# The Pacific Monthly/Volume 22/Number 2/Taps

Extracted from The Pacific Monthly, Volume 22, 1909, pp. 153–164. Accompanying illustrations by C. S. Price may be omitted.
Taps The Adventures of a Trumpeter's Horse
By Herminie Templeton Author of "Darby O'Gill and the Good People"
TAPS and the Colonel's gray entered the military service of their country on the same day. The Colonel's horse was furnished him by the government; Corporal Tim O'Brien, the Colonel's trumpeter, by a special dispensation, brought his own fine chestnut sorrel into the service. The Colonel's mount was a shaggy gray four-cornered brute that clumped about at parade on four wooden legs; Taps swept after him as effortless and as graceful as a deer-hound. The gray had an ugly streak of white in his eye and nothing delighted him more than a quick, vicious nip at the sleeve of some soldier specially gifted in profanity. Taps, on the contrary, while he might mumble playfully with soft lips at some unsuspecting ear, had but one unsoldierly trick: whenever he could edge himself to within reach of the Colonel's mount he'd instantly up with both heels and let fly at the gray's resounding ribs.
On such occasions the Colonel's volcanic language furnished suppressed but immeasurable delight for thirteen hundred men.
But this sort of misconduct could not go on forever.
The day before the regiment started on its eventful tour of active service Taps brought down upon his humiliated master an avalanche of censure, and at the same time almost got for himself a dishonorable discharge from the military service of his country.
At the moment this disgraceful offense was committed the regiment was passing in review before the Colonel and his staff. Just as that officer was acknowledging in starched dignity the salute of the first battalion, Taps thought he saw in the imposing tableau a fitting opportunity for impressing the assembled public with his final opinion of the Colonel's gray. So, with a sharp whinny of disdain he whirled like a flash and let fly both heels at short range.
Under the thunderous impact of this unexpected attack the Colonel's horse reeled and plunged until his enraged rider was almost dismounted.
"O'Brien," roared the Colonel, "I 'll stand this no longer! You get another mount!"
"I—I—wish I could, sir," groveled the poor trumpeter.
"Mind my words, if he does it again, I 'll shoot the brute!"
And perhaps the Colonel would have carried out his threat if it had n't been for the splendid way Taps redeemed himself a fortnight later in the skirmish at San Fillippo.
This is how that came about: For two days the brigade had been poking around through the Province of Tayabas in the scrub and the sand and the mud—most of the time in the mud—hunting an elusive foe who, though always invisible, yet who never failed to leave ghastly evidence of his presence on any one thoughtless enough to straggle far from the lines.
The morning of the third day of September, 1899, found the command on the left bank of the swollen Passic River. On the other side and half way up the long uneven slope crouched the gray old Church of San Fillippo, with its cluster of low sun-dried huts—looking for all the world like a belligerent hen sheltering under outstretched wings her clutter of frightened chickens.
The bridge over the stream was down, of course, and the field guns had not come up yet—indeed, no one seemed to know just where they were.
An ominous quiet pervaded the peaceful looking little town across the river. Not a soul was in sight, either, but for all that the old church looked mighty secretive and guilty.
For a long while the Colonel sat on his tall old gray, his field-glasses glued to the innocent looking windows and roofs beyond, and then, without lowering the glasses from his eyes, he called quietly to his trumpeter:
"O'Brien, do you think they 're over there? We must find out some way, and the current's so blamed swift! The stream is only half a mile wide, but they'd play ducks and drakes with us if we tried to ford."
"Oh, they 've over there, sure enough, sir, hiding in that ould church. It's just the place for thim; it was never the flood that tore down the bridge! A handful of them over there would n't lave many of us for the other bank, sir."
"I can't afford to lose too many men, O'Brien! Do you think your horse could swim that river?" The Colonel asked this still peering through the glasses.
In spite of himself, Corporal Tim felt his cheek blanch. Still, he answered: "If anny horse can, sir. Do you want me to try?"
The officer turned his head away and looked down the river a moment. "It is not an order, O'Brien!"
No braver man than Corporal Tim O'Brien wore the uniform. He had proved as much among the Apaches a dozen times; nevertheless, to go out this way alone, hopeless, and unresisting to certain death, seemed harder than anything he had imagined. But in a second the trumpeter squared his jaws and the glint of steel came into his blue eyes. He brought his hand to a salute.
"I understand, Colonel," he said. And then, with the word, he was on the ground tightening his saddlegirth.
While the Corporal knelt there his tent mate, Jack Roberts, came hurrying up.
