No More Learning

. . if you cry I'll never forgive
you. "

Dora Bent occupied her mother's unprofitable attention through the day
and the night. The Doctor called thrice in the twenty-four hours, and
the house reeked with the smell of the Condy's Fluid, chlorine-water,
and carbolic acid washes. Mrs. Mallowe kept to her own rooms--she
considered that she had made sufficient concessions in the cause of
humanity--and Mrs. Hauksbee was more esteemed by the Doctor as a help in
the sick-room than the half-distraught mother.

"I know nothing of illness," said Mrs. Hauksbee to the Doctor. "Only
tell me what to do, and I'll do it. "

"Keep that crazy woman from kissing the child, and let her have as
little to do with the nursing as you possibly can," said the Doctor;
"I'd turn her out of the sick-room, but that I honestly believe she'd
die of anxiety. She is less than no good, and I depend on you and the
ayahs, remember. "

Mrs. Hauksbee accepted the responsibility, though it painted olive
hollows under her eyes and forced her to her oldest dresses. Mrs. Bent
clung to her with more than childlike faith.

"I know you'll, make Dora well, won't you? " she said at least twenty
times a day; and twenty times a day Mrs. Hauksbee answered valiantly,
"Of course I will. "

But Dora did not improve, and the Doctor seemed to be always in the
house.

"There's some danger of the thing taking a bad turn," he said; "I'll
come over between three and four in the morning tomorrow. "

"Good gracious! " said Mrs. Hauksbee. "He never told me what the turn
would be! My education has been horribly neglected; and I have only this
foolish mother-woman to fall back upon. "

The night wore through slowly, and Mrs. Hauksbee dozed in a chair by the
fire. There was a dance at the Viceregal Lodge, and she dreamed of it
till she was aware of Mrs. Bent's anxious eyes staring into her own.

"Wake up! Wake up! Do something! " cried Mrs. Bent, piteously. "Dora's
choking to death! Do you mean to let her die? "

Mrs. Hauksbee jumped to her feet and bent over the bed. The child was
fighting for breath, while the mother wrung her hands despairing.

"Oh, what can I do? What can you do? She won't stay still! I can't hold
her. Why didn't the Doctor say this was coming? " screamed Mrs. Bent.
"Won't you help me? She's dying! "

"I-I've never seen a child die before! " stammered Mrs. Hauksbee,
feebly, and then--let none blame her weakness after the strain of long
watching--she broke down, and covered her face with her hands. The ayahs
on the threshold snored peacefully.

There was a rattle of 'rickshaw wheels below, the clash of an opening
door, a heavy step on the stairs, and Mrs. Delville entered to find Mrs.
Bent screaming for the Doctor as she ran round the room. Mrs. Hauksbee,
her hands to her ears, and her face buried in the chintz of a chair, was
quivering with pain at each cry from the bed, and murmuring, "Thank God,
I never bore a child! Oh! thank God, I never bore a child! "

Mrs. Delville looked at the bed for an instant, took Mrs. Bent by the
shoulders, and said, quietly, "Get me some caustic. Be quick. "

The mother obeyed mechanically. Mrs. Delville had thrown herself down by
the side of the child and was opening its mouth.

"Oh, you're killing her! " cried Mrs. Bent. "Where's the Doctor! Leave
her alone! "

Mrs. Delville made no reply for a minute, but busied herself with the
child.

"Now the caustic, and hold a lamp behind my shoulder. Will you do as you
are told? The acid-bottle, if you don't know what I mean," she said.

A second time Mrs. Delville bent over the child. Mrs. Hauksbee, her face
still hidden, sobbed and shivered. One of the ayahs staggered sleepily
into the room, yawning: "Doctor Sahib come. "

Mrs. Delville turned her head.

"You're only just in time," she said. "It was chokin' her when I came
in, an' I've burned it. "

"There was no sign of the membrane getting to the air-passages after the
last steaming. It was the general weakness, I feared," said the Doctor
half to himself, and he whispered as he looked. "You've done what I
should have been afraid to do without consultation. "

"She was dyin'," said Mrs. Delville, under her breath. "Can you do
anythin'? What a mercy it was I went to the dance! "

Mrs. Hauksbee raised her head.

