We have changed all that, and not for the better. A solitary trumpeter
steps forth from the guard-house or adjutant's office and, at the
appointed time, drones a long, dispiriting strain known to the drill
books as "Assembly of the Trumpeters," and to the army at large as
"First Call." Unassisted by other effort, it would rouse nobody, but
from far and near the myriad dogs of the post--"mongrel, hound, and
cur of low degree"--lift up their canine voices in some indefinable
sympathy and stir the winds of the morning with their mournful yowls.
Then, when all the garrison gets up cursing and all necessity for
rousing is ended, the official reveille begins, sounded by the
combined trumpeters, and so, uncheered by concord of sweet sounds, the
soldier begins his day.
The two infantry companies at Sandy, at the time whereof we tell, were of
an honored old regiment that had fought with Worth at Monterey--one whose
scamps of drum boys and fifers had got their teachings from predecessors
whose nimble fingers had trilled the tunes of old under the walls of the
Bishop's Palace and in the resounding Halls of the Montezumas. Plume and
Cutler loved their joyous, rhythmical strains, and would gladly have kept
the cavalry clarions for purely cavalry calls; but reveille and
guard-mounting were the only ones where this was practicable, and an odd
thing had become noticeable.
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