The Tale of a Trooper.
by Clutha N. Mackenzie.
CHAPTER I
MAC BECOMES A TROOPER
A winter storm raged across the ridges and tore in violent gusts down the gullies, carrying great squalls of fleecy snow. The wind swept the flakes horizontally through the gap where the station track ran an irregular course through the bush; and, though but a short hour had pa.s.sed since the ominous ma.s.s of black cloud had swept over the early morning sky, the ground was already thickly powdered.
A ramshackle hut stood beside the track where it entered the bush, and in a rough lean-to, where firewood, tools and saddlery were piled more or less indiscriminately, two unkempt station ponies, saddled and bridled, stood in somnolent att.i.tudes. Huddled hens sheltered from the searching blasts, which swept in eddies of snow, ruffling the feathers of the hens and driving the tails of the horses between their legs.
Charley and Mac had come thus far on their way out to have a look at the stock in the big paddocks higher in the hills, before the thickening snow had made purposeless their going further. So they had dropped in to see old George, the rouseabout, and have a yarn with him, or, if there were no signs of the weather clearing, to consider the question of work in the wool-shed.
"Hullo, boys!" mumbled George. "I reckon as thar" ain"t no use us gittin" art jist now. I thinks the fire"s the best place ter day.
Squat yerself in that thar cheer, Mac, me boy. Jinny! get some tea,"
he roared hospitably through the wall towards the wee kitchen where his hard-working little wife was making bread for her large family of children who were away at school. "And I"ll give yer a toon on the grammephone."
Nothing averse, the two stockmen settled down before the big log fire in George"s den, aromatically smoky from firewood and tobacco, with its walls papered from odd paperhangers" samples and prints from Victorian journals, and with domestic odds and ends lying here and there. The good lady speedily produced the tea and added cakes and scones, while George brought into action his cheap American machine and its h.o.a.ry old records; vague, scratching echoes here in the depths of the bush of the gay sparkling life of Piccadilly and Leicester Square by night, laughing theatre crowds and wonderful women--a life worlds away from George and his rough, but hospitable hearth. He laughed where sometimes there were jokes, more frequently where there were not, and the other two laughed good-naturedly in concert, for the machine scratched so badly that they could not distinguish a word, though George, remembering them in the freshness of their youth, was blind to their growing infirmities. If the two laughed heartily, or expressed in words the good qualities of a record, those, in addition to George"s particular cronies, were given a second or a third run.
They grew rather tired of this entertainment, and turned their attention to the domestic bookshelf and the family treasures which adorned the walls and the mantelpiece. In a gla.s.s frame was an army biscuit of army hardness on which Mrs. George"s brother had written a letter on a distant Christmas Day in South Africa and had posted to her. They deserted other relics for a large book of Boer War pictures, whose leaves they turned together, while the old gramophone ran unfalteringly onwards through its extensive repertoire.
"Those times must have been great," said Charley.
"Don"t those chaps look as if they"re enjoying themselves?"
"Not half. Cripes! I wish I had been there."
"Why in the devil didn"t that bloomin" war come in our time?"
"Not our luck. You know, Mac, if we"d been the same age we"re now, we"d have been there."
Another month pa.s.sed on that station, and the two stockmen, alone on their beats, rode day after day across the wild ranges and down in the ravines. Along the whole of the east ran a range of mountains, more than a hundred miles of them, their lower slopes clothed in heavy bush, and their serrated summits deep in winter snow. Standing in the north, grand and solitary, was the ma.s.sive blue-white shape of old Ruapehu, his fires quenched these many years, and, near him, the active cone of Ngaruahoe, whose angry, ominous smoke-clouds rained ashes sometimes on the surrounding country, but more often his wisp of yellowy-white smoke trailed lazily to leeward, or mounted heavenwards in c.u.mulous shape.
