CHAPTER VIII. THE ORDER BOOK.

Herbert woke after a troubled night’s rest, disturbed by the occasional irruption of comrades brought in by the piquet and patrols, in various stages of intoxication, and the visits of the sergeant of the guard. The bare boards had been his bed, and he ached in every limb. It was with a sense of relief almost, although he dreaded the ordeal before him, that he washed and cleaned himself up preparatory to taking his place in the ranks with the rest of ‘the prisoners.’ With them, under escort of the guard, he was presently marched to the orderly-room, and then, after waiting half-an-hour for his turn, he was marched into the presence of[131] his commanding officer, to answer for his alleged crime.

He and Jubbock appeared together before their judge, Colonel Prioleau. The sergeant, who was the only witness, gave his evidence fairly, although not without a bias against Herbert, but the Colonel withheld judgment till he heard the defence.

‘What have you got to say?’ he asked of both abruptly.

‘Please, your honour,’ began Jubbock, ‘we wasn’t fighting at all; we was only wrastling. This young chap says, says he, he knew a thing or two about the Cumberland cropper, and I, says I, know’d more about the Hampshire hug; and with that we had a set-to, and the sergeant found us at it.’

The old soldier’s tendency to misstatement—to call it by no stronger name—was very repugnant to honest Herbert.

[132]

‘I beg your pardon, sir,’ he put in, ‘he is not telling you the truth. We were fighting. He struck me, and I knocked him down.’

Colonel looked up a little curiously. Herbert’s accent and his language were both more accurate than one is accustomed to find in a private soldier.

‘You did, did you? And would you do it again?’

‘I would, sir, if he provoked me; I’m not afraid of him,’ cried Herbert, hotly.

‘He’d better try,’ Jubbock said, growing also warm, notwithstanding the awe inspired by the great man in whose presence he stood.

‘It’s quite evident you can’t agree. There’s bad blood between you still. Well, you know the old rule—no, Captain Greathed, I won’t hear a word—young soldiers[133] must find their level, and hold their own. Besides, there is the old regimental custom. You must fight it out. Send them down to the main ditch, as usual, and let the orderly sergeant go with them to see fair play. It’s no use talking to me, Captain Greathed; I shall stick to the old rule of the Duke’s Own so long as I am commanding the corps.’

Captain Greathed thought it wisest to let matters take their course. Any further interference to protect Herbert might have looked like favouritism, and have done the young fellow more harm than good. He may have thought, too, that Herbert could give a good account of his antagonist.

The mill was conducted according to custom, in semi-official fashion. The orderly sergeant, as before said, and two[134] bottle-holders—Hanlon was Herbert’s—were the only spectators.

For a long time it seemed a close affair. Jubbock’s weight and great reach of arm were immensely in his favour. But Herbert had more science. Self-defence, although fast becoming an old-fashioned art, was not unknown at Deadham School, and he had grown into an accomplished practitioner in it. He was lighter, too, and far more active than Jubbock, and this told in the long run. His adversary tried in vain to get at him; but Herbert danced around him like a cork, till by degrees Jubbock lost all patience and struck out wildly. The wily Herbert promptly seized his advantage, and began to punish Jubbock severely. After this the victory was not long in doubt. At the end of the fourteenth round, Jubbock[135] threw up the sponge, and Herbert was declared, officially, to have won the day.

The result of the fight, noised about as it was in the company, naturally added greatly to Herbert’s prestige. Jubbock was a coarse, rough fellow, inclined to be brutal and overbearing, and he had so long tyrannised over his comrades that his defeat was hailed with much satisfaction. ‘The Boy’—old Joe Hanlon—was wild with delight. He was never tired of expatiating upon Herbert’s prowess, and talked so much about it, taking so much credit to himself, that you might have thought it was he who had won the fight.

Herbert received even higher approval.

‘So I hear you held your own,’ the captain had said to him one day. ‘I thought it was not unlikely you would. But don’t be puffed up by your victory. Take heed[136] to your going—Jubbock’s not likely to love you the more because you have shown yourself the better man.’

There was wisdom in this advice. Jubbock bore malice, as Herbert soon found, from his sulky demeanour and the way he scowled when he dared. Hanlon too reported that Jubbock had sworn to be even with young Larkins yet. But what could he do? Herbert laughed such vague threats to scorn.

It was not long after this that unpleasant rumours became rife in the barrack-room. It was clear that the occupants thereof were not all loyal to one another. The men missed things. First, odds and ends disappeared. A button-brush, a comb, a tin of blacking or a red herring bought for tea. Then money went—pence, not too plentiful with soldiers, and hoarded up[137] between pay-days, in cleaning bag or knapsack, to be drawn upon as required for the men’s menus plaisirs.

There was evidently a thief in the room.

‘Yes: and he’s got to be found out too,’ said Joe Hanlon. ‘There ain’t been such a thing known in the Duke’s Own these years past.’

‘No, nor wouldn’t be now,’ said another, ‘if we got honest lads as recruits. We want no swell-mobsmen and high-falutin dandies with their grand airs, and their fine talk, who come from no one knows where.’

‘What d’ye mean?’ asked Hanlon sharply. ‘If that’s a slap at my towney, I give you the lie, and no two words about it. Larkins is as honest a young chap as ever took the shilling.’

‘Well, Jubbock said—’

[138]

‘It’s just what I thought,’ said ‘the Boy.’ ‘Jubbock means mischief, but I’ll circumvent him, or my name’s not Joe Hanlon.’

Matters were presently brought to a crisis. Two half-crowns, a shilling and some coppers were stolen on the day following pay-day, and the men were growing furious.

‘I’d swear to my half-crown anywhere,’ said one victim. ‘It had a twist at the edges and a scar on the Queen’s nose.’

