‘The papers didn’t say anything about him. We read about Fat—Sow, of course. What’s Crandall done, sir?’
‘I’ve brought over an Indian paper that his mother sent me. It was rather a—hefty, I think you say—piece of work. Shall I read it?’
The Head knew how to read. When he had finished the quarter—column of small type everybody thanked him politely.
‘Good for the old Coll.!’ said Perowne. ‘Pity he wasn’t in time to save Fat-Sow, though. That’s nine to us, isn’t it, in the last three years?’
‘Yes … And I took old Duncan off all games for extra—tu. five years ago this term,’ said the Head. ‘By the way, who do you hand over the Games to, Flint?’
‘Haven’t thought yet. Who’d you recommend, sir?’
‘No, thank you. I’ve heard it casually hinted behind my back that the Prooshian Bates is a downy bird, but he isn’t going to make himself responsible for a new Head of the Games. Settle it among yourselves. Good-night.’
‘And that’s the man,’ said Flint, when the door shut, ‘that you want to bother with a dame’s school row.’
‘I was only pullin’ your fat leg,’ Perowne returned hastily. ‘You’re so easy to draw, Flint.’
‘Well, never mind that. The Head’s knocked the First Fifteen to bits, and we’ve got to pick up the pieces, or the Old Boys will have a walk-over. Let’s promote all the Second Fifteen and make Big Side play up. There’s heaps of talent somewhere that we can polish up between now and the match.’
The case was represented so urgently to the school that even Stalky and M‘Turk, who affected to despise football, played one Big-Side game seriously. They were forthwith promoted ere their ardour had time to cool, and the dignity of their Caps demanded that they should keep some show of virtue. The match-team was worked at least four days out of seven, and the school saw hope ahead.
With the last week of the term the Old Boys began to arrive, and their welcome was nicely proportioned to their worth. Gentlemen cadets from Sandhurst and Woolwich, who had only left a year ago, but who carried enormous side, were greeted with a cheerful ‘Hullo! What’s the Shop* like?’ from those who had shared their studies. Militia subalterns had more consideration, but it was understood they were not precisely of the true metal. Recreants who, failing for the Army, had gone into business or banks were received for old sake’s sake, but in no way made too much of. But when the real subalterns, officers and gentlemen full-blown—who had been to the ends of the earth and back again and so carried no side—came on the scene strolling about with the Head, the school divided right and left in admiring silence. And when one laid hands on Flint, even upon the Head of the Games, crying, ‘Good Heavens! What do you mean by growing in this way? You were a beastly little fag when I left,’ visible halos encircled Flint. They would walk to and fro in the corridor with the little red school Sergeant, telling news of old regiments; they would burst into form-rooms sniffing the well-remembered smells of ink and whitewash; they would find nephews and cousins in the lower forms and present them with enormous wealth; or they would invade the gymnasium and make Foxy show off the new stock on the bars.
Chiefly, though, they talked with the Head, who was father-confessor and agent-general to them all; for what they shouted in their unthinking youth, they proved in their thoughtless manhood—to wit, that the Prooshian Bates was ‘a downy bird.’ Young blood who had stumbled into an entanglement with a pastry-cook’s daughter at Plymouth; experience who had come into a small legacy but mistrusted lawyers; ambition halting at cross-roads, anxious to take the one that would lead him farthest; extravagance pursued by the money—lender; arrogance in the thick of a regimental row—each carried his trouble to the Head; and Chiron* showed him, in language quite unfit for little boys, a quiet and safe way round, out, or under. So they overflowed his house, smoked his cigars, and drank his health as they had drunk it all the earth over when two or three of the old school had forgathered.
‘Don’t stop smoking for a minute,’ said the Head. ‘The more you’re out of training the better for us. I’ve demoralised the First Fifteen with extra-tu.’
‘Ah, but we’re a scratch lot. Have you told ’em we shall need a substitute even if Crandall can play?’ said a Lieutenant of Engineers with the D.S.O.* to his credit.
‘He wrote me he’d play, so he can’t have been much hurt. He’s coming down to-morrow morning.’
‘Crandall minor that was, and brought off poor Duncan’s body?’ The Head nodded. ‘Where are you going to put him? We’ve turned you out of house and home already, Head Sahib.’ This was a Squadron-Commander of Bengal Lancers, home on leave.
‘I’m afraid he’ll have to go up to his old dormitory. You know Old Boys can claim that privilege. Yes, I think leetle Crandall minor must bed down there once more.’
‘Bates Sahib’—a Gunner flung a heavy arm round the Head’s neck—‘You’ve got something up your sleeve. Confess! I know that twinkle.’
