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Show hv SEWARD B. CLAaM aH'4iaaASH 1XGTOX In the last year or two congress has 5$Ck afiniia shown a disposition to he generous to the army. WS rsB Among the other measures passed with a special j&sXffH WPWfira view to the decreasing of the number of desertions M A A'ia was one which increased imiUTinlly the pay of en- ff UlWgn listed men. The non-commissioned officers particu jC 3B8BflEBi8ifi larly were well treated by the bill, for it was the jgJ&F intentfon to make army life so attractive for the D sergeants and the corporals that they would be willing to re-enlist. Then again the amount of pay given the "non-coms" was intended SSl to act as an incentive to the privates to behave themselves well :VV and to stay in the service so that in time they might secure pro- SC motion. There is an army post at FortMyer close to Arlington, the na- SSjtCS tional cemetery just acros- the Potomac from the capital. A good 5Q j ; l ' , ..' ' v, .... . . a. - ' .' iijr. ... iiS BfjsBBfflaml US Iolc"ng snuffer and tore his "Springfield" from his TfKp'.'": 'mU' ' ""''1 crawled dig- Then the rbage barrel was removed and k&MuflB " ;v,i gingour free the recruit was threatened wit Si death if he acf&lji - ' V x- wSw' .hands and made an outcry. He was forced to march at VxS-i::''":::i' ;' Y$$h our knees in- the bayonet's point to the shore of the island tLY KtiTZr-J . to theground and then to run over the ice toward the main- k illil I iHu Xf?!:- 'i until we land with his former prisoners at his heels. jHHpiJ reached When the deserters and their victim arrived II the wav.es chipped in the ice by means of the bayonet and 3 lit-' ti-ii toiled along he would be certain to get a heavy dose of the f kSSi I he sand for the entire length guardhouse for neglect of duty in suffering his g yjgiB3r 0 the sentry's beat, but no prisoners to escape, and for the loss of govern- B .gKT sentry could we find. I ment property in the shape of the Springfield jj VmSHw raised my voice and shouted. rifle which was now at the bottom of the f Uea&BnS Tne man ""itnin two feet of sound. x jSPr I me did not know that I had The deserters told the recruit that he could us. Holding hands we crawled digging dig-ging our free . hands and our knees into in-to theground until we reached a point where the waves stopped our progress. "Thence we turned by the I flank and r.llQrl alnnp snuffer and tore his "Springfield" from his hand. Then the garbage barrel was removed and the recruit was threatened with death if he made an outcry. He was forced to march at the bayonet's point to the shore of the island and then to run over the ice toward the mainland main-land with his former prisoners at his heels. When the deserters and their victim arrived near the New Rochelle shore a hole was chipped in the ice by means of the bayonet and the rifle was dropped through into the waters of the sound. Then the recruit was told that if he chose he might return to the garrison. He told his former charges that he preferred to throw in his lot with them, for if he went back he would be certain to get a heavy dose of the guardhouse for neglect of duty in suffering his prisoners to escape, and for the loss of government govern-ment property in the shape of the Springfield1 rifle which was now at the bottom of the sound. The deserters told the recruit that he could the sand for the entire length of the sentry's beat, hut no sentry could we find. I raised my voice and shouted. The man within two feet of me did not know that I had CAVALRY hORZ$ l 'MfflW" (to lie jdown , ' 5 LMMm AT COMMAND ggBg .iy , ....... x hi., ... ' ... -:. . . . .:. ... jr.'::;;.'-'??y . ' 2 officer, looking out, did not I comprehendhow terrific the ! storm really was, and so f word was passed that the chain of sentinels should J hot be broken. "At one o'clock my guard relief was ordered out to relieve the men on post. No man who was on that island is-land that night has in his keeping words strong enough to describe the uw- ful fury of that eastern gale. The combined thun- I ders of 20 mountain storms f could not equal the noise of 6 the. roaring of the waves as they pounded the shore. The wind added its bellow- many old soldiers are stationed at Fort Myer, men who have enlisted and re-enlisted until the sleeves of their dress coats are pretty well covered with the stripes marking their years of service. These old soldiers tell many stories of the old days when the army life was not as pleasant as it is to-day and when the recruit's lot was far from a happy one. In those old days desertions were many and some of the stories which the veteran regulars teli to-day of the time when they were recruits lets one know readily enough Avhy some men under the old conditions did not care to follow the flag. Here is one story of recruit life in the army 20 years ago that is rewritten with no changes of fact and with only a little change of lan-. guage from the way that an old soldier told it: "In the winter of 1888 I was stationed at David's island, New Yrk harbor, a recruiting rendezvous of the army. There were about 800 newly enlisted ones stationed there at that time. The island is a little affair lying fairly low in the water and without any protection from the storms which blow in from the east through Long Island sound. "January and February, 1888, were months of sunshine, and flowers were peeping on the sunny side of things before anyone could guess whether March was to roar in like the lion or to bleat like the lamb. Early in the second week of that March month New York was overwhelmed over-whelmed by a tempest of wind and snow. It was in that storm that Roscoe Conkling met with the exposure which caused the illness leading to his death in a few days. It was the worst storm known to (he history of the eastern east-ern country. The New Yorkers, however, did not experience Us full fury, for their buildings gave them shelter. "It was left for a few recruits of the United States army, the men on guard, to bear the brunt of the blizzard and to face the elements that gave them battle. On the night of March 11 the storm broke. At nine o'clock the sky over the sound was unclouded, and there was not a whisper of wind over the water. Within ten minutes the black clouds had banked up. and in another ten minutes they were shaking out their burden of snow, while the wind which had sprung to its full strength almost without warning, was roaring down the sound from the Atlantic. At midnight there were great drifts of snow against every obstacle which offered the least resistance to the wind. Out of doors speech was impossible for the blasts tore the words from one's lips and smothered them with their howlings. "On that night I was on guard as corporal of the first relief. The sergeant of the guard a few moments after midnight