Soldiers Three

CURTISS. Gaddy never had dealings with a shroff in his life.

DOONE. Virtuous Gaddy! If I had three thousand a month, paid from England, I don’t think I’d deal with a shroff either.

MACKESY. (Yawning.) Oh, it’s a sweet life! I wonder whether matrimony would make it sweeter.

CURTISS. Ask Cockley – with his wife dying by inches!

BLAYNE. Go home and get a fool of a girl to come out to – what is it Thackeray says? – ‘the splendid palace of an Indian pro-consul.’

DOONE. Which reminds me. My quarters leak like a sieve. I had fever last night from sleeping in a swamp. And the worst of it is, one can’t do anything to a roof till the Rains are over.

CURTISS. What’s wrong with you? You haven’t eighty rotting Tommies to take into a running stream.

DOONE. No: but I’m mixed boils and bad language. I’m a regular Job all over my body. It’s sheer poverty of blood, and I don’t see any chance of getting richer – either way.

BLAYNE. Can’t you take leave?

DOONE. That’s the pull you Army men have over us. Ten days are nothing in your sight. I’m so important that Government can’t find a substitute if I go away. Ye-es, I’d like to be Gaddy, whoever his wife may be.

CURTISS. You’ve passed the turn of life that Mackesy was speaking of.

DOONE. Indeed I have, but I never yet had the brutality to ask a woman to share my life out here.

BLAYNE. On my soul I believe you’re right. I’m thinking of Mrs. Cockley. The woman’s an absolute wreck.

DOONE. Exactly. Because she stays down here. The only way to keep her fit would be to send her to the Hills for eight months – and the same with any woman. I fancy I see myself taking a wife on those terms.

MACKESY. With the rupee at one and sixpence. The little Doones would be little Dehra Doones, with a fine Mussoorie chi-chi anent to bring home for the holidays.

CURTISS. And a pair of be-ewtiful sambhur-horns for Doone to wear, free of expense, presented by —

DOONE. Yes, it’s an enchanting prospect. By the way, the rupee hasn’t done falling yet. The time will come when we shall think ourselves lucky if we only lose half our pay.

CURTISS. Surely a third’s loss enough. Who gains by the arrangement? That’s what I want to know.

BLAYNE. The Silver Question! I’m going to bed if you begin squabbling. Thank Goodness, here’s Anthony – looking like a ghost.

Enter ANTHONY, Indian Medical Staff, very white and tired.

ANTHONY. ‘Evening, Blayne. It’s raining in sheets. Whiskey-peg, lao, Khitmatgar. The roads are something ghastly.

CURTISS. How’s Mingle?

ANTHONY. Very bad, and more frightened. I handed him over to Fewton. Mingle might just as well have called him in the first place, instead of bothering me.

BLAYNE. He’s a nervous little chap. What has he got, this time?

ANTHONY. ‘Can’t quite say. A very bad tummy and a blue funk so far. He asked me at once if it was cholera, and I told him not to be a fool. That soothed him.

CURTISS. Poor devil! The funk does half the business in a man of that build.

ANTHONY. (Lighting a cheroot.) I firmly believe the funk will kill him if he stays down. You know the amount of trouble he’s been giving Fewton for the last three weeks. He’s doing his very best to frighten himself into the grave.

GENERAL CHORUS. Poor little devil! Why doesn’t he get away?

ANTHONY. ‘Can’t. He has his leave all right, but he’s so dipped he can’t take it, and I don’t think his name on paper would raise four annas. That’s in confidence, though.

MACKESY. All the Station knows it.

ANTHONY. ‘I suppose I shall have to die here,’ he said, squirming all across the bed. He’s quite made up his mind to Kingdom Come. And I know he has nothing more than a wet-weather tummy if he could only keep a hand on himself.

BLAYNE. That’s bad. That’s very bad. Poor little Miggy. Good little chap, too. I say —

ANTHONY. What do you say?

BLAYNE. Well, look here – anyhow. If it’s like that – as you say – I say fifty.

CURTISS. I say fifty.

MACKESY. I go twenty better.

DOONE. Bloated Croesus of the Bar! I say fifty. Jervoise, what do you say? Hi! Wake up!

JERVOISE. Eh? What’s that? What’s that?

CURTISS. We want a hundred rupees from you. You’re a bachelor drawing a gigantic income, and there’s a man in a hole.

JERVOISE. What man? Any one dead?

BLAYNE. No, but he’ll die if you don’t give the hundred. Here! Here’s a peg-voucher. You can see what we’ve signed for, and Anthony’s man will come round to-morrow to collect it. So there will be no trouble.

JERVOISE. (Signing.) One hundred, E. M. J. There you are (feebly). It isn’t one of your jokes, is it?

BLAYNE. No, it really is wanted. Anthony, you were the biggest poker-winner last week, and you’ve defrauded the tax-collector too long. Sign!

ANTHONY. Let’s see. Three fifties and a seventy – two twenty – three twenty – say four hundred and twenty. That’ll give him a month clear at the Hills. Many thanks, you men. I’ll send round the chaprassi tomorrow.

CURTISS. You must engineer his taking the stuff, and of course you mustn’t —

ANTHONY. Of course. It would never do. He’d weep with gratitude over his evening drink.

BLAYNE. That’s just what he would do, damn him. Oh! I say, Anthony, you pretend to know everything. Have you heard about Gaddy?

ANTHONY. No. Divorce Court at last?

BLAYNE. Worse. He’s engaged!

ANTHONY. How much? He can’t be!