The Claw Part 22

_Laager Ballads_.

There followed many blank days. Week after week went by without news of any kind coming in. We only knew that our men were all together now, and marching on to Matabeleland. The question with us was to kill time and fearsome thought, and to kill time was a nearly impossible thing to do. Amus.e.m.e.nts there were none, of course, and occupations had to be invented. An interest in life had to be borne within, for in the external life of the town nothing happened to excite interest. The men, it is true, were kept always on the _qui vive_ by the indefatigable Commandant, and when they were not drilling on the square or practising with the Hotchkiss they were away on patrol and picket duty. Even if they had not been so busy they were not a very interesting crowd; I imagine the men left behind to look after the women seldom are. They may be the real heroes; but they don't look like it; and I don't fancy they feel like it. The cause of their being left behind in the first place is generally physical unfitness or some domestic or official reason that puts them out of conceit with themselves, and out of love with life in general. Even a man like Colonel Blow, left in charge of a town in a position of great responsibility and trust, grew morose and surly, thinking of the excitement he was missing at the front and the fighting he was hopelessly out of. It was said that on its being decided that he was to be left behind he spent a whole day wiring appeals to Dr Jim and Mr Rhodes, and in the intervals walking round and round his office shouting bad words about "a lot of women and children any one could look after!" Not very flattering to the women and children, of course, but one could quite understand the att.i.tude of mind and believe that in the same case one would say the same thing.

There must be something gloriously exciting in riding through starry nights and sunlit days to fight for your country and your rights. There is nothing at all glorious in sitting safe and snug at home killing time until good news comes in.

I was very sorry for pale, handsome Maurice Stair with his crippled arm.

He could not even go out on patrol or picket duty, because it was impossible for him to carry a gun. He always sought me when he had a spare half-hour, and afterwards I used to feel quite exhausted from the prolonged effort of trying to cheer him up. It was like trying to pull a heavy bucket up a well and never quite succeeding in getting it to the top. He often said:

"Thank G.o.d for you, anyway; the only sound, sweet spot in the rottenest apple I've ever put my teeth into."

I would laugh at this exaggeration of my usefulness in trying to jeer him out of the blues: but I felt I deserved some praise for such work.

"Absurd! You know very well you adore this country, like all the rest of the men, and would never be happy in a 'boiled' s.h.i.+rt again."

"Oh, wouldn't I? Try me! If it were not for one person I would leave Fort George to-day and show Africa the cleanest pair of heels she ever saw step on to a Cape liner."

He looked at me so embarra.s.singly on this occasion that I did not care to ask him who the person was. I said:

"Yes, and you would be back within a year, trying to sneak in by the East Coast route, hoping no one would notice you'd been away."

But he would deny the Witch unceasingly, saying that she had no lure for him--all because he was longing to be in the thick of things with the other men, and because of the tormenting thought that he was staying behind like a woman while history was being made within a few hundred miles.

Certainly it was hard on a high-spirited boy, ambitious, with fighting blood in his veins. All his people had been soldiers for generations, he told me, but for some reason his uncle had not wished him to enter the army, and so he had sought life in places where at least there were always chances of irregular fighting. And now that a chance had come along--here he was! It really _was_ bad luck, and I comforted him as best I might. But I had my own troubles to bear.

The Salisbury women made things as difficult as they could for me. Mrs Valetta and Miss Cleeve began to cultivate the acquaintance of the Fort George women, and the result became directly apparent to my mental skin, always extremely susceptible to change of atmosphere. Where I had before met pleasant southerly breezes I now encountered chilly winds and frost.

At first I felt rather bitterly about it, and inclined to resent this injustice on the part of the domesticated little Fort George bevy. But I lived that mood down. Having plenty of leisure and solitude in which to think things out, those first few weeks I got round in time to their point of view, and saw the situation through their eyes. From what they had been told by my recent chaperon and had observed for themselves on the sight of Anthony's departure, they were bound to suppose that I was, to put it in the mildest way, lax about things conventional; and of course a woman who is that must expect to be looked upon as a sort of pirate, and the direct enemy of gentle, simple-hearted women who are devoting their lives to the task of being good wives and mothers.

In the homes of such women, who by quiet, ceaseless, uncomplaining toil and task were forming the backbone of the country in which they lived, patriotism is born, and fine ideals, and the love of everything that is "strong and quiet like the hills." What right had I to hate them if, hearing that I was a traitor to their cause, they looked sideways at me?

Naturally, if they believed it true that I loved a married man and gloried in it, they saw in me a conspirator against their own peace and happiness. What was to save their own husbands from my lures and wiles when they came back? Perhaps that was how they looked at it.

It was only by the aid of these reflections and my sure conviction of being in the right that I freed myself from bitterness against them.

Later I grew quite tolerant; but it was some time before I could begin to think of offering my good gold for such silver as they grudged me.

