Kitabı oku: «Fix Bay'nets: The Regiment in the Hills», sayfa 19
Chapter Thirty One
The Light that came
Gedge knelt there gazing upward, unable to grasp the truth of that which he saw; for all around him seemed blacker than ever; but as he looked there was another glowing speck high up in the distance, and then another and another started into sight, while the first he had seen went on increasing in brightness; and, as he still kept his eyes fixed upon it, the fact came to him at last – the belief that it was indeed the sun lighting up the glittering peaks of the vast range – and he started to his feet with a cry of exultation.
“Why, it is to-morrow morning!” he shouted. “Ah! I can help him now.”
But for a time he could only wait on patiently, and watch the bright glow extending, and stealing slowly downward, in a way which suggested that it would be hours before the spot where he stood would be lit up by the full light of day; and, hardly daring to move, he listened, and twice over gave one of his long, piercing whistles, which were echoed and re-echoed in a way which made him shudder and hesitate to raise the strange sounds again.
“It’s o’ no use,” he said. “He’s gone down there, and he’s dead – he’s dead; and I shall never see him again. – Yah! yer great snivelling idjit!” he cried the next moment, in his rage against himself. “The old woman was right when I ’listed. She said I wasn’t fit for a sojer – no good for nothing but to stop at home, carry back the washing, and turn the mangle. I’m ashamed o’ myself. My word, though, the fog’s not so thick, but ain’t it cold! If I don’t do something I shall freeze hard, and not be able to help him when it gets light.”
It was a fact; for, consequent upon standing still so long, a peculiar numbing sensation began to attack his extremities, and it was none too soon when he felt his way down the slope for a few yards, and then turned to climb again. A very short time longer, and he would have been unable to stir; as it was, he could hardly climb back to the place from which he started. Cut he strove hard to restore the failing circulation, keeping his body in active motion, till, by slow degrees, his natural activity returned, and, forgetting the weariness produced by such a night of exertion, he felt ready to do anything towards finding and rescuing his officer.
“There’s no mistake about it,” he muttered, “standing still up in these parts means hands and feet freezing hard. It’s wonderful, though, how these sheepskins keep out the cold. I ought to feel worse than I do, though, at a time like this; but it’s because I won’t believe the gov’nor’s dead. It ain’t possible, like, for it’s so much more sudden than being caught by a bullet through the heart. Oh he ain’t dead – he can’t be – I won’t believe it. Tumbled down into the soft snow somewhere, and on’y wants me to go down and help him out.”
He took another turn up and down to keep up the circulation, and by this time he could move about freely, and without having to climb the ascent in dread of going too far and reaching the perilous edge, with its treachery of snow.
“Getting lighter fast,” he said, “and I shall be able to get to work soon. And that’s it. I’ve got to think o’ that. There’s no help to be got. You’ve got to find all the help in yourself, old man. My! ain’t it beautiful how the light’s coming! It’s just as if the angels was pouring glory on the tops o’ the mountains, and it’s running more and more down the sides, till these great holes and hollows are full, and it’s day once more.”
As the golden rays of sunshine came lower, the mountain in front grew dazzling in its beauty. Minute by minute the glaciers which combed its sides leaped into sight, shining with dazzling beauty, like rivers and falls of golden water; the dark rifts and chasms became purple, lightening into vivid blue; and the reflected light kept on flashing upon hollows and points, till, saving the lower portions, the vast mass of tumbled-together ice and snow shone with a glory that filled the ignorant common lad with a strange feeling of awe.
This passed off directly, however; and, as the darkness on a level with where he stood grew more and more transparent, Gedge’s active mind was searching everything in the most practical way, in connection with the task he had in hand. He could see now dimly that the snow to right and left of him curved over the vast gulf in front – vast in length only; for, thirty or forty yards from where he stood, there was the huge blank face of the mountain going downward, as one vast perpendicular wall of grey rock, streaked with snow where there were ledges for it to cling. In fact, the snow from above hung hen; and there as if ready to fall into the black gulf, still full of darkness, and whose depths could not be plumbed until the light displaced the gloom, and a safe coign of vantage could be found from which the adventurer could look down.
