Part 13

Rosamond, my rose, I took you before your hour--but I was as one who rides past and sees his flower bloom, and knows that he must pluck it in all haste, to wear on his heart, or leave it for another. I never kissed you but that you turned your cheek. Oh, I could have taken your lips had I wanted to, and I knew it. Now it breaks upon me like a wave, that if God only gave me ten minutes more with you, I could teach you how to love. But no, what is not given is not good to take: I would not rob you of your own gracious gift. Oh, my darling, you wept when I left you, the tears rained down your cheeks into my lips. I kissed your sweet eyes and drank the salt of them, and in that hour of grief you left me your lips at last--but they were open lips, like a child's; what could they give me--who wanted your woman's soul?

* * * * *

The words seemed to spring out of the page; to strike her as she read. She had not loved him. She herself had not known it, but it was true and he had known it. All the blood in her body seemed to rush back to her heart; she felt her cheeks grow cold and stiff in a sudden horror of the discovery. Then, with the reaction, the full tide seemed to turn upon itself and rush tingling through her frame. With a burning face she bent over the lines and read them avidly again--and again. How he had loved her! Ah, she felt what love meant, now! She understood! She was no longer the rigid, self-centered schoolgirl, looking forth on the narrow boundaries of her own ethics and deeming them the limits of life. She was a woman, a woman with a heart for him, for the man who had selected her; a woman with a passion leaping to his own. And he ... he was dead! No, no; he was not dead, he must not be dead! If she only knew how to reach him.... "It is we who make our dead dead." He must be somewhere. By that very craving of her whole being for him he must exist to answer it. And wheresoever he was, the cry of her soul must surely reach him and call him back to her.

Outside, in the winter sunshine, a robin began to pipe. The exultant beating of her heart slowed down; the eddy that had seized her fell away from her. Her spirit, that had seemed about to be caught up into some realm of ecstasy where pain was inextricably blent with joy, sank back into the material bondage. She heaved a great sigh and languidly took up the next sheet.

After his love cry, Harry English, too, had relapsed into the everyday cares; this entry was dated March 23.

My first act as C.O. here has been to reduce the rations one third. The dear old Major could not bring himself to do it. "We'll have as good a time, boys, as can be expected in the circumstances, and then, by George, if they don't come to get us loose we'll make a rush for it. A man can die but once; but we won't die by inches, if I know it." It was a jolly soldier's doctrine in its way, and had a dash of fatalism in it that suited our lads here down to the ground. But now that I have the management of the business, I cannot see my duty in that light. This fort is but a little peg in England's machinery--but lose a peg and who can tell what may happen to the machine! So your husband holds the fort, Rosamond, and will hold it to the last minute of the last hour, to the last pinch of pea-flour and the last bag of gunpowder to blow the last of us up! And to-day we begin to draw in our belts.

* * * * *

Vane's got a touch of fever. He's never really looked up since the Major went. Poor little chap, he'll see plenty more. It has rained three nights, and the men are drenched. Our sick list is increasing. Old Bethune's getting quite fit again, however, and that's a comfort to me. Queer chap, he lies on his back and reads an odd volume of Browning and hasn't a word to throw to a dog; and, with all his poetry, if I know him, not an aspiration or a thought except his men and his work.

* * * * *

_April_ 1*st*.--The beginning of a new military year is not likely to add much to our store of anything, except appetite. Old Yufzul, the Khan, has been parleying with us, day after day, for the last week. He rigs up his blessed white rag, and up goes ours, and then comes the messenger--generally an aged woman, with one of the old devil's interminable letters. These never vary. He's ready to make the most favourable terms with us. First condition: surrender of the fort.... I send him back the same document with a polite note affixed--we keep all the decorum of civilised warfare! My conditions are simple: first, he is to lay down his arms unconditionally; then he is to send us in so many scores of sheep, so many measures of corn, and then I will see what I can do about making his peace with the Government of India. I end up with a delicate warning as to the flight of time. Down comes his rag, down comes ours, and the bullets begin to patter again!

The doctor has a bad opinion of Vane. He says he has no stamina. I never saw any one waste so quickly. Poor little chap, and I who used to think him too pink and too plump! Leicester, the fellow, you know, we found in the fort here with his forty Goorkhas, goes and nurses him like a woman, in the intervals of business. I went to see him to-day--Vane, I mean. He seemed very low, but quite conscious. I thought I worried him, so did not stop long. Leicester tells me he's deadly ashamed of himself for being ill, and thinks I must despise him. Good Lord!

Bethune's up.

