Kitabı oku: «Fix Bay'nets: The Regiment in the Hills», sayfa 11
Chapter Seventeen
On the Balance
The enemy had been very quiet for some days. The weather had been bad. Heavy rains had changed the rills and streams which ran along the gullies and ravines into fierce torrents, which leaped and bounded downward, foaming and tearing at the rocks which blocked their way, till with a tremendous plunge they joined the river in the valley, which kept up one deep, thunder-like boom, echoing from the mountains round.
Before the rain came the sun had seemed to beat down with double force, and the valley had become intolerable during the day, the perpendicular rocks sending back the heat till the fort felt like an oven, and the poor fellows lying wounded under the doctor’s care suffered terribly, panting in the great heat as they did, feeling the pangs of Tantalus, for there, always glittering before their eyes in the pure air, were the mountain-peaks draped in fold upon fold of the purest ice and snow.
“We should lose ’em all, poor fellows!” the Doctor said, “if it were not for these glorious evenings and perfect nights. It wouldn’t matter so much if we could get a few mule-loads of the ice from up yonder. Can’t be done, I suppose?”
“No,” said Colonel Graves sadly. “Plenty of men would volunteer, but, much as every one is suffering – the ladies almost as bad as your wounded, Morton – I dare not send them, for they would never get back with their loads. Many of the brave fellows would straggle back, of course, but instead of bringing ice, Doctor, they would be bearing their wounded and dead comrades.”
“Yes, that’s what I feel,” sighed the Doctor, “and, Heaven knows, we don’t want any more patients. Must be content with what coolness we get at night.”
“And that’s glorious,” said the Major, wiping his wet brow.
“Delightful,” added Captain Roberts. “It’s the making of poor old Bracy. He seems to hang his head and droop more and more every day, till the sun goes down, and to begin to pick up again with the first breath that comes down from between the two big peaks there – what do they call them – Erpah and Brum?”
“Ha! wish it was coming now,” said the Doctor; “iced and pure air, to sweep right down the valley and clear away all the hot air, while it cools the sides of the precipices.”
“Why don’t you let me go, Colonel!” said Drummond suddenly. “I want to get some ice badly for poor old Bracy. Six mules, six drivers, and a dozen of our boys. Oh, I could do it. Let me go, sir.”
The Colonel shook his head, and every day at the hottest time Drummond proposed the same thing; till on the last day, after gradually growing weaker in his determination, urged as he was on all sides by the sufferers in hospital, the wan looks of the ladies, and the longings of the men, the Colonel said:
“Well, Mr Drummond, I’ll sleep on it to-night, and if I come to a determination favourable to the proposition, you shall go; but not alone. One of my officers must go with you.”
“Glad to have him, sir,” cried the subaltern eagerly. “Whom will you send, sir?”
“I’ll volunteer, sir,” said Roberts quietly.
“Good,” said the Colonel; “so it will be as well for you and Drummond here to quietly select your men and the mules with their drivers, plus tools for cutting out the ice-like compressed snow. If I decide against it there will be no harm done.”
“Better make our plans, then, as to which way to go. Study it all by daylight with our glasses.”
“Needn’t do that,” said Drummond eagerly. “I know. We’ll go straight up the steep gully that I followed when I went after the bears, it’s awfully rough, but it’s the best way, for the niggers never camp there; it’s too wet for them.”
“Very well,” said the Colonel; and the two young officers went straight through the scorching sunshine, which turned the great court of the fort into an oven, to where Bracy lay panting with the heat, with Gedge doing his best to make life bearable by applying freshly wrung-out towels to his aching brow.
“News for you, old chap,” said Drummond in a whisper. “But send that fellow of yours away.”
“There is no need,” said Bracy faintly. “I can’t spare him, and he’s better worth trusting than I am.”
“Oh yes, we can trust Gedge,” said Roberts in a low tone, while the lad was fetching a fresh bucket of water from the great well-like hole in the court, through which an underground duct from the river ran, always keeping it full of clear water fresh from the mountains, but in these days heated by the sun as it flamed down.
The news was imparted by Drummond, and Bracy shook his head.
“It would be glorious,” he said; “but you ought not to go. Graves mustn’t let a dozen men run such risks for the sake of us poor fellows. It would be madness. We must wait for the cool nights.”
“He will let us go,” said Drummond; “and we can do it.”
“No,” said Bracy, speaking with more energy, and he turned his head to Roberts. “I beg you will not think of such a thing, old lad,” he said earnestly.
“Well, we shall see.”
“Ready for another, sir?” said Gedge, coming in with the bucket.
