Chapter Thirty Two.Only Human.As the sun gathered force in rising higher, a thin veil of snow was melted from off a broad patch of rock, which dried rapidly; and, after a little consideration, Gedge went to Bracy’s shoulders, took fast hold of hisposhtin, and drew him softly and quickly off the icy surface right on to the warm, dry rock, the young officer’s eyes opening widely in transit, and then closing again without their owner becoming conscious, but, as his head was gently lowered down again upon its sheepskin pillow, the deep sleep of exhaustion went on.“Needn’t ha’ been ’fraid o’ waking you,” said Gedge softly, and looking down at the sleeper as if proud of his work.—“There, you’ll be dry and warm as a toast, and won’t wake up lying in a pond o’ water.—Now I’ll just have a look round, and then sit down and wait till he wakes.”Gedge took his good look round, making use of Bracy’s glass, and in two places made out bodies of white-coated men whose weapons glinted in the sun shine; but they were far away, and in hollows among the hills.“That’s all I can make out,” said Gedge, closing the glass and replacing it softly in the case slung from Bracy’s shoulders; “but there’s holes and cracks and all sorts o’ places where any number more may be. Blest if I don’t think all the country must have heard that we’re going for help, and turned out to stop us. My! how easy it all looked when we started! Just a long walk and a little dodging the niggers, and the job done. One never thought o’ climbing up here and skating down, and have a launching in the snow.”Gedge yawned tremendously, and being now in excellent spirits and contentment with himself, he chuckled softly.“That was a good one,” he said. “What a mouth I’ve got! I say, though, my lad, mouths have to be filled, and there ain’t much left. We were going, I thought, to shoot pheasants, and kill a sheep now and then, to make a fire and have roast bird one day, leg o’ mutton the next, and cold meat when we was obliged; but seems to me that it was all cooking your roast chickens before they was hatched. Fancy lighting a fire anywhere! Why, it would bring a swarm of the beauties round to carve us up instead of the wittles; and as to prog, why, I ain’t seen nothing but that one bear. Don’t seem to hanker after bear,” continued Gedge after a few minutes’ musing, during which he made sure that Bracy was sleeping comfortably. “Bears outer the ’Logical Gardens, nicely fatted up on buns, might be nice, and there’d be plenty o’ nice fresh bear’s grease for one’s ’air; but these here wild bears in the mountains must feed theirselves on young niggers and their mothers, and it’d be like being a sort o’ second-hand cannibal to cook and eat one of the hairy brutes. No, thanky; not this time, sir. I’ll wait for the pudden.”Human nature is human nature, which nobody can deny; and, uncultivated save in military matters, and rough as he was, Bill Gedge was as human as he could be. He had just had a tremendous tramp for a whole day, a sleepless night of terrible excitement and care, a sudden respite from anxiety, a meal, and the glow of a hot sun upon a patch of rock which sent a genial thrill of comfort through his whole frame. These were the difficulties which were weighing hard in one of the scales of the young private’s constitution, while he was doing his best to weigh down the other scale with duty, principle, and a manly, honest feeling of liking for the officer whom he had set up from the first moment of being attached to the company as the model of what a soldier should be. It was hard work. Those yawns came again and again, increasing in violence.“Well done, boa-constructor,” he said. “Little more practice, and you’ll be able to swallow something as big as yourself; but my! don’t it stretch the corners of your mouth! I want a bit o’ bear’s grease ready to rub in, for they’re safe to crack.“My! how sleepy I am!” he muttered a little later. “I ain’t been put on sentry-go, but it’s just the same, and a chap as goes to sleep in the face of the enemy ought to be shot. Sarve him right, too, for not keeping a good lookout. Might mean all his mates being cut up. Oh! I say, this here won’t do,” he cried, springing up. “Let’s have a hoky-poky penny ice, free, grashus, for nothing.”He went off on tiptoe, glancing at Bracy as he passed, and then stooped down over a patch of glittering snow, scraping up a handful and straightening himself in the sunshine, as he amused himself by addressing an imaginary personage.“Say, gov’nor,” he cried, “you’ve got a bigger stock than you’ll get shut of to-day.—Eh? You don’t expect to? Right you are, old man. Break yer barrer if yer tried to carry it away. Say; looks cleaner and nicer to-day without any o’ that red or yeller paint mixed up with it. I like it best when it’s white. Looks more icy.—What say? Spoon? No, thank ye. Your customers is too fond o’ sucking the spoons, and I never see you wash ’em after.—Ha! this is prime. Beats Whitechapel all to fits; and it’s real cold, too. I don’t care about it when it’s beginning to melt and got so much juist.—But I say! Come! Fair play’s a jewel. One likes a man to make his profit and be ’conimycal with the sugar, but you ain’t put none in this.“Never mind,” he added after a pause, during which the Italian ice-vendor faded out of his imagination; “it’s reg’lar ’freshing when you’re so sleepy. Wonder what made them Italians come to London and start selling that stuff o’ theirs. Seems rum; ours don’t seem a country for that sort o’ thing. Baked taters seems so much more English, and does a chap so much more good.”He walked back to the warm patch of rock, looked at Bracy, and then placed both rifles and bayonets ready, sat down cross-legged, and after withdrawing the cartridges, set to work with an oily rag to remove all traces of rust, and gave each in turn a good polish, ending by carefully wiping the bayonets after unfixing them, and returning them to their sheaths, handling Bracy’s most carefully, for fear of disturbing the sleeper. This done, he began to yawn again, and, as he expressed it, took another penny ice and nodding at vacancy, which he filled with a peripatetic vendor, he said:“All right, gov’nor; got no small change. Pay next time I come this way.”Then he marked out a beat, and began marching up and down.“Bah!” he cried; “that ice only makes you feel dry and thirsty.—My! how sleepy I am!—Here, steady!” he cried, as he yawned horribly; “you’ll have your head right off, old man, if you do that.—Never was so sleepy in my life.”He marched up and down a little faster—ten paces and turn—ten paces and turn—up and down, up and down, in the warm sunshine; but it was as if some deadly stupor enveloped him, and as he kept up the steady regulation march, walking and turning like an automaton, he was suddenly fast asleep and dreaming for quite a minute, when he gave a violent start, waking himself, protesting loudly against a charge made against him, and all strangely mixed up the imaginary and the real.“Swear I wasn’t, Sergeant!” he cried angrily. “Look for yerself.—Didn’t yer see, pardners? I was walking up and down like a clockwork himidge.—Sleep at my post? Me sleep at my post? Wish I may die if I do such a thing. It’s the old game. Yer allus ’ated me, Sergeant, from the very first, and— Phew! Here! What’s the matter? I’ve caught something, and it’s got me in the nut. I’m going off my chump.”Poor Gedge stood with his hands clasped to his forehead, staring wildly before him.“Blest if I wasn’t dreaming!” he said wonderingly. “Ain’t took bad, am I? Thought old Gee come and pounced upon me, and said I was sleepin’ on duty. And it’s a fack. It’s as true as true; I was fast asleep; leastwise I was up’ards. Legs couldn’t ha’ been, because they’d ha’ laid down. Oh! this here won’t do. It was being on dooty without arms.”Drawing himself up, he snatched his bayonet from its scabbard, and resumed his march, going off last asleep again; but this time the cessation of consciousness descended as it were right below the waist-belt and began to steal down his legs, whose movements became slower and slower, hips, then knees, stiffening; and then, as the drowsy god’s work attacked his ankles, his whole body became rigid, and he stood as if he had been gradually frozen stiff for quite a minute, when it seemed as if something touched him, and he sprang into wakefulness again, and went on with his march up and down.“Oh, it’s horrid!” he said piteously. “Of course. That’ll do it.”He sheathed his bayonet, and catching up his rifle, went through the regular forms as if receiving orders: he grounded arms; then drew and fixed bayonet, shouldered arms, and began the march again.“That’s done it,” he said. “Reg’larly woke up now. S’pose a fellow can’t quite do without sleep, unless he got used to it, like the chap’s ’oss, only he died when he’d got used to living upon one eat a day. Rum thing, sleep, though. I allus was a good un to sleep. Sleep anywhere; but I didn’t know I was so clever as to sleep standing up. Wonder whether I could sleep on one leg. Might do it on my head. Often said I could do anything on my head. There, it’s a-coming on again.”He stepped to the nearest snow and rubbed his temples with it before resuming his march; but the relief was merely temporary. He went to Bracy’s side, to see that he was sleeping heavily, and an intense feeling of envy and longing to follow his officer’s example and lie down and sleep for hours nearly mastered him.“But I won’t—I won’t sleep,” he said, grinding his teeth. “I’ll die first. I’m going to keep awake and do my dooty like a soldier by my orficer. I’d do it for any orficer in the ridgement, so of course I would for the gov’nor, poor chap! He’s watched over me before now.—Yes, I’m going to keep on. I shall be better soon. Ten minutes would set me right, and if there was a mate here to take my post I’d have a nap; but there ain’t a pardner to share it, and I’ve got to do it on my head. Wonder whether I should feel better if I did stand on my head for a minute. Anyhow, I ain’t goin’ to try.”Gedge spent the next ten minutes in carefully examining his rifle; then he turned to Bracy, and soon after he took out the latter’s glass and swept the country round, to find more groups of men in motion.“Why, the place is getting alive with the beggars,” he growled. “We shall be having some of ’em cocking an eye up and seeing us here. Don’t know, though; they couldn’t make us out, and even if they did we look like a couple o’ sheep. I’ve got to look out sharp, though, to see as we’re not surprised. Almost wish three or four would come now, so as I could have a set-to with ’em. That would wake me up, and no mistake.—Ah! it’s wonderful what one can see with a bit or two o’ glass set in a brown thing like this.—Ah! there it is again.”Gedge lowered the glass and started violently, for the feeling of sleep was now overmastering.“Nearly dropped and smashed his glass,” he said petulantly, and, laying down his rifle, he closed the little lorgnette slowly and carefully with half-numbed fingers, which fumbled about the instrument feebly.“He’d ha’—he’d ha’—fine—tongue-thrashing when he woke—foun’ glass—smashed.”Gedge sank upon his knees and bent over the sleeper, fumbling for the strap and case to replace the glass.“Where ha’ you got to?” he muttered. “What yer swinging about half a mile away for? Ah! that’s got yer,” he went on, aiming at the case with a strange fixity of expression. “Now then—the lid—the lid—and the strap through the buckle, and the buckle—done it—me go to sleep—on dooty, Sergeant? Not me!—I—I—ha-h-h!”Poor Gedge was only human, and his drowsy head sank across Bracy’s breast, so wrapped in sleep that the firing of a rifle by his ear would hardly have roused him up.
