Traffics and Discoveries

"By Gawd!" roared Pritchard, slapping his hand on his leg. "Not Mrs.

Bathurst!"

Pyecroft nodded slowly, and the Sergeant called all the powers of darkness to witness his bewilderment.

"So far as I could get at it Mrs. B. was the lady in question."

"But Click was married," cried Pritchard.

"An' 'ad a fifteen year old daughter. 'E's shown me her photograph. Settin' that aside, so to say, 'ave you ever found these little things make much difference? Because I haven't."

"Good Lord Alive an' Watchin'!.. Mrs. Bathurst…" Then with another roar: "You can say what you please, Pye, but you don't make me believe it was any of 'er fault. She wasn't that!"

"If I was going to say what I please, I'd begin by callin' you a silly ox an' work up to the higher pressures at leisure. I'm trying to say solely what transpired. M'rover, for once you're right. It wasn't her fault."

"You couldn't 'aven't made me believe it if it 'ad been," was the answer.

Such faith in a Sergeant of Marines interested me greatly. "Never mind about that," I cried. "Tell me what she was like."

"She was a widow," said Pyecroft. "Left so very young and never re-spliced. She kep' a little hotel for warrants and non-coms close to Auckland, an' she always wore black silk, and 'er neck – "

"You ask what she was like," Pritchard broke in. "Let me give you an instance. I was at Auckland first in '97, at the end o' the Marroquin's commission, an' as I'd been promoted I went up with the others. She used to look after us all, an' she never lost by it – not a penny! 'Pay me now,' she'd say, 'or settle later. I know you won't let me suffer. Send the money from home if you like,' Why, gentlemen all, I tell you I've seen that lady take her own gold watch an' chain off her neck in the bar an' pass it to a bosun 'oo'd come ashore without 'is ticker an' 'ad to catch the last boat. 'I don't know your name,' she said, 'but when you've done with it, you'll find plenty that know me on the front. Send it back by one o' them.' And it was worth thirty pounds if it was worth 'arf a crown. The little gold watch, Pye, with the blue monogram at the back. But, as I was sayin', in those days she kep' a beer that agreed with me – Slits it was called. One way an' another I must 'ave punished a good few bottles of it while we was in the bay – comin' ashore every night or so. Chaffin across the bar like, once when we were alone, 'Mrs. B.,' I said, 'when next I call I want you to remember that this is my particular – just as you're my particular?' (She'd let you go that far!) 'Just as you're my particular,' I said. 'Oh, thank you, Sergeant Pritchard,' she says, an' put 'er hand up to the curl be'ind 'er ear. Remember that way she had, Pye?"

"I think so," said the sailor.

"Yes, 'Thank you, Sergeant Pritchard,' she says. 'The least I can do is to mark it for you in case you change your mind. There's no great demand for it in the Fleet,' she says, 'but to make sure I'll put it at the back o' the shelf,' an' she snipped off a piece of her hair ribbon with that old dolphin cigar cutter on the bar – remember it, Pye? – an' she tied a bow round what was left – just four bottles. That was '97 – no, '96. In '98 I was in the Resiliant– China station – full commission. In Nineteen One, mark you, I was in the Carthusian, back in Auckland Bay again. Of course I went up to Mrs. B.'s with the rest of us to see how things were goin'. They were the same as ever. (Remember the big tree on the pavement by the side-bar, Pye?) I never said anythin' in special (there was too many of us talkin' to her), but she saw me at once."

"That wasn't difficult?" I ventured.

"Ah, but wait. I was comin' up to the bar, when, 'Ada,' she says to her niece, 'get me Sergeant Pritchard's particular,' and, gentlemen all, I tell you before I could shake 'ands with the lady, there were those four bottles o' Slits, with 'er 'air ribbon in a bow round each o' their necks, set down in front o' me, an' as she drew the cork she looked at me under her eyebrows in that blindish way she had o' lookin', an', 'Sergeant Pritchard,' she says, 'I do 'ope you 'aven't changed your mind about your particulars.' That's the kind o' woman she was – after five years!"

"I don't see her yet somehow," said Hooper, but with sympathy.

"She – she never scrupled to feed a lame duck or set 'er foot on a scorpion at any time of 'er life," Pritchard added valiantly.

"That don't help me either. My mother's like that for one."

The giant heaved inside his uniform and rolled his eyes at the car-roof.

Said Pyecroft suddenly: —

"How many women have you been intimate with all over the world, Pritch?"

Pritchard blushed plum colour to the short hairs of his seventeen-inch neck.

"'Undreds," said Pyecroft. "So've I. How many of 'em can you remember in your own mind, settin' aside the first – an' per'aps the last —and one more?"

"Few, wonderful few, now I tax myself," said Sergeant Pritchard, relievedly.

"An' how many times might you 'ave been at Aukland?"