"Wait till I get a mount, Tim, I 'll go with you!" he entreated breathlessly.
"Nonsense! What use? Good-bye, lad," Tim evaded. "The kit's all yours, of course; and if you ever get the horse back ye 'll take good care—but, sure, I know ye will."
Without another word the trumpeter sprang light as a feather into his saddle. As he rode along the line toward the bank the color-sergeant dipped the flag to him. To salute a common trumpeter clearly has no place in the army regulations; but, after all, it was perhaps no more than was due a man who was on his way to die for his country. With that proud reverence characteristic of the true soldier, Corporal O'Brien bared his head to the beautiful silken standard and, the next thing the regiment knew, brave horse, and brave rider, were buffeting the yellow foam in the middle of the swirling river.
Eight hundred soldiers of Tim's uniform breathlessly watched the two as they fought their way across the stream, and every soldier sprang up to cheer when Taps and his master climbed the bank on the other side. His comrades saw the trumpeter carefully picking his way up the shelving, uneven slope and ride on without once turning his head until he reached a point not more than four hundred yards from the church itself. Then, evidently sighting danger, he turned and dashed madly back toward the bank. As he did so a line of white puffs beaded with fire spurted from the old walls of the church, and an interminable time after, the faint crack of rifles floated lazily across the river.
The trumpeter bent low over his rein as Taps came lunging down the slope with great swinging strides through the deep sand.
Then a cry of mingled pain and anger broke from the eager line of men that fringed the left bank of the river, for the horse was seen to stumble to his knees and to pitch the Corporal heavily to the ground.
Drawing by C. S. Price
THE COLONEL'S OLD GRAY.
"By heaven, they 're both hit," cried Sergeant Jimmy Wilson. "No—look, the horse is up, and away he goes down the beach. And—see, Tim's trying to get to his feet. No, there he's down again."
"They 've hit him," shouted Jack Roberts. "I'm going over there if 1 die for it."
"So will I," seconded Jimmy Wilson. "You get the Major's horse, Jack; I 'll borrow the Adjutant's! Maybe we can bring him back."
They saw the Corporal drag himself with difficulty to a little knoll for shelter from the dropping fire which spurted the sand dangerously near on every side. Then the whole regiment, from the Colonel down, went clear daft with rage to see a score of little brown men, rifles in hand, creep out from behind the treacherous walls like so many black ants, and come stealing down toward the wounded soldier. Discipline was forgotten, every one was talking at once.
"They've got him! Where in blazes are those field guns!"
"Sure! That poor chap has n't a chance; it 'll take the curs only about five minutes to get to him! There goes Jimmy Wilson! He's crazy! He can't get there in time. I say, I can't stand this any longer. I'm goin' to take a shot at them, anyhow!"
"Ah, save your powder! You couldn't hit them from here." And then half the regiment, cheering, cursing and shouting, was crowding knee deep into the water.
"Look! Look, boys! What's O'Brien doing with his trumpet?"
They saw the Corporal struggle half-way up and raise the trumpet to his lips; and then above the cries of the soldiers, above the crackle of the musketry, clear and full rang the well-known bugle notes. "Halt!" it commanded.
There was not a soldier in the regiment knew the bugle rails better than did Taps; but, in the excitement and terror of the moment, would he forget?
Far down the bank, with head flung high, Taps was trotting aimless and bewildered. He heard the command to halt and splendidly obeyed it, as he would his master's spoken word. With forefeet planted in the sand, he stopped and listened. Good boy!
"About face!" the bugle commanded. Slowly as if on parade the horse turned in his tracks and stood tense and waiting. "Trot, gallop, charge!" and the glorious animal swept up the bank straight as an arrow to his master's side.
A moment later, as Tim painfully drew himself into the saddle, he noticed that the firing about him had stopped and that the little brown men were running for dear life back to the shelter of the walls.
And no wonder! The grim muzzles of two field guns were being poked through the underbrush on the friendly side of the river, and a few seconds later the mud walls of San Fillippo were filling the air with dust. From that day on Taps was the hero of the regiment.
"The little bone of the leg two inches above the ankle. Corporal. A clean break! About four weeks in the hospital!" the surgeon said.
So off to the hospital the trumpeter went, and six long weeks he stayed. And if during that time Taps was not spoiled with petting and pampering and caresses it was not the fault of Jack Roberts nor, for that matter, of any one in the regiment.
Within two weeks after Tim left the hospital the regiment was again on the move. And was n't Taps glad to get his master back! The gray-bearded Colonel was n't half so grand a man, the horse thought.