As the sun gathered force in rising higher, a thin veil of snow was melted from off a broad patch of rock, which dried rapidly; and, after a little consideration, Gedge went to Bracy’s shoulders, took fast hold of hisposhtin, and drew him softly and quickly off the icy surface right on to the warm, dry rock, the young officer’s eyes opening widely in transit, and then closing again without their owner becoming conscious, but, as his head was gently lowered down again upon its sheepskin pillow, the deep sleep of exhaustion went on.
“Needn’t ha’ been ’fraid o’ waking you,” said Gedge softly, and looking down at the sleeper as if proud of his work.—“There, you’ll be dry and warm as a toast, and won’t wake up lying in a pond o’ water.—Now I’ll just have a look round, and then sit down and wait till he wakes.”
Gedge took his good look round, making use of Bracy’s glass, and in two places made out bodies of white-coated men whose weapons glinted in the sun shine; but they were far away, and in hollows among the hills.
“That’s all I can make out,” said Gedge, closing the glass and replacing it softly in the case slung from Bracy’s shoulders; “but there’s holes and cracks and all sorts o’ places where any number more may be. Blest if I don’t think all the country must have heard that we’re going for help, and turned out to stop us. My! how easy it all looked when we started! Just a long walk and a little dodging the niggers, and the job done. One never thought o’ climbing up here and skating down, and have a launching in the snow.”
Gedge yawned tremendously, and being now in excellent spirits and contentment with himself, he chuckled softly.
“That was a good one,” he said. “What a mouth I’ve got! I say, though, my lad, mouths have to be filled, and there ain’t much left. We were going, I thought, to shoot pheasants, and kill a sheep now and then, to make a fire and have roast bird one day, leg o’ mutton the next, and cold meat when we was obliged; but seems to me that it was all cooking your roast chickens before they was hatched. Fancy lighting a fire anywhere! Why, it would bring a swarm of the beauties round to carve us up instead of the wittles; and as to prog, why, I ain’t seen nothing but that one bear. Don’t seem to hanker after bear,” continued Gedge after a few minutes’ musing, during which he made sure that Bracy was sleeping comfortably. “Bears outer the ’Logical Gardens, nicely fatted up on buns, might be nice, and there’d be plenty o’ nice fresh bear’s grease for one’s ’air; but these here wild bears in the mountains must feed theirselves on young niggers and their mothers, and it’d be like being a sort o’ second-hand cannibal to cook and eat one of the hairy brutes. No, thanky; not this time, sir. I’ll wait for the pudden.”
Human nature is human nature, which nobody can deny; and, uncultivated save in military matters, and rough as he was, Bill Gedge was as human as he could be. He had just had a tremendous tramp for a whole day, a sleepless night of terrible excitement and care, a sudden respite from anxiety, a meal, and the glow of a hot sun upon a patch of rock which sent a genial thrill of comfort through his whole frame. These were the difficulties which were weighing hard in one of the scales of the young private’s constitution, while he was doing his best to weigh down the other scale with duty, principle, and a manly, honest feeling of liking for the officer whom he had set up from the first moment of being attached to the company as the model of what a soldier should be. It was hard work. Those yawns came again and again, increasing in violence.
“Well done, boa-constructor,” he said. “Little more practice, and you’ll be able to swallow something as big as yourself; but my! don’t it stretch the corners of your mouth! I want a bit o’ bear’s grease ready to rub in, for they’re safe to crack.
“My! how sleepy I am!” he muttered a little later. “I ain’t been put on sentry-go, but it’s just the same, and a chap as goes to sleep in the face of the enemy ought to be shot. Sarve him right, too, for not keeping a good lookout. Might mean all his mates being cut up. Oh! I say, this here won’t do,” he cried, springing up. “Let’s have a hoky-poky penny ice, free, grashus, for nothing.”
He went off on tiptoe, glancing at Bracy as he passed, and then stooped down over a patch of glittering snow, scraping up a handful and straightening himself in the sunshine, as he amused himself by addressing an imaginary personage.
“Say, gov’nor,” he cried, “you’ve got a bigger stock than you’ll get shut of to-day.—Eh? You don’t expect to? Right you are, old man. Break yer barrer if yer tried to carry it away. Say; looks cleaner and nicer to-day without any o’ that red or yeller paint mixed up with it. I like it best when it’s white. Looks more icy.—What say? Spoon? No, thank ye. Your customers is too fond o’ sucking the spoons, and I never see you wash ’em after.—Ha! this is prime. Beats Whitechapel all to fits; and it’s real cold, too. I don’t care about it when it’s beginning to melt and got so much juist.—But I say! Come! Fair play’s a jewel. One likes a man to make his profit and be ’conimycal with the sugar, but you ain’t put none in this.
“Never mind,” he added after a pause, during which the Italian ice-vendor faded out of his imagination; “it’s reg’lar ’freshing when you’re so sleepy. Wonder what made them Italians come to London and start selling that stuff o’ theirs. Seems rum; ours don’t seem a country for that sort o’ thing. Baked taters seems so much more English, and does a chap so much more good.”
He walked back to the warm patch of rock, looked at Bracy, and then placed both rifles and bayonets ready, sat down cross-legged, and after withdrawing the cartridges, set to work with an oily rag to remove all traces of rust, and gave each in turn a good polish, ending by carefully wiping the bayonets after unfixing them, and returning them to their sheaths, handling Bracy’s most carefully, for fear of disturbing the sleeper. This done, he began to yawn again, and, as he expressed it, took another penny ice and nodding at vacancy, which he filled with a peripatetic vendor, he said:
“All right, gov’nor; got no small change. Pay next time I come this way.”
Then he marked out a beat, and began marching up and down.
“Bah!” he cried; “that ice only makes you feel dry and thirsty.—My! how sleepy I am!—Here, steady!” he cried, as he yawned horribly; “you’ll have your head right off, old man, if you do that.—Never was so sleepy in my life.”
He marched up and down a little faster—ten paces and turn—ten paces and turn—up and down, up and down, in the warm sunshine; but it was as if some deadly stupor enveloped him, and as he kept up the steady regulation march, walking and turning like an automaton, he was suddenly fast asleep and dreaming for quite a minute, when he gave a violent start, waking himself, protesting loudly against a charge made against him, and all strangely mixed up the imaginary and the real.
“Swear I wasn’t, Sergeant!” he cried angrily. “Look for yerself.—Didn’t yer see, pardners? I was walking up and down like a clockwork himidge.—Sleep at my post? Me sleep at my post? Wish I may die if I do such a thing. It’s the old game. Yer allus ’ated me, Sergeant, from the very first, and— Phew! Here! What’s the matter? I’ve caught something, and it’s got me in the nut. I’m going off my chump.”
Poor Gedge stood with his hands clasped to his forehead, staring wildly before him.
“Blest if I wasn’t dreaming!” he said wonderingly. “Ain’t took bad, am I? Thought old Gee come and pounced upon me, and said I was sleepin’ on duty. And it’s a fack. It’s as true as true; I was fast asleep; leastwise I was up’ards. Legs couldn’t ha’ been, because they’d ha’ laid down. Oh! this here won’t do. It was being on dooty without arms.”
Drawing himself up, he snatched his bayonet from its scabbard, and resumed his march, going off last asleep again; but this time the cessation of consciousness descended as it were right below the waist-belt and began to steal down his legs, whose movements became slower and slower, hips, then knees, stiffening; and then, as the drowsy god’s work attacked his ankles, his whole body became rigid, and he stood as if he had been gradually frozen stiff for quite a minute, when it seemed as if something touched him, and he sprang into wakefulness again, and went on with his march up and down.
“Oh, it’s horrid!” he said piteously. “Of course. That’ll do it.”
He sheathed his bayonet, and catching up his rifle, went through the regular forms as if receiving orders: he grounded arms; then drew and fixed bayonet, shouldered arms, and began the march again.
“That’s done it,” he said. “Reg’larly woke up now. S’pose a fellow can’t quite do without sleep, unless he got used to it, like the chap’s ’oss, only he died when he’d got used to living upon one eat a day. Rum thing, sleep, though. I allus was a good un to sleep. Sleep anywhere; but I didn’t know I was so clever as to sleep standing up. Wonder whether I could sleep on one leg. Might do it on my head. Often said I could do anything on my head. There, it’s a-coming on again.”
He stepped to the nearest snow and rubbed his temples with it before resuming his march; but the relief was merely temporary. He went to Bracy’s side, to see that he was sleeping heavily, and an intense feeling of envy and longing to follow his officer’s example and lie down and sleep for hours nearly mastered him.
“But I won’t—I won’t sleep,” he said, grinding his teeth. “I’ll die first. I’m going to keep awake and do my dooty like a soldier by my orficer. I’d do it for any orficer in the ridgement, so of course I would for the gov’nor, poor chap! He’s watched over me before now.—Yes, I’m going to keep on. I shall be better soon. Ten minutes would set me right, and if there was a mate here to take my post I’d have a nap; but there ain’t a pardner to share it, and I’ve got to do it on my head. Wonder whether I should feel better if I did stand on my head for a minute. Anyhow, I ain’t goin’ to try.”
Gedge spent the next ten minutes in carefully examining his rifle; then he turned to Bracy, and soon after he took out the latter’s glass and swept the country round, to find more groups of men in motion.
“Why, the place is getting alive with the beggars,” he growled. “We shall be having some of ’em cocking an eye up and seeing us here. Don’t know, though; they couldn’t make us out, and even if they did we look like a couple o’ sheep. I’ve got to look out sharp, though, to see as we’re not surprised. Almost wish three or four would come now, so as I could have a set-to with ’em. That would wake me up, and no mistake.—Ah! it’s wonderful what one can see with a bit or two o’ glass set in a brown thing like this.—Ah! there it is again.”
Gedge lowered the glass and started violently, for the feeling of sleep was now overmastering.
“Nearly dropped and smashed his glass,” he said petulantly, and, laying down his rifle, he closed the little lorgnette slowly and carefully with half-numbed fingers, which fumbled about the instrument feebly.
“He’d ha’—he’d ha’—fine—tongue-thrashing when he woke—foun’ glass—smashed.”
Gedge sank upon his knees and bent over the sleeper, fumbling for the strap and case to replace the glass.
“Where ha’ you got to?” he muttered. “What yer swinging about half a mile away for? Ah! that’s got yer,” he went on, aiming at the case with a strange fixity of expression. “Now then—the lid—the lid—and the strap through the buckle, and the buckle—done it—me go to sleep—on dooty, Sergeant? Not me!—I—I—ha-h-h!”
Poor Gedge was only human, and his drowsy head sank across Bracy’s breast, so wrapped in sleep that the firing of a rifle by his ear would hardly have roused him up.
