Traffics and Discoveries
by
Rudyard Kipling
Part 1 out of 6
Produced by Juliet Sutherland, Keith M. Eckrich
and PG Distributed Proofreaders
TRAFFICS AND DISCOVERIES
By Rudyard Kipling
CONTENTS
_from the Masjid-al-Aqsa of Sayyid Ahmed(Wahabi)_
THE CAPTIVE
_Poseidon'S Law_
THE BONDS OF DISCIPLINE
_The Runners_
A SAHIBS' WAR
_The Wet Litany_
"THEIR LAWFUL OCCASIONS"--PART I.
"THEIR LAWFUL OCCASIONS"--PART II.
_The King's Task_
THE COMPREHENSION OF PRIVATE COOPER
_The Necessitarian_
STEAM TACTICS
_Kaspar's Song in "Varda"_
"WIRELESS"
_Song of the Old Guard_
THE ARMY OF A DREAM--PART I.
THE ARMY OF A DREAM--PART II.
_The Return of the Children_
"THEY"
_From Lyden's "Irenius_"
MRS. BATHURST
"_Our Fathers Also_"
BELOW THE MILL DAM
THE CAPTIVE
FROM THE MASJID-AL-AQSA OF SAYYID AHMED (WAHABI)
Not with an outcry to Allah nor any complaining
He answered his name at the muster and stood to the chaining.
When the twin anklets were nipped on the leg-bars that held them,
He brotherly greeted the armourers stooping to weld them.
Ere the sad dust of the marshalled feet of the chain-gang swallowed him,
Observing him nobly at ease, I alighted and followed him.
Thus we had speech by the way, but not touching his sorrow
Rather his red Yesterday and his regal To-morrow,
Wherein he statelily moved to the clink of his chains unregarded,
Nowise abashed but contented to drink of the potion awarded.
Saluting aloofly his Fate, he made swift with his story;
And the words of his mouth were as slaves spreading carpets of glory
Embroidered with names of the Djinns--a miraculous weaving--
But the cool and perspicuous eye overbore unbelieving.
So I submitted myself to the limits of rapture--
Bound by this man we had bound, amid captives his capture--
Till he returned me to earth and the visions departed;
But on him be the Peace and the Blessing: for he was great-hearted!
THE CAPTIVE
"He that believeth shall not make haste."--_Isaiah_.
The guard-boat lay across the mouth of the bathing-pool, her crew idly
spanking the water with the flat of their oars. A red-coated militia-man,
rifle in hand, sat at the bows, and a petty officer at the stern. Between
the snow-white cutter and the flat-topped, honey-coloured rocks on the
beach the green water was troubled with shrimp-pink prisoners-of-war
bathing. Behind their orderly tin camp and the electric-light poles rose
those stone-dotted spurs that throw heat on Simonstown. Beneath them the
little _Barracouta_ nodded to the big _Gibraltar_, and the old _Penelope_,
that in ten years has been bachelors' club, natural history museum,
kindergarten, and prison, rooted and dug at her fixed moorings. Far out, a
three-funnelled Atlantic transport with turtle bow and stern waddled in
from the deep sea.
Said the sentry, assured of the visitor's good faith, "Talk to 'em? You
can, to any that speak English. You'll find a lot that do."
Here and there earnest groups gathered round ministers of the Dutch
Reformed Church, who doubtless preached conciliation, but the majority
preferred their bath. The God who Looks after Small Things had caused the
visitor that day to receive two weeks' delayed mails in one from a casual
postman, and the whole heavy bundle of newspapers, tied with a strap, he
dangled as bait. At the edge of the beach, cross-legged, undressed to his
sky-blue army shirt, sat a lean, ginger-haired man, on guard over a dozen
heaps of clothing. His eyes followed the incoming Atlantic boat.
"Excuse me, Mister," he said, without turning (and the speech betrayed his
nationality), "would you mind keeping away from these garments? I've been
elected janitor--on the Dutch vote."
The visitor moved over against the barbed-wire fence and sat down to his
mail. At the rustle of the newspaper-wrappers the ginger-coloured man
turned quickly, the hunger of a press-ridden people in his close-set iron-
grey eyes.
"Have you any use for papers?" said the visitor.
"Have I any use?" A quick, curved forefinger was already snicking off the
outer covers. "Why, that's the New York postmark! Give me the ads. at the
back of _Harper's_ and _M'Clure's_ and I'm in touch with God's Country
again! Did you know how I was aching for papers?"
The visitor told the tale of the casual postman.
"Providential!" said the ginger-coloured man, keen as a terrier on his
task; "both in time and matter. Yes! ... The _Scientific American_ yet
once more! Oh, it's good! it's good!" His voice broke as he pressed his
hawk-like nose against the heavily-inked patent-specifications at the end.
"Can I keep it? I thank you--I thank you! Why--why--well--well! The
_American Tyler_ of all things created! Do you subscribe to that?"
"I'm on the free list," said the visitor, nodding.
He extended his blue-tanned hand with that air of Oriental spaciousness
which distinguishes the native-born American, and met the visitor's grasp
expertly. "I can only say that you have treated me like a Brother (yes,
I'll take every last one you can spare), and if ever--" He plucked at the
bosom of his shirt. "Psha! I forgot I'd no card on me; but my name's
Zigler--Laughton G. Zigler. An American? If Ohio's still in the Union, I
am, Sir. But I'm no extreme States'-rights man. I've used all of my native
country and a few others as I have found occasion, and now I am the
captive of your bow and spear. I'm not kicking at that. I am not a coerced
alien, nor a naturalised Texas mule-tender, nor an adventurer on the
instalment plan. _I_ don't tag after our consul when he comes around,
expecting the American Eagle to lift me out o' this by the slack of my
pants. No, sir! If a Britisher went into Indian Territory and shot up his
surroundings with a Colt automatic (not that _she's_ any sort of weapon,
but I take her for an illustration), he'd be strung up quicker'n a
snowflake 'ud melt in hell. No ambassador of yours 'ud save him. I'm my
neck ahead on this game, anyway. That's how I regard the proposition.
"Have I gone gunning against the British? To a certain extent, I presume
you never heard tell of the Laughton-Zigler automatic two-inch field-gun,
with self-feeding hopper, single oil-cylinder recoil, and ballbearing gear
throughout? Or Laughtite, the new explosive? Absolutely uniform in effect,
and one-ninth the bulk of any present effete charge--flake, cannonite,
cordite, troisdorf, cellulose, cocoa, cord, or prism--I don't care what it
is. Laughtite's immense; so's the Zigler automatic. It's me. It's fifteen
years of me. You are not a gun-sharp? I am sorry. I could have surprised
you. Apart from my gun, my tale don't amount to much of anything. I thank
you, but I don't use any tobacco you'd be likely to carry... Bull Durham?
_Bull Durham!_ I take it all back--every last word. Bull Durham--here! If
ever you strike Akron, Ohio, when this fool-war's over, remember you've
Laughton O. Zigler in your vest pocket. Including the city of Akron. We've
a little club there.... Hell! What's the sense of talking Akron with no
pants?
"My gun? ... For two cents I'd have shipped her to our Filipeens. 'Came
mighty near it too; but from what I'd read in the papers, you can't trust
Aguinaldo's crowd on scientific matters. Why don't I offer it to our army?
Well, you've an effete aristocracy running yours, and we've a crowd of
politicians. The results are practically identical. I am not taking any
U.S. Army in mine.
"I went to Amsterdam with her--to this Dutch junta that supposes it's
bossing the war. I wasn't brought up to love the British for one thing,
and for another I knew that if she got in her fine work (my gun) I'd stand
more chance of receiving an unbiassed report from a crowd of dam-fool
British officers than from a hatful of politicians' nephews doing duty as
commissaries and ordnance sharps. As I said, I put the brown man out of
the question. That's the way _I_ regarded the proposition.
"The Dutch in Holland don't amount to a row of pins. Maybe I misjudge 'em.
Maybe they've been swindled too often by self-seeking adventurers to know
a enthusiast when they see him. Anyway, they're slower than the Wrath o'
God. But on delusions--as to their winning out next Thursday week at 9
A.M.--they are--if I may say so--quite British.
"I'll tell you a curious thing, too. I fought 'em for ten days before I
could get the financial side of my game fixed to my liking. I knew they
didn't believe in the Zigler, but they'd no call to be crazy-mean. I fixed
it--free passage and freight for me and the gun to Delagoa Bay, and beyond
by steam and rail. Then I went aboard to see her crated, and there I
struck my fellow-passengers--all deadheads, same as me. Well, Sir, I
turned in my tracks where I stood and besieged the ticket-office, and I
said, 'Look at here, Van Dunk. I'm paying for my passage and her room in
the hold--every square and cubic foot.' 'Guess he knocked down the fare to
himself; but I paid. I paid. I wasn't going to deadhead along o' _that_
crowd of Pentecostal sweepings. 'Twould have hoodooed my gun for all time.
That was the way I regarded the proposition. No, Sir, they were not pretty
company.
"When we struck Pretoria I had a hell-and-a-half of a time trying to
interest the Dutch vote in my gun an' her potentialities. The bottom was
out of things rather much just about that time. Kruger was praying some
and stealing some, and the Hollander lot was singing, 'If you haven't any
money you needn't come round,' Nobody was spending his dough on anything
except tickets to Europe. We were both grossly neglected. When I think how
I used to give performances in the public streets with dummy cartridges,
filling the hopper and turning the handle till the sweat dropped off me, I
blush, Sir. I've made her to do her stunts before Kaffirs--naked sons of
Ham--in Commissioner Street, trying to get a holt somewhere.
"Did I talk? I despise exaggeration--'tain't American or scientific--but
as true as I'm sitting here like a blue-ended baboon in a kloof, Teddy
Roosevelt's Western tour was a maiden's sigh compared to my advertising
work.
"'Long in the spring I was rescued by a commandant called Van Zyl--a big,
fleshy man with a lame leg. Take away his hair and his gun and he'd make a
first-class Schenectady bar-keep. He found me and the Zigler on the veldt
(Pretoria wasn't wholesome at that time), and he annexed me in a
somnambulistic sort o' way. He was dead against the war from the start,
but, being a Dutchman, he fought a sight better than the rest of that 'God
and the Mauser' outfit. Adrian Van Zyl. Slept a heap in the daytime--and
didn't love niggers. I liked him. I was the only foreigner in his
commando. The rest was Georgia Crackers and Pennsylvania Dutch--with a
dash o' Philadelphia lawyer. I could tell you things about them would
surprise you. Religion for one thing; women for another; but I don't know
as their notions o' geography weren't the craziest. 'Guess that must be
some sort of automatic compensation. There wasn't one blamed ant-hill in
their district they didn't know _and_ use; but the world was flat, they
said, and England was a day's trek from Cape Town.
"They could fight in their own way, and don't you forget it. But I guess
you will not. They fought to kill, and, by what I could make out, the
British fought to be killed. So both parties were accommodated.
"I am the captive of your bow and spear, Sir. The position has its
obligations--on both sides. You could not be offensive or partisan to me.
I cannot, for the same reason, be offensive to you. Therefore I will not
give you my opinions on the conduct of your war.
"Anyway, I didn't take the field as an offensive partisan, but as an
inventor. It was a condition and not a theory that confronted me. (Yes,
Sir, I'm a Democrat by conviction, and that was one of the best things
Grover Cleveland ever got off.)
"After three months' trek, old man Van Zyl had his commando in good shape
and refitted off the British, and he reckoned he'd wait on a British
General of his acquaintance that did business on a circuit between
Stompiesneuk, Jackhalputs, Vrelegen, and Odendaalstroom, year in and year
out. He was a fixture in that section.
"'He's a dam' good man,' says Van Zyl. 'He's a friend of mine. He sent in
a fine doctor when I was wounded and our Hollander doc. wanted to cut my
leg off. Ya, I'll guess we'll stay with him.' Up to date, me and my Zigler
had lived in innocuous desuetude owing to little odds and ends riding out
of gear. How in thunder was I to know there wasn't the ghost of any road
in the country? But raw hide's cheap and lastin'. I guess I'll make my
next gun a thousand pounds heavier, though.
"Well, Sir, we struck the General on his beat--Vrelegen it was--and our
crowd opened with the usual compliments at two thousand yards. Van Zyl
shook himself into his greasy old saddle and says, 'Now we shall be quite
happy, Mr. Zigler. No more trekking. Joost twelve miles a day till the
apricots are ripe.'
