Jim Brent by Sapper

Author:Sapper
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Jim Brent
ISBN: 9780755123292
Publisher: House of Stratus
Published: 2013-01-02T00:00:00+00:00

The conclusion of this dreadful drama may be given in three short sentences.

The first was spoken by the general. “Let it be buried.” And it was so.

The second was whispered by Lady Monica – later. “Darling, I had to say we were engaged; it looked so peculiar.” And it was even more so.

The third was snorted by James Henry. “First I’m beaten and then I’m kissed. Damn all cats!”

A Fire in Billets

“’Tis a fine body of men that they are,” remarked Sergeant Cassidy to me, as I sat with him one day in the house where he was slowly recovering from the wound in his foot, which had caused his temporary absence from the plains of Flanders. As he spoke, his eyes followed the fire engine, drawn by two grand white horses, disappearing in the distance. The bell was still clanging faintly, as he absent-mindedly felt in his pocket, to find that, as usual, he’d left his cigarettes upstairs.

“’Tis a fine body of men that they are,” he remarked again, as he took one of mine. “But, by jabers! sir, seeing them going up the street there, brings to my mind the last fire that I was present at, over yonder.” On this occasion he indicated Northumberland with a large hand; but, no matter.

“You’ll mind,” he went on after a reflective pause, “that those farms over the water are not what you would call the equals of Buckingham Palace for comfort. The majority of them are built in the same manner all over the country, and when you’ve seen one you’ve seen the lot. There’s the farm itself, in which reside the owners and the officers. The officers have a room to themselves, but in these farms all the rooms lead into one another. Mr Tracey – you mind him, sir, the officer with the spectacles, fat he was – he was powerful set on washing, which is not to be encouraged in that trying weather; and he was rendered extremely irritated by the habit of the ladies of the farm, who would walk through the room when he was in his bath.

“I mind one morning, perishing cold it was, when I came up to the kitchen to see him, and I looked through the door. Two of the old women of the farm were in the room, and they’d left both the doors open, while they had a bit of a set-to about something. Poor Mr Tracey was sitting in his bath, shouting at them to go out of the room and shut the door. He’d lost his spectacles, and his towel had fallen in the bath, and the draught was causing him great uneasiness. ’Twas a terrible example of the dangers of washing in those parts.”

Sergeant Cassidy shook his head reflectively.

“Still,” he continued after a moment, “’twas of the farms I was speaking. They have most of them two barns which run perpendicular to the farmhouse, so that the three buildings enclose a sort of square yard in the middle of them.

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