Chapter 8 - Page 2

CAPT. M. Look here! What's the meaning of it all? You never
intend to leave us. You can't. Isn't the best squadron of the best
regiment of the best cavalry in all the world good enough for you?

CAPT. G. (Jerking his head over his shoulder.) She doesn't seem
to thrive in this God-forsaken country, and there's The Butcha to
be considered and all that, you know.

CAPT. M. Does she say that she doesn't like India?

CAPT. G. That's the worst of it. She won't for fear of leaving me.

CAPT. M. What are the Hills made for?

CAPT. G. Not for my wife, at any rate.

CAPT. M. You know too much, Gaddy, and -I don't like you any
the better for it!

CAPT. G. Never mind that. She wants England, and The Butcha
would be all the better for it. I'm going to chuck. You don't
understand.

CAPT. M. (Hotly.) I understand this One hundred and
thirty-seven new horse to be licked into shape somehow before
Luck comes round again; a hairy-heeled draft who'll give more
trouble than the horses; a camp next cold weather for a certainty;
ourselves the first on the roster; the Russian shindy ready to come
to a head at five minutes' notice, and you, the best of us all,
backing out of it all! Think a little, Gaddy. You won't do it.

CAPT. G. Hang it, a man has some duties toward his family, I
suppose.

CAPT. M. I remember a man, though, who told me, the night after
Amdheran, when we were picketed under Jagai, and he'd left his
sword-by the way, did you ever pay Ranken for that sword?-in an
Utmanzai's head-that man told me that he'd stick by me and the
Pinks as long as he lived. I don't blame him for not sticking by
me-I'm not much of a man-but I do blame him for not sticking by
the Pink Hussars.

CAPT. G. (Uneasily.) We were little more than boys then. Can't
you see, Jack, how things stand? 'Tisn't as if we were serving for
our bread. We've all of us, more or less, got the filthy lucre. I'm
luckier than some, perhaps. There's no call for me to serve on.

CAPT. M. None in the world for you or for us, except the
Regimental. If you don't choose to answer to that, of course-

CAPT. G. Don't be too hard on a man. You know that a lot of us
only take up the thing for a few years and then go back to Town
and catch on with the rest.

CAPT. M. Not lots, and they aren't some of Us.

CAPT. G. And then there are one's affairs at Home to be
considered-my place and the rents, and all that. I don't suppose my
father can last much longer, and that means the title, and so on.

CAPT. M. 'Fraid you won't be entered in the Stud Book correctly
unless you go Home? Take six months, then, and come out in
October. If I could slay off a brother or two, I s'pose I