Under the Deodars
by
Rudyard Kipling
Part 2 out of 3
He. How do you mean?
She. That is a part of the punishment. There cannot be perfect trust
between us.
He. In Heaven's name, why not?
She. Hush! The Other Place is quite enough. Ask yourself.
He. I don't follow.
She. You trust me so implicitly that when I look at another man
Never mind. Guy, have you ever made love to a girl a good girl?
He. Something of the sort. Centuries ago in the Dark Ages, before
I ever met you, dear.
She. Tell me what you said to her.
He. What does a man say to a girl? I've forgotten.
She. I remember. He tells her that he trusts her and worships the
ground she walks on, and that he'll love and honour and protect her
till her dying day; and so she marries in that belief. At least, I
speak of one girl who was not protected.
He. Well, and then?
She. And then, Guy, and then, that girl needs ten times the love
and trust and honour yes, honour that was enough when she was
only a mere wife if if the other life she chooses to lead is to be
made even bearable. Do you understand?
He. Even bearable! It'll be Paradise.
She. Ah! Can you give me all I've asked for not now, nor a few
months later, but when you begin to think of what you might have
done if you had kept your own appointment and your caste here
when you begin to look upon me as a drag and a burden? I shall
want it most then, Guy, for there will be no one in the wide world
but you.
He. You're a little over-tired to-night, Sweetheart, and you're
taking a stage view of the situation. After the necessary business in
the Courts, the road is clear to
She. 'The holy state of matrimony!' Ha! ha! ha!
He. Ssh! Don't laugh in that horrible way!
She. I I c-c-c-can't help it! Isn't it too absurd! Ah! Ha! ha! ha! Guy,
stop me quick or I shall l-l-laugh till we get to the Church.
He. For goodness sake, stop! Don't make an exhibition of yourself.
What is the matter with you?
She. N-nothing. I'm better now.
He. That's all right. One moment, dear. There's a little wisp of hair
got loose from behind your right ear and it's straggling over your
cheek. So!
She. Thank'oo. I'm 'fraid my hat's on one side, too.
He. What do you wear these huge dagger bonnet-skewers for?
They're big enough to kill a man with.
She. Oh! don't kill me, though. You're sticking it into my head! Let
me do it. You men are so clumsy.
He. Have you had many opportunities of comparing us in this sort
of work?
She. Guy, what is my name?
He. Eh! I don't follow.
She. Here's my card-case. Can you read?
He. Yes. Well?
She. Well, that answers your question. You know the other's man's
name. Am I sufficiently humbled, or would you like to ask me if
there is any one else?
He. I see now. My darling, I never meant that for an instant. I was
only joking. There! Lucky there's no one on the road. They'd be
scandalised.
She. They'll be more scandalised before the end.
He. Do-on't! I don't like you to talk in that way.
She. Unreasonable man! Who asked me to face the situation and
accept it? Tell me, do I look like Mrs. Penner? Do I look like a
naughty woman! Swear I don't! Give me your word of honour, my
honourable friend, that I'm not like Mrs. Buzgago. That's the way
she stands, with her hands clasped at the back of her head. D'you
like that?
He. Don't be affected.
She. I'm not. I'm Mrs. Buzgago. Listen!
Pendant une anne' toute entiŠre
Le r‚giment n'a pas r'paru.
Au MinistŠre de la Guerre
On le r'porta comme perdu.
On se r'noncait … rtrouver sa trace,
Quand un matin subitement,
On le vit r'paraŒtre sur la place,
L'Colonel toujours en avant.
That's the way she rolls her r's. Am I like her?
He. No, but I object when you go on like an actress and sing stuff
of that kind. Where in the world did you pick up the Chanson du
Colonel? It isn't a drawing-room song. It isn't proper.
She. Mrs. Buzgago taught it me. She is both drawing-room and
proper, and in another month she'll shut her drawing-room to me,
and thank God she isn't as improper as I am. Oh, Guy, Guy! I wish
I was like some women and had no scruples about What is it
Keene says? 'Wearing a corpse's hair and being false to the bread
they eat.'
He. I am only a man of limited intelligence, and, just now, very
bewildered. When you have quite finished flashing through all
your moods tell me, and I'll try to understand the last one.
She. Moods, Guy! I haven't any. I'm sixteen years old and you're
just twenty, and you've been waiting for two hours outside the
school in the cold. And now I've met you, and now we're walking
home together. Does that suit you, My Imperial Majesty?
He. No. We aren't children. Why can't you be rational?
She. He asks me that when I'm going to commit suicide for his
sake, and, and I don't want to be French and rave about my mother,
but have I ever told you that I have a mother, and a brother who
was my pet before I married? He's married now. Can't you imagine
the pleasure that the news of the elopement will give him? Have
you any people at Home, Guy, to be pleased with your
performances?
He. One or two. One can't make omelets without breaking eggs.
She (slowly). I don't see the necessity
He. Hah! What do you mean?
She. Shall I speak the truth?
He Under the circumstances, perhaps it would be as well.
She. Guy, I'm afraid.
He I thought we'd settled all that. What of?
She. Of you.
He. Oh, damn it all! The old business! This is toobad!
She. Of you.
He. And what now?
She. What do you think of me?
He. Beside the question altogether. What do you intend to do?
She. I daren't risk it. I'm afraid. If I could only cheat
He. A la Buzgago? No, thanks. That's the one point on which I
have any notion of Honour. I won't eat his salt and steal too. I'll
loot openly or not at all.
She. I never meant anything else.
He. Then, why in the world do you pretend not to be willing to
come?
She. It's not pretence, Guy. I am afraid.
He. Please explain.
She. It can't last, Guy. It can't last. You'll get angry, and then you'll
swear, and then you'll get jealous, and then you'll mistrust me you
do now and you yourself will be the best reason for doubting. And
I what shall I do? I shall be no better than Mrs. Buzgago found out
no better than any one. And you'll know that. Oh, Guy, can't you
see?
He I see that you are desperately unreasonable, little woman.
She. There! The moment I begin to object, you get angry. What
will you do when I am only your property stolen property? It can't
be, Guy. It can't be! I thought it could, but it can't. You'll get tired
of me.
He I tell you I shall not. Won't anything make you understand that?
She. There, can't you see? If you speak to me like that now, you'll
call me horrible names later, if I don't do everything as you like.
And if you were cruel to me, Guy, where should I go? where
should I go? I can't trust you. Oh! I can't trust you!
He. I suppose I ought to say that I can trust you. I've ample reason.
She. Please don't, dear. It hurts as much as if you hit me.
He. It isn't exactly pleasant for me.
She. I can't help it. I wish I were dead! I can't trust you, and I don't
trust myself. Oh, Guy, let it die away and be forgotten!
He. Too late now. I don't understand you I won't and I can't trust
myself to talk this evening. May I call to-morrow?
She. Yes. No! Oh, give me time! The day after. I get into my
'rickshaw here and meet Him at Peliti's. You ride.
He. I'll go on to Peliti's too. I think I want a drink. My world's
knocked about my ears and the stars are falling. Who are those
brutes howling in the Old Library?
She. They're rehearsing the singing-quadrilles for the Fancy Ball.
Can't you hear Mrs. Buzgago's voice? She has a solo. It's quite a
new idea. Listen!
Mrs. Buzgago (in the Old Library, con molt. exp.).
See-saw! Margery Daw!
Sold her bed to lie upon straw.
Wasn't she a silly slut
To sell her bed and lie upon dirt?
Captain Congleton, I'm going to alter that to 'flirt.' It sounds better.
He. No, I've changed my mind about the drink. Good-night, little
lady. I shall see you to-morrow?
She. Ye es. Good-night, Guy. Don't be angry with me.
He. Angry! You know I trust you absolutely. Good-night and God
bless you!
(Three seconds later. Alone.) Hmm! I'd give something to discover
whether there's another man at the back of all this.
A Second-Rate Woman
Est fuga, volvitur rota,
On we drift: where looms the dim port?
One Two Three Four Five contribute their quota:
Something is gained if one caught but the import,
Show it us, Hugues of Saxe-Gotha.
--Master Hugues of Saxe-Gotha.
'Dressed! Don't tell me that woman ever dressed in her life. She
stood in the middle of the room while her ayah no, her husband it
must have been a man threw her clothes at her. She then did her
hair with her fingers, and rubbed her bonnet in the flue under the
bed. I know she did, as well as if I had assisted at the orgy. Who is
she?' said Mrs. Hauksbee.
'Don't!' said Mrs. Mallowe feebly. 'You make my head ache. I'am
miserable to-day. Stay me with fondants, comfort me with
chocolates, for I am Did you bring anything from Peliti's?'
'Questions to begin with. You shall have the sweets when you have
answered them. Who and what is the creature? There were at least
half-a-dozen men round her, and she appeared to be going to sleep
in their midst.'
'Delville,' said Mrs. Mallowe, '''Shady" Delville, to distinguish her
from Mrs. Jim of that ilk. She dances as untidily as she dresses, I
believe, and her husband is somewhere in Madras. Go and call, if
you are so interested.'
'What have I to do with Shigramitish women? She merely caught
my attention for a minute, and I wondered at the attraction that a
dowd has for a certain type of man. I expected to see her walk out
of her clothes until I looked at her eyes.'
'Hooks and eyes, surely,' drawled Mrs. Mallowe.
'Don't be clever, Polly. You make my head ache. And round this
hayrick stood a crowd of men a positive crowd!'
'Perhaps they also expected '
'Polly, don't be Rabelaisian!'
Mrs. Mallowe curled herself up comfortably on the sofa, and
turned her attention to the sweets. She and Mrs. Hauksbee shared
the same house at Simla; and these things befell two seasons after
the matter of Otis Yeere, which has been already recorded.
Mrs. Hauksbee stepped into the verandah and looked down upon
the Mall, her forehead puckered with thought.
'Hah!' said Mrs. Hauksbee shortly. 'Indeed!'
