The Kicking Twelfth

THE Spitzenberg army was backed by traditions of centuries of victory. In its chronicles, occasional defeats were not printed in italics, but were likely to appear as glorious stands against overwhelming odds. A favorite way to dispose of them was to attribute them frankly to the blunders of the civilian heads of government. This was very good for the army, and probably no army had more self-confidence.

When it was announced that an expeditionary force was to be sent to Rostina to chastise an impudent people, a hundred barrack squares filled with excited men and a hundred sergeant-majors hurried silently through the groups and succeeded in looking as if they were the repositories of the secrets of empire. Officers on leave sped joyfully back to their harness, and recruits were abused with unflagging devotion by every man from colonels to privates of experience.

The Twelfth Regiment of the Line -- the Kicking Twelfth -- was consumed with a dread that it was not to be included in the expedition, and the regiment formed itself into an informal indignation meeting. Just as they had proved that a great outrage was about to be perpetrated, warning orders arrived to hold themselves in readiness for active service abroad in Rostina, in fact. The barrack yard was in a flash transformed into a blue and buff pandemonium, and the official bugle itself hardly had the power to quell the glad disturbance.

Thus it was that early in the spring the Kicking Twelfth -- 1,600 men in service equipment -- found itself crawling along a road in Rostina. They did not form part of the main force, but belonged to a column of four regiments of foot, two batteries of field guns, a battery of mountain howitzers, a regiment of horse and a company of engineers. Nothing had happened. The long column had crawled without amusement of any kind through a broad green valley. Big white farm houses dotted the slopes, but there was no sign of man or beast, and no smoke came from the chimneys. The column was operating from its own base, and its general was expected to form a junction with the main body at a given point.

A squadron of the cavalry was fanned out ahead, scouting, and day by day the trudging infantry watched the blue uniforms of the horsemen as they came and went. Sometimes there would sound the faint thuds of a few shots, but the cavalry was unable to find anything to engage seriously.

The Twelfth had no record of foreign service, and it could hardly be said that it had served as a unit in the great civil war when His Majesty the King had whipped the Pretender. At that time the regiment had suffered from two opinions. So that it was impossible for either side to depend upon it. Many men had deserted to the standard of the Pretender, and a number of officers had drawn their swords for him. When the King, a thorough soldier, looked at the remnant he saw that they lacked the spirit to be of great help to him in the tremendous battles which he was waging for his throne. And so this emaciated Twelfth was sent off to a corner of the kingdom to guard a dockyard, where some of the officers so plainly expressed their disapproval of this policy that the regiment received its steadfast name, the Kicking Twelfth.

At the time of which I am writing the Twelfth had a few veteran officers and well-bitten sergeants, but the body of the regiment was composed of men who had never heard a shot fired excepting on the rifle range. But it was an experience for which they longed and with it came the moment for the corps' cry, "Kim up the Kickers" -- there was not likely to be a man who would not go tumbling after his leaders.

Young Timothy Lean was a second lieutenant in the first company of the third battalion, and just at this time he was pattering along at the flank of the men, keeping a fatherly lookout for boots that hurt and packs that sagged. He was extremely bored. The mere faraway sound of desultory shooting was not war as he had been led to believe it.

It did not appear that behind that freckled face and under that red hair there was a mind which dreamed of blood. He was not extremely anxious to kill somebody, but he was very fond of soldiering -- it had been the career of his father and of his grandfather -- and he understood that the profession of arms lost much of its point unless a man shot at people, and had people shoot at him. Strolling in the sun through a practically deserted country might be a proper occupation for a divinity student on a vacation, but the soul of Timothy Lean was in revolt at it. Sometimes in the camp at night he would go morosely to the camp of the cavalry and hear the infant subalterns laughingly exaggerate the comedy side of adventures which they had had when out with small patrols far ahead. Lean would sit and listen in glum silence to these tales, and dislike the young officers -- many of them old military-school friends -- for having had experience in modern warfare. "Anyhow," he said, savagely, "presently you'll be getting into a lot of trouble, and then the Foot will have to come along and pull you out. We always do. That's history."

"Oh, we can take care of ourselves," said the cavalry, with good-natured understanding of his mood.