In fact, the young soldier was on the edge of a stupendous bergschrund, as the phenomenon is termed by Swiss climbers – a deep chasm formed by the ice and snow shrinking or falling away from the side of a mountain, where the latter is too steep for it to cling. And then, after a little examination to right and left, Gedge, with beating heart, found the place where Bracy had stepped forward and instantaneously fallen. There was no doubt about it, for the searcher found the two spots where he himself had so nearly gone down, the snow showing great irregular patches, bitten off, as it were, leaving sharp, rugged, perpendicular edges; while where Bracy had fallen there were two footprints and a deep furrow, evidently formed by the rifle, to which he had clung, the furrow growing deeper as it neared the edge of the snow, through which it had been dragged.
Gedge’s face flushed with excitement as he grasped all this and proved its truth, for, between where he stood and the footprints made through the crust of snow, there were his own marks, those made by his bayonet, and others where he had flung himself down, for the snow here was far softer than upon the slope.
In spite of the darkness still clinging to the depths, Gedge began at once searching for a safe place – one where he could crawl to the edge of the gulf, get his face over, and look down; but anywhere near where Bracy had gone down this was in vain, for the snow curved over like some huge volute of glittering whiteness, and several times over, when he ventured, it was to feel that his weight was sufficient to make the snow yield, sending him back with a shudder.
Baffled again and again, he looked to right and left, in search of some slope by whose means he could descend into the gulf; but he looked in vain – everywhere the snow hung over, and as the light increased he saw that the curve was far more than he had imagined.
“Oh, if I only knowed what to do!” he groaned. “I can’t seem to help him; and I can’t leave him to go for help. I must get down somehow; but I dursen’t jump.”
This last thought had hardly crossed his brain when a feeling of wild excitement rushed through him; for faintly heard from far away below, and to his left, there came the shrill chirruping note of an officer’s whistle, and Gedge snatched at the spike of his helmet, plucked it off, and waved it frantically in the air.
“Hoorray!” he yelled. “Hoorray! and I don’t care if any one hears me. Hoorray! He ain’t dead a bit; he’s down somewhere in the soft snow, and hoorray! I’m going to get him out.”
At that moment the whistle chirruped faint and shrill again, the note being repeated from the vast wall.
“He’s this side somewhere,” cried Gedge. “Out o’ sight under this curl-over o’ snow. There he goes again, and I haven’t answered. Of all the – ”
The cramming of his fingers into his mouth checked the speech, and, blowing with all his might, the young soldier sent forth a shrill imitation of the officer’s whistle, to echo from the mountain face; and then, unmistakably, and no echo, came another faint, shrill whistle from far to the left.
“All right, Mr Bracy, sir! Hoorray! and good luck to you! I’m a-coming.”
He whistled again, and went off in the direction from which his summons seemed to have come, and again he was answered, and again and again, till, quite a quarter of a mile along the edge, the young soldier stopped, for the whistles had sounded nearer and nearer, till he felt convinced that he had reached a spot on the snow hanging just above his summoner’s head.
As he stopped he whistled again, and the answer sounded shrill and near.
“Below there! Ahoy!” he yelled, and mingling with the echoes came his name, faintly heard, but in the familiar tones.
“Oh dear! What’s a chap to do?” panted Gedge. “I want to holler and shout, and dance a ’ornpipe. Here, I feel as if I’m goin’ as mad as a hatter. Hi! Oh, Mr Bracy – sir – ain’t – half – dead – are – yer?” he shouted, as if he had punctuated his words with full stops.
“Not – much – hurt,” came up distinctly.
“Then here goes!” muttered Gedge. “I must try and get a look at yer, to see where yer are.”
The speaker threw himself on his faces once more, and began to crawl towards the edge of the cornice, to look down into the fairly-light chasm; but shrank back only just in time to save himself from going down with a great patch of snow; and he listened, shudderingly, to the dull rush it made, followed by a heavy pat and a series of whispering echoes. Then faintly heard came the words: “Keep back, or you’ll send an avalanche down.”
“What’s a haverlarnsh?” muttered Gedge. Then aloud, “All right, sir. Can yer get out?”
“I don’t know yet. I must rest a bit. Don’t talk, or you’ll be sending the snow down.”
“All right, sir; but can’t yer tell me what to do?”
“You can do nothing,” came slowly back in distinct tones. “The snow curves over my head, and there is a tremendous depth. Keep still where you are, and don’t come near.”
