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

“Here are some newspapers,” said he on another occasion. “You’ve been made a brigadier for capturing Gomaldo. Isn’t that great? But they will call you ‘Captain Jinks’ at home, no matter what your rank is. The papers say so. The song has made it stick.”

“I’m sorry for that,” said Sam. “It would be pleasanter to be called ‘General.’ ”

“It’s all the same,” said Cleary. “Wasn’t Napoleon called the Little Corporal? It’s really more distinguished.”

“Perhaps it is,” said Sam contentedly.

“Some of the papers criticize us a little too,” added Cleary. “They say we are acting brutally here and in the Cubapines. Of course only a few say it, but their number is increasing.”

“They make themselves ridiculous,” said Sam. “They don’t see how ludicrous their suggestions are that we should actually retire and let these countries relapse into barbarism. As that fellow said at Havilla, they have no sense of humor.”

“And yet,” retorted Cleary, “our greatest humorists, Mark Swain, Mr. Tooley, and the best cartoonists, and our only really humorous paper, Knife, are on that side.”

“But they are only humorists,” cried Sam, “mere professional jokers. You can’t expect serious sense from them. They are mere buffoons. The serious people here, such as Dr. Amen, are with us to a man.”

“I saw old Amen get caught the other day,” said Cleary. “I was interviewing the colonel of the 15th, and in came Amen and began talking about the Porsslanese⁠—what barbarians they were, no religion, no belief, no faith. Why, the idea of self-sacrifice was utterly unknown to them! Just then in came a young officer and said, ‘Colonel, the son of that old native we’re going to shoot this afternoon for looting, is bothering us and says he wants to be shot instead of his father. What shall we do with him?’ Amen said good day and cleared out. By the way, the colonel of the 15th is in a hole just now. He was shut up in the legations, you know, and all the women there were down on him because he wouldn’t make the sentries salute them when the men were dead tired with watching. They are charging him with cowardice. There’ll never be an end of this backbiting. It’s almost as sickening as the throat-cutting and stabbing. I confess I’m getting sick of it all. When you see a private shoot an old native for not blacking his boots, when the poor fellow was trying to understand him and couldn’t, and smiling as best he could, it’s rather tough; and I’ve seen twenty babies if I’ve seen one lying in the streets with a bayonet hole in them. They have executions every day in one camp or another. I saw one coolie, who had been working fourteen hours at a stretch loading carts, shot down because he hadn’t the strength to go on.”

“I’m afraid the heat is telling on you, Cleary,” said Sam. “This is all sickly sentimentality. War is war. The trouble with you is that there has been no regular campaign on to occupy your attention. This lying about doing nothing is a bad thing for everybody. Wait till the Tutonian Emperor comes out and we’ll have something to do.”

“He won’t find any enemy to fight,” said Cleary.

“Trust him for that,” replied Sam. “He’s every inch a soldier, and he’ll find the way to make war, depend upon it. He’s a religious man too, and he will back up the missionaries better than we’ve done.”

“Yes. Amen thinks the world of him. Amen ought to have been a Tutonian soldier. He says the best imagery of religion comes from war. I told him I had an article written about a fight which said that our men ‘fought like demons’ and ‘yelled like fiends,’ and I would change it to read that they fought like seraphs and yelled like cherubim, but he didn’t think it was funny.”

As soon as Sam was well enough to be moved the doctors sent him down to the coast, and Cleary, who had been up and down the river several times in the course of his newspaper work, went with him. Sam still felt feeble, and although he could walk without a crutch, he now had a decided limp which was sure to be permanent. They arrived at the port a few days before the expected arrival of the Emperor, and the whole place was overflowing with excitement. The Emperor, who had never seen a skirmish, was notwithstanding considered the greatest general of his time, and he was coming now to prove it before the world and incidentally to wreak vengeance upon a people, one of whom had killed his ambassador. The town was profusely decorated, the Tutonian garrison was increased, and Count von Balderdash, the commander-in-chief, himself took command. Six fleets were drawn up in the wide bay to await the coming of the warlord. It was announced that he would make his entry at night, and that the hour of arrival had been timed for a dark moonless night. This was asserted to be for the better display of fireworks. Finally, one morning the Tutonian fleet of four or five large vessels was sighted in the distance. They steamed slowly up and down in the distance until night fell, and then, as their colored electric lights, outlining the masts and funnels, became distinct in the darkness, they began to approach. Each of the awaiting fleets was distinguished with particular-colored lights, and they had taken their position at a considerable distance from the shore, leaving a passage near the ruined forts for the Emperor. Sam and Cleary found a good lookout on a dismantled bastion, and saw the whole parade. As the leading vessel came near the first fleet the latter saluted with its guns. Suddenly the lights on the advancing ship were extinguished, and a strong flashlight was throw from above upon the forward deck. There in bold relief stood a single figure, brilliantly illuminated