Sitting in the lee of the picket fence which bounded Maitland Camp
on the west, Paddy the cook communed with himself, and Weldon and
Carew communed with him.
"Oh, it's long and long yet before a good many of these ones will be
soldiers," he, observed, with a disrespectful wave of his thumb
towards the awkward squad still manoeuvering its way about over the
barren stretch of the parade ground. "They ride like tailors
squatting on their press-boards, and they salute like a parrot
scratching his head with his hind paw. A soldier is like a poet,
born, not made."
In leisurely fashion, Weldon stretched himself at full length and
drew out a slender pipe.
"Paddy, if you keep on, I'll fire a kopje at you," he threatened.
Paddy disdained the threat.
"Glory be, the kopjes be riveted down on the bottom end of them! But
it's the truth I'm telling. Half of these men is afraid of their
lives, when they're on a horse."
"The horses of South Africa are divided into two classes," Carew
observed sententiously; "the American ones that merely buck, and the
cross-eyed Argentine ones that grin at you like a Cheshire cat,
after they have done it. Both are bad for the nerves. Still, I'd
rather be respectfully bucked, than bucked and then laughed at,
after the catastrophe occurs. Paddy, my knife has been splitting
open its handle. What's to be done about it?"
"Let's see."
Bending forward, Carew drew the black-handled knife and fork from
the coils of his putties. In the orderly surroundings of Maitland
Camp, there was no especial need of his adopting the storage methods
of the trek; nevertheless, he had taken to the new idea with prompt
enthusiasm. Up to that time, it had never occurred to him to bandage
his legs with khaki, and then convert the bandages into a species of
portable sideboard.
"Paddy," Weldon remonstrated; "don't stop to play with his knife. No
matter if it is cracked. So is he, for the matter of that. Go and
tell your menial troop to remember to put a little beef in the soup,
this noon. I am tired of sipping warm water and onion juice."
"What time is it, then?"
"My watch says eleven; but my stomach declares it is half-past two.
Trot along, there's a good Paddy. And don't forget to tie a pink
string to my piece of meat, when you give it to the orderly. Else I
may not know it's the best one." With a reluctant yawn and a glance
upward towards the sun, Paddy scrambled to his feet and brushed
himself off with the outspread palms of his stubby hands. Then he
turned to the men behind him.
"Stick your fork back in your putties, Mr. Carew, and I'll send you
a knife to go with it. As long as Paddy manages the cooking tent,
the cracked knives shall go to the dunderheads. The best isn't any
too good for them as rides like you and Mr. Weldon, and drinks no
rum at all."
Weldon eyed him mockingly.
"And gives their ration of rum to Paddy," he added. "Go along, man,
and set your kettles to boiling, while you return thanks that you
know a good thing when you see it."
"Paddy is a great boy," Carew observed, as the little Irishman
saluted them in farewell, then turned and strolled away in the
direction of his quarters.
"And, what's more, a most outrageously good cook," Weldon assented.
"If Paddy's ambition to shoot a gun should ever be fulfilled,
England might gain a soldier; but it would lose a chef of the cordon
bleu."
"If I were to choose, I'd sacrifice his sense of taste for the sake
of keeping his sense of humor," Carew returned. "Not even war can
subdue Paddy."
With a disdainful gesture, Weldon pointed out across the sun-baked
parade ground with the stem of his pipe.
"War! This?" he protested. "It is nothing in this world but a Sunday
school picnic."
And Carew, as his eyes followed the pointing pipe-stem, was forced
to give his assent.
It was now five days since, with scores of their mates, Weldon and
Carew had been passed from their medical examination to the double
test of their riding and their shooting. Elated by their threefold
recommendation, they had lost no time in donning their khaki and
taking up their quarters under the fraction of canvas allotted to
them. The days that followed were busy and slid past with a certain
monotony, notwithstanding their varied routine. From morning stables
at seven until evening stables at six, each hour held its duty, for
in that regular, clock-marked life, recreation was counted a duty
just as surely as were the daily drills.
