(The Kipling Society presents here Kipling’s work as he
wrote it, but wishes to alert readers that the text below
contains some derogatory and/or offensive language)

page 1 of 8

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 publications, 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 thirdclass ticket to Plymouth.

I gathered information on the way from a leading stoker, two seamen-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 potboy 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?’

page 2

‘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 anythin’ in about my ’orrible death an’ execution? Excuse 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 mailboats 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 to our Number One. “Drown ’im,” ’e says. “Drown ’im before ’e dirties my fine new decks.” But our owner was tender-hearted. “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 only 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——’

‘Subscription, 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.’

‘Conscription—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-ahead 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’ aborigine’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 cannibalizin’ ’em.

‘“I want to know what ’e ’as got the ’ang of,” says ’Op, obstructed-like. “Watch ’im,” ’e says. “Them 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.

page 3

‘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, talon’ 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 hiccupped.

‘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 transhpired 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 leather-neck 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 Bosun, 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 ’ead 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.

page 4

‘The other mancoeuvres 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 manoeuvre 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 slaved-howin’ in Tajurrah Bay, an’ been compelled to live on quinine an’ chlorodyne ever since. I don’t get the horrors off two 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 leather-necks 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 participatin’, 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.

page 5

‘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 Chip’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-stuns’ls 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 ’and kerchief, 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 resume 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 mows 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 long?”’

‘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’ Rettalick 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, meanced 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?’

page 6

‘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 stuns’ls. 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’ls 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 crews 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 bundook 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 notwithstandin’, 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 ’he’s a free-knowledge-ist 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’ stuns’ls 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.

page 7

‘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’ mournin’, 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’ leather-necks 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 giyin’ 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, bare-footed. ’E’d pipeclayed ’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 firm’-party fires like one man. Glass drops forward, twitchin’ an’ ’eavin’ horrid natural, into the shotted ’ammick all spread out before ’im, and the firm’ 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 o’ 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 leather-neck.

“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 cartridges—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.

page 8

‘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, an’ 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 ’aye been highly surprised. Wasn’t he?’

‘He was, Mr. Pyecroft,’ I responded. ‘But now we’re talkin’ 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 manceuvres would ’aye knocked our moral doublebottoms 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 smellin’ 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 ’ad 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 ’em 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. ’im’—he jerked a contemptuous thumb towards Mr. Pyecroft ‘’e’s a flat-foot, a indigoblue 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.’

LET IT BE clearly understood that the Russian is a delightful person till he tucks in his shirt. As an Oriental he is charming. It is only when he insists upon being treated as the most easterly of western peoples instead of the most westerly of easterns that he becomes a racial anomaly extremely difficult to handle. The host never knows which side of his nature is going to turn up next.Dirkovitch was a Russian—a Russian of the Russians—who appeared to get his bread by serving the Czar as an officer in a Cossack regiment, and corresponding for a Russian newspaper with a name that was never twice alike. He was a handsome young Oriental, fond of wandering through unexplored portions of the earth, and he arrived in India from nowhere in particular. At least no living man could ascertain whether it was by way of Balkh, Badakshan, Chitral, Beluchistan, or Nepaul, or anywhere else. The Indian Government, being in an unusually affable mood, gave orders that he was to be civilly treated and shown everything that was to be seen. So he drifted, talking bad English and worse French, from one city to another, till he foregathered with Her Majesty’s White Hussars in the city of Peshawur, which stands at the mouth of that narrow swordcut in the hills that men call the Khyber Pass. He was undoubtedly an officer, and he was decorated after the manner of the Russians with little enamelled crosses, and he could talk, and (though this has nothing to do with his merits) he had been given up as a hopeless task, or cask, by the Black Tyrone, who individually and collectively, with hot whiskey and honey, mulled brandy, and mixed spirits of every kind, had striven in all hospitality to make him drunk. And when the Black Tyrone, who are exclusively Irish, fail to disturb the peace of head of a foreigner—that foreigner is certain to be a superior man.The White Hussars were as conscientious in choosing their wine as in charging the enemy. All that they possessed, including some wondrous brandy, was placed at the absolute disposition of Dirkovitch, and he enjoyed himself hugely—even more than among the Black Tyrones.

But he remained distressingly European through it all. The White Hussars were “My dear true friends,” “Fellow-soldiers glorious,” and “Brothers inseparable.” He would unburden himself by the hour on the glorious future that awaited the combined arms of England and Russia when their hearts and their territories should run side by side, and the great mission of civilising Asia should begin. That was unsatisfactory, because Asia is not going to be civilised after the methods of the West. There is too much Asia and she is too old. You cannot reform a lady of many lovers, and Asia has been insatiable in her flirtations aforetime. She will never attend Sunday-school or learn to vote save with swords for tickets.

Dirkovitch knew this as well as any one else, but it suited him to talk special-correspondently and to make himself as genial as he could. Now and then he volunteered a little, a very little, information about his own sotnia of Cossacks, left apparently to look after themselves somewhere at the back of beyond. He had done rough work in Central Asia, and had seen rather more help-yourself fighting than most men of his years. But he was careful never to betray his superiority, and more than careful to praise on all occasions the appearance, drill, uniform, and organisation of Her Majesty’s White Hussars. And indeed they were a regiment to be admired. When Lady Durgan, widow of the late Sir John Durgan, arrived in their station, and after a short time had been proposed to by every single man at mess, she put the public sentiment very neatly when she explained that they were all so nice that unless she could marry them all, including the colonel and some majors already married, she was not going to content herself with one hussar. Wherefore she wedded a little man in a rifle regiment, being by nature contradictious; and the White Hussars were going to wear crape on their arms, but compromised by attending the wedding in full force, and lining the aisle with unutterable reproach. She had jilted them all—from Basset-Holmer the senior captain to little Mildred the junior subaltern, who could have given her four thousand a year and a title.

 

The only persons who did not share the general regard for the White Hussars were a few thousand gentlemen of Jewish extraction who lived across the border, and answered to the name of Pathan. They had once met the regiment officially and for something less than twenty minutes, but the interview, which was complicated with many casualties, had filled them with prejudice. They even called the White Hussars children of the devil and sons of persons whom it would be perfectly impossible to meet in decent society. Yet they were not above making their aversion fill their money-belts. The regiment possessed carbines—beautiful Martini-Henry carbines that would lob a bullet into an enemy’s camp at one thousand yards, and were even handier than the long rifle. Therefore they were coveted all along the border, and since demand inevitably breeds supply, they were supplied at the risk of life and limb for exactly their weight in coined silver—seven and one half pounds’ weight of rupees, or sixteen pounds sterling reckoning the rupee at par. They were stolen at night by snaky-haired thieves who crawled on their stomachs under the nose of the sentries; they disappeared mysteriously from locked arm-racks, and in the hot weather, when all the barrack doors and windows were open, they vanished like puffs of their own smoke. The border people desired them for family vendettas and contingencies. But in the long cold nights of the northern Indian winter they were stolen most extensively. The traffic of murder was liveliest among the hills at that season, and prices ruled high. The regimental guards were first doubled and then trebled. A trooper does not much care if he loses a weapon—Government must make it good—but he deeply resents the loss of his sleep. The regiment grew very angry, and one rifle-thief bears the visible marks of their anger upon him to this hour. That incident stopped the burglaries for a time, and the guards were reduced accordingly, and the regiment devoted itself to polo with unexpected results; for it beat by two goals to one that very terrible polo corps the Lushkar Light Horse, though the latter had four ponies apiece for a short hour’s fight, as well as a native officer who played like a lambent flame across the ground.