“Yes, yes, as soon as you can,” said Bracy. “This one feels boiling hot.”
The fresh, cool, wet cloth was laid across his forehead; and, rousing up from the disappointment he felt at Bracy taking so decided a view against an expedition which the young subaltern had proposed to make almost solely in his friend’s interest, and moved by the boyish spirit of mischief within him, Drummond suddenly exclaimed:
“Look out, Gedge, or he’ll bowl you over! – Oh, I beg your pardon, Bracy, old chap. I didn’t mean to hurt your feelings. Knock me over, Roberts. I deserve it.”
For Bracy had winced sharply, and a look as of one suffering mental agony came into his eyes.
“It does not matter,” he said, smiling faintly and holding out his hand, which Drummond caught in his.
“Ain’t no fear, sir,” said Gedge, who was soaking the hot cloth. “The guv’nor ain’t had a touch now for a week.”
“Quiet!” whispered Roberts to the man.
“He is quite right, Roberts, old fellow,” sighed Bracy; “I am certainly better. But if I could only get rid of that constant pain!”
“That must go soon,” said Drummond cheerily. “I wish I could take your agony-duty for a few hours everyday. Honour bright, I would.”
“I know you would, old chap,” said Bracy, smiling at him; “but I shall beg Graves not to let you go.”
“Nonsense! Don’t say a word,” cried Drummond. “If you do, hang me if ever I confide in you again!”
Bracy laughed softly.
“I am pretty free from scepticism,” he said; “but I can’t believe that. Now you fellows must go. The dragon will be here to start you if you stay any longer. Serve him right, though, Roberts, to let him go on this mad foray, for he’d get wounded, and be brought back and placed under Dame Gee’s hands.”
“Oh, hang it! no; I couldn’t stand that,” cried the young officer; and a few minutes later they left the room, for Drummond to begin grumbling.
“I don’t care,” he said. “If the Colonel gives us leave we must go. You won’t back out, will you?”
“No; for it would be the saving of some of the poor fellows. But we shall see.”
They did that very night, for, instead of the regular cool wind coming down the upper valley, a fierce hot gust roared from the other direction like a furnaces-blast from the plains; and at midnight down came the most furious storm the most travelled of the officers had ever encountered. The lightning flashed as if it were splintering the peaks which pierced the clouds, and the peals of thunder which followed sounded like the falling together of the shattered mountains, while amidst the intense darkness the sentries on the walls could hear the hiss and seething of the rain as it tore by on the rushing winds which swept through gorge and valley.
The next morning the storm broke dark and gloomy, with the rain falling heavily and the river rolling along thick and turbulent, while one of the first things the sentries had to report was the fact that one of the hostile camps – the one nearest to the fort – was being struck.
By night the tribe in another of the side valleys was withdrawn, and during the days which followed one by one the little camps of white-robed tribes-men melted away like the snow upon the lower hills, till not a man of the investing forces remained, and the long-harassed defenders looked in vain from the highest tower of the fort for their foes.
The falling rain had effected in a few days that which the brave; defenders had been unable; to compass in as many weeks; while the alteration from the insufferable heat to the soft, cool, moist air had a wonderful effect upon the wounded, and made Doctor Morton chuckle and rub his hands as he rejoiced over the change.
And still the rain went, on falling; the valley seemed surrounded by cascades, the streams rushed and thundered down, and the main river swept by the walls of the fort with a sullen roar; while, as if dejected and utterly out of heart, the British flag, which had flaunted out so bravely from the flagstaff, as if bidding defiance to the whole hill-country and all its swarthy tribes, hung down and clung and wrapped itself about the flagstaff, the halyard singing a dolefully weird strain in a minor key, while the wind whistled by it on its way down towards the plains.
Chapter Eighteen
Uncooked Mutton
Two days passed – two of about the wettest and most dismal days imaginable. There was no sign of the enemy, and the scouts sent out came back dripping, and always with the same news – that the hill-men had given up the siege in disgust, and were right away making for their homes in the valleys at the foot of the mountain-slopes.
There was no relaxation in the watchfulness of the garrison, however, the treacherous nature of the tribes being too well-known. Hence it was that the sentries in their heavy greatcoats stood in such shelter as they possessed, keeping watch and ward, with the valley stretched out dark and gloomy, and the booming and roaring river dimly-seen through the gloom of the night, as it foamed and tossed itself in spray against the various obstacles it encountered on its way towards the lower gorge whence Colonel Graves’s regiment had made its appearance when it first came to the assistance of the beleaguered in Ghittah Fort.
