Chapter Fourteen.
Trinkitat.
The Alligator troopship came tearing along the Red Sea, sending the spray flying from her bows, and churning up the historical water with her screw, just as if it were ordinary commonplace sea-water, without any sacred, classical, or poetical associations! The men gathered on the forecastle and the officers on the poop were alike gazing hard at a town of brilliant whiteness, which became more distinct every minute.
“And that is Suakim,” said one of the group of officers. “It looks very clean at a distance. What is it made of, doctor?”
Doctor MacBean was a middle-aged man who liked the society of young ones because he had one little weakness: he was very fond of holding forth, and young men were more inclined to listen patiently to him than older ones. He was a naturalist, a sportsman, and had been a great traveller. There are men who go through Greece, as they would through Surrey, gleaning nothing; but the doctor was not one of them. If he were only a day in a place he learned all about it, and what he learned he remembered. So that to be in his company was to have an encyclopaedia conveniently at hand, from which you could learn what you wanted to know without the trouble of turning over the leaves. For the rest, such a boy past forty there never was—ready for anything for sport or fun, even to a spice of practical joking; and with all this a grave Scottish face which imposed upon those who had not found him out. But in matters of information he was trustworthy, his passion for fact overcoming his love of mystification.
“Suakim is built of madrepore,” he replied to the above question; “very curious. Houses and mosques all of the same materials as these reefs we are now coming to.”
“Madrepore—why, that is a sort of coral—isn’t it?”
“Yes, it is coral.”
“That’s queer though. My shirt-studs are made of coral; fancy a town built of shirt-studs!”
“Shirt-studs are quite a secondary use of the article; the principal being to help babies cut their teeth. Have you got your coral still, Green?”
Green was a very young subaltern, who had not been to a public school, and was somewhat easily imposed upon.
“No,” he said; “at least not here. It is somewhere at home, I believe.”
“That is right; you will want it when you come to cut your wisdom teeth. You know, I suppose, that you cannot get your company until you have done that?”
“I knew I had to pass an examination,” said Green, not convinced that this information was quite bonâ fide.
“Of course, but this is in addition to that. When a vacancy occurs, you send in your certificate of having passed in tactics, and then you are ordered to go to the Veterinary College, and there they look in your mouth.”
“But I am not a horse!” exclaimed Green.
“No, but the rule applies to other animals,” said his tormentor, gravely.
“I know you are chaffing me,” said Green, and indeed the roars of laughter were alone sufficient to show him that.
“But all the same, it is curious that a town should be built of child’s corals.”
“That is why it has been selected as a good station for infantry,” said a young fellow amidst a chorus of groans.
“I tell you what it is, Tom,” said one of the captains; “I will not have you in my company if you do that again. The man who would make a bad pun and a hackneyed pun in such beautiful scenery as this, would—I don’t know what enormity he would not commit. Come late on parade, very likely.”
“Oh, no!” said Tom Strachan, for the lieutenant was no other then our old friend, “I hope I know better than to infringe on the privileges of my superior officers.”
A general grin showed that Strachan had scored there; for Fitzgerald, his captain, was noted for slipping into his place just in time to avoid reprimand, and no sooner. But he could not make any reply without fitting the cap; so he grinned too.
“Is Suakim an island?” he asked.
“Not now,” replied MacBean. “When I was last here it was, but since that Gordon has had a causeway made to the mainland. There, you can see it now,” he added, as the vessel steamed through a gap in the outer coral reef.
“I wonder whether these passages in the reef were made by cutting the coral out to build the town,” said another.
“No,” replied the doctor. “Their origin is rather curious. Sometimes, in the wet season, torrents rush down from the mountains to the sea, and the fresh water kills the polypus which makes the coral, and so stops the formation of it just there, and makes an opening. This theory is confirmed by the fact that all such passages through the reefs are immediately opposite valleys.”
“The town looks like a large fortification; I suppose the dwelling-houses are behind the walls.”
