"He did."

"Ah! Would you kindly mind turnin' to the precise page indicated an' givin' me a resume of 'is tattics?" said Mr. Pyecroft, drinking deeply. "I'd like to know 'ow it looked from 'is side o' the deck."

"How will this do?" I said. "'Once clear of the land, like Voltaire's Habakkuk———"'

"One o' their new commerce-destroyers, I suppose," Mr. Pyecroft interjected.

"'—each man seemed veritably capable of all—to do according to his will. The boats, dismantled and forlorn, are lowered upon the planking. One cries "Aid me!" flourishing at the same time the weapons of his business. A dozen launch themselves upon him in the orgasm of zeal misdirected. He beats them off with the howlings of dogs. He has lost a hammer. This ferocious outcry signifies that only. Eight men seek the utensil, colliding on the way with some many others which, seated in the stern of the boat, tear up and scatter upon the planking the ironwork which impedes their brutal efforts. Elsewhere, one detaches from on high wood, canvas, iron bolts, coal-dust—what do I know?'"

"That's where 'e's comin' the bloomin' onjeuew. 'E knows a lot, reely."

"'They descend thundering upon the planking, and the spectacle cannot reproduce itself. In my capacity of valet to the captain, whom I have well and beautifully plied with drink since the rising of the sun (behold me also, Ganymede!) I pass throughout observing, it may be not a little. They ask orders. There is none to give them. One sits upon the edge of the vessel and chants interminably the lugubrious "Roule Britannia"—to endure how lomg?'"

"That was me! On'y 'twas 'A Life on the Ocean Wave'—which I hate more than any stinkin' tune I know, havin' dragged too many nasty little guns to it. Yes, Number One told me off to that for ten minutes; an' I ain't musical, you might say."

"'Then come marines, half-dressed, seeking vainly through this "tohu- bohu"' (that's one of his names for the Archimandrite, Mr. Pyecroft), 'for a place whence they shall not be dislodged. The captain, heavy with drink, rolls himself from his hammock. He would have his people fire the Maxims. They demand which Maxim. That to him is equal. The breech-lock indispensable is not there. They demand it of one who opens a barrel of pork, for this Navy feeds at all hours. He refers them to the cook, yesterday my master—'"

"Yes, an' Retallick nearly had a fit. What a truthful an' observin' little Antonio we 'ave!"

"'It is discovered in the hands of a boy who says, and they do not rebuke him, that he has found it by hazard.' I'm afraid I haven't translated quite correctly, Mr. Pyecroft, but I've done my best."

"Why, it's beautiful—you ought to be a Frenchman—you ought. You don't want anything o' me. You've got it all there."

"Yes, but I like your side of it. For instance. Here's a little thing I can't quite see the end of. Listen! 'Of the domain which Britannia rules by sufferance, my gross captain, knew nothing, and his Navigator, if possible, less. From the bestial recriminations and the indeterminate chaos of the grand deck, I ascended—always with a whisky-and-soda in my hands—to a scene truly grotesque. Behold my captain in plain sea, at issue with his Navigator! A crisis of nerves due to the enormous quantity of alcohol which he had swallowed up to then, has filled for him the ocean with dangers, imaginary and fantastic. Incapable of judgment, menaced by the phantasms of his brain inflamed, he envisages islands perhaps of the Hesperides beneath his keel—vigias innumerable.' I don't know what a vigia is, Mr. Pyecroft. 'He creates shoals sad and far-reaching of the mid-Atlantic!' What was that, now?"

"Oh, I see! That come after dinner, when our Navigator threw 'is cap down an' danced on it. Danby was quartermaster. They 'ad a tea-party on the bridge. It was the old man's contribution. Does he say anything about the leadsmen?"

"Is this it? 'Overborne by his superior's causeless suspicion, the Navigator took off the badges of his rank and cast them at the feet of my captain and sobbed. A disgusting and maudlin reconciliation followed. The argument renewed itself, each grasping the wheel, crapulous' (that means drunk, I think, Mr. Pyecroft), 'shouting. It appeared that my captain would chenaler' (I don't know what that means, Mr. Pyecroft) 'to the Cape. At the end, he placed a sailor with the sound' (that's the lead, I think) 'in his hand, garnished with suet.' Was it garnished with suet?"

"He put two leadsmen in the chains, o' course! He didn't know that there mightn't be shoals there, 'e said. Morgan went an' armed his lead, to enter into the spirit o' the thing. They 'eaved it for twenty minutes, but there wasn't any suet—only tallow, o' course."

"'Garnished with suet at two thousand metres of profundity. Decidedly the Britannic Navy is well guarded.' Well, that's all right, Mr. Pyecroft. Would you mind telling me anything else of interest that happened?"

"There was a good deal, one way an' another. I'd like to know what this Antonio thought of our sails."

"He merely says that 'the engines having broken down, an officer extemporised a mournful and useless parody of sails.' Oh, yes! he says that some of them looked like 'bonnets in a needlecase,' I think."

"Bonnets in a needlecase! They were stun'sles. That shows the beggar's no sailor. That trick was really the one thing we did. Pho! I thought he was a sailorman, an' 'e hasn't sense enough to see what extemporisin' eleven good an' drawin' sails out o' four trys'les an' a few awnin's means. 'E must have been drunk!"

"Never mind, Mr. Pyecroft. I want to hear about your target-practice, and the execution."

"Oh! We had a special target-practice that afternoon all for Antonio. As I told my crew—me bein' captain of the port-bow quick-firer, though I'm a torpedo man now—it just showed how you can work your gun under any discomforts. A shell—twenty six-inch shells—burstin' inboard couldn't 'ave begun to make the varicose collection o' tit-bits which we had spilled on our deck. It was a lather—a rich, creamy lather!

"We took it very easy—that gun-practice. We did it in a complimentary 'Jenny-'ave-another-cup-o' tea' style, an' the crew was strictly ordered not to rupture 'emselves with unnecessary exertion. This isn't our custom in the Navy when we're in puris naturalibus, as you might say. But we wasn't so then. We was impromptu. An' Antonio was busy fetchin' splits for the old man, and the old man was wastin' 'em down the ventilators. There must 'ave been four inches in the bilges, I should think—wardroom whisky- an'-soda.

"Then I thought I might as well bear a hand as look pretty. So I let my bundoop go at fifteen 'undred—sightin' very particular. There was a sort of 'appy little belch like—no more, I give you my word—an' the shell trundled out maybe fifty feet an' dropped into the deep Atlantic.

"'Government powder, Sir!' sings out our Gunnery Jack to the bridge, laughin' horrid sarcastic; an' then, of course, we all laughs, which we are not encouraged to do in puris naturalibus. Then, of course, I saw what our Gunnery Jack 'ad been after with his subcutaneous details in the magazines all the mornin' watch. He had redooced the charges to a minimum, as you might say. But it made me feel a trifle faint an' sickish notwithstanding this spit-in-the-eye business. Every time such transpired, our Gunnery Lootenant would say somethin' sarcastic about Government stores, an' the old man fair howled. 'Op was on the bridge with 'im, an' 'e told me—'cause 'e's a free-knowledgeist an' reads character—that Antonio's face was sweatin' with pure joy. 'Op wanted to kick him. Does Antonio say anything about that?"

"Not about the kicking, but he is great on the gun-practice, Mr. Pyecroft. He has put all the results into a sort of appendix—a table of shots. He says that the figures will speak more eloquently than words."

"What? Nothin' about the way the crews flinched an' hopped? Nothin' about the little shells rumblin' out o' the guns so casual?"

"There are a few pages of notes, but they only bear out what you say. He says that these things always happen as soon as one of our ships is out of sight of land. Oh, yes! I've forgotten. He says, 'From the conversation of my captain with his inferiors I gathered that no small proportion of the expense of these nominally efficient cartridges finds itself in his pockets. So much, indeed, was signified by an officer on the deck below, who cried in a high voice: "I hope, Sir, you are making something out of it. It is rather monotonous." This insult, so flagrant, albeit well- merited, was received with a smile of drunken bonhommy'—that's cheerfulness, Mr. Pyecroft. Your glass is empty."

"Resumin' afresh," said Mr. Pyecroft, after a well-watered interval, "I may as well say that the target-practice occupied us two hours, and then we had to dig out after the tramp. Then we half an' three-quarters cleaned up the decks an' mucked about as requisite, haulin' down the patent awnin' stun'sles which Number One 'ad made. The old man was a shade doubtful of his course, 'cause I 'eard him say to Number One, 'You were right. A week o' this would turn the ship into a Hayti bean-feast. But,' he says pathetic, 'haven't they backed the band noble?'

"'Oh! it's a picnic for them,' says Number One.

"'But when do we get rid o' this whisky-peddlin' blighter o' yours, Sir?'

"'That's a cheerful way to speak of a Viscount,' says the old man. "E's the bluest blood o' France when he's at home,'

"'Which is the precise landfall I wish 'im to make,' says Number One.' It'll take all 'ands and the Captain of the Head to clean up after 'im.'

"'They won't grudge it,' says the old man. 'Just as soon as it's dusk we'll overhaul our tramp friend an' waft him over,'

"Then a sno—midshipman—Moorshed was is name—come up an' says somethin' in a low voice. It fetches the old man.

"'You'll oblige me,' 'e says, 'by takin' the wardroom poultry for that. I've ear-marked every fowl we've shipped at Madeira, so there can't be any possible mistake. M'rover,' 'e says, 'tell 'em if they spill one drop of blood on the deck,' he says, 'they'll not be extenuated, but hung.'

"Mr. Moorshed goes forward, lookin' unusual 'appy, even for him. The Marines was enjoyin' a committee-meetin' in their own flat.

"After that, it fell dark, with just a little streaky, oily light on the sea—an' any thin' more chronic than the Archimandrite I'd trouble you to behold. She looked like a fancy bazaar and a auction-room—yes, she almost looked like a passenger-steamer. We'd picked up our tramp, an' was about four mile be'ind 'er. I noticed the wardroom as a class, you might say, was manoeuvrin' en masse, an' then come the order to cockbill the yards. We hadn't any yards except a couple o' signallin' sticks, but we cock-billed 'em. I hadn't seen that sight, not since thirteen years in the West Indies, when a post-captain died o' yellow jack. It means a sign o' mourning the yards bein' canted opposite ways, to look drunk an' disorderly. They do.

