Kitabı oku: «The Night Club», sayfa 8

"I'm sure it's very kind of you, miss. Won't you come into the parlour?"

With Mrs. Bindle, "Won't you come into the parlour?" was an announcement of friendship, and Bindle heaved a sigh of relief. Sallie beckoned to Jack Carruthers.

"Jack," she said, "Get those boys to clear up."

Without waiting for Jack to deliver her instructions, everyone set to work to clear up the chaos, and in three minutes the place was as orderly as it had been before our arrival, save for a pile of glasses and mugs in the sink. The bottles had been stowed away in the suit-cases, and the kitchen looked as it did before the descent upon it of the Night Club. Mrs. Bindle had fixed her eyes on the bunch of roses, looted from Dick Little's flat.

"Oh, I brought those for you, Mrs. Bindle," said Sallie.

That broke down Mrs. Bindle's last defences. At Windover's invitation, and in spite of Mrs. Bindle's protests, several of the Tims men set to work to wash up at the sink. Windover did the washing, whilst the others wiped, amidst a perfect babel.

Mrs. Bindle looked from one to the other. Presently turning to Sallie she asked in a whisper, "Is the lord here, miss?"

"The lord?" questioned Sallie in surprise.

"Bindle says a lord belongs to your club. Is he here, miss?"

"Oh! Lord Windover," cried Sallie laughing, "Yes, he's here."

"Is that him, miss?" enquired Mrs. Bindle gazing at Angell Herald, who stood apart from the others with an awkward air of detachment. Sallie shuddered as she followed Mrs. Bindle's gaze and saw the white satin tie threaded through a diamond ring.

"No, that's Mr. Herald. Lord Windover's washing up. Winnie," she called out, "I want to introduce you to Mrs. Bindle."

Windover approached, eyeglass in eye, with a jug in one hand, a towel he had snatched up in the other, and a red bordered cloth round his waist.

Sallie introduced him and he bowed with his usual exquisite grace, chatted for a few moments, and then returned to his duties at the sink.

In Mrs. Bindle's eyes there was a great wonder, and as they returned to Angell Herald, a little disappointment and regret.

Finally we all trooped off the best of friends. Bindle declared that he was cured, and Mrs. Bindle said she was very pleased that she had come in before we had taken our departure. We stowed ourselves away in the taxis and, as the procession started, Fenton Street raised its voice in a valedictory cheer.

"Winnie," said Sallie to Windover as we bowled eastward at a penny a furlong, "To-night you have wrecked Mrs. Bindle's cherished ideal of the aristocracy. I shall never forget her face when I told her that the man who was washing up was the lord! She had fixed upon Mr. Herald."

Windover screwed his glass into his eye and gazed at Sallie in silence.

Thus ended one of the most notable nights in the history of the Night Club.

CHAPTER XI
THE GENERAL BECOMES A MEMBER

On the Monday morning following our visit to Bindle, Dick Little had descended to General Burdett-Coombe's flat to make a formal apology. The old boy had laughed off the incident as of no importance, refused to allow Dick Little to pay for the damage, and vowed that he liked young fellows with a spice of the devil in them, had been young himself once. He gave his guest a glass of Trafalgar brandy, and had readily accepted an invitation to be present at next Sunday's gathering.

"Damme, sir, I think it will be safer up there than down here," he said as he gazed ruefully up at the ceiling from which hung the wreck of his electrolier.

From that time the General became one of our most regular members, and was well in the first flight as regards popularity. He proved a splendid old fellow, full of good stories of his campaigning experiences, modest and kindly, for all his gust of anger on the night of our first meeting.

From the first he was Sallie's slave. One night he was raving to half-a-dozen of us about Sallie's eyes. "Such eyes," he cried, looking from one to the other as if challenging contradiction, "I never could resist grey eyes. Why damme, sir, if I'd married a girl with grey eyes (the General is a bachelor) I should have been as harmless as – as – "

"A taube, sir," suggested the Boy slyly.

The General turned on him like a cyclone.

"When I was your age, sir, I should have been shot for interrupting a – " Then the Boy smiled that radiant, disarming smile of his and the General made a grab at him and missed.

"Wot's a 'towber,' sir?" Bindle enquired of Windover in a whisper. Bindle's whispers are as clearly heard as those of the villain in a melodrama.

