They call it the incurable ward. In coming down the corridor one sees above its doorway, upon the blank, white wall, a plain, black letter A. It almost seems as though the painter had thought to transcribe there, “All hope abandon”—and then had relented, after outlining the initial letter of the grisly legend. Perhaps he well might have finished his work, for those who enter that quiet room are borne thither because their days are nearly numbered.

On that afternoon there was but one patient in Ward A. He seemed content to lie motionless, watching with drowsy, half-closed eyes the play of a stray shaft of sunlight upon the snowy counterpane. Beside him, steadily swinging a fan, sat a white-robed nurse. The long June day was wearing slowly on towards its ending. In through the casement to the westward there came a soft breath of flower-scented air. The nurse felt its caress upon her cheek, and laid aside her fan. Then, with a little sigh of relief, she rose from her chair, and quietly stole over to the window for a moment’s glance out into the garden which lay below.

She was standing there when her trained ear caught the sound of a restless movement upon the cot. “A glass of water, please,” murmured the sick man, as she turned and came quickly towards him.

“Thank you,” said he, after a long, grateful draught from the glass which she had held to his lips. “I must be a terrible nuisance to you. But,” he added, in a lower tone, “it’ll not be for much longer, please God!”

“Sh-h!” said the nurse, reprovingly. “You mustn’t say that. I can’t see, I’m sure, why it should be thought that nurses are intended more for ornament than use. Not,” with a smile, “but that we’re flattered by that view of the situation.”

“But really and truly,” she went on, picking up the fan, “we should grow terribly tired of the monotony if it weren’t for the relief that comes from doing these little things.”

“I suppose I must believe you,” said the sick man, smiling faintly in his turn. “And if—‘really and truly’—it will serve to break the monotony, I’ll venture to ask you to do me one more favor. About that packet of trinkets that I—”

“Oh, how stupid of me!” exclaimed the nurse, hastily rising from her chair. “The superintendent sent them in while you were taking your nap.” With the swift, noiseless step of one long trained in hospital service she crossed the room, and took from the mantel a small package. “Here they are,” said she. “Shall I take them out for you?”

At his nod of assent she deftly untied the faded blue ribbon with which the packet was secured, removed the tissue-paper covering, and brought to light a jewel-case, in which lay three military decorations—the badge of the Loyal Legion, the plain, bronze star of the Grand Army, and the enamelled Maltese cross of the old 19th Army Corps.

One by one she laid the medals upon the thin hand feebly outstretched over the white coverlid, and for a moment the sick man’s tired eyes kindled as he gazed upon them. But the feeble hand relaxed, the eyes quickly became dim again. “Ah, well,” he said, a bit huskily, “I’m through—through with all that now. And I’ve no son—there’s no one to care—no one to whom I can leave these things. You’ll see that some one pins them on my breast when—when I’m carried out?”

“Yes,” said the nurse, gathering up the medals as she spoke, “I’ll be very careful about having it done.” And then she added quietly, “I’ll attend to it myself.”

“I’m wofully helpless,” said the man upon the cot apologetically; “may I trouble you to hand me the photograph?”

The nurse drew from beneath his pillow a faded and worn morocco case, opened it, and handed it to him. Then she turned away and made pretence of busying herself about some little matter, while her charge looked long and wistfully upon the picture of a woman’s face that smiled back at him from its resting place within the leathern frame.

The sick man sighed, but not unhappily. A look of peace came upon his worn face, and a smile—a wonderfully tender smile—hovered about his lips. “Will you put the medals under my pillow?” said he, as the nurse came towards the bed. “Thank you. Really, you’ve been very kind to me. I’d like to tell you how grateful I am for it all—but may be I needn’t. My mind’s quite at rest now: those letters that you wrote for me settled the last of my worries. And now I’m not sure—I think—think that perhaps I could sleep again for a little while.” He wearily turned his head to one side, resting it upon the palm of his hand. And within the hand, pressed close against his cheek, lay the photograph in its worn and faded case.

The nurse smoothed out the pillow, passed her hand gently over the iron-grey hair that clustered thickly above his forehead, and taking her place by the bedside, once more began to swing the fan slowly to and fro.

