by Parry, Owen
He looked at me, and I looked at him, and we looked at each other til a tear come to my eye. For hadn’t the fellow been good to me, when I was in my need?
But was it him? Or did he have a brother just as old? A perfect twin in every last detail? Only his garments were different, and his beard had grown out longer and was gray.
Him it was who finally broke the silence. He fell down onto his knees, as if at a vision.
“A miracle!” he cried. “‘Sing praises to the Lord, which dwelleth in Zion!’ ” Near gasping he was, and the lamps shone on his face. “‘And many of them that sleep in the dust of the earth shall awake . . .’ ” He shook his head, and I shook mine, and we shook our heads together. “A miracle!” he repeated.
Now, I was glad the good man found me welcome. But he seemed more the miracle than me. Twas queer what I thought, but that is in our nature. I wondered if my shirt had gotten dirty, either from the Glasgow air or the scrap. He always had insisted on clean collars.
He seemed to stammer and could not speak. He nearly choked, then found his voice again: “Sergeant Jones!” he cried at last. “Risen from the dead! Is it . . . are you . . .”
What fools we are, and vain. My impulse was to tell the good man I had come up a major in my pride. But I did not, and for a proper reason.
“Colonel Tice-Rolley, sir!” I said.
“Sergeant Jones!”
“Colonel, sir!”
“But . . . but . . .” Well, military discipline will tell, and the honest fellow mastered himself at last. He planted his heels, and squared his frame, and set off an imitation along the pews, where every slackness of posture was corrected.
“Compan-eee . . . Attention!” he called.
Up the congregation stood, as if they had been threatened with Sunday punishment. And, in a sense, I suppose, that was the case.
“Tonight’s service is concluded,” he declared. “When next the company forms, our theme will be ‘The Sinner’s March to Salvation.’ ” He faced half about. “Choir battery!”
The choir-master saluted and said, “Choir battery at the ready, sir!”
“Prepare to fire three rounds of ‘Mine Eyes Have Seen, and I Believe in Grace.’ ”
The choir-master saluted and faced about, then gave his own commands, and hymnals opened up with astonishing speed. The choristers were like practiced gunners, indeed, serving their pieces in the face of the ultimate enemy.
“Choir battery, fire!” my old colonel barked.
“Battery, fire!” the choir-master relayed, and his charges roared to vanquish Satan’s legions.
Above the voices raised in song, the colonel gave a sequence of commands, beginning with, “First rank . . . left face, forward march, left wheel,” and following up until every pew was emptied and the worshippers had paraded into the night. Then the choir stopped, and moved off smartly under their own master’s orders, until I was left alone with the colonel—whose uniform was commuted to solemn black—and a somber fellow standing to the side, with a look on his face that hinted at bowel constrictions, despite his glowing eyes and earnest smile.
The colonel stepped down from his little platform and come toward me, staring as if I might prove an apparition. And I edged forward, though timidly, for much of my life had been spent in a world where colonels were at least of archangel’s rank, and ready they were to smite down barracks sinners.
He approached me with those curious eyes that always had struck me odd, for an inquisitive nature is hardly the thing for an officer. Officers must be confident, see, and give the men the sense that they know everything—although the truth is most know little enough. But Colonel Tice-Rolley, commanding our “Old Combustibles,” had always seemed to wonder at the world. I do believe the generals thought him lax. But he won his battles, and his wife was a marchioness.
I did not recall him as a religious man, though. For he was Church of England, and that is little better than a pagan.
He come up to me, and stared in my face, and looked as if he’d seen a dog play the fiddle.
“By George, you’re dead,” he told me.
“But I ain’t, sir,” I responded.
“Yes,” he said, narrowing his eyes and stepping around me, as if inspecting the kit of an Irish corporal. “Yes, I see. Yes. A miracle, don’t you know? A miracle of Great Jehovah’s mercy!”
I fear that I was standing at attention. Old habits die hard.
Suddenly, his hand shot out to touch me. And drew back quick as a blade that has done its work.
“By George, it is a miracle!” he exclaimed.
“Kind of you to say so, sir,” I told him. “But I—”
“Booth, come here,” the colonel called to the somber gent behind him.
Dark as the bleak midwinter, the fellow strode up the aisle.