stepped from the doorway of the guardhouse and was swept from his feet by the wind. He saw what a terrible ter-rible night was ahead of us, had already come to us in fact, and he sent a man to the quarters quar-ters of the officer of the day to ask permission to take in the outlying sentinels or to give orders or-ders to them to seek such shelter as they could find. The officer of the day's quarters were sur-rn.uidpd sur-rn.uidpd with heavy evergreen trees and the ing to the uproar and its strength almost took away the powers of motion and of speech. "The relief started from the guardhouse. No man through the darkness brought by night and the tempest could see the outline of his nearest fellow. The whiteness of the snow would have relieved the blackness had not the lashing of the elements blinded the vision. I ordered the men to unfix bayonets because of the danger of cutting one another, and I gave the order passing from one man to the other and fairly bellowing it into their ears. Then the order was given to 'secure arms' and to clasp hands. It was only by the handclasp that one man could tell that he had a companion. com-panion. Tnto the teeth of the tempest we edged our way. Twice within 50 yards of the guardhouse guard-house the little squad was thrown from its feet. All sense of direction was lost and nothing noth-ing but a collision with one of the low-lyin-barracks buildings after ten minutes' tolling progress gave the little aommand knowledge of its whereabouts. A half rozen sentinel whose post luckily was under the lee of the barracks, was relieved and took his place at the rear of the hand-clasping column. "The hospital of the garrison stands, or did stand at that time, at the extreme east end of the island. Back of it along the stretch of beach runs a sentry's post. A man walking there and looking straight eastward finds no land upon which his eye may rest. That night the lashing fury of the waves was spent mainly main-ly on that lonely sentry beach. The first relief re-lief managed to reach the front of the hospital which gave some protection. 1 ordered all the men except the one who was to relieve the sentry on ihe beach to huddle under the piazza while I took the relieving recruit to find the man on post. "We roundej the end of the hospital. The blast threw us down. The wind was tearing down the sound and the salt spray and the snow commingled dashed into our faces. We dragged our rifles and edged our way through a wall of wind. A few feet of progress and the blast again threw our feet from under uttered a word. Back over the sand we went through the howling and the lashing. We lost our bearings and ran into an obstruction. I traced its outline and knew what it was. It was the hospital morgue, a wooden structure not more than 15 feet square. We crawled around it until we had reached the west side, where the shelter gave us breath; from the doorway of the morgue came a challenge that even the noise of the storm could not smother smoth-er 'Who comes there?' "The answer, 'Relief,' was yelled back by two voices in unison, and we crawled into the dead house. There, standing guard in the grewsome place, was a colored lad, only four weeks a soldier, and within touch of his hand, resting on its zinc bier, was the corpse of a man. "Driven by the storm to seek shelter, that black recruit, rather than leave his post to get the protection afforded by the hospital, had chosen In the blackness of midnight, and with wind and wave raging without, to take up his waicii by the dead, because the place where the body lay was on his post, which he was under orders not to desert." Two army deserters convinced a certain raw recruit that there was something more lhan words in the saying he had once heard to the effect that republics always are ungrateful. ungrate-ful. It fell on this wise: The recruit had marched on guard for the first time. The sergeant in charge turned two prisoners over to him with instructions to guard them while they drove a mule team and collected the garbage from the barrels in the rear of the quarters. It was the dead of winter, and for the first time in years the channel between David's island and the town of New Rochelle was frozen over. The recruit plodded along after his prisoners, but. being green to such work, he kept close at their heels instead of trailing along at a distance dis-tance of five paces as he should have done. Guard and prisoners reached a point near the shore directly in the rear of the commanding officer's quarters. There one of the deserters seized an empty garbage barrel and an opportunity oppor-tunity at the same instant. He threw the barrel bar-rel over the sentinel's head like a candle come with them if he chose, and they started for a saloon in the outskirts of the town, a place known to them, there to wait until it was time to go under cover to the depot to take, a train which made no stop for many miles beyond the place of boarding. About an hour before the train was due the recruit told the deserters that he had "weakened" "weak-ened" and that he would go back to the island to "take his medicine." They offered no objection ob-jection and their companion started for the shore while they took a back road to the depot. de-pot. The recruit had soldier-making stuff in him. He had been maturing a plan all the time that he had been in the saloon. The deserters once out of sight, he made for a farm house, told his story hurriedly, secured a horse and rode at a cavalry pace for a hamlet a few miles east of New Rochelle. He was afraid to go to the depot to which the deserters had gone because he feared that they would see him and, suspecting suspect-ing bis motive, would take to the woods. At the little village to which he had gone headlong on his horse, he secured the services of a constable readily enough for there was a reward for the arrest of deserters and by telling his story and by threatening the station master with all the penalties possible of infliction inflic-tion by the federal government, the recruit induced in-duced him to flag the train. The deserters were caught, handcuffed and sent back to the island. The board deliberated long if not wisely, and finally reached the conclusion that the country's coun-try's treasury could not well bear the burden of the loss of the money represented by the price of one rifle, and so it was decreed that the cost of the weapon should be taken out of the pay of the recruit who had done his duty by the government and had showed pluck and understanding, even if he had lost a rifle. There was a disgusted young soldier on David's Da-vid's island. He was not made of the stuff of deserters, but desert he did. The channel was still frozen and the morning after be learned of the order stopping his pay there was one soldier less to answer "Here," at reveille roll call. |