THE OUTSIDER.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XXXVII, Issue 11432, 24 July 1900, Page 6

THE OUTSIDER.

[PUBLISHED BY SPECIAL' E ijjj^§|i

' [BY RTOYAJH)' KIPLING.] , PART 11. ■ 'VS'S 1 To Lieutenant Setton, by the death of, captain, .. fell the: charge of two' companiesP? ! which operated with an Australian ;. j' ; - gent on a disturbed and dusty border, n';'men;citing'"- to-■ him for, a week, ■ expecting miracles; , but.he could not smite water from i rocks, nor vary the daily,beef tin '■ and fowlf |> dry biscuits. They learned a little md 9 1-well-sinking from their allies, and a jjtjg stealing on their own account. ' After tin, 1 to his relief, they abandoned him as norsa I and midwife. Had he played the garni will, 1 an eye to the rules he might have profited y' j much as his more open-minded fellow officersl but his demon tempted him one clear twj! - light to capture a solitary horseman in diffi. J culties with a spent horse. .It was not i ' sporting to pot him at eight hundred ! yards, so Setton took horse and rode a some. I what uncertain wallop directly at the man 1 who naturally retreated between two steep *- ' -J hills, where, for just this end, lie had posted'^-1 four confederates. They, being children of i nature, and buck-hunters to boot, allowed their quarry to pass, and after twenty rounds 1 i 1 at four hundred yards— Boer in a hurry- 1 is not a good shot—dropped him with a f broken ; arm. Setton was not pleased, bit I the five Australians who, without orders, ' so soon as they saw what he would be at 1 had galloped parallel with him behind the 1 kopjes, were immensely gratified. TheyS| I mounted, lay down, and slew the Boer on the tired horse as he returned to join his If fellow-plunderers, of whom they shot two i | \ and wounded one. They reached camp with'. ; :- 1 Setton and— more valuable loot— * efficient Boer ponies. -. -• "If you'd only told us you were goin' 0 \ commit suicide this way," said a Queensland trooper, "we'd have rounded up the whole 1 mob, usin' you for bait." ._ j The shattered arm ended Sellon's care« ' ,1 as a combatant officer, but, in the grea; I scarcity of sounder material, they made bin ' J station commander of the peculiarly desolrt siding of Pipkameelcepompfontein, vhicl, as everybody knows, ■_* i i - ■' r.y.' iy":- S Is on the road to Bloemfonteiu, | And there the Mausers \':-..'k Tear your trousers % And make your horses jompfontein.'■ | But the tide of war had rolled back, lav.:> : f ing only a mass of worrying woik for .he •'■' 5 Railway Pioneer Corps that Phil Tenbnek had organised from the wreck of tlio nine 1 personnel months before. Three short, loir f I bridges, little larger than culverts, but two | of them built on a curve crossed .three dry, 1 shallow watercourses, and of course the Boers ' § blew them up on departure. Phil, com- v 1 mandant of the Railway Pioneers, busy on % \ Folly Bridge, could only spare thirty men f on the job, but he gave Hagan, late in charge I of the machinery of the Consolidated Ophir: I ] and Bonanza, with the rank; of lieutenant, '-■■' | his choice, and Hagan took the ; cream. \. i They lumbered into Pipkameeleeponipfontein. ' I in open truck?—thirty men, each anxious to . : j return to the Rand; each holding more ur less of property there, most of them skilled :. J mechanicians in their own department; and ; I each exalted, body, soul, and spirit rby 3 gi | rancorous, razor-edged, personal hatred of ■ | the State that had shamed, tricked and -0. I ruined them. They found there was/ay-': 1 station commandant, moved by none of their 1 springs— being from another planet, fenced I about with neatly-piled boxes of rivets find. | a mass of crated ironwork that was pouring f up from the south, who proposed to camp; 1 them a mile from the broken bridges. • - •: . " What, no water?" said Haptn. ,',;-;,'; | " Oil, no, but I expect a detachment off % regulars shortly. They must have the" neat | camp.' _ ;-, ;| "Good Lord, man, your blessed regulars 1 can't get forward .till we've ..mended theV | bridges. .We must be close to our work." ; ;'-' I ".I'm afraid your knowledge of the British | Army is a little limited," said- the Station, Commandant.' • ' l|Bi : -'. . : " I was fool enough to cross a ridge' after |j one of the regulars had reported it cleared," | said Hagan sweetly. "'Twasn't any fault , | of theirs my knowledge didn't last till the g day of judgment. But, look here, this isn't j a question of precedence. We don't want to | | say here. We want to mend the bridge and ; I get up to the Rand again." '•;,"'.--*'■ u

