Page:Life's Handicap - Kipling (1891).djvu/217

 knapsacks half-packed for the march to the sea, made the two-inch boards thunder again as they chanted, to a tune that Mulcahy knew well, the Sacred War Song of the Mavericks—

Listen in the north, my boys, there's trouble on the wind; Tramp o' Cossack hooves in front, gray great-coats behind, Trouble on the Frontier of a most amazin' kind, Trouble on the waters o' the Oxus!

Then, as the table broke under the furious accompaniment—

Hurrah! hurrah! it's north by west we go; Hurrah! hurrah! the chance we wanted so; Let 'em hear the chorus from Umballa to Moscow, As we go marchin' to the Kremling.

'Mother of all the saints in bliss and all the devils in cinders, where's my fine new sock widout the heel?' howled Horse Egan, ransacking everybody's valise but his own. He was engaged in making up deficiencies of kit preparatory to a campaign, and in that work he steals best who steals last. 'Ah, Mulcahy, you're in good time,' he shouted, 'We've got the route, and we're off on Thursday for a picnic wid the Lancers next door.'

An ambulance orderly appeared with a huge basket full of lint rolls, provided by the forethought of the Queen for such as might need them later on. Horse Egan unrolled his bandage, and flicked it under Mulcahy's nose, chanting—

Sheepskin an' bees' wax, thunder, pitch, and plaster. The more you try to pull it off, the more it sticks the faster. As I was goin' to New Orleans—

'You know the rest of it, my Irish American-Jew boy. By gad, ye have to fight for the Queen in the inside av a fortnight, my darlin'.'

A roar of laughter interrupted. Mulcahy looked