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+*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 78459 ***
+
+                          A MILITARY INTERLUDE
+
+                            By Ernest Haycox
+
+
+The hut was both cold and dark. There were no windows to admit the
+light of the waning day, but through every crack and chink penetrated
+the sharp, bitter air of January. Alva Jukes, standing in the doorway,
+saw only white ovals of faces staring upward from the wretched pallets
+and, though he was a brash, hard-tempered man, oft called upon to
+witness suffering, the sight of so much unnecessary misery fed the
+latent rebellion in his Scotch-Irish heart. He struck a posture, put a
+hand to a hip as if caressing a sword-hilt and mimicked the voice of a
+colonel well known but not well loved by the brigade--
+
+“And what have you got for supper, my brave fellows?”
+
+The answer came back to him in mock respect from half a dozen throats--
+
+“Fire-cake and water, sir!”
+
+“Ah,” purred Jukes, plucking at an imaginary cloak, “and what have you
+for breakfast, sons of freedom?”
+
+“Fire-cake and water, sir!”
+
+“And now, my laddies, tell me what you eat for dinner.”
+
+“Fire-cake and water, sir!”
+
+Jukes, grinning dourly through his whiskers, joined them in the chorus--
+
+“God send our commissary of purchases to live on fire-cake and water.”
+
+Snow blanketed Valley Forge, dampened the lesser camp sounds and made
+the crackling-cold air seem doubly severe. A cart, loaded with wood,
+crept past the hut, drawn by ten or twelve men hitched to a rope; men
+who moved with dreadful slowness, heads bent, feet slipping on the
+ground. Here and there fires burned on the brigade street, surrounded
+by the feeble and the ragged. An officer rode by--a queer sight with a
+counterpane covering him from head to foot and a shawl, wrapped turban
+fashion around his head. Alva Jukes stared at these scenes with somber
+eyes, his hatchet-faced visage growing more and more pointed.
+
+“What’s become o’ the fire I left burnin’?” he asked. “---- of a crew
+you are to let it die!”
+
+“There ain’t no more wood, Serg’nt,” croaked a remote voice. “I give
+it the last lick an’ a promise, but it didn’t seem to help. Here’s a
+letter fer you--come by the courier a small time back.”
+
+“Hey, a letter?” muttered Jukes. “An’ who’d be writin’ to me?”
+
+He crossed the threshold and met a man’s outstretched hand. Retreating
+to the open, he broke the seal and spread the paper before puzzled eyes.
+It took some time for him to decipher the illiterate, poorly formed
+scrawl, for he had no more education than the common run; but at last he
+mastered the sentences, face settling.
+
+    D’r son, you been gone 2 years now, ain’t it time to come
+    hame I ben worrit for y’r helth, the Neely boys went to
+    war for 3 months an come hame braggin fit to kill. Y’ve
+    did your share, pa is doin porely, seems he cant get his
+    wind back after the cold. I never eat but think you must
+    be starvin. Come hame, y’r lovein mother.
+
+He folded the message and tucked it in his pocket. Some one coughed
+spasmodically, ending with a strangled sigh.
+
+“I don’t figger there’d be room left in the hospital er I’d go. Serg’nt,
+you better look at Will Cordes; he ain’t answerin’ no questions lately.”
+
+Jukes stepped around a body and knelt in a corner.
+
+“Will, me lad, ’tis a poor time to be sleepin’.” There was no answer and
+Jukes’ hand, crossing the man’s face, found it stone cold. “Will,” said
+he, sharply, “you’ll be freezin’ unless you move about. Come now.”
+
+He spoke to unheeding ears. His fingers, resting over the flat chest,
+found no reassuring movement. He rested on his knees for a long period,
+while a dismal silence pervaded the hut.
+
+“I reckon,” said a husky voice, “he’s done passed out, eh, Serg’nt?”
+
+Jukes rose.
+
+“I’ll be gettin’ a buryin’ detail. ’Tis the third from this hut in a
+month. Well, he was a strong lad or he’d gone earlier.”
+
+Another voice broke in:
+
+“Jukes, you heard anything ’bout them clothes supposed to be comin’?
+Fella told me a ship was in from France with enough to supply the hull
+army.”