“No, those are the houses; and what look from here like loopholes are the windows. The place is worth looking over, though you won’t have much time for that, I expect, nor yet for boating amongst the curious coral caves, or looking at the queer creatures which serve for fish and haunt them, until you have chawed up the Hadendowas and got Osman Digna in a cage.”
“Not then, I hope,” said one of the seniors of the group. “I hope they will send us across to Berber, when Osman’s forces are swept from the path.”
“I doubt if they will,” replied the doctor, shaking his head. “It will be frightfully hot in a couple of months.”
“It is the only way to save Gordon.”
“I fear you are right, but I hope not. But here is a boat coming off to us.”
It was a man-of-war’s boat dashing along with the smart, lively stroke which can never be mistaken. It was alongside presently, and almost the moment it touched, the naval officer they had seen in the stern sheets stood on the quarter-deck; a harlequin could not have done it more quickly.
“It is a mistake your coming in here, sir,” he said to the commanding officer; “you are to go to Trinkitat.”
So the chance of closely investigating a coral town, and seeing how closely or otherwise it resembled a similar sort of colony in an extravaganza, was lost for the present for the First Battalion of the Blankshire, who growled. And yet, oh fortunate ones! If they but knew it, they gained two more comfortable meals, and one comfortable night’s lodging, by having to go on.
For they did not anchor in Trinkitat harbour till it was too late to land that night. The delay caused a last rise to be taken out of poor Green, or rather a final allusion to a long-standing one. When the battalion got its route for the Soudan, the lad was as keen to see active service as any one of them, and it was a severe shock to him when one of the most mischievous of his brother officers pretended to discover that one of his legs was crooked, which would incapacitate him, he feared, from marching across the desert.
“You would knock up in an hour’s march, and have to be carried, you know,” said the tormentor; “it would never do.”
“I am sure my legs seem to me all right,” urged poor Green.
“Well, of course, I may be quite in error,” candidly admitted the other. “We will ask a doctor.”
So Doctor MacBean was called in, and he made an examination of the accused limb.
“Dear, dear!” he said, “however were you passed for the army? The scarsal bone of the fons ilium is all out of drawing.”
“But you won’t tell, doctor?” pleaded poor Green; “it does not inconvenience me in the least, I assure you.”
“Not now, perhaps,” said the doctor, nodding his head; “but after a long march in sand, it might be serious. I am very sorry, but I must do my duty.”
But, being much entreated, the doctor was persuaded to try what an invention of his own, which he spoke diffidently of, would do. So Green’s leg was done up in splints for twenty-four hours, and then plaistered up. And after a bit the doctor saw so much improvement that he agreed to say nothing about it, and so Green sailed with the rest.
“How is your fons ilium, Green?” he was asked that evening in the saloon.
“Hush!” he whispered, anxiously; “the colonel will hear you! I am all right. I’ll walk you ten miles through the deepest sand we meet with for a sovereign.”
“Thank you; no amount of sovereigns would tempt me to accept the responsibility of putting your scarsal bone to so severe a test. But I am glad it is so much stronger; very glad. I would not have the regiment miss the aid of your stalwart arm on any consideration. Never shall I forget the way you delivered that Number 3 cut which caught Mercer such a hot one the other day, when you were playing singlestick on the deck. I say, by-the-by, have you had your sword sharpened?”
“Yes!” replied Green, with enthusiasm. “It has a good butcher’s-knife edge upon it; so the corporal said, who ground it for me. It is quite as sharp as my pocket-knife.”
“I am not quite so soft as they take me for,” he added, confidentially, to Strachan presently.
“Of course you are not, my dear fellow,” said Tom. “I doubt if it would be possible.”
“Now that MacBean, the doctor, you know: did you hear what he said about the fresh water coming down from the hills in the rainy season, and making gaps in the coral because fresh water killed the insects that make the coral?”
