The Bennington banner. [volume] (Bennington, Vt.) 1858-1894, 1893-12-08
COUNTERMINE B.

And he earneth wages to put it into bag
with holes.
There's somethin movin in Cour 81 mine
B, sir"
Color Sergeant William Bates Jtcod in
the doorway and snapped out these words
with that sense of military discipline and
curtness which had earned him the stripes
that were Oh his sleeve.
The startling announcement was made
to us in general and to Crater in particu-
lar 1t was Crater who had excavated
Countermine B, and Crater was out of
that room like terrier. He was tall
spare youth, with hair that stood up from
his forehead like soft and somewhat
wavy doormat Crater had been thought
q great deal of at Woolwich. He had a
clever head, and the sappers were proud
of him. As yet twas only matter of
appearance, for George Crater had done
nothing remarkable up to the time when
our small force was cornered. He was the
only engineer among us, just as | was
the only doctor. At first they had made
us take care of ourselves, on the principle
of guarding the brain that can think for
the rest.
From this vague allusion to n great pc
EN- it must not be concluded that this
story is about Lucknow No. We were
not at Lucknow, and no one ever wrote a
poem about us. We were merely a small
detachment of men and, alasl women,
moving down from an advanced station
on the Indian frontier before the Temporal
rily triumphant raids of a few rebel hill
men. A very small fight is sufficient to get
killed ina very small body of men may
make very large bid for immortality.
We were rather pleased with ourselves.
We were distinctly martyrs. An migrate
full country was going about its duty, was
spending its May week at Cambridge, was
lolling away its afternoons at Nottingham
and scarcely giving secoud thought to
the fact that it had been deemed eXpedient
to temporarily withdraw the garrison of
Nauog
We were, in fact, the garrison of Nauog
We had successfully marched through 200
miles of country physically broken, NOR
ally unstable. We were 40, rank and file,
and we had with us old Tangler, the tea
planter; Mrs. Tangler, Edith Tangler and
their European maid. We had two ladies
of our own-the majors wife and her sis
men, killed, and two days before we had
buried telegraph clerk who had sue
cumbed to nasty spear wound in the
groin. The only man among us whom !
thoroughly disliked was young Bird of the
guides. | imagine there was little sym
pathy between Bird and Crater. The for
mer was all swagger, the latter all hard
work and commendable ambition.
We were stuck at Oak bungalow by
the side of the river The ferryboat was
on the other side in possession of the main
body of the rebel hill men. This was
Crafer's chance-the major resolved to
fortify the place and wait. Crater gurgled
with joy behind his pipe when the decision
was made known to him. He had some
most original ideas on fertilization, which,
after all, was his business, and when a
man has original ideas on his own bust
ness and confines his attention to it he
usually gets on.
Crafer's Notifications were fearfully
and wonderfully made. The strange thing
was that he drew them all out first in a
pocketbook with. a ruler and a piece of
string. He actually made plan of that
Oak bungalow and built plan of fortifi-
cations around it, all scaled to feet and
inches. Bird laughed at the whole thing
and said that long before the earthworks
were thrown up our own men would be
waiting for us across the river. But Bird
was wrong. No one came to the other
side of the river to fetch us away. Instead
the hill men came across in the ferry boat
and began throwing up earthworks of
their own within range. Crater gurgled
still This was getting interesting. The
enemy s earthworks were duly scaled down
to inches in the notebook. Then Bird be-
gan to get uncomfortable. He was very
rich young man-Mrs. Tangler knew it
and he had many things which he wanted
to buy and enjoy before he died. He had
no confidence in Crafer's earthworks.
In this respect Bird differed from the rest
of us. The major pulled his mustache and
said Crater was all right. Crater was a
good man. As for myself. said nothing
1t was not my business. But was not
in the least uneasy and attended to that
which was my business all the better be
cause Crater had all the Notifications
neatly worked out in his pocketbook. But
Edith Tangler had perfect confidence in
Crafer's earthworks and said SOTO some
people She said so to me and asked me if
l did not think them wonderful. said
did. But there were other things which
struck me as still more wonderful. One
Of these was the perfect serenity of this
gentle souled girl in the very heart of a
most unmistakable danger.
Danger is very difficult thing to hide.
II a ship is going down, everybody on
board knows it, however comforting the
authorities may be. There is no doubt
that Edith Tangler was quite aware of the
fact that any sunset might be our last.
She was not constructed on heroic lines at
all. She was rather small and slightly
built, with very fascinating fair hair and
thoughtful blue eyes. From her way Of
moving it was quite obvious that her line
In life was essentially the pathway of
peace and domestic insignifcance. She
was the sort Of girl to be frightened Mt
those things which our grandmothers
feared, while our sisters and wives face
them in tailor made dresses today.
Considering this, It was rather remark
able that Miss Tangler should smile and