Chapter 11

But I knew it was less. I attended to others, thinking all the while of poor Noon. His home life was little known, but there was some story about an engagement at Poonah the previous warm weather. Noon was rich, and he cared for the girl; but she did not return the feeling. In fact, there was some one else. It appears that the girl's people were ambitious and poor, and that Noon had promised large settlements. At all events, the engagement was a known affair, and gossips whispered that Noon knew about the some one else, and would not give her up. He was, I know, thought badly of by some, especially by the elders, who had found out the value of money as regards happiness, or rather the complete absence of its value.

However, the end of it all lay on the sheet beneath the pines, and watched me with such persistence that I was at last forced to go to him.

“Have you sent for Berlyng?” he asked, with a breathlessness which I know too well.

Now I had not sent for Berlyng, and it requires more nerve than I possess to tell unnecessary lies to a dying man. The necessary ones are quite different, and I shall not think of them when I go to my account.

“Berlyng could not come if I sent for him,” I replied soothingly. “He is two miles away from here trenching the North Wall, and I have nobody to send. The messenger would have to run the gauntlet of the enemy's earthworks.”

“I'll give the man a hundred pounds who does it,” replied Noon, in his breathless whisper. “Berlyng will come sharp enough if you say it's from me. He hates me too much.” He broke off with a laugh which made me feel sick. “Could he get here in time,” he asked after a pause, “if you sent for him?”

“Yes,” I replied, with my hand inside his soaked tunic.

I found a wounded water-carrier--a fellow with a stray bullet in his hand--who volunteered to find Berlyng, and then I returned to Noon and told him what I had done. I knew that Berlyng could not come.

He nodded, and I think he said, “God bless you.”

“I want to put something right,” he said, after an effort; “I've been a blackguard.”

I waited a little in case Noon wished to repose some confidence in me. Things are so seldom put right that it is wise to facilitate such intentions. But it appeared obvious that what Noon had to say could only be said to Berlyng. They had, it subsequently transpired, not been on speaking terms for some months.

I was turning away when Noon suddenly cried out in his natural voice, “There IS Berlyng.”

I turned and saw one of my men, Swearney, carrying in a gunner. It might be Berlyng, for the uniform was that of a captain, but I could not see his face. Noon, however, seemed to recognize him.

I showed Swearney where to lay his man, close to me alongside Noon, who at that moment required all my attention, for he had fainted.

In a moment Noon recovered, despite the heat, which was tremendous. He lay quite still looking up at the patches of blue sky between the dark motionless tops of the pine trees. His face was livid under the sunburn, and as I wiped the perspiration from his forehead he closed his eyes with the abandon of a child. Some men, I have found, die like children going to sleep.

He slowly recovered, and I gave him a few drops of brandy. I thought he was dying, and decided to let Berlyng wait. I did not even glance at him as he lay, covered with dust and blackened by the smoke of his beloved nine-pounders, a little to the left of Noon, and behind me as I knelt at the latter's side.

After a while his eyes grew brighter, and he began to look about him. He turned his head, painfully, for the muscles of his neck were injured, and caught sight of the gunner's uniform.

“Is that Berlyng?” he asked excitedly.

“Yes.”

He dragged himself up and tried to get nearer to Berlyng. And I helped him. They were close alongside each other. Berlyng was lying on his back, staring up at the blue patches between the pine trees.

Noon turned on his left elbow and began whispering into the smoke-grimed ear.

“Berlyng,” I heard him say, “I was a blackguard. I am sorry, old man. I played it very low down. It was a dirty trick. It was my money--and her people were anxious for her to marry a rich man. I worked it through her people. I wanted her so badly that I forgot I--was supposed--to be a--gentleman. I found out--that it was you--she cared for. But I couldn't make up my mind to give her up. I kept her--to her word. And now it's all up with me--but you'll pull through and it will all--come right. Give her my--love--old chap. You can now--because I'm--done. I'm glad they brought you in--because I've been able--to tell you--that it is you she cares for. You--Berlyng, old chap, who used to be a chum of mine. She cares for you--God! you're in luck! I don't know whether she's told you--but she told me--and I was--a d--d blackguard.”

His jaw suddenly dropped, and he rolled forward with his face against Berlyng's shoulder.

Berlyng was dead when they brought him in. He had heard nothing. Or perhaps he had heard and understood--everything.