In the great, white room the shadows deepened as the sun went down. The sick man was breathing regularly, but very lightly. He had fallen asleep. Once the silent watcher saw his lips move, and caught the sound of murmured words: then all was still again. The fan swung slowly back and forth—still more slowly—and then it stopped. The world outside seemed very beautiful in the June twilight, and the confinement, by contrast, became doubly irksome. The nurse slipped quietly over to the open window. She was standing there when the house surgeon came briskly into the room. “S-sh!” said she, turning at the sound of the footsteps, and raising a warning hand. “He’s asleep.”

But the surgeon already was standing beside the cot. He gave one keen glance at the form lying before him, and placed his hand over the heart. Then he straightened up and turned towards the nurse. His face had become grave. “Yes,” said he, in answer to the look of anxious inquiry; “yes, he’s asleep. I hadn’t looked for this before tomorrow,” he went on quietly, “but he’s—he’s asleep, as you say.”

Dimness had come with the failing light, but it was not so dark that the doctor and the nurse could not see upon the dead man’s face the calm smile of perfect peace. “See,” whispered the nurse, gently drawing the photograph from its resting place—and as she held the picture towards her companion she gave a little sob. “Yes, I see,” said the surgeon, softly. “I know his story.” And then in a lower tone he added, “He’s asleep at last. God send him rest!”

It was nearing nine o’clock. Colonel Elliott glanced at his watch, and then leaned back in his chair with the comfortable consciousness that his evening’s work was over. One by one he had gone through the pile of papers that he had found upon his desk. He had written, “Respectfully forwarded, approved,” upon each in its turn, and now they were ready to go to the adjutant, to be entered up and sent along upon their sluggish travels “through channels.”

The colonel gathered the scattered documents into a bunch, snapped a rubber band about them, and then called, “Orderly!”

“Take these papers to the adjutant,” said the chief, as a soldier stepped promptly into the room, with his hand at his cap. “Then find Major Pollard, and say to him, with my compliments, that I’d like him to report to me here.”

The orderly saluted, and disappeared. The colonel bit the tip from a cigar, lighted it, and then drew from his pocket a half dozen letters. Rapidly running through them, he picked out one, tossed it upon his desk, and then, letting his head fall back, he fixed his eyes upon the ceiling, and smoked away in thoughtful silence.

Along the broad corridors of the armory echoed the steady tramp of feet, the rattle of arms, and the sharp commands of the line officers, for it was a regular drill-night of The Third, and four of the regiment’s twelve companies were at work in the great hall lying beyond the administrative rooms. Presently, above the hum of the other sounds, the colonel heard quick, firm footsteps approaching his door, and in a moment Major Pollard and Van Sickles, of the staff, came into the room.

“You sent for me, Colonel?” said the major, inquiringly.

“Yes,” said the chief, adding, as Van Sickles made a motion as if to withdraw, “I’d like to have you stay, Van. I’ve something to tell that’ll answer a question you once asked me.”

Both drew up chairs. The colonel passed over his cigar case, and then said, “A year ago you fellows got me to talking, one night up in The Battery, about something that happened while I was out with the ‘Old Regiment.’ As I recall it, I told you a yarn about the resurrection of Bob Sheldon, and you, Van, asked me, when I’d finished, what had become of Bob since the war. Do you remember?”

“Sheldon?” said Van Sickles. “Oh, yes. He was the man that was brained by a splinter of shell, and afterwards came to time all right. Your old captain, wasn’t he? Yes, I remember.”

“Well,” said the colonel slowly, “I had a letter from him this morning—and he’s dead.”

“Not really!” said Van Sickles, as the chief made this odd announcement. “Well, I’m sorry on your account, sir.”

“He’s dead, poor old Bob!” said the colonel, resting his elbow upon the edge of his desk and letting his chin drop into the palm of his hand. “Yes, he’s got his papers at last. And now, Van, I can take up the story that I left unfinished. It was incomplete then, but now the last chapter’s been written.”

“You’ve had the first of it already,” went on the chief, settling back in his chair. “Here’s the rest of it—and the last of it. You’ll listen, too, Pollard. “I’ve told you already, I think, that Bob Sheldon and I were the closest of friends. I stood up with him when he was married to his Nell—his ‘little Nell’—the girl whose name came to his lips when he lay in delirium after the shell had struck him down. Poor little Nell—poor old Bob! Well, all the trouble’s ended at last.

