Regimental legends

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Preface

Again, my gentle readers, I put before you a book of soldiers, emboldened to do so by the very kindly and gracious reception given to " Cavalry Life ;" and introducing to you these fair women and brave men, I may perhaps be allowed to say a word to the reviewers of my first book.

Some of these gentlemen pointed out to me — very good-naturedly, I must say, with two exceptions — that there had been other writers on soldiering before myself, and that it was no small piece of assumption on my part to declare myself the first and only writer of real soldiers as they live and have their being.

They were quite right — as my friend, whom I always consult, puts it : " It would have been a piece of confounded cheek on your part, Winter, my boy, if you had intended to convey any such impression." Such an impression I had, however, not the smallest intention of giving to my readers. When I wrote the introductory article to "Cavalry Life," I was thinking and speaking of a class of writers whosa number is large, whose soldier-heroes never could or vui PREFACE.

will exist on the face of this earth, and whose names are not Lever, nor Lockhart, nor Jephson, nor anyone else who can draw soldiers after their fashion.

Do then, my kind critics, accept my disclaimer, and give my new set of soldiers — you will find some old faces among them — as good characters as you gave my last. That they may have the good fortune to be of interest to all who make their acquaintance in these pages, is the earnest desire of their author.

Contents

PAGE

UNDER THE CROWN ; AN INCIDENT OF A RAILWAY JOURNEY . 1

OPEN TO THE GARRISON 109

CHAPTER I. ' I say, Dickson." " Yes, old chap ; what is it V

" Laurie's a good fellow, ain't he f with a great sigh.

" Yes, very. What are you sighing about ?" As he spoke, Dickson hauled himself up from the depths of a big chair of basket-work, and went over to the side of the couch, from which Eliot Cardella could not lift himself. "What's the matter?" he asked. "Are you feeling worse V

Dickson and Cardella, with Laurie and Gore, were sharing one of the largest bungalows in Khotah, and Cardella was slowly — very slowly — recovering from a severe attack of the much-dreaded Peshawur fever, to which he had fallen a victim on the march from Caubool, where the Cuirassiers had been quartered nearly a year, and whence they had but a few weeks before returned. There had been many and awful changes in the regiment : there were many blanks in the roll now — many familiar faces missing ; many had inherited a freehold " six feet by three " in the land of their enemies, and lay sleeping their last sleep as soundly under Afghan jasmine and orange-blossoms, as if under English turf and daisies. The Colonel — our old friend Creyke, with a real V.C. after his name now — had gone up to the Murree Hills, with an empty sleeve and a frame reduced by fever to the lowest state at which a man could still live ; several officers had gone home invalided, but of the four then living together, three had passed through the campaign unscathed, Cardella only heing so unfortunate as to catch fever at Peshawur, on the return march to India.

That Laurie ailed nothing, you could easily have believed, had you been in that huge shaded room, with its high white walls and ever-moving punkah, for he was smoking in the veranda at that moment, swaying himself idly to and fro in a big American rocking-chair and singing softly, with a mellow tenor voice, a poor little Christy melody, valueless as a musical composition and utterly worthless as a poem, yet a thing that had caught his fancy, perhaps because it reminded him of a pleasant Queen Anne house, buried among cherry and apple orchards, six thousand long weary miles away from where he was sitting.

" Way down upon de Swanee ribber,

Far, far away, Dere's wha my heart is turning ebbor,

Dere's wha de ole folks stay.

All up and down de whole creation

Sadly I roam, Still longing for de ole plantation,

And for de ole folks at home.

" All round de little farm I wander'd

When I was young, Den many happy days I squander'd,

Many de songs I sung, When I was playing wid my br udder,

Happy was I ; Oh, take me to my kind ole mudder,

Deie let me live and die."

" What's the matter ?" asked Dickson, who had not taken much notice of the singer or his song. " Why are you sighing like that, old fellow 1"

" I wish to heaven he wouldn't sing. I can't stand it," Eliot burst out fretfully.

" ' All de world am sad and weary,' " sang Laurie, very much con espressione, whereat Dickson strode out into the veranda and unceremoniously shook the rocking-chair and its occupant up— bringing Laurie back from his dreams of

THE COST OF A LIE. g

English cherry and apple orchards to a realization of things present and Indian.

" Stop that, old chap," said Dickson authoritatively.

""What the devil's up ?" Laurie asked, looking up at his comrade with astonished eyes.

