“MY CAPTAIN DOES NOT ANSWER; HIS LIPS ARE PALE AND STILL.”
Beyond constant and most wearisome convoy duty, the Seventeenth Hussars
had very little to do. Afghanistan is a country more adapted for
mountaineers than mounted men; and as far as downright fighting was
concerned, the cavalry were, perforce, idle. Sir Reginald looked upon
“baggage guard” as better than nothing. “Half a loaf was better than no
bread,” and he had more than one exciting little brush with would-be
marauding and murdering Pathans.
Repeatedly successful raids and small skirmishes had given him a
most unenviable notoriety among the tribes of banditti who infested
the various camel-roads and swarmed about the hills. To these he was
a perfect scourge, and hunted them and harried them with unwearied
energy. It is not too much to say that they literally thirsted for his
blood. Although often warned by his brother-officers that he would be
“potted,” his daring and foolhardiness knew no bounds. He would loiter
behind, or canter on in advance of a squadron, as coolly as if he were
riding on an English high-road, and not through a gloomy Afghan pass,
among whose rocks more than one enemy was sitting patiently behind his
Jazail or Snider, waiting to work off any straggling Kaffirs, and so to
earn for himself an honourable name.
Sir Reginald appeared to bear a charmed life, and thoroughly to
carry out the good old Irish motto, “Where there’s no fear there’s no
danger;” and though he had one or two narrow escapes, he exemplified
another saying in his own person, viz., “That a miss is as good as a
mile.”
The tribes in the neighbourhood of the division to which the hussars
belonged had been giving a great deal of trouble, and displaying their
hostility in various acts, such as constantly waylaying convoys and
cutting off camel-drivers and grass-cutters. Things came to such a
pitch that it was determined to bring these wretches to their senses,
and a small but compact body was despatched to punish them. It
consisted of three squadrons of the Seventeenth, six companies of the
Two hundred and seventh, about fifty sappers, and three Gatling guns.
In moving a larger force there was a difficulty about supplies, and
the pace had to be regulated in exact proportion to that of the yaboos
with the column; and it was heart-breaking work to keep the poor beasts
going.
The march lay at first through a narrow rocky gorge, which, after two
hours’ steady advance, opened into a wide flat valley that showed
abundant evidence of cultivation, including many fields of wheat.
Two or three villages were reached, and proved to be empty; their
inhabitants, having had timely warning, had removed themselves and
their belongings, and were concealed among the surrounding hills.
Late in the afternoon a march of twelve miles brought the troops to
the large and important village of Ritsobi. The inhabitants had not
long left; but a few sacks of bhoosa, some household cooking-pots, and
one or two native ploughs were all that could be discovered; and the
soldiers were forced to content themselves with their usual rations,
instead of the fowls, eggs, and fruit of which they had had visions.
The two village towers were speedily mined and blown up, and the
wooden houses were easily levelled, and afforded capital fuel for
the camp-fires, an unusual number of which were soon blazing in all
directions.
Standing at the smallest of one of these fires was Sir Reginald
Fairfax, earnestly questioning two Belooch sepoys, who, got up as
fakirs, had been playing the part of spies among the enemy. The latter
were assembled in formidable numbers about ten miles distant, and meant
to hold their ground and await the advance of the column. To look at
Sir Reginald as he stood in the firelight, one spurred boot resting on
a log of wood, his face and attitude indicating how wholly absorbing
he found the sepoys’ information, no one would believe that he had a
thought in the world apart from his profession. The bright roaring
planks lit up his face, already kindled with the news, and the eager,
questioning officer before us was as different to the moody, cynical
Major Fairfax of Camelabad as night from day.
In spite of hard fare, no better than a trooper’s; in spite of being
all day in the saddle and half the night on the alert, he had never
looked better or cheerier. His constitution appeared to be of iron, and
he was perfectly indifferent to cold or heat, hunger or fatigue; or if
not, it was assumed that he was. His spirits and energy were untiring.
The discomforts of camp life he treated as an excellent joke, and after
dining heartily on ration beef and dry bread, and having kept the
company entertained with his stories, sallies, and toasts, he would
turn in to his seven-foot tent, wrap himself in his military cloak, and
with his saddle for a pillow sleep the sleep of the just.
