“There never was such an unlucky beggar as me,” says Measles. “If a chance does turn up for earning a bit of promotion, it’s always some one else gets it. Come on, lads, and let’s see what Mother Bantem’s got in the pot.”
“You’ll perhaps have a chance before long of earning your bit of promotion without going out,” I says.
“Ike Smith’s turned prophet and croaker in ornary,” says Harry, laughing. “I believe he expects we’re going to have a new siege of Seringapatam here, only back’ards way on.”
“Only wish some of ’em would come this way,” says Measles grimly; and he made a sort of offer, and a hit out at some imaginary enemy.
“Here they are,” says Joe Bantem, as we walked in. “Curry for dinner, lads—look alive.”
“What, my little hero!” says Mrs Bantem, fetching Harry one of her slaps on the back. “My word, you’re in fine plume with the colonel’s lady.”
Slap came her hand down again on Harry’s back; and as soon as he could get wind: “O, I say, don’t,” he says. “Thank goodness, I ain’t a married man. Is she often as affectionate as this with you, Joe?”
Joe Bantem laughed; and soon after we were all making, in spite of threatened trouble and disappointment, an uncommonly hearty dinner, for, if there ever was a woman who could make a good curry, it was Mrs Bantem; and many’s the cold winter’s day I’ve stood at Facet’s door there in Bond-street, and longed for a plateful. Pearls stewed in sunshine, Harry Lant used to call it; and really to see the beautiful, glistening, white rice, every grain tender as tender, and yet dry and ready to roll away from the others—none of your mosh-posh rice, if Mrs Bantem boiled it—and then the rich golden curry itself: there, I’ve known that woman turn one of the toughest old native cocks into what you’d have sworn was a delicate young Dorking chick—that is, so long as you didn’t get hold of a drumstick, which perhaps would be a bit ropy. That woman was a regular blessing to our mess, and we fellows said so, many a time.
One, two, three days passed without any news, and we in our quarters were quiet as if thousands of miles from the rest of the world. The town kept as deserted as ever, and it seemed almost startling to me when I was posted sentry on the roof, after looking out over the wide, sandy, dusty plain, over which the sunshine was quivering and dancing, to peer down amongst the little ramshackle native huts without a sign of life amongst them, and it took but little thought for me to come to the conclusion that the natives knew of something terrible about to happen, and had made that their reason for going away. Though, all the same, it might have been from dread lest we should seek to visit upon them and theirs the horrors that had elsewhere befallen the British.
I used often to think, too, that Captain Dyer had some such feelings as mine, for he looked very, very serious and anxious, and he’d spend hours on the roof with his glass, Miss Ross often being by his side, while Lieutenant Leigh used to watch them in a strange way, when he thought no one was observing him.