Tomaso's Fortune and Other Stories Part 28

We all knew that he would be willing enough to go; nay, he would be eager. But Thurkow's father was in command, which made all the difference.

While we were thinking over these things an orderly appeared at the mess-room door.

"Brigadier would like to see you, sir," he said to me. And I had to throw away the better half of a first-cla.s.s manilla.

The brigadier's quarters were across a square in the centre of a long rambling palace, for which a handsome rent was duly paid. We were not making war. On the contrary, we were forcing peace down the throat of the native prince on the point of a sword.

Everything was upon a friendly footing. We were not an invading force.

Oh, no! we were only the escort of a political officer. We had been quartered in this border town for more than a year, and the senior officers' lady-wives had brought their lares and penates in three bullock-carts a-piece.

I suppose we were objects of envy. We had all the excitement of novelty without any of the penalties of active warfare. We were strong enough to make an awful example of the whole Princ.i.p.ality at a day's notice, and the Princ.i.p.ality knew it, which kept bazaar prices down and made the coloured brother remember the hue of his cheek.

In the palace there were half a dozen officers' quarters, and these had been apportioned to the married; consequently the palace had that air of homeliness which is supposed to be lacking in the quarters of single men.

As I was crossing the square I heard some one running after me, and, turning, I faced Fitz. Fitz Marner--usually called Fitz--was my second in command and two years my junior. He was quite a different sort of man to myself, and, if I may say so, a much better man. However, I am not going to talk about myself more than I can help this time. Some day I shall, and then I shall have a portrait on the cover. This is an age of portraits. But some day the British public will wake up and will refuse to read the works of a smug-faced man in spectacles who tries to make them believe that he is doughty, fearless, and beloved of beautiful damsels. The bookstalls are full to-day of works written in the first person singular, and relating deeds of the utmost daring; while on the cover is a portrait of the author--the aforesaid smug man in spectacles--who has not the good sense to suppress himself.

Fitz was tall and lithe. He had a large brown moustache and pleasantly thoughtful eyes. His smile was the kindliest I have ever met. Moreover, a modester man than Fitz never breathed. He had a way of carrying his chin rather low, so that when he looked at one he had to raise his eyes, which imparted a pleasing suggestion of attention to his face. It always seemed to me that Fitz listened more carefully to what was said to him than other men are in the habit of doing.

"Say, doctor," he said, looking up at me in his peculiar thoughtful way, "give me a chance."

I knew what he meant. He wanted me to send him to a certain death instead of young Thurkow. Those little missions to that bourne from whence no traveller returns are all in the work of a soldier's life, and we two were soldiers, although ours was the task of repairing instead of doing the damage. Every soldier-man and most civilians know that it is sometimes the duty of a red-coat to go and get killed without pausing to ask whether it be expedient or not. One aide-de-camp may be sent on a mad attempt to get through the enemy's lines, while his colleague rides quietly to the rear with a despatch inside his tunic, the delivery of which to the commander-in-chief will ensure promotion. And in view of this the wholesome law of seniority was invented. The missions come in rotation, and according to seniority the men step forward.

Fitz Marner's place was at my side, where, by the way, I never want a better man, for his will was iron, and he had no nerves whatever. Capoo, the stricken, was calling for help. Fitz and I knew more about cholera than we cared to discuss just then. Some one must go up to Capoo to fight a hopeless fight and die. And old Fitz--G.o.d bless him!--was asking to go.

In reply I laughed.

"Not if I can help it. The fortune of war is the same for all."

Fitz tugged at his moustache and looked gravely at me.

"It is hard on the old man," he said. "It is more than you can expect."

"Much," I answered. "I gave up expecting justice some years ago. I am sorry for the brigadier, of course. He committed the terrible mistake of getting his son into his own brigade, and this is the result. All that he does to-night he does on his own responsibility. I am not inclined to help him. If it had been you, I should not have moved an inch--you know that."

He turned half away, looking up speculatively at the yellow Indian moon.

"Yes," he muttered, "I know that."

And without another word he went back to the mess-room.

I went on and entered the palace. To reach the brigadier's quarters I had to pa.s.s down the whole length of the building, and I was not in the least surprised to see Elsie Matheson waiting for me in one of the pa.s.sage-like ante-rooms. Elsie Matheson was bound to come into this matter sooner or later--I knew that; but I did not quite know in what capacity her advent might be expected.

"What is this news from Capoo?" she asked, without attempting to disguise her anxiety. Her father, a.s.sistant political officer in this affair, was not at Capoo or near there. He was upstairs playing a rubber.

"Bad," I answered.

She winced, but turned no paler. Women and horses are always surprising me, and they never surprise me more than when in danger. Elsie Matheson was by no means a masculine young person. Had she been so, I should not have troubled to mention her. For me, men cannot be too manly, nor women too womanly.

