Читать книгу: «Traffics and Discoveries», страница 15

"Why on earth didn't you come along with me?" said Boy Bayley at my side.

"I was expecting you."

"Well, I had a delicacy about brigading myself with a colonel at the head of his regiment, so I stayed with the rear company and the horses. It's all too wonderful for any words. What's going to happen next?"

"I've handed over to Verschoyle, who will amuse and edify the school children while I take you round our kindergarten. Don't kill any one, Vee. Are you goin' to charge 'em?"

Old Verschoyle hitched his big shoulder and nodded precisely as he used to do at school. He was a boy of few words grown into a kindly taciturn man.

"Now!" Bayley slid his arm through mine and led me across a riding road towards a stretch of rough common (singularly out of place in a park) perhaps three-quarters of a mile long and half as wide. On the encircling rails leaned an almost unbroken line of men and women – the women outnumbering the men. I saw the Guard battalion move up the road flanking the common and disappear behind the trees.

As far as the eye could range through the mellow English haze the ground inside the railings was dotted with boys in and out of uniform, armed and unarmed. I saw squads here, half-companies there; then three companies in an open space, wheeling with stately steps; a knot of drums and fifes near the railings unconcernedly slashing their way across popular airs; and a batch of gamins labouring through some extended attack destined to be swept aside by a corps crossing the ground at the double. They broke out of furze bushes, ducked over hollows and bunkers, held or fell away from hillocks and rough sandbanks till the eye wearied of their busy legs.

Bayley took me through the railings, and gravely returned the salute of a freckled twelve-year-old near by.

"What's your corps?" said the Colonel of that Imperial Guard battalion to that child.

"Eighth District Board School, fourth standard, Sir. We aren't out to-day." Then, with a twinkle, "I go to First Camp next year."

"What are those boys yonder – that squad at the double?"

"Jewboys, Sir. Jewish Voluntary Schools, Sir."

"And that full company extending behind the three elms to the south-west?"

"Private day-schools, Sir, I think. Judging distance, Sir."

"Can you come with us?"

"Certainly, Sir."

"Here's the raw material at the beginning of the process," said Bayley to me.

We strolled on towards the strains of "A Bicycle Built for Two," breathed jerkily into a mouth-organ by a slim maid of fourteen. Some dozen infants with clenched fists and earnest legs were swinging through the extension movements which that tune calls for. A stunted hawthorn overhung the little group, and from a branch a dirty white handkerchief flapped in the breeze. The girl blushed, scowled, and wiped the mouth-organ on her sleeve as we came up.

"We're all waiting for our big bruvvers," piped up one bold person in blue breeches – seven if he was a day.

"It keeps 'em quieter, Sir," the maiden lisped. "The others are with the regiments."

"Yeth, and they've all lots of blank for you," said the gentleman in blue breeches ferociously.

"Oh, Artie! 'Ush!" the girl cried.

"But why have they lots of blank for us?" Bayley asked. Blue Breeches stood firm.

"'Cause – 'cause the Guard's goin' to fight the Schools this afternoon; but my big bruvver says they'll be dam-well surprised."

"Artie!" The girl leaped towards him. "You know your ma said I was to smack – "

"Don't. Please don't," said Bayley, pink with suppressed mirth. "It was all my fault. I must tell old Verschoyle this. I've surprised his plan out of the mouths of babes and sucklings."

"What plan?"

"Old Vee has taken the battalion up to the top of the common, and he told me he meant to charge down through the kids, but they're on to him already. He'll be scuppered. The Guard will be scuppered!"

Here Blue Breeches, overcome by the reproof of his fellows, began to weep.

"I didn't tell," he roared. "My big bruvver he knew when he saw them go up the road…"

"Never mind! Never mind, old man," said Bayley soothingly. "I'm not fighting to-day. It's all right."

He rightened it yet further with sixpence, and left that band loudly at feud over the spoil.

"Oh, Vee! Vee the strategist," he chuckled. "We'll pull Vee's leg to-night."

Our freckled friend of the barriers doubled up behind us.

