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 COPPER
 _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 Fox-hunting.’

“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 manœuvres 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
manœuvre 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 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’ _onjenew_. ’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’ anythin’ 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 the 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’ æolian 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 obligato,’ ’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 manœuvres 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_!”
      Watchers, O Watchers ten thousand.

                                   _News!_
  By the fires of the camps—now—now—where the travellers meet
  Where the camels come in and the horses: their men conferring,
      _They_ beat (among the packmen and the drivers)
          _“Nimrud—ah Nimrud!
          Thus it befell last noon to Nimrud_!”
      Watchers, O Watchers an hundred thousand!

                                   _News!_
  Under the shadow of the border-peels—now—now—now!
  In the rocks of the passes where the expectant shoe their horses,
      _They_ beat (among the rifles and the riders)
          _“Nimrud—ah Nimrud!
          Shall we go up against Nimrud_?”
      Watchers, O Watchers a thousand thousand?

                                   _News!_
  Bring out the heaps of grain—open the account-books again!
  Drive forward the well-bullocks against the taxable harvest!
  Eat and lie under the trees—pitch the police-guarded fair-grounds,
      O dancers!
  Hide away the rifles and let down the ladders from the watch-towers!
      _They_ beat (among all the peoples)
          _“Now—now—now!
          God has reserved the Sword for Nimrud!
          God has given Victory to Nimrud!”
          Let us abide under Nimrud_!”
      O Well-disposed and Heedful, an hundred thousand thousand!




A SAHIBS’ WAR


Pass? Pass? Pass? I have one pass already, allowing me to go by the
_rêl_ from Kroonstadt to Eshtellenbosch, where the horses are, where I
am to be paid off, and whence I return to India. I am a—trooper of the
Gurgaon Rissala (cavalry regiment), the One Hundred and Forty-first
Punjab Cavalry, Do not herd me with these black Kaffirs. I am a Sikh—a
trooper of the State. The Lieutenant-Sahib does not understand my talk?
Is there _any_ Sahib on the train who will interpret for a trooper of
the Gurgaon Rissala going about his business in this devil’s devising
of a country, where there is no flour, no oil, no spice, no red pepper,
and no respect paid to a Sikh? Is there no help?… God be thanked, here
is such a Sahib! Protector of the Poor! Heaven-born! Tell the young
Lieutenant-Sahib that my name is Umr Singh; I am—I was servant to
Kurban Sahib, now dead; and I have a pass to go to Eshtellenbosch,
where the horses are. Do not let him herd me with these black Kaffirs!…
Yes, I will sit by this truck till the Heaven-born has explained the
matter to the young Lieutenant-Sahib who does not understand our
tongue.


What orders? The young Lieutenant-Sahib will not detain me? Good! I go
down to Eshtellenbosch by the next _terain_? Good! I go with the
Heaven-born? Good! Then for this day I am the Heaven-born’s servant.
Will the Heaven-born bring the honour of his presence to a seat? Here
is an empty truck; I will spread my blanket over one corner thus—for
the sun is hot, though not so hot as our Punjab in May. I will prop it
up thus, and I will arrange this hay thus, so the Presence can sit at
ease till God sends us a _terain_ for Eshtellenbosch….

The Presence knows the Punjab? Lahore? Amritzar? Attaree, belike? My
village is north over the fields three miles from Attaree, near the big
white house which was copied from a certain place of the Great Queen’s
by—by—I have forgotten the name. Can the Presence recall it? Sirdar
Dyal Singh Attareewalla! Yes, that is the very man; but how does the
Presence know? Born and bred in Hind, was he? O-o-oh! This is quite a
different matter. The Sahib’s nurse was a Surtee woman from the Bombay
side? That was a pity. She should have been an up-country wench; for
those make stout nurses. There is no land like the Punjab. There are no
people like the Sikhs. Umr Singh is my name, yes. An old man? Yes. A
trooper only after all these years? Ye-es. Look at my uniform, if the
Sahib doubts. Nay—nay; the Sahib looks too closely. All marks of rank
were picked off it long ago, but—but it is true—mine is not a common
cloth such as troopers use for their coats, and—the Sahib has sharp
eyes—that black mark is such a mark as a silver chain leaves when long
worn on the breast. The Sahib says that troopers do not wear silver
chains? No-o. Troopers do not wear the Arder of Beritish India? No. The
Sahib should have been in the Police of the Punjab. I am not a trooper,
but I have been a Sahib’s servant for nearly a year—bearer, butler,
sweeper, any and all three. The Sahib says that Sikhs do not take
menial service? True; but it was for Kurban Sahib—my Kurban Sahib—dead
these three months!


Young—of a reddish face—with blue eyes, and he lilted a little on his
feet when he was pleased, and cracked his finger-joints. So did his
father before him, who was Deputy-Commissioner of Jullundur in my
father’s time when I rode with the Gurgaon Rissala. _My_ father? Jwala
Singh. A Sikh of Sikhs—he fought against the English at Sobraon and
carried the mark to his death. So we were knit as it were by a
blood-tie, I and my Kurban Sahib. Yes, I was a trooper first—nay, I had
risen to a Lance-Duffadar, I remember—and my father gave me a dun
stallion of his own breeding on that day; and _he_ was a little baba,
sitting upon a wall by the parade-ground with his ayah—all in white,
Sahib—laughing at the end of our drill. And his father and mine talked
together, and mine beckoned to me, and I dismounted, and the baba put
his hand into mine—eighteen—twenty-five—twenty-seven years gone
now—Kurban Sahib—my Kurban Sahib! Oh, we were great friends after that!
He cut his teeth on my sword-hilt, as the saying is. He called me Big
Umr Singh—Buwwa Umwa Singh, for he could not speak plain. He stood only
this high, Sahib, from the bottom of this truck, but he knew all our
troopers by name—every one…. And he went to England, and he became a
young man, and back he came, lilting a little in his walk, and cracking
his finger-joints—back to his own regiment and to me. He had not
forgotten either our speech or our customs. He was a Sikh at heart,
Sahib. He was rich, open-handed, just, a friend of poor troopers,
keen-eyed, jestful, and careless. _I_ could tell tales about him in his
first years. There was very little he hid from _me_. I was his Umr
Singh, and when we were alone he called me Father, and I called him
Son. Yes, that was how we spoke. We spoke freely together on
everything—about war, and women, and money, and advancement, and such
all.

We spoke about this war, too, long before it came. There were many
box-wallas, pedlars, with Pathans a few, in this country, notably at
the city of Yunasbagh (Johannesburg), and they sent news in every week
how the Sahibs lay without weapons under the heel of the Boer-log; and
how big guns were hauled up and down the streets to keep Sahibs in
order; and how a Sahib called Eger Sahib (Edgar?) was killed for a jest
by the Boer-log. The Sahib knows how we of Hind hear all that passes
over the earth? There was not a gun cocked in Yunasbagh that the echo
did not come into Hind in a month. The Sahibs are very clever, but they
forget their own cleverness has created the _dak_ (the post), and that
for an anna or two all things become known. We of Hind listened and
heard and wondered; and when it was a sure thing, as reported by the
pedlars and the vegetable-sellers, that the Sahibs of Yunasbagh lay in
bondage to the Boer-log, certain among us asked questions and waited
for signs. Others of us mistook the meaning of those signs. _Wherefore,
Sahib, came the long war in the Tirah_! This Kurban Sahib knew, and we
talked together. He said, “There is no haste. Presently we shall fight,
and we shall fight for all Hind in that country round Yunasbagh. Here
he spoke truth. Does the Sahib not agree? Quite so. It is for Hind that
the Sahibs are fighting this war. Ye cannot in one place rule and in
another bear service. Either ye must everywhere rule or everywhere
obey. God does not make the nations ringstraked. True—true—true!”

So did matters ripen—a step at a time. It was nothing to me, except I
think—and the Sahib sees this, too?—that it is foolish to make an army
and break their hearts in idleness. Why have they not sent for men of
the Tochi—the men of the Tirah—the men of Buner? Folly, a thousand
times. _We_ could have done it all so gently—so gently.

Then, upon a day, Kurban Sahib sent for me and said, “Ho, Dada, I am
sick, and the doctor gives me a certificate for many months.” And he
winked, and I said, “I will get leave and nurse thee, Child. Shall I
bring my uniform?” He said, “Yes, and a sword for a sick man to lean
on. We go to Bombay, and thence by sea to the country of the Hubshis”
(niggers). Mark his cleverness! He was first of all our men among the
native regiments to get leave for sickness and to come here. Now they
will not let our officers go away, sick or well, except they sign a
bond not to take part in this war-game upon the road. But _he_ was
clever. There was no whisper of war when he took his sick-leave. I came
also? Assuredly. I went to my Colonel, and sitting in the chair (I am—I
was—of that rank for which a chair is placed when we speak with the
Colonel) I said, “My child goes sick. Give me leave, for I am old and
sick also.”

And the Colonel, making the word double between English and our tongue,
said, “Yes, thou art truly _Sikh_”; and he called me an old
devil—jestingly, as one soldier may jest with another; and he said my
Kurban Sahib was a liar as to his health (that was true, too), and at
long last he stood up and shook my hand, and bade me go and bring my
Sahib safe again. My Sahib back again—aie me!

So I went to Bombay with Kurban Sahib, but there, at sight of the Black
Water, Wajib Ali, his bearer checked, and said that his mother was
dead. Then I said to Kurban Sahib, “What is one Mussulman pig more or
less? Give me the keys of the trunks, and I will lay out the white
shirts for dinner.” Then I beat Wajib Ali at the back of Watson’s
Hotel, and that night I prepared Kurban Sahib’s razors. I say, Sahib,
that I, a Sikh of the Khalsa, an unshorn man, prepared the razors. But
I did not put on my uniform while I did it. On the other hand, Kurban
Sahib took for me, upon the steamer, a room in all respects like to his
own, and would have given me a servant. We spoke of many things on the
way to this country; and Kurban Sahib told me what he perceived would
be the conduct of the war. He said, “They have taken men afoot to fight
men ahorse, and they will foolishly show mercy to these Boer-log
because it is believed that they are white.” He said, “There is but one
fault in this war, and that is that the Government have not employed
_us_, but have made it altogether a Sahibs’ war. Very many men will
thus be killed, and no vengeance will be taken.” True talk—true talk!
It fell as Kurban Sahib foretold.

And we came to this country, even to Cape Town over yonder, and Kurban
Sahib said, “Bear the baggage to the big dak-bungalow, and I will look
for employment fit for a sick man.” I put on the uniform of my rank and
went to the big dak-bungalow, called Maun Nihâl Seyn,[1] and I caused
the heavy baggage to be bestowed in that dark lower place—is it known
to the Sahib?—which was already full of the swords and baggage of
officers. It is fuller now—dead men’s kit all! I was careful to secure
a receipt for all three pieces. I have it in my belt. They must go back
to the Punjab.

 [1] Mount Nelson?


Anon came Kurban Sahib, lilting a little in his step, which sign I
knew, and he said, “We are born in a fortunate hour. We go to
Eshtellenbosch to oversee the despatch of horses.” Remember, Kurban
Sahib was squadron-leader of the Gurgaon Rissala, and _I_ was Umr
Singh. So I said, speaking as we do—we did—when none was near, “Thou
art a groom and I am a grass-cutter, but is this any promotion, Child?”
At this he laughed, saying, “It is the way to better things. Have
patience, Father.” (Aye, he called me father when none were by.) “This
war ends not to-morrow nor the next day. I have seen the new Sahibs,”
he said, “and they are fathers of owls—all—all—all!”

So we went to Eshtellenbosch, where the horses are; Kurban Sahib doing
the service of servants in that business. And the whole business was
managed without forethought by new Sahibs from God knows where, who had
never seen a tent pitched or a peg driven. They were full of zeal, but
empty of all knowledge. Then came, little by little from Hind, those
Pathans—they are just like those vultures up there, Sahib—they always
follow slaughter. And there came to Eshtellenbosch some Sikhs—Muzbees,
though—and some Madras monkey-men. They came with horses. Puttiala sent
horses. Jhind and Nabha sent horses. All the nations of the Khalsa sent
horses.

All the ends of the earth sent horses. God knows what the army did with
them, unless they ate them raw. They used horses as a courtesan uses
oil: with both hands. These needed many men. Kurban Sahib appointed me
to the command (what a command for me!) of certain woolly
ones—_Hubshis_—whose touch and shadow are pollution. They were enormous
eaters; sleeping on their bellies; laughing without cause; wholly like
animals. Some were called Fingoes, and some, I think, Red Kaffirs, but
they were all Kaffirs—filth unspeakable. I taught them to water and
feed, and sweep and rub down. Yes, I oversaw the work of sweepers—a
_jemadar_ of _mehtars_ (headman of a refuse-gang) was I, and Kurban
Sahib little better, for five months. Evil months! The war went as
Kurban Sahib had said. Our new men were slain and no vengeance was
taken. It was a war of fools armed with the weapons of magicians. Guns
that slew at half a day’s march, and men who, being new, walked blind
into high grass and were driven off like cattle by the Boer-log! As to
the city of Eshtellenbosch, I am not a Sahib—only a Sikh. I would have
quartered one troop only of the Gurgaon Rissala in that city—one little
troop—and I would have schooled that city till its men learned to kiss
the shadow of a Government horse upon the ground. There are many
_mullahs_ (priests) in Eshtellenbosch. They preached the Jehad against
us. This is true—all the camp knew it. And most of the houses were
thatched! A war of fools indeed!

At the end of five months my Kurban Sahib, who had grown lean, said,
“The reward has come. We go up towards the front with horses to-morrow,
and, once away, I shall be too sick to return. Make ready the baggage.”
Thus we got away, with some Kaffirs in charge of new horses for a
certain new regiment that had come in a ship. The second day by
_terain_, when we were watering at a desolate place without any sort of
a bazaar to it, slipped out from the horse-boxes one Sikander Khan,
that had been a _jemadar_ of _saises_ (head-groom) at Eshtellenbosch,
and was by service a trooper in a Border regiment. Kurban Sahib gave
him big abuse for his desertion; but the Pathan put up his hands as
excusing himself, and Kurban Sahib relented and added him to our
service. So there were three of us—Kurban Sahib, I, and Sikander
Khan—Sahib, Sikh, and _Sag_ (dog). But the man said truly, “We be far
from our homes and both servants of the Raj. Make truce till we see the
Indus again.” I have eaten from the same dish as Sikander Khan—beef,
too, for aught I know! He said, on the night he stole some swine’s
flesh in a tin from a mess-tent, that in his Book, the Koran, it is
written that whoso engages in a holy war is freed from ceremonial
obligations. Wah! He had no more religion than the sword-point picks up
of sugar and water at baptism. He stole himself a horse at a place
where there lay a new and very raw regiment. I also procured myself a
grey gelding there. They let their horses stray too much, those new
regiments.

Some shameless regiments would indeed have made away with _our_ horses
on the road! They exhibited indents and requisitions for horses, and
once or twice would have uncoupled the trucks; but Kurban Sahib was
wise, and I am not altogether a fool. There is not much honesty at the
front. Notably, there was one congregation of hard-bitten
horse-thieves; tall, light Sahibs, who spoke through their noses for
the most part, and upon all occasions they said, “Oah Hell!” which, in
our tongue, signifies _Jehannum ko jao_. They bore each man a vine-leaf
upon their uniforms, and they rode like Rajputs. Nay, they rode like
Sikhs. They rode like the Ustrelyahs! The Ustrelyahs, whom we met
later, also spoke through their noses not little, and they were tall,
dark men, with grey, clear eyes, heavily eyelashed like camel’s
eyes—very proper men—a new brand of Sahib to me. They said on all
occasions, “No fee-ah,” which in our tongue means _Durro mut_ (“Do not
be afraid”), so we called them the _Durro Muts_. Dark, tall men, most
excellent horsemen, hot and angry, waging war _as_ war, and drinking
tea as a sandhill drinks water. Thieves? A little, Sahib. Sikander Khan
swore to me; and he comes of a horse-stealing clan for ten generations;
he swore a Pathan was a babe beside a _Durro Mut_ in regard to
horse-lifting. The _Durro Muts_ cannot walk on their feet at all. They
are like hens on the high road. Therefore they must have horses. Very
proper men, with a just lust for the war. Aah—“No fee-ah,” say the
_Durro Muts_. _They_ saw the worth of Kurban Sahib. _They_ did not ask
him to sweep stables. They would by no means let him go. He did
substitute for one of their troop-leaders who had a fever, one long day
in a country full of little hills—like the mouth of the Khaibar; and
when they returned in the evening, the _Durro Muts_ said, “Wallah! This
is a man. Steal him!” So they stole my Kurban Sahib as they would have
stolen anything else that they needed, and they sent a sick officer
back to Eshtellenbosch in his place.

Thus Kurban Sahib came to his own again, and I was his bearer, and
Sikander Khan was his cook. The law was strict that this was a Sahibs’
war, but there was no order that a bearer and a cook should not ride
with their Sahib—and we had naught to wear but our uniforms. We rode up
and down this accursed country, where there is no bazaar, no pulse, no
flour, no oil, no spice, no red pepper, no firewood; nothing but raw
corn and a little cattle. There were no great battles as I saw it, but
a plenty of gun-firing. When we were many, the Boer-log came out with
coffee to greet us, and to show us _purwanas_ (permits) from foolish
English Generals who had gone that way before, certifying they were
peaceful and well-disposed. When we were few, they hid behind stones
and shot us. Now the order was that they were Sahibs, and this was a
Sahibs’ war. Good! But, as I understand it, when a Sahib goes to war,
he puts on the cloth of war, and only those who wear that cloth may
take part in the war. Good! That also I understand. But these people
were as they were in Burma, or as the Afridis are. They shot at their
pleasure, and when pressed hid the gun and exhibited _purwanas_, or lay
in a house and said they were farmers. Even such farmers as cut up the
Madras troops at Hlinedatalone in Burma! Even such farmers as slew
Cavagnari Sahib and the Guides at Kabul! We schooled _those_ men, to be
sure—fifteen, aye, twenty of a morning pushed off the verandah in front
of the Bala Hissar. I looked that the Jung-i-lat Sahib (the
Commander-in-Chief) would have remembered the old days; but—no. All the
people shot at us everywhere, and he issued proclamations saying that
he did not fight the people, but a certain army, which army, in truth,
was all the Boer-log, who, between them, did not wear enough of uniform
to make a loincloth. A fool’s war from first to last; for it is
manifest that he who fights should be hung if he fights with a gun in
one hand and a _purwana_ in the other, as did all these people. Yet we,
when they had had their bellyful for the time, received them with
honour, and gave them permits, and refreshed them and fed their wives
and their babes, and severely punished our soldiers who took their
fowls. So the work was to be done not once with a few dead, but thrice
and four times over. I talked much with Kurban Sahib on this, and he
said, “It is a Sahibs’ war. That is the order;” and one night, when
Sikander Khan would have lain out beyond the pickets with his knife and
shown them how it is worked on the Border, he hit Sikander Khan between
the eyes and came near to breaking in his head. Then Sikander Khan, a
bandage over his eyes, so that he looked like a sick camel, talked to
him half one march, and he was more bewildered than I, and vowed he
would return to Eshtellenbosch. But privately to me Kurban Sahib said
we should have loosed the Sikhs and the Gurkhas on these people till
they came in with their foreheads in the dust. For the war was not of
that sort which they comprehended.

They shot us? Assuredly they shot us from houses adorned with a white
flag; but when they came to know our custom, their widows sent word by
Kaffir runners, and presently there was not quite so much firing. _No
fee-ah_! All the Boer-log with whom we dealt had _purwanas_ signed by
mad Generals attesting that they were well-disposed to the State.

They had also rifles not a few, and cartridges, which they hid in the
roof. The women wept very greatly when we burned such houses, but they
did not approach too near after the flames had taken good hold of the
thatch, for fear of the bursting cartridges. The women of the Boer-log
are very clever. They are more clever than the men. The Boer-log are
clever? Never, never, no! It is the Sahibs who are fools. For their own
honour’s sake the Sahibs must say that the Boer-log are clever; but it
is the Sahibs’ wonderful folly that has made the Boer-log. The Sahibs
should have sent _us_ into the game.

But the _Durro Muts_ did well. They dealt faithfully with all that
country thereabouts—not in any way as we of Hind should have dealt, but
they were not altogether fools. One night when we lay on the top of a
ridge in the cold, I saw far away a light in a house that appeared for
the sixth part of an hour and was obscured. Anon it appeared again
thrice for the twelfth part of an hour. I showed this to Kurban Sahib,
for it was a house that had been spared—the people having many permits
and swearing fidelity at our stirrup-leathers. I said to Kurban Sahib,
“Send half a troop, Child, and finish that house. They signal to their
brethren.” And he laughed where he lay and said, “If I listened to my
bearer Umr Singh, there would not be left ten houses in all this land.”
I said, “What need to leave one? This is as it was in Burma. They are
farmers to-day and fighters to-morrow. Let us deal justly with them.”
He laughed and curled himself up in his blanket, and I watched the far
light in the house till day. I have been on the border in eight wars,
not counting Burma. The first Afghan War; the second Afghan War; two
Mahsud Waziri wars (that is four); two Black Mountain wars, if I
remember right; the Malakand and Tirah. I do not count Burma, or some
small things. _I_ know when house signals to house!

I pushed Sikandar Khan with my foot, and he saw it too. He said, “One
of the Boer-log who brought pumpkins for the mess, which I fried last
night, lives in yonder house.” I said, “How dost thou know?” He said,
“Because he rode out of the camp another way, but I marked how his
horse fought with him at the turn of the road; and before the light
fell I stole out of the camp for evening prayer with Kurban Sahib’s
glasses, and from a little hill I saw the pied horse of that
pumpkin-seller hurrying to that house.” I said naught, but took Kurban
Sahib’s glasses from his greasy hands and cleaned them with a silk
handkerchief and returned them to their case. Sikander Khan told me
that he had been the first man in the Zenab valley to use
glasses—whereby he finished two blood-feuds cleanly in the course of
three months’ leave. But he was otherwise a liar.

That day Kurban Sahib, with some ten troopers, was sent on to spy the
land for our camp. The _Durro Muts_ moved slowly at that time. They
were weighted with grain and forage and carts, and they greatly wished
to leave these all in some town and go on light to other business which
pressed. So Kurban Sahib sought a short cut for them, a little off the
line of march. We were twelve miles before the main body, and we came
to a house under a high bushed hill, with a nullah, which they call a
donga, behind it, and an old sangar of piled stones, which they call a
kraal, before it. Two thorn bushes grew on either side of the door,
like babul bushes, covered with a golden coloured bloom, and the roof
was all of thatch. Before the house was a valley of stones that rose to
another bush-covered hill. There was an old man in the verandah—an old
man with a white beard and a wart upon the left side of his neck; and a
fat woman with the eyes of a swine and the jowl of a swine; and a tall
young man deprived of understanding. His head was hairless, no larger
than an orange, and the pits of his nostrils were eaten away by a
disease. He laughed and slavered and he sported sportively before
Kurban Sahib. The man brought coffee and the woman showed us _purwanas_
from three General Sahibs, certifying that they were people of peace
and goodwill. Here are the _purwanas_, Sahib. Does the Sahib know the
Generals who signed them?

They swore the land was empty of Boer-log. They held up their hands and
swore it. That was about the time of the evening meal. I stood near the
verandah with Sikander Khan, who was nosing like a jackal on a lost
scent. At last he took my arm and said, “See yonder! There is the sun
on the window of the house that signalled last night. This house can
see that house from here,” and he looked at the hill behind him all
hairy with bushes, and sucked in his breath. Then the idiot with the
shrivelled head danced by me and threw back that head, and regarded the
roof and laughed like a hyena, and the fat woman talked loudly, as it
were, to cover some noise. After this passed I to the back of the house
on pretence to get water for tea, and I saw fresh fresh horse-dung on
the ground, and that the ground was cut with the new marks of hoofs;
and there had dropped in the dirt one cartridge. Then Kurban Sahib
called to me in our tongue, saying, “Is this a good place to make tea?”
and I replied, knowing what he meant, “There are over many cooks in the
cook-house. Mount and go, Child.” Then I returned, and he said, smiling
to the woman, “Prepare food, and when we have loosened our girths we
will come in and eat;” but to his men he said in a whisper, “Ride
away!” No. He did not cover the old man or the fat woman with his
rifle. That was not his custom. Some fool of the _Durro Muts_, being
hungry, raised his voice to dispute the order to flee, and before we
were in our saddles many shots came from the roof—from rifles thrust
through the thatch. Upon this we rode across the valley of stones, and
men fired at us from the nullah behind the house, and from the hill
behind the nullah, as well as from the roof of the house—so many shots
that it sounded like a drumming in the hills. Then Sikandar Khan,
riding low, said, “This play is not for us alone, but for the rest of
the _Durro Muts_,” and I said, “Be quiet. Keep place!” for his place
was behind me, and I rode behind Kurban Sahib. But these new bullets
will pass through five men a-row! We were not hit—not one of us—and we
reached the hill of rocks and scattered among the stones, and Kurban
Sahib turned in his saddle and said, “Look at the old man!” He stood in
the verandah firing swiftly with a gun, the woman beside him and the
idiot also—both with guns. Kurban Sahib laughed, and I caught him by
the wrist, but—his fate was written at that hour. The bullet passed
under my arm-pit and struck him in the liver, and I pulled him backward
between two great rocks atilt—Kurban Sahib, my Kurban Sahib! From the
nullah behind the house and from the hills came our Boer-log in number
more than a hundred, and Sikandar Khan said, “_Now_ we see the meaning
of last night’s signal. Give me the rifle.” He took Kurban Sahib’s
rifle—in this war of fools only the doctors carry swords—and lay
belly-flat to the work, but Kurban Sahib turned where he lay and said,
“Be still. It is a Sahibs’ war,” and Kurban Sahib put up his hand—thus;
and then his eyes rolled on me, and I gave him water that he might pass
the more quickly. And at the drinking his Spirit received permission….

Thus went our fight, Sahib. We _Durro Muts_ were on a ridge working
from the north to the south, where lay our main body, and the Boer-log
lay in a valley working from east to west. There were more than a
hundred, and our men were ten, but they held the Boer-log in the valley
while they swiftly passed along the ridge to the south. I saw three
Boers drop in the open. Then they all hid again and fired heavily at
the rocks that hid our men; but our men were clever and did not show,
but moved away and away, always south; and the noise of the battle
withdrew itself southward, where we could hear the sound of big guns.
So it fell stark dark, and Sikandar Khan found a deep old jackal’s
earth amid rocks, into which we slid the body of Kurban Sahib upright.
Sikandar Khan took his glasses, and I took his handkerchief and some
letters and a certain thing which I knew hung round his neck, and
Sikandar Khan is witness that I wrapped them all in the handkerchief.
Then we took an oath together, and lay still and mourned for Kurban
Sahib. Sikandar Khan wept till daybreak—even he, a Pathan, a
Mohammedan! All that night we heard firing to the southward, and when
the dawn broke the valley was full of Boer-log in carts and on horses.
They gathered by the house, as we could see through Kurban Sahib’s
glasses, and the old man, who, I take it, was a priest, blessed them,
and preached the holy war, waving his arm; and the fat woman brought
coffee; and the idiot capered among them and kissed their horses.
Presently they went away in haste; they went over the hills and were
not; and a black slave came out and washed the door-sills with bright
water. Sikandar Khan saw through the glasses that the stain was blood,
and he laughed, saying, “Wounded men lie there. We shall yet get
vengeance.”

About noon we saw a thin, high smoke to the southward, such a smoke as
a burning house will make in sunshine, and Sikandar Khan, who knows how
to take a bearing across a hill, said, “At last we have burned the
house of the pumpkin-seller whence they signalled.” And I said: “What
need now that they have slain my child? Let me mourn.” It was a high
smoke, and the old man, as I saw, came out into the verandah to behold
it, and shook his clenched hands at it. So we lay till the twilight,
foodless and without water, for we had vowed a vow neither to eat nor
to drink till we had accomplished the matter. I had a little opium
left, of which I gave Sikandar Khan the half, because he loved Kurban
Sahib. When it was full dark we sharpened our sabres upon a certain
softish rock which, mixed with water, sharpens steel well, and we took
off our boots and we went down to the house and looked through the
windows very softly. The old man sat reading in a book, and the woman
sat by the hearth; and the idiot lay on the floor with his head against
her knee, and he counted his fingers and laughed, and she laughed
again. So I knew they were mother and son, and I laughed, too, for I
had suspected this when I claimed her life and her body from Sikandar
Khan, in our discussion of the spoil. Then we entered with bare
swords…. Indeed, these Boer-log do not understand the steel, for the
old man ran towards a rifle in the corner; but Sikandar Khan prevented
him with a blow of the flat across the hands, and he sat down and held
up his hands, and I put my fingers on my lips to signify they should be
silent. But the woman cried, and one stirred in an inner room, and a
door opened, and a man, bound about the head with rags, stood stupidly
fumbling with a gun. His whole head fell inside the door, and none
followed him. It was a very pretty stroke—for a Pathan. They then were
silent, staring at the head upon the floor, and I said to Sikandar
Khan, “Fetch ropes! Not even for Kurban Sahib’s sake will I defile my
sword.” So he went to seek and returned with three long leather ones,
and said, “Four wounded lie within, and doubtless each has a permit
from a General,” and he stretched the ropes and laughed. Then I bound
the old man’s hands behind his back, and unwillingly—for he laughed in
my face, and would have fingered my beard—the idiot’s. At this the
woman with the swine’s eyes and the jowl of a swine ran forward, and
Sikandar Khan said, “Shall I strike or bind? She was thy property on
the division.” And I said, “Refrain! I have made a chain to hold her.
Open the door.” I pushed out the two across the verandah into the
darker shade of the thorn-trees, and she followed upon her knees and
lay along the ground, and pawed at my boots and howled. Then Sikandar
Khan bore out the lamp, saying that he was a butler and would light the
table, and I looked for a branch that would bear fruit. But the woman
hindered me not a little with her screechings and plungings, and spoke
fast in her tongue, and I replied in my tongue, “I am childless
to-night because of thy perfidy, and _my_ child was praised among men
and loved among women. He would have begotten men—not animals. Thou
hast more years to live than I, but my grief is the greater.”

I stooped to make sure the noose upon the idiot’s neck, and flung the
end over the branch, and Sikandar Khan held up the lamp that she might
well see. Then appeared suddenly, a little beyond the light of the
lamp, the spirit of Kurban Sahib. One hand he held to his side, even
where the bullet had struck him, and the other he put forward thus, and
said, “No. It is a Sahibs’ war.” And I said, “Wait a while, Child, and
thou shalt sleep.” But he came nearer, riding, as it were, upon my
eyes, and said, “No. It is a Sahibs’ war.” And Sikandar Khan said, “Is
it too heavy?” and set down the lamp and came to me; and as he turned
to tally on the rope, the spirit of Kurban Sahib stood up within arm’s
reach of us, and his face was very angry, and a third time he said,
“No. It is a Sahibs’ war.” And a little wind blew out the lamp, and I
heard Sikandar Khan’s teeth chatter in his head.

So we stayed side by side, the ropes in our hand, a very long while,
for we could not shape any words. Then I heard Sikandar Khan open his
water-bottle and drink; and when his mouth was slaked he passed to me
and said, “We are absolved from our vow.” So I drank, and together we
waited for the dawn in that place where we stood—the ropes in our hand.
A little after third cockcrow we heard the feet of horses and gun
wheels very far off, and so soon as the light came a shell burst on the
threshold of the house, and the roof of the verandah that was thatched
fell in and blazed before the windows. And I said, “What of the wounded
Boer-log within?” And Sikandar Khan said, “We have heard the order. It
is a Sahibs’ war. Stand still.” Then came a second shell—good line, but
short—and scattered dust upon us where we stood; and then came ten of
the little quick shells from the gun that speaks like a stammerer—yes,
pompom the Sahibs call it—and the face of the house folded down like
the nose and the chin of an old man mumbling, and the forefront of the
house lay down. Then Sikandar Khan said, “If it be the fate of the
wounded to die in the fire, _I_ shall not prevent it.” And he passed to
the back of the house and presently came back, and four wounded
Boer-log came after him, of whom two could not walk upright. And I
said, “What hast thou done?” And he said, “I have neither spoken to
them nor laid hand on them. They follow in hope of mercy.” And I said,
“It is a Sahibs’ war. Let them wait the Sahibs’ mercy.” So they lay
still, the four men and the idiot, and the fat woman under the
thorn-tree, and the house burned furiously. Then began the known sound
of cartouches in the roof—one or two at first; then a trill, and last
of all one loud noise and the thatch blew here and there, and the
captives would have crawled aside on account of the heat that was
withering the thorn-trees, and on account of wood and bricks flying at
random. But I said, “Abide! Abide! Ye be Sahibs, and this is a Sahibs’
war, O Sahibs. There is no order that ye should depart from this war.”
They did not understand my words. Yet they abode and they lived.

Presently rode down five troopers of Kurban Sahib’s command, and one I
knew spoke my tongue, having sailed to Calcutta often with horses. So I
told him all my tale, using bazaar-talk, such as his kidney of Sahib
would understand; and at the end I said, “An order has reached us here
from the dead that this is a Sahibs’ war. I take the soul of my Kurban
Sahib to witness that I give over to the justice of the Sahibs these
Sahibs who have made me childless.” Then I gave him the ropes and fell
down senseless, my heart being very full, but my belly was empty,
except for the little opium.

They put me into a cart with one of their wounded, and after a while I
understood that they had fought against the Boer-log for two days and
two nights. It was all one big trap, Sahib, of which we, with Kurban
Sahib, saw no more than the outer edge. They were very angry, the
_Durro Muts_—very angry indeed. I have never seen Sahibs so angry. They
buried my Kurban Sahib with the rites of his faith upon the top of the
ridge overlooking the house, and I said the proper prayers of the
faith, and Sikandar Khan prayed in his fashion and stole five
signalling-candles, which have each three wicks, and lighted the grave
as if it had been the grave of a saint on a Friday. He wept very
bitterly all that night, and I wept with him, and he took hold of my
feet and besought me to give him a remembrance from Kurban Sahib. So I
divided equally with him one of Kurban Sahib’s handkerchiefs—not the
silk ones, for those were given him by a certain woman; and I also gave
him a button from a coat, and a little steel ring of no value that
Kurban Sahib used for his keys, and he kissed them and put them into
his bosom. The rest I have here in that little bundle, and I must get
the baggage from the hotel in Cape Town—some four shirts we sent to be
washed, for which we could not wait when we went up-country—and I must
give them all to my Colonel-Sahib at Sialkote in the Punjab. For my
child is dead—my baba is dead!… I would have come away before; there
was no need to stay, the child being dead; but we were far from the
rail, and the _Durro Muts_ were as brothers to me, and I had come to
look upon Sikandar Khan as in some sort a friend, and he got me a horse
and I rode up and down with them; but the life had departed. God knows
what they called me—orderly, _chaprassi_ (messenger), cook, sweeper, I
did not know nor care. But once I had pleasure. We came back in a month
after wide circles to that very valley. I knew it every stone, and I
went up to the grave, and a clever Sahib of the _Durro Muts_ (we left a
troop there for a week to school those people with _purwanas_) had cut
an inscription upon a great rock; and they interpreted it to me, and it
was a jest such as Kurban Sahib himself would have loved. Oh! I have
the inscription well copied here. Read it aloud, Sahib, and I will
explain the jests. There are two very good ones. Begin, Sahib:—

In Memory of
WALTER DECIES CORBYN
Late Captain 141st Punjab Cavalry


The Gurgaon Rissala, that is. Go on, Sahib.

Treacherously shot near this place by
The connivance of the late
HENDRIK DIRK UYS
A Minister of God
Who thrice took the oath of neutrality
And Piet his son,
This little work


Aha! This is the first jest. The Sahib should see this little work!

Was accomplished in partial
And inadequate recognition of their loss
By some men who loved him


_Si monumentum requiris circumspice_


That is the second jest. It signifies that those who would desire to
behold a proper memorial to Kurban Sahib must look out at the house.
And, Sahib, the house is not there, nor the well, nor the big tank
which they call dams, nor the little fruit-trees, nor the cattle. There
is nothing at all, Sahib, except the two trees withered by the fire.
The rest is like the desert here—or my hand—or my heart. Empty,
Sahib—all empty!




“THEIR LAWFUL OCCASIONS”




THE WET LITANY


When the water’s countenance
Blurrs ’twixt glance and second glance;
When the tattered smokes forerun
Ashen ’neath a silvered sun;
When the curtain of the haze
Shuts upon our helpless ways—
     Hear the Channel Fleet at sea;
     _Libera nos domine_!

When the engines’ bated pulse
Scarcely thrills the nosing hulls;
When the wash along the side
Sounds, a sudden, magnified
When the intolerable blast
Marks each blindfold minute passed.

When the fog-buoy’s squattering flight
Guides us through the haggard night;
When the warning bugle blows;
When the lettered doorways close;
When our brittle townships press,
Impotent, on emptiness.

When the unseen leadsmen lean
Questioning a deep unseen;
When their lessened count they tell
To a bridge invisible;
When the hid and perilous
Cliffs return our cry to us.

When the treble thickness spread
Swallows up our next-ahead;
When her siren’s frightened whine
Shows her sheering out of line;
When, her passage undiscerned,
We must turn where she has turned—
     Hear the Channel Fleet at sea;
     _Libera nos Domine_!




“THEIR LAWFUL OCCASIONS”


“… And a security for such as pass on the seas upon   their lawful
occasions.”—_Navy Prayer_.

PART I

Disregarding the inventions of the Marine Captain, whose other name is
Gubbins, let a plain statement suffice.

H.M.S. _Caryatid_ went to Portland to join Blue Fleet for manœuvres. I
travelled overland from London by way of Portsmouth, where I fell among
friends. When I reached Portland, H.M.S. _Caryatid_, whose guest I was
to have been, had, with Blue Fleet, already sailed for some secret
rendezvous off the west coast of Ireland, and Portland breakwater was
filled with Red Fleet, my official enemies and joyous acquaintances,
who received me with unstinted hospitality. For example,
Lieutenant-Commander A. L. Hignett, in charge of three destroyers,
_Wraith, Stiletto_, and _Kobbold_, due to depart at 6 P.M. that
evening, offered me a berth on his thirty-knot flagship, but I
preferred my comforts, and so accepted sleeping-room in H.M.S.
_Pedantic_ (15,000 tons), leader of the second line. After dining
aboard her I took boat to Weymouth to get my kit aboard, as the
battleships would go to war at midnight. In transferring my allegiance
from Blue to Red Fleet, whatever the Marine Captain may say, I did no
wrong. I truly intended to return to the _Pedantic_ and help to fight
Blue Fleet. All I needed was a new toothbrush, which I bought from a
chemist in a side street at 9:15 P.M. As I turned to go, one entered
seeking alleviation of a gum-boil. He was dressed in a checked ulster,
a black silk hat three sizes too small, cord-breeches, boots, and pure
brass spurs. These he managed painfully, stepping like a prisoner fresh
from leg-irons. As he adjusted the pepper-plaster to the gum the light
fell on his face, and I recognised Mr. Emanuel Pyecroft, late
second-class petty officer of H.M.S. _Archimandrite_, an unforgettable
man, met a year before under Tom Wessel’s roof in Plymouth. It occurred
to me that when a petty officer takes to spurs he may conceivably
meditate desertion. For that reason I, though a taxpayer, made no sign.
Indeed, it was Mr. Pyecroft, following me out of the shop, who said
hollowly: “What might you be doing here?”

“I’m going on manœuvres in the _Pedantic_,” I replied.

“Ho!” said Mr. Pyecroft. “An’ what manner o’ manœuvres d’you expect to
see in a blighted cathedral like the _Pedantic_? _I_ know ’er. I knew
her in Malta, when the _Vulcan_ was her permanent tender. Manoeuvres!
You won’t see more than ‘Man an’ arm watertight doors!’ in your little
woollen undervest.”

“I’m sorry for that.”

“Why?” He lurched heavily as his spurs caught and twanged like
tuning-forks. “War’s declared at midnight. _Pedantics_ be sugared! Buy
an ’am an’ see life!”

For the moment I fancied Mr. Pyecroft, a fugitive from justice,
purposed that we two should embrace a Robin Hood career in the uplands
of Dorset. The spurs troubled me, and I made bold to say as much.
“Them!” he said, coming to an intricate halt. “They’re part of the
_prima facie_ evidence. But as for me—let me carry your bag—I’m second
in command, leadin’-hand, cook, steward, an’ lavatory man, with a few
incidentals for sixpence a day extra, on No. 267 torpedo-boat.”

“They wear spurs there?”

“Well,” said Mr. Peycroft, “seein’ that Two Six Seven belongs to Blue
Fleet, which left the day before yesterday, disguises are imperative.
It transpired thus. The Right Honourable Lord Gawd Almighty Admiral
Master Frankie Frobisher, K.C.B., commandin’ Blue Fleet, can’t be
bothered with one tin-torpedo-boat more or less; and what with lyin’ in
the Reserve four years, an’ what with the new kind o’ tiffy which
cleans dynamos with brick-dust and oil (Blast these spurs! They won’t
render!), Two Six Seven’s steam-gadgets was paralytic. Our Mr. Moorshed
done his painstakin’ best—it’s his first command of a war-canoe, matoor
age nineteen (down that alleyway, please!) but be that as it may, His
Holiness Frankie is aware of us crabbin’ ourselves round the breakwater
at five knots, an’ steerin’ _pari passu_, as the French say. (Up this
alley-way, please!) If he’d given Mr. Hinchcliffe, our chief engineer,
a little time, it would never have transpired, for what Hinch can’t
drive he can coax; but the new port bein’ a trifle cloudy, an’ ’is
joints tinglin’ after a post-captain dinner, Frankie come on the upper
bridge seekin’ for a sacrifice. We, offerin’ a broadside target, got
it. He told us what ’is grandmamma, ’oo was a lady an’ went to sea in
stick- and string-batteaus, had told him about steam. He throwed in his
own prayers for the ’ealth an’ safety of all steam-packets an’ their
officers. Then he give us several distinct orders. The first few—I kept
tally—was all about going to Hell; the next many was about not
evolutin’ in his company, when there; an’ the last all was simply
repeatin’ the motions in quick time. Knowin’ Frankie’s groovin’ to be
badly eroded by age and lack of attention, I didn’t much panic; but our
Mr. Moorshed, ’e took it a little to heart. Me an’ Mr. Hinchcliffe
consoled ’im as well as service conditions permits of, an’ we had a
_résumé_-supper at the back o’ the Camber—secluded _an’_ lugubrious!
Then one thing leadin’ up to another, an’ our orders, except about
anchorin’ where he’s booked for, leavin’ us a clear ’orizon, Number Two
Six Seven is now—mind the edge of the wharf—here!”

By mysterious doublings he had brought me out on to the edge of a
narrow strip of water crowded with coastwise shipping that runs far up
into Weymouth town. A large foreign timber-brig lay at my feet, and
under the round of her stern cowered, close to the wharf-edge, a
slate-coloured, unkempt, two-funnelled craft of a type—but I am no
expert—between the first-class torpedo-boat and the full-blooded
destroyer. From her archaic torpedo-tubes at the stern, and
quick-firers forward and amidship, she must have dated from the early
nineties. Hammerings and clinkings, with spurts of steam and fumes of
hot oil, arose from her inside, and a figure in a striped jersey
squatted on the engine-room gratings.

“She ain’t much of a war-canoe, but you’ll see more life in ’er than on
an whole squadron of bleedin’ _Pedantics.”_

“But she’s laid up here—and Blue Fleet have gone,” I protested.
“Precisely. Only, in his comprehensive orders Frankie didn’t put us out
of action. Thus we’re a non-neglectable fightin’ factor which you
mightn’t think from this elevation; _an’_ m’rover, Red Fleet don’t know
we’re ’ere. Most of us”—he glanced proudly at his boots—“didn’t run to
spurs, but we’re disguised pretty devious, as you might say. Morgan,
our signaliser, when last seen, was a Dawlish bathing-machine
proprietor. Hinchcliffe was naturally a German waiter, and me you
behold as a squire of low degree; while yonder Levantine dragoman on
the hatch is our Mr. Moorshed. He was the second cutter’s snotty—_my_
snotty—on the _Archimandrite_—two years—Cape Station. Likewise on the
West Coast, mangrove swampin’, an’ gettin’ the cutter stove in on small
an’ unlikely bars, an’ manufacturin’ lies to correspond. What I don’t
know about Mr. Moorshed is precisely the same gauge as what Mr.
Moorshed don’t know about me—half a millimetre, as you might say. He
comes into awful opulence of his own when ’e’s of age; an’ judgin’ from
what passed between us when Frankie cursed ’im, I don’t think ’e cares
whether he’s broke to-morrow or—the day after. Are you beginnin’ to
follow our tattics? They’ll be worth followin’. Or _are_ you goin’ back
to your nice little cabin on the _Pedantic_—which I lay they’ve just
dismounted the third engineer out of—to eat four fat meals per diem,
an’ smoke in the casement?”

The figure in the jersey lifted its head and mumbled.

“Yes, Sir,” was Mr. Pyecroft’s answer. “I ’ave ascertained that
_Stiletto, Wraith_, and _Kobbold_ left at 6 P.M. with the first
division o’ Red Fleet’s cruisers except _Devolotion_ and _Cryptic_,
which are delayed by engine-room defects.” Then to me: “Won’t you go
aboard? Mr. Moorshed ’ud like some one to talk to. You buy an ’am an’
see life.”

At this he vanished; and the Demon of Pure Irresponsibility bade me
lower myself from the edge of the wharf to the tea-tray plates of No.
267.

“What d’you want?” said the striped jersey.

“I want to join Blue Fleet if I can,” I replied. “I’ve been left behind
by—an accident.”

“Well?”

“Mr. Pyecroft told me to buy a ham and see life. About how big a ham do
you need?”

“I don’t want any ham, thank you. That’s the way up the wharf.
_Good_-night.”

“Good-night!” I retraced my steps, wandered in the dark till I found a
shop, and there purchased, of sardines, canned tongue, lobster, and
salmon, not less than half a hundredweight. A belated sausage-shop
supplied me with a partially cut ham of pantomime tonnage. These things
I, sweating, bore out to the edge of the wharf and set down in the
shadow of a crane. It was a clear, dark summer night, and from time to
time I laughed happily to myself. The adventure was preordained on the
face of it. Pyecroft alone, spurred or barefoot, would have drawn me
very far from the paths of circumspection. His advice to buy a ham and
see life clinched it. Presently Mr. Pyecroft—I heard spurs clink—passed
me. Then the jersey voice said: “What the mischief’s that?”

“’Asn’t the visitor come aboard, Sir? ’E told me he’d purposely
abandoned the _Pedantic_ for the pleasure of the trip with us. Told me
he was official correspondent for the _Times_; an’ I know he’s littery
by the way ’e tries to talk Navy-talk. Haven’t you seen ’im, Sir?”

Slowly and dispassionately the answer drawled long on the night; “Pye,
you are without exception the biggest liar in the Service!”

“Then what am I to do with the bag, Sir? It’s marked with his name.”
There was a pause till Mr. Moorshed said “Oh!” in a tone which the
listener might construe precisely as he pleased.

“_He_ was the maniac who wanted to buy a ham and see life—was he? If he
goes back to the _Pedantic_—”

“Pre-cisely, Sir. Gives us all away, Sir.”

“Then what possessed _you_ to give it away to him, you owl?”

“I’ve got his bag. If ’e gives anything away, he’ll have to go naked.”

At this point I thought it best to rattle my tins and step out of the
shadow of the crane.

“I’ve bought the ham,” I called sweetly. “Have you still any objection
to my seeing life, Mr. Moorshed?”

“All right, if you’re insured. Won’t you come down?”

I descended; Pyecroft, by a silent flank movement, possessing himself
of all the provisions, which he bore to some hole forward.

“Have you known Mr. Pyecroft long?” said my host.

“Met him once, a year ago, at Devonport. What do you think of him?”

“What do _you_ think of him?”

“I’ve left the _Pedantic_—her boat will be waiting for me at ten
o’clock, too—simply because I happened to meet him,” I replied.

“That’s all right. If you’ll come down below, we may get some grub.”

We descended a naked steel ladder to a steel-beamed tunnel, perhaps
twelve feet long by six high. Leather-topped lockers ran along either
side; a swinging table, with tray and lamp above, occupied the centre.
Other furniture there was none.

“You can’t shave here, of course. We don’t wash, and, as a rule, we eat
with our fingers when we’re at sea. D’you mind?”

Mr. Moorshed, black-haired, black-browed, sallow-complexioned, looked
me over from head to foot and grinned. He was not handsome in any way,
but his smile drew the heart. “You didn’t happen to hear what Frankie
told me from the flagship, did you? His last instructions, and I’ve
logged them here in shorthand, were”—he opened a neat
pocket-book—”_‘Get out of this and conduct your own damned manœuvres in
your own damned tinker fashion! You’re a disgrace to the Service, and
your boat’s offal.’”_

“Awful?” I said.