They gave a dinner to celebrate the event. The Lushkar team came, and Dirkovitch came, in the fullest full uniform of a Cossack officer, which is as full as a dressing-gown, and was introduced to the Lushkars, and opened his eyes as he regarded. They were lighter men than the Hussars, and they carried themselves with the swing that is the peculiar right of the Punjab Frontier Force and all Irregular Horse. Like everything else in the Service it has to be learnt, but, unlike many things, it is never forgotten, and remains on the body till death.

page 2

The great beam-roofed mess-room of the White Hussars was a sight to be remembered. All the mess plate was out on the long table—the same table that had served up the bodies of five officers after a forgotten fight long and long ago—the dingy, battered standards faced the door of entrance, clumps of winter-roses lay between the silver candlesticks, and the portraits of eminent officers deceased looked down on their successors from between the heads of sambhur, nilghai, markhor, and, pride of all the mess, two grinning snow-leopards that had cost Basset-Holmer four months’ leave that he might have spent in England, instead of on the road to Thibet and the daily risk of his life by ledge, snow-slide, and grassy slope.

The servants in spotless white muslin and the crest of their regiments on the brow of their turbans waited behind their masters, who were clad in the scarlet and gold of the White Hussars, and the cream and silver of the Lushkar Light Horse. Dirkovitch’s dull green uniform was the only dark spot at the board, but his big onyx eyes made up for it. He was fraternising effusively with the captain of the Lushkar team, who was wondering how many of Dirkovitch’s Cossacks his own dark wiry down-countrymen could account for in a fair charge. But one does not speak of these things openly.

The talk rose higher and higher, and the regimental band played between the courses, as is the immemorial custom, till all tongues ceased for a moment with the removal of the dinner-slips and the first toast of obligation, when an officer rising said, “Mr. Vice, the Queen,” and little Mildred from the bottom of the table answered, “The Queen, God bless her,” and the big spurs clanked as the big men heaved themselves up and drank the Queen upon whose pay they were falsely supposed to settle their mess-bills. That Sacrament of the Mess never grows old, and never ceases to bring a lump into the throat of the listener wherever he be by sea or by land. Dirkovitch rose with his “brothers glorious,” but he could not understand. No-one but an officer can tell what the toast means; and the bulk have more sentiment than comprehension. Immediately after the little silence that follows on the ceremony there entered the native officer who had played for the Lushkar team. He could not, of course, eat with the mess, but he came in at dessert, all six feet of him, with the blue and silver turban atop, and the big black boots below. The mess rose joyously as he thrust forward the hilt of his sabre in token of fealty for the colonel of the White Hussars to touch, and dropped into a vacant chair amid shouts of: “Rung ho, Hira Singh!” (which being translated means “Go in and win “). “Did I whack you over the knee, old man?” “Ressaidar Sahib, what the devil made you play that kicking pig of a pony in the last ten minutes?” “Shabash, Ressaidar Sahib!” Then the voice of the colonel, “The health of Ressaidar Hira Singh!”

After the shouting had died away Hira Singh rose to reply, for he was the cadet of a royal house, the son of a king’s son, and knew what was due on these occasions. Thus he spoke in the vernacular:—“Colonel Sahib and officers of this regiment. Much honour have you done me. This will I remember. We came down from afar to play you. But we were beaten.” (“No fault of yours, Ressaidar Sahib. Played on our own ground, y’ know. Your ponies were cramped from the railway. Don’t apologise!”) “Therefore perhaps we will come again if it be so ordained.” (“Hear! Hear! Hear, indeed! Bravo! Hsh!”) “Then we will play you afresh” (“Happy to meet you.”) “till there are left no feet upon our ponies. Thus far for sport.” He dropped one hand on his sword-hilt and his eye wandered to Dirkovitch lolling back in his chair. “But if by the will of God there arises any other game which is not the polo game, then be assured, Colonel Sahib and officers, that we will play it out side by side, though they,” again his eye sought Dirkovitch, “though they, I say, have fifty ponies to our one horse.” And with a deep-mouthed Rung ho! that sounded like a musket-butt on flagstones he sat down amid leaping glasses.

Dirkovitch, who had devoted himself steadily to the brandy—the terrible brandy aforementioned—did not understand, nor did the expurgated translations offered to him at all convey the point. Decidedly Hira Singh’s was the speech of the evening, and the clamour might have continued to the dawn had it not been broken by the noise of a shot without that sent every man feeling at his defenseless left side. Then there was a scuffle and a yell of pain.

“Carbine-stealing again!” said the adjutant, calmly sinking back in his chair. “This comes of reducing the guards. I hope the sentries have killed him.”

The feet of armed men pounded on the verandah flags, and it was as though something was being dragged.

“Why don’t they put him in the cells till the morning?” said the colonel testily. “See if they’ve damaged him, sergeant.”

The mess sergeant fled out into the darkness and returned with two troopers and a corporal, all very much perplexed.

“Caught a man stealin’ carbines, sir,” said the corporal. “Leastways ’e was crawlin’ towards the barricks, sir, past the main road sentries, an’ the sentry ’e sez, sir—”

The limp heap of rags upheld by the three men groaned. Never was seen so destitute and demoralised an Afghan. He was turbanless, shoeless, caked with dirt, and all but dead with rough handling. Hira Singh started slightly at the sound of the man’s pain. Dirkovitch took another glass of brandy.

“What does the sentry say?” said the colonel.

“Sez ’e speaks English, sir,” said the corporal.

“So you brought him into mess instead of handing him over to the sergeant! If he spoke all the Tongues of the Pentecost you’ve no business—”

Again the bundle groaned and muttered. Little Mildred had risen from his place to inspect. He jumped back as though he had been shot.

“Perhaps it would be better, sir, to send the men away,” said he to the colonel, for he was a much privileged subaltern. He put his arms round the rag-bound horror as he spoke, and dropped him into a chair. It may not have been explained that the littleness of Mildred lay in his being six feet four and big in proportion. The corporal seeing that an officer was disposed to look after the capture, and that the colonel’s eye was beginning to blaze, promptly removed himself and his men. The mess was left alone with the carbine-thief, who laid his head on the table and wept bitterly, hopelessly, and inconsolably as little children weep.

Hira Singh leapt to his feet. “Colonel Sahib,” said he, “that man is no Afghan, for they weep Ai! Ai! Nor is he of Hindustan, for they weep Oh! Ho! He weeps after the fashion of the white men, who say Ow! Ow!”

“Now where the dickens did you get that knowledge, Hira Singh?” said the captain of the Lushkar team.

“Hear him!” said Hira Singh simply, pointing at the crumpled figure that wept as though it would never cease.

“He said, ‘My God!’” said little Mildred. “I heard him say it.”

page 3

The colonel and the mess-room looked at the man in silence. It is a horrible thing to hear a man cry. A woman can sob from the top—of her palate, or her lips, or anywhere else, but a man must cry from his diaphragm, and it rends him to pieces.

“Poor devil!” said the colonel, coughing tremendously. “We ought to send him to hospital. He’s been man-handled.”

Now the adjutant loved his carbines. They were to him as his grandchildren, the men standing in the first place. He grunted rebelliously: “I can understand an Afghan stealing, because he’s built that way. But I can’t understand his crying. That makes it worse.”

The brandy must have affected Dirkovitch, for he lay back in his chair and stared at the ceiling. There was nothing special in the ceiling beyond a shadow as of a huge black coffin. Owing to some peculiarity in the construction of the mess-room, this shadow was always thrown when the candles were lighted. It never disturbed the digestion of the White Hussars. They were in fact rather proud of it.

“Is he going to cry all night?” said the colonel, “or are we supposed to sit up with little Mildred’s guest until he feels better?”