"So you know that my battalion is charging down the ground," Bayley demanded.

"Not for certain, Sir, but we're preparin' for the worst," he answered with a cheerful grin. "They allow the Schools a little blank ammunition after we've passed the third standard; and we nearly always bring it on to the ground of Saturdays."

"The deuce you do! Why?"

"On account of these amateur Volunteer corps, Sir. They're always experimentin' upon us, Sir, comin' over from their ground an' developin' attacks on our flanks. Oh, it's chronic 'ere of a Saturday sometimes, unless you flag yourself."

I followed his eye and saw white flags fluttering before a drum and fife band and a knot of youths in sweaters gathered round the dummy breech of a four-inch gun which they were feeding at express rates.

"The attacks don't interfere with you if you flag yourself, Sir," the boy explained. "That's a Second Camp team from the Technical Schools loading against time for a bet."

We picked our way deviously through the busy groups. Apparently it was not etiquette to notice a Guard officer, and the youths at the twenty-five pounder were far too busy to look up. I watched the cleanly finished hoist and shove-home of the full-weight shell from a safe distance, when I became aware of a change among the scattered boys on the common, who disappeared among the hillocks to an accompaniment of querulous whistles. A boy or two on bicycles dashed from corps to corps, and on their arrival each corps seemed to fade away.

The youths at loading practice did not pause for the growing hush round them, nor did the drum and fife band drop a single note. Bayley exploded afresh. "The Schools are preparing for our attack, by Jove! I wonder who's directin' 'em. Do you know?"

The warrior of the Eighth District looked up shrewdly.

"I saw Mr. Cameron speaking to Mr. Levitt just as the Guard went up the road. 'E's our 'ead-master, Mr. Cameron, but Mr. Levitt, of the Sixth District, is actin' as senior officer on the ground this Saturday. Most likely Mr. Levitt is commandin'."

"How many corps are there here?" I asked.

"Oh, bits of lots of 'em – thirty or forty, p'r'aps, Sir. But the whistles says they've all got to rally on the Board Schools. 'Ark! There's the whistle for the Private Schools! They've been called up the ground at the double."

"Stop!" cried a bearded man with a watch, and the crews dropped beside the breech wiping their brows and panting.

"Hullo! there's some attack on the Schools," said one. "Well, Marden, you owe me three half-crowns. I've beaten your record. Pay up."

The boy beside us tapped his foot fretfully as he eyed his companions melting among the hillocks, but the gun-team adjusted their bets without once looking up.

The ground rose a little to a furze-crowned ridge in the centre so that I could not see the full length of it, but I heard a faint bubble of blank in the distance.

"The Saturday allowance," murmured Bayley. "War's begun, but it wouldn't be etiquette for us to interfere. What are you saying, my child?"

"Nothin', Sir, only – only I don't think the Guard will be able to come through on so narrer a front, Sir. They'll all be jammed up be'ind the ridge if we've got there in time. It's awful sticky for guns at the end of our ground, Sir."

"I'm inclined to think you're right, Moltke. The Guard is hung up: distinctly so. Old Vee will have to cut his way through. What a pernicious amount of blank the kids seem to have!"

It was quite a respectable roar of battle that rolled among the hillocks for ten minutes, always out of our sight. Then we heard the "Cease Fire" over the ridge.

"They've sent for the Umpires," the Board School boy squeaked, dancing on one foot. "You've been hung up, Sir. I – I thought the sand-pits 'ud stop you."

Said one of the jerseyed hobbledehoys at the gun, slipping on his coat: "Well, that's enough for this afternoon. I'm off," and moved to the railings without even glancing towards the fray.

"I anticipate the worst," said Bayley with gravity after a few minutes.

"Hullo! Here comes my disgraced corps!"

The Guard was pouring over the ridge – a disorderly mob – horse, foot, and guns mixed, while from every hollow of the ground about rose small boys cheering shrilly. The outcry was taken up by the parents at the railings, and spread to a complete circle of cheers, handclappings, and waved handkerchiefs.

Our Eighth District private cast away restraint and openly capered. "We got 'em! We got 'em!" he squealed.

