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Page 14
"Bet yer a bob I will!"
"You'd lose it."
"Would I?"
"Straight you would!"
"Strike me pink if I would!"
"You know nothin' of what you're sayin'."
"Don't I?"
"Git!"
"Shut!"
In the coffee-shop Wankin is invariably the centre of an interested
group. As the company scapegrace and black sheep of the battalion he
occupies in his mates' eyes a position of considerable importance. His
repartees are famous, and none knows better than he how to score off
an unpopular officer or N.C.O. He has the distinction also of having
spent more days in the guard-room than any other man in the battalion.
On the occasion when identity discs were being served out to the men
and a momentary stir pervaded the battalion, it was Wankin who first
became involved in trouble.
He employed the disc string to fasten the water-bottle of the man
on his left to the haversack of the man on his right, and the
colour-sergeant, livid with rage, vowed to chasten him by confining
him eternally to barracks. But the undaunted company scapegrace was
not to be beaten. Fastening the identity disc on his left eye he fixed
a stern look on the sergeant.
"My deah fellah," he drawled out, imitating the voice of the company
lieutenant who wears an eyeglass, "your remarks are uncalled for,
really. By Jove! one would think that a scrap of string was a gold
bracelet or a diamond necklace. I could buy the disc and the string
for a bloomin' 'apenny."
"You'll pay dearly for it this time," said the colour with fine irony.
"Three days C.B.[2] your muckin' about'll cost you." And before Wankin
could reply the sergeant was reporting the matter to the captain.
[Footnote 2: Confinement to Barracks.]
Wankin is eternally in trouble, although his agility in dodging
pickets and his skill in making a week's C.B. a veritable holiday are
the talk of the regiment. All the officers know him, and many of them
who have been victims of his smart repartee fear him more than
they care to acknowledge. The subaltern with the eyeglass is a bad
route-marcher, and Wankin once remarked in an audible whisper that
the officer had learned his company drill with a drove of haltered
pack-horses, and the officer bears the name of "Pack-horse" ever
since.
On another occasion the major suffered when a battalion kit inspection
took place early one December morning. Wankin had sold his spare pair
of boots, the pair that is always kept on top of the kit-bag; but when
the major inspected Wankin's kit the boots were there, newly polished
and freed from the most microscopic speck of dust. Someone tittered
during the inspection, then another, and the major smelt a rat. He
lifted Wankin's kit-bag in his hand and found Wankin's feet tucked
under it--Wankin's feet in stockinged soles. The major was justly
indignant. "One step to the front, left turn," he roared. "March in
front of every rank in the battalion and see what you think of it!"
With stockinged feet, cold, but still wearing an inscrutable smile of
impudence, Wankin paraded in front of a thousand grinning faces and in
due course got back to his kit and beside the sarcastic major.
"What do you think of it?" asked the latter.
"I don't think much of it, sir," Wankin replied. "It's the dirtiest
regiment I ever inspected."
Wankin was sometimes unlucky; fortune refused to favour him when he
took up the work of picket on the road between St. Albans and London.
No unit of his regiment is supposed to go more than two miles
beyond St. Albans without a written permit, and guards are placed at
different points of the two-mile radius to intercept the regimental
rakes whose feet are inclined to roving. Wankin learned that the
London road was not to be guarded on a certain Sunday. The regiment
was to parade for a long route-march, and all units were to be in
attendance. Wankin pondered over things for a moment, girt on his belt
and sword and took up his position on the London road within a hundred
yards of a wayside public-house. At this tavern a traveller from St.
Albans may obtain a drink on a Sabbath day.
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