The army of Windy Standard, then, when fully mustered, consisted of General-Field-Marshal Napoleon Smith, Commander-in-Chief and regimental Sergeant-Major (also, on occasions of parade, Big Big-Drummer); Adjutant-General Cissy Carter, promoted to her present high position for always agreeing with her superior officer--a safe rule in military politics; Commissariat-Sergeant Sir Toady Lion, who declined any other post than the care of the provisions, and had to be conciliated; together with Privates Sammy Carter and Prissy Smith.

Sammy Carter had formerly been Adjutant, because he had a pony, but gallantly resigned in order to be of the same rank as Prissy, who was the sole member of the force wholly without military ambition.

At the imposing review which was held on the plains of Windy Standard, the Commander-in-Chief insisted on carrying the blue banner himself, as well as the big-big drum, till Sammy Carter, who had not yet resigned, offered him his pony to ride upon. This he did with guile and malice aforethought, for on the drum being elevated in front of the mounted officer, Polo promptly ran away, and deposited General-Field-Marshal Smith in the horse pond.

[Ill.u.s.tration: "DEPOSITED GENERAL-FIELD-MARSHAL SMITH IN THE HORSE POND."]

But this force, though officered with consummate ability, was manifestly insufficient for the attack upon the Black Sheds. This was well shown by Sammy Carter, who also pointed out that the armies of all ages had never been exclusively composed of those of n.o.ble birth.

There were, for example, at Bannockburn, the knights, the esquires, the st.u.r.dy yeomanry, the spearmen, the bowmen, and the camp-followers.

He advised that the stable boys, Mike and Peter, should be approached.

Now the head stable boy, Mike O'Donelly by name, was a scion of the n.o.blest Bourbon race. His father was an exile, who spoke the language with a strong foreign accent, and drove a fish cart--which also had a p.r.o.nounced accent, reputed deadly up to fifty yards with a favourable wind.

"Foine frish hirrings--foive for sixpince!" was the way he said it.

This proved to demonstration that he came from a far land, and was the descendant of kings. When taxed directly with being the heir to a crown, he did not deny it, but said, "Yus, Masther Smith, wanst I had a crown, but I lost it. 'Twas the Red Lion, bad scran to ut, that did the deed!"

Now this was evidently only a picturesque and regal way of referring to the b.l.o.o.d.y revolution by which King Michael O'Donowitch had been dethroned and reduced to driving a fish-cart--the old, old story, doubtless, of royal license and popular ingrat.i.tude. But there was no such romantic mystery about Peter Greg. He was simply junior stable boy, and his father was general utility man--or, as it was more generally called, "odd man," about the estate of Windy Standard. Peter occupied most of his time in keeping one eye on his work and the other on his father, who, on general utility principles, "welted" him every time that he caught him. This exercise, and his other occupation of perpetual fisticuffs with Prince Mike O'Donelly, had so developed his muscles and trained his mind, that he could lick any other two boys of his size in the parish. He said so himself, and he usually had at least one black eye to show for it. So no one contradicted him, and, indeed, who had a better right to know?

Prince Michael O'Donowitch (the improvement in style was Sammy Carter's) put the matter differently. He said, "I can lick Peter Greg till he can't stand" ("shtand" was how the royal exile p.r.o.nounced it), "but Peter an' me can knock the stuffin' out of any half-dozen spalpeens in this dirthy counthry."

Both Mike and Peter received commissions in the army at the same moment. The ceremony took place at the foot of the great hay mow at the back of the stable yard. In view of his n.o.ble ancestry, Prince Michael O'Donowitch was made a major-general, and Peter a lieutenant of marines. The newly appointed officers instantly clinched, fell headlong, rolled over and over one another, pommelled each other's heads, bit, scratched, and kicked till the hay and straw flew in all directions.

When the dust finally cleared away, Peter was found sitting astride of Prince Michael, and shouting, "Are you the general-major, or am I?"

Then when they had risen to their feet and dusted themselves, it was found that the distinguished officers had exchanged commissions, and that Peter Greg had become major-general, while Prince Michael O'Donowitch was lieutenant of marines, with a new and promising black eye!

[Ill.u.s.tration: "GENERALS OF DIVISION, EQUAL IN RANK."]

