The Red Book Magazine/Volume 15/Number 2/Sergeant Keeny's Romance

HE disastrous assault on Fredericksburg was two weeks old, yet the men were ever reverting to it in their gloomy questioning of the future. Burnside's attempt to take the city in the face of Lee's ninety thousand strongly entrenched veterans had cost the useless North thirteen thousand lives—making it one of the most slaughters, with the possible exception of Cold Harbor, of the entire war.

McClellan, grumbled the men, had been removed from command when on the point of completing a decisively successful campaign on the east side of the Blue Ridge. And sorrow and disappointment on the part of the rank and file, as as officers, well were now succeeded by despair.

But for the time being Sergeant Elisha Keeny forgot the fearful sacrifices made along the banks of the Rappahannock. His thoughts were pleasant ones and roamed far afield, as he tore another sheet from his notebook and carefully economized the space; for while much paper was wasted in sending dispatches from Washington to the front, the sergeant had found paper was sometimes difficult to obtain in Virginia. And his thoughts: he could see her standing at the gate as the company marched away in answer to Lincoln's call to arms, nearly two years before. That was in the Spring, Spring in old New England, where a fence and a tangle of vines and a grave-eyed maid furnished Sergeant Keeny with all his ideas of bliss.

For nearly an hour his task and its mental accompaniment had intoxicated him. Then, as one emerging from a happy dream, his eyes opened and his forehead developed new lines; developed them much as the rebs had quickly extended a triple line of works along Mary's Heights back of the debatable city. The rough side of life had dulled his deftness in striking a delicate balance. He found it necessary to tell himself all he knew about his chances and to act his own messenger when bearing ill tidings. Absence from her had made him over-optimistic, he suddenly feared; and he proceeded to inventory fact after fact with one finger on his tough palm. As he reviewed the sum total with his inner vision, he shook his head dubiously; and, gazing wistfully towards the North, he muttered half aloud:

“I've been down here nearly two years. A year ago I wrote and asked her to give me my answer. She stunned me by writing she didn't know her mind. Then I got afraid of losing her and wrote her to take her time—to take a year—not to write me till she could say 'yes.' I did that, so's I'd know she was mine the minute I got a letter from her. To-morrow's New Year's day. Lawd! this is my last day. Why! this is my last chance. She'd not forgit I'm waiting; she aint that kind. What if she's written so's I'll git it to-day—as sort of a New Year's gift. Well, it aint no use to send this—the game is played out, one way or the other.”

And his lean, brown fingers paused their checking up of pro and con and nervously tore up the letter.

Then in a panic he murmured: “What if she should say 'no'—eh? Well, what could I do?” And his voice was impatient as if answering a foolish query. “We may win this derned war, but we can't win women unless they be willing. I could go in for a bullet, but would that help? Wouldn't I keep on thinking about her—forever and ever—”

He came to an abrupt halt in his mumbling as a private lounged up and half whispered, half grinned, “Say, Lishe; did ye know Jasper Dorn's skipped?”

Keeny's face flushed with anger. His informant came from a neighboring town, a rival town, and obviously took delight in imparting the news. “He's one of the heroes your village sent down here, eh?” he added.

“I can't believe it,” cried Keeny, ignoring the taunt and rising briskly. “He's only been down here six months, but he's a whole team in a fight—a reg'lar devil. If I did believe it, I'd—”

“Wal, what, Lishe?”

“By heavens! I'd go after him and fetch him back.”

“Intimate friend of yours, aint he?” drawled the other.

“Hardly that. He moved to our town about a year after I enlisted. I never saw him till he came down here and he aint one to git confidential with a body. What sores me is the disgrace his skipping out'll mean to the home-folks. Just our derned luck to have some fool new-comer to the village throw down the whole community. When did he light out?”

“Early this morning, I guess. One of the fellers said he heard him bleating and whimpering in the night.”

“Homesick,” murmured Keeny, his eyes growing sympathetic. “Either that or crazy. I've seen him work when kingdom-come was awful near. That's what's the matter—homesick. I guess we all git that way sometimes, but—”

“But that aint no excuse for our skedaddling, eh?” chuckled the private. Then more generously, “Wal, that game we played in trying to buck against them two stone walls and the canal with the rebs flingin' pot-shots at us—was enough to take the ginger out of any man. But I'm awful glad none of our boys has skipped. Of course it hurts your pride—”

“Shut up! Stow that talk,” growled Keeny, turning away. “Trying to make out all the men from my town are quitters?”