+
+“Huh,” said Jukes, retreating to the doorway. “All I heard was the
+Congress had sent a committee down here to see why we ain’t satisfied.”
+
+“---- the Congress! What’ve they ever done fer us? Yah, sendin’ a
+committee! All they do is send committees! Washington could’ve won
+this war by now if Congress was anything but a pack o’ shilly-shally
+lawyers! Look at poor Will--the boy’d never died if the cursed
+Congress had only kep’ us in clo’s an’ vittals. ---- the Congress
+fer a pack o’ spineless, jealous rats! They talk fine but they ain’t
+got spunk enough to take keer of the army. Better keep their noses
+outen this camp or they’ll have no army.”
+
+It was a white-hot indictment, spoken in half hysterical tones. All the
+man’s fears, all his outraged emotions, unleashed by the death of a
+comrade, went into the diatribe. At the end he was left with his breath
+coming in gasps while the others of the hut muttered their approval. He
+had spoken the almost unanimous opinion of the army, an army who daily
+saw the carts wheeling a dozen bodies like that of the unfortunate Will
+Cordes through the streets. Jukes, though possessed of tempestuous
+emotions and a stern sense of justice, bridled his feelings with a
+sardonic pressure of lips and retreated from the hut.
+
+Turning up the street, he trudged toward the hospital tent, a long, thin
+figure with the face and eyes of a malcontent. Nature in forming him had
+done him injustice; for he was not as bad nor as ill-disciplined as the
+sullenness of mouth and cheek would indicate. The expression was an
+inheritance from Covenanting ancestors, people who had never found life
+an easy affair. Nevertheless, men gave him the compliment of legends.
+His taciturnity in camp and his profane frenzy in battle made him a
+known figure throughout the brigade.
+
+He reached the hospital hut, left a report of the dead man and retraced
+his way through the snow, observing here and there footprints edged
+with crimson. It made him all the more bitter-eyed and his sharp nose
+sank nearer his chest. He passed several fires and came again to his
+own cheerless hut. He tarried only long enough to take an ax leaning by
+the door and went on, aiming for a stand of timber beyond the brigade
+street.
+
+A certain shapely tree drew him through a deep snowdrift. Getting a
+position knee deep in the snow, he sank the bitt of the ax into the
+bark and sent the chips flying.
+
+“Guess paw must be doin’ poorly,” he muttered, between blows. “Else
+why should maw be spendin’ money on a letter? That cussed Bige done
+said he’d provide fer ’em while I was gone.”
+
+But then Bige was only a shiftless cousin, too afraid of his own skin to
+join the army, and perhaps two years’ providing for the family had set
+him to grumbling. Born grumblers, all the Jukes. He balanced the ax and
+measured the fall of the tree; he too, he decided, was a grumbler.
+
+His labor was arrested by a sudden disturbance in the street. A
+lieutenant strode along the line of huts shouting:
+
+“Turn out, men! Turn out for grand parade! Turn out, Pennsylvania!”
+
+Jukes stared at the graying sky and left the bitt of the ax buried in
+the tree, determining to finish the chore when he had returned from
+parade. Floundering through the drift, he reached the street, only to
+be assailed by an entirely new and unexpected commotion. The men were
+turning out, no doubt, of that; but they were coming not with muskets
+and belts, nor in the usual lethargic manner. They emerged from the
+huts bearing pots and pans, beating them together, sending a racket
+toward the leaden sky and breaking into a chant that, started by one
+voice, was immediately taken up by others until the camp rang with
+it.
+
+“No meat, no soldier! No bread, no parade! Poor Dick a-freezin’! No
+meat, no soldier!”
+
+The officer raised his arms futilely while the ragged soldiers made a
+ring around him. At every instant fresh voices joined the chorus and
+more pans swelled the tumult. Jukes, elbowing his way to the fore of
+the circle, saw angry faces, sick faces, faces that were flushed and
+faces that were ghastly white.
