“Some one who is not girlish now”
It was only yesterday that I saw her. It happened that the string of carriages was stopped at that moment, and I went to the door of her comfortable-looking barouche.
“Do you ever feel that shoulder,” I asked, raising my hat, “at the changes of the weather, or when it is damp?”
She turned and looked at me in surprise. Her face had altered little. It was the face of a happy woman, despite a few lines, which were not the marks left by a life of gaiety and dissipation. They were not quite the lines that Time had drawn on the faces of the women in the carriages around her. In some ways she looked younger than most of them, and her eyes had an expression which was lacking in the gas-wearied orbs of her fashionable sisters. It was the shadowy reflection of things seen.
She looked into my face—noting the wear and tear that life had left there. Then suddenly she smiled and held out her hand.
“You!” she said. “You—how strange!”
She blushed suddenly and laughed with a pretty air of embarrassment which was startlingly youthful.
“No,” she went on, in answer to my question; “I never feel that shoulder now—thanks to you.”
There were a number of questions I wanted to ask her. But I had fallen into a habit, years ago, of restraining that inexpedient desire; and she did not seem to expect interrogation. Besides, I could see many answers in her face.
“You limped just now,” she said, leaning towards me with a little grave air of sympathy which was quite familiar to me—like an old friend forgotten until seen again. “You limped as you crossed the road.”
“I shall limp until the end of the chapter.”
“And you have been at that work ever since?”
“Yes.”
She looked past me over the trees of the Park—as if looking back into a bygone period of her life.
“Will you come and dine to-morrow night?” she said suddenly. “Fred will be... very pleased to see you. And—I want to show you the children.”
The line of carriages moved on slowly towards the Park gate, and left me baring a grizzled old bullet-head in answer to her smile and nod.
As I limped along it all came back to me. A good many years before—in the days when hard work was the salt of life—I was entrusted with my first field hospital. I was sent up to the front by the cleverest surgeon and the poorest organizer that ever served the Queen.
Ah, that WAS a field hospital! My first! We were within earshot of the front—that is to say, we could hear the platoon firing. And when the wounded came in we thought only of patching them up temporarily—sewing, bandaging, and plastering them into travelling order, and sending them down to the headquarters at the coast. It was a weary journey across the desert, and I am afraid a few were buried on the way.
Early one morning, I remember, they brought in Boulson, and I saw at once that he had come to stay. We could not patch him up and send him off. The jolting of the ambulance waggon had done its work, and Boulson was insensible when they laid him on one of the field-cots. He remained insensible while I got his things off. The wound told its own story. He had been at the hand-to-hand work again, and a bayonet never meets a broad-headed spear without trouble coming of it. Boulson meant to get on—consequently I had had him before. I had cut his shirt off him before this, and knew that it was marked “F.L.G.M.,” which does not stand for Boulson.
Boulson's name was not Boulson; but that was not our business at the time. We who patch up Thomas Atkins when he gets hurt in the interests of his Queen and country are never surprised to find that the initials on his underlinen do not tally with those in the regimental books. When the military millennium arrives, and ambulance services are perfect, we shall report things more fully. Something after this style—“Killed: William Jones. Coronet on his razor-case. Linen marked A. de M.F.G.”
While I was busy with a sponge, Boulson opened his eyes and recognized me.
“Soon got YOU back again,” I remarked, with ghastly professional cheeriness.
He smiled feebly. “Must get into the despatches somehow,” he answered, and promptly fainted again.
I took especial care of Boulson, being mindful of a letter I had received while he was recovering from his last wound. It was a long and rambling letter, dated from a place on the west coast of Ireland. It was signed with a name which surprised me, and the writer, who addressed me as “Sir,” and mentioned that he was my humble servant, stated that he was Boulson's father. At least he said he thought he was Boulson's father—if Boulson was tall and fair, with blue eyes, and a pepper-castor mark on his right arm, where a charge of dust-shot had lodged from a horse-pistol. There had, he informed me, been family misunderstandings about a foolish fancy formed by Boulson for a military career. And Boulson had gone off—God bless him—like the high-spirited Irishman that he was—to enlist as a private soldier. And then came the news of the serious wound, and if there was a God in heaven (which I never doubted), any kindness and care that I could bestow upon Boulson would not be forgotten at the last reckoning. And more to a like effect.
Moreover, Boulson pulled through and was duly sent down to the fine, roomy convalescent hospital on the coast, where they have ice, and newspapers, and female nurses fresh from Netley.
This second wound was, however, a more serious affair. While others came and went, Boulson seemed inclined to stay for ever. At all events he stayed for ten days, and made no progress worth mentioning.
At the end of that time I was sitting at my table writing perversions of God's truth to the old gentleman on the west coast of Ireland when I heard the rumble of ambulance waggons. I thought that it was only a returned empty—there having been an informal funeral that evening—so hardly disturbed myself.
Presently, however, some one came and stood in front of my table outside the tent. I looked up, and looked into the face of one of the few women I have met who make me believe in love stories.
“Halloa!” I said, somewhat rudely.
“I beg to report myself,” she answered quietly. There was a peculiar unsteadiness in her eyes. It seemed to me that this woman was labouring under great excitement.
“Did the Surgeon-Major send you?” I asked.
“I volunteered.”
“Hum! I think I ought to have been asked first. This is no place for women.”
“Wherever there is nursing to be done, we can hardly be out of place,” she answered, with a determination which puzzled me.
“Theoretically,” I answered; and, seeing that she had arrived, I made a shift to find her suitable quarters and get her to work.
“Have you any serious cases?” she asked, while unpacking and setting out for my inspection sundry stores she had brought.
“I have Boulson again,” I answered. “The man you had in the spring.”
She buried her head in the case, and did not answer for some seconds.
When at length she did speak, her voice was indifferent and careless.
“Badly hurt?” she asked.
“Yes.”
She finished unpacking her stores rather hurriedly, and expressed her readiness to go round the cots with me.
“Are you not too tired after your journey?”
“No, I—I should like to begin at once. Please let me.”
I took her round, and altogether I was pleased with her.
In a day or two I almost became resigned to her presence, though I hate having women anywhere near the action. It is always better to get the nasty cases cleaned up before the women see them.