" Cardella can't stand your yowling," Dickson answered. " I Avish you would try to remember there's a sick man within hearing — you know he's been coughing every bit of the night enough to tear him in two."

" I'm so sorry. I say, Cardella, old chap," going within the room and to the side of the couch, "I forgot all about you. You see, it's so jolly to find one's self out of that beastly Afghanistan, one can't help feeling rather cheerful ; and, you know, you never take any notice in a general way."

" No ; I know. I'm not homesick in a general way ; but oh, Lord, I'd give all I'm worth to find myself at the Castle this minute !" Then he added in a lower tone : "I begin to feel, though, as if I never shall find myself there again."

" Oh, come, come, Eliot, old man, this won't do !" Dickson put in, with rough kindness. " You've had a bad go of that beastly Peshawur fever, and you're seedy and clown in the mouth yet ; but you must not give in in this way. If you would only do as you are told, if you would only obey the orders Haines gives you, we should have you off the sickdist and up in the hills in a fortnight. But you know you won't, Cardella. You seem to think an empty sack will stand upright ; but it won't, and it's no use trying to make it.'

" Oh yes ; I know — Haines comes in with his great roaring, healthy voice that goes through my head like a knife, and he says nothing but eat, eat, eat, till I'd like to choke him with his own prescription," Cardella answered irritably, and moving his aching head restlessly from side to side. " Nothing but eat, eat, cat ! The ass might as well tell me not to cough !"

" Well now, look here, Eliot," Dickson said persuasively. " Here's a note and some jelly from Mrs. Hey. She's made io REGIMENTAL LEGENDS

it herself, because she knows you don't fancy the native cooking. Ton my soul, I didn't think there was so much goodness in the woman ! If she hadn't had a downright good heart of her own, she'd have pretended she hadn't the least idea how jelly was made. Just look at it ! I did not disturb you before, because I thought you were asleep."

As he spoke he brought for Cardella's inspection a deep dish, wherein lay, reposing amongst lumps of ice, a heap of golden jelly, tempting enough to entice the poorest and most capricious appetite.

" Eat it yourself," said Cardella wretchedly.

" Stuff and nonsense ! you have to do that," Dickson answered. "I know you don't want it, but you've got to eat it. Eemember, a lady made it for you, even if she is only a Quartermaster's wife, and may have been a cook to start with. All the luckier for you if she was, you ungrateful beggar !"

" I am not ungrateful, Dickson," returned Cardella, with dignified fretfulness. " It's devilish good of the little woman. Go this evening and tell her so ; but eat the stuff I can't, and that's the long and the short of it."

However, by dint of much persuasion, coaxing, bullying and arguing, Dickson and Laurie between them did manage to induce their patient to swallow a few bits of Mrs. Hey's jelly; and presently, when the heat of the day had gone off and Dickson had taken him for a drive, Laurie got on his pony and went round to the Quartermaster's bungalow to thank Mrs. Hey for her kindness and the trouble she had taken.

" Yes, he has eaten some twice," he told her. "But he seems to have an utter distaste for food of any kind — can't swallow anything solid, and Haines won't let him have as many iced pegs as he would like. And then, poor chap, he not 'jiily coughs all night, but he's in miserable spirits and wretchedly homesick."

" Poor fellow," murmured the Quartermaster's little wife pityingly, " I don't wonder at it. For my part, you may

THE COST OF A LIE. u

take the delights of living in India. Mrs. Newccmbe used to rave about it as if it was a kind of paradise. She may think it very fine to have a dozen partners for every dance — men that wouldn't look at you at home — when you haven't energy to take two turns. I can't abide the nasty hole — nasty black servants sneaking about with their nasty bare feet. I'm sure I can't fancy eating anything they've touched with their nasty black fingers. In fact, I daren't go into the hole the cook calls his kitchen, or I should never eat aught he cooked again. In this country it's best to live on the principle of what the eye never sees the heart never grieves for. And she used to prate about the fruits — well, I know I'd rather have a pennyworth of the commonest pears out of Blankhampton market than all the fruits I've seen in India yet."

"Yes, you're right, Mrs. Hey," Laurie answered, laughing. " It's a beastly hole, no mistake about it ; all the same, it's a perfect paradise compared with Afghanistan."

" So Joe says — he calls that a place where there's more reason to cry or swear than anything else. Must you go V as Laurie rose. " Your ride ! Well, we were going for a drive ourselves, so I'll not press you to stay. Good-night, and tell Mr. Cardella I hope he'll soon pull round."

