w~ f J 
 
The Great Tab Dope 
 
 And Other Stories 
 
 BY 
 
 "OLE LUK-OIE 
 
 AUTHOR OF 
 'THE GREEN CURVE" 
 
 SIXTH IMPRESSION 
 
 William Blackwood and Sons 
 
 Edinburgh and London 
 
 1916 
 
' Q 
 
 PBEFACE. 
 
 THE following stories were written 
 between the years 1903 and 1913, 
 and have already appeared in the 
 following magazines : ' Blackwood's,' 
 'The Strand,' 'The London.' The 
 Author's thanks are due to the editors 
 of these magazines for permission to 
 reprint. 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 THE GREAT TAB DOPE : A STUDY IN STAFF RIDES 1 
 
 IN THE VALLEY .... 27 
 
 THE SENSE OF TOUCH ..... 67 
 
 SOME ROCKETS, "MOTHER," AND PRIVATE RILEY . 113 
 
 THE CULVERT ON THE SUMMIT .... 201 
 
 SERGEANT SNODGRASS 240 
 
 MY MATINEE TEA; OR, THE COUNTER-OFFENSIVE . 268 
 
 "METHODS OF BARBARISM" .... 305 
 
 FULL BACK 337 
 
THE GREAT TAB DOPE 
 
 A STUDY IN STAFF RIDES 
 
 " In the services hereafter specified a gorget patch 2J inches 
 long and 1J inches wide is worn pointed at the outer end, sewn 
 on to each side of the collar in front, and meeting at the 
 fastening. 
 
 General Officers. Scarlet cloth, a loop of gold three Russia 
 braid along the centre, with a gold net button near the 
 point. 
 
 Staff Officers. As above, but with loop of scarlet silk, Russia, 
 instead of gold, and gorget (20 line) button near the point." 
 Dress Regulations, 1900. 
 
 THE diminutive contractor's engine with 
 the faded Union Jack streaming from its 
 funnel clanked and puffed in a dot-and-go- 
 one way as it drew the train of loaded 
 ballast trucks across the bridge. No sooner 
 did the cessation of the rumbling noise 
 show that the last pair of wheels had 
 
 A 
 
2 THE GREAT TAB DOPE 
 
 actually got off the girders on to terra 
 forma, than a subdued cheer arose from the 
 men on the trucks and those clustering on 
 the slopes of the embankment. 
 
 Two men were standing by themselves on 
 top of the stone abutment. One the taller 
 took his eye from the eyepiece of a theo- 
 dolite. The other, who wore a blue flannel 
 shirt and khaki breeches and gaiters, and 
 was chewing an unlit cigar, started shuffling 
 his feet in time to the rhythm of the puffing 
 locomotive, and began crooning in a nasal 
 falsetto a nigger melody as full of grace 
 notes as an Eastern love-song. 
 
 " Shut up, Scudder," said the observer 
 peremptorily. " D'you want to knock the 
 theodolite over ? " 
 
 "Sorry, Major. That's what they call a 
 ' Hoe-cake shuffle ' down South, and is a 
 sign of thanksgivin'. How's the deflection 
 for O.K. ? " 
 
 The Major, still stooping near the tripod- 
 stand of the instrument, handed his note- 
 book to the other. " Good enough ! " he 
 
A STUDY IN STAFF RIDES 3 
 
 added as he pulled a wad of telegraph forms 
 from his haversack and began scribbling. 
 "I must let the Chief of Staff have this as 
 well as the Director. He has been specially 
 keen on this bridge being through. Send 
 this off now ' Clear the line,' will you ? " 
 
 The cigar chewer took the form and 
 hailed a man close by. " Say, Thompson, 
 have the orperator send this off right 
 now." 
 
 The two turned from the bridge and 
 watched the little train puffing off jerkily 
 right into the eye of the setting sun. 
 
 "Valves a bit out?" 
 
 " Yep : the ' Corfy pot's ' been knocked 
 about some this last two months, and the 
 valves want settin'. Some all-fired fool 
 hitched her on the mail down to Van der 
 Hum's the other day, and nearly pulled the 
 blamed little pug off en her wheels." 
 
 Both continued thoughtfully to watch 
 the now far-distant feather of steam until 
 the sun sank below the hills and the air 
 turned chilly : they started as the con- 
 
4 THE GREAT TAB DOPE 
 
 tracting mass of the bridge close to them 
 gave an ominous metallic creak. 
 
 " Good as a sunset gun," said the Major. 
 
 " Sure," replied the other. " Scared me 
 some. Been somewhat of a strain for quite 
 a while now, and for the moment I thought" 
 he looked at the girder fondly "but 
 she's still standing, and I feel just as proud 
 as the one - armed trombone pusher in a 
 freak band." 
 
 " Yes. It's a good job well done. I 
 couldn't get up here till this afternoon, and 
 I never expected you'd put it through 
 before time. How you've managed it I 
 don't know. I congratulate you, Scudder. 
 He'll be very pleased." 
 
 " Who's tha'at?" 
 
 " The Chief of Staff and the Director." 
 
 " Thaanks. We have hustled some. 
 Come and have some thin' to eat, Major. 
 I've still got a little of the stuff I brought 
 from the Mine, and it's not Libby or 
 Armour to-day. There's no call for you 
 to hurry. The first up-train can't be along 
 
for at least ha'f an hour, and we can have 
 our skoff now. Jervis won't be off dooty 
 for a while, but he won't mind our start- 
 ing in." He turned round to some men : 
 " Here, boys, just take all this gear down 
 to the orfice." 
 
 Picking up a long-handled hammer with 
 a highly polished head, he stepped off the 
 stone pier and clambered down the em- 
 bankment, followed by his commanding 
 officer. 
 
 Waterbury P. Scudder commonly known 
 as " Pom-pom," of Hickory Gulch, Pa., 
 and in peace time the engineer of the 
 Bubble and Squeak and Squeak East Gold 
 Mines of the Witwatersrand, was now a 
 lieutenant of Irregulars in the South 
 African Field Force, and wore Her Majesty's 
 uniform. Eminently a hustler, he brought 
 to his present military duties all the snap 
 and energy for which the inhabitants of 
 God's country are noted. In this instance 
 he had managed to patch up the ironwork 
 of Dop Donga railway bridge in his shops 
 
6 THE GREAT TAB DOPE 
 
 at the Squeak East Mine, and had just 
 repaired in record time a span blown up by 
 the Boers. It was from witnessing the 
 successful passage of a test train over the 
 repaired construction and observing the 
 deflection of the girders under the load that 
 he and his senior were now retiring down 
 the steep embankment. His commanding 
 officer was a regular, who knew and liked 
 "Pahm-pahrn" -as the American pro- 
 nounced his nickname and thoroughly 
 appreciated his energy. In Pom - pom's 
 own words, he always "got there" some- 
 how and " had the goods on him " as well. 
 
 They slid down the steep slope and 
 walked up the river-bed past the men's 
 camp to a snug little hollow close by the 
 water, where a couple of lighted lanterns 
 set upon a camp table outside two tents 
 denoted the " Officers Mess, Dop Donga, 
 Transvaal." 
 
 It was, for South Africa, a pretty place, 
 and the shrunken stream, here quite clear, 
 was bowered in a thick fringe of weeping 
 
A STUDY IN STAFF BIDES 7 
 
 willows. The person who had selected the 
 site for the officers' camp may have been 
 actuated by a truly artistic desire to get 
 away from all sight of the ugly destructive 
 and constructive works of man, or he may 
 have been merely impelled by the more 
 utilitarian motive of placing the tents out 
 of the prevailing winds and dust up above, 
 but he had certainly hit upon a delightful 
 spot for an al fresco meal. To the Major, 
 who had just come up from another river 
 crossing a drab ash -heap many miles 
 away, this camp seemed a veritable Pis- 
 gah. In the growing dusk anything ugly 
 which did happen to be near was quite 
 hidden. 
 
 " By Jove, what an ideal camp you've 
 struck, Pom-pom." 
 
 " Yaas. We're pretty comfortably fixed. 
 Shan't be stoppin' long now, I guess. 
 Here's the soap, Major." 
 
 In three minutes the two, washed and 
 refreshed, sat down to the table. 
 
 " There's nothin' doin' till they bring the 
 
8 THE GREAT TAB DOPE 
 
 skoff, I'll just put me coat on and we'll hit 
 a highball or is yours straight ? " 
 
 " Sparklet for me, please." 
 
 The host of the occasion went into his 
 tent and returned buttoning up his khaki 
 coat. Having poured out the drinks, he 
 sat down. 
 
 " Here's lookin' at you, Major." 
 
 There was no reply. The movement of 
 the guest's mug towards his lips had been 
 arrested suddenly ; his eyes were fixed in a 
 frozen stare as the subaltern thought to- 
 wards some spot just over his shoulder. 
 
 " What's that ? " he said, as he whipped 
 round and looked hastily behind him. He 
 saw nothing. 
 
 "Anything wrong, Major?" he shouted, 
 feeling all over his chest as if he expected 
 to find a scorpion or tarantula or some other 
 noxious insect. The reply was calm, not to 
 say cold. 
 
 " What's all that tamasha ? Have they 
 given you a staff billet ? " and the speaker 
 
A STUDY IN STAFF HIDES 9 
 
 pointed an accusing finger at Pom- pom's 
 neck. 
 
 " Search me, Major : there's no tomater 
 on me, and I've hit no sta'f job. Why 
 d'you ask ? " 
 
 " Is that your own coat ? " 
 
 "Sure thing." 
 
 " Well, what on earth have you got red 
 tabs on your collar for ? " 
 
 " Gee," said the subaltern, feeling nerv- 
 ously at his collar and looking momentarily 
 abashed, " I'd forgotten them durned ta-bs. 
 Look a here, Major why, certainlee 
 you've got me right cold this time. Why 
 they're -just red ta-bs." 
 
 " Yes, so I see, but I don't understand. 
 You've been up to some monkey trick, 
 Scudder. You must know that a regi- 
 mental officer has no ri^ht to wear tabs. 
 
 O 
 
 Bed tabs or gorget patches are the in- 
 signia of the Staff. I don't know what 
 any general would say if he saw you now. 
 He'd have a fit. What does it mean, my 
 
10 THE GREAT TAB DOPE 
 
 boy ? Confess. Make a clean breast of 
 it." Though the voice was grave, the 
 eyes of the speaker were twinkling. 
 
 " See here. I'll tell you right now, sir. 
 Jervis won't be here for a while. He's 
 never seen me in this rig, and I don't 
 want him to. I wouldn't have had you 
 see it for a million." His tone was 
 anxious. 
 
 " Wanted to cut a dash before the girls 
 in Commissioner Street eh ? " 
 
 " No, sir ; no girls for mine ! It was 
 for the bridge." 
 
 "For the bridge?" 
 
 The other nodded gravely. " You'll 
 allow that it's been run pretty slick- 
 quicker than Van der Hum's was ? " 
 
 " Yes, that's correct, much quicker. It's 
 been puzzling me how you have managed 
 it. On that job you were complaining so 
 much of delays in transit from Joh'burg 
 to site." 
 
 " Yep, that's so ; but I've never had a 
 chance to put you next to the details. 
 
A STUDY IN STAFF RIDES 11 
 
 We've had no delays on this outfit." He 
 waved his hand vaguely towards the rail- 
 way line. " No, sir. And it is the ta-bs 
 that's done it the ta-bs and the hat." 
 
 The subaltern dived into his tent and 
 fetched out what in the feeble light of 
 the two lanterns appeared to be a staff 
 cap with red band, khaki cover, and shiny 
 black peak complete. The peak looked 
 much crinkled, and there was no lion-and- 
 crown badge above it. He put the cap 
 on his head solemnly, saluted, and bowed 
 at the same time. " That's my conjuring 
 outfit, Major." 
 
 The puzzled field-officer said nothing, 
 but waited. 
 
 " You know that Van der Hum's didn't 
 cut any ice compared to this place as 
 far as engineering goes. It was a soft 
 snap. But getting the goods there was 
 one of the worst propositions I ever struck. 
 I tell you it was fierce." 
 
 " But why ? This place is on another 
 line, but it is farther off from the Squeak 
 
12 THE GREAT TAB DOPE 
 
 East shops than Van der Hum's : not that 
 a few miles of rail makes any odds either 
 way." 
 
 " No, it was my ignorance. You see, I 
 didn't know the Royal British Armee then 
 as I do now. When we were riggin' up 
 Van der Hum's Bridge girders in the 
 shops, we were working, shift on, shift off, 
 night and day, cutting and riveting. As 
 I got the stuff ready' I loaded a freight- 
 car a truck, I mean and despatched it. 
 We were vurry careful to do the necessary, 
 and every car was fitted out with a whole 
 bunch of warrants and waybills and re- 
 ceipts, and stamped and signed, and licked 
 and sealed, and painted in two-foot letters 
 'Van der Hum's Drift.' It was labelled 
 ' Urgent,' ' Rapid Transit,' ' Perishable 
 Freight/ ' Confidential,' and with every 
 regulation mascot countersign that me or 
 James M'Nulty he's my old foreman smith 
 at the Mine could think of. We did our 
 best to make it fool proof. Every time 
 we sent off a car I wired to Jervis down 
 
A STUDY IN STAFF RIDES 13 
 
 to Van der Hum's to flag everything on 
 wheels and send me down an O.K. return 
 when he drew a winner. After I'd sent 
 off three loads from the Mine siding on 
 separate days and got no orfice from Jervis 
 I began to worry some. So I wired him 
 to find out what the matter was. ' Got 
 nothing so far,' was the answer. This was 
 the third day, mind you, and it's only six- 
 teen hours' run, even these times, from 
 Joh'burg to Van der Hum's. By that 
 time I felt I was up against bad trouble 
 somewheres, and I kept the orperators 
 busy tickin' to every railway sta'f orficer 
 on the road. I wired up the line and 
 down the line and sideways. But I 
 couldn't get any track of them cars. I 
 was beginning to feel pretty bad, because 
 I had promised the Director personallee 
 that I'd do my bit and get the stuff on 
 the spot by the 14th. Say, Sixpence," he 
 broke off as a Kaffir appeared with a 
 saucepan, "fetch the skoff right now. No 
 wait for the other baas." 
 
14 THE GREAT TAB DOPE 
 
 As soon as they were both served and 
 eating, he continued, " I felt it was up to 
 me to get a move on somewheres, so I got 
 James M'Nulty fitted out with a pass and 
 a warrant, and we put out together to 
 prospect. Nothin' doin' at Elands Junc- 
 tion. The railway sta'f orficer Capt'n 
 Shute is fine : he had passed the stuff 
 on all right. Wai on we went, moseying 
 around and making inquiries at every depot, 
 and raising four kinds of Hell with the 
 RS.O.'s, all with no result till we got to 
 Jakhalputs. There we struck it rich. There 
 were me three cars, sandwiched among all 
 the strays and empties of the whole system 
 side-tracked. Not on a proper siding, 
 mind you, but on a temporary piece of track 
 thrown down on the veld, with as many 
 kinks in it as a beaten ' rattler.' I was fair 
 mad by now, and I chased out the R.S.O." 
 
 "Who was it?" 
 
 " I don't know his name, but he was 
 one of the bad men. You know you have 
 two sorts of British orficer, one sort is 
 
A STUDY IN STAFF RIDES 15 
 
 a special brand of white man, and the 
 other wal, he's the other thing. This 
 fellow was a tall, pie-faced, slick-haired, 
 rubber-necking dude, with a monocle and 
 a boiled collar. I sized him up P.D.Q. ; 
 but I wasn't out for trouble, so I spoke 
 soft. ' Say ' no, it was ' Please, Cap,' I 
 said, ' what about my three bogie cars that 
 you've side-tracked here ? They're vurry 
 important. They're full of bridging stuff 
 wanted bad down to Van der Hum's. 
 What's the matter with hitching them on 
 the next train ? ' He did not cotton to me, 
 and rubbered at me over the edge of his 
 collar good and plenty. I was getting 
 mighty riled." 
 
 " What sort of a kit were you in ? " 
 " Oh, I had gotten regimental breeches 
 and gaiters on, and a shirt a nice shirt 
 I bought in Joh'burg hedge-sparrer's blue, 
 the storeman called it. I have it on now. 
 It was some hot in the train and I'd taken 
 me coat off. I was using a Panama hat." 
 " Had you your hammer in your hand ? " 
 
16 THE GREAT TAB DOPE 
 
 " Why, certainlee. I'm kind of fond of 
 my ha-mmer. It's a mascot. I druv the 
 last rivet in the hull of the battleship 
 Pamunkey with that Till ha-mmer when 
 I was in the Navy Yard." 
 
 " Well, can you be surprised at the poor 
 devil of an R.S.O. being a bit taken 
 aback ? " 
 
 " Yes, sir ! Why shouldn't I carry a 
 ha-mmer ? I've seen orficers carry all sorts 
 of freak sticks. Bits of rhino horn that 
 look like pieces of candy : sjamboks all 
 broken until they droop about like strips 
 of biltong : knobkerries with a knob as big 
 as a pumpkin. Why, some of the docs, 
 wave a stethoscope at you. I didn't much 
 mind not getting the glad hand ; but it 
 was the whole frozen mit that made me 
 tired. This R.S.O. looked at James and 
 me as if we were greasers or a bunch of 
 Dagoes. ' What the dooce are you talking 
 about ? What do I know about your cars f 
 Why don't you address me properly ? Who 
 are you ? ' 
 
A STUDY IN STAFF RIDES 17 
 
 " I tell you I was hopping mad now. 
 ' See here, Clarence,' I butted in, * it don't 
 cut much ice who I am, but Waterbury 
 P. Scudder is my name, and I am a loo- 
 tenant in the 
 
 " ' Lootenant be damned ! ' he says. 
 ' You must be drunk : one of these casuals ' 
 casual he called me and " 
 
 " Yes ; but he didn't mean what you 
 mean by a casual ; he meant a single 
 man a detail separated from his unit." 
 
 " I didn't feel much of a detail then, 
 Major, and my grip began to tighten on 
 my little ha-mmer, when old man M'Nulty 
 gives me a yank by the slack of me pants. 
 ' Easy, Mister Scudder, easy,' he says, ' or 
 we'll both get it in the neck and spend 
 our day in chokee. See that bald-headed 
 old coyote there with the red cravat on 
 him ? He's the boss of this joint. What 
 he says goes, every time. I've been watch- 
 ing them tumble round whenever he says 
 a piece.' Comin' along I saw a senior sta'f 
 orficer. I passed the ha-mmer to Jim and 
 
 B 
 
18 THE GREAT TAB DOPE 
 
 gave a real hardwood, nickel-fitted salute. 
 I couldn't spot his rank, so struck out for 
 the best. ' Good-morning, General,' I says. 
 
 " ' Good-morning, I'm not a general- 
 only a colonel,' he says. ' What can I do 
 for you ? ' 
 
 " But Clarence wanted to get his word 
 in first. ' This man's drunk, sir, and is 
 masquerading as an orficer I whipped 
 round, but when Jim gave me a pull again 
 and whispered : ' The old guy for yours.' 
 Old Jim is a peach. I tumbled. 
 
 " ' No, sir ! I'm not drunk, but this 
 orficer is delaying some of my ironwork 
 which is urgently wanted at Van der 
 Hum's Bridge. Until that gets through 
 the bridge can't be repaired, and the army 
 is waiting on it.' I added a lot more, but 
 I needn't give you the whole song and 
 dance again now. What I said went, and 
 it soothed me some to see Mister Rubber- 
 neck hustle around to get those cars hitched 
 on to the next train. But I was not through 
 with it even then, 'cause every other R.S.O. 
 
A STUDY IN STAFF RIDES 19 
 
 seemed dead set on unhitching my stuff and 
 sending something else along, and I had 
 a job to prevent it. They didn't pay much 
 attention to what I said anyway, even when 
 they didn't treat me as a crazy Dago. That, 
 Major, is what delayed Van der Hum's 
 some sixty hours. 
 
 " When we started on this new proposi- 
 tion I had learned a bit. Leastways old 
 James had struk somethin' and put me wise. 
 ' Mister Scudder,' he said, ' the whole of 
 this show is bluff. If you don't want to be 
 left you must bluff.' 
 
 " ' Bluff,' I said ; ' what d'you take this 
 for ? A game of poker ? It's war, my boy 
 war ! D'you get it ? ' 
 
 " ' Yes. But there's a dope that is going 
 to prevent any of this outfit seeing your 
 hand.' 
 
 "'Whar's tha'at, James?' 
 
 " ' Why, them little bits of red rag on 
 the neck. If you show a red streak round 
 your hat and two spots on your collar you'll 
 chloroform the crowd. I've seen enough 
 
20 THE GREAT TAB DOPE 
 
 on this journey to discover that they are 
 the great dope of the 'hull British army. 
 Any one without 'em is hoodooed all the 
 time. It's pie ! ' 
 
 " I saw at once that ole man M'Nulty 
 had struck it, and so long as I wasn't held 
 up in the same way over this bridge, I 
 reckoned there wasn't much harm to me 
 trying the dope. Here's the ta-bs and 
 here's the hat." 
 
 "But how did you get the stuff?" 
 gurgled the Hegular. " From a signal 
 flag?" 
 
 " Nope. I remembered that in the last 
 share out of warm clothing and comforts 
 
 O 
 
 sent out by your British ladies I drew a 
 sort of liver-pad and a Waterloo hat a 
 woolly thing." 
 
 " A Balaclava helmet ? " 
 
 " That's it. I knew it was one of your 
 durned battles. But it was out of the 
 liver-pad I got my raw material." 
 
 " Ah ! But I see you've got the little 
 buttons and all." 
 
A STUDY IN STAFF RIDES 21 
 
 " No, sir ! Those are just paper-clips 
 from my orfice, put through my collar 
 and flattened out at the back. They 
 scratch some, but they're all right. The 
 shiny peak to the hat is a bit of rubber 
 from an old pair of gum boots fixed on 
 with glue. Major it's worked like a 
 cha'am ! I've doped the 'hull shootin'- 
 match. Got them beat beat to a 
 whisper ! " 
 
 "Well, tell me about it." 
 
 " You won't get mad with me ? 'Cause 
 it sounds a bit of gall, now it's all over." 
 
 " No ; go ahead." 
 
 "Wai. I rode along in the same train 
 with the first wad of stuff for this place. 
 When we stopped at a station I didn't jump 
 down arid chase no R.S.O. No, sir ! I sort 
 of lolled me head out of the window of 
 the brakemaii's caboose guard's van and 
 whistled up the nearest Tahmmie, put a 
 lot of taffy into my voice and said, ' Look 
 heaw, rny man, give the R.S.O. my com- 
 pliments and tell him I want to see him.' 
 
THE GREAT TAB DOPE 
 
 The man always saluted and says, * Vurry 
 good, sir,' ev'ry time. Then up comes 
 the R.S.O. fussing a bit. However, he 
 smoothed down some when he sees my 
 hat and ta-bs. 'Good morning, sir,' he 
 says. ' Good morning,' says I. ' I have 
 a truck of bridging material heaw for Dop 
 Donga. Just see it goes on right now, 
 please.' 
 
 " ' 'Fraid I can't, sir. I have ten shorts of 
 supplies and one bogie of forage, and 
 
 " ' See here,' I says. ' I'm on Lord 
 Kitchener's sta'f, and he has sent me 
 special to see that this stuff makes good 
 at Donga as soon as possible if not sooner. 
 The last words his lordship ' that always 
 made 'em cough ' said to me were, " If 
 any one puts up any kick, you tell him 
 it's the Chief of Sta'f he's up against, and 
 wire me." Naow, old son, if you know 
 Lord K. as well as I do, you'll just be 
 chasing yerself to do what he wants with- 
 out any chin-music to it. That's the pro- 
 position. Thanks awf ly.' " 
 
A STUDY IN STAFF RIDES 23 
 
 The narrator took a drink and pushed 
 the same old unlighted cigar between his 
 lips. He looked rather anxiously at the 
 Major's face. What he saw encouraged 
 him to proceed. 
 
 " I did the best that I could with the 
 soft Christmas Number talk, but times I 
 let out a touch of real Amurrican, and the 
 patient would look fairly puzzled. But 
 ' His lordship's last words to me ' fetched 
 the possum down every time. Every car 
 got here to the tick. James was right. 
 Them red ta-bs are the greatest things 
 that ever happened." 
 
 "But didn't any one spot that you had 
 no badge on your cap ? " said the Major. 
 He was also wondering how this marvellous 
 imitation of the way a British staff officer 
 talks struck the persons addressed. 
 
 " Not on your life ! I was fanning the 
 flies offen my face with it when anybody 
 come along, and it al-ways happened that 
 the badge was in my hand. There was 
 not so many flies on me as I let on there 
 
24 THE GREAT TAB DOPE 
 
 was. Major, I just hate to have to say 
 it, but it was a liver - pad rebuilt Dop 
 Donga Bridge. Sure thing. Yes, sir, and 
 those girders there de-pend on two bits 
 of cloth and a pair of paper-clips, and it 
 seems to me that the 'hull British Armee 
 de-pends " 
 
 " There she is," interposed the Major 
 hastily, as a distant whistle sounded. " I 
 must be off, but I don't quite tumble to 
 the liver-pad. Was it a plaster ? " 
 
 Pom-pom dived into his tent again, and 
 after turning the contents of his kit-bag 
 on to the floor, produced one half of a red 
 flannel chest-protector ! 
 
 "Here you are, Major. Here's the raw 
 material, the Sta'f Orficer factory and the 
 finished article all canned, soldered, and 
 labelled ! I am going to start a cannery 
 or a clothing store." 
 
 " Scudder, I pass, this once ; but no 
 more. See ? " 
 
 "Yes, sir." 
 
 " Good-bye." 
 
A STUDY IN STAFF RIDES 25 
 
 "But I'm coming up the bank to see 
 you on board." 
 
 " No. I want to go alone. By the bye," 
 he added as he rose to go, " I didn't know 
 you knew Lord Kitchener. When did you 
 meet him ? " 
 
 " See here, Major, you should be up on 
 top before the train gets in. She may not 
 stop if they don't flag her, and she's mighty 
 close now. Good-bye, sir." 
 
 Half-way up the embankment the com- 
 manding officer exploded. Between his 
 bursts of laughter he heard below him the 
 tattoo of a knife on the table and the twang 
 of the irrepressible one's voice raised again 
 in song : 
 
 " Oh, my name is Solomon Levi, 
 And I live in Salem Street, 
 And I deal in fancy ulsterottes, 
 And everything else that's neat." 
 
 The performer, now minus hat and tabs, 
 was still at it when his brother subaltern 
 Jervis turned up for his food. 
 
 " Sorry to miss the C.O.," said the latter. 
 
26 THE GREAT TAB DOPE 
 
 " I couldn't get away before. I suppose 
 that was him I heard going up the bank. 
 What an awful cough he's got." 
 
 "Yaas. The ole man is not what he 
 was. The strain of this bridging racket's 
 breaking him up, I guess. There's your 
 food, Jervis. Get busy." 
 
IN THE VALLEY. 
 
 I. 
 
 "HALLOA! What's that?" the lanky 
 subaltern on the bay horse asked suddenly 
 of the man riding alongside, pointing to- 
 wards the river with his switch. 
 
 Both men halted, and the speaker dis- 
 mounted, slipped his arm through the 
 bridle, and slouched down the shelving 
 bank to the water's edge, staring hard at 
 the ground, here quite bare and caked 
 over with a light crust of sandy mud. 
 His companion jumped off his horse and 
 followed, looking slightly mystified until 
 he reached the river. At the very edge 
 of the water was a small inlet with square 
 
28 IN THE VALLEY 
 
 end and parallel sides, a Lilliputian 
 harbour some four inches long and three 
 broad, into which the stream was lapping. 
 About five feet away, where the soil was 
 harder, was a second similar but fainter 
 indentation. 
 
 " I thought so," said the subaltern, 
 tracing with his switch one of the two 
 tracks which led from the inlets upwards 
 to the short grass at the top, where they 
 were lost. 
 
 " Two wheels ! " were his next words. 
 Then, stopping to scrutinise more closely 
 the very indistinct impressions of a hoof, 
 he almost snarled, " Mule-cart ! " 
 
 In contrast to what it had been up till 
 this moment, his tone was peevish. He 
 seemed to be quite inconsequently per- 
 turbed by these trifling marks on the 
 river-bank. But he had no cause to show, 
 nor intention of showing, temper to his 
 subordinate, and would have welcomed any 
 refutation of his conclusions based on pro- 
 
IN THE VALLEY 29 
 
 bability. Sudden, however, as had been 
 his action, and jerky as had been the 
 sentences snapped out, they were now full 
 of significance to the sergeant, who was a 
 few paces away, peering into a large patch 
 of weeds and grass which extended right 
 down to the water. The sergeant stood 
 still and frowned. Amongst the herbage 
 at his feet the edge of the bank was 
 serrated with many marks similar to the 
 two in the open dozens of little places 
 in which the river could play at harbours. 
 There were also crescent-shaped depressions 
 where the soil had been stamped into an 
 irregular carpet pattern of hoof -marks. 
 And here again but, owing to the growth 
 of weeds, only to be seen after close in- 
 spection were tracks, broad wheel -tracks 
 running up the bank. 
 
 " Guns across this way, I think, sir," he 
 suggested. 
 
 He did not " think " : he knew positively. 
 But the news was so very unwelcome that 
 
30 IN THE VALLEY 
 
 he felt instinctively that the blow which 
 certainty would convey should be dealt 
 by the senior to himself. 
 
 In three steps the subaltern was on his 
 knees among the nettles, measuring with 
 his clenched fist the breadth of the tracks. 
 There were the proofs, all the hoof-marks 
 faced one way. Artillery must have 
 crossed from the other side. He did not 
 especially care how many or what sort of 
 guns there had been ; it was enough for 
 him that any could get over. Still kneel- 
 ing, he looked up across the stream. Its 
 troubled appearance and rapid flow, and 
 the boulders breaking its surface, showed 
 its shallowness ; and diagonally opposite, 
 some fifty yards up, the far bank shelved 
 at a suspiciously feasible grade. 
 
 " Just follow the tracks up the weedy 
 place and see what there is above. I'll 
 have a look at the other side." 
 
 He mounted, urged his horse into the 
 stream, and, carefully following the broken 
 water, rode on the slant towards the piece 
 
IN THE VALLEY 31 
 
 of shelving bank on the far side. There 
 was no need to land. At ten yards from 
 the shore he could plainly distinguish the 
 signs he was seeking but did not wish to 
 find. For a few moments he sat staring 
 at the wheel-marks, while the river foamed 
 against the chest of his horse. Again did 
 he appear to be quite unwarrantably dis- 
 turbed by what he saw. Indeed, so en- 
 grossed was he that he gradually relaxed 
 his position and allowed his feet to drag 
 in the stream. It was only the sensation 
 of cold as the water crept up his shins 
 that awoke him to facts. And it was 
 none too soon, for his mount was pawing 
 in that unmistakable manner which be- 
 tokens an earnest desire to roll. Touching 
 him with his one remaining spur, he turned 
 the animal, which floundered back towards 
 the sergeant at the starting-point. 
 
 " Ford, right enough, and a good one. 
 Found anything more ? " 
 
 " No, sir. All signs lost in the hard 
 grass up top." 
 
32 
 
 The subaltern rode out of the river on 
 to the bare ground and, still thoughtful, 
 halted there without dismounting. The 
 water dripped off his horse, collected into 
 a pool, and then meandered about till it 
 reached the original wheel - track, down 
 which it trickled back to the river, thus 
 bravely advertising the slight impression 
 which had so very nearly escaped notice. 
 The sergeant essayed consolation. 
 
 " Bit of luck this bare place, sir." 
 
 " Yes, curse it I mean, thank God for 
 it and for the cart that came across it 
 and the mules that drew the cart and 
 the ass that drove it ! If it wasn't for 
 him we should have spotted nothing. The 
 other marks are absolutely hidden." He 
 looked inquiringly up the bank. " The 
 detachment ought to be coming along soon. 
 Just go back and hurry them under cover. 
 Mount the sentry, and get the tools and 
 stuff down here. We've used our last 
 stick of dynamite, haven't we ? " 
 
 "Yes, sir." 
 
IN THE VALLEY 33 
 
 " Well, bring powder." 
 
 "How much? The usual?" 
 
 " Yes, one will do. No. We'll give 
 them a double dose since we've no 
 dynamite. Bring down a couple of barrels. 
 This must be a very old place almost 
 disused and they'll probably count on 
 our not having discovered it. If they 
 come at all, it's here they'll try to cross 
 for a cert especially if we don't fix it. 
 There are plenty of likely spots for the 
 powder up there. I sha'n't be five minutes 
 picking out one." He started to move in 
 the direction in which he was looking. 
 The sergeant turned his horse round, then 
 hesitated. 
 
 "Well, what is it?" said the other- 
 test ily. 
 
 "You remember there's only that one 
 rifle left, sir?" 
 
 " I know. Bring it along." 
 
 The sergeant said no more, and rode off 
 up the bank. The subaltern again dis- 
 mounted and led his horse slowly up- 
 
 c 
 
34 IN THE VALLEY 
 
 stream until he was opposite the shelving 
 place on the far side, where the river was 
 about fifty yards wide. At this spot there 
 was a narrow strip of sand from which the 
 bank rose somewhat steeply to a height 
 of thirty feet above the water. The slope 
 was dotted with bushes, and at its top 
 was a large tree whose tangled roots were 
 half exposed. Hitching his horse to a 
 bush, he scrambled about half-way up. He 
 turned and, looking towards the far end 
 of the ford, shifted about, carefully aligning 
 his position on the prolongation of the 
 depression which led down to the water 
 on that side of the river. He then solemnly 
 planted his switch, butt first, in the loose 
 sandy soil. After a second careful scrutiny 
 all round he slid down the bank, sat down 
 by his horse, and proceeded to fill a pipe. 
 Besting his head on his hand, he smoked 
 on, occasionally scanning the far side of 
 the river. There the approach running 
 down to the ford was in a kind of groove, 
 which had been worn or excavated at some 
 
35 
 
 time, but had long been disused, and was 
 now quite overgrown. Indeed, without 
 some clue, such as was given by the know- 
 ledge of the existence of the ford, it might 
 have been passed a hundred times without 
 its real nature being detected. Still, it 
 was the obvious way of approach for any 
 body of troops trying to cross the river, 
 while for wheeled traffic its use was almost 
 inevitable. And it was just the kind of 
 bottle - neck, or, in military language, 
 " defile," where vehicles would crowd to- 
 gether. Now the subaltern wanted them 
 crowded, if they came at all, and it was 
 at the very spot to which such a mass 
 would present itself end on that he had 
 placed his switch. In his jargon this spot 
 commanded and enfiladed the approach. 
 
 So far so good. Though the little job 
 of planting the stick in the earth was 
 over, and he could do nothing more at 
 present, there was still something on his 
 mind. He drew from his haversack a 
 sketch-map. On this map certain points 
 
36 
 
 along the river had been marked conspicu- 
 ously with red-ink crosses, and he proceeded 
 to follow up each of these marks with a 
 pencil, ticking them off and counting aloud 
 as he did so. As he counted eleven he 
 moved the pencil on to his own position. 
 The fact that there was no red mark 
 there seemed to upset him. 
 
 " Not my mistake ; but I've got to face 
 the music," he muttered, and drew in a 
 cross so incisively that he snapped the 
 point of the pencil. He re-sharpened it 
 with deliberation, then wiped the blacklead 
 off his thumb on his wet boot. The string 
 with which the upper had been so carefullv 
 lashed to the sole had been displaced by 
 his stirrup, and a wet and pink big toe was 
 peeping out between two layers of gaping 
 leather. Observing this, the shadow of a 
 smile crossed its owner's thin face. But he 
 had little real cause for smiling. 
 
IN THE VALLEY 37 
 
 II. 
 
 The theatre of war in which the de- 
 tachment was operating was a sparsely- 
 populated area in which the resources of 
 civilisation had never been many. Now 
 that the struggle had been going on for 
 some time, so much damage had been done 
 that all the conveniences to be found in a 
 settled country were at a premium, and 
 the river an important strategic feature 
 had had its value as an obstacle much 
 enhanced by the wholesale destruction of 
 its bridges. All those still standing 
 happened to be in the hands of the army 
 to which the subaltern and the sergeant 
 belonged. To illustrate the situation by a 
 business parallel, their side had succeeded 
 in establishing a corner in bridges. For 
 the enemy there were no bridges to be 
 had, except at the prohibitive cost in lives 
 which attacks on strongly -defended posi- 
 tions would entail. The result of this was 
 
38 IN THE VALLEY 
 
 that a feverish demand had sprung up 
 for fords for which there had been no 
 inquiry for years and their value had 
 suddenly appreciated. Old fords had been 
 opened up, new ones had been discovered, 
 and the cross - river traffic went on as 
 briskly as ever. Then the commander 
 who controlled the bridge market became 
 desirous of also controlling the fords. But 
 the method in which he was trying to 
 manipulate this commodity differed from 
 that which had been employed in the case 
 of the bridges. It was a purely negative 
 process, for he neither wanted the fords 
 himself nor could have spared the men to 
 hold them. The only thing to be done, 
 therefore, was to pursue a dog-in-the- 
 manger policy and deny them to the 
 enemy. 
 
 Fords can be denied to an enemy in 
 many ways besides by being held and 
 defended. One of the simplest is to sow 
 them with harrows, ploughs, or wire fenc- 
 ing, or to construct bar bed- wire entangle- 
 
IN THE VALLEY 39 
 
 ments under the water. But, distinctly 
 annoying and offensive to troops in a hurry 
 as such obstructions are, they are otherwise 
 trivial, for they can be removed at leisure 
 and their moral effect is negligible. When 
 it is desired to add a minatory effect to the 
 merely physical obstacle it is necessary to 
 make an appeal to the nerves. This can 
 best be done by explosives. 
 
 It is a truism that in land warfare the 
 value of mines and suchlike contrivances of 
 the sapper is almost entirely psychological. 
 For every man actually damaged by their 
 action hundreds suffer mentally either from 
 the knowledge or the mere suspicion of 
 their existence. Indeed, the very rumour 
 of their presence is sufficient to induce an 
 Agag-like method of progression. 
 
 And not only does this apply to those for 
 whose hurt the mines are intended ; it 
 affects those whose duty it is to prepare 
 them, since explosives have no discrimina- 
 tion and are not respecters of persons. For 
 the mine-layer in war, as for the active 
 
40 IN THE VALLEY 
 
 terrorist in peace, there is always the 
 haunting dread of being hoist by his own 
 petard. Dealing as he does with unstable 
 and extremely violent chemical compounds 
 and rough, improvised mechanisms, he 
 literally carries his life in his hands, at 
 his finger-tips, at his very toes. Too rough 
 a touch, a stumble, and another life has to 
 be written off the ledger of his side as 
 " expended." Mine - laying demands the 
 very highest form of bravery, the un- 
 emotional courage inspired by self-control, 
 determination, and a sense of duty. The 
 man undertaking it usually works with 
 very few others, secretly and in obscure 
 places. Neither one of a crowd, nor actually 
 fighting, he is not inspired to gallantry by 
 the presence of comrades, the enthusiasm or 
 passion of the moment, or the sheer lust of 
 combat. There is no struggle with a living, 
 sentient adversary to excite him. Excite- 
 ment of a sort he has in plenty, but it is of 
 a very one-sided nature, such as is afforded 
 by a cold-blooded contest against a ghostly 
 
IN THE VALLEY 41 
 
 enemy, which is quite unresponsive, quite 
 undemonstrative, until the last moment. If 
 the mine-layer wins in the struggle, though 
 the result of his work may not affect any- 
 thing, he has been through a far more 
 severe trial than many a man who commits 
 a gallant deed in the heat of action. But 
 he is seldom acclaimed as a hero, for few 
 know what he has accomplished. When he 
 fails, the simple word " Missing," under 
 which his name appears, will usually be a 
 literally correct epitaph. 
 
 It was in duty of this nature that the 
 detachment was now engaged, and to the 
 officer sitting smoking by the river it was 
 no new experience. Familiarity had not, 
 however, in his case bred the proverbial 
 contempt ; he had too much experience and 
 wisdom to treat the agencies employed by 
 him with anything but the respect due to 
 their power. Moreover, during the last 
 few days his nerves had been almost con- 
 tinuously on the stretch, for his life had 
 very frequently depended on the sensitive- 
 
42 IN THE VALLEY 
 
 ness of fulminate, the exact tension of a 
 wire, the stiffness of a trigger, or the care 
 with which an assistant placed his feet. 
 But his obvious depression on this occasion 
 was not due to any of these normal causes. 
 
 The usual system in this form of warfare, 
 and the one hitherto employed by the 
 subaltern, had been to place small dyna- 
 mite mines, mechanically and automatically 
 controlled, on the pull-out or near side of 
 the fords. Since such mines were quite 
 local and limited in their radius of action, 
 they were reinforced, wherever possible, by 
 a fougasse. 
 
 This mediaeval device, though not often 
 met with in ordinary life, is still used in 
 warfare, and deserves a word to itself. 
 Under its high-sounding French name- 
 otherwise foyer au feu it is really a rudi- 
 mentary but fearsome gun made in the 
 earth. No mere mine, bomb, or simple 
 infernal machine which scatters fragments 
 of metal around in vague passion, the fou- 
 gasse throws its projectiles with precise and 
 
IN THE VALLEY 43 
 
 aimed malice. A slanting hole, carefully 
 aligned in the right direction, is dug in the 
 ground. This forms the bore of the gun. 
 A powder charge having been placed at the 
 bottom, the excavation is loaded to the 
 brim with brickbats, stones, scrap-iron, or 
 any natural missiles sufficiently heavy to 
 cause hurt to the human body when hurled 
 violently against it. The efficacy of this 
 engine of destruction partly depends upon 
 the principle so quickly seized upon by the 
 small boy old enough to discover that 
 Nature has provided him with an arm for 
 the express purpose of throwing stones at 
 other small game. When he can shoot 
 into the " brown " of a flock he throws a 
 stone, trusting to the number of targets to 
 assist in registering a hit. When there is 
 only one target, and that a small one, he 
 thinks to increase his chance by multiply- 
 ing missiles, and hurls a handful of gravel. 
 The fougasse heaves a shower of missiles 
 over a large area. And even if none find a 
 billet, the fountain of earth and rocks pro- 
 
44 IN THE VALLEY 
 
 jected on high cannot fail to impress the 
 most unimaginative spectator. This, after 
 all, is an important part of its object. 
 
 Until he had stopped the sergeant by his 
 exclamation at sight of the mark at the 
 river's edge the subaltern had imagined 
 that his work of the last six days was over. 
 He had been sent out upon a raiding ex- 
 pedition to block all the crossing-places in a 
 certain stretch of the river. There were 
 ten of these marked on the map supplied to 
 him, and, starting out with a waggon-load 
 of the stores necessary to his machinations, 
 he had, with a proper adjustment of means 
 to the end, expended all his dynamite in 
 fixing them up. 
 
 It was for this reason that he was now 
 forced to rely upon a fougasse alone for the 
 eleventh ford just discovered, which was 
 not shown on the map, and the existence of 
 which was evidently unsuspected at head- 
 quarters. The revulsion of feeling at its 
 discovery at a moment when he had thought 
 his work done accounted partly for the 
 
IN THE VALLEY 45 
 
 subaltern's disgust when first he had seen 
 the tell-tale wheel -track on the bank. 
 Filled as he had been with bitterness 
 against the people responsible for this 
 mistake, unworthy thoughts had momen- 
 tarily assailed him. He had carried out 
 his orders at great danger. Evidently no 
 one knew of this place. Why should he 
 risk his life again ? 
 
 Though he was about to concentrate his 
 efforts upon a fougasse of double power, it 
 was not the dangers of the thing itself, 
 which, after all, were no greater than they 
 had been with all the others, that was 
 weighing on his mind. He had chosen its 
 site so that most of its missiles would sweep 
 the approach on the far bank ; and, by 
 placing the trip-wire somewhere near the 
 bare patch of mud, one of the leading horses 
 or vehicles issuing from the river would 
 probably fire the charge just at the moment 
 when the approach would be packed full of 
 men, horses, and waggons or guns. It was 
 all quite simple. For carrying out his 
 
46 IN THE VALLEY 
 
 kindly intention the subaltern had the 
 knowledge, the powder, the wire, and the 
 tools. Besides these things, all that was 
 necessary was a spare rifle. He had a rifle. 
 And it was the nature of this weapon, 
 coupled to the fact that it was the only one 
 available, which was especially troubling 
 him. 
 
