At 7.30 to the second the junior subaltern was there, and I smiled inwardly as I recognised the cut of the Calcutta tailor in his black coat, well creased by having been jumped on to make it fit into a bullock trunk.
I took him into the grill-room, where the manager had kept a corner table for us, and after a look round at the neat little room, with its mirrors framed in white marble veined with black; its red marble pilasters with gilt capitals; its grill, at which the white-clothed cook, with a table of chops and steaks at his elbow, stands; its little glass case in the corner, in which a lady in black keeps accounts in big books; its stained glass skylight; its yellowish-brown cornice with many figures upon it; its many little tables at which stolid and respectable citizens were giving their wives dinners, or, if alone, were reading the evening papers: he turned his attention to his oysters.
The first time that a man tastes a native oyster after six years of exile is a solemn moment, and I would not disturb him while he ate them; but when there were only empty shells on his plate, and he had drunk his glass of Chablis, I began to ask questions.
"Tell me all about that day on the spur I have read of, and how you came to be recommended for the V.C.," I said.
The junior subaltern took a great gulp of the mock turtle and began. "You remember J. Smith—he was a lance-corporal when you commanded the company." "Corporal," I amended. "Well, corporal. He did ripping well that day. He's colour-sergeant of the company now, and there was one time when, as we were retiring, some of the devils got right on our flank and enfiladed us. Well, Colour-Sergeant Smith just gave one yell and went for them, and old Kelly, who used to be your bat-man, and Pat Grady went with him, and they killed six of the Mamunds."
"My boy," I said, "I want to know what you did, and not what Colour-Sergeant Smith did."
"This is ripping good soup," said the subaltern.
It was very good soup. The cook, divining that I had an invalid as a guest, had put a liberal mixture of real turtle with the mock turtle, and it was practically turtle soup. I had sipped the Beaune, and found it a little tart, and the manager brought us a fresh bottle before I opened my second parallel with the advent of a really splendid dish of lobster.
"I want to know now," I said, with a touch of the manner with which I used to ask him if all the entries in the small books of his half-company were brought up to date, "what happened when you stood over that wounded man, and three big hairy hillmen all made a rush at you at once, and got to close quarters before the men could get back to bayonet them."
The junior subaltern was very much occupied with his steak. "Old Major So-and-So was just senior to you in the regiment?" he asked at last, and I said that that was so. "Well, he was ripping cool that day, and he made a joke that the men talked about afterwards. We had destroyed the mud huts that they called a village, and we were waiting till the wounded had got well to the rear before retiring. The Major was in command of our companies that day, for the Colonel was with the companies in reserve. Well, the Major was sitting on a great rock, looking at the country——" "What sort of country is it?" I interposed. "Oh, just mountains and ravines and nullahs, and that sort of thing—a beastly sort of a place," the subaltern said, believing that he was conveying the fullest information, and then went on. "Well, the Major was sitting on the rock smoking that old meerschaum of a nigger's head which he'd had for years. A bullet came and smashed the pipe to atoms. He spat out the pipe-stem and then shook his fist at the place where the shot had come from. 'You blackguards,' he said, 'you're not fit company for a gentleman to smoke a meerschaum with; I'll only treat you to clays in future.' Well, the men were amused by this, and——"