"'An' what might our last giddy-go-round signify?' I asks of 'Op.

"'Good 'Evins!' 'e says, 'Are you in that habit o' permittin' leathernecks to assassinate lootenants every morning at drill without immejitly 'avin' 'em shot on the foc'sle in the horrid crawly-crawly twilight?'"

"'Yes,' I murmured over my dear book, 'the infinitely lugubrious crepuscule. A spectacle of barbarity unparalleled—hideous—cold-blooded, and yet touched with appalling grandeur.'"

"Ho! Was that the way Antonio looked at it? That shows he 'ad feelin's. To resoom. Without anyone givin' us orders to that effect, we began to creep about an' whisper. Things got stiller and stiller, till they was as still as—mushrooms! Then the bugler let off the 'Dead March' from the upper bridge. He done it to cover the remarks of a cock-bird bein' killed forrard, but it came out paralysin' in its tout ensemble. You never heard the 'Dead March' on a bugle? Then the pipes went twitterin' for both watches to attend public execution, an' we came up like so many ghosts, the 'ole ship's company. Why, Mucky 'Arcourt, one o' our boys, was that took in he give tongue like a beagle-pup, an' was properly kicked down the ladder for so doin'. Well, there we lay—engines stopped, rollin' to the swell, all dark, yards cock-billed, an' that merry tune yowlin' from the upper bridge. We fell in on the foc'sle, leavin' a large open space by the capstan, where our sail-maker was sittin' sewin' broken firebars into the foot of an old 'ammick. 'E looked like a corpse, an' Mucky had another fit o' hysterics, an' you could 'ear us breathin' 'ard. It beat anythin' in the theatrical line that even us Archimandrites had done—an' we was the ship you could trust. Then come the doctor an' lit a red lamp which he used for his photographic muckin's, an' chocked it on the capstan. That was finally gashly!

"Then come twelve Marines guardin' Glass 'ere. You wouldn't think to see 'im what a gratooitous an' aboundin' terror he was that evenin'. 'E was in a white shirt 'e'd stole from Cockburn, an' his regulation trousers, barefooted. 'E'd pipe-clayed 'is 'ands an' face an' feet an' as much of his chest as the openin' of his shirt showed. 'E marched under escort with a firm an' undeviatin' step to the capstan, an' came to attention. The old man reinforced by an extra strong split—his seventeenth, an' 'e didn't throw that down the ventilator—come up on the bridge an' stood like a image. 'Op, 'oo was with 'im, says that 'e heard Antonio's teeth singin', not chatterin'—singin' like funnel-stays in a typhoon. Yes, a moanin' aeolian harp, 'Op said.

"'When you are ready, Sir, drop your 'andkerchief,' Number One whispers.

"'Good Lord!' says the old man, with a jump. 'Eh! What? What a sight! What a sight!' an' he stood drinkin' it in, I suppose, for quite two minutes.

"Glass never says a word. 'E shoved aside an 'andkerchief which the sub-lootenant proffered 'im to bind 'is eyes with—quiet an' collected; an' if we 'adn't been feelin' so very much as we did feel, his gestures would 'ave brought down the 'ouse." "I can't open my eyes, or I'll be sick," said the Marine with appalling clearness. "I'm pretty far gone—I know it—but there wasn't anyone could 'ave beaten Edwardo Glass, R.M.L.I., that time. Why, I scared myself nearly into the 'orrors. Go on, Pye. Glass is in support—as ever."

"Then the old man drops 'is 'andkerchief, an' the firin'-party fires like one man. Glass drops forward, twitchin' an' 'eavin' horrid natural, into the shotted 'ammick all spread out before him, and the firin' party closes in to guard the remains of the deceased while Sails is stitchin' it up. An' when they lifted that 'ammick it was one wringin' mess of blood! They on'y expended one wardroom cock-bird, too. Did you know poultry bled that extravagant? I never did.

"The old man—so 'Op told me—stayed on the bridge, brought up on a dead centre. Number One was similarly, though lesser, impressed, but o' course 'is duty was to think of 'is fine white decks an' the blood. 'Arf a mo', Sir,' he says, when the old man was for leavin'. 'We have to wait for the burial, which I am informed takes place immejit.'

"'It's beyond me,' says the owner. 'There was general instructions for an execution, but I never knew I had such a dependable push of mountebanks aboard,' he says. 'I'm all cold up my back, still.'

"The Marines carried the corpse below. Then the bugle give us some more 'Dead March,' Then we 'eard a splash from a bow six-pounder port, an' the bugle struck up a cheerful tune. The whole lower deck was complimentin' Glass, 'oo took it very meek. 'E is a good actor, for all 'e's a leatherneck.

"'Now,' said the old man, 'we must turn over Antonio. He's in what I have 'eard called one perspirin' funk.'

"Of course, I'm tellin' it slow, but it all 'appened much quicker. We run down our trampo—without o' course informin' Antonio of 'is 'appy destiny —an' inquired of 'er if she had any use for a free and gratis stowaway. Oh, yes? she said she'd be highly grateful, but she seemed a shade puzzled at our generosity, as you might put it, an' we lay by till she lowered a boat. Then Antonio—who was un'appy, distinctly un'appy—was politely requested to navigate elsewhere, which I don't think he looked for. 'Op was deputed to convey the information, an' 'Op got in one sixteen-inch kick which 'oisted 'im all up the ladder. 'Op ain't really vindictive, an' 'e's fond of the French, especially the women, but his chances o' kicking lootenants was like the cartridge—reduced to a minimum.

"The boat 'adn't more than shoved off before a change, as you might say, came o'er the spirit of our dream. The old man says, like Elphinstone an' Bruce in the Portsmouth election when I was a boy: 'Gentlemen,' he says, 'for gentlemen you have shown yourselves to be—from the bottom of my heart I thank you. The status an' position of our late lamented shipmate made it obligate,' 'e says, 'to take certain steps not strictly included in the regulations. An' nobly,' says 'e, 'have you assisted me. Now,' 'e says, 'you hold the false and felonious reputation of bein' the smartest ship in the Service. Pigsties,' 'e says,' is plane trigonometry alongside our present disgustin' state. Efface the effects of this indecent orgy,' he says. 'Jump, you lop-eared, flat-footed, butter-backed Amalekites! Dig out, you briny-eyed beggars!'"

"Do captains talk like that in the Navy, Mr. Pyecroft?" I asked.

"I've told you once I only give the grist of his arguments. The Bosun's mate translates it to the lower deck, as you may put it, and the lower deck springs smartly to attention. It took us half the night 'fore we got 'er anyway ship-shape; but by sunrise she was beautiful as ever, and we resoomed. I've thought it over a lot since; yes, an' I've thought a lot of Antonio trimmin' coal in that tramp's bunkers. 'E must 'ave been highly surprised. Wasn't he?"

"He was, Mr. Pyecroft," I responded. "But now we're talking of it, weren't you all a little surprised?"

"It come as a pleasant relief to the regular routine," said Mr. Pyecroft. "We appreciated it as an easy way o' workin' for your country. But—the old man was right—a week o' similar manoeuvres would 'ave knocked our moral double-bottoms bung out. Now, couldn't you oblige with Antonio's account of Glass's execution?"

I obliged for nearly ten minutes. It was at best but a feeble rendering of M. de C.'s magnificent prose, through which the soul of the poet, the eye of the mariner, and the heart of the patriot bore magnificent accord. His account of his descent from the side of the "infamous vessel consecrated to blood" in the "vast and gathering dusk of the trembling ocean" could only be matched by his description of the dishonoured hammock sinking unnoticed through the depths, while, above, the bugler played music "of an indefinable brutality"

"By the way, what did the bugler play after Glass's funeral?" I asked.

"Him? Oh! 'e played 'The Strict Q.T.' It's a very old song. We 'ad it in Fratton nearly fifteen years back," said Mr. Pyecroft sleepily.

I stirred the sugar dregs in my glass. Suddenly entered armed men, wet and discourteous, Tom Wessels smiling nervously in the background.

"Where is that—minutely particularised person—Glass?" said the sergeant of the picket.

"'Ere!" The marine rose to the strictest of attentions. "An' it's no good smelling of my breath, because I'm strictly an' ruinously sober."

"Oh! An' what may you have been doin' with yourself?"

"Listenin' to tracts. You can look! I've had the evenin' of my little life. Lead on to the Cornucopia's midmost dunjing cell. There's a crowd of brass-'atted blighters there which will say I've been absent without leaf. Never mind. I forgive them before'and. The evenin' of my life, an' please don't forget it." Then in a tone of most ingratiating apology to me: "I soaked it all in be'ind my shut eyes. 'I'm"—he jerked a contemptuous thumb towards Mr. Pyecroft—"'e's a flatfoot, a indigo-blue matlow. 'E never saw the fun from first to last. A mournful beggar—most depressin'." Private Glass departed, leaning heavily on the escort's arm.

Mr. Pyecroft wrinkled his brows in thought—the profound and far-reaching meditation that follows five glasses of hot whisky-and-water.

"Well, I don't see anything comical—greatly—except here an' there. Specially about those redooced charges in the guns. Do you see anything funny in it?"

There was that in his eye which warned me the night was too wet for argument.

"No, Mr. Pyecroft, I don't," I replied. "It was a beautiful tale, and I thank you very much."



A SAHIBS' WAR

THE RUNNERS

News! What is the word that they tell now—now—now! The little drums beating in the bazaars? They beat (among the buyers and sellers) "Nimrud—ah Nimrud! God sends a gnat against Nimrud!" Watchers, O Watchers a thousand!

News! At the edge of the crops—now—now—where the well-wheels are halted, One prepares to loose the bullocks and one scrapes his hoe, They beat (among the sowers and the reapers) "Nimrud—ah Nimrud! God prepares an ill day for Nimrud!" Watchers, O Watchers ten thousand.

