this and will find another way to do it. Or perhaps he will return to his quarters, lie down on his bunk with a bottle and do nothing at all until Molloy recovers.
“You are dismissed, Sergeant,” Carrington says.
Kohn comes to attention and snaps out a salute. The colonel and his adjutant ignore him, watching the woodtrain.
16
HOW WE GOT UP AS HORSE SOLDIERS & TOM BROKE CAPT. BROWN’S MOUNT
FROM FT. LEAVENWORTH IN KANSAS WE DID SHIFT KIT & caboodle in the spring to Ft. Caldwell in the Nebraska Territory. (This was where I did overhear Gen. Sherman tell the ladies to keep account of their journeys West & had the notion to do it myself.)
Here the soldiers detailed to the 18th Infantry Regiment began to arrive forming 8 skeleton companies of the 2nd Battalion. Most of these boys arriving were fresh as new baked bread on a windowsill with but a few veterans of the War like ourselves mixed in. We were thin on the ground I can tell you.
You would not believe it Sir (or maybe you would because you know how the Army works!) but the detachment of Cavalry promised to us got shanghaied & sent somewhere else altogether. This being the case a plan was made by the bigwigs to fit some of us infantry Bills out as Mounted Infantry which does sound like a fine plan until you learn how little time most of the new take ons had around horses. Sure they are city mice most of them & about as easy with a beast as they are with a rifle. Afraid of the horses 1/2 the lot while the other 1/2 knows not which end is the arse & which the eyes. But my brother & I did know a thing or 2 at least about them & soon for the price of $1.50 each paid to Sgt. Nevin we did find ourselves mounted & saving mightily on bootleather.
I write of this because it was detailed to the Battalion’s horses that we came to meet Capt. Frederick Brown who is also called Mad Fred by the men of the 18th. He is called this out of respect & awe & not mockery if you can reckon it. For though he is the Quartermaster here at Ft. Phil Kearny he is also the most terrible harrier of the Sioux & Cheyanne you would ever like to meet.
But surely you have already met him yourself Sir. Did he show you his collection of scalps? They are on fine display tacked to the logs above his bed & in the blockhouse in the Pinery so that he may work & dream to his soovaneers of butchered red men. He at first did string them from his saddle like Mr. Lo does himself but The Carpenter noted this & ordered him to take them down that it was not right & proper for a soldier (an officer & Quartermaster no less!) to be gallivanting himself across the plains of America kitted out much like the savages he is fighting. Carrington did not order him to stop the scalping mind you only to take them pelts down from where they could be seen by the women & civilians about the fort & Mad Fred did as he was ordered all the while with a smirk at his lips that any fool could see. For like all others he obeys Carrington’s orders out of duty & not love but that is another story.
Our Capt. Brown is undaunted as they come. He is as fearless as my brother & you might say it does be madness in him & not courage at all that makes him such a man for the Hurly Burly but I am not one to say it for though he did ride myself & Tom into a fair few bloody scraps he also got us out of them Thanks Be To God.
I will describe our meeting him because there is something in my mind that tells me if we did not come to his attentions well then I may rightly not of come to the tight spot where I do now find myself.
But meet Mad Fred we did coming out for to select a horse for breaking one morning himself & Lt. Bisbee. We came upon them at the corral smoking cheroots & looking over the horse flesh before them.
Now you know well yourself that manys the officer does keep his own personal mount for riding but this