After a while, but ungraciously, Setton 1 j| gave way, and the Railway Pioneers went to h fj work like beavers. The regulars arrived "to ; V; || protect the bridge-head," two companies of g£> ! H them, fresh from Home, and Setton, with ::■■■ | Eg unspeakable delight, found himself once';:;,; | || more among men who talked his limited ,v,iv | i| tongue, and. spoke his more limited thought' '• | H As he wrote to his mother, " You can get as A J. good hunting talk here as you can at home.'' ;g | The Pioneers were not a seemly corps. They A?s | unstacked the accuratcly-pjied rivet boxes, I j and dumped them where they could be easiest ; •' J j knfiied; they dismantled. an abandoned [ n | farmhouse to get at the roof-beams, because j \ they were short of poles ; they stuck a home- *j| | made furnace at the far end of the platform, >: m where it made itself a black, unlovely bed • {.f of cinders; they worked at all hours of the'' j :i , | day and night,' ate when they had lew, . $ \ and called their officers by their lesser j.| j names. Hagan asked Setton— once- . |'s| | what arrangements he had made for Kaffir ; ft j labour. Setton had made none. for ho hi no instructions. Whereupon Hagan, . talk- : ;' £\, ing in an unknown tongue, made his own || J arrangements and strange nig.'crs crept, "'it j> of the dry Karroo by scores. • Setton wished to know something about them : "It's M|pf m j right," said Hagan over his shoulder, ."I'm ' \i | responsible. It's cheaper for us'' (he meant.; »| a the Consolidated Ophir and Bonanza) "'to h 1 pay out of our pocket than to wait foi- the ' jj | to riddle through-it. I wait to @ J get back to the Rand." 0 fj That last sentence always annoyed S(tton.v'-/N j These voluble Johannesburg gipsies made it Vi |3 theif dawn song, their noon: chorus, : and | 9 their midnight chant. It swung girders in- 1 to plice, sent home rivets, arid sm'ked rails. |,J | ft echoed among the hills at twilight, when %/m. | the startlingly visible night picket ot-tfe'fvtl regulars went out to relieve its fellows, cut $ 1 in black paper against the given sky-line, on ] '-j the tallest kopje. It greeted every truck of , h new material, this drawling, nasal", "I want- J - jj to go back to the Rand." ' 'If It helped to build the bridges, though that j Setton did not,notice. 'He did not kuow 'MfM l spike from a chair, a girder from an arte- I sian pump, a 30ft metal from a tie-rod. : ; Tliejp | things lumbered up the siding, which,' he. | wished to keep neat. Jinn tool: them "jjut|j; p I of the trucks, and did things to them or f with them, and the bridges somehow or 1 other spanned the watercourses. But Lieu- H i tenant Setton would no more have dreamed}^: m j of taking interest in the maimer of their | : ,$ f fitment than at school he would have raid 1 five lines beyond the day's aimointed con; £'|| I strue. " ■ ; m I When the last of the three bridges was 4 nearly finished, Hagan dashed into his officej£;|| | with a wire from Phil, who wanted him n'ack%;|f | at once. The big centre girder of Folly g Bridge was going up, mid only Haeap tis>mm I take charge of that end of it which w« s , I § not under Phil's comprehending eye. § " But the men here know exactly w||| I to be done. If anything goes -wrong,' ask ||H Jerry— mean Private Thrupp. He ought mm I : to begin riveting up to-morrow, 'B™S|ig Eg after that they've only got to lay the track., i j 1 ; It's as easy as falling off a log." , . - _' I/|g' 1 Setton did not approve of this unbuttoned- § man with the rampant voice. Had,,iiidPj| | | —but Hagan was too busy to notice it": I withdrawn markedly from his society. *°|. M 1 did Setton comprehend how a private could.' g 1 be in charge of anything—least of all $$|§« I a regular officer, not to mention a station | commandant— on the horizon. % I assumed that Hagan would have told;,t.M,|l I senior non-com.' of the Pioneers'to come | him for orders for the day; but;Hag««!|| M 1 eating, sleeping, and thinking bridges : § 1 had not communicated with Sergeant Ray, jj § -late accountant of Thumper's Deep,; f\fgs 1 promoted because Government- had; insifc* | 1 that the corps • should keep books. Hig a ||| | | had spent his last hours at an informal p 1 committee meeting with Jerry ana 18D0 !L §1 i private—Fulsom, . ex-head of •• ; the b'»*■•'; M tj North Bear's machinery— .under, .the:-Jpjf|| M of. a karroo bush, drawing diagrams ii" ffll : • Copyright, Londoni and New York, byE",- VII yard Kipling, 1900. ■ . . '.^^Mp

