The Dash for Khartoum Part 20

"I knew them all once," Edgar said. "We were at school together. I did not know that any of them were out here. I would not have them recognize me for anything."

"Oh, that is it! I thought you must have run away from school; got into some sc.r.a.pe, I suppose. Well, my lad, as you have made your bed you must lie in it. But it is not likely that any of them would know you even if they ran up against you. Two years' service under this sun changes a lad of your age wonderfully. By the way, one of them called the other Clinton; do you happen to know whether he is the son of a Captain Clinton--Captain Percy Clinton?"

"Yes, he is."

"He was captain of my company when I was a young sergeant. Well, well, time flies fast, to be sure. Do you know whether this young fellow has a brother, and, if so, what he is doing?"

"No, he has no brother," Edgar said shortly.

"There were two of them," the sergeant said positively. "Perhaps one has died. I wonder which it was," he muttered to himself.

"Do you know the story?" Edgar asked suddenly.

"Do I know the story!" the sergeant repeated slowly. "What story do you mean?"

"The story of Captain Clinton's baby being confused with another."

"Oh, you know about that, do you?" Sergeant Bowen asked in turn. "So they made no secret of it. Ay, lad, I know it; every man in the regiment knew it. And good cause I had to know it, it was that that ruined me."

"Are you Sergeant Humphreys?" Edgar asked, putting his hand on the man's shoulder.

The sergeant started in surprise.

"Why, lad, how come you to know all the ins and outs of that story? Ay, I was Sergeant Humphreys, and for aught I know that young fellow who has just pa.s.sed, whom they call Clinton, is my son."

"No, he is not, sergeant; I am your son!"

The sergeant looked at the young trumpeter in bewilderment, then his expression changed.

"You have got a touch of fever, lad. Come along with me to the hospital; I will report you sick. The sooner you are out of the sun the better."

"I am as sensible as I ever was in my life," Edgar said quietly. "I was brought up by Captain Clinton as his son. I was at Cheltenham with Rupert Clinton, who has just pa.s.sed us. We believed that we were twins until the day came when a woman came down there and told me the story, and told me that I was her son and yours; then I ran away, and here I am."

"My wife!" the sergeant exclaimed pa.s.sionately. "I have not seen or heard of her for fifteen years. So she came down and told you that. She is a bad lot, if ever there was one. And so she told you you were my son? You may be, lad, for aught I know; and I should be well content to know that it was so. But what did she come and tell you that for? What game is she up to now? I always knew she was up to some mischief. What was her motive in coming down to tell you that? Just let me know what she said."

"She said she had deliberately changed me as an infant for my good, and she proposed to me to continue the fraud, and offered, if I liked, to swear to Rupert's being her child, so that I might get all the property."

"And that she might share in it!" the sergeant laughed bitterly. "A bold stroke that of Jane Humphreys. And how did she pretend to recognize you as her child more than the other?"

"She told me that Captain Clinton's child had a tiny mole on his shoulder, and as Rupert has such a mark, that settled the question."

"Jane Humphreys told you more than she knew herself. Whether she intended to make the change of babies or not I don't know, but I believe she did; but whether it was done by chance, or whether she purposely mixed them up together, one thing I am certain of, and that is, that she confused herself as well as every one else, and that she did not know which was which. When I came into the room first she was like a woman dazed, and, clever as she was, I am sure she was not putting it on. She had thought, I fancy, that she could easily distinguish one from the other, and had never fancied that she could have been confused as well as other people. She undressed them, and looked them over and over, and it was then she noticed the little mole on the shoulder, and she turned to me and said, 'If I had but noticed this before I should always have told them apart.'

"We had a pretty bad time of it afterwards, for it made me the laugh of the whole regiment, and caused no end of talk and worry, and we had frightful rows together. She taunted me with being a fool for not seeing that there was money to be made out of it. She acknowledged to me over and over again that she had intended to change the children, and had dressed them both alike; and when I asked her what good had come out of her scheming, she said that in the first place we had got rid of the bother of bringing up the boy, and that if I were not a fool we might make a good thing out of it yet. But she was vexed and angry with herself for not having seen this little mark, and for having herself lost all clue as to which was her child. I told her that as she had intended to change them she could have cared nothing for her own boy, and that her only object could have been to make money.