Then suddenly came bad news. There was something wrong at the front. Our fellows were falling back upon us. A final stand was to be made at our position until reinforcements came up.
I sent for Nurse Fielding, and told her to get ready to leave for headquarters at once. I was extremely business-like and formal. She was neither. That is the worst of women.
“Please let me stay,” she said. “Please.”
I shook my head.
“I would rather stay and be killed than go away and be safe.”
That aroused my suspicions. Perhaps they ought to have been aroused before; but, then, I am only a man. I saw how the Surgeon-Major had been managed.
“Please,” she repeated softly.
She laid her hand on my arm, and did not withdraw it when she found that the sleeve was wet with something that was thicker than water.
“Please,” she whispered.
“Oh, all right—stay!”
I was sorry for it the next day, when we had the old familiar music of the bullets overhead.
Later in the morning matters became more serious. The enemy had a gun with which they dropped six-pound shot into us. One of these fell on to the corner of our hospital where Boulson lay. It tore the canvas, and almost closed Boulson's career.
Nurse Fielding was at him like a terrier, and lifted him bodily from his cot. She was one of those largely framed fair women who have strength, both physical and mental.
She was carrying him across the tent when I heard the thud of a bullet. Nurse Fielding stopped for a moment and seemed to hesitate. She laid Boulson tenderly down on the ground, and then fell across him, while the blood ran from her cotton bodice over his face and neck.
And that was what I meant when I asked the lady in the barouche at the Park gate whether she ever felt that shoulder now. And the man I dine with to-night is not called Boulson, but he has a charge of dust-shot—the result of a boyish experiment—in his right arm.
“How long can you give us?”
The man who asked this question turned his head and looked up through a maze of bright machinery. But he did not rise from his recumbent position. He was, in fact, lying on his face on a steel-bar grating—in his shirt-sleeves—his hands black with oil and steel filings.
The captain of the Mooroo—far up above on the upper platform—leant his elbow on the steel banister and reflected for exactly two seconds. He was in the habit of sleeping and thinking very quickly.
“I reckon that we will be on the rocks in about twenty minutes to half an hour—unless you can get her going.”
The chief engineer muttered something which was not audible above the roar of the wind through the rigging and the wash of the green seas that leapt over the bulwarks of the well-deck.
“What?” yelled the captain, leaning over the balustrade.
“D—n it,” reiterated the chief, with his head hidden.
They were all down there—the whole engineer's staff of the Mooroo—in their shirt-sleeves, lying among the bright steel rods—busy at their craft—working against time for their lives.
It was unfortunate that the engines should have held good right across the Arabian Sea, through the Red Sea, through the trying “fast” and “slow” and “stand by” and “go ahead” of the Canal—right through to the Pointe de Raz light, which was blinking down upon them now.
The ship had been got round with difficulty. Her sails, all black with coal-dust and the smoke of many voyages, had been shaken out. They served to keep the vessel's bluff prow pushing into the gale, but that was all. The Mooroo was drifting—drifting.
While the passengers were at dinner the engines had suddenly stopped, and almost before the fact had been realized, the captain, having exchanged glances with his officers, was out of the saloon.
“Something in the engine-room,” said the doctor and the fifth officer—left at table. The engineer had probably stopped to replace a worn washer or something similarly simple.
The stewards hurried to and fro with the dishes. And the passengers went on eating their last dinner on earth in that sublime ignorance which is the prerogative of passengers.
Mrs. Judge Barrowby, who, in view of the captain's vacant chair on her left hand, took, as it were, moral command of the ship, was heard to state in a loud voice that she had every confidence in the officers and the crew.
Young Skeen, of the Indian Intelligence, who sat within hearing of Mrs. Judge Barrowby, for his own evil ends and purposes, thereafter said that he could now proceed with his dinner—that his appetite was beginning to return.
“Of course,” he went on to say, “if Mrs. Judge Barrowby says that it is all right—”
But he got no farther than this. For a young lady with demure eyes and twitching lips, who was sitting next to him, whispered that Mrs. Judge Barrowby was looking, and that he must behave himself.
“I have every confidence in Mrs. Judge Barrowby,” he, nevertheless, managed to assure a grave-looking man across the table.
The truth was that Mrs. Judge Barrowby had had her eye on these two young people all the voyage. There was no reason that they should not fall in love with each other, and marry and be happy ever afterwards; but Mrs Judge Barrowby felt that it was incumbent upon them to ask her first, or at all events to keep her posted as to the progress of matters, so that she might have the satisfaction of knowing more than her neighbours. But the young people simply ignored her.
Lady Crafer, the mother of the girl with the demure eyes, was a foolish woman, who passed most of her days in her cabin; and Mrs. Judge Barrowby felt, and went so far as to say to more than one person, that the least that a nice-minded girl could, under the circumstances, do was to place herself under the protection of some experienced lady—possibly herself. From the fact that Evelyn Crafer had failed to do this, Mrs. Judge Barrowby intimated that each might draw an individual inference.
While these thoughts were in course of lithography upon the expressive countenance of the lady at the captain's end of the saloon table, strange things were taking place on the deck of the good steamship Mooroo. The entire crew had, in fact, been summoned on deck. The boats were being pushed out—the davits swung round, the tarpaulin covers removed, and the awnings unbent. Life-belts were being collected in the music-room on deck, and the purser had given orders to the stewards to prolong dinner as much as possible.
“Let 'em have their dinner first,” the captain had said significantly.
And all the while the Mooroo was drifting.
Immediately over the stern rail a light came and went at regular intervals on the horizon, while to eastward, at a higher elevation, a great, yellow staring eye looked out into the night. This was the light on the westernmost point of Europe—the Pointe de Raz. The smaller beacon, low down on the horizon, was that of the Ile de Sein, whose few inhabitants live by what the sea brings them in—be it fish or wreckage. There is enough of both. A strong current sets north and east, and it becomes almost a “race” in the narrow channel between the Ile de Sein and the rock-bound mainland. The Mooroo was in this current.
The captain had said no more than the truth. There are times when nature is too strong for the strongest man and the keenest brain. There was simply nothing to be done but to try and get the repair completed in time—and on deck to send up rockets, and—to prepare for the worst. This the captain had done—even to unlacing his own boots. The latter is always a bad sign. When the captain thinks of his own boots it is time for others to try and remember the few good deeds they may have done.
