of his gloved forefinger, so completely thrown off his balance that he
had not sense enough to keep his trouble to himself.
‘I say, you saw that, I suppose?’ He jerked his head back to the
square, where the dust left by the departing men was settling down in
white circles.
‘I did,’ I answered, for I was not feeling polite.
‘What the devil ought I to do?’ He bit his finger again. ‘I told
Brander what I had done. I hit him.’
‘I’m perfectly aware of that,’ I said, ‘and I don’t suppose Ortheris
has forgotten it already.’
‘Ye--es; but I’m dashed if I know what I ought to do. Exchange into
another company, I suppose. I can’t ask the man to exchange, I suppose.
Hey?’
The suggestion showed the glimmerings of proper sense, but he should
not have come to me or any one else for help. It was his own affair,
and I told him so. He seemed unconvinced, and began to talk of the
possibilities of being cashiered. At this point the spirit moved me,
on behalf of the unavenged Ortheris, to paint him a beautiful picture
of his insignificance in the scheme of creation. He had a papa and a
mamma seven thousand miles away, and perhaps some friends. They would
feel his disgrace, but no one else would care a penny. He would be only
Lieutenant Ouless of the Old Regiment dismissed the Queen’s service for
conduct unbecoming an officer and a gentleman. The Commander-in-Chief,
who would confirm the orders of the court-martial, would not know who
he was; his mess would not speak of him; he would return to Bombay,
if he had money enough to go home, more alone than when he had come
out. Finally,--I rounded the sketch with precision,--he was only one
tiny dab of red in the vast gray field of the Indian Empire. He must
work this crisis out alone, and no one could help him, and no one
cared--(this was untrue, because I cared immensely; he had spoken the
truth to Brander on the spot)--whether he pulled through it or did not
pull through it. At last his face set and his figure stiffened.
‘Thanks, that’s quite enough. I don’t want to hear any more,’ he said
in a dry grating voice, and went to his own quarters.
Brander spoke to me afterwards and asked me some absurd
question--whether I had seen Ouless cut the coat off Ortheris’s back.
I knew that jagged sliver of silver would do its work well, but I
contrived to impress on Brander the completeness, the wonderful
completeness, of my disassociation from that drill. I began to tell him
all about my dreams for the new territorial army in India, and he left
me.
I could not see Ortheris for some days, but I learnt that when he
returned to his fellows he had told the story of the blow in vivid
language. Samuelson, the Jew, then asserted that it was not good enough
to live in a regiment where you were drilled off your feet and knocked
about like a dog. The remark was a perfectly innocent one, and exactly
tallied with Ortheris’s expressed opinions. Yet Ortheris had called
Samuelson an unmentionable Jew, had accused him of kicking women on
the head in London, and howling under the cat, had hustled him, as a
bantam hustles a barn-door cock, from one end of the barrack-room to
the other, and finally had heaved every single article of Samuelson’s
valise and bedding-roll into the verandah and the outer dirt, kicking
Samuelson every time that the bewildered creature stooped to pick
anything up. My informant could not account for this inconsistency, but
it seemed to me that Ortheris was working off his temper.
Mulvaney had heard the story in hospital. First his face clouded, then
he spat, and then laughed. I suggested that he had better return to
active duty, but he saw it in another light, and told me that Ortheris
was quite capable of looking after himself and his own affairs. ‘An’
if I did come out,’ said Terence, ‘like as not I would be catchin’
young Ouless by the scruff av his trousies an’ makin’ an example av him
before the men. Whin Dinah came back I would be under court-martial,
an’ all for the sake av a little bit av a bhoy that’ll make an orf’cer
yet. What’s he goin’ to do, sorr, do ye know?’
‘Which?’ said I.
‘Ouless, av course. I’ve no fear for the _man_. Begad, tho’, if ut had
come to me--but ut could not have so come--I’d ha’ made him cut his
wisdom-teeth on his own sword-hilt.’
‘I don’t think he knows himself what he means to do,’ I said.