The rain had ceased and given place to a thick mist, so peculiar in its appearance that one of two officers going the rounds, both nearly invisible in their long overcoats, said softly to the other:
“Might fancy we were at home after one of our muggy days.”
“Yes; just like a London suburban fog, old fellow.”
Then there was silence for a minute, as they walked on along the terraced wall, before the one who had just spoken said in a quick whisper:
“I say, Roberts, oughtn’t there to be a sentry here?”
“I was just thinking so,” was the reply. “I hope to goodness he isn’t asleep, for I hate having to report a man for neglect.”
He had hardly whispered the words when there was the click of a rifle, a voice challenged them, and they gave the customary response.
“This is not your place, my man,” said Roberts then.
“No, sir; twenty yards farther that way. But there’s something down below then; that I can’t quite make out. It seemed to come past and on this way.”
“What! up on the ramparts?” said Drummond quickly.
“No, no, sir; right down below the face of the wall, and I come on a bit so as to follow and look down. I didn’t like to give the alarm.”
“Why?” said Roberts sharply.
“Because it might be a false one, sir.”
“Better give a dozen false alarms, my lad, than miss a real danger. Now, then, what did you see?”
“Well, sir, if we was at home I should say it was a drove o’ sheep or a herd o’ pigs; but these hill-niggers are so artful and ready to be down upon us that I fancied it might be men.”
“Men haven’t four legs,” said Drummond, laughing softly.
“No, sir; but these Dwats don’t think anything o’ going down on all-fours.”
“But there have been none about lately,” said Drummond; “the rain seemed to be too much for them.”
“Yes, sir; but ain’t they the more likely to come down on us when they think we believe we’re safe? – Change guard, sir.”
For steps were heard, and a party of men came up smartly, were challenged, and the non-commissioned officer in charge answered.
“That you, Gee?” said Roberts.
“Yes, sir.”
“Come here. The sentry thinks there are people below there. Come and have a look.”
“The sentry I’ve just relieved thought the same, sir,” replied Gee sharply, “and I had a good look. They’re sheep driven down from the hills by the bad weather. I was going to report to the Colonel, sir, and ask whether he’d order a sally from the gate to drive them in. Be useful, sir.”
“To be sure. You’d better do it. Let’s have a look over first.”
They stepped together to the embattled wall, and peered down into the darkness; but nothing was visible now, and Roberts was about to give the matter up as all a mistake, when, from where the mist was most dense, there was the pattering of hoofs in the wet mud, followed by the peculiarly human cough of one of the sheep of the district.
“No mistake about what they are, sir,” said Sergeant Gee softly. “They’ve come down to the low grounds on account of the storm.”
“Yes,” said Roberts, “and because there are none of the Dwats to keep them back. Why, Gee, we’re in luck. We must have the men out and the flock driven in.”
“Not much room for them in the court, sir,” said the Sergeant.
“No; but to-morrow we must have something in the way of hurdles to shut them in close under the wall, and they can be driven out to pasture every day by some of the men, with a guard to watch over them. You try and keep them under your eye now while I go and tell the Colonel.”
The two young men peered down at where the pattering of hoofs could be heard through the mist twenty feet below them; though nothing was visible but a dimly-seen moving mass.
A few minutes later they announced the find to the Colonel.
“This is good news, gentlemen,” he said; “such a store of fresh provisions will be a treasure. Order out your company, Roberts, and you had better get five-and-twenty or thirty of your men, Mr Drummond.”
“Yes, sir,” said the subaltern, smiling.
“What’s that you’re thinking – rather absurd to get out two companies to drive in a flock of sheep?”
“Well, sir, I was thinking something of the sort,” said the young man, colouring.
“I want them to strengthen the guard,” said the Colonel quietly. “A dozen of the native servants can be sent round the flock to head the sheep toward the open gates. There is nothing like being on your guard when dealing with a venturesome as well as a treacherous enemy.”
“You think the enemy may make a rush, sir, as soon as the gates are open?”
“No, Roberts,” said the Colonel, laying his hand on the young man’s shoulder. “I think the enemy might make a rush if they were near; but, happily, I do not believe there are any of the hill-men for many miles round. The last reports are that they are heading homewards, and I begin to hope that the breaking-up of the weather has set us at liberty.”
The arrangements were soon made, everything being done quietly and without any display of lights. The Fusiliers and the draft of Colonel Wrayford’s regiment were stationed on either side of the gates, and about twenty of the native servants, under the guidance of a couple of the friendly hill-men, accustomed to look after the camp live-stock, were detailed with their orders to divide as soon as the gates were opened, and steal cautiously round to the far side of the flock before trying to head them in.
