It was midnight when I went out,--mind, I say MIDNIGHT--
and I don't know what ailed me that night, for, after thinking of
the old lady and Benny and my own mother that was dead, and all
the rest of the boys that had marched out so fine and ended so
miserable--I couldn't keep the sleep away; and I'd go off and off,
though I tried my damnedest not to; and my eyes would shut in
spite of me and just glue together; and I would kind of drown,
drown, drown in sleep. If ever a man knew what he was doing, and
the risk, and what I owed to the boys, and me a Regular, and all
that--it was ME; yet--yet--And you must remember it had been a hard
day, and the guns had stuck again and again in the mud, and it was
pull, mule, pull, soldier, till you thought you'd drop in your
tracks. Oh, I am not excusing myself! I've seen men shot for
sleeping on guard, and I know it's right; and, even in my dreams,
I seemed to be reproaching myself and calling myself a stinker.
Then, just as I was no better nor a log, laying there with my head
on my arm, a coward and a traitor, and a black disgrace to the
uniform I wore, I suddenly waked up with somebody shaking me hard,
real rough, like that--and I jumped perfectly terrible to think it
might be the captain on his rounds. Oh, the relief when I saw it
was nothing else than the old lady, she kneeling beside me all
alone, and her specs shining in the starlight.
"William, William!" she said, sorrowful and warning, her voice
kind of strange, like she didn't want to say out loud that I had
been asleep at my post; and, as she drew away her hand, it touched
mine, and it was ice-cold.
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