‘I should not wonder,’ said Terence. ‘There’s a dale av thinkin’ before
a young man whin he’s done wrong an’ knows ut, an’ is studyin’ how to
put ut right. Give the word from me to our little man there, that if he
had ha’ told on his shuperior orf’cer I’d ha’ come out to Fort Amara to
kick him into the Fort ditch, an’ that’s a forty-fut drop.’
Ortheris was not in good condition to talk to. He wandered up and down
with Learoyd brooding, so far as I could see, over his lost honour,
and using, as I could hear, incendiary language. Learoyd would nod and
spit and smoke and nod again, and he must have been a great comfort to
Ortheris--almost as great a comfort as Samuelson, whom Ortheris bullied
disgracefully. If the Jew opened his mouth in the most casual remark
Ortheris would plunge down it with all arms and accoutrements, while
the barrack-room stared and wondered.
Ouless had retired into himself to meditate. I saw him now and again,
and he avoided me because I had witnessed his shame and spoken my mind
on it. He seemed dull and moody, and found his half-company anything
but pleasant to drill. The men did their work and gave him very little
trouble, but just when they should have been feeling their feet,
and showing that they felt them by spring and swing and snap, the
elasticity died out, and it was only drilling with war-game blocks.
There is a beautiful little ripple in a well-made line of men, exactly
like the play of a perfectly-tempered sword. Ouless’s half-company
moved as a broomstick moves, and would have broken as easily.
I was speculating whether Ouless had sent money to Ortheris, which
would have been bad, or had apologised to him in private, which would
have been worse, or had decided to let the whole affair slide, which
would have been worst of all, when orders came to me to leave the
station for a while. I had not spoken directly to Ortheris, for his
honour was not my honour, and he was its only guardian, and he would
not say anything except bad words.
I went away, and from time to time thought a great deal of that
subaltern and that private in Fort Amara, and wondered what would be
the upshot of everything.
When I returned it was early spring. B Company had been shifted from
the Fort to regular duty in cantonments, the roses were getting
ready to bud on the Mall, and the regiment, which had been at a
camp of exercise among other things, was going through its spring
musketry-course under an adjutant who had a notion that its shooting
average was low. He had stirred up the company officers and they had
bought extra ammunition for their men--the Government allowance is
just sufficient to foul the rifling--and E Company, which counted
many marksmen, was vapouring and offering to challenge all the other
companies, and the third-class shots were very sorry that they had ever
been born, and all the subalterns were a rich ripe saddle-colour from
sitting at the butts six and eight hours a day.
I went off to the butts after breakfast very full of curiosity to see
how the new draft had come forward. Ouless was there with his men by
the bald hillock that marks the six hundred yards’ range, and the men
were in gray-green _khaki_, that shows the best points of a soldier
and shades off into every background he may stand against. Before I
was in hearing distance I could see, as they sprawled on the dusty
grass, or stood up and shook themselves, that they were men made over
again--wearing their helmets with the cock of self-possession, swinging
easily, and jumping to the word of command. Coming nearer, I heard
Ouless whistling _Ballyhooley_ between his teeth as he looked down the
range with his binoculars, and the back of Lieutenant Ouless was the
back of a free man and an officer. He nodded as I came up, and I heard
him fling an order to a non-commissioned officer in a sure and certain
voice. The flag ran up from the target, and Ortheris threw himself
down on his stomach to put in his ten shots. He winked at me over the
breechblock as he settled himself, with the air of a man who has to go
through tricks for the benefit of children.
‘Watch, you men,’ said Ouless to the squad behind. ‘He’s half your
weight, Brannigan, but he isn’t afraid of his rifle.’
Ortheris had his little affectations and pet ways as the rest of us
have. He weighed his rifle, gave it a little kick-up, cuddled down
again, and fired across the ground that was beginning to dance in the
sun-heat.
‘Miss!’ said a man behind.
‘Too much bloomin’ background in front,’ Ortheris muttered.
‘I should allow two feet for refraction,’ said Ouless.
Ortheris fired again, made his outer, crept in, found the bull and
stayed there; the non-commissioned officer pricking off the shots.
