The Claw Part 26

I could not remember at that moment who wrote those great lines. I only know that I thought there was strange healing in them for mourning hearts. There seemed suddenly something peaceful in the thought of Death; something that lulled and dulled the active burning pain of uncertainty.

There seemed even a kind of mercy in Elizabeth Marriott's definite tidings, terrible as they were. She knew at least that her man was at rest from torment; suffering was done with him; pain had been defeated.

But--_Not to know_! _Not to know_!

Before twelve o'clock that night Maurice Stair came to me and told me that he had determined to leave at once with two good colonial boys, Jacob and Jonas, to find Anthony Kinsella if possible, or at least get definite tidings of his fate.

"If he is alive I'll bring him back," he said, in the quiet, modest way I had always found so attractive in him, and kissing the hand I gave him he went on his way.

CHAPTER FOURTEEN.

THE WITCH CALLS.

"Pain is the lord of this world, nor is there any one who escapes from its net."

Within the next few weeks many of our men came home. Not as we had cheered them forth, in a gay band:

Brilliant and gallant and brave!

--But ragged, haggard, footsore, dragged by or dragging half-starved horses; many of them with rheumatism planted for ever in their joints, and malaria staring from their eyes.

Fort George was a busy place again. Wives worn with watching and waiting in suspense, braced themselves afresh to the task of nursing sick husbands, while those who had no men-folk of their own on the spot were hastily _spanned-in_ by the hospital sisters who had more than they could do in the over-crowded little hospital amongst the husbands and sons and lovers of women far away. Most of these were "travellers who had sold their lands to see other men's," as _Rosalind_ puts it, and possessed of the accompanying qualifications--"rich eyes and empty hands!" Many of them were just members of that great Legion of the Lost ones always to be found in the advance-guard of pioneer bands--the men who have strayed far from the fold of home and love and women-folk.

"The little black sheep who have gone astray.

The d.a.m.ned bad sorts who have lost their way."

The nursing to be done amongst these cases was of the most difficult kind, for there was no co-operation from the patient. Most of them didn't care a bra.s.s b.u.t.ton whether they recovered or not. They were tired, disappointed, _blase_ men, and their att.i.tude towards life could be summed up in one brief potent phrase that was often on their lips: "Sick of it!"

The war had been a disappointment in many ways. It is true that the work had been accomplished. The Matabele were broken and dispersed, and life in the country was now secure. But the war had not been the glorious campaign antic.i.p.ated. The quiet honour of having done his duty belonged to every man of them; there was glory for few save those whose ears would never more hear blame or praise. There had been no big, wild, battles, force closing with force: only "potting and being potted"

they complained.

"Sniped at from the bush when we weren't looking! No loot, no sport, nothing but fever and sore feet, and hunger, and disgust, and lost pals!"

Ah! that was the rub! There lay the sting! When they thought of the thirty-four men whose bones lay bleaching in the rain beyond Shangani they turned their faces to the wall and some of them died. The price of the campaign had been too high!

The whole thing was one of Africa's sweet little mirages, others told me as I sat by their beds--one of her charming little games, and her rotten cotton ways. In changing moods and tenses that varied from raving delirium to a painful clarity of thought their cry was unanimous and unchanging: "Sick of it!"

First and last and always they were sick of Africa, and "on the side" as Mr Hunloke phrased it, they were sick of "bucketting and being bucketted about all over the shop;" of bad whiskey; of no whiskey; of sore feet; of veldt sores; of fever; of mosquitoes; of never getting any letters from home; of getting letters from home that contained plenty of good advice but no tin; of the rottenness of the country; of the whole d.a.m.ned show; of life in general.

"There's nothing in it," they said, and uttering that bitter brief indictment more of them died. Others by slow degrees recovered and began to quote bits of, _Barrack-Room Ballads_ and cynical lines from Adam Lindsay Gordon to the nurse in charge.

They are a poetical people--these black sheep and travellers. Nearly all of them carry about, hidden in the deeps of their hearts verses, tag-ends of sonnets, valiant lines from the men's poets--Byron, Henley, Kipling, Gordon; and I learned to find it not strange that even on profane lips the lines were always of the strong and chivalrous and the pure in heart.

Mrs Valetta and I found ourselves in daily touch with each other at the hospital huts. We were the only ones left of the Salisbury group. Anna Cleeve had gone back, on hearing that her _fiance_ had arrived in Salisbury ill of fever, and later Mrs Skeffington-Smythe departed in the mail-coach, seated amongst a hundred parcels which she had been obliged to stage-manage herself, as Monty, appearing to think that martial law and marital responsibility ended together, had bestowed the favour of his company upon two strangers who owned a comfortable spring waggon and were bent on getting some sable-antelope shooting.