It was determined by the officer in command to steal a march on the
enemy, and the force were under orders to set out that night. About one
o’clock all the camp was astir. The moon had gone down, but the stars
shone brightly--not sufficiently brightly however to make travelling
pleasant, particularly for the cavalry, as the road was cut up by
various watercourses and nullahs, in which more than one gallant hussar
came to grief, and fished himself out with imprecations loud and deep.
After marching about eight miles the column came in sight of the
enemy’s fires, and a halt was made till there was sufficient light to
advance. As soon as the first streaks of dawn became visible above the
horizon the cavalry were ordered to the front, and shortly afterwards
shots were heard, followed by a rush of hoofs, betokening the flight
and pursuit of the picket.
Two miles farther on the force reached a kotal, from whence they could
see the valley beneath them. It lay before them, but not “smiling”--it
was sprinkled with large bodies of the enemy, armed to the teeth, who,
with standards flying and drums beating, were evidently sounding the
tocsin of war. The column halted on a ridge as they saw the Ghazis
slowly advancing, and bringing their guns to the front tried the
effect of a few shells. The result was excellent. The enemy began to
sheer off towards the hills, gradually retiring up the valley. Their
movements were so rapid that the cavalry vainly manœuvred to bring
them to close quarters; they continued a steady but dignified retreat
until they reached a large walled village about three miles up the
valley, embedded in hillocks and groves of chunar trees. From rocks
and other coigns of vantage a smart fire was opened by the enemy. The
Afghan Snider is by no means a bad weapon, and cartridges from the
Balar Hissar are not to be despised. Numerous isolated cragsmen among
the rocks around the village made very good practice, but the main body
of the enemy rounded the base of a hill and completely disappeared.
It was generally supposed that they had skedaddled, but this was soon
found to be a mistake. It was merely a feint to draw the Feringhees
nearer to the village, in order that they might have the benefit of an
enormous gun, or kind of matchlock, fired from rests in the ground.
The first time it was fired the proprietors set up a deafening cheer
that echoed and re-echoed among the neighbouring hills in quite a
startling manner. A second time it fired, a second hideous shout; then
the three Gatlings were brought into play, and it was very quickly
shut up. At the first two shots from these--to the Afghans, wholly
novel inventions--they were too astounded to move; the next two sent
them flying in all directions. They seemed to melt away like snow
before the sun. Suddenly from behind a hillock a large body of cavalry
appeared, and charged irregularly but at full gallop, very pluckily
led by a man on a spotted horse, who cheered them on with loud shouts
of “Kaffir! kaffir!” The hussars, only too delighted to respond to
the call, were among them in a twinkling, and the affair was soon cut
up into a series of hand-to-hand encounters, in which the irregular
cavalry got much the worst of it, although they fought with the utmost
fury and determination. The superior arms and weight of the hussars
was more than they could contend against; they were scattered, put
to flight, and for a short distance hotly pursued. The hussars had
eleven men wounded and a number of horses lost or disabled; this was
the extent of their casualties. The defeat of their cavalry completed
the discomfiture of the enemy, and the village was our own. The whole
place was strewn with property left behind by its owners in their
hasty retreat. The soldiers had fine times, for each of them had at
least one fowl strung to his belt and an unlimited supply of fruit and
vegetables. The idea of pursuing the flying foe had to be relinquished;
they had taken to the surrounding rocky hills, which they climbed with
goatlike agility, and as chamois-hunting on horseback was beyond the
ability _even_ of the Seventeenth Royal Hussars, they were allowed to
continue their flight unmolested. One Ghazi, however, having reached
what _he_ considered a safe elevation, turned and waved his white
standard most insolently at the little force below; but a bullet from a
Henry-Martini “dropped him,” and put a fatal termination to him and his
evolutions. The infantry now spread all over the village and proceeded
to fire it. Several of the larger buildings were already in a blaze,
and many surrounding stacks of corn had been given to the flames, when
an incident occurred which nearly cost Sir Reginald his life.
As he was cantering down a narrow dusty lane, he observed two men with
pick-axes standing in evident hesitation before the closed door of a
large square house.
Reining up his horse sharply, he asked what they were about.
“Beg pardon, sir,” replied one of them, saluting him, “but they say as
’ow the ’ouse is full of Hafghans, all harmed, and we are waiting for a
party of the Two hundred and seventh before we venture inside, in case
what they say is true.”
“We will soon see,” exclaimed Sir Reginald, jumping off his horse and
giving the door a vigorous kick--an old rotten door it was--and another
kick sent it flying open. An ill-directed volley from several Jazails
greeted the intruder, and five Ghazis, armed with tulwars, made for the
street.