"Ta, ra, ra," Tim's bugle fiercely called, and the long line broke into a run. "Tata-a, tata-a," down to their kneels, with leveled guns, went the regiment. And so, whatever Tim commanded a thousand willing soldiers flew to obey.
Was n't it a grand life! Taps was willing to march forever if only the band kept playing. The tuba held a special fascination for him. He could never understand where the big "toot toot" came from; and whenever the musician rested his heavy instrument on the ground it was the regimental joke to see Taps steal cautiously over and, with ears pricked forward, peer timidly into the wide, shining bell.
While as for Tim, the enamoured man took to holding conversations with his horse as though the creature were human.
"You'd think now, Taps," boasted Tim one day as he was rubbing the horse down, "that all this skitting and skirmishing and waddlin' round in the mud like a flock of ducks is hard sojerin'! Well, you should have been with me down in Arizona whin we wint afther Geronimo!"
Taps turned what seemed a supercilious eye on his master.
"Shtop that!" blustered the Corporal, threatening him with the brush. "Dont be so handy wid calling people names; it's a good chug in the ribs I ought to be given ye for yer impidence!"
The next day the trumpeter stalked moody and bothered into the temporary stable.
"I'm afeared we 're up against it at last, me boy," he confided to his dumb comrade. "They say we 're going down to Manila next week and pretty soon the regiment is goin' back to Chicago to be mustered out; what 'll we do then? I 'll only have thirty-two dollars in me pocket to pay your passage across six thousand miles of say and land. Heigh, ye! if yer wor only a government horse ye'd go back free."
Taps tossed his head impatiently and snatched a huge mouthful of sweet grass from the canvas manger; which motion the Corporal interpreted to mean: "Oh, well, dont worry; we 'll manage some way."
"Will we then! it's aisy for ye to be talking," the Corporal reproached. "But supposin' be accident I got married and me wife didnn't loike ye, eh? Ye'd expect me to lave her, would ye?"
Taps sighed tremendously and the sigh ended in a deep "br-r-r" of utter content. Corporal O'Brien laughed softly into his pipe.
"Well, ye 're right there at an-ny rate, Taps. I would n't thrade your own pair of brown eyes for an-ny tin pair of woman's eyes in America!"
Alas! Tim's judgment concerning the effect of powder and steel and Apache arrows was a good deal safer than his opinions about the destructive power that lies ambushed in a woman's eyes.
As the trumpeter sat there deeply ruminating, temptation in the person of the regimental adjutant strolled into the stable and laid a caressing hand upon the shoulder of the horse.
"I say, O'Brien," began the officer, "I hear you are not going to re-enlist."
Tim shook his head. "Not for me! I'm done wid sojerin' in peace times," he said.
"Well, of course, you 're not going to take the horse back with you? It would cost you almost a year's pay. Besides that, what would you do with him when you got him there? I 'II tell you what I 'll do! I 'll give you three hundred dollars for him!"
"Three hundred dollars! Huh! Ye might as well thry to buy me ould mother," answered Tim, "or me wife an' family if I had wan. It's thrue Taps and we dont know any thrade except sojerin'." Taps tossed his mane again and took another mouthful of grass—"But we wont worry; we 'll manage some way," Tim added.
The six weeks in Manila, with their days of music and parading, and of restfulness and plenty, were the happiest days of Tap's life.
However, it was not so with the Corporal; for stew and worry as he would, no way presented itself for getting Taps on board. The evening of the last day found the trumpeter a desperate man. He was riding back from parade behind the Colonel, when that officer turned to ask:
"What are you going to do with your horse. O'Brien?"
"I dont know, sir. I'd give a year or two of me life to take him back with me, but it's a long swim," he sighed.
The Colonel laughed grimly. "And a trifle dangerous, too!"
The old steely glint flashed into Tim's eyes. "He had almost as dangerous a swim at San Fillippo, sir! And it's little thanks he got for it!" he added quietly.
The officer reined up and turned a straight look on the soldier. For an instant the two men glowered deep into each others' eyes.
"By jove, that's the Lord's truth, O'Brien," the Colonel said. "And I 'll tell you what I 'll do! I'm entitled to transportation for one horse. I 'll take yours! I'd like to take the gray, too, because, some way or other, I 've grown fond of the old chap; but—well, I can't afford it."
Thus, Trumpeter Tim O'Brien was saved from the unpardonable crime of desertion, and the trumpeter's horse was enabled to continue his fateful career as a citizen.