dirt, had settled every last, detail of the bridge that was ■ to help the corps back to' their own Rand. ;-.v.--:-x •:.-.;•;_ *v;-.-,:>;-•..■.',: ; v r Brightly and briskly, then, in the dia-mond-clear dawn, uprose Lieutenant Walter jetton, to command the station of Pipka- : • meeieepompfontein. But early as it:was, 1 ■■■' : . :: :the Pioneers were before.■ him. sl .;. The situation when he arrived at 'the bank of the ' third watercourse was . briefly this: They ; wero lowering, with hand-made derricks, f two 14ft girders, one from either bank, to . meet in the middle, where Jerry and Fulsom - "stood ready to join them,- The 28ft girder which should have covered; the span- had ' been sent round to Naauwpoort by mistake; and Jerry, believed devoutly that the Cape Minister for Railways, whom he habitually :alluded to as "the worst rebel of tile lot," had made the delay on purpose. The mistake of it was that, expecting the twentyright ip.ot iron, they had.used up the last of their wood slcppers'to lay a sharp curve just 1 before the bridge, where iron sleepers were difficult to bed and adjust. Consequently, they had no temporary crib of sleepers in the middle of the watercourse to.take the weight of the two f< rteen-foot irons when these were lowered. So Jerry had extemporised a stage of boxes and laths sufficient to bear his weight and Pulsom's, and, knowing his men, trusted to rivet up the butt-strap temporarily, at amy rate, while the men on the derricks held the girders, lowering them or raising them fractionally at his signal. It was unorthodox engineering, but it would carry the line. By four in the morning the heels of the girders were . neatlv butted against their permanent rest- . ing-places, -and their noses began to dip towards the meeting in the centre. • " North girder!" Jerry raised his hand and lowered it slowly. The obedient gang at the derrick slacked away with immense care. They were not watching Private Thrupp, but Jerry, of Thumper's, Deep; and Fulsom, of the Little North Bear—both mighty men. "Ready with the rivets, now! Here she • comes. Hold her! Hold her! As you are! Not another hairbreath. South guV * raise a shade. Half the fraction of a hair i" He laid a spirit-level across the half-inch gap between the two girders, arid cocked his head on one side. Nobody breathed except Lieutenant -Setton, who had walked some distance in a hurry. He observed that a bucket oi blazing coals—stolen, of coursewas slung under the belly of either "iron ' thing." He always thought of concrete objects beyond hi» experience as "things." pour men passed up two flat iron things— the specially-designed butt-straps—one to Jerry and one to Fulsom. who faced him on the other side- of the girders. So close was the adjustment that the weight of the straps as they were laid between the flanges of the girder made the south oneheld by ropes, not chains—dip a fraction, and Jerry swore; as only a Rand mechanist on twelve hundred a year and a bonus has a right to swear —emphatically and authoritatively. "What are yon doing there, men?" The voice passed Jerry like the summer wind, One hand was on the spirit-level, the other held the riveting-hammer; one eye squinted at the bubble in the glass; the other, red with emotion-, glared through the holes in the butt-strap, waiting till the expansion of the heated girders should bring the rivetholes in line. Astronomers watching for an eclipse gaze not so earnestly as did Jerry and Fulsom.,

"I say, what are you men doing there Without orders?" cried Lieutenant Sctton for the second time.

"Hush!" said Jerry, wagging the hammer to command silence. He was half aware now of some disturbing presence. The four holes covered each other absolutely.

