Captain Jinks, Hero by Ernest Howard Crosby (story read aloud txt) 📕

we do. In fact, they rather like it. The Tutonians are setting a good example; they shoot their prisoners. I saw them shoot about seventy. They tied them together four by four by their pigtails and then shot them. It’s best, though, to avoid taking prisoners; that’s what most of them do.”

“But you say these bodies are not all soldiers,” said Cleary.

“No, of course not. You see the Mosconians kill any natives they please. Then those who are out at night are killed as a matter of course, and those who won’t work for the soldiers naturally have to be put out of the way. It’s the only way to enforce discipline. Look at these bodies now.”

Corpses were now coming down the river one after another. Each had its attendant swarm of flies, and vultures soared in flocks in the air. The river was yellow with mud, and the air oppressively hot and heavy. Now and then a whiff of putrid air was blown across the deck. The three men watched the bodies drifting past, brainless skulls, eyeless sockets, floating along many of them as if they were swimming on their backs. “It is really a fine example of the power of civilization,” said the stranger. “I don’t approve of everything that has been done, by any means. Some of the armies have treated women rather badly, but no English-speaking soldiers have done that. In fact, your army has hardly been up to the average in effectiveness. You and the Japs have been culpably lenient, if you will permit me to say so.”

“We are only just starting out on our career as a military nation,” said Sam. “You must not expect too much of us at first. We’ll soon get our hand in. As for the Japs, why they’re heathen. They can hardly be expected to behave like Christians. But we were afraid that the war was over and that we should find nothing to do.”

“The war over! What an absurdity! I have lived in Porsslania for over thirty years and I ought to know something about it by now. There’s an army of at least forty thousand Fencers over there to the northwest and another twenty-five thousand in the northeast. The Tutonians are the only people who understand it. Their first regiments have just arrived, and they are going to do something. They say the Emperor is coming himself, and he will put an end to this state of affairs. He is not a man to stand rebellion. All we can say is that we have made a good beginning. We have laid the whole province waste, and it will be a long time before they forget it.”

The journey was hot and tedious; the desolated shore, the corpses and vultures, and an occasional junk with square-rigged sails and high poop were the only things upon which to fix the eye. When at last our travelers arrived at the city of Gin-Sin, Sam learned that his regiment had proceeded to the Capital and was in camp there, and it would be impossible for him to leave until the following day. He stopped with Cleary at the principal hotel. The city was in a semi-ruined condition, but life was already beginning to assume its ordinary course. The narrow streets, hung with banners and lanterns and cabalistic signs, were full of people. Barbers and scribes were plying their trades in the open air, and war was not always in sight. Sam’s reputation had preceded him, and he had scarcely gone to his room when he received an invitation from a leading Anglian merchant to dine with him that evening. Cleary was anxious to go too, and it so happened that he had letters of introduction to the gentleman in question. He made his call at once and was duly invited.

There were a dozen or more guests at dinner, all of them men. Indeed, there were few white women left at Gin-Sin. With the exception of Sam and Cleary all the guests were Anglians. There was the consul-general, a little man with a gray beard, a tall, bald-headed, gray-mustached major-general in command of the Anglian forces at Gin-Sin, two distinguished missionaries of many years’ experience, several junior officers of the army, and a merchant or two. When dinner was announced they all went in, each taking precedence according to his station. Sam knew nothing of such matters, and was loath to advance until his host forced him to. He found a card with his name on it at the second cover on the right from his host. On his right was the card of a young captain. The place on his left and immediately on the right of the host bore no card, and the consul-general and the major-general both made for it. The former got there first, but the military man, who was twice his size, came into violent collision with him, pushed him away and captured the seat, while the consul-general was obliged to retreat and take the seat on the left of his host. The whole party pretended very hard to have noticed nothing unusual.

“Rather odd performance, eh?” whispered the captain to Sam. “You see how it is. Old Folsom says he takes precedence because he represents the Crown, but the general says that’s all rot, for the consul’s only a commercial agent and a K.C.Q.X. Now the general is a G.C.Q.X., and he says that gives him precedence. Nobody can settle it, and so they have to fight it out every time they meet.”

“I see,” said Sam. “I don’t know anything about such things, but I should think that the general was clearly in the right. He could hardly afford to let the army be overridden.”

“Quite so,” said the captain. “I don’t suppose you know these people,” he added.

“Not one of them, except my friend, Mr. Cleary. We only arrived today.”

“The general is a good deal of a fellow,” said the captain. “I was with him in