In ten minutes the passengers knew; for the captain went and told them—before they had their dessert. The result was confusion, and a rush for the saloon stairs. The boats were already lowered and alongside the gangway steps in a terrible sea.
The old ladies did wonderfully well, considering their age and other things. Mrs. Judge Barrowby was heard to say that she would never travel by anything but P. and O. in future, and that it was all her husband's fault. But she was third on the stairs, and in time to select the roomiest life-belt. Lady Crafer was a great believer in stewards. She clung to one, and, calling upon Evelyn to follow her, made very good practice down the saloon.
There was no doubt whatever about young Skeen of the Indian Intelligence. He simply took charge of Evelyn Crafer. He took possession of her and told her what to do. He even found time to laugh at Mrs. Judge Barrowby's ankles as she leapt over a pile of dirty plates.
“Stay here,” he cried to Evelyn. “It is useless going with that rabble. Our only chance is to stay.”
She obeyed him. Women sometimes do it still. They stood in the gaily lighted saloon, and witnessed the rush for the deck—a humiliating sight.
When at length the stairs were clear, Skeen turned and looked into her face. Then suddenly he took her in his arms and kissed her. They had been drifting towards this for some weeks past. Circumstances had hurried it on. That was all.
“Dear,” he said, “will you stay here while I go on deck and see what chances there are? If you once get up there in the dark and the confusion, I shall lose you.”
“Yes,” she answered; and as she spoke there was a great crash, which threw her into his arms a second time, and made a clean sweep of the tables. They stood literally ankle-deep in wine-glasses, dessert, and plates. The Mooroo had taken the rocks. There was a rolling crash on the deck overhead, and a confused sound of shouting.
“You will stay?” cried Skeen again.
“Yes—dear.”
He turned and left her there, alone.
On deck he found a crowd. The passengers were being allowed to go to the boats. Taking into consideration the darkness, the roaring sea, and the hopelessness of it all, the organization was wonderful. The children were going first. A quarter-master stood at the head of the gangway steps and held the people in check. When Skeen arrived, Mrs. Judge Barrowby was giving this man a piece of what she was pleased to call her mind.
“Man,” she was saying, “let me pass! You do not know who I am. I am the wife of Judge Barrowby.”
“Marm, you may be the wife of the harkangel Gabriel as far as I knows; but I've my orders. Stand aside please. Any more babies in arms?” he cried.
But Mrs. Judge Barrowby knew the value of a good useful life, and persistently blocked up the gangway.
“One woman is as good as another,” she said.
“Ay, except the mothers, and they're better,” said the man, pushing her aside to let a lady and her child pass.
“THAT woman!” cried Mrs. Judge Barrowby. “A woman who has been the talk of the whole ship—before ME—a flirting grass widow!”
“Gawd knows,” said the man, holding her back. “It's little enough to fight about.”
“I will report you, man.”
“Yes, marm, to the good God, and I ain't afraid o' HIM! NOW you may go!”
And, fuming, Mrs. Judge Barrowby went down to her death. Not one boat could reach the shore through such a surf, as captain and crew well knew; but there are certain formalities vis-a-vis to human lives which must be observed by ship-captains and doctors and others.
Skeen ran to the other side. Lights were twinkling through the spray; the land was not two hundred yards off, but it was two hundred yards of rock and surf. There was only one chance.
Skeen kicked off his boots and ran back to the saloon. It was all a matter of seconds. For a few moments the brilliant lights dazzled him, and he looked round wildly for Evelyn Crafer. A great fear seized his heart as in a grip of cold iron—but only for a moment. He saw her. She was kneeling by the table, unaware of his presence.
“Oh God,” she was praying aloud, “save him—save HIM from this danger!”
He heard the words as he stopped to lift her like a child from her knees—bringing her back from God to man.
And the end of the Mooroo was a girl sitting before a driftwood fire in the cottage of the old cure of the Ile de Sein, while at her feet knelt a man with his broken arm bound to his side. And he was stroking her hands softly and repeatedly. He was trying to soothe her and make her understand that she was safe.
“Give her time, my son,” the old cure said, with his deep, wise smile. “She only requires time. I have seen them before taken from the sea like her. They all require time. It is in our nature to recover from all things—in time.”
“Which means, I think, that go or stayAffects you nothing, either way.”
“And that is where Parker sleeps.”
We craned our necks, and, stooping low, saw beneath the vehicle a parasitic square box like a huge barnacle fixed to the bottom of the van. A box about four feet by two. The door of it was open, and Parker's bedfellows—two iron buckets and a sack of potatoes—stood confessed.
“Oh yes—very nice,” we murmured.
“Oh, it's awfully jolly!” said the host-in-himself.
We looked at Parker, who was peeling potatoes on the off-shaft—Parker, six feet two, with a soldier's bearing—and we drifted off into thought.
“And who drives?” we asked, with an intelligent interest.
“Oh, Parker. And we do all the rest, you know.”
It was seven o'clock in the evening when we joined the caravan, in a stackyard on the outskirts of an Eastern county town.
“That's 'im—that's Lord George Sanger,” was said of the writer by one of the crowd of small boys assembled at the stackyard gate. A travelling menagerie and circus was advertised in a somewhat “voyant” manner on the town walls, and a fancied resemblance to the aristocratic manager thereof accredited us with an honourable connection in the enterprise.
“When do you open?” inquired an intelligent spectator, anxious to show savoir faire.
“See small handbills,” replied the host-in-himself, with equal courtesy.
“'Oo are yer, at any rate?” inquired an enlightened voter.
“Who are YOU?” we replied with spirit; and, passing through the gate, we closed it to keep out the draught. Then we paid a domiciliary visit, and were duly shown Parker's apartments.
In outward appearance the caravan suggested an overgrown bathing-machine. The interior resembled the cabin of a yacht. The walls were gaily decorated with painting on the panels; flowers bloomed in vases fixed upon the wall; two prettily curtained windows—one a bay, the other flat—gave a view of the surrounding country. At the forward end, against the bulkhead, so to speak, was a small but enterprising chest of drawers, and above it a large looking-glass which folded down, developed legs, and owned to the soft impeachment of being a bed. Beneath the starboard window a low and capacious sofa, combining the capacity of a locker. Under the port window was fixed a table against the bulkhead, where four people could and did dine sumptuously. When en voyage and between meals, charts, maps, and literature littered this table pleasantly. A ship's clock hung over it, and a corner cupboard did its duty in the port quarter. A heavy plush curtain closed off the kitchen and pantry, which were roomy and of marvellous capacity. Then the back door—in halves—and the back step, brassbound, treacherous.