"Is it all over? " she gasped. "I'm useless--I'm worse than useless! What
are you doing here? "

She stared at Mrs. Delville, and Mrs. Bent, realizing for the first time
who was the Goddess from the Machine, stared also.

Then Mrs. Delville made explanation, putting on a dirty long glove and
smoothing a crumpled and ill-fitting ball-dress.

"I was at the dance, an' the Doctor was tellin' me about your baby bein'
so ill. So I came away early, an' your door was open, an' I-I lost my
boy this way six months ago, an' I've been tryin' to forget it ever
since, an' I-I-I-am very sorry for intrudin' an' anythin' that has
happened. "

Mrs. Bent was putting out the Doctor's eye with a lamp as he stooped
over Dora.

"Take it away," said the Doctor. "I think the child will do, thanks to
you, Mrs. Delville. I should have come too late, but, I assure you"--he
was addressing himself to Mrs. Delville--"I had not the faintest reason
to expect this. The membrane must have grown like a mushroom. Will one
of you help me, please? "

He had reason for the last sentence. Mrs. Hauksbee had thrown herself
into Mrs. Delville's arms, where she was weeping bitterly, and Mrs. Bent
was unpicturesquely mixed up with both, while from the tangle came the
sound of many sobs and much promiscuous kissing.

"Good gracious! I've spoilt all your beautiful roses! " said Mrs.
Hauksbee, lifting her head from the lump of crushed gum and calico
atrocities on Mrs. Delville's shoulder and hurrying to the Doctor.

Mrs. Delville picked up her shawl, and slouched out of the room, mopping
her eyes with the glove that she had not put on.

"I always said she was more than a woman," sobbed Mrs. Hauksbee,
hysterically, "and that proves it! "

* * * * *

Six weeks later, Mrs. Bent and Dora had returned to the hotel. Mrs.
Hauksbee had come out of the Valley of Humiliation, had ceased to
reproach herself for her collapse in an hour of need, and was even
beginning to direct the affairs of the world as before.

"So nobody died, and everything went off as it should, and I kissed The
Dowd, Polly. I feel so old. Does it show in my face? "

"Kisses don't as a rule, do they? Of course you know what the result of
The Dowd's providential arrival has been. "

"They ought to build her a statue--only no sculptor dare copy those
skirts. "

"Ah! " said Mrs. Mallowe, quietly. "She has found another reward. The
Dancing Master has been smirking through Simla giving every one to
understand that she came because of her undying love for him--for
him--to save his child, and all Simla naturally believes this. "

"But Mrs. Bent"--

"Mrs. Bent believes it more than any one else. She won't speak to The
Dowd now. Isn't The Dancing Master an angel? "

Mrs. Hauksbee lifted up her voice and raged till bedtime. The doors of
the two rooms stood open.

"Polly," said a voice from the darkness, "what did that
American-heiress-globe-trotter-girl say last season when she was tipped
out of her 'rickshaw turning a corner? Some absurd adjective that made
the man who picked her up explode. "

"'Paltry,'" said Mrs. Mallowe. "Through her nose--like this--'Ha-ow
pahltry! '"

"Exactly," said the voice. "Ha-ow pahltry it all is! "

"Which? "

"Everything. Babies, Diphtheria, Mrs. Bent and The Dancing Master, I
whooping in a chair, and The Dowd dropping in from the clouds. I wonder
what the motive was--all the motives. "

"Um! "

"What do you think? "

"Don't ask me. She was a woman. Go to sleep. "

* * * * *




ONLY A SUBALTERN

. . . Not only to enforce by command but to encourage by
example the energetic discharge of duty and the steady
endurance of the difficulties and privations inseparable
from Military Service. --Bengal Army Regulations.

THEY made Bobby Wick pass an examination at Sandhurst. He was a
gentleman before he was gazetted, so, when the Empress announced that
"Gentleman-Cadet Robert Hanna Wick" was posted as Second Lieutenant to
the Tyneside Tail Twisters at Kram Bokhar, he became an officer and a
gentleman, which is an enviable thing; and there was joy in the house of
Wick where Mamma Wick and all the little Wicks fell upon their knees and
offered incense to Bobby by virtue of his achievements.