+
+The whole affair had an undertone of desperation; they were not men
+revolting from discipline; they were men who had very nearly reached
+the limit of endurance. Ill, discouraged, and brooding over the
+obvious injustices done to them, one man’s catch-phrase had set them
+off. Jukes’ temper flamed in sympathy. He reached the center of the
+throng in time to hear the lieutenant, an angry and puzzled man,
+sing out:
+
+“Stop it, men! D’you want to turn this camp upside down? ---- of an
+example we’ll make for other regiments. Stop the infernal racket!”
+
+He was too young to command influence and his words were drowned by the
+redoubled cry:
+
+“No meat, no soldier! No more fire-cake an’ water!”
+
+One side of the ring parted precipitately and four horsemen, led by a
+plump brigadier with ruddy cheeks, forced a path to the center. The
+brigadier leaned over to catch the lieutenant’s words. And then as
+suddenly as all this racket had begun it subsided, leaving the crowd
+moving uneasily, some exhausted, others implacably rooted to their
+places. The brigadier’s face was very solemn, and when he spoke it
+was not in anger but with compassionate gravity.
+
+“You do yourselves ill, gentlemen,” said he, “to create such a
+disturbance. Must we win battles from the enemy and lose them among
+ourselves? Fie that there should be such dissension! Come now, what’s
+the root of all this?”
+
+The silence was so heavy that the crackling of wood on a near-by fire
+echoed like gunshots in the frosty air. A voice sang out--
+
+“Jemmy Rice, you speak for us.”
+
+Jukes waited several moments to hear the man’s voice. At last he turned
+and sought through the crowd until his eyes fell upon Rice--a tumultuous
+character of his own company who had the readiest tongue for grievances
+in all the camp. But Jemmy Rice was silent now in face of the brigadier.
+For this was akin to mutiny and he had no stomach to put himself up as a
+ringleader to be shot.
+
+Jukes, waiting further, closed his fist and took a pace forward where
+the brigadier’s searching eyes might find him. The wild rush of feeling
+that sprang upward, had it been allowed to escape, would have sent a
+torrent of angry words upon the officer. Jukes checked it, lips turning
+thin from the effort. His somber face met the brigadier not defiantly
+but as an equal speaking to an equal.
+
+“A man died in my hut this afternoon fer lack o’ food an’ lack o’
+blankets. Died on the ground with nary a straw beneath him. There’s
+four others in that hut an’ none fit to be abroad. _That’s_ what we
+raise Cain about.”
+
+The brigadier inclined his head.
+
+“I am aware of the misfortunes of this camp. Every officer worth a
+grain of salt is aware of them. Don’t you think we spend our days
+trying to make conditions a little better? But what help d’you expect
+by this conduct?”
+
+Jukes, looking beyond the brigadier, caught sight of his captain, an
+angry man indeed that one of his own company should be spokesman of
+rebellion. He squared his shoulders and proceeded:
+
+“We ain’t doubtin’ your efforts. But it don’t seem in the power o’
+officers to help us, so we try raisin’ our own voices. We ain’t had meat
+fer six days. Last rations o’ bread were plumb moldy. Clothes--well, we
+don’t expect none, never havin’ had an issue since October. There’s half
+o’ this company in the hospital an’ more waitin’ to get in when beds are
+empty. As fer pay, I ain’t seen a scrap o’ money fer fourteen months.
+Now we hear there’s a committee of the Congress comin’ down to see why
+we ain’t satisfied. Well, sir, God grant they come to this company fer
+information!”
+
+The swelling echo behind him told Jukes he had spoken the brigade’s
+mind. The captain’s face was black as thunder but the brigadier never
+changed a whit.
+
+“You are mild enough. Were I inclined I could add to that tale of
+misfortune and make it darker still. Gentlemen, your grievances are
+my own. But it will never do to break down like this. It only gives
+our enemies a chance to strengthen their position. Nothing will ever
+convince me you are the kind to sully your honor by sedition. I want
+you all to disperse to your huts. Meanwhile I may tell you there is
+at this moment wagon-trains bound for camp with warm clothes and
+fresh beef. Now, gentlemen, retire to your quarters.”
+
+The brigadier, looking over their thoughtful countenances, knew he had
+broken the back of resistance. They had given his words attention and
+that meant they were still reasonable. Being a kindly man, he clinched
+his victory with mildness.