Chapter Thirty Three.Like a Dying Dog.The sun was rapidly going down towards the western peaks, which stood out dark and clear against the golden orange sky, when Gedge opened his eyes and began to stare in a vacant way at a little peculiarly shaded brown leather case which rose and fell in regular motion a few inches from his nose. He watched it for some minutes, feeling very comfortable the while, for his pillow was warm; though it seemed strange to him that it should move gently up and down. But he grew more wakeful a minute later, and told himself that he knew why it was. He and two London companions had made up their minds to tramp down into Kent for a holiday, and to go hop-picking, and they slept under haystacks, in barns, or in the shade of trees; and at such times as the nights were cool and they had no covering they huddled together to get warm, taking in turns that one of the party should lie crosswise and play pillow for the benefit of his two companions.It was one of his comrades that time, and the sun was rising, so they ought to be stirring to see about, something for breakfast. But in his drowsy state he could not make out that this was six years ago, nor yet what this brown leather thing was which kept going up and down.Then all at once he could. It was not six years ago, neither was it early morning, but close upon sunset; that movement was caused by Bracy’s respirations, and the brown leather case contained the little field-glass; while the well-drilled soldier, and one of the smartest lads in Captain Roberts’s company, had shamefully disgraced himself by going to sleep at his post.Before he had half-thought this he was upon his feet, to stoop again and pick up his rifle, and then begin stamping up and down with rage.“Oh!” he groaned; “I ought to be shot—I ought to be shot! Why, the niggers might ha’ come and knifed Mr Bracy as he lay there helpless as a kid, and all through me. Slep’? Why, I must ha’ slep’ hours upon hours. What’s the good o’ saying you couldn’t help it, sir? You ought to have helped it. Call yourself a soldier, and go to sleep at your post in the face of the enemy! That’s what the Colonel will say. I can’t never face no one agen. I shall desert; that’s what I shall do—cut right away and jyne the rebels if they’ll have me. Better go and jump down into that hole and bury myself in the snow; but I can’t.“How am I to go and leave the gov’nor when he wants me as he does? Oh dear, oh dear! This is the worst of all. And I was hoping that I should have my stripes when I got back to the fort. Yes, that’s it—stripes. I shall get ’em, o’ course, but on my back instead of my sleeve. There, I’m a marked man now, and it’s about all over.”Gedge grew calmer as he went, on pacing up and down, for he stopped twice over by Bracy, to find that he was sleeping as quietly as a child, and he evidently had not stirred. The young soldier’s next act was to get possession of the little field-glass again, and, to his dismay, he made out no less than three bodies of men in the valley far below, one of which was streaming along as if marching quickly, while the other two were stationary, close up to a little clump of pines or cedars, he could not make out which.“T’others are going to ketch up to ’em and camp for the night, I bet. Yes, that they are,” he added as a tiny cloud of grey smoke began to rise. “They’re going to cook, so they must have something to roast, and I’m—oh, how hungry I do feel! Better not hold up this rifle, or they may see it in the sunshine, and come and cook us.”He had a good long look, swept the valley as far as he could see, and then laid down his rifle, to go down on one knee by Bracy and begin replacing the glass in its leather case.“It’s all right, sir; on’y me,” cried Gedge, for, awakened by the light touch, Bracy seized one hand and made an effort to pull out his revolver.“Ha!” he cried. “You startled me, Gedge. Want the glass?”“Had it, sir, thank ye.”“See anything?”“Yes, sir. There’s three lots o’ them Dwats down low there—six or seven hundred of ’em, I should say.”“Ah!” cried Bracy, rising quickly into a sitting position, but yielding to an agonising pain and letting himself sink back with a groan.“Hurt yer, sir?” said Gedge commiseratingly.“Horribly. But tell me; have I been asleep?”“Hours and hours, sir. It’s just sundown. I was in hopes you’d be better, sir.”“I am, Gedge. I was in a horrible state before. My brain seemed numbed.”“No wonder, sir, lying in the snow all night; but you talk quite straight now.”“Did I seem incoherent before?” said Bracy excitedly.“Well, sir, I don’t say you was ink-o—what you call it: but you was a bit touched in the upper story; and that was only nat’ral, sir.”“Tell me about the enemy down below. Have they made us out?”“I think not, sir; but I must out with it, sir.”“Ah! there is danger?”“Oh no, sir, I don’t think so; but I can’t give much of a report, for I had to do sentry-go while you slep’, sir.”“Did you? Well, you’re a good fellow, Gedge.”“Not a bit of it, sir. There, it must come to the top. I’d rather tell you than you should find it out, sir. I held up as long as I could, and kep’ going to sleep walking or standing still; and at last, after getting out your glass, I knelt down to put it back, and down I went right off to sleep, just as if some one had hit me on the head with the butt of his piece.”“I’m glad of it, Gedge,” said Bracy, smiling.“Glad of it, sir?” said the lad, staring.“Heartily. It was the only thing you could do after what you had gone through.”“Beg pardon, sir, but as a soldier—” began Gedge.“Soldiers cannot do impossibilities, my lad. I have all the will and spirit to get on to the Ghil Valley, and yet here I am with my urgent message undelivered, and lying sleeping the greater part of a day.”“Oh, that’s different, sir. You’re sorter like being in hospital and wounded.”“If not wounded, Gedge,” said Bracy sadly, “I am crippled.”“Don’t say that, sir,” cried the lad excitedly. “I thought you said there was nothing broke.”“I did not think so then, my lad, but there is something wrong with my right leg.”“Amb’lance dooty—first help,” said Gedge quickly. “Let’s look, sir.”Bracy bowed his head, and the young soldier ran his hand down the puttee bandage about his officer’s leg, and drew in his breath sharply.“Well,” said Bracy faintly, “what do you make out?”“Leg’s not broke, sir, but there’s something awfully wrong with the ankle. It’s all puffed up as big as my ’elmet.”“I was afraid so. Here, help me to stand up.”“Better not, sir,” protested Gedge.“Obey orders, my lad,” said Bracy softly, and with a smile at his attendant. “You’re not the Doctor.”“No, sir, but—”“Your hands.”Gedge extended his hands, and by their help Bracy rose, to stand on one leg, the other hanging perfectly helpless, with the toes touching the rock.“Help—me—” said Bracy faintly, and he made a snatch at Gedge, who was on the alert and caught him round the waist, just in time to save him from a fall.The next moment he had fainted dead away, to come-to in a few minutes and find his companion laying snow upon his temples.“Ah!” he sighed; “that’s refreshing, Gedge.”“Have a bit to suck, sir?”“Yes.”Bracy lay for a few minutes letting the snow melt in his mouth; then calmly enough he went on:“I’ve got a bad wrench, my lad. My ankle must have doubled under me when I fell. There’s no help for it; we have had nothing but misfortunes from the start, but this is the culmination—the worst of all.”“Is it, sir? I’m glad o’ that.”“Glad?”“Yes, sir; ’cause, you see, when things comes to the worst they begins to mend. So will your leg if you let me get the puttee and boot off. If you don’t I shall be ’bliged to cut it off before long.”“Go on; you’re quite right, my lad,” said Bracy calmly; and as the young soldier eagerly busied himself over the frightfully swollen place, unwinding the bandages, which cut down into the flesh, and unlacing the boot, he went on talking calmly:“About this boot, sir; I’ve unlaced it as far as I can, and it’s quite fast on. Shall I cut it or will you try and bear a wrench?”“Don’t cut it, my lad. Give a quiet, firm drag. I’ll bear the pain as well as I can.”The next moment the boot was off, and Bracy lay with his eyes closed.“Like some more ice, sir?” said Gedge eagerly.“No, my lad; I’m not going to faint this time. Got some snow, and take my handkerchief to bind some round the ankle. But look first whether you can make out any movement amongst the enemy.”“It’s getting dark down there, sir, though it’s so bright up here, and the great long shadders of the mountain seems to have swallered ’em up. But they’ve got a whacking great fire, sir, so they must be going to camp there for the night.”“I don’t think they could have made us out, Gedge.—Ha! that feels comforting. But now listen to me.”“Yus, sir. I may go on doing up your leg, though?”“Oh yes; only attend.”“Of course, sir.”“You can tell the Ghoorkha Colonel—”“Yes, sir?” said Gedge, for Bracy stopped short.—“He’s going off his head again.”“And Colonel Graves, if you get back—”“Yus, sir.”“That I did everything that man could do to reach the Ghil Valley.”“That I’ll swear, sir.”“And that he must lose no time in hurrying to the fort. If he likes to detach half a company to try and pick me up, he will do so; but the fort is to be the first consideration. Do you hear?”“Yus, sir.—Oh yus, I hears,” said Gedge through his teeth as, with the help of Mrs Gee’s pocket-book packet, he put some oil-silk over the snow, and then applied the broadest bandage he could find cleverly enough.“That’s right. I’m a bit of a coward, Gedge,” continued the poor fellow, with a smile.“Yes, sir, you are, sir,” said Gedge; “an out-and-outer.”“And I want to have as little pain to bear as I can while you’re gone.”“Course you do, sir. That’s why I’m doing this.”“Make haste, while the light lasts. I want you then to take the rest of the food and put it in your own haversack.”“Yes, sir; not inside?”“To use as sparingly as you can, so as to make it last till you reach the Ghil Valley. I have broken down, Gedge, but you must get there. Do you hear?—must.”“Yes, sir, I hear—must.”“It means salvation for the poor creatures yonder, holding out their hands to us for help.”“Yes, sir.—But a deal you can see that,” muttered Gedge.“And it means a sergeant’s stripes for the brave lad who took the message in the terrible emergency.”“Sergeant, sir? As big a man as old Gee?”“Yes; and as good a non-commissioned officer, and I hope a more popular man.”“Rigid, sir. That sounds good,” cried Gedge cheerily. “But about you, sir? If you get the ridgement o’ little chaps and saves the fort, it means your company, don’t it—Captain?”Bracy groaned.“I was not striving for promotion, Gedge, but to save our fellow-countrymen and women yonder. But listen: in case I faint again—give me a scrap or two more snow, my lad.”He took and sucked the icy particles handed to him, and felt refreshed.“Now, then,” he said; “listen once more, and be quick. Just tie that bandage, and then put the food together. I am not going to load you with instructions which you may not be able to carry out, but look yonder—there is the top of the mountain you have to skirt, shining bright and hopefully in the distance.”“I can see it, sir.”“That is your guide. Once you compass that the way will be easier.”“Yes, sir. When ought I to start?”“To-night, man, as soon as the sun is down; therefore, mark well where the bright peak lies, so as to take your bearings. The enemy’s fire will enable you to avoid that danger. Quick; there is no time to spare; and remember—you must get there.”“Yes, sir; I won’t forget.”“Leave me some cartridges to defend myself, if I can. It would be more like a soldier to die like that.”“Yes, sir, o’ course; more English and plucky,” said Gedge, giving the last bandage its final knot, and then opening his haversack to take out what it contained and divide it.“What are you doing?” said Bracy sharply.