A Soldier's Trial: An Episode of the Canteen CrusadeKing, Charles
General
A Soldier's Trial: An Episode of the Canteen Crusade
King, Charles
United States. Army -- Military life -- Fiction
Hill's morning journal just received, open in his hand, moved an
adjournment to the rear of the administration building. But the colonel
himself, likewise provided by a rushing newsboy with a fresh copy of our
morning contemporary, sallied forth from his gate and shouted
encouragement to the plucky little rider. "Stick to him, Jimmy boy, and
you others don't yell so; keep quiet, and the pony will tire of
kicking."
Then he and the doctor fell into converse over the telegraphic headline,
and then the bugles pealed adjutant's call, the band crashed merrily
into "Hands Across the Sea," and the details of the twelve companies
came marching jauntily forth upon the green. The colonel, with soldierly
appreciation in his eyes, stood watching the sharp, snappy formation of
the line, the paper dangling unheeded from his thumb and forefinger,
while the surgeon, more alive to the news of the day than the niceties
of military duty, turned over the outer page, began to scan the
headlines of the inner column, as suddenly, impulsively, unthinkingly
startled the colonel by the exclamation "God!" Stone whirled about in
sudden anxiety. For a moment the doctor simply stared and read, then
glanced at the post commander, and, without a word, handed him the
sheet. Stone, too, stared, started, looked quickly into the surgeon's
face, and then said: "Let's get inside." So together these veterans of
their respective corps quit the field and the sight of men and boys and
went to confer within the depth of the vine-shaded veranda.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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