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

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СКАЧАТЬ defeated,’ sez the umpire, and then goes on affably: ‘What sort of a season are you havin’ in this part of the world? Nice weather for the crops, By the bye, as I was comin’ along in my ninety-four horsepower Wolseley, I put up twenty brace—’

      “Then Botha gets mad.

      “‘What the howling raadzaal do you mean by sayin’ that I’m defeated, when I’ve got a position here that I could hold for a month of Sundays?’ he sez as wild as anything.

      “The umpire gets very stiff.

      “‘I’d have you know, General, that you’re not allowed to hold this position.’

      “Why?’ sez Botha, very astonished.

      “Because it’s out of bounds,’ sez the umpire and so we’d have got Colenso.”

      Smithy stopped to watch a barefooted sailor, with two little yellow and red hand-flags, wave erratic arms seaward.

      He spelt out the message, having some knowledge of the semaphore.

      “Make — your — own — arrangements,” spelt Smithy, and added, with a dry laugh, “That’s just the bloomin’ thing the umpires don’t allow for.

      “I remember once,” he continued, with unaccustomed animation, “when we were messing about after De Wet. You know the sort of thing — twenty miles a day in every direction. Every night we used to come up to the place where De Wet was the night before. There was half a battalion of Ours, one squadron of scallywags, two squadron of bushrangers, and a couple of pompoms.

      “Well, one day, when we wasn’t exactly lookin’ for De Wet, De Wet was lookin’ for us, and you can bet he found us!

      “Before we knew where he was he’d got our horses, and we was all lyin’ flat on our chests envyin’ the little ants that had as much cover as they wanted.

      “We’d been shootin’ away for about an hour, and it was easy to see we were pretty well surrounded.

      “There was a sort of general in charge of our three columns, and he was twenty miles away with the other two.

      “Bimeby we got a helio message from him—’Make the best arrangements you can; I can’t get to you under six hours.’ So our old man, and the scallywag captain — Somebody’s Horse it was — an’ the Australian major, had a sort of council of war underneath a water-barrel.

      “‘Well, gentlemen,’ sez our old man, ‘I’m afraid we’re pipped,’ he sez; ‘rightly speakin’,’ he sez, ‘we ought to shove up the white flag,’ he sez; but I give everybody fair warnin’,’ he sez, ‘that I’ll shoot the man who as much as blows his nose with a white handkerchief,’ he sez, with a wicked laugh.

      “And the scallywag and the bushranger and the little gunner who had just crawled up, said, ‘Hear, hear!’

      “Then our old man goes on: ‘The main body of the enemy is in a donga three hundred yards to our left,’ he sez, ‘and we’ve got to get that donga,’ sez our old man.”

      Smithy’s eyes were far away.

      “Bimeby,” he went on, “I heard the old man shouting, ‘Concentrate your fire on that donga,’ he sez ; then after a bit, when the dust begins to go up, he yells, ‘Fix bayonets!’”

      Smithy turned and looked me squarely in the face. “What would the umpire have said?” he asked. Why, we’d have been bloomin’ well decimated — but we wasn’t. The Boers didn’t wait for the bayonet — they pushed off, and we got away with the guns.

      “There’s only one kind of war,” said Smithy sagely, “and that’s the kind that hurts. When the chap that’s playin’ the real game makes a misdeal or revokes, there’s no reshuffle. If he puts up a big bluff and it comes off, he’s a great man, and gets his picture in the papers. If it don’t come off, why—”

      Smithy’s silence was eloquent.

      “Umpires in war,” he went on, “are food and feet and fingers — fingers for holdin’ on to positions where, rightly, you should ‘a’ been kicked off.

      “I know regiments that could never be put out action unless every man was killed — what’s an umpire goin’ to do with a lot like that?” he demanded. Somewhere down on the shingly beach below to a stentorian voice roared:

      “Smith!”

      Smith rose with alacrity.

      “Comin’, sir,” he shouted. Then, as he led his officer’s charger seaward, he turned.

      “He’s an umpire,” he said, with a jerk of his thumb toward the beach, “but he’s a very decent chap otherwise.”

6. Erudition

       Table of Contents

      “It was read out in reg’mental orders,” said Smithy, “on the 9.30 parade, that a new lot of books ‘ad arrived for the lib’ry. ‘Suitable books for the Soldier,’ it said, so that afternoon me an’ Nobby goes over to the coffee-shop where the lib’ry is to ‘ave a look. There was lots of other chaps there, an’ we ‘ad to take our turn.

      “All the chaps was shoutin’, ‘Come on, Mac, give me that red one,’ an’ poor old Macmanus got ‘isself all tied up in a knot tryin’ to put dawn the names of the chaps that took out the new books. When it come to me an’ Nobby’s turn there was only two books left. Nobby got a blue one an’ I got a red one.

      “‘Wot’s yours, Smithy?’ sez Nobby, an’ I read it out: ‘Temp’rance Statistics of the Army in India.’

      “‘Who Stat What’s-’is-name?’ sez Nobby.

      “‘Some bloomin’ teetotaller,’ I sez. ‘Wot’s yours?’

      “‘Ydraulics for Garrison Artillery,’ ‘e sez. ‘Whose she, I wonder?’

      “Spud Murphy got a book about ‘Tactics in the Crimea,’ George Botter (of ‘G’) got a yaller book about ‘Afghanistan in Relation to the Frontier Question,’ Mouldy Thompson got a big book about ‘The ‘Istory of the Army Service Corps,’ whilst old ‘Appy Johnson got the best of the lot, ‘Records an’ Nicknames of the British Army.’

      “We all takes our books to the barrackroom, an’ there was me an’ Nobby an’ all the rest of the chaps sittin’ down ‘oldin’ our ‘eads tryin’ to understand what the books was about.

      “When we gets over to the canteen that night everybody was tryin’ to show off.

      “Spud comes strollin’ up to where me an’ Nobby was sittin’.

      “‘Ullo, Nob,’ ‘e sez.

      “‘Ullo!’ sez Nobby; ‘what do you want, funny face?’

      “Spud СКАЧАТЬ