The Man who Wouldn't Stay Put

IMMY CROGAN was such a natural born warrior that it was a great effort for him to endure that season of the year when peace on earth and good will toward men are supposed to abound. He could become more wrought up over the efforts to establish international peace than the expounders of certain propaganda can over any of the many obvious ills resulting from our social system. When a great steel manufacturer gave ten millions of dollars to aid in the abolition of war, Jimmy Crogan cried aloud in his sleep, night after night. He read constantly—the history of wars. He studied constantly—the theory of war. No girl's picture was framed on his dresser. Only one picture was in his room. It hung in a heavily chased silver frame at the foot of his bed, where he could see it when he stuck his hand from beneath the covers to switch out the lights at night and, again, when he bounced from his slumbers to the cackling blare of the reveille. It was a picture of the god Mars.

And so it was that when the regiment was ordered South with decisive action a certainty and Lieutenant Jimmy Crogan was left behind in charge of the post, all his military training went for nothing. He damned the department, damned the colonel, damned fate, and was damned sorry he had ever been born. Anyhow, that's what he said.

AMES CROGAN had been waiting for action since he was old enough to know, in the vaguest sort of a way, what the word meant. It was to play at war that he refused to be content until taken from the public schools and sent to a military academy. It was to see battling armies that he ran away from the place, made his way to Tampa, and tried to follow the troops to Cuba. It was the hope of war that kept him in the front rank of his class at the Point and made it possible for him to take up the dull routine of military life with enthusiasm.

Every time an army took the field, the spirits of James Crogan went to a shrill pitch. It mattered not a great deal whether the army were that of a bankrupt republic the size of a good farm or that of the Czar. It meant war, and for war he lived. Believing it necessary to his profession, he became an authority on aviation. He knew more about guns than the whole Krupp family. He designed a new wireless apparatus that attracted much attention from Washington.

Long before the President opened the canal to the long line of sullen dreadnoughts that moved into the Pacific, not as celebrators of a great achievement, but ominously, the newspapers carried wild, incoherent rumors that served to set the blood of men like Jimmy dancing. He then had discussed the chances of the outraging of the Monroe Doctrine until he became a bore. When the rumors became less vague, appeared to have more foundation, Lieutenant Jimmy smiled with an I-told-you-so smirk and regarded himself as the authority par excellence on advance information from history. He refused to argue, merely stating his beliefs as facts with an air of finality that was crushing. When the movement of the fleet justified all the former statements of this young officer and the men paraded for the first time in service uniforms, it required all his self-control to keep from dancing a solitary jig. He thought of one place, and only one place—the front; he was oblivious to the fact that any other locality existed.

And then, when the final touch had been given, when the officers' wives had commenced to weep, on the eve of the hour when the regiment was to move southward to the border, Lieutenant Jimmy Crogan was detailed to remain at the post. He saw the men march away, down the street to the depot, their tan shoes thumping gladly on the hard road. He heard the regimental band putting into delighted blares the enthusiastic sense of relief that saturated the atmosphere. And he went back to the post, to be polite to the weepy ladies, to see that the stables were swept out, the stock fed, and the miserable routine put through as per regulation.

T WAS humiliating. It was degrading—torturing. Jimmy tried for days to determine why he had been left behind, and got nowhere. Then he gave it up, subscribed to all the papers, and barricaded himself behind a wall of information that doubtless excelled that possessed by most of the men who were with the mobilized army.

The situation grew suddenly acute. From distinctly naval warfare it spread to the land. The canal was gone—for the time being, at least—and the allied armies worked north and south, the principal object of their attack evidently lying to the north.

Long trains lumbered up through the tropical jungles, crammed with men who talked a strange language and who were backed by a history replete with gigantic successes. It needed no appeal from Mexico to send the army across the border.

HE officers of the National Guard were ordered to fill their ranks. Jimmy laughed bitterly when he read that news in his papers. Then he dropped the sheet to the floor and stared blankly across the flat parade ground for an hour or more. Three days later the militia was ordered under arms, to move at an hour's notice, and Lieutenant Jimmy walked alone, with a white face and a stiff tread.

