Life's Handicap Part 35

'Be easy with him,' put in Egan from the next cot. 'He has got his chanst o' goin' clean. Listen, Mulcahy; all we want is for the good sake of the regiment that you take your death standing up, as a man shud.

There be heaps an' heaps of enemy--plenshus heaps. Go there an' do all you can and die decent. You'll die with a good name THERE. 'Tis not a hard thing considerin'.'

Again Mulcahy s.h.i.+vered.

'An' how could a man wish to die better than fightin'?' added Dan consolingly.

'And if I won't?' said the corporal in a dry whisper.

'There'll be a dale of smoke,' returned Dan, sitting up and ticking off the situation on his fingers, 'sure to be, an' the noise of the firin'

'll be tremenjus, an' we'll be running about up and down, the regiment will. But WE, Horse and I--we'll stay by you, Mulcahy, and never let you go. Maybe there'll be an accident.'

'It's playing it low on me. Let me go. For pity's sake let me go. I never did you harm, and--and I stood you as much beer as I could. Oh, don't be hard on me, Dan! You are--you were in it too. You won't kill me up there, will you?'

'I'm not thinkin' of the treason; though you shud be glad any honest boys drank with you. It's for the regiment. We can't have the shame o'

you bringin' shame on us. You went to the doctor quiet as a sick cat to get and stay behind an' live with the women at the depot--you that wanted us to run to the sea in wolf-packs like the rebels none of your black blood dared to be! But WE knew about your goin' to the doctor, for he told in mess, and it's all over the regiment. Bein', as we are, your best friends, we didn't allow any one to molest you YET. We will see to you ourselves. Fight which you will--us or the enemy--you'll never lie in that cot again, and there's more glory and maybe less kicks from fightin' the enemy. That's fair speakin'.'

'And he told us by word of mouth to go and join with the n.i.g.g.e.rs--you've forgotten that, Dan,' said Horse Egan, to justify sentence.

'What's the use of plaguin' the man? One shot pays for all. Sleep ye sound, Mulcahy. But you onderstand, do ye not?'

Mulcahy for some weeks understood very little of anything at all save that ever at his elbow, in camp, or at parade, stood two big men with soft voices adjuring him to commit hari-kari lest a worse thing should happen--to die for the honour of the regiment in decency among the nearest knives. But Mulcahy dreaded death. He remembered certain things that priests had said in his infancy, and his mother--not the one at New York--starting from her sleep with shrieks to pray for a husband's soul in torment. It is well to be of a cultured intelligence, but in time of trouble the weak human mind returns to the creed it sucked in at the breast, and if that creed be not a pretty one trouble follows. Also, the death he would have to face would be physically painful. Most conspirators have large imaginations. Mulcahy could see himself, as he lay on the earth in the night, dying by various causes. They were all horrible; the mother in New York was very far away, and the Regiment, the engine that, once you fall in its grip, moves you forward whether you will or won't, was daily coming closer to the enemy!

They were brought to the field of Marzun-Katai, and with the Black Boneens to aid, they fought a fight that has never been set down in the newspapers. In response, many believe, to the fervent prayers of Father Dennis, the enemy not only elected to fight in the open, but made a beautiful fight, as many weeping Irish mothers knew later. They gathered behind walls or flickered across the open in shouting ma.s.ses, and were pot-valiant in artillery. It was expedient to hold a large reserve and wait for the psychological moment that was being prepared by the shrieking shrapnel. Therefore the Mavericks lay down in open order on the brow of a hill to watch the play till their call should come.

Father Dennis, whose duty was in the rear, to smooth the trouble of the wounded, had naturally managed to make his way to the foremost of his boys and lay like a black porpoise, at length on the gra.s.s. To him crawled Mulcahy, ashen-gray, demanding absolution.

'Wait till you're shot,' said Father Dennis sweetly. 'There's a time for everything.'