"Before the war, J.B.," replied Windover, "'taube' was the German for 'dove'; since then it has become the vehicle of frightfulness."

Bindle looked from Windover to Dare with wrinkled forehead.

"Stripped of its corrosive verbiage, Windover means that 'taube' is the name of a German aeroplane."

"Oh! a tawb," said Bindle, his face clearing. "'E do love to wrap things up, don't 'e?" he added, indicating Windover with an ever-ready thumb. "Anyone could see 'e ain't married."

Later in the evening I heard the Boy say to the General in what he meant to be a whisper —

"I hope I didn't offend you, sir. I ought not to have said – "

"Tut, tut," said the General. "It's all right, Boy. Damme; but times have changed since I was a youngster," and he pinched the Boy's arm affectionately.

Upon the subject of the new armies the General was particularly interesting. It was easy to see that, coming from army stock, he found the civilian soldier difficult to reconcile with military tradition; but he was a sportsman above all things.

"My Gad! sir," he had exclaimed to a few of us one evening some days after his return from France, where he had been in an official capacity, "they're wonderful. I was prejudiced, I confess it. Imagine an army of stockbrokers, lawyers, fiddlers, clerks and chauffeurs. What could they know of soldiering? But when I saw them, talked with them, why damme, sir, they made me feel a child at the game."

"Keen!" he exclaimed in answer to a question. Then he laughed, "Why there was one young lieutenant-colonel who started as a private two years ago, a splendid officer, and he actually told me that he hated soldiering, hated it, sir, yet was carrying-on as if he cared for nothing else. It's amazing!

"In my time," and the old boy straightened himself to his full five feet nine inches, "the prospect of war sent us half wild with excitement; but these fellows don't like it, have no enthusiasm, want to get back to their pens and tennis-rackets; yet they're born soldiers.

"They talk about funk and feeling afraid in a way that would have got a man ragged out of his regiment in my day; – Damme, I don't understand it!"

"So you don't altogether disapprove of the new army, General?" It was Sallie who enquired. She had just entered unobserved.

"Disapprove!" cried the General spinning round and shaking hands. "Disapprove! It's a privilege for an old fogey like me to be allowed to talk to such fellows."

"General," said Sallie quietly, "I think the chivalry of the old army is equal to the spirit of the new," and the General actually blushed, at least the red-brown of his cheeks took on a bluish tinge.

When the time came for the General's story I was embarrassed by the choice he offered. There were yarns about every quarter of the globe, and half the races of the earth. Wherever there had been a chance of a brush, the old boy had managed to get sent somewhere close at hand, and when the smoke had burst into flame, he invariably discovered that a month or two's leave was due to him. All his leave seemed to be spent in getting attached to someone else's expeditionary force. Reading between the lines it was easy to see that he was a good officer, and he never seemed to find much difficulty in getting a staff appointment.

I

It was one of those Indian Frontier affairs of which the world hears little. In high quarters there is a vague consciousness that something has happened, a paragraph or two in the newspapers, with a list of casualties, announces the return of the heroes, a few families are plunged into mourning and there the matter ends.

An expeditionary force was trailing its sinuous, sensitive body wearily along upon the homeward march. The officers were gloomy and short of speech, the men sullen and dispirited. In the hearts of all there was a glow of dull resentment. They had not suffered defeat it is true; still no crushing blow had been struck, and to-day as they toiled silently along in a cloud of dust there was dissatisfaction, a smouldering passion of discontent.

Brigadier-General Charles Stanley de Winton Mossop, C.B., was a man of theories, and the soldier understands theories in direct ratio to their successful application. He is a cog in the great machine of war, and is content if the whole mechanism work smoothly. If he be conscious of any friction of the parts, he unhesitatingly condemns the engineer.

Two months previously, some five thousand men of all arms, had set out elated at the prospect of active service. Even the old campaigners were cynically jovial as they told the "recruities" what to expect. "You wait, sonnies," Sergeant Tonks, a weather-beaten old veteran of twenty years' service, had said good-humouredly, "You just wait, you'll see!" They had seen! They had seen two months of soldiering under service conditions with nothing to show for it, and their ideas of applied war had undergone considerable revision.