'• Yes, I'll tell him," Laurie called out, as he rode off. " Good-night."

Meantime Dickson and Cardella were returning from their drive, and Dickson was saying, " You're better, Eliot, ever so much ; we've driven twice as fast as we did last week."

" Yes, I shall pull through, I dare say," he answered indifferently.

" I can't tell what's come to you lately," his friend went on. " Independently of this fever, you're very much altered."

" Men do alter," said Cardella briefly.

" You're not hankering after that girl at Blankhampton?" looking down at him searchingly.

Cardella burst into a laugh — a laugh that was very scornful, though it was so weak and ended in a paroxysm of coughing. He made no other reply, and Dickson asked no further questions ; yet he knew, as well as if Eliot C'ardella had told him so, that he had left his heart behind him in England, and had not brought one away with him in exchange for it.

Later in the evening, he sat alone in the veranda, puffing at a gigantic meerschaum, and wondering — wondering chiefly why women-folks should be so utterly inexplicable. There was Cardella, as handsome and as winning a fellow as might be found in a day's march — the son of an earl, with plenty of money, and not yet thirty years old. It seemed beyond all reason that any woman should have refused him, or, supposing matters not to have gone so far as that, have passed him by for another. He did not wonder that Polly Antrobus — " that girl at Blankhampton " — had loosened her hold of him to fly at higher game which seemed to be within her grasp ; she had been influenced by vanity, ambition, and the counsels of her grasping worldly minded parents ; Eliot had been regularly let in in the first place, and in their turn the biters had been bitten. All that was simple enough ; but this — this entire change of the man's whole nature — this terrible home-sickness, coupled with a refusal to accept home-leave, did puzzle Dickson tremendously.

" Always a woman at the bottom of it all," he muttered to the meerschaum.

And then his thoughts flew back to that dead and gone romance of his own, when he had hoped to cut the army altogether, and retire into private life in a country-house, the mistress of which should be tall and fair and stately — - the mistress of which should be Nell Vansittart, who had refused him for the sake of a man who had jilted her.

How wretched he had been ! He stretched his long legs out, with a feeling of comfortable triumph that he could never be so entirely wretched again — no, not even if fifty Nell Vansittarts should say him nay. The old love was quite dead and gone — it could never rise up to trouble him flny more, yet how utterly wretched he had been ; he remembered, with microscopic distinctness, the exact state of his feelings during the first weeks of his disappointment — how Gore had very nearly driven him mad by what he called his " song."

" Oh, my Jem — Jemima,

She's left her loving Sa — am, And gone to be a Mormonite In New Jer — u — sa — lam !"

Gore was at it yet. After five years the fellows had not grown weary of hearing, nor he of singing it. He just mounted a chair now, as he had done any time the last ten years, and see-sawed his arms up and down in the " fearless old fashion," like a windmill suddenly gone crazy or drunk. He had heard him sing it on board the Jumna ; he had heard him sing it in the railway carriage on the road to Unapore; he had heard it at Simla — in the classic precincts of the Khyber Pass — among the roses and jasmine blooms of the Ahmeer's garden at Jellalabad — in the Bala Hissar itself.

"I shouldn't wonder if he isn't singing it down at the mess at this moment," Dickson said to himself, with a contemptuous laugh.

Then his thoughts went back to Eliot Cardella. He couldn't help wondering what it was that had changed him so awfully. The regiment had been out three years. Long and Laurie had been left with the depot ; then Martin and Cardella had taken it. After rather more than a year's absence, he had returned to his regiment as a captain, and they had been ordered to Afghanistan almost immediately, where they remained nearly a year ; he had noticed the change in Cardella at once.

" Whatever it was, it took place whilst he was with the depot. Poor chap, he's had it bad ; / got over it entirely in less than three months."

Then his attention was diverted, for Laurie came out into the veianda and settled himself in a big chair near Dickson.

" Cardella's off to sleep at last," he announced ; " his bearer has just told me."

" That's good, if the cough don't awake him, poor chap. I say, Laurie."

" Ye — es," said Laurie, holding his pipe between his teeth, and striking a fusee.

" What sort of people are there at Canterbury 1"

" What sort of people V Laurie repeated, turning hk head to peer at his friend through the darkness. " What sort of people 1 Oh, the usual ruck — Church dignitaries and army-fellows, and — and — a few women, of course."

" What sort of women ?"

" Hey V peering through the darkness again, and speaking in a sharp but puzzled tone.