The man in the chair threw up his head and stared at the mess. “Oh, my God!” he said, and every soul in the mess rose to his feet. Then the Lushkar captain did a deed for which he ought to have been given the Victoria Cross—distinguished gallantry in a fight against overwhelming curiosity. He picked up his team with his eyes as the hostess picks up the ladies at the opportune moment, and pausing only by the colonel’s chair to say, “This isn’t our affair, you know, sir,” led them into the verandah and the gardens. Hira Singh was the last to go, and he looked at Dirkovitch. But Dirkovitch had departed into a brandy-paradise of his own. His lips moved without sound and he was studying the coffin on the ceiling.

“White—white all over,” said Basset-Holmer, the adjutant. “What a pernicious renegade he must be! I wonder where he came from?”

The colonel shook the man gently by the arm, and “Who are you?” said he.

There was no answer. The man stared round the mess-room and smiled in the colonel’s face. Little Mildred, who was always more of a woman than a man till “Boot and saddle” was sounded, repeated the question in a voice that would have drawn confidences from a geyser. The man only smiled. Dirkovitch at the far end of the table slid gently from his chair to the floor. No son of Adam in this present imperfect world can mix the Hussars’ champagne with the Hussars’ brandy by five and eight glasses of each without remembering the pit whence he was digged and descending thither. The band began to play the tune with which the White Hussars from the date of their formation have concluded all their functions. They would sooner be disbanded than abandon that tune; it is a part of their system. The man straightened himself in his chair and drummed on the table with his fingers.

“I don’t see why we should entertain lunatics,” said the colonel. “Call a guard and send him off to the cells. We’ll look into the business in the morning. Give him a glass of wine first, though.”

Little Mildred filled a sherry-glass with the brandy and thrust it over to the man. He drank, and the tune rose louder, and he straightened himself yet more. Then he put out his long-taloned hands to a piece of plate opposite and fingered it lovingly. There was a mystery connected with that piece of plate, in the shape of a spring which converted what was a seven-branched candlestick, three springs on each side and one in the middle, into a sort of wheel-spoke candelabrum. He found the spring, pressed it, and laughed weakly. He rose from his chair and inspected a picture on the wall, then moved on to another picture, the mess watching him without a word. When he came to the mantelpiece he shook his head and seemed distressed. A piece of plate representing a mounted hussar in full uniform caught his eye. He pointed to it, and then to the mantelpiece with inquiry in his eyes.

“What is it—Oh, what is it?” said little Mildred. Then as a mother might speak to a child, “That is a horse. Yes, a horse.”

Very slowly came the answer in a thick, passionless guttural—“ Yes, I—have seen. But—where is the horse?”

You could have heard the hearts of the mess beating as the men drew back to give the stranger full room in his wanderings. There was no question of calling the guard.

Again he spoke—very slowly, “Where is our horse?”

There is but one horse in the White Hussars, and his portrait hangs outside the door of the mess-room. He is the piebald drum- horse, the king of the regimental band, that served the regiment for seven-and-thirty years, and in the end was shot for old age. Half the mess tore the thing down from its place and thrust it into the man’s hands. He placed it above the mantelpiece, it clattered on the ledge as his poor hands dropped it, and he staggered towards the bottom of the table, falling into Mildred’s chair. Then all the men spoke to one another something after this fashion, “The drum-horse hasn’t hung over the mantelpiece since ‘67.” “How does he know?” “Mildred, go and speak to him again.” “Colonel, what are you going to do?” “Oh, dry up, and give the poor devil a chance to pull himself together.” “It isn’t possible anyhow. The man’s a lunatic.”

Little Mildred stood at the colonel’s side, talking in his ear. “Will you be good enough to take your seats please, gentlemen!” he said, and the mess dropped into the chairs. Only Dirkovitch’s seat, next to little Mildred’s, was blank, and little Mildred himself had found Hira Singh’s place. The wide-eyed mess-sergeant filled the glasses in dead silence. Once more the colonel rose, but his hand shook, and the port spilled on the table as he looked straight at the man in little Mildred’s chair and said hoarsely, “Mr. Vice, the Queen.” There was a little pause, but the man sprung to his feet and answered without hesitation, “The Queen, God bless her!” and as he emptied the thin glass he snapped the shank between his fingers.

Long and long ago, when the Empress of India was a young woman, and there were no unclean ideals in the land, it was the custom of a few messes to drink the Queen’s toast in broken glass, to the vast delight of the mess-contractors. The custom is now dead, because there is nothing to break anything for, except now and again the word of a Government, and that has been broken already.

“That settles it,” said the colonel, with a gasp. “He’s not a sergeant. What in the world is he?”

The entire mess echoed the word, and the volley of questions would have scared any man. It was no wonder that the ragged, filthy invader could only smile and shake his head.

From under the table, calm and smiling, rose Dirkovitch, who had been roused from healthful slumber by feet upon his body. By the side of the man he rose, and the man shrieked and grovelled. It was a horrible sight, coming so swiftly upon the pride and glory of the toast that had brought the strayed wits together.

page 4

Dirkovitch made no offer to raise him, but little Mildred heaved him up in an instant. It is not good that a gentleman who can answer to the Queen’s toast should lie at the feet of a subaltern of Cossacks.

The hasty action tore the wretch’s upper clothing nearly to the waist, and his body was seamed with dry black scars. There is only one weapon in the world that cuts in parallel lines, and it is neither the cane nor the cat. Dirkovitch saw the marks, and the pupils of his eyes dilated. Also his face changed. He said something that sounded like Shto ve takete, and the man fawning answered, Chetyre.

“What’s that?” said everybody together.

“His number. That is number four, you know.” Dirkovitch spoke very thickly.

“What has a Queen’s officer to do with a qualified number?” said the Colonel, and an unpleasant growl ran round the table.

“How can I tell?” said the affable Oriental with a sweet smile. “He is a—how you have it?—escape—run-a-way, from over there.” He nodded towards the darkness of the night.

“Speak to him if he’ll answer you, and speak to him gently,” said little Mildred, settling the man in a chair. It seemed most improper to all present that Dirkovitch should sip brandy as he talked in purring, spitting Russian to the creature who answered so feebly and with such evident dread. But since Dirkovitch appeared to understand, no one said a word. All breathed heavily, leaning forward, in the long gaps of the conversation. The next time that they have no engagements on hand the White Hussars intend to go to St. Petersburg in a body to learn Russian.

“He does not know how many years ago,” said Dirkovitch, facing the mess, “but he says it was very long ago in a war. I think that there was an accident. He says he was of this glorious and distinguished regiment in the war.”

“The rolls! The rolls! Holmer, get the rolls!” said little Mildred, and the adjutant dashed off bare-headed to the orderly- room, where the muster-rolls of the regiment were kept. He returned just in time to hear Dirkovitch conclude, “Therefore, my dear friends, I am most sorry to say there was an accident which would have been reparable if he had apologised to that our colonel, which he had insulted.”

Then followed another growl which the colonel tried to beat down. The mess was in no mood just then to weigh insults to Russian colonels.

“He does not remember, but I think that there was an accident, and so he was not exchanged among the prisoners, but he was sent to another place—how do you say?—the country. So, he says, he came here. He does not know how he came. Eh? He was at Chepany,”—the man caught the word, nodded, and shivered,—“at Zhigansk and Irkutsk. I cannot understand how he escaped. He says, too, that he was in the forests for many years, but how many years he has forgotten—that with many things. It was an accident; done because he did not apologise to that our colonel. Ah!”

