THE MUTINEY OF THE MAVERICKS
Sec. 7 (1) - Causing or Conspiring with other persons to cause a
mutiny or sedition in forces belonging to Her Majesty's Regular
forces, Reserve forces, Auxiliary forces, or Navy.
When three obscure gentlemen in San Francisco argued on
insufficient premises they condemned a fellow-creature to a most
unpleasant death in a far country which had nothing whatever to do
with the United States. They foregathered at the top of a
tenement-house in Tehama Street, an unsavoury quarter of the city,
and, there calling for certain drinks, they conspired because they
were conspirators by trade, officially known as the Third Three of
the I. A. A. - an institution for the propagation of pure light,
not to be confounded with any others, though it is affiliated to
many. The Second Three live in Montreal, and work among the poor
there; the First Three have their home in New York, not far from
Castle Garden, and write regularly once a week to a small house
near one of the big hotels at Boulogne. What happens after that, a
particular section of Scotland Yard knows too well and laughs at.
A conspirator detests ridicule. More men have been stabbed with
Lucrezia Borgia daggers and dropped into the Thames for laughing
at Head Centres and Triangles than for betraying secrets; for this
is human nature.
The Third Three conspired over whiskey cocktails and a clean sheet
of note-paper against the British Empire and all that lay therein.
This work is very like what men without discernment call politics
before a general election. You pick out and discuss, in the
company of congenial friends, all the weak points in your
opponents' organisation, and unconsciously dwell upon and
exaggerate all their mishaps, till it seems to you a miracle that
the hated party holds together for an hour.
"Our principle is not so much active demonstration - that we leave
to others - as passive embarrassment, to weaken and unnerve," said
the first man. "Wherever an organisation is crippled, wherever
confusion is thrown into any branch of any department, we gain a
step for those who take on the work; we are but the forerunners."
He was a German enthusiast, and editor of a newspaper, from whose
leading articles he quoted frequently.
"That cursed Empire makes so many blunders of her own that unless
we doubled the year's average I guess it wouldn't strike her
anything special had occurred," said the second man. "Are you
prepared to say that all our resources are equal to blowing off
the muzzle of a hundred-ton gun or spiking a ten-thousand-ton ship
on a plain rock in clear daylight? They can beat us at our own
game. Better join hands with the practical branches; we're in
funds now. Try a direct scare in a crowded street. They value
their greasy hides." He was the drag upon the wheel, and an
Americanised Irishman of the second generation, despising his own
race and hating the other. He had learned caution.
The third man drank his cocktail and spoke no word. He was the
strategist, but unfortunately his knowledge of life was limited.
He picked a letter from his breast-pocket and threw it across the
table. That epistle to the heathen contained some very concise
directions from the First Three in New York.
It said -
"The boom in black iron has already affected the
eastern markets, where our agents have been forcing down the
English-held stock among the smaller buyers who watch the turn of
shares. Any immediate operations, such as western bears, would
increase their willingness to unload. This, however, cannot be
expected till they see clearly that foreign iron-masters are
willing to co-operate. Mulcahy should be dispatched to feel the
pulse of the market, and act accordingly. Mavericks are at present
the best for our purpose.- P. D. Q."
As a message referring to an iron crisis in Pennsylvania, it was
interesting, if not lucid. As a new departure in organized attack
on an outlying English dependency, it was more than interesting.
The second man read it through and murmured -"
Already? Surely they are in too great a hurry. All that Dhulip
Singh could do in India he has done, down to the distribution of
his photographs among the peasantry. Ho! Ho! The Paris firm
arranged that, and he has no substantial money backing from the
Other Power. Even our agents in India know he hasn't. What is the
use of our organisation wasting men on work that is already done?
Of course the Irish regiments in India are half mutinous as they
stand."
This shows how near a lie may come to the truth. An Irish
regiment, for just so long as it stands still, is generally a hard
handful to control, being reckless and rough. When, however, it is
moved in the direction of musketry-firing, it becomes strangely
and unpatriotically content with its lot. It has even been heard
to cheer the Queen with enthusiasm on these occasions.
But the notion of tampering with the army was, from the point of
view of Tehama Street, an altogether sound one. There is no shadow
of stability in the policy of an English Government, and the most
sacred oaths of England would, even if engrossed on vellum, find
very few buyers among colonies and dependencies that have suffered
from vain beliefs. But there remains to England always her army.
That cannot change except in the matter of uniform and equipment.
