Soldiers Three - Part 2

“But they were as fit as be-damned when I left them!” said Bobby.

“Then you’d better make them as fit as be-damned when you rejoin,” said the Major brutally.

Bobby pressed his forehead against the rain-splashed window-pane as the train lumbered across the sodden Doab, and prayed for the health of the Tyneside Tail Twisters. Naini Tal had sent down her contingent with all speed; the lathering ponies of the Dalhousie Road staggered into Pathankot, taxed to the full stretch of their strength; while from cloudy Darjiling the Calcutta Mail whirled up the last straggler of the little army that was to fight a fight, in which was neither medal nor honour for the winning, against an enemy none other than “the sickness that destroyeth in the noonday.”

And as each man reported himself, he said: “This is a bad business,” and went about his own forthwith, for every Regiment and Battery in the cantonment was under canvas, the sickness bearing them company.

Bobby fought his way through the rain to the Tail Twisters’ temporary mess, and Revere could have fallen on the boy’s neck for the joy of seeing that ugly, wholesome phiz once more.

“Keep ‘em amused and interested,” said Revere. “They went on the drink, poor fools, after the first two cases, and there was no improvement. Oh, it’s good to have you back, Bobby! Porkiss is a — never mind.”

Deighton came over from the Artillery camp to attend a dreary mess dinner, and contributed to the general gloom by nearly weeping over the condition of his beloved Battery. Porkiss so far forgot himself as to insinuate that the presence of the officers could do no earthly good, and that the best thing would be to send the entire Regiment into hospital and “let the doctors look after them.” Porkiss was demoralised with fear, nor was his peace of mind restored when Revere said coldly: “Oh! The sooner you go out the better, if that’s your way of thinking. Any public school could send us fifty good men in your place, but it takes time, time, Porkiss, and money, and a certain amount of trouble, to make a Regiment. S’pose you’re the person we go into camp for, eh?”

Whereupon Porkiss was overtaken with a great and chilly fear which a drenching in the rain did not allay, and, two days later, quitted this world for another where, men do fondly hope, allowances are made for the weaknesses of the flesh. The Regimental Sergeant-Major looked wearily across the Sergeants’ Mess tent when the news was announced.

“There goes the worst of them,” he said. “It’ll take the best, and then, please God, it’ll stop.” The Sergeants were silent till one said: “It couldn’t be him!” and all knew of whom Travis was thinking.

Bobby Wick stormed through the tents of his Company, rallying, rebuking, mildly, as is consistent with the Regulations, chaffing the fainthearted; haling the sound into the watery sunlight when there was a break in the weather, and bidding them be of good cheer, for their trouble was nearly at an end; scuttling on his dun pony round the outskirts of the camp and heading back men who, with the innate perversity of British soldiers, were always wandering into infected villages, or drinking deeply from rain-flooded marshes; comforting the panic-stricken with rude speech, and more than once tending the dying who had no friends — the men without “townies”; organizing, with banjos and burnt cork, Sing-songs which should allow the talent of the Regiment full play; and generally, as he explained, “playing the giddy garden-goat all round.”

“You’re worth half a dozen of us, Bobby,” said Revere in a moment of enthusiasm. “How the devil do you keep it up?”

Bobby made no answer, but had Revere looked into the breast-pocket of his coat he might have seen there a sheaf of badly-written letters which perhaps accounted for the power that possessed the boy. A letter came to Bobby every other day. The spelling was not above reproach, but the sentiments must have been most satisfactory, for on receipt Bobby’s eyes softened marvellously, and he was wont to fall into a tender abstraction for a while ere, shaking his cropped head, he charged into his work.

By what power he drew after him the hearts of the roughest, and the Tail Twisters counted in their ranks some rough diamonds indeed, was a mystery to both skipper and C. O., who learned from the regimental chaplain that Bobby was considerably more in request in the hospital tents than the Reverend John Emery.

“The men seem fond of you. Are you in the hospitals much?” said the Colonel, who did his daily round and ordered the men to get well with a hardness that did not cover his bitter grief.

“A little, sir,” said Bobby.

“Shouldn’t go there too often if I were you. They say it’s not contagious, but there’s no use in running unnecessary risks. We can’t afford to have you down, y’ know.”

Six days later, it was with the utmost difficulty that the post-runner plashed his way out to the camp with the mail-bags, for the rain was falling in torrents. Bobby received a letter, bore it off to his tent, and, the programme for the next week’s Sing-song being satisfactorily disposed of, sat down to answer it. For an hour the unhandy pen toiled over the paper, and where sentiment rose to more than normal tide-level, Bobby Wick stuck out his tongue and breathed heavily. He was not used to letter-writing.

“Beg y’ pardon, sir,” said a voice at the tent door; “but Dormer’s ‘orrid bad, sir, an’ they’ve taken him orf, sir.”

“Damn Private Dormer and you too!” said Bobby Wick, running the blotter over the half-finished letter. “Tell him I’ll come in the morning.”

“‘E’s awful bad, sir,” said the voice hesitatingly. There was an undecided squelching of heavy boots.

“Well?” said Bobby impatiently.

