Traffics and Discoveries Part 3

"How do you regard the proposition--as a Brother? If you'd invented your own gun, and spent fifty-seven thousand dollars on her--and had paid your own expenses from the word 'go'? An American citizen has a right to choose his own side in an unpleasantness, and Van Zyl wasn't any Krugerite ...

and I'd risked my hide at my own expense. I got that man's address from Van Zyl; he was a mining man at Kimberley, and I wrote him the facts. But he never answered. Guess he thought I lied.... d.a.m.ned Southern rebel!

"Oh, say. Did I tell you my Captain gave me a letter to an English Lord in Cape Town, and he fixed things so's I could lie up a piece in his house? I was pretty sick, and threw up some blood from where the rib had gouged into the lung--here. This Lord was a crank on guns, and he took charge of the Zigler. He had his knife into the British system as much as any American. He said he wanted revolution, and not reform, in your army. He said the British soldier had failed in every point except courage. He said England needed a Monroe Doctrine worse than America--a new doctrine, barring out all the Continent, and strictly devoting herself to developing her own Colonies. He said he'd abolish half the Foreign Office, and take all the old hereditary families clean out of it, because, he said, they was expressly trained to fool around with continental diplomats, and to despise the Colonies. His own family wasn't more than six hundred years old. He was a very brainy man, and a good citizen. We talked politics and inventions together when my lung let up on me.

"Did he know my General? Yes. He knew 'em all. Called 'em Teddie and Gussie and Willie. They was all of the very best, and all his dearest friends; but he told me confidentially they was none of 'em fit to command a column in the field. He said they were too fond of advertising. Generals don't seem very different from actors or doctors or--yes, Sir--inventors.

"He fixed things for me lovelily at Simons-Town. Had the biggest sort of pull--even for a Lord. At first they treated me as a harmless lunatic; but after a while I got 'em to let me keep some of their books. If I was left alone in the world with the British system of bookkeeping, I'd reconstruct the whole British Empire--beginning with the Army. Yes, I'm one of their most trusted accountants, and I'm paid for it. As much as a dollar a day.

I keep that. I've earned it, and I deduct it from the cost of my board.

When the war's over I'm going to pay up the balance to the British Government. Yes, Sir, that's how I regard the proposition.

"Adrian? Oh, he left for Umballa four months back. He told me he was going to apply to join the National Scouts if the war didn't end in a year.

'Tisn't in nature for one Dutchman to shoot another, but if Adrian ever meets up with Steyn there'll be an exception to the rule. Ye--es, when the war's over it'll take some of the British Army to protect Steyn from his fellow-patriots. But the war won't be over yet awhile. He that believeth don't hurry, as Isaiah says. The ministers and the school-teachers and the rebs'll have a war all to themselves long after the north is quiet.

"I'm pleased with this country--it's big. Not so many folk on the ground as in America. There's a boom coming sure. I've talked it over with Adrian, and I guess I shall buy a farm somewhere near Bloemfontein and start in cattle-raising. It's big and peaceful--a ten-thousand-acre farm.

I could go on inventing there, too. I'll sell my Zigler, I guess. I'll offer the patent rights to the British Government; and if they do the 'reelly-now-how-interesting' act over her, I'll turn her over to Captain Mankeltow and his friend the Lord. They'll pretty quick find some Gussie, or Teddie, or Algie who can get her accepted in the proper quarters. I'm beginning to know my English.

"And now I'll go in swimming, and read the papers after lunch. I haven't had such a good time since Willie died." He pulled the blue shirt over his head as the bathers returned to their piles of clothing, and, speaking through the folds, added:

"But if you want to realise your a.s.sets, you should lease the whole proposition to America for ninety-nine years."

THE BONDS OF DISCIPLINE

POSEIDON'S LAW

When the robust and bra.s.s-bound man commissioned first for sea His fragile raft, Poseidon laughed, and, "Mariner," said he, "Behold, a Law immutable I lay on thee and thine, That never shall ye act or tell a falsehood at my shrine.

"Let Zeus adjudge your landward kin, whose votive meal and salt At easy-cheated altars win oblivion for the fault, But ye the unhoodwinked waves shall test--the immediate gulfs condemn-- Unless ye owe the Fates a jest, be slow to jest with them.

"Ye shall not clear by Greekly speech, nor cozen from your path The twinkling shoal, the leeward beach, and Hadria's white-lipped wrath; Nor tempt with painted cloth for wood my fraud-avenging hosts; Nor make at all or all make good your bulwarks and your boasts.

"Now and henceforward serve unshod through wet and wakeful shifts, A present and oppressive G.o.d, but take, to aid, my gifts-- The wide and windward-opened eye, the large and lavish hand, The soul that cannot tell a lie--except upon the land!"

In dromond and in catafract--wet, wakeful, windward-eyed-- He kept Poseidon's Law intact (his ship and freight beside), But, once discharged the dromond's hold, the bireme beached once more, Splendaciously mendacious rolled the bra.s.s-bound man ash.o.r.e.