The officers may write to the papers demanding the heads of the
Horse Guards in default of cleaner redress for grievances; the men
may break loose across a country town and seriously startle the
publicans; but neither officers nor men have it in their
composition to mutiny after the continental manner. The English
people, when they trouble to think about the army at all, are, and
with justice, absolutely assured that it is absolutely
trustworthy. Imagine for a moment their emotions on realising that
such and such a regiment was in open revolt from causes directly
due to England's management of Ireland. They would probably send
the regiment to the polls forthwith and examine their own
consciences as to their duty to Erin; but they would never be easy
any more. And it was this vague, unhappy mistrust that the I. A.
A. were labouring to produce.
"Sheer waste of breath," said the second man after a pause in the
council. "I don't see the use of tampering with their fool-army,
but it has been tried before and we must try it again. It looks
well in the reports. If we send one man from here you may bet your
life that other men are going too. Order up Mulcahy."
They ordered him up - a slim, slight, dark-haired young man,
devoured with that blind rancorous hatred of England that only
reaches its full growth across the Atlantic. He had sucked it from
his mother's breast in the little cabin at the back of the
northern avenues of New York; he had been taught his rights and
his wrongs, in German and Irish, on the canal fronts of Chicago;
and San Francisco held men who told him strange and awful things
of the great blind power over the seas. Once, when business took
him across the Atlantic, he had served in an English regiment, and
being insubordinate had suffered extremely. He drew all his ideas
of England that
were not bred by the cheaper patriotic prints from one iron-fisted
colonel and an unbending adjutant.
He would go to the mines if need be to teach his gospel. And he
went, as his instructions advised, p. d. q. - which means "with
speed" - to introduce embarrassment into an Irish regiment,
"already half-mutinous, quartered among Sikh peasantry, all
wearing miniatures of His Highness Dhulip Singh, Maharaja of the
Punjab, next their hearts, and all eagerly expecting his arrival."
Other information equally valuable was given him by his masters.
He was to be cautious, but never to grudge expense in winning the
hearts of the men in the regiment. His mother in New York would
supply funds, and he was to write to her once a month. Life is
pleasant for a man who has a mother in New York to send him two
hundred pounds a year over and above his regimental pay.
In process of time, thanks to his intimate knowledge of drill and
musketry exercise, the excellent Mulcahy, wearing the corporal's
stripe, went out in a troopship and joined Her Majesty's Royal
Loyal Musketeers, commonly known as the "Mavericks," because they
were masterless and unbranded cattle - sons of small farmers in
County Clare, shoeless vagabonds of Kerry, herders of Ballyvegan,
much wanted "moonlighters" from the bare rainy headlands of the
south coast, officered by O'Mores, Bradys, Hills, Kilreas, and the
like. Never to outward seeming was there more promising material
to work on. The First Three had chosen their regiment well. It
feared nothing that moved or talked save the colonel and the
regimental Roman Catholic chaplain, the fat Father Dennis, who
held the keys of heaven and hell, and blared like an angry bull
when he desired to be convincing. Him also it loved because on
occasions of stress he was used to tuck up his cassock and charge
with the rest into the merriest of the fray, where he always
found, good man, that the saints sent him a revolver when there
was a fallen private to be protected, or - but this came as an
afterthought
his own gray head to be guarded.
Cautiously as he had been instructed, tenderly and with much beer,
Mulcahy opened his projects to such as he deemed fittest to
listen. And these were, one and all, of that quaint, crooked,
sweet, profoundly irresponsible and profoundly lovable race that
fight like fiends, argue like children, reason like women, obey
like men, and jest like their own goblins of the rath through
rebellion, loyalty, want, woe, or war. The underground work of a
conspiracy is always dull and very much the same the world over.
At the end of six months - the seed always falling on good ground
- Mulcahy spoke almost explicitly, hinting darkly in the approved
fashion at dread powers behind him, and advising nothing more nor
less than mutiny. Were they not dogs, evilly treated? had they not
all their own and their national revenges to satisfy? Who in these
days would do aught to nine hundred men in rebellion? Who, again,
could stay them if they broke for the sea, licking up on their way
other regiments only too anxious to join? And afterwards . . .
here followed windy promises of gold and preferment, office and
honour, ever dear to a certain type of Irishman.
