EUSTACE BLUNDERS AGAIN
The leave-train, which had been in motion for quite ten minutes,
stopped once more with a jerk, and Bill, curled up in a corner, swore
comprehensively.
"Lord," he said, "if I didn't know it was Blighty I was bound for, I'd
get out an' walk back to my blinkin' battalion."
"Don't seem too anxious to get away from the front, do they?" said a
gunner sitting opposite. "Seems as though the old engine can't bear to
leave it. 'Ullo, we've started again. Bet you we don't go further'n
that little bridge along there."
"It's a bet!" said Bill. "'Ere, Alf, wake up an' 'old the stakes."
With keen interest they watched the bridge coming nearer. At last they
rattled across it in a leisurely manner.
"I win," said Bill. "'And over, Alf."
"On'y just, though," said the gunner with a rueful grin, as the train
stopped once more with a grinding of brakes.
"'Ere, I'm tired o' this bloomin' train. Come out an' stretch yer legs
a bit, Alf."
"Don't get left be'ind," advised the gunner. "I want to win my franc
back."
They sat down by the side of the track.
"Some train!" said Alf, breaking a long silence.
"Perishin'," answered Bill. "But it's a bit better'n doin' them
blinkin' fatigues for the sergeant, eh?"
"You bet!"
The two men had spent a very wearing week. Wherever they went the
cold disapproving eye of Lieutenant Donaldson seemed to be upon them;
and they had been constrained to live a life of painful and laborious
virtue. Sergeant Lees, divining their feelings, had taken shameful
advantage of them with a view (he explained) to keeping them out of
mischief.
As a consequence they had for the past week lived in a giddy social
whirl of ration-parties, carrying-parties and similar entertainments.
But relieved as they were at having started their journey, they were
not beyond chafing at the dilatory methods of the train. At no time did
it travel at much above a walking pace; and it was liable at any time
and for no apparent reason to abandon all attempts to proceed. It would
stand miserably for minutes together, and when it moved on, it did so
without warning--a habit which, in a more energetic train, might have
proved annoying.
"Come on," said Alf suddenly. "Train's starting."
"No 'urry," Bill grunted placidly. He got up, stretched himself and
trotted leisurely along the train till he came to his own carriage, and
swung himself in.
"'Ow about another bet?" said the gunner as they appeared. "A franc we
don't pass that church over there this spasm."
"Righto. But you'll win--it must be 'arf-a-mile from 'ere."
"Well, if we're goin' to get to Blighty at all this week we'll 'ave to
do a 'arf-mile stretch now an' again, you know."
But Bill's prophecy proved correct. Long before the church was reached
he had handed back his newly-won franc to the gunner and, in sheer
irritable restlessness, insisted on the somnolent Alf leaving the train
once more.
"What makes me sick," he said, "is to think of that 'ouse in Blighty
all ready an' waitin' for us, an' beer an' drinks, an' 'ere we are as
dry as a bone in a 'owlin' French desert."
"Tell you what, then," answered Alf, struck with an idea. "What's to
prevent us slippin' away be'ind that bridge an' lettin' the train go on
without us?"
"An' tell Eustace to.... Lumme, you must be wakin' up, Alf. Why, it'll
mean us 'avin' about three days extra leave. Come on!"
They strolled casually along the line without exciting comment or
interest on the part of their fellow-travelers scattered about the
line, and when the train started these were much too busily occupied
in scrambling back to their own places to notice that two of their
number had unostentatiously slipped behind a culvert. The train puffed
off busily; after it had gone a hundred yards or so a head appeared at
one of the windows.
"Keep down," cried Bill. "It's the gunner--wonder what 'e'll do with
our kits?"
The question was hardly out of his mouth before it was answered. The
gunner--obviously a creature of impulse--was seen to push the two packs
and rifles of his late companions out of the window of the train.
"Nice fool 'e'd 'ave looked if we'd been on the train arter all, in
another carriage," said Bill. "Still, p'raps it's just as well to 'ave
the things. Now for Blighty."