The thranite now and thalamite are pressures low and high, And where three hundred blades bit white the twin-propellers ply: The G.o.d that hailed, the keel that sailed, are changed beyond recall, But the robust and bra.s.s-bound man he is not changed at all!

From Punt returned, from Phormio's Fleet, from Javan and Gadire, He strongly occupies the seat about the tavern fire, And, moist with much Falernian or smoked Ma.s.silian juice, Revenges there the bra.s.s-bound man his long-enforced truce!

THE BONDS OF DISCIPLINE

As literature, it is beneath contempt. It concerns the endurance, armament, turning-circle, and inner gear of every ship in the British Navy--the whole embellished with profile plates. The Teuton approaches the matter with pagan thoroughness; the Muscovite runs him close; but the Gaul, ever an artist, breaks enclosure to study the morale, at the present day, of the British sailorman.

In this, I conceive, he is from time to time aided by the zealous amateur, though I find very little in his dispositions to show that he relies on that amateur's hard-won information. There exists--unlike some other publication, it is not bound in lead boards--a work by one "M. de C.,"

based on the absolutely unadorned performances of one of our well-known _Acolyte_ type of cruisers. It contains nothing that did not happen. It covers a period of two days; runs to twenty-seven pages of large type exclusive of appendices; and carries as many exclamation points as the average Dumas novel.

I read it with care, from the adorably finished prologue--it is the disgrace of our Navy that we cannot produce a commissioned officer capable of writing one page of lyric prose--to the eloquent, the joyful, the impa.s.sioned end; and my first notion was that I had been cheated. In this sort of book-collecting you will see how entirely the bibliophile lies at the mercy of his agent.

"M. de C.," I read, opened his campaign by stowing away in one of her boats what time H.M.S. _Archimandrite_ lay off Funchal. "M. de C." was, always on behalf of his country, a Madeira Portuguese fleeing from the conscription. They discovered him eighty miles at sea and bade him a.s.sist the cook. So far this seemed fairly reasonable. Next day, thanks to his histrionic powers and his ingratiating address, he was promoted to the rank of "supernumerary captain's servant"--a "post which," I give his words, "I flatter myself, was created for me alone, and furnished me with opportunities unequalled for a task in which one word malapropos would have been my destruction."

From this point onward, earth and water between them held no marvels like to those "M. de C." had "envisaged"--if I translate him correctly. It became clear to me that "M. de C." was either a pyramidal liar, or...

I was not acquainted with any officer, seaman, or marine in the _Archimandrite_; but instinct told me I could not go far wrong if I took a third-cla.s.s ticket to Plymouth.

I gathered information on the way from a leading stoker, two seaman- gunners, and an odd hand in a torpedo factory. They courteously set my feet on the right path, and that led me through the alleys of Devonport to a public-house not fifty yards from the water. We drank with the proprietor, a huge, yellowish man called Tom Wessels; and when my guides had departed, I asked if he could produce any warrant or petty officer of the _Archimandrite_.

"The _Bedlamite_, d'you mean--'er last commission, when they all went crazy?"

"Shouldn't wonder," I replied. "Fetch me a sample and I'll see."

"You'll excuse me, o' course, but--what d'you want 'im _for?_"

"I want to make him drunk. I want to make you drunk--if you like. I want to make him drunk here."

"Spoke very 'andsome. I'll do what I can." He went out towards the water that lapped at the foot of the street. I gathered from the pot-boy that he was a person of influence beyond Admirals.

In a few minutes I heard the noise of an advancing crowd, and the voice of Mr. Wessels.

"'E only wants to make you drunk at 'is expense. Dessay 'e'll stand you all a drink. Come up an' look at 'im. 'E don't bite."

A square man, with remarkable eyes, entered at the head of six large bluejackets. Behind them gathered a contingent of hopeful free-drinkers.

"'E's the only one I could get. Transferred to the _Postulant_ six months back. I found 'im quite accidental." Mr. Wessels beamed.

"I'm in charge o' the cutter. Our wardroom is dinin' on the beach _en ma.s.se_. They won't be home till mornin'," said the square man with the remarkable eyes. "Are you an _Archimandrite?_" I demanded.

"That's me. I was, as you might say."

"Hold on. I'm a _Archimandrite._" A Red Marine with moist eyes tried to climb on the table. "Was you lookin' for a _Bedlamite?_ I've--I've been invalided, an' what with that, an' visitin' my family 'ome at Lewes, per'aps I've come late. 'Ave I?"

"You've 'ad all that's good for you," said Tom Wessels, as the Red Marine sat cross-legged on the floor.

"There are those 'oo haven't 'ad a thing yet!" cried a voice by the door.

"I will take this _Archimandrite_" I said, "and this Marine. Will you please give the boat's crew a drink now, and another in half an hour if-- if Mr.----"

"Pyecroft," said the square man. "Emanuel Pyecroft, second-cla.s.s petty- officer."

"--Mr. Pyecroft doesn't object?"

"He don't. Clear out. Goldin', you picket the hill by yourself, throwin'

out a skirmishin'-line in ample time to let me know when Number One's comin' down from his vittles."