In front there was a little verandah with supporting columns of bamboo. Here we usually sat when travelling—Parker in the right-hand corner handling the ribbons of the tandem cart-horses with skill and discretion.
As dinner was not ready, we proceeded to pitch the small tent wherein the two men were to sleep. It was a singular tent, with a vast number of pendent ropes which became entangled at the outset. We began with zeal, but presently left the ropes and turned our attention to the pegs. These required driving in with a wooden mallet and a correct eye. Persons unaccustomed to such work strike the peg on one side—the mallet goes off at a tangent and strikes the striker with force upon the shin-bone.
Finally Parker said he would put up the tent “by'n-by.”
There was a Bedlington terrier—Parker's dog—attached (literally) to the caravan. He was tied to one of the bamboo columns on the forecastle, and when Parker absented himself for long he usually leaped off the platform and sought death by strangulation—this we discovered later. When we abandoned the tent we thought we would cheer up the dog.
“Don't touch him, sir; he'll bite you,” said Parker.
Of course we touched him; no man who respects himself at all is ready to admit that a dog bites HIM. It was wonderful how that dog and Parker understood each other. But the bite was not serious.
At last dinner was ready, and we are prepared to take any horrid oath required that no professional cook could set before a king potatoes more mealy. This only, of all the items in the menu, is mentioned, because where potatoes are good the experienced know that other things will never be amiss.
We waited on ourselves, and placed the dirty dishes, plates, and forks upon the back step, where Parker replaced them in a few minutes, clean.
“Oh!” exclaimed the hostess-in-herself, about 10 p.m., when we were smoking the beatific pipe, “by the way—Parker's dinner!”
In response to united shouts Parker appeared, and learned with apparent surprise that he had omitted to dine. He looked pale and worn, and told us that he had been blowing out the air-beds. At eleven o'clock we two men left the ladies and went out into the cold moonlight, where our tent looked remarkably picturesque. Of course we fell over a tent-peg each, and the host lost his watchkey. Parker came forward—dining—to explain where the ropes were, and fell over one himself, losing a piece of cold boiled beef in the grass. We hunted for it with a lucifer match. Its value was enhanced by the knowledge that when the bed was shut down and had developed its legs the larder was inaccessible. After some time Parker discovered that the dog had been let loose and had found the beef some moments before. He explained that it was a singular dog and preferred to live by dishonesty. Unstolen victuals had for him no zest. He added that the loss was of no consequence, as he never had been very keen on that piece of beef. We finally retired into the tent, and left Parker still at work completing several contracts he had undertaken to carry through “by'n-by.” He said he preferred doing them overnight, as it was no good getting up BEFORE five on these dark autumnal mornings.
As an interior the tent was a decided success. We went inside and hooked the flap laboriously from top to bottom. Then we remembered that the host's pyjamas were outside. He undid two hooks only and attempted to effect a sortie through the resultant interstice. He stuck. The position was undignified, and conducive to weak and futile laughter. At last Parker had to leave the washing-up of the saucepans to come to the rescue, while the dog barked and imagined that he was attending a burglary.
It was nearly midnight before we made our first acquaintance with an air-bed, and it took us until seven o'clock the next morning to get on to speaking terms with it. The air-bed, like the Bedlington terrier, must be approached with caution. Its manner is, to say the least of it, repellent. Unless the sleeper (save the mark!) lies geometrically in the centre, the air rushes to one side, and the ignorant roll off the other. If there were no bedclothes one could turn round easily, but the least movement throws the untucked blanket incontinently into space, while the instability of the bed precludes tucking in. Except for these and a few other drawbacks, the air-bed may safely be recommended.
The next morning showed a white frost on the grass, and washing in the open, in water that had stood all night in a bucket, was, to say the least of it, invigorating. Parker browned our boots, put a special edge of his own upon our razors, attended to the horses, oiled the wheels, fetched the milk, filled the lamps of the paraffin stove, bought a gallon of oil, and carried a can of water from a neighbouring farm before breakfast, just by way—he explained—of getting ready to start his day's work.
An early start had been projected, but owing to the fact that after breakfast Parker had to beat the carpet, wash the dishes, plates, cups and saucers, knives and forks, and his own face, strike the tent, let the air out of the air-beds, roll up the waterproof sheets, clean the saucepans, groom the horses, ship the shafts, send off a parcel from the station, buy two loaves of bread, and thank the owner of the stackyard—owing, I say, to the fact that Parker had these things to accomplish while we “did the rest,” it was eleven o'clock before all hands were summoned to get “her” out of the narrow gateway. This was safely accomplished, by Parker, while we walked round, looked knowingly at the wheels, sternly at the gate-posts, and covertly at the spectators.
Then we clambered up, the host-in-himself cracked the whip, Parker gathered up his reins.
“Come up, Squire! Come up, Nancy!”
And the joy of the caravaneer was ours.
This joy is not like the joy of other men. For the high-road, the hedgerows, the birds, the changing sky, the ever-varying landscape, belong to the caravaneer. He sits in his moving home and is saturated with the freedom of the gipsy without the haunting memory of the police, which sits like Care on the roof of the gipsy van. Book on lap, he luxuriates on the forecastle when the sun shines and the breeze blows soft, noting idly the passing beauty of the scene, returning peaceably to the printed page. When rain comes, as it sometimes does in an English summer, he goes inside and gives a deeper attention to the book, while Parker drives and gets wet. Getting wet is one of Parker's duties. And through rain and sunshine he moves on ever, through the peaceful and never dull—the incomparable beauty of an English pastoral land. The journey is accomplished without fatigue, without anxiety; for the end of it can only be the quiet corner of a moor, or some sleepy meadow. Speed is of no account—distance immaterial. The caravaneer looks down with indifference upon the dense curiosity of the smaller towns; the larger cities he wisely avoids.
