The Berkshire Regiment had done its work in gallant style up the steep slopes of Dihilbat, had cleared the summit of Osman Digna's men, and followed them with a raking fire as they retreated wildly into the mimosa bushes on the plain. The Berkshires were not by nature proud of stomach, but Connor was a popular man, and the incident of the Sick Horse Depot, as reported by Corporal Bagshot, who kept a diary and a dictionary, tickled their imagination, and they went forth and swaggered before the Indian Native Contingent, singing a song made by Bagshot and translated into Irish idiom by William Connor. The song was meant to humiliate the Indian Native Contingent, and the Sikhs writhed under the raillery and looked black-so black that word was carried to McNeill himself, who sent orders to the officers of the Berkshire Regiment to give the offenders a dressing down; for the Sikhs were not fellaheen, to be heckled with impunity.
That was why, twenty-four hours after the offending song was made, it was suppressed; and in the sergeants' mess William Connor told the story how, an hour before, he had met Subadar Goordit Singh in the encampment, and the Subadar in a rage at the grin on Connor's face had made a rush at him, which the Irishman met with his foot, spoiling his wind. That had ended the incident for the moment, for the Sikh remembered in time, and William Connor had been escorted "Berkshire way" by Corporal Bagshot and Henry Withers. As the tale was told over and over again, there came softly from the lips of the only other Irishman in the regiment, Jimmy Coolin, a variant verse of the song that the great McNeill had stopped:
"Where is the shame of it,
Where was the blame of it,
William Connor dear?"
It was well for Graham, Hunter, McNeill, and their brigades that William Connor and the Berkshires and the Subadar Goordit Singh had no idle time in which to sear their difficulties, for, before another khamsin gorged the day with cutting dust, every department of the Service, from the Commissariat to the Balloon Detachment, was filling marching orders. There was a collision, but it was the agreeable collision of preparation for a fight, for it was ordained that the Berkshires and the Sikhs should go shoulder to shoulder to establish a post in the desert between Suakim and Tamai.
"D'ye hear that, William Connor dear?" said Private Coolin when the orders came. "An' y'll have Subadar Goordit Singh with his kahars and his bhistis and his dhooly bearers an' his Lushai dandies an' his bloomin' bullock-carts steppin' on y'r tail as ye travel, Misther Connor!"
"Me tail is the tail of a kangaroo; I'm strongest where they tread on me, Coolin," answered Connor. "An' drinkin' the divil's chlorides from the tins of the mangy dhromedairy has turned me insides into a foundry. I'm metal-plated, Coolin."
"So ye'll need if ye meet the Subadar betune the wars!"
"Go back to y'r condinsation, Coolin. Bring water to the thirsty be gravitation an' a four-inch main, an' shtrengthen the Bowl of the Subadar wid hay-cake, for he'll want it agin the day he laves Tamai behind! Go back to y'r condinsation, Coolin, an' take truth to y'r Bowl that there's many ways to die, an' one o' thim's in the commysariat, Coolin—shame for ye!"
Coolin had been drafted into the Commissariat and was now variously employed, but chiefly at the Sandbag Redoubt, where the condensing ship did duty, sometimes at the southeast end of the harbour where the Indian Contingent watered. Coolin hated the duty, and because he was in a bitter mood his tongue was like a leaf of aloe.
"I'll be drinkin' condinsed spirits an' 'atin' hay-cake whip the vultures
do be peckin' at what's lift uv ye whip the Subadar's done wid ye.
I'd a drame about ye last noight, William Connor dear—three times
I dramed it."