“The friendships that are made in active service are lasting ones. When the ‘Old Regiment’ came back, after doing its share of the work of hammering our erring brothers into a peaceful state, Bob was on the roster as major, and I’d been given his old company. But it never occurred to either of us, when off duty, that such a thing as rank had any existence. It was ‘Bob’ for him and ‘Harry’ for me, and he’d have thought me crazy if I’d addressed him as ‘Major’ except when I was at the head of my company.

“I’ll be older than I am now before I forget the day that we were mustered out. We’d gone to the front with something over the full thousand: there were three hundred and sixty of us, rank and file, when we came home again. For we’d been a fighting regiment from start to finish, and the hard knocks of four long years had cut the original roll to ribbons. Those were the days when veteran regiments were allowed to dwindle down to skeletons, through battle and disease, while the recruits that should have been turned over to them to stop the gaps were herded together in one raw, half useless lump, given a fresh regimental number and a stand of colors bright and crisp from the shop, and then bundled off to where there was fighting to be done—and all because some ambitious politician felt that a pair of eagles would be becoming to his peculiar style of corpulent beauty.

“We had a royal welcome home. I needn’t tell you what battles were gilded on the stripes of the old flag, because you know well enough the sort of record that we fellows made when cutting out the pace for you youngsters. We’d done our work, and we knew that we’d done it well, and we felt that the people knew it, too. And when we made our last march, that day, through the swarming streets, we took as rightfully ours the cheers that went up as the wreck of the ‘Old Regiment’ followed the faded colors home again. “Then came the final breaking up; the time when ‘break ranks’ meant that regimental line never would be formed again. I remember how, for the last time, we presented to the colors—the ragged, blood-streaked scraps of silk whose worn folds told our whole war story. Bob turned to me when the tattered old things were being carried away from us forever. His face was working, and—I doubt, though, if he knew it—a big tear was rolling down each gaunt, sun-burned cheek. I—well, I was sobbing like a child, I’m not ashamed to say. So were the boys at my back—God bless ’em!

“‘Bob,’ says I, trying to swallow the lump in my throat, ‘Bob, old man, what’s left for us now?’ He turned in his saddle and looked across the parade to where a group of white gowns—his Nell was there, with the colonel’s wife and a lot of other women—had gathered to watch the last act in our war drama. ‘What’s left?’ says he, turning to me again, ‘What’s left? Why, everything!’ And though the tears still glistened at the corners of his eyes, his face shone with the light that has but one meaning.

“Well, we of the ‘Old Regiment’ shook hands, and drifted back to our places in civil life. There are easier things than dropping the customs of the service, and taking up the monotony of everyday existence. It came hard at first, but we managed it somehow.

“Bob was married. He wouldn’t let a week go by, after we were mustered out, before he had that much of his career settled. I volunteered to stand by him to the last, and he held me in reserve as best man until the knot was safely tied. It was a military wedding. Nearly all the officers of the ‘Old Regiment’ were there. It was a dingy looking lot of uniforms that gathered in the little church, but the men inside the faded blue coats were all right.

“It wasn’t long before I followed Bob’s example. Then life ran on smoothly with us both for a long stretch of years. To be sure, we missed the excitement of the old days; but I’d come ’round to Bob’s view of life, and was willing to admit that there was a good deal left to live for, after all. There are several queer things about war: one of ’em is the way in which it teaches old soldiers to appreciate the comfort of peace.

“Yes, life ran on smoothly for a time,” repeated the colonel with a sigh; “and then came trouble, big trouble for poor Bob. He had one child, a boy. He was a bright, sturdy chap. Bob really believed that the world revolved ’round him. But just after he’d had his tenth birthday, he died.