The private winced, for Sergeant Keeny's gray eyes were not good to gaze into when his emotions reached a certain point.

Left alone, Keeny's thoughts jumped back to the old trend, hope fighting in the last ditch. “To-day's the last day I could expect to hear,” he mumbled, as if memorizing something. “Of course, she might forgit about the time it would take a letter to find me—No! no! she aint that kind. She'd never forgit. I almost wish I'd asked her to write me if she meant 'no.' Lawd! if I could have her! If a feller only could know his chances ahead and keep himself from falling in love when the woman is against him! And still, who could keep from falling in love with her, do what he could, know what he might!”

As he meditated, he turned mechanically from his path so as to avoid an idle group about the mess-tent, which was but one of many illustrations of the lax discipline in the army at that particular time. He wanted no company; he did not wish to learn about any letters. If there were a letter he would know it later; if there were none, he would at least enjoy the doubtful respite of ignorance until evening.

“Hi! Sergeant Keeny!” bawled one of the men. “You're wanted.”

“A-a letter for me?” he faltered, approaching the group with unsteady steps. Then more loudly, “Did you say I had some mail? Papers? Some letters—a letter?” And his eyes burned, just as they had seen men's eyes burn in the hospital tent.

“No, there aint no mail. The leftenant wants to see you.”

For some foolish reason he had believed the letter from her had come. When the loud voiced private cried out to him his heart beat a more tremulous quick-step than ever it had when he was going into action with the odds against him. The revulsion now left him weak and stupid. He could never tell how he came to confront his superior, and he heard his orders as one in a trance.

Subconsciously he absorbed all—the explicit commands, the forceful language as to the morale of the army, the veiled, expressed hope for a Hooker. Objectively he caught only the lieutenant's earnest, boyish appeal in conclusion: “It's a hard job, Sergeant, and one you don't like, but you must do your duty. Scour the Morgansburg pike on both sides. How many men do you want?”

“I'll take two,” moodily replied Keeny, turning to go.

His new task, however, could not crowd thought of the expected letter from his mind. There was even a chance now that it might arrive. Such things were possible. When one came in, some one would announce the fact, as the boys from his town were hungry for home news. Yes, they would guard his letter very jealously. Some one of them might even have it now; but he dared not ask. He looked at the sun to learn how much time he had in which to expect a parcel of mail to arrive.

Then the cold sweat beaded his forehead and face, despite the sharp tang of the December day. After one glance at the western sun he surrendered. Before he could fully realize it he had capitulated. He made no defense whatever to the host of heart-sickening convictions. In a mighty white light he read the truth and sought to cheat himself no longer. She could never love him. Had she loved him she would have written before this. If a letter had gone astray she would have written another and another until she had poured out her heart to him in a perfect flood of letters. Once her love burst forth for a man it would sweep on, an irresistible force, seeking him out, be he hidden where he would. He had hoped with optimism, he had hoped with doubt, then, in gnawing fear. Now he flew the white flag and hoped no longer.

As he stumbled over a peg-rope and blindly sought his two men, his face was older than could usually be found, even in that army of weather-worn, battle-scarred men. It was old with sorrow, beside which the age of mere years is as eternal youth.

“Wish you'd got some one else,” complained the man who had informed him of Dorn's desertion. “Didn't you know a general order has just been given to shoot all men that is brought in?”

“Keep shut! Get the horses! Right about face, double quick!” roared the sergeant, his voice hoarse with simulated passion as he sought to mask his great sorrow.

Had he but received a letter, her letter, how charitable he would have felt towards all, how merciful. Now his thin jaw was set, his eyes were ugly.

“Right wheel, trot,” he growled, settling his worn cap low over his eyes and spurring north toward the Morgansburg pike.

All night Keeny and his two followers hung at the heels of a squad of fleeing men. The lust of the hunt was in the sergeant, and throughout the night he cursed his companions for laggards and threatened them until they snarled back. But they obeyed his orders and, by fair means or foul, obtained new mounts, as the exigencies of the task required.

Sun-up found them lurching in their saddles like drunken men.

“Ye kin shoot me, but I can't go no farther,” groaned one, slipping from his saddle and throwing himself exhausted on the frost-speckled ground.