In the morning Lieutenant Crogan was missing from the post. The colonel's lady and the post washerwomen talked about it alike, and in whispers. When two days passed and no sign of the man in command had appeared, the information was wired to headquarters. The colonel—Jimmy's colonel—read a copy of the message just as the recruiting officer of a National Guard regiment was taking the measurements of a decidedly well-put-up chap, who answered all the requirements and seemed to be a whole lot better than most of the men who made up the militia.

This new man listened with a bored expression to the sergeant who was detailed to school the rookies. He grasped all the movements on the instant, it seemed; once he shook his head and uttered what might have been the first syllable of a protest when the sergeant launched into a new explanation. Evidently he thought better of it, though, for he stared straight ahead in silence, while a deep flush stole from his collar to his hair.

Private Crogan, under another name, moved south with his regiment. They were stationed in a town consisting of seven 'dobe shacks and a large population of shy dogs. Camp was made, alkali water consumed, and the shoe clerks and insurance solicitors in olive, drab became duly miserable. Jimmy enjoyed it immensely, in spite of the fact that the van of the army was fifty miles to the south.

HEY were to be moved, went the rumor, after a week of drilling under the hot sun, among the cactus plants. Great was the resultant excitement. They were going home, went another rumor, and Jimmy, now tuned to a sensitiveness that was painful, had visions of a return to the narrow lasts and twenty-year endowments for the regiment; for him—well, it would be beginning at the bottom again. He whispered harshly to himself as he lay in his blankets and tried to think back, behind the rumors that seesawed their way through the camp. Finally, though, came the order to make ready to move. The camp went up on its toes and slept not at all for a whole night, whispering its hopes and fears. The next day they moved southward. And one private was so hilarious, so boyishly jubilant, that he almost laughed aloud in the faces of the officers at inspection.

It took all day to go those fifty miles, and the journey, with its discomforts, was spirit-killing. But Private Jimmy's spirit was immortal. His head was out of the window from the start. At every start he waxed nervous as a woman. The only quieting influence was the progressive turn of the car wheels. At sundown they left their train, marched up a rise, gained the top, and drew one great breath in unison as they looked at the army spread out before them. The cook fires were blazing, the regimental flags were billowing softly in the light breeze, the colors were catching the last rays of daylight. Away to the left was ranged artillery. On the extreme right the horses of cavalry stuck their noses deep into the canvas mangers. In front, spreading out from a little village, was the infantry.

War! An army! Before, over the dun country, the enemy! Unknown, powerful, aggressive! War!

The cackle of the bugle, softened by the distance to a sweetness, came to the marching regiment. Another and another, all down the line. And the camps stirred themselves. A myriad of hungry, moving figures flocked to a hundred feeding centers.

"God!" breathed a private whose first name was Jimmy, and the word carried a thankful reverence.

N THE light of early morning Jimmy Crogan, stepping lightly, a smile in his eyes, delighted anticipation in his heart, followed a string of army mules to the railroad water tank. Toward them, walking stiffly, came a man who wore the decorations of a colonel. His gaze fell on the squad of National Guardsmen and, recognizing their rank, he looked them over curiously. His gaze fell on James Crogan and he staggered backward a step or two.

Jimmy stopped. He met the astounded look of his old colonel, clicked his heels together, and raised his hand in a stiff salute.

"Lieutenant Crogan!" the other cried when he made words out of his sputtering. "What's the meaning of this damned business?"

"Yes, sir," muttered Jimmy, knowing nothing else to say.

"You deserted the post!" snorted the other.

"Yes, sir, colonel," replied Jimmy, saluting again.

"You're here with the Guard!"

"Yes, sir."

"Why, you," but the colonel could think of no fitting word, so he simply ordered Jimmy's arrest.

An object for all the staring eyes of his own regiment, grimly looking fate in the face, Lieutenant Crogan, deserter from the Regular Army, rooky with the National Guard, was marched through the company streets by men to whom he had taught the fine art of war, and incarcerated in a one-room, tarantula-infested adobe house.

Lieutenant "Chickens" Rawley searched him. Jimmy and "Chickens" were classmates at the Point.

"Tough luck, old top," he muttered, as he went through the formality of searching the prisoner. "What's the answer?"

"Nothing," muttered Jimmy, moving his lips as slightly as possible so the men would not see. "You'd have done the same thing. You wouldn't have stayed put."

HEN Lieutenant Rawley, all obvious of dignity, gave the prisoner's elbow an affectionate little squeeze and went away.

