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The teenth had occupied a new line far south of the old one; but, one at a time, several of Billy's brother officers had dropped in to see him and tell him regimental news; and one of them, the young West Pointer who had broken down at sight of the dying face that stirring Sunday morning, told him of Latrobe's soldier funeral and of General Drayton's presence and speechless grief; and Billy's hand groped beneath the pillow for that little blood-stained packet still undelivered.
"One of 'em's young Gray, of the teenth; he that was hit in the charge on the Pasay road," said the officer of the guard to a comrade. "But who the devil's the other? He had corporal's chevrons on. Some fellow just got a commission, perhaps." And that was the only way the soldier could account for a corporal riding with a commissioned officer in a general's carriage.
Canker, with the teenth, went ahead before news of the protocol could stop him; but he leaves here a number of sick Lieutenant Gray, charged with using threatening and insubordinate language to his commanding officer, among them; and Gray is down with brain fever. The doctors say he is too ill to be disturbed, and his side of the story is hard to get at, as the boy is too flighty to talk sense.
As for the sergeant he had served four enlistments in the teenth, and without a flaw in his record beyond an occasional aberration in the now distant past, due to the potency of the poteen distilled by certain Hibernian experts not far from an old-time "plains fort," where the regiment had rested on its march 'cross continent.
Hours after dawn, hours after the attack began, the teenth were in extended battle order to the south of Malate confronted by thickets of bamboo that fairly swarmed with Insurgents, yet, only by the incessant zip and "whiew" of their deadly missiles and the ceaseless crackle of rifle fire, could this be determined; for with their smokeless powder and their Indian-like skill in concealment nothing could be seen of their array.
It was an exceedingly long lay that, indeed; and though from the magnitude of the figure it might at first deceive a landsman, yet the slightest consideration will show that though seven hundred and seventy-seven is a pretty large number, yet, when you come to make a teenth of it, you will then see, I say, that the seven hundred and seventy-seventh part of a farthing is a good deal less than seven hundred and seventy-seven gold doubloons; and so I thought at the time.
And that evening the veteran sergeant major of the teenth was bidden to report at the reserve hospital in Ermita, close to the Malate line, was conducted to the bedside of a pallid young soldier whose ticket bore the name of Norton, and was asked to tell whether he had ever seen him before. "I have, sir," said the veteran, sadly and gravely. "He is a deserter from the teenth.
Like the crack of a whip an order snapped in by wire on the Thursday previous three regiments, the teenth regulars and the "Primeval Dudes," Armstrong's splendid regiment among them to prepare for sea voyage forthwith. More than that, General Drayton and staff were directed to proceed to Manila at once. Two-thirds of the members of the court were from these regiments.
"7 teenth Jully, 18 "Sur i'm an irishman an a sailer an recked on the cost of boogia wid six of me messmaits hoo are wel an arty tho too was drowndid on landin an wan wos spiflikated be the moors which are born divls an no mistaik.
Yet, when you come to wash your pan of dirt, and the lies have all been carried off down the flume, and you've got the color of the few particles of solid, eighteen-carat truth left, you'll find it's the Sultan who's smoking Turkish cigarettes; and that Mabel is trying cubebs for her catarrh; and that the cashier of the Teenth National belongs to a whist club in the suburbs and is the superintendent of a Sunday-school in the city; and that Dan has put Daisy up to visiting her mother to ward off a threatened swoop down from the old lady; and that the Czar hasn't done a blame thing except to become the father of another girl baby.
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