"Attention, Wong!" the Irishman would say, and Wong would spring to his feet and dash for a bottle of—Tansan.
"Make ready!" Wong would poise the bottle. "Aim—fire!" Wong would fire, and then would come the command, "When!" which meant "cease firing!" and Wong, perfect little soldier that he was, would cease, though his genial hospitality and genuine concern for the happiness of everybody made ceasing very hard. If his master ordered a bottle of wine at the table, Wong would pass it to every man. He was equally hospitable in the matter of cigarettes—anybody's; for he could never see that what belonged to one man did not belong to all. Essentially, in that crowd, he was right. But it was rather expensive for the Irishman, until one day he told Wong always to take the chits to "that fat man"—who was not Reggie—and thereafter the fat man got them.
Wong had caught the military salute from the Japanese soldiers, and every morning, when he came in, he would go around to each of us in turn, clicking his heels, hand at his forehead, and always with that radiant smile flashing from his gentle eyes and his beautiful teeth. The Irishman always slept late. One morning he was awakened by an insistent little voice outside his mosquito-net, saying, over and over:
"Hello, George; wake up! Hello, George; wake up!" Somebody had taught him that; but he saw straightway that it was not respectful, and we could never get him to do it again.
After his second bath he went around pulling his shirt open to show how clean his yellow little body was. Indeed, he got such a passion for cleanliness that one morning he näively held out his exquisite hands to Lewis to be manicured—Lewis did it. Again, when Tansan spouted into his face, he reached out, pulled a silk handkerchief from a man's pocket and mopped his face. All of us got to love that boy, and when we went away there was a consultation. We would make up a fund and educate him. His father was called in and an interpreter explained our design. Wong burst into tears and wept bitterly. There were answering drops in the Irishman's eyes.
"I tell you, all the blood shed in this miserable war is not worth those few precious tears. Greatest people on earth! Why should he want to leave them?"
Lovable little Wong! The first word the Irishman said when he came back through that town on our way home was spoken to a group of boys on the street.
"Wong!" he said simply, and they raised a shout of comprehension and dashed away, the Irishman after them. Half an hour later he joined me in a restaurant. Wong was not in town, he said gravely; he had bought a place outside of town with the money we had given him, and had taken his family into the country for the hot season. Anyhow, we saw Wong the gentle, Wong the winning, no more.
A major came this morning to give us a lecture on the battle of Tehlitzu—to while away the tedium, said one of the Guardsmen. The Major is smooth-shaven and very broad between the cheek-bones. His hair is clipped short, his eyes are large, and his face is strong. He must have been a professor in a war-college, for he stood up and drew mountains, hills, valleys, positions, trenches, trees, and made figures—all with wonderful rapidity and skill—backward. That is, he made them for us standing in front of him to look at. A certain division, he said, of a certain regiment, at a certain time had done a certain thing. It was a perfect lecture except that all the really essential facts were skilfully suppressed.