← catalogue

Soldiers Three - Part 2

by Rudyard Kipling · English · Gutenberg #2227 · 376,448 chars · public domain (US)

The Project Gutenberg eBook of Soldiers Three - Part 2
    
This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and
most other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions
whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms
of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online
at www.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the United States,
you will have to check the laws of the country where you are located
before using this eBook.

Title: Soldiers Three - Part 2

Author: Rudyard Kipling


        
Release date: June 1, 2000 [eBook #2227]
                Most recently updated: March 9, 2018

Language: English

Other information and formats: www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/2227

Credits: Produced by Bill Stoddard and David Widger


*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK SOLDIERS THREE - PART 2 ***




Produced by Bill Stoddard






SOLDIERS THREE

Part II.

By Rudyard Kipling



CONTENTS

     “LOVE-O'-WOMEN”--from “Many Inventions”
      THE BIG DRUNK DRAF'
     THE MUTINY OF THE MAVERICKS
     THE MAN WHO WAS
     ONLY A SUBALTERN
     IN THE MATTER OF A PRIVATE
     THE LOST LEGION--from “Many Inventions”
      THE DRUMS OF THE FORE AND AFT
     JUDSON AND THE EMPIRE--from “Many Inventions”
      A CONFERENCE OF THE POWERS--from “Many Inventions”




'LOVE-O'WOMEN'

     A lamentable tale of things
     Done long ago, and ill done.

The horror, the confusion, and the separation of the murderer from
his comrades were all over before I came. There remained only on the
barrack-square the blood of man calling from the ground. The hot sun had
dried it to a dusky gold-beater-skin film, cracked lozenge-wise by the
heat, and as the wind rose each lozenge, rising a little, curled up at
the edges as if it were a dumb tongue. Then a heavier gust blew all away
down wind in grains of dark-coloured dust. It was too hot to stand in
the sunshine before breakfast. The men were all in barracks talking the
matter over. A knot of soldiers' wives stood by one of the entrances
to the married quarters, while inside a woman shrieked and raved with
wicked filthy words.

A quiet and well-conducted sergeant had shot down in broad daylight
just after early parade one of his own corporals, had then returned
to barracks and sat on a cot till the guard came for him. He would,
therefore, in due time be handed over to the High Court for trial.
Further, but this he could hardly have considered in his scheme of
revenge, he would horribly upset my work; for the reporting of the trial
would fall on me without a relief. What that trial would be like I knew
even to weariness. There would be the rifle carefully uncleaned, with
the fouling marks about breech and muzzle, to be sworn to by half a
dozen superfluous privates; there would be heat, reeking heat, till the
wet pencil slipped sideways between the fingers; and the punkah would
swish and the pleaders would jabber in the verandahs, and his Commanding
Officer would put in certificates of the prisoner's moral character,
while the jury would pant and the summer uniforms of the witnesses would
smell of dye and soaps; and some abject barrack-sweeper would lose his
head in cross-examination, and the young barrister who always defended
soldiers' cases for the credit that they never brought him, would say
and do wonderful things, and would then quarrel with me because I had
not reported him correctly. At the last, for he surely would not be
hanged, I might meet the prisoner again, ruling blank account-forms in
the Central Jail, and cheer him with the hope of a wardership in the
Andamans.

The Indian Penal Code and its interpreters do not treat murder, under
any provocation whatever, in a spirit of jest. Sergeant Raines would
be very lucky indeed if he got off with seven years, I thought. He had
slept the night upon his wrongs, and had killed his man at twenty yards
before any talk was possible. That much I knew. Unless, therefore,
the case was doctored a little, seven years would be his least; and I
fancied it was exceedingly well for Sergeant Raines that he had been
liked by his Company.

That same evening--no day is so long as the day of a murder--I met
Ortheris with the dogs, and he plunged defiantly into the middle of the
matter. “I'll be one o' the witnesses,” said he. “I was in the verandah
when Mackie came along. 'E come from Mrs. Raines's quarters. Quigley,
Parsons, an' Trot, they was in the inside verandah, so they couldn't
'ave 'eard nothing. Sergeant Raines was in the verandah talkin' to me,
an' Mackie 'e come along acrost the square an' 'e sez, 'Well,' sez 'e,
''ave they pushed your 'elmet off yet, Sergeant?' 'e sez. An' at that
Raines 'e catches 'is breath an' 'e sez, 'My Gawd, I can't stand this!'
sez 'e, an' 'e picks up my rifle an' shoots Mackie. See?”

“But what were you doing with your rifle in the outer verandah an hour
after parade?”

“Cleanin' 'er,” said Ortheris, with the sullen brassy stare that always
went with his choice lies.

He might as well have said that he was dancing naked, for at no time did
his rifle need hand or rag on her twenty minutes after parade. Still the
High Court would not know his routine.

“Are you going to stick to that--on the Book?” I asked.

“Yes. Like a bloomin' leech.”

“All right, I don't want to know any more. Only remember that Quigley,
Parsons, and Trot couldn't have been where you say without hearing
something; and there's nearly certain to be a barrack-sweeper who was
knocking about the square at the time. There always is.”

“Twasn't the sweeper. It was the beastie. 'E's all right.”

Then I knew that there was going to be some spirited doctoring, and
I felt sorry for the Government Advocate who would conduct the
prosecution.

When the trial came on I pitied him more, for he was always quick to
lose his temper, and made a personal matter of each lost cause. Raines's
young barrister had for once put aside his unslaked and Welling passion
for alibis and insanity, had forsworn gymnastics and fireworks, and
worked soberly for his client. Mercifully the hot weather was yet young,
and there had been no flagrant cases of barrack-shootings up to the
time; and the jury was a good one, even for an Indian jury, where nine
men out of every twelve are accustomed to weighing evidence. Ortheris
stood firm and was not shaken by any cross-examination. The one weak
point in his tale--the presence of his rifle in the outer verandah--went
unchallenged by civilian wisdom, though some of the witnesses could not
help smiling. The Government Advocate called for the rope; contending
throughout that the murder had been a deliberate one. Time had passed,
he argued, for that reflection which comes so naturally to a man whose
honour is lost. There was also the Law, ever ready and anxious to right
the wrongs of the common soldier if, in deed, wrong had been done. But
he doubted much whether there had been any sufficient wrong. Causeless
suspicion over-long brooded upon had led, by his theory, to deliberate
crime. But his attempts to minimise the motive failed. The most
disconnected witness knew--had known for weeks--the causes of offence,
and the prisoner, who naturally was the last of all to know, groaned
in the dock while he listened. The one question that the trial circled
round was whether Raines had fired under sudden and blinding provocation
given that very morning, and in the summing up it was clear that
Ortheris's evidence told. He had contrived, most artistically, to
suggest that he personally hated the Sergeant, who had come into the
verandah to give him a talking to for insubordination. In a weak moment
the Government Advocate asked one question too many, “Beggin' your
pardon, sir,” Ortheris replied, “'e was callin' me a dam' impudent
little lawyer.” The Court shook. The jury brought it in a killing, but
with every provocation and extenuation known to God or man, and the
Judge put his hand to his brow before giving sentence, and the Adam's
apple in the prisoner's throat went up and down mercury-pumping before a
cyclone.

In consideration of all considerations, from his Commanding Officer's
certificate of good conduct to the sure loss of pension, service,
and honour, the prisoner would get two years, to be served in India,
and--there need be no demonstration in Court. The Government Advocate
scowled and picked up his papers; the guard wheeled with a clash, and
the prisoner was relaxed to the Secular Arm, and driven to the jail in a
broken-down ticca-gharri.

His guard and some ten or twelve military witnesses, being less
important, were ordered to wait till what was officially called the
cool of the evening before marching back to cantonments. They gathered
together in one of the deep red brick verandahs of a disused lock-up and
congratulated Ortheris, who bore his honours modestly. I sent my
work into the office and joined them. Ortheris watched the Government
Advocate driving off lunch.

“That's a nasty little bald-'eaded little butcher, that is,” he said.
“'E don't please me. 'E's got a colley dog wot do, though. I'm goin' up
to Murree in a week. That dawg'll bring fifteen rupees anywheres.”

“You had better spend it in Masses,” said Terence, unbuckling his belt,
for he had been on the prisoner's guard, standing helmeted and bolt up
right for three long hours.

“Not me,” said Ortheris cheerfully. “Gawd'll put it down to B Comp'ny's
barrick damages one o' these days. You look strapped, Terence.”

“Faith, I'm not so young as I was. That guard-mountin' wears on the
sole av the fut, and this”--he sniffed contemptuously at the brick
verandah--“is as hard setting as standin'!”

“Wait a minute. I'll get the cushions out of my cart,” I said.

“Strewth--sofies! We're going it gay,” said Ortheris, as Terence dropped
himself section by section on the leather cushions, saying prettily,
“May you niver want a soft place wheriver you go, an' power to share
utt wid a frind. Another for yourself? That's good. It lets me sit long
ways. Stanley, pass me a poipe. Augrrh! An' that's another man gone
all to pieces bekaze av a woman. I must ha' been on forty or fifty
prisoners' gyards, first an' last, an' I hate ut new ivry time.”

“Let's see. You were on Losson's, Lancey's, Dugard's, and Stebbins's,
that I can remember,” I said.

“Ay, an' before that an' before that--scores av thim,” he answered with
a worn smile. “Tis betther to die than to live for thim, though. Whin
Raines comes out--he'll be changin' his kit at the jail now--he'll think
that too. He shud ha' shot himself an' the woman by rights, an' made a
clean bill av all. Now he's left the woman--she tuk tay wid Dinah Sunday
gone last--an' he's left himself. Mackie's the lucky man.”

“He's probably getting it hot where he is,” I ventured, for I knew
something of the dead Corporal's record.

“Be sure av that,” said Terence, spitting over the edge of the verandah.
“But fwhat he'll get there is light marchin'-ordher to fwhat he'd ha'
got here if he'd lived.”

“Surely not. He'd have gone on and forgotten like the others.”

“Did ye know Mackie well, Sorr?” said Terence.

“He was on the Pattiala guard of honour last winter, and I went out
shooting with him in an ekka for the day, and I found him rather an
amusing man.”

“Well, he'll ha' got shut av amusemints, excipt turnin' from wan side to
the other, these few years come. I knew Mackie, an' I've seen too many
to be mistuk in the muster av wan man. He might ha' gone on an' forgot,
as you say, Sorr, but was a man wid an educashin, an' he used ut for his
schames, an' the same educashin, an' talk an' all that made him able to
do fwhat he had a mind to wid a woman, that same wud turn back again in
the long run an' tear him alive. I can't say fwhat that I mane to say
bekaze I don't know how, but Mackie was the spit an' livin' image av
a man that I saw march the same march all but; an' 'twas worse for him
that he did not come by Mackie's ind. Wait while I remimber now. 'Twas
fwhin I was in the Black Tyrone, an' he was drafted us from Portsmouth;
an' fwhat was his misbegotten name? Larry--Larry Tighe ut was; an' wan
of the draft said he was a gentleman ranker, an' Larry tuk an' three
parts killed him for saying so. An' he was a big man, an' a strong man,
an' a handsome man, an' that tells heavy in practice wid some women,
but, takin' thim by an' large, not wid all. Yet 'twas wid all that Larry
dealt--all--for he 'ud put the comether on any woman that trod the green
earth av God, an' he knew ut. Like Mackie that's roastin' now, he knew
ut; an' niver did he put the comether on any woman save an' excipt for
the black shame. 'Tis not me that shud be talkin', dear knows, dear
knows, but the most av my mis--misalli'nces was for pure devilry, an'
mighty sorry I have been whin harm came; an' time an' again wid a girl,
ay, an' a woman too, for the matter av that, whin I have seen by the
eyes av her that I was makin' more throuble than I talked, I have hild
off an' let be for the sake av the mother that bore me. But Larry, I'm
thinkin', he was suckled by a she-devil, for he niver let wan go that
came nigh to listen to him. 'Twas his business, as if it might ha'
bin sinthry-go. He was a good soldier too. Now there was the Colonel's
governess--an' he a privit too!--that was never known in barricks; an'
wan av the Major's maids, and she was promised to a man; an' some more
outside; an' fwhat ut was amongst us we'll never know till Judgment
Day! 'Twas the nature av the baste to put the comether on the best av
thim--not the prettiest by any manner av manes--but the like av such
woman as you cud lay your band on the Book an' swear there was niver
thought av foolishness in. An' for that very reason, mark you, he was
niver caught. He came close to ut wanst or twice, but caught he niver
was, an' that cost him more at the ind than the beginnin'. He talked
to me more than most, bekaze he tould me, barrin' the accident av my
educashin, I'd ha' been the same kind av divil he was. 'An' is ut
like,' he wud say, houldin' his head high--'is ut like that I'd iver be
thrapped? For fwhat am I when all's said an' done?' he sez. 'A damned
privit,' sez he. 'An' is ut like, think you, that thim I know wud be
connect wid a privit like me? Number tin thousand four hundred an'
sivin,' he sez, grinnin'. I knew by the turn av his spache whin he was
not takin' care to talk rough that he was a gentleman ranker.

“'I do not undherstan' ut at all,' I sez; 'but I know,' sez I, 'that the
divil looks out av your eyes, an' I'll have no share wid you. A little
fun by way av amusemint where 't will do no harm, Larry, is right and
fair, but I am mistook if 'tis any amusemint to you,' I sez.

“'You are much mistook,' he sez. 'An' I counsel you not to judge your
betters.'

“'My betthers!' I sez. 'God help you, Larry. There's no betther in this.
'Tis all bad, as you will find for yoursilf.'

“You're not like me,' he says, tossin' his head.

“'Praise the Saints, I am not,' I sez. 'Fwhat I have done I have done
an' been crool sorry for. Fwhin your time comes,' sez I, 'ye'll remimber
fwhat I say.'

“'An' whin that time comes,' sez he, 'I'll come to you for ghostly
consolation, Father Terence,' an' at that he wint off afther some
more divil's business--for to get expayrience, he tould me. He was
wicked--rank wicked--wicked as all Hell! I'm not construct by nature to
go in fear av any man, but, begad, I was afraid av Larry. He'd come in
to barricks wid his cap on three hairs, an' lie on his cot and stare at
the ceilin', and now an' again he'd fetch a little laugh, the like av a
splash in the bottom av a well, an' by that I knew he was schamin' new
wickedness, an' I'd be afraid. All this was long an' long ago, but ut
hild me straight--for a while.

“I tould you, did I not, Sorr, that I was caressed an' pershuaded to
lave the Tyrone on account av a throuble?”

“Something to do with a belt and a man's head, wasn't it?” Terence had
never given me the exact facts.

“It was. Faith, ivry time I go on prisoner's gyard in coort I wondher
fwhy I am not where the pris'ner is. But the man I struk tuk it in fair
fight, an' he had the good sinse not to die. Considher now, fwhat wud
ha' come to the Arrmy if he had! I was enthreated to exchange, an' my
Commandin' Orf'cer pled wid me. I wint, not to be disobligin', an' Larry
tould me he was powerful sorry to lose me, though fwhat I'd done to make
him sorry I do not know. So to the Ould Rig'mint I came, lavin' Larry to
go to the divil his own way, an' niver expectin' to see him again except
as a shootin'-case in barricks.... Who's that lavin' the compound?”
 Terence's quick eye had caught sight of a white uniform skulking behind
hedge.

“The Sergeant's gone visiting,” said a voice.

“Thin I command here, an' I will have no sneakin' away to the bazar, an'
huntin' for you wid a pathrol at midnight. Nalson, for I know ut's you,
come back to the verandah.”

Nalson, detected, slunk back to his fellows. There was a grumble that
died away in a minute or two, and Terence, turning on the other side,
went on:--

“That was the last I saw av Larry for a while. Exchange is the same as
death for not thinkin', an' by token I married Dinah, an' that kept me
from remimberin' ould times. Thin we wint up to the Front, an' ut tore
my heart in tu to lave Dinah at the Depot in Pindi. Consequint whin
was at the Front I fought circumspectuous till I warrmed up, an thin I
fought double tides. You remimber fwhat I tould you in the gyard-gate av
the fight at Silver's Theatre.”

“Wot's that about Silver's Theayter!” said Ortheris quickly, over his
shoulder.

“Nothin', little man. A tale that ye know. As I was sayin', afther that
fight us av the Ould Rig'mint an' the Tyrone was all mixed together
takin' shtock ay the dead, an' av coorse I wint about to find if there
was any man that remimbered me. The second man I came acrost--an' how
I'd missed him in the fight I do not know--was Larry, an' a fine man he
looked, but oulder, by token that he had a call to be. 'Larry,' sez I,
'how is ut wid you?'

“'Ye're callin' the wrong man,' he sez, wid his gentleman's smile;
'Larry has been dead these three years. They call him “Love-o'-Women”
 now,' he sez. By that I knew the ould divil was in him yet, but the ind
av a fight is no time for the beginnin' av confession, so we sat down
an' talked av times.'

“'They tell me you're a married man,' he sez, puffing slow at his poipe.
'Are ye happy?'

“'I will be whin I get back to Depot,' I sez. ''Tis a reconnaissance
honeymoon now.'

“'I'm married too,' he sez, puffin' slow an' more slow, an' stopperin'
wid his forefinger.

“'Sind you happiness,' I sez. 'That's the best hearin' for a long time.'

“'Are ye av that opinion?' he sez; an' thin he began talkin' av the
campaign. The sweat av Silver's Theatre was not dhry upon him, an' he
was prayin' for more work. I was well contint to lie and listen to the
cook-pot lids.

“Whin he got up off the ground he shtaggered a little, an' laned over
all twisted.

“'Ye've got more than ye bargained for,' I sez. 'Take an inventory,
Larry. 'Tis like you're hurt.'

“He turned round stiff as a ramrod an' damned the eyes av me up an' down
for an impartinent Irish-faced ape. If that had been in barricks, I'd
ha' stretched him an' no more said; but 'twas at the Front, an' afther
such a fight as Silver's Theatre I knew there was no callin' a man to
account for his timpers. He might as well ha' kissed me. Aftherwards
I was well pleased I kept my fistes home. Then our Captain
Crook--Cruik-na-bul-leen--came up. He'd been talkin' to the little
orf'cer bhoy av the Tyrone. 'We're all cut to windystraws,' he sez, 'but
the Tyrone are damned short for noncoms. Go you over there, Mulvaney,
an' be Deputy-Sergeant, Corp'ral, Lance, an' everything else ye can lay
hands on till I bid you stop.'

“'I wint over an' tuk hould. There was wan sergeant left standin', an'
they'd pay no heed to him. The remnint was me, an' 'twas high time I
came. Some I talked to, an' some I did not, but before night the bhoys
av the Tyrone stud to attention, begad, if I sucked on my poipe above a
whishper. Betune you an' me an' Bobs, I was commandin' the company, an'
that was what Cruik had thransferred me for, an' the little orf'cer bhoy
knew ut, and I knew ut, but the comp'ny did not. And there, mark you, is
the vartue that no money an' no dhrill can buy--the vartue av the ould
soldier that knows his orf'cer's work an' does ut--at the salute!

“Thin the Tyrone, wid the Ould Rig'mint in touch, was sint maraudin'
and prowlin' acrost the hills promishcuous an' unsatisfactory. 'Tis my
privit opinion that a gin'ral does not know half his time fwhat to do
wid three-quarthers his command. So he shquats on his hunkers an' bids
thim run round an' round forninst him while he considhers on ut. Whin by
the process av nature they get sejuced into a big fight that was none av
their seekin', he sez: 'Obsarve my shuparior janius! I meant ut to come
so.' We ran round an' about, an' all we got was shootin' into the camp
at night, an' rushin' empty sungars wid the long bradawl, an' bein' hit
from behind rocks till we was wore out--all except Love-o'-Women. That
puppy-dog business was mate an' dhrink to him. Begad, he cud niver
get enough av ut. Me well knowin' that it is just this desultorial
campaignin' that kills the best men, an' suspicionin' that if I was cut
the little orf'cer bhoy wud expind all his men in thryin' to get out, I
wud lie most powerful doggo whin I heard a shot, an' curl my long legs
behind a bowlder, an' run like blazes whin the ground was clear.
Faith, if I led the Tyrone in rethreat wanst I led them forty times.
Love-o'-Women wud stay pottin' an' pottin' from behind a rock, and wait
till the fire was heaviest, an' thin stand up an' fire man-height clear.
He wud lie out in camp too at night snipin' at the shadows, for he
niver tuk a mouthful av slape. My commandin' orf'cer--save his little
soul!--cud not see the beauty av of my strategims, an' whin the Ould
Rig'mint crossed us, an' that was wanst a week, he'd throt off to
Cruik, wid his big blue eyes as round as saucers, an' lay an information
against me. I heard thim wanst talkin' through the tent-wall, an' I
nearly laughed.

“'He runs--runs like a hare,' sez the little orf'cer bhoy. ''Tis
demoralisin' my men.'

“'Ye damned little fool,' sez Cruik, laughin'. 'He's larnin' you your
business. Have ye been rushed at night yet?'

“'No,' sez the child, wishful that he had been.

“'Have you any wounded?' sez Cruik.

“'No,' he sez. 'There was no chanst for that. They follow Mulvaney too
quick,' he sez.

“'Fwhat more do you want, thin?' sez Cruik. 'Terence is bloodin' you
neat an' handy,' he sez. 'He knows fwhat you do not, an' that's that
there's a time for ivrything. He'll not lead you wrong,' he sez, 'but
I'd give a month's pay to larn fwhat he thinks av you.'

“That kept the babe quiet, but Love-o'-Women was pokin' at me for
ivrything I did, an' specially my manoeuvres.

“'Mr. Mulvaney,' he sez wan evenin', very contempshus, 'you're growin'
very jeldy wid your feet. Among gentlemen,' he sez, 'among gentlemen
that's called no pretty name.'

“'Among privits 'tis different,' I sez. 'Get back to your tent. I'm
sergeant here,' I sez.

“There was just enough in the voice av me to tell him he was playin' wid
his life betune his teeth. He wint off, an' I noticed that this man that
was contempshus set off from the halt wid a shunt as tho' he was bein'
kicked behind. That same night there was a Paythan picnic in the hills
about, an' firin' into our tents fit to wake the livin' dead. 'Lie
down all,' I sez. 'Lie down an' kape still. They'll no more than waste
ammunition.'