“Yes, I heard him,” said Strachan, wondering what fault Green could find with what seemed to him a very lucid explanation.
“As if I was going to swallow that!” said the other. “The rainy season, indeed! Why, every one knows that rain never falls in Egypt.”
“But, my dear fellow, this isn’t Egypt for one thing, and it rains sometimes everywhere, I expect,” said Tom, who was somewhat tired of imposing on the innocence of Green, who was a very willing and good-tempered lad. “Do you know you remind me of a very old story of a sailor-lad who returned home to his grandmother after a cruise in these very waters. It may be familiar to you.”
“I don’t remember it,” said Green.
“Well, it is really so apt that I will tell it.”
“‘What did you see that was curious, Jack?’ asked the old woman. ‘Well, granny, there were flying fish; they came right out of the water and flew on the deck, and we picked them up on it.’ The old woman laughed and shook her head. ‘What else, Jack?’ ‘Why, I wish you could see the sea at night in them parts, granny; where the ship disturbs the water it all sparkles, and you can see her track a long way, like a regular road of fire.’ ‘Ha, ha! Go it, Jack. What else?’ Jack’s budget of fact was exhausted for the moment, so he had to take refuge in fiction. ‘Well, when we were in the Red Sea, you know, we hauled up the anchor, and we found a carriage-wheel on one of the flukes. A queer old wheel it was. And the chaplain, he looked at it and found the maker’s name, which was that of Pharaoh’s coach-builder. So he said there was no doubt it belonged to his army, when he followed the Israelites after they had gone out of Egypt.’ ‘Ah, now you are telling me what is worth listening to!’ cried the old woman. ‘We know that Pharaoh’s host was drowned in the Red Sea, and that they had a many chariots. It is like enough you should fish one of the wheels up. But to try to stuff your poor old granny that fish can fly, and water take fire! For shame, you limb!’”
Green was a bit thoughtful, and puzzled over the application of this fable; but Strachan having to hurry off on duty, he could not question him further.
Every one was on deck by daybreak next morning, and the bustle of the day commenced. The Alligator was rather a late arrival, and the shore was already white with tents, large and small, circular and square, the camp being protected by an earthwork and a trench, which came down to the sea on each side, entirely enclosing it on that of the land, while on the other it was protected by the harbour and its gunboats.
But there was not much time for gaping; launches and boats of various kinds were alongside presently, and the work of disembarkation commenced. It did not take long, for a number of little piers had been made, rude enough, but answering their purpose, and several boats could land their passengers at them at once. Then there was an officer ready to show them where to get their tents, and it was not long before the First Blankshire had added several streets to the canvas town.
They had hardly done that, however, and were still telling off men for the various regimental duties, when they were called upon to find a large fatigue party for the public service. And now, if any men felt the cramping effects of life in a small compass on board ship, they had plenty of opportunity for stretching their limbs and getting their muscles into full play.
The sailors, for the most part, brought the cargoes ashore, and the way they worked was marvellous. They bundled bales and boxes into the boats as if the ship were on fire and they had only a few minutes to save them in; they rowed them to the strand as if they were racing in a regatta, and they got them out on the jetties before dockyard hands at home would have quite made up their minds what bale they should begin with.
And they laughed and chaffed, and seemed to think it the best fun out. Such energy was infectious, and “Tommy Atkins,” without coat or braces, and with his shirt sleeves rolled up above his elbows, tried to emulate “Jack.” Some of the goods they had to pile up on the shore; some to carry to the commissariat stores; and some, again, to the ordnance department. If free perspiration was the best thing for health and vigour, they were going the right way to work to obtain those blessings.