" Any women a man would be likely to fall in love with 1" Dickson continued, by way of explanation,

" Why, are you thinking of asking for the dep6t '?"

" Not I. You forget I shall most likely get the majority of the White Dragoons."

" Oh yes ; so they say. Well, what do you want to know about the Canterbury women 1 I tell you there was the usual ruck — the De Courcy-Joneses, the Kensington-Smiths, the Parkinson-Browns, and — and — there was Miss Ross."

" And what was Miss Ross like ?" Dickson asked.

" Miss Ross ! Oh, she was a brunette."

" Good style 1"

" Oh, devilish !"

" Any money ? Was she a lady ?"

" Not a penny. I believe her father had been in the army — in fact, I'm sure of it. By Jove, but she was a beauty !" sending a great sigh of regret out into the night air along with the tobacco smoke. " In fact, Dickson, if I hadn't been such a miserably poor devil as I am, I believe I should have asked Miss Ross to marry me."

" Ah, I see," said Dickson comprehensh Ely ; while to 1 himself he said, " That's the woman •" and then he asked, " Why on earth did she refuse Eliot ?"

Chapter II

It was winter — an Indian one, of course ; yet nearly as pleasant to the burnt-up Cuirassiers as the same season in England — weather so deliciously cool that they could wear their ordinary English clothes, needed fires at morn and even-time, and used fur-rugs on their beds just as they had been accustomed to do in their mother-country.

Laurie and Cardella were by themselves at their bungalow, Dickson and Gore being both on leave : Dickson on short leave, owing to a sprained foot ; Gore indefinitely, with an affection of the liver, brought on, Dickson declared, by persistent see-sawing up and down of his arms, which, as I have said, was his idea of accompaniment to his solitary song.

Cardella had had a long leave, spent among the gaieties of Simla, where he had given up sighing and had taken to safe flirtation, and very sincerely repented himself of his foolishness in refusing the home-leave which had been offered to him at the close of his service in Afghanistan. In health he was much improved, having almost got rid of the Peshawur fever, which only returned now and again in mild attacks when he happened to get in the way of a chill.

The European mails were just in, so Laurie and Cardella had been occupied all day, each having had a goodly budget of letters and newspapers, which had kept them amused from noon till dinner-time. Then they had gone to mess, and now were lounging in front of an immense fire of sweetsmelling wood, smoking, while they discussed the home news.

" Fancy, Snipes married !" said Laurie, with a laugh, naming the officer then in command of the depdt. " Just fancy old Snipes getting married !"

" No, I cannot fancy Snipes married," returned Cardella solemnly. " I'll be hanged if I can. Poor old chap ! I wonder if he's converted her to spiritualism yet V

"Not he; he's married her under the impression she's a medium of the first water. Take my word for it, Jakey Smith didn't need any conversion ; she'd go in for the whole spiritualistic humbug hot and strong, as soon as ever she heard Snipes was touched in that quarter. She tried excessive horsiness on me. Did you ever see Jakey on horseback V

"No," laughing at Laurie's manner. "What was the effect ?"

"The effect? — well, it was odd — very odd, You see, Jakey had rather a pretty sort of face, but no shape to speak of — had a kind of idea, I fancy, from the way she showed it, that her tailor could make her one. Now, between you and me, a powder-box and a dash of paint will go a long way towards making a pretty face, particularly when there's a veil over it ; but as for a made-up shape — Lord ! it's very seldom a tailor manages to make it look ' natteral ;' and when he does, it's just an achievement he ought to be horsewhipped for accomplishing."

" And Jakey Smith — oh ! I beg her pardon, Ken-sing-ton- Smith, with three hyphens to make sure of it, eh 1" Cardella laughed.

" Yes. Well, you see Jakey had one of that sort of shapes that stick out on the wrong side of her, as if her head wanted turning round and putting on the other way. Well, her tailor, not being used to such a delicate operation, tried to remedy it by putting plenty of cotton-wool on the flat side, and Jakey supplemented his efforts by stuffing in plenty of pocket-handkerchiefs. Naturally the effect was a curve on both sides, and the tout ensemble certainly was funny — seen on horseback"

" I should think so," with a great laugh at the description.

"What dodge did she try on with you?" Laurie continued.

" With me?— nothing."

"Nothing— by George ! but you don't mean to say the celebrated Jakey didn't have so much as a shot at you V

" Why, she did rather hint at being so awfully fond of horses," Cardella answered ; " but I didn't think she meant riding mine. You see I'd never seen her on horseback, so it didn't occur to me."

