Fables of Field and Staff

The long, low room that we call The Battery seemed most depressingly quiet. Sam was there, to be sure, but his presence hardly counted, for he was sound-and-fast asleep in his own little box, partitioned off in the far corner.

I foraged ’round for pipe and plug-cut, lighted up, and wandered over to the bookcase. There was nothing in it—nothing that I felt up to the bother of reading. I went over to the long oaken table and picked up a copy of theService Journal, but it proved to be a back number, so I tossed it down again upon the disorderly pile of periodicals, and then climbed upon the cushions of the wide dormer-window, just as the rattle of wheels upon the stone flagging in the court far below shattered the stillness of the July afternoon.

A few words in a familiar voice came indistinctly up to me; the wheels clattered again, but more faintly, as the unseen vehicle was driven out through the archway to the street beyond; and steadily up the long stairs, flight after flight, sounded a quick, firm tread. And then the door swung wide upon its hinges, and Bones, our surgeon—Dr. Sawin, outside the service—broke into the room, with his favorite greeting: “Hello, inside! Never mind the guard!”

“The countersign is correct. Advance friend,” said I, from number-one post on the cushions. “Likewise, the guard, being asleep, will not turn out. Come over here, and make less riot.”

“Just been to see Ali Baba,” explained Bones, dropping upon a chair near the window. “He’ll be mended now in a week or ten days. Thought I’d run up here to glance through the papers. Sent my gig away because it’s too hot to leave the horse standing.”

I slipped off my coat and tossed it to the other end of the window-seat, preparatory to elevating my feet for my greater comfort. Bones also reduced his apparel, and provided himself with smoking materials. Then, with his first few puffs, he said, reflectively, “It’s funny how that ‘Ali Baba’ title has been handed down from captain to captain in ‘L’ company. Why, it must be more than twenty years since the day of the first ‘Ali.’”

A side glance at the surgeon confirmed the impression I had received from the peculiar intonation of his voice: his hands were clasped behind his head, his long legs were draped over the arm of his chair, his eyes were half closed, and he was on the point of being talkative.

Now I, as the latest comer upon the staff, have to serve in the capacity of waste-basket, and all the older officers feel at liberty to use me at any time when they feel the need of freeing themselves of some mildewed old yarn. So I drew a long breath, gave a grunt by way of signifying that I would suffer uncomplainingly, and settled myself to stare vacantly out through the open casement, under the wide, striped awning, and across the broad expanse of roofs towards the green hills, far beyond the city’s limits.