Instead of echoing Dirkovitch’s sigh of regret, it is sad to record that the White Hussars livelily exhibited un-Christian delight and other emotions, hardly restrained by their sense of hospitality. Holmer flung the frayed and yellow regimental rolls on the table, and the men flung themselves at these.

“Steady! Fifty-six—fifty-five—fifty-four,” said Holmer. “Here we are. ‘Lieutenant Austin Limmason. Missing.’ That was before Sebastopol. What an infernal shame! Insulted one of their colonels, and was quietly shipped off. Thirty years of his life wiped out.”

“But he never apologised. Said he’d see him damned first,” chorused the mess.

“Poor chap! I suppose he never had the chance afterwards. How did he come here?” said the colonel.

The dingy heap in the chair could give no answer.

“Do you know who you are?”

It laughed weakly.

“Do you know that you are Limmason—Lieutenant Limmason of the White Hussars?”

Swiftly as a shot came the answer, in a slightly surprised tone, “Yes, I’m—Limmason, of course.” The light died out in his eyes, and the man collapsed, watching every motion of Dirkovitch with terror. A flight from Siberia may fix a few elementary facts in the mind, but it does not seem to lead to continuity of thought. The man could not explain how, like a homing pigeon, he had found his way to his own old mess again. Of what he had suffered or seen he knew nothing. He cringed before Dirkovitch as instinctively as he had pressed the spring of the candlestick, sought the picture of the drum-horse, and answered to the toast of the Queen. The rest was a blank that the dreaded Russian tongue could only in part remove. His head bowed on his breast, and he giggled and cowered alternately.

The devil that lived in the brandy prompted Dirkovitch at this extremely inopportune moment to make a speech. He rose, swaying slightly, gripped the table-edge, while his eyes glowed like opals, and began:

“Fellow-soldiers glorious—true friends and hospitables. It was an accident, and deplorable—most deplorable.” Here he smiled sweetly all round the mess. “But you will think of this little, little thing. So little, is it not? The Czar! Posh! I slap my fingers—I snap my fingers at him. Do I believe in him? No! But in us Slav who has done nothing, him I believe. Seventy—how much—millions peoples that have done nothing—not one thing. Posh! Napoleon was an episode.” He banged a hand on the table. “Hear you, old peoples, we have done nothing in the world—out here. All our work is to do; and it shall be done, old peoples. Get a-way!” He waved his hand imperiously, and pointed to the man. “You see him. He is not good to see. He was just one little—oh, so little—accident, that no one remembered. Now he is—That! So will you be, brother soldiers so brave so will you be. But you will never come back. You will all go where he is gone, or”—he pointed to the great coffin-shadow on the ceiling, and muttering, “Seventy millions—get a-way, you old peoples,” fell asleep.

“Sweet, and to the point,” said little Mildred. “What’s the use of getting wroth? Let’s make this poor devil comfortable.”

But that was a matter suddenly and swiftly taken from the loving hands of the White Hussars. The lieutenant had returned only to go away again three days later, when the wail of the Dead March, and the tramp of the squadrons, told the wondering Station, who saw no gap in the mess-table, that an officer of the regiment had resigned his new-found commission.

And Dirkovitch, bland, supple, and always genial, went away too by a night train. Little Mildred and another man saw him off, for he was the guest of the mess, and even had he smitten the colonel with the open hand, the law of that mess allowed no relaxation of hospitality.

“Good-bye, Dirkovitch, and a pleasant journey,” said little Mildred.

“Au revoir,” said the Russian.

“Indeed! But we thought you were going home?”

“Yes, but I will come again. My dear friends, is that road shut?” He pointed to where the North Star burned over the Khyber Pass.

“By Jove! I forgot. Of course. Happy to meet you, old man, any time you like. Got everything you want? Cheroots, ice, bedding? That’s all right. Well, au revoir, Dirkovitch.”

“Um,” said the other man, as the tail-lights of the train grew small. “Of—all—the—unmitigated!”

Little Mildred answered nothing, but watched the North Star and hummed a selection from recent Simla burlesque that had much delighted the White Hussars. It ran—

I’m sorry for Mister Bluebeard,
I’m sorry to cause him pain;
But a terrible spree there’s sure to be
When he comes back again.

WHEN three obscure gentlemen in San Francisco argued on insufficient premises they condemned a fellow-creature to a most unpleasant death in a far country which had nothing whatever to do with the United States. They foregathered at the top of a tenement-house in Tehama Street, an unsavoury quarter of the city, and, there calling for certain drinks, they conspired because they were conspirators by trade, officially known as the Third Three of the I.A.A.—an institution for the propagation of pure light, not to be confounded with any others, though it is affiliated to many. The Second Three live in Montreal, and work among the poor there; the First Three have their home in New York, not far from Castle Garden, and write regularly once a week to a small house near one of the big hotels at Boulogne. What happens after that, a particular section of Scotland Yard knows too well and laughs at. A conspirator detests ridicule. More men have been stabbed with Lucrezia Borgia daggers and dropped into the Thames for laughing at Head Centres and Triangles than for betraying secrets; for this is human nature.The Third Three conspired over whiskey cocktails and a clean sheet of note-paper against the British Empire and all that lay therein. This work is very like what men without discernment call politics before a general election. You pick out and discuss, in the company of congenial friends, all the weak points in your opponents’ organisation, and unconsciously dwell upon and exaggerate all their mishaps, till it seems to you a miracle that the hated party holds together for an hour.

“Our principle is not so much active demonstration—that we leave to others—as passive embarrassment, to weaken and unnerve,” said the first man. “Wherever an organisation is crippled, wherever confusion is thrown into any branch of any department, we gain a step for those who take on the work; we are but the forerunners.” He was a German enthusiast, and editor of a newspaper, from whose leading articles he quoted frequently.

“That cursed Empire makes so many blunders of her own that unless we doubled the year’s average I guess it wouldn’t strike her anything special had occurred,” said the second man. “Are you prepared to say that all our resources are equal to blowing off the muzzle of a hundred-ton gun or spiking a ten-thousand-ton ship on a plain rock in clear daylight? They can beat us at our own game. Better join hands with the practical branches; we’re in funds now. Try a direct scare in a crowded street. They value their greasy hides.” He was the drag upon the wheel, and an Americanised Irishman of the second generation, despising his own race and hating the other. He had learned caution.

The third man drank his cocktail and spoke no word. He was the strategist, but unfortunately his knowledge of life was limited. He picked a letter from his breast-pocket and threw it across the table. That epistle to the heathen contained some very concise directions from the First Three in New York. It said—

“The boom in black iron has already affected the eastern markets, where our agents have been forcing down the English-held stock among the smaller buyers who watch the turn of shares. Any immediate operations, such as western bears, would increase their willingness to unload. This, however, cannot be expected till they see clearly that foreign iron-masters are willing to co-operate. Mulcahy should be dispatched to feel the pulse of the market, and act accordingly. Mavericks are at present the best for our purpose.—P.D.Q.”

As a message referring to an iron crisis in Pennsylvania, it was interesting, if not lucid. As a new departure in organized attack on an outlying English dependency, it was more than interesting.

The second man read it through and murmured—“Already? Surely they are in too great a hurry. All that Dhulip Singh could do in India he has done, down to the distribution of his photographs among the peasantry. Ho! Ho! The Paris firm arranged that, and he has no substantial money backing from the Other Power. Even our agents in India know he hasn’t. What is the use of our organisation wasting men on work that is already done? Of course the Irish regiments in India are half mutinous as they stand.”