“No—offal—tripes—swipes—ullage.” Mr. Pyecroft entered, in the costume
of his calling, with the ham and an assortment of tin dishes, which he
dealt out like cards.

“I shall take these as my orders,” said Mr. Moorshed. “I’m chucking the
Service at the end of the year, so it doesn’t matter.”

We cut into the ham under the ill-trimmed lamp, washed it down with
whisky, and then smoked. From the foreside of the bulkhead came an
uninterrupted hammering and clinking, and now and then a hiss of steam.

“That’s Mr. Hinchcliffe,” said Pyecroft. “He’s what is called a
first-class engine-room artificer. If you hand ’im a drum of oil an’
leave ’im alone, he can coax a stolen bicycle to do typewritin’.”

Very leisurely, at the end of his first pipe, Mr. Moorshed drew out a
folded map, cut from a newspaper, of the area of manœuvres, with the
rules that regulate these wonderful things, below.

“Well, I suppose I know as much as an average stick-and-string
admiral,” he said, yawning. “Is our petticoat ready yet, Mr. Pyecroft?”

As a preparation for naval manœuvres these councils seemed inadequate.
I followed up the ladder into the gloom cast by the wharf edge and the
big lumber-ship’s side. As my eyes stretched to the darkness I saw that
No. 267 had miraculously sprouted an extra pair of funnels—soft, for
they gave as I touched them.

“More _prima facie_ evidence. You runs a rope fore an’ aft, an’ you
erects perpendick-u-arly two canvas tubes, which you distends with cane
hoops, thus ’avin’ as many funnels as a destroyer. At the word o’
command, up they go like a pair of concertinas, an’ consequently
collapses equally ’andy when requisite. Comin’ aft we shall doubtless
overtake the Dawlish bathin’-machine proprietor fittin’ on her bustle.”

Mr. Pyecroft whispered this in my ear as Moorshed moved toward a group
at the stern.

“None of us who ain’t built that way can be destroyers, but we can look
as near it as we can. Let me explain to you, Sir, that the stern of a
Thorneycroft boat, which we are _not_, comes out in a pretty bulge,
totally different from the Yarrow mark, which again we are not. But, on
the other ’and, _Dirk, Stiletto, Goblin, Ghoul, Djinn_, and
_A-frite_—Red Fleet dee-stroyers, with ’oom we hope to consort later on
terms o’ perfect equality—_are_ Thorneycrofts, an’ carry that Grecian
bend which we are now adjustin’ to our _arriere-pensée_—as the French
would put it—by means of painted canvas an’ iron rods bent as
requisite. Between you an’ me an’ Frankie, we are the _Gnome_, now in
the Fleet Reserve at Pompey—Portsmouth, I should say.”

“The first sea will carry it all away,” said Moorshed, leaning gloomily
outboard, “but it will do for the present.”

“We’ve a lot of _prima facie_ evidence about us,” Mr. Pyecroft went on.
“A first-class torpedo boat sits lower in the water than a destroyer.
Hence we artificially raise our sides with a black canvas wash-streak
to represent extra freeboard; _at_ the same time paddin’ out the cover
of the forward three-pounder like as if it was a twelve-pounder, an’
variously fakin’ up the bows of ’er. As you might say, we’ve took
thought an’ added a cubic to our stature. It’s our len’th that sugars
us. A ’undred an’ forty feet, which is our len’th into two ’undred and
ten, which is about the _Gnome’s,_ leaves seventy feet over, which we
haven’t got.”

“Is this all your own notion, Mr. Pyecroft?” I asked.

“In spots, you might say—yes; though we all contributed to make up
deficiencies. But Mr. Moorshed, not much carin’ for further Navy after
what Frankie said, certainly threw himself into the part with avidity.”

“What the dickens are we going to do?”

“Speaking as a seaman gunner, I should say we’d wait till the sights
came on, an’ then fire. Speakin’ as a torpedo-coxswain, L.T.O., T.I.,
M.D., etc., I presume we fall in—Number One in rear of the tube, etc.,
secure tube to ball or diaphragm, clear away securin’-bar, release
safety-pin from lockin-levers, an’ pray Heaven to look down on us. As
second in command o’ 267, I say wait an’ see!”

“What’s happened? We’re off,” I said. The timber ship had slid away
from us.

“We are. Stern first, an’ broadside on! If we don’t hit anything too
hard, we’ll do.”

“Come on the bridge,” said Mr. Moorshed. I saw no bridge, but fell over
some sort of conning-tower forward, near which was a wheel. For the
next few minutes I was more occupied with cursing my own folly than
with the science of navigation. Therefore I cannot say how we got out
of Weymouth Harbour, nor why it was necessary to turn sharp to the left
and wallow in what appeared to be surf.

“Excuse me,” said Mr. Pyecroft behind us, “_I_ don’t mind rammin’ a
bathin’-machine; but if only _one_ of them week-end Weymouth blighters
has thrown his empty baccy-tin into the sea here, we’ll rip our plates
open on it; 267 isn’t the _Archimandrite’s_ old cutter.”

“I am hugging the shore,” was the answer.

“There’s no actual ’arm in huggin’, but it can come expensive if
pursooed.”

“Right-O!” said Moorshed, putting down the wheel, and as we left those
scant waters I felt 267 move more freely.

A thin cough ran up the speaking-tube.

“Well, what is it, Mr. Hinchcliffe?” said Moorshed.

“I merely wished to report that she is still continuin’ to go, Sir.”

“Right-O! Can we whack her up to fifteen, d’you think?”

“I’ll try, Sir; but we’d prefer to have the engine-room hatch open—at
first, Sir.”

Whacked up then she was, and for half an hour was careered largely
through the night, turning at last with a suddenness that slung us
across the narrow deck.

“This,” said Mr. Pyecroft, who received me on his chest as a large rock
receives a shadow, “represents the _Gnome_ arrivin’ cautious from the
direction o’ Portsmouth, with Admiralty orders.”

He pointed through the darkness ahead, and after much staring my eyes
opened to a dozen destroyers, in two lines, some few hundred yards
away.

“Those are the Red Fleet destroyer flotilla, which is too frail to
panic about among the full-blooded cruisers inside Portland breakwater,
and several millimetres too excited over the approachin’ war to keep a
look-out inshore. Hence our tattics!”

We wailed through our siren—a long, malignant, hyena-like howl—and a
voice hailed us as we went astern tumultuously.

“The _Gnome_—Carteret-Jones—from Portsmouth, with
orders—mm—mm—_Stiletto_,” Moorshed answered through the megaphone in a
high, whining voice, rather like a chaplain’s.

“_Who_?” was the answer.

“Carter—et—Jones.”

“Oh, Lord!”

There was a pause; a voice cried to some friend, “It’s Podgie, adrift
on the high seas in charge of a whole dee-stroyer!”

Another voice echoed, “Podgie!” and from its note I gathered that Mr.
Carteret-Jones had a reputation, but not for independent command.

“Who’s your sub?” said the first speaker, a shadow on the bridge of the
_Dirk_.

“A gunner, at present, Sir. The _Stiletto_—broken down—turns over to
us.”

“When did the _Stiletto_ break down?”

“Off the Start, Sir; two hours after—after she left here this evening,
I believe. My orders are to report to you for the manœuvre
signal-codes, and join Commander Hignett’s flotilla, which is in
attendance on _Stiletto_.”

A smothered chuckle greeted this last. Moorshed’s voice was high and
uneasy. Said Pyecroft, with a sigh: “The amount o’ trouble me an’ my
bright spurs ’ad fishin’ out that information from torpedo coxswains
and similar blighters in pubs all this afternoon, you would never
believe.”

“But has the _Stiletto_ broken down?” I asked weakly.

“How else are we to get Red Fleet’s private signal-code? Any way, if
she ’asn’t now, she will before manœuvres are ended. It’s only
executin’ in anticipation.”

“Go astern and send your coxswain aboard for orders, Mr. Jones.” Water
carries sound well, but I do not know whether we were intended to hear
the next sentence: “They must have given him _one_ intelligent keeper.”

“That’s me,” said Mr. Pyecroft, as a black and coal-stained dinghy—I
did not foresee how well I should come to know her—was flung overside
by three men.

“Havin’ bought an ’am, we will now see life.” He stepped into the boat
and was away.

“I say, Podgie!”—the speaker was in the last of the line of destroyers,
as we thumped astern—“aren’t you lonely out there?”

“Oh, don’t rag me!” said Moorshed. “Do you suppose I’ll have to
manœuvre with your flo-tilla?”

“No, Podgie! I’m pretty sure our commander will see you sifting cinders
in Tophet before you come with our flo-tilla.”

“Thank you! She steers rather wild at high speeds.”

Two men laughed together.

“By the way, who is Mr. Carteret-Jones when he’s at home?” I whispered.

“I was with him in the _Britannia_. I didn’t like him much, but I’m
grateful to him now. I must tell him so some day.”

“They seemed to know him hereabouts.”

“He rammed the _Caryatid_ twice with her own steam-pinnace.”

Presently, moved by long strokes, Mr. Pyecroft returned, skimming
across the dark. The dinghy swung up behind him, even as his heel
spurned it.

“Commander Fasset’s compliments to Mr. L. Carteret-Jones, and the
sooner he digs out in pursuance of Admiralty orders as received at
Portsmouth, the better pleased Commander Fasset will be. But there’s a
lot more——”

“Whack her up, Mr. Hinchcliffe! Come on to the bridge. We can settle it
as we go. Well?”

Mr. Pyecroft drew an important breath, and slid off his cap.

“Day an’ night private signals of Red Fleet _com_plete, Sir!” He handed
a little paper to Moorshed. “You see, Sir, the trouble was, that Mr.
Carteret-Jones bein’, so to say, a little new to his duties, ’ad forgot
to give ’is gunner his Admiralty orders in writin’, but, as I told
Commander Fasset, Mr. Jones had been repeatin’ ’em to me, nervous-like,
most of the way from Portsmouth, so I knew ’em by heart—an’ better. The
Commander, recognisin’ in me a man of agility, cautioned me to be a
father an’ mother to Mr. Carteret-Jones.”

“Didn’t he know you?” I asked, thinking for the moment that there could
be no duplicates of Emanuel Pyecroft in the Navy.

“What’s a torpedo-gunner more or less to a full lootenant commanding
six thirty-knot destroyers for the first time? ’E seemed to cherish the
’ope that ’e might use the _Gnome_ for ’is own ’orrible purposes; but
what I told him about Mr. Jones’s sad lack o’ nerve comin’ from Pompey,
an’ going dead slow on account of the dark, short-circuited _that_
connection. ‘M’rover,’ I says to him, ‘our orders is explicit;
_Stiletto’s_ reported broke down somewhere off the Start, an’ we’ve
been tryin’ to coil down a new stiff wire hawser all the evenin’, so it
looks like towin’ ’er back, don’t it?’ I says. That more than ever jams
his turrets, an’ makes him keen to get rid of us. ’E even hinted that
Mr. Carteret-Jones passin’ hawsers an’ assistin’ the impotent in a
sea-way might come pretty expensive on the tax-payer. I agreed in a
disciplined way. I ain’t proud. Gawd knows I ain’t proud! But when I’m
really diggin’ out in the fancy line, I sometimes think that me in a
copper punt, single-’anded, ’ud beat a cutter-full of De Rougemongs in
a row round the fleet.”

At this point I reclined without shame on Mr. Pyecroft’s bosom,
supported by his quivering arm.

“Well?” said Moorshed, scowling into the darkness, as 267’s bows
snapped at the shore seas of the broader Channel, and we swayed
together.

“‘You’d better go on,’ says Commander Fassett, ‘an’ do what you’re told
to do. I don’t envy Hignett if he has to dry-nurse the _Gnome’s_
commander. But what d’you want with signals?’ ’e says. ‘It’s criminal
lunacy to trust Mr. Jones with anything that steams.’

“‘May I make an observation, Sir?’ I says. ‘Suppose,’ I says, ‘you was
torpedo-gunner on the _Gnome_, an’ Mr. Carteret-Jones was your
commandin’ officer, an’ you had your reputation _as_ a second in
command for the first time,’ I says, well knowin’ it was his first
command of a flotilla, ‘what ’ud you do, Sir?’ That gouged ’is
unprotected ends open—clear back to the citadel.”

“What did he say?” Moorshed jerked over his shoulder.

“If you were Mr. Carteret-Jones, it might be disrespect for me to
repeat it, Sir.”

“Go ahead,” I heard the boy chuckle.

“‘Do?’ ’e says. ‘I’d rub the young blighter’s nose into it till I made
a perishin’ man of him, or a perspirin’ pillow-case,’ ’e says, ‘which,’
he adds, ‘is forty per cent, more than he is at present.’

“Whilst he’s gettin’ the private signals—they’re rather particular
ones—I went forrard to see the _Dirk’s_ gunner about borrowin’ a
holdin’-down bolt for our twelve-pounder. My open ears, while I was
rovin’ over his packet, got the followin’ authentic particulars.” I
heard his voice change, and his feet shifted. “There’s been a last
council o’ war of destroyer-captains at the flagship, an’ a lot of
things ’as come out. To begin with _Cryptic_ and _Devolution_, Captain
Panke and Captain Malan—”

“_Cryptic_ and _Devolution_, first-class cruisers,” said Mr. Moorshed
dreamily. “Go on, Pyecroft.”

“—bein’ delayed by minor defects in engine-room, did _not_, as we know,
accompany Red Fleet’s first division of scouting cruisers, whose
rendezvous is unknown, but presumed to be somewhere off the Lizard.
_Cryptic_ an’ _Devolution_ left at 9:30 P.M. still reportin’ copious
minor defects in engine-room. Admiral’s final instructions was they was
to put into Torbay, an’ mend themselves there. If they can do it in
twenty-four hours, they’re to come on and join the battle squadron at
the first rendezvous, down Channel somewhere. (I couldn’t get that,
Sir.) If they can’t, he’ll think about sendin’ them some destroyers for
escort. But his present intention is to go ’ammer and tongs down
Channel, usin’ ’is destroyers for all they’re worth, an’ thus keepin’
Blue Fleet too busy off the Irish coast to sniff into any eshtuaries.”

“But if those cruisers are crocks, why does the Admiral let ’em out of
Weymouth at all?” I asked.

“The tax-payer,” said Mr. Moorshed.

“An’ newspapers,” added Mr. Pyecroft. “In Torbay they’ll look as they
was muckin’ about for strategical purposes—hammerin’ like blazes in the
engine room all the weary day, an’ the skipper droppin’ questions down
the engine-room hatch every two or three minutes. _I’ve_ been there.
Now, Sir?” I saw the white of his eye turn broad on Mr. Moorshed.

The boy dropped his chin over the speaking-tube.

“Mr. Hinchcliffe, what’s her extreme economical radius?”

“Three hundred and forty knots, down to swept bunkers.”

“Can do,” said Moorshed. “By the way, have her revolutions any bearing
on her speed, Mr. Hinchcliffe?”

“None that I can make out yet, Sir.”

“Then slow to eight knots. We’ll jog down to forty-nine, forty-five, or
four about, and three east. That puts us say forty miles from Torbay by
nine o’clock to-morrow morning. We’ll have to muck about till dusk
before we run in and try our luck with the cruisers.”

“Yes, Sir. Their picket boats will be panickin’ round them all night.
It’s considered good for the young gentlemen.”

“Hallo! War’s declared! They’re off!” said Moorshed.

He swung 267’s head round to get a better view. A few miles to our
right the low horizon was spangled with small balls of fire, while
nearer ran a procession of tiny cigar ends.

“Red hot! Set ’em alight,” said Mr. Pyecroft. “That’s the second
destroyer flotilla diggin’ out for Commander Fassett’s reputation.”

The smaller lights disappeared; the glare of the destroyers’ funnels
dwindled even as we watched.

“They’re going down Channel with lights out, thus showin’ their zeal
an’ drivin’ all watch-officers crazy. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I think
I’ll get you your pyjamas, an’ you’ll turn in,” said Pyecroft.

He piloted me to the steel tunnel, where the ham still swung
majestically over the swaying table, and dragged out trousers and a
coat with a monk’s hood, all hewn from one hairy inch-thick board.

“If you fall over in these you’ll be drowned. They’re lammies. I’ll
chock you off with a pillow; but sleepin’ in a torpedo-boat’s what you
might call an acquired habit.”

I coiled down on an iron-hard horse-hair pillow next the quivering
steel wall to acquire that habit. The sea, sliding over 267’s skin,
worried me with importunate, half-caught confidences. It drummed
tackily to gather my attention, coughed, spat, cleared its throat, and,
on the eve of that portentous communication, retired up stage as a
multitude whispering. Anon, I caught the tramp of armies afoot, the hum
of crowded cities awaiting the event, the single sob of a woman, and
dry roaring of wild beasts. A dropped shovel clanging on the stokehold
floor was, naturally enough, the unbarring of arena gates; our sucking
uplift across the crest of some little swell, nothing less than the
haling forth of new worlds; our half-turning descent into the hollow of
its mate, the abysmal plunge of God-forgotten planets. Through all
these phenomena and more—though I ran with wild horses over illimitable
plains of rustling grass; though I crouched belly-flat under appalling
fires of musketry; though I was Livingstone, painless, and incurious in
the grip of his lion—my shut eyes saw the lamp swinging in its gimbals,
the irregularly gliding patch of light on the steel ladder, and every
elastic shadow in the corners of the frail angle-irons; while my body
strove to accommodate itself to the infernal vibration of the machine.
At the last I rolled limply on the floor, and woke to real life with a
bruised nose and a great call to go on deck at once.

“It’s all right,” said a voice in my booming ears. “Morgan and Laughton
are worse than you!”

I was gripping a rail. Mr. Pyecroft pointed with his foot to two
bundles beside a torpedo-tube, which at Weymouth had been a signaller
and a most able seaman. “She’d do better in a bigger sea,” said Mr.
Pyecroft. “This lop is what fetches it up.”

The sky behind us whitened as I laboured, and the first dawn drove down
the Channel, tipping the wave-tops with a chill glare. To me that round
wind which runs before the true day has ever been fortunate and of good
omen. It cleared the trouble from my body, and set my soul dancing to
267’s heel and toe across the northerly set of the waves—such waves as
I had often watched contemptuously from the deck of a ten-thousand-ton
liner. They shouldered our little hull sideways and passed, scalloped,
and splayed out, toward the coast, carrying our white wake in loops
along their hollow backs. In succession we looked down a lead-grey
cutting of water for half a clear mile, were flung up on its ridge,
beheld the Channel traffic—full-sailed to that fair breeze—all about
us, and swung slantwise, light as a bladder, elastic as a basket, into
the next furrow. Then the sun found us, struck the wet gray bows to
living, leaping opal, the colourless deep to hard sapphire, the many
sails to pearl, and the little steam-plume of our escape to an
inconstant rainbow.

“A fair day and a fair wind for all, thank God!” said Emanuel Pyecroft,
throwing back the cowl-like hood of his blanket coat. His face was
pitted with coal-dust and grime, pallid for lack of sleep; but his eyes
shone like a gull’s.

“I told you you’d see life. Think o’ the _Pedantic_ now. Think o’ her
Number One chasin’ the mobilised gobbies round the lower deck flats.
Think o’ the pore little snotties now bein’ washed, fed, and taught,
an’ the yeoman o’ signals with a pink eye wakin’ bright ’an brisk to
another perishin’ day of five-flag hoists. Whereas _we_ shall caulk an’
smoke cigarettes, same as the Spanish destroyers did for three weeks
after war was declared.” He dropped into the wardroom singing:—

If you’re going to marry me, marry me, Bill,
It’s no use muckin’ about!


The man at the wheel, uniformed in what had once been a Tam-o’-shanter,
a pair of very worn R.M.L.I. trousers rolled up to the knee, and a
black sweater, was smoking a cigarette. Moorshed, in a gray Balaclava
and a brown mackintosh with a flapping cape, hauled at our
supplementary funnel guys, and a thing like a waiter from a Soho
restaurant sat at the head of the engine-room ladder exhorting the
unseen below. The following wind beat down our smoke and covered all
things with an inch-thick layer of stokers, so that eyelids, teeth, and
feet gritted in their motions. I began to see that my previous
experiences among battleships and cruisers had been altogether beside
the mark.




PART II

The wind went down with the sunset—
    The fog came up with the tide,
When the Witch of the North took an Egg-shell (_bis_)
    With a little Blue Devil inside.
“Sink,” she said, “or swim,” she said,
    “It’s all you will get from me.
And that is the finish of him!” she said,
    And the Egg-shell went to sea.

The wind got up with the morning,
    And the fog blew off with the rain,
When the Witch of the North saw the Egg-shell
    And the little Blue Devil again.
“Did you swim?” she said. “Did you sink?” she said,
    And the little Blue Devil replied:
“For myself I swam, but I think,” he said,
    “There’s somebody sinking outside.”


But for the small detail that I was a passenger and a civilian, and
might not alter her course, torpedo-boat No. 267 was mine to me all
that priceless day. Moorshed, after breakfast—frizzled ham and a devil
that Pyecroft made out of sardines, anchovies, and French mustard
smashed together with a spanner—showed me his few and simple navigating
tools, and took an observation. Morgan, the signaller, let me hold the
chamois leathers while he cleaned the searchlight (we seemed to be
better equipped with electricity than most of our class), that lived
under a bulbous umbrella-cover amidship. Then Pyecroft and Morgan,
standing easy, talked together of the King’s Service as reformers and
revolutionists, so notably, that were I not engaged on this tale I
would, for its conclusion, substitute theirs.

I would speak of Hinchcliffe—Henry Salt Hinchcliffe, first-class
engine-room artificer, and genius in his line, who was prouder of
having taken part in the Hat Crusade in his youth than of all his
daring, his skill, and his nickel-steel nerve. I consorted with him for
an hour in the packed and dancing engine-room, when Moorshed suggested
“whacking her up” to eighteen knots, to see if she would stand it. The
floor was ankle-deep in a creamy batter of oil and water; each moving
part flicking more oil in zoetrope-circles, and the gauges invisible
for their dizzy chattering on the chattering steel bulkhead. Leading
stoker Grant, said to be a bigamist, an ox-eyed man smothered in hair,
took me to the stokehold and planted me between a searing white furnace
and some hell-hot iron plate for fifteen minutes, while I listened to
the drone of fans and the worry of the sea without, striving to wrench
all that palpitating firepot wide open.

Then I came on deck and watched Moorshed—revolving in his orbit from
the canvas bustle and torpedo-tubes aft, by way of engine-room,
conning-tower, and wheel, to the doll’s house of a foc’sle—learned in
experience withheld from me, moved by laws beyond my knowledge,
authoritative, entirely adequate, and yet, in heart, a child at his
play. _I_ could not take ten steps along the crowded deck but I
collided with some body or thing; but he and his satellites swung,
passed, and returned on their vocations with the freedom and
spaciousness of the well-poised stars.

Even now I can at will recall every tone and gesture, with each
dissolving picture inboard or overside—Hinchcliffe’s white arm buried
to the shoulder in a hornet’s nest of spinning machinery; Moorshed’s
halt and jerk to windward as he looked across the water; Pyecroft’s
back bent over the Berthon collapsible boat, while he drilled three men
in expanding it swiftly; the outflung white water at the foot of a
homeward-bound Chinaman not a hundred yards away, and her
shadow-slashed, rope-purfled sails bulging sideways like insolent
cheeks; the ribbed and pitted coal-dust on our decks, all iridescent
under the sun; the first filmy haze that paled the shadows of our
funnels about lunch time; the gradual die-down and dulling over of the
short, cheery seas; the sea that changed to a swell: the swell that
crumbled up and ran allwhither oilily: the triumphant, almost audible
roll inward of wandering fog-walls that had been stalking us for two
hours, and—welt upon welt, chill as the grave—the drive of the
interminable main fog of the Atlantic. We slowed to little more than
steerage-way and lay listening. Presently a hand-bellows foghorn jarred
like a corncrake, and there rattled out of the mist a big ship
literally above us. We could count the rivets in her plates as we
scrooped by, and the little drops of dew gathered below them.

“Wonder why they’re always barks—always steel—always four-masted—an’
never less than two thousand tons. But they are,” said Pyecroft. He was
out on the turtle-backed bows of her; Moorshed was at the wheel, and
another man worked the whistle.

“This fog is the best thing could ha’ happened to us,” said Moorshed.
“It gives us our chance to run in on the quiet…. Hal-lo!”

A cracked bell rang. Clean and sharp (beautifully grained, too), a
bowsprit surged over our starboard bow, the bobstay confidentially
hooking itself into our forward rail.

I saw Pyecroft’s arm fly up; heard at the same moment the severing of
the tense rope, the working of the wheel, Moorshed’s voice down the
tube saying, “Astern a little, please, Mr. Hinchcliffe!” and Pyecroft’s
cry, “Trawler with her gear down! Look out for our propeller, Sir, or
we’ll be wrapped up in the rope.”

267 surged quickly under my feet, as the pressure of the
downward-bearing bobstay was removed. Half-a-dozen men of the foc’sle
had already thrown out fenders, and stood by to bear off a just visible
bulwark.

Still going astern, we touched slowly, broadside on, to a suggestive
crunching of fenders, and I looked into the deck of a Brixham trawler,
her crew struck dumb.

“Any luck?” said Moorshed politely.

“Not till we met yeou,” was the answer. “The Lard he saved us from they
big ships to be spitted by the little wan. Where be’e gwine tu with our
fine new bobstay?”

“Yah! You’ve had time to splice it by now,” said Pyecroft with
contempt.

“Aie; but we’m all crushed to port like aigs. You was runnin’
twenty-seven knots, us reckoned it. Didn’t us, Albert?”

“Liker twenty-nine, an’ niver no whistle.”

“Yes, we always do that. Do you want a tow to Brixham?” said Moorshed.

A great silence fell upon those wet men of the sea.

We lifted a little toward their side, but our silent, quick-breathing
crew, braced and strained outboard, bore us off as though we had been a
mere picket-boat.

“What for?” said a puzzled voice.

“For love; for nothing. You’ll be abed in Brixham by midnight.”

“Yiss; but trawl’s down.”

“No hurry. I’ll pass you a line and go ahead. Sing out when you’re
ready.” A rope smacked on their deck with the word; they made it fast;
we slid forward, and in ten seconds saw nothing save a few feet of the
wire rope running into fog over our stern; but we heard the noise of
debate.

“Catch a Brixham trawler letting go of a free tow in a fog,” said
Moorshed listening.

“But what in the world do you want him for?” I asked.

“Oh, he’ll came in handy later.”

“Was that your first collision?”

“Yes.” I shook hands with him in silence, and our tow hailed us.

“Aie! yeou little man-o’-war!” The voice rose muffled and wailing.
“After us’ve upped trawl, us’ll be glad of a tow. Leave line just slack
abaout as ’tis now, and kip a good fine look-out be’ind ’ee.”

“There’s an accommodatin’ blighter for you!” said Pyecroft. “Where does
he expect we’ll be, with these currents evolutin’ like sailormen at the
Agricultural Hall?”

I left the bridge to watch the wire-rope at the stern as it drew out
and smacked down upon the water. By what instinct or guidance 267 kept
it from fouling her languidly flapping propeller, I cannot tell. The
fog now thickened and thinned in streaks that bothered the eyes like
the glare of intermittent flash-lamps; by turns granting us the vision
of a sick sun that leered and fled, or burying all a thousand fathom
deep in gulfs of vapours. At no time could we see the trawler though we
heard the click of her windlass, the jar of her trawl-beam, and the
very flap of the fish on her deck. Forward was Pyecroft with the lead;
on the bridge Moorshed pawed a Channel chart; aft sat I, listening to
the whole of the British Mercantile Marine (never a keel less)
returning to England, and watching the fog-dew run round the bight of
the tow back to its mother-fog.

“Aie! yeou little man-o’-war! We’m done with trawl. You can take us
home if you know the road.”

“Right O!” said Moorshed. “We’ll give the fishmonger a run for his
money. Whack her up, Mr. Hinchcliffe.”

The next few hours completed my education. I saw that I ought to be
afraid, but more clearly (this was when a liner hooted down the back of
my neck) that any fear which would begin to do justice to the situation
would, if yielded to, incapacitate me for the rest of my days. A shadow
of spread sails, deeper than the darkening twilight, brooding over us
like the wings of Azrael (Pyecroft said she was a Swede), and,
miraculously withdrawn, persuaded me that there was a working chance
that I should reach the beach—any beach—alive, if not dry; and (this
was when an economical tramp laved our port-rail with her condenser
water) were I so spared, I vowed I would tell my tale worthily.

Thus we floated in space as souls drift through raw time. Night added
herself to the fog, and I laid hold on my limbs jealously, lest they,
too, should melt in the general dissolution.

“Where’s that prevaricatin’ fishmonger?” said Pyecroft, turning a
lantern on a scant yard of the gleaming wire-rope that pointed like a
stick to my left. “He’s doin’ some fancy steerin’ on his own. No wonder
Mr. Hincheliffe is blasphemious. The tow’s sheered off to starboard,
Sir. He’ll fair pull the stern out of us.”

Moorshed, invisible, cursed through the megaphone into invisibility.

“Aie! yeou little man-o’-war!” The voice butted through the fog with
the monotonous insistence of a strayed sheep’s. “We don’t all like the
road you’m takin’. ’Tis no road to Brixham. You’ll be buckled up under
Prawle Point by’mbye.”

“Do you pretend to know where you are?” the megaphone roared.

“Iss, I reckon; but there’s no pretence to me!”

“O Peter!” said Pyecroft. “Let’s hang him at ’is own gaff.”

I could not see what followed, but Moorshed said: “Take another man
with you. If you lose the tow, you’re done. I’ll slow her down.”

I heard the dinghy splash overboard ere I could cry “Murder!” Heard the
rasp of a boat-hook along the wire-rope, and then, as it had been in my
ear, Pyecroft’s enormous and jubilant bellow astern: “Why, he’s here!
Right atop of us! The blighter ’as pouched half the tow, like a shark!”
A long pause filled with soft Devonian bleatings. Then Pyecroft, _solo
arpeggio_: “Rum? Rum? Rum? Is that all? Come an’ try it, uncle.”

I lifted my face to where once God’s sky had been, and besought The
Trues I might not die inarticulate, amid these half-worked miracles,
but live at least till my fellow-mortals could be made one-millionth as
happy as I was happy. I prayed and I waited, and we went slow—slow as
the processes of evolution—till the boat-hook rasped again.

“He’s not what you might call a scientific navigator,” said Pyecroft,
still in the dinghy, but rising like a fairy from a pantomime trap.
“The lead’s what ’e goes by mostly; rum is what he’s come for; an’
Brixham is ’is ’ome. Lay on, Mucduff!”

A white whiskered man in a frock-coat—as I live by bread, a
frock-coat!—sea-boots, and a comforter crawled over the torpedo-tube
into Moorshed’s grip and vanished forward.

“’E’ll probably ’old three gallon (look sharp with that dinghy!); but
’is nephew, left in charge of the _Agatha_, wants two bottles
command-allowance. You’re a tax-payer, Sir. Do you think that
excessive?”

“Lead there! Lead!” rang out from forward.

“Didn’t I say ’e wouldn’t understand compass deviations? Watch him
close. It’ll be worth it!”

As I neared the bridge I heard the stranger say: “Let me zmell un!” and
to his nose was the lead presented by a trained man of the King’s Navy.

“I’ll tell ’ee where to goo, if yeou’ll tell your donkey-man what to
du. I’m no hand wi’ steam.” On these lines we proceeded miraculously,
and, under Moorshed’s orders—I was the fisherman’s Ganymede, even as
“M. de C.” had served the captain—I found both rum and curaçoa in a
locker, and mixed them equal bulk in an enamelled iron cup.

“Now we’m just abeam o’ where we should be,” he said at last, “an’ here
we’ll lay till she lifts. I’d take ’e in for another bottle—and wan for
my nevvy; but I reckon yeou’m shart-allowanced for rum. That’s nivver
no Navy rum yeou’m give me. Knowed ’ee by the smack tu un. Anchor now!”

I was between Pyecroft and Moorshed on the bridge, and heard them
spring to vibrating attention at my side. A man with a lead a few feet
to port caught the panic through my body, and checked like a wild boar
at gaze, for not far away an unmistakable ship’s bell was ringing. It
ceased, and another began.

“Them!” said Pyecroft. “Anchored!”

“More!” said our pilot, passing me the cup, and I filled it. The
trawler astern clattered vehemently on her bell. Pyecroft with a jerk
of his arm threw loose the forward three-pounder. The bar of the
back-sight was heavily blobbed with dew; the foresight was invisible.

“No—they wouldn’t have their picket-boats out in this weather, though
they ought to.” He returned the barrel to its crotch slowly.

“Be yeou gwine to anchor?” said Macduff, smacking his lips, “or be yeou
gwine straight on to Livermead Beach?”

“Tell him what we’re driving at. Get it into his head somehow,” said
Moorshed; and Pyecroft, snatching the cup from me, enfolded the old man
with an arm and a mist of wonderful words.

“And if you pull it off,” said Moorshed at the last, “I’ll give you a
fiver.”

“Lard! What’s fivers to me, young man? My nevvy, he likes ’em; but I do
cherish more on fine drink than filthy lucre any day o’ God’s good
weeks. Leave goo my arm, yeou common sailorman! I tall ’ee, gentlemen,
I hain’t the ram-faced, ruddle-nosed old fule yeou reckon I be. Before
the mast I’ve fared in my time; fisherman I’ve been since I seed the
unsense of sea-dangerin’. Baccy and spirits—yiss, an’ cigars too, I’ve
run a plenty. I’m no blind harse or boy to be coaxed with your
forty-mile free towin’ and rum atop of all. There’s none more sober to
Brix’am this tide, I don’t care who ’tis—than me. _I_ know—_I_ know.
Yander’m two great King’s ships. Yeou’m wishful to sink, burn, and
destroy they while us kips ’em busy sellin’ fish. No need tall me so
twanty taime over. Us’ll find they ships! Us’ll find ’em, if us has to
break our fine new bowsprit so close as Crump’s bull’s horn!”

“Good egg!” quoth Moorshed, and brought his hand down on the wide
shoulders with the smack of a beaver’s tail.

“Us’ll go look for they by hand. Us’ll give they something to play
upon; an’ do ’ee deal with them faithfully, an’ may the Lard have mercy
on your sowls! Amen. Put I in dinghy again.”

The fog was as dense as ever—we moved in the very womb of night—but I
cannot recall that I took the faintest note of it as the dinghy, guided
by the tow-rope, disappeared toward the _Agatha_, Pyecroft rowing. The
bell began again on the starboard bow.

“We’re pretty near,” said Moorshed, slowing down. “Out with the
Berthon. (_We’ll_ sell ’em fish, too.) And if any one rows Navy-stroke,
I’ll break his jaw with the tiller. Mr. Hinchcliffe (this down the
tube), “you’ll stay here in charge with Gregory and Shergold and the
engine-room staff. Morgan stays, too, for signalling purposes.” A deep
groan broke from Morgan’s chest, but he said nothing. “If the fog thins
and you’re seen by any one, keep’em quiet with the signals. I can’t
think of the precise lie just now, but _you_ can, Morgan.”

“Yes, Sir.”

“Suppose their torpedo-nets are down?” I whispered, shivering with
excitement.

“If they’ve been repairing minor defects all day, they won’t have any
one to spare from the engine-room, and ‘Out nets!’ is a job for the
whole ship’s company. I expect they’ve trusted to the fog—like us.
Well, Pyecroft?”

That great soul had blown up on to the bridge like a feather. “’Ad to
see the first o’ the rum into the _Agathites_, Sir. They was a bit
jealous o’ their commandin’ officer comin’ ’ome so richly lacquered,
and at first the _conversazione_ languished, as you might say. But they
sprang to attention ere I left. Six sharp strokes on the bells, if any
of ’em are sober enough to keep tally, will be the signal that our
consort ’as cast off her tow an’ is manceuvrin’ on ’er own.”

“Right O! Take Laughton with you in the dinghy. Put that Berthon over
quietly there! Are you all right, Mr. Hinchcliffe?”

I stood back to avoid the rush of half-a-dozen shadows dropping into
the Berthon boat. A hand caught me by the slack of my garments, moved
me in generous arcs through the night, and I rested on the bottom of
the dinghy.

“I want you for _prima facie_ evidence, in case the vaccination don’t
take,” said Pyecroft in my ear. “Push off, Alf!”

The last bell-ringing was high overhead. It was followed by six little
tinkles from the _Agatha_, the roar of her falling anchor, the clash of
pans, and loose shouting.

“Where be gwine tu? Port your ’ellum. Aie! you mud-dredger in the
fairway, goo astern! Out boats! She’ll sink us!”

A clear-cut Navy voice drawled from the clouds: “Quiet! you gardeners
there. This is the _Cryptic_ at anchor.”

“Thank you for the range,” said Pyecroft, and paddled gingerly. “Feel
well out in front of you, Alf. Remember your fat fist is our only
Marconi installation.” The voices resumed:

“Bournemouth steamer he says she be.”

“Then where be Brixham Harbor?”

“Damme, I’m a tax-payer tu. They’ve no right to cruise about this way.
I’ll have the laa on ’ee if anything carries away.”

Then the man-of-war:

“Short on your anchor! Heave short, you howling maniacs! You’ll get
yourselves smashed in a minute if you drift.”

The air was full of these and other voices as the dinghy, checking,
swung. I passed one hand down Laughton’s stretched arm and felt an iron
gooseneck and a foot or two of a backward-sloping torpedo-net boom. The
other hand I laid on broad, cold iron—even the flanks of H.M.S.
_Cryptic_, which is twelve thousand tons.

I heard a scrubby, raspy sound, as though Pyecroft had chosen that hour
to shave, and I smelled paint. “Drop aft a bit, Alf; we’ll put a
stencil under the stern six-inch casements.”

Boom by boom Laughlin slid the dinghy along the towering curved wall.
Once, twice, and again we stopped, and the keen scrubbing sound was
renewed.

“Umpires are ’ard-’earted blighters, but this ought to convince ’em….
Captain Panke’s stern-walk is now above our defenceless ’eads. Repeat
the evolution up the starboard side, Alf.”

I was only conscious that we moved around an iron world palpitating
with life. Though my knowledge was all by touch—as, for example, when
Pyecroft led my surrendered hand to the base of some bulging sponson,
or when my palm closed on the knife-edge of the stem and patted it
timidly—yet I felt lonely and unprotected as the enormous, helpless
ship was withdrawn, and we drifted away into the void where voices
sang:

Tom Pearce, Tom Pearce, lend me thy gray mare,
All along, out along, down along lea!
I want for to go to Widdicombe Fair
With Bill Brewer, Sam Sewer, Peter Gurney, Harry Hawke,
Old Uncle Tom Cobley an’ all!


“That’s old Sinbad an’ ’is little lot from the _Agatha_! Give way, Alf!
_You_ might sing somethin’, too.”

“I’m no burnin’ Patti. Ain’t there noise enough for you, Pye?”

“Yes, but it’s only amateurs. Give me the tones of ’earth and ’ome. Ha!
List to the blighter on the ’orizon sayin’ his prayers, Navy-fashion.
’Eaven ’elp me argue that way when I’m a warrant-officer!”

We headed with little lapping strokes toward what seemed to be a
fair-sized riot.

“An’ I’ve ’eard the _Devolution_ called a happy ship, too,” said
Pyecroft. “Just shows ’ow a man’s misled by prejudice. She’s
peevish—that’s what she is—nasty-peevish. Prob’ly all because the
_Agathites_ are scratching ’er paint. Well, rub along, Alf. I’ve got
the lymph!”

A voice, which Mr. Pyecroft assured me belonged to a chief carpenter,
was speaking through an aperture (starboard bow twelve-pounder on the
lower deck). He did not wish to purchase any fish, even at grossly
reduced rates. Nobody wished to buy any fish. This ship was the
_Devolution_ at anchor, and desired no communication with shore boats.

“Mark how the Navy ’olds it’s own. He’s sober. The _Agathites_ are not,
as you might say, an’ yet they can’t live with ’im. It’s the discipline
that does it. ’Ark to the bald an’ unconvincin’ watch-officer chimin’
in. I wonder where Mr. Moorshed has got to?”

We drifted down the _Devolution’s_ side, as we had drifted down her
sister’s; and we dealt with her in that dense gloom as we had dealt
with her sister.

“Whai! ’Tis a man-o’-war, after all! I can see the captain’s whisker
all gilt at the edges! We took ’ee for the Bournemouth steamer. Three
cheers for the real man-o’-war!”

That cry came from under the _Devolution’s_ stern. Pyecroft held
something in his teeth, for I heard him mumble, “Our Mister Moorshed!”

Said a boy’s voice above us, just as we dodged a jet of hot water from
some valve: “I don’t half like that cheer. If I’d been the old man I’d
ha’ turned loose the quick-firers at the first go-off. Aren’t they
rowing Navy-stroke, yonder?”

“True,” said Pyecroft, listening to retreating oars. “It’s time to go
’ome when snotties begin to think. The fog’s thinnin’, too.”

I felt a chill breath on my forehead, and saw a few feet of the steel
stand out darker than the darkness, disappear—it was then the dinghy
shot away from it—and emerge once more.

“Hallo! what boat’s that?” said the voice suspiciously.

“Why, I do believe it’s a real man-o’-war, after all,” said Pyecroft,
and kicked Laughton.

“What’s that for?” Laughton was no dramatist.

“Answer in character, you blighter! Say somethin’ opposite.”

“What boat’s _thatt_?” The hail was repeated.

“What do yee say-ay?” Pyecroft bellowed, and, under his breath to me:
“Give us a hand.”

“It’s called the _Marietta_—F. J. Stokes—Torquay,” I began,
quaveringly. “At least, that’s the name on the name-board. I’ve been
dining—on a yacht.”

“I see.” The voice shook a little, and my way opened before me with
disgraceful ease.

“Yesh. Dining private yacht. _Eshmesheralda_. I belong to Torquay Yacht
Club. _Are_ you member Torquay Yacht Club?”

“You’d better go to bed, Sir. Good-night.” We slid into the rapidly
thinning fog.

“Dig out, Alf. Put your _nix mangiare_ back into it. The fog’s peelin’
off like a petticoat. Where’s Two Six Seven?”

“I can’t see her,” I replied, “but there’s a light low down ahead.”

“The _Agatha_!” They rowed desperately through the uneasy dispersal of
the fog for ten minutes and ducked round the trawler’s bow.

“Well, Emanuel means ‘God with us’—so far.” Pyecroft wiped his brow,
laid a hand on the low rail, and as he boosted me up to the trawler, I
saw Moorshed’s face, white as pearl in the thinning dark.

“Was it all right?” said he, over the bulwarks.

“Vaccination ain’t in it. She’s took beautiful. But where’s 267, Sir?”
Pyecroft replied.

“Gone. We came here as the fog lifted. I gave the _Devolution_ four.
Was that you behind us?”

“Yes, sir; but I only got in three on the _Devolution_. I gave the
_Cryptic_ nine, though. They’re what you might call more or less
vaccinated.”

He lifted me inboard, where Moorshed and six pirates lay round the
_Agatha’s_ hatch. There was a hint of daylight in the cool air.

“Where is the old man?” I asked.

“Still selling ’em fish, I suppose. He’s a darling! But I wish I could
get this filthy paint off my hands. Hallo! What the deuce is the
_Cryptic_ signalling?”

A pale masthead light winked through the last of the fog. It was
answered by a white pencil to the southward.

“Destroyer signalling with searchlight.” Pyecroft leaped on the
stern-rail. “The first part is private signals. Ah! now she’s Morsing
against the fog. ‘P-O-S-T—yes, ‘postpone’—‘D-E-P- (go on)!
departure—till—further—orders—which—will—be com (he’s dropped the other
m) unicated—verbally. End,’. He swung round. “_Cryptic_ is now
answering: ‘Ready—proceed—immediately.
What—news—promised—destroyer—flotilla?’”

“Hallo!” said Moorshed. “Well, never mind, They’ll come too late.”

“Whew! That’s some ’igh-born suckling on the destroyer. Destroyer
signals: ‘Care not. All will be known later.’ What merry beehive’s
broken loose now?”

“What odds! We’ve done our little job.”

“Why—why—it’s Two Six Seven!”

Here Pyecroft dropped from the rail among the fishy nets and shook the
_Agatha_ with heavings. Moorshed cast aside his cigarette, looked over
the stern, and fell into his subordinate’s arms. I heard the guggle of
engines, the rattle of a little anchor going over not a hundred yards
away, a cough, and Morgan’s subdued hail. … So far as I remember, it
was Laughton whom I hugged; but the men who hugged me most were
Pyecroft and Moorshed, adrift among the fishy nets.

There was no semblance of discipline in our flight over the _Agatha’s_
side, nor, indeed, were ordinary precautions taken for the common
safety, because (I was in the Berthon) they held that patent boat open
by hand for the most part. We regained our own craft, cackling like
wild geese, and crowded round Moorshed and Hinchcliffe. Behind us the
_Agatha’s_ boat, returning from her fish-selling cruise, yelled: “Have
’ee done the trick? Have ’ee done the trick?” and we could only shout
hoarsely over the stern, guaranteeing them rum by the hold-full.

“Fog got patchy here at 12:27,” said Henry Salt Hinchcliffe, growing
clearer every instant in the dawn. “Went down to Brixham Harbour to
keep out of the road. Heard whistles to the south and went to look. I
had her up to sixteen good. Morgan kept on shedding private Red Fleet
signals out of the signal-book, as the fog cleared, till we was
answered by three destroyers. Morgan signalled ’em by searchlight:
‘Alter course to South Seventeen East, so as not to lose time.’ They
came round quick. We kept well away—on their port beam—and Morgan gave
’em their orders.” He looked at Morgan and coughed.

“The signalman, acting as second in command,” said Morgan, swelling,
“then informed destroyer flotilla that _Cryptic_ and _Devolution_ had
made good defects, and, in obedience to Admiral’s supplementary orders
(I was afraid they might suspect that, but they didn’t), had proceeded
at seven knots at 11:23 P.M. to rendezvous near Channel Islands, seven
miles N.N.W. the Casquet light. (I’ve rendezvoused there myself, Sir.)
Destroyer flotilla would therefore follow cruisers and catch up with
them on their course. Destroyer flotilla then dug out on course
indicated, all funnels sparking briskly.”

“Who were the destroyers?”

“_Wraith, Kobbold, Stiletto_, Lieutenant-Commander A. L. Hignett,
acting under Admiral’s orders to escort cruisers received off the
Dodman at 7 P.M. They’d come slow on account of fog.”

“Then who were you?”

“We were the _Afrite_, port-engine broke down, put in to Torbay, and
there instructed by _Cryptic_, previous to her departure with
_Devolution_) to inform Commander Hignett of change of plans.
Lieutenant-Commander Hignett signalled that our meeting was quite
providential. After this we returned to pick up our commanding officer,
and being interrogated by _Cryptic_, marked time signalling as
requisite, which you may have seen. The _Agatha_ representing the last
known rallying-point—or, as I should say, pivot-ship of the
evolution—it was decided to repair to the _Agatha_ at conclusion of
manœuvre.”

We breathed deeply, all of us, but no one spoke a word till Moorshed
said: “Is there such a thing as one fine big drink aboard this one fine
big battleship?”

“Can do, sir,” said Pyecroft, and got it. Beginning with Mr. Moorshed
and ending with myself, junior to the third first-class stoker, we
drank, and it was as water of the brook, that two and a half inches of
stiff, treacly, Navy rum. And we looked each in the other’s face, and
we nodded, bright-eyed, burning with bliss.

Moorshed walked aft to the torpedo-tubes and paced back and forth, a
captain victorious on his own quarterdeck; and the triumphant day broke
over the green-bedded villas of Torquay to show us the magnitude of our
victory. There lay the cruisers (I have reason to believe that they had
made good their defects). They were each four hundred and forty feet
long and sixty-six wide; they held close upon eight hundred men apiece,
and they had cost, say, a million and a half the pair. And they were
ours, and they did not know it. Indeed, the _Cryptic_, senior ship, was
signalling vehement remarks to our address, which we did not notice.

“If you take these glasses, you’ll get the general run o’ last night’s
vaccination,” said Pyecroft. “Each one represents a torpedo got ’ome,
as you might say.”

I saw on the _Cryptic’s_ port side, as she lay half a mile away across
the glassy water, four neat white squares in outline, a white blur in
the centre.

“There are five more to starboard. ’Ere’s the original!” He handed me a
paint-dappled copper stencil-plate, two feet square, bearing in the
centre the six-inch initials, “G.M.”

“Ten minutes ago I’d ha’ eulogised about that little trick of ours, but
Morgan’s performance has short-circuited me. Are you happy, Morgan?”

“Bustin’,” said the signalman briefly.

“You may be. Gawd forgive you, Morgan, for as Queen ’Enrietta said to
the ’ousemaid, _I_ never will. I’d ha’ given a year’s pay for ten
minutes o’ your signallin’ work this mornin’.”

