Chapter I

When the gunboats entered Sandy River, Cleland’s regiment was ordered to garrison and reconstruct the forts at the Landing, evacuated by the Confederate troops as soon as the gunboats crossed the bar.

The gunboats tossed a few shells after the leisurely retreating Confederates, then dropped anchor below the Landing, and waited for something to turn up. A week later they steamed out of the river, promptly stuck on the bar, churned and thrashed and whistled and signalled, and finally slid out into blue water where a blockade runner tempted them into a chase that contributed to the amusement of the Southern Confederacy.

By Thanksgiving time, Cleland’s regiment had finished the forts at Sandy Landing. Cleland did it because he was told to, not because either forts or town were of the slightest military value to anybody. The Landing itself was a skunk-haunted village, utterly unimportant as supply depot, strategical pivot, or a menace to navigation. It was a key to nothing; its single railway led nowhere, its whisky was illegal, illimitable, and atrocious.

Cleland’s report embodied all of this. He was ordered to hold his ground, establish semaphores, and plant torpedoes. So he built his semaphores as directed, planted torpedoes, and reported. Twenty-four hours later orders came to go into winter-quarters. Then he was notified that he was to be reinforced, so he built barracks for two more regiments, as directed, and wondered what on earth was coming. Nothing came except the two regiments; one arrived on the first of December, by rail,—an Irish regiment;—the other turned up a week later in two cattle trains, band playing madly from the caboose. It was a German regiment full of strange oaths—and aromas.

Now Cleland was enlightened; he understood that the Landing was to be used as a species of cage for these two foreign regiments, raised, Heaven knows where, and destined to prove a nuisance to any army that harboured them. The Irish possessed an appalling record of pillage, bravery, and insubordination. The German regiment, raised “to march mit Siegel,” had an unbroken record of flight to its discredit. It had run at Grey’s Ford, at Crystal Hill, at Yellow Bank, and at Cypress-Court-House. It fled cheerfully, morning, noon and night; its band stampeded naively and naturally; it always followed its band, adored by all; and the regiment bore no rancour when scourged in general orders. Fallbach was its colonel,—known to the sarcastic and uninstructed as Fallback,—a rosy, short-winded, peaceful Teuton, who ran with his regiment every time, and always accepted censure with jocular resignation.

“Poys will pe poys, ain’t it?” he would say with a shrug; “Der band iss a fine band alretty. Dot trombone iss timid, und der poys dey follow der trombone.”

When Cleland understood that the authorities had rid themselves of the two regiments by interring them at Sandy Landing, he wrote a respectful protest, was snubbed and ordered to begin housekeeping for the winter, which meant that his regiment was now on police duty, stationed at the Landing to keep the peace between the Germans and their Irish neighbours.

Trouble began promptly; Bannon, colonel of the 1st Irish, met Fallbach of the 1st Jägers, and mispronounced his name with an emphasis unmistakable. An hour later the two regiments knew the war was on and made preparations accordingly. Hogan of the 10th company, crossing the street, hustled Franz Bummel of the Jägers and called him a “dootch puddy-fud!”

Quinn, listening to the Jägers’ band concert that afternoon, whistled “Doolan’s Wake,” and imitated Fritz Klein’s piccolo, aided and abetted by Phelan and McCue. That night there were three scuffles and a fight, and the provost-marshal had his work cut out for him.

Little by little the two regiments were installed in distant sections of the town. Cleland dealt justice untempered with mercy, and the rival regiments understood that their warfare would have to be carried on by stealth.

When Phelan, Quinn, Hogan, and McCue were released from the guard-house, they rejoiced with their comrades of the 10th company, and prepared future calamity for the Jägers. But Fate was against them. Their regimental fetish, a strong young goat, disappeared, and that night the Jägers were reported to have revelled in a strangely suggestive stew.

A day or two later, Quinn, fishing for suckers in the Sandy River, was assaulted by three Jägers, his fishpole and three fish confiscated, and he himself ducked amid grunts of universal satisfaction.