This shows how near a lie may come to the truth. An Irish regiment, for just so long as it stands still, is generally a hard handful to control, being reckless and rough. When, however, it is moved in the direction of musketry-firing, it becomes strangely and unpatriotically content with its lot. It has even been heard to cheer the Queen with enthusiasm on these occasions.

But the notion of tampering with the army was, from the point of view of Tehama Street, an altogether sound one. There is no shadow of stability in the policy of an English Government, and the most sacred oaths of England would, even if engrossed on vellum, find very few buyers among colonies and dependencies that have suffered from vain beliefs. But there remains to England always her army. That cannot change except in the matter of uniform and equipment. The officers may write to the papers demanding the heads of the Horse Guards in default of cleaner redress for grievances; the men may break loose across a country town and seriously startle the publicans; but neither officers nor men have it in their composition to mutiny after the continental manner. The English people, when they trouble to think about the army at all, are, and with justice, absolutely assured that it is absolutely trustworthy. Imagine for a moment their emotions on realising that such and such a regiment was in open revolt from causes directly due to England’s management of Ireland. They would probably send the regiment to the polls forthwith and examine their own consciences as to their duty to Erin; but they would never be easy any more. And it was this vague, unhappy mistrust that the I.A.A. were labouring to produce.

“Sheer waste of breath,” said the second man after a pause in the council. “I don’t see the use of tampering with their fool-army, but it has been tried before and we must try it again. It looks well in the reports. If we send one man from here you may bet your life that other men are going too. Order up Mulcahy.”

They ordered him up—a slim, slight, dark-haired young man, devoured with that blind rancorous hatred of England that only reaches its full growth across the Atlantic. He had sucked it from his mother’s breast in the little cabin at the back of the northern avenues of New York; he had been taught his rights and his wrongs, in German and Irish, on the canal fronts of Chicago; and San Francisco held men who told him strange and awful things of the great blind power over the seas. Once, when business took him across the Atlantic, he had served in an English regiment, and being insubordinate had suffered extremely. He drew all his ideas of England that were not bred by the cheaper patriotic prints from one iron-fisted colonel and an unbending adjutant. He would go to the mines if need be to teach his gospel. And he went, as his instructions advised, p.d.q.—which means “with speed”—to introduce embarrassment into an Irish regiment, “already half-mutinous, quartered among Sikh peasantry, all wearing miniatures of His Highness Dhulip Singh, Maharaja of the Punjab, next their hearts, and all eagerly expecting his arrival.” Other information equally valuable was given him by his masters. He was to be cautious, but never to grudge expense in winning the hearts of the men in the regiment. His mother in New York would supply funds, and he was to write to her once a month. Life is pleasant for a man who has a mother in New York to send him two hundred pounds a year over and above his regimental pay.

page 2

In process of time, thanks to his intimate knowledge of drill and musketry exercise, the excellent Mulcahy, wearing the corporal’s stripe, went out in a troopship and joined Her Majesty’s Royal Loyal Musketeers, commonly known as the “Mavericks,” because they were masterless and unbranded cattle—sons of small farmers in County Clare, shoeless vagabonds of Kerry, herders of Ballyvegan, much wanted “moonlighters” from the bare rainy headlands of the south coast, officered by O’Mores, Bradys, Hills, Kilreas, and the like. Never to outward seeming was there more promising material to work on. The First Three had chosen their regiment well. It feared nothing that moved or talked save the colonel and the regimental Roman Catholic chaplain, the fat Father Dennis, who held the keys of heaven and hell, and blared like an angry bull when he desired to be convincing. Him also it loved because on occasions of stress he was used to tuck up his cassock and charge with the rest into the merriest of the fray, where he always found, good man, that the saints sent him a revolver when there was a fallen private to be protected, or—but this came as an afterthought his own gray head to be guarded.

Cautiously as he had been instructed, tenderly and with much beer, Mulcahy opened his projects to such as he deemed fittest to listen. And these were, one and all, of that quaint, crooked, sweet, profoundly irresponsible and profoundly lovable race that fight like fiends, argue like children, reason like women, obey like men, and jest like their own goblins of the rath through rebellion, loyalty, want, woe, or war. The underground work of a conspiracy is always dull and very much the same the world over. At the end of six months—the seed always falling on good ground—Mulcahy spoke almost explicitly, hinting darkly in the approved fashion at dread powers behind him, and advising nothing more nor less than mutiny. Were they not dogs, evilly treated? Had they not all their own and their national revenges to satisfy? Who in these days would do aught to nine hundred men in rebellion? Who, again, could stay them if they broke for the sea, licking up on their way other regiments only too anxious to join? And afterwards . . . here followed windy promises of gold and preferment, office and honour, ever dear to a certain type of Irishman.

As he finished his speech, in the dusk of a twilight, to his chosen associates, there was a sound of a rapidly unslung belt behind him. The arm of one Dan Grady flew out in the gloom and arrested something. Then said Dan—

“Mulcahy, you’re a great man, an’ you do credit to whoever sent you. Walk about a bit while we think of it.” Mulcahy departed elate. He knew his words would sink deep.

“Why the triple-dashed asterisks did ye not let me belt him’?” grunted a voice.

“Because I’m not a fat-headed fool. Boys, ’Tis what he’s been driving at these six months—our superior corp’ril with his education and his copies of the Irish papers and his everlasting beer. He’s been sent for the purpose, and that’s where the money comes from. Can ye not see? That man’s a gold-mine, which Horse Egan here would have destroyed with a belt-buckle. It would be throwing away the gifts of Providence not to fall in with his little plans. Of coorse we’ll mut’ny till all’s dry. Shoot the colonel on the parade-ground, massacree the company officers, ransack the arsenal, and then—Boys, did he tell you what next? He told me the other night when he was beginning to talk wild. Then we’re to join with the niggers, and look for help from Dhulip Singh and the Russians!”

“And spoil the best campaign that ever was this side of Hell! Danny, I’d have lost the beer to ha’ given him the belting he requires.”

“Oh, let him go this awhile, man! He’s got no—no constructiveness, but that’s the egg-meat of his plan, and you must understand that I’m in with it, an’ so are you. We’ll want oceans of beer to convince us—firmaments full. We’ll give him talk for his money, and one by one all the boys’ll come in and he’ll have a nest of nine hundred mutineers to squat in an’ give drink to.”

“What makes me killing-mad is his wanting us to do what the niggers did thirty years gone. That an’ his pig’s cheek in saying that other regiments would come along,” said a Kerry man.

“That’s not so bad as hintin’ we should loose off on the colonel.”

“Colonel be sugared! I’d as soon as not put a shot through his helmet to see him jump and clutch his old horse’s head. But Mulcahy talks o’ shootin’ our comp’ny orf’cers accidental.”

“He said that, did he?” said Horse Egan.

“Somethin’ like that, anyways. Can’t ye fancy ould Barber Brady wid a bullet in his lungs, coughin’ like a sick monkey, an’ sayin’, ‘Bhoys, I do not mind your gettin’ dhrunk, but you must hould your liquor like men. The man that shot me is dhrunk. I’ll suspend investigations for six hours, while I get this bullet cut out, and then—’”

“‘An’ then,” continued Horse Egan, for the peppery Major’s peculiarities of speech and manner were as well known as his tanned face; “‘an’ then, ye dissolute, half-baked, putty-faced scum o’ Connemara, if I find a man so much as lookin’ confused, begad, I’ll coort-martial the whole company. A man that can’t get over his liquor in six hours is not fit to belong to the Mavericks!’”

A shout of laughter bore witness to the truth of the sketch.

“It’s pretty to think of,” said the Kerry man slowly. “Mulcahy would have us do all the devilmint, and get clear himself, someways. He wudn’t be takin’ all this fool’s throuble in shpoilin’ the reputation of the regimint—”

“Reputation of your grandmother’s pig!” said Dan.

