Complete Works of Rudyard Kipling (Illustrated) (485 page)

“Did he know my General? Yes. He knew ‘em all. Called ‘em Teddie and Gussie and Willie. They was all of the very best, and all his dearest friends; but he told me confidentially they was none of ‘em fit to command a column in the field. He said they were too fond of advertising. Generals don’t seem very different from actors or doctors or — yes, Sir — inventors.

“He fixed things for me lovelily at Simons-Town. Had the biggest sort of pull — even for a Lord. At first they treated me as a harmless lunatic; but after a while I got ‘em to let me keep some of their books. If I was left alone in the world with the British system of bookkeeping, I’d reconstruct the whole British Empire — beginning with the Army. Yes, I’m one of their most trusted accountants, and I’m paid for it. As much as a dollar a day. I keep that. I’ve earned it, and I deduct it from the cost of my board. When the war’s over I’m going to pay up the balance to the British Government. Yes, Sir, that’s how I regard the proposition.

“Adrian? Oh, he left for Umballa four months back. He told me he was going to apply to join the National Scouts if the war didn’t end in a year. ‘Tisn’t in nature for one Dutchman to shoot another, but if Adrian ever meets up with Steyn there’ll be an exception to the rule. Ye — es, when the war’s over it’ll take some of the British Army to protect Steyn from his fellow-patriots. But the war won’t be over yet awhile. He that believeth don’t hurry, as Isaiah says. The ministers and the school-teachers and the rebs’ll have a war all to themselves long after the north is quiet.

“I’m pleased with this country — it’s big. Not so many folk on the ground as in America. There’s a boom coming sure. I’ve talked it over with Adrian, and I guess I shall buy a farm somewhere near Bloemfontein and start in cattle-raising. It’s big and peaceful — a ten-thousand-acre farm. I could go on inventing there, too. I’ll sell my Zigler, I guess. I’ll offer the patent rights to the British Government; and if they do the ‘reelly-now-how-interesting’ act over her, I’ll turn her over to Captain Mankeltow and his friend the Lord. They’ll pretty quick find some Gussie, or Teddie, or Algie who can get her accepted in the proper quarters. I’m beginning to know my English.

“And now I’ll go in swimming, and read the papers after lunch. I haven’t had such a good time since Willie died.” He pulled the blue shirt over his head as the bathers returned to their piles of clothing, and, speaking through the folds, added:

“But if you want to realise your assets, you should lease the whole proposition to America for ninety-nine years.”

 POSEIDON’S LAW

  When the robust and brass-bound man commissioned first for sea
  His fragile raft, Poseidon laughed, and, “Mariner,” said he,
  ”Behold, a Law immutable I lay on thee and thine,
  That never shall ye act or tell a falsehood at my shrine.

  ”Let Zeus adjudge your landward kin, whose votive meal and salt
  At easy-cheated altars win oblivion for the fault,
  But ye the unhoodwinked waves shall test — the immediate gulfs condemn —
  Unless ye owe the Fates a jest, be slow to jest with them.

  ”Ye shall not clear by Greekly speech, nor cozen from your path
  The twinkling shoal, the leeward beach, and Hadria’s white-lipped wrath;
  Nor tempt with painted cloth for wood my fraud-avenging hosts;
  Nor make at all or all make good your bulwarks and your boasts.

  ”Now and henceforward serve unshod through wet and wakeful shifts,
  A present and oppressive God, but take, to aid, my gifts —
  The wide and windward-opened eye, the large and lavish hand,
  The soul that cannot tell a lie — except upon the land!”

  In dromond and in catafract — wet, wakeful, windward-eyed —
  He kept Poseidon’s Law intact (his ship and freight beside),
  But, once discharged the dromond’s hold, the bireme beached once more,
  Splendaciously mendacious rolled the brass-bound man ashore.

* * * * *

  The thranite now and thalamite are pressures low and high,
  And where three hundred blades bit white the twin-propellers ply:
  The God that hailed, the keel that sailed, are changed beyond recall,
  But the robust and brass-bound man he is not changed at all!