'What is it?' said Mrs. Mallowe sleepily.
'That dowd and The Dancing Master to whom I object.'
'Why to The Dancing Master? He is a middle-aged gentleman, of
reprobate and romantic tendencies, and tries to be a friend of
mine.'
'Then make up your mind to lose him. Dowds cling by nature, and
I should imagine that this animal how terrible her bonnet looks
from above! is specially clingsome.'
'She is welcome to The Dancing Master so far as I am concerned. I
never could take an interest in a monotonous liar. The frustrated
aim of his life is to persuade people that he is a bachelor.'
'O-oh! I think I've met that sort of man before. And isn't he?'
'No. He confided that to me a few days ago. Ugh! Some men ought
to be killed.'
'What happened then?'
'He posed as the horror of horrors a misunderstood man. Heaven
knows the femme incomprise is sad enough and bad enough but
the other thing!'
'And so fat too! I should have laughed in his face. Men seldom
confide in me. How is it they come to you?'
'For the sake of impressing me with their careers in the past.
Protect me from men with confidences!'
'And yet you encourage them?'
'What can I do? They talk, I listen, and they vow that I am
sympathetic. I know I always profess astonishment even when the
plot is of the most old possible.'
'Yes. Men are so unblushingly explicit if they are once allowed to
talk, whereas women's confidences are full of reservations and
fibs, except '
'When they go mad and babble of the Unutter-abilities after a
week's acquaintance. Really, if you come to consider, we know a
great deal more of men than of our own sex.'
'And the extraordinary thing is that men will never believe it. They
say we are trying to hide something.'
'They are generally doing that on their own account. Alas! These
chocolates pall upon me, and I haven't eaten more than a dozen. I
think I shall go to sleep.'
'Then you'll get fat, dear. If you took more exercise and a more
intelligent interest in your neighbours you would '
'Be as much loved as Mrs. Hauksbee. You're a darling in many
ways, and I like you you are not a woman's woman but why do you
trouble yourself about mere human beings?'
'Because in the absence of angels, who I am sure would be horribly
dull, men and women are the most fascinating things in the whole
wide world, lazy one. I am interested in The Dowd I am interested
in The Dancing Master I am interested in the Hawley Boy and I am
interested in you.'
'Why couple me with the Hawley Boy? He is your property.'
'Yes, and in his own guileless speech, I'm making a good thing out
of him. When he is slightly more reformed, and has passed his
Higher Standard, or whatever the authorities think fit to exact from
him, I shall select a pretty little girl, the Holt girl, I think, and' here
she waved her hands airily '''whom Mrs. Hauksbee hath joined
together let no man put asunder." That's all.'
'And when you have yoked May Holt with the most notorious
detrimental in Simla, and earned the undying hatred of Mamma
Holt, what will you do with me, Dispenser of the Destinies of the
Universe?'
Mrs. Hauksbee dropped into a low chair in front of the fire, and,
chin in hand, gazed long and steadfastly at Mrs. Mallowe.
'I do not know,' she said, shaking her head, 'what I shall do with
you, dear. It's obviously impossible to marry you to some one else
your husband would object and the experiment might not be
successful after all. I think I shall begin by preventing you from
what is it? ''sleeping on ale-house benches and snoring in the sun."'
'Don't! I don't like your quotations. They are so rude. Go to the
Library and bring me new books.'
'While you sleep? No! If you don't come with me I shall spread
your newest frock on my 'rickshaw-bow, and when any one asks
me what I am doing, I shall say that I am going to Phelps's to get it
let out. I shall take care that Mrs. MacNamara sees me. Put your
things on, there's a good girl.'
Mrs. Mallowe groaned and obeyed, and the two went off to the
Library, where they found Mrs. Delville and the man who went by
the nick-name of The Dancing Master. By that time Mrs. Mallowe
was awake and eloquent.
'That is the Creature!' said Mrs. Hauksbee, with the air of one
pointing out a slug in the road.
'No,' said Mrs. Mallowe. 'The man is the Creature. Ugh!
Good-evening, Mr. Bent. I thought you were coming to tea this
evening.'
'Surely it was for to-morrow, was it not?' answered The Dancing
Master. 'I understood I fancied I'm so sorry How very
unfortunate!'
But Mrs. Mallowe had passed on.
'For the practised equivocator you said he was,' murmured Mrs.
Hauksbee, 'he strikes me as a failure. Now wherefore should he
have preferred a walk with The Dowd to tea with us? Elective
affinities, I suppose both grubby. Polly, I'd never forgive that
woman as long as the world rolls.'
'I forgive every woman everything,' said Mrs. Mallowe. 'He will be
a sufficient punishment for her. What a common voice she has!'
Mrs. Delville's voice was not pretty, her carriage was even less
lovely, and her raiment was strikingly neglected. All these things
Mrs. Mallowe noticed over the top of a magazine.
'Now what is there in her?' said Mrs. Hauksbee. 'Do you see what I
meant about the clothes falling off? If I were a man I would perish
sooner than be seen with that rag-bag. And yet, she has good eyes,
but Oh!'
'What is it?'
'She doesn't know how to use them! On my honour, she does not.
Look! Oh look! Untidiness I can endure, but ignorance never! The
woman's a fool.'
'Hsh! She'll hear you.'
'All the women in Simla are fools. She'll think I mean some one
else. Now she's going out. What a thoroughly objectionable couple
she and The Dancing Master make! Which reminds me. Do you
suppose they'll ever dance together?'
'Wait and see. I don't envy her the conversation of The Dancing
Master loathly man! His wife ought to be up here before long?'
'Do you know anything about him?'
'Only what he told me. It may be all a fiction. He married a girl
bred in the country, I think, and, being an honourable, chivalrous
soul, told me that he repented his bargain and sent her to her as
often as possible a person who has lived in the Doon since the
memory of man and goes to Mussoorie when other people go
Home. The wife is with her at present. So he says.'
'Babies?'
'One only, but he talks of his wife in a revolting way. I hated him
for it. He thought he was being epigrammatic and brilliant.'
'That is a vice peculiar to men. I dislike him because he is
generally in the wake of some girl, disappointing the Eligibles. He
will persecute May Holt no more, unless I am much mistaken.'
'No. I think Mrs. Delville may occupy his attention for a while.'
'Do you suppose she knows that he is the head of a family?'
'Not from his lips. He swore me to eternal secrecy. Wherefore I tell
you. Don't you know that type of man?'
'Not intimately, thank goodness! As a general rule, when a man
begins to abuse his wife to me, I find that the Lord gives me
wherewith to answer him according to his folly; and we part with a
coolness between us. I laugh.'
'I'm different. I've no sense of humour.'
'Cultivate it, then. It has been my mainstay for more years than I
care to think about. A well-educated sense of humour will save a
woman when Religion, Training, and Home influences fail; and
we may all need salvation sometimes.'
'Do you suppose that the Delville woman has humour?'
'Her dress bewrays her. How can a Thing who wears her
supplŠment under her left arm have any notion of the fitness of
things much less their folly? If she discards The Dancing Master
after having once seen him dance, I may respect her. Otherwise '
'But are we not both assuming a great deal too much, dear? You
saw the woman at Peliti's half an hour later you saw her walking
with The Dancing Master an hour later you met her here at the
Library.'
'Still with The Dancing Master, remember.'
'Still with The Dancing Master, I admit, but why on the strength of
that should you imagine '
'I imagine nothing. I have no imagination. I am only convinced that
The Dancing Master is attracted to The Dowd because he is
objectionable in every way and she in every other. If I know the
man as you have described him, he holds his wife in slavery at
present.'
'She is twenty years younger than he.'
'Poor wretch! And, in the end, after he has posed and swaggered
and lied he has a mouth under that ragged moustache simply made
for lies he will be rewarded according to his merits.'
'I wonder what those really are,' said Mrs. Mallowe.
But Mrs. Hauksbee, her face close to the shelf of the new books,
was humming softly: 'What shall he have who killed the Deer?' She
was a lady of unfettered speech.
One month later she announced her intention of calling upon Mrs.
Delville. Both Mrs. Hauksbee and Mrs. Mallowe were in morning
wrappers, and there was a great peace in the land.
'I should go as I was,' said Mrs. Mallowe. 'It would be a delicate
compliment to her style.'
Mrs. Hauksbee studied herself in the glass.
'Assuming for a moment that she ever darkened these doors, I
should put on this robe, after all the others, to show her what a
morning-wrapper ought to be. It might enliven her. As it is, I shall
go in the dove-coloured sweet emblem of youth and innocence and
shall put on my new gloves.'
'If you really are going, dirty tan would be too good; and you know
that dove-colour spots with the rain.'
'I care not. I may make her envious. At least I shall try, though one
cannot expect very much from a woman who puts a lace tucker
into her habit.'
'Just Heavens! When did she do that?'
'Yesterday riding with The Dancing Master. I met them at the back
of Jakko, and the rain had made the lace lie down. To complete the
effect, she was wearing an unclean terai with the elastic under her
chin. I felt almost too well content to take the trouble to despise
her.'
'The Hawley Boy was riding with you. What did he think?'
'Does a boy ever notice these things? Should I like him if he did?
He stared in the rudest way, and just when I thought he had seen
the elastic, he said, ''There's something very taking about that
face." I rebuked him on the spot. I don't approve of boys being
taken by faces.'
'Other than your own. I shouldn't be in the least surprised if the
Hawley Boy immediately went to call.'
'I forbade him. Let her be satisfied with The Dancing Master, and
his wife when she comes up. I'm rather curious to see Mrs. Bent
and the Delville woman together.'
Mrs. Hauksbee departed and, at the end of an hour, returned
slightly flushed.