+
+“Many of you are very weak. Considering that, we will omit grand parade
+tonight. The guards will be posted informally.”
+
+The men broke from the ring one by one, slowly returning to their huts.
+The brigadier and his staff rode away. Jukes, profoundly affected,
+trudged down the street, breasted the snow bank and caught the handle of
+his ax. A dozen blows brought the tree down and he set to cutting off
+branches and sections. Perhaps a half-hour passed at this occupation and
+the gray dusk fell without warning while he meditated over the plight of
+his comrades. His recent speech had made him aware of his own personal
+troubles, too, and as he chopped at the log he thought again of his
+folks at home.
+
+“That Bige,” he muttered, “allus was a no-’count. As fer them braggin’
+Neely boys, they never was worth powder to blow ’em up. Paw must be
+doin’ poorly.”
+
+He drove the ax into the log and loaded his arms with split wood.
+Stumbling back to the hut, he began shaving a stick of kindling. He
+built a teepee of the splinters and went to the adjoining fire for a
+burning brand to start his own blaze. A flame shot upward and caught
+the sticks. Some one in the hut called to him:
+
+“That you, Jukes? Didn’t you see the notice?”
+
+Jukes piled more wood on the fire.
+
+“What notice?”
+
+“Fella come down from captain’s quarters with a notice an’ posted it to
+our hut while you was gone. Better see what it says.”
+
+Jukes took up a flaming branch and carried it to the hut wall. There,
+stuck to a log where the company orders were usually put, he found the
+following announcement, written in the clerk’s bold hand:
+
+    From this day Jem Rice will be sergeant of the company,
+    taking place of Alva Jukes, returned to the ranks.
+
+                                         --Fleming, Captain.
+
+He stood there for a long time, reading the notice thrice over, making
+sure of its import. The captain’s dark, angry glance had borne fruit
+and he, Alva Jukes, was to lose the tabard of authority he had won by
+his own reckless effort. To lose it for speaking nothing but truth;
+and, what was more unfair, to lose it to a man who had not the courage
+of his beliefs.
+
+The wild, Scotch-Irish rage gave power to his hand. The burning stick
+smashed against the notice and sputtered, lighting and consuming the
+paper.
+
+“Let ’em fight their own war, then!” he cried, ducking into the hut.
+“I’ve done my share!” He went to his corner of the gloomy place,
+rolled together his bundle of belongings and took his rifle. Going
+out, he stopped to add fresh fuel to the fire. “Better come an’ take
+care o’ this now,” he called back.
+
+Ploughing through the snow, he was swallowed by the night. But he hadn’t
+gone twenty yards before he stopped, put down his rifle and bundle and
+went back to the fallen tree. He collected another armful of wood and
+packed it to the fire, grumbling--
+
+“Ain’t a blessed one o’ them boys able to lift a stick.”
+
+A moment later he had vanished again, turning his course to pass the
+pickets, bound homeward, a deserter from Valley Forge.
+
+The farther he traveled the more powerfully did the bitter resentment
+affect him. At last he cried out to the black winter sky.
+
+“May the Lord strike me dead if ever I see the army again. ---- the
+Congress! Let ’em fight fer their own freedom if they’re so sot on it.
+A pack o’ shilly-shally lawyers an’ argufyers!”
+
+                   *       *       *       *       *
+
+He was a tough, canny fellow, Alva Jukes, and capable of sustaining
+himself through hard affairs. That night, a great deal later, he turned
+off the road and slept in a barn. At the first crack of day he was away,
+bearing in his pouch two ears of dried corn, which was his only food for
+the next ten hours. His course led him northwesterly along a pike,
+aiming straight for the backwoods part of the State, toward that land he
+had left better than two years before.
+
+As he traveled he kept good watch behind for patrols that swept the
+environs of Valley Forge. He was not of a mind to be taken and marched
+back before a summary court. And so it was that, when his eyes spied
+horsemen coming along the road, he dropped into a stand of trees and
+let them pass. They were a few officers on a reconnoitering party and
+after they vanished around a bend he came from concealment.
