Captain Roberts intended to go and sit with his friend for an hour or
two next day, but he was called off on duty, and Drummond seized the
opportunity to pay a visit. He was met at the door by Mrs Gee, who
looked at him sourly as she passed, for she had just been summoned by
one of Doctor Morton's ambulance men to go and attend to one of the men
who had been taken worse.
"How do, nurse?" said Drummond. "Just going in to see your patient."
"Then you must not stay long, sir. Ten minutes will be plenty of time.
Mr Bracy can't get well if he is so bothered with visitors."
"Oh, I won't bother him, nurse; only cheer him up a bit."
The woman frowned and hurried away, leaving the course open, and
Drummond went straight on, thinking aloud.
"Glad my arm's not worse," he said, as he nursed it gently, "for I
shouldn't like to be under her ladyship's thumb. She ought to be called
to order. Talk about a hen that can crow; she's nothing to my lady
here. I wonder Bracy stands it. Hullo! what's the matter?"
Loud voices came from the door of Bracy's room--those of the latter and
Gedge; and upon hurrying in the young subaltern was astounded to find,
as it seemed to him, Private Gedge with one knee upon the edge of the
charpoy, bending over the patient, holding him down by the arm, which
was pressed across his chest close up to the throat.
"Here! Hi! Hullo here!" cried Drummond. "What's the meaning of this,
sir?"
The words acted like magic. Gedge slipped back, drawing Bracy's arm
from where it lay, and he then carefully laid it down beside him.
"It's all right, sir, now, sir; ain't it, Mr Bracy?"
"Yes, yes," said the latter faintly, and looking up at his visitor in a
weary, dazed way.
"This fellow has not been assaulting you, has he?" cried Drummond.
"Me? 'Saulting him, sir?" cried Gedge. "Well, come now, I do like
that!"
"Oh no; oh no," sighed Bracy.
"It was like this here," continued Gedge; "I was a-hanging about waiting
to see if he wanted me to give him a drink or fetch him anything."
Bracy's lips moved, and an anxious expression came over his face; but he
said nothing, only looked wildly from one to the other.
"Then all at once I hears him calling, and I went in. `Here, Gedge, my
lad,' he says--just like that, sir, all wild-like--`take this here arm
away; it's trying to strangle me.'
"`What! yer own arm, sir?' I says, laughing. `That won't do.'--`Yes,
it will,' he says, just in that squeezy, buzzy way, sir; `I can't bear
it. Take it off, or it'll choke me!'"
"Well?" said Drummond anxiously; "did you?"
"Yes, sir, of course I did; for he spoke just as if it was so; and I got
hold of it and tried to pull it away, but he wouldn't let me. He kep'
it tight down close to his throat, and looked quite bad in the face."
"You should have used force," said Drummond.
"I did, sir; lots o' force; but he'd got it crooked, and it was just as
if the joint had gone fast, so that I was afraid that if I pulled too
hard I might break something; and it was just while I was hanging fire
like that you came, and he let it come then quite easy. Didn't you,
sir?"
"Yes, yes," said Bracy hurriedly. "It had gone to sleep, I suppose, and
was as heavy and as cold as marble."
"Oh, I see," said Drummond, smiling; "been lying in an awkward position,
I suppose?"
Bracy nodded, but there was a curious look in his eyes that his visitor
did not see.
"Come to take a look at you and have a chat.--I say. You heard about me
getting in for it?"
"Yes, I heard," said Bracy sadly. "You were wounded."
"Bit of a chop from a tulwar," replied Drummond, touching his bandaged
arm lightly. "Nothing much, but I am off duty for a bit. Precious
nuisance, isn't it?"
Bracy looked at him so piteously that the young fellow coloured.
"Of course," he said hurriedly; "I understand. Precious stupid of me to
talk like that and make a fuss about being off duty for a few days, when
you're in for it for weeks. But I say, you know, you are a lot better.
Old Morton said you only wanted time."
"He told you that?" cried Bracy eagerly.
"Yes, last night when I met him and he asked me about my scratch. Said
he was proud of your case, for with some surgeons you would have died.
Ha, ha! He looked at my arm the while, with his face screwed up as if
he pitied me for not being under his hands. I say, he's a rum chap,
isn't he?"
"He has been very good and patient with me," sighed Bracy; "and I'm
afraid I have been very ungrateful."
"Tchah! Not you, old fellow. We're all disagreeable and grumble when
we're knocked over. That's only natural. Children are cross when
they're unwell, and I suppose we're only big children. I say, heard the
news?"
"News? No; I hear nothing here."
"Poor old man! Well, the scouts have brought in news that two more
tribes have been bitten with the idea that they want their ranks thinned
a bit, and so they've joined the Dwats; so I suppose we shall have some
warm work."