'There is no limit to the treachery of youth! I ordered the Hawley
Boy, as he valued my patronage, not to call. The first person I
stumble over literally stumble over in her poky, dark little
drawing-room is, of course, the Hawley Boy. She kept us waiting
ten minutes, and then emerged as though she had been tipped out
of the dirtyclothes-basket. You know my way, dear, when I am at
all put out. I was Superior, crrrrushingly Superior! 'Lifted my eyes
to Heaven, and had heard of nothing 'dropped my eyes on the
carpet and ''really didn't know" 'played with my cardcase and
''supposed so." The Hawley Boy giggled like a girl, and I had to
freeze him with scowls between the sentences.'
'And she?'
'She sat in a heap on the edge of a couch, and managed to convey
the impression that she was suffering from stomach-ache, at the
very least. It was all I could do not to ask after her symptoms.
When I rose, she grunted just like a buffalo in the water too lazy to
move.'
'Are you certain? '
'Am I blind, Polly? Laziness, sheer laziness, nothing else or her
garments were only constructed for sitting down in. I stayed for a
quarter of an hour trying to penetrate the gloom, to guess what her
surroundings were like, while she stuck out her tongue.'
'Lu cy!'
'Well I'll withdraw the tongue, though I'm sure if she didn't do it
when I was in the room, she did the minute I was outside. At any
rate, she lay in a lump and grunted. Ask the Hawley Boy, dear. I
believe the grunts were meant for sentences, but she spoke so
indistinctly that I can't swear to it.'
'You are incorrigible, simply.'
'I am not! Treat me civilly, give me peace with honour, don't put
the only available seat facing the window, and a child may eat jam
in my lap before Church. But I resent being grunted at. Wouldn't
you? Do you suppose that she communicates her views on life and
love to The Dancing Master in a set of modulated ''Grmphs"?'
'You attach too much importance to The Dancing Master.'
'He came as we went, and The Dowd grew almost cordial at the
sight of him. He smiled greasily, and moved about that darkened
dog-kennel in a suspiciously familiar way.'
'Don't be uncharitable. Any sin but that I'll forgive.'
'Listen to the voice of History. I am only describing what I saw. He
entered, the heap on the sofa revived slightly, and the Hawley Boy
and I came away together. He is disillusioned, but I felt it my duty
to lecture him severely for going there. And that's all.'
'Now for Pity's sake leave the wretched creature and The Dancing
Master alone. They never did you any harm.'
'No harm? To dress as an example and a stumbling-block for half
Simla, and then to find this Person who is dressed by the hand of
God not that I wish to disparage Him for a moment, but you know
the tikka dhurzie way He attires those lilies of the field this Person
draws the eyes of men and some of them nice men? It's almost
enough to make one discard clothing. I told the Hawley Boy so.'
'And what did that sweet youth do?'
'Turned shell-pink and looked across the far blue hills like a
distressed cherub. Am I talking wildly, Polly? Let me say my say,
and I shall be calm. Otherwise I may go abroad and disturb Simla
with a few original reflections. Excepting always your own sweet
self, there isn't a single woman in the land who understands me
when I am what's the word?'
'Tˆte-fˆl‚e,' suggested Mrs. Mallowe.
'Exactly! And now let us have tiffin. The demands of Society are
exhausting, and as Mrs. Delville says ' Here Mrs. Hauksbee, to the
horror of the khitmatgars, lapsed into a series of grunts, while Mrs.
Mallowe stared in lazy surprise.
'''God gie us a guid conceit of oorselves,"' said Mrs. Hauksbee
piously, returning to her natural speech. 'Now, in any other woman
that would have been vulgar. I am consumed with curiosity to see
Mrs. Bent. I expect complications.'
'Woman of one idea,' said Mrs. Mallowe shortly; 'all complications
are as old as the hills! I have lived through or near all all All!'
'And yet do not understand that men and women never behave
twice alike. I am old who was young if ever I put my head in your
lap, you dear, big sceptic, you will learn that my parting is gauze
but never, no never, have I lost my interest in men and women.
Polly, I shall see this business out to the bitter end.'
'I am going to sleep,' said Mrs. Mallowe calmly. 'I never interfere
with men or women unless I am compelled,' and she retired with
dignity to her own room.
Mrs. Hauksbee's curiosity was not long left ungratified, for Mrs.
Bent came up to Simla a few days after the conversation faithfully
reported above, and pervaded the Mall by her husband's side
'Behold!' said Mrs. Hauksbee, thoughtfully rubbing her nose. 'That
is the last link of the chain, if we omit the husband of the Delville,
whoever he may be. Let me consider. The Bents and the Delvilles
inhabit the same hotel; and the Delville is detested by the Waddy
do you know the Waddy? who is almost as big a dowd. The Waddy
also abominates the male Bent, for which, if her other sins do not
weigh too heavily, she will eventually go to Heaven.'
'Don't be irreverent,' said Mrs. Mallowe, 'I like Mrs. Bent's face.'
'I am discussing the Waddy,' returned Mrs. Hauksbee loftily. 'The
Waddy will take the female Bent apart, after having borrowed yes!
everything that she can, from hairpins to babies' bottles. Such, my
dear, is life in a hotel. The Waddy will tell the female Bent facts
and fictions about The Dancing Master and The Dowd.'
'Lucy, I should like you better if you were not always looking into
people's back-bedrooms.'
'Anybody can look into their front drawingrooms; and remember
whatever I do, and whatever I look, I never talk as the Waddy will.
Let us hope that The Dancing Master's greasy smile and manner of
the pedagogue will soften the heart of that cow, his wife. If mouths
speak truth, I should think that little Mrs. Bent could get very
angry on occasion.'
'But what reason has she for being angry?'
'What reason! The Dancing Master in himself is a reason. How
does it go? ''If in his life some trivial errors fall, Look in his face
and you'll believe them all." I am prepared to credit any evil of The
Dancing Master, because I hate him so. And The Dowd is so
disgustingly badly dressed '
'That she, too, is capable of every iniquity? I always prefer to
believe the best of everybody. It saves so much trouble.'
'Very good. I prefer to believe the worst. It saves useless
expenditure of sympathy. And you may be quite certain that the
Waddy believes with me.'
Mrs. Mallowe sighed and made no answer.
The conversation was holden after dinner while Mrs. Hauksbee
was dressing for a dance.
'I am too tired to go,' pleaded Mrs. Mallowe, and Mrs. Hauksbee
left her in peace till two in the morning, when she was aware of
emphatic knocking at her door.
'Don't be very angry, dear,' said Mrs. Hauksbee. 'My idiot of an
ayah has gone home, and, as I hope to sleep to-night, there isn't a
soul in the place to unlace me.'
'Oh, this is too bad!' said Mrs. Mallowe sulkily.
''Cant help it. I'm a lone, lorn grass-widow, dear, but I will not
sleep in my stays. And such news too! Oh, do unlace me, there's a
darling! The Dowd The Dancing Master I and the Hawley Boy
You know the North verandah?'
'How can I do anything if you spin round like this?' protested Mrs.
Mallowe, fumbling with the knot of the laces.
'Oh, I forget. I must tell my tale without the aid of your eyes. Do
you know you've lovely eyes, dear? Well, to begin with, I took the
Hawley Boy to a kala juggah.'
'Did he want much taking?'
'Lots! There was an arrangement of loose-boxes in kanats, and she
was in the next one talking to him.'
'Which? How? Explain.'
'You know what I mean The Dowd and The Dancing Master. We
could hear every word, and we listened shamelessly 'specially the
Hawley Boy. Polly, I quite love that woman!'
'This is interesting. There! Now turn round. What happened?'
'One moment. Ah h! Blessed relief. I've been looking forward to
taking them off for the last half-hour which is ominous at my time
of life. But, as I was saying, we listened and heard The Dowd
drawl worse than ever. She drops her final g's like a barmaid or a
blue-blooded Aide-de-Camp. ''Look he-ere, you're gettin' too fond
o' me," she said, and The Dancing Master owned it was so in
language that nearly made me ill. The Dowd reflected for a while.
Then we heard her say, ''Look he-ere, Mister Bent, why are you
such an aw-ful liar?" I nearly exploded while The Dancing Master
denied the charge. It seems that he never told her he was a married
man.'
'I said he wouldn't.'
'And she had taken this to heart, on personal grounds, I suppose.
She drawled along for five minutes, reproaching him with his
perfidy, and grew quite motherly. ''Now you've got a nice little
wife of your own you have," she said. ''She's ten times too good for
a fat old man like you, and, look he-ere, you never told me a word
about her, and I've been thinkin' about it a good deal, and I think
you're a liar." Wasn't that delicious? The Dancing Master
maundered and raved till the Hawley Boy suggested that he should
burst in and beat him. His voice runs up into an impassioned
squeak when he is afraid. The Dowd must be an extraordinary
woman. She explained that had he been a bachelor she might not
have objected to his devotion; but since he was a married man and
the father of a very nice baby, she considered him a hypocrite, and
this she repeated twice. She wound up her drawl with: ''An' I'm
tellin' you this because your wife is angry with me, an' I hate
quarrellin' with any other woman, an' I like your wife. You know
how you have behaved for the last six weeks. You shouldn't have
done it, indeed you shouldn't. You're too old an' too fat." Can't you
imagine how The Dancing Master would wince at that! ''Now go
away," she said. ''I don't want to tell you what I think of you,
because I think you are not nice. I'll stay he-ere till the next dance
begins." Did you think that the creature had so much in her?'
'I never studied her as closely as you did. It sounds unnatural. What
happened?'
'The Dancing Master attempted blandishment, reproof, jocularity,
and the style of the Lord High Warden, and I had almost to pinch
the Hawley Boy to make him keep quiet. She grunted at the end of
each sentence and, in the end, he went away swearing to himself,
quite like a man in a novel. He looked more objectionable than
ever. I laughed. I love that woman in spite of her clothes. And now
I'm going to bed. What do you think of it?'
'I shan't begin to think till the morning,' said Mrs. Mallowe,
yawning. 'Perhaps she spoke the truth. They do fly into it by
accident sometimes.'
Mrs. Hauksbee's account of her eavesdropping was an ornate one,
but truthful in the main. For reasons best known to herself, Mrs.