As he finished his speech, in the dusk of a twilight, to his
chosen associates, there was a sound of a rapidly unslung belt
behind him. The arm of one Dan Grady flew out in the gloom and
arrested something. Then said Dan -
"Mulcahy, you're a great man, an' you do credit to whoever sent
you. Walk about a bit while we think of it." Mulcahy departed
elate. He knew his words would sink deep.
"Why the triple-dashed asterisks did ye not let me belt him'?"
grunted a voice.
"Because I'm not a fat-headed fool. Boys, 'tis what he's been
driving at these six months - our superior corp'ril with his
education and his copies of the Irish papers and his everlasting
beer. He's been sent for the purpose, and that's where the money
comes from. Can ye not see? That man's a gold-mine, which Horse
Egan here would have destroyed with a belt-buckle. It would be
throwing away the gifts of Providence not to fall in with his
little plans. Of coorse we'll mut'ny till all's dry. Shoot the
colonel on the parade-ground, massacree the company officers,
ransack the arsenal, and then - Boys, did he tell you what next?
He told me the other night when he was beginning to talk wild.
Then we're to join with the niggers, and look for help from Dhulip
Singh and the Russians!"
"And spoil the best campaign that ever was this side of Hell!
Danny, I'd have lost the beer to ha' given him the belting he
requires."
"Oh, let him go this awhile, man! He's got no - no
constructiveness, but that's the egg-meat of his plan, and you
must understand that I'm in with it, an' so are you. We'll want
oceans of beer to convince us - firmaments full. We'll give him
talk for his money, and one by one all the boys'll come in and
he'll have a nest of nine hundred mutineers to squat in an' give
drink to."
"What makes me killing-mad is his wanting us to do what the
niggers did thirty years gone. That an' his pig's cheek in saying
that other regiments would come along," said a Kerry man.
"That's not so bad as hintin' we should loose off on the colonel."
"Colonel be sugared! I'd as soon as not put a shot through his
helmet to see him jump and clutch his old horse's head. But
Mulcahy talks o' shootin' our comp'ny orf'cers accidental."
"He said that, did he?" said Horse Egan.
"Somethin' like that, anyways. Can't ye fancy ould Barber Brady
wid a bullet in his lungs, coughin' like a sick monkey, an'
sayin', 'Bhoys, I do not mind your gettin' dhrunk, but you must
hould your liquor like men. The man that shot me is dhrunk. I'll
suspend investigations for six hours, while I get this bullet cut
out, and then -'"
"'An' then," continued Horse Egan, for the peppery Major's
peculiarities of speech and manner were as well known as his
tanned face; "'an' then, ye dissolute, half-baked, putty-faced
scum o' Connemara, if I find a man so much as lookin' confused,
begad, I'll coort-martial the whole company. A man that can't get
over his liquor in six hours is not fit to belong to the
Mavericks!'"
A shout of laughter bore witness to the truth of the sketch.
"It's pretty to think of," said the Kerry man slowly. "Mulcahy
would have us do all the devilmint, and get clear himself,
someways. He wudn't be takin' all this fool's throuble in
shpoilin' the reputation of the regimint -"
"Reputation of your grandmother's pig!" said Dan.
"Well, an' he had a good reputation tu; so it's all right. Mulcahy
must see his way to clear out behind him, or he'd not ha' come so
far, talkin' powers of darkness."
"Did you hear anything of a regimental coortmartial among the
Black Boneens, these days? Half a company of 'em took one of the
new draft an' hanged him by his arms with a tent-rope from a
third-story verandah. They gave no reason for so doin', but he was
half dead. I'm thinking that the Boneens are short-sighted. It was
a friend of Mulcahy's, or a man in the same trade. They'd a deal
better ha' taken his beer," returned Dan reflectively.
"Better still ha' handed him up to the Colonel," said Horse Egan,
"onless - but sure the news wud be all over the counthry an' give
the reg'ment a bad name."
"An' there'd be no reward for that man - he but went about
talkin'," said the Kerry man artlessly.
"You speak by your breed," said Dan, with a laugh. "There was
never a Kerry man yet that wudn't sell his brother for a pipe o'
tobacco an' a pat on the back from a p'liceman."
"Praise God I'm not a bloomin' Orangeman," was the answer.
"No, nor never will be," said Dan. "They breed men in Ulster.
Would you like to thry the taste of one?"
The Kerry man looked and longed, but forbore. The odds of battle
were too great.
"Then you'll not even give Mulcahy a - a strike for his money,"
said the voice of Horse Egan, who regarded what he called
"trouble" of any kind as the pinnacle of felicity.
