Was that a scuttling within? Quite probably. It might be—rats, it might be a bandicoot; it could hardly be a jackal; it might be a SNAKE,—and Trooper Matthewson’s carbine clattered to the ground and his knees smote together as he thought the word. Pulling himself together he hastily snatched up his carbine with a flush of shame at the slovenly unsoldierly “crime” of dropping it. He’d be dropping his arms on parade next! But it might be a snake—for he had certainly heard the sound of a movement of some sort. The strong man felt faint and leant against the mortuary wall for a moment.
Oh, that the wretched carbine were a sword! A man could feel a man with a sword in his hand. He could almost face the Snake, even in Snake form, if he had a sword … but what is a carbine, even a loaded Martini-Henry carbine with its good soft man-stopping slug? There are no traditions to a carbine—nothing of the Spirit of one’s Ancestors in one—a vile mechanic thing of villainous saltpetre. How should the Snake fear that? Now a sword was different. It stood for human war and human courage and human deeds from the mistiest past, and behind it must be a weight of human wrath, feats, and tradition that must make even the Snake pause. Oh, for his sword—if the Snake came upon him when he had but this wretched carbine he would probably desert his post, fling the useless toy from him, and flee till he fell blind and fainting on the ground…. And what would the Trooper of the Queen get who deserted his sentry-post, threw away his arms and fled—and explained in defence that he had seen a snake? Probably a court-martial would give him a spell of Military Prison. Yes—Jail…. What proportion of truth could there be in the firmly-held belief of the men that “crimes” are made so numerous and so inevitable, to the best-meaning and most careful, because there exist a great Military Prison System and a great Military Prison personnel—and that “criminals” are essential to the respective proper inhabitation and raison d’être thereof—that unless a good supply of military “criminals” were forthcoming there might have to be reductions and curtailments—loss of snug billets…. Certainly soldiers got years of imprisonment for “crimes” for which civilians would get reprimands or nominal fines, and, moreover, when a man became a soldier he certainly lost the elementary fundamental rights guaranteed to Englishmen by Magna Charta—among them the right of trial by his peers….
Would poor Priddell mind if he did not knock again? If it were the Snake it could do Priddell no harm now—he being happily dead—whereas, if disturbed, it might emerge to the utter undoing—mind, body, and soul—of Trooper Matthewson. It would certainly send him to Jail or Lunatic Asylum—probably to both in due succession, for he was daily getting worse in the matter of the Snake.
No—it was part of his orders, on this sentry-post, to knock at the door, and he would do his duty, Snake or not. He had always tried to do his duty faithfully and he would continue….
Once more to knock at a dead man’s door….
Bump, Bump: Bump, Bump: Bump, Bump.
“You’ll soon be at rest, Priddell, old chap—and I wish I could join you,” called Dam, and it seemed to his excited brain that a deep hollow groan replied.
“By Jove! He’s not dead,” coolly remarked the man who would have fled shrieking from a harmless blind-worm, and, going round to the back of the building, he placed his carbine against the wall and sprang up at a kind of window-ledge that formed the base of a grated aperture made for purposes of ventilation. Slowly raising his body till his face was above the ledge, he peered into the dimly moonlit cell and then dropped to the ground and, catching up his carbine, sprinted in the direction of the Hospital Guard-room.
There arrived, he shouted for the Corporal of the Guard and was quickly confronted by Corporal Prag.
“Wot the devil you deserted yore”…. he began.