Snake and Sword Part 28

But he had his points, mark you, and it was a thousand pities that so fine a soldier was undeniably subject to attacks of _delirium tremens_ and unmistakeably a secret drinker who might at any time have a violent outburst, finis.h.i.+ng in screams, sobs, and tears. A _most_ remarkable case! Who ever heard of a magnificent athlete--regimental champion boxer and swordsman, admittedly as fine and bold a horseman and horse-master as the Rough-Riding Sergeant-Major or the Riding-Master himself--being a sufficiently industrious secret-drinker to get "goes" of "d.t.," to drink till he behaved like some G.o.d-and-man-forsaken wretch that lives on cheap gin in a chronic state of alcoholism. He had his points, and if the Brigadier had ever happened to say to the Colonel: "Send me your smartest, most intelligent, and keenest man to gallop for me at the manoeuvres," or the Inspector of Army Gymnasia had asked for the regiment's finest specimen, or if one representative private soldier had to be sent somewhere to uphold the credit and honour of the Queen's Greys, undoubtedly Trooper Matthewson would have been chosen.

What a splendid squadron-sergeant major, regimental sergeant-major, yea, what a fine officer he would have made, had he been reliable. But there, you can't have an officer, nor a non-com., either, who lies shrieking and blubbering on the floor _coram publico_, and screams to G.o.d and man to save him from the snakes that exist only in his own drink-deranged mind. For of course it can only be Drink that produces "Snakes"! Yes, it is only through the ghastly alcohol-tinted gla.s.ses that you can "see snakes"--any fool knows _that_.

And the fools of the Queen's Greys knew it, and hoped to G.o.d that Matthewson would "keep off it" till after the Divisional Boxing Tournament and a.s.sault-at-Arms, for, if he did, the Queen's Greys would certainly have the Best Man-at-Arms in the Division and have a mighty good shot at having the Heavy-Weight All-India Champion, since Matthewson had challenged the Holder and held an absolutely unbroken record of victories in the various regimental and inter-regimental boxing tournaments in which he had taken part since joining the regiment. And he had been "up against some useful lads" as Captain Chevalier, the president and Maecenas of the Queen's Greys'

boxing-club, expressed it. Yes, Matthewson had his points and the man who brought the Regiment the kudos of having best Man-at-Arms and Heavy-Weight Champion of India would be forgiven a lot.

And Damocles de Warrenne blessed the Divisional Boxing Tournament, a.s.sault-at-Arms, and, particularly, the All-India Heavy-Weight Champions.h.i.+p.

Occupation, labour, anodyne.... Work and deep Sleep. Fighting to keep the Snake at bay. No, fighting to get away from it--there was no keeping it at bay--nothing but shrieking collapse when It came....

From parade ground to gymnasium, from gymnasium to swimming-bath, from swimming-bath to running-track, from running-track to boxing-ring, from boxing-ring to gymnasium again. Work, occupation, forgetfulness.

Forget the Snake for a little while--even though it is surely lurking near--waiting, waiting, waiting; nay, even beneath his very foot and _moving_....

Well, a man can struggle with himself until the Thing actually appears in the concrete, and he goes mad--but Night! Oh, G.o.d grant deep sleep at night--or wide wakefulness _and a light_. Neither Nightmare nor wakefulness _in the dark_, oh, Merciful G.o.d.

Yes, things were getting worse. _He was going mad. MAD_. Desert--and get out of India somehow?

Never! No gentleman "deserts" anything or anybody.

Suicide--and face G.o.d unafraid and unashamed?

Never! The worst and meanest form of "deserting".

No. Stick it. And live to work--work to live. And strive and strive and strive to obliterate the image of Lucille--that sorrow's crown of sorrow.

And so Trooper Matthewson's course of training was a severe one and he appeared to fear rest and relaxation as some people fear work and employment.

His favourite occupation was to get the ten best boxers of the regiment to jointly engage in a ten-round contest with him, one round each. He would frequently finish fresher than the tenth man. Coming of notedly powerful stock on both sides, and having been physically _educated_ from babyhood, Dam, with clean living and constant training, was a very uncommon specimen. There may have been one or two other men in the regiment as well developed, or nearly so; but when poise, rapidity, and skill were taken into account there was no one near him. Captain Chevalier said he was infinitely the quickest heavy-weight boxer he had ever seen--and Captain Chevalier was a pillar of the National Sporting Club and always knew the current professionals personally when he was in England. In fact, with the enormous strength of the best heavy-weight, Dam combined the lightning rapidity and mobility of the best feather-weight.