There was a lad in Fitzgerald’s company, that in which Strachan was lieutenant, upon whom these new duties fell very hard. His name was James Gubbins, and he enlisted because he found it hard to obtain any other employment. And no wonder, for never was there such an awkward mortal. He broke the hearts of corporals and sergeants, and the officers of his company would fain have got rid of him. But he was perfectly able-bodied, and the surgeon was bound to pass him. Neither would the colonel help them; the man was well conducted, healthy, and tried his best. “He would make a good soldier in time,” he said. Perhaps so, but the process was tedious. One lad, who joined as a recruit a month after Gubbins, learned his drill, went to his duty, was made a lance-corporal, and had the drilling of the squad in which Gubbins was still toiling at the rudiments.
He got perfect in the manual exercise, and was dismissed from recruit drill at last however, and even learned to shoot, after he had once taken in the part of the back-sight of his rifle which was to be aligned with the fore-sight, haziness about which nearly caused several bad accidents, as his bullets went wandering dangerously near the butts to the right and left of that where he was supposed to be firing.
By the time he passed muster he was indeed a valuable soldier, if the value of a thing depends upon the trouble taken to manufacture it. And now poor Gubbins had more to learn! It may seem very easy to turn a crank, to pump, to shoulder a box, to help carry a bale, or to push at a capstan bar, and this certainly is not skilled labour. Yet there is a way of doing each of these things in a painful, laborious, knuckle-cutting, shoulder-bruising, toe-smashing manner, and a comparatively easy and comfortable one.
And James Gubbins invariably did the worst for himself possible. I do wish that a special artist had seen him trying to help sling a mule on one occasion, and endeavouring to take a similar animal to the place appointed on shore for it on another. Words can do no justice to those scenes.
Another adventure, however, I will try to describe. A naval officer engaged in transport came up to Tom Strachan, who was in charge of half his company on fatigue duty, and said—
“Look here, do you see that steamer with a green funnel? Well, there are stores on board, for your regiment mostly. A whole lot of shells have to be landed this afternoon, and all my men are at work at that. I wish you would take that lighter, and let your fellows go off to the steamer and unload it. We should bring you the stores, as a rule, for you to carry up from the jetty, only we are short-handed.”
“All right,” said Tom.
The lighter was propelled by large oars, or sweeps, and James Gubbins found there was yet another trial for him in this weary world—that of endeavouring to row with one of these things. But he was so clumsy, and impeded the others to such an extent, that they pushed him on one side and told him to keep quiet.
When they got alongside, a rope was thrown up and caught by a sailor on deck, and Strachan went up a rope ladder to see exactly what had to be done. The stores were as yet in the hold, and the first job would be to hoist them out of it; so the lighter would not be wanted alongside for some time. The sailors let it drop astern, and then made it fast.
“Now then, men, you are wanted on deck; look alive!” cried Strachan.
The sergeant in the lighter looked puzzled how to get on board for a moment; but seeing a grin on a sailor’s face, and at the same time observing a rope hanging from the taffrail close to him, he seized, pulled at it, and finding it firm at the top end, swarmed up it presently. It was not far to go, or a difficult operation, so the others followed.
Then they manned the crane, by which a chain with a big hook to it was lowered into the hold, as if to fish for something. And a bale having been caught, it was wound up, slewed round, and deposited on the deck.
When this had been going on a little time Strachan called out—
“Where’s Gubbins?”
“Gubbins, sir,” said the sergeant; “is he not here? No, he is not. Where can he have got to? Gubbins!”
He went aft and looked into the lighter; there was no one there, and he was turning away again, when he heard a voice in tremulous accents crying—
“Help! Help! Do pull me up, some one, or send a boat. He will have me—I know he will! He will jump presently; and if he doesn’t, I can’t hold on much longer. Help! Oh, lor! Help!”
There was James Gubbins clinging to the rope by which the others had come on board. He had waited till the last, and then attempted to follow. There were two knots in the rope, one near the bottom, the other some five feet higher, and by grasping it above the top one with his hands, and above the lower one with his ankles, he managed not to fall into the water. For the lighter had floated clear of him. As for swarming up the rope without the aid of knots, he might as well have tried to dance on the tight rope.