One of the shots had taken effect in Sir Reginald’s left arm, and,
parrying a desperate tulwar cut with his revolver, he closed with his
assailant; but a frightful blow from the heavy stock of a native gun,
delivered from behind, knocked him down insensible, and a Ghazi was
just about to give him the _coup de grâce_ with a long Afghan knife
when the sappers and infantry burst in and overpowered the inhabitants,
making very short work of them with bayonet and revolver.
The struggle in which Sir Reginald had been engaged had not lasted more
than half a minute, and when his men came up to the scene of action and
found him to all appearance dead, their fury and grief knew no bounds.
Two wounded Ghazis, who had been granted quarter, relinquished all
hopes of life when they saw the many fierce and murderous looks that
were turned on them; and when the general, his aide-de-camp, and one of
the officers of the hussars came galloping up, and they saw their faces
and gestures of consternation, they felt the gratifying conviction that
at any rate they had killed a Kaffir of some importance.
He certainly looked as if he was dead as he lay in the narrow little
street with his head resting on the knee of his brother-officer. His
eyes were closed, over his face the pallor of death seemed already to
be creeping. His blue and gold uniform was torn and disfigured with
dust and blood, and his left arm hung by his side in such a helpless
unnatural position that it did not need a second glance to see that
it was badly broken. However, he was _not_ dead, only badly wounded
and insensible. He was carried in a dhooly to the permanent camp (a
two days’ march), and the several doctors with the brigade held a
consultation on his case, whilst his anxious friends, brother-officers
and men alike, hung round the tent waiting for the verdict. Great
was their relief to hear that, if fever did not supervene, there was
nothing serious to be apprehended, but that it would be many a day
before Sir Reginald would again wield a sabre.
Still, for some time his state was very precarious, and many were the
inquiries that beset the medical officer in attendance on the patient.
He was a short, round-about, elderly man, with beetling brows and a
gruff voice, but underneath his rough, rude exterior there lurked a
really kind heart.
As he was leaving the hospital one morning he was accosted by two
of the “boys” of the Seventeenth, who overwhelmed him with anxious
inquiries.
“How is Fairfax this morning?” they asked in a breath.
The doctor rubbed his chin and looked at them reflectively; the
two youths were connected in his mind with reminiscences of not an
altogether agreeable nature, one of them, who bore the _sobriquet_ of
“Buttons,” being about the cheekiest and coolest young gentleman he
had ever come across, and both displayed an extraordinary aptitude for
practical jokes.
“He is not going to give you a step _this_ time,” replied the doctor
brusquely, preparing to pass on.
“A step! I would not _take_ it if he did,” returned Buttons vehemently,
standing right in front of the doctor.
“Oh, not you,” retorted the medico, scornfully. “Fairfax would--nay, if
he has a relapse, will--give three steps. As things are now, a man must
stand on his comrade’s grave for promotion, and you are just the very
last young gentleman to keep yourself in the background. You would take
the step sharp enough if you got the chance, and were not passed over!”
“I don’t know about stepping on Fairfax’s grave, as you call it,”
replied Buttons, crimson with anger; “but I know some people’s graves
I could dance on with pleasure,” accompanying the remark with a look of
the utmost significance.
“Ah, you don’t really mean it? Why are you all in such a desperate
state about this fellow? Why is _he_ singled out as an object of so
much anxiety and attention? Generally, when a man dies up here, it is
not ‘Poor So-and-so is dead, I’m awfully sorry,’ but ‘So-and-so is
dead--what kind of a kit had he?’ And away you all tear and bid for
his things before the breath is hardly out of his body! Why such great
concern about this young major? He has a first-class kit, as kits go,
and a couple of good sound horses.”
“You are quite a new-comer, Dr. Bennett,” said the other hussar, who
had not hitherto spoken.
“Only a recent arrival,” very loftily, “or you would not talk like
this.”
“Fairfax keeps us all going;” then warming to his subject, “he is the
best fellow in the world, always thinking for others, always doing the
work of three. He looks after the men; he manages the mess; he----”
“Ah, _now_ I can understand your anxiety,” interrupted Dr. Bennett,
contracting his fierce brows. “The light breaks at last! The squalid
feeding that is set before us, the horribly mysterious joints and
leather steaks, are now accounted for. The mess butler has it all his
own way now that the mess president is sick?”
