of accusation and incoherent complaint and threat from the baited Muggins.
"Mount that horse," says the Riding-Master.
"I'll go to Clink first," gasps Muggins. "I'll go to 'Ell first."
"No. Afterwards," replies the Riding-Master and sends the Rough-Riding Corporal for the backboard—dread instrument of equestrian persuasion.
Muggins is forcibly mounted, put in the lunging ring and sent round and round till he throws himself off at full gallop and lies crying and sobbing like a child—utterly broken.
Riding-Master smiles, allows Muggins to grow calmer, accepts his apologies and promises, shows him he has had his Hell after, as promised, and that it is a better punishment than one that leaves him with a serious "crime" entry on his Defaulter's Sheet for life…. That vile and damning sheet that records the youthful peccadilloes and keeps it a life-long punishment after its own severe punishment…. To the Rough-Riding Sergeant-Major he quietly remarks: "No good non-com makes crimes … and don't forget that the day of riding-school brutality is passing. You can carry a man further than you can kick him."
And the interrupted lesson continues.
"Sit back and you can't come off. Nobody falls off backwards." …
Poor "Old Sit-Back"! (as he was called from his constant cry)—after giving that order and guarantee daily for countless days—was killed in the riding-school by coming off backwards from the stripped saddle of a rearing horse—(which promptly fell upon him and crushed his chest)—that had never reared before and would not have reared then, it was said, but for the mysterious introduction, under its saddle, of a remarkably "foreign" body.
Memories …!
How certain old "Sit-Back" had been that Dam was a worthless "back-to-the-Army-again" when he found him a finished horseman, an extraordinarily expert swordsman, and a master of the lance.
"You aren't old enough for a 'time-expired,'" he mused, "nor for a cashiered officer. One of the professional 'enlist-desert-and-sell-me-kit,' I suppose. Anyhow you'll do time for one of the three if I don't approve of ye…. You've been in the Cavalry before. Lancer regiment, too. Don't tell me lies … but see to it that I'm satisfied with your conduct. Gentlemen-rankers are better in their proper place—Jail." …
None the less it had given Dam a thrill of pride when, on being dismissed recruit-drills and drafted from the reserve troop to a squadron, the Adjutant had posted him to E Troop, wherein were congregated the seven other undoubted gentlemen-rankers of the Queen's Greys (one of whom would one day become a peer of the realm and, meantime, followed what he called "the only profession in the world" in discomfort for a space, the while his Commission ripened).
To this small band of "rankers" the accession of the finest boxer, swordsman, and horseman in the corps, was invaluable, and helped them notably in their endeavour to show that there are exceptions to all rules, and that a gentleman can make a first-class trooper. At least so "Peerson" had said, and Dam had been made almost happy for a day.
Memories …!
His first walk abroad from barracks, clad in the "walking-out" finery of shell-jacket and overalls, with the jingle of spurs and effort at the true Cavalry swagger, or rather the first attempt at a walk abroad, for the expedition had ended disastrously ere well begun. Unable to shake off his admirer, Trooper Herbert Hawker, Dam had just passed the Main Guard and main gates in the company of Herbert, and the two recruits had encountered the Adjutant and saluted with the utmost smartness and respect….
"What the Purple Hell's that thing?" had drawled the Adjutant thereupon—pointing his whip at Trooper Henry Hawker, whose trap-like mouth incontinent fell open with astonishment. "It's got up in an imitation of the uniform of the Queen's Greys, I do believe!… It's not a rag doll either…. It's a God-forsaken undertaker's mute in a red and black shroud with a cake-tin at the back of its turnip head and a pair of chemises on its ugly hands…. Sergeant of the Guard!… Here!"
"Sir?" and a salute of incredible precision from the Sergeant of the Guard.
"What the name of the Devil's old Aunt is this thing? What are you on Guard for? To write hymns and scare crows—or to allow decayed charwomen to stroll out of barracks in a dem parody of your uniform? Look at her! Could turn round in the jacket without taking it off. Room for both legs in one of the overalls. Cap on his beastly neck. Gloves like a pair of … Get inside you!… Take the thing in with a pair of tongs and bury it where it won't contaminate the dung-pits. Burn it! Shoot it! Drown it! D'ye hear?… And then I'll put you under arrest for letting it pass…."
It had been a wondrously deflated and chapfallen Herbert that had slunk back to the room of the reserve troop, and perhaps his reputation as a mighty bruiser had never stood him in so good stead as when it transpired that an Order had been promulgated that no recruit should leave barracks during the first three months of his service, and that the names of all such embryos should be posted in the Main Guard for the information of the Sergeant….
Memories …!
His first march behind the Band to Church….
The first Review and March Past….
His first introduction to bread-and-lard….
His wicked carelessness in forgetting—or attempting to disregard—the law of the drinking-troughs. "So long as one horse has his head down no horse is to go." There had been over a score drinking and he had moved off while one dipsomaniac was having a last suck.
His criminal carelessness in not removing his sword and leaving it in the Guard-room, when going on sentry after guard-mounting—"getting the good Sergeant into trouble, too, and making it appear that he had been equally criminally careless ".
The desperate quarrel between Hawker and Bone as to whether the 10th Hussars were called the "Shiny Tenth" because of their general material and spiritual brilliance, or the "Chainy Tenth" because their Officers wore pouch-belts of gold chain-mail…. The similar one between Buttle and Smith as to the reason of a brother regiment being known as "The Virgin Mary's Body-guard," and their reluctant acceptance of Dam's dictum that they were both wrong, it having been earned by them in the service of a certain Maria Theresa, a lady unknown to Messrs. Buttle and Smith…. Dam had found himself developing into a positive bully in his determination to prevent senseless quarrelling, senseless misconduct, senseless humourless foulness, senseless humourless blasphemy, and all that unnecessary, avoidable ugliness that so richly augmented the unavoidable….
Memories …!
Sitting throughout compulsory church, cursing and mutinous of heart, because after spending several hours of the Day of Rest in burnishing and pipe-claying, blacking and shining ("Sunday spit an' polish"), he was under orders for sharp punishment—because at the last moment his tunic had been fouled by a passing pigeon! When would the Authorities realize that soldiers are still men, still Englishmen (even if they have, by becoming soldiers, lost their birthright of appeal to the Law of the Land, though not their amenability to its authority), and cease to make the Blessed Sabbath a curse, the worst day of the week, and to herd angry, resentful soldiers into church to blaspheme with politely pious faces? Oh, British, British, Pharisees and Humbugs—make Sunday a curse, and drive the soldier into church to do his cursing—make it the chief day of dress "crimes" and punishments, as well as the busiest day, and force the soldier into church to Return Thanks….
The