Now to fall in the water would of itself have been a serious thing to poor Gubbins, who, of course, could not swim; but to add to his terror there was a shark, plainly visible, his back fin indeed now and then rising out of the water, swimming round and round, opening his mouth, but by no means shutting his eyes, to see what luck would send him. And good rations and regular meals, with something a day to spend in beer, had agreed with James, who had not been accustomed before enlisting to eat meat every day. He was plump, and enough to make any shark’s mouth water.
The sergeant called for assistance, and Gubbins was hauled up. He got a good many bumps against the side before he was safely landed on the deck, but he stuck to his rope like a limpet, and came bundling on board at last.
And then, when he felt himself out of the reach of those cruel jaws which had threatened him for a time, which seemed to him long enough, he nearly fainted.
After this experience, if James Gubbins ever learned to swim, it would have to be after his return to England, for nothing could persuade him to go into the waters of the Red Sea. And so he missed the principal pleasure which hard-worked “Tommy Atkins” enjoyed at that period. For when the work of the day was over, bathing parade was the great feature of the evening, and the margin of the strand was crowded with soldiers, swimming, wading, diving, splashing, playing every imaginable game in the water, for, however tired they might be, the refreshing plunge gave them fresh life and vigour.
And, by-the-by, why is the British soldier called “Tommy Atkins?” I believe that there are plenty of people who use the term and don’t know. The nickname arose simply from the fact that every company has a ledger, in which each man’s accounts are kept. So much pay and allowance on the credit side, so much for deductions on the debit, with the balance. The officer commanding the company signs to the one, the soldier himself to the other. On the first page of this book there is a form filled in, for the guidance of any new pay sergeant who may have to make out the accounts, and in this the fancy name of the supposed soldier is printed in the place where he has to sign, and this fancy name is “Thomas Atkins.” But upon the point of who was the first person to generalise the name, and how it came about that his little joke was taken up and came into common use, history is dumb.
This is a digression, and I suppose, according to the ideas of some people, I ought to ask you to pardon it, for I observe that that is a common plan upon such occasions. But I do nothing of the kind. If I thought it needed pardon I should not have made it; and you ought to be glad to improve your mind with a little bit of useful information. But you knew it all before? Well, how could I tell that, I should like to know.
Whether the sharks were good old-fashioned Mohammedans, who would not bite on the side of the Mahdi, or whether the number of British soldiers in the water together, and the noise they made, overawed them, they did not attempt any supper in that direction, and the men enjoyed their bath with impunity.
The work went on day after day for some time, always at high pressure, and the men got into rare good training for marching or any other kind of work. And they had plenty of water to drink, for the steamers in the harbour were perpetually at work condensing the salt-water, which turns it, as you probably know, into fresh. Pipes then conveyed it on shore, where it was received in tanks and barrels. And the want of natural springs, and the consequent necessity of having recourse to an artificial supply, were not without advantage.
For the only water which can be got for troops when campaigning is very often polluted, and the men get dysentery from drinking it, whereas this was necessarily quite pure. And probably owing to this cause there was wonderfully little sickness. A terrified horse gave trouble in the landing him one day, and Tom Strachan, who was with the fatigue party which had to do it, lent his personal assistance, and with success, but he grew warm over the job.
As he was wiping the perspiration from his forehead Major Elmfoot rode up.
“Well, Strachan,” he said, “how do you like this work? Do you want it over that you may begin fighting the Arabs?”
“Well, yes, sir,” replied Tom. “A little of it goes a good way, and we have had more than a little. Still, we should not get on well without grub or cartridges, should we, sir?”
“No, my lad, you are right there; and I am glad to see you are a philosopher.”
“Am I that, sir? Well, it is no use grumbling, but I am glad it is pretty nearly over.”
“Pretty nearly over, you think it, do you?” said the major, drily. “Then the stores are to walk up to Fort Baker by themselves, I suppose.”