The grey-green flood paused a fraction of a minute and drew itself into shape, coming to rest before Bayley. Verschoyle saluted.

"Vee, Vee," said Bayley. "Give me back my legions. Well, I hope you're proud of yourself?"

"The little beasts were ready for us. Deuced well posted too," Verschoyle replied. "I wish you'd seen that first attack on our flank. Rather impressive. Who warned 'em?"

"I don't know. I got my information from a baby in blue plush breeches.

Did they do well?"

"Very decently indeed. I've complimented their C.O. and buttered the whole boiling." He lowered his voice. "As a matter o' fact, I halted five good minutes to give 'em time to get into position."

"Well, now we can inspect our Foreign Service corps. We sha'n't need the men for an hour, Vee."

"Very good, Sir. Colour-sergeants!" cried Verschoyle, raising his voice, and the cry ran from company to company. Whereupon the officers left their men, people began to climb over the railings, and the regiment dissolved among the spectators and the school corps of the city.

"No sense keeping men standing when you don't need 'em," said Bayley. "Besides, the Schools learn more from our chaps in an afternoon than they can pick up in a month's drill. Look at those Board-schoolmaster captains buttonholing old Purvis on the art of war!"

"Wonder what the evening papers'll say about this," said Pigeon.

"You'll know in half an hour," Burgard laughed. "What possessed you to take your ponies across the sand-pits, Pij?"

"Pride. Silly pride," said the Canadian.

We crossed the common to a very regulation paradeground overlooked by a statue of our Queen. Here were carriages, many and elegant, filled with pretty women, and the railings were lined with frockcoats and top hats. "This is distinctly social," I suggested to Kyd.

"Ra-ather. Our F.S. corps is nothing if not correct, but Bayley'll sweat 'em all the same."

I saw six companies drawn up for inspection behind lines of long sausage- shaped kit-bags. A band welcomed us with "A Life on the Ocean Wave."

"What cheek!" muttered Verschoyle. "Give 'em beans, Bayley."

"I intend to," said the Colonel, grimly. "Will each of you fellows take a company, please, and inspect 'em faithfully. 'En état de partir' is their little boast, remember. When you've finished you can give 'em a little pillow-fighting."

"What does the single cannon on those men's sleeves mean?" I asked.

"That they're big gun-men, who've done time with the Fleet," Bayley returned. "Any F.S. corps that has over twenty per cent big-gun men thinks itself entitled to play 'A Life on the Ocean Wave' – when it's out of hearing of the Navy."

"What beautiful stuff they are! What's their regimental average?"

"It ought to be five eight, height, thirty-eight, chest, and twenty-four years, age. What is it?" Bayley asked of a Private.

"Five nine and half, Sir, thirty-nine, twenty-four and a half," was the reply, and he added insolently, "En état de partir." Evidently that F.S. corps was on its mettle ready for the worst.

"What about their musketry average?" I went on.

"Not my pidgin," said Bayley. "But they wouldn't be in the corps a day if they couldn't shoot; I know that much. Now I'm going to go through 'em for socks and slippers."

The kit-inspection exceeded anything I had ever dreamed. I drifted from company to company while the Guard officers oppressed them. Twenty per cent, at least, of the kits were shovelled out on the grass and gone through in detail.

"What have they got jumpers and ducks for?" I asked of Harrison.

"For Fleet work, of course. En état de partir with an F. S. corps means they are amphibious."

"Who gives 'em their kit – Government?"

"There is a Government allowance, but no C. O. sticks to it. It's the same as paint and gold-leaf in the Navy. It comes out of some one's pockets. How much does your kit cost you?" – this to the private in front of us.

"About ten or fifteen quid every other year, I suppose," was the answer.

"Very good. Pack your bag – quick."

The man knelt, and with supremely deft hands returned all to the bag, lashed and tied it, and fell back.

"Arms," said Harrison. "Strip and show ammunition."