By the first coach that came down there had been a letter from Judy urging me to join her as soon as possible, but at the time it did not seem the best thing to do. There was no special work for me in Salisbury, while in Fort George there was much. Moreover, I had put out too many roots and fronds to be able to detach myself easily from the place where Anthony Kinsella had left me and told me to wait until he came. Judy's letters became more pressing after the return to Salisbury of Mrs Skeffington-Smythe and Anna Cleeve. It transpired that with implacable malice they had given to all who cared to listen their version of my parting with Anthony Kinsella. Judy flew to pen and paper to let me know that my "infatuation for Tony Kinsella" was the most interesting topic of conversation in Salisbury, and that the kindest thing any one found to say was: "What a pity he is already married!"

d.i.c.k who had returned from Buluwayo wrote that he was coming down as soon as an injured hip and a broken arm would permit to see Mrs Marriott before she left for England, and tell her all he could about her husband's splendid death. He had some plan to discuss with her, too, about the farm of six thousand acres which was her husband's share as a volunteer. Each man who went to the front was ent.i.tled to a farm of that size, twenty gold claims, and a share of the cattle captured.

d.i.c.k's idea was to take care of this property for Mrs Marriott, and to put all his energy into enhancing its value for the benefit of the woman who had been widowed for his sake. Incidentally, he wrote that he hoped I would return with him to Salisbury. But my sister-in-law, who wrote by the same mail, coldly advocated a return to Johannesburg and the wing of Elizabet von Stohl.

"You can never live down the scandal that is being talked about you,"

she said. "There will always be a tale attached to you, and all the fast men in the country will want to flirt with you on the strength of it. Besides, what are you going to do when Tony Kinsella comes back--_for he will come back of course_."

I thanked her much for that! Gladly I forgave her all the rest for the sake of that last little sentence that had slipped with such conviction from her pen. It was true that every one felt so about Anthony Kinsella: he was such an alive, ardent personality, it was impossible to believe him dead.

"_Of course_ he will come back," was what they all said. Claude Hunloke went further.

"Tony Kinsella is a slick guy!" he announced. "I tell you he has got cast-iron fastenings. Nothing can ever break him loose."

"And I know that it is true," I said to myself. "He will come back.

Then every one will know the truth about us"; and I crushed down doubt and dismay. Africa put her gift into my heart and wrote her sign upon my brow.

I was minding Tommy Dennison at about this time--a jaundiced-coloured skeleton in a very bad way with black-water fever. He was one of the patients who had overflowed from the hospital into a private hut for special nursing. So I tended him under the instructions and supervision of the hospital sisters, though if any one had a few months before described "black-water" to me and told me I should ever nurse a case without blenching and shrivelling at the task I should have announced a false prophet. But it was even so. I sat by him through the wet, hot days, listening to the drip of the rain from the thatch and the little broken bits of an old song that was often, on his lips.

"Lay me low, my work is done, I am weary, lay me low, Where the wild flowers woo the sun.

Where the balmy breezes blow, Where the b.u.t.terfly takes wing, Where the aspens drooping glow, Where the young birds chirp and sing, I am weary, let me go.

"I have striven hard and long Always with a stubborn heart, Taking, giving, blow for blow.

Brother, I have played my part, And am weary, let me go."

At intervals he raved, fancying himself back at Buluwayo where he smelt the King's kraal burning, and heard the kaffir dogs making night hideous by their howling.

"Oh! will some of you fellows kill those dogs?--choke 'em--feed 'em do anything, only let me sleep... _How_ many do you say? _six hundred of them starving in the bush, left behind by Loben_... Six hundred!...

Into the valley of death... rode the six hundred!" Then back again to his old song:

"When our work is done, 'tis best, Brother, best that we should go, I am weary, let me rest, I am weary, let me go."

Always, always, day after day, sleeping and waking, he muttered those lines with the persistency of the delirious. But one day he varied them to:

"Lay me weary, I am low, I am low--I've never done any work!"

and smiling at me with his fever-broken lips, closed his eyes for ever.

Just four months after he had sat upon the summit of Anthony Kinsella's hut playing subtly upon the flute!

My brother arrived the next day--the same old kindly tolerant debonair d.i.c.k of old; but yet with some of his gaiety and boyishness wiped from his face and replaced by a heavy look that it saddened me strangely to see, for I had begun to recognise that look and knew that it meant care.

His eye had a strained expression, too; and when I saw that his arm hung useless by his side, and that he came limping towards me, I burst out crying.

"Oh, d.i.c.ky!" I cried. "They have shot you all to bits!"

But he only grinned.

"Nonsense, Goldie, I'm all right. What's a chipped arm and a game leg if they're not the honours of war? Some of the fellows haven't a thing to show for their trouble. These are my trophies. I'm proud of 'em. I show 'em round."

"That's all very well," I said, still sniffling and mopping up my tears, "but you've got a temperature too. I can see it by your eyes."

"Oh! a little bit slack. A pinch of quinine will put me right with the world. But, Deirdre, I've some fierce news for you. What do you think the last mail brought me but an announcement that your solicitor, Morton, had skidooed with every rap of yours. Betty wrote to me in a fearful state about it. You're bust, my child."