"It Avouldn't, naturally," Laurie replied. "Did you ever see Miss Ross on horseback ? Did you know her ?"

" Yes, I knew her."

" Pretty girl," Laurie went on. " Very pretty girl, wasn't she ?"

" Awfully handsome," with a sigh.

"Different to all the Browns and Smiths and Joneses, eh ?"

Cardella laughed, and Laurie continued :

"Ah, if I'd been a rich fellow — which I'm not — I rather think I should have gone in for Miss Ross. I don't suppose she'd have had me, though."

" I am sure she would," said Cardella steadily.

" The devil you are — what makes you think so V

" She as good as told me so."

" Th — e devil she did !" He was so thoroughly surprised that his vocabulary all at once grew limited. " Are you sure, Cardella?"

" Quite sure," Cardella answered quietly.

"Well, upon my word, you never know what women will or won't be up to next. One thing's very certain, they're the queerest beggars out," Laurie remarked, his astonishment in nowise lessened.

A pang of pain shot through Cardella's heart. It did seem hard that the girl he loved should have preferred before him such a man as Laurie, who, right good fellow that he was, had neither reverence nor chivalry in his composition — it made him positively sick to hear her classed with all her sex in a lump, as " the queerest beggars out."

" I should have thought you were much more likely to take her fancy than an ordinary-looking chap like me," Laurie went on, in very heart-whole tones. " I should think if you had put the question to her plump, 6he'd have given my memory the go-by quickly enough."

" So I did."

" You did ? Lord bless me ! I wouldn't have believed it from anyone but yourself. Cardella, are you quite sure V

"I'm quite sure, Laurie."

" But what the devil did she see in me 1 I never made love to her in my life. I might have been engaged to a dozen women for anything she knew to the contrary. As a matter of fact, I kept out of it, for I knew I should probably never be able to marry a wife who couldn't bring some money with her ; and as Miss Ross was as poor as myself, I thought it best and safest in the long-run to keep on the right side of the hedge. But, I say, Cardella, how do you know she was thinking of me ?"

" I tell you she as good as told me so."

"It's most extraordinary — 'pon my soul, it is," Laurie went on, in greater astonishment than ever. " What could she have been thinking of, a poor devil like me, without a sixpence to bless himself with ! Well, if ever I come in for a fortune, I must go and ask Miss Eoss to share it, but I'm afraid the contingency is a very remote one."

" More unlikely things have come about," said Cardella absently.

" Oh yes, quite so. I have a fabulously rich godfather knocking about somewhere or other. He never did anything for me yet, not so much as a mug ; but Heaven only knows what freaks he may not take into his head. I dare say, though, by the time he has left me a fortune, Miss Boss will be transformed into Mrs. Somebody or other, and will have forgotten I ever existed. I wish she had taken you, though perhaps your people mightn't have liked it. Did your brother see her ?"

"Yes, he did."

" Did he admire her 1"

" Oh, immensely," laughing at the remembrance of it. " In fact, I thought it was all right till he turned up ; and then, just as I thought he was going to cut me out, as he did with Polly Antrobus, all this about you came to light."

"And how did it come to light V

" Well, the fact "was, I began to think Cardella was getting serious, so I asked her flat out if she'd have me. And she told me honestly she'd given her heart away. I asked if she was engaged, and she said ' No.' And then I asked her if it was anyone I knew, and she said 'Yes.' And I guessed you directly, because I kneAV there was no one else likely. She blushed awfully, and didn't say anything ; but the last time I saw her, before we left Canterbury, she said, ' Take care of Mr. Laurie ;' and I told her I would if I could."

" Bless my soul !" ejaculated Laurie, who didn't believe a word of it, and imagined his friend was solemnly taking a rise out of him, or that Miss Ross was doing the same to Eliot Cardella.

Believe it — not he. "Depend upon it," he said to himself, after he had turned into bed that night, "the little devil's up to worse mischief— got a bigger fish to land, Lost her heart to me — a very likely story ! Got a bigger fish to laud, so put Cardella off with that humbugging tale ; unless, indeed, Cardella made it up as he went on. And yet it told like truth, and I shouldn't wonder if she did tell him so. All the same, I don't believe a word of her losing her heart in my direction ; I'd not believe it if she swore it. And I doubt very much if Cardella really proposed, and I have no doubt whatever about her refusing him. 'Tisn't in reason ; why, she'd simply have jumped at him."