Читать книгу Valiant Dust - Percival Christopher Wren - Страница 15

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“Wonder where old Bomb is now,” mused Sailor Harris. “Old Tant de Soif was wrong, anyhow. ’E ain’t come back and ’e ain’t bin brought back, neither. Reckon ’e got away, Joe?”

“Might,” hazarded Joe Mummery.

“Lucky ’im,” continued Sailor Harris. “Wish I’d got my ole bike. I’d go after ’im.”

“Didn’t know you was a trick-bicyciclist ... I mean bicyclycist ... I mean ...” said William Bossum.

“You don’t mean nothing, and you mean that wrong.”

“What I mean is, you’d ’ave to be a trick one to ride it through that sand, wouldn’t you?”

“Ar.”

“And are you a trick-rider, Sailor ’Arris?”

“I thought I was once, Bill Bossum. I was, too. Bit of a trick, any’ow.”

“’Ow’s that?”

“Well. Ever seen a cyclin’-gent come out of a country pub wipin’ ’is mustosh and lookin’ up at the weather, all ’appy, just like a cat as ’as ’ad a saucer o’ cream, or a dog as ’as ’ad a bone, or a cyclin’-gent as ’as ’ad a pint o’ bitter.”

“Yus,” replied William Bossum. “I ’ave.”

“Well, that’s ’ow it ’appened.”

“’Ow what ’appened?”

“’Ow I became a trick-cyclist.”

“What yer talkin’ about?”

“This cyclist gent comin’ out o’ this nice wayside country inn, with his belly full o’ beer, and ’is ’eart full of ’appiness.”

“’Ow? ’Ow did ’e make you a trick-cyclist?”

“Why, just as ’e comes out I was tryin’ to mount a bike I wasn’t used to. Seein’ me in difficulties, ’e offers a ’elpin’ ’and.

“‘Can’t you get on, my man?’ ’e says.

“‘Yus, guvnor,’ I says, ’oppin’ along like the Devil. ‘That’s right. I can’t.’

“‘’Arf a mo’, then,’ he says. ‘’Old ’ard. I’ll give you a leg-up.’

“Likewise ’e does it. ’E ’olds the bike while I climbs on. Then gives it a little run and a shove, and off I goes like a bird, pedalling down the ’ill like a six-day track-racer.

“Once I’m on that bike, it’s a fair bit of all right, and I goes on for howers.”

“Well, that ain’t trick-ridin’, is it?” expostulated William Bossum.

“Well, no, and again, yus. Yus, because I was in a manner o’ speakin’, a trick cyclist, and no, because it wasn’t really trick-ridin’ although I’d never bin on the bicycle before, as it weren’t mine.”

“Oo’s was it, then?”

“The cyclist gent’s. ’Im as started me off on it.”

William Bossum raised an outsize Navy fist.

“I often wonder what the ole geezer said when ’e found ’e’d give me ’is bicycle,” murmured Sailor Harris.

William Bossum made to rise to his feet, but was pushed back by Joe Mummery.

“Listen, you two,” he said. “An idea’s just come to me, and I want to talk it over with you now, while Bob’s on sentry.

“You two willing to do something for him, along o’ me?”

“Anythink on God’s earth,” asseverated Sailor Harris.

“Anything you says, Joe,” declared William Bossum.

“That’s the talk. Now you know who Bob is, as well as what he is—Sir Otho Robert Mandeville-Bellême, formerly of Yelverbury Castle and ought, by rights, to be in the ’Ouse of Lords instead of the French Foreign Legion, and would of been if the Old Lord hadn’t drunk it and gambled it all away.”

“What, the ’Ouse o’ Lords?” inquired Sailor Harris.

“No, you fat-headed fool. Yelverbury Castle, I said, didn’t I?

“And you know what he is,” continued Joe. “One of the straightest fellows that ever lived, with no more frills than a hard-boiled egg, and the finest heavy-weight boxer in England, if not Europe and Africa.”

“And you trained ’im, Joe,” said William Bossum.

“Yes, till he beat me—points, thrashing, and knock-out—at the Albert Hall for Heavy-weight Champion of England. Besides which, and no harm in it,” continued Joe, “he’s got brains and learning, and went to Oxford College for his education like the Old Lord, though it wasn’t him that sent him there.”

“No, it was you, Joe,” observed William Bossum.

“Well, then, what’s a man like that doing on the lower deck? I mean, doing as a private soldier in this outfit? Isn’t he as good a man as Major Riccoli, mind, body, and soul?”

“Ar, and a damn’ sight better,” agreed William Bossum.

“All three,” added Sailor Harris, “’specially body. Beat him one hand, in one round, with one eye.”

“Well, then, what’s he doing in the ranks?”

“Why don’t ’e go for permotion?” asked William Bossum. “Vittorelli’d get ’im made Corp’ral to-morrow—if ’e’d come in with ’im.”

“Ho! Vittorelli been talking to you, too?”

“Not ’arf. An’ I took me dyin’ oath not to repeat nothin’ ’e said. So I’ll tell yer all about it.”

“No need. He said it all to me, too.”

