Marmaduke Part 33

She blushed a little.

"I have often wondered," she began.

"People who play Providence ought not to wonder. Well, I am glad he died happy. That, at any rate, is to your credit." So he rose and left her.

The days pa.s.sed rapidly, full to the brim of work, and every day brought her more and more admiration for the courage and cheeriness of the men, more and more resentment at the ghastly way in which they were treated by the authorities at home. Boots had already given out, none were available in store, and in a whole officers' mess only one subaltern had a holeless pair. And he was the son of a widow who had half-ruined herself by sending her darling the two separate boots of a pair by letter post. She would have held it worth more, could she have seen his face of pride among his comrades.

On the night of the 18th of October a diversion arose which, when it was over, caused much amus.e.m.e.nt.

A party of sappers and miners, losing their way, fell into a Russian picket, which, possessed by the idea of a general a.s.sault, incontinently skedaddled into the town and raised the alarm, thereby causing much beating of drums and bugle calls. The Allied armies, alarmed in their turn, instantly stood to arms, while gun after gun boomed from the city forts, echoing and re-echoing among the reverberating rocks. After an hour or two, however, the gunners seemed to recognise that they were only, so to speak, shooting at their own shadows or echoes, and gradually peace reigned, broken by roars of laughter round many a camp fire.

But on the 25th something serious happened which brought the shambles close once more. To the Turkish contingent had been a.s.signed the redoubts which protected the heights behind the entrenchments. On the morning of the 25th the Russians, numbering some twenty thousand troops, after following the same route by which the Allies had reached Balaklava, appeared unexpectedly before these redoubts. The Turks abandoned them without striking a blow and fled down the valley to the plain in sheer panic. Nor did a volley from the 93rd Highlanders, hastily formed up, stop them. For a short while confusion and courage were conspicuous. The British, taken unawares, fought like heroes.

Finally there followed the famous Light Cavalry Charge of which the French general, watching it, said "_C'est magnifique, mais ce n'est pas la guerre_." By whose fault the order was given for a deed which will stir the blood at every English heart even at the day of doom, Heaven only knows. The man who brought it was the first to fall.

Briefly told--it needs no grand words--it amounted to this. Six hundred men and horses charged uselessly, desperately, defiantly, _because they were told to do so_, down an open valley exposed to a cross fire from guns posted on either side of them, and to a frontal fire from the evacuated and abandoned forts. The charge commenced at 11.10. It was barely 11.35 when a hundred and sixty men, many of them wounded, rode back, having done what they were told to do. The rest lay on the held.

But it was a victory for all that, and when night came, bringing an hour or two of rest to Marrion, she spent it in going round with a revolver she borrowed from Dr. Forsyth and putting wounded horses out of their pain.

"Don't forget to give them their pa.s.sword," he said, as he gave the weapon to her.

She looked at him uncomprehending. "I forgot you hadn't lived in the East," he went on, with a smile. "Say 'In the name of the Most Merciful G.o.d' before you shoot."

Once again there were tears in her eyes. She was learning much of this strange man who looked on death so lightly, yet spent himself in striving to evade it.

It was a busy time again after Balaklava; she had barely time to think, scarcely time to rest. Yet ever and always, when her mind travelled beyond the immediate present, those words with which Dr.

Forsyth had replied to her story came back to remembrance--

"People who play Providence ought not to wonder."

Was he right, she wondered, and then was ashamed of her own wondering.

"You will have to rest a little more," said the doctor to her one day when she had been helping him. "You were quite wobbly just now. You will be of no use, you know, unless you pull yourself together." And he narrowed his eyes perplexedly. "You are not living in the present somehow--you're reaching out to the future. Why?"

She laughed.

"Why should I--what can the future hold for me! I will take a blue pill."

He grunted dissatisfaction, but was too busy to say more. Yet what he said was true. She began to catch herself wondering, wondering. The present was all-engrossing, of course; how could it be anything else when she could do what she could do for the poor lads?--his poor lads, who were so brave, so cheery. And then her mind would become vagrant, and she would wake up from dreams with a start.