Two months later at Fort Sheridan, when the regiment was mustered out of the Government service. Taps held a public reception in his stall; the survivors of O'Brien's company, under the leadership of First Sergeant Jimmy Wilson, marched in a body down to the stable to say good-bye to him.
And then the good old regiment melted, each man going his own way.
Tim, undecided and troubled as to what he should do, remained helplessly behind in barracks two long weeks after. A fish out of water, and an old campaigner without his gun experience the same general emotions. But Tim could not stay there forever; so one morning, taking his luck in his hands, he turned his steed from the high stone archway of the fort and trotted down the dusty road beside the great lake toward the distant city. It was a sky full of hurrying black perplexities which lowered before the Corporal, that bright June day.
"Well", Taps, me lad, here we are home in Chicago, you an' me alone." Taps pricked up first one ear and then the other. "Did I say home, me poor boy?" The Corporal sighed. "Sure, we have no more home, Taps, than a couple of rabbits. I wish we had some other thrade, Taps—some thrade that has a wife and childher in it an' a roof over our heads that is n't a rag fluttherin' in the wind. Hi! Yi! sojerin' makes an ould maid of a man." He twisted a wisp of Tap's mane in his fingers, and iooked thoughtfully out over the lake.
"What in thunderation we 're to do the sorra one of me knows," he went on. "But dont be afeard that I 'll enlist again an' lave you behind. No, no, me an' the guns and the dhrums are quits forever."
In the heart of the city, the bewildering crush and turmoil of traffic tossed them hither and thither like weeds on drifting waves. The dark was coming on; Tim was looking helplessly about for some sort of present refuge, when his name was called three times from the curb.
"Hey, Corporal! Tim! Captain Tim! Colonel Taps!" Tim started and there in the street not six feet distant stood little Jimmy Wilson in all the glory of a new suit of ill-fitting store clothes. In a twinkling the Corporal was on the ground and the two friends almost hugged each other.
"Well, well, Jimmy, is that yourself? Oh, thin it's I that's glad to see ye. Turn your head around, Taps, you vagabond, and see who's here."
The two soldiers were as unaffectedly glad to meet as two children. In a few minutes each had unburdened his mind of all the happenings of the past two weeks.
"Now, as good luck will have it, Tim," the Sergeant cried, slapping the trumpeter exultantly on the shoulder, "I know the very thing for you and Taps."
"I wondher! But sure, it'd be just like ye to know. There never was a first sergeant to aquil ye. Out with it."
"Well, it's this. There is a fellow named Carroll over on the West Side—he used to be in the cavalry—who owned a horse and express wagon, and he had a stand down near the Wisconsin Central depot. Well, two days ago the poor beggar's horse died and now he wants to quit the business. You can buy the wagon, license, and whole blamed outfit cheap—dirt cheap."
Tim's jaw dropped and he threw a guilty look at his horse; then, instinctively lowering his voice so that Taps might not hear, he said:
"How could I ever have the heart to hitch the loikes of him to a dirty ould express wagon. Besides, the poor fellow has never had a harness op his back in his life."
"Oh, he 'll get used to it; he 'll do fine." The two friends discussed the situation over and over again; Tim must find some kind of work! The upshot of the matter was, that, bright and early the next morning, poor Taps, with the most puzzled expression in the world, was standing between a rickety pair of shafts while his master shamefacedly buckled a strap here, or punched a hole there, all the time carefully avoiding the horse's inquiring gaze.
But there was no complaint, no reproach in the trusting brown eyes—only deep, hurt wonder.
The first few days of the new life brimmed over with profitless monotony. Would business never come! From hopeful morning till gray discouraged night. Tim watched the endless, unnoticing procession, as it trudged past him down the street toward the river, and he heard with dull ears the warning, "clang, clang," of the tireless bridge bell, is the great iron structure swung sullenly open to let the ships go by. They earned nothing the first two days, fifty cents the second day, then business fell off again.
However, Tim had often fronted much sterner situations without flinching. Besides, things might change any day. So each morning, with an assumed indifference, he drove down to Carroll's old stand (which, by the way, was almost in front of Michael Dempsey's popular-priced restaurant), and pulling up close to the curb, the Corporal sat bolt upright on the narrow seat of his wagon, with arms folded like a cannoneer.
One might reasonably suppose that Taps and his master were at last settled down to a sedate and respectable existence. But if peace hath her victories, she also has her perils, and an unsuspecting soldier and an unsophisticated horse may find dangers undreamed of in just a pair of gray eyes. And by the same token who had a more dangerous pair of gray eyes than Nellie Dempsey?