“Me likewise,” added Sailor Harris.

Joe Mummery laughed.

“What’s he think we are?” he said.

“Dagoes—like ’imself,” grinned Sailor Harris.

“Well,” continued Joe. “It wasn’t Vittorelli I was thinking about. Bob don’t want Vittorelli’s help for promotion. He could get it, all right—if he was free. Yes, any amount of it, on his own merits—Corporal, Sergeant, Sergeant-Major, Adjudant, and then sent to their Military College to be trained for a Commission. Course he could, if he was free.”

“How d’you mean, Joe—‘if ’e was free’?” asked William Bossum.

“I mean if he hadn’t a bloomin’ great millstone hangin’ round his neck.”

“Millstone?”

“Ar ... Three of ’em.”

“What ...”

“Us three ...”

“’Ow’s that, Joe?”

“Because he wouldn’t leave us. He reckons that because we came to the Legion with him, and we’re his townies and pals, he can’t leave us. If he was made Corporal and Sergeant, he couldn’t only not kip with us any more but he couldn’t drink with us, walk with us, nor talk with us. He might have to crime us and punish us ... And, anyhow, he’d be transferred away from us. So we keep him down in this dog’s life when he could rise to be a non-com as easy as winkin’—and rise to be an officer, too. Decorated; promoted on the field; rise to command the Regiment; be a General. Why, all the best Generals in the French Army started in the Legion.”

“Cor!” murmured Sailor Harris. “But ’ow could we ’elp ’im, Joe?”

“Ar, that’s right. What could we do, Joe?” said William Bossum.

“What was you talking about just now, Harris?” asked Joe. “Trick-cyclin’,” he added. “Wished you’d got your old bike, didn’t you?”

“Ar!”

“What for?”

“Said I’d desert on it.”

“That’s it,” cried Joe. “That’s how we can help Bob. That’s how we can start him goin’ up the ladder.”

“Desertin’?” gasped Sailor Harris.

“’Ow?” asked William Bossum, puzzlement writ large upon his countenance. “What are you talkin’ about, Joe?”

“Why don’t you listen, you fat fool? I’m talking about deserting—so as to get young Bob up on the quarter-deck, or started up the ladder, anyway. Look. Bob won’t leave us. All right, we’ll leave him.”

“If you ses so, Joe.”

“I’ll go to Bob and say,

“‘Bob,’ I’ll say, ‘unless you put in for promotion, and get it, Bill Bossum and Sailor Harris and me—we’re all goin’ to desert,’ and I’ll explain to him why.”

“He won’t believe it of yer, Joe,” objected Sailor Harris.

“Then we’ll do it, see? I’ll go off first and stop away about four days; then come back dyin’ of thirst and take what’s comin’ to me. Then you’ve got to go, Bill. You can come back in about three days. Then Sailor Harris goes. He can stay a couple of days.

“Then we’ll say to young Bob,

“‘Next time, we don’t come back, none of us.’”

“But won’t they shoot us the first time?” asked William Bossum. “’Cos if so, we can’t go the second time.”

“How did you guess that? You got a brain all right, Bill. You’re quite right; if they shoot us the first time, we can’t desert a second time. Also, we shan’t be keepin’ young Bob back any more, shall we? But they won’t shoot us. We’ll plead cafard. Besides, you’ve got to be absent-without-leave for five days to be a deserter. And we won’t desert off sentry-post, either.”

“Suppose the Arabs gets us?” asked Sailor Harris.

“Well, you ought to know, mate. They got you once before, didn’t they? Besides, if the Arabs get us, we’re out of Bob’s way, as I said, and without being shot either.”

“Knifed instead, eh?” observed William Bossum.

“Tell you what, Joe,” he continued. “Couldn’t we all go together? I’m not raisin’ any objections to our playin’ at desertin’—takin’ a day or two’s leaf in the desert occasional-like—but it’d be more fun if we goes all together. Bloomin’ lonely out there all alone for three or four days.”

“Ar, that’s right,” agreed Sailor Harris. “Three’s company and one’s none.”

“Well, we’ll talk about that when the time comes,” replied Joe. “The thing is, will you help me get it into young Bob’s head that we really mean it, and that we’re going to desert if he doesn’t get promoted? Show him plain that if he don’t leave us, we’ll leave him?”

“Course we will,” agreed William Bossum. “Whatever you ses, Joe.”

“Ar, that’s right, Joe,” said Sailor Harris.

“But you wouldn’t really desert, Joe, would you?” asked William Bossum.

“No, Fat-head, course I wouldn’t. I don’t hold with desertin’ and if I did, I wouldn’t go off and leave young Bob here ... But we’ve got to make him think we would. We’ve got to actually do it—at least once.

“Yes—perhaps we’ll all go together,” he added.

But ... man proposes and Fate disposes.

Before Joe’s foolish plans for such drastic action were completed, Fate intervened.

He and his henchmen left Poste One—but in company with the remainder of the Section.

For, a day or two later, a sentry gave notice that a dust-cloud approached. And from it emerged the relief, a company of Senegalese sharp-shooters, of Major Riccoli’s column.