+
+At the joining of highways some distance farther along, he chose the
+lesser used route and soon was slogging through drifts of snow. The sky
+was lowering and beyond noon the flakes began to drift slantwise through
+the air. It was about this time, too, that he considered himself removed
+sufficiently from the army to abandon his precaution and to give all his
+attention to the road ahead.
+
+The fact that he had left camp without leave bothered his conscience
+not at all. He was only doing what hundreds of others had done before
+him. Indeed, members of that army regarded their enlistment agreements
+as flexible contracts.
+
+Active campaigning kept them together, but when winter set in and the
+chance of battle was remote they sat before their fires and listened to
+the call of the home people who needed their help. Then the brigades
+dwindled. Jukes, bending against the drifts, defended his course with
+arguments that seemed to him perfectly valid.
+
+“Two years ’thout a single leave,” said he. “Ain’t that enough fer one
+man? Let some o’ these proud fire-eaters at home try their luck. I done
+my share.”
+
+He was shrewd enough to know that there were many thousands of
+able-bodied citizens who had never answered the call to colors and
+who were perfectly content to let others do their share of fighting.
+To men of Jukes’ nature, endowed with a keen sense of justice, this
+was only an added argument as to the propriety of his act. He had
+done far more than his share. Now let some other take his place.
+
+Even so, his thoughts turned now and then, as the afternoon advanced
+and he found himself in strange country, to that dark and miserable
+hut where his comrades rested, all but helpless.
+
+“I reckon there’ll be grand parade tonight,” he mused. “Well, there
+won’t be many turnin’ out fer it. No they won’t. An’ I bet they let
+the fire die again. As fer poor Will Cordes--the cussed Congress c’n
+take the blame fer that.”
+
+The graying shadows came again, flecked by softly falling snow. Here
+and there, at wide intervals on the road, he passed farmhouses with
+lights gleaming through the windows and sparks showering from chimneys.
+He might have turned in and asked shelter, but a stubborn pride kept
+him away. He was not a straggler, nor could he stomach the thought of
+begging at doors. He trudged on, waiting for dark to come that he might
+crawl into a barn overnight.
+
+His keen ears caught the sound of hoofs and he turned to find a
+solitary figure riding out of a side road and turning his way. Jukes
+resumed his march, stolidly indifferent. Nor did he cast another
+glance behind, although he heard the traveler coming nearer; instead,
+he took the side of the highway, prepared to let the other pass. The
+traveler came abreast and reined in, speaking courteously.
+
+“A bad day to be afoot, sir.”
+
+Jukes shifted his gun to the other shoulder and looked up to see a
+plump, benign face. The man was of a quality, a country squire, well
+dressed and bearing with him a pride of place. A pair of blue eyes
+beamed from beneath bushy brows, singularly penetrating eyes. Jukes
+felt the full weight of their scrutiny and was roused to sudden
+watchfulness.
+
+“I’ve marched in worse times,” said he, noncommittally, still holding
+aside to let the man pass.
+
+But the elderly gentleman was of a social nature.
+
+“Doubtless you come from Valley Forge,” he suggested. “Going home,
+possibly, on leave.”
+
+“Take it that way,” assented Jukes, not entirely pleased at the
+deception but considering it the better policy.
+
+The elderly gentleman looked at the forbidding sky.
+
+“It will snow heavily all night. You had better take shelter soon.
+There’s a tavern a mile down the road. You’ll find it agreeable.”
+
+“Tavern,” grunted Jukes. “Where’d you figger I’d get money to spend in a
+tavern? I ain’t been paid in fourteen months.”
+
+“But you most assuredly can’t sleep in the open,” protested the squire.
+“It’s devilish cold these nights.”
+
+Jukes looked at the man’s fine clothes with sudden resentment.
+
+“I’ve slept in worse. An’ there’s plenty o’ barns along the way.”
+
+“Nonsense. Let it not be said of Pennsylvania that she neglected her
+soldiers. We’ll stop at the tavern and I shall have the fellow take
+care of you overnight. Consider yourself as my guest.”
+
+“And who,” demanded Jukes, “might you be?”
+
+“I, sir, am St. Louis Cotton, of Cotton Hall and member of the
+Pennsylvania Assembly.”
+
+“A lawyer of the Congress?” demanded Jukes, flinging up his head.