They had seen two months of arduous campaigning against a foe that had never learned the meaning of defeat; had never retired or broken but to come again. A foe that sniped all night, and hung about the flanks all day; now showing itself ahead; not threatening the rear, with a special eye for a rush at awkward moments. Striking camp had become a positive torture, and the hour before dawn a period of imaginative suspense; for the men's confidence had been shaken.

At first the subalterns had talked sagely about "protection on the line of march," scouting and the value of "cover." They had views, and a healthy competition had sprung up amongst those in charge of scouting-parties and "flank guards." They had worked with an almost incredible zeal. Every likely bit of "cover" was not only carefully examined, but examined with enthusiasm, even if it were no larger than a man's head. There had been innumerable false alarms, which demonstrated clearly their watchfulness. But that was now a memory. The natural eagerness to excel had been damped, and there had insidiously crept into the minds of all the suspicion that they were badly led.

Brigadier-General Mossop had evolved what was then an entirely new and original conception of the art of war. The present command gave him an opportunity of putting into practice his pet scheme of communicating orders, in the event of night attack, by coloured fires and rockets. He had lectured his officers upon the impossibility of conveying commands accurately by word of mouth in the darkness and confusion of a night attack. Incidentally he had pointed out the advantages of his own method. They had listened respectfully, received his written "Orders of Night Attack" in grim silence, and among themselves had dubbed their commander "Old Brock"; and "Old Brock" he remained to the end.

There was one young subaltern, inclined to regard soldiering as a subject for serious study, who regarded Old Brock's craze for novelty as a grave danger. In a perimeter camp of 5,000 men, rocket communication was, to his view, ridiculous. It might, he argued, at any moment involve the force in disaster. He cast many speculative glances at the chest in which the fireworks were carefully arranged in compartments, each numbered with embossed figures, enabling them to be felt in the dark.

For days the young subaltern went his way wrapped in his own gloom. At length the clouds seemed to disappear as if by magic, and it was noted that he was very frequently seen with the sergeant who had charge of Old Brock's chest.

After a week's march, the force was well into the enemy's country. One dark night a nervous sentry had fired his rifle and explained the circumstance by an account of shadowy forms. Voices barked out peremptory commands, men clutched their rifles and formed up, maxims were cleared and everything made ready. Presently a rocket rose with a majestic whirr and broke into a hundred green stars.

"Old Brock's at it," murmured Major O'Malley.

"That's Prepare to Receive Enemy," murmured a subaltern, who had given much time to the study of his Chief's "Orders."

"Rather late in the day to prepare," growled a captain of gunners. "Might as well say 'Prepare to cut your teeth.'"

The men stood silent, some with a grin of expectation as they gazed in the direction of the Brigadier's tent; others with a queer shivery feeling at the base of the spine, which communicated itself to the knees and teeth. The butt-end of a rifle struck the ground with a dry, hard snap. "Silence!" barked a voice. There was a murmur of deep expostulation, passionate but repressed.

Then a curious thing happened. First a Roman candle vomited its coloured balls into the inky night, casting a ghostly green light upon the upturned faces.

"Enemy breaking through to the East. My God!" gasped the subaltern.

There was a movement among the men, and a splutter of rifle-fire which soon died away.

"As you were," shouted a voice. A moment's silence. Next there rose three red and blue rockets, then a swarm of whirring, hissing, serpent-like streams of fire, lighting up the whole encampment as they broke into a thousand points of fire.

It had been the Brigadier's theory to fire the rockets at an angle so as to light up the surrounding country whilst leaving the encampment in darkness. There was a laugh from the ranks, a short, sharp, snapping sound that died almost with its own utterance. More rockets followed, then a red fire gradually sprang into being, dull at first; but growing in volume until eventually it embraced in its ruddy glow the whole country for half a mile round.

"There ain't much fun in watchin' fireworks when yer can't say wot yer think o' them," grumbled one man in a whisper to his neighbour.

The subaltern was busily engaged in trying to read the "Orders of Night Attack." He muttered brokenly from time to time. "Enemy repulsed North. – Withdraw to inner defences. – Square broken to West – Fix bayonets." – He ceased, and only the crackle of bursting rockets broke the stillness. The red fire began to wane, the rockets ceased, and the darkness became more pronounced. Later, no enemy being discovered, the guards were re-posted and the camp reassumed its normal appearance.

