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‘’Twasn’t for that we bid you welkim, Sorr,’ said Mulvaney sulkily. ‘’Twas for the pleasure av your comp’ny.
Ortheris came to the rescue with—‘Well, ’e won’t be none the worse for bringin’ liquor with ’im. We ain’t a file o’ Dooks. We’re bloomin’ Tommies, ye cantankris Hirishman; an’ ’eye’s your very good ’ealth!’
We shot all the forenoon, and killed two pariah-dogs, four green parrots, sitting, one kite by the burning-ghaut, one snake flying, one mud-turtle, and eight crows. Game was plentiful. Then we sat down to tiffin—‘bull-mate an’ bran-bread,’ Mulvaney called it—by the side of the river, and took pot shots at the crocodiles in the intervals of cutting up the food with our only pocket-knife. Then we drank up all the beer, and threw the bottles into the water and fired at them. After that, we eased belts and stretched ourselves on the warm sand and smoked. We were too lazy to continue shooting.
Ortheris heaved a big sigh, as he lay on his stomach with his head between his fists. Then he swore quietly into the blue sky.
‘Fwhat’s that for?’ said Mulvaney. ‘Have ye not drunk enough?’
‘Tott’nim Court Road, an’ a gal I fancied there. Wot’s the good of sodgerin’?’
‘Orth’'ris, me son,’ said Mulvaney hastily, ‘’tis more than likely you’ve got throuble in your inside wid the beer. I feel that way mesilf when my liver gets rusty.’
Ortheris went on slowly, not heeding the interruption—
‘I’m a Tommy—a bloomin’, eight-anna, dog-stealin’ Tommy, with a number instead of a decent name. Wot’s the good o’ me? If I ’ad a stayed of ’Ome, I might a married that gal and a kep’ a little shorp in the ’Ammersmith ’Igh.—“S. Orth’ris, Prac-ti-cal Taxi-dermist.” With a stuff’ fox, like they ’as in the Haylesbury Dairies, in the winder, an’ a little case of blue and yaller glass-heyes, an’ a little wife to call “shorp!” “shorp!” when the door-bell rung. As it his, I’m on’y a Tommy—a Bloomin’, Gawdforsaken, Beer-swillin’ Tommy. “Rest on your harms—’versed Stan’ at—hease; ’Shun. ’Verse—harms. Right an’ lef’—tarrn. Slow—march. ’Alt—front. Rest on your harms—’versed. With blank-cartridge—’load.” An’ that’s the end o’ me.’ He was quoting fragments from Funeral Parties’ Orders.
‘Stop ut!’ shouted Mulvaney. ‘Whin you’ve fired into nothin’ as often as me, over a better man than yoursilf, you will not make a mock av thim orders. ’Tis worse than whistlin’ the Dead March in barricks. An’ you full as a tick, an’ the sun cool, an’ all an’ all! I take shame for you. You’re no better than a Pagin—you an’ your firin’-parties an’ your glass-eyes. Won’t you stop ut, Sorr?’
What could I do? Could I tell Ortheris anything that he did not know of the pleasures of his life? I was not a Chaplain nor a Subaltern, and Ortheris had a right to speak as he thought fit.
‘Let him run, Mulvaney,’ I said. ‘It’s the beer.’
‘No! ’Tisn’t the beer,’ said Mulvaney. ‘I know fwhat’s comin’. He’s tuk this way now an’ agin, an’ it’s bad—it’s bad—for I’m fond av the bhoy.’
Indeed, Mulvaney seemed needlessly anxious; but I knew that he looked after Ortheris in a fatherly way.
‘Let me talk, let me talk,’ said Ortheris dreamily. ‘D’you stop your parrit screamin’ of a ’ot day, when the cage is a-cookin’ ’is pore little pink toes orf, Mulvaney?’
‘Pink toes! D’ye mane to say you’ve pink toes undher your bullswools, ye blandanderin’,’—Mulvaney gathered himself together for a terrific denunciation—‘school-misthress? Pink toes! How much Bass wid the label did that ravin’ child dhrink?’
