Begumbagh | Page 4

make it his boast that our regiment was about
the healthiest anywhere; and I tell you what it is, if you were ill once,
and in hospital, as we call it--though, you know, with a marching
regiment that only means anywhere till you get well--I say, if you were
ill once, and under his hands, you'd think twice before you made up
your mind to be ill again, and be very bad too before you went to him.
Pestle, we used to call him, though his name was Hughes; and how we
men did hate him, mortally, till we found out his real character, when
we were lying cut to pieces almost, and him ready to cry over us at
times as he tried to bring us round. "Hold up, my lads," he'd say, "only
another hour, and you'll be round the corner!" when what there was left
of us did him justice. Then, of course, there were other officers, and
some away with the major and another battalion of our regiment at
Wallahbad; but they've nothing to do with my story.
I do not think I can do better than introduce you to our mess on the very
morning of this halt, when, after cooling myself with a pipe, just the
same as I should have warmed myself with a pipe if it had been in
Canady or Nova Scotia, I walked up to find all ready for breakfast, and
Mrs Bantem making the tea.
Some of the men didn't fail to laugh at us who took our tea for
breakfast; but all the same I liked it, for it always took me home, tea
did--and to the days when my poor old mother used to say that there
never was such a boy for bread and butter as I was; not as there was
ever so much butter that she need have grumbled, whatever I cost for
bread; and though Mrs Bantem wasn't a bit like my mother, she brought
up the homely thoughts. Mrs Bantem was, I should say, about the
biggest and ugliest woman I ever saw in my life. She stood five feet
eleven and a half in her stockings, for Joe Bantem got Sergeant Buller
to take her under the standard one day. She'd got a face nearly as dark
as a black's; she'd got a moustache, and a good one too; and a great
coarse look about her altogether. Measles--I'll tell you who he was
directly--Measles used to say she was a horse god-mother; and they
didn't seem to like one another; but Joe Bantem was as proud of that
woman as she was of him; and if any one hinted about her looks, he

used to laugh, and say that was only the outside rind, and talk about the
juice. But all the same, though, no one couldn't be long with that
woman without knowing her flavour. It was a sight to see her and Joe
together, for he was just a nice middle size--five feet seven and a
half--and as pretty a pink and white, brown-whiskered, open-faced man
as ever you saw. We all got tanned and coppered over and over again,
but Joe kept as nice and fresh and fair as on the day we embarked from
Gosport years before; and the standing joke was that Mrs Bantem had a
preparation for keeping his complexion all square.
Joe Bantem knew what he was about, though, for one day when a nasty
remark had been made by the men of another regiment, he got talking
to me in confidence over our pipes, and he swore that there wasn't a
better woman living; and he was right, for I'm ready now at this present
moment to take the Book in my hand, and swear the same thing before
all the judges in Old England. For you see we're such duffers, we men:
shew us a pretty bit of pink and white, and we run mad after it; while
all the time we're running away from no end of what's solid and good,
and true, and such as'll wear well, and shew fast colours, long after
your pink and white's got faded and grimy. Not as I've much room to
talk. But present company, you know, and setra. What, though, as a
rule, does your pretty pink and white know about buttons, or darning,
or cooking? Why, we had the very best of cooking; not boiled tag and
rag, but nice stews and roasts and hashes, when other men were
growling over a dog's-meat dinner. We had the sweetest of clean shirts,
and never a button off; our stockings were darned; and only let one of
us--Measles, for instance--take a drop more than he ought, just see how
she'd drop on to him, that's