He laughed heartily at his own sarcasm, but Abe was not to be moved by such frivolity, and answered glumly:
O, yes; laugh about it, if you choose. Thats your way: giggle over everything. But when I play background, I want it to be with something worth while in the foreground. I dont hanker after making myself a foil to show off such fellers as our officers are, to good advantage.
That dont bother me any more than it does a mountain to serve as a background for a nanny goat and a pair of sore-eyed mules!
Yes, but the mountain sometimes has an opportunity to drop an avalanche on em.
At this point of the discussion they arrived at the company grounds, and had scarcely time to snatch up their guns and don their belts before the company moved out to take its place in the regimental line.
The occasion of Lieutenant Alspaughs elaborate personal ornamentation now manifested itself. By reason of Captain Bennetts absence, he was in command of the company, and was about to make his first appearance on parade in that capacity. Two or three young women, of the hollyhock order of beauty, whom he was very anxious to impress, had been brought to camp, to witness his apotheosis into a commanding officer.
The moment, however, that he placed himself at the head of the company and drew sword, the chill breath of distrust sent the mercury of his self-confidence down to zero. It looked so easy to command a company when some one else was doing it; it was hard when he tried it himself. All the imps of confusion held high revel in his mind when he attempted to give the orders which he had conned until he supposed he had them dead-letter perfect. he felt his usually-unfailing assurance shrivel up under the gaze of hundreds of mercilessly critical eyes. He managed to stammer out:
ATTENTION, COMPANY! FORWARD, FILE RIGHT, MARCH!But as the company began to execute the order, it seemed to be going just the opposite to what he had commanded, and he called out excitedly:
Not that way! Not that way! I said file right, and youre going left.
We are filing right, answered some in the company. Youre turned around; thats whats the matter with you.
So it was. He had forgotten that when standing facing the men, he must give them orders in reverse from what the movement appeared to him. This increased his confusion, until all his drill knowledge seemed gone from him. The sight of his young lady friends, clad in masses of primary colors, stimulated him to a strong effort to recover his audacity, and bracing himself up, he began calling out the guide and step, with a noisy confidence that made him heard all over the parade ground:
Left! left! left! Hep! hep! hep! Cast them head and eyes to the right!
Trouble loomed up mountainously as he approached the line. Putting a company into its place on parade is one of the crucial tests of tactical proficiency. To march a company to exactly the right spot, with every man keeping his proper distance from his file-leadertwenty-eight inches from back to breast, clear down the column, so that when the order front was given, every one turns, as if on pivot, and touches elbows with those on each side of him, in a straight, firm wall of men, without any shambling closing up, or side-stepping to the right or left,to do all this at word of command, looks very simple and easy to the non-military spectator, as many other very difficult things look simple and easy to the inexperienced. But really it is only possible to a thoroughly drilled company, held well in hand by a competent commander. It is something that, if done well, is simply done well, but if not done well, is very bad. It is like an egg that is either good or utterly worthless.
Alspaugh seemed fated to exhaust the category of possible mistakes. Coming on the ground late he found that a gap had been left in the line for his company which was only barely sufficient to receive it when it was aligned and compactly dressed.
In his nervousness he halted the company before it had reached the right of the gap by ten paces, and so left about one-quarter of the company lapping over on the one to his left. Even this was done with an unsightly jumble. His confusion as to the reversal of right and left still abode with him. He commanded right face instead of front, and was amazed to see the whole one hundred well-drilled men whirl their backs around to the regiment and the commanding officer. A laugh rippled down the ranks of the other companies; even the spectators smiled, and something sounded like swearing by the Adjutant and Sergeant-Major.
Alspaugh lifted his plumed hat, and wiped the beaded perspiration from his brow with the back of one of the yellow gauntlets.
Order an about face, whispered the Orderly-Sergeant, whose face was burning with shame at the awkward position in which the company found itself.
ABOUTFACE! gasped Alspaugh.
The men turned on their heels.
Side-step to the right, whispered the Orderly.
Side-step to the right, repeated Alspaugh, mechanically.
The men took short side-steps, and following the orders which Alspaugh repeated from the whispered suggestions of the Orderly, the company came clumsily forward into its place, dressed, and opened ranks to the rear. When at the command of parade-rest, Alspaugh dropped his sabers point to the ground, he did it with the crushed feeling of a strutting cock which has been flung into the pond and emerges with dripping feathers.
He raised his heart in sincere thanksgiving that he was at last through, for there was nothing more for him to do during the parade, except to stand still, and at its conclusion the Orderly would have to march the company back to its quarters.
But his woes had still another chapter. The Inspector-General had come to camp to inspect the regiment, and he was on the ground.
Forty years of service in the regular army, with promotion averaging one grade every ten years, making him an old man and a grandfather before he was a Lieutenant-Colonel, had so surcharged Col. Murbanks nature with bitterness as to make even the very air in his vicinity seem roughly astringent. The wicked young Lieutenants who served with him on the Plains used to say that his bark was worse than his bite, because no reasonable bite could ever be so bad as his bark. They even suggested calling him Peruvian Bark, because a visit to his quarters was worse than a strong does of quinia.
Yeth, thatth good, said the lisping wit of the crowd. Evely bite ith a bit, aint it? And the wortht mutht be a bitter, ath he ith.
The Colonel believed tha the whole duty of man consisted in loving the army regulations, and in keeping their commandments. The best part of all virtue was to observe them to the letter; the most abhorrent form of vice, to violate or disregard even their minor precepts.
His feelings were continually lacerated by contact with volunteers, who cared next to nothing for the FORM of war-making, but everything for its spirit, and the martinet heart within him was bruised and sore when he came upon the ground to inspect the regiment.
Alspaughs blundering in bringing the company into line awakened this ire from a passivity to activity.
Ill have that dunderheads shoulder-straps off inside of a fortnight, he muttered between his teeth.
The unhappy Lieutenants inability to even stand properly during the parade, or repeat an order intensified his rage. When the parade was dismissed the officers, as usual, sheathed their swords, and forming a line with the Adjutant in the center, marched forward to the commanding and inspecting officers, and saluted. Then the wrath of the old Inspector became vocable.