Colonel Clark laughed. “Well, boys,” he said, “if you must have him, you must. His Excellency gave me no instructions about a drummer, but we'll take you, Davy.”
In those days he was a man that wasted no time, was Colonel Clark, and within the hour our little detachment had joined the others, felling trees and shaping the log-ends for the cabins. That night, as Tom and Cowan and McCann and James Ray lay around their fire, taking a well-earned rest, a man broke excitedly into the light with a kettle-shaped object balanced on his head, which he set down in front of us. The man proved to be Swein Poulsson, and the object a big drum, and he straightway began to beat upon it a tattoo with improvised drumsticks.
“A Red Stone man,” he cried, “a Red Stone man, he have it in the flatboat. It is for Tavy.”
“The saints be good to us,” said Terence, “if it isn't the King's own drum he has.” And sure enough, on the head of it gleamed the royal arms of England, and on the other side, as we turned it over, the device of a regiment. They flung the sling about my neck, and the next day, when the little army drew up for parade among the stumps, there I was at the end of the line, and prouder than any man in the ranks. And Colonel Clark coming to my end of the line paused and smiled and patted me kindly on the cheek.
“Have you put this man on the roll, Harrod?” says he.
“No, Colonel,” answers Captain Harrod, amid the laughter of the men at my end.
“What!” says the Colonel, “what an oversight! From this day he is drummer boy and orderly to the Commander-in-chief. Beat the retreat, my man.”
I did my best, and as the men broke ranks they crowded around me, laughing and joking, and Cowan picked me up, drum and all, and carried me off, I rapping furiously the while.
And so I became a kind of handy boy for the whole regiment from the Colonel down, for I was willing and glad to work. I cooked the Colonel's meals, roasting the turkey breasts and saddles of venison that the hunters brought in from the mainland, and even made him journey-cake, a trick which Polly Ann had taught me. And when I went about the island, if a man were loafing, he would seize his axe and cry, “Here's Davy, he'll tell the Colonel on me.” Thanks to the jokes of Terence McCann, I gained an owl-like reputation for wisdom amongst these superstitious backwoodsmen, and they came verily to believe that upon my existence depended the success of the campaign. But day after day passed, and no sign from Colonel Clark of his intentions.
“There's a good lad,” said Terence. “He'll be telling us where we're going.”