Trrt--trrt--trrt. Just that little sound, as the sticks flirted with
the drumheads to keep the men in step; for Her Majesty's 404th Fusiliers
were marching "easy." So it was called; and it meant with the men
smoking, and carrying their rifles as they pleased--shouldered, at the
trail, slung muzzle up or muzzle down. But, all the same, it was a
miserable fiction to call it marching easy, for it was impossible to
make that march anything but hard. Why? Because of the road.
No; that is a fiction, too. It is absurd to call that stony shelf of
rock, encumbered with stones of all sizes, full of cracks and holes, a
road. It was almost in its natural state, with a smooth place here and
there where it had been polished in bygone ages by avalanches of ice or
stones.
But the sun shone brightly; the scenery was glorious, and grew in places
awe-inspiring, as the regiment wound up and up the pass, and glimpses of
snow-capped mountain and glowing valley were obtained.
To any one perched on high, as were a few scattered goats, the regiment,
with its two mounted officers, its long train of mules, ambulance, and
baggage-guard, and the native attendants, must have looked like a colony
of marauding ants on their march, so wonderfully was everything dwarfed;
even the grand deodar cedars growing far down the precipitous slopes
below the track, which were stately trees, springing up to a hundred and
a hundred and fifty feet, looking like groups of shrubs in the clear,
pure air.
It was as much climbing as marching, and, as Bill Gedge said, "all agin
the collar;" but the men did not seem to mind, as they mounted higher
and higher in the expectation of finding that the next turn of the
zigzag was the top of the pass.
"Here, I say," cried the owner of the just-mentioned name, a thin,
wiry-looking fellow, whom so far drill and six months in the North-west
Territory of Her Majesty's Indian dominions had not made
muscular-looking; though, for the matter of that, he did not differ much
from his companions, who in appearance were of the thorough East-end
Cockney type--that rather degenerate class of lads who look fifteen or
sixteen at most when twenty. Stamina seemed to be wanting, chests
looked narrow, and their tunics covered gaunt and angular bodies, while
their spiked white helmets, though they fitted their heads, had rather
an extinguisher-like effect over the thin, hollow-cheeked, beardless
faces.
Defects, all these, that would naturally die out; but at the time now
under consideration any newspaper writer would have been justified in
calling them a regiment of boys.
But, boy-like, it did not trouble them, for, apparently as fresh as when
they had started hours before, they seemed to be revelling in the
wonderful air of the mountain region, and to be as full of antics as a
party of schoolfellows out for a day. Songs had been sung, each with a
roaring chorus; tricks had been surreptitiously played on the "pass it
on" principle--a lad in the rear tilting the helmet of the file in front
over his eyes, or giving him a sounding spank on the shoulder with the
above admonition, when it was taken with a grin and passed on right away
to the foremost rank; while the commissioned officers seemed to be
peculiarly blind and deaf so long as their lads marched well, and there
was no falling-out of done-up fellows waiting for the ambulance to
overtake them for the rest of the march.
"Here, I say," cried Private Gedge, "I ain't a-going to drop no coppers
in no blessed hats when that there band comes round. They don't 'arf
play."
"Don't keep _on_," said the file on his left.
"Play? Yah! Why, we might jest as well have a dozen of them
tom-tomming niggers in front saying `Shallabala' as they taps the skins
with their brown fingers."
"You are a chap, Bill," said another. "Talk about yer Syety for Cruelty
to Hanimals! Why, yer orter be fined. It's all I can do to keep wind
enough to climb up here, let alone having to blow a brass
traction-engine, or even a fife."
"Gahn! They're used to it. They don't half play. Pass the word on for
`Brish Grannydiers.'"
Bang--bang--bang--bang! Four distinct beats of the big drum, which were
taken up by the echoes and repeated till they died away in the distance,
in company with volleys of notes in a spirited crash from the brass
instruments far in front, as the band struck up a rattling march, whose
effect was to make breasts swell, heads perk up, and the lads pull
themselves together and march on, many of them beginning to hum the
familiar melody which had brightened many a long, up-country tramp.
"Talk about telly-phoning, Billy; they heered you without."
"Yes, that's your style," cried the first speaker, bursting out with a
very good imitation of Punch in one of his vocal efforts, and
supplementing it with a touch of the terpsichorean, tripping along in
step with a suggestion of a nigger minstrel's jig.
Marching easy does not mean free and easy: and this was too much for one
of the sergeants of the company, a tall, gaunt, particularly bony-faced
fellow, frowning and full of importance, but almost as boyish of aspect
as those who bore no chevrons on their sleeves.
He came up at the double, unnoticed by the dancer, and tried to range up
alongside; but the rocky shelf was for some minutes not wide enough.
Consequently he had time to grow redder in the face and more angry.
At last, though, he was in a position to speak.
"Here, you, sir," he shouted; "drop that. You're not on a cellar flap
now. Recollect where you are."
Private Gedge gave a start, and squinted horribly for the benefit of his
comrades right and left, as he pulled himself together, jerked his rifle
over from one shoulder to the other, and marched on with his body stiff
as a rifle-barrel.
"You're too full of these monkey-tricks, sir; and if there's any more of
them I shall report you."
