Complete Works of Rudyard Kipling (Illustrated) (511 page)

“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 tat 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 tat 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.