How it happened that the new code of signalling went wrong was never satisfactorily explained. The Brigadier was furious, and next day subjected Sergeant "Rockets," as he was ever afterwards called among the men, to a searching examination. The sergeant could never be persuaded to give an explanation of how it occurred, or what took place afterwards in the Brigadier's tent. There was a story current to the effect that "Rockets" had deliberately brought about the fiasco as a protest against innovation; but the currency of camp-stories is no index to their accuracy.

Three days later an attack upon the camp at dawn had been repulsed with loss; but it had not been followed up. The men chafed and murmured among themselves; the officers saw a golden opportunity for a decisive blow pass unnoticed. "Old Brock," who alone seemed tranquil, penned lengthy dispatches descriptive of the enemy's defeat and discouragement.

So matters went on. Nothing more was accomplished beyond a few successful skirmishes, which to the Brigadier appeared in the light of important victories. The correspondents, there were three, chafed and fretted.

"It's a damned shame," remarked Chisholme hotly, "that the men's hearts should be shrivelled up by such an example of official incapacity. There'll be more heard of this when I get near the telegraph," he added significantly. "You chaps shall get your own back, or* The Morning Independent* is a pulseless, chicken-hearted rag."

Chisholme's directness and picturesque phraseology were proverbial. On this occasion his remarks were directed at Major Blaisby and another officer lounging about the correspondent's tent.

Chisholme had an influential family behind him and this, coupled with the high value he placed upon his own opinions, assured his two friends that, sooner or later, there would be the devil to pay, and the knowledge comforted them. In spite of his insufferable habit of bragging, Chisholme was popular. Strictly speaking he was a non-combatant; yet he had already had several opportunities of showing his mettle. On one occasion at least he had performed an action which, had he been in the Service, would have assured him of the V.C.

Between Correspondent and General a coolness had sprung up. Once the Brigadier had taken occasion to rebuke him for his recklessness, urging as a reason for the remonstrance the possibility of some portion of the force being involved in a disaster, owing to his precipitancy and lack of judgment.

Now that the – Punitive Expedition was upon the homeward march. The casualties among mules had been extremely heavy, even for a frontier force, and the Brigadier was faced with a grave problem. At a spot about four days' march from the frontier, he announced his intention of establishing a temporary post to guard the sick, the guns and the surplus ammunition. It was a risky proceeding; but the force was running short of food, and must make forced marches to the frontier.

A day was spent in throwing up hasty defenses ("Ruddy scratches," Sergeant Tonks called them), a day spent in active speculation as to who would be selected for the command.

When Major Blaisby of the – th Gurkhas was informed that the Brigadier's choice had fallen upon him, he flushed with pleasure: but when he heard that only fifty men were to be left with him he almost gasped with astonishment. The news spread with the rapidity peculiar to camps, and Blaisby was the centre of a group of brother officers eager in their congratulations, and fervid in their denunciations of the insufficiency of the force.

Blaisby and Chisholme had been on intimate terms, in fact a warm friendship had sprung up between the two men. Immediately on hearing the news, Chisholme had marched straight to the Brigadier's tent and requested to be allowed to remain behind as a volunteer. He met with a curt refusal.

That night, those who were collected in the correspondent's tent, were treated to a remarkable display of eloquence. Chisholme, with his back to the tent-pole, poured forth a burning stream of protest at not being allowed to stay.

Blaisby stood by moody and silent. At length he was persuaded by his impulsive friend to seek out the Brigadier and ask for a larger force. He left with unwilling steps.

In the midst of a particularly eloquent passage on the part of Chisholme, Blaisby returned. He was white to the lips, and there was an ominous quiver about the corners of his mouth. A dead silence greeted him. Then it was that Chisholme showed himself to be something more than an orator. Walking up to Blaisby he linked his arm in his, and led him out of the tent. When he returned alone the Correspondent's tent was empty. There is a fine sense of chivalry among English gentlemen.

Two hours later Chisholme made his way through the darkness to Blaisby's tent. The two men paced up and down conversing earnestly in undertones. The soft light of the false dawn was touching the Eastern horizon before they parted. Chisholme returned to his tent and threw himself down to snatch an hour's sleep. Blaisby continued to pace up and down until the light grew stronger, when he fetched a small portmanteau from his tent, and at this improvised table he sat writing letters until reveille sounded.

