CHAPTER X
On the following evening the Blackguard, white with pain, rode on his great black charger into camp, reported huskily to the Orderly Sergeant, and straightway fell out of the saddle, having fainted.
The Colonel was deeply touched when he heard of this. "Indeed," he said to the Sergeant-Major, "that ride down from the Throne is one of the pluckiest things I ever heard of. How many men have I who would not make a broken arm excuse for a month of bilking?"
"He's the best man in D Division, sir, with all his crazy whims."
"When he's fit for light duty," said the Colonel, "find La Mancha an easy billet with staff pay. I'd make him a corporal if he'd only keep straight. Tell him I say so."
The Colonel was a very fine gentleman.
"You can tell him from me," said the Blackguard roughly, "that his butter's been standing too long in the sun to suit my teeth. He can go to blazes and have the devil for corporal."
But the Sergeant-Major only smiled under his grey moustache, knowing that this from the Blackguard meant gratitude; so, with consent of the Hospital Sergeant, La Mancha was given charge of all the horses, with sevenpence-half-penny extra per day for nominal services.
Half the troop was out on patrol, or detachment, as usual; discipline at headquarters had relaxed for the summer, and the men left in camp found leisure during the long hot days for no end of lazy swimming down in the river. The Mooyie patrol would come clattering in at sundown; the Windermere patrol would ride out in the cool forenoon; the Weekly Mail arrived and departed on Wednesday; small detachments turned up now and again with Indians, or white desperadoes carefully shackled. So all the men waxed brown, fat, and disorderly, having more good meat than they could swallow, fishing, shooting, and occasionally some stirring bout with a horse-thief or murderer at bay. Golden days, starlit nights in the open, a rousing gallop down the meadows, a bath in the river, a cool pipe by the camp fire, with a paradise to live in, the brotherhood of the West for a human interest: such was the life of D Troop all that glorious summer. Officers and men had fought shoulder-to-shoulder through the red-hot excitement of the war only two years ago; they had buried their dead, avenged them with slaughter—and that was a bond of blood between them still.
Long years have passed since 1887, the living are scattered now across the world, but when two old comrades meet, perchance to fight side-by-side again in Rhodesia, or one to help the other out of trouble on some beach in the Southern Seas, or to dine together at a white table in the parish of St. James', dressed up like ridiculous waiters, the bond of blood is strong between us still. The news told then of the old troop begets no laughter: A. deserted; B. shot himself; C. died of typhoid; D., of bad liquor; E. has disappeared; F. is supposed to have fallen at the Yalu; G. was found frozen to death in a coal-shed at Medicine Hat; but for the rest, spirits are calling across the deep from all the continents and all the oceans, and the glass that was lifted for the toast of the good old times falls shattered because some strange remembered voice comes from among the candles, "Well, here's luck!"
But although everything at Wild Horse Creek remained pretty much as before, the Blackguard was entirely changed since his trip to the Throne. Mother Darkness was alleged to be meditating an action for breach of promise; word went by the patrols up to Golden, down to the United States boundary, that La Mancha was "on the make." Corporal Dandy Irvine, on detachment at Windermere, sent down a box of cigars for thankoffering. The Colonel, in private correspondence with a friend at Fort Saskatchewan, sent the news as of more interest than even his record of trout. So the tale spread among the Mounted Police, from the Saskatchewan to the boundary, from the foothills to Manitoba, over five hundred thousand square miles of the Great Plains, that the Blackguard had "got religion."
The announcement was made by La Mancha himself down at the bathing-place. "Yes, boys, I've got religion; I've sworn off getting drunk, I'm far too good to live. If any son of a gun corrupts my morals by saying cuss words in my presence, I'll tear off his hide from scalp to heels, and roll him in salt for a"—
"Why, dammit!" said Mutiny, spluttering up after a dive.
"Mutiny," answered the Blackguard, "the word 'dammit' is profane language. Come out and have your eyes bunged up, you"—
"See you in —— first!" said Mutiny blandly, upon which the Blackguard, half-dressed after his bath, forgetting that his left arm was broken, walked into the river, gave chase, captured his prey, grabbed him by his red hair, and ducked him until he nearly choked, making remarks the while which are quite impossible to repeat.
"How can I be meek and gentle," he said afterwards, "when you fellows disturb my peace of mind by using vulgar language? Any man who doesn't want to behave like a Methodist minister at a tea-party has got to fight me first."
Two or three tried, but as La Mancha with one hand was equal to any able-bodied pugilist in D Troop, there set in a tyranny more ruthless than that of the Commissioner at headquarters during the setting-up drills. Only the Blackguard and the Sergeant-Major could relieve their feelings, except under pain of dire chastisement, and before pay-day any man who wanted to tell an improper story found it expedient to resort to the canteen.
Now, it so happened that a regulation English Curate missionising in the neighbourhood, being grieved at the spiritual destitution of the Mounted Police, had offered to hold an open-air service monthly at Wild Horse Creek. So the Colonel, to encourage the young man, ordered a church-parade. One or two, including La Mancha, got out of it by being for the time Roman Catholic, others found it impossible to neglect staff duties such as cooking, the rest had their names put on the sick-list. The Colonel thereupon commanded that sick and cripples, cooks and Catholics, should, at the sound of the bugle, attend his parade on pain of being cast into prison.
This brought about a mass-meeting, at which it was proposed by the Blackguard, and seconded by all hands, that any son of a sea-cook who sang, responded, contributed, or otherwise assisted during the church-parade should afterwards be chastised with belts.
The service was a duet between the Parson and the Colonel.
Afterwards the regulation Curate, mounted in deep dejection upon a mule, was riding away to an afternoon service elsewhere when he was waylaid in a lonely place by the Blackguard.
"Good-morning, Padre."
The Curate, responding to a military salute, drew rein. "Can I be of service to you?"
"If you can spare me a moment."
The Curate dismounted, and, letting his mule graze at the end of the rein, sat down by La Mancha's side. "I have heard, Mr. La Mancha, that you are a Roman Catholic."
"So have I. Now at the canteen we ask for Scotch, but we only get hell smoke. It isn't good, but it gets there all the same. I want to sample your religion."
"It was freely offered to you this morning, though."
"No, it was rammed down our throats, so I didn't quite catch the flavour."
"You mean, the parade was compulsory."
"Yes; if it had been left to our choice the only men absent would have been the cook and the herder, but your performance this morning disagreed with us. We called it an insult to Pater-Noster, and any man who took part in that would have been thrashed within an inch of his life."
"I think you were right," said the Curate. "Believe me, Mr. La Mancha, I shall never, so long as I live, forget this lesson. The next service shall be free."
"Then we shall read you the second lesson, Padre."
"Which is?"
"That we haven't had a chance of going to church for months. Hand round the hat and I promise you there won't be any buttons. Another thing, cover your reading-desk with the Union Jack and there'll be no whispering."
"Why?"
"Because a year after the Rebellion, when we had memorial church-parades for the dead, the order was, 'Side arms and the flag on the table.' The boys will remember."
"This is wonderful! And now, my dear fellow, since you've helped me so much, how can I help you?"
La Mancha looked across the valley, then slowly raised his eyes up to the Throne Mine; but what he said or what the Curate answered belongs to themselves and to the Almighty.