The writer occupied the humble post of brakesman—elected thereto in all humility by an overpowering majority. The duties are heavy, the glory small. A clumsy vehicle like a caravan can hardly venture down the slightest incline without a skid under the wheel and a chain round the spoke. This necessitates the frequent handling of a heavy piece of iron, which is black and greasy at the top of a hill, and red-hot at the bottom.
A steep hill through the town dispelled the Lord George Sanger illusion at one fell blow, the rustic-urban mind being incapable of conceiving that that self-named nobleman could demean himself to the laying of the skid.
Of the days that followed there remains the memory of pleasant sunny days and cool evenings, of the partridge plucked and cleaned by the roadside, fried deliciously over the paraffin flame, amidst fresh butter and mushrooms with the dew still on them. We look back with pleasure to the quiet camp in a gravel-pit on a hill-top far from the haunts of men—to the pitching of the tent by moonlight in a meadow where the mushrooms gleamed like snow, to be duly gathered for the frying-pan next morning by the host-in-himself, and in pyjamas. Nor are the sterner sides of caravan life to be forgotten—the calamity at the brow of a steep hill, where a nasty turn made the steady old wheeler for once lose his head and his legs; the hard-fought battle over a half-side of bacon between the Bedlington terrier and the writer when that mistaken dog showed a marked preference for the stolen Wiltshire over the partridge bone of charity.
And there are pleasant recollections of friends made, and, alas! lost so soon; of the merry evening in a country house, of which the hospitable host, in his capacity of justice of the peace, gave us short shrift in the choice between the county gaol and his hospitality. Unless we consented to sleep beneath his roof and eat his salt, he vowed he would commit us for vagabonds without visible means of support. We chose the humiliation of a good dinner and a sheeted bed. The same open-handed squire hung partridges in our larder, and came with us on the forecastle to pilot us through his own intricate parish next day.
Also came the last camp and the last dinner, at which the writer distinguished himself, and the host-in-himself was at last allowed to manipulate (with accompanying lecture) a marvellous bivouac-tin containing a compound called beef a la mode, which came provided with its own spirits of wine and wick, both of which proved ineffectual to raise the temperature of the beef above a mediocre tepidity. Parker, having heard that the remains of this toothsome dish were intended for his breakfast, wisely hid it with such care that the dog stole it and consumed it, with results which cannot be dwelt upon here.
Of the vicissitudes of road travel we recollect but little. The incipient sea-sickness endured during the first day has now lost its sting; the little differences about the relative virtues of devilled partridge and beef a la mode are forgotten, and only the complete novelty, the heedless happiness of it all, remains. We did not even know the day of the week or the date; which ignorance, my masters, has a wealth of meaning nowadays.
“Date—oh, ask Parker!” we would say.
And Parker always knew.
What hope is ours—what hope? To find no mercyAfter much war, and many travails done?
“Well, somebody must go; that is certain.”
And more than one man looked at me. It was not because I could possibly be that somebody, although I was young enough and of little enough consequence. But Fortune had been busy with me. She had knocked all the interest out of my life, and then she had proceeded to shower her fickle favours upon me. I was by way of becoming a success in that line of life wherein I had been cast. I had been mentioned in despatches, and somehow the bullets had passed by on the other side. Her gracious Majesty had written to me twice as her dearly beloved Thomas, and I was well up in my profession.
In those days things were differently done in India. There was less telegraphing here and there for instructions. There was more action and less talk. The native gentleman did not sit on a jury then.
“Yes,” said young Martello, “somebody must go. Question is—who?”
And they looked at me again.
“There be those in high places,” I said, “who shall decide.”
They laughed and made no answer. They were pleased to think that I should have to decide which doctor should go to Capoo, where a sickness unknown and incomprehensible had broken out. It was true that I was senior surgeon of the division; indeed, I was surgeon-major of a tract of country as big as Scotland. It is India now, but in the days of which I write the question had not been settled with a turbulent native prince. We were, in fact, settling that question.
Capoo was right in the heart of the new country, while we were in occupation of a border town. Behind us lay India; in front, the Unknown. The garrison of Capoo was small and self-important, but sickness made itself conspicuous among its members. Their doctor—poor young Barber—died, and the self-importance of the Capoo garrison oozed out of their finger-ends. They sent down post-haste to us for help, and a special letter addressed to me detailed symptoms of no human malady.
I had two men under me. The question seemed simple enough. One of them would have to go. As to which one there was really no doubt whatever. The duty fell upon Thurkow. Thurkow was junior. This might prove to be Thurkow's opportunity, or—the other thing.
We all knew that he would be willing enough to go; nay, he would be eager. But Thurkow's father was in command, which made all the difference.
While we were thinking over these things an orderly appeared at the mess-room door.
“Brigadier would like to see you, sir,” he said to me. And I had to throw away the better half of a first-class manilla.
The brigadier's quarters were across a square in the centre of a long rambling palace, for which a handsome rent was duly paid. We were not making war. On the contrary, we were forcing peace down the throat of the native prince on the point of a sword.
Everything was upon a friendly footing. We were not an invading force. Oh, no! we were only the escort of a political officer. We had been quartered in this border town for more than a year, and the senior officers' lady-wives had brought their lares and penates in three bullock-carts a-piece.
I suppose we were objects of envy. We had all the excitement of novelty without any of the penalties of active warfare. We were strong enough to make an awful example of the whole Principality at a day's notice, and the Principality knew it, which kept bazaar prices down and made the coloured brother remember the hue of his cheek.
In the palace there were half a dozen officers' quarters, and these had been apportioned to the married; consequently the palace had that air of homeliness which is supposed to be lacking in the quarters of single men.
As I was crossing the square I heard some one running after me, and, turning, I faced Fitz. Fitz Marner—usually called Fitz—was my second in command and two years my junior. He was quite a different sort of man to myself, and, if I may say so, a much better man. However, I am not going to talk about myself more than I can help this time. Some day I shall, and then I shall have a portrait on the cover. This is an age of portraits. But some day the British public will wake up and will refuse to read the works of a smug-faced man in spectacles who tries to make them believe that he is doughty, fearless, and beloved of beautiful damsels. The bookstalls are full to-day of works written in the first person singular, and relating deeds of the utmost daring; while on the cover is a portrait of the author—the aforesaid smug man in spectacles—who has not the good sense to suppress himself.
