No More Learning

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. Wherefore the remnant took measures [with
the half-butt as an engine of public opinion] till the rumor went abroad
that young men who used the Tail Twisters as a crutch to the Staff
Corps, had many and varied trials to endure. However a regiment had just
as much right to its own secrets as a woman.

When Bobby came up from Deolali and took his place among the Tail
Twisters, it was gently But firmly borne in upon him that the Regiment
was his father and his mother and his indissolubly wedded wife, and
that there was no crime under the canopy of heaven blacker than that
of bringing shame on the Regiment, which was the best-shooting,
best-drilled, best-set-up, bravest, most illustrious, and in all
respects most desirable Regiment within the compass of the Seven Seas.
He was taught the legends of the Mess Plate from the great grinning
Golden Gods that had come out of the Summer Palace in Pekin to the
silver-mounted markhor-horn snuff-mull presented by the last C. 0. [he
who spake to the seven subalterns]. And every one of those legends told
him of battles fought at long odds, without fear as without support; of
hospitality catholic as an Arab's; of friendships deep as the sea and
steady as the fighting-line; of honor won by hard roads for honor's
sake; and of instant and unquestioning devotion to the Regiment--the
Regiment that claims the lives of all and lives forever.

More than once, too, he came officially into contact with the Regimental
colors, which looked like the lining of a bricklayer's hat on the end
of a chewed stick. Bobby did not kneel and worship them, because British
subalterns are not constructed in that manner.
Indeed, he condemned them
for their weight at the very moment that they were filling with awe and
other more noble sentiments.

But best of all was the occasion when he moved with the Tail Twisters,
in review order at the breaking of a November day. Allowing for duty-men
and sick, the Regiment was one thousand and eighty strong, and Bobby
belonged to them; for was he not a Subaltern of the Line the whole Line
and nothing but the Line--as the tramp of two thousand one hundred and
sixty sturdy ammunition boots attested. He would not have changed places
with Deighton of the Horse Battery, whirling by in a pillar of cloud
to a chorus of "Strong right! Strong left! " or Hogan-Yale of the White
Hussars, leading his squadron for all it was worth, with the price of
horseshoes thrown in; or "Tick" Boileau, trying to live up to his fierce
blue and gold turban while the wasps of the Bengal Cavalry stretched
to a gallop in the wake of the long, lollopping Walers of the White
Hussars.

They fought through the clear cool day, and Bobby felt a little thrill
run down his spine when he heard the tinkle-tinkle-tinkle of the empty
cartridge-cases hopping from the breech-blocks after the roar of the
volleys; for he knew that he should live to hear that sound in action.
The review ended in a glorious chase across the plain--batteries
thundering after cavalry to the huge disgust of the White Hussars, and
the Tyneside Tail Twisters hunting a Sikh Regiment, till the lean lathy
Singhs panted with exhaustion. Bobby was dusty and dripping long before
noon, but his enthusiasm was merely focused--not diminished.

He returned to sit at the feet of Revere, his "skipper," that is to say,
the Captain of his Company, and to be instructed in the dark art and
mystery of managing men, which is a very large part of the Profession of
Arms.

"If you haven't a taste that way," said Revere, between his puffs of
his cheroot, "you'll never be able to get the hang of it, but remember
Bobby, 'tisn't the best drill, though drill is nearly everything, that
hauls a Regiment through Hell and out on the other side. It's the man
who knows how to handle men--goat-men, swine-men, dog-men, and so on. "

"Dormer, for instance," said Bobby. "I think he comes under the head of
fool-men. He mopes like a sick owl. "

"That's where you make your mistake, my son.