PART I

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.”