So at this juncture it came about that the strangest of all experiences flashed into the lives of our two friends. And the trunk of Michael Francis Dempsey, Junior, which had to be carried from his father's restaurant over to the LaSalle Street depot, started the trouble.
Yet for days before this happened, if the truth must be known, Tim had watched furtively, out of the tail of his eye, the trim black figure of the girl with the touch of white at her throat, as she busied herself over the cashier's desk in the restaurant. One morning the man's admiration shaped itself into words.
"By jaymini!" he said with half a sigh, "if that isn't the purtiest, neatest bit of a little woman I 've laid me two eyes on in many's the long day!" And that she was; and sweet-tempered, and sound-minded, and dutiful besides.
The thought was still lingering in the soldier's mind, when, wonder of wonders! the restaurant door opened, and out into the sunshine came the young lady herself with that fateful order about her brother's trunk.
Certainly Taps, and no other, was to blame for what immediately followed. The horse turned on Miss Dempsey those earnest brown eyes of his and deliberately moved a step nearer to the curb. No one ever yet had resisted those eyes.
The girl stroked his velvet nose as she gave the order about the trunk and the Corporal stood at attention, as if receiving a military command. But Taps, the sly, impudent fellow, instinctively recognizing a new friend, mumbled at the girl's hand with playful, caressing lips until, in a sudden excess of kindly feeling, she leaned her cheek against his smooth white forehead. That did the business for Tim! As he drove away with the trunk the enamoured lad could see nothing but the clear, steadfast, gray eyes of Nellie Dempsey, and he could hear no sound except a pleasant low voice enquiring, "Will you please tell me his name, sir?" Just that! A few words, and the whole world changed!
It was two o'clock that afternoon when Taps returned to the stand. Then the acquaintanceship begun in the morning strengthened into friendship by a lump of white sugar, and three parts of a sweet apple.
Whether it was purely a case of love at first sight on the part of Taps is a matter of grave doubt; I am afraid that at the start the sugar and the apple cores appealed strongest to him, but in a little while his stomach having been won, then, after the manner of his sex, his heart went with it. As for Miss Dempsey, woman-like, her heart went out to him unselfishly.
Thus it came to pass that every day Taps was sure of a friendly, gift-sweetened visit from his new admirer, during which, in the most unembarrassed way, Taps kissed Miss Nellie, and Miss Nellie kissed Taps.
During such delightful interviews Tim stood by, shy adoration in his honest eyes, relating in stumbling sentences the story of San Fillippo, or else the wonderful accomplishments of his horse. In spite of himself, a few of Tim's own soldierly exploits slipped out in the telling. Nor could Nellie, with her quick woman's instinct, help reading the man's strong but gentle nature, and feeling in her own heart some of his isolation and lonesomeness. At any rate, the three continued to grow better and closer friends until into the empty heart of the homeless soldier crept a hopeless something deeper than friendship.
A dozen times the man reproved himself: "You 're a crazy old fool, Tim O'Brien—you, thirty-seven years ould—to be lettin' that slip of a girl inter yer head—she that 'ud be a credit to a millionaire, or a general, for the matther o' that. Have some sinse, you big Omadhaun! Wake up and take yerself an' Taps and your ould wagon to some other part of the town, an' maybe you 'll quit dhraming nonsinse about her."
But it was no use for the trumpeter to call himself hard names; one quick glance of Nellie Dempsey's welcoming eyes and lo! every wise resolve was scattered to the four winds.
And Nellie herself, behold you, took to blushing furiously when she met the eyes of the Corporal. As for Taps, well—at such times he munched his apple core, bobbed his head reflectively and looked wise.
"I tell ye, Nellie," warned old Mrs. Dempsey one morning, "take your mother's advice and dont be paying so much attention to that good-for-nothing sojer out there an' his lazy horse. I make no doubt 'tis a dozen sweethearts he's had be this—cajolin' the likes of you with thim Injun stories!"
Nellie felt in her heart that the accusation about the sweethearts could n't be true, yet in some way her mother's words burned and burned.
One night, as Taps munched his late supper. Corporal O'Brien for the hundredth time took the horse into his confidence.
"Oh, musha, Taps, me boy, would n't it be grand if ye could only sound her intintions for me! She's fair daft about you. Any one can see that. I could n't spake to her, I have n't the courage! Be comparison to meself sure a sneakin' coyote has the bouldness of a lion."