"Then we hitched on to his outposts, and vedettes, and cossack-picquets,
or whatever they was called, and we wandered around the veldt arm in arm
like brothers.
"The way we worked lodge was this way. The General, he had his breakfast
at 8:45 A.M. to the tick. He might have been a Long Island commuter. At
8:42 A.M. I'd go down to the Thirty-fourth Street ferry to meet him--I
mean I'd see the Zigler into position at two thousand (I began at three
thousand, but that was cold and distant)--and blow him off to two full
hoppers--eighteen rounds--just as they were bringing in his coffee. If his
crowd was busy celebrating the anniversary of Waterloo or the last royal
kid's birthday, they'd open on me with two guns (I'll tell you about them
later on), but if they were disengaged they'd all stand to their horses
and pile on the ironmongery, and washers, and typewriters, and five weeks'
grub, and in half an hour they'd sail out after me and the rest of Van
Zyl's boys; lying down and firing till 11:45 A.M. or maybe high noon. Then
we'd go from labour to refreshment, resooming at 2 P.M. and battling till
tea-time. Tuesday and Friday was the General's moving days. He'd trek
ahead ten or twelve miles, and we'd loaf around his flankers and exercise
the ponies a piece. Sometimes he'd get hung up in a drift--stalled
crossin' a crick--and we'd make playful snatches at his wagons. First time
that happened I turned the Zigler loose with high hopes, Sir; but the old
man was well posted on rearguards with a gun to 'em, and I had to haul her
out with three mules instead of six. I was pretty mad. I wasn't looking
for any experts back of the Royal British Artillery. Otherwise, the game
was mostly even. He'd lay out three or four of our commando, and we'd
gather in four or five of his once a week or thereon. One time, I
remember, long towards dusk we saw 'em burying five of their boys. They
stood pretty thick around the graves. We wasn't more than fifteen hundred
yards off, but old Van Zyl wouldn't fire. He just took off his hat at the
proper time. He said if you stretched a man at his prayers you'd have to
hump his bad luck before the Throne as well as your own. I am inclined to
agree with him. So we browsed along week in and week out. A war-sharp
might have judged it sort of docile, but for an inventor needing practice
one day and peace the next for checking his theories, it suited Laughton
O. Zigler.
"And friendly? Friendly was no word for it. We was brothers in arms.
"Why, I knew those two guns of the Royal British Artillery as well as I
used to know the old Fifth Avenoo stages. _They_ might have been brothers
too.
"They'd jolt into action, and wiggle around and skid and spit and cough
and prize 'emselves back again during our hours of bloody battle till I
could have wept, Sir, at the spectacle of modern white men chained up to
these old hand-power, back-number, flint-and-steel reaping machines. One
of 'em--I called her Baldy--she'd a long white scar all along her barrel--
I'd made sure of twenty times. I knew her crew by sight, but she'd come
switching and teturing out of the dust of my shells like--like a hen from
under a buggy--and she'd dip into a gully, and next thing I'd know 'ud be
her old nose peeking over the ridge sniffin' for us. Her runnin' mate had
two grey mules in the lead, and a natural wood wheel repainted, and a
whole raft of rope-ends trailin' around. 'Jever see Tom Reed with his vest
off, steerin' Congress through a heat-wave? I've been to Washington often
--too often--filin' my patents. I called her Tom Reed. We three 'ud play
pussy-wants-a-corner all round the outposts on off-days--cross-lots
through the sage and along the mezas till we was short-circuited by
canons. O, it was great for me and Baldy and Tom Reed! I don't know as we
didn't neglect the legitimate interests of our respective commanders
sometimes for this ball-play. I know _I_ did.
"'Long towards the fall the Royal British Artillery grew shy--hung back in
their breeching sort of--and their shooting was way--way off. I observed
they wasn't taking any chances, not though I acted kitten almost
underneath 'em.
"I mentioned it to Van Zyl, because it struck me I had about knocked their
Royal British moral endways.
"'No,' says he, rocking as usual on his pony. 'My Captain Mankeltow he is
sick. That is all.'
"'So's your Captain Mankeltow's guns,' I said. 'But I'm going to make 'em
a heap sicker before he gets well.'
"'No,' says Van Zyl. 'He has had the enteric a little. Now he is better,
and he was let out from hospital at Jackhalputs. Ah, that Mankeltow! He
always makes me laugh so. I told him--long back--at Colesberg, I had a
little home for him at Nooitgedacht. But he would not come--no! He has
been sick, and I am sorry.'
"'How d'you know that?' I says.
"'Why, only to-day he sends back his love by Johanna Van der Merwe, that
goes to their doctor for her sick baby's eyes. He sends his love, that
Mankeltow, and he tells her tell me he has a little garden of roses all
ready for me in the Dutch Indies--Umballa. He is very funny, my Captain
Mankeltow.'
"The Dutch and the English ought to fraternise, Sir. They've the same
notions of humour, to my thinking.'
"'When he gets well,' says Van Zyl, 'you look out, Mr. Americaan. He comes
back to his guns next Tuesday. Then they shoot better.'
"I wasn't so well acquainted with the Royal British Artillery as old man
Van Zyl. I knew this Captain Mankeltow by sight, of course, and,
considering what sort of a man with the hoe he was, I thought he'd done
right well against my Zigler. But nothing epoch-making.
"Next morning at the usual hour I waited on the General, and old Van Zyl
come along with some of the boys. Van Zyl didn't hang round the Zigler
much as a rule, but this was his luck that day.
"He was peeking through his glasses at the camp, and I was helping pepper,
the General's sow-belly--just as usual--when he turns to me quick and
says, 'Almighty! How all these Englishmen are liars! You cannot trust
one,' he says. 'Captain Mankeltow tells our Johanna he comes not back till
Tuesday, and to-day is Friday, and there he is! Almighty! The English are
all Chamberlains!'
"If the old man hadn't stopped to make political speeches he'd have had
his supper in laager that night, I guess. I was busy attending to Tom Reed
at two thousand when Baldy got in her fine work on me. I saw one sheet of
white flame wrapped round the hopper, and in the middle of it there was
one o' my mules straight on end. Nothing out of the way in a mule on end,
but this mule hadn't any head. I remember it struck me as incongruous at
the time, and when I'd ciphered it out I was doing the Santos-Dumont act
without any balloon and my motor out of gear. Then I got to thinking about
Santos-Dumont and how much better my new way was. Then I thought about
Professor Langley and the Smithsonian, and wishing I hadn't lied so
extravagantly in some of my specifications at Washington. Then I quit
thinking for quite a while, and when I resumed my train of thought I was
nude, Sir, in a very stale stretcher, and my mouth was full of fine dirt
all flavoured with Laughtite.
"I coughed up that dirt.
"'Hullo!' says a man walking beside me. 'You've spoke almost in time. Have
a drink?'
"I don't use rum as a rule, but I did then, because I needed it.
"'What hit us?'I said.
"'Me,' he said. 'I got you fair on the hopper as you pulled out of that
donga; but I'm sorry to say every last round in the hopper's exploded and
your gun's in a shocking state. I'm real sorry,' he says. 'I admire your
gun, Sir.'
"'Are you Captain Mankeltow?' I says.
"'Yes,' he says. 'I presoom you're Mister Zigler. Your commanding officer
told me about you.'
"'Have you gathered in old man Van Zyl?' I said.
"'Commandant Van Zyl,' he says very stiff, 'was most unfortunately
wounded, but I am glad to say it's not serious. We hope he'll be able to
dine with us to-night; and I feel sure,' he says, 'the General would be
delighted to see you too, though he didn't expect,' he says, 'and no one
else either, by Jove!' he says, and blushed like the British do when
they're embarrassed.
"I saw him slide an Episcopalian Prayer-book up his sleeve, and when I
looked over the edge of the stretcher there was half-a-dozen enlisted men
--privates--had just quit digging and was standing to attention by their
spades. I guess he was right on the General not expecting me to dinner;
but it was all of a piece with their sloppy British way of doing business.
Any God's quantity of fuss and flubdub to bury a man, and not an ounce of
forehandedness in the whole outfit to find out whether he was rightly
dead. And I am a Congregationalist anyway!
"Well, Sir, that was my introduction to the British Army. I'd write a book
about it if anyone would believe me. This Captain Mankeltow, Royal British
Artillery, turned the doctor on me (I could write another book about
_him_) and fixed me up with a suit of his own clothes, and fed me canned
beef and biscuits, and give me a cigar--a Henry Clay and a whisky-and-
sparklet. He was a white man.
"'Ye-es, by Jove,' he said, dragging out his words like a twist of
molasses, 'we've all admired your gun and the way you've worked it. Some
of us betted you was a British deserter. I won a sovereign on that from a
yeoman. And, by the way,' he says, 'you've disappointed me groom pretty
bad.'
"'Where does your groom come in?' I said.
"'Oh, he was the yeoman. He's a dam poor groom,' says my captain, 'but
he's a way-up barrister when he's at home. He's been running around the
camp with his tongue out, waiting for the chance of defending you at the
court-martial.'
"'What court-martial?' I says.
"'On you as a deserter from the Artillery. You'd have had a good run for
your money. Anyway, you'd never have been hung after the way you worked
your gun. Deserter ten times over,' he says, 'I'd have stuck out for
shooting you like a gentleman.'
"Well, Sir, right there it struck me at the pit of my stomach--sort of
sickish, sweetish feeling--that my position needed regularising pretty
bad. I ought to have been a naturalised burgher of a year's standing; but
Ohio's my State, and I wouldn't have gone back on her for a desertful of
Dutchmen. That and my enthoosiasm as an inventor had led me to the
existing crisis; but I couldn't expect this Captain Mankeltow to regard
the proposition that way. There I sat, the rankest breed of
unreconstructed American citizen, caught red-handed squirting hell at the
British Army for months on end. I tell _you_, Sir, I wished I was in
Cincinnatah that summer evening. I'd have compromised on Brooklyn.
"'What d'you do about aliens?' I said, and the dirt I'd coughed up seemed
all back of my tongue again.
"'Oh,' says he, 'we don't do much of anything. They're about all the
society we get. I'm a bit of a pro-Boer myself,' he says, 'but between you
and me the average Boer ain't over and above intellectual. You're the
first American we've met up with, but of course you're a burgher.'
"It was what I ought to have been if I'd had the sense of a common tick,
but the way he drawled it out made me mad.
"'Of course I am not,' I says. 'Would _you_ be a naturalised Boer?'
"'I'm fighting against 'em,' he says, lighting a cigarette, 'but it's all
a matter of opinion.'
"'Well,' I says, 'you can hold any blame opinion you choose, but I'm a
white man, and my present intention is to die in that colour.'
"He laughed one of those big, thick-ended, British laughs that don't lead
anywhere, and whacked up some sort of compliment about America that made
me mad all through.
"I am the captive of your bow and spear, Sir, but I do not understand the
alleged British joke. It is depressing.
"I was introdooced to five or six officers that evening, and every blame
one of 'em grinned and asked me why I wasn't in the Filipeens suppressing
our war! And that was British humour! They all had to get it off their
chests before they'd talk sense. But they was sound on the Zigler. They
had all admired her. I made out a fairy-story of me being wearied of the
war, and having pushed the gun at them these last three months in the hope
they'd capture it and let me go home. That tickled 'em to death. They made
me say it three times over, and laughed like kids each time. But half the
British _are_ kids; specially the older men. My Captain Mankeltow was less
of it than the others. He talked about the Zigler like a lover, Sir, and I
drew him diagrams of the hopper-feed and recoil-cylinder in his note-book.
He asked the one British question I was waiting for, 'Hadn't I made my
working-parts too light?' The British think weight's strength.
"At last--I'd been shy of opening the subject before--at last I said,
'Gentlemen, you are the unprejudiced tribunal I've been hunting after. I
guess you ain't interested in any other gun-factory, and politics don't
weigh with you. How did it feel your end of the game? What's my gun done,
anyway?'
"'I hate to disappoint you,' says Captain Mankeltow, 'because I know you
feel as an inventor.' I wasn't feeling like an inventor just then. I felt
friendly, but the British haven't more tact than you can pick up with a
knife out of a plate of soup.
"'The honest truth,' he says, 'is that you've wounded about ten of us one
way and another, killed two battery horses and four mules, and--oh, yes,'
he said, 'you've bagged five Kaffirs. But, buck up,' he said, 'we've all
had mighty close calls'--shaves, he called 'em, I remember. 'Look at my
pants.'