* * * * *

_April_ 3*rd*.--My sleep has gone. That's a weak thing for a soldier to have to confess. But I'm tough. I've got into the way of writing like this in the quiet hours. Not that night is always our quiet time, far from it. A black night is our worst enemy. We never know when the creatures will try and rush the fort. Last night we had a lively two hours of it, but I think they've had a lesson, and Rajab, my havildar, has suggested a plan for lighting the walls with pitch on little platforms hung out of the loopholes. If it works, we shan't be taken by surprise again.

* * * * *

We buried poor little Vane this morning. Whiteley came to me at eight o'clock last night and said he did not think he'd last out another twelve hours. I went to see him about eleven o'clock, but was no sooner in the room when they called the alarm from the tower--and we had a hot time of it. Our men were splendid, and I am thankful to say our casualties are comparatively few. Leicester made a sally with his Goorkhas, splendidly in the nick, and that settled the day, or rather the night, for us. There's been a good deal of wailing across the water this morning, at which you should see those little devils smile. In fact, the whole garrison would be in high spirits if it were not for Vane. Last night every one, even the orderly in charge, ran away from him in the scrimmage. I thought of this, I knew it would be so, but, of course, we can't waste time on the dying at such a time. The moment the pressure was over I clambered up to his room. The dawn was just breaking; there he was, lying on the boards under the window. Poor little beggar! flat on his back, in his pyjamas, his carbine by his side. He'd been potting at them out of his window, he was not gone, though. He opened his eyes and grinned at me.

"I'm done for, sir," he said. "But it's not the fever. I'm hit, thank God!"

I lifted him up. Poor little chappy, he had a scratch along his ribs, but it would not have killed a mouse! "You'll tell them," he said, "it was the wound, not the fever."

"I'll have you down: 'Killed in action,'" said I, loud into his ear. And he heard, though he was slipping away very fast. He grinned at me again, and then died without a sigh, his head on my breast, like a child.

This is the fifth week of siege.

* * * * *

I am haunted by your presence. We all dream a great deal when we sleep, these times. That's part of the game when one is half-starved. The fellows amuse themselves by telling their dreams at breakfast. It's almost like: "What's the news?" when one meets at the club.

Bethune makes every one laugh: he's so deadly matter-of-fact, "I dreamed I was sitting down to a Porterhouse steak!" You should hear the boys yell! Leicester, now, yarns away at a magnificent rate. Of course it's half invention; he's a real Irishman; but he keeps us alive. It's as good as a mutton chop to us to see him come dancing into mess--such a mess!--twanging his banjo and singing some absurd lilt of his own making.

"You see, boys," he says, with a piece of horse on his fork; "to a fellow brought up on 'potatoes and point,' this is positively gorgeous!"

But I don't tell my dreams, Rosamond. They are yours and mine.

* * * * *

Once you looked at me with fear in your eyes. It was on board ship. I think if I had ever seen that shadow in your beautiful eyes again, I should have had it in me to throw myself into the sea. Oh! what could you fear in me, Rosamond?

* * * * *

It has been snowing again on the heights. I pity those who try to conquer the snow. You take it to your arms and try to warm it, and it goes from you in tears. Rosamond, you have been like the snow to me. How could I have ever aspired to you?--white child!

I think I am wandering--you are the rose-flower to me. My white rose--no! my red red rose--Rose of the World!

* * * * *

If they are coming over the snows to relieve us, it will go hard with them. Were it only not to disappoint the brave fellows, I'll hold on; but we are pulling the belt pretty tight. The worst of it is, I feel so terribly alive; I'll take as much killing as a wild cat. I have so much to live for: I have to come back to you! I can make such a fight for it yet. Rosamond, if I have to die, I'll die hard. Now Bethune will be like an old dog fox; he'll sit on his tail and show his teeth and let them have their will at the end without a sound--but I'll fight!

* * * * *

I dream, I dream. Rosamond, you came to me last night. First I saw the grey gnarled boughs of the old orchard trees at home grow, as it were, out of the darkness, naked as in the winter time. They broke into lovely leaf and blossom even as I looked ... and then, loveliest flower of all, flowered your face among the rosy wreaths! You had a lace thing over your head, tied under the chin, and you were smiling and your cheeks were young and soft, your face was young and beautiful, but as I came close to you I saw that your hair--your golden hair--was white. I looked into your eyes, deep, deep, and they were wells of love. There was no fear of me in them, Rosamond, only love. And then we drew nearer and nearer to each other. And your lips met mine. Your lips--Rose of the World!

