His face went red and he took a breath. "Don't forget," I sang out, and I and S.-P. each seized a glass of water and an almost empty rum bottle for any emergency.
Cockie glared at me in a cannibalistic fashion, and eyeing Nellie carefully the while, addressed some superlatives to us, saying that the interruption had spoilt his move. Nellie sat with steady countenance while I replied that the interruption came after the move. But Cockie played brilliantly and recovered a piece, whereupon he got quite genial and addressed conciliatory remarks to me.
Twice Cockie forced exchanges, and as in both instances he got "position," which means that he was a pawn to the bad each time, we quietly stood up with the water in a first-aid attitude. But Cockie was playing as he never played before, and was nodding his head in a queer way. I thought he was so blind with annoyance that he was counting the pieces, but Square-Peg assured me that his engine had got hot and was running free. Cockie went on serenely for about another half-hour when, after a pause of several minutes, he suddenly discovered himself to be mated, for Nellie had said only the word "check" and now added "mate" in the most matter-of-fact voice.
"Damned fluke," screamed Cockie, forgetting himself, and springing up he banged the chessboard down fiercely on the table with an awful smash.
Poor Nellie gasped and said "Oh-o-o-o," and apparently stopped breathing and reeled in his chair. Not having brandy we gave him the last of Cockie's rum, which he managed to negotiate, and then, as usually happens, felt better. We three preserved a frigid silence towards Cockie, who said he was damned if he knew what was the use of people on service with weak hearts, and then strode off, Nellie in the meantime pulling hard at the bottle for an extra drip or so. How we laughed. For Cockie was really scared. It's not the sort of story to make you popular if it gets about—wilfully startling a fellow to death with a weak heart merely for beating you in a game of chess.
Later on Square-Peg and I joined Cockie on the observation post and a battle royal ensued.
"I tell you," said Cockie to me, "it's fearfully difficult to give the whole of one's attention to the game when one is playing an absolute novice. So things are missed. But if you will back me for five rupees against Square-Peg to win ten games out of ten I'll do it, you see. That will supply the interest."
I complied at once, offering one game in, which he proudly refused. With a vicious jab to Cockie to please remember it was "my money and not his" that was concerned, and to have no nonsense, he grew demonstrative, and I fled to pay a visit to Tudway on the Sumana.
"I tell you I can't lose," he had said. When I returned to the mess, there I found Square-Peg, who announced that he had left Cockie in a fury, he having lost the first three games. I insisted on Square-Peg's taking the five dibs. It appears that during the first game Fritz passed him and said "Good afternoon," to which interruption Cockie stormily attributed his subsequent beating....
Later.—This very morning the other half of the shell that crashed outside my doorway (there isn't a door) went through the roof of Cockie's bedroom and simply smashed most things in it. A foot of débris from the roof lay on the floor. It was lucky for Cockie that he was on duty. And luckier for me that I did not accept Cockie's many invitations to share his room. Only yesterday he asked me again to do so. But Cockie generally has two or more rounds with Curra Mirali and pursues him round the yard, leaving the door open—every morning about 6 a.m. when I am doing my best to have one other dream.