Dan Grady chuckled as he blew for the fiftieth time into the breech of his speckless rifle. Mulcahy groaned and buried his head in his arms till a stray shot spoke like a snipe immediately above his head, and a general heave and tremour rippled the line. Other shots followed and a few took effect, as a shriek or a grunt attested. The officers, who had been lying down with the men, rose and began to walk steadily up and down the front of their companies.

This manoeuvre, executed, not for publication, but as a guarantee of good faith, to soothe men, demands nerve. You must not hurry, you must not look nervous, though you know that you are a mark for every rifle within extreme range, and above all if you are smitten you must make as little noise as possible and roll inwards through the files. It is at this hour, when the breeze brings the first salt whiff of the powder to noses rather cold at the tip, and the eye can quietly take in the appearance of each red casualty, that the strain on the nerves is strongest. Scotch regiments can endure for half a day and abate no whit of their zeal at the end; English regiments sometimes sulk under punishment, while the Irish, like the French, are apt to run forward by ones and twos, which is just as bad as running back. The truly wise commandant of highly strung troops allows them, in seasons of waiting, to hear the sound of their own voices uplifted in song. There is a legend of an English regiment that lay by its arms under fire chaunting 'Sam Hall,' to the horror of its newly appointed and pious colonel. The Black Boneens, who were suffering more than the Mavericks, on a hill half a mile away, began presently to explain to all who cared to listen--

We'll sound the jubilee, from the centre to the sea, And Ireland shall be free, says the Shan-van Vogh.

'Sing, boys,' said Father Dennis softly. 'It looks as if we cared for their Afghan peas.'

Dan Grady raised himself to his knees and opened his mouth in a song imparted to him, as to most of his comrades, in the strictest confidence by Mulcahy---the Mulcahy then lying limp and fainting on the gra.s.s, the chill fear of death upon him.

Company after company caught up the words which, the I. A. A. say, are to herald the general rising of Erin, and to breathe which, except to those duly appointed to hear, is death. Wherefore they are printed in this place.

The Saxon in Heaven's just balance is weighed, His doom like Belshazzar's in death has been cast, And the hand of the venger shall never be stayed Till his race, faith, and speech are a dream of the past.

They were heart-filling lines and they ran with a swirl; the I. A. A.

are better served by their pens than their petards. Dan clapped Mulcahy merrily on the back, asking him to sing up. The officers lay down again.

There was no need to walk any more. Their men were soothing themselves thunderously, thus--

St. Mary in Heaven has written the vow That the land shall not rest till the heretic blood, From the babe at the breast to the hand at the plough, Has rolled to the ocean like Shannon in flood!

'I'll speak to you after all's over,' said Father Dennis authoritatively in Dan's ear. 'What's the use of confessing to me when you do this foolishness? Dan, you've been playing with fire! I'll lay you more penance in a week than--'

'Come along to Purgatory with us, Father dear. The Boneens are on the move; they'll let us go now!'

The regiment rose to the blast of the bugle as one man; but one man there was who rose more swiftly than all the others, for half an inch of bayonet was in the fleshy part of his leg.

'You've got to do it,' said Dan grimly. 'Do it decent, anyhow;' and the roar of the rush drowned his words, for the rear companies thrust forward the first, still singing as they swung down the slope---

From the child at the breast to the hand at the plough Shall roll to the ocean like Shannon in flood!

They should have sung it in the face of England, not of the Afghans, whom, it impressed as much as did the wild Irish yell.

'They came down singing,' said the unofficial report of the enemy, borne from village to village the next day. 'They continued to sing, and it was written that our men could not abide when they came. It is believed that there was magic in the aforesaid song.'

Dan and Horse Egan kept themselves in the neighbourhood of Mulcahy.

Twice the man would have bolted back in the confusion. Twice he was heaved, kicked, and shouldered back again into the unpaintable inferno of a hotly contested charge.