Carew, trained on the football field, took to the foot drill as a
duck takes to water. Weldon was in his glory on mounted parade. One
summer spent on an Alberta ranch had taught him the tricks of the
broncho-buster, and five o'clock invariably found him pirouetting
across the parade ground on the back of the most vicious mount to be
found within the limits of Maitland. More than once there had been a
breathless pause while the entire squadron had waited to watch the
killing of Trooper Weldon; more than once there had been an utterly
profane pause while the officers had waited for Trooper Weldon to
bring his bolting steed back into some semblance of alignment. The
pause always ended with Weldon upright in his saddle, his face
beaming with jovial smiles and his horse ranged up with mathematical
precision. The delays were by no means helpful to discipline.
Nevertheless, the officers yielded to the inevitable with the better
grace, inasmuch as no one else would voluntarily trust life and limb
to the vicious beasts in which Weldon's soul delighted.
Twice already, during the past five days, Weldon had handed over to
the authorities a chastened and obedient pony, and had made petition
to select a fresh and untrammelled spirit. The one of the afternoon
before had been the most untrammelled he had as yet attempted. The
contest had begun with the first touch of the saddle. It had
continued with Weldon's being borne across the camp on the back of a
little gray broncho who was making tentative motions towards a
complete handspring. By the time the pony was convinced of the
proper function of her own hind legs, Weldon found himself being
driven from the door of the cooking tent by Paddy and a volley of
potatoes. The broncho surveyed Paddy with scorn, rose to her hind
legs and strolled towards the corner of the camp sacred to visitors.
There she delivered herself of one final, mighty buck. When Weldon
regained the perpendicular, he found himself directly facing the
merry, admiring eyes of Ethel Dent. By Ethel's side, mounted on a
huge khaki-colored horse, sat the man he had met, only the week
before, in the driveway of the Dents' home.
Scarlet with his exertions, grimly aware that his sleeve was pulled
from its armhole and his left puttie was strained out of its usual
compact folds, nevertheless Weldon saluted her smilingly and, his
mount well in hand, galloped off in search of his squadron. That
night, however, his clear baritone voice was missing from the usual
chorus about the camp fire; and, as he thoughtfully drained his tin
billy of coffee, next morning, he was revolving in mind the relative
merits of his banker and a dead mother-in-law, as excuses for
demanding a pass to town, that afternoon.
However, afternoon found him moodily riding about the camp. His body
was on a subdued gray broncho; his mind was solely upon Ethel and
her companion. He liked the girl for herself, as well as for the
fact that, in this remote corner of the world, she represented the
sole bit of feminine companionship which is the rightful heritage of
every son of Eve. True, there was Miss Arthur; but Miss Arthur was
antediluvian. Under these conditions, it was galling to Weldon to
see Ethel absorbed by a comrade who, he frankly admitted to himself,
was far the more personable man of the two. And the girl's blue eyes
had laughed up into the eyes of the stranger just exactly as, two
short weeks before, they had laughed up into his own. Then the
little gray broncho jumped cornerwise, and Weldon had difficulty in
impressing upon her that handsprings were not an approved form of
cavalry tactics. Nevertheless, he did it with a word of apology. For
the moment, the broncho was not wholly responsible for her return to
evil ways.
Over their breakfast, next morning, his five tentmates fell to
catechising him as to his pensive mood, and their catechism was
largely intermingled with chaff.
"Paddy's compliments, and roll up for your tucker," the mess orderly
proclaimed, as he came into the tent, brandishing a coffee pot in
one hand, the frying pan in the other.
Fork in hand, Carew nevertheless paused to take exception to the
word.
"I confess I can't see why Tucker, when it is supposed to untuck the
creases of us," he observed. "Hermit, shall I serve you in the
corner; or will you deign to join us about the festive frying pan?"
"What's the matter with Weldon, anyhow?" another of the group
queried, as dispassionately as if the subject of discussion had been
absent in Rhodesia. "His face is a yard long, and his lips hang down
in the slack of the corners."
"Brace up, man, and get over your grouch," a third adjured him. "You
are worse than O'Brien was, the morning after he was shoved in kink.
Were you in Cape Town, last night?"
