Kitabı oku: «Midnight Webs», sayfa 4
Story 1-Chapter X
The orderly took back a despatch from Captain Dyer, starting at daybreak the next morning; but before then, we all knew that matters were getting to wear a terrible aspect. At first, I had been disposed to think that the orderly was romancing, and giving as a few travellers’ tales; but I soon found out that he was in earnest; and more than once I felt a shiver as he sat with our mess, telling as of how regiment after regiment had mutinied and murdered their officers; how station after station had been plundered, collectors butchered, and their wives and daughters sometimes cut down, sometimes carried off by the wretches, who had made a sport of throwing infants from one to the other on their bayonets.
“I never had any children,” sobbed Mrs Bantem then; “and I never wished to have any; for they’re not right for soldiers’ wives; but only to think – the poor sweet, suffering little things. O, if I’d only been a man, and been there!”
We none of us said anything; but I believe all thought as I did, that if Mrs Bantem had been there, she’d have done as much – ah, perhaps more – than some men would have done. Bless my soul! as I think of it, and recall it from the bygone, there I can see Mother Bantem – though why we called her mother, I don’t know, unless it was because she was like a mother to us – with her great strapping form; and think of the way in which she —
Halt! Retire by fours from the left.
Just in time; for I find handling my pen’s like handling a commander-in-chief’s staff, and that I’ve got letters which make words, which make phrases, which make sentences, which make paragraphs, which make chapters, which make up the whole story; and that is for all the world like the army with its privates made into companies, and battalions, and regiments, and brigades. Well, there you are: if you don’t have discipline, and every private in his right place, where are you? Just so with me; my words were coming out in the wrong places, and in another minute I should have spoiled my story, by letting you know what was coming at the wrong time.
Well, we all felt very deeply the news brought in by that orderly; for soldiers are not such harum-scarum roughs as some people seem to imagine. For the most part, they’re men with the same feelings as civilians; and I don’t think many of us slept very sound that night, feeling as we did what a charge we had, and that we might be attacked at any time; and a good deal of my anxiety was on account of Lizzy Green; for even if she wouldn’t be my wife, but Harry Lant’s, I could not help taking a wonderful deal of interest in her.
But all the same it was a terribly awkward time, as you must own, for falling in love; and I don’t know hardly whom I pitied most, Captain Dyer or myself; but think I had more leanings towards number one, because Captain Dyer was happy; though, perhaps, I might have been; only like lots more hot sighing noodles, I never once thought of asking the girl if she’d have me. As for Lieutenant Leigh, I never even thought of giving him a bit of pity, for I did not think he deserved it.
Well, the trooper started off at daybreak, so as to get well on his journey in the early morning; and about an hour after he was gone, I had a fancy to go into the old ruined room again, where there was the bit of a scene I’ve told you of. My orders from Captain Dyer were, to watch Chunder strictly, both as to seeing that he did not again insult any of the women, and also to see if he had any little game of his own that he was playing on the sly; for though Lieutenant Leigh, on being told, pooh-poohed it all, and advised a flogging, Captain Dyer had his suspicions – stronger ones, it seemed, than mine; and hence my orders, and my being excused from mounting guard.
It was all very still and cool and quiet as I walked from room to room, slowly and thoughtfully, stopping to pick up my broken pipe, which lay where I had dropped it; and then going on into the next room, where, under the window, lay the bit of cotton cobweb and cat’s-cradle work Lizzy had been doing, and had left behind. I gave a bit of a gulp as I picked that up; and I was tucking it inside my jacket, when I stopped short, for I thought I heard a whisper.
I listened, and there it was again – a low, earnest whispering of first one and then another voice in the next room, whose wide broken doorway stood open, for there wasn’t a bit of woodwork left.
I have heard about people saying, that in some great surprise or fright, their hearts stood still; but I don’t believe it, because it always strikes me that, when a person’s heart does stand still, it never goes on again. All the same, though, my heart felt then as if it did stand still with the dead, dull, miserable feeling that came upon me. Only to think that this was only the second time I had come through these ruined rooms, and they were here again! It was plain enough Harry Lant and Lizzy made this their meeting-place, and only they knew how many times they’d met before.
Time back, I could have laughed at the idea of me, a great strapping fellow, feeling as I did; but now I felt very wretched; and as I thought of Harry Lant kissing those bright red lips, and looking into those deep dark eyes, and being let pass his hand over the glossy hair, with the prospect of some day calling it all his own, I did not burn all over with a mad rage and passion, but it was like a great grief coming upon me, so that, if it hadn’t been for being a man, I could have sat down and cried.