But at the first drill, upon General Peter issuing some complicated order, such as "Attention! eyes right!" Lieutenant O'Donowitch remarked, "Me eyes is as roight as yours, ye dirthy baste av a Scotchy!" Whereupon, as the result of another appeal to arms, the former judgment was reversed, and Prince Michael regained his commission at the price of another black eye. Indeed he would have had three, but for the fact that the number of his eyes was somewhat strictly limited to two.

Now it was felt by all parties that in a well-disciplined army such transitions were altogether too sudden, and so a compromise was suggested--as usual by Sammy Carter. Prince Michael and Peter Greg were both made generals of division, equal in rank, under Field-Marshal Smith. The division commanded by General Peter was composed of Cissy and Sir Toady Lion. The command of this first division proved, however, to be purely nominal, for Cissy was much too intimate with the Commander-in-Chief to be ordered about, and as for Toady Lion he was so high minded and irresponsible that he quite declined to obey anybody whatsoever. Still, the t.i.tle was the thing, and "the division of General Peter Greg" sounded very well.

The other division was much more subordinate. Prissy and Sammy Carter were the only genuine privates, and they were quite ready to be commanded by General Mike, Prissy upon conscientious non-resistance principles, and Sammy with a somewhat humorous aside to his fellow-soldier that it wouldn't be very bad, because Mike's father (the royal fish-hawker) lived on Sammy's ancestral domain, and owed money to Mr. Davenant Carter.

Thus even the iron discipline of a British army is tempered to the sacred property holder.

The immediate advance of the army of Windy Standard upon the Black Sheds was only hindered by a somewhat serious indisposition which suddenly attacked the Commander-in-Chief. The facts were these.

Attached to the castle, but lying between it and the stepping-stones on the steep side of the hill, was an ancient enclosed orchard. It had doubtless been the original garden of the fortress, but the trees had gone back to their primitive "crabbiness" (as Hugh John put it), and in consequence the children were forbidden to eat any of the fruit--an order which might just as well not have been issued. But on a day it was reported to Janet Sheepshanks that Prissy and Hugh John were in the crab orchard. On tip-toe she stole down to catch them. She caught Hugh John. Prissy was up in one of the oldest and leafiest trees, and Hugh John, as in honour bound, persistently made signals in another direction to distract attention, as he was being hauled off to condign punishment.

He had an hour to wait in the study for his father, who was away at the county town. During this time Hugh John suffered strange qualms, not of apprehension, which presently issued in yet keener and more definitely located agony. At last Mr. Picton Smith entered.

"Well, sir, and what is this I hear?" he said severely, throwing down his riding-whip on the couch as if he meant to pick it up again soon.

Hugh John was silent. He saw that his father knew all there was to know about his evil doings from Janet Sheepshanks, and he was far too wise to plead guilty.

"Did I not tell you not to go to the orchard?"

Hugh John hung his head, and made a slight grimace at the pattern on the carpet, as a severer pang than any that had gone before a.s.sailed him.

"Now, look here, sir," said his father, shaking his finger at him in a solemnising manner, "If ever I catch you again in that orchard, I'll--I'll give you as sound a thrashing, sir, as ever you got in your life."

Hugh John rubbed his hand across his body just above the second lowest b.u.t.ton of his jacket.

"Oh, father," he said plaintively, "I wish dreadfully that you had caught me before the last time I was in the orchard."

The treatment with pills and rhubarb which followed considerably r.e.t.a.r.ded the operations of the army of Windy Standard. It was not the first time that the stomach of a commander-in-chief has had an appreciable effect on the conduct of a campaign.

CHAPTER XIII.

THE ARMY OF WINDY STANDARD.

At last, however, all was ready, in the historical phrase of Napoleon the Little, "to the last gaiter-b.u.t.ton."

It was the intention of the Commander-in-Chief to attack the citadel of the enemy with banners flying, and after due notice. He had been practising for days upon his three-key bugle in order to give the call of Childe Roland. But Private Sammy Carter, who was always sticking his oar in, put him upon wiser lines, and (what is more) did it so quietly and suggestively that General Napoleon was soon convinced that Sammy's plan was his own, and on the second day boasted of its merits to its original begetter, who did not even smile. The like has happened in greater armies with generals as distinguished.