“Have we got to—,” began Tom, in dismay.
“Yes, we have,” replied Major Elmfoot to his unfinished query; “and you are to knock off this job and start off on the other one at once.”
It was a peculiarity of the major’s to preface an order in that way—that is, to prepare you for something quite different, and then take you aback. If you were just going to dinner, and he had a duty for you which would cause you to defer that meal, he would begin by asking if you were hungry. He did not mean to be aggravating; it was only a way he had; but it was rather trying sometimes.
Fort Baker was about three miles from Trinkitat harbour; it was erected by Baker Pasha on the second of the month which was now drawing to a close, that is the February of 1884, when he was in command of the Egyptian army which was cut to pieces by the Arabs on the fifth. There is no fresh water nearer that part of the coast than the wells at El Teb, eight miles off; so every drop of the precious liquid for the use of the troops had to be first condensed at Trinkitat, and then carried in tanks of galvanised iron on camel or mule back to the fort. Three miles do not sound like a long distance, and on good ground are not very far. But the greater part of this track lay through marshes, and for a mile it was very bad indeed. But all were in good spirits, for it transpired that this was the last of that sort of work the two companies of the Blankshire employed in it were to have for the present. They were to take their arms and accoutrements with them and remain at Fort Baker till the rest of the battalion joined them. But it was hard work to get the unfortunate baggage animals along.
“I say, sergeant, what am I to do with this campbel now?” asked a soldier, alluding not to a clansman of the famous Highland chief, but to a ship of the desert which had sunk down in the mud, making the most horrible noises imaginable, and seemed likely to be swallowed up after a bit.
“The Johnny who understands him won’t do nothing; may I lick him?”
“No, no,” said the sergeant, glancing towards his captain, and with a frown at the man which was half a wink, intimating that if it could be done quietly and unofficially a little gentle persuasion used towards the Egyptian driver might expedite matters.
“What’s up?” asked the captain, turning back.
“A camel that’s down, sir,” replied the sergeant.
Tom Strachan put the case in the form of an old nursery jingle, which he murmured for the benefit of another subaltern, Williams, who was by his side at the moment.
“Captain, captain slang sergeant; sergeant won’t swear at private; private won’t kick Egyptian; Egyptian won’t stir up camel; camel won’t get out of that; and C Company won’t reach Fort Baker to-night.”
The captain was equal to the occasion, however.
“Look here, you know,” he said to the native driver; “if you don’t make that camel go on with that load, you and your two mates will have to carry it yourselves, don’t you know.”
Whether the “Johnnies,” as Private Smith called them, understood all this is perhaps doubtful, as their English was peculiar, but the tone and gesture which accompanied the words were very intelligible, and the Egyptian began to unload the poor bogged beast with great alacrity.
The soldiers, seeing his purpose, helped him, leaving the two other included natives to go on with other camels, and soon the goods carried by the fallen one were conveyed to a sounder place. The wallowing animal being beaten and prodded, emerged from the mud uttering unearthly cries, and was then reloaded, still objecting loudly, and on he went again.
There was no difficulty in catching the others up; other mules and camels in front were in a similar plight. These were also unloaded, and then the men pulled and pushed and heaved them out, first taking off their shoes and stockings, and rolling their trousers up as far as they could.
One man, finding that even so he got those garments sorely bemired, so deep was the slush, took them off altogether; others followed his example, hanging their trousers round their necks. But no one need have been shocked, their limbs were by no means bare, but decently clothed in long clay stockings.
“I say, Tom,” said Williams to Strachan, “fancy the regiment turning out like that for Commanding Officers’ parade at Aldershot!”
James Gubbins managed to distinguish himself as usual, for he let a floundering mule knock him over and roll upon him. Having to help the animal out, he seized one of his hind legs and hauled at it, with this result—
“Look at Gubbins!” cried one of his comrades; “blest if he hasn’t been taking a cast of hisself in clay. Going to have a marble statty, old man?”