"They was repaired right across the seat with Minneapolis flour-bagging. I
could see the stencil.
"'I ain't bluffing,' he says. 'Get the hospital returns, Doc.'
"The doctor gets 'em and reads 'em out under the proper dates. That doctor
alone was worth the price of admission.
"I was right pleased right through that I hadn't killed any of these
cheerful kids; but none the less I couldn't help thinking that a few more
Kaffirs would have served me just as well for advertising purposes as
white men. No, sir. Anywhichway you regard the proposition, twenty-one
casualties after months of close friendship like ours was--paltry.
"They gave me taffy about the gun--the British use taffy where we use
sugar. It's cheaper, and gets there just the same. They sat around and
proved to me that my gun was too good, too uniform--shot as close as a
Mannlicher rifle.
"Says one kid chewing a bit of grass: 'I counted eight of your shells,
Sir, burst in a radius of ten feet. All of 'em would have gone through one
waggon-tilt. It was beautiful,' he says. 'It was too good.'
"I shouldn't wonder if the boys were right. My Laughtite is too
mathematically uniform in propelling power. Yes; she was too good for this
refractory fool of a country. The training gear was broke, too, and we had
to swivel her around by the trail. But I'll build my next Zigler fifteen
hundred pounds heavier. Might work in a gasoline motor under the axles. I
must think that up.
"'Well, gentlemen,' I said, 'I'd hate to have been the death of any of
you; and if a prisoner can deed away his property, I'd love to present the
Captain here with what he's seen fit to leave of my Zigler.'
"'Thanks awf'ly,' says my Captain. 'I'd like her very much. She'd look
fine in the mess at Woolwich. That is, if you don't mind, Mr. Zigler.'
"'Go right ahead,' I says. 'I've come out of all the mess I've any use
for; but she'll do to spread the light among the Royal British Artillery.'
"I tell you, Sir, there's not much of anything the matter with the Royal
British Artillery. They're brainy men languishing under an effete system
which, when you take good holt of it, is England--just all England. 'Times
I'd feel I was talking with real live citizens, and times I'd feel I'd
struck the Beef Eaters in the Tower.
"How? Well, this way. I was telling my Captain Mankeltow what Van Zyl had
said about the British being all Chamberlains when the old man saw him
back from hospital four days ahead of time.
"'Oh, damn it all!' he says, as serious as the Supreme Court. 'It's too
bad,' he says. 'Johanna must have misunderstood me, or else I've got the
wrong Dutch word for these blarsted days of the week. I told Johanna I'd
be out on Friday. The woman's a fool. Oah, da-am it all!' he says. 'I
wouldn't have sold old Van Zyl a pup like that,' he says. 'I'll hunt him
up and apologise.'
"He must have fixed it all right, for when we sailed over to the General's
dinner my Captain had Van Zyl about half-full of sherry and bitters, as
happy as a clam. The boys all called him Adrian, and treated him like
their prodigal father. He'd been hit on the collarbone by a wad of
shrapnel, and his arm was tied up.
"But the General was the peach. I presume you're acquainted with the
average run of British generals, but this was my first. I sat on his left
hand, and he talked like--like the _Ladies' Home Journal_. J'ever read
that paper? It's refined, Sir--and innocuous, and full of nickel-plated
sentiments guaranteed to improve the mind. He was it. He began by a Lydia
Pinkham heart-to-heart talk about my health, and hoped the boys had done
me well, and that I was enjoying my stay in their midst. Then he thanked
me for the interesting and valuable lessons that I'd given his crowd--
specially in the matter of placing artillery and rearguard attacks. He'd
wipe his long thin moustache between drinks--lime-juice and water he used
--and blat off into a long 'a-aah,' and ladle out more taffy for me or old
man Van Zyl on his right. I told him how I'd had my first Pisgah-sight of
the principles of the Zigler when I was a fourth-class postmaster on a
star-route in Arkansas. I told him how I'd worked it up by instalments
when I was machinist in Waterbury, where the dollar-watches come from. He
had one on his wrist then. I told him how I'd met Zalinski (he'd never
heard of Zalinski!) when I was an extra clerk in the Naval Construction
Bureau at Washington. I told him how my uncle, who was a truck-farmer in
Noo Jersey (he loaned money on mortgage too, for ten acres ain't enough
now in Noo Jersey), how he'd willed me a quarter of a million dollars,
because I was the only one of our kin that called him down when he used to
come home with a hard-cider jag on him and heave ox-bows at his nieces. I
told him how I'd turned in every red cent on the Zigler, and I told him
the whole circus of my coming out with her, and so on, and so following;
and every forty seconds he'd wipe his moustache and blat, 'How
interesting. Really, now? How interesting.'
"It was like being in an old English book, Sir. Like _Bracebridge Hall_.
But an American wrote _that!_ I kept peeking around for the Boar's Head
and the Rosemary and Magna Charta and the Cricket on the Hearth, and the
rest of the outfit. Then Van Zyl whirled in. He was no ways jagged, but
thawed--thawed, Sir, and among friends. They began discussing previous
scraps all along the old man's beat--about sixty of 'em--as well as side-
shows with other generals and columns. Van Zyl told 'im of a big beat he'd
worked on a column a week or so before I'd joined him. He demonstrated his
strategy with forks on the table.
"'There!' said the General, when he'd finished. 'That proves my contention
to the hilt. Maybe I'm a bit of a pro-Boer, but I stick to it,' he says,
'that under proper officers, with due regard to his race prejudices, the
Boer'ud make the finest mounted infantry in the Empire. Adrian,' he says,
'you're simply squandered on a cattle-run. You ought to be at the Staff
College with De Wet.'
"'You catch De Wet and I come to your Staff College--eh,' says Adrian,
laughing. 'But you are so slow, Generaal. Why are you so slow? For a
month,' he says, 'you do so well and strong that we say we shall hands-up
and come back to our farms. Then you send to England and make us a present
of two--three--six hundred young men, with rifles and wagons and rum and
tobacco, and such a great lot of cartridges, that our young men put up
their tails and start all over again. If you hold an ox by the horn and
hit him by the bottom he runs round and round. He never goes anywhere. So,
too, this war goes round and round. You know that, Generaal!'
"'Quite right, Adrian,' says the General; 'but you must believe your
Bible.'
"'Hooh!' says Adrian, and reaches for the whisky. 'I've never known a
Dutchman a professing Atheist, but some few have been rather active
Agnostics since the British sat down in Pretoria. Old man Van Zyl--he told
me--had soured on religion after Bloemfontein surrendered. He was a Free
Stater for one thing.'
"'He that believeth,' says the General, 'shall not make haste. That's in
Isaiah. We believe we're going to win, and so we don't make haste. As far
as I'm concerned I'd like this war to last another five years. We'd have
an army then. It's just this way, Mr. Zigler,' he says, 'our people are
brimfull of patriotism, but they've been born and brought up between
houses, and England ain't big enough to train 'em--not if you expect to
preserve.'
"'Preserve what?' I says. 'England?'
"'No. The game,' he says; 'and that reminds me, gentlemen, we haven't
drunk the King and Foxhunting.'
"So they drank the King and Fox-hunting. I drank the King because there's
something about Edward that tickles me (he's so blame British); but I
rather stood out on the Fox-hunting. I've ridden wolves in the cattle-
country, and needed a drink pretty bad afterwards, but it never struck me
as I ought to drink about it--he-red-it-arily.
"'No, as I was saying, Mr. Zigler,' he goes on, 'we have to train our men
in the field to shoot and ride. I allow six months for it; but many
column-commanders--not that I ought to say a word against 'em, for they're
the best fellows that ever stepped, and most of 'em are my dearest
friends--seem to think that if they have men and horses and guns they can
take tea with the Boers. It's generally the other way about, ain't it, Mr.
Zigler?'
"'To some extent, Sir,' I said.
"'I'm _so_ glad you agree with me,' he says. 'My command here I regard as
a training depot, and you, if I may say so, have been one of my most
efficient instructors. I mature my men slowly but thoroughly. First I put
'em in a town which is liable to be attacked by night, where they can
attend riding-school in the day. Then I use 'em with a convoy, and last I
put 'em into a column. It takes time,' he says, 'but I flatter myself that
any men who have worked under me are at least grounded in the rudiments of
their profession. Adrian,' he says, 'was there anything wrong with the men
who upset Van Bester's applecart last month when he was trying to cross
the line to join Piper with those horses he'd stole from Gabbitas?'
"'No, Generaal,' says Van Zyl. 'Your men got the horses back and eleven
dead; and Van Besters, he ran to Delarey in his shirt. They was very good,
those men. They shoot hard.'
"_'So_ pleased to hear you say so. I laid 'em down at the beginning of
this century--a 1900 vintage. _You_ remember 'em, Mankeltow?' he says.
'The Central Middlesex Buncho Busters--clerks and floorwalkers mostly,'
and he wiped his moustache. 'It was just the same with the Liverpool
Buckjumpers, but they were stevedores. Let's see--they were a last-century
draft, weren't they? They did well after nine months. _You_ know 'em, Van
Zyl? You didn't get much change out of 'em at Pootfontein?'
"'No,' says Van Zyl. 'At Pootfontein I lost my son Andries.'
"'I beg your pardon, Commandant,' says the General; and the rest of the
crowd sort of cooed over Adrian.
"'Excoose,' says Adrian. 'It was all right. They were good men those, but
it is just what I say. Some are so dam good we want to hands-up, and some
are so dam bad, we say, "Take the Vierkleur into Cape Town." It is not
upright of you, Generaal. It is not upright of you at all. I do not think
you ever wish this war to finish.'
"'It's a first-class dress-parade for Armageddon,' says the General. 'With
luck, we ought to run half a million men through the mill. Why, we might
even be able to give our Native Army a look in. Oh, not here, of course,
Adrian, but down in the Colony--say a camp-of-exercise at Worcester. You
mustn't be prejudiced, Adrian. I've commanded a district in India, and I
give you my word the native troops are splendid men.'
"'Oh, I should not mind them at Worcester,' says Adrian. 'I would sell you
forage for them at Worcester--yes, and Paarl and Stellenbosch; but
Almighty!' he says, 'must I stay with Cronje till you have taught half a
million of these stupid boys to ride? I shall be an old man.'
"Well, Sir, then and there they began arguing whether St. Helena would
suit Adrian's health as well as some other places they knew about, and
fixing up letters of introduction to Dukes and Lords of their
acquaintance, so's Van Zyl should be well looked after. We own a fair-
sized block of real estate--America does--but it made me sickish to hear
this crowd fluttering round the Atlas (oh yes, they had an Atlas), and
choosing stray continents for Adrian to drink his coffee in. The old man
allowed he didn't want to roost with Cronje, because one of Cronje's kin
had jumped one of his farms after Paardeberg. I forget the rights of the
case, but it was interesting. They decided on a place called Umballa in
India, because there was a first-class doctor there.
"So Adrian was fixed to drink the King and Foxhunting, and study up the
Native Army in India (I'd like to see 'em myself), till the British
General had taught the male white citizens of Great Britain how to ride.
Don't misunderstand me, Sir. I loved that General. After ten minutes I
loved him, and I wanted to laugh at him; but at the same time, sitting
there and hearing him talk about the centuries, I tell you, Sir, it scared
me. It scared me cold! He admitted everything--he acknowledged the corn
before you spoke--he was more pleased to hear that his men had been used
to wipe the geldt with than I was when I knocked out Tom Reed's two lead-
horses--and he sat back and blew smoke through his nose and matured his
men like cigars and--he talked of the everlastin' centuries!
"I went to bed nearer nervous prostration than I'd come in a long time.
Next morning me and Captain Mankeltow fixed up what his shrapnel had left
of my Zigler for transport to the railroad. She went in on her own wheels,
and I stencilled her 'Royal Artillery Mess, Woolwich,' on the muzzle, and
he said he'd be grateful if I'd take charge of her to Cape Town, and hand
her over to a man in the Ordnance there. 'How are you fixed financially?
You'll need some money on the way home,' he says at last.
"'For one thing, Cap,' I said, 'I'm not a poor man, and for another I'm
not going home. I am the captive of your bow and spear. I decline to
resign office.'
"'Skittles!' he says (that was a great word of his), 'you'll take parole,
and go back to America and invent another Zigler, a trifle heavier in the
working parts--I would. We've got more prisoners than we know what to do
with as it is,' he says. 'You'll only be an additional expense to me as a
taxpayer. Think of Schedule D,' he says, 'and take parole.'