The sergeant toyed with his revolver thoughtfully, his blood-shot eyes keenly measuring up the man's powers of endurance. The latter, however, as if to prove the sincerity of his mutiny, promptly became unconscious.

“Drag him into the bushes and hitch the nags and go to sleep with him,” Keeny ordered.

Granting this boon, he reined his own jaded steed into a by-path and plunged on.

This was his New Year's day. Up North it was quiet and peaceful, except as ill news crept home over the wires and through the post; along the Rappahannock it was hell. The night's exertion, coupled with the death of his cherished hopes, aroused the cruel instincts of the hunter. At first it developed a fiery determination; now it had evolved into a grim, set purpose, machine-like in its nature, as if he were some agency, inexorable, yet irresponsible for his acts.

The lust of his gaze softened a bit as it perceived the condition of his horse. Dismounting and taking some hardtack from the saddlebag he tied the animal to a sapling and continued his quest afoot.

His quarry could not be far ahead, as the chase had been hotly pressed throughout the night, and he listened keenly as he stole along. Where the frost had pricked the ground he occasionally picked up the trail.

Thus, for nearly half-a-mile, he proceeded afoot and then was faced with an enigma; the trail split. One man had left the road to take to the underbrush. The sergeant's quick eyes easily found where he had stumbled in surmounting the white-rimmed bank. All traces gave evidence that he was exhausted.

The sergeant cautiously climbed the bank and almost instantly heard a faint, crackling sound ahead. He was very warm on the trail, more so, even, than he had dared hope; and his nostrils dilated and his breath came with a hissing sound as, bent double, he stalked his prey.

He now was close to a solid fringe of bushes encircling a clump of dwarf-pines. A slight rustle emanated from this natural hiding-place and the sergeant knew he would find his man inside, stretched out on the pine needles. Cautiously he peered through; then he gasped: “Dorn! It's you?”

With a cry of fear and rage, the deserter half rose, at the same time reaching tor his rifle. He was about Keeny's age, but much larger in build. Physically he was a giant, yet his face was extremely young.

“What d'ye want, Lishe?” he choked.

“You! You're going back with me.”

“Why, it would mean death to go back, Lishe,” faltered the deserter. “It might mean the rank killing of me. It might mean I'd be shot.”

“Probably,” Keeny sullenly agreed.

“I come from your town. I know I'm new there, but still we ought to feel like neighbors towards each other,” reminded Dorn, his gaze wandering, in desperation, about his narrow hiding place.

“Yep.”

“I aint no coward,” screamed Dorn, as if reading the other's thoughts. “I aint no coward. We don't grow 'em in our family. I 'nlisted because I wanted to. I've fit like a devil. All up and down this derned Peninsular I've fit like hell. All up and down this yere valley I've fit for every ounce there was in me. I was willing to go plumb through with it. It aint the fighting what makes me quit—it's something else.”

Keeny squatted on his haunches, revolver ready, and stared curiously at his prisoner. He even nodded his head by way of encouragement, and Dorn continued:

“I was homesick. I helped shove them bridges across—it was hell. I was soaked and freezing for three days—then to jump against the game old Lee had ready for us! General Hooker kicked about going in; I didn't even murmur. Well, you know how everything has gone. Then, to top it all, there come her letter.”

“Her letter?” queried Keeny sharply. “You got a girl?”

“Yes.” The man's voice trembled. “And she writ, saying—”

“Saying she had no use for ye,” obtruded Keeny, pityingly. “You poor, weak devil!”

“Not by a danged sight! God bless her, she writ, saying she loved me, and I was sick—sick for her.”

“What!” roared Keeny, springing to his feet. “You dare tell me you quit when you know'd your girl loves ye? Why, you coward! I was a-pitying of ye. I allowed you'd been jilted. Up with them hands! Up!”

“I aint a coward,” persisted Dorn in a whisper, rising to his knees and slowly elevating his hands. “I aint a coward, I tell ye. I aint afeared to die. But after dreaming of her and a-wanting her, and bein' put off till she finds out her own mind for sure, and then to discover she's loved me for nearly a year without knowing it herself, and now does love me for sure—I say, I wont pass out without seeing her.”

“On your feet. Keep your hands up, or I'll plug ye.”

“Plug and be derned!” cried Dorn, ducking and kicking at the same time.

