"Why, Roby!" cried Lennox, after standing for some moments gazing wildly
at his brother officer, and then going close up to his rough
resting-place. "For goodness' sake, don't talk in that way!"
"Coward! Cur! To run away and leave me like that!" cried Roby.
Lennox stared at him with his eyes dilating, and then he turned sharply
and looked from Dickenson to the doctor and back again, ending by
clapping his hands to his forehead and holding his breath before gazing
wildly at Roby once more as if doubting that the torrent of reproaches
he listened to were real.
"Am I off my head a little, doctor?--the sun, and that dreadful thirst.
Am I mad?"
"Mad? No, my lad; but you're in a parlous state.--Here, orderly, I must
have Mr Lennox in the next hut. He is exciting Captain Roby horribly."
"Yes; horribly," said Lennox. "Poor fellow! Is he so bad as that?"
"Oh yes, he's bad enough," said the doctor gruffly.
"Corporal May, too," said Lennox, with a troubled look at the other
patients occupying the hut. "Are you much hurt, May?"
For answer the man glared at him and turned his face away, making Lennox
wince again and look at the other patient. But he was lying fast
asleep.
"Rather a queer welcome," said the young officer, turning now to
Dickenson, and once more his eyes dilated with a wondering look. "Why,
Bob, you're not going to call me a coward too?"
"Likely!" said the young man gruffly.
"Don't stand talking to him, Mr Dickenson," said the doctor
sharply.--"Here, lean on the orderly, sir; he'll help you into the next
hut. I want to try and diagnose your case."
"Yes--please if it's necessary," said Lennox, catching at the orderly as
if attacked by vertigo.--"Thank you, old fellow," he whispered huskily
as Dickenson started forward and caught him by the other arm. "Not much
the matter. Gone through a good deal. Faint. The sun. Touch of
stroke, I think."
He hung heavily upon the pair, who assisted him out into the next hut,
while Roby's accusation was reiterated, the words ringing in his ears:
"Coward!--cur!--runaway!" till he was out of sight, when Roby sank back
exhausted.
"Don't question him, and don't let him talk about what he has gone
through," said the doctor a short time later, when he had made his fresh
patient as comfortable as circumstances would allow, and he was growing
drowsy from the sedative administered. "It's not sunstroke, but a
mingling of the results of exposure and overdoing it altogether. I
don't quite understand it yet, and I want to get at the truth without
asking him."
"Oh doctor! don't you join in thinking the poor fellow has been behaving
in a cowardly way."
"Tchah! Rubbish! What is it to me, sir, how the man has been behaving?
He's all wrong, isn't he?"
"Yes; terribly."
"Very well, then, I've got to put him all right. If he has committed
any breach of discipline you can court-martial him when I've done."
"But, hang it all, doctor!" cried Dickenson fiercely, "you don't believe
he's a coward?"
"Humph! Very evident you don't, my lad," said the doctor grimly.
"Of course not."
"That's right; then stick to it. I like to see a man back up his
friend."
"Who wouldn't back him up?" cried Dickenson.
"Oh, I don't know. It's very evident that Roby won't."
"Roby's as mad as a March hare," cried Dickenson.
"Well, not quite; but he's a bit queer in his head, and I'm afraid I
shall have to perform rather a crucial operation upon him. I don't want
to if I can help it, out here. It requires skilled help, and I should
like some one to share the responsibility."
"Internally injured?" asked Dickenson.
"Oh no. The bullet that ploughed up his forehead is pressing a piece of
bone down slightly on the brain."
"Slightly!" said Dickenson, with a laugh. "Turned it right over, I
think."
"Yes, you fellows who know nothing about your construction do get a good
many absurd ideas in your head. Here, talk softly; I want to get at the
cause of his trouble. He's not wounded."
"Why, his skull's ploughed up, and the bone pressing on his brain."
"Do you mean that for a joke--a bit of chaff, Mr Dickenson?" said the
doctor stiffly.
"A joke, sir? Is this a subject to joke about?" replied Dickenson.
"Certainly not, sir; but you thoughtless young fellows are ready to
laugh at anything."
"Well, sir, you're wrong. Roby and I were never very great friends, but
I'm not such a brute as to laugh and sneer when the poor fellow's down."
"Who was talking about Captain Roby?"
"You were, sir. You told me that his brain was suffering from pressure,
and then you went on to say that you wanted to get at the cause of his
hurt."
"Bah! Tchah! Nonsense, man! I was talking then about Lennox."
"I beg your pardon, sir."
"Oh, all right, my lad. Now then; I'm talking about Lennox now. I say
I want to get at the cause of his trouble without questioning him and
setting his poor feverish brain working. Tell me how you found him."
Dickenson briefly explained.
"Humph! Utterly exhausted; been suffering from the sun, thirst, and
evidently after exerting himself tremendously. Been in a complete
stupor more than sleep, you say?"
"Yes."
"Well, it's very strange," said the doctor thoughtfully. "He was in the
assault, wasn't he?"
"Oh yes, of course."
"Well, human nature's a queer thing, Dickenson, my lad."
"Yes, sir; very," said the young man gruffly, "or Roby wouldn't behave
like this and set that sneak May off on the same track."
"And," continued the doctor testily, as if he did not like being
interrupted, "the more I examine into man's nature the more curious and
contradictory I find it--I mean, in the mental faculties."
"I suppose so, sir.--What's he aiming at?" added the young officer to
himself.
"Now, look here, Dickenson, my lad; between ourselves, that was rather a
horrible bit of business, eh?--that attack in the half-darkness."
"Well, sir, it wasn't quite like an _al fresco_ ball," said Dickenson
gruffly.