'"Rivets tome !" Quick, McGinniss. Meet me, Fulsom.", A man passed up the pincers with the red-hot rivet, and Jerry hammered like an artist, " That'll make old— mentioned the Cape Minister for Railways by namepretty sick! Thought he'd hang us np by sending our stuff round by Naauwpoort. did lie? Hope to goodness his brother'll put a bullet into him when he comes down. Hold on ! Rivet, McGinniss! What's the good of you? Derricks there! Hold on! What are you men doing I Oh, good Lord!"' If jerrv on the rivet-boxes'was losing his temper, Lieutenant Setton had lost his altogether?? " You thought!" he shouted to the amazed gang. " You thought. Who in the world told you to think? D'you suppose you're here to do as yon please? I gave no orders for the work to go on. ' Your orders, if you thought to come to my office to get them, are to clean up some of lae filthy mess you made round the station."

Then to Sergeant Rayne. "Fall in your men at once, and march them up to the station. You'll get your orders there."

" Hut half a mo', sii. Half a minute, sir. We can't let go—" "Dc you refuse your duty, then ? I warn you it'll be the.worse for you. You can't do this: you can't do that? Let go that rope thing -at once. It's mutiny, by God!" They let 20 at the south end. They fell back, not 'knowing the limits of Imperial power. The unsupported girder bit heavily on the single soft rivet that Jerry and FillKm bad put in—bit the shore through. The north pan? let go an instant later. A howl of rage came out of the ravine as both girders drooped into a dolorous broken -backed V, kno»king over the light staging, and twisting as they fell, scattered the fire in the buckets among the-drv scrub and fragments of timheruii; in the bed of the watercourse. They lit at once, and blazed merrily. A man with ahiimirT erupted. "Who slacked the ropes without orders?" he remanded in a voice no private should use. One or two men had heard it before—at the time of th. big dynamite explosion in Johannesburgand straightened DP"Fall in with your company, there, and don't talk," said 'Lieutenant Setton. He was willing to concede much to a mere Volunteer—even in time of war. "It was him, Jerry," whispered Sergeant Eayne. Jerry turned a full mulberry colour as he strove tc control himself. He was quivering all ovei. Then he grew pale and rigid. " Ha—half a minute, please. I want to explain to'you exactly how the work stands. The girders were just in position, and I was riveting them up—my name is Thrupp." If carried some weight on the Rand, but Lieutenant Setton almost laughed aloud. "If you, wouldn't mind listening to me, please. It was an absolutely vital matter—absolutely vital. We were actually riyetting the butt-strap when you meddled With the derrick. Let me show you!" — he laid one shaking hand on the Lieutenant's cuff to lead him to the wreck.

."Meddle with the derrick! What the devil do you mean bv your insolence? Do you know who I am?"

"In half-an-ho-iir— in five minutes—we could have put in enough rivets to hold her. "0 shall have to go to work again. It aeans half a day's delay, though, even if ■the girders ore not twisted by the fall. You can see it hung on only one rivet.' , "Fall in with vour company, for the last time." '

But you don't understand—you don't Understand. Let me explain a minute, and come here," again the hand on the cuff. Of course you don't realise what you've done. It was only a question of minutes— jninutes, do you see?—before we should have M those two girders—those short irons flown there-riveted up. Good lord! That Mrubs burning like tinder. We must •novel earth on it, or it will twist the gird'«out of shape, and," the voice rose almost o a shriek, " we shall have to send down the "ne for duplicates. I—you—tell the men to shuck earth on that blaze, for God's sake. -no girders will buckle! They'll be rained.'

'March this man up to the guard-tent," 'd lieutenant Sotton, who had endured iW I it was the insolence and insubor"nation of the man that galled him. " An"oer time, pcrhap, you'll take the trouble 10 obey orders." "What for? What have I done? My ».Jfr chap,.this isn't the time to fiddle about *™ guard-tents. The whole donga's »"BW, and we shall have those girders buckmin 10 minutes. You can't be going wjeayo the mass as - is—you can't." & -Oh. Tvo stood enough of this. Silence. SfW you're a prisoner, if mi ' yes; I'm anything you please, "you only let me put out thai fire. Wmm deuce do you think I'd pant to :.^-«?';;t I'll:come up to the guard-tent S fit 11 ' 8 out ' 7 I give you . my - word ■ %:■ this time the Railway Pioneei Corps ■ S l i ty'■ minds-some ; laughing, : and KA° okln S vei 7 black. Only feat with a pocket-book, seemed to *!»» no interest in the matter.- -