Strict orders had been given to keep the court still and dark, so that the sheep might not take fright upon reaching the gates; while the news spread very rapidly, and the men turned out of their rough quarters, seeking the walls, so as to try and see something of what was going on.
At last, all being ready, the Colonel gave the order for the guard occupying the two towers which commanded the gales to report the state of affairs. Sergeant Gee had taken his place there, and he came down to announce that the sheep were in a very large flock, apparently huddled together about a hundred yards from the gate. But they were quite invisible, and their position could only be made out by their fidgety movements.
“Sounds to me, sir, as if they’d got wolves hanging about them, or maybe a bear.”
“Then they’ll be all the more ready to come into shelter,” said the Colonel, who then gave the word. The great leaves of the entrance were drawn inward, and, each party under his leader, the native servants slipped silently out in Indian file, turned to right and left, and disappeared in the darkness, the mist seeming to swallow them up after their third step.
“Quite a bit of sport, old fellow,” whispered Drummond, who had charge of the men on one side, Roberts being on the other, while the regular guard manned the tower and adjacent wall in strength, so as to see the fun, as they dubbed it.
All was silent now, and the only lights visible were those of the windows in the officers’ quarters, so that it was hard to imagine that many hundred men, for the most part unarmed, were listening eagerly for the first approach of the unsuspecting sheep.
The listeners were not kept in suspense as to whether plenty of roast mutton was to supersede the short commons of the past. There was what seemed to be a long period of silence and darkness, during which a cloud of dense mist floated in through the gateway to fill the court; and during this time of waiting the watchers, by other senses rather than sight, pictured the dark scouts playing the same part as falls to the lot of a collie dog at home, doubling round the great flock, whose restless trampling they could hear in the soft, wet soil. But at last there was the sound of many pattering feet, telling that the flock was in motion; and the suspense deepened, for the question was, “Would the men be able to head the sheep in, or would they dash off to right or left, avoiding the big opening through the gates as the mouth of a trap?”
“Will they – won’t they?” muttered Drummond; and Roberts, like the men in the angle hidden by the tower on the side, held his breath.
The minutes seemed long drawn out now, as the pent-up excitement increased; and Gedge, who was at the open window of the hospital quarters, reached out as far as he could, his heart beating hard as he listened, hearing the pattering quite plainly, and reporting progress to his officer, stretched upon his pallet. For the news had penetrated to where they were. Gedge had heard it from an ambulance sergeant, and hurried in to Bracy.
“Hoo-roar, sir!” he said excitedly, panting hard the while. “Tell yer direckly. It’s wonderful how soon I gets out o’ breath since I had my last wound,” – the knock-down from the stone in the pass was always “my first wound.” – “The boys have captured a flock o’ sheep, sir, and it’s going to be cuts out o’ roast legs and hot mutton-chops for us every day.”
Bracy sighed on hearing this.
“Ah, you go like that, sir,” said Gedge; “but just you wait till you smell one o’ them chops, frizzled as I’ll do it, and peppered and salted – wonder whether there is a bit o’ pepper to be got.”
Gedge did not get the news till the arrangements were well in progress, and a pang of disappointment shot, through him, mingled with a longing to go and join in the fun. But he kept his thoughts to himself, and set to work to make his invalid participate as much as was possible by listening and reporting all he could hear.
“Just you hark, sir; can’t hear a whisper, and it’s as black as can be,” he said softly. “Hope; those chaps as they’ve sent won’t muff it and let the sheep get away to the mountains.”
“They most likely will,” sighed Bracy, who was more low-spirited than usual that night.
“That’s what I’m afraid on, sir. Can’t hear nothing, sir,” he said mournfully. “Yes, I can; just a soft sort o’ sound as is getting louder. It’s pitter-patter o’ little feet in the mud. Yes, that’s it, sir. They’re a-coming nigher and nigher. Oh! don’t I wish I was out behind ’em with a couple of those grey dogs without any tails the drovers uses. I’d have ’em in through the gates in no time, without losing one.”
“Are they going to drive the flock into the courtyard?” said Bracy wearily.
“Why, I telled him they were just now,” muttered Gedge; and then aloud, “Yes, sir, that’s it; and here they come, and – I can’t see, but I can hear – they’re a-getting quite near. And of course, as soon as they’re all in, bing-bang our chaps’ll swing them great gates to and make ’em fast, and there, you are. What a glorious grab, and won’t the niggers be wild! Say, Mr Bracy, sir.”
“Yes.”
“Don’t you feel as if you want to shout?”
“No, Gedge, no.”
