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

battery and a telescope. It is not a difficult matter when you once accept the principle, and the principle can be extended to cavalry and infantry just as well. It will be a great thing for the nations that are best at mechanics, and that means you and us.”

“I don’t see,” said Sam, “how you can get on without the courage of brave men.”

“Courage! Why, what is more courageous than a piece of steel? It wouldn’t be easy to frighten it. And it is just so with all soldierly qualities. Do you want obedience? What is more obedient than a machine? I suppose you admit that a human soldier may disobey orders sometimes.”

“Perhaps,” said Sam, blushing uneasily.

“You may be sure that a steel soldier won’t unless he is disabled, and a human soldier may be disabled too. Then the Emperor said a soldier should not reason. There’s no danger of a steel soldier trying that.

“ ‘Theirs not to reason why.
Theirs but to do and die.’

“Why, the Light Brigade at Balaklava won’t be in it with them. And it’s just the same with regard to conscience. A piece of steel has no conscience. What we want is a machine soldier. A soldier must be obedient, and he must be without fear, conscience, or a mind of his own. In all these respects a machine can surpass a man. Why, you yourself, in praising those Tutonian soldiers, said that they went like clockwork. That’s the highest military praise possible.”

Sam was much disturbed by this conversation. Mr. Cope went on to tell how his Government had spent £23,000 to fire a single shot and test one of his new projectiles, but Sam was not interested. Then the inventor began to rally him about the lack of interest of soldiers in the inventions which they used.

“If you had had to depend on yourselves for inventions,” he said, “you would still be fighting with crossbows, or perhaps more likely with your teeth and fingernails. No soldier ever invented anything. We inventors are the real military men.”

At last Sam’s unconscious tormentor took his departure, and the invalid rang for the hospital orderly so that he might tell him not to let him in again. To his surprise a new orderly appeared, a negro whose face was strangely familiar.

“What is it, sah?” he said.

“Is that you, Mose?” cried Sam. “Why, it’s almost as good as being at home again.”

“Bress my soul, Massa Jinks⁠—I mean General, have you been a-hurtin’ yourself again?” and the man chuckled to himself till his whole body shook. Under Mose’s care Sam made more rapid progress and soon was able to go out in a sedan-chair, borne by three men, like a mandarin. The winter passed away and spring was about to set in. There was no prospect of active service in Porsslania, the Powers being unable to agree upon any policy. The Emperor had already gone home, and the various armies were much reduced in strength. Cleary had been ordered to return by his newspaper, and had taken passage in a passenger steamer for the first of May.

“Why can’t you come with me?” he said to Sam. “You’re entitled to a leave of absence, and when you get to Whoppington you can apply for some other berth.”

Sam followed this wise advice and obtained a furlough of three months, and on the day fixed for sailing they embarked for home.

Sam was still an invalid, but the voyage did him a great deal of good, and before they had been a week at sea he began to look quite like his old self. There were few passengers who interested him, but he became acquainted with one man of note, a Porsslanese literatus, who was attached to the legation at Whoppington, and sat on the other side of the captain of the steamer at meals. This gentleman, who bore the name of Chung Tu, was greatly interested in military matters and listened to Sam’s accounts by the hour. The night before their arrival at St. Kisco, the regular dinner was, as usual, converted into a banquet, and a band was improvised for the occasion. At the close of dinner the martial hymns of all nations were played, ending with “Yankee Doodle.” It was impossible to resist the impulse to laugh as this national jig brought up the rear, and Sam was much displeased that the foreigners on board, and there were many, should have laughed at his country. When he went up on deck he found Cleary conversing with Chung Tu, and he placed his steamer-chair beside theirs and joined the conversation.

“It’s a great pity,” said he, “that we have such a national air as ‘Yankee Doodle.’ It holds us up to ridicule.”

“Do you think so?” answered Chung Tu, who spoke English perfectly. “That depends upon the point of view. You see you take the military point of view. We Porsslanese are not a military nation. We do not think much of armies. We do not try to spread our territory by force, and we never encroach on our neighbors’ land, although we are really overcrowded. Perhaps that is the reason people dislike us. We are not much of an empire either. We have very little central authority, and only a handful of officials. We have free speech, and even the Emperor can be freely criticized without fear. We have no conscription, and no one need carry a passport, as they have to in some countries. We are almost a democracy. We have no exclusive hereditary rank. Anyone may become a mandarin if he learns enough to deserve it. We only wanted to be left alone without armies, and we did not want to buy guns and ships. That is all. We are almost a democracy, and that is the reason that I have always studied your history with care. I have studied your state papers and your hymns. I have made a special study of them, and I have come to the opposite