Papa Wick had been a Commissioner in his day, holding authority over
three millions of men in the Chota-Buldana Division, building great
works for the good of the land, and doing his best to make two blades
of grass grow where there was but one before. Of course, nobody knew
anything about this in the little English village where he was just "old
Mr. Wick" and had forgotten that he was a Companion of the Order of the
Star of India.

He patted Bobby on the shoulder and said: "Well done, my boy! "

There followed, while the uniform was being prepared, an interval of
pure delight, during which Bobby took brevet-rank as a "man" at the
women-swamped tennis-parties and tea-fights of the village, and, I dare
say, had his joining-time been extended, would have fallen in love with
several girls at once. Little country villages at Home are very full of
nice girls, because all the young men come out to India to make their
fortunes.

"India," said Papa Wick, "is the place. I've had thirty years of it and,
begad, I'd like to go back again. When you join the Tail Twisters you'll
be among friends, if every one hasn't forgotten Wick of Chota-Buldana,
and a lot of people will be kind to you for our sakes. The mother will
tell you more about outfit than I can, but remember this. Stick to your
Regiment, Bobby--stick to your Regiment. You'll see men all round you
going into the Staff Corps, and doing every possible sort of duty but
regimental, and you may be tempted to follow suit. Now so long as you
keep within your allowance, and I haven't stinted you there, stick to
the Line, the whole Line and nothing but the Line. Be careful how you
back another young fool's bill, and if you fall in love with a woman
twenty years older than yourself, don't tell me about it, that's all. "

With these counsels, and many others equally valuable, did Papa Wick
fortify Bobby ere that last awful night at Portsmouth when the Officers'
Quarters held more inmates than were provided for by the Regulations,
and the liberty-men of the ships fell foul of the drafts for India, and
the battle raged from the Dockyard Gates even to the slums of Longport,
while the drabs of Fratton came down and scratched the faces of the
Queen's Officers.

Bobby Wick, with an ugly bruise on his freckled nose, a sick and shaky
detachment to manoeuvre inship and the comfort of fifty scornful females
to attend to, had no time to feel homesick till the Malabar reached
mid-Channel, when he doubled his emotions with a little guard-visiting
and a great many other matters.

The Tail Twisters were a most particular Regiment. Those who knew them
least said that they were eaten up with "side. " But their reserve and
their internal arrangements generally were merely protective diplomacy.
Some five years before, the Colonel commanding had looked into the
fourteen fearless eyes of seven plump and juicy subalterns who had all
applied to enter the Staff Corps, and had asked them why the three
stars should he, a colonel of the Line, command a dashed nursery for
double-dashed bottle-suckers who put on condemned tin spurs and rode
qualified mokes at the hiatused heads of forsaken Black Regiments. He
was a rude man and a terrible. Wherefore the remnant took measures [with
the half-butt as an engine of public opinion] till the rumor went abroad
that young men who used the Tail Twisters as a crutch to the Staff
Corps, had many and varied trials to endure. However a regiment had just
as much right to its own secrets as a woman.
When Bobby came up from Deolali and took his place among the Tail
Twisters, it was gently But firmly borne in upon him that the Regiment
was his father and his mother and his indissolubly wedded wife, and
that there was no crime under the canopy of heaven blacker than that
of bringing shame on the Regiment, which was the best-shooting,
best-drilled, best-set-up, bravest, most illustrious, and in all
respects most desirable Regiment within the compass of the Seven Seas.
He was taught the legends of the Mess Plate from the great grinning
Golden Gods that had come out of the Summer Palace in Pekin to the
silver-mounted markhor-horn snuff-mull presented by the last C. 0. [he
who spake to the seven subalterns]. And every one of those legends told
him of battles fought at long odds, without fear as without support; of
hospitality catholic as an Arab's; of friendships deep as the sea and
steady as the fighting-line; of honor won by hard roads for honor's
sake; and of instant and unquestioning devotion to the Regiment--the
Regiment that claims the lives of all and lives forever.