“Well, an’ he had a good reputation tu; so it’s all right. Mulcahy must see his way to clear out behind him, or he’d not ha’ come so far, talkin’ powers of darkness.”

“Did you hear anything of a regimental coortmartial among the Black Boneens, these days? Half a company of ’em took one of the new draft an’ hanged him by his arms with a tent-rope from a third-story verandah. They gave no reason for so doin’, but he was half dead. I’m thinking that the Boneens are short-sighted. It was a friend of Mulcahy’s, or a man in the same trade. They’d a deal better ha’ taken his beer,” returned Dan reflectively.

“Better still ha’ handed him up to the Colonel,” said Horse Egan, “onless—but sure the news wud be all over the counthry an’ give the reg’ment a bad name.”

“An’ there’d be no reward for that man—he but went about talkin’,” said the Kerry man artlessly.

“You speak by your breed,” said Dan, with a laugh. “There was never a Kerry man yet that wudn’t sell his brother for a pipe o’ tobacco an’ a pat on the back from a p’liceman.”

“Praise God I’m not a bloomin’ Orangeman,” was the answer.

page 3

“No, nor never will be,” said Dan. “They breed men in Ulster. Would you like to thry the taste of one?”

The Kerry man looked and longed, but forbore. The odds of battle were too great. “Then you’ll not even give Mulcahy a—a strike for his money,” said the voice of Horse Egan, who regarded what he called “trouble” of any kind as the pinnacle of felicity.

Dan answered not at all, but crept on tip-toe, with long strides, to the mess-room, the men following. The room was empty. In a corner, cased like the King of Dahomey’s state umbrella, stood the regimental Colours. Dan lifted them tenderly and unrolled in the light of the candles the record of the Mavericks—tattered, worn, and hacked. The white satin was darkened everywhere with big brown stains, the gold threads on the crowned harp were frayed and discoloured, and the Red Bull, the totem of the Mavericks, was coffee-hued. The stiff, embroidered folds, whose price is human life, rustled down slowly. The Mavericks keep their colours long and guard them very sacredly.

“Vittoria, Salamanca, Toulouse, Waterloo, Moodkee, Ferozshah, an’ Sobraon—that was fought close next door here, against the very beggars he wants us to join. Inkerman, The Alma, Sebastopol! ‘What are those little businesses compared to the campaigns of General Mulcahy? The Mut’ny, think o’ that; the Mut’ny an’ some dirty little matters in Afghanistan; an’ for that an’ these an’ those”—Dan pointed to the names of glorious battles—“that Yankee man with the partin’ in his hair comes an’ says as easy as ‘have a drink’ . . . Holy Moses, there’s the captain!”

But it was the mess-sergeant who came in just as the men clattered out, and found the colours uncased.

From that day dated the mutiny of the Mavericks, to the joy of Mulcahy and the pride of his mother in New York—the good lady who sent the money for the beer. Never, so far as words went, was such a mutiny. The conspirators, led by Dan Grady and Horse Egan, poured in daily. They were sound men, men to be trusted, and they all wanted blood; but first they must have beer. They cursed the Queen, they mourned over Ireland, they suggested hideous plunder of the Indian country-side, and then, alas—some of the younger men would go forth and wallow on the ground in spasms of wicked laughter The genius of the Irish for conspiracies is remarkable. None the less they would swear no oaths but those of their own making, which were rare and curious, and they were always at pains to impress Mulcahy with the risks they ran. Naturally the flood of beer wrought demoralisation. But Mulcahy confused the causes of things, and when a very muzzy Maverick smote a sergeant on the nose or called his commanding officer a bald-headed old lard-bladder and even worse names, he fancied that rebellion and not liquor was at the bottom of the outbreak. Other gentlemen who have concerned themselves in larger conspiracies have made the same error.

The hot season, in which they protested no man could rebel, came to an end, and Mulcahy suggested a visible return for his teachings. As to the actual upshot of the mutiny he cared nothing. It would be enough if the English, infatuatedly trusting to the integrity of their army, should be startled with news of an Irish regiment revolting from political considerations. His persistent demands would have ended, at Dan’s instigation, in a regimental belting which in all probability would have killed him and cut off the supply of beer, had not he been sent on special duty some fifty miles away from the Cantonment to cool his heels in a mud fort and dismount obsolete artillery. Then the colonel of the Mavericks, reading his newspaper diligently, and scenting Frontier trouble from afar, posted to the army headquarters and pled with the Commander-in-chief for certain privileges, to be granted under certain contingencies,; which contingencies came about only a week later, when the annual little war on the border developed itself and the colonel returned to carry the good news to the Mavericks. He held the promise of the Chief for active service, and the men must get ready.

On the evening of the same day, Mulcahy, an unconsidered corporal—yet great in conspiracy—returned to cantonments, and heard sounds of strife and howlings from afar off. The mutiny had broken out and the barracks of the Mavericks were one white-washed pandemonium. A private tearing through the barrack-square, gasped in his ear, “Service! Active service. It’s a burnin’ shame.” Oh joy, the Mavericks had risen on the eve of battle! They would not—noble and loyal sons of Ireland—serve the Queen longer. The news would flash through the country-side and over to England, and he—Mulcahy—the trusted of the Third Three, had brought about the crash. The private stood in the middle of the square and cursed colonel, regiment, officers, and doctor, particularly the doctor, by his gods. An orderly of the native cavalry regiment clattered through the mob of soldiers. He was half lifted, half dragged from his horse, beaten on the back with mighty hand-claps till his eyes watered, and called all manner of endearing names. Yes, the Mavericks had fraternized with the native troops. Who then was the agent among the latter that had blindly wrought with Mulcahy so well?

An officer slunk, almost ran, from the mess to a barrack. He was mobbed by the infuriated soldiery, who closed round but did not kill him, for he fought his way to shelter, flying for the life. Mulcahy could have wept with pure joy and thankfulness. The very prisoners in the guard-room were shaking the bars of their cells and howling like wild beasts, and from every barrack poured the booming as of a big war-drum.

Mulcahy hastened to his own barrack. He could hardly hear himself speak. Eighty men were pounding with fist and heel the tables and trestles—eighty men, flushed with mutiny, stripped to their shirt sleeves, their knapsacks half-packed for the march to the sea, made the two-inch boards thunder again as they chanted, to a tune that Mulcahy knew well, the Sacred War Song of the Mavericks—

Listen in the north, my boys, there’s trouble on the wind;
Tramp o’ Cossack hooves in front, gray great-coats behind,
Trouble on the Frontier of a most amazin’ kind,
Trouble on the waters o’ the Oxus!

Then, as the table broke under the furious accompaniment—

Hurrah! hurrah! it’s north by west we go;
Hurrah! hurrah! the chance we wanted so;
Let ’em hear the chorus from Umballa to Moscow,
As we go marchin’ to the Kremling.