The man divested himself of his rolled greatcoat and haversack with one wriggle, as it seemed to me; a twist of a screw removed the side plate of the rifle breech (it was not a bolt action). He handed it to Harrison with one hand, and with the other loosed his clip-studded belt.

"What baby cartridges!" I exclaimed. "No bigger than bulletted breech- caps."

"They're the regulation .256," said Harrison. "No one has complained of 'em yet. They expand a bit when they arrive… Empty your bottle, please, and show your rations."

The man poured out his water-bottle and showed the two-inch emergency tin.

Harrison passed on to the next, but I was fascinated by the way in which the man re-established himself amid his straps and buckles, asking no help from either side.

"How long does it take you to prepare for inspection?" I asked him.

"Well, I got ready this afternoon in twelve minutes," he smiled. "I didn't see the storm-cone till half-past three. I was at the Club."

"Weren't a good many of you out of town?"

"Not this Saturday. We knew what was coming. You see, if we pull through the inspection we may move up one place on the roster for foreign service… You'd better stand back. We're going to pillow-fight."

The companies stooped to the stuffed kit-bags, doubled with them variously, piled them in squares and mounds, passed them from shoulder to shoulder like buckets at a fire, and repeated the evolution.

"What's the idea?" I asked of Verschoyle, who, arms folded behind him, was controlling the display. Many women had descended from the carriages, and were pressing in about us admiringly.

"For one thing, it's a fair test of wind and muscle, and for another it saves time at the docks. We'll suppose this first company to be drawn up on the dock-head and those five others still in the troop-train. How would you get their kit into the ship?"

"Fall 'em all in on the platform, march'em to the gangways," I answered, "and trust to Heaven and a fatigue party to gather the baggage and drunks in later."

"Ye-es, and have half of it sent by the wrong trooper. I know that game," Verschoyle drawled. "We don't play it any more. Look!"

He raised his voice, and five companies, glistening a little and breathing hard, formed at right angles to the sixth, each man embracing his sixty- pound bag.

"Pack away," cried Verschoyle, and the great bean-bag game (I can compare it to nothing else) began. In five minutes every bag was passed along either arm of the T and forward down the sixth company, who passed, stacked, and piled them in a great heap. These were followed by the rifles, belts, greatcoats, and knapsacks, so that in another five minutes the regiment stood, as it were, stripped clean.

"Of course on a trooper there'd be a company below stacking the kit away," said Verschoyle, "but that wasn't so bad."

"Bad!" I cried. "It was miraculous!"

"Circus-work – all circus-work!" said Pigeon. "It won't prevent 'em bein' sick as dogs when the ship rolls." The crowd round us applauded, while the men looked meekly down their self-conscious noses.

A little grey-whiskered man trotted up to the Boy.

"Have we made good, Bayley?" he said. "Are we en état de partir?"

"That's what I shall report," said Bayley, smiling.

"I thought my bit o' French 'ud draw you," said the little man, rubbing his hands.

"Who is he?" I whispered to Pigeon.

"Ramsay – their C.O. An old Guard captain. A keen little devil. They say he spends six hundred a year on the show. He used to be in the Lincolns till he came into his property."

"Take 'em home an' make 'em drunk," I heard Bayley say. "I suppose you'll have a dinner to celebrate. But you may as well tell the officers of E company that I don't think much of them. I sha'n't report it, but their men were all over the shop."

"Well, they're young, you see," Colonel Ramsay began.

"You're quite right. Send 'em to me and I'll talk to 'em. Youth is the time to learn."

"Six hundred a year," I repeated to Pigeon. "That must be an awful tax on a man. Worse than in the old volunteering days."

"That's where you make your mistake," said Verschoyle. "In the old days a man had to spend his money to coax his men to drill because they weren't the genuine article. You know what I mean. They made a favour of putting in drills, didn't they? And they were, most of 'em, the children we have to take over at Second Camp, weren't they? Well, now that a C. O. is sure of his men, now that he hasn't to waste himself in conciliating an' bribin', an' beerin' kids, he doesn't care what he spends on his corps, because every pound tells. Do you understand?"