Private Gedge squinted more horribly than ever, as he marched on now as
stiffly as if being drilled--too stiffly to satisfy the sergeant, who
kept close behind.
"March easy, sir! march easy!" he cried importantly, and the offender
dropped his rigidity, the result being that the sergeant returned to his
place in the rear of the company, while Private Gedge relieved his
feelings in a whisper.
"Yah! Gee up! Gee! Who wouldn't be a sergeant? Bless his heart! I
love him 'most as much as my mother dear--my mother dear--my gee-yentle
mother deear."
He sang the last words, but in a suppressed voice, to the great
amusement of his fellows.
"Oh, I say, I wish I warn't a swaddy," he whispered.
"Why?" asked the lad on his left.
"So as to give old Gee one on the nose, and then have it out with him.
I'd make him warm. It's this sort o' thing as makes me hate it all.
The orficers don't mind us having a bit of a lark to make the march go
light. They takes no notice so long as we're ready for 'tention and 'll
fight. It's on'y chaps like Tommy Gee as has got his stripes that comes
down upon you. Why, I was singing and doing that plantation song on'y
yesterday, and Mr Bracy and Cap'en Roberts come along, and they both
laughed. Bet sixpence the Colonel would have looked t'other way.--Oh, I
say, ain't I hungry! Is it much farther?"
"I dunno," said another; "but ain't the wind cold up here?"
"Band's done again," said Gedge. "That was a short un. I s'pose if I
was to cry `Hongcore' old Gee 'd be down upon me again."
Ten minutes later the men had something more substantial to think about
than music, for the shelf-like track came to an end in a great natural
amphitheatre, whose walls were dwarfed mountains streaked with rifts and
ravines which glistened white and sparkling as they scored the green
grassy slopes, while the floor of the great hollow was a beautiful mead
through which a fairly rapid torrent ran.
The halt was called upon a tolerably smooth level, arms were piled, and
with the celerity displayed in a regiment on the march, the camp
kitchens were formed, the smoke of fires rose, and videttes being thrown
out after the fashion observed in an enemy's country, the men were free
for a couple of hours' halt for rest and refreshment, to their great
delight.
Pending the efforts of the regimental and camp follower cooks, some of
the men began to roam about within bounds; and the group to which
Private Gedge was joined made for one of the little ravines which
glistened white in the sunshine, and the joker of the company soon made
his voice heard.
"Oh, I say," he cried. "Only look! Here yer are, then. Here's yer
hoky-poky. Here's yer real 'apenny ices laid on free gratis for
nothing. Here yer are, sir; which 'll yer 'ave, strorbry or rarsbry?
The real oridgenal 'stablishment, kep' by Billi Sneakino Pianni Organni.
Who says hoky-poky?"
"Why, 'tis real ice, Bill," said one of the men.
"Snow," said another.
"Gahn!" cried Private Gedge, scooping up a couple of handfuls. "It's
hailstones, that's what it is. You on'y get snow atop o' the high
mountains."
"But it is snow, my lad," said a voice from behind, and the party
started round, to see that a couple of their officers had followed to
look at the glittering rift which ran right up hundreds of feet. "We're
pretty high now."
"How high, sir?" said Gedge, saluting.
"We're at the top of the pass now," said the young officer who had
spoken; "ten thousand feet above the sea."
"Why, that's higher than the top of Saint Paul's, sir," said one of the
men.
"Top o' Saint Paul's," cried Gedge scornfully. "Why, it's higher than
the Monniment atop o' that. Higher than 'Amstead, ain't it, sir?"
"Yes," said the young officer, smiling.--"Don't straggle away, my lads.
Keep close in."
The speaker strolled away back with his companion towards where the
native servants were busily preparing the mess meal, and their men
looked after them.
"Ain't them two chummy?" said one.
"They jest are," said Gedge. "That Captain Roberts aren't a bad sort;
but Mr Bracy's the chap for my money. He looks as if he could fight,
too, if we had a row with the niggers."
"Oh, I don't know," said another superciliously; "you can't never tell.
Some o' them nice-looking dossy chaps ain't up to much. They can talk,
but they talk too fast. How could he know we were ten thousand foot
high? Why, that must be miles, and that's all stuff."
"What do you know about it, stoopid?" cried Gedge fiercely. "Miles.
Why, of course it is. Ain't we come miles this morning?"
"Longwise, but not uppards."
"Not uppards? Why, it's been sich a gettin' upstairs ever since we
started this morning. Don't you be so jolly ready to kick again' your
orficers. Mr Bracy's a reg'lar good sort; and if we comes to a set-to
with the niggers he'll let some of yer see. I say, though, think we
shall have a row?"
"You bet! I heered Sergeant Gee say we should be at it 'fore long, and
that these here--what do they call 'em?"
"Dwats," said one of the men.
"Yes, that's it," cried Gedge. "That's right. I remember, because I
said to myself if we did we'd jolly soon give 'em Dwat for."
Just then a bugle rang out, and the men doubled back for the lines,
where, thanks to the clever native cooks, a hastily prepared meal was
ready and made short work of, the keen mountain air and the long march
having given the men a ravenous appetite.