‘Let’s all agree to be searched—our kits, and packs, and all.’

‘Yes, yes,’ everybody cried. ‘We’ll call the colour-sergeant, and do it all regular and proper, so we will.’

There was a general stampede out of the room. Jubbock only was left in it, and Hanlon, who had been shaving behind the door, and was not visible.

[139]

The men came trooping back, headed by the colour-sergeant—a stout, consequential little man, who felt that his position was only second in dignity to that of the commander-in-chief.

‘No man must leave the room. You, Corporal Closky, see to that. Now, Sergeant Limpetter, we’ll take the beds with their kits as they come.’

The search was regularly and carefully conducted amid a decorous silence.

All at once there was a loud shout. The money had been discovered in one of the packs.

It was Herbert’s.

‘Larkins,’ cried the colour-sergeant, ‘I’d never have believed it.’

There was a hubbub of voices, the prominent expressions being, ‘I told you so,’ or ‘What did I say?’ followed by a hoarse[140] shout for vengeance, for condign punishment of the despicable thief.

‘A court-martial! a barrack-room court-martial,’ cried several men in a breath, and the cry was taken up by the room.

‘Stop! Give the lad fair play,’ said a new voice, and Joe Hanlon stepped from behind the door.

‘Why, what do you know about it?’ the colour-sergeant asked. ‘Isn’t the evidence as straight as it can be? He was all but taken in the act. The money, which is sworn to, is found in his pack.’

‘Aye, but who put it there?’

‘Himself, of course. Who else?’ It was Jubbock who spoke.

‘You did. I saw you.’

The shot told. Jubbock visibly quailed.

‘It’s a lie. I’ll swear I never touched the pack; I’m ready to take my dying oath—’

[141]

‘I saw you, man; I was there, behind the door, shaving, and you thought you was all alone’st in the room. I saw you go to Larkins’ bed, take the money out of your pocket, wrap it in a rag, and put it in Larkins’ pack.’

‘I didn’t, I swear.’

‘After all, it’s only one man’s word against another’s,’ said the colour-sergeant, magisterially.

‘How else could it have got there? Don’t you know,’ Hanlon asked of Jubbock, ‘don’t you know that Larkins is in hospital, and been there these three days past? How could he have touched the pack? He’s not been in the room for three days or more.’

‘That’s right,’ said the colour-sergeant. ‘There’s no more to be said. Jubbock, I would not be in your shoes. You must go to the guard-room.’

[142]

‘No, no, no;’ the men were all furious. ‘He’s the thief, the mean hound. Let’s settle it ourselves. A court-martial, a barrack-room court-martial, sergeant.’

‘Well, have it your own way. Here, Snaggs, Cusack, Hippisley, and Muldoon, you’re the four oldest soldiers in the company; go into my bunk and talk it over. Say what’s to be done with him.’

They came back presently.

‘He’s guilty. Three dozen with the sling of his own rifle; that’s our sentence—’

‘Which I approve,’ said the colour-sergeant, and the informal punishment was forthwith administered in a way which would have gladdened the heart of the fiercest old martinet who ever told the drummer to lay on.

Herbert heard all about it, as soon as[143] he came out of hospital, and was not sorry for the villain who had so nearly led him into a terrible scrape. Had the case been proved against him it would have ruined him utterly, for now at length promotion, humble enough, but still advancement, was close at hand. Within a week or two the regimental orders contained a notification that Private Herbert Larkins, of F company, was appointed a lance-corporal.

This raised him at once above the malevolence of enemies such as Jubbock. But it gave him work enough for half a dozen. The lance-corporal, the junior grade of non-commissioned officer, is a sort of general utility man, whose duties begin at daylight and do not end at night. He must be always clean and well dressed, or adieu to hope of further promotion. He must be at the beck and call of the company sergeants,[144] and ready to fly for the sergeant-major. He must be peremptory yet judicious with the privates, whom, although he was one himself yesterday, he is called upon now to command. Difficult, not to say arduous, as were his functions, Herbert managed to discharge them to the satisfaction of his superiors, and soon became known in the regiment as a smart and intelligent young man.

One evening it fell to his lot to take the ‘order book’ round for the perusal of the officers of the company. Ernest Farrington was one of them, and in due course Herbert came to his quarters. He knocked and heard the usual ‘Come in.’

‘Orders, sir.’

‘Orders! All right. One moment—’ ‘Yes, sir; that’s all I know about it,’ went on young Farrington, in continuation evidently[145] of a previous talk. His interlocutor was Major Cavendish-Diggle.

‘You don’t know what became of Lady Farrington? Where is she?’

‘At a private asylum—Dr. Plum’s, at Greystone, the other end of the county, you know.’

‘To be sure. It must have given Sir Rupert great annoyance. But now it’s all happily settled, of course?’

Diggle was just then making the running for Miss Farrington, and wished to be quite certain that there was no fear of future disinheritance.

‘Absolutely,’ said Ernest. ‘The crazy old creature won’t be heard of again, probably.’

‘Shall I leave the order book, sir?’ Herbert then asked, and they remembered they were not alone. They little[146] guessed who their listener was, and how much they had inadvertently revealed to him.

He had long wished to ascertain the whereabouts of his kind patroness, and now he knew. What use he might make of the information did not occur to him. After all, what could a poor soldier do against such a powerful enemy as Sir Rupert Farrington? Still the mouse helped the lion. And it was something to know exactly what had become of poor Lady Farrington. If he could but come across the Larkins, there might be some hope of his re-establishing himself, perhaps of again putting forward his claims. But the only reply he received from the War Office, to which he had written, was that Sergeant Larkins was employed as a barrack-sergeant abroad, and could not at the moment be traced. He[147] must wait, that was clear. But everything comes to him who can wait, and Herbert was still young enough to be sanguine and full of hope.