Disconcerted for the instant by this unexpected show of resistance, Keeny failed to dodge Dorn's heavy boot, and as a consequence was knocked backward into the bushes. Dorn, without wasting a motion, seized his rifle and threw it forward. But before he could pull the trigger, Keeny fired. His man dropped with a groan.

“Plugged through the shoulder,” mused Keeny, methodically preparing a bandage.

“Then I've got to go with ye,” moaned Dorn, white-lipped and staring.

“No dodging it,” Keeny declared. “And just remember this; your girl ought never to look at ye.”

“I—I can't see why,” mumbled Dorn.

“Of course not. But I'm older'n you be in experience. I've had my troubles. You're only a younker alongside of me. I'll be gray as a rat mighty soon. So, remember this—a woman worth having, sonny, always insists on her man being pretty decent.”

“My girl's the best girl what ever lived,” groaned the wounded man. “She'd stick to me through everything.” And as Keeny washed the wound with water from his canteen, and skillfully applied the bandage, he repeated, “She's the best girl what ever lived.”

“Quit that,” growled the sergeant at last, giving the shoulder a sudden wrench. “There's only one woman in that class.”

“Ye're a liar!” Dorn cried, his face red with rage and his eyes no longer those of a youth; and despite his hurt he sought to attack his captor. “Ye lie! There's no woman on earth that ranks with Clarindy Curtis.”

He could have es aped, had he SO desired, as he finished speaking, for Keeny crouched on his heels, his mouth agape and his eyes blind to all about him. Dorn, still flushed with passion, towered unsteadily above him, oblivious to the revolver and the rifle near the tree.

“You dare say—” He was choking; rage forced the tears to his eyes.

“Wait a minute,” whispered Keeny, “for God's sake, wait! You say your girl is Clarindy Curtis of our town, and you say she has writ you?”

Dorn nodded, still gritting his teeth and entirely blind to Keeny's emotion.

The sergeant slowly straightened, still ignoring his prisoner, and for several moments gazed off toward the Blue Ridge. Finally he turned and said, “Mister Dorn, we'll go back now. The young woman you mention is all you say. I was mistook, entirely mistook.”

Dorn's rage slowly died out, and as the two stumbled through the undergrowth to the road, he babbled: “I had only been in the town two months before I fell in love with her. She seemed sort of sad and uncertain at first—”

“Shut up!” commanded Keeny.

The prisoner would have wheeled to remonstrate, only he caught a glimpse of the sergeant's horse, and sinking down on a log he cried, “Must I really go back?”

“Yes, you must go back,” said Keeny harshly. “You can ride.”

“Lawd!” cried Dorn, stretching his free arm high above his head and clinching his fist, “to think it has come to this! It's death to go back.”

The sergeant eyed him curiously. “You're afraid?” he asked.

“No!” the other denied fiercely, staggering forward. “I'm not afraid of a honest death, But it's—it's so bad for her!”

“She wrote that she liked ye,” murmured Keeny.

“Guess ye'd better read it—seeing as how ye may have to take care of my things when it's all over,” muttered the deserter, pulling forth a crumpled letter.

Keeny hesitated, Dorn nodding for him to proceed, but he did not see him. He saw only her, as her honest brown eyes searched his gaze fearlessly. Her visioned urge him to face seemed to read the letter, and forgetting his prisoner he turned the pages. It was the simple surrender of a simple maid, whose diffident heart had been incited almost to boldness by the times and their daily vicissitudes. To hesitate might find him dead. The exigencies of the times demanded that one be frank. Dorn could not fully appraise the import of these vital lines, but Keeny did:

“Shows she loves me?” eagerly pleaded Dorn, moving toward the horse.

“Why—why didn't you try to escape while I was reading it?” asked Keeny, wiping the sweat from his face.

“I wanted to see what you thought of her and her letter,” the other gravely replied. “Would you have let me go?”

“No—yes—no. I don't know,” Keeny floundered, his hands twitching as he returned the letter. Should Dorn escape he would lose his sweetheart. Keeny could imagine the girl's sorrow, her growing conviction she had loved unworthily. Then, like a wave of fire, there swept over him the thought: Would she ultimately come to love the man who could go through the grind with never a fault?

“Can I duck out?” Dorn urged.

