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A minute or so was required before the trouble could be remedied, for, just as the officers and orderlies were endeavoring to induce the populace to give way a thing the American always resists with a gay good humor that is peculiarly his own a nervous hack driver on the outskirts backed his bulky trap with unexpected force, and penned between it and the wheels of a newly-arrived and much more presentable equipage a fair equestrian who shrieked with fright and clung to her pommel as her excited "mount" lashed out with his heels and made splinters of the hack's rearmost spokes and felloes.
The latter and two of his troops belonged to Atherton's fine regiment, the th, the other two troops, Cranston's and Truman's, were, as we know, of the Eleventh, and here in presence of four officers of the latter's regiment, and a dozen of the Fortieth Foot and of the th Horse, here on the broad parade of the cantonment, at high noon and in plain sight and hearing even of three or four enlisted men, orderlies, horse-holders, etc., had the post commander spoken words that meant nothing short of discredit, if not disgrace, to the subaltern who was at that very instant riding away on a perilous as well as thankless mission.
At another table, in a corner, a sergeant and an operator of the Signal Corps were busy with field telephone and telegraph instruments. On a meagre bed of damp and mouldy straw, against the farther wall, several men, orderlies and subalterns, rested in stertorous slumbers. Despite the cold the atmosphere was a reek of tobacco smoke, sweat, and steam from wet clothing.
The shadows of the houses were sharply defined upon the pavement in the bright sunlight, the streets were filled with an excited, anxious throng, through which orderlies and staff officers were constantly pushing their way at a gallop.
Folsom, however, had got his clerks, orderlies, etc., to buy lots, and they, for a small consideration, conveyed them to him, so that he was nominally the owner of a good many lots. Lieutenant Halleck had bought one of each kind, and so had Warner.
Desnoyers saw bloody baskets filled with shapeless masses of flesh, strips of skin, broken bones, entire limbs. The orderlies were carrying these terrible remnants to the foot of the park in order to bury them in a little plot which had been Chichi's favorite reading nook. Pairs of soldiers were carrying out objects wrapped in sheets which the owner recognized as his.
Civilians became more rare and more aged. Cattle disappeared utterly from the landscape; fields were furrowed with abandoned trenches, in front of which hung entanglements of wire. Mounted orderlies splashed along sullen roads at an impatient trot. Here and there we came across improvised bivouacs of infantry.
The orderlies have put him on a neighbouring bed while they make his. He stays there very quietly, his bandaged stumps in view, and sings a little song, like a child's cradle-song. Then, all of a sudden, he begins to cry, sobbing aloud. I put my arm round him and ask anxiously: "Why? What is the matter?" Then he answers in a broken voice: "I am crying with joy and thankfulness." Oh!
He recognized the salute, returned it, and then we rode on steadily past the President, saluting with our swords. All on his stand arose and acknowledged the salute. Then, turning into the gate of the presidential grounds, we left our horses with orderlies, and went upon the stand, where I found Mrs. Sherman, with her father and son.
They acted as messengers, as doorkeepers, as guides, as orderlies for staff officers, and as couriers for the various ministries; they ran the elevators in the hotels, they worked in the hospitals, they assisted the refugees to find food and lodgings. The boy scouts stationed at the various ministries were on duty twenty-four hours at a stretch.
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