A Stricken Sentry

: An Apache Princess

Sentry duty at Camp Sandy along in '75 had not been allowed to bear

too heavily on its little garrison. There was nothing worth stealing

about the place, said Plume, and no pawn-shop handy. Of course there

were government horses and mules, food and forage, arms and

ammunition, but these were the days of soldier supremacy in that arid

and distant land, and soldiers had a summary way of settling with

marauders that was d scouraging to enterprise. Larceny was therefore

little known until the law, with its delays and circumventions, took

root in the virgin soil, and people at such posts as Sandy seldom shut

and rarely locked their doors, even by night. Windows were closed and

blanketed by day against the blazing sun and torrid heat, but, soon

after nightfall, every door and window was usually opened wide and

often kept so all the night long, in order that the cooler air,

settling down from mesa and mountain, might drift through every room

and hallway, licking up the starting dew upon the smooth, rounded

surface of the huge ollas, the porous water jars that hung suspended

on every porch, and wafting comfort to the heated brows of the lightly

covered sleepers within. Pyjamas were then unknown in army circles,

else even the single sheet that covered the drowsing soldier might

have been dispensed with.



Among the quarters occupied by married men, both in officers' row and

Sudsville under the plateau, doors were of little account in a

community where the only intruder to be feared was heat, and so it had

resulted that while the corrals, stables, and storehouses had their

guards, only a single sentry paced the long length of the eastward

side of the post, a single pair of eyes and a single rifle barrel

being deemed amply sufficient to protect against possible prowlers the

rear yards and entrances of the row. The westward front of the

officers' homes stood in plain view, on bright nights at least, of the

sentry at the guard-house, and needed no other protector. On dark

nights it was supposed to look out for itself.



A lonely time of it, as a rule, had No. 5, the "backyard sentry," but

this October night he lacked not for sensation. Lights burned until

very late in many of the quarters, while at Captain Wren's and

Lieutenant Blakely's people were up and moving about until long after

midnight. Of course No. 5 had heard all about the dreadful affair of

the early evening. What he and his fellows puzzled over was the

probable cause of Captain Wren's furious assault upon his subaltern.

Many a theory was afloat, Duane, with unlooked-for discretion, having

held his tongue as to the brief conversation that preceded the blow.

It was after eleven when the doctor paid his last visit for the night,

and the attendant came out on the rear porch for a pitcher of cool

water from the olla. It was long after twelve when the light in the

upstairs room at Captain Wren's was turned low, and for two hours

thereafter, with bowed head, the captain himself paced nervously up

and down, wearing in the soft and sandy soil a mournful pathway

parallel with his back porch. It was after three, noted Private

Mullins, of that first relief, when from the rear door of the major's

quarters there emerged two forms in feminine garb, and, there being no

hindering fences, away they hastened in the dim starlight, past

Wren's, Cutler's, Westervelt's, and Truman's quarters until they were

swallowed up in the general gloom about Lieutenant Blakely's. Private

Mullins could not say for certain whether they had entered the rear

door or gone around under the deep shadows of the veranda. When next

he saw them, fifteen minutes later, coming as swiftly and silently

back, Mullins was wondering whether he ought not to challenge and have

them account for themselves. His orders were to allow inmates of the

officers' quarters to pass in or out at night without challenge,

provided he "recognized them to be such." Now, Mullins felt morally

certain that these two were Mrs. Plume and Mrs. Plume's vivacious

maid, a French-Canadian damsel, much admired and sought in soldier

circles at the post, but Mullins had not seen their faces and could

rightfully insist it was his duty and prerogative to do so. The

question was, how would the "commanding officer's lady" like and take

it? Mullins therefore shook his head. "I hadn't the nerve," as he

expressed it, long afterwards. But no such frailty oppressed the

occupant of the adjoining house. Just as the two had reached the rear

of Wren's quarters, and were barely fifty steps from safety, the

captain himself, issuing again from the doorway, suddenly appeared

upon the scene, and in low, but imperative tone accosted them. "Who

are you?" said he, bending eagerly, sternly over them. One quick look

he gave, and, almost instantly recoiling, exclaimed "Mrs. Plume! I

beg--" Then, as though with sudden recollection, "No, madam, I do

not beg your pardon," and, turning on his heel, abruptly left them.

