THE BROKEN SQUARE
"My name is Caryll--Christopher Caryll."
The other nodded over him.
"Christopher Caryll, called by his mother Kit: an officer of the Sea
Service, eh?"
The boy's eyes brightened.
"Yes, sir. How did you know?"
"I remember a Kit Caryll by name in the Mediterranean in the nineties.
And I ought to know the King's uniform, seeing I was a King's officer
myself before I took orders."
"A sailor?"
"Sailor be d'd!" cried the Parson, heartily. "I'd sooner be a cod-
fish. No, sir, no: I hate the sea like I hate the French. D'you think
if the Almighty had meant me for the water, He'd have troubled to give
me that?" He thrust forth his right leg, and dwelt fondly on the calf,
contracting and relaxing it.
"But I forget my manners."
He bent over his blade with tenderest chivalry.
"Will you allow me," with a sweep, "to introduce to your ladyship a
young gentleman of the sister Service? Mr. Caryll--Lady Polly Kiss-me-
quick."
He averted the sword, and shielding his mouth, whispered
confidentially--
"The sweetest of her sex, Mr. Caryll, but that hot after the men you
wouldn't believe."
Kit threw back his head and gurgled. Only fifteen, and man enough not
to be ashamed to be a boy, he still loved make-believe. And his heart
went out to this man, who was after all a brother-boy.
"No, I wasn't a sailor. I had my company in the King's Black
Borderers," continued the Parson--"the old Blackguards, as they call
us, of whom you may have heard."
The boy's eyes flashed.
"I should think I had!" he cried. "It was a brute in the Borderers
nearly killed my Uncle Jacko in a duel--in Corsica--in '94. A chap
called Joy. He was a notorious bully--a cursing swearing fellow.
After-wards he died of drink, mother says. Uncle Jacko was her
favourite brother."
The other's face had chilled.
"And what was mother's favourite brother's name--if I may ask?"
"Gordon, sir--Jacko Gordon."
"Jacko Gordon--the Horse-Gunner!" laughed the Parson. "Ha! ha! ha!"
"Did you know him, sir?"
The Parson tossed his Polly in the air, and caught her deftly.
"Did we know him? did we not? You remember Jacko Gordon, my lady?--and
the sands of Calvi?"
"That was where the bully fought him!" cried Kit. "Ran him through the
fore-arm when he wasn't ready."
A dark breeze swept across the other's face.
"He was ready; and it was not the fore-arm," he replied with icy
chilliness. "It was the wrist; was it not, my own?" bending over his
blade.... "Yes; he had a lovely wrist--until she kissed it...." He
shrugged. "But what would you?--'Calves!' says he; and it was before
the mess-tent--' d'you call those things? yours calves?'--'And what
d'you call em yourself?' says I, mighty polite. 'Why, _cows in
calf!'_ says he, and swaggers off with a silly guffaw.
"After that there was nothing for it but the usual of course. I ran
him through the wrist. He dropped his blade....
"'D'you withdraw?' says I, she straining for his heart.
"'What I have said, I have said,' he answered, white as silver and
steady as the firmament.
"Then little man Nelson knocked up my sword--
"'That'll do, Black Cock,' says he. 'A joke's a joke; but a brave
man's death's a mighty bad joke. She's a little blood-sucker that lady
o yours.' And nobody but Nelson'd ha dared to say it."
II
The boy was staring hard.
"Did they call you Black Cock, sir? Abercromby's Black Cock?"
"That's me, sir, at your service," replied the Parson--"Joy of Battle
in the Regiment, Abercromby's Black Cock in the Army. What of it?"
"I met a man who knew you this morning."
The other's eyes leapt.
"Chap with a beak on a chestnut!--handsome young scoundrel!--
Frenchified, theatrical, bit o red riband stuck on his stomach."
"That's the man, sir."
"Well, what of him?--Quick!"
Kit repeated the tale of Egypt, as the Gentleman had told it.
The other listened with rapt interest.
"It's all true," he said, "true as the Bible."
He was pacing up and down, his hands behind him.
"There was a time in my life," he began at last "when I had--er--the
regrettable habit of--er--using foul language, as your Uncle Jacko may
have told you. Never filthy language! never that. I always swore like
a gentleman. Chucked the d's and b's and g's about a bit too merry.
