Soldiers Three

But there was an unaffected reality about Losson’s pose that showed Simmons what he had done. The men were still clamouring in the veranda. Simmons appropriated two more packets of ammunition and ran into the moonlight, muttering: ‘I’ll make a night of it. Thirty roun’s, an’ the last for myself. Take you that, you dogs!’

He dropped on one knee and fired into the brown of the men on the veranda, but the bullet flew high, and landed in the brickwork with a vicious phwit that made some of the younger ones turn pale. It is, as musketry theorists observe, one thing to fire and another to be fired at.

Then the instinct of the chase flared up. The news spread from barrack to barrack, and the men doubled out intent on the capture of Simmons, the wild beast, who was heading for the Cavalry parade-ground, stopping now and again to send back a shot and a curse in the direction of his pursuers.

‘I’ll learn you to spy on me!’ he shouted; ‘I’ll learn you to give me dorg’s names! Come on, the ‘ole lot o’ you! Colonel John Anthony Deever, C. B.!’ – he turned towards the Infantry Mess and shook his rifle – ‘you think yourself the devil of a man – but I tell you that if you put your ugly old carcass outside o’ that door, I’ll make you the poorest-lookin’ man in the army. Come out, Colonel John Anthony Deever, C. B.! Come out and see me practiss on the rainge. I’m the crack shot of the ‘ole bloomin’ battalion.’ In proof of which statement Simmons fired at the lighted windows of the mess-house.

‘Private Simmons, E Comp’ny, on the Cavalry p’rade-ground, Sir, with thirty rounds,’ said a Sergeant breathlessly to the Colonel. ‘Shootin’ right and lef’, Sir. Shot Private Losson. What’s to be done, Sir?’

Colonel John Anthony Deever, C. B., sallied out, only to be saluted by a spurt of dust at his feet.

‘Pull up!’ said the Second in Command; ‘I don’t want my step in that way, Colonel. He’s as dangerous as a mad dog.’

‘Shoot him like one, then,’ said the Colonel bitterly, ‘if he won’t take his chance. My regiment, too! If it had been the Towheads I could have understood.’

Private Simmons had occupied a strong position near a well on the edge of the parade-ground, and was defying the regiment to come on. The regiment was not anxious to comply, for there is small honour in being shot by a fellow-private. Only Corporal Slane, rifle in hand, threw himself down on the ground, and wormed his way towards the well.

‘Don’t shoot,’ said he to the men round him; ‘like as not you’ll ‘it me. I’ll catch the beggar, livin’.’

Simmons ceased shouting for a while, and the noise of trap-wheels could be heard across the plain. Major Oldyne, Commanding the Horse Battery, was coming back from a dinner in the Civil Lines; was driving after his usual custom – that is to say, as fast as the horse could go.

‘A orf’cer! A blooming spangled orf’cer!’ shrieked Simmons; ‘I’ll make a scarecrow of that orf’cer!’ The trap stopped.

‘What’s this?’ demanded the Major of Gunners. ‘You there, drop your rifle.’

‘Why, it’s Jerry Blazes! I ain’t got no quarrel with you, Jerry Blazes. Pass frien’, an’ all’s well!’

But Jerry Blazes had not the faintest intention of passing a dangerous murderer. He was, as his adoring Battery swore long and fervently, without knowledge of fear, and they were surely the best judges, for Jerry Blazes, it was notorious, had done his possible to kill a man each time the Battery went out.

He walked towards Simmons, with the intention of rushing him, and knocking him down.

‘Don’t make me do it, Sir,’ said Simmons; ‘I ain’t got nothing agin you. Ah! you would?’ – the Major broke into a run – ‘Take that then!’

The Major dropped with a bullet through his shoulder, and Simmons stood over him. He had lost the satisfaction of killing Losson in the desired way: but here was a helpless body to his hand. Should he slip in another cartridge, and blow off the head, or with the butt smash in the white face? He stopped to consider, and a cry went up from the far side of the parade-ground: ‘He’s killed Jerry Blazes!’ But in the shelter of the well-pillars Simmons was safe, except when he stepped out to fire. ‘I’ll blow yer ‘andsome ‘ead off, Jerry Blazes,’ said Simmons reflectively. ‘Six an’ three is nine an’ one is ten, an’ that leaves me another nineteen, an’ one for myself.’ He tugged at the string of the second packet of ammunition. Corporal Slane crawled out of the shadow of a bank into the moonlight.