News! By the fires of the camps—now—now—where the travellers meet Where the camels come in and the horses: their men conferring, They beat (among the packmen and the drivers) "Nimrud—ah Nimrud! Thus it befell last noon to Nimrud!" Watchers, O Watchers an hundred thousand!

News! Under the shadow of the border-peels—now—now—now! In the rocks of the passes where the expectant shoe their horses, They beat (among the rifles and the riders) "Nimrud—ah Nimrud! Shall we go up against Nimrud?" Watchers, O Watchers a thousand thousand?

News! Bring out the heaps of grain—open the account-books again! Drive forward the well-bullocks against the taxable harvest! Eat and lie under the trees—pitch the police-guarded fair-grounds, O dancers! Hide away the rifles and let down the ladders from the watch-towers! They beat (among all the peoples) "Now—now—now! God has reserved the Sword for Nimrud! God has given Victory to Nimrud!" Let us abide under Nimrud!" O Well-disposed and Heedful, an hundred thousand thousand!

A SAHIBS' WAR

Pass? Pass? Pass? I have one pass already, allowing me to go by the rel from Kroonstadt to Eshtellenbosch, where the horses are, where I am to be paid off, and whence I return to India. I am a—trooper of the Gurgaon Rissala (cavalry regiment), the One Hundred and Forty-first Punjab Cavalry, Do not herd me with these black Kaffirs. I am a Sikh—a trooper of the State. The Lieutenant-Sahib does not understand my talk? Is there any Sahib on the train who will interpret for a trooper of the Gurgaon Rissala going about his business in this devil's devising of a country, where there is no flour, no oil, no spice, no red pepper, and no respect paid to a Sikh? Is there no help?... God be thanked, here is such a Sahib! Protector of the Poor! Heaven-born! Tell the young Lieutenant-Sahib that my name is Umr Singh; I am—I was servant to Kurban Sahib, now dead; and I have a pass to go to Eshtellenbosch, where the horses are. Do not let him herd me with these black Kaffirs!... Yes, I will sit by this truck till the Heaven-born has explained the matter to the young Lieutenant-Sahib who does not understand our tongue.

* * * * *

What orders? The young Lieutenant-Sahib will not detain me? Good! I go down to Eshtellenbosch by the next terain? Good! I go with the Heaven- born? Good! Then for this day I am the Heaven-born's servant. Will the Heaven-born bring the honour of his presence to a seat? Here is an empty truck; I will spread my blanket over one corner thus—for the sun is hot, though not so hot as our Punjab in May. I will prop it up thus, and I will arrange this hay thus, so the Presence can sit at ease till God sends us a terain for Eshtellenbosch....

The Presence knows the Punjab? Lahore? Amritzar? Attaree, belike? My village is north over the fields three miles from Attaree, near the big white house which was copied from a certain place of the Great Queen's by —by—I have forgotten the name. Can the Presence recall it? Sirdar Dyal Singh Attareewalla! Yes, that is the very man; but how does the Presence know? Born and bred in Hind, was he? O-o-oh! This is quite a different matter. The Sahib's nurse was a Surtee woman from the Bombay side? That was a pity. She should have been an up-country wench; for those make stout nurses. There is no land like the Punjab. There are no people like the Sikhs. Umr Singh is my name, yes. An old man? Yes. A trooper only after all these years? Ye-es. Look at my uniform, if the Sahib doubts. Nay—nay; the Sahib looks too closely. All marks of rank were picked off it long ago, but—but it is true—mine is not a common cloth such as troopers use for their coats, and—the Sahib has sharp eyes—that black mark is such a mark as a silver chain leaves when long worn on the breast. The Sahib says that troopers do not wear silver chains? No-o. Troopers do not wear the Arder of Beritish India? No. The Sahib should have been in the Police of the Punjab. I am not a trooper, but I have been a Sahib's servant for nearly a year—bearer, butler, sweeper, any and all three. The Sahib says that Sikhs do not take menial service? True; but it was for Kurban Sahib— my Kurban Sahib—dead these three months!

* * * * *

Young—of a reddish face—with blue eyes, and he lilted a little on his feet when he was pleased, and cracked his finger-joints. So did his father before him, who was Deputy-Commissioner of Jullundur in my father's time when I rode with the Gurgaon Rissala. My father? Jwala Singh. A Sikh of Sikhs—he fought against the English at Sobraon and carried the mark to his death. So we were knit as it were by a blood-tie, I and my Kurban Sahib. Yes, I was a trooper first—nay, I had risen to a Lance-Duffadar, I remember—and my father gave me a dun stallion of his own breeding on that day; and he was a little baba, sitting upon a wall by the parade-ground with his ayah—all in white, Sahib—laughing at the end of our drill. And his father and mine talked together, and mine beckoned to me, and I dismounted, and the baba put his hand into mine—eighteen—twenty-five— twenty-seven years gone now—Kurban Sahib—my Kurban Sahib! Oh, we were great friends after that! He cut his teeth on my sword-hilt, as the saying is. He called me Big Umr Singh—Buwwa Umwa Singh, for he could not speak plain. He stood only this high, Sahib, from the bottom of this truck, but he knew all our troopers by name—every one.... And he went to England, and he became a young man, and back he came, lilting a little in his walk, and cracking his finger-joints—back to his own regiment and to me. He had not forgotten either our speech or our customs. He was a Sikh at heart, Sahib. He was rich, open-handed, just, a friend of poor troopers, keen- eyed, jestful, and careless. I could tell tales about him in his first years. There was very little he hid from me. I was his Umr Singh, and when we were alone he called me Father, and I called him Son. Yes, that was how we spoke. We spoke freely together on everything—about war, and women, and money, and advancement, and such all.

We spoke about this war, too, long before it came. There were many box- wallas, pedlars, with Pathans a few, in this country, notably at the city of Yunasbagh (Johannesburg), and they sent news in every week how the Sahibs lay without weapons under the heel of the Boer-log; and how big guns were hauled up and down the streets to keep Sahibs in order; and how a Sahib called Eger Sahib (Edgar?) was killed for a jest by the Boer-log. The Sahib knows how we of Hind hear all that passes over the earth? There was not a gun cocked in Yunasbagh that the echo did not come into Hind in a month. The Sahibs are very clever, but they forget their own cleverness has created the dak (the post), and that for an anna or two all things become known. We of Hind listened and heard and wondered; and when it was a sure thing, as reported by the pedlars and the vegetable-sellers, that the Sahibs of Yunasbagh lay in bondage to the Boer-log, certain among us asked questions and waited for signs. Others of us mistook the meaning of those signs. Wherefore, Sahib, came the long war in the Tirah! This Kurban Sahib knew, and we talked together. He said, "There is no haste. Presently we shall fight, and we shall fight for all Hind in that country round Yunasbagh. Here he spoke truth. Does the Sahib not agree? Quite so. It is for Hind that the Sahibs are fighting this war. Ye cannot in one place rule and in another bear service. Either ye must everywhere rule or everywhere obey. God does not make the nations ringstraked. True—true— true!"

So did matters ripen—a step at a time. It was nothing to me, except I think—and the Sahib sees this, too?—that it is foolish to make an army and break their hearts in idleness. Why have they not sent for men of the Tochi—the men of the Tirah—the men of Buner? Folly, a thousand times. We could have done it all so gently—so gently.

Then, upon a day, Kurban Sahib sent for me and said, "Ho, Dada, I am sick, and the doctor gives me a certificate for many months." And he winked, and I said, "I will get leave and nurse thee, Child. Shall I bring my uniform?" He said, "Yes, and a sword for a sick man to lean on. We go to Bombay, and thence by sea to the country of the Hubshis" (niggers). Mark his cleverness! He was first of all our men among the native regiments to get leave for sickness and to come here. Now they will not let our officers go away, sick or well, except they sign a bond not to take part in this war-game upon the road. But he was clever. There was no whisper of war when he took his sick-leave. I came also? Assuredly. I went to my Colonel, and sitting in the chair (I am—I was—of that rank for which a chair is placed when we speak with the Colonel) I said, "My child goes sick. Give me leave, for I am old and sick also."

And the Colonel, making the word double between English and our tongue, said, "Yes, thou art truly Sikh"; and he called me an old devil— jestingly, as one soldier may jest with another; and he said my Kurban Sahib was a liar as to his health (that was true, too), and at long last he stood up and shook my hand, and bade me go and bring my Sahib safe again. My Sahib back again—aie me!

So I went to Bombay with Kurban Sahib, but there, at sight of the Black Water, Wajib Ali, his bearer checked, and said that his mother was dead. Then I said to Kurban Sahib, "What is one Mussulman pig more or less? Give me the keys of the trunks, and I will lay out the white shirts for dinner." Then I beat Wajib Ali at the back of Watson's Hotel, and that night I prepared Kurban Sahib's razors. I say, Sahib, that I, a Sikh of the Khalsa, an unshorn man, prepared the razors. But I did not put on my uniform while I did it. On the other hand, Kurban Sahib took for me, upon the steamer, a room in all respects like to his own, and would have given me a servant. We spoke of many things on the way to this country; and Kurban Sahib told me what he perceived would be the conduct of the war. He said, "They have taken men afoot to fight men ahorse, and they will foolishly show mercy to these Boer-log because it is believed that they are white." He said, "There is but one fault in this war, and that is that the Government have not employed us, but have made it altogether a Sahibs' war. Very many men will thus be killed, and no vengeance will be taken." True talk—true talk! It fell as Kurban Sahib foretold.

And we came to this country, even to Cape Town over yonder, and Kurban Sahib said, "Bear the baggage to the big dak-bungalow, and I will look for employment fit for a sick man." I put on the uniform of my rank and went to the big dak-bungalow, called Maun Nihal Seyn, [Footnote: Mount Nelson?] and I caused the heavy baggage to be bestowed in that dark lower place—is it known to the Sahib?—which was already full of the swords and baggage of officers. It is fuller now—dead men's kit all! I was careful to secure a receipt for all three pieces. I have it in my belt. They must go back to the Punjab.