Alf removed the black covering which still shrouded his talisman.
"Better wait till the train's out o' sight," said Bill. "She seems to
be gettin' really started at last.... I s'pose there'll be plenty o'
beer in your new 'ouse?"
"If there ain't we'll jolly soon 'ave some. Tell you what, Bill: 'Ow'd
it be to 'ave one room in the 'ouse rigged up as a bar. We c'd 'ave
proper sanded floors, an' a barmaid, an'--an' no closing time. Just for
you an' me, so's we could 'ave a drink any ole time. Make it seem more
'omelike, wouldn't it?"
Bill stared at him in hopeless disgust.
"An' I thought you was beginnin' to think!" he said. "This fair takes
the biscuit. What low ideas you do 'ave! Why whatever'd the wife think,
an' your swell neighbors? You'll 'ave to be'ave like a gentleman, you
know, when you marries a lady."
"'Ow'm I goin' to do that?"
"I'll teach yer. You trust me."
"You! An' 'ow d'you know?"
"I do know. It's easy enough. Never you fear, I'll look after you."
Alf, looking a little skeptical, returned to the subject nearest his
heart.
"Well, then, when'll I be able to get a drink when I'm a gentleman?"
"Why, you can 'ave 'em all day long. You sits in one easy chair an' me
in another, an' a footman brings us whatever we wants."
"Lumme! A footman?"
"O' course. An' then, in the evenin', we 'as a reg'lar slap-up spread
every day of our lives, with your missus in laces an' diamonds: an'
then when she's finished 'er supper she goes off an' leaves us to
finish the drinks."
"'Ow d'you know she will?"
"They always does. 'Aven't you been to no plays, nor read no books?
Lucky you'll 'ave me to keep you straight. 'Ullo, the ole train's
pretty near out o' sight now. 'Adn't we better ...?"
Alf, his hand shaking excitedly, rubbed his Button.
Eustace appeared.
"That 'ouse," said Alf. "It's still all right about that, I s'pose?"
"Master," answered the djinn, "for a week past it hath been prepared
for thine entry. Say but the word and I will transport thee thither."
"Right. Me an' Mr. Grant's quite ready now. On'y just get our kits an'
rifles off the side o' the line first."
"'Ome, John!" added Bill facetiously.
Eustace advanced upon them and they closed their eyes involuntarily.
As before, nothing seemed to happen to them; and yet, when they opened
their eyes again they were standing on the carriage sweep before the
front door of an imposing country-house built of gray stone, overgrown
for the most part with ivy and Virginia creeper. The building seemed
to them vast--immense. It was long and low, and covered a great deal
of space. They gazed about them hurriedly, and received an impression
of great trees and smooth-shaven lawns, ornamental waters and flagged
paths.
Alf gazed about him in awe.
"What do we do next?" he asked in a whisper.
"Ring the bell," answered Bill. "It's yours."
Alf advanced timidly up the steps, but recoiled in alarm as the door
opened unexpectedly. It disclosed an Eastern personage whose clothes
were stiff with gold and dazzling with gems; bowing low, he took
both Alf and Bill respectfully by the hand and led them through the
doorway. Here the personage with another deep obeisance stood aside and
motioned to them to precede him.
They crossed the vestibule towards the great hall which formed the
center of the building, realizing that the whole house was one
glittering mass of shifting barbaric color. In the hall itself stood
slaves in ordered ranks, black and white, male and female, each attired
with magnificence only one degree less than that of the personage
who had received them. The whole crowd stood waiting, silent and
motionless, for their new master to appear.
Bill came first. He sauntered easily into the hall with his hands in
his pockets--that is, as easily as is possible on mosaic pavement to
one wearing ammunition boots--and stood looking about him in a silence
in which a pin's fall would have caused a reverberating crash; then
Alf, who had been wrestling with a demon of shyness in the darkness of
the vestibule, clattered sheepishly across the threshold.