 The simplest method of exploding an 
 automatic engine of destruction of this 
 nature when no electric appliance is avail- 
 able is by means of a firearm, which con- 
 tains in a handy form all the necessary 
 mechanism. The train of action is started 
 by the victim treading on or tripping 
 against a hidden wire. The jerk thus con- 
 veyed to the trigger fires a blank cartridge 
 in the chamber of the weapon, and the flash 
 of the latter ignites the powder charge in 
 which the muzzle is embedded. This 
 necessitates a long-barrelled firearm. The 
 war had now been carried on almost to a 
 state of exhaustion, and had reached the 
 retail, pettifogging stage when single lives 
 
IN THE VALLEY 4*7 
 
 and single weapons are counted. Not only 
 was an obsolete pattern of rifle employed 
 for this kind of work, but, in order to 
 avoid by any chance presenting the enemy 
 with still serviceable, though old, weapons, 
 the stocks of all those used for the purpose 
 were sawn off short, so that they could not 
 be presented to the shoulder. 
 
 The subaltern had started with seventeen 
 of such mutilated firearms, and had already 
 made use of sixteen on the ten fords with 
 which he had dealt. The seventeenth had 
 been found to be so dangerously defective 
 that it had been put on one side and, in 
 order to prevent any fatal mistakes, had 
 been branded with a piece of rag tied on to 
 it. In this pattern of gun the breech was 
 opened by depressing a lever behind the 
 trigger-guard, while the upward movement 
 of the lever closed the breech and cocked 
 the rifle. The fault of this particular speci- 
 men was that the upward motion of the 
 lever sometimes not only closed the breech 
 but fired the rifle without the trigger being 
 
48 IN THE VALLEY 
 
 touched. An awkward habit enough for a 
 man shooting, it was worse than awkward 
 for one who was gripping the lever when 
 a small volcano happened to be at the 
 muzzle of the rifle. Had this specimen, 
 however, been straightforward and mis- 
 behaved on every occasion, the certainty 
 would have simplified matters. No one in 
 his senses would have attempted to use 
 the thing. 
 
 But there was a subtlety about it, for 
 now and again the action worked correctly, 
 and the rifle did not go off until the trigger 
 was pressed. This, of course, gave the 
 glorious uncertainty of chance to any one 
 dealing with the weapon ; but the odds 
 against the dealer were too great, and 
 the penalty for losing was too severe, for 
 even a confirmed gambler to contemplate 
 with equanimity. The subaltern knew 
 something about the mechanism of rifles, 
 but he now had neither the tools nor 
 the time to take this one to pieces and 
 put it together again. And he could 
 
IN THE VALLEY 49 
 
 not make use of any of the weapons 
 carried by his detachment, for he was 
 already deficient of two. He would, 
 however, in any case have hesitated to 
 deprive one of his men of his " best 
 friend." His own repeating pistol was 
 not long enough to serve. 
 
 In a few minutes the waggon and de- 
 tachment arrived, the powder - barrels 
 were rolled down, and digging was 
 begun at the spot marked. The freshly- 
 excavated earth, being of too bright a 
 colour to leave lying about, was shovelled 
 on to blankets, dragged down the bank, 
 and tipped into the river. Between 
 these intermittent journeys a heap of 
 boulders was gradually collected near 
 the hole. Some were jagged, and some 
 were round and smooth, the only limit 
 to size being the weight which one man 
 could carry. The four men thus em- 
 ployed in excavating and collecting in- 
 cluded the sergeant. A fifth was with 
 the horses ensconced in a suitable hollow 
 
 D 
 
50 IN THE VALLEY 
 
 under some trees at the top, while the 
 sixth kept a look - out from the highest 
 point near by. The work by now almost 
 a matter of routine had been started 
 without more orders from the officer, and 
 the excavation proceeded at great speed 
 in the soft soil. Beyond once inspecting 
 the hole to check the alignment of the 
 axis of his " gun " and to gauge the 
 thickness of earth left above it, the sub- 
 altern paid no attention to what was 
 going on. 
 
 He remained seated, absorbed in play- 
 ing with an object which the sergeant 
 had handed to him. It was half a rifle 
 with a dirty strip of rag hanging from 
 it ; and the subaltern was trying to dis- 
 cover what, if any, law governed its 
 erratic behaviour. Holding it this way 
 and that, he continued to open and close 
 the breech, and kept a careful record in 
 his note-book of each trial, much as a 
 " system crank " books the coups at a 
 roulette - table. For every attempt he 
 
IN THE VALLEY 51 
 
 put down a tick, and each time the 
 thing worked right he crossed the tick. 
 At intervals he would study the diagram 
 produced, try to analyse it, and would 
 rack his brains in an effort to obtain a 
 rule rigid or flexible which seemed to 
 govern its eccentricities. Treating it as 
 a cryptogram, he did his best to discover 
 any cycle, periodicity, or recurrence in 
 the pattern booked by him, to weave a 
 rhythm into its irregular metre; he even 
 endeavoured to set it to music. At 
 moments he did trace sequences in the 
 runs of success ; but in no case did he 
 obtain more than two complete cycles. 
 It was all in vain. He might as well 
 have attempted to analyse the dance of 
 the gnats which were now hovering over 
 his head for he had put out his pipe 
 when the powder came upon the scene. 
 
 At last he gave up the hopeless 
 attempt at a solution by numbers, and 
 bethought him of another method. If it 
 were grit or a loose flake of rust which 
 
52 IN THE VALLEY 
 
 was causing this unaccountable behaviour 
 he might possibly distinguish something 
 by the sense of touch. He might be 
 able to tell what the lever was about 
 to do by the feel, the texture, so to 
 speak, of its pull when opened. He had 
 not dared to oil it the lubricant might 
 so ease the action that the rifle would 
 go off every time it was closed, and 
 thus spoil even the outside chance which 
 he was now prepared to take. With 
 eyes shut in order to concentrate all his 
 faculties upon his sense of touch, he had 
 been for some time intent on his new 
 game when he was interrupted. 
 
 "All ready now, sir." 
 
 By this was implied that the powder 
 was loaded, and the subaltern handed 
 over the rifle. There was no need for 
 him to superintend the fixing of it or 
 the packing of the stones. There was 
 practically 110 danger until a cartridge 
 was placed in the chamber of the rifle, 
 and that he always did himself at the 
 
IN THE VALLEY 53 
 
 very last. " Sing out when you've fixed 
 it," he said. " I'll just go across and have 
 a look from the other side." 
 
 With the reins gathered in his hand 
 he was just about to mount when the 
 sentry on top of the bank whistled three 
 times. 
 
 The men under the tree at once 
 stopped working and lay down. The 
 subaltern and sergeant, who were out in 
 the open, ran towards the tree, the 
 former towing his unwilling beast by the 
 bridle. 
 
 " Waggon and team all right ? " said the 
 officer, as they ran. 
 
 " Yes under a nice bit of scrub, sir." 
 
 When the two men got well under 
 the tree, they too lay down under its 
 thickest part. The three whistles had 
 evidently been some well - understood 
 signal of alarm, but no move was made 
 to pick up the rifles lying about the 
 whole party seemed to be listening. 
 Above the burbling of the rapid rose a 
 
54 IN THE VALLEY 
 
 humming noise. A vague throbbing in 
 the sky, its direction could not be guessed ; 
 it seemed to pervade the air. The sound 
 quickly increased in volume to a loud 
 buzz and then to a muffled roar. The 
 five men by the river peered up through 
 the foliage. A large grey biplane flew 
 high up in the air across the river from 
 east to west. It carried three men. 
 Glistening in the sunlight like some 
 gauzy - winged fly, it flew straight on 
 without sign until the sound of its pro- 
 peller died away to a gentle hum in the 
 distance. The men reassumed their duties, 
 and the subaltern mounted. 
 
 "Looks as if they were watching this 
 ford, sir," said the sergeant. 
 
 "Yes. They're not doing that for 
 nothing. They'll probably try it to-night. 
 Wish I'd put in three barrels." 
 
 With this kind sentiment the subaltern 
 rode over to the far side again. 
 
 After a short time he heard across 
 the water the signal that everything 
 
IN THE VALLEY 55 
 
 except his share of the work had been 
 done. He rode up and down on the far 
 side, examining from there the near bank 
 in order to ascertain if any rearrangement 
 was necessary for concealment of the work, 
 and then he recrossed. Nothing except 
 the protruding breach of the rifle now 
 betrayed the fougasse, for all the stones 
 had been covered over with dry earth. 
 Even a dead bush was lying ready for 
 him to plant artistically when he should 
 have finished his own duty of adjusting 
 the tension and loading the rifle. The 
 wire was ready in place, lightly buried 
 where it crossed under the probable " pull- 
 out " of the ford, and led over two straining 
 pieces of wood, also buried, which acted 
 in the same way as violin bridges. Below 
 the rifle the direction of the wire was 
 changed so as to give a straight pull on 
 the trigger. 
 
 The men went off to pack up, and 
 while the sergeant made play to be the 
 victim crossing over the tread the subaltern 
 
56 IN THE VALLEY 
 
 adjusted the exact pull of the wire. This 
 required some nicety of touch and con- 
 siderable judgment, and it was a little 
 time before the tension was right. 
 
 " Beady to move off, sergeant ? " 
 
 " All ready, sir." 
 
 " Right. Give me the blank. You carry 
 on, and get away as soon as you can." 
 
 The sergeant moved his hand towards 
 his pocket, then hesitated and coughed. 
 
 " Hurry up, man," said the other. 
 
 " Did you get that rifle to work right, 
 sir ? " 
 
 " Oh yes ; it's all right now." 
 
 Even if the sergeant had not hurriedly 
 tried the thing himself several times when 
 his senior was on the other side of the 
 river, he would have seen through this 
 prevarication. The subaltern was not a 
 good liar. 
 
 " Beg pardon, sir would you let me fix 
 this one?" 
 
 " You ? Nonsense, man ! You get on 
 with the convoy. I'm all right." 
 
IN THE VALLEY 57 
 
 The sergeant turned round slowly and 
 walked away. 
 
 " Give me the blank before you go." 
 
 " They're in the waggon, sir. I sha'n't 
 be a minute." 
 
 The officer stared at him suspiciously. 
 It was unusual for this man not to have 
 everything to hand up to time. Besides, 
 he had at first moved his hand to his 
 pocket. There was something behind all 
 this. The sergeant was as clumsy at 
 deception as his senior had been. 
 
 As soon as he got out of sight the 
 sergeant pulled a bulletless cartridge from 
 his pocket and hurriedly dug out its con- 
 tents with a nail. He then ran back with 
 overdone haste and handed over the empty 
 case. 
 
 The subaltern took it and examined the 
 cap with care. That was all right ; it 
 had not been fired. He then probed the 
 case with a stem of grass. Finding that 
 he could pass the grass right up to the 
 base, he threw the shell away and, looking 
 
58 
 
 the abashed and surprised sergeant in the 
 face, held out his hand. The offence of 
 which he suspected his subordinate was 
 so serious that, without absolute proof, he 
 decided to say nothing. 
 
 The two men looked at each other 
 steadily. Without a word the sergeant 
 handed over a second cartridge. This was 
 inspected and sounded in the same way, 
 and when the stem of grass was prevented 
 from passing into the case by some solid 
 substance, the officer scooped out a little 
 of the stuff with a splinter and examined 
 it. He then nodded. As the sergeant, 
 still silent, again turned to go, the subaltern 
 fumbled in his haversack. 
 
 "Hold hard here's the map. You'd 
 
 better take it with you in case 
 
 There's no chance of it, of course ; but if 
 you should hear the thing go off, and I 
 don't turn up, and you get back all right, 
 go straight to headquarters and report 
 that the ten fords are blocked, but that 
 this one here I'll mark it big number 
 
IN THE VALLEY 59 
 
 eleven which they don't know of, is not 
 blocked see ? " 
 
 A nod was the only reply. 
 
 " Whatever you do, don't be caught or 
 killed with this marked map on you. Have 
 a good look at it now, so that you will be 
 able to point out the place of this ford 
 without the map, in case you have to 
 destroy it. See here this bit of the 
 river's all that matters. I'll cut that out. 
 If the worst comes to the worst you can 
 chew up this small piece." As he spoke 
 he cut a strip out of the centre of the map. 
 He then wrung the man's hand and, calling 
 him by his name, said good-bye. " Now 
 get a move on. There's no need to look 
 so glum. I shall catch you up in twenty 
 minutes." 
 
 He watched the sergeant go up the 
 bank, heard his word of command, heard 
 the cavalcade move off. He appreciated 
 the motive of the clumsy effort at deceit 
 through which he had seen, and had no 
 fear that the man had plugged the barrel 
 
60 IN THE GALLEY 
 
 of the rifle or not placed its muzzle in 
 the powder, for if he had done anything 
 of the sort his trick with the cartridge 
 at the last moment would not have been 
 necessary. Picking his steps carefully so 
 as to avoid the wire, whose course was 
 buoy -marked by certain innocent -looking 
 twigs, he again climbed up the slope and 
 lay down on his stomach. He then 
 deposited the blank cartridge on the 
 ground to his right hand, placed his empty 
 pipe between his teeth, and proceeded with 
 his experiments. 
 
 III. 
 
 While the sergeant, filled with appre- 
 hension, continued on his way, the object 
 of his solicitude lay spread-eagled on the 
 bank of the river preparing for his throw 
 of the die with death. After looking at 
 the watch on his wrist he shut his eyes 
 and went on with the operation of open- 
 
IN THE VALLEY 61 
 
 ing and closing the lever, in which he 
 had been interrupted. The rifle still acted 
 in its former perverse manner, without 
 giving any tangible clue to its irregular- 
 ities ; he was still unable to trace the 
 slightest variation, either in the motion 
 or the resistance of the breech action when 
 opened, whatever happened afterwards. 
 There was no more, and there was no 
 less, stickiness or vibration when the 
 lever was going to fire the weapon than 
 when it was not. Remembering that 
 moisture increases the sensibility of the 
 skin, he sucked his thumb and forefinger, 
 and after a time he thought he could dis- 
 tinguish some faint difference of the nature 
 he was seeking in the pull. But, almost 
 impalpable, it was too vague to be of any 
 use for prognostication, and most of his 
 forecasts as to the rifle's behaviour based 
 on it were wrong. When one did happen 
 to prove correct, he realised that it was 
 by chance. Finally, all sensation had 
 been so long concentrated in his finger 
 
62 IN THE VALLEY 
 
 and thumb that his imagination began to 
 play tricks ; the curved metal of the lever 
 felt as if it were something soft in his 
 grasp, as if it were alive and contracting 
 and expanding in drawing breath. So 
 powerful was this impression that he in- 
 voluntarily opened his eyes to look. His 
 empty pipe being in the way, he took it 
 from his mouth. And it was only when 
 he felt the pipe-bowl itself palpitating in 
 his grasp that he realised how strongly 
 the pulse in the ball of the thumb can 
 beat. It seemed hopeless. If his blood- 
 vessels were throbbing in that manner, 
 what confidence was to be placed in 
 external sensations ? 
 
 He had almost given up his efforts at 
 rational investigation and determined to 
 rely on blind chance, when a bird on a 
 branch above his head warbled. The 
 sound was an inspiration. There was one 
 sense he had not tried perhaps his ears 
 would give him the secret ! 
 
 Again settling himself down on his chest, 
 
IN THE VALLEY 63 
 
 he placed his ear as close to the breech as 
 possible. In doing this his foot slipped, 
 his face was jerked forward on to the 
 jagged, sawn-off butt of the rifle, and a 
 splinter gashed his cheek. Unheeding, he 
 dug his feet farther into the earth so as 
 to get a better grip, again closed his eyes, 
 and, barely breathing, began his games 
 with the lever once more. Numberless 
 sounds up till now hardly noticed all 
 at once grew insistently loud and be- 
 wildering. The bird above him had flown 
 away, but others twittered in the dis- 
 tance, and, in spite of the apparent lack 
 of breeze, the top leaves of the trees were 
 whispering. The volume of water in the 
 river seemed to have increased, and its 
 murmur over the shallows was now al- 
 most a roar. While the hum of insects 
 was all-pervading and covered the whole 
 gamut, the noise of those nearest sounded 
 in his ears like bugle marches brayed out 
 by gramophones. This medley of notes, 
 in reality hardly audible, assumed un- 
 
64 IN THE VALLEY 
 
 believable intensity to the ears straining 
 to catch another and more subtle sound. 
 
 He continued his trials, at first slowly 
 and gently. Then, finding that such slow, 
 successive movements were too separate for 
 minute differences of noise to be noted and 
 compared, he changed his tactics. He took 
 a deep breath and worked the lever up and 
 down as fast and as often as he could, till 
 the blood throbbed in his head, till the 
 pounding of his heart against the solid 
 earth almost lifted him and he was forced 
 to exhale. After what seemed like many 
 hours of this he gradually came to the 
 conclusion that he could distinguish a 
 minute difference in the faint grating 
 noise of the lever as it oscillated. He 
 could not have sworn to it, but the thing 
 seemed to purr slightly upon its downward 
 journey 011 those occasions when it did not 
 fire the rifle upon its return to the closed 
 position. By this time he was bathed in 
 perspiration ; his sleeves were full of sand, 
 which stuck to his skin ; and his face and 
 
IN THE VALLEY 65 
 
 wrists were speckled with mosquitoes. The 
 toe-nails of one foot were full of soil and 
 almost bleeding. The bowl of his pipe 
 and half the bitten - off stem lay some 
 distance down the bank ; the remainder 
 was in splinters in his mouth. Below his 
 chin the flies dodged and buzzed and 
 wrangled over the dark patch formed on 
 the soil by the blood dripping from his 
 cheek. But of these trifles he was en- 
 tirely unconscious. 
 
 He had riot time to confirm his sus- 
 picions about the existence of this purring 
 sound when he heard a rifle-shot. The 
 single report was followed by several 
 others. If the convoy were being at- 
 tacked already there was no time to lose, 
 and upon the next occasion when he 
 thought that he heard the lever purr he 
 made up his mind to act. He picked up 
 the cartridge, blew off the grit, and pressed 
 it carefully home into the chamber. As 
 he did so the bright, undented copper cap 
 in its base seemed to wink at him deris- 
 E 
 
66 IN THE VALLEY 
 
 ively. There was now no longer need for 
 him to keep his eyes shut in order to con- 
 centrate his mind, and, pausing for a 
 moment, he gazed upwards. In spite of 
 the blue sky above, he felt that he was 
 now verily in the Valley, that the Shadow 
 was closing over him. 
 
 Wondering if he should ford the next 
 river he had to cross, or whether the old 
 ferryman, Charon, would be waiting to 
 take him over, he for the last time gripped 
 the curved piece of metal. 
 
 Very gently he pressed it upwards. 
 After an eternity there was a soft click, 
 and the movement of the lever ceased. 
 
 When the subaltern realised that the 
 rifle-shots were much closer, he did not 
 seem to be perturbed by the fact. With 
 a sob of relief he slid quietly down the 
 bank. The eleventh ford was ready ! 
 
THE SENSE OF TOUCH 
 
 YES, perhaps in some ways it may appear 
 ludicrous. But on the whole the unpleas- 
 ant side swamped the other, and in reality 
 it was a ghastly experience. At all events, 
 I have no wish to go through anything of 
 the sort again. Once is enough. Why, 
 I've hardly been able to sleep for bad 
 dreams ever since. I'll tell you about it, 
 since you insist, but I must do it in my 
 own way, which means recalling the whole 
 thing bit by bit as it occurred, and you'll 
 have to listen to all sorts of unimportant 
 details, for I'm not up to making an ar- 
 tistic story of it. But that will be an 
 advantage, because you will be the better 
 able to appreciate my mental state at the 
 
68 THE SENSE OF TOUCH 
 
 time how the affair appealed to me and 
 will not judge of it by the way it strikes 
 you, sitting here safe in the club, in broad 
 daylight, and in God's fresh air. 
 
 Ton my word, I really don't know what 
 made me go into the place. I've never 
 been keen on cinemas. The ones I went 
 to when they first came out quite choked 
 me off. The jiggling of the pictures pulled 
 my eyes out till they felt like a crab's, and 
 the potted atmosphere made my head ache. 
 I was strolling along, rather bored with 
 things in general and more that a bit tired, 
 and happened to stop as I passed the doors. 
 It seemed just the ordinary picture palace 
 or electric theatre show ivory-enamelled 
 portico, neuralgic blaze of flame arc-lights 
 above, and underneath, in coloured incan- 
 descents, the words, " Mountains of Fun." 
 
 Fun ! Good Lord ! 
 
 An out- sized and over -uniformed tout, 
 in dirty white gloves and a swagger stick, 
 was strolling backwards and forwards, 
 alternately shouting invitations to see the 
 
THE SENSE OF TOUCH 69 
 
 " continuous performance " and chasing 
 away the recurring clusters of eager-eyed 
 children, whose outward appearance was 
 not suggestive of the possession of the 
 necessary entrance fee. There were highly- 
 coloured posters on every available foot of 
 wall - space sensational scenes, in which 
 cowboys, revolvers, and assorted deaths pre- 
 dominated and across them were pasted 
 strips of paper bearing the legend, " LIFE- 
 REPRO Novelty This Evening." 
 
 I confess that, old as I am, it was that 
 expression which caught me " LIFE- 
 REPRO." It sounded like a new metal 
 polish or an ointment for " swellings on the 
 leg," but it had the true showman's ring. 
 I asked the janitor what it meant. Of 
 course he did not know poor devil and 
 only repeated his stock piece : " Splendid 
 new novelty. Now showing. No waiting. 
 Continuous performance. Walk right in." 
 
 I was curious ; it was just beginning to 
 rain ; and I decided to waste half an hour. 
 No sooner had the metal disc shot out 
 
70 THE SENSE OF TOUCH 
 
 at me in exchange for sixpence rattled 
 on to the zinc counter of the ticket- 
 window than the uniformed scoundrel 
 thrust a handbill on me and almost shoved 
 me through a curtained doorway. Quite 
 suddenly I found myself in a dark room, 
 the gloom of which was only accentuated 
 by the picture quivering on a screen about 
 fifty feet away. The change from the glare 
 outside was confusing and the atmosphere 
 smote me, and as I heard the door bang 
 and the curtain being redrawn I felt half 
 inclined to turn round and go out. But 
 while I hesitated, not daring to move until 
 my eyes got acclimatised, some one flashed 
 an electric torch in my eyes, grabbed my 
 ticket, and squeaked, " Straight along, 
 please," then switched off the light. 
 
 Useful, wasn't it ? I couldn't see an 
 inch. You know, I'm not very touchy as 
 a rule, but I was getting a bit nettled, and 
 a good deal of my boredom had vanished. 
 I groped my way carefully down what felt 
 like an inclined gangway, now in total 
 
THE SENSE OF TOUCH 71 
 
 darkness, for there was at the moment no 
 picture on the screen, and at once stumbled 
 down a step. A step, mind you, in the 
 centre of a gangway, in a place of enter- 
 tainment which is usually dark ! I natu- 
 rally threw out my hands to save myself 
 and grabbed what I could. There was a 
 scream, and the film then starting again, 
 I discovered that I was clutching a lady 
 by the hair. The whole thing gave me a 
 jar and threw me into a perspiration, you 
 must remember I was still shaky after my 
 illness. When, as I was apologising, the 
 same, or another, fool with the torchlight 
 flashed it at my waistcoat and said, " Mind 
 the step," I'm afraid I told him, as man 
 to man, what I thought of him and the 
 whole beastly show. I was now really 
 annoyed, and showed it. I had no notion 
 there were so many people in the hall until 
 I heard the cries of " Ssshh ! " " Turn him 
 out ! " from all directions. 
 
 When I was finally led to a flap-up seat 
 which 1 nearly missed, by the way, in 
 
72 THE SENSE OF TOUCH 
 
 the dark I discovered the reason for the 
 impatience evinced by the audience. I 
 had butted in with my clatter and winged 
 words at the critical moment of a touch- 
 ing scene. To the sound of soft, sad music, 
 all on the black notes, the little incurable 
 cripple che-ild in the tenement house was 
 just being restored to health by watching 
 the remarkably quick growth of the cow- 
 slips given to her by the kind - hearted 
 scavenger. Completely as boredom had 
 been banished by the manner of my entree, 
 it quickly returned while I suffered the 
 long-drawn convalescence of " Little Em- 
 meline." As soon as this harrowing film 
 was over and the lights were raised I took 
 my chance of looking round. 
 
 The hall was very much the usual sort 
 of place perhaps a bit smaller than most, 
 long and narrow, with a floor sloping 
 down from the back. In front of the 
 screen, which was a very large one, was 
 an enclosed pit containing some artificial 
 palms and tin hydrangeas, a piano and a 
 
THE SENSE OF TOUCH *73 
 
 harmonium, and in the end wall at its 
 right was a small door marked " Private." 
 In the side wall on the left near the pro- 
 scenium place was an exit. The only other 
 means of egress, as far as I could see, was 
 the doorway through which I had entered. 
 Both of these were marked by illuminated 
 glass signs, and on the walls were notices 
 of " The management beg to thank those 
 ladies who have so kindly removed their 
 hats," and advertisement placards mostly 
 of chocolate. The decorations were too 
 garish for the place to be exactly homely, 
 but it was distinctly commonplace, a con- 
 trast to the shambles it became later on. 
 What ? 
 
 Yes ! I daresay you know all about 
 these picture palaces, but I've got to give 
 you the points as they appealed to me. 
 I'm not telling you a story, man. I'm 
 simply trying to give you an exact account 
 of what happened. It's the only way I 
 can do it. 
 
 The ventilation was execrable, in spite 
 
74 THE SENSE OF TOUCH 
 
 of the couple of exhaust fans buzzing round 
 overhead, and the air hung stagnant and 
 heavy with tobacco smoke, traces of stale 
 scent, while wafts of peppermint, aniseed, 
 and eucalyptus occasionally reached me 
 from the seats in front. The place was 
 fairly well filled, the audience consisting 
 largely of women and children of the poorer 
 classes even babies in arms just the sort 
 of innocent holiday crowd that awful things 
 always happen to. 
 
 By the time I had noticed this much the 
 lights were lowered, and we were treated 
 
 o 
 
 to a scene of war which converted my 
 boredom into absolute depression. I must 
 describe it to you, because you always 
 will maintain that we are a military nation 
 at heart. By Jove, we are ! Even the 
 attendants at this one - horse gaff were 
 wearing uniforms. And the applause with 
 which the jumble of sheer military im- 
 possibility and misplaced sentiment pre- 
 sented to us was greeted proves it. The 
 story was called "Only a Bugler Boy." 
 
THE SENSE OF TOUCH *75 
 
 The first scene represented a small detach- 
 ment of British soldiers "At the Front" 
 on "Active Service" in a savage country. 
 News came in of the " foe." This was the 
 occasion for a perfect orgy of mouthing, 
 gesticulation, and salutation. How they 
 saluted each other, usually with the wrong 
 hand, without head -covering ! And the 
 actors were so keen to convey the military 
 atmosphere that the officers, as often as 
 not, acknowledged a salute before it was 
 given. 
 
 After much consultation, deep breathing 
 exercise, and making of goo-goo eyes, the 
 long-haired rabbit who was in command 
 selected a position for " defence to the 
 death " so obviously unsuitable and suicidal 
 that he should have been hamstrung at 
 once by his round - shouldered gang of 
 supers. But no ! In striking attitudes 
 they waited to be attacked at immense 
 and quite unnecessary disadvantage by the 
 savage horde. Then, amid noise and smoke, 
 the commander endeavoured to atone for 
 
76 THE SENSE OF TOUCH 
 
 the hopeless situation in which he had 
 placed his luckless men by waving his 
 sword and exposing himself to the enemy's 
 bullets. I say " atone," for it would have 
 been the only chance for his detachment 
 if he had been killed, and killed quickly. 
 Well, after some time and many casualties, 
 it occurred to him that it would be as well 
 to do something he should have done at 
 first, and let the nearest friendly force know 
 of his predicament. The diminutive bugler 
 with the clean face and nicely-brushed hair 
 was naturally chosen for this very danger- 
 ous mission, which even a grown man would 
 have had a poor chance of carrying out, 
 and after shaking hands all round, well in 
 the open, the little hero started off with 
 his written message. 
 
 Then followed a prolonged nightmare of 
 crawling through the bush-studded desert. 
 
 Bugler stalked savage foe, and shot 
 several with his revolver. Savage foe 
 stalked bugler and wounded him in both 
 arms and one leg. Finally, after squirm- 
 
THE SENSE OF TOUCH 77 
 
 ing in accentuated and obvious agony for 
 miles, bugler reached the nearest friendly 
 force, staggered up to its commander, 
 thrust his despatch- upon him, and swooned 
 in his arms. Occasion for more saluting, 
 deep breathing, and gesticulation, and much 
 keen gazing through field-glasses notwith- 
 standing the fact that if the beleaguered 
 garrison were in sight the sound of the 
 firing must have been heard long before ! 
 Then a trumpet-call on the harmonium, and 
 away dashed the relief force of mounted 
 men. 
 
 Meanwhile we were given a chance of 
 seeing how badly things had been going 
 with the devoted garrison at bay. It was 
 only when they were at their last gasp 
 and cartridge that the relief reached them. 
 With waving of helmets and cheers from 
 the defenders, the first two men of the 
 relieving force hurled themselves over the 
 
 O 
 
 improvised stockade. You know what they 
 were ? T knew what they must be long 
 before they appeared. And it is hardly 
 
78 THE SENSE OF TOUCH 
 
 necessary to specify to which branches of 
 his Majesty's United Services they be- 
 longed. The sorely-wounded but miracu- 
 lously tough bugler took the stockade in 
 his stride, a very good third. He had 
 apparently recovered sufficiently to gallop 
 all the way back with the rescuers only 
 to faint again, this time in the arms of 
 his own commanding officer. Curtain ! 
 " They all love Jack," an imitation of bag- 
 pipes on the harmonium, and " Rule 
 Britannia " from the combined orchestra. 
 As I say, this effort of realism was re- 
 ceived with great applause, even by the 
 men present. 
 
 As soon as the light went up I had a 
 look at my neighbours. The seats on each 
 side of me were empty, and in the row in 
 front, about a couple of seats to my right, 
 there was one occupant, a young fellow of 
 the type of which one sees only too many 
 in our large towns. He was round-shoul- 
 dered and narrow-chested, and his pale thin 
 face suggested hard work carried out in 
 
THE SENSE OF TOUCH 79 
 
 insanitary surroundings and on unwhole- 
 some food. His expression was precocious, 
 but the loose mouth showed that its owner 
 was far too unintelligent to be more than 
 feebly and unsuccessfully vicious. He wore 
 a yachting cap well on the back of his 
 head, and on it he sported a plush swallow 
 or eagle or some other bird of that viru- 
 lent but non-committal blue which is neither 
 Oxford nor Cambridge. It was Boat-Race 
 week. He was evidently out for pleasure 
 poor devil ! and from his incidental re- 
 marks, which were all of a quasi- sporting 
 nature, I gathered that he was getting it. 
 I felt sorry for him, and sympathised in his 
 entire absorption in the strange scenes pass- 
 ing before his eyes scenes of excitement 
 and adventure far removed from the monot- 
 onous round of his squalid life. How much 
 better an hour of such innocent amuse- 
 ment than time and money wasted in some 
 boozing-ken eh ? 
 
 Well, I'm not quite sure what it means 
 myself some sort of a low drinking-den. 
 
80 THE SENSE OF TOUCH 
 
 But, anyway, that's what T felt about it. 
 After all, he was a harmless sort of chap, 
 and his unsophisticated enjoyment made 
 me envious. I took an interest in him 
 thought of giving him a bob or two when 
 I went out. I want you to realise that I 
 had nothing but kindly feelings towards 
 the fellow. 
 
 Then we had one of those interminable 
 scenes of chase in which a horseman flies 
 for life towards you over endless stretches 
 of plain and down the perspective of long 
 vistas of forests, pursued at a discreet 
 distance by other riders, who follow in his 
 exact tracks, even to avoiding the same 
 tree - stumps, all mounted on a breed of 
 horse which does forty-five miles an hour 
 across country and fifty along the hard 
 high - road. I forget the cause of the 
 pursuit and its ending, but I know re- 
 volvers were used. 
 
 The next film was French, and of the 
 snowball type. A man runs down a street. 
 He is at once chased by two policemen, one 
 
THE SENSE OF TOUCH SI 
 
 long and thin and the other fat and bow- 
 legged, with an obviously false stomach. 
 The followers very rapidly increase in 
 number to a mixed mob of fifty or more, 
 including nurses with children in peram- 
 bulators. They go round many corners, and 
 round every corner there happens to be a 
 carefully arranged obstacle which they all 
 fall over in a kicking heap. I remember 
 that soot and whitewash played an im- 
 portant part, also that the wheels of the 
 passing vehicles went round the wrong 
 way. 
 
 Owing to the interruption of light, was 
 it ? I daresay. Anyway, it was very an- 
 noying. Then we had a bit of the super- 
 natural. I'm afraid I didn't notice what 
 took place, so I'll spare you a description. 
 I was entire] y engrossed with the efforts 
 of the wretched pianist to play tremolo 
 for ten solid minutes. I think it was 
 the ghost melody from " The Corsican 
 Brothers" that she was struggling with, 
 and the harmonium did not help one bit. 
 
 F 
 
82 THE SENSE OF TOUCH 
 
 The execution got slower and slower and 
 more staccato as her hands grew tired, 
 and at the end I am sure she was jab- 
 bing the notes with her aching fingers 
 straight and stiff. Poor girl ! What a 
 life! 
 
 At about this moment, as far as I re- 
 member, a lady came in and took the 
 seat in front of mine. She was a small 
 woman, and was wearing a microscopic 
 bonnet composed of two strings and a 
 sort of crepe muffin. The expression of 
 her face was the most perfect crystallisa- 
 tion of peevishness I've ever seen, and her 
 hair was screwed up into a tight knob 
 about the size and shape of a large snail- 
 shell. Evidently not well off probably a 
 charwoman. I caught a glimpse of her 
 gloves as she loosened her bonnet-strings, 
 and the finger-tips were like the split buds 
 of a black fuchsia just about to bloom. 
 Shortly after she had taken her seat my 
 friend with the Boat-Eace favour suddenly 
 felt hungry, cracked a nut between his 
 
THE SENSE OF TOUCH 83 
 
 teeth, spat out the shell noisily, and ate 
 the kernel with undisguised relish. The 
 lady gathered her mantle round her and 
 sniffed. I was not surprised. The brute 
 continued to crack nuts, eject shells, and 
 chew till he killed all my sympathy for 
 him, till I began to loathe his unhealthy 
 face, and longed for something to strike 
 him dead. This was absolutely the limit, 
 and I should have cleared out had not 
 the words " LIFE-KEPRO " on the hand- 
 bill again caught my eye. After all it 
 must come to that soon, and I determined 
 to sit the thing out. 
 
 After one or two more films of a banal 
 nature there was a special interval called 
 " Intermission " on the screen and signs 
 were not wanting of the approach of the 
 main event of the show. Two of the 
 youths had exchanged their electric torches 
 for trays, and perambulated the gangways 
 with cries of " Chuglit milk chuglit." A 
 third produced a large garden syringe and 
 proceeded to squirt a fine spray into the 
 
84 THE SENSE OF TOUCH 
 
 air. This hung about in a cloud, and 
 made the room smell like a soap factory. 
 
 When the curtain - bell sounded the 
 curtain was not drawn nor were the lights 
 lowered. A man stepped out of the small 
 door and climbed up on to the narrow ledge 
 in front of the screen, which served as a 
 kind of stage or platform, and much to 
 my disgust made obvious preparation to 
 address the audience. He was a bulky 
 fellow, and his apparent solidity was in- 
 creased by the cut of his coat. His square 
 chin added to the sense of power conveyed 
 by his build, while a pair of gold-rimmed 
 spectacles gave him an air of seriousness 
 and wisdom. I at once sized him up as 
 a mountebank, and thought I knew what 
 sort of showman's patter to expect. He 
 did not waste much time before he got 
 busy. Looking slowly all round the room, 
 he fixed my sporting friend with a baleful 
 glare until the latter stopped eating, then 
 cleared his throat and began. 
 
 I think I can repeat most of his dis- 
 
THE SENSE OF TOUCH 85 
 
 course almost word for word it is nearly 
 all printed on the handbill which I have 
 since been studying. I can also give you 
 his pronunciation and accent fairly well, 
 but unluckily I cannot reproduce his man- 
 ner nor his delivery. Just pass me the 
 whisky and the siphon, please before I 
 start. I haven't talked so much since I 
 was ill. That's better. 
 
 Well, this is the gist of what he said : 
 " Ladies and gentlemen, I will not de-tain 
 you vurry long. Before the next item of 
 the programme, I wish, as re-presentative 
 of the pro-ducers, the Stegomeyer P. Fiske 
 Life-Repro Syndicate of N'York City, to 
 make you acquainted, in a few intro- 
 ductory words, with one or two facts. 
 The next series of films that will show 
 are the pro-ductions of the laboratory of 
 that firm, and will I venture to think 
 be something quite noo to you. In fa-act, 
 as they have never until this evening- 
 been exhibited in public, I may say that 
 this pre-sentation is their dress rehearsal. 
 
86 THE SENSE OF TOUCH 
 
 If they were ordinary films there would be 
 no call for me to take up your valuable 
 time, but, ladies and gentlemen, they are 
 most extra-ordinary films, and it is to some 
 special points of their extra -ordinary nature 
 that I shall endeavour to draw your kind 
 attention. 
 
 " In the first place, the pro-ductions of 
 the Life-Repro Syndicate are all scientific 
 and instructive in their character. They 
 are, also, the vurry latest de-velopmerit of 
 colour - photography in its most perfect 
 form, and they pre-sent objects in their 
 true natural colours. As pro-jected in this 
 auditorium I should say, hall this even- 
 ing, the objects shown will be magnified 
 anywheres from six to forty diameters. As 
 far as the optical effect goes, we do claim 
 that our films are su-perior to all others 
 produced up to date, in definition, in 
 chiaroscuro " he took rather a toss over 
 that word "in the values and abso-lute 
 truth of tint, and in entire absence of flicker. 
 I might say that, for smooth running, our 
 
THE SENSE OF TOUCH 87 
 
 pictures bear the same relation to anything 
 you have yet seen that kiimmel trickling 
 from a bottle does to the jet from a soda- 
 fountain, or that a spin in an auto-mobile 
 down your Bornd Street or Nor- th umber- 
 land Avenoo does to a ride in a spider over 
 a corduroy road. So much for what we do 
 for one sense that of sight. Besides that 
 sense, however, we cater, as many inventors 
 have attempted to do, with more or less 
 success, for the sense of hearing. By means 
 of our automatic, self - registering, self-re- 
 cording, synchronic, micro-mega-audiphoriic 
 booster, patented in sixteen different coun- 
 tries, we are able to give you, together 
 with a feast for the eye, an ex-act re- 
 production of the sounds or noises which 
 are appropriate to the ob-ject being viewed. 
 With our equipment the register is perfect, 
 the sound-record synchronises ab-solutely 
 with the picture-record, and there is no 
 race or struggle between the acoustic and 
 optical pre-sentation. 
 
 " There is no accidental noise to distract, 
 
88 THE SENSE OF TOUCH 
 
 for our machines run as silent as a skunk 
 on velvet, while the sound which impinges 
 upon the tympanum is magnified or di- 
 minished in volume and intensity in pre- 
 cisely the same pro-portion as the image 
 pro-jected on to the retina. Thus, if you 
 should see in the picture a mouse about two 
 feet in length that is, magnified about 
 twelve times you will hear the animal 
 squeak a dozen times as loudly as does the 
 actual little ro-dent doing a Marathon be- 
 hind the hard-wood skirting of your best 
 parlour. That is two senses we cater for. 
 But are we content ? No ! We also appeal 
 to a third sense that of smell ! " 
 
 He paused for a moment, as if aware that 
 this statement would produce an effect. 
 There was some movement and whispering 
 amongst the adults of the audience. 
 
 " I mean it, ladies and gentlemen. I am 
 not presooming to be gay with you. I am 
 simply handing out the cold truth ! You 
 will see ; you will hear ; you will smell ! 
 By means of our ' odorator ' also patented 
 
THE SENSE OF TOUCH 89 
 
 in sixteen countries the natural scent ap- 
 pertaining to whatever is on the screen, and 
 appropriately magnified in intensity, will be 
 wafted over you with the pictures. There 
 is no need for any alarm, ladies. There can 
 be no danger of infection, for this is not a 
 case of repro-duction it is a matter of 
 imitation. The real emanations are not 
 caught, canned, and released. They are 
 just cleverly imitated. This is one more 
 triumph, and the latest, achieved by the 
 science of synthetic chemistry. But though 
 I can promise you that the odours you will 
 perceive will be harmless, I cannot guarantee 
 that they will all be pleasant. We must 
 remember that our endeavour is to repro- 
 duce Nature as realistically as possible. 
 Nature, ladies and gentlemen, is marvellous, 
 kyurious, interesting, fascinating, cruel, 
 even brutal, but rarely pleasant." 
 
 He paused again to take a sip of water 
 and polish his spectacles. And the remark- 
 able thing was that the audience, which 
 had not understood one-fifth of what had 
 
90 THE SENSE OF TOUCH 
 
 been said, sat silent, attentive, and expect- 
 ant. By his manner or personal magnetism 
 or whatever you may call it the man 
 had gripped a whole crowd of strange, 
 mostly ill-educated, people. Besides being 
 above the heads of the great majority of 
 his hearers, what he had said might have 
 been spoken by any clever "ad." writer. 
 
 It was the man's personality that did it. 
 Even I felt his influence. Apparently im- 
 passive, he spoke deliberately and very 
 clearly. His nationality was, of course 
 obvious from his first few words, but the 
 twang was almost imperceptible. The 
 curious weighty pauses with which he 
 punctuated his sentences, even his words, 
 only served to add to the impressiveness of 
 his delivery. I am by no means a believer 
 in your " supermen," but as this square- 
 jawed, bull-necked, goggle-eyed fellow stood 
 talking he seemed the embodiment of cold 
 knowledge and brutal strength. I could 
 have imagined him an inquisitor, a vivi- 
 sector. His spectacles were of high magni- 
 
THE SENSE OF TOUCH 91 
 
 fying power, and his eyes, looming huge 
 through them, seemed compelling and 
 malevolent. When the lenses caught and 
 reflected the light in a blaze why, talk of 
 Charcot's revolving mirrors at the Sal- 
 petriere, the effect was hypnotic ! Though 
 a good deal of what he said especially the 
 nonsense about the " odorator " would 
 ordinarily have made me smile, somehow it 
 was not amusement that I then felt. I 
 wanted to hear more to see. 
 
 Even the nut-eater forbore to feed and 
 fidgeted uneasily in his seat. And what 
 could he have understood ? The acid lady 
 kept patting her back hair and muttering, 
 "Well, I never ! What next ?" She could 
 not have expressed my own feelings better 
 if she had tried. The man put his hand- 
 kerchief back into his pocket and spoke 
 again. 
 
 "It is now up to me to prove my words, 
 ladies and gentlemen, and in a moment I 
 hope to do so. But first I wish to explain 
 our title of ' Life-Repro.' As I say, as far 
 
92 THE SENSE OF TOUCH 
 
 as four senses are concerned, we have solved 
 the problem of the repro-duction of life- 
 sight, hearing, smell, and taste ; I include 
 the latter as it is so intimately bound up 
 with smell. But one sense that of touch 
 remains unsatisfied. And now, to leave 
 accomplished facts and enter into the realms 
 of anticipation " his tone now grew more 
 impressive " I wish to state that it is the 
 present aim of the Stegomeyer P. Fiske 
 Syndicate to fill that gap in their appeal to 
 the human intelligence and sensibilities, and 
 to cater for the sense of touch. We have 
 not yet succeeded, and I need hardly remind 
 you of what that stage of per-fection would 
 imply, beyond saying that it will be a case 
 of dealing in three dimensions instead of 
 two. Though we have not got to it, there 
 are now, in a certain laboratory on the 
 island of Man-hattan away on the other 
 side quite a number of the brightest intel- 
 lects of the time working day and night to 
 arrive at a solution. At their service they 
 have all the re-sources of science, and behind 
 
THE SENSE OF TOUCH 93 
 
 them they have the backing of unlimited 
 capital. Millions of dollars are being spent, 
 and millions more are, if necessary, at their 
 disposal. It's a big propo-sition ! 
 
 " No one can ever tell when an epoch- 
 making discovery is going to be made. It 
 is largely a matter of chance. Given the 
 favourable conditions, we may stumble upon 
 it by a lucky accident at any moment." 
 
