The Kopje Garrison Part 54

"Confound it, man! don't dictate to me," cried d.i.c.kenson testily.

"Certainly not, sir. Beg your pardon, sir; but we've got a heavy job on to-night, and it's my duty to warn you as an old soldier."

"What do you mean?"

"I mean, sir, that I've had twenty years' experience, and you've had two, sir. A man can only do so much; when he has done that and tries to do more, he shuts up all at once. I don't want you to shut up, sir, to-night. I want you to lead us to where we can find Mr Lennox."

"Of course, sergeant. I know you always mean well. Don't take any notice of my snappish way."

"Not a bit, sir," said the man, smiling. "It's only a sign that, though you don't know it, you're just ready to shut up."

"But, hang it all, man!" said the young officer, with a return of his irritable manner, "I only want to just see my brother officer for a few minutes."

"Yes, sir, I know," said the sergeant stubbornly; "but you're better away. He's right off his head, and abusing everybody. If you go he'll say things to you that will upset you more than three hours' sleep will wipe out."

"Oh, I know what you mean now-what he said before-about my being a coward and leaving him in the lurch."

"Something of that sort, sir," replied the sergeant.

"Poor fellow! Well, perhaps it would be as well, for very little seems to put me out. It was the shock of the explosion, I expect. There, sergeant, I'll go and lie down."

"I'll bring you a bit of something to eat, sir, when I come. There's plenty now."

"Ah, to be sure; do," said the young man. "But I could touch nothing yet. Remember: as soon as it is quite dark."

"Yes, sir; as soon as it is quite dark."

d.i.c.kenson strode away, and the sergeant uttered a grunt of satisfaction.

"Poor fellow!" he muttered. "It would have made him turn upon the captain. n.o.body likes to be called a coward even by a crank. It would have regularly upset him for the work. Now then, I'll just give those two fellows the word, and then pick out the ponies. Next I'll lie down till the roast's ready. We'll all three have a good square meal, and sleep again till it's time to call Mr d.i.c.kenson and give him his corn. After that, good-luck to us! We must bring that poor young fellow in, alive or dead, and I'm afraid it's that last."

Meanwhile d.i.c.kenson had sought his quarters, slipped off his accoutrements and blackened tunic, and thrown himself upon his rough bed. It was early in the afternoon, with the sun pouring down its burning rays on the iron roofing of his hut, and the flies swarming about the place.

As a matter of course over-tired, his nerves overwrought with the excitement of what he had gone through, and his head throbbing painfully, he could not go to sleep. Every time he closed his eyes his ears began to sing after the same fas.h.i.+on as they did directly following the explosion, and after tossing wearily from side to side for quite an hour, he sat up, feeling feverish and miserable.

"I'm making myself worse," he thought. "I know: I'll go down to the side of the stream, bathe my burning head and face, and try and find a shady place amongst the rocks."

He proceeded to put his plan into execution, resuming his blackened khaki jacket and belts, and started off, to find a pleasant breeze blowing, and, in spite of the afternoon suns.h.i.+ne, the heat much more bearable than inside his hut. His way led him in the direction of the rough hospital, and as he drew near, to his surprise he heard Captain Roby's voice speaking angrily, and d.i.c.kenson checked himself and bore off to his right so as to go close by the open door.

"Poor fellow!" he said. "I must see how he is."

He went into the large open hut in which the captain had been placed by the doctor's orders, because it was one in which the sides had been taken off so as to ensure a good current of air. As the young officer entered he caught sight of two others of the injured lying at one end, and noted that the wounded corporal was one.

Both men were lying on their backs, perfectly calm and quiet; but Roby was tossing his hands about impatiently and turning his head from side to side, his eyes wide open, and he fixed them fiercely upon his brother officer as he entered.

"How does he seem, my lad?" said d.i.c.kenson to the attendant, who was moistening the captain's bandages from time to time.

"Badly, sir. Quite off his head."

"Ah! Cur!-coward!" cried Roby, glaring at him. "Coward, I say! To leave me like that and run."

"Nonsense, old fellow!" said d.i.c.kenson, affected just as the sergeant had said he would be; and his voice sounded irritable in the extreme as he continued, "Drop that. You said so before."

"Who's that?" cried Roby, with his eyes becoming fixed.

"Me, old fellow-d.i.c.kenson. Not a coward, though."

"Who said you were?"

"Why, you did, over and over again."

"A lie! No. I said Lennox. Ah! To run for his miserable life-a coward-a cur!"

"What!" cried d.i.c.kenson angrily; but Roby lay silent as if exhausted, and, to the young officer's horror and disgust, a womanly sob came from the corporal's rough pallet at the end of the hut, and in a whining voice he moaned:

"Yes, sir; he don't mean you, but Mr Lennox, sir. I saw him run, and it's all true."

Chapter Twenty Seven.

"There's Nothing like the Truth."

Bob d.i.c.kenson's jaw dropped as he stood staring for some moments at the corporal-as if he could not quite believe his ears. It seemed to him that this had something to do with the explosion, and that his hearing apparatus was still wrong, twisting and distorting matters, or else that the excitement of the past night and his exertions had combined with the aforesaid explosion to make him stupid and confused.

But all the same he felt that he could think and weigh and compare Roby's words with those of the corporal, and experienced the sensation of a tremendous effervescence of rage bubbling up within his breast and rising higher and higher to his lips till it burst forth in words hot with indignation.

"Why," he roared, "you miserable, snivelling-lying-Oh, tut, tut, tut! what a fool I am, quarrelling with a man off his head!-Here, orderly," he continued, turning to the hospital attendant, "this fellow May doesn't know what he's saying."

"So I keep on telling him, sir," said the man sharply; "but he will keep at it. Here's poor Captain Roby regularly off his chump, and bursting out every now and then calling everybody a coward, and, as if that ain't bad enough, Corporal May goes on encouraging him by saying Amen every time."

"I don't," cried the corporal, in a very vigorous tone for one so badly injured; "and look here, if you make false charges against me I'll report you to the doctor next time he comes round, and to the colonel too."

"What!" cried the orderly fiercely. "Yes, you'd better! Recollect you're down now, and it's my turn. I've had plenty of your nastiness, Mr Jack-in-office Corporal, for a year past, when I was in the ranks. You ain't a corporal now, but in hospital; and if you say much more and don't lie quiet I'll roll up a pad of lint and stuff that in your mouth."

"You daren't," cried the corporal, speaking the simple truth defiantly, and without a trace of his previous whining tone.

"Oh yes, I dare," said the attendant, with a grin. "Doctor's orders were that, as you were put in here when you oughtn't to be, I was to be sure and keep you quiet so as you shouldn't disturb the captain, and I'm blessed if I don't keep you quiet; so there."

"You daren't," cried the corporal tauntingly.

"What! Just you say that again and I will. Look here, my fine fellow. In comes Dr Emden. 'What's this, orderly?' he says. 'How dare you gag this man?'

"'Couldn't keep him quiet, sir,' I says. 'He's been raving awful, and lying, and egging the captain on to keep saying Mr d.i.c.kenson and Mr Lennox is cowards.'"

"I wasn't lying," cried the corporal, with a return of his whimpering tone. "What Captain Roby says is all true. I saw Mr Lennox sneak off like a cur with his tail between his legs."