It was one day just before Inkerman, the 10th of November, that Dr.

Forsyth came to her and said:

"I want you. It's over at the cavalry hospital."

His eyes seemed to her stranger than ever, and when she came out of her tent to join him he glanced at her, then said brusquely:

"You've forgotten to put on that diamond brooch of yours--the P.P.

one. Don't you remember when the sun glints on it, it's useful?"

It was true. Often and often the eyes that had been asked to fix their gaze on it had become full of dreams, and then slept.

"Stupid of me," she replied lightly. "I'll put it on!"

CHAPTER X

The Cavalry Hospital was a little way out of the town, a quaint old place with oleanders and orange trees set in tubs outside its white verandahs. As they drove thither Dr. Forsyth told her something of the case in which he wanted her help. It was a prisoner, presumably an officer, but he refused name or rank. He had been found two days after the battle, lying, with one leg smashed to bits, under his dead horse in a little ravine. How he had lived was a marvel, for he was quite an old man; but, not only had he done so, he had also retained consciousness, and had addressed those who found him in perfect English, congratulating them courteously on their marvellous exploit, and saying he was proud to have crossed swords with them.

A game old fellow, worthy of his hospital nickname "The General." He had actually begged, before they moved him, that someone would be good enough to search in the holster of the dead horse beside him for a gold snuffbox which he had been unable to reach, and the lack of which had, he a.s.serted, been his greatest discomfort.

"He has been snuffing away ever since," added the doctor, "so perhaps he was right, for his leg was almost too crushed to belong to him. We took it off at once; but now gangrene is setting in and if he is to be saved we must have it off higher up. And the others won't risk it. He is old--heart weak--and they say won't stand chloroform. I am going to try. I've told him and he will take the risk. A good old chap, worth saving. I don't believe he is a Russian. I think he is a Pole, and blood is thicker than water."

Marrion's first look at the patient as he lay propped up by pillows in the small room whither he had been carried made her agree with the doctor.

It was a fine old face, curiously reminiscent of someone she had seen somewhere, with its hint of ruddiness beneath the grey of the hair and its bold bright daring look. And he was very tall; his long length almost outstretched the trestle bed.

"Good morning, doctor!" he said, with a courteous salute which included Marrion, and with a perfect English accent. "You have brought your nurse, I see. Are we to begin at once?"

There was no anxiety in his voice; only gentle raillery.

"Not quite yet, General," replied Dr. Forsyth. "I want you to have a rest and sleep first. You are looking a bit tired; and your pulse"--he stopped to feel it--"is tired, too. So I've brought Nurse Paul to sit with you. She is a curiously soporific person. I shall be back before very long," he added, more to her than to the patient.

Left alone, Marrion went up to the bed, smoothed the rough pillows, straightened the coa.r.s.e blanket, which was all the bedding Balaklava could produce, and said quietly--

"Now, if you will close your eyes I believe you would sleep."

But those sea-blue eyes--whose did they resemble?--someone she had seen somewhere--remained wide, and watched her narrowly as she returned to seat herself in the only chair. It was set full in the sunlight, which showed her tall, slender, yet strong in her dark stuff dress, a white handkerchief almost hiding her bright hair and pinned to place by the little brilliant brooch beneath her chin. Truly those keen eyes were over-watchful, and she was about again to suggest sleep when his voice, full of insistent command, startled her.

"Where did you get that brooch?"

She replied at once with the truth.

"It belonged to my father."

"Indeed--who was he?"

"He was a valet; but if you would only close your eyes I think you would go to sleep."

"Do you think so? I don't."

His eyes showed more awake than ever; there was a hint of a smile on the handsome old face.

Still there was silence for full five minutes, and Marrion was just about to make further suggestion of sleep when once more the voice rose--

"Will you please give me my snuff-box?--it is under my pillow somewhere."