“Oom Paul Kruger” seems every one’s pal
In this wide world, wide world.
For he is such a cleanly, sweet-smelling old chap;
Handkerchiefs, he disdains—gives his fingers a snap;
Oh! ain’t it a shame that he’s wiped off the map
Of this awfully wide, wide world?
Aye, that war.... He’d sure done some hard slugging there, one way and another. That two months on the Karroo Desert ... whew! rotten water—what little there was of it—and fellows going under every day with “enteric.” Those cursed night marches, after a long day’s trek, where your horse kept coming down with you amongst the meerkat holes in the dark. Lord! but they were hard, bitter men in that Irregular Horse—had had enough to make ’em—mostly refugees from the Rand. They sure could fight, and were up to all the Boer’s tricks, too. That was some scrap at Wepener, under that burning sun all day. What a smack that bullet gave him. Slap through his body. Felt just like being hit with a hammer. They’d got him at last, but at a price—for had he not deliberately picked off six “Doppers” before it came, as he lay cached behind that broken-down Cape cart?... Flopped ’em out, one after the other ... and lots more before that, too, at Elandslaagte, Waggon Hill, and in various small skirmishes.
That chase after De Wet and Kritzinger, long afterwards, during the guerilla warfare that followed, when they and Honeycroft’s column converged on Pampoon Poort and nearly nailed the whole bunch. He’d killed five horses in that two weeks’ drive. Those Argentines hadn’t got much bottom in them, though. Basuto ponies were the stuff—if you were lucky enough to get hold of one—for they mostly got snapped up by the officers. Tough!... the cayuses in this country were pretty hard—some of ’em—but they weren’t a patch on those little Basutos.
Ah, well, it was all over now; but what misery and fun they had had, mixed. Either a feast or a famine. Starving one day, gorged the next. Things had got pretty slim, though, towards the end, with all the countless columns ravaging the country. Couldn’t even get a bit of firewood to boil your coffee, let alone a pig or a chicken. Nothing left except a few thin sheep, and those stringy, pink-eyed Angora goats—worse provender than “bully” or “Macconnochie Ration.” The night he, Barney Ebbsworth, and Billy Gardiner “feloniously, and with intent,” stole that keg of rum at Norval’s Pont, and the glorious drunk that they and the guardians of the neighboring blockhouse had on it.
Yes, they were pretty tough specimens, all right, in that regiment, for the surroundings and conditions they lived under in those haphazard days were not particularly conducive to much close observance of the higher ethics of refinement or morality. “Sufficient unto the day thereof” had been the only maxim that went there, for the span of life was of too doubtful duration, between sun-up and sun-down, to speculate overmuch on what the morrow might bring forth.
He’d done his bit, anyway, and had come out of it safely, with three medals and completely restored health. Luckier than lots of the poor devils in his regiment, so many of whom were lying in their lonely graves back there, on which the aasvogel perched by day and the hyena prowled around by night—or those that were living, crippled up for life, perhaps, scores of them. No! South Africa was all right in some ways, but he wouldn’t care to live there again, for many things. The American continent was a better country for a poor man, after all, and he hadn’t done so badly. He’d not saved a fortune, it was true; he’d given more away to others than he’d ever spent on himself, for he was always an easy mark for any poor devil with a hard-luck story. But he’d generally kept a moderate stake in the bank for a rainy day, so there was no particular cause for him to take such pessimistic views of life as he was prone to do at times. He’d much to be thankful for. His police record was good, and he had risen very quickly during his five odd years’ service. For, without being exactly over-zealous, his list of convictions—long-term ones at that—was probably higher than any other man’s in the Division, and some of them had caused him to be the recipient of favorable recognition from the Commissioner on more than one occasion.
Yes, without being unduly “stuck on himself,” he did possess a good many of the natural qualifications requisite for police duty. For stock cases, anyway, and the position he occupied in the province as a Sergeant in the R.N.W.M.P., undoubtedly gave him a certain standing in any community. Grouse and worry as he might, there was a good deal of fascination about the life, which was exemplified by the unconsciously keen interest that, entirely apart from the fact of mere duty, he felt in the various crooked problems that he was called upon from time to time to solve.
If only it wasn’t such a cursed lonely life. Lonely, in the sense of his self-imposed isolation that he felt was incumbent on him, more or less, in the interests of duty. That’s what gave him the pip, and caused those rotten fits of depression that came over him at times. Yes, there was no doubt about it—he was getting crankier and crankier every year. He was conscious of it. What was coming over him? He didn’t use to be like that. Fellows were starting to call him “Old” Ben, too, already. He didn’t deserve that, surely—even if his hair was turning slightly gray. He could still show some of those young men, ten years his junior, a thing or two yet, in any test of physical endurance or skill.
Yes, it was lonely, all right. But, then, it didn’t do for a man situated in a crooked district like he was to get going around with the glad hand, either. That was apt to make a policeman’s duty highly disagreeable on occasion, as he knew from past experience. No, the only way was to keep aloof from people as much as possible in a place like this; then they had nothing on you, obligation or anything else, and you could soak it to ’em without compunction whenever occasion arose. They weren’t all like Barney Gallagher or Lake. Thank goodness, he could always trust them, and could talk freely in their company without having to be continually on his guard.
Thus he continued to muse, his mind reverting in turns to many curious problems, till suddenly rousing himself with a start, he drew back from the window and, stretching and yawning, looked at his watch.