Crittenden: A Kentucky Story of Love and War

by Jr. John Fox

Nothing had been heard, so far, of the elder brother but, as they sat in the porch, a negro boy brought the town paper, and Mrs. Crittenden found a paragraph about a soldier springing into the sea in full uniform at Siboney to rescue a drowning comrade, who had fallen into the surf while trying to land, and had been sunk to the bottom by his arms and ammunition. And the rescuer's name was Crittenden. The writer went on to tell who he was, and how he had given up his commission to a younger brother and had gone as a private in the regular army—how he had been offered another after he reached Cuba, and had declined that, too—having entered with his comrades, he would stay with them to the end. Whereat the mother's face burned with a proud fire, as did Phyllis's, when Mrs. Crittenden read on about this Crittenden's young brother, who, while waiting for his commission, had gone as a Rough Rider, and who, after gallant conduct during the first fight, had taken his place on General Carter's staff. Phyllis clapped her hands, softly, with a long sigh of pride—and relief.

"I can eat strawberries, now." And she blushed again. Phyllis had been living on bacon and corn-bread, she confessed shamefacedly, because Trooper Basil was living on bacon and hardtack—little dreaming that the food she forced upon herself in this sacrificial way was being swallowed by that hearty youngster with a relish that he would not have known at home for fried chicken and hot rolls.

"Yes," laughed Mrs. Crittenden. "You can eat strawberries now. You can balance them against his cocoanuts."

Phyllis picked up the paper then, with a cry of surprise—the name signed to the article was Grafton, whom she had seen at the recruiting camp. And then she read the last paragraph that the mother had not read aloud, and she turned sharply away and stooped to a pink-bed, as though she would pick one, and the mother saw her shoulders shaking with silent sobs, and she took the child in her arms.

There was to be a decisive fight in a few days—the attack on Santiago—that was what Phyllis had read. The Spaniard had a good muster-roll of regulars and aid from Cervera's fleet; was well armed, and had plenty of time to intrench and otherwise prepare himself for a bloody fight in the last ditch.

So that, each day there was a relief to the night agony, which, every morning, began straightway with the thought that the fight might be going on at that very hour. Not once did Judith come near. She had been ill, to be sure, but one day Mrs. Crittenden met her on the way to town and stopped her in the road; but the girl had spoken so strangely that the mother drove on, at loss to understand and much hurt. Next day she learned that Judith, despite her ill health and her father's protests, had gone to nurse the sick and the wounded—what Phyllis plead in vain to do. The following day a letter came from Mrs. Crittenden's elder son. He was well, and the mother must not worry about either him or Basil. He did not think there would be much fighting and, anyhow, the great risk was from disease, and he feared very little from that. Basil would be much safer as an aid on a General's staff. He would get plenty to eat, would be less exposed to weather, have no long marches—as he would be mounted—and no guard duty at all hours of day and night. And, moreover, he would probably be less constantly exposed to bullets. So she must not worry about him. Not one word was there about Judith—not even to ask how she was, which was strange. He had said nothing about the girl when he told his mother good-by; and when she broached the subject, he answered sadly:

"Don't, mother; I can't say a word—not a word."

In his letter he had outlined Basil's advantages, not one of which was his—and sitting on the porch of the old homestead at sunset of the last rich day in June, the mother was following her eldest born through the transport life, the fiery marches, the night watches on lonely outposts, the hard food, the drenching rains, steaming heat, laden with the breath of terrible disease, not realizing how little he minded it all and how much good it was doing him. She did know, however, that it had been but play thus far to what must follow. Perhaps, even now, she thought, the deadly work was beginning, while she sat in the shrine of peace—even now.

And it was. Almost at that hour the troops were breaking camp and moving forward along the one narrow jungle-road—choked with wagon, pack-mule, and soldier—through a haze of dust, and, turning to the right at the first crossing beyond corps head-quarters—under Chaffee—for Caney. Now and then a piece of artillery, with its flashes of crimson, would pass through the advancing columns amid the waving of hats and a great cheering to take position against the stone fort at Caney or at El Poso, to be trained on the block-house at San Juan. And through the sunset and the dusk the columns marched, and, after night fell, the dark, silent masses of slouch hats, shoulders, and gun-muzzles kept on marching past the smoke and flare of the deserted camp-fires that lighted thicket and grassy plot along the trail. And after the flames had died down to cinders—in the same black terrible silence, the hosts were marching still.

That night a last good-by to all womankind, but wife, mother, sister, sweetheart. The world was to be a man's world next day, and the man a coarse, dirty, sweaty, swearing, good-natured, grimly humorous, cruel, kindly soldier, feverish for a fight and as primitive in passion as a cave-dweller fighting his kind for food. The great little fight was at hand.