In that instant the silence was shattered into a million pieces. Seven
bands of weird and piercing oriental instruments came simultaneously
into action in seven different keys and, so far as could be discerned
above the frenzied beating of tambours, playing seven different tunes.
Such of the gathering as had no instruments contributed to the joyful
effect by shrieking and howling at the tops of their voices.
Alf--already awed by his surroundings--was quite overwhelmed by this
demonstration. For one moment he seemed to contemplate flight; then,
pulling himself together, he sought the side of his mate.
Bill turned towards him and shouted something, but it was utterly lost
in the hideous din.
"Can't 'ear!" bellowed Alf, and shook his head in confirmation.
Bill's mouth opened and shut in a frenzied manner, and his face turned
purple. He was utterly inaudible. At last, encircling Alf's ear with
his two hands and using them as a trumpet, he bawled with the full
force of his lungs:
"STOP IT!"
Alf leapt away as if he had been shot and began to massage his ear
tenderly. His lips moved fervently, and his eyes held bitter reproach.
The joyous din of welcome continued and swelled. Forgetting his injury
Alf bawled back in the same way:
"'Ow?"
"EUSTACE!" returned Bill impatiently.
Alf's fingers flew to his Button; in the mental paralysis caused by
the awful din he had forgotten the djinn; but the instant his fingers
touched the talisman every sound ceased. It did not die away; it ended
suddenly, as though a giant had stopped his gigantic gramophone in
the midst of a bar. At the same moment the entire assembly, even to
the magnificent major-domo behind them in the vestibule, fell forward
on its face and remained motionless. Alf and Bill--to whom, after
three years at the front, it was second nature to take cover whenever
their neighbors did so without asking questions--groveled likewise
for a moment. Then they rose sheepishly and stared about them in
astonishment. Not a sound or a movement came from the assembly. Then
Alf, whose fingers had paused involuntarily when the noise shut off,
rubbed the Button and the djinn appeared.
"'Ere, Eustace," said Alf with some heat, "what was all that blinkin'
noise about, eh? We can't 'ear ourselves think."
"Lord," said the djinn in pained surprise, "this was a concert of music
in thine honor such as delighted the ear of the great Caliph Haroun
Alraschid."
"Aaron 'oo? Never 'eard of the bloke, but 'e must 'ave 'ad a queer
taste in music. Any'ow there's no need to kick up such a blinkin' row
about it. Very nice of you an' all that, but you're bein' too 'olesale
again. My ears is singin' now--let alone Mr. Grant 'avin' near busted
me ear-drum." He caressed his injured member again.
Eustace, who only half comprehended this harangue, but gathered that
his unaccountable master was once more finding unexpected faults in his
arrangements, said nothing.
"Look 'ere, Alf," suggested Bill suddenly, "'adn't you better let some
o' these pore blighters get up? The blood'll be running into their
'eads something 'orrid."
Alf addressed himself to the prostrate crowds. "'Ere," he said in
diffident tones, "you can get up now." Not a soul moved.
"Squad!" said Bill loudly, in the formula sacred to the use of the army
instructor in physical training. "On the feet--UP!"
The assembly remained prostrate.
"The blinkin' 'eathens don't understand English, that's what it is,"
said Alf with sudden enlightenment. "You tell 'em, Eustace."
The djinn uttered one guttural, staccato syllable. In a moment the
multi-colored crowd had melted away, and the great house began to hum
with life. In every direction slaves could be seen, each engrossed in
his or her duties. Alf, master of all he surveyed, felt for the first
time the full weight of his responsibilities.
"I say, Eustace," he said querulously, "'ow the 'ell am I goin' to look
after a lot o' niggers as don't understand a word I says to 'em? Can't
you get me an English 'ousemaid or two?"
"Can't be got," said Bill. "I read it in a paper t'other day. They
called it the Servant Problem. You be thankful you've got these. An'
very nice too!" he finished, his eyes on two langorous-eyed maidens in
brilliant draperies who were descending the stairs.