"yf March me off? -With that fire burning?' Wo'ir be delayed a 'week; at least. 1 Way—why—"_ 'again Jerry turned plum-colour. r -i i Fulsom and McGinniss, who knew his habits, closed in on him at once. (I ■;; ■" Come'"" on, \j Jerry," whispered Fulsom. "You've done all you can.'' Ccme on." <■ -$. "All ■I* can What do I matter? I'm thinking about the bridge." He walked in a sort of stupor, looking back from time to time to watch the smoke from the donga. The Railway Pioneer Corps followed slowly, to assist in sweeping up Pipkameeleepompfontein. "Raynes has got. down every word you said in shorthand," said Fulsom, when the prisoner reached the guard-tent, "and lie's going to wiie to Hagan now. ■ For God's sake don't open your mouth, Jerry, and we'll get that young idiot Stellenbosched in a day or two."

" Hung up for a week—hung up for a week," moaned Jerry. "Am I mad, or is he? Tell Rayne to wire for spare girders. God knows where- they are to come from! Perhaps PhilHp'll . have a couple from Polly Bridge. Better wire there as well. Those two will have buckled by now."

"And you say he refused your orders?" This was Hagan, dirty and diawn, after a journey in a drauehty cattle-truck, standing at the foot of Setton's cot in the dawnlight. "He was extremely insolent, if that is what you mean. He deliberately questioned mv authority beforo all the men several times. He kept pawing me all over, too. I don't suppose ho really meant half he said." "Didn't he?" Hagan gulped, hut curbed himself. "The trouble with you volunteers," said Setton, rising on one firm, " is that you've absolutely no notion of military discipline, and on active service one can't allow that sort of thing. However, I think 48 hours in the guard-tent will teach him a little sense. I've no intention of carrying the matter any further, so we needn't discuss it." Hagan stared at him with a horror that carried something of admiration, and a little —not much—nity. He had come up with Colonel Palling, R.E., and had shown him the third bridge. "Is this his tent?" one oried without, and thero entered a colonel of Her Majesty's Royal Engineers, not in a common regimental rage, but such a cold fury as an overworked man responsible for a few scoro miles of track in Avar time may justly wear. He chewed his three-month-old beard and looked at Lieutenant Setton, who stood to attention.

" You will go," he whispered at last, " you will go back to the base by the 7.30 train this morning. You will givo this note to the general there." " Yes, sir. '' " Do you know why you go?" "No, sir." The colonel's neck-veins swelled. " I—l wish to speak to this officer," he said. It is the first maxim of internal economy that you should never reprimand a superior in the presence of his equal or his subordinate. Hagan withdrew. The camp sentry, a few yards away, stood fast. He was a reserve man v! some experience. " Gawd 'as been 'eavenly good to me," he said later to 15 comrades. " I've 'eard quite a few things in my time. I've 'eard the Duke 'imselt pass the time o' day to an 'orse battery that turned ud on the wrong flank in the Long Valley. I've 'eard a brigadier on Salisbury Plain rope's-endin' a volunteer » ; 'e-de-cong 'oo couldn't ride, and' ask questions. I 'eard ' Smutty' Chambers lyin' Wind an ant-'ll at Modder gettin' sunstroke. I 'eard what General —■ said when the cavalry was too late at Stinkersdrift. But all that was 'Let me kiss 'im for 'is mother' to wot I 'eard this mornin' There wasn't any common dam-your-eyes routine to it. Palling, 'e just felt about with 's fingers till 'e'd' found • that little be'eear's immortal soul—'o did. An' then 'o puned it fair out of 'im, like a bloomin' pull-through, an' then 'e blew 'is nose on it, like a bloomin' 'andkerchief, an' then 'o threw it away. Swore at 'im? No. You chaps don't follow me. It was chronic. That's what it was—just chronio I"

11l the peaceful and loyal district of Stellenbosch there is a subaltern temporarily attached as supernumerary on the accounts side of the Numdah and Girth-lace Issue department, who Knows exactly how the army ought to be reorganised. "It's all ver : well to talk about makin' the army a business; like those newspaper chaps do, but they don't understand the spirit of the service. How can they? Well, don't you see, if they bring in those so-called reforms that they're always talkin' about, they simply fill up the service with a lot of bounders and outsiders. They simply won't get the class of men to join that the army really wants. No ono will take up the service then. I know I sha'nt, for one."