“You ought to have a photo taken to send home to your sweetheart, Jim.”
“Pity it’s the end of February, and not the beginning; what a lovely valentine he would make, surely.”
“It’s easy to laugh at a chap,” spluttered Gubbins, “but this stuff tastes awful; and however shall I clean myself for inspection?”
“Never mind, old chap, you’ll be confined to barracks, and then them Johnnies with the spears can’t get at you.”
“If any chap had a drop of rum instead of jaw to give a chap with his mouth full of filth, there would be more sense in it,” said the victim; and it was one of the wisest remarks he had made for a long time. Some good Samaritan had, and administered it, and Gubbins was consoled.
“You have made these Egyptians work,” said Tom to his captain.
“Yes, I flatter myself I know how to treat those fellows.”
“Oh!” cried Tom.
“What’s the matter?” asked Fitzgerald.
“Nothing; only if a poor sub had done it!”
“Done what?”
“Well, you know, it was one of the jokes which were tabooed by general consent.”
“Get out!”
But it must be owned that though he meant nothing so atrocious as Tom Strachan implied, the captain did pronounce fellow like Fellah!
The fort was reached at last, and never a mule or camel left on the way. There were some salt-water puddles at the end of the worst part of it, and in these the men contrived to wash the mud off their limbs before resuming their nether garments. Ward the quartermaster was there before them; and he had a rough tent in which to receive the officers of the two companies, and he treated them to ginger-beer and tea. Ward was an old campaigner, who had seen no end of service—been frozen in the Crimea, broiled in India, devoured by stinging insects on the Gold Coast. Strachan liked to listen to his yarns, and was in consequence rather a favourite of his. And if you are going on a campaign, it is not half a bad thing to be on good terms with a doctor, a quartermaster, or any other staff officer. They always have a bite or a drop of something should you happen to come across them when nobody else has.
“You didn’t expect this kind of work when you thought, as a boy, how you would like to go into the army, eh?” he asked him.
“No,” said Tom, laughing; “they don’t enter into these little details in books. It’s mostly feasting and fighting, with other fellows getting killed, that a school-boy looks forward to.”
“Ah, the fighting is the best of it; there is something to keep you going in that. Give me the chap that will stand hunger, thirst, fatigue, want of sleep, and fever, and be as jolly as a sand-boy all the time. That’s the sort for a soldier.”
“But all that would be no good if he would not stand up when the pinch came.”
“Of course not; but a fairly bred one—I mean English, German, French, Italian, Dutch—is bound to stand if he is properly trained and led. If he is rightly drilled it does not occur to him to run away unless his comrades do; and then, after a bit, he gets excited. Then, as to generals; I don’t say that it’s an easy thing to fight an army well, but it is easier than to feed it. I tell you all the real art of war lies in little details that no one ever talks about.”
“Then you are not a hero worshipper, Ward?”
“Not I, I have seen too much. I take no credit from men who get mentioned in despatches, win the Victoria Cross, and so forth; but there is a lot of luck in it. Heaps of men deserve these prizes just as much as those who get them. Indeed, the most deserving of all get killed out of hand, and make no claim. You see, one man does a thing with a flourish, which attracts notice, and is popular, and gets watched; and another is quiet and retiring, and afraid that if he pushes himself he may not prove as valuable an article as he has led people to expect; and a smart or plucky thing which gives promotion, or the Victoria Cross, to the first, merely elicits a ‘well done, old fellow!’ from his mates for the second.”
“And that’s worth risking a good bit for!” cried Green, with his eyes sparkling, and a heightened colour.
“Hark to Green! Good lad! By Jove, he’s right!” Green blushed.
“Why are you like King Duncan’s blood on Lady Macbeth’s hand, Edwards?” asked Tom Strachan of the last speaker.
“I can never guess riddles,” said Edwards. “Give it up.”