Anon came Kurban Sahib, lilting a little in his step, which sign I knew, and he said, "We are born in a fortunate hour. We go to Eshtellenbosch to oversee the despatch of horses." Remember, Kurban Sahib was squadron- leader of the Gurgaon Rissala, and I was Umr Singh. So I said, speaking as we do—we did—when none was near, "Thou art a groom and I am a grass- cutter, but is this any promotion, Child?" At this he laughed, saying, "It is the way to better things. Have patience, Father." (Aye, he called me father when none were by.) "This war ends not to-morrow nor the next day. I have seen the new Sahibs," he said, "and they are fathers of owls—all— all—all!"

So we went to Eshtellenbosch, where the horses are; Kurban Sahib doing the service of servants in that business. And the whole business was managed without forethought by new Sahibs from God knows where, who had never seen a tent pitched or a peg driven. They were full of zeal, but empty of all knowledge. Then came, little by little from Hind, those Pathans—they are just like those vultures up there, Sahib—they always follow slaughter. And there came to Eshtellenbosch some Sikhs—Muzbees, though—and some Madras monkey-men. They came with horses. Puttiala sent horses. Jhind and Nabha sent horses. All the nations of the Khalsa sent horses.

All the ends of the earth sent horses. God knows what the army did with them, unless they ate them raw. They used horses as a courtesan uses oil: with both hands. These needed many men. Kurban Sahib appointed me to the command (what a command for me!) of certain woolly ones—Hubshis—whose touch and shadow are pollution. They were enormous eaters; sleeping on their bellies; laughing without cause; wholly like animals. Some were called Fingoes, and some, I think, Red Kaffirs, but they were all Kaffirs —filth unspeakable. I taught them to water and feed, and sweep and rub down. Yes, I oversaw the work of sweepers—a jemadar of mehtars (headman of a refuse-gang) was I, and Kurban Sahib little better, for five months. Evil months! The war went as Kurban Sahib had said. Our new men were slain and no vengeance was taken. It was a war of fools armed with the weapons of magicians. Guns that slew at half a day's march, and men who, being new, walked blind into high grass and were driven off like cattle by the Boer-log! As to the city of Eshtellenbosch, I am not a Sahib—only a Sikh. I would have quartered one troop only of the Gurgaon Rissala in that city—one little troop—and I would have schooled that city till its men learned to kiss the shadow of a Government horse upon the ground. There are many mullahs (priests) in Eshtellenbosch. They preached the Jehad against us. This is true—all the camp knew it. And most of the houses were thatched! A war of fools indeed!

At the end of five months my Kurban Sahib, who had grown lean, said, "The reward has come. We go up towards the front with horses to-morrow, and, once away, I shall be too sick so return. Make ready the baggage." Thus we got away, with some Kaffirs in charge of new horses for a certain new regiment that had come in a ship. The second day by terain, when we were watering at a desolate place without any sort of a bazaar to it, slipped out from the horse-boxes one Sikander Khan, that had been a jemadar of saises (head-groom) at Eshtellenbosch, and was by service a trooper in a Border regiment. Kurban Sahib gave him big abuse for his desertion; but the Pathan put up his hands as excusing himself, and Kurban Sahib relented and added him to our service. So there were three of us—Kurban Sahib, I, and Sikander Khan—Sahib, Sikh, and Sag (dog). But the man said truly, "We be far from our homes and both servants of the Raj. Make truce till we see the Indus again." I have eaten from the same dish as Sikander Khan— beef, too, for aught I know! He said, on the night he stole some swine's flesh in a tin from a mess-tent, that in his Book, the Koran, it is written that whoso engages in a holy war is freed from ceremonial obligations. Wah! He had no more religion than the sword-point picks up of sugar and water at baptism. He stole himself a horse at a place where there lay a new and very raw regiment. I also procured myself a grey gelding there. They let their horses stray too much, those new regiments.

Some shameless regiments would indeed have made away with our horses on the road! They exhibited indents and requisitions for horses, and once or twice would have uncoupled the trucks; but Kurban Sahib was wise, and I am not altogether a fool. There is not much honesty at the front. Notably, there was one congregation of hard-bitten horse-thieves; tall, light Sahibs, who spoke through their noses for the most part, and upon all occasions they said, "Oah Hell!" which, in our tongue, signifies Jehannum ko jao. They bore each man a vine-leaf upon their uniforms, and they rode like Rajputs. Nay, they rode like Sikhs. They rode like the Ustrelyahs! The Ustrelyahs, whom we met later, also spoke through their noses not little, and they were tall, dark men, with grey, clear eyes, heavily eyelashed like camel's eyes—very proper men—a new brand of Sahib to me. They said on all occasions, "No fee-ah," which in our tongue means Durro mut ("Do not be afraid"), so we called them the Durro Muts. Dark, tall men, most excellent horsemen, hot and angry, waging war as war, and drinking tea as a sandhill drinks water. Thieves? A little, Sahib. Sikander Khan swore to me; and he comes of a horse-stealing clan for ten generations; he swore a Pathan was a babe beside a Durro Mut in regard to horse-lifting. The Durro Muts cannot walk on their feet at all. They are like hens on the high road. Therefore they must have horses. Very proper men, with a just lust for the war. Aah—"No fee-ah," say the Durro Muts. They saw the worth of Kurban Sahib. They did not ask him to sweep stables. They would by no means let him go. He did substitute for one of their troop-leaders who had a fever, one long day in a country full of little hills—like the mouth of the Khaibar; and when they returned in the evening, the Durro Muts said, "Wallah! This is a man. Steal him!" So they stole my Kurban Sahib as they would have stolen anything else that they needed, and they sent a sick officer back to Eshtellenbosch in his place.

Thus Kurban Sahib came to his own again, and I was his bearer, and Sikander Khan was his cook. The law was strict that this was a Sahibs' war, but there was no order that a bearer and a cook should not ride with their Sahib—and we had naught to wear but our uniforms. We rode up and down this accursed country, where there is no bazaar, no pulse, no flour, no oil, no spice, no red pepper, no firewood; nothing but raw corn and a little cattle. There were no great battles as I saw it, but a plenty of gun-firing. When we were many, the Boer-log came out with coffee to greet us, and to show us purwanas (permits) from foolish English Generals who had gone that way before, certifying they were peaceful and well-disposed. When we were few, they hid behind stones and shot us. Now the order was that they were Sahibs, and this was a Sahibs' war. Good! But, as I understand it, when a Sahib goes to war, he puts on the cloth of war, and only those who wear that cloth may take part in the war. Good! That also I understand. But these people were as they were in Burma, or as the Afridis are. They shot at their pleasure, and when pressed hid the gun and exhibited purwanas, or lay in a house and said they were farmers. Even such farmers as cut up the Madras troops at Hlinedatalone in Burma! Even such farmers as slew Cavagnari Sahib and the Guides at Kabul! We schooled those men, to be sure—fifteen, aye, twenty of a morning pushed off the verandah in front of the Bala Hissar. I looked that the Jung-i-lat Sahib (the Commander-in-Chief) would have remembered the old days; but—no. All the people shot at us everywhere, and he issued proclamations saying that he did not fight the people, but a certain army, which army, in truth, was all the Boer-log, who, between them, did not wear enough of uniform to make a loincloth. A fool's war from first to last; for it is manifest that he who fights should be hung if he fights with a gun in one hand and a purwana in the other, as did all these people. Yet we, when they had had their bellyful for the time, received them with honour, and gave them permits, and refreshed them and fed their wives and their babes, and severely punished our soldiers who took their fowls. So the work was to be done not once with a few dead, but thrice and four times over. I talked much with Kurban Sahib on this, and he said, "It is a Sahibs' war. That is the order;" and one night, when Sikander Khan would have lain out beyond the pickets with his knife and shown them how it is worked on the Border, he hit Sikander Khan between the eyes and came near to breaking in his head. Then Sikander Khan, a bandage over his eyes, so that he looked like a sick camel, talked to him half one march, and he was more bewildered than I, and vowed he would return to Eshtellenbosch. But privately to me Kurban Sahib said we should have loosed the Sikhs and the Gurkhas on these people till they came in with their foreheads in the dust. For the war was not of that sort which they comprehended.

They shot us? Assuredly they shot us from houses adorned with a white flag; but when they came to know our custom, their widows sent word by Kaffir runners, and presently there was not quite so much firing. No fee- ah! All the Boer-log with whom we dealt had purwanas signed by mad Generals attesting that they were well-disposed to the State.

They had also rifles not a few, and cartridges, which they hid in the roof. The women wept very greatly when we burned such houses, but they did not approach too near after the flames had taken good hold of the thatch, for fear of the bursting cartridges. The women of the Boer-log are very clever. They are more clever than the men. The Boer-log are clever? Never, never, no! It is the Sahibs who are fools. For their own honour's sake the Sahibs must say that the Boer-log are clever; but it is the Sahibs' wonderful folly that has made the Boer-log. The Sahibs should have sent us into the game.

But the Durro Muts did well. They dealt faithfully with all that country thereabouts—not in any way as we of Hind should have dealt, but they were not altogether fools. One night when we lay on the top of a ridge in the cold, I saw far away a light in a house that appeared for the sixth part of an hour and was obscured. Anon it appeared again thrice for the twelfth part of an hour. I showed this to Kurban Sahib, for it was a house that had been spared—the people having many permits and swearing fidelity at our stirrup-leathers. I said to Kurban Sahib, "Send half a troop, Child, and finish that house. They signal to their brethren." And he laughed where he lay and said, "If I listened to my bearer Umr Singh, there would not be left ten houses in all this land." I said, "What need to leave one? This is as it was in Burma. They are farmers to-day and fighters to-morrow. Let us deal justly with them." He laughed and curled himself up in his blanket, and I watched the far light in the house till day. I have been on the border in eight wars, not counting Burma. The first Afghan War; the second Afghan War; two Mahsud Waziri wars (that is four); two Black Mountain wars, if I remember right; the Malakand and Tirah. I do not count Burma, or some small things. I know when house signals to house!