'Shady' Delville had turned upon Mr. Bent and rent him limb from
limb, casting him away limp and disconcerted ere she withdrew
the light of her eyes from him permanently. Being a man of
resource, and anything but pleased in that he had been called both
old and fat, he gave Mrs. Bent to understand that he had, during
her absence in the Doon, been the victim of unceasing persecution
at the hands of Mrs. Delville, and he told the tale so often and with
such eloquence that he ended in believing it, while his wife
marvelled at the manners and customs of 'some women.' When the
situation showed signs of languishing, Mrs. Waddy was always on
hand to wake the smouldering fires of suspicion in Mrs. Bent's
bosom and to contribute generally to the peace and comfort of the
hotel. Mr. Bent's life was not a happy one, for if Mrs. Waddy's
story were true, he was, argued his wife, untrustworthy to the last
degree. If his own statement was true, his charms of manner and
conversation were so great that he needed constant surveillance.
And he received it, till he repented genuinely of his marriage and
neglected his personal appearance. Mrs. Delville alone in the hotel
was unchanged. She removed her chair some six paces towards the
head of the table, and occasionally in the twilight ventured on
timid overtures of friendship to Mrs. Bent, which were repulsed.
'She does it for my sake,' hinted the virtuous Bent.
'A dangerous and designing woman,' purred Mrs. Waddy.
Worst of all, every other hotel in Simla was full!
'Polly, are you afraid of diphtheria?'
'Of nothing in the world except small-pox, Diphtheria kills, but it
doesn't disfigure. Why do you ask?'
'Because the Bent baby has got it, and the whole hotel is upside
down in consequence. The Waddy has ''set her five young on the
rail" and fled. The Dancing Master fears for his precious throat,
and that miserable little woman, his wife, has no notion of what
ought to be done. She wanted to put it into a mustard bath for
croup!'
'Where did you learn all this?'
'Just now, on the Mall. Dr. Howlen told me. The manager of the
hotel is abusing the Bents, and the Bents are abusing the manager.
They are a feckless couple.'
'Well. What's on your mind?'
'This; and I know it's a grave thing to ask.
Would you seriously object to my bringing the child over here,
with its mother?'
'On the most strict understanding that we see nothing of the
Dancing Master.'
'He will be only too glad to stay away. Polly, you're an angel. The
woman really is at her wits' end.'
'And you know nothing about her, careless, and would hold her up
to public scorn if it gave you a minute's amusement. Therefore you
risk your life for the sake of her brat. No, Loo, I'm not the angel. I
shall keep to my rooms and avoid her. But do as you please only
tell me why you do it.'
Mrs. Hauksbee's eyes softened; she looked out of the window and
back into Mrs. Mallowe's face.
'I don't know,' said Mrs. Hauksbee simply.
'You dear!'
'Polly! and for aught you knew you might have taken my fringe off.
Never do that again without warning. Now we'll get the rooms
ready. I don't suppose I shall be allowed to circulate in society for
a month.'
'And I also. Thank goodness I shall at last get all the sleep I want.'
Much to Mrs. Bent's surprise she and the baby were brought over
to the house almost before she knew where she was. Bent was
devoutly and undisguisedly thankful, for he was afraid of the
infection, and also hoped that a few weeks in the hotel alone with
Mrs. Delville might lead to explanations. Mrs. Bent had thrown
her jealousy to the winds in her fear for her child's life.
'We can give you good milk,' said Mrs. Hauksbee to her, 'and our
house is much nearer to the Doctor's than the hotel, and you won't
feel as though you were living in a hostile camp. Where is the dear
Mrs. Waddy? She seemed to be a particular friend of yours.'
'They've all left me,' said Mrs. Bent bitterly. 'Mrs. Waddy went
first. She said I ought to be ashamed of myself for introducing
diseases there, and I am sure it wasn't my fault that little Dora '
'How nice!' cooed Mrs. Hauksbee. 'The Waddy is an infectious
disease herself ''more quickly caught than the plague and the taker
runs presently mad." I lived next door to her at the Elysium, three
years ago. Now see, you won't give us the least trouble, and I've
ornamented all the house with sheets soaked in carbolic. It smells
comforting, doesn't it? Remember I'm always in call, and my
ayah's at your service when yours goes to her meals, and and if you
cry I'll never forgive you.'
Dora Bent occupied her mother's unprofitable attention through the
day and the night. The Doctor called thrice in the twenty-four
hours, and the house reeked with the smell of the Condy's Fluid,
chlorine-water, and carbolic acid washes. Mrs. Mallowe kept to
her own rooms she considered that she had made sufficient
concessions in the cause of humanity and Mrs. Hauksbee was
more esteemed by the Doctor as a help in the sick-room than the
half-distraught mother.
'I know nothing of illness,' said Mrs. Hauksbee to the Doctor. 'Only
tell me what to do, and I'll do it.'
'Keep that crazy woman from kissing the child, and let her have as
little to do with the nursing as you possibly can,' said the Doctor;
'I'd turn her out of the sick-room, but that I honestly believe she'd
die of anxiety. She is less than no good, and I depend on you and
the ayahs, remember.'
Mrs. Hauksbee accepted the responsibility, though it painted olive
hollows under her eyes and forced her to her oldest dresses. Mrs.
Bent clung to her with more than childlike faith.
'I know you'll make Dora well, won't you?' she said at least twenty
times a day; and twenty times a day Mrs. Hauksbee answered
valiantly, 'Of course I will.'
But Dora did not improve, and the Doctor seemed to be always in
the house.
'There's some danger of the thing taking a bad turn,' he said; 'I'll
come over between three and four in the morning to-morrow.'
'Good gracious!' said Mrs. Hauksbee. 'He never told me what the
turn would be! My education has been horribly neglected; and I
have only this foolish mother-woman to fall back upon.'
The night wore through slowly, and Mrs. Hauksbee dozed in a
chair by the fire. There was a dance at the Viceregal Lodge, and
she dreamed of it till she was aware of Mrs. Bent's anxious eyes
staring into her own.
'Wake up! Wake up! Do something!' cried Mrs. Bent piteously.
'Dora's choking to death! Do you mean to let her die?'
Mrs. Hauksbee jumped to her feet and bent over the bed. The child
was fighting for breath, while the mother wrung her hands
despairingly.
'Oh, what can I do? What can you do? She won't stay still! I can't
hold her. Why didn't the Doctor say this was coming?' screamed
Mrs. Bent. 'Won't you help me? She's dying!'
'I I've never seen a child die before!' stammered Mrs. Hauksbee
feebly, and then let none blame her weakness after the strain of
long watching she broke down, and covered her face with her
hands. The ayahs on the threshold snored peacefully.
There was a rattle of 'rickshaw wheels below, the clash of an
opening door, a heavy step on the stairs, and Mrs. Delville entered
to find Mrs. Bent screaming for the Doctor as she ran round the
room. Mrs. Hauksbee, her hands to her ears, and her face buried in
the chintz of a chair, was quivering with pain at each cry from the
bed, and murmuring, 'Thank God, I never bore a child! Oh! thank
God, I never bore a child!'
Mrs. Delville looked at the bed for an instant, took Mrs. Bent by
the shoulders, and said quietly, 'Get me some caustic. Be quick.'
The mother obeyed mechanically. Mrs. Delville had thrown
herself down by the side of the child and was opening its mouth.
'Oh, you're killing her!' cried Mrs. Bent. 'Where's the Doctor?
Leave her alone!'
Mrs. Delville made no reply for a minute, but busied herself with
the child.
'Now the caustic, and hold a lamp behind my shoulder. Will you
do as you are told? The acid-bottle, if you don't know what I mean,'
she said.
A second time Mrs. Delville bent over the child. Mrs. Hauksbee,
her face still hidden, sobbed and shivered. One of the ayahs
staggered sleepily into the room, yawning: 'Doctor Sahib come.'
Mrs. Delville turned her head.
'You're only just in time,' she said. 'It was chokin' her when I came,
an' I've burnt it.'
'There was no sign of the membrane getting to the air-passages
after the last steaming. It was the general weakness I feared,' said
the Doctor half to himself, and he whispered as he looked, 'You've
done what I should have been afraid to do without consultation.'
'She was dyin',' said Mrs. Delville, under her breath. 'Can you do
anythin'? What a mercy it was I went to the dance!'
Mrs. Hauksbee raised her head.
'Is it all over?' she gasped. 'I'm useless I'm worse than useless!
What are you doing here?'
She stared at Mrs. Delville, and Mrs. Bent, realising for the first
time who was the Goddess from the Machine, stared also.
Then Mrs. Delville made explanation, putting on a dirty long glove
and smoothing a crumpled and ill-fitting ball-dress.
'I was at the dance, an' the Doctor was tellin' me about your baby
bein' so ill. So I came away early, an' your door was open, an' I I
lost my boy this way six months ago, an' I've been tryin' to forget it
ever since, an' I I I am very sorry for intrudin' an' anythin' that has
happened.'
Mrs. Bent was putting out the Doctor's eye with a lamp as he
stooped over Dora.
'Take it away,' said the Doctor. 'I think the child will do, thanks to
you, Mrs. Delville. I should have come too late, but, I assure you'
he was addressing himself to Mrs. Delville 'I had not the faintest
reason to expect this. The membrane must have grown like a
mushroom. Will one of you help me, please?'
He had reason for the last sentence. Mrs. Hauksbee had thrown
herself into Mrs. Delville's arms, where she was weeping bitterly,
and Mrs. Bent was unpicturesquely mixed up with both, while
from the tangle came the sound of many sobs and much
promiscuous kissing.
'Good gracious! I've spoilt all your beautiful roses!' said Mrs.
Hauksbee, lifting her head from the lump of crushed gum and
calico atrocities on Mrs. Delville's shoulder and hurrying to the
Doctor.
Mrs. Delville picked up her shawl, and slouched out of the room,
mopping her eyes with the glove that she had not put on.