“It was terribly rough! Bob had planned to send the youngster to ‘The Point,’ when the proper time came; and he’d talk to me by the hour of the pride he’d feel when he had a son in the service. ‘Harry,’ he’d say, when we’d be smoking our old pipes together, ‘you and I were good enough soldiers according to our lights: we could fight just as nastily as though we’d been in the business for a lifetime. But when it came to the fine points of the profession, we weren’t quite up to concert pitch; the fellows from ‘The Point’ scored on us then. Now, there’s going to be another war some day. It’s a long way ahead, and it’s two to tuppence that we’ll not be in it. But I want to feel that the name of Sheldon will be on some regiment’s roster then—and I’m thinking that little Bob’ll take care of that for me.’

“It was cruel work for poor Bob when we laid the little fellow away, and my heart went out to him in his trouble. But there was a heavier blow yet to fall. Two years after we’d buried the boy, I stood by Bob’s side and gripped his arm while his wife’s coffin was being lowered into the grave. My God! I learned then what despair meant. When all was over, Bob clung to me, and asked the question that I’d put to him on the day they took our old colors from us. ‘Harry,’ he said, almost with a groan, ‘Harry, what’s left for me now?’ And before I could think of the words that I wanted, he answered his own question with, ‘Nothing!’

“And then I lost him for a time. He simply dropped everything and went away. For three years he was abroad, and from time to time I’d hear from him. But the letters were hopelessly unhappy, and I knew that he’d not recovered from the wrench that he’d got. Then came four months of silence.

“I was beginning to get alarmed at not hearing from him, when, one fearfully hot day in August, I looked up from my work, and saw him standing by the desk in my office. ’Pon my soul, I couldn’t have been blamed for thinking that I saw his ghost! He was haggard and thin, and his eyes had a troubled, haunted look that made my heart ache for him.

“‘I’m back again,’ he said, holding out his hand. ‘It’s hot, isn’t it? I’m going to ask you a favor, Harry. The old house over in Cambridge has been closed ever since—ever since I went away, and I’m going there this afternoon: will you go with me?’

“I hadn’t lunched, but he seemed feverishly impatient to be off, and fairly dragged me along with him. We took a cab, and started on the long, hot ride. I did all the talking on the way: he sat silently by me, and his face wore a look that made me terribly uneasy.

“When we were nearly at the end of our ride I happened to catch sight of a doctor’s sign upon the door of a house, and to my surprise I saw that it bore the name of the assistant surgeon of the ‘Old Regiment.’ A sudden idea came to me, and I made the cabman pull up, explaining to Bob that I’d a message to leave for a friend. I was pretty sure that he’d not notice anything: the look in his eyes told me that his mind was busy with something besides his surroundings.

“Running up to the door, I pulled the bell in a way that meant business, and in a very short time I’d explained matters to the doctor. We agreed between us that the heat and the strain of coming back to the desolate home might work upon Bob in a fashion that, coupled with the effect of his old wound, would bring on bad results. So we arranged that the doctor should follow, in about a quarter of an hour, and drop in at Bob’s house as if by accident. It was a clumsy sort of scheme, I must confess, but it was the best that I could think of under the circumstances.

“Bob and I drove on. When we reached the house, he tried to unlock the door, but his hand shook so pitifully that I took the key from him, and let him in. The house was hot and close, and the air musty with the damp of long disuse. It was a mournful home-coming, and I felt that it couldn’t help doing harm of some sort to poor Bob.

“We went about from room to room. I opened a window here and there, for though the outside air was torrid anything seemed preferable to the closeness of those long untenanted walls. Bob moved in a dazed sort of way, as if he were walking in a dream. I’d tried to find out if he had any definite object in coming, but he answered me incoherently, and I gave up my questioning.

“We’d been there for a full quarter of an hour when the door-bell rang. It sounded queerly, that tinkling peal in the silence of the deserted house. Bob jumped as if he’d been struck, when he heard the bell. ‘What’s that?’ he said nervously.

“‘I’ll go to the door,’ says I, knowing well enough what it meant. ‘Thank you,’ said Bob; ‘if it isn’t too much bother. I don’t care about seeing any of the neighbors just yet. I’ll run upstairs for a second, and you can call me when the coast’s clear.’