‘Can’t you see, you cuckoo?’ a Submarine Miner interrupted. ‘Crandall goes up to the dormitory as an object—lesson, for moral effect and so forth. Isn’t that true, Head Sahib?’
‘It is. You know too much, Purvis. I licked you for that in ’79.’
‘You did, sir, and it’s my private belief you chalked the cane.’
‘N-no. But I’ve a very straight eye. Perhaps that misled you.’
That opened the flood-gates of fresh memories, and they all told tales out of school.
When Crandall minor that was—Lieutenant R. Crandall of an ordinary Indian regiment—arrived from Exeter on the morning of the match, he was cheered along the whole front of the College, for the prefects had repeated the sense of that which the Head had read them in Flint’s study. When Prout’s House understood that he would claim his Old Boy’s right to a bed for one night, Beetle ran into King’s House next door and executed a public ‘gloat’ up and down the enemy’s big form-room; departing in a haze of ink-pots.
‘What d’you take any notice of those rotters for?’ said Stalky, playing substitute for the Old Boys, magnificent in black jersey, white knickers, and black stockings. ‘I talked to him up in the dormitory when he was changin’. ’Pulled his sweater down for him. He’s cut about all over the arms—horrid purply ones. He’s goin’ to tell us about it to—night. I asked him to when I was lacin’ his boots.’
‘Well, you have got cheek,’ said Beetle enviously.
‘’Slipped out before I thought. But he wasn’t a bit angry. He’s no end of a chap. I swear I’m goin’ to play up like beans. Tell Turkey!’
The technique of that match belongs to a bygone age. Scrimmages were tight and enduring; hacking was direct and to the purpose; and round the scrimmage stood the school, crying, ‘Put down your heads and shove!’ Toward the end everybody lost all sense of decency, and mothers of day-boys too close to the touch-line heard language not included in the bills. No one was actually carried off the field, but both sides felt happier when time was called, and Beetle helped Stalky and M‘Turk into their overcoats. The two had met in the many-legged heart of things, and as Stalky said, had ‘done each other proud.’ As they swaggered woodenly behind the teams—substitutes do not rank as equals of hairy men—they passed a pony—carriage near the wall, and a husky voice cried, ‘Well played. Oh, played indeed!’ It was Stettson major, white-cheeked and hollow-eyed, who had fought his way to the ground under escort of an impatient coachman.
‘Hullo, Stettson,’ said Stalky, checking. ‘Is it safe to come near you yet?’
‘Oh yes. I’m all right. They wouldn’t let me out before, but I had to come to the match. Your mouth looks pretty plummy.’
‘Turkey trod on it accidental-done-a-purpose. Well, I’m glad you’re better, because we owe you something. You and your membranes got us into a sweet mess, young man.’
‘I heard of that,’ said the boy, giggling. ‘The Head told me.’
‘Dooce he did! When?’
‘Oh, com
e on up to Coll. My shin ’ll stiffen if we stay jawin’ here.’
‘Shut up, Turkey. I want to find out about this. Well?’
‘He was stayin’ at our house all the time I was ill.’
‘What for? Neglectin’ the Coll, that way? ’Thought he was in town.’
‘I was off my head, you know, and they said I kept on callin’ for him.’
‘Cheek! You’re only a day—boy.’
‘He came just the same, and he about saved my life. I was all bunged up one night—just goin’ to croak, the doctor said—and they stuck a tube or somethin’ in my throat, and the Head sucked out the stuff.’
‘Ugh! ’Shot if I would!’
‘He ought to have got diphtheria himself, the doctor said. So he stayed on at our house instead of going back. I’d ha’ croaked in another twenty minutes, the doctor says.’
Here the coachman, being under orders, whipped up and nearly ran over the three.
‘My Hat!’ said Beetle. ‘That’s pretty average heroic.’
‘Pretty average!’ M‘Turk’s knee in the small of his back cannoned him into Stalky, who punted him back. ‘You ought to be hung!’
‘And the Head ought to get the V.C.,’ said Stalky. ‘Why, he might have been dead and buried by now. But he wasn’t. But he didn’t. Ho! ho! He just nipped through the hedge like a lusty old blackbird. Extra—special, five hundred lines, an’ gated for a week—all sereno!’
‘I’ve read o’ somethin’ like that in a book,’ said Beetle. ‘Gummy, what a chap! Just think of it!’
‘I’m thinking,’ said M‘Turk; and he delivered a wild Irish yell that made the team turn round.