The news that ran through the camp became more and more grave. The invading army was advancing steadily, ominously. Back in the States the newspapers screamed through their extras. On the line, officers sat through the nights in grave conference.

"They'll advance us before long," the man that fed the prisoner told his old lieutenant.

"Lots of good it'll do me," commented Jimmy, taking a spoonful of beans and blowing them disdainfully against the wall of his prison. "Lots of good!"

The officers talked of water supply and mountain ranges and fever and transportation; they discussed the details of the attack that seemed inevitable. They planned to send their men into war. And, alone in an adobe shack, one of war's most faithful lovers sat through the brilliant nights and smoked cigarettes and gazed through the lone window at the moon-glossed mountain peaks in the distance. Real action was inevitable. Jimmy Crogan was out of it; that was as certain as is death. He did not wonder what they would do with him. The delay in his trial caused him no worry. There was work for fighting men, and he was to rot, like an ordinary sneak thief. Before the bald truth of that fact, reduction in rank or military prison—even death with a bandage over his eyes—had no terrors for Jimmy Crogan.

RADUALLY more troops came from the north. They marched in clouds of dust, camped under the ridge, until the desolate country became alive with throbbing humanity.

Twisting through the camps like a grapevine ran the rumor of decisive action. The invaders had formed their base, it said. Close up, it was, so close up that action could be brought about by a five-hour march. They were making their trenches atop a short ridge, an admirable position. Why this had not been prevented was not a matter of speculation. A mistake had been made, and the crisis was too near to warrant discussion of the blame. Rout the invading army and the danger of changed maps would pass; fail and—

Lieutenant Crogan found himself awake in the middle of his prison, the sunlight streaming through the cracks in the wall and his heart thumping stoutly, right up in his throat. Then he laughed. It wasn't a battery, after all. Just the roar of a 'plane's exhaust as it circled above the camp. Through his window he could see the thing as it winged its way to the south, looking like a big bug. Jimmy kicked the mud floor viciously. He would have bartered his soul to be the man operating the air craft or the one by his side, with the big camera between his knees. Hours passed and the aeroplane did not return. Another went up and winged its way into the distance and disappeared and did not come back. The next day a third and a fourth made the attempt. And none came back.

That afternoon Lieutenant Rawley entered the guard-house on official business—of course. His face was pinched and drawn. He looked at the prisoner in silence.

He held up four fingers of his right hand.

"Four," he said weakly.

"Yah—four," said Jimmy, speculating as to the sanity of his jailer.

"They've a battery," said Rawley in a voice that grated, "that gets the 'planes at any distance. Four—Lord! And they've got to send men up that hill to-night on their bellies—the way they did at San Juan."

ILENCE for a moment.

"To-night? Volunteers—to map the hill?" asked Jimmy in a whisper.

"Yes—and it's coming," replied Rawley. "It's coming sure. We'll be tangling with 'em in forty-eight hours, I'm afraid," he muttered.

"Afraid!" scoffed Jimmy when he was alone. "Great God! Afraid! Those fellows don't—"

He looked through the one window for a long, long time.

"Me—sitting here and listening to the firing? Oh, it's a joke!" he cried, and buried his face in his hands.

Lieutenant Crogan watched the day fade, watched the blue of the mountains deepen to purple, saw the play of receding light on the peaks, the gaudy eastern sky. the pricking through of the first stars—saw it all with a sodden spirit. He could almost feel the throb that ran through the army when volunteers to go up that hill were asked for. He imagined how the chosen men would roll about restlessly in their blankets, waiting for this night and the next day to pass, bringing the night when they would make intelligent attack possible. If he could go! He got up and kicked to pieces the soap box which he had used for a chair. The guard looked through the window, but saw only the dull glow of a cigarette as a man in a far corner of the shack smoked and looked out at the fast-deepening heavens. The swift night settled down and the hum of the camp diminished to a drone. A horse in the corral neighed shrilly, and two men, passing the guardhouse, laughed nervously. Activity was in the air. It made living tense.

"The moon," said Jimmy to himself, "will rise after midnight. And it's a cinch!"

