A SHIP WITHOUT A RUDDER
I
If I were a painter I should make three pictures. For the painting
of _Life_ I should dip my brushes only in sunlight and starlight.
That it contrast with the darkness his figure should stand radiant.
For the painting of _Hope_ the sunrise should be my palette, and
robed in splendors of the sky, triumphant he should ride an unstable
sea of glory. But for the painting of _Memory_, when I had used up
all the sunset, I should pray God lend me a pot of glamour.
It is that glamour which allays the burning pain of memory, the
fierce regret, the anger, shame, remorse. The stark event, the
odious consequence, the bitter aftermath are all, as one looks back,
arrayed in lovely hues of distance, and a sweet magic torn from the
veil of time. So I recall that last year of my service in the
mounted police; my soul which outlived defeat becomes victorious. He
who stumbles and falls not, only mends his pace.
First I must speak of Sam, the young superintendent commanding D, an
Irish-Canadian gentleman of a service family, and Regimental No. 1 of
the mounted police. Because he was a born soldier, a record-breaking
horseman, a great scout master and an incomparable leader, the
untameable outlaws of the force were sent to him for treatment. They
feared him, as they feared death, ate out of his hand, and made his
division the crack troop of the outfit. He would carouse with his
troopers all night, and punish us in the morning for being drunk,
would drill us till we smashed, punish us without mercy and prove our
best friend when we were in trouble. We loved and hated him
fanatically, and like inspired fanatics made a crusade of our duties.
The troop was just as brilliant as its leader.
In 1887, Chief Isadore and his Kootenay tribe were restive, so the
province of British Columbia asked the Dominion government for help,
and our troop was sent across the Crow's Nest Pass of the Rocky
Mountains. Our base camp was the site of Fort Steele on Wild Horse
Creek.
Now an English curate came to pass, and grieved at our spiritual
destitution proposed an open air service. So Sam, being by his blood
Anglican, Royalist and a soldier, ordered a church parade. Whereupon
some of us became Roman Catholic, others found that their duties
forbade attendance, and the rest of the troop went sick. Hence, a
proclamation that at the sound of the bugle, cooks and Catholics,
sick, lame or lazy should attend Sam's church parade on pain of
death. Sam had his back up. Also the troop had its back up and in
mass meeting resolved that any son of a sea cook presuming to sing,
respond or contribute at a compulsory church parade should afterward
be drowned. The service was therefore a duet between Sam and the
curate without any sound from the chorus. Afterward Sam preached,
announcing a second church parade next Sunday and hinting at setting
up drills which would make the dearly beloved brethren sweat blood.
That afternoon at the bathing place we tried Beef Hardy by
court-martial for contributing to the curate's offertory. He proved
that he was only a civilian interpreter attached, and that his
offering was a button. We had to let him off, but the whole troop
yearned for somebody to drown.
"Brethren," said I. "Sinners! When that kind gentleman saved our
souls this morning, it was borne in upon me what an abandoned parcel
of Gadarene swine you all are--except me. You forget that our Sam is
Smoothbore, the father of many children."
"Ho! Catch on to the Blackguard sucking up to Sam!"
"Triplet. I'm a man, and you're a nasty trick played on your mother."
The sentiment was cheered.
"And now," said I, "my little friends, I'm going to break out in a
new place. I've got religion, and I don't propose to let you pollute
my holy peace by using bad words, unless you think you can lick me."
"Why, dammit!" howled Red Saunders, who had the foulest mouth in the
troop.
"My erring brother," said I.
"You go to 'ell!"
He dived, and fully dressed as I was I followed, holding him under
water by his gaudy hair until he made signs for peace. Then he came
up spluttering to breathe.
"But 'ow the devil--"
I told him not to brag about his father, then called him a
catechumen, which knocked him out.
"Wall, I'll be damned!" said Pieface.
"True," said I, and immersed him. "Dost thou repent thee, Pieface?
Art thou resolved to live a godly life, and pay me back three dollars
that thou owest?"
I drowned him until he promised to sing in my choir next Sunday.
So finding that troopers were not allowed to swear, Mutiny,
Tribulation and Calamity, who always hunted in concert, began a
combined attack upon St. Blackguard.