"'I don't know anything about your tariffs,' I said, 'but when I get to
Cape Town I write home for money, and I turn in every cent my board'll
cost your country to any ten-century-old department that's been ordained
to take it since William the Conqueror came along.'
"'But, confound you for a thick-headed mule,' he says, 'this war ain't any
more than just started! Do you mean to tell me you're going to play
prisoner till it's over?'
"'That's about the size of it,' I says, 'if an Englishman and an American
could ever understand each other.'
"'But, in Heaven's Holy Name, why?' he says, sitting down of a heap on an
anthill.
"'Well, Cap,' I says, 'I don't pretend to follow your ways of thought, and
I can't see why you abuse your position to persecute a poor prisoner o'
war on _his!_'
"'My dear fellow,' he began, throwing up his hands and blushing, 'I'll
apologise.'
"'But if you insist,' I says, 'there are just one and a half things in
this world I can't do. The odd half don't matter here; but taking parole,
and going home, and being interviewed by the boys, and giving lectures on
my single-handed campaign against the hereditary enemies of my beloved
country happens to be the one. We'll let it go at that, Cap.'
"'But it'll bore you to death,' he says. The British are a heap more
afraid of what they call being bored than of dying, I've noticed.
"'I'll survive,' I says, 'I ain't British. I can think,' I says.
"'By God,' he says, coming up to me, and extending the right hand of
fellowship, 'you ought to be English, Zigler!'
"It's no good getting mad at a compliment like that. The English all do
it. They're a crazy breed. When they don't know you they freeze up
tighter'n the St. Lawrence. When they _do_, they go out like an ice-jam in
April. Up till we prisoners left--four days--my Captain Mankeltow told me
pretty much all about himself there was; his mother and sisters, and his
bad brother that was a trooper in some Colonial corps, and how his father
didn't get on with him, and--well, everything, as I've said. They're
undomesticated, the British, compared with us. They talk about their own
family affairs as if they belonged to someone else. 'Taint as if they
hadn't any shame, but it sounds like it. I guess they talk out loud what
we think, and we talk out loud what they think.
"I liked my Captain Mankeltow. I liked him as well as any man I'd ever
struck. He was white. He gave me his silver drinking-flask, and I gave him
the formula of my Laughtite. That's a hundred and fifty thousand dollars
in his vest-pocket, on the lowest count, if he has the knowledge to use
it. No, I didn't tell him the money-value. He was English. He'd send his
valet to find out.
"Well, me and Adrian and a crowd of dam Dutchmen was sent down the road to
Cape Town in first-class carriages under escort. (What did I think of your
enlisted men? They are largely different from ours, Sir: very largely.) As
I was saying, we slid down south, with Adrian looking out of the car-
window and crying. Dutchmen cry mighty easy for a breed that fights as
they do; but I never understood how a Dutchman could curse till we crossed
into the Orange Free State Colony, and he lifted up his hand and cursed
Steyn for a solid ten minutes. Then we got into the Colony, and the rebs--
ministers mostly and schoolmasters--came round the cars with fruit and
sympathy and texts. Van Zyl talked to 'em in Dutch, and one man, a big
red-bearded minister, at Beaufort West, I remember, he jest wilted on the
platform.
"'Keep your prayers for yourself,' says Van Zyl, throwing back a bunch of
grapes. 'You'll need 'em, and you'll need the fruit too, when the war
comes down here. _You_ done it,' he says. 'You and your picayune Church
that's deader than Cronje's dead horses! What sort of a God have you been
unloading on us, you black _aas vogels_? The British came, and we beat
'em,' he says, 'and you sat still and prayed. The British beat us, and you
sat still,' he says. 'You told us to hang on, and we hung on, and our
farms was burned, and you sat still--you and your God. See here,' he says,
'I shot my Bible full of bullets after Bloemfontein went, and you and God
didn't say anything. Take it and pray over it before we Federals help the
British to knock hell out of you rebels.'
"Then I hauled him back into the car. I judged he'd had a fit. But life's
curious--and sudden--and mixed. I hadn't any more use for a reb than Van
Zyl, and I knew something of the lies they'd fed us up with from the
Colony for a year and more. I told the minister to pull his freight out of
that, and went on with my lunch, when another man come along and shook
hands with Van Zyl. He'd known him at close range in the Kimberley seige
and before. Van Zyl was well seen by his neighbours, I judge. As soon as
this other man opened his mouth I said, 'You're Kentucky, ain't you?' 'I
am,' he says; 'and what may you be?' I told him right off, for I was
pleased to hear good United States in any man's mouth; but he whipped his
hands behind him and said, 'I'm not knowing any man that fights for a
Tammany Dutchman. But I presoom you've been well paid, you dam gun-runnin'
Yank.'
"Well, Sir, I wasn't looking for that, and it near knocked me over, while
old man Van Zyl started in to explain.
"'Don't you waste your breath, Mister Van Zyl,' the man says. 'I know this
breed. The South's full of 'em.' Then he whirls round on me and says,
'Look at here, you Yank. A little thing like a King's neither here nor
there, but what _you've_ done,' he says, 'is to go back on the White Man
in six places at once--two hemispheres and four continents--America,
England, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, and South Africa. Don't open your
head,' he says. 'You know well if you'd been caught at this game in our
country you'd have been jiggling in the bight of a lariat before you could
reach for your naturalisation papers. Go on and prosper,' he says, 'and
you'll fetch up by fighting for niggers, as the North did.' And he threw
me half-a-crown--English money.
"Sir, I do not regard the proposition in that light, but I guess I must
have been somewhat shook by the explosion. They told me at Cape Town one
rib was driven in on to my lungs. I am not adducing this as an excuse, but
the cold God's truth of the matter is--the money on the floor did it.... I
give up and cried. Put my head down and cried.
"I dream about this still sometimes. He didn't know the circumstances, but
I dream about it. And it's Hell!
"How do you regard the proposition--as a Brother? If you'd invented your
own gun, and spent fifty-seven thousand dollars on her--and had paid your
own expenses from the word 'go'? An American citizen has a right to choose
his own side in an unpleasantness, and Van Zyl wasn't any Krugerite ...
and I'd risked my hide at my own expense. I got that man's address from
Van Zyl; he was a mining man at Kimberley, and I wrote him the facts. But
he never answered. Guess he thought I lied.... Damned Southern rebel!
"Oh, say. Did I tell you my Captain gave me a letter to an English Lord in
Cape Town, and he fixed things so's I could lie up a piece in his house? I
was pretty sick, and threw up some blood from where the rib had gouged
into the lung--here. This Lord was a crank on guns, and he took charge of
the Zigler. He had his knife into the British system as much as any
American. He said he wanted revolution, and not reform, in your army. He
said the British soldier had failed in every point except courage. He said
England needed a Monroe Doctrine worse than America--a new doctrine,
barring out all the Continent, and strictly devoting herself to developing
her own Colonies. He said he'd abolish half the Foreign Office, and take
all the old hereditary families clean out of it, because, he said, they
was expressly trained to fool around with continental diplomats, and to
despise the Colonies. His own family wasn't more than six hundred years
old. He was a very brainy man, and a good citizen. We talked politics and
inventions together when my lung let up on me.
"Did he know my General? Yes. He knew 'em all. Called 'em Teddie and
Gussie and Willie. They was all of the very best, and all his dearest
friends; but he told me confidentially they was none of 'em fit to command
a column in the field. He said they were too fond of advertising. Generals
don't seem very different from actors or doctors or--yes, Sir--inventors.
"He fixed things for me lovelily at Simons-Town. Had the biggest sort of
pull--even for a Lord. At first they treated me as a harmless lunatic; but
after a while I got 'em to let me keep some of their books. If I was left
alone in the world with the British system of bookkeeping, I'd reconstruct
the whole British Empire--beginning with the Army. Yes, I'm one of their
most trusted accountants, and I'm paid for it. As much as a dollar a day.
I keep that. I've earned it, and I deduct it from the cost of my board.
When the war's over I'm going to pay up the balance to the British
Government. Yes, Sir, that's how I regard the proposition.
"Adrian? Oh, he left for Umballa four months back. He told me he was going
to apply to join the National Scouts if the war didn't end in a year.
'Tisn't in nature for one Dutchman to shoot another, but if Adrian ever
meets up with Steyn there'll be an exception to the rule. Ye--es, when the
war's over it'll take some of the British Army to protect Steyn from his
fellow-patriots. But the war won't be over yet awhile. He that believeth
don't hurry, as Isaiah says. The ministers and the school-teachers and the
rebs'll have a war all to themselves long after the north is quiet.
"I'm pleased with this country--it's big. Not so many folk on the ground
as in America. There's a boom coming sure. I've talked it over with
Adrian, and I guess I shall buy a farm somewhere near Bloemfontein and
start in cattle-raising. It's big and peaceful--a ten-thousand-acre farm.
I could go on inventing there, too. I'll sell my Zigler, I guess. I'll
offer the patent rights to the British Government; and if they do the
'reelly-now-how-interesting' act over her, I'll turn her over to Captain
Mankeltow and his friend the Lord. They'll pretty quick find some Gussie,
or Teddie, or Algie who can get her accepted in the proper quarters. I'm
beginning to know my English.
"And now I'll go in swimming, and read the papers after lunch. I haven't
had such a good time since Willie died." He pulled the blue shirt over his
head as the bathers returned to their piles of clothing, and, speaking
through the folds, added:
"But if you want to realise your assets, you should lease the whole
proposition to America for ninety-nine years."
THE BONDS OF DISCIPLINE
POSEIDON'S LAW
When the robust and brass-bound man commissioned first for sea
His fragile raft, Poseidon laughed, and, "Mariner," said he,
"Behold, a Law immutable I lay on thee and thine,
That never shall ye act or tell a falsehood at my shrine.
"Let Zeus adjudge your landward kin, whose votive meal and salt
At easy-cheated altars win oblivion for the fault,
But ye the unhoodwinked waves shall test--the immediate gulfs condemn--
Unless ye owe the Fates a jest, be slow to jest with them.
"Ye shall not clear by Greekly speech, nor cozen from your path
The twinkling shoal, the leeward beach, and Hadria's white-lipped wrath;
Nor tempt with painted cloth for wood my fraud-avenging hosts;
Nor make at all or all make good your bulwarks and your boasts.
"Now and henceforward serve unshod through wet and wakeful shifts,
A present and oppressive God, but take, to aid, my gifts--
The wide and windward-opened eye, the large and lavish hand,
The soul that cannot tell a lie--except upon the land!"
In dromond and in catafract--wet, wakeful, windward-eyed--
He kept Poseidon's Law intact (his ship and freight beside),
But, once discharged the dromond's hold, the bireme beached once more,
Splendaciously mendacious rolled the brass-bound man ashore.
* * * * *
The thranite now and thalamite are pressures low and high,
And where three hundred blades bit white the twin-propellers ply:
The God that hailed, the keel that sailed, are changed beyond recall,
But the robust and brass-bound man he is not changed at all!
From Punt returned, from Phormio's Fleet, from Javan and Gadire,
He strongly occupies the seat about the tavern fire,
And, moist with much Falernian or smoked Massilian juice,
Revenges there the brass-bound man his long-enforced truce!
THE BONDS OF DISCIPLINE
As literature, it is beneath contempt. It concerns the endurance,
armament, turning-circle, and inner gear of every ship in the British
Navy--the whole embellished with profile plates. The Teuton approaches
the matter with pagan thoroughness; the Muscovite runs him close; but the
Gaul, ever an artist, breaks enclosure to study the morale, at the present
day, of the British sailorman.
In this, I conceive, he is from time to time aided by the zealous amateur,
though I find very little in his dispositions to show that he relies on
that amateur's hard-won information. There exists--unlike some other
publication, it is not bound in lead boards--a work by one "M. de C.,"
based on the absolutely unadorned performances of one of our well-known
_Acolyte_ type of cruisers. It contains nothing that did not happen. It
covers a period of two days; runs to twenty-seven pages of large type
exclusive of appendices; and carries as many exclamation points as the
average Dumas novel.
I read it with care, from the adorably finished prologue--it is the
disgrace of our Navy that we cannot produce a commissioned officer capable
of writing one page of lyric prose--to the eloquent, the joyful, the
impassioned end; and my first notion was that I had been cheated. In this
sort of book-collecting you will see how entirely the bibliophile lies at
the mercy of his agent.