Dan answered not at all, but crept on tip-toe, with long strides,
to the mess-room, the men following. The room was empty. In a
corner, cased like the King of Dahomey's state umbrella, stood the
regimental Colours. Dan lifted them tenderly and unrolled in the
light of the candles the record of the Mavericks - tattered, worn,
and hacked. The white satin was darkened everywhere with big brown
stains, the gold threads on the crowned harp were frayed and
discoloured, and the Red Bull, the totem of the Mavericks, was
coffee-hued. The stiff, embroidered folds, whose price is human
life, rustled down slowly. The Mavericks keep their colours long
and guard them very sacredly.
"Vittoria, Salamanca, Toulouse, Waterloo, Moodkee, Ferozshah, an'
Sobraon - that was fought close next door here, against the very
beggars he wants us to join. Inkerman, The Alma, Sebastopol! 'What
are those little businesses compared to the campaigns of General
Mulcahy? The Mut'ny, think o' that; the Mut'ny an' some dirty
little matters in Afghanistan; an' for that an' these an' those" -
Dan pointed to the names of glorious battles - "that Yankee man
with the partin' in his hair comes an' says as easy as 'have a
drink' . . . Holy Moses, there's the captain!"
But it was the mess-sergeant who came in just as the men clattered
out, and found the colours uncased.
From that day dated the mutiny of the Mavericks, to the joy of
Mulcahy and the pride of his mother in New York - the good lady
who sent the money for the beer. Never, so far as words went, was
such a mutiny. The conspirators, led by Dan Grady and Horse Egan,
poured in daily. They were sound men, men to be trusted, and they
all wanted blood; but first they must have beer. They cursed the
Queen, they mourned over Ireland, they suggested hideous plunder
of the Indian country-side, and then, alas - some of the younger
men would go forth and wallow on the ground in spasms of wicked
laughter The genius of the Irish for conspiracies is remarkable.
None the less they would swear no oaths but those of their own
making, which were rare and curious, and they were always at pains
to impress Mulcahy with the risks they ran. Naturally the flood of
beer wrought demoralisation. But Mulcahy confused the causes of
things, and when a very muzzy Maverick smote a sergeant on the
nose or called his commanding officer a bald-headed old lard-
bladder and even worse names, he fancied that rebellion and not
liquor was at the bottom of the outbreak. Other gentlemen who have
concerned themselves in larger conspiracies have made the same
error.
The hot season, in which they protested no man could rebel, came
to an end, and Mulcahy suggested a visible return for his
teachings. As to the actual upshot of the mutiny he cared nothing.
It would be enough if the English, infatuatedly trusting to the
integrity of their army, should be startled with news of an Irish
regiment revolting from political considerations. His persistent
demands would have ended, at Dan's instigation, in a regimental
belting which in all probability would have killed him and cut off
the supply of beer, had not he been sent on special duty some
fifty miles away from the Cantonment to cool his heels in a mud
fort and dismount obsolete artillery. Then the colonel of the
Mavericks, reading his newspaper diligently, and scenting Frontier
trouble from afar, posted to the army headquarters and pled with
the Commander-in-chief for certain privileges, to be granted under
certain contingencies,; which contingencies came about only a week
later, when the annual little war on the border developed itself
and the colonel returned to carry the good news to the Mavericks.
He held the promise of the Chief for active service, and the men
must get ready.
On the evening of the same day, Mulcahy, an unconsidered corporal
- yet great in conspiracy - returned to cantonments, and heard
sounds of strife and howlings from afar off. The mutiny had broken
out and the barracks of the Mavericks were one white-washed
pandemonium. A private tearing through the barrack-square, gasped
in his ear, "Service! Active service. It's a burnin' shame." Oh
joy, the Mavericks had risen on the eve of battle! They would not
- noble and loyal sons of Ireland - serve the Queen longer. The
news would flash through the country-side and over to England, and
he - Mulcahy - the trusted of the Third Three, had brought about
the crash. The private stood in the middle of the square and
cursed colonel, regiment, officers, and doctor, particularly the
doctor, by his gods. An orderly of the native cavalry regiment
clattered through the mob of soldiers. He was half lifted, half
dragged from his horse, beaten on the back with mighty hand-claps
till his eyes watered, and called all manner of endearing names.
Yes, the Mavericks had fraternized with the native troops. Who
then was the agent among the latter that had blindly wrought with
Mulcahy so well?
