Midnight Webs. Fenn George Manville
used to call him, though his name was Hughes; and how we men did hate him, mortally, till we found put his real character, when we were lying cut to pieces almost, and him ready to cry over us at times as he tried to bring us round. “Hold up, my lads,” he’d say, “only another hour, and you’ll be round the corner!” when what there was left of us did him justice. Then, of course, there were other officers, and some away with the major, and another battalion of our regiment at Wallahbad; but they’ve nothing to do with my story.
I don’t think I can do better now than introduce you to our mess on the very morning of this halt, when, after cooling myself with a pipe, just the same as I should have warmed myself with a pipe if it had been in Canady or Nova Scotia, I walked up to find all ready for breakfast, and Mrs Bantem making the tea.
Some of the men didn’t fail to laugh at us who took our tea for breakfast; but all the same I liked it, for it always took me home, tea did – and to the days when my poor old mother used to say that there never was such a boy for bread-and-butter as I was; not as there was ever so much butter that she need have grumbled, whatever I cost for bread; and though Mrs Bantem wasn’t a bit like my mother, she brought up the homely thoughts. Mrs Bantem was, I should say, about the biggest and ugliest woman I ever saw in my life. She stood five feet eleven and a half in her stockings, for Joe Bantem got Sergeant Buller to take her under the standard one day. She’d got a face nearly as dark as a black’s; she’d got a moustache, and a good one too; and a great coarse look about her altogether. Measles – I’ll tell you who he was directly – Measles used to say she was a horse godmother; and they didn’t seem to like one another; but Joe Bantem was as proud of that woman as she was of him; and if any one hinted about her looks, he used to laugh, and say that was only the outside rind, and talk about the juice. But all the same, though, no one couldn’t be long with that woman without knowing her flavour. It was a sight to see her and Joe together, for he was just a nice middle size – five feet seven and a half – and as pretty a pink-and-white, brown-whiskered, open-faced man as ever you saw. We all got tanned and coppered over and over again, but Joe kept as nice and fresh and fair as on the day we embarked from Gosport years before; and the standing joke was that Mrs Bantem had a preparation for keeping his complexion all square.
Joe Bantem knew what he was about, though, for one day when a nasty remark had been made by the men of another regiment, he got talking to me in confidence over our pipes, and he swore that there wasn’t a better woman living; and he was right, for I’m ready now at this present moment to take the Book in my hand, and swear the same thing before all the judges in Old England. For you see, we’re such duffers, we men: show us a pretty bit of pink-and-white, and we run mad after it; while all the time we’re running away from no end of what’s solid and good and true, and such as’ll wear well, and show fast colours, long after your pink-and-white’s got faded and grimy. Not as I’ve much room to talk. But present company you know, and setra. What, though, as a rule, does your pretty pink-and-white know about buttons, or darning, or cooking? Why, we had the very best of cooking; not boiled tag and rag, but nice stews and roasts and hashes, when other men were growling over a dog’s-meat dinner. We had the sweetest of clean shirts, and never a button off; our stockings were darned; and only let one of us – Measles, say – take a drop more than he ought, just see how Mrs Bantem would drop on to him, that’s all. If his head didn’t ache before, it would ache then; and I can see as plain now as if it was only this minute, instead of years ago, her boxing Measles’ ears, and threatening to turn him out to another mess if he didn’t keep sober. And she would have turned him over too, only, as she said to Joe, and Joe told me, it might have been the poor fellow’s ruin, seeing how weak he was, and easily led away. The long and short of it is, Mrs Bantem was a good motherly woman of forty; and those who had anything to say against her, said it out of jealousy, and all I have to say now is what I’ve said before: she only had one fault, and that is, she never had any little Bantems to make wives for honest soldiers to come; and wherever she is, my wish is that she may live happy and venerable to a hundred.
That brings me to Measles. Bigley his name was; but he’d had the small-pox very bad when a child, through not being vaccinated; and his face was all picked out in holes, so round and smooth that you might have stood peas in them all over his cheeks and forehead, and they wouldn’t have fallen off; so we called him Measles. If any of you pay “Why?” I don’t know no more than I have said.
He was a sour-tempered sort of fellow was Measles, who ’listed because his sweetheart laughed at him; not that he cared for her, but he didn’t like to be laughed at, so he ’listed out of spite, as he said, and that made him spiteful. He was always grumbling about not getting his promotion, and sneering at everything and everybody, and quarrelling with Harry Lant, him, you know, as carried the elephant’s trunk; while Harry was never happy without he was teasing him, so that sometimes there was a deal of hot water spilled in our mess.
And now I think I’ve only got to name three of the drum-boys, that Mrs Bantem ruled like a rod of iron, though all for their good, and then I’ve done.
Well, we had our breakfast, and thoroughly enjoyed it, sitting out there in the shade. Measles grumbled about the water, just because it happened to be better than usual; for sometimes we soldiers out there in India used to drink water that was terrible lively before it had been cooked in the kettle; for though water-insects out there can stand a deal of heat, they couldn’t stand a fire. Mrs Bantem was washing up the things afterwards, and talking about dinner; Harry Lant was picking up all the odds and ends to carry off to the great elephant, standing just then in the best bit of shade he could find, flapping his great ears about, blinking his little pig’s eyes, and turning his trunk and his tail into two pendulums, swinging them backwards and forwards as regular as clockwork, and all the time watching Harry, when Measles says all at once: “Here come some lunatics!”
Story 1-Chapter III
Now, after what I’ve told you about Measles ’listing for spite, you will easily understand that the fact of his calling any one a lunatic did not prove a want of common reason in the person spoken about; but what he meant was, that the people coming up were half mad for travelling when the sun was so high, and had got so much power.
I looked up and saw, about a mile off, coming over the long straight level plain, what seemed to be an elephant, and a man or two on horseback; and before I had been looking above a minute, I saw Captain Dyer cross over to the colonel’s tent, and then point in the direction of the coming elephant. The next minute, he crossed over to where we were. “Seen Lieutenant Leigh?” he says in his quick way.
“No, sir; not since breakfast.”
“Send him after me if he comes in sight. Tell him Miss Ross and party are yonder, and I’ve ridden on to meet them.”
The next minute he had gone, taken a horse from a sycee, and in spite of the heat, cantered off to meet the party with the elephant, the air being that clear that I could see him go right up, turn his horse round, and ride gently back by the elephant’s side.
I did not see anything of the lieutenant, and, to tell the truth, I forgot all about him, as I was thinking about the party coming, for I had somehow heard a little about Mrs Maine’s sister coming out from the old country to stay with her. If I recollect right, the black nurse told Mrs Bantem, and she mentioned it. This party, then, I supposed, contained the lady herself; and it was as I thought. We had had to leave Patna unexpectedly to relieve the regiment ordered home; and the lady, according to orders, had followed us, for this was only our second day’s march.
I suppose it was my pipe made me settle down to watch the coming party, and wonder what sort of a body Miss Ross would be, and whether anything like her sister. Then I wondered who would marry her, for, as you know, ladies are not very long out in India without picking up a husband. “Perhaps,” I said to myself, “it will be the lieutenant;” but ten minutes after, as the elephant shambled up, I altered my mind, for Captain Dyer was ambling along beside the great beast, and his was the hand that helped the lady down – a tall, handsome, self-possessed girl, who seemed quite to take the lead, and kiss and soothe the sister, when she ran out of the tent to throw her arms round the new-comer’s neck.
“At last, then, Elsie,” Mrs Colonel said out aloud. “You’ve had a long dreary ride.”
“Not