The fury of the 10th company passed all bounds when Quinn was relegated to the guard-house for conduct unbecoming a soldier; but the Teutons never strayed from their barracks except in force, and, as night leave was forbidden both regiments, the 10th company hesitated to inaugurate riot by daylight.

Quinn, squatting in the guard-house, found plenty of leisure to hatch revenge. He did not waste thought on mere individual schemes for assault and battery; he meditated a master stroke, a blow at the entire regiment calculated to tear every Teuton bosom. The two objects most cherished by the Jägers were their cat and a disreputable negro who cooked for the colonel. How to combine damage to these centres of Teutonic affection occupied Quinn’s waking hours. To kidnap the cat; that was not enough,—the Teutons must be beguiled into eating their cat—and liking it too. How? Quinn sucked at an empty pipe and brooded. Bribe the negro Cassius, first to kidnap the cat, then to cook it? Quinn writhed maliciously at the prospect; he hated Tom, the black and white cat who sang every night on the Jägers’ barrack roof—sang to each individual star in the firmament to the indignation of every Irishman in Sandy Landing.

When Quinn emerged from the guard-house he took council with Phelan and McCue; and that evening Hogan was despatched to tempt Cassius with promises and a little cash.

The affair was easier than Hogan had dared hope; Cassius took the cash and promised to betray, and Hogan, lips compressed, to stifle all outward mirthful symptoms, went back to the barracks where Quinn, Phelan, and McCue sat waiting in pessimistic silence.

“He’ll not kill the cat,” said Hogan, “he’ll fetch ut in a bag to the shanty foreninst the hill,—d’ye mind the hut, McCue?”

“I do,” said McCue impressively.

“Thin be aisy,” continued Hogan; “we’ll skin ut an’ co-ook ut an’ the naygur can take the stew to thot Dootch runaway sodger, Fallback, bad cess to him an’ his! Pass th’ potheen, McCue.”

“Sure there’s not stew in wan cat for all!” objected Phelan.

“There is! There is,” said Quinn; “there’s cats in town to be had for the askin’, an’ nary a Dootchman will starve! Usha! but they’ll be crazy, th’ omadhouns!”

“’Twill choke them,” said Phelan.

“Did they choke wid the goat they shtole?” demanded McCue angrily.

“I met Bummel an’ Klein,” continued Quinn: “‘Sure,’ I sez, ‘’tis dhirty thricks ye play on the Irish.’ ‘Phwat’s that?’ sez Klein. ‘Ye ate our goat,’ sez I. Wid that they grinned an’ me phist hurrt wid the timptayshun of Bummel’s nose.”

“‘Sure,’ sez I, ‘’tis frinds we should be!’ ‘Sorra th’ day!’ sez Klein; ‘Phwy not?’ sez I. ‘Ye hate us an’ bate us,’ sez Klein; ‘I’ll not thrust ye, Mike Quinn.’ ‘Take me hand,’ sez I, extindin’ me fingers; ‘wan touch of nature, me lad! ’Tis a crool war entirely, an’ it’s frinds we’ll be, an’ no favor!’ ‘Prove ut,’ sez he. ‘I wull,’ sez I, ‘an’ be th’ same token ’tis huntin’ we go this day week, so look fur a Christmas dinner to shame the Pope’s cook.’ ‘A dinner,’ sez he, ‘wid th’ town betchune us!’ ‘Ye’ll dine wid us, yet,’ sez I. ‘An’ how,’ sez he, a lickin’ the chops av him. ‘Whin ye dine wid the Irish ye should have a long spoon,’ sez I, laughin’ friendly like. ‘We’ll sind ye a shtew, me b’y, if God sinds us the rabbits.’ Thin,” continued Quinn, “we parrted genteel; an’ they’ll hear we have lave to hunt on Christmas day—musha, bad luck to th’ Dootch scuts!—’tis cats they’ll be eatin’ this blessed hour come Christmas, an’ may the howly saints sind them the black cramp of Drumgoole!”