‘Can’t make out ’ow I missed that first,’ he said, rising, and stepping
back to my side, as Learoyd took his place.
‘Is it company practice?’ I asked.
‘No. Only just knockin’ about. Ouless, ’e’s givin’ ten rupees for
second-class shots. I’m outer it, of course, but I come on to show ’em
the proper style o’ doin’ things. Jock looks like a sea-lion at the
Brighton Aquarium sprawlin’ an’ crawlin’ down there, don’t ’e? Gawd,
what a butt this end of ’im would make.’
‘B Company has come up very well,’ I said.
‘They ’ad to. They’re none so dusty now, are they? Samuelson even, ’e
can shoot sometimes. We’re gettin’ on as well as can be expected, thank
you.’
‘How do you get on with----?’
‘Oh, _’im_! First-rate! There’s nothin’ wrong with ’im.’
‘Was it all settled then?’
‘’Asn’t Terence told you? I should say it was. ’E’s a gentleman, ’e is.’
‘Let’s hear,’ I said.
Ortheris twinkled all over, tucked his rifle across his knees and
repeated, ‘’E’s a gentleman. ’E’s an officer too. You saw all that
mess in Fort ’Ammerer. ’Twasn’t none o’ _my_ fault, as you can guess.
Only some goat in the drill judged it was be’aviour or something to
play the fool on p’rade. That’s why we drilled so bad. When ’e ’it me,
I was so took aback I couldn’t do nothing, an’ when I wished for to
knock ’im down the wheel ’ad gone on, an’ I was facin’ you there lyin’
on the guns. After the captain had come up an’ was raggin’ me about
my tunic bein’ tore, I saw the young beggar’s eye, an’ ’fore I could
’elp myself I begun to lie like a good ’un. You ’eard that? It was
quite instinkive, but, my! I was in a lather. Then _he_ said to the
captain, “I struck ’im!” sez ’e, an’ I ’eard Brander whistle, an’ then
I come out with a new set o’ lies all about portin’ arms an’ ’ow the
rip growed, same as you ’eard. I done that too before I knew where I
was. Then I give Samuelson what-for in barricks when he was dismissed.
You should ha’ seen ’is kit by the time I’d finished with it. It was
all over the bloomin’ Fort! Then me an’ Jock went off to Mulvaney in
’orspital, five-mile walk, an’ I was hoppin’ mad. Ouless, ’e knowed it
was court-martial for me if I ’it ’im back--’e _must_ ha’ knowed. Well,
I sez to Terence, whisperin’ under the ’orspital balcony--“Terence,”
sez I, “what in ’ell am I to do?” I told ’im all about the row same as
you saw. Terence ’e whistles like a bloomin’ old bullfinch up there in
’orspital, an’ ’e sez, “You ain’t to blame,” sez ’e. “’Strewth,” sez
I, “d’you suppose I’ve come ’ere five mile in the sun to take blame?”
I sez. “I want that young beggar’s hide took off. I ain’t a bloomin’
conscrip’,” I sez. “I’m a private servin’ of the Queen, an’ as good
a man as ’e is,” I sez, “for all ’is commission an’ ’is airs an’ ’is
money,” sez I.’
‘What a fool you were,’ I interrupted. Ortheris, being neither a menial
nor an American, but a free man, had no excuse for yelping.
