Soldiers Three Volume I Part 20

DOONE. Small gla.s.s k.u.mmel, please. Excellent carminative, these days.

Anthony told me so.

MACKESY. (_Signing votucher for four drinks._) Most unfair punishment.

I only thought of Curtiss as Actaeon being chivied round the billiard tables by the nymphs of Diana.

BLAYNE. Curtiss would have to import his nymphs by train. Mrs. c.o.c.kley's the only woman in the Station. She won't leave c.o.c.kley, and he's doing his best to get her to go.

CURTISS. Good, indeed! Here's Mrs. c.o.c.kley's health. To the only wife in the Station and a d.a.m.ned brave woman!

OMNES. (_Drinking._) A d.a.m.ned brave woman!

BLAYNE. I suppose Gaddy will bring his wife here at the end of the cold weather. They are going to be married almost immediately, I believe.

CURTISS. Gaddy may thank his luck that the Pink Hussars are all detachment and no headquarters this hot weather, or he'd be torn from the arms of his love as sure as death. Have you ever noticed the thorough-minded way British Cavalry take to cholera? It's because they are so expensive. If the Pinks had stood fast here, they would have been out in camp a month ago. Yes, I should decidedly like to be Gaddy.

MACKESY. He'll go Home after he's married, and send in his papers--see if he doesn't.

BLAYNE. Why shouldn't he? Hasn't he money? Would any one of us be here if we weren't paupers?

DOONE. Poor old pauper! What has became of the six hundred you rooked from our table last month?

BLAYNE. It took unto itself wings. I think an enterprising tradesman got some of it, and a _shroff_ gobbled the rest--or else I spent it.

CURTISS. Gaddy never had dealings with a _shroff_ in his life.

DOONE. Virtuous Gaddy! If _I_ had three thousand a month, paid from England, I don't think I'd deal with a _shroff_ either.

MACKESY. (Yawning.) Oh, it's a sweet life! I wonder whether matrimony would make it sweeter.

CURTISS. Ask c.o.c.kley--with his wife dying by inches!

BLAYNE. Go home and get a fool of a girl to come out to--what is it Thackeray says?--'the splendid palace of an Indian pro-consul.'

DOONE. Which reminds me. My quarters leak like a sieve. I had fever last night from sleeping in a swamp. And the worst of it is, one can't do anything to a roof till the Rains are over.

CURTISS. What's wrong with you? _You_ haven't eighty rotting Tommies to take into a running stream.

DOONE. No: but I'm mixed boils and bad language. I'm a regular Job all over my body. It's sheer poverty of blood, and I don't see any chance of getting richer--either way.

BLAYNE. Can't you take leave?

DOONE. That's the pull you Army men have over us. Ten days are nothing in your sight. _I'm_ so important that Government can't find a subst.i.tute if I go away. Ye-es, I'd like to be Gaddy, whoever his wife may be.

CURTISS. You've pa.s.sed the turn of life that Mackesy was speaking of.

DOONE. Indeed I have, but I never yet had the brutality to ask a woman to share my life out here.

BLAYNE. On my soul I believe you're right. I'm thinking of Mrs. c.o.c.kley.

The woman's an absolute wreck.

DOONE. Exactly. Because she stays down here. The only way to keep her fit would be to send her to the Hills for eight months--and the same with any woman. I fancy I see myself taking a wife on those terms.

MACKESY. With the rupee at one and sixpence. The little Doones would be little Dehra Doones, with a fine Mussoorie _chi-chi_ anent to bring home for the holidays.

CURTISS. And a pair of be-ewtiful _sambhur_-horns for Doone to wear, free of expense, presented by---

DOONE. Yes, it's an enchanting prospect. By the way, the rupee hasn't done falling yet. The time will come when we shall think ourselves lucky if we only lose half our pay.

CURTISS. Surely a third's loss enough. Who gains by the arrangement?

That's what I want to know.

BLAYNE. The Silver Question! I'm going to bed if you begin squabbling.

Thank Goodness, here's Anthony--looking like a ghost.

_Enter_ ANTHONY, _Indian Medical Staff, very white and tired._

ANTHONY. 'Evening, Blayne. It's raining in sheets. _Whiskey-peg, lao, Khitmatgar._ The roads are something ghastly.

CURTISS. How's Mingle?

ANTHONY. Very bad, and more frightened. I handed him over to Fewton.

Mingle might just as well have called him in the first place, instead of bothering me.

BLAYNE. He's a nervous little chap. What has he got, this time?

ANTHONY. 'Can't quite say. A very bad tummy and a blue funk so far. He asked me at once if it was cholera, and I told him not to be a fool.

That soothed him.

CURTISS. Poor devil! The funk does half the business in a man of that build.

ANTHONY. (_Lighting a cheroot._) I firmly believe the funk will kill him if he stays down. You know the amount of trouble he's been giving Fewton for the last three weeks. He's doing his very best to frighten himself into the grave.

GENERAL CHORUS. Poor little devil! Why doesn't he get away?

ANTHONY. 'Can't. He has his leave all right, but he's so dipped he can't take it, and I don't think his name on paper would raise four annas.

That's in confidence, though.

MACKESY. All the Station knows it.

ANTHONY. 'I suppose I shall have to die here,' he said, squirming all across the bed. He's quite made up his mind to Kingdom Come. And I _know_ he has nothing more than a wet-weather tummy if he could only keep a hand on himself.

BLAYNE. That's bad. That's very bad. Poor little Miggy. Good little chap, too. I say--

ANTHONY. What do you say?

BLAYNE. Well, look here--anyhow. If it's like that--as you say--I say fifty.

CURTISS. I say fifty.