“They was gettin' the rig'mints away wan by wan, the campaign bein'
inded, but as ushuil they was behavin' as if niver a rig'mint had been
moved before in the mem'ry av man. Now, fwhy is that, Sorr? There's
fightin' in an' out nine months av the twelve somewhere in the Army.
There has been--for years an' years an' years, an' I wud ha' thought
they'd begin to get the hang av providin' for throops. But no! Ivry time
it's like a girls' school meetin' a big red bull whin they're goin' to
church; an' 'Mother av God,' sez the Commissariat an' the railways an'
the Barrick-masters, 'fwhat will we do now?' The ordhers came to us av
the Tyrone an' the Ould Rig'mint an' half a dozen more to go down, and
there the ordhers stopped dumb. We wint down, by the special grace av
God--down the Khaiber anyways. There was sick wid us, an' I'm thinkin'
that some av them was jolted to death in the doolies, but they was
anxious to be kilt so if they cud get to Peshawur alive the sooner. I
walked by Love-o'-Women--there was no marchin', an' Love-o'-Women was
not in a stew to get on. 'If I'd only ha' died up there!' sez he through
the doolie-curtains, an' then he'd twist up his eyes an' duck his head
for the thoughts that came to him.
“Dinah was in Depot at Pindi, but I wint circumspectuous, for well I
knew 'tis just at the rump-ind av all things that his luck turns on
a man. By token I ad seen a dhriver of a batthery goin' by at a trot
singin' 'Home, swate home' at the top av his shout, and takin' no heed
o his bridle-hand--I had seen that man dhrop under the gun in the middle
of a word, and come out by the limber like--like a frog on a pave-stone.
No. I wud not hurry, though, God knows, my heart was all in Pindi.
Love-o'-Women saw fwhat was in my mind, an' 'Go on, Terence,' h sez, 'I
know fwhat's waitin' for you.' 'I will not,' I sez. ''Twill kape a little
yet.'
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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