"I see what you mean, Vee. Having the male material guaranteed – "

"And trained material at that," Pigeon put in. "Eight years in the schools, remember, as well as – "

"Precisely. A man rejoices in working them up. That's as it should be," I said.

"Bayly's saying the very same to those F. S. pups," said Verschoyle.

The Boy was behind us, between two young F. S. officers, a hand on the shoulder of each.

"Yes, that's all doocid interesting," he growled paternally. "But you forget, my sons, now that your men are bound to serve, you're trebly bound to put a polish on 'em. You've let your company simply go to seed. Don't try and explain. I've told all those lies myself in my time. It's only idleness. I know. Come and lunch with me to-morrow and I'll give you a wrinkle or two in barracks." He turned to me.

"Suppose we pick up Vee's defeated legion and go home. You'll dine with us to-night. Good-bye, Ramsay. Yes, you're en état de partir, right enough. You'd better get Lady Gertrude to talk to the Armity if you want the corps sent foreign. I'm no politician."

We strolled away from the great white statue of the Widow, with sceptre, orb, and crown, that looked toward the city, and regained the common, where the Guard battalion walked with the female of its species and the children of all its relatives. At sight of the officers the uniforms began to detach themselves and gather in companies. A Board School corps was moving off the ground, headed by its drums and fifes, which it assisted with song. As we drew nearer we caught the words, for they were launched with intention: —

 
  'Oo is it mashes the country nurse?
    The Guardsman!
  'Oo is it takes the lydy's purse?
    The Guardsman!
  Calls for a drink, and a mild cigar,
  Batters a sovereign down on the bar,
  Collars the change and says "Ta-ta!"
    The Guardsman!
 

"Why, that's one of old Jemmy Fawne's songs. I haven't heard it in ages," I began.

"Little devils!" said Pigeon.

"Speshul! Extra speshul! Sports Edition!" a newsboy cried. "'Ere y'are, Captain. Defeat o' the Guard!"

"I'll buy a copy," said the Boy, as Pigeon blushed wrathfully. "I must, to see how the Dove lost his mounted company." He unfolded the flapping sheet and we crowded round it.

"'Complete Rout of the Guard,'" he read. "'Too Narrow a Front.' That's one for you, Vee! 'Attack Anticipated by Mr. Levitt, B. A.' Aha! 'The Schools Stand Fast.'"

"Here's another version," said Kyd, waving a tinted sheet. "'To your tents, O Israel! The Hebrew Schools stop the Mounted Troops.' Pij, were you scuppered by Jewboys?"

"'Umpires Decide all Four Guns Lost,'" Bayley went on. "By Jove, there'll have to be an inquiry into this regrettable incident, Vee!"

"I'll never try to amuse the kids again," said the baited Verschoyle. "Children and newspapers are low things… And I was hit on the nose by a wad, too! They oughtn't to be allowed blank ammunition!"

So we leaned against the railings in the warm twilight haze while the battalion, silently as a shadow, formed up behind us ready to be taken over. The heat, the hum of the great city, as it might have been the hum of a camped army, the creaking of the belts, and the well-known faces bent above them, brought back to me the memory of another evening, years ago, when Verschoyle and I waited for news of guns missing in no sham fight.

"A regular Sanna's Post, isn't it?" I said at last. "D'you remember, Vee – by the market-square – that night when the wagons went out?"

Then it came upon me, with no horror, but a certain mild wonder, that we had waited, Vee and I, that night for the body of Boy Bayley; and that Vee himself had died of typhoid in the spring of 1902. The rustling of the papers continued, but Bayley, shifting slightly, revealed to me the three- day old wound on his left side that had soaked the ground about him. I saw Pigeon fling up a helpless arm as to guard himself against a spatter of shrapnel, and Luttrell with a foolish tight-lipped smile lurched over all in one jointless piece. Only old Vee's honest face held steady for awhile against the darkness that had swallowed up the battalion behind us. Then his jaw dropped and the face stiffened, so that a fly made bold to explore the puffed and scornful nostril.

* * * * *

I waked brushing a fly from my nose, and saw the Club waiter set out the evening papers on the table.