“I wouldn’t ’ave took it up,” was the answer. “Perishin’ ’Eavens above!
Look at the _Devolution’s_ semaphore!” Two black wooden arms waved from
the junior ship’s upper bridge. “They’ve seen it.”

“_The_ mote _on_ their neighbour’s beam, of course,” said Pyecroft, and
read syllable by syllable: “‘Captain Malan to Captain Panke.
Is—sten—cilled frieze your starboard side new Admiralty regulation, or
your Number One’s private expense?’ Now _Cryptic_ is saying, ‘Not
understood.’ Poor old _Crippy_, the _Devolute’s_ raggin’ ’er sore. ‘Who
is G.M.?’ she says. That’s fetched the _Cryptic_. She’s answerin’: ‘You
ought to know. Examine own paintwork.’ Oh, Lord! they’re both on to it
now. This is balm. This is beginning to be balm. I forgive you,
Morgan!”

Two frantic pipes twittered. From either cruiser a whaler dropped into
the water and madly rowed round the ship: as a gay-coloured hoist rose
to the _Cryptic’s_ yardarm: “Destroyer will close at once. Wish to
speak by semaphore.” Then on the bridge semaphore itself: “Have been
trying to attract your attention last half hour. Send commanding
officer aboard at once.”

“Our attention? After all the attention we’ve given ’er, too,” said
Pyecroft. “What a greedy old woman!” To Moorshed: “Signal from the
_Cryptic_, Sir.”

“Never mind that!” said the boy, peering through his glasses. “Our
dinghy quick, or they’ll paint our marks out. Come along!”

By this time I was long past even hysteria. I remember Pyecroft’s
bending back, the surge of the driven dinghy, a knot of amazed faces as
we skimmed the _Cryptic’s_ ram, and the dropped jaw of the midshipman
in her whaler when we barged fairly into him.

“Mind my paint!” he yelled.

“You mind mine, snotty,” said Moorshed. “I was all night putting these
little ear-marks on you for the umpires to sit on. Leave ’em alone.”

We splashed past him to the _Devolution’s_ boat, where sat no one less
than her first lieutenant, a singularly unhandy-looking officer.

“What the deuce is the meaning of this?” he roared, with an accusing
forefinger.

“You’re sunk, that’s all. You’ve been dead half a tide.”

“Dead, am I? I’ll show you whether I’m dead or not, Sir!”

“Well, you may be a survivor,” said Moorshed ingratiatingly, “though it
isn’t at all likely.”

The officer choked for a minute. The midshipman crouched up in stern
said, half aloud: “Then I _was_ right—last night.”

“Yesh,” I gasped from the dinghy’s coal-dust. “Are you member Torquay
Yacht Club?”

“Hell!” said the first lieutenant, and fled away. The _Cryptic’s_ boat
was already at that cruiser’s side, and semaphores flicked zealously
from ship to ship. We floated, a minute speck, between the two hulls,
while the pipes went for the captain’s galley on the _Devolution_.

“That’s all right,” said Moorshed. “Wait till the gangway’s down and
then board her decently. We oughtn’t to be expected to climb up a ship
we’ve sunk.”

Pyecroft lay on his disreputable oars till Captain Malan,
full-uniformed, descended the _Devolution’s_ side. With due
compliments—not acknowledged, I grieve to say—we fell in behind his
sumptuous galley, and at last, upon pressing invitation, climbed, black
as sweeps all, the lowered gangway of the _Cryptic_. At the top stood
as fine a constellation of marine stars as ever sang together of a
morning on a King’s ship. Every one who could get within earshot found
that his work took him aft. I counted eleven able seamen polishing the
breechblock of the stern nine-point-two, four marines zealously
relieving each other at the life-buoy, six call-boys, nine midshipmen
of the watch, exclusive of naval cadets, and the higher ranks past all
census.

“If I die o’ joy,” said Pyecroft behind his hand, “remember I died
forgivin’ Morgan from the bottom of my ’eart, because, like Martha, we
’ave scoffed the better part. You’d better try to come to attention,
Sir.”

Moorshed ran his eye voluptuously over the upper deck battery, the huge
beam, and the immaculate perspective of power. Captain Panke and
Captain Malan stood on the well-browned flash-plates by the dazzling
hatch. Precisely over the flagstaff I saw Two Six Seven astern, her
black petticoat half hitched up, meekly floating on the still sea. She
looked like the pious Abigail who has just spoken her mind, and, with
folded hands, sits thanking Heaven among the pieces. I could almost
have sworn that she wore black worsted gloves and had a little dry
cough. But it was Captain Panke that coughed so austerely. He favoured
us with a lecture on uniform, deportment, and the urgent necessity of
answering signals from a senior ship. He told us that he disapproved of
masquerading, that he loved discipline, and would be obliged by an
explanation. And while he delivered himself deeper and more deeply into
our hands, I saw Captain Malan wince. He was watching Moorshed’s eye.

“I belong to Blue Fleet, Sir. I command Number Two Six Seven,” said
Moorshed, and Captain Planke was dumb. “Have you such a thing as a
frame-plan of the _Cryptic_ aboard?” He spoke with winning politeness
as he opened a small and neatly folded paper.

“I have, sir.” The little man’s face was working with passion.

“Ah! Then I shall be able to show you precisely where you were
torpedoed last night in”—he consulted the paper with one finely arched
eyebrow—“in nine places. And since the _Devolution_ is, I understand, a
sister ship”—he bowed slightly toward Caplain Malan—“the same plan——”

I had followed the clear precision of each word with a dumb amazement
which seemed to leave my mind abnormally clear. I saw Captain Malan’s
eye turn from Moorshed and seek that of the _Cryptic’s_ commander. And
he telegraphed as clearly as Moorshed was speaking: “My dear friend and
brother officer, _I_ know Panke; _you_ know Panke; _we_ know Panke—good
little Panke! In less than three Greenwich chronometer seconds Panke
will make an enormous ass of himself, and I shall have to put things
straight, unless you who are a man of tact and discernment——”

“Carry on.” The Commander’s order supplied the unspoken word. The
cruiser boiled about her business around us; watch and watch officers
together, up to the limit of noise permissible. I saw Captain Malan
turn to his senior.

“Come to my cabin!” said Panke gratingly, and led the way. Pyecroft and
I stayed still.

“It’s all right,” said Pyecroft. “They daren’t leave us loose aboard
for one revolution,” and I knew that he had seen what I had seen.

“You, too!” said Captain Malan, returning suddenly. We passed the
sentry between white enamelled walls of speckless small arms, and since
that Royal Marine Light infantryman was visibly suffocating from
curiosity, I winked at him. We entered the chintz-adorned,
photo-speckled, brass-fendered, tile-stoved main cabin. Moorshed, with
a ruler, was demonstrating before the frame-plan of H.M.S. _Cryptic_.

“—making nine stencils in all of my initials G.M.,” I heard him say.
“Further, you will find attached to your rudder, and you, too, Sir”—he
bowed to Captain Malan yet again—“one fourteen-inch Mark IV practice
torpedo, as issued to first-class torpedo-boats, properly buoyed. I
have sent full particulars by telegraph to the umpires, and have
requested them to judge on the facts as they—appear.” He nodded through
the large window to the stencilled _Devolution_ awink with brass work
in the morning sun, and ceased.

Captain Panke faced us. I remembered that this was only play, and
caught myself wondering with what keener agony comes the real defeat.

“Good God, Johnny!” he said, dropping his lower lip like a child, “this
young pup says he has put us both out of action. Inconceivable—eh? My
first command of one of the class. Eh? What shall we do with him? What
shall we do with him—eh?”

“As far as I can see, there’s no getting over the stencils,” his
companion answered.

“Why didn’t I have the nets down? Why didn’t I have the nets down?” The
cry tore itself from Captain Panke’s chest as he twisted his hands.

“I suppose we’d better wait and find out what the umpires will say. The
Admiral won’t be exactly pleased.” Captain Malan spoke very soothingly.
Moorshed looked out through the stern door at Two Six Seven. Pyecroft
and I, at attention, studied the paintwork opposite. Captain Panke had
dropped into his desk chair, and scribbled nervously at a blotting-pad.

Just before the tension became unendurable, he looked at his junior for
a lead. “What—what are you going to do about it, Johnny—eh?”

“Well, if you don’t want him, I’m going to ask this young gentleman to
breakfast, and then we’ll make and mend clothes till the umpires have
decided.”

Captain Panke flung out a hand swiftly.

“Come with me,” said Captain Malan. “Your men had better go back in the
dinghy to—their—own—ship.”

“Yes, I think so,” said Moorshed, and passed out behind the captain. We
followed at a respectful interval, waiting till they had ascended the
ladder.

Said the sentry, rigid as the naked barometer behind him: “For Gawd’s
sake! ’Ere, come ’ere! For Gawd’s sake! What’s ’appened? Oh! come
’_ere_ an’ tell.”

“Tell? You?” said Pyecroft. Neither man’s lips moved, and the words
were whispers: “Your ultimate illegitimate grandchildren might begin to
understand, not you—nor ever will.”

“Captain Malan’s galley away, Sir,” cried a voice above; and one
replied: “Then get those two greasers into their dinghy and hoist the
blue peter. We’re out of action.”

“Can you do it, Sir?” said Pyecroft at the foot of the ladder. “Do you
think it is in the English language, or do you not?”

“I don’t think I can, but I’ll try. If it takes me two years, I’ll
try.”


There are witnesses who can testify that I have used no artifice. I
have, on the contrary, cut away priceless slabs of _opus alexandrinum_.
My gold I have lacquered down to dull bronze, my purples overlaid with
sepia of the sea, and for hell-hearted ruby and blinding diamond I have
substituted pale amethyst and mere jargoon. Because I would say again
“Disregarding the inventions of the Marine Captain whose other name is
Gubbins, let a plain statement suffice.”




THE COMPREHENSION OF PRIVATE COPPER




THE KING’S TASK


After the sack of the City, when Rome was sunk to a name,
In the years when the Lights were darkened, or ever Saint Wilfrid came.
Low on the borders of Britain, the ancient poets sing,
Between the cliff and the forest there ruled a Saxon king.

Stubborn all were his people, a stark and a jealous horde—
Not to be schooled by the cudgel, scarce to be cowed by the sword;
Blithe to turn at their pleasure, bitter to cross in their mood,
And set on the ways of their choosing as the hogs of Andred’s Wood …

They made them laws in the Witan, the laws of flaying and fine,
Folkland, common and pannage, the theft and the track of kine;
Statutes of tun and of market for the fish and the malt and the meal,
The tax on the Bramber packhorse and the tax on the Hastings keel.
Over the graves of the Druids and over the wreck of Rome
Rudely but deeply they bedded the plinth of the days to come.
Behind the feet of the Legions and before the Northman’s ire,
Rudely but greatly begat they the body of state and of shire.
Rudely but greatly they laboured, and their labour stands till now
If we trace on our ancient headlands the twist of their eight-ox plough.




THE COMPREHENSION OF PRIVATE COPPER


Private Copper’s father was a Southdown shepherd; in early youth Copper
had studied under him. Five years’ army service had somewhat blunted
Private Copper’s pastoral instincts, but it occurred to him as a memory
of the Chalk that sheep, or in this case buck, do not move towards one
across turf, or in this case, the Colesberg kopjes unless a stranger,
or in this case an enemy, is in the neighbourhood. Copper, helmet
back-first advanced with caution, leaving his mates of the picket full
a mile behind. The picket, concerned for its evening meal, did not
protest. A year ago it would have been an officer’s command, moving as
such. To-day it paid casual allegiance to a Canadian, nominally a
sergeant, actually a trooper of Irregular Horse, discovered
convalescent in Naauwport Hospital, and forthwith employed on odd jobs.
Private Copper crawled up the side of a bluish rock-strewn hill thinly
fringed with brush atop, and remembering how he had peered at Sussex
conies through the edge of furze-clumps, cautiously parted the dry
stems before his face. At the foot of the long slope sat three farmers
smoking. To his natural lust for tobacco was added personal wrath
because spiky plants were pricking his belly, and Private Copper slid
the backsight up to fifteen hundred yards….

“Good evening, Khaki. Please don’t move,” said a voice on his left, and
as he jerked his head round he saw entirely down the barrel of a
well-kept Lee-Metford protruding from an insignificant tuft of thorn.
Very few graven images have moved less than did Private Copper through
the next ten seconds.

“It’s nearer seventeen hundred than fifteen,” said a young man in an
obviously ready-made suit of grey tweed, possessing himself of Private
Copper’s rifle. “Thank _you_. We’ve got a post of thirty-seven men out
yonder. You’ve eleven—eh? We don’t want to kill ’em. We have no quarrel
with poor uneducated Khakis, and we do not want prisoners we do not
keep. It is demoralising to both sides—eh?”

Private Copper did not feel called upon to lay down the conduct of
guerilla warfare. This dark-skinned, dark-haired, and dark-eyed
stranger was his first intimate enemy. He spoke, allowing for a clipped
cadence that recalled to Copper vague memories of Umballa, in precisely
the same offensive accent that the young squire of Wilmington had used
fifteen years ago when he caught and kicked Alf Copper, a rabbit in
each pocket, out of the ditches of Cuckmere. The enemy looked Copper up
and down, folded and re-pocketed a copy of an English weekly which he
had been reading, and said: “You seem an inarticulate sort of
swine—like the rest of them—eh?”

“You,” said Copper, thinking, somehow, of the crushing answers he had
never given to the young squire, “are a renegid. Why, you ain’t Dutch.
You’re English, same as me.”

“_No_, khaki. If you cannot talk civilly to a gentleman I will blow
your head off.”

Copper cringed, and the action overbalanced him so that he rolled some
six or eight feet downhill, under the lee of a rough rock. His brain
was working with a swiftness and clarity strange in all his experience
of Alf Copper. While he rolled he spoke, and the voice from his own
jaws amazed him: “If you did, ’twouldn’t make you any less of a
renegid.” As a useful afterthought he added: “I’ve sprained my ankle.”

The young man was at his side in a flash. Copper made no motion to
rise, but, cross-legged under the rock, grunted: “’Ow much did old
Krujer pay you for this? What was you wanted for at ’ome? Where did you
desert from?”

“Khaki,” said the young man, sitting down in his turn, “you are a shade
better than your mates. You did not make much more noise than a yoke of
oxen when you tried to come up this hill, but you are an ignorant
diseased beast like the rest of your people—eh? When you were at the
Ragged Schools did they teach you any history, Tommy—’istory I mean?”

“Don’t need no schoolin’ to know a renegid,” said Copper. He had made
three yards down the hill—out of sight, unless they could see through
rocks, of the enemy’s smoking party.

The young man laughed; and tossed the soldier a black sweating stick of
“True Affection.” (Private Copper had not smoked a pipe for three
weeks.)

“_You_ don’t get this—eh?” said the young man. “_We_ do. We take it
from the trains as we want it. You can keep the cake—you po-ah Tommee.”
Copper rammed the good stuff into his long-cold pipe and puffed
luxuriously. Two years ago the sister of gunner-guard De Souza, East
India Railway, had, at a dance given by the sergeants to the Allahabad
Railway Volunteers, informed Copper that she could not think of
waltzing with “a poo-ah Tommee.” Private Copper wondered why that
memory should have returned at this hour.

“I’m going to waste a little trouble on you before I send you back to
your picket _quite_ naked—eh? Then you can say how you were overpowered
by twenty of us and fired off your last round—like the men we picked up
at the drift playing cards at Stryden’s farm—eh? What’s your name—eh?”

Private Copper thought for a moment of a far-away housemaid who might
still, if the local postman had not gone too far, be interested in his
fate. On the other hand, he was, by temperament, economical of the
truth. “Pennycuik,” he said, “John Pennycuik.”

“Thank you. Well, Mr. John Pennycuik, I’m going to teach you a little
’istory, as you’d call it—eh?”

“’Ow!” said Copper, stuffing his left hand in his mouth. “So long since
I’ve smoked I’ve burned my ’and—an’ the pipe’s dropped too. No
objection to my movin’ down to fetch it, is there—Sir?”

“I’ve got you covered,” said the young man, graciously, and Private
Copper, hopping on one leg, because of his sprain, recovered the pipe
yet another three yards downhill and squatted under another rock
slightly larger than the first. A roundish boulder made a pleasant rest
for his captor, who sat cross-legged once more, facing Copper, his
rifle across his knee, his hand on the trigger-guard.

“Well, Mr. Pennycuik, as I was going to tell you. A little after you
were born in your English workhouse, your kind, honourable, brave
country, England, sent an English gentleman, who could not tell a lie,
to say that so long as the sun rose and the rivers ran in their courses
the Transvaal would belong to England. Did you ever hear that,
khaki—eh?”

“Oh no, Sir,” said Copper. This sentence about the sun and the rivers
happened to be a very aged jest of McBride, the professional humorist
of D Company, when they discussed the probable length of the war.
Copper had thrown beef-tins at McBride in the grey dawn of many wet and
dry camps for intoning it.

“_Of_ course you would not. Now, mann, I tell you, listen.” He spat
aside and cleared his throat. “Because of that little promise, my
father he moved into the Transvaal and bought a farm—a little place of
twenty or thirty thousand acres, don’t—you—know.”

The tone, in spite of the sing-song cadence fighting with the laboured
parody of the English drawl, was unbearably like the young Wilmington
squire’s, and Copper found himself saying: “I ought to. I’ve ’elped
burn some.”

“Yes, you’ll pay for that later. _And_ he opened a store.”

“Ho! Shopkeeper was he?”

“The kind you call “Sir” and sweep the floor for, Pennycuik…. You see,
in those days one used to believe in the British Government. My father
did. _Then_ the Transvaal wiped thee earth with the English. They beat
them six times running. You know _thatt_—eh?”

“Isn’t what we’ve come ’ere for.”

“_But_ my father (he knows better now) kept on believing in the
English. I suppose it was the pretty talk about rivers and suns that
cheated him—eh? Anyhow, he believed in his own country. Inn his own
country. _So_—you see—he was a little startled when he found himself
handed over to the Transvaal as a prisoner of war. That’s what it came
to, Tommy—a prisoner of war. You know what that is—eh? England was too
honourable and too gentlemanly to take trouble. There were no terms
made for my father.”

“So ’e made ’em ’imself. Useful old bird.” Private Copper sliced up
another pipeful and looked out across the wrinkled sea of kopjes,
through which came the roar of the rushing Orange River, so unlike
quiet Cuckmere.

The young man’s face darkened. “I think I shall sjambok you myself when
I’ve quite done with you. _No_, my father (he was a fool) made no terms
for eight years—ninety-six months—and for every day of them the
Transvaal made his life hell for my father and—his people.”

“I’m glad to hear that,” said the impenitent Copper.

“Are you? You can think of it when I’m taking the skin off your
back—eh?… My father, he lost everything—everything down to his
self-respect. You don’t know what _thatt_ means—eh?”

“Why?” said Copper. “I’m smokin’ baccy stole by a renegid. Why wouldn’t
I know?”

If it came to a flogging on that hillside there might be a chance of
reprisals. Of course, he might be marched to the Boer camp in the next
valley and there operated upon; but Army life teaches no man to cross
bridges unnecessarily.

“Yes, after eight years, my father, cheated by your bitch of a country,
he found out who was the upper dog in South Africa.”

“That’s me,” said Copper valiantly. “If it takes another ’alf century,
it’s me an’ the likes of me.”

“You? Heaven help you! You’ll be screaming at a wagon-wheel in an
hour…. Then it struck my father that he’d like to shoot the people
who’d betrayed him. You—you—_you_! He told his son all about it. He
told him never to trust the English. He told him to do them all the
harm he could. Mann, I tell you, I don’t want much telling. I was born
in the Transvaal—I’m a burgher. If my father didn’t love the English,
by the Lord, mann, I tell you, I hate them from the bottom of my soul.”

The voice quavered and ran high. Once more, for no conceivable reason,
Private Copper found his inward eye turned upon Umballa cantonments of
a dry dusty afternoon, when the saddle-coloured son of a local
hotel-keeper came to the barracks to complain of a theft of fowls. He
saw the dark face, the plover’s-egg-tinted eyeballs, and the thin
excited hands. Above all, he remembered the passionate, queerly-strung
words. Slowly he returned to South Africa, using the very sentence his
sergeant had used to the poultry man.

“Go on with your complaint. I’m listenin’.”

“Complaint! Complaint about _you_, you ox! We strip and kick your sort
by thousands.”

The young man rocked to and fro above the rifle, whose muzzle thus
deflected itself from the pit of Private Copper’s stomach. His face was
dusky with rage.

“Yess, I’m a Transvaal burgher. It took us about twenty years to find
out how rotten you were. _We_ know and you know it now. Your army—it is
the laughing-stock of the Continent.” He tapped the newspaper in his
pocket. “You think you’re going to win, you poor fools. Your
people—your own people—your silly rotten fools of people will crawl out
of it as they did after Majuba. They are beginning now. Look what your
own working classes, the diseased, lying, drinking white stuff that you
come out of, are saying.” He thrust the English weekly, doubled at the
leading article, on Copper’s knee. “See what dirty dogs your masters
are. They do not even back you in your dirty work. _We_ cleared the
country down to Ladysmith—to Estcourt. We cleared the country down to
Colesberg.”

“Yes, we ’ad to clean up be’ind you. Messy, I call it.”

“You’ve had to stop farm-burning because your people daren’t do it.
They were afraid. You daren’t kill a spy. You daren’t shoot a spy when
you catch him in your own uniform. You daren’t touch our loyall people
in Cape Town! Your masters won’t let you. You will feed our women and
children till we are quite ready to take them back. _You_ can’t put
your cowardly noses out of the towns you say you’ve occupied. _You_
daren’t move a convoy twenty miles. You think you’ve done something?
You’ve done nothing, and you’ve taken a quarter of a million of men to
do it! There isn’t a nigger in South Africa that doesn’t obey us if we
lift our finger. You pay the stuff four pounds a month and they lie to
you. _We_ flog ’em, as I shall flog you.”

He clasped his hands together and leaned forward his out-thrust chin
within two feet of Copper’s left, or pipe hand.

“Yuss,” said Copper, “it’s a fair knock-out.” The fist landed to a hair
on the chin-point, the neck snicked like a gun-lock, and the back of
the head crashed on the boulder behind.

Copper grabbed up both rifles, unshipped the cross-bandoliers, drew
forth the English weekly, and picking up the lax hands, looked long and
intently at the fingernails.

“No! Not a sign of it there,” he said. “’Is nails are as clean as
mine—but he talks just like ’em, though. And he’s a landlord too! A
landed proprietor! Shockin’, I call it.”

The arms began to flap with returning consciousness. Private Copper
rose up and whispered: “If you open your head, I’ll bash it.” There was
no suggestion of sprain in the flung-back left boot. “Now walk in front
of me, both arms perpendicularly elevated. I’m only a third-class shot,
so, if you don’t object, I’ll rest the muzzle of my rifle lightly but
firmly on your collar-button—coverin’ the serviceable vertebree. If
your friends see us thus engaged, you pray—’ard.”

Private and prisoner staggered downhill. No shots broke the peace of
the afternoon, but once the young man checked and was sick.

“There’s a lot of things I could say to you,” Copper observed, at the
close of the paroxysm, “but it doesn’t matter. Look ’ere, you call me
‘pore Tommy’ again.”

The prisoner hesitated.

“Oh, I ain’t goin’ to do anythin’ _to_ you. I’m recon-noiterin’ in my
own. Say ‘pore Tommy’ ’alf-a-dozen times.”

The prisoner obeyed.

“_That’s_ what’s been puzzlin’ me since I ’ad the pleasure o’ meetin’
you,” said Copper. “You ain’t ’alf-caste, but you talk
_chee-chee_—_pukka_ bazar chee-chee. _Pro_ceed.”

“Hullo,” said the Sergeant of the picket, twenty minutes later, “where
did you round him up?”

“On the top o’ yonder craggy mounting. There’s a mob of ’em sitting
round their Bibles seventeen ’undred yards (you said it was seventeen
’undred?) t’other side—an’ I want some coffee.” He sat down on the
smoke-blackened stones by the fire.

“’Ow did you get ’im?” said McBride, professional humorist, quietly
filching the English weekly from under Copper’s armpit.

“On the chin—while ’e was waggin’ it at me.”

“What is ’e? ’Nother Colonial rebel to be ’orribly disenfranchised, or
a Cape Minister, or only a loyal farmer with dynamite in both boots.
Tell us all about it, Burjer!”

“You leave my prisoner alone,” said Private Copper. “’E’s ’ad losses
an’ trouble; an’ it’s in the family too. ’E thought I never read the
papers, so ’e kindly lent me his very own _Jerrold’s Weekly_—an’ ’e
explained it to me as patronisin’ as a—as a militia subaltern doin’
Railway Staff Officer. ’E’s a left-over from Majuba—one of the worst
kind, an’ ’earin’ the evidence as I did, I don’t exactly blame ’im. It
was this way.”

To the picket Private Copper held forth for ten minutes on the
life-history of his captive. Allowing for some purple patches, it was
an absolute fair rendering.

“But what I dis-liked was this baccy-priggin’ beggar, ’oo’s people, on
’is own showin’, couldn’t ’ave been more than thirty or forty years in
the coun—on this Gawd-forsaken dust-’eap, comin’ the squire over me.
They’re all parsons—we know _that_, but parson _an’_ squire is a bit
too thick for Alf Copper. Why, I caught ’im in the shameful act of
tryin’ to start a aristocracy on a gun an’ a wagon an’ a _shambuk_!
Yes; that’s what it was: a bloomin’ aristocracy.”

“No, it weren’t,” said McBride, at length, on the dirt, above the
purloined weekly. “You’re the aristocrat, Alf. Old _Jerrold’s_ givin’
it you ’ot. You’re the uneducated ’ireling of a callous aristocracy
which ’as sold itself to the ’Ebrew financier. Meantime, Ducky”—he ran
his finger down a column of assorted paragraphs—“you’re slakin’ your
brutal instincks in furious excesses. Shriekin’ women an’ desolated
’omesteads is what you enjoy, Alf …, Halloa! What’s a smokin’
’ektacomb?”

“’Ere! Let’s look. ’Aven’t seen a proper spicy paper for a year. Good
old _Jerrold’s!”_ Pinewood and Moppet, reservists, flung themselves on
McBride’s shoulders, pinning him to the ground.

“Lie over your own bloomin’ side of the bed, an’ we can all look,” he
protested.

“They’re only po-ah Tommies,” said Copper, apologetically, to the
prisoner. “Po-ah unedicated Khakis. _They_ don’t know what they’re
fightin’ for. They’re lookin’ for what the diseased, lying, drinkin’
white stuff that they come from is sayin’ about ’em!”

The prisoner set down his tin of coffee and stared helplessly round the
circle.

“I—I don’t understand them.”

The Canadian sergeant, picking his teeth with a thorn, nodded
sympathetically:

“If it comes to that, _we_ don’t in my country!… Say, boys, when you’re
through with your English mail you might’s well provide an escort for
your prisoner. He’s waitin’.”

“Arf a mo’, Sergeant,” said McBride, still reading.

“’Ere’s Old Barbarity on the ramp again with some of ’is lady friends,
’oo don’t like concentration camps. Wish they’d visit ours. Pinewood’s
a married man. He’d know how to be’ave!”

“Well, I ain’t goin’ to amuse my prisoner alone. ’E’s gettin’
’omesick,” cried Copper. “One of you thieves read out what’s vexin’ Old
Barbarity an’ ’is ’arem these days. You’d better listen, Burjer,
because, afterwards, I’m goin’ to fall out an’ perpetrate those
nameless barbarities all over you to keep up the reputation of the
British Army.”

From that English weekly, to bar out which a large and perspiring staff
of Press censors toiled seven days of the week at Cape Town, did
Pinewood of the Reserve read unctuously excerpts of the speeches of the
accredited leaders of His Majesty’s Opposition. The night-picket
arrived in the middle of it, but stayed entranced without paying any
compliments, till Pinewood had entirely finished the leading article,
and several occasional notes.

“Gentlemen of the jury,” said Alf Copper, hitching up what war had left
to him of trousers—“you’ve ’eard what ’e’s been fed up with. _Do_ you
blame the beggar? ’Cause I don’t! … Leave ’im alone, McBride. He’s my
first and only cap-ture, an’ I’m goin’ to walk ’ome with ’im, ain’t I,
Ducky? … Fall in, Burjer. It’s Bermuda, or Umballa, or Ceylon for
you—and I’d give a month’s pay to be in your little shoes.”

As not infrequently happens, the actual moving off the ground broke the
prisoner’s nerve. He stared at the tinted hills round him, gasped and
began to struggle—kicking, swearing, weeping, and fluttering all
together.

“Pore beggar—oh pore, _pore_ beggar!” said Alf, leaning in on one side
of him, while Pinewood blocked him on the other.

“Let me go! Let me go! Mann, I tell you, let me go——”

“’E screams like a woman!” said McBride. “They’ll ’ear ’im five miles
off.”

“There’s one or two ought to ’ear ’im—in England,” said Copper, putting
aside a wildly waving arm.

“Married, ain’t ’e?” said Pinewood. “I’ve seen ’em go like this
before—just at the last. ’_Old_ on, old man, No one’s goin’ to ’urt
you.”

The last of the sun threw the enormous shadow of a kopje over the
little, anxious, wriggling group.

“Quit that,” said the Serjeant of a sudden. “You’re only making him
worse. Hands _up_, prisoner! Now you get a holt of yourself, or this’ll
go off.”

And indeed the revolver-barrel square at the man’s panting chest seemed
to act like a tonic; he choked, recovered himself, and fell in between
Copper and Pinewood.

As the picket neared the camp it broke into song that was heard among
the officers’ tents:

’E sent us ’is blessin’ from London town,
    (The beggar that kep’ the cordite down,)
But what do we care if ’e smile or frown,
    The beggar that kep’ the cordite down?
The mildly nefarious
Wildly barbarious
    Beggar that kept the cordite down!


Said a captain a mile away: “Why are they singing _that?_ We haven’t
had a mail for a month, have we?”

An hour later the same captain said to his servant: “Jenkins, I
understand the picket have got a—got a newspaper off a prisoner to-day.
I wish you could lay hands on it, Jenkins. Copy of the _Times_, I
think.”

“Yes, Sir. Copy of the _Times_, Sir,” said Jenkins, without a quiver,
and went forth to make his own arrangements.

“Copy of the _Times_,” said the blameless Alf, from beneath his
blanket. “I ain’t a member of the Soldier’s Institoot. Go an’ look in
the reg’mental Readin’-room—Veldt Row, Kopje Street, second turnin’ to
the left between ’ere an’ Naauwport.”

Jenkins summarised briefly in a tense whisper the thing that Alf Copper
need not be.

“But my particular copy of the _Times_ is specially pro’ibited by the
censor from corruptin’ the morals of the Army. Get a written order from
K. o’ K., properly countersigned, an’ I’ll think about it.”

“I’ve got all _you_ want,” said Jenkins. “’Urry up. I want to ’ave a
squint myself.”

Something gurgled in the darkness, and Private Copper fell back
smacking his lips.

“Gawd bless my prisoner, and make me a good boy. Amen. ’Ere you are,
Jenkins. It’s dirt cheap at a tot.”




STEAM TACTICS




THE NECESSITARIAN


I know not in whose hands are laid
    To empty upon earth
From unsuspected ambuscade
    The very Urns of Mirth:

Who bids the Heavenly Lark arise
    And cheer our solemn round—
The Jest beheld with streaming eyes
    And grovellings on the ground;

Who joins the flats of Time and Chance
    Behind the prey preferred,
And thrones on Shrieking Circumstance
    The Sacredly Absurd,

Till Laughter, voiceless through excess.
    Waves mute appeal and sore,
Above the midriff’s deep distress,
    For breath to laugh once more.

No creed hath dared to hail him Lord,
    No raptured choirs proclaim,
And Nature’s strenuous Overword
    Hath nowhere breathed his name.

Yet, may it be, on wayside jape,
    The selfsame Power bestows
The selfsame power as went to shape
    His Planet or His Rose.




STEAM TACTICS


I caught sight of their faces as we came up behind the cart in the
narrow Sussex lane; but though it was not eleven o’clock, they were
both asleep.

That the carrier was on the wrong side of the road made no difference
to his language when I rang my bell. He said aloud of motor-cars, and
specially of steam ones, all the things which I had read in the faces
of superior coachmen. Then he pulled slantwise across me.

There was a vociferous steam air-pump attached to that car which could
be applied at pleasure….

The cart was removed about a bowshot’s length in seven and a quarter
seconds, to the accompaniment of parcels clattering. At the foot of the
next hill the horse stopped, and the two men came out over the
tail-board.

My engineer backed and swung the car, ready to move out of reach.

“The blighted egg-boiler has steam up,” said Mr. Hinchcliffe, pausing
to gather a large stone. “Temporise with the beggar, Pye, till the
sights come on!”

“I can’t leave my ’orse!” roared the carrier; “but bring ’em up ’ere,
an’ I’ll kill ’em all over again.”

“Good morning, Mr. Pyecroft,” I called cheerfully. “Can I give you a
lift anywhere?”

The attack broke up round my forewheels.

“Well, we _do_ ’ave the knack o’ meeting _in puris naturalibus,_ as
I’ve so often said.” Mr. Pyecroft wrung my hand. “Yes, I’m on leaf.
So’s Hinch. We’re visiting friends among these kopjes.”

A monotonous bellowing up the road persisted, where the carrier was
still calling for corpses.

“That’s Agg. He’s Hinch’s cousin. You aren’t fortunit in your family
connections, Hinch. ’E’s usin’ language in derogation of good manners.
Go and abolish ’im.”

Henry Salt Hinchcliffe stalked back to the cart and spoke to his
cousin. I recall much that the wind bore to me of his words and the
carrier’s. It seemed as if the friendship of years were dissolving amid
throes.

“’Ave it your own silly way, then,” roared the carrier, “an’ get into
Linghurst on your own silly feet. I’ve done with you two runagates.” He
lashed his horse and passed out of sight still rumbling.

“The fleet’s sailed,” said Pyecroft, “leavin’ us on the beach as
before. Had you any particular port in your mind?”

“Well, I was going to meet a friend at Instead Wick, but I don’t mind—”

“Oh! that’ll do as well as anything! We’re on leaf, you see.”

“She’ll hardly hold four,” said my engineer. I had broken him of the
foolish habit of being surprised at things, but he was visibly uneasy.

Hinchcliffe returned, drawn as by ropes to my steam-car, round which he
walked in narrowing circles.

“What’s her speed?” he demanded of the engineer.

“Twenty-five,” said that loyal man.

“Easy to run?”

“No; very difficult,” was the emphatic answer.

“That just shows that you ain’t fit for your rating. D’you suppose that
a man who earns his livin’ by runnin’ 30-knot destroyers for a
parstime—for a parstime, mark you!—is going to lie down before any
blighted land-crabbing steam-pinnace on springs?”

Yet that was what he did. Directly under the car he lay and looked
upward into pipes—petrol, steam, and water—with a keen and searching
eye.

I telegraphed Mr. Pyecroft a question.

“Not—in—the—least,” was the answer. “Steam gadgets always take him that
way. We had a bit of a riot at Parsley Green through his tryin’ to show
a traction-engine haulin’ gipsy-wagons how to turn corners.”

“Tell him everything he wants to know,” I said to the engineer, as I
dragged out a rug and spread it on the roadside.

“_He_ don’t want much showing,” said the engineer. Now, the two men had
not, counting the time we took to stuff our pipes, been together more
than three minutes.

“This,” said Pyecroft, driving an elbow back into the deep verdure of
the hedge-foot, “is a little bit of all right. Hinch, I shouldn’t let
too much o’ that hot muckings drop in my eyes. Your leaf’s up in a
fortnight, an’ you’ll be wantin’ ’em.”

“Here!” said Hinchcliffe, still on his back, to the engineer. “Come
here and show me the lead of this pipe.” And the engineer lay down
beside him.

“That’s all right,” said Mr. Hinchcliffe, rising. “But she’s more of a
bag of tricks than I thought. Unship this superstructure aft”—he
pointed to the back seat—“and I’ll have a look at the forced draught.”

The engineer obeyed with alacrity. I heard him volunteer the fact that
he had a brother an artificer in the Navy.

“They couple very well, those two,” said Pyecroft critically, while
Hinchcliffe sniffed round the asbestos-lagged boiler and turned on gay
jets of steam.

“Now take me up the road,” he said. My man, for form’s sake, looked at
me.

“Yes, take him,” I said. “He’s all right.”

“No, I’m not,” said Hinchcliffe of a sudden—“not if I’m expected to
judge my water out of a little shaving-glass.”

The water-gauge of that steam-car was reflected on a mirror to the
right of the dashboard. I also had found it inconvenient.

“Throw up your arm and look at the gauge under your armpit. Only mind
how you steer while you’re doing it, or you’ll get ditched!” I cried,
as the car ran down the road.

“I wonder!” said Pyecroft, musing. “But, after all, it’s your steamin’
gadgets he’s usin’ for his libretto, as you might put it. He said to me
after breakfast only this mornin’ ’ow he thanked his Maker, on all
fours, that he wouldn’t see nor smell nor thumb a runnin’ bulgine till
the nineteenth prox. Now look at him! Only look at ’im!”

We could see, down the long slope of the road, my driver surrendering
his seat to Hinchcliffe, while the car flickered generously from hedge
to hedge.

“What happens if he upsets?”

“The petrol will light up and the boiler may blow up.”

“How rambunkshus! And”—Pyecroft blew a slow cloud—“Agg’s about three
hoops up this mornin’, too.”

“What’s that to do with us? He’s gone down the road,” I retorted.

“Ye—es, but we’ll overtake him. He’s a vindictive carrier. He and Hinch
’ad words about pig-breeding this morning. O’ course, Hinch don’t know
the elements o’ that evolution; but he fell back on ’is naval rank an’
office, an’ Agg grew peevish. I wasn’t sorry to get out of the cart …
Have you ever considered how, when you an’ I meet, so to say, there’s
nearly always a remarkable hectic day ahead of us! Hullo! Behold the
beef-boat returnin’!”

He rose as the car climbed up the slope, and shouted: “In bow! Way
’nuff!”

“You be quiet!” cried Hinchcliffe, and drew up opposite the rug, his
dark face shining with joy. “She’s the Poetry o’ Motion! She’s the
Angel’s Dream. She’s———” He shut off steam, and the slope being against
her, the car slid soberly downhill again.

“What’s this? I’ve got the brake on!” he yelled.

“It doesn’t hold backwards,” I said. “Put her on the mid-link.”

“That’s a nasty one for the chief engineer o’ the _Djinn_, 31-knot,
T.B.D.,” said Pyecroft. “_Do_ you know what the mid-link is, Hinch?”

Once more the car returned to us; but as Pyecroft stooped to gather up
the rug, Hinchcliffe jerked the lever testily, and with prawn-like
speed she retired backwards into her own steam.

“Apparently ’e don’t,” said Pyecroft. “What’s he done now, Sir?”

“Reversed her. I’ve done it myself.”

“But he’s an engineer.”

For the third time the car manœuvred up the hill.

“I’ll teach you to come alongside properly, if I keep you ’tiffies out
all night!” shouted Pyecroft. It was evidently a quotation.
Hinchcliffe’s face grew livid, and, his hand ever so slightly working
on the throttle, the car buzzed twenty yards uphill.

“That’s enough. We’ll take your word for it. The mountain will go to
Ma’ommed. Stand _fast_!”

Pyecroft and I and the rug marched up where she and Hinchcliffe fumed
together.

“Not as easy as it looks—eh, Hinch?”

“It is dead easy. I’m going to drive her to Instead Wick—aren’t I?”
said the first-class engine-room artificer. I thought of his
performances with No. 267 and nodded. After all, it was a small
privilege to accord to pure genius.

“But my engineer will stand by—at first,” I added.

“An’ you a family man, too,” muttered Pyecroft, swinging himself into
the right rear seat. “Sure to be a remarkably hectic day when we meet.”

We adjusted ourselves and, in the language of the immortal Navy doctor,
paved our way towards Linghurst, distant by mile-post 11-3/4 miles.

Mr. Hinchcliffe, every nerve and muscle braced, talked only to the
engineer, and that professionally. I recalled the time when I, too, had
enjoyed the rack on which he voluntarily extended himself.

And the County of Sussex slid by in slow time.

“How cautious is the ’tiffy-bird!” said Pyecroft.

“Even in a destroyer,” Hinch snapped over his shoulder, “you ain’t
expected to con and drive simultaneous. Don’t address any remarks to
_me!_”

“Pump!” said the engineer. “Your water’s droppin’.”

“_I_ know that. Where the Heavens is that blighted by-pass?”

He beat his right or throttle hand madly on the side of the car till he
found the bent rod that more or less controls the pump, and, neglecting
all else, twisted it furiously.

My engineer grabbed the steering-bar just in time to save us lurching
into a ditch.

“If I was a burnin’ peacock, with two hundred bloodshot eyes in my
shinin’ tail, I’d need ’em all on this job!” said Hinch.

“Don’t talk! Steer! This ain’t the North Atlantic,” Pyecroft replied.

“Blast my stokers! Why, the steam’s dropped fifty pounds!” Hinchcliffe
cried.

“Fire’s blown out,” said the engineer. “Stop her!”

“Does she do that often?” said Hinch, descending.

“Sometimes.”

“Anytime?”

“Any time a cross-wind catches her.”

The engineer produced a match and stooped.

That car (now, thank Heaven, no more than an evil memory) never lit
twice in the same fashion. This time she back-fired superbly, and
Pyecroft went out over the right rear wheel in a column of rich yellow
flame.

“I’ve seen a mine explode at Bantry—once—prematoor,” he volunteered.

“That’s all right,” said Hinchcliffe, brushing down his singed beard
with a singed forefinger. (He had been watching too closely.) “Has she
any more little surprises up her dainty sleeve?”

“She hasn’t begun yet,” said my engineer, with a scornful cough. “Some
one ’as opened the petrol-supply-valve too wide.”

“Change places with me, Pyecroft,” I commanded, for I remembered that
the petrol-supply, the steam-lock, and the forced draught were all
controlled from the right rear seat.

“Me? Why? There’s a whole switchboard full o’ nickel-plated muckin’s
which I haven’t begun to play with yet. The starboard side’s crawlin’
with ’em.”

“Change, or I’ll kill you!” said Hinchcliffe, and he looked like it.

“That’s the ’tiffy all over. When anything goes wrong, blame it on the
lower deck. Navigate by your automatic self, then! _I_ won’t help you
any more.”

We navigated for a mile in dead silence.

“Talkin’ o’ wakes——” said Pyecroft suddenly.

“We weren’t,” Hinchcliffe grunted.

“There’s some wakes would break a snake’s back; but this of yours, so
to speak, would fair turn a tapeworm giddy. That’s all I wish to
observe, Hinch. … Cart at anchor on the port-bow. It’s Agg!”

Far up the shaded road into secluded Bromlingleigh we saw the carrier’s
cart at rest before the post-office.

“He’s bung in the fairway. How’m I to get past?” said Hinchcliffe.
“There’s no room. Here, Pye, come and relieve the wheel!”

“Nay, nay, Pauline. You’ve made your own bed. You’ve as good as left
your happy home an’ family cart to steal it. Now you lie on it.”

“Ring your bell,” I suggested.

“Glory!” said Pyecroft, falling forward into the nape of Hinchcliffe’s
neck as the car stopped dead.

“Get out o’ my back-hair! That must have been the brake I touched off,”
Hinchcliffe muttered, and repaired his error tumultuously.

We passed the cart as though we had been all Bruges belfry. Agg, from
the port-office door, regarded us with a too pacific eye. I remembered
later that the pretty postmistress looked on us pityingly.

Hinchcliffe wiped the sweat from his brow and drew breath. It was the
first vehicle that he had passed, and I sympathised with him.

“You needn’t grip so hard,” said my engineer. “She steers as easy as a
bicycle.”

“Ho! You suppose I ride bicycles up an’ down my engine-room?” was the
answer. “I’ve other things to think about. She’s a terror. She’s a
whistlin’ lunatic. I’d sooner run the old South-Easter at Simon’s Town
than her!”

“One of the nice things they say about her,” I interrupted, “is that no
engineer is needed to run this machine.”

“No. They’d need about seven.”

“‘Common-sense only is needed,’” I quoted.

“Make a note of that, Hinch. Just common-sense,” Pyecroft put in.

“And now,” I said, “we’ll have to take in water. There isn’t more than
a couple of inches of water in the tank.”

“Where d’you get it from?”

“Oh!—cottages and such-like.”

“Yes, but that being so, where does your much-advertised twenty-five
miles an hour come in? Ain’t a dung-cart more to the point?”

“If you want to go anywhere, I suppose it would be,” I replied.

“_I_ don’t want to go anywhere. I’m thinkin’ of you who’ve got to live
with her. She’ll burn her tubes if she loses her water?”

“She will.”

“I’ve never scorched yet, and I not beginnin’ now.” He shut off steam
firmly. “Out you get, Pye, an’ shove her along by hand.”

“Where to?”

“The nearest water-tank,” was the reply. “And Sussex is a dry county.”

“She ought to have drag-ropes—little pipe-clayed ones,” said Pyecroft.

We got out and pushed under the hot sun for half-a-mile till we came to
a cottage, sparsely inhabited by one child who wept.

“All out haymakin’, o’ course,” said Pyecroft, thrusting his head into
the parlour for an instant. “What’s the evolution now?”

“Skirmish till we find a well,” I said.

“Hmm! But they wouldn’t ’ave left that kid without a chaperon, so to
say… I thought so! Where’s a stick?”

A bluish and silent beast of the true old sheep-dog breed glided from
behind an outhouse and without words fell to work.

Pyecroft kept him at bay with a rake-handle while our party, in
rallying-square, retired along the box-bordered brick-path to the car.

At the garden gate the dumb devil halted, looked back on the child, and
sat down to scratch.

“That’s his three-mile limit, thank Heaven!” said Pyecroft. “Fall in,
push-party, and proceed with land-transport o’ pinnace. I’ll protect
your flanks in case this sniffin’ flea-bag is tempted beyond ’is
strength.”

We pushed off in silence. The car weighed 1,200 lb., and even on
ball-bearings was a powerful sudorific. From somewhere behind a hedge
we heard a gross rustic laugh.

“Those are the beggars we lie awake for, patrollin’ the high seas.
There ain’t a port in China where we wouldn’t be better treated. Yes, a
Boxer ’ud be ashamed of it,” said Pyecroft.

A cloud of fine dust boomed down the road.

“Some happy craft with a well-found engine-room! How different!” panted
Hinchcliffe, bent over the starboard mudguard.

It was a claret-coloured petrol car, and it stopped courteously, as
good cars will at sight of trouble.

“Water, only water,” I answered in reply to offers of help.

“There’s a lodge at the end of these oak palings. They’ll give you all
you want. Say I sent you. Gregory—Michael Gregory. Good-bye!”

“Ought to ’ave been in the Service. Prob’ly is,” was Pyecroft’s
comment.

At that thrice-blessed lodge our water-tank was filled (I dare not
quote Mr. Hinchcliffe’s remarks when he saw the collapsible rubber
bucket with which we did it) and we re-embarked. It seemed that Sir
Michael Gregory owned many acres, and that his park ran for miles.

“No objection to your going through it,” said the lodge-keeper. “It’ll
save you a goodish bit to Instead Wick.”

But we needed petrol, which could be purchased at Pigginfold, a few
miles farther up, and so we held to the main road, as our fate had
decreed.

“We’ve come seven miles in fifty-four minutes, so far,” said
Hinchcliffe (he was driving with greater freedom and less
responsibility), “and now we have to fill our bunkers. This is worse
than the Channel Fleet.”

At Pigginfold, after ten minutes, we refilled our petrol tank and
lavishly oiled our engines. Mr. Hinchcliffe wished to discharge our
engineer on the grounds that he (Mr. Hinchcliffe) was now entirely
abreast of his work. To this I demurred, for I knew my car. She had, in
the language of the road, held up for a day and a half, and by most
bitter experience I suspected that her time was very near. Therefore,
three miles short of Linghurst, I was less surprised than any one,
excepting always my engineer, when the engines set up a lunatic
clucking, and, after two or three kicks, jammed.

“Heaven forgive me all the harsh things I may have said about
destroyers in my sinful time!” wailed Hinchcliffe, snapping back the
throttle. “What’s worryin’ Ada now?”

“The forward eccentric-strap screw’s dropped off,” said the engineer,
investigating.

“That all? I thought it was a propeller-blade.”

“We must go an’ look for it. There isn’t another.”

“Not me,” said Pyecroft from his seat. “Out pinnace, Hinch, an’ creep
for it. It won’t be more than five miles back.”

The two men, with bowed heads, moved up the road.

“Look like etymologists, don’t they? Does she decant her innards often,
so to speak?” Pyecroft asked.