The next day, and for some time after the giving of Mrs. Dempsey's motherly advice, Corporal O'Brien and Taps experienced, to their great surprise, an atmosphere of cold but polite disfavor in the neighborhood of the restaurant. Each in his own way resented the flight. Taps, by quick, indignant glances, and angry stampings and tossings whenever the door opened; the Corporal, by tilting his chin a little higher and folding his arms a bit tighter, whenever he felt a certain pair of gray eyes resting on him.
To add to the misery of the situation, as the winter wore on, a sterner, more exacting trouble came to keep watch at night beside the Corporal's hard pillow.
Either for the reason that our two friends had few acquaintances, or because their stand beside the restaurant was badly located, the express business did n't prosper with Tim any better than did matters of a more delicate, and sentimental nature. Errands were so few and far between that soon nickels grew to be as large as dollars.
At last, toward the end of the winter, things came to such a pass that sometimes the rations for horse and man were scant to the pride-hidden verge of extremity. Indeed, let it be whispered, there were days when poor Tim, unknown to the world, actually crossed that painful line. However, on such grim journeys he went alone; for by hook or by crook, the Corporal always managed to have a mouthful of oats or a handful of hay for his friend.
But hunger is not the worst trouble which can come to a soldier; when rations fail, all he need do is to pull his belt a hole or two tighter, close his teeth hard and well—wait for reinforcements.
One night, as our two heroes were returning, cold and tired, from a late trip, Fate gave the Corporal a particularly cruel jolt. Under the street lamp about a block from the restaurant Tim beheld, and his heart almost suffocated him at the sight—Nellie Dempsey talking familiarly to a well-dressed young man. Now, an ordinary observer would have found nothing startling in this, but to Tim—the sight was like a sudden blow in the dark. To this day he remembers with an unconquerable pang, how confidingly the girl's hand rested upon the stranger's arm and how brightly she smiled up into his face.
That night Tim's couch was a bed of thorns, and the next morning, to Taps' unbounded surprise and disgust, he was halted with a jerk a good two hundred feet this side of the restaurant, and told fiercely to "stand there." And perhaps Taps would have obeyed, as a soldier's horse should do, only that, when his master stepped across the street to the newsstand, Taps saw the flutter of a dark dress in the restaurant door beyond, and his elated eye caught the wave of a friendly hand. That settled it. He was never the one to hold spite. Without waiting for further permission, he deliberately and soberly walked up the street and halted in his well-known place. A few moments later his master, hotfaced and resentful, was obliged to follow.
"I saw you last night, Mr. O'Brien," exclaimed the lady. Very pretty, indeed, was Nellie as she perched like a blackbird on the threshhold. A thunderous glower was the best Tim could do by way of answer.
Miss Dempsey saucily tilted her head and smiled through half-shut eyes; the man's evident displeasure pleased her greatly. In the heart of the gentlest woman lurks a touch of innate savagery.
"You know, we are to have a wedding at our house pretty soon," she went on gaily. "Oh, you 'll get an invitation!"
The muscles of Tim's mouth stiffened into iron and a great chill crept into his soul.
The girl swept his face with keen, inquiring eyes while she waited intently for some hasty word of remonstrance, some unguarded play of feature. But long ago the soldier had learned to hide his hurts. And yet in spite of himself when he tried to wish her happiness, the bitter words died in his throat, and he could only stand there staring straight ahead into the gray emptiness of the desolate street. A ruined universe was tumbling about his ears. Then suddenly, before the smiling, but half-frightened, girl realized his purpose, the trumpeter sprang into his wagon and, without one word of parting, drove rapidly away.
"The foolish dhrame is over. Taps, and foolish enough it was, the Lord knows," the Corporal sighed that night as he unbuckled the heavy leather collar. The horse gave himself a grateful shake and rubbed his head a little sadly against his master's shoulder.
"Oh, God, help us, look at the ribs of ye, ye poor darlint! an' the gray hairs on your beautiful neck from the collar. Oh-ho! never mind, my boy. There's a pair of us! I'm lookin' as ould and as shabby as yerself. We 'll get another stand tomorrow. Taps, an' thry to forget her. Heigh-ho, sorra's the day!"
Recognizing the sigh, and in his dumb way feeling something of its meaning, the horse turned on his master a look of sympathetic intelligence which was almost human. It appealed to the Corporal like the grasp of a friendly hand, and he lovingly stroked the black mane.
"Look how you 've helped me, ould man! Nobody would belave it! You 've kept me stiddy. You 've saved me from the dhrink. You 've kept me—why, if it was n't for you, Taps, I'd be in the regular army be this, out in some of thim forts where min are only machines and prisoners, and the hearts eatin' out of thim with the tiresome longings. If 'twas active service the two of us'd go jumpin', wouldn't we? What's to be done? I dunno! I dunno!" The Corporal drew himself erect and gazed sternly into the dark shadows of the old stable. After a little he spoke again. "There's one thing sartin', though, whatever comes or goes, tomorrow 'll be our last day on Dempsey's block."