Occasionally, on his rounds, Mac dismounted on the summit of a ridge, threw the rein over a stump and settled down for a smoke, his back against a log, his dogs at his feet, a wild ravine below him, then ridge after ridge, bush-topped or strewn with charred trunks and rotting stumps, and, away beyond, the two great snow volcanoes. They were his friends, and, of all times, he loved most these moments spent in contemplation of those grim reminders of the strength of Nature, of the untamed fires which burnt beneath and of the smallness of man. He revelled in the changing colour tones of the rugged ice cliffs, of the mountain mists and of the rolling deliberate smoke-cloud. Grand, too, was the s.p.a.ce of it all, wonderful the air, and here, high on this ridge, human selfishness scarce seemed to be of this world. Sometimes, when he had been out here ready to start mustering at dawn, he had watched the first glow of coming daylight on the summit of Ruapehu, and again, at the end of a long summer day when the smoke of many bush-fires was in the air, he had watched for an hour or more the delicate lilacs, the greens and blues, reds and golds, the shadows deepening beneath the b.u.t.tresses, and the slow melting of the last warm glow into the cold steely colour of night.
He knew of no happier life than this of his--dodging along most days on his station pony with his dogs following; always on the alert to discover anything amiss with an odd sheep or a cattle-beast; sometimes working with the sheep in the yards, dipping, crutching and such like, or going off on jaunts to neighbouring stations or distant townships.
It was a life where there was opportunity for the whole of a man"s skill and wit, and where monotony and loneliness were not. After the day"s work he and Charley took turns in cooking the dinner, while the other went for the mail. The several-day-old paper lost nothing by its age. The meal finished, they smoked and read the news, had a game of cards, perhaps, with some one who had ridden over, and turned into bunk for sleep that was never sounder.
Thus dawned the early days of August with Mac and Charley. There had been Balkan rumblings, which, it hardly seemed possible, could echo in these distant hills, but speedily the shadow on Europe darkened, and they rode out to the cross-road to get the mail as soon as the coach arrived. And then, through the long spun-out wire which connected many scattered homesteads with the outer world, came the great news--War with Germany.
Mac and Charley piled up the great logs that night and sat before the glowing timber until five in the morning, talking over the probabilities and the possibilities of the moment. Already the old station life seemed behind them. What mattered it if the sheep got on their backs or the cattle broke their silly necks? And of the future they had a vague apprehension--a terrible sinking that there might not be a military force required from New Zealand, and, if there was one formed, it was scarcely likely to reach Europe before the war was over.
That the Dominion would wish to send a force, they never doubted, but whether England would want it was another question.
They drew out their military kits from beneath their bunks, emptied their contents on the floor and investigated them keenly with an increased interest. They donned the tunics. Charley"s body was shortly garbed as that of a lieutenant of the West Coast Infantry Regiment, but the rest of his figure was not in keeping with his wild red hair, his bristly jowls awaiting the week-end shave, his open shirt and his rough working trousers. Mac was in the Manawatu Mounted Rifles, but had not risen above the humble, though estimable rank of trooper, and his tunic fell far short of covering his lengthy arms.
Between bursts of laughter, they chatted away on these eccentricities, and inspected the rest of the garments with a critical eye, commented on their fitness for the field, and hung them finally on nails in the wall. Regretfully they turned into bunk, and sank into sleep too deep for dreaming.
The next day Mac came across George at work on a break in a fence.
"Good mornin", Mac, me boy. How"s things? This "ere slip do be a fair devil."
"Oh, stock"s all right. What d"you think of what"s happening?"
"Aw, yer mean this "ere row in Yourope? It"s a bit of a business, ain"t it?" George was contemplatively filling his well-seasoned cherry, and spoke of Europe as a sort of detached planet, and of its concerns as far from likely to set going eddies in these wild hills.
"I reckon as they"ll "ave a bit of a go. Wot d"you think?"
"I"m off to it, George, by the first bloomin" boat that goes."
"Haw! Haw! Haw!" roared the old boy, throwing his head back, and swaying with the fullness of his mirth. "What an "ell of a joke."