FOR JUANITA'S SAKE

Cartoner, of the Foreign Office, who is still biding his time, is not tired of Spain yet--and it must be remembered that Cartoner knows the Peninsula. He began to know it twenty years ago, and his knowledge is worthy of the name, inasmuch as it moves with the times. Some day there will be a war in Spain, and we shall fight either for or against the Don, which exercise Englishmen have already enjoyed more than once. Cartoner hopes that it may come in his time, when, as he himself puts it, he will be “there or thereabouts.” Had not a clever man his opportunity when the Russian war broke out, and he alone of educated Britons knew the Crimea? That clever man had a queer temper, as we all know, and so lost his opportunity; but, if he gets it, Cartoner will take his chance coolly and steadily enough. In the mean time he is, if one may again borrow his own terse expression, “by no means nowhere,” for in the Foreign Office those who know Spain are a small handful; and those who, like Cartoner, can cross the Pyrenees and submerge themselves unheeded in the quiet, sleepy life of Andalusia, are to be numbered on two fingers, and no more. When a question of Spain or of, say, Cuba, arises, a bell is rung in the high places of the Foreign Office, and a messenger in livery is despatched for Cartoner, who, as likely as not, will be discovered reading El Imparcial in his room. It is always pleasant to be able to ring a bell and summon a man who knows the difference between Andalusia and Catalonia--and can without a moment's hesitation say where Cuba is and to what Power it belongs, such matters not always being quite clear to the comprehension of a Cabinet Minister who has been brought up to the exclusive knowledge of the Law, or the manufacture of some article of daily domestic consumption.

While possessing his knowledge in patience, Cartoner naturally takes a mean advantage of those in high places who have it not, nor yet the shadow of it. About once in six months he says that he thinks he ought to go to Spain, and raps out a few technicalities relating to the politics of the Peninsula. A couple of days later he sets off for the land of sun and sleep with what he calls his Spanish kit in a portmanteau. This he purchased in the “Sierpe” for forty pesetas at a ready-made tailor's, where it was labelled “Fantasia.” It is merely a tweed suit, but, wearing it, Cartoner is safe from the reproach that doggeth the step of the British tourist abroad.

It was during one of these expeditions that Cartoner, in his unobtrusive way, found himself in Toledo, where, the guide-books tell us, the traveller will obtain no fit accommodation. It was evening, and the company who patronized the Cafe of the New Gate were mostly assembled at small tables in the garden of that house of entertainment. The moon was rising over the lower lands across the Tagus, behind the gate which gives its name to this cafe. It is very rightly called the New Gate. Did not Wemba build it in the sixth century, as he has cheerfully written upon its topmost stone?

Cartoner sat at one of the outside tables, where the hydrangeas, as large as a black currant bush, are ranged in square green boxes against the city wall. He was thoughtfully sipping his coffee when a man crawled between his legs and hid himself like a sick dog between Cartoner's chair and the hydrangea trees. The hiding-place was a good one, provided that the fugitive had the collusion of whosoever sat in Cartoner's chair.

“His Excellency would not betray a poor unfortunate,” whispered an eager voice at Cartoner's elbow, while, with a sang-froid which had been partly acquired south of the Pyrenees, the Briton sat and gazed across the Tagus.

“That depends upon what the unfortunate has been after.”

There was a silence while Truth wrestled with the Foe in the shadows of the bush in the green box.

“His Excellency is not of Toledo.”

“Nor yet of Spain,” replied Cartoner, knowing that it is good to speak the truth at times.

“They have chased me from Algodor. They on horseback, I running through the forest. You will hear them rattling across the bridge soon. If I can only lie hidden here until they have ridden on into the town, I can double and get away to Barcelona.”

Cartoner was leaning forward on the little tin table, his chin in the palm of his hand.

“You must not speak too loud,” he said, “especially when the music is still.”

For the Cafe of the New Gate had the additional attraction of what the proprietor called a concert. The same consisting of a guitar and a bright-coloured violin, the latter in the hands of a wandering scoundrel, who must have had good in him somewhere--it peeped out in the lower notes.

“Has his Excellency had coffee?” inquired the man behind Cartoner's chair.

“Yes.”

“Does any sugar remain? I have not eaten since morning.”

Cartoner dropped the two square pieces of sugar over his shoulder, and there was a sound of grinding.

“His Excellency will not give me up. I can slip a knife into his Excellency's liver where I sit.”

“I know that. What have you been doing?”

“I killed Emmanuelo Dembaza, that is all.”

“Indeed--but why kill Senor Dembaza?”

“I did it for Juanita's sake.”