The next morning Taps and his master, grim with the new determination, were up betimes. No backing out this time! There were several farewell errands to be done—small sums to be collected, and little debts to be paid—so that it was almost noon before Tim threw the blanket over Taps and halted him about a block from the restaurant. "Dont stir a step from here, ould man," he continued, "and if she beckons, pay no attention—turn your head away!" Then the Corporal, with a reassuring twist of the horse's forelock, hurried down the street to Michael Casey's blacksmith shop to pay for Taps' last set of shoes. As Tim passed into Harrison Street, struck by some unaccountable premonition, he looked back at the horse. Taps had half turned the wagon in an effort to keep his master in sight.
"Will ye mind that now," muttered Tim to himself as he hurried on. "Is it any wondher I'm fond of him?"
No soldier who had known Taps in the days of his prosperity would have recognized the fallen favorite now, as he stood at the curb, listless and patient, waiting for his master. The fire had died out in him—he was only a dray horse. The early spring sun sifted through his shabby blue military blanket, bringing with its comfortable warmth memories of far-away Manila. Presently his head sank to the shafts in a half doze, and his mind was drifting into happier scenes, when, suddenly, in the distance behind, swelled the inspiriting music of a military band. Taps woke up. Could it be possible? Yes, it was the music of his constant dreams—the tune the regimental bands so often played at twilight along the Prado.
Why—could it be the old regiment was returning for him! Maybe the splendid golden days were coming back again. At the thought, his fond, loyal heart gave a great throb of gladness that sent the blood plunging through every vein. Louder and louder grew the well-remembered tune. Taps twisted his head awkwardly to look. There, sure enough, not a hundred feet away, came the long, swinging line of men in blue. The same, the very same—the darkly glittering guns, the dancing flags and the rhythmic tramp, tramp, of the dusty feet. A regiment was on its way to the railway station.
TAPS' OLD ARMY FRIENDS WOULD NOT HAVE RECOGNIZED HIM NOW.
All doubts vanished now. Here were the boys returning for him! Every inch of the quickened body quivered with excitement. What must he do? Where was the Corporal? Taps tried to throw up his head in the old proud way, but his collar—that yoke of ignoble servitude—checked him.
When the band was almost beside him, the music he loved so well abruptly ceased and then, like a flash of light stern and clear rang a bugle. "Halt!" it commanded. Ha! Why, that must be his master now; see how quickly the men obeyed—just like the old times. Now Taps knew well what the bugles next order would be—no soldier knew better. Champing and eager, he prepared to obey.
"Ta ra!" (Forward!) commanded the trumpet. "Ra!" (March!) Without another thought, without a moment's hesitation. Taps, express wagon and all, gravely started for his old place in the line just behind the Colonel. He tried to crowd in between the ranks. Some one pushed him back. In an instant all was confusion. Angry shouts and violent commands were in his ears, and a gloved hand suddenly struck him in the face.
That was strange! In all his life before, no one had ever struck him in anger. Troubled and not a little frightened, he fell back a step, and then plodded along with his cart, beside the marching regiment until the band struck up again. What should he do? Where was his master? He tried once more to reach his old place and was again fiercely rebuffed. Was it possible the boys had forgotten him? A bewildering fear crept into his mind and clouded it like a fog.
"On Right, into Line!" called the bugle. At the familiar sound Taps made one desperate lunge to reach the bugler, but only succeeded in breaking the changing line.
There was a burst of suppressed laughter from the men, and a chorus of bitter maledictions from the officers. Realizing in a dazed way that everything was wrong, and that somehow he was in great trouble, Taps made frantic attempts to break away. As he plunged through the line of men the adjutant struck him with the flat of a sword, and a soldier, needlessly cruel, reached out and gave him a spiteful thrust with a bayonet.
All reason vanished. An uncontrollable frenzy seized the horse. Blind with terror, he leaped through the scattering ranks and dashed down the street toward the bridge. As he passed the restaurant, old Michael Dempsey rushed out, bareheaded and coatless, in a vain endeavor to stop the runaway, but was knocked down by the careening wagon. Half a block behind the old man, Tim O'Brien followed breathless, his face tense and gray.