E WENT to a corner of the one room and squatted on the floor. With a stick he jabbed at the mud between the big adobe bricks. It crumbled easily under the attack. In a half hour the brick was loose, and he could work it in toward him by careful prying, first on one side, then on the other. He worked a second block loose; then the one above the two. An hour later he stuck his head and shoulders out, put his ear against the ground to hear better the tread of the sentry, chose his time well and slipped into the night. Carefully he crawled between the tents; cautiously he picked his way to avoid lights. Once a hurrying man almost stepped on his hand. Progress was slower than he had thought it would be, and a half hour passed before he was a hundred yards away from the building that had been his prison. He worked away from his own regiment and passed through the camp of another. A dozen times he was on the point of making a break for it, certain of discovery, and willing to take his chances in the darkness, but each time the danger passed, ever so closely. An hour went by and he commenced to fear that the moon would frustrate all his efforts. At last he left the man-infested area behind and crept on faster. He heard a boot kick a pebble among some rocks, and pressed his body hard against the earth as he held his breath and felt the blood roar in his ears. The steps came nearer and then passed him. going slowly away. He scrambled across the path the boots had made and stopped to listen. Behind him he heard a gruff challenge and an answer. He was beyond the army! He was in the van!

"Well," he told himself, "a man never did anything who stayed put!"

Jimmy crawled on his hands and knees for what he guessed was three hundred yards. Then he stretched himself with a great breath, slapped his chest gently with the palms of his hands, smiled up at the stars, and commenced to walk, carefully, catlike. For a half hour he traveled slowly, choosing every foothold. It worked on his nerves and he summoned his every shred of will to hold himself to the slow pace. He glanced behind him and laughed softly—if nervously—as he saw the camp lights receding slowly into the distance. At last he crossed a little stream that babbled down a rocky bed. He trotted a few steps, certain that the sound would be covered, and then settled to a swift walk. For a little while he followed the road, and then, when the moon shoved its yellow rim above the hills to the east, he struck out across the almost barren country.

IEUTENANT JAMES CROGAN, alone between two hostile armies, breakfasted on prickly pear, scraping the minute barbs off with a sharp stone. He drank from a water hole, crept under a bush and settled down to wait the long day through. He could see the hilltop from where he lay, could see things that looked like flies swarming over it.

Once the shrill wail of a strange bugle call reached him. He saw a thin line of color that was lighter than the rest of the hill grow longer. Intrenchments, he told himself. He saw squads of men come down the hill and wander about crazily, though with a purpose. Spinning webs of barbed wire, he was certain. He saw two treeless belts, one three-quarters of the way up the hill, and the other right at the top. Late in the afternoon he slept a little and awoke in a sweat, feeling faint and empty. For a moment he did not realize things connectedly. Then it all came back to him and he gloried in the realization that the sun was setting.

Night came after centuries of waiting and he left his shelter. He walked a mile, perhaps. Then he crouched and crawled at times, seldom standing erect. Always he kept his eyes on the wavering lights above him; at frequent intervals he paused and strained his ears. The lights died out, one at a time, and bugles blew the army before him to sleep. He went on, up the rise. For hours he worked along, stooping, crawling, worming his way through heavy brush, grasped at by thorns and catching his feet in gnarled roots and vines. At last he worked his way to the edge of the first treeless belt. It was several hundred yards wide and he stood up to look about him.

From the top of the rise above him shot a blinding eye of light. It pierced the distance to the northward for an instant, settled to the ground with a jerk and swept in a gigantic arc over the country, slowly, scouring the open places, illuminating the brush. Jimmy dropped just before it reached him, flattening his face in the sand. He could see the white glare all about him for a time. Then it became dark again and he looked up to see the finger of white drilling the night far away.

HE man took a long chance on the open country and made a cautious run for it. He went quietly until his foot slipped and he went down, banging his head on a rock. The blow made him dizzy and the noise he made terrified him. But he got up and stumbled along in the darkness, ready to flop to the ground the instant the searchlight turned his way again. He gained the timbered stretch that was above and breathed easier. It was more difficult to travel, of course, for the brush was stiff and thick, but he was under cover at least. Jimmy reached out his hand to draw aside what, in the darkness, looked like a vine. The points of barbed wire dug into the flesh of his hands and he stood very still for a long time, listening for footsteps. Once more came the finger of light and he squatted in the bushes while it made the stunted forest glow.