  From Punt returned, from Phormio’s Fleet, from Javan and Gadire,
  He strongly occupies the seat about the tavern fire,
  And, moist with much Falernian or smoked Massilian juice,
  Revenges there the brass-bound man his long-enforced truce!

THE BONDS OF DISCIPLINE

As literature, it is beneath contempt. It concerns the endurance, armament, turning-circle, and inner gear of every ship in the British Navy — the whole embellished with profile plates. The Teuton approaches the matter with pagan thoroughness; the Muscovite runs him close; but the Gaul, ever an artist, breaks enclosure to study the morale, at the present day, of the British sailorman.

In this, I conceive, he is from time to time aided by the zealous amateur, though I find very little in his dispositions to show that he relies on that amateur’s hard-won information. There exists — unlike some other publication, it is not bound in lead boards — a work by one “M. de C.,” based on the absolutely unadorned performances of one of our well-known
Acolyte
type of cruisers. It contains nothing that did not happen. It covers a period of two days; runs to twenty-seven pages of large type exclusive of appendices; and carries as many exclamation points as the average Dumas novel.

I read it with care, from the adorably finished prologue — it is the disgrace of our Navy that we cannot produce a commissioned officer capable of writing one page of lyric prose — to the eloquent, the joyful, the impassioned end; and my first notion was that I had been cheated. In this sort of book-collecting you will see how entirely the bibliophile lies at the mercy of his agent.

“M. de C.,” I read, opened his campaign by stowing away in one of her boats what time H.M.S.
Archimandrite
lay off Funchal. “M. de C.” was, always on behalf of his country, a Madeira Portuguese fleeing from the conscription. They discovered him eighty miles at sea and bade him assist the cook. So far this seemed fairly reasonable. Next day, thanks to his histrionic powers and his ingratiating address, he was promoted to the rank of “supernumerary captain’s servant” — a “post which,” I give his words, “I flatter myself, was created for me alone, and furnished me with opportunities unequalled for a task in which one word malapropos would have been my destruction.”

From this point onward, earth and water between them held no marvels like to those “M. de C.” had “envisaged” — if I translate him correctly. It became clear to me that “M. de C.” was either a pyramidal liar, or…

I was not acquainted with any officer, seaman, or marine in the
Archimandrite
; but instinct told me I could not go far wrong if I took a third-class ticket to Plymouth.

I gathered information on the way from a leading stoker, two seaman- gunners, and an odd hand in a torpedo factory. They courteously set my feet on the right path, and that led me through the alleys of Devonport to a public-house not fifty yards from the water. We drank with the proprietor, a huge, yellowish man called Tom Wessels; and when my guides had departed, I asked if he could produce any warrant or petty officer of the
Archimandrite
.

“The
Bedlamite
, d’you mean — ’er last commission, when they all went crazy?”

“Shouldn’t wonder,” I replied. “Fetch me a sample and I’ll see.”

“You’ll excuse me, o’ course, but — what d’you want ‘im
for?
”

“I want to make him drunk. I want to make you drunk — if you like. I want to make him drunk here.”

“Spoke very ‘andsome. I’ll do what I can.” He went out towards the water that lapped at the foot of the street. I gathered from the pot-boy that he was a person of influence beyond Admirals.

In a few minutes I heard the noise of an advancing crowd, and the voice of
Mr. Wessels.

“‘E only wants to make you drunk at ‘is expense. Dessay ‘e’ll stand you all a drink. Come up an’ look at ‘im. ‘E don’t bite.”

A square man, with remarkable eyes, entered at the head of six large bluejackets. Behind them gathered a contingent of hopeful free-drinkers.

“‘E’s the only one I could get. Transferred to the
Postulant
six months back. I found ‘im quite accidental.” Mr. Wessels beamed.

“I’m in charge o’ the cutter. Our wardroom is dinin’ on the beach
en masse
. They won’t be home till mornin’,” said the square man with the remarkable eyes. “Are you an
Archimandrite?
” I demanded.

“That’s me. I was, as you might say.”