"M. de C.," I read, opened his campaign by stowing away in one of her
boats what time H.M.S. _Archimandrite_ lay off Funchal. "M. de C." was,
always on behalf of his country, a Madeira Portuguese fleeing from the
conscription. They discovered him eighty miles at sea and bade him assist
the cook. So far this seemed fairly reasonable. Next day, thanks to his
histrionic powers and his ingratiating address, he was promoted to the
rank of "supernumerary captain's servant"--a "post which," I give his
words, "I flatter myself, was created for me alone, and furnished me with
opportunities unequalled for a task in which one word malapropos would
have been my destruction."
From this point onward, earth and water between them held no marvels like
to those "M. de C." had "envisaged"--if I translate him correctly. It
became clear to me that "M. de C." was either a pyramidal liar, or...
I was not acquainted with any officer, seaman, or marine in the
_Archimandrite_; but instinct told me I could not go far wrong if I took a
third-class ticket to Plymouth.
I gathered information on the way from a leading stoker, two seaman-
gunners, and an odd hand in a torpedo factory. They courteously set my
feet on the right path, and that led me through the alleys of Devonport to
a public-house not fifty yards from the water. We drank with the
proprietor, a huge, yellowish man called Tom Wessels; and when my guides
had departed, I asked if he could produce any warrant or petty officer of
the _Archimandrite_.
"The _Bedlamite_, d'you mean--'er last commission, when they all went
crazy?"
"Shouldn't wonder," I replied. "Fetch me a sample and I'll see."
"You'll excuse me, o' course, but--what d'you want 'im _for?_"
"I want to make him drunk. I want to make you drunk--if you like. I want
to make him drunk here."
"Spoke very 'andsome. I'll do what I can." He went out towards the water
that lapped at the foot of the street. I gathered from the pot-boy that he
was a person of influence beyond Admirals.
In a few minutes I heard the noise of an advancing crowd, and the voice of
Mr. Wessels.
"'E only wants to make you drunk at 'is expense. Dessay 'e'll stand you
all a drink. Come up an' look at 'im. 'E don't bite."
A square man, with remarkable eyes, entered at the head of six large
bluejackets. Behind them gathered a contingent of hopeful free-drinkers.
"'E's the only one I could get. Transferred to the _Postulant_ six months
back. I found 'im quite accidental." Mr. Wessels beamed.
"I'm in charge o' the cutter. Our wardroom is dinin' on the beach _en
masse_. They won't be home till mornin'," said the square man with the
remarkable eyes. "Are you an _Archimandrite?_" I demanded.
"That's me. I was, as you might say."
"Hold on. I'm a _Archimandrite._" A Red Marine with moist eyes tried to
climb on the table. "Was you lookin' for a _Bedlamite?_ I've--I've been
invalided, an' what with that, an' visitin' my family 'ome at Lewes,
per'aps I've come late. 'Ave I?"
"You've 'ad all that's good for you," said Tom Wessels, as the Red Marine
sat cross-legged on the floor.
"There are those 'oo haven't 'ad a thing yet!" cried a voice by the door.
"I will take this _Archimandrite_" I said, "and this Marine. Will you
please give the boat's crew a drink now, and another in half an hour if--
if Mr.----"
"Pyecroft," said the square man. "Emanuel Pyecroft, second-class petty-
officer."
"--Mr. Pyecroft doesn't object?"
"He don't. Clear out. Goldin', you picket the hill by yourself, throwin'
out a skirmishin'-line in ample time to let me know when Number One's
comin' down from his vittles."
The crowd dissolved. We passed into the quiet of the inner bar, the Red
Marine zealously leading the way.
"And what do you drink, Mr. Pyecroft?" I said.
"Only water. Warm water, with a little whisky an' sugar an' per'aps a
lemon."
"Mine's beer," said the Marine. "It always was."
"Look 'ere, Glass. You take an' go to sleep. The picket'll be comin' for
you in a little time, an' per'aps you'll 'ave slep' it off by then. What's
your ship, now?" said Mr. Wessels.
"The Ship o' State--most important?" said the Red Marine magnificently,
and shut his eyes.
"That's right," said Mr. Pyecroft. "He's safest where he is. An' now--
here's santy to us all!--what d'you want o' me?"
"I want to read you something."
"Tracts, again!" said the Marine, never opening his eyes. "Well. I'm
game.... A little more 'ead to it, miss, please."
"He thinks 'e's drinkin'--lucky beggar!" said Mr. Pyecroft. "I'm agreeable
to be read to. 'Twon't alter my convictions. I may as well tell you
beforehand I'm a Plymouth Brother."
He composed his face with the air of one in the dentist's chair, and I
began at the third page of "M. de C."
"'_At the moment of asphyxiation, for I had hidden myself under the boat's
cover, I heard footsteps upon the superstructure and coughed with
empress_'--coughed loudly, Mr. Pyecroft. '_By this time I judged the
vessel to be sufficiently far from land. A number of sailors extricated me
amid language appropriate to their national brutality. I responded that I
named myself Antonio, and that I sought to save myself from the Portuguese
conscription_.'
"Ho!" said Mr. Pyecroft, and the fashion of his countenance changed. Then
pensively: "Ther beggar! What might you have in your hand there?"
"It's the story of Antonio--a stowaway in the _Archimandrite's_ cutter. A
French spy when he's at home, I fancy. What do _you_ know about it?"
"An' I thought it was tracts! An' yet some'ow I didn't." Mr. Pyecroft
nodded his head wonderingly. "Our old man was quite right--so was 'Op--so
was I. 'Ere, Glass!" He kicked the Marine. "Here's our Antonio 'as written
a impromptu book! He _was_ a spy all right."
The Red Marine turned slightly, speaking with the awful precision of the
half-drunk. "'As 'e got any-thin' in about my 'orrible death an'
execution? Ex_cuse_ me, but if I open my eyes, I shan't be well. That's
where I'm different from _all_ other men. Ahem!"
"What about Glass's execution?" demanded Pyecroft.
"The book's in French," I replied.
"Then it's no good to me."
"Precisely. Now I want you to tell your story just as it happened. I'll
check it by this book. Take a cigar. I know about his being dragged out of
the cutter. What I want to know is what was the meaning of all the other
things, because they're unusual."
"They were," said Mr. Pyecroft with emphasis. "Lookin' back on it as I set
here more an' more I see what an 'ighly unusual affair it was. But it
happened. It transpired in the _Archimandrite_--the ship you can trust...
Antonio! Ther beggar!"
"Take your time, Mr. Pyecroft."
In a few moments we came to it thus--
"The old man was displeased. I don't deny he was quite a little
displeased. With the mail-boats trottin' into Madeira every twenty
minutes, he didn't see why a lop-eared Portugee had to take liberties with
a man-o'-war's first cutter. Any'ow, we couldn't turn ship round for him.
We drew him out and took him out to Number One. 'Drown 'im,' 'e says.
'Drown 'im before 'e dirties my fine new decks.' But our owner was
tenderhearted. 'Take him to the galley,' 'e says. 'Boil 'im! Skin 'im!
Cook 'im! Cut 'is bloomin' hair? Take 'is bloomin' number! We'll have him
executed at Ascension.'
"Retallick, our chief cook, an' a Carth'lic, was the on'y one any way near
grateful; bein' short-'anded in the galley. He annexes the blighter by the
left ear an' right foot an' sets him to work peelin' potatoes. So then,
this Antonio that was avoidin' the conscription--"
"_Sub_scription, you pink-eyed matlow!" said the Marine, with the face of
a stone Buddha, and whimpered sadly: "Pye don't see any fun in it at all."
"_Con_scription--come to his illegitimate sphere in Her Majesty's Navy,
an' it was just then that Old 'Op, our Yeoman of Signals, an' a fastidious
joker, made remarks to me about 'is hands.
"'Those 'ands,' says 'Op, 'properly considered, never done a day's honest
labour in their life. Tell me those hands belong to a blighted Portugee
manual labourist and I won't call you a liar, but I'll say you an' the
Admiralty are pretty much unique in your statements.' 'Op was always a
fastidious joker--in his language as much as anything else. He pursued 'is
investigations with the eye of an 'awk outside the galley. He knew better
than to advance line-head against Retallick, so he attacked _ong eshlong_,
speakin' his remarks as much as possible into the breech of the starboard
four point seven, an' 'ummin' to 'imself. Our chief cook 'ated 'ummin'.
'What's the matter of your bowels?' he says at last, fistin' out the mess-
pork agitated like. "'Don't mind me,' says 'Op. 'I'm only a mildewed
buntin'-tosser,' 'e says: 'but speakin' for my mess, I do hope,' 'e says,
'you ain't goin' to boil your Portugee friend's boots along o' that pork
you're smellin' so gay!'
"'Boots! Boots! Boots!' says Retallick, an' he run round like a earwig in
a alder-stalk. 'Boots in the galley,' 'e says. 'Cook's mate, cast out an'
abolish this cutter-cuddlin' abori_gine's_ boots!'"
"They was hove overboard in quick time, an' that was what 'Op was lyin' to
for. As subsequently transpired.
"'Fine Arab arch to that cutter-cuddler's hinstep,' he says to me. 'Run
your eye over it, Pye,' 'e says. 'Nails all present an' correct,' 'e says.
'Bunion on the little toe, too,' 'e says; 'which comes from wearin' a
tight boot. What do _you_ think?'
"'Dook in trouble, per'aps,' I says. 'He ain't got the hang of spud-
skinnin'.' No more he 'ad. 'E was simply cannibalisin' 'em.
"'I want to know what 'e 'as got the 'ang of,' says 'Op, obstructed-like.
'Watch 'im,' 'e says. 'These shoulders were foreign-drilled somewhere.'
'"When it comes to "Down 'ammicks!" which is our naval way o' goin' to
bye-bye, I took particular trouble over Antonio, 'oo had 'is 'ammick 'ove
at 'im with general instructions to sling it an' be sugared. In the
ensuin' melly I pioneered him to the after-'atch, which is a orifice
communicatin' with the after-flat an' similar suites of apartments. He
havin' navigated at three fifths power immejit ahead o' me, _I_ wasn't
goin' to volunteer any assistance, nor he didn't need it.'
"'Mong Jew!' says 'e, sniffin' round. An' twice more 'Mong Jew!'--which is
pure French. Then he slings 'is 'ammick, nips in, an' coils down. 'Not bad
for a Portugee conscript,' I says to myself, casts off the tow, abandons
him, and reports to 'Op.
"About three minutes later I'm over'auled by our sub-lootenant, navigatin'
under forced draught, with his bearin's 'eated. 'E had the temerity to say
I'd instructed our Antonio to sling his carcass in the alleyway, an' 'e
was peevish about it. O' course, I prevaricated like 'ell. You get to do
that in the service. Nevertheless, to oblige Mr. Ducane, I went an'
readjusted Antonio. You may not 'ave ascertained that there are two ways
o' comin' out of an 'ammick when it's cut down. Antonio came out t'other
way--slidin' 'andsome to his feet. That showed me two things. First, 'e
had been in an 'ammick before, an' next, he hadn't been asleep. Then I
reproached 'im for goin' to bed where 'e'd been told to go, instead o'
standin' by till some one gave him entirely contradictory orders. Which is
the essence o' naval discipline.
"In the middle o' this argument the gunner protrudes his ram-bow from 'is
cabin, an' brings it all to an 'urried conclusion with some remarks
suitable to 'is piebald warrant-rank. Navigatin' thence under easy steam,
an' leavin' Antonio to re-sling his little foreign self, my large flat
foot comes in detonatin' contact with a small objec' on the deck. Not
'altin' for the obstacle, nor changin' step, I shuffles it along under the
ball of the big toe to the foot o' the hatchway, when, lightly stoopin', I
catch it in my right hand and continue my evolutions in rapid time till I
eventuates under 'Op's lee.
"It was a small moroccer-bound pocket-book, full of indelible pencil-
writin'--in French, for I could plainly discern the _doodeladays_, which
is about as far as my education runs.
"'Op fists it open and peruses. 'E'd known an 'arf-caste Frenchwoman
pretty intricate before he was married; when he was trained man in a
stinkin' gunboat up the Saigon River. He understood a lot o' French--
domestic brands chiefly--the kind that isn't in print.
"'Pye,' he says to me, 'you're a tattician o' no mean value. I am a trifle
shady about the precise bearin' an' import' o' this beggar's private log
here,' 'e says, 'but it's evidently a case for the owner. You'll 'ave your
share o' the credit,' 'e says.