“I heard a man's feet on the ground, an' thin a 'Tini joinin' in the
chorus. I'd been lyin' warm, thinkin' av Dinah an' all, but I crup out
wid the bugle for to look round in case there was a rush, an' the 'Tini
was flashin' at the fore-ind av the camp, an' the hill near by was
fair flickerin' wid long-range fire. Undher the starlight I beheld
Love-o'-Women settin' on a rock wid his belt and helmet off. He shouted
wanst or twice, an' thin I heard him say: 'They should ha' got the range
long ago. Maybe they'll fire at the flash.' Thin he fired again, an'
that dhrew a fresh volley, and the long slugs that they chew in their
teeth came floppin' among the rocks like tree-toads av a hot night.
'That's better,' sez Love-o'-Women. 'Oh Lord, how long, how long!' he
sez, an' at that he lit a match an' held ut above his head.

“'Mad,' thinks I, 'mad as a coot,' an' I tuk wan stip forward, an' the
nixt I knew was the sole av my boot flappin' like a cavalry gydon an'
the funny-bone av my toes tinglin'. 'Twas a clane-cut shot--a slug--that
niver touched sock or hide, but set me bare-fut on the rocks. At that I
tuk Love-o'-Women by the scruff an' threw him under a bowlder, an' whin
I sat down I heard the bullets patterin' on that good stone.

“'Ye may dhraw your own wicked fire,' I sez, shakin' him, 'but I'm not
goin' to be kilt too.'

“Ye've come too soon,' he sez. 'Ye've come too soon. In another minute
they cud not ha' missed me. Mother av God,' he sez, 'fwhy did ye not
lave me be? Now 'tis all to do again,' an' he hides his face in his
hands.

“'So that's it,' I sez, shakin' him again. 'That's th manin' av your
disobeyin' ordhers.'

“'I dare not kill meself,' he sez, rockin' to and fro. 'My own hand wud
not let me die, and there's not a bullet this month past wud touch me.
I'm to die slow,' he sez. 'I'm to die slow. But I'm in hell now,' he
sez, shriekin' like a woman. 'I'm in hell now!'

“'God be good to us all,' I sez, for I saw his face. 'Will ye tell a man
the throuble. If 'tis not murder, maybe we'll mend it yet.'

“At that he laughed. 'D'you remimber fwhat I said in the Tyrone barricks
about comin' to you for ghostly consolation. I have not forgot,' he sez.
'That came back, an' the rest av my time is on me now, Terence. I've
fought ut off for months an' months, but the liquor will not bite any
more, Terence,' he sez. 'I can't get dhrunk.'

“Thin I knew he spoke the truth about bein' in hell, for whin liquor
does not take hould, the sowl av a man is rotten in him. But me bein'
such as I was, fwhat could I say to him?

“'Di'monds an' pearls,' he begins again. 'Di'monds and pearls I have
thrown away wid both hands--an' fwhat have I left? Oh, fwhat have I
left?'

“He was shakin' an' thremblin' up against my shouldher, an' the slugs
was singin' overhead, an' I was wonderin' whether my little bhoy wud
have sinse enough to kape his men quiet through all this firin'.

“'So long as I did not think,' sez Love-o'-Women, 'so long I did not
see--I wud not see--but I can now, what I've lost. The time an' the
place,' he sez, 'an' the very words I said whin ut pleased me to go off
alone to hell. But thin, even thin,' he sez, wrigglin' tremenjus, 'I
wud not ha' been happy. There was too much behind av me. How cud I ha'
believed her sworn oath--me that have bruk mine again an' again for the
sport av seein' thim cry. An' there are the others,' he sez. 'Oh, what
will I do--what will I do'?' He rocked back an' forward again, an' I
think he was cryin' like wan av the women he dealt wid.

“The full half av fwhat he said was Brigade Ordhers to me, but from the
rest an' the remnint I suspicioned somethin' av his throuble. 'Twas the
judgmint av God had grup the heel av him, as I tould him 'twould in the
Tyrone barricks. The slugs was singin' over our rock more an' more, an'
I sez for to divart him: 'Let bad alone,' I sez. 'They'll be thryin' to
rush the camp in a minut'.'

“I had no more than said that whin a Paythan man crep' up on his belly
wid his knife betune his teeth, not twinty yards from us. Love-o'-Women
jumped up an' fetched a yell, an' the man saw him an' ran at him (he'd
left his rifle under the rock) wid the knife. Love-o'-Women niver turned
a hair, but by the Living Power, for I saw ut, a stone twisted under
the Paythan man's feet an' he came down full sprawl, an' his knife wint
tinklin' acrost the rocks! 'I tould you I was Cain,' sez Love-o'-Women.'
'Fwhat's the use av killin' him? He's an honest man--by compare.'

“I was not dishputin' about the morils av Paythans that tide, so I
dhropped Love-o'-Women's burt acrost the man's face, an' 'Hurry into
camp,' I sez, 'for this may be the first av a rush.'

“There was no rush afther all, though we waited undher arms to give
thim a chanst. The Paythan man must ha' come alone for the mischief,
an' afther a while Love-o'-Women wint back to his tint wid that quare
lurchin' sind-off in his walk that I cud niver undherstand. Begad, I
pitied him, an' the more bekaze he made me think for the rest av the
night av the day whin I was confirmed Corp'ril, not actin' Lef'tenant,
an' my thoughts was not good.

“Ye can undherstand that afther that night we came to talkin' a dale
together, an' bit by bit ut came out fwhat I'd suspicioned. The whole
av his carr'in's on an' divilmints had come back on him hard as liquor
comes back whin you've been on the dhrink for a wake. All he'd said an'
all he'd done, an' only he cud tell how much that was, come back, an'
there was niver a minut's peace in his sowl. 'Twas the Horrors widout
any cause to see, an' yet, an' yet--fwhat am I talkin' av? He'd ha'
taken the Horrors wid thankfulness. Beyon' the repentince av the man,
an' that was beyon' the natur av man--awful, awful, to behould!--there
was more that was worst than any repentince. Av the scores an' scores
that he called over in his mind (an' they were dhrivin' him mad), there
was, mark you, wan woman av all, an' she was not his wife, that cut him
to the quick av his marrow. 'Twas there he said that he'd thrown away
di'monds an' pearls past count, an' thin he'd begin again like a blind
byle in an oil-mill, walkin' round an' round, to considher (him that was
beyond all touch av being happy this side hell!) how happy he wud ha'
been wid her. The more he considhered, the more he'd consate himself
that he'd lost mighty happiness, an' thin he wud work ut all backwards,
an' cry that he niver cud ha' been happy anyways.

“Time an' time an' again in camp, on p'rade, ay, an' in action, I've
seen that man shut his eyes an' duck his head as you wud duck to the
flicker av a bay'nit. For 'twas thin he tould me that the thought av all
he'd missed came an' stud forninst him like red-hot irons. For what
he'd done wid the others he was sorry, but he did not care; but this wan
woman that I've tould of, by the Hilts av God she made him pay for
all the others twice over! Niver did I know that a man cud enjure such
tormint widout his heart crackin' in his ribs, an' I have been”--Terence
turned the pipe-stem slowly between his teeth--“I have been in some
black cells. All I iver suffered tho' was not to be talked of alongside
av him... an' what could I do? Paternosters was no more than peas for
his sorrow.

“Evenshually we finished our prom'nade acrost the hills, and thanks to
me for the same, there was no casualties an' no glory. The campaign was
comin' to an ind, an' all the rig'mints was bein' drawn together for to
be sint back home. Love-o'-Women was mighty sorry bekaze he had no work
to do, an' all his time to think in. I've heard that man talkin' to
his belt-plate an' his side-arms while he was soldierin' thim, all to
prevint himself from thinkin', an' ivry time he got up afther he had
been settin' down or wint on from the halt, he'd start wid that kick an'
traverse that I tould you of--his legs sprawlin' all ways to wanst. He
wud niver go see the docthor, tho' I tould him to be wise. He'd curse
me up an' down for my advice; but I knew he was no more a man to be
reckoned wid than the little bhoy was a commandin' orf'cer, so I let his
tongue run if it aised him.

“Wan day--'twas on the way back--I was walkin' round camp wid him,
an' he stopped an' struck ground wid his right fut three or four times
doubtful. 'Fwhat is ut?' I sez. 'Is that ground?' sez he; an' while
I was thinkin' his mind was goin', up comes the docthor, who'd been
anatomisin' a dead bullock. Love-o'-Women starts to go on quick, an'
lands me a kick on the knee while his legs was gettin' into marchin'
ordher.

“Hould on there,' sez the docthor; an' Love-o'-Women's face, that was
lined like a gridiron, turns red as brick.

“'Tention,' says the docthor; an' Love-o'-Women stud so. 'Now shut your
eyes,' sez the docthor. 'No, ye must not hould by your comrade.'

“'Tis all up,' sez Love-o'-Women, trying to smile. 'I'd fall, docthor,
an' you know ut.'

“'Fall?' I sez. 'Fall at attention wid your eyes shut! Fwhat do you
mane?'

“The docthor knows,' he sez. 'I've hild up as long as I can, but begad
I'm glad 'tis all done. But I will die slow,' he sez, 'I will die very
slow.'

“I cud see by the docthor's face that he was mortial sorry for the
man, an' he ordhered him to hospital. We wint back together, an' I was
dumbstruck; Love-o'-Women was cripplin' and crumblin' at ivry step. He
walked wid a hand on my shoulder all slued sideways, an' his right leg
swingin' like a lame camel. Me not knowin' more than the dead fwhat
ailed him, 'twas just as though the docthor's word had done ut all--as
if Love-o'-Women had but been waitin' for the ordher to let go.

“In hospital he sez somethin' to the docthor that I could not catch.

“'Holy shmoke!' sez the docthor, 'an' who are you to be givin' names to
your diseases? 'Tis ag'in' all the regulations.'

“'I'll not be a privit much longer,' sez Love-o'-Women in his
gentleman's voice, an' the docthor jumped.

“'Thrate me as a study, Docthor Lowndes,' he sez; an' that was the first
time I'd iver heard a docthor called his name.

“'Good-bye, Terence,' sez Love-o'-Women. ''Tis a dead man I am widout the
pleasure av dyin'. You'll come an' set wid me sometimes for the peace av
my soul.'

“Now I had been minded to ask Cruik to take me back to the Ould
Rig'mint, for the fightin' was over, an' I was wore out wid the ways av
the bhoys in the Tyrone; but I shifted my will, an' hild on, an' wint
to set wid Love-o'-Women in the hospital. As I have said, Sorr, the man
bruk all to little pieces undher my hand. How long he had hild up an'
forced himself fit to march I cannot tell, but in hospital but two days
later he was such as I hardly knew. I shuk hands wid him, an' his grip
was fair strong, but his hands wint all ways to wanst, an' he cud not
button his tunic.

“'I'll take long an' long to die yet,' he sez, 'for the ways av sin
they're like interest in the rig'mintal savin's-bank--sure, but a damned
long time bein' paid.'

“The docthor sez to me quiet one day, 'Has Tighe there anythin' on his
mind?' he sez. 'He's burnin' himself out.'

“'How shud I know, Sorr?' I sez, as innocent as putty.

“They call him Love-o'-Women in the Tyrone, do they not?' he sez. 'I
was a fool to ask. Be wid him all you can. He's houldin' on to your
strength.'

“'But what ails him, docthor,' I sez.

“'They call ut Locomotus attacks us,' he sez, 'bekaze,' sez he, 'ut
attacks us like a locomotive, if ye know fwhat that manes. An'
ut comes,' sez he, lookin' at me, 'ut comes from bein' called
Love-o'-Women.'

“'You're jokin', docthor,' I sez.

“'Jokin'!' sez he. 'If iver you feel that you've got a felt sole in your
boot instead av a Government bull's-wool, come to me,' he sez, 'an' I'll
show you whether 'tis a joke.'

“You would not belave ut, Sorr, but that an' seein' Love-o'-Women
overtuk widout warnin' put the cowld fear av attacks us on me so strong
that for a week an' more I was kickin' my toes against stones an' stumps
for the pleasure av feelin' them hurt.

“An' Love-o'-Women lay in the cot (he might have gone down wid the
wounded before an' before, but he asked to stay wid me), and fwhat there
was in his mind had full swing at him night an' day an' ivry hour av the
day an' the night, an' he withered like beef rations in a hot sun, an'
his eyes was like owls' eyes, an' his hands was mut'nous.

“They was gettin' the rig'mints away wan by wan, the campaign bein'
inded, but as ushuil they was behavin' as if niver a rig'mint had been
moved before in the mem'ry av man. Now, fwhy is that, Sorr? There's
fightin' in an' out nine months av the twelve somewhere in the Army.
There has been--for years an' years an' years, an' I wud ha' thought
they'd begin to get the hang av providin' for throops. But no! Ivry time
it's like a girls' school meetin' a big red bull whin they're goin' to
church; an' 'Mother av God,' sez the Commissariat an' the railways an'
the Barrick-masters, 'fwhat will we do now?' The ordhers came to us av
the Tyrone an' the Ould Rig'mint an' half a dozen more to go down, and
there the ordhers stopped dumb. We wint down, by the special grace av
God--down the Khaiber anyways. There was sick wid us, an' I'm thinkin'
that some av them was jolted to death in the doolies, but they was
anxious to be kilt so if they cud get to Peshawur alive the sooner. I
walked by Love-o'-Women--there was no marchin', an' Love-o'-Women was
not in a stew to get on. 'If I'd only ha' died up there!' sez he through
the doolie-curtains, an' then he'd twist up his eyes an' duck his head
for the thoughts that came to him.

“Dinah was in Depot at Pindi, but I wint circumspectuous, for well I
knew 'tis just at the rump-ind av all things that his luck turns on
a man. By token I ad seen a dhriver of a batthery goin' by at a trot
singin' 'Home, swate home' at the top av his shout, and takin' no heed
o his bridle-hand--I had seen that man dhrop under the gun in the middle
of a word, and come out by the limber like--like a frog on a pave-stone.
No. I wud not hurry, though, God knows, my heart was all in Pindi.
Love-o'-Women saw fwhat was in my mind, an' 'Go on, Terence,' h sez, 'I
know fwhat's waitin' for you.' 'I will not,' I sez. ''Twill kape a little
yet.'

“Ye know the turn of the pass forninst Jumrood and the nine mile road
on the flat to Peshawur? All Peshawur was along that road day and night
waitin' for frinds--men, women, childer, and bands. Some av the throops
was camped round Jumrood, an' some went on to Peshawur to get away down
to their cantonmints. We came through in the early mornin', havin' been
awake the night through, and we dhruv sheer into the middle av the mess.
Mother av Glory, will I ever forget that comin' back? The light was not
fair lifted, and the furst we heard was 'For 'tis my delight av a shiny
night,' frum a band that thought we was the second four comp'nies av the
Lincolnshire. At that we was forced to sind them a yell to say who we
was, an' thin up wint 'The wearin' av the Green.' It made me crawl all
up my backbone, not havin' taken my brequist. Thin, right smash into our
rear, came fwhat was left av the Jock Elliotts--wid four pipers an' not
half a kilt among thim, playin' for the dear life, an' swingin' their
rumps like buck rabbits, an' a native rig'mint shrieking blue murther.
Ye niver heard the like. There was men cryin' like women that did--an'
faith I do not blame thim. Fwhat bruk me down was the Lancers'
Band--shinin' an' spick like angels, wid the ould dhrum-horse at the
head an' the silver kettle-dhrums an' all an' all, waitin' for their
men that was behind us. They shtruck up the Cavalry Canter, an', begad,
those poor ghosts that had not a sound fut in a throop they answered to
ut, the men rockin' in their saddles. We thried to cheer them as they
wint by, but ut came out like a big gruntin' cough, so there must have
been many that was feelin' like me. Oh, but I'm forgettin'! The
Fly-by-Nights was waitin' for their second battalion, an' whin ut came
out, there was the Colonel's horse led at the head--saddle-empty. The
men fair worshipped him, an' he'd died at Au Musjid on the road down.
They waited till the remnint av the battalion was up, and thin--clane
against ordhers, for who wanted that chune that day?--they wint back to
Peshawur slow-time an' tearin' the bowils out av ivry man that heard,
wid 'The Dead March.' Right across our line they wint, an' ye know their
uniforms are as black as the Sweeps, crawlin' past like the dead, an'
the other bands damnin' them to let be.

“Little they cared. The carpse was wid them, an' they'd ha' taken ut so
through a Coronation. Our ordhers was to go into Peshawur, an' we wint
hot-fut past the Fly-by-Nights, not singin', to lave that chune behind
us. That was how we tuk the road of the other corps.

“'Twas ringin' in my ears still whin I felt in the bones of me that
Dinah was comin', an' I heard a shout, an' thin I saw a horse an' a
tattoo latherin' down the road, hell to shplit, under women. I knew--I
knew! Wan was the Tyrone Colonel's wife--ould Beeker's lady--her gray
hair flyin' an' her fat round carkiss rowlin' in the saddle, an' the
other was Dinah, that shud ha' been at Pindi. The Colonel's lady she
charged at the head av our column like a stone wall, an' she all but
knocked Beeker off his horse throwin' her arms round his neck an'
blubberin', 'Me bhoy! Me bhoy!' an' Dinah wheeled left an' came down
our flank, an' I let a yell that had suffered inside av me for months,
and--Dinah came. Will I iver forget that while I live! She'd come on
pass from Pindi, an' the Colonel's lady had lint her the tattoo. They'd
been huggin' an' cryin' in each other's arms all the long night.

“So she walked along wid her hand in mine, askin' forty questions to
wanst, an' beggin' me on the Virgin to make oath that there was not
a bullet consaled in me, unbeknownst somewhere, an' thin I remimbered
Love-o'-Women. He was watchin' us, an' his face was like the face av a
divil that has been cooked too long. I did not wish Dinah to see ut, for
whin a woman's runnin' over wid happiness she's like to be touched,
for harm aftherwards, by the laste little thing in life. So I dhrew the
curtain, an' Love-o'-Women lay back and groaned.

“Whin we marched into Peshawur, Dinah wint to barracks to wait for me,
an' me feelin' so rich that tide, I wint on to take Love-o'-Women to
hospital. It was the last I cud do, an' to save him the dust an' the
smother I turned the doolie-men down a road well clear av the rest av
the throops, an we wint along, me talkin' through the curtains. Av a
sudden I heard him say:--

“'Let me look. For the Mercy av Hiven, let me look!' I had been so tuk
up wid gettin' him out av the dust and thinkin' of Dinah that I had not
kept my eyes about me. There was a woman ridin' a little behind av us,
an', talkin' ut over wid Dinah aftherwards, that same woman must ha' rid
not far on the Jumrood road. Dinah said that she had been hoverin' like
a kite on the left flank av the column.

“I halted the doolie to set the curtains, an' she rode by walkin'-pace,
an' Love-o'-Women's eyes wint afther her as if he would fair haul her
down from the saddle.

“'Follow there,' was all he sez, but I niver heard a man spake in that
voice before or since, an' I knew by those two wan words an' the look
in his face that she was Di'monds-an'-Pearls that he'd talked av in his
disthresses.

“We followed till she turned into the gate av a little house that stud
near the Edwardes's Gate. There was two girls in the verandah, an' they
ran in whin they saw us. Faith, at long eye-range ut did not take me a
wink to see fwhat kind av house ut was. The throops bein' there an' all,
there was three or four such, but aftherwards the polis bade them go.
At the verandah Love-o'-Women sez, catchin' his breath, 'Stop here,'
an' thin, an' thin, wid a grunt that must ha' tore the heart up from his
stomach, he swung himself out av the doolie, an' my troth he stud up on
his feet wid the sweat pourin' down his face. If Mackie was to walk in
here now I'd be less tuk back than I was thin. Where he'd dhrawn his
power from, God knows or the divil--but 't was a dead man walkin' in the
sun wid the face av a dead man and the breath av a dead man held up by
the Power, an' the legs an' the arms of the carpse obeyin' ordhers!

“The woman stud in the verandah. She'd been a beauty too, though her
eyes was sunk in her head, an' she looked Love-o'-Women up an' down
terrible. 'An',' she sez, kickin' back the tail av her habit,--'An','
she sez, 'fwhat are you doin' here, married man?'

“Love-o'-Women said nothin', but a little froth came to his lips, an'
he wiped ut off wid his hand an' looked at her an' the paint on her, an'
looked, an' looked, an' looked.

“'An' yet,' she sez, wid a laugh. (Did you hear Mrs. Raines laugh whin
Mackie died? Ye did not? Well for you.) 'An' yet,' she sez, 'who but you
have betther right,' sez she. 'You taught me the road. You showed me the
way,' she sez. 'Ay, look,' she sez, 'for 'tis your work; you that tould
me--d'you remimber it?--that a woman who was false to wan man cud be
false to two. I have been that,' she sez, 'that an' more, for you always
said I was a quick learner, Ellis. Look well,' she sez, 'for it is
me that you called your wife in the sight av God long since!' An' she
laughed.

“Love-o'-Women stud still in the sun widout answerin'. Thin he groaned
an' coughed to wanst, an' I thought 'twas the death-rattle, but he
niver tuk his eyes off her face not for a wink. Ye cud ha' put her
eyelashes through the flies av an E. P. tent, they were so long.

“'Fwhat do you do here?' she sez, word by word, 'that have taken away my
joy in my man this five years gone--that have broken my rest an' killed
my body an' damned my soul for the sake av seem' how 'twas done? Did
your expayrience aftherwards bring you acrost any woman that gave more
than I did? Wud I not ha' died for you an' wid you, Ellis? Ye know that,
man! If ever your lyin' sowl saw truth in uts life ye know that.'

“An' Love-o'-Women lifted up his head and said, 'I knew,' an' that was
all. While she was spakin' the Power hild him up parade-set in the 'sun,
an the sweat dhropped undher his helmet. 'Twas more an' more throuble
for him to talk, an' his mouth was runnin' twistways.

“Fwhat do you do here?' she sez, an' her voice whit up. 'Twas like
bells tollin' before. 'Time was whin you were quick enough wid your
words,--you that talked me down to hell. Are ye dumb now?' An' Love-o'-W
omen got his tongue, an' sez simple, like a little child, 'May I come
in?' he sez.

“The house is open day an' night,' she sez, wid a laugh; an'
Love-o'-Women ducked his head an' hild up his hand as tho' he was
gyardin'. The Power was on him still--it hild him up still, for, by my
sowl, as I'll never save ut, he walked up the verandah steps that had
been a livin' corpse in hospital for a month!

“'An' now'?' she sez, lookin' at him; an' the red paint stud lone on the
white av her face like a bull's-eye on a target.

“He lifted up his eyes, slow an' very slow, an' he looked at her long
an' very long, an' he tuk his spache betune his teeth wid a wrench that
shuk him.

“'I'm dyin', Aigypt--dyin',' he sez; ay, those were his words, for I
remimber the name he called her. He was turnin' the death-colour, but
his eyes niver rowled. They were set--set on her. Widout word or warnin'
she opened her arms full stretch, an' 'Here!' she sez. (Oh, fwhat
a golden mericle av a voice ut was!) 'Die here,' she sez; an'
Love-o'-Women dhropped forward, an' she hild him up, for she was a fine
big woman.