“Getting your supper ready, sir, and mine,” said the lad coldly.Bracy tried to raise himself up in the fit of anger which attacked him, but fell back with a groan. Fighting back the sensation of weakness, though, he spoke as firmly as he could.“I want no food,” he said quietly, “and you are wasting time. A good twenty-four hours have been lost. Go at once.”“But you must eat something, sir,” said Gedge stubbornly. “There’s the cold coming on awful now the sun’s down, and it will keep it out.”“Those poor creatures at the fort are waiting and praying for help to come, while the hungry wolves of Dwats are crowding closer and closer in ready for the massacre.”“Yes, sir—the beasts!—it’s precious hard, but let’s hope—”“There is no hope, Gedge. It was the last card the Colonel had to play in sending us, and we must not fail. You must go at once.”“But I aren’t had nothing to-day, sir,” pleaded Gedge, “and my inside’s going mad. Wolves? Why, I feel just as if one was tearing me.”“Take all the provisions left, and eat as you go.”“And what about you, sir?”“Never mind me. Go at once.”“But it’ll be dark as pitch in ’alf-a-hour, sir. How am I to see my way?”“I told you. The descent will be easy. You can almost slide down all the way, for the snow is getting glassy again, and you must guide yourself by leaving the enemy’s fire on the right. Look! it is glowing brightly now.”“That’s right, sir, till I get to the bottom. But what then?”“Gedge, are you going to fail me in this terrible emergency?”“Not me, sir,” cried the lad excitedly. “I’ll stick to you till we both goes under fighting to the last, for they don’t want to make prisoners of us; their knives are too sharp.”“Then go.”“But I’m sure I couldn’t find the way, sir. I should be taking the first turning to the left, or else to the right, or tumbling into another hole like this, or doing some stoopid thing. I’m no use, sir, without my orficer to tell me what to do.”Bracy drew a deep breath and pressed his lips together, as he fought hard to keep down his anger against his follower.“I have told you what to do,” he said at last quite calmly. “You must use your brains.”“Never had much, sir,” replied Gedge bitterly; “and now they’re about froze up with cold and hungriness and trouble. I ain’t fit to send on such a job as this, sir. I’m sure to muff it.”“Do you want to find out some day, my lad, that those poor comrades of ours have been massacred to a man through your hanging back from doing what might have saved them?”“I wish I may die if I do, sir!” cried Gedge passionately.“Then go.”“But I’m cold and hungry, sir, and it’s getting dark, and I don’t know my way.”“Crush those feelings down like a hero, and go.”“Hero, sir? Me a hero!” cried Gedge bitterly. “Oh? there’s none of that stuff in me.”There was just enough light reflected from the upper peaks to enable the couple to see each other’s faces—the one frowning and angry, and belying the calm, stern fixedness into which it had been forced; the other wild, anxious, and with the nerves twitching sharply at the corners of the eyes and mouth, as if its owner were grimacing in mockery of the young officer’s helplessness and suffering.“Gedge,” said Bracy suddenly, after making an effort as if to swallow down the rage and despair from which he suffered.“Yes, sir, I know what you’re going to say; but you’re awful bad. Now, you have a bit to eat, and then go to sleep, and when you wake up let’s see if I can’t manage to get you on one of those flat bits o’ slaty stone, and then I’ll get a strap to it, and pull you down the slope—you’ll quite slide like—and when we’re off the snow I’ll pig-a-back you to the first wood, and we’ll hide there, and I’ll keep helping you on a bit till we get to this here Jack-and-Jill Valley. You see, the job can’t be done without you.”“This is all shuffling and scheming, Gedge, to escape doing your duty,” said Bracy sternly.“Is it, sir?” said the lad, with an assumption of innocence.“You know it is, sir. You don’t want to go?”“Well, sir, I suppose that is about the size of it.”“Do you want me to look upon you as a contemptible cur?” said Bracy, flashing out into anger now.“No, sir; o’ course not.”“I see how it is. I’ve been believing you to be all that is manly and true, while all the time I’ve been labouring under a gross mistake, for now you are put to the test you are only base metal. Go; leave me. Gedge, you are a miserable, contemptible coward after all.”“Yes, sir; that’s it, sir,” said the lad bitterly; “bit o’ common brass as got into the service, and you orficers and old Gee and the rest of you drilled up and polished and dressed up and put some gilt on; but when yer comes to rub it off, I’m on’y a bit o’ brass after all.”“Yes, you know exactly—coward!—dog!”“Don’t, sir!” cried the poor fellow in a choking voice; “don’t! It’s like laying it on to a chap with a wire whip.”“Then do your duty. Go.”“I can’t, sir; I can’t,” cried the lad, literally writhing, as if the blows were falling upon his back and sides. “I dessay I am a coward, but I’d follow you anywheres, sir, if the bullets was whistling round us, and them devils were waiting for us with their knives; but I can’t go and leave you now, sir. You ain’t fit to leave. It’d be like killing you—murdering of you, sir, with the cold and starvation.”“It is your duty to go.”“But you don’t know how bad you are, sir,” pleaded the lad, with the great sobs struggling to escape from his breast. “You don’t know, sir; but I do, sir. You’d be frozen stiff before it was light again.”“Perhaps; but I should die knowing that an effort was being made to save those we have left behind.”“You’ve done all you can do, sir,” pleaded Gedge passionately. “We can’t do no more.”“I can’t, but you can. I call upon you once more to go and do this thing. If you have any manhood in you, go.”“I can’t, sir,” groaned Gedge.“You coward!—it’s your duty to go.”“It ain’t, sir; it can’t be, to leave my orficer to die like this. I know it can’t. Why, if I did, and got the help, and took the men back, and the Colonel got to know how, he’d think it warn’t worth getting it at such a price. He’d call me a cowardly dog and a hound, and the lads would groan and spit at me. Why, they’d cob me when they got me alone, and I couldn’t say a word, because I should feel, as I always should to the last day I lived, that I’d been a miserable sneak.”“I tell you it is your duty, my man,” cried Bracy again.“Don’t send me, sir! I ain’t afraid,” pleaded Gedge once more. “It’s leaving you to die in the cold and dark. I can’t go!—I can’t go!”Bracy struggled up at this, supporting himself with his left hand, moved now as he was by his companion’s devotion; but he choked down all he longed to say in the one supreme effort he was making to fulfil the mission he had failed in by another hand.“I am your officer, sir. You are a soldier, sworn to serve your country and your Queen.”Gedge looked down at the speaker through the gloom, and saw him fumbling beneath his sheepskin coat with his right hand. The next minute he had drawn his revolver, and Gedge heard it click.“You hear me, sir?” cried Bracy sternly.“Yes, sir, I hear.”“Then obey your officer’s orders.”“You ain’t an officer now, sir; you’re a patient waiting to be carried to the rear, after going down in front.”“How dare you!” cried Bracy fiercely. “Obey my orders.”“They ain’t your orders, and it ain’t my dooty to obey a poor fellow as has gone stick stark raving mad.”“Obey my orders, dog, or—”“I won’t!” cried Gedge passionately. “I’ll be drummed out if I do.”“You dog!” roared Bracy, and the pistol clicked.“Shoot me, then, for a dog,” cried Gedge passionately, “and if I can I’ll try to lick yer hand, but I won’t leave you now.”The pistol fell with a dull sound as Bracy sank back, and in that terrible darkness and silence, amid the icy snow, a hoarse groan seemed to tear its way from the young officer’s breast.
The sun was rapidly going down towards the western peaks, which stood out dark and clear against the golden orange sky, when Gedge opened his eyes and began to stare in a vacant way at a little peculiarly shaded brown leather case which rose and fell in regular motion a few inches from his nose. He watched it for some minutes, feeling very comfortable the while, for his pillow was warm; though it seemed strange to him that it should move gently up and down. But he grew more wakeful a minute later, and told himself that he knew why it was. He and two London companions had made up their minds to tramp down into Kent for a holiday, and to go hop-picking, and they slept under haystacks, in barns, or in the shade of trees; and at such times as the nights were cool and they had no covering they huddled together to get warm, taking in turns that one of the party should lie crosswise and play pillow for the benefit of his two companions.
It was one of his comrades that time, and the sun was rising, so they ought to be stirring to see about, something for breakfast. But in his drowsy state he could not make out that this was six years ago, nor yet what this brown leather thing was which kept going up and down.
Then all at once he could. It was not six years ago, neither was it early morning, but close upon sunset; that movement was caused by Bracy’s respirations, and the brown leather case contained the little field-glass; while the well-drilled soldier, and one of the smartest lads in Captain Roberts’s company, had shamefully disgraced himself by going to sleep at his post.
Before he had half-thought this he was upon his feet, to stoop again and pick up his rifle, and then begin stamping up and down with rage.
“Oh!” he groaned; “I ought to be shot—I ought to be shot! Why, the niggers might ha’ come and knifed Mr Bracy as he lay there helpless as a kid, and all through me. Slep’? Why, I must ha’ slep’ hours upon hours. What’s the good o’ saying you couldn’t help it, sir? You ought to have helped it. Call yourself a soldier, and go to sleep at your post in the face of the enemy! That’s what the Colonel will say. I can’t never face no one agen. I shall desert; that’s what I shall do—cut right away and jyne the rebels if they’ll have me. Better go and jump down into that hole and bury myself in the snow; but I can’t.
“How am I to go and leave the gov’nor when he wants me as he does? Oh dear, oh dear! This is the worst of all. And I was hoping that I should have my stripes when I got back to the fort. Yes, that’s it—stripes. I shall get ’em, o’ course, but on my back instead of my sleeve. There, I’m a marked man now, and it’s about all over.”
Gedge grew calmer as he went, on pacing up and down, for he stopped twice over by Bracy, to find that he was sleeping as quietly as a child, and he evidently had not stirred. The young soldier’s next act was to get possession of the little field-glass again, and, to his dismay, he made out no less than three bodies of men in the valley far below, one of which was streaming along as if marching quickly, while the other two were stationary, close up to a little clump of pines or cedars, he could not make out which.
“T’others are going to ketch up to ’em and camp for the night, I bet. Yes, that they are,” he added as a tiny cloud of grey smoke began to rise. “They’re going to cook, so they must have something to roast, and I’m—oh, how hungry I do feel! Better not hold up this rifle, or they may see it in the sunshine, and come and cook us.”
He had a good long look, swept the valley as far as he could see, and then laid down his rifle, to go down on one knee by Bracy and begin replacing the glass in its leather case.
“It’s all right, sir; on’y me,” cried Gedge, for, awakened by the light touch, Bracy seized one hand and made an effort to pull out his revolver.
“Ha!” he cried. “You startled me, Gedge. Want the glass?”
“Had it, sir, thank ye.”
“See anything?”
“Yes, sir. There’s three lots o’ them Dwats down low there—six or seven hundred of ’em, I should say.”