An officer slunk, almost ran, from the mess to a barrack. He was
mobbed by the infuriated soldiery, who closed round but did not
kill him, for he fought his way to shelter, flying for the life.
Mulcahy could have wept with pure joy and thankfulness. The very
prisoners in the guard-room were shaking the bars of their cells
and howling like wild beasts, and from every barrack poured the
booming as of a big war-drum.
Mulcahy hastened to his own barrack. He could hardly hear himself
speak. Eighty men were pounding with fist and heel the tables and
trestles - eighty men, flushed with mutiny, stripped to their
shirt sleeves, their knapsacks half-packed for the march to the
sea, made the two-inch boards thunder again as they chanted, to a
tune that Mulcahy knew well, the Sacred War Song of the Mavericks-
Listen in the north, my boys, there's trouble on the wind;
Tramp o' Cossack hooves in front, gray great-coats behind,
Trouble on the Frontier of a most amazin' kind,
Trouble on the waters o' the Oxus!
Then, as the table broke under the furious accompaniment -
Hurrah! hurrah! it's north by west we go;
Hurrah! hurrah! the chance we wanted so;
Let 'em hear the chorus from Umballa to Moscow,
As we go marchin' to the Kremling.
"Mother of all the saints in bliss and all the devils in cinders,
where's my fine new sock widout the heel?" howled Horse Egan,
ransacking everybody's valise but his own. He was engaged in
making up deficiencies of kit preparatory to a campaign, and in
that work he steals best who steals last. "Ah, Mulcahy, you're in
good time," he shouted, "We've got the route, and we're off on
Thursday for a pic-nic wid the Lancers next door."
An ambulance orderly appeared with a huge basket full of lint
rolls, provided by the forethought of the Queen for such as might
need them later on. Horse Egan unrolled his bandage, and flicked
it under Mulcahy's nose, chanting -
"Sheepskin an' bees' wax, thunder, pitch, and plaster,
The more you try to pull it off, the more it sticks the faster.
As I was goin' to New Orleans -
"You know the rest of it, my Irish American-Jew boy. By gad, ye
have to fight for the Queen in the inside av a fortnight, my
darlin'"
A roar of laughter interrupted. Mulcahy looked vacantly down the
room. Bid a boy defy his father when the pantomime-cab is at the
door, or a girl develop a will of her own when her mother is
putting the last touches to the first ball-dress, but do not ask
an Irish regiment to embark upon mutiny on the eve of a campaign,
when it has fraternised with the native regiment that accompanies
it, and driven its officers into retirement with ten thousand
clamorous questions, and the
prisoners dance for joy, and the sick men stand in the open
calling down all known diseases on the head of the doctor, who has
certified that they are
"medically unfit for active service." At even the Mavericks might
have been mistaken for mutineers by one so unversed in their
natures as Mulcahy. At dawn a girls' school might have learned
deportment from them. They knew that their
colonel's hand had closed, and that he who broke that iron
discipline would not go to the front: nothing in the world will
persuade one of our soldiers, when he is ordered to the north on
the smallest of affairs, that he is not immediately going
gloriously to slay Cossacks and cook his kettles in the palace of
the Czar. A few of the younger men mourned for Mulcahy's beer,
because the campaign was to be conducted on strict temperance
principles, but as Dan and Horse Egan said sternly, "We've got the
beer-man with us. He shall drink now on his own hook."
Mulcahy had not taken into account the possibility of being sent
on active service. He had made up his mind that he would not go
under any circumstances, but fortune was against him.
"Sick-you?" said the doctor, who had served an unholy
apprenticeship to his trade in Tralee poorhouses. "You're only
home-sick, and what you call varicose veins come from over-eating.
A little gentle exercise will cure that." And later, "Mulcahy, my
man, everybody is allowed to apply for a sick-certificate once. If
he tries it twice we call him by an ugly name. Go back to your
duty, and let's hear no more of your diseases."
I am ashamed to say that Horse Egan enjoyed the study of Mulcahy's
soul in those days, and Dan took an equal interest. Together they
would communicate to their corporal all the dark lore of death
which is the portion of those who have
seen men die. Egan had the larger experience, but Dan the finer
imagination. Mulcahy shivered when the former spoke of the knife
as an intimate acquaintance, or the latter dwelt with loving
particularity on the fate of those who, wounded and helpless, had
been overlooked by the ambulances, and had fallen into the hands
of the Afghan women-folk.
