Life's Handicap Part 34

Shoot the colonel on the parade-ground, ma.s.sacree the company officers, ransack the a.r.s.enal, and then--Boys, did he tell you what next? He told me the other night when he was beginning to talk wild. Then we're to join with the n.i.g.g.e.rs, and look for help from Dhulip Singh and the Russians!'

'And spoil the best campaign that ever was this side of h.e.l.l! Danny, I'd have lost the beer to ha' given him the belting he requires.'

'Oh, let him go this awhile, man! He's got no--no constructiveness, but that's the egg-meat of his plan, and you must understand that I'm in with it, an' so are you. We'll want oceans of beer to convince us--firmaments full. We'll give him talk for his money, and one by one all the boys 'll come in and he'll have a nest of nine hundred mutineers to squat in an' give drink to.'

'What makes me killing-mad is his wanting us to do what the n.i.g.g.e.rs did thirty years gone. That an' his pig's cheek in saying that other regiments would come along,' said a Kerry man.

'That's not so bad as hintin' we should loose off on the colonel.'

'Colonel be sugared! I'd as soon as not put a shot through his helmet to see him jump and clutch his old horse's head. But Mulcahy talks o'

shootin' our comp'ny orf'cers accidental.'

'He said that, did he?' said Horse Egan.

'Somethin' like that, anyways. Can't ye fancy ould Barber Brady wid a bullet in his lungs, coughin' like a sick monkey, an' sayin', "Bhoys, I do not mind your gettin' dhrunk, but you must hould your liquor like men. The man that shot me is dhrunk. I'll suspend investigations for six hours, while I get this bullet cut out, an' then--"'

'An' then,' continued Horse Egan, for the peppery Major's peculiarities of speech and manner were as well known as his tanned face; "'an' then, ye dissolute, half-baked, putty-faced sc.u.m o' Connemara, if I find a man so much as lookin' confused, begad, I'll coort-martial the whole company. A man that can't get over his liquor in six hours is not fit to belong to the Mavericks!"'

A shout of laughter bore witness to the truth of the sketch.

'It's pretty to think of,' said the Kerry man slowly. 'Mulcahy would have us do all the devilmint, and get clear himself, someways. He wudn't be takin' all this fool's throuble in shpoilin' the reputation of the regiment--'

'Reputation of your grandmother's pig!' said Dan.

'Well, an' HE had a good reputation tu; so it's all right. Mulcahy must see his way to clear out behind him, or he'd not ha' come so far, talkin' powers of darkness.'

'Did you hear anything of a regimental court-martial among the Black Boneens, these days? Half a company of 'em took one of the new draft an' hanged him by his arms with a tent-rope from a third story verandah.

They gave no reason for so doin', but he was half dead. I'm thinking that the Boneens are short-sighted. It was a friend of Mulcahy's, or a man in the same trade. They'd a deal better ha' taken his beer,'

returned Dan reflectively.

'Better still ha' handed him up to the Colonel,' said Horse Egan, 'onless--but sure the news wud be all over the counthry an' give the reg'ment a bad name.'

'An' there'd be no reward for that man--he but went about talkin',' said the Kerry man artlessly.

'You speak by your breed,' said Dan with a laugh. 'There was never a Kerry man yet that wudn't sell his brother for a pipe o' tobacco an' a pat on the back from a p'liceman.'

'Praise G.o.d I'm not a bloomin' Orangeman,' was the answer.

'No, nor never will be,' said Dan. 'They breed MEN in Ulster. Would you like to thry the taste of one?'

The Kerry man looked and longed, but forbore. The odds of battle were too great.

'Then you'll not even give Mulcahy a--a strike for his money,' said the voice of Horse Egan, who regarded what he called 'trouble' of any kind as the pinnacle of felicity.

Dan answered not at all, but crept on tip-toe, with large strides, to the mess-room, the men following. The room was empty. In a corner, cased like the King of Dahomey's state umbrella, stood the regimental Colours.

Dan lifted them tenderly and unrolled in the light of the candles the record of the Mavericks--tattered, worn, and hacked. The white satin was darkened everywhere with big brown stains, the gold threads on the crowned harp were frayed and discoloured, and the Red Bull, the totem of the Mavericks, was coffee-hued. The stiff, embroidered folds, whose price is human life, rustled down slowly. The Mavericks keep their colours long and guard them very sacredly.

