Adventure Magazine Cover — page 16: what you’re looking at

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

WILKESON directly on the representative of the 6th. “The enlistment being for the duration of the war, and the war still enduring?” “Yes, sir,” said Riddle. “TI see it plain enough, when ye put it thataway, sir. Don’t ye see it so, too, Holtzburg?”’ “Ach, jal” agreed the Dutchman. “But vhen ve ’listed it vas understood der var vould not last dree years.”’ ‘‘No, sir!’ Barstow’s positiveness verged on violence. “We can’t take that word back to the Line!” “No, sir!’ veered Riddle. ‘I don’t reckon ’twould be good politics, sir.’’ “Nope,” Holtzburg backed them both, *{t vould not, sir.”’ “Politic or not,” shrugged Wayne, ‘“‘you’d best take it that way; for it’s God own truth that they won’t—they can’t!—be dis- charged till end of the campaign, or end of the next one, or even the next to that, it may well be. My Lord, men, don’t you see why?” There was a hectic silence while Barstow refused to see anything save the wide, mud- died boards at their feet. ‘‘We’ve gone so far, Barstow,” said his colonel, “that we can’t stop, or even halt, now, without wasting all the tremendous efforts of the past six years.” ‘And well ye know, Sergeant,” said Stew- art quietly, ‘“‘what those efforts have cost, for ye have borne every one of them.” “Nor can those efforts be redeemed,” said Van Kuren, very carefully, “unless all troops remain as they are at present, ready for any eventuality.” “Tis like a game of chess, Barstow,”’ said Wayne, after another minute. ‘‘We hold Clinton in check here from the south— or he thinks we do so—while General Washington does likewise from the north. If either of us should be taken, whether by an enemy piece, or merely swept from the board by force of circumstance, it would be only a matter of hours before the other would go too. And the war, at last, be ended—lost.”’ Barstow’s glance was still sullenly cast down, while every eye in the room was fast- ened on him. The officers watched him with a quiet, keen anxiety; the other ser- geants looked to him for their cues. In the waiting silence Bittings, his muzzle twitch- ing nervously, stood clenching his fists with a strange intensity, his gaze fierce beneath his beetling brows. There was a rasp of 14 b O’CONNELL textiles as Ryan leaned an arm on Farquar’s shoulder, followed by a clink when Wayne shifted a spurred boot. Through the shaft of quivering candle- light, beyond the open door, the sentry passed and repassed with measured regu- larity. His footsteps could be heard squelch- ing louder and louder through the slush, before he appeared, and then dying slowly Morristown . SY i Philadelphit Cy; e Clocester into the night again, as he receded from the doorway. Whereupon the drip of the thaw from the eaves would stand out, irregular, unpredictable, clear and startling in the soft silence. The lonesome bark of a distant shepherd dog came to their ears, a candle. guttered in a breeze no one could feel, and Bittings’ voice broke the calm with a gross challenge. ‘“‘And to my mind, Sergeant Barstow, it is a black shame that the Pennsylvania Line should come whining for their discharges, when the enemy is so near that we can all but smell the smoke of their powder!”’ There was an agonized intake as all swung to face the savage ex-Quaker. “Ay, that is the word that should go back to your accursed, mutinous meeting,” he pronounced. ‘Tell them that Wayne, Gen- eral Wayne, Anthony Wayne of Chester County, has seen a day he never thought to see, when he blushed for the Line of his own State! A shame it is,and so ye should be shamed from your cowardly conduct.” Conn Geiook S CO