"Lord," said Eustace, "none are there of thy speech among the slaves
of the Button. But thy steward"--he indicated the personage who had
welcomed them, now waiting patiently till he should be required
again--"he is skilled in thy tongue, and through him will these thy
servants perform all thy will. His name is Mustapha."
Eustace disappeared.
"Phew!" said Bill, looking about him. "All gold, an' silk, an' marble!
Looks more like one o' them pantomime scenes than a real 'ouse, don't
it? An' all them niggers, an' the girls an' all. An' 'im!"
He indicated once more the major-domo.
"Ain't much furniture about, is there?" said Alf after a pause. "Only
sofas an' things."
"No. That's Eustace an' 'is old-fashioned ideas. Don't matter, though.
Anything we want later on we can send 'im for. What I want now's a
drink. Tell 'im."
"What did Eustace say 'is name was?"
"Mr. Farr, I think. Something like that. Call 'im an' see if 'e
answers."
The major-domo did answer. Before long the two warriors were slaking
their mighty thirst with real beer. Eustace might be slow to learn, but
he seldom forgot a lesson.
"Ah!" said Bill, smacking his lips. "_Now_, I begin to feel something
like. What's the next move? Farr 'ere seems to 'ave something on his
mind. What's up with you? Speak up."
Mustapha, with another obeisance, spoke up.
"If my lord permits, thy slaves await thee that they may bathe thee and
change thy traveling-dress for a garment better befitting thy state.
After this there is prepared for thee a banquet."
"Civvy clothes? That's a bright idea o' yours," replied Bill
condescendingly. "Of course we can't go on wearing these 'ere things.
We'll 'ave another drink--a long 'un, Farr, an' a strong 'un--an' then
you can do what you like."
"While I think of it," said Alf, "p'raps I'd better take the Button off
me tunic; then it can't get lost."
He suited the action to the word, and threaded the talisman on to the
cord which hung round his neck and supported his two identity disks.
The drink was brought. This time it was not beer, but some far more
potent liquid. Its immediate effect on Bill was to stimulate his
imagination.
"What's your name goin' to be, Alf?" he asked suddenly after the first
draught. "I'm goin' to be Mr. Montmorency."
"Why?"
"Well, you don't want anybody recognizing us, do you? If this girl o'
yours knows you're Private Alf 'Iggins of 'Ackney she'll never look at
you. But if you shaves off yer mustache and calls yerself Wentworth,
and dresses yerself like a gentleman--what ho, how about it?"
"You are a one," said Alf admiringly, wiping his lips and then his
eyes. "You think of everything. This stuff don't 'arf tickle you up, do
it? What about you? You 'aven't got a mustache to shave off. Will you
'ave a false one?"
"Eh? Oh, I don't marrer," said Bill thickly.
The effects of the drink--whatever it was--were now the reverse of
stimulating. They were swift and complete. When Mustapha entered a
moment later his lord and his lord's companion were side by side on the
floor in stertorous slumber. At his command a party of slaves entered
and carried the recumbent forms reverently upstairs.
* * * * * * *
Next morning Alf was awakened by the sun shining through the latticed
windows and falling in brightly colored patches across his room.
Wherever the light struck there was a glitter almost unbearable to
his heavy eyes. He was lying in a bed of wonderful softness in a
lofty chamber in which everything about him gave the impression of
sumptuousness and luxury. Where the sunlight struck his coverlit it
shimmered and shone and twinkled till he was completely dazzled. It was
made of cloth of gold thickly sewn with diamonds and pearls.