"And I am lying here as helpless as a lump of lead. No; I did not
hear."
"Why, sir, I telled you all that only this morning," broke out Gedge.
"Eh? Did you, my lad?"
"Yes, sir; d'reckly after breakfast."
"So you did. I went to sleep afterwards, and it passed out of my
memory. I'm getting weaker, I suppose."
"Not you," cried Drummond. "Here, I say, as I'm a cripple too, I shall
come on more. What do you say to a game or two every day? Chess?"
Bracy shook his head.
"Of course not; chess is hard work. Well, then, draughts?"
Bracy shook his head again.
"Right; not much of a game. What do you say to dominoes? We've got a
set of double doubles; regular big ones. Shall I bring 'em on?"
"No," said Bracy decisively; "bring your field-glass, and come and sit
at that window. You can command a good deal of the valley there."
"What! and tell you all the movements I can make out? To be sure, dear
boy. Now, I never thought of that. So I will. I'll come on this
afternoon, and you and I will criticise them all and see if we could
have planned the beggars' attack better. There, I promised your
she-dragon of a nurse not to stay long, so off I go. Bye, bye, old
chap; you're beginning to look blooming. We'll do some Von Moltke,
and--ah! would you? I say, you are getting better. Larks--eh? But I
was too quick for you."
The young officer smiled and nodded merrily, and then went out of the
room, Gedge opening the door for him, and slipping out after.
"Well, what is it?" said Drummond, as Gedge stood looking at him
anxiously, and as if waiting for him to speak.
"Thought you was going to say something to me, sir, 'bout Mr Bracy
there. Don't speak so loud, or he'll hear you."
"Don't matter if he does, my lad. We're not conspiring against him.
What did you expect me to say?"
"Something about that arm of his'n, sir, and about him trying to kick
you just now."
"Oh, pooh! nonsense! His arm had gone dead; and as for his kicking at
me--well, we're getting old friends now, and it was for a bit of fun."
"Think so, sir?"
"Of course."
"Then you wouldn't tell the Doctor about it?"
"About that? Absurd! Here, you're not up to the mark yourself, my
lad."
"Well, no, sir; can't quite reach it yet; but I'm a deal better."
"Full of fancies, that's all. What! were you thinking that your master
was a bit off his head?"
"Something o' that sort, sir."
"Then don't think so any more. He's fanciful enough without you
beginning."
"Then you don't think it's anything to mind?"
"No, of course not. I'm glad to see him getting so much stronger."
Drummond nodded, and being in a good deal of pain, began to nurse his
arm again, and tried whether whistling would soothe the sharp, gnawing
ache which seemed to run from his wrist up to his shoulder.
Gedge waited till his footsteps died out, and then turned to go back to
Bracy's room.
"His is only a clean cut of a tullywor," he muttered, "and'll soon grow
together. Different thing to a ragged bullet-wound right through the
chest and back, or one like mine, right in the back. I don't like the
looks o' all this, though; but he must know better than me, after seeing
a lot o' poor fellows cut down and shot; but I think I ought to tell the
Doctor."
He opened the door softly and went in, to find that Bracy had been
watching for him anxiously.
"Here, Gedge!" saluted him.
"Yes, sir. Get yer a drink, sir?"
"No, no; I want to speak to you. I think I can trust you, Gedge?"
"Yes, sir; of course, sir. What yer want me to do?"
"Hold your tongue, my lad."
"Yes, sir."
"Don't tell the Doctor or Mrs Gee that I hit Captain Roberts on the
back yesterday."
"How could I, sir? Did yer?"
"Yes, yes," said Bracy hurriedly. "Nor yet about my arm doing what it
did."
"No, sir, cert'n'y not; but I say, sir, you know, your arm didn't do
nothing but go to sleep."
"Nor yet about my trying to kick Mr Drummond," said Bracy, without
heeding his fellow--sufferer's words.
"Oh no; I shan't say nothing to nobody, sir, unless you tell me to."
"That's right," said Bracy, with a sigh of relief. "That will do. Go
now; I want to sleep till Mr Drummond comes back."
"Right, sir," said Gedge, and he went to the bed's head and gently
raised the sufferer, while he turned the pillow.
"Makes yer head a bit cooler, sir."
"Yes, thanks, Gedge," said Bracy drowsily; and by the time the lad was
outside he was half-asleep.
"I don't like them games of the guvnor's," said Gedge to
himself.--"Guvnor? Well, why not? I'm like being orficer's servant
now. There's something queer about him, as if he was a bit off his head
and it made him get up to larks; for he can't be--No, no, that's
impossible, even if it looks like it. He ain't the sorter chap to be
playing at sham Abram and make-believe because he was sick of fighting
and didn't want to run no more risks."