"One – two," he began. "Why, I can't make it more than three times in ten years. But I can remember every time that I ever saw Mrs. B."

"So can I – an' I've only been to Auckland twice – how she stood an' what she was sayin' an' what she looked like. That's the secret. 'Tisn't beauty, so to speak, nor good talk necessarily. It's just It. Some women'll stay in a man's memory if they once walked down a street, but most of 'em you can live with a month on end, an' next commission you'd be put to it to certify whether they talked in their sleep or not, as one might say."

"Ah," said Hooper. "That's more the idea. I've known just two women of that nature."

"An' it was no fault o' theirs?" asked Pritchard.

"None whatever. I know that!"

"An' if a man gets struck with that kind o' woman, Mr. Hooper?" Pritchard went on.

"He goes crazy – or just saves himself," was the slow answer.

"You've hit it," said the Sergeant. "You've seen an' known somethin' in the course o' your life, Mr. Hooper. I'm lookin' at you!" He set down his bottle.

"And how often had Vickery seen her?" I asked.

"That's the dark an' bloody mystery," Pyecroft answered. "I'd never come across him till I come out in the Hierophant just now, an' there wasn't any one in the ship who knew much about him. You see, he was what you call a superior man. 'E spoke to me once or twice about Auckland and Mrs. B. on the voyage out. I called that to mind subsequently. There must 'ave been a good deal between 'em, to my way o' thinkin'. Mind you I'm only giving you my sum of it all, because all I know is second-hand so to speak, or rather I should say more than second-'and."

"How?" said Hooper peremptorily. "You must have seen it or heard it."

"Yes," said Pyecroft. "I used to think seein' and hearin' was the only regulation aids to ascertainin' facts, but as we get older we get more accommodatin'. The cylinders work easier, I suppose… Were you in Cape Town last December when Phyllis's Circus came?"

"No – up country," said Hooper, a little nettled at the change of venue.

"I ask because they had a new turn of a scientific nature called 'Home and Friends for a Tickey.'"

"Oh, you mean the cinematograph – the pictures of prize-fights and steamers. I've seen 'em up country."

"Biograph or cinematograph was what I was alludin' to. London Bridge with the omnibuses – a troopship goin' to the war – marines on parade at Portsmouth an' the Plymouth Express arrivin' at Paddin'ton."

"Seen 'em all. Seen 'em all," said Hooper impatiently.

"We Hierophants came in just before Christmas week an' leaf was easy."

"I think a man gets fed up with Cape Town quicker than anywhere else on the station. Why, even Durban's more like Nature. We was there for Christmas," Pritchard put in.

"Not bein' a devotee of Indian peeris, as our Doctor said to the Pusser, I can't exactly say. Phyllis's was good enough after musketry practice at Mozambique. I couldn't get off the first two or three nights on account of what you might call an imbroglio with our Torpedo Lieutenant in the submerged flat, where some pride of the West country had sugared up a gyroscope; but I remember Vickery went ashore with our Carpenter Rigdon – old Crocus we called him. As a general rule Crocus never left 'is ship unless an' until he was 'oisted out with a winch, but when 'e went 'e would return noddin' like a lily gemmed with dew. We smothered him down below that night, but the things 'e said about Vickery as a fittin' playmate for a Warrant Officer of 'is cubic capacity, before we got him quiet, was what I should call pointed."

"I've been with Crocus – in the Redoubtable," said the Sergeant. "He's a character if there is one."

"Next night I went into Cape Town with Dawson and Pratt; but just at the door of the Circus I came across Vickery. 'Oh!' he says, 'you're the man I'm looking for. Come and sit next me. This way to the shillin' places!' I went astern at once, protestin' because tickey seats better suited my so-called finances. 'Come on,' says Vickery, 'I'm payin'.' Naturally I abandoned Pratt and Dawson in anticipation o' drinks to match the seats. 'No,' he says, when this was 'inted – 'not now. Not now. As many as you please afterwards, but I want you sober for the occasion.' I caught 'is face under a lamp just then, an' the appearance of it quite cured me of my thirsts. Don't mistake. It didn't frighten me. It made me anxious. I can't tell you what it was like, but that was the effect which it 'ad on me. If you want to know, it reminded me of those things in bottles in those herbalistic shops at Plymouth – preserved in spirits of wine. White an' crumply things – previous to birth as you might say."

"You 'ave a beastial mind, Pye," said the Sergeant, relighting his pipe.

"Perhaps. We were in the front row, an' 'Home an' Friends' came on early. Vickery touched me on the knee when the number went up. 'If you see anything that strikes you,' he says, 'drop me a hint'; then he went on clicking. We saw London Bridge an' so forth an' so on, an' it was most interestin'. I'd never seen it before. You 'eard a little dynamo like buzzin', but the pictures were the real thing – alive an' movin'."