His own doubt as to the result of his contest with the heavy-weight Champion of India arose from the fact that the latter was a person of much lower nervous development, a creature far less sensitive to shock, a denser and more elementary organism altogether, and possessed of a far thicker skull, shorter jaw, and thicker neck. Dam summed him up thus with no sense of contemptuous superiority, but with a plain recognition of the facts that the Champion was a fighting machine, a dull, foreheadless, brutal gladiator who owed his champions.h.i.+p very largely to the fact that he was barely sensible to pain, and impervious to padded blows. It was said that he had never been knocked out in all his boxing-career, that the kick of a horse on his chin would not knock him out, that his head was solid bone, and that the shortness of his jaw and thickness of his neck absolutely prevented sufficient leverage between the point of the jaw and the spinal cord for the administration of the shock to the _medulla oblongata_ that causes the necessary ten-seconds' unconsciousness of the "knock-out".

He was known as the Gorilla by reason of his long arms, incredible strength, beauty, and pleasing habits, and he bore the reputation of a merciless and unchivalrous opponent and one who needed the strictest and most experienced refereeing. It would be a real terrific fight, and that was the main thing to Dam, though he would do his very utmost to win, for the credit of the Queen's Greys, and would leave no stone unturned to that end. He regretted that he could not get leave and go to Pultanpur to see the Champion box, and learn something of his style and methods when easily defending his t.i.tle in the Pultanpur tournament. And when the Tournament and a.s.sault-at-Arms were over he must find something else to occupy him by day and tire him before night. Meanwhile life was bearable, with the fight to come--except for sentry-go work. That was awful, unspeakable, and each time was worse than the last. Sitting up all night in the guard-room under the big lamp, and perhaps with some other wakeful wretch to talk to, was nothing. That was well enough--but to be on a lonely post on a dark night ... well--he couldn't do it much longer.

Darkness and the Snake that was always coming and never came! To prowl round and round some magazine, store, or boundary-stone with his carbine at the "support," or to tramp up and down by the horse-lines, armed only with his cutting-whip; to stand in a sentry-box while the rain fell in sheets and there was no telling what the next flash of lightning might reveal--that was what would send him to a lunatic's padded cell.

To see the Snake by day would give him a cruel, terrible fit--but to be aware of it in the dark would be final--and fatal to his reason (which was none too firmly enthroned). No, he had the dreadful feeling that his reason was none too solidly based and fixed. He had horrible experiences, apart from the snake-nightmares, nowadays. One night when he awoke and lay staring up at his mosquito-curtain in the blessed light of the big room-lamp (always provided in India on account of rifle thieves) he had suddenly felt an overwhelming surge of fear. He sat up. G.o.d!--he was in a marble box! These white walls and roof were not mosquito-netting, they were solid marble! He was in a tomb. He was buried alive. The air was growing foul. His screams would be absolutely inaudible. He screamed, and struck wildly at the cold cruel marble, and found it was soft, yielding netting after all. But it was a worse horror to find that he had thought it marble than if he had found it to be marble. He sprang from his cot.

"I am going mad," he cried.

"Goin'?... _Gorn_, more like," observed the disrobing room-corporal.

"Why donchew keep orf the booze, Maffewson? You silly gapin' goat. Git inter bed and shut yer 'ead--or I'll get yew a night in clink, me lad--and wiv'out a light, see?"

Corporal Prag knew his victim's little weakness and grinned maliciously as Dam sprang into bed without a word.

The Stone Jug without a gleam of light! Could a man choke himself with his own fingers if the worst came to the worst? The Digger and Stygian darkness--now--_when he was going mad_! Men could not be so cruel....

But they'd say he was drunk. He would lie still and cling with all his strength and heart and soul to sanity. He would think of That Evening with Lucille--and of her kisses. He would recite the Odes of Horace, the Aeneid, the Odyssey as far as he could remember them, and then fall back on Shakespeare and other English poets. Probably he knew a lot more Greek and Latin poetry (little as it was) than he did of English....

Corporal Prag improved the occasion as he unlaced his boots. "Bloomin'

biby! Afraid o' the dark! See wot boozin' brings yer to. Look at yer!

An' look at _me_. Non-c'misshn'd orficer in free an' a 'arf years from j'inin'. Never tasted alc'ol in me life, an' if any man offud me a gla.r.s.e, d'ye know what I'd _dew_?"

"No, Corporal, I'd like to hear," replied Dam. (Must keep the animal talking as long as possible for the sake of human company. He'd go mad at once, perhaps, when the Corporal went to bed.)

"I'd frow it strite in 'is faice, I would," announced the virtuous youth. A big boot flopped heavily on the floor.

"I daresay you come of good old teetotal stock," observed Dam, to make conversation. Perhaps the fellow would pause in his a.s.sault upon the other boot and reply--so lengthening out the precious minutes of diversion. Every minute was a minute nearer dawn....

