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Page 6
"Wha' d'ye ca' a Mullah?" queried McSporran, with grave interest.
Hardy, carbine-barrel between knees--struggled with a "pull-through."
"Mullah? well, 'e's a sorter--sorter 'ead blowke," he mumbled lamely.
"Kind of High Priest?" ventured George.
The old soldier beamed upon him gratefully, "Ar, that's wot I meant. 'E
stunk that 'igh th' Colonel 'e sez--"
The storm doors banged below. "Redmond!--oh, Redmond!" The great,
booming, bass voice rang echoing up the stairway. Involuntarily they all
sprang to an attitude of alert attention. Rarely did Tom Belcher have to
speak twice around Barracks.
"There's the S.M.!" muttered George. Aloud he responded "Coming,
Sergeant-Major!" And he swung downstairs where a powerfully-built man in
a snow and ice-incrusted fur coat awaited him.
"The O.C.'s orders, Redmond!--get your kit packed and hold yourself in
readiness to pull out on the eleven o'clock West-bound to-morrow. You're
transferred to the Davidsburg detachment. I'll give you your
transport-requisition later."
The storm doors banged behind him, and then, Redmond, not without design,
forced himself to saunter slowly--very slowly--upstairs again, whistling
nonchalantly the while.
Expectant faces greeted him. "What's up?" they chorused. With a fine
assumption of indifference he briefly informed them. McSporran received
the news with his customary stolidity, only his gray eyes twinkled and he
chuntered something that was totally unintelligible to anyone save
himself. But its effect upon McCullough and Hardy was peculiar, not to
say, startling in the extreme. With brush and burnisher clutched in
their respective hands they both turned and gaped upon him fish-eyed for
the moment. Then, as their eyes met, those two worthies seemed to
experience a difficulty of articulation.
Dumfounded himself, George looked from one to the other, "What the
devil's wrong with you fools?" he queried irritably.
Thereupon, McCullough, still holding the eyes of the Cockney, gasped out
one magical word--"Yorkey!"
The spell was broken. "W'y, gorblimey!" said Hardy, "Ain't that
queer?--that's jes' wot I wos a-thinkin' . . . Well, Gawd 'elp Sorjint
Slavin now!" With which cryptic utterance he resumed his eternal
polishing.
"Amen!" responded the farrier piously, "Reddy, here, an' Yorkey on th'
same detachment. . . . What th' one don't know t'other'll teach
him. . . . You'd better let 'em have th' parrot, too."
McSporran, back on his cot with hands clasped behind his head, gobbled an
owlish "Hoot, mon! th' twa o' them thegither! . . . Losh! but that beats
a' . . . but, hoo lang, O Lard? hoo lang?"
From various sources George had picked up the broken ends of many strange
rumours relating to the personality and escapades of one Constable Yorke,
of the Davidsburg detachment, whom he had never seen as yet. A hint
here, a whisper there, a shrug and a low-voiced jest between the
sergeant-major and the quartermaster, overheard one day in the Matter's
store. To Redmond it seemed as if a veil of mystery had always enveloped
the person and doings of this man, Yorke. The glamour of it now aroused
all his latent curiosity.
"Why, what sort of a chap is this Yorke?" he inquired casually.
McCullough, busily burnishing a bit, shrugged deprecatingly and laughed.
Hardy, putting the last touches to his revolver-holster, made answer,
George thought, with peculiar reticence.
"Wot, Yorkey? . . . oh, 'e's a 'oly terror 'e is. . . . You arst
Crampton," he mumbled--"arst Taylor--they wos at Davidsburg wiv 'im.
Slavin's orl right but Yorkey!". . . He looked unutterable things.
"Proper broken down Old Country torff 'e is, too. 'E's right there wiv
th' goods at police work, they s'y, but 'e's sure a bad un to 'ave to
live wiv. Free weeks on'y, Crampton stuck it afore 'e applied for a
transfer--Taylor, 'e on'y stuck it free d'ys."
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