THE SMITHY & NOBBY COLLECTION: 6 Novels & 90+ Stories in One Edition. Edgar Wallace

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СКАЧАТЬ off ‘ind cylinder ‘as come into contact with the sparkin’ plug,’ sez Spud, as bold as brass.

      “‘Sawmills,’ sez Nobby Clark softly.

      “‘Wot are you goin’ to do?’ I sez, and the other chaps started lookin’ underneath too.

      “‘I shall petrolize the trembler, and throw back the clutch into the ignition coil,’ sez Spud, shuttin’ ‘is eyes and thinkin’.

      “‘Sawmills,’ sez Nobby Clark quite plainly.

      “Spud give him a look, then dives underneath the car with a spanner, while me an’ Nobby tried to see what made the fog’orn work.

      “‘Oomph!’

      “‘‘Ere,’ sez Spud Murphy, underneath the car, ‘just you leave that ‘orn alone.’

      “‘Oomph!’

      “Spud wriggled out from under the car with a spanner in one ‘and and a oilcan in the other.

      “‘E was red in the face, an’ as wild as anything.

      “‘Didn’t I tell you to leave it alone?’ ‘e sez to Nobby.

      “‘Sawmills!’ sez Nobby; and that’s why Spud ‘it ‘im.”

      Smithy heaved a sigh.

      “Take my tip, don’t you ever try to separate two chaps when one chap has a spanner in his ‘and,” he said, and continued: —

      “Well, Spud lost ‘is job, for a couple of red-caps* came up an’ pinched ‘im, an’ the car ‘ad to be dragged home by a fatigue party, and Uncle Bill drives his own car now; he’s fed up with military shovers, and won’t ‘ave another.”

      * Military Police

      “How do you know?” I asked curiously.

      “I offered to drive for ‘im,” said Smithy modestly.

3. Advertising the Army

       Table of Contents

      “IT’s a great thing, getting a staff billet,” remarked Private Smithy, resplendent in mufti of the hand-me-down pepper-and-salt variety. Smithy wore mufti consequent upon his recent appointment as groom to Major Somebody-or-Other, Deputy-Assistant-Adjutant-General (a) to Goodness-Knows-What-District.

      “It’s a relief to get out of regimentals,” he sighed, self-consciously thrusting fingers into unaccustomed pockets. I ventured to murmur that he looked ever so much better in a scarlet coat and white belt, but Smithy demurred.

      “Red tunics is all right in a way,” he remarked philosophically, “but give me a smart civilian suit, turn-down collar, and a pair of brown boots for a change.” At Smithy’s request I “waited a bit “ whilst he explored a small tobacconist’s in the High Street.

      He returned after a short absence, red in the face, but triumphant.

      “Seven for a shilling — and an imitation crocodile leather case thrown in,” he explained. “Have one?” Smithy added, with the air of a connoisseur, that it was “almost unpossible to buy a good cigar under tuppence.”

      Two draws convinced me that it was quite as impossible to get the genuine article at the rate of a shilling for seven.

      “The red coat attracts a few, I’ll admit,” resumed Smithy. “I’ve known two silly jossers in my time who’ve joined the Army for the sake of the scarlet. One got his ticket three months after.”

      “Ticket,” I may say in parenthesis, is the terse barrackroom formula for certificate of discharge.

      “Colour blind, ‘e was,” Smithy went on, with an amused smile. “No, red coats don’t bring recruits, nor,” added Smithy emphatically, “nothing that the War Office ever did brings recruits.” We were passing a hoarding as he spoke, and suddenly clutching my arm, he stopped dead and pointed to a placard. It was neatly printed in red and blue, and was about the size of a newspaper contents bill. It ran :

      RECRUITS WANTED

      FOR EVERY BRANCH OF

      THE ARMY

      GOD SAVE THE KING!

      I nodded, and we resumed our walk.

      “God save the King!” repeated Smithy flippantly. “God save the King if he don’t get no more recruits than that there notice will bring him!” and Smithy laughed sarcastically.

      He was silent for a while, and so occupied with his thoughts that I was able to drop my cigar down a friendly drain without observation.

      “They can’t get recruits nowadays,” he resumed at length, and then, striking off at a tangent, “Why do fellers enlist?”

      I thought it might be for the glory of a noble profession, and ventured to express this thought.

      Smithy’s reply was conveyed in one coarse, contemptuous word.

      “Do you know why I enlisted?” he asked.

      I did not hazard an opinion, and he continued: “Broke,” he said tersely. “Broke to the wide, wide world; out of a job and had a row with the girl — but mostly I was out of a job.

      “Show me a soldier,” said Smithy, with a sort of gloomy enthusiasm, “and I’ll show you a man who at some time or other has got down to his last tanner.

      “Mind you,” he added cautiously, “there are thousands of chaps in the Army — sergeants on the strength and all that, who’ve got on well and ‘ave educated theirselves — they’ll tell you, if you ask ‘em, why they ‘listed; it’s because they struck pa with a roll of music and ran away from home.”

      Smithy ended this speech in a hoarse falsetto, presumably in imitation of some person or persons unknown.

      “Why!” I know a man — quartermaster-sergeant, who’s got two houses of his own, and can vamp the accompaniment to any song you like. When he ‘listed he walked into barracks on his uppers.

      “And now he’s got two houses — being a quartermaster-sergeant,” added Smithy darkly, and not a little vaguely.

      “And so long as the War Office is the War Office,” he went on, “you’ll always have an army of hard-ups. Because why?”

      “Because,” I submitted rather sadly, “the greater bulk of the population—”

      “Not a bit,” said the optimist, demolishing the results of systematic observation with a fine disregard for statistics. “Not a bit. It’s because the War Office don’t know what attracts soldiers.

      “Why! may I be (three СКАЧАТЬ