I should think ten minutes passed, and the whispering still went on, when I said to myself: “Be a man, Isaac: if she likes him better, hasn’t she a right to her pick?” But still I felt very miserable as I turned to go away, when a something, said a little louder than the rest, stopped me.
“That ain’t English,” I says to myself. “What! surely she’s not listening to that black scoundrel?”
I was red-hot then in a moment; and as to thinking whether this or that was straightforward, or whether I was playing the spy, or anything of that sort, such an idea never came into my head. Chunder was evidently talking to Lizzy Green in that room; and for a few seconds I felt blind with a sort of jealous savage rage – against her, mind, now; and going on tip-toe, I looked round the doorway, so as to see as well as hear.
I was back in an instant, with a fresh set of sensations busy in my breast. It was Chunder, but he was alone; there was no Lizzy there; and I don’t know whether my heart beat then for joy at knowing it, or for shame at myself for having thought such a thing of her.
What did it mean, then?
I did not have to ask myself the question twice, for the answer came – Treachery! And stealing to the slit of window in the room I was in, I peeped cautiously out in time to see Chunder throwing out what looked like a white packet. I could see his arm move as he threw it down to a man in a turban – a dark wiry-looking rascal; and in those few seconds I seemed to read that packet word for word, though no doubt the writing was in one of the native dialects, and my reading of it was, that it was a correct list of the defenders of the place, the women and children, and what arms and ammunition there were stored up.
It was all plain enough, and the villain was sending it by a man who must have brought him tidings of some kind.
What was I to do? That man ought to be stopped at all hazards; and what I ought to have done was to steal back, give the alarm, and let a party go round to try and cut him off.
That’s what I ought to have done; but I never did have much judgment.
Now for what I did do.
Slipping back from the window, I went cautiously to the doorway, and entered the old room where Chunder was standing at the window; and I went in so quietly, and he was so intent, that I had crept close, and was in the act of leaping on to him before he turned round and tried to avoid me.
He was too late, though, for with a bound I was on him, pinioning his hands, and holding him down on the window-sill, with his head half out, as, bearing down upon him, I leaned out as far as I could, yelling out, —
“Sentry on the west roof, mark man below. Stop him, or fire!”
The black fellow below drew a long awkward-looking pistol, and aimed at me, but only for a moment. Perhaps he was afraid of killing Chunder, for the next instant he had stuck the pistol back in his calico belt, and, with head stooped, was running as hard as he could run, when I could hardly contain myself for rage, knowing as I did how important it was for him to have been stopped.
“Bang!”
A sharp report from the roof, and the fellow made a bound.
Was he hit?
No: he only seemed to ran the faster.
“Bang!”
Another report as the runner came in sight of the second sentry.
But I saw no more, for all my time was taken up with Chunder; for as the second shot rang out, he gave a heave, and nearly sent me through the open window.
It was by a miracle almost that I saved myself from breaking my neck, for it was a good height from the ground; but I held on to him tightly with a clutch such as he never had on his arms and neck before; and then, with a strength for which I shouldn’t have given him credit, he tussled with me, now tugging to get away, now to throw me from the window, his hot breath beating all the time upon my cheeks, and his teeth grinning, and eyes rolling savagely.
It was only a spurt, though, and I soon got the better of him.
I don’t want to boast, but I suppose our cold northern bone and muscle are tougher and stronger than theirs; and at the end of five minutes, puffing and blown, I was sitting on his chest, taking a paper from inside his calico.
That laid me open; for, like a flash, I saw then that he had a knife in one hand, while before another thought could pass through my mind, it was sticking through my jacket and the skin of my ribs, and my fist was driven down against his mouth for him to kiss for the second time in his life.
Next minute, Captain Dyer and a dozen men were in the room, Chunder was handcuffed and marched off, and the captain was eagerly questioning me.
“But is that fellow shot down or taken – the one outside?” I asked.
“Neither,” said Captain Dyer; “and it is too late now: he has got far enough away.”
Then I told him what I had seen, and he looked at the packet, his brow knitting as he tried to make it out.
“I ought to have come round and given the alarm, captain,” I said bitterly.
“Yes, my good fellow, you ought,” he said; “and I ought to have had that black scoundrel under lock and key days ago. But it is too late now to talk of what ought to have been done; we must talk of what there is to do. – But are you hurt?”
“He sent his knife through my jacket, sir,” I said, “but it’s only a scratch on the skin;” and fortunately that’s what it proved to be, for we had no room for wounded men, since we should have them soon enough.
Story 1-Chapter XI
An hour of council, and then another – our two leaders not seeming to agree as to the extent of the coming danger. Challenge from the west roof:
“Orderly in sight.”
Sure enough, a man on horseback riding very slowly, and as if his horse was dead beat.
