Читать книгу The Seed of Empire - Fred M. White - Страница 8

Table of Contents

It was a strange gathering. There was almost a touch of nightmare in it: it was like a fantasy of Stevenson's, a page from some modern Arabian Nights, and yet it seemed the most natural thing in the world. And when presently the motley gathering filed down the stairs, and turned in the semblance of a company into Kensington High-street nobody laughed, and a few people on the pavement stopped and cheered. Women waved their handkerchiefs, full of understanding, and indeed it did not need any vast intelligence to know that here were a handful of men anxious to do something for the flag. The man with the eyeglass disappeared for a moment into a shop and came back presently with his arms full of red, white, and blue ribbons, which he gravely handed out to the caddie squad, who as gravely put them in their caps. At the head of the procession walked the man with the eyeglass and his friend, together with Kemp and Bentley, as if they were doing the most natural thing in the world.

"By Gad, it's a sort of disease," the man with the eyeglass said. "Now, if anybody had asked me to do this a week ago, I wouldn't have said yes for a thousand pounds. And yet here am I at the head of all these chaps, and dashed proud of the chance. I tell you what, we'd better make a long march of this. If we'd only got a band, we'd gather the men by the hundred. A banner wouldn't be a bad wheeze!"

True enough, as the procession straggled along towards Blackfriars, where the headquarters of the Honourable Company of Fusiliers were situated, it was augmented by scores of other men who were merely waiting for a lead. There was something striking in the idea, a simplicity about it and a streak of humour that appealed to the crowd. And then one of the caddies with a natural tenor voice struck up some familiar song that carried them on jauntily till they came to Blackfriars Bridge. They had fed well, too, probably the best meal that any of them had ever tasted. It was fun of the wildest, maddest type of course, the fun that Tommy loves on the march or in the teeth of danger, but behind it all was a grimness of purpose and tenacity of grip that was not lost upon those who had the eye to see beyond the apparent madness of it.

"My word," Kemp exclaimed. "We're not the only pebbles on the beach. Why, the quadrangle's full of men."

It was even as the speaker said. Here was a big open barrack square with buildings all around, and it was packed with perspiring humanity, all eager and anxious to be doing something for the flag. They had come from all parts of London, knowing the reputation of the Musketeers, and all grasping the fact that through them lay the way swiftly and surely to the front. These were not the men who waited to be asked, not the men who required to be spurred on by platform appeals or to be bribed to do their country's work.

Here and there were men in uniform, a sergeant or two keeping the surging mob back, and inside one of the big whitewashed rooms half a dozen doctors in shirt-sleeves, hot and perspiring as they examined one recruit after another. At a sign from Kemp, Bentley and the other two men turned down a stone-flagged passage and entered a room where the captain in uniform was busy writing at a desk.

"Could you spare me five minutes, Crighton?" Kemp asked. "I've got three likely recruits for you, that is, of course, providing you've got any vacancies left. It must be in the first battalion. Now, do you happen to know what proportion of men have been rejected by the doctors this morning?"

"Well, a goodish few," the captain said. "And mostly old athletes, I am sorry to say. That's the worst of overdoing it. A man keeps himself in strict training by violent exercise; then he drops it, and his heart goes rocky. I can fix up your pals all right. Have you got any more?"

"Yes, one," Kemp said. "And a rare character he is in his way, too. But perhaps you may object to taking an ex-golf caddie? By the way, he has managed to get hold of over 70 recruits, and bring them down here this morning—"

"Oh, that sounds good," the captain said. "I shouldn't mind making room for one or two of that type. The fact is, we must make up a battalion to-day. If we do, we can get right away under canvas at Harrow to-morrow and start training. I've no doubt most of our chaps will get commissions, but that's a secondary consideration for the moment. I've had a tip from the War Office that if we can lick ourselves into shape, as we ought to do pretty quickly, we shall be in France by the beginning of September. Between ourselves, we've got over 50,000 men in France already. It's the smartest bit of work that the Transport Service ever handled. And it will be a nice little surprise for that Potsdam scoundrel when he runs up against us. But introduce me to your friends."

"Name of Allen," the man with the eyeglass drawled. "Winchester and Cambridge. Until yesterday, Stock Exchange. Now, nothing doing, or likely to be. This is my friend Garton. Also Winchester and Cambridge. Ditto Stock Exchange. One of the unemployed, and anxious to do his bit. And if you want a couple of good motor-cars they are at your disposal."

"Oh, you'll do," the captain said approvingly. "You're the type we want. I had a good few men round here yesterday, but too many after commissions. I suppose you know that you'll have to rough it unless you are on the same game."

The man with the eyeglass grew serious.

"Well, we ain't," he said, "Don't know that I'd have one even if you offered it me. Only last week I refused a chance of joining a shooting party in Perthshire because a man was going who always makes a point of tucking his table napkin under his chin. That's the sort of chap I was seven days ago. But the call is in my blood now, and something has wiped all the snobbishness out of me. I want to go and fight those German swine, and I'm not the only one of my kidney by the hundred thousand. In a month's time you can go all over England, and you won't find a single one of the nuts who isn't doing his duty. Yet a little time back, if anybody had asked me, I should have said that we'd all got a bit flabby. Well, it would have been a lie. I'm ready at the present moment to lie down on the bare ground with any man who can call himself an Englishman. I don't care a brass farthing whether he comes from Cambridge or the New Cut. We're all brothers in arms now, and one man's as good as another. Them's my sentiments, old cocky, and you can make the best of 'em. I suppose I shall have to salute you and call you 'sir' in an hour or two, so I'm just going to cheek you as long as I have the opportunity. It's all made of the right spirit."

The captain nodded approvingly.

"Oh, I quite understand," he said. "And your sentiments do you credit. I'll just take your names and see that you are shoved well forward, and then you must excuse me, for really I am tearingly busy. You may have to stand in that yard for hours before you pass the doctor, but I don't think that's going to discourage men of your stamp. You ought to get your uniforms by this evening, and I hope we shall be able to ask you to report to-morrow at Harrow. If you take my advice, you won't lose sight of Kemp, and he'll pull you through. And now I must wish you all good morning."

"Monty, my boy," Allen exclaimed, as he smote his companion on the back, "my prophetic soul tells me we are going to live. Hitherto, we have only existed. We are going to lie on the bare ground, instead of rose leaves; we are going to eat bully beef instead of Murray's famous suppers; but, by Gad, it is good to feel that life is keeping its best for us yet."