A Curious Experience by Mark Twain

4.8

This is an incident which took place during the Civil War, or the War between the Southern and the Northern States of America (1861-1865). It was told by a Major of the Northern Army who was commandant of one of the forts.

Part

It was the winter of 1862-63 when I was commandant of Fort Trumbull in New England which was also a recruiting station. Many different people came to join our Northern Army but we did not take some of them because we were afraid of spies from the South.

One day I was alone in my room doing some writing when a pale and ragged boy of fourteen or fifteen entered and said:

“Do you take recruits here?”

“Yes.”

“Will you please take me, sir?”

“Oh no. You are too young, my boy, and too small.”

He turned sadly to go, then said:

“I have no home and not a friend in the world. If you could only take me!”

I told him to sit down and warm himself and added:

“You will have dinner with me, and you will tell me your story.”

At dinner he told me his name was Robert Wicklow. He came of a Southern family in Louisiana but his father had supported the North and for this he was killed. Robert’s mother died soon after. The boy was left alone. He decided to join the army of the North. He asked me to take him as a drummer boy, if not as a soldier. And I agreed.

We placed him with the musicians, and I often met him in the fort.

But one morning Sergeant Rayburn came in and said:

“That new boy, sir, acts very strangely.”

“How?”

“He is all the time writing.”

“Writing? What does he write — letters?”

“I don’t know, sir, but when he is off duty he is always walking about the fort alone and from time to time he takes out his pencil and writes something.”

I did not like that at all. We were all the time warned about Southern spies, and this boy was from the South, from Louisiana.

I told the sergeant to get me some of these writings and to watch all the boy’s movements.

When next day Sergeant Rayburn came to report, he said:

“I’ve got some of his writing.”

“How did you get it?”

“I saw him go into the old stable and I looked in through the keyhole. I saw him writing at the table. I waited a little and then I coughed. He started, took the paper and threw it into the fire. I entered and sent him on an errand. When he was gone I got the paper from the fire. It was not yet burnt. Here it is.”

I took the paper and read the following:

“Colonel, I was mistaken last time about the caliber of the guns in the fort; they are all big guns. The garrison remains as before reported. Everyone will remain here un —”

Here the writing stopped. I looked at Sergeant Rayburn and he looked at me. The matter was very serious. We decided to wait and get some more of this writing. We knew that Robert never went to the post-office, we had to find out how he sent his writing to the ‘Colonel’.

Part II

Next day we found another letter in the stable, it continued the first one.

“— till orders are given. The four men that are here think so. They are new here and they are afraid. I have some very important information and I will send it to you soon.”

We decided to find out more so I gave commands to return the letter to the stable and to watch Robert’s movements so as to learn who were the other four men that helped him.

Three days passed without any news. Then we found in the stable one more letter. On the same day Sergeant Rayburn and a detective followed Robert when the little spy left the fort. He said he was going for a walk. The two men followed the boy to the railway station and waited there till the train from New York came in. They saw Robert standing on the platform and looking at the faces of the people as they were coming out of the train. Soon an old gentleman came out on the platform. He stopped near Robert and began to look about him. In a moment Robert ran up to him, put an envelope into his hand and disappeared in the crowd. The next moment the Sergeant had snatched the letter from the hand of the old man and told the detective to follow him and to find out where he lived.

When the Sergeant returned to the fort we read the third letter found in the stable. It read: “Found last night in the usual gun commands from the Master. Have left in the gun the new information.”

We did not understand how Robert could come near the guns when he was watched all the time and decided that some of the soldiers helped him.

Then we opened the letter that had been snatched from the old gentleman on the railway platform. But what was our surprise when we saw two clean sheets of paper. For a moment we felt foolish, but then thought of ‘sympathetic ink’. We held the paper near the fire but nothing appeared on it.

Here Sergeant Rayburn appeared with a piece of string about a meter long with three knots tied in it.

“I found it in one of the guns,” he said. He had looked into all the guns and in one of them he had found that piece of string.

I gave orders to arrest every soldier who had stood on duty near that gun. I also arrested the old gentleman who had received Robert’s letter on the railway platform.

Next we learned that Robert had given something to our two new recruits. They were also arrested after that and searched. Upon each we found a small piece of paper with the following words:

EAGLE’S THIRD FLIGHT REMEMBER XXXX 166

After that I decided to speak to Robert and called him to my room. When he came in I asked him:

“My boy, why do you write so much?”

He hesitated, then said:

“Oh, sir, I amuse myself in that way.”

“What do you do with your writing?”

“Nothing, sir,— throw it away.”

“You never send it to anybody?”

“No, sir.”

I suddenly put before him the two letters addressed to the ‘Colonel’ and to the ‘Master’. He looked at them and his face grew pale.

“Who are this Colonel and the Master?”

“I don’t know, sir. It was a joke.”

“A joke! You describe the guns of the fort and the garrison to our enemies and you call it a joke! Are these the only letters that you wrote?”

“Yes,” he answered looking down.

“Oh, you liar,” cried I angrily and put before him the other letters, and the two clean sheets that we had taken from the old man.

Robert looked frightened and when he saw the piece of string with the three knots which I also put on the table before him he began to cry.

I told the Sergeant to arrest him. Next morning I sent for him again.

“Now speak up and stop lying,” I said. He did not say a word for a long time. At last he began to speak and told me everything.

He said that he was a great reader of spy stories and detective novels. He lived together with his parents, who were both alive, on an old farm some five miles from our fort.

One day he decided to run away from home and to try the life of a soldier in a fort. That is why he came to us with an imaginary story.

Life at the fort was rather dull so he began to amuse himself and pretended that he was an enemy spy. All his letters were written to imaginary persons. There was no Colonel and no Master. No one helped him in the fort. The soldiers knew him and allowed him to come up to the guns.

He went to the railway station to play a joke. He wanted to see if he could hand somebody an envelope. He chose an old man and handed him the envelope with the clean sheets. He did not know the old gentleman and had never seen him before.

I was very angry with Robert and scolded him very much, then I sent him home to his parents.

I had arrested several soldiers and the old man. I gave commands to let them out and apologized to the old gentleman for my mistake.

Such was the end of this curious experience.