“I had no time to turn, bekaze that minut I heard the sowl quit
him--tore out in the death-rattle--an' she laid him back in a long
chair, an' she sez to me, 'Misther soldier,' she sez, 'will ye not go in
an' talk to wan av the girls. This sun's too much for him.'

“Well I knew there was no sun he'd iver see, but I cud not spake, so
I wint away wid the empty doolie to find the docthor. He'd been
breakfastin' an' lunchin' ever since we'd come in, an' he was as full as
a tick.

“Faith ye've got dhrunk mighty soon,' he sez, whin I'd tould him, 'to
see that man walk. Barrin' a puff or two av life, he was a corpse before
we left Jumrood. I've a great mind,' he sez, 'to confine you.'

“There's a dale av liquor runnin' about, docthor,' I sez, solemn as a
hard-boiled egg. 'Maybe 'tis so, but will ye not come an' see the corpse
at the house?'

“Tis dishgraceful,' he sez, 'that I would be expected to go to a place
like that. Was she a pretty woman?'' he sez, an' at that he set off
double quick.

“I cud see that the two was in the verandah were I'd left them, an'
I knew by the hang av her head an' the noise av the crows fwhat had
happened. 'Twas the first and the last time that I'd ever known woman to
use the pistol. They dread the shot as a rule, but Di'monds-an'-Pearls
she did not--she did not.

“The docthor touched the long black hair av her head ['twas all loose
upon Love-o'-Women's chest), an' that cleared the liquor out av him. He
stud considherin' a long time, his hands in his pockets, an' at last
he sez to me, 'Here's a double death from naturil causes, most naturil
causes; an' in the presint state av affairs the rig'mint will be
thankful for wan grave the less to dig. Issiwasti,' he sez, 'Issiwasti,
Privit Mulvaney, these two will be buried together in the Civil Cemet'ry
at my expinse, an' may the good God,' he sez, 'make it SO much for me
whin my time comes. Go to your wife,' he sez; 'go an' be happy. I'll see
to this all.'

“I left him still considherin'. They was buried in the Civil Cemet'ry
together, wid a Church of England service. There was too many buryin's
thin to ask questions, an' the docthor--he ran away wid Major--Major Van
Dyce's lady that year--he saw to ut all. Fwhat the right an' the wrong
av Love-o'-Women an' Di'monds-an'-Pearls was I niver knew, an' I will
niver know; but I've tould ut as I came acrost ut--here an' there in
little pieces. So, being fwhat I am, an' knowin' fwhat I know, that's
fwhy I say in this shootin'-case here, Mackie that's dead an' in hell is
the lucky man. There are times, Sorr, whin 'tis betther for the man to
die than to live, an' by consequince forty million times betther for the
woman.”

“H'up there!” said Ortheris. “It's time to go.” The witnesses and guard
formed up in the thick white dust of the parched twilight and swung off,
marching easy and whistling. Down the road to the green by the church
I could hear Ortheris, the black Book-lie still uncleansed on his
lips, setting, with a fine sense of the fitness of things, the shrill
quick-step that runs--

     “Oh, do not despise the advice of the wise,
     Learn wisdom from those that are older,
     And don't try for things that are out of your reach--
     An' that's what the Girl told the Soldier
     Soldier! Soldier!
     Oh, that's what the Girl told the Soldier!”




THE BIG DRUNK DRAF'

     We're goin' 'ome, we're goin' 'ome--
     Our ship is at the shore,
     An' you mus' pack your 'aversack,
     For we won't come back no more.
     Ho, don't you grieve for me,
     My lovely Mary Ann,
     For I'll marry you yet on a fourp'ny bit,
     As a time-expired ma-a-an

     Barrack Room Ballad.


AN awful thing has happened! My friend, Private Mulvaney, who went home
in the Serapis, time-expired, not very long ago, has come back to India
as a civilian! It was all Dinah Shadd's fault. She could not stand the
poky little lodgings, and she missed her servant Abdullah more than
words could tell. The fact was that the Mulvaneys had been out here too
long, and had lost touch of England.

Mulvaney knew a contractor on one of the new Central India lines, and
wrote to him for some sort of work. The contractor said that if Mulvaney
could pay the passage he would give him command of a gang of coolies for
old sake's sake. The pay was eighty-five rupees a month, and Dinah Shadd
said that if Terence did not accept she would make his life a “basted
purgathory.” Therefore the Mulvaneys came out as “civilians,” which
was a great and terrible fall; though Mulvaney tried to disguise it by
saying that he was “Ker'nel on the railway line, an' a consequinshal
man.”

He wrote me an invitation, on a tool-indent form, to visit him; and I
came down to the funny little “construction” bungalow at the side of
the line. Dinah Shadd had planted peas about and about, and nature had
spread all manner of green stuff round the place. There was no change in
Mulvaney except the change of clothing, which was deplorable, but could
not be helped. He was standing upon his trolly, haranguing a gangman,
and his shoulders were as well drilled and his big, thick chin was as
clean-shaven as ever.

“I'm a civilian now,” said Mulvaney. “Cud you tell that I was iver
a martial man'? Don't answer, Sorr, av you're strainin' betune a
complimint an' a lie. There's no houldin' Dinah Shadd now she's got
a house av her own. Go inside, an' dhrink tay out av chiny in the
drrrrawin'-room, an' thin we'll dhrink like Christians undher the tree
here. Scutt, ye naygur-folk! There's a Sahib come to call on me, an'
that's more than he'll iver do for you onless you run! Get out, an' go
on pilin' up the earth, quick, till sundown.”


When we three were comfortably settled under the big sisham in front of
the bungalow, and the first rush of questions and answers about Privates
Ortheris and Learoyd and old times and places had died away, Mulvaney
said, reflectively--“Glory be, there's no p'rade to-morrow, an' no
bun-headed Corp'ril-bhoy to give you his lip. An' yit I don't know. 'Tis
harrd to be something ye niver were an' niver meant to be, an' all the
ould days shut up along wid your papers. Eyah! I'm growin' rusty, an'
'tis the will av God that a man mustn't serve his Quane for time an'
all.”

He helped himself to a fresh peg, and sighed furiously.

“Let your beard grow, Mulvaney,” said I, “and then you won't be troubled
with those notions. You'll be a real civilian.”

Dinah Shadd had told me in the drawing-room of her desire to coax
Mulvaney into letting his beard grow. “'Twas so civilian-like,” said
poor Dinah, who hated her husband's hankering for his old life.

“Dinah Shadd, you're a dishgrace to an honust, clane-scraped man!”
 said Mulvaney, without replying to me. “Grow a beard on your own chin,
darlint, and lave my razors alone. They're all that stand betune me
and dis-ris-pect-ability. Av I didn't shave, I wud be torminted wid an
outrajis thurrst; for there's nothin' so dhryin' to the throat as a
big billy-goat beard waggin' undher the chin. Ye wudn't have me dhrink
always, Dinah Shadd'? By the same token, you're kapin' me crool dhry
now. Let me look at that whiskey.”

The whiskey was lent and returned, but Dinah Shadd, who had been just as
eager as her husband in asking after old friends, rent me with--

“I take shame for you, Sorr, coming down here though the Saints know
you're as welkim as the daylight whin you do come--an' upsettin'
Terence's head wid your nonsense about--about fwhat's much betther
forgotten. He bein' a civilian now, an' you niver was aught else. Can
you not let the Arrmy rest? 'Tis not good for Terence.”

I took refuge by Mulvaney, for Dinah Shadd has a temper of her own.

“Let be--let be,” said Mulvaney. “'Tis only wanst in a way I can talk
about the ould days.” Then to me--“Ye say Dhrumshticks is well, an' his
lady tu'? I niver knew how I liked the gray garron till I was shut
av him an' Asia.”--“Dhrumshticks” was the nickname of the Colonel
commanding Mulvaney's old regiment.--“Will you be seein' him again? You
will. Thin tell him”--Mulvaney's eyes began to twinkle--“tell him wid
Privit--”

“Mister, Terence,” interrupted Dinah Shadd. “Now the Divil an' all his
angils an' the Firmament av Hiven fly away wid the 'Mister,' an' the sin
av makin' me swear be on your confession, Dinah Shadd! Privit, I tell
ye. Wid Privit Mulvaney's best obedience, that but for me the last
time-expired wud be still pullin' hair on their way to the sea.”

He threw himself back in the chair, chuckled, and was silent.

“Mrs. Mulvaney,” I said, “please take up the whiskey, and don't let him
have it until he has told the story.”

Dinah Shadd dexterously whipped the bottle away, saying at the same
time, “'Tis nothing to be proud av,” and thus captured by the enemy,
Mulvaney spake:--

“'Twas on Chuseday week. I was behaderin' round wid the gangs on
the 'bankmint--I've taught the hoppers how to kape step an' stop
screechin'--whin a head-gangman comes up to me, wid about two inches av
shirt-tail hanging round his neck an' a disthressful light in his oi.
'Sahib,' sez he, 'there's a reg'mint an' a half av soldiers up at the
junction, knockin' red cinders out av ivrything an' ivrybody! They
thried to hang me in my cloth,' he sez, 'an' there will be murdher an'
ruin an' rape in the place before nightfall! They say they're comin'
down here to wake us up. What will we do wid our women-folk?'

“'Fetch my throlly!' sez I; 'my heart's sick in my ribs for a wink at
anything wid the Quane's uniform on ut. Fetch my throlly, an' six av the
jildiest men, and run me up in shtyle.'”

“He tuk his best coat,” said Dinah Shadd, reproachfully.

“'Twas to do honour to the Widdy. I cud ha' done no less, Dinah Shadd.
You and your digresshins interfere wid the coorse av the narrative. Have
you iver considhered fwhat I wud look like wid me head shaved as well as
me chin? You bear that in your mind, Dinah darlin'.

“I was throllied up six miles, all to get a shquint at that draf'.
I knew 'twas a spring draf' goin' home, for there's no rig'mint
hereabouts, more's the pity.”

“Praise the Virgin!” murmured Dinah Shadd. But Mulvaney did not hear.

“Whin I was about three-quarters av a mile off the rest-camp, powtherin'
along fit to burrst, I heard the noise av the men, an', on my sowl,
Sorr, I cud catch the voice av Peg Barney bellowin' like a bison wid the
belly-ache. You remimber Peg Barney that was in D Comp'ny--a red, hairy
scraun, wid a scar on his jaw? Peg Barney that cleared out the Blue
Lights' Jubilee meetin' wid the cook-room mop last year?

“Thin I knew ut was a draf' av the Ould Rig'mint, an' I was conshumed
wid sorrow for the bhoy that was in charge. We was harrd scrapin's at
any time. Did I iver tell you how Horker Kelley wint into clink nakid as
Phoebus Apollonius, wid the shirts av the Corp'ril an' file undher his
arrum? An' he was a moild man! But I'm digresshin'. 'Tis a shame both
to the rig'mints and the Arrmy sendin' down little orf'cer bhoys wid
a draf' av strong men mad wid liquor an' the chanst av gettin' shut av
India, an' niver a punishment that's fit to be given right down an' away
from cantonmints to the dock! 'Tis this nonsinse. Whin I am servin' my
time, I'm undher the Articles av War, an' can be whipped on the peg for
thim. But whin I've served my time, I'm a Reserve man, an' the Articles
av War haven't any hould on me. An orf'cer can't do anythin' to a
time-expired savin' confinin' him to barricks. 'Tis a wise rig'lation,
bekaze a time-expired does not have any barricks; bein' on the move
all the time. 'Tis a Solomon av a rig'lation, is that. I wud like to
be inthroduced to the man that made ut. 'Tis easier to get colts from a
Kibbereen horse-fair into Galway than to take a bad draf' over ten miles
av counthry. Consiquintly that rig'lation--for fear that the men wud be
hurt by the little orf'cer bhoy. No matther. The nearer my throlly came
to the rest-camp, the woilder was the shine, an' the louder was the
voice of Peg Barney. ''Tis good I am here,' thinks I to mysilf, 'for Peg
alone is employmint for two or three.' He bein', I well knew, as copped
as a dhrover.

“Faith, that rest-camp was a sight! The tent-ropes was all skew-nosed,
an' the pegs looked as dhrunk as the men--fifty av thim--the scourin's,
an' rinsin's, an' Divil's lavin's av the Ould Rig'mint. I tell you,
Sorr, they were dhrunker than any men you've ever seen in your mortial
life. How does a draf' get dhrunk? How does a frog get fat? They suk ut
in through their shkins.

“There was Peg Barney sittin' on the groun' in his shirt--wan shoe off
an' wan shoe on--whackin' a tent-peg over the head wid his boot, an'
singin' fit to wake the dead. 'Twas no clane song that he sung, though.
'Twas the Divil's Mass.”

“What's that?” I asked.

“Whin a bad egg is shut av the Army, he sings the Divil's Mass for
a good riddance; an' that manes swearin' at ivrything from the
Commandher-in-Chief down to the Room-Corp'ril, such as you niver in your
days heard. Some men can swear so as to make green turf crack! Have you
iver heard the Curse in an Orange Lodge? The Divil's Mass is ten times
worse, an' Peg Barney was singin' ut, whackin' the tent-peg on the head
wid his boot for each man that he cursed. A powerful big voice had Peg
Barney, an' a hard swearer he was whin sober. I stood forninst him, an'
'twas not me oi alone that cud tell Peg was dhrunk as a coot.

“Good mornin', Peg,' I sez, whin he dhrew breath afther dursin' the
Adj'tint-Gen'ral; 'I've put on my best coat to see you, Peg Barney,' sez
I.

“Thin take Ut off again,' sez Peg Barney, latherin' away wid the boot;
'take ut off an' dance, ye lousy civilian!'

“Wid that he begins cursin' ould Dhrumshticks, being so full he dane
disrernimbers the Brigade-Major an' the Judge-Advokit-Gen'ral.

“Do you not know me, Peg?' sez I, though me blood was hot in me wid
being called a civilian.”

“An' him a decent married man!” wailed Dinah Shadd.

“I do not,” sez Peg, “but dhrunk or sober I'll tear the hide off your
back wid a shovel whin I've stopped singin.”

“'Say you so, Peg Barney?' sez I. ''Tis clear as mud you've forgotten
me. I'll assist your autobiography.' Wid that I stretched Peg Barney,
boot an' all, an' wint into the camp. An awful sight ut was!

“'Where's the orf'cer in charge av the detachment?' sez I to Scrub
Greene--the manest little worm that ever walked.

“'There's no orf'cer, ye ould cook,' sez Scrub; 'we're a bloomin'
Republic.'

“'Are you that?' sez I; 'thin I'm O'Connell the Dictator, an' by this
you will larn to kape a civil tongue in your rag-box.'

“Wid that I stretched Scrub Greene an' wint to the orf'cer's tent. 'Twas
a new little bhoy--not wan I'd iver seen before. He was sittin' in his
tent, purtendin' not to 'ave ear av the racket.

“I saluted--but for the life av me I mint to shake hands whin I went in.
'Twas the sword hangin' on the tent-pole changed my will.

“'Can't I help, Sorr?' sez I; ''tis a strong man's job they've given
you, an' you'll be wantin' help by sundown.' He was a bhoy wid bowils,
that child, an' a rale gintleman.

“'Sit down,' sez he.

“'Not before my orf'cer,' sez I; an' I tould him fwhat my service was.

“'I've heard av you,' sez he. 'You tuk the town av Lungtungpen nakid.'

“'Faith,' thinks I, 'that's Honour an' Glory'; for 'twas Lift'nint
Brazenose did that job. 'I'm wid ye, Sorr,' sez I, 'if I'm av use. They
shud niver ha' sent you down wid the draf'. Savin' your presince, Sorr,'
I sez, ''tis only Lift'nint Hackerston in the Ould Rig'mint can manage a
Home draf'.'

“'I've niver had charge of men like this before,' sez he, playin' wid
the pens on the table; 'an' I see by the Rig'lations--'

“'Shut your oi to the Rig'lations, Sorr,' I sez, 'till the throoper's
into blue wather. By the Rig'lations you've got to tuck thim up for the
night, or they'll be runnin' foul av my coolies an' makin' a shiverarium
half through the counthry. Can you trust your noncoms, Sorr?'

“'Yes,' sez he.

“'Good,' sez I; 'there'll be throuble before the night. Are you
marchin', Sorr?'

“'To the next station,' sez he.

“'Betther still,' sez I; 'there'll be big throuble.'

“'Can't be too hard on a Home draf,' sez he; 'the great thing is to get
thim in-ship.'

“'Faith, you've larnt the half av your lesson, Sorr,' sez I, 'but av you
shtick to the Rig'lations you'll niver get thim inship at all, at all.
Or there won't be a rag av kit betune thim whin you do.'

“'Twas a dear little orf'cer bhoy, an' by way av kapin' his heart up, I
tould him fwhat I saw wanst in a draf in Egypt.”

“What was that, Mulvaney?” said I.

“Sivin an' fifty men sittin' on the bank av a canal, laughin' at a poor
little squidgereen av an orf'cer that they'd made wade into the slush
an' pitch things out av the boats for their Lord High Mightinesses. That
made me orf'cer bhoy woild wid indignation.

“'Soft an' aisy, Sorr,' sez I; 'you've niver had your draf' in hannd
since you left cantonmints Wait till the night, an' your work will be
ready to you. Wid your permission, Sorr, I will investigate the camp,
an' talk to me ould frinds. 'Tis no manner av use thryin' to shtop the
divilmint now.'

“Wid that I wint out into the camp an' inthrojuced mysilf to ivry man
sober enough to remimber me. I was some wan in the ould days, an' the
bhoys was glad to see me--all excipt Peg Barney wid a eye like a tomata
five days in the bazar, an' a nose to match. They come round me an' shuk
me, an' I tould thim I was in privit employ wid an income av me own,
an' a drrrawin'-room fit to bate the Quane's; an' wid me lies an'
me shtories an' nonsinse gin'rally, I kept 'em quiet in wan way an'
another, knockin' roun' the camp. 'Twas bad even thin whin I was the
Angil av Peace.

“I talked to me ould non-coms--they was sober--an' betune me an' thim
we wore the draf' over into their tents at the proper time. The little
orf'cer bhoy he conies round, dacint an' civil-spoken as might be.

“'Rough quarthers, men,' sez he, 'but you can't look to be as
comfortable as in barricks. We must make the best av things. I've shut
my eyes to a dale av dog's thricks to-day, an' now there must be no more
av ut.'

“No more we will. Come an' have a dhrink, me son,' sez Peg Barney,
staggerin' where he stud. Me little orf'cer bhoy kep' his timper.

“'You're a sulky swine, you are,' sez Peg Barney, an' at that the men in
the tent began to laugh.

“I tould you me orf'cer bhoy had bowils. He cut Peg Barney as near as
might be on the oi that I'd squshed whin we first met. Peg wint spinnin'
acrost the tent.

“Peg him out, Sorr,' sez I, in a whishper.

“Peg him out!' sez me orf'cer bhoy, up loud, just as if 'twas battalion
p'rade an' he pickin' his wurrds from the Sargint.

“The non-coms tuk Peg Barney--a howlin' handful he was--an' in three
minut's he was pegged out--chin down, tight-dhrawn--on his stummick, a
tent-peg to each arm an' leg, swearin' fit to turn a naygur white.

“I tuk a peg an'' jammed ut into his ugly jaw--'Bite on that, Peg
Barney,' I sez; 'the night is settin' frosty, an' you'll be wantin'
divarsion before the mornin'. But for the Rig'lations you'd be bitin' on
a bullet now at the thriangles, Peg Barney,' sez I.

“All the draf' was out av their tents watchin' Barney bein' pegged.

“''Tis agin the Rig'lations! He strook him!' screeches out Scrub Greene,
who was always a lawyer; an' some of the men tuk up the shoutin'.

“'Peg out that man!' sez me orf'cer bhoy, niver losin' his timper; an'
the non-coms wint in and pegged out Scrub Greene by the side av Peg
Barney.

“I cud see that the draf' was comin' roun'. The men stud not knowin'
fwhat to do.

“'Get to your tents!' sez me orf'cer bhoy. 'Sargint, put a sinthry over
these two men.'

“The men wint back into the tents like jackals, an' the rest av the
night there was no noise at all excipt the stip av the sinthry over the
two, an' Scrub Greene blubberin' like a child. 'Twas a chilly night, an'
faith, ut sobered Peg Barney.

“Just before Revelly, me orf'cer bhoy comes out an' sez: 'Loose those
men an' send thim to their tents!' Scrub Greene wint away widout a word,
but Peg Barney, stiff wid the cowld, stud like a sheep, thryin' to make
his orf'cer undherstand he was sorry for playin' the goat.

“There was no tucker in the draf' whin ut fell in for the march, an'
divil a wurrd about 'illegality' cud I hear.

“I wint to the ould Colour-Sargint and I sez:--'Let me die in glory,'
sez I. 'I've seen a man this day!'

“'A man he is,' sez ould Hother; 'the draf's as sick as a herrin'.
They'll all go down to the sea like lambs. That bhoy has the bowils av a
cantonmint av Gin'rals.'

“'Amin,' sez I, 'an' good luck go wid him, wheriver he be, by land or by
sea. Let me know how the draf' gets clear.'

“An' do you know how they did? That bhoy, so I was tould by letter from
Bombay, bully-damned 'em down to the dock, till they cudn't call their
sowls their own. From the time they left me oi till they was 'tween
decks, not wan av thim was more than dacintly dhrunk. An' by the Holy
Articles av War, whin they wint aboord they cheered him till they cudn't
spake, an' that, mark you, has not come about wid a draf' in the mlm'ry
av livin' man! You look to that little orf'cer bhoy. He has bowils. 'Tis
not ivry child that wud chuck the Rig'lations to Flanders an' stretch
Peg Barney on a wink from a brokin an' dilapidated ould carkiss like
mysilf. I'd be proud to serve--”

“Terence, you're a civilian,” said Dinah Shadd warningly.

“So I am--so I am. Is ut likely I wud forget ut? But he was a gran' bhoy
all the same, an' I'm only a mudtipper wid a hod on me shoulthers.
The whiskey's in the heel av your hand, Sorr. Wid your good lave we'll
dhrink to the Ould Rig'mint--three fingers--standin' up!” And we drank.




THE MUTINEY OF THE MAVERICKS

Sec. 7 (1)--Causing or Conspiring with other persons to cause a mutiny
or sedition in forces belonging to Her Majesty's Regular forces, Reserve
forces, Auxiliary forces, or Navy.