'I always said she was more than a woman,' sobbed Mrs. Hauksbee
hysterically, 'and that proves it!'
Six weeks later Mrs. Bent and Dora had returned to the hotel. Mrs.
Hauksbee had come out of the Valley of Humiliation, had ceased
to reproach herself for her collapse in an hour of need, and was
even beginning to direct the affairs of the world as before.
'So nobody died, and everything went off as it should, and I kissed
The Dowd, Polly. I feel so old. Does it show in my face?'
'Kisses don't as a rule, do they? Of course you know what the result
of The Dowd's providential arrival has been.'
'They ought to build her a statue only no sculptor dare copy those
skirts.'
'Ah!' said Mrs. Mallowe quietly. 'She has found another reward.
The Dancing Master has been smirking through Simla, giving
every one to understand that she came because of her undying love
for him for him to save his child, and all Simla naturally believes
this.'
'But Mrs. Bent '
'Mrs. Bent believes it more than any one else. She won't speak to
The Dowd now. Isn't The Dancing Master an angel?'
Mrs. Hauksbee lifted up her voice and raged till bed-time. The
doors of the two rooms stood open.
'Polly,' said a voice from the darkness, 'what did that
American-heiress-globe-trotter girl say last season when she was
tipped out of her 'rickshaw turning a corner? Some absurd
adjective that made the man who picked her up explode.'
'''Paltry,"' said Mrs. Mallowe. 'Through her nose like this ''Ha-ow
pahltry!"'
'Exactly,' said the voice. 'Ha-ow pahltry it all is!'
'Which?'
'Everything. Babies, Diphtheria, Mrs. Bent and The Dancing
Master, I whooping in a chair, and The Dowd dropping in from the
clouds. I wonder what the motive was all the motives.'
'Um!'
'What do you think?'
'Don't ask me. Go to sleep.'
Only a Subaltern
. . . . Not only to enforce by command, but to encourage by
example the energetic discharge of duty and the steady endurance
of the difficulties and privations inseparable from Military Service.
--Bengal Army Regulations.
They made Bobby Wick pass an examination at Sandhurst. He was
a gentleman before he was gazetted, so, when the Empress
announced that 'Gentleman-Cadet Robert Hanna Wick' was posted
as Second Lieutenant to the Tyneside Tail Twisters at Krab
Bokhar, he became an officer and a gentleman, which is an
enviable thing; and there was joy in the house of Wick where
Mamma Wick and all the little Wicks fell upon their knees and
offered incense to Bobby by virtue of his achievements.
Papa Wick had been a Commissioner in his day, holding authority
over three millions of men in the Chota-Buldana Division,
building great works for the good of the land, and doing his best to
make two blades of grass grow where there was but one before. Of
course, nobody knew anything about this in the little English
village where he was just 'old Mr. Wick,' and had forgotten that he
was a Companion of the Order of the Star of India.
He patted Bobby on the shoulder and said: 'Well done, my boy!'
There followed, while the uniform was being prepared, an interval
of pure delight, during which Bobby took brevet-rank as a 'man' at
the women-swamped tennis-parties and tea-fights of the village,
and, I daresay, had his joining-time been extended, would have
fallen in love with several girls at once. Little country villages at
Home are very full of nice girls, because all the young men come
out to India to make their fortunes.
'India,' said Papa Wick, 'is the place. I've had thirty years of it and,
begad, I'd like to go back again. When you join the Tail Twisters
you'll be among friends, if every one hasn't forgotten Wick of
Chota-Buldana, and a lot of people will be kind to you for our
sakes. The mother will tell you more about outfit than I can; but
remember this. Stick to your Regiment, Bobby stick to your
Regiment. You'll see men all round you going into the Staff Corps,
and doing every possible sort of duty but regimental, and you may
be tempted to follow suit. Now so long as you keep within your
allowance, and I haven't stinted you there, stick to the Line, the
whole Line, and nothing but the Line. Be careful how you back
another young fool's bill, and if you fall in love with a woman
twenty years older than yourself, don't tell me about it, that's all.'
With these counsels, and many others equally valuable, did Papa
Wick fortify Bobby ere that last awful night at Portsmouth when
the Officers' Quarters held more inmates than were provided for by
the Regulations, and the liberty-men of the ships fell foul of the
drafts for India, and the battle raged from the Dockyard Gates even
to the slums of Longport, while the drabs of Fratton came down
and scratched the faces of the Queen's Officers.
Bobby Wick, with an ugly bruise on his freckled nose, a sick and
shaky detachment to man uvre inship, and the comfort of fifty
scornful females to attend to, had no time to feel home-sick till the
Malabar reached mid-Channel, when he doubled his emotions with
a little guard-visiting and a great many other matters.
The Tail Twisters were a most particular Regiment. Those who
knew them least said that they were eaten up with 'side.' But their
reserve and their internal arrangements generally were merely
protective diplomacy. Some five years before, the Colonel
commanding had looked into the fourteen fearless eyes of seven
plump and juicy subalterns who had all applied to enter the Staff
Corps, and had asked them why the three stars should he, a colonel
of the Line, command a dashed nursery for double-dashed
bottle-suckers who put on condemned tin spurs and rode qualified
mokes at the hiatused heads of forsaken Black Regiments. He was
a rude man and a terrible. Wherefore the remnant took measures
[with the half-butt as an engine of public opinion] till the rumour
went abroad that young men who used the Tail Twisters as a
crutch to the Staff Corps had many and varied trials to endure.
However, a regiment had just as much right to its own secrets as a
woman.
When Bobby came up from Deolali and took his' place among the
Tail Twisters, it was gently but firmly borne in upon him that the
Regiment was his father and his mother and his indissolubly
wedded wife, and that there was no crime under the canopy of
heaven blacker than that of bringing shame on the Regiment,
which was the best-shooting, best-drilled, best-set-up, bravest,
most illustrious, and in all respects most desirable Regiment
within the compass of the Seven Seas. He was taught the legends
of the Mess Plate, from the great grinning Golden Gods that had
come out of the Summer Palace in Pekin to the silver-mounted
markhor-horn snuff-mull presented by the last C.O. [he who spake
to the seven subalterns]. And every one of those legends told him
of battles fought at long odds, without fear as without support; of
hospitality catholic as an Arab's; of friendships deep as the sea and
steady as the fighting-line; of honour won by hard roads for
honour's sake; and of instant and unquestioning devotion to the
Regiment the Regiment that claims the lives of all and lives for
ever.
More than once, too, he came officially into contact with the
Regimental colours, which looked like the lining of a bricklayer's
hat on the end of a chewed stick. Bobby did not kneel and worship
them, because British subalterns are not constructed in that
manner. Indeed, he condemned them for their weight at the very
moment that they were filling with awe and other more noble
sentiments.
But best of all was the occasion when he moved with the Tail
Twisters in review order at the breaking of a November day.
Allowing for duty-men and sick, the Regiment was one thousand
and eighty strong, and Bobby belonged to them; for was he not a
Subaltern of the Line the whole Line, and nothing but the Line as
the tramp of two thousand one hundred and sixty sturdy
ammunition boots attested? He would not have changed places
with Deighton of the Horse Battery, whirling by in a pillar of cloud
to a chorus of 'Strong right! Strong left!' or Hogan-Yale of the
White Hussars, leading his squadron for all it was worth, with the
price of horseshoes thrown in; or 'Tick' Boileau, trying to live up to
his fierce blue and gold turban while the wasps of the Bengal
Cavalry stretched to a gallop in the wake of the long, lollopping
Walers of the White Hussars.
They fought through the clear cool day, and Bobby felt a little
thrill run down his spine when he heard the tinkle-tinkle-tinkle of
the empty cartridge-cases hopping from the breech-blocks after the
roar of the volleys; for he knew that he should live to hear that
sound in action. The review ended in a glorious chase across the
plain batteries thundering after cavalry to the huge disgust of the
White Hussars, and the Tyneside Tail Twisters hunting a Sikh
Regiment, till the lean lathy Singhs panted with exhaustion. Bobby
was dusty and dripping long before noon, but his enthusiasm was
merely focused not diminished.
He returned to sit at the feet of Revere, his 'skipper,' that is to say,
the Captain of his Company, and to be instructed in the dark art
and mystery of managing men, which is a very large part of the
Profession of Arms.
'If you haven't a taste that way,' said Revere between his puffs of
his cheroot, 'you'll never be able to get the hang of it, but
remember, Bobby, 't isn't the best drill, though drill is nearly
everything, that hauls a Regiment through Hell and out on the
other side. It's the man who knows how to handle men goat-men,
swine-men, dog-men, and so on.'
'Dormer, for instance,' said Bobby, 'I think he comes under the
head of fool-men. He mopes like a sick owl.'
'That's where you make your mistake, my son. Dormer isn't a fool
yet, but he's a dashed dirty soldier, and his room corporal makes
fun of his socks before kit-inspection. Dormer, being two-thirds
pure brute, goes into a corner and growls.'
'How do you know?' said Bobby admiringly.
'Because a Company commander has to know these things
because, if he does not know, he may have crime ay, murder
brewing under his very nose and yet not see that it's there. Dormer
is being badgered out of his mind big as he is and he hasn't
intellect enough to resent it. He's taken to quiet boozing, and,
Bobby, when the butt of a room goes on the drink, or takes to
moping by himself, measures are necessary to pull him out of
himself.'
'What measures? 'Man can't run round coddling his men for ever.'
'No. The men would precious soon show him that he was not
wanted. You've got to '
Here the Colour-Sergeant entered with some papers; Bobby
reflected for a while as Revere looked through the Company
forms.
'Does Dormer do anything, Sergeant?' Bobby asked with the air of
one continuing an interrupted conversation.
'No, sir. Does 'is dooty like a hortomato,' said the Sergeant, who
delighted in long words. 'A dirty soldier and 'e's under full
stoppages for new kit. It's covered with scales, sir.'