I told him the true tale of a race-full of ball bearings strewn four
miles along a Hampshire road, and by me recovered in detail. He was
profoundly touched.

“Poor Hinch! Poor—poor Hinch!” he said. “And that’s only one of her
little games, is it? He’ll be homesick for the Navy by night.”

When the search-party doubled back with the missing screw, it was
Hinchcliffe who replaced it in less than five minutes, while my
engineer looked on admiringly.

“Your boiler’s only seated on four little paperclips,” he said,
crawling from beneath her. “She’s a wicker-willow lunch-basket below.
She’s a runnin’ miracle. Have you had this combustible spirit-lamp
long?”

I told him.

“And yet you were afraid to come into the _Nightmare’s_ engine-room
when we were runnin’ trials!”

“It’s all a matter of taste,” Pyecroft volunteered. “But I will say for
you, Hinch, you’ve certainly got the hang of her steamin’ gadgets in
quick time.”

He was driving her very sweetly, but with a worried look in his eye and
a tremor in his arm.

“She don’t seem so answer her helm somehow,” he said.

“There’s a lot of play to the steering-gear,” said my engineer. “We
generally tighten it up every few miles.”

“‘Like me to stop now? We’ve run as much as one mile and a half without
incident,” he replied tartly.

“Then you’re lucky,” said my engineer, bristling in turn.

“They’ll wreck the whole turret out o’ nasty professional spite in a
minute,” said Pyecroft. “That’s the worst o’ machinery. Man dead ahead,
Hinch—semaphorin’ like the flagship in a fit!”

“Amen!” said Hinchcliffe. “Shall I stop, or shall I cut him down?”

He stopped, for full in the centre of the Linghurst Road stood a person
in pepper-and-salt raiment (ready-made), with a brown telegraph
envelope in his hands.

“Twenty-three and a half miles an hour,” he began, weighing a small
beam-engine of a Waterbury in one red paw. “From the top of the hill
over our measured quarter-mile—twenty-three and a half.”

“You manurial gardener——” Hinchcliffe began. I prodded him warningly
from behind, and laid the other hand on Pyecroft’s stiffening knee.

“Also—on information received—drunk and disorderly in charge of a
motor-car—to the common danger—two men like sailors in appearance,” the
man went on.

“Like sailors! … That’s Agg’s little _roose_. No wonder he smiled at
us,” said Pyecroft.

“I’ve been waiting for you some time,” the man concluded, folding up
the telegram.

“Who’s the owner?”

I indicated myself.

“Then I want you as well as the two seafaring men. Drunk and disorderly
can be treated summary. You come on.”

My relations with the Sussex constabulary have, so far, been of the
best, but I could not love this person.

“Of course you have your authority to show?” I hinted.

“I’ll show it you at Linghurst,” he retorted hotly——“all the authority
you want.”

“I only want the badge, or warrant, or whatever it is a plain-clothes
man has to show.”

He made as though to produce it, but checked himself, repeating less
politely the invitation to Linghurst. The action and the tone confirmed
my many-times tested theory that the bulk of English shoregoing
institutions are based on conformable strata of absolutely impervious
inaccuracy. I reflected and became aware of a drumming on the back of
the front seat that Pyecroft, bowed forward and relaxed, was tapping
with his knuckles. The hardly-checked fury on Hinchcliffe’s brow had
given place to a greasy imbecility, and he nodded over the
steering-bar. In longs and shorts, as laid down by the pious and
immortal Mr. Morse, Pyecroft tapped out, “Sham drunk. Get him in the
car.”

“I can’t stay here all day,” said the constable.

Pyecroft raised his head. Then was seen with what majesty the British
sailor-man envisages a new situation.

“Met gennelman heavy sheeway,” said he. “Do tell me British gelman
can’t give ’ole Brish Navy lif’ own blighted ste’ cart. Have another
drink!”

“I didn’t know they were as drunk as all that when they stopped me,” I
explained.

“You can say all that at Linghurst,” was the answer. “Come on.”

“Quite right,” I said. “But the question is, if you take these two out
on the road, they’ll fall down or start killing you.”

“Then I’d call on you to assist me in the execution o’ my duty.”

“But I’d see you further first. You’d better come with us in the car.
I’ll turn this passenger out.” (This was my engineer, sitting quite
silent.) “You don’t want him, and, anyhow, he’d only be a witness for
the defence.”

“That’s true,” said the constable. “But it wouldn’t make any odds—at
Linghurst.”

My engineer skipped into the bracken like a rabbit. I bade him cut
across Sir Michael Gregory’s park, and if he caught my friend, to tell
him I should probably be rather late for lunch.

“I ain’t going to be driven by _him_.” Our destined prey pointed at
Hinchcliffe with apprehension.

“Of course not. You take my seat and keep the big sailor in order. He’s
too drunk to do much. I’ll change places with the other one. Only be
quick; I want to pay my fine and get it over.”

“That’s the way to look at it,” he said, dropping into the left rear
seat. “We’re making quite a lot out o’ you motor gentry.” He folded his
arms judicially as the car gathered way under Hinchcliffe’s stealthy
hand.

“But _you_ aren’t driving?” he cried, half rising.

“You’ve noticed it?” said Pyecroft, and embraced him with one
anaconda-like left arm.

“Don’t kill him,” said Hinchcliffe briefly. “I want to show him what
twenty-three and a quarter is.” We were going a fair twelve, which was
about the car’s limit.

Our passenger swore something and then groaned.

“Hush, darling!” said Pyecroft, “or I’ll have to hug you.”

The main road, white under the noon sun, lay broad before us, running
north to Linghurst. We slowed and looked anxiously for a side track.

“And now,” said I, “I want to see your authority.”

“The badge of your ratin’?” Pyecroft added.

“I’m a constable,” he said, and kicked. Indeed, his boots would have
bewrayed him across half a county’s plough; but boots are not legal
evidence.

“I want your authority,” I repeated coldly; “some evidence that you are
not a common drunken tramp.”

It was as I had expected. He had forgotten or mislaid his badge. He had
neglected to learn the outlines of the work for which he received money
and consideration; and he expected me, the tax-payer, to go to infinite
trouble to supplement his deficiencies.

“If you don’t believe me, come to Linghurst,” was the burden of his
almost national anthem.

“But I can’t run all over Sussex every time a blackmailer jumps up and
says he is a policeman.”

“Why, it’s quite close,” he persisted.

“’Twon’t be—soon,” said Hinchcliffe.

“None of the other people ever made any trouble. To be sure, _they_ was
gentlemen,” he cried. “All I can say is, it may be very funny, but it
ain’t fair.”

I laboured with him in this dense fog, but to no end. He had forgotten
his badge, and we were villains for that we did not cart him to the pub
or barracks where he had left it.

Pyecroft listened critically as we spun along the hard road.

“If he was a concentrated Boer, he couldn’t expect much more,” he
observed. “Now, suppose I’d been a lady in a delicate state o’
health—you’d ha’ made me very ill with your doings.”

“I wish I ’ad. ’Ere! ’Elp! ’Elp! Hi!”

The man had seen a constable in uniform fifty yards ahead, where a lane
ran into the road, and would have said more but that Hinchcliffe jerked
her up that lane with a wrench that nearly capsized us as the constable
came running heavily.

It seemed to me that both our guest and his fellow-villain in uniform
smiled as we fled down the road easterly betwixt the narrowing hedges.

“You’ll know all about it in a little time,” said our guest. “You’ve
only yourselves to thank for runnin’ your ’ead into a trap.” And he
whistled ostentatiously.

We made no answer.

“If that man ’ad chose, ’e could have identified me,” he said.

Still we were silent.

“But ’e’ll do it later, when you’re caught.”

“Not if you go on talking. ’E won’t be able to,” said Pyecroft. “I
don’t know what traverse you think you’re workin’, but your duty till
you’re put in cells for a highway robber is to love, honour, an’
cherish _me_ most special—performin’ all evolutions signalled in rapid
time. I tell you this, in case o’ anything turnin’ up.”

“Don’t you fret about things turnin’ up,” was the reply.

Hinchcliffe had given the car a generous throttle, and she was well set
to work, when, without warning, the road—there are two or three in
Sussex like it—turned down and ceased.

“Holy Muckins!” he cried, and stood on both brakes as our helpless
tyres slithered over wet grass and bracken—down and down into
forest—early British woodland. It was the change of a nightmare, and
that all should fit, fifty yards ahead of us a babbling brook barred
our way. On the far side a velvet green ride, sprinkled with rabbits
and fern, gently sloped upwards and away, but behind us was no hope.
Forty horse-power would never have rolled wet pneumatic tyres up that
verdurous cliff we had descended.

“H’m!” Our guest coughed significantly. “A great many cars thinks they
can take this road; but they all come back. We walks after ’em at our
convenience.”

“Meanin’ that the other jaunty is now pursuin’ us on his lily feet?”
said Pyecroft.

“_Pre_cisely.”

“An’ you think,” said Pyecroft (I have no hope to render the scorn of
the words), “_that’ll_ make any odds? Get out!”

The man obeyed with alacrity.

“See those spars up-ended over there? I mean that wickyup-thing.
Hop-poles, then, you rural blighter. Keep on fetching me hop-poles at
the double.”

And he doubled, Pyecroft at his heels; for they had arrived at a
perfect understanding.

There was a stack of hurdles a few yards down stream, laid aside after
sheep-washing; and there were stepping-stones in the brook. Hinchcliffe
rearranged these last to make some sort of causeway; I brought up the
hurdles; and when Pyecroft and his subaltern had dropped a dozen
hop-poles across the stream, laid them down over all.

“Talk o’ the Agricultur’l Hall!” he said, mopping his brow—“’tisn’t in
it with us. The approach to the bridge must now be paved with hurdles,
owin’ to the squashy nature o’ the country. Yes, an’ we’d better have
one or two on the far side to lead her on to _terror fermior_. Now,
Hinch! Give her full steam and ’op along. If she slips off, we’re done.
Shall I take the wheel?”

“No. This is my job,” said the first-class engine-room artificer. “Get
over the far side, and be ready to catch her if she jibs on the
uphill.”

We crossed that elastic structure and stood ready amid the bracken.
Hinchcliffe gave her a full steam and she came like a destroyer on her
trial. There was a crack, a flicker of white water, and she was in our
arms fifty yards up the slope; or rather, we were behind her, pushing
her madly towards a patch of raw gravel whereon her wheels could bite.
Of the bridge remained only a few wildly vibrating hop-poles, and those
hurdles which had been sunk in the mud of the approaches.

“She—she kicked out all the loose ones behind her as she finished with
’em,” Hinchcliffe panted.

“At the Agricultural Hall they would ’ave been fastened down with
ribbons,” said Pyecroft. “But this ain’t Olympia.”

“She nearly wrenched the tiller out of my hand. Don’t you think I
conned her like a cock-angel, Pye?”

“_I_ never saw anything like it,” said our guest propitiatingly. “And
now, gentlemen, if you’ll let me go back to Linghurst, I promise you
you won’t hear another word from me.”

“Get in,” said Pyecroft, as we puffed out on to a metalled road once
more. “We ’aven’t begun on _you_ yet.”

“A joke’s a joke,” he replied. “I don’t mind a little bit of a joke
myself, but this is going beyond it.”

“Miles an’ miles beyond it, if this machine stands up. We’ll want water
pretty soon.”

Our guest’s countenance brightened, and Pyecroft perceived it.

“Let me tell you,” he said earnestly, “It won’t make any difference to
you whatever happens. Barrin’ a dhow or two Tajurrah-way, prizes are
scarce in the Navy. Hence we never abandon ’em.”

There was a long silence. Pyecroft broke it suddenly.

“Robert,” he said, “have you a mother?”

“Yes.”

“Have you a big brother?”

“Yes.”

“An’ a little sister?”

“Yes.”

“Robert. Does your mamma keep a dog?”

“Yes. Why?”

“All right, Robert. I won’t forget it.”

I looked for an explanation.

“I saw his cabinet photograph in full uniform on the mantelpiece o’
that cottage before faithful Fido turned up,” Pyecroft whispered.
“Ain’t you glad it’s all in the family somehow?”

We filled with water at a cottage on the edge of St. Leonard’s Forest,
and, despite our increasing leakage, made shift to climb the ridge
above Instead Wick. Knowing the car as I did, I felt sure that final
collapse would not be long delayed. My sole concern was to run our
guest well into the wilderness before that came.

On the roof of the world—a naked plateau clothed with young heather—she
retired from active life in floods of tears. Her feed-water-heater
(Hinchcliffe blessed it and its maker for three minutes) was leaking
beyond hope of repair; she had shifted most of her packing, and her
water-pump would not lift.

“If I had a bit of piping I could disconnect this tin cartridge-case
an’ feed direct into the boiler. It ’ud knock down her speed, but we
could get on,” said he, and looked hopelessly at the long dun ridges
that hove us above the panorama of Sussex. Northward we could see the
London haze. Southward, between gaps of the whale-backed Downs, lay the
Channel’s zinc-blue. But all our available population in that vast
survey was one cow and a kestrel.

“It’s down hill to Instead Wick. We can run her there by gravity,” I
said at last.

“Then he’ll only have to walk to the station to get home. Unless we
take off ’is boots first,” Pyecroft replied.

“That,” said our guest earnestly, “would be theft atop of assault and
very serious.”

“Oh, let’s hang him an’ be done,” Hinchcliffe grunted. “It’s evidently
what he’s sufferin’ for.”

Somehow murder did not appeal to us that warm noon. We sat down to
smoke in the heather, and presently out of the valley below came the
thick beat of a petrol-motor ascending. I paid little attention to it
till I heard the roar of a horn that has no duplicate in all the Home
Counties.

“That’s the man I was going to lunch with!” I cried. “Hold on!” and I
ran down the road.

It was a big, black, black-dashed, tonneaued twenty-four horse Octopod;
and it bore not only Kysh my friend, and Salmon his engineer, but my
own man, who for the first time in our acquaintance smiled.

“Did they get you? What did you get? I was coming into Linghurst as
witness to character—your man told me what happened—but I was stopped
near Instead Wick myself,” cried Kysh.

“What for?”

“Leaving car unattended. An infernal swindle, when you think of the
loose carts outside every pub in the county. I was jawing with the
police for an hour, but it’s no use. They’ve got it all their own way,
and we’re helpless.”

Hereupon I told him my tale, and for proof, as we topped the hill,
pointed out the little group round my car.

All supreme emotion is dumb. Kysh put on the brake and hugged me to his
bosom till I groaned. Then, as I remember, he crooned like a mother
returned to her suckling.

“Divine! Divine!” he murmured. “Command me.”

“Take charge of the situation,” I said. “You’ll find a Mr. Pyecroft on
the quarter-deck. I’m altogether out of it.”

“He shall stay there. Who am I but the instrument of vengeance in the
hands of an over-ruling Providence? (And I put in fresh sparking-plugs
this morning.) Salmon, take that steam-kettle home, somehow. I would be
alone.”

“Leggat,” I said to my man, “help Salmon home with my car.”

“Home? Now? It’s hard. It’s cruel hard,” said Leggat, almost with a
sob.

Hinchcliffe outlined my car’s condition briefly to the two engineers.
Mr. Pyecroft clung to our guest, who stared with affrighted eyes at the
palpitating Octopod; and the free wind of high Sussex whimpered across
the ling.

“I am quite agreeable to walkin’ ’ome all the way on my feet,” said our
guest. “I wouldn’t go to any railway station. It ’ud be just the proper
finish to our little joke.” He laughed nervously.

“What’s the evolution?” said Pyecroft. “Do we turn over to the new
cruiser?”

I nodded, and he escorted our guest to the tonneau with care. When I
was in, he sat himself broad-armed on the little flap-seat which
controls the door. Hinchcliffe sat by Kysh.

“You drive?” Kysh asked, with the smile that has won him his chequered
way through the world.

“Steam only, and I’ve about had my whack for to-day, thanks.”

“I see.”

The long, low car slid forward and then dropped like a bullet down the
descent our steam toy had so painfully climbed. Our guest’s face
blanched, and he clutched the back of the tonneau.

“New commander’s evidently been trained on a destroyer,” said
Hinchcliffe.

“What’s ’is wonderful name?” whispered Pyecroft. “Ho! Well, I’m glad it
ain’t Saul we’ve run up against—nor Nimshi, for that matter. This is
makin’ me feel religious.”

Our impetus carried us half-way up the next slope, where we steadied to
a resonant fifteen an hour against the collar.

“What do you think?” I called to Hinchcliffe.

“’Taint as sweet as steam, o’ course; but for power it’s twice the
_Furious_ against half the _Jaseur_ in a head-sea.”

Volumes could not have touched it more exactly. His bright eyes were
glued on Kysh’s hands juggling with levers behind the discreet backward
sloping dash.

“An’ what sort of a brake might you use?” he said politely.

“This,” Kysh replied, as the last of the hill shot up to one in eight.
He let the car run back a few feet and caught her deftly on the brake,
repeating the performance cup and ball fashion. It was like being daped
above the Pit at the end of an uncoiled solar plexus. Even Pyecroft
held his breath.

“It ain’t fair! It ain’t fair!” our guest moaned. “You’re makin’ me
sick.”

“What an ungrateful blighter he is!” said Pyecroft. “Money couldn’t buy
you a run like this … Do it well overboard!”

“We’ll just trundle up the Forest and drop into the Park Row, I think,”
said Kysh. “There’s a bit of good going hereabouts.”

He flung a careless knee over the low raking tiller that the ordinary
expert puts under his armpit, and down four miles of yellow road, cut
through barren waste, the Octopod sang like a six-inch shell.

“Whew! But you know your job,” said Hinchcliffe. “You’re wasted here.
I’d give something to have you in my engine-room.”

“He’s steering with ’is little hind-legs,” said Pyecroft. “Stand up and
look at him, Robert. You’ll never see such a sight again!”

“Nor don’t want to,” was our guest’s reply. “Five ’undred pounds
wouldn’t begin to cover ’is fines even since I’ve been with him.”

Park Row is reached by one hill which drops three hundred feet in half
a mile. Kysh had the thought to steer with his hand down the abyss, but
the manner in which he took the curved bridge at the bottom brought my
few remaining hairs much nearer the grave.

“We’re in Surrey now; better look out,” I said.

“Never mind. I’ll roll her into Kent for a bit. We’ve lots of time;
it’s only three o’clock.”

“Won’t you want to fill your bunkers, or take water, or oil her up?”
said Hinchcliffe.

“We don’t use water, and she’s good for two hundred on one tank o’
petrol if she doesn’t break down.”

“Two hundred miles from ’ome and mother _and_ faithful Fido to-night,
Robert,” said Pyecroft, slapping our guest on the knee. “Cheer up! Why,
I’ve known a destroyer do less.”

We passed with some decency through some towns, till by way of the
Hastings road we whirled into Cramberhurst, which is a deep pit.

“Now,” said Kysh, “we begin.”

“Previous service not reckoned towards pension,” said Pyecroft. “We are
doin’ you lavish, Robert.”

“But when’s this silly game to finish, any’ow?” our guest snarled.

“Don’t worry about the _when_ of it, Robert. The _where’s_ the
interestin’ point for you just now.”

I had seen Kysh drive before, and I thought I knew the Octopod, but
that afternoon he and she were exalted beyond my knowledge. He
improvised on the keys—the snapping levers and quivering
accelerators—marvellous variations, so that our progress was sometimes
a fugue and sometimes a barn-dance, varied on open greens by the
weaving of fairy rings. When I protested, all that he would say was:
“I’ll hypnotise the fowl! I’ll dazzle the rooster!” or other words
equally futile. And she—oh! that I could do her justice!—she turned her
broad black bows to the westering light, and lifted us high upon hills
that we might see and rejoice with her. She whooped into veiled hollows
of elm and Sussex oak; she devoured infinite perspectives of park
palings; she surged through forgotten hamlets, whose single streets
gave back, reduplicated, the clatter of her exhaust, and, tireless, she
repeated the motions. Over naked uplands she droned like a homing bee,
her shadow lengthening in the sun that she chased to his lair. She
nosed up unparochial byways and accommodation-roads of the least
accommodation, and put old scarred turf or new-raised molehills under
her most marvellous springs with never a jar. And since the King’s
highway is used for every purpose save traffic, in mid-career she
stepped aside for, or flung amazing loops about, the brainless driver,
the driverless horse, the drunken carrier, the engaged couple, the
female student of the bicycle and her staggering instructor, the pig,
the perambulator, and the infant school (where it disembogued yelping
on cross-roads), with the grace of Nellie Farren (upon whom be the
Peace) and the lithe abandon of all the Vokes family. But at heart she
was ever Judic as I remember that Judic long ago—Judic clad in
bourgeois black from wrist to ankle, achieving incredible
improprieties.

We were silent—Hinchcliffe and Pyecroft through professional
appreciation; I with a layman’s delight in the expert; and our guest
because of fear.

At the edge of the evening she smelt the sea to southward and sheered
thither like the strong-winged albatross, to circle enormously amid
green flats fringed by martello towers.

“Ain’t that Eastbourne yonder?” said our guest, reviving. “I’ve a aunt
there—she’s cook to a J.P.—could identify me.”

“Don’t worry her for a little thing like that,” said Pyecroft; and ere
he had ceased to praise family love, our unpaid judiciary, and domestic
service, the Downs rose between us and the sea, and the Long Man of
Hillingdon lay out upon the turf.

“Trevington—up yonder—is a fairly isolated little dorp,” I said, for I
was beginning to feel hungry.

“No,” said Kysh. “He’d get a lift to the railway in no time…. Besides,
I’m enjoying myself…. Three pounds eighteen and sixpence. Infernal
swindle!”

I take it one of his more recent fines was rankling in Kysh’s brain;
but he drove like the Archangel of the Twilight.

About the longitude of Cassocks, Hinchcliffe yawned. “Aren’t we goin’
to maroon our Robert? I’m hungry, too.”

“The commodore wants his money back,” I answered.

“If he drives like this habitual, there must be a tidyish little lump
owin’ to him,” said Pyecroft. “Well, I’m agreeable.”

“I didn’t know it could be done. S’welp me, I didn’t,” our guest
murmured.

“But you will,” said Kysh. And that was the first and last time he
addressed the man.

We ran through Penfield Green, half stupefied with open air, drugged
with the relentless boom of the Octopod, and extinct with famine.

“I used to shoot about here,” said Kysh, a few miles further on. “Open
that gate, please,” and he slowed as the sun touched the sky-line. At
this point we left metalled roads and bucked vigorously amid ditches
and under trees for twenty minutes.

“Only cross-country car on the market,” he said, as we wheeled into a
straw-yard where a lone bull bellowed defiance to our growlings. “Open
that gate, please. I hope the cattle-bridge will stand up.”

“I’ve took a few risks in my time,” said Pyecroft as timbers cracked
beneath us and we entered between thickets, “but I’m a babe to this
man, Hinch.”

“Don’t talk to me. Watch _him!_ It’s a liberal education, as
Shakespeare says. Fallen tree on the port bow, Sir.”

“Right! That’s my mark. Sit tight!”

She flung up her tail like a sounding whale and buried us in a
fifteen-foot deep bridle-path buttressed with the exposed roots of
enormous beeches. The wheels leaped from root to rounded boulder, and
it was very dark in the shadow of the foliage.

“There ought to be a hammer-pond somewhere about here.” Kysh was
letting her down this chute in brakeful spasms.

“Water dead ahead, Sir. Stack o’ brushwood on the starboard beam,
and—no road,” sang Pyecroft.

“Cr-r-ri-key!” said Hinchcliffe, as the car on a wild cant to the left
went astern, screwing herself round the angle of a track that overhung
the pond. “If she only had two propellers, I believe she’d talk poetry.
She can do everything else.”

“We’re rather on our port wheels now,” said Kysh; “but I don’t think
she’ll capsize. This road isn’t used much by motors.”

“You don’t say so,” said Pyecroft. “What a pity!”

She bored through a mass of crackling brushwood, and emerged into an
upward sloping fern-glade fenced with woods so virgin, so untouched,
that William Rufus might have ridden off as we entered. We climbed out
of the violet-purple shadows towards the upland where the last of the
day lingered. I was filled to my moist eyes with the almost sacred
beauty of sense and association that clad the landscape.

“Does ’unger produce ’alluciations?” said Pyecroft in a whisper.
“Because I’ve just seen a sacred ibis walkin’ arm in arm with a British
cock-pheasant.”

“What are you panickin’ at?” said Hinchcliffe. “I’ve been seein’ zebra
for the last two minutes, but I ’aven’t complained.”

He pointed behind us, and I beheld a superb painted zebra (Burchell’s,
I think), following our track with palpitating nostrils. The car
stopped, and it fled away.

There was a little pond in front of us from which rose a dome of
irregular sticks crowned with a blunt-muzzled beast that sat upon its
haunches.

“Is it catching?” said Pyecroft.

“Yes. I’m seeing beaver,” I replied.

“It is here!” said Kysh, with the air and gesture of Captain Nemo, and
half turned.

“No—no—no! For ’Eaven’s sake—not ’ere!” Our guest gasped like a
sea-bathed child, as four efficient hands swung him far out-board on to
the turf. The car ran back noiselessly down the slope.

“Look! Look! It’s sorcery!” cried Hinchcliffe.

There was a report like a pistol shot as the beaver dived from the roof
of his lodge, but we watched our guest. He was on his knees, praying to
kangaroos. Yea, in his bowler hat he kneeled before kangaroos—gigantic,
erect, silhouetted against the light—four buck-kangaroos in the heart
of Sussex!

And we retrogressed over the velvet grass till our hind-wheels struck
well-rolled gravel, leading us to sanity, main roads, and, half an hour
later, the “Grapnel Inn” at Horsham.


After a great meal we poured libations and made burnt-offerings in
honour of Kysh, who received our homage graciously, and, by the way,
explained a few things in the natural history line that had puzzled us.
England is a most marvellous country, but one is not, till one knows
the eccentricities of large land-owners, trained to accept kangaroos,
zebras, or beavers as part of its landscape.

When we went to bed Pyecroft pressed my hand, his voice thick with
emotion.

“We owe it to you,” he said. “We owe it all to you. Didn’t I say we
never met in _pup-pup-puris naturalibus_, if I may so put it, without a
remarkably hectic day ahead of us?”

“That’s all right,” I said. “Mind the candle.” He was tracing
smoke-patterns on the wall.

“But what I want to know is whether we’ll succeed in acclimatisin’ the
blighter, or whether Sir William Gardner’s keepers ’ll kill ’im before
’e gets accustomed to ’is surroundin’s?”

Some day, I think, we must go up the Linghurst Road and find out.




“WIRELESS”




KASPAR’S SONG IN VARDA


(_From the Swedish of Stagnelius_.)


    Eyes aloft, over dangerous places,
    The children follow where Psyche flies,
And, in the sweat of their upturned faces,
    Slash with a net at the empty skies.

So it goes they fall amid brambles,
    And sting their toes on the nettle-tops,
Till after a thousand scratches and scrambles
    They wipe their brows, and the hunting stops.

Then to quiet them comes their father
    And stills the riot of pain and grief,
Saying, “Little ones, go and gather
    Out of my garden a cabbage leaf.

“You will find on it whorls and clots of
    Dull grey eggs that, properly fed,
Turn, by way of the worm, to lots of
    Radiant Psyches raised from the dead.”


“Heaven is beautiful, Earth is ugly,”
    The three-dimensioned preacher saith,
So we must not look where the snail and the slug lie
    For Psyche’s birth … And that is our death!




“WIRELESS”


“It’s a funny thing, this Marconi business, isn’t it?” said Mr.
Shaynor, coughing heavily. “Nothing seems to make any difference, by
what they tell me—storms, hills, or anything; but if that’s true we
shall know before morning.”

“Of course it’s true,” I answered, stepping behind the counter.
“Where’s old Mr. Cashell?”

“He’s had to go to bed on account of his influenza. He said you’d very
likely drop in.”

“Where’s his nephew?”

“Inside, getting the things ready. He told me that the last time they
experimented they put the pole on the roof of one of the big hotels
here, and the batteries electrified all the water-supply, and”—he
giggled—“the ladies got shocks when they took their baths.”

“I never heard of that.”

“The hotel wouldn’t exactly advertise it, would it? Just now, by what
Mr. Cashell tells me, they’re trying to signal from here to Poole, and
they’re using stronger batteries than ever. But, you see, he being the
guvnor’s nephew and all that (and it will be in the papers too), it
doesn’t matter how they electrify things in this house. Are you going
to watch?”

“Very much. I’ve never seen this game. Aren’t you going to bed?”

“We don’t close till ten on Saturdays. There’s a good deal of influenza
in town, too, and there’ll be a dozen prescriptions coming in before
morning. I generally sleep in the chair here. It’s warmer than jumping
out of bed every time. Bitter cold, isn’t it?”

“Freezing hard. I’m sorry your cough’s worse.”

“Thank you. I don’t mind cold so much. It’s this wind that fair cuts me
to pieces.” He coughed again hard and hackingly, as an old lady came in
for ammoniated quinine. “We’ve just run out of it in bottles, madam,”
said Mr. Shaynor, returning to the professional tone, “but if you will
wait two minutes, I’ll make it up for you, madam.”

I had used the shop for some time, and my acquaintance with the
proprietor had ripened into friendship. It was Mr. Cashell who revealed
to me the purpose and power of Apothecaries’ Hall what time a
fellow-chemist had made an error in a prescription of mine, had lied to
cover his sloth, and when error and lie were brought home to him had
written vain letters.

“A disgrace to our profession,” said the thin, mild-eyed man, hotly,
after studying the evidence. “You couldn’t do a better service to the
profession than report him to Apothecaries’ Hall.”

I did so, not knowing what djinns I should evoke; and the result was
such an apology as one might make who had spent a night on the rack. I
conceived great respect for Apothecaries’ Hall, and esteem for Mr.
Cashell, a zealous craftsman who magnified his calling. Until Mr.
Shaynor came down from the North his assistants had by no means agreed
with Mr. Cashell. “They forget,” said he, “that, first and foremost,
the compounder is a medicine-man. On him depends the physician’s
reputation. He holds it literally in the hollow of his hand, Sir.”

Mr. Shaynor’s manners had not, perhaps, the polish of the grocery and
Italian warehouse next door, but he knew and loved his dispensary work
in every detail. For relaxation he seemed to go no farther afield than
the romance of drugs—their discovery, preparation packing, and
export—but it led him to the ends of the earth, and on this subject,
and the Pharmaceutical Formulary, and Nicholas Culpepper, most
confident of physicians, we met.

Little by little I grew to know something of his beginnings and his
hopes—of his mother, who had been a school-teacher in one of the
northern counties, and of his red-headed father, a small job-master at
Kirby Moors, who died when he was a child; of the examinations he had
passed and of their exceeding and increasing difficulty; of his dreams
of a shop in London; of his hate for the price-cutting Co-operative
stores; and, most interesting, of his mental attitude towards
customers.

“There’s a way you get into,” he told me, “of serving them carefully,
and I hope, politely, without stopping your own thinking. I’ve been
reading Christie’s _New Commercial Plants_ all this autumn, and that
needs keeping your mind on it, I can tell you. So long as it isn’t a
prescription, of course, I can carry as much as half a page of Christie
in my head, and at the same time I could sell out all that window twice
over, and not a penny wrong at the end. As to prescriptions, I think I
could make up the general run of ’em in my sleep, almost.”

For reasons of my own, I was deeply interested in Marconi experiments
at their outset in England; and it was of a piece with Mr. Cashell’s
unvarying thoughtfulness that, when his nephew the electrician
appropriated the house for a long-range installation, he should, as I
have said, invite me to see the result.

The old lady went away with her medicine, and Mr. Shaynor and I stamped
on the tiled floor behind the counter to keep ourselves warm. The shop,
by the light of the many electrics, looked like a Paris-diamond mine,
for Mr. Cashell believed in all the ritual of his craft. Three superb
glass jars—red, green, and blue—of the sort that led Rosamund to
parting with her shoes—blazed in the broad plate-glass windows, and
there was a confused smell of orris, Kodak films, vulcanite,
tooth-powder, sachets, and almond-cream in the air. Mr. Shaynor fed the
dispensary stove, and we sucked cayenne-pepper jujubes and menthol
lozenges. The brutal east wind had cleared the streets, and the few
passers-by were muffled to their puckered eyes. In the Italian
warehouse next door some gay feathered birds and game, hung upon hooks,
sagged to the wind across the left edge of our window-frame.

“They ought to take these poultry in—all knocked about like that,” said
Mr. Shaynor. “Doesn’t it make you feel fair perishing? See that old
hare! The wind’s nearly blowing the fur off him.”

I saw the belly-fur of the dead beast blown apart in ridges and streaks
as the wind caught it, showing bluish skin underneath. “Bitter cold,”
said Mr. Shaynor, shuddering. “Fancy going out on a night like this!
Oh, here’s young Mr. Cashell.”

The door of the inner office behind the dispensary opened, and an
energetic, spade-bearded man stepped forth, rubbing his hands.

“I want a bit of tin-foil, Shaynor,” he said. “Good-evening. My uncle
told me you might be coming.” This to me, as I began the first of a
hundred questions.

“I’ve everything in order,” he replied. “We’re only waiting until Poole
calls us up. Excuse me a minute. You can come in whenever you like—but
I’d better be with the instruments. Give me that tin-foil. Thanks.”

While we were talking, a girl—evidently no customer—had come into the
shop, and the face and bearing of Mr. Shaynor changed. She leaned
confidently across the counter.

“But I can’t,” I heard him whisper uneasily—the flush on his cheek was
dull red, and his eyes shone like a drugged moth’s. “I can’t. I tell
you I’m alone in the place.”

“No, you aren’t. Who’s _that_? Let him look after it for half an hour.
A brisk walk will do you good. Ah, come now, John.”

“But he isn’t——”

“I don’t care. I want you to; we’ll only go round by St. Agnes. If you
don’t——”

He crossed to where I stood in the shadow of the dispensary counter,
and began some sort of broken apology about a lady-friend.

“Yes,” she interrupted. “You take the shop for half an hour—to oblige
_me_, won’t you?”

She had a singularly rich and promising voice that well matched her
outline.

“All right,” I said. “I’ll do it—but you’d better wrap yourself up, Mr.
Shaynor.”

“Oh, a brisk walk ought to help me. We’re only going round by the
church.” I heard him cough grievously as they went out together.

I refilled the stove, and, after reckless expenditure of Mr. Cashell’s
coal, drove some warmth into the shop. I explored many of the
glass-knobbed drawers that lined the walls, tasted some disconcerting
drugs, and, by the aid of a few cardamoms, ground ginger,
chloric-ether, and dilute alcohol, manufactured a new and wildish
drink, of which I bore a glassful to young Mr. Cashell, busy in the
back office. He laughed shortly when I told him that Mr. Shaynor had
stepped out—but a frail coil of wire held all his attention, and he had
no word for me bewildered among the batteries and rods. The noise of
the sea on the beach began to make itself heard as the traffic in the
street ceased. Then briefly, but very lucidly, he gave me the names and
uses of the mechanism that crowded the tables and the floor.

“When do you expect to get the message from Poole?” I demanded, sipping
my liquor out of a graduated glass.

“About midnight, if everything is in order. We’ve got our
installation-pole fixed to the roof of the house. I shouldn’t advise
you to turn on a tap or anything tonight. We’ve connected up with the
plumbing, and all the water will be electrified.” He repeated to me the
history of the agitated ladies at the hotel at the time of the first
installation.

“But what _is_ it?” I asked. “Electricity is out of my beat
altogether.”

“Ah, if you knew _that_ you’d know something nobody knows. It’s just
It—what we call Electricity, but the magic—the manifestations—the
Hertzian waves—are all revealed by _this_. The coherer, we call it.”

He picked up a glass tube not much thicker than a thermometer, in
which, almost touching, were two tiny silver plugs, and between them an
infinitesimal pinch of metallic dust. “That’s all,” he said, proudly,
as though himself responsible for the wonder. “That is the thing that
will reveal to us the Powers—whatever the Powers may be—at work—through
space—a long distance away.”

Just then Mr. Shaynor returned alone and stood coughing his heart out
on the mat.

“Serves you right for being such a fool,” said young Mr. Cashell, as
annoyed as myself at the interruption. “Never mind—we’ve all the night
before us to see wonders.”

Shaynor clutched the counter, his handkerchief to his lips. When he
brought it away I saw two bright red stains.

“I—I’ve got a bit of a rasped throat from smoking cigarettes,” he
panted. “I think I’ll try a cubeb.”

“Better take some of this. I’ve been compounding while you’ve been
away.” I handed him the brew.

“’Twon’t make me drunk, will it? I’m almost a teetotaller. My word!
That’s grateful and comforting.”

He sat down the empty glass to cough afresh.

“Brr! But it was cold out there! I shouldn’t care to be lying in my
grave a night like this. Don’t _you_ ever have a sore throat from
smoking?” He pocketed the handkerchief after a furtive peep.

“Oh, yes, sometimes,” I replied, wondering, while I spoke, into what
agonies of terror I should fall if ever I saw those bright-red
danger-signals under my nose. Young Mr. Cashell among the batteries
coughed slightly to show that he was quite ready to continue his
scientific explanations, but I was thinking still of the girl with the
rich voice and the significantly cut mouth, at whose command I had
taken charge of the shop. It flashed across me that she distantly
resembled the seductive shape on a gold-framed toilet-water
advertisement whose charms were unholily heightened by the glare from
the red bottle in the window. Turning to make sure, I saw Mr. Shaynor’s
eyes bent in the same direction, and by instinct recognised that the
flamboyant thing was to him a shrine. “What do you take for
your—cough?” I asked.

“Well, I’m the wrong side of the counter to believe much in patent
medicines. But there are asthma cigarettes and there are pastilles. To
tell you the truth, if you don’t object to the smell, which is very
like incense, I believe, though I’m not a Roman Catholic, Blaudett’s
Cathedral Pastilles relieve me as much as anything.”

“Let’s try.” I had never raided a chemist’s shop before, so I was
thorough. We unearthed the pastilles—brown, gummy cones of benzoin—and
set them alight under the toilet-water advertisement, where they fumed
in thin blue spirals.

“Of course,” said Mr. Shaynor, to my question, “what one uses in the
shop for one’s self comes out of one’s pocket. Why, stock-taking in our
business is nearly the same as with jewellers—and I can’t say more than
that. But one gets them”—he pointed to the pastille-box—“at trade
prices.” Evidently the censing of the gay, seven-tinted wench with the
teeth was an established ritual which cost something.

“And when do we shut up shop?”

“We stay like this all night. The gov—old Mr. Cashell—doesn’t believe
in locks and shutters as compared with electric light. Besides it
brings trade. I’ll just sit here in the chair by the stove and write a
letter, if you don’t mind. Electricity isn’t my prescription.”

The energetic young Mr. Cashell snorted within, and Shaynor settled
himself up in his chair over which he had thrown a staring red, black,
and yellow Austrian jute blanket, rather like a table-cover. I cast
about, amid patent medicine pamphlets, for something to read, but
finding little, returned to the manufacture of the new drink. The
Italian warehouse took down its game and went to bed. Across the street
blank shutters flung back the gaslight in cold smears; the dried
pavement seemed to rough up in goose-flesh under the scouring of the
savage wind, and we could hear, long ere he passed, the policeman
flapping his arms to keep himself warm. Within, the flavours of
cardamoms and chloric-ether disputed those of the pastilles and a score
of drugs and perfume and soap scents. Our electric lights, set low down
in the windows before the tun-bellied Rosamund jars, flung inward three
monstrous daubs of red, blue, and green, that broke into kaleidoscopic
lights on the facetted knobs of the drug-drawers, the cut-glass scent
flagons, and the bulbs of the sparklet bottles. They flushed the
white-tiled floor in gorgeous patches; splashed along the nickel-silver
counter-rails, and turned the polished mahogany counter-panels to the
likeness of intricate grained marbles—slabs of porphyry and malachite.
Mr. Shaynor unlocked a drawer, and ere he began to write, took out a
meagre bundle of letters. From my place by the stove, I could see the
scalloped edges of the paper with a flaring monogram in the corner and
could even smell the reek of chypre. At each page he turned toward the
toilet-water lady of the advertisement and devoured her with
over-luminous eyes. He had drawn the Austrian blanket over his
shoulders, and among those warring lights he looked more than ever the
incarnation of a drugged moth—a tiger-moth as I thought.

He put his letter into an envelope, stamped it with stiff mechanical
movements, and dropped it in the drawer. Then I became aware of the
silence of a great city asleep—the silence that underlaid the even
voice of the breakers along the sea-front—a thick, tingling quiet of
warm life stilled down for its appointed time, and unconsciously I
moved about the glittering shop as one moves in a sick-room. Young Mr.
Cashell was adjusting some wire that crackled from time to time with
the tense, knuckle-stretching sound of the electric spark. Upstairs,
where a door shut and opened swiftly, I could hear his uncle coughing
abed.

“Here,” I said, when the drink was properly warmed, “take some of this,
Mr. Shaynor.”

He jerked in his chair with a start and a wrench, and held out his hand
for the glass. The mixture, of a rich port-wine colour, frothed at the
top.

“It looks,” he said, suddenly, “it looks—those bubbles—like a string of
pearls winking at you—rather like the pearls round that young lady’s
neck.” He turned again to the advertisement where the female in the
dove-coloured corset had seen fit to put on all her pearls before she
cleaned her teeth.

“Not bad, is it?” I said.

“Eh?”

He rolled his eyes heavily full on me, and, as I stared, I beheld all
meaning and consciousness die out of the swiftly dilating pupils. His
figure lost its stark rigidity, softened into the chair, and, chin on
chest, hands dropped before him, he rested open-eyed, absolutely still.

“I’m afraid I’ve rather cooked Shaynor’s goose,” I said, bearing the
fresh drink to young Mr. Cashell. “Perhaps it was the chloric-ether.”

“Oh, he’s all right.” The spade-bearded man glanced at him pityingly.
“Consumptives go off in those sort of doses very often. It’s
exhaustion… I don’t wonder. I dare say the liquor will do him good.
It’s grand stuff,” he finished his share appreciatively. “Well, as I
was saying—before he interrupted—about this little coherer. The pinch
of dust, you see, is nickel-filings. The Hertzian waves, you see, come
out of space from the station that despatches ’em, and all these little
particles are attracted together—cohere, we call it—for just so long as
the current passes through them. Now, it’s important to remember that
the current is an induced current. There are a good many kinds of
induction——”

“Yes, but what _is_ induction?”

“That’s rather hard to explain untechnically. But the long and the
short of it is that when a current of electricity passes through a wire
there’s a lot of magnetism present round that wire; and if you put
another wire parallel to, and within what we call its magnetic
field—why then, the second wire will also become charged with
electricity.”

“On its own account?”

“On its own account.”

“Then let’s see if I’ve got it correctly. Miles off, at Poole, or
wherever it is——”

“It will be anywhere in ten years.”

“You’ve got a charged wire——”

“Charged with Hertzian waves which vibrate, say, two hundred and thirty
million times a second.” Mr. Cashell snaked his forefinger rapidly
through the air.

“All right—a charged wire at Poole, giving out these waves into space.
Then this wire of yours sticking out into space—on the roof of the
house—in some mysterious way gets charged with those waves from
Poole——”

“Or anywhere—it only happens to be Poole tonight.”

“And those waves set the coherer at work, just like an ordinary
telegraph-office ticker?”

“No! That’s where so many people make the mistake. The Hertzian waves
wouldn’t be strong enough to work a great heavy Morse instrument like
ours. They can only just make that dust cohere, and while it coheres (a
little while for a dot and a longer while for a dash) the current from
this battery—the home battery”—he laid his hand on the thing—“can get
through to the Morse printing-machine to record the dot or dash. Let me
make it clearer. Do you know anything about steam?”

“Very little. But go on.”

“Well, the coherer is like a steam-valve. Any child can open a valve
and start a steamer’s engines, because a turn of the hand lets in the
main steam, doesn’t it? Now, this home battery here ready to print is
the main steam. The coherer is the valve, always ready to be turned on.
The Hertzian wave is the child’s hand that turns it.”

“I see. That’s marvellous.”

“Marvellous, isn’t it? And, remember, we’re only at the beginning.
There’s nothing we sha’n’t be able to do in ten years. I want to
live—my God, how I want to live, and see it develop!” He looked through
the door at Shaynor breathing lightly in his chair. “Poor beast! And he
wants to keep company with Fanny Brand.”

“Fanny _who_?” I said, for the name struck an obscurely familiar chord
in my brain—something connected with a stained handkerchief, and the
word “arterial.”

“Fanny Brand—the girl you kept shop for.” He laughed, “That’s all I
know about her, and for the life of me I can’t see what Shaynor sees in
her, or she in him.”

“_Can’t_ you see what he sees in her?” I insisted.

“Oh, yes, if _that’s_ what you mean. She’s a great, big, fat lump of a
girl, and so on. I suppose that’s why he’s so crazy after her. She
isn’t his sort. Well, it doesn’t matter. My uncle says he’s bound to
die before the year’s out. Your drink’s given him a good sleep, at any
rate.” Young Mr. Cashell could not catch Mr. Shaynor’s face, which was
half turned to the advertisement.

I stoked the stove anew, for the room was growing cold, and lighted
another pastille. Mr. Shaynor in his chair, never moving, looked
through and over me with eyes as wide and lustreless as those of a dead
hare.

“Poole’s late,” said young Mr. Cashell, when I stepped back. “I’ll just
send them a call.”

He pressed a key in the semi-darkness, and with a rending crackle there
leaped between two brass knobs a spark, streams of sparks, and sparks
again.

“Grand, isn’t it? _That’s_ the Power—our unknown Power—kicking and
fighting to be let loose,” said young Mr. Cashell. “There she
goes—kick—kick—kick into space. I never get over the strangeness of it
when I work a sending-machine—waves going into space, you know. T.R. is
our call. Poole ought to answer with L.L.L.”

We waited two, three, five minutes. In that silence, of which the boom
of the tide was an orderly part, I caught the clear “_kiss—kiss—kiss_”
of the halliards on the roof, as they were blown against the
installation-pole.

“Poole is not ready. I’ll stay here and call you when he is.”

I returned to the shop, and set down my glass on a marble slab with a
careless clink. As I did so, Shaynor rose to his feet, his eyes fixed
once more on the advertisement, where the young woman bathed in the
light from the red jar simpered pinkly over her pearls. His lips moved
without cessation. I stepped nearer to listen. “And threw—and threw—and
threw,” he repeated, his face all sharp with some inexplicable agony.

I moved forward astonished. But it was then he found words—delivered
roundly and clearly. These:—

And threw warm gules on Madeleine’s young breast.


The trouble passed off his countenance, and he returned lightly to his
place, rubbing his hands.

It had never occurred to me, though we had many times discussed reading
and prize-competitions as a diversion, that Mr. Shaynor ever read
Keats, or could quote him at all appositely. There was, after all, a
certain stained-glass effect of light on the high bosom of the
highly-polished picture which might, by stretch of fancy, suggest, as a
vile chromo recalls some incomparable canvas, the line he had spoken.
Night, my drink, and solitude were evidently turning Mr. Shaynor into a
poet. He sat down again and wrote swiftly on his villainous note-paper,
his lips quivering.

I shut the door into the inner office and moved up behind him. He made
no sign that he saw or heard. I looked over his shoulder, and read,
amid half-formed words, sentences, and wild scratches:—

—Very cold it was. Very cold
The hare—the hare—the hare—
The birds——


He raised his head sharply, and frowned toward the blank shutters of
the poulterer’s shop where they jutted out against our window. Then one
clear line came:—

The hare, in spite of fur, was very cold.


The head, moving machine-like, turned right to the advertisement where
the Blaudett’s Cathedral pastille reeked abominably. He grunted, and
went on:—

Incense in a censer—
Before her darling picture framed in gold—
Maiden’s picture—angel’s portrait—


“Hsh!” said Mr. Cashell guardedly from the inner office, as though in
the presence of spirits. “There’s something coming through from
somewhere; but it isn’t Poole.” I heard the crackle of sparks as he
depressed the keys of the transmitter. In my own brain, too, something
crackled, or it might have been the hair on my head. Then I heard my
own voice, in a harsh whisper: “Mr. Cashell, there is something coming
through here, too. Leave me alone till I tell you.”

“But I thought you’d come to see this wonderful thing—Sir,” indignantly
at the end.

“Leave me alone till I tell you. Be quiet.”

I watched—I waited. Under the blue-veined hand—the dry hand of the
consumptive—came away clear, without erasure:

And my weak spirit fails
To think how the dead must freeze—


he shivered as he wrote—

Beneath the churchyard mould.


Then he stopped, laid the pen down, and leaned back.

For an instant, that was half an eternity, the shop spun before me in a
rainbow-tinted whirl, in and through which my own soul most
dispassionately considered my own soul as that fought with an
over-mastering fear. Then I smelt the strong smell of cigarettes from
Mr. Shaynor’s clothing, and heard, as though it had been the rending of
trumpets, the rattle of his breathing. I was still in my place of
observation, much as one would watch a rifle-shot at the butts,
half-bent, hands on my knees, and head within a few inches of the
black, red, and yellow blanket of his shoulder. I was whispering
encouragement, evidently to my other self, sounding sentences, such as
men pronounce in dreams.

