No More Learning

I don't blame him for not sticking by me--I'm not much of a
man--but I do blame him for not sticking by the Pink Hussars.

Capt. G. (Uneasily. ) We were little more than boys then. Can't you see,
Jack, how things stand? 'Tisn't as if we were serving for our bread.
We've all of us, more or less, got the filthy lucre. I'm luckier than
some, perhaps. There's no call for me to serve on.

Capt. M. None in the world for you or for us, except the Regimental. If
you don't choose to answer to that, of course--

Capt. G. Don't be too hard on a man. You know that a lot of us only take
up the thing for a few years and then go back to Town and catch on with
the rest.

Capt. M. Not lots, and they aren't some of Us.

Capt. G. And then there are one's affairs at Home to be considered--my
place and the rents, and all that. I don't suppose my father can last
much longer, and that means the title, and so on.

Capt. M. 'Fraid you won't be entered in the Stud Book correctly unless
you go Home? Take six months, then, and come out in October. If I could
slay off a brother or two, I s'pose I should be a Marquis of sorts.
Any fool can be that; but it needs men, Gaddy--men like you--to lead
flanking squadrons properly. Don't you delude yourself into the belief
that you're going Home to take your place and prance about among
pink-nosed Kabuli dowagers. You aren't built that way. I know better.

Capt. G. A man has a right to live his life as happily as he can. You
aren't married.

Capt. M. No--praise be to Providence and the one or two women who have
had the good sense to jawab me.

Capt. G. Then you don't know what it is to go into your own room and see
your wife's head on the pillow, and when everything else is safe and the
house shut up for the night, to wonder whether the roof-beams won't give
and kill her.

Capt. M. (Aside. ) Revelations first and second! (Aloud. ) So-o! I knew
a man who got squiffy at our Mess once and confided to me that he never
helped his wife on to her horse without praying that she'd break her
neck before she came back. All husbands aren't alike, you see.

Capt. G. What on earth has that to do with my case? The man must ha'
been mad, or his wife as bad as they make 'em.

Capt. M. (Aside. ) 'No fault of yours if either weren't all you say.
You've forgotten the time when you were insane about the Herriott woman.
You always were a good hand at forgetting. (Aloud. ) Not more mad than
men who go to the other extreme. Be reasonable, Gaddy. Your roof-beams
are sound enough.

Capt. G. That was only a way of speaking. I've been uneasy and worried
about the Wife ever since that awful business three years ago--when--I
nearly lost her. Can you wonder?

Capt. M. Oh, a shell never falls twice in the same place. You've paid
your toll to misfortune--why should your Wife be picked out more than
anybody else's?

Capt. G. I can talk just as reasonably as you can, but you don't
understand--you don't understand. And then there's The Butcha. Deuce
knows where the Ayah takes him to sit in the evening! He has a bit of a
cough. Haven't you noticed it?

Capt. M. Bosh! The Brigadier's jumping out of his skin with pure
condition. He's got a muzzle like a rose-leaf and the chest of a
two-year-old. What's demoralized you?

Capt. G. Funk. That's the long and the short of it. Funk!

Capt. M. But what is there to funk?

Capt. G. Everything. It's ghastly.

Capt. M. Ah! I see. You don't want to fight, And by Jingo when we do,
You've got the kid, you've got the Wife,
You've got the money, too.
That's about the case, eh?

Capt. G. I suppose that's it. But it's not for myself. It's because of
them. At least I think it is.

Capt. M. Are you sure? Looking at the matter in a cold-blooded light,
the Wife is provided for even if you were wiped out tonight. She has
an ancestral home to go to, money and the Brigadier to carry on the
illustrious name.

Capt. G. Then it is for myself or because they are part of me. You don't
see it. My life's so good, so pleasant, as it is, that I want to make it
quite safe. Can't you understand?

Capt. M. Perfectly. "Shelter-pit for the Off'cer's charger," as they say
in the Line.