With great difficulty Jimmy wormed his way through the wire. It cut his clothing and it pricked his flesh, but he did not heed. On he went again, making every move take him nearer the crest of the hill and making every motion as near noiseless as was possible, he worked his way through another wire net, worse than the first. Then the light came back and he lay still for a long time. Perhaps it was a fortunate thing that he did feel compelled to lay still, for he heard something—a faint and regular sound. He pressed his ear to the ground and strained to listen. It grew stronger, stopped, receded, and died away. After a time it came back again, growing stronger but not strong, stopping, and, after a deliberate interval, resuming, only to die off.

Lieutenant Crogan crawled with greater care than ever. He struck his hand against a mescal plant and gritted his teeth to keep back a cry of surprise and pain. He suddenly thought that if he had eaten something he might have been steadier. However, there was nothing to eat, so he set his mind back to his work. He went on, like a careful cat. After he had crawled fifty yards more and stopped to listen, he heard the sound plainly. In fact, he could hear the boots that made it swishing through the grass. He waited until the sentry reached the end of his post and turned back. With utmost caution, then, he hurried along for many yards, stopped, scarcely breathing, and waited while the soldier came and went again.

Thus he proceeded. Two more wire webs ripped his clothing and haggled his flesh; three more sentries patrolled the path he took. Out of the brush he worked, into the open strip, not four hundred yards from the ridge, where low bushes and heavy grasses grew thickly. He crawled a short way into this and then sat up, looking about boldly. He held his breath as he turned his head this way and that, but the only sound he could hear was the occasional footstep of the sentry he had last left behind.

IMMY laughed crazily. War! This was it! This was that for which he had worked and waited and deserted and broken from the guardhouse! He wanted just one thing now. He wanted to gain the top and see what was there. Then—well, they could shoot and shoot and shoot. He cared not. The information he might get would help no one. Rut this was war!

Again he realized that he had eaten nothing for a long time.

Jimmy got up and ran. It was a crazy thing to do. He realized that, and wondered if he was crazy. Then he tripped and fell and was content to lie still again. He became penitent—more sane. He heard the tramp of feet and sensed the presence of humans. They passed close to him. He could even hear the men breathe. It was a small squad, evidently a change of guard. The sound of their marching was sufficient to cover any noise he might make, so Jimmy started on.

Worming like a snake, keeping his body tight against the ground, topping only when a shaft of brilliance swept over him. Lieutenant Crogan, scout extraordinary, worked his way forward. For a long time he encountered no entanglements. Finally he shoved his head and shoulders into thonged wire; rather than risk rising, he scraped away the earth and crawled underneath.

It was the last one. A dark hump rose before him, and when he raised his head he could see it running in both directions, like a long welt, across the hilltop. He crawled to it. touched fresh earth, and knew that he was before the trenches! No men were there. He made sure of it. Then he crawled up to the top of the embankment and slipped down inside, sheltered from the searchlight. He crawled along the trench cautiously. He was in the heart of the enemy's stronghold.

HE return: it was agony. Jimmy wanted to run and dance and sing. He worked carelessly through the first few yards of grass. Then a swoop of the light brought him to himself and he went cautiously. He gained the cover of the brush and realized the presence of some new element. For a moment it puzzled him. Then he laughed and looked to the east, where the yellow moon glowed on the horizon.

But the laugh died. To the left he heard a shot. Then a shout. Then silence. After a moment he distinguished footsteps descending the hill hurriedly. He stood still and reeked cold sweat, vaguely aware that he had been acting as though in a dream. The searchlight riveted itself on a group of men in uniform. They were clustered informally about some central object, evidently of engrossing interest.

"I'm glad it wasn't me," said Jimmy, half aloud. A sob was in his voice. He could not distinguish the thing that had attracted a shot and a shout and men and the searchlight, but he guessed it was some man who had been crawling up hill and who, under the rules of war, had no right to be there.

Jimmy moved softly through the underbrush. The moonlight made it a bit easier for him. The searchlight bothered now and then, but, somehow, he was growing accustomed to it. Either that or else reckless. He took the precaution, though, to listen attentively every few dozen yards. He gained once more the lower treeless strip and wriggled his way across it under the shadow of the bushes. He raised his head once and saw two pacing men, the light of the moon caught and scattered by their bayonet tips. Once more he came out of the daze in which he had been working for so long. He entered the taller growth and tore his legs badly getting through the next to the last wire entanglement. Then he stood up. He wondered why he was going back. He had tasted war. He had triumphed. He was on his way to disgrace, now, in the hour of his glory!