"Of course not. Bayoneting and bludgeoning with rifle-butts?"
Dickenson nodded.
"And all on the top of the excitement of the march and the long waiting
to begin?"
"Just so, sir," said Dickenson.
"Enough to over-excite a young fellow's brain?"
"Well--yes, sir; it's not at all cheerful work. But, really, I don't
see what you mean."
"Just this, my dear boy, and, as I said, between ourselves. You don't
think, do you, that just in the midst of the fight poor Lennox was
seized with what you vulgar young fellows call a fit of blue funk, do
you?"
"No, sir, I do not," said Dickenson stiffly. "Certainly not."
"Lost his nerve?"
"No, sir."
"I've lost mine before now, my lad, over a very serious operation--when
I was young, you know."
"May be, sir; but Drew Lennox is not the sort of fellow for that."
"As a rule, say."
"Yes, as a rule, sir, without a single exception."
"And took fright and ran?"
"Rubbish, sir! He couldn't."
"Just as Roby says?"
"Roby's mad."
"And as Corporal May holds to in corroboration?"
"No, sir, no; and I should like to see Corporal May flogged."
"Rather an unpleasant sight, my lad," said the doctor quietly, "even
when a culprit richly deserves it. But about Lennox. He might, though
as a rule brave as a lion, have had a seizure like that."
"No, he mightn't sir," said Dickenson stoutly.
"You don't know, my lad."
"Oh yes, I do, sir. I know Drew Lennox by heart."
"But there is such a thing as panic, my lad."
"Not with him, sir."
"I say yes, my lad. Recollect that he had a terrible shock a little
while ago." Dickenson's lips parted. "He was plunged into that awful
hole in the dark, and whirled through some underground tunnel. Why,
sir, I went and looked at the place myself with Sergeant James, and he
let down a lantern for me to see. I tell you what it is; I'm as hard as
most men, through going about amongst horrors, but that black pit made
me feel wet inside my hands. I wonder the poor fellow retained his
reason."
"But he got the better of that, sir," said Dickenson hoarsely.
"How do you know, sir? He seemed better; but a man can't go through
such things as that without their leaving some weakening of the mental
force."
"Doctor, don't talk like that, for goodness' sake!"
"I must, my lad, because I think--mind you, I say I think--"
"Doctor, if you begin to think Drew Lennox is a coward I'll never
respect you again," cried Dickenson angrily.
"I don't think he's a coward, my dear boy," said the doctor, laying his
hand upon the young officer's arm. "I think he's as brave a lad as ever
stepped, and I like him; but no man is perfect, and the result of that
horrible plunge into the bowels of the earth shook him so that in that
fierce fight he grew for a bit very weak indeed."
"Impossible, doctor!" cried the young man fiercely.
"Quite possible," said the doctor, pressing his companion's arm; "and
now let me finish. I tell you, I like Drew Lennox, and if I am right I
shall think none the less of him."
"_Ur-r-r-r_!" growled Dickenson.
"It is between ourselves, mind, and it is only my theory. He lost his
nerve in the middle of that fight--had a fit of panic, and, as Roby and
the corporal say (very cruelly and bitterly), ran for his life--bolted."
"I'll never believe it, sir."
"Well, remain a heretic if you like; but that's my theory."
"I tell you, sir--"
"Wait a minute, my lad; I haven't done. I suggest that he had this
seizure--"
"And I swear he had not!"
"Wait till I've finished, boy," said the doctor sternly.
Dickenson stood with his brow knit and his fists clenched, almost
writhing in his anger; and the doctor went on:
"I suggest, my dear boy, that he had this fit of panic and was aware
that it must be known, when, after running right away--"
"Yes, sir; go on," said Dickenson savagely--"after running away--"
"He came quite to himself, felt that he would be branded as a coward by
all who knew him, and then, in a mad fit of despair--"
"Yes, sir--and then?"
"You told me that he came back without his revolver."
"Yes, sir," said Dickenson mockingly--"and then he didn't blow his
brains out."
"No," said the doctor quietly, "for he had lost his pistol, perhaps in
the fight; but it seems to me, Dickenson, that in his agony of shame,
despair, and madness, he tried to hang himself."
"Tried to do what?" roared Dickenson.
"What I say, my dear boy," said the doctor gravely.
"I say, doctor, have you been too much in the sun?" said Dickenson, with
a forced laugh, one which sounded painful in the extreme.
"No, my dear fellow; I am perfectly calm, and everything points to the
fact--his state when you found him, sorrowful, repentant, and utterly
exhausted by his sufferings in his struggles to get back to face it out
like a man."
"Doctor, you are raving. His appearance was all compatible with a
struggle, fighting with the Boers--a prisoner bravely fighting for his
escape. Everything points to your fact? Nonsense, sir--absurd!"
"You're a brave, true-hearted fellow, Dickenson, my lad, and I like you
none the less for being so rude to me in your defence of your poor
friend. He must be sleeping now after the dose I gave him. Come with
me, and I'll give you a surprise."
"Not such a one as you have already given me, doctor," said the young
man bitterly.
"We shall see," said the doctor quietly; and the next minute he was
standing by Lennox's side, carefully lifting a moistened bandage laid
close to his neck.
Dickenson uttered a faint cry of horror. For deeply marked in his
friend's terribly swollen neck there was a deep blue mark such as would
have been caused by a tightened cord, and in places the skin was torn
away, leaving visible the eroded flesh.
"Oh doctor!" groaned Dickenson, trembling violently.
"Hold up, my dear boy," whispered his companion. "No one knows of it
but my orderly, you, and myself. It will soon heal up, and I shall not
feel it my duty to mention it to a soul."