The flying animal gathered fresh fear at every crash of the wagon behind. A dozen men, senselessly waving their arms, dashed into the street in an effort to stop the maddened horse, but recoiled, themselves, from the terror in the great wild eyes.
On, on, he flew, straight as an arrow down the street toward the great pivot bridge. Could no one stop him? A policeman with raised baton sprang bravely into the very path of the approaching horse. In ten seconds Taps would have reached the bridge, when the short, impatient whistle of an incoming boat, and the warning "clang, clang" of the bridge bell, burst like a rocket, high above the rumble of the street. The bridge was opening!
"Merciful heaven!" Michael Dempsey, with a cry, swirled in his tracks and covered his face with his arm to shut out the horror. The towering iron structure trembled, hesitated, then turned noiselessly and swiftly to the left, leaving forty feet of clear space above the dark, creeping river.
All these things Tim saw through blurred eyes as he stumbled on. There was a whirring noise in his head, and his chest heaved painfully. The man's mind for the moment fiercely refused to grasp the certainty of the tragedy, but kept a struggling hope fixed on the figure of the policeman, who now crouched in the road, as if bracing himself for a shock.
An age of agony!
Then the Corporal sent forth such a cry as a man gives only when the sharp steel enters his breast; for the frenzied horse swerved wide from the policeman's saving hand and, plunging sixty feet down into the waiting chasm, disappeared forever.
Almost an hour went by and the Corporal, leaning on the bridge rail, was still gazing in numb despair at the secretive, deadly current. His whole life passed in review—empty, friendless and purposeless as it was. Here it ended. Whither could he turn? A hand touched him lightly on the shoulder and old man Dempsey's brusque, friendly voice said in his ear:
"Come back to the restaurant, Mr. O'Brien! The family sent me afther ye. Your friends are waitin' for ye!" The Corporal started and shook the sympathetic hand from his shoulder.
"Thank ye kindly, Mr. Dempsey," he answered with something suspiciously like a sob, "but the last friend I had, an' all I owned in the worruld lies down there."
"Arrah what nonsinse, man! Dont be an ould woman! Come back with me till we talk it over; we 'll find something for ye to do, niver fear."
Tim shook his head sadly. "I 've thought it all out, standing here alone. These hands are fit for nothing in the worruld but the handling of a gun. I'm goin' straight down to the recruitin' station and thry to begin life all over again. Though," he added with a sigh, "God knows how loath I am to do it."
As the Corporal spoke in that quiet but determined manner which forbids all argument, the two men simply shook hands and parted—Mr. Dempsey to hurry home with the news, and Corporal O'Brien to go plodding along in the opposite direction.
But happily, electric cars go ever so much quicker than sorrow-weighted, unwilling feet. And who can fathom the ways of a woman. Thus it happened that when our desolate trumpeter reached the foot of the dark stair leading up to the recruiting office, there stepped out to him from the gloom of the hall a slim familiar figure; and a pair of unfaltering gray eyes fired a volley of reproach into his own. "Where are you going, Mr. O'Brien?" Miss Dempsey spoke with chilling asperity.
The Corporal flushed guiltily. "I'm—I'm goin' back into the regular sarvice Miss—wherever they may send me." Then remembering, he asked sternly, "What brought ye here?"
There was no answer. Instead of replying the girl looked steadily at the ground, and, to the Corporal's unbounded surprise, the sensitive lips began to quiver, and two irrepressible tears trembled on the long dark lashes.
"What brought ye here?" he repeated.
She clasped her hands with all the strength of her slender arms, and bowed her head until the shamed love-confessing face was quite hidden. "I came because—because—Oh, dont you understand?" she faltered. "I came because I dont want you to go away."
A golden wonder dawned in the trumpeter's soul, but in its clear light stood revealed the hopeless jealousy of the past two days. "But you told me—but the wedding!"
The girl gave one quick smile upward through her tears. "Oh, yes, the wedding! Why didn't you know?" she laughed nervously, "that's my sister Julia's."
It was all so marvelous, so unexpected to the man, this revivifying happiness, that the bitter day with its cruel tragedy, for the instant, faded utterly. Then, through the triumphant swirl of things, into his beseeching outstretched palms crept two trembling little hands, and the next moment eager arms held her close. But evening brought torturing remembrances of Taps and the Corporal lay all night awake and cried like a woman until morning.
This work is in the public domain in the United States because it was published before January 1, 1929.
The longest-living author of this work died in 1933, so this work is in the public domain in countries and areas where the copyright term is the author's life plus 90 years or less. This work may be in the public domain in countries and areas with longer native copyright terms that apply the rule of the shorter term to foreign works.
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