“If he has read Keats, it proves nothing. If he hasn’t—like causes
_must_ beget like effects. There is no escape from this law. _You_
ought to be grateful that you know ‘St. Agnes Eve’ without the book;
because, given the circumstances, such as Fanny Brand, who is the key
of the enigma, and approximately represents the latitude and longitude
of Fanny Brawne; allowing also for the bright red colour of the
arterial blood upon the handkerchief, which was just what you were
puzzling over in the shop just now; and counting the effect of the
professional environment, here almost perfectly duplicated—the result
is logical and inevitable. As inevitable as induction.”

Still, the other half of my soul refused to be comforted. It was
cowering in some minute and inadequate corner—at an immense distance.

Hereafter, I found myself one person again, my hands still gripping my
knees, and my eyes glued on the page before Mr. Shaynor. As dreamers
accept and explain the upheaval of landscapes and the resurrection of
the dead, with excerpts from the evening hymn or the
multiplication-table, so I had accepted the facts, whatever they might
be, that I should witness, and had devised a theory, sane and plausible
to my mind, that explained them all. Nay, I was even in advance of my
facts, walking hurriedly before them, assured that they would fit my
theory. And all that I now recall of that epoch-making theory are the
lofty words: “If he has read Keats it’s the chloric-ether. If he
hasn’t, it’s the identical bacillus, or Hertzian wave of tuberculosis,
_plus_ Fanny Brand and the professional status which, in conjunction
with the main-stream of subconscious thought common to all mankind, has
thrown up temporarily an induced Keats.”

Mr. Shaynor returned to his work, erasing and rewriting as before with
swiftness. Two or three blank pages he tossed aside. Then he wrote,
muttering:

The little smoke of a candle that goes out.


“No,” he muttered. “Little smoke—little smoke—little smoke. What else?”
He thrust his chin forward toward the advertisement, whereunder the
last of the Blaudett’s Cathedral pastilles fumed in its holder. “Ah!”
Then with relief:—

The little smoke that dies in moonlight cold.


Evidently he was snared by the rhymes of his first verse, for he wrote
and rewrote “gold—cold—mould” many times. Again he sought inspiration
from the advertisement, and set down, without erasure, the line I had
overheard:

And threw warm gules on Madeleine’s young breast.


As I remembered the original it is “fair”—a trite word—instead of
“young,” and I found myself nodding approval, though I admitted that
the attempt to reproduce “its little smoke in pallid moonlight died”
was a failure.

Followed without a break ten or fifteen lines of bald prose—the naked
soul’s confession of its physical yearning for its beloved—unclean as
we count uncleanliness; unwholesome, but human exceedingly; the raw
material, so it seemed to me in that hour and in that place, whence
Keats wove the twenty-sixth, seventh, and eighth stanzas of his poem.
Shame I had none in overseeing this revelation; and my fear had gone
with the smoke of the pastille.

“That’s it,” I murmured. “That’s how it’s blocked out. Go on! Ink it
in, man. Ink it in!”

Mr. Shaynor returned to broken verse wherein “loveliness” was made to
rhyme with a desire to look upon “her empty dress.” He picked up a fold
of the gay, soft blanket, spread it over one hand, caressed it with
infinite tenderness, thought, muttered, traced some snatches which I
could not decipher, shut his eyes drowsily, shook his head, and dropped
the stuff. Here I found myself at fault, for I could not then see (as I
do now) in what manner a red, black, and yellow Austrian blanket
coloured his dreams.

In a few minutes he laid aside his pen, and, chin on hand, considered
the shop with thoughtful and intelligent eyes. He threw down the
blanket, rose, passed along a line of drug-drawers, and read the names
on the labels aloud. Returning, he took from his desk Christie’s _New
Commercial Plants_ and the old Culpepper that I had given him, opened
and laid them side by side with a clerky air, all trace of passion gone
from his face, read first in one and then in the other, and paused with
pen behind his ear.

“What wonder of Heaven’s coming now?” I thought.

“Manna—manna—manna,” he said at last, under wrinkled brows. “That’s
what I wanted. Good! Now then! Now then! Good! Good! Oh, by God, that’s
good!” His voice rose and he spoke rightly and fully without a falter:—

Candied apple, quince and plum and gourd,
And jellies smoother than the creamy curd,
And lucent syrups tinct with cinnamon,
Manna and dates in Argosy transferred
From Fez; and spiced dainties, every one
From silken Samarcand to cedared Lebanon.


He repeated it once more, using “blander” for “smoother” in the second
line; then wrote it down without erasure, but this time (my set eyes
missed no stroke of any word) he substituted “soother” for his
atrocious second thought, so that it came away under his hand as it is
written in the book—as it is written in the book.

A wind went shouting down the street, and on the heels of the wind
followed a spurt and rattle of rain.

After a smiling pause—and good right had he to smile—he began anew,
always tossing the last sheet over his shoulder:—

“The sharp rain falling on the window-pane,
Rattling sleet—the wind-blown sleet.”


Then prose: “It is very cold of mornings when the wind brings rain and
sleet with it. I heard the sleet on the window-pane outside, and
thought of you, my darling. I am always thinking of you. I wish we
could both run away like two lovers into the storm and get that little
cottage by the sea which we are always thinking about, my own dear
darling. We could sit and watch the sea beneath our windows. It would
be a fairyland all of our own—a fairy sea—a fairy sea….”

He stopped, raised his head, and listened. The steady drone of the
Channel along the sea-front that had borne us company so long leaped up
a note to the sudden fuller surge that signals the change from ebb to
flood. It beat in like the change of step throughout an army—this
renewed pulse of the sea—and filled our ears till they, accepting it,
marked it no longer.

“A fairyland for you and me
Across the foam—beyond …
A magic foam, a perilous sea.”


He grunted again with effort and bit his underlip. My throat dried, but
I dared not gulp to moisten it lest I should break the spell that was
drawing him nearer and nearer to the high-water mark but two of the
sons of Adam have reached. Remember that in all the millions permitted
there are no more than five—five little lines—of which one can say:
“These are the pure Magic. These are the clear Vision. The rest is only
poetry.” And Mr. Shaynor was playing hot and cold with two of them!

I vowed no unconscious thought of mine should influence the blindfold
soul, and pinned myself desperately to the other three, repeating and
re-repeating:

A savage spot as holy and enchanted
As e’er beneath a waning moon was haunted
By woman wailing for her demon lover.


But though I believed my brain thus occupied, my every sense hung upon
the writing under the dry, bony hand, all brown-fingered with chemicals
and cigarette-smoke.

Our windows fronting on the dangerous foam,


(he wrote, after long, irresolute snatches), and then—

“Our open casements facing desolate seas
Forlorn—forlorn—”


Here again his face grew peaked and anxious with that sense of loss I
had first seen when the Power snatched him. But this time the agony was
tenfold keener. As I watched it mounted like mercury in the tube. It
lighted his face from within till I thought the visibly scourged soul
must leap forth naked between his jaws, unable to endure. A drop of
sweat trickled from my forehead down my nose and splashed on the back
of my hand.

“Our windows facing on the desolate seas
And pearly foam of magic fairyland—”


“Not yet—not yet,” he muttered, “wait a minute. _Please_ wait a minute.
I shall get it then—”

Our magic windows fronting on the sea,
The dangerous foam of desolate seas …
For aye.


_Ouh_, my God!”

From head to heel he shook—shook from the marrow of his bones
outwards—then leaped to his feet with raised arms, and slid the chair
screeching across the tiled floor where it struck the drawers behind
and fell with a jar. Mechanically, I stooped to recover it.

As I rose, Mr. Shaynor was stretching and yawning at leisure.

“I’ve had a bit of a doze,” he said. “How did I come to knock the chair
over? You look rather—”

“The chair startled me,” I answered. “It was so sudden in this quiet.”

Young Mr. Cashell behind his shut door was offendedly silent.

“I suppose I must have been dreaming,” said Mr. Shaynor.

“I suppose you must,” I said. “Talking of dreams—I—I noticed you
writing—before—”

He flushed consciously.

“I meant to ask you if you’ve ever read anything written by a man
called Keats.”

“Oh! I haven’t much time to read poetry, and I can’t say that I
remember the name exactly. Is he a popular writer?”

“Middling. I thought you might know him because he’s the only poet who
was ever a druggist. And he’s rather what’s called the lover’s poet.”

“Indeed. I must dip into him. What did he write about?”

“A lot of things. Here’s a sample that may interest you.”

Then and there, carefully, I repeated the verse he had twice spoken and
once written not ten minutes ago.

“Ah. Anybody could see he was a druggist from that line about the
tinctures and syrups. It’s a fine tribute to our profession.”

“I don’t know,” said young Mr. Cashell, with icy politeness, opening
the door one half-inch, “if you still happen to be interested in our
trifling experiments. But, should such be the case——”

I drew him aside, whispering, “Shaynor seemed going off into some sort
of fit when I spoke to you just now. I thought, even at the risk of
being rude, it wouldn’t do to take you off your instruments just as the
call was coming through. Don’t you see?”

“Granted—granted as soon as asked,” he said unbending. “I _did_ think
it a shade odd at the time. So that was why he knocked the chair down?”

“I hope I haven’t missed anything,” I said. “I’m afraid I can’t say
that, but you’re just in time for the end of a rather curious
performance. You can come in, too, Mr. Shaynor. Listen, while I read it
off.”

The Morse instrument was ticking furiously. Mr. Cashell interpreted:
“‘_K.K.V. Can make nothing of your signals_.’” A pause. “‘_M.M.V.
M.M.V. Signals unintelligible. Purpose anchor Sandown Bay. Examine
instruments to-morrow.’_ Do you know what that means? It’s a couple of
men-o’-war working Marconi signals off the Isle of Wight. They are
trying to talk to each other. Neither can read the other’s messages,
but all their messages are being taken in by our receiver here. They’ve
been going on for ever so long. I wish you could have heard it.”

“How wonderful!” I said. “Do you mean we’re overhearing Portsmouth
ships trying to talk to each other—that we’re eavesdropping across half
South England?”

“Just that. Their transmitters are all right, but their receivers are
out of order, so they only get a dot here and a dash there. Nothing
clear.”

“Why is that?”

“God knows—and Science will know to-morrow. Perhaps the induction is
faulty; perhaps the receivers aren’t tuned to receive just the number
of vibrations per second that the transmitter sends. Only a word here
and there. Just enough to tantalise.”

Again the Morse sprang to life.

“That’s one of ’em complaining now. Listen: ‘_Disheartening—most
disheartening_.’ It’s quite pathetic. Have you ever seen a
spiritualistic seance? It reminds me of that sometimes—odds and ends of
messages coming out of nowhere—a word here and there—no good at all.”

“But mediums are all impostors,” said Mr. Shaynor, in the doorway,
lighting an asthma-cigarette. “They only do it for the money they can
make. I’ve seen ’em.”

“Here’s Poole, at last—clear as a bell. L.L.L. _Now_ we sha’n’t be
long.” Mr. Cashell rattled the keys merrily. “Anything you’d like to
tell ’em?”

“No, I don’t think so,” I said. “I’ll go home and get to bed. I’m
feeling a little tired.”




THE ARMY OF A DREAM




SONG OF THE OLD GUARD


“And thou shalt make a candlestick of pure gold of beaten work shall
the candlestick be made: his shaft and its branches, his bowls, his
knops, and his flowers, shall be the same.

“And there shall be a knop under two branches of the same, and a knop
under two branches of the same, and a knop under two branches of the
same, according to the six branches that proceed out of the
candlestick. Their knops and their branches shall be the
same.”—_Exodus._

    “Know this, my brethren, Heaven is clear
    And all the clouds are gone—
The Proper Sort shall flourish now,
    Good times are coming on”—
The evil that was threatened late
    To all of our degree,
Hath passed in discord and debate,
    And, _Hey then up go we!_

A common people strove in vain
    To shame us unto toil,
But they are spent and we remain,
    And we shall share the spoil
According to our several needs
    As Beauty shall decree,
As Age ordains or Birth concedes,
    And, _Hey then up go we!_

And they that with accursed zeal
    Our Service would amend,
Shall own the odds and come to heel
    Ere worse befall their end
For though no naked word be wrote
    Yet plainly shall they see
What pinneth Orders to their coat,
    And, _Hey then up go we!_

Our doorways that, in time of fear,
    We opened overwide
Shall softly close from year to year
    Till all be purified;
For though no fluttering fan be heard
    Nor chaff be seen to flee—
The Lord shall winnow the Lord’s Preferred—
    And, _Hey then up go we!_

Our altars which the heathen brake
    Shall rankly smoke anew,
And anise, mint, and cummin take
    Their dread and sovereign due,
Whereby the buttons of our trade
    Shall all restored be
With curious work in gilt and braid,
    And, _Hey then up go we!_

Then come, my brethren, and prepare
    The candlesticks and bells,
The scarlet, brass, and badger’s hair
    Wherein our Honour dwells,
And straitly fence and strictly keep
    The Ark’s integrity
Till Armageddon break our sleep …
    And, _Hey then up go we!_




THE ARMY OF A DREAM

PART I


I sat down in the club smoking-room to fill a pipe.


It was entirely natural that I should be talking to “Boy” Bayley. We
had met first, twenty odd years ago, at the Indian mess of the Tyneside
Tail-twisters. Our last meeting, I remembered, had been at the Mount
Nelson Hotel, which was by no means India, and there we had talked half
the night. Boy Bayley had gone up that week to the front, where I think
he stayed a long, long time.

But now he had come back.

“Are you still a Tynesider?” I asked.

“I command the Imperial Guard Battalion of the old regiment, my son,”
he replied.

“Guard which? They’ve been Fusiliers since Fontenoy. Don’t pull my leg,
Boy.”

“I said Guard, not Guard-_s_. The I. G. Battalion of the Tail-twisters.
Does that make it any clearer?”

“Not in the least.”

“Then come over to the mess and see for yourself. We aren’t a step from
barracks. Keep on my right side. I’m—I’m a bit deaf on the near.”

We left the club together and crossed the street to a vast four-storied
pile, which more resembled a Rowton lodging-house than a barrack. I
could see no sentry at the gates.

“There ain’t any,” said the Boy lightly. He led me into a many-tabled
restaurant full of civilians and grey-green uniforms. At one end of the
room, on a slightly raised dais, stood a big table.

“Here we are! We usually lunch here and dine in mess by ourselves.
These are our chaps—but what am I thinking of? You must know most of
’em. Devine’s my second in command now. There’s old Luttrell—remember
him at Cherat?—Burgard, Verschoyle (you were at school with him),
Harrison, Pigeon, and Kyd.”

With the exception of this last I knew them all, but I could not
remember that they had all been Tynesiders.

“I’ve never seen this sort of place,” I said, looking round. “Half the
men here are in plain clothes, and what are those women and children
doing?”

“Eating, I hope,” Boy Bayley answered. “Our canteens would never pay if
it wasn’t for the Line and Militia trade. When they were first started
people looked on ’em rather as catsmeat-shops; but we got a duchess or
two to lunch in ’em, and they’ve been grossly fashionable since.”

“So I see,” I answered. A woman of the type that shops at the Stores
came up the room looking about her. A man in the dull-grey uniform of
the corps rose up to meet her, piloted her to a place between three
other uniforms, and there began a very merry little meal.

“I give it up,” I said. “This is guilty splendour that I don’t
understand.”

“Quite simple,” said Burgard across the table. “The barrack supplies
breakfast, dinner, and tea on the Army scale to the Imperial Guard
(which we call I. G.) when it’s in barracks as well as to the Line and
Militia. They can all invite their friends if they choose to pay for
them. That’s where we make our profits. Look!”

Near one of the doors were four or five tables crowded with workmen in
the raiment of their callings. They ate steadily, but found time to
jest with the uniforms about them; and when one o’clock clanged from a
big half-built block of flats across the street, filed out.

“Those,” Devine explained, “are either our Line or Militiamen, as such
entitled to the regulation whack at regulation cost. It’s cheaper than
they could buy it; an’ they meet their friends too. A man’ll walk a
mile in his dinner hour to mess with his own lot.”

“Wait a minute,” I pleaded. “Will you tell me what those plumbers and
plasterers and bricklayers that I saw go out just now have to do with
what I was taught to call the Line?”

“Tell him,” said the Boy over his shoulder to Burgard. He was busy
talking with the large Verschoyle, my old schoolmate.

“The Line comes next to the Guard. The Linesman’s generally a town-bird
who can’t afford to be a Volunteer. He has to go into camp in an Area
for two months his first year, six weeks his second, and a month the
third. He gets about five bob a week the year round for that and for
being on duty two days of the week, and for being liable to be ordered
out to help the Guard in a row. He needn’t live in barracks unless he
wants to, and he and his family can feed at the regimental canteen at
usual rates. The women like it.”

“All this,” I said politely, but intensely, “is the raving of delirium.
Where may your precious recruit who needn’t live in barracks learn his
drill?”

“At his precious school, my child, like the rest of us. The notion of
allowing a human being to reach his twentieth year before asking him to
put his feet in the first position _was_ raving lunacy if you like!”
Boy Bayley dived back into the conversation.

“Very good,” I said meekly. “I accept the virtuous plumber who puts in
two months of his valuable time at Aldershot——”

“Aldershot!” The table exploded. I felt a little annoyed.

“A camp in an Area is not exactly Aldershot,” said Burgard. “The Line
isn’t exactly what you fancy. Some of them even come to _us_!”

“You recruit from ’em?”

“I beg your pardon,” said Devine with mock solemnity. “The Guard
doesn’t recruit. It selects.”

“It would,” I said, “with a Spiers and Pond restaurant; pretty girls to
play with; and——”

“A room apiece, four bob a day and all found,” said Verschoyle. “Don’t
forget that.”

“Of course!” I said. “It probably beats off recruits with a club.”

“No, with the ballot-box,” said Verschoyle, laughing. “At least in all
R.C. companies.”

“I didn’t know Roman Catholics were so particular,” I ventured.

They grinned. “R.C. companies,” said the Boy, “mean Right of Choice.
When a company has been very good and pious for a long time it may, if
the C.O. thinks fit, choose its own men—all same one-piecee club. All
our companies are R.C.’s, and as the battalion is making up a few
vacancies ere starting once more on the wild and trackless ‘heef’ into
the Areas, the Linesman is here in force to-day sucking up to our
non-coms.”

“Would some one mind explaining to me the meaning of every other word
you’ve used,” I said. “What’s a trackless ‘heef’? What’s an Area?
What’s everything generally?” I asked.

“Oh, ‘heef’s’ part of the British Constitution,” said the Boy. “It
began long ago when they’d first mapped out the big military
manoeuvring grounds—we call ’em Areas for short—where the I. G. spend
two-thirds of their time and the other regiments get their training. It
was slang originally for beef on the hoof, because in the Military
Areas two-thirds of your meat-rations at least are handed over to you
on the hoof, and you make your own arrangements. The word ‘heef’ became
a parable for camping in the Military Areas and all its miseries. There
are two Areas in Ireland, one in Wales for hill-work, a couple in
Scotland, and a sort of parade-ground in the Lake District; but the
real working Areas are in India, Africa, and Australia, and so on.”

“And what do you do there?”

“We ‘heef’ under service conditions, which are rather like hard work.
We ‘heef’ in an English Area for about a year, coming into barracks for
one month to make up wastage. Then we may ‘heef’ foreign for another
year or eighteen months. Then we do sea-time in the war boats——”

“_What-t?_” I said.

“Sea-time,” Bayley repeated. “Just like Marines, to learn about the big
guns and how to embark and disembark quick. Then we come back to our
territorial headquarters for six months, to educate the Line and
Volunteer camps, to go to Hythe, to keep abreast of any new ideas, and
then we fill up vacancies. We call those six months ‘Schools.’ Then we
begin all over again, thus: Home ‘heef,’ foreign ‘heef,’ sea-time,
schools. ‘Heefing’ isn’t precisely luxurious, but it’s on ‘heef’ that
we make our head-money.”

“Or lose it,” said the sallow Pigeon, and all laughed, as men will, at
regimental jokes.

“The Dove never lets me forget that,” said Boy Bayley. “It happened
last March. We were out in the Second Northern Area at the top end of
Scotland where a lot of those silly deer forests used to be. I’d sooner
‘heef’ in the middle of Australia myself—or Athabasca, with all respect
to the Dove—he’s a native of those parts. We were camped somewhere near
Caithness, and the Armity (that’s the combined Navy and Army board that
runs our show) sent us about eight hundred raw remounts to break in to
keep us warm.”

“Why horses for a foot regiment?”

“I. G.’s don’t foot it unless they’re obliged to. No have gee-gee how
can move? I’ll show you later. Well, as I was saying, we broke those
beasts in on compressed forage and small box-spurs, and then we started
across Scotland to Applecross to hand ’em over to a horse-depot there.
It was snowing cruel, and we didn’t know the country overmuch. You
remember the 30th—the old East Lancashire—at Mian Mir?

“Their Guard Battalion had been ‘heefing’ round those parts for six
months. We thought they’d be snowed up all quiet and comfy, but Burden,
their C. O., got wind of our coming, and sent spies in to Eschol.”

“Confound him,” said Luttrell, who was fat and well-liking. “I
entertained one of ’em—in a red worsted comforter—under Bean Derig. He
said he was a crofter. ‘Gave him a drink too.”

“I don’t mind admitting,” said the Boy, “that, what with the cold and
the remounts, we were moving rather base over apex. Burden bottled us
under Sghurr Mohr in a snowstorm. He stampeded half the horses, cut off
a lot of us in a snow-bank, and generally rubbed our noses in the
dirt.”

“Was he allowed to do that?” I said.

“There is no peace in a Military Area. If we’d beaten him off or got
away without losing anyone, we’d have been entitled to a day’s pay from
every man engaged against us. But we didn’t. He cut off fifty of ours,
held ’em as prisoners for the regulation three days, and then sent in
his bill—three days’ pay for each man taken. Fifty men at twelve bob a
head, plus five pounds for the Dove as a captured officer, and Kyd
here, his junior, three, made about forty quid to Burden & Co. They
crowed over us horrid.”

“Couldn’t you have appealed to an umpire or—or something?”

“We could, but we talked it over with the men and decided to pay and
look happy. We were fairly had. The 30th knew every foot of Sghurr
Mohr. I spent three days huntin’ ’em in the snow, but they went off on
our remounts about twenty mile that night.”

“Do you always do this sham-fight business?” I asked.

“Once inside an Area you must look after yourself; but I tell you that
a fight which means that every man-Jack of us may lose a week’s pay
isn’t so damn-sham after all. It keeps the men nippy. Still, in the
long run, it’s like whist on a P. & O. It comes out fairly level if you
play long enough. Now and again, though, one gets a present—say, when a
Line regiment’s out on the ‘heef,’ and signifies that it’s ready to
abide by the rules of the game. You mustn’t take head-money from a Line
regiment in an Area unless it says that it’ll play you; but, after a
week or two, those clever Linesmen always think they see a chance of
making a pot, and send in their compliments to the nearest I. G. Then
the fun begins. We caught a Line regiment single-handed about two years
ago in Ireland—caught it on the hop between a bog and a beach. It had
just moved in to join its brigade, and we made a forty-two mile march
in fourteen hours, and cut it off, lock, stock, and barrel. It went to
ground like a badger—I _will_ say those Line regiments can dig—but we
got out privily by night and broke up the only road it could expect to
get its baggage and company-guns along. Then we blew up a bridge that
some Sappers had made for experimental purposes (_they_ were rather
stuffy about it) on its line of retreat, while we lay up in the
mountains and signalled for the A.C. of those parts.”

“Who’s an A.C.?” I asked.

“The Adjustment Committee—the umpires of the Military Areas. They’re a
set of superannuated old aunts of colonels kept for the purpose, but
they occasionally combine to do justice. Our A.C. came, saw our
dispositions, and said it was a sanguinary massacre for the Line, and
that we were entitled to our full pound of flesh—head-money for one
whole regiment, with equipment, four company-guns, and all kit! At Line
rates this worked out as one fat cheque for two hundred and fifty. Not
bad!”

“But we had to pay the Sappers seventy-four quid for blowing their
patent bridge to pieces,” Devine interpolated. “That was a swindle.”

“That’s true,” the Boy went on, “but the Adjustment Committee gave our
helpless victims a talking to that was worth another hundred to hear.”

“But isn’t there a lot of unfairness in this head-money system?” I
asked.

“Can’t have everything perfect,” said the Boy. “Head-money is an
attempt at payment by results, and it gives the men a direct interest
in their job. Three times out of five, of course, the A. C. will
disallow both sides’ claim, but there’s always the chance of bringing
off a coup.”

“Do all regiments do it?”

“Heavily. The Line pays a bob per prisoner and the Militia ninepence,
not to mention side-bets which are what really keep the men keen. It
isn’t supposed to be done by the Volunteers, but they gamble worse than
anyone. Why, the very kids do it when they go to First Camp at
Aldershot or Salisbury.”

“Head-money’s a national institution—like betting,” said Burgard.

“I should say it was,” said Pigeon suddenly. “I was roped in the other
day as an Adjustment Committee by the Kemptown Board School. I was
riding under the Brighton racecourse, and I heard the whistle goin’ for
umpire—the regulation, two longs and two shorts. I didn’t take any
notice till an infant about a yard high jumped up from a furze-patch
and shouted: ‘Guard! Guard! Come ’ere! I want you _per_fessionally. Alf
says ’e ain’t outflanked. Ain’t ’e a liar? Come an’ look ’ow I’ve
posted my men.’ You bet I looked. The young demon trotted by my stirrup
and showed me his whole army (twenty of ’em) laid out under cover as
nicely as you please round a cowhouse in a hollow. He kept on shouting:
‘I’ve drew Alf into there. ’Is persition ain’t tenable. Say it ain’t
tenable, Guard!’ I rode round the position, and Alf with his army came
out of his cowhouse an’ sat on the roof and protested like a—like a
Militia Colonel; but the facts were in favour of my friend and I
umpired according. Well, Alf abode by my decision. I explained it to
him at length, and he solemnly paid up his head-money—farthing points
if you please.”

“Did they pay you umpire’s fee?” said Kyd. “I umpired a whole afternoon
once for a village school at home, and they stood me a bottle of hot
ginger beer.”

“I compromised on a halfpenny—a sticky one—or I’d have hurt their
feelings,” said Pigeon gravely. “But I gave ’em sixpence back.”

“How were they manoeuvring and what with?” I asked.

“Oh, by whistle and hand-signal. They had the dummy Board School guns
and flags for positions, but they were rushing their attack much too
quick for that open country. I told ’em so, and they admitted it.”

“But who taught ’em?” I said.

“They had learned in their schools, of course, like the rest of us.
They were all of ’em over ten; and squad-drill begins when they’re
eight. They knew their company-drill a heap better than they knew their
King’s English.”

“How much drill do the boys put in?” I asked.

“All boys begin physical drill to music in the Board Schools when
they’re six; squad-drill, one hour a week, when they’re eight;
company-drill when they’re ten, for an hour and a half a week. Between
ten and twelve they get battalion drill of a sort. They take the rifle
at twelve and record their first target-score at thirteen. That’s what
the Code lays down. But it’s worked very loosely so long as a boy comes
up to the standard of his age.”

“In Canada we don’t need your physical drill. We’re born fit,” said
Pigeon, “and our ten-year-olds could knock spots out of your
twelve-year-olds.”

“I may as well explain,” said the Boy, “that the Dove is our ‘swop’
officer. He’s an untamed Huskie from Nootka Sound when he’s at home. An
I. G. Corps exchanges one officer every two years with a Canadian or
Australian or African Guard Corps. We’ve had a year of our Dove, an’ we
shall be sorry to lose him. He humbles our insular pride. Meantime,
Morten, our ‘swop’ in Canada, keeps the ferocious Canuck humble. When
Pij. goes we shall swop Kyd, who’s next on the roster, for a Cornstalk
or a Maori. But about the education-drill. A boy can’t attend First
Camp, as we call it, till he is a trained boy and holds his First
Musketry certificate. The Education Code says he must be fourteen, and
the boys usually go to First Camp at about that age. Of course, they’ve
been to their little private camps and Boys’ Fresh Air Camps and public
school picnics while they were at school, but First Camp is where the
young drafts all meet—generally at Aldershot in this part of the world.
First Camp lasts a week or ten days, and the boys are looked over for
vaccination and worked lightly in brigades with lots of blank
cartridge. Second Camp—that’s for the fifteen to
eighteen-year-olds—lasts ten days or a fortnight, and that includes a
final medical examination. Men don’t like to be chucked out on medical
certificates much—nowadays. I assure you Second Camp, at Salisbury,
say, is an experience for a young I. G. officer. We’re told off to ’em
in rotation. A wilderness of monkeys isn’t in it. The kids are apt to
think ’emselves soldiers, and we have to take the edge off ’em with
lots of picquet-work and night attacks.”

“And what happens after Second Camp?”

“It’s hard to explain. Our system is so illogical. Theoretically, the
boys needn’t show up for the next three or four years after Second
Camp. They are supposed to be making their way in life. Actually, the
young doctor or lawyer or engineer joins a Volunteer battalion that
sticks to the minimum of camp—ten days per annum. That gives him a
holiday in the open air, and now that men have taken to endowing their
Volunteer drill-halls with baths and libraries, he finds, if he can’t
run to a club, that his own drill-hall is an efficient substitute. He
meets men there who’ll be useful to him later, and he keeps himself in
touch with what’s going on while he’s studying for his profession. The
town-birds—such as the chemist’s assistant, clerk, plumber, mechanic,
electrician, and so forth—generally put in for their town Volunteer
corps as soon as they begin to walk out with the girls. They like
takin’ their true-loves to our restaurants. Look yonder!” I followed
his gaze, and saw across the room a man and a maid at a far table,
forgetting in each other’s eyes the good food on their plates.

“So it is,” said I. “Go ahead.”

“Then, too, we have some town Volunteer corps that lay themselves out
to attract promising youths of nineteen or twenty, and make much of ’em
on condition that they join their Line battalion and play for their
county. Under the new county qualifications—birth or three years’
residence—that means a great deal in League matches, and the same in
County cricket.”

“By Jove, that’s a good notion,” I cried. “Who invented it?”

“C. B. Fry—long ago. He said in his paper, that County cricket and
County volunteering ought to be on the same footing—unpaid and genuine.
‘No cricketer no corps. No corps no cricketer’ was his watchword. There
was a row among the pro’s at first, but C. B. won, and later the League
had to come in. They said at first it would ruin the gate; but when
County matches began to be _pukka_ county, _plus_ inter-regimental,
affairs the gate trebled, and as two-thirds of the gate goes to the
regiments supplying the teams some Volunteer corps fairly wallow in
cash. It’s all unofficial, of course, but League Corps, as they call
’em, can take their pick of the Second Camper. Some corps ask ten
guineas entrance-fee, and get it too, from the young bloods that want
to shine in the arena. I told you we catered for all tastes. Now, as
regards the Line proper, I believe the young artisan and mechanic puts
in for that before he marries. He likes the two-months’ ‘heef’ in his
first year, and five bob a week is something to go on with between
times.”

“Do they follow their trade while they’re in the Line?” I demanded.

“Why not? How many well-paid artisans work more than four days a week
anyhow? Remember a Linesman hasn’t to be drilled in your sense of the
word. He must have had at least eight years’ grounding in that, as well
as two or three years in his Volunteer battalion. He can sleep where he
pleases. He can’t leave town-limits without reporting himself, of
course, but he can get leave if he wants it. He’s on duty two days in
the week as a rule, and he’s liable to be invited out for garrison duty
down the Mediterranean, but his benefit societies will insure him
against that. I’ll tell you about that later. If it’s a hard winter and
trade’s slack, a lot of the bachelors are taken into the I. G. barracks
(while the I. G. is out on the heef) for theoretical instruction. Oh, I
assure you the Line hasn’t half a bad time of it.”

“Amazing!” I murmured. “And what about the others?”

“The Volunteers? Observe the beauty of our system. We’re a free people.
We get up and slay the man who says we aren’t. But as a little detail
we never mention, if we don’t volunteer in some corps or another—as
combatants if we’re fit, as non-combatants, if we ain’t—till we’re
thirty-five we don’t vote, and we don’t get poor-relief, and the women
don’t love us.”

“Oh, that’s the compulsion of it?” said I.

Bayley inclined his head gravely. “That, Sir, is the compulsion. We
voted the legal part of it ourselves in a fit of panic, and we have not
yet rescinded our resolution. The women attend to the unofficial
penalties. But being free British citizens——”

“_And_ snobs,” put in Pigeon. “The point is well taken, Pij———we have
supplied ourselves with every sort and shape and make of Volunteer
corps that you can imagine, and we’ve mixed the whole show up with our
Odd Fellows and our I.O.G.T.’s and our Buffaloes, and our Burkes and
our Debretts, not to mention Leagues and Athletic Clubs, till you can’t
tell t’other from which. You remember the young pup who used to look on
soldiering as a favour done to his ungrateful country—the gun-poking,
ferret-pettin’, landed gentleman’s offspring—the suckin’ Facey Romford?
Well, he generally joins a Foreign Service Corps when he leaves
college.”

“Can Volunteers go foreign, then?”

“Can’t they just, if their C.O. _or_ his wife has influence! The Armity
will always send a well-connected F.S. corps out to help a guard
battalion in a small campaign. Otherwise F.S. corps make their own
arrangements about camps. You see, the Military Areas are always open.
They can ‘heef’ there (and gamble on head-money) as long as their
finances run to it; or they can apply to do sea-time in the ships. It’s
a cheap way for a young man to see the world, and if he’s any good he
can try to get into the Guard later.”

“The main point,” said Pigeon, “is that F.S. corps are ‘swagger’—the
correct thing. It ’ud never do to be drawn for the Militia, don’t you
know,” he drawled, trying to render the English voice.

“That’s what happens to a chap who doesn’t volunteer,” said Bayley.
“Well, after the F.S. corps (we’ve about forty of ’em) come our
territorial Volunteer battalions, and a man who can’t suit himself
somewhere among ’em must be a shade difficult. We’ve got those ‘League’
corps I was talking about; and those studious corps that just scrape
through their ten days’ camp; and we’ve crack corps of highly-paid
mechanics who can afford a two months’ ‘heef’ in an interesting Area
every other year; and we’ve senior and junior scientific corps of
earnest boilermakers and fitters and engineers who read papers on high
explosives, and do their ‘heefing’ in a wet
picket-boat—mine-droppin’—at the ports. Then we’ve heavy
artillery—recruited from the big manufacturing towns and ship-building
yards—and ferocious hard-ridin’ Yeomanry (they _can_ ride—now),
genteel, semi-genteel, and Hooligan corps, and so on and so forth till
you come to the Home Defence Establishment—the young chaps knocked out
under medical certificate at the Second Camp, but good enough to sit
behind hedges or clean up camp, and the old was-birds who’ve served
their time but don’t care to drop out of the fun of the yearly camps
and the halls. They call ’emselves veterans and do fancy-shooting at
Bisley, but, between you and me, they’re mostly Fresh Air Benefit
Clubs. They contribute to the Volunteer journals and tell the Guard
that it’s no good. But I like ’em. I shall be one of ’em some day—a
copper-nosed was-bird! … So you see we’re mixed to a degree on the
Volunteer side.”

“It sounds that way,” I ventured.

“You’ve overdone it, Bayley,” said Devine. “You’ve missed our one
strong point.” He turned to me and continued: “It’s embarkation. The
Volunteers may be as mixed as the Colonel says, but they _are_ trained
to go down to the sea in ships. You ought to see a big Bank-Holiday
roll-out. We suspend most of the usual railway traffic and turn on the
military time-table—say on Friday at midnight. By 4 A.M. the trains are
running from every big centre in England to the nearest port at
two-minute intervals. As a rule, the Armity meets us at the other end
with shipping of sorts—fleet reserves or regular men of war or
hulks—anything you can stick a gang-plank to. We pile the men on to the
troop-decks, stack the rifles in the racks, send down the sea-kit,
steam about for a few hours, and land ’em somewhere. It’s a good
notion, because our army to be any use _must_ be an army of
embarkation. Why, last Whit Monday we had—how many were down at the
dock-edge in the first eight hours? Kyd, you’re the Volunteer
enthusiast last from school.”

“In the first ten hours over a hundred and eighteen thousand,” said Kyd
across the table, “with thirty-six thousand actually put in and taken
out of ship. In the whole thirty-six hours we had close on ninety
thousand men on the water and a hundred and thirty-three thousand on
the quays fallen in with their sea-kit.”

“That must have been a sight,” I said.

“One didn’t notice it much. It was scattered between Chatham, Dover,
Portsmouth, Plymouth, Bristol, Liverpool, and so on, merely to give the
inland men a chance to get rid of their breakfasts. We don’t like to
concentrate and try a big embarkation at any one point. It makes the
Continent jumpy. Otherwise,” said Kyd, “I believe we could get two
hundred thousand men, with their kits, away on one tide.”

“What d’you want with so many?” I asked.

“_We_ don’t want one of ’em; but the Continent used to point out, every
time relations were strained, that nothing would be easier than to raid
England if they got command of the sea for a week. After a few years
some genius discovered that it cut both ways, an’ there was no reason
why we, who are supposed to command the sea and own a few ships, should
not organise our little raids in case of need. The notion caught on
among the Volunteers—they were getting rather sick of manœuvres on dry
land—and since then we haven’t heard so much about raids from the
Continent,” said Bayley.

“It’s the offensive-defensive,” said Verschoyle, “that they talk so
much about. We learned it _all_ from the Continent—bless ’em! They
insisted on it so.”

“No, we learned it from the Fleet,” said Devine. “The Mediterranean
Fleet landed ten thousand marines and sailors, with guns, in twenty
minutes once at manœuvres. That was long ago. I’ve seen the Fleet
Reserve and a few paddle-steamers, hired for the day, land twenty-five
thousand Volunteers at Bantry in four hours—half the men sea-sick too.
You’ve no notion what a difference that sort of manœuvre makes in the
calculations of our friends on the mainland. The Continent knows what
invasion means. It’s like dealing with a man whose nerve has been
shaken. It doesn’t cost much after all, and it makes us better friends
with the great European family. We’re now as thick as thieves.”

“Where does the Imperial Guard come in in all this gorgeousness?” I
asked. “You’re unusual modest about yourselves.”

“As a matter of fact, we’re supposed to go out and stay out. We’re the
permanently mobilised lot. I don’t think there are more than eight I.
G. battalions in England now. We’re a hundred battalions all told.
Mostly on the ‘heef’ in India, Africa and so forth.”

“A hundred thousand. Isn’t that small allowance?” I suggested.

“You think so? One hundred thousand _men_, without a single case of
venereal, and an average sick list of two per cent, permanently on a
war footing? Well, perhaps you’re right, but it’s a useful little force
to begin with while the others are getting ready. There’s the native
Indian Army also, which isn’t a broken reed, and, since ‘no Volunteer
no Vote’ is the rule throughout the Empire, you will find a few men in
Canada, Australia, and elsewhere, that are fairly hefty in their
class.”

“But a hundred thousand isn’t enough for garrison duty,” I persisted.

“A hundred thousand _sound_ men, not sick boys, go quite a way,” said
Pigeon.

“We expect the Line to garrison the Mediterranean Ports and
thereabouts,” said Bayley. “Don’t sneer at the mechanic. He’s deuced
good stuff. He isn’t rudely ordered out, because this ain’t a military
despotism, and we have to consider people’s feelings. The Armity
usually brackets three Line regiments together, and calls for men for
six months or a year for Malta, Gib, or elsewhere, at a bob a day.
Three battalions will give you nearly a whole battalion of bachelors
between ’em. You fill up deficiencies with a call on the territorial
Volunteer battalion, and away you go with what we call a Ports
battalion. What’s astonishing in that? Remember that in this country,
where fifty per cent of the able-bodied males have got a pretty fair
notion of soldiering, and, which is more, have all camped out in the
open, you wake up the spirit of adventure in the young.”

“Not much adventure at Malta, Gib, or Cyprus,” I retorted. “Don’t they
get sick of it?”

“But you don’t realise that we treat ’em rather differently from the
soldier of the past. You ought to go and see a Ports battalion drawn
from a manufacturing centre growin’ vines in Cyprus in its shirt
sleeves; and at Gib, and Malta, of course, the battalions are working
with the Fleet half the time.”

“It seems to me,” I said angrily, “you are knocking _esprit de corps_
on the head with all this Army-Navy jumble. It’s as bad as——”

“I know what you’re going to say. As bad as what Kitchener used to do
when he believed that a thousand details picked up on the veldt were as
good as a column of two regiments. In the old days, when drill was a
sort of holy sacred art learned in old age, you’d be quite right. But
remember _our_ chaps are broke to drill from childhood, and the theory
we work on is that a thousand trained Englishmen ought to be about as
good as another thousand trained Englishmen. We’ve enlarged our
horizon, that’s all. Some day the Army and the Navy will be
interchangeable.”

“You’ve enlarged it enough to fall out of, I think. Now where in all
this mess of compulsory Volunteers——?”

“My dear boy, there’s no compulsion. You’ve _got_ to be drilled when
you’re a child, same as you’ve got to learn to read, and if you don’t
pretend to serve in some corps or other till you’re thirty-five or
medically chucked you rank with lunatics, women, and minors. That’s
fair enough.”

“Compulsory conscripts,” I continued. “Where, as I was going to say,
does the Militia come in?”

“As I have said—for the men who can’t afford volunteering. The Militia
is recruited by ballot—pretty comprehensively too. Volunteers are
exempt, but most men not otherwise accounted for are bagged by the
Militia. They have to put in a minimum three weeks’ camp every other
year, and they get fifteen bob a week and their keep when they’re at
it, and some sort of a yearly fee, I’ve forgotten how much. ’Tisn’t a
showy service, but it’s very useful. It keeps the mass of the men
between twenty-five, say, and thirty-five moderately fit, and gives the
Armity an excuse for having more equipment ready—in case of
emergencies.”

“I don’t think you’re quite fair on the Militia,” drawled Verschoyle.
“They’re better than we give ’em credit for. Don’t you remember the
Middle Moor Collieries’ strike?”

“Tell me,” I said quickly. Evidently the others knew.

“We-ell, it was no end of a pitman’s strike about eight years ago.
There were twenty-five thousand men involved—Militia, of course. At the
end of the first month—October—when things were looking rather blue,
one of those clever Labour leaders got hold of the Militia Act and
discovered that any Militia regiment could, by a two-thirds vote, go on
‘heef’ in a Military Area in addition to its usual biennial camp.
Two-and-twenty battalions of Geordies solemnly applied, and they were
turned loose into the Irish and Scotch Areas under an I. G. Brigadier
who had private instructions to knock clinkers out of ’em. But the
pitman is a strong and agile bird. He throve on snowdrifts and
entrenching and draggin’ guns through heather. _He_ was being fed and
clothed for nothing, besides having a chance of making head-money, and
his strike-pay was going clear to his wife and family. You see? Wily
man. But wachtabittje! When that ‘heef’ finished in December the strike
was still on. _Then_ that same Labour leader found out, from the same
Act, that if at any time more than thirty or forty men of a Militia
regiment wished to volunteer to do sea-time and study big guns in the
Fleet they were in no wise to be discouraged, but were to be taken on
as opportunity offered and paid a bob a day. Accordingly, about
January, Geordie began volunteering for sea-time—seven and eight
hundred men out of each regiment. Anyhow, it made up seventeen thousand
men! It was a splendid chance and the Armity jumped at it. The Home and
Channel Fleets and the North Sea and Cruiser Squadrons were
strengthened with lame ducks from the Fleet Reserve, and between ’em
with a little stretching and pushing they accommodated all of that
young division.”

“Yes, but you’ve forgotten how we lied to the Continent about it. All
Europe wanted to know what the dooce we were at,” said Boy Bayley, “and
the wretched Cabinet had to stump the country in the depths of winter
explaining our new system of poor-relief. I beg your pardon,
Verschoyle.”

“The Armity improvised naval manœuvres between Gib and Land’s End, with
frequent coalings and landings; ending in a cruise round England that
fairly paralysed the pitmen. The first day out they wanted the fleet
stopped while they went ashore and killed their Labour leader, but they
couldn’t be obliged. Then they wanted to mutiny over the coaling—it was
too like their own job. Oh, they had a lordly time! They came back—the
combined Fleets anchored off Hull—with a nautical hitch to their
breeches. They’d had a free fight at Gib with the Ports battalion
there; they cleared out the town of Lagos; and they’d fought a pitched
battle with the dockyard-mateys at Devonport. So they’d done ’emselves
well, but they didn’t want any more military life for a bit.”

“And the strike?”

“That ended, all right enough, when the strike-money came to an end.
The pit-owners were furious. They said the Armity had wilfully
prolonged the strike, and asked questions in the House. The Armity said
that they had taken advantage of the crisis to put a six months’ polish
on fifteen thousand fine young men, and if the masters cared to come
out on the same terms they’d be happy to do the same by them.”

“And then?”

“Palaver done set,” said Bayley. “Everybody laughed.”

“I don’t quite understand about this sea-time business,” I said. “Is
the Fleet open to take any regiment aboard?”

“Rather. The I. G. must, the Line can, the Militia may, and the
Volunteers do put in sea-time. The Coast Volunteers began it, and the
fashion is spreading inland. Under certain circumstances, as Verschoyle
told you, a Volunteer or Militia regiment can vote whether it ‘heefs’
wet or dry. If it votes wet and has influence (like some F.S. corps),
it can sneak into the Channel or the Home Fleet and do a cruise round
England or to Madeira or the North Sea. The regiment, of course, is
distributed among the ships, and the Fleet dry nurse ’em. It rather
breaks up shore discipline, but it gives the inland men a bit of
experience, and, of course, it gives us a fairish supply of men behind
the gun, in event of any strain on the Fleet. Some coast corps make a
specialty of it, and compete for embarking and disembarking records. I
believe some of the Tyneside engineerin’ corps put ten per cent of
their men through the Fleet engine rooms. But there’s no need to stay
talking here all the afternoon. Come and see the I. G. in his lair—the
miserable conscript driven up to the colours at the point of the
bayonet.”




PART II


The great hall was emptying apace as the clocks struck two, and we
passed out through double doors into a huge reading and smoking room,
blue with tobacco and buzzing with voices.

“We’re quieter as a rule,” said the Boy. “But we’re filling up
vacancies to-day. Hence the anxious faces of the Line and Militia.
Look!” There were four tables against the walls, and at each stood a
crowd of uniforms. The centres of disturbance were noncommissioned
officers who, seated, growled and wrote down names.

“Come to my table,” said Burgard. “Well, Purvis, have you ear-marked
our little lot?”

“I’ve been tellin’ ’em for the last hour we’ve only twenty-three
vacancies,” was the sergeant’s answer. “I’ve taken nearly fifty for
Trials, and this is what’s left.” Burgard smiled.

“I’m very sorry,” he said to the crowd, “but C Company’s full.”

“Excuse me, Sir,” said a man, “but wouldn’t sea-time count in my
favour? I’ve put in three months with the Fleet. Small quick-firers,
Sir? Company guns? Any sort of light machinery?”

“Come away,” said a voice behind. “They’ve chucked the best farrier
between Hull and Dewsbury. Think they’ll take _you_ an’ your potty
quick-firers?”

The speaker turned on his heel and swore.

“Oh, damn the Guard, by all means!” said Sergeant Purvis, collecting
his papers. “D’you suppose it’s any pleasure to _me_ to reject chaps of
your build and make? Vote us a second Guard battalion and we’ll
accommodate you. Now, you can come into Schools and watch Trials if you
like.”

Most of the men accepted his invitation, but a few walked away angrily.
I followed from the smoking-room across a wide corridor into a
riding-school, under whose roof the voices of the few hundred assembled
wandered in lost echoes.

“I’ll leave you, if you don’t mind,” said Burgard. “Company officers
aren’t supposed to assist at these games. Here, Matthews!” He called to
a private and put me in his charge.

In the centre of the vast floor my astonished eyes beheld a group of
stripped men; the pink of their bodies startling the tan.

“These are our crowd,” said Matthews. “They’ve been vetted, an’ we’re
putting ’em through their paces.”

“They don’t look a bit like raw material,” I said.

“No, we don’t use either raw men or raw meat for that matter in the
Guard,” Matthews replied. “Life’s too short.”

Purvis stepped forward and barked in the professional manner. It was
physical drill of the most searching, checked only when he laid his
hand over some man’s heart.

Six or seven, I noticed, were sent back at this stage of the game. Then
a cry went up from a group of privates standing near the line of
contorted figures. “White, Purvis, white! Number Nine is spitting
white!”

“I know it,” said Purvis. “Don’t you worry.”

“Unfair!” murmured the man who understood quick-firers. “If I couldn’t
shape better than that I’d hire myself out to wheel a perambulator.
He’s cooked.”