On that, five decent men who disliked foul language promptly joined
my choir for next Sunday, and proceeded to enlist with contusions
Mutiny, Calamity and Tribulation. These with Red and Pieface for
choristers-by-force, made eleven singers. They held the ring while I
fought a battle with the cook. This learned doctor of beans and
sow-belly outweighed me mainly below the belt, but was so fat that I
found his vitals very hard to come at, and feared I should be
overlain and smothered. Nine rounds we fought before he could be
converted; but with him came three penitents whom he had thrashed
that summer, and when they confessed their errors I had half the duty
men for choristers at a cost of only two black eyes and an inflamed
ear.
Nothing would suit me now short of triumph over all the wicked, but
to secure a unanimous vote I must use the curate. Him I waylaid in
the dusk, and gave him so smart a salute that his mule bucked. I
picked him respectfully out of a rose bush and asked permission to
speak with him in private.
"I want to sample your religion, sir."
The padre seemed to be shaken and resentful, saying that his religion
had that very morning been freely offered.
"Freely?" I asked.
"You mean the parade was compulsory?"
"Yes, sir, rammed down our throats, an insult to Pater Noster. Any
man guilty of taking part in that was to be drowned until he
apologized to the troop."
"By jove," said the padre. "The next service shall be free. But
will they sing?"
"Turn loose the national anthem," said I. "Any man shying at that is
a traitor. Cover your lectern with the Union Jack, and the boys will
stand to attention. Leave your sermon behind."
"Why!"
"Because each of us has lived more, sir, in twenty years, than you
will in sixty. You can't teach until you've lived."
"You forget," he said huffily, "that I bear a message."
"A sword, Padre, in the hands of a fool."
He stepped back, tripped and sat down with a bang, very thoughtful.
Presently he tamed himself and, thinking of my words, "Pater Noster,"
asked if I were a Roman Catholic. His tone was full of bitter
prejudice.
"Outdoor men," said I in my cock-surest manner, "don't join indoor
denominations."
"You dare to call the church--that!"
"Has it not doors?" I asked meekly.
"Yes," he shouted, "and they are wide open to all mankind!"
"With a stuffy smell inside."
"You are irreverent. The church is holy."
"Our Lord," I spoke sincerely now, "described the church of His time
as a den of thieves. As to what He said about the priests! I don't
want to be rude to you, Padre. To get away from the church and the
clergy He preached outdoors, lived in the wilderness and replaced all
your dogmas and your doctrines with one word--Love. Do you follow
Him, eh, Padre?"
I stepped back. "Do you know, sir," I asked, "what the ancient
Greeks did when it rained? No? They got wet, Padre. You do the
same." I passed behind a bush, and he thought I vanished. Afterward
he told Sam that he had met the devil, and wrestled, coming out
triumphant.
On Monday, the curate came with us on our march to the sources of the
Columbia River. There at Lake Windermere, a steamer brought several
loads of stores which we trans-shipped by wagon to our various
outposts.
And so it was in camp at Windermere that the curate held free
service, all hands and the cook attending. The flag on the lectern
constrained us to decent conduct. The singing, led by St.
Blackguard's choir with the national anthem was a great success. It
rained right heartily, and in our cavalry cloaks we watched the padre
getting wet like a sportsman. He cut the sermon and got a thumping
offertory. Sam was pleased all to pieces, and on the betting I came
out forty-nine dollars and fifty cents in solid cash.
In sober earnest, my choir toned down the language of the camp to the
verge of decency, and from Buckie's Bible, which I had been reading
steadily for a year, I set a good example to the troop. Thus, when
the steamer skipper sold me a box of cigars: "The wicked shall
consume," said I, "at two for a quarter." They did, but some of the
wicked thought, in their fond way, that they could consume on credit.
"Young Murphy," said I, "thou owest for eight of the best."
"Oh, come off! What d'ye think yer playing at?"
"Surely," said I, "the wringing of the nose bringeth forth blood."
It did, and Murphy paid.
The box of cigars having netted twelve dollars, I got seven others
worse than the first which fell on a stony crowd but yielded two
hundredfold.
Next, the steamer cook sold me a litter of little pigs, and our cook
supplied the husks which my swine did eat, so that they grew and
waxed fat and kicked over the oat bin.