Keeny eyed him meditatively. The man was honest, and in a time when nearly eighty-two thousand men. and nearly three thousand officers were entered as absent on the rolls of the Army of the Potomac, his desertion need not necessarily be set down to cowardice. He had the fresh heart of a boy; he was homesick. His simple mind had caused him to forget how the girl would view his dereliction. By allowing him to carry out his original intention Keeny might gain that, beside which all other prizes were as nothing.

“Can I duck—”

“Git onto that hoss. Make a move to escape and I'1l kill you. Can't you understand this girl don't want no man coming to her unless he has an honorable discharge?”

“Lawd! I forgot,” cried Dorn. “No, it wouldn't do. I must go back and face the music. You see, I was homesick and crazy-like. I aint no coward. No, siree! If they'd have a rip-snorting battle I'd show 'em what mettle I was made of. But I got soaked and nearly friz. There oughter be a law against making a man fight in ice-watery clothes and on a empty stomach. My idea is to have—”

But all this was lost on the sergeant, who walked with bowed head beside his prisoner.

“Year ago to-day I was back home,” Dorn ran on, a little feverish from his wound. “How afraid I was of her! Folks joked about me standing no show. I just paid no attention, and at last got up enough courage to call on her. Guess the war will be a mighty good thing if it gives her to me—Lawd!” he broke off; “I forgot—I plumb forgot.”

The sun was well up as Keeny turned the horse so as to avoid his two men asleep by the roadside. The temperature had lost much of its tang and to the sergeant it seemed like late October, up North.

“There's lots of snow and good sleighing,” he muttered. “But there aint much merry-making. No, sir! Every one is down to the store, or postoffice, waiting for papers and letters. Guess she's there, too, awaiting to hear from him—Dern ye! hold on, or I'll tie ye on.” The last to Dorn, who half fell from the saddle.

When they reached the outpost, Dorn was delirious.

She stood at the flap of the hospital tent and saw him as he passed—and called to him:

“Going by without speaking, Elisha?” she reproached.

His tanned face burned to a deeper hue as he approached.

“I—I was in a hurry, Clarindy,” he shammed. “We march soon, you know.”

“I know,” she murmured, “and before you do I want to ask you something. I want you to tell me you forgive me—'”

“Don't!” he choked, raising a hand. “Lawd! to think of me forgivin' a angel. Just you kindly forgive me instead.”

“Elisha,” she continued, more firmly; “I want you to forgive me for not knowing my own mind. I want you to tell me that my mistake wont make an awful lot of difference to you.”

“Don't you bother your pretty head a second about me,” he protested. “I sorter felt, more'n a year ago, I didn't stand no show. So, I've kind of had time to kick out of it.”

“Oh, thank you!” she rejoiced, clasping his right hand in both of hers. “I am so glad. I sometimes felt a foolish fear—”

“Tut! tut!” he obtruded, releasing his hand and patting her shoulder. “Forgit all about it, little woman.” Before she could continue he inquired, “And how's the patient?”

“Elisha,” she said, in a half-whisper, “if it hadn't been for you, Jasper would have been dead by now. I shall never forget, Elisha. But do you know, during all his delirium he has been talking about his deserting—such fearful vagaries.”

“It's the way they're always took, Clarindy,” he soothed. “And as a rule a man, who's been through the suffering that boy has, even after he has fully recovered, will always believe he's been cutting up nasty—like Jasper may always believe he'd tried to desert; ye can't tell. However, now that he's going home on a furlough and will have you to care for him, he'll pick up mighty fast.

“Why, you aint got any idea how often it happens like that. Only jest las' month a feller of another company got kicked by a mule, and it kind o' went to his head. He thought, when he came out of it, that he was a general, and he give all sorts of commands to the fellers in the hospital. War does funny things, sometimes. Yet that feller was a fighter—the best kind of a fighter—like Jasper.”

He paused and looked away, then turned again to her with a smile, saying, with all the earnestness that he could put into his husky voice:

“Yes, he's as good a young man as ever got hurt in battle and then wandered away and got crazy-like. I sent for you the first thing, as I knew you could cure him of his crazy notions. Poor boy; wounded on the field of battle, he was, and just wandered away and got crazy-like. Well, Clarindy, guess I'll have to say 'good-by;' I hear the bugle callin'.”

“Good-by, Elisha,” she whispered.

He nodded bravely.

And as she stood there, wide of eye and pale of face, the regimental band struck up “The Girl I Left Behind Me,” and Sergeant Keeny swept by, saluting her, stiffly.