Frontier service begets closer contact between soldier and civilian, both in work and play, than cantonment life down country; most often to the uprooting of prejudice on both sides; and Norton was one of the few men in the station who had achieved comparative intimacy with Lenox. Those formidable eyes of his had been quick to detect in the taciturn Gunner, who had done so much, and had so little to say about it, a coming 'political' of no mean quality, a man of ideas and ambitions, for whom the great country of his service was something more than a vast playground, or shooting-box; in effect, a man after his own heart.
Thus, finding Lenox established at the Desmonds, Norton called upon them soon after Honor's arrival. He was rewarded by a standing invitation to 'drop in' any afternoon, or evening that he happened to be free, an invitation which Honor extended to most of the men who came to bid her welcome; and tea at the Desmonds—with iced coffee or pegs as alternatives, and smoking a matter of course—soon became a daily institution; a respite, if only for an hour or two, from the monotony of mess, parade-ground, and hospital.
"Awfully sporting of Mrs Desmond," was the verdict of grateful subalterns, who found these tea-drinkings a vast improvement on stale home papers, and half-hearted gambling at the Club. There was always music. Honor, besides playing magnificently, could be safely relied upon for impromptu accompaniments. The Chicken, and an irrepressible Irishman of the Sikhs, who gloried in the name of O'Flanagan, were indefatigable on the banjo, and in the construction of topical verses to vary the programme. Hot-weather audiences are not hypercritical; and in the red-hot circle of days and nights the mildest innovation is welcome as a sail on a blank horizon.
Desmond himself was delighted with his wife's spontaneous contribution to the good spirits of the station; and if the two had little quiet time together, they had at least a satisfying sense of comradeship in work; the strongest link that can be added to the strong chain of marriage.
Frank Olliver, with her big smile, and infectious gaiety, looked in most days, as a matter of course; till one of the two fever cases she had managed to lay hands on took a serious turn, and an hour off duty could only be secured when Honor insisted on relieving guard, and sending Frank over to play hostess in her stead.
There was also little Mrs Peters, the only other wife in the station; a square, shapeless cushion of a woman, who would rush in for a breathless half-hour to pour tales of native cunning, and Eurasian apathy into Desmond's sympathetic ears. Being both plump and energetic, she suffered cruelly in the heat; mopped her face without shame between her sentences; and, according to Frank Olliver, lived chiefly on lime-squash, and a limitless admiration for her missionary husband,—a large, ungainly man, with the manners of a shy schoolboy, and the wrapt gaze of a seer; a man who, in an age of fanaticism, would have walked smiling to the rack. As it was, he walked with no less equanimity through the pestilential mazes of the city and bazaar. For although in this age of tolerance run to seed, a man is not called upon to die for his beliefs, he is occasionally called upon to live for them; which is not necessarily the easier of the two. But up to his lights Henry Peters achieved it. At all possible and impossible hours, his unwieldy white umbrella, pith hat, and badly-cut drill suit pervaded the dwellings of his scattered converts; while his wife, torn between pride in him and mortal dread of infection, grieved in secret over inadequate meals snatched at odd hours; and supplemented tremulous prayers for his safety with lumps of camphor, screwed up in paper, and slipped surreptitiously into the pockets of his coats.
Once or twice she dragged him in triumph to the Desmonds,—a reluctant dishevelled hero,—and 'showed him off' to that little company of well-groomed, kindly-natured soldiers, with a naïve simplicity that went to Honor's heart.
"Why is it that some of us have a special licence to be so exquisitely natural?" she wondered, as she stood beside the tea-table, dispensing iced coffee, and surveying, with satisfaction, a room full of tobacco-smoke and contented men. "That's just how I feel tempted to 'show off' Theo, sometimes. And wouldn't the dear man crush me to powder if I tried!"
She glanced approvingly at him where he sat astride on a reversed chair, in dusty polo kit, reporting progress of the great 'fly campaign' to Wyndham, who had been newly promoted to a deck-lounge in the drawing-room at tea-time.
It was a larger gathering than usual; and, in spite of the fact that for three days the thermometer had recorded a hundred and twenty in the shade, spirits ran high. The subalterns—for whose exuberant fooling Honor had a very tender tolerance—had 'chorussed' themselves hoarse and thirsty; and were receiving the reward of the public-spirited out of long misty tumblers, that fizzed and bubbled. Peters had forgotten his shyness in a discussion with Norton on the vexed question of cholera infection, and the probable futility of quarantine; while Mrs Peters, listening anxiously, made inconsequent darts into the argument, to her husband's obvious discomfiture, and Norton's equally obvious amusement.