Mulcahy knew that the mutiny, for the present at least, was dead;
knew, too, that a change had come over Dan's usually respectful
attitude towards him, and Horse Egan's laughter and frequent
allusions to abortive conspiracies emphasised all that the
conspirator had guessed. The horrible fascination of the death-
stories, however, made him seek the men's society. He learned much
more than he had bargained for; and in this manner. It was on the
last night before the regiment entrained to the front. The
barracks were stripped of everything movable, and the men were too
excited to sleep. The bare walls gave out a heavy hospital smell
of chloride of lime.
"And what," said Mulcahy in an awe-stricken whisper, after some
conversation on the eternal subject, "are you going to do to me,
Dan?" This might have been the language of an able conspirator
conciliating a weak spirit.
"You'll see," said Dan grimly, turning over in his cot, "or I
rather shud say you'll not see."
This was hardly the language of a weak spirit. Mulcahy shook under
the bed-clothes.
"Bc easy with him," put in Egan from the next cot. "He has got his
chanst o' goin' clean. Listen, Mulcahy, all we want is for the
good sake of the regiment that you take your death standing up, as
a man shud. There's be heaps an' heaps of enemy - plenshus heaps.
Go there an' do all you can and die decent. You'll die with a good
name there. 'Tis not a hard thing considerin'."
-
Again Mulcahy shivered.
"An' how could a man wish to die better than fightin'?" added Dan
consolingly.
"And if I won't?" said the corporal in a dry whisper.
"There'll be a dale of smoke," returned Dan, sitting up and
ticking off the situation on his fingers, "sure to be, an' the
noise of the firin'll be tremenjus, an' we'll be running about up
and down, the regiment will. But we, Horse and I - we'll stay by
you, Mulcahy, and never let you go. Maybe there'll be an
accident."
"It's playing it low on me. Let me go. For pity's sake, let me go.
I never did you harm, and - and I stood you as much beer as I
could. Oh, don't be hard on me, Dan! You are - you were in it too.
You won't kill me up there, will you?"
"I'm not thinkin' of the treason; though you shud be glad any
honest boys drank with you. It's for the regiment. We can't have
the shame o' you bringin' shame on us. You went to the doctor
quiet as a sick cat to get and stay behind an' live with the women
at the depot - you that wanted us to run to the sea in wolf-packs
like the rebels none of your black blood dared to be! But we knew
about your goin' to the doctor, for he told in mess, and it's all
over the regiment. Bein', as we are, your best friends, we didn't
allow any one to molest you yet. We will see to you ourselves.
Fight which you will - us or the enemy you'll never lie in that
cot again, and there's more glory and maybe less kicks from
fightin' the enemy. That's fair speakin'."
-
"And he told us by word of mouth to go and join with the niggers -
you've forgotten that, Dan," said Horse Egan, to justify sentence.
"What's the use of plaguin'' the man? One shot pays for all. Sleep
ye sound, Mulcahy. But you onderstand, do ye not?"
Mulcahy for some weeks understood very little of anything at all
save that ever at his elbow, in camp or at parade, stood two big
men with soft voices adjuring him to commit hari-kari lest a worse
thing should happen - to die for the honour of the regiment in
decency among the nearest knives. But Mulcahy dreaded death. He
remembered certain things that priests had said in his infancy,
and his mother - not the one at New York - starting from her sleep
with shrieks to pray for a husband's soul in torment. It is well
to be of a cultured intelligence, but in time of trouble the weak
human mind returns to the creed it sucked in at the breast, and if
that creed be not a pretty one trouble follows. Also, the death he
would have to face would be physically painful. Most conspirators
have large imaginations. Mulcahy could see himself, as he lay on
the earth in the night, dying by various causes. They were all
horrible; the mother in New York was very far away, and the
Regiment, the engine that, once you fall in its grip, moves you
forward whether you will or won't, was daily coming closer to the
enemy!
They were brought to the field of MarzunKatai, and with the Black
Boneens to aid, they fought a fight that has never been set down
in the newspapers. In response, many believe, to the fervent
prayers of Father Dennis, the enemy not only elected to fight in
the open, but made a beautiful fight, as many weeping Irish
mothers knew later. They gathered behind walls or flickered across
the open in shouting masses, and were pot-valiant in artillery. It
was expedient to hold a large reserve and wait for the
psychological moment that was being prepared by the shrieking
shrapnel. Therefore the Mavericks lay down in open order on the
brow of a hill to watch the play till their call should come.