More than once, too, he came officially into contact with the Regimental
colors, which looked like the lining of a bricklayer's hat on the end
of a chewed stick. Bobby did not kneel and worship them, because British
subalterns are not constructed in that manner. Indeed, he condemned them
for their weight at the very moment that they were filling with awe and
other more noble sentiments.

But best of all was the occasion when he moved with the Tail Twisters,
in review order at the breaking of a November day. Allowing for duty-men
and sick, the Regiment was one thousand and eighty strong, and Bobby
belonged to them; for was he not a Subaltern of the Line the whole Line
and nothing but the Line--as the tramp of two thousand one hundred and
sixty sturdy ammunition boots attested. He would not have changed places
with Deighton of the Horse Battery, whirling by in a pillar of cloud
to a chorus of "Strong right! Strong left! " or Hogan-Yale of the White
Hussars, leading his squadron for all it was worth, with the price of
horseshoes thrown in; or "Tick" Boileau, trying to live up to his fierce
blue and gold turban while the wasps of the Bengal Cavalry stretched
to a gallop in the wake of the long, lollopping Walers of the White
Hussars.

They fought through the clear cool day, and Bobby felt a little thrill
run down his spine when he heard the tinkle-tinkle-tinkle of the empty
cartridge-cases hopping from the breech-blocks after the roar of the
volleys; for he knew that he should live to hear that sound in action.
The review ended in a glorious chase across the plain--batteries
thundering after cavalry to the huge disgust of the White Hussars, and
the Tyneside Tail Twisters hunting a Sikh Regiment, till the lean lathy
Singhs panted with exhaustion. Bobby was dusty and dripping long before
noon, but his enthusiasm was merely focused--not diminished.

He returned to sit at the feet of Revere, his "skipper," that is to say,
the Captain of his Company, and to be instructed in the dark art and
mystery of managing men, which is a very large part of the Profession of
Arms.

"If you haven't a taste that way," said Revere, between his puffs of
his cheroot, "you'll never be able to get the hang of it, but remember
Bobby, 'tisn't the best drill, though drill is nearly everything, that
hauls a Regiment through Hell and out on the other side. It's the man
who knows how to handle men--goat-men, swine-men, dog-men, and so on. "

"Dormer, for instance," said Bobby. "I think he comes under the head of
fool-men. He mopes like a sick owl. "

"That's where you make your mistake, my son. Dormer isn't a fool yet,
but he's a dashed dirty soldier, and his room corporal makes fun of his
socks before kit-inspection. Dormer, being two-thirds pure brute, goes
into a corner and growls. "

"How do you know? " said Bobby, admiringly.

"Because a Company commander has to know these things--because, if he
does not know, he may have crime--ay, murder--brewing under his very
nose and yet not see that it's there. Dormer is being badgered out of
his mind--big as he is--and he hasn't intellect enough to resent it.
He's taken to quiet boozing and, Bobby, when the butt of a room goes on
the drink, or takes to moping by himself, measures are necessary to pull
him out of himself. "

"What measures? 'Man can't run round coddling his men forever. "

"No. The men would precious soon show him that he was not wanted.
You've got to"--Here the Color-sergeant entered with some papers; Bobby
reflected for a while as Revere looked through the Company forms.

"Does Dormer do anything, Sergeant? " Bobby asked, with the air of one
continuing an interrupted conversation.

"No, sir. Does 'is dooty like a hortomato," said the Sergeant, who
delighted in long words. "A dirty soldier, and 'e's under full stoppages
for new kit. It's covered with scales, sir. "

"Scales? What scales? "

"Fish-scales, sir. 'E's always pokin' in the mud by the river an'
a-cleanin' them muchly-fish with 'is thumbs. " Revere was still absorbed
in the Company papers, and the Sergeant, who was sternly fond of Bobby,
continued,--"'E generally goes down there when 'e's got 'is skinful,
beggin' your pardon, sir, an' they do say that the more lush
in-he-briated 'e is, the more fish 'e catches. They call 'im the Looney
Fish-monger in the Comp'ny, sir. "

Revere signed the last paper and the Sergeant retreated.