Sammy Carter advised that the a.s.sault should be delivered between eight and nine in the morning, for the very good reasons that at that hour both the butcher's apprentice, Tommy Pratt, and the slaughterman would be busy delivering the forenoon orders, while the butcher's son, Nipper Donnan, would be at school, and the Black Sheds consequently entirely deserted.

At first Hugh John rebelled, and a.s.serted that this was not a sportsmanlike mode of proceeding, but Sammy Carter, who always knew more about everything than was good for anybody, overwhelmed his chief with examples of strategies and surprises from the military history of thirty centuries.

"Besides," said he, somewhat pertinently, "let's get Donald back first, and then we can be chivalrous all you want. Perhaps they are keeping him to fatten him up for the Odd c.o.o.ns' Bank Holiday Feast."

This, as the wily Sammy knew, was calculated to stir up the wrath of his general more than anything else he could say. For at the annual Bean Feast of the Honourable Company of Odd c.o.o.ns, a benefit secret society of convivial habits, a sheep was annually roasted whole. It said an ox on the programme, but the actual result, curiously enough, was mutton and not beef.

"We attack to-morrow at daybreak," said Field-Marshal Smith grandly, as soon as Sammy Carter had finished speaking.

This, however, had subsequently to be modified to nine o'clock, to suit the breakfast hour of the Carters. Moreover Sat.u.r.day was subst.i.tuted for Tuesday, both because Cissy and Sammy could most easily "shirk" their governess on that day, and because Mr. Picton Smith was known to be going up to London by the night train on Friday.

On such trivial circ.u.mstances do great events depend.

When the army was finally mustered for the a.s.sault, its armament was found to be somewhat varied, though generally efficient. But then even in larger armies the weapons of the different arms of the service are far from uniform. There are, for example, rifles and bayonets for the Line, lances for the Light Horse, carbines, sabres, and army biscuits, all deadly after their kind.

So it was in the campaigning outfit of the forces of Windy Standard.

The historian can only hint at this equipment, so strange were the various kits. The Commander-in-Chief wished to insist on a red sash and a long cut-and-thrust sword, with (if possible) a kettle-drum. But this was found impracticable as a general order. For not only did the two divisional commanders decline to submit to the sash, but there were not enough kettle-drums intact to go more than half round.

So General Smith was the only soldier who carried a real sword. He had also a pistol, which, however, obstinately refused to go off, but formed a valuable weapon when held by the barrel. Cissy was furnished with a pike, constructed by Prince Michael's father, the dethroned monarch of O'Donowitch-dom, out of a leister or fish-spear--which, strangely enough, he had carried away with him from his palace at the time of his exile. This const.i.tuted a really formidable armament, being at least five feet long, and so sharp that if you ran very hard against a soft wooden door with it, it made a mark which you could see quite a yard off in a good light.

Prissy had a carpet-broom with a long handle, which at a distance looked like a gun, and as Prissy meant to do all her fighting at a distance this was quite sufficient. In addition she had three pieces of twine to tie up her dress, so that she would be ready to run away untrammelled by flapping skirts. Sir Toady Lion was equipped for war with a thimble, three sticky bull's-eyes, the haft of a knife (but no blade), a dog-whistle, and a go-cart with one shaft, all of which proved exceedingly useful.

The two Generals of Division were attired in neat stable clothes with b.u.t.toned leggings, and put their trust in a pair of "catties"

(otherwise known as catapults), two stout shillelahs, the national batons of the exiled prince, manufactured by himself; and, most valuable of all, a set a-piece of h.o.r.n.y knuckles, which they had kept in constant practice against each other all through the piping times of peace. Both Mike and Peter knowingly chewed straws in opposite corners of their mouths.

The forces on the other side were quite unknown, both as to number and quality. Hugh John maintained that there were at least twenty, and Toady Lion stoutly proclaimed that there were a million thousand, and that he had seen and counted them every one. But a stricter census, inst.i.tuted upon evidence led by Private Sammy Carter, could not get beyond half-a-dozen. So that the disproportion was not so great as might have been supposed. Still the siege of the Sheds was felt to be of the nature of a forlorn hope.

It was arranged that all who distinguished themselves for deeds of valour were to receive the Victoria Cross, a decoration which had been cut by Hugh John out of the tops of ginger-beer bottles with a cold chisel. As soon, however, as Sir Toady Lion heard this, he sat down in the dust of the roadside, and simply refused to budge till his grievances were redressed.