Collected Stories Read Free

man mikes a ’ome of a bleedin’ place,” mumbles ’Awkins, shaking her by the hand, “some bastard at Headquarters thinks you’re too cushy and shunts you off.” Belcher shakes her hand very hearty. “A thousand thanks, madam,” he says, “a thousand thanks for everything …” as though he’d made it all up.
    We go round to the back of the house and down towards the fatal bog. Then Jeremiah Donovan comes out with what is in his mind. “There were four of our lads shot by your fellows this morning so now you’re to be bumped off.” “Cut that stuff out,” says ’Awkins, flaring up. “It’s bad enough to be mucked about such as we are without you plying at soldiers.” “It’s true,” says Jeremiah Donovan, “I’m sorry, ’Awkins, but ’tis true,” and comes out with the usual rigmarole about doing our duty and obeying our superiors. “Cut it out,” says ’Awkins irritably. “Cut it out!”
    Then, when Donovan sees he is not being believed he turns to me, “Ask Bonaparte here,” he says. “I don’t need to arsk Bonaparte. Me and Bonaparte are chums.” “Isn’t it true, Bonaparte?” says Jeremiah Donovan solemnly to me. “It is,” I say sadly, “it is.” ’Awkins stops. “Now, for Christ’s sike.…” “I mean it, chum,” I say. “You daon’t saound as if you mean it. You knaow well you don’t mean it.” “Well, if he don’t I do,” says Jeremiah Donovan. “Why the ’ell sh’d you want to shoot me, Jeremiah Donovan?” “Why the hell should your people take out four prisoners and shoot them in cold blood upon a barrack square?” I perceive Jeremiah Donovan is trying to encourage himself with hot words.
    Anyway, he took little ’Awkins by the arm and dragged him on, but it was impossible to make him understand that we were in earnest. From which you will perceive how difficult it was for me, as I kept feeling my Smith and Wesson and thinking what I would do if they happened to put up a fight or ran for it, and wishing in my heart they would. I knew if only they ran I would never fire on them. “Was Noble in this?” ’Awkins wanted to know, and we said yes. He laughed. But why should Noble want to shoot him? Why should we want to shoot him? What had he done to us? Weren’t we chums (the word lingers painfully in my memory)? Weren’t we? Didn’t we understand him and didn’t he understand us? Did either of us imagine for an instant that he’d shoot us for all the so-and-so brigadiers in the so-and-so British Army? By this time I began to perceive in the dusk the desolate edges of the bog that was to be their last earthly bed, and, so great a sadness overtook my mind, I could not answer him. We walked along the edge of it in the darkness, and every now and then ’Awkins would call a halt and begin again, just as if he was wound up, about us being chums, and I was in despair that nothing but the cold and open grave made ready for his presence would convince him that we meant it all. But all the same, if you can understand, I didn’t want him to be bumped off.
    A T LAST we saw the unsteady glint of a lantern in the distance and made towards it. Noble was carrying it, and Feeney stood somewhere in the darkness behind, and somehow the picture of the two of them so silent in the boglands was like the pain of death in my heart. Belcher, on recognizing Noble, said “’Allo, chum” in his usual peaceable way, but ’Awkins flew at the poor boy immediately, and the dispute began all over again, only that Noble hadn’t a word to say for himself, and stood there with the swaying lantern between his gaitered legs.
    It was Jeremiah Donovan who did the answering. ’Awkins asked for the twentieth time (for it seemed to