As the sun gathered force in rising higher, a thin veil of snow was
melted from off a broad patch of rock, which dried rapidly; and, after a
little consideration, Gedge went to Bracy's shoulders, took fast hold of
his _poshtin_, and drew him softly and quickly off the icy surface right
on to the warm, dry rock, the young officer's eyes opening widely in
transit, and then closing again without their owner becoming conscious,
but, as his head was gently lowered down again upon its sheepskin
pillow, the deep sleep of exhaustion went on.
"Needn't ha' been 'fraid o' waking you," said Gedge softly, and looking
down at the sleeper as if proud of his work.--"There, you'll be dry and
warm as a toast, and won't wake up lying in a pond o' water.--Now I'll
just have a look round, and then sit down and wait till he wakes."
Gedge took his good look round, making use of Bracy's glass, and in two
places made out bodies of white-coated men whose weapons glinted in the
sun shine; but they were far away, and in hollows among the hills.
"That's all I can make out," said Gedge, closing the glass and replacing
it softly in the case slung from Bracy's shoulders; "but there's holes
and cracks and all sorts o' places where any number more may be. Blest
if I don't think all the country must have heard that we're going for
help, and turned out to stop us. My! how easy it all looked when we
started! Just a long walk and a little dodging the niggers, and the job
done. One never thought o' climbing up here and skating down, and have
a launching in the snow."
Gedge yawned tremendously, and being now in excellent spirits and
contentment with himself, he chuckled softly.
"That was a good one," he said. "What a mouth I've got! I say, though,
my lad, mouths have to be filled, and there ain't much left. We were
going, I thought, to shoot pheasants, and kill a sheep now and then, to
make a fire and have roast bird one day, leg o' mutton the next, and
cold meat when we was obliged; but seems to me that it was all cooking
your roast chickens before they was hatched. Fancy lighting a fire
anywhere! Why, it would bring a swarm of the beauties round to carve us
up instead of the wittles; and as to prog, why, I ain't seen nothing but
that one bear. Don't seem to hanker after bear," continued Gedge after
a few minutes' musing, during which he made sure that Bracy was sleeping
comfortably. "Bears outer the 'Logical Gardens, nicely fatted up on
buns, might be nice, and there'd be plenty o' nice fresh bear's grease
for one's 'air; but these here wild bears in the mountains must feed
theirselves on young niggers and their mothers, and it'd be like being a
sort o' second-hand cannibal to cook and eat one of the hairy brutes.
No, thanky; not this time, sir. I'll wait for the pudden."
Human nature is human nature, which nobody can deny; and, uncultivated
save in military matters, and rough as he was, Bill Gedge was as human
as he could be. He had just had a tremendous tramp for a whole day, a
sleepless night of terrible excitement and care, a sudden respite from
anxiety, a meal, and the glow of a hot sun upon a patch of rock which
sent a genial thrill of comfort through his whole frame. These were the
difficulties which were weighing hard in one of the scales of the young
private's constitution, while he was doing his best to weigh down the
other scale with duty, principle, and a manly, honest feeling of liking
for the officer whom he had set up from the first moment of being
attached to the company as the model of what a soldier should be. It
was hard work. Those yawns came again and again, increasing in
violence.
"Well done, boa-constructor," he said. "Little more practice, and
you'll be able to swallow something as big as yourself; but my! don't it
stretch the corners of your mouth! I want a bit o' bear's grease ready
to rub in, for they're safe to crack.
"My! how sleepy I am!" he muttered a little later. "I ain't been put on
sentry-go, but it's just the same, and a chap as goes to sleep in the
face of the enemy ought to be shot. Sarve him right, too, for not
keeping a good lookout. Might mean all his mates being cut up. Oh! I
say, this here won't do," he cried, springing up. "Let's have a
hoky-poky penny ice, free, grashus, for nothing."
He went off on tiptoe, glancing at Bracy as he passed, and then stooped
down over a patch of glittering snow, scraping up a handful and
straightening himself in the sunshine, as he amused himself by
addressing an imaginary personage.
"Say, gov'nor," he cried, "you've got a bigger stock than you'll get
shut of to-day.--Eh? You don't expect to? Right you are, old man.
Break yer barrer if yer tried to carry it away. Say; looks cleaner and
nicer to-day without any o' that red or yeller paint mixed up with it.
I like it best when it's white. Looks more icy.--What say? Spoon? No,
thank ye. Your customers is too fond o' sucking the spoons, and I never
see you wash 'em after.--Ha! this is prime. Beats Whitechapel all to
fits; and it's real cold, too. I don't care about it when it's
beginning to melt and got so much juist.--But I say! Come! Fair play's
a jewel. One likes a man to make his profit and be 'conimycal with the
sugar, but you ain't put none in this.
"Never mind," he added after a pause, during which the Italian
ice-vendor faded out of his imagination; "it's reg'lar 'freshing when
you're so sleepy. Wonder what made them Italians come to London and
start selling that stuff o' theirs. Seems rum; ours don't seem a
country for that sort o' thing. Baked taters seems so much more
English, and does a chap so much more good."
He walked back to the warm patch of rock, looked at Bracy, and then
placed both rifles and bayonets ready, sat down cross-legged, and after
withdrawing the cartridges, set to work with an oily rag to remove all
traces of rust, and gave each in turn a good polish, ending by carefully
wiping the bayonets after unfixing them, and returning them to their
sheaths, handling Bracy's most carefully, for fear of disturbing the
sleeper. This done, he began to yawn again, and, as he expressed it,
took another penny ice and nodding at vacancy, which he filled with a
peripatetic vendor, he said:
"All right, gov'nor; got no small change. Pay next time I come this
way."
