"Yes, the Turk has taught us to respect him for a fair and brave fighter and a dashed sight better man than the fat-faced Germans I've seen driving him against our trenches with their revolvers and the flat of their swords. He is a cunning beggar, is Bismillah; but we bear him no malice for that. It is a pity he was dragged into this scrap by those German beasts. They are the enemy we are all longing to have a cut at. But when poor old Bismillah comes charging in droves against our trenches we hardly like to shoot him down with machine-guns. As one of our chaps said, 'It hardly seems fair to take the money.'"
GURKHAS, WHITE AND BROWN
[CHAPTER XXI]
GURKHAS, WHITE AND BROWN
"Here you are," cried my friend Trooper Billy Clancy, of the Australian Light Horse, as I entered the convalescent camp. "Ask him. He knows what I'm saying is true." His very charming visitor regarded me doubtfully. "Go on; ask him," urged the soldier; "he knows." "Is it true," asked the fair ministrant to lonely Colonials, "that there is a real Australian language and a different way of comparing such adjectives as good?" "Good; bonza; boshter," I answered promptly. "There," crowed Trooper Clancy, "what did I tell you?" "I don't believe either of you," replied his visitor, and departed with an effect of dimples and blushes.
"These English ladies are awful kind-hearted," said Clancy, evading my eye, "but they do ask some rummy questions. Did you never hear what happened to Shorty Shaw? You know Shorty? He's six feet five and got a face like a grown-up baby's. Everybody likes old Shorty, but the lady I'm going to tell you about took the greatest fancy to him. She used to come in a motor-car and bring her little boy and girl to see him. She treated him as if he was a very nice, interesting specimen from the planet Mars. Why, when he said he felt the cold she brought him a contraption she made herself of Jaeger goods to wear next his skin.
"It was all patent fastenings and tied itself into knots when he tried to get into it. And when he had it on he couldn't sit still; kept hunching his shoulders and rubbing his back against the chair. She asked him how he liked it without batting an eye, and Shorty up and said he was all of a glow. Well, one day she was talking to Shorty when I heard a noise like a hen clucking, and saw her going out with her face very red and her nose in the air. And Shorty was squirming about like his wound was hurting him. It seems she had asked Shorty wasn't he proud to be called a White Gurkha? What Shorty said he would never tell us, but it was the last we ever saw of the kind-hearted lady.