“You are quite welcome to adopt this view of the subject if you like,”
said hussar number two very angrily; “to _some_ people their food is
their only object of interest.”
“Well, well,” said the doctor, surveying the two wrathful young faces
before him, and bursting into a loud laugh, “I must try and patch up
this interesting patient of mine for many reasons, chiefly because he
understands the art of snubbing bumptious boys and keeping them in
their places. I am sure it is a mercy that someone can control them,
for it is a task that is utterly beyond _me_,” muttered the gallant
surgeon-major, as he walked rapidly away to his eagerly-anticipated
breakfast.
There had been a struggle among Sir Reginald’s friends for the post of
chief nurse; but his own man Cox would not yield the place to anyone,
and they found their would-be office a sinecure. An excellent, firm,
and gentle nurse himself, a worse patient than Sir Reginald could
scarcely be found! So impatient of being kept in bed, so restless in
it--tossing and tumbling to and fro, regardless of his wounded arm.
Perfectly deaf to all blandishments that induced him to take proper
medicine and nourishment, he would have his own way, and he had it,
driving his nurses to their wits’ end and throwing himself into a fever.
One night, at the very height of his illness, when he was lying in a
kind of stupor, the doctor came in on his way from mess and felt his
pulse and temperature. Standing at the foot of the camp-bed, he eyed
his patient dubiously for some moments.
“This will never do,” he said, after an ominous silence. “If he goes on
like this he will slip through our fingers. His pulse and temperature
are past counting. I am afraid he is in a bad way, poor fellow! Some of
you had better write to his friends this mail and prepare them. He may
pull through, but the chances are very much the other way. I’ll look
in again in the course of an hour or two.” So saying, without waiting
for a reply of any kind, he turned on his heel and departed.
Captain Vaughan and Mr. Harvey declared over and over to each other
that they did not agree with the doctor, but each made a mental
reservation to himself: “Their patient was certainly _not_ mending.”
As they glanced anxiously towards him, they were more than ever struck
by his worn and sunken features, his hurried, laboured breathing, and
the startling contrast between his dark hair and the ghastly paleness
of his face. “Wali,” Sir Reginald’s Afghan dog, a great shaggy monster,
something like a collie, with dark-gray coat and pointed ears, sat on
his haunches, with his nose resting on the bed, surveying his master
with grave inquiring eyes. To judge from his solemn sorrowful face,
he thought as badly of the patient as did his human friends. The two
officers had not forgotten the doctor’s injunction, and proceeded to
search over the tent for keys, desk, letters, and addresses. They found
a small and most unpresuming little leather desk, which they turned out
and ransacked. It contained paper and envelopes, some letters, and a
cheque-book, but not one of the letters was in a lady’s hand, or bore
the signature of Fairfax. After some discussion they agreed to write to
the Honorable Mark Mayhew, who seemed a frequent correspondent. As they
were tumbling out the contents of the desk they came upon a cabinet
photograph, a half-length likeness of a slender girl in a white dress,
with a smile in her eyes, and a fox-terrier in her arms.
“Hullo!” exclaimed Mr. Harvey, stooping to pick up the carte from
where it had fallen on the floor, face upwards. “I say, who is this?”
regarding the treasure-trove with wide-open eyes.
“That is his _wife_!” replied Captain Vaughan, looking over his
comrade’s shoulder. “Is she not lovely?”
“Lovely indeed!” replied Mr. Harvey, refusing to let the photo out of
his hand, and gazing at it with the eyes of a connoisseur. “I don’t
wonder now that Fairfax turned up his nose at the pale-faced beauties
at Camelabad! _Now_ I can understand his contempt for our taste, and
the commiseration with which he regarded us when we talked of beauty.”
“If anything does happen to him, poor fellow,” said Captain Vaughan,
nodding towards the patient, “I suppose it will be an awful blow to
her; but I must confess I can’t make head or tail of his domestic
affairs. You may be sure there is something queer about her, or he
would never stay out here alone; and he never alludes to his wife any
more than if she was dead. There is a screw loose somewhere, believe
me.”
“You saw her on board the trooper, Vaughan; is she really as pretty as
this?” murmured Mr. Harvey, still wholly absorbed in the photograph.
