Page 28 of For This We Are Soldiers
“I have nothing to report, sir,” he told the major who was pouring himself something amber out of a crystal decanter.
Ted straightened his shoulders, ready to take the blistering scold he expected, deserved or not. To his surprise, Major Brotherton poured another drink and handed it to him without a word. Ted drank, saluted smartly, and left.
A
Ted’s officer of the guard duties ended the next morning at Guard Mount when another lieutenant, sergeant, and corporal received their sashes for the twenty-four hour period and took over the guardroom at the edge of Fort Buford, ready to do the will of their commanding officer. He returned to his usual duties in E Company, drilling new recruits and supervising fatigue details.
Those naughty cows remained behind the hospital, more carefully watched by the assistant steward now. Ted thought briefly about accidentally running a bayonet through his arm, just for an excuse to go to the hospital and see Millie, but dismissed that notion with the laugh it deserved. Maybe he would get up enough courage—he who had held off a whole cluster of irate Apaches when the Seventh Infantry served in the Southwest—to just knock on Sergeant Drummond’s door and ask if he could sit with the man’s lovely daughter.
Two days after the cow incident, Millie Drummond solved his problem.
After Recall from Fatigue, Millie joined him as he walked alone from the commissary storehouse to his barrack. One moment he walked by himself, and the next moment she walked beside him. He shortened his stride immediately, which brought at little pink to her cheeks, at least as much pink as showed in a lass with some Ojibwe ancestors.
“I didn’t hear you,” he said, which made her laugh and remind him that she had quiet ancestors on one side of her family tree.
She cleared her throat. “Mama said I could invite you to supper tonight,” she said, looking straight ahead.
Dear heart, you are as shy as I am, but so much braver,he thought. “I would like that, Miss Drummond.”
“Remember, it’s Millie,” she said, and turned back toward Suds Row. “See you at six, Corporal Sheppard.”
“And I am Ted,” he said softly to the empty air.
Ever punctual, Corporal Theodore Sheppard knocked on the Drummonds’ door at precisely six of the clock, his lid tucked under his arm. Millie opened the door with a smile and ushered him in.
Sergeant Drummond had always intimidated Ted with his remarkable posture and his steely-eyed stare that suffered not a single fool gladly. This Sergeant Drummond in a checkered shirt, wool pants, and moccasins looked like a fellow who might enjoy a game of checkers or an evening’s conversation. Ted felt himself relax.
Millie’s smiling mother ushered them right to the table in the corner of the front room. He remembered in time to pull out Millie’s chair for her, then seated himself beside her. It was a tight fit because the table was small, but he enjoyed every moment, breathing in the lavender fragrance in Millie’s hair.
Sergeant Drummond asked a spartan Presbyterian blessing, then took the lid off the soup tureen. He ladled soup into a big bowl and handed it to Millie, who passed it to Ted, who stared down in shocked disbelief.
It was cream of oyster soup, milky and thick. The sutler sold canned oysters, and Ted knew how costly those tins were, because he had eyed them a time or two. But the cream?
“Some bread, Corporal?” Millie asked, as she handed him a plate with slabs of white bread baked by some angel from a celestial realm far from Dakota Territory. “Butter?”
He took the bread and stared at the butter, which bore no resemblance to the rancid stuff found in tins in the commissary storehouse. This was freshly made butter, the kind from contented, pampered cows who had just cost Captain Crampton three dollars. In mystified silence, he sliced off a hunk and buttered his bread.
In further silence, he filled his spoon with glorious soup and downed it, marveling at the exquisite mingling of cream with milk that had never been condensed and stuffed in a can to languish for years. He closed his eyes with the wonder of it, even as he had an entire series of questions that needed asking.
The sergeant cleared his throat and Ted put down his spoon.
“Millie, what do you have to say?” her father asked his lovely daughter, but in a tone most fatherly, and if Ted was listening right, singularly proud.
Millie looked at Ted, gazed deep into his eyes, and said so softly he had to lean closer to her, no hardship. “I’m the guilty party.”
Those same eyes filled with tears, and one slid down beside her nose. Without even thinking, Ted took his napkin and dabbed at it gently.
“Tell him why, dear,” Mrs. Drummond said.
“Corporal Petty’s wife has a baby that just isn’t thriving,” she said in a whisper. “I thought maybe if she had some fortified milk, it would help. All I could think of was that wee one. I waited until the soldiers left after Recall from Fatigue and milked all three cows.”
“No one saw you?” Ted asked.
She shook her head. “I can be so quiet. I took the milk to Mrs. Petty, and more milk to some of the children here on Suds Row. It was such a hard winter for children, and several still need feeding up. Have you ever noticed the Indian women who hang around the slaughterhouse, hoping for scraps? They don’t actually beg, but their eyes follow you …” Her voice trailed away.
Ted nodded. He had seen them too, and felt hot shame that proud people had come to that, thanks to the government whose will he enforced.
“I thought they could use some too.”