He gazed about with an idiotic expression, for his intellect was still
in abeyance; and he tried without much success to remember where he
was and how he got there. He could recall nothing clearly since he had
fallen asleep in the great hall, still in his worn khaki with the dust
of France upon him. He knew in a dim way that much had happened to him
since then. There were various hazy recollections in his mind: of a
bath, warm and scented, wherein he had lain at ease while other hands
than his had cleansed him; of being clothed in garments more gorgeous
than his imagination could have conceived, and of reclining with Bill
(no less gorgeously clad than himself) on a divan where strange foods
had been brought to them by lustrous-eyed girls; of listening to weird
music and witnessing queer, sinuous dances. Lying here this morning he
could not say whether these things had really happened or whether he
had dreamed them. Only he knew that the effort to think made his head
ache, and that judging by his general condition he must have had a
remarkably "thick" night.
He closed his eyes and dozed uneasily, but was soon awakened by the
sound of stealthy footsteps and the swish of silken draperies. He half
opened his eyes, and, glancing cautiously under lowered lids saw that
his room was gradually filling with people whose one care seemed to be
to avoid waking him. They disposed themselves round the chamber in some
kind of settled order and, with eyes fixed on his recumbent form, stood
waiting. Alf, still wondering what this might mean, suddenly noticed
that quite half of his unexpected visitors were women--just such women
as haunted his hazy recollections of the night before.
Shocked to the depths of his respectable soul, Alf opened his eyes and
sat up. Instantly the entire assemblage prostrated themselves--except
some of the women, who, Alf saw with horror, carried musical
instruments and displayed every sign of being about to play upon them.
Alf clutched his aching head.
"No, no!" he shouted imploringly. "Stop it. Farr--Mr. Farr! Take 'em
away!"
"Lord," said Mustapha, entering and bowing gravely. "I am here."
"Turn them shameless 'ussies out o' my room. What are they doin' 'ere?
I never 'eard o' such goin's on."
"Verily, Lord, they are the ladies of thy household, whose duty it is
to be present at thy _levée_. And these others are ladies skilled in
music, who are about to wish thee good-morrow with a concert of soft
sounds."
"Not if I know it--not while I've got a 'ead on me like this, any'ow.
Clear 'em all out, every last one of 'em--men as well."
Mustapha said a few words to the concourse, which went away saying no
word but looking very much astonished.
"An' now," said Alf, "where's me clothes?"
"Lord, they are here." Mustapha indicated a magnificent garment which
was lying with a jeweled turban on a cushion at the side of the bed.
"Clothes, I said," remarked Alf caustically, "not a blinkin'
dressing-gown--what's that?"
"That" was a bull-like roar in the distance, which repeated itself over
and over again until it at last resolved itself into a call for "Alf."
"'Ere, Bill," bellowed Alf in return.
"Oh! 'Ere you are," said the newly-christened Mr. Montmorency in
wrathful tones as he entered. "Every room I go into seems to be full o'
women. 'Ere, what d'you think o' this?" He displayed the garment he
was wearing--a voluminous coat of some rich shimmering stuff. "Pinched
me clothes, they 'ave, an' left me this ... this...."
Words failed him.
"An' a pair o' pink satin trousers," he concluded with heat. "What's
the game?"
"Dunno. Same 'ere," answered Alf. "Look 'ere, Farr, don't you start
no funny jokes with us. Clear this mess away an' bring us some proper
civvy clothes."
"Same as what a gentleman 'ud wear," added Bill. "Pot 'at, an' gloves,
an' spats, an'--an' so on. An' 'urry up."
"But, Lord," protested Mustapha, "these are garments of the greatest
magnificence, such as the great Caliph Haroun Alraschid delighted to
wear...."
"All right, take 'em to 'im. 'E can 'ave 'em, for all I care. Look
'ere, 'ave you got any ordinary clothes or not?"
"Suits less magnificent have I many, O Master. But as for the hat
called pot, or the spat, I have no knowledge of such. Nevertheless...."
"I see what it is," said Alf disgustedly. "It's just Eustace. 'E's
mucked it again. We'll just 'ave to send for 'im an' tell 'im what sort
of a rig-out we want. Pity 'e can't never get nothing right the first
time, ain't it?"
He sat down on his diamond-studded coverlet and once again summoned his
sorely tried familiar.