'Scales? What scales?'
'Fish-scales, sir. 'E's always pokin' in the mud by the river an'
a-cleanin' them muchly-fish with 'is thumbs.' Revere was still
absorbed in the Company papers, and the Sergeant, who was
sternly fond of Bobby, continued ' 'E generally goes down there
when 'e's got 'is skinful, beggin' your pardon, sir, an' they do say
that the more lush in-he-briated 'e is, the more fish 'e catches. They
call 'im the Looney Fishmonger in the Comp'ny, sir.'
Revere signed the last paper and the Sergeant retreated.
'It's a filthy amusement,' sighed Bobby to himself. Then aloud to
Revere: 'Are you really worried about Dormer?'
'A little. You see he's never mad enough to send to hospital, or
drunk enough to run in, but at any minute he may flare up,
brooding and sulking as he does. He resents any interest being
shown in him, and the only time I took him out shooting he all but
shot me by accident.'
'I fish,' said Bobby with a wry face. 'I hire a country-boat and go
down the river from Thursday to Sunday, and the amiable Dormer
goes with me if you can spare us both.'
'You blazing young fool!' said Revere, but his heart was full of
much more pleasant words.
Bobby, the Captain of a dhoni, with Private Dormer for mate,
dropped down the river on Thursday morning the Private at the
bow, the Subaltern at the helm. The Private glared uneasily at the
Subaltern, who respected the reserve of the Private.
After six hours, Dormer paced to the stern, saluted, and said 'Beg y'
pardon, sir, but was you ever on the Durh'm Canal?'
'No,' said Bobby Wick. 'Come and have some tiffin.'
They ate in silence. As the evening fell, Private Dormer broke
forth, speaking to himself
'Hi was on the Durh'm Canal, jes' such a night, come next week
twelve month, a-trailin' of my toes in the water.' He smoked and
said no more till bedtime.
The witchery of the dawn turned the gray river-reaches to purple,
gold, and opal; and it was as though the lumbering dhoni crept
across the splendours of a new heaven.
Private Dormer popped his head out of his blanket and gazed at the
glory below and around.
'Well damn my eyes!' said Private Dormer in an awed whisper.
'This 'ere is like a bloomin' gallantry-show!' For the rest of the day
he was dumb, but achieved an ensanguined filthiness through the
cleaning of big fish.
The boat returned on Saturday evening. Dormer had been
struggling with speech since noon. As the lines and luggage were
being disembarked, he found tongue.
'Beg y' pardon, sir,' he said, 'but would you would you min' shakin'
'ands with me, sir?'
'Of course not,' said Bobby, and he shook accordingly. Dormer
returned to barracks and Bobby to mess.
'He wanted a little quiet and some fishing, I think,' said Bobby. 'My
aunt, but he's a filthy sort of animal! Have you ever seen him clean
''them muchly-fish with 'is thumbs"?'
'Anyhow,' said Revere three weeks later, 'he's doing his best to
keep his things clean.'
When the spring died, Bobby joined in the general scramble for
Hill leave, and to his surprise and delight secured three months.
'As good a boy as I want,' said Revere the admiring skipper.
'The best of the batch,' said the Adjutant to the Colonel. 'Keep back
that young skrim-shanker Porkiss, sir, and let Revere make him sit
up.'
So Bobby departed joyously to Simla Pahar with a tin box of
gorgeous raiment.
''Son of Wick old Wick of Chota-Buldana? Ask him to dinner,
dear,' said the aged men.
'What a nice boy!' said the matrons and the maids.
'First-class place, Simla. Oh, ri ipping!' said Bobby Wick, and
ordered new white cord breeches on the strength of it.
'We're in a bad way,' wrote Revere to Bobby at the end of two
months. 'Since you left, the Regiment has taken to fever and is
fairly rotten with it two hundred in hospital, about a hundred in
cells drinking to keep off fever and the Companies on parade
fifteen file strong at the outside. There's rather more sickness in
the out-villages than I care for, but then I'm so blistered with
prickly-heat that I'm ready to hang myself. What's the yarn about
your mashing a Miss Haverley up there? Not serious, I hope?
You're over-young to hang millstones round your neck, and the
Colonel will turf you out of that in double-quick time if you
attempt it.'
It was not the Colonel that brought Bobby out of Simla, but a
much-more-to-be-respected Commandant. The sickness in the
out-villages spread, the Bazar was put out of bounds, and then
came the news that the Tail Twisters must go into camp. The
message flashed to the Hill stations. 'Cholera Leave stopped
Officers recalled.' Alas for the white gloves in the neatly-soldered
boxes, the rides and the dances and picnics that were to be, the
loves half spoken, and the debts unpaid! Without demur and
without question, fast as tonga could fly or pony gallop, back to
their Regiments and their Batteries, as though they were hastening
to their weddings, fled the subalterns.
Bobby received his orders on returning from a dance at Viceregal
Lodge where he had But only the Haverley girl knows what Bobby
had said, or how many waltzes he had claimed for the next ball.
Six in the morning saw Bobby at the Tonga Office in the
drenching rain, the whirl of the last waltz still in his ears, and an
intoxication due neither to wine nor waltzing in his brain.
'Good man!' shouted Deighton of the Horse Battery through the
mist. 'Whar you raise dat tonga? I'm coming with you. Ow! But I've
a head and a half. I didn't sit out all night. They say the Battery's
awful bad,' and he hummed dolorously
Leave the what at the what's-its-name,
Leave the flock without shelter,
Leave the corpse uninterred,
Leave the bride at the altar!
'My faith! It'll be more bally corpse than bride, though, this
journey. Jump in, Bobby. Get on, Coachwan!'
On the Umballa platform waited a detachment of officers
discussing the latest news from the stricken cantonment, and it was
here that Bobby learned the real condition of the Tail Twisters.
'They went into camp,' said an elderly Major recalled from the
whist-tables at Mussoorie to a sickly Native Regiment, 'they went
into camp with two hundred and ten sick in carts. Two hundred
and ten fever cases only, and the balance looking like so many
ghosts with sore eyes. A Madras Regiment could have walked
through 'em.'
'But they were as fit as be-damned when I left them!' said Bobby.
'Then you'd better make them as fit as bedamned when you rejoin,'
said the Major brutally.
Bobby pressed his forehead against the rain-splashed window-pane
as the train lumbered across the sodden Doab, and prayed for the
health of the Tyneside Tail Twisters. Naini Tal had sent down her
contingent with all speed; the lathering ponies of the Dalhousie
Road staggered into Pathankot, taxed to the full stretch of their
strength; while from cloudy Darjiling the Calcutta Mail whirled up
the last straggler of the little army that was to fight a fight in which
was neither medal nor honour for the winning, against an enemy
none other than 'the sickness that destroyeth in the noonday.'
And as each man reported himself, he said: 'This is a bad business,'
and went about his own forthwith, for every Regiment and Battery
in the cantonment was under canvas, the sickness bearing them
company.
Bobby fought his way through the rain to the Tail Twisters'
temporary mess, and Revere could have fallen on the boy's neck
for the joy of seeing that ugly, wholesome phiz once more.
'Keep' em amused and interested,' said Revere. 'They went on the
drink, poor fools, after the first two cases, and there was no
improvement. Oh, it's good to have you back, Bobby! Porkiss is a
never mind.'
Deighton came over from the Artillery camp to attend a dreary
mess dinner, and contributed to the general gloom by nearly
weeping over the condition of his beloved Battery. Porkiss so far
forgot himself as to insinuate that the presence of the officers
could do no earthly good, and that the best thing would be to send
the entire Regiment into hospital and 'let the doctors look after
them.' Porkiss was demoralised with fear, nor was his peace of
mind restored when Revere said coldly: 'Oh! The sooner you go
out the better, if that's your way of thinking. Any public school
could send us fifty good men in your place, but it takes time, time,
Porkiss, and money, and a certain amount of trouble, to make a
Regiment. 'S'pose you're the person we go into camp for, eh?'
Whereupon Porkiss was overtaken with a great and chilly fear
which a drenching in the rain did not allay, and, two days later,
quitted this world for another where, men do fondly hope,
allowances are made for the weaknesses of the flesh. The
Regimental Sergeant-Major looked wearily across the Sergeants'
Mess tent when the news was announced.
'There goes the worst of them,' he said. 'It'll take the best, and then,
please God, it'll stop.' The Sergeants were silent till one said: 'It
couldn't be him!' and all knew of whom Travis was thinking.
Bobby Wick stormed through the tents of his Company, rallying,
rebuking, mildly, as is consistent with the Regulations, chaffing
the faint-hearted; haling the sound into the watery sunlight when
there was a break in the weather, and bidding them be of good
cheer for their trouble was nearly at an end; scuttling on his dun
pony round the outskirts of the camp, and heading back men who,
with the innate perversity of British soldiers, were always
wandering into infected villages, or drinking deeply from
rain-flooded marshes; comforting the panic-stricken with rude
speech, and more than once tending the dying who had no friends
the men without 'townies'; organising, with banjos and burnt cork,
Sing-songs which should allow the talent of the Regiment full
play; and generally, as he explained, 'playing the giddy garden-goat
all round.'
'You're worth half-a-dozen of us, Bobby,' said Revere in a moment
of enthusiasm. 'How the devil do you keep it up?'
Bobby made no answer, but had Revere looked into the
breast-pocket of his coat he might have seen there a sheaf of
badly-written letters which perhaps accounted for the power that
possessed the boy. A letter came to Bobby every other day. The
spelling was not above reproach, but the sentiments must have
been most satisfactory, for on receipt Bobby's eyes softened
marvellously, and he was wont to fall into a tender abstraction for
a while ere, shaking his cropped head, he charged into his work.
By what power he drew after him the hearts of the roughest, and
the Tail Twisters counted in their ranks some rough diamonds
indeed, was a mystery to both skipper and C. O., who learned from
the regimental chaplain that Bobby was considerably more in
request in the hospital tents than the Reverend John Emery.
