Honor's Kingdom (34 page)

He smiled, a fellow who never had cause to doubt himself, and the jewel in his stiff, white cuff exploded with radiance. “I’ll spare you further bother. The structure in question is in one of my own yards. Hardly more than a pleasant drive from this spot.” He tucked his walking stick under his arm and fussed with his gloves for a moment—such as he did not wish to be dirtied. “I think I should like to take you there myself.” He settled his gloves and offered me the vacant beauty of his eyes— a woman’s they seemed, though of the cruder sort. “But we mustn’t loose the hounds before our horses are saddled. I
thought we might begin by discussing your interests in shipbuilding in greater detail.” He glanced at the decay, human and otherwise, that surrounded us. “Tomorrow, perhaps?”

“This is as good as any place, or any time,” I told him, and my voice was surly and petulant.

“Dear me, no. This wouldn’t do at all for the conversation we require. Nor would I burden you when you’re so . . . distempered. Come to me tomorrow. Say, two o’clock?”

He handed me a card with a Park Terrace address, then glanced toward his coach with its liveried driver. “Hargreaves will call for you at your hotel. Just at two.” He smiled, and his face was fine as tea at Windsor Castle. “I’m
so
delighted that we’ve finally met!”

THIRTEEN

I WANTED THE CONSOLATION OF PRAYER WITH A NEW degree of urgency and resumed my search for a chapel. Retracing my steps toward the Cross, I turned down along the Saltmarket. The night fell down like a curtain. Weak as three-for-a-ha’penny candles, the gaslamps struggled against the sooty darkness, and the faces I passed grew crumpled, wary, and stark. The false joy of public houses annoyed the Christian ear and troubled the eye, and beggars held out claws for drinking money. Nor were these fellows Irish, by and large, but Scottish as the pawns of Charlie Stuart. Glum they were, and sour as the air, and even the Magdalenes languished out of humor. Twas just the sort of realm held dear by Lucifer, for it makes a Christian wonder at God’s plan.

But the faithful always find themselves a beacon, and I do not speak of those smoke-enshrouded gaslamps. I heard the strains of “Daniel and the Lions,” boldly sung and true, from out a side street.

Twas but the smallest chapel of the small, its portals lit by oil lamps, not gas. But the hymn come rolling mighty in the darkness, as if belief might burst apart the walls and overwhelm the city like a flood.

Above the brace of lamps, a mounted placard told where I had come:

THE FIRST REGIMENTAL CHAPEL OF THE CHURCH MILITANT

Out of the spoils won in battles

did they dedicate to maintain

the House of the Lord

I CHR. 26, V. 27

Well, I was not quite certain what to think, for I would have my worship done in peace, and soldiering seems to me a separate matter. But in I stepped, for I never can resist a well-sung hymn and hoped to add my abilities to the bass section.

The room smelled of the honest sweat of workmen, and of milky women holding babes against them. Lit by lamps on walls but sparsely windowed, and plain, the congregation stood erect, as Christians need to stand upon this earth. Resounding with the power of that anthem, it seemed a place of perfect reverence, where ruined hands shared hymn-books, their pages lifted up to squinting eyes. For this was not a world of silver spectacles, or of golden pinch-noses, but of eyes shocked weak by forges or strained by needle-work in attic gloom. When they sang out, I heard “the cries of them which have reaped,” and felt myself returned unto the Chosen.

And this was but a prelude to the miracle.

As mine own eyes were fixing themselves to the light, the hymn concluded. And straightened backs grew straighter, and slumping shoulders squared, as if at attention in a barracks square. Twas then the fellow who commanded the pulpit pivoted about from the choir rows and let me see the wonder of his face.

I stood back in the shadows in that moment, and he did not see me at first, but snapped his heels together and barked, “Compan-eee . . .
seats!”

And down the congregation sat in unison, thumping pews of planks with their scrawny backsides. Begging your pardon.

I saw him, and could not believe my eyes. I staggered into the light, half like a drunkard.

And he saw me.

And I saw him once more.

He raised up his eyes, as if he needed aid to trust his vision, then lowered his gaze again.

I took another step. I do believe my mouth was hanging open, although it is a vulgar practice and much condemned by my beloved wife.

Then his jaw lowered, too, and could not close.

The congregation awaited his next command in perfect order. But when he only stared at me, as I was staring at him, they began to fidget a touch, as soldiers will when ranked for a parade, knowing an order to march must be forthcoming and wondering at the reason for delay.

He looked at me, and I looked at him, and we looked at each other til a tear come to my eye. For hadn’t the fellow been good to me, when I was in my need?

But was it him? Or did he have a brother just as old? A perfect twin in every last detail? Only his garments were different, and his beard had grown out longer and was gray.

Him it was who finally broke the silence. He fell down onto his knees, as if at a vision.

“A miracle!” he cried. “‘Sing praises to the Lord, which dwelleth in Zion!’ ” Near gasping he was, and the lamps shone on his face. “‘And many of them that sleep in the dust of the earth shall awake . . .’ ” He shook his head, and I shook mine, and we shook our heads together. “A miracle!” he repeated.

Now, I was glad the good man found me welcome. But he seemed more the miracle than me. Twas queer what I thought, but that is in our nature. I wondered if my shirt had gotten dirty, either from the Glasgow air or the scrap. He always had insisted on clean collars.

He seemed to stammer and could not speak. He nearly choked, then found his voice again: “Sergeant Jones!” he cried at last. “Risen from the dead! Is it . . . are you . . .”