HE voice was that of a foreigner. But it was unmistakable. The intimation carried the challenge.

Jimmy started to run. The man was behind—perhaps fifty yards. He fired before the fleeing lieutenant could make his second move. The bullet ripped through the brush. Jimmy went faster, going over and through the brush, tripping now and then, but always keeping on. Again the gun behind him spoke; this time the bullet buried itself in a tree, a few feet to his right. He was aware of an increased glow and knew that the searchlight was trying to find him, but its rays were so broken and scattered by leaf and limb that the glare did not reveal him clearly. He crashed into the last barrier of wire and wrestled his way through, leaving his blood on the foliage about the place. He heard others coming. To his strained ears the brush seemed alive with floundering men. A rifle to the right banged dully and he heard the bullet drone, close overhead. The man behind shot again, and, from the sound, Jimmy knew that he was increasing his lead. He slid down into a little gully and climbed up the other side. Once he was forced to run across a moonlit patch of open ground, but none saw him; at least, not in time to shoot. Always, the searchlight played over the country, trying to pick Jimmy out, baffled by wood and topography. To keep away from the rifles was another matter.

IMMY struck a road and followed it a short distance. He could hear men running behind him, when he stopped to listen. He climbed an abrupt outcropping of rock, and, hiding behind a boulder, scanned the country while he panted desperately. He was very hungry. He saw a little group of men, four or five, perhaps, run along the road and then disappear in the trees. He took a course which would lead him away from them, but still carry him in the general direction of his army.

His army? He wondered why.

He wondered that he did not feel faint, for he remembered the prickly pear and the water. Perhaps that gnawing emptiness was the thing that made him continually conscious in a vague sort of a way of some great presence, the exact identity of which he did not have time to determine because of all these details. Anyhow, it was war—!

War! That was it! He laughed aloud at the thought. All those years at the Point; all that time in service; the waiting, the routine, the hopes that had been chilled so often. He remembered, too, that he had been left at a post somewhere. Oh, yes—that was disagreeable, indeed. Why, it was growing light! Very light. The attack? Was there to be an attack? Of course! It was about time—about time for the attack—

He got up from the rock on which he had been sitting and gazed about. It was daylight, the chill of morning was in the air. He looked behind him and could see no hill. He was out of sight, in a little arroyo. Then he remembered, and moaned as he made his legs carry him on. The sun came up and he blinked at it, standing motionless in the road until he could call it by name. Then he walked some more.

HE staff was all but in a funk. The army was moved up. The attack had been planned. The one thing lacking was first-hand information from the top of the hill. Without it they were stalled.

A colonel, who felt no desire to sleep, even after the long march of the night and the racking strain under which he had labored, walked out from headquarters.

"They should have been back an hour after midnight," he said to another colonel. "That is—if they're coming back." He spoke in a whisper of the men who had gone up the hill the night before.

Just then two soldiers, half carrying a limp, tattered thing that could not manipulate its feet, came toward them.

"Well, I'll be !" roared the first colonel, coming to a halt before the trio. They, too, stopped.

"Well, I'll be—" He could only sputter in his rage.

The thing between the two men forced its head to stay erect. Then an arm, cut and torn under the ribbons that had once been a sleeve, went slowly upward in salute.

"Yes, sir," said Lieutenant Jimmy Crogan, forcing his knees to keep steady inside his blood-starched trousers. "Yes, sir—their trenches extend from the shoulder of the hill to—battery—and— And barbed wire, sir!" he cried. Then, with a gulp and a lurch, he leaned forward and screamed hoarsely in his colonel's face: "Why don't you get me—me paper? I—can't—can't talk—can—draw—draw—dr—"

The colonel himself caught Jimmy as he reeled over.

The next morning, just at dawn, the army started to move. A nurse in one of the hospital tents hurled himself toward what he thought was a wildly delirious patient who was struggling into a tattered uniform. He looked into the face of a big blue revolver.

"Back up there, party!" cried the patient. "Keep away! We're going up that hump. We! Understand? We're going!"