never talked about Christianity when perfectly sober.