"She did not deny it, but simply jeered at me for being content to remain all my life a non-commissioned officer when there might be a fortune made out of this. I do not say that if she had been able to tell one child from the other she would have told me, for if she had I should certainly have gone to Captain Clinton and told him; but she did not know. A woman can act well, but she cannot make herself as white as a sheet and put such a wild look into her eyes as she had when I found her turning those children over and over, and trying to make out which was which. I could take the Bible in my hand and swear in court that Jane Humphreys knew no more than I did which was her child, that she had never noticed the mark until after the change was made, and that to this day she does not know.

"One of the points we quarrelled on was that I made her start for the captain's quarters in such a hurry. She afterwards said that when it first came across her that she did not know which child was which, her blood seemed to go up into her head, and she lost her power of judgment altogether. She said over and over again that if I hadn't hurried her so, and had let matters be for a day or two, so that she could have slept on it and had looked at them quiet, she would have known which was her child. So that is how it is, lad. You may be Jane Humphreys' child and mine, or you may be Captain Clinton's, but no living soul can decide which. As to Jane Humphreys, she is a liar and a thorough bad un, and if it is only on her word that you have run away you have made a bad mistake of it. Still it is not too late to put that right. My word is as good as hers; and as she swore before she did not know which was which, her swearing now that she does, after all these years, will go for nothing at all."

Edgar was silent for some time, then he said, "I have thought a good many times since I ran away that I was wrong in not waiting to hear what Captain Clinton said. But I had no reason to doubt the story she told me, and when she proposed that I should go on with this fraud and cheat Rupert out of his position as heir, it was too horrible, and the thought that such a woman was my mother was altogether too much to bear. I will not make such a mistake again, or act in a hurry. My present thought is that as I have chosen my way I will go on in it. Before, Captain Clinton and his wife did not know which was their child and loved us both equally, now that they believe that Rupert is their son and that I was a fraud, they will have come to give him all their love, and I am not going to unsettle things again. That is my present idea, and I do not think that I am likely to change it.

"I shall be glad to know that I need not consider myself that woman's child, though it would not grieve me, now that I know you, to be sure that you were my father. But Captain Clinton and his wife were a father and mother to me up to the day when I ran away, and I could never think of anyone else in that light."

"Quite natural, quite natural, lad! You have never seen me or heard of me, and it would be a rum thing if you could all of a sudden come to care a lot about me. I know that you may be my son, but I don't know that at present I like you any the more for that than I did before. So we are quite of one mind over that. But we will be friends, lad, stout friends!"

"That we will," Edgar said, clasping warmly the hand the other held out to him. "You have been very kind to me up to now, and now that at any rate we may be father and son we shall be drawn very close together.

When this campaign is over it will be time to talk again about the future. I do not think now that I am at all likely to change my mind, or to let the Clintons know what you have told me; but I need not trouble about it in any way until then. I was contented before, and I am contented now. If I have made a fool of myself, as I think I have, I must pay the penalty. I have much to be thankful for. I had a very happy time of it until the day I left Cheltenham. I have had a good education, and I have a first-rate chance of making my way up. I have made friends of some of the officers of my regiment, and they have promised to push me on. I had the luck to attract the colonel's attention at El-Teb, and was among the names sent in for the Victoria Cross; and although I did not get it, the fact that I was recommended will count in my favour."

"You are the right stuff, lad," the sergeant said, putting his hand on his shoulder, "whether I or the captain was your father. I reckon that it was he--I don't see where you can have got what there is in you from our side. And now it is time to be going back to camp. Who would have thought, when we strolled out together, that so much was to come out of our walk?"

While this conversation had been going on, Rupert Clinton and his two old school-fellows were sitting on the ground in the tent which Easton shared with another of General Stewart's aides-de-camp.

"The scene has changed," Easton said as he handed them each a tumbler of weak rum and water, "otherwise one might imagine that we were in my study at River-Smith's, and that Skinner was about to lay down the law about the next football match."

"Ah! if we had but Edgar here!" Rupert sighed.

"I did not like to ask whether you had found him, Clinton; but I guessed you had not by your keeping silence."