“Because you have made the Green one red,” said Strachan.
“You will never miss the Victoria Cross for want of cheek, at any rate,” said Fitzgerald.
“I am glad of that,” replied Tom, “as I have my plan for it. I mean to stick behind you the first time you go to do anything heroic, and if you get killed I shall hope to get the credit of your action.”
“So you want me to be knocked on the head, do you, you young villain?”
“Not at all, sir; no one can say I would rather have your room than your company.”
“What are the boys coming to?” cried Fitzgerald. “When I was a sub, I no more dared to speak to my captain like that than to—to walk off parade without permission,” he added, after pausing to think what was the highest possible stretch of mortal impudence.
“Perhaps your captain had not your appreciation of wit,” replied Tom.
“Wit, indeed! You call your bad puns wit, do you?”
Next day the rest of the troops marched in from Trinkitat, and bivouacked outside the fort. They had made a fair start, and commenced the campaign now, and the novelty of eating their evening meal in the open, by the light of a bonfire, had a charm for some of the young ones. The officers’ mess of the First Blankshire was held round an oval trench. A coat thrown on the earth dug out of it served for a seat; the feet were placed in it, and the pewter plate with food on it was held on the knees. This is infinitely more comfortable than feeding in a cramped position on the ground.
Though they knew all about it before, it seemed strange to the inexperienced to lie down at night in the open, like animals, instead of going to bed, but some were so tired that, not being on duty, they rolled themselves up in the coats they had been sitting on, and courted a nap directly they had done feeding.
Those who did so, however, were presently aroused by a tremendous cheering, which made them jump up, and run to see what had happened. It was the arrival of the Sixty-fifth, who had been stopped on their return from India, and sent to Trinkitat instead of England. They had only landed that afternoon, and had marched on at once. It was not long, however, before the challenge of the sentries, and the snores of sleepers alone broke the silence of the little host, lying stretched in slumber under the faint light of the new moon. Their sleep was disturbed by showers of rain, which interfered with all but the very sound, and even these were fairly roused at last by a regular drencher, the water coming down tropical fashion, in bucketfuls.
“Halloa, Green!” said Strachan, to that young hero, whom he found standing in astonishment, drenched, but not dismayed. “Do you believe that it rains sometimes in the Soudan, now?”
“I do,” replied Green, solemnly. “Books talk nonsense.”
“I wish it was time to start,” said Edwards, joining them. “It seems so absurd to stand here saturated, with no possibility of resting oneself, when one might be getting on.”
“It is more than half-past four, and reveille is to sound at five. Let’s try and light the fire again; there’s a bit smouldering, in spite of the rain.”
This was Strachan’s suggestion, and voted a good one; and they had just succeeded in raising a blaze, when a bugle started the most romantic, melancholy, musical call in the whole category. I mean in itself, and not for its associations; and yet when one thinks how many thousands of brave men have been roused by it to go to death, it is not free from these. Number one only got about three notes start, when a second began, and presently the whole air was full of plaintive sound.
Then flickers of fire shone out, and coffee was boiled, and the men got their breakfasts. Then, after a while, the Fall-in sounded, and the different corps and detachments stood to their arms. The commanding officer of the First Blankshire went round the ranks, and spoke to the men here and there. He did not remark on the mud which still clove to James Gubbins, but he stopped opposite Green.
“Why, what is the matter, Green; where and how are you hurt?” he asked.
“I, sir?” said Green, in astonishment; “I believe I am all right.”
“Why, you are bleeding like a pig!” And so he was, from his right ear.
“I must have cut it with my sword, sir, carrying it carelessly. I forgot that I had had it sharpened.”
“Well, it can’t be very bad, if you did not know it,” said the colonel, laughing as he rode on. The bleeding stopped presently, but not before it had made Green’s kharkee sleeve and his sword, down which there had been a trickle, look exceedingly warlike.
“He has fleshed his maiden blade!” said Tom Strachan.