Without a word, but with the arm of the maid supporting, the taller

woman sped swiftly across the narrow intervening space and was lost

again within the shadows of her husband's home.



Private Mullins, silent and probably unseen witness of this episode,

slowly tossed his rifle from the port to the shoulder; shook his

puzzled head; stared a moment at the dim figure of Captain Wren again

in the starlit morning, nervously tramping up and down his narrow

limit; then mechanically sauntered down the roadway, pondering much

over what he had seen and heard during the brief period of his early

morning watch. Reaching the south, the lower, end of his post, he

turned again. He had but ten minutes left of his two-hour tramp. The

second relief was due to start at 3.30, and should reach him at 3.35.

He was wondering would the officer of the day "come nosin' round"

within that time, asking him his orders, and was everything all right

on his post? And had he observed anything unusual? There was Captain

Wren, like a caged tiger, tramping up and down behind his quarters.

At least he had been, for now he had disappeared. There were, or

rather had been, the two ladies in long cloaks flitting in the shadows

from the major's quarters to those of the invalid lieutenant. Mullins

certainly did not wish to speak about them to any official visitor,

whatever he might whisper later to Norah Shaughnessy, the saddler

sergeant's daughter--Norah, who was nurse girl at the Trumans', and

knew all the ins and outs of social life at Sandy--Norah, at whose

window, under the north gable, he gazed with love in his eyes as he

made his every round. He was a good soldier, was Mullins, but glad

this night to get off post. Through the gap between the second and

third quarters he saw the lights at the guard-house and could faintly

see the black silhouette of armed men in front of them. The relief was

forming sharp on time, and presently Corporal Donovan would be

bringing Trooper Schultz, of "C" Troop, straight across the parade in

search of him. The major so allowed his sentry on No. 5 to be relieved

at night. Mullins thanked the saints with pious fervor that no more

ladies would be like to flit across his vision, that night at least,

when, dimly through the dusk, against the spangled northern sky, he

sighted another figure crouching across the upper end of his post and

making straight for the lighted entrance at the rear of the

lieutenant's quarters. Someone else, then, had interest at

Blakely's--someone coming stealthily from without. A minute later

certain wakeful ears were startled by a moaning cry for aid.



Just what happened, and how it happened, within the minute, led to

conflicting stories on the morrow. First man examined by Major Plume

was Lieutenant Truman of the Infantry, who happened to be officer of

the day. He had been over at Blakely's about midnight, he said; had

found the patient sleeping under the influence of soothing medicine,

and, after a whispered word with Todd, the hospital attendant, had

tiptoed out again, encountering Downs, the lieutenant's striker, in

the darkness on the rear porch. Downs said he was that excited he

couldn't sleep at all, and Mr. Truman had come to the conclusion that

Downs's excitement was due, in large part, to local influences totally

disconnected with the affairs of the early evening. Downs was an

Irishman who loved the "craytur," and had been known to resort to

unconventional methods of getting it. At twelve o'clock, said Mr.

