Captain Jim Part 38

But I was buried for all that. All our chaps were fighting on top of me!"

"D'ye tell me!" gasped Callaghan incredulously.

"I could feel the boots," Jim said. "I'm bruised with them yet. What time did we go over that morning?--nine o'clock, wasn't it?"

"It was, sir."

"Well, it was twelve or one o'clock when they dug me out. They re-took the trench, and started to dig themselves in, and they found me; I've a spade-cut on my hand. My Aunt, that was a long three hours!"

"Did they treat you decent, sir?"

"They weren't too bad," Jim said. "I couldn't move; I suppose it was the weight on me, and the bruising--at least, I hope so. They felt me all over--there was a rather decent lieutenant there, who gave me some brandy. He told me he didn't think there was anything broken. But I couldn't stir, and it hurt like fury when they touched me."

"And how long were you there, sir?"

"They had to keep me until night--there was no way of sending back prisoners. So I lay on a mud-heap, and the officer-boy talked to me--he had been to school in England."

"That's where they larned him any decency he had," said Callaghan.

"It might be. But he wasn't a bad sort. He looked after me well enough. Then, after nightfall, they sent a stretcher party over with me. The German boy shook hands with me when we were starting, and said he was afraid he wouldn't see me again, as we were pretty sure to be sh.e.l.led by the British."

"And were you, sir?"

"Rather. The first thing I knew was a bit of shrapnel through the sleeve of my coat; I looked for the hole this morning, to see if I was remembering rightly, and sure enough, here it is." He held up his arm, and showed a jagged tear in his tunic. "But that's where I stop remembering anything. I suppose I must have caught something else then. Why is my head tied up? It was all right when they began to carry me over."

"Ye have a lump the size of an egg low down on the back of your head, sir," said Callaghan. "And a nasty little cut near your temple."

"H'm!" said Jim. "I wondered why it ached! Well I must have got those from our side on the way across. I hope they got a Boche or two as well."

"I dunno," Callaghan said. "The fellas that dumped you down said something in their own haythin tongue. I didn't understand it, but it sounded as if they were glad to be rid of you."

"Well, I wouldn't blame them," Jim said. "I'm not exactly a featherweight, and it can't be much fun to be killed carrying the enemy about, whether you're a Boche or not."

He lay for a while silently, thinking. Did they know at home yet? he wondered anxiously. And then he suddenly realized that his fall must have looked like certain death: that if they had heard anything it would be that he had been killed. He turned cold at the thought.

_What_ had they heard--his father, Norah? And Wally--what did he think? Was Wally himself alive? He might even be a prisoner. He turned at that thought to Callaghan, his sudden move bringing a stifled cry to his lips.

"Did they--are there any other officers of my regiment here?"

"There are not," said Callaghan. "I got the priest to look at your badges, sir, the way he could find out if there was anny more of ye.

But there is not. Them that's here is mostly Dublins and Munsters, with a sprinkling of Canadians. There's not an officer or man of the Blankshires here at all, barring yourself."

"Will the Germans let us communicate with our people?"

"Communicate, is it?" said the Irishman. "Yerra, they'll not let anyone send so much as a scratch on a post-card." He dropped his voice. "Whisht now, sir: the priest's taking all our addresses, and he'll do his best to send word to every one at home."

"But can he depend on getting through?"

"Faith, he cannot. But 'tis the only chance we've got. The poor man's nothing but a prisoner himself; he's watched if he goes tin yards from the church. So I dunno, at all, will he ever manage it, with the suspicions they have of him."

Jim sighed impatiently. He could do nothing, then, nothing to keep the blow from falling on the two dear ones at home. He thought of trying to bribe the German guards, and felt for his pocket-book, but it was gone; some careful Boche had managed to relieve him of it while he had been unconscious. And he was helpless, a log--while over in England Norah and his father were, perhaps, already mourning him as dead. His thoughts travelled to Billabong, where Brownie and Murty O'Toole and the others kept the home ready for them all, working with the love that makes nothing a toil, and planning always for the great day that should bring them all back. He pictured the news arriving--saw Brownie's dismayed old face, and heard her cry of incredulous pain. And there was nothing he could do. It seemed unbelievable that such things could be, in a sane world. But then, the world was no longer sane; it had gone mad nearly two years before, and he was only one of the myriad atoms caught into the swirl of its madness.

The _cure_ came again, presently, and saw his troubled face. "You are in pain, my son?"

"No--I'm all right if I keep quiet," Jim answered. "But it's my people. Callaghan says you will try to let them know, Father."

"I am learning you all," said the priest, "names, regiments, and numbers is it not? I dare not put them on paper: I have been searched three times already, even to my shoes. But I hope that my chance will come before long. Then I will send them to your War Office." He beamed down on Jim so hopefully that it seemed rather likely that he would find a private telegraph office of his own, suddenly. "Now I will learn your name and regiment." He repeated them several times, nodding his head.

"Yes, that is an easy one," he said. "Some of them are very terrible, to a Frenchman; our friend here"--he looked quaintly at Callaghan--"has a name which it twists the tongue to say. And now, my son, I would like to examine you, since you are conscious. I am the only doctor--a poor one, I fear. But perhaps we will find out together that there is nothing to be uneasy about."

That, indeed, was what they did find out, after a rather agonizing half-hour. Jim was quite unable to move his legs, being so bruised that there was scarcely a square inch of him that was not green and blue and purple. One hip bore the complete impress of a foot, livid and angry.

"Yes, that chap jumped on me from a good height," Jim said when the _cure_ exclaimed at it. "I thought he had smashed my leg."

"He went near it," said the _cure_. "Indeed, my son, you are beaten to a jelly. But that will recover itself. You can breathe without pain? That is well. Now we will look at the head." He unwrapped the bandages and felt the lump tenderly. "Ah, that is better; a little concussion, I think, _mon brave_; it is that which kept you so quiet when you stayed with us at first. And the cut heals well; that comes of being young and strong, with clean, healthy blood." He bathed the head, and replaced the bandages, sighing that he had no clean ones.

"But with you it matters little; you will not need them in a few days.

Then perhaps we will wash these and they will be ready for the next poor boy." He smiled at Jim. "Move those legs as much as you can, my son, and rub them." He trotted away.

"And that same is good advice," said Callaghan. "It will hurt to move, sir, and you beaten to a pulp first and then stiffening for the three days you're after lying here; 'tis all I wish I could rub you, with a good bottle of Elliman's to do it with. But if them Huns move you 'twill hurt a mighty lot more than if you move yourself.

Themselves is the boys for that; they think they've got a feather in their caps if they get an extra yelp out of annywan. So do the best you can, sir."

"I will," said Jim--and did his best, for long hours every day. It was weary work, with each movement torture, and for a time very little encouragement came in the shape of improvement: then, slowly, with rubbing and exercise, the stiffened muscles began to relax. Callaghan cheered him on, forgetting his own aching leg in his sympathy for the boy in his silent torment. In the intervals of "physical jerks," Jim talked to his little neighbour, whose delight knew no bounds when he heard that Jim knew and cared for his country. He himself was a Cork man, with a wife and two sons; Jim gathered that their equal was not to be found in any town in Ireland. Callaghan occasionally lamented the "foolishness" that had kept him in the Army, when he had a right to be home looking after Hughie and Larry. "'Tis not much the Army gives you, and you giving it the best years of your life," he said.

"I'd be better out of it, and home with me boys."

"Then you wouldn't let them go to the war, if they were old enough?"

Jim asked.

"If they were old enough 'twould not be asking my liberty they'd be,"

rejoined Mr. Callaghan proudly. "Is it _my_ sons that 'ud shtand out of a fight like this?" He glared at Jim, loftily unconscious of any inconsistency in his remarks.

"Well, there's plenty of your fellow-countrymen that won't go and fight, Cally!" said the man beyond him--a big Yorkshireman.

"There's that in all countries," said Callaghan calmly. "They didn't all go in your part of the country, did they, till they were made?

Faith, I'm towld there's a few there yet in odd corners--and likely to be till after the war." The men round roared joyfully, at the expense of the Yorkshireman.

"And 'tis not in Ireland we have that quare baste the con-sci-en-tious objector," went on Callaghan, rolling the syllables lovingly on his tongue. "That's an animal a man wouldn't like to meet, now! Whatever our objectors are in Ireland, they're surely never con-sci-en-tious!"

Jim gave a crack of laughter that brought the roving grey eye squarely upon him.

"Even in Australia, that's the Captain's country," said the soft Irish voice, "I've heard tell there's a boy or two there out of khaki--maybe they're holding back for conscription too. But wherever the boys are that don't go, none of them have a song and dance made about them, barring only the Irish."

"What about your Sinn Feiners?" some one sang out. Callaghan's face fell.

"Yerra, they have the country destroyed," he admitted. "And nine out of every ten don't know annything about politics or annything else at all, only they get talked over, and towld that they're patriots if they'll get howld of a gun and do a little drilling at night--an'

where's the country boy that wouldn't give his ears for a gun! An'

the English Gov'mint, that could stop it all with the stroke of a pen, hasn't the pluck to bring in conscription in Ireland."

"You're right there, Cally," said some one.

"I know well I'm right. But the thousands and tens of thousands of Irish boys that went to the war and fought till they died--they'll be forgotten, and the Sinn Fein sc.u.m'll be remembered. If the Gov'mint had the pluck of a mouse they'd be all right. I tell you, boys, 'twill be the Gov'mint's own fault if we see the haythin Turks parading the fair fields of Ireland, with their long tails held up by the Sinn Feiners!" Callaghan relapsed into gloomy contemplation of this awful possibility, and refused to be drawn further. Even when Jim, desiring to be tactful, mentioned a famous Irish V.C. who had, single-handed, slain eight Germans, he declined to show any enthusiasm.