But the next day even Lean blessed the cavalry, for excited troopers came whirling back from the front, bending over their speeding horses and shouting wildly and hoarsely for the infantry to clear the way. Men yelled at them from the roadside as courier followed courier, and from the distance ahead sounded in quick succession six booms from field guns. The information possessed by the couriers was no longer precious. Everybody knew what a battery meant when it spoke. The bugles cried out, and the long column jolted into a halt. Old Colonel Sponge went bouncing in his saddle back to steer the general, and the regiment sat down in the grass by the roadside, and waited in silence. Presently the second squadron of the cavalry trotted off along the road in a cloud of dust, and in due time old Colonel Sponge came bouncing back and palavered his three majors and his adjutant. Then there was a bit more talk by the majors, and gradually through the correct channels spread information, which in due time reached Timothy Lean. The enemy, 5,000 strong, occupied a pass at the head of the valley some four miles beyond. They had three batteries well posted. Their infantry was intrenched. The ground in their front was crossed and lined with many ditches and hedges, but the enemy's batteries were so posted that it was doubtful if a ditch would ever prove convenient as shelter for the Spitzenberg infantry. There was a fair position for the Spitzenberg artillery 2,300 yards from the enemy. The cavalry had succeeded in driving the enemy's skirmishers back upon the main body, but of course had only tried to worry them a little. The position was almost inaccessible on the enemy's right, owing to high, steep hills which had been crowned by small parties of infantry. The enemy's left, although guarded by a much larger force, was approachable and might be flanked. This was what the cavalry had to say, and it added briefly a report of two troopers killed and five wounded.

Whereupon, Major-General Richie, commanding a force of 7,500 men of His Majesty of Spitzenberg, set in motion with a few simple words the machinery which would launch his army at the enemy. The Twelfth understood the orders when they saw the smart young aide approaching old Colonel Sponge, and they rose as one man, apparently afraid that they would be late. There was a clank of accoutrements. Men shrugged their shoulders tighter against their packs, and thrusting their thumbs between their belts and their tunics, they wriggled into a closer fit with regard to the heavy ammunition equipment. It is curious to note that almost every man took off his cap and looked contemplatively into it as if to read a maker's name. Then they replaced their caps with great care. There was little talking, and it was not observable that a single soldier handed a token or left a comrade with a message to be delivered in case he should be killed. They did not seem to think of being killed; they seemed absorbed in a desire to know what would happen, and what it would look like when it was happening. Men glanced continually at their officers in a plain desire to be quick to understand the very first order that would be given, and officers looked gravely at their men, measuring them, feeling their temper, worrying about them.

A bugle called: there were sharp cries; and the Kicking Twelfth was off to battle.

The regiment had the right of the line in the infantry brigade, and as the men tramped noisily along the white road every eye was strained ahead, but, after all, there was nothing to be seen but a dozen farms -- in short, a country-side. It resembled the scenery in Spitzenberg; every man in the Kicking Twelfth had often confronted a dozen such farms with a composure which amounted to indifference. But still down the road there came galloping troopers, who delivered information to Colonel Sponge and then galloped on. But in time the Twelfth came to the top of a rise, and below them, on a plain, was the heavy black streak of a Spitzenberg squadron, and back of the squadron loomed the gray bare hill of the Rostina position. There was a little of skirmish firing. The Twelfth reached a knoll which the officers easily recognized as the place described by the cavalry as suitable for the Spitzenberg guns. The men swarmed up it in a peculiar formation. They resembled a crowd coming off a race-track, but, nevertheless, there were no stray sheep. It is simply that the ground on which actual battles are fought is not like a chessboard. And after them came swinging a six-gun battery, the guns wagging from side to side as the long line turned out of the road, and the drivers using their whips as the leading guns scrambled at the hill. The halted Twelfth lifted its voice and spake amiably but with point to the battery: "Go on, guns! We'll take care of you. Don't be afraid. Give it to them." The teams -- lead, swing and wheel -- struggled and slipped over the steep and uneven ground, and the gunners, as they clung to their springless positions, wore their usual and natural air of unhappiness. They made no reply to the infantry. Once upon the top of the hill, however, these guns were unlimbered in a flash, and directly the infantry could hear the loud voice of an officer drawling out the time for the fuses. A moment later the first three-point-two bellowed out, and there could be heard the swish and the snarl of a fleeting shell. Colonel Sponge and a number of officers climbed to the battery's position, but the men of the regiment sat in the shelter of the hill like so many blind-folded people and wondered what they would have been able to see if they had been officers. Sometimes the shells of the enemy came sweeping over the top of the hill and burst in great brown explosions in the fields to the rear. The men looked after them and laughed. To the rear could be seen also the mountain battery coming at a comic trot with every man obviously in a deep rage with every mule. If a man can put in long service with a mule battery, and come out of it with an amiable disposition, he should be presented with a medal weighing many ounces. After the mule battery came a long, black, winding thing which was three regiments of Spitzenberg infantry, and back of them and to the right was an inky square, which was the remaining Spitzenberg guns. General Richie and his staff clattered up to the hill. The blindfolded Twelfth sat still. The inky square suddenly became a long racing line. The howitzers joined their little bark to the thunder of the guns on the hill, and the three regiments of infantry came on. The Twelfth sat still.