“Ah!” cried Bracy, rising quickly into a sitting position, but yielding to an agonising pain and letting himself sink back with a groan.
“Hurt yer, sir?” said Gedge commiseratingly.
“Horribly. But tell me; have I been asleep?”
“Hours and hours, sir. It’s just sundown. I was in hopes you’d be better, sir.”
“I am, Gedge. I was in a horrible state before. My brain seemed numbed.”
“No wonder, sir, lying in the snow all night; but you talk quite straight now.”
“Did I seem incoherent before?” said Bracy excitedly.
“Well, sir, I don’t say you was ink-o—what you call it: but you was a bit touched in the upper story; and that was only nat’ral, sir.”
“Tell me about the enemy down below. Have they made us out?”
“I think not, sir; but I must out with it, sir.”
“Ah! there is danger?”
“Oh no, sir, I don’t think so; but I can’t give much of a report, for I had to do sentry-go while you slep’, sir.”
“Did you? Well, you’re a good fellow, Gedge.”
“Not a bit of it, sir. There, it must come to the top. I’d rather tell you than you should find it out, sir. I held up as long as I could, and kep’ going to sleep walking or standing still; and at last, after getting out your glass, I knelt down to put it back, and down I went right off to sleep, just as if some one had hit me on the head with the butt of his piece.”
“I’m glad of it, Gedge,” said Bracy, smiling.
“Glad of it, sir?” said the lad, staring.
“Heartily. It was the only thing you could do after what you had gone through.”
“Beg pardon, sir, but as a soldier—” began Gedge.
“Soldiers cannot do impossibilities, my lad. I have all the will and spirit to get on to the Ghil Valley, and yet here I am with my urgent message undelivered, and lying sleeping the greater part of a day.”
“Oh, that’s different, sir. You’re sorter like being in hospital and wounded.”
“If not wounded, Gedge,” said Bracy sadly, “I am crippled.”
“Don’t say that, sir,” cried the lad excitedly. “I thought you said there was nothing broke.”
“I did not think so then, my lad, but there is something wrong with my right leg.”
“Amb’lance dooty—first help,” said Gedge quickly. “Let’s look, sir.”
Bracy bowed his head, and the young soldier ran his hand down the puttee bandage about his officer’s leg, and drew in his breath sharply.
“Well,” said Bracy faintly, “what do you make out?”
“Leg’s not broke, sir, but there’s something awfully wrong with the ankle. It’s all puffed up as big as my ’elmet.”
“I was afraid so. Here, help me to stand up.”
“Better not, sir,” protested Gedge.
“Obey orders, my lad,” said Bracy softly, and with a smile at his attendant. “You’re not the Doctor.”
“No, sir, but—”
“Your hands.”
Gedge extended his hands, and by their help Bracy rose, to stand on one leg, the other hanging perfectly helpless, with the toes touching the rock.
“Help—me—” said Bracy faintly, and he made a snatch at Gedge, who was on the alert and caught him round the waist, just in time to save him from a fall.
The next moment he had fainted dead away, to come-to in a few minutes and find his companion laying snow upon his temples.
“Ah!” he sighed; “that’s refreshing, Gedge.”
“Have a bit to suck, sir?”
“Yes.”
Bracy lay for a few minutes letting the snow melt in his mouth; then calmly enough he went on:
“I’ve got a bad wrench, my lad. My ankle must have doubled under me when I fell. There’s no help for it; we have had nothing but misfortunes from the start, but this is the culmination—the worst of all.”
“Is it, sir? I’m glad o’ that.”
“Glad?”
“Yes, sir; ’cause, you see, when things comes to the worst they begins to mend. So will your leg if you let me get the puttee and boot off. If you don’t I shall be ’bliged to cut it off before long.”
“Go on; you’re quite right, my lad,” said Bracy calmly; and as the young soldier eagerly busied himself over the frightfully swollen place, unwinding the bandages, which cut down into the flesh, and unlacing the boot, he went on talking calmly:
“About this boot, sir; I’ve unlaced it as far as I can, and it’s quite fast on. Shall I cut it or will you try and bear a wrench?”
“Don’t cut it, my lad. Give a quiet, firm drag. I’ll bear the pain as well as I can.”
The next moment the boot was off, and Bracy lay with his eyes closed.
“Like some more ice, sir?” said Gedge eagerly.
“No, my lad; I’m not going to faint this time. Got some snow, and take my handkerchief to bind some round the ankle. But look first whether you can make out any movement amongst the enemy.”
“It’s getting dark down there, sir, though it’s so bright up here, and the great long shadders of the mountain seems to have swallered ’em up. But they’ve got a whacking great fire, sir, so they must be going to camp there for the night.”
“I don’t think they could have made us out, Gedge.—Ha! that feels comforting. But now listen to me.”
“Yus, sir. I may go on doing up your leg, though?”
“Oh yes; only attend.”
“Of course, sir.”
“You can tell the Ghoorkha Colonel—”
“Yes, sir?” said Gedge, for Bracy stopped short.—“He’s going off his head again.”
“And Colonel Graves, if you get back—”
“Yus, sir.”
“That I did everything that man could do to reach the Ghil Valley.”
“That I’ll swear, sir.”
“And that he must lose no time in hurrying to the fort. If he likes to detach half a company to try and pick me up, he will do so; but the fort is to be the first consideration. Do you hear?”
“Yus, sir.—Oh yus, I hears,” said Gedge through his teeth as, with the help of Mrs Gee’s pocket-book packet, he put some oil-silk over the snow, and then applied the broadest bandage he could find cleverly enough.
“That’s right. I’m a bit of a coward, Gedge,” continued the poor fellow, with a smile.
“Yes, sir, you are, sir,” said Gedge; “an out-and-outer.”
“And I want to have as little pain to bear as I can while you’re gone.”
“Course you do, sir. That’s why I’m doing this.”
“Make haste, while the light lasts. I want you then to take the rest of the food and put it in your own haversack.”
“Yes, sir; not inside?”
“To use as sparingly as you can, so as to make it last till you reach the Ghil Valley. I have broken down, Gedge, but you must get there. Do you hear?—must.”
“Yes, sir, I hear—must.”
“It means salvation for the poor creatures yonder, holding out their hands to us for help.”
“Yes, sir.—But a deal you can see that,” muttered Gedge.
“And it means a sergeant’s stripes for the brave lad who took the message in the terrible emergency.”
“Sergeant, sir? As big a man as old Gee?”
“Yes; and as good a non-commissioned officer, and I hope a more popular man.”
“Rigid, sir. That sounds good,” cried Gedge cheerily. “But about you, sir? If you get the ridgement o’ little chaps and saves the fort, it means your company, don’t it—Captain?”
Bracy groaned.
“I was not striving for promotion, Gedge, but to save our fellow-countrymen and women yonder. But listen: in case I faint again—give me a scrap or two more snow, my lad.”
He took and sucked the icy particles handed to him, and felt refreshed.
“Now, then,” he said; “listen once more, and be quick. Just tie that bandage, and then put the food together. I am not going to load you with instructions which you may not be able to carry out, but look yonder—there is the top of the mountain you have to skirt, shining bright and hopefully in the distance.”
“I can see it, sir.”
“That is your guide. Once you compass that the way will be easier.”
“Yes, sir. When ought I to start?”
“To-night, man, as soon as the sun is down; therefore, mark well where the bright peak lies, so as to take your bearings. The enemy’s fire will enable you to avoid that danger. Quick; there is no time to spare; and remember—you must get there.”
“Yes, sir; I won’t forget.”
“Leave me some cartridges to defend myself, if I can. It would be more like a soldier to die like that.”
“Yes, sir, o’ course; more English and plucky,” said Gedge, giving the last bandage its final knot, and then opening his haversack to take out what it contained and divide it.
“What are you doing?” said Bracy sharply.
“Getting your supper ready, sir, and mine,” said the lad coldly.
Bracy tried to raise himself up in the fit of anger which attacked him, but fell back with a groan. Fighting back the sensation of weakness, though, he spoke as firmly as he could.
“I want no food,” he said quietly, “and you are wasting time. A good twenty-four hours have been lost. Go at once.”
“But you must eat something, sir,” said Gedge stubbornly. “There’s the cold coming on awful now the sun’s down, and it will keep it out.”
“Those poor creatures at the fort are waiting and praying for help to come, while the hungry wolves of Dwats are crowding closer and closer in ready for the massacre.”
“Yes, sir—the beasts!—it’s precious hard, but let’s hope—”
“There is no hope, Gedge. It was the last card the Colonel had to play in sending us, and we must not fail. You must go at once.”
“But I aren’t had nothing to-day, sir,” pleaded Gedge, “and my inside’s going mad. Wolves? Why, I feel just as if one was tearing me.”
“Take all the provisions left, and eat as you go.”
“And what about you, sir?”
“Never mind me. Go at once.”
“But it’ll be dark as pitch in ’alf-a-hour, sir. How am I to see my way?”
“I told you. The descent will be easy. You can almost slide down all the way, for the snow is getting glassy again, and you must guide yourself by leaving the enemy’s fire on the right. Look! it is glowing brightly now.”
“That’s right, sir, till I get to the bottom. But what then?”
“Gedge, are you going to fail me in this terrible emergency?”
“Not me, sir,” cried the lad excitedly. “I’ll stick to you till we both goes under fighting to the last, for they don’t want to make prisoners of us; their knives are too sharp.”
“Then go.”
“But I’m sure I couldn’t find the way, sir. I should be taking the first turning to the left, or else to the right, or tumbling into another hole like this, or doing some stoopid thing. I’m no use, sir, without my orficer to tell me what to do.”
Bracy drew a deep breath and pressed his lips together, as he fought hard to keep down his anger against his follower.
“I have told you what to do,” he said at last quite calmly. “You must use your brains.”
“Never had much, sir,” replied Gedge bitterly; “and now they’re about froze up with cold and hungriness and trouble. I ain’t fit to send on such a job as this, sir. I’m sure to muff it.”
“Do you want to find out some day, my lad, that those poor comrades of ours have been massacred to a man through your hanging back from doing what might have saved them?”
“I wish I may die if I do, sir!” cried Gedge passionately.
“Then go.”
“But I’m cold and hungry, sir, and it’s getting dark, and I don’t know my way.”
“Crush those feelings down like a hero, and go.”
“Hero, sir? Me a hero!” cried Gedge bitterly. “Oh? there’s none of that stuff in me.”
There was just enough light reflected from the upper peaks to enable the couple to see each other’s faces—the one frowning and angry, and belying the calm, stern fixedness into which it had been forced; the other wild, anxious, and with the nerves twitching sharply at the corners of the eyes and mouth, as if its owner were grimacing in mockery of the young officer’s helplessness and suffering.
