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"If they git any bigger there won't be room enough for anybody else on the same road, and you'll have to march in the rear o' the regiment. Tires me nearly to death now to walk around 'em." "There goes the bugle. Fall in, Co. Q," shouted the Orderly-Sergeant.
I remember that one of our regular soldiers, named Reese, in deserting stole a favorite double-barreled gun of mine, and when the orderly-sergeant of the company, Carson, was going on furlough, I asked him when he came across Reese to try and get my gun back.
None was visible anywhere. He jumped up, began cursing savagely, ran into the road, and started for home. He had gone but a few steps when he came squarely in front of the musket of the Orderly-Sergeant of Co. Q, who had placed himself in concealment to see the end of the play and bring him along. "Halt, there," commanded the Orderly-Sergeant; "face the other way and trot.
One morning after roll-call the Orderly-Sergeant came up to Si and said: "There's been so much chin-music about this cooking-business that the Captain's ordered the cooks to go back to duty, and after this everybody'll have to take his regular turn at cooking. It'll be your turn to-day, and you'll stay in camp and get dinner." When Co. Q marched out for the forenoon drill.
Lewis Randolph told us that he had killed a Federal soldier with a stone in the charge on the railroad-cut at second Manassas; that the man, who was about twenty steps from him, was recapping his gun, which had just missed fire while aimed at Randolph's orderly-sergeant, when he threw the stone.
"Who is that man, Corpril?" asked Monty Scruggs, as the Orderly left. "That's the Orderly-Sergeant of Co. "Orderly-Sergeant?" repeated Monty dubiously. "Who's he? I've heard of Captains, Majors, Colonels and Generals, but never of Orderly-Sergeants, and yit he seems to be bigger'n all of 'em. He has more to say, and does more orderin' around than all of 'em put together.
Wisht I knowed jest how much o' the kind remembrance was Maria's, and if it differed in any way from her mother's and sister's?" The next evening the Orderly-Sergeant handed Shorty a badly-thumb-marked and blotted yellow envelope, on which was scrawled in a very schoolish hand: "To Mister Corpril Elliott, "Co. Q, Two Hundred Injianny Volintears, "Chattynoogy, 10-S-E."
They contributed blankets from their own scanty supply, to make sure that there would be plenty, and so many were eager to help carry Si out and put him in the wagon, that the Orderly-Sergeant of Co. Q had to take charge of the matter and make a detail. The teamster was given strong admonitions as to careful driving, and fearful warning as to what would happen to him in case of an accident.
Another bugle-call rang out from Brigade Headquarters. "Fall in, Co. Q," sharply commanded the Orderly-Sergeant. With a shiver of apprehension, with a nervous memory of the bitter hours just past, with the sight before their eyes of the scarcely-cold dead, the remainder of the company fell in with sadly-shrunken ranks. "Orderly, we need some more cartridges," suggested Shorty.
"Most of the boys 've got to lay down in a foot of mud." "Don't get to crowin' too loud," grumbled Shorty. "If they find out what a good thing we have, some Jigadier-Brindle'll snatch it away for himself." But Si was fast asleep before Shorty finished speaking. Sometime before midnight the Orderly-Sergeant came around, and after vigorous kicking and shaking, succeeded in waking them.
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