“Nah,” said the intent Matthews. “He’ll answer to a month’s training
like a horse. It’s only suet. _You’ve_ been training for this, haven’t
you?”

“Look at me,” said the man simply.

“Yes. You’re overtrained,” was Matthews’ comment. “The Guard isn’t a
circus.”

“Guns!” roared Purvis, as the men broke off and panted. “Number off
from the right. Fourteen is one, three is two, eleven’s three, twenty
and thirty-nine are four and five, and five is six.” He was giving them
their numbers at the guns as they struggled into their uniforms. In
like manner he told off three other guncrews, and the remainder left at
the double, to return through the further doors with four light
quick-firers jerking at the end of man-ropes.

“Knock down and assemble against time!” Purvis called.

The audience closed in a little as the crews flung themselves on the
guns, which melted, wheel by wheel, beneath their touch.

“I’ve never seen anything like this,” I whispered.

“Huh!” said Matthews scornfully. “They’re always doin’ it in the Line
and Militia drill-halls. It’s only circus-work.”

The guns were assembled again and some one called the time. Then
followed ten minutes of the quickest firing and feeding with dummy
cartridges that was ever given man to behold.

“They look as if they might amount to something—this draft,” said
Matthews softly.

“What might you teach ’em after this, then?” I asked.

“To be Guard,” said Matthews.

“Spurs,” cried Purvis, as the guns disappeared through the doors into
the stables. Each man plucked at his sleeve, and drew up first one heel
and then the other.

“What the deuce are they doing?” I asked.

“This,” said Matthews. He put his hand to a ticket-pocket inside his
regulation cuff, showed me two very small black box-spurs: drawing up a
gaitered foot, he snapped them into the box in the heel, and when I had
inspected snapped them out again.

“That’s all the spur you really need,” he said.

Then horses were trotted out into the school barebacked, and the
neophytes were told to ride.

Evidently the beasts knew the game and enjoyed it, for they would not
make it easy for the men.

A heap of saddlery was thrown in a corner, and from this each man, as
he captured his mount, made shift to draw proper equipment, while the
audience laughed, derided, or called the horses towards them.

It was, most literally, wild horseplay, and by the time it was finished
the recruits and the company were weak with fatigue and laughter.

“That’ll do,” said Purvis, while the men rocked in their saddles. “I
don’t see any particular odds between any of you. C Company! Does
anybody here know anything against any of these men?”

“That’s a bit of the Regulations,” Matthews whispered. “Just like
forbiddin’ the banns in church. Really, it was all settled long ago
when the names first came up.”

There was no answer.

“You’ll take ’em as they stand?”

There was a grunt of assent.

“Very good. There’s forty men for twenty-three billets.” He turned to
the sweating horsemen. “I must put you into the Hat.”

With great ceremony and a shower of company jokes that I did not
follow, an enormous Ally Sloper top-hat was produced, into which
numbers and blanks were dropped, and the whole was handed round to the
riders by a private, evidently the joker of C Company.

Matthews gave me to understand that each company owned a cherished
receptacle (sometimes not a respectable one) for the papers of the
final drawing. He was telling me how his company had once stolen the
Sacred Article used by D Company for this purpose and of the riot that
followed, when through the west door of the schools entered a fresh
detachment of stripped men, and the arena was flooded with another
company.

Said Matthews as we withdrew, “Each company does Trials their own way.
B Company is all for teaching men how to cook and camp. D Company keeps
’em to horse-work mostly. We call D the circus-riders and B the cooks.
They call us the Gunners.”

“An’ you’ve rejected _me_,” said the man who had done sea-time, pushing
out before us. “The Army’s goin’ to the dogs.”

I stood in the corridor looking for Burgard.

“Come up to my room and have a smoke,” said Matthews, private of the
Imperial Guard.

We climbed two flights of stone stairs ere we reached an immense
landing flanked with numbered doors.

Matthews pressed a spring-latch and led me into a little cabin-like
room. The cot was a standing bunk, with drawers beneath. On the bed lay
a brilliant blanket; by the bed head was an electric light and a shelf
of books: a writing table stood in the window, and I dropped into a low
wicker chair.

“This is a cut above subaltern’s quarters,” I said, surveying the
photos, the dhurri on the floor, the rifle in its rack, the field-kit
hung up behind the door, and the knicknacks on the walls.

“The Line bachelors use ’em while we’re away; but they’re nice to come
back to after ‘heef.’” Matthews passed me his cigarette-case.

“Where have you ‘heefed’?” I said.

“In Scotland, Central Australia, and North-Eastern Rhodesia and the
North-West Indian front.”

“What’s your service?”

“Four years. I’ll have to go in a year. I got in when I was
twenty-two—by a fluke—from the Militia direct—on Trials.”

“Trials like those we just saw?”

“Not so severe. There was less competition then. I hoped to get my
stripes, but there’s no chance.”

“Why?”

“I haven’t the knack of handling men. Purvis let me have a half-company
for a month in Rhodesia—over towards Lake N’Garni. I couldn’t work ’em
properly. It’s a gift.”

“Do colour-sergeants handle half-companies with you?”

“They can command ’em on the ‘heef.’ We’ve only four company
officers—Burgard, Luttrell, Kyd, and Harrison. Pigeon’s our swop, and
he’s in charge of the ponies. Burgard got his company on the ‘heef.’
You see Burgard had been a lieutenant in the Line, but he came into the
Guards on Trials like the men. _He_ could command. They tried him in
India with a wing of the battalion for three months. He did well so he
got his company. That’s what made me hopeful. But it’s a gift, you
see—managing men—and so I’m only a senior private. They let ten per
cent of us stay on for two years extra after our three are finished—to
polish the others.”

“Aren’t you even a corporal?”

“We haven’t corporals, or lances for that matter, in the Guard. As a
senior private I’d take twenty men into action; but one Guard don’t
tell another how to clean himself. You’ve learned that before you
apply. … Come in!”

There was a knock at the door, and Burgard entered, removing his cap.

“I thought you’d be here,” he said, as Matthews vacated the other chair
and sat on the bed. “Well, has Matthews told you all about it? How did
our Trials go, Matthews?”

“Forty names in the Hat, Sir, at the finish. They’ll make a fairish
lot. Their gun-tricks weren’t bad; but D company has taken the best
horsemen—as usual.”

“Oh, I’ll attend to that on ‘heef.’ Give me a man who can handle
company-guns and I’ll engage to make him a horse-master. D company will
end by thinkin’ ’emselves Captain Pigeon’s private cavalry some day.”

I had never heard a private and a captain talking after this fashion,
and my face must have betrayed my astonishment, for Burgard said:

“These are not our parade manners. In our rooms, as we say in the
Guard, all men are men. Outside we are officers and men.”

“I begin to see,” I stammered. “Matthews was telling me that sergeants
handled half-companies and rose from the ranks—and I don’t see that
there are any lieutenants—and your companies appear to be two hundred
and fifty strong. It’s a shade confusing to the layman.”

Burgard leaned forward didactically. “The Regulations lay down that
every man’s capacity for command must be tested to the uttermost. We
construe that very literally when we’re on the ‘heef.’ F’r instance,
any man can apply to take the command next above him, and if a man’s
too shy to ask, his company officer must see that he gets his chance. A
sergeant is given a wing of the battalion to play with for three
weeks—a month, or six weeks—according to his capacity, and turned
adrift in an Area to make his own arrangements. That’s what Areas are
for—and to experiment in. A good gunner—a private very often—has all
four company-guns to handle through a week’s fight, acting for the time
as the major. Majors of Guard battalions (Verschoyle’s our major) are
supposed to be responsible for the guns, by the way. There’s nothing to
prevent any man who has the gift working his way up to the experimental
command of the battalion on ‘heef.’ Purvis, my colour-sergeant,
commanded the battalion for three months at the back of Coolgardie, an’
very well he did it. Bayley ’verted to company officer for the time
being an’ took Harrison’s company, and Harrison came over to me as my
colour-sergeant. D’you see? Well, Purvis is down for a commission when
there’s a vacancy. He’s been thoroughly tested, and we all like him.
Two other sergeants have passed that three months’ trial in the same
way (just as second mates go up for extra master’s certificate). They
have E.C. after their names in the Army List. That shows they’re
capable of taking command in event of war. The result of our system is
that you could knock out every single officer of a Guard battalion
early in the day, and the wheels ’ud still go forward, _not_ merely
round. We’re allowed to fill up half our commissioned list from the
ranks direct. _Now_ d’you see why there’s such a rush to get into a
Guard battalion?”

“Indeed I do. Have you commanded the regiment experimentally?”

“Oh, time and again,” Burgard laughed. “We’ve all had our E.C. turn.”

“Doesn’t the chopping and changing upset the men?”

“It takes something to upset the Guard. Besides, they’re all in the
game together. They give each other a fair show you may be sure.”

“That’s true,” said Matthews. “When I went to N’Gami with my—with the
half-company,” he sighed, “they helped me all they knew. But it’s a
gift—handling men. I found _that_ out.”

“I know you did,” said Burgard softly. “But you found it out in time,
which is the great thing. You see,” he turned to me, “with our limited
strength we can’t afford to have a single man who isn’t more than up to
any duty—in reason. Don’t you be led away by what you saw at Trials
just now. The Volunteers and the Militia have all the monkey-tricks of
the trade—such as mounting and dismounting guns, and making fancy
scores and doing record marches; but they need a lot of working up
before they can pull their weight in the boat.”

There was a knock at the door. A note was handed in. Burgard read it
and smiled.

“Bayley wants to know if you’d care to come with us to the Park and see
the kids. It’s only a Saturday afternoon walk-round before the
taxpayer…. Very good. If you’ll press the button we’ll try to do the
rest.”

He led me by two flights of stairs up an iron stairway that gave on a
platform, not unlike a ship’s bridge, immediately above the barrelled
glass roof of the riding-school. Through a ribbed ventilator I could
see B Company far below watching some men who chased sheep. Burgard
unlocked a glass-fronted fire-alarm arrangement flanked with dials and
speaking-tubes, and bade me press the centre button.

Next moment I should have fallen through the riding-school roof if he
had not caught me; for the huge building below my feet thrilled to the
multiplied purring of electric bells. The men in the school vanished
like minnows before a shadow, and above the stamp of booted feet on
staircases I heard the neighing of many horses.

“What in the world have I done?” I gasped.

“Turned out the Guard—horse, foot, and guns!”

A telephone bell rang imperiously. Burgard snatched up the receiver:

“Yes, Sir…. _What_, Sir?… I never heard they said that,” he laughed,
“but it would be just like ’em. In an hour and a half? Yes, Sir.
Opposite the Statue? Yes, Sir.”

He turned to me with a wink as he hung up.

“Bayley’s playing up for you. Now you’ll see some fun.”

“Who’s going to catch it?” I demanded.

“Only our local Foreign Service Corps. Its C.O. has been boasting that
it’s _en état de partir_, and Bayley’s going to take him at his word
and have a kit-inspection this afternoon in the Park. I must tell their
drill-hall. Look over yonder between that brewery chimney and the
mansard roof!”

He readdressed himself to the telephone, and I kept my eye on the
building to the southward. A Blue Peter climbed up to the top of the
flagstaff that crowned it and blew out in the summer breeze. A black
storm-cone followed.

“Inspection for F.S. corps acknowledged, Sir,” said Burgard down the
telephone. “Now we’d better go to the riding-school. The battalion
falls in there. I have to change, but you’re free of the corps. Go
anywhere. Ask anything. In another ten minutes we’re off.”

I lingered for a little looking over the great city, its huddle of
houses and the great fringe of the Park, all framed between the open
windows of this dial-dotted eyrie.

When I descended the halls and corridors were as hushed as they had
been noisy, and my feet echoed down the broad tiled staircases. On the
third floor, Matthews, gaitered and armed, overtook me smiling.

“I thought you might want a guide,” said he. “We’ve five minutes yet,”
and piloted me to the sunsplashed gloom of the riding-school. Three
companies were in close order on the tan. They moved out at a whistle,
and as I followed in their rear I was overtaken by Pigeon on a rough
black mare.

“Wait a bit,” he said, “till the horses are all out of stables, and
come with us. D Company is the only one mounted just now. We do it to
amuse the taxpayer,” he explained, above the noise of horses on the
tan.

“Where are the guns?” I asked, as the mare lipped my coat-collar.

“Gone ahead long ago. They come out of their own door at the back of
barracks. We don’t haul guns through traffic more than we can help…. If
Belinda breathes down your neck smack her. She’ll be quiet in the
streets. She loves lookin’ into the shop-windows.”

The mounted company clattered through vaulted concrete corridors in the
wake of the main body, and filed out into the crowded streets.

When I looked at the townsfolk on the pavement, or in the double-decked
trams, I saw that the bulk of them saluted, not grudgingly or of
necessity, but in a light-hearted, even flippant fashion.

“Those are Line and Militia men,” said Pigeon. “That old chap in the
top-hat by the lamp-post is an ex-Guardee. That’s why he’s saluting in
slow-time. No, there’s no regulation governing these things, but we’ve
all fallen into the way of it somehow. Steady, mare!”

“I don’t know whether I care about this aggressive militarism,” I
began, when the company halted, and Belinda almost knocked me down.
Looking forward I saw the badged cuff of a policeman upraised at a
crossing, his back towards us.

“Horrid aggressive, ain’t we?” said Pigeon with a chuckle when we moved
on again and overtook the main body. Here I caught the strains of the
band, which Pigeon told me did not accompany the battalion on ‘heef,’
but lived in barracks and made much money by playing at parties in
town.

“If we want anything more than drums and fifes on ‘heef’ we sing,” said
Pigeon. “Singin’ helps the wind.”

I rejoiced to the marrow of my bones thus to be borne along on billows
of surging music among magnificent men, in sunlight, through a crowded
town whose people, I could feel, regarded us with comradeship,
affection—and more.

“By Jove,” I said at last, watching the eyes about us, “these people
are looking us over as if we were horses.”

“Why not? They know the game.”

The eyes on the pavement, in the trams, the cabs, at the upper windows,
swept our lines back and forth with a weighed intensity of regard which
at first seemed altogether new to me, till I recalled just such eyes, a
thousand of them, at manœuvres in the Channel when one crowded
battleship drew past its sister at biscuit-toss range. Then I stared at
the ground, overborne by those considering eyes.

Suddenly the music changed to the wail of the Dead March in “Saul,” and
once more—we were crossing a large square—the regiment halted.

“Damn!” said Pigeon, glancing behind him at the mounted company. “I
believe they save up their Saturday corpses on purpose.”

“What is it?” I asked.

“A dead Volunteer. We must play him through.” Again I looked forward
and saw the top of a hearse, followed by two mourning-coaches, boring
directly up the halted regiment, which opened out company by company to
let it through.

“But they’ve got the whole blessed square to funeralise in!” I
exclaimed. “Why don’t they go round?”

“Not so!” Pigeon replied. “In this city it’s the Volunteer’s perquisite
to be played through by any corps he happens to meet on his way to the
cemetery. And they make the most of it. You’ll see.”

I heard the order, “Rest on your arms,” run before the poor little
procession as the men opened out. The driver pulled the black Flanders
beasts into a more than funeral crawl, and in the first mourning-coach
I saw the tearful face of a fat woman (his mother, doubtless), a
handkerchief pressed to one eye, but the other rolling vigilantly,
alight with proper pride. Last came a knot of uniformed men—privates, I
took it—of the dead one’s corps.

Said a man in the crowd beside us to the girl on his arm, “There,
Jenny! That’s what I’ll get if I ’ave the luck to meet ’em when my time
comes.”

“You an’ your luck,” she snapped. “’Ow can you talk such silly
nonsense?”

“Played through by the Guard,” he repeated slowly. “The undertaker ’oo
could guarantee _that_, mark you, for all his customers—well, ’e’d
monopolise the trade, is all I can say. See the horses passagin’
sideways!”

“She done it a purpose,” said the woman with a sniff.

“An’ I only hope you’ll follow her example. Just as long as you think
I’ll keep, too.”

We reclosed when the funeral had left us twenty paces behind. A small
boy stuck his head out of a carriage and watched us jealously.

“Amazing! Amazing!” I murmured. “Is it regulation?”

“No. Town-custom. It varies a little in different cities, but the
people value being played through more than most things, I imagine.
Duddell, the big Ipswich manufacturer—he’s a Quaker—tried to bring in a
bill to suppress it as unchristian.” Pigeon laughed.

“And?”

“It cost him his seat next election. You see, we’re all in the game.”

We reached the Park without further adventure, and found the four
company-guns with their spike teams and single drivers waiting for us.
Many people were gathered here, and we were halted, so far as I could
see, that they might talk with the men in the ranks. The officers broke
into groups.

“Why on earth didn’t you come along with me?” said Boy Bayley at my
side. “I was expecting you.”

“Well, I had a delicacy about brigading myself with a colonel at the
head of his regiment, so I stayed with the rear company and the horses.
It’s all too wonderful for any words. What’s going to happen next?”

“I’ve handed over to Verschoyle, who will amuse and edify the school
children while I take you round our kindergarten. Don’t kill any one,
Vee. Are you goin’ to charge ’em?”

Old Verschoyle hitched his big shoulder and nodded precisely as he used
to do at school. He was a boy of few words grown into a kindly taciturn
man.

“Now!” Bayley slid his arm through mine and led me across a riding road
towards a stretch of rough common (singularly out of place in a park)
perhaps three-quarters of a mile long and half as wide. On the
encircling rails leaned an almost unbroken line of men and women—the
women outnumbering the men. I saw the Guard battalion move up the road
flanking the common and disappear behind the trees.

As far as the eye could range through the mellow English haze the
ground inside the railings was dotted with boys in and out of uniform,
armed and unarmed. I saw squads here, half-companies there; then three
companies in an open space, wheeling with stately steps; a knot of
drums and fifes near the railings unconcernedly slashing their way
across popular airs; and a batch of gamins labouring through some
extended attack destined to be swept aside by a corps crossing the
ground at the double. They broke out of furze bushes, ducked over
hollows and bunkers, held or fell away from hillocks and rough
sandbanks till the eye wearied of their busy legs.

Bayley took me through the railings, and gravely returned the salute of
a freckled twelve-year-old near by.

“What’s your corps?” said the Colonel of that Imperial Guard battalion
to that child.

“Eighth District Board School, fourth standard, Sir. We aren’t out
to-day.” Then, with a twinkle, “I go to First Camp next year.”

“What are those boys yonder—that squad at the double?”

“Jewboys, Sir. Jewish Voluntary Schools, Sir.”

“And that full company extending behind the three elms to the
south-west?”

“Private day-schools, Sir, I think. Judging distance, Sir.”

“Can you come with us?”

“Certainly, Sir.”

“Here’s the raw material at the beginning of the process,” said Bayley
to me.

We strolled on towards the strains of “A Bicycle Built for Two,”
breathed jerkily into a mouth-organ by a slim maid of fourteen. Some
dozen infants with clenched fists and earnest legs were swinging
through the extension movements which that tune calls for. A stunted
hawthorn overhung the little group, and from a branch a dirty white
handkerchief flapped in the breeze. The girl blushed, scowled, and
wiped the mouth-organ on her sleeve as we came up.

“We’re all waiting for our big bruvvers,” piped up one bold person in
blue breeches—seven if he was a day.

“It keeps ’em quieter, Sir,” the maiden lisped. “The others are with
the regiments.”

“Yeth, and they’ve all lots of blank for _you_,” said the gentleman in
blue breeches ferociously.

“Oh, Artie! ’Ush!” the girl cried.

“But why have they lots of blank for _us_?” Bayley asked. Blue Breeches
stood firm.

“’Cause—’cause the Guard’s goin’ to fight the Schools this afternoon;
but my big bruvver says they’ll be dam-well surprised.”

“_Artie!_” The girl leaped towards him. “You know your ma said I was to
smack——”

“Don’t. Please don’t,” said Bayley, pink with suppressed mirth. “It was
all my fault. I must tell old Verschoyle this. I’ve surprised his plan
out of the mouths of babes and sucklings.”

“What plan?”

“Old Vee has taken the battalion up to the top of the common, and he
told me he meant to charge down through the kids, but they’re on to him
already. He’ll be scuppered. The Guard will be scuppered!”

Here Blue Breeches, overcome by the reproof of his fellows, began to
weep.

“I didn’t tell,” he roared. “My big bruvver _he_ knew when he saw them
go up the road…”

“Never mind! Never mind, old man,” said Bayley soothingly. “I’m not
fighting to-day. It’s all right.”

He rightened it yet further with sixpence, and left that band loudly at
feud over the spoil.

“Oh, Vee! Vee the strategist,” he chuckled. “We’ll pull Vee’s leg
to-night.”

Our freckled friend of the barriers doubled up behind us.

“So you know that my battalion is charging down the ground,” Bayley
demanded.

“Not for certain, Sir, but we’re preparin’ for the worst,” he answered
with a cheerful grin. “They allow the Schools a little blank ammunition
after we’ve passed the third standard; and we nearly always bring it on
to the ground of Saturdays.”

“The deuce you do! Why?”

“On account of these amateur Volunteer corps, Sir. They’re always
experimentin’ upon us, Sir, comin’ over from their ground an’
developin’ attacks on our flanks. Oh, it’s chronic ’ere of a Saturday
sometimes, unless you flag yourself.”

I followed his eye and saw white flags fluttering before a drum and
fife band and a knot of youths in sweaters gathered round the dummy
breech of a four-inch gun which they were feeding at express rates.

“The attacks don’t interfere with you if you flag yourself, Sir,” the
boy explained. “That’s a Second Camp team from the Technical Schools
loading against time for a bet.”

We picked our way deviously through the busy groups. Apparently it was
not etiquette to notice a Guard officer, and the youths at the
twenty-five pounder were far too busy to look up. I watched the cleanly
finished hoist and shove-home of the full-weight shell from a safe
distance, when I became aware of a change among the scattered boys on
the common, who disappeared among the hillocks to an accompaniment of
querulous whistles. A boy or two on bicycles dashed from corps to
corps, and on their arrival each corps seemed to fade away.

The youths at loading practice did not pause for the growing hush round
them, nor did the drum and fife band drop a single note. Bayley
exploded afresh. “The Schools are preparing for our attack, by Jove! I
wonder who’s directin’ ’em. Do _you_ know?”

The warrior of the Eighth District looked up shrewdly.

“I saw Mr. Cameron speaking to Mr. Levitt just as the Guard went up the
road. ’E’s our ’ead-master, Mr. Cameron, but Mr. Levitt, of the Sixth
District, is actin’ as senior officer on the ground this Saturday. Most
likely Mr. Levitt is commandin’.”

“How many corps are there here?” I asked.

“Oh, bits of lots of ’em—thirty or forty, p’r’aps, Sir. But the
whistles says they’ve all got to rally on the Board Schools. ’Ark!
There’s the whistle for the Private Schools! They’ve been called up the
ground at the double.”

“Stop!” cried a bearded man with a watch, and the crews dropped beside
the breech wiping their brows and panting.

“Hullo! there’s some attack on the Schools,” said one. “Well, Marden,
you owe me three half-crowns. I’ve beaten your record. Pay up.”

The boy beside us tapped his foot fretfully as he eyed his companions
melting among the hillocks, but the gun-team adjusted their bets
without once looking up.

The ground rose a little to a furze-crowned ridge in the centre so that
I could not see the full length of it, but I heard a faint bubble of
blank in the distance.

“The Saturday allowance,” murmured Bayley. “War’s begun, but it
wouldn’t be etiquette for us to interfere. What are you saying, my
child?”

“Nothin’, Sir, only—only I don’t think the Guard will be able to come
through on so narrer a front, Sir. They’ll all be jammed up be’ind the
ridge if _we_’ve got there in time. It’s awful sticky for guns at the
end of our ground, Sir.”

“I’m inclined to think you’re right, Moltke. The Guard is hung up:
distinctly so. Old Vee will have to cut his way through. What a
pernicious amount of blank the kids seem to have!”

It was quite a respectable roar of battle that rolled among the
hillocks for ten minutes, always out of our sight. Then we heard the
“Cease Fire” over the ridge.

“They’ve sent for the Umpires,” the Board School boy squeaked, dancing
on one foot. “You’ve been hung up, Sir. I—I thought the sand-pits ’ud
stop you.”

Said one of the jerseyed hobbledehoys at the gun, slipping on his coat:
“Well, that’s enough for this afternoon. I’m off,” and moved to the
railings without even glancing towards the fray.

“I anticipate the worst,” said Bayley with gravity after a few minutes.
“Hullo! Here comes my disgraced corps!”

The Guard was pouring over the ridge—a disorderly mob—horse, foot, and
guns mixed, while from every hollow of the ground about rose small boys
cheering shrilly. The outcry was taken up by the parents at the
railings, and spread to a complete circle of cheers, handclappings, and
waved handkerchiefs.

Our Eighth District private cast away restraint and openly capered. “We
got ’em! We got ’em!” he squealed.

The grey-green flood paused a fraction of a minute and drew itself into
shape, coming to rest before Bayley. Verschoyle saluted.

“Vee, Vee,” said Bayley. “Give me back my legions. Well, I hope you’re
proud of yourself?”

“The little beasts were ready for us. Deuced well posted too,”
Verschoyle replied. “I wish you’d seen that first attack on our flank.
Rather impressive. Who warned ’em?”

“I don’t know. I got my information from a baby in blue plush breeches.
Did they do well?”

“Very decently indeed. I’ve complimented their C.O. and buttered the
whole boiling.” He lowered his voice. “As a matter o’ fact, I halted
five good minutes to give ’em time to get into position.”

“Well, now we can inspect our Foreign Service corps. We sha’n’t need
the men for an hour, Vee.”

“Very good, Sir. Colour-sergeants!” cried Verschoyle, raising his
voice, and the cry ran from company to company. Whereupon the officers
left their men, people began to climb over the railings, and the
regiment dissolved among the spectators and the school corps of the
city.

“No sense keeping men standing when you don’t need ’em,” said Bayley.
“Besides, the Schools learn more from our chaps in an afternoon than
they can pick up in a month’s drill. Look at those Board-schoolmaster
captains buttonholing old Purvis on the art of war!”

“Wonder what the evening papers’ll say about this,” said Pigeon.

“You’ll know in half an hour,” Burgard laughed. “What possessed you to
take your ponies across the sand-pits, Pij?”

“Pride. Silly pride,” said the Canadian.

We crossed the common to a very regulation paradeground overlooked by a
statue of our Queen. Here were carriages, many and elegant, filled with
pretty women, and the railings were lined with frockcoats and top hats.
“This is distinctly social,” I suggested to Kyd.

“Ra-ather. Our F.S. corps is nothing if not correct, but Bayley’ll
sweat ’em all the same.”

I saw six companies drawn up for inspection behind lines of long
sausage-shaped kit-bags. A band welcomed us with “A Life on the Ocean
Wave.”

“What cheek!” muttered Verschoyle. “Give ’em beans, Bayley.”

“I intend to,” said the Colonel, grimly. “Will each of you fellows take
a company, please, and inspect ’em faithfully. ‘_En état de partir_’ is
their little boast, remember. When you’ve finished you can give ’em a
little pillow-fighting.”

“What does the single cannon on those men’s sleeves mean?” I asked.

“That they’re big gun-men, who’ve done time with the Fleet,” Bayley
returned. “Any F.S. corps that has over twenty per cent big-gun men
thinks itself entitled to play ‘A Life on the Ocean Wave’—when it’s out
of hearing of the Navy.”

“What beautiful stuff they are! What’s their regimental average?”

“It ought to be five eight, height, thirty-eight, chest, and
twenty-four years, age. What is it?” Bayley asked of a Private.

“Five nine and half, Sir, thirty-nine, twenty-four and a half,” was the
reply, and he added insolently, “_En état de partir_.” Evidently that
F.S. corps was on its mettle ready for the worst.

“What about their musketry average?” I went on.

“Not my pidgin,” said Bayley. “But they wouldn’t be in the corps a day
if they couldn’t shoot; I know _that_ much. Now I’m going to go through
’em for socks and slippers.”

The kit-inspection exceeded anything I had ever dreamed. I drifted from
company to company while the Guard officers oppressed them. Twenty per
cent, at least, of the kits were shovelled out on the grass and gone
through in detail.

“What have they got jumpers and ducks for?” I asked of Harrison.

“For Fleet work, of course. _En état de partir_ with an F. S. corps
means they are amphibious.”

“Who gives ’em their kit—Government?”

“There is a Government allowance, but no C. O. sticks to it. It’s the
same as paint and gold-leaf in the Navy. It comes out of some one’s
pockets. How much does your kit cost you?”—this to the private in front
of us.

“About ten or fifteen quid every other year, I suppose,” was the
answer.

“Very good. Pack your bag—quick.”

The man knelt, and with supremely deft hands returned all to the bag,
lashed and tied it, and fell back.

“Arms,” said Harrison. “Strip and show ammunition.”

The man divested himself of his rolled greatcoat and haversack with one
wriggle, as it seemed to me; a twist of a screw removed the side plate
of the rifle breech (it was not a bolt action). He handed it to
Harrison with one hand, and with the other loosed his clip-studded
belt.

“What baby cartridges!” I exclaimed. “No bigger than bulletted
breech-caps.”

“They’re the regulation .256,” said Harrison. “No one has complained of
’em yet. They expand a bit when they arrive…. Empty your bottle,
please, and show your rations.”

The man poured out his water-bottle and showed the two-inch emergency
tin.

Harrison passed on to the next, but I was fascinated by the way in
which the man re-established himself amid his straps and buckles,
asking no help from either side.

“How long does it take you to prepare for inspection?” I asked him.

“Well, I got ready this afternoon in twelve minutes,” he smiled. “I
didn’t see the storm-cone till half-past three. I was at the Club.”

“Weren’t a good many of you out of town?”

“Not _this_ Saturday. We knew what was coming. You see, if we pull
through the inspection we may move up one place on the roster for
foreign service…. You’d better stand back. We’re going to
pillow-fight.”

The companies stooped to the stuffed kit-bags, doubled with them
variously, piled them in squares and mounds, passed them from shoulder
to shoulder like buckets at a fire, and repeated the evolution.

“What’s the idea?” I asked of Verschoyle, who, arms folded behind him,
was controlling the display. Many women had descended from the
carriages, and were pressing in about us admiringly.

“For one thing, it’s a fair test of wind and muscle, and for another it
saves time at the docks. We’ll suppose this first company to be drawn
up on the dock-head and those five others still in the troop-train. How
would you get their kit into the ship?”

“Fall ’em all in on the platform, march ’em to the gangways,” I
answered, “and trust to Heaven and a fatigue party to gather the
baggage and drunks in later.”

“Ye-es, and have half of it sent by the wrong trooper. I know _that_
game,” Verschoyle drawled. “We don’t play it any more. Look!”

He raised his voice, and five companies, glistening a little and
breathing hard, formed at right angles to the sixth, each man embracing
his sixty-pound bag.

“Pack away,” cried Verschoyle, and the great bean-bag game (I can
compare it to nothing else) began. In five minutes every bag was passed
along either arm of the T and forward down the sixth company, who
passed, stacked, and piled them in a great heap. These were followed by
the rifles, belts, greatcoats, and knapsacks, so that in another five
minutes the regiment stood, as it were, stripped clean.

“Of course on a trooper there’d be a company below stacking the kit
away,” said Verschoyle, “but that wasn’t so bad.”

“Bad!” I cried. “It was miraculous!”

“Circus-work—all circus-work!” said Pigeon. “It won’t prevent ’em bein’
sick as dogs when the ship rolls.” The crowd round us applauded, while
the men looked meekly down their self-conscious noses.

A little grey-whiskered man trotted up to the Boy.

“Have we made good, Bayley?” he said. “Are we _en état de partir_?”

“That’s what I shall report,” said Bayley, smiling.

“I thought my bit o’ French ’ud draw you,” said the little man, rubbing
his hands.

“Who is he?” I whispered to Pigeon.

“Ramsay—their C.O. An old Guard captain. A keen little devil. They say
he spends six hundred a year on the show. He used to be in the Lincolns
till he came into his property.”

“Take ’em home an’ make ’em drunk,” I heard Bayley say. “I suppose
you’ll have a dinner to celebrate. But you may as well tell the
officers of E company that I don’t think much of them. I sha’n’t report
it, but their men were all over the shop.”

“Well, they’re young, you see,” Colonel Ramsay began.

“You’re quite right. Send ’em to me and I’ll talk to ’em. Youth is the
time to learn.”

“Six hundred a year,” I repeated to Pigeon. “That must be an awful tax
on a man. Worse than in the old volunteering days.”

“That’s where you make your mistake,” said Verschoyle. “In the old days
a man had to spend his money to coax his men to drill because they
weren’t the genuine article. You know what I mean. They made a favour
of putting in drills, didn’t they? And they were, most of ’em, the
children we have to take over at Second Camp, weren’t they? Well, now
that a C. O. is sure of his _men_, now that he hasn’t to waste himself
in conciliating an’ bribin’, an’ beerin’ _kids_, he doesn’t care what
he spends on his corps, because every pound tells. Do you understand?”

“I see what you mean, Vee. Having the male material guaranteed——”

“And trained material at that,” Pigeon put in. “Eight years in the
schools, remember, as well as——”

“Precisely. A man rejoices in working them up. That’s as it should be,”
I said.

“Bayly’s saying the very same to those F. S. pups,” said Verschoyle.

The Boy was behind us, between two young F. S. officers, a hand on the
shoulder of each.

“Yes, that’s all doocid interesting,” he growled paternally. “But you
forget, my sons, now that your men are bound to serve, you’re trebly
bound to put a polish on ’em. You’ve let your company simply go to
seed. Don’t try and explain. I’ve told all those lies myself in my
time. It’s only idleness. _I_ know. Come and lunch with me to-morrow
and I’ll give you a wrinkle or two in barracks.” He turned to me.

“Suppose we pick up Vee’s defeated legion and go home. You’ll dine with
us to-night. Good-bye, Ramsay. Yes, you’re _en état de partir_, right
enough. You’d better get Lady Gertrude to talk to the Armity if you
want the corps sent foreign. I’m no politician.”

We strolled away from the great white statue of the Widow, with
sceptre, orb, and crown, that looked toward the city, and regained the
common, where the Guard battalion walked with the female of its species
and the children of all its relatives. At sight of the officers the
uniforms began to detach themselves and gather in companies. A Board
School corps was moving off the ground, headed by its drums and fifes,
which it assisted with song. As we drew nearer we caught the words, for
they were launched with intention:—

’Oo is it mashes the country nurse?
    The Guardsman!
’Oo is it takes the lydy’s purse?
    The Guardsman!
Calls for a drink, and a mild cigar,
Batters a sovereign down on the bar,
Collars the change and says “Ta-ta!”
    The Guardsman!


“Why, that’s one of old Jemmy Fawne’s songs. I haven’t heard it in
ages,” I began.

“Little devils!” said Pigeon. “Speshul! Extra speshul! Sports Edition!”
a newsboy cried. “’Ere y’are, Captain. Defeat o’ the Guard!”

“I’ll buy a copy,” said the Boy, as Pigeon blushed wrathfully. “I must,
to see how the Dove lost his mounted company.” He unfolded the flapping
sheet and we crowded round it.

“‘_Complete Rout of the Guard,_’” he read. “‘_Too Narrow a Front._’
That’s one for you, Vee! ‘_Attack Anticipated by Mr. Levitt, B. A._’
Aha! ‘_The Schools Stand Fast._’”

“Here’s another version,” said Kyd, waving a tinted sheet. “‘_To your
tents, O Israel! The Hebrew Schools stop the Mounted Troops._’ Pij,
were you scuppered by Jewboys?”

“‘_Umpires Decide all Four Guns Lost,_’” Bayley went on. “By Jove,
there’ll have to be an inquiry into this regrettable incident, Vee!”

“I’ll never try to amuse the kids again,” said the baited Verschoyle.
“Children and newspapers are low things…. And I was hit on the nose by
a wad, too! They oughtn’t to be allowed blank ammunition!”

So we leaned against the railings in the warm twilight haze while the
battalion, silently as a shadow, formed up behind us ready to be taken
over. The heat, the hum of the great city, as it might have been the
hum of a camped army, the creaking of the belts, and the well-known
faces bent above them, brought back to me the memory of another
evening, years ago, when Verschoyle and I waited for news of guns
missing in no sham fight.

“A regular Sanna’s Post, isn’t it?” I said at last. “D’you remember,
Vee—by the market-square—that night when the wagons went out?”

Then it came upon me, with no horror, but a certain mild wonder, that
we had waited, Vee and I, that night for the body of Boy Bayley; and
that Vee himself had died of typhoid in the spring of 1902. The
rustling of the papers continued, but Bayley, shifting slightly,
revealed to me the three-day old wound on his left side that had soaked
the ground about him. I saw Pigeon fling up a helpless arm as to guard
himself against a spatter of shrapnel, and Luttrell with a foolish
tight-lipped smile lurched over all in one jointless piece. Only old
Vee’s honest face held steady for awhile against the darkness that had
swallowed up the battalion behind us. Then his jaw dropped and the face
stiffened, so that a fly made bold to explore the puffed and scornful
nostril.


I waked brushing a fly from my nose, and saw the Club waiter set out
the evening papers on the table.




“THEY”




THE RETURN OF THE CHILDREN


Neither the harps nor the crowns amused, nor the cherubs’ dove-winged races—
Holding hands forlornly the Children wandered beneath the Dome;
Plucking the radiant robes of the passers by, and with pitiful faces
Begging what Princes and Powers refused:—“Ah, please will you let us go home?”

Over the jewelled floor, nigh weeping, ran to them Mary the Mother,
Kneeled and caressed and made promise with kisses, and drew them along to the gateway—
Yea, the all-iron unbribable Door which Peter must guard and none other.
Straightway She took the Keys from his keeping, and opened and freed them straightway.

Then to Her Son, Who had seen and smiled, She said: “On the night that I bore Thee
What didst Thou care for a love beyond mine or a heaven that was not my arm?
Didst Thou push from the nipple, O Child, to hear the angels adore Thee?
When we two lay in the breath of the kine?” And He said:—“Thou hast done no harm.”

So through the Void the Children ran homeward merrily hand in hand,
Looking neither to left nor right where the breathless Heavens stood still;
And the Guards of the Void resheathed their swords, for they heard the Command.
“Shall I that have suffered the children to come to me hold them against their will?”




“THEY”


One view called me to another; one hill top to its fellow, half across
the county, and since I could answer at no more trouble than the
snapping forward of a lever, I let the country flow under my wheels.
The orchid-studded flats of the East gave way to the thyme, ilex, and
grey grass of the Downs; these again to the rich cornland and fig-trees
of the lower coast, where you carry the beat of the tide on your left
hand for fifteen level miles; and when at last I turned inland through
a huddle of rounded hills and woods I had run myself clean out of my
known marks. Beyond that precise hamlet which stands godmother to the
capital of the United States, I found hidden villages where bees, the
only things awake, boomed in eighty-foot lindens that overhung grey
Norman churches; miraculous brooks diving under stone bridges built for
heavier traffic than would ever vex them again; tithe-barns larger than
their churches, and an old smithy that cried out aloud how it had once
been a hall of the Knights of the Temple. Gipsies I found on a common
where the gorse, bracken, and heath fought it out together up a mile of
Roman road; and a little farther on I disturbed a red fox rolling
dog-fashion in the naked sunlight.

As the wooded hills closed about me I stood up in the car to take the
bearings of that great Down whose ringed head is a landmark for fifty
miles across the low countries. I judged that the lie of the country
would bring me across some westward running road that went to his feet,
but I did not allow for the confusing veils of the woods. A quick turn
plunged me first into a green cutting brimful of liquid sunshine, next
into a gloomy tunnel where last year’s dead leaves whispered and
scuffled about my tyres. The strong hazel stuff meeting overhead had
not been cut for a couple of generations at least, nor had any axe
helped the moss-cankered oak and beech to spring above them. Here the
road changed frankly into a carpetted ride on whose brown velvet spent
primrose-clumps showed like jade, and a few sickly, white-stalked
bluebells nodded together. As the slope favoured I shut off the power
and slid over the whirled leaves, expecting every moment to meet a
keeper; but I only heard a jay, far off, arguing against the silence
under the twilight of the trees.

Still the track descended. I was on the point of reversing and working
my way back on the second speed ere I ended in some swamp, when I saw
sunshine through the tangle ahead and lifted the brake.

It was down again at once. As the light beat across my face my
fore-wheels took the turf of a great still lawn from which sprang
horsemen ten feet high with levelled lances, monstrous peacocks, and
sleek round-headed maids of honour—blue, black, and glistening—all of
clipped yew. Across the lawn—the marshalled woods besieged it on three
sides—stood an ancient house of lichened and weather-worn stone, with
mullioned windows and roofs of rose-red tile. It was flanked by
semi-circular walls, also rose-red, that closed the lawn on the fourth
side, and at their feet a box hedge grew man-high. There were doves on
the roof about the slim brick chimneys, and I caught a glimpse of an
octagonal dove-house behind the screening wall.

Here, then, I stayed; a horseman’s green spear laid at my breast; held
by the exceeding beauty of that jewel in that setting.

“If I am not packed off for a trespasser, or if this knight does not
ride a wallop at me,” thought I, “Shakespeare and Queen Elizabeth at
least must come out of that half-open garden door and ask me to tea.”

A child appeared at an upper window, and I thought the little thing
waved a friendly hand. But it was to call a companion, for presently
another bright head showed. Then I heard a laugh among the
yew-peacocks, and turning to make sure (till then I had been watching
the house only) I saw the silver of a fountain behind a hedge thrown up
against the sun. The doves on the roof cooed to the cooing water; but
between the two notes I caught the utterly happy chuckle of a child
absorbed in some light mischief.

The garden door—heavy oak sunk deep in the thickness of the wall—opened
further: a woman in a big garden hat set her foot slowly on the
time-hollowed stone step and as slowly walked across the turf. I was
forming some apology when she lifted up her head and I saw that she was
blind.

“I heard you,” she said. “Isn’t that a motor car?”

“I’m afraid I’ve made a mistake in my road. I should have turned off up
above—I never dreamed”—I began.

“But I’m very glad. Fancy a motor car coming into the garden! It will
be such a treat——” She turned and made as though looking about her.
“You—you haven’t seen any one have you—perhaps?”

“No one to speak to, but the children seemed interested at a distance.”

“Which?”

“I saw a couple up at the window just now, and I think I heard a little
chap in the grounds.”

“Oh, lucky you!” she cried, and her face brightened. “I hear them, of
course, but that’s all. You’ve seen them and heard them?”

“Yes,” I answered. “And if I know anything of children one of them’s
having a beautiful time by the fountain yonder. Escaped, I should
imagine.”

“You’re fond of children?”

I gave her one or two reasons why I did not altogether hate them.

“Of course, of course,” she said. “Then you understand. Then you won’t
think it foolish if I ask you to take your car through the gardens,
once or twice—quite slowly. I’m sure they’d like to see it. They see so
little, poor things. One tries to make their life pleasant, but——” she
threw out her hands towards the woods. “We’re so out of the world
here.”

“That will be splendid,” I said. “But I can’t cut up your grass.”

She faced to the right. “Wait a minute,” she said. “We’re at the South
gate, aren’t we? Behind those peacocks there’s a flagged path. We call
it the Peacock’s Walk. You can’t see it from here, they tell me, but if
you squeeze along by the edge of the wood you can turn at the first
peacock and get on to the flags.”

It was sacrilege to wake that dreaming house-front with the clatter of
machinery, but I swung the car to clear the turf, brushed along the
edge of the wood and turned in on the broad stone path where the
fountain-basin lay like one star-sapphire.

“May I come too?” she cried. “No, please don’t help me. They’ll like it
better if they see me.”

She felt her way lightly to the front of the car, and with one foot on
the step she called: “Children, oh, children! Look and see what’s going
to happen!”

The voice would have drawn lost souls from the Pit, for the yearning
that underlay its sweetness, and I was not surprised to hear an
answering shout behind the yews. It must have been the child by the
fountain, but he fled at our approach, leaving a little toy boat in the
water. I saw the glint of his blue blouse among the still horsemen.

Very disposedly we paraded the length of the walk and at her request
backed again. This time the child had got the better of his panic, but
stood far off and doubting.

“The little fellow’s watching us,” I said. “I wonder if he’d like a
ride.”

“They’re very shy still. Very shy. But, oh, lucky you to be able to see
them! Let’s listen.”

I stopped the machine at once, and the humid stillness, heavy with the
scent of box, cloaked us deep. Shears I could hear where some gardener
was clipping; a mumble of bees and broken voices that might have been
the doves.

“Oh, unkind!” she said weariedly.

“Perhaps they’re only shy of the motor. The little maid at the window
looks tremendously interested.”

“Yes?” She raised her head. “It was wrong of me to say that. They are
really fond of me. It’s the only thing that makes life worth
living—when they’re fond of you, isn’t it? I daren’t think what the
place would be without them. By the way, is it beautiful?”

“I think it is the most beautiful place I have ever seen.”

“So they all tell me. I can feel it, of course, but that isn’t quite
the same thing.”

“Then have you never—-?” I began, but stopped abashed.

“Not since I can remember. It happened when I was only a few months
old, they tell me. And yet I must remember something, else how could I
dream about colours. I see light in my dreams, and colours, but I never
see _them_. I only hear them just as I do when I’m awake.”

“It’s difficult to see faces in dreams. Some people can, but most of us
haven’t the gift,” I went on, looking up at the window where the child
stood all but hidden.

“I’ve heard that too,” she said. “And they tell me that one never sees
a dead person’s face in a dream. Is that true?”

“I believe it is—now I come to think of it.”

“But how is it with yourself—yourself?” The blind eyes turned towards
me.

“I have never seen the faces of my dead in any dream,” I answered.

“Then it must be as bad as being blind.”

The sun had dipped behind the woods and the long shades were possessing
the insolent horsemen one by one. I saw the light die from off the top
of a glossy-leaved lance and all the brave hard green turn to soft
black. The house, accepting another day at end, as it had accepted an
hundred thousand gone, seemed to settle deeper into its rest among the
shadows.

“Have you ever wanted to?” she said after the silence.

“Very much sometimes,” I replied. The child had left the window as the
shadows closed upon it.

“Ah! So’ve I, but I don’t suppose it’s allowed. … Where d’you live?”

“Quite the other side of the county—sixty miles and more, and I must be
going back. I’ve come without my big lamp.”

“But it’s not dark yet. I can feel it.”

“I’m afraid it will be by the time I get home. Could you lend me
someone to set me on my road at first? I’ve utterly lost myself.”

“I’ll send Madden with you to the cross-roads. We are so out of the
world, I don’t wonder you were lost! I’ll guide you round to the front
of the house; but you will go slowly, won’t you, till you’re out of the
grounds? It isn’t foolish, do you think?”

“I promise you I’ll go like this,” I said, and let the car start
herself down the flagged path.

We skirted the left wing of the house, whose elaborately cast lead
guttering alone was worth a day’s journey; passed under a great
rose-grown gate in the red wall, and so round to the high front of the
house which in beauty and stateliness as much excelled the back as that
all others I had seen.

“Is it so very beautiful?” she said wistfully when she heard my
raptures. “And you like the lead-figures too? There’s the old azalea
garden behind. They say that this place must have been made for
children. Will you help me out, please? I should like to come with you
as far as the cross-roads, but I mustn’t leave them. Is that you,
Madden? I want you to show this gentleman the way to the cross-roads.
He has lost his way but—he has seen them.”

A butler appeared noiselessly at the miracle of old oak that must be
called the front door, and slipped aside to put on his hat. She stood
looking at me with open blue eyes in which no sight lay, and I saw for
the first time that she was beautiful.

“Remember,” she said quietly, “if you are fond of them you will come
again,” and disappeared within the house.

The butler in the car said nothing till we were nearly at the lodge
gates, where catching a glimpse of a blue blouse in a shrubbery I
swerved amply lest the devil that leads little boys to play should drag
me into child-murder.

“Excuse me,” he asked of a sudden, “but why did you do that, Sir?”

“The child yonder.”

“Our young gentleman in blue?”

“Of course.”

“He runs about a good deal. Did you see him by the fountain, Sir?”

“Oh, yes, several times. Do we turn here?”

“Yes, Sir. And did you ’appen to see them upstairs too?”

“At the upper window? Yes.”

“Was that before the mistress come out to speak to you, Sir?”

“A little before that. Why d’you want to know?”

He paused a little. “Only to make sure that—that they had seen the car,
Sir, because with children running about, though I’m sure you’re
driving particularly careful, there might be an accident. That was all,
Sir. Here are the cross-roads. You can’t miss your way from now on.
Thank you, Sir, but that isn’t _our_ custom, not with——”

“I beg your pardon,” I said, and thrust away the British silver.

“Oh, it’s quite right with the rest of ’em as a rule. Goodbye, Sir.”

He retired into the armour-plated conning tower of his caste and walked
away. Evidently a butler solicitous for the honour of his house, and
interested, probably through a maid, in the nursery.