Capt. G. And I have everything to my hand to make it so. I'm sick of the
strain and the worry for their sakes out here; and there isn't a single
real difficulty to prevent my dropping it altogether. It'll only cost
me--Jack, I hope you'll never know the shame that I've been going
through for the past six months.

Capt. M. Hold on there! I don't wish to be told. Every man has his moods
and tenses sometimes.

Capt. G. (Laughing bitterly. ) Has he? What do you call craning over to
see where your near-fore lands?

Capt. M. In my case it means that I have been on the Considerable Bend,
and have come to parade with a Head and a Hand. It passes in three
strides.

Capt. G. (Lowering voice. ) It never passes with me, Jack. I'm always
thinking about it. Phil Gadsby funking a fall on parade! Sweet picture,
isn't it! Draw it for me.

Capt. M. (Gravely. ) Heaven forbid! A man like you can't be as bad as
that. A fall is no nice thing, but one never gives it a thought.

Capt. G. Doesn't one? Wait till you've got a wife and a youngster of
your own, and then you'll know how the roar of the squadron behind you
turns you cold all up the back.

Capt. M. (Aside. ) And this man led at Amdheran after Bagal Deasin went
under, and we were all mixed up together, and he came out of the snow
dripping like a butcher. (Aloud. ) Skittles! The men can always open out,
and you can always pick your way more or less. We haven't the dust to
bother us, as the men have, and whoever heard of a horse stepping on a
man?

Capt. G. Never--as long as he can see. But did they open out for poor
Errington?

Capt. M. Oh, this is childish!

Capt. G. I know it is, worse than that. I don't care. You've ridden
Van Loo. Is he the sort of brute to pick his way--'specially when we're
coming up in column of troop with any pace on?

Capt. M. Once in a Blue Moon do we gallop in column of troop, and then
only to save time. Aren't three lengths enough for you?

Capt. G. Yes--quite enough. They just allow for the full development of
the smash. I'm talking like a cur, I know: but I tell you that, for the
past three months, I've felt every hoof of the squadron in the small of
my back every time that I've led.

Capt. M. But, Gaddy, this is awful!

Capt. G. Isn't it lovely? Isn't it royal?
A Captain of the Pink Hussars
watering up his charger before parade like the blasted boozing Colonel
of a Black Regiment!

Capt. M. You never did!

Capt. G. Once only. He squelched like a mussuck, and the
Troop-Sergeant-Major cocked his eye at me. You know old Haffy's eye. I
was afraid to do it again.

Capt. M. I should think so. That was the best way to rupture old Van
Loo's tummy, and make him crumple you up. You knew that.

Capt. G. I didn't care. It took the edge off him.

Capt. M. "Took the edge off him"? Gaddy, you--you--you mustn't, you
know! Think of the men.

Capt. G. That's another thing I am afraid of. D'you s'pose they know?

Capt. M. Let's hope not; but they're deadly quick to spot skirm--little
things of that kind. See here, old man, send the Wife Home for the hot
weather and come to Kashmir with me. We'll start a boat on the Dal or
cross the Rhotang--shoot ibex or loaf--which you please. Only come!
You're a bit off your oats and you're talking nonsense. Look at the
Colonel--swag-bellied rascal that he is. He has a wife and no end of a
bow-window of his own. Can any one of us ride round him--chalkstones and
all? I can't, and I think I can shove a crock along a bit.

Capt. G. Some men are different. I haven't any nerve. Lord help me, I
haven't the nerve! I've taken up a hole and a half to get my knees well
under the wallets. I can't help it. I'm so afraid of anything happening
to me. On my soul, I ought to be broke in front of the squadron, for
cowardice.

Capt. M. Ugly word, that. I should never have the courage to own up.

Capt. G. I meant to lie about my reasons when I began, but--I've got out
of the habit of lying to you, old man. Jack, you won't? --But I know you
won't.

Capt. M. Of course not. (Half aloud. ) The Pinks are paying dearly for
their Pride.

Capt. G. Eh! Wha-at?