As soon as the Brigadier was stirring his orderly informed him that Lieutenant Blaisby wished to know when it would be convenient to see him. The Brigadier, suppressing an exclamation of impatience, bade the orderly shew him in. For half-an-hour the two remained together. Finally Blaisby left the tent with a grim, set face and went to seek Chisholme.

The sun was well up when the march was resumed. As the main body got into motion the men broke out into "Auld Lang Syne." The Brigadier sent an A.D.C. to "stop that damned folly." There was a wringing of hands as his comrades bade farewell to Blaisby. Three hearty cheers split the air, bringing a frown to the Brigadier's face. He said nothing, feeling that the men were none too well in hand. As he rode along by the side of his Brigade-Major he surprised that officer by remarking "Blaisby is a very able officer, – we shall hear more of him."

Chisholme remained behind until the rearguard was almost out of sight, then with a hasty handshake and a "God bless you, old chap" he galloped off.

Blaisby now found himself with thirty-five native and fifteen white troops, two subalterns and a young surgeon, in all fifty-three. He walked round the hastily formed entrenchment and viewed the whole with a calm impassive face. Turning to the senior sub. he bade him call the men together. In a few words he told them that they were upon a very dangerous service. The work would be arduous and the fighting hard, but they must remember that their own safety and the honour of the corps from which they were drawn depended upon their exertions. The men cheered, and the eyes of the little Gurkhas flashed at the thought of handgrips with the enemy.

Directly the mid-day meal was over, the force was divided into three parties: one was sent out scouting, another ordered to sleep, whilst the third, under Blaisby himself, set to work with pick and spade.

For two days and nights they worked without cessation: entrenching, scouting, sleeping; sleeping, entrenching, scouting. "Blaisby'll be a corpse or a colonel before the year's out," remarked the junior sub. At first the men worked doggedly, as well-trained soldiers will. They were taking the measure of their commander, watching him furtively whilst on duty, discussing him eagerly over their pipes when relieved. Soon they began to fall under the spell of his personality, and a wave of enthusiasm took possession of them. The private is ever ready to acknowledge a master mind, and next to knowing that his officer is a gentleman, he likes best to feel that he is a being of superior attainments.

At the end of two days, a formidable array of defences had been completed. In the centre a pit, some six feet deep and thirty feet square, had been dug. This was roofed over with canvas. A cutting three feet wide gave entrance to "the oven," as it came to be called, which was to act as arsenal and hospital for the worst cases. The guns and much of the surplus ammunition were built into the camp-defences.

Everything now being ready, the men were ordered to rest. Never did men sleep so in the history of war. They were sick of sleep; yet Blaisby's personality had taken such a grip of their minds, that eyes would close mechanically at his approach. He wished them to sleep; they would sleep if it killed them.

One night Blaisby happened to overhear a remark of the surgeon. "It's all very well to say sleep," he grumbled, "But how the devil is a man to sleep unless he's tired?" The next day orders were given to keep the men occupied with sports. Running, jumping, wrestling, skipping, sparring and every conceivable form of exercise was indulged in. Blaisby gave prizes in money, until his small store was exhausted, then he turned to his kit and distributed all he could actually spare as prizes. The men were thus kept interested and occupied.

On the third day after the departure of the main body the enemy was sighted; why they had not attacked at once was never explained. The next day a movement was observed upon some rising ground, to the eastward. Forms were observed flitting about, tiny dots of white relieved here and there by a splash of brilliant green, as a banner caught the rays of the setting sun. That night a keener watch than ever was kept.

An hour before dawn, a rifle shot snapped out sharply upon the crisp night air. Absolute silence reigned. Presently a sharp challenge rang out, followed by a shot and a yell, then a trailing splutter of reports, then silence again. The enemy drew off on finding everything ready for his reception.

After this the little garrison knew no repose. Attack followed attack, and seldom a night passed without an alarm. It was evidently the object of the enemy to wear out the defenders with constant watching. On one occasion they almost rushed the defences, and were repulsed only at the point of the bayonet. Blaisby grew grave as he saw the casualties increase. The suspense and frequent alarms began to tell their tale. The men were worn out, and although they slept whenever opportunity offered during the day, it was always with the possibility of being awakened to repel an attack.