+
+“Not of the Continental Congress. I have not that honor. But of the
+Pennsylvania Assembly.”
+
+The distinction was not fine enough to check Jukes’ animosity. Here was
+one of the gentry who debated and dallied and broke their promises and
+appointed futile committees while the army starved.
+
+“---- your hospitality!” he cried. “I take nothin’ from shilly-shally
+lawyers. ’Tis your kind that makes misery fer the army. ’Tis you who
+eat well an’ sleep warm while the rest o’ us go without!”
+
+St. Louis Cotton, esquire, sat bolt upright in the saddle and blew
+through his nose.
+
+“That is cursed impertinence, sir. I offer you the gratitude of a State
+and you answer it like a wagon-master. I see you are another of those
+infested with disrespect for the people’s legislatures. There is some
+sinister influence at work amongst you.”
+
+“Influence o’ an empty belly,” retorted Jukes. “An’ what do you fine
+gentlemen accomplish, I’d like to know? When we ask fer vittals an’
+food we get smart promises. We starve an’ you tell us we eat too
+much meat anyway. You’re a pack o’ scoundrels an’ the country’d be
+better without you! ’Tis no credit due you General Washington wins
+his battles!”
+
+The squire held his peace and Jukes, looking upward through the fast
+thickening dusk, could make out the ruddy face screwed to the point
+of apoplexy.
+
+“Fire away, old man,” he added contemptuously. “Give us some o’ them
+pretty words you use so nice on committees.”
+
+The squire spoke with a commendable restraint--
+
+“I suppose members of the army could do better, were they elected to
+serve in the Congress?”
+
+“There’d be no shilly-shally, I tell you.”
+
+“When you grow older,” said the gentleman, “you will know better. If
+a body of angels came together they would fall to quarreling in these
+terrible times. It is not human nature to be forever agreeable, no
+matter how desperate the cause. You soldiers forget, too, that every
+State has its word in the councils of Congress, and seldom do all
+States agree. Each has its own interests to watch. Perhaps the
+Congress makes unfulfilled promises, perhaps it errs in judgment. It
+is a body without power, my friend. It can ask flour and beef of the
+States, but only conscience can make those States supply the need. Do
+you forget that?”
+
+Jukes grunted, disquieted. The old gentleman handled words as he handled
+a gun. He could not oppose the argument because he had no knowledge. But
+of what use reason when the misery and misfortune of Valley Forge was
+there to confound all the fine talk of lawyers. If they wanted a free
+country why didn’t they find means of helping their soldiers?
+
+“’Tis strange,” said he, “how you gentlemen draw pay an’ wear fine
+clothes no matter how you disagree. An’ it’s a cussed example you set
+the country by runnin’ off from Philadelphia every time a British gun
+sounds within fifty miles. A fine example!”
+
+“I can plainly see,” snorted the old gentleman, “that you are a
+malcontent. You say you are on leave? Where is your paper to show it?”
+
+“I’ll show no papers,” said Jukes, stoutly.
+
+“Then you are a deserter. ----, sir, I’ve a notion to clap a pistol at
+your head and turn you around for the provost guards.”
+
+Jukes slipped the musket from his shoulders.
+
+“Mind your business, old fellow, or I’ll knock you off that perch.”
+
+They came to a halt, facing each other as the dusk gave way to darkness
+and the snow fell about them in redoubled thickness. Jukes laughed
+grimly.
+
+“Stick to your debatin’, old man. You c’n do better at it. Leave the
+guns to a fightin’ man. Le’s go, now. I ain’t got time to waste on a
+fat old turkey-cock like you.”
+
+St. Louis Cotton swore softly, putting his horse in motion.
+
+“You _are_ a renegade--a desperate ruffian, better out of the army than
+in it.”
+
+“Good enough to kill Englishmen though, ain’t I? Good enough to believe
+in your fine promises when everything looked mighty black. Now you an’
+your blue-blood friends c’n fight fer your own necks. I’m through!”
+
+They turned a curve of the road and had sight of a tavern hidden amongst
+trees, not a hundred yards away. Jukes bit his words in two and came to
+a halt. A door of the tavern stood wide open, with the yellow light
+making a lane in the snow. And up that lane filed a squad of men dressed
+in the uniform of British dragoons. The door closed behind them, leaving
+Jukes with dry lips and a question on his tongue.