Mac, too, chuckled as he sat in the saddle.
"True, d.i.n.k, George, I"m going."
"Go on! Yer can"t kid me that. Why the bloomin" thing"s in Yourope, an" it"ll be all over in a couple o" shakes."
"Never mind. I"m off. And so"s Charley."
But George was not to be persuaded, and Mac left him still enjoying the joke.
That night a distant voice on the telephone said it was probable that an overseas force would be despatched as soon as possible, and inquired if they would willingly volunteer.
"You bet your boots!" Mac shouted down the line.
"Good," said the voice. "The whole Regiment has so far volunteered."
Three or four days pa.s.sed wearily by, for all interest had gone out of the old life and they were restless for the new. Disturbing rumours came vaguely from without of an overseas force ready and about to sail, and Charley and Mac unanimously decided that they were too far from the centre of things, and that they must proceed closer to civilization without delay. Finishing the day"s work, they went through the Sat.u.r.day overhaul and made themselves presentable in public, saddled the horses, and, in the refreshing spring evening, rode away down the narrow winding road through glades of bush and lonely valleys to the railway line. There they stayed at a neighbouring homestead, gathering round a great, crackling log-fire to talk over the wonderful days ahead.
Early in the morning they were again on the road for a small country town where lived Mac"s Colonel. Pleasant indeed were those hours, riding ever over the glorious hills and down in the valleys, and as they rode along the world seemed a wonderful place.
The Colonel met Mac"s anxious inquiries, as to whether there was any chance of his getting away, with a cheery laugh.
"No doubt about it, my boy. You"ll be all right."
But he was not able to relieve Charley"s anxiety as to what was taking place in infantry regiments. He told them of the Advance Guard which lay at anchor in Port Nicholson awaiting orders to sail at any moment for an unknown destination, but said it was no use trying to get away with it, as it was composed only of infantry regiments from the cities.
It was well towards midnight when they returned, Mac in absolute peace of mind, but Charley still unsettled. His headquarters were a hundred miles away, and their sport of a host spent the following day running them down in his car, so that Charley might have final satisfaction, and that night, as the car spun homeward hour after hour through the darkness, there was no marring thought in the minds of the two would-be campaigners.
Mac seized two hours" sleep on a sofa, and then crept away into the night to catch a mail train which, rumbling northwards through the hills in the small hours, sometimes stopped near here to water. Late the next afternoon he acquainted his relatives of his intentions, spent a day or two with them, wished them a cheery farewell, and early the next Sunday, ere the morning mists in the gullies had fled before the first rays, he was again riding up the hill to the old homestead. He slung his civilian clothes into his tin box, cast his eye rather sorrowfully over his agricultural books as he stowed them away in a kerosene case, and regarded his bare walls whimsically as he removed from them his few precious photos and one or two quaint sketches. He wondered vaguely while he donned his khaki breeches and puttees what strange lands he might wander in, what queer beds might be his, and what great adventures he might have ere he would again take that mufti from the tin trunk. And would this fine old station life ever be his again? In the evening he rode to neighbouring homesteads to bid farewell to many whose homes had been his, and whose thoughts would go with him on his unknown travels. Finally he parted with his dogs.
The next morning, no longer a stockman, but a soldier of the King, he turned his back on the station, a home of pleasant memories, and travelled slowly the long road to the camp. His mare had come straight from a long spell of gra.s.s, and it was late in the afternoon of the following day before he dismounted finally in his squadron lines. Here already, in the middle days of August, were several thousand splendid men--a battalion of infantry, a regiment of mounted rifles, a battery of artillery, medical corps, engineers, signallers and service corps; fine men all, accustomed to life in the open, strong of build, active of movement and infinitely amused with everything around--splendid comrades with whom to embark on a campaign.
Mac made his way to his tent, where he was straightway at home with mates of previous camps and station days.
CHAPTER II