‘Shut your fat mouth,’ said Stalky, dancing with impatience. ‘Leave it to your Uncle Stalky, and he’ll have the Head on toast. If you say a word, Beetle, till I give you leave, I swear I’ll slay you. Habeo capitem crinibus minimis. I’ve got him by the short hairs! Now look as if nothing had happened.’
There was no need of guile. The school was too busy cheering the drawn match. It hung round the lavatories regardless of muddy boots while the team washed. It cheered Crandall minor whenever it caught sight of him, and it cheered more wildly than ever after prayers, because the Old Boys in evening dress, openly twirling their moustaches, attended, and instead of with the masters, ranged themselves along the wall immediately before the prefects; and the Head called them over, too—majors, minors, and tertiuses, after their old names.
‘Yes, it’s all very fine,’ he said to his guests after dinner, ‘but the boys are getting a little out of hand. There will be trouble and sorrow later, I’m afraid. You’d better turn in early, Crandall. The dormitory will be sitting up for you. I don’t know to what dizzy heights you may climb in your profession, but I do know you’ll never get such absolute adoration as you’re getting now.’
‘Confound the adoration. I want to finish my cigar, sir.’
‘It’s all pure gold. Go where glory waits, Crandall—minor.’
The setting of that apotheosis was a ten—bed attic dormitory, communicating through doorless openings with three others. The gas flickered over the raw pine wash—stands. There was an incessant whistling of draughts, and outside the naked windows the sea beat on the Pebble Ridge.
‘Same old bed—same old mattress, I believe,’ said Crandall, yawning. ‘Same old everything. Oh, but I’m lame! I’d no notion you chaps could play like this.’ He caressed a battered shin. ‘You’ve given us all something to remember you by.’
It needed a few minutes to put them at their ease; and, in some way they could not understand, they were more easy when Crandall turned round and said his prayers—a ceremony he had neglected for some years.
‘Oh, I am sorry. I’ve forgotten to put out the gas.’
‘Please don’t bother,’ said the prefect of the dormitory. ‘Worthington does that.’
A nightgowned twelve-year-old, who had been waiting to show off, leaped from his bed to the bracket and back again, by way of a washstand.
‘How d’you manage when he’s asleep?’ said Crandall, chuckling.
‘Shove a cold cleek* down his neck.’
‘It was a wet sponge when I was junior in the dormitory… . Hullo! What’s happening?’
The darkness had filled with whispers, the sound of trailing rugs, bare feet on bare boards, protests, giggles, and threats such as:
‘Be quiet, you ass! … Squattez-vous on the floor, then! … I swear you aren’t going to sit on my bed! … Mind the tooth-glass,’ and so forth.
‘Sta—Corkran said,’ the prefect began, his tone showing his sense of Stalky’s insolence, ‘that perhaps you’d tell us about that business with Duncan’s body.’
‘Yes—yes—yes,’ ran the keen whispers. ‘Tell us.’
‘There’s nothing to tell. What on earth are you chaps hoppin’ about in the cold for?’
‘Never mind us,’ said the voices. ‘Tell about Fat-Sow.’
So Crandall turned on his pillow and spoke to the generation he could not see.
‘Well, about three months ago he was commanding a treasure—guard—a cart full of rupees to pay troops with—five thousand rupees in silver. He was comin’ to a place called Fort Pearson, near Kalabagh.’*
‘I was born there,’ squeaked a small fag. ‘It was called after my uncle.’
‘Shut up—you and your uncle! Never mind him, Crandall.’
‘Well, ne’er mind. The Afridis* found out that this treasure was on the move, and they ambushed the whole show a couple of miles before he got to the fort, and cut up the escort. Duncan was wounded, and the escort hooked it. There weren’t more than twenty Sepoys* all told, and there were any amount of Afridis. As things turned out, I was in charge at Fort Pearson. ’Fact was, I’d heard the firing and was just going to see about it, when Duncan’s men came up. So we all turned back together. They told me something about an officer, but I couldn’t get the hang of things till I saw a chap under the wheels of the cart out in the open, propped up on one arm, blazing away with a revolver. You see, the escort had abandoned the cart, and the Afridis—they’re an awfully suspicious gang—thought the retreat was a trap—sort of draw, you know—and the cart was the bait. So they had left poor old Duncan alone. ’Minute they spotted how few we were, it was a race across the flat who should reach old Duncan first. We ran, and they ran, and we won, and after a little hackin’ about they pulled off. I never knew it was one of us till I was right on top of him. There are heaps of Duncans in the service, and of course the name didn’t remind me. He wasn’t changed at all hardly. He’d been shot through the lungs, poor old man, and he was pretty thirsty. I gave him a drink and sat down beside him, and—funny thing, too—he said, “Hullo, Toffee!” and I said, “Hullo, Fat—Sow! Hope you aren’t hurt,” or something of the kind. But he died in a minute or two—never lifted his head off my knees…. I say, you chaps out there will get your death of cold. Better go to bed.’