'The men seem fond of you. Are you in the hospitals much?' said
the Colonel, who did his daily round and ordered the men to get
well with a hardness that did not cover his bitter grief.
'A little, sir,' said Bobby.
''Shouldn't go there too often if I were you. They say it's not
contagious, but there's no use in running unnecessary risks. We
can't afford to have you down, y'know.'
Six days later, it was with the utmost difficulty that the post-runner
plashed his way out to the camp with the mail-bags, for the rain
was falling in torrents. Bobby received a letter, bore it off to his
tent, and, the programme for the next week's Sing-song being
satisfactorily disposed of, sat down to answer it. For an hour the
unhandy pen toiled over the paper, and where sentiment rose to
more than normal tide-level, Bobby Wick stuck out his tongue and
breathed heavily. He was not used to letter-writing.
'Beg y' pardon, sir,' said a voice at the tent door; 'but Dormer's
'orrid bad, sir, an' they've taken him orf, sir.'
'Damn Private Dormer and you too!' said Bobby Wick, running the
blotter over the half-finished letter. 'Tell him I'll come in the
morning.'
''E's awful bad, sir,' said the voice hesitatingly. There was an
undecided squelching of heavy boots.
'Well?' said Bobby impatiently.
'Excusin' 'imself before'and for takin' the liberty, 'e says it would be
a comfort for to assist 'im, sir, if '
'Tattoo lao! Get my pony! Here, come in out of the rain till I'm
ready. What blasted nuisances you are! That's brandy. Drink some;
you want it. Hang on to my stirrup and tell me if I go too fast.'
Strengthened by a four-finger 'nip' which he swallowed without a
wink, the Hospital Orderly kept up with the slipping, mud-stained,
and very disgusted pony as it shambled to the hospital tent.
Private Dormer was certainly ''orrid bad.' He had all but reached
the stage of collapse and was not pleasant to look upon.
'What's this, Dormer?' said Bobby, bending over the man. 'You're
not going out this time. You've got to come fishing with me once
or twice more yet.'
The blue lips parted and in the ghost of a whisper said, 'Beg y'
pardon, sir, disturbin' of you now, but would you min" oldin' my'
and, sir?'
Bobby sat on the side of the bed, and the icy cold hand closed on
his own like a vice, forcing a lady's ring which was on the little
finger deep into the flesh. Bobby set his lips and waited, the water
dripping from the hem of his trousers. An hour passed and the
grasp of the hand did not relax, nor did the expression of the drawn
face change. Bobby with infinite craft lit himself a cheroot with
the left hand, his right arm was numbed to the elbow, and resigned
himself to a night of pain.
Dawn showed a very white-faced Subaltern sitting on the side of a
sick man's cot, and a Doctor in the doorway using language unfit
for publication.
'Have you been here all night, you young ass?' said the Doctor.
'There or thereabouts,' said Bobby ruefully. 'He's frozen on to me.'
Dormer's mouth shut with a click. He turned his head and sighed.
The clinging hand opened, and Bobby's arm fell useless at his side.
'He'll do,' said the Doctor quietly. 'It must have been a toss-up all
through the night. 'Think you're to be congratulated on this case.'
'Oh, bosh!' said Bobby. 'I thought the man had gone out long ago
only only I didn't care to take my hand away. Rub my arm down,
there's a good chap. What a grip the brute has! I'm chilled to the
marrow!' He passed out of the tent shivering.
Private Dormer was allowed to celebrate his repulse of Death by
strong waters. Four days later he sat on the side of his cot and said
to the patients mildly: 'I'd 'a' liken to 'a' spoken to 'im so I should.'
But at that time Bobby was reading yet another letter he had the
most persistent correspondent of any man in camp and was even
then about to write that the sickness had abated, and in another
week at the outside would be gone. He did not intend to say that
the chill of a sick man's hand seemed to have struck into the heart
whose capacities for affection he dwelt on at such length. He did
intend to enclose the illustrated programme of the forthcoming
Sing-song whereof he was not a little proud. He also intended to
write on many other matters which do not concern us, and
doubtless would have done so but for the slight feverish headache
which made him dull and unresponsive at mess.
'You are overdoing it, Bobby,' said his skipper. ''Might give the rest
of us credit of doing a little work. You go on as if you were the
whole Mess rolled into one. Take it easy.'
'I will,' said Bobby. 'I'm feeling done up. somehow.' Revere looked
at him anxiously and said nothing.
There was a flickering of lanterns about the camp that night, and a
rumour that brought men out of their cots to the tent doors, a
paddling of the naked feet of doolie-bearers and the rush of a
galloping horse.
'Wot's up?' asked twenty tents; and through twenty tents ran the
answer 'Wick, 'e's down.'
They brought the news to Revere and he groaned. 'Any one but
Bobby and I shouldn't have cared! The Sergeant-Major was right.'
'Not going out this journey,' gasped Bobby, as he was lifted from
the doolie. 'Not going out this journey.' Then with an air of
supreme conviction 'I can't, you see.'
'Not if I can do anything!' said the Surgeon-Major, who had
hastened over from the mess where he had been dining.
He and the Regimental Surgeon fought together with Death for the
life of Bobby Wick. Their work was interrupted by a hairy
apparition in a bluegray dressing-gown who stared in horror at the
bed and cried 'Oh, my Gawd! It can't be 'im!' until an indignant
Hospital Orderly whisked him away.
If care of man and desire to live could have done aught, Bobby
would have been saved. As it was, he made a fight of three days,
and the Surgeon-Major's brow uncreased. 'We'll save him yet,' he
said; and the Surgeon, who, though he ranked with the Captain,
had a very youthful heart, went out upon the word and pranced
joyously in the mud.
'Not going out this journey,' whispered Bobby Wick gallantly, at
the end of the third day.
'Bravo!' said the Surgeon-Major. 'That's the way to look at it,
Bobby.'
As evening fell a gray shade gathered round Bobby's mouth, and he
turned his face to the tent wall wearily. The Surgeon-Major
frowned.
'I'm awfully tired,' said Bobby, very faintly. 'What's the use of
bothering me with medicine? I don't want it. Let me alone.'
The desire for life had departed, and Bobby was content to drift
away on the easy tide of Death.
'It's no good,' said the Surgeon-Major. 'He doesn't want to live. He's
meeting it, poor child.' And he blew his nose.
Half a mile away the regimental band was playing the overture to
the Sing-song, for the men had been told that Bobby was out of
danger. The clash of the brass and the wail of the horns reached
Bobby's ears.
Is there a single joy or pain,
That I should never kno ow?
You do not love me, 'tis in vain,
Bid me good-bye and go!
An expression of hopeless irritation crossed the boy's face, and he
tried to shake his head.
The Surgeon-Major bent down 'What is it, Bobby?' 'Not that waltz,'
muttered Bobby. 'That's our own our very ownest own. Mummy
dear.'
With this he sank into the stupor that gave place to death early
next morning.
Revere, his eyes red at the rims and his nose very white, went into
Bobby's tent to write a letter to Papa Wick which should bow the
white head of the ex-Commissioner of Chota-Buldana in the
keenest sorrow of his life. Bobby's little store of papers lay in
confusion on the table, and among them a half-finished letter. The
last sentence ran: 'So you see, darling, there is really no fear,
because as long as I know you care for me and I care for you,
nothing can touch me.'
Revere stayed in the tent for an hour. When he came out his eyes
were redder than ever.
Private Conklin sat on a turned-down bucket, and listened to a not
unfamiliar tune. Private Conklin was a convalescent and should
have been tenderly treated.
'Ho!' said Private Conklin. 'There's another bloomin' orf'cer da ed.'
The bucket shot from under him, and his eyes filled with a
smithyful of sparks. A tall man in a blue-gray bedgown was
regarding him with deep disfavour.
'You ought to take shame for yourself, Conky! Orf'cer? Bloomin'
orf'cer? I'll learn you to misname the likes of 'im. Hangel! Bloomin'
Hangel! That's wot'e is!'
And the Hospital Orderly was so satisfied with the justice of the
punishment that he did not even order Private Dormer back to his
cot.
In the Matter of a Private
Hurrah! hurrah! a soldier's life for me! Shout, boys, shout! for it
makes you jolly and free.
--The Ramrod Corps.
PEOPLE who have seen, say that one of the quaintest spectacles of
human frailty is an outbreak of hysterics in a girls' school. It starts
without warning, generally on a hot afternoon among the
elder pupils. A girl giggles till the giggle gets beyond control.
Then she throws up her head, and cries, "Honk, honk, honk," like a
wild goose, and tears mix with the laughter. If the n,istres. be wise
she will rap out something severc at this point O check matters. If
she be tender-hearted, and send for a drink of water, the chances
are largely in favor of another girl laughing at the afflicted one and
herself collapsing. Thus Lhe trouble spreads, and may end in half
of what answers to the Lower Sixth of a boys' school rocking and
whooping together. Given a week of warm weather, two stately
promenades per diem, a heavy mutton and rice meal in the middle
of the day, a certain amount of nagging from the teachers, and a
few other things, some amazing effects develop. At least this is
what folk say who have had experience.
Now, the Mother Superior of a Convent and the Colonel of a
British Infantry Regiment would be justly shocked at any
comparison being made between their respective charges. But it is
a fact that, under certain circumstances, Thomas in bulk can be
worked up into ditthering, rippling hysteria. He does not weep, but
he shows his trouble unmistakably, and the consequences get into
the newspapers, and all the good people who hardly know a
Martini from a Snider say: "Take away the brute's ammunition!"
Thomas isn't a brute, and his business, which is to look after the
virtuous people, nemands that he shall have his am-munition to his
hand. He doesn't wear silk stockings, and he really ought to he
supplied with a new Adjective to help him to express his opinions;
but, for all that, he is a great man. If you call him "the heroic
defender of the national honor" one day, and "a brutal and
licentious soldiery" the next, you naturally bewilder him, and he
looks upon you with suspicion. There is nobody to speak for
Thomas except people who have theories to work off on him; and
nobody understands Thomas except Thomas, and he does not
always know what is the matter with himself.