Capt. M. Don't you know? The men have called Mrs. Gadsby the Pride of
the Pink Hussars ever since she came to us.

Capt. G. 'Tisn't her fault. Don't think that. It's all mine.

Capt. M. What does she say?

Capt. G. I haven't exactly put it before her. She's the best little
woman in the world, Jack, and all that--but she wouldn't counsel a man
to stick to his calling if it came between him and her. At least, I
think--

Capt. M. Never mind. Don't tell her what you told me. Go on the Peerage
and Landed-Gentry tack.

Capt. G. She'd see through it. She's five times cleverer than I am.

Capt. M. (Aside. ) Then she'll accept the sacrifice and think a little
bit worse of him for the rest of her days.

Capt. G. (Absently. ) I say, do you despise me?

Capt. M. 'Queer way of putting it. Have you ever been asked that
question? Think a minute. What answer used you to give?

Capt. G. So bad as that? I'm not entitled to expect anything more, but
it's a bit hard when one's best friend turns round and--

Capt. M. So I have found. But you will have consolations--Bailiffs
and Drains and Liquid Manure and the Primrose League, and, perhaps,
if you're lucky, the Colonelcy of a Yeomanry Cav-al-ry Regiment--all
uniform and no riding, I believe. How old are you?

Capt. G. Thirty-three. I know it's--

Capt. M. At forty you'll be a fool of a J. P. landlord. At fifty you'll
own a bath-chair, and The Brigadier, if he takes after you, will be
fluttering the dovecotes of--what's the particular dunghill you're going
to? Also, Mrs. Gadsby will be fat.

Capt. G. (Limply. ) This is rather more than a joke.

Capt. M. D'you think so? Isn't cutting the Service a joke? It generally
takes a man fifty years to arrive at it. You're quite right, though. It
is more than a joke. You've managed it in thirty-three.

Capt. G. Don't make me feel worse than I do. Will it satisfy you if I
own that I am a shirker, a skrim-shanker, and a coward?

Capt. M. It will not, because I'm the only man in the world who can talk
to you like this without being knocked down. You mustn't take all that
I've said to heart in this way. I only spoke--a lot of it at least--out
of pure selfishness, because, because--Oh, damn it all, old man,--I
don't know what I shall do without you. Of course, you've got the money
and the place and all that--and there are two very good reasons why you
should take care of yourself.

Capt. G. 'Doesn't make it any sweeter. I'm backing out--I know I am. I
always had a soft drop in me somewhere--and I daren't risk any danger to
them.

Capt. M. Why in the world should you? You're bound to think of your
family--bound to think. Er--hmm. If I wasn't a younger son I'd go
too--be shot if I wouldn't!

Capt. G. Thank you, Jack. It's a kind lie, but it's the blackest you've
told for some time. I know what I'm doing, and I'm going into it with my
eyes open. Old man, I can't help it. What would you do if you were in my
place?

Capt. M. (Aside. ) 'Couldn't conceive any woman getting permanently
between me and the Regiment. (Aloud. ) 'Can't say. 'Very likely I should
do no better. I'm sorry for you--awf'ly sorry--but "if them's your
sentiments," I believe, I really do, that you are acting wisely.

Capt. G. Do you? I hope you do. (In a whisper. ) Jack, be very sure of
yourself before you marry. I'm an ungrateful ruffian to say this, but
marriage--even as good a marriage as mine has been--hampers a man's
work, it cripples his sword-arm, and oh, it plays Hell with his notions
of duty. Sometimes--good and sweet as she is--sometimes I could wish
that I had kept my freedom--No, I don't mean that exactly.

Mrs. G. (Coming down veranda. ) What are you wagging your head over, Pip?

Capt. M. (Turning quickly. ) Me, as usual. The old sermon. Your husband
is recommending me to get married. 'Never saw such a one-ideaed man.

Mrs. G. Well, why don't you? I dare say you would make some woman very
happy.

Capt. G. There's the Law and the Prophets, Jack. Never mind the
Regiment. Make a woman happy.