There was not a fire, nor a torch, nor a star-beam in the whole bivouac to guide the feet of Adjutant Wallis in his pilgrimage after whisky. The orders from brigade headquarters had been strict against illuminations, for the Confederates were near at hand in force, and a surprise was purposed as well as feared. A tired and sleepy youngster, almost dropping with the heavy somnolence of wearied adolescence, he stumbled on through the trials of an undiscernible and unfamiliar footing, lifting his heavy riding-boots sluggishly over imaginary obstacles, and fearing the while lest his toil were labor misspent. It was a dry camp, he felt dolefully certain, or there would have been more noise in it. He fell over a sleeping Sergeant, and said to him hastily, “Steady, man—a friend!” as the half-roused soldier clutched his rifle. Then he found a Lieutenant, and shook him in vain; further on a Captain, and exchanged saddening murmurs with him; further still a camp-follower of African extraction, and blasphemed him.
“It’s a God-forsaken camp, and there isn’t a horn in it,” said Adjutant Wallis to himself as he pursued his groping journey. “Bet you I don’t find the first drop,” he continued, for he was a betting boy, and frequently argued by wagers, even with himself. “Bet you two to one I don’t. Bet you three to one—ten to one.”
Then he saw, an indefinite distance beyond him, burning like red-hot iron through the darkness, a little scarlet or crimson gleam, as of a lighted cigar.
“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 whisky.
“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 canteenful 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.”