Trooper Tales — page 25: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

The Recruit in the Black Cavalry. 22 £7 dripping stable guard of the Black Horse troop kicked about among the puddles and snoring soldiers, seis Bai testily : “Wheah’s Sadie—wheah’s dat a-fool niggah, Sadie ” Now, the sentry had walked his post up and down the picket line for two long, soaking hours. He wanted to turn over his orders to Sadie, and be relieved. But it was evident that Sadie was not in camp. To go about proclaiming the fact would mean trouble for the missing recruit, therefore the sentry went back to his post and started to do Sadie’s guard. The idea that he was doing anybody in particular a good turn did not worry the~ sentry, but if he could have caught the black recruit that minute something would have happened. That night the corporal of the guard did an unsoldierly thing. He deliberately woke up, consulted his watch, and figured out by a process of his own that Sadie should be walking his post down on the picket line. As Sadie was a recruit, and it was the first night on hostile soil, the corporal deemed it advisable to find out if his man would challenge properly. The top layer of wet sand under the non-commissioned officer was thoroughly warmed through, and he hated to let it cool off, which was very easy as compared to the warming process, but a conscien- tious man was the corporal. When he found the wrong man on post, he was glad that he had left his warm hole in the sand. Not long after that, Sadie slipped past the guard with two limp pullets and a very noisy, very much animated Eomicbooks:co