‘That’s exactly what Terence said. I wonder you set it the same way so
pat if ’e ’asn’t been talkin’ to you. ’E sez to me--“You ought to ’ave
more sense,” ’e sez, “at your time of life. What differ do it make to
you,” ’e sez, “whether ’e ’as a commission or no commission? That’s
none o’ your affair. It’s between man an’ man,” ’e sez, “if ’e ’eld
a general’s commission. Moreover,” ’e sez, “you don’t look ’andsome
’oppin’ about on your ’ind legs like that. Take him away, Jock.” Then
’e went inside, an’ that’s all I got outer Terence. Jock, ’e sez as
slow as a march in slow time,--“Stanley,” ’e sez, “that young beggar
didn’t _go_ for to ’it you.” “I don’t give a damn whether ’e did or
’e didn’t. ’It me ’e did,” I sez. “Then you’ve only got to report to
Brander,” sez Jock. “What d’yer take me for?” I sez, as I was so mad I
nearly ’it Jock. An’ he got me by the neck an’ shoved my ’ead into a
bucket o’ water in the cook-’ouse an’ then we went back to the Fort,
an’ I give Samuelson a little more trouble with ’is kit. ’E sez to me,
“_I_ haven’t been strook without ’ittin’ back.” “Well, you’re goin’ to
be now,” I sez, an’ I give ’im one or two for ’isself, an’ arxed ’im
very polite to ’it back, but he didn’t. I’d ha’ killed ’im if ’e ’ad.
That done me a lot o’ good.
‘Ouless ’e didn’t make no show for some days,--not till after you was
gone; an’ I was feelin’ sick an’ miserable, an’ didn’t know what I
wanted, ’cept to black his little eyes good. I ’oped ’e might send me
some money for my tunic. Then I’d ha’ had it out with him on p’rade
and took my chance. Terence was in ’orspital still, you see, an’ ’e
wouldn’t give me no advice.
‘The day after you left, Ouless come across me carrying a bucket on
fatigue, an’ e’ sez to me very quietly, “Ortheris, you’ve got to come
out shootin’ with me,” ’e sez. I felt like to bunging the bucket in ’is
eye, but I didn’t. I got ready to go instead. Oh, ’e’s a gentleman! We
went out together, neither sayin’ nothin’ to the other till we was well
out into the jungle beyond the river with ’igh grass all round,--pretty
near that place where I went off my ’ead with you. Then ’e puts his gun
down an’ sez very quietly: “Ortheris, I strook you on p’rade,” ’e sez.
“Yes, sir,” sez I, “you did.” “I’ve been studying it out by myself,”
’e sez. “Oh, you ’ave, ’ave you?” sez I to myself, “an’ a nice time
you’ve been about it, you bun-faced little beggar.” “Yes, sir,” sez I.
“What made you screen me?” ’e sez. “I don’t know,” I sez, an’ no more I
did, nor do. “I can’t ask you to exchange,” ’e sez. “An’ I don’t want
to exchange myself,” sez ’e. “What’s comin’ now?” I thinks to myself.
“Yes, sir,” sez I. He looks round at the ’igh grass all about, an’ ’e
sez to himself more than to me,--“I’ve got to go through it alone, by
myself!” ’E looked so queer for a minute that, s’elp me, I thought the
little beggar was going to pray. Then he turned round again an’ ’e sez,
“What do you think yourself?” ’e sez. “I don’t quite see what you mean,
sir,” I sez. “What would you like?” ’e sez. An’ I thought for a minute
’e was goin’ to give me money, but ’e run ’is ’and up to the top-button
of ’is shootin’ coat an’ loosed it. “Thank you, sir,” I sez. “I’d like
that very well,” I sez, an’ both our coats was off an’ put down.’
‘Hooray!’ I shouted incautiously.
‘Don’t make a noise on the butts,’ said Ouless from the shooting-place.
‘It puts the men off.’
I apologised, and Ortheris went on.
‘Our coats was off, an’ ’e sez, “Are you ready?” sez ’e. “Come on
then.” I come on, a bit uncertain at first, but he took me one under
the chin that warmed me up. I wanted to mark the little beggar an’ I
hit high, but he went an’ jabbed me over the heart like a good one. He
wasn’t so strong as me, but he knew more, an’ in about two minutes I
calls “Time.” ’E steps back,--it was in-fightin’ then: “Come on when
you’re ready,” ’e sez; and when I had my wind I come on again, an’ I
got ’im one on the nose that painted ’is little aristocratic white
shirt for ’im. That fetched ’im, an’ I knew it quicker nor light. He
come all round me, close-fightin’, goin’ steady for my heart. I held on
all I could an’ split ’is ear, but then I began to hiccup, an’ the game
was up. I come in to feel if I could throw ’im, an’ ’e got me one on
the mouth that downed me an’--look ’ere!’
