Читать книгу The Grey Wave - A. Hamilton Gibbs - Страница 12

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As soon as one had settled into the routine the days began to roll by with a monotony that was, had we only known it, the beginning of knowledge. Some genius has defined war as “months of intense boredom punctuated by moments of intense fear.” We had reached the first stage. It was when the day’s work was done that the devil stalked into one’s soul and began asking insidious questions. The work itself was hard, healthy, of real enjoyment. Shall I ever forget those golden autumn dawns when I rode out, a snorting horse under me, upon the swelling downs, the uplands touched by the rising sun; but in the hollows the feathery tops of trees poked up through the mist which lay in velvety clouds and everywhere a filigree of silver cobwebs, like strung seed pearls. It was with the spirit of crusaders that we galloped cross-country with slung lances, or charged in line upon an imaginary foe with yells that would demoralise him before our lance points should sink into his fat stomach. The good smells of earth and saddlery and horse flesh, the lance points winking in the sun, were all the outward signs of great romance and one took a deep breath of the keen air and thanked God to be in it. One charged dummies with sword and lance and hacked and stabbed them to bits. One leaped from one’s horse at the canter and lined a bank with rifles while the numbers three in each section galloped the horses to a flank under cover. One went over the brigade jumps in troop formation, taking pride in riding so that all horses jumped as one, a magnificent bit of team work that gave one a thrill.

It was on one of those early morning rides that Sailor earned undying fame. Remember that all of the work was done on empty stomachs before breakfast and that if we came back late, a frequent occurrence, we received only scraps and a curse from the cook. On the morning in question the sergeant-major ordered the whole troop to unbuckle their stirrup leathers and drop them on the ground. We did so.

“Now,” said he, “we’re going to do a brisk little cross-country follow-my-leader. I’m the leader and” (a slight pause with a flash from the steely eye), “God help the weak-backed, herring-gutted sons of —— who don’t perishin’ well line up when I give the order to halt. Half sections right! walk, march!”

We walked out of the barracks until we reached the edge of the downs and then followed such a ride as John Gilpin or the Baron Munchausen would have revelled in—perhaps. The sergeant-major’s horse could jump anything, and what it couldn’t jump it climbed over. It knew better than to refuse. We were indifferently mounted, some well, some badly. My own was a good speedy bay. The orders were to keep in half sections—two and two. For a straight half-mile we thundered across the level, drew rein slightly through a thick copse that lashed one’s face with pine branches and then dropped over a precipice twenty feet deep. That was where the half-section business went to pieces, especially when the horses clambered up the other side. We had no stirrups. It was a case of remaining in the saddle somehow. Had I been alone I would have ridden five miles to avoid the places the sergeant-major took us over, through, and under,—bramble hedges that tore one’s clothes and hands, ditches that one had to ride one’s horse at with both spurs, banks so steep that one almost expected the horse to come over backwards, spinneys where one had to lie down to avoid being swept off. At last, breathless, aching and exhausted, those of us who were left were halted and dismounted, while the sergeant-major, who hadn’t turned a hair, took note of who was missing.

Five unfortunates had not come in. The sergeant-major cast an eye towards the open country and remained ominously silent. After about a quarter of an hour the five were seen to emerge at a walk from behind a spinney. They came trotting up, an anxious expression on their faces, all except Sailor, who grinned from ear to ear. Instead of being allowed to fall in with us they were made to halt and dismount by themselves, facing us. The sergeant-major looked at them, slowly, with an infinite contempt, as they stood stiffly to attention. Then he began.

“Look at them!” he said to us. “Look at those five....” and so on in a stinging stream, beneath which their faces went white with anger.

As the sergeant-major drew breath, Sailor stepped forward. He was no longer grinning from ear to ear. His face might have been cut out of stone and he looked at the sergeant-major with a steady eye.

“That’s all right, Sergeant-Major,” he said. “We’re all that and a perishin’ lot more perhaps, but not you nor Jesus Christ is going to make me do a perishin’ ride like that and come back to perishin’ barracks and get no perishin’ breakfast and go on perishin’ parade again at nine with not a perishin’ thing in my perishin’ stomach.”

“What do you mean?” asked the sergeant-major.

“What I says,” said Sailor, standing to his guns while we, amazed, expected him to be slain before our eyes. “Not a perishin’ bit of breakfast do we get when we go back late.”

“Is that true?” The sergeant-major turned to us.

“Yes,” we said, “perishin’ true!”

“Mount!” ordered the sergeant-major without another word and we trotted straight back to barracks. By the time we’d watered, off-saddled and fed the horses we were as usual twenty minutes late for breakfast. But this morning the sergeant-major, with a face like a black cloud, marched us into the dining-hall and up to the cook’s table.

We waited, breathless with excitement. The cook was in the kitchen, a dirty fellow.

The sergeant-major slammed the table with his whip. The cook came, wiping a chewing mouth with the back of his hand.

“Breakfast for these men, quick,” said the sergeant-major.

“All gone, sir,” said the cook, “we can’t——”

The sergeant-major leaned over with his face an inch from the cook’s. “Don’t you perishin’ well answer me back,” he said, “or I’ll put you somewhere where the Almighty couldn’t get you out until I say so. Breakfast for these men, you fat, chewing swine, or I’ll come across the table and cut your tripes out with my riding whip and cook them for breakfast! Jump, you foul-feeder!” and down came the whip on the table like a pistol shot.

The cook swallowed his mouthful whole and retired, emerging presently with plenty of excellent breakfast and hot tea. We laughed.

“Now,” said the sergeant-major, “if you don’t get as good a breakfast as this to-morrow and every to-morrow, tell me, and I’ll drop this lying bastard into his own grease trap.”

Sailor got drunk that night. We paid.