Once beyond the signposts at the cross-roads I looked back, but the
crumpled hills interlaced so jealously that I could not see where the
house had lain. When I asked its name at a cottage along the road, the
fat woman who sold sweetmeats there gave me to understand that people
with motor cars had small right to live—much less to “go about talking
like carriage folk.” They were not a pleasant-mannered community.

When I retraced my route on the map that evening I was little wiser.
Hawkin’s Old Farm appeared to be the survey title of the place, and the
old County Gazetteer, generally so ample, did not allude to it. The big
house of those parts was Hodnington Hall, Georgian with early Victorian
embellishments, as an atrocious steel engraving attested. I carried my
difficulty to a neighbour—a deep-rooted tree of that soil—and he gave
me a name of a family which conveyed no meaning.

A month or so later—I went again, or it may have been that my car took
the road of her own volition. She over-ran the fruitless Downs,
threaded every turn of the maze of lanes below the hills, drew through
the high-walled woods, impenetrable in their full leaf, came out at the
cross roads where the butler had left me, and a little further on
developed an internal trouble which forced me to turn her in on a grass
way-waste that cut into a summer-silent hazel wood. So far as I could
make sure by the sun and a six-inch Ordnance map, this should be the
road flank of that wood which I had first explored from the heights
above. I made a mighty serious business of my repairs and a glittering
shop of my repair kit, spanners, pump, and the like, which I spread out
orderly upon a rug. It was a trap to catch all childhood, for on such a
day, I argued, the children would not be far off. When I paused in my
work I listened, but the wood was so full of the noises of summer
(though the birds had mated) that I could not at first distinguish
these from the tread of small cautious feet stealing across the dead
leaves. I rang my bell in an alluring manner, but the feet fled, and I
repented, for to a child a sudden noise is very real terror. I must
have been at work half an hour when I heard in the wood the voice of
the blind woman crying: “Children, oh children, where are you?” and the
stillness made slow to close on the perfection of that cry. She came
towards me, half feeling her way between the tree boles, and though a
child it seemed clung to her skirt, it swerved into the leafage like a
rabbit as she drew nearer.

“Is that you?” she said, “from the other side of the county?”

“Yes, it’s me from the other side of the county.”

“Then why didn’t you come through the upper woods? They were there just
now.”

“They were here a few minutes ago. I expect they knew my car had broken
down, and came to see the fun.”

“Nothing serious, I hope? How do cars break down?”

“In fifty different ways. Only mine has chosen the fifty first.”

She laughed merrily at the tiny joke, cooed with delicious laughter,
and pushed her hat back.

“Let me hear,” she said.

“Wait a moment,” I cried, “and I’ll get you a cushion.”

She set her foot on the rug all covered with spare parts, and stooped
above it eagerly. “What delightful things!” The hands through which she
saw glanced in the chequered sunlight. “A box here—another box! Why
you’ve arranged them like playing shop!”

“I confess now that I put it out to attract them. I don’t need half
those things really.”

“How nice of you! I heard your bell in the upper wood. You say they
were here before that?”

“I’m sure of it. Why are they so shy? That little fellow in blue who
was with you just now ought to have got over his fright. He’s been
watching me like a Red Indian.”

“It must have been your bell,” she said. “I heard one of them go past
me in trouble when I was coming down. They’re shy—so shy even with me.”
She turned her face over her shoulder and cried again: “Children! Oh,
children! Look and see!”

“They must have gone off together on their own affairs,” I suggested,
for there was a murmur behind us of lowered voices broken by the sudden
squeaking giggles of childhood. I returned to my tinkerings and she
leaned forward, her chin on her hand, listening interestedly.

“How many are they?” I said at last. The work was finished, but I saw
no reason to go.

Her forehead puckered a little in thought. “I don’t quite know,” she
said simply. “Sometimes more—sometimes less. They come and stay with me
because I love them, you see.”

“That must be very jolly,” I said, replacing a drawer, and as I spoke I
heard the inanity of my answer.

“You—you aren’t laughing at me,” she cried. “I—I haven’t any of my own.
I never married. People laugh at me sometimes about them
because—because———”

“Because they’re savages,” I returned. “It’s nothing to fret for. That
sort laugh at everything that isn’t in their own fat lives.”

“I don’t know. How should I? I only don’t like being laughed at about
_them_. It hurts; and when one can’t see…. I don’t want to seem silly,”
her chin quivered like a child’s as she spoke, “but we blindies have
only one skin, I think. Everything outside hits straight at our souls.
It’s different with you. You’ve such good defences in your eyes—looking
out—before anyone can really pain you in your soul. People forget that
with us.”

I was silent reviewing that inexhaustible matter—the more than
inherited (since it is also carefully taught) brutality of the
Christian peoples, beside which the mere heathendom of the West Coast
nigger is clean and restrained. It led me a long distance into myself.

“Don’t do that!” she said of a sudden, putting her hands before her
eyes.

“What?”

She made a gesture with her hand.

“That! It’s—it’s all purple and black. Don’t! That colour hurts.”

“But, how in the world do you know about colours?” I exclaimed, for
here was a revelation indeed.

“Colours as colours?” she asked.

“No. _Those_ Colours which you saw just now.”

“You know as well as I do,” she laughed, “else you wouldn’t have asked
that question. They aren’t in the world at all. They’re in _you_—when
you went so angry.”

“D’you mean a dull purplish patch, like port-wine mixed with ink?” I
said.

“I’ve never seen ink or port-wine, but the colours aren’t mixed. They
are separate—all separate.”

“Do you mean black streaks and jags across the purple?”

She nodded. “Yes—if they are like this,” and zigzagged her finger
again, “but it’s more red than purple—that bad colour.”

“And what are the colours at the top of the—whatever you see?”

Slowly she leaned forward and traced on the rug the figure of the Egg
itself.

“I see them so,” she said, pointing with a grass stem, “white, green,
yellow, red, purple, and when people are angry or bad, black across the
red—as you were just now.”

“Who told you anything about it—in the beginning?” I demanded.

“About the colours? No one. I used to ask what colours were when I was
little—in table-covers and curtains and carpets, you see—because some
colours hurt me and some made me happy. People told me; and when I got
older that was how I saw people.” Again she traced the outline of the
Egg which it is given to very few of us to see.

“All by yourself?” I repeated.

“All by myself. There wasn’t anyone else. I only found out afterwards
that other people did not see the Colours.”

She leaned against the tree-hole plaiting and unplaiting chance-plucked
grass stems. The children in the wood had drawn nearer. I could see
them with the tail of my eye frolicking like squirrels.

“Now I am sure you will never laugh at me,” she went on after a long
silence. “Nor at _them_.”

“Goodness! No!” I cried, jolted out of my train of thought. “A man who
laughs at a child—unless the child is laughing too—is a heathen!”

“I didn’t mean that of course. You’d never laugh _at_ children, but I
thought—I used to think—that perhaps you might laugh about _them_. So
now I beg your pardon…. What are you going to laugh at?”

I had made no sound, but she knew.

“At the notion of your begging my pardon. If you had done your duty as
a pillar of the state and a landed proprietress you ought to have
summoned me for trespass when I barged through your woods the other
day. It was disgraceful of me—inexcusable.”

She looked at me, her head against the tree trunk—long and
steadfastly—this woman who could see the naked soul.

“How curious,” she half whispered. “How very curious.”

“Why, what have I done?”

“You don’t understand … and yet you understood about the Colours. Don’t
you understand?”

She spoke with a passion that nothing had justified, and I faced her
bewilderedly as she rose. The children had gathered themselves in a
roundel behind a bramble bush. One sleek head bent over something
smaller, and the set of the little shoulders told me that fingers were
on lips. They, too, had some child’s tremendous secret. I alone was
hopelessly astray there in the broad sunlight.

“No,” I said, and shook my head as though the dead eyes could note.
“Whatever it is, I don’t understand yet. Perhaps I shall later—if
you’ll let me come again.”

“You will come again,” she answered. “You will surely come again and
walk in the wood.”

“Perhaps the children will know me well enough by that time to let me
play with them—as a favour. You know what children are like.”

“It isn’t a matter of favour but of right,” she replied, and while I
wondered what she meant, a dishevelled woman plunged round the bend of
the road, loose-haired, purple, almost lowing with agony as she ran. It
was my rude, fat friend of the sweetmeat shop. The blind woman heard
and stepped forward. “What is it, Mrs. Madehurst?” she asked.

The woman flung her apron over her head and literally grovelled in the
dust, crying that her grandchild was sick to death, that the local
doctor was away fishing, that Jenny the mother was at her wits end, and
so forth, with repetitions and bellowings.

“Where’s the next nearest doctor?” I asked between paroxysms.

“Madden will tell you. Go round to the house and take him with you.
I’ll attend to this. Be quick!” She half-supported the fat woman into
the shade. In two minutes I was blowing all the horns of Jericho under
the front of the House Beautiful, and Madden, in the pantry, rose to
the crisis like a butler and a man.

A quarter of an hour at illegal speeds caught us a doctor five miles
away. Within the half-hour we had decanted him, much interested in
motors, at the door of the sweetmeat shop, and drew up the road to
await the verdict.

“Useful things cars,” said Madden, all man and no butler. “If I’d had
one when mine took sick she wouldn’t have died.”

“How was it?” I asked.

“Croup. Mrs. Madden was away. No one knew what to do. I drove eight
miles in a tax cart for the doctor. She was choked when we came back.
This car ’d ha’ saved her. She’d have been close on ten now.”

“I’m sorry,” I said. “I thought you were rather fond of children from
what you told me going to the cross-roads the other day.”

“Have you seen ’em again, Sir—this mornin’?”

“Yes, but they’re well broke to cars. I couldn’t get any of them within
twenty yards of it.”

He looked at me carefully as a scout considers a stranger—not as a
menial should lift his eyes to his divinely appointed superior.

“I wonder why,” he said just above the breath that he drew.

We waited on. A light wind from the sea wandered up and down the long
lines of the woods, and the wayside grasses, whitened already with
summer dust, rose and bowed in sallow waves.

A woman, wiping the suds off her arms, came out of the cottage next the
sweetmeat shop.

“I’ve be’n listenin’ in de back-yard,” she said cheerily. “He says
Arthur’s unaccountable bad. Did ye hear him shruck just now?
Unaccountable bad. I reckon t’will come Jenny’s turn to walk in de wood
nex’ week along, Mr. Madden.”

“Excuse me, Sir, but your lap-robe is slipping,” said Madden
deferentially. The woman started, dropped a curtsey, and hurried away.

“What does she mean by ‘walking in the wood’?” I asked.

“It must be some saying they use hereabouts. I’m from Norfolk myself,”
said Madden. “They’re an independent lot in this county. She took you
for a chauffeur, Sir.”

I saw the Doctor come out of the cottage followed by a draggle-tailed
wench who clung to his arm as though he could make treaty for her with
Death. “Dat sort,” she wailed—“dey’re just as much to us dat has ’em as
if dey was lawful born. Just as much—just as much! An’ God he’d be just
as pleased if you saved ’un, Doctor. Don’t take it from me. Miss
Florence will tell ye de very same. Don’t leave ’im, Doctor!”

“I know. I know,” said the man, “but he’ll be quiet for a while now.
We’ll get the nurse and the medicine as fast as we can.” He signalled
me to come forward with the car, and I strove not to be privy to what
followed; but I saw the girl’s face, blotched and frozen with grief,
and I felt the hand without a ring clutching at my knees when we moved
away.

The Doctor was a man of some humour, for I remember he claimed my car
under the Oath of Æsculapius, and used it and me without mercy. First
we convoyed Mrs. Madehurst and the blind woman to wait by the sick bed
till the nurse should come. Next we invaded a neat county town for
prescriptions (the Doctor said the trouble was cerebro-spinal
meningitis), and when the County Institute, banked and flanked with
scared market cattle, reported itself out of nurses for the moment we
literally flung ourselves loose upon the county. We conferred with the
owners of great houses—magnates at the ends of overarching avenues
whose big-boned womenfolk strode away from their tea-tables to listen
to the imperious Doctor. At last a white-haired lady sitting under a
cedar of Lebanon and surrounded by a court of magnificent Borzois—all
hostile to motors—gave the Doctor, who received them as from a
princess, written orders which we bore many miles at top speed, through
a park, to a French nunnery, where we took over in exchange a
pallid-faced and trembling Sister. She knelt at the bottom of the
tonneau telling her beads without pause till, by short cuts of the
Doctor’s invention, we had her to the sweetmeat shop once more. It was
a long afternoon crowded with mad episodes that rose and dissolved like
the dust of our wheels; cross-sections of remote and incomprehensible
lives through which we raced at right angles; and I went home in the
dusk, wearied out, to dream of the clashing horns of cattle; round-eyed
nuns walking in a garden of graves; pleasant tea-parties beneath shaded
trees; the carbolic-scented, grey-painted corridors of the County
Institute; the steps of shy children in the wood, and the hands that
clung to my knees as the motor began to move.


I had intended to return in a day or two, but it pleased Fate to hold
me from that side of the county, on many pretexts, till the elder and
the wild rose had fruited. There came at last a brilliant day, swept
clear from the south-west, that brought the hills within hand’s reach—a
day of unstable airs and high filmy clouds. Through no merit of my own
I was free, and set the car for the third time on that known road. As I
reached the crest of the Downs I felt the soft air change, saw it glaze
under the sun; and, looking down at the sea, in that instant beheld the
blue of the Channel turn through polished silver and dulled steel to
dingy pewter. A laden collier hugging the coast steered outward for
deeper water and, across copper-coloured haze, I saw sails rise one by
one on the anchored fishing-fleet. In a deep dene behind me an eddy of
sudden wind drummed through sheltered oaks, and spun aloft the first
day sample of autumn leaves. When I reached the beach road the sea-fog
fumed over the brickfields, and the tide was telling all the groins of
the gale beyond Ushant. In less than an hour summer England vanished in
chill grey. We were again the shut island of the North, all the ships
of the world bellowing at our perilous gates; and between their
outcries ran the piping of bewildered gulls. My cap dripped moisture,
the folds of the rug held it in pools or sluiced it away in runnels,
and the salt-rime stuck to my lips.

Inland the smell of autumn loaded the thickened fog among the trees,
and the drip became a continuous shower. Yet the late flowers—mallow of
the wayside, scabious of the field, and dahlia of the garden—showed gay
in the mist, and beyond the sea’s breath there was little sign of decay
in the leaf. Yet in the villages the house doors were all open, and
bare-legged, bare-headed children sat at ease on the damp doorsteps to
shout “pip-pip” at the stranger.

I made bold to call at the sweetmeat shop, where Mrs. Madehurst met me
with a fat woman’s hospitable tears. Jenny’s child, she said, had died
two days after the nun had come. It was, she felt, best out of the way,
even though insurance offices, for reasons which she did not pretend to
follow, would not willingly insure such stray lives. “Not but what
Jenny didn’t tend to Arthur as though he’d come all proper at de end of
de first year—like Jenny herself.” Thanks to Miss Florence, the child
had been buried with a pomp which, in Mrs. Madehurst’s opinion, more
than covered the small irregularity of its birth. She described the
coffin, within and without, the glass hearse, and the evergreen lining
of the grave.

“But how’s the mother?” I asked.

“Jenny? Oh, she’ll get over it. I’ve felt dat way with one or two o’ my
own. She’ll get over. She’s walkin’ in de wood now.”

“In this weather?”

Mrs. Madehurst looked at me with narrowed eyes across the counter.

“I dunno but it opens de ’eart like. Yes, it opens de ’eart. Dat’s
where losin’ and bearin’ comes so alike in de long run, we do say.”

Now the wisdom of the old wives is greater than that of all the
Fathers, and this last oracle sent me thinking so extendedly as I went
up the road, that I nearly ran over a woman and a child at the wooded
corner by the lodge gates of the House Beautiful.

“Awful weather!” I cried, as I slowed dead for the turn.

“Not so bad,” she answered placidly out of the fog. “Mine’s used to
’un. You’ll find yours indoors, I reckon.”

Indoors, Madden received me with professional courtesy, and kind
inquiries for the health of the motor, which he would put under cover.

I waited in a still, nut-brown hall, pleasant with late flowers and
warmed with a delicious wood fire—a place of good influence and great
peace. (Men and women may sometimes, after great effort, achieve a
creditable lie; but the house, which is their temple, cannot say
anything save the truth of those who have lived in it.) A child’s cart
and a doll lay on the black-and-white floor, where a rug had been
kicked back. I felt that the children had only just hurried away—to
hide themselves, most like—in the many turns of the great adzed
staircase that climbed statelily out of the hall, or to crouch at gaze
behind the lions and roses of the carven gallery above. Then I heard
her voice above me, singing as the blind sing—from the soul:—

In the pleasant orchard-closes.


And all my early summer came back at the call.

In the pleasant orchard-closes,
God bless all our gains say we—
But may God bless all our losses,
Better suits with our degree,


She dropped the marring fifth line, and repeated—

Better suits with our degree!


I saw her lean over the gallery, her linked hands white as pearl
against the oak.

“Is that you—from the other side of the county?” she called.

“Yes, me—from the other side of the county,” I answered laughing.

“What a long time before you had to come here again.” She ran down the
stairs, one hand lightly touching the broad rail. “It’s two months and
four days. Summer’s gone!”

“I meant to come before, but Fate prevented.”

“I knew it. Please do something to that fire. They won’t let me play
with it, but I can feel it’s behaving badly. Hit it!”

I looked on either side of the deep fireplace, and found but a
half-charred hedge-stake with which I punched a black log into flame.

“It never goes out, day or night,” she said, as though explaining. “In
case any one comes in with cold toes, you see.”

“It’s even lovelier inside than it was out,” I murmured. The red light
poured itself along the age-polished dusky panels till the Tudor roses
and lions of the gallery took colour and motion. An old eagle-topped
convex mirror gathered the picture into its mysterious heart,
distorting afresh the distorted shadows, and curving the gallery lines
into the curves of a ship. The day was shutting down in half a gale as
the fog turned to stringy scud. Through the uncurtained mullions of the
broad window I could see valiant horsemen of the lawn rear and recover
against the wind that taunted them with legions of dead leaves. “Yes,
it must be beautiful,” she said. “Would you like to go over it? There’s
still light enough upstairs.”

I followed her up the unflinching, wagon-wide staircase to the gallery
whence opened the thin fluted Elizabethan doors.

“Feel how they put the latch low down for the sake of the children.”
She swung a light door inward.

“By the way, where are they?” I asked. “I haven’t even heard them
to-day.”

She did not answer at once. Then, “I can only hear them,” she replied
softly. “This is one of their rooms—everything ready, you see.”

She pointed into a heavily-timbered room. There were little low gate
tables and children’s chairs. A doll’s house, its hooked front half
open, faced a great dappled rocking-horse, from whose padded saddle it
was but a child’s scramble to the broad window-seat overlooking the
lawn. A toy gun lay in a corner beside a gilt wooden cannon.

“Surely they’ve only just gone,” I whispered. In the failing light a
door creaked cautiously. I heard the rustle of a frock and the patter
of feet—quick feet through a room beyond.

“I heard that,” she cried triumphantly. “Did you? Children, O children,
where are you?”

The voice filled the walls that held it lovingly to the last perfect
note, but there came no answering shout such as I had heard in the
garden. We hurried on from room to oak-floored room; up a step here,
down three steps there; among a maze of passages; always mocked by our
quarry. One might as well have tried to work an unstopped warren with a
single ferret. There were bolt-holes innumerable—recesses in walls,
embrasures of deep slitten windows now darkened, whence they could
start up behind us; and abandoned fireplaces, six feet deep in the
masonry, as well as the tangle of communicating doors. Above all, they
had the twilight for their helper in our game. I had caught one or two
joyous chuckles of evasion, and once or twice had seen the silhouette
of a child’s frock against some darkening window at the end of a
passage; but we returned empty-handed to the gallery, just as a
middle-aged woman was setting a lamp in its niche.

“No, I haven’t seen her either this evening, Miss Florence,” I heard
her say, “but that Turpin he says he wants to see you about his shed.”

“Oh, Mr. Turpin must want to see me very badly. Tell him to come to the
hall, Mrs. Madden.”

I looked down into the hall whose only light was the dulled fire, and
deep in the shadow I saw them at last. They must have slipped down
while we were in the passages, and now thought themselves perfectly
hidden behind an old gilt leather screen. By child’s law, my fruitless
chase was as good as an introduction, but since I had taken so much
trouble I resolved to force them to come forward later by the simple
trick, which children detest, of pretending not to notice them. They
lay close, in a little huddle, no more than shadows except when a quick
flame betrayed an outline.

“And now we’ll have some tea,” she said. “I believe I ought to have
offered it you at first, but one doesn’t arrive at manners somehow when
one lives alone and is considered—h’m—peculiar.” Then with very pretty
scorn, “would you like a lamp to see to eat by?”

“The firelight’s much pleasanter, I think.” We descended into that
delicious gloom and Madden brought tea.

I took my chair in the direction of the screen ready to surprise or be
surprised as the game should go, and at her permission, since a hearth
is always sacred, bent forward to play with the fire.

“Where do you get these beautiful short faggots from?” I asked idly.
“Why, they are tallies!”

“Of course,” she said. “As I can’t read or write I’m driven back on the
early English tally for my accounts. Give me one and I’ll tell you what
it meant.”

I passed her an unburned hazel-tally, about a foot long, and she ran
her thumb down the nicks.

“This is the milk-record for the home farm for the month of April last
year, in gallons,” said she. “I don’t know what I should have done
without tallies. An old forester of mine taught me the system. It’s out
of date now for every one else; but my tenants respect it. One of
them’s coming now to see me. Oh, it doesn’t matter. He has no business
here out of office hours. He’s a greedy, ignorant man—very greedy or—he
wouldn’t come here after dark.”

“Have you much land then?”

“Only a couple of hundred acres in hand, thank goodness. The other six
hundred are nearly all let to folk who knew my folk before me, but this
Turpin is quite a new man—and a highway robber.”

“But are you sure I sha’n’t be——?”

“Certainly not. You have the right. He hasn’t any children.”

“Ah, the children!” I said, and slid my low chair back till it nearly
touched the screen that hid them. “I wonder whether they’ll come out
for me.”

There was a murmur of voices—Madden’s and a deeper note—at the low,
dark side door, and a ginger-headed, canvas-gaitered giant of the
unmistakable tenant farmer type stumbled or was pushed in.

“Come to the fire, Mr. Turpin,” she said.

“If—if you please, Miss, I’ll—I’ll be quite as well by the door.” He
clung to the latch as he spoke like a frightened child. Of a sudden I
realised that he was in the grip of some almost overpowering fear.

“Well?”

“About that new shed for the young stock—that was all. These first
autumn storms settin’ in … but I’ll come again, Miss.” His teeth did
not chatter much more than the door latch.

“I think not,” she answered levelly. “The new shed—m’m. What did my
agent write you on the 15th?”

“I—fancied p’raps that if I came to see you—ma—man to man like, Miss.
But——”

His eyes rolled into every corner of the room wide with horror. He half
opened the door through which he had entered, but I noticed it shut
again—from without and firmly.

“He wrote what I told him,” she went on. “You are overstocked already.
Dunnett’s Farm never carried more than fifty bullocks—even in Mr.
Wright’s time. And _he_ used cake. You’ve sixty-seven and you don’t
cake. You’ve broken the lease in that respect. You’re dragging the
heart out of the farm.”

“I’m—I’m getting some minerals—superphosphates—next week. I’ve as good
as ordered a truck-load already. I’ll go down to the station to-morrow
about ’em. Then I can come and see you man to man like, Miss, in the
daylight…. That gentleman’s not going away, is he?” He almost shrieked.

I had only slid the chair a little further back, reaching behind me to
tap on the leather of the screen, but he jumped like a rat.

“No. Please attend to me, Mr. Turpin.” She turned in her chair and
faced him with his back to the door. It was an old and sordid little
piece of scheming that she forced from him—his plea for the new cowshed
at his landlady’s expense, that he might with the covered manure pay
his next year’s rent out of the valuation after, as she made clear, he
had bled the enriched pastures to the bone. I could not but admire the
intensity of his greed, when I saw him out-facing for its sake whatever
terror it was that ran wet on his forehead.

I ceased to tap the leather—was, indeed, calculating the cost of the
shed—when I felt my relaxed hand taken and turned softly between the
soft hands of a child. So at last I had triumphed. In a moment I would
turn and acquaint myself with those quick-footed wanderers….

The little brushing kiss fell in the centre of my palm—as a gift on
which the fingers were, once, expected to close: as the all faithful
half-reproachful signal of a waiting child not used to neglect even
when grown-ups were busiest—a fragment of the mute code devised very
long ago.

Then I knew. And it was as though I had known from the first day when I
looked across the lawn at the high window.

I heard the door shut. The woman turned to me in silence, and I felt
that she knew.

What time passed after this I cannot say. I was roused by the fall of a
log, and mechanically rose to put it back. Then I returned to my place
in the chair very close to the screen.

“Now you understand,” she whispered, across the packed shadows.

“Yes, I understand—now. Thank you.”

“I—I only hear them.” She bowed her head in her hands. “I have no
right, you know—no other right. I have neither borne nor lost—neither
borne nor lost!”

“Be very glad then,” said I, for my soul was torn open within me.

“Forgive me!”

She was still, and I went back to my sorrow and my joy.

“It was because I loved them so,” she said at last, brokenly. “_That_
was why it was, even from the first—even before I knew that they—they
were all I should ever have. And I loved them so!”

She stretched out her arms to the shadows and the shadows within the
shadow.

“They came because I loved them—because I needed them. I—I must have
made them come. Was that wrong, think you?”

“No—no.”

“I—I grant you that the toys and—and all that sort of thing were
nonsense, but—but I used to so hate empty rooms myself when I was
little.” She pointed to the gallery. “And the passages all empty. … And
how could I ever bear the garden door shut? Suppose——”

“Don’t! For pity’s sake, don’t!” I cried. The twilight had brought a
cold rain with gusty squalls that plucked at the leaded windows.

“And the same thing with keeping the fire in all night. _I_ don’t think
it so foolish—do you?”

I looked at the broad brick hearth, saw, through tears I believe, that
there was no unpassable iron on or near it, and bowed my head.

“I did all that and lots of other things—just to make believe. Then
they came. I heard them, but I didn’t know that they were not mine by
right till Mrs. Madden told me——”

“The butler’s wife? What?”

“One of them—I heard—she saw. And knew. Hers! _Not_ for me. I didn’t
know at first. Perhaps I was jealous. Afterwards, I began to understand
that it was only because I loved them, not because——… Oh, you _must_
bear or lose,” she said piteously. “There is no other way—and yet they
love me. They must! Don’t they?”

There was no sound in the room except the lapping voices of the fire,
but we two listened intently, and she at least took comfort from what
she heard. She recovered herself and half rose. I sat still in my chair
by the screen.

“Don’t think me a wretch to whine about myself like this, but—but I’m
all in the dark, you know, and _you_ can see.”

In truth I could see, and my vision confirmed me in my resolve, though
that was like the very parting of spirit and flesh. Yet a little longer
I would stay since it was the last time.

“You think it is wrong, then?” she cried sharply, though I had said
nothing.

“Not for you. A thousand times no. For you it is right…. I am grateful
to you beyond words. For me it would be wrong. For me only….”

“Why?” she said, but passed her hand before her face as she had done at
our second meeting in the wood. “Oh, I see,” she went on simply as a
child. “For you it would be wrong.” Then with a little indrawn laugh,
“and, d’you remember, I called you lucky—once—at first. You who must
never come here again!”

She left me to sit a little longer by the screen, and I heard the sound
of her feet die out along the gallery above.




MRS. BATHURST




FROM LYDEN’S “IRENIUS”


ACT III. Sc. II.


GOW.—Had it been your Prince instead of a groom caught in this noose
there’s not an astrologer of the city——

PRINCE.—Sacked! Sacked! We were a city yesterday.

GOW.—So be it, but I was not governor. Not an astrologer, but would ha’
sworn he’d foreseen it at the last versary of Venus, when Vulcan caught
her with Mars in the house of stinking Capricorn. But since ’tis Jack
of the Straw that hangs, the forgetful stars had it not on their
tablets.

PRINCE.—Another life! Were there any left to die? How did the poor fool
come by it?

GOW.—_Simpliciter_ thus. She that damned him to death knew not that she
did it, or would have died ere she had done it. For she loved him. He
that hangs him does so in obedience to the Duke, and asks no more than
“Where is the rope?” The Duke, very exactly he hath told us, works
God’s will, in which holy employ he’s not to be questioned. We have
then left upon this finger, only Jack whose soul now plucks the left
sleeve of Destiny in Hell to overtake why she clapped him up like a fly
on a sunny wall. Whuff! Soh!

PRINCE.—Your cloak, Ferdinand. I’ll sleep now.

FERDINAND.—Sleep, then… He too, loved his life?

GOW.—He was born of woman … but at the end threw life from him, like
your Prince, for a little sleep … “Have I any look of a King?” said he,
clanking his chain—“to be so baited on all sides by Fortune, that I
must e’en die now to live with myself one day longer?” I left him
railing at Fortune and woman’s love.

FERDINAND.—Ah, woman’s love!

_(Aside)_ Who knows not Fortune, glutted on easy thrones, Stealing from
feasts as rare to coneycatch, Privily in the hedgerows for a clown With
that same cruel-lustful hand and eye, Those nails and wedges, that one
hammer and lead, And the very gerb of long-stored lightnings loosed
Yesterday ’gainst some King.




MRS. BATHURST


The day that I chose to visit H.M.S. _Peridot_ in Simon’s Bay was the
day that the Admiral had chosen to send her up the coast. She was just
steaming out to sea as my train came in, and since the rest of the
Fleet were either coaling or busy at the rifle-ranges a thousand feet
up the hill, I found myself stranded, lunchless, on the sea-front with
no hope of return to Cape Town before five P.M. At this crisis I had
the luck to come across my friend Inspector Hooper, Cape Government
Railways, in command of an engine and a brake-van chalked for repair.

“If you get something to eat,” he said, “I’ll run you down to
Glengariff siding till the goods comes along. It’s cooler there than
here, you see.”

I got food and drink from the Greeks who sell all things at a price,
and the engine trotted us a couple of miles up the line to a bay of
drifted sand and a plank-platform half buried in sand not a hundred
yards from the edge of the surf. Moulded dunes, whiter than any snow,
rolled far inland up a brown and purple valley of splintered rocks and
dry scrub. A crowd of Malays hauled at a net beside two blue and green
boats on the beach; a picnic party danced and shouted barefoot where a
tiny river trickled across the flat, and a circle of dry hills, whose
feet were set in sands of silver, locked us in against a seven-coloured
sea. At either horn of the bay the railway line, cut just above high
water-mark, ran round a shoulder of piled rocks, and disappeared.

“You see there’s always a breeze here,” said Hooper, opening the door
as the engine left us in the siding on the sand, and the strong
south-easter buffeting under Elsie’s Peak dusted sand into our tickey
beer. Presently he sat down to a file full of spiked documents. He had
returned from a long trip up-country, where he had been reporting on
damaged rolling-stock, as far away as Rhodesia. The weight of the bland
wind on my eyelids; the song of it under the car roof, and high up
among the rocks; the drift of fine grains chasing each other musically
ashore; the tramp of the surf; the voices of the picnickers; the rustle
of Hooper’s file, and the presence of the assured sun, joined with the
beer to cast me into magical slumber. The hills of False Bay were just
dissolving into those of fairyland when I heard footsteps on the sand
outside, and the clink of our couplings.

“Stop that!” snapped Hooper, without raising his head from his work.
“It’s those dirty little Malay boys, you see: they’re always playing
with the trucks….”

“Don’t be hard on ’em. The railway’s a general refuge in Africa,” I
replied.

“’Tis—up-country at any rate. That reminds me,” he felt in his
waistcoat-pocket, “I’ve got a curiosity for you from Wankies—beyond
Buluwayo. It’s more of a souvenir perhaps than——”

“The old hotel’s inhabited,” cried a voice. “White men from the
language. Marines to the front! Come on, Pritch. Here’s your Belmont.
Wha—i—i!”

The last word dragged like a rope as Mr. Pyecroft ran round to the open
door, and stood looking up into my face. Behind him an enormous
Sergeant of Marines trailed a stalk of dried seaweed, and dusted the
sand nervously from his fingers.

“What are you doing here?” I asked. “I thought the _Hierophant_ was
down the coast?”

“We came in last Tuesday—from Tristan D’Acunha—for overhaul, and we
shall be in dockyard ’ands for two months, with boiler-seatings.”

“Come and sit down,” Hooper put away the file.

“This is Mr. Hooper of the Railway,” I exclaimed, as Pyecroft turned to
haul up the black-moustached sergeant.

“This is Sergeant Pritchard, of the _Agaric_, an old shipmate,” said
he. “We were strollin’ on the beach.” The monster blushed and nodded.
He filled up one side of the van when he sat down.

“And this is my friend, Mr. Pyecroft,” I added to Hooper, already busy
with the extra beer which my prophetic soul had bought from the Greeks.

“_Moi aussi_” quoth Pyecroft, and drew out beneath his coat a labelled
quart bottle.

“Why, it’s Bass,” cried Hooper.

“It was Pritchard,” said Pyecroft. “They can’t resist him.”

“That’s not so,” said Pritchard, mildly.

“Not _verbatim_ per’aps, but the look in the eye came to the same
thing.”

“Where was it?” I demanded.

“Just on beyond here—at Kalk Bay. She was slappin’ a rug in a back
verandah. Pritch hadn’t more than brought his batteries to bear, before
she stepped indoors an’ sent it flyin’ over the wall.”

Pyecroft patted the warm bottle.

“It was all a mistake,” said Pritchard. “I shouldn’t wonder if she
mistook me for Maclean. We’re about of a size.”

I had heard householders of Muizenburg, St. James’s, and Kalk Bay
complain of the difficulty of keeping beer or good servants at the
seaside, and I began to see the reason. None the less, it was excellent
Bass, and I too drank to the health of that large-minded maid.

“It’s the uniform that fetches ’em, an’ they fetch it,” said Pyecroft.
“My simple navy blue is respectable, but not fascinatin’. Now Pritch in
’is Number One rig is always ‘purr Mary, on the terrace’—_ex officio_
as you might say.”

“She took me for Maclean, I tell you,” Pritchard insisted. “Why—why—to
listen to him you wouldn’t think that only yesterday——”

“Pritch,” said Pyecroft, “be warned in time. If we begin tellin’ what
we know about each other we’ll be turned out of the pub. Not to mention
aggravated desertion on several occasions——”

“Never anything more than absence without leaf—I defy you to prove it,”
said the Sergeant hotly. “An’ if it comes to that how about Vancouver
in ’87?”

“How about it? Who pulled bow in the gig going ashore? Who told Boy
Niven…?”

“Surely you were court martialled for that?” I said. The story of Boy
Niven who lured seven or eight able-bodied seamen and marines into the
woods of British Columbia used to be a legend of the Fleet.

“Yes, we were court-martialled to rights,” said Pritchard, “but we
should have been tried for murder if Boy Niven ’adn’t been unusually
tough. He told us he had an uncle ’oo’d give us land to farm. ’E said
he was born at the back o’ Vancouver Island, and _all_ the time the
beggar was a balmy Barnado Orphan!”

“_But_ we believed him,” said Pyecroft. “I did—you did—Paterson did—an’
’oo was the Marine that married the cocoanut-woman afterwards—him with
the mouth?”

“Oh, Jones, Spit-Kid Jones. I ’aven’t thought of ’im in years,” said
Pritchard. “Yes, Spit-Kid believed it, an’ George Anstey and Moon. We
were very young an’ very curious.”

“_But_ lovin’ an’ trustful to a degree,” said Pyecroft.

“Remember when ’e told us to walk in single file for fear o’ bears?
‘Remember, Pye, when ’e ’opped about in that bog full o’ ferns an’
sniffed an’ said ’e could smell the smoke of ’is uncle’s farm? An’
_all_ the time it was a dirty little out-lyin’ uninhabited island. We
walked round it in a day, an’ come back to our boat lyin’ on the beach.
A whole day Boy Niven kept us walkin’ in circles lookin’ for ’is
uncle’s farm! He said his uncle was compelled by the law of the land to
give us a farm!”

“Don’t get hot, Pritch. We believed,” said Pyecroft.

“He’d been readin’ books. He only did it to get a run ashore an’ have
himself talked of. A day an’ a night—eight of us—followin’ Boy Niven
round an uninhabited island in the Vancouver archipelago! Then the
picket came for us an’ a nice pack o’ idiots we looked!”

“What did you get for it?” Hooper asked.

“Heavy thunder with continuous lightning for two hours. Thereafter
sleet-squalls, a confused sea, and cold, unfriendly weather till
conclusion o’ cruise,” said Pyecroft. “It was only what we expected,
but what we felt, an’ I assure you, Mr. Hooper, even a sailor-man has a
heart to break, was bein’ told that we able seamen an’ promisin’
marines ’ad misled Boy Niven. Yes, we poor back-to-the-landers was
supposed to ’ave misled him! He rounded on us, o’ course, an’ got off
easy.”

“Excep’ for what we gave him in the steerin’-flat when we came out o’
cells. ’Eard anything of ’im lately, Pye?”

“Signal Boatswain in the Channel Fleet, I believe—Mr. L.L. Niven is.”

“An’ Anstey died o’ fever in Benin,” Pritchard mused. “What come to
Moon? Spit-Kid we know about.”

“Moon—Moon! Now where did I last…? Oh yes, when I was in the
_Palladium_! I met Quigley at Buncrana Station. He told me Moon ’ad run
when the _Astrild_ sloop was cruising among the South Seas three years
back. He always showed signs o’ bein’ a Mormonastic beggar. Yes, he
slipped off quietly an’ they ’adn’t time to chase ’im round the islands
even if the navigatin’ officer ’ad been equal to the job.”

“Wasn’t he?” said Hooper.

“Not so. Accordin’ to Quigley the _Astrild_ spent half her commission
rompin’ up the beach like a she-turtle, an’ the other half hatching
turtles’ eggs on the top o’ numerous reefs. When she was docked at
Sydney her copper looked like Aunt Maria’s washing on the line—an’ her
’midship frames was sprung. The commander swore the dockyard ’ad done
it haulin’ the pore thing on to the slips. They _do_ do strange things
at sea, Mr. Hooper.”

“Ah! I’m not a tax-payer,” said Hooper, and opened a fresh bottle. The
Sergeant seemed to be one who had a difficulty in dropping subjects.

“How it all comes back, don’t it?” he said. “Why Moon must ’ave ’ad
sixteen years’ service before he ran.”

“It takes ’em at all ages. Look at—you know,” said Pyecroft.

“Who?” I asked.

“A service man within eighteen months of his pension, is the party
you’re thinkin’ of,” said Pritchard. “A warrant ’oose name begins with
a V., isn’t it?”

“But, in a way o’ puttin’ it, we can’t say that he actually did
desert,” Pyecroft suggested.

“Oh, no,” said Pritchard. “It was only permanent absence up country
without leaf. That was all.”

“Up country?” said Hooper. “Did they circulate his description?”

“What for?” said Pritchard, most impolitely.

“Because deserters are like columns in the war. They don’t move away
from the line, you see. I’ve known a chap caught at Salisbury that way
tryin’ to get to Nyassa. They tell me, but o’ course I don’t know, that
they don’t ask questions on the Nyassa Lake Flotilla up there. I’ve
heard of a P. and O. quartermaster in full command of an armed launch
there.”

“Do you think Click ’ud ha’ gone up that way?” Pritchard asked.

“There’s no saying. He was sent up to Bloemfontein to take over some
Navy ammunition left in the fort. We know he took it over and saw it
into the trucks. Then there was no more Click—then or thereafter. Four
months ago it transpired, and thus the _casus belli_ stands at
present,” said Pyecroft.

“What were his marks?” said Hooper again.

“Does the Railway get a reward for returnin’ ’em, then?” said
Pritchard.

“If I did d’you suppose I’d talk about it?” Hooper retorted angrily.

“You seemed so very interested,” said Pritchard with equal crispness.

“Why was he called Click?” I asked to tide over an uneasy little break
in the conversation. The two men were staring at each other very
fixedly.

“Because of an ammunition hoist carryin’ away,” said Pyecroft. “And it
carried away four of ’is teeth—on the lower port side, wasn’t it,
Pritch? The substitutes which he bought weren’t screwed home in a
manner o’ sayin’. When he talked fast they used to lift a little on the
bed plate. ’Ence, ‘Click.’ They called ’im a superior man which is what
we’d call a long, black-’aired, genteely speakin’, ’alf-bred beggar on
the lower deck.”

“Four false teeth on the lower left jaw,” said Hooper, his hand in his
waistcoat pocket. “What tattoo marks?”

“Look here,” began Pritchard, half rising. “I’m sure we’re very
grateful to you as a gentleman for your ’orspitality, but per’aps we
may ’ave made an error in—”

I looked at Pyecroft for aid, Hooper was crimsoning rapidly.

“If the fat marine now occupying the foc’sle will kindly bring ’is
_status quo_ to an anchor yet once more, we may be able to talk like
gentlemen—not to say friends,” said Pyecroft. “He regards you, Mr.
Hooper, as a emissary of the Law.”

“I only wish to observe that when a gentleman exhibits such a peculiar,
or I should rather say, such a _bloomin’_ curiosity in identification
marks as our friend here——”

“Mr. Pritchard,” I interposed, “I’ll take all the responsibility for
Mr. Hooper.”

“An’ _you_’ll apologise all round,” said Pyecroft. “You’re a rude
little man, Pritch.”

“But how was I——” he began, wavering.

“I don’t know an’ I don’t care. Apologise!”

The giant looked round bewildered and took our little hands into his
vast grip, one by one. “I was wrong,” he said meekly as a sheep. “My
suspicions was unfounded. Mr. Hooper, I apologise.”

“You did quite right to look out for your own end o’ the line,” said
Hooper. “I’d ha’ done the same with a gentleman I didn’t know, you see.
If you don’t mind I’d like to hear a little more o’ your Mr. Vickery.
It’s safe with me, you see.”

“Why did Vickery run,” I began, but Pyecroft’s smile made me turn my
question to “Who was she?”

“She kep’ a little hotel at Hauraki—near Auckland,” said Pyecroft.

“By Gawd!” roared Pritchard, slapping his hand on his leg. “Not Mrs.
Bathurst!”

Pyecroft nodded slowly, and the Sergeant called all the powers of
darkness to witness his bewilderment.

“So far as I could get at it Mrs. B. was the lady in question.”

“But Click was married,” cried Pritchard.

“An’ ’ad a fifteen year old daughter. ’E’s shown me her photograph.
Settin’ that aside, so to say, ’ave you ever found these little things
make much difference? Because I haven’t.”

“Good Lord Alive an’ Watchin’!… Mrs. Bathurst….” Then with another
roar: “You can say what you please, Pye, but you don’t make me believe
it was any of ’er fault. She wasn’t _that!_”

“If I was going to say what I please, I’d begin by callin’ you a silly
ox an’ work up to the higher pressures at leisure. I’m trying to say
solely what transpired. M’rover, for once you’re right. It wasn’t her
fault.”

“You couldn’t ’aven’t made me believe it if it ’ad been,” was the
answer.

Such faith in a Sergeant of Marines interested me greatly. “Never mind
about that,” I cried. “Tell me what she was like.”

“She was a widow,” said Pyecroft. “Left so very young and never
re-spliced. She kep’ a little hotel for warrants and non-coms close to
Auckland, an’ she always wore black silk, and ’er neck—”

“You ask what she was like,” Pritchard broke in. “Let me give you an
instance. I was at Auckland first in ’97, at the end o’ the
_Marroquin’s_ commission, an’ as I’d been promoted I went up with the
others. She used to look after us all, an’ she never lost by it—not a
penny! ‘Pay me now,’ she’d say, ‘or settle later. I know you won’t let
me suffer. Send the money from home if you like,’ Why, gentlemen all, I
tell you I’ve seen that lady take her own gold watch an’ chain off her
neck in the bar an’ pass it to a bosun ’oo’d come ashore without ’is
ticker an’ ’ad to catch the last boat. ‘I don’t know your name,’ she
said, ‘but when you’ve done with it, you’ll find plenty that know me on
the front. Send it back by one o’ them.’ And it was worth thirty pounds
if it was worth ’arf a crown. The little gold watch, Pye, with the blue
monogram at the back. But, as I was sayin’, in those days she kep’ a
beer that agreed with me—Slits it was called. One way an’ another I
must ’ave punished a good few bottles of it while we was in the
bay—comin’ ashore every night or so. Chaffin across the bar like, once
when we were alone, ‘Mrs. B.,’ I said, ‘when next I call I want you to
remember that this is my particular—just as you’re my particular?’
(She’d let you go _that_ far!) ‘Just as you’re my particular,’ I said.
‘Oh, thank you, Sergeant Pritchard,’ she says, an’ put ’er hand up to
the curl be’ind ’er ear. Remember that way she had, Pye?”

“I think so,” said the sailor.

“Yes, ‘Thank you, Sergeant Pritchard,’ she says. ‘The least I can do is
to mark it for you in case you change your mind. There’s no great
demand for it in the Fleet,’ she says, ‘but to make sure I’ll put it at
the back o’ the shelf,’ an’ she snipped off a piece of her hair ribbon
with that old dolphin cigar cutter on the bar—remember it, Pye?—an’ she
tied a bow round what was left—just four bottles. That was ’97—no, ’96.
In ’98 I was in the _Resiliant_—China station—full commission. In
Nineteen One, mark you, I was in the _Carthusian_, back in Auckland Bay
again. Of course I went up to Mrs. B.’s with the rest of us to see how
things were goin’. They were the same as ever. (Remember the big tree
on the pavement by the side-bar, Pye?) I never said anythin’ in special
(there was too many of us talkin’ to her), but she saw me at once.”

“That wasn’t difficult?” I ventured.

“Ah, but wait. I was comin’ up to the bar, when, ‘Ada,’ she says to her
niece, ‘get me Sergeant Pritchard’s particular,’ and, gentlemen all, I
tell you before I could shake ’ands with the lady, there were those
four bottles o’ Slits, with ’er ’air ribbon in a bow round each o’
their necks, set down in front o’ me, an’ as she drew the cork she
looked at me under her eyebrows in that blindish way she had o’
lookin’, an’, ‘Sergeant Pritchard,’ she says, ‘I do ’ope you ’aven’t
changed your mind about your particulars.’ That’s the kind o’ woman she
was—after five years!”

“I don’t _see_ her yet somehow,” said Hooper, but with sympathy.

“She—she never scrupled to feed a lame duck or set ’er foot on a
scorpion at any time of ’er life,” Pritchard added valiantly.

“That don’t help me either. My mother’s like that for one.”

The giant heaved inside his uniform and rolled his eyes at the
car-roof. Said Pyecroft suddenly:—

“How many women have you been intimate with all over the world,
Pritch?”

Pritchard blushed plum colour to the short hairs of his seventeen-inch
neck.

“’Undreds,” said Pyecroft. “So’ve I. How many of ’em can you remember
in your own mind, settin’ aside the first—an’ per’aps the last—_and one
more_?”

“Few, wonderful few, now I tax myself,” said Sergeant Pritchard,
relievedly.

“An’ how many times might you ’ave been at Aukland?”

“One—two,” he began. “Why, I can’t make it more than three times in ten
years. But I can remember every time that I ever saw Mrs. B.”

“So can I—an’ I’ve only been to Auckland twice—how she stood an’ what
she was sayin’ an’ what she looked like. That’s the secret. ’Tisn’t
beauty, so to speak, nor good talk necessarily. It’s just It. Some
women’ll stay in a man’s memory if they once walked down a street, but
most of ’em you can live with a month on end, an’ next commission you’d
be put to it to certify whether they talked in their sleep or not, as
one might say.”

“Ah,” said Hooper. “That’s more the idea. I’ve known just two women of
that nature.”

“An’ it was no fault o’ theirs?” asked Pritchard.

“None whatever. I know that!”

“An’ if a man gets struck with that kind o’ woman, Mr. Hooper?”
Pritchard went on.

“He goes crazy—or just saves himself,” was the slow answer.

“You’ve hit it,” said the Sergeant. “You’ve seen an’ known somethin’ in
the course o’ your life, Mr. Hooper. I’m lookin’ at you!” He set down
his bottle.

“And how often had Vickery seen her?” I asked.

“That’s the dark an’ bloody mystery,” Pyecroft answered. “I’d never
come across him till I come out in the _Hierophant_ just now, an’ there
wasn’t any one in the ship who knew much about him. You see, he was
what you call a superior man. ’E spoke to me once or twice about
Auckland and Mrs. B. on the voyage out. I called that to mind
subsequently. There must ’ave been a good deal between ’em, to my way
o’ thinkin’. Mind you I’m only giving you my _sum_ of it all, because
all I know is second-hand so to speak, or rather I should say more than
second-’and.”

“How?” said Hooper peremptorily. “You must have seen it or heard it.”