“_Much_ prettier,” returned his companion briefly. “Here! you can’t
go on staring at that all night! We must set to work and write this
letter; the mails go down to-morrow morning. I don’t half like the
job, I can tell you; and if anything _does_ happen to Fairfax”--here
he winked away an unusual moisture in his bold blue eyes--“I shall be
frightfully cut up myself.”
The two officers having at length put their heads together, concocted
the following letter to Mr. Mayhew:
“DEAR SIR,
“It is with much regret that I inform you of the very serious illness
of Sir Reginald Fairfax, and I have been desired by the doctor in
attendance to prepare you for the gravest consequences. Sir Reginald
was wounded by some Ghazis after the capture of a village, he having
had the foolhardiness to enter their house alone, knowing it to be
full of armed men. He has a broken arm, and is only slowly recovering
from concussion of the brain, caused by a blow on the back of his
head; and latterly he has had to contend with a severe attack of
malarious fever. I need hardly mention that he has the best attention
of my brother-officers and myself, and everything that can be done
for him in such an out-of-the-way part of the world has been most
carefully carried out. We can only hope and trust that his youth and
vigorous constitution may yet assert themselves and shake off the
fever now wasting him away. I have been unable to find his wife’s
address; will you be so good as to break the news to her or forward
this letter to her residence.
“Yours faithfully,
“GEORGE VAUGHAN.”
No sooner had the above been concluded, closed, and stamped than the
patient suddenly woke up in his senses. After languidly gazing at his
friends for some time, his eyes fell on his rifled desk and his wife’s
photograph. To his gesture of amazement Captain Vaughan hurriedly
replied:
“Fairfax, my dear fellow, I know you think we have been guilty of the
greatest liberty; but we had to ferret out your friends’ address by the
doctor’s orders.”
“Had you? Am I so bad as all _that_?” he asked in a low tone. Receiving
no reply, he added, as if to himself: “I suppose I am, I feel very weak
and queer; but I must write a line myself,” he said, looking at Captain
Vaughan gravely.
“Nonsense! It would be sheer madness. I won’t allow it. One of us will
write at your dictation.”
“No, no! Impossible!” he answered firmly. “Not to my wife. I must write
to her at any cost,” he continued, raising himself feebly; and taking
her photo in his hand, he gazed at it long and wistfully, then laid it
down with a sigh.
“Get me a draught of that fizzing mixture, please, and fix me up so
that I can write.”
Having carried his point, as usual, he commenced, with great labour, to
trace a few lines, the beads of perspiration on his forehead testifying
to the effort they cost him. Ere he had written twenty words the pen
dropped from his fingers, and he fell back on the pillow completely
exhausted.
“I see it is no use,” he muttered to himself. Then looking earnestly
at Captain Vaughan, he said: “You are going home; go and see her. Take
her my watch and sword, they will do for the boy.” He faltered, and his
voice sank so low that his friend could hardly catch his next almost
inaudible words; they were: “Tell her I forgive her; tell her I loved
her always; tell----” Here his message came to an end, for he had
fainted.
Great was the consternation of his friends, the wrath of the
hastily-summoned doctor, the smothered indignation of Cox.
The patient remained unconscious for a considerable time, and when he
came to himself he fell into a deep sound sleep which lasted for hours.
The crisis was past; next morning he was a shade better, and from that
day forward commenced a slow but steady recovery.
In six weeks’ time, the regiment having been ordered back to India in
consequence of the treaty of Gundamuk, he was invalided home, sorely
against his will. Vainly he begged to be allowed to go to Murree--to
any hill station they liked; to Australia even--for a six months’ tour.
But the doctors were firm--Dr. Bennett especially so--home he must go.
“There is no place that will set you up like your native land,” quoth
Dr. Bennett. “That pretty young wife of yours had a narrow escape of
never seeing you again. I’ve a good mind to drop her a line and tell
her what a headstrong patient she will have to deal with.”
“I beg you will do nothing of the kind,” returned Sir Reginald quickly,
and with visible irritation.
“Ah well! I have no doubt she has her own way of managing you, and
wants no hints from me,” replied the doctor facetiously, perfectly
regardless of the signs and signals that Captain Vaughan was making
to warn him off such delicate ground. “She’ll never trust you back in
India, _I’m_ certain.”
Whether he was to be trusted to return or not was left an open
question. One thing was plain--he must leave India _now_. He reached
Bombay by easy stages, and completely restored by the sea voyage,
landed at Southampton a month later, after an absence from England of
nearly three years.