Fix Bay'nets Part 64

As the sun gathered force in rising higher, a thin veil of snow was melted from off a broad patch of rock, which dried rapidly; and, after a little consideration, Gedge went to Bracy's shoulders, took fast hold of his _poshtin_, and drew him softly and quickly off the icy surface right on to the warm, dry rock, the young officer's eyes opening widely in transit, and then closing again without their owner becoming conscious, but, as his head was gently lowered down again upon its sheepskin pillow, the deep sleep of exhaustion went on.

"Needn't ha' been 'fraid o' waking you," said Gedge softly, and looking down at the sleeper as if proud of his work.--"There, you'll be dry and warm as a toast, and won't wake up lying in a pond o' water.--Now I'll just have a look round, and then sit down and wait till he wakes."

Gedge took his good look round, making use of Bracy's gla.s.s, and in two places made out bodies of white-coated men whose weapons glinted in the sun shine; but they were far away, and in hollows among the hills.

"That's all I can make out," said Gedge, closing the gla.s.s and replacing it softly in the case slung from Bracy's shoulders; "but there's holes and cracks and all sorts o' places where any number more may be. Blest if I don't think all the country must have heard that we're going for help, and turned out to stop us. My! how easy it all looked when we started! Just a long walk and a little dodging the n.i.g.g.e.rs, and the job done. One never thought o' climbing up here and skating down, and have a launching in the snow."

Gedge yawned tremendously, and being now in excellent spirits and contentment with himself, he chuckled softly.

"That was a good one," he said. "What a mouth I've got! I say, though, my lad, mouths have to be filled, and there ain't much left. We were going, I thought, to shoot pheasants, and kill a sheep now and then, to make a fire and have roast bird one day, leg o' mutton the next, and cold meat when we was obliged; but seems to me that it was all cooking your roast chickens before they was hatched. Fancy lighting a fire anywhere! Why, it would bring a swarm of the beauties round to carve us up instead of the wittles; and as to prog, why, I ain't seen nothing but that one bear. Don't seem to hanker after bear," continued Gedge after a few minutes' musing, during which he made sure that Bracy was sleeping comfortably. "Bears outer the 'Logical Gardens, nicely fatted up on buns, might be nice, and there'd be plenty o' nice fresh bear's grease for one's 'air; but these here wild bears in the mountains must feed theirselves on young n.i.g.g.e.rs and their mothers, and it'd be like being a sort o' second-hand cannibal to cook and eat one of the hairy brutes.

No, thanky; not this time, sir. I'll wait for the pudden."

Human nature is human nature, which n.o.body can deny; and, uncultivated save in military matters, and rough as he was, Bill Gedge was as human as he could be. He had just had a tremendous tramp for a whole day, a sleepless night of terrible excitement and care, a sudden respite from anxiety, a meal, and the glow of a hot sun upon a patch of rock which sent a genial thrill of comfort through his whole frame. These were the difficulties which were weighing hard in one of the scales of the young private's const.i.tution, while he was doing his best to weigh down the other scale with duty, principle, and a manly, honest feeling of liking for the officer whom he had set up from the first moment of being attached to the company as the model of what a soldier should be. It was hard work. Those yawns came again and again, increasing in violence.

"Well done, boa-constructor," he said. "Little more practice, and you'll be able to swallow something as big as yourself; but my! don't it stretch the corners of your mouth! I want a bit o' bear's grease ready to rub in, for they're safe to crack.

"My! how sleepy I am!" he muttered a little later. "I ain't been put on sentry-go, but it's just the same, and a chap as goes to sleep in the face of the enemy ought to be shot. Sarve him right, too, for not keeping a good lookout. Might mean all his mates being cut up. Oh! I say, this here won't do," he cried, springing up. "Let's have a hoky-poky penny ice, free, grashus, for nothing."

He went off on tiptoe, glancing at Bracy as he pa.s.sed, and then stooped down over a patch of glittering snow, sc.r.a.ping up a handful and straightening himself in the sunshine, as he amused himself by addressing an imaginary personage.

"Say, gov'nor," he cried, "you've got a bigger stock than you'll get shut of to-day.--Eh? You don't expect to? Right you are, old man.

Break yer barrer if yer tried to carry it away. Say; looks cleaner and nicer to-day without any o' that red or yeller paint mixed up with it.

I like it best when it's white. Looks more icy.--What say? Spoon? No, thank ye. Your customers is too fond o' sucking the spoons, and I never see you wash 'em after.--Ha! this is prime. Beats Whitechapel all to fits; and it's real cold, too. I don't care about it when it's beginning to melt and got so much juist.--But I say! Come! Fair play's a jewel. One likes a man to make his profit and be 'conimycal with the sugar, but you ain't put none in this.