“Hold on. I’m a
Archimandrite.
” A Red Marine with moist eyes tried to climb on the table. “Was you lookin’ for a
Bedlamite?
I’ve — I’ve been invalided, an’ what with that, an’ visitin’ my family ‘ome at Lewes, per’aps I’ve come late. ‘Ave I?”

“You’ve ‘ad all that’s good for you,” said Tom Wessels, as the Red Marine sat cross-legged on the floor.

“There are those ‘oo haven’t ‘ad a thing yet!” cried a voice by the door.

“I will take this
Archimandrite
” I said, “and this Marine. Will you please give the boat’s crew a drink now, and another in half an hour if — if Mr. —  — ”

“Pyecroft,” said the square man. “Emanuel Pyecroft, second-class petty- officer.”

“ — Mr. Pyecroft doesn’t object?”

“He don’t. Clear out. Goldin’, you picket the hill by yourself, throwin’ out a skirmishin’-line in ample time to let me know when Number One’s comin’ down from his vittles.”

The crowd dissolved. We passed into the quiet of the inner bar, the Red
Marine zealously leading the way.

“And what do you drink, Mr. Pyecroft?” I said.

“Only water. Warm water, with a little whisky an’ sugar an’ per’aps a lemon.”

“Mine’s beer,” said the Marine. “It always was.”

“Look ‘ere, Glass. You take an’ go to sleep. The picket’ll be comin’ for you in a little time, an’ per’aps you’ll ‘ave slep’ it off by then. What’s your ship, now?” said Mr. Wessels.

“The Ship o’ State — most important?” said the Red Marine magnificently, and shut his eyes.

“That’s right,” said Mr. Pyecroft. “He’s safest where he is. An’ now — here’s santy to us all! — what d’you want o’ me?”

“I want to read you something.”

“Tracts, again!” said the Marine, never opening his eyes. “Well. I’m game…. A little more ‘ead to it, miss, please.”

“He thinks ‘e’s drinkin’ — lucky beggar!” said Mr. Pyecroft. “I’m agreeable to be read to. ‘Twon’t alter my convictions. I may as well tell you beforehand I’m a Plymouth Brother.”

He composed his face with the air of one in the dentist’s chair, and I began at the third page of “M. de C.”

“‘
At the moment of asphyxiation, for I had hidden myself under the boat’s cover, I heard footsteps upon the superstructure and coughed with empress
’ — coughed loudly, Mr. Pyecroft. ‘
By this time I judged the vessel to be sufficiently far from land. A number of sailors extricated me amid language appropriate to their national brutality. I responded that I named myself Antonio, and that I sought to save myself from the Portuguese conscription
.’

“Ho!” said Mr. Pyecroft, and the fashion of his countenance changed. Then pensively: “Ther beggar! What might you have in your hand there?”

“It’s the story of Antonio — a stowaway in the
Archimandrite’s
cutter. A
French spy when he’s at home, I fancy. What do
you
know about it?”

“An’ I thought it was tracts! An’ yet some’ow I didn’t.” Mr. Pyecroft nodded his head wonderingly. “Our old man was quite right — so was ‘Op — so was I. ‘Ere, Glass!” He kicked the Marine. “Here’s our Antonio ‘as written a impromptu book! He
was
a spy all right.”

The Red Marine turned slightly, speaking with the awful precision of the half-drunk. “‘As ‘e got any-thin’ in about my ‘orrible death an’ execution? Ex
cuse
me, but if I open my eyes, I shan’t be well. That’s where I’m different from
all
other men. Ahem!”

“What about Glass’s execution?” demanded Pyecroft.

“The book’s in French,” I replied.

“Then it’s no good to me.”

“Precisely. Now I want you to tell your story just as it happened. I’ll check it by this book. Take a cigar. I know about his being dragged out of the cutter. What I want to know is what was the meaning of all the other things, because they’re unusual.”

“They were,” said Mr. Pyecroft with emphasis. “Lookin’ back on it as I set here more an’ more I see what an ‘ighly unusual affair it was. But it happened. It transpired in the
Archimandrite
— the ship you can trust… Antonio! Ther beggar!”

“Take your time, Mr. Pyecroft.”

In a few moments we came to it thus —