It was a dream of inexpressible sweetness to me and inexpressible comfort. When I woke up I had a perfume as of red roses in my mouth. I have riddled it all out for myself. I take it to mean that we shall, in spite of everything, meet again, and that I shall love you till you are old, and your hair is white, and that to me, because of our love, you will always be lovely in youth.

* * * * *

The want of you comes over me like fire, and I feel the marrow fail me in my bones.

* * * * *

Perhaps it is because you are the only woman I ever knew, that I love you so madly. Was it the influence of my dear old mother's high and simple theory of life, or was it by reason of my own energetic ambition of work and utility in this world, or is it merely some innate fastidiousness? ... However it may be, I have never played with love. I never kissed a woman in love before I kissed you. Ah no, love, it was not for any of those reasons--it was because I was keeping myself for you! And now this single passion of my life is devouring me. I dreamed you lay on my heart last night.

* * * * *

Rosamond raised her eyes, to look unseeingly at the plaster walls before her. The ignorant thing that had been Rosamond English, that once had had such treasure given her, and knew it not; she had but placed her hand in his as a lost child places her hand in that of the first kind stranger who will lead her out of the desolate wood. Hers had been a privilege so rare that, to the eyes of the world, it seems to be a thing impossible--a man's virgin love. Too often had Lady Gerardine seen a meaning smile, under a white moustache, on lips that recalled complacently "the little indiscretions of my youth"; too much had she seen herself, unwillingly, of the lives of the young men about her in the Residency not to realise this now. But then--Harry had been right--she had feared him, feared this strong and chaste passion, feared these virgin ardours; feared the man who had brought her his whole heart, whose eyes had never even looked on sin.

* * * * *

There was a great silence about her. The fire was dead; the day was closing in; the robin had flown away. Extinct hearth, bleak falling twilight, empty room, silence itself seemed to cry to her with one great voice: "Too late ... too late!"

And the gloom and the desolation of the deserted old house, on the waste English downs, were fit accompaniments to the slow agony in that fort, clinging on the bare flank of Himalayan crags, far away, under the eternal snows; agony over now and world-forgotten, but re-enacted for her alone, who had refused herself at the right hour to her share in it.

*CHAPTER XIV*

Despondency was beginning to creep over even Harry English's dauntless spirit: in the next sheet Rosamond took up--she had to peer closer now in the gathering dusk--for the first time he expressed doubt of their reunion.

You will go back to England (he wrote). You will go to the old Mother. My poor girl, I feel as if I had broken your life. But you are young and she is very strong. She will take you to that deep heart of hers, where I have been so well all my life; and you will both always remember that it is for England. And if you forget me, oh Rosamond, my Rosamond, you are young, you will forget!--no, I will write no more in this strain.... I won't bind you; but there are things that a man in his living flesh cannot regard without rebellion, whatever his sense of justice may tell him. The dead will be quiet. Sometimes I think I am a little mad.

* * * * *

You will like to know how this old place looks that you have, all unconsciously, filled with your presence these days, these nights....

The valley is set in a sort of scoop between the mountains, and all round there are the peaks, snow-covered. The river runs brawling from east to west, where the plateau is narrowed between the two huge buttresses of rock which almost close the valley; the water falls there a pretty good height, and on quiet nights one can hear the churn of the rapids. The fort is built on the right bank, and on that side we are safe from attack, as the ledges are very precipitous. It is thus too we get our water, our salvation. But this is becoming increasingly difficult, in spite of our trenches, as the fellows over there are getting to know the range pretty closely.

The valley is beginning to grow beautifully green, but the rocks above and all about are grey and drab and arid all the year round, and the snows never pass. It is over the snows our help must come. In our courtyard we have an almond tree, in blossom. I think of you, of your face under the bridal veil.

* * * * *

The flag, Rosamond, the old flag! What creatures we are with our symbols! So long as the spirit is enclosed in the flesh, so long must we grope in our efforts of expression. You can't conceive what this rag means to us, riddled with bullets, bleached, draggled! ... We are all in high spirits to-day. I doubt if even a score of fat sheep could have so cheered the garrison as our half-hour tussle on the roof, and the triumphant fact that the flag was not lowered, even for an instant. They gave us a hot time between seven and eight this morning; two or three of our best were bowled over, and I saw that our fellows had lost heart a bit--there's just a bad moment, Rosamond, between the glory of the fight and the last desperation; and that's a dangerous moment! Well, as if the fates were against us, the flagstaff was struck, repeatedly, and all at once, in the thick of it, we heard it crack and saw it bend. There was not a man but turned his head. Rosamond, that flag's their fetish! It's astonishing how quickly one can take in a thing at an instant like that. I seemed to see all at once the change that swept over the dark faces. You know how the whole aspect of a field of corn can be changed in a moment by a puff of wind. I made one spring for the breaking pole and caught it just in time. And then I held it high, as high as I could, crying out to them in such a flood of Hindustani as never fell from my lips before. God knows what I said, or didn't say! But they can do with a lot of talk, these boys of ours. I must have looked like a madman, I know I felt like one. One gets sort of light-headed in the fight, now and again. I felt as if I were growing taller, as if the old flag were lifting me up higher and higher. The bullets played about us like spray, and not one hit me. As for the boys--well, my madness got into them somehow--they fell to like devils; they shot like angels; it was as if magic wine had been poured into them. I don't suppose even the oldest soldier among us had seen anything like it before. We made a record score, I can tell you!