“Oh, I can keep still now,” said Gedge coolly. “It’s like being another man to know that’s he’s all alive. Oh! can’t be very much hurt, or he wouldn’t call like he does. Poor chap! But what’s he going to do? Climb up the side somehow? Well, I s’pose I must obey orders; but I should like to be doing something to help him out.”
Gedge was of that type which cannot remain quiet; and, feeling irritated now by his enforced state of helplessness, he spent the time in looking down and around him for signs of danger.
The sun was now above the horizon, lighting up the diversified scene at the foot of the mountain, and away along the valleys spreading to right and left; but for some time he could make out nothing save a few specks in the far distance, which might have been men, or a flock of some creatures pasturing on the green valley-side, miles beyond the termination of the snow-slope up which they had climbed. He made out, too, the continuation of the stony track leading to the head of the valley, and along which the party of tribes-men had been seen to pass; but there was apparently nothing there, and Gedge drew a breath full of relief as he felt how safe they were, and beyond the reach of the enemy.
Then, turning to the gulf again, he went as near as he dared to the edge, and stood listening to a dull sound, which was frequently repeated, and was followed by a low rushing noise, which kept gathering in force till it was like a heavy rush, and then dying away.
“What’s he doing?” muttered Gedge. “Sounds like digging. That’s it; he’s been buried alive; and he’s hard at work trying to dig himself out of the snow with his bayonet stuck at the end of his rifle. Well, good luck to him. Wonder where he’ll come up first.”
Gedge watched the cornice-like edge of the snowfield as the sounds as of some one feebly digging went on; but he could gain no further hint of what was going on, and at last his excitement proved too much for him, and he once more began to creep towards the edge of the snow, getting so far without accident this time that he could form an idea of what must be the depth from seeing far down the grey face of the wall of rock, certainly four or five hundred feet, but no bottom.
“He couldn’t have fallen all that way,” he said to himself. “It must go down with a slope on this side.”
A sharp crack warned him that he was in danger, and he forced himself back on to firm snow, receiving another warning of the peril to which he had exposed himself, for a portion many feet square went down with a hissing rush, to which he stood listening till all was still once more.
Suddenly he jumped back farther, for from somewhere higher up there was a heavy report as of a cannon, followed by a loud echoing roar, and, gazing upward over a shoulder of the mountain, he had a good view of what seemed to be a waterfall plunging over a rock, to disappear afterwards behind a buttress-like mass of rock and ice. This was followed by another roar, and another, before all was still again.
“Must be ice and snow,” he said to himself; “can’t be water.”
Gedge was right; for he had been gazing up at an ice-fall, whose drops were blocks and masses of ice diminished into dust by the great distance, and probably being formed of thousands of tons.
“Bad to have been climbing up there,” he muttered, and he shrank a little farther away from the edge of the great chasm. “It’s precious horrid being all among this ice and snow. It sets me thinking, as it always does when I’ve nothing to do. – If I could only do something to help him, instead of standing here. – Oh, I say,” he cried wildly, “look at that!”
He had been listening to the regular dull dig, dig, dig, going on below the cornice, and to the faint rushing sound, as of snow falling, thinking deeply of his own helplessness the while, wondering too, for the twentieth time, where Bracy would appear, when, to his intense astonishment, he saw a bayonet dart through the snow into daylight about twenty feet back from the edge of the great gulf.
The blade disappeared again directly, and reappeared rapidly two or three times as he ran towards the spot, and then hesitated, for it was dangerous to approach the hole growing in the snow, the direction of the thrusts made being various, and the risk was that the weapon might be darted into the looker-on. Gedge stood then as near as he dared go, watching the progress made by the miner, and seeing the hole rapidly increase in size as the surface crumbled in.
Then all at once Gedge’s heart seemed to leap towards his mouth, for there was a sudden eddy of the loose snow, as if some one were struggling, the bayonet, followed by the rifle, was thrust out into daylight, held by a pair of hands which sought to force it crosswise over the mouth of the hole, and the next instant the watcher saw why. For the caked snow from the opening to the edge of the gulf, and for many yards on either side, was slowly sinking; while, starting from the hole in two opposite directions, and keeping parallel with the edge; of the cornice, a couple of cracks appeared, looking like dark jagged lines.
It was a matter of but a few moments. Gedge had had his lessons regarding the curving-over snow, and knew the danger, which gave him the apt promptitude necessary for action in the terrible peril.