“Mother of all the saints in bliss and all the devils in cinders, where’s my fine new sock widout the heel?” howled Horse Egan, ransacking everybody’s valise but his own. He was engaged in making up deficiencies of kit preparatory to a campaign, and in that work he steals best who steals last. “Ah, Mulcahy, you’re in good time,” he shouted, “We’ve got the route, and we’re off on Thursday for a picnic wid the Lancers next door.”

page 4

An ambulance orderly appeared with a huge basket full of lint rolls, provided by the forethought of the Queen for such as might need them later on. Horse Egan unrolled his bandage, and flicked it under Mulcahy’s nose, chanting—

“Sheepskin an’ bees’ wax, thunder, pitch, and plaster. The more you try to pull it off, the more it sticks the faster. As I was goin’ to New Orleans—

“You know the rest of it, my Irish American-Jew boy. By gad, ye have to fight for the Queen in the inside av a fortnight, my darlin’”

A roar of laughter interrupted. Mulcahy looked vacantly down the room. Bid a boy defy his father when the pantomime-cab is at the door, or a girl develop a will of her own when her mother is putting the last touches to the first ball-dress, but do not ask an Irish regiment to embark upon mutiny on the eve of a campaign, when it has fraternised with the native regiment that accompanies it, and driven its officers into retirement with ten thousand clamorous questions, and the prisoners dance for joy, and the sick men stand in the open calling down all known diseases on the head of the doctor, who has certified that they are “medically unfit for active service.” At even the Mavericks might have been mistaken for mutineers by one so unversed in their natures as Mulcahy. At dawn a girls’ school might have learned deportment from them. They knew that their colonel’s hand had closed, and that he who broke that iron discipline would not go to the front: nothing in the world will persuade one of our soldiers, when he is ordered to the north on the smallest of affairs, that he is not immediately going gloriously to slay Cossacks and cook his kettles in the palace of the Czar. A few of the younger men mourned for Mulcahy’s beer, because the campaign was to be conducted on strict temperance principles, but as Dan and Horse Egan said sternly, “We’ve got the beer-man with us. He shall drink now on his own hook.”

Mulcahy had not taken into account the possibility of being sent on active service. He had made up his mind that he would not go under any circumstances, but fortune was against him.

“Sick-you?” said the doctor, who had served an unholy apprenticeship to his trade in Tralee poorhouses. “You’re only home-sick, and what you call varicose veins come from over-eating. A little gentle exercise will cure that.” And later, “Mulcahy, my man, everybody is allowed to apply for a sick-certificate once. If he tries it twice we call him by an ugly name. Go back to your duty, and let’s hear no more of your diseases.”

I am ashamed to say that Horse Egan enjoyed the study of Mulcahy’s soul in those days, and Dan took an equal interest. Together they would communicate to their corporal all the dark lore of death which is the portion of those who have seen men die. Egan had the larger experience, but Dan the finer imagination. Mulcahy shivered when the former spoke of the knife as an intimate acquaintance, or the latter dwelt with loving particularity on the fate of those who, wounded and helpless, had been overlooked by the ambulances, and had fallen into the hands of the Afghan women-folk.

Mulcahy knew that the mutiny, for the present at least, was dead; knew, too, that a change had come over Dan’s usually respectful attitude towards him, and Horse Egan’s laughter and frequent allusions to abortive conspiracies emphasised all that the conspirator had guessed. The horrible fascination of the death-stories, however, made him seek the men’s society. He learned much more than he had bargained for; and in this manner. It was on the last night before the regiment entrained to the front. The barracks were stripped of everything movable, and the men were too excited to sleep. The bare walls gave out a heavy hospital smell of chloride of lime.

“And what,” said Mulcahy in an awe-stricken whisper, after some conversation on the eternal subject, “are you going to do to me, Dan?” This might have been the language of an able conspirator conciliating a weak spirit.

“You’ll see,” said Dan grimly, turning over in his cot, “or I rather shud say you’ll not see.”

This was hardly the language of a weak spirit. Mulcahy shook under the bed-clothes.

“Be easy with him,” put in Egan from the next cot. “He has got his chanst o’ goin’ clean. Listen, Mulcahy, all we want is for the good sake of the regiment that you take your death standing up, as a man shud. There’s be heaps an’ heaps of enemy—plenshus heaps. Go there an’ do all you can and die decent. You’ll die with a good name there. ’Tis not a hard thing considerin’.”—Again Mulcahy shivered.

“An’ how could a man wish to die better than fightin’?” added Dan consolingly.

“And if I won’t?” said the corporal in a dry whisper.

“There’ll be a dale of smoke,” returned Dan, sitting up and ticking off the situation on his fingers, “sure to be, an’ the noise of the firin’ll be tremenjus, an’ we’ll be running about up and down, the regiment will. But we, Horse and I—we’ll stay by you, Mulcahy, and never let you go. Maybe there’ll be an accident.”

“It’s playing it low on me. Let me go. For pity’s sake, let me go. I never did you harm, and—and I stood you as much beer as I could. Oh, don’t be hard on me, Dan! You are—you were in it too. You won’t kill me up there, will you?”

“I’m not thinkin’ of the treason; though you shud be glad any honest boys drank with you. It’s for the regiment. We can’t have the shame o’ you bringin’ shame on us. You went to the doctor quiet as a sick cat to get and stay behind an’ live with the women at the depot—you that wanted us to run to the sea in wolf-packs like the rebels none of your black blood dared to be! But we knew about your goin’ to the doctor, for he told in mess, and it’s all over the regiment. Bein’, as we are, your best friends, we didn’t allow any one to molest you yet. We will see to you ourselves. Fight which you will—us or the enemy you’ll never lie in that cot again, and there’s more glory and maybe less kicks from fightin’ the enemy. That’s fair speakin’.”—“And he told us by word of mouth to go and join with the niggers—you’ve forgotten that, Dan,” said Horse Egan, to justify sentence.

“What’s the use of plaguin’ the man? One shot pays for all. Sleep ye sound, Mulcahy. But you onderstand, do ye not?”

Mulcahy for some weeks understood very little of anything at all save that ever at his elbow, in camp or at parade, stood two big men with soft voices adjuring him to commit hari-kari lest a worse thing should happen—to die for the honour of the regiment in decency among the nearest knives. But Mulcahy dreaded death. He remembered certain things that priests had said in his infancy, and his mother—not the one at New York—starting from her sleep with shrieks to pray for a husband’s soul in torment. It is well to be of a cultured intelligence, but in time of trouble the weak human mind returns to the creed it sucked in at the breast, and if that creed be not a pretty one trouble follows. Also, the death he would have to face would be physically painful. Most conspirators have large imaginations. Mulcahy could see himself, as he lay on the earth in the night, dying by various causes. They were all horrible; the mother in New York was very far away, and the Regiment, the engine that, once you fall in its grip, moves you forward whether you will or won’t, was daily coming closer to the enemy!

page 5

They were brought to the field of MarzunKatai, and with the Black Boneens to aid, they fought a fight that has never been set down in the newspapers. In response, many believe, to the fervent prayers of Father Dennis, the enemy not only elected to fight in the open, but made a beautiful fight, as many weeping Irish mothers knew later. They gathered behind walls or flickered across the open in shouting masses, and were pot-valiant in artillery. It was expedient to hold a large reserve and wait for the psychological moment that was being prepared by the shrieking shrapnel. Therefore the Mavericks lay down in open order on the brow of a hill to watch the play till their call should come. Father Dennis, whose duty was in the rear, to smooth the trouble of the wounded, had naturally managed to make his way to the foremost of his boys, and lay like a black porpoise, at length on the grass. To him crawled Mulcahy, ashen-gray, demanding absolution.

“’Wait till you’re shot,” said Father Dennis sweetly. “There’s a time for everything.”

Dan Grady chuckled as he blew for the fiftieth time into the breech of his speckless rifle. Mulcahy groaned and buried his head in his arms till a stray shot spoke like a snipe immediately above his head, and a general heave and tremour rippled the line. Other shots followed and a few took effect, as a shriek or a grunt attested. The officers, who had been lying down with the men, rose and began to walk steadily up and down the front of their companies.