"_Do_ yer? Well, you're bloomin' well wrong, Maffewson, me lad. My farver 'ad a bout every Sat.u.r.day arternoon and kep' it up all day a Sund'y, 'e did--an' in the werry las' bout 'e ever 'ad 'e bashed 'is ole woman's 'ead in wiv' a bottle."

"And was hanged?" inquired Dam politely and innocently, but most tactlessly.

"Mind yer own b---- business," roared Corporal Prag. "Other people's farvers wasn't gallows-birds if yourn was. 'Ow'd you look if I come and punched you on the nose, eh? Wot 'ud you do if I come an' set abaht yer, eh?"

"Break your neck," replied Dam tersely.

"Ho, yus. _And_ wot 'ud yew say when I calls the guard and they frows you into clink? Without no light, Trooper Maffewson!"

Dam shuddered.

Corporal Prag yet further improved the occasion, earning Dam's heartfelt blessing.

"Don't you fergit it, Trooper Maffewson. I'm yore sooperier orficer.

You _may_ be better'n me in the Ring, praps, or with the sword (Dam could have killed him in five minutes, with or without weapons), but if I 'olds up my little finger _you_ comes to 'eel--or other'ow you goes ter clink. 'Ung indeed! You look after yer own farver an' don'

pa.s.s remarks on yer betters. Why! You boozin' waster, I shall be Regimental Sargen' Majer when you're a bloomin' discharged private wiv an 'undred '_drunks_' in red on yer Defaulter's Sheet. Regimental Sarjen' Majer! I shall be an Orficer more like, and walk acrost the crossin' wot _you're_ asweepin', to me Club in bloomin' well Pickerdilly! Yus. This is the days o' _? Demockerycy_, me lad. 'Good Lloyd George's golden days' as they sing--and steady fellers like me is goin' to ave C'missh'ns--an' don' you fergit it! Farver 'ung indeed!"

"I'm awf'ly sorry, Corporal, really," apologized Dam. "I didn't think...."

"No, me lad," returned the unmollified superior, as he stooped to the other boot, "if you was to think more an' booze less you'd do better.... 'Ow an' where you gets 'old of it, beats me. I've seed you in delirium tr.i.m.m.i.n.gs but I ain't never seed you drinkin' nor yet smelt it on yer. You're a cunnin' 'ound in yer way. One o' them beastly secret-drinkin' swine wots never suspected till they falls down 'owlin' blue 'orrors an' seem' pink toadses. Leastways it's snakes _you_ sees. See 'em oncte too orfen, you will.... See 'em on p'rade one day in front o' the Colonel. Fall orf yer long-face an get trampled--an' serve yer glad.... An' now shut yer silly 'ed an' don't chew the mop so much. Let me get some sleep. _I_ 'as respontsibillaties _I_ do...."

A crossing outside a Club! More likely a padded cell in a troops.h.i.+p and hospital until an asylum claimed him.

In the finals, "Sword versus Sword Dismounted," Dam had a foeman worthy of his steel.

A glorious chilly morning, sunrise on a wide high open _maidan_, rows of tents for the spectators at the great evening final, and crowds of officers and men in uniform or gymnasium kit. On a group of chairs sat the Divisional General, his Colonel on the Staff, and Aide-de-Camp; the Brigadier-General, his Brigade-Major, and a few ladies, wives of regimental colonels, officers, and leading Civilians.

Semi-finals of Tent-pegging, Sword v. Sword Mounted, Bayonet-fighting, Tug-of-War, Fencing, and other officers' and men's events had been, or were being, contested.

The finals of the British Troops' Sword _v._ Sword Dismounted, was being reserved for the last, as of supreme interest to the experts present, but not sufficiently spectacular to be kept for the evening final "show," when the whole of Society would a.s.semble to be thrilled by the final Jumping, Driving, Tent-pegging, Sword _v._ Sword Mounted, Bayonet-fighting, Sword _v._ Lance, Tug-of-War, and other events for British and Indian officers and men of all arms.

It was rumoured that there was a Sergeant of Hussars who would give Trooper Matthewson a warm time with the sabre. As the crowd of compet.i.tors and spectators gathered round the sabres-ring, and chairs were carried up for the Generals, ladies, and staff, to witness the last and most exciting contest of the morning's meeting, a Corporal-official of the a.s.sault-at-Arms Executive Committee called aloud, "Sergeant O'Malley, 14th Hussars, get ready," and another fastened a red band to the Sergeant's arm as he stepped forward, clad in leather jacket and leg-guards and carrying the heavy iron-and-leather head-guard necessary in sabre combats, and the blunt-edged, blunt-pointed sabre.

Dam approached him.

"Don't let my point rest on your hilt, Sergeant," he said.

"What's the game?" inquired the surprised and suspicious Sergeant.

"My little trick. I thrust rather than cut, you know," said Dam.