‘I see you!’ said Simmons. ‘Come a bit furder on an’ I’ll do for you.’

‘I’m comin’,’ said Corporal Slane briefly; ‘you’ve done a bad day’s work, Sim. Come out ‘ere an’ come back with me.’

‘Come to – ,’ laughed Simmons, sending a cartridge home with his thumb. ‘Not before I’ve settled you an’ Jerry Blazes.’

The Corporal was lying at full length in the dust of the parade-ground, a rifle under him. Some of the less-cautious men in the distance shouted: ‘Shoot ‘im! Shoot ‘im, Slane!’

‘You move ‘and or foot, Slane,’ said Simmons, ‘an’ I’ll kick Jerry Blazes’ ‘ead in, and shoot you after.’

‘I ain’t movin’,’ said the Corporal, raising his head; ‘you daren’t ‘it a man on ‘is legs. Let go o’ Jerry Blazes an’ come out o’ that with your fistes. Come an’ ‘it me. You daren’t, you bloomin’ dog-shooter!’

‘I dare.’

‘You lie, you man-sticker. You sneakin’ Sheeny butcher, you lie. See there!’ Slane kicked the rifle away, and stood up in the peril of his life. ‘Come on, now!’

The temptation was more than Simmons could resist, for the Corporal in his white clothes offered a perfect mark.

‘Don’t misname me,’ shouted Simmons, firing as he spoke. The shot missed, and the shooter, blind with rage, threw his rifle down and rushed at Slane from the protection of the well. Within striking distance, he kicked savagely at Slane’s stomach, but the weedy Corporal knew something of Simmons’s weakness, and knew, too, the deadly guard for that kick. Bowing forward and drawing up his right leg till the heel of the right foot was set some three inches above the inside of the left knee-cap, he met the blow standing on one leg – exactly as Gonds stand when they meditate – and ready for the fall that would follow. There was an oath, the Corporal fell over to his own left as shinbone met shinbone, and the Private collapsed, his right leg broken an inch above the ankle.

‘’Pity you don’t know that guard, Sim,’ said Slane, spitting out the dust as he rose. Then raising his voice – ‘Come an’ take him orf. I’ve bruk ‘is leg.’ This was not strictly true, for the Private had accomplished his own downfall, since it is the special merit of that leg-guard that the harder the kick the greater the kicker’s discomfiture.

Slane walked to Jerry Blazes and hung over him with ostentatious anxiety, while Simmons, weeping with pain, was carried away. ‘’Ope you ain’t ‘urt badly, Sir,’ said Slane. The Major had fainted, and there was an ugly, ragged hole through the top of his arm. Slane knelt down and murmured: ‘S’elp me, I believe ‘e’s dead. Well, if that ain’t my blooming luck all over!’

But the Major was destined to lead his Battery afield for many a long day with unshaken nerve. He was removed, and nursed and petted into convalescence, while the Battery discussed the wisdom of capturing Simmons, and blowing him from a gun. They idolised their Major, and his reappearance on parade brought about a scene nowhere provided for in the Army Regulations.

Great, too, was the glory that fell to Slane’s share. The Gunners would have made him drunk thrice a day for at least a fortnight. Even the Colonel of his own regiment complimented him upon his coolness, and the local paper called him a hero. These things did not puff him up. When the Major offered him money and thanks, the virtuous Corporal took the one and put aside the other. But he had a request to make and prefaced it with many a ‘Beg y’ pardon, Sir.’ Could the Major see his way to letting the Slane-M’Kenna wedding be adorned by the presence of four Battery horses to pull a hired barouche? The Major could, and so could the Battery. Excessively so. It was a gorgeous wedding.

‘Wot did I do it for?’ said Corporal Slane. ‘For the ‘orses o’ course. Jhansi ain’t a beauty to look at, but I wasn’t goin’ to ‘ave a hired turn-out. Jerry Blazes? If I ‘adn’t ‘a’ wanted something, Sim might ha’ blowed Jerry Blazes’ blooming ‘ead into Hirish stew for aught I’d ‘a’ cared.’