Of a sudden a bugle rang its warning, and the officers shouted. Some used the old cry, "Attention! Kim up the Kickers!" and the Twelfth knew that it had been told to go in. The majority of the men expected to see great things as soon as they rounded the shoulder of the hill, but there was nothing to be seen save a complicated plain and the gray knolls occupied by the enemy. Many company commanders in low voices worked at their men and said things which do not appear in the written reports. They talked soothingly; they talked indignantly, and they talked always like father. And the men heard no sentence completely. They heard no specific direction, these wide-eyed men. They understood that there was being delivered some kind of exhortation to do as they had been taught, and they also understood that a superior intelligence was anxious over their behavior and welfare.

There was a great deal of floundering through hedges, a climbing of walls, a jumping of ditches. Curiously original privates try to find new and easier ways for themselves instead of following the men in front of them. Officers had short fits of fury over these people. The more originality they possessed the more likely they were to become separated from their companies. Colonel Sponge was making an exciting progress on a big charger. When the first faint song of the bullets came from above, the men wondered why he sat so high. The charger seemed as tall as the Eiffel Tower. But if he was high in the air, he had a fine view, and that is supposedly why people ascend the Eiffel Tower. Very often he had been a joke to them, but when they saw this fat old gentleman so coolly treating the strange new missiles which hummed in the air, it struck them suddenly that they had wronged him seriously, and a man who could attain the command of a Spitzenberg regiment was entitled to general respect. And they gave him a sudden quick affection, an affection that would make them follow him heartily, trustfully, grandly -- this fat old gentleman, seated on a too-big horse. In a flash, his touseled gray head, his short, thick legs, even his paunch had become specially and humorously endeared to them. And this is the way of soldiers.

But still the Twelfth had not yet come to the place where tumbling bodies begin their test of the very heart of a regiment. They backed through more hedges, jumped more ditches, slid over more walls. The Rostina artillery had seemed to have been asleep, but suddenly the guns aroused like dogs from their kennels and around the Twelfth there began a wild, swift screeching. There arose cries to hurry, to come on, and as the rifle bullets began to plunge into them, the men saw the high, formidable hills of the enemy's right, and perfectly understood that they were doomed to storm them. The cheering thing was the sudden beginning of a tremendous uproar on the enemy's left.

Every man ran, hard, tense, breathless. When they reached the foot of the hills they thought they had won the charge already, but they were electrified to see officers above them waving their swords and yelling with anger, surprise and shame. With a long, murmurous outcry, the Twelfth began to climb the hill. And as they went and fell, they could hear frenzied shouts. "Kim up the Kickers." The pace was slow. It was like the rising of a tide. It was determined, almost relentless in its appearance, but it was slow. If a man fell, there was a chance that he would land twenty yards below the point where he was hit. The Kickers crawled, their rifles in their left hands as they pulled and tugged themselves up with their right hands. Ever arose the shout, "Kim up the Kickers." Timothy Lean, his face flaming, his eyes wild, yelled it back as if he was delivering the gospel.

The Kickers came up. The enemy -- they had been in small force, thinking the hills safe enough from attack -- retreated quickly from this preposterous advance, and not a bayonet in the Twelfth saw blood. Bayonets very seldom do.

The homing of this successful charge wore an unromantic aspect. About twenty windless men suddenly arrived and threw themselves upon the crest of the hill and breathed. And these twenty were joined by others and still others until almost 1,100 men of the Twelfth lay upon the hilltop. The regiment's track was marked by body after body, in groups and singly. The first officer -- perchance, the first man -- one never can be certain -- the first officer to gain the top of the hill was Timothy Lean, and such was the situation that he had the honor to receive his colonel with a bashful salute.

The regiment knew exactly what it had done. It did not have to wait to be told by the Spitzenberg newspapers. It had taken a formidable position with the loss of about 500 men, and it knew it. It knew, too, that it was a great glory for the Kicking Twelfth, and as the men lay rolling on their bellies, they expressed their joy in a wild cry. "Kim up the Kickers." For a moment there was nothing but joy, and then suddenly company commanders were besieged by men who wished to go down the path of the charge and look for their mates. The answers were without the quality of mercy. They were short, snapped quick words:

"No, you can't."

The attack on the enemy's left was sounding in great rolling crashes. The shells in their flight through the air made a noise as of red-hot iron plunged into water, and stray bullets nipped near the ears of the Kickers.