"'Nay, nay, Pauline,' I says, 'You don't catch Emanuel Pyecroft mine-
droppin' under any post-captain's bows,' I says, 'in search of honour,' I
says. 'I've been there oft.'
"'Well, if you must, you must,' 'e says, takin' me up quick. 'But I'll
speak a good word for you, Pye.'
"'You'll shut your mouth, 'Op,' I says, 'or you an' me'll part brass-rags.
The owner has his duties, an' I have mine. We will keep station,' I says,
'nor seek to deviate.'
"'Deviate to blazes!' says 'Op. 'I'm goin' to deviate to the owner's
comfortable cabin direct.' So he deviated."
Mr. Pyecroft leaned forward and dealt the Marine a large pattern Navy
kick. "'Ere, Glass! You was sentry when 'Op went to the old man--the first
time, with Antonio's washin'-book. Tell us what transpired. You're sober.
You don't know how sober you are!"
The Marine cautiously raised his head a few inches. As Mr. Pyecroft said,
he was sober--after some R.M.L.I. fashion of his own devising. "'Op bounds
in like a startled anteloper, carryin' 'is signal-slate at the ready. The
old man was settin' down to 'is bountiful platter--not like you an' me,
without anythin' more in sight for an 'ole night an' 'arf a day. Talkin'
about food--"
"No! No! No!" cried Pyecroft, kicking again. "What about 'Op?" I thought
the Marine's ribs would have snapped, but he merely hiccuped.
"Oh, 'im! 'E 'ad it written all down on 'is little slate--I think--an' 'e
shoves it under the old man's nose. 'Shut the door,' says 'Op. 'For
'Eavin's sake shut the cabin door!' Then the old man must ha' said
somethin' 'bout irons. 'I'll put 'em on, Sir, in your very presence,' says
'Op, 'only 'ear my prayer,' or--words to that 'fect.... It was jus' the
same with me when I called our Sergeant a bladder-bellied, lard-'eaded,
perspirin' pension-cheater. They on'y put on the charge-sheet 'words to
that effect,' Spoiled the 'ole 'fect."
"'Op! 'Op! 'Op! What about 'Op?" thundered Pyecroft.
"'Op? Oh, shame thing. Words t' that 'fect. Door shut. Nushin' more
transphired till 'Op comes out--nose exshtreme angle plungin' fire or--or
words 'that effect. Proud's parrot. 'Oh, you prou' old parrot,' I says."
Mr. Glass seemed to slumber again.
"Lord! How a little moisture disintegrates, don't it? When we had ship's
theatricals off Vigo, Glass 'ere played Dick Deadeye to the moral, though
of course the lower deck wasn't pleased to see a leatherneck interpretin'
a strictly maritime part, as you might say. It's only his repartees, which
'e can't contain, that conquers him. Shall I resume my narrative?"
Another drink was brought on this hint, and Mr. Pyecroft resumed.
"The essence o' strategy bein' forethought, the essence o' tattics is
surprise. Per'aps you didn't know that? My forethought 'avin' secured the
initial advantage in attack, it remained for the old man to ladle out the
surprise-packets. 'Eavens! What surprises! That night he dines with the
wardroom, bein' of the kind--I've told you as we were a 'appy ship?--that
likes it, and the wardroom liked it too. This ain't common in the service.
They had up the new Madeira--awful undisciplined stuff which gives you a
cordite mouth next morning. They told the mess-men to navigate towards the
extreme an' remote 'orizon, an' they abrogated the sentry about fifteen
paces out of earshot. Then they had in the Gunner, the Bo'sun, an' the
Carpenter, an' stood them large round drinks. It all come out later--
wardroom joints bein' lower-deck hash, as the sayin' is--that our Number
One stuck to it that 'e couldn't trust the ship for the job. The old man
swore 'e could, 'avin' commanded 'er over two years. He was right. There
wasn't a ship, I don't care in what fleet, could come near the
_Archimandrites_ when we give our mind to a thing. We held the cruiser
big-gun records, the sailing-cutter (fancy-rig) championship, an' the
challenge-cup row round the fleet. We 'ad the best nigger-minstrels, the
best football an' cricket teams, an' the best squee-jee band of anything
that ever pushed in front of a brace o' screws. An' _yet_ our Number One
mistrusted us! 'E said we'd be a floatin' hell in a week, an' it 'ud take
the rest o' the commission to stop our way. They was arguin' it in the
wardroom when the bridge reports a light three points off the port bow. We
overtakes her, switches on our search-light, an' she discloses herself as
a collier o' no mean reputation, makin' about seven knots on 'er lawful
occasions--to the Cape most like.
"Then the owner--so we 'eard in good time--broke the boom, springin' all
mines together at close interval.
"'Look 'ere, my jokers,' 'e says (I'm givin' the grist of 'is arguments,
remember), 'Number One says we can't enlighten this cutter-cuddlin Gaulish
lootenant on the manners an' customs o' the Navy without makin' the ship a
market-garden. There's a lot in that,' 'e says, 'specially if we kept it
up lavish, till we reached Ascension. But,' 'e says, 'the appearance o'
this strange sail has put a totally new aspect on the game. We can run to
just one day's amusement for our friend, or else what's the good o'
discipline? An' then we can turn 'im over to our presumably short-'anded
fellow-subject in the small-coal line out yonder. He'll be pleased,' says
the old man, 'an' so will Antonio. M'rover,' he says to Number One, 'I'll
lay you a dozen o' liquorice an' ink'--it must ha' been that new tawny
port--'that I've got a ship I can trust--for one day,' 'e says.
'Wherefore,' he says, 'will you have the extreme goodness to reduce speed
as requisite for keepin' a proper distance behind this providential tramp
till further orders?' Now, that's what I call tattics.
"The other manoeuvres developed next day, strictly in accordance with the
plans as laid down in the wardroom, where they sat long an' steady. 'Op
whispers to me that Antonio was a Number One spy when 'e was in
commission, and a French lootenant when 'e was paid off, so I navigated at
three 'undred and ninety six revolutions to the galley, never 'avin'
kicked a lootenant up to date. I may as well say that I did not manoeuvre
against 'im as a Frenchman, because I like Frenchmen, but stric'ly on 'is
rank an' ratin' in 'is own navy. I inquired after 'is health from
Retallick.
"'Don't ask me,' 'e says, sneerin' be'ind his silver spectacles. ''E's
promoted to be captain's second supernumerary servant, to be dressed and
addressed as such. If 'e does 'is dooties same as he skinned the spuds,
_I_ ain't for changin' with the old man.'
"In the balmy dawnin' it was given out, all among the 'olystones, by our
sub-lootenant, who was a three-way-discharge devil, that all orders after
eight bells was to be executed in inverse ration to the cube o' the
velocity. 'The reg'lar routine,' he says, 'was arrogated for reasons o'
state an' policy, an' any flat-foot who presumed to exhibit surprise,
annoyance, or amusement, would be slightly but firmly reproached.' Then
the Gunner mops up a heathenish large detail for some hanky-panky in the
magazines, an' led 'em off along with our Gunnery Jack, which is to say,
our Gunnery Lootenant.
"That put us on the _viva voce_--particularly when we understood how the
owner was navigatin' abroad in his sword-belt trustin' us like brothers.
We shifts into the dress o' the day, an' we musters _an'_ we prays _ong
reggle_, an' we carries on anticipatory to bafflin' Antonio.
"Then our Sergeant of Marines come to me wringin' his 'ands an' weepin'.
'E'd been talkin' to the sub-lootenant, an' it looked like as if his
upper-works were collapsin'.
"'I want a guarantee,' 'e says, wringin' 'is 'ands like this. '_I_ 'aven't
'ad sunstroke slave-dhowin' in Tajurrah Bay, an' been compelled to live on
quinine an' chlorodyne ever since. _I_ don't get the horrors off glasses
o' brown sherry.'
"'What 'ave you got now?' I says.
"'_I_ ain't an officer,' 'e says. '_My_ sword won't be handed back to me
at the end o' the court-martial on account o' my little weaknesses, an' no
stain on my character. I'm only a pore beggar of a Red Marine with
eighteen years' service, an' why for,' says he, wringin' 'is hands like
this all the time, 'must I chuck away my pension, sub-lootenant or no
sub-lootenant? Look at 'em,' he says, 'only look at 'em. Marines fallin'
in for small-arm drill!'
"The leathernecks was layin' aft at the double, an' a more insanitary set
of accidents I never wish to behold. Most of 'em was in their shirts. They
had their trousers on, of course--rolled up nearly to the knee, but what I
mean is belts over shirts. Three or four 'ad _our_ caps, an' them that had
drawn helmets wore their chin-straps like Portugee earrings. Oh, yes; an'
three of 'em 'ad only one boot! I knew what our bafflin' tattics was goin'
to be, but even I was mildly surprised when this gay fantasia of Brazee
drummers halted under the poop, because of an 'ammick in charge of our
Navigator, an' a small but 'ighly efficient landin'-party.
"''Ard astern both screws!' says the Navigator. 'Room for the captain's
'ammick!' The captain's servant--Cockburn 'is name was--had one end, an'
our newly promoted Antonio, in a blue slop rig, 'ad the other. They slung
it from the muzzle of the port poop quick-firer thort-ships to a
stanchion. Then the old man flickered up, smokin' a cigarette, an' brought
'is stern to an anchor slow an' oriental.
"'What a blessin' it is, Mr. Ducane,' 'e says to our sub-lootenant, 'to be
out o' sight o' the 'ole pack o' blighted admirals! What's an admiral
after all?' 'e says. 'Why, 'e's only a post-captain with the pip, Mr.
Ducane. The drill will now proceed. What O! Antonio, _descendez_ an' get
me a split.'
"When Antonio came back with the whisky-an'-soda, he was told off to swing
the 'ammick in slow time, an' that massacritin' small-arm party went on
with their oratorio. The Sergeant had been kindly excused from
participating an' he was jumpin' round on the poop-ladder, stretchin' 'is
leather neck to see the disgustin' exhibition an' cluckin' like a ash-
hoist. A lot of us went on the fore an' aft bridge an' watched 'em like
'Listen to the Band in the Park.' All these evolutions, I may as well tell
you, are highly unusual in the Navy. After ten minutes o' muckin' about,
Glass 'ere--pity 'e's so drunk!--says that 'e'd had enough exercise for
'is simple needs an' he wants to go 'ome. Mr. Ducane catches him a
sanakatowzer of a smite over the 'ead with the flat of his sword. Down
comes Glass's rifle with language to correspond, and he fiddles with the
bolt. Up jumps Maclean--'oo was a Gosport 'ighlander--an' lands on Glass's
neck, thus bringin' him to the deck, fully extended.
"The old man makes a great show o' wakin' up from sweet slumbers. 'Mistah
Ducane,' he says, 'what is this painful interregnum?' or words to that
effect. Ducane takes one step to the front, an' salutes: 'Only 'nother
case of attempted assassination, Sir,' he says.
"'Is that all?' says the old man, while Maclean sits on Glass's collar
button. 'Take him away,' 'e says, 'he knows the penalty.'"
"Ah! I suppose that is the 'invincible _morgue_ Britannic in the presence
of brutally provoked mutiny,'" I muttered, as I turned over the pages of
M. de C.
"So, Glass, 'e was led off kickin' an' squealin', an' hove down the ladder
into 'is Sergeant's volupshus arms. 'E run Glass forward, an' was all for
puttin' 'im in irons as a maniac.
"'You refill your waterjacket and cool off!' says Glass, sittin' down
rather winded. 'The trouble with you is you haven't any imagination.'
"'Haven't I? I've got the remnants of a little poor authority though,' 'e
says, lookin' pretty vicious.
"'You 'ave?' says Glass. 'Then for pity's sake 'ave some proper feelin'
too. I'm goin' to be shot this evenin'. You'll take charge o' the firin'-
party.'
"Some'ow or other, that made the Sergeant froth at the mouth. 'E 'ad no
more play to his intellects than a spit-kid. 'E just took everything as it
come. Well, that was about all, I think.... Unless you'd care to have me
resume my narrative."
We resumed on the old terms, but with rather less hot water. The marine on
the floor breathed evenly, and Mr. Pyecroft nodded.
"I may have omitted to inform you that our Number One took a general row
round the situation while the small-arm party was at work, an' o' course
he supplied the outlines; but the details we coloured in by ourselves.