I pushed Sikandar Khan with my foot, and he saw it too. He said, "One of the Boer-log who brought pumpkins for the mess, which I fried last night, lives in yonder house." I said, "How dost thou know?" He said, "Because he rode out of the camp another way, but I marked how his horse fought with him at the turn of the road; and before the light fell I stole out of the camp for evening prayer with Kurban Sahib's glasses, and from a little hill I saw the pied horse of that pumpkin-seller hurrying to that house." I said naught, but took Kurban Sahib's glasses from his greasy hands and cleaned them with a silk handkerchief and returned them to their case. Sikander Khan told me that he had been the first man in the Zenab valley to use glasses—whereby he finished two blood-feuds cleanly in the course of three months' leave. But he was otherwise a liar.

That day Kurban Sahib, with some ten troopers, was sent on to spy the land for our camp. The Durro Muts moved slowly at that time. They were weighted with grain and forage and carts, and they greatly wished to leave these all in some town and go on light to other business which pressed. So Kurban Sahib sought a short cut for them, a little off the line of march. We were twelve miles before the main body, and we came to a house under a high bushed hill, with a nullah, which they call a donga, behind it, and an old sangar of piled stones, which they call a kraal, before it. Two thorn bushes grew on either side of the door, like babul bushes, covered with a golden coloured bloom, and the roof was all of thatch. Before the house was a valley of stones that rose to another bush-covered hill. There was an old man in the verandah—an old man with a white beard and a wart upon the left side of his neck; and a fat woman with the eyes of a swine and the jowl of a swine; and a tall young man deprived of understanding. His head was hairless, no larger than an orange, and the pits of his nostrils were eaten away by a disease. He laughed and slavered and he sported sportively before Kurban Sahib. The man brought coffee and the woman showed us purwanas from three General Sahibs, certifying that they were people of peace and goodwill. Here are the purwanas, Sahib. Does the Sahib know the Generals who signed them?

They swore the land was empty of Boer-log. They held up their hands and swore it. That was about the time of the evening meal. I stood near the verandah with Sikander Khan, who was nosing like a jackal on a lost scent. At last he took my arm and said, "See yonder! There is the sun on the window of the house that signalled last night. This house can see that house from here," and he looked at the hill behind him all hairy with bushes, and sucked in his breath. Then the idiot with the shrivelled head danced by me and threw back that head, and regarded the roof and laughed like a hyena, and the fat woman talked loudly, as it were, to cover some noise. After this passed I to the back of the house on pretence to get water for tea, and I saw fresh fresh horse-dung on the ground, and that the ground was cut with the new marks of hoofs; and there had dropped in the dirt one cartridge. Then Kurban Sahib called to me in our tongue, saying, "Is this a good place to make tea?" and I replied, knowing what he meant, "There are over many cooks in the cook-house. Mount and go, Child." Then I returned, and he said, smiling to the woman, "Prepare food, and when we have loosened our girths we will come in and eat;" but to his men he said in a whisper, "Ride away!" No. He did not cover the old man or the fat woman with his rifle. That was not his custom. Some fool of the Durro Muts, being hungry, raised his voice to dispute the order to flee, and before we were in our saddles many shots came from the roof—from rifles thrust through the thatch. Upon this we rode across the valley of stones, and men fired at us from the nullah behind the house, and from the hill behind the nullah, as well as from the roof of the house—so many shots that it sounded like a drumming in the hills. Then Sikandar Khan, riding low, said, "This play is not for us alone, but for the rest of the Durro Muts," and I said, "Be quiet. Keep place!" for his place was behind me, and I rode behind Kurban Sahib. But these new bullets will pass through five men arow! We were not hit—not one of us—and we reached the hill of rocks and scattered among the stones, and Kurban Sahib turned in his saddle and said, "Look at the old man!" He stood in the verandah firing swiftly with a gun, the woman beside him and the idiot also—both with guns. Kurban Sahib laughed, and I caught him by the wrist, but—his fate was written at that hour. The bullet passed under my arm-pit and struck him in the liver, and I pulled him backward between two great rocks atilt —Kurban Sahib, my Kurban Sahib! From the nullah behind the house and from the hills came our Boer-log in number more than a hundred, and Sikandar Khan said, "Now we see the meaning of last night's signal. Give me the rifle." He took Kurban Sahib's rifle—in this war of fools only the doctors carry swords—and lay belly-flat to the work, but Kurban Sahib turned where he lay and said, "Be still. It is a Sahibs' war," and Kurban Sahib put up his hand—thus; and then his eyes rolled on me, and I gave him water that he might pass the more quickly. And at the drinking his Spirit received permission....

Thus went our fight, Sahib. We Durro Muts were on a ridge working from the north to the south, where lay our main body, and the Boer-log lay in a valley working from east to west. There were more than a hundred, and our men were ten, but they held the Boer-log in the valley while they swiftly passed along the ridge to the south. I saw three Boers drop in the open. Then they all hid again and fired heavily at the rocks that hid our men; but our men were clever and did not show, but moved away and away, always south; and the noise of the battle withdrew itself southward, where we could hear the sound of big guns. So it fell stark dark, and Sikandar Khan found a deep old jackal's earth amid rocks, into which we slid the body of Kurban Sahib upright. Sikandar Khan took his glasses, and I took his handkerchief and some letters and a certain thing which I knew hung round his neck, and Sikandar Khan is witness that I wrapped them all in the handkerchief. Then we took an oath together, and lay still and mourned for Kurban Sahib. Sikandar Khan wept till daybreak—even he, a Pathan, a Mohammedan! All that night we heard firing to the southward, and when the dawn broke the valley was full of Boer-log in carts and on horses. They gathered by the house, as we could see through Kurban Sahib's glasses, and the old man, who, I take it, was a priest, blessed them, and preached the holy war, waving his arm; and the fat woman brought coffee; and the idiot capered among them and kissed their horses. Presently they went away in haste; they went over the hills and were not; and a black slave came out and washed the door-sills with bright water. Sikandar Khan saw through the glasses that the stain was blood, and he laughed, saying, "Wounded men lie there. We shall yet get vengeance."

About noon we saw a thin, high smoke to the southward, such a smoke as a burning house will make in sunshine, and Sikandar Khan, who knows how to take a bearing across a hill, said, "At last we have burned the house of the pumpkin-seller whence they signalled." And I said: "What need now that they have slain my child? Let me mourn." It was a high smoke, and the old man, as I saw, came out into the verandah to behold it, and shook his clenched hands at it. So we lay till the twilight, foodless and without water, for we had vowed a vow neither to eat nor to drink till we had accomplished the matter. I had a little opium left, of which I gave Sikandar Khan the half, because he loved Kurban Sahib. When it was full dark we sharpened our sabres upon a certain softish rock which, mixed with water, sharpens steel well, and we took off our boots and we went down to the house and looked through the windows very softly. The old man sat reading in a book, and the woman sat by the hearth; and the idiot lay on the floor with his head against her knee, and he counted his fingers and laughed, and she laughed again. So I knew they were mother and son, and I laughed, too, for I had suspected this when I claimed her life and her body from Sikandar Khan, in our discussion of the spoil. Then we entered with bare swords.... Indeed, these Boer-log do not understand the steel, for the old man ran towards a rifle in the corner; but Sikandar Khan prevented him with a blow of the flat across the hands, and he sat down and held up his hands, and I put my fingers on my lips to signify they should be silent. But the woman cried, and one stirred in an inner room, and a door opened, and a man, bound about the head with rags, stood stupidly fumbling with a gun. His whole head fell inside the door, and none followed him. It was a very pretty stroke—for a Pathan. They then were silent, staring at the head upon the floor, and I said to Sikandar Khan, "Fetch ropes! Not even for Kurban Sahib's sake will I defile my sword." So he went to seek and returned with three long leather ones, and said, "Four wounded lie within, and doubtless each has a permit from a General," and he stretched the ropes and laughed. Then I bound the old man's hands behind his back, and unwillingly—for he laughed in my face, and would have fingered my beard—the idiot's. At this the woman with the swine's eyes and the jowl of a swine ran forward, and Sikandar Khan said, "Shall I strike or bind? She was thy property on the division." And I said, "Refrain! I have made a chain to hold her. Open the door." I pushed out the two across the verandah into the darker shade of the thorn-trees, and she followed upon her knees and lay along the ground, and pawed at my boots and howled. Then Sikandar Khan bore out the lamp, saying that he was a butler and would light the table, and I looked for a branch that would bear fruit. But the woman hindered me not a little with her screechings and plungings, and spoke fast in her tongue, and I replied in my tongue, "I am childless to-night because of thy perfidy, and my child was praised among men and loved among women. He would have begotten men—not animals. Thou hast more years to live than I, but my grief is the greater."

I stooped to make sure the noose upon the idiot's neck, and flung the end over the branch, and Sikandar Khan held up the lamp that she might well see. Then appeared suddenly, a little beyond the light of the lamp, the spirit of Kurban Sahib. One hand he held to his side, even where the bullet had struck him, and the other he put forward thus, and said, "No. It is a Sahibs' war." And I said, "Wait a while, Child, and thou shalt sleep." But he came nearer, riding, as it were, upon my eyes, and said, "No. It is a Sahibs' war." And Sikandar Khan said, "Is it too heavy?" and set down the lamp and came to me; and as he turned to tally on the rope, the spirit of Kurban Sahib stood up within arm's reach of us, and his face was very angry, and a third time he said, "No. It is a Sahibs' war." And a little wind blew out the lamp, and I heard Sikandar Khan's teeth chatter in his head.