When three obscure gentlemen in San Francisco argued on insufficient
premises they condemned a fellow-creature to a most unpleasant death in
a far country which had nothing whatever to do with the United States.
They foregathered at the top of a tenement-house in Tehama Street, an
unsavoury quarter of the city, and, there calling for certain drinks,
they conspired because they were conspirators by trade, officially known
as the Third Three of the I. A. A.--an institution for the propagation
of pure light, not to be confounded with any others, though it is
affiliated to many. The Second Three live in Montreal, and work among
the poor there; the First Three have their home in New York, not far
from Castle Garden, and write regularly once a week to a small house
near one of the big hotels at Boulogne. What happens after that, a
particular section of Scotland Yard knows too well and laughs at. A
conspirator detests ridicule. More men have been stabbed with Lucrezia
Borgia daggers and dropped into the Thames for laughing at Head Centres
and Triangles than for betraying secrets; for this is human nature.

The Third Three conspired over whiskey cocktails and a clean sheet of
note-paper against the British Empire and all that lay therein. This
work is very like what men without discernment call politics before a
general election. You pick out and discuss, in the company of congenial
friends, all the weak points in your opponents' organisation, and
unconsciously dwell upon and exaggerate all their mishaps, till it seems
to you a miracle that the hated party holds together for an hour.

“Our principle is not so much active demonstration--that we leave to
others--as passive embarrassment, to weaken and unnerve,” said the first
man. “Wherever an organisation is crippled, wherever confusion is thrown
into any branch of any department, we gain a step for those who take on
the work; we are but the forerunners.” He was a German enthusiast, and
editor of a newspaper, from whose leading articles he quoted frequently.

“That cursed Empire makes so many blunders of her own that unless we
doubled the year's average I guess it wouldn't strike her anything
special had occurred,” said the second man. “Are you prepared to
say that all our resources are equal to blowing off the muzzle of a
hundred-ton gun or spiking a ten-thousand-ton ship on a plain rock in
clear daylight? They can beat us at our own game. Better join hands
with the practical branches; we're in funds now. Try a direct scare in a
crowded street. They value their greasy hides.” He was the drag upon the
wheel, and an Americanised Irishman of the second generation, despising
his own race and hating the other. He had learned caution.

The third man drank his cocktail and spoke no word. He was the
strategist, but unfortunately his knowledge of life was limited. He
picked a letter from his breast-pocket and threw it across the table.
That epistle to the heathen contained some very concise directions from
the First Three in New York. It said--

“The boom in black iron has already affected the eastern markets, where
our agents have been forcing down the English-held stock among the
smaller buyers who watch the turn of shares. Any immediate operations,
such as western bears, would increase their willingness to unload.
This, however, cannot be expected till they see clearly that foreign
iron-masters are willing to co-operate. Mulcahy should be dispatched
to feel the pulse of the market, and act accordingly. Mavericks are at
present the best for our purpose.--P. D. Q.”

As a message referring to an iron crisis in Pennsylvania, it was
interesting, if not lucid. As a new departure in organized attack on an
outlying English dependency, it was more than interesting.

The second man read it through and murmured--“Already? Surely they are
in too great a hurry. All that Dhulip Singh could do in India he has
done, down to the distribution of his photographs among the peasantry.
Ho! Ho! The Paris firm arranged that, and he has no substantial money
backing from the Other Power. Even our agents in India know he hasn't.
What is the use of our organisation wasting men on work that is already
done? Of course the Irish regiments in India are half mutinous as they
stand.”

This shows how near a lie may come to the truth. An Irish regiment, for
just so long as it stands still, is generally a hard handful to control,
being reckless and rough. When, however, it is moved in the direction of
musketry-firing, it becomes strangely and unpatriotically content with
its lot. It has even been heard to cheer the Queen with enthusiasm on
these occasions.

But the notion of tampering with the army was, from the point of view of
Tehama Street, an altogether sound one. There is no shadow of stability
in the policy of an English Government, and the most sacred oaths of
England would, even if engrossed on vellum, find very few buyers among
colonies and dependencies that have suffered from vain beliefs. But
there remains to England always her army. That cannot change except
in the matter of uniform and equipment. The officers may write to the
papers demanding the heads of the Horse Guards in default of cleaner
redress for grievances; the men may break loose across a country town
and seriously startle the publicans; but neither officers nor men have
it in their composition to mutiny after the continental manner. The
English people, when they trouble to think about the army at all, are,
and with justice, absolutely assured that it is absolutely trustworthy.
Imagine for a moment their emotions on realising that such and such
a regiment was in open revolt from causes directly due to England's
management of Ireland. They would probably send the regiment to the
polls forthwith and examine their own consciences as to their duty to
Erin; but they would never be easy any more. And it was this vague,
unhappy mistrust that the I. A. A. were labouring to produce.

“Sheer waste of breath,” said the second man after a pause in the
council. “I don't see the use of tampering with their fool-army, but
it has been tried before and we must try it again. It looks well in the
reports. If we send one man from here you may bet your life that other
men are going too. Order up Mulcahy.”

They ordered him up--a slim, slight, dark-haired young man, devoured
with that blind rancorous hatred of England that only reaches its full
growth across the Atlantic. He had sucked it from his mother's breast in
the little cabin at the back of the northern avenues of New York; he had
been taught his rights and his wrongs, in German and Irish, on the canal
fronts of Chicago; and San Francisco held men who told him strange and
awful things of the great blind power over the seas. Once, when business
took him across the Atlantic, he had served in an English regiment, and
being insubordinate had suffered extremely. He drew all his ideas of
England that were not bred by the cheaper patriotic prints from one
iron-fisted colonel and an unbending adjutant. He would go to the
mines if need be to teach his gospel. And he went, as his instructions
advised, p. d. q.--which means “with speed”--to introduce embarrassment
into an Irish regiment, “already half-mutinous, quartered among Sikh
peasantry, all wearing miniatures of His Highness Dhulip Singh,
Maharaja of the Punjab, next their hearts, and all eagerly expecting
his arrival.” Other information equally valuable was given him by his
masters. He was to be cautious, but never to grudge expense in winning
the hearts of the men in the regiment. His mother in New York would
supply funds, and he was to write to her once a month. Life is pleasant
for a man who has a mother in New York to send him two hundred pounds a
year over and above his regimental pay.

In process of time, thanks to his intimate knowledge of drill and
musketry exercise, the excellent Mulcahy, wearing the corporal's stripe,
went out in a troopship and joined Her Majesty's Royal Loyal Musketeers,
commonly known as the “Mavericks,” because they were masterless and
unbranded cattle--sons of small farmers in County Clare, shoeless
vagabonds of Kerry, herders of Ballyvegan, much wanted “moonlighters”
 from the bare rainy headlands of the south coast, officered by O'Mores,
Bradys, Hills, Kilreas, and the like. Never to outward seeming was there
more promising material to work on. The First Three had chosen their
regiment well. It feared nothing that moved or talked save the colonel
and the regimental Roman Catholic chaplain, the fat Father Dennis, who
held the keys of heaven and hell, and blared like an angry bull when
he desired to be convincing. Him also it loved because on occasions of
stress he was used to tuck up his cassock and charge with the rest into
the merriest of the fray, where he always found, good man, that the
saints sent him a revolver when there was a fallen private to be
protected, or--but this came as an afterthought his own gray head to be
guarded.

Cautiously as he had been instructed, tenderly and with much beer,
Mulcahy opened his projects to such as he deemed fittest to listen.
And these were, one and all, of that quaint, crooked, sweet, profoundly
irresponsible and profoundly lovable race that fight like fiends, argue
like children, reason like women, obey like men, and jest like their own
goblins of the rath through rebellion, loyalty, want, woe, or war. The
underground work of a conspiracy is always dull and very much the same
the world over. At the end of six months--the seed always falling on
good ground--Mulcahy spoke almost explicitly, hinting darkly in the
approved fashion at dread powers behind him, and advising nothing more
nor less than mutiny. Were they not dogs, evilly treated? had they not
all their own and their national revenges to satisfy? Who in these days
would do aught to nine hundred men in rebellion? Who, again, could stay
them if they broke for the sea, licking up on their way other regiments
only too anxious to join? And afterwards... here followed windy promises
of gold and preferment, office and honour, ever dear to a certain type
of Irishman.

As he finished his speech, in the dusk of a twilight, to his chosen
associates, there was a sound of a rapidly unslung belt behind him. The
arm of one Dan Grady flew out in the gloom and arrested something. Then
said Dan--

“Mulcahy, you're a great man, an' you do credit to whoever sent you.
Walk about a bit while we think of it.” Mulcahy departed elate. He knew
his words would sink deep.

“Why the triple-dashed asterisks did ye not let me belt him'?” grunted a
voice.

“Because I'm not a fat-headed fool. Boys, 'tis what he's been driving
at these six months--our superior corp'ril with his education and his
copies of the Irish papers and his everlasting beer. He's been sent for
the purpose, and that's where the money comes from. Can ye not see? That
man's a gold-mine, which Horse Egan here would have destroyed with a
belt-buckle. It would be throwing away the gifts of Providence not to
fall in with his little plans. Of coorse we'll mut'ny till all's dry.
Shoot the colonel on the parade-ground, massacree the company officers,
ransack the arsenal, and then--Boys, did he tell you what next? He told
me the other night when he was beginning to talk wild. Then we're to
join with the niggers, and look for help from Dhulip Singh and the
Russians!”

“And spoil the best campaign that ever was this side of Hell! Danny, I'd
have lost the beer to ha' given him the belting he requires.”

“Oh, let him go this awhile, man! He's got no--no constructiveness, but
that's the egg-meat of his plan, and you must understand that I'm
in with it, an' so are you. We'll want oceans of beer to convince
us--firmaments full. We'll give him talk for his money, and one by one
all the boys'll come in and he'll have a nest of nine hundred mutineers
to squat in an' give drink to.”

“What makes me killing-mad is his wanting us to do what the niggers
did thirty years gone. That an' his pig's cheek in saying that other
regiments would come along,” said a Kerry man.

“That's not so bad as hintin' we should loose off on the colonel.”

“Colonel be sugared! I'd as soon as not put a shot through his helmet
to see him jump and clutch his old horse's head. But Mulcahy talks o'
shootin' our comp'ny orf'cers accidental.”

“He said that, did he?” said Horse Egan.

“Somethin' like that, anyways. Can't ye fancy ould Barber Brady wid a
bullet in his lungs, coughin' like a sick monkey, an' sayin', 'Bhoys,
I do not mind your gettin' dhrunk, but you must hould your liquor like
men. The man that shot me is dhrunk. I'll suspend investigations for six
hours, while I get this bullet cut out, and then--'”

“'An' then,” continued Horse Egan, for the peppery Major's peculiarities
of speech and manner were as well known as his tanned face; “'an' then,
ye dissolute, half-baked, putty-faced scum o' Connemara, if I find a
man so much as lookin' confused, begad, I'll coort-martial the whole
company. A man that can't get over his liquor in six hours is not fit to
belong to the Mavericks!'”

A shout of laughter bore witness to the truth of the sketch.

“It's pretty to think of,” said the Kerry man slowly. “Mulcahy would
have us do all the devilmint, and get clear himself, someways. He wudn't
be takin' all this fool's throuble in shpoilin' the reputation of the
regimint--”

“Reputation of your grandmother's pig!” said Dan.

“Well, an' he had a good reputation tu; so it's all right. Mulcahy
must see his way to clear out behind him, or he'd not ha' come so far,
talkin' powers of darkness.”

“Did you hear anything of a regimental coortmartial among the Black
Boneens, these days? Half a company of 'em took one of the new draft
an' hanged him by his arms with a tent-rope from a third-story verandah.
They gave no reason for so doin', but he was half dead. I'm thinking
that the Boneens are short-sighted. It was a friend of Mulcahy's, or
a man in the same trade. They'd a deal better ha' taken his beer,”
 returned Dan reflectively.

“Better still ha' handed him up to the Colonel,” said Horse Egan,
“onless--but sure the news wud be all over the counthry an' give the
reg'ment a bad name.”

“An' there'd be no reward for that man--he but went about talkin',” said
the Kerry man artlessly.

“You speak by your breed,” said Dan, with a laugh. “There was never a
Kerry man yet that wudn't sell his brother for a pipe o' tobacco an' a
pat on the back from a p'liceman.”

“Praise God I'm not a bloomin' Orangeman,” was the answer.

“No, nor never will be,” said Dan. “They breed men in Ulster. Would you
like to thry the taste of one?”

The Kerry man looked and longed, but forbore. The odds of battle were
too great. “Then you'll not even give Mulcahy a--a strike for his
money,” said the voice of Horse Egan, who regarded what he called
“trouble” of any kind as the pinnacle of felicity.

Dan answered not at all, but crept on tip-toe, with long strides, to
the mess-room, the men following. The room was empty. In a corner, cased
like the King of Dahomey's state umbrella, stood the regimental Colours.
Dan lifted them tenderly and unrolled in the light of the candles the
record of the Mavericks--tattered, worn, and hacked. The white satin
was darkened everywhere with big brown stains, the gold threads on the
crowned harp were frayed and discoloured, and the Red Bull, the totem
of the Mavericks, was coffee-hued. The stiff, embroidered folds, whose
price is human life, rustled down slowly. The Mavericks keep their
colours long and guard them very sacredly.

“Vittoria, Salamanca, Toulouse, Waterloo, Moodkee, Ferozshah, an'
Sobraon--that was fought close next door here, against the very beggars
he wants us to join. Inkerman, The Alma, Sebastopol! 'What are those
little businesses compared to the campaigns of General Mulcahy? The
Mut'ny, think o' that; the Mut'ny an' some dirty little matters in
Afghanistan; an' for that an' these an' those”--Dan pointed to the names
of glorious battles--“that Yankee man with the partin' in his hair comes
an' says as easy as 'have a drink'... Holy Moses, there's the captain!”

But it was the mess-sergeant who came in just as the men clattered out,
and found the colours uncased.

From that day dated the mutiny of the Mavericks, to the joy of Mulcahy
and the pride of his mother in New York--the good lady who sent the
money for the beer. Never, so far as words went, was such a mutiny. The
conspirators, led by Dan Grady and Horse Egan, poured in daily. They
were sound men, men to be trusted, and they all wanted blood; but first
they must have beer. They cursed the Queen, they mourned over Ireland,
they suggested hideous plunder of the Indian country-side, and then,
alas--some of the younger men would go forth and wallow on the ground
in spasms of wicked laughter The genius of the Irish for conspiracies is
remarkable. None the less they would swear no oaths but those of their
own making, which were rare and curious, and they were always at pains
to impress Mulcahy with the risks they ran. Naturally the flood of beer
wrought demoralisation. But Mulcahy confused the causes of things, and
when a very muzzy Maverick smote a sergeant on the nose or called his
commanding officer a bald-headed old lard-bladder and even worse
names, he fancied that rebellion and not liquor was at the bottom of
the outbreak. Other gentlemen who have concerned themselves in larger
conspiracies have made the same error.

The hot season, in which they protested no man could rebel, came to an
end, and Mulcahy suggested a visible return for his teachings. As to the
actual upshot of the mutiny he cared nothing. It would be enough if the
English, infatuatedly trusting to the integrity of their army, should
be startled with news of an Irish regiment revolting from political
considerations. His persistent demands would have ended, at Dan's
instigation, in a regimental belting which in all probability would
have killed him and cut off the supply of beer, had not he been sent on
special duty some fifty miles away from the Cantonment to cool his heels
in a mud fort and dismount obsolete artillery. Then the colonel of
the Mavericks, reading his newspaper diligently, and scenting Frontier
trouble from afar, posted to the army headquarters and pled with the
Commander-in-chief for certain privileges, to be granted under certain
contingencies; which contingencies came about only a week later, when
the annual little war on the border developed itself and the colonel
returned to carry the good news to the Mavericks. He held the promise of
the Chief for active service, and the men must get ready.

On the evening of the same day, Mulcahy, an unconsidered corporal--yet
great in conspiracy--returned to cantonments, and heard sounds of strife
and howlings from afar off. The mutiny had broken out and the barracks
of the Mavericks were one white-washed pandemonium. A private tearing
through the barrack-square, gasped in his ear, “Service! Active service.
It's a burnin' shame.” Oh joy, the Mavericks had risen on the eve of
battle! They would not--noble and loyal sons of Ireland--serve the
Queen longer. The news would flash through the country-side and over to
England, and he--Mulcahy--the trusted of the Third Three, had brought
about the crash. The private stood in the middle of the square and
cursed colonel, regiment, officers, and doctor, particularly the doctor,
by his gods. An orderly of the native cavalry regiment clattered through
the mob of soldiers. He was half lifted, half dragged from his horse,
beaten on the back with mighty hand-claps till his eyes watered, and
called all manner of endearing names. Yes, the Mavericks had fraternized
with the native troops. Who then was the agent among the latter that had
blindly wrought with Mulcahy so well?

An officer slunk, almost ran, from the mess to a barrack. He was mobbed
by the infuriated soldiery, who closed round but did not kill him, for
he fought his way to shelter, flying for the life. Mulcahy could
have wept with pure joy and thankfulness. The very prisoners in the
guard-room were shaking the bars of their cells and howling like wild
beasts, and from every barrack poured the booming as of a big war-drum.

Mulcahy hastened to his own barrack. He could hardly hear himself
speak. Eighty men were pounding with fist and heel the tables and
trestles--eighty men, flushed with mutiny, stripped to their shirt
sleeves, their knapsacks half-packed for the march to the sea, made the
two-inch boards thunder again as they chanted, to a tune that Mulcahy
knew well, the Sacred War Song of the Mavericks--

     Listen in the north, my boys, there's trouble on the wind;
     Tramp o' Cossack hooves in front, gray great-coats behind,
     Trouble on the Frontier of a most amazin' kind,
     Trouble on the waters o' the Oxus!

Then, as the table broke under the furious accompaniment--

     Hurrah! hurrah! it's north by west we go;
     Hurrah! hurrah! the chance we wanted so;
     Let 'em hear the chorus from Umballa to Moscow,
     As we go marchin' to the Kremling.

“Mother of all the saints in bliss and all the devils in cinders,
where's my fine new sock widout the heel?” howled Horse Egan, ransacking
everybody's valise but his own. He was engaged in making up deficiencies
of kit preparatory to a campaign, and in that work he steals best who
steals last. “Ah, Mulcahy, you're in good time,” he shouted, “We've got
the route, and we're off on Thursday for a pic-nic wid the Lancers next
door.”

An ambulance orderly appeared with a huge basket full of lint rolls,
provided by the forethought of the Queen for such as might need
them later on. Horse Egan unrolled his bandage, and flicked it under
Mulcahy's nose, chanting--

     “Sheepskin an' bees' wax, thunder, pitch, and plaster,
     The more you try to pull it off, the more it sticks the faster.
     As I was goin' to New Orleans--

“You know the rest of it, my Irish American-Jew boy. By gad, ye have to
fight for the Queen in the inside av a fortnight, my darlin.”

A roar of laughter interrupted. Mulcahy looked vacantly down the room.
Bid a boy defy his father when the pantomime-cab is at the door, or
a girl develop a will of her own when her mother is putting the last
touches to the first ball-dress, but do not ask an Irish regiment to
embark upon mutiny on the eve of a campaign, when it has fraternised
with the native regiment that accompanies it, and driven its officers
into retirement with ten thousand clamorous questions, and the prisoners
dance for joy, and the sick men stand in the open calling down all known
diseases on the head of the doctor, who has certified that they are
“medically unfit for active service.” At even the Mavericks might have
been mistaken for mutineers by one so unversed in their natures as
Mulcahy. At dawn a girls' school might have learned deportment from
them. They knew that their colonel's hand had closed, and that he who
broke that iron discipline would not go to the front: nothing in the
world will persuade one of our soldiers, when he is ordered to the north
on the smallest of affairs, that he is not immediately going gloriously
to slay Cossacks and cook his kettles in the palace of the Czar. A few
of the younger men mourned for Mulcahy's beer, because the campaign was
to be conducted on strict temperance principles, but as Dan and Horse
Egan said sternly, “We've got the beer-man with us. He shall drink now
on his own hook.”

Mulcahy had not taken into account the possibility of being sent on
active service. He had made up his mind that he would not go under any
circumstances, but fortune was against him.

“Sick-you?” said the doctor, who had served an unholy apprenticeship
to his trade in Tralee poorhouses. “You're only home-sick, and what you
call varicose veins come from over-eating. A little gentle exercise will
cure that.” And later, “Mulcahy, my man, everybody is allowed to apply
for a sick-certificate once. If he tries it twice we call him by an ugly
name. Go back to your duty, and let's hear no more of your diseases.”

I am ashamed to say that Horse Egan enjoyed the study of Mulcahy's
soul in those days, and Dan took an equal interest. Together they would
communicate to their corporal all the dark lore of death which is the
portion of those who have seen men die. Egan had the larger experience,
but Dan the finer imagination. Mulcahy shivered when the former spoke of
the knife as an intimate acquaintance, or the latter dwelt with loving
particularity on the fate of those who, wounded and helpless, had been
overlooked by the ambulances, and had fallen into the hands of the
Afghan women-folk.

Mulcahy knew that the mutiny, for the present at least, was dead; knew,
too, that a change had come over Dan's usually respectful attitude
towards him, and Horse Egan's laughter and frequent allusions to
abortive conspiracies emphasised all that the conspirator had guessed.
The horrible fascination of the death-stories, however, made him seek
the men's society. He learned much more than he had bargained for; and
in this manner. It was on the last night before the regiment entrained
to the front. The barracks were stripped of everything movable, and the
men were too excited to sleep. The bare walls gave out a heavy hospital
smell of chloride of lime.

“And what,” said Mulcahy in an awe-stricken whisper, after some
conversation on the eternal subject, “are you going to do to me, Dan?”
 This might have been the language of an able conspirator conciliating a
weak spirit.

“You'll see,” said Dan grimly, turning over in his cot, “or I rather
shud say you'll not see.”

This was hardly the language of a weak spirit. Mulcahy shook under the
bed-clothes.

“Be easy with him,” put in Egan from the next cot. “He has got his
chanst o' goin' clean. Listen, Mulcahy, all we want is for the good sake
of the regiment that you take your death standing up, as a man shud.
There's be heaps an' heaps of enemy--plenshus heaps. Go there an' do all
you can and die decent. You'll die with a good name there. 'Tis not a
hard thing considerin'.”

Again Mulcahy shivered.

“An' how could a man wish to die better than fightin'?” added Dan
consolingly.

“And if I won't?” said the corporal in a dry whisper.

“There'll be a dale of smoke,” returned Dan, sitting up and ticking off
the situation on his fingers, “sure to be, an' the noise of the firin'll
be tremenjus, an' we'll be running about up and down, the regiment will.
But we, Horse and I--we'll stay by you, Mulcahy, and never let you go.
Maybe there'll be an accident.”