 As he touched upon finance the man's 
 plump hands slowly fluttered to the level of 
 his shoulders like flat-fish swimming to the 
 surface of the water in a tank. For the 
 moment the spell was broken. He almost 
 seemed to be persuading us to buy some- 
 thing "dirt sheap." He continued, in a 
 more conversational tone : 
 
 " This evening we are only pre-senting 
 one film a study in natural history por- 
 traying a life-and-death combat between 
 two insects a praying mantis and a 
 scorpion. The mantis is not, as might be 
 imagined from its popular name, a benevo- 
 lent animal. It is the most ferocious creature 
 
94 THE SENSE OF TOUCH 
 
 known to science, and might with justice be 
 called the ' Thug ' of the insect world. It 
 scraps for pleasure, and kills from the lust 
 of slaughter. Without any poison-fangs or 
 sting, it slays its victims by crushing them 
 to death with its huge spiked fore-legs. 
 The actual specimen whose actions you will 
 be able to study was obtained from the 
 mahogany forests of Honduras, where these 
 insects reach an immense size. It is a 
 female, which in the case of this insect 
 only, ladies is the more ferocious sex. The 
 particular scorpion with which it fights was 
 caught by A-rabs in the Sokoto Desert. 
 The venom of the scorpion is \vell known to 
 produce the most intense pain in the world. 
 This African variety has, on several authenti- 
 cated occasions, caused the death of human 
 beings. 
 
 " I will not give the show away by telling 
 you now which wins the battle. But I 
 warnt you to observe one peculiarity of 
 both these insects so long as there is no 
 movement to attract their attention they 
 
THE SENSE OF TOUCH 95 
 
 are sluggish and passive ; so soon, however, 
 as one moves, he trips up on a live wire, 
 and gets it in the neck good and plenty. 
 Then, unless he side-steps pretty nimble, 
 it's a cinch for little Eustace ! " 
 
 The speaker's sporting instincts had evi- 
 dently got the better of him his last words 
 were a bit of a relapse ! With a bow he 
 stepped down from the platform and 
 switched off the lights, and the following 
 announcement was at once thrown upon the 
 screen in flame-coloured letters : 
 
 MANTIS RELIGIOSA v. SCORPIO AFER. 
 "A TRAGEDY OF THE WILD. 
 
 " I. Reconnaissance." 
 
 There followed a marvellously-coloured 
 picture of a patch of earth and stones, to 
 the right of which were some dried -up 
 twigs. It was in such bright sunlight that 
 the glare even of this sober-coloured earth 
 was almost dazzling, and the shadows of 
 the twigs cut it with bars of black. The 
 
96 THE SENSE OF TOUCH 
 
 man had said no more than the truth about 
 his " pro-ductions." There was only the 
 most minute quiver to show the movement 
 of the film ; and, in contrast to the previous 
 rattle, the projecting mechanism worked 
 without even a buzz. It really was remark- 
 able. However, for some moments I could 
 not discern the slightest sign of life. Then 
 I did discover among the stones on the left 
 the form of a scorpion. It was very much 
 the tint of its background, and was clinging 
 to the ground with tail stretched out, so 
 flat that there was no shadow to betray its 
 position. On all sides I heard whispers : 
 " I carn't see anything. Where are they ? " 
 " There he is by the stones." " That's the 
 mantis, ain't it?" "No, that's the scorpion." 
 " Well, where is 'afer' then ? " There were 
 also subdued noises of disgust and many 
 little shrieks from the feminine portion of 
 the audience. 
 
 As the remarks grew louder the showman, 
 who was standing by the door on one side 
 of the stage, intervened : 
 
THE SENSE OF TOUCH 97 
 
 " Ladies and gentlemen, please do not 
 talk or make any noise, or you will not be 
 able to hear tbe insects, and a large part of 
 tbe illusion will be lost." 
 
 The whispering ceased ; but there were 
 slight movements and rustlings which I 
 felt were born of horror and repulsion, and 
 I was sure that many of the girls were 
 trying to curl their feet up on to their 
 seats. I sympathised. I loathe creeping 
 things myself. For a little time nothing 
 happened. The scorpion lay quite still, 
 sunning himself amongst the dust and 
 stones, as magnified about nine feet away 
 from the collection of twigs. Suddenly he 
 either moved a leg or wriggled, for I saw 
 a pebble slip and heard it rattle. And 
 at that instant one of the thickest of the 
 twigs flipped away from the rest and 
 appeared about two feet from the scorpion. 
 I say " appeared," because its motion across 
 the intervening space was too quick to 
 follow. At one moment one of the bunch 
 of twigs, the next it was half-standing on 
 
 G 
 
98 THE SENSE OF TOUCH 
 
 end facing the scorpion, with its arms or 
 fore-legs folded in front of it. 
 
 I then appreciated the name of "praying 
 mantis." It was browny -green in colour, 
 and its appearance was so benign, not to 
 say devout, that it was difficult to believe 
 what the lecturer had said about its true 
 character. Indeed, as opposed to its enemy, 
 the mantis actually attracted sympathy ; it 
 suggested a benign, if foolish, temperament. 
 The scorpion, from being passively repul- 
 sive, had changed to an embodiment of 
 venomous malice. It gave the disagreeable 
 impression of a monstrosity or deformity, 
 and yet it was not easy to say exactly to 
 what this was due. Murder was clearly 
 expressed in every line of its body, in the 
 curve of its tail, in the gape of its half- 
 open claws. It was truly horrible, and a 
 child in a front seat wailed out : " Take 
 it away, mummie ; I don't like it." 
 
 I don't know whether it really was so, 
 or whether my imagination was playing 
 
THE SENSE OF TOUCH 99 
 
 me tricks, but at that instant there seemed 
 to be a glimmer of light round the two 
 insects, and they appeared to turn their 
 heads towards the body of the hall. If 
 this really did happen it was over in the 
 fraction of a second ; but I was more 
 startled than I cared to confess to myself, 
 and I rubbed my eyes. I noticed also that 
 a musty smell had now replaced the varie- 
 gated odours in the hall. It was faint, 
 but distinctly unpleasant. When the film 
 ended, a few moments later, with both 
 insects still on the watch, subdued sighs 
 of relief arose from all parts of the hall. 
 The nut-eater murmured "Time," in an 
 effort at jocularity ; but even his tone 
 rang false. One or two sensible women 
 took their children out of the hall. 
 
 Before the announcement of the next 
 scene was given us the showman's voice 
 again rang out : " So far the camera has 
 been at some distance from the insects, 
 and their peculiar odour has not been 
 
100 THE SENSE OF TOUCH 
 
 vurry marked. You will now see the com- 
 batants at much closer range, and will get 
 the full value of th odorator." 
 
 In scene two, which was labelled " Con- 
 tact," the insects had approached quite 
 close and were immensely magnified. I 
 should say at a guess that they were each 
 about six feet long. The mantis was now 
 standing erect on her four thin hind-legs, 
 with the end of her body curled upwards, 
 while her two massive armed fore- legs, 
 serrated, or rather, set with long spikes, 
 were stretched on in front above her head. 
 Though almost ludicrous, she was as terrify- 
 ing as some absurd monster in a nightmare. 
 Her flat, inadequate, triangular head on its 
 long neck was furnished with two large 
 projecting eyes set at the upper corners, 
 and at this close range these dull orbs 
 could be seen to be fixed in a pompous but 
 baleful glare of stupid ferocity. There was 
 more than a hint of the " wolf in sheep's 
 clothing " in their expression. Tremulously 
 waving above were two slender antennae. 
 
THE SENSE OF TOUCH 101 
 
 There was no animal grace in the beast's 
 attitude. It suggested the angular clumsi- 
 ness of a girder or agricultural machinery, 
 or an iron garden seat. 
 
 Not two feet from her face on the 
 picture was the vicious sting of the 
 scorpion poised over his head ready to 
 strike, like a semi-transparent calabash 
 with its stalk pointing forward. He was 
 quivering with rage, and his gigantic 
 lobster claws were wide open. I now saw 
 what it was that gave this beast its air of 
 morbid grotesqueness. It was deformed. 
 Its body did not end in a decent head and 
 face like that of a lobster, as one might 
 have expected ; it ended square at the 
 shoulders, as if it had been sawn off. And 
 all along this sawn-off edge shone eyes- 
 lots of eyes perhaps six or eight no two 
 of which seemed to look in the same direc- 
 tion. This manifold and compound squint 
 was painful, and made my aching eyes 
 water in sympathy. A feeling of nausea 
 crept over me, increased by the stench 
 
102 THE SENSE OF TOUCH 
 
 which now pervaded the air. I can't tell 
 you what it was like. It suggested cock- 
 roaches, a hyena's cage, and oil gas. What 
 with the smell and the heat, I really began 
 to feel quite faint and drowsy. 
 
 So far there had been no movement 
 between the combatants, and there had 
 been no sound except the ejaculations of 
 the hypnotised and semi - asphyxiated 
 crowd. 
 
 Suddenly the scorpion made a jump, 
 seized one hind-leg of its enemy with its 
 claw, and darted its sting forward. With 
 the quickness of thought the mantis dodged 
 and brought its two thighs together in an 
 endeavour to catch its enemy. But it was 
 too late ; the scorpion had backed just out 
 of reach. As the feet of the beasts 
 scrambled amongst the stones about the 
 size of my head it sounded like men 
 scuffling on a beach of large pebbles. 
 
 Disagreeable as the spectacle was, it was 
 certainly exciting, and I could not take my 
 eyes off the monstrous brutes. They again 
 
THE SENSE OF TOUCH 103 
 
 stood watching. They were still for so long 
 that I was wondering if they had gone to 
 sleep, when I noticed from the absence of 
 any tremor in the picture that the film was 
 not moving. I then heard at the back of 
 the hall the tapping of some tool upon 
 metal, and came to the conclusion that 
 one of the spools must have stuck or that 
 something had gone wrong with the pro- 
 jecting mechanism. But it seemed to me 
 somehow that though the film itself was 
 stationary, there was a curious sparkling 
 efflorescence about the outline of the insects. 
 Perhaps the atmosphere was affecting me. 
 The audience got a bit restive, and began 
 to whisper and fidget. The nut -eater 
 ejaculated, " Time, Archibald ! Blow the 
 whistle, ref ! " and started to eat nuts 
 again. A child in the front cried. Whether 
 it was the same infant that had protested 
 before I don't know. But the woman with 
 it began to dance it up and down. 
 
 Then it happened ! 
 
 The sparkle round the outline of the 
 
104 THE SENSE OF TOUCH 
 
 monsters in the picture changed all at once 
 to a definite prismatic halo, and with a 
 crackling noise each insect deliberately 
 turned its 'head towards the woman and 
 child. Then, before you could have whistled, 
 they were out of the picture, scrambling 
 over the little well where the orchestra had 
 previously been playing. I heard horny 
 feet scratching over the polished top of the 
 piano, and a great discordant arpeggio 
 struck on the bass notes. It was all so 
 quick that I'm not sure in what order 
 things occurred. A sort of collective groan 
 arose from the audience, but, paralysed by 
 the suddenness of the thing, no one moved. 
 The beasts clambered over the partition, 
 and while the mantis darted up the gang- 
 way to the back of the room, the scorpion 
 pounced on the woman with the baby. In 
 the dark I could not see what it did, but 
 shrieks of mortal agony at once drowned 
 the feeble cries of the child. A panic then 
 began, and every one got up. It was a 
 hopeless situation, for the mantis was near 
 
THE SENSE OF TOUCH 105 
 
 one entrance and the scorpion guarded the 
 other. I could just see the beast seize on 
 some one in the front row who had shrunk 
 back from it, and then there were more 
 horrible screams. I don't know what would 
 have happened in the dark, but at that 
 instant there was a shout from the Ameri- 
 can, who at any rate was a brave man : 
 
 " My God ! It's happened. Sit still. 
 It's your only chance." 
 
 He then moved to a switch close by and 
 turned on the lights. In doing so he 
 caught the eye of the scorpion, who made 
 a dart for him. He just had time to rush 
 into the little doorway near the stage and 
 bang the door in the face of the beast. Its 
 great claw missed him by six inches, sheared 
 off the brass door-handle, crushed it like 
 lead -foil. It then turned and faced the 
 room, waiting for some one else to move. 
 By this time the screams of the woman and 
 baby and of the other victim had died 
 away, and they already lay rigid. When 
 you think of it, the speed with which the 
 
106 THE SENSE OF TOUCH 
 
 poison had acted is not so wonderful after 
 all. I daresay half a pint of venom had 
 been injected into the veins of each person. 
 The rest of us had had our lesson, and we 
 sat motionless, silent, hardly daring to 
 breathe. What the mantis was doing 
 behind I don't know. I dursen't look. 
 
 Well, this awful suspense seemed to last 
 for a long time. Two more people women 
 got hysterical from the strain. They 
 tittered, moved, attracted attention, were 
 at once seized and stung, and died in con- 
 vulsions in the full glare of the electric 
 light before our very eyes. Occasional 
 cries from the upper end of the hall showed 
 that the mantis was not idle. I wondered 
 how long this horrible one-sided stalemate 
 would continue. Would the creatures be 
 drawn back on to the screen if the film 
 started moving again ? I heard no more of 
 the hammering noise up by the projector, 
 but I prayed that the mechanism might be 
 repaired speedily. I also prayed that the 
 American had gone out to fetch assistance, 
 
THE SENSE OF TOUCH 10*7 
 
 and would shortly return with police, 
 armed men, or even the fire-brigade. And 
 I wondered if the pressure of water at the 
 average hydrant was enough to cope with 
 these monsters. 
 
 Then the nut-eater met his doom. Like 
 the rest of us he had sat still and silent, 
 breathing hard ; he had not even eaten the 
 nut which he had started to convey to his 
 mouth. But the poor devil was hoist by 
 his own petard, for he put one of his feet 
 on a nutshell. It was enough ; the scorpion 
 was on to him like a tiger. The way that 
 the youth met the crisis of his life was 
 pitiable. He made no rational resistance. 
 He did not accept his fate in dignified 
 silence, nor did he mark the special occa- 
 sion with any exclamation of despair. He 
 simply put his hands over his head like a 
 small boy about to be cuffed, and, ineffec- 
 tive to the end, whined out to this pitiless 
 armoured monster : " 'Old 'ard ! 'Ere, 'old 
 'ard ! " 
 
 The scorpion gripped his arms with its 
 
108 THE SENSE OF TOUCH 
 
 claws and stung him on the right side of 
 the neck near the jugular vein. I saw 
 the curved sting enter the flesh just above 
 the silk neckerchief, and then come out 
 all covered with blood. The youth shrieked 
 with pain and writhed ; his neck swelled, 
 became bloated and shining ; his attitude 
 stiffened, and his head dropped forward. 
 
 The poor little drab lady must have 
 subsided on to the floor some time before 
 this. There was no sign of her above the 
 back of her chair ; and I was the next 
 person to the scorpion, who still hung on 
 to the body of the nut -eater and rolled 
 his eyes successively round the room. 
 Faint and sick as I felt, a desire for 
 revenge seized me and overcame all other 
 sensations. I noticed something like a 
 pointed mahogany table-leg between the 
 red plush "flap-up" of the seat just in 
 front of me and its back. It was one of 
 the brute's legs ! An inspiration struck 
 me. By sacrificing myself I might save 
 perhaps half the roomful of women and 
 
THE SENSE OF TOUCH 109 
 
 children, since the mantis alone could not 
 guard two doors. If I did nothing we 
 should all be killed in turn I being 
 the first. 
 
 Summoning all my strength, I braced 
 myself in my seat, planted my foot firmly 
 against the scorpion's leg, and pressed it 
 with all my force against the edge of the 
 seat. I felt the smooth, shining leg sink 
 into the plush, and for one dreadful instant 
 thought that I hadn't got a grip that it 
 was going to slip. Thank Heaven, I was 
 wearing my golfing brogues with nails ! 
 The leg moved round slightly beneath my 
 foot, then I felt it grate against the nails, 
 which bit into the flesh, or horn, or what- 
 ever it was. I was holding it ! I then 
 yelled out : "All get out of the front door 
 -quick ! " 
 
 I heard a sort of scrimmage round me. 
 I imagine that the people in front were 
 trying to escape before the mantis could 
 reach them ; but I don't really know what 
 did happen. I was fully employed with 
 
110 THE SENSE OF TOUCH 
 
 my own affairs. Wrenching and tugging at 
 its leg, the scorpion sprawled over the body 
 of the dead youth ard seized my left arm 
 in one claw. It was painful, but all my 
 thoughts and energy were so concentrated 
 on keeping up the pressure of my leg that 
 I did not much notice it. As the brute 
 stretched forward it tried to reach me with 
 its sting. Not being able to do so, it made 
 immense efforts to pull me closer ; but, 
 luckily, I had my left arm twined round 
 the arm of the seat. The strain was awful, 
 and the perspiration poured down my fore- 
 head, for I was in rank bad condition. As 
 we struggled my one prayer was that my 
 foot would not slip ; that the scorpion's 
 leg would not tear or be pulled out of its 
 socket ; that the seat would not break. 
 
 In front, and quite close to me, was the 
 unspeakable apology for a head, and the 
 beast's breath foul as an alligator's came 
 into my face in hot, fetid puffs. But it 
 was the sting which fascinated me. Like 
 a gigantic yellow pear - drop it quivered 
 
THE SENSE OF TOUCH 111 
 
 not a foot from my neck, its point dripping 
 venom and smeared with blood for at least 
 three inches. And in the central duct I 
 could see the poison as plain as the nico- 
 tine in the amber mouthpiece of this pipe. 
 As the beast made efforts to reach me I 
 felt it strain, and saw the venom in its 
 sting pulsate up and down like water 
 dancing in a gauge-glass. My right arm 
 being free, I lunged at its squinting eyes 
 with my umbrella. I think I must have 
 put out two or three. At any rate I broke 
 the creature's shell. It smashed like a 
 crab's, and a horrid, creamy substance 
 oozed out. As I worked the umbrella 
 about to enlarge the wound, the beast 
 seemed to feel the pain. It groaned, 
 quivered all over, tightened its grip on 
 my left arm, and got its sting to within 
 six inches of my throat. It crushed my 
 arm till I almost screamed. 
 
 " Come on, mister ! What's the game ? 
 We carn't 'ave this row 'ere." 
 
112 THE SENSE OF TOUCH 
 
 One of the attendants was shaking me 
 
 o 
 
 by the arm ; the lights were up ; the 
 piano and harmonium were having the 
 usual ding-dong race; and there was no 
 scorpion ! I rubbed my eyes. The peevish 
 lady, now hatless, was regarding me over 
 her shoulder with considerable disfavour. 
 
 " / dunno what the gentleman wants, 
 I'm shewer. I took me bonnet orf the 
 first time 'e kicked me not that me 
 
 matinee 'at could 'ave done 'im much 
 
 > 
 arm. 
 
 " Where has it gone ? I mean, what's 
 the matter ? " I gasped. 
 
 "W'y, you've been asleep for the last 
 ten minutes, and 'ave been carryin' on a 
 fair treat. Won't do, yer know not in 
 this 'all." 
 
 Perspiring, dazed, and trembling, I put 
 my hand to my pocket to get out my 
 watch. 
 
 It had gone. 
 
 So had the nut-eater ! 
 
SOME BOCKETS, "MOTHER," AND 
 PRIVATE RILEY 
 
 "... OLIM MEMINISSE JUVABIT" 
 
 I. 
 
 "The sun went down, nor ceased the carnage there ; 
 Tumultuous Murder shook the midnight air." 
 
 THOMAS CAMPBELL. 
 
 " CHUCK IT. It's no use. Lum'me if I 
 can count the pips or even tell a Jack 
 from 'is Majesty by this light, let alone 
 spot old Mossy Face from the ace-piece 
 which you spilled your corfy over in Bloom- 
 fontyne. The one o' diamonds wasn't it ? " 
 " Ace o' hearts, old son ! Sweethearts 
 what you and me haven't got any use for 
 now," replied the dealer, who was holding 
 a very dog's-eared pack of cards. " It's a 
 potted meat sort of life this. No gals, no 
 IT 
 
114 SOME ROCKETS, "MOTHER," 
 
 'lectric light not even a bloomin' dip and 
 no enemy ; only rumours. Might as well 
 be in one of them new submarines. Yes, I 
 s'pose we must turn down our gamble and, 
 if the Bojers don't turn up, turn into our 
 flea-bags ! That makes three and seven 
 you owes me, old pal. It'll be a dollar 
 soon." The speaker got up, stretched, and 
 carefully stowed away the " book" of cards 
 on the sill of one of the little windows of 
 the room through which the glow of the 
 sunset still streamed feebly. He looked 
 out. 
 
 " They don't get any ruddy sunsets like 
 that in a submarine, though. It's a fair 
 treat." Then peeping through another 
 orifice he added wistfully, " My ! Don't 
 them little white cups on the telegraph- 
 posts remind me of the lamps down Oxford 
 Street ? Something sickenin'." He turned 
 round to the five others in the room. One 
 yawned in reply. 
 
 The men were in a small one-roomed hut 
 or rabbit-hutch. It was octagonal in shape 
 with a pointed roof, and had two diminu- 
 
AND PRIVATE RTLEY 115 
 
 tive windows at about breast -height from 
 the floor in seven of its eight walls. The 
 walls, each about three feet long, were com- 
 posed of a double skin of naked, uncompro- 
 mising corrugated iron. The intervening 
 space was filled with no brick or stone wall, 
 woodwork or concrete. It contained com- 
 mon, loose shingle, such as might have been 
 gathered on most beaches in England. 
 There were even holes left in the iron skin 
 through which more shingle could be un- 
 romantically tipped in as the old stuff was 
 shaken down by the vibration of passing 
 trains, or by bullets. Though easily stopped 
 by a few inches thickness of small stones, 
 bullets cause considerable displacement 
 amongst them. And these walls would 
 possibly be a target for many such missiles, 
 for the little hut nestling in the centre of a 
 spider's web of barbed wire, and ringed 
 round by a deep outer trench, was a tin 
 blockhouse on the Jakhal's Vlei-Bosjeman's 
 Kraal section of the main line of the rail- 
 way. Its number No. 342J was its 
 official designation, and showed its distance 
 
116 SOME ROCKETS, "MOTHER," 
 
 in miles from the coast ; while the legend 
 " SAVELOY HOTEL " chalked underneath 
 was a guarantee of the nature of the ac- 
 commodation provided. 
 
 The diminutive windows were loopholes. 
 There were thus fourteen loopholes for seven 
 rifles including the sergeant. 
 
 Just past the blockhouse, almost due 
 north and south ran the railway, also en- 
 closed in barbed wire. The rails vanished 
 in a point on the straight towards the 
 north, and in the other direction curved 
 round till they were lost behind a slight 
 rise. Except in the immediate vicinity of 
 "No. 3421" the only sign of life in the 
 dreary landscape was the squat grey ex- 
 crescence on this hill three-quarters of a 
 mile away No. 34 If blockhouse. Every- 
 where else the grey veld and blue hills 
 melted into the pink and pearly sky. The 
 sun had just set in fact, the contracting 
 metals were still clicking in the chill, and 
 there was just enough light to show up the 
 utter desolation of the landscape. In one 
 way the presence of a railway lessened the 
 
AND PRIVATE RILEY 117 
 
 sense of loneliness conveyed by the scene : 
 it certainly was a connecting link with such 
 hubs of civilisation and centres of move- 
 ment as the entrenched camps at Bosje- 
 man's Kraal and Jakhal's Vlei. On the 
 other hand, these gleaming ribbons of steel, 
 which ran so far away in either direction, 
 seemed to desert the little tin hutch left 
 behind in the waste to accentuate its 
 solitude. 
 
 Now halting to peer through field-glasses 
 into the rapidly growing dusk, now con- 
 tinuing his prowl round the trench, was the 
 sentry. He did not march on his beat with 
 the smartness demanded in barrack life, 
 but there was no listlessness about his 
 movements or in his scrutiny of the fading 
 landscape. He was obviously on the qui 
 vive, as was the dirty, long-haired mongrel 
 which, walking on the parapet of the 
 trench, followed him round and stood at 
 gaze when he did. 
 
 Close by, insolently conspicuous and un- 
 naturally still, was the dummy sentry. 
 Countenanced by authority in order to 
 
118 SOME ROCKETS, "MOTHER," 
 
 draw the bullet of the lurking sniper, it was 
 in reality more efficient as a collector of fuel. 
 Only twenty yards from the rails, its very 
 attitude was so suggestive of Aunt Sally 
 that no self-respecting railway fireman, see- 
 ing the notice that was erected whenever a 
 train approached, could resist wasting good 
 Witbank coal. The notice consisted of a 
 loose sheet of corrugated iron, on which 
 was hand-printed large in chalk, " BOWL 
 UP FOK THE MILKY ONES." 
 
 The man who lusted after the flesh-pots 
 of the West End sat down amongst his 
 unresponsive comrades with a grunt, mut- 
 tering "Submarine! Submarine in a pot of 
 blooming ink. They've got the 'lectric 
 light." 
 
 " Talking of submarines," replied the 
 student of the party, " reminds me of a bit 
 I saw in the paper they chucked out of the 
 mail this morning." 
 
 " Yes ! We none of us seen that paper, 
 only you. What'ch you done with it, 
 Charlie ? Ate it 1 " 
 
AND PRIVATE RILEY 119 
 
 " Never finished reading it myself. I 
 'appened to lay it down a moment, to light 
 a fag, and a dust devil come along all of a 
 sudden and blew it away." 
 
 " Didn't you weight it down, fathead ? " 
 
 " So I did with an empty milk tin. But 
 the blighted wind rolled the tin off and 
 pinched me noospaper. It got caught up 
 in the entanglement for 'arf a mo'; and just 
 when I climbed up to it, it tore in bits and 
 sailed across the veld ; and there were two 
 murders I had not so much as run me eye 
 over. Ripped me pants, too, in that 
 blarsted entanglement. Strange thing 'ow 
 difficult it is to get through them barbs 
 without " 
 
 " Oh, chuck the barbs. We know all 
 about them. Wot about the submarines? 
 I've 'eard that they're experimenting with 
 them. Nasty things ! I wouldn't stop on 
 one for a lot." 
 
 " Well, it said that they kep' white mice 
 aboard of 'em." 
 
 " White rats ! " was the obvious chorus. 
 
120 SOME ROCKETS, "MOTHER," 
 
 " Wot they want to keep white mice or 
 any mice aboard for ? " added the knowing 
 man of the party, one Riley. "That 
 reporter must a' seen you coming." 
 
 Private Albert Riley, otherwise known 
 as the "Pull-through" on account of his 
 thick red hair, was not a popular character. 
 He had one good point he could shoot 
 well. But he never let any one forget the 
 fact, and he made the great but very com- 
 mon mistake of assuming that because he 
 was blessed with a straight eye he was 
 therefore a fine fellow all round. Besides 
 posing as a sportsman much abused word 
 he considered himself to be what would 
 nowadays be termed the " nut " of his 
 company, if not of his battalion. This con- 
 viction found outwarol expression in always 
 laying down the law in an unpleasant 
 manner, in wearing his cap on the back of 
 his head and his hair as long as he dared, 
 and in usually having a half-burnt and 
 unlighted cigarette hanging from his lip. 
 
 " I dunno about that. It's the truth I'm 
 
AND PRIVATE RILEY 121 
 
 telling you, leastwise there it was in print. 
 The little stinkers 'ave a 'oly 'orror of that 
 stuff they carry aboard, which is always 
 leakiri' and causin' them explosions." 
 
 " Wot do the mice do with it ? Mop it 
 up ? " 
 
 " Not so much of it, Pull-through. When 
 this stuff leaks it lies low, bein' 'eavy. The 
 mice get it in the neck first and squeak or 
 die, or something of that, and this gives 
 the office to the crew. They're kep' on 
 the floor of a purpose to smell the stuff 
 gaserlin, I think they call it." 
 
 " Tell us another. Vaserline ain't dan- 
 gerous. Why, that's wot Pull - through 
 always puts on 'is 'air when he walks 
 out." 
 
 Riley bridled in the gloom and compla- 
 cently stroked the "quiff" of red hair jut- 
 ting over one eye. This still survived 
 the assaults of the horse - clippers, and 
 stood out rebellious and wild for lack of 
 unguent, having quite lost its old cow- 
 licked appearance. 
 
122 SOME ROCKETS, "MOTHER, 
 
 " 'Oo said vaserline. I said gaserline. 
 That's the word I used." 
 
 "Well, wot is gaserline anyway?" 
 
 " It's the stuff they drives the engine 
 with same as petrol, what they 'ave to 
 drive them motor-cars which the Frenchies 
 use now instead of the gelatine to kill 
 people with." 
 
 " You set there and mean to tell us that 
 they keeps mice runnin' all over the floor ! 
 They must start a voyage with a tidy 
 magazine full o' mice. Why, the crew 
 would be sliding about on 'em, and the 
 casualty list 'ud be sickenin'. Next, 
 please." 
 
 " You're too sharp, old son. I never 
 said they was loose. They're kep' in a 
 cage." 
 
 " So are we ! All I know is, that I 
 wish we had one or two mice in with 
 us. I'm not partial to a mouse myself, 
 but we might tame the little blighter." 
 
 " 'E wouldn't 'ave 'arf a chance. Smuttie 
 would skoff 'im straight off." 
 
AND PRIVATE RILEY 123 
 
 " Smuts," also known as " The Com- 
 mandant," was the detachment hound now 
 with the sentry, which had been picked up 
 somehow and somewhere, named after a 
 prominent foe, and kept as a watch-dog. 
 To sharpen his wits at night he was fed 
 only in the morning. 
 
 " Not 'im. The Commandant ain't a 
 sporting breed. A mutton chop's about 
 the only thing 'e'd put up a round with." 
 
 " I dunno so much about that. I 
 wouldn't trust 'im with a mouse as I 
 loved." 
 
 " Anyway, a little rattin' or a match 
 for a purse and a belt between the tripe- 
 'ound and a white mouse would liven us 
 up a bit. A pity that we 'aven't got 
 the Puddler and Jimmie still." 
 
 " The Puddler," a pasty and neurotic 
 specimen of the genus Scorpio, and 
 " Jimmie Nappy," one of a sort of poor 
 relation to the tarantula, both now de- 
 funct, had formerly afforded some of the 
 sportsmen of the company considerable 
 
124 SOME ROCKETS, "MOTHER," 
 
 amusement. They had been matched 
 daily for small wagers in a catch-as-catch- 
 can, knock-down and drag-out fight, and 
 had finally succumbed either to injuries 
 received in action, the aromatic atmos- 
 phere of their lodgings cigarette tins, 
 or to a diet of bully-beef. The present 
 locality of the detachment did not fur- 
 nish further specimens. 
 
 " Yes. D'you remember that Sunday 
 mornin' when Jimmie got a 'alf-Nelson 
 on the Puddler, and old Puddler 'ooked 
 him twice on the j - ? " 
 
 " It was a foul ! A blooming foul under 
 any rules yer like Queensberry, Cumber- 
 land, or 
 
 The discussion was cut short by the 
 dead rattle of a cracked telephone bell. 
 The sergeant jumped up to answer. He 
 was a bad man at the end of a telephone, 
 which was an instrument he did not under- 
 stand. But in a blockhouse a " non-com." 
 has not many privileges. To operate the 
 telephone was one, and the sergeant re- 
 
AND PRIVATE RILEY 125 
 
 sented the superior knowledge of any one 
 else. After a short conversation, consist- 
 ing mostly of " Whats," he repeated the 
 word "Four" several times in an un- 
 necessarily loud tone crescendo, till he 
 was shouting. 
 
 " What's that, Sergeant ? " was the 
 query from his command. 
 
 " Oh, it's only some fool at the other 
 end worriting about how many boxes of 
 ammunition we've got. What's the sense 
 of asking now ? They couldn't send out 
 more if we hadn't a round between us. 
 I said ' Four ' as plain as a man could 
 speak. He keeps saying ' What,' and 
 then tells me not to shout or I'll fuse 
 the wire ! I know 'is voice. It's that 
 lance - Jack of the Engineers. He gets 
 too big for 'is boots by a darned sight at 
 the fur end of a wire. I'll settle him 
 when we get back to headquarters. Wor- 
 riting now ! Why, if we're for it to-night, 
 we're for it, ammunition or no ammuni- 
 tion ! " He continued muttering for some 
 
126 SOME ROCKETS, "MOTHER," 
 
 time, then, looking at his watch, remem- 
 bered that there were duties to be per- 
 formed. " It's about dark now. Put up 
 the fireworks, 'Arris. Whybrow, load the 
 poopers." 
 
 One of the many instructions contained 
 in the hektographed sheet of " Orders for 
 Blockhouses " pasted on to a board, hang- 
 ing up on the wall, was one concerning 
 rockets, those invaluable alternatives to 
 the telephone invaluable because they 
 could not be cut by an enemy. This order 
 was to the effect that all rockets must be 
 placed ready for firing before dusk a 
 wise regulation, for both light and calm- 
 ness were needed to do this properly. Two 
 rockets had to be placed in the wire loops 
 outside the wall near the roof. They could 
 be put in position and ignited through a 
 small window in the corrugated iron above 
 the heads of the garrison, which also served 
 for lamp-signalling to the next blockhouse. 
 
 The code of signals was not complicated. 
 One rocket signified that the enemy were 
 
AND PRIVATE RILEY 127 
 
 present and were being engaged. Two 
 were a request for help, or, in the cheerful 
 language of our abandoned soldiery, the 
 call for " Mother to come quick." On all 
 railway blockhouse lines " Mother " was 
 an armoured train. 
 
 The " poopers " were a small battery of 
 spring guns firing along the railway fence. 
 They were connected to a continuous wire 
 running from one blockhouse to the next, 
 and were loaded every evening so soon 
 as the sun had set long enough for the 
 wire to have ceased contracting. 
 
 While Harris, standing on the end of a 
 packing-case, was endeavouring to carry out 
 orders, the sergeant went outside to con- 
 sult with the sentry, and conversation died 
 away. This preparation for the worst, or 
 best, again reminded the detachment that 
 there might at last be "something doing" 
 after many weeks of weary waiting, and 
 every man was absorbed in thought. The 
 temporary silence was only broken by the 
 whispered conversation outside, and the 
 
128 SOME ROCKETS, "MOTHER," 
 
 dreary hum of the telegraph wires in the 
 breeze. 
 
 It was a curious existence that the 
 thousands of men garrisoning the block- 
 house lines were leading. Though the 
 sedentary life was at first a relief and a 
 rest after the futile foot -slogging against a 
 mounted enemy, yet it was, in the words of 
 the gambler, a potted-meat sort of life, 
 morally and physically. Tied to one spot 
 for weeks, sometimes for months, the men 
 got to know by sight every stick and 
 stone within their range of vision, and 
 when they were situated on the veld, every 
 crease and wrinkle in the vast circle of 
 horizon of which they were the centre. 
 For those who happened to be dumped 
 down on guard in some desolate spot in 
 the hill country the outlook was in many 
 cases more circumscribed but not more 
 cheerful. The monotony of things was 
 deadening, and in this respect the detach- 
 ments might have been ancient mariners 
 divided up into squads. Every day the 
 
AND PRIVATE RILEY 129 
 
 same sun popped up the same side, blazed 
 across the sky and sank 011 the opposite 
 side. In the words of the poet of the veld, 
 theirs it was " To sit and wait and 
 
 watch the cloud ships roll : 
 
 The detachments along the railway, how- 
 ever, were certainly better off than those 
 which stretched away across the veld into 
 the distance. Besides enjoying the daily 
 visit of the officer and the occasional call 
 of the ration convoy or train common to 
 all blockhouses that were not forgotten 
 which stopped just long enough to fill up 
 water-tanks, these men were lucky in the 
 propinquity of the traffic along the main 
 arteries of communication. Frequent trains 
 of supplies going north, and of empties 
 coming south, and long troop specials 
 crowded with horses and khaki-clad men 
 of known and unknown units, passed by 
 them. It is true that very few stopped, 
 but they were links with the world beyond ; 
 and during daylight there was always time 
 for the ready chaff or the readier lump of 
 
130 SOME ROCKETS, ''MOTHER," 
 
 coal. The event of the day was the pass- 
 age of the mail train laden with passengers, 
 amongst whom were many returning re- 
 fugees for the "Reef City." Dubbed by 
 scoffers " The Flying Semite," partly be- 
 cause of its fierce average speed of eighteen 
 miles an hour, partly on account of the 
 luxuriousness of its real passenger coaches, 
 and largely on account of the supposed race 
 of those occupying them, the mail train 
 was a genuine godsend to the sojourners 
 by the railway side. Like the tattered 
 Arab children who, with palms outstretched 
 for baksheesh towards . the passing vessel, 
 line the banks of the Suez Canal, did the 
 soldiers, often in somewhat similar garb, 
 collect along the permanent way when the 
 whistle of the Semite was heard and beg 
 pathetically for literature or newspapers. 
 And not often did they plead in vain. A 
 tightly-folded white parcel would shoot out 
 of a window, open in its flight, and flutter 
 down outspread a newspaper, a feast of 
 wit and wisdom, truth and fiction, which 
 
AND PRIVATE RILEY 131 
 
 would be read from leader to " ad," dis- 
 cussed till it was in rags, and then carefully 
 folded up either to exchange with the next 
 detachment when the officer came his 
 rounds, or furtively to cork up a loophole 
 on the windward side of the blockhouse. 
 
 By these presents were our men kept in 
 touch with home ; and they were com- 
 forted, far away in their little tin and wire 
 lairs under the Southern Cross, by the feel- 
 ing that they were remembered, and that 
 the Old Country was ringing with their 
 deeds. If there was not much in the daily 
 journals directly about their war, there was 
 a good deal about cognate matters, such as 
 the effect of the new googlie service in 
 mixed ping-pong or the dastardly attempt 
 being made by foreigners to introduce un- 
 fair and weird implements into the Royal 
 and Ancient game. Both golf and ping- 
 pong, however, being sports, are of course a 
 sort of war. Our soldiery could also ascer- 
 tain who were the latest arrivals " in 
 town," and were able to read whom pre- 
 
132 SOME ROCKETS. "MOTHER," 
 
 cisely Lady Algie Bulgie was cheering when 
 she was seen looking " cheery " in Bond 
 Street. All of this showed that they had 
 not been forgotten. Besides, there was 
 always the police intelligence. 
 
 But behind this surface excitement lay 
 the sensation of being permanently on 
 guard. Though the acuteness of this feel- 
 ing very soon wore off when days and 
 nights passed and nothing happened, it 
 was always latent, in the background, and 
 told on temper and nerves. One result of 
 this was the many attacks of "jumps" and 
 the frequent paroxysms of shooting that 
 took place after dark. These again, like 
 the cry of " wolf" repeated too often, led 
 to apathy, to the fact that the sound of 
 distant firing at night was generally as- 
 sumed to be the sign of a false alarm until 
 it was proved to the contrary. The tension 
 manifested itself in various ways. There 
 was " skyline " fever, which was specially 
 strong in kopje country, and led to many 
 aberrations, one of which was the historic 
 
AND PRIVATE RILEY 133 
 
 order that men on picquet duty were 
 " strictly forbidden to strike matches on 
 the skyline." Physically, also, the life 
 told. The diet was monotonous ; the 
 water, perforce stored out of bullet's reach 
 in iron tanks under the floor and boiled as 
 required, became flat and unprofitable ; 
 and the lack of exercise and the stuffiness 
 of the sleeping quarters led to staleness. 
 Windows were numerous, but they were 
 small and high up, and gales which were 
 strong enough to raise earache-producing 
 draughts at breast-height did not disturb 
 the air near floor-level. And by one of the 
 most stringent commandments in the block- 
 house decalogue the sentry was the only 
 man allowed to be outside at night. As 
 succinctly expressed in another official 
 command possibly framed by the master 
 of the art of saying exactly what is meant 
 already quoted, no man of a detachment 
 was to sleep outside the blockhouse " except 
 the sentry on duty." 
 
 There was not much variety in the 
 
134 SOME ROCKETS, "MOTHER," 
 
 fauna of that portion of South Africa 
 where the war raged, and so little animal 
 life was usually visible that the move- 
 ments of any beast that did appear were 
 studied with interest. The occasional ant- 
 Kear, and the frequent aasvogel wheeling 
 lazily in the blue sky, were acquaintances 
 the latter an unwelcome one. But the 
 little meerkats, which popped up out of 
 their holes and begged, the conies, and 
 the graceful fork-tailed zakka bulus whist- 
 ling and tumbling head over heels as they 
 flew, became old friends. Thomas Atkins, 
 always a lover of animals, during the 
 South African War became a student of 
 wild life and tried to make a pet of every 
 beast that " rolled up," from ostriches to 
 spiders. For his comfort it was lucky that 
 musk-rats, civet-cats, and skunks were not 
 indigenous to the sub-continent. 
 
 He, Atkins, is also a philosopher who, 
 behind a deceptive mask of grousing, 
 really makes the best of things more 
 successfully than most men. Amongst 
 
AND PRIVATE RILEY 135 
 
 any band of soldiers, however small, there 
 are usually one or two who have sufficient 
 of that saving sense of humour to extract 
 comfort from the most unpromising cir- 
 cumstances. Often, very often, has the 
 gloom of some desperately serious situation 
 been relieved by the caustic commentary 
 or apt remark jerked out between passing 
 bullets from behind one boulder to another. 
 If our men were to lose this asset, for it 
 is a great asset, the outlook for our small 
 battalions would indeed be dark. 
 
 Thus, though the irresponsible conver- 
 sation of the members of the garrison of 
 " No. 342|- " gave no signs of the fact, 
 this evening was likely to be an epoch in 
 their monotonous existence. Arid they 
 knew it. A small but important organised 
 drive was near its culmination. A specially 
 pernicious commando, which had been 
 definitely located in the angle of country 
 enclosed between the two convergent lines 
 of the railway running up from Bosjeman's 
 Kraal to Jakhal's Vlei on the east and 
 
136 SOME ROCKETS, "MOTHER," 
 
 the river on the west, was gradually being 
 driven into the apex of the angle where 
 the railway met and crossed the river. 
 At this spot was Jakhal's Vlei the 
 metropolis of these parts. Both boundaries 
 of this enclosed area were strongly guarded 
 in order to prevent the enemy breaking 
 out of the net. Every drift or possible 
 crossing-place on the river was defended 
 and held in force, while a chain of block- 
 houses connected by barbed wire stretched 
 right along the railway, up and down 
 which cruised armoured trains. The quarry 
 had beyond doubt been marked down in 
 the area, the driving force was large and 
 well organised, and the boundaries of the 
 net were strong. Everything depended 
 on the vigilance of the lines of posts and 
 blockhouses in observing and preventing 
 any effort to cross on the part of the 
 enemy until the driving force closed with 
 them. Hopes of success on this occasion 
 were all the keener on account of previous 
 failures, and woe to any detachment that 
 
AND PRIVATE RILEY 137 
 
 made a mistake and so allowed the com- 
 mando to break away. The drive had 
 now been going on for three days, and 
 if any efforts to break out were going to 
 be made they must be made during this 
 night. Everything was ready ; no more 
 could be done ; and on the lines the oper- 
 ation had been discussed till the men were 
 tired of talking of it ; but there was much 
 determination and some anxiety. " No. 
 342|r" was near the apex^ the end of the 
 drive and as the days passed and the 
 beaters got farther north without news 
 being received of the capture of the prey, 
 or of its escape, the tension increased. No 
 chances were going to be taken, and any 
 living thing, enemy, neutral, animal, friend, 
 Briton, soldier, general, or even field- 
 marshal, who might this night attempt to 
 stroll out of the proscribed area, would 
 receive a royal salute. 
 
 The sergeant came in. " Fixed up them 
 rockets, 'Arris? I think Jones is a bit 
 jumpy to-night," he remarked of the sentry. 
 
138 SOME ROCKETS, "MOTHER," 
 
 " 'E's got a bit o' time to run yet, and 
 I'm 'is relief. I want to put in a bit o' 
 sleep first, so I 'ope's 'e won't go pooping 
 orf at nix every five minutes. We 'ad 
 enough of that larse night." 
 
 The speaker was Hiley. Besides being 
 selfish, he was, as has been said, conceited, 
 and never let the detachment forget that 
 he was the only marksman amongst them. 
 
 " Remember there's that place in the 
 entanglement with no pebble tins on," said 
 the sergeant. " Why brow, you're for the 
 job to - morrow morning. We've saved 
 enough tins now. There's no fine wire 
 left ; but you can't have the string, mind. 
 You must 'itch 'em up by the lids." 
 
