Complete Works of Rudyard Kipling (Illustrated) (499 page)

To the picket Private Copper held forth for ten minutes on the life- history of his captive. Allowing for some purple patches, it was an absolute fair rendering.

“But what I dis-liked was this baccy-priggin’ beggar, ‘oo’s people, on ‘is own showin’, couldn’t ‘ave been more than thirty or forty years in the coun — on this Gawd-forsaken dust-’eap, comin’ the squire over me. They’re all parsons — we know
that
, but parson
an’
squire is a bit too thick for Alf Copper. Why, I caught ‘im in the shameful act of tryin’ to start a aristocracy on a gun an’ a wagon an’ a
shambuk
! Yes; that’s what it was: a bloomin’ aristocracy.”

“No, it weren’t,” said McBride, at length, on the dirt, above the purloined weekly. “You’re the aristocrat, Alf. Old
Jerrold’s
givin’ it you ‘ot. You’re the uneducated ‘ireling of a callous aristocracy which ‘as sold itself to the ‘Ebrew financier. Meantime, Ducky” — he ran his finger down a column of assorted paragraphs — ”you’re slakin’ your brutal instincks in furious excesses. Shriekin’ women an’ desolated ‘omesteads is what you enjoy, Alf …, Halloa! What’s a smokin’ ‘ektacomb?”

“‘Ere! Let’s look. ‘Aven’t seen a proper spicy paper for a year. Good old
Jerrold’s!”
Pinewood and Moppet, reservists, flung themselves on McBride’s shoulders, pinning him to the ground.

“Lie over your own bloomin’ side of the bed, an’ we can all look,” he protested.

“They’re only po-ah Tommies,” said Copper, apologetically, to the prisoner. “Po-ah unedicated Khakis.
They
don’t know what they’re fightin’ for. They’re lookin’ for what the diseased, lying, drinkin’ white stuff that they come from is sayin’ about ‘em!”

The prisoner set down his tin of coffee and stared helplessly round the circle.

“I — I don’t understand them.”

The Canadian sergeant, picking his teeth with a thorn, nodded sympathetically:

“If it comes to that,
we
don’t in my country!… Say, boys, when you’re through with your English mail you might’s well provide an escort for your prisoner. He’s waitin’.”

“Arf a mo’, Sergeant,” said McBride, still reading.

“‘Ere’s Old Barbarity on the ramp again with some of ‘is lady friends, ‘oo don’t like concentration camps. Wish they’d visit ours. Pinewood’s a married man. He’d know how to be’ave!”

“Well, I ain’t goin’ to amuse my prisoner alone. ‘E’s gettin’ ‘omesick,” cried Copper. “One of you thieves read out what’s vexin’ Old Barbarity an’ ‘is ‘arem these days. You’d better listen, Burjer, because, afterwards, I’m goin’ to fall out an’ perpetrate those nameless barbarities all over you to keep up the reputation of the British Army.”

From that English weekly, to bar out which a large and perspiring staff of Press censors toiled seven days of the week at Cape Town, did Pinewood of the Reserve read unctuously excerpts of the speeches of the accredited leaders of His Majesty’s Opposition. The night-picket arrived in the middle of it, but stayed entranced without paying any compliments, till Pinewood had entirely finished the leading article, and several occasional notes.

“Gentlemen of the jury,” said Alf Copper, hitching up what war had left to him of trousers — ”you’ve ‘eard what ‘e’s been fed up with.
Do
you blame the beggar? ‘Cause I don’t! … Leave ‘im alone, McBride. He’s my first and only cap-ture, an’ I’m goin’ to walk ‘ome with ‘im, ain’t I, Ducky? … Fall in, Burjer. It’s Bermuda, or Umballa, or Ceylon for you — and I’d give a month’s pay to be in your little shoes.”

As not infrequently happens, the actual moving off the ground broke the prisoner’s nerve. He stared at the tinted hills round him, gasped and began to struggle — kicking, swearing, weeping, and fluttering all together.

“Pore beggar — oh pore,
pore
beggar!” said Alf, leaning in on one side of him, while Pinewood blocked him on the other.

