“Surely the only recreation in the place is not going to be taken away from us by these brats!” was their plaintive cry, and in my absence one morning, minding Mrs Marriott who was ill, my little crowd was intimidated and dismissed crestfallen. Like all Irish-Americans I have a “drop of the tiger” in me, and I fought for our rights. But when Mrs Skeffington-Smythe went round and got the mothers on their side I had to give in. It was no use encouraging insubordination to mothers; that I very well knew would end in my defeat as well as the children’s.
“Oh, let them have their old court,” I said. “Soldiering is ever so much greater fun. But we must make a parade ground first, or Colonel Blow will be mad if we use the square except for very special occasions.”
So we made a parade ground for ourselves with very great labour and the joy that comes with toil or the world would work no more. Then, Heavens! how I drilled them! Every exercise and manoeuvre known to the mind of man and gymnasium mistresses was brought into force, and every atom of information acquired or inherited from a family that had always produced soliders came to my aid and was brought into active use. Not the least of my accomplishments was that at this juncture I roped in Mrs Marriott and Mrs Rookwood to make uniforms for my regiment.
At various shops in the town I found plenty of red twill. It is called “limbo” in Mashonaland and used for “swapping” with the natives in return for hens and rice and eggs and things. This I commandeered in large quantities and carried off to Mrs Rookwood. Like all colonial women she was clever with her hands, and could cut out and make anything, from a ball-gown to a suit of clothes. Indeed, she told me that she had actually without any help made the ravishing suit of khaki in which she started for the front, having cut it out and set to work at the first rumour of trouble with the natives.
She now at my instigation designed a most fascinating uniform, in which the boys looked as gallant as French Zouaves, and the girls, with their skirts tucked into the baggy bloomers, like incipient, rather fat, Turks. The first full-dress parade, held in the market square, was an entrancing spectacle. In the first flush of admiration Colonel Blow was moved to permit the convicts to erect cross-bars and a trapeze, make us some rough dumb-bells and put up a great strong pole for a giant’s stride in the centre of our recreation ground. Mr Stair contributed a mile or two of stout rope, and lo! we had a stride that was the crowning delight of life, but that I am fain to say was not confined to the children; for between patrols and picket duties many grown-up khaki legs might have been seen flying round amongst the scarlet bloomers.
Cricket also became one of the serious affairs of life. And I taught them handball against the jail wall which appeared to have been built expressly for the purpose of the Irish national game. Of course I am half Irish and that must be taken into account when I say that next to baseball it is the greatest game in the world for exercising both body and brain. Played at its best it is a splendid swift panorama of rippling muscles, dancing feet, sparkling eyes, and racing thoughts. You can actually, by the player’s intent, eye, tell how he is going to smash that ball, which will come two strokes later, into the middle of next week.
I should have liked to get up a baseball team too; but there was a difficulty about “bats” and the mothers were afraid of eyes being put out and noses broken. Perhaps they were right. Anyway, we had games enough to keep us alive and busy and young. I was not very ancient myself, but felt myself growing younger every day amongst those fascinating Fort George children, and I began to swagger and brag about them as if they were my own.
Four weeks after our first going into laager no one would have recognised them for the gang of discontented reprobates they had been. Bright cheeks, serene eyes, and lumps of muscle like young cocoanuts on their legs and arms were now their most distinguishing features.
I had pride also in their changed demeanour. Of course they were still noisy and often naughty—what child worth its salt is not? But drill and discipline had done a great deal for them, and though they were gay and rowdy-dowdy they were no longer the melancholy, meaningless, and rather malicious monkeys to whom I had first made advances.
And at night in laager they really behaved well. It is true that they did not go to bed like lambs, and sometimes on a hot stuffy night there would be a row in the dormitories that called for my special intervention. A mother would come to our post-office den and say: