In the Track of the Troops

“That is just what I am about to explain,” said I. “You must know, then, that it is a compound.”

“Dear, dear,” sighed my mother; “how many compounds you have told me about, Jeff, since you took to chemistry! Are there no uncompounded things—no simple things in the world?”

“Why, yes, mother; you are a simple thing, and I only wish there were a good many more simple things like you in the world—”

“Don’t be foolish, Jeff, but answer my question.”

“Well, mother, there are indeed some simple elements in creation, but dynamite is not one of them. It is composed of an excessively explosive oil named nitro-glycerine (itself a compound), and an earth called kieselguhr. The earth is not explosive, and is only mixed with the nitro-glycerine to render that liquid less dangerous; but the compound is named dynamite, in which form it is made up and sold in immense quantities for mining purposes. Here is some of it,” I added, pulling from my pocket a cartridge nearly two inches in length, and about an inch in diameter. “It is a soft, pasty substance, done up, as you see, in cartridge-paper, and this little thing, if properly fired, would blow a large boulder-stone to atoms.”

“Bless me, boy, be careful!” exclaimed my mother, pushing back her chair in some alarm.

“There is no danger,” I said, in reassuring tones, “for this cartridge, if opened out and set on fire by a spark or flame, would not, in the first place, light readily, and, in the second place, it would merely burn without exploding; but if I were to put a detonator inside and fire it by means of that, it would explode with a violence that far exceeds the force of gunpowder.”

“And what is this wonderful detonator, Jeff, that so excites the latent fury of the dynamite?”

I was much amused by the pat way in which my mother questioned me, and became more interested as I continued my explanation.

“You must know,” I said, “that many powders are violently explosive, and some more so than others. This violence of explosion is called detonation, by which is meant the almost instantaneous conversion of the ultimate molecules of an explosive compound (i.e. the whole concern) into gas.”

“I see; you mean that it goes off quickly,” said my mother, in a simple way that was eminently characteristic.

“Well, yes; but much more quickly than gunpowder does. It were better to say that a powder detonates when it all explodes at the same instant. Gunpowder appears to do so, but in reality it does not. One of the best detonators is fulminate of mercury. Detonating caps are therefore made of this, and one such cap put into the middle of that cartridge of dynamite and set fire to, by any means, would convert the cartridge itself into a detonator, and explode it with a shattering effect.

“A human being,” I continued, “sometimes illustrates this principle figuratively—I mean the violent explosion of a large cartridge by means of a small detonator. Take, for example, a schoolmaster, and suppose him to be a dynamite cartridge. His heart is a detonating cap. The schoolroom and boys form a galvanic battery. His brain may be likened to a conducting-wire. He enters the schoolroom; the chemical elements are seething in riot, books are being torn and thrown, ink spilt, etcetera. Before opening the door, the good man is a quiet piece of plastic dynamite, but the instant his eye is touched, the electric circuit is, as it were, completed; the mysterious current flashes through the brain, and fires his detonating heart. Instantly the gleaming flame shoots with lightning-speed to temples and toes. The entire man becomes a detonator, and he explodes in a violent hurricane of kicks, cuffs, and invective! Now, without a detonator—a heart—the man might have burned with moderate wrath, but he could not have exploded.”

“Don’t try illustration, Jeff,” said my plain-spoken mother, gently patting my arm; “it is not one of your strong points.”

“Perhaps not; but do you understand me?”

“I think I do, in a hazy sort of way.”

Dear mother! she always professes to comprehend things hazily, and indeed I sometimes fear that her conceptions on the rather abstruse matters which I bring before her are not always correct; but it is delightful to watch the profound interest with which she listens, and the patient efforts she makes to understand. I must in justice add that she sometimes, though not often, displays gleams of clear intelligence, and powers of close incisive reasoning, that quite surprise me.

“But now, to return to what we were speaking of—my future plans,” said I; “it seems to me that it would be a good thing if I were to travel for a year or so and see the world.”

“You might do worse, my boy,” said my mother.

“With a view to that,” I continued, “I have resolved to purchase a yacht, but before doing so I must complete the new torpedo that I have invented for the navy; that is, I hope it may be introduced into our navy. The working model in the outhouse is all but ready for exhibition. When finished, I shall show it to the Lords of the Admiralty, and after they have accepted it I will throw study overboard for a time and go on a cruise.”

“Ah, Jeff, Jeff,” sighed my mother, with a shake of her head, “you’ll never leave off till you get blown up. But I suppose you must have your way. You always had, dear boy.”

“But never in opposition to your wishes, had I? Now be just, mother.”