Fitz was tall and lithe. He had a large brown moustache and pleasantly thoughtful eyes. His smile was the kindliest I have ever met. Moreover, a modester man than Fitz never breathed. He had a way of carrying his chin rather low, so that when he looked at one he had to raise his eyes, which imparted a pleasing suggestion of attention to his face. It always seemed to me that Fitz listened more carefully to what was said to him than other men are in the habit of doing.
“Say, doctor,” he said, looking up at me in his peculiar thoughtful way, “give me a chance.”
I knew what he meant. He wanted me to send him to a certain death instead of young Thurkow. Those little missions to that bourne from whence no traveller returns are all in the work of a soldier's life, and we two were soldiers, although ours was the task of repairing instead of doing the damage. Every soldier-man and most civilians know that it is sometimes the duty of a red-coat to go and get killed without pausing to ask whether it be expedient or not. One aide-de-camp may be sent on a mad attempt to get through the enemy's lines, while his colleague rides quietly to the rear with a despatch inside his tunic, the delivery of which to the commander-in-chief will ensure promotion. And in view of this the wholesome law of seniority was invented. The missions come in rotation, and according to seniority the men step forward.
Fitz Marner's place was at my side, where, by the way, I never want a better man, for his will was iron, and he had no nerves whatever. Capoo, the stricken, was calling for help. Fitz and I knew more about cholera than we cared to discuss just then. Some one must go up to Capoo to fight a hopeless fight and die. And old Fitz—God bless him!—was asking to go.
In reply I laughed.
“Not if I can help it. The fortune of war is the same for all.”
Fitz tugged at his moustache and looked gravely at me.
“It is hard on the old man,” he said. “It is more than you can expect.”
“Much,” I answered. “I gave up expecting justice some years ago. I am sorry for the brigadier, of course. He committed the terrible mistake of getting his son into his own brigade, and this is the result. All that he does to-night he does on his own responsibility. I am not inclined to help him. If it had been you, I should not have moved an inch—you know that.”
He turned half away, looking up speculatively at the yellow Indian moon.
“Yes,” he muttered, “I know that.”
And without another word he went back to the mess-room.
I went on and entered the palace. To reach the brigadier's quarters I had to pass down the whole length of the building, and I was not in the least surprised to see Elsie Matheson waiting for me in one of the passage-like ante-rooms. Elsie Matheson was bound to come into this matter sooner or later—I knew that; but I did not quite know in what capacity her advent might be expected.
“What is this news from Capoo?” she asked, without attempting to disguise her anxiety. Her father, assistant political officer in this affair, was not at Capoo or near there. He was upstairs playing a rubber.
“Bad,” I answered.
She winced, but turned no paler. Women and horses are always surprising me, and they never surprise me more than when in danger. Elsie Matheson was by no means a masculine young person. Had she been so, I should not have troubled to mention her. For me, men cannot be too manly, nor women too womanly.
“What is the illness they have?” she asked.
“I really cannot tell you, Elsie,” I answered. “Old Simpson has written me a long letter—he always had a fancy for symptoms, you know—but I can make nothing of it. The symptoms he describes are quite impossible. They are too scientific for me.”
“You know it is cholera,” she snapped out with a strange little break in her voice which I did not like, for I was very fond of this girl.
“Perhaps it is,” I answered.
She gave a funny little helpless look round her as if she wanted something to lean against.
“And who will go?” she asked. She was watching me keenly.
“Ah—that does not rest with me.”
“And if it did?”
“I should go myself.”
Her face lighted up suddenly. She had not thought of that. I bore her no ill-feeling, however. I did not expect her to love ME.
“But they cannot spare you,” she was kind enough to say.
“Everybody can always be spared—with alacrity,” I answered; “but it is not a question of that. It is a question of routine. One of the others will have to go.”
“Which one?” she asked with a suddenly assumed indifference.
It was precisely the question in my own mind, but relative to a very different matter. If the decision rested with Miss Matheson, which of these two men would she send to Capoo? Perhaps I looked rather too keenly into her face, for she turned suddenly away and drew the gauzy wrap she had thrown over her evening dress more closely round her throat, for the passages were cold.
“That does not rest with me,” I repeated, and I went on towards the brigadier's quarters, leaving her—a white shadow in the dimly lighted passage.
I found the chief at his own dinner-table with an untouched glass of wine before him.
“This is a bad business,” he said, looking at me with haggard eyes. I had never quite realized before what an old man he was. His trim beard and moustache had been white for years, but he had always been a hale man up to his work—a fine soldier but not a great leader. There was a vein of indolence in Brigadier-General Thurkow's nature which had the same effect on his career as that caused by barnacles round a ship's keel. This inherent indolence was a steady drag on the man's life. Only one interest thoroughly aroused him—only one train of thought received the full gift of his mind. This one absorbing interest was his son Charlie, and it says much for Charlie Thurkow that we did not hate him.
The brigadier had lost his wife years before. All that belonged to ancient history—to the old Company days before our time. To say that he was absorbed in his son is to state the case in the mildest imaginable form. The love in this old man's heart for his reckless, happy-souled offspring was of that higher order which stops at nothing. There is a love that worketh wonders, and the same love can make a villain of an honest man.
I looked at old Thurkow, sitting white-lipped behind the decanter, and I knew that there was villainy in his upright, honest heart. He scarcely met my eyes. He moved uneasily in his chair. All through a long life this man had carried nobly the noblest name that can be given to any—the name of gentleman. No great soldier, but a man of dauntless courage. No strategist, but a leader who could be trusted with his country's honour. Upright, honourable, honest, brave—and it had come to this. It had come to his sitting shamefaced before a poor unknown sawbones—not daring to look him in the face.
His duty was plain enough. Charlie Thurkow's turn had come. Charlie Thurkow must be sent to Capoo—by his father's orders. But the old man—the soldier who had never turned his back on danger—could not do it.
We were old friends, this man and I. I owed him much. He had made my career, and I am afraid I had been his accomplice more than once. But we had never wronged any other man. Fitz had aided and abetted more than once. It had been an understood thing between Fitz and myself that the winds of our service were to be tempered to Charlie Thurkow, and I imagine we had succeeded in withholding the fact from his knowledge. Like most spoilt sons, Charlie was a little selfish, with that convenient blindness which does not perceive how much dirty work is done by others.