“Gedge,” said Bracy suddenly, after making an effort as if to swallow down the rage and despair from which he suffered.
“Yes, sir, I know what you’re going to say; but you’re awful bad. Now, you have a bit to eat, and then go to sleep, and when you wake up let’s see if I can’t manage to get you on one of those flat bits o’ slaty stone, and then I’ll get a strap to it, and pull you down the slope—you’ll quite slide like—and when we’re off the snow I’ll pig-a-back you to the first wood, and we’ll hide there, and I’ll keep helping you on a bit till we get to this here Jack-and-Jill Valley. You see, the job can’t be done without you.”
“This is all shuffling and scheming, Gedge, to escape doing your duty,” said Bracy sternly.
“Is it, sir?” said the lad, with an assumption of innocence.
“You know it is, sir. You don’t want to go?”
“Well, sir, I suppose that is about the size of it.”
“Do you want me to look upon you as a contemptible cur?” said Bracy, flashing out into anger now.
“No, sir; o’ course not.”
“I see how it is. I’ve been believing you to be all that is manly and true, while all the time I’ve been labouring under a gross mistake, for now you are put to the test you are only base metal. Go; leave me. Gedge, you are a miserable, contemptible coward after all.”
“Yes, sir; that’s it, sir,” said the lad bitterly; “bit o’ common brass as got into the service, and you orficers and old Gee and the rest of you drilled up and polished and dressed up and put some gilt on; but when yer comes to rub it off, I’m on’y a bit o’ brass after all.”
“Yes, you know exactly—coward!—dog!”
“Don’t, sir!” cried the poor fellow in a choking voice; “don’t! It’s like laying it on to a chap with a wire whip.”
“Then do your duty. Go.”
“I can’t, sir; I can’t,” cried the lad, literally writhing, as if the blows were falling upon his back and sides. “I dessay I am a coward, but I’d follow you anywheres, sir, if the bullets was whistling round us, and them devils were waiting for us with their knives; but I can’t go and leave you now, sir. You ain’t fit to leave. It’d be like killing you—murdering of you, sir, with the cold and starvation.”
“It is your duty to go.”
“But you don’t know how bad you are, sir,” pleaded the lad, with the great sobs struggling to escape from his breast. “You don’t know, sir; but I do, sir. You’d be frozen stiff before it was light again.”
“Perhaps; but I should die knowing that an effort was being made to save those we have left behind.”
“You’ve done all you can do, sir,” pleaded Gedge passionately. “We can’t do no more.”
“I can’t, but you can. I call upon you once more to go and do this thing. If you have any manhood in you, go.”
“I can’t, sir,” groaned Gedge.
“You coward!—it’s your duty to go.”
“It ain’t, sir; it can’t be, to leave my orficer to die like this. I know it can’t. Why, if I did, and got the help, and took the men back, and the Colonel got to know how, he’d think it warn’t worth getting it at such a price. He’d call me a cowardly dog and a hound, and the lads would groan and spit at me. Why, they’d cob me when they got me alone, and I couldn’t say a word, because I should feel, as I always should to the last day I lived, that I’d been a miserable sneak.”
“I tell you it is your duty, my man,” cried Bracy again.
“Don’t send me, sir! I ain’t afraid,” pleaded Gedge once more. “It’s leaving you to die in the cold and dark. I can’t go!—I can’t go!”
Bracy struggled up at this, supporting himself with his left hand, moved now as he was by his companion’s devotion; but he choked down all he longed to say in the one supreme effort he was making to fulfil the mission he had failed in by another hand.
“I am your officer, sir. You are a soldier, sworn to serve your country and your Queen.”
Gedge looked down at the speaker through the gloom, and saw him fumbling beneath his sheepskin coat with his right hand. The next minute he had drawn his revolver, and Gedge heard it click.
“You hear me, sir?” cried Bracy sternly.
“Yes, sir, I hear.”
“Then obey your officer’s orders.”
“You ain’t an officer now, sir; you’re a patient waiting to be carried to the rear, after going down in front.”
“How dare you!” cried Bracy fiercely. “Obey my orders.”
“They ain’t your orders, and it ain’t my dooty to obey a poor fellow as has gone stick stark raving mad.”
“Obey my orders, dog, or—”
“I won’t!” cried Gedge passionately. “I’ll be drummed out if I do.”
“You dog!” roared Bracy, and the pistol clicked.
“Shoot me, then, for a dog,” cried Gedge passionately, “and if I can I’ll try to lick yer hand, but I won’t leave you now.”
The pistol fell with a dull sound as Bracy sank back, and in that terrible darkness and silence, amid the icy snow, a hoarse groan seemed to tear its way from the young officer’s breast.
Chapter Thirty Four.A Wild Idea.How long that silence lasted neither could have afterwards said, but after a time Bracy felt a couple of hands busy drawing the spareposhtinmore about him. Then a face was placed close to his, and a hand touched his forehead softly. “I’m not asleep, Gedge,” he said. “Ha!” sighed the lad, with a long drawn breath: “getting afraid, sir; you lay so still.”“It’s all over, my man,” said Bracy wearily.“No, no; don’t say that, sir,” cried Gedge. “I was obliged to—”“Hush! I don’t mean that. I only feel now that I can sleep.”“Yes, sir; do, sir. Have a good try.”“I cannot while I know that I have your coat.”“Oh, I don’t mind, sir; and I’ve got to be sentry.”“We want no sentry here, my lad. Take the coat from under me.”“But—”“Come, obey me now,” said Bracy quietly. “Get close to me, then, and cover it over us both.”“You mean that, sir?”“Yes.—There, my lad, all men are equal at a time like this. I have striven to the last, but Fate has been against me from the first. I give up now.”“I didn’t want to run against you, sir; but I was obliged.”“Yes, I suppose so.”“You wouldn’t have gone and left me, sir?”“I don’t know,” said Bracy slowly.“I do, sir; I know you wouldn’t.”“Let it rest, my lad, and we’ll wait for day. God help the poor creatures at the fort, and God help us too!”“Amen!” said Gedge to himself; and as the warmth began to steal through his half-frozen limbs he lay gazing at the distant glow of the enemy’s fire far away below, till it grew more and more faint, and then seemed to die right out—seemed, for it was well replenished again and again through the night, and sent up flames and sparks as if to give a signal far away, for the supply of fir-branches was abundant, and the fire rose in spirals up into the frosty sky.Bracy too lay watching the distant blaze till it grew dim to his half-closed eyes. A calmer feeling of despair had come over him, and the feeling that he had done all that man could do softened the mental agony from which he had suffered. This was to be the end, he felt; and, if ever their remains were found, those who knew them would deal gently with their memory. For the inevitable future stared him blankly in the face. Gedge would strive his utmost to obtain help, but he felt that the poor fellow’s efforts would be in vain, and that, if they lived through the night, many hours would not elapse before they perished from hunger and the cold.The feeling of weary mental confusion that stole over him then was welcome; and, weak from the agony he had suffered, he made an effort to rouse himself from the torpor that, Nature-sent, was lulling the pangs in his injured limb, but let his eyelids droop lower and lower till the distant light was shut out, and then cold, misery, and despair passed away, for all was blank.The specks of golden light were beginning to show on the high peaks, and gradually grew brighter till it was sunny morning far up on the icy eminences, chilly dawn where the two sheepskin-covered figures lay prone, and night still where the fire was blazing by the pine-forest, and the great body of the enemy had bivouacked.The two motionless figures were covered by a thick rime frost, which looked grey in the dim light, not a crystal as yet sending off a scintillation; and tiny spicules of ice had matted the moustache and beard of Bracy where his breath had condensed during the night, sealing them to the woolly coverlet he had drawn up close; while a strange tingling sensation attacked his eyes as he opened them suddenly, waking from a morning dream of defending the fort and giving orders to his men, who fired volley after volley, which, dream-like, sounded far away.He was still half-asleep, but involuntarily he raised a warm hand to apply to his eyes. In a very few minutes they were clear, and he began breaking and picking off bit by bit the little icicles from his moustache.It was strange how it mingled still with his dreams—that firing of volleys; and the half-drowsy thoughts turned to wonder that there should be firing, for he must be awake. Directly after he knew he was, for there was a sharp rattle in the distance, which came rolling and echoing from the face of the great cliff across the gulf, and Gedge jerked himself and said sleepily:“That’s right, boys; let ’em have it.”“Gedge!” cried Bracy hoarsely.“Right, sir; I’m here,” was the answer; and the young soldier rolled over from beneath theposhtin, rose to his feet, staggered, and sat down again.“Oh, murder!” he cried. “My poor feet ain’t froze hard, are they?”“I pray not,” said Bracy excitedly.“’Cause I can’t stand. But, hallo! sir; what game’s this? They’re a-firing at us, and coming up over the snow.”“No, no, it can’t be!” cried Bracy wildly. “No tribes-men could fire volleys like that.”“Course not, sir. Hoorray! then the Colonel’s sent a couple o’ comp’nies to help us.”“Impossible!” cried Bracy. “Hark! there is the reply to the firing. Yes; and another volley. I almost thought I could see a flash.”“Did yer, sir? Oh, don’t talk; do listen, sir. There they go. There must be a big fight going on down there.”“Then friends have attacked the enemy in camp—advanced upon them so as to catch them before daylight.”“Oh! they might ha’ waited till it was light enough for us to see, sir. Mr Bracy, sir, don’t, pray don’t say it’s reg’lars, because if it ain’t I couldn’t stand it now. I should go down and blubber like a great gal.”“It is a force of regulars, my lad,” cried Bracy, whose voice sounded as if he were choking. “Friends are there below in the valley. I know: the Colonel must have been badly beaten at the fort.”“Oh, don’t say that, sir.”“It must be. They have been too much for him, and he is retreating with our lads trying to make for the Ghil Pass. That is the meaning of the gathering last night to bar their way.”“Oh Lor’! oh Lor’! and us not able to fire a shot to help ’em. Be any use to begin, sir, like for signals to show we’re here?”“No,” said Bracy sadly; “our single shots could not be heard.”“Not if we fired both together, sir?” cried Gedge wildly. “I’ll load for you.”“How could they distinguish between our shots and those of the enemy you can hear crackling?”“Course not, sir. I’m a poor idjit sometimes. But oh! why does it keep dark down there so long when it’s getting quite light up here? We can’t see what’s going on a bit.”“No; but my ears tell me pretty plainly,” said Bracy excitedly.“Mr Bracy, sir.”“Yes?”“We aren’t worse, are we, and all this a sort o’ nightmare before we loses ourselves altogether?”“No, man, no. Listen. They must be getting the worst of it.”“Our lads, sir? Oh, don’t say that! There must be a lot of them, by the volley-firing. Don’t say they’re being cut up.”“The enemy, man. Can’t you hear how steady the firing is?—Splendid. I can almost see them. The enemy must be retiring stubbornly, and they’re following them up.”