"What is the illness they have?" she asked.

"I really cannot tell you, Elsie," I answered. "Old Simpson has written me a long letter--he always had a fancy for symptoms, you know--but I can make nothing of it. The symptoms he describes are quite impossible.

They are too scientific for me."

"You know it is cholera," she snapped out with a strange little break in her voice which I did not like, for I was very fond of this girl.

"Perhaps it is," I answered.

She gave a funny little helpless look round her as if she wanted something to lean against.

"And who will go?" she asked. She was watching me keenly.

"Ah--that does not rest with me."

"And if it did?"

"I should go myself."

Her face lighted up suddenly. She had not thought of that. I bore her no ill-feeling, however. I did not expect her to love ME.

"But they cannot spare you," she was kind enough to say.

"Everybody can always be spared--with alacrity," I answered; "but it is not a question of that. It is a question of routine. One of the others will have to go."

"Which one?" she asked with a suddenly a.s.sumed indifference.

It was precisely the question in my own mind, but relative to a very different matter. If the decision rested with Miss Matheson, which of these two men would she send to Capoo? Perhaps I looked rather too keenly into her face, for she turned suddenly away and drew the gauzy wrap she had thrown over her evening dress more closely round her throat, for the pa.s.sages were cold.

"That does not rest with me," I repeated, and I went on towards the brigadier's quarters, leaving her--a white shadow in the dimly lighted pa.s.sage.

I found the chief at his own dinner-table with an untouched gla.s.s of wine before him.

"This is a bad business," he said, looking at me with haggard eyes. I had never quite realized before what an old man he was. His trim beard and moustache had been white for years, but he had always been a hale man up to his work--a fine soldier but not a great leader. There was a vein of indolence in Brigadier-General Thurkow's nature which had the same effect on his career as that caused by barnacles round a ship's keel. This inherent indolence was a steady drag on the man's life. Only one interest thoroughly aroused him--only one train of thought received the full gift of his mind. This one absorbing interest was his son Charlie, and it says much for Charlie Thurkow that we did not hate him.

The brigadier had lost his wife years before. All that belonged to ancient history--to the old Company days before our time. To say that he was absorbed in his son is to state the case in the mildest imaginable form. The love in this old man's heart for his reckless, happy-souled offspring was of that higher order which stops at nothing. There is a love that worketh wonders, and the same love can make a villain of an honest man.

I looked at old Thurkow, sitting white-lipped behind the decanter, and I knew that there was villainy in his upright, honest heart. He scarcely met my eyes. He moved uneasily in his chair. All through a long life this man had carried n.o.bly the n.o.blest name that can be given to any--the name of gentleman. No great soldier, but a man of dauntless courage. No strategist, but a leader who could be trusted with his country's honour. Upright, honourable, honest, brave--and it had come to this. It had come to his sitting shamefaced before a poor unknown sawbones--not daring to look him in the face.

His duty was plain enough. Charlie Thurkow's turn had come. Charlie Thurkow must be sent to Capoo--by his father's orders. But the old man--the soldier who had never turned his back on danger--could not do it.

We were old friends, this man and I. I owed him much. He had made my career, and I am afraid I had been his accomplice more than once. But we had never wronged any other man. Fitz had aided and abetted more than once. It had been an understood thing between Fitz and myself that the winds of our service were to be tempered to Charlie Thurkow, and I imagine we had succeeded in withholding the fact from his knowledge.

Like most spoilt sons, Charlie was a little selfish, with that convenient blindness which does not perceive how much dirty work is done by others.

But we had never deceived the brigadier. He was not easily deceived in those matters which concerned his son. I knew the old man very well, and for years I had been content to sit by the hour together and talk with him of Charlie. To tell the honest truth, Master Charlie was a very ordinary young man. I take it that a solution of all that was best in five Charles Thurkows would make up one Fitz Marner.

There was something horribly pathetic in the blindness of this usually keen old man on this one point. He would sit there stiffly behind the decanter fingering his wine-gla.s.s, and make statements about Charlie which would have made me blush had that accomplishment not belonged to my past. A certain cheery impertinence which characterized Charlie was fondly set down as savoir-faire and dash. A cheap wit was held to be brilliancy and conversational finish. And somehow we had all fallen into the way of humouring the brigadier. I never told him, for instance, that his son was a very second-rate doctor and a nervous operator. I never hinted that many of the cures which had been placed to his credit were the work of Fitz--that the men had no confidence in Charlie, and that they were somewhat justified in their opinion.

"This is a bad business," repeated the brigadier, looking hard at the despatch that lay on the table before him.

"Yes," I answered.