However, as the blank days went by and Anthony's words and wishes came to be more than ever the only things in my world, I began to glance about me with hungry eyes for a little of the silver they were so greedy about. I had not far to look, once my eyes were opened. Everywhere about me were children; restless, constrained, confined, and hopelessly bored children. Some one once said (I think it was Kipling, who knows all about children as well as about everything else under the sun) that grown-up people do not always realise that boredom to children means acute and active misery.

Well, the Fort George children were bored, and acutely, actively miserable. They had nowhere to go and nothing to do. Their favourite haunt, a line of little low kopjes just outside the town, was out of bounds and forbidden. The shallow river with its pools and flat rocks and silver-sanded bottom, the scene of many old delights, was likewise beyond safe precincts. Everything was forbidden but to prowl about in the small town with never a rock or a tree to play on: only locked and silent huts, and their own homes from which they were constantly chased by busy mothers, who in the general dearth of servants had all the was.h.i.+ng acid cooking to do.

Oh! the little sulky, dissatisfied faces that I met, not only sulky but peaked and pale; for when children do not get exercise that interests and amuses them they soon begin to look unhealthy. My duty seemed to be plainly marked out for me.

I thanked Heaven they were mostly boys. I don't think I could have organised sewing cla.s.ses and spelling bees.

But I love children and therefore I know something about them, so I did not go headlong into the business, looking for snubs. Snubs are not pleasant fare at the best of times, and I think children's snubs are the most unswallowable; they are so sincere and to the point. I began my campaign by loafing about idly every morning just after breakfast, meeting them in the bypaths, and dropping a word here and there just to shew that I too was bored to madness. Gradually they recognised in me a fellow-martyr, and after a day or two they began to gravitate naturally in my direction as a centre where they could come and record their complaints. I allowed myself to be treated as a sort of slot-machine, where any one could come and drop a serious grievance instead of a penny, and sometimes get something back. However, I did not give much back. Children distrust grown-ups who give too much, or talk too much-- especially in the first critical stages of friends.h.i.+p. They prefer to do all the talking themselves.

In time they wanted to know what they should call me. I told them "Goldie," a pet name of mine, and somehow that clinched the matter.

Afterwards they gave me their full confidence, and I took firm hold and immediately began to impose upon it. The transition from favourite to tyrant can be swift and very simple, and I soon had an Empire which I ruled over like a Caesar.

Games were the order of the day. First of all we took the tennis-court in hand--the tennis-court where I had dreamed bits of my beautiful dream and which lay now like a desolate and accursed spot covered with dead leaves, old papers, and rubbis.h.!.+ In one day it was swept and garnished, and in two it was rolled and marked to a degree of perfection it had never known before. On the third day I divided the children up into quartettes and taught them tennis in batches. They had never been allowed to so much as glance in the direction of the court before, it being considered solely and sacredly the property of the grown-ups. Now they bounced upon it like b.a.l.l.s, and yells of delight and victory woke the dull echoes and rang through the town. We had some glorious days.

But to all fine things an end must be, and just as everything had been got into splendid working order, with two clubs formed for the purpose of compet.i.tion, a popular arrangement made for the scouting of b.a.l.l.s, and an entertainment committee selected, down swooped the grown-ups, headed by Mrs Skeffington-Smythe, and wrested the court away from us.

"Surely the only recreation in the place is not going to be taken away from us by these brats!" was their plaintive cry, and in my absence one morning, minding Mrs Marriott who was ill, my little crowd was intimidated and dismissed crestfallen. Like all Irish-Americans I have a "drop of the tiger" in me, and I fought for our rights. But when Mrs Skeffington-Smythe went round and got the mothers on their side I had to give in. It was no use encouraging insubordination to mothers; that I very well knew would end in my defeat as well as the children's.

"Oh, let them have their old court," I said. "Soldiering is ever so much greater fun. But we must make a parade ground first, or Colonel Blow will be mad if we use the square except for very special occasions."

So we made a parade ground for ourselves with very great labour and the joy that comes with toil or the world would work no more. Then, Heavens! how I drilled them! Every exercise and manoeuvre known to the mind of man and gymnasium mistresses was brought into force, and every atom of information acquired or inherited from a family that had always produced soliders came to my aid and was brought into active use. Not the least of my accomplishments was that at this juncture I roped in Mrs Marriott and Mrs Rookwood to make uniforms for my regiment.

At various shops in the town I found plenty of red twill. It is called "limbo" in Mashonaland and used for "swapping" with the natives in return for hens and rice and eggs and things. This I commandeered in large quant.i.ties and carried off to Mrs Rookwood. Like all colonial women she was clever with her hands, and could cut out and make anything, from a ball-gown to a suit of clothes. Indeed, she told me that she had actually without any help made the ravis.h.i.+ng suit of khaki in which she started for the front, having cut it out and set to work at the first rumour of trouble with the natives.

