The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Tale of a Trooper, by Clutha N. Mackenzie

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Title: The Tale of a Trooper

Author: Clutha N. Mackenzie

Release Date: September 6, 2008 [EBook #26548]

Language: English

*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE TALE OF A TROOPER ***

Produced by Al Haines

ON ACTIVE SERVICE SERIES

THE TALE OF A TROOPER

BY CLUTHA N. MACKENZIE

TROOPER, WELLINGTON MOUNTED RIFLES, N.Z.E.F.

LONDON: JOHN LANE THE BODLEY HEAD

NEW YORK: JOHN LANE COMPANY

MCMXXI

Printed in Great Britain by Ebenezer Baylis & Son,

Trinity Works, Worcester.

CONTENTS

CHAP.

I MAC BECOMES A TROOPER II MAC EMBARKS FOR OVERSEAS III SORROWS AND JOYS IN A TROOPSHIP IV LAZY SHIPBOARD LIFE V ASHORE AGAIN VI DAYS IN THE DESERT VII MAC GOES TO CAIRO VIII MAC TOURS IN COMFORT IX MAC LUNCHES WITH THE SULTAN X MAC DISAPPROVES OF BEING LEFT XI MAC LEAVES FOR ACTIVE SERVICE XII GALLIPOLI AT LAST XIII MAC JOINS IN THE WAR XIV A WEARY DAY XV MAC IS SLEEPY XVI VARIOUS MISFORTUNES XVII AN OUTPOST AFFAIR XVIII SUMMER DRAGS ON XIX MAC TAKES A CHANGE XX ANZAC AWAKES XXI NO. 3, TABLE TOP AND SUVLA BAY XXII THE NIGHT BATTLE ON CHANAK BAIR XXIII MAC IS WOUNDED XXIV THE END OF MAC'S CAMPAIGNING DAYS XXV HOMEWARD

THE TALE OF A TROOPER

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 passed since the ominous mass 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 attitudes. 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 hoary 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 glass 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 passed 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 massive 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 cumulous 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 space 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,