Father Dennis, whose duty was in the rear, to smooth the trouble
of the wounded, had naturally managed to make his way to the
foremost of his boys, and lay like a black porpoise, at length on
the grass. To him crawled Mulcahy, ashen-gray, demanding
absolution.
"'Wait till you're shot," said Father Dennis sweetly. "There's a
time for everything."
Dan Grady chuckled as he blew for the fiftieth time into the
breech of his speckless rifle. Mulcahy groaned and buried his head
in his arms till a stray shot spoke like a snipe immediately above
his head, and a general heave and tremour rippled the line. Other
shots followed and a few took effect, as a shriek or a grunt
attested. The officers, who had been lying down with the men, rose
and began to walk steadily up and down the front of their
companies.
This manoeuvre, executed, not for publication, but as a guarantee
of good faith, to soothe men, demands nerve. You must not hurry,
you must not look nervous, though you know that you are a mark for
every rifle within extreme range, and above all if you are smitten
you must make as little noise as possible and roll inwards through
the files. It is at this hour, when the breeze brings the first
salt whiff of the powder to noses rather cold at the tip, and the
eye can quietly take in the appearance of each red casualty, that
the strain on the nerves is strongest. Scotch regiments can endure
for half a day and abate no whit of their zeal at the end; English
regiments sometimes sulk under punishment, while the Irish, like
the French, are apt to run forward by ones and twos, which is just
as bad as running back. The truly wise commandant of highly-strung
troops allows them, in seasons of waiting, to hear the sound of
their own voices uplifted in song. There is a legend of an English
regiment that lay by its arms under fire chaunting "Sam Hall," to
the horror of its newly appointed and pious colonel. The Black
Boneens, who were suffering more than the Mavericks, on a hill
half a mile away, began presently to explain to all who cared to
listen -
We'll sound the jubilee, from the centre to the sea,
And Ireland shall be free, says the Shan-van Vogh.
"Sing, boys," said Father Dennis softly. "It looks as if we cared
for their Afghan peas."
Dan Grady raised himself to his knees and opened his mouth in a
song imparted to him, as to most of his comrades, in the strictest
confidence by Mulcahy - that Mulcahy then lying limp and fainting
on the grass, the chill fear of death upon him.
Company after company caught up the words which, the I. A. A. say,
are to herald the general rising of Erin, and to breathe which,
except to those duly appointed to hear, is death. Wherefore they
are printed in this place.
The Saxon in Heaven's just balance is weighed,
His doom like Belshazzar's in death has been cast,
And the hand of the venger shall never be stayed
Till his race, faith, and speech are a dream of the past.
They were heart-filling lines and they ran with a swirl; the I. A.
A. are better served by their pens than their petards. Dan clapped
Mulcahy merrily on the back, asking him to sing up. The officers
lay down again. There was no need to walk any more. Their men were
soothing themselves thunderously, thus -
St. Mary in Heaven has written the vow
That the land shall not rest till the heretic blood,
From the babe at the breast to the hand at the plough,
Has rolled to the ocean like Shannon in flood!
"I'll speak to you after all's over," said Father Dennis
authoritatively in Dan's ear. "What's the use of confessing to me
when you do this foolishness? Dan, you've been playing with fire!
I'll lay you more penance in a week than -"
"Come along to Purgatory with us, Father dear. The Boneens are on
the move; they'll let us go now!"
The regiment rose to the blast of the bugle as one man; but one
man there was who rose more swiftly than all the others, for half
an inch of bayonet was in the fleshy part of his leg.
"You've got to do it," said Dan grimly. "Do it decent, anyhow;"
and the roar of the rush drowned his words, for the rear companies
thrust forward the first, still singing as they swung down the
slope -
From the child at the breast to the hand at the plough
Shall roll to the ocean like Shannon in flood!
They should have sung it in the face of England, not of the
Afghans, whom it impressed as much as did the wild Irish yell.
"They came down singing," said the unofficial report of the enemy,
borne from village to village the next day. "They continued to
sing, and it was written that our men could not abide when they
came. It is believed that there was magic in the aforesaid song."
Dan and Horse Egan kept themselves in the neighbourhood of
Mulcahy. Twice the man would have bolted back in the confusion.
Twice he was heaved, kicked, and shouldered back again into the
unpaintable inferno of a hotly contested charge.
