Argosy All-Story Weekly — page 57: what you’re looking at

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

THE FOURTH CHUM. did not box, for a private soldier who brought glory to his unit in that way found his path easy. He could get himself ex- cused from any kind of drill or fatigue on the ground of being in training. But he received the new kindliness with the same bitter indifference, and all offers to show him the rudiments of the manly art he de- clined with a gravity that was somehow puzzling. For a man who shunned boxing he was curiously brave. The position of number six on a Horse Artillery gun team was de- scribed by England’s greatest soldier as be- ing the most difficult in the British army. In the competition the three teams, dap- ple chestnut from P Battery, bay from R, and black from. AA, swept across the level common at a thundering gallop. Ahead of each rode the officer in command, waiting for the signal which would give the direc- tion of action, right, left, front, or rear. All gunners were mounted, three on the off side of the gun wheel, three on the off side of the limber wheel, and number six riding beside the driver of the swing team. When the signal was given, the officer in command swept his arm in the prescribed direction, and while the teams were still at the gallop, the gunners vaulted from the saddle, and number six, who of necessity must be big and fast, ran in between the limber wheel and the gun wheel, lifted the trail from the hook, and raising it above his head, whirled the gun so that it pointed in the direction of the supposed enemy. It took bravery to go in between the rolling gun wheels; it took speed to keep up with them while releasing the limber, and it took strength to lift the trail in the air and swing the gun, balanced though the weight be on the axle, through a quarter or half circle. Morgan had dashed in as soon as he was free of his mount, while the corresponding numbers of the other teams held back for a moment until the Speed of the rolling coun had slackened. The consequence was that his gun was firing before the others by a good half minute, and he had clipped fifteen seconds from the garrison record. That had been on a Saturday. On the Sunday following the games he went on church parade, and after it he went on the north gate as picket. 847 There was no sentry at that gate; at nightfall the big doors were closed, but on Sundays the civilian population which turned out to see the church parade would try, singly and in groups, to invade the square to see the horses watered and fed. In addition it was calling day, and there was an almost constant stream of civilians asking for brothers, sons, husbands, fathers, sweethearts, or uncles. It was the picket’s unofficial duty to pass the word that so and so was wanted at the north gate. Also, the strip of lawn between the barracks and the road had just yielded a small mound of hay, and every arsenal worker’s small son or daughter who passed must turn in for a roll in the hay. It was a part of Morgan’s duty to chase them away. He carried no gun—only a swagger stick. It was a “ cushy ” job, and Morgan realized that it was a reward for his performance of the day before. His settled melancholy lifted a bit, for it was a June Sunday, with a sky of faintly mot- tled lavender and blue, such a day as brings out the sweetness of English life. When the lads and lassies tumbled in the hay, Morgan’s pursuit of them turned into a surreptitious lark. He would be free at two, and then he, who ordinarily spent his spare hours lounging in silence on his iron cot, would go for a stroll on Black- heath. At noon the orderly sergeant sent him a relief, an unheard of courtesy, so that he would get a hot dinner with his battery. When Morgan returned to his post, the re- lief, a ginger-headed Yorkshire lad, looked at him with an arch wink and said: ‘‘ Thou hast a way with tha, laad. There was a girl asking for tha.” Morgan, who knew this joke of old, laughed and said, “I don’t know a girl in Woolwich.” “Ah, it wasn’t a givl. It was a laady, a little laady, with a queer get up and streaks of gray in her hair. Didst tha get rabbit for dinner?” “No... Beet.’ “And pickles, P’ll warrant tha,” said the Yorkshireman in his gentle singsong. “That’s the dinner for a Sundah. Hast tha heard aught of the prisoner that’s es- caped?”’ COMnicoookSs.E© im