“Booth,” the colonel said, “I want you to witness this. Not two weeks ago, this fellow was dead. Dead as left-over tripe, don’t you know? And now he stands before us, hale and hearty. Is there no end to the Good Lord’s tender mercies?”
Mr. Booth appeared a bit confused.
“Booth,” the colonel said, “I want you to meet Sergeant Abel Jones—” He caught himself, and looked at me. “I suppose I must say ‘Mr. Jones’ now?”
I bit my tongue, for I wished to tell the man of my majority, but that would require a mighty explanation.
“As you please, sir,” I told him.
“Mr. Booth, this is Mr. Jones, who is responsible for the very resurrection of my soul.”
Now, that was a surprise as great as the raising of the dead on a Monday morning. When last the colonel and I had met, he had shown the grace to spare me a public hanging, and he it was who suggested to the surgeon that I be written down “Mad of a fever” and unfit for further service, although his number two was knotting the rope and would have liked to string me up himself. And speaking as a military man, I am not certain the colonel was in the right. For soldiers cannot decide they will not kill. But that is what I did, for I found myself incapable. The day came when I had massacres enough, and my weapon fell from my hands, and I could not slay another poor, old nigger. The Mutiny made devils of us all, and ruined men as sure as gin and a Jenny.
“Well done, Mr. Jones!” this Booth fellow praised me. And then he turned to the colonel. “Really, you know, this is unutterably splendid, sir. Everything you’ve done here . . . the organization . . . why, why it’s a veritable army of salvation! That’s exactly what it is,” Mr. Booth fair cried, “a salvation army! I shall have to enact your practices myself.” He thrust out his hand, and the colonel responded in kind. “Oh, I’m unspeakably, unutterably grateful for your example, Colonel Tice-Rolley. I feel positively uplifted! I’m going to try this very thing in England!”
The fellow left us, trailing inspiration.
The colonel looked at me, and I looked at him.
“Begging your pardon, sir,” I said, “but who was the fellow told you I was dead?”
“Dead as a dog in a ditch, don’t you know? Who was it? An American fellow, that’s who it was. Called on me, oh . . . perhaps two weeks past, you see. Said you had gone to America and froze to death while drunk. Question of a small legacy to be paid to any survivors. Sought me out as your former commanding officer, asked if there might be dependents left behind in India.” The colonel frumped his face to a bother, bemused by the ways of the world. “I told him there had been a woman and child.”
He caught my look of astonishment, almost smiled, and said, “Oh, yes. Colonels know rather a bit more than the other ranks credit. But a wise colonel understands what he mustn’t know too plainly, don’t you know? Had to disappoint the American fellow, since I knew the woman and child were dead of cholera.” He looked at me with unexpected kindness. “Often wondered if there wasn’t a connection there, you see. Wondered if that loss wasn’t the beginning of your turn away from the military profession. Of course, you were the regiment’s mainstay during the worst of the Mutiny, an
d I’m not ashamed to say it. Never saw a man kill with such dexterity. Astounded me, the way those fellows followed you. Even the Irish. Why, I remember the Kashmir Gate at Delhi. Gore from head to toe, as if you’d gone swimming in it. Cheatham with his nerves all blown, and the two lieutenants dead, and you dragging and driving that company through the breach. Screaming to spite the last of pandy’s guns, ‘Give ’em steel, you bloody, buggering bastards!’ Never saw the like in all my years.”
He remembered himself and stayed his old enthusiasm, for we both had changed and the fields of glory were far from the fields of Heaven. “Rum business, I suppose. But it saved you a hanging, don’t you know? American fellow had a pocketful of other questions about you. Wouldn’t be satisfied with just . . .”
He went on for a bit, but I had stopped hearing him properly. My insides had gone cold as an arctic sea. For I saw something welling from the shadows. A demon of a thought had risen before me.
“Sir,” I interrupted of a sudden. “This American fellow . . . with the questions . . . did he have a name? Did he tell you his name?”
“Why, yes, of course. Scotch blood himself, don’t you know? What was it? Oh, yes. Campbell. The Reverend Mr. Campbell. Seemed to know an awfully great deal about you. We shared a prayer for your departed spirit.”