 " All right, sergeant. What time's Mr 
 Watson coming round ? " 
 
 " He hasn't said. Some time Pip 
 Emma 1 same as usual, I expect," was the 
 reply as the sergeant again went out to 
 consult with the sentry. Conversation 
 turned on the subaltern commanding the 
 
 1 " Pip Emma " is Signalese for P.M. 
 
AND PRIVATE H1LEY 139 
 
 group of five blockhouses, whose stone lair 
 was alongside " No. 336 " farther down 
 the line. 
 
 " Good sort, little Watson ; carn't put 
 putties on for toffee, though." 
 
 " Yes 'e's all wool, warranted unshrink- 
 able. Not like the line of New Season's 
 Goods mostly 'ard cases and outfitter's 
 Gordsends which they're sweeping up at 
 'ome and sending out with these new 
 regiments. Why, if I was at 'ome now 
 on a bit of leaf, I dunno which I'd sooner 
 do start as a military outfitter or volunteer 
 as an orficer." 
 
 " I don't mind them so much. They've 
 giv' 'em the rank, fair chucked it at 'em, 
 and small blame to 'em for taking it. What 
 feeds me is some of those dollar- a -day 
 troopers of the irreg'lars. Did I tell you 
 wot 'appened to me at Aarpoort Junction ? " 
 The aggrieved voice was that of Whybrow. 
 
 "Wot?" 
 
 " Something chronic. It was my go of 
 sentry on the orficers' mess at the refresh- 
 
140 SOME ROCKETS, "MOTHER," 
 
 ment-rooms. No one but officers allowed 
 in was my orders. Well, four natty fel- 
 lars reg'lar sauceboats they was in 
 British warms, gaiters an' spurs, with a 
 pigeon-toed cavalry walk, comes up and 
 wants to go in. ' Carn't go in 'ere,' was the 
 remark I passed. ' Why not ? ' says one. 
 ' Orficers' mess,' I says. Then the first of 
 'em a good-looking perisher he was too 
 swaggers up an' says, ' Look heaw, my 
 man, what's your corpse "? Don't you 
 know an orficer when you see him, eh ? 
 Stand up to attention ! ' 
 
 "Wot did you do?" 
 
 " Do ! Wot 'ud you 'ave done. ' Beg 
 pardon, sir,' I says, ' I didn't know you 
 were orficers.' ' You should be more care- 
 ful,' says 'e, and in they goes." 
 
 " Were they orficers ? " 
 
 " Orficers! They was troopers from 
 Somebody's Fighting Light 'Orse. Got as 
 full as ticks, they did, as soon as they was 
 inside, and insulted the Colonel." 
 
 " 'Strewth ! Old Lobster ? " 
 
 " Straight. And wasn't I on the mat all 
 
AND PRIVATE RILEY 141 
 
 for allowin' of 'em in. Something- 
 
 o o 
 
 crool." 
 
 " But 'ad they got stars on, Cookie ? " 
 " Ikona ! They 'ad British warms as I tell 
 you. 'Ow could I see through their bluff? 
 
 Talk of Bojers being slim. Why " 
 
 " Did yer get yer own back, Eyebrows ? " 
 " Not yet ; I'll watch it. But I'm laying 
 for all Fighting, Mounted or Blighted 
 Scouts, 'Orse, Light 'Orse, or Carbineers 
 now whenever I meet 'em. I've got it in 
 for them all right. Don't you make no 
 bloomer." 
 
 The sergeant re-entered. After reassur- 
 ing himself as to the arrangement of the 
 spare ammunition, he sat down with the 
 rest in the dark. It was too early to sleep, 
 but conversation had died away. The wind 
 had risen slightly, and the wires were sing- 
 ing louder than before. Otherwise there 
 was silence. 
 
 Suddenly the dog growled, there was a 
 scuffling of feet on the gravel, and Jones's 
 rifle rang out. The report was not unex- 
 pected ; the men were not unused to hear- 
 
142 SOME ROCKETS, "MOTHER," 
 
 ing rifles fired ; yet they all started. It 
 only showed that their nerves had been on 
 the stretch for some time, and were, in spite 
 of their philosophy, not in the best order. 
 Each at once snatched up his weapon and 
 manned his loophole. By the time they 
 had reached their places the sentry's rifle 
 had spoken three times. 
 
 " We're for it," said one man, frankly 
 nervous. 
 
 " There's Bill Jones wasting good am- 
 munition ; firing at an aasvogel at nine 
 'undred on a dark night, I lay," jeered 
 Riley. Also uneasy, he endeavoured to 
 conceal the fact with a sneer. 
 
 His remark was punctuated by two more 
 reports. Eight bullets had sped their way 
 into the darkness, launched with the clamor- 
 ous blessing of the frantic Smutty, when No. 
 27435 Private W. Jones, sentry on duty, 
 scrambled round the shield or traverse pro- 
 tecting the doorway of the little fortress, and 
 tumbled into the room slightly breathless. 
 
 " What is it ? " said the sergeant. 
 
AND PRIVATE RTLEY 143 
 
 II. 
 
 " Mother, come quick and bring a big stick, 
 Come over the wall to me." 
 
 Popular Song. 
 
 " MOUNTED man ; coming towards the line," 
 gasped Jones. " Waited for him to get 
 closer. Stopped and turned ; so I let 'im 
 'ave most of me magazine at six 'undred. 
 Think I got the blighter. Tumbled off his 
 'orse." 
 
 As a matter of history the mounted man 
 did not stop or turn till the sentry fired. 
 But there are usually more than one 
 account of most occurrences, and several of 
 a fight. 
 
 " Which direction ? " The sergeant was 
 a business-like man. 
 
 " Between us and the deserted farm, 
 sergeant, on Lonely '111." 
 
144 SOME ROCKETS, "MOTHER," 
 
 Now, there was not really the slightest 
 confusion in the blockhouse only a little 
 excitement. And it was due to the fact 
 that the men were all staring intently 
 through the loopholes, to the jerky talk of 
 Private Jones and to the yapping of the now 
 thoroughly unstrung Smutty, that none of 
 them heard the report of a rifle fired twice 
 at a distance of some thousand yards. The 
 third time it spoke its leaden messenger 
 arrived with a vicious bang which drowned 
 the noise of sentry and hound, and set the 
 pebbles in the double wall dancing. To 
 those who have spent happy days marking 
 on a rifle-range, the jangling sound produced 
 in the blockhouse would have suggested the 
 ricochet which sweeps a handful of stones 
 with it on to the ironwork of the butt. To 
 those to whom Fate has so far denied this 
 supreme pleasure it is not easy to describe. 
 The noise certainly jarred, and was rather 
 overpowering. The roof probably magnified 
 the din to those under it. It was the first 
 time so far that the walls of the Saveloy 
 
AND PHI V ATE TITLE Y 145 
 
 Hotel had been thus insulted, and the fact 
 produced a decided impression and some 
 comment, of a disrespectful nature 
 
 " No blooming error about that visitin'- 
 card." 
 
 " Come in, Clarence, and wipe your 
 feet." 
 
 "That does it!" 
 
 -were some of the remarks with which 
 the cu pro -nickel -coated messenger with 
 the ogival nose was greeted. 
 
 From the loophole facing the west came 
 excited shouts, " Saw the flash, sergeant." 
 
 The force of that savage blow could 
 only have been produced by powder, and 
 even the superior shot could scoff no 
 longer especially as during a pause in 
 the dog's barking he heard a faint "pick- 
 pock" in the distance. 
 
 "That's a Morzer 1 right enough," he 
 said with an air of finality. Besides being 
 a marksman, he posed as an authority on 
 firearms generally. 
 
 1 The usual mispronunciation of " Mauser." 
 K 
 
146 SOME ROCKETS, "MOTHER," 
 
 The sergeant prepared for action scien- 
 tifically. He now knew that this was 
 the enemy. He knew their direction and 
 range. He also knew that the latter had 
 probably been incorrectly estimated in the 
 gloom. He gave his orders without dis- 
 cussion. 
 
 " That's enough of it ! Bertwistle, 
 Whybrow, Inkpen, Baker, shoot at the 
 flash at six, seven, eight, and nine 'undred. 
 If you can't see anything, don't fire." 
 
 Bertwistle, Whybrow, and Co. evidently 
 did see something, for their rifles at once 
 replied for them. As for the crack shot, 
 it so happened that he had been told off 
 to a loophole which commanded the barbed- 
 wire fence along the railway line to the 
 south an important direction. But be- 
 tween his loophole and the supposed 
 direction of the enemy was the entrance 
 to the little fort. It was now quite dark, 
 and straight to his front he could see 
 nothing. He found, however, that by 
 squeezing his left arm and shoulder close 
 
AND PRIVATE RILEY 147 
 
 into the wall and making the most of the 
 lateral splay of the opening, he could slew 
 his rifle very nearly in the direction of the 
 " Morzer " fire. It entailed jamming his 
 weapon across the loophole. It also 
 meant that the sharp edge of the iron 
 sheet cut into his hand. That he did not 
 mind so long as he was "in it," and his 
 skill was not wasted. He carefully ad- 
 justed his sight by feel to seven hundred 
 yards, then paused, glaring into the black- 
 ness on his right. He could see nothing. 
 Still, the sergeant did not know that ; and 
 it was quite useless to try to say anything 
 to him in the din which was being raised. 
 He continued staring till his eyes watered. 
 Ah ! Was it imagination ? or could he 
 discern a faint spark or flash ? Yes he 
 saw some faint points of light, and they 
 were dancing about. Without jerk or pull 
 he gently squeezed the trigger. A second 
 hostile bullet simultaneously found its 
 billet and made the little shanty ring. 
 Biley saw the flash distinctly. It was 
 
148 SOME ROCKETS, "MOTHER," 
 
 quite close. " Fairly crawling with 'em ! " 
 he ejaculated, and emptied his magazine. 
 By a series of coincidences a succession 
 of bullets struck the blockhouse while he 
 was actually firing, and all on the side of 
 the house on which he was. With a thrill 
 of excitement and pride he absently 
 smoothed his quiff, now damp with per- 
 spiration. Very likely one of the Kaffirs 
 or some spy had given away the fact that 
 a marksman was in the blockhouse, and 
 that his station faced the line to the south. 
 If so, the enemy had thought it worth 
 while to detach a picked sharpshooter or 
 two to snipe him and keep down his fire. 
 With a glow of not unjustified satisfaction 
 Private Albert Riley braced his shoulders, 
 sucked his teeth, and recharged his maga- 
 zine. He'd give the sharpshooters a bit 
 of all right ! He'd learn them ! 
 
 What with their own shooting and the 
 hammering that their home was receiving, 
 the garrison now really warmed to its 
 work. The uproar grew intense, and the 
 
AND PRIVATE RILEY 149 
 
 air became full of dust not less choking 
 because invisible. As each crash shook 
 the wall some of the more excitable men 
 apostrophised the foe in husky language 
 of an unquotable nature. The curious 
 habit of hurling abuse at an enemy several 
 hundred yards distant cannot be explained 
 on rational grounds ; it is a matter of 
 sentiment and nerves. At least compre- 
 hensible when a comrade is shattered by 
 the enemy's projectiles, it is not so 
 except for its comforting effect on the 
 user when no one has been injured. And 
 yet how common it is ! Ammunition was 
 being expended rapidly, and the sergeant 
 soon felt that the time had come to ex- 
 ercise that fire-control which is the duty 
 of the commander in action. He whistled. 
 The blockhouse ceased to vomit bullets. 
 Above the whines of Smutty, whose voice 
 had now given out, and above the rustling 
 of the men's feet among the empties on 
 the floor, the reports of the enemy's fire 
 were heard distinctly. The non-commis- 
 
150 SOME ROCKETS, "MOTHER," 
 
 sioned officer took post for a moment at a 
 loophole in order to scan for himself the 
 quarter from which danger threatened. 
 All along the ridge above the farm the 
 musketry was sparkling. There was no 
 doubt about the thing ; it was no false 
 alarm. 
 
 "All wool this time," he said. "The 
 place is stiff with them. We must 'usband 
 our ammunition. Remember we've only 
 got about seven 'undred rounds per man ! 
 They're concentrating fire on the door side 
 to judge by their hits. P'raps they mean 
 to rush the line that side. I expect the 
 little lot on the hill is only amusing us 
 while their wire-chopping party is feeling 
 for a soft spot in the fence. Seen any of 
 'em along the line your way, Riley ? " 
 
 " No, only to me right, sergeant." 
 
 " Well, they mean biz to - night. It's 
 time we rang up headquarters. Keep a 
 look-out all, and give 'em a shot or two 
 if you see 'em close in." 
 
 He did his noisiest at the telephone 
 
AND PKIVATE KILEY 151 
 
 without any success. The matter was too 
 urgent for him to stand on his dignity, 
 and he was forced to appeal to the local 
 amateur expert. Even then he was not 
 quite ingenious. 
 
 " Can't waste any more time over the 
 darned thing. Here, Baker, you have a 
 try." 
 
 The expert at once diagnosed from the 
 dead absence of vibration in the diaphragm 
 of the receiver that communication was 
 interrupted. 
 
 "Wire's cut." 
 
 " Oh, they 'ave, 'ave they ? " said the 
 non-com., in a curiously annoyed tone. 
 " P'raps Mister Blooming Hoof Command- 
 ant's Intelligence orficer didn't know as 
 we have rockets ! 'Arris, just touch orf a 
 couple. We'll pass the word to Mother 
 and chawnce it. Mind yourself when the 
 things fizz. The portfire and matches lay 
 in my haversack." 
 
 With a flash and a hiss a snake of fire 
 rushed up into the sky and burst into a 
 
152 SOME ROCKETS, "MOTHER," 
 
 golden shower. Comment on its beauty 
 was cut short by the hiss of the second 
 firework, and by the yell and execrations 
 of Private Harris, from whose hand it had 
 kicked off. Jumping from the packing- 
 case, he slipped on the empties and 
 sprawled full length on the floor, drop- 
 ping the burning portfire on the luckless 
 Smuttie as he fell. The interior of the 
 blockhouse was at once lit by a pale light 
 which pierced the stifling fog flavoured 
 with the fumes of sulphur and singeing 
 fur now filling the place. The dog, whose 
 coat was ablaze, did two complete circuits 
 of the small room at seventy miles an 
 hour, upset a couple of men in his flight, 
 then found the doorway. He streaked 
 across the railway like a fiery beacon to 
 a pool he wotted of in an adjacent sluit, 
 where he obtained relief in a foot of water 
 between a couple of dead oxen. Amid 
 much coughing Private Harris, whose hand 
 was badly burned, was adjured to pick up 
 chuck out, put out the portfire. Any 
 
AND PRIVATE R1LEY 153 
 
 of these actions was easier said that done. 
 To drop the thing out of a loophole would 
 have given away the blockhouse, while to 
 put it out was impossible, for the earth 
 floor was too hard to stamp it in or bury 
 it quickly, and portfires are not extin- 
 guished easily. Luckily the commander 
 was eventually inspired with the brilliant 
 idea of cutting off the lighted end with 
 a shovel ; but the half- inch still burning 
 almost succeeded in asphyxiating the gar- 
 rison. 
 
 " Here, Riley, you touch off a brace 
 more, and watch your 'and," he said. 
 
 " Next lot's just signalled for Mother 
 too," replied that soldier, after carrying 
 out orders. " Been firing for a long time." 
 
 The men at the western loopholes had 
 now been shooting slowly and carefully for 
 some minutes, but there had been no hit 
 on the blockhouse. The sight of the ac- 
 tivity of the neighbouring fort egged Biley 
 to chip in again with some accurate shots. 
 Bullets again at once struck the wall near 
 
154 SOME ROCKETS, "MOTHER," 
 
 his loophole, and some splinters of flint hit 
 him in the cheek. It was as he thought : 
 they did not like his shooting, and a sniper 
 was firing at his flash at close range. Far 
 more spurred on than daunted, he now did 
 something fancy in the way of snap-shoot- 
 ing, and drew a perfect hail of shots in 
 reply. 
 
 " Trying to rush the railway ? " roared 
 the commander. 
 
 The marksman did not answer ; but he 
 knew better : they were not doing that 
 yet. Though the pace of his shooting now 
 almost became of the trick or show order, 
 the Boer watching him was evidently no 
 slouch at the game, and returned shot for 
 shot. The thing was now working in a 
 vicious circle. Every spurt on Riley's part 
 was answered by fresh efforts on the part 
 of the enemy, which again resulted in 
 increased activity from all those firing from 
 the blockhouse. The spirit was catching, 
 and the remainder of the men who had 
 so far hardly used their rifles were moved 
 
AND PRIVATE III LEY 155 
 
 to join in, regardless of the direction iii 
 which their loopholes faced. Occasional 
 qualms at the expenditure of ammunition 
 induced the sergeant to blow his whistle, 
 when comparative peace reigned, but never 
 for long. 
 
 The moon, now peeping out from behind 
 masses of slowly drifting clouds, looked 
 down upon a horrible scene of human strife. 
 To the west the long irregular line of 
 flame crackling intermittently on the veld 
 showed where so-called Christian men of 
 one side were trying to kill their brothers 
 of another race. Along the railway were 
 two small centres of activity, whose radi- 
 ating spurts of fire betrayed the presence 
 of other human beings, who also called 
 themselves Christians, imbued with the 
 same homicidal motive. Presently, along 
 the shining metals from the south, round 
 the curve, slid a long dark mass. Ap- 
 proaching laboriously behind a volcano 
 belching sparks and smoke, with a steady 
 white glare shining ahead of it, it was 
 
156 SOME ROCKETS, "MOTHER," 
 
 also outlined on one side with spurts of 
 flame. Occasionally larger flashes accom- 
 panied by heavy reports were visible. 
 Finally this shape came to rest between 
 the blockhouses and continued steadily to 
 spit fire. Its arrival upon the scene was 
 first observed by the watchful Riley. 
 
 " 'Ere she comes. Good old Ma ! " he 
 tried to shout as he took his hands from 
 his heated weapon. " Now, let 'em break 
 acrost the line." But his parched throat 
 only gave out a hoarse whisper. His 
 shoulder was sore, his hands were cut by 
 the edge of the iron and blistered by his 
 overheated rifle barrel, his eyes were full 
 of grit and smarted, and he was piqued 
 that he had not yet silenced his own im- 
 mediate opponents, but he was pleased. 
 
 During a temporary abatement of noise 
 the welcome booming of the 12-pounders, 
 the bark of the Hotchkiss and the sullen 
 " poop-oop-oop " of a Martini Maxim were 
 heard distinctly. 
 
AND PRIVATE RILEY 15 7 
 
 " Let 'em all come," said the vainglorious 
 marksman. 
 
 It was now not so much a question of 
 merely beating off the foe or of stopping 
 them crossing the line. It was a matter 
 of killing or capturing the lot ; and our 
 " good men and true " relaxed no efforts 
 because of the reinforcement. This di- 
 minutive outwork of Empire continued 
 through the long hours of darkness to do 
 its best and worry the enemy, until the 
 atmosphere reeked of burning cordite, and 
 the depth of cartridge - cases on the floor 
 made walking almost impossible. So 
 through the night waxed and waned the 
 battle. But the foe were evidently driven 
 by some powerful motive, for they con- 
 tinued the fight every whit as obstinately 
 as the British. 
 
158 SOME ROCKETS, "MOTHER/ 
 
 III. 
 
 Tout vient <l point d qui sait attend/re but not always ! 
 
 MEANWHILE, all was quiet in Jakhal's Vlei. 
 No hint of the approach of the foe had 
 reached the hub of civilisation from either 
 of its Intelligence "antennae"- the posts 
 up the river and the blockhouses along 
 the railway line and it had settled down 
 hopefully for a night in bed. Its Picca- 
 dilly Circus, the market - place near the 
 station, was absolutely dead ; no lights 
 shone in the only thoroughfare of the 
 little tin town ; there was no traffic ; and, 
 save for the gentle simmering of one or 
 two locomotives in the. station-yard, there 
 was no sound. When at intervals the 
 moon peeped out from behind the sailing 
 clouds its rays were reflected from the 
 
 \ 
 
AND PRIVATE RILEY 159 
 
 low - pitched roofs of the iron shanties, so 
 that the place presented the weird appear- 
 ance of a township built of frosted silver, 
 dead, cold, and peaceful as the extinct 
 volcanoes in a lunar landscape. It ap- 
 peared to be, nay, was literally, bathed in 
 light and wrapped in slumber. There were 
 some signs of life, however, in the sentinels 
 of the various defence posts of the fortress, 
 of which the railway station formed the 
 kernel ; but these posts were a long way 
 out, and the sentries standing chest-deep 
 in their trenches were not visible except 
 from quite close. During the fleeting 
 periods of light the mass of a hill could 
 be seen looming up to the east of the 
 houses. This stronghold was naturally 
 known as Gun Hill few, indeed, were 
 the fortified areas not possessed of a Gun 
 Hill or a One Tree Hill. Rising to a 
 height of some sixty feet above the town, 
 this excrescence owed its importance more 
 to the heavy artillery ensconced upon it 
 than to its elevation. 
 
160 SOME ROCKETS, "MOTHER," 
 
 Such wind as there was now blew from 
 the north, and the faint and fitful splutter 
 of distant musketry proceeding from the rail- 
 way to the south could not at all compete 
 in interest with the chilblains of the cold- 
 footed sentries who happened to hear it. 
 As has been stated, the blockhouse lines 
 turned and muttered in their sleep too 
 often for their restlessness to cause much 
 excitement. Even when the signals for 
 "Mother" shot up and pierced the dark- 
 ness like gigantic and quick-growing fairy 
 beanstalks of golden light there was no 
 great pother. Here and there a doubtful 
 watcher did confer with a shivering and 
 peevish superior, but nothing more hap- 
 pened. It was a matter for the mojbile 
 force. The role of the defenders of Jakhal's 
 Vlei in these operations was to hold up 
 the enemy being driven towards them, to 
 prevent the capture and sack of the rich 
 city, to save its burgesses from slaughter 
 and rapine. In a word, the garrison's job 
 was to sit tight. So far there was no sign 
 
AND PRIVATE RILEY 1GI 
 
 of the enemy. Wherever he was, he was 
 beyond the radius of action of the fortress, 
 and there was no need as yet to disturb 
 the rest of the Commandant or of any of 
 the officers especially the Commandant. 
 
 But eventually the boom of " Mother's " 
 artillery quivering in the air put an edge 
 on the situation and created some interest. 
 After all, guns were guns, and did not go 
 off for nothing, as rifles had a habit of 
 doing. Their employment in this case 
 suggested that an armoured train had 
 come up, investigated, and deemed the 
 affair sufficiently serious to take a hand 
 itself. There was now more consultation, 
 firstly of sentries with non-coms., then of 
 non-coms, with subalterns, then with the 
 officers commanding posts. And so up 
 the military hierarchy climbed the horrid 
 alarum of war, until the Colonel Com- 
 manding was aroused by the discreet 
 cough of his staff Lieutenant Tyrrwhitt- 
 Tyrrwhole. 
 
 At first inclined to be fractious at being 
 
162 SOME ROCKETS, "MOTHER," 
 
 disturbed for mere firing along the block- 
 house lines, the Commandant perked up 
 considerably and took notice when he him- 
 self heard the guns. Though not old in 
 years, he was too old a bird in this war 
 to be over - sanguine or to have many 
 illusions. As an officer of the Mounted 
 Branch, he had spent many months trek- 
 king, and had then been severely wounded. 
 On his way to return to duty he had been 
 seized at some junction by the long arm 
 of telegraphy, appointed to the command 
 of a defensive post, and literally jerked 
 by the railway into Jakhal's Vlei. At the 
 time when he was awakened by the depre- 
 catory cough at his bedside he had only 
 been " Commandant J. V." for some seven 
 hours. In reality he was a pleasant man, 
 full of old-world courtesy, and, in normal 
 times, possessed of charming manners. 
 But garrison duty was not his metier, 
 and he did not like it. The fact that 
 he had already had time to make this 
 clear but not time to get to know his 
 
AND PRIVATE RILEY 163 
 
 officers, probably accounted for the ex- 
 cessive suavity with which he had been 
 aroused. 
 
 Hastily throwing on a "British Warm" 
 and jamming his feet into a pair of veld 
 schoen, he now hurried with his staff over 
 to the telephone office. As he shuffled 
 along he presented, even in the feeble light 
 of the lantern carried by Tyrrwhole, a some- 
 what curious figure. He still wore the 
 nightcap or tea - cosy helmet in which, 
 owing to the lack of glass in the windows 
 of his quarters, he had been forced to sleep. 
 This was the product of fair fingers at home, 
 and was knitted of the material stocked 
 in fancy repositories under the name of 
 " Berlin Wool Fingering, shade Ruby O." 
 Though the Colonel was a small man, his 
 "British Warm" of the old original "Sey- 
 mour " pattern issued to soldiers was 
 indecently short even for him ; but on the 
 credit side, the sleeves of his ready-made 
 sleeping suit hung well over his hands, 
 and the trousers were close reefed, while 
 
164 SOME ROCKETS, "MOTHER," 
 
 the loudness of its pattern would have 
 charmed the heart of a Fingo belle. 
 Lastly, his veld schoen were untanned, 
 with the hair outside. Tyrrwhole's kit, 
 though by no means neat, possessed con- 
 siderably less " zip " than that of his chief, 
 and calls for no remark. 
 
 The telephone operator was fast asleep 
 on the floor of his office, with one ear near 
 the instrument. Also new to the station, 
 he was the class of man who becomes 
 rather spoiled by the possession of technical 
 knowledge, which he likes to show by an 
 unnecessary display of trade jargon. In 
 disposition he was not unlike Private 
 Albert Riley, marksman, now fighting for 
 life not so many miles away, and as a 
 result numerous comrades in arms had 
 often expressed a cruel but sincere desire 
 to tread on his neck. At the present 
 moment he was dead tired, and showed 
 no pleasure at being aroused, nor any 
 respect for his visitors, whose rank he did 
 
AND PRIVATE RILEY 165 
 
 not know. He yawned loudly and vul- 
 garly, stretched, and then snarled 
 
 "Now then what is it?" 
 
 "Get on to Blockhouse 3421," said 
 Tyrrwhole, surprised at the man's manner, 
 but himself too tired to take notice. He 
 turned to the Commandant and added, 
 " That's where they judged the rockets to 
 be sent up from, sir." 
 
 Though in the dim light the operator 
 had not been favourably impressed either 
 by the tea-cosy or the hairy foot-gear, he 
 was still less so when he turned up his 
 lantern. But the tone of authority in 
 which Tyrrwhole's order had been given 
 made obedience advisable. He fumbled 
 casually with a plug on a switch -board, 
 rang up, and listened. There was no reply. 
 He repeated the operation viciously. Again 
 there was no reply. He dropped the re- 
 ceiver with a suffering expression on his 
 dirty face and snapped out the one word 
 " Dis ! " 
 
166 SOME ROCKETS, "MOTHER," 
 
 " Eh ? " asked the Colonel. 
 
 "Dis!" 
 
 The Commandant J. V. was now roused ; 
 the greater part of the old-world courtesy 
 slid from him like a mantle. 
 
 " Damn it, man, talk English. What 
 the devil d'you mean by 'Dis'?" 
 
 Before the surprised soldier, who did not 
 imagine that any one could misunderstand 
 his office jargon, was able to reply, the 
 staff interposed. Much younger than his 
 senior, he was more in touch with low life 
 and its expressions. 
 
 " He means ' disconnected,' sir. Wire's 
 probably cut by the enemy or our own 
 fire." 
 
 "Well, why can't he say so? Tell him 
 to ring up the next blockhouse beyond. 
 We'll see what they know about it." 
 
 The operator blinked stupidly, as if para- 
 lysed ; he made no motion. Even the staff 
 looked deprecatingly surprised. The re- 
 mainder of the colonel's courtesy now went 
 by the board. 
 
AND PRIVATE RILEY 167 
 
 " Con found it, man what the dooce 
 are you staring at? Don't you hear? 
 Ring up the next." 
 
 Again did the staff intervene. " Can't 
 do it, sir ; there's only one wire along the 
 railway, and any break between 342^ and 
 this cuts out everything beyond." 
 
 " Ah ! " replied the Commandant wisely. 
 He, quite naturally, knew nothing about 
 the number of wires leading to the tele- 
 phonic ganglion. Momentarily staggered, 
 but not defeated, he added the time-hon- 
 oured remark which comes so handy to one 
 in doubt. 
 
 " Must have that seen to at once. Make 
 a note of it, Tyrrwhole." 
 
 " Very good, sir," replied that glib 
 gentleman as he started scribbling in his 
 note-book. But what the Commandant 
 meant exactly he knew no more than the 
 Commandant did himself. 
 
 " We'll try the river line, sir," suggested 
 Tyrrwhole. He turned to the operator, 
 "Ring up Dead Horse Drift." 
 
168 SOME ROCKETS, "MOTHER," 
 
 Communication was successfully obtained 
 with this and other posts on the western 
 side. The only information of value gained 
 was that heavy firing could be heard on the 
 higher ground away from the river to the 
 east, and that a few shells had burst not 
 far off one post. However, while Tyrr- 
 whole was thus acting as military remem- 
 brancer to his chief, as is the duty of 
 the perfect staff officer, he heard the foot- 
 steps of some one running up to the office. 
 He swung out of the doorway to investigate, 
 and was at once greeted by the breathless 
 runner 
 
 "Hullo, Squirrel! That you? Good 
 egg ! Been looking for you all over the 
 shop. Got the range of the blighters top 
 hole just over four thousand five hundred. 
 Think the C.O.'s man enough to let me 
 touch off a round or two from Tweedledum 
 and Tweedledee ? " 
 
 The speaker could not see the warning 
 grimaces which the staff, who had his back 
 to the light, was making at him, and he 
 
AND PRIVATE RILEY 169 
 
 blundered on and almost into the curious 
 figure emerging from the doorway. Each 
 stared at the other, surprised and puzzled. 
 But the resiliency of youth, aided on this 
 occasion by the vicious and uncalled-for 
 cow-kick dealt him by Tyrrwhole, as the 
 latter suddenly turned his back and faced 
 the doorway, enabled the newcomer to 
 recover first. 
 
 " Oh good morn good evening, sir." 
 Seeing no responsive enthusiasm what- 
 ever gleam in the eyes scanning him, his 
 tone became less effusive. " I was just 
 reporting to your staff officer that we had 
 the range and could drop a shell or two 
 on to them. I thought I'd I ought to let 
 you know, sir." 
 
 If the Commandant's appearance was 
 bizarre, that of the cheery newcomer did 
 not show any excess of punctilious care. 
 He was in reality the Gunner subaltern 
 in charge of the two howitzers on Gun 
 Hill, though his connection with any par- 
 ticular corps was hardly more obvious than 
 
170 SOME ROCKETS, "MOTHER," 
 
 his rank. In fact, the only outward sign 
 of it was the small turnip - shaped piece 
 of cardboard which, hanging by a thread, 
 dangled upside down from his field-service 
 cap like the drop-emerald from a rajah's 
 turban. This, to one who knew, was the 
 remains of the rich "wire lace" gold 
 grenade the proud badge of the Royal 
 Regiment for which the wearer had paid 
 a large price to his tailor, or of which, 
 if manner can be taken for a gauge of 
 character, the price had more probably 
 been debited to his small account. In a 
 " British Warm " and patched breeches, 
 half-laced boots and no gaiters, with one 
 flap of his cap well turned down over his 
 ear, he might, but for the cardboard sign 
 and his youthful face, have been taken 
 for anything from a conductor of a gang 
 of Kaffirs to a general. 
 
 " Umph ! " was the Commandant's reply. 
 
 It was not exactly a cordial reception 
 of the personal report of his O.C.R.A., and 
 it did not lead anywhere ; and once again 
 
AND PRIVATE TIILEY 171 
 
 was the oil of peace pumped through the 
 hose of tact on to troublous waters. The 
 staff interposed. 
 
 " This is the officer commanding the 
 section of five - inch howitzers on Gun 
 Hill, sir." 
 
 11 Ah ! Well, Mr er " 
 
 " Greig- Usher, sir." 
 
 " Mr Gusher don't you think you had 
 better go back to your post and wait there 
 till I arrive ? Mind you don't fire a round 
 without a direct order from me." 
 
 In the face of this there was nothing 
 for it but to retire gracefully ; and the 
 usually irrepressible subaltern, not quite 
 oblivious of the grin of the staff, who now 
 again had his back to the light, added 
 speed to the grace with which he 
 vanished. 
 
 " Probably a zealous officer, but impetu- 
 ous in temperament and somewhat flippant 
 in tone," was the Commandant's remark. 
 
 " Yes, sir, very keen young feller," 
 replied Achates. 
 
172 SOME ROCKETS, "MOTHER," 
 
 Psychologically the staff officer and the 
 youth he characterised as " young feller " 
 were poles apart. The former had served 
 long enough to think of his future, and 
 suffered seniors gladly. The latter youth 
 lived entirely for the moment, and was 
 suffered by seniors but not gladly. 
 
 In another moment the neck of the 
 telephonist, who by now was again fast 
 asleep, might have received, morally, the 
 trampling which it deserved had not a drop 
 in the wind enabled the two officers to 
 distinguish the sullen note of the Martini 
 Maxims of the armoured train. The sound 
 was particularly loud. 
 
 " Things seem to be moving, Tyrrwhole, 
 in this direction too. I'll get a few clothes 
 on before matters come to a head. You 
 turn out the garrison, pick up my orderly 
 and the bugler, and meet me at my quar- 
 ters in five minutes." 
 
 The Colonel disappeared in the darkness, 
 and the staff's lantern wobbled its way 
 across towards the main guard, now quar- 
 
AND PRIVATE RILEY 173 
 
 tered in the ruins of the " Kaffir truck " 
 store of Mr Issy Blumbaiimer. That 
 worthy parasite was no longer adhering 
 to JakhaFs Vlei ; but if alive was certain 
 to be doing "bithneth" somewhere in the 
 land of Ham probably peddling unripe 
 peaches or tinned rabbit curry to a half- 
 starved soldiery. Though the general use 
 of bugles had by now been dropped, they 
 were still sounded in certain garrisons 
 where concealment was out of the question, 
 and in two minutes there floated over 
 Jakhal's Vlei the notes of that most 
 mournful and sweetest of all calls " The 
 Assembly." It was caught up and re- 
 peated in one or two of the outlying posts, 
 and here and there a light flitted about. 
 But even now there was no bustle and 
 very little commotion, since the whole gar- 
 rison, except the small reserve, were already 
 at their posts, under arms. 
 
 When the Commandant and his staff 
 now increased by one orderly and one 
 bugler reached Gun Hill, the former was 
 
174 SOME ROCKETS, "MOTHER," 
 
 in uniform ; but he had forgotten to change 
 the " fingering " helmet. The fact did not 
 create any alarm or despondency ; the full 
 value of tint could not be appreciated in 
 the moonlight. The distant battle was 
 still proceeding merrily with varying bouts 
 of activity, and the flashes of the guns 
 could be seen from the summit of the hill. 
 Most of those of the rifles were hidden 
 by the undulations of .the ground. The 
 situation had not yet been cleared up, and 
 was as difficult as it was tantalising, for 
 the fighting remained stationary, and until 
 the enemy were driven right up to the 
 defences the garrison was powerless. In 
 vain did the eager men watch for the 
 proverbial herd of maddened cattle which, 
 driven ahead of the flying commando, 
 should endeavour to break through the 
 network of iron. Not an ox, not a horse, 
 not a desperate sheep tried even to smell 
 the barbed wire, let alone charge it; and 
 with the mystery deepened the general 
 disgust. The Intelligence and Supply 
 
AND PRIVATE RILEY 175 
 
 Officer and Provost-Marshal now cautiously 
 approached the Commandant and made 
 tentative proposals to go out reconnoitring 
 himself or to take out a party of scouts 
 in order to find out exactly what was 
 going on. But he met with no success. 
 The Chief was adamant in his refusal of 
 permission for any such attempt. And 
 rightly so. Scouts could do no more than 
 discover that a fight was going on which 
 was already known ; they could not tell 
 who was fighting or where. To do this 
 would necessitate close contact, which 
 might mean capture or death at the hands 
 of the enemy, or death at the hands of 
 their own side. Besides, so long as it was 
 dark, even such precise intelligence would 
 not help the troops in Jakhal's Vlei two 
 miles away. If there were no reasonable 
 possibility of gaining some definite advan- 
 tage in exchange, the Colonel was not 
 going to allow more lives to be risked. 
 And so it came about that while some 
 hundreds of Christian men were spending 
 
176 SOME ROCKETS, "MOTHER," 
 
 the bitter night in the actual attempt to 
 kill each other, scores of others were 
 cursing their slowness and awaiting with 
 ghoulish expectancy the approach of their 
 own phance. 
 
 As may have been imagined, this fever 
 of impatience to a special degree possessed 
 the soul of the O.C.R.A. He was not 
 one of your strong, silent men. In him, 
 indeed, the longing for " Kanonen Putter" 
 had by now become intensified till it was 
 an obsession betraying the impetuous 
 bloodthirstiness of the novice, and not the 
 cold, calculating touch of the artist in 
 slaughter. Though he realised that the 
 guns firing in the distance were probably 
 those on an armoured train, he gathered 
 that the enemy must be at about the 
 same range, only more to the west, and 
 had long ago prepared for instant action. 
 But until the Commandant gave the word 
 he could do nothing. There were the 
 hostile forces gambolling and taking 
 liberties within easy reach of his monsters. 
 
AND PRIVATE RILEY 177 
 
 And here was this stray freak colonel who 
 had suddenly blown into Jakhal's Vlei 
 from God - knows - where, preventing his 
 seizing the chance of a lifetime. The man 
 was not even a Gunner. He very likely 
 knew all about hand-guns, but how could 
 he realise the value of the intervention of 
 the Third Arm. From his turn-out he 
 was probably a prehistoric " dug - out," 
 a " was - bird " of weird early Victorian 
 ideas. Besides, he had been distinctly 
 snuffy when approached, and had mis- 
 named his O.C.R.A. foully. What was 
 the Service coming to? 
 
 And if this beardless youth was dying 
 to fire off a shell in earnest, can he be 
 censured ? It was, at bottom, no lust for 
 slaughter. He was simply keen. In the 
 life of a soldier the chance of the "real 
 thing " comes perhaps once perhaps 
 never ; the remainder of his days are spent 
 in make-belief, in training and practice for 
 the event der Tag which may never 
 arrive. In other walks of life a man 
 M 
 
178 SOME ROCKETS, "MOTHER," 
 
 exercises his trade all the time. He does 
 not spend his career in so to speak 
 firing off blank ammunition or in shooting 
 at a target. Who can blame a desire for 
 the " real thing," or professional zeal, 
 whether it be that of a burglar, a Harley 
 Street appendix - hunter, or a trainer of 
 blind monkeys ? 
 
 Itching to approach the Commandant 
 again, Lieutenant Greig-Usher for a long 
 time fidgeted backwards and forwards 
 between two pits on the hill-top. In each 
 of these a few silent men were clotted 
 round a pair of clumsy wheels with broad 
 shining tyres, from between which pro- 
 jected skywards a squat howitzer. At 
 last he could stand the suspense no longer. 
 Besides being a zealous officer of some 
 initiative, he was determined. In the 
 words of a song oozing with music-hall 
 patriotism which was current at the period, 
 he was one of the " Boys of the Bull-dog 
 Breed," and an indiarubber bull -dog at 
 that. But he often lost from want of tact 
 
AND PRIVATE RILEY 179 
 
 what he might have gained by pertinacity. 
 Screwing up his courage, he gradually 
 approached the figure in the red bonnet, 
 and carefully adjusting strength to dis- 
 tance, or rather, charge to range, managed 
 accidentally to stumble over a stone a 
 little way in front of his chief. He 
 clutched his foot as if in pain and said 
 " Confound it ! " loudly. Then, making 
 play to recognise for the first time the 
 man in front of whom he had used such a 
 very strong expression, he added : " Oh, I 
 beg your pardon, sir. I didn't see you 
 were so close." So far so good, but his 
 next words were a relapse 
 
 " Bit tricky walking round among these 
 beastly stones in the moonlight, eh, what ? 
 By the way, sir, I was wrong about the 
 range in their guns. It is really four 
 thousand three hundred, and not four 
 thou " 
 
 ''Thanks, Mr Gusher, thanks " Was 
 
 there a malicious twinkle in the eye of the 
 ' Was-bird " as he repeated the name, or 
 
180 SOME ROCKETS, "MOTHER," 
 
 was it a glint of moonlight ? " but, you 
 don't seem to realise that they're almost 
 certain to be our own guns on an armoured 
 train. As to the riflemen, it would be 
 criminal to shoot at them without knowing 
 who they are, and even if we knew they 
 were the enemy, it would be worse than 
 useless. No, we must have more light 
 thrown upon the situation before we 
 
 " Quite, sir, quite. Of course that's 
 what I was thinking," was the totally 
 untruthful reply. " Four thousand is 
 about the best range for star-shell, and I 
 have a lot here." 
 
 " If that's what you're driving at, you 
 can burst a couple of star -shell to the 
 right of their guns, though I doubt whether 
 it will be the slightest use at this 
 distance." 
 
 The subaltern waited no second bidding. 
 With a thrill such as he had not experienced 
 since as a cadet he had roared out the ex- 
 ecutive word for firing a friction-tube at 
 the half-yearly inspection at "The Shop," 
 
AND PRIVATE RILEY 181 
 
 he now gave the necessary command. 
 There followed a subdued clamour and 
 the clanking as of iron oven-doors being 
 opened and shut. Then silence. 
 
 " Number one fire ! " 
 
 With a roar and a shriek the shell 
 rumbled up into the sky, while every 
 glass on the hill-top was directed towards 
 the veld to the right of the distant guns. 
 The landscape was lit up in a ghostly 
 sheen, and the rails on the visible 
 stretches of line glittered as the projectile 
 burst into a cloud of stars which floated 
 downwards ; but even through the best 
 glasses nothing could be distinguished of 
 the enemy. 
 
 The second howitzer spoke, and its missile 
 burst with equal brilliancy and with equally 
 negative result. When its last star had 
 faded into nothingness, the moonlight 
 seemed to have grown more watery than 
 before, the darkness to have increased. 
 
 The din of battle in the distance con- 
 tinued, varying in intensity but never 
 
182 SOME ROCKETS, "MOTHER," 
 
 quite ceasing. There was nothing for 
 Jakhal's Vlei but to wait for the dawn, 
 or the enemy whichever should come 
 first. And right profanely did Jakhal's 
 Vlei wait. 
 
AND PRIVATE RILEY 183 
 
 IV. 
 
 " In the morning, 
 In the morning by the bright light." 
 
 To return to the scene of carnage at the 
 front, it was not until the sad glimmer in 
 the sky heralded the approach of another 
 day that a halt was called to the slaughter 
 being carried on between the railway and 
 Lonely Farm. By this time the firing 
 had died away completely ; but an un- 
 comfortable feeling had seized the partici- 
 pants on our side that things had somehow 
 not developed properly, for no enemy 
 had been actually seen. The armoured 
 train, which had been the focus of so much 
 brilliancy during the long hours of dark- 
 ness, now sidled towards No. 342^, and 
 behind it slunk a consort which had puffed 
 
184 SOME ROCKETS, "MOTHER," 
 
 up to the sound of the guns during the 
 night and right nobly taken its share in 
 hurling missiles over the veld. It is not 
 easy to say which of these two collections 
 of metal boxes had the more draggled 
 appearance. Clothed entirely in steel, each 
 train was painted from funnel - rim to 
 coupling-bars in a non-committal neutral 
 tint almost brutal in its suggestion of 
 sheer business. As the light grew stronger 
 the grey sides of the trucks could be seen 
 to be mottled with the dark stains of oil 
 and streaked with rust like the plates of 
 a cattle - boat after a North Atlantic 
 voyage. The 12 -pounder guns peering 
 from behind their shields and the Union- 
 Jacks hanging from the gaffs at the sterns 
 of the trains gave them almost the appear- 
 ance of slovenly-kept ships of war. The 
 whole outlook was dismal. Besides the 
 two sinister trains there was nothing in 
 the drab landscape but steel rails, barbed- 
 wire fencing and entanglements, and an 
 
AND PRIVATE RILEY 185 
 
 iron blockhouse. Truly has pomp and 
 panoply departed from warfare. 
 