+
+“There a camp o’ those animals hereabouts, old feller?”
+
+“My eyes, they’re ---- poor,” said the squire. “What did you see?”
+
+“British dragoons,” muttered Jukes, peering through the darkness. “Saw
+six go inside. Wonder--”
+
+The squire was swearing.
+
+“That patrol again! Sweeps this part of the country frequently. No camp
+this side of Philadelphia. ----, I’d like to put a stop to it! If I had
+another man or two.”
+
+“Hold on, old feller,” interrupted Jukes, surprized at the former’s
+warlike speech. “You ain’t the one to do any fightin’. If they’d ketch
+you usin’ a gun an’ wearin’ civilian clothes they’d hang you.”
+
+“Tut,” said the squire. “I bear a colonel’s commission in the militia.”
+
+“Milisher, huh? Well, anybody could be an officer in the milisher. It’s
+no-count.”
+
+Jukes was on his knee, head thrust forward, as if trying to penetrate
+the darkness. The squire dismounted from his horse, muttering.
+
+“If you weren’t such a rascally fellow and we had another one or two--”
+
+“Old man,” broke in Jukes, “I’m goin’ to do a little scoutin’. Stand
+fast till I come back.”
+
+He slipped his knapsack to the ground and swiftly advanced, the
+aggressive Scotch-Irish spirit rousing at the proximity of the enemy
+and a daring plan working through his canny head. Within ten yards
+of the place he stopped, hearing the champing of a bit. After some
+moments of intent observation he decided no guard had been left with
+the animals and moved around the corner of the tavern to a window.
+The light sparkled through the frosted panes. Jukes removed his hat,
+raised himself cautiously and commanded a clear view of the
+interior.
+
+His count had been right. Six of them, headed by a sergeant, were
+seated around a table; six solid looking fellows with vests loosened to
+the heat of the room, saber points clanking on the floor. The tavern
+keeper moved across the boards with steaming cups and disappeared in
+the kitchen a moment, reappearing with a platter of meat. Jukes located
+the inner kitchen door and ducked down, grinning dourly.
+
+“They’ll be feedin’ some minutes,” he muttered, working his way back.
+“Well, we’ll give ’em time to hang themselves.”
+
+He cruised around the yard and reassured himself there was no guard
+with the horses, going so far as to put his hands upon the hitching
+rack and take another knot in each of the tied reins. If any of them
+wished to get away in a hurry they’d find unexpected difficulties.
+He moved back to the squire’s position.
+
+“Six of ’em,” said Jukes. “Mr. Milisher Colonel, you got any weapons?”
+
+“My pistols. D’you mean you’ve got spirit enough to flush ’em?”
+
+“Well, fightin’s my trade. You talk loud but I ain’t sure you’ll stand
+fire. Milisher never do. Howsoever, if there’s any gimp in that fat skin
+o’ yourn come along. I want you to go to the front door an’ wait until
+you hear me shout. Then you shout--as loud as you can, breakin’ in. I’ll
+be comin’ through the back way. Le’s go.”
+
+The squire tied his horse to a fence and followed Jukes until they were
+within a few paces of the tavern.
+
+“Wait until you hear me,” admonished the latter, “then make all the
+noise you can.”
+
+He turned away. Another furtive glance through the window showed him
+the dragoons had turned to industrious trenchermen and he skirted the
+wall of the house until he saw a crack of light coming through a rear
+door. He tried it gently and found it gave way. At that point he
+stopped to affix his bayonet, then shoved the door open and let out a
+cry loud enough to startle every echo in the countryside.
+
+The door slammed against the inner wall and Jukes, musket advanced,
+careened through a hot kitchen, had a momentary glimpse of a frightened
+woman shrinking back, and arrived at the front room. He cried again--a
+high, wailing, half savage yell--and burst upon them at the moment the
+squire, obeying instructions to the letter, burst through the front way,
+waving his pistols.
+
+“Surrender, gentlemen, or you die!”
+
+The table went over, sending the dishes to the floor with a crash and
+clatter. Dragoons flung themselves against the wall, sabers flashing,
+pistols out.