“It's playing it low on me. Let me go. For pity's sake, let me go. I
never did you harm, and--and I stood you as much beer as I could. Oh,
don't be hard on me, Dan! You are--you were in it too. You won't kill me
up there, will you?”

“I'm not thinkin' of the treason; though you shud be glad any honest
boys drank with you. It's for the regiment. We can't have the shame o'
you bringin' shame on us. You went to the doctor quiet as a sick cat
to get and stay behind an' live with the women at the depot--you that
wanted us to run to the sea in wolf-packs like the rebels none of your
black blood dared to be! But we knew about your goin' to the doctor, for
he told in mess, and it's all over the regiment. Bein', as we are, your
best friends, we didn't allow any one to molest you yet. We will see to
you ourselves. Fight which you will--us or the enemy you'll never lie
in that cot again, and there's more glory and maybe less kicks from
fightin' the enemy. That's fair speakin'.”

“And he told us by word of mouth to go and join with the niggers--you've
forgotten that, Dan,” said Horse Egan, to justify sentence.

“What's the use of plaguin' the man? One shot pays for all. Sleep ye
sound, Mulcahy. But you onderstand, do ye not?”

Mulcahy for some weeks understood very little of anything at all save
that ever at his elbow, in camp or at parade, stood two big men with
soft voices adjuring him to commit hari-kari lest a worse thing should
happen--to die for the honour of the regiment in decency among the
nearest knives. But Mulcahy dreaded death. He remembered certain things
that priests had said in his infancy, and his mother--not the one at New
York--starting from her sleep with shrieks to pray for a husband's soul
in torment. It is well to be of a cultured intelligence, but in time
of trouble the weak human mind returns to the creed it sucked in at the
breast, and if that creed be not a pretty one trouble follows. Also,
the death he would have to face would be physically painful. Most
conspirators have large imaginations. Mulcahy could see himself, as he
lay on the earth in the night, dying by various causes. They were all
horrible; the mother in New York was very far away, and the Regiment,
the engine that, once you fall in its grip, moves you forward whether
you will or won't, was daily coming closer to the enemy!

They were brought to the field of Marzun Katai, and with the Black
Boneens to aid, they fought a fight that has never been set down in the
newspapers. In response, many believe, to the fervent prayers of Father
Dennis, the enemy not only elected to fight in the open, but made a
beautiful fight, as many weeping Irish mothers knew later. They gathered
behind walls or flickered across the open in shouting masses, and were
pot-valiant in artillery. It was expedient to hold a large reserve
and wait for the psychological moment that was being prepared by the
shrieking shrapnel. Therefore the Mavericks lay down in open order on
the brow of a hill to watch the play till their call should come.
Father Dennis, whose duty was in the rear, to smooth the trouble of the
wounded, had naturally managed to make his way to the foremost of his
boys, and lay like a black porpoise, at length on the grass. To him
crawled Mulcahy, ashen-gray, demanding absolution.

“'Wait till you're shot,” said Father Dennis sweetly. “There's a time
for everything.”

Dan Grady chuckled as he blew for the fiftieth time into the breech of
his speckless rifle. Mulcahy groaned and buried his head in his arms
till a stray shot spoke like a snipe immediately above his head, and a
general heave and tremour rippled the line. Other shots followed and a
few took effect, as a shriek or a grunt attested. The officers, who had
been lying down with the men, rose and began to walk steadily up and
down the front of their companies.

This manoeuvre, executed, not for publication, but as a guarantee of
good faith, to soothe men, demands nerve. You must not hurry, you must
not look nervous, though you know that you are a mark for every rifle
within extreme range, and above all if you are smitten you must make as
little noise as possible and roll inwards through the files. It is at
this hour, when the breeze brings the first salt whiff of the powder
to noses rather cold at the tip, and the eye can quietly take in the
appearance of each red casualty, that the strain on the nerves is
strongest. Scotch regiments can endure for half a day and abate no
whit of their zeal at the end; English regiments sometimes sulk under
punishment, while the Irish, like the French, are apt to run forward
by ones and twos, which is just as bad as running back. The truly wise
commandant of highly-strung troops allows them, in seasons of waiting,
to hear the sound of their own voices uplifted in song. There is a
legend of an English regiment that lay by its arms under fire chaunting
“Sam Hall,” to the horror of its newly appointed and pious colonel. The
Black Boneens, who were suffering more than the Mavericks, on a hill
half a mile away, began presently to explain to all who cared to
listen--

     We'll sound the jubilee, from the centre to the sea,
     And Ireland shall be free, says the Shan-van Vogh.

“Sing, boys,” said Father Dennis softly. “It looks as if we cared for
their Afghan peas.”

Dan Grady raised himself to his knees and opened his mouth in a song
imparted to him, as to most of his comrades, in the strictest confidence
by Mulcahy--that Mulcahy then lying limp and fainting on the grass, the
chill fear of death upon him.

Company after company caught up the words which, the I. A. A. say, are
to herald the general rising of Erin, and to breathe which, except to
those duly appointed to hear, is death. Wherefore they are printed in
this place.

     The Saxon in Heaven's just balance is weighed,
     His doom like Belshazzar's in death has been cast,
     And the hand of the venger shall never be stayed
     Till his race, faith, and speech are a dream of the past.

They were heart-filling lines and they ran with a swirl; the I. A. A.
are better served by their pens than their petards. Dan clapped Mulcahy
merrily on the back, asking him to sing up. The officers lay down again.
There was no need to walk any more. Their men were soothing themselves
thunderously, thus--

     St. Mary in Heaven has written the vow
     That the land shall not rest till the heretic blood,
     From the babe at the breast to the hand at the plough,
     Has rolled to the ocean like Shannon in flood!

“I'll speak to you after all's over,” said Father Dennis authoritatively
in Dan's ear. “What's the use of confessing to me when you do this
foolishness? Dan, you've been playing with fire! I'll lay you more
penance in a week than--”

“Come along to Purgatory with us, Father dear. The Boneens are on the
move; they'll let us go now!”

The regiment rose to the blast of the bugle as one man; but one man
there was who rose more swiftly than all the others, for half an inch of
bayonet was in the fleshy part of his leg.

“You've got to do it,” said Dan grimly. “Do it decent, anyhow;” and
the roar of the rush drowned his words, for the rear companies thrust
forward the first, still singing as they swung down the slope--

     From the child at the breast to the hand at the plough
     Shall roll to the ocean like Shannon in flood!

They should have sung it in the face of England, not of the Afghans,
whom it impressed as much as did the wild Irish yell.

“They came down singing,” said the unofficial report of the enemy, borne
from village to village the next day. “They continued to sing, and it
was written that our men could not abide when they came. It is believed
that there was magic in the aforesaid song.”

Dan and Horse Egan kept themselves in the neighbourhood of Mulcahy.
Twice the man would have bolted back in the confusion. Twice he was
heaved, kicked, and shouldered back again into the unpaintable inferno
of a hotly contested charge.

At the end, the panic excess of his fear drove him into madness beyond
all human courage. His eyes staring at nothing, his mouth open and
frothing, and breathing as one in a cold bath, he went forward demented,
while Dan toiled after him. The charge checked at a high mud wall. It
was Mulcahy who scrambled up tooth and nail and hurled down among the
bayonets the amazed Afghan who barred his way. It was Mulcahy, keeping
to the straight line of the rabid dog, who led a collection of ardent
souls at a newly unmasked battery and flung himself on the muzzle of a
gun as his companions danced among the gunners. It was Mulcahy who ran
wildly on from that battery into the open plain, where the enemy were
retiring in sullen groups. His hands were empty, he had lost helmet and
belt, and he was bleeding from a wound in the neck. Dan and Horse Egan,
panting and distressed, had thrown themselves down on the ground by the
captured guns, when they noticed Mulcahy's charge.

“Mad,” said Horse Egan critically. “Mad with fear! He's going straight
to his death, an' shouting's no use.”

“Let him go. Watch now! If we fire we'll hit him maybe.”

The last of a hurrying crowd of Afghans turned at the noise of shod feet
behind him, and shifted his knife ready to hand. This, he saw, was no
time to take prisoners. Mulcahy tore on, sobbing; the straight-held
blade went home through the defenceless breast, and the body pitched
forward almost before a shot from Dan's rifle brought down the slayer
and still further hurried the Afghan retreat. The two Irishmen went out
to bring in their dead.

“He was given the point, and that was an easy death,” said Horse Egan,
viewing the corpse. “But would you ha' shot him, Danny, if he had
lived?”

“He didn't live, so there's no sayin'. But I doubt I wud have bekaze
of the fun he gave us--let alone the beer. Hike up his legs, Horse, and
we'll bring him in. Perhaps 'tis better this way.”

They bore the poor limp body to the mass of the regiment, lolling
open-mouthed on their rifles; and there was a general snigger when one
of the younger subalterns said, “That was a good man!”

“Phew,” said Horse Egan, when a burial-party had taken over the burden.
“I'm powerful dhry, and this reminds me there'll be no more beer at
all.”

“Fwhy not?” said Dan, with a twinkle in his eye as he stretched himself
for rest. “Are we not conspirin' all we can, an' while we conspire are
we not entitled to free dhrinks? Sure his ould mother in New York would
not let her son's comrades perish of drouth--if she can be reached at
the end of a letter.”

“You're a janius,” said Horse Egan. “0' coorse she will not. I wish
this crool war was over, an' we'd get back to canteen. Faith, the
Commander-in-chief ought to be hanged in his own little sword-belt for
makin' us work on wather.”

The Mavericks were generally of Horse Egan's opinion. So they made
haste to get their work done as soon as possible, and their industry was
rewarded by unexpected peace. “We can fight the sons of Adam,” said the
tribesmen, “but we cannot fight the sons of Eblis, and this regiment
never stays still in one place. Let us therefore come in.” They came
in, and “this regiment” withdrew to conspire under the leadership of Dan
Grady.

Excellent as a subordinate, Dan failed altogether as a
chief-in-command--possibly because he was too much swayed by the advice
of the only man in the regiment who could manufacture more than one kind
of handwriting. The same mail that bore to Mulcahy's mother in New York
a letter from the colonel telling her how valiantly her son had fought
for the Queen, and how assuredly he would have been recommended for the
Victoria Cross had he survived, carried a communication signed, I grieve
to say, by that same colonel and all the officers of the regiment,
explaining their willingness to do “anything which is contrary to the
regulations and all kinds of revolutions” if only a little money could
be forwarded to cover incidental expenses. Daniel Grady, Esquire, would
receive funds, vice Mulcahy, who “was unwell at this present time of
writing.”

Both letters were forwarded from New York to Tehama Street, San
Francisco, with marginal comments as brief as they were bitter.
The Third Three read and looked at each other. Then the Second
Conspirator--he who believed in “joining hands with the practical
branches”--began to laugh, and on recovering his gravity said,
“Gentlemen, I consider this will be a lesson to us. We're left again.
Those cursed Irish have let us down. I knew they would, but”--here he
laughed afresh--“I'd give considerable to know what was at the back of
it all.”

His curiosity would have been satisfied had he seen Dan Grady,
discredited regimental conspirator, trying to explain to his thirsty
comrades in India the non-arrival of funds from New York.




THE MAN WHO WAS

     The Earth gave up her dead that tide,
     Into our camp he came,
     And said his say, and went his way,
     And left our hearts aflame.

     Keep tally--on the gun-butt score
     The vengeance we must take,
     When God shall bring full reckoning,
     For our dead comrade's sake.

     Ballad.

Let it be clearly understood that the Russian is a delightful person
till he tucks in his shirt. As an Oriental he is charming. It is only
when he insists upon being treated as the most easterly of western
peoples instead of the most westerly of easterns that he becomes a
racial anomaly extremely difficult to handle. The host never knows which
side of his nature is going to turn up next.

Dirkovitch was a Russian--a Russian of the Russians--who appeared to get
his bread by serving the Czar as an officer in a Cossack regiment, and
corresponding for a Russian newspaper with a name that was never twice
alike. He was a handsome young Oriental, fond of wandering through
unexplored portions of the earth, and he arrived in India from nowhere
in particular. At least no living man could ascertain whether it was by
way of Balkh, Badakshan, Chitral, Beluchistan, or Nepaul, or anywhere
else. The Indian Government, being in an unusually affable mood, gave
orders that he was to be civilly treated and shown everything that was
to be seen. So he drifted, talking bad English and worse French, from
one city to another, till he foregathered with Her Majesty's White
Hussars in the city of Peshawur, which stands at the mouth of that
narrow swordcut in the hills that men call the Khyber Pass. He was
undoubtedly an officer, and he was decorated after the manner of the
Russians with little enamelled crosses, and he could talk, and (though
this has nothing to do with his merits) he had been given up as a
hopeless task, or cask, by the Black Tyrone, who individually and
collectively, with hot whiskey and honey, mulled brandy, and mixed
spirits of every kind, had striven in all hospitality to make him drunk.
And when the Black Tyrone, who are exclusively Irish, fail to disturb
the peace of head of a foreigner--that foreigner is certain to be a
superior man.

The White Hussars were as conscientious in choosing their wine as in
charging the enemy. All that they possessed, including some wondrous
brandy, was placed at the absolute disposition of Dirkovitch, and he
enjoyed himself hugely--even more than among the Black Tyrones.

But he remained distressingly European through it all. The White Hussars
were “My dear true friends,” “Fellow-soldiers glorious,” and “Brothers
inseparable.” He would unburden himself by the hour on the glorious
future that awaited the combined arms of England and Russia when their
hearts and their territories should run side by side, and the great
mission of civilising Asia should begin. That was unsatisfactory,
because Asia is not going to be civilised after the methods of the West.
There is too much Asia and she is too old. You cannot reform a lady of
many lovers, and Asia has been insatiable in her flirtations aforetime.
She will never attend Sunday-school or learn to vote save with swords
for tickets.

Dirkovitch knew this as well as any one else, but it suited him to talk
special-correspondently and to make himself as genial as he could. Now
and then he volunteered a little, a very little, information about
his own sotnia of Cossacks, left apparently to look after themselves
somewhere at the back of beyond. He had done rough work in Central Asia,
and had seen rather more help-yourself fighting than most men of his
years. But he was careful never to betray his superiority, and more than
careful to praise on all occasions the appearance, drill, uniform, and
organisation of Her Majesty's White Hussars. And indeed they were a
regiment to be admired. When Lady Durgan, widow of the late Sir John
Durgan, arrived in their station, and after a short time had been
proposed to by every single man at mess, she put the public sentiment
very neatly when she explained that they were all so nice that unless
she could marry them all, including the colonel and some majors already
married, she was not going to content herself with one hussar.
Wherefore she wedded a little man in a rifle regiment, being by nature
contradictious; and the White Hussars were going to wear crape on their
arms, but compromised by attending the wedding in full force, and lining
the aisle with unutterable reproach. She had jilted them all--from
Basset-Holmer the senior captain to little Mildred the junior subaltern,
who could have given her four thousand a year and a title.

The only persons who did not share the general regard for the White
Hussars were a few thousand gentlemen of Jewish extraction who lived
across the border, and answered to the name of Pathan. They had once met
the regiment officially and for something less than twenty minutes, but
the interview, which was complicated with many casualties, had filled
them with prejudice. They even called the White Hussars children of the
devil and sons of persons whom it would be perfectly impossible to meet
in decent society. Yet they were not above making their aversion
fill their money-belts. The regiment possessed carbines--beautiful
Martini-Henry carbines that would lob a bullet into an enemy's camp at
one thousand yards, and were even handier than the long rifle. Therefore
they were coveted all along the border, and since demand inevitably
breeds supply, they were supplied at the risk of life and limb for
exactly their weight in coined silver--seven and one half pounds' weight
of rupees, or sixteen pounds sterling reckoning the rupee at par.
They were stolen at night by snaky-haired thieves who crawled on their
stomachs under the nose of the sentries; they disappeared mysteriously
from locked arm-racks, and in the hot weather, when all the barrack
doors and windows were open, they vanished like puffs of their
own smoke. The border people desired them for family vendettas and
contingencies. But in the long cold nights of the northern Indian winter
they were stolen most extensively. The traffic of murder was liveliest
among the hills at that season, and prices ruled high. The regimental
guards were first doubled and then trebled. A trooper does not much
care if he loses a weapon--Government must make it good--but he deeply
resents the loss of his sleep. The regiment grew very angry, and one
rifle-thief bears the visible marks of their anger upon him to this
hour. That incident stopped the burglaries for a time, and the guards
were reduced accordingly, and the regiment devoted itself to polo with
unexpected results; for it beat by two goals to one that very terrible
polo corps the Lushkar Light Horse, though the latter had four ponies
apiece for a short hour's fight, as well as a native officer who played
like a lambent flame across the ground.

They gave a dinner to celebrate the event. The Lushkar team came, and
Dirkovitch came, in the fullest full uniform of a Cossack officer, which
is as full as a dressing-gown, and was introduced to the Lushkars, and
opened his eyes as he regarded. They were lighter men than the Hussars,
and they carried themselves with the swing that is the peculiar right of
the Punjab Frontier Force and all Irregular Horse. Like everything else
in the Service it has to be learnt, but, unlike many things, it is never
forgotten, and remains on the body till death.

The great beam-roofed mess-room of the White Hussars was a sight to be
remembered. All the mess plate was out on the long table--the same table
that had served up the bodies of five officers after a forgotten fight
long and long ago--the dingy, battered standards faced the door of
entrance, clumps of winter-roses lay between the silver candlesticks,
and the portraits of eminent officers deceased looked down on their
successors from between the heads of sambhur, nilghai, markhor,
and, pride of all the mess, two grinning snow-leopards that had cost
Basset-Holmer four months' leave that he might have spent in England,
instead of on the road to Thibet and the daily risk of his life by
ledge, snow-slide, and grassy slope.

The servants in spotless white muslin and the crest of their regiments
on the brow of their turbans waited behind their masters, who were clad
in the scarlet and gold of the White Hussars, and the cream and silver
of the Lushkar Light Horse. Dirkovitch's dull green uniform was the only
dark spot at the board, but his big onyx eyes made up for it. He was
fraternising effusively with the captain of the Lushkar team, who was
wondering how many of Dirkovitch's Cossacks his own dark wiry
down-countrymen could account for in a fair charge. But one does not
speak of these things openly.

The talk rose higher and higher, and the regimental band played between
the courses, as is the immemorial custom, till all tongues ceased for
a moment with the removal of the dinner-slips and the first toast of
obligation, when an officer rising said, “Mr. Vice, the Queen,” and
little Mildred from the bottom of the table answered, “The Queen, God
bless her,” and the big spurs clanked as the big men heaved themselves
up and drank the Queen upon whose pay they were falsely supposed to
settle their mess-bills. That Sacrament of the Mess never grows old, and
never ceases to bring a lump into the throat of the listener wherever he
be by sea or by land. Dirkovitch rose with his “brothers glorious,” but
he could not understand. No one but an officer can tell what the toast
means; and the bulk have more sentiment than comprehension. Immediately
after the little silence that follows on the ceremony there entered the
native officer who had played for the Lushkar team. He could not, of
course, eat with the mess, but he came in at dessert, all six feet
of him, with the blue and silver turban atop, and the big black boots
below. The mess rose joyously as he thrust forward the hilt of his sabre
in token of fealty for the colonel of the White Hussars to touch, and
dropped into a vacant chair amid shouts of: “Rung ho, Hira Singh!”
 (which being translated means “Go in and win”). “Did I whack you over
the knee, old man?” “Ressaidar Sahib, what the devil made you play that
kicking pig of a pony in the last ten minutes?” “Shabash, Ressaidar
Sahib!” Then the voice of the colonel, “The health of Ressaidar Hira
Singh!”

After the shouting had died away Hira Singh rose to reply, for he was
the cadet of a royal house, the son of a king's son, and knew what was
due on these occasions. Thus he spoke in the vernacular:--“Colonel Sahib
and officers of this regiment. Much honour have you done me. This will I
remember. We came down from afar to play you. But we were beaten.” (“No
fault of yours, Ressaidar Sahib. Played on our own ground, y' know.
Your ponies were cramped from the railway. Don't apologise!”) “Therefore
perhaps we will come again if it be so ordained.” (“Hear! Hear! Hear,
indeed! Bravo! Hsh!”) “Then we will play you afresh” (“Happy to meet
you.”) “till there are left no feet upon our ponies. Thus far for
sport.” He dropped one hand on his sword-hilt and his eye wandered to
Dirkovitch lolling back in his chair. “But if by the will of God there
arises any other game which is not the polo game, then be assured,
Colonel Sahib and officers, that we will play it out side by side,
though they,” again his eye sought Dirkovitch, “though they, I say, have
fifty ponies to our one horse.” And with a deep-mouthed Rung ho!
that sounded like a musket-butt on flagstones he sat down amid leaping
glasses.

Dirkovitch, who had devoted himself steadily to the brandy--the terrible
brandy aforementioned--did not understand, nor did the expurgated
translations offered to him at all convey the point. Decidedly Hira
Singh's was the speech of the evening, and the clamour might have
continued to the dawn had it not been broken by the noise of a shot
without that sent every man feeling at his defenseless left side. Then
there was a scuffle and a yell of pain.

“Carbine-stealing again!” said the adjutant, calmly sinking back in
his chair. “This comes of reducing the guards. I hope the sentries have
killed him.”

The feet of armed men pounded on the verandah flags, and it was as
though something was being dragged.

“Why don't they put him in the cells till the morning?” said the colonel
testily. “See if they've damaged him, sergeant.”

The mess sergeant fled out into the darkness and returned with two
troopers and a corporal, all very much perplexed.

“Caught a man stealin' carbines, sir,” said the corporal. “Leastways 'e
was crawlin' towards the barricks, sir, past the main road sentries, an'
the sentry 'e sez, sir--”

The limp heap of rags upheld by the three men groaned. Never was seen so
destitute and demoralised an Afghan. He was turbanless, shoeless, caked
with dirt, and all but dead with rough handling. Hira Singh started
slightly at the sound of the man's pain. Dirkovitch took another glass
of brandy.

“What does the sentry say?” said the colonel.

“Sez 'e speaks English, sir,” said the corporal.

“So you brought him into mess instead of handing him over to the
sergeant! If he spoke all the Tongues of the Pentecost you've no
business--”

Again the bundle groaned and muttered. Little Mildred had risen from his
place to inspect. He jumped back as though he had been shot.