"Never mind," he added after a pause, during which the Italian ice-vendor faded out of his imagination; "it's reg'lar 'freshing when you're so sleepy. Wonder what made them Italians come to London and start selling that stuff o' theirs. Seems rum; ours don't seem a country for that sort o' thing. Baked taters seems so much more English, and does a chap so much more good."

He walked back to the warm patch of rock, looked at Bracy, and then placed both rifles and bayonets ready, sat down cross-legged, and after withdrawing the cartridges, set to work with an oily rag to remove all traces of rust, and gave each in turn a good polish, ending by carefully wiping the bayonets after unfixing them, and returning them to their sheaths, handling Bracy's most carefully, for fear of disturbing the sleeper. This done, he began to yawn again, and, as he expressed it, took another penny ice and nodding at vacancy, which he filled with a peripatetic vendor, he said:

"All right, gov'nor; got no small change. Pay next time I come this way."

Then he marked out a beat, and began marching up and down.

"Bah!" he cried; "that ice only makes you feel dry and thirsty.--My! how sleepy I am!--Here, steady!" he cried, as he yawned horribly; "you'll have your head right off, old man, if you do that.--Never was so sleepy in my life."

He marched up and down a little faster--ten paces and turn--ten paces and turn--up and down, up and down, in the warm sunshine; but it was as if some deadly stupor enveloped him, and as he kept up the steady regulation march, walking and turning like an automaton, he was suddenly fast asleep and dreaming for quite a minute, when he gave a violent start, waking himself, protesting loudly against a charge made against him, and all strangely mixed up the imaginary and the real.

"Swear I wasn't, Sergeant!" he cried angrily. "Look for yerself.-- Didn't yer see, pardners? I was walking up and down like a clockwork himidge.--Sleep at my post? Me sleep at my post? Wish I may die if I do such a thing. It's the old game. Yer allus 'ated me, Sergeant, from the very first, and--Phew! Here! What's the matter? I've caught something, and it's got me in the nut. I'm going off my chump."

Poor Gedge stood with his hands clasped to his forehead, staring wildly before him.

"Blest if I wasn't dreaming!" he said wonderingly. "Ain't took bad, am I? Thought old Gee come and pounced upon me, and said I was sleepin' on duty. And it's a fack. It's as true as true; I was fast asleep; leastwise I was up'ards. Legs couldn't ha' been, because they'd ha'

laid down. Oh! this here won't do. It was being on dooty without arms."

Drawing himself up, he s.n.a.t.c.hed his bayonet from its scabbard, and resumed his march, going off last asleep again; but this time the cessation of consciousness descended as it were right below the waist-belt and began to steal down his legs, whose movements became slower and slower, hips, then knees, stiffening; and then, as the drowsy G.o.d's work attacked his ankles, his whole body became rigid, and he stood as if he had been gradually frozen stiff for quite a minute, when it seemed as if something touched him, and he sprang into wakefulness again, and went on with his march up and down.

"Oh, it's horrid!" he said piteously. "Of course. That'll do it."

He sheathed his bayonet, and catching up his rifle, went through the regular forms as if receiving orders: he grounded arms; then drew and fixed bayonet, shouldered arms, and began the march again.

"That's done it," he said. "Reg'larly woke up now. S'pose a fellow can't quite do without sleep, unless he got used to it, like the chap's 'oss, only he died when he'd got used to living upon one eat a day. Rum thing, sleep, though. I allus was a good un to sleep. Sleep anywhere; but I didn't know I was so clever as to sleep standing up. Wonder whether I could sleep on one leg. Might do it on my head. Often said I could do anything on my head. There, it's a-coming on again."

He stepped to the nearest snow and rubbed his temples with it before resuming his march; but the relief was merely temporary. He went to Bracy's side, to see that he was sleeping heavily, and an intense feeling of envy and longing to follow his officer's example and lie down and sleep for hours nearly mastered him.

"But I won't--I won't sleep," he said, grinding his teeth. "I'll die first. I'm going to keep awake and do my dooty like a soldier by my orficer. I'd do it for any orficer in the ridgement, so of course I would for the gov'nor, poor chap! He's watched over me before now.-- Yes, I'm going to keep on. I shall be better soon. Ten minutes would set me right, and if there was a mate here to take my post I'd have a nap; but there ain't a pardner to share it, and I've got to do it on my head. Wonder whether I should feel better if I did stand on my head for a minute. Anyhow, I ain't goin' to try."

Gedge spent the next ten minutes in carefully examining his rifle; then he turned to Bracy, and soon after he took out the latter's gla.s.s and swept the country round, to find more groups of men in motion.

