Adventure, February 1917 — page 203: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

Discipline grating toa coolie who waited in the alley. Chang had it in for Jim Li—that was barracks: talk anyway—and wanted him caught. The next theft was planned for peti o’clock the following night; Mait- land, by walking off his post a bit, would discover it; and Chang was so sure of his facts and of Maitland that he was willing to pay him the hundred beforehand, as soon as he went on post. “Ain’t La lucky guy!” chortled Maitland. “That hundred’s just what I need. Gee, think of seein’ God’s country again!” - “You needn’t advertise you’re goin’ to desert,” I told him. ‘‘And I don’t under- stand this a bit. Why don’t Chang save his hundred and tip off the C. O.?” “Tt’d all come out at office hours, then; and what would Jim Liand his friends do to Chang? Fill him full of holes, sure. I’m telling you because I know you’re safe.” “T sometimes wish you didn’t,” said I. You see, you can’t snitch on a fellow, and yet—‘‘What are you goin’ to tell the corporal of the guard when you do catch Jim Li. You can’t claim to’ve seen him, from your post. “T’ll say I heard him,” said Maitland, a bit embarrassed; he wasn’t a liar by nature, at all. Well, I looked at him. I ain’t finicky, but I wasn’t in love with him at that minute. The drill manual’s a soldier’s bible, and general orders for sentries are his ten commandments, and professional ethics ain’t confined to the white collar brigade, by any means. Besides, I knew something about that post Maitland was going to leave un- guarded. I’d helped build the magazine, years before. There were ten of us, all sworn to secrecy. Everybody knows it now—that’s why I’m telling you—but then nobody in our garrison but me and the officers knew that a secret. passage led up from the magazine to a trap-door in the floor of the blockhouse. That was so,in case of trouble, they could get ammunition to the machine guns in the blockhouse quick. There was I, up against it. Maitland was going to leave the way open to enough explosives to blow us off the map, and I couldn’t tell him without breaking my oath, and I couldn’t tell the C. O. without. breaking the first rule of the soldier’s code. And if Chang’s story were true no harm would come; but if it wasn’t, and he was 201 being hired by somebody else—good night! “It’s your fugeral,” I said to Maitland, feeling it might be my own, too, “but doesn’t it seem kind of low down for an American sentry to be takin’ instructions from a Chinese coolie?”’ He flushed hot, and glared, and then all of a sudden he laughed. “You duty-struck old ditty-box, you do take soldierin’ serious, don’t you? [If I thought the way you do—but I don’t! — I’ll be more good to the Government off my post than on to-morrow night.” But at that he didn’t look extra happy nor altogether convinced.. You see, he was pretty near a year-old soldier by then. “‘Ah, the dickens!” he says, restless-like. “Let’s go out and forget it.” So we went. I don’t know why I did. You can’t think much of a soldier that'll sell himself for a hundred Mex., of course, and before the night was over I was to think less. Maybe I wanted a little spiritual illumination on my own problem. I'd meant to go on liberty anyway, having a few tungtses left over from last pay-day, and —oh, well, I guess I kind of liked the kid. after all. You know, you do like people that way, sometimes, against your better judgment. Now the beginning of that liberty is plain enough, and the end, being of an extremely sobering character, is plain enough too. But between the beginning and the end is a lot that’s mixed up. We went first to Schultz’s, where we killed a quart a piece—Maitland drinking for the first and last time I ever saw him— and then to Borowsky’s, where there was a bunch of Austrians that didn’t do anything but look at us hard; and then we took rickshaws to Chin Men. - Maitland muttering to his bare-torsoed, blank-faced rickshaw coolie something like: “You’re a lucky beggar. Nothing worries you, does it, discipline nor anything, eh?” A funny remark; he was beginning to feel his drinks. That was the outstanding feature of the next few hours: everybody we met, Mait- land would say something about discipline. And I mind | Generally he was asking the same fool ~ questions he’s put to me for the last months, and getting, not to brag on myself, foolisher answers or none at all. For instance, there was the sort of a Limie marine we ran . across in a magie-lu joint, sitting at a table Nicbooks (C (EO) (E©)