"Some evil beast," I told Buckie, "hath devoured two whole sacks of
oats, and the quartermaster, he rageth furiously. He calleth upon
the officer commanding, so I've sold out all my pigs. They're not
our pigs now, Buckie--not unto us the praise--not unto us."
Buckie had a natural aptitude for being shocked. Two of him plus one
harmonium would equal a mother's meeting.
The padre was a bigot, Buckie a prude, the boys were just ruffians,
and none of them understood that I, the poor troop jester, with an
aching heart, felt the need, the first faint stirrings of a real
religion.
II
The camp beside Lake Windermere was destined to be my last before I
left the force. So I recall the last evening of my peace, dwelling
on all its memories, so bitter sweet.
I was in Buckie's tent, and sat by the door with palm and buckskin
needle sewing a little sack of milk-white antelope hide. Red
Saunders, still my friend in those days ere ever I knew him as an
enemy, sat by me with his button-stick burnishing tunic buttons for
to-morrow's guard. Yonder, across the way was Sergeant-Major Samlet,
a plebeian parody of Sam, out patrician chief, instructing Buckie who
wore the orderly corporal's cross belt for that week. With them
stood the orderly officer, poor old Blatherskite, his frogged coat
sharply black against their scarlet. In the nearest tent on my right
were Brat, in charge, Beef Hardy the scout, Pieface and Spud Murphy
of Cor-r-k, playing poker, silent as the grave. In the nearest tent
on my left, that queer triumvirate, Mutiny, Calamity and Tribulation,
were concocting secret plots with which the welkin rang.
And at my side Red Saunders comfortably grousing.
"When a man's got a 'orse," he growled, staring across at
Blatherskite in a somber passion, "and grooms that 'orse and feeds
that 'orse and rides 'im, and gets to like 'is 'orse, and the 'orse
tikes to 'im, see? And some blatherskiting ---- of an orficer tikes
thet 'orse awi' from 'im, and 'e bucks stiff-legged--wot I says is
hair on 'im!"
I might 'ave 'eard much more about that 'orse, but Detective-Sergeant
Ithuriel Fatty McBugjuice (Damme!) flicked me as he passed by with a
bath towel (eh, what?) and bade me come for a swim in the blawsted
lake. (Indeed, ah!) As he had taken off his serge with its gold
badge of rank, I went with him in the evening calm to bathe.
Afterward, Buckie's official duties permitted him to sit with me on
the lake shore while I smoked.
Above the mirror lake with its flaws of silver, the dull gold hills
bore scattered firs of solemn indigo, and faint in the gloaming
loomed ranges of purple mist edged with the cold blue pallor of high
snowfields. There floated the upper pinnacles of the Selkirks
against the afterglow. And one by one white stars came out on guard.
I told Buckie that I intended to get drunk. He stiffly advised a
milder line of conduct, and indeed milk with a bun would have proved
too exciting for Buckie's indigestion department. His mother had a
weekly letter from him to say that he wrote in the saddle, at the
summit of the Rockies surrounded by hostile redskins, a bloody sword
in one hand, a smoking revolver in the other. These letters were
unofficial.
"Lead Kindly Light," he hummed. "Lead thou me on." The mother was
his kindly light--but mine went out. He had a girl, too, who fancied
him as a buck angel, whereas I suspected the prig even as corporal,
and knew he would be an insufferable sergeant.
I, too, had been in love, and in my kit-bag was a photograph album of
all the girls I had been engaged to marry, except the little lot
which got burned in Carlton. I had tried to be good for each of
these, except when they liked me bad, and even now could go
straight--with occasional side-steps--if somebody really cared.
Buckie swore he cared--but what he really cared for was to be
sergeant-major.
Brat cared for me, but he had dumb yearnings coming on at the time,
and wrote bosh in verse.
Then Buckie suggested that my people loved me, but that was a sore
point with an ache in the middle. My fat aunt and my fat uncle had
lately got religion and were spending Brat's money as well as mine on
a private chapel, a stout priest and that family patron of ours, the
excellent San Jiminy. Him they begged to use his influence on behalf
of the dear Brat and the beloved Blackguard to have us rescued from
the sins of envy, covetousness and blasphemy--by post, to get us
delivered from the alluring temptations of riches in a wicked world,
that we might inherit the family pew in Paradise, wear the La Mancha
halos, and twang the heirloom harps. Their son would bear the burden
of our earthly heritage.