This manoeuvre, executed, not for publication, but as a guarantee of good faith, to soothe men, demands nerve. You must not hurry, you must not look nervous, though you know that you are a mark for every rifle within extreme range, and above all if you are smitten you must make as little noise as possible and roll inwards through the files. It is at this hour, when the breeze brings the first salt whiff of the powder to noses rather cold at the tip, and the eye can quietly take in the appearance of each red casualty, that the strain on the nerves is strongest. Scotch regiments can endure for half a day and abate no whit of their zeal at the end; English regiments sometimes sulk under punishment, while the Irish, like the French, are apt to run forward by ones and twos, which is just as bad as running back. The truly wise commandant of highly-strung troops allows them, in seasons of waiting, to hear the sound of their own voices uplifted in song. There is a legend of an English regiment that lay by its arms under fire chaunting “Sam Hall,” to the horror of its newly appointed and pious colonel. The Black Boneens, who were suffering more than the Mavericks, on a hill half a mile away, began presently to explain to all who cared to listen—

We’ll sound the jubilee, from the centre to the sea,
And Ireland shall be free, says the Shan-van Vogh.

“Sing, boys,” said Father Dennis softly. “It looks as if we cared for their Afghan peas.”

Dan Grady raised himself to his knees and opened his mouth in a song imparted to him, as to most of his comrades, in the strictest confidence by Mulcahy—that Mulcahy then lying limp and fainting on the grass, the chill fear of death upon him.

Company after company caught up the words which, the I.A.A. say, are to herald the general rising of Erin, and to breathe which, except to those duly appointed to hear, is death. Wherefore they are printed in this place.

The Saxon in Heaven’s just balance is weighed,
His doom like Belshazzar’s in death has been cast,
And the hand of the venger shall never be stayed
Till his race, faith, and speech are a dream of the past.

They were heart-filling lines and they ran with a swirl; the I.A.A. are better served by their pens than their petards. Dan clapped Mulcahy merrily on the back, asking him to sing up. The officers lay down again. There was no need to walk any more. Their men were soothing themselves thunderously, thus—

St. Mary in Heaven has written the vow
That the land shall not rest till the heretic blood,
From the babe at the breast to the hand at the plough,
Has rolled to the ocean like Shannon in flood!

“I’ll speak to you after all’s over,” said Father Dennis authoritatively in Dan’s ear. “What’s the use of confessing to me when you do this foolishness? Dan, you’ve been playing with fire! I’ll lay you more penance in a week than—”

“Come along to Purgatory with us, Father dear. The Boneens are on the move; they’ll let us go now!”

The regiment rose to the blast of the bugle as one man; but one man there was who rose more swiftly than all the others, for half an inch of bayonet was in the fleshy part of his leg.

“You’ve got to do it,” said Dan grimly. “Do it decent, anyhow;” and the roar of the rush drowned his words, for the rear companies thrust forward the first, still singing as they swung down the slope—

From the child at the breast to the hand at the plough
Shall roll to the ocean like Shannon in flood!

They should have sung it in the face of England, not of the Afghans, whom it impressed as much as did the wild Irish yell.

“They came down singing,” said the unofficial report of the enemy, borne from village to village the next day. “They continued to sing, and it was written that our men could not abide when they came. It is believed that there was magic in the aforesaid song.”

Dan and Horse Egan kept themselves in the neighbourhood of Mulcahy. Twice the man would have bolted back in the confusion. Twice he was heaved, kicked, and shouldered back again into the unpaintable inferno of a hotly contested charge.

page 6

At the end, the panic excess of his fear drove him into madness beyond all human courage. His eyes staring at nothing, his mouth open and frothing, and breathing as one in a cold bath, he went forward demented, while Dan toiled after him. The charge checked at a high mud wall. It was Mulcahy who scrambled up tooth and nail and hurled down among the bayonets the amazed Afghan who barred his way. It was Mulcahy, keeping to the straight line of the rabid dog, who led a collection of ardent souls at a newly unmasked battery and flung himself on the muzzle of a gun as his companions danced among the gunners. It was Mulcahy who ran wildly on from that battery into the open plain, where the enemy were retiring in sullen groups. His hands were empty, he had lost helmet and belt, and he was bleeding from a wound in the neck. Dan and Horse Egan, panting and distressed, had thrown themselves down on the ground by the captured guns, when they noticed Mulcahy’s charge.

“Mad,” said Horse Egan critically. “Mad with fear! He’s going straight to his death, an’ shouting’s no use.”

“Let him go. Watch now! If we fire we’ll hit him maybe.”

The last of a hurrying crowd of Afghans turned at the noise of shod feet behind him, and shifted his knife ready to hand. This, he saw, was no time to take prisoners. Mulcahy tore on, sobbing; the straight-held blade went home through the defenceless breast, and the body pitched forward almost before a shot from Dan’s rifle brought down the slayer and still further hurried the Afghan retreat. The two Irishmen went out to bring in their dead.

“He was given the point, and that was an easy death,” said Horse Egan, viewing the corpse. “But would you ha’ shot him, Danny, if he had lived?”

“He didn’t live, so there’s no sayin’. But I doubt I wud have bekaze of the fun he gave us—let alone the beer. Hike up his legs, Horse, and we’ll bring him in. Perhaps ’tis better this way.”

They bore the poor limp body to the mass of the regiment, lolling open-mouthed on their rifles; and there was a general snigger when one of the younger subalterns said, “That was a good man!”

“Phew,” said Horse Egan, when a burial-party had taken over the burden. “I’m powerful dhry, and this reminds me there’ll be no more beer at all.”

“Fwhy not?” said Dan, with a twinkle in his eye as he stretched himself for rest. “Are we not conspirin’ all we can, an’ while we conspire are we not entitled to free dhrinks? Sure his ould mother in New York would not let her son’s comrades perish of drouth—if she can be reached at the end of a letter.”

“You’re a janius,” said Horse Egan. “0’ coorse she will not. I wish this crool war was over, an’ we’d get back to canteen. Faith, the Commander-in-chief ought to be hanged in his own little sword-belt for makin’ us work on wather.”

The Mavericks were generally of Horse Egan’s opinion. So they made haste to get their work done as soon as possible, and their industry was rewarded by unexpected peace. “We can fight the sons of Adam,” said the tribesmen, “but we cannot fight the sons of Eblis, and this regiment never stays still in one place. Let us therefore come in.” They came in, and “this regiment” withdrew to conspire under the leadership of Dan Grady.

Excellent as a subordinate, Dan failed altogether as a chief-in- command—possibly because he was too much swayed by the advice of the only man in the regiment who could manufacture more than one kind of handwriting. The same mail that bore to Mulcahy’s mother in New York a letter from the colonel telling her how valiantly her son had fought for the Queen, and how assuredly he would have been recommended for the Victoria Cross had he survived, carried a communication signed, I grieve to say, by that same colonel and all the officers of the regiment, explaining their willingness to do “anything which is contrary to the regulations and all kinds of revolutions” if only a little money could be forwarded to cover incidental expenses. Daniel Grady, Esquire, would receive funds, vice Mulcahy, who “was unwell at this present time of writing.”

Both letters were forwarded from New York to Tehama Street, San Francisco, with marginal comments as brief as they were bitter. The Third Three read and looked at each other. Then the Second Conspirator—he who believed in “joining hands with the practical branches”—began to laugh, and on recovering his gravity said, “Gentlemen, I consider this will be a lesson to us. We’re left again. Those cursed Irish have let us down. I knew they would, but”—here he laughed afresh—“I’d give considerable to know what was at the back of it all.”

His curiosity would have been satisfied had he seen Dan Grady, discredited regimental conspirator, trying to explain to his thirsty comrades in India the non-arrival of funds from New York.