And they hanged Private Simmons – hanged him as high as Haman in hollow square of the regiment; and the Colonel said it was Drink; and the Chaplain was sure it was the Devil; and Simmons fancied it was both, but he didn’t know, and only hoped his fate would be a warning to his companions; and half a dozen ‘intelligent publicists’ wrote six beautiful leading articles on ‘The Prevalence of Crime in the Army.’

But not a soul thought of comparing the ‘bloody-minded Simmons’ to the squawking, gaping schoolgirl with which this story opens.

BLACK JACK

To the wake av Tim O’Hara
Came company,
All St. Patrick’s Alley
Was there to see.

    Robert Buchanan.

As the Three Musketeers share their silver, tobacco, and liquor together, as they protect each other in barracks or camp, and as they rejoice together over the joy of one, so do they divide their sorrows. When Ortheris’s irrepressible tongue has brought him into cells for a season, or Learoyd has run amok through his kit and accoutrements, or Mulvaney has indulged in strong waters, and under their influence reproved his Commanding Officer, you can see the trouble in the faces of the untouched two. And the rest of the regiment know that comment or jest is unsafe. Generally the three avoid Orderly Room and the Corner Shop that follows, leaving both to the young bloods who have not sown their wild oats; but there are occasions —

For instance, Ortheris was sitting on the drawbridge of the main gate of Fort Amara, with his hands in his pockets and his pipe, bowl down, in his mouth. Learoyd was lying at full length on the turf of the glacis, kicking his heels in the air, and I came round the corner and asked for Mulvaney.

Ortheris spat into the ditch and shook his head. ‘No good seein’ ‘im now,’ said Ortheris; ‘’e’s a bloomin’ camel. Listen.’

I heard on the flags of the veranda opposite to the cells, which are close to the Guard-Room, a measured step that I could have identified in the tramp of an army. There were twenty paces crescendo, a pause, and then twenty diminuendo.

‘That’s ‘im,’ said Ortheris; ‘my Gawd, that’s ‘im! All for a bloomin’ button you could see your face in an’ a bit o’ lip that a bloomin’ Harkangel would ‘a’ guv back.’

Mulvaney was doing pack-drill – was compelled, that is to say, to walk up and down for certain hours in full marching order, with rifle, bayonet, ammunition, knapsack, and overcoat. And his offence was being dirty on parade! I nearly fell into the Fort Ditch with astonishment and wrath, for Mulvaney is the smartest man that ever mounted guard, and would as soon think of turning out uncleanly as of dispensing with his trousers.

‘Who was the Sergeant that checked him?’ I asked.

‘Mullins, o’ course,’ said Ortheris. ‘There ain’t no other man would whip ‘im on the peg so. But Mullins ain’t a man.’ E’s a dirty little pigscraper, that’s wot ‘e is.’

‘What did Mulvaney say? He’s not the make of man to take that quietly.’

‘Said! Bin better for ‘im if ‘e’d shut ‘is mouth. Lord, ow we laughed! “Sargint,” ‘e sez, “ye say I’m dirty. Well,” sez ‘e, “when your wife lets you blow your own nose for yourself, perhaps you’ll know wot dirt is. You’re himperfectly eddicated, Sargint,” sez ‘e, an’ then we fell in. But after p’rade, ‘e was up an’ Mullins was swearin’ ‘imself black in the face at Ord’ly Room that Mulvaney ‘ad called ‘im a swine an’ Lord knows wot all. You know Mullins. ‘E’ll ‘ave ‘is ‘ead broke in one o’ these days. ‘E’s too big a bloomin’ liar for ord’nary consumption. “Three hours’ can an’ kit,” sez the Colonel; “not for bein’ dirty on p’rade, but for ‘avin’ said somethin’ to Mullins, tho’ I do not believe,” sez ‘e, “you said wot ‘e said you said.” An’ Mulvaney fell away sayin’ nothin’. You know ‘e never speaks to the Colonel for fear o’ gettin’ ‘imself fresh copped.’

Mullins, a very young and very much married Sergeant, whose manners were partly the result of innate depravity and partly of imperfectly digested Board School, came over the bridge, and most rudely asked Ortheris what he was doing.