Casca 18: The Cursed Read Online Free PDF

troops.
    Sergeant Longman grew bored with the entertainment and decided to take a hand. He had better things to do than watch a fool on ceremonial display. He spoke quietly to his own corporals. "Murphy, O'Hara, Smith, quiet down, will you? Get ready to go off parade."
    The three corporals stopped chuckling and turned to their men with serious faces. Taking their cue from Casca, they spoke quietly but forcefully. "Orright then you lot. Orright then. Enuff's enuff. It ain't May Day you know. Quiet down will youse."
    Casca's men suddenly found themselves outside the comfortable anonymity they had been enjoying. One by one each soldier mastered his merriment as he faced his own corporal and, beyond him, Sergeant Longman, who stood as if waiting expectantly and a little impatiently. In a few moments Casca's men were all silent.
    "On the order dismiss, move to the right and dismiss to await further orders," Casca rushed out in one breath, then. “Dismiss.”
    His troops made the required turn, then walked from the parade ground.
    The surprised sergeant of the next platoon looked at Casca, who shrugged as if to say: "It's easy enough when you know how." The sergeant promptly started to bring his own men under control.
    The roars of laughter died down to a hubbub of chuckles and then to silence as one company after another was brought under control.
    Forster was the last to realize that the circus was over and was still bellowing uselessly for the parade to come to order as the last few squads were leaving the field.
    Colonel Braithwaite decided to be magnanimous and came to his rescue. He moved a little closer. "Very good, sarmajor. New parade in five minutes, thank you."
    "New parade five minutes sir." Forster went through his lonely routine stamping through his turn as he dismissed himself to march in solitary absurdity to the edge of the parade ground, where he could wait out the five minutes.
    The troops were well content to have gotten away with so much, and they settled down to wait, which was, after all, their main day to day activity.
     
     

CHAPTER FIVE
    Casca had not given much thought to the consequences when he had carried about the execution, and had certainly not expected to be apprehended.
    But he had reckoned without the inexplicable workings of a Chinese mind.
    The dead whore's younger brother had spent the previous night seeking out Lieutenant Marshman in his next debauch, and in the early hours of the morning, had followed the lieutenant to the army camp, intent upon himself taking revenge for his sister's murder. But he had been unable to sneak past the guard at the barracks gate for some little time, and when he again caught up with the staggering lieutenant, it was just in time to see Casca seize him and drag him to the flagpole.
    He had been afraid to go any closer, but he witnessed the hanging, and knew that the hangman had been a sergeant.
    When the news swept the marketplace the next morning, Fei Qili had gone to the barracks, and had reported what he knew, confident that the result would be the death of yet another of the hated white devils.
    To the little Chinese boy, all foreign devils looked much alike; they were all enormous, with strangely colored eyes and hair. His description would have been too vague to be of any use, but Colonel Braithwaite had called Sergeant Cass Longman to assist the Chinese interpreter.
    As Casca stepped into the colonel's office the startled Fei Qili recognized him as the hangman, and blurted out: "This is the man."
    The Chinese interpreter immediately translated, and the colonel exploded: "So you're the mystery sergeant. What the fuck do you think you're doing, hanging my lieutenants?"
    Fei Qili had now also recognized this big sergeant as a friend of his sister who had been kind to the family. He stared at Casca in consternation as he realized that he was betraying his sister's avenger. Well, so the fates had decided.
    Casca saw that there was no way out for him. There