Ortheris raised the left corner of his upper lip. An eye-tooth was
wanting.
‘’E stood over me an’ ’e sez, “Have you ’ad enough?” ’e sez. “Thank
you, I ’ave,” sez I. He took my ’and an’ pulled me up, an’ I was pretty
shook. “Now,” ’e sez, “I’ll apologise for ’ittin’ you. It was all my
fault,” ’e sez, “an’ it wasn’t meant for you.” “I knowed that, sir,” I
sez, “an’ there’s no need for no apology.” “Then it’s an accident,” ’e
sez; “an’ you must let me pay for the coat. Else it’ll be stopped out
o’ your pay.” I wouldn’t ha’ took the money before, but I did then.
’E give me ten rupees,--enough to pay for a coat twice over, an’ we
went down to the river to wash our faces, which was well marked. His
was special. Then he sez to himself, sputterin’ the water out of ’is
mouth, “I wonder if I done right,” ’e sez. “Yes, sir,” sez I. “There’s
no fear about that.” “It’s all well for _you_,” ’e sez, “but what
about the comp’ny?” “Beggin’ your pardon, sir,” I sez, “I don’t think
the comp’ny will give no trouble.” Then we went shootin’, an’ when we
come back I was feelin’ as chirpy as a cricket, an’ I took an’ rolled
Samuelson up an’ down the verandah, an’ give out to the comp’ny that
the difficulty between me an’ Lieutenant Ouless was satisfactory put a
stop to. I told Jock, o’ course, an’ Terence. Jock didn’t say nothing,
but Terence ’e sez: “You’re a pair, you two. An’, begad, I don’t know
which was the better man.” There ain’t nothin’ wrong with Ouless. ’E’s
a gentleman all over, an’ ’e’s come on as much as B Comp’ny. I lay ’e’d
lose ’is commission, tho’, if it come out that ’e’d been fightin’ with
a private. Ho! ho! Fightin’ all an afternoon with a bloomin’ private
like me! What do you think?’ he added, brushing the breech of his rifle.
‘I think what the umpires said at the sham-fight; both sides deserve
great credit. But I wish you’d tell me what made you save him in the
first place.’
‘I was pretty sure that ’e ’adn’t meant it for me, though that wouldn’t
ha’ made no difference if ’e’d been copped for it. An’ ’e was that
young too that it wouldn’t ha’ been fair. Besides, if I had ha’ done
that I’d ha’ missed the fight, and I’d ha’ felt bad all my time. Don’t
you see it that way, sir?’
‘It was your right to get him cashiered if you chose,’ I insisted.
‘My right!’ Ortheris answered with deep scorn. ‘My right! I ain’t a
recruity to go whinin’ about my rights to this an’ my rights to that,
just as if I couldn’t look after myself. My rights! ’Strewth A’mighty!
I’m a man.’
The last squad were finishing their shots in a storm of low-voiced
chaff. Ouless withdrew to a little distance in order to leave the men
at ease, and I saw his face in the full sunlight for a moment, before
he hitched up his sword, got his men together, and marched them back to
barracks. It was all right. The boy was proven.
FOOTNOTES:
[3] Ortheris meant _soors_--which means pigs.
A MATTER OF FACT.
And if ye doubt the tale I tell,
Steer through the South Pacific swell;
Go where the branching coral hives
Unending strife of endless lives,
Where, leagued about the ’wildered boat,
The rainbow jellies fill and float;
And, lilting where the laver lingers,
The starfish trips on all her fingers;
Where, ’neath his myriad spines ashock,
The sea-egg ripples down the rock;
An orange wonder dimly guessed,
From darkness where the cuttles rest,
Moored o’er the darker deeps that hide
The blind white Sea-snake and his bride
Who, drowsing, nose the long-lost ships
Let down through darkness to their lips.
--_The Palms._
Once a priest, always a priest; once a mason, always a mason; but once
a journalist, always and for ever a journalist.