Dropping his own rifle on the ice, he sprang forward, stooped, and, quick as a flash, caught hold of the barrel of the rifle lying on the surface just below the hilt of the bayonet. Then throwing himself back with all the force he could command, he literally jerked Bracy out from where he lay buried in the loose snow and drew him several yards rapidly over the smooth surface. The long lines were opening out and gaping the while, and he had hardly drawn his officer clear before there was a soft, dull report, and a rush, tons of the cornice having been undermined where it hung to the edge of the icefield, and now went downward with a hissing sound, which was followed by a dull roar.
“Ah-h-h!” groaned Gedge, and he dropped down upon his knees beside the prostrate snowy figure, jerked his hands towards his face, and then fell over sidewise, to lie motionless with his eyes fast closed.
When he opened them again it was to see Bracy kneeling by his side and bending over him, the young officer’s countenance looking blue and swollen, while his voice when he spoke sounded husky and faint.
“Are you better now?” he said.
“Better!” replied Gedge hoarsely as he stared confusedly at the speaker. “Ain’t been ill agen, have I! Here, what yer been doing to make my head ache like this here? I – I – I d’ know. Something’s buzzing, and my head’s going round. Some one’s been giving me – Oh, Mr Bracy, sir! I remember now. Do tell me, sir; are yer all right?”
“Yes, nearly,” replied the young officer, with a weary smile. “Twisted my ankle badly, and I’m faint and sick. I can’t talk.”
“Course not, sir; but you’re all right again now. You want something to eat. I say, sir, did you finish your rations?”
“No; they’re here in my haversack. You can take a part if you want some.”
“Me, sir? I’ve got plenty. Ain’t had nothing since when we had our feed together. I ain’t touched nothing.”
“Eat, then; you must want food.”
“Yes, I am a bit peckish, sir, I s’pose; but I can’t eat ’less you do.”
Bracy smiled faintly, and began to open his snow-covered haversack, taking from it a piece of hard cake, which he began to eat very slowly, looking hard and strange of manner, a fact which did not escape Gedge’s eyes; but the latter said nothing, opened his canvas bag with trembling hands, and began to eat in a hurried, excited way, but soon left off.
“Don’t feel like eating no more, sir,” he said huskily. “Can’t for thinking about how you got on. Don’t say nothing till you feel well enough, sir. I can see that you’re reg’lar upset. Ain’t got froze, have you – hands or feet?”
“No, no,” said Bracy slowly, speaking like one suffering from some terrible shock. “I did not feel the cold so much. There, I am coming round, my lad, and I can’t quite grasp yet that I am sitting here alive in the sunshine. I’m stunned. It is as if I were still in that horrible dream-like time of being face to face with death. Ha! how good it is to feel the sun once more!”
“Yes, sir; capital, sir,” said Gedge more cheerfully. “Quite puzzling to think its all ice and snow about us. Shines up quite warm; ’most as warm as it shines down.”
“Ha!” sighed Bracy; “it sends life into me again.”
He closed his eyes, and seemed to be drinking in the warm glow, which was increasing fast, giving colour to the magnificent view around. But after a few minutes, during which Gedge sat munching slowly and gazing anxiously in the strangely swollen and discoloured face, the eyes were reopened, to meet those of Gedge, who pretended to be looking another way.
The sun’s warmth was working wonders, and shortly after Bracy’s voice sounded stronger as he said quietly:
“It would have been hard if I had been carried back by the snow at the last, Gedge.”
“Hard, sir? Horrid.”
“It turned you sick afterwards – the narrow escape I had.”
“Dreadful, sir. I was as bad as a gal. I’m a poor sort o’ thing sometimes, sir. But don’t you talk till you feel all right, sir.”
“I am beginning to feel as if talking will do me good and spur me back into being more myself.”
“Think so, sir? Well, you know best, sir.”
“I think so,” said Bracy quietly; “but I shall not be right till I have had a few hours’ sleep.”
“Look here, then, sir; you lie down in the sun here on my poshtin. I’ll keep watch.”
“No! no! Not till night. There, I am getting my strength back. I was completely stunned, Gedge, and I have been acting like a man walking in his sleep.”