"Why, the place is getting alive with the beggars," he growled. "We shall be having some of 'em c.o.c.king an eye up and seeing us here. Don't know, though; they couldn't make us out, and even if they did we look like a couple o' sheep. I've got to look out sharp, though, to see as we're not surprised. Almost wish three or four would come now, so as I could have a set-to with 'em. That would wake me up, and no mistake.-- Ah! it's wonderful what one can see with a bit or two o' gla.s.s set in a brown thing like this.--Ah! there it is again."

Gedge lowered the gla.s.s and started violently, for the feeling of sleep was now overmastering.

"Nearly dropped and smashed his gla.s.s," he said petulantly, and, laying down his rifle, he closed the little lorgnette slowly and carefully with half-numbed fingers, which fumbled about the instrument feebly.

"He'd ha'--he'd ha'--fine--tongue-thrashing when he woke--foun' gla.s.s-- smashed."

Gedge sank upon his knees and bent over the sleeper, fumbling for the strap and case to replace the gla.s.s.

"Where ha' you got to?" he muttered. "What yer swinging about half a mile away for? Ah! that's got yer," he went on, aiming at the case with a strange fixity of expression. "Now then--the lid--the lid--and the strap through the buckle, and the buckle--done it--me go to sleep--on dooty, Sergeant? Not me!--I--I--ha-h-h!"

Poor Gedge was only human, and his drowsy head sank across Bracy's breast, so wrapped in sleep that the firing of a rifle by his ear would hardly have roused him up.

CHAPTER THIRTY THREE.

LIKE A DYING DOG.

The sun was rapidly going down towards the western peaks, which stood out dark and clear against the golden orange sky, when Gedge opened his eyes and began to stare in a vacant way at a little peculiarly shaded brown leather case which rose and fell in regular motion a few inches from his nose. He watched it for some minutes, feeling very comfortable the while, for his pillow was warm; though it seemed strange to him that it should move gently up and down. But he grew more wakeful a minute later, and told himself that he knew why it was. He and two London companions had made up their minds to tramp down into Kent for a holiday, and to go hop-picking, and they slept under haystacks, in barns, or in the shade of trees; and at such times as the nights were cool and they had no covering they huddled together to get warm, taking in turns that one of the party should lie crosswise and play pillow for the benefit of his two companions.

It was one of his comrades that time, and the sun was rising, so they ought to be stirring to see about, something for breakfast. But in his drowsy state he could not make out that this was six years ago, nor yet what this brown leather thing was which kept going up and down.

Then all at once he could. It was not six years ago, neither was it early morning, but close upon sunset; that movement was caused by Bracy's respirations, and the brown leather case contained the little field-gla.s.s; while the well-drilled soldier, and one of the smartest lads in Captain Roberts's company, had shamefully disgraced himself by going to sleep at his post.

Before he had half-thought this he was upon his feet, to stoop again and pick up his rifle, and then begin stamping up and down with rage.

"Oh!" he groaned; "I ought to be shot--I ought to be shot! Why, the n.i.g.g.e.rs might ha' come and knifed Mr Bracy as he lay there helpless as a kid, and all through me. Slep'? Why, I must ha' slep' hours upon hours. What's the good o' saying you couldn't help it, sir? You ought to have helped it. Call yourself a soldier, and go to sleep at your post in the face of the enemy! That's what the Colonel will say. I can't never face no one agen. I shall desert; that's what I shall do-- cut right away and jyne the rebels if they'll have me. Better go and jump down into that hole and bury myself in the snow; but I can't.

"How am I to go and leave the gov'nor when he wants me as he does? Oh dear, oh dear! This is the worst of all. And I was hoping that I should have my stripes when I got back to the fort. Yes, that's it-- stripes. I shall get 'em, o' course, but on my back instead of my sleeve. There, I'm a marked man now, and it's about all over."

Gedge grew calmer as he went, on pacing up and down, for he stopped twice over by Bracy, to find that he was sleeping as quietly as a child, and he evidently had not stirred. The young soldier's next act was to get possession of the little field-gla.s.s again, and, to his dismay, he made out no less than three bodies of men in the valley far below, one of which was streaming along as if marching quickly, while the other two were stationary, close up to a little clump of pines or cedars, he could not make out which.

"T'others are going to ketch up to 'em and camp for the night, I bet.

Yes, that they are," he added as a tiny cloud of grey smoke began to rise. "They're going to cook, so they must have something to roast, and I'm--oh, how hungry I do feel! Better not hold up this rifle, or they may see it in the sunshine, and come and cook us."

He had a good long look, swept the valley as far as he could see, and then laid down his rifle, to go down on one knee by Bracy and begin replacing the gla.s.s in its leather case.

"It's all right, sir; on'y me," cried Gedge, for, awakened by the light touch, Bracy seized one hand and made an effort to pull out his revolver.