“They’re snakes, I tell you, and he St Patrick! Whether you may wear ’em on leave, I don’t know, for I’ve had no leave since I’ve been with him, but certainly not within a hundred miles of headquarters. A shooting-jacket is ‘a deformity of dress,’ and as for a blouse”—this was a kind of Norfolk coat made in thin materials—“if one met his eye, believe me, he’d tear it off you and kick it out of the house. Oh, he’s a holy terror, and no mistake!”
“The very person you needed to take you in hand, my dear fellow! And tell me, does he work you hard?”
“Don’t he, just!” with a hollow groan. “From morning to night—day in, day out—your nose is on the grindstone. ‘If I thought there was the remotest chance of your studying,’ says he, ‘I’d allow you time for it, the same as I do myself, but ’tis no use. So I’ll find you work instead, just to keep you out of mischief.’”
“Sure he’s the wise man! And what would he be studying?”
“Marlborough, Frederick, the Duke—all those old codgers full of plans of battles like starfishes, with a compass in the corner to show they’re upside-down! Much good they’d do me or anybody! I’d want to get them up-sided first, and then they’d be all wrong. And some great little old Latin book that he hammers bits out of at meals and all sorts of times, with Alexander’s campaigns in it—for an example and an incitement, says he.”
“You’ll be a wonder by the time he’s done with you! And the work—what’s that like?”
“Like galloping hell-for-leather through the heat to surprise some wretched barracks where they ain’t prepared for inspection. And turning everything topsy-turvy, and hauling everybody over the coals, and putting up the private soldiers to make complaints, and swearing till all is blue that there ain’t an officer in the place fit to hold his commission, and the C.O. and the surgeon ought to be drummed out of the Army with ignominy! Oh, I tell you they love him down there!” Brian waved a hand in a direction supposed to be that of Bombay.
“You have great times indeed! Don’t you enjoy it all?”
“I believe you! To see a poor wretch of a private trying hard to think of some grievances, with one eye on the General, who’s so anxious for ’em, and t’other on his own officer, who’s safe to pass on to him the wigging he gets—it’s rich! But it ain’t what you may call fair play. Why, the very first thing I was taught when I got into the regiment was that an officer must never permit a private soldier an interview without he was full dressed and accompanied by a sergeant. But the General swears an officer must be accessible to his men day and night—in their shirt-sleeves if they choose—and no sergeant within a mile of ’em. D’ye wonder no one knows how he stands?”
“’Twas like that when they fought in Spain, I suppose.”