 Both trains drew up alongside the block- 
 house, and from one of Mother's trucks, 
 almost squinting from lack of sleep and 
 the headache produced by the metallic din 
 which had assailed his ears all night, de- 
 scended a dirty-looking tramp clad in soiled 
 khaki. When he hailed the commander 
 of No. 342J, however, his voice proclaimed 
 that he was the officer commanding the 
 train. Whilst the worthy sergeant was 
 ponderously climbing through the entangle- 
 ment in obedience to this summons, a 
 second ruffian swung himself down from 
 the hinder train and joined the first. 
 
 It was the fashion at this time for the 
 officers on board the armoured trains to 
 imitate their comrades of the Sister Service. 
 Not only was the senior of them known 
 as the " Commodore of the Fleet," but the 
 sincere form of flattery descended down 
 to tricks of deportment and of personal 
 
186 SOME ROCKETS, "MOTHER," 
 
 appearance. The military men called the 
 scarves they wore round their necks " sweat 
 rags," which they imagined to be a seaman- 
 like habit ; and since it was usually im- 
 possible, also contrary to regulation, for 
 them to be clean shaved, they satisfied 
 themselves with trimming whatever hair 
 they could grow on their faces to a " tor- 
 pedo beard " point. On the line now, also, 
 curious expressions such as " Ay, ay ! " and 
 " Make it so," were sometimes heard. This 
 inversion or perversion, however, was not 
 all on the side of the army, for the naval 
 officers holding shore billets at the coast 
 ports for lengthy periods gradually became 
 military in their method of life. They 
 took to wearing khaki, helmets arid putties, 
 and in many other ways aped the " leather- 
 neck." 
 
 As soon as the sergeant arrived along- 
 side he was knee-deep in questions as to 
 the strength of the enemy, and whether 
 any of them had crossed the line, &c. 
 But Mother's commander was in a hurry, 
 
AND PRIVATE RILEY 187 
 
 and after a few moments' talk he swung 
 himself up into his conning tower. 
 
 " By the way, any casualties, sergeant ? " 
 "Non', sir, only one man slightly burnt." 
 " Well," continued the officer, turning to 
 his brother skipper, " as the wire's cut I'll 
 just steam up to Jakhal's to report, and 
 I'll scout the line as I go. Meanwhile 
 you'd better lie up here for a bit and 
 keep your weather eye lifting. I can't 
 make head or tail of it ; but the veld is 
 so tricky that a whole crowd of the 
 Brethren may be lying doggo in some 
 hollow waiting to make a rush when we're 
 off our guard." 
 
 "Right-o," said the other. 
 Mother very soon puffed out of sight. 
 The sergeant and the skipper left behind 
 remained in earnest conversation, an object 
 of interest to the many pairs of poached 
 eyes peeping through slits in chilled steel 
 or corrugated iron. The officer had just 
 thoughtfully given instructions for a pail 
 of boiling water, drawn fresh and oily from 
 
188 SOME ROCKETS, "MOTHER," 
 
 the boiler of the locomotive, to be taken 
 up to the blockhouse, where no hot water 
 would be ready for some time, when he 
 happened to look steadily at the Saveloy 
 Hotel. He rubbed his eyes and gave vent 
 to an expressive whistle. 
 
 " By Jove, sergeant, your entrance tra- 
 verse has been knocked about a bit. It's 
 got a hole in it big enough for a fox's 
 earth ! Looks as if they'd got artillery 
 on to you. I didn't hear any guns." Con- 
 sidering the noise that his own scrap-iron 
 caravan had been making, this was not 
 even negative evidence. 
 
 The sergeant gazed with curiosity at the 
 iron shield. There was the hole quite 
 visible and as large as life. To tell the 
 truth, he had not noticed it himself when 
 he had rushed out in the semi-darkness, 
 but he was not going to give that away, 
 and the assumed indifference in his voice 
 when he spoke was a direct measure of 
 the pride with which this proof of a 
 
AND PRIVATE RILEY 1 8 9 
 
 desperate fight inspired him. "Oh, that? 
 Yes, we got our share of knocking about, 
 sir. I dessay they did turn a few guns 
 and pom-poms on to us we must a' been 
 worrying them a bit. Not that it made 
 any difference to us, sir ; we were too 
 busy getting a bit of our own back. But 
 it was 'ottish at times ! " 
 
 His listener was just thinking that this 
 was just the right sort of man to be on 
 an independent job, when the sentry of the 
 armoured train announced that a small 
 party of mounted men was approaching 
 from the direction from which the enemy 
 had been firing during the night. It 
 needed but a glance to discover that the 
 party was British. At this moment the 
 whistle of Mother returning from Jakhal's 
 Vlei was heard. The sergeant now thought 
 that with all this force present he might 
 let his men leave their lair, and, having 
 obtained permission, shouted out to his 
 detachment that they could come out of 
 
190 SOME ROCKETS, "MOTHER," 
 
 the house. He himself stayed by the train 
 in the centre of things. He wanted to 
 hear the news. 
 
 Outside No. 342|- a small crowd of 
 peevish soldiery gradually collected, and 
 began stamping and beating their arms 
 across their chests, for it was still very 
 cold. The hot water from the engine, now 
 slightly more coloured and called coffee, 
 was served out and helped to restore their 
 circulation. Some of the men wandered 
 round the house examining the various 
 bullet-holes in the outer skin, and when 
 one found a hole opposite where he had 
 been standing, he seemed to be more 
 amused than grateful to the good shingle. 
 Most of the detachment, however, Private 
 Riley excepted, gathered round the entrance 
 shield. This shield, composed of the same 
 materials as the walls of the blockhouse, 
 was placed immediately in front of the 
 doorway in such a position that men could 
 enter by going round it on either side, but 
 no bullets could be fired directly into the 
 
AND PRIVATE RILEY 191 
 
 interior of the room. Its present state, 
 indeed, had excited some surprise as soon 
 as the light had grown strong enough for 
 it to be seen. From about the level of the 
 adjacent loopholes upwards the corrugated 
 iron was perforated with scores of small 
 holes which were so close together in the 
 centre that they coalesced into one large 
 gash. Through this the shingle from above 
 had poured out into a little heap on the 
 ground. 
 
 Nearly all the men had passed some 
 remark on this rent when coming out of 
 the house, but some of the more critical 
 were not satisfied with such a casual in- 
 spection. They must needs examine the 
 perforations and feel their edges. Natur- 
 ally, therefore, it was not long before they 
 found out to their surprise that whatever 
 missiles had made the holes had punched 
 them from the blockhouse and not from 
 outside. At this discovery there was 
 much sniggering of the nature which is 
 very like an unspoken innuendo, and many 
 
192 SOME ROCKETS, " MOTHEB," 
 
 were the repetitions of that expressive 
 word " Wot-o," with the emphasis on the 
 last syllable. At last Private Jones the 
 sentry who had given the alarm on the pre- 
 vious evening stopped and smelt the 
 corrugated iron. He then coughed and 
 spat expressively. 
 
 "Violets?" asked a sympathetic on- 
 looker. 
 
 " Cordite, Cully, cordite, strong as the 
 fouling I 'aven't yet cleaned out of me 
 bundook. 1 Cordite fruity cordite all a 
 blowiu', all a growin' ! " he continued in a 
 falsetto costermonger's cry. 
 
 There was a general laugh from all except 
 Riley, who still stood aloof from the glad 
 throng. The detachment had somehow 
 cheered up considerably since the damage 
 to the shield had excited its interest. 
 Soldiers are light-hearted fellows and easily 
 roused to mirth. After more unnecessary 
 coughing Jones again spoke in a casual 
 tone. 
 
 1 Soldier's Hindustani for rifle. 
 
AND PRIVATE RILEY 193 
 
 " 'Ow many packets of ammernition did 
 you say you'd fired early this morning, 
 Pull-through, that time the sergeant giv' 
 us the larse 'cease fire' but one just 
 before it began to get light ? " 
 
 The moody marksman did not reply. 
 
 " I know," said Inkpen ; " I made a note 
 of it. It was forty-three packets then ; 
 and he must have fired a tidy few rounds 
 after that." 
 
 " Yes forty-three it was and the rest. 
 'Owever, fair's fair, and we'll call it forty- 
 three packets at ten rounds per. Lemme 
 see ten times three is thirty ; ten times 
 forty is four 'underd. Four 'underd and 
 thirty I make it. That right, all?" 
 
 " That's right." 
 
 " Four 'underd and thirty rounds of good, 
 Mark Five, Lee-Enfield ammernition is 
 what you loosed off larse night, Number 
 two two ought six ought one, Private 
 Orlbert Riley, Marksman. Have you got 
 anything to say, me man ? " The last 
 words were a very fair imitation of a well- 
 
 N 
 
194 SOME ROCKETS, "MOTHER," 
 
 known phrase of the colonel commanding 
 the battalion the aforesaid Lobster. 
 
 Before the culprit had time to reply 
 there was a diversion, but not a welcome 
 one. A shout came from Riley's loophole, 
 and a rifle was protruded and slewed round 
 till it was pointed at the rent in the screen, 
 its foresight not three feet from it. The 
 shouter continued 
 
 "Why, Pull-through, you're a butcher, 
 an 'oly Terror. From this loophole I can 
 see the bleedin' bodies of all them pore 
 snipers you done in. Scores of 'em ! And 
 that close, too, I can almost touch 'em with 
 me muzzle." 
 
 " Any aasvogels ? " inquired Jones, who 
 had been told of Riley's taunt of the 
 previous evening. 
 
 Again was Riley the only man who 
 neither spoke nor made sound of merriment. 
 He had evidently done his talking during 
 the night. 
 
 " Good old Orlbert ! So they told orf a 
 special squad of snipers to pick orf our 
 
AND PRIVATE RILEY 195 
 
 marksman, and he done in the lot ? Oh 
 dear ! " 
 
 " Very satisfactory, me man ! Must 
 have got an inner every time. Not so bad 
 at that distance. What did you make the 
 range two foot ? And how much did you 
 allow for wind ? That sort of shooting 
 don't give them a chance. It's nothing but 
 dirty murder ! " 
 
 " It's just as well," said the thoughtful 
 Baker, " that we can't all of us be marks- 
 men. There wouldn't be many block'ouses 
 left in Africa. Heal good shooting is a bit 
 of a lukshury." 
 
 The men, now exceedingly cheerful, were 
 so interested in baiting their wretched com- 
 rade that, excepting the sentry, they had 
 not noticed that a party of mounted men 
 had joined the stationary train, that Mother 
 had returned, and that a heated conference 
 had been going on for some minutes be- 
 tween half a dozen officers near the railway. 
 And they were quite unaware that the ser- 
 geant thunder on his brow was even 
 
196 SOME ROCKETS, "MOTHER," 
 
 then savagely striding towards them. His 
 first words dispelled gaiety ; there was no 
 trace of the satisfied victor in them. 
 
 " Now then, you men, get a move on. 
 Jones, you're 'for it." : 
 
 "What for am I for it?" 
 
 " Givin' a false alarm. The Commandant 
 Jakhal's coming up to go into this business 
 in a minute." 
 
 For the first time this morning Riley 
 chuckled. To take pleasure in another's 
 discomfiture is not a nice trait, but it was 
 one of his. Perhaps there was in this case 
 some slight justification. 
 
 " False alarm ? " said the injured Jones ; 
 " 'oo's been firing at us all night then ? " 
 
 " Never you mind," was the sergeant's 
 disgusted answer, he had already taken 
 his medicine for having sent up the rockets, 
 down below. He then proceeded with 
 sublime inconsequence to blurt out the 
 information which he could no longer 
 bottle up. 
 
 " Who's been shootin' at us ? Why, one 
 
AND PRIVATE RILEY 197 
 
 of them blarsted new mounted crowds that 
 don't know enough to come in out of the 
 rain. Got in front of the driving line. 
 Blows in upon us just about dark, and 
 never sends ahead to warn us nor anyone 
 else. They've just discovered that the 
 Boers hid theirselves, and broke back and 
 got out of it the night before last. There 
 isn't one within fifty miles." 
 
 " Was any of them hurt ? Ain't Riley 
 killed anybody ? " said Jones. It was not 
 entirely malice on his part, nor was rt 
 entirely a kind hope that no one had been 
 killed. When one has been shooting all 
 night, almost the first mental query is 
 whether anything has been hit. 
 
 " Not a man, worse luck," growled the 
 non-com. He did not mean it. He was 
 only very sore. " There, that's enough of 
 it. You gave the alarm, Jones, and 
 you're 
 
 He ceased talking as if his voice was 
 controlled by an automatic cut-out, and 
 stalked up to the door-shield, the damage 
 
198 SOME ROCKETS, "MOTHER," 
 
 of which he now saw at close quarters for 
 the first time. He stared at it, then at the 
 loophole the marksman's loophole. He 
 examined the shield from outside, from in- 
 side, felt the holes, and finally, as Jones had 
 done, smelt them. And he had been talk- 
 ing big to that officer of the armoured train 
 about guns, pom-poms, and a hot time ! He 
 gasped, then glared speechless at Riley. 
 
 The sound of approaching voices showed 
 that the officers were coming up towards 
 the house. The sergeant had to make 
 
 O 
 
 up his mind what to do. Even had he 
 wished to screen the culprit, which he did 
 not, or the crime, which he did, he could 
 not conceal the gaping chasm in the 
 corrugated iron. It were best at any 
 sacrifice to himself or another to uphold 
 discipline. Again he glared at Riley, on 
 the point of making him a prisoner, but 
 uncertain as to the exact nature of the 
 crime he had committed. With inspecting 
 officers so close, to confine a man without 
 any definite charge ready would be fatal. 
 
AND PRIVATE RILEY 199 
 
 Good soldier as he was, the sergeant was 
 not too well versed in what was required 
 by the Manual of Military Law and the 
 Rules of Procedure. Indeed it was hardly 
 fair that a man in his position should have 
 to compete with such matters at a moment 
 of emergency. It was one of those occasions 
 when a soldier's work could really have 
 been done better by a lawyer. Through 
 his mind there flashed the words Mutiny, 
 Sedition, Insubordination, Conduct to the 
 Prejudice. At last he had it. Riley had 
 been guilty of two proper recognised crimes. 
 He had both lost by neglect ammunition 
 and had wilfully injured public property, to 
 wit, shields, entrance, blockhouse, c-iron and 
 shingle, one ! Though the perspiration was 
 streaming down it, the sergeant's brow 
 cleared considerably, and he regarded the 
 culprit somewhat less severely. After all 
 a mistake was a mistake, and all of us are 
 liable to them. It seemed a bit hard, he 
 thought, as he gazed on the rather sulky 
 and altogether dejected face of the marks- 
 
200 SOME ROCKETS, "MOTHER," ETC. 
 
 man. He started to speak in a more kindly 
 tone 
 
 "Riley " then paused. 
 
 Unluckily for the private, the visitors 
 were now quite close behind the house, and 
 the following words, pronounced in court- 
 eous accents, were quite audible 
 
 " By the way, what was it you mentioned 
 about guns having been used against you ? " 
 
 The voice that replied was that of the 
 skipper of the second train : " Oh, the 
 N.C.O. in charge, sir, was under the firm 
 impression that the blockhouse had been 
 hit by a shell." 
 
 The sergeant winced arid his kindly 
 glance crystallised into a gleam. And as 
 the procession, consisting of the Comman- 
 dant Jakhal's Vlei, his staff, the com- 
 manders of both armoured trains, and 
 three depressed mounted officers on foot, 
 brought up by a shivering wet mangy 
 dog, appeared round the entanglement, 
 the clarion voice of duty rang out, 
 
 " you're a prisoner ! " 
 
THE CULVERT ON THE SUMMIT. 
 
 I PUT my warm whisky-peg down on the 
 table, and wrath against Jebson overcame 
 me. I had come to this forsaken spot, 
 five hundred miles out of my way, on 
 purpose to see him. He had been barely 
 civil, had given me an execrable dinner, 
 warm drinks and fungus - eaten cheroots, 
 and had gone to bed almost immediately 
 after the meal and left me alone in the 
 verandah. 
 
 Be rude to your enemy, feed him on 
 chicken out of the Ark, give him mildewed 
 smokes ; but don't give him his drink warm 
 during the first week of the rains in Lower 
 Bengal, even if you mean to murder the 
 brute during the night. I was, or had 
 
202 THE CULVERT ON THE SUMMIT 
 
 been, Jebson's friend, and his reception of 
 me rankled till, diving my hand into my 
 pocket for my own cheroot-case, I pulled 
 out a crumpled telegram. I read it again, 
 and as I did so my anger faded : 
 
 
 "Jebson is at Sampore sick. Look him 
 
 up. DALGREN." 
 
 This deferred wire from Dalgren had 
 reached me four days before, just as I 
 was starting on my way home for a year's 
 furlough, so I had left my up - country 
 station a bit earlier in order to come 
 round by Sampore. I had arrived that 
 very evening, and had been fairly staggered 
 at the change in Jebson. In the seedy, 
 down-at-heel loafer, with the shifty eyes 
 and unkempt hair, who had come to meet 
 me at the station, I had utterly failed to 
 recognise the dandy, my chum of former 
 days. During dinner he had been reserved 
 and furtive in manner, and had gone off to 
 bed almost directly afterwards, declaring 
 
THE CULVERT ON THE SUMMIT 203 
 
 he was utterly played out. Even drink, 
 which was what I suspected, could not 
 altogether explain the alteration in him. 
 
 At last I finished my smoke. As I got 
 , up to go to my room I remarked something 
 odd about the legs of the long cane chair 
 in which my friend had been sitting. Each 
 of them rested on what looked like a 
 squashed hedgehog. On picking up one 
 of these things I found it was a little cloth 
 cushion stuck all over with solid and thick 
 bristles ! While I was wondering what on 
 earth it was for, I remembered another 
 curious thing I had noticed when I had 
 passed through Jebson's room in the dark 
 011 my way to dinner. As I had crossed 
 the room I knocked up against the leg of 
 the bed. Instantly I was badly pricked 
 all up my shin. 
 
 " Jebson," I had shouted, for it was 
 painful, "what the devil's this under 
 your bed ? " 
 
 " Where where ? Have you killed 
 it ? " was his answer as he rushed in. 
 
204 THE CULVERT ON THE SUMMIT 
 
 " Killed it, you confounded idiot ! I've 
 nearly killed myself. What is it ? " 
 
 I had then felt down the leg of the bed, 
 and found it was about three feet high, 
 made of iron, and covered with prickles 
 at least an inch long. Jebson had looked 
 sheepish and stammered out that it was 
 a curio that he was fond of curios. 
 
 Apparently here were some more of his 
 curios in the verandah. Putting the bristly 
 cushion down, I turned to go to my room 
 and was soon in bed. But the creaking 
 of the punkah, the drip of the rain out- 
 side, the buzz of the mosquitoes, and the 
 stifling heat kept me awake. A musk- 
 rat sneaked twittering down the angle of 
 the wall, a bat outside uttered the tiniest 
 of shrieks as it fluttered up and down 
 the verandah, and the whole dilapidated 
 bungalow whispered with queer, small 
 noises through its emptiness. At last all 
 these sounds grew faint and merged into 
 one, and I slowly dozed off. 
 
 I was suddenly aroused by a loud report, 
 
THE CULVERT ON THE SUMMIT 205 
 
 and before I was fairly awake a second 
 report rang through the bungalow. In 
 an instant I was out of bed, stumbling 
 through the dark towards the door into 
 Jebson's bedroom, which I was able to 
 locate because under the heavy curtain 
 which hung across the doorway shone a 
 flickering streak of light. As I burst 
 through the curtain a strange sight met 
 my eyes. 
 
 In a circle round the bed were several 
 hurricane lanterns, all flaring high except 
 two which were smoking heaps of broken 
 glass and tin amid pools of blazing oil 
 slowly creeping over the bare brick floor. 
 Inside the lanterns was a ring of coir 
 hawser drawn right round without a break. 
 On two sides of the mosquito-net hanging 
 over the bed were two large round holes 
 with fiery rims, which as I looked grew 
 and expanded like the burns made by a 
 cigar - end in a sheet of blotting - paper. 
 Through one of these holes protruded the 
 muzzle of a double-barrelled shot-gun. The 
 
206 THE CULVERT ON THE SUMMIT 
 
 air was full of oily smuts which rained 
 down like a shower of little black tad- 
 poles. 
 
 I rushed forward, tore down the mos- 
 quito-net, and found Jebson sitting up in 
 bed, naked to the waist, holding a gun 
 and staring at the broken lamp. 
 
 ' ' Good Lord, what's up ? Are you 
 hurt ? " I asked. 
 
 He only shook his head. Seeing that 
 he was uninjured I flung the mosquito- 
 net on the floor and stamped on it, then 
 threw a door-mat over the pool of burning 
 oil. When I turned round, Jebson, if you 
 please, was opening the breech of his gun 
 to reload. 
 
 " No, you don't ! " said I, and wrenched 
 the thing out of his hands. 
 
 " For heaven's sake, let me have it," 
 he pleaded, " there'll be more here in a 
 minute." He made a grab for the gun 
 and got hold of it. In our struggle the 
 poles of the mosquito-curtains were broken, 
 and it was not till I knocked him back- 
 
THE CULVERT ON THE SUMMIT 207 
 
 wards with my clenched fist that he gave 
 in, suddenly breaking into heavy sobs. 
 Then after a few moments he lay still. 
 He was a revolting sight. The soots 
 which covered his glistening chest and 
 arms were all smeared into streaks of 
 black so that he looked like a greased 
 zebra. When he spoke again he talked 
 quite sensibly. 
 
 " I want to explain, but I feel queer. 
 Get me a drop of brandy, old chap." 
 
 " No," I answered, for my worst sus- 
 picions had been aroused. " Not by a long 
 chalk. I've seen enough." 
 
 " Blandford it's not that. I'm bad. 
 Get me a little to pick me up, and I'll 
 tell you all. I'm perfectly sensible now, 
 but don't laugh I've been I am 
 haunted by snakes cobras." He spoke 
 the last word in a hoarse whisper and 
 looked round in obvious terror. 
 
 I thought as much. It was best to 
 humour him, so I said sympathetically 
 
 " I know pink cobras, with purple 
 
208 THE CULVERT ON THE SUMMIT 
 
 stripes, and green mongeese. They're all 
 gone now. I've killed them all." 
 
 In his excitement he had half raised 
 himself on the bed. He then flung him- 
 self back on the pillow with an impatient 
 groan, and displayed some resentment, 
 which gave me hopes. 
 
 " You've known me pretty long. I can 
 see what you're driving at ; but I think 
 you should take my word. I've not 
 touched a drop of liquor for the last 
 year." 
 
 " Jebson," I said, dropping my sympa- 
 thetic touch. " It's no good. You spend 
 your nights sitting on a bed covered with 
 prickles loosing off at lanterns with a shot- 
 gun. You fight like a madman, swear 
 you're haunted by snakes, and expect me 
 to believe that you don't dri 
 
 At this point Jebson interrupted my 
 remarks by dropping back limply on to 
 his pillow in a dead faint. I dashed into 
 my room for my flask, and presently suc- 
 ceeded in forcing some of the brandy be- 
 
THE CULVERT ON THE SUMMIT 209 
 
 tween his teeth. After a minute or two 
 he came to. 
 
 "Look here. How did all this start?" 
 I asked. " Bad go of fever ? " This was 
 a bit of finesse. Fever sends men off their 
 heads, but I never knew it bring a man to 
 seeing snakes afterwards. 
 
 He sat up and sighed. 
 
 " Half a minute," I interrupted. " I can't 
 stand this putrid atmosphere any longer. 
 Why, you haven't even got a punkah. It's 
 awful ; come into my room." 
 
 As we crossed the floor he suddenly 
 gripped my arm and stood staring at a 
 narrow space between two boxes. His face 
 seemed frozen. At first I could see noth- 
 ing ; but when I lifted my lantern I dis- 
 covered the black-and-drab shining body 
 of a cobra between the cases. 
 
 " It's no good killing them," he said 
 resignedly. " They swarm. I've shot two 
 in here to-night." Hence the shattered 
 lanterns. 
 
 However, as the brute was gliding out, 
 o 
 
210 THE CULVERT ON THE SUMMIT 
 
 I tipped a saddle-box on to its tail. Back 
 went its head, hood spread, with that horrid 
 " th th " which, once heard, is never for- 
 gotten. It struck at the wood till I hit it 
 on the head with a polo stick. 
 
 Jebson then went absolutely gugga, and 
 got into a frenzy. He seized the polo stick 
 and beat the squirming body into a bleed- 
 ing pulp, all the while using the very worst 
 language English and Hindustani. It 
 was some time before I could get him to 
 leave the mangled carcase. My room 
 seemed almost cold after the Turkish bath 
 we had just left, and I put a blanket round 
 Jebson, who sat on my bed. He said he 
 could smell snakes, and made me look in 
 the verandah to see if there were any more. 
 Then I lit a cheroot, determined to make a 
 night of it, and hear his yarn while he was 
 willing to tell it. He might change his 
 mind by next day. 
 
 After a few minutes silence he began : 
 " This thing commenced two years ago, and 
 since then my life has been a burden to me. 
 
THE CULVERT ON THE SUMMIT 211 
 
 I've had hallucinations, and some of it is 
 due to imagination, but not all. I know 
 that I am always being attacked by snakes, 
 especially cobras. At first it was not so 
 bad, but it has gradually got worse and 
 worse. It is a damnably snaky district, 
 and you can guess what it's like in the 
 rains. This bungalow swarms with the 
 brutes. You saw to-night ? I've lost five 
 dogs, and have had to give up keeping 
 them. I've tried all sorts of precautions. 
 Mongeese all die. Had a belt cleared 
 round the bungalow it's rolled and weeded 
 every day. Had the place lit up at night. 
 All no good. Still they come. I've gone 
 in for further measures. I had cushions 
 made of bristles under my chairs. I dare 
 say you spotted 'em ? " 
 
 I nodded. 
 
 " I then had the bed with prickly legs 
 made, also a horsehair rope laid round it 
 every night." 
 
 " What's that for ?" I asked. 
 
 " Oh, I read somewhere or some one 
 
212 THE CULVERT ON THE SUMMIT 
 
 told me that snakes will never cross horse- 
 hair. I started lamps all round my bed, 
 gave up a punkah for mosquito -curtains, 
 and go to bed with a gun ; and I seem 
 to spend my nights shooting the brutes. 
 Strange thing is that though I have killed 
 hundreds I've not found many bodies in the 
 morning." 
 
 " Don't your servants come in when they 
 hear the gun ? " I asked. 
 
 "No, they daren't. I've just had a bad 
 bout, and haven't slept till daylight for a 
 month now, and I'm about done." 
 
 " Why, man, it's this cursed climate. Go 
 on leave that'll put you right. You don't 
 mean to tell me you've been here for two 
 years ? " 
 
 " I have. Daren't ask for leave. They'd 
 find out what's wrong, jeer about blue 
 snakes and pink rats, and put it down to 
 drink, as you did. Brudley, the manager, 
 has a down on me already. I should get 
 the sack. No. I must stick it out." He 
 paused. " The truth is that I practically 
 
THE CULVERT ON THE SUMMIT 213 
 
 though unintentionally committed a murder, 
 and this is the retribution. You know, this 
 infernal line of mine along the delta, with 
 its miles of embankments, is always being 
 breached in the rains, when the whole 
 country is flooded and the water can't get 
 away. Of course, as part of my job, I am 
 liable to be called out at any time, night 
 or day, to repair any break in my section. 
 One night last year, about ten days after 
 the beginning of the monsoon, I got a wire 
 soon after dinner to say there was a wash- 
 out about seven miles up the line. It 
 was raining solid, just as it is now ; and I 
 was pretty sick, for I had spent the last 
 two days on a similar job. But I was 
 obliged to put out and do my best. I had 
 to trolley, as Sampore is not an engine 
 station, and I'd only one trolley coolie, the 
 other having died of cholera which is 
 endemic in this sweet spot. But he was 
 a very good man, and I know he could 
 easily take me seven miles. I wired to 
 Jhuthganj the nearest engine station 
 
214 THE CULVERT ON THE SUMMIT 
 
 for a loco and ballast train to follow as 
 soon as possible, and started off in the 
 pitch dark. We hadn't gone a mile before 
 Gungoo 
 
 " Who's Gungoo ? " I said. 
 
 " The trolley man. He began to get 
 afraid because he thought he saw lots of 
 snakes on the line. I told him to shut up 
 and shove ahead. Meanwhile I sat looking 
 out in front to see the line was clear. The 
 lantern lit up the metals for some distance, 
 but the light did not strike the ground for 
 a few yards in front, and between that 
 point and the trolley was inky dark. On 
 each side of the embankment was water 
 stretching for miles. After another couple 
 of miles Gungoo, who had been paddling 
 along steadily, again spoke 
 
 " ' Sahib, there are too many snakes. 
 They are cobras. I am afraid.' ' 
 
 " I didn't believe him for a moment, and 
 asked how he could tell." 
 
 " { I hear them speak, sahib, and I have 
 touched two.' " 
 
THE CULVERT ON THE SUMMIT 215 
 
 " He then began to whimper and climbed 
 up on the end of the trolley. I don't know 
 why I was so annoyed, but I took up my 
 gun, which I always had with me, and 
 swore I'd shoot him if he didn't get down. 
 Of course the thing was not loaded. The 
 poor devil got down, and began shoving 
 again as fast as he could. I then thought 
 I'd have a look myself, and I tipped up the 
 lantern so that the light fell immediately 
 in front of the wheels. By Jove, Bland- 
 ford, I counted four largish snakes in about 
 two hundred yards, and was turning round 
 to tell Gungoo to get up when he gave a 
 yell, which nearly made me fall off the 
 trolley, climbed up again, and howled out 
 that he had been bitten. I sat him in 
 my chair, tore open the tiffin-basket, and 
 poured some brandy down his throat. He 
 didn't want to take it, but he was too 
 knocked out to resist you know how 
 easily these chaps knuckle under and was 
 already half dead. I knew enough about 
 it to try and keep him from going to sleep 
 
216 THE CULVERT ON THE SUMMIT 
 
 at any cost, so I made him get down, and 
 we both pushed the trolley along. I did 
 all the work while he hung on and kept 
 his legs going ; but he lagged more and 
 more, then all at once staggered and fell, 
 and was dragged hanging on to the handles 
 for some twenty feet before I could pull 
 up. I ordered him to stand up, I beat him, 
 and threatened him with my gun ; but it 
 was no good. So I picked him up, put him 
 back into the chair, and emptied my flask 
 into him. By that time his leg was all 
 puffed up and shiny, and his face had 
 turned a dirty grey-green. 
 
 "After about ten minutes he opened his 
 eyes, and said that he was going to die, 
 and asked me to look after his family. 
 Then his head sank forward. I worked 
 his arms and tried to keep him going, but 
 he was a goner. His whole body was 
 swollen, and wherever I touched him it 
 left a dent. His heart had stopped beat- 
 ing. You can imagine my feelings, for I 
 had killed him through sheer pig-headed 
 
THE CULVEItT ON THE SUMMIT 217 
 
 incredulity. Poor devil ! However, I could 
 do no good sitting there ; and as the need 
 for me to get ahead was just as urgent 
 as ever, I decided to walk on. 
 
 " I picked up the lantern and flag, and 
 plugged ahead. I don't know why I took 
 the flag, for it could not have been of any 
 use to me at night. In fact, I didn't 
 realise I had it in my hand until after- 
 wards. Suddenly down went my left 
 leg. I saw stars, and then a blank. The 
 next thing was that I found myself in the 
 pitch dark lying on some wet ballast. It 
 was some time before I remembered what 
 had happened. 
 
 " I tried to get up, but a pain like a 
 red-hot nail in my left ankle made, me 
 sink back. I went at it again very slowly 
 and cautiously, and by degrees slewed my 
 body round so that I was sitting on one 
 rail. My foot was caught somehow, and 
 though I managed to screw it round a bit 
 and cut the bootlace I couldn't free it. 
 My ankle was throbbing like a pulsometer. 
 
218 THE CULVERT ON THE SUMMIT 
 
 "The lantern must have swung out of 
 my hand right into the water, for there 
 was no trace of it, not even a spark. I 
 could see nothing, and hadn't the vaguest 
 idea of where I was. As I looked about 
 me trying to pierce the black, the murmur- 
 ing of water close by told me that I was 
 somewhere near a culvert through which 
 the flood was rushing. I then perceived, 
 rather than saw, something opposite me 
 on the other side of the bank. I was 
 puzzled by it for some time, but it gradu- 
 ally dawned upon me that it was a grade- 
 post. A double gradient - post about 
 fifty yards from a culvert ! That gave me 
 the clue. I realised my whereabouts. I 
 was at the summit of two gradients, about 
 five miles from the station. 
 
 " Just then a yarn that RufFell had told 
 me when he handed over the section came 
 into my mind a yarn which I had taken 
 for a rather ingenious lie and promptly 
 forgotten " 
 
 For Jebson to be calmly talking of other 
 men's lies struck me as curious. 
 
THE CULVERT ON THE SUMMIT 219 
 
 " He had been gassing," he continued, 
 " about the monsoon and the floods and 
 the large numbers of snakes which at such 
 times collected on the embankment. He 
 swore that the brutes kept between the 
 rails, and that however gentle a grade was 
 they always spotted it and travelled up- 
 hill ; he also said that at a summit, where 
 two streams of snakes met, there was a 
 regular Piccadilly Circus of snakes, simply 
 jostling each other till they found a way 
 out. 
 
 " I'd never thought again of all this rot. 
 Now I tried in vain to put it out of my 
 head. I tried to persuade myself that I 
 did not hear the roar of the water ; that 
 it was not a double grade-post in front of 
 me. But it was no good. I knew where 
 I must be, and the sweat trickling down 
 my back ran cold. I hunted for my match- 
 box ; but of course it was with my cheroot- 
 case in the tiffin-basket on the trolley. 
 
 " I was in the dark, unable to get away, 
 and practically defenceless. I had the flag 
 of course, and the bamboo was a stout one ; 
 
220 THE CULVERT ON THE SUMMIT 
 
 but, after all, what was the good of a yard 
 of stick against brutes I could not see ? 
 How the deuce was I to know when one 
 of them was coming ? There I sat quite 
 still, scarcely daring to move. Presently 
 above the sound of the water I seemed to 
 hear a faint, queer noise along the line to 
 my right. For some time I was not certain 
 it really was anything, or whether my fancy 
 was playing tricks. The noise was not 
 louder than the murmur of the waters, 
 but was quite distinct from it and much 
 nearer as if a wood shaving were being 
 gently dragged over the ballast. On it 
 came, closer and closer ! It was a snake, a 
 cobra ! All snakes were potential cobras 
 to me there in the dark. 
 
 "There was a pause. It had stopped. 
 Had it smelt me ? Could cobras smell ? 
 Could they see in the dark? As these 
 queries darted through my mind I made 
 up my plan of action. I would stay ab- 
 solutely still till the beast was quite close 
 within range of my stick ; then one 
 
THE CULVERT ON THE SUMMIT 221 
 
 clever, sweeping blow, and with luck I 
 should disable it before it got the alarm. 
 Anyway, hit or miss, the brute would 
 certainly hiss, and then I could locate my 
 next blow by the sound. My eyes ached 
 with trying to see in the darkness. Sud- 
 denly it came on again. Why was it so 
 slow ? It seemed to take hours to cover 
 a yard. I held my breath. Now, I 
 judged, it was eight feet away now seven 
 six five ! 1 could reach five feet. I 
 gave one almighty swipe round horizon- 
 tally and hit the empty air ! There was 
 an angry hiss and a scuffling on the ballast. 
 I took aim by the sound and aimed another 
 blow. Same result, I hit nothing, and 
 nearly threw my arm out of its socket. 
 
 " It was awful. The beast might be 
 much farther away than I imagined, and 
 I might have alarmed it to no purpose. 
 Reaching out as far as I could, I drew 
 the point of my stick in an arc from rail 
 to rail. It touched no snake, but the 
 hissing went on regularly with each breath 
 
222 THE CULVERT ON THE SUMMIT 
 
 the beast took. It was again approaching. 
 I again let fly, and this time the stick felt 
 as if it had struck a bit of dangling rope. 
 As I let out a couple more horizontal blows 
 the hissing redoubled, and bits of mud 
 and gravel spurted up. My next stroke 
 hit nothing. I therefore knew that the 
 creature's head was down, and I rained 
 blows on the ballast from rail to rail, till 
 I was afraid of smashing the stick. I then 
 felt round gingerly with the point to make 
 sure that the brute had not closed in on 
 me. I knew that its back must be broken 
 in several places, but it could still bite if 
 within range. 
 
 " The scuffling became weaker and gradu- 
 ally died away ; and I had barely made up 
 my mind that this snake was dead when 
 a fresh scraping, creeping sound to my left 
 brought me back to my situation. I pain- 
 fully faced round to the left, in which 
 direction I could not reach far. The noise 
 approached slowly and fitfully, stopped for 
 minutes at a time, and then came on again. 
 
THE CULVERT ON THE SUMMIT 223 
 
 I had no doubts this time as to what it 
 was, but the suspense of waiting was so 
 great that I felt inclined to shout to defy 
 the brute to come on, anything to break 
 the spell. At one moment it seemed almost 
 within reach. Then it halted. I waited 
 expectant for the smallest movement. 
 Could it glide on without any sound ? 
 Had it escaped under the rail ? Had it 
 gone to sleep? 
 
 "While these doubts were torturing me 
 I heard another rustle approaching on my 
 right at a brisk pace. If I turned towards 
 this last comer I should probably arouse 
 the sleeping horror on my left. But 
 Number Three came along steadily with- 
 out any pause or delay, and I felt that if 
 I did not stop it it might butt right into 
 me, so I turned to meet it as quietly as 
 I could. 
 
 " With my left ear I was listening in- 
 tently for any movement of Number Two, 
 whilst my right was noting the steady 
 rustle of the newcomer. At last I judged 
 
224 THE CULVERT ON THE SUMMIT 
 
 it to be well within reach, and I let out. 
 I must have caught it fairly, because I 
 felt its carcase lift to my stick, and heard 
 the thud of its fall just outside the rails. 
 I at once turned to my left as a vicious 
 hiss struck my ears, and I was not a bit 
 too soon, for I caught Number Two half- 
 way up the bamboo. I hit till the hissing 
 on my left ceased, and then laced into the 
 ballast vaguely at Number Three which 
 was still moving. I didn't know if I was 
 hitting Number Three or the dead body 
 of Number One, or nothing at all. And I 
 didn't care. I rained blows anyhow and 
 anywhere. My rage turned to frenzy. 
 Then things became blurred and half 
 visible part of a hideous nightmare : I 
 seemed to spend countless ages sitting 
 there striking. Snakes came up in bat- 
 talions on each side. They grinned at me. 
 I mowed down dozens at a blow. But it was 
 hopeless. It was like cutting grass with a 
 scythe ; for each stroke cleared a space 
 which showed a fresh row of expanded 
 
THE CULVERT ON THE SUMMIT 225 
 
 hoods behind. I kept on hitting without 
 pause till my arm felt like a bar of white- 
 hot steel. A rosy glow came over every- 
 thing. A wall of dead reptiles grew up 
 on each side and fresh hordes climbed 
 over the top. The wall grew and grew, 
 shutting out the blood-red light. Things 
 began to buzz and jigger and go round. 
 The wall closed over my head ; and every- 
 thing went out with a purple bang 
 
 Jebson had grown intensely excited to- 
 wards the end of this marvellous yarn, and 
 was barking out short staccato sentences, 
 and when he ceased speaking the tumbler 
 which he had been holding shivered to 
 pieces in his clutch and he suddenly col- 
 lapsed. I straightened him out comfortably 
 on the bed and put a blanket over him. 
 Dawn was just breaking as I dragged in 
 a long -chair from the verandah and lay 
 down. When I awoke it was ten o'clock. 
 At twelve Jebson opened his eyes. He 
 looked at me steadily for some time and 
 then said 
 
226 THE CULVERT ON THE SUMMIT 
 
 " Blandford, do you believe what I told 
 you?" 
 
 I was considering my answer when I 
 caught his eye watching me hungrily. 
 That decided me. 
 
 " Yes." 
 
 I stopped at the monosyllable. As a 
 matter of fact, I did not believe a word 
 of it. The tale Ruffell had told him had 
 evidently worked upon him when weak 
 from fever, and subsequently drink must 
 have assisted the fever. I could not help 
 smiling as I recalled the " wall of cobras," 
 the " rosy light," and the " purple bang." 
 This last was distinctly fresh : and yet I 
 knew what he meant. When one has fever, 
 both noises and smells have colours. 
 
 Then to cut a long story short I spent 
 two hours trying to persuade him to put in 
 for his leave, and only finally succeeded 
 in working on his good nature. If he 
 didn't do as I wanted I threatened to wire 
 to my headquarters, put off my passage for 
 a week or two, and interview the manager 
 
THE CULVERT ON THE SUMMIT 227 
 
 of the railway. I laid great stress on my 
 desire to get home, and the disappointment 
 and expense that delay would be to me. 
 Jebson's only reason against doing as I 
 wanted was his fear that the Management 
 would not understand his case and would 
 sack him. 
 
 However, I helped him to write out an 
 application for leave without making any 
 mention of snakes ; and we made all sorts 
 of plans, and promised ourselves a great 
 time at home. After that I felt free to go 
 on my journey ; Jebson came down to see 
 me off, and as the train steamed out of the 
 station he said, laughing, "To-day five 
 weeks I shall dine with you at the club. 
 Don't forget the oysters." 
 
 The train crawled slowly along, and I 
 lay in my bunk sweating and grumbling 
 and ruminating over the whole affair. How 
 lucky I had turned up ! The poor devil 
 would have drunk himself to death in a 
 month or so. But my conscience began to 
 prick me that I had not done the right 
 
228 THE CULVERT ON THE SUMMIT 
 
 thing in leaving him. He might get 
 another bad fit, might cancel his leave, or 
 it might not be sanctioned ; lots of things 
 might prevent his getting away. 
 
 My frame of mind was particularly evil 
 towards monsoons and narrow-gauge rail- 
 ways, when at last, towards evening, we 
 came to a long halt at some wayside station. 
 Ten minutes passed, twenty minutes, half 
 an hour, and I heard the Eurasian guard 
 conferring with the babu station-master in 
 chee-chee. 
 
 " What the dickens is up, Babu ? When 
 are we going on ? " I inquired. 
 
 " How can I tell, sir ? I have the report, 
 which arrived to me at fifteen o'clock, that 
 the Kali Naadi Bridge at mile 534 is 
 entirelee washed away. I have accordingly 
 made bandobast to take mails across in the 
 countree boats, and have arranged for them 
 since three hours, your honour, but up to 
 date no boat is to hand. These are terrible 
 times, your honour : what can poor station- 
 master do ? Perhaps your honour shall 
 
THE CULVERT OJSI THE SUMMIT 229 
 
 consult with Mr Esmith. Every precaution 
 will be taken with your baggage." 
 
 "Damn Mr Smith!" I said. "You are 
 responsible for the boats being here, Babu ; 
 and I shall report you to the Traffic 
 Manager for neglect of duty." 
 
 " Sir, I beg of you to consider me. Your 
 honour, it is not my culpabilitee. I have 
 undertaken great responsibilitee 
 
 I was sick of this. " Who and where is 
 Mr Smith?" 
 
 " He is the European engine-driver, sir. 
 He is now sittin' on the locomot " 
 
 I did not wait for more. I walked along 
 the train and found a fat, red-faced man 
 swabbing down a lubricator with a piece 
 of waste. 
 
 " Good-evening," I said. " Is there any 
 chance of our crossing to-night ? " 
 
 " Not for me, sir with this wash-out. 
 There will be some boats here soon for the 
 mails, and you will be able to get acrost 
 with them." 
 
 "I suppose they will turn up?" I asked 
 
230 THE CULVERT ON THE SUMMIT 
 
 anxiously. " I want to catch the mail- 
 boat." 
 
 " Oh, you'll be all right, sir. This sort 
 of game is always happening on this line, 
 and we're quite accustomed to transhipping 
 a whole trainload into boats, let alone 
 mails. The boats 'ull be 'ere soon should 
 be 'ere now and you'll find a train waiting 
 for you on the other side. Thank 'ee, sir ; 
 I don't mind if I do," as he took a proffered 
 cheroot. 
 
 I was relieved. " The station-master 
 does not seem to know much about it ; he's 
 off his head with excitement." 
 
 " 'E's all right, sir, is Babu Gopal Dass 
 that is, when it's all plain sailing. It's 
 only when there's anything unusual as 'e 
 loses 'is 'ead. 'E's probably ordered these 
 boats hours ago ; and because they are not 
 'ere to the tick 'e gets so gebrowed 'e dunno 
 what 'e's doing. Why, my fireman 'ere, 
 Jinab Ally, loses 'is 'ead whenever he can. 
 Nearly ran over the D.E. not so long ago 
 didn't-cher, Ally, my boy ? " 
 
THE CULVERT ON THE SUMMIT 231 
 
 " Sahib, mera kasoor" whined the grin- 
 ning Ali, whose shining face was frosted 
 over with coal-dust till it looked like a 
 charcoal biscuit. 
 