“Yes,” said Pyecroft. “I used to think seein’ and hearin’ was the only
regulation aids to ascertainin’ facts, but as we get older we get more
accommodatin’. The cylinders work easier, I suppose…. Were you in Cape
Town last December when Phyllis’s Circus came?”

“No—up country,” said Hooper, a little nettled at the change of venue.

“I ask because they had a new turn of a scientific nature called ‘Home
and Friends for a Tickey.’”

“Oh, you mean the cinematograph—the pictures of prize-fights and
steamers. I’ve seen ’em up country.”

“Biograph or cinematograph was what I was alludin’ to. London Bridge
with the omnibuses—a troopship goin’ to the war—marines on parade at
Portsmouth an’ the Plymouth Express arrivin’ at Paddin’ton.”

“Seen ’em all. Seen ’em all,” said Hooper impatiently.

“We _Hierophants_ came in just before Christmas week an’ leaf was
easy.”

“I think a man gets fed up with Cape Town quicker than anywhere else on
the station. Why, even Durban’s more like Nature. We was there for
Christmas,” Pritchard put in.

“Not bein’ a devotee of Indian _peeris_, as our Doctor said to the
Pusser, I can’t exactly say. Phyllis’s was good enough after musketry
practice at Mozambique. I couldn’t get off the first two or three
nights on account of what you might call an imbroglio with our Torpedo
Lieutenant in the submerged flat, where some pride of the West country
had sugared up a gyroscope; but I remember Vickery went ashore with our
Carpenter Rigdon—old Crocus we called him. As a general rule Crocus
never left ’is ship unless an’ until he was ’oisted out with a winch,
but _when_ ’e went ’e would return noddin’ like a lily gemmed with dew.
We smothered him down below that night, but the things ’e said about
Vickery as a fittin’ playmate for a Warrant Officer of ’is cubic
capacity, before we got him quiet, was what I should call pointed.”

“I’ve been with Crocus—in the _Redoubtable_,” said the Sergeant. “He’s
a character if there is one.”

“Next night I went into Cape Town with Dawson and Pratt; but just at
the door of the Circus I came across Vickery. ‘Oh!’ he says, ‘you’re
the man I’m looking for. Come and sit next me. This way to the shillin’
places!’ I went astern at once, protestin’ because tickey seats better
suited my so-called finances. ‘Come on,’ says Vickery, ‘I’m payin’.’
Naturally I abandoned Pratt and Dawson in anticipation o’ drinks to
match the seats. ‘No,’ he says, when this was ’inted—‘not now. Not now.
As many as you please afterwards, but I want you sober for the
occasion.’ I caught ’is face under a lamp just then, an’ the appearance
of it quite cured me of my thirsts. Don’t mistake. It didn’t frighten
me. It made me anxious. I can’t tell you what it was like, but that was
the effect which it ’ad on me. If you want to know, it reminded me of
those things in bottles in those herbalistic shops at
Plymouth—preserved in spirits of wine. White an’ crumply
things—previous to birth as you might say.”

“You ’ave a beastial mind, Pye,” said the Sergeant, relighting his
pipe.

“Perhaps. We were in the front row, an’ ‘Home an’ Friends’ came on
early. Vickery touched me on the knee when the number went up. ‘If you
see anything that strikes you,’ he says, ‘drop me a hint’; then he went
on clicking. We saw London Bridge an’ so forth an’ so on, an’ it was
most interestin’. I’d never seen it before. You ’eard a little dynamo
like buzzin’, but the pictures were the real thing—alive an’ movin’.”

“I’ve seen ’em,” said Hooper. “Of course they are taken from the very
thing itself—you see.”

“Then the Western Mail came in to Paddin’ton on the big magic lantern
sheet. First we saw the platform empty an’ the porters standin’ by.
Then the engine come in, head on, an’ the women in the front row
jumped: she headed so straight. Then the doors opened and the
passengers came out and the porters got the luggage—just like life.
Only—only when any one came down too far towards us that was watchin’,
they walked right out o’ the picture, so to speak. I was ’ighly
interested, I can tell you. So were all of us. I watched an old man
with a rug ’oo’d dropped a book an’ was tryin’ to pick it up, when
quite slowly, from be’ind two porters—carryin’ a little reticule an’
lookin’ from side to side—comes out Mrs. Bathurst. There was no
mistakin’ the walk in a hundred thousand. She come forward—right
forward—she looked out straight at us with that blindish look which
Pritch alluded to. She walked on and on till she melted out of the
picture—like—like a shadow jumpin’ over a candle, an’ as she went I
’eard Dawson in the ticky seats be’ind sing out: ‘Christ! There’s Mrs.
B.!’”

Hooper swallowed his spittle and leaned forward intently.

“Vickery touched me on the knee again. He was clickin’ his four false
teeth with his jaw down like an enteric at the last kick. ‘Are you
sure?’ says he. ‘Sure,’ I says, ‘didn’t you ’ear Dawson give tongue?
Why, it’s the woman herself.’ ‘I was sure before,’ he says, ‘but I
brought you to make sure. Will you come again with me to-morrow?’

“‘Willingly,’ I says, ‘it’s like meetin’ old friends.’

“‘Yes,’ he says, openin’ his watch, ‘very like. It will be
four-and-twenty hours less four minutes before I see her again. Come
and have a drink,’ he says. ‘It may amuse you, but it’s no sort of
earthly use to me.’ He went out shaking his head an’ stumblin’ over
people’s feet as if he was drunk already. I anticipated a swift drink
an’ a speedy return, because I wanted to see the performin’ elephants.
Instead o’ which Vickery began to navigate the town at the rate o’
knots, lookin’ in at a bar every three minutes approximate Greenwich
time. I’m not a drinkin’ man, though there are those present”—he cocked
his unforgetable eye at me—“who may have seen me more or less imbued
with the fragrant spirit. None the less, when I drink I like to do it
at anchor an’ not at an average speed of eighteen knots on the measured
mile. There’s a tank as you might say at the back o’ that big hotel up
the hill—what do they call it?”

“The Molteno Reservoir,” I suggested, and Hooper nodded.

“That was his limit o’ drift. We walked there an’ we come down through
the Gardens—there was a South-Easter blowin’—an’ we finished up by the
Docks. Then we bore up the road to Salt River, and wherever there was a
pub Vickery put in sweatin’. He didn’t look at what he drunk—he didn’t
look at the change. He walked an’ he drunk an’ he perspired in rivers.
I understood why old Crocus ’ad come back in the condition ’e did,
because Vickery an’ I ’ad two an’ a half hours o’ this gipsy manœuvre
an’ when we got back to the station there wasn’t a dry atom on or in
me.”

“Did he say anything?” Pritchard asked.

“The sum total of ’is conversation from 7.45 P.M. till 11.15 P.M. was
‘Let’s have another.’ Thus the mornin’ an’ the evenin’ were the first
day, as Scripture says…. To abbreviate a lengthy narrative, I went into
Cape Town for five consecutive nights with Master Vickery, and in that
time I must ’ave logged about fifty knots over the ground an’ taken in
two gallon o’ all the worst spirits south the Equator. The evolution
never varied. Two shilling seats for us two; five minutes o’ the
pictures, an’ perhaps forty-five seconds o’ Mrs. B. walking down
towards us with that blindish look in her eyes an’ the reticule in her
hand. Then out walk—and drink till train time.”

“What did you think?” said Hooper, his hand fingering his waistcoat
pocket.

“Several things,” said Pyecroft. “To tell you the truth, I aren’t quite
done thinkin’ about it yet. Mad? The man was a dumb lunatic—must ’ave
been for months—years p’raps. I know somethin’ o’ maniacs, as every man
in the Service must. I’ve been shipmates with a mad skipper—an’ a
lunatic Number One, but never both together I thank ’Eaven. I could
give you the names o’ three captains now ’oo ought to be in an asylum,
but you don’t find me interferin’ with the mentally afflicted till they
begin to lay about ’em with rammers an’ winch-handles. Only once I
crept up a little into the wind towards Master Vickery. ‘I wonder what
she’s doin’ in England,’ I says. ‘Don’t it seem to you she’s lookin’
for somebody?’ That was in the Gardens again, with the South-Easter
blowin’ as we were makin’ our desperate round. ‘She’s lookin’ for me,’
he says, stoppin’ dead under a lamp an’ clickin’. When he wasn’t
drinkin’, in which case all ’is teeth clicked on the glass, ’e was
clickin’ ’is four false teeth like a Marconi ticker. ‘Yes! lookin’ for
me,’ he said, an’ he went on very softly an’ as you might say
affectionately. ‘_But_, he went on, ‘in future, Mr. Pyecroft, I should
take it kindly of you if you’d confine your remarks to the drinks set
before you. Otherwise,’ he says, ‘with the best will in the world
towards you, I may find myself guilty of murder! Do you understand?’ he
says. ‘Perfectly,’ I says, ‘but would it at all soothe you to know that
in such a case the chances o’ your being killed are precisely
equivalent to the chances o’ me being outed.’ ‘Why, no,’ he says, ‘I’m
almost afraid that ’ud be a temptation,’

“Then I said—we was right under the lamp by that arch at the end o’ the
Gardens where the trams came round—‘Assumin’ murder was done—or
attempted murder—I put it to you that you would still be left so badly
crippled, as one might say, that your subsequent capture by the
police—to ’oom you would ’ave to explain—would be largely inevitable.’
‘That’s better,’ ’e says, passin’ ’is hands over his forehead. ‘That’s
much better, because,’ he says, ‘do you know, as I am now, Pye, I’m not
so sure if I could explain anything much.’ Those were the only
particular words I had with ’im in our walks as I remember.”

“What walks!” said Hooper. “Oh my soul, what walks!”

“They were chronic,” said Pyecroft gravely, “but I didn’t anticipate
any danger till the Circus left. Then I anticipated that, bein’
deprived of ’is stimulant, he might react on me, so to say, with a
hatchet. Consequently, after the final performance an’ the ensuin’ wet
walk, I kep’ myself aloof from my superior officer on board in the
execution of ’is duty as you might put it. Consequently, I was
interested when the sentry informs me while I was passin’ on my lawful
occasions that Click had asked to see the captain. As a general rule
warrant officers don’t dissipate much of the owner’s time, but Click
put in an hour and more be’ind that door. My duties kep’ me within
eyeshot of it. Vickery came out first, an’ ’e actually nodded at me an’
smiled. This knocked me out o’ the boat, because, havin’ seen ’is face
for five consecutive nights, I didn’t anticipate any change there more
than a condenser in hell, so to speak. The owner emerged later. His
face didn’t read off at all, so I fell back on his cox, ’oo’d been
eight years with him and knew him better than boat signals. Lamson—that
was the cox’s name—crossed ’is bows once or twice at low speeds an’
dropped down to me visibly concerned. ‘He’s shipped ’is court-martial
face,’ says Lamson. ‘Some one’s goin’ to be ’ung. I’ve never seen that
look but once before when they chucked the gun-sights overboard in the
_Fantastic_.’ Throwin’ gun-sights overboard, Mr. Hooper, is the
equivalent for mutiny in these degenerate days. It’s done to attract
the notice of the authorities an’ the _Western Mornin’ News_—generally
by a stoker. Naturally, word went round the lower deck an’ we had a
private over’aul of our little consciences. But, barrin’ a shirt which
a second-class stoker said ’ad walked into ’is bag from the marines
flat by itself, nothin’ vital transpired. The owner went about flyin’
the signal for ‘attend public execution,’ so to say, but there was no
corpse at the yardarm. ’E lunched on the beach an’ ’e returned with ’is
regulation harbour-routine face about 3 P.M. Thus Lamson lost prestige
for raising false alarms. The only person ’oo might ’ave connected the
epicycloidal gears correctly was one Pyecroft, when he was told that
Mr. Vickery would go up country that same evening to take over certain
naval ammunition left after the war in Bloemfontein Fort. No details
was ordered to accompany Master Vickery. He was told off first person
singular—as a unit—-by himself.”

The marine whistled penetratingly.

“That’s what I thought,” said Pyecroft. “I went ashore with him in the
cutter an’ ’e asked me to walk through the station. He was clickin’
audibly, but otherwise seemed happy-ish.

“‘You might like to know,’ he says, stoppin’ just opposite the
Admiral’s front gate, ‘that Phyllis’s Circus will be performin’ at
Worcester to-morrow night. So I shall see ’er yet once again. You’ve
been very patient with me,’ he says.

“‘Look here, Vickery,’ I said, ‘this thing’s come to be just as much as
I can stand. Consume your own smoke. I don’t want to know any more.’

“‘You!’ he said. ‘What have you got to complain of?—you’ve only ’ad to
watch. I’m _it_,’ he says, ‘but that’s neither here nor there,’ he
says. ‘I’ve one thing to say before shakin’ ’ands. Remember,’ ’e
says—we were just by the Admiral’s garden-gate then—‘remember, that I
am _not_ a murderer, because my lawful wife died in childbed six weeks
after I came out. That much at least I am clear of,’ ’e says.

“‘Then what have you done that signifies?’ I said. ‘What’s the rest of
it?’

“‘The rest,’ ’e says, ‘is silence,’ an’ he shook ’ands and went
clickin’ into Simons Town station.”

“Did he stop to see Mrs. Bathurst at Worcester?” I asked.

“It’s not known. He reported at Bloemfontein, saw the ammunition into
the trucks, and then ’e disappeared. Went out—deserted, if you care to
put it so—within eighteen months of his pension, an’ if what ’e said
about ’is wife was true he was a free man as ’e then stood. How do you
read it off?”

“Poor devil!” said Hooper. “To see her that way every night! I wonder
what it was.”

“I’ve made my ’ead ache in that direction many a long night.”

“But I’ll swear Mrs. B. ’ad no ’and in it,” said the Sergeant unshaken.

“No. Whatever the wrong or deceit was, he did it, I’m sure o’ that. I
’ad to look at ’is face for five consecutive nights. I’m not so fond o’
navigatin’ about Cape Town with a South-Easter blowin’ these days. I
can hear those teeth click, so to say.”

“Ah, those teeth,” said Hooper, and his hand went to his waistcoat
pocket once more. “Permanent things false teeth are. You read about ’em
in all the murder trials.”

“What d’you suppose the captain knew—or did?” I asked.

“I never turned my searchlight that way,” Pyecroft answered
unblushingly.

We all reflected together, and drummed on empty beer bottles as the
picnic-party, sunburned, wet, and sandy, passed our door singing “The
Honeysuckle and the Bee.”

“Pretty girl under that kapje,” said Pyecroft.

“They never circulated his description?” said Pritchard.

“I was askin’ you before these gentlemen came,” said Hooper to me,
“whether you knew Wankies—on the way to the Zambesi—beyond Buluwayo?”

“Would he pass there—tryin’ to get to that Lake what’s ’is name?” said
Pritchard.

Hooper shook his head and went on: “There’s a curious bit o’ line
there, you see. It runs through solid teak forest—a sort o’ mahogany
really—seventy-two miles without a curve. I’ve had a train derailed
there twenty-three times in forty miles. I was up there a month ago
relievin’ a sick inspector, you see. He told me to look out for a
couple of tramps in the teak.”

“Two?” Pyecroft said. “I don’t envy that other man if——”

“We get heaps of tramps up there since the war. The inspector told me
I’d find ’em at M’Bindwe siding waiting to go North. He’d given ’em
some grub and quinine, you see. I went up on a construction train. I
looked out for ’em. I saw them miles ahead along the straight, waiting
in the teak. One of ’em was standin’ up by the dead-end of the siding
an’ the other was squattin’ down lookin’ up at ’im, you see.”

“What did you do for ’em?” said Pritchard.

“There wasn’t much I could do, except bury ’em. There’d been a bit of a
thunderstorm in the teak, you see, and they were both stone dead and as
black as charcoal. That’s what they really were, you see—charcoal. They
fell to bits when we tried to shift ’em. The man who was standin’ up
had the false teeth. I saw ’em shinin’ against the black. Fell to bits
he did too, like his mate squatting down an’ watchin’ him, both of ’em
all wet in the rain. Both burned to charcoal, you see. And—that’s what
made me ask about marks just now—the false-toother was tattooed on the
arms and chest—a crown and foul anchor with M.V. above.”

“I’ve seen that,” said Pyecroft quickly. “It was so.”

“But if he was all charcoal-like?” said Pritchard, shuddering.

“You know how writing shows up white on a burned letter? Well, it was
like that, you see. We buried ’em in the teak and I kept… But he was a
friend of you two gentlemen, you see.”

Mr. Hooper brought his hand away from his waistcoat-pocket—empty.

Pritchard covered his face with his hands for a moment, like a child
shutting out an ugliness.

“And to think of her at Hauraki!” he murmured—“with ’er ’air-ribbon on
my beer. ‘Ada,’ she said to her niece… Oh, my Gawd!”…

“On a summer afternoon, when the honeysuckle blooms,
    And all Nature seems at rest,
Underneath the bower, ’mid the perfume of the flower,
    Sat a maiden with the one she loves the best——”


sang the picnic-party waiting for their train at Glengariff.

“Well, I don’t know how you feel about it,” said Pyecroft, “but ’avin’
seen ’is face for five consecutive nights on end, I’m inclined to
finish what’s left of the beer an’ thank Gawd he’s dead!”




BELOW THE MILL DAM




“OUR FATHERS ALSO”


By—they are by with mirth and tears,
    Wit or the works of Desire—
Cushioned about on the kindly years
    Between the wall and the fire.

The grapes are pressed, the corn is shocked—
    Standeth no more to glean;
For the Gates of Love and Learning locked
    When they went out between.

All lore our Lady Venus bares
    Signalled it was or told
By the dear lips long given to theirs
    And longer to the mould.

All Profit, all Device, all Truth
    Written it was or said
By the mighty men of their mighty youth.
    Which is mighty being dead.

The film that floats before their eyes
    The Temple’s Veil they call;
And the dust that on the Shewbread lies
    Is holy over all.

Warn them of seas that slip our yoke
    Of slow conspiring stars—
The ancient Front of Things unbroke
    But heavy with new wars?

By—they are by with mirth and tears.
    Wit or the waste of Desire—
Cushioned about on the kindly years
    Between the wall and the fire.




BELOW THE MILL DAM


“Book—Book—Domesday Book!” They were letting in the water for the
evening stint at Robert’s Mill, and the wooden Wheel where lived the
Spirit of the Mill settled to its nine hundred year old song: “Here
Azor, a freeman, held one rod, but it never paid geld. _Nun-nun-nunquam
geldavit_. Here Reinbert has one villein and four cottars with one
plough—and wood for six hogs and two fisheries of sixpence and a mill
of ten shillings—_unum molinum_—one mill. Reinbert’s mill—Robert’s
Mill. Then and afterwards and now—_tunc et post et modo_—Robert’s Mill.
Book—Book—Domesday Book!”

“I confess,” said the Black Rat on the crossbeam, luxuriously trimming
his whiskers—“I confess I am not above appreciating my position and all
it means.” He was a genuine old English black rat, a breed which,
report says, is rapidly diminishing before the incursions of the brown
variety.

“Appreciation is the surest sign of inadequacy,” said the Grey Cat,
coiled up on a piece of sacking.

“But I know what you mean,” she added. “To sit by right at the heart of
things—eh?”

“Yes,” said the Black Rat, as the old mill shook and the heavy stones
thuttered on the grist. “To possess—er—all this environment as an
integral part of one’s daily life must insensibly of course … You see?”

“I feel,” said the Grey Cat. “Indeed, if _we_ are not saturated with
the spirit of the Mill, who should be?”

“Book—Book—Domesday Book!” the Wheel, set to his work, was running off
the tenure of the whole rape, for he knew Domesday Book backwards and
forwards: “_In Ferle tenuit Abbatia de Wiltuna unam hidam et unam
virgam et dimidiam. Nunquam geldavit_. And Agemond, a freeman, has half
a hide and one rod. I remember Agemond well. Charmin’ fellow—friend of
mine. He married a Norman girl in the days when we rather looked down
on the Normans as upstarts. An’ Agemond’s dead? So he is. Eh, dearie
me! dearie me! I remember the wolves howling outside his door in the
big frost of Ten Fifty-Nine…. _Essewelde hundredum nunquam geldum
reddidit_. Book! Book! Domesday Book!”

“After all,” the Grey Cat continued, “atmospere is life. It is the
influences under which we live that count in the long run. Now,
outside”—she cocked one ear towards the half-opened door—“there is an
absurd convention that rats and cats are, I won’t go so far as to say
natural enemies, but opposed forces. Some such ruling may be crudely
effective—I don’t for a minute presume to set up my standards as
final—among the ditches; but from the larger point of view that one
gains by living at the heart of things, it seems for a rule of life a
little overstrained. Why, because some of your associates have, shall I
say, liberal views on the ultimate destination of a sack
of—er—middlings don’t they call them——”

“Something of that sort,” said the Black Rat, a most sharp and
sweet-toothed judge of everything ground in the mill for the last three
years.

“Thanks—middlings be it. _Why_, as I was saying, must I disarrange my
fur and my digestion to chase you round the dusty arena whenever we
happen to meet?”

“As little reason,” said the Black Rat, “as there is for me, who, I
trust, am a person of ordinarily decent instincts, to wait till you
have gone on a round of calls, and then to assassinate your very
charming children.”

“Exactly! It has its humorous side though.” The Grey Cat yawned. “The
miller seems afflicted by it. He shouted large and vague threats to my
address, last night at tea, that he wasn’t going to keep cats who
‘caught no mice.’ Those were his words. I remember the grammar sticking
in my throat like a herring-bone.”

“And what did you do?”

“What does one do when a barbarian utters? One ceases to utter and
removes. I removed—towards his pantry. It was a _riposte_ he might
appreciate.”

“Really those people grow absolutely insufferable,” said the Black Rat.
“There is a local ruffian who answers to the name of Mangles—a
builder—who has taken possession of the outhouses on the far side of
the Wheel for the last fortnight. He has constructed cubical horrors in
red brick where those deliciously picturesque pigstyes used to stand.
Have you noticed?”

“There has been much misdirected activity of late among the humans.
They jabber inordinately. I haven’t yet been able to arrive at their
reason for existence.” The Cat yawned.

“A couple of them came in here last week with wires, and fixed them all
about the walls. Wires protected by some abominable composition, ending
in iron brackets with glass bulbs. Utterly useless for any purpose and
artistically absolutely hideous. What do they mean?”

“Aaah! I have known _four_-and-twenty leaders of revolt in Faenza,”
said the Cat, who kept good company with the boarders spending a summer
at the Mill Farm. “It means nothing except that humans occasionally
bring their dogs with them. I object to dogs in all forms.”

“Shouldn’t object to dogs,” said the Wheel sleepily…. “The Abbot of
Wilton kept the best pack in the county. He enclosed all the Harryngton
Woods to Sturt Common. Aluric, a freeman, was dispossessed of his
holding. They tried the case at Lewes, but he got no change out of
William de Warrenne on the bench. William de Warrenne fined Aluric
eight and fourpence for treason, and the Abbot of Wilton excommunicated
him for blasphemy. Aluric was no sportsman. Then the Abbot’s brother
married … I’ve forgotten her name, but she was a charmin’ little woman.
The Lady Philippa was her daughter. That was after the barony was
conferred. She rode devilish straight to hounds. They were a bit
throatier than we breed now, but a good pack: one of the best. The
Abbot kept ’em in splendid shape. Now, who was the woman the Abbot
kept? Book—Book! I shall have to go right back to Domesday and work up
the centuries: _Modo per omnia reddit burgum tunc—tunc—tunc_! Was it
_burgum_ or _hundredum_? I shall remember in a minute. There’s no
hurry.” He paused as he turned over silvered with showering drops.

“This won’t do,” said the Waters in the sluice. “Keep moving.”

The Wheel swung forward; the Waters roared on the buckets and dropped
down to the darkness below.

“Noisier than usual,” said the Black Rat. “It must have been raining up
the valley.”

“Floods maybe,” said the Wheel dreamily. “It isn’t the proper season,
but they can come without warning. I shall never forget the big
one—when the Miller went to sleep and forgot to open the hatches. More
than two hundred years ago it was, but I recall it distinctly. Most
unsettling.”

“We lifted that wheel off his bearings,” cried the Waters. “We said,
‘Take away that bauble!’ And in the morning he was five mile down the
valley—hung up in a tree.”

“Vulgar!” said the Cat. “But I am sure he never lost his dignity.”

“We don’t know. He looked like the Ace of Diamonds when we had finished
with him…. Move on there! Keep on moving. Over! Get over!”

“And why on this day more than any other,” said the Wheel statelily. “I
am not aware that my department requires the stimulus of external
pressure to keep it up to its duties. I trust I have the elementary
instincts of a gentleman.”

“Maybe,” the Waters answered together, leaping down on the buckets. “We
only know that you are very stiff on your bearings. Over, get over!”

The Wheel creaked and groaned. There was certainly greater pressure
upon him than he had ever felt, and his revolutions had increased from
six and three-quarters to eight and a third per minute. But the uproar
between the narrow, weed-hung walls annoyed the Grey Cat.

“Isn’t it almost time,” she said plaintively, “that the person who is
paid to understand these things shuts off those vehement drippings with
that screw-thing on the top of that box-thing.”

“They’ll be shut off at eight o’clock as usual,” said Rat; “then we can
go to dinner.”

“But we shan’t be shut off till ever so late,” said the Waters gaily.
“We shall keep it up all night.”

“The ineradicable offensiveness of youth is partially compensated for
by its eternal hopefulness,” said the Cat. “Our dam is not, I am glad
to say, designed to furnish water for more than four hours at a time.
Reserve is Life.”

“Thank goodness!” said the Black Rat. “Then they can return to their
native ditches.”

“Ditches!” cried the Waters; “Raven’s Gill Brook is no ditch. It is
almost navigable, and _we_ come from there away.” They slid over solid
and compact till the Wheel thudded under their weight.

“Raven’s Gill Brook,” said the Rat. “_I_ never heard of Raven’s Gill.”

“We are the waters of Harpenden Brook—down from under Callton Rise.
Phew! how the race stinks compared with the heather country.” Another
five foot of water flung itself against the Wheel, broke, roared,
gurgled, and was gone.

“Indeed,” said the Grey Cat, “I am sorry to tell you that Raven’s Gill
Brook is cut off from this valley by an absolutely impassable range of
mountains, and Callton Rise is more than nine miles away. It belongs to
another system entirely.”

“Ah yes,” said the Rat, grinning, “but we forget that, for the young,
water always runs uphill.”

“Oh, hopeless! hopeless! hopeless!” cried the Waters, descending
open-palmed upon the Wheel “There is nothing between here and Raven’s
Gill Brook that a hundred yards of channelling and a few square feet of
concrete could not remove; and hasn’t removed!”

“And Harpenden Brook is north of Raven’s Gill and runs into Raven’s
Gill at the foot of Callton Rise, where ilex trees are, and _we_ come
from there!” These were the glassy, clear waters of the high chalk.

“And Batten’s Ponds, that are fed by springs, have been led through
Trott’s Wood, taking the spare water from the old Witches’ Spring under
Churt Haw, and we—we—_we_ are their combined waters!” Those were the
Waters from the upland bogs and moors—a porter-coloured, dusky, and
foam-flecked flood.

“It’s all very interesting,” purred the Cat to the sliding waters, “and
I have no doubt that Trott’s Woods and Bott’s Woods are tremendously
important places; but if you could manage to do your work—whose value I
don’t in the least dispute—a little more soberly, I, for one, should be
grateful.”

“Book—book—book—book—book—Domesday Book!” The urged Wheel was fairly
clattering now: “In Burgelstaltone a monk holds of Earl Godwin one hide
and a half with eight villeins. There is a church—and a monk…. I
remember that monk. Blessed if he could rattle his rosary off any
quicker than I am doing now … and wood for seven hogs. I must be
running twelve to the minute … almost as fast as Steam. Damnable
invention, Steam! … Surely it’s time we went to dinner or prayers—or
something. Can’t keep up this pressure, day in and day out, and not
feel it. I don’t mind for myself, of course. _Noblesse oblige_, you
know. I’m only thinking of the Upper and the Nether Millstones. They
came out of the common rock. They can’t be expected to——”

“Don’t worry on our account, please,” said the Millstones huskily. “So
long as you supply the power we’ll supply the weight and the bite.”

“Isn’t it a trifle blasphemous, though, to work you in this way?”
grunted the Wheel. “I seem to remember something about the Mills of God
grinding ‘slowly.’ _Slowly_ was the word!”

“But we are not the Mills of God. We’re only the Upper and the Nether
Millstones. We have received no instructions to be anything else. We
are actuated by power transmitted through you.”

“Ah, but let us be merciful as we are strong. Think of all the
beautiful little plants that grow on my woodwork. There are five
varieties of rare moss within less than one square yard—and all these
delicate jewels of nature are being grievously knocked about by this
excessive rush of the water.”

“Umph!” growled the Millstones. “What with your religious scruples and
your taste for botany we’d hardly know you for the Wheel that put the
carter’s son under last autumn. You never worried about _him_!”

“He ought to have known better.”

“So ought your jewels of nature. Tell ’em to grow where it’s safe.”

“How a purely mercantile life debases and brutalises!” said the Cat to
the Rat.

“They were such beautiful little plants too,” said the Rat tenderly.
“Maiden’s-tongue and hart’s-hair fern trellising all over the wall just
as they do on the sides of churches in the Downs. Think what a joy the
sight of them must be to our sturdy peasants pulling hay!”

“Golly!” said the Millstones. “There’s nothing like coming to the heart
of things for information”; and they returned to the song that all
English water-mills have sung from time beyond telling:

There was a jovial miller once
    Lived on the River Dee,
And this the burden of his song
    For ever used to be.


Then, as fresh grist poured in and dulled the note:

I care for nobody—no not I,
    And nobody cares for me.


“Even these stones have absorbed something of our atmosphere,” said the
Grey Cat. “Nine-tenths of the trouble in this world comes from lack of
detachment.”

“One of your people died from forgetting that, didn’t she?” said the
Rat.

“One only. The example has sufficed us for generations.”

“Ah! but what happened to Don’t Care?” the Waters demanded.

“Brutal riding to death of the casual analogy is another mark of
provincialism!” The Grey Cat raised her tufted chin. “I am going to
sleep. With my social obligations I must snatch rest when I can; but,
as our old friend here says, _Noblesse oblige_…. Pity me! Three
functions to-night in the village, and a barn dance across the valley!”

“There’s no chance, I suppose, of your looking in on the loft about
two. Some of our young people are going to amuse themselves with a new
sacque-dance—best white flour only,” said the Black Rat.

“I believe I am officially supposed not to countenance that sort of
thing, but youth is youth.… By the way, the humans set my milk-bowl in
the loft these days; I hope your youngsters respect it.”

“My dear lady,” said the Black Rat, bowing, “you grieve me. You hurt me
inexpressibly. After all these years, too!”

“A general crush is so mixed—highways and hedges—all that sort of
thing—and no one can answer for one’s best friends. _I_ never try. So
long as mine are amusin’ and in full voice, and can hold their own at a
tile-party, I’m as catholic as these mixed waters in the dam here!”

“We aren’t mixed. We _have_ mixed. We are one now,” said the Waters
sulkily.

“Still uttering?” said the Cat. “Never mind, here’s the Miller coming
to shut you off. Ye-es, I have known—_four_—or five is it?—and twenty
leaders of revolt in Faenza…. A little more babble in the dam, a little
more noise in the sluice, a little extra splashing on the wheel, and
then——”

“They will find that nothing has occurred,” said the Black Rat. “The
old things persist and survive and are recognised—our old friend here
first of all. By the way,” he turned toward the Wheel, “I believe we
have to congratulate you on your latest honour.”

“Profoundly well deserved—even if he had never—as he has—-laboured
strenuously through a long life for the amelioration of millkind,” said
the Cat, who belonged to many tile and outhouse committees. “Doubly
deserved, I may say, for the silent and dignified rebuke his existence
offers to the clattering, fidgety-footed demands of—er—some people.
What form did the honour take?”

“It was,” said the Wheel bashfully, “a machine-moulded pinion.”

“Pinions! Oh, how heavenly!” the Black Rat sighed. “I never see a bat
without wishing for wings.”

“Not exactly that sort of pinion,” said the Wheel, “but a really ornate
circle of toothed iron wheels. Absurd, of course, but gratifying. Mr.
Mangles and an associate herald invested me with it personally—on my
left rim—the side that you can’t see from the mill. I hadn’t meant to
say anything about it—or the new steel straps round my axles—bright
red, you know—to be worn on all occasions—but, without false modesty, I
assure you that the recognition cheered me not a little.”

“How intensely gratifying!” said the Black Rat. “I must really steal an
hour between lights some day and see what they are doing on your left
side.”

“By the way, have you any light on this recent activity of Mr.
Mangles?” the Grey Cat asked. “He seems to be building small houses on
the far side of the tail-race. Believe me, I don’t ask from any vulgar
curiosity.”

“It affects our Order,” said the Black Rat simply but firmly.

“Thank you,” said the Wheel. “Let me see if I can tabulate it properly.
Nothing like system in accounts of all kinds. Book! Book! Book! On the
side of the Wheel towards the hundred of Burgelstaltone, where till now
was a stye of three hogs, Mangles, a freeman, with four villeins, and
two carts of two thousand bricks, has a new small house of five yards
and a half, and one roof of iron and a floor of cement. Then, now, and
afterwards beer in large tankards. And Felden, a stranger, with three
villeins and one very great cart, deposits on it one engine of iron and
brass and a small iron mill of four feet, and a broad strap of leather.
And Mangles, the builder, with two villeins, constructs the floor for
the same, and a floor of new brick with wires for the small mill. There
are there also chalices filled with iron and water, in number
fifty-seven. The whole is valued at one hundred and seventy-four
pounds…. I’m sorry I can’t make myself clearer, but you can see for
yourself.”

“Amazingly lucid,” said the Cat. She was the more to be admired because
the language of Domesday Book is not, perhaps, the clearest medium
wherein to describe a small but complete electric-light installation,
deriving its power from a water-wheel by means of cogs and gearing.

“See for yourself—by all means, see for yourself,” said the Waters,
spluttering and choking with mirth.

“Upon my word,” said the Black Rat furiously, “I may be at fault, but I
wholly fail to perceive where these offensive eavesdroppers—er—come in.
We were discussing a matter that solely affected our Order.”

Suddenly they heard, as they had heard many times before, the Miller
shutting off the water. To the rattle and rumble of the labouring
stones succeeded thick silence, punctuated with little drops from the
stayed wheel. Then some water-bird in the dam fluttered her wings as
she slid to her nest, and the plop of a water-rat sounded like the fall
of a log in the water.

“It is all over—it always is all over at just this time. Listen, the
Miller is going to bed—as usual. Nothing has occurred,” said the Cat.

Something creaked in the house where the pig-styes had stood, as metal
engaged on metal with a clink and a burr.

“Shall I turn her on?” cried the Miller.

“Ay,” said the voice from the dynamo-house.

“A human in Mangles’ new house!” the Rat squeaked.

“What of it?” said the Grey Cat. “Even supposing Mr. Mangles’
cats’-meat-coloured hovel ululated with humans, can’t you see for
yourself—that—?”

There was a solid crash of released waters leaping upon the wheel more
furiously than ever, a grinding of cogs, a hum like the hum of a
hornet, and then the unvisited darkness of the old mill was scattered
by intolerable white light. It threw up every cobweb, every burl and
knot in the beams and the floor; till the shadows behind the flakes of
rough plaster on the wall lay clear-cut as shadows of mountains on the
photographed moon.

“See! See! See!” hissed the Waters in full flood. “Yes, see for
yourselves. Nothing has occurred. Can’t you see?”

The Rat, amazed, had fallen from his foothold and lay half-stunned on
the floor. The Cat, following her instinct, leaped nigh to the ceiling,
and with flattened ears and bared teeth backed in a corner ready to
fight whatever terror might be loosed on her. But nothing happened.
Through the long aching minutes nothing whatever happened, and her
wire-brush tail returned slowly to its proper shape.

“Whatever it is,” she said at last, “it’s overdone. They can never keep
it up, you know.”

“Much you know,” said the Waters. “Over you go, old man. You can take
the full head of us now. Those new steel axle-straps of yours can stand
anything. Come along, Raven’s Gill, Harpenden, Callton Rise, Batten’s
Ponds, Witches’ Spring, all together! Let’s show these gentlemen how to
work!”

“But—but—I thought it was a decoration. Why—why—why—it only means more
work for _me_!”

“Exactly. You’re to supply about sixty eight-candle lights when
required. But they won’t be all in use at once——”

“Ah! I thought as much,” said the Cat. “The reaction is bound to come.”

“_And_,” said the Waters, “you will do the ordinary work of the mill as
well.”

“Impossible!” the old Wheel quivered as it drove. “Aluric never did
it—nor Azor, nor Reinbert. Not even William de Warrenne or the Papal
Legate. There’s no precedent for it. I tell you there’s no precedent
for working a wheel like this.”

“Wait a while! We’re making one as fast as we can. Aluric and Co. are
dead. So’s the Papal Legate. You’ve no notion how dead they are, but
we’re here—the Waters of Five Separate Systems. We’re just as
interesting as Domesday Book. Would you like to hear about the
land-tenure in Trott’s Wood? It’s squat-right, chiefly.” The mocking
Waters leaped one over the other, chuckling and chattering profanely.

“In that hundred Jenkins, a tinker, with one dog—_unis canis_—holds, by
the Grace of God and a habit he has of working hard, _unam hidam_—a
large potato patch. Charmin’ fellow, Jenkins. Friend of ours. Now, who
the dooce did Jenkins keep? … In the hundred of Callton is one
charcoal-burner _irreligiosissimus homo_—a bit of a rip—but a thorough
sportsman. _Ibi est ecclesia. Non multum_. Not much of a church, _quia_
because, _episcopus_ the Vicar irritated the Nonconformists _tunc et
post et modo_—then and afterwards and now—until they built a cut-stone
Congregational chapel with red brick facings that did not return
itself—_defendebat se_—at four thousand pounds.”

“Charcoal-burners, vicars, schismatics, and red brick facings,” groaned
the Wheel. “But this is sheer blasphemy. What waters have they let in
upon me?”

“Floods from the gutters. Faugh, this light is positively sickening!”
said the Cat, rearranging her fur.

“We come down from the clouds or up from the springs, exactly like all
other waters everywhere. Is that what’s surprising you?” sang the
Waters.

“Of course not. I know my work if you don’t. What I complain of is your
lack of reverence and repose. You’ve no instinct of deference towards
your betters—your heartless parody of the Sacred volume (the Wheel
meant Domesday Book)—proves it.”

“Our betters?” said the Waters most solemnly. “What is there in all
this dammed race that hasn’t come down from the clouds, or——”

“Spare me that talk, please,” the Wheel persisted. “You’d _never_
understand. It’s the tone—your tone that we object to.”

“Yes. It’s your tone,” said the Black Rat, picking himself up limb by
limb.

“If you thought a trifle more about the work you’re supposed to do, and
a trifle less about your precious feelings, you’d render a little more
duty in return for the power vested in you—we mean wasted on you,” the
Waters replied.

“I have been some hundreds of years laboriously acquiring the knowledge
which you see fit to challenge so light-heartedly,” the Wheel jarred.

“Challenge him! Challenge him!” clamoured the little waves riddling
down through the tail-race. “As well now as later. Take him up!”

The main mass of the Waters plunging on the Wheel shocked that
well-bolted structure almost into box-lids by saying: “Very good. Tell
us what you suppose yourself to be doing at the present moment.”

“Waiving the offensive form of your question, I answer, purely as a
matter of courtesy, that I am engaged in the trituration of farinaceous
substances whose ultimate destination it would be a breach of the trust
reposed in me to reveal.”

“Fiddle!” said the Waters. “We knew it all along! The first direct
question shows his ignorance of his own job. Listen, old thing. Thanks
to us, you are now actuating a machine of whose construction you know
nothing, that that machine may, over wires of whose ramifications you
are, by your very position, profoundly ignorant, deliver a power which
you can never realise, to localities beyond the extreme limits of your
mental horizon, with the object of producing phenomena which in your
wildest dreams (if you ever dream) you could never comprehend. Is that
clear, or would you like it all in words of four syllables?”

“Your assumptions are deliciously sweeping, but may I point out that a
decent and—the dear old Abbot of Wilton would have put it in his
resonant monkish Latin much better than I can—a scholarly reserve, does
not necessarily connote blank vacuity of mind on all subjects.”

“Ah, the dear old Abbot of Wilton,” said the Rat sympathetically, as
one nursed in that bosom. “Charmin’ fellow—thorough scholar and
gentleman. Such a pity!”

“Oh, Sacred Fountains!” the Waters were fairly boiling. “He goes out of
his way to expose his ignorance by triple bucketfuls. He creaks to high
Heaven that he is hopelessly behind the common order of things! He
invites the streams of Five Watersheds to witness his su-su-su-pernal
incompetence, and then he talks as though there were untold reserves of
knowledge behind him that he is too modest to bring forward. For a
bland, circular, absolutely sincere impostor, you’re a miracle, O
Wheel!”

“I do not pretend to be anything more than an integral portion of an
accepted and not altogether mushroom institution.”

“Quite so,” said the Waters. “Then go round—hard——”

“To what end?” asked the Wheel.

“Till a big box of tanks in your house begins to fizz and fume—gassing
is the proper word.”

“It would be,” said the Cat, sniffing.

“That will show that your accumulators are full. When the accumulators
are exhausted, and the lights burn badly, you will find us whacking you
round and round again.”

“The end of life as decreed by Mangles and his creatures is to go
whacking round and round for ever,” said the Cat.

“In order,” the Rat said, “that you may throw raw and unnecessary
illumination upon all the unloveliness in the world. Unloveliness which
we shall—er—have always with us. At the same time you will riotously
neglect the so-called little but vital graces that make up Life.”

“Yes, Life,” said the Cat, “with its dim delicious half-tones and
veiled indeterminate distances. Its surprisals, escapes, encounters,
and dizzying leaps—its full-throated choruses in honour of the morning
star, and its melting reveries beneath the sun-warmed wall.”

“Oh, you can go on the tiles, Pussalina, just the same as usual,” said
the laughing Waters. “_We_ sha’n’t interfere with you.”

“On the tiles, forsooth!” hissed the Cat.

“Well, that’s what it amounts to,” persisted the Waters. “We see a good
deal of the minor graces of life on our way down to our job.”

“And—but I fear I speak to deaf ears—do they never impress you?” said
the Wheel.

“Enormously,” said the Waters. “We have already learned six refined
synonyms for loafing.”

“But (here again I feel as though preaching in the wilderness) it never
occurs to you that there may exist some small difference between the
wholly animal—ah—rumination of bovine minds and the discerning,
well-apportioned leisure of the finer type of intellect?”

“Oh, yes. The bovine mind goes to sleep under a hedge and makes no
bones about it when it’s shouted at. We’ve seen _that_—in
haying-time—all along the meadows. The finer type is wide awake enough
to fudge up excuses for shirking, and mean enough to get stuffy when
its excuses aren’t accepted. Turn over!”

“But, my good people, no gentleman gets stuffy as you call it. A
certain proper pride, to put it no higher, forbids—-”

“Nothing that he wants to do if he really wants to do it. Get along!
What are you giving us? D’you suppose we’ve scoured half heaven in the
clouds, and half earth in the mists, to be taken in at this time of the
day by a bone-idle, old hand-quern of your type?”

“It is not for me to bandy personalities with you. I can only say that
I simply decline to accept the situation.”

“Decline away. It doesn’t make any odds. They’ll probably put in a
turbine if you decline too much.”

“What’s a turbine?” said the Wheel, quickly.

“A little thing you don’t see, that performs surprising revolutions.
But you won’t decline. You’ll hang on to your two nice red-strapped
axles and your new machine-moulded pinions like—a—like a leech on a
lily stem! There’s centuries of work in your old bones if you’d only
apply yourself to it; and, mechanically, an overshot wheel with this
head of water is about as efficient as a turbine.”

“So in future I am to be considered mechanically? I have been painted
by at least five Royal Academicians.”

“Oh, you can be painted by five hundred when you aren’t at work, of
course. But while you are at work you’ll work. You won’t half-stop and
think and talk about rare plants and dicky-birds and farinaceous
fiduciary interests. You’ll continue to revolve, and this new head of
water will see that you do so continue.”

“It is a matter on which it would be exceedingly ill-advised to form a
hasty or a premature conclusion. I will give it my most careful
consideration,” said the Wheel.

“Please do,” said the Waters gravely. “Hullo! Here’s the Miller again.”

The Cat coiled herself in a picturesque attitude on the softest corner
of a sack, and the Rat without haste, yet certainly without rest,
slipped behind the sacking as though an appointment had just occurred
to him.

In the doorway, with the young Engineer, stood the Miller grinning
amazedly.

“Well—well—well! ’tis true-ly won’erful. An’ what a power o’ dirt! It
come over me now looking at these lights, that I’ve never rightly seen
my own mill before. She needs a lot bein’ done to her.”

“Ah! I suppose one must make oneself moderately agreeable to the baser
sort. They have their uses. This thing controls the dairy.” The Cat,
pincing on her toes, came forward and rubbed her head against the
Miller’s knee.

“Ay, you pretty puss,” he said, stooping. “You’re as big a cheat as the
rest of ’em that catch no mice about me. A won’erful smooth-skinned,
rough-tongued cheat you be. I’ve more than half a mind——”

“She does her work well,” said the Engineer, pointing to where the
Rat’s beady eyes showed behind the sacking. “Cats and Rats livin’
together—see?”

“Too much they do—too long they’ve done. I’m sick and tired of it. Go
and take a swim and larn to find your own vittles honest when you come
out, Pussy.”

“My word!” said the Waters, as a sprawling Cat landed all unannounced
in the centre of the tail-race. “Is that you, Mewsalina? You seem to
have been quarrelling with your best friend. Get over to the left. It’s
shallowest there. Up on that alder-root with all four paws.
Good-night!”

“You’ll never get any they rats,” said the Miller, as the young
Engineer struck wrathfully with his stick at the sacking. “They’re not
the common sort. They’re the old black English sort.”

“Are they, by Jove? I must catch one to stuff, some day.”


Six months later, in the chill of a January afternoon, they were
letting in the Waters as usual.

“Come along! It’s both gears this evening,” said the Wheel, kicking
joyously in the first rush of the icy stream. “There’s a heavy load of
grist just in from Lamber’s Wood. Eleven miles it came in an hour and a
half in our new motor-lorry, and the Miller’s rigged five new
five-candle lights in his cow-stables. I’m feeding ’em to-night.
There’s a cow due to calve. Oh, while I think of it, what’s the news
from Callton Rise?”

“The waters are finding their level as usual—but why do you ask?” said
the deep outpouring Waters.

“Because Mangles and Felden and the Miller are talking of increasing
the plant here and running a saw-mill by electricity. I was wondering
whether we——”

“I beg your pardon,” said the Waters chuckling. “_What_ did you say?”

“Whether _we_, of course, had power enough for the job. It will be a
biggish contract. There’s all Harpenden Brook to be considered and
Batten’s Ponds as well, and Witches’ Fountain, and the Churt’s Hawd
system.

“We’ve power enough for anything in the world,” said the Waters. “The
only question is whether you could stand the strain if we came down on
you full head.”

“Of course I can,” said the Wheel. “Mangles is going to turn me into a
set of turbines—beauties.”

“Oh—er—I suppose it’s the frost that has made us a little thick-headed,
but to whom are we talking?” asked the amazed Waters.

“To me—the Spirit of the Mill, of course.”

“Not to the old Wheel, then?”

“I happen to be living in the old Wheel just at present. When the
turbines are installed I shall go and live in them. What earthly
difference does it make?”

“Absolutely none,” said the Waters, “in the earth or in the waters
under the earth. But we thought turbines didn’t appeal to you.”

“Not like turbines? Me? My dear fellows, turbines are good for fifteen
hundred revolutions a minute—and with our power we can drive ’em at
full speed. Why, there’s nothing we couldn’t grind or saw or illuminate
or heat with a set of turbines! That’s to say if all the Five
Watersheds are agreeable.”

“Oh, we’ve been agreeable for ever so long.”

“Then why didn’t you tell me?”

“Don’t know. Suppose it slipped our memory.”

The Waters were holding themselves in for fear of bursting with mirth.

“How careless of you! You should keep abreast of the age, my dear
fellows. We might have settled it long ago, if you’d only spoken. Yes,
four good turbines and a neat brick penstock—eh? This old Wheel’s
absurdly out of date.”

“Well,” said the Cat, who after a little proud seclusion had returned
to her place impenitent as ever. “Praised be Pasht and the Old Gods,
that whatever may have happened _I_, at least, have preserved the
Spirit of the Mill!”

She looked round as expecting her faithful ally, the Black Rat; but
that very week the Engineer had caught and stuffed him, and had put him
in a glass case; he being a genuine old English black rat. That breed,
the report says, is rapidly diminishing before the incursions of the
brown variety.