That is the prologue. This is the story:
Corporal Slane was engaged to be married to Miss Jhansi
M'Kenna, whose history is well known in the regiment and
elsewhere. He had his Colonel's permission, and, being popular
with the men, every arrangement had been made to give the
wedding what Private Ortheris called "eeklar." It fell in the heart
of the hot weather, and, after the wedding, Slane was going up to
the Hills with the Bride. None the less, Slane's grievance was that
the affair would he only a hired-carriage wedding, and he felt that
the "eeklar" of that was meagre. Miss M'Kenna did not care so
much. The Sergeant's wife was helping her to make her
wedding-dress, and she was very busy. Slane was, just then, the
only moderately contented man in barracks. All the rest were more
or less miserable.
And they had so much to make them happy, too. All their work
was over at eight in the morning, and for the rest of the day they
could lie on their backs and smoke Canteen-plug and swear at the
punkab-coolies. They enjoyed a fine, full flesh meal in the middle
of the day, and then threw themselves down on their cots and
sweated and slept till it was cool enough to go out with their
"towny," whose vocabulary contained less than six hundred words,
and the Adjective, and whose views on every conceivable question
they had heard many times before.
There was the Canteen, of course, and there was the Temperance
Room with the second-hand papers in it; but a man of any
profession cannot read for eight hours a day in a temperature of 96
degrees or 98 degrees in the shade, running up sometimes to 103
degrees at midnight. Very few men, even though they get a
pannikin of flat, stale, muddy beer and hide it under their cots, can
continue drinkmg for six hours a day. One man tried, but he died,
and nearly the whole regiment went to his funeral because it gave
them something to do. It was too early for the excitement of fever
or cholera. The men could only wait and wait and wait, and watch
the shadow of the barrack creeping across the blinding white dust.
That was a gay life.
They lounged about cantonments-it was too hot for any sort of
game, and almost too hot for vice-and fuddled themselves in the
evening, and filled themselves to distension with the healthy
nitrogenous food provided for them, and the more they stoked the
less exercise they took and more explosive they grew. Then
tempers began to wear away, and men fell a-brooding over insults
real or imaginary, for they had nothing else to think of. The tone
of the repartees changed, and instead of saying light-heartedly: "I'll
knock your silly face in," men grew laboriously p0lite and hinted
that the cantonments were not big enough for themselves and their
enemy, and that there would he more space for one of the two in
another place.
It may have been the Devil who arranged the thing, but the fact of
the case is that Losson had for a long time been worrying Simmons
in an aimless way. It gave him occupation. The two had their cots
side by side, and would sometimes spend a long afternoon
swearing at each other; but Simmons was afraid of Losson and
dared not challenge him to a fight. He thought over the words in
the hot still nights, and half the hate he felt toward Losson be
vented on the wretched punkahcoolie.
Losson bought a parrot in the bazar, and put it into a little cage,
and lowered the cage into the cool darkness of a well, and sat on
the well-curb, shouting bad language down to the parrot. He taught
it to say: "Simmons, ye so-oor," which means swine, and several
other things entirely unfit for publication. He was a big gross man,
and he shook like a jelly when the parrot had the sentence
correctly. Simmons, however, shook with rage, for all the room
were laughing at him--the parrot was such a disreputable puff of
green feathers and it looked so human when it chattered. Losson
used to sit, swinging his fat legs, on the side of the cot, and ask the
parrot what it thought of Simmons. The parrot would answer:
"Simmons, ye so-oor." "Good boy," Losson used to say, scratching
the parrot's head; "ye 'ear that, Sim?" And Simmons used to turn
over on his stomach and make answer: "I 'ear. Take 'eed you don't
'ear something one of these days."
In the restless nights, after he had been asleep all day, fits of blind
rage came upon Simmonr and held him till he trembled all over,
while he thought in how many different ways he would slay
Losson. Sometimes he would picture himself trampling the life
out of the man, with heavy ammunition-boots, and at others
smashing in his face with the butt, and at others jumping on his
shoulders and dragging the head back till the neckbone cracked.
Then his mouth would feel hot and fevered, and he would reach
out for another sup of the beer in the pannikin.
But the fancy that came to him most frequently and stayed with
him longest was one connected with the great roll of fat under
Losson's right ear. He noticed it first on a moonlight night, and
thereafter it was always before his eyes. It was a fascinating roll of
fat. A man could get his hand upon it and tear away one side of the
neck; or he could place the muzzle of a rifle on it and blow away
all the head in a flash. Losson had no right to be sleek and
contented and well-to-do, when he, Simmons, was the butt of the
room, Some day, perhaps, he would show those who laughed at the
"Simmons, ye so-oor" joke, that he was as good as the rest, and
held a man's life in the crook of his forefinger. When Losson
snored, Simmons hated him more bitterly than ever. Why should
Losson be able to sleep when Simmons had to stay awake hour
after hour, tossing and turning on the tapes, with the dull liver pain
gnawing into his right side and his head throbbing and aching after
Canteen? He thought over this for many nights, and the world
became unprofitable to him. He even blunted his naturally fine
appetite with beer and tobacco; and all the while the parrot talked
at and made a mock of him.
The heat continued and the tempers wore away more quickly than
before. A Sergeant's wife died of heat--apoplexy in the night, and
the rumor ran abroad that it was cholera. Men rejoiced openly,
hoping that it would spread and send them into camp. But that
was a false alarm.
It was late on a Tuesday evening, and the men were waiting in the
deep double verandas for "Last Posts," when Simmons went to the
box at the foot of his bed, took aut his pipe, and slammed the lid
down with a bang that echoed through the deserted barrack like the
crack of a rifle. Ordinarily speaking, the men would have taken no
notice; but their nerves were fretted to fiddle-strings. They jumped
up, and three or four clattered into the barrack-room only to find
Simmons kneeling by his box.
"Owl It's you, is it?" they said and laughed foolishly. "We
thought 'twas"--
Simmons rose slowly. If the accident had so shaken his fellows,
what would not the reality do?
"You thought it was--did you? And what makes you think?" he
said, iashmg himself into madness as he went on; "to Hell with
your thinking, ye dirty spies."
"Simmons, ye so-oor," chuckled the parrot in the veranda, sleepily,
recognizing a well-known voice. Now that was absolutely all.
The tension snapped. Simmons fell back on the arm-rack
deliberately,--the men were at the far end of the room,--and took
out his rifle and packet of ammunition. "Don't go playing the goat,
Sim!" said Losson. "Put it down," but there was a quaver in his
voice. Another man stooped, slipped his boot and hurled it at
Simmon's head. The prompt answer was a shot which, fired at
random, found its billet in Losson's throat. Losson fell forward
without a word, and the others scattered.
"You thought it was!" yelled Simmons. "You're drivin' me to it! I
tell you you're drivin' me to it! Get up, Losson, an' don't lie
shammin' there-you an' your blasted parrit that druv me to it!"
But there was an unaffected reality about Losson's pose that
showed Simmons what he had done. The men were still clamoring
n the veranda. Simmons appropriated two more packets of
ammunition and ran into the moonlight, muttering: "I'll make a
night of it. Thirty roun's, an' the last for myself. Take you that, you
dogs!"
He dropped on one knee and fired into the brown of the men on
the veranda, but the bullet flew high, and landed in the brickwork
with a vicious phant that made some of the younger ones turn pale.
It is, as musketry theorists observe, one thing to fire and another to
be fired at.
Then the instinct of the chase flared up. The news spread from
barrack to barrack, and the men doubled out intent on the capture
of Simmons, the wild beast, who was heading for the Cavalry
parade-ground, stopping now and again to send back a shot and a
Lurse in the direction of his pursuers.
"I'll learn you to spy on me!" he shouted; "I'll learn you to give me
dorg's names! Come on the 'ole lot O' you! Colonel John Anthony
Deever, C.B.!"-he turned toward the Infantry Mess and shook his
rifle-"you think yourself the devil of a man-but I tell 'jou that if you
Put your ugly old carcass outside O' that door, I'll make you the
poorest-lookin' man in the army. Come out, Colonel John
Anthony Deever, C.B.! Come out and see me practiss on the
rainge. I'm the crack shot of the 'ole bloomin' battalion." In proof
of which statement Simmons fired at the lighted windows of the
mess-house.
"Private Simmons, E Comp'ny, on the Cavalry p'rade-ground, Sir,
with thirty rounds," said a Sergeant breathlessly to the Colonel.
"Shootin' right and lef', Sir. Shot Private Losson What's to be
done, Sir?"
Colonel John Anthony Deever, C.B., sallied out, only to be saluted
by s spurt of dust at his feet.
"Pull up!" said the Second in Command; "I don't want my step in
that way, Colonel. He's as dangerous as a mad dog."
"Shoot him like one, then," said the Colonel, bitterly, "if he won't
take his chance, My regiment, too! If it had been the Towheads I
could have under stood."
Private Simmons had occupied a strong position near a well on the
edge of the parade-ground, and was defying the regiment to come
on. The regiment was not anxious to comply, for there is small
honor in being shot by a fellow-private. Only Corporal Slane, rifle
in band, threw himself down on the ground, and wormed his way
toward the well.
"Don't shoot," said he to the men round him; "like as not you'll hit
me. I'll catch the beggar, livin'."
Simmons ceased shouting for a while, and the noise of trap-wheels
could be heard across the plain. Major Oldyne Commanding the
Horse Battery, was coming back from a dinner in the Civil Lines;
was driving after his usual custom--that is to say, as fast as the
horse could go.
"A orf'cer! A blooming spangled orf'cer," shrieked Simmons; "I'll
make a scarecrow of that orf'cer!" The trap stopped.
"What's this?" demanded the Major of Gunners. "You there, drop
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