So we stayed side by side, the ropes in our hand, a very long while, for we could not shape any words. Then I heard Sikandar Khan open his water- bottle and drink; and when his mouth was slaked he passed to me and said, "We are absolved from our vow." So I drank, and together we waited for the dawn in that place where we stood—the ropes in our hand. A little after third cockcrow we heard the feet of horses and gun wheels very far off, and so soon as the light came a shell burst on the threshold of the house, and the roof of the verandah that was thatched fell in and blazed before the windows. And I said, "What of the wounded Boer-log within?" And Sikandar Khan said, "We have heard the order. It is a Sahibs' war. Stand still." Then came a second shell—good line, but short—and scattered dust upon us where we stood; and then came ten of the little quick shells from the gun that speaks like a stammerer—yes, pompom the Sahibs call it—and the face of the house folded down like the nose and the chin of an old man mumbling, and the forefront of the house lay down. Then Sikandar Khan said, "If it be the fate of the wounded to die in the fire, I shall not prevent it." And he passed to the back of the house and presently came back, and four wounded Boer-log came after him, of whom two could not walk upright. And I said, "What hast thou done?" And he said, "I have neither spoken to them nor laid hand on them. They follow in hope of mercy." And I said, "It is a Sahibs' war. Let them wait the Sahibs' mercy." So they lay still, the four men and the idiot, and the fat woman under the thorn-tree, and the house burned furiously. Then began the known sound of cartouches in the roof—one or two at first; then a trill, and last of all one loud noise and the thatch blew here and there, and the captives would have crawled aside on account of the heat that was withering the thorn-trees, and on account of wood and bricks flying at random. But I said, "Abide! Abide! Ye be Sahibs, and this is a Sahibs' war, O Sahibs. There is no order that ye should depart from this war." They did not understand my words. Yet they abode and they lived.

Presently rode down five troopers of Kurban Sahib's command, and one I knew spoke my tongue, having sailed to Calcutta often with horses. So I told him all my tale, using bazaar-talk, such as his kidney of Sahib would understand; and at the end I said, "An order has reached us here from the dead that this is a Sahibs' war. I take the soul of my Kurban Sahib to witness that I give over to the justice of the Sahibs these Sahibs who have made me childless." Then I gave him the ropes and fell down senseless, my heart being very full, but my belly was empty, except for the little opium.

They put me into a cart with one of their wounded, and after a while I understood that they had fought against the Boer-log for two days and two nights. It was all one big trap, Sahib, of which we, with Kurban Sahib, saw no more than the outer edge. They were very angry, the Durro Muts— very angry indeed. I have never seen Sahibs so angry. They buried my Kurban Sahib with the rites of his faith upon the top of the ridge overlooking the house, and I said the proper prayers of the faith, and Sikandar Khan prayed in his fashion and stole five signalling-candles, which have each three wicks, and lighted the grave as if it had been the grave of a saint on a Friday. He wept very bitterly all that night, and I wept with him, and he took hold of my feet and besought me to give him a remembrance from Kurban Sahib. So I divided equally with him one of Kurban Sahib's handkerchiefs—not the silk ones, for those were given him by a certain woman; and I also gave him a button from a coat, and a little steel ring of no value that Kurban Sahib used for his keys, and he kissed them and put them into his bosom. The rest I have here in that little bundle, and I must get the baggage from the hotel in Cape Town—some four shirts we sent to be washed, for which we could not wait when we went up-country—and I must give them all to my Colonel-Sahib at Sialkote in the Punjab. For my child is dead—my baba is dead!... I would have come away before; there was no need to stay, the child being dead; but we were far from the rail, and the Durro Muts were as brothers to me, and I had come to look upon Sikandar Khan as in some sort a friend, and he got me a horse and I rode up and down with them; but the life had departed. God knows what they called me—orderly, chaprassi (messenger), cook, sweeper, I did not know nor care. But once I had pleasure. We came back in a month after wide circles to that very valley. I knew it every stone, and I went up to the grave, and a clever Sahib of the Durro Muts (we left a troop there for a week to school those people with purwanas) had cut an inscription upon a great rock; and they interpreted it to me, and is was a jest such as Kurban Sahib himself would have loved. Oh! I have the inscription well copied here. Read it aloud, Sahib, and I will explain the jests. There are two very good ones. Begin, Sahib:—

In Memory of WALTER DECIES CORBYN Late Captain 141st Punjab Cavalry

The Gurgaon Rissala, that is. Go on, Sahib.

Treacherously shot near this place by The connivance of the late HENDRIK DIRK UYS A Minister of God Who thrice took the oath of neutrality And Piet his son, This little work

Aha! This is the first jest. The Sahib should see this little work!

Was accomplished in partial And inadequate recognition of their loss By some men who loved him

Si monumentum requiris circumspice

That is the second jest. It signifies that those who would desire to behold a proper memorial to Kurban Sahib must look out at the house. And, Sahib, the house is not there, nor the well, nor the big tank which they call dams, nor the little fruit-trees, nor the cattle. There is nothing at all, Sahib, except the two trees withered by the fire. The rest is like the desert here—or my hand—or my heart. Empty, Sahib—all empty!



"THEIR LAWFUL OCCASIONS"

THE WET LITANY

When the water's countenance Blurrs 'twixt glance and second glance; When the tattered smokes forerun Ashen 'neath a silvered sun; When the curtain of the haze Shuts upon our helpless ways— Hear the Channel Fleet at sea; Libera nos domine!

When the engines' bated pulse Scarcely thrills the nosing hulls; When the wash along the side Sounds, a sudden, magnified When the intolerable blast Marks each blindfold minute passed.

When the fog-buoy's squattering flight Guides us through the haggard night; When the warning bugle blows; When the lettered doorways close; When our brittle townships press, Impotent, on emptiness.

When the unseen leadsmen lean Questioning a deep unseen; When their lessened count they tell To a bridge invisible; When the hid and perilous Cliffs return our cry to us.

When the treble thickness spread Swallows up our next-ahead; When her siren's frightened whine Shows her sheering out of line; When, her passage undiscerned, We must turn where she has turned— Hear the Channel Fleet at sea; Libera nos Domine!

"THEIR LAWFUL OCCASIONS"

PART I

... "And a security for such as pass on the seas upon their lawful occasions."—Navy Prayer.

Disregarding the inventions of the Marine Captain, whose other name is Gubbins, let a plain statement suffice.

H.M.S. Caryatid went to Portland to join Blue Fleet for manoeuvres. I travelled overland from London by way of Portsmouth, where I fell among friends. When I reached Portland, H.M.S. Caryatid, whose guest I was to have been, had, with Blue Fleet, already sailed for some secret rendezvous off the west coast of Ireland, and Portland breakwater was filled with Red Fleet, my official enemies and joyous acquaintances, who received me with unstinted hospitality. For example, Lieutenant-Commander A.L. Hignett, in charge of three destroyers, Wraith, Stiletto, and Kobbold, due to depart at 6 P.M. that evening, offered me a berth on his thirty-knot flagship, but I preferred my comforts, and so accepted sleeping-room in H.M.S. Pedantic (15,000 tons), leader of the second line. After dining aboard her I took boat to Weymouth to get my kit aboard, as the battleships would go to war at midnight. In transferring my allegiance from Blue to Red Fleet, whatever the Marine Captain may say, I did no wrong. I truly intended to return to the Pedantic and help to fight Blue Fleet. All I needed was a new toothbrush, which I bought from a chemist in a side street at 9:15 P. M. As I turned to go, one entered seeking alleviation of a gum-boil. He was dressed in a checked ulster, a black silk hat three sizes too small, cord-breeches, boots, and pure brass spurs. These he managed painfully, stepping like a prisoner fresh from leg-irons. As he adjusted the pepper-plaster to the gum the light fell on his face, and I recognised Mr. Emanuel Pyecroft, late second-class petty officer of H.M.S. Archimandrite, an unforgettable man, met a year before under Tom Wessel's roof in Plymouth. It occurred to me that when a petty officer takes to spurs he may conceivably meditate desertion. For that reason I, though a taxpayer, made no sign. Indeed, it was Mr. Pyecroft, following me out of the shop, who said hollowly: "What might you be doing here?"

"I'm going on manoeuvres in the Pedantic," I replied.

"Ho!" said Mr. Pyecroft. "An' what manner o' manoeuvres d'you expect to see in a blighted cathedral like the Pedantic? I know 'er. I knew her in Malta, when the Vulcan was her permanent tender. Manoeuvres! You won't see more than 'Man an' arm watertight doors!' in your little woollen undervest."

"I'm sorry for that."

"Why?" He lurched heavily as his spurs caught and twanged like tuning- forks. "War's declared at midnight. Pedantics be sugared! Buy an 'am an' see life!"

For the moment I fancied Mr. Pyecroft, a fugitive from justice, purposed that we two should embrace a Robin Hood career in the uplands of Dorset. The spurs troubled me, and I made bold to say as much. "Them!" he said, coming to an intricate halt. "They're part of the prima facie evidence. But as for me—let me carry your bag—I'm second in command, leadin'-hand, cook, steward, an' lavatory man, with a few incidentals for sixpence a day extra, on No. 267 torpedo-boat."

"They wear spurs there?"

"Well," said Mr. Peycroft, "seein' that Two Six Seven belongs to Blue Fleet, which left the day before yesterday, disguises are imperative. It transpired thus. The Right Honourable Lord Gawd Almighty Admiral Master Frankie Frobisher, K.C.B., commandin' Blue Fleet, can't be bothered with one tin-torpedo-boat more or less; and what with lyin' in the Reserve four years, an' what with the new kind o' tiffy which cleans dynamos with brick-dust and oil (Blast these spurs! They won't render!), Two Six Seven's steam-gadgets was paralytic. Our Mr. Moorshed done his painstakin' best—it's his first command of a war-canoe, matoor age nineteen (down that alleyway, please!) but be that as it may, His Holiness Frankie is aware of us crabbin' ourselves round the breakwater at five knots, an' steerin' pari passu, as the French say. (Up this alley-way, please!) If he'd given Mr. Hinchcliffe, our chief engineer, a little time, it would never have transpired, for what Hinch can't drive he can coax; but the new port bein' a trifle cloudy, an' 'is joints tinglin' after a post-captain dinner, Frankie come on the upper bridge seekin' for a sacrifice. We, offerin' a broadside target, got it. He told us what 'is grandmamma, 'oo was a lady an' went to sea in stick-and string-batteaus, had told him about steam. He throwed in his own prayers for the 'ealth an' safety of all steam-packets an' their officers. Then he give us several distinct orders. The first few—I kept tally—was all about going to Hell; the next many was about not evolutin' in his company, when there; an' the last all was simply repeatin' the motions in quick time. Knowin' Frankie's groovin' to be badly eroded by age and lack of attention, I didn't much panic; but our Mr. Moorshed, 'e took it a little to heart. Me an' Mr. Hinchcliffe consoled 'im as well as service conditions permits of, an' we had a resume-supper at the back o' the Camber—secluded an' lugubrious! Then one thing leadin' up to another, an' our orders, except about anchorin' where he's booked for, leavin' us a clear 'orizon, Number Two Six Seven is now—mind the edge of the wharf—here!"