"It's a filthy amusement," sighed Bobby to himself. Then aloud to
Revere: "Are you really worried about Dormer? "

"A little. You see he's never mad enough to send to a hospital, or
drunk enough to run in, but at any minute he may flare up, brooding and
sulking as he does. He resents any interest being shown in him, and the
only time I took him out shooting he all but shot me by accident. "

"I fish," said Bobby, with a wry face. "I hire a country-boat and go
down the river from Thursday to Sunday, and the amiable Dormer goes with
me--if you can spare us both. "

"You blazing young fool! " said Revere, but his heart was full of much
more pleasant words.

Bobby, the Captain of a dhoni, with Private Dormer for mate, dropped
down the river on Thursday morning--the Private at the bow, the
Subaltern at the helm. The Private glared uneasily at the Subaltern, who
respected the reserve of the Private.

After six hours, Dormer paced to the stern, saluted, and said--"Beg
y'pardon, sir, but was you ever on the Durh'm Canal? "

"No," said Bobby Wick. "Come and have some tiffin. "

They ate in silence. As the evening fell, Private Dormer broke forth,
speaking to himself--"Hi was on the Durh'm Canal, jes' such a night,
come next week twelve month, a-trailin' of my toes in the water. " He
smoked and said no more till bedtime.

The witchery of the dawn turned the grey river-reaches to purple, gold,
and opal; and it was as though the lumbering dhoni crept across the
splendors of a new heaven.

Private Dormer popped his head out of his blanket and gazed at the glory
below and around.

"Well--damn-my-eyes! " said Private Dormer, in an awed whisper. "This
'ere is like a bloomin' gallantry-show! " For the rest of the day he was
dumb, but achieved an ensanguined filthiness through the cleaning of big
fish.

The boat returned on Saturday evening. Dormer had been struggling with
speech since noon. As the lines and luggage were being disembarked, he
found tongue.

"Beg y'pardon--sir," he said, "but would you--would you min' shakin'
'ands with me, sir? "

"Of course not," said Bobby, and he shook accordingly. Dormer returned
to barracks and Bobby to mess.

"He wanted a little quiet and some fishing, I think," said Bobby. "My
aunt, but he's a filthy sort of animal! Have you ever seen him clean
'them, muchly-fish with 'is thumbs'? "

"Anyhow," said Revere, three weeks later, "he's doing his best to keep
his things clean. "

When the spring died, Bobby joined in the general scramble for Hill
leave, and to his surprise and delight secured three months.

"As good a boy as I want," said Revere, the admiring skipper.

"The best of the batch," said the Adjutant to the Colonel. "Keep back
that young skrim-shanker Porkiss, sir, and let Revere make him sit up. "

So Bobby departed joyously to Simla Pahar with a tin box of gorgeous
raiment.

"Son of Wick--old Wick of Chota-Buldana? Ask him to dinner, dear," said
the aged men.

"What a nice boy! " said the matrons and the maids.

"First-class place, Simla. Oh, ri-ipping! " said Bobby Wick, and ordered
new white cord breeches on the strength of it.

"We're in a bad way," wrote Revere to Bobby at the end of two months.
"Since you left, the Regiment has taken to fever and is fairly rotten
with it--two hundred in hospital, about a hundred in cells--drinking to
keep off fever--and the Companies on parade fifteen file strong at the
outside. There's rather more sickness in the out-villages than I care
for, but then I'm so blistered with prickly-heat that I'm ready to hang
myself. What's the yarn about your mashing a Miss Haverley up there? Not
serious, I hope? You're over-young to hang millstones round your neck,
and the Colonel will turf you out of that in double-quick time if you
attempt it. "

It was not the Colonel that brought Bobby out of Simla, but a much more
to be respected Commandant. The sick ness in the out-villages spread,
the Bazar was put out of bounds, and then came the news that the
Tail Twisters must go into camp. The message flashed to the Hill
stations. --"Cholera--Leave stopped--Officers recalled. " Alas, for the
white gloves in the neatly soldered boxes, the rides and the dances and
picnics that were to he, the loves half spoken, and the debts unpaid!
Without demur and without question, fast as tongue could fly or pony
gallop, back to their Regiments and their Batteries, as though they were
hastening to their weddings, fled the subalterns.