These were our tattics to baffle Antonio. It occurs to the Carpenter to
'ave the steam-cutter down for repairs. 'E gets 'is cheero-party together,
an' down she comes. You've never seen a steam-cutter let down on the deck,
'ave you? It's not usual, an' she takes a lot o' humourin'. Thus we 'ave
the starboard side completely blocked an' the general traffic tricklin'
over'ead along the fore-an'-aft bridge. Then Chips gets into her an'
begins balin' out a mess o' small reckonin's on the deck. Simultaneous
there come up three o' those dirty engine-room objects which we call
'tiffies,' an' a stoker or two with orders to repair her steamin'-gadgets.
_They_ get into her an' bale out another young Christmas-treeful of small
reckonin's--brass mostly. Simultaneous it hits the Pusser that 'e'd better
serve out mess pork for the poor matlow. These things half shifted
Retallick, our chief cook, off 'is bed-plate. Yes, you might say they
broke 'im wide open. 'E wasn't at all used to 'em.
"Number One tells off five or six prime, able-bodied seamen-gunners to the
pork barrels. You never see pork fisted out of its receptacle, 'ave you?
Simultaneous, it hits the Gunner that now's the day an' now's the hour for
a non-continuous class in Maxim instruction. So they all give way
together, and the general effect was _non plus ultra_. There was the
cutter's innards spread out like a Fratton pawnbroker's shop; there was
the 'tiffies' hammerin' in the stern of 'er, an' _they_ ain't antiseptic;
there was the Maxim class in light skirmishin' order among the pork, an'
forrard the blacksmith had 'is forge in full blast, makin' 'orse-shoes, I
suppose. Well, that accounts for the starboard side. The on'y warrant
officer 'oo hadn't a look in so far was the Bosun. So 'e stated, all out
of 'is own 'ead, that Chips's reserve o' wood an' timber, which Chips 'ad
stole at our last refit, needed restowin'. It was on the port booms--a
young an' healthy forest of it, for Charley Peace wasn't to be named
'longside o' Chips for burglary.
"'All right,' says our Number One. 'You can 'ave the whole port watch if
you like. Hell's Hell,' 'e says, 'an when there study to improve.'
"Jarvis was our Bosun's name. He hunted up the 'ole of the port watch by
hand, as you might say, callin' 'em by name loud an' lovin', which is not
precisely Navy makee-pigeon. They 'ad that timber-loft off the booms, an'
they dragged it up and down like so many sweatin' little beavers. But
Jarvis was jealous o' Chips an' went round the starboard side to envy at
him.
"'Tain't enough,' 'e says, when he had climbed back. 'Chips 'as got his
bazaar lookin' like a coal-hulk in a cyclone. We must adop' more drastic
measures.' Off 'e goes to Number One and communicates with 'im. Number One
got the old man's leave, on account of our goin' so slow (we were keepin'
be'ind the tramp), to fit the ship with a full set of patent supernumerary
sails. Four trysails--yes, you might call 'em trysails--was our Admiralty
allowance in the un'eard of event of a cruiser breakin' down, but we had
our awnin's as well. They was all extricated from the various flats an'
'oles where they was stored, an' at the end o' two hours' hard work Number
One 'e made out eleven sails o' different sorts and sizes. I don't know
what exact nature of sail you'd call 'em--pyjama-stun'sles with a touch of
Sarah's shimmy, per'aps--but the riggin' of 'em an' all the supernumerary
details, as you might say, bein' carried on through an' over an' between
the cutter an' the forge an' the pork an' cleanin' guns, an' the Maxim
class an' the Bosun's calaboose _and_ the paintwork, was sublime. There's
no other word for it. Sub-lime!
"The old man keeps swimmin' up an' down through it all with the faithful
Antonio at 'is side, fetchin' him numerous splits. 'E had eight that
mornin', an' when Antonio was detached to get 'is spy-glass, or his
gloves, or his lily-white 'andkerchief, the old man man would waste 'em
down a ventilator. Antonio must ha' learned a lot about our Navy thirst."
"He did."
"Ah! Would you kindly mind turnin' to the precise page indicated an'
givin' me a _résumé_ of 'is tattics?" said Mr. Pyecroft, drinking deeply.
"I'd like to know 'ow it looked from 'is side o' the deck."
"How will this do?" I said. "'_Once clear of the land, like Voltaire's
Habakkuk_------"'
"One o' their new commerce-destroyers, I suppose," Mr. Pyecroft
interjected.
"'--_each man seemed veritably capable of all--to do according to his
will. The boats, dismantled and forlorn, are lowered upon the planking.
One cries "Aid me!" flourishing at the same time the weapons of his
business. A dozen launch themselves upon him in the orgasm of zeal
misdirected. He beats them off with the howlings of dogs. He has lost a
hammer. This ferocious outcry signifies that only. Eight men seek the
utensil, colliding on the way with some many others which, seated in the
stern of the boat, tear up and scatter upon the planking the ironwork
which impedes their brutal efforts. Elsewhere, one detaches from on high
wood, canvas, iron bolts, coal-dust--what do I know_?'"
"That's where 'e's comin' the bloomin' _onjeuew_. 'E knows a lot, reely."
"'_They descend thundering upon the planking, and the spectacle cannot
reproduce itself. In my capacity of valet to the captain, whom I have well
and beautifully plied with drink since the rising of the sun (behold me
also, Ganymede!) I pass throughout observing, it may be not a little. They
ask orders. There is none to give them. One sits upon the edge of the
vessel and chants interminably the lugubrious "Roule Britannia"--to endure
how lomg_?'"
"That was me! On'y 'twas 'A Life on the Ocean Wave'--which I hate more
than any stinkin' tune I know, havin' dragged too many nasty little guns
to it. Yes, Number One told me off to that for ten minutes; an' I ain't
musical, you might say."
"_'Then come marines, half-dressed, seeking vainly through this "tohu-
bohu_"' (that's one of his names for the _Archimandrite_, Mr. Pyecroft),
'_for a place whence they shall not be dislodged. The captain, heavy with
drink, rolls himself from his hammock. He would have his people fire the
Maxims. They demand which Maxim. That to him is equal. The breech-lock
indispensable is not there. They demand it of one who opens a barrel of
pork, for this Navy feeds at all hours. He refers them to the cook,
yesterday my master_--'"
"Yes, an' Retallick nearly had a fit. What a truthful an' observin' little
Antonio we 'ave!"
"'_It is discovered in the hands of a boy who says, and they do not rebuke
him, that he has found it by hazard_.' I'm afraid I haven't translated
quite correctly, Mr. Pyecroft, but I've done my best."
"Why, it's beautiful--you ought to be a Frenchman--you ought. You don't
want anything o' _me_. You've got it all there."
"Yes, but I like your side of it. For instance. Here's a little thing I
can't quite see the end of. Listen! '_Of the domain which Britannia rules
by sufferance, my gross captain, knew nothing, and his Navigator, if
possible, less. From the bestial recriminations and the indeterminate
chaos of the grand deck, I ascended--always with a whisky-and-soda in my
hands--to a scene truly grotesque. Behold my captain in plain sea, at
issue with his Navigator! A crisis of nerves due to the enormous quantity
of alcohol which he had swallowed up to then, has filled for him the ocean
with dangers, imaginary and fantastic. Incapable of judgment, menaced by
the phantasms of his brain inflamed, he envisages islands perhaps of the
Hesperides beneath his keel--vigias innumerable.'_ I don't know what a
vigia is, Mr. Pyecroft. _'He creates shoals sad and far-reaching of the
mid-Atlantic!'_ What was that, now?"
"Oh, I see! That come after dinner, when our Navigator threw 'is cap down
an' danced on it. Danby was quartermaster. They 'ad a tea-party on the
bridge. It was the old man's contribution. Does he say anything about the
leadsmen?"
"Is this it? _'Overborne by his superior's causeless suspicion, the
Navigator took off the badges of his rank and cast them at the feet of my
captain and sobbed. A disgusting and maudlin reconciliation followed. The
argument renewed itself, each grasping the wheel, crapulous'_ (that means
drunk, I think, Mr. Pyecroft), _'shouting. It appeared that my captain
would chenaler'_ (I don't know what that means, Mr. Pyecroft) _'to the
Cape. At the end, he placed a sailor with the sound'_ (that's the lead, I
think) _'in his hand, garnished with suet.'_ Was it garnished with suet?"
"He put two leadsmen in the chains, o' course! He didn't know that there
mightn't be shoals there, 'e said. Morgan went an' armed his lead, to
enter into the spirit o' the thing. They 'eaved it for twenty minutes, but
there wasn't any suet--only tallow, o' course."
"'_Garnished with suet at two thousand metres of profundity. Decidedly the
Britannic Navy is well guarded_.' Well, that's all right, Mr. Pyecroft.
Would you mind telling me anything else of interest that happened?"
"There was a good deal, one way an' another. I'd like to know what this
Antonio thought of our sails."
"He merely says that '_the engines having broken down, an officer
extemporised a mournful and useless parody of sails_.' Oh, yes! he says
that some of them looked like '_bonnets in a needlecase_,' I think."
"Bonnets in a needlecase! They were stun'sles. That shows the beggar's no
sailor. That trick was really the one thing we did. Pho! I thought he was
a sailorman, an' 'e hasn't sense enough to see what extemporisin' eleven
good an' drawin' sails out o' four trys'les an' a few awnin's means. 'E
must have been drunk!"
"Never mind, Mr. Pyecroft. I want to hear about your target-practice, and
the execution."
"Oh! We had a special target-practice that afternoon all for Antonio. As I
told my crew--me bein' captain of the port-bow quick-firer, though I'm a
torpedo man now--it just showed how you can work your gun under any
discomforts. A shell--twenty six-inch shells--burstin' inboard couldn't
'ave begun to make the varicose collection o' tit-bits which we had
spilled on our deck. It was a lather--a rich, creamy lather!
"We took it very easy--that gun-practice. We did it in a complimentary
'Jenny-'ave-another-cup-o' tea' style, an' the crew was strictly ordered
not to rupture 'emselves with unnecessary exertion. This isn't our custom
in the Navy when we're _in puris naturalibus_, as you might say. But we
wasn't so then. We was impromptu. An' Antonio was busy fetchin' splits for
the old man, and the old man was wastin' 'em down the ventilators. There
must 'ave been four inches in the bilges, I should think--wardroom whisky-
an'-soda.
"Then I thought I might as well bear a hand as look pretty. So I let my
_bundoop_ go at fifteen 'undred--sightin' very particular. There was a
sort of 'appy little belch like--no more, I give you my word--an' the
shell trundled out maybe fifty feet an' dropped into the deep Atlantic.
"'Government powder, Sir!' sings out our Gunnery Jack to the bridge,
laughin' horrid sarcastic; an' then, of course, we all laughs, which we
are not encouraged to do _in puris naturalibus_. Then, of course, I saw
what our Gunnery Jack 'ad been after with his subcutaneous details in the
magazines all the mornin' watch. He had redooced the charges to a minimum,
as you might say. But it made me feel a trifle faint an' sickish
notwithstanding this spit-in-the-eye business. Every time such transpired,
our Gunnery Lootenant would say somethin' sarcastic about Government
stores, an' the old man fair howled. 'Op was on the bridge with 'im, an'
'e told me--'cause 'e's a free-knowledgeist an' reads character--that
Antonio's face was sweatin' with pure joy. 'Op wanted to kick him. Does
Antonio say anything about that?"
"Not about the kicking, but he is great on the gun-practice, Mr. Pyecroft.
He has put all the results into a sort of appendix--a table of shots. He
says that the figures will speak more eloquently than words."
"What? Nothin' about the way the crews flinched an' hopped? Nothin' about
the little shells rumblin' out o' the guns so casual?"
"There are a few pages of notes, but they only bear out what you say. He
says that these things always happen as soon as one of our ships is out of
sight of land. Oh, yes! I've forgotten. He says, _'From the conversation
of my captain with his inferiors I gathered that no small proportion of
the expense of these nominally efficient cartridges finds itself in his
pockets. So much, indeed, was signified by an officer on the deck below,
who cried in a high voice: "I hope, Sir, you are making something out of
it. It is rather monotonous." This insult, so flagrant, albeit well-
merited, was received with a smile of drunken bonhommy'_--that's
cheerfulness, Mr. Pyecroft. Your glass is empty."