 As I could do nothing but wait, I was 
 quite willing to while away the time by 
 having a chat with the oily engine-driver, 
 and to make things more friendly and 
 to lubricate his memory, I produced my 
 flask. 
 
 " Er how was that ? " I asked. 
 
 " It was near as can be two years ago. 
 Why, you know the D.E. 'e come down 
 to Sampore station to see you off. Funny 
 Jebson beg pardon, sir, Mr Jebson the 
 District Engineer I mean. We calls 'im 
 ' Funny Jebson ' on the line, 'cos 'e 'as 
 fancies about snakes and sech. Not that 
 I wonder at it, poor man." 
 
 I felt inclined to rebuke this fat red- 
 faced mechanic for his disrespectful manner 
 of talking of Jebson ; but after all I should 
 do no good and perhaps lose the yarn, so 
 I held my peace. 
 
232 THE CULVERT ON THE SUMMIT 
 
 "Yes," he continued, ruminatively, 
 " taking it all in all, it was a queer show. 
 Perhaps, sir, you'd like to 'ear about it ? " 
 And he went on before I had time to 
 answer. 
 
 " One night in the thick of the rain, it 
 was, when the whole country was under 
 water I was at Jhutganj, which you must 
 know is forty miles this side of Sampore. 
 We 'ad just run into the shed and Ally 'ad 
 drawed the fire, when I gets an order that 
 I 'ad to take out a ballast train and break- 
 down gang to a place seven miles on the 
 up side of Sampore for to repair one of 
 these breaches. It fairly gave me the 'ump. 
 I 'ad been out the other way for two nights, 
 an' I wanted a bit of sleep. 
 
 " Well, the ballast train was always kep' 
 ready ; and as soon as the coolies were 
 collected and steam was up, out we went. 
 It was rainin' steady, and was as dark as 
 the inside of a fish. We couldn't see 
 through the window of the cab for rain- 
 drops, an* we might run into some bloomin' 
 
THE CULVERT ON THE SUMMIT 233 
 
 noo breach on our own accord for all we 
 knew. We passed Sampore at three-thirty, 
 an' the station-master tells me that the 
 district engineer had gone on ahead, an' 
 that I should find him at the wash-out an' 
 take 'is orders gone on in 'is trolley. When 
 we got about four miles out it was just 
 beginning to dawn, an' a sickly kind of 
 grey - green light over everything. You 
 could see the line straight ahead, and the 
 dark-grey floods on either side as far as the 
 eye could reach. My eyes ached, and I 
 was feelin' the beginnings of a go of fever. 
 Suddenly Ally, 'oo was looking out, sings 
 out, ' There's something ahead ! ' and 
 jammed on the brake. 
 
 " I shuts off steam, and reverses imme- 
 diately. I had the fear of some new wash- 
 out in my mind. 'Owever we weren't doing 
 over fifteen miles, and we pulls up very 
 short. As I gets down I see a trolley on 
 the line, with some one sitting on it, not 
 more than fifty yards away, so we walks 
 up to it. The tail lamp 'ad burnt out, and 
 
234 THE CULVERT ON THE SUMMIT 
 
 there was a coolie sprawling over the chair. 
 ' Well/ I says to Ally, ' this is a rum start ! 
 What's this soor doing sleeping in this 
 chair and endangering the traffic ? ' With 
 that I gives 'im a jab, and yanks 'im out of 
 it ; an' 'e fell all of a 'eap. 
 
 " If you believe me, sir, 'e was dead 
 dead as mutton ; been dead some time, and 
 reeked of brandy. I jest stood still an' 
 stared. Then I noticed 'is body was puffy 
 like, an' one leg was swole up big as the 
 chimney of this engine an' I side stepped. 
 Ally began pulling 'im about. 
 
 " ' Get out, you fat'ead ! " I says. ' It's 
 cholera ! I'm off. Let 'im alone ! ' 
 
 "Ally didn't pay no sort of attention, 
 but pointed to the man's ankle, and shouts 
 out 
 
 " ' Mila, sahib.' 
 
 " ' Mila,' says I. ' What have you 
 mila'd? Leave him alone/ 
 
 " ' Not cholera/ says Ally. ' Cobra/ 
 
 " I looked a bit closer, an' there, on his 
 ankle, were the small marks of a snake- 
 
THE CULVERT ON THE SUMMIT 235 
 
 bite. That explained the smell of brandy, 
 which ain't usual about a coolie. Ally said 
 'e knoo 'im, an' 'e was one of the D.E.'s 
 trolley coolies, and the trolley was the 
 D.E.'s, so the D.E. himself must have 
 shoved on ahead on 'is flat feet. It was no 
 use waiting there, an' we moved the poor 
 chap off the trolley, lifted it on one side, 
 and drove on. We 'ad not gone above 'arf 
 a mile farther when this time I see some- 
 thing on the road. It was moving, too. 
 I tells Ally an' reverses. Ally takes a look; 
 an' instead of putting on the brakes, if you 
 please, 'e wanted to drive through it. Said 
 it was the coolie's ghost. 
 
 " ' Ghosts ! ' says I. ' Rats ! Put on the 
 brake, you lunatic.' 
 
 "But 'e wouldn't : an' when I steps for- 
 ward to do it, 'e clung round my legs, 
 beggin' me not to do it. Meanwhile, we 
 was slowly running on to it, whatever it 
 was. I didn't get the brake on until I 
 give Ally two in the jaw which made 'im 
 let go. Only jest in time, too : we pulled 
 
236 THE CULVERT ON THE SUMMIT 
 
 up about a dozen yards short of it. I gets 
 down off the footplate an' looks. 
 
 " Ally why, it makes me larf now when 
 I thinks of it Ally, 'e was trying to 'ide 
 'is 'ead with lumps of coal, same like a 
 woman does in the bedclothes. 
 
 " It was lighter now, an' I could see as it 
 was a man. 'E was setting on one rail, with 
 'is legs acrost the track. 'Is face was all 
 bloody ; 'e 'ad no 'at, an' was muttering. 
 'E took no sort of notice of me ; 'is eyes 'ad 
 a fixed glare in them, an' every now an' 
 then he feebly waves a stick with bits of 
 green rag fastened to it. I own I didn't 
 like it, an' 'ad 'arf a mind to get on the 
 footplate an' go back to Sampore. It was 
 onnatural ; an' Ally's whining, an' what all, 
 'ad made me jumpy. 'Owever, I stands 
 my ground, an' sees a lot of bits of rope 
 lying round on each side of him. Ally 'ad 
 meanwhile plucked up and follered me, 
 soft-footed, and gives me quite a turn by 
 suddenly whispering in my ear, ' It's 
 Jebson Sahib.' Then I spots 'im. It was 
 
THE CULVERT ON THE SUMMIT 237 
 
 Mr Jebson, sir. I goes closer, an' the bits 
 of rope round 'im were dead and dyin' 
 cobras ! I counted seventeen." 
 
 " Seventeen cobras ? " 
 
 " That's right seventeen ; an' some 
 remarkably fine ones, too ! It was crool. 
 I have the biggest in sperrits at 'ome now. 
 Well, I looked at that image settin' there, 
 an' I tell you I didn't fancy 'aving to go 
 and pick 'im out of 'is nest. 'Is nose was 
 broken, which 'elped to disguise 'im, an' 'is 
 eyes were wide open and fixed like a dead 
 man's. 'E never so much as winked. 
 Well, we " 
 
 " Your honour, the countree boats have 
 now safely arrived, and the mails are 
 loaded. Your honour's baggage is on 
 board. Will you kindly embark ? " sounded 
 the oily voice of the Babu, who had 
 come up. 
 
 " Half a minute, Babu," I said. 
 
 " Sir, train and tide wait for no man. 
 Her Majesty's mails 
 
 "Go to ' I roared, and he scuttled 
 
238 THE CULVERT ON THE SUMMIT 
 
 like a rabbit to the shelter of his office, 
 whence he shouted 
 
 " I shall telegraph that Her Majesty's 
 mails are being delayed by unauthorised 
 persons of European extraction." 
 
 But I did not heed him. I turned to 
 Smith. 
 
 " Well, we took 'im back, an' 'e was orf 
 'is 'ead for six weeks. I don't know 'ow it 
 all happened. Really, there's a lot of yarns 
 up and down the line, but I've never asked 
 Mr Jebson 'isself 'e is a bit stand-offish 
 so I can't tell you the rights of it. I 
 only knows what I see myself. You'd 
 better be movin', sir. It would be jest like 
 Gopal Dass to send the boats off without 
 
 you." 
 
 I got off my little seat in the cab, and 
 shook the driver's hand. 
 
 " Good-bye, sir. I 'ope you'll find all 
 well in the old country. I wish I was 
 going with you." 
 
 I threw a rupee to Ali, and ran towards 
 the river, my bearer leading. 
 
THE CULVERT ON THE SUMMIT 239 
 
 The remainder of my journey was un- 
 eventful ; but owing to two more delays 
 I only just caught my ship, and had no 
 time to interview Jebson's manager, nor 
 did I write, because I thought a letter 
 might possibly do more harm than good. 
 A personal interview would have been so 
 much better. 
 
 Close upon five weeks afterwards I was 
 sitting in the club thinking about ordering 
 that dinner, not forgetting the oysters, 
 when I happened to notice the following 
 in the ' Homeward Mail ' : 
 
 "JEBSON. At Sampore, suddenly, from 
 
 snake - bite, on , WILLIAM THEODORE 
 
 JEBSON, District Engineer on the Rajpu- 
 tana, Chittagong, and Tuticorin Railway." 
 
SEEGEANT SNODGRASS 
 
 "With the utmost rigour of the law." 
 
 As the train jolted over the points outside 
 a big junction I put down the book and 
 looked out of the window. 
 
 We soon ran into the station. To hoarse 
 shouts of " Basingstoke, Winchester, and 
 Southampton S'uthampton train," the 
 compartment I was in drew up opposite 
 the exit from the platform, where a 
 truculent collector who was busy snatch- 
 ing tickets from the outgoing crowd had 
 just started a heated altercation with a 
 quiet but determined - looking individual. 
 This passenger appeared to be a man of 
 
SERGEANT SNODGRASS 241 
 
 substance, and not of a sort to be brow- 
 beaten. He displayed light-coloured spats 
 over well-polished, square-toed boots, and 
 wore one of those mongrel hats which are 
 half bowler, half topper, and are much 
 affected by retired military officers, bailiffs, 
 land - agents, and some farmers. To me 
 the hat was a sign, for I have discovered 
 in my short experience of life that the 
 wearer of this type of headgear is not the 
 sort of man to be trampled on, especially 
 when he has whiskers. This passenger 
 had whiskers. He grew the more bland 
 and self- assured the more the ticket- 
 collector blustered. Finally, fumbling in 
 his pocket, he produced a visiting - card, 
 which he handed to the excited railway 
 man. There was a sudden and almost 
 painful change in the official's manner, and 
 he said something. One could guess the 
 words from his demeanonr. " I beg your 
 pardon, sir, I'm sure. I did not know who 
 it was, sir ! " He not only touched his hat, 
 
242 SERGEANT SNODGRASS 
 
 but took the trouble to change his ticket 
 punch from one hand to the other in order 
 to do it. 
 
 The passenger neither smiled nor spoke, 
 but passed out majestically, while there 
 ensued a whispered conference between 
 the crestfallen official and the porter who 
 was carrying the stranger's solid leather, 
 waterproof-covered, heavily-initialled suit- 
 case. The collector stared wistfully down 
 the stairs after his late opponent, and was 
 so unmanned by what had happened that 
 he allowed two individuals, whose humble 
 appearance was a positive invitation to 
 bullying, to pass out unchallenged. The 
 victorious passenger might have been a 
 general officer, a peer of the realm, or 
 even a director of the Company, for his 
 opponent's attitude of distressed surprise 
 warranted any conjecture. As the train 
 started and the latter moved out of the 
 field of view of my window, he took off 
 his peaked cap, rubbed the inside of it 
 with his handkerchief, and thoughtfully 
 
SERGEANT SNOP^RASS 243 
 
 readjusted the red tie at the back of his 
 tired-looking celluloid collar. 
 
 Two of my travelling companions I was 
 in a second - class smoking carriage had 
 been watching this little scene with as 
 much interest as I had, and one jumped 
 up laughing, put his head out of the 
 window and stared at the discomfited 
 official till we ran out of the station. 
 He turned to his companion. " Get that, 
 Jim eh ? " 
 
 Jim nodded. 
 
 " See the poor devil's face ? " 
 
 " Yes ; I guess he was barking up the 
 wrong tree. Wonder who the boss was ; 
 director or general manager, likely. Never 
 saw a man's jaw drop so sudden ; must 
 have hurt his feet. Good as a play. It'll 
 learn that inspector chap to watch it 
 a bit." 
 
 He paused, then added regretfully 
 
 " Shan't see these fellers with their red 
 ties for some time." 
 
 " Never seen a man's face fall so bad 
 
244 SERGEANT SNODGRASS 
 
 as that but once ; then it was worse," 
 added the first speaker, as he chuckled 
 in a reminiscent manner. He was a 
 pleasant - looking fellow, with a tanned 
 face. There were touches of grey on his 
 temples and in his beard, and his humorous 
 eyes were deeply wrinkled at the corners. 
 Both the men wore mouse - coloured soft 
 felt hats, and clothes which were newish 
 but badly cut. Sundry comparisons as to 
 the merits of various Union-Castle boats 
 had already enabled me to place them as 
 British South Africans returning to the 
 land of their adoption. The one opposite 
 me was smoking a pipe having a swollen 
 bowl with a wire cover to it. He had 
 already twice filled it with some curious 
 flaky tobacco which smelt abominably. 
 He chuckled to himself for some moments, 
 then leaned forward, and, in spite of the 
 notice facing him, quietly but firmly spat 
 on the floor. At any other moment I 
 might have resented this insanitary action, 
 but he did it in quite a friendly way 
 
SERGEANT SNODGRASS 245 
 
 without prejudice. Besides, I nosed a 
 story. 
 
 " I can't but laugh when I think of it 
 still," he added. " It was the best bit I 
 had seen in the whole blessed war." 
 
 His pal was a stolid person, and I was 
 afraid he would not rise to the occasion. 
 But he slowly removed his pipe and saved 
 the situation. 
 
 " What was that ?" 
 
 " Ever meet ' Sergeant Snodgrass ' ? " 
 
 The stolid one shook his head. 
 
 " Not old Jackie Toney ? " 
 
 Again a silent reply in the negative. 
 
 " No ? Well, it was to him it happened. 
 It was in his push I was serving. His 
 right name was Captain John Bernard, 
 and he commanded our battalion. He 
 was an Imperial officer I've forgotten 
 his proper regiment, but with us he was 
 a Major local or irregular rank they 
 called it ; you know." 
 
 " Thought it was Colonel Gray son bossed 
 up your lot." 
 
246 SERGEANT SNODGRASS 
 
 " No, not when we lay in Joh'burg. It 
 was Major Bernard, as I'm a-telling you of. 
 ' Jackie ' we called him because we liked 
 him ; ' Toney ' 'cos he had such a haw-haw 
 manner of speaking. ' Come heaw, my 
 man d'you heaw ? ' and all that outfit. 
 He was a white man and plucky, but what 
 especially took us about him was his sense 
 of fun. This what I am going to tell you 
 about wouldn't have happened to nobody 
 else ; they wouldn't have seen it coming. 
 Old Jackie smelt it all night and nursed 
 it ; I believe he enjoyed it more than any 
 of us." 
 
 "Nursed it?" 
 
 " That's right ; I'm coming to that." 
 
 His pipe was out and, as if about to refill, 
 he thoughtfully tapped out the ashes into 
 the window casing. In self- defence I 
 leaned forward and offered my cigar-case. 
 
 " Thank you, sir, I will. We don't 
 smoke so many cigars up on the Band as 
 we used to before October '99." 
 
 He lit up and continued 
 
SERGEANT SNODG11ASS 247 
 
 "You know when we was lying in 
 Joh'burg part of 1901 ? We were on sort 
 of military police duty, as they called it, 
 but it was really outposts. It was there 
 that we first struck martial law, to deal 
 with first hand in a manner of speaking. 
 I'm not looking for any more martial law, 
 thank you." 
 
 " Why not ? " I interposed, on the 
 strength of the accepted weed. "It could 
 not have done you much harm. You were 
 one of an army in occupation of conquered 
 territory, I take it." 
 
 " Don't you believe it, sir not a word of 
 it. There was not much conquering army 
 about us. Things had been fairly plain 
 sailing before, but when the administration 
 of martial law was included in our duties 
 we did not know what had struck us. 
 There was military law for us, and there 
 was martial law for every one else, so they 
 said ; but amongst it all there was civil law, 
 and of course running in and out of every- 
 thing like mites in a cheese there was 
 
248 SERGEANT SNODGRASS 
 
 lawyers, barristers, attorneys, solicitors, 
 advocates, public notaries, legal advisers, 
 estate agents, auctioneers, sworn appraisers, 
 actuaries, and God knows what all. I made 
 a list of 'em once. But who was who, and 
 who was where, and where we was, was a 
 puzzle. And it was not the foreigners that 
 gave most trouble, mind you, not by a long 
 chalk. They all seemed to know something 
 about it, and said that our regulations were 
 child's play. No, it was our own freeborn 
 British and British Colonials who groused 
 and objected and did all the kicking. 
 
 " We were called police ; but we carried 
 rifles and wore filled bandoliers. All the 
 police stations were entrenched and loop- 
 holed and sandbagged and entangled ready 
 for a fight at any moment, and we did have 
 a good number of scraps. One moment 
 'twould be ' Halt, who goes there ? ' and 
 empty your magazine ; the next 'twould be 
 ' Would you be so kind as to be so good 
 as to stop while I see who you are, if you 
 please ? ' We were told by the Major that 
 
SERGEANT SNODGRASS 249 
 
 if we let any of the enemy through he would 
 try us by court-martial for something or 
 other. I've forgotten the crime, but I re- 
 member that the punishment for it on 
 active service was death ! On the other 
 'and, we were told, if you please, that if we 
 shot any person who would not halt, and 
 he turned out to be an innocent, well- 
 behaved, peaceable burgher who had left 
 his rifle behind, we would be tried by civil 
 court for manslaughter ! An easy game to 
 pick and choose by night ? " 
 
 " Quite," I said, sympathetically. " Did 
 you say manslaughter ? " 
 
 " That's right. Can you believe it 
 manslaughter in war ? I always thought 
 before I done my little bit of service that 
 that was what we were there for. Any- 
 way, things got to such a pitch that some 
 of our fellows asked leave to hand in their 
 rifles and be served out with pillows and 
 scent squirts ! A few turned it up and 
 took their discharge. They said it was 
 too double-ended a business for them, as 
 
250 SERGEANT SNODGRASS 
 
 we were bound to get it in the neck any- 
 way between all the different sorts of 
 law." 
 
 His tone was heated, and we seemed to 
 be wandering somewhat from the main 
 point of Major John Bernard's adventure 
 to controversial topics, so I interposed a 
 soothing remark 
 
 " Of course the transition period between 
 a state of war and a state of peace is a very 
 difficult one for jurisprudence " 
 
 " Jury's prudence ? Why, that's the very 
 word the blighter used." 
 
 " What er blighter ? " My tongue did 
 not take kindly to the expression, but I had 
 to walk warily. 
 
 " Why, the chap I'm telling you about. 
 I dessay you're right ; but there was a 
 sight more of peace than there was of the 
 other thing. Anyway, what I'm referrin' 
 to happened this way : it was part of our 
 job to try and stop Boers from getting 
 supplies out of the town, and many's the 
 night we spent lying out on the veld for to 
 
SERGEANT SNODGRASS 251 
 
 surprise parties trying to get in or out. 
 Old Jackie was much keener on this part 
 of the business than on issuing passes and 
 taking the census, and for us it certainly 
 was a sight more interesting than patrol- 
 ling the townships and mines and jugging 
 Peruvians for peddling liquor to Kaffirs. 
 He was a great hand at nosing out in- 
 telligence, was Jackie, but we never knew 
 till we started off on one of our all fresco 
 picnics where it was to be. We were at 
 different stations, and used to reinforce 
 each other for these jobs. I was at Bantjes 
 myself when some of us were ordered to roll 
 up on a certain evening to join the Jenssen's 
 lot. You remember the old Jenssen's Hotel, 
 Jim ? " 
 
 A nod was the only answer. 
 
 " Well, that night about twenty of us 
 started off on foot from the hotel, Major 
 Jackie in command. Lieutenant Brassard, 
 the detachment officer, was out in another 
 direction. Jackie had got the office that 
 the French Eyetalian commando in the 
 
252 SERGEANT SNODGRASS 
 
 Gatsrand was sending in a little lot to get 
 grub from somewhere near the Village 
 Deep tailings." 
 
 " French Italian commando ? " I asked. 
 
 " That's what they called it. It was an 
 international crowd of all sorts of murderers 
 and thieves really riff-raff from the mines. 
 We were going to lay up for this lot in one 
 of the suburbs where there was an opening 
 between the blue gum plantations laid out 
 as a street in the township, with a row of 
 unfinished houses which would give good 
 cover. Everything went all right, and we 
 were soon fixed up along one side of this 
 open space so that the enemy would not 
 have a dog's chance if they came. The 
 Major had arranged it so that they was to 
 be allowed to come almost through before 
 we hands-upped them. 
 
 " Old Jim 'Umphreys was with me along- 
 side the Major, and we soon snuggled down 
 to wait. I mind that evening well even 
 now. There was a stink of mortar about 
 the founds of the unfinished houses, and 
 
SERGEANT SNODGRASS 253 
 
 the mosquitoes had a benefit off us. It 
 was a lovely night, not too cold, and we 
 could see .the lights on the mines along the 
 Reef. A good many was working again 
 then, and when the breeze, which was sigh- 
 ing like in gentle puffs through the blue 
 gums, dropped we could hear the roar of 
 the batteries. It was waves of sound just 
 like the surf. Our cousin Jacks from Corn- 
 wall always used to say it reminded him of 
 Land's End." 
 
 " But was there an action going on ? " 
 " Bless you, no, sir ; I don't mean artil- 
 lery ; I mean the mine batteries with the 
 stamps falling just a roar. 'Course I had 
 often heard it before and often have since, 
 but I don't lie out on the veld much for 
 choice now, and somehow that evening 
 comes back to me special. The stars were 
 very bright, and bar the creaking of some 
 of the corrugated iron, there was no sound 
 but the rustling of the trees and this far-off 
 roar. Suddenly some one near me the 
 Major I think it was started to scratch 
 
254 SERGEANT SNODGRASS 
 
 himself. He knocked over a loose sheet 
 of iron, and down came a lot of bricks on 
 to more iron below. There was a hell of 
 a clatter, and you could hear the snick 
 of cut-offs being opened all down the line. 
 I forgot to mention that just behind us 
 there was a completed and inhabited house 
 with a garden and all. Well, no sooner 
 had these bricks fallen than a dog in this 
 garden set up an all-fired barking. We 
 waited for the beast to settle down ; but it 
 went on making noise enough to wake the 
 dead. The Major swears a bit and then 
 says, ' Come on, Martin,' that's me, ' and 
 you, 'Umphries. We must stop this in- 
 fernal din. It will alarm every one within 
 a hundred miles.' And off we went up to 
 the house. There was the dog doing even 
 time round a sort of kraal, and trying his 
 level to get out. The house was a nice 
 little piece with a stoep all covered with 
 creepers. The Major bangs at the door. 
 He had to kick and knock several times 
 before anybody answers. Then out comes 
 
SERGEANT SNODGRASS 255 
 
 a young feller on to the stoep. He wore 
 a striped sleeping suit and carried a 
 lantern. 
 
 " ' Look here,' he says. ' Watch you 
 Khakies want \ ' 
 
 "'You must tie up your dog. He's 
 barking and disturbing what I'm doing 
 heaw,' says Tony, quite polite, but firm, 
 in his usual manner. ' His noise may 
 spoil my plan.' 
 
 " ' Oh, go to hell with you plan,' says 
 young Stripes. ' The dog is my dog arid 
 he's on my property,' he says. ' And he 
 can do what he likes, and so can I. I 
 won't have you men messin' about here 
 and worry in' me with your dam nonsense.' 
 
 " I must tell you that we was all dressed 
 alike. We were all mounted men on this 
 job and wore gaiters and 'British warms,' 
 and the Major carried a Morzer." 
 
 "What was that?" I asked. 
 
 " A carbine that we took off the Boers. 
 They were armed with Morzers, same as 
 we had the Lee-Enfield." 
 
256 SERGEANT SNODGRASS 
 
 " Of course, yes," I hastily replied, feeling 
 rather small. He went on 
 
 "Jim and I held our breath. For all 
 his manners old Tony was not a man to 
 be sent to hell without some back chat. 
 When we heard him clear his throat just 
 in the way he always did before he let 
 fly, we felt sorry for young Tooty-Frooty 
 in flannelette. 
 
 " ' Eughrrr ' he says very loud. Then 
 he stopped sudden as if something struck 
 him. He looked round at me and Jim, 
 and though we couldn't see his face we 
 felt 'im wink. 
 
 " ' Eughrrr ' says he. ' I'm sorry, sir ' 
 ' Sir,' mind you ' but I 'ave my orders to 
 carry out. This is war time and your dog's 
 noise is spoiling my game. I must insist 
 on your tying him up.' 
 
 " ' I shall do nothing of the sort. I am 
 a loyal British subject and this is my house 
 and garden, and I can do what I please 
 inside of my own fence. If you put your 
 foot inside of it it's trespass, and I'll have 
 
SERGEANT SNODGRASS 257 
 
 the law of the whole lot of you damned 
 Tommies coming prowling about disturbing 
 peaceful inhabitants. Go away at once." : 
 
 " Do you mean to say he talked like that 
 in war time ? " I said. The youth certainly 
 had a case, but was overstating it. 
 
 " I do that. He was an Afrikander, and 
 thought he was dealing with a crowd of 
 fresh men out from the Old Country. You 
 see, he didn't know the Major, nor me, 
 nor old Jim by sight. Many's the time 
 that these slim gentry did bluff Thomas 
 Atkins by tall talk that way. We weren't 
 Regulars any of us, and had seen a bit 
 more, and we quite sympathised with the 
 men just out from home, where they seem 
 to be trodden on so much all round that 
 they'd suck down any hot air ladled out 
 to them by a plausible gas-bag even in war, 
 so long as he wore plain clothes." 
 
 " What d'you mean by trodden on ? 
 D'you mean their officers " 
 
 " No, I do not. Their officers are all 
 right and seem to get walked on too. I 
 R 
 
258 SERGEANT SNODGRASS 
 
 mean that the men were not taught to 
 hold their own with the rest of the popula- 
 tion, and to consider themselves as good as 
 the best. They're always being ordered to 
 keep off the grass. Why, I'm told that 
 in many a dirty pot-house they'll serve 
 any scum with plain clothes on him when 
 they'll refuse to serve a decent soldier in 
 uniform ; the same in music halls and 
 theatres." 
 
 " I think that's all altered now," I 
 replied. 
 
 "And time too. The men that came 
 out then fought better than any of us, 
 but when it came to the confidence-trick 
 palaver, they were a gift, a dead snip every 
 time. Well, the Major used to talk to us 
 a lot about this, and we had our eyes open, 
 consequently we weren't half pleased when 
 we tumbled to what was on on this outfit." 
 
 " ' I'm very sorry, sir,' he says, slick as 
 any head- waiter ; ' you don't seem to realise 
 that this is war time, an' if you don't tie 
 up your dog dam quick I'll shoot 'im. As 
 
SERGEANT SNODGRASS 259 
 
 you were I won't shoot him ; that'll be 
 noisy I'll have him bayoneted. If you 
 give me any more lip and hinder me in 
 the execution of my duty, I'll have you 
 tied up too.' 
 
 " ' Watch you mean, you ignorant 
 soldier? I know the law. I'm an advo- 
 cate, and you've made a mistake this time. 
 I got a pass to live out here unmolested 
 from the Commander-in-Chief, and I have 
 passes from the Military Governor and the 
 Military Commissioner of Police, and the 
 District Police Officer. Isn't that enough 
 for you ? We'll see what the Commander- 
 in-Chief will say to this.' 
 
 " ' Yes, yes, I know all about that, sir, 
 and we'll have a look at those same passes 
 in the morning, please ; but are you going 
 to tie up that dog ? ' 
 
 "'No, I am not.' 
 
 " The Major gives Jim and me the nod, 
 and tells us to settle the brute if there was 
 any trouble. The dog was one of those 
 large, long-haired, no -how mongrels; a 
 
260 SERGEANT SNODGRASS 
 
 ' pie ' dog the Major called it later I 
 suppose because of its colour. He was rare 
 savage, too, and as soon as Jim gets over 
 the fence making kind noises and saying, 
 ' Come here, Fido. Good dog, then ! ' the 
 beast flies at him, and I had to push it 
 with my bayonet. I was sorry ; but he 
 was a dangerous brute anyway. While I 
 was wiping the blade on his fur an old 
 josser with whiskers pops his face out of 
 a window and carries on something shock- 
 ing. He called us murderers and sand- 
 baggers, said he would have us tried by 
 court-martial and see us swing for it, an' 
 I don't know what. I must say that, what 
 with our climbing about and the scrapping 
 an' Carlo's blood an' all, the place was a 
 bit untidy." He stopped to knock the ash 
 off his cigar, and again offended against 
 the Company's bye-laws. 
 
 " Between while the Major and pretty 
 Sydney were making a song of it to them- 
 selves on the stoep. The Major was getting 
 a bit warm, and I was afraid every minute 
 that he'd give the show away." 
 
SERGEANT SNODGRASS 261 
 
 I was getting a little mixed. Who was 
 Sydney ? But the next sentence en- 
 lightened me. It was only a generic term, 
 as had been Stripes, Tooty-Frooty, Carlo, 
 and Fido. 
 
 " ' I tell you that martial law is not known 
 to jury's prudence, and I'll have a writ of 
 heavy as corpus, against you, my man,' 
 says the lawyer. 
 
 " ' Don't know anything about heavy as 
 corpus, and I don't give a dam for jury's 
 prudence, but if you don't stop your infernal 
 row and get inside and pull the blinds down, 
 in one minute I'll have both you and old 
 Jack-in-the-box at the window over there 
 triced up and gagged,' shouts the Major. 
 ' An off soldier of any other nationality 
 would have shot the pair of you long 
 ago.' 
 
 " ' We'll see about that to-morrow. I'll 
 report the lot of you to Lieutenant Bras- 
 sard in the morning ; he's my very good 
 friend.' 
 
 " This made us cough a bit. To report 
 the C.O. to one of his own lieutenants was 
 
262 SERGEANT SNODGRASS 
 
 a little bit of all right, and brought the 
 Major back to the situation. He speaks 
 soft as rice pudding : ' Very good, sir. Don't 
 be too hard on a man doing his dooty, sir ; 
 but your minute is dam near up,' he says. 
 
 " ' I'll go, under protest ; but you're the 
 ringleader, and I'll take your name now as 
 a start off. What is it ? ' says the other. 
 
 " ' Snodgrass, sir,' says old Jackie, care- 
 less-like, without as much as a cough." 
 
 "How much ? " interposed the man in the 
 other corner of the railway carriage. 
 
 " ' Snodgrass,' he says, just as pat as I'm 
 a-saying it now ' Snodgrass.' That shows 
 you the class of man he was. I told you he 
 liked his bit of fun ; but fancy inventing a 
 name like that on the nod ! " 
 
 Both men roared. I chuckled, though 
 for a different reason. I started to speak, 
 but stopped. Enough reputations had been 
 shattered in South Africa : why wreck 
 another at home ? 
 
 " ' Well, Private Snodgrass/ says me 
 young lawyer, ' you'll regret this.' 
 
SERGEANT SNODGRASS 263 
 
 " c Yessir,' says Jackie, very slick again. 
 
 " With that the pair of them went into 
 the house, and two of us were told off to 
 watch it so that no one left to give infor- 
 mation. The Major hadn't done with me 
 friend, neither. 
 
 " Well, we lay out all night, and whether 
 it was that the information was wrong or 
 that the infernal noise had warned every one 
 off the track, nothing happened, and it was 
 a sleepless, hot-eyed, mosquito-bitten crowd 
 that rolled up when the whistle for the 
 assembly went somewheres before dawn. 
 Two stayed behind the house and the rest 
 of us fell in in front, looking for some 
 fun." 
 
 The narrator paused, and I was sorry to 
 observe that the train had got near my 
 destination and was slowing down. I 
 wanted to hear the end of the story, yet I 
 dared not hurry the teller. He went on 
 
 "The Major went up and kicked the 
 door. Old Jack - in - the - box opened it 
 quickly this time. 
 
264 SERGEANT SNODGRASS 
 
 " ' Good morning, Sergeant Snodgrass. 
 What do you want ? ' he says, slim-like. I 
 suppose he had time to chew over things. 
 
 " ' Send out that young feller in the ice- 
 cream suiting what wouldn't tie up his dog 
 last night.' 
 
 O 
 
 " ' Oh, my son ! He's in bed, Sergeant 
 eh?' 
 
 " ' I'm not a sergeant. Fetch him quick.' 
 
 " c He's a good boy, but he was excited 
 last night. He didn't mean anything, sir. 
 What are you going to do with him ? ' 
 
 " ' He's got to come along o' me.' 
 
 " At this moment young Smarty himself 
 come to the door and looks over Dadda's 
 shoulder. 
 
 " ' Oh, there you are, my friend ! ' says the 
 Major. ' Just get on your clothes.' 
 
 " ' What for ? ' says the feller, with a bit 
 of a drop in his voice. 
 
 " ' To come up before the District Magis- 
 trate for obstructing me in the execution of 
 my duty, and very likely for aiding and 
 abetting His Majesty's enemies.' 
 
SERGEANT SNODGRASS 265 
 
 " ' I refuse to. I'll have a writ of 
 
 " The Major pulls out his watch it 
 wasn't going, by the way, 'cos a brick had 
 damaged it the night before, he told me so 
 himself an' says, very grave, ' I'll give you 
 two minutes to put on some clothes. Then 
 you'll come in whatever you're wearing, 
 whether you're suited or non-suited.' Then 
 he laughs nasty to himself as if it was a 
 joke. But he kep' it to himself, and I don't 
 know to this day why he laughed so much. 
 
 " In two minutes my Lord was on the stoep 
 with a pair of veld schoen on his feet and a 
 coat and trousers over his night-shift. Ole 
 man Oom was near as a toucher weeping 
 now. 
 
 " ' Oh, don't shoot him, sir ! ' he says. 
 
 " ' I don't know : I'll see/ says the Major, 
 very gruff. We marched off and took our 
 prisoner and jugged him in the District 
 Charge Office." 
 
 The cigar was done. Mr Martin was 
 stopping to fill his pipe. As I was just 
 getting out there seemed no need for me 
 
266 SERGEANT SNODGRASS 
 
 to sacrifice another of the Laranagas, which 
 I had put in my cigar-case for a client by 
 the way ; but loading a pipe from a little 
 canvas sack full of dust is a ticklish opera- 
 tion, and the train was getting terribly close 
 to the station. At last he went on 
 
 " Next morning up he came before the 
 Martial Law Magistrate." 
 
 " What charge ? " I interposed. Perhaps 
 it was waste of time ; but though I had 
 heard a good deal that was distinctly dis- 
 tasteful to me, I was really interested. 
 
 " I don't rightly remember now," he says ; 
 "I never could understand charge-sheets 
 very well. Let me see He began 
 
 scratching his head. The train stopped. 
 
 " Never mind the charge/' I said hastily, 
 as I collected my coat, gloves, bag, and 
 book. " What happened ? " 
 
 " The first witness called was Major John 
 Bernard, and when he steps up into the box 
 with his medal ribbons he'd got quite a lot 
 of medals and belt on and the crowns 
 twinkling on his shoulders why 
 
SERGEANT SNODGRASS 267 
 
 I had to get out of the carriage, but I 
 waited by the door. 
 
 " Yes, yes ! " 
 
 " The prisoner's face was a fair picture 
 like the collector's man's at the last station. 
 Before the Major had been sworn even, or 
 opened his mouth, the prisoner, lawyer or no 
 lawyer, blurted out : 'Oh, oh, I beg your 
 pardon.' " 
 
 " Yes, but what did he get f " I asked. 
 The train had started, and I was far more 
 interested to learn the terrible fate which 
 awaited the transgressor against martial law 
 than I was in his facial expression. 
 
 But I was doomed to disappointment, for 
 amidst the banging of carriage doors and 
 shouts of " Stand back" from the guard, all 
 that I could hear was 
 
 " The blighter 'adn't forgot the name, you 
 see, any more than me. ' Major Snod- 
 grass,' he says quite pat ' 
 
MY MATINEE TEA 
 
 OR 
 
 THE COUNTER-OFFENSIVE 
 
 IT may have been an exhibition of insular 
 prejudice ; or it may have been the result 
 of reactionary panic caused by the siege of 
 Sidney Street, for it happened just after 
 that. As a matter of fact, however, I had 
 started the day badly. Johnny had left 
 his duck in the tub overnight. The morn- 
 ing was dark ; the duck was dead white. 
 Naturally, I did not see the thing under 
 the water, and sat on it. Not only did the 
 pieces cut me, but I had to promise the 
 child a new bird. Much as I approve of 
 my son's love of animals, even of china 
 ones, I cannot help thinking that it was 
 
MY MATINEE TEA 269 
 
 extremely careless of the nurse to allow 
 him to leave his toys about. I daresay 
 this misadventure really had a good deal to 
 do with the fact that the matinee bored me 
 so much. It is not easy to respond to the 
 inanities of a star comedian when one is 
 suffering from recurrent twinges of pain. 
 This was my first visit to the theatre after 
 returning home, and I was annoyed to find 
 that the play was an adaptation from a 
 foreign work. I think that this gave a 
 particular bias to my hitherto vague resent- 
 ment against things in general. 
 
 It was quite dark, but not foggy, when 
 we trooped out of the theatre, and the rain 
 had stopped ; but the streets were shimmer- 
 ing seas in which motor vehicles of every 
 kind skidded and hooted. As it was the 
 Christmas holidays, every place of enter- 
 tainment was disgorging its crowd on to 
 the already thronged pavement in fact, I 
 was almost as much struck by the numbers 
 of idle people who could afford the leisure 
 to go to the play in the afternoon as I was 
 
270 MY MATINEE TEA 
 
 perturbed by the horde of foreigners in 
 London. Round me raged Babel. Not 
 knowing where to get china toys, I stood 
 awhile on the edge of the pavement and 
 pondered. 
 
 As I stood, I felt paralysed by the vast 
 maelstrom of traffic in front of me, and my 
 nerves were jarred by the orgy of noise. 
 First a long, piratical motor, fitted with 
 two blinding searchlights and carrying a 
 stuffed black cat on its prow, slid by. As 
 it passed, one of the crew sounded an in- 
 strument which emitted the " Last Post " 
 in chords. Beyond, a second car moaned 
 with the deep tone of a liner in a fog ; 
 while the siren of a third, which was 
 hurtling through the slush in the opposite 
 direction, wailed like a lost spirit. I was 
 then startled by a gurgling grunt, repeated 
 several times diminuendo. This brutal 
 noise suggestive of elemental things, of 
 death and of slaughter-houses made my 
 blood run cold. Why did the authorities 
 allow the cries of dying animals to be 
 
MY MATINEE TEA 271 
 
 reproduced in the streets of the capital ? 
 But it was not only the ear that was 
 affronted. My nostrils were assailed by 
 the pervading stench of petrol and burnt 
 lubricant, while my eyes ached from the 
 riot of illumination which smote them from 
 every side. The discreet blackness of night 
 was vanquished by the flaming cressets, 
 desecrated by the flickering sky - signs, 
 offences against taste, and marvels of per- 
 verted ingenuity, which intermittently 
 shone out and were occulted on high. As 
 a reeking motor - omnibus clanked by I 
 saw a chance of crossing the street, and I 
 stepped gingerly off the pavement. I was 
 at once driven back by a triplet of shrill 
 yaps at my elbow, as a pea-green taxi-cab 
 ski-ed past sideways, missing me by inches. 
 The braked wheels threw slush over me, 
 while the pale, foreign - looking driver 
 shouted something about people sleeping 
 in the street. Before I could frame a suit- 
 able reply the abomination had yapped its 
 offensive way into the centre of the traffic, 
 
272 MY MATINEE TEA 
 
 leaving me choking in a trail of blue smoke 
 which clung to the slush. When I recov- 
 ered from the shock I was in a thoroughly 
 nasty state of body as well as of mind, and 
 I spent a few moments in scraping slime 
 from my face and clothes. No, I did 
 not like London, nor its cosmopolitan 
 population. 
 
 Finally managing to struggle across the 
 street, I walked on and soon passed the 
 portico of a restaurant which catered for 
 the thousand. In the windows, among 
 placards of " Theatre Dinners," " Theatre 
 Suppers," I saw the announcement of a 
 new meal, " Matinee Teas," and, as I was 
 in need of refreshment, I turned into the 
 place. At the very doorway I was almost 
 thrust back into the street by the strong 
 smell of food, the crash of music, and the 
 crush of people. But I persisted in forcing 
 an entrance and found myself in a large 
 and over - ornate hall. Every table was 
 packed, and the programmes in the hands 
 of many showed that they too had just 
 
MY MATINEE TEA 273 
 
 come from the theatre. Harassed-looking 
 aliens were rushing about with food, and 
 above the clatter could be heard the wail 
 of a string orchestra. As I wandered down 
 the room looking for a seat, I was un- 
 favourably impressed by the general de- 
 terioration in manners. Quite a number 
 of people seated at the tables looked up 
 and stared at me rudely. 
 
 On one side of the hall were some uni- 
 formed musicians. They were all pale or 
 swarthy ; and all except the leader had 
 long hair. They looked tired, and I could 
 not help sympathising with these really 
 musical men, whom the struggle for exist- 
 ence compelled to live confined in a stuffy 
 atmosphere of food, grinding out the same 
 programme over and over again to un- 
 appreciative crowds. The conductor ap- 
 peared the most bored. He was a heavily- 
 built bald-headed man with fiercely upturned 
 black moustache and pouchy eyes. As I 
 was speculating whether he was an exiled 
 potentate or a political refugee, our glances 
 
 s 
 
274 MY MATINEE TEA 
 
 met, and something in my appearance 
 must have amused him, for he grinned and 
 said a word or two to the performers 
 near him. They stared hard and laughed 
 whilst they continued to play laughed 
 offensively. I knew that their merriment 
 was at my expense, and I experienced a 
 revulsion of feeling. Not only did these 
 dirty Anarchists and otherwise undesirable 
 aliens swarm into the country and take the 
 bread out of the mouths of honest, deserv- 
 ing Britons, but they insulted the people 
 who showed them hospitality ! I am, un- 
 luckily, a .small man physically, and, 
 strongly tempted as I was to an assault, 
 felt that I might get the worst of an 
 encounter with these savages. Being of a 
 retiring nature, even victory in a knock- 
 down and drag-out fight in a public restau- 
 rant did not appeal to me. Defeat was 
 still less attractive. No, I could not afford 
 to force my way to the orchestra and beat 
 these scum of South-Eastern Europe over 
 
MY MATINEE TEA 275 
 
 the head. I must devise some other less 
 crude form of revenge. . 
 
 I fancied, as I stalked away, that some 
 of the waiters, that usually obsequious and 
 tip-hunting race, smiled. There they were, 
 in rows, in pallid battalions, clever, atten- 
 tive, yet with a covert insult in their 
 servile expressions. What a contrast they 
 formed to the heedless crowd they were 
 serving ! How many thousands of such 
 subtle, industrious foreigners were there 
 not in London alone all waiting. Wait- 
 ing for what ? I loathed their flat, pale 
 faces, their smooth hair, their complacent 
 air of efficiency. Yes ; they were grinning 
 offensively ! These fellows musicians, 
 waiters, all wanted a lesson ! 
 
 Search as I would, I could discover no 
 vacant seat, and was about to give up 
 the hunt, when a frock-coated major-domo 
 stepped forward and bowed. 
 
 " Vill you blease to go ubstairs ? Zere 
 is blenty of rhoom." 
 