“Surely it isn’t that poor fellow come back, because his horse has failed? He ought to have walked on,” said Captain Dyer.
“Same man,” said Lieutenant Leigh, looking through his glass; and before very long, the poor fellow who had gone away at daybreak rode slowly up to the gate, was admitted, and then had to be helped from his horse, giving a great sobbing groan as it was done.
“In here, quick!” I said, for I thought I heard the ladies’ voices; and we carried him in to where Mrs Bantem was getting ready for dinner, and there we laid him on a mattress.
“Despatches, captain,” he says, holding up the captain’s letter to Colonel Maine. “They didn’t get that. They were too many for me. I dropped one, though, with my pistol, and cut my way through the others.”
As he spoke, I untwisted his leather sword-knot, which was cutting into his wrist, for his hacked and blood-stained sabre was hanging from his hand.
“Wouldn’t go back into the scabbard,” he said faintly; and then with a harsh gasp: “Water – water!”
He revived then a hit; and as Captain Dyer and Mrs Bantem between them were attending to, and binding up his wounds, he told us how he had been set upon some miles off, and had been obliged to fight his way back; and, poor chap, he had fought; for there were no less than ten lance-wounds in his arms, thighs, and chest, from a slight prick up to a horrible gash, deep and long enough, it seemed to me, to let out half-a-dozen poor fellows’ souls.
Just in the middle of it, I saw Captain Dyer start and look strange, for there was a shadow came across where we were kneeling; and the next instant he was standing between Miss Ross and the wounded man.
“Pray, go, dear Elsie; this is no place for you,” I heard him whisper to her.
“Indeed, Lawrence,” she said gently, “am I not a soldier’s daughter? I ought to say this is no place for you. Go, and make your arrangements for our defence.”
I don’t think any one but me saw the look of love she gave him as she took sponge and lint from his hand, pressing it as she did so, and then her pale face lit up with a smile as she met his eyes; the next moment she was kneeling by the wounded trooper, and in a quiet firm way helping Mrs Bantem, in a manner that made her, poor woman, stare with astonishment.
“God bless you, my darling,” she whispered to her as soon as they had done, and the poor fellow was lying still – a toss-up with him whether it should be death or life; and I saw Mrs Bantem take Miss Ross’s soft white hand between her two great rough hard palms, and kiss it just once.
“And I’d always been abusing and running her down for a fine madam, good for nothing but to squeal songs, and be looked at,” Mrs Bantem said to me a little while after. “Why, Isaac Smith, we shall be having that little maid showing next that there’s something in her.”
“And why not?” I said gruffly.
“Ah, to be sure,” says she, with a comical look out of one eye; “why not? But, Isaac, my lad,” she said sadly, and looking at me very earnestly, “I’m afraid there’s sore times coming, and if so, God in heaven help those poor bairns! O, if I’d been a man, and been there!” she cried, as she recollected what the trooper had told us; and she shook her fist fiercely in the air. “It’s what I always did say: soldiers’ wives have no business to have children; and it’s rank cruelty to the poor little things to bring them into the world.”
Mrs Bantem then went off to see to her patient, while I walked into the court, wondering what would come next, and whether, in spite of all the little bitternesses and grumbling, everybody, now that the stern realities of life were coming upon us, would show up the bright side of his or her nature; and somehow I got very hopeful about it.
I felt just then that I should have much liked to have a few words with Lizzy Green, but I had no chance, for it was a busy time with us. Captain Dyer felt strongly enough his responsibility, and not a minute did he lose in doing all he could for our defence; so that after an anxious day, with nothing more occurring, when I looked round at what had been done in barricading and so on, it seemed to me, speaking as a soldier, that, as far as I could judge, there was nothing more to be done, though still the feeling would come home to me that it was a great place for forty men to defend, if attacked by any number. Captain Dyer must have seen that, for he had arranged to have a sort of citadel at the north end by the gateway, and this was to be the last refuge, where all the ammunition and food and no end of chatties of water were stowed down in the great vault-place, which went under this part of the building and a good deal of the court. Then the watch was set, trebled this time, on roof and at window, and we waited impatiently for the morning.
Yes, we all of us, I believe, waited impatiently for the morning; when I think, if we had known all that was to come, we should have knelt down and prayed for the darkness to keep on hour after hour, for days, and weeks, and months, sooner than the morning should have broke as it did upon a rabble of black faces, some over white clothes, some over the British uniform that they had disgraced; and as I, who was on the west roof, heard the first hum of their coming, and caught the first glimpse of the ragged column, I gave the alarm, setting my teeth hard as I did so; for, after many years of soldiering, I was now for the first time to see a little war in earnest.