“Yes, sir; that’s it,” cried Gedge wildly. “Go on, sir; go on.”“Their officers are holding the men well in hand, so as not to come to a charge in that broken country, and withering the crowd with their fire to make them scatter.”“Right, sir, right. That’s it. Oh, if we was only there!”There was a pause—the two men listening.“The enemy’s firing sounds more broken up, and is getting feebler.”“Yes, sir; I can make out that,” panted Gedge. “Oh! I say, don’t let the lads get out of hand and follow the beggars where they can get hold of the bay’nets and use their long knives.”For another half-hour the pair lay listening to the engagement going on, till it seemed as if the daylight below would never come. Then the darkness gave way, to display far below a cold grey mist, through which clouds of smoke were softly rising; and Bracy brought his glass to bear upon the fight still raging furiously, and looked in silence till Gedge turned to him:“Oh, do say something, sir! Our lads—they ain’t being cut up, sir, are they?”“No, no, I think not, my lad; but I can hardly make out what is going on at present. Ha! it’s gradually growing lighter there. The enemy are not where they were last night, and the troops are there.”“Then they’ve took the beggars’ camp, sir?”“That does not follow,” said Bracy, whose eyes were glued to his glass.—“I can make out the white-coats now. They have divided, and are upon the rising ground all round. Our poor fellows must have fallen into a trap.”“No, sir; no, sir, they couldn’t, sir,” cried Gedge; “they’d have seen that fire and known there was an enemy.”“Yes, I forgot the fire,” said Bracy. “Oh, if the sun would only shine down upon them now!”“But he won’t, sir; he never will when he’s wanted to. He won’t shine there for an hour yet.”“Yes—no—yes—no,” panted Bracy at slow intervals; and Gedge wrung his hands, like a woman in trouble, whimpering out:“Oh! who’s to know what that means, with his ‘Yes—no—yes—no’? Mr Bracy, sir, do—do say that our lads are whipping the beggars back.”“Yes,” cried Bracy excitedly; “I can see now; the hill-men are scattered and running towards the mountains.”“Hoorray!” yelled Gedge. “Hoorray! Hoorray! Hark at the steady volleys still, sir! Hoorray! Who wouldn’t be a soldier of the Queen?”“Ha! Who indeed?” sighed Bracy.“And it don’t matter, sir, now?” said Gedge.“No; not so much, my lad; but they’ll be harassed like this all the way to the Ghil Pass.”“And drive the beggars back, sir. But don’t you think we ought to make one try to get down to them, sir? Same as I said last night?”Bracy was silent as he kept on using his glass, with the valley below growing clearer—so light now that, the young soldier could begin to see something of the fight with the naked eye, and he joined in the eager watch downward for a time before repeating his question.“I fear not, my lad,” said Bracy, with a sigh. “The enemy are cut in two; one body is retreating down the valley in the direction of the fort; the other, widely scattered, is making for the snow-slope.”“Not coming this way, sir?” cried Gedge.“Yes, as far as I can see; and our men are steadily in pursuit, firing wherever a crowd collects.”“That’s the way to do it, sir; but that’s cutting off our retreat.”“Yes.”“Well, then, sir, we must lie low till the enemy is cleared off. They won’t come up here.”“No; they must be making for the track we crossed—the one below there, where we saw the men going towards the valley-bend.”“That’s it, sir, and they’ve got their work cut out; but our lads won’t follow ’em right up there.”“No; they will only follow till they have scattered them as far as possible.”“And then go back, sir, and leave us where we are.”“Yes,” said Bracy sadly.Gedge was silent for a few minutes, during which they still watched the scene below. Then he broke out with:“It’s all downhill, sir.”“Yes, Gedge,” said Bracy drearily; “it is all downhill now to the end.”“You ain’t listening to me, sir,” cried the lad. “Do put that glass away, sir, and we’ll have a try.”“A try? What! to get down below? You try, my lad; but there is the terrible risk of being cut to pieces by the enemy if they see you.”“Don’t begin that again, sir, please. You know I won’t leave you, but let’s have a try.”“I am helpless, my lad—as helpless as a figure half of lead.”“But I ain’t, sir,” cried Gedge. “The sight of our lads below there seems to ha’ woke me up. I’m ready to die game; but I want to make one spurt for life first.”“Why, Gedge,” cried Bracy excitedly as he lowered the glass from his eyes, “they’re not our fellows after all.”“What, sir!”“No; and there’s a detachment down yonder coming from the east. I can almost see that they’re doubling to get up in time.”“From the east, sir? Then the Colonel ain’t retreating?”“No.—Hurrah!”“Hoorray!” roared Gedge, joining in.“They’re the Ghoorkhas, Gedge. They must be a thousand strong.”“Then one o’ the messengers must ha’ got to them after all.”“Yes; that must be it, Gedge; and they surprised the enemy’s camp at dawn.”“That’s it, sir!” yelled Gedge. “Hoorray! hoorray again! Then there is life in a mussel after all.”“They’ve scattered this force, Gedge, and the fort will be relieved, for the bravo little fellows will cut their way through all.”“Yes, sir. Now then, sir, you needn’t hardly move. There’s a bit o’ slaty stone yonder as’ll do, and all I want of you, sir, is for yer to sit still upon it, and nuss the rifles while I steer you down to the truck.”“Right in among the enemy, my lad?”“Right through ’em, sir. They’re on the run, and won’t dare to stop to go at us. I never heard of a nigger as’d stand a moment when a Ghoorkha was coming after him with his crooked knife.”“Let’s try,” said Bracy, setting his teeth. “Life is sweet, my lad.”“Even without sugar, sir. Why, bless your ’eart! there’s a lot of it in us both yet, sir. This here’s nothing to what we’ve been and done.”Wild with excitement now, Gedge fetched the heavy slab of stone, almost as much as he could lift, drew it close up behind Bracy, and placed his arms under the young officer’s shoulders.“Now, sir,” he said, “you set your teeth just as if the doctor was going to use his knife.”“What are you going to do?”“Draw you right back on to this stone, sir. I must hurt you a bit, but I can’t help that.”“Go on,” said Bracy; and the next moment he was drawn back upon the stone, with no worse suffering than a fit of faintness, for his leg was numb with the cold.“Right, sir. Now your rifle and mine across your legs. Stop; myposhtinfirst. May want it again. Got the cartridges handy?”“Yes.”“Then I sits here between your legs, sir. Just room, and I can steer and put on the break with my heels. Ready, sir?”“Yes.”“Then off.”The surface of the snow was like glass with the night’s frost, and the stone began to glide at once, just as the first gleams of the rising sun lit up the spot where such terrible hours had been spent; and the next minute, with a strange, metallic, hissing sound, the pair were gliding down the slope at a steady rate, which Gedge felt it in his power to increase to a wild rush by raising his heels from the surface upon which they ran.“All right, sir?”“Yes, all right. Go on.”“Ain’t it wonderful, sir? Why, we can get down to the track long before any of them can get up to it.”“Stop, then, to let them reach it and retreat.”“If you order me to, sir, I will; but they’ll never try to stop us; they’ll scatter to see us coming down like this. Why, in less than an hour, sir, we shall be all among the Ghoorkha lads, and then hoorray for the fort!”“Go on, then. I trust to you.”“Right, sir,” cried Gedge excitedly; and in spite of several risks of overturning, he steered the novel toboggan sledge down the gigantic slide, with the wild, metallic, hissing sound rising and falling on the keen wind that fanned their cheeks, and a glistening prismatic, icy dust rising behind them like a snaky cloud.
How long that silence lasted neither could have afterwards said, but after a time Bracy felt a couple of hands busy drawing the spareposhtinmore about him. Then a face was placed close to his, and a hand touched his forehead softly. “I’m not asleep, Gedge,” he said. “Ha!” sighed the lad, with a long drawn breath: “getting afraid, sir; you lay so still.”
“It’s all over, my man,” said Bracy wearily.
“No, no; don’t say that, sir,” cried Gedge. “I was obliged to—”
“Hush! I don’t mean that. I only feel now that I can sleep.”
“Yes, sir; do, sir. Have a good try.”
“I cannot while I know that I have your coat.”
“Oh, I don’t mind, sir; and I’ve got to be sentry.”
“We want no sentry here, my lad. Take the coat from under me.”
“But—”
“Come, obey me now,” said Bracy quietly. “Get close to me, then, and cover it over us both.”
“You mean that, sir?”
“Yes.—There, my lad, all men are equal at a time like this. I have striven to the last, but Fate has been against me from the first. I give up now.”
“I didn’t want to run against you, sir; but I was obliged.”
“Yes, I suppose so.”
“You wouldn’t have gone and left me, sir?”
“I don’t know,” said Bracy slowly.
“I do, sir; I know you wouldn’t.”
“Let it rest, my lad, and we’ll wait for day. God help the poor creatures at the fort, and God help us too!”
“Amen!” said Gedge to himself; and as the warmth began to steal through his half-frozen limbs he lay gazing at the distant glow of the enemy’s fire far away below, till it grew more and more faint, and then seemed to die right out—seemed, for it was well replenished again and again through the night, and sent up flames and sparks as if to give a signal far away, for the supply of fir-branches was abundant, and the fire rose in spirals up into the frosty sky.
Bracy too lay watching the distant blaze till it grew dim to his half-closed eyes. A calmer feeling of despair had come over him, and the feeling that he had done all that man could do softened the mental agony from which he had suffered. This was to be the end, he felt; and, if ever their remains were found, those who knew them would deal gently with their memory. For the inevitable future stared him blankly in the face. Gedge would strive his utmost to obtain help, but he felt that the poor fellow’s efforts would be in vain, and that, if they lived through the night, many hours would not elapse before they perished from hunger and the cold.
The feeling of weary mental confusion that stole over him then was welcome; and, weak from the agony he had suffered, he made an effort to rouse himself from the torpor that, Nature-sent, was lulling the pangs in his injured limb, but let his eyelids droop lower and lower till the distant light was shut out, and then cold, misery, and despair passed away, for all was blank.
The specks of golden light were beginning to show on the high peaks, and gradually grew brighter till it was sunny morning far up on the icy eminences, chilly dawn where the two sheepskin-covered figures lay prone, and night still where the fire was blazing by the pine-forest, and the great body of the enemy had bivouacked.
The two motionless figures were covered by a thick rime frost, which looked grey in the dim light, not a crystal as yet sending off a scintillation; and tiny spicules of ice had matted the moustache and beard of Bracy where his breath had condensed during the night, sealing them to the woolly coverlet he had drawn up close; while a strange tingling sensation attacked his eyes as he opened them suddenly, waking from a morning dream of defending the fort and giving orders to his men, who fired volley after volley, which, dream-like, sounded far away.