Gedge kept glancing at his officer furtively, and there was an anxious look in his eyes as he said to himself:
“He’s like a fellow going to have a touch of fever. Bit wandering-like, poor chap! I know what’s wrong. I’ll ask him.”
He did not ask at once, though, for he saw that Bracy was eating the piece of cake with better appetite, breaking off scraps more frequently; while the food, simple as it was, seemed to have a wonderfully reviving effect, and he turned at last to his companion.
“You are not eating, my lad,” he said, smiling faintly. “Come, you know what you have said to me.”
“Oh, I’m all right again now, sir; I’m only keeping time with you. There. Dry bread-cake ain’t bad, sir, up here in the mountains, when you’re hungry. Hurt your head a bit – didn’t you, sir?”
“No, no,” said Bracy more firmly. “My right ankle; that is all. How horribly sudden it was!”
“Awful, sir; but don’t you talk.”
“I must now; it does me good, horrible as it all was; but, as I tell you, I was stunned mentally and bodily, to a great extent. I must have dropped a great distance into the soft snow upon a slope, and I was a long time before I could get rid of the feeling of being suffocated. I was quite buried, I suppose; but at last, in a misty way, I seemed to be breathing the cold air in great draughts as I lay on the snow, holding fast to my rifle, which somehow seemed to be the one hope I had of getting back to you.”
“You did a lot of good with it, sir.”
“Did I?”
“Course you did, sir. Digging through the snow.”
“Oh yes, I remember now,” said Bracy, with a sigh. “Yes, I remember having some idea that the snow hung above me like some enormous wave curling right over before it broke, and then becoming frozen hard. Then I remember feeling that I was like one of the rabbits in the sandhills at home, burrowing away to make a hole to get to the surface, and as fast as I got the sand down from above me I kept on kicking it out with my feet, and it slid away far below with a dull, hissing sound.”
“Yes, sir, I heard it; but that was this morning. How did you get on in the night, after you began to breathe again? You couldn’t ha’ been buried long, or you’d ha’ been quite smothered.”
“Of course,” said Bracy rather vacantly – “in the night?”
“Yes; didn’t you hear me hollering?”
“No.”
“When you were gone all in a moment I thought you’d slipped and gone sliding down like them chaps do the tobogganing, sir.”
“You did call to me, then?”
“Call, sir? I expect that made me so hoarse this morning.”
“I did not hear you till I whistled and you answered, not long ago.”
“Why, I whistled too, sir, lots o’ times, and nigh went mad with thinking about you.”
“Thank you, Gedge,” said Bracy quietly, and he held out his hand and gripped his companion’s warmly. “I give you a great deal of trouble.”
“Trouble, sir? Hark at you! That ain’t trouble. But after you got out of the snow?”
“After I got out of the snow?”
“Yus, sir; you was there all night.”
“Was I? Yes, I suppose so. I must have been. But I don’t know much. It was all darkness and snow, and – oh yes, I remember now! I did not dare to move much, because whenever I did stir I began to glide down as if I were going on for ever.”
“But don’t you remember, sir, any more than that?”
“No,” said Bracy, speaking with greater animation now. “As I told you, I must have been stunned by my terrible fall, and that saved me from a time of agony that would have driven me mad. As soon as it was light I must have begun moving in a mechanical way to try and escape from that terrible death-trap: but all that has been dream-like, and – and I feel as if I were still in a kind of nightmare. I am quite faint, too, and giddy with pain. Yes, I must lie down here in the sunshine for a bit. Don’t let me sleep long if I drop off.”
“No, sir; I won’t, sir,” replied Gedge, as Bracy sank to his elbow and then subsided with a restful sigh, lying prone upon the snow.
“He’s fainted! No, he ain’t; he’s going right off to sleep. Not let him sleep long? Yes, I will; I must, poor chap! It’s knocked half the sense out of him, just when he was done up, too. Not sleep? Why, that’s the doctor as’ll pull him round. All right, sir; you’re going to have my sheepskin too, and you ain’t going to be called till the sun’s going down, and after that we shall see.”
Ten minutes later Bracy was sleeping, carefully wrapped in Gedge’s poshtin, while the latter was eating heartily of the remains of his rations.
“And he might ha’ been dead, and me left alone!” said Gedge, speaking to himself. “My! how soon things change! Shall I have a bit more, or shan’t I! Yes; I can’t put my greatcoat on outside, so I must put some extra lining in.”