“Perhaps it would be better, sir, to send the men away,” said he to the
colonel, for he was a much privileged subaltern. He put his arms round
the rag-bound horror as he spoke, and dropped him into a chair. It may
not have been explained that the littleness of Mildred lay in his being
six feet four and big in proportion. The corporal seeing that an officer
was disposed to look after the capture, and that the colonel's eye was
beginning to blaze, promptly removed himself and his men. The mess was
left alone with the carbine-thief, who laid his head on the table and
wept bitterly, hopelessly, and inconsolably as little children weep.

Hira Singh leapt to his feet. “Colonel Sahib,” said he, “that man is no
Afghan, for they weep Ai! Ai! Nor is he of Hindustan, for they weep Oh!
Ho! He weeps after the fashion of the white men, who say Ow! Ow!”

“Now where the dickens did you get that knowledge, Hira Singh?” said the
captain of the Lushkar team.

“Hear him!” said Hira Singh simply, pointing at the crumpled figure that
wept as though it would never cease.

“He said, 'My God!” said little Mildred. “I heard him say it.”

The colonel and the mess-room looked at the man in silence. It is a
horrible thing to hear a man cry. A woman can sob from the top--of
her palate, or her lips, or anywhere else, but a man must cry from his
diaphragm, and it rends him to pieces.

“Poor devil!” said the colonel, coughing tremendously. “We ought to send
him to hospital. He's been man-handled.”

Now the adjutant loved his carbines. They were to him as his
grandchildren, the men standing in the first place. He grunted
rebelliously: “I can understand an Afghan stealing, because he's built
that way. But I can't understand his crying. That makes it worse.”

The brandy must have affected Dirkovitch, for he lay back in his chair
and stared at the ceiling. There was nothing special in the ceiling
beyond a shadow as of a huge black coffin. Owing to some peculiarity in
the construction of the mess-room, this shadow was always thrown when
the candles were lighted. It never disturbed the digestion of the White
Hussars. They were in fact rather proud of it.

“Is he going to cry all night?” said the colonel, “or are we supposed to
sit up with little Mildred's guest until he feels better?”

The man in the chair threw up his head and stared at the mess. “Oh, my
God!” he said, and every soul in the mess rose to his feet. Then the
Lushkar captain did a deed for which he ought to have been given the
Victoria Cross--distinguished gallantry in a fight against overwhelming
curiosity. He picked up his team with his eyes as the hostess picks up
the ladies at the opportune moment, and pausing only by the colonel's
chair to say, “This isn't our affair, you know, sir,” led them into the
verandah and the gardens. Hira Singh was the last to go, and he looked
at Dirkovitch. But Dirkovitch had departed into a brandy-paradise of his
own. His lips moved without sound and he was studying the coffin on the
ceiling.

“White--white all over,” said Basset-Holmer, the adjutant. “What a
pernicious renegade he must be! I wonder where he came from?”

The colonel shook the man gently by the arm, and “Who are you?” said he.

There was no answer. The man stared round the mess-room and smiled in
the colonel's face. Little Mildred, who was always more of a woman than
a man till “Boot and saddle” was sounded, repeated the question in a
voice that would have drawn confidences from a geyser. The man only
smiled. Dirkovitch at the far end of the table slid gently from his
chair to the floor. No son of Adam in this present imperfect world can
mix the Hussars' champagne with the Hussars' brandy by five and eight
glasses of each without remembering the pit whence he was digged and
descending thither. The band began to play the tune with which the
White Hussars from the date of their formation have concluded all their
functions. They would sooner be disbanded than abandon that tune; it is
a part of their system. The man straightened himself in his chair and
drummed on the table with his fingers.

“I don't see why we should entertain lunatics,” said the colonel. “Call
a guard and send him off to the cells. We'll look into the business in
the morning. Give him a glass of wine first, though.”

Little Mildred filled a sherry-glass with the brandy and thrust it over
to the man. He drank, and the tune rose louder, and he straightened
himself yet more. Then he put out his long-taloned hands to a piece of
plate opposite and fingered it lovingly. There was a mystery connected
with that piece of plate, in the shape of a spring which converted what
was a seven-branched candlestick, three springs on each side and one in
the middle, into a sort of wheel-spoke candelabrum. He found the spring,
pressed it, and laughed weakly. He rose from his chair and inspected a
picture on the wall, then moved on to another picture, the mess watching
him without a word. When he came to the mantelpiece he shook his head
and seemed distressed. A piece of plate representing a mounted hussar
in full uniform caught his eye. He pointed to it, and then to the
mantelpiece with inquiry in his eyes.

“What is it--Oh, what is it?” said little Mildred. Then as a mother
might speak to a child, “That is a horse. Yes, a horse.”

Very slowly came the answer in a thick, passionless guttural--“Yes,
I--have seen. But--where is the horse?”

You could have heard the hearts of the mess beating as the men drew back
to give the stranger full room in his wanderings. There was no question
of calling the guard.

Again he spoke--very slowly, “Where is our horse?”

There is but one horse in the White Hussars, and his portrait hangs
outside the door of the mess-room. He is the piebald drum-horse,
the king of the regimental band, that served the regiment for
seven-and-thirty years, and in the end was shot for old age. Half the
mess tore the thing down from its place and thrust it into the man's
hands. He placed it above the mantelpiece, it clattered on the ledge as
his poor hands dropped it, and he staggered towards the bottom of the
table, falling into Mildred's chair. Then all the men spoke to one
another something after this fashion, “The drum-horse hasn't hung over
the mantelpiece since '67.” “How does he know?” “Mildred, go and speak
to him again.” “Colonel, what are you going to do?” “Oh, dry up, and
give the poor devil a chance to pull himself together.” “It isn't
possible anyhow. The man's a lunatic.”

Little Mildred stood at the colonel's side, talking in his ear. “Will
you be good enough to take your seats please, gentlemen!” he said, and
the mess dropped into the chairs. Only Dirkovitch's seat, next to little
Mildred's, was blank, and little Mildred himself had found Hira Singh's
place. The wide-eyed mess-sergeant filled the glasses in dead silence.
Once more the colonel rose, but his hand shook, and the port spilled on
the table as he looked straight at the man in little Mildred's chair and
said hoarsely, “Mr. Vice, the Queen.” There was a little pause, but the
man sprung to his feet and answered without hesitation, “The Queen,
God bless her!” and as he emptied the thin glass he snapped the shank
between his fingers.

Long and long ago, when the Empress of India was a young woman, and
there were no unclean ideals in the land, it was the custom of a few
messes to drink the Queen's toast in broken glass, to the vast delight
of the mess-contractors. The custom is now dead, because there is
nothing to break anything for, except now and again the word of a
Government, and that has been broken already.

“That settles it,” said the colonel, with a gasp. “He's not a sergeant.
What in the world is he?”

The entire mess echoed the word, and the volley of questions would have
scared any man. It was no wonder that the ragged, filthy invader could
only smile and shake his head.

From under the table, calm and smiling, rose Dirkovitch, who had been
roused from healthful slumber by feet upon his body. By the side of
the man he rose, and the man shrieked and grovelled. It was a horrible
sight, coming so swiftly upon the pride and glory of the toast that had
brought the strayed wits together.

Dirkovitch made no offer to raise him, but little Mildred heaved him
up in an instant. It is not good that a gentleman who can answer to the
Queen's toast should lie at the feet of a subaltern of Cossacks.

The hasty action tore the wretch's upper clothing nearly to the waist,
and his body was seamed with dry black scars. There is only one weapon
in the world that cuts in parallel lines, and it is neither the cane nor
the cat. Dirkovitch saw the marks, and the pupils of his eyes dilated.
Also his face changed. He said something that sounded like Shto ve
takete, and the man fawning answered, Chetyre.

“What's that?” said everybody together.

“His number. That is number four, you know.” Dirkovitch spoke very
thickly.

“What has a Queen's officer to do with a qualified number?” said the
Colonel, and an unpleasant growl ran round the table.

“How can I tell?” said the affable Oriental with a sweet smile. “He
is a--how you have it?--escape--run-a-way, from over there.” He nodded
towards the darkness of the night.

“Speak to him if he'll answer you, and speak to him gently,” said little
Mildred, settling the man in a chair. It seemed most improper to all
present that Dirkovitch should sip brandy as he talked in purring,
spitting Russian to the creature who answered so feebly and with such
evident dread. But since Dirkovitch appeared to understand, no one said
a word. All breathed heavily, leaning forward, in the long gaps of the
conversation. The next time that they have no engagements on hand the
White Hussars intend to go to St. Petersburg in a body to learn Russian.

“He does not know how many years ago,” said Dirkovitch, facing the mess,
“but he says it was very long ago in a war. I think that there was an
accident. He says he was of this glorious and distinguished regiment in
the war.”

“The rolls! The rolls! Holmer, get the rolls!” said little Mildred,
and the adjutant dashed off bare-headed to the orderly-room, where the
muster-rolls of the regiment were kept. He returned just in time to hear
Dirkovitch conclude, “Therefore, my dear friends, I am most sorry to
say there was an accident which would have been reparable if he had
apologised to that our colonel, which he had insulted.”

Then followed another growl which the colonel tried to beat down. The
mess was in no mood just then to weigh insults to Russian colonels.

“He does not remember, but I think that there was an accident, and so
he was not exchanged among the prisoners, but he was sent to another
place--how do you say?--the country. So, he says, he came here. He does
not know how he came. Eh? He was at Chepany,”--the man caught the word,
nodded, and shivered,--“at Zhigansk and Irkutsk. I cannot understand how
he escaped. He says, too, that he was in the forests for many years,
but how many years he has forgotten--that with many things. It was an
accident; done because he did not apologise to that our colonel. Ah!”

Instead of echoing Dirkovitch's sigh of regret, it is sad to record
that the White Hussars livelily exhibited un-Christian delight and other
emotions, hardly restrained by their sense of hospitality. Holmer flung
the frayed and yellow regimental rolls on the table, and the men flung
themselves at these.

“Steady! Fifty-six--fifty-five--fifty-four,” said Holmer. “Here we are.
'Lieutenant Austin Limmason. Missing.' That was before Sebastopol.
What an infernal shame! Insulted one of their colonels, and was quietly
shipped off. Thirty years of his life wiped out.”

“But he never apologised. Said he'd see him damned first,” chorused the
mess.

“Poor chap! I suppose he never had the chance afterwards. How did he
come here?” said the colonel.

The dingy heap in the chair could give no answer.

“Do you know who you are?”

It laughed weakly.

“Do you know that you are Limmason--Lieutenant Limmason of the White
Hussars?”

Swiftly as a shot came the answer, in a slightly surprised tone, “Yes,
I'm--Limmason, of course.” The light died out in his eyes, and the man
collapsed, watching every motion of Dirkovitch with terror. A flight
from Siberia may fix a few elementary facts in the mind, but it does not
seem to lead to continuity of thought. The man could not explain how,
like a homing pigeon, he had found his way to his own old mess again.
Of what he had suffered or seen he knew nothing. He cringed before
Dirkovitch as instinctively as he had pressed the spring of the
candlestick, sought the picture of the drum-horse, and answered to the
toast of the Queen. The rest was a blank that the dreaded Russian tongue
could only in part remove. His head bowed on his breast, and he giggled
and cowered alternately.

The devil that lived in the brandy prompted Dirkovitch at this extremely
inopportune moment to make a speech. He rose, swaying slightly, gripped
the table-edge, while his eyes glowed like opals, and began:

“Fellow-soldiers glorious--true friends and hospitables. It was an
accident, and deplorable--most deplorable.” Here he smiled sweetly all
round the mess. “But you will think of this little, little thing. So
little, is it not? The Czar! Posh! I slap my fingers--I snap my fingers
at him. Do I believe in him? No! But in us Slav who has done nothing,
him I believe. Seventy--how much--millions peoples that have done
nothing--not one thing. Posh! Napoleon was an episode.” He banged a
hand on the table. “Hear you, old peoples, we have done nothing in
the world--out here. All our work is to do; and it shall be done, old
peoples. Get a-way!” He waved his hand imperiously, and pointed to the
man. “You see him. He is not good to see. He was just one little--oh, so
little--accident, that no one remembered. Now he is----”

“That! So will you be, brother soldiers so brave so will you be. But you
will never come back. You will all go where he is gone, or”--he pointed
to the great coffin-shadow on the ceiling, and muttering, “Seventy
millions--get a-way, you old peoples,” fell asleep.

“Sweet, and to the point,” said little Mildred. “What's the use of
getting wroth? Let's make this poor devil comfortable.”

But that was a matter suddenly and swiftly taken from the loving hands
of the White Hussars. The lieutenant had returned only to go away again
three days later, when the wail of the Dead March, and the tramp of the
squadrons, told the wondering Station, who saw no gap in the mess-table,
that an officer of the regiment had resigned his new-found commission.

And Dirkovitch, bland, supple, and always genial, went away too by a
night train. Little Mildred and another man saw him off, for he was the
guest of the mess, and even had he smitten the colonel with the open
hand, the law of that mess allowed no relaxation of hospitality.

“Good-bye, Dirkovitch, and a pleasant journey,” said little Mildred.

“Au revoir,” said the Russian.

“Indeed! But we thought you were going home?”

“Yes, but I will come again. My dear friends, is that road shut?” He
pointed to where the North Star burned over the Khyber Pass.

“By Jove! I forgot. Of course. Happy to meet you, old man, any time you
like. Got everything you want? Cheroots, ice, bedding? That's all right.
Well, au revoir, Dirkovitch.”

“Um,” said the other man, as the tail-lights of the train grew small.
“Of--all--the--unmitigated!”

Little Mildred answered nothing, but watched the North Star and hummed a
selection from recent Simla burlesque that had much delighted the White
Hussars. It ran--

     I'm sorry for Mister Bluebeard,
     I'm sorry to cause him pain;
     But a terrible spree there's sure to be
     When he comes back again.




ONLY A SUBALTERN

     Not only to enforce by command but to encourage by example
     the energetic discharge of duty and the steady endurance of
     the difficulties and privations inseparable from Military
     Service.--Bengal Army Regulations.

They made Bobby Wick pass an examination at Sandhurst. He was a
gentleman before he was gazetted, so, when the Empress announced that
“Gentleman-Cadet Robert Hanna Wick” was posted as Second Lieutenant to
the Tyneside Tail Twisters at Krab Bokhar, he became an officer and a
gentleman, which is an enviable thing; and there was joy in the house
of Wick, where Mamma Wick and all the little Wicks fell upon their knees
and offered incense to Bobby by virtue of his achievements.

Papa Wick had been a Commissioner in his day, holding authority over
three millions of men in the Chota-Buldana Division, building great
works for the good of the land, and doing his best to make two blades
of grass grow where there was but one before. Of course, nobody knew
anything about this in the little English village where he was just “old
Mr. Wick” and had forgotten that he was a Companion of the Order of the
Star of India.

He patted Bobby on the shoulder and said: “Well done, my boy!”

There followed, while the uniform was being prepared, an interval of
pure delight, during which Bobby took brevet-rank as a “man” at the
women-swamped tennis-parties and tea-fights of the village, and, I
daresay, had his joining-time been extended, would have fallen in love
with several girls at once. Little country villages at Home are very
full of nice girls, because all the young men come out to India to make
their fortunes.

“India,” said Papa Wick, “is the place. I've had thirty years of it,
and, begad, I'd like to go back again. When you join the Tail Twisters
you'll be among friends, if every one hasn't forgotten Wick of
Chota-Buldana, and a lot of people will be kind to you for our sakes.
The mother will tell you more about outfit than I can, but remember
this. Stick to your Regiment, Bobby--stick to your Regiment. You'll see
men all round you going into the Staff Corps, and doing every possible
sort of duty but regimental, and you may be tempted to follow suit. Now
so long as you keep within your allowance, and I haven't stinted you
there, stick to the Line, the whole Line, and nothing but the Line. Be
careful how you back another young fool's bill, and if you fall in love
with a woman twenty years older than yourself, don't tell me about it,
that's all.”

With these counsels, and many others equally valuable, did Papa Wick
fortify Bobby ere that last awful night at Portsmouth when the Officers'
Quarters held more inmates than were provided for by the Regulations,
and the liberty-men of the ships fell foul of the drafts for India, and
the battle raged from the Dockyard Gates even to the slums of Longport,
while the drabs of Fratton came down and scratched the faces of the
Queen's Officers.

Bobby Wick, with an ugly bruise on his freckled nose, a sick and shaky
detachment to manoeuvre inship, and the comfort of fifty scornful
females to attend to, had no time to feel homesick till the Malabar
reached mid-Channel, when he doubled his emotions with a little
guard-visiting and a great many other matters.

The Tail Twisters were a most particular Regiment. Those who knew them
least said that they were eaten up with “side.” But their reserve and
their internal arrangements generally were merely protective diplomacy.
Some five years before, the Colonel commanding had looked into the
fourteen fearless eyes of seven plump and juicy subalterns who had all
applied to enter the Staff Corps, and had asked them why the three
stars should he, a colonel of the Line, command a dashed nursery for
double-dashed bottle-suckers who put on condemned tin spurs and rode
qualified mokes at the hiatused heads of forsaken Black Regiments. He
was a rude man and a terrible. Wherefore the remnant took measures
(with the half-butt as an engine of public opinion) till the rumour
went abroad that young men who used the Tail Twisters as a crutch to the
Staff Corps had many and varied trials to endure. However, a regiment
has just as much right to its own secrets as a woman.

When Bobby came up from Deolali and took his place among the Tail
Twisters, it was gently but firmly borne in upon him that the Regiment
was his father and his mother and his indissolubly wedded wife, and
that there was no crime under the canopy of heaven blacker than that
of bringing shame on the Regiment, which was the best-shooting,
best-drilled, best set-up, bravest, most illustrious, and in all
respects most desirable Regiment within the compass of the Seven Seas.
He was taught the legends of the Mess Plate, from the great grinning
Golden Gods that had come out of the Summer Palace in Pekin to the
silver-mounted markhor-horn snuffmull presented by the last C. O. (he
who spake to the seven subalterns). And every one of those legends told
him of battles fought at long odds, without fear as without support; of
hospitality catholic as an Arab's; of friendships deep as the sea and
steady as the fighting-line; of honour won by hard roads for honour's
sake; and of instant and unquestioning devotion to the Regiment--the
Regiment that claims the lives of all and lives forever.

More than once, too, he came officially into contact with the Regimental
colours, which looked like the lining of a bricklayer's hat on the end
of a chewed stick. Bobby did not kneel and worship them, because British
subalterns are not constructed in that manner. Indeed, he condemned them
for their weight at the very moment that they were filling him with awe
and other more noble sentiments.

But best of all was the occasion when he moved with the Tail Twisters
in review order at the breaking of a November day. Allowing for duty-men
and sick, the Regiment was one thousand and eighty strong, and Bobby
belonged to them; for was he not a Subaltern of the Line,--the whole
Line and nothing but the Line,--as the tramp of two thousand one hundred
and sixty sturdy ammunition boots attested? He would not have changed
places with Deighton of the Horse Battery, whirling by in a pillar of
cloud to a chorus of “Strong right! Strong left!” or Hogan-Yale of the
White Hussars, leading his squadron for all it was worth, with the price
of horseshoes thrown in; or “Tick” Boileau, trying to live up to his
fierce blue and gold turban while the wasps of the Bengal Cavalry
stretched to a gallop in the wake of the long, lollopping Walers of the
White Hussars.

They fought through the clear cool day, and Bobby felt a little thrill
run down his spine when he heard the tinkle-tinkle-tinkle of the empty
cartridge-cases hopping from the breech-blocks after the roar of the
volleys; for he knew that he should live to hear that sound in action.
The review ended in a glorious chase across the plain--batteries
thundering after cavalry to the huge disgust of the White Hussars, and
the Tyneside Tail Twisters hunting a Sikh Regiment till the lean, lathy
Singhs panted with exhaustion. Bobby was dusty and dripping long before
noon, but his enthusiasm was merely focused--not diminished.

He returned to sit at the feet of Revere, his “skipper,” that is to say,
the Captain of his Company, and to be instructed in the dark art and
mystery of managing men, which is a very large part of the Profession of
Arms.

“If you haven't a taste that way,” said Revere between his puffs of
his cheroot, “you'll never be able to get the hang of it, but remember,
Bobby, 'tisn't the best drill, though drill is nearly everything, that
hauls a Regiment through Hell and out on the other side. It's the man
who knows how to handle men--goat-men, swine-men, dog-men, and so on.”

“Dormer, for instance,” said Bobby; “I think he comes under the head of
fool-men. He mopes like a sick owl.”

“That 's where you make your mistake, my son. Dormer isn't a fool yet,
but he's a dashed dirty soldier, and his room corporal makes fun of his
socks before kit-inspection. Dormer, being two-thirds pure brute, goes
into a corner and growls.”

“How do you know'?” said Bobby admiringly.

“Because a Company commander has to know these things--because, if he
does not know, he may have crime--ay, murder--brewing under his very
nose and yet not see that it's there. Dormer is being badgered out of
his mind--big as he is--and he hasn't intellect enough to resent it.
He's taken to quiet boozing, and, Bobby, when the butt of a room goes on
the drink, or takes to moping by himself, measures are necessary to pull
him out of himself.”

“What measures? Man can't run round coddling his men for ever.”

“No. The men would precious soon show him that he was not wanted. You've
got to--”

Here the Colour-sergeant entered with some papers; Bobby reflected for a
while as Revere looked through the Company forms.

“Does Dormer do anything, Sergeant?” Bobby asked with the air of one
continuing an interrupted conversation.

“No, sir. Does 'is dooty like a hortomato,” said the Sergeant, who
delighted in long words. “A dirty soldier, and 'e's under full stoppages
for new kit. It's covered with scales, sir.”

“Scales? What scales?”

“Fish-scales, sir. 'E's always pokin' in the mud by the river an'
a-cleanin' them muchly-fish with 'is thumbs.” Revere was still absorbed
in the Company papers, and the Sergeant, who was sternly fond of Bobby,
continued,--“'E generally goes down there when 'e's got 'is skinful,
beggin' your pardon, sir, an' they do say that the more lush--inebriated
'e is, the more fish 'e catches. They call 'im the Looney Fishmonger in
the Comp'ny, sir.”

Revere signed the last paper and the Sergeant retreated.

“It's a filthy amusement,” sighed Bobby to himself. Then aloud to
Revere: “Are you really worried about Dormer?”

“A little. You see he's never mad enough to send to hospital, or drunk
enough to run in, but at any minute he may flare up, brooding and
sulking as he does. He resents any interest being shown in him, and the
only time I took him out shooting he all but shot me by accident.”

“I fish,” said Bobby, with a wry face. “I hire a country-boat and go
down river from Thursday to Sunday, and the amiable Dormer goes with
me--if you can spare us both.”

“You blazing young fool!” said Revere, but his heart was full of much
more pleasant words.

