No More Learning

"

"Don't ask me. She was a woman. Go to sleep. "

* * * * *




ONLY A SUBALTERN

. . . Not only to enforce by command but to encourage by
example the energetic discharge of duty and the steady
endurance of the difficulties and privations inseparable
from Military Service. --Bengal Army Regulations.

THEY made Bobby Wick pass an examination at Sandhurst. He was a
gentleman before he was gazetted, so, when the Empress announced that
"Gentleman-Cadet Robert Hanna Wick" was posted as Second Lieutenant to
the Tyneside Tail Twisters at Kram Bokhar, he became an officer and a
gentleman, which is an enviable thing; and there was joy in the house of
Wick where Mamma Wick and all the little Wicks fell upon their knees and
offered incense to Bobby by virtue of his achievements.

Papa Wick had been a Commissioner in his day, holding authority over
three millions of men in the Chota-Buldana Division, building great
works for the good of the land, and doing his best to make two blades
of grass grow where there was but one before. Of course, nobody knew
anything about this in the little English village where he was just "old
Mr. Wick" and had forgotten that he was a Companion of the Order of the
Star of India.

He patted Bobby on the shoulder and said: "Well done, my boy! "

There followed, while the uniform was being prepared, an interval of
pure delight, during which Bobby took brevet-rank as a "man" at the
women-swamped tennis-parties and tea-fights of the village, and, I dare
say, had his joining-time been extended, would have fallen in love with
several girls at once.
Little country villages at Home are very full of
nice girls, because all the young men come out to India to make their
fortunes.

"India," said Papa Wick, "is the place. I've had thirty years of it and,
begad, I'd like to go back again. When you join the Tail Twisters you'll
be among friends, if every one hasn't forgotten Wick of Chota-Buldana,
and a lot of people will be kind to you for our sakes. The mother will
tell you more about outfit than I can, but remember this. Stick to your
Regiment, Bobby--stick to your Regiment. You'll see men all round you
going into the Staff Corps, and doing every possible sort of duty but
regimental, and you may be tempted to follow suit. Now so long as you
keep within your allowance, and I haven't stinted you there, stick to
the Line, the whole Line and nothing but the Line. Be careful how you
back another young fool's bill, and if you fall in love with a woman
twenty years older than yourself, don't tell me about it, that's all. "

With these counsels, and many others equally valuable, did Papa Wick
fortify Bobby ere that last awful night at Portsmouth when the Officers'
Quarters held more inmates than were provided for by the Regulations,
and the liberty-men of the ships fell foul of the drafts for India, and
the battle raged from the Dockyard Gates even to the slums of Longport,
while the drabs of Fratton came down and scratched the faces of the
Queen's Officers.

Bobby Wick, with an ugly bruise on his freckled nose, a sick and shaky
detachment to manoeuvre inship and the comfort of fifty scornful females
to attend to, had no time to feel homesick till the Malabar reached
mid-Channel, when he doubled his emotions with a little guard-visiting
and a great many other matters.

The Tail Twisters were a most particular Regiment. Those who knew them
least said that they were eaten up with "side. " But their reserve and
their internal arrangements generally were merely protective diplomacy.
Some five years before, the Colonel commanding had looked into the
fourteen fearless eyes of seven plump and juicy subalterns who had all
applied to enter the Staff Corps, and had asked them why the three
stars should he, a colonel of the Line, command a dashed nursery for
double-dashed bottle-suckers who put on condemned tin spurs and rode
qualified mokes at the hiatused heads of forsaken Black Regiments. He
was a rude man and a terrible.