'Vittoria, Salamanca, Toulouse, Waterloo, Moodkee, Ferozshah, an'

Sobraon--that was fought close next door here, against the very beggars he wants us to join. Inkermann, The Alma, Sebastopol! What are those little businesses compared to the campaigns of General Mulcahy? The Mut'ny, think o' that; the Mut'ny an' some dirty little matters in Afghanistan; an' for that an' these an' those'--Dan pointed to the names of glorious battles--'that Yankee man with the partin' in his hair comes an' says as easy as "have a drink."... Holy Moses, there's the captain!'

But it was the mess-sergeant who came in just as the men clattered out, and found the colours uncased.

From that day dated the mutiny of the Mavericks, to the joy of Mulcahy and the pride of his mother in New York--the good lady who sent the money for the beer. Never, so far as words went, was such a mutiny. The conspirators, led by Dan Grady and Horse Egan, poured in daily. They were sound men, men to be trusted, and they all wanted blood; but first they must have beer. They cursed the Queen, they mourned over Ireland, they suggested hideous plunder of the Indian country side, and then, alas--some of the younger men would go forth and wallow on the ground in spasms of wicked laughter.

The genius of the Irish for conspiracies is remarkable. None the less they would swear no oaths but those of their own making, which were rare and curious, and they were always at pains to impress Mulcahy with the risks they ran. Naturally the flood of beer wrought demoralisation. But Mulcahy confused the causes of things, and when a very muzzy Maverick smote a sergeant on the nose or called his commanding officer a bald-headed old lard-bladder and even worse names, he fancied that rebellion and not liquor was at the bottom of the outbreak. Other gentlemen who have concerned themselves in larger conspiracies have made the same error.

The hot season, in which they protested no man could rebel, came to an end, and Mulcahy suggested a visible return for his teachings. As to the actual upshot of the mutiny he cared nothing. It would be enough if the English, infatuatedly trusting to the integrity of their army, should be startled with news of an Irish regiment revolting from political considerations. His persistent demands would have ended, at Dan's instigation, in a regimental belting which in all probability would have killed him and cut off the supply of beer, had not he been sent on special duty some fifty miles away from the cantonment to cool his heels in a mud fort and dismount obsolete artillery. Then the colonel of the Mavericks, reading his newspaper diligently, and scenting Frontier trouble from afar, posted to the army headquarters and pled with the Commander-in-chief for certain privileges, to be granted under certain contingencies; which contingencies came about only a week later, when the annual little war on the border developed itself and the colonel returned to carry the good news to the Mavericks. He held the promise of the Chief for active service, and the men must get ready.

On the evening of the same day, Mulcahy, an unconsidered corporal--yet great in conspiracy--returned to cantonments, and heard sounds of strife and howlings from afar off. The mutiny had broken out and the barracks of the Mavericks were one white-washed pandemonium. A private tearing through the barrack-square, gasped in his ear, 'Service! Active service.

It's a burnin' shame.' Oh joy, the Mavericks had risen on the eve of battle! They would not--n.o.ble and loyal sons of Ireland--serve the Queen longer. The news would flash through the country side and over to England, and he--Mulcahy--the trusted of the Third Three, had brought about the crash. The private stood in the middle of the square and cursed colonel, regiment, officers, and doctor, particularly the doctor, by his G.o.ds. An orderly of the native cavalry regiment clattered through the mob of soldiers. He was half lifted, half dragged from his horse, beaten on the back with mighty hand-claps till his eyes watered, and called all manner of endearing names. Yes, the Mavericks had fraternised with the native troops. Who then was the agent among the latter that had blindly wrought with Mulcahy so well?

An officer slunk, almost ran, from the mess to a barrack. He was mobbed by the infuriated soldiery, who closed round but did not kill him, for he fought his way to shelter, flying for the life. Mulcahy could have wept with pure joy and thankfulness. The very prisoners in the guard-room were shaking the bars of their cells and howling like wild beasts, and from every barrack poured the booming as of a big war-drum.

Mulcahy hastened to his own barrack. He could hardly hear himself speak. Eighty men were pounding with fist and heel the tables and trestles--eighty men, flushed with mutiny, stripped to their shirt sleeves, their knapsacks half-packed for the march to the sea, made the two-inch boards thunder again as they chanted to a tune that Mulcahy knew well, the Sacred War Song of the Mavericks--

Listen in the north, my boys, there's trouble on the wind; Tramp o' Cossack hooves in front, gray great-coats behind, Trouble on the Frontier of a most amazin' kind, Trouble on the waters o' the Oxus!