YOU SEE IT, I KNOW YOU DO. For you are wise, and see it as clearly as I did. The Reverend Mr. Campbell was no martyr. At least not to our Union. For he had betrayed the trust of Mr. Adams, and every other trust he held besides. He had doubled his work to serve the other side, those Englishmen who sided with slavers and wished to furnish warships to the Confederates. He had not come to Glasgow in our service, or to look into the fate of Mr. Quigley, but to help a set of devils with their schemes. Whether or not he told them I was coming, or if they learned it from deciphered messages, he had helped them learn the tale of my life. Everything about us had been compromised.
But, then, who killed the fellow, after all. And who had stuffed him in a basket of eels?
Every time I thought I had gained ground upon our foes, I found they were behind me, and beside me, atop and underneath me, and blocking my path in front like a high, stone wall.
Who had killed the Reverend Mr. Campbell?
And why, when he had given them his soul?
Now, there is a bit when Mr. Shakespeare’s Romeo, who was an inconstant lad and not worth a second look from that true-hearted Juliet, cried, “I am fortune’s fool!” Or something to that effect. Well, fortune’s fool I may have been, time and time again, but on this night I felt a fortunate fool. And blessed. I do believe there is a hand that guides us. Laugh, if you will, and say I am old-fashioned, and unscientific. But it was more than luck that led me to that chapel and to my dear reunion with my colonel.
Walking me back to my hotel he was. The man insisted. He wanted to talk, see. For that is how we humans ease our hearts.
With the city grimy and grim and groaning around us, and scoundrels down the lanes and infants crying, he told me what he meant by his “resurrection.”
“All because of you, Jones,” Colonel Tice-Rolley said. “All because of you, don’t you know? Oh, wasn’t I the blindest of the blind? Positively enraged, you know. When I learned that you had disobeyed that order. Major Ricketts thought you needed hanging. As an example. But Georgiana calmed me down—she and I spoke of everything, you see, for she was an uncommon woman—and she had heard me speak about what a good influence you were on the troops, and rarely drunk, and never drunk on parade, and not once reduced in rank for dereliction. Why, I expected you to become the regimental sergeant-major one day. All in good time, of course. Oh, thanks be to God that my Georgie calmed me down, until I could see into things a little farther. Ricketts thought it was all a sham, of course. But I came down to look you over in your cell, and I don’t believe you even knew who I was. Surgeon thought it might be a bad dose of sun. Makes men peculiar a hundred ways, when it don’t kill ’em. But then you recovered your speech and told us, bold as could be, that you would not ever raise your hand against another man, not ever again, and no man on earth would ever make you do it, so help you God. Remember it plain as maggots on army beef.”
Now, you will see why I felt some embarrassment and unease about the advent of my major’s rank, for I had meant what I said at that time, and could not foresee the duty lurking in the future, or those poor boys drilling in Pottsville, and how I only meant to lend my skills to keep them from unnecessary harm. Before I knew it, we had crossed Bull Run. Then I was on a plank with a surgeon over me. And now I was a major, with a limp, and more blood on my hands than that Scottish shrew. How could I tell the colonel what I had done, and still have him believe I had been honest?
“Only made Ricketts madder, don’t you know?” the colonel continued. “Lucky for you it was Ricketts. Half-poisoned himself with drink, if he didn’t have a pig or a pandy to kill. Couldn’t trust his judgement in the cantonment. Dear Georgiana thought I should draw a compromise and have you tried and sent off to the Andaman Islands. But . . . oh, I don’t know, Jones. The Lord truly does work in mysterious ways, I suppose.”