But we had never deceived the brigadier. He was not easily deceived in those matters which concerned his son. I knew the old man very well, and for years I had been content to sit by the hour together and talk with him of Charlie. To tell the honest truth, Master Charlie was a very ordinary young man. I take it that a solution of all that was best in five Charles Thurkows would make up one Fitz Marner.
There was something horribly pathetic in the blindness of this usually keen old man on this one point. He would sit there stiffly behind the decanter fingering his wine-glass, and make statements about Charlie which would have made me blush had that accomplishment not belonged to my past. A certain cheery impertinence which characterized Charlie was fondly set down as savoir-faire and dash. A cheap wit was held to be brilliancy and conversational finish. And somehow we had all fallen into the way of humouring the brigadier. I never told him, for instance, that his son was a very second-rate doctor and a nervous operator. I never hinted that many of the cures which had been placed to his credit were the work of Fitz—that the men had no confidence in Charlie, and that they were somewhat justified in their opinion.
“This is a bad business,” repeated the brigadier, looking hard at the despatch that lay on the table before him.
“Yes,” I answered.
He tossed the paper towards me and pointed to a chair.
“Sit down!” he said sharply. “Have you had any report from poor Barber?”
In response I handed him the beginning of an official report. I say the beginning, because it consisted of four lines only. It was in Barber's handwriting, and it broke off suddenly in the middle of a word before it began to tell me anything. In its way it was a tragedy. Death had called for Barber while he was wondering how to spell “nauseous.” I also gave him Colonel Simpson's letter, which he read carefully.
“What is it?” he asked suddenly, as he laid the papers aside.
“Officially—I don't know.”
“And unofficially?”
“I am afraid it is cholera.”
The brigadier raised his glass of claret a few inches from the table, but his hand was too unsteady, and he set the glass down again untouched. I was helplessly sorry for him. There was something abject and humiliating in his averted gaze. Beneath his white moustache his lips were twitching nervously.
For a few moments there was silence, and I dreaded his next words. I was trembling for his manhood.
“I suppose something must be done for them,” he said at length, hoarsely, and it was hard to believe that the voice was the voice of our leader—a man dreaded in warfare, respected in peace.
“Yes,” I answered uncompromisingly.
“Some one must go to them—”
“Yes.”
Again there was that horrid silence, broken only by the tramp of the sentinel outside the glassless windows.
“Who?” asked the brigadier, in little more than a whisper.
I suppose he expected it of me—I suppose he knew that even for him, even in mercy to an old man whose only joy in life trembled at that moment in the balance, I could not perpetrate a cruel injustice.
“It devolves on Charlie,” I answered.
He gave one quick glance beneath his lashes, and again lowered his eyes. I heard a long gasping sound, as if he found difficulty in breathing. He sat upright, and threw back his shoulders with a pitiable effort to be strong.
“Is he up to the work?” he asked quietly.
“I cannot conscientiously say that he is not.”
“D—n it, man,” he burst out suddenly, “is there no way out of it?”
“Yes—one way!”
“What is it?”
“I will go.”
“That is impossible,” he answered with a sublime unconsciousness of his own huge selfishness which almost made me laugh. This man would have asked nothing for himself. For his son he had no shame in asking all. He would have accepted my offer, I could see that, had it been possible.
At this moment the door opened, and Charlie Thurkow came in. His eyes were bright with excitement, and he glanced at us both quickly. He was quite well aware of his father's weakness in regard to himself, and I am afraid he sometimes took advantage of it. He often ignored discipline entirely, as he did in coming into the room at that moment.
I suppose there is in every one a sense of justice which accounts for the subtle annoyance caused by the devotion of parents and others—a devotion which has not the good sense to hide itself. There are few things more annoying than an exhibition of unjust love. I rose at once. The coming interview would be either painful or humiliating, and I preferred not to assist at it.
As I went down the dark passages a man in a staff uniform, wearing spurs, clanked past me. I did not know until later that it was Fitz, for I could not see his face.
I went back to my quarters, and was busy for some time with certain technicalities of my trade which are not worth detailing here. While I and my two dispensers were still measuring out and mixing drugs, Fitz came to us.
“I am going to Capoo,” he said quietly.
In his silent, quick way he was taking in all that we were doing. We were packing medical stores for Capoo. I did not answer him, but waited for further details. We could not speak openly before the two assistants at that moment, and somehow we never spoke about it at all. I glanced up at him. His face was pale beneath the sunburn. There was a drawn look just above his moustache, as if his lips were held tightly.
“I volunteered,” he said, “and the brigadier accepted my offer.”
Whenever the word “duty” is mentioned, I think of Fitz to this day.
I said nothing, but went on with my work. The whole business was too disgusting, too selfish, too unjust, to bear speaking of.
I had long known that Fitz loved Elsie Matheson. In my feeble way, according to my scanty opportunity, I had endeavoured to assist him. But her name had never been mentioned between us except carelessly in passing conversation. I knew no details. I did not even know whether Elsie knew of his love; but it was exceedingly likely that if she did, he had not told her. As to her feelings, I was ignorant. She loved somebody, that much I knew. One can generally tell that. One sees it in a woman's eyes. But it is one thing to know that a woman loves, and quite another to find out whom she loves. I have tried in vain more than once. I once thought that I was the favoured person—not with Elsie, with quite another woman—but I was mistaken. I only know that those women who have that in their eyes which I have learnt to recognize are better women than those who lack it.
Fitz was the first to speak.
“Don't put all of that into one case,” he said to one of the dispensers, indicating a row of bottles that stood on the floor. “Divide the different drugs over the cases, so that one or two of them can be lost without doing much harm.”
His voice was quite calm and practical.
“When do you go?” I asked curtly. I was rather afraid of trusting my voice too long, for Fitz was one of the few men who have really entered into my life sufficiently to leave a blank space behind them. I have been a rolling stone, and what little moss I ever gathered soon got knocked off, but it left scars. Fitz left a scar.
“My orders are to start to-night—with one trooper,” he answered.
“What time?”
“In half an hour.”
“I will ride with you a few miles,” I said.
He turned and went to his quarters, which were next to mine. I was still at work when Charlie Thurkow came in. He had changed his dress clothes for an old working suit. I was working in my evening dress—a subtle difference.