At the end, the panic excess of his fear drove him into madness
beyond all human courage. His eyes staring at nothing, his mouth
open and frothing, and breathing as one in a cold bath, he went
forward demented, while Dan toiled after him. The charge checked
at a high mud wall. It was Mulcahy who scrambled up tooth and nail
and hurled down among the bayonets the amazed Afghan who barred
his way. It was Mulcahy, keeping to the straight line of the rabid
dog, who led a collection of ardent souls at a newly unmasked
battery and flung himself on the muzzle of a gun as his companions
danced among the gunners. It was Mulcahy who ran wildly on from
that battery into the open plain, where the enemy were retiring in
sullen groups. His hands were empty, he had lost helmet and belt,
and he was bleeding from a wound in the neck. Dan and Horse Egan,
panting and distressed, had thrown themselves down on the ground
by the captured guns, when they noticed Mulcahy's charge.
"Mad," said Horse Egan critically. "Mad with fear! He's going
straight to his death, an' shouting's no use."
"Let him go. Watch now! If we fire we'll hit him maybe."
The last of a hurrying crowd of Afghans turned at the noise of
shod feet behind him, and shifted his knife ready to hand. This,
he saw, was no time to take prisoners. Mulcahy tore on, sobbing;
the straight-held blade went home through the defenceless breast,
and the body pitched forward almost before a shot from Dan's rifle
brought down the slayer and still further hurried the Afghan
retreat. The two Irishmen went out to bring in their dead.
"He was given the point, and that was an easy death," said Horse
Egan, viewing the corpse. "But would you ha' shot him, Danny, if
he had lived?"
"He didn't live, so there's no sayin'. But I doubt I wud have
bekaze of the fun he gave us - let alone the beer. Hike up his
legs, Horse, and we'll bring him in. Perhaps 'tis better this
way."
They bore the poor limp body to the mass of the regiment, lolling
open-mouthed on their rifles; and there was a general snigger when
one of the younger subalterns said, "That was a good man!"
"Phew," said Horse Egan, when a burial-party had taken over the
burden. "I'm powerful dhry, and this reminds me there'll be no
more beer at all."
"Fwhy not?" said Dan, with a twinkle in his eye as he stretched
himself for rest. "Are we not conspirin' all we can, an' while we
conspire are we not entitled to free dhrinks? Sure his ould mother
in New York would not let her son's comrades perish of drouth - if
she can be reached at the end of a letter."
"You're a janius," said Horse Egan. "0' coorse she will not. I
wish this crool war was over, an' we'd get back to canteen. Faith,
the Commander-in-chief ought to be hanged in his own little sword-
belt for makin' us work on wather."
The Mavericks were generally of Horse Egan's opinion. So they made
haste to get their work done as soon as possible, and their
industry was rewarded by unexpected peace. " We can fight the sons
of Adam," said the tribesmen, "but we cannot fight the sons of
Eblis, and this regiment never stays still in one place. Let us
therefore come in." They came in, and "this regiment" withdrew to
conspire under the leadership of Dan Grady.
Excellent as a subordinate, Dan failed altogether as a chief-in-
command - possibly because he was too much swayed by the advice of
the only man in the regiment who could manufacture more than one
kind of handwriting. The same mail that bore to Mulcahy's mother
in New York a letter from the colonel telling her how valiantly
her son had fought for the Queen, and how assuredly he would have
been recommended for the Victoria Cross had he survived, carried a
communication signed, I grieve to say, by that same colonel and
all the officers of the regiment, explaining their willingness to
do "anything which is contrary to the regulations and all kinds of
revolutions" if only a little money could be forwarded to cover
incidental expenses. Daniel Grady, Esquire, would receive funds,
vice Mulcahy, who "was unwell at this present time of writing."
Both letters were forwarded from New York to Tehama Street, San
Francisco, with marginal comments as brief as they were bitter.
The Third Three read and looked at each other. Then the Second
Conspirator - he who believed in "joining hands with the practical
branches" - began to laugh, and on recovering his gravity said,
"Gentlemen, I consider this will be a lesson to us. We're left
again. Those cursed Irish have let us down. I knew they would,
but" - here he laughed afresh - "I'd give considerable to know
what was at the back of it all."
His curiosity would have been satisfied had he seen Dan Grady,
discredited regimental conspirator, trying to explain to his
thirsty comrades in India the non-arrival of funds from New York.
