NAPPER PLAYS HIS LAST CARD.
The colonel of Jack’s regiment was a very strict disciplinarian, and
absence without leave while on active service was an offence that, if
proved, would bring very heavy punishment. This fact Jack and Will were
quite aware of, and their feelings were very far from cheerful as they
discussed the aspect of affairs.
‘It’s all that beast of a Napper’s doings,’ said Jack angrily. ‘I am
rapidly coming to the conclusion that I shall have to go for him, even
at the expense of getting a court-martial. His tyranny is more than I am
going to put up with.’
It was, indeed, Napper’s doings, and he had spread a report that both
Jack and Will had been heard to say they were sick of soldiering and
were going to take the first opportunity to bolt.
It might have gone hard with both of them had it not been for Larry
O’Callaghan, whose explanation of his absence had been at once accepted
by his trumpet-major. In the afternoon he came over to the lines of the
Lancers to see his friends, when to his surprise he heard from Sergeant
Linham that they were under arrest.
‘By the howly piper!’ he cried, ‘’tis too bad. But I can upset that
baste of a Napper. Shure the man that gave him the shtripes should have
put ’em on his back, not on his arm. Now, sargint darlin’, we’ll
confound ’em. We’ll find the other bhoys as was with us, and that’ll be
enough evidence to upset even the great Dook himself if he was alive.’
He and Sergeant Linham set out for the camp of the Royal Welsh
Fusiliers. There they soon found the little sergeant, who greeted Larry
warmly.
‘You are a goot lad,’ he cried, ‘and, for a horse-soldier, fought quite
pravely. You would almost do for a Fusilier.’
‘Shure now, you’re jokin’,’ said Larry, tipping a wink at Sergeant
Linham; ‘I’d never be able to grow feet big enough.’
The sergeant might have made some fiery answer; but his major, who came
up at the moment, stopped all further exchange of pleasantries by saying
that he would himself bring over the sergeant and the other men of his
regiment in the morning.
Sergeant Linham and Larry, after dropping in at the canteens of various
regiments, found Andrew M’Farlane and the other artillerymen, and all
was ready for the morning.
When Jack and Will came up in due course before the colonel, the major
of the Fusiliers, who had arrived with his men and the artillerymen,
begged to be allowed to say a few words, and the tale he told was such
that it at once altered the aspect of affairs.
The two trumpeters were liberated, the colonel saying they had behaved
as he hoped men of his regiment always would, by taking the part of the
weaker against the stronger.
Corporal Napper was then arrested, tried by summary court-martial, and
reduced to the ranks.
This Jack could not pretend to be sorry for, though, as he said to Will,
‘I would rather he had kept his stripes and been made to give up
Dainty; the poor mare is only a shadow of what she used to be.’
Next morning Will was put in orders as corporal and orderly to the
colonel, _vice_ Samuel Napper reduced, and Jack hastened off to
congratulate his friend.
‘It’s the first step up the ladder,’ he said, ‘and no one deserves it
better than you; before we get home you’ll be sergeant.’
‘If ever we do get home,’ said Will. ‘Last night there was a case of
cholera in ours; Jenkins of C Troop died.’
‘Our first loss,’ said Jack sadly. ‘I wonder who’ll be next.’
During the days that followed, the dread scourge, cholera, raged in the
camp; day after day the burying-parties were busy, and dozens died off.
The heat was intolerable, the camp a regular hotbed of pestilence. The
water was full of animalcules, and it was learnt that seven thousand
Russians who had perished of cholera in the campaign of 1828 were buried
in the vicinity of the British camp, the spot having been christened by
the Muscovites ‘The Valley of the Plague.’
Many of the men took to drinking heavily, thinking thus to keep off
cholera; alas! they only lessened their chances of avoiding it.
Napper continued to drink as before, and since his reduction he seemed
to hate Jack more and more. One morning, at watering-parade, he and Jack
being together and some distance from the others, the former, who was of
course mounted on Dainty, could not get her down to the water. He
dismounted and dragged angrily at her headstall; but the mare still
refused to drink. Napper then kicked her twice, savagely, which so
enraged Jack that he cried out, ‘Let her alone, you brute, or I’ll
report you.’
‘I’ll treat you the same if you interfere with me,’ said Napper
furiously, and he struck the mare on the muzzle, and was again about to
kick her when Jack slipped from his own horse, and catching Napper by
the collar of his jacket, hurled him on his back.
Napper arose, literally livid with rage. For a moment he could not
speak; then with eyes blazing with rage he hissed, ‘John Blair, I hate
you; you’ve been my curse ever since you joined. The same regiment isn’t
big enough for us. You got me broke. I’ll have your life.’
‘You brought your bad luck on yourself,’ answered Jack.
‘You lie; it’s you; it’s always you. I’ll fight you; we’ll settle up
once and for all.’
‘I’m ready.’
‘To-night, then, with pistols. Over against the cemetery. Bring two
charges, and we’ll fight till one of us falls. We’ll end this.’
‘A duel?’ cried Jack aghast.
‘Yes, a duel.’
‘Rubbish! You’re mad.’
‘I’m not mad, and you shall fight or I’ll brand you as a coward all over
the camp. The French duel, and so can we. You shall meet me, or in the
first engagement we’re in I’ll put a bullet in your back!’
With these words Napper leapt on Dainty, and, digging in his heels,
trotted away.
Jack was left standing, lost in amazement. A duel! The thing was unheard
of! Yet to be branded as a coward, and to know that Napper was always
on the lookout to take his life should they ever be engaged with the
enemy! Truly he was in an awkward dilemma.
That day his troop went out on a reconnaissance, but Napper was never
absent from Jack’s thoughts for an instant. He thought and thought, and
at last determined on a course. He would meet Napper, whose mind he
fully believed was unhinged; but he would not fire. If he should fall
his death would be at Napper’s door, and he left a higher Power to
avenge him.
Full of this thought, he was riding back in the evening, tired out with
a long day in the saddle. As they neared the camp a burying-party of his
regiment was coming out. The sight was now, alas! too common to excite
more than a passing interest. Cornet Leland halted the troop, and they
‘carried lances’ as the party went by.
‘Wonder who it is this time?’ said Pearson to Jack; but the latter did
not answer, he was busily thinking of his mad meeting with Napper.
He was coming from the horse-lines to his tent when he met Will, whom he
determined to tell what he was going to do.
‘Good heavens, man!’ said Will when he heard; ‘what a strange thing. The
hand of God is indeed evident.’
‘What do you mean, Will?’
‘That Napper was taken with cholera at ten o’clock this morning, and
died at three. You must have passed his funeral as you marched in.’
Jack raised his cap. ‘God rest his soul!’ he said fervently; ‘truly His
ways are inscrutable.’