Bobby received his orders on returning from a dance at Viceregal Lodge
where he had--but only the Haverley girl knows what Bobby had said or
how many waltzes he had claimed for the next ball. Six in the morning
saw Bobby at the Tonga Office in the drenching rain, the whirl of the
last waltz still in his ears, and an intoxication due neither to wine
nor waltzing in his brain.

"Good man! " shouted Deighton of the Horse Battery, through the mists.
"Whar you raise dat tonga? I'm coming with you. Ow! But I've had a head
and a half. I didn't sit out all night. They say the Battery's awful
bad," and he hummed dolorously--Leave the what at the what's-its-name,
Leave the flock without shelter, Leave the corpse uninterred, Leave the
bride at the altar!

"My faith! It'll be more bally corpse than bride, though, this journey. Jump
in, Bobby. Get on, Coachman! "

On the Umballa platform waited a detachment of officers discussing the
latest news from the stricken cantonment, and it was here that Bobby
learned the real condition of the Tail Twisters.

"They went into camp," said an elderly Major recalled from the
whist-tables at Mussoorie to a sickly Native Regiment, "they went into
camp with two hundred and ten sick in carts. Two hundred and ten fever
cases only, and the balance looking like so many ghosts with sore eyes.
A Madras Regiment could have walked through 'em. "

"But they were as fit as be-damned when I left them! " said Bobby.

"Then you'd better make them as fit as be-damned when you rejoin," said
the Major, brutally.

Bobby pressed his forehead against the rain-splashed windowpane as the
train lumbered across the sodden Doab, and prayed for the health of the
Tyneside Tail Twisters. Naini Tal had sent down her contingent with
all speed; the lathering ponies of the Dalhousie Road staggered into
Pathankot, taxed to the full stretch of their strength; while from
cloudy Darjiling the Calcutta Mail whirled up the last straggler of the
little army that was to fight a fight, in which was neither medal nor
honor for the winning, against an enemy none other than "the sickness
that destroyeth in the noonday. "

And as each man reported himself, he said: "This is a bad business,"
and went about his own forthwith, for every Regiment and Battery in the
cantonment was under canvas, the sickness bearing them company.

Bobby fought his way through the rain to the Tail Twisters' temporary
mess, and Revere could have fallen on the boy's neck for the joy of
seeing that ugly, wholesome phiz once more.

"Keep 'em amused and interested," said Revere. "They went on the drink,
poor fools, after the first two cases, and there was no improvement. Oh,
it's good to have you back, Bobby! Porkiss is a--never mind. "

Deighton came over from the Artillery camp to attend a dreary mess
dinner, and contributed to the general gloom by nearly weeping over the
condition of his beloved Battery. Porkiss so far forgot himself as to
insinuate that the presence of the officers could do no earthly good,
and that the best thing would be to send the entire Regiment into
hospital and "let the doctors look after them. " Porkiss was demoralized
with fear, nor was his peace of mind restored when Revere said coldly:
"Oh! The sooner you go out the better, if that's your way of thinking.
Any public school could send us fifty good men in your place, but it
takes time, time, Porkiss, and money, and a certain amount of trouble,
to make a Regiment. 'S'pose you're the person we go into camp for, eh? "

Whereupon Porkiss was overtaken with a great and chilly fear which a
drenching in the rain did not allay, and, two days later, quitted this
world for another where, men do fondly hope, allowances are made for the
weaknesses of the flesh. The Regimental Sergeant-Major looked wearily
across the Sergeants' Mess tent when the news was announced.

"There goes the worst of them," he said. "It'll take the best, and then,
please God, it'll stop. " The Sergeants were silent till one said: "It
couldn't be him! " and all knew of whom Travis was thinking.

