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Oh Mary bless me, this lot again.
It’s not the bloody rodent (mongoose my ear, that thing looks like a rat what got caught in a taffy-puller), for his little song and dance with that horrid snake did bring in the extra calls for beer – even if it did scuffle about afterward for the chips spilled by the soldiers while I was trying to serve the drinks.
It’s his master – gave me the willies, he did, all brown and bent over and hunchbacked like that, with that dead look in his red eyes. Ooh, I’d hate when he got drunk after the show, moaning some girl’s name (Nancy, or Maisie, or whatever poor thing had once been courted by that broken man). Things got a bit better with the old fakir – his pension came through, or some such – so he don’t do his Hindoo tricks as he done before, only once in a while.
Now when the old ‘un comes in, like as not, that other chap’s with him. Straight-backed fellow, sad look on his face, London accent, older than the other lads here, not as old as the hunchback, but by Gaw he’s got the regimental swing to his walk and his arms, he’s a old soldier too – fits right in at the Musket and Shot.
But oh! when they’re together we’re in for it. They set each other off like two lads in the back of a schoolroom, and soon they’re laughing at horrible stories, telling jokes (yelling jokes more like it) where the punchline’s some Hindoo jibber-jabber, and singing. Singing you expect from a soldier’s pub, don’t you? But these ain’t proper English soldier songs about girls or marching or wars – it’s some kind of heathen wailing from India. (“She wishes to marry her sweetheart,” the straight-back chap told me once, explaining the song, “but he hasn’t got enough camels yet.”)
The worst was when the new Lieutenant came in. The pair of ‘em was caterwauling up a storm, and when he ordered them to silence they cheeked him one after the other rattling off where they been and what they done in foreign lands while he was still on his mamma’s knee, and then the Lieutenant yelled that a rat was in his beer and it was that bloody mongoose swimming in his pint-glass and both men bust out laughing and that’s when the fight started. Thank the Lord Henry finally waded in with his shillelagh, for the Lieutenant just stood and yelled orders whiles every man in the place was throwing punches and trying to get hold of the two old ‘uns what started it and then the old fakir let loose the cobra and then the pub got empty damn’ fast. We ain’t seen those two around, nor the mongoose or the snake neither, for two months after that. Lieutenant never went in again (so there was that much good done, for commanders don’t belong in a soldier’s pub do they?)
But they’re back, calling for porter, and the fakir’s got more pennies these days than before, and the straight-back one’s always free with his purse – and there’s a light in the old ‘un’s red eyes that wasn’t there before, and the straight-back chap don’t look as sad as he used to. They’re as bad as each other – and they’re good for each other too. And I do say I ain’t seen a rat nor mouse in the place since the mongoose showed up.
So pour the porter, Sallie girl. And maybe that poor girl’s lad in the song will finally get those camels.