By mysterious doublings he had brought me out on to the edge of a narrow strip of water crowded with coastwise shipping that runs far up into Weymouth town. A large foreign timber-brig lay at my feet, and under the round of her stern cowered, close to the wharf-edge, a slate-coloured, unkempt, two-funnelled craft of a type—but I am no expert—between the first-class torpedo-boat and the full-blooded destroyer. From her archaic torpedo-tubes at the stern, and quick-firers forward and amidship, she must have dated from the early nineties. Hammerings and clinkings, with spurts of steam and fumes of hot oil, arose from her inside, and a figure in a striped jersey squatted on the engine-room gratings.

"She ain't much of a war-canoe, but you'll see more life in 'er than on an whole squadron of bleedin' Pedantics."

"But she's laid up here—and Blue Fleet have gone," I protested. "Precisely. Only, in his comprehensive orders Frankie didn't put us out of action. Thus we're a non-neglectable fightin' factor which you mightn't think from this elevation; an' m'rover, Red Fleet don't know we're 'ere. Most of us"—he glanced proudly at his boots—"didn't run to spurs, but we're disguised pretty devious, as you might say. Morgan, our signaliser, when last seen, was a Dawlish bathing-machine proprietor. Hinchcliffe was naturally a German waiter, and me you behold as a squire of low degree; while yonder Levantine dragoman on the hatch is our Mr. Moorshed. He was the second cutter's snotty—my snotty—on the Archimandrite—two years—Cape Station. Likewise on the West Coast, mangrove swampin', an' gettin' the cutter stove in on small an' unlikely bars, an' manufacturin' lies to correspond. What I don't know about Mr. Moorshed is precisely the same gauge as what Mr. Moorshed don't know about me—half a millimetre, as you might say. He comes into awful opulence of his own when 'e's of age; an' judgin' from what passed between us when Frankie cursed 'im, I don't think 'e cares whether he's broke to-morrow or—the day after. Are you beginnin' to follow our tatties? They'll be worth followin'. Or are you goin' back to your nice little cabin on the Pedantic—which I lay they've just dismounted the third engineer out of—to eat four fat meals per diem, an' smoke in the casement?"

The figure in the jersey lifted its head and mumbled.

"Yes, Sir," was Mr. Pyecroft's answer. "I 'ave ascertained that Stiletto, Wraith, and Kobbold left at 6 P. M. with the first division o' Red Fleet's cruisers except Devulotion and Cryptic, which are delayed by engine-room defects." Then to me: "Won't you go aboard? Mr. Moorshed 'ud like some one to talk to. You buy an 'am an see life."

At this he vanished; and the Demon of Pure Irresponsibility bade me lower myself from the edge of the wharf to the tea-tray plates of No. 267.

"What d'you want?" said the striped jersey.

"I want to join Blue Fleet if I can," I replied. "I've been left behind by—an accident.

"Well?"

"Mr. Pyecroft told me to buy a ham and see life. About how big a ham do you need?"

"I don't want any ham, thank you. That's the way up the wharf. Good- night."

"Good-night!" I retraced my steps, wandered in the dark till I found a shop, and there purchased, of sardines, canned tongue, lobster, and salmon, not less than half a hundredweight. A belated sausage-shop supplied me with a partially cut ham of pantomime tonnage. These things I, sweating, bore out to the edge of the wharf and set down in the shadow of a crane. It was a clear, dark summer night, and from time to time I laughed happily to myself. The adventure was preordained on the face of it. Pyecroft alone, spurred or barefoot, would have drawn me very far from the paths of circumspection. His advice to buy a ham and see life clinched it. Presently Mr. Pyecroft—I heard spurs clink—passed me. Then the jersey voice said: "What the mischief's that?"

"'Asn't the visitor come aboard, Sir? 'E told me he'd purposely abandoned the Pedantic for the pleasure of the trip with us. Told me he was official correspondent for the Times; an' I know he's littery by the way 'e tries to talk Navy-talk. Haven't you seen 'im, Sir?"

Slowly and dispassionately the answer drawled long on the night; "Pye, you are without exception the biggest liar in the Service!"

"Then what am I to do with the bag, Sir? It's marked with his name." There was a pause till Mr. Moorshed said "Oh!" in a tone which the listener might construe precisely as he pleased.

"He was the maniac who wanted to buy a ham and see life—was he? If he goes back to the Pedantic—"

"Pre-cisely, Sir. Gives us all away, Sir."

"Then what possessed you to give it away to him, you owl?"

"I've got his bag. If 'e gives anything away, he'll have to go naked."

At this point I thought it best to rattle my tins and step out of the shadow of the crane.

"I've bought the ham," I called sweetly. "Have you still any objection to my seeing life, Mr. Moorshed?"

"All right, if you're insured. Won't you come down?"

I descended; Pyecroft, by a silent flank movement, possessing himself of all the provisions, which he bore to some hole forward.

"Have you known Mr. Pyecroft long?" said my host.

"Met him once, a year ago, at Devonport. What do you think of him?"

"What do you think of him?"

"I've left the Pedantic—her boat will be waiting for me at ten o'clock, too—simply because I happened to meet him," I replied.

"That's all right. If you'll come down below, we may get some grub."

We descended a naked steel ladder to a steel-beamed tunnel, perhaps twelve feet long by six high. Leather-topped lockers ran along either side; a swinging table, with tray and lamp above, occupied the centre. Other furniture there was none.

"You can't shave here, of course. We don't wash, and, as a rule, we eat with our fingers when we're at sea. D'you mind?"

Mr. Moorshed, black-haired, black-browed, sallow-complexioned, looked me over from head to foot and grinned. He was not handsome in any way, but his smile drew the heart. "You didn't happen to hear what Frankie told me from the flagship, did you? His last instructions, and I've logged them here in shorthand, were"—he opened a neat pocket-book—"'Get out of this and conduct your own damned manoeuvres in your own damned tinker fashion! You're a disgrace to the Service, and your boat's offal.'"

"Awful?" I said.

"No—offal—tripes—swipes—ullage." Mr. Pyecroft entered, in the costume of his calling, with the ham and an assortment of tin dishes, which he dealt out like cards.

"I shall take these as my orders," said Mr. Moorshed. "I'm chucking the Service at the end of the year, so it doesn't matter."

We cut into the ham under the ill-trimmed lamp, washed it down with whisky, and then smoked. From the foreside of the bulkhead came an uninterrupted hammering and clinking, and now and then a hiss of steam.

"That's Mr. Hinchcliffe," said Pyecroft. "He's what is called a first- class engine-room artificer. If you hand 'im a drum of oil an' leave 'im alone, he can coax a stolen bicycle to do typewritin'."

Very leisurely, at the end of his first pipe, Mr. Moorshed drew out a folded map, cut from a newspaper, of the area of manoeuvres, with the rules that regulate these wonderful things, below.

"Well, I suppose I know as much as an average stick-and-string admiral," he said, yawning. "Is our petticoat ready yet, Mr. Pyecroft?"

As a preparation for naval manoeuvres these councils seemed inadequate. I followed up the ladder into the gloom cast by the wharf edge and the big lumber-ship's side. As my eyes stretched to the darkness I saw that No. 267 had miraculously sprouted an extra pair of funnels—soft, for they gave as I touched them.

"More prima facie evidence. You runs a rope fore an' aft, an' you erects perpendick-u-arly two canvas tubes, which you distends with cane hoops, thus 'avin' as many funnels as a destroyer. At the word o' command, up they go like a pair of concertinas, an' consequently collapses equally 'andy when requisite. Comin' aft we shall doubtless overtake the Dawlish bathin'-machine proprietor fittin' on her bustle."

Mr. Pyecroft whispered this in my ear as Moorshed moved toward a group at the stern.

"None of us who ain't built that way can be destroyers, but we can look as near it as we can. Let me explain to you, Sir, that the stern of a Thorneycroft boat, which we are not, comes out in a pretty bulge, totally different from the Yarrow mark, which again we are not. But, on the other 'and, Dirk, Stiletto, Goblin, Ghoul, Djinn, and A-frite—Red Fleet dee-stroyers, with 'oom we hope to consort later on terms o' perfect equality—are Thorneycrofts, an' carry that Grecian bend which we are now adjustin' to our arriere-pensee—as the French would put it—by means of painted canvas an' iron rods bent as requisite. Between you an' me an' Frankie, we are the Gnome, now in the Fleet Reserve at Pompey— Portsmouth, I should say."

"The first sea will carry it all away," said Moorshed, leaning gloomily outboard, "but it will do for the present."

"We've a lot of prima facie evidence about us," Mr. Pyecroft went on. "A first-class torpedo boat sits lower in the water than a destroyer. Hence we artificially raise our sides with a black canvas wash-streak to represent extra freeboard; at the same time paddin' out the cover of the forward three-pounder like as if it was a twelve-pounder, an' variously fakin' up the bows of 'er. As you might say, we've took thought an' added a cubic to our stature. It's our len'th that sugars us. A 'undred an' forty feet, which is our len'th into two 'undred and ten, which is about the Gnome's, leaves seventy feet over, which we haven't got."

"Is this all your own notion, Mr. Pyecroft?" I asked.

"In spots, you might say—yes; though we all contributed to make up deficiencies. But Mr. Moorshed, not much carin' for further Navy after what Frankie said, certainly threw himself into the part with avidity."

"What the dickens are we going to do?"