Then, as a table broke under the furious accompaniment--

Hurrah! hurrah! it's north by west we go; Hurrah! hurrah! the chance we wanted so; Let 'em hear the chorus from Umballa to MosCOW, As we go marchin' to the Kremling.

'Mother of all the saints in bliss and all the devils in cinders, where's my fine new sock widout the heel?' howled Horse Egan, ransacking everybody's valise but his own. He was engaged in making up deficiencies of kit preparatory to a campaign, and in that work he steals best who steals last. 'Ah, Mulcahy, you're in good time,' he shouted. 'We've got the route, and we're off on Thursday for a pic-nic wid the Lancers next door.'

An ambulance orderly appeared with a huge basket full of lint rolls, provided by the forethought of the Queen for such as might need them later on. Horse Egan unrolled his bandage, and flicked it under Mulcahy's nose, chanting--

'Sheepskin an' bees' wax, thunder, pitch, and plaster, The more you try to pull it off, the more it sticks the faster.

As I was goin' to New Orleans--

'You know the rest of it, my Irish American-Jew boy. By gad, ye have to fight for the Queen in the inside av a fortnight, my darlin'.'

A roar of laughter interrupted. Mulcahy looked vacantly down the room.

Bid a boy defy his father when the pantomime-cab is at the door; or a girl develop a will of her own when her mother is putting the last touches to the first ball-dress; but do not ask an Irish regiment to embark upon mutiny on the eve of a campaign; when it has fraternised with the native regiment that accompanies it, and driven its officers into retirement with ten thousand clamorous questions, and the prisoners dance for joy, and the sick men stand in the open, calling down all known diseases on the head of the doctor, who has certified that they are "medically unfit for active service." At even the Mavericks might have been mistaken for mutineers by one so unversed in their natures as Mulcahy. At dawn a girls' school might have learned deportment from them. They knew that their colonel's hand had closed, and that he who broke that iron discipline would not go to the front: nothing in the world will persuade one of our soldiers when he is ordered to the north on the smallest of affairs that he is not immediately going gloriously to slay Cossacks and cook his kettles in the palace of the Czar. A few of the younger men mourned for Mulcahy's beer, because the campaign was to be conducted on strict temperance principles, but as Dan and Horse Egan said sternly, 'We've got the beer-man with us. He shall drink now on his own hook.'

Mulcahy had not taken into account the possibility of being sent on active service. He had made up his mind that he would not go under any circ.u.mstances, but fortune was against him.

'Sick--you?' said the doctor, who had served an unholy apprenticeship to his trade in Tralee poorhouses. 'You're only home-sick, and what you call varicose veins come from over-eating. A little gentle exercise will cure that.' And later, 'Mulcahy, my man, everybody is allowed to apply for a sick-certificate ONCE. If he tries it twice we call him by an ugly name. Go back to your duty, and let's hear no more of your diseases.'

I am ashamed to say that Horse Egan enjoyed the study of Mulcahy's soul in those days, and Dan took an equal interest. Together they would communicate to their corporal all the dark lore of death which is the portion of those who have seen men die. Egan had the larger experience, but Dan the finer imagination. Mulcahy shivered when the former spoke of the knife as an intimate acquaintance, or the latter dwelt with loving particularity on the fate of those who, wounded and helpless, had been overlooked by the ambulances, and had fallen into the hands of the Afghan women-folk.

Mulcahy knew that the mutiny, for the present at least, was dead; knew, too, that a change had come over Dan's usually respectful att.i.tude towards him, and Horse Egan's laughter and frequent allusions to abortive conspiracies emphasised all that the conspirator had guessed.

The horrible fascination of the death-stories, however, made him seek the men's society. He learnt much more than he had bargained for; and in this manner: It was on the last night before the regiment entrained to the front. The barracks were stripped of everything movable, and the men were too excited to sleep. The bare walls gave out a heavy hospital smell of chloride of lime.

'And what,' said Mulcahy in an awe-stricken whisper, after some conversation on the eternal subject, 'are you going to do to me, Dan?'

This might have been the language of an able conspirator conciliating a weak spirit.

'You'll see,' said Dan grimly, turning over in his cot, 'or I rather shud say you'll not see.'

This was hardly the language of a weak spirit. Mulcahy shook under the bed-clothes.