Captain Jinks, Hero, Ernest Howard Crosby [free e books to read TXT] 📗

a particularly efficient woman doctor from home who had volunteered to serve with the Red Cross Society. Sam felt most grateful to her for her care, but he strongly disapproved of her attitude to things military. She seemed to have a contempt for the whole military establishment, insisted on calling him “young man,” although he was a colonel, usually addressed lieutenants as “boys,” and laughed at uniforms, salutes, and ceremonies of all kinds.

“Men are the silliest things in the world,” she said one day. “Do you suppose women would have a War Department that spent a lot of money on bombshells to blow people up and then a lot more on Red Cross Societies to piece them together again? Why, we would just leave the soldiers at home, and save all the money, and it would be just the same in the end.”

“Not the kind of women I know,” said Sam, thinking of Marian.

“I mean my kind of woman,” said the doctor. “Do you think we’d sell guns and rifles to the Porsslanese and teach them how to use them, and then go to work and fight them after having armed them?” And she laughed a merry laugh.

“And do you think we’d pay men to invent all sorts of infernal machines like the Barnes torpedo, and then have our big ships blown up by them in time of peace. That is what brought on the whole Castalian and Cubapine war. The idea of praising a man like Barnes! He’s been a curse to the world.”

“It was really a blessing,” said Sam. “It has spread civilization and Christianity all over.”

“Well, that’s one way of doing it,” said she. “But when there are more women like me we’ll take things out of the hands of you silly men and run them ourselves. Now, young man, you’ve talked enough. Turn over and go to sleep.”

Cleary called on his friend almost every day and kept him informed. He sent home glowing accounts of Sam as the conqueror of the Great White Temple, and described his sufferings for his country with artistic skill. He also began work on the series of articles which Sam was expected to write for Scribblers’ Magazine. His gossip about the events in the various camps entertained Sam very much, although he was often irritated as well. In his capacity of correspondent Cleary saw and knew everything.

“Sam,” said he one day, as the invalid was sitting up in an easy-chair at the window⁠—“Sam, it’s so long since I was at East Point that I’m becoming more and more of a civilian. You army people begin to amuse me. There’s always something funny about you. The Tutonians are the funniest of all. The little red-cheeked officers with their blond mustaches turned up to their eyes are too funny to live. You feel like kissing them and sending them to bed. And the airs they put on! One of their soldiers happened to elbow a lieutenant the other day, and the chap ran him through with his sword, and no one called him to account. The officers jostle and browbeat any civilian who will submit to it, and then try to get him into a duel, but I believe they’re a cowardly lot at bottom. No man of real courage would bluster all over the place so.”

“I admire their discipline,” said Sam.

“And then there’s the Franks. They’re not quite so conceited, but they’re awfully touchy. I think the mustaches measure conceit. The Tutonians’ stick up straight, the Franks’ stick right out at each side waxed to a point, and ours droop downward.”

Sam began to twist his mustache upward, but it would not stay.

“I was in to see a Frank military trial the other day,” said Cleary. “It was the most comical thing. There were three big generals on the court. I mean big in rank. They were about four feet high in size, and they kept looking at their mustaches in hand-glasses and combing their hair with pocket-combs. They were trying one of their lieutenants for having sold some secret military plans to a Tutonian attaché. Now the joke of it is that military attachés are appointed just for the purpose of buying secrets, and everybody knows it. They’re licensed to do it. And then when they do just what they’re licensed for, everybody makes a fuss. Well, the secrets were sold; there wasn’t the slightest reason for thinking this lieutenant had sold them, but they had to punish somebody. They say they drew his name from a box. They had three officers to testify against him, and they were the stupidest liars I ever saw. They just blundered from beginning to end, and the president of the court helped them out and told them what to say, and corrected them. The third man said nothing at all except, ‘Yes, my general; yes, my general.’ Then they called the witnesses for the accused, and two officers stepped forward, when a couple of orderlies grabbed each of them, stuffed a gag into their mouths, and carried them out, while the court looked the other way, and the crowd shouted, ‘Long live the army!’ The court adjourned on account of the ‘contumacy of the witnesses for the defense.’ I went in again the next morning, and they announced that both the witnesses had committed suicide. Then the president took a judgment out of his pocket which I had seen him fingering all the first day, and read it off just as it had been written before the trial began, condemning the poor devil to twenty years’ imprisonment. I never saw such a farce. Everybody shouted for the army, and the little generals kissed each other and cried, and they had a great time of it. And the president made a speech in which he said that they had saved the army and consequently the country too, and that honor and glory and the fatherland had been redeemed. They’ve all been promoted and decorated since.