He was still half-asleep, but involuntarily he raised a warm hand to apply to his eyes. In a very few minutes they were clear, and he began breaking and picking off bit by bit the little icicles from his moustache.
It was strange how it mingled still with his dreams—that firing of volleys; and the half-drowsy thoughts turned to wonder that there should be firing, for he must be awake. Directly after he knew he was, for there was a sharp rattle in the distance, which came rolling and echoing from the face of the great cliff across the gulf, and Gedge jerked himself and said sleepily:
“That’s right, boys; let ’em have it.”
“Gedge!” cried Bracy hoarsely.
“Right, sir; I’m here,” was the answer; and the young soldier rolled over from beneath theposhtin, rose to his feet, staggered, and sat down again.
“Oh, murder!” he cried. “My poor feet ain’t froze hard, are they?”
“I pray not,” said Bracy excitedly.
“’Cause I can’t stand. But, hallo! sir; what game’s this? They’re a-firing at us, and coming up over the snow.”
“No, no, it can’t be!” cried Bracy wildly. “No tribes-men could fire volleys like that.”
“Course not, sir. Hoorray! then the Colonel’s sent a couple o’ comp’nies to help us.”
“Impossible!” cried Bracy. “Hark! there is the reply to the firing. Yes; and another volley. I almost thought I could see a flash.”
“Did yer, sir? Oh, don’t talk; do listen, sir. There they go. There must be a big fight going on down there.”
“Then friends have attacked the enemy in camp—advanced upon them so as to catch them before daylight.”
“Oh! they might ha’ waited till it was light enough for us to see, sir. Mr Bracy, sir, don’t, pray don’t say it’s reg’lars, because if it ain’t I couldn’t stand it now. I should go down and blubber like a great gal.”
“It is a force of regulars, my lad,” cried Bracy, whose voice sounded as if he were choking. “Friends are there below in the valley. I know: the Colonel must have been badly beaten at the fort.”
“Oh, don’t say that, sir.”
“It must be. They have been too much for him, and he is retreating with our lads trying to make for the Ghil Pass. That is the meaning of the gathering last night to bar their way.”
“Oh Lor’! oh Lor’! and us not able to fire a shot to help ’em. Be any use to begin, sir, like for signals to show we’re here?”
“No,” said Bracy sadly; “our single shots could not be heard.”
“Not if we fired both together, sir?” cried Gedge wildly. “I’ll load for you.”
“How could they distinguish between our shots and those of the enemy you can hear crackling?”
“Course not, sir. I’m a poor idjit sometimes. But oh! why does it keep dark down there so long when it’s getting quite light up here? We can’t see what’s going on a bit.”
“No; but my ears tell me pretty plainly,” said Bracy excitedly.
“Mr Bracy, sir.”
“Yes?”
“We aren’t worse, are we, and all this a sort o’ nightmare before we loses ourselves altogether?”
“No, man, no. Listen. They must be getting the worst of it.”
“Our lads, sir? Oh, don’t say that! There must be a lot of them, by the volley-firing. Don’t say they’re being cut up.”
“The enemy, man. Can’t you hear how steady the firing is?—Splendid. I can almost see them. The enemy must be retiring stubbornly, and they’re following them up.”
“Yes, sir; that’s it,” cried Gedge wildly. “Go on, sir; go on.”
“Their officers are holding the men well in hand, so as not to come to a charge in that broken country, and withering the crowd with their fire to make them scatter.”
“Right, sir, right. That’s it. Oh, if we was only there!”
There was a pause—the two men listening.
“The enemy’s firing sounds more broken up, and is getting feebler.”
“Yes, sir; I can make out that,” panted Gedge. “Oh! I say, don’t let the lads get out of hand and follow the beggars where they can get hold of the bay’nets and use their long knives.”
For another half-hour the pair lay listening to the engagement going on, till it seemed as if the daylight below would never come. Then the darkness gave way, to display far below a cold grey mist, through which clouds of smoke were softly rising; and Bracy brought his glass to bear upon the fight still raging furiously, and looked in silence till Gedge turned to him:
“Oh, do say something, sir! Our lads—they ain’t being cut up, sir, are they?”
“No, no, I think not, my lad; but I can hardly make out what is going on at present. Ha! it’s gradually growing lighter there. The enemy are not where they were last night, and the troops are there.”
“Then they’ve took the beggars’ camp, sir?”
“That does not follow,” said Bracy, whose eyes were glued to his glass.—“I can make out the white-coats now. They have divided, and are upon the rising ground all round. Our poor fellows must have fallen into a trap.”
“No, sir; no, sir, they couldn’t, sir,” cried Gedge; “they’d have seen that fire and known there was an enemy.”
“Yes, I forgot the fire,” said Bracy. “Oh, if the sun would only shine down upon them now!”
“But he won’t, sir; he never will when he’s wanted to. He won’t shine there for an hour yet.”
“Yes—no—yes—no,” panted Bracy at slow intervals; and Gedge wrung his hands, like a woman in trouble, whimpering out:
“Oh! who’s to know what that means, with his ‘Yes—no—yes—no’? Mr Bracy, sir, do—do say that our lads are whipping the beggars back.”
“Yes,” cried Bracy excitedly; “I can see now; the hill-men are scattered and running towards the mountains.”
“Hoorray!” yelled Gedge. “Hoorray! Hoorray! Hark at the steady volleys still, sir! Hoorray! Who wouldn’t be a soldier of the Queen?”
“Ha! Who indeed?” sighed Bracy.
“And it don’t matter, sir, now?” said Gedge.
“No; not so much, my lad; but they’ll be harassed like this all the way to the Ghil Pass.”
“And drive the beggars back, sir. But don’t you think we ought to make one try to get down to them, sir? Same as I said last night?”
Bracy was silent as he kept on using his glass, with the valley below growing clearer—so light now that, the young soldier could begin to see something of the fight with the naked eye, and he joined in the eager watch downward for a time before repeating his question.
“I fear not, my lad,” said Bracy, with a sigh. “The enemy are cut in two; one body is retreating down the valley in the direction of the fort; the other, widely scattered, is making for the snow-slope.”
“Not coming this way, sir?” cried Gedge.
“Yes, as far as I can see; and our men are steadily in pursuit, firing wherever a crowd collects.”
“That’s the way to do it, sir; but that’s cutting off our retreat.”
“Yes.”
“Well, then, sir, we must lie low till the enemy is cleared off. They won’t come up here.”
“No; they must be making for the track we crossed—the one below there, where we saw the men going towards the valley-bend.”
“That’s it, sir, and they’ve got their work cut out; but our lads won’t follow ’em right up there.”
“No; they will only follow till they have scattered them as far as possible.”
“And then go back, sir, and leave us where we are.”
“Yes,” said Bracy sadly.
Gedge was silent for a few minutes, during which they still watched the scene below. Then he broke out with:
“It’s all downhill, sir.”
“Yes, Gedge,” said Bracy drearily; “it is all downhill now to the end.”
“You ain’t listening to me, sir,” cried the lad. “Do put that glass away, sir, and we’ll have a try.”
“A try? What! to get down below? You try, my lad; but there is the terrible risk of being cut to pieces by the enemy if they see you.”
“Don’t begin that again, sir, please. You know I won’t leave you, but let’s have a try.”
“I am helpless, my lad—as helpless as a figure half of lead.”
“But I ain’t, sir,” cried Gedge. “The sight of our lads below there seems to ha’ woke me up. I’m ready to die game; but I want to make one spurt for life first.”
“Why, Gedge,” cried Bracy excitedly as he lowered the glass from his eyes, “they’re not our fellows after all.”
“What, sir!”
“No; and there’s a detachment down yonder coming from the east. I can almost see that they’re doubling to get up in time.”
“From the east, sir? Then the Colonel ain’t retreating?”
“No.—Hurrah!”
“Hoorray!” roared Gedge, joining in.
“They’re the Ghoorkhas, Gedge. They must be a thousand strong.”
“Then one o’ the messengers must ha’ got to them after all.”
“Yes; that must be it, Gedge; and they surprised the enemy’s camp at dawn.”
“That’s it, sir!” yelled Gedge. “Hoorray! hoorray again! Then there is life in a mussel after all.”
“They’ve scattered this force, Gedge, and the fort will be relieved, for the bravo little fellows will cut their way through all.”
“Yes, sir. Now then, sir, you needn’t hardly move. There’s a bit o’ slaty stone yonder as’ll do, and all I want of you, sir, is for yer to sit still upon it, and nuss the rifles while I steer you down to the truck.”
“Right in among the enemy, my lad?”
“Right through ’em, sir. They’re on the run, and won’t dare to stop to go at us. I never heard of a nigger as’d stand a moment when a Ghoorkha was coming after him with his crooked knife.”
“Let’s try,” said Bracy, setting his teeth. “Life is sweet, my lad.”
“Even without sugar, sir. Why, bless your ’eart! there’s a lot of it in us both yet, sir. This here’s nothing to what we’ve been and done.”
Wild with excitement now, Gedge fetched the heavy slab of stone, almost as much as he could lift, drew it close up behind Bracy, and placed his arms under the young officer’s shoulders.
“Now, sir,” he said, “you set your teeth just as if the doctor was going to use his knife.”
“What are you going to do?”
“Draw you right back on to this stone, sir. I must hurt you a bit, but I can’t help that.”
“Go on,” said Bracy; and the next moment he was drawn back upon the stone, with no worse suffering than a fit of faintness, for his leg was numb with the cold.
“Right, sir. Now your rifle and mine across your legs. Stop; myposhtinfirst. May want it again. Got the cartridges handy?”
“Yes.”
“Then I sits here between your legs, sir. Just room, and I can steer and put on the break with my heels. Ready, sir?”
“Yes.”
“Then off.”
The surface of the snow was like glass with the night’s frost, and the stone began to glide at once, just as the first gleams of the rising sun lit up the spot where such terrible hours had been spent; and the next minute, with a strange, metallic, hissing sound, the pair were gliding down the slope at a steady rate, which Gedge felt it in his power to increase to a wild rush by raising his heels from the surface upon which they ran.
“All right, sir?”
“Yes, all right. Go on.”
“Ain’t it wonderful, sir? Why, we can get down to the track long before any of them can get up to it.”
“Stop, then, to let them reach it and retreat.”
“If you order me to, sir, I will; but they’ll never try to stop us; they’ll scatter to see us coming down like this. Why, in less than an hour, sir, we shall be all among the Ghoorkha lads, and then hoorray for the fort!”
“Go on, then. I trust to you.”
“Right, sir,” cried Gedge excitedly; and in spite of several risks of overturning, he steered the novel toboggan sledge down the gigantic slide, with the wild, metallic, hissing sound rising and falling on the keen wind that fanned their cheeks, and a glistening prismatic, icy dust rising behind them like a snaky cloud.