“I opened the door, and there stood the doctor. ‘Hello, Elliott!’ he sang out, in a purposely loud voice, ‘You here? I happened to be passing, and noticed that the windows were open. Has the major come back?’ He stepped into the hall, and I closed the door behind him. ‘Yes, he turned up to-day,’ said I, also very loudly and distinctly. ‘He’ll be glad to see you. Funny coincidence, your dropping in on us this way. Sort of regimental reunion, eh? We’ll have to—’ “I stopped right there. A pistol shot rang out in one of the upper chambers, and after it came the sound of a heavy fall. ‘God! we’re too late,’ gasped the doctor. But he rushed for the stairs without an instant’s hesitation, and I tore up after him.

“Poor old Bob was lying on his face, in the room that had been his wife’s. His old army revolver lay smoking beside him, where it had fallen when he dropped. The blood was streaming from his head, and the first horrified glance showed me that the track of the bullet almost exactly followed the scar left by the splinter of shell that had bowled him over years before.

“The doctor went down upon his knees. Rapidly examining the bleeding wound, he looked up at me and said grimly, ‘This is bad business, Captain, bad business. But he’s failed in his undertaking. Nerves must have gone back on him. That was a glancing shot: it didn’t penetrate.’ He rapidly ran his eye around the room. ‘See where it went?’ he said, pointing to a ragged break in the plastering.

“We lifted Bob from the floor and laid him on the bed. The doctor went to work and stopped the bleeding, talking softly to me all the while. ‘I don’t like it at all,’ he said. ‘He’ll not die from this, but I’m in doubt about the effect it’ll have on his brain. It’s a nasty shock for a man in his over-wrought condition. Queer, isn’t it, that I should be patching up the same place that I worked over so long ago? He’s in for brain fever, poor devil! It’s a hard thing to say, Elliott, but I’m not sure that he wouldn’t have been luckier if his lead had gone straight in.’

“Well, the rest of the story can be told in few words. Bob didn’t die. The doctors pulled him safely through, and saved a life that might better have been allowed to slip away. For when the fever that followed upon the shock of the wound had burned itself out, the delirium remained, and all that was left of as fine a man as ever served was a hopelessly insane wreck.

“It’s twelve years since I’ve seen him. They wouldn’t let me come to visit him at the asylum, fearing that the sight of me might affect him unfavorably. Poor Bob! he’s been out of the world for all that time—waiting to wear out! From time to time I’ve had reports from the doctors, but never a cheering one until to-day, when I received a letter from Bob himself—and by the same mail got word that death had come at last to bring him his release.

“It seems that the end came very suddenly. There was a physical collapse, as if his vital machinery had run down all at once. But at the very last the cloud lifted from his mind, and before he died he had become, mentally, almost his old self. It was on his last afternoon that he dictated this letter to me.” The colonel leaned forward and took the envelope from his desk. “I’m going to read you a paragraph or two from it, because it concerns you, in a way.”

The colonel glanced at his two listeners. Van Sickles was smoking calmly, as is his wont. Pollard’s cigar had gone out, and he was bending forward in his chair, with his eyes expectantly fixed upon the chief. It was evident that he was not a little moved by what he had heard.

“Here’s what he says,” said the colonel, rapidly glancing through the contents of one sheet, and beginning to read from the second: “‘They tell me, Harry, that you’ve found it impossible to stay out of the service, even in these peaceful times, and that you’ve a command of your own—that it’s fallen to you to be at the head of the regiment that’s keeping our old name and number alive. If that’s true, I’ve a favor to ask from you. Don’t think it the whim of a madman, for it’s not. To come to it at once, I want a major’s escort when they put me away. It’s my soberly sane desire, and the last one that I shall have in this world. You’ll see that I’m not disappointed? I knew you would, and I’ll thank you in advance. Perhaps you’d do well to let the boys of the ‘Old Regiment’ know when and where the funeral will be: some of them might like to be there. But I’ll leave it all to you.’”

The colonel paused. His voice had become just the least bit unsteady. To cover his feelings he struck a match, but forgot to apply it to his cigar until it had burned down so far that he had to drop it hastily upon the floor.

“Is that all, sir?” asked Pollard, when the colonel stopped reading.