A queer smile flitted across Cartoner's face. He was a philosopher in his way, and knew that such things must be.

“He was a scoundrel, and had already ruined one poor girl,” went on the voice from the tree. The cheap violin was speaking about good and bad mixed together again--and to talk aloud was safe. “But she was no better than she should be--a tobacco-worker. And tobacco for work or pleasure ever ruins a woman, Senor. Look at Seville. But Juanita is different. She irons the fine linen. She is good--as good as his Excellency's mother--and beautiful. Maria! His Excellency should see her eyes. You know what eyes some Spanish women have. A history and something one does not understand.”

“Yes,” answered Cartoner again. “I know.”

“Juanita thought she liked him,” went on the voice, bringing its hearer suddenly back to Toledo; “she thought she liked him until she found him out. Then he turned upon her and said things that were not true. Such things, Senor, ruin a girl, whether they be true or not--especially if the women begin to talk. Is it not so?”

“Yes.”

“She told me of it, and we decided that there was nothing to do but kill Emmanuelo Dembaza. She kissed me, Excellency, and every time she did that I would kill a man if she asked me.”

“Indeed.”

“Yes, Excellency.”

“And if you are taken and sent to prison for, say, twenty years?” suggested Cartoner.

“Then Juanita will drown herself. She has sworn it.”

“And if I do not give you up? If you escape?”

“She will follow me to Argentina, Excellency; and, Madre de Dios, we shall get married.”

At this moment the waiter came up, cigarette in mouth, after the manner of Spain, and suggested a second cup of coffee, to which Cartoner assented--with plenty of sugar.

“Have you money?” asked Cartoner, when they were alone again.

“No, Senor.”

“In this world it is no use being a criminal unless you are rich. If you are poor you must be honest. That is the first rule of the game.”

“I am as poor as a street-dog,” said the voice, unconcernedly.

“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 passed on. A horrid moment.

“The good God 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 embarrassment 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--God 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 God 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 God'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.”

“Wherever there is nursing to be done, we can hardly be out of place,” she answered, with a determination which puzzled me.

“Theoretically,” I answered; and, seeing that she had arrived, I made a shift to find her suitable quarters and get her to work.

“Have you any serious cases?” she asked, while unpacking and setting out for my inspection sundry stores she had brought.

“I have Boulson again,” I answered. “The man you had in the spring.”

She buried her head in the case, and did not answer for some seconds.

When at length she did speak, her voice was indifferent and careless.

“Badly hurt?” she asked.

“Yes.”

She finished unpacking her stores rather hurriedly, and expressed her readiness to go round the cots with me.

“Are you not too tired after your journey?”

“No, I--I should like to begin at once. Please let me.”

I took her round, and altogether I was pleased with her.

In a day or two I almost became resigned to her presence, though I hate having women anywhere near the action. It is always better to get the nasty cases cleaned up before the women see them.

Then suddenly came bad news. There was something wrong at the front. Our fellows were falling back upon us. A final stand was to be made at our position until reinforcements came up.

I sent for Nurse Fielding, and told her to get ready to leave for headquarters at once. I was extremely business-like and formal. She was neither. That is the worst of women.

“Please let me stay,” she said. “Please.”

I shook my head.

“I would rather stay and be killed than go away and be safe.”

That aroused my suspicions. Perhaps they ought to have been aroused before; but, then, I am only a man. I saw how the Surgeon-Major had been managed.

“Please,” she repeated softly.

She laid her hand on my arm, and did not withdraw it when she found that the sleeve was wet with something that was thicker than water.

“Please,” she whispered.

“Oh, all right--stay!”

I was sorry for it the next day, when we had the old familiar music of the bullets overhead.

Later in the morning matters became more serious. The enemy had a gun with which they dropped six-pound shot into us. One of these fell on to the corner of our hospital where Boulson lay. It tore the canvas, and almost closed Boulson's career.

Nurse Fielding was at him like a terrier, and lifted him bodily from his cot. She was one of those largely framed fair women who have strength, both physical and mental.

She was carrying him across the tent when I heard the thud of a bullet. Nurse Fielding stopped for a moment and seemed to hesitate. She laid Boulson tenderly down on the ground, and then fell across him, while the blood ran from her cotton bodice over his face and neck.

And that was what I meant when I asked the lady in the barouche at the Park gate whether she ever felt that shoulder now. And the man I dine with to-night is not called Boulson, but he has a charge of dust-shot--the result of a boyish experiment--in his right arm.

THE END OF THE “MOOROO”

“How long can you give us?”