“Do you want any help?” he asked. I could hear a grievance in his voice.
“Of course; get on packing that case; plenty of straw between the bottles.”
He obeyed me, working slowly, badly, without concentration, as he always did.
“It's a beastly shame, isn't it?” he muttered presently.
“Yes,” I answered, “it is.”
I suppose he did not detect the sarcasm.
“Makes me look a fool,” he said heatedly. “Why couldn't the governor let me go and take my chance?”
The answer to this question being beyond my ken, I kept a discreet silence. Giving him further instructions, I presently left my junior to complete the task of packing up the necessary medicaments for Capoo.
In less than half an hour Fitz and I mounted our horses. A few of the fellows came out of the messroom, cigar in mouth, to say good-bye to Fitz. One or two of them called out “Good luck” as we left them. Each wish was followed by a little laugh, as if the wisher was ashamed of showing even so minute an emotion. It was, after all, all in the way of our business. Many a time Fitz and I had stood idle while these same men rode out to face death. It was Fitz's turn now—that was all.
The Sikh trooper was waiting for us in the middle of the square—in the moonlight—a grand picturesque figure. A long-faced, silent man, with deep eyes and a grizzled moustache. He wheeled his horse, and dropped ten paces in our rear.
In the course of a varied experience Fitz and I had learnt to ride hard. We rode hard that night beneath the yellow moon, through the sleeping, odorous country. We both knew too well that cholera under canvas is like a fire in a timber-yard. You may pump your drugs upon it, but without avail unless the pumping be scientific. Fitz represented science. Every moment meant a man's life. Our horses soon settled into their stride with a pleasant creaking sound of warm leather and willing lungs.
The moon was above and behind us; we each had a galloping shadow beneath our horse's forefeet. It was a sandy country, and the hoofs only produced a dull thud. There was something exhilarating in the speed—in the shimmering Indian atmosphere. A sense of envy came over me, and I dreaded the moment when I should have to turn and ride soberly home, leaving Fitz to complete his forty-five miles before daylight.
We were riding our chargers. They had naturally fallen into step, and bounded beneath us with a regular, mechanical rhythm. Both alike had their heads down, their shoulders forward, with that intelligent desire to do well which draws a man's heart towards a horse in preference to any other animal. I looked sideways at Fitz, and waited for him to speak. But he was staring straight in front of him, and seemed lost in thought.
“You know,” I said at length, “you have done that old man an ill-turn. Even if you come back he will never forgive himself. He will never look either of us straight in the face again.”
“Can't help that,” replied Fitz. “The thing—” He paused, as if choosing his words. “If,” he went on rather quickly, “the worst comes to the worst, don't let people—ANY ONE—think that I did it because I didn't care, because I set no value on my life. The thing was forced upon me. I was asked to volunteer for it.”
“All right,” I answered, rather absent-mindedly perhaps. I was wondering who “any one” might be, and also who had asked him to throw away his life. The latter might, of course, be the brigadier. Surely it could not have been Elsie. But, as I said before, I always was uncertain about women.
I did not say anything about hoping for the best. Fitz and I had left all that nonsense behind us years before. We did our business amidst battle, murder, and sudden death. Perhaps we were callous, perhaps we had only learnt to value the thing at its true worth, and did not set much fear on death.
And then, I must ask you to believe, we fell to talking “shop.” I knew a little more about cholera than did Fitz, and we got quite interested in our conversation. It is, I have found, only in books that men use the last moment to advantage. Death has been my road-fellow all through life, and no man has yet died in my arms saying quite the right thing. Some of them made a joke, others were merely commonplace, as all men really are whether living or dying.
When the time came for me to turn back, Fitz had said nothing fit for post-mortem reproduction. We had talked unmitigated “shop,” except the few odd observations I have set down.
We shook hands, and I turned back at once. As I galloped I looked back, and in the light of the great tropical moon I saw Fitz sitting forward in his saddle as the horse rose to the slope of a hill, galloping away into the night, into the unknown, on his mission of mercy. At his heels rode the Sikh, enormous, silent, soldierly.
During my steady run home I thought of those things concerning my craft which required immediate consideration. Would it be necessary to send down to India for help? Cholera at Capoo might mean cholera everywhere in this new unknown country. What about the women and children? The Wandering Jew was abroad; would he wander in our direction, with the legendary curse following on his heels? Was I destined to meet this dread foe a third time? I admit that the very thought caused a lump to rise in my throat. For I love Thomas Atkins. He is manly and honest according to his lights. It does not hurt me very much to see him with a bullet through his lungs or a sabre cut through the collar-bone down to the same part of his anatomy. But it does hurt me exceedingly to see honest Thomas die between the sheets—the death of any common civilian beggar. Thomas is too good for that.
It was nearly three o'clock in the morning when I rode into the palace square. All round I saw the sentinels, their bayonets gleaming in the moonlight. A man was walking backwards and forwards in the middle of the square by himself. When he heard me he came towards me. At first I thought that it was my servant waiting to take the horse, but a moment later I recognized Charlie Thurkow—recognized him by his fair hair, for he was hatless. At the same time my syce roused himself from slumber in the shadow of an arch, and ran forward to my stirrup.
“Come to the hospital!” said Thurkow, the moment I alighted. His voice was dull and unnatural. I once heard a man speak in the same voice while collecting his men for a rush which meant certain death. The man was duly killed, and I think he was trembling with fear when he ran to his death.
“What is it?” I asked.
“I don't know.”
We walked—almost ran—to the hospital, a long low building in the palace compound. Charlie Thurkow led the way to a ward which we had never used—a ward I had set apart for infectious cases. A man was dozing in a long chair in the open window. As we entered he rose hastily and brought a lamp. We bent over a bed—the only one occupied. The occupant was a man I did not know. He looked like a Goorkha, and he was dying. In a few moments I knew all that there was to know. I knew that the Wandering Jew had passed our way.
“Yes,” I said, rising from my knees at the bedside; “we have it.”
Of the days that followed it is not my intention to say much. A woman once told me that I was afraid of nothing. She was mistaken. If she chance to read this and recognize it, I hope she will believe the assertion: I am, and always have been, afraid of cholera—in India. In Europe it is a different matter. The writing of those days would be unpleasant to me; the reading would be still less pleasant to the reader.