Then he marked out a beat, and began marching up and down.
"Bah!" he cried; "that ice only makes you feel dry and thirsty.--My! how
sleepy I am!--Here, steady!" he cried, as he yawned horribly; "you'll
have your head right off, old man, if you do that.--Never was so sleepy
in my life."
He marched up and down a little faster--ten paces and turn--ten paces
and turn--up and down, up and down, in the warm sunshine; but it was as
if some deadly stupor enveloped him, and as he kept up the steady
regulation march, walking and turning like an automaton, he was suddenly
fast asleep and dreaming for quite a minute, when he gave a violent
start, waking himself, protesting loudly against a charge made against
him, and all strangely mixed up the imaginary and the real.
"Swear I wasn't, Sergeant!" he cried angrily. "Look for yerself.--
Didn't yer see, pardners? I was walking up and down like a clockwork
himidge.--Sleep at my post? Me sleep at my post? Wish I may die if I
do such a thing. It's the old game. Yer allus 'ated me, Sergeant, from
the very first, and--Phew! Here! What's the matter? I've caught
something, and it's got me in the nut. I'm going off my chump."
Poor Gedge stood with his hands clasped to his forehead, staring wildly
before him.
"Blest if I wasn't dreaming!" he said wonderingly. "Ain't took bad, am
I? Thought old Gee come and pounced upon me, and said I was sleepin' on
duty. And it's a fack. It's as true as true; I was fast asleep;
leastwise I was up'ards. Legs couldn't ha' been, because they'd ha'
laid down. Oh! this here won't do. It was being on dooty without
arms."
Drawing himself up, he snatched his bayonet from its scabbard, and
resumed his march, going off last asleep again; but this time the
cessation of consciousness descended as it were right below the
waist-belt and began to steal down his legs, whose movements became
slower and slower, hips, then knees, stiffening; and then, as the drowsy
god's work attacked his ankles, his whole body became rigid, and he
stood as if he had been gradually frozen stiff for quite a minute, when
it seemed as if something touched him, and he sprang into wakefulness
again, and went on with his march up and down.
"Oh, it's horrid!" he said piteously. "Of course. That'll do it."
He sheathed his bayonet, and catching up his rifle, went through the
regular forms as if receiving orders: he grounded arms; then drew and
fixed bayonet, shouldered arms, and began the march again.
"That's done it," he said. "Reg'larly woke up now. S'pose a fellow
can't quite do without sleep, unless he got used to it, like the chap's
'oss, only he died when he'd got used to living upon one eat a day. Rum
thing, sleep, though. I allus was a good un to sleep. Sleep anywhere;
but I didn't know I was so clever as to sleep standing up. Wonder
whether I could sleep on one leg. Might do it on my head. Often said I
could do anything on my head. There, it's a-coming on again."
He stepped to the nearest snow and rubbed his temples with it before
resuming his march; but the relief was merely temporary. He went to
Bracy's side, to see that he was sleeping heavily, and an intense
feeling of envy and longing to follow his officer's example and lie down
and sleep for hours nearly mastered him.
"But I won't--I won't sleep," he said, grinding his teeth. "I'll die
first. I'm going to keep awake and do my dooty like a soldier by my
orficer. I'd do it for any orficer in the ridgement, so of course I
would for the gov'nor, poor chap! He's watched over me before now.--
Yes, I'm going to keep on. I shall be better soon. Ten minutes would
set me right, and if there was a mate here to take my post I'd have a
nap; but there ain't a pardner to share it, and I've got to do it on my
head. Wonder whether I should feel better if I did stand on my head for
a minute. Anyhow, I ain't goin' to try."
Gedge spent the next ten minutes in carefully examining his rifle; then
he turned to Bracy, and soon after he took out the latter's glass and
swept the country round, to find more groups of men in motion.
"Why, the place is getting alive with the beggars," he growled. "We
shall be having some of 'em cocking an eye up and seeing us here. Don't
know, though; they couldn't make us out, and even if they did we look
like a couple o' sheep. I've got to look out sharp, though, to see as
we're not surprised. Almost wish three or four would come now, so as I
could have a set-to with 'em. That would wake me up, and no mistake.--
Ah! it's wonderful what one can see with a bit or two o' glass set in a
brown thing like this.--Ah! there it is again."
Gedge lowered the glass and started violently, for the feeling of sleep
was now overmastering.
"Nearly dropped and smashed his glass," he said petulantly, and, laying
down his rifle, he closed the little lorgnette slowly and carefully with
half-numbed fingers, which fumbled about the instrument feebly.
"He'd ha'--he'd ha'--fine--tongue-thrashing when he woke--foun' glass--
smashed."
Gedge sank upon his knees and bent over the sleeper, fumbling for the
strap and case to replace the glass.
"Where ha' you got to?" he muttered. "What yer swinging about half a
mile away for? Ah! that's got yer," he went on, aiming at the case with
a strange fixity of expression. "Now then--the lid--the lid--and the
strap through the buckle, and the buckle--done it--me go to sleep--on
dooty, Sergeant? Not me!--I--I--ha-h-h!"
Poor Gedge was only human, and his drowsy head sank across Bracy's
breast, so wrapped in sleep that the firing of a rifle by his ear would
hardly have roused him up.