"No, we have heard nothing of him beyond the fact that we have occasionally a letter saying that he is well and comfortable. They were all posted in London, but I still believe that he is in the army. My father is as convinced as ever that the statement of that woman I told you of was a false one, and that Edgar is just as likely to be his son as I am. I know I would gladly give up my share of the heirs.h.i.+p to find him. However, unless I run against him by pure chance I am not likely to do that. We still put in advertis.e.m.e.nts occasionally, but my people at home are as convinced as I am that we shall not hear from him until he has made his way in some line or other, and he is in an independent position."

"He always was a sticker," Skinner said, "and if he took a thing in hand would carry it through. You remember his rush in our last match with Green's, how he carried the ball right down through them all. I should not worry about it, Clinton; it will all come right in time. He will turn up some day or other; and when he finds that matters are just as they were before, and that your people believe him to be just as likely to be their son as you are, he will fall into his old place again--at least that is my opinion of it."

"Yes, that is what I hope and believe," Rupert said. "Well, Easton, how do you like the Guards, and how do you like campaigning? I see that you have given up white s.h.i.+rts, like the rest of us. I rather expected that if we did meet I should find that, in some miraculous way, you still contrived to get up immaculately."

Easton laughed. "No, I left my last white s.h.i.+rt at Cairo, Clinton. I consulted my soldier-servant about it. He was ready to guarantee the was.h.i.+ng, but he did not see his way to starching and ironing; so I had to give them up and take to flannels. They were awful at first, and irritated my skin until they brought on p.r.i.c.kly heat, and I was almost out of my mind for a few days. However, I have got over it now. What made you go into the Marines, Skinner?"

"Well, just before the exam, came off an uncle of mine, who is a great friend of the first lord, wrote to say that he could get me a commission. Well, in the first place I did not feel very sure of pa.s.sing for the line; in the second place I had a liking for the sea, and in the third place, as my governor's living is not a very large one and I have a lot of sisters, and I thought I had had more than my share already in being sent to Cheltenham--and one can live a good deal cheaper in the Marines than in the line--I concluded the best thing I could do was to accept the offer; and I have not been sorry that I did it. It was awful luck my coming out in the Naval Brigade here; it was just a fluke. The man who was going was chucked off a horse and broke his arm the day before the brigade sailed from Suakim, and I was sent up in his place.

Well, what is the last news, Clinton? You ought to know, as you are on the staff."

"They don't intrust aides-de-camp with their secrets," Rupert replied; "but I think it likely there will be a move in a day or two, and that the Camel Corps will push across to Metemmeh and wait there till the boats get round."

"Yes, that is what every one is talking about," Easton said. "The question that is agitating us is whether all the Camel Corps will go; and if not, which will be chosen?"

"Ah, that I know nothing about, Easton; but I should think if any go, the Guards would be sure to be in it. But whether the Heavies or the Lights will go, if only two are chosen, I cannot say. I should fancy one will go with the boats anyhow, so as to keep along parallel with them and protect them against any sudden attack while they are afloat."

"Will the chief go on, do you think?"

"Not if only a small body cross the desert. At least I should think not.

I should say he would stay here until Metemmeh is occupied and the boat column is well on its way, and that then he will go on to Metemmeh, and take the command there when the whole force is a.s.sembled. In that case Stewart would of course command the desert column, and I should be all right."

"The great question is, will the beggars fight?" Skinner remarked; "and if so, where?"

"They are sure to fight," Easton said. "I don't think there is the least doubt about that, but I should not think there will be any fighting this side of Metemmeh; it will be some where between that and Khartoum. The Mahdi cannot help fighting after smas.h.i.+ng up Hicks and giving himself out as invincible. He would lose his hold altogether of the people if he did not come down and fight. Of course there is no doubt about the result; but, judging from the way those fellows fought down by the Red Sea, it is likely to be pretty tough work I shall be sorry for the poor beggars with their spears against our breech-loaders, but it has got to be done."

Skinner and Rupert both laughed, for Easton spoke exactly as he used to do with regard to football.

"It will be a nuisance your having to exert yourself, won't it, Easton?"

"Yes, that is always a nuisance, and in a climate like this!" Easton said seriously. "Why nature made a place so hot, I cannot make out. I am sure if I were to be weighed I should find I had lost nearly a stone since I came out."