“I do, sir. I say, sir, if I was you I’d give me orders to see the butchers, and buy four o’ the sheepskins. I could dress ’em, and you could have ’em made up into a rug, or let the tailor line your greatcoat with ’em. For if we’re going to be shut up here all the winter, every one of them skins ’ll be better for you than two ton o’ coals.”
“Buy six for me, my lad,” said Bracy, “and have three to line your own coat.”
“Oh, thank ye, sir; but – ”
“No, no; three will do, my lad, for I shall be lying asleep under the turf before the winter comes.”
“Mr Bracy, sir!” cried Gedge in a husky voice. “Oh, sir, plee, sir, don’t go and talk like that, sir! Oh, blow the sheep, and the mutton, and the skins!” he muttered; “what do I care about ’em now?”
He was turning away, when, regretting what he had said, Bracy raised himself a little on one elbow, and said softly, and with his voice sounding stronger:
“Why don’t you go on telling me, my lad! Is the flock coming nearer?”
Gedge thrust his head out again, and then partly withdrew it.
“Yes, sir – close in, sir. You can hear ’em now; they must be coming in at the gates. Oh, do be careful!” he whispered to nobody, once more full of excitement, and imagining everything in the darkness. “Steady, steady! Mind, you nigger to the left. Yah! don’t get waving your arms like that; you’ll scare one o’ them old rams. Can’t you see him tossing his head about? He’ll bolt directly, and if he does the whole flock ’ll be after him and off and away to the hills.”
“Can you see them, Gedge?” said Bracy, beginning to take interest in the capture now for his lad’s sake, for deep down in his breast there was a well-spring of gratitude for all the poor, rough, coarse fellow had done.
“See ’em, sir? No; it’s as black as the inside of a tar-barrel: but I can hear and fancy it all, and I’ve helped drive many a flock out Whitechapel way when I was a small boy. Here they come, though, patter, patter, and the chaps have done it splendid; they haven’t made a sound. Here they come; they must be half in by now. There’s some on ’em close under the winder, sir. Hear ’em puffing and breathing?”
“Yes, yes; I can hear them there quite plainly, Gedge. I hope they will secure them now, for every one’s sake.”
“So do I, sir; but they’re not caught till they’re all in and the gates is shut. Our sheep in London’s wild enough when they take fright, while these things is more like goats, and you know how they can run up among the rocks. Oh, steady, steady, out there; look sharp and shut those gates,” whispered the listener. “Oh, do mind! If I sees all them legs o’ mutton cutting their sticks off to the mountains I shall go mad.”
“What’s that?” cried Bracy, as in the wild flush of excitement that flashed through his brain it seemed as if he had received a galvanic shock, and he sat right up in his bed, to keep in that position, gazing wildly towards the darkened window.
Gedge doubtless replied, but his voice was drowned by the wild, warlike yell of triumph which rose from the court – a yell which told its own tale of the success of a ruse. The sheep had been driven into the court through the mist and darkness – a great flock; but with them fully a hundred tulwar and knife armed Dwats in their winter sheepskin-coats, who had crept in with the quiet sheep on all-fours, the placid animals having doubtless been accustomed to the manoeuvre, thought out and practised for weeks past, with a so far perfectly successful result.
The yell was answered by the Colonel’s voice shouting clearly the order for the gates to be shut; but the massacre had begun, the mad Mussulman fanatics who had undertaken the forlorn hope being ready to do or die; and, as the rattle of the moving gates began, an answering war-cry came from not far away, the rush of a large body of men making for the opening being plainly heard.
“Taken by surprise!” shouted Bracy wildly as he realised the horror. “Gedge, it means the slaughter of the poor women and our wounded comrades in the ward. Here, quick, my sword! my revolver! Quick! get one yourself.”
“I’ve got yours, sir, here,” cried Gedge excitedly as he snatched them from where they hung. “Don’t – don’t move, sir; you’re too weak and bad, and I’ll keep the window and the door, sir. They shan’t come near yer while I’m alive. After that – here, ketch hold, sir – your pistol, sir – after that you must lie still and shoot.”
The light had been extinguished, so that the sheep should not be scared by a glare from the window; and in the darkness, amidst the howls, yells, and shouts in the courtyard, Gedge felt for the bed so as to thrust the loaded revolver into Bracy’s hand. But, to his astonishment, a strong hand was laid upon his shoulder, and the sword was snatched from his grasp, while Bracy cried in a voice the lad hardly knew:
“Keep the pistol, close that door and window, and come on. Gedge, lad, we must try and keep the ward, before these savages get in.”