276 MY MATINEE TEA 
 
 Leading me up a gorgeous flight of 
 stairs, he ushered me on to a broad gal- 
 lery which ran down one side of the hall, 
 and showed me to a table next, and end 
 on, to the balustrade of the gallery. I 
 observed that it bore the fatal number of 
 thirteen ! Of the six seats at the table, 
 only four were occupied. On its farther 
 side were a small boy and two ladies. On 
 the near side, the two chairs closest to the 
 edge of the gallery were empty except for 
 some umbrellas, a muff, and a man's hat. 
 In the third seat sat a man. 
 
 Before any words passed I took a dislike 
 to this party. No one made any offer to 
 move the things so that I could sit down, 
 and I stood quietly looking at the man. 
 He scowled, and the two women glared at 
 me offensively. The boy brandished a 
 fag-end of dough-nut, and said " G'way ! " 
 
 " Excuse me," I remarked to the man, 
 "do these things belong to you?" 
 
 " What'ch you think ? " was the surly 
 reply. 
 
MY MATINEE TEA 277 
 
 " I should like them moved." 
 
 " D'you want to sit at this table ? " 
 
 " Certainly." 
 
 " Yer don't want both chairs, I sup- 
 pose ? " 
 
 " If you take the things off this end 
 one, it will do." I felt tempted to hit 
 this person in the neck. But, as I have 
 said, I do not like being mixed up person- 
 ally in brawls. Besides, its owner could 
 have given me three stone at least. 
 
 The gear was ungraciously moved off 
 the end chair. 
 
 " Some people do shove in," said one 
 of the ladies. 
 
 "Yes," replied the other; "they seem 
 to want the 'ole 'all." 
 
 " Eughh ! " grunted the man. 
 
 " G'way ! " snuffled the youth. 
 
 In spite of this astonishingly encourag- 
 ing reception I sat down, firmly drew off 
 my gloves, and ordered tea and a buttered 
 scone. Here, evidently, were more people 
 who required a lesson ! 
 
278 MY MATINEE TEA 
 
 I come of a stock which prides itself on 
 paying its debts, on the staunchness of its 
 friendships, and on the strength of its 
 enmities. I had now at least two ac- 
 counts to settle one against the bandit 
 from the Balkans down below, the other 
 against the party of Yahoos at table 
 number thirteen. If my machinations for 
 revenge should succeed in including in- 
 cidentally some of the cosmopolitan minis- 
 ters to the pleasure and luxury of Modern 
 Babylon, so much the better ! 
 
 I first turned my attention to my im- 
 mediate neighbours. The man on my side 
 of the table was a thick fellow, with what, 
 I believe, is called the " torso of a gladi- 
 ator," and looked all the bigger for his 
 fur - lined overcoat with astrachan collar. 
 He had a florid face and a heavy jowl, 
 and his moustache was waxed and twisted 
 so tight that his upper lip was pulled out 
 of shape. In his tie was a large diamond ; 
 on the fingers of his left hand were two 
 
MY MATINEE TEA 279 
 
 more ; I could not see how many there 
 were on his right hand. But, for all his 
 jewellery, the man inspired no confidence. 
 His personality suggested a combination 
 of butcher and bootmaker, modified by a 
 touch of the dealer in things that are 
 neither new nor fresh. Possibly he 
 handled " ole clo," rabbit - skins, or fried 
 fish in bulk. I have never, to my know- 
 ledge, met a purveyor of tripe, but I felt 
 that this person would have been a per- 
 fect seller of that comestible ; his hands 
 were made for it. Beyond scowling 
 for a moment, he paid me no more at- 
 tention, and was soon deep in a paper 
 of a class which stamps its reader. In 
 the centre of the three opposite seats 
 was the spouse of the tripe merchant, and 
 obviously the mother of the boy. Almost 
 middle-aged, massive, with dark hair and 
 bright colouring, she was of the breed that 
 is addicted to furs, satin, and precious 
 stones. Beyond stating that she wore a 
 
280 MY MATINEE TEA 
 
 hat of the variety described as a " Chase- 
 me - Charlie/' and had the skin of some 
 furry animal wound round her neck, I am 
 not capable of describing her dress. On 
 her left was a lady friend. This person 
 had similar rich tastes in apparel. 
 
 On mamma's right, along the balus- 
 trade, was her hopeful, a promising youth 
 of some five summers. Hands, face, table, 
 and plush cover on top of the balustrade 
 proclaimed the fact that he had been feed- 
 ing, and I was thankful for the three feet 
 of smeared marble between us. Curly- 
 haired and ruddy-cheeked, he was a fine 
 child, only missing beauty through a cer- 
 tain over-lusciousness. He was clad in a 
 black velvet doublet with silver buttons, 
 a frilly linen collar, and a bow of Stuart 
 tartan ribbon ; from which presents I sur- 
 mised that he might also be wearing a 
 kilt. Almost gorged, he kept his mouth 
 open and breathed with audible difficulty. 
 These symptoms were not unknown to 
 me, and I mentally christened him the 
 
MY MATINEE TEA 281 
 
 "Adenoid." I know the brand of child 
 well, spoiled, overfed. As I studied him, 
 the little lamb put his tongue out. 
 
 The two persons, evidently bosom friends, 
 were still sipping tea and were deep in in- 
 timate conversation. " Yes, deear, what I 
 feel about this place is that you do get 
 yer money's worth, what with the mirrors, 
 and marble, and the silk plush. I do like 
 silk plush. D'you know, deear, that Doris 
 got one of these new beaded plush mantles 
 at Push and Feather's sale for next to 
 nothing ? She 'ad to fight for it ; but 
 what do you think she picked it up 
 for?" &c., &c. 
 
 Both used the word " deear " with that 
 iteration which deprives a word of all 
 meaning, and with the nauseating intona- 
 tion suggestive of undesirable intimacy, if 
 not complicity. 
 
 By the time I had completed my survey 
 of my company, the waiter brought my 
 food, and bleated drearily, " Pot of tea. 
 Butter' zgone." 
 
282 MY MATINEE TEA 
 
 " Where has it gone ? " said I, thinking 
 for the moment that the idiot had dropped it. 
 
 " Butter' zgone," he bleated again. I 
 got annoyed. 
 
 "So I see ; quite gone. Don't talk 
 about it ; fetch some more." 
 
 " Zome more zgone ? " The man was 
 a perfect fool. 
 
 " No ! More butter ! " 
 
 After he had departed, bewildered and 
 reproachful, to carry out my bidding, I 
 noticed that there were traces of butter 
 on the thing in front of me. 
 
 Other people were also finding trouble 
 with English as now spoken in London. 
 Just behind me I overheard the query 
 " Chelly, blom pouding, or draifel ? " 
 
 And this was Merrie England ! I sighed. 
 
 " G'way ! " countered the Adenoid 
 promptly. He then continued, " I want 
 some more dam, ma." 
 
 There was no reply. The two friends 
 had now reached the " She sez " " Sez 
 I" stage of confidence, which is the most 
 
MY MATINEE TEA 283 
 
 difficult to interrupt. But the child was 
 no sensitive plant ; he laid a sticky paw 
 on the velvet-clad arm next him : 
 
 " Ma ! I want some more dam." 
 
 " Give over, Leo ! You're not going to ; 
 
 you've 'ad enough. Give over " The 
 
 admonition died away in the recital which 
 was resumed. 
 
 I thought he was going to cry. Not 
 he ! He put out his tongue at his mother, 
 and then at me again. 'Pon my word, I 
 admired the little devil's spirit. The last 
 thing I wished him to do was to weep, 
 and so break up the party prematurely 
 before it had received its lesson ; and 
 I determined to humour him. With a 
 furtive glance round, I protruded my 
 tongue. He grinned. I smiled back. So 
 far we were all square, and the child's 
 responsiveness gave me a sudden in- 
 spiration. I might make use of him 
 as an instrument for my purpose ! But 
 how ? 
 
 At this moment the band struck up a 
 
284 MY MATINEE TEA 
 
 rollicking air, and the vendor of tripe at 
 last looked up from his paper. 
 
 I glanced at the programme. The piece 
 was a selection of English airs ; but, with 
 the exception of this and a few other 
 numbers, the entire list was composed of 
 foreign music. This again aroused my 
 militant patriotism, and I leaned over the 
 balustrade to look at the band. There it 
 was, just beneath us, so placed that the 
 occupants of our table or of that on either 
 side could easily have dropped things on 
 to the performers. The shiny bald head 
 of the conductor caught my eye. It was 
 almost vertically below and between my- 
 self and Leo. Myself and Leo ! Leo 
 the instrument ! Why should not little 
 Leo drop something ? That would be 
 action, possibly productive of reaction, 
 which might cause two birds to be killed 
 with one stone. 
 
 Something yes ! But what ? 
 
 I sat back in my chair, and, in order 
 to keep the " instrument " mellow and in 
 
MY MATINEE TEA 285 
 
 tune, again protruded my tongue. Then, 
 whilst seeking inspiration, I allowed my 
 gaze to wander round the hall. A number 
 of the customers were, of course, foreigners ; 
 but amongst the scores eating, drinking, 
 and listening to the music were many 
 obvious Britons. They were nearly all 
 young -feller -me -lads, and were accom- 
 panied either by Gladstone bags, under- 
 neath which were strapped hockey-sticks, 
 or by big hats, under which were the 
 young things they were escorting. 
 
 As I looked round, between rnouthfuls of 
 " zgone," from one group to another, my 
 attention was attracted to a charmingly 
 pretty girl seated at a short distance from 
 me. She was trying to eat neatly a large 
 and sticky piece of confectionery, while the 
 half-furled veil on the edge of her hat was 
 striving to prevent the consummation of 
 her desire. So far all had gone well, and 
 she had introduced one end of the coveted 
 object between her lips. Her pretty white 
 teeth had actually closed on it, when down 
 
286 MY MATINEE TEA 
 
 came the veil with a run. The sudden 
 strain was too much for the delicacy. It 
 broke in two, and fell on to the table with 
 a splash. As the brown shell crumpled up 
 a viscid white fluid oozed out. 
 
 " Oh dear ! " she laughed, spluttering. 
 
 "My word!" said the girl next her. 
 " That's done it ! " 
 
 It had! 
 
 " I beckoned to Number Thirteen. He 
 did not see. I nearly called " Waiter ! " 
 but stopped just in time. I might need 
 this fellow as a friend. Patriot as I am, 
 I happen to possess a smattering of foreign 
 languages sufficient to prevent my making 
 use of the word "Kellner." " Ober," I 
 whispered confidentially, and the man was 
 at my side in a moment. 
 
 " What's the brown thing that young 
 lady's got on her plate ? " 
 
 " Zauzage and mashed." 
 
 " No, no over there" I pointed. The 
 damsel was too busy wiping her sleeve to 
 notice my lapse of manners. 
 
MY MATINEE TEA 287 
 
 "Ach! Chogolate dglair." 
 
 " Are they er nice 1 " 
 
 " Yes, vair goot vhip gream inside, 
 ausgezeichnet, speciality of ze haus." 
 
 " Bring me a plateful. A dozen." He 
 looked mystified. " Don't you understand ? 
 Twelve zwolf eclairs." 
 
 With a muttered exclamation the startled 
 man vanished. 
 
 While he was gone I laid ground-bait 
 by winking alluringly at Leo. When the 
 waiter placed in front of me a dish of long 
 pieces of pastry all sticky and brown on 
 top, the child's eyes assumed a more con- 
 gested look than ever, and his snuffling 
 became as painful to hear as that of an 
 aged pug scenting a chop. Pointing to 
 the dish, he said 
 
 " Ma, I want some of them." 
 
 His mother was now quite absorbed. To 
 judge from chance words, she was discuss- 
 ing the unsavoury details of the latest 
 murder, which was at the moment a uni- 
 versal topic, in spite of the well-meant 
 
288 MY MATINEE TEA 
 
 efforts of the daily Press to allay morbid 
 curiosity by keeping reports on the subject 
 down to several columns a day. Again did 
 a sticky hand essay to attract a neglectful 
 parent's attention. But, vexed at the in- 
 terruption to the spicy narrative of horrors 
 to which she was listening, mamma did not 
 even turn her head. 
 
 "No, deear ; you're not to do it. Sit 
 down and give over." 
 
 It was my chance. Nodding hard at 
 Leo, I cut an eclair in two, and surreptiti- 
 ously pushed one half over towards him. 
 He watched it with bulging eyes seized 
 it began to eat. Meanwhile I toyed with 
 one. The sickly thing was full of a glutin- 
 ous mess, but I made much play of enjoy- 
 ment, smiling the while at my victim. He 
 soon disposed of his share inside his 
 mouth, outside his mouth, and on his 
 hands. I shoved over the other half. 
 Again did he try to do his duty ; but the 
 last inch disappeared slowly, and I could 
 see that mummie's little lamb had now had 
 
MY MATINEE TEA. 289 
 
 more than enough, and would not spoil the 
 plan in my mind from any desire to eat the 
 means whereby it was to be effected. 
 
 The conductor's baton rattled. The next 
 piece on the programme was a " Rhapsodic 
 Hongroise." I have always thought that 
 the average orchestra is rather weak in its 
 rendering of rhapsodies. To interpret this 
 class of music properly necessitates that 
 the performers should be carried away, and 
 Britons can rarely work up to the accumu- 
 lative frenzy of the climax. Possibly the 
 foreigners down below would do better 
 than the stolid Anglo-Saxon, especially as 
 some might be playing their own national 
 music. In any case I would try to en- 
 sure that a frenzy would be reached this 
 evening. 
 
 The band struck up, the music starting 
 in that misleading, humdrum way which 
 to the uninitiated gives no sign of the 
 culmination. The time for me to intervene 
 had almost come. Papa, mamma, and lady 
 friend were all occupied ; baby alone was 
 T 
 
290 MY MATINEE TEA 
 
 attentive. Looking over the rail to get 
 my alignment, I quietly placed a couple 
 of e'clairs on the ground between two 
 pillars at the edge of the gallery near 
 my left foot. I then caught Leo's eye, 
 assumed a leer of invitation, and wagged 
 my head to the lilt of the music. I felt 
 rather a beast, but it had to be done. 
 The little fellow was evidently highly 
 strung and musical, for as the " Hooded 
 Death of Hindustan," hypnotised by the 
 drone of the reed-pipe, sways in response 
 to every motion of the snake-charmer, so 
 did Leo, open-mouthed and snuffling to the 
 rhythm, imitate my movements. 
 
 The music dragged slightly. The per- 
 formers wanted inspiration in other words, 
 needed ginger. I had no ginger ; but I 
 had e'clairs. I took one and, screened 
 partly by a friendly flower - vase, leant 
 over the balustrade, aimed carefully, and 
 dropped my bomb. I had time before I 
 drew back to see it burst on the bald 
 head beneath. Passing the whole dish of 
 eclairs to my young friend, I again nodded. 
 
MY MATINEE TEA. 291 
 
 Children are curiously imitative ; with a 
 chuckle of delight, Leo grabbed one and 
 hurled it over. 
 
 Though the drag in the rhapsody now 
 became more marked, the music continued. 
 I believe these musician fellows are trained 
 to go on playing when anything unusual 
 happens, in order to allay possible panics. 
 Their discipline was to be tested highly. 
 
 I gently propelled overboard with my 
 left foot the missiles already laid on the 
 floor, seized my bill, and rose, giving my 
 trusty ally one farewell leer. He now was 
 deeply engrossed in the game, and, with 
 the lack of moderation peculiar to youth, 
 was heaving eclairs over as fast as he could 
 grab them. I was sorry, but I had no 
 control over him. I walked swiftly to the 
 cashier's desk and paid my bill. " Number 
 Thirteen" was, by chance, close at hand. 
 Pressing a coin into his willing palm, I 
 said 
 
 " I think those people are throwing the 
 food about." 
 
 We both looked towards table thirteen. 
 
292 MY MATINEE TEA 
 
 The orchestra had not quite stopped play- 
 ing ; but the sounds that were wafted up 
 from below were no longer remotely 
 musical, and a subdued murmur also was 
 rising from the body of the hall. " Number 
 Thirteen " and I distinctly saw the child 
 twice throw something over the rail. Then 
 his father, looking up, observed his off- 
 spring reach for the last missile in the dish. 
 There was a scream from both ladies and a 
 shriek from the little one as the brutal 
 parent leaned across the table and roughly 
 seized in one of his huge paws the tiny hand 
 which grasped the confectionery. Under 
 this additional pressure the dainty must 
 have burst, for from between the father's 
 begemmed fingers exuded spurts of cream 
 and chocolate the indubitable and damn- 
 ing proof of guilt. 
 
 The orderly-minded Teuton was aghast. 
 " Zoh ! " he murmured. " Aber das ist 
 fatal!" 
 
 " Ja," I replied ; " fatal ! " Giving him 
 a gentle push towards what was probably 
 
MY MATINEE TEA. 293 
 
 going to be the centre of the coming 
 cyclone, I added, " So 'was macht man 
 nicht," and walked quietly downstairs. 
 
 Half-way down I was met by a rabid 
 person in uniform carrying a violin-bow. 
 He was taking the stairs three at a time, 
 and looked as if he had been interrupted in 
 the middle of a shampoo. A short head 
 behind, running neck and neck, came two 
 others, also in uniform, also demented. 
 One had the stick of a bass drum in his 
 hand ; the other waved an oboe. They 
 raced past me panting and muttering 
 strange words in Czech, Magyar, or pos- 
 sibly Russian. Amongst the " also ran," 
 close behind, were several waiters and the 
 major-domo. 
 
 By the time I reached the door of the 
 restaurant the uproar in the gallery had 
 become really scandalous. However, it 
 was not my business, and I strolled out 
 into the shining streets feeling considerably 
 better than I had all day. I had done 
 something for my country. 
 
294 MY MATINEE TEA 
 
 Fortified with a large -size cigar, pur- 
 chased at the nearest tobacconist's, I 
 then returned to the scene of my la- 
 bours, in order to discover, if possible, 
 their result. The crowd seemed thicker 
 than ever, and a procession, headed by 
 a huge policeman, was forcing its way 
 from the portico through the heaving 
 mass. 
 
 I became one unit of the wave of 
 humanity driven back towards the edge 
 of the pavement. The leading constable 
 forged through the crowd, shouting his 
 slogan, " Pass along there ! Pass along, 
 please ! " Behind him came two policemen, 
 hustling along a big man in an overcoat 
 from which fluttered strips of astrachan. 
 He must have been a desperate character, 
 for the guardians of the peace were none 
 too gentle in their treatment of him. 
 Indeed, some of the crowd were moved 
 to cries of " Shime ! " " Don't 'andle 'im 
 so crool." Then followed three officers, 
 each gently but firmly escorting a gesticu- 
 
MY MATINEE TEA. 295 
 
 lating man clad in a plum-coloured bastard 
 Hussar uniform, consisting of short coat, 
 skin-tight breeches, and long boots with 
 silly little tassels dangling from their tops. 
 Though none of the prisoners wore hats it 
 was impossible to distinguish their features, 
 owing to their smeared condition. The 
 first miscreant was bald, was bleeding from 
 his ear, and was clutching the stump of a 
 violin-bow, of which the remainder trailed 
 along in the slush at the end of a twisted 
 rope of horsehair. The other two had 
 long dank hair clinging across their eyes ; 
 one carried the half of some wood wind 
 instrument. 
 
 In the rear, unescorted, followed a lady 
 carrying a small boy in Scotch attire. She 
 was shrieking. He was shrieking. He was 
 also excitedly waving in the air one dirty 
 brown fist, while he tugged with the other 
 hand at the skin of some animal clinging to 
 the lady's neck. Behind her back hung a 
 wisp of feathers. Strangely enough, though 
 it was not raining, all the members of this 
 
296 MY MATINEE TEA 
 
 curious gang were dripping wet, and were 
 smeared with glistening patches, specially 
 evident upon the ruffians in fancy dress. 
 It was a disgraceful exhibition of the 
 seamy side of the life of a great city, and 
 I drew back in disgust until the proces- 
 sion, with its numerous rag-tag and bobtail, 
 had gone by. 
 
 The crowd was passing along according 
 to order, and I succeeded in crossing the 
 pavement and, after a struggle against the 
 tide of humanity ebbing from the restaurant, 
 in reaching one of the expanding gilt doors 
 in its portico. Under its lee I clung on like 
 a piece of seaweed to a sluice-gate. A large 
 hall-porter was wiping his hands on a 
 duster. He looked me up and down and 
 scowled. 
 
 " What's up, porter ? " said I, in an airy 
 tone. " Case of pocket-picking ? " 
 
 Eyeing my clothes, my boots, my hat, he 
 paused mistrustful. I resented this inspec- 
 tion ; it reminded me of what had taken 
 place inside the building. Then my fat 
 
MY MATINEE TEA. 297 
 
 belted cigar and its aroma came into play, 
 and with a final polish of his hands he 
 beamed. 
 
 " No, sir. I didn't see the parties till the 
 scrap was nearly over, but I believe that 
 the gent with the retriever collar to his 
 overcoat threw muck at the 'Ungarian 
 Horchestra, and three of 'em run up and 
 give 'im wot for and a thick ear." 
 
 "Three to one?" I ejaculated. "Did 
 they hurt him much ?" 
 
 " I guess they got a bit of their own 
 back ; but 'e's a man wot can look after 
 'imself and don't lay down to it." 
 
 " You know him, then ? " 
 
 "Not to know 'im, but I've orften seen 
 'im perform and passed the time of day with 
 'im. It's old Benjy Bilkheimer." 
 
 "Indeed!" 
 
 " Yes you know the acroback. Retired 
 from the perfession now and keeps a tidy 
 little pub the Dressed Crab, full licence- 
 down Spitalfields way. Teaches Jew-jitsu 
 or somethink of that. 'E was one of the 
 
298 MY MATINEE TEA 
 
 nuts, and no error, in 'is time. The ' Injer- 
 rubber 'Ercules, or the 'Uman Borgon- 
 stricter/ they called 'im. But I expect 
 you've seen 'irn do a turn at one of the 
 'alls?" 
 
 And this was the man whose neck I had 
 contemplated punching ! Verily and in- 
 deed had I avoided the ill-luck of the fatal 
 number. I whistled gently. 
 
 " Yes, that sounds as if he were a bit of a 
 fighter, certainly ; but it was heavy odds," 
 I said. 
 
 " That's right ; it was a bit of odds but 
 I do like a man as fights fair. There was 
 no call for 'im to pour a pot of cocoa and a 
 jug of custard over people. It's an 'ound's 
 trick. Real dirty, I call it." 
 
 " Did he actually do that ? " 
 
 " I can't say as I saw 'im, because I didn't 
 get upstairs till the scrap was over, worse 
 luck ; but I 'andled a few of them on the 
 way out, and I 'aven't got the stuff off my 
 'ands yet. Throwing drink about, even 
 if it is temperance, is foul fighting, that's 
 
MY MATINEE TEA. 299 
 
 what it is ; and I shouldn't 'ave thought it 
 of a man of Benjy's class." 
 
 The porter ceased his account for a minute 
 while he attended to his duties. " Keep 
 back there, please. The restaurong is 
 closed for the evening, sir. No admittance 
 this way, miss. No, ma'am, there's been no 
 fire nor murder in the 'all, only a slight 
 accident to a bandsman. This way out." 
 
 I clung to the gate ; though the outgoing 
 stream had thinned a little, I still had to 
 hang on. Amongst those who slowly 
 pressed past were a young man and a girl 
 both British. He was vainly trying to 
 smooth out the corrugations in a top-hat. 
 She was talking music. 
 
 O 
 
 "Yes, and those brutes quite spoiled that 
 lovely Rhapsody in F. I do love it so. I 
 think it's simply sweet." 
 
 " Yes, they did," growled the more ma- 
 terial male, regarding his hat ruefully. 
 " They transposed it into an impromptu 
 in L." 
 
 " Why, you silly old silly," she giggled, 
 
300 MY MATINEE TEA 
 
 squeezing his arm, " you know there's no 
 L in music." 
 
 " No, but for five minutes there was some- 
 thing very like it in that room," was the 
 ungracious answer. 
 
 " Oh, Albert, you wicked boy ! " More 
 little giggles, more squeezes. "What would 
 Antie say if she heard you ? " 
 
 " That fellow's hat has been in it," I 
 remarked to the doorkeeper. 
 
 " Yes ; the 'atters will come off best out 
 of this. It's their benefit to-night." He 
 looked hard at me. " You've 'ad a bit of 
 a tumble yourself, sir ? " 
 
 " Oh, no," replied I, with a somewhat 
 guilty conscience, rather taken aback. 
 "Why do you think so?" 
 
 "Why, your 'at wouldn't come to no 
 'arm for a bit of brushing. No offence, sir, 
 but just look in that mirror." 
 
 I looked. Not only was my face streaked, 
 but my hat was thickly spattered with mud 
 the legacy of the green atrocity that had 
 oarked at me an hour earlier ! 
 
MY MATFNltE TEA. 301 
 
 " Ah, that was a taxi splashed me." 
 
 "Yes, narsty things, them taxis. I'll 
 give it a brush-up, if you'll allow me, sir. 
 T 'ave a brush round the corner." 
 
 While the hat was being tended and I 
 was trying to improve the condition of my 
 face, I became thoughtful, not to say a little 
 remorseful. It was not only that my hat 
 was a new one. It's state explained so 
 much. 
 
 " That's better, sir." And a renovated 
 topper was handed to me. 
 
 "Thanks. Did these er brawlers do 
 much damage ? " 
 
 He chuckled. " I never see such a mess as 
 there was up above not for years and years 
 and donkeys' ears ! What with tables turned 
 over, crockery smashed, food spilled ! When 
 the four of 'em 'ad clinched, it was nigh 
 impossible to get them apart. The old 
 Borgonstricter 'ad a strangle 'olt on one, 
 and 'is legs tied in 'alf-'itches round the 
 other two. It wasn't till they give old 
 Benjy two siphons of lemonade in the 
 
302 MY MATINEE TEA 
 
 ear-'ole that he broke away. The missus 
 was right in it too. Pitched a long fairy- 
 tale about a drunken furriner with a bruised 
 face and a top-'at 'oo'd tried to poison the 
 child. She let the bandsmen 'ave something 
 on appro' on 'is account." 
 
 " Where is the foreigner ? " I still had 
 sufficient spirit left to be annoyed at this 
 description of myself. 
 
 " 'E's done a guy if there ever was one ; 
 but the woman was fair dotty, and I don't 
 believe there never was none. A furriner 
 poisoning 'er kid ! Why, the little nipper 
 was fit enough to do 'is bit for the old firm. 
 'E nearly chewed one of the conductor's 
 ears orf. Poisoned ? Not 'alf ! I seen 
 the man's ear." 
 
 Puzzled as I was by all these negatives, I 
 dared not interrupt. 
 
 " When the lot was dragged apart 'alf- 
 drownded, some fool must scratch 'imself 
 against a switch. Turns off the lights in 
 the gallery. Then, of course, some one else 
 must sing out ' Fire ! ' That put the lid on 
 
MY MATINEE TEA. 303 
 
 it ! The women were screaming and faint- 
 ing in 'eaps. I can tell you it was as near 
 panic as 'kiss your hand.' Case for an 
 inquess it would 'ave been, if the boss 
 'imself 'adn't gone up and made the re- 
 mains of the band play slow music. He's 
 up there now with some of the cashiers, 
 booking names and complaints. Restaurong 
 is closed for this evening, sir," he concluded, 
 in a louder tone, to a would-be customer. 
 
 " I'm so glad I wasn't there," said I. 
 " What a hot-tempered lot these foreigners 
 are ! They're positively dangerous." 
 
 "Oh, the waiters weren't in this, except 
 to try and separate the scrappers, and get 
 kicked in the face and soused. It wasn't 
 their funeral." 
 
 " No ; I meant the musicians." 
 
 " Love you, sir, the bandsmen ain't 
 furriners. They calls 'em the 'Puce 'Un- 
 garian Horchestra'; but that's to please 
 the class of customers we get. They come 
 here to see life, and want something Conti- 
 nental and wicked-like. That's why we 
 
304 MY MATINEE TEA. 
 
 gives 'em French me-nus, German beer, and 
 everythink of that." 
 
 " The band not foreigners ! " I gasped. 
 
 " I don't think. They're Bert 'Uggins' 
 little lot from Peckham Rye way. Most of 
 'em used to play at our 'Armonic Club not 
 so long ago. Bettered theirselves now." 
 
 " Was is Mr Huggins the conduc- 
 tor?" 
 
 "That's right with the bald 'ead." 
 
 My pouch -eyed Balkan prince - - Bert 
 Huggins, of Peckham Rye ! Incapable of 
 speech, I made a feeble and involuntary 
 gesture of disgust with my hand, and 
 accidentally threw away my cigar. 
 
 " What's the time? " I asked, irrelevantly. 
 
 " Time, sir ? Six-thirty, sir." 
 
 " Good night, porter. I must be getting 
 home now," said I, doing the necessary. 
 
 "Yes; it's goin' to be a wet evenin'. 
 Good night, and thank you, sir." 
 
 I went. 
 
METHODS OF BAKBARISM 
 
 THERE were stretches of sand and dry mud 
 down in the river-bed, and here the horses 
 were collected under cover. Although the 
 mist had been almost dispersed by the sun, 
 which had now been up for some little time, 
 it still clung to the surface of the sluggish 
 river and curled off it like steam, making 
 the water look warm and almost inviting to 
 the horse-holders shivering in the shade on 
 the east side. 
 
 Quite a brisk action was going on some- 
 where on a level with the top of the thirty- 
 foot banks, and the fighting was not far off. 
 But its direction could not easily be located, 
 for the sound of the firing was caught be- 
 tween the slopes and reverberated from one 
 
 U 
 
306 "METHODS OF BARBARISM" 
 
 to the other in such a way that each report 
 merely prolonged the echo of the last, until 
 the hollow river-bed was filled by a con- 
 tinuous din apparently proceeding from 
 every quarter. Against this almost solid 
 background of noise the coughing and 
 champing of bits close by were hardly 
 noticeable. The horses, however, were 
 standing comparatively still. It was too 
 cold and too early for the plague of flies that 
 would swarm down here three hours later. 
 
 The Major commanding the squadron of 
 dragoons engaged also the commander of 
 the expedition sent out to destroy Van 
 Niekerk's farm, which had been such a nest 
 of snipers had just galloped along the 
 sheltered river-bed from the firing line in 
 front, now so busy covering the work of 
 demolition. 
 
 " Mr Digby back yet ? " he asked, without 
 dismounting. 
 
 " No, sir," said the corporal, who came 
 forward. He looked round, then corrected 
 himself " Just coming now, sir." 
 
"METHODS OF BARBAHTSM" 307 
 
 Down the bank, dodging between the 
 bushes, ran a subaltern of the same regi- 
 ment, in great haste. 
 
 " Well ? " inquired the commander. He 
 also was in a hurry, and did not wait till 
 the youngster reached the bottom of the 
 slope. 
 
 " Holt says that he'll have the whole 
 place down in ten minutes, sir. He's fixing 
 it up now." 
 
 " Good. I can give him ten minutes com- 
 fortably. Anything else before I go back ? " 
 
 " While I was on that knoll up above, I 
 saw something through the bushes on the 
 top of the other bank which looked like 
 another building. It must have been 
 hidden by the scrub or the farm as we 
 came along. If you don't want me for a 
 few minutes I'll get across and find out 
 what it is. You can't see it from here," he 
 added as the Major looked upwards across 
 the river. 
 
 "Sure?" 
 
 "Yes." 
 
308 "METHODS OF BARBARISM " 
 
 " All right. Isn't that a boat of sorts 
 over there ? " 
 
 "Yes: must be a ferry worked by this 
 rope," replied Digby, pointing to a thinnish 
 hawser which stretched from a rough hold- 
 fast down into the water. 
 
 " Well, bring it across if you can ; but 
 don't waste any time. Report to me here. 
 I shall be back by the time Holt's finished." 
 The Major cantered off again with his 
 orderly. 
 
 Within a minute the young dragoon was 
 stripped naked. Before another thirty 
 seconds had passed he had tied his maga- 
 zine pistol on the top of his smasher hat 
 with the pugaree. Inside two minutes he 
 had waded carefully up-stream through the 
 shallow water and was swimming a steady 
 breast stroke, head well up, amid the wisps 
 of mist 'which seemed to enwreathe him. 
 The horse- holders, who had not heard the 
 conversation, watched his progress with 
 interest. 
 
 " Wonder what Vs after ? " 
 
"METHODS OF BARBARISM" 309 
 
 " Shouldn't be surprised if there wasn't 
 some of these stinkin' crocodiles in the 
 river." 
 
 There were only forty yards or so of deep 
 water in the shrunken river, for it was 
 December, but, sluggish though the current 
 looked, it was strong enough to carry the 
 swimmer some distance down stream, and it 
 was several yards below the boat that he 
 landed. As he crossed the flat sand on the 
 far side he took off his hat, untied the 
 pugaree, and whipped the pistol from the 
 holster in which he had carried it for fear 
 of any accidental touch on the trigger. 
 Then, in the still slanting rays of the sun 
 which flooded the west bank, his white 
 body could be seen flashing in and out from 
 behind the bushes as he climbed the 
 slope. 
 
 " I hope there's a bit of a path yonder, 
 anyway," said the corporal, who had quietly 
 seized his rifle and made two men do the 
 same, in case of necessity a precaution 
 which the young oflicer, for all his zeal, had 
 
310 "METHODS OF BARBARISM" 
 
 forgotten to arrange. " Them thorn bushes 
 '11 make a fair picture of 'm, else." 
 
 The white body disappeared, completely 
 swallowed up in the mass of scrub which hid 
 the upper part of the bank, and for five 
 minutes there was nothing on the sunlit 
 sandy slope with its covering mantle of grey 
 bushes to catch the eyes of the watchers. 
 And no sound came from beyond it. 
 
 Then there was again movement amongst 
 the topmost bushes, again a glint of white. 
 The three men gripped their rifles. But 
 there was no need to use them ; and in two 
 minutes the explorer was stepping out of 
 the boat, which had grounded in the shal- 
 lows. As he splashed ashore the Major re- 
 turned. 
 
 " Well ? " It was his formula. 
 
 " Small house fifty yards beyond edge 
 of bank," panted the dripping subaltern. 
 " Ought to be destroyed if we've time, sir. 
 It's just in a line with the farm and our 
 camp, and when the farm is blown up they'll 
 
"METHODS OF BARBARISM" 311 
 
 be able to snipe us from it. There are four 
 small rooms." 
 
 " I'll turn Holt on to it as soon as he's 
 done the farm. Hope he won't have used 
 up all his gun-cotton." 
 
 Digby was a curious figure as he stood 
 there with chattering teeth, making his 
 report. His clothing consisted of a hat 
 the pistol and pugaree were in the boat 
 and some mud which came half-way up his 
 shins and took the place of socks. And as 
 he talked he unthinkingly wiped the black 
 slime from the rope off his hands by rub- 
 bing them on his body and thighs. By the 
 time he had finished he was striped like a 
 ring-hals. 
 
 " Oh, there's a decrepit old fossil of a 
 Boer and a small boy in the house. They'll 
 have to be brought away." 
 
 " Yes. Holt will do that. You'd better 
 get on your kit." 
 
 The Major dismounted and started to 
 climb up the bank. 
 
312 "METHODS OF BARBARISM" 
 
 Meanwhile, not sixty yards away, up on 
 the top, on this side, was the said Holt- 
 subaltern in charge of the small party of 
 Sappers employed in preparing to blow up 
 Van Niekerk's farm. At the precise moment 
 when Comrade Digby of the cavalry was 
 climbing naked into the boat to return from 
 the far side of the river, Holt was kneeling 
 on the floor in a corner of one of the small 
 front rooms of the farm. After straight- 
 ening out something which looked like a 
 three-foot length of shiny black sash-cord, 
 and carefully turning up its end, he weighted 
 it down with a brickbat. He then crawled 
 across the floor over a miscellaneous litter 
 of battered meat-tins, a sheepskin or two, 
 bones, paper, and the empty brown card- 
 board cases in which Mauser ammunition 
 is packed, to the doorless opening leading 
 to the central chamber of the building. 
 There were five rooms in the farm, a large 
 central room which ran from back to front, 
 and four small ones opening off it, two on 
 each side. That in which Holt was groping 
 
"METHODS OF BARBARISM" 313 
 
 about was in front on the north-east corner. 
 As he stood up in the thickness of the 
 wall in the doorway the reason of his 
 squirming over the filth-covered floor sud- 
 denly became clear. There was a smack ; 
 and in the back wall of the room, just 
 opposite the window opening, about breast- 
 high, there appeared a fresh star in the 
 coarse plaster, and on the floor underneath 
 grew up a little heap of white powder. It 
 was like a conjuring trick. Many such 
 wounds disfigured the wall, and there were 
 several little heaps on the floor, for the 
 window directly faced the enemy who were 
 shooting so merrily. 
 
 Holt had decided to place a gun-cotton 
 charge in each of the five rooms of the 
 building. They were to be fired as simul- 
 taneously as possible with the means at his 
 disposal, and had therefore been fitted with 
 equal lengths of safety fuse to allow one 
 minute. He himself had laid one and had 
 deputed the preparation of the others to 
 four of his men. When all were ready, he 
 
314 "METHODS OF BARBARISM" 
 
 was to give the word, and each man would 
 at once light up. To avoid accidents, so 
 soon as his fuse was ignited each man was 
 at once to sing out his name and leave the 
 building. If the whistle sounded all were 
 to bolt immediately. 
 
 From his coign of vantage in the thick- 
 ness of the doorway Holt could watch three 
 of his men ; but he could not see him who 
 was working in the back room behind his 
 own, and it was there that he had placed 
 his sergeant. Time was getting on. He 
 raised his voice to make sure of being 
 heard above the noise and shouted "All 
 ready ? " 
 
 " No, sir ! " roared out the sapper in the 
 front room facing Holt as he stood. He 
 was nervous, and had fumbled. 
 
 "All right, Bastow, take it easy," said 
 Holt. He knew Bastow's disposition. 
 Besides, it was ticklish work for a young 
 soldier who was doing the real thing for 
 the first time, especially as the bullets 
 were every moment starring the wall not 
 
"METHODS OF BARBARISM" 315 
 
 six feet from his head. The worst thing 
 that could be done was to hustle, and 
 yet there was need for haste. Holt con- 
 sulted his wrist watch. Then, while he 
 waited, he idly swept some of the mess 
 on the floor to one side with his foot. The 
 place was horrible to look at. Besides the 
 rubbish and offal which lay all round the 
 legacy of the burghers who had used the 
 house as a convenient outpost there was 
 nothing. All the furniture had been re- 
 moved or burnt, and the doorways were 
 innocent of doors and the window - open- 
 ings of frames. When he had given 
 Bastow another half minute Holt again 
 spoke. " All ready now ? " 
 
 This time there was no dissent. 
 
 " Prepare to light." 
 
 " Light." 
 
 Holt gripped his whistle between his 
 teeth and ran crouching back to his own 
 corner. He knelt down, pulled a match- 
 box from his pocket, and listened. Before 
 he fired his own charge, in order to give 
 
316 "METHODS OF BARBARISM" 
 
 the men a start, he intended to wait until 
 the first of them signalled that he had 
 lighted up. 
 
 After a very few seconds a shout rang 
 through the house " Stewart ; burning." 
 This was the sergeant. Holt at once 
 looked at his watch. The minute would 
 count from now. He then struck a fusee, 
 and seizing the end of the fuse in his left- 
 hand, held it firm while he deliberately 
 pressed the glowing head against it. The 
 thing spat out a small jet of sparks and a 
 spurt of thin blue smoke, and Holt laid it 
 down tenderly, then crawled back to the 
 doorway to wait for the others. 
 
 As he stood he could hear in the corner 
 behind him a hissing like that of an angry 
 snake. It was not a pleasant noise, for 
 there was such a thing as faulty or per- 
 ished fuse, and the slowly travelling fire 
 might go out altogether or, what was more 
 exciting, might flash straight down to the 
 detonator. And it was with impatience 
 that Holt watched the now jumpy Bastow, 
 
"METHODS OF BARBARISM" 317 
 
 who could do nothing right. First he made 
 several efforts to strike his fusee on the 
 side of its head instead of on the bright 
 red tip, as he had been trained. Then he 
 rubbed it so savagely that it broke. 
 
 There was a second cry, " Stephens ; 
 burning," and the sapper at the back of 
 the central room crawled out. Time was 
 slipping by, and Holt itched to dart across 
 and take over the bungler's job ; but he 
 could not, for there was still one other 
 man left in the room behind him, and 
 he dared not speak. 
 
 The luckless Barstow had now actually 
 succeeded in striking a " Vesuvian," but 
 he had grown more and more flurried, 
 and was now trying to dab it on to the 
 fuse without holding the latter steady. 
 Of course it dodged about and eluded his 
 rather shaky hand. But, nervous as he 
 was, he was full of grit, and if left alone 
 would probably have gone on trying till 
 he was killed by the detonation of the 
 other charges. 
 
318 "METHODS OF BARBARISM" 
 
 By now thirty seconds had passed, and 
 Holt seriously feared that he would have 
 to blow his whistle. The suspense was 
 so great that he could not stand still, 
 and was executing a noiseless step -dance 
 in his corner. 
 
 " Hayes ; burning," echoed through the 
 farm, and a third figure stole out. 
 
 Holt lost no time. Still crouching, he 
 pounced on to the sweating Bastow, seized 
 him by the shoulder, and hissed " Clear 
 out." "Crawl!" he roared, as the man 
 stood up to full height and began to run, 
 oblivious of bullets. 
 
 He then made one effort to fire the 
 thing himself. He failed to do so, and 
 saw that the end of the fuse had been 
 rubbed in the dirt or squeezed. There 
 was no time for re-cutting. He dropped 
 the thing, squirmed from the room, past 
 the smoking charge at the back of the 
 central chamber, and slunk out of the 
 house. 
 
 And it was none too soon, for as he 
 
"METHODS OF BARBARISM" 319 
 
 raced across the open towards the river- 
 bank whither his detachment had pre- 
 ceded him the first charge went off. He 
 felt the air quiver at the back of his neck, 
 and sundry stones whizzed past him. 
 
 " One," he muttered, staggering on. 
 
 As he dived over the brow of the bank 
 he almost fell on to the Major, who was 
 laboriously climbing upwards. 
 
 " Well ? I was wondering how much 
 longer you were going to be. Six men 
 have been hit, and several horses. They're 
 collecting like hornets now. Shall have to 
 move very soon." 
 
 The subaltern was listening too intently 
 for further signs of his handiwork to pay 
 due attention to what his senior said, and 
 he made no reply. There was a second 
 loud detonation, and a blast of small 
 stones swept through the scrub up above. 
 
 " Two," he counted. 
 
 " That's all right, then," said the com- 
 mander, and proceeded to clamber up over 
 the edge. 
 
320 "METHODS OF BAKBATIISM" 
 
 " Hold on ! " shrieked Holt, grasping 
 him unceremoniously. " There are two 
 more." At that moment there was a third 
 report, and a heavy body snarled past over- 
 head, smashing its way through the hushes, 
 and fell into the water with a splash. 
 
 " Three," he remarked solemnly, holding 
 up his hand to enjoin silence, as if the 
 sound of the explosions might otherwise 
 escape notice. There was now a longer 
 interval ; and the eyes of the two officers 
 and those of the orderly close by were fixed 
 in that steady, vague, unseeing stare which 
 shows that hearing is the sense upon which 
 attention is concentrated. As the suspense 
 was prolonged Holt cocked his head on one 
 side like a listening parrot, and his expres- 
 sion grew anxious. 
 
 Another detonation rang out. 
 
 " Four," he gasped in a tone of relief. 
 " That's right now, sir. May have to pick 
 a bit of wall down, but that won't take 
 long." 
 
 "Look here, Holt, I'm afraid there's 
 
"METHODS OF BARBARISM" 321 
 
 another house to be demolished. Have you 
 any stuff left?" 
 
 "Not much about eight slabs, I should 
 say. I didn't know there was to be any- 
 thing else, and I've been a bit lavish." 
 
 " I know. It's not your fault in any 
 way. Point is can you do anything with 
 your slabs ? " 
 
 "What sort of a house? Can I have a 
 look at it ? " 
 
 "Traidnot. No time. It's out of sight, 
 on the other side. Digby's been over and 
 found a small four-roomed house fifty yards 
 from the river, sort of beiwohner's shanty. 
 Well what is it ? " he added to a breath- 
 less orderly who had just climbed up to- 
 wards him, leading his horse. 
 
 " From Captain Wheeler, sir." 
 
 The Major tore open a note. 
 
