Mrs. Bindle Part 38

"'Ere, come along, cheerful," cried Bindle, "give me a 'and with this c.o.ke," and, a minute later, the lugubrious Barnes found himself sweating like a horse, and shovelling fuel into the kitchen's voracious maw.

"That's not the way!"

The man straightened his back and, with one hand on the spade, gazed at Mrs. Bindle, who had approached un.o.bserved. With the grubby thumb of his other hand he rubbed his chin, giving to his unprepossessing features a lopsided appearance.

"Wot ain't the way, missis?" he asked with the air of one quite prepared to listen to reason.

"The c.o.ke should be damped," was the response, "and you're putting in too much."

"But we want it to burn up," he protested.

Mrs. Bindle ostentatiously turned upon him a narrow back.

"_You_ ought to know better, at least, Bindle," she snapped, and proceeded to give him instruction in the art of encouraging a fire.

"You'd better take some out," she said.

"'Ere ole sport," cried Bindle, "give us----" he stopped suddenly. His a.s.sistant had disappeared.

"You mustn't let anyone put anything in until the oven's hot," continued Mrs. Bindle, "and you mustn't open the door too often. You'd better fix a time when they can bring the food, say eleven o'clock."

"Early doors threepence extra?" queried Bindle.

"We're going to have sausage-toad-in-the-hole, and mind you don't burn it."

"I'll watch it as if it was my own cheeild," vowed Bindle.

"If the bishop knew you as I know you, he wouldn't have trusted you with this," said Mrs. Bindle, as she walked away with indrawn lips and head in the air, stepping with the self-consciousness of a bantam that feels its spurs.

"Blowed if she don't think I volunteered for the bloomin' job," he muttered, as he ceased extracting pieces of c.o.ke from the furnace.

"Well, if their dinner ain't done it's their fault, an' if it's overdone it ain't mine," and with that he drew his pipe from his pocket and filled it.

"No luck," he cried, as a grey-haired old woman with the dirt of other years on her face hobbled up with a pie-dish. "Doors ain't open yet."

"But it's an onion pie," grumbled the old dame, "and onions takes a lot o' cookin'."

"Can't 'elp it," grinned Bindle. "Doors ain't open till eleven."

"But----" began the woman.

"Nothin', doin' mother," said the obstinate Bindle. "You see this 'ere is a religious kitchen. It's a different sort from an ordinary blasphemious kitchen."

On the stroke of eleven Mrs. Bindle appeared with a large brown pie-dish, the sight of which made Bindle's mouth water.

"Now then," he cried, "line up for the bakin'-queue. Shillin' a 'ead an'

all bad nuts changed. Oh! no, you don't," he cried, as one woman proffered a basin. "I'm stoker, not cook. You shoves 'em in yourself, an' you fetches 'em when you wants 'em. If there's any sc.r.a.ppin' to be done, I'll be umpire."

One by one the dishes were inserted in the oven, and one by one their owners retired, a feeling of greater confidence in their hearts now that they could prepare a proper dinner. The men went off to get a drink, and soon Bindle was alone.

During the first half-hour Mrs. Bindle paid three separate visits to the field-kitchen. To her it was a new and puzzling contrivance, and she had no means of gauging the heat of the oven. She regarded it distrustfully and, on the occasion of the second visit, gave a special word of warning to Bindle.

At 11.40 Barnes returned with a large black bottle, which he held out to Bindle with an invitation to "'ave a drink."

Bindle removed the cork and put the bottle to his lips, and his Adam's apple bobbed up and down joyously.

"Ah!" he cried, as he at length lowered the bottle and his head at the same time. "That's the stuff to give 'em," and reluctantly he handed back the bottle to its owner, who hastily withdrew at the sight of Mrs.

Bindle approaching.

When she had taken her departure, Bindle began to feel drowsy. The sun was hot, the air was still, and the world was very good to live in.

Still, there was the field-kitchen to be looked after.

For some time he struggled against the call of sleep; but do what he would, his head continued to nod, and his eyelids seemed weighted with lead.

Suddenly he had an inspiration. If he stoked-up the field-kitchen, it would look after itself, and he could have just the "forty winks" his nature craved.

With feverish energy he set to work with the shovel, treating the two stacks of coal and c.o.ke with entire impartiality. Then, when he had filled the furnace, he closed the door with the air of the Roman sentry relieving himself of responsibility by setting a burglar-alarm. Getting well out of the radius of the heat caused by the furnace, he composed himself to slumber behind the heap of c.o.ke.

Suddenly he was aroused from a dream in which he stood on the deck of a wrecked steamer, surrounded by steam which was escaping with vicious hisses from the damaged boilers.

He sat up and looked about him. The air seemed white with vapour, in and out of which two figures could be seen moving. He struggled to his feet and looked about him.

A few yards away he saw Mrs. Bindle engaged in throwing water at the field-kitchen, and then dashing back quickly to escape the smother of steam that resulted. The bishop, with a bucket and a pink-and-blue jug, was dashing water on to the monster's back.

Bindle gazed at the scene in astonishment, then, making a detour, he approached from the opposite side, to see what it was that had produced the crisis. Just at that moment, the bishop decided that the pail had been sufficiently lightened by the use of the pink-and-blue jug to enable him to lift it.

A moment later Bindle was the centre of a cascade of water and a mantle of spray.

"'Ere! wot the 'ell?" he bawled.

The bishop dodged round to the other side and apologised profusely, explaining how Mrs. Bindle had discovered that the field-kitchen had become overheated and that between them they were trying to lower its temperature.

"Yes; but I ain't over'eated," protested Bindle.

"You put too much coal in, Bindle; the place would have been red-hot in half an hour."

"Well; but look at all them dinners that----"

"Don't talk to him, my lord," said Mrs. Bindle, who from a fellow-camper had learned how a bishop should be addressed. "He's done it on purpose."

"No, no, Mrs. Bindle," said the bishop genially. "I'm sure he didn't mean to do it. It's really my fault."

And Mrs. Bindle left it at that.

From that point, however, she took charge of the operations, the bishop and Bindle working under her direction. The news that the field-kitchen was on fire, conveyed to their parents by the children, had brought up the campers in full-force and at the double.

There had been a rush for the oven; but Mrs. Bindle soon showed that she had the situation well in hand, and the sight of the bishop doing her bidding had a rea.s.suring effect.

Under her supervision, each dish and basin was withdrawn, and first aid administered to such as required it. Those that were burnt, were tended with a skill and expedition that commanded the admiration of every housewife present. They were content to leave matters in hands that they recognised were more capable than their own.