"Not a bit of it," Carew put in hastily, while he buried his knife-blade
in the nearest pot of jam. "My left ear can prove an alibi for
him. From taps till midnight, Weldon discoursed of all the grewsome
things in the human calendar."
The smallest of the group turned himself about and peered up into
Weldon's face.
"Homesick, man?" he queried.
"Sure," Weldon replied imperturbably.
"Oh. Then get over it. Just dream of the days when the bronchos
cease from bucking and the Stringies shoot no more. Meanwhile, if
you could look pleasant, as the photographers say, it would help on
things wonderfully."
But the mess orderly interrupted. He had tidings to impart, and they
burned upon his tongue.
"Have you heard about Eaton-Hill?" he asked, in the first pause that
offered itself.
Five faces turned to him with gratifying expectancy. Eaton-Hill had
come out on the Dunottar Castle. He was known to them all as the
acknowledged exquisite of the entire camp.
"What about him?"
"C. B. I met him coming out of the orderly room."
"Hm! Camp scavenger. Eaton-Hill will like that," Weldon commented
dryly. "What's the row about?"
"Cupid apparently. He went calling in Cape Town, last night, without
leave, stayed till past eleven and undertook to come in by sea. He
shipped in a leaky boat with a crew composed of one Kaffir boy; the
Kaffir funked the surf; they had an upset and Eaton-Hill waked up
the picket by the fervor of his swearing at the half-drowned
Kaffir."
"Poor Eaton-Hill! Both his morals and his clothes must have
suffered," Carew suggested. "Weldon, take warning. Next time you go
to call on Miss Arthur, start early and be sure you have your pass
pinned to the lining of your coat."
"Who is Miss Arthur?" demanded the chorus.
Deliberately Carew helped himself to the last of the bacon. Then he
made answer, with equal deliberation,--
"Miss Arthur is Weldon's lawful chaperon."
At four o'clock, that afternoon, Weldon arose reluctantly from his
seat on the western end of the Dents' veranda.
"Parade at five, Miss Dent, and Maitland Camp is four miles away."
Without rising, she smiled up into his waiting eyes.
"You made more than four miles an hour, when Captain Frazer and I
were watching you, the other day, Mr. Weldon."
"Yes, twenty at least. Still, as you may have noticed, my mount
doesn't always choose the straightest course. If she elects to go to
Maitland by way of Durban, it will take me all of the hour to make
the journey."
She laughed at his words. Then of a sudden her face grew grave.
"They've no right to give you such a horse, Mr. Weldon."
"Right? Oh, I beg pardon. I chose it."
"Is your life so unhappy?" she questioned, in mocking rebuke.
"It is no suicidal mania, Miss Dent," he reassured her. "I like the
rush and excitement of it all; but I had a summer on a ranch, and I
learned the trick of sitting tight until the beast tires itself out.
Broncho-busting is only a concrete form of philosophy, after all."
"And must you really go?" she asked him.
He lingered and hesitated. Then, with a glance at the horse fastened
to a post in the drive below, he straightened his shoulders.
"I must."
She rose to her feet.
"Good afternoon, then."
"And good by," he added.
"What does that mean?"
"That we leave Maitland Camp in the morning."
"I am sorry," she said, and her voice showed her regret. "Where are
you going?"
"To Maitland station. Then into a train. Beyond that, I do not
know."
"I am sorry," she repeated; "but very glad. It is time you were
doing something. I know you didn't take all this journey out here
for the sake of being drilled in Maitland Camp until the end of
time. We shall miss you; but you will come back to us, some day, and
tell us all the story of your deeds. Success to you, Trooper
Weldon!"
She gave him her hand; then stood looking after him, as he went down
the steps. Once in the saddle, he turned back to wave a farewell to
the tall girl framed in the arching greenery that sheltered the
broad veranda. Then, urging on his horse, he went galloping away,
his boyish face turned resolutely towards the front.
Careless of the oldtime superstition, the girl watched him out of
sight. Then slowly she moved back to their deserted corner where she
sat long, her elbows on the arms of her chair and her chin resting
on her hands. Her eyes were held steadily on Table Bay; but her
thoughts followed along the road to Maitland Camp--and beyond.