‘All right. In a minute. But your cuts—your cuts. How did you get wounded?’
‘That was when we were taking the body back to the Fort. They came on again, and there was a bit of a scrimmage.’
‘Did you kill any one?’
‘Yes. Shouldn’t wonder. Good-night.’
‘Good-night. Thank you, Crandall. Thanks awf’ly, Crandall. Good-night.’
The unseen crowds withdrew. His own dormitory rustled into bed and lay silent for a while.
‘I say, Crandall’—Stalky’s voice was tuned to a wholly foreign reverence.
‘Well, what?’
‘Suppose a chap found another chap croaking with diphtheria—all bunged up with it—and they stuck a tube in his throat and the chap sucked the stuff out, what would you say?’
‘Urn,’ said Crandall reflectively. ‘I’ve only heard of one case, and that was a doctor. He did it for a woman.’
‘Oh, this wasn’t a woman. It was only a boy.’
‘’Makes it all the finer, then. It’s about the bravest thin
g a man can do. Why?’
‘Oh, I heard of a chap doin’ it. That’s all.’
‘Then he’s a brave man.’
‘Would you funk it?’
‘Ra-ather. Anybody would. Fancy dying of diphtheria in cold blood.’
‘Well—ah! Er! Look here!’ That sentence ended in a grunt, for Stalky had leaped out of bed and with M‘Turk was sitting on the head of Beetle, who would have sprung the mine there and then.
Next day, which was the last of the term and given up to a few wholly unimportant examinations, began with wrath and war. Mr. King had discovered that nearly all his House—it lay, as you know, next door but one to Prout’s in the long range of buildings—had unlocked the doors between the dormitories and had gone in to listen to a story told by Crandall. He went to the Head, clamorous, injured, appealing; for he never approved of allowing so-called young men of the world to contaminate the morals of boyhood. ‘Very good,’ said the Head. He would attend to it.
‘Well, I’m awf’ly sorry,’ said Crandall guiltily. ‘I don’t think I told ’em anything they oughtn’t to hear. Don’t let them get into trouble on my account.’
‘Tck!’ the Head answered, with the ghost of a wink. ‘It isn’t the boys that make trouble; it’s the masters. However, Prout and King don’t approve of dormitory gatherings on this scale, and one must back up the House-masters. Moreover, it’s hopeless to punish two Houses only, so late in the term. We must be fair and include everybody. Let’s see. They have a holiday task for the Easters, which, of course, none of them will ever look at. We will give the whole school, except prefects and study-boys, regular prep, to-night; and the Common-room will have to supply a master to take it. We must be fair to all.’
‘Prep, on the last night of the term. Whew!’ said Crandall, thinking of his own wild youth. ‘I fancy there will be larks.’
The school, frolicking among packed trunks, whooping down the corridor, and ‘gloating’ in form-rooms, received the news with amazement and rage. No school in the world did prep, on the last night of the term. This thing was monstrous, tyrannical, subversive of law, religion, and morality. They would go into the form-rooms, and they would take their degraded holiday task with them, but-here they smiled and speculated what manner of man the Common-room would send up against them. The lot fell on Mason, credulous and enthusiastic, who loved youth. No other master was anxious to take that prep., for the school lacked the steadying influence of tradition; and men accustomed to the ordered routine of ancient foundations found it occasionally insubordinate. The four long form-rooms, in which all below the rank of study-boys worked, received him with thunders of applause. Ere he had coughed twice they favoured him with a metrical summary of the marriage-laws of Great Britain, as recorded by the High Priest of the Israelites and commented on by the leader of the host. The lower forms reminded him that it was the last day, and that therefore he must ‘take it all in play.’ When he dashed off to rebuke them, the Lower Fourth and Upper Third began with one accord to be sick, loudly and realistically. Mr. Mason tried, of all vain things under heaven, to argue with them, and a bold soul at a back desk bade him ‘take fifty lines for not ’olding up ’is ’and before speaking.’ As one who prided himself upon the precision of his English this cut Mason to the quick, and while he was trying to discover the offender, the Upper and Lower Second, three form-rooms away, turned out the gas and threw ink-pots. It was a pleasant and stimulating prep. The study-boys and prefects heard the echoes of it far off, and the Common-room at dessert smiled.
The Complete Stalky & Co Page 24