Seamen Jones and Smith exchanged a chaste kiss.
Damocles de Warrenne was the hero of the Queen’s Greys. Best Man-at-Arms in the Division, winner in Sword v. Sword Mounted and Dismounted, Tent-pegging, Sword v. Lance, and Individual Jumping, and in the winning teams for Tug-of-War, Section Jumping, and Section Tent-pegging!
“Give him a trial as Corporal then, from the first of next month, sir, if there’s no sign of anything wrong during the week,” agreed Captain Daunt, talking him over with the Colonel, after receiving through Troop-Sergeant-Major Scoles a petition to promote the man.
Within twenty-four hours of his fight with the Gorilla, Dam found himself on sentry-go over what was known in the Regiment as “the Dead ’Ole”—which was the mortuary, situated in a lonely, isolated spot beyond a nullah some half-furlong from the Hospital, and cut off from view of human habitation by a belt of trees.
On mounting guard that evening, the Sergeant of the Guard had been informed that a corpse lay in the mortuary, a young soldier having been taken ill and having died within a few hours, of some disease of a distinctly choleraic nature.
“I’ll tell you orf for that post, Matthewson,” said the Sergeant. “P’raps you’ll see ghosties there, for a change,” for it was customary to mount a sentry over “the Dead ’Ole” when it contained an occupant, and one of the sentry’s pleasing duties was to rap loudly and frequently upon the door throughout the night to scare away those vermin which are no respecters of persons when the persons happen to be dead and the vermin ravenous.
“I’m not afraid of ghosts, Sergeant,” replied Dam—though his heart sank within him at the thought of the long lonely vigil in the dark, when he would be so utterly at the mercy of the Snake—the Snake over whom he had just won a signal victory, and who would be all the more vindictive and terrible in consequence. Could he keep sane through the lonely darkness of those dreadful hours? Perhaps—if he kept himself in some severe physical agony. He would put a spur beneath his tight-drawn belt and next to his skin, he would strike his knee frequently with the “toe of the butt” of his carbine, he would put pebbles in his boots, and he would cause cramp in his limbs, one after the other. Any kind of pain would help.
It must be quarter of an hour since he had rapped on the mortuary door and sent his messages of prohibition to mouse, rat, bandicoot, civet-cat, wild-cat or other vermin intruder through the roof-ventilation holes. He would knock again. A strange thing this—knocking at a dead man’s door in the middle of the night. Suppose the dead man called “Come in!” It would be intensely interesting, but in no wise terrifying or horrible. Presumably poor young Trooper Priddell was no more dangerous or dreadful in the spirit than he had been in the flesh…. Fortunate young man! Were he only on sentry-go outside the peaceful mortuary and Damocles de Warrenne stretched on the bier within, to await the morrow and its pomp and ceremony, when the carcass of the dead soldier would receive honours never paid to the living, sentient man, be he never so worthy, heroic, virtuous and deserving. Oh, to be lying in there at rest, to be on the other side of that closed door at peace!…
To-morrow that poor dead yokel’s body would receive a “Present Arms” (as though he were an armed party commanded by an Officer) from the Guard, which the sentry would turn out as the coffin passed the Guard-room. For the first and last time in his life, he would get a “Present Arms”. It wouldn’t be in his life though. For the first and last time in his death? That didn’t sound right either. Anyhow he would get it, and lots of strange, inexplicable, origin-forgotten rites would be observed over this piece of clay—hitherto so cheaply held and roughly treated.