+
+“Charge ’em!” yelled the sergeant. “Kill the devils!”
+
+Jukes’ musket roared; smoke filled the room and the sergeant’s face
+sagged. He fell to the floor, knocking aside the weapon of one of his
+men.
+
+“Come on, Pennsylvania!” shouted Jukes, his face afire.
+
+He was as a man gone stark mad, teeth bared and eyes flashing. The
+bayonet met a saber and knocked it aside. The room shook with gunshots
+and he felt the powder burn his cheeks. Through the sudden sweat that
+dripped over his eyes he saw his bayonet point turn to bright red. The
+squire’s hoarse voice cried encouragement and summoned aid from the
+night. His pistols spoke and then he was borne out of sight by a
+dragoon retreating from the wild man with the face of fury who slashed
+and struck and parried and lunged with a crimson bayonet.
+
+The room was in semi-darkness, swimming with smoke; the fireplace glowed
+dully, reflecting on the sergeant’s sightless eyes. The squire, from the
+outer shadows, sent back a great cry:
+
+“Keep at ’em, my boy! You’ve bagged the birds!”
+
+“Swords down!” shouted a disheveled dragoon, sagging at the knee. “We’re
+taken. Put up your gun, man!”
+
+There were two of them standing against the wall, one with a streak of
+blood across his face, the other staring sullenly.
+
+“Gad,” said he, “we’ve been taken by a cursed savage! Quarter!”
+
+Jukes swayed in his tracks, black hair fallen about his face, sweat
+rolling across his whiskers. At some point in the mêlée the cloth of
+one sleeve had been ripped by a saber and it hung away from his skinny
+arm, making him all the more a nondescript figure. The flaming fervor
+slowly faded from his eyes and he dropped the point of his bayonet,
+suddenly tired.
+
+They had done well enough. The sergeant and two others were dead on the
+floor; two were prisoners and one had fled. The tavern keeper thrust his
+white jowls out of the kitchen door and Jukes barked at him--
+
+“What’s your politics, fat-face?”
+
+“I’m a good patriot. Ye ----, y’ve wrecked my place!”
+
+“Thank your luck I ain’t wrecked you,” growled Jukes. “Pick up that gun
+and hold these fellers to the corner.”
+
+He slouched toward the door, bent on retrieving the dragoon who had
+fled. But there was no need of that. For there he lay, in the patch of
+snow just beyond the doorsill. And beside him, one arm still gripping a
+pistol, was the squire, St. Louis Cotton, of Cotton Hall and member of
+the Pennsylvania Assembly. Jukes bent over, moved by a sudden, generous
+pity. The squire’s plump face was turned upward and his lips twitched.
+
+“My boy,” he whispered, “if you’re a straggler, go back before it’s too
+late. No matter how you feel--go back. ’Tis not the time to desert the
+country. The act will haunt you later, and your sons will hate you. Go
+back.”
+
+“Aye,” muttered Jukes, “it’s somethin’ I’d most made my mind to this
+minute.”
+
+But St. Louis Cotton never heard that, for he was dead, carrying on his
+ruddy countenance that same pride of place. Jukes stared somberly. At
+last he turned back to the room.
+
+“Alva Jukes wa’n’t born to run off,” he muttered. “They’ll be changin’
+guards at this minute--and who’s to help those poor devils to keep the
+fire goin’?” He thought of the old gentleman with admiration. “A plucky
+old cock. Maybe he’s right.”
+
+The tavern keeper gave up his gun.
+
+“I had better look after the squire.”
+
+“Get help to bury ’em all,” replied Jukes gruffly. “Now, fat-face, bring
+out somethin’ to eat an’ tally it to the account o’ Pennsylvania.”
+
+A half-hour later he was bound back to Valley Forge with two prisoners
+and six horses, the saddle of each one bearing the king’s crown. Jukes
+smiled dourly as he plodded through the dark, swirling night. After
+all, they could not do much to a straggler who returned in that royal
+fashion.
+
+
+[Transcriber’s Note: This story appeared in the July 1, 1927 issue of
+Adventure magazine.]
+
+*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 78459 ***