On learning these things I wrote to Tita saying that Brat and I were
so robust in health that San Jiminy must surely be neglecting the
family practise. Why not chuck him, and take on San Diablo who had
done so well for Tito?
Tita's response as trustee was all about blasphemy, and my request
for statement of account was piously ignored. Hence, my letter to
our Cousin Isabella, begging Her Catholic Majesty to revive the good
old Spanish inquisition, and have dear Tita fried.
The Queen Regent answered, telling me not to fuss, and sending my
father's jewel of the Golden Fleece which she bade me wear as a
remembrance. Of course I was being fleeced, not that Her Majesty was
capable of a joke or any other breach of etiquette. I wore the jewel
slung on a slender chain, and because the diamonds were scratchy
against my skin was making it a little buckskin sack. I explained to
Buckie that the thing was a popish object used for idolatry. That
shocked him all to pieces, for Buckie was a Prot.
But why, he pleaded, should I get drunk?
I threw him our homely Spanish proverb, that wine is the tomb of
memory, but it was no use throwing pearls before a corporal. He
could not understand. Nor could I fully understand the aching of my
heart, the bitter pain.
The Blatherskite, open-mouthed and shut-eyed as any hippopotamus, had
sent a corporal only last week to ask if I would take on as his
servant. Now Sam could claim a cadet for his esquire, but in
Blatherskite it was most infernal cheek. A hippo, which neglected
its tooth-brush, ate its beans with a knife--I sent it word that it
might kiss my socks. I come of a breed trained to obedience and the
command of armies from the days when Spaniards conquered and ruled
the world. The badge of the Golden Fleece was mine by right, and to
stand covered before the kings of Spain, my peers. But Spain is only
a barren little country with a scattering on her moorlands of poor
shepherds, unable to hold her own among the rich and populous nations
of to-day. She had no armadas or armies left for her conquistadors
to lead, no more new worlds to be made Christian by her gallant
priests, no work for us La Manchas and our kinsmen. But robbed of
our heritage, and driven from our country, the Brat and I were not
less caballeros than our fathers, were still well able to earn our
bread and wine as men-at-arms until Spain had need of us. A knight
of the Golden Fleece may not be soldier-servant to any sort of
hippopotamus. And the wound rankled. So I would get drunk and
assault the guard.
And yet--the words came somehow from the air. "I will lift up mine
eyes unto the hills, from whence cometh my help." I lifted up my
eyes and saw the Selkirk Mountains, range on range dissolving into
night; and far away against the upper snow-fields caught a faint
glint as from some fallen star.
"What's that light?" asked Buckie, and I laughed. For that was the
light at the Throne Mine, where Loco Burrows lived as caretaker in
charge. The Burrows woman wrote that she could see our camp. I was
to address my letters "Mrs. Sarde," which sounded more important than
Miss Burrows. She wanted me to call. That was the help from the
hills, and I laughed out loud, jumping to my feet. Suppose the woman
were to marry me! What a lark it would be to take her to Madrid--to
the dullest, stiffest court-of-frumps in Europe! Enter that cat, and
see the mice climb!
Then I heard the bugle softly crying,
"Come Home!
Come Home!
The long day's work is ended."
I stood behind Buckie, my hands upon his shoulders rocking him
backward and forward, timing him to the music. "That's what they
call 'Taps,'" I told him, "down yonder in the states, because the
beer taps close." The lovely melody was cleaving skyward. "'Come
home,' it says, 'come home!' It's all deportment and sage advice,
Buckie. Where's home, Buckie? If you were in love with a Blackfoot
squaw, would you turn squaw-man, Buckie? Or would you play with a
respectable white pussie without any morals or manners, and try to
forget about love? And what's the use of being good when it makes
you a misery, eh, you poor chaffy corporal? If Christ were here to
cast out devils, I'd have a last chance left, instead of getting
drunk, and assaulting the guards as a pill to cure me of memory.
Now, go call your roll and report me present and correct as usual.
You can't steer a ship which has no rudder, Buckie."
He left me, and all that night my spirit was by the lake under the
holy stars. As to what became of my body--