‘Tain’t Bass,’ said Ortheris. ‘It’s a bitterer beer nor that. It’s '’ome-sickness!’
‘Hark to him! An’ he goin’ Home in the Sherapis in the inside av four months!’
‘I don’t care. It’s all one to me. ’Ow d’you know I ain’t ’fraid o’ dyin’ ’fore I gets my discharge paipers?’ He recommenced, in a sing-song voice, the Orders.
I had never seen this side of Ortheris’ character before, but evidently Mulvaney had, and attached serious importance to it. While Ortheris babbled, with his head on his arms, Mulvaney whispered to me—
‘He’s always tuk this way whin he’s been checked overmuch by the childher they make Sarjints nowadays. That an’ havin’ nothin’ to do. I can’t make ut out anyways.’
‘Well, what does it matter? Let him talk himself through.’
Ortheris began singing a parody of ‘The Ramrod Corps,’ full of cheerful allusions to battle, murder, and sudden death. He looked out across the river as he sang; and his face was quite strange to me. Mulvaney caught me by the elbow to ensure attention.
‘Matther? It matthers everything! ’Tis some sort av fit that’s on him. I’ve seen ut. ’Twill hould him all this night, an’ in the middle av it he’ll get out av his cot an’ go rakin’ in the rack for his ’coutremints. Thin he’ll come over to me an’ say, “I’m goin’ to Bombay. Answer for me in the mornin’.” Thin me an’ him will fight as we’ve done before—him to go an’ me to hould him—an’ so we’ll both come on the books for disturbin’ in barricks. I'’ve belted him, an’ I’ve bruk his head, an’ I’ve talked to him, but ’tis no manner av use whin the fit’s on him. He’s as good a bhoy as ever stepped whin his mind’s clear. I know fwhat’s comin’, though, this night in barricks. Lord send he doesn’t loose on me whin I rise to knock him down. ’Tis that that’s in my mind day an’ night.’
This put the case in a much less pleasant light, and fully accounted for Mulvaney’s anxiety. He seemed to be trying to coax Ortheris out of the fit; for he shouted down the bank where the boy was lying—
‘Listen now, you wid the “pore pink toes” an’ the glass eyes! Did you shwim the Irriwaddy at night, behin’ me, as a bhoy shud; or were you hidin’ under a bed, as you was at Ahmid Kheyl?’
This was at once a gross insult and a direct lie, and Mulvaney meant it to bring on a fight. But Ortheris seemed shut up in some sort of trance. He answered slowly, without a sign of irritation, in the same cadenced voice as he had used for his firing-party orders—
‘Hi swum the Irriwaddy in the night, as you know, for to take the town of Lungtungpen, nakid an’ without fear. Hand where I was at Ahmed Kheyl you know, and four bloomin’ Pathans know too. But that was summat to do, an’ I didn’t think o’ dyin’. Now I’m sick to go ’Ome—go ’Ome—go ’Ome! No, I ain’t mammysick, because my uncle brung me up, but I’m sick for London again; sick for the sounds of ’er, an’ the sights of ’er, and the stinks of ’er; orange-peel and hasphalte an’ gas comin’ in over Vaux’all Bridge. Sick for the rail goin’ down to Box ’Ill, with your gal on your knee an’ a new clay pipe in your face. That, an’ the Stran’ lights where you knows ev’ry one, an’ the Copper that takes you up is a old friend that tuk you up before, when you was a little, smitchy boy lying loose ’tween the Temple an’ the Dark Harches. No bloomin’ guard-mountin’, no bloomin’ rotten-stone, nor khaki, an’ yourself your own master with a gal to take an’ see the Humaners practisin’ a-hookin’ dead corpses out of the Serpentine o’ Sundays. An’ I lef’ all that for to serve the Widder beyond the seas, where there ain’t no women and there ain’t no liquor worth ’avin’, and there ain’t nothin’ to see, nor do, nor say, nor feel, nor think. Lord love you, Stanley Orth’ris, but you’re a bigger bloomin’ fool than the rest o’ the reg’ment and Mulvaney wired together!