“Quite true, Jeff, quite true. How comes it, I wonder, that you are so fond of fire, smoke, fumes, crash, clatter, and explosions?”

“Really,” said I, somewhat amused by the question, “I cannot tell, unless it be owing to something in that law of compensation which appears to permeate the universe. You have such an abhorrence of fire, fumes, smoke, crash, clatter, and explosions, that your only son is bound, as it were, to take special delight in chemical analysis and combination, to say nothing of mechanical force and contrivance, in order that a balance of some sort may be adjusted which would otherwise be thrown out of order by your—pardon me—comparative ignorance of, and indifference to such matters.”

“Nay, Jeff,” replied my mother, gently, with a look of reproof on her kind face; “ignorance if you will, but not indifference. I cannot be indifferent to anything that interests you.”

“True; forgive me; I should have said ‘dislike.’”

“Yes, that would have been correct, Jeff, for I cannot pretend to like the bursting, smoking, and ill-smelling things you are so fond of; but you know I am interested in them. You cannot have forgotten how, when you were a boy, I used to run at your call to witness your pyrotechnic, hydraulic, mechanic, and chemic displays—you see how well I remember the names—and how the—”

“The acids,” I interrupted, taking up the theme, “ruined your carpets and table-cloths, and the smoke stifled and blinded, while the noise and flames terrified you; no, mother, I have not forgotten it, nor the patient way you took the loss of your old silk dress, or—”

“Ah! yes,” sighed the dear old lady, with quite a pitiful look, “if it had been any other than my wedding dress, which—but—well, it’s of no use regretting now; and you know, Jeff, I would not have checked you for worlds, because I knew you were being led in the right way, though, in my folly, I sometimes wished that the way had been a little further removed from smoke and smells. But, after all, you were very careful, dear boy—wonderfully so, for your years, and your little accidents did not give me much pain beyond the day of their occurrence. The poisoning of the cat, to be sure, was sad, though unavoidable, and so was the destruction by fire of the cook’s hair; but the flooding of the house, after the repairs you executed on the great cistern, and the blowing out of the laundry window at the time the clothes-boiler was cracked, with other trifles of that sort, were—”

The remainder of my mother’s speech was cut short by a clattering of hoofs.

Next moment my sister Bella came round the corner of the house at full gallop, her fresh face beaming with the exercise, and her golden hair streaming in the breeze.

She pulled up, leaped off her pony, and ran into the room. As she did so, I observed a tall, soldierly man appear in the avenue, advancing with rapid strides. Well did I know his grave, handsome face.

“Here comes Nicholas!” said I, turning round; but Bella had fled.

I observed that my friend, instead of coming straight to the room from the window of which my mother and I had saluted him, turned sharp off to the library.

I was running to the door to welcome him, when my mother called me back. I turned and looked at her. She smiled. So did I. Without uttering a word we both sat down to finish our breakfast.

“Ah! Jeff,” said my mother, with a little sigh, “how I wish you would fall in love with some one!”

“Fall in love, mother! What nonsense! How could I? No doubt there are plenty loveable girls, and there is one charming little—well, no matter—”

At that moment Nicholas entered the room, heartily saluted my mother, and cut short our conversation.

Chapter Two.

Is Still More Explosive than the First

Much to my surprise, I found that neither Nicholas Naranovitsch nor Bella nor my mother would consent to witness my experiments with dynamite that day.

As my old chum approached to greet me on the lawn before breakfast the day following, I could not help admiring his fine, tall, athletic figure. I don’t know how it is, but I have always felt, somehow, as if I looked up at him, although we were both exactly the same height—six feet one without our boots. I suppose it must have been owing to his standing so erect, while I slouched a little. Perhaps my looking up to him mentally had something to do with it.

“You’ll come to-day, won’t you?” I said, referring to the experiments.

“Of course I will, old boy; but,” he added, with a smile, “only on one condition.”

“What may that be?”

“That you don’t bother Bella with minute details.”

Of course I promised not to say a word unless asked for explanations, and after breakfast we all went to a part of the grounds which I wished to bring under cultivation. It was at that time encumbered with several large trees, old roots, and a number of boulders.

“Come along with us, Lancey,” I said to the groom, who was also my laboratory assistant, and whom I met in the stable-yard, the scene of his memorable blowing-up. “I am about to try the effect of an explosive, and wish you to understand the details.”

“Yes, sir,” replied Lancey, with a respectful touch of his cap; “I must say, sir, if you’ll allow me, I never knowed any one like you, sir, for goin’ into details except one, and that one—”

“Ah, yes, I know, that was your friend the Scotch boy,” said I, interrupting; but Lancey was a privileged servant, and would not be interrupted.