I'll lay you more penance in a week than -""Come along to Purgatory with us, Father dear. The Boneens are on the move; they'll let us go now!"The regiment rose to the blast of the bugle as one man; but one man there was who rose more swiftly than all the others, for half an inch of bayonet was in the fleshy part of his leg.
"You've got to do it," said Dan grimly. "Do it decent, anyhow;"and the roar of the rush drowned his words, for the rear companies thrust forward the first, still singing as they swung down the slope -From the child at the breast to the hand at the plough Shall roll to the ocean like Shannon in flood!
They should have sung it in the face of England, not of the Afghans, whom it impressed as much as did the wild Irish yell.
"They came down singing," said the unofficial report of the enemy, borne from village to village the next day. "They continued to sing, and it was written that our men could not abide when they came. It is believed that there was magic in the aforesaid song."Dan and Horse Egan kept themselves in the neighbourhood of Mulcahy. Twice the man would have bolted back in the confusion.
Twice he was heaved, kicked, and shouldered back again into the unpaintable inferno of a hotly contested charge.
At the end, the panic excess of his fear drove him into madness beyond all human courage. His eyes staring at nothing, his mouth open and frothing, and breathing as one in a cold bath, he went forward demented, while Dan toiled after him. The charge checked at a high mud wall. It was Mulcahy who scrambled up tooth and nail and hurled down among the bayonets the amazed Afghan who barred his way. It was Mulcahy, keeping to the straight line of the rabid dog, who led a collection of ardent souls at a newly unmasked battery and flung himself on the muzzle of a gun as his companions danced among the gunners. It was Mulcahy who ran wildly on from that battery into the open plain, where the enemy were retiring in sullen groups. His hands were empty, he had lost helmet and belt, and he was bleeding from a wound in the neck. Dan and Horse Egan, panting and distressed, had thrown themselves down on the ground by the captured guns, when they noticed Mulcahy's charge.
"Mad," said Horse Egan critically. "Mad with fear! He's going straight to his death, an' shouting's no use.""Let him go. Watch now! If we fire we'll hit him maybe."The last of a hurrying crowd of Afghans turned at the noise of shod feet behind him, and shifted his knife ready to hand. This, he saw, was no time to take prisoners. Mulcahy tore on, sobbing;the straight-held blade went home through the defenceless breast, and the body pitched forward almost before a shot from Dan's rifle brought down the slayer and still further hurried the Afghan retreat. The two Irishmen went out to bring in their dead.
"He was given the point, and that was an easy death," said Horse Egan, viewing the corpse. "But would you ha' shot him, Danny, if he had lived?""He didn't live, so there's no sayin'. But I doubt I wud have bekaze of the fun he gave us - let alone the beer. Hike up his legs, Horse, and we'll bring him in. Perhaps 'tis better this way."They bore the poor limp body to the mass of the regiment, lolling open-mouthed on their rifles; and there was a general snigger when one of the younger subalterns said, "That was a good man!""Phew," said Horse Egan, when a burial-party had taken over the burden. "I'm powerful dhry, and this reminds me there'll be no more beer at all.""Fwhy not?" said Dan, with a twinkle in his eye as he stretched himself for rest. "Are we not conspirin' all we can, an' while we conspire are we not entitled to free dhrinks? Sure his ould mother in New York would not let her son's comrades perish of drouth - if she can be reached at the end of a letter.""You're a janius," said Horse Egan. "0' coorse she will not. Iwish this crool war was over, an' we'd get back to canteen. Faith, the Commander-in-chief ought to be hanged in his own little sword-belt for makin' us work on wather."
The Mavericks were generally of Horse Egan's opinion. So they made haste to get their work done as soon as possible, and their industry was rewarded by unexpected peace. " We can fight the sons of Adam," said the tribesmen, "but we cannot fight the sons of Eblis, and this regiment never stays still in one place. Let us therefore come in." They came in, and "this regiment" withdrew to conspire under the leadership of Dan Grady.
Excellent as a subordinate, Dan failed altogether as a chief-in-command - possibly because he was too much swayed by the advice of the only man in the regiment who could manufacture more than one kind of handwriting. The same mail that bore to Mulcahy's mother in New York a letter from the colonel telling her how valiantly her son had fought for the Queen, and how assuredly he would have been recommended for the Victoria Cross had he survived, carried a communication signed, I grieve to say, by that same colonel and all the officers of the regiment, explaining their willingness to do "anything which is contrary to the regulations and all kinds of revolutions" if only a little money could be forwarded to cover incidental expenses. Daniel Grady, Esquire, would receive funds, vice Mulcahy, who "was unwell at this present time of writing."Both letters were forwarded from New York to Tehama Street, San Francisco, with marginal comments as brief as they were bitter.
The Third Three read and looked at each other. Then the Second Conspirator - he who believed in "joining hands with the practical branches" - began to laugh, and on recovering his gravity said, "Gentlemen, I consider this will be a lesson to us. We're left again. Those cursed Irish have let us down. I knew they would, but" - here he laughed afresh - "I'd give considerable to know what was at the back of it all."His curiosity would have been satisfied had he seen Dan Grady, discredited regimental conspirator, trying to explain to his thirsty comrades in India the non-arrival of funds from New York.
