THE SMITHY & NOBBY COLLECTION: 6 Novels & 90+ Stories in One Edition. Edgar WallaceЧитать онлайн книгу.
put his hand to his side as though he was in pain, an’ he was, too, though we didn’t guess it.
“‘I thought,’ he went on, ‘that Father John would like we to see him put away nice an’ comfortable — that’s why I kept alive!’
“He said this all so calm that I didn’t understand what he meant.
“‘Let me down gently,’ he sez, an’ Nobby saw the blood on his lips, an’ put his arms round him.
“We lowered him carefully down, an’ two doctors came. Sam lay very still an’ quiet.
“They stripped off his coat. His shirt was caked with blood, an’ one of the doctors whistled as he saw the wound.
“‘Is he dead, sir?’ whispered Nobby.
“The doctor nodded.
“‘How he has lived for six hours with a knife wound in his heart,’ he said, ‘God knows. Why, by every law of science, he ought to have been dead this morning!’
“The Adjutant came up.
“‘How do you account for it, doctor?’ he asked.
“The doctor shook his head an’ couldn’t say, but me an’ Nobby could have explained. It was love, an’ will, an’ sacrifice that kept poor Sam alive — but mostly sacrifice.”
The End
Army Reform Opinions of Private Smith (1906)
Army Reform
Private Smith — his comrades, I am informed, call him “Smithy” for short — entertained me yesterday with many stories of Army reform.
There was a time, explained Smithy, when all the chaps used to get very excited if it came out that there was going to be a brand new Army. You see a lot in the papers, you hear a lot about what’s going to happen, but reveille still goes at 6 a.m., ‘B’ Company still has jam for breakfast three days a week, and you step off with the left foot, just about the same as usual. The only feller I ever knew, he said, who made anything out of Army reform was Nobby Clark — Private Clark, of B. He continued: —
A Business Head.
Nobby is a chap with a business head, as you may say; I mean that he is always thinking out new ways of making money without working for it. One day — oh, years an’ years ago it was — one of the young fellers at the War Office got out a new idea. I don’t exactly know what it was, and it afterwards came out that he didn’t either. But what he did know was that the Army before he came to the War Office was in a very bad state, and it was a good job for everybody he’d happened to be driving down Pall Mall and noticed it. We all got a bit excited when we heard we were going to be reformed, and lots of fellers joined the Army Temperance Association, because Nobby put it about that all teetotallers were going to get a penny a day extra. They gave Nobby their money to mind, so that the temptation of the cursed drink should not overcome ‘em, and later, when It was found out that there was nothing about being teetotal in the now Army reform, they had quite a lot of trouble in getting their money back.
“It’s no good your comin’ to me,” sez Nobby to one of ‘em, a young teller named Spud Murphy. “I’m goin’ to keep you out of the accursed canteen so that you can get the extra penny a day for bein’ a temp’rance soldier.”
“There ain’t any penny a day,” sez Spud, wrathful.
“Wait and see,” sez Nobby, very calm.
So they waited for a week, then went to Nobby again. They couldn’t find him, because he’d got a telegram from London saying, “Come at once, your sister is horribly ill. Bring Prlvate Smith, as she wants to see him.”
So me and Nobby got five days’ leave and went up to town, and had the time of our lives.
When we got back all the young fellers who’d given Nobby money to mind said that if Nobby didn’t hand it over there was going to be trouble. So Nobby gave ’em all that he had, an’ said he kept the rest for Interest.
A Reform That Did Not Come Off.
Then Nobby put it about that the new Army reform was going to make all soldiers wear collars and ties, but somehow, the fellers wouldn’t believe it; an’ the stock collars and pink ties that Nobby bought cheap at Hills’, the drapers in the High street, was a dead loss.
But we thought something must be going to happen, because the newspapers were filled with Army reform, and old chaps, writing from the Army and Navy Club, saying what a disgraceful thing it was. “Colonel, Retired,” they signed theirselves.
There was all sorts of rumors in the regiment. Once we heard that soldiers was to have eggs for breakfast every day of their lives; once if was put about that there was going to be no more church parades; but things went on as usual, and as far as I could see the only change we got was in the weather, for it rained for three weeks on end, an’ we didn’t have’ a single parade, which was very good.
That was the first Army reform I remember. Then there was another one. It came out in orders that a lot of Army Corps was to be formed, an’ the Anchester Regiment was ordered down to Salisbury to join the 45th Army Corps. When we got there we was the only soldiers in sight.
“Where’s the Army Corps?” sez the colonel, an’ nobody knew. The adjutant asked a chap who happened to be on Salisbury Plain, and the chap said he didn’t know, but just before we arrived he’d seen a dog eating something, so the colonel told him he was a fool. And the adjutant asked another man — a man from Salisbury — and the man began turning out his pockets to prove that he hadn’t got it. We never saw the 45th Army Corps, an’ we never found it, though I think (here Smithy paid a delicate compliment to the power of the Press) that if they’d put an advertisement in the papers:
LOST. — A small Army Corps; lame in one leg, bobtailed, does tricks, wears a sailor hat, and answers to the name of “Broddie,”
they might have got it.
Then we had another Army reform, but I don’t think that one came off.
“Value For Cash.”
The other day Nobby came into the canteen in a great state of mind.
“There’s a new Army reform,” he sez.
“Is it something you want to sell?” sez Spud Murphy.
“No, its — —”
“Do you want to mind our money?” sez Spud.
“Don’t be silly,” sez Nobby; ‘It’s about every man being worth his money — —”
“Ah!” sez Spud, noddin’ his head, “I knew it was something about money.”
Well, from what Nobby said, it appears that there’s a new Army reform made up by a new chap at the War Office, and it’s pretty serious this time.
“Every soldier must be worth his money,” sez Nobby, and he read a bit out of the paper.
“What does that mean?” sez Spud; so Nobby explained.
Nobby is a very plausible chap, an’ by the time he’d finished explaining how the Army was going to be run on piecework lines he’d got all the chaps feeling very uneasy.
“I’m sorry for you, Spud, because I know, you don’t like work — I don’t suppose you’ll draw more than half a crown a week.”
“But how are they going to work it out?” sez Spud, trying to do sums in in his head.
So Nobby went on explaining.
“Penny