Bobby, the Captain of a dhoni, with Private Dormer for mate, dropped
down the river on Thursday morning--the Private at the bow, the
Subaltern at the helm. The Private glared uneasily at the Subaltern, who
respected the reserve of the Private.

After six hours, Dormer paced to the stern, saluted, and said--“Beg
y' pardon, sir, but was you ever on the Durh'm Canal?”

“No,” said Bobby Wick. “Come and have some tiffin.”

They ate in silence. As the evening fell, Private Dormer broke forth,
speaking to himself--

“Hi was on the Durh'm Canal, jes' such a night, come next week
twelvemonth, a-trailin' of my toes in the water.” He smoked and said no
more till bedtime.

The witchery of the dawn turned the gray river-reaches to purple, gold,
and opal; and it was as though the lumbering dhoni crept across the
splendours of a new heaven.

Private Dormer popped his head out of his blanket and gazed at the glory
below and around.

“Well--damn--my eyes!” said Private Dormer in an awed whisper. “This
'ere is like a bloomin' gallantry-show!” For the rest of the day he was
dumb, but achieved an ensanguined filthiness through the cleaning of big
fish.

The boat returned on Saturday evening. Dormer had been struggling with
speech since noon. As the lines and luggage were being disembarked, he
found tongue.

“Beg y' pardon, sir,” he said, “but would you--would you min' shakin'
'ands with me, sir?”

“Of course not,” said Bobby, and he shook accordingly. Dormer returned
to barracks and Bobby to mess.

“He wanted a little quiet and some fishing, I think,” said Bobby. “My
aunt, but he's a filthy sort of animal! Have you ever seen him clean
'them muchly-fish with 'is thumbs?”

“Anyhow,” said Revere three weeks later, “he's doing his best to keep
his things clean.”

When the spring died, Bobby joined in the general scramble for Hill
leave, and to his surprise and delight secured three months.

“As good a boy as I want,” said Revere, the admiring skipper.

“The best of the batch,” said the Adjutant to the Colonel. “Keep back
that young skrimshanker Porkiss, sir, and let Revere make him sit up.”

So Bobby departed joyously to Simla Pahar with a tin box of gorgeous
raiment.

“Son of Wick--old Wick of Chota-Buldana? Ask him to dinner, dear,” said
the aged men.

“What a nice boy!” said the matrons and the maids.

“First-class place, Simla. Oh, ri----ipping!” said Bobby Wick, and
ordered new white cord breeches on the strength of it.

“We're in a bad way,” wrote Revere to Bobby at the end of two months.
“Since you left, the Regiment has taken to fever and is fairly rotten
with it--two hundred in hospital, about a hundred in cells--drinking to
keep off fever--and the Companies on parade fifteen file strong at the
outside. There's rather more sickness in the out-villages than I care
for, but then I'm so blistered with prickly-heat that I'm ready to hang
myself. What's the yarn about your mashing a Miss Haverley up there? Not
serious, I hope? You're over-young to hang millstones round your neck,
and the Colonel will turf you out of that in double-quick time if you
attempt it.”

It was not the Colonel that brought Bobby out of Simla, but a much more
to be respected Commandant. The sickness in the out-villages spread,
the Bazar was put out of bounds, and then came the news that the
Tail Twisters must go into camp. The message flashed to the Hill
stations.--“Cholera--Leave stopped--Officers recalled.” Alas, for the
white gloves in the neatly soldered boxes, the rides and the dances and
picnics that were to be, the loves half spoken, and the debts unpaid!
Without demur and without question, fast as tonga could fly or pony
gallop, back to their Regiments and their Batteries, as though they were
hastening to their weddings, fled the subalterns.

Bobby received his orders on returning from a dance at Viceregal Lodge,
where he had but only the Haverley girl knows what Bobby had said or how
many waltzes he had claimed for the next ball. Six in the morning saw
Bobby at the Tonga Office in the drenching rain, the whirl of the last
waltz still in his ears, and an intoxication due neither to wine nor
waltzing in his brain.

“Good man!” shouted Deighton of the Horse Battery through the mists.
“Whar you raise dat tonga? I'm coming with you. Ow! But I've a head and
half. I didn't sit out all night. They say the Battery's awful bad,” and
he hummed dolorously--

     “Leave the what at the what's-its-name,
     Leave the flock without shelter,
     Leave the corpse uninterred,
     Leave the bride at the altar


“My faith! It'll be more bally corpse than bride, though, this journey.
Jump in, Bobby. Get on, Coachwan!”

On the Umballa platform waited a detachment of officers discussing the
latest news from the stricken cantonment, and it was here that Bobby
learned the real condition of the Tail Twisters.

“They went into camp,” said an elderly Major recalled from the
whist-tables at Mussoorie to a sickly Native Regiment, “they went into
camp with two hundred and ten sick in carts. Two hundred and ten fever
cases only, and the balance looking like so many ghosts with sore eyes.
A Madras Regiment could have walked through 'em.”

“But they were as fit as be-damned when I left them!” said Bobby.

“Then you'd better make them as fit as be-damned when you rejoin,” said
the Major brutally.

Bobby pressed his forehead against the rain-splashed window-pane as the
train lumbered across the sodden Doab, and prayed for the health of the
Tyneside Tail Twisters. Naini Tal had sent down her contingent with
all speed; the lathering ponies of the Dalhousie Road staggered into
Pathankot, taxed to the full stretch of their strength; while from
cloudy Darjiling the Calcutta Mail whirled up the last straggler of the
little army that was to fight a fight, in which was neither medal nor
honour for the winning, against an enemy none other than “the sickness
that destroyeth in the noonday.”

And as each man reported himself, he said: “This is a bad business,”
 and went about his own forthwith, for every Regiment and Battery in the
cantonment was under canvas, the sickness bearing them company.

Bobby fought his way through the rain to the Tail Twisters' temporary
mess, and Revere could have fallen on the boy's neck for the joy of
seeing that ugly, wholesome phiz once more.

“Keep 'em amused and interested,” said Revere. “They went on the drink,
poor fools, after the first two cases, and there was no improvement. Oh,
it's good to have you back, Bobby! Porkiss is a--never mind.”

Deighton came over from the Artillery camp to attend a dreary mess
dinner, and contributed to the general gloom by nearly weeping over the
condition of his beloved Battery. Porkiss so far forgot himself as to
insinuate that the presence of the officers could do no earthly good,
and that the best thing would be to send the entire Regiment into
hospital and “let the doctors look after them.” Porkiss was demoralised
with fear, nor was his peace of mind restored when Revere said coldly:
“Oh! The sooner you go out the better, if that's your way of thinking.
Any public school could send us fifty good men in your place, but it
takes time, time, Porkiss, and money, and a certain amount of trouble,
to make a Regiment. S'pose you're the person we go into camp for, eh?”

Whereupon Porkiss was overtaken with a great and chilly fear which a
drenching in the rain did not allay, and, two days later, quitted this
world for another where, men do fondly hope, allowances are made for the
weaknesses of the flesh. The Regimental Sergeant-Major looked wearily
across the Sergeants' Mess tent when the news was announced.

“There goes the worst of them,” he said. “It'll take the best, and then,
please God, it'll stop.” The Sergeants were silent till one said: “It
couldn't be him!” and all knew of whom Travis was thinking.

Bobby Wick stormed through the tents of his Company, rallying,
rebuking, mildly, as is consistent with the Regulations, chaffing the
fainthearted; haling the sound into the watery sunlight when there was
a break in the weather, and bidding them be of good cheer, for their
trouble was nearly at an end; scuttling on his dun pony round the
outskirts of the camp and heading back men who, with the innate
perversity of British soldiers, were always wandering into infected
villages, or drinking deeply from rain-flooded marshes; comforting the
panic-stricken with rude speech, and more than once tending the dying
who had no friends--the men without “townies”; organizing, with banjos
and burnt cork, Sing-songs which should allow the talent of the
Regiment full play; and generally, as he explained, “playing the giddy
garden-goat all round.”

“You're worth half a dozen of us, Bobby,” said Revere in a moment of
enthusiasm. “How the devil do you keep it up?”

Bobby made no answer, but had Revere looked into the breast-pocket of
his coat he might have seen there a sheaf of badly-written letters which
perhaps accounted for the power that possessed the boy. A letter came
to Bobby every other day. The spelling was not above reproach, but the
sentiments must have been most satisfactory, for on receipt Bobby's eyes
softened marvellously, and he was wont to fall into a tender abstraction
for a while ere, shaking his cropped head, he charged into his work.

By what power he drew after him the hearts of the roughest, and the
Tail Twisters counted in their ranks some rough diamonds indeed, was
a mystery to both skipper and C. O., who learned from the regimental
chaplain that Bobby was considerably more in request in the hospital
tents than the Reverend John Emery.

“The men seem fond of you. Are you in the hospitals much?” said the
Colonel, who did his daily round and ordered the men to get well with a
hardness that did not cover his bitter grief.

“A little, sir,” said Bobby.

“Shouldn't go there too often if I were you. They say it's not
contagious, but there's no use in running unnecessary risks. We can't
afford to have you down, y' know.”

Six days later, it was with the utmost difficulty that the post-runner
plashed his way out to the camp with the mail-bags, for the rain was
falling in torrents. Bobby received a letter, bore it off to his tent,
and, the programme for the next week's Sing-song being satisfactorily
disposed of, sat down to answer it. For an hour the unhandy pen toiled
over the paper, and where sentiment rose to more than normal tide-level,
Bobby Wick stuck out his tongue and breathed heavily. He was not used to
letter-writing.

“Beg y' pardon, sir,” said a voice at the tent door; “but Dormer's
'orrid bad, sir, an' they've taken him orf, sir.”

“Damn Private Dormer and you too!” said Bobby Wick, running the blotter
over the half-finished letter. “Tell him I'll come in the morning.”

“'E's awful bad, sir,” said the voice hesitatingly. There was an
undecided squelching of heavy boots.

“Well?” said Bobby impatiently.

“Excusin' 'imself before 'and for takin' the liberty, 'e says it would
be a comfort for to assist 'im, sir, if--tattoo lao! Get my pony! Here,
come in out of the rain till I'mready. What blasted nuisances you are!
That's brandy. Drink some; you want it. Hang on to my stirrup and tell
me if I go too fast.”

Strengthened by a four-finger “nip” which he swallowed without a wink,
the Hospital Orderly kept up with the slipping, mud-stained, and very
disgusted pony as it shambled to the hospital tent.

Private Dormer was certainly “'orrid bad.” He had all but reached the
stage of collapse, and was not pleasant to look upon.

“What's this, Dormer?” said Bobby, bending over the man. “You're not
going out this time. You've got to come fishing with me once or twice
more yet.”

The blue lips parted and in the ghost of a whisper said,--“Beg y'
pardon, sir, disturbin' of you now, but would you min' 'oldin' my 'and,
sir'?”

Bobby sat on the side of the bed, and the icy-cold hand closed on his
own like a vice, forcing a lady's ring which was on the little finger
deep into the flesh. Bobby set his lips and waited, the water dripping
from the hem of his trousers. An hour passed, and the grasp of the hand
did not relax, nor did the expression of the drawn face change. Bobby
with infinite craft lit himself a cheroot with the left hand (his right
arm was numbed to the elbow), and resigned himself to a night of pain.

Dawn showed a very white-faced Subaltern sitting on the side of a
sick man's cot, and a Doctor in the doorway using language unfit for
publication.

“Have you been here all night, you young ass?” said the Doctor.

“There or thereabouts,” said Bobby ruefully. “He's frozen on to me.”

Dormer's mouth shut with a click. He turned his head and sighed. The
clinging hand opened, and Bobby's arm fell useless at his side.

“He'll do,” said the Doctor quietly. “It must have been a toss-up all
through the night. 'Think you're to be congratulated on this case.”

“Oh, bosh!” said Bobby. “I thought the man had gone out long
ago--only--only I didn't care to take my hand away. Rub my arm down,
there's a good chap. What a grip the brute has! I'm chilled to the
marrow!” He passed out of the tent shivering.

Private Dormer was allowed to celebrate his repulse of Death by strong
waters. Four days later, he sat on the side of his cot and said to the
patients mildly: “I'd 'a' liken to 'a' spoken to 'im--so I should.”

But at that time Bobby was reading yet another letter,--he had the most
persistent correspondent of any man in camp,--and was even then about to
write that the sickness had abated, and in another week at the outside
would be gone. He did not intend to say that the chill of a sick man's
hand seemed to have struck into the heart whose capacities for affection
he dwelt on at such length. He did intend to enclose the illustrated
programme of the forthcoming Sing-song, whereof he was not a little
proud. He also intended to write on many other matters which do not
concern us, and doubtless would have done so but for the slight feverish
headache which made him dull and unresponsive at mess.

“You are overdoing it, Bobby,” said his skipper. “'Might give the rest
of us credit of doing a little work. You go on as if you were the whole
Mess rolled into one. Take it easy.”

“I will,” said Bobby. “I'm feeling done up, somehow.” Revere looked at
him anxiously and said nothing.

There was a flickering of lanterns about the camp that night, and a
rumour that brought men out of their cots to the tent doors, a paddling
of the naked feet of doolie-bearers, and the rush of a galloping horse.

“Wot's up?” asked twenty tents; and through twenty tents ran the
answer--“Wick, 'e's down.”

They brought the news to Revere and he groaned. “Any one but Bobby and I
shouldn't have cared! The Sergeant-Major was right.”

“Not going out this journey,” gasped Bobby, as he was lifted from
the doolie. “Not going out this journey.” Then with an air of supreme
conviction--“I can't, you see.”

“Not if I can do anything!” said the Surgeon-Major, who had hastened
over from the mess where he had been dining.

He and the Regimental Surgeon fought together with Death for the life
of Bobby Wick. Their work was interrupted by a hairy apparition in a
blue-gray dressing-gown, who stared in horror at the bed and cried--“Oh,
my Gawd! It can't be 'im!” until an indignant Hospital Orderly whisked
him away.

If care of man and desire to live could have done aught, Bobby would
have been saved. As it was, he made a fight of three days, and the
Surgeon-Major's brow uncreased. “We'll save him yet,” he said; and the
Surgeon, who, though he ranked with the Captain, had a very youthful
heart, went out upon the word and pranced joyously in the mud.

“Not going out this journey,” whispered Bobby Wick gallantly, at the end
of the third day.

“Bravo!” said the Surgeon-Major. “That's the way to look at it, Bobby.”

As evening fell a gray shade gathered round Bobby's mouth, and he turned
his face to the tent-wall wearily. The Surgeon-Major frowned.

“I'm awfully tired,” said Bobby, very faintly. “What's the use of
bothering me with medicine? I--don't--want--it. Let me alone.”

The desire for life had departed, and Bobby was content to drift away on
the easy tide of Death.

“It's no good,” said the Surgeon-Major. “He doesn't want to live. He's
meeting it, poor child.” And he blew his nose.

Half a mile away, the regimental band was playing the overture to the
Sing-song, for the men had been told that Bobby was out of danger. The
clash of the brass and the wail of the horns reached Bobby's ears.

     Is there a single joy or pain,
     That I should never kno-ow?
     You do not love me, 'tis in vain,
     Bid me good-bye and go!

An expression of hopeless irritation crossed the boy's face, and he
tried to shake his head.

The Surgeon-Major bent down--“What is it, Bobby?”---“Not that waltz,”
 muttered Bobby. “That's our own--our very ownest own... Mummy dear.”

With this he sank into the stupor that gave place to death early next
morning.

Revere, his eyes red at the rims and his nose very white, went into
Bobby's tent to write a letter to Papa Wick which should bow the white
head of the ex-Commissioner of Chota-Buldana in the keenest sorrow of
his life. Bobby's little store of papers lay in confusion on the table,
and among them a half-finished letter. The last sentence ran: “So you
see, darling, there is really no fear, because as long as I know you
care for me and I care for you, nothing can touch me.”

Revere stayed in the tent for an hour. When he came out, his eyes were
redder than ever.

Private Conklin sat on a turned-down bucket, and listened to a not
unfamiliar tune. Private Conklin was a convalescent and should have been
tenderly treated.

“Ho!” said Private Conklin. “There's another bloomin' orf'cer da-ed.”

The bucket shot from under him, and his eyes filled with a smithyful of
sparks. A tall man in a blue-gray bedgown was regarding him with deep
disfavour.

“You ought to take shame for yourself, Conky! Orf'cer?--bloomin'
orf'cer? I'll learn you to misname the likes of 'im. Hangel! Bloomin'
Hangel! That's wot 'e is!”

And the Hospital Orderly was so satisfied with the justice of the
punishment that he did not even order Private Dormer back to his cot.




IN THE MATTER OF A PRIVATE

     Hurrah! hurrah! a soldier's life for me!
     Shout, boys, shout! for it makes you jolly and free.

     The Ramrod Corps.

People who have seen say that one of the quaintest spectacles of human
frailty is an outbreak of hysterics in a girls' school. It starts
without warning, generally on a hot afternoon, among the elder pupils. A
girl giggles till the giggle gets beyond control. Then she throws up
her head and cries, “Honk, honk, honk,” like a wild goose, and tears mix
with the laughter. If the mistress be wise, she will rap out something
severe at this point to check matters. If she be tender-hearted, and
send for a drink of water, the chances are largely in favour of another
girl laughing at the afflicted one and herself collapsing. Thus the
trouble spreads, and may end in half of what answers to the Lower Sixth
of a boys' school rocking and whooping together. Given a week of warm
weather, two stately promenades per diem, a heavy mutton and rice meal
in the middle of the day, a certain amount of nagging from the teachers,
and a few other things, some amazing effects develop. At least, this is
what folk say who have had experience.

Now, the Mother Superior of a Convent and the Colonel of a British
Infantry Regiment would be justly shocked at any comparison being made
between their respective charges. But it is a fact that, under certain
circumstances, Thomas in bulk can be worked up into ditthering, rippling
hysteria. He does not weep, but he shows his trouble unmistakably, and
the consequences get into the newspapers, and all the good people
who hardly know a Martini from a Snider say: “Take away the brute's
ammunition!”

Thomas isn't a brute, and his business, which is to look after the
virtuous people, demands that he shall have his ammunition to his hand.
He doesn't wear silk stockings, and he really ought to be supplied with
a new Adjective to help him to express his opinions: but, for all that,
he is a great man. If you call him “the heroic defender of the national
honour” one day, and “a brutal and licentious soldiery” the next, you
naturally bewilder him, and he looks upon you with suspicion. There is
nobody to speak for Thomas except people who have theories to work off
on him, and nobody understands Thomas except Thomas, and he does not
always know what is the matter with himself.

That is the prologue. This is the story:--

Corporal Slane was engaged to be married to Miss Jhansi M'Kenna,
whose history is well known in the regiment and elsewhere. He had his
Colonel's permission, and, being popular with the men, every arrangement
had been made to give the wedding what Private Ortheris called “eeklar.”
 It fell in the heart of the hot weather, and, after the wedding,
Slane was going up to the Hills with the bride. None the less, Slane's
grievance was that the affair would be only a hired-carriage wedding,
and he felt that the “eeklar” of that was meagre. Miss M'Kenna did
not care so much. The Sergeant's wife was helping her to make her
wedding-dress, and she was very busy. Slane was, just then, the only
moderately contented man in barracks. All the rest were more or less
miserable.

And they had so much to make them happy, too. All their work was over
at eight in the morning, and for the rest of the day they could lie on
their backs and smoke Canteen-plug and swear at the punkah-coolies. They
enjoyed a fine, full flesh meal in the middle of the day, and then threw
themselves down on their cots and sweated and slept till it was cool
enough to go out with their “towny,” whose vocabulary contained less
than six hundred words, and the Adjective, and whose views on every
conceivable question they had heard many times before.

There was the Canteen, of course, and there was the Temperance Room with
the second-hand papers in it; but a man of any profession cannot read
for eight hours a day in a temperature of 96 deg. or 98 deg. in the shade,
running up sometimes to 103 deg. at midnight. Very few men, even though they
get a pannikin of flat, stale, muddy beer and hide it under their cots,
can continue drinking for six hours a day. One man tried, but he died,
and nearly the whole regiment went to his funeral because it gave
them something to do. It was too early for the excitement of fever or
cholera. The men could only wait and wait and wait, and watch the shadow
of the barrack creeping across the blinding white dust. That was a gay
life.

They lounged about cantonments--it was too hot for any sort of game,
and almost too hot for vice--and fuddled themselves in the evening,
and filled themselves to distension with the healthy nitrogenous food
provided for them, and the more they stoked the less exercise they took
and more explosive they grew. Then tempers began to wear away, and men
fell a-brooding over insults real or imaginary, for they had nothing
else to think of. The tone of the repartees changed, and instead
of saying light-heartedly: “I'll knock your silly face in,” men grew
laboriously polite and hinted that the cantonments were not big enough
for themselves and their enemy, and that there would be more space for
one of the two in another Place.

It may have been the Devil who arranged the thing, but the fact of the
case is that Losson had for a long time been worrying Simmons in an
aimless way. It gave him occupation. The two had their cots side by
side, and would sometimes spend a long afternoon swearing at each other;
but Simmons was afraid of Losson and dared not challenge him to a fight.
He thought over the words in the hot still nights, and half the hate he
felt towards Losson he vented on the wretched punkah-coolie.

Losson bought a parrot in the bazar, and put it into a little cage,
and lowered the cage into the cool darkness of a well, and sat on the
well-curb, shouting bad language down to the parrot. He taught it to
say: “Simmons, ye so-oor,” which means swine, and several other things
entirely unfit for publication. He was a big gross man, and he shook
like a jelly when the parrot had the sentence correctly. Simmons,
however, shook with rage, for all the room were laughing at him--the
parrot was such a disreputable puff of green feathers and it looked so
human when it chattered. Losson used to sit, swinging his fat legs, on
the side of the cot, and ask the parrot what it thought of Simmons. The
parrot would answer: “Simmons, ye so-oor.” “Good boy,” Losson used to
say, scratching the parrot's head; “ye 'ear that, Sim?” And Simmons
used to turn over on his stomach and make answer: “I 'ear. Take 'eed you
don't 'ear something one of these days.”

In the restless nights, after he had been asleep all day, fits of blind
rage came upon Simmons and held him till he trembled all over, while he
thought in how many different ways he would slay Losson. Sometimes
he would picture himself trampling the life out of the man with heavy
ammunition-boots, and at others smashing in his face with the butt, and
at others jumping on his shoulders and dragging the head back till the
neckbone cracked. Then his mouth would feel hot and fevered, and he
would reach out for another sup of the beer in the pannikin.