Each night Blaisby spent upon the look-out platform, and was frequently to be seen at dawn scanning the horizon to the south through his field-glasses.

One evening, after a more than usually spirited attack by the enemy, Blaisby sat silent at the table, whilst the senior sub. and the surgeon talked over the day's work. They had been puzzled at the action of their commander after the repulse. He had selected ten of the Gurkhas and taken them into the "Oven," posting a sentry at the entrance and had remained there with the junior sub. until dinner-time. The senior sub. and the surgeon were piqued at not being confided in.

The surgeon had just finished a lengthy harangue upon the methods it was desirable to adopt in savage warfare, ridiculing the textbooks as academic. As he concluded he raised his eyes from their gloomy contemplation of the end of his cigar. They became fixed, his jaw dropped. The senior sub. half-turned to see the cause. He uttered an exclamation! At the entrance of the tent stood a grim and ghastly figure, with rolling eyes and grinning lips. The two men stared as if bewitched at what appeared to be a reincarnation of Beelzebub. The apparition remained motionless save for the movement of its eyes, hideous, unearthly eyes, encircled with rings of red and surmounted by white brows. Then there was the great red mouth and the diabolical black horns which sprang suddenly from snowy hair.

Every bone in the dusky body was outlined in white. The two men turned almost appealingly to Blaisby, who sat impassively watching them.

"Sorry to startle you; it's an experiment," he said as he made a motion with his hand at which the figure disappeared, "upon men whose minds are trained against superstition."

That was all. He rose and went out, leaving the surgeon and senior sub. speechless and indignant. At midnight eleven ghostly figures emerged from the "Oven" and slid away into the darkness. Shortly afterwards Blaisby mounted to the look-out platform where he stood silent and immovable, his gaze directed eastward.

II

Whilst Blaisby and his men were busily occupied with the defense of "Old Brock's Folly," the main body of the Expeditionary Force had reached the frontier. The Brigadier appeared uncertain how to act. The officers were moody, and the men silent, almost sullen. Orders were obeyed without alacrity, without zeal, without cheerfulness.

Two days passed without any preparations for the relief of the "Post." At length with a rather over-done careless air the Brigadier remarked to his Senior Colonel upon the spiritlessness of the troops after a "victorious campaign." The Senior Colonel made an equally casual rejoinder. The men were tired, he had frequently noticed a similar state of affairs at the end of an expedition. There the matter had ended for the moment. Later a further remark from the Brigadier had met with a like evasion on the part of his subordinate.

That Brigadier-General Mossop's nerves were disordered was plainly shown by his lack of decision. Orders were given and countermanded; elaborate dispatches were penned, only to be destroyed an hour later. At last the Senior Colonel was startled by a point blank request for his opinion as to the advisability of despatching a force to relieve the post without waiting for further supplies.

A decisive, "I consider it highly expedient, sir, if not too late," was not reassuring.

For two days the Brigadier pondered over the significant words. "If not too late." He saw the possibility of the dreaded official reprimand. At length the order was given: a third of the force was to retrace its steps and relieve the little garrison, "If not too late," the words obtruded themselves upon the Brigadier's mind and irritated him.

Thus it happened that, after days of inactivity and indecision, the Relief Force set out under the command of the Senior Colonel. As it swung off to the brisk notes of the bugle, spirits rose as if by magic, jokes were cracked amongst the rank and file, the old jokes that yesterday would have fallen flat now drew a hearty laugh. All were elated at the prospect of a brush with the enemy. This was to be a fight to the finish. The Senior Colonel was a soldier of a different type from the Brigadier. He had no theories, as theories are generally understood. His dictum was to fight – and win. If there were heavy casualties, he deplored it as a necessary feature of his profession. The men knew this – there would be hard knocks and they thanked God for it.

Shortly before sunset on the third day, the force halted behind some rising ground about four miles south-east of the "Post." The enemy had been located and the Senior Colonel was not the man to wait. He had resolved to push on and risk a night attack. Half the column was to make a detour and approach from the north-east, whilst the other half attacked from the eastward. After a hasty meal and a short rest, the first party moved off guided by the stars and a compass. Silently it disappeared into the darkness. An hour later the other half set out.