Now it's over, I look back and think that we were all possessed. But it's had a useful effect on the Khan and his tribes, for they had the worst of that hour, and the flag was not lowered, not an inch. I never let it out of my hands till a new pole had been spliced on--a stout one, you may be sure. And this is a happy garrison to-day. You should hear the Goorkhas jabbering and laughing over their half-ration of rice. We have served out extra rum. They've drunk the great white Empress's health, and are quite sure now that anything belonging to her must be safe.

As for me, the poor superstitious creatures have begun to regard me as a small god; they think I bear a charmed life. Rosamond, if that flag had fallen, there is no knowing if we could have held the men. And if we'd lost the fort, I should never have seen you again, for we four Englishmen could not let it go before our lives. The fellows are all kicking up an idiotic fuss about my share in the business--it makes a man feel such a fool to be made a hero of for nothing. Rosamond, did I even do my duty? Then, even then, upholding my country's flag, the fury of my thoughts was all with you: If the flag falls I shall never see her again--that was what I was saying to myself. God knows I am no hero.

* * * * *

No hero!

Rosamond's heart was beating high, her eye had kindled, her cheek was glowing. Was he not a hero? Her Harry. She could see him towering in his strength--the "archangel" of Bethune's description; the born leader, stimulating his starving men to unheard-of valour!

* * * * *

But the end was drawing near. She must read on. The darkness had gathered so close that she had to light a candle and put it beside her on the floor. This she did mechanically, hardly aware of her own action--so bent upon her single thought. The handwriting had become irregular; it sprawled upon the page.

The hunger is nothing, it's the thirst! People who slowly starve can bear hunger, but thirst is an active devil. They've found an enfilading spot commanding our trench to the water. We lost three men in succession two days ago. Dug all day yesterday to strike a well, no success. To-day it's gone hard with us. Last night, I think I'd a touch of fever; you were so mixed up in my mind with my thirst that it seemed to me it was the want of you made me suffer so much. I found myself, found my dry tongue, calling for you, clamouring out loud in the silence. Ah, there are miles and miles of mountains between us!

This is worse than death.

* * * * *

They've heliographed from the hills; the relief is in sight. They've had an awful time in the snows, and half the fellows are blind. They will have to recoup a bit before they can strike. But they have guns and that ought to settle it. Meanwhile we can't wait--we're going to run up a fresh trench to the water, if we lose twenty men by it.

* * * * *

The job is done. Leicester managed it splendidly with less loss than we expected. But he's got a nasty wound in the hip. We've got water again--Rosamond, Rosamond, when will you hold the cup for me to drink?

The first gun went to-day. They haven't got to the right spot yet, but such as it was the shooting flustered the ant-hill down there, finely. For two days Yufzul has left us in peace, and meanwhile the guns on the hill get closer and pound away. But the enemy shows no sign of packing yet. The Khan is a tough old boy; we'll have a tussle for it yet. They've flashed to say they are ready up there. We shall co-operate.

This last sheet but one was dated April 15, 8 A.M.

The next entry was marked 3 P.M. of the same day.

In measure as the relief approaches, I know not why, my hopes go down. Rosamond--oh, if I should never see you again! What will you do with your life? You will have my mother, though that may not be for long, and there is enough to keep you both from want, thank God, under the roof of the Old Ancient House. Go to her there; at least for the first. And then and then--I won't bind you.

If we had had a child you would be more mine!

I wish we had another night, even in this trap of death. I might perhaps dream of you once more. The dead won't dream. Perhaps that is best. What if we should never meet again!

Rosamond's breath came short, shudders ran through her. She laid down in its turn this record of the fever of a man's mind and took up the last sheet. The last sheet! This was, indeed, the end! It was dated, carefully written without any of the wildness or disjointedness of the previous entries. The strong man on the verge of action would do all things as became a soldier, even to his final letter to his beloved.