He paused before Mclntyre’s Spun Goods shop, just along the broken Trongate pavement, and gave me a look that masked his mind’s machinery. “Never was one for gnashing at Bible verses and that sort of thing. Never thought it was quite-quite, don’t you know? Seemed to me the vicar was getting his living to read chapter and verse on our behalf, so why should a fellow put himself to the bother? Only cloud things up, don’t you know? Every so often, I slipped, though. Read the stuff, although I didn’t really think it was good for me. On campaign, more often than not. Without my Georgie to tell me how sound a fellow I was. Nothing peculiar, of course. I’d just peek at a verse or two. Here and there. And when you planted your feet the way you did—chains hurt your ankles, I suppose?—and told us you weren’t going to kill any more niggers or anybody else, well, I don’t know. Put a worm in my ear, don’t you know? Had a look at the old Book myself. Nothing too queer, of course. Not Daniel or Revelation, or any of that ranting sort of thing. ‘Sermon on the Mount.’ Always seems to do, don’t it? And I got to the bit about ‘Love your enemies, bless them that curse you, do good to them that hate you, and pray for them which despitefully use you, and persecute you . . .’ Well, I thought of you standing there with more chains on you than a siege gun drawn by a train of twenty oxen, and damn me if I didn’t send old Mahmood to get the surgeon out of bed and tell him I wanted to see him. Drunk as an Irish admiral, of course. Fellow always said alcohol promoted the effects of quinine. Told him you were mad of a fever, and if he couldn’t see it, I could, and then I mentioned I’d heard of a vacancy in the plague hospital in Peshawar, which wasn’t a position that had much appeal to the fellow, don’t you know? Asked me if writing you down ‘insane, but not dangerous’ would do. Remember it clearly. Told him that was fine with me, as long as he put you on a boat for England before I changed my mind. Ricketts never did recover his temper, and I think he would have just as soon hanged me in your place. Died of a fit while eating his Christmas pudding. All for the best, I suppose. Would have been worse for the poor devil, if he’d seen me following in your footsteps.”
We began to walk again. I had a thousand questions, but knew to hold my tongue. For I could tell he needed to tell his story, and he needed to tell it to me, above all others. This world is strange, a-tilt with pain and miracles.
“Well, we set off on the last punitive campaign of the season. Really, the pandies were all in. Didn’t see the point of killing any more of them, don’t you know? But Calcutta had its reasons, I suppose. Never settled into my camp routine, though. Worried I was getting a bad digestion. And then one night I sat there reading James, by the kit lamp. Moths and what not going at the glass like a charge of irregular horse. We’d burned a village that day—what there was of it to burn—and, damn me, if I didn’t think of you that night, and hardly remembered to take my medicinal whisky. Moths popping ag
ainst the lamp and sizzling and giving off that stink they do when the hot glass cooks ’em up, and I read that bit that starts off Chapter 4, don’t you know? ‘From whence come wars and fightings among you? come they not hence, even of your lusts that war in your members? . . . Ye lust, and have not: ye kill, and desire to have, and cannot obtain: ye fight and war, yet ye have not . . .’ Well, I ain’t certain I got the meaning quite right, and I won’t say it don’t matter. But those words blazed right up off the page and surrounded me. Just picked themselves up like Pushtoons waving their jezails, don’t you know? Always wanted to be a general, you see. My ambition. Lusted after it. And there it was. ‘. . . ye kill, and desire to have, and cannot obtain . . .’ There it was, don’t you know? Thought of all the dead niggers it took to make me a colonel, and how many more it might take to make a general out of me. Damn me if I didn’t write out my letter on the spot. Resigned. Sorry to leave the regiment, of course. But can’t very well have one without the other, can we?”
He smiled as if one cheek concealed a sweet and the other a sour. “Georgiana was happy as a lark. Twenty-six years of India was quite enough for her, don’t you know? Wanted to go back to the old house at High Belchgill for years. Stayed on for me, you see. Good wife. Perfect colonel’s lady. Figured my bit of religion was just a fit. Only glad to be going home, don’t you know? Talked about roses and what not halfway across the Indian Ocean. Tried to tell her I had a calling, you see. By that time, it all seemed clear. I was meant to convert the heathen, benighted Scots. Presbyterians, don’t you know? And old Belchers ain’t far from Carlisle, and Carlisle’s almost a next-door neighbor to Glasgow, what with the railway. Georgie could have her roses, and I could introduce the Lord to the damned of Caledonia, and all that.”
He looked at me again, but did not break his stride, which sorrowfully had slowed with the years, although his posture might still correct a subaltern. “How little we know of the Lord’s will and devices. Poor Georgie never got to have her garden. Although she is in a lovelier Garden now. Lost her to a fever short of the Cape. Ship’s doctor said another two days and the winds would have turned and blown off the miasma. Never got to have her garden of roses,” he repeated, with a catch in his voice. “But the Lord’s wisdom is above our understanding. And now I’ve found my peace, and thanks to you.” He set his face toward the front, as I had seen him do in desperate battle. “But I’m chattering like Rosie O’Grady over the laundry. Terribly glad you’re not dead, don’t you know? Frightfully glad. But what on earth have you done to that bloody leg of yours?”