“Perhaps I might give you the last paragraph,” replied the chief huskily, again turning to the sheet that he held. “‘Good-bye, Harry,’ it runs. ‘I’m tiring fast, and the nurse says I must stop and rest. You’ll remember about the escort? I’ve no family left, and few friends, so I must look to you for everything. We’ll meet again sometime, I’ve a firm conviction. Things will be happier then, and brighter. So good-bye once more, old fellow, and God bless—.’” The colonel choked, and stopped abruptly.

Major Pollard pulled himself up from his chair. “Will you order out my battalion as escort, sir?” he asked earnestly. “I should consider it a great honor, and I’m sure that the men would look at it in the same way.”

“I hope you’ll find something for me to do,” began Van Sickles, coming towards the colonel’s desk. “I’d be glad to help in any way; about flowers, or music, or—”

“Thank you both,” said the chief, giving a hand to each. “I knew you’d help me out in this. Yes, I’ll order you out, Pollard. I’ll have the adjutant issue a special order at once. Perhaps you’d do well to speak to your company commanders about it now, before they dismiss. We’ll have the funeral on Sunday afternoon. I shall call on you, Van, for help in a number of little matters between now and then.”

Pollard left the room, going to pass word to his captains. The colonel and Van Sickles went to the staff-room, where the adjutant and sergeant major were wrestling with the never-ending “paper work” of regimental headquarters.

“Charley,” said the chief, as he came to the adjutant’s desk, “what was the number of the last regimental special order?”

“I think it was 48, sir,” said the adjutant, dragging the order-book from its resting place, and rapidly running over its pages. “Yes, 48 it was.”

“Then I’ll trouble you to make me out 49,” said the colonel. “Have it run something like this: ‘The 3rd Battalion will report to Major Pollard, on Sunday next, for the performance of escort duty at the funeral of Robert Hunnewell Sheldon, late major of this regiment when in the service of the United States, 1861–65.’”

It was a bright, warm Sunday. Against the cloudless sky the grim battlements of the armory towered up in bold relief. Upon the tiny flanking turret which caps one corner of the massive watch-tower, the half-masted flag hung down in drooping folds of white and red, unstirred by any passing breeze.

The streets were almost deserted. But within the great armory there was unwonted life and movement: and when the clocks of the city were striking the hour of three, the ponderous, iron-bound doors swung heavily apart, and, company by company, Major Pollard’s battalion of The Third came marching out, under the frowning archway and down the wide granite steps.

The major formed his command in line, facing the entrance. A moment later he brought the battalion to a “present,” faced about, and saluted, as six sergeants of the regiment came slowly down the steps, bearing out into the June sunlight a plain, black casket, which they placed in the waiting hearse.

Then came a handful of men in citizen’s dress, the survivors of the ‘Old Regiment’—grey-haired men, most of them, but all wearing proudly the bronze star, and the Maltese cross of their long-disbanded army corps. These were followed by the colonel and nearly all the officers of the active regiment, in full dress; for the story had spread through The Third, and—though the chief had expressed no formal wish—it somehow had become understood that he would be glad to have this mark of respect shown for the dead officer who had been his friend and comrade.

The escorting battalion moved to its position, the muffled drums of the field music began to beat, and the column, leaving the deserted armory to its Sunday quiet, slowly took up the march towards the elm-shadowed churchyard where, beside two low, green mounds, an open grave lay waiting.

The chaplain, book in hand, took his place beside the heap of freshly turned mould, ready to begin the recital of the solemn service for the dead. “Forasmuch as it hath pleased Almighty God to take unto Himself the soul of our brother here departed,” he read, slowly and distinctly, as the coffin was lowered gently to its resting place; “we therefore commit his body to the ground; earth to earth, ashes to ashes, dust to dust.”

The service ended, and the chaplain softly closed his book. Then came the commands for the firing, given in a tone strangely unlike that to which the men were accustomed. Three echoing volleys followed, telling those who chanced to hear that another soldier of the half-forgotten war had been laid at rest.

The blue-white smoke from the rifles, silvered here and there by shafts of sunlight, drifted lazily up through the branches of the overhanging elms: there was an interval of silence, finally broken by the mellow notes of a bugle thrilling out the bars of Taps, the soldier’s requiem; and then the escort broke into column and marched away, leaving the little knot of older men still standing in the shady churchyard.