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The Hero Of Company G
by
Spruce’s heart, a simple and tender affair, as a soldier’s is, oftener than people know, swelled within him, not for the first time.
“Well, I guess I done right to come here,” thought he, “and I guess all the G boys will be out of the woods this week, and then I don’t care how soon we git our orders.”
Danvers stopped him when he returned. “I want to speak to you, Chris,” he next said, and a new note in his voice turned Spruce about abruptly.
“What’s the matter, Dick?”
“Oh, nothing, I only wanted to be sure you’d come back and say good-by before you got off. The regiment’s got its orders, you know?”
” No! ” cried Spruce. He swallowed a little gasp. “What are you giving me?”
“Oh, it’s straight; I heard them talking. Colonel has the order; the boys are packing to-day.”
Spruce’s eyes burned, he was minded to make some exclamations of profane joy, but his mood fell at the sight of the boy’s quivering smile.
“Great, isn’t it?” said Danvers. “I wish they’d waited two weeks and given us fellows a show, but I dare say there won’t be any show by that time, the way they are after the dons at Santiago. Can’t you get off now, to pack? But–you’ll be sure to come back and say good-by, Chris!”
“I ain’t off yet,” said Spruce, “and I ain’t too sure I will be. They’re always gitting orders and making an everlasting hustle to pack up, and then unpacking. You go to sleep.”
He was about to move away, but Danvers detained him, saying that he wanted to be turned; and as the soldier gently turned him, the boy got one of his hands and gave it a squeeze. He tried to say something, but was barely able to give Spruce a foolish smile. “Spruce, you’re a soldier and a gentleman!” he stammered. He turned away his head to hide the tears in his eyes. But Spruce had seen them. Of course he made no sign, stepping away briskly, with a little pat on the lean shoulder.
He came back softly in a little while. He looked at Danvers, who was simulating sleep, with his dark lashes fallen over red eyelids, and he shook his head. During his absence he had found that the orders were no rumor. The regiment was going to Porto Rico sure enough. Spruce stood a moment, before he sat down by Danvers’ side. But he barely was seated ere he was on his feet again, in a nervous irritation which none had ever seen in Spruce. He walked to the door of the tent and gazed, in the same attitude that the nurse had gazed, an hour earlier, at the low, white streets. Two great buzzards were flying low against the hot, cloudless vault of blue.
“Them boys’ll be all broke up if I go!” said Spruce.
He frowned and fidgeted. In fact, he displayed every symptom of a man struggling with a fit of furious temper. What really was buffeting Spruce’s soul was not, however, anger, it was the temptation of his life. Spruce had known few temptations; at least, he had recognized few. His morality was the lenient, rough-hewn article which satisfies a soldier’s conscience. He had no squeamishness about the sins outside his limited category; he fell into them blithely and had no remorse when he remembered them, wherefore he preserved a certain incongruous innocence even in his vices, as has happened to many a man before. It is, perhaps, the moral nature’s own defense; and keeps untouched and ever fresh little nooks and corners of a sinner’s soul, into which the conscience may retreat and from which sometimes she sallies forth to conquer the abandoned territory. What Spruce called his duty he had done quite as a matter of course. He had not wavered any more than he wavered when the war bonnets were swooping down on his old captain’s crumpled-up form. But this–this was different. The boys needed him. But if he stayed with the boys, there was the regiment and the company and the captain and the chance to distinguish himself and march back in glory to his town.