What fools we are, and vain. My impulse was to tell the good man I had come up a major in my pride. But I did not, and for a proper reason.

“Colonel Tice-Rolley, sir!” I said.

“Sergeant Jones!”

“Colonel, sir!”

“But . . . but . . .” Well, military discipline will tell, and the honest fellow mastered himself at last. He planted his heels, and squared his frame, and set off an imitation along the pews, where every slackness of posture was corrected.

“Compan-eee . . .
Attention!”
he called.

Up the congregation stood, as if they had been threatened with Sunday punishment. And, in a sense, I suppose, that was the case.

“Tonight’s service is concluded,” he declared. “When next the company forms, our theme will be ‘The Sinner’s March to Salvation.’ ” He faced half about. “Choir battery!”

The choir-master saluted and said, “Choir battery at the ready, sir!”

“Prepare to fire three rounds of ‘Mine Eyes Have Seen, and I Believe in Grace.’ ”

The choir-master saluted and faced about, then gave his own commands, and hymnals opened up with astonishing speed. The choristers were like practiced gunners, indeed, serving their pieces in the face of the ultimate enemy.

“Choir battery,
fire!”
my old colonel barked.

“Battery,
fire!”
the choir-master relayed, and his charges roared to vanquish Satan’s legions.

Above the voices raised in song, the colonel gave a sequence of commands, beginning with, “First rank . . . left
face,
forward
march,
left
wheel,”
and following up until every pew was emptied and the worshippers had paraded into the night. Then the choir stopped, and moved off smartly under their own master’s orders, until I was left alone with the colonel—whose uniform was commuted to solemn black—and a somber fellow standing to the side, with a look on his face that hinted at bowel constrictions, despite his glowing eyes and earnest smile.

The colonel stepped down from his little platform and come toward me, staring as if I might prove an apparition. And I edged forward, though timidly, for much of my life had been spent in a world where colonels were at least of archangel’s rank, and ready they were to smite down barracks sinners.

He approached me with those curious eyes that always had struck me odd, for an inquisitive nature is hardly the thing for an officer. Officers must be confident, see, and give the men the sense that they know everything—although the truth is most know little enough. But Colonel Tice-Rolley, commanding our “Old Combustibles,” had always seemed to wonder at the world. I do believe the generals thought him lax. But he won his battles, and his wife was a marchioness.

I did not recall him as a religious man, though. For he was Church of England, and that is little better than a pagan.

He come up to me, and stared in my face, and looked as if he’d seen a dog play the fiddle.

“By George, you’re dead,” he told me.

“But I ain’t, sir,” I responded.

“Yes,” he said, narrowing his eyes and stepping around me, as if inspecting the kit of an Irish corporal. “Yes, I see. Yes. A miracle, don’t you know? A miracle of Great Jehovah’s mercy!”

I fear that I was standing at attention. Old habits die hard.

Suddenly, his hand shot out to touch me. And drew back quick as a blade that has done its work.

“By George, it
is
a miracle!” he exclaimed.

“Kind of you to say so, sir,” I told him. “But I—”

“Booth, come here,” the colonel called to the somber gent behind him.

Dark as the bleak midwinter, the fellow strode up the aisle.

“Booth,” the colonel said, “I want you to witness this. Not two weeks ago, this fellow was dead. Dead as left-over tripe, don’t you know? And now he stands before us, hale and hearty. Is there no end to the Good Lord’s tender mercies?”

Mr. Booth appeared a bit confused.

“Booth,” the colonel said, “I want you to meet Sergeant Abel Jones—” He caught himself, and looked at me. “I suppose I must say ‘Mr. Jones’ now?”

I bit my tongue, for I wished to tell the man of my majority, but that would require a mighty explanation.

“As you please, sir,” I told him.

“Mr. Booth, this is Mr. Jones, who is responsible for the very resurrection of my soul.”

Now, that was a surprise as great as the raising of the dead on a Monday morning. When last the colonel and I had met, he had shown the grace to spare me a public hanging, and he it was who suggested to the surgeon that I be written down “Mad of a fever” and unfit for further service, although his number two was knotting the rope and would have liked to string me up himself. And speaking as a military man, I am not certain the colonel was in the right. For soldiers cannot decide they will not kill. But that is what I did, for I found myself incapable. The day came when I had massacres enough, and my weapon fell from my hands, and I could not slay another poor, old nigger. The Mutiny made devils of us all, and ruined men as sure as gin and a Jenny.

“Well done, Mr. Jones!” this Booth fellow praised me. And then he turned to the colonel. “Really, you know, this is unutterably splendid, sir. Everything you’ve done here . . . the organization . . . why, why it’s a veritable army of salvation! That’s exactly what it is,” Mr. Booth fair cried, “a salvation army! I shall have to enact your practices myself.” He thrust out his hand, and the colonel responded in kind. “Oh, I’m unspeakably, unutterably grateful for your example, Colonel Tice-Rolley. I feel positively uplifted! I’m going to try this very thing in England!”

The fellow left us, trailing inspiration.

The colonel looked at me, and I looked at him.

“Begging your pardon, sir,” I said, “but who was the fellow told you I was dead?”

“Dead as a dog in a ditch, don’t you know? Who was it? An American fellow, that’s who it was. Called on me, oh . . . perhaps two weeks past, you see. Said you had gone to America and froze to death while drunk. Question of a small legacy to be paid to any survivors. Sought me out as your former commanding officer, asked if there might be dependents left behind in India.” The colonel frumped his face to a bother, bemused by the ways of the world. “I told him there had been a woman and child.”