But the fancy that came to him most frequently and stayed with him
longest was one connected with the great roll of fat under Losson's
right ear. He noticed it first on a moonlight night, and thereafter
it was always before his eyes. It was a fascinating roll of fat. A man
could get his hand upon it and tear away one side of the neck; or he
could place the muzzle of a rifle on it and blow away all the head in
a flash. Losson had no right to be sleek and contented and well-to-do,
when he, Simmons, was the butt of the room. Some day, perhaps, he would
show those who laughed at the “Simmons, ye so-oor” joke, that he was as
good as the rest, and held a man's life in the crook of his forefinger.
When Losson snored, Simmons hated him more bitterly than ever. Why
should Losson be able to sleep when Simmons had to stay awake hour after
hour, tossing and turning on the tapes, with the dull liver pain gnawing
into his right side and his head throbbing and aching after Canteen?
He thought over this for many, many nights, and the world became
unprofitable to him. He even blunted his naturally fine appetite with
beer and tobacco; and all the while the parrot talked at and made a mock
of him.

The heat continued and the tempers wore away more quickly than before.
A Sergeant's wife died of heat-apoplexy in the night, and the rumour ran
abroad that it was cholera. Men rejoiced openly, hoping that it would
spread and send them into camp. But that was a false alarm.

It was late on a Tuesday evening, and the men were waiting in the deep
double verandahs for “Last Post,” when Simmons went to the box at the
foot of his bed, took out his pipe, and slammed the lid down with a
bang that echoed through the deserted barrack like the crack of a rifle.
Ordinarily speaking, the men would have taken no notice; but their
nerves were fretted to fiddle-strings. They jumped up, and three or four
clattered into the barrack-room only to find Simmons kneeling by his
box.

“Ow! It's you, is it?” they said, and laughed foolishly. “We thought
'twas--”

Simmons rose slowly. If the accident had so shaken his fellows, what
would not the reality do?

“You thought it was--did you? And what makes you think?” he said,
lashing himself into madness as he went on; “to Hell with your thinking,
ye dirty spies!”

“Simmons, ye so-oor,” chuckled the parrot in the verandah sleepily,
recognising a well-known voice. Now that was absolutely all.

The tension snapped. Simmons fell back on the arm-rack
deliberately,--the men were at the far end of the room,--and took out
his rifle and packet of ammunition. “Don't go playing the goat, Sim!”
 said Losson. “Put it down,” but there was a quaver in his voice. Another
man stooped, slipped his boot, and hurled it at Simmons's head. The
prompt answer was a shot which, fired at random, found its billet in
Losson's throat. Losson fell forward without a word, and the others
scattered.

“You thought it was!” yelled Simmons. “You're drivin' me to it! I tell
you you're drivin' me to it! Get up, Losson, an' don't lie shammin'
there--you an' your blasted parrit that druv me to it!”

But there was an unaffected reality about Losson's pose that showed
Simmons what he had done. The men were still clamouring in the verandah.
Simmons appropriated two more packets of ammunition and ran into the
moonlight, muttering: “I'll make a night of it. Thirty roun's, an' the
last for myself. Take you that, you dogs!”

He dropped on one knee and fired into the brown of the men on the
verandah, but the bullet flew high, and landed in the brickwork with a
vicious phwit that made some of the younger ones turn pale. It is, as
musketry theorists observe, one thing to fire and another to be fired
at.

Then the instinct of the chase flared up. The news spread from barrack
to barrack, and the men doubled out intent on the capture of Simmons,
the wild beast, who was heading for the Cavalry parade-ground, stopping
now and again to send back a shot and a curse in the direction of his
pursuers.

“I'll learn you to spy on me!” he shouted; “I'll learn you to give me
dorg's names! Come on, the 'ole lot o' you! Colonel John Anthony Deever,
C. B.!”--he turned towards the Infantry Mess and shook his rifle--“you
think yourself the devil of a man--but I tell you that if you put your
ugly old carcass outside o' that door, I'll make you the poorest-lookin'
man in the army. Come out, Colonel John Anthony Deever, C. B.! Come
Out and see me practiss on the rainge. I'm the crack shot of the 'ole
bloomin' battalion.” In proof of which statement Simmons fired at the
lighted windows of the mess-house.

“Private Simmons, E Comp'ny, on the Cavalry p'rade-ground, Sir, with
thirty rounds,” said a Sergeant breathlessly to the Colonel. “Shootin'
right and lef', Sir. Shot Private Losson. What's to be done, Sir?”

Colonel John Anthony Deever, C. B., sallied out, only to be saluted by a
spurt of dust at his feet.

“Pull up!” said the Second in Command; “I don't want my step in that
way, Colonel. He's as dangerous as a mad dog.”

“Shoot him like one, then,” said the Colonel bitterly, “if he won't take
his chance. My regiment, too! If it had been the Towheads I could have
understood.”

Private Simmons had occupied a strong position near a well on the edge
of the parade-ground, and was defying the regiment to come on. The
regiment was not anxious to comply, for there is small honour in being
shot by a fellow-private. Only Corporal Slane, rifle in hand, threw
himself down on the ground, and wormed his way towards the well.

“Don't shoot,” said he to the men round him; “like as not you'll 'it me.
I'll catch the beggar livin'.”

Simmons ceased shouting for a while, and th noise of trap-wheels could
be heard across the plain. Major Oldyne, Commanding the Horse Battery,
was coming back from a dinner in the Civil Lines; was driving after his
usual custom--that is to say, as fast as the horse could go.

“A orf'cer! A blooming spangled orf'cer!” shrieked Simmons; “I'll make a
scarecrow of that orf'cer!” The trap stopped.

“What's this?” demanded the Major of Gunners. “You there, drop your
rifle.”

“Why, it's Jerry Blazes! I ain't got no quarrel with you, Jerry Blazes.
Pass, frien', an' all's well!”

But Jerry Blazes had not the faintest intention of passing a dangerous
murderer. He was, as his adoring Battery swore long and fervently,
without knowledge of fear, and they were surely the best judges, for
Jerry Blazes, it was notorious, had done his possible to kill a man each
time the Battery went out.

He walked towards Simmons, with the intention of rushing him and
knocking him down.

“Don't make me do it, Sir,” said Simmons; “I ain't got nothing ag'in'
you. Ah! you would?”--the Major broke into a run--“Take that, then!”

The Major dropped with a bullet through his shoulder, and Simmons stood
over him. He had lost the satisfaction of killing Losson in the desired
way: but here was a helpless body to his hand. Should he slip in another
cartridge, and blow off the head, or with the butt smash in the white
face? He stopped to consider, and a cry went up from the far side of
the parade-ground: “He's killed Jerry Blazes!” But in the shelter of the
well-pillars Simmons was safe, except when he stepped out to fire. “I'll
blow yer 'andsome 'ead off, Jerry Blazes,” said Simmons reflectively.
“Six and three is nine an' one is ten, an' that leaves me another
nineteen, an' one for myself” He tugged at the string of the second
packet of ammunition. Corporal Slane crawled out of the shadow of a bank
into the moonlight.

“I see you!” said Simmons. “Come a bit furder on an' I'll do for you.”

“I'm comin',” said Corporal Slane briefly; “you've done a bad day's
work, Sim. Come out 'ere an' come back with me.”

“Come to,” laughed Simmons, sending a cartridge home with his thumb.
“Not before I've settled you an' Jerry Blazes.”

The Corporal was lying at full length in the dust of the parade-ground,
a rifle under him. Some of the less cautious men in the distance
shouted: “Shoot 'im! Shoot 'im, Slane!”

“You move 'and or foot, Slane,” said Simmons, “an' I'll kick Jerry
Blazes' 'ead in, and shoot you after.”

“I ain't movin',” said the Corporal, raising his head; “you daren't 'it
a man on 'is legs. Let go o' Jerry Blazes an' come out o' that with your
fistes. Come an' 'it me. You daren't, you bloomin' dog-shooter!”

“I dare.”

“You lie, you man-sticker. You sneakin', Sheeny butcher, you lie. See
there!” Slane kicked the rifle away, and stood up in the peril of his
life. “Come on, now!”

The temptation was more than Simmons could resist, for the Corporal in
his white clothes offered a perfect mark.

“Don't misname me,” shouted Simmons, firing as he spoke. The shot
missed, and the shooter, blind with rage, threw his rifle down and
rushed at Slane from the protection of the well. Within striking
distance, he kicked savagely at Slane's stomach, but the weedy Corporal
knew something of Simmons's weakness, and knew, too, the deadly guard
for that kick. Bowing forward and drawing up his right leg till the heel
of the right foot was set some three inches above the inside of the left
knee-cap, he met the blow standing on one leg--exactly as Gonds stand
when they meditate--and ready for the fall that would follow. There
was an oath, the Corporal fell over to his own left as shinbone met
shinbone, and the Private collapsed, his right leg broken an inch above
the ankle.

“Pity you don't know that guard, Sim,” said Slane, spitting out the dust
as he rose. Then raising his voice--“Come an' take him on. I've bruk 'is
leg.” This was not strictly true, for the Private had accomplished his
own downfall, since it is the special merit of that leg-guard that the
harder the kick the greater the kicker's discomfiture.

Slane walked to Jerry Blazes and hung over him with ostentatious
anxiety, while Simmons, weeping with pain, was carried away. “'Ope you
ain't 'urt badly, Sir,” said Slane. The Major had fainted, and there was
an ugly, ragged hole through the top of his arm. Slane knelt down
and murmured: “S'elp me, I believe 'e's dead. Well, if that ain't my
blooming luck all over!”

But the Major was destined to lead his Battery afield for many a long
day with unshaken nerve. He was removed, and nursed and petted into
convalescence, while the Battery discussed the wisdom of capturing
Simmons and blowing him from a gun. They idolised their Major, and his
reappearance on parade brought about a scene nowhere provided for in the
Army Regulations.

Great, too, was the glory that fell to Slane's share. The Gunners would
have made him drunk thrice a day for at least a fortnight. Even the
Colonel of his own regiment complimented him upon his coolness, and the
local paper called him a hero. These things did not puff him up. When
the Major offered him money and thanks, the virtuous Corporal took the
one and put aside the other. But he had a request to make and prefaced
it with many a “Beg y' pardon, Sir.” Could the Major see his way to
letting the Slane-M'Kenna wedding be adorned by the presence of four
Battery horses to pull a hired barouche? The Major could, and so could
the Battery. Excessively so. It was a gorgeous wedding.

“Wot did I do it for?” said Corporal Slane. “For the 'orses o' course.
Jhansi ain't a beauty to look at, but I wasn't goin' to 'ave a hired
turnout. Jerry Blazes? If I 'adn't 'a' wanted something, Sim might ha'
blowed Jerry Blazes' blooming 'ead into Hirish stew for aught I'd 'a'
cared.”


And they hanged Private Simmons--hanged him as high as Haman in hollow
square of the regiment; and the Colonel said it was Drink; and the
Chaplain was sure it was the Devil; and Simmons fancied it was both,
but he didn't know, and only hoped his fate would be a warning to
his companions; and half a dozen “intelligent publicists” wrote six
beautiful leading articles on “The Prevalence of Crime in the Army.”

But not a soul thought of comparing the “bloody-minded Simmons” to the
squawking, gaping school-girl with which this story opens.




THE LOST LEGION

When the Indian Mutiny broke out, and a little time before the siege of
Delhi, a regiment of Native Irregular Horse was stationed at Peshawur on
the frontier of India. That regiment caught what John Lawrence called
at the time “the prevalent mania,” and would have thrown in its lot with
the mutineers, had it been allowed to do so. The chance never came, for,
as the regiment swept off down south, it was headed off by a remnant
of an English corps into the hills of Afghanistan, and there the newly
conquered tribesmen turned against it as wolves turn against buck. It
was hunted for the sake of its arms and accoutrements from hill to hill,
from ravine to ravine, up and down the dried beds of rivers and round
the shoulders of bluffs, till it disappeared as water sinks in the
sand--this officerless rebel regiment. The only trace left of its
existence to-day is a nominal roll drawn up in neat round hand and
countersigned by an officer who called himself, “Adjutant, late
Irregular Cavalry.” The paper is yellow with years and dirt, but on the
back of it you can still read a pencil-note by John Lawrence, to this
effect: “See that the two native officers who remained loyal are not
deprived of their estates.--J. L.” Of six hundred and fifty sabres only
two stood strain, and John Lawrence in the midst of all the agony of the
first months of the Mutiny found time to think about their merits.

That was more than thirty years ago, and the tribesmen across the Afghan
border who helped to annihilate the regiment are now old men. Sometimes
a graybeard speaks of his share in the massacre. “They came,” he will
say, “across the border, very proud, calling upon us to rise and kill
the English, and go down to the sack of Delhi. But we who had just been
conquered by the same English knew that they were over-bold, and that
the Government could account easily for those down-country dogs. This
Hindustani regiment, therefore, we treated with fair words, and kept
standing in one place till the redcoats came after them very hot and
angry. Then this regiment ran forward a little more into our hills to
avoid the wrath of the English, and we lay upon their flanks watching
from the sides of the hills till we were well assured that their path
was lost behind them. Then we came down, for we desired their clothes,
and their bridles, and their rifles, and their boots--more especially
their boots. That was a great killing--done slowly.” Here the old man
will rub his nose, and shake his long snaky locks, and lick his bearded
lips, and grin till the yellow tooth-stumps show. “Yea, we killed them
because we needed their gear, and we knew that their lives had been
forfeited to God on account of their sin--the sin of treachery to the
salt which they had eaten. They rode up and down the valleys, stumbling
and rocking in their saddles, and howling for mercy. We drove them
slowly like cattle till they were all assembled in one place, the flat
wide valley of Sheor Kit. Many had died from want of water, but there
still were many left, and they could not make any stand. We went among
them pulling them down with our hands two at a time, and our boys killed
them who were new to the sword. My share of the plunder was such and
such--so many guns, and so many saddles. The guns were good in those
days. Now we steal the Government rifles, and despise smooth barrels.
Yes, beyond doubt we wiped that regiment from off the face of the earth,
and even the memory of the deed is now dying. But men say--”

At this point the tale would stop abruptly, and it was impossible to
find out what men said across the border. The Afghans were always a
secretive race, and vastly preferred doing something wicked to saying
anything at all. They would be quiet and well-behaved for months, till
one night, without word or warning, they would rush a police-post, cut
the throats of a constable or two, dash through a village, carry away
three or four women, and withdraw, in the red glare of burning thatch,
driving the cattle and goats before them to their own desolate hills.
The Indian Government would become almost tearful on these occasions.
First it would say, “Please be good and we'll forgive you.” The tribe
concerned in the latest depredation would collectively put its thumb to
its nose and answer rudely. Then the Government would say: “Hadn't you
better pay up a little money for those few corpses you left behind you
the other night?” Here the tribe would temporise, and lie and bully,
and some of the younger men, merely to show contempt of authority, would
raid another police-post and fire into some frontier mud-fort, and, if
lucky, kill a real English officer. Then the Government would say:--

“Observe; if you really persist in this line of conduct, you will be
hurt.” If the tribe knew exactly what was going on in India, it would
apologise or be rude, according as it learned whether the Government
was busy with other things or able to devote its full attention to
their performances. Some of the tribes knew to one corpse how far to go.
Others became excited, lost their heads, and told the Government to come
on. With sorrow and tears, and one eye on the British taxpayer at home,
who insisted on regarding these exercises as brutal wars of annexation,
the Government would prepare an expensive little field-brigade and some
guns, and send all up into the hills to chase the wicked tribe out of
the valleys, where the corn grew, into the hill-tops, where there was
nothing to eat. The tribe would turn out in full strength and enjoy the
campaign, for they knew that their women would never be touched, that
their wounded would be nursed, not mutilated, and that as soon as each
man's bag of corn was spent they could surrender and palaver with the
English General as though they had been a real enemy. Afterwards, years
afterwards, they would pay the blood-money, driblet by driblet, to the
Government, and tell their children how they had slain the redcoats by
thousands. The only drawback to this kind of picnic-war was the weakness
of the redcoats for solemnly blowing up with powder their fortified
towers and keeps. This the tribes always considered mean.

Chief among the leaders of the smaller tribes--the little clans who
knew to a penny the expense of moving white troops against them--was
a priest-bandit-chief whom we will call the Gulla Kutta Mullah. His
enthusiasm for Border murder as an art was almost dignified. He would
cut down a mail-runner from pure wantonness, or bombard a mud-fort with
rifle-fire when he knew that our men needed to sleep. In his leisure
moments he would go on circuit among his neighbours, and try to
incite other tribes to devilry. Also, he kept a kind of hotel for
fellow-outlaws in his own village, which lay in a valley called Bersund.
Any respectable murderer on that section of the frontier was sure to lie
up at Bersund, for it was reckoned an exceedingly safe place. The sole
entry to it ran through a narrow gorge which could be converted into a
death-trap in five minutes. It was surrounded by high hills, reckoned
inaccessible to all save born mountaineers, and here the Gulla Kutta
Mullah lived in great state, the head of a colony of mud and stone huts,
and in each mud hut hung some portion of a red uniform and the plunder
of dead men. The Government particularly wished for his capture, and
once invited him formally to come out and be hanged on account of the
many murders in which he had taken a direct part. He replied:--

“I am only twenty miles, as the crow flies, from your border. Come and
fetch me.”

“Some day we will come,” said the Government, “and hanged you will be.”

The Gulla Kutta Mullah let the matter slip from his mind. He knew that
the patience of the Government was as long as a summer day; but he
did not realise that its arm was as long as a winter night. Months
afterwards, when there was peace on the border, and all India was quiet,
the Indian Government turned in its sleep and remembered the Gulla Kutta
Mullah at Bersund, with his thirteen outlaws. The movement against him
of one single regiment--which the telegrams would have translated as
war--would have been highly impolitic. This was a time for silence and
speed, and, above all, absence of bloodshed.

You must know that all along the north-west frontier of India there is
spread a force of some thirty thousand foot and horse, whose duty it is
to quietly and unostentatiously shepherd the tribes in front of them.
They move up and down, and down and up, from one desolate little post to
another; they are ready to take the field at ten minutes' notice; they
are always half in and half out of a difficulty somewhere along the
monotonous line; their lives are as hard as their own muscles, and the
papers never say anything about them. It was from this force that the
Government picked its men.

One night, at a station where the mounted Night Patrol fire as they
challenge, and the wheat rolls in great blue-green waves under our cold
northern moon, the officers were playing billiards in the mud-walled
club-house, when orders came to them that they were to go on parade at
once for a night-drill. They grumbled, and went to turn out their men--a
hundred English troops, let us say, two hundred Goorkhas, and about a
hundred cavalry of the finest native cavalry in the world.

When they were on the parade-ground, it was explained to them in
whispers that they must set off at once across the hills to Bersund. The
English troops were to post themselves round the hills at the side of
the valley; the Goorkhas would command the gorge and the death-trap, and
the cavalry would fetch a long march round and get to the back of the
circle of hills, whence, if there were any difficulty, they could charge
down on the Mullah's men. But orders were very strict that there should
be no fighting and no noise. They were to return in the morning with
every round of ammunition intact, and the Mullah and the thirteen
outlaws bound in their midst. If they were successful, no one would know
or care anything about their work; but failure meant probably a small
border war, in which the Gulla Kutta Mullah would pose as a popular
leader against a big bullying power, instead of a common Border
murderer.

Then there was silence, broken only by the clicking of the
compass-needles and snapping of watch-cases, as the heads of columns
compared bearings and made appointments for the rendezvous. Five minutes
later the parade-ground was empty; the green coats of the Goorkhas and
the overcoats of the English troops had faded into the darkness, and the
cavalry were cantering away in the face of a blinding drizzle.

What the Goorkhas and the English did will be seen later on. The heavy
work lay with the horses, for they had to go far and pick their way
clear of habitations. Many of the troopers were natives of that part of
the world, ready and anxious to fight against their kin, and some of
the officers had made private and unofficial excursions into those hills
before. They crossed the border, found a dried river-bed, cantered up
that, walked through a stony gorge, risked crossing a low hill under
cover of the darkness, skirted another hill, leaving their hoof-marks
deep in some ploughed ground, felt their way along another water-course,
ran over the neck of a spur praying that no one would hear their horses
grunting, and so worked on in the rain and the darkness till they had
left Bersund and its crater of hills a little behind them, and to the
left, and it was time to swing round. The ascent commanding the back
of Bersund was steep, and they halted to draw breath in a broad level
valley below the height. That is to say, the men reined up, but the
horses, blown as they were, refused to halt. There was unchristian
language, the worse for being delivered in a whisper, and you heard the
saddles squeaking in the darkness as the horses plunged.

The subaltern at the rear of one troop turned in his saddle and said
very softly:--

“Carter, what the blessed heavens are you doing at the rear? Bring your
men up, man.”

There was no answer, till a trooper replied:--

“Carter Sahib is forward--not here. There is nothing behind us.”

“There is,” said the subaltern. “The squadron's walking on its own
tail.”

Then the Major in command moved down to the rear, swearing softly and
asking for the blood of Lieutenant Halley--the subaltern who had just
spoken.

“Look after your rearguard,” said the Major. “Some of your infernal
thieves have got lost. They're at the head of the squadron, and you're a
several kinds of idiot.”

“Shall I tell off my men, sir?” said the subaltern sulkily, for he was
feeling wet and cold.

“Tell 'em off!” said the Major. “Whip 'em off, by Gad! You're
squandering them all over the place. There's a troop behind you now!”

“So I was thinking,” said the subaltern calmly. “I have all my men here,
sir. Better speak to Carter.”

“Carter Sahib sends salaam and wants to know why the regiment is
stopping,” said a trooper to Lieutenant Halley.

“Where under heaven is Carter,” said the Major.

“Forward with his troop,” was the answer.

“Are we walking in a ring, then, or are we the centre of a blessed
brigade?” said the Major.

By this time there was silence all along the column. The horses were
still; but, through the drive of the fine rain, men could hear the feet
of many horses moving over stony ground.

“We're being stalked,” said Lieutenant Halley.

“They've no horses here. Besides they'd have fired before this,” said
the Major. “It's--it's villagers' ponies.”

“Then our horses would have neighed and spoilt the attack long ago. They
must have been near us for half an hour,” said the subaltern.

“Queer that we can't smell the horses,” said the Major, damping his
finger and rubbing it on his nose as he sniffed up wind.

“Well, it's a bad start,” said the subaltern, shaking the wet from his
overcoat. “What shall we do, sir?”

“Get on,” said the Major. “We shall catch it to-night.”

The column moved forward very gingerly for a few paces. Then there was
an oath, a shower of blue sparks as shod hooves crashed on small stones,
and a man rolled over with a jangle of accoutrements that would have
waked the dead.

“Now we've gone and done it,” said Lieutenant Halley. “All the hillside
awake and all the hillside 

Showing first 200,000 characters. Full text: gutenberg.org/ebooks/2227