“Excusin’ ‘imself before ‘and for takin’ the liberty, ‘e says it would be a comfort for to assist ‘im, sir, if — tattoo lao! Get my pony! Here, come in out of the rain till I’mready. What blasted nuisances you are! That’s brandy. Drink some; you want it. Hang on to my stirrup and tell me if I go too fast.”

Strengthened by a four-finger “nip” which he swallowed without a wink, the Hospital Orderly kept up with the slipping, mud-stained, and very disgusted pony as it shambled to the hospital tent.

Private Dormer was certainly “‘orrid bad.” He had all but reached the stage of collapse, and was not pleasant to look upon.

“What’s this, Dormer?” said Bobby, bending over the man. “You’re not going out this time. You’ve got to come fishing with me once or twice more yet.”

The blue lips parted and in the ghost of a whisper said, — “Beg y’ pardon, sir, disturbin’ of you now, but would you min’ ‘oldin’ my ‘and, sir’?”

Bobby sat on the side of the bed, and the icy-cold hand closed on his own like a vice, forcing a lady’s ring which was on the little finger deep into the flesh. Bobby set his lips and waited, the water dripping from the hem of his trousers. An hour passed, and the grasp of the hand did not relax, nor did the expression of the drawn face change. Bobby with infinite craft lit himself a cheroot with the left hand (his right arm was numbed to the elbow), and resigned himself to a night of pain.

Dawn showed a very white-faced Subaltern sitting on the side of a sick man’s cot, and a Doctor in the doorway using language unfit for publication.

“Have you been here all night, you young ass?” said the Doctor.

“There or thereabouts,” said Bobby ruefully. “He’s frozen on to me.”

Dormer’s mouth shut with a click. He turned his head and sighed. The clinging hand opened, and Bobby’s arm fell useless at his side.

“He’ll do,” said the Doctor quietly. “It must have been a toss-up all through the night. ‘Think you’re to be congratulated on this case.”

“Oh, bosh!” said Bobby. “I thought the man had gone out long ago — only — only I didn’t care to take my hand away. Rub my arm down, there’s a good chap. What a grip the brute has! I’m chilled to the marrow!” He passed out of the tent shivering.

Private Dormer was allowed to celebrate his repulse of Death by strong waters. Four days later, he sat on the side of his cot and said to the patients mildly: “I’d ‘a’ liken to ‘a’ spoken to ‘im — so I should.”

But at that time Bobby was reading yet another letter, — he had the most persistent correspondent of any man in camp, — and was even then about to write that the sickness had abated, and in another week at the outside would be gone. He did not intend to say that the chill of a sick man’s hand seemed to have struck into the heart whose capacities for affection he dwelt on at such length. He did intend to enclose the illustrated programme of the forthcoming Sing-song, whereof he was not a little proud. He also intended to write on many other matters which do not concern us, and doubtless would have done so but for the slight feverish headache which made him dull and unresponsive at mess.

“You are overdoing it, Bobby,” said his skipper. “‘Might give the rest of us credit of doing a little work. You go on as if you were the whole Mess rolled into one. Take it easy.”

“I will,” said Bobby. “I’m feeling done up, somehow.” Revere looked at him anxiously and said nothing.

There was a flickering of lanterns about the camp that night, and a rumour that brought men out of their cots to the tent doors, a paddling of the naked feet of doolie-bearers, and the rush of a galloping horse.

“Wot’s up?” asked twenty tents; and through twenty tents ran the answer — “Wick, ‘e’s down.”

They brought the news to Revere and he groaned. “Any one but Bobby and I shouldn’t have cared! The Sergeant-Major was right.”

“Not going out this journey,” gasped Bobby, as he was lifted from the doolie. “Not going out this journey.” Then with an air of supreme conviction — “I can’t, you see.”

“Not if I can do anything!” said the Surgeon-Major, who had hastened over from the mess where he had been dining.

He and the Regimental Surgeon fought together with Death for the life of Bobby Wick. Their work was interrupted by a hairy apparition in a blue-gray dressing-gown, who stared in horror at the bed and cried — “Oh, my Gawd! It can’t be ‘im!” until an indignant Hospital Orderly whisked him away.

If care of man and desire to live could have done aught, Bobby would have been saved. As it was, he made a fight of three days, and the Surgeon-Major’s brow uncreased. “We’ll save him yet,” he said; and the Surgeon, who, though he ranked with the Captain, had a very youthful heart, went out upon the word and pranced joyously in the mud.

“Not going out this journey,” whispered Bobby Wick gallantly, at the end of the third day.

“Bravo!” said the Surgeon-Major. “That’s the way to look at it, Bobby.”

As evening fell a gray shade gathered round Bobby’s mouth, and he turned his face to the tent-wall wearily. The Surgeon-Major frowned.

“I’m awfully tired,” said Bobby, very faintly. “What’s the use of bothering me with medicine? I — don’t — want — it. Let me alone.”

The desire for life had departed, and Bobby was content to drift away on the easy tide of Death.

“It’s no good,” said the Surgeon-Major. “He doesn’t want to live. He’s meeting it, poor child.” And he blew his nose.