"Resumin' afresh," said Mr. Pyecroft, after a well-watered interval, "I
may as well say that the target-practice occupied us two hours, and then
we had to dig out after the tramp. Then we half an' three-quarters cleaned
up the decks an' mucked about as requisite, haulin' down the patent awnin'
stun'sles which Number One 'ad made. The old man was a shade doubtful of
his course, 'cause I 'eard him say to Number One, 'You were right. A week
o' this would turn the ship into a Hayti bean-feast. But,' he says
pathetic, 'haven't they backed the band noble?'
"'Oh! it's a picnic for them,' says Number One.
"'But when do we get rid o' this whisky-peddlin' blighter o' yours, Sir?'
"'That's a cheerful way to speak of a Viscount,' says the old man. "E's
the bluest blood o' France when he's at home,'
"'Which is the precise landfall I wish 'im to make,' says Number One.'
It'll take all 'ands and the Captain of the Head to clean up after 'im.'
"'They won't grudge it,' says the old man. 'Just as soon as it's dusk
we'll overhaul our tramp friend an' waft him over,'
"Then a sno--midshipman--Moorshed was is name--come up an' says somethin'
in a low voice. It fetches the old man.
"'You'll oblige me,' 'e says, 'by takin' the wardroom poultry for _that_.
I've ear-marked every fowl we've shipped at Madeira, so there can't be any
possible mistake. M'rover,' 'e says, 'tell 'em if they spill one drop of
blood on the deck,' he says, 'they'll not be extenuated, but hung.'
"Mr. Moorshed goes forward, lookin' unusual 'appy, even for him. The
Marines was enjoyin' a committee-meetin' in their own flat.
"After that, it fell dark, with just a little streaky, oily light on the
sea--an' any thin' more chronic than the _Archimandrite_ I'd trouble you
to behold. She looked like a fancy bazaar and a auction-room--yes, she
almost looked like a passenger-steamer. We'd picked up our tramp, an' was
about four mile be'ind 'er. I noticed the wardroom as a class, you might
say, was manoeuvrin' _en masse_, an' then come the order to cockbill the
yards. We hadn't any yards except a couple o' signallin' sticks, but we
cock-billed 'em. I hadn't seen that sight, not since thirteen years in the
West Indies, when a post-captain died o' yellow jack. It means a sign o'
mourning the yards bein' canted opposite ways, to look drunk an'
disorderly. They do.
"'An' what might our last giddy-go-round signify?' I asks of 'Op.
"'Good 'Evins!' 'e says, 'Are you in that habit o' permittin' leathernecks
to assassinate lootenants every morning at drill without immejitly 'avin'
'em shot on the foc'sle in the horrid crawly-crawly twilight?'"
"'Yes,' I murmured over my dear book, '_the infinitely lugubrious
crepuscule. A spectacle of barbarity unparalleled--hideous--cold-blooded,
and yet touched with appalling grandeur_.'"
"Ho! Was that the way Antonio looked at it? That shows he 'ad feelin's. To
resoom. Without anyone givin' us orders to that effect, we began to creep
about an' whisper. Things got stiller and stiller, till they was as still
as--mushrooms! Then the bugler let off the 'Dead March' from the upper
bridge. He done it to cover the remarks of a cock-bird bein' killed
forrard, but it came out paralysin' in its _tout ensemble_. You never
heard the 'Dead March' on a bugle? Then the pipes went twitterin' for both
watches to attend public execution, an' we came up like so many ghosts,
the 'ole ship's company. Why, Mucky 'Arcourt, one o' our boys, was that
took in he give tongue like a beagle-pup, an' was properly kicked down the
ladder for so doin'. Well, there we lay--engines stopped, rollin' to the
swell, all dark, yards cock-billed, an' that merry tune yowlin' from the
upper bridge. We fell in on the foc'sle, leavin' a large open space by the
capstan, where our sail-maker was sittin' sewin' broken firebars into the
foot of an old 'ammick. 'E looked like a corpse, an' Mucky had another fit
o' hysterics, an' you could 'ear us breathin' 'ard. It beat anythin' in
the theatrical line that even us _Archimandrites_ had done--an' we was the
ship you could trust. Then come the doctor an' lit a red lamp which he
used for his photographic muckin's, an' chocked it on the capstan. That
was finally gashly!
"Then come twelve Marines guardin' Glass 'ere. You wouldn't think to see
'im what a gratooitous an' aboundin' terror he was that evenin'. 'E was in
a white shirt 'e'd stole from Cockburn, an' his regulation trousers,
barefooted. 'E'd pipe-clayed 'is 'ands an' face an' feet an' as much of
his chest as the openin' of his shirt showed. 'E marched under escort with
a firm an' undeviatin' step to the capstan, an' came to attention. The old
man reinforced by an extra strong split--his seventeenth, an' 'e didn't
throw _that_ down the ventilator--come up on the bridge an' stood like a
image. 'Op, 'oo was with 'im, says that 'e heard Antonio's teeth singin',
not chatterin'--singin' like funnel-stays in a typhoon. Yes, a moanin'
ćolian harp, 'Op said.
"'When you are ready, Sir, drop your 'andkerchief,' Number One whispers.
"'Good Lord!' says the old man, with a jump. 'Eh! What? What a sight! What
a sight!' an' he stood drinkin' it in, I suppose, for quite two minutes.
"Glass never says a word. 'E shoved aside an 'andkerchief which the
sub-lootenant proffered 'im to bind 'is eyes with--quiet an' collected;
an' if we 'adn't been feelin' so very much as we did feel, his gestures
would 'ave brought down the 'ouse." "I can't open my eyes, or I'll be
sick," said the Marine with appalling clearness. "I'm pretty far gone--I
know it--but there wasn't anyone could 'ave beaten Edwardo Glass,
R.M.L.I., that time. Why, I scared myself nearly into the 'orrors. Go on,
Pye. Glass is in support--as ever."
"Then the old man drops 'is 'andkerchief, an' the firin'-party fires like
one man. Glass drops forward, twitchin' an' 'eavin' horrid natural, into
the shotted 'ammick all spread out before him, and the firin' party closes
in to guard the remains of the deceased while Sails is stitchin' it up.
An' when they lifted that 'ammick it was one wringin' mess of blood! They
on'y expended one wardroom cock-bird, too. Did you know poultry bled that
extravagant? _I_ never did.
"The old man--so 'Op told me--stayed on the bridge, brought up on a dead
centre. Number One was similarly, though lesser, impressed, but o' course
'is duty was to think of 'is fine white decks an' the blood. 'Arf a mo',
Sir,' he says, when the old man was for leavin'. 'We have to wait for the
burial, which I am informed takes place immejit.'
"'It's beyond me,' says the owner. 'There was general instructions for an
execution, but I never knew I had such a dependable push of mountebanks
aboard,' he says. 'I'm all cold up my back, still.'
"The Marines carried the corpse below. Then the bugle give us some more
'Dead March,' Then we 'eard a splash from a bow six-pounder port, an' the
bugle struck up a cheerful tune. The whole lower deck was complimentin'
Glass, 'oo took it very meek. 'E _is_ a good actor, for all 'e's a
leatherneck.
"'Now,' said the old man, 'we must turn over Antonio. He's in what I have
'eard called one perspirin' funk.'
"Of course, I'm tellin' it slow, but it all 'appened much quicker. We run
down our trampo--without o' course informin' Antonio of 'is 'appy destiny
--an' inquired of 'er if she had any use for a free and gratis stowaway.
Oh, yes? she said she'd be highly grateful, but she seemed a shade puzzled
at our generosity, as you might put it, an' we lay by till she lowered a
boat. Then Antonio--who was un'appy, distinctly un'appy--was politely
requested to navigate elsewhere, which I don't think he looked for. 'Op
was deputed to convey the information, an' 'Op got in one sixteen-inch
kick which 'oisted 'im all up the ladder. 'Op ain't really vindictive, an'
'e's fond of the French, especially the women, but his chances o' kicking
lootenants was like the cartridge--reduced to a minimum.
"The boat 'adn't more than shoved off before a change, as you might say,
came o'er the spirit of our dream. The old man says, like Elphinstone an'
Bruce in the Portsmouth election when I was a boy: 'Gentlemen,' he says,
'for gentlemen you have shown yourselves to be--from the bottom of my
heart I thank you. The status an' position of our late lamented shipmate
made it obligate,' 'e says, 'to take certain steps not strictly included
in the regulations. An' nobly,' says 'e, 'have you assisted me. Now,' 'e
says, 'you hold the false and felonious reputation of bein' the smartest
ship in the Service. Pigsties,' 'e says,' is plane trigonometry alongside
our present disgustin' state. Efface the effects of this indecent orgy,'
he says. 'Jump, you lop-eared, flat-footed, butter-backed Amalekites! Dig
out, you briny-eyed beggars!'"
"Do captains talk like that in the Navy, Mr. Pyecroft?" I asked.
"I've told you once I only give the grist of his arguments. The Bosun's
mate translates it to the lower deck, as you may put it, and the lower
deck springs smartly to attention. It took us half the night 'fore we got
'er anyway ship-shape; but by sunrise she was beautiful as ever, and we
resoomed. I've thought it over a lot since; yes, an' I've thought a lot of
Antonio trimmin' coal in that tramp's bunkers. 'E must 'ave been highly
surprised. Wasn't he?"
"He was, Mr. Pyecroft," I responded. "But now we're talking of it, weren't
you all a little surprised?"
"It come as a pleasant relief to the regular routine," said Mr. Pyecroft.
"We appreciated it as an easy way o' workin' for your country. But--the
old man was right--a week o' similar manoeuvres would 'ave knocked our
moral double-bottoms bung out. Now, couldn't you oblige with Antonio's
account of Glass's execution?"
I obliged for nearly ten minutes. It was at best but a feeble rendering of
M. de C.'s magnificent prose, through which the soul of the poet, the eye
of the mariner, and the heart of the patriot bore magnificent accord. His
account of his descent from the side of the "_infamous vessel consecrated
to blood_" in the "_vast and gathering dusk of the trembling ocean_" could
only be matched by his description of the dishonoured hammock sinking
unnoticed through the depths, while, above, the bugler played music "_of
an indefinable brutality_"
"By the way, what did the bugler play after Glass's funeral?" I asked.
"Him? Oh! 'e played 'The Strict Q.T.' It's a very old song. We 'ad it in
Fratton nearly fifteen years back," said Mr. Pyecroft sleepily.
I stirred the sugar dregs in my glass. Suddenly entered armed men, wet and
discourteous, Tom Wessels smiling nervously in the background.
"Where is that--minutely particularised person--Glass?" said the sergeant
of the picket.
"'Ere!" The marine rose to the strictest of attentions. "An' it's no good
smelling of my breath, because I'm strictly an' ruinously sober."
"Oh! An' what may you have been doin' with yourself?"
"Listenin' to tracts. You can look! I've had the evenin' of my little
life. Lead on to the _Cornucopia's_ midmost dunjing cell. There's a crowd
of brass-'atted blighters there which will say I've been absent without
leaf. Never mind. I forgive them before'and. _The_ evenin' of my life, an'
please don't forget it." Then in a tone of most ingratiating apology to
me: "I soaked it all in be'ind my shut eyes. 'I'm"--he jerked a
contemptuous thumb towards Mr. Pyecroft--"'e's a flatfoot, a indigo-blue
matlow. 'E never saw the fun from first to last. A mournful beggar--most
depressin'." Private Glass departed, leaning heavily on the escort's arm.
Mr. Pyecroft wrinkled his brows in thought--the profound and far-reaching
meditation that follows five glasses of hot whisky-and-water.
"Well, I don't see anything comical--greatly--except here an' there.
Specially about those redooced charges in the guns. Do _you_ see anything
funny in it?"
There was that in his eye which warned me the night was too wet for
argument.
"No, Mr. Pyecroft, I don't," I replied. "It was a beautiful tale, and I
thank you very much."
A SAHIBS' WAR
THE RUNNERS
_News!_
What is the word that they tell now--now--now!
The little drums beating in the bazaars?
_They_ beat (among the buyers and sellers)
_"Nimrud--ah Nimrud!
God sends a gnat against Nimrud_!"
Watchers, O Watchers a thousand!
_News!_
At the edge of the crops--now--now--where the well-wheels are halted,
One prepares to loose the bullocks and one scrapes his hoe,
_They_ beat (among the sowers and the reapers)
_"Nimrud--ah Nimrud!
God prepares an ill day for Nimrud_!"
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