Captain Dyer’s first act on the alarm being given was to double the guard over the three blacks, now secured in the strongest room he could find, the black nurse being well looked after by the women. Then, quick almost as thought, every man was at the post already assigned to him; the women and children were brought into the corner rooms by the gates, and then we waited excitedly for what should follow. The captain now ordered me out of the little party under a sergeant, and made me his orderly; and so it happened that always being with or about him, I knew how matters were going on, and was always carrying the orders, now to Lieutenant Leigh, now to this sergeant or that corporal. At the first offset of the defence of the old place, there was a dispute between captain and lieutenant; and I’m afraid it was maintained by the last out of obstinacy, and just at a time when there should have been nothing but pulling together for the sake of all concerned. I must say, though, that there was right on both sides.
Lieutenant Leigh put it forward as his opinion that, short of men as we were, it was folly to keep four enemies under the same roof, who were likely at any time to overpower the one or two sentries placed over them; while, if there was nothing to fear in that way, there was still the shortening of our defensive forces by a couple of valuable men.
“What would you do with them, then?” said Captain Dyer.
“Set them at liberty,” said Lieutenant Leigh.
“I grant all you say, in the first place,” said the captain; “but our retaining them is a sheer necessity.”
“Why?” said Lieutenant Leigh with a sneer. And I must say that at first I held with him.
“Because,” said the captain sternly, “if we set them at liberty, we increase our enemies’ power, not merely with three men, but with scoundrels who can give them the fullest information of our defences, over and above that of which I am afraid they are already possessed. The matter will not bear farther discussion. – Lieutenant Leigh, go now to your post, and do your duty to the best of your power.”
Lieutenant Leigh did not like this, and he frowned; but Captain Dyer was his superior officer, and it was his duty to obey; so of course he did.
Now, our position was such, that, say, a hundred men with a field-piece could have knocked a wing in, and then carried us by assault with ease; but though our enemies were full two hundred and fifty, and many of them drilled soldiers – pieces, you may say, of a great machine – fortunately for us, there was no one to put that machine together and set it in motion. We soon found that out; for, instead of making the best of things, and taking possession of buildings – sheds and huts – here and there, from which to annoy us, they came up in a mob to the gate, and one fellow on a horse – a native chief, he seemed to be – gave his sword a wave, and half-a-dozen sowars round him did the same, and then they called to us to surrender.
Captain Dyer’s orders were to act entirely on the defensive, and to fire no shot till we had orders, leaving them to commence hostilities.
“For,” said he, speaking to all the men, “it may be a cowardly policy with such a mutinous set in front of us; but we have the women and children to think of; therefore, our duty is to hold the foe at bay, and when we do fire, to make every shot tell. Beating them off is, I fear, impossible; but we may keep them out till help comes.”
“Wouldn’t it be advisable, sir, to try and send off another despatch?” I said. “There’s the trooper’s horse.”
“Where?” said Captain Dyer with a smile. “That has already been thought of, Smith; and Sergeant Jones, the only good horseman we have, went off at two o’clock, and by this time is, I hope, out of danger. – Good heavens! what does that mean?” he said, using his glass.
It was curious that I should have thought of such a thing just then, at a time when four sowars led up Sergeant Jones tied by a piece of rope to one of their saddle-bows, while the trooper’s horse was behind.
Captain Dyer would not show, though, that he was put out by the failure of that hope; he only passed the word for the men to stand firm, and then sent me with a message to Mrs Colonel Maine, requesting that every one might keep right away from the windows, as the enemy might open fire at any time.
He was quite right; for just as I knocked at Mrs Maine’s door, a regular squandering scattering fire began, and you could hear the bullets striking the wall with a sharp pat, bringing down showers of white lime-dust and powdered stone.
I found Mrs Maine seated on the floor with her children, pale and trembling, the little things the while laughing and playing over some pictures. Miss Ross was leaning over her sister, and Lizzy Green was waiting to give the children something else when they were tired of the pictures.
As the rattle of the musketry began, it was soon plain enough to see who had the stoutest hearts; but I seemed to be noticing nothing, though I did a great deal, and listened to Mrs Bantem’s voice in the next room, bullying and scolding a woman for crying out loud and upsetting everybody else.
I gave my message; and then Miss Ross asked me if any one was hurt, to which I answered as cheerfully as could be that we were all right as yet; and then, taking myself off, Lizzy Green came with me to the door, and I held out my hand to say good-bye; for I knew it was possible I might never see her again. She gave me her hand, and said “Good bye,” in a faltering sort of way, and it seemed to me that she shrank from me. The next instant, though, there was the rattling crash of the firing, and I knew now that our men were answering.