The Kickers looked and saw. The battle was below them. The enemy was indicated by a long, noisy line of gossamer smoke, although there could be seen a toy battery with tiny men employed at the guns. All over the field the shrapnel was bursting, making quick bulbs of white smoke. Far away two regiments of Spitzenberg infantry were charging, and at the distance this charge looked like a casual stroll. It appeared that small black groups of men were walking meditatively toward the Rostina entrenchments.

There would have been orders given sooner to the Twelfth, but unfortunately Colonel Sponge arrived on top of the hill without a breath of wind in his body. He could not have given an order to save the regiment from being wiped off the earth. Finally he was able to gasp out something and point at the enemy. Timothy Lean ran along the line yelling to the men to sight at 800 yards, and like a slow and ponderous machine, the regiment again went to work. The fire flanked a great part of the enemy's trenches.

It could be said that there were only two prominent points of view expressed by the men after their victorious arrival on the crest. One was defined in the exulting use of the corps' cry. The other was a grief-stricken murmur which is invariably heard after a hard fight: "My God, we're all cut to pieces!"

Colonel Sponge sat on the ground and impatiently waited for his wind to return. As soon as it did, he arose and cried out, "Form up and we'll charge again! We will win this battle as soon as we can hit them!" The shouts of the officers sounded wild like men yelling on shipboard in a gale. And the obedient Kickers arose for their task. It was running down hill this time. The mob of panting men poured over the stones.

But the enemy had not been at all blind to the great advantage gained by the Twelfth, and they now turned upon them a desperate fire of small arms. Men fell in every imaginable way, and their accoutrements rattled on the rocky ground. Some landed with a crash, floored by some tremendous blow; others dropped gently down like sacks of meal; with others it would positively appear that some spirit had suddenly seized them by the ankles and jerked their legs from under them. Many officers were down, but Colonel Sponge, stuttering and blowing, was still upright. He was almost the last man in the charge, but not to his shame, rather to his stumpy legs. At one time it seemed that the assault would be lost. The effect of the fire was somewhat as if a terrible cyclone was blowing in the men's faces. They wavered, lowering their heads and shouldering weakly as if it were impossible to make headway against the wind of battle. It was the moment of despair, the moment of the heroism which comes to the chosen of the war god. The colonel's cry broke and screeched absolute hatred. Other officers simply howled, and the men silent, debased, seemed to tighten their muscles for one last effort. Again they pushed against this mysterious power of the air, and once more the regiment was charging. Timothy Lean, agile and strong, was well in advance, and afterward he reflected that the men who had been nearest to him were an old grizzled sergeant, who would have gone to hell for the honor of the regiment, and a pie-faced lad who had been obliged to lie about his age in order to get into the army.

There was no shock of meeting. The Twelfth came down on a corner of the trenches, and as soon as the enemy had ascertained that the Twelfth was certain to arrive, they scuttled out, running close to the earth and spending no time in glances backward. In these days it is not discreet to wait for a charge to come home. You observe the charge, you attempt to stop it, and if you find that you can't, it is better to retire immediately to some other place. The Rostina soldiers were not heroes, perhaps, but they were men of sense. A maddened and badly frightened mob of Kickers came tumbling into the trench and shot at the backs of fleeing men. And at that very moment the action was won, and won by the Kickers. The enemy's flank was entirely crumpled, and, knowing this, he did not await further and more disastrous information. The Twelfth looked at themselves, and knew that they had a record. They sat down and grinned patronizingly as they saw the batteries galloping to advance positions to shell the retreat, and they really laughed as the cavalry swept tumultuously forward.

The Twelfth had no more concern with the battle. They had won it, and the subsequent proceedings were only amusing.

There was a call from the flank, and the men wearily came to attention as General Richie and his staff came trotting up. The young general, cold-eyed, stern and grim as a Roman, looked with his straight glance at a hammered and thin and dirty line of figures which was His Majesty's Twelfth Regiment of the Line. When opposite old Colonel Sponge, a pudgy figure standing at attention, the general's face set in still more grim and stern lines. He took off his helmet. "Kim up the Kickers," said he. He replaced his helmet and rode off. Down the cheeks of the little fat colonel rolled tears. He stood like a stone for a long moment, and then wheeled in supreme wrath upon his surprised adjutant. "Delahaye, you damn fool, don't stand there staring like a monkey. Go tell young Lean I want to see him." The adjutant jumped as if he was on springs, and went after Lean. That young officer presented himself directly, his face covered with disgraceful smudges, and he had also torn his breeches. He had never seen the colonel in such a rage. "Lean, you young whelp, you -- you're a good boy." And even as the general had turned away from the colonel, the colonel turned away from the lieutenant.