“Pity, sir? It makes me wild with the fellow. I’ve done everything a non-com could to one of his men. I’ve spoke kindly and praised him, and held him up often as a sample of what a soldier should be to the other men; but you don’t catch me doing it again.”
“Why not?” said Dick. “I’m sure kindness is sometimes better than severity.”
“Sometimes, sir; but it isn’t in this case, and I found I’d made a regular fool of myself.”
“What! by trying kindness with the man?”
“No, sir; but by speaking like that ’fore the others. The lads were all drawn up in line, and as soon as I had held Black Bob up as a sample, a big grin began at one end of the line and ran along it to the other. But there—I’ve done with him now. I began being kind to him because I thought he meant to make himself a good soldier, but it was of no use. So I tried bullying; but you might as well bully a stone image in one of the Hindu temples. You’d do just as much good. I will say this, though: if I was in a tight corner with a lot of the enemy about me, I wouldn’t wish for a better comrade to back me up. Fight? Yes, he just can!”
“It is a pity, for he doesn’t seem to be a common man.”
“Not he, sir. He’s been a gentleman, that’s what he has been. Lets out Latin and Greek and furren languages. Knows more Hindustani than any man in the troop; and writes such a hand that they wanted him to be under the adjutant—but they were sick of him in two days. He’s one of those fellows as have kicked over the traces at home, just when the team was at full gallop, tangled his legs, and come down quelch! And him being a leading horse, he brings the whole team down atop of him, and upsets the gun and the limber, and then there’s a row. His commanding officer comes down upon him savage for not minding how he rode; and when his officer has done, every one who has been hurt begins, and the next thing he hears is that he’s to be tried by court-martial—sociable court-martial, you know, sir, as he wasn’t in the army then. No, that’s wrong; not sociable—social. That’s it. Then there’s all the evidence gone through, and every one comes to the same way of thinking—that he isn’t a fit man to ride in the team again—and they drive him out. They’ve done with him; and after they’ve cut off his buttons and facings, they send him about his business.”
“Yes, I understand,” said Dick; “he lost caste with his friends.”
“That’s it, sir; just as a nigger does out here. Then, you see, sir, as there’s nothing else for him to do, he does a wise thing—he goes to Charing Cross or King Street, enlists in the Honourable the East Indy Company’s service, goes through his facings at Warley, and then comes out here to be picked out for this troop; and it always seemed to me that it was the wisest thing a young man could do when he’d gone wrong through being high-spirited and not able to hold himself in. He can’t manage himself, so he comes into a service where he’s managed and taught how to behave himself, and has the chance to rise to an officer and a gentleman again.”
“Could one of the privates rise to a commissioned officer, Sergeant?”