Bobby Wick stormed through the tents of his Company, rallying,
rebuking mildly, as is consistent with the Regulations, chaffing the
faint-hearted: haling the sound into the watery sunlight when there
was a break in the weather, and bidding them be of good cheer for
their trouble was nearly at an end; scuttling on his dun pony round
the outskirts of the camp and heading back men who, with the innate
perversity of British soldier's, were always wandering into infected
villages, or drinking deeply from rain-flooded marshes; comforting the
panic-stricken with rude speech, and more than once tending the dying
who had no friends--the men without "townies"; organizing, with banjos
and burned cork, Sing-songs which should allow the talent of the
Regiment full play; and generally, as he explained, "playing the giddy
garden-goat all round. "

"You're worth half a dozen of us, Bobby," said Revere in a moment of
enthusiasm. "How the devil do you keep it up? "

Bobby made no answer, but had Revere looked into the breast-pocket of
his coat he might have seen there a sheaf of badly-written letters which
perhaps accounted for the power that possessed the boy. A letter came
to Bobby every other day. The spelling was not above reproach, but the
sentiments must have been most satisfactory, for on receipt Bobby's eyes
softened marvelously, and he was wont to fall into a tender abstraction
for a while ere, shaking his cropped head, he charged into his work.

By what power he drew after him the hearts of the roughest, and the
Tail Twisters counted in their ranks some rough diamonds indeed, was
a mystery to both skipper and C. O. , who learned from the regimental
chaplain that Bobby was considerably more in request in the hospital
tents than the Reverend John Emery.

"The men seem fond of you. Are you in the hospitals much? " said the
Colonel, who did his daily round and ordered the men to get well with a
hardness that did not cover his bitter grief.

"A little, sir," said Bobby.

"Shouldn't go there too often if I were you. They say it's not
contagious, but there's no use in running unnecessary risks. We can't
afford to have you down, y'know. "

Six days later, it was with the utmost difficulty that the post-runner
plashed his way out to the camp with mailbags, for the rain was falling
in torrents. Bobby received a letter, bore it off to his tent, and, the
programme for the next week's Sing-song being satisfactorily disposed
of, sat down to answer it. For an hour the unhandy pen toiled over the
paper, and where sentiment rose to more than normal tide-level Bobby
Wick stuck out his tongue and breathed heavily. He was not used to
letter-writing.

"Beg y'pardon, sir," said a voice at the tent door; "but Dormer's 'orrid
bad, sir, an' they've taken him orf, sir.

"Damn Private Dormer and you too! " said Bobby Wick running the blotter
over the half-finished letter. "Tell him I'll come in the morning. "

"'E's awful bad, sir," said the voice, hesitatingly. There was an
undecided squelching of heavy boots.

"Well? " said Bobby, impatiently.

"Excusin' 'imself before an' for takin' the liberty, 'e says it would be
a comfort for to assist 'im, sir, if"--

"Tattoo lao! Get my pony! Here, come in out of the rain till I'm ready.
What blasted nuisances you are! That's brandy. Drink some; you want it.
Hang on to my stirrup and tell me if I go mo fast. "

Strengthened by a four-finger "nip" which he swallowed without a wink,
the Hospital Orderly kept up with the slipping, mud-stained, and very
disgusted pony as it shambled to the hospital tent.

Private Dormer was certainly "'orrid bad. " He had all but reached the
stage of collapse and was not pleasant to look upon.

"What's this, Dormer? " said Bobby, bending over the man. "You're not
going out this time. You've got to come fishin' with me once or twice
more yet. "

The blue lips parted and in the ghost of a whisper said,--"Beg y'pardon,
sir, disturbin' of you now, but would you min' 'oldin' my 'and, sir? "

Bobby sat on the side of the bed, and the icy cold hand closed on his
own like a vice, forcing a lady's ring which was on the little finger
deep into the flesh. Bobby set his lips and waited, the water dripping
from the hem of his trousers. An hour passed and the grasp of the hand
did not relax, nor did the expression on the drawn face change. Bobby
with infinite craft lit himself a cheroot with the left hand--his right
arm was numbed to the elbow--and resigned himself to a night of pain.

Dawn showed a very white-faced Subaltern sitting on the side of a
sick man's cot, and a Doctor in the doorway using language unfit for
publication.

"Have you been here all night, you young ass? " said the Doctor.

"There or thereabouts," said Bobby, ruefully. "He's frozen on to me. "

Dormer's mouth shut with a click. He turned his head and sighed. The
clinging band opened, and Bobby's arm fell useless at his side.