第23章

Coming on the ground late he found that a gap had been left in the line for his company which was only barely sufficient to receive it when it was aligned and compactly "dressed."In his nervousness he halted the company before it had reached the right of the gap by ten paces, and so left about one-quarter of the company lapping over on the one to his left.Even this was done with an unsightly jumble.His confusion as to the reversal of right and left still abode with him.He commanded "right face" instead of "front," and was amazed to see the whole one hundred well-drilled men whirl their backs around to the regiment and the commanding officer.A laugh rippled down the ranks of the other companies;even the spectators smiled, and something sounded like swearing by the Adjutant and Sergeant-Major.

Alspaugh lifted his plumed hat, and wiped the beaded perspiration from his brow with the back of one of the yellow gauntlets.

"Order an 'about face,'" whispered the Orderly-Sergeant, whose face was burning with shame at the awkward position in which the company found itself.

"ABOUT--FACE!" gasped Alspaugh.

The men turned on their heels.

"Side-step to the right," whispered the Orderly.

"Side-step to the right," repeated Alspaugh, mechanically.

The men took short side-steps, and following the orders which Alspaugh repeated from the whispered suggestions of the Orderly, the company came clumsily forward into its place, "dressed," and "opened ranks to the rear." When at the command of "parade-rest,"Alspaugh dropped his saber's point to the ground, he did it with the crushed feeling of a strutting cock which has been flung into the pond and emerges with dripping feathers.

He raised his heart in sincere thanksgiving that he was at last through, for there was nothing more for him to do during the parade, except to stand still, and at its conclusion the Orderly would have to march the company back to its quarters.

But his woes had still another chapter.The Inspector-General had come to camp to inspect the regiment, and he was on the ground.

Forty years of service in the regular army, with promotion averaging one grade every ten years, making him an old man and a grandfather before he was a Lieutenant-Colonel, had so surcharged Col.Murbank's nature with bitterness as to make even the very air in his vicinity seem roughly astringent.The wicked young Lieutenants who served with him on the Plains used to say that his bark was worse than his bite, because no reasonable bite could ever be so bad as his bark.They even suggested calling him "Peruvian Bark," because a visit to his quarters was worse than a strong does of quinia.

"Yeth, that'th good," said the lisping wit of the crowd."Evely bite ith a bit, ain't it? And the wortht mutht be a bitter, ath he ith."The Colonel believed tha the whole duty of man consisted in loving the army regulations, and in keeping their commandments.The best part of all virtue was to observe them to the letter; the most abhorrent form of vice, to violate or disregard even their minor precepts.

His feelings were continually lacerated by contact with volunteers, who cared next to nothing for the FORM of war-making, but everything for its spirit, and the martinet heart within him was bruised and sore when he came upon the ground to inspect the regiment.

Alspaugh's blundering in bringing the company into line awakened this ire from a passivity to activity.

"I'll have that dunderhead's shoulder-straps off inside of a fortnight," he muttered between his teeth.