At the end, the panic excess of his fear drove him into madness beyond all human courage. His eyes staring at nothing, his mouth open and frothing, and breathing as one in a cold bath, he went forward demented, while Dan toiled after him. The charge checked at a high mud wall. It was Mulcahy who scrambled up tooth and nail and hurled down among the bayonets the amazed Afghan who barred his way. It was Mulcahy, keeping to the straight line of the rabid dog, who led a collection of ardent souls at a newly unmasked battery and flung himself on the muzzle of a gun as his companions danced among the gunners. It was Mulcahy who ran wildly on from that battery into the open plain, where the enemy were retiring in sullen groups. His hands were empty, he had lost helmet and belt, and he was bleeding from a wound in the neck. Dan and Horse Egan, panting and distressed, had thrown themselves down on the ground by the captured guns, when they noticed Mulcahy's charge.

'Mad,' said Horse Egan critically. 'Mad with fear! He's going straight to his death, an' shouting's no use.'

'Let him go. Watch now! If we fire we'll hit him, maybe.'

The last of a hurrying crowd of Afghans turned at the noise of shod feet behind him, and s.h.i.+fted his knife ready to hand. This, he saw, was no time to take prisoners. Mulcahy tore on, sobbing; the straight-held blade went home through the defenceless breast, and the body pitched forward almost before a shot from Dan's rifle brought down the slayer and still further hurried the Afghan retreat. The two Irishmen went out to bring in their dead.

'He was given the point and that was an easy death,' said Horse Egan, viewing the corpse. 'But would you ha' shot him, Danny, if he had lived?'

'He didn't live, so there's no sayin'. But I doubt I wud have bekase of the fun he gave us--let alone the beer. Hike up his legs, Horse, and we'll bring him in. Perhaps 'tis better this way.'

They bore the poor limp body to the ma.s.s of the regiment, lolling open-mouthed on their rifles; and there was a general sn.i.g.g.e.r when one of the younger subalterns said, 'That was a good man!'

'Phew,' said Horse Egan, when a burial-party had taken over the burden.

'I'm powerful dhry, and this reminds me there'll be no more beer at all.'

'Fwhy not?' said Dan, with a twinkle in his eye as he stretched himself for rest. 'Are we not conspirin' all we can, an' while we conspire are we not ent.i.tled to free dhrinks? Sure his ould mother in New York would not let her son's comrades perish of drouth--if she can be reached at the end of a letter.'

'You're a janius,' said Horse Egan. 'O' coorse she will not. I wish this crool war was over an' we'd get back to canteen. Faith, the Commander-in-Chief ought to be hanged in his own little sword-belt for makin' us work on wather.'

The Mavericks were generally of Horse Egan's opinion. So they made haste to get their work done as soon as possible, and their industry was rewarded by unexpected peace. 'We can fight the sons of Adam,' said the tribesmen, 'but we cannot fight the sons of Eblis, and this regiment never stays still in one place. Let us therefore come in.' They came in and 'this regiment' withdrew to conspire under the leaders.h.i.+p of Dan Grady.

Excellent as a subordinate Dan failed altogether as a chief-in-command--possibly because he was too much swayed by the advice of the only man in the regiment who could manufacture more than one kind of handwriting. The same mail that bore to Mulcahy's mother in New York a letter from the colonel telling her how valiantly her son had fought for the Queen, and how a.s.suredly he would have been recommended for the Victoria Cross had he survived, carried a communication signed, I grieve to say, by that same colonel and all the officers of the regiment, explaining their willingness to do 'anything which is contrary to the regulations and all kinds of revolutions' if only a little money could be forwarded to cover incidental expenses. Daniel Grady, Esquire, would receive funds, vice Mulcahy, who 'was unwell at this present time of writing.'

Both letters were forwarded from New York to Tehama Street, San Francisco, with marginal comments as brief as they were bitter.

The Third Three read and looked at each other. Then the Second Conspirator-he who believed in 'joining hands with the practical branches'---began to laugh, and on recovering his gravity said, 'Gentlemen, I consider this will be a lesson to us. We're left again.

Those cursed Irish have let us down. I knew they would, but'-here he laughed afresh-'I'd give considerable to know what was at the back of it all.'

His curiosity would have been satisfied had he seen Dan Grady, discredited regimental conspirator, trying to explain to his thirsty comrades in India the non-arrival of funds from New York.