She now at my instigation designed a most fascinating uniform, in which the boys looked as gallant as French Zouaves, and the girls, with their skirts tucked into the baggy bloomers, like incipient, rather fat, Turks. The first full-dress parade, held in the market square, was an entrancing spectacle. In the first flush of admiration Colonel Blow was moved to permit the convicts to erect cross-bars and a trapeze, make us some rough dumb-bells and put up a great strong pole for a giant's stride in the centre of our recreation ground. Mr Stair contributed a mile or two of stout rope, and lo! we had a stride that was the crowning delight of life, but that I am fain to say was not confined to the children; for between patrols and picket duties many grown-up khaki legs might have been seen flying round amongst the scarlet bloomers.

Cricket also became one of the serious affairs of life. And I taught them handball against the jail wall which appeared to have been built expressly for the purpose of the Irish national game. Of course I am half Irish and that must be taken into account when I say that next to baseball it is the greatest game in the world for exercising both body and brain. Played at its best it is a splendid swift panorama of rippling muscles, dancing feet, sparkling eyes, and racing thoughts.

You can actually, by the player's intent, eye, tell how he is going to smash that ball, which will come two strokes later, into the middle of next week.

I should have liked to get up a baseball team too; but there was a difficulty about "bats" and the mothers were afraid of eyes being put out and noses broken. Perhaps they were right. Anyway, we had games enough to keep us alive and busy and young. I was not very ancient myself, but felt myself growing younger every day amongst those fascinating Fort George children, and I began to swagger and brag about them as if they were my own.

Four weeks after our first going into _laager_ no one would have recognised them for the gang of discontented reprobates they had been.

Bright cheeks, serene eyes, and lumps of muscle like young cocoanuts on their legs and arms were now their most distinguis.h.i.+ng features.

I had pride also in their changed demeanour. Of course they were still noisy and often naughty--what child worth its salt is not? But drill and discipline had done a great deal for them, and though they were gay and rowdy-dowdy they were no longer the melancholy, meaningless, and rather malicious monkeys to whom I had first made advances.

And at night in _laager_ they really behaved well. It is true that they did not go to bed like lambs, and sometimes on a hot stuffy night there would be a row in the dormitories that called for my special intervention. A mother would come to our post-office den and say:

"Oh, Miss Saurin, would you come and speak to Jimmy?" or Cliffie or Sally--or some one or other. And I would be obliged to confront the criminal wearing the air of a Caesar reproaching his Brutus with a last "_Et tu_?"

Nearly always that would suffice, but sometimes I had to ring a change and in dramatic tones threaten the offender with the prospect of running the gauntlet or the extreme penalty of having his honours stripped from his breast before the eyes of the world. Jimmy Grant wore my Bisley medal: for highest cricket score. Cliffie Shannon had a miniature of President Grover Cleveland set in amethysts strung round his wiry neck: for measuring biggest round the calf. Claude Macdonald (an Aberdeen Presbyterian) proudly displayed a Pius IX bronze medal, and I believe secretly considered the "_super nos spiritus de excelso_" as being specially applicable to his prowess in running. Various members of the brigade wore twisted silver bangles of which I fortunately had a number.

It would have been a serious matter to have been deprived of these decorations, and a threat of such a tragedy was usually quite enough to ensure good conduct.

But on the whole the nice things behaved with a reasonableness that would have become many of the older people in _laager_. Among the Dutch folk many disagreeable incidents occurred. Neither were some of our guardians and defenders above reproach. The men who were off duty often made merry in their own quarters, and in dull times it is supposed that they essayed to keep their spirits up by pouring spirits down. Colonel Blow and his staff kept good order, but there were some incorrigibles and one of the worst was Mr Skeffington-Smythe. Often on hot nights we were obliged to close our tiny porthole window which overlooked the main yard and do without air rather than be disturbed by the thrilling conversations which occurred between Mrs Skeffington-Smythe, safely and exclusively tied inside her tent, and Monty, returned late from a convivial gathering, clamouring piteously without:

"Porkie! Porkie! Let me in... Darling! Let me in! How am I to sleep out in this infernal yard?"

"Go away!"

"Porkie!" in a yearning, heart-searing tone.

"Go away! Wretch! Pig!"

"Nina, was it for this I came down through deadly danger to mind you, instead of going off with all the fellows to have a good time at the front?"

Exclamations of disgust, quite indescribable, from inside the tent.

"I bet they're having a better time than I am now, Porkie!"

"Oh, you wretched little worm! _Will_ you go away!"

Thus it was between Porkie Skeffington-Smythe and the gallant Monty, who was at one time thought to be on his way to the Victoria Cross!

CHAPTER TWELVE.

DUTY CALLS.