Rensselaer Journal, Volume 11, Number 4, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 4 July 1901 — The Band Lied. [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

The Band Lied.

(Copyright, 1901, by Dally Story Pub. Qo.) To sum it all up, the volunteer may be divided into three distinct classes — those who follow the drum from a sense of duty, heroes; those in search of glory, fools; together with a few rascals and unfortunates, who for Strictly personal reasons wish to hide. The first two predominate, and while many arguments may be brought forward to show they are not, judging from motives alone, heroes or fools, a hot campaign soon proves the truth of the assertion. A ho.t sun, an empty stomach and a vivd view of death is enough to convince any man. The third class has nothing to hope for, nothing to regret The favored few reap fame, all reap hardship and ill health, while the life often generously provides an unmarked grave for the majority. Jim Doyle, private, always argued in this fashion, and was rewarded with the title of “grumbler” for his pains; but after his lecture on the ridge that day I have no doubt the men of the Sixteenth thoroughly agreed with him.

It was his first serious lecture, a brief eue, but convincing, complete. Perhaps It will have more weight if stated it was his last. After a quick march in the hot sultry morning, when the sun made even the hat upon your head seem heavy, and the rifle weighed pounds upon pounds, we rushed through a ragged line of trees out into the open toward a small ridge, from the top of which little puffs of white flew and dull reports sounded, while the sharp crack of twtgs behind us proved bad markmanshlp. But once a man fell all sprawled out When we reached the ridge I remember looking back and he x had not moved, still sprawled out, face downward la the dirt with a second tangled heap near him. We had driven them off the rldgetop, a little feat that coat two men their Uvea. only to have them stop obstinately at another some >OO yards the other side at a narrow stream that lay Mm an Ito thick tropical vegeta-

tion, the bank at portions shaded, seemed cool and pleasing to the eye, a striking contrast to the sun reflecting rocks. It lay just a hundred yards away and to cross that hundred yards might cost your life; so it might as well have been a mirage for all the good it did the 40 thirsty men on the hilltop. We waited for troops to reinforce us, waited and waited all that day. It was a rocky place and seemed as if it had been baked and baked centuries perhaps in that fierce sunlight till the rocks became glazy hot, the shrubs withered and the ground dry and powdery. As if to make it worse for us, "Grumbler” Doyle had been hit; "Grumbler” had got it at last as often prophesied. He was shot through the chest in such a way as to make it impossible for him to live. Doyle was a big, blustery man, who would growl whether the officers’ backs were turned or not; so in a measure he was a brave man, as you will agree if you ever have soldiered.

We made him as comfortable as possible in the almost imaginary shadow of a large boulder and gave him little by little the few hot drops of water left in the canteens. The wound started tp trouble him after the water ran out. It was bad enough for us; the brain seemed dulled, the mouth grew parched and the eyes hurt from the glare. But to be in the sun hour after hour with a hole in the chest must be maddening. It is a bad thing, a hole drilled by a Mauser; it is as clean and complete as you might imagine. And there on that hot ridge We had to stay; the lifting of a hand would bring a shot. For a while he lay quiet. Nothing was to be heard but an insect's drone, while above us in the blue sky a vulture wheeled in wide circles and waited. Off there, black against a yellow ground, lay two heaps, one sprawled, and tangled, picturing our probable fate.

Suddenly the wounded man gave a whining groan and started to babble foolishly. First it was a silly flow of disjointed words and sentences, partially unintelligible, punctuated by the whining moans. Then he talked of friends and a home he once had "back East." Now he recalled old incidents and laughed a painful cackle over a boyhood trick. Then he talked of trouble, pleaded with a woman and quarreled with a man. His life had been a bad one, though some of us never believed all told of him, but now we heard it all from his own Ups and pitied him, for in his wandering talk he told of things sacred even to a scoundrel. It was a simple tale of a man’s wasted life, the fruits of which had driven him to the army, bnt there memory followed and made a bad soldier out of great strong material. Once he started to gamble—just as I had often seen him gamble, on the quiet at barracks; hand after hand he dealt and won and lost Now he was tolling a favorite story over the liquor. But hs always camo back to the bad life and cursed la a horrible strain himself and those who had helped him

to It; It made my blood run cold to listen. Then he prayed, a long, rambling, pleading prayer—a prayer for water. And just one hundred yards away was a stream; we could hear the water ripple among the reeds, and by looking cautiously could see the sunlight’s glint upon the surface —yet— in the same glance—we could see the other ridge and the wheeling vulture. "My Gawd! ha’ mercy on me—perhaps”—said a man. He raised his head above the ridgetop—there was a puff of white and a furrow in the dry ground by his hand. He was but a man of flesh and blood, so he crawled back again, and though he never went, he was a hero, that fellow. And as the shadows grew longer and the sun another tint of red, the wounded man started to sing. All out of tune it was, in a strange, unnatural shrilly voice, the words jumbled and twisted:

Oh! eighteen hundred and slx-ty-one, hurrah—hurrah! We all set out to follow—the drumhurrah —’rah! An’ we’ll all be gay whe —en — He stopped, and, gazing straight be* fore him, an ugly grin on his face, his voice sounding much the same as when on a spree, said: Why can’t they come and fight their own battles. They make speeches fast enough and stir it all up like a boiling pot—round an’ round —an’ talk of the flag—an’ of patriot-ism-while we come and gets drilled in the chest They’re all evoked — the whole set. "An’ what’s it all fer—ye go through a hot campaign with the brownies, fightin’ fer the flag while it starves yer—an’ if they don’t shoot ye dead—the flag brings ye home in a leaky tub —an’ there ye goes a-marchin’ up the avenue, with the great white roof all yeller in the sun. A hot campaign and a hole in the chest —fer a yell from the crowd, thirteen per and a wave from a lady’s white handkerchief. An’ the corporal says ‘Dress ranks!' and ye march like peacocks, while ahead the band plays: “An’ we’ll all be gay when Johnnie ■comes marching home, Oh! in eighteen hundred and six—tyone. Hurrah! ’Rah! "Vvot about us fellars wot don’t march home; wot about the woman in the crowd, who, after the last rank files by, finds the band has lied?” His head went back, a yell from the woods told us the boys were coming up. Suddenly, sitting up straight, he bawled out: "D ’em; they’ll never march me up the ave-n ” • • • It was summer and the avenue lay all yellow in the warm sunshine, while far ahead the majestic dome of the capltol loomed against the blue. "Dress ranks,” said the corporal. "An’ we marched like peacocks,” and the crowd on either side cheered and cheered, and the ladies waved their white handkerchiefs to the bronzed and wrinkled lines of men. Then a band played, and as I heard the faint tune, I thought of a man we had left on the rocky ridge, and I looked for a watching woman in the crowd, for it seemed as if I could see again the wheeling vulture and the man sprawled out in the yellow dust, and could hear above the water’s ripple

among the reeds the strange whining song of the wounded soldier. “An’ we’ll all be gay whe —n Johnnie comes marchin’ home.’’ The man on my right must have been thinking the same, for he said, though the corporal growled at him for it: “D ’em, if they’ll march me up the avenue!”

One Sprawled, One Tangled.

"They’ll Never March Me.”