"Speaking as a seaman gunner, I should say we'd wait till the sights came on, an' then fire. Speakin' as a torpedo-coxswain, L.T.O., T.I., M.D., etc., I presume we fall in—Number One in rear of the tube, etc., secure tube to ball or diaphragm, clear away securin'-bar, release safety-pin from lockin-levers, an' pray Heaven to look down on us. As second in command o' 267, I say wait an' see!"

"What's happened? We're off," I said. The timber ship had slid away from us.

"We are. Stern first, an' broadside on! If we don't hit anything too hard, we'll do."

"Come on the bridge," said Mr. Moorshed. I saw no bridge, but fell over some sort of conning-tower forward, near which was a wheel. For the next few minutes I was more occupied with cursing my own folly than with the science of navigation. Therefore I cannot say how we got out of Weymouth Harbour, nor why it was necessary to turn sharp to the left and wallow in what appeared to be surf.

"Excuse me," said Mr. Pyecroft behind us, "I don't mind rammin' a bathin'-machine; but if only one of them week-end Weymouth blighters has thrown his empty baccy-tin into the sea here, we'll rip our plates open on it; 267 isn't the Archimandrite's old cutter."

"I am hugging the shore," was the answer.

"There's no actual 'arm in huggin', but it can come expensive if pursooed."

"Right-O!" said Moorshed, putting down the wheel, and as we left those scant waters I felt 267 move more freely.

A thin cough ran up the speaking-tube.

"Well, what is it, Mr. Hinchcliffe?" said Moorshed.

"I merely wished to report that she is still continuin' to go, Sir."

"Right-O! Can we whack her up to fifteen, d'you think?"

"I'll try, Sir; but we'd prefer to have the engine-room hatch open—at first, Sir."

Whacked up then she was, and for half an hour was careered largely through the night, turning at last with a suddenness that slung us across the narrow deck.

"This," said Mr. Pyecroft, who received me on his chest as a large rock receives a shadow, "represents the Gnome arrivin' cautious from the direction o' Portsmouth, with Admiralty orders."

He pointed through the darkness ahead, and after much staring my eyes opened to a dozen destroyers, in two lines, some few hundred yards away.

"Those are the Red Fleet destroyer flotilla, which is too frail to panic about among the full-blooded cruisers inside Portland breakwater, and several millimetres too excited over the approachin' war to keep a look- out inshore. Hence our tattics!"

We wailed through our siren—a long, malignant, hyena-like howl—and a voice hailed us as we went astern tumultuously.

"The Gnome—Carteret-Jones—from Portsmouth, with orders—mm—mm— Stiletto," Moorshed answered through the megaphone in a high, whining voice, rather like a chaplain's.

"Who?" was the answer.

"Carter—et—Jones."

"Oh, Lord!"

There was a pause; a voice cried to some friend, "It's Podgie, adrift on the high seas in charge of a whole dee-stroyer!"

Another voice echoed, "Podgie!" and from its note I gathered that Mr. Carteret-Jones had a reputation, but not for independent command.

"Who's your sub?" said the first speaker, a shadow on the bridge of the Dirk.

"A gunner, at present, Sir. The Stiletto—broken down—turns over to us."

"When did the Stiletto break down?"

"Off the Start, Sir; two hours after—after she left here this evening, I believe. My orders are to report to you for the manoeuvre signal-codes, and join Commander Hignett's flotilla, which is in attendance on Stiletto."

A smothered chuckle greeted this last. Moorshed's voice was high and uneasy. Said Pyecroft, with a sigh: "The amount o' trouble me an' my bright spurs 'ad fishin' out that information from torpedo coxswains and similar blighters in pubs all this afternoon, you would never believe."

"But has the Stiletto broken down?" I asked weakly.

"How else are we to get Red Fleet's private signal-code? Any way, if she 'asn't now, she will before manoeuvres are ended. It's only executin' in anticipation."

"Go astern and send your coxswain aboard for orders, Mr. Jones." Water carries sound well, but I do not know whether we were intended to hear the next sentence: "They must have given him one intelligent keeper."

"That's me," said Mr. Pyecroft, as a black and coal-stained dinghy—I did not foresee how well I should come to know her—was flung overside by three men.

"Havin' bought an 'am, we will now see life." He stepped into the boat and was away.

"I say, Podgie!"—the speaker was in the last of the line of destroyers, as we thumped astern—"aren't you lonely out there?"

"Oh, don't rag me!" said Moorshed. "Do you suppose I'll have to manoeuvre with your flo-tilla?"

"No, Podgie! I'm pretty sure our commander will see you sifting cinders in Tophet before you come with our flo-tilla."

"Thank you! She steers rather wild at high speeds."

Two men laughed together.

"By the way, who is Mr. Carteret-Jones when he's at home?" I whispered.

"I was with him in the Britannia. I didn't like him much, but I'm grateful to him now. I must tell him so some day."

"They seemed to know him hereabouts."

"He rammed the Caryatid twice with her own steam-pinnace."

Presently, moved by long strokes, Mr. Pyecroft returned, skimming across the dark. The dinghy swung up behind him, even as his heel spurned it.

"Commander Fasset's compliments to Mr. L. Carteret-Jones, and the sooner he digs out in pursuance of Admiralty orders as received at Portsmouth, the better pleased Commander Fasset will be. But there's a lot more——"

"Whack her up, Mr. Hinchcliffe! Come on to the bridge. We can settle it as we go. Well?"

Mr. Pyecroft drew an important breath, and slid off his cap.

"Day an' night private signals of Red Fleet complete, Sir!" He handed a little paper to Moorshed. "You see, Sir, the trouble was, that Mr. Carteret-Jones bein', so to say, a little new to his duties, 'ad forgot to give 'is gunner his Admiralty orders in writin', but, as I told Commander Fasset, Mr. Jones had been repeatin' 'em to me, nervous-like, most of the way from Portsmouth, so I knew 'em by heart—an' better. The Commander, recognisin' in me a man of agility, cautioned me to be a father an' mother to Mr. Carteret-Jones."

"Didn't he know you?" I asked, thinking for the moment that there could be no duplicates of Emanuel Pyecroft in the Navy.

"What's a torpedo-gunner more or less to a full lootenant commanding six thirty-knot destroyers for the first time? 'E seemed to cherish the 'ope that 'e might use the Gnome for 'is own 'orrible purposes; but what I told him about Mr. Jones's sad lack o' nerve comin' from Pompey, an' going dead slow on account of the dark, short-circuited that connection. 'M'rover,' I says to him, 'our orders is explicit; Stiletto's reported broke down somewhere off the Start, an' we've been tryin' to coil down a new stiff wire hawser all the evenin', so it looks like towin' 'er back, don't it?' I says. That more than ever jams his turrets, an' makes him keen to get rid of us. 'E even hinted that Mr. Carteret-Jones passin' hawsers an' assistin' the impotent in a sea-way might come pretty expensive on the tax-payer. I agreed in a disciplined way. I ain't proud. Gawd knows I ain't proud! But when I'm really diggin' out in the fancy line, I sometimes think that me in a copper punt, single-'anded, 'ud beat a cutter-full of De Rougemongs in a row round the fleet."

At this point I reclined without shame on Mr. Pyecroft's bosom, supported by his quivering arm.

"Well?" said Moorshed, scowling into the darkness, as 267's bows snapped at the shore seas of the broader Channel, and we swayed together.

"'You'd better go on,' says Commander Fassett, 'an' do what you're told to do. I don't envy Hignett if he has to dry-nurse the Gnome's commander. But what d'you want with signals?' 'e says. 'It's criminal lunacy to trust Mr. Jones with anything that steams.'

"'May I make an observation, Sir?' I says. 'Suppose,' I says, 'you was torpedo-gunner on the Gnome, an' Mr. Carteret-Jones was your commandin' officer, an' you had your reputation as a second in command for the first time,' I says, well knowin' it was his first command of a flotilla, 'what 'ud you do, Sir?' That gouged 'is unprotected ends open—clear back to the citadel."

"What did he say?" Moorshed jerked over is shoulder.

"If you were Mr. Carteret-Jones, it might be disrespect for me to repeat it, Sir."

"Go ahead," I heard the boy chuckle.

"'Do?' 'e says. 'I'd rub the young blighter's nose into it till I made a perishin' man of him, or a perspirin' pillow-case,' 'e says, 'which,' he adds, 'is forty per cent, more than he is at present.'

"Whilst he's gettin' the private signals—they're rather particular ones— I went forrard to see the Dirk's gunner about borrowin' a holdin'-down bolt for our twelve-pounder. My open ears, while I was rovin' over his packet, got the followin' authentic particulars." I heard his voice change, and his feet shifted. "There's been a last council o' war of destroyer-captains at the flagship, an' a lot of things 'as come out. To begin with Cryptic and Devolution, Captain Panke and Captain Malan—"

"Cryptic and Devolution, first-class cruisers," said Mr. Moorshed dreamily. "Go on, Pyecroft."

"—bein' delayed by minor defects in engine-room, did not, as we know, accompany Red Fleet's first division of scouting cruisers, whose rendezvous is unknown, but presumed to be somewhere off the Lizard. Cryptic an' Devolution left at 9:30 P.M. still reportin' copious minor defects in engine-room. Admiral's final instructions was they was to put into Torbay, an' mend themselves there. If they can do it in twenty-four hours, they're to come on and join the battle squadron at the first rendezvous, down Channel somewhere. (I couldn't get that, Sir.) If they can't, he'll think about sendin' them some destroyers for escort. But his present intention is to go 'ammer and tongs down Channel, usin' 'is destroyers for all they're worth, an' thus keepin' Blue Fleet too busy off the Irish coast to sniff into any eshtuaries."

"But if those cruisers are crocks, why does the Admiral let 'em out of Weymouth at all?" I asked.

"The tax-payer," said Mr. Moorshed.

"An' newspapers," added Mr. Pyecroft. "In Torbay they'll look as they was muckin' about for strategical purposes—hanamerin' like blazes in the engine room all the weary day, an' the skipper droppin' questions down the engine-room hatch every two or three minutes. I've been there. Now, Sir?" I saw the white of his eye turn broad on Mr. Moorshed.