Well, one day--it was in Egypt--I was carrying on a bit, when a pious
sort of ass I knew at home, who was standing by, said--'I wonder what
your mother'd think if she heard you now, Harry Joy.' So after I'd
given him some for imself, I went back to my tent and thought a bit.
"You see I'd just heard from home that poor old mother was failing. And
I couldn't help thinking--Now supposing she dies, and first thing she
hears when she gets to heaven is her boy loosing off on earth!...
"So I took an oath Samson-style, and I prayed I and I said--'Look
here, Lord, if you'll look over what's past, and help me keep a clean
tongue in future, I'll kill you a Frenchman a day for seven days....'
"So I sent a challenge into their lines. There was nothing stirring
just then, and they took the thing up very readily. The business took
place before reveille out in the desert, between the out-post lines at
a place they got to call the cock-pit. All the bloods and bucks on
both sides used to come out to see the fun. It was the regular thing--
to see Black Cock breakfast....
"Well, on the seventh morning as they were carting their chap away,
and I was wiping my sword, a swaggering great Cuirassier turned round
and shouted,
"'To-morrow we bring David to slay your Goliath!'
"'D'you hear that, Black Cock?' says Olifant, the Guardsman. 'Are you
game?'--'I'm not tired, if they ain't,' says I."
His blue eyes began to twinkle.
"Next dawn, when I got to the Cock-pit, and saw their champion, why,
he was a boy!--a boy like a girl!--one of these pretty pink and white
things, all eyes and legs and a silly smile. 'I am David,' says he.
'Then go back to Jesse,' says I, pretty short. 'I don't fight with
kids.'... And that afternoon I sent him a bottle of milk with my
compliments."
The Parson stopped his pacing, and looked the boy in the eyes.
"Next day they broke us, sir,--broke the Black Borderers in square."
"Who did?"
The Parson was breathing deep, and his eyes were smouldering.
"The Legion d'Irlande. No other regiment in the world could have got
in; and once in, no other regiment in the world but ours could have
got em out, though I say it as shouldn't."
Voice and eyes burst into thunder and flame.
"And who led em? Why, my boy-girl friend storming along on an old
white Arab, and laughing like the devil. 'Here, they come!' yells the
Colonel. _'Prepare for--Cavalree!'_ I jumped on to the big drum,
and had a squint over the men's heads. Lor! I can see the dust of em
now--like a mighty great wave sweeping across the desert, and the boy
on the white Arab coming along like an earthquake six lengths before
the lot. It sent me screaming mad to see em. 'Come on, ye dirty black-
a-mouths!' I screeched. 'Irish stew for the rebel brigade!' 'Hullo,
Black Cock!' he cried, and I saw him grinning through the dust. 'I'm
going to cut your comb.' And he took the old horse by head, and rammed
him at us--slap-bang, like riding at a bull-finch; and the whole
blanky lot after him."
The Parson was stamping up and down, roaring out his story, his eyes
laughing and battle-lusty.
"Such a hell of a hugger-mugger you never saw! They rolled in on us
like the sea. Rough and tumble every man for himself--stab somebody--
don't matter who!" He paused to pant. "It was the day of my life. The
Colonel was down; the Majors were dead; the Captains heaven-knows-
where. Our old Raven banner, that we took from their Black Horse at
Dettingen was in the dust, the Junior Ensign tumbled up in it all
anyhow. 'Got it, Miss B.?' I cried. 'Here!' squeals the poor little
chap. 'Heave her up!' Then a horse jumped on him, and put him out of
his pain.
"I got the old rag up somehow. 'Round this, men!' I yelled, jumping on
the Colonel's dead charger. Get round, ye blanky blanks!' Then I saw
this boy-girl chap grinning above me. 'Slash away!' I roared. 'Here's
one for yourself!' and I jabbed the staff in his mug. 'No,' says he,
as jolly as you like, 'I don't fight with poultry!' And dam-my-soul!--
if he don't sneak his hand under the rag and tweak my nose!--this
nose!" the Parson squeaked, tapping it--"this nose upon this face!
this nose I'm talking to you out o now! And he jumped that wallopin
old white out the way he came. 'Come along, children,' says he.
'You've had quite enough for one meal.' And away he goes, laughing
like the devil, his blessed pathriots after him."