Tomaso's Fortune and Other Stories Part 24

"And you would not take a loan as from one gentleman to another?"

"No," answered Spanish pride, crouching in the bushes, "I could not do that."

Cartoner reflected for some moments. "In the country from which I come,"

he said at length, "we have a very laudable reverence for relics and a very delicate taste in such matters. If one man shoots another we like to see the gun, and we pay sixty centimes to look upon it. There are people who make an honest living by such exhibitions. If they cannot get the gun they put another in its place, and it is all the same. Now, your knife--the one the Senorita sharpens with a kiss--in my country it will have its value. Suppose I buy it; suppose we say five hundred pesetas?"

And Cartoner's voice was the voice of innocence.

There was silence for some time, and at last the knife came up handlewise between the leaves of the hydrangea. Spanish pride is always ready to shut its eyes.

"But you must swear that what you tell me is true and that Juanita will join you in Argentina. Honour of a gentleman."

"Honour of a gentleman," repeated the voice; and the hand of a blacksmith came through the leaves, seeking Cartoner's grasp.

"They are turning the lights out," said Cartoner, when the bargain was concluded. "But I will wait until it is safe to leave you here. Your friends the guardia civile do not arrive."

"Pardon, Senor, I think I hear them."

And the fugitive's ears did not err. For presently a tall man, white with dust in his great swinging cloak, stalked suspiciously among the tables, looking into each face. He saluted Cartoner, who was better dressed than the other frequenters of the Cafe of the New Gate, and pa.s.sed on. A horrid moment.

"The good G.o.d will most likely remember that you have done this deed to-night," said the voice, with a queer break in it.

"He may," answered Cartoner, who was lighting his cigarette before going. "On the other hand, I may get five years in a Spanish prison."

AT THE FRONT

"Some one who is not girlish now"

It was only yesterday that I saw her. It happened that the string of carriages was stopped at that moment, and I went to the door of her comfortable-looking barouche.

"Do you ever feel that shoulder," I asked, raising my hat, "at the changes of the weather, or when it is damp?"

She turned and looked at me in surprise. Her face had altered little. It was the face of a happy woman, despite a few lines, which were not the marks left by a life of gaiety and dissipation. They were not quite the lines that Time had drawn on the faces of the women in the carriages around her. In some ways she looked younger than most of them, and her eyes had an expression which was lacking in the gas-wearied orbs of her fashionable sisters. It was the shadowy reflection of things seen.

She looked into my face--noting the wear and tear that life had left there. Then suddenly she smiled and held out her hand.

"You!" she said. "You--how strange!"

She blushed suddenly and laughed with a pretty air of embarra.s.sment which was startlingly youthful.

"No," she went on, in answer to my question; "I never feel that shoulder now--thanks to you."

There were a number of questions I wanted to ask her. But I had fallen into a habit, years ago, of restraining that inexpedient desire; and she did not seem to expect interrogation. Besides, I could see many answers in her face.

"You limped just now," she said, leaning towards me with a little grave air of sympathy which was quite familiar to me--like an old friend forgotten until seen again. "You limped as you crossed the road."

"I shall limp until the end of the chapter."

"And you have been at that work ever since?"

"Yes."

She looked past me over the trees of the Park--as if looking back into a bygone period of her life.

"Will you come and dine to-morrow night?" she said suddenly. "Fred will be... very pleased to see you. And--I want to show you the children."

The line of carriages moved on slowly towards the Park gate, and left me baring a grizzled old bullet-head in answer to her smile and nod.

As I limped along it all came back to me. A good many years before--in the days when hard work was the salt of life--I was entrusted with my first field hospital. I was sent up to the front by the cleverest surgeon and the poorest organizer that ever served the Queen.

Ah, that WAS a field hospital! My first! We were within earshot of the front--that is to say, we could hear the platoon firing. And when the wounded came in we thought only of patching them up temporarily--sewing, bandaging, and plastering them into travelling order, and sending them down to the headquarters at the coast. It was a weary journey across the desert, and I am afraid a few were buried on the way.

Early one morning, I remember, they brought in Boulson, and I saw at once that he had come to stay. We could not patch him up and send him off. The jolting of the ambulance waggon had done its work, and Boulson was insensible when they laid him on one of the field-cots. He remained insensible while I got his things off. The wound told its own story.

He had been at the hand-to-hand work again, and a bayonet never meets a broad-headed spear without trouble coming of it. Boulson meant to get on--consequently I had had him before. I had cut his shirt off him before this, and knew that it was marked "F.L.G.M.," which does not stand for Boulson.

Boulson's name was not Boulson; but that was not our business at the time. We who patch up Thomas Atkins when he gets hurt in the interests of his Queen and country are never surprised to find that the initials on his underlinen do not tally with those in the regimental books. When the military millennium arrives, and ambulance services are perfect, we shall report things more fully. Something after this style--"Killed: William Jones. Coronet on his razor-case. Linen marked A. de M.F.G."

While I was busy with a sponge, Boulson opened his eyes and recognized me.

"Soon got YOU back again," I remarked, with ghastly professional cheeriness.

He smiled feebly. "Must get into the despatches somehow," he answered, and promptly fainted again.

I took especial care of Boulson, being mindful of a letter I had received while he was recovering from his last wound. It was a long and rambling letter, dated from a place on the west coast of Ireland. It was signed with a name which surprised me, and the writer, who addressed me as "Sir," and mentioned that he was my humble servant, stated that he was Boulson's father. At least he said he thought he was Boulson's father--if Boulson was tall and fair, with blue eyes, and a pepper-castor mark on his right arm, where a charge of dust-shot had lodged from a horse-pistol. There had, he informed me, been family misunderstandings about a foolish fancy formed by Boulson for a military career. And Boulson had gone off--G.o.d bless him--like the high-spirited Irishman that he was--to enlist as a private soldier. And then came the news of the serious wound, and if there was a G.o.d in heaven (which I never doubted), any kindness and care that I could bestow upon Boulson would not be forgotten at the last reckoning. And more to a like effect.

Moreover, Boulson pulled through and was duly sent down to the fine, roomy convalescent hospital on the coast, where they have ice, and newspapers, and female nurses fresh from Netley.

This second wound was, however, a more serious affair. While others came and went, Boulson seemed inclined to stay for ever. At all events he stayed for ten days, and made no progress worth mentioning.

At the end of that time I was sitting at my table writing perversions of G.o.d's truth to the old gentleman on the west coast of Ireland when I heard the rumble of ambulance waggons. I thought that it was only a returned empty--there having been an informal funeral that evening--so hardly disturbed myself.

Presently, however, some one came and stood in front of my table outside the tent. I looked up, and looked into the face of one of the few women I have met who make me believe in love stories.

"Halloa!" I said, somewhat rudely.

"I beg to report myself," she answered quietly. There was a peculiar unsteadiness in her eyes. It seemed to me that this woman was labouring under great excitement.

"Did the Surgeon-Major send you?" I asked.

"I volunteered."

"Hum! I think I ought to have been asked first. This is no place for women."