Punch/Volume 147/Issue 3834/A Voice in the Night
I dislike many things—snakes, for example, and German spies, and the income tax, and cold fat mutton; but even more than any of these I dislike William Smith.
As all the world knows, special constables hunt in couples at nights, a precaution adopted in order that, if either of the two is slain in the execution of his duty, the other may be in a position to report on the following morning the exact hour and manner of his decease, thus satisfying the thirst of the authorities for the latest information, and relieving his departed companion's relatives of further anxiety in regard to his fate.
William Smith is the special constable who hunts with me. As to whom or what we are hunting, or what we should do to them or they would do to us if we caught them or they caught us, we are rather vague; but we endeavour to carry out our duty. Our total bag to date has been one Royal Mail, and even him we merely let off with a caution.
Three days ago, by an unfortunate coincidence, William Smith overtook me at the end of the High Street, just as our sergeant was coming round the corner in the opposite direction. At sight of the latter we halted, dropped our parcels in the mud, stiffened to attention and saluted. The last was a thing we ought not to have done, even allowing for his leggings, which were (and are still) of a distinctly upper-military type. But in the special constabulary your sergeant is a man to be placated. His powers are enormous. He can, if he likes, spoil your beauty sleep at both ends by detailing you for duty from 12 to 4 a.m.; or, on the other hand, he can forget you altogether for a fortnight. Thus we always avoid meeting him if possible; failing that, we always salute him.
"Ha!" exclaimed our sergeant.
We shuddered, and William Smith, who is smaller than myself, tried to escape his gaze by forming two deep.
"What the devil are you playing at?" growled our sergeant. Though one of the more prominent sidesmen at our local church, he has developed quite the manner of an officer, almost, at times, I like to think, of a general officer. William Smith formed single rank again.
Our sergeant took out his notebook. "I'm glad I happened to meet you two," he said.
We shivered, but otherwise remained at attention.
"Let me see," he went on, consulting his list, "you are on together again to-morrow night at 12."
It was the last straw. Forgetting his rank, forgetting his leggings, forgetting the possibilities of his language, forgetting myself, I spoke.
"I protest," I said.
The eyes of our sergeant bulged with wrath, pushing his pince-nez off his nose and causing them to clatter to the pavement. But a special constable is a man of more than ordinary courage. "Allow me," I murmured, and I stooped, picked them up and handed them back to him.
"Explain yourself," he muttered hoarsely.
"For the past three months," I said, "I have endured fifty-six of the darkest hours of the night, cut off from any possibility of human aid, in the company of William Smith, a conversational egoist of the lowest and most determined type. Throughout this period he had inflicted on me atrocities before which those of the Germans pale into insignificance. During the first month he described to me in detail the achievements and diseases from birth upwards of all his children—a revolting record. He next proceeded to deal exhaustively with the construction and working of his gramophone, his bathroom geyser, his patent knife-machine and his vacuum carpet-cleaner; also with his mthods of drying wet boots, marking his under-linen, circumventing the water-rate collector and inducing fertility in reluctant pullets. This brought us to the middle of November. Finally, during the last four weeks he has wandered into the ramifications of his wife's early-Victorian family tree, of which we are still in the lower branches.
"I cannot retaliate in kind. I have no children, poultry, pedigree wives, nor any of the other articles, except boots and shirts, in which the soul of William Smith rejoices. There is but one remedy open to me, and of this, unless you detail me for duty with someone else, I propose to avail myself at the first convenient opportunity. I shall kill William Smith."
I stopped and saluted again.
And then a wonderful thing happened. I discovered that beheath out sergeant's military leggins there still beat the rudiments of a human heart. Yes, as I looked at him I saw his softened eyes suffused with sympathetic tears.
"My poor fellow!" he said in a broken voice.
It was too much. I sank to the pavement, saluting as I fell, and knew no more. When I recovered consciousness in hospital I found in the pocket of my coat an envelope containing the following: "Promoted to the rank of corporal and invalided for three weeks, after which you will take duty with your chauffeur."
William Smith and I have severed diplomatic relations. It is better so.