There were three of us, all newspaper men, the only passengers on a
little tramp steamer that ran where her owners told her to go. She had
once been in the Bilbao iron ore business, had been lent to the Spanish
Government for service at Manilla; and was ending her days in the
Cape Town coolie-trade, with occasional trips to Madagascar and even
as far as England. We found her going to Southampton in ballast, and
shipped in her because the fares were nominal. There was Keller, of an
American paper, on his way back to the States from palace executions in
Madagascar; there was a burly half-Dutchman, called Zuyland, who owned
and edited a paper up-country near Johannesberg; and there was myself,
who had solemnly put away all journalism, vowing to forget that I had
ever known the difference between an imprint and a stereo advertisement.
Ten minutes after Keller spoke to me, as the _Rathmines_ cleared Cape
Town, I had forgotten the aloofness I desired to feign, and was in
heated discussion on the immorality of expanding telegrams beyond a
certain fixed point. Then Zuyland came out of his cabin, and we were
all at home instantly, because we were men of the same profession
needing no introduction. We annexed the boat formally, broke open
the passengers’ bath-room door--on the Manilla lines the Dons do not
wash--cleaned out the orange-peel and cigar-ends at the bottom of the
bath, hired a Lascar to shave us throughout the voyage, and then asked
each other’s names.
Three ordinary men would have quarrelled through sheer boredom before
they reached Southampton. We, by virtue of our craft, were anything
but ordinary men. A large percentage of the tales of the world, the
thirty-nine that cannot be told to ladies and the one that can, are
common property coming of a common stock. We told them all, as a
matter of form, with all their local and specific variants which are
surprising. Then came, in the intervals of steady card-play, more
personal histories of adventure and things seen and suffered: panics
among white folk, when the blind terror ran from man to man on the
Brooklyn Bridge, and the people crushed each other to death they knew
not why; fires, and faces that opened and shut their mouths horribly
at red-hot window frames; wrecks in frost and snow, reported from the
sleet-sheathed rescue-tug at the risk of frost-bite; long rides after
diamond thieves; skirmishes on the veldt and in municipal committees
with the Boers; glimpses of lazy tangled Cape politics and the
mule-rule in the Transvaal; card-tales, horse-tales, woman-tales, by
the score and the half hundred; till the first mate, who had seen more
than us all put together, but lacked words to clothe his tales with,
sat open-mouthed far into the dawn.
When the tales were done we picked up cards till a curious hand or a
chance remark made one or other of us say, ‘That reminds me of a man
who--or a business which--’ and the anecdotes would continue while the
_Rathmines_ kicked her way northward through the warm water.
In the morning of one specially warm night we three were sitting
immediately in front of the wheel-house, where an old Swedish boatswain
whom we called ‘Frithiof the Dane’ was at the wheel, pretending that
he could not hear our stories. Once or twice Frithiof spun the spokes
curiously, and Keller lifted his head from a long chair to ask, ‘What
is it? Can’t you get any steerage-way on her?’
‘There is a feel in the water,’ said Frithiof, ‘that I cannot
understand. I think that we run downhills or somethings. She steers bad
this morning.’
Nobody seems to know the laws that govern the pulse of the big waters.
Sometimes even a landsman can tell that the solid ocean is atilt, and
that the ship is working herself up a long unseen slope; and sometimes
the captain says, when neither full steam nor fair wind justifies the
length of a day’s run, that the ship is sagging downhill; but how these
ups and downs come about has not yet been settled authoritatively.
‘No, it is a following sea,’ said Frithiof; ‘and with a following sea
you shall not get good steerage-way.’
The sea was as smooth as a duck-pond, except for a regular oily swell.
As I looked over the side to see where it might be following us from,
the sun rose in a perfectly clear sky and struck the water with its
light so sharply that it seemed as though the sea should clang like a
burnished gong. The wake of the screw and the little white streak cut
by the log-line hanging over the stern were the only marks on the water
as far as eye could reach.
Keller rolled out of his chair and went aft to get a pine-apple from
the ripening stock that was hung inside the after awning.