“Let me go! Let me go! Mann, I tell you, let me go —  — ”

“‘E screams like a woman!” said McBride. “They’ll ‘ear ‘im five miles off.”

“There’s one or two ought to ‘ear ‘im — in England,” said Copper, putting aside a wildly waving arm.

“Married, ain’t ‘e?” said Pinewood. “I’ve seen ‘em go like this before — just at the last. ‘
Old
on, old man, No one’s goin’ to ‘urt you.”

The last of the sun threw the enormous shadow of a kopje over the little, anxious, wriggling group.

“Quit that,” said the Serjeant of a sudden. “You’re only making him worse.
Hands
up
, prisoner! Now you get a holt of yourself, or this’ll go off.”

And indeed the revolver-barrel square at the man’s panting chest seemed to act like a tonic; he choked, recovered himself, and fell in between Copper and Pinewood.

As the picket neared the camp it broke into song that was heard among the officers’ tents:

  ’E sent us ‘is blessin’ from London town,
    (The beggar that kep’ the cordite down,)
  But what do we care if ‘e smile or frown,
    The beggar that kep’ the cordite down?
  The mildly nefarious
  Wildly barbarious
    Beggar that kept the cordite down!

Said a captain a mile away: “Why are they singing
that?
We haven’t had a mail for a month, have we?”

An hour later the same captain said to his servant: “Jenkins, I understand the picket have got a — got a newspaper off a prisoner to-day. I wish you could lay hands on it, Jenkins. Copy of the
Times
, I think.”

“Yes, Sir. Copy of the
Times
, Sir,” said Jenkins, without a quiver, and went forth to make his own arrangements.

“Copy of the
Times
” said the blameless Alf, from beneath his blanket. “I ain’t a member of the Soldier’s Institoot. Go an’ look in the reg’mental Readin’-room — Veldt Row, Kopje Street, second turnin’ to the left between ‘ere an’ Naauwport.”

Jenkins summarised briefly in a tense whisper the thing that Alf Copper need not be.

“But my particular copy of the
Times
is specially pro’ibited by the censor from corruptin’ the morals of the Army. Get a written order from K. o’ K., properly countersigned, an’ I’ll think about it.”

“I’ve got all
you
want,” said Jenkins. “‘Urry up. I want to ‘ave a squint myself.”

Something gurgled in the darkness, and Private Copper fell back smacking his lips.

“Gawd bless my prisoner, and make me a good boy. Amen. ‘Ere you are,
Jenkins. It’s dirt cheap at a tot.”

STEAM TACTICS

THE NECESSITARIAN

  I know not in whose hands are laid
    To empty upon earth
  From unsuspected ambuscade
    The very Urns of Mirth:

  Who bids the Heavenly Lark arise
    And cheer our solemn round —
  The Jest beheld with streaming eyes
    And grovellings on the ground;

  Who joins the flats of Time and Chance
    Behind the prey preferred,
  And thrones on Shrieking Circumstance
    The Sacredly Absurd,

  Till Laughter, voiceless through excess.
    Waves mute appeal and sore,
  Above the midriff’s deep distress,
    For breath to laugh once more.

  No creed hath dared to hail him Lord,
    No raptured choirs proclaim,
  And Nature’s strenuous Overword
    Hath nowhere breathed his name.

  Yet, may it be, on wayside jape,
    The selfsame Power bestows
  The selfsame power as went to shape
    His Planet or His Rose.

STEAM TACTICS
I caught sight of their faces as we came up behind the cart in the narrow
Sussex lane; but though it was not eleven o’clock, they were both asleep.

That the carrier was on the wrong side of the road made no difference to his language when I rang my bell. He said aloud of motor-cars, and specially of steam ones, all the things which I had read in the faces of superior coachmen. Then he pulled slantwise across me.

There was a vociferous steam air-pump attached to that car which could be applied at pleasure….

The cart was removed about a bowshot’s length in seven and a quarter seconds, to the accompaniment of parcels clattering. At the foot of the next hill the horse stopped, and the two men came out over the tail-board.

My engineer backed and swung the car, ready to move out of reach.

“The blighted egg-boiler has steam up,” said Mr. Hinchcliffe, pausing to gather a large stone. “Temporise with the beggar, Pye, till the sights come on!”