 " All right. Wait a minute." 
 
 He turned back to Holt. 
 
 "Wheeler says he can't stick it more 
 than seven or eight minutes. They're 
 getting round to our left a bit, across the 
 x 
 
322 "METHODS OF BARBARISM" 
 
 river. I'll give you eight minutes before 
 we fall back. Just nip over with what 
 stuff you have, and do your best with the 
 shanty. We shall retire the same way we 
 came. Remember that they're over on 
 that side now probably some way off, 
 though. Don't get scuppered." 
 
 Sending one of his men to collect the 
 unexpended material and take it down to 
 the river to await his arrival, Holt led the 
 others up to the pile of debris and cloud of 
 dust which now represented the farm, and 
 set them to work with pick and crowbar to 
 level the one corner of the house which was 
 still standing and the stone walls of a 
 kraal. He then ran down to the river 
 and found the sapper bailing water out of 
 a very crazy boat. On the seat in the 
 stern was the gun-cotton, detonator, and a 
 short piece of fuse. As he tumbled into the 
 boat and shoved off, Holt noticed the scanty 
 length of the latter. 
 
 "Good Lord, Stimson ! That all the 
 safety ? " 
 
"METHODS OF BAEBARTSM " 323 
 
 "All that's left, sir." 
 
 Quite gravely the subaltern whistled the 
 eight notes usually associated with that 
 vulgar refrain, " Goin' to the ball this 
 evenin' ? " And inappropriate as this senti- 
 ment may appear to the ultra - refined, to 
 the less cultured soldier present it ex- 
 pressed the situation to a nicety. Seizing 
 the hauling-rope, he whistled the reply 
 under his breath. As the water-logged 
 boat nosed its sodden way across the river 
 it became quite evident that the enemy had 
 got to the left more than a bit, for several 
 bullets hummed overhead, and one or two 
 dived into the stream with a "phuit." But 
 there was serious work toward ; and, feet 
 in six inches of bilge, Holt was kept fully 
 employed connecting up his charge. When 
 he jumped ashore he was carrying the gun- 
 cotton ready primed and lashed together in 
 one hand, and in the other a poisonous- 
 looking red detonator with the length of 
 fuse dangling from it. 
 
 " You wait here till I come back," he 
 
324 "METHODS OF BARBARISM" 
 
 said to Stirnson. " If I don't appear by 
 the time the thing poops off, give me one 
 minute and then get back to the detach- 
 ment. See ? " 
 
 "Yes, sir." 
 
 " Better get behind that hump there 
 are a good many stray bullets flying about 
 now. Hold on. Just pat my pockets first. 
 Feel a matchbox ? " 
 
 " No, sir." 
 
 " Thought so. Must have left it in the 
 farm. Got yours ? " 
 
 Stimson produced his own box of fusees. 
 
 " How many in it ? " 
 
 "Six, sir." 
 
 " Right. Don't finger them with your 
 wet hands, man ! Put 'em in my pocket." 
 
 Holt then ran up the diagonal path, and 
 Sapper Stimson, rifle by his side, curled 
 down in a depression in the bank, and after 
 wiping the slime off his hands proceeded to 
 try and entice a splinter from his thumb 
 with his teeth. He had not even got a 
 grip on the intruder when he was inter- 
 
"METHODS OF BARBARISM" 325 
 
 rupted by a whistle from the far bank, and 
 an excited man in shirt and khaki breeches 
 shouted out to him to bring the boat over. 
 Now Stimson was not Bastow. He was a 
 stolid man. He had got categorical orders 
 and was not going to disobey them, and he 
 said so distinctly and loudly. And he was 
 not going to leave the boat to run up the 
 bank and give Holt a message either. Even 
 when his interlocutor explained with some 
 emphasis that he was Lieutenant Digby of 
 the th Dragoons, though bound to accept 
 the statement, he remained obdurate. As 
 he muttered to himself, " He was not going 
 to leave his own officer in the soup, not 
 for the whole blooming cavalry division." 
 Without more ado the stranger stripped off 
 the few garments he was wearing, and for 
 the second time breasted the flood. 
 
 Somewhat surprised, and not quite know- 
 ing what was to happen, but feeling that he 
 would be "on the mat" whatever he did, 
 Sapper Stimson continued philosophically 
 to chase the offending splinter. Succeed- 
 
326 "METHODS OF BARBARISM" 
 
 ing in extracting it, he spat viciously, mut- 
 tered " Ikoiia ! Not much," and awaited 
 developments. 
 
 Meanwhile, after some delay caused by 
 the necessity for retying a gun-cotton slab 
 which had slipped and fallen, Holt had 
 reached the house. As reported, it was 
 small, and about fifty yards from the river- 
 bank. He approached it from the rear, 
 which was the sheltered side, and found 
 the back door open. This led on to a 
 passage which ran straight through the 
 house to the front door, which was shut. 
 On each side of the passage were two 
 doors. On the right, between the pair of 
 doors on that side, stood a harmonium, 
 and on top of it was a bookcase. Rush- 
 ing in, Holt laid down his charge on top 
 of the harmonium and peeped into the 
 two back rooms. They were empty and 
 almost bare, and he shut the doors. The 
 central passage was evidently the place 
 the musical instrument might have been 
 put there especially to suit his fell design 
 
"METHODS OF BARBARISM" 327 
 
 and he wasted no more time in search- 
 ing. Drawing the harmonium about eight 
 inches away from the wall, he placed his 
 gun-cotton in the intervening space and 
 pushed the harmonium back tight up 
 against it. He then packed the charge 
 on top and behind with some books in 
 his hurry unconsciously using the heavy 
 leather -bound Family Bible, slipped the 
 detonator into the primer, lit the fuse, and, 
 carefully shutting the back door behind 
 him, ran as hard as he could. 
 
 Half-way down the slope he collided 
 with a dripping wet, naked man who was 
 limping and stumbling upwards. 
 
 " Hullo, Digby ! What the ?" 
 
 " Lul lighted the charge ? " gasped the 
 newcomer. 
 
 "Yes, fizzin' now. Come on back. No 
 time to lose." 
 
 " But where's the old buster ? " 
 
 " What old buster ? " 
 
 "Why, the old Dud Dutchman and 
 the kid in the house ? " 
 
328 "METHODS OF BARBARISM" 
 
 " Good God ! In that house ? " 
 
 " Yes, yes ! " screamed Digby, and began 
 to run on. 
 
 "Stop! "said Holt. "I'll go." 
 
 No ; 111 " 
 
 " You won't. You fool ! I know where 
 the charge is placed and how much time 
 there is." With that, Holt, who was far 
 the heavier, gave the dragoon a hand-off, 
 which sent him sprawling, and turned to 
 run. Digby rolled for a few feet, his wet 
 body picking up sand as he went, and was 
 then caught in a thorn bush. Sapper 
 Stimson watching from below chuckled, for 
 though the naked man had not exactly 
 popped over to have a chat, he had spoken 
 a few kind words to the sapper as he 
 hobbled over the sharp stones at the foot 
 of the bank. By this time Holt was dis- 
 appearing back over the edge ; and the 
 defeated one did his best to help. 
 
 " Hight front room ! " he yelled. 
 
 Holt put up his hand. As he ran on 
 he at first wondered why the Major had 
 
"METHODS OF BARBARISM" 329 
 
 not told him about this. He then blessed 
 the bad knot which had caused a slab to 
 fall and so delayed his last journey from 
 the river. But these points did not long 
 claim his attention. His thoughts turned 
 to the miserable little piece of shiny black 
 cord he had last seen spitting fire on to 
 the varnished surface of a walnut -wood 
 harmonium -case. And he could not help 
 making a lightning but futile calculation, 
 based on the distance between the house 
 and the spot where he had turned back, 
 and the time in which he had once won 
 the " Under Fifteen " hundred yards. The 
 infernal thing was burning all right : he 
 could see the thread of smoke trickling 
 up the door-frame. 
 
 Throwing open the back door, he rushed 
 straight down the passage to the front 
 door, opened that, and burst into the room 
 on the right. 
 
 In the centre of the room was a table 
 upon which stood some crockery and the 
 remains of a meal, and on the far side of 
 
330 "METHODS OF BARBARISM" 
 
 the table, facing the stove, was an arm- 
 chair. Above the back of the chair 
 trembled and nodded a grey slouch hat 
 with a rusty crape-band round the crown. 
 A small boy of about six was sitting on 
 the floor close to the door. He was play- 
 ing with a regulation mess-tin, and on his 
 head was a British soldier's helmet. 
 
 " Jij moet nie bang wees me," l shouted 
 Holt as he seized the surprised child, who, 
 startled at being whisked off the ground 
 by some unseen force, and not at all re- 
 assured by its efforts to speak the Taal, 
 at once let out a yell of terror. Heaving 
 the table into the corner of the room with 
 his thigh, Holt darted across to the chair 
 and dumped the child on the top of an 
 old man seated in it. Then, with the 
 caution " Hou vas ! " 2 he steadied the two 
 occupants with one arm, tipped the chair 
 slightly back, and dragged the yelling, 
 creaking mass across the floor, out of the 
 room, over the lintel of the front door arid 
 
 1 You must not be afraid. 2 Hold tight ! 
 
"METHODS OF BARBARISM" 331 
 
 down on to the ground outside. The child 
 shrieked all the more at sight of his captor, 
 and severely belaboured the old man, who 
 was too astonished or winded to do more 
 than gurgle. 
 
 The breathless Holt continued his retro- 
 grade movement across the apology for a 
 garden. About thirty yards from the 
 house the remains of a wire fence lying 
 on the ground acted as a trip, and, rather 
 luckily for the three, suddenly cut short 
 their wild career. Holt tumbled backwards, 
 the chair over his legs, the old man on 
 his chest and the child across his face. 
 
 At that instant there was a concussion 
 which jarred the interior economy of the 
 three lying so close. Unfortunately for 
 science the sapper subaltern was prevented 
 by circumstances from studying the effect 
 of his work from a nearer point of view 
 than any he had ever occupied before. 
 First the flat roof of the house rose gently 
 a couple of feet into the air ; then the 
 walls quivered and dissolved into their 
 
332 "METHODS OF BARBARISM" 
 
 components ; lastly, the roof sat down 
 squarely upon the ruins with a flop, pro- 
 pelling outwards in every direction a 
 mighty puff of dust, as does a lexicon 
 dropped on to an unswept floor. Its fall 
 revealed a secret, for there arose an ap- 
 palling cackle, and amidst the debris which 
 rained down from the cloud of white dust 
 and grey smoke descended a shower of 
 fowls. Some sailed down, wings flapping, 
 and ran hither and thither with hideous 
 clamour ; others fell with a heavy thud, 
 inert and limp. 
 
 The shock of the explosion silenced the 
 boy's cries for the moment. But, freed 
 from his weight and Holt's constricting 
 clutch, the rattled old man was galvanised 
 into what might have been either a fit of 
 coughing or a stream of guttural exclam- 
 ations of surprise and terror. Both had 
 rolled clear of their deliverer. Never- 
 theless, Holt still lay prone, half-stunned 
 and thoroughly winded. When he raised 
 himself on his elbows, dazed, and cough- 
 
"METHODS OF BARBARISM" 333 
 
 ing in the choking air, he saw sitting up, 
 facing him, a strange, hairy old man and 
 a boy. The air was thick with feathers ; 
 near by lay two dead birds ; whilst others 
 still full of life were racing round in a 
 circle, hypnotised. As he gazed, a belated 
 fowl's leg which had evidently made a 
 long journey hit him on the cheek, and 
 an angry cock crowed at him. 
 
 The anti - climax was too sudden. He 
 began to chuckle feebly. And when, limp- 
 ing up through the murk, there appeared 
 a naked, dust-smeared man, who stooped 
 down every few strides to collect a dead 
 bird, he rocked with laughter in spite of 
 his bruised and aching body. It was not 
 until Digby had picked him up, shaken 
 him, and used much strong language, that 
 he began faintly to appreciate the situ- 
 ation. He then seized the boy by the 
 hand, and between them the two officers 
 half- supported, half- forced the old Boer 
 towards the bank, their progress in the 
 direction of shelter hastened by the fre- 
 
334 "METHODS OF BARBARISM" 
 
 quency of certain humming noises in 
 the air. 
 
 It was not very long before the worthy 
 Stimson was hauling the boat back across 
 the river. He was greatly relieved by 
 Holt's safe return, but still somewhat sore 
 at the verbal castigation he had received 
 from the naked and dirty robber of hen- 
 roosts now sitting by a heap of poultry 
 in the bows. 
 
 Amongst the birds was the child, who 
 had recovered from shock sufficiently to 
 recommence howling. Aft, sitting next 
 Holt, was the old Boer, now querulous. 
 Holt sat silent, thoughtful, and puzzled, 
 his aching head between his hands. For 
 him the last twenty minutes had been 
 somewhat crowded with incident, and he 
 was still trying to collect his wits, scattered 
 by the fall. From the bows the shivering 
 dragoon regarded the pair of human beings 
 who had just been saved, one near the 
 end of his life, the other at the threshold. 
 And he mused on the strangeness of the 
 
"METHODS OF BARBARISM" 335 
 
 chance which had led him to discover from 
 a casual remark of the Major's that Holt 
 had not been informed of their presence 
 in the house. He was deeply grateful. 
 He was not ungrateful also that the old 
 Boer had been so cunning as to keep his 
 poultry on the roof. 
 
 " Wat het jij met mij huisraad en mij 
 Seraphein gemaak ? " bleated the latter for 
 the fifth or sixth time. 
 
 The reiteration of this sentence changed 
 Digby's feeling of thankfulness to one of 
 annoyance. 
 
 " W- what's the old fool making such a 
 song and dance about now ? " he asked. 
 " He feeds me. I wish he'd shut up grows- 
 ing." As he spoke he crossed one bleed- 
 ing foot over his knee and tried to pick 
 out some of the sharp - pointed pieces of 
 grit sticking into the sole. 
 
 Holt looked up and listened to the next 
 repetition of the sentence. 
 
 " Oh, he's mad talking out of the 
 back of his neck. Wants to know what 
 
336 "METHODS OF BARBARISM" 
 
 we've done with some furniture and 
 a harmonium ! " 
 
 " Schelms ! " wheezed the old fellow. 
 
 " Ja. Schelms ! " echoed a shrill voice. 
 " Wat het jij met mij Seraphein gemaak ? " 
 and as the small speaker hit the nearest 
 of his brutal preservers in the face with 
 the blood-stained carcase of a pullet, he 
 added, "Verdomde Karki!" 
 
 By now the sounds of battle had grown 
 more distinct ; and while this chip of the 
 old block fought for his grandfather's 
 household gods with a dead fowl, the 
 unseen messengers of his compatriots 
 sighed and wailed overhead. 
 
FULL BACK. 
 
 I. 
 
 IT is the event of the football year the 
 match for which both schools have striven 
 during the season. The Whites are two 
 points ahead, but there are only five 
 minutes to play, and it is still anybody's 
 game. Amidst intense excitement play 
 has been slowly forced into the Beds' 
 twenty - five, and each scrum now starts 
 closer to their line and more in front of 
 their goal. But their defence is good. 
 Time after time does the ball appear from 
 the forest of legs and get slung out by 
 the White scrum half, and time after time 
 is the dangerous attack thus initiated 
 
 Y 
 
338 FULL BACK 
 
 ' smothered by the fierce tackling of the 
 defenders, or spoiled by a hasty pass or a 
 fumbled ball. The tired players of both 
 sides, inspired by the frenzied encourage- 
 ment of their supporters, are making the 
 utmost efforts, the Whites to ensure the 
 match by increasing their lead, their oppon- 
 ents to score once again and so reverse the 
 position. And there is time yet. The ball 
 is slippery, and one intercepted pass may 
 give Red the match. 
 
 The growing darkness, added to the 
 autumn mist which always hangs over the 
 clay soil of the football ground, increases 
 the anxiety of the White full back now 
 peering at the game from the near end of 
 the field. At this distance he can only 
 divine what is happening by intuition, for 
 he can barely see the dark and greasy ball 
 as it flies from hand to hand, and is only 
 able to guess at its course outside the 
 steaming scrum from the movements and 
 attitudes of its players. He is a slim youth, 
 and as he stands there in the drizzle, arms 
 
FULL BACK 339 
 
 akimbo, tapping the muddy ground with 
 one foot, he presents a lonely figure. At 
 intervals he prowls backwards and forwards 
 slowly, watchfully, now blowing on his 
 hands, now putting them into his pockets, 
 now swinging his arms across his chest, at 
 times performing a solemn shuffle in the 
 sticky mud. 
 
 It is raining, and cold with that raw 
 chill which penetrates to the bones of all 
 who are not taking active exercise, and the 
 back has had little to do for some twenty 
 minutes ; in fact, since he failed to save 
 that try, when the big oaf of a wing three- 
 quarter sent him sprawling by a hand-off, 
 the muddy impress of which still stings on 
 his face. The memory of his failure also 
 rankles, though it was caused by bad luck. 
 A slip in the mud, and he had tackled a 
 thought too high to stop a faster, heavier 
 man in his stride. Of no special physique, 
 and possessed neither with great speed nor 
 with phenomenal powers of kicking, he 
 owes his position in the team to two 
 
340 FULL BACK 
 
 qualities pluck and coolness. He is a 
 safe tackle. 
 
 Though by now there is hardly any 
 colour distinguishable amongst the players, 
 except brown of various shades, their ar- 
 rangement can be seen to keep on swiftly 
 changing like the patterns in a kaleido- 
 scope ; and as a fresh outburst of roars 
 sounds from the far end of the ground, 
 where the crowd is thickest, the centre of 
 action shifts over to the Whites' left. To 
 judge from the shouts, they must be very 
 near the Reds' line. 
 
 The Whites' back stands still, tense, on 
 his guard, for at these moments of quick 
 movement anything may happen. He also 
 glances at the clock over the pavilion. 
 
 The high-pitched shouting is taken up 
 closer down the ropes, and there is a sudden 
 change in its tone. The back crouches 
 expectant, waiting for a long relieving kick 
 from the Reds, which, however, does not 
 come. Instead, the whole game seems to 
 approach, the players to loom larger. Then 
 
FULL BACK 341 
 
 out from the ruck bursts a Red with the 
 ball. A White three-quarter dives at him 
 and is floored. A second White player 
 meets the same fate, and the runner 
 staggers on amidst a fresh outburst of con- 
 fused yells. On, on he comes down the 
 field, gathering speed with every stride. 
 Behind him stream a few of both sides : in 
 front, between him and his opponents' goal- 
 line, there is one player only. 
 
 The last hope of the Whites begins to 
 sidle cautiously to his left with a crab-like 
 motion. As he moves he rubs his hands 
 down his short knickers, and every few 
 steps clicks his heels together to shake the 
 mud from his boots, for he does not mean to 
 slip this time. His face is set and his mind 
 is working quickly. He knows that if he 
 does not tackle the man with the ball, and 
 tackle him thoroughly, the game is lost. 
 He is too absorbed to be rendered nervous 
 by the fact that he shares the attention 
 of the whole field ; but he notices sub- 
 consciously that the shouting has almost 
 
342 FULL BACK 
 
 died away. By now even the bulk of the 
 two teams are standing still, watching, for 
 they can do nothing ; the fate of the game 
 is out of their hands. 
 
 As he watches the runner who floored 
 him with such ignominy the last time they 
 met he smiles slightly, partly from the lust 
 of personal combat, partly because he 
 knows that this somewhat lumpish player 
 can only run straight and trusts to his 
 speed and brute strength to get through. 
 Thank Heaven, it is not their long-haired 
 centre who, ball held out in front, as if to 
 pass, and head wagging, snipes irresponsibly 
 down the field in a succession of feints and 
 wriggles which leave his paralysed oppon- 
 ents standing, or more often sitting, in the 
 mud ; nor one of those tricky performers 
 who at the last moment either kick over 
 the opposing back's head and race for the 
 ball or pretend to kick and run on. No ; 
 it is to be a straightforward thing this 
 time. 
 
 Full back carefully regulates his pace and 
 
FULL BACK 343 
 
 moves in a nicely-adjusted curve so that his 
 path will intersect that of the advancing 
 runner just upon the touch-line. He will 
 nurse the fellow right down the line and 
 throw him into touch. Then, before the 
 ball can be again in play, the whistle will 
 have sounded. He is careful not to get too 
 much in front of his opponent, for that may 
 drive him inwards, and then, even if he is 
 brought down, he may be able to transfer 
 the ball into the willing hands of one of the 
 Reds following up. 
 
 Except for the tramping of the feet of 
 the spectators running behind the ropes up 
 to the critical spot, there is now a hush 
 over the field. On races the three-quarter, 
 ball under arm in the old style head up 
 and mouth open, with a somewhat stupid 
 expression on his face, like that of a startled 
 moose. He observes the calculated ap- 
 proach of his adversary, and, knowing his 
 own limitations, appreciates his danger. 
 Nevertheless, he is all the time edging 
 more and more towards the boundary, as 
 
344 FULL BACK 
 
 the other desires. Even travelling at his 
 top speed, as he is, he will not be able to 
 get round the back, and cannot swerve or 
 turn at that pace. With an anxious ex- 
 pression he glances over his shoulder, to 
 see if any backer - up is close enough for 
 him to pass. This checks him. 
 
 It is full back's chance. Quickening his 
 stride, he launches himself in a running 
 dive at the knees of the big fellow. With 
 a thud the two locked players shoot over 
 the line and slide for yards on the sodden 
 turf, scoring it with a dozen parallel 
 grooves. The ball is hurled far beyond 
 the ropes. 
 
 There is no need for the flag of the 
 touch -judge. Above the frantic cheers of 
 the Whites shrills out the long blast of the 
 whistle for "No side." The match is won. 
 
FULL BACK 345 
 
 II. 
 
 Time has passed. The scene is again 
 laid in a field. But the game being carried 
 on is more serious than football, and there 
 are no crowds of cheering spectators. 
 
 Down one side of the flat meadow runs 
 a country road between a double row of 
 poplars. The three other sides are bare 
 of trees, and the hedge and fencing along 
 them have been knocked down and lie on 
 the ground. Alongside the road is a line 
 of large marquees of a special and curious 
 shape, pitched broadside to the field. They 
 do not look old, but they are extraordinarily 
 dirty and creased, and have the appearance 
 of having travelled much and of having 
 been packed up and pitched again and 
 again. At one end of them, in the usual 
 regular lines, is a camp of living tents, and 
 beyond this, in orderly disorder, stands a 
 medley of vehicles of all shapes and sizes. 
 Here are motor lorries, cars, and bicycles, 
 
346 FULL BACK 
 
 and several uncouth trollies long enough 
 to carry stage scenery ; on one of the 
 lorries hums a dynamo. In the background 
 lurk two draggled motor-omnibuses, with 
 no glass in their windows, and their original 
 garish colouring showing in patches through 
 a hastily-applied coat of drab paint. In 
 front of the marquees, more or less dis- 
 mantled, and in every stage of the process 
 of being repaired or " tuned up," sprawl 
 some six or seven aeroplanes, the mono- 
 planes looking like monstrous, winged 
 minnows. They are set in the midst of a 
 litter composed of planks, tarpaulins, strips 
 of frabric, cans of " dope " and of varnish, 
 drums of paint, kegs of nuts, coils of wire, 
 members of framework, shining new pro- 
 pellers, parts of engines, and all the thou- 
 sand -and -one articles which go to make 
 up the equipment and debris of a military 
 aviation depot in full operation. This 
 portion of the field is a scene of feverish 
 activity. Men are busy everywhere, some 
 clustered round the aeroplanes, others 
 
FULL BACK 34*7 
 
 working at the benches fitted with elec- 
 trically-driven tools spaced between them. 
 The aeroplanes themselves seem to be 
 chafing at their confinement and enforced 
 idleness, and every now and again one 
 apparently tries to burst away. After a 
 sharp struggle men fall back hastily from 
 the head of a monster, whilst others hold 
 it down by wings and tail. The creature 
 snorts, gives a hoarse roar, and trembles ; 
 its propeller melts into a shimmering blur ; 
 and a jet of blue smoke and steam is 
 ejected backwards, flattening the quivering 
 grass for yards. But all these exhibitions 
 of temper are in vain. The giants are in 
 every case too well secured to escape, and 
 after much fuss are again reduced to quies- 
 cence. That the torture of the captives 
 does not cease even at night is shown by 
 the number of lamps fitted with large metal 
 reflectors, which are slung from rough posts 
 all round the benches. 
 
 In three of the corners of the field, also, 
 like baby howitzers at extreme elevation, 
 
348 FULL BACK 
 
 the projectors of small searchlights gaze 
 skywards, and in the fourth stands a taper- 
 ing steel mast in the centre of a wire 
 spider's web of some hundred yards dia- 
 meter. It is the "aerial" of the field 
 station of the wireless. Pegged out on the 
 grass in the centre in yard -broad strips 
 of freshly-whitewashed canvas is a large 
 equilateral triangle. This cabalistic sign is 
 intended to convey to those in the air the 
 same information as the flag now hanging 
 limp from its staff over the end marquee 
 is meant to convey to those on earth : that 
 here is the aeroplane park attached to gen- 
 eral headquarters of the defending army, 
 and the landing-place for airmen. 
 
 From north-east to north-west comes the 
 distant noise of battle, and the palpitating 
 air quivers every now and again to the 
 concussion of big guns firing in the dis- 
 tance. But no one in the field is disturbed 
 by the sound, arid the work goes on with- 
 out interruption. 
 
 At the open flap of one of the living 
 
FULL BACK 349 
 
 tents stands a young officer. Except for 
 the helmet and goggles, which he is carry- 
 ing in his hand, he is fully dressed for 
 flight, and as he stands, arms akimbo, 
 listening to some one in the tent, he taps 
 the ground thoughtfully with one foot. 
 He is the " observing officer next for duty," 
 or, in ordinary language, the officer whose 
 turn it is to make a reconnaissance flight. 
 Lying on his bed inside the tent is the 
 airman who has just returned from a long 
 reconnaissance. He has made a successful 
 trip, and has reported to the Commander- 
 in-Chief, and should be resting. But it is 
 a special occasion. He is elated almost to 
 the extent of garrulity, for he has ascer- 
 tained that the invading enemy is still 
 ignorant of the great move to the south- 
 west which the defending commander has 
 attempted to carry out during an inexpli- 
 cable cessation of the invaders' air-service. 
 
 " It really is touch and go. If they 
 don't spot this flank move of our Sixth 
 and Seventh Corps before dark, they're 
 
350 
 
 clone ! And they've only got half an hour 
 to do it in. The artillery of the Third 
 Corps has just been ordered to follow up 
 all night and co-operate in the morning, so 
 that, in any case, surprise or no surprise, 
 the attack will be an awkward one to stop. 
 I wonder what can have happened ? Not 
 one of their machines in the air since 
 yesterday afternoon. Can't make it out, 
 unless they've had a fire in their main 
 park, or some kind friend of ours has 
 sought death by running amok amongst 
 their machines with a sledge-hammer ! " 
 
 Since every one else has been wondering 
 the same thing for the past twenty-four 
 hours this talk is neither interesting nor 
 profitable, and the man outside the tent 
 shows signs of moving on. The speaker 
 then comes to the point : 
 
 " I was able to examine all their dis- 
 positions at my ease, just as if it had 
 been an inspection, and saw practically 
 everything, in spite of all their wood- 
 haunting, hedge-sneaking, canvas-screening 
 
FULL BACK 351 
 
 dodges. If I was puzzled by anything 
 looked at from one side, I just went back 
 and looked at it from the other side 
 from every side. The brutes haven't the 
 vaguest idea of what's coming to 'em." 
 The speaker likes this expression, and 
 pauses to chuckle over it. He continues : 
 "Never saw the Chief in such a state. 
 He couldn't hide it. His feelings were a 
 bit mixed, though. Quite pleased that 
 his great coup was successful so far, but 
 wondering if our run of luck would last 
 out till dark. Like a man swimming with 
 a shark after him cheered after each 
 stroke to find that he is still able to kick, 
 but worrying how long his legs will be 
 hanging to his body. Kept looking at his 
 watch, then the sky, then the clock." 
 
 There is another short pause before the 
 speaker runs on: "Not that I wonder. 
 Not a bit. If they do find out before dark, 
 not only will they be able to upset our 
 game, but they'll know where our general 
 reserve has gone, arid will press their attack 
 
352 FULL BACK 
 
 on our right. Then we shall be in Queer 
 Street ! There's the deuce of a fight 
 going on there now." 
 
 The other speaks for the first time, 
 thoughtfully, monosyllabically, as if to 
 himself: " They must not find out." 
 
 " Yes, that's all very well ; but by the 
 way, are you taking up Number Twenty - 
 seven again ? " 
 
 " Yes." 
 
 " You know that the beastly gun won't 
 work at least, it wouldn't when I came 
 back nor the wireless, I found one of the 
 generator brushes gone, and we've no spares 
 left." 
 
 " Yes, I know." 
 
 " None of the other 'planes ready yet ? " 
 
 "No." 
 
 " Awkward if they do manage to scratch 
 up some machine at the last moment, and 
 it blunders on to our secret ! Going 
 alone ? " 
 
 To this remark and question the next- 
 for-duty makes no answer. There is the 
 
FULL BACK 353 
 
 glow of exaltation on his face, and his eyes 
 are directed towards a wooded hill not far 
 off, now all lit up in the slanting rays of 
 the sun, which has peeped out for a minute. 
 But he is not thinking of the beautiful 
 colour effect produced by golden light on 
 tender green foliage. A call from the 
 telephone orderly breaks his reverie. 
 
 " There are my orders. Good-bye." He 
 nods casually and walks off, taking a note- 
 book from his pocket. 
 
 " Good-bye. Good luck," comes back, in 
 a serious tone, from the tent. 
 
 He reaches the telephone. "Halloa 
 
 observer-next-for-duty here, sir. Yes, I'll 
 
 book it." The speaker then listens and jots 
 down notes alternately. Finally he says : 
 "Yes, I'll repeat. 'Fifth Divisional Ar- 
 tillery at east edge of Square J 16 reports 
 large biplane, carrying two, passed at 5.37 
 P.M., flying fast south-westerly course.' - 
 Yes, the direction is probably mere chance. 
 -What's that? You'll arrange for in- 
 terference from our wireless stations ? 
 
354 FULL BACK 
 
 Oh no, it won't worry us ; our wave is 
 three hundred metres longer than their 
 longest, and we shall be clear enough on 
 loose coupling. But, anyhow, Twenty- 
 seven's transmitting gear is out of order 
 for this run. Must be stopped at all costs ! 
 I understand. Good-bye." 
 
 There is a more sincere note than is usual 
 in this conventional telephonic farewell, and 
 the speaker twice misses the hook as he 
 essays to hang up the receiver. For the 
 moment he seems still to be cogitating 
 some knotty point. However, it is soon 
 settled, and it is with a quick, firm step 
 that he moves off towards monoplane 
 Number Twenty-seven, lying apart from 
 the other machines, facing the open field. 
 It is " The Last of the Mohicans," the only 
 aeroplane at present capable of flight, but a 
 swift one. On the way he is met by the 
 officer in charge of the refitting, a subaltern 
 who has one arm in a sling and a shade 
 over one eye the one wounded officer or 
 man in the Air Corps, the duties of which 
 
FULL BACK 355 
 
 are not responsible for many wounded. As 
 was said by some cynical member, who has 
 since found out the truth of his own 
 epigram, its motto ought to be " Neck or 
 nothing." 
 
 Off?" 
 
 " Yes." 
 
 " The machine-gun isn't quite ready, nor 
 is the wireless. We may have the gun 
 going in about a quarter of an hour ; but 
 the wireless can't be rigged up for some 
 time." 
 
 "Can't wait." 
 
 The commandant of the Air Corps, who 
 is also present, now has a short talk in an 
 undertone with the departing airman. His 
 last words are spoken high : " We shall 
 be able to carry on. Number Nineteen 
 will be ready in an hour, Number Ten in 
 three hours, and Number Thirty before 
 morning." 
 
 He then goes back to his work. There 
 are no such things as " send - offs " in 
 military aviation on service, nor is it the 
 
356 FULL BACK 
 
 custom for the momturi, as such, to salute 
 anybody. 
 
 The observer-next-for-duty turns to the 
 pilot sitting waiting on the monoplane. 
 
 " Bomb magazine charged ? " It is dis- 
 tinctly a question designed to mislead. 
 
 "Yes, sir." 
 
 " Right. I am taking this trip alone. 
 You can come down and stand by for the 
 next." 
 
 This amounts to an order, and there is no 
 room for any argument ; but the desire to 
 travel alone betrays the airman's intention 
 and the question about the bomb magazine 
 no longer deceives. He takes the pilot's 
 place. His first act is to study the map 
 while the machine is steady, to see how far 
 in a direct line the east edge of Square J 16 
 is from the situation of the force whose 
 movement it is so necessary to keep secret. 
 But he does not at the moment waste any 
 time in calculations which he will shortly 
 be able to make at his leisure. Seizing the 
 control, he tests the elevating and warping 
 
FULL BACK 357 
 
 gear and tries the steering with his feet. 
 Then, after a last look round, he puts on 
 his helmet and gloves, pulls down his un- 
 glazed goggles, and nods to a man at the 
 propeller. The latter gives two preparatory 
 swings, a big heave, and shouts " On." The 
 airman repeats " On " as he throws open 
 the throttle. The engine "bites" and 
 starts at full speed, and the whole machine 
 trembles and quivers like an excitable horse 
 at a covert-side. 
 
 Throttling down to half -speed and then 
 opening again to full, the airman watches 
 the needle of the counter dial mount quickly 
 up to eleven hundred and fifty revolutions 
 and hover there. He also listens attentively 
 to the purring of the engine, which is now 
 pulling fiercely against the men holding the 
 machine back. Satisfied with the "grain" 
 of its rhythmic roar, he grips the control 
 firmly, gets a fresh purchase on the steer- 
 ing-bar with his feet, and waves his right 
 arm. The men let go. The machine runs 
 forward with quickly - increasing speed, 
 
358 FULL BACK 
 
 dancing along until it leaves the ground 
 and its motion steadies into that of flight. 
 Once clear of the ground the airman 
 begins a spiral climb, turning to the left 
 in a volute of large radius. An expert 
 flyer, he soon feels the mouth of his mount, 
 which he has not recently flown, and his 
 touch on the control becomes as light as 
 that of a good jockey on the mouth of a 
 horse. He keeps the ascending and turning 
 monoplane up to the bit without allowing 
 it to lose speed, and occasionally counter- 
 acts its tendency to bank excessively by a 
 flutter of the warp ; but his movements 
 are barely perceptible. As the machine 
 swings round gracefully the sun again 
 appears for a moment from between the 
 clouds, and its rays, shining through the 
 semi - transparent fabric of the planes, 
 transform the monoplane into the likeness 
 of a gigantic hawk-moth with gauzy wings 
 of golden brown, the large black bull's-eyes 
 and the numbers on the underside of the 
 planes accentuating the resemblance. 
 
FULL BACK 359 
 
 Since the airman's attention is not dis- 
 tracted by the act of flying, which is entirely 
 instinctive, he is able to concentrate his 
 mind upon his tactics. The clouds are 
 high, thank God ! Before doing anything 
 in the way of scouting he intends to take 
 an unusual course to climb at once to a 
 height of five thousand feet, so as to obtain 
 an extensive range of vision, and also to be 
 high enough to gain that command of alti- 
 tude which in action in the air is as 
 necessary as the weather-gauge was in a 
 sea-fight in the olden days. To reach that 
 height will take nearly ten minutes.- A 
 brief mental calculation, based on times, 
 distances, directions, and the estimated 
 speed of the enemy, shows him that if the 
 hostile biplane by chance or by design 
 continues its course far enough to the 
 south-west, he cannot prevent its discover- 
 ing the presence of the Sixth and Seventh 
 Army Corps out in that direction. But he 
 may be able to intercept it on its return 
 journey, and so prevent it getting away 
 
360 FULL BACK 
 
 with the information, which, after all, is 
 the essential thing. It is true that by 
 laying his course to head off the biplane 
 in that one direction he may, if it recon- 
 noitres elsewhere, miss it altogether ; but 
 so long as the great flanking movement is 
 undiscovered, or is discovered and remains 
 unreported, nothing else matters nothing ! 
 And if he meets the hostile scout, he intends 
 to take no chances by relying on such re- 
 finements as bomb-dropping. He will not 
 even attempt the finesse of giving him the 
 wash from his propeller. He will make a 
 certainty of it, go the " whole hog," and 
 ram. It is this that explains his indiffer- 
 ence to the absence of a machine-gun and 
 his resolve to pilot himself. 
 
 Maintaining his angle of ascent by touch 
 on the control, he continues to climb 
 steadily and steeply, thanks to being over- 
 powered and the absence of a passenger 
 and of the unshipped wireless gear. Nor 
 is there need to look at the speed-indicator 
 dial. In the absence of wind the sweet 
 
FULL BACK 361 
 
 drone of the engine, now purring like the 
 low note of a circular-saw, is a sufficient 
 guarantee of speed. 
 
 At last the pencil of the barograph, which 
 has been tracing a nice smooth slope with- 
 out " saw teeth," crosses the five-thousand- 
 foot line. Swinging round till the bearing 
 of his course is due west, he readjusts his 
 goggles and heads horizontally in the 
 direction of the setting sun. The needle 
 of the indicator jumps to ninety miles an 
 hour. 
 
 So far he has one advantage, in his 
 direction of approach. There is no sun to 
 dazzle him, whereas, if the biplane takes 
 its expected course somewhat earlier than 
 he estimates, it will be silhouetted against 
 the western sky, which, though overcast, 
 is marbled with glowing spaces between 
 the clouds. As he flies, his eyes continually 
 search the horizon from west to south. He 
 descries no speck, no blur, not even a bird. 
 After a glance below and one at his map he 
 throttles down and turns south. He has 
 
362 FULL BACK 
 
 travelled but a short distance on this 
 course when he makes out, away to the 
 south, just off the direction of the marching 
 Sixth and Seventh Corps, at about three 
 miles' distance, and somewhat below his 
 own level, a faint smudge circling in the 
 air a smudge with a suggestion of light 
 on it. He throws open the throttle and 
 elevates, and with a growl his machine 
 leaps upwards on a ten-degree slant. Dis- 
 covery must be mutual and simultaneous, 
 for the smudge at once turns and flees 
 south, still climbing. For about a minute 
 there is a stern-chase. 
 
 It has not been entirely by accident that 
 the invaders' scouting biplane has so quickly 
 discovered the secret of the defenders. The 
 first machine to be repaired after the dis- 
 astrous conflagration in their main aviation 
 park, it has been sent out with the express 
 purpose of discovering what the defenders 
 have been doing behind their front line 
 during their temporary freedom from espi- 
 onage in the air. And it is of the south- 
 
FULL BACK 363 
 
 western portion of the battle area that least 
 is known. The invaders' observer, also, has 
 been made suspicious that he is getting 
 " warm " by the fact that, for the last twenty 
 minutes, after each wireless message to the 
 ground station with which he is working, 
 he has received the despairing letters 
 " J. E. S." " Jammed by enemy's station/' 
 instead of the welcome " S. R" " Signals 
 read." Consequently it is not altogether a 
 surprise for the two men on the biplane when 
 they discover long columns veiled by dust 
 on one, two, three, four parallel roads lead- 
 ing west, and hit upon the great concentra- 
 tion behind the enemy's left and opposite 
 their own weak right. And the observer 
 does not waste time in a meticulous investi- 
 gation of numbers. Valuable as details 
 
 O 
 
 generally are, it is in this case of absolutely 
 vital importance that the bare intelligence 
 of the presence of this large force should 
 be conveyed to headquarters at once. He 
 realises one thing most clearly : that the 
 secret that has been discovered is of such 
 
364 FULL BACK 
 
 significance that the defenders will stop 
 short of nothing to prevent him getting 
 away with it. 
 
 He continues his efforts to get into touch 
 with one of his own wireless stations to 
 impart the news, though he has few hopes 
 of success, and tries sending in turn on the 
 three tunes with which his set is fitted. 
 But the defenders' installations are evidently 
 still busy interfering, and " J. E. S." is still 
 all that he can get. The choice of the 
 method of escape he leaves to the pilot, who 
 better knows his own powers arid limitations 
 and those of his machine. As has been 
 seen, the latter at first tries to get away by 
 climbing, with the intention of getting above 
 the cloud layer and then steering north- 
 east. Then, on being discovered, he turns 
 away from his destination, hoping that if 
 the speeds of the two machines are not very 
 unequal he may avoid an encounter till 
 nightfall, and then run for his own lines 
 under cover of darkness. It is not long 
 before he discovers that the monoplane has 
 the " wings of him," and must overhaul him 
 
FULL BACK 365 
 
 before dark. He realises that his pursuer 
 will endeavour to ram ; that in such a case 
 his only course is to dodge ; and that his 
 best chance of dodging successfully is to do 
 
 o o / 
 
 it when meeting the enemy, when the speed 
 of approach of the two machines will be so 
 great that a swerve will be most difficult to 
 follow. Since he cannot climb above the 
 monoplane, also, he decides to go as far 
 below it as possible, so that any attempt to 
 ram will probably end in a dive from which 
 there will be no recovery in case of a miss. 
 
 Acting on this principle he turns and 
 makes directly for his pursuer at a descend- 
 ing angle. 
 
 Full back for it is he who is the pur- 
 suer instantly flicks down his elevator, and 
 the monoplane, engine at full speed, roars 
 down an invisible slope in the air at a speed 
 of one hundred and twenty miles an hour. 
 He sees the object of the enemy's manoeuvre, 
 admires its cleverness and audacity, and 
 smiles grimly. At the approach of the 
 supreme moment the lust of battle seizes 
 him and adds to the exaltation produced by 
 
366 FULL BACK 
 
 speed and patriotism. It is his old game. 
 Subconsciously he sees before him a foggy 
 field, and feels the hush that comes over it. 
 Though the touch-line the final touch-line 
 is some thousands of feet away this time, 
 it can be reached very quickly ; and his 
 opponent, unless he has passed on his news 
 already, by wireless, has no one to pass 
 to, for he cannot drop his message in its 
 weighted carrier until he gets over his own 
 lines, which are far distant. As he leans 
 forward in a tense attitude, a loose end of 
 his scarf streams out rigid behind, like the 
 hair of a Yalkyrie. His moustache is blown 
 to either side of his mouth, flattened against 
 his cheeks, forced up his nostrils. His bared 
 lips are set in a line. 
 
 The monoplane, descending in a curve 
 which grows steeper and steeper as its 
 target approaches, hisses through the air 
 like a meteorite. 
 
 The two machines, now half a mile apart, 
 are approaching at a rate of over three miles 
 a minute. 
 
 On the biplane the observer has left the 
 
FULL BACK 367 
 
 transmitter and crouches behind the ready- 
 belted machine-gun. Though there will 
 only be time for very few rounds, even at 
 the maximum rate of fire, before the two 
 machines must meet, he opens fire on the 
 off-chance of making a disabling hit. 
 
 The distance is now three hundred yards. 
 
 Now ! Now ! With a jerk the pilot of 
 the biplane suddenly elevates fiercely 
 madly for one who wishes to survive. As 
 he presses the control lever back almost 
 against his seat the machine shivers with 
 the strain put upon it ; but the planes do 
 not split, nor do the stays give way, and it 
 slackens speed at once as it turns steeply up- 
 wards. That is enough. Forward goes the 
 lever again, and the comparatively sluggish 
 machine, in spite of the long length of copper 
 wire trailing behind it, leaps forward once 
 more like a live thing, "jinking " at the very 
 last moment as a boar at the spear's point. 
 
 Full back almost feels the check which 
 he has been expecting before he sees it, 
 and, as the other anticipates, responds by 
 flattening his angle of descent. But he 
 
368 FULL BACK 
 
 does so only slightly, retaining something 
 in hand, for he knows that the biplane 
 must straighten or " stall " and drop. 
 
 When he sees it again dart forward he 
 throws his whole weight upon the control 
 with a snarl. 
 
 In a terrific vol pique the monoplane 
 dives downwards. Though its momentum 
 in its former direction carries it onward in a 
 curve, its path is not far from the vertical, 
 and it descends with a crash upon its hap- 
 less prey. In flames and amidst a shower of 
 detonations the mass of tangled wreckage 
 drops spinning to earth. 
 
 Three more of the salt of their respective 
 nations are out of play. And though for the 
 rest of the armies " No side " does not yet 
 sound, and the great game goes on, full back 
 has saved again. 
 
 PRINTED BY WILLIAM BLACK.WOOD AND SON*. 
 
University of California 
 
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