Truman, the striker had obviously been priming. Now Plume's standing

orders were that no liquor should be sold to Downs at the store and

none to other soldiers except in "pony" glasses and for use on the

spot. None could be carried away unconsumed. The only legitimate

spirits, therefore, to which Downs could have access were those in

Blakely's locked closet--spirits hitherto used only in the

preservation of specimens, and though probably not much worse than the

whisky sold at the store, disdainfully referred to by votaries as

"Blakely's bug juice." Mr. Truman, therefore, demanded of Downs the

possession of the lieutenant's keys, and, with aggrieved dignity of

mien, Downs had referred him to the doctor, whose suspicions had been

earlier aroused. Intending to visit his sentries after the change of

guard at 1.30, Truman had thrown himself into a reclining chair in his

little parlor, while Mrs. Truman and the little Trumans slumbered

peacefully aloft. After reading an hour or so the lieutenant fell into

a doze from which he awoke with a start. Mrs. Truman was bending over

him. Mrs. Truman had been aroused by hearing voices in cautious, yet

excited, colloquy in the shadows of Blakely's back porch. She felt

sure that Downs was one and thought from the sound that he must be

intoxicated, so Truman shuffled out to see, and somebody, bending

double in the dusk, scurried away at his approach. He heard rather

than saw. But there was Downs, at least, slinking back into the house,

and him Truman halted and accosted. "Who was that with you?" he asked,

and Downs thickly swore he hadn't seen a soul. But all the while Downs

was clumsily stuffing something into a side pocket, and Truman,

seizing his hand, dragged it forth into the light. It was one of the

hospital six-ounce bottles, bearing a label indicative of glycerine

lotion, but the color of the contained fluid belied the label. A sniff

was sufficient. "Who gave you this whisky?" was the next demand, and

Downs declared 'twas a hospital "messager" that brought it over,

thinking the lieutenant might need it. Truman, filled with wrath, had

dragged Downs into the dimly lighted room to the rear of that in which

lay Lieutenant Blakely, and was there upbraiding and investigating

when startled by the stifled cry that, rising suddenly on the night

from the open mesa just without, had so alarmed so many in the

garrison. Of what had led to it he had then no more idea than the

dead.



Corporal Donovan, next examined, said he was marching Schultz over to

relieve Mullins on No. 5, just after half-past three, and heading for

the short cut between the quarters of Captains Wren and Cutler, which

was about where No. 5 generally met the relief, when, just as they

were halfway between the flagstaff and the row, Schultz began to limp

and said there must be a pebble in his boot. So they halted. Schultz

kicked off his boot and shook it upside down, and, while he was

tugging at it again, they both heard a sort of gurgling, gasping cry

out on the mesa. Of course Donovan started and ran that way, leaving

Schultz to follow, and, just back of Captain Westervelt's, the third

house from the northward end, he almost collided with Lieutenant

Truman, officer of the day, who ordered him to run for Dr. Graham and

fetch him up to Lieutenant Blakely's quick. So of what had taken place

he, too, was ignorant until later.



It was the hospital attendant, Todd, whose story came next and brought

Plume to his feet with consternation in his eyes. Todd said he had

been sitting at the lieutenant's bedside when, somewhere about three

o'clock, he had to go out and tell Downs to make less noise. Downs was

completely upset by the catastrophe to his officer and, somehow, had

got a few comforting drinks stowed away, and these had started him to

singing some confounded Irish keen that grated on Todd's nerves. He

was afraid it would disturb the patient and he was about to go out

and remonstrate when the singing stopped and presently he heard

Downs's voice in excited conversation. Then a woman's voice in low,

urgent, persuasive whisper became faintly audible, and this surprised

Todd beyond expression. He had thought to go and take a look and see

who it could be, when there was a sudden swish of skirts and scurry of

feet, and then Mr. Truman's voice was heard. Then there was some kind

of sharp talk from the lieutenant to Downs, and then, in a sort of a

lull, there came that uncanny cry out on the mesa, and, stopping

only long enough to see that the lieutenant was not roused or

disturbed, Todd hastened forth. One or two dim figures, dark and

shadowy, were just visible on the eastward mesa, barely ten paces

away, and thither the attendant ran. Downs, lurching heavily, was just

ahead of him. Together they came upon a little group. Somebody went

running southward--Lieutenant Truman, as Todd learned later--hurrying

for the doctor. A soldier equipped as a sentry lay moaning on the

sand, clasping a bloody hand to his side, and over him, stern, silent,

but agitated, bent Captain Wren.