“I can’t leave my ‘orse!” roared the carrier; “but bring ‘em up ‘ere, an’
I’ll kill ‘em all over again.”

“Good morning, Mr. Pyecroft,” I called cheerfully. “Can I give you a lift anywhere?”

The attack broke up round my forewheels.

“Well, we
do
‘ave the knack o’ meeting
in puris naturalibus,
as I’ve so often said.” Mr. Pyecroft wrung my hand. “Yes, I’m on leaf. So’s Hinch. We’re visiting friends among these kopjes.”

A monotonous bellowing up the road persisted, where the carrier was still calling for corpses.

“That’s Agg. He’s Hinch’s cousin. You aren’t fortunit in your family connections, Hinch. ‘E’s usin’ language in derogation of good manners. Go and abolish ‘im.”

Henry Salt Hinchcliffe stalked back to the cart and spoke to his cousin. I recall much that the wind bore to me of his words and the carrier’s. It seemed as if the friendship of years were dissolving amid throes.

“‘Ave it your own silly way, then,” roared the carrier, “an’ get into Linghurst on your own silly feet. I’ve done with you two runagates.” He lashed his horse and passed out of sight still rumbling.

“The fleet’s sailed,” said Pyecroft, “leavin’ us on the beach as before.
Had you any particular port in your mind?”

“Well, I was going to meet a friend at Instead Wick, but I don’t mind — ”

“Oh! that’ll do as well as anything! We’re on leaf, you see.”

“She’ll hardly hold four,” said my engineer. I had broken him of the foolish habit of being surprised at things, but he was visibly uneasy.

Hinchcliffe returned, drawn as by ropes to my steam-car, round which he walked in narrowing circles.

“What’s her speed?” he demanded of the engineer.

“Twenty-five,” said that loyal man.

“Easy to run?”

“No; very difficult,” was the emphatic answer.

“That just shows that you ain’t fit for your rating. D’you suppose that a man who earns his livin’ by runnin’ 30-knot destroyers for a parstime — for a parstime, mark you! — is going to lie down before any blighted land- crabbing steam-pinnace on springs?”

Yet that was what he did. Directly under the car he lay and looked upward into pipes — petrol, steam, and water — with a keen and searching eye.

I telegraphed Mr. Pyecroft a question.

“Not — in — the — least,” was the answer. “Steam gadgets always take him that way. We had a bit of a riot at Parsley Green through his tryin’ to show a traction-engine haulin’ gipsy-wagons how to turn corners.”

“Tell him everything he wants to know,” I said to the engineer, as I dragged out a rug and spread it on the roadside.

“
He
don’t want much showing,” said the engineer. Now, the two men had not, counting the time we took to stuff our pipes, been together more than three minutes.

“This,” said Pyecroft, driving an elbow back into the deep verdure of the hedge-foot, “is a little bit of all right. Hinch, I shouldn’t let too much o’ that hot muckings drop in my eyes, Your leaf’s up in a fortnight, an’ you’ll be wantin’ ‘em.”

“Here!” said Hinchcliffe, still on his back, to the engineer. “Come here and show me the lead of this pipe.” And the engineer lay down beside him.

“That’s all right,” said Mr. Hinchcliffe, rising. “But she’s more of a bag of tricks than I thought. Unship this superstructure aft” — he pointed to the back seat — ”and I’ll have a look at the forced draught.”

The engineer obeyed with alacrity. I heard him volunteer the fact that he had a brother an artificer in the Navy.

“They couple very well, those two,” said Pyecroft critically, while Hinchcliffe sniffed round the asbestos-lagged boiler and turned on gay jets of steam.

“Now take me up the road,” he said. My man, for form’s sake, looked at me.

“Yes, take him,” I said. “He’s all right.”

“No, I’m not,” said Hinchcliffe of a sudden — ”not if I’m expected to judge my water out of a little shaving-glass.”

The water-gauge of that steam-car was reflected on a mirror to the right of the dashboard. I also had found it inconvenient.

“Throw up your arm and look at the gauge under your armpit. Only mind how you steer while you’re doing it, or you’ll get ditched!” I cried, as the car ran down the road.