THE PASSING OF KELLER BEY
We were hard put to it before we got the madman in, and then it was
worse than ever. For he, our master, the bravest man that I ever saw or
think to see, sat down beside his friend and wept like a child. He did
not even look at us when we took up Allerdyce and buried him in a long
trench with the others who had fallen--five in all, a heavy loss for us
who were so few.
"I never want to see Greenock again!" wailed Jack Jaikes, "we were that
pack, Allerdyce and me----"
"Go and fetch your father, Rhoda Polly," said I, "this will never do. It
would be no use to telegraph. He would never believe the like of Jack
Jaikes."
"May God grant he can come!" said Rhoda Polly, and darted off. I went
into the outhouse where Keller Bey lay. Harold Wilson was bending over
him, a steel probe in his hand. He stood up as I came in, looking
narrowly at the point.
"I think we shall pull him through, but so long as we have that young
lady"--he pointed at Alida, who was exhausting herself in a long
outburst of Oriental sorrow--"I fear we can do nothing radical."
"Wait till Rhoda Polly comes back," I said, "she will get her friend
away."
"I do not think so," he said, "she has been trying for some time."
"Could he be moved?"
"Far?" queried the doctor.
"Well, across the river in a boat, and up the hill to my father's
house."
Wilson winced. "That is rather a responsibility," he said dubiously;
"still, the man is unconscious and will probably remain so for many
hours. It certainly would be a good thing if we could be rid of him and
of that young woman--though in ordinary circumstances we should not be
in such a hurry to send her off."
He grinned pleasantly, and asked how I proposed to set about the
business. I told him it would be easy to get Keller Bey down to the
nursery gardens by the waterside. Here I would rout out my friend the
patron Arcadius, who would do as much for three or four of his
gardeners--Italians all, and not touched with local politics. My boat
was there, and the gardener lads would carry the stretcher up the hill.
They did harder tasks every day of their lives.
"Well, but you see I can't leave all these--where's your doctor?"
I told him I could bring down the resident from the college hospital.
"Oh, I know him, Vallier, a very decent fellow for an _interne_. He'll
do. Well, off with you. I will give you a note for him."
"We must wait till we get this stopped." I pointed to Jack Jaikes. "You
can't do anything I suppose?"
He shook his head. "No, it needs moral authority for that. He would care
as little for me as for you--less perhaps. But here comes Mr. Deventer!"
"Thank God!" I gasped.
"Jaikes," commanded Dennis Deventer, "bring the guns forward."
Jack Jaikes staggered to his feet and looked irresolutely about him. Was
he going to obey? Did he even understand? For a moment it seemed
doubtful. But whether his mind grasped the situation or not he answered
the voice of Dennis Deventer.
"What guns, sir?"
"Allerdyce's, Brown's, and your own!" said Dennis firmly. "Take command.
Forward with them into the breach," and the machine guns moved forward,
the remnant of their crews being reinforced by men from other posts.
"Hold yourself ready there, Jack Jaikes," said Dennis, "this is your
business. So far you have done well. We had to fight hard all along our
wall, but you have beaten us!"
"But you scourged them too?" demanded Jack Jaikes, lowering and
truculent.
Dennis drew a sigh of relief. His lieutenant was himself again.
"Yes, Jack Jaikes, we scourged them!"
For answer Jack Jaikes swept his index finger round the half-circle of
the Cours of Aramon, dotted with black bodies lying still.
"It's a pity ye can't see them all," he said, "they are lying in heaps
up in the corner yonder, where we cut the scaling ladders from beneath
them!"
* * * * *
Though our gallant little Dr. Wilson permitted the removal of Keller
Bey, the task before me was one to tax me to the utmost. I think I
should have given it up and let Keller Bey lie, but for Rhoda Polly. She
came out from a long consultation with Alida, and at once took charge of
the situation, much as her father might have done.
I don't know in the least what the girls said to one another, or what
reason Alida gave Rhoda Polly for her presence in Aramon or for her
dislike of me, but whatever these might have been, they must at least
have been sufficient.
As I say, Rhoda Polly took hold. She commandeered an improvised carrying
stretcher, which had been prepared at the orchard end of the Chateau
policies. She prevailed on her father to lend her a carrying party as
far as the river.
The thought of letting any fraction of his few defenders go outside even
for such a purpose made Dennis Deventer frown.
"It will not take ten poor minutes," pleaded Rhoda Polly. "I will see
that they get safe back. Let me, Dennis!"
It was not often that she called him by his Christian name save in the
heat of wordy strife, and perhaps the very unexpectedness of it touched
him.
"Have it your own way then, but be quick--don't forget I am risking the
whole defence. I do not see in the least why Wilson could not have
attended to him here."
She stepped up and whispered in his ear. He looked first doubtful, then
incredulous, and a smile flickered a moment on his face.
"Ah, so!" he exclaimed, "I did not know you were so fanciful, my lady."
But he made no further objection, and we lifted up Keller Bey and put
him in the stretcher, where he lay without speech or knowledge. Wilson
tried his pulse and listened to his respiration.
"Get him away," he commanded, "the quicker the better!"
Rhoda Polly, Hugh and I helped the men over the wall with him, and held
the _brancard_ in place till they could get over to our assistance. We
did not try to go straight to the landing place through the bull ring,
but instead cast a wide circuit about the town, and finally came out
upon the little house of gardener Arcadius buried among its trees.
Him I awakened with care, first a hail of pebbles on his window panes,
followed the scratching teeth of a garden rake to indicate a friend, and
lastly my own voice calling softly his name. He looked sleepily out, for
he cared nothing about the town and its ongoings, if the early blossoms
were not frosted and his young trees were not eaten by predatory goats.
He made me a sign that he would be down immediately, and he was buckling
an equatorial waistbelt even as he opened the door.
He started back at the sight of the _brancard_. "What! A dead man?"
I explained the desperate need of Keller Bey and his daughter--how they
must cross the river and how we counted on him to give us porters. For
the boat Rhoda Polly and I would be sufficient, but for the carrying of
the stretcher up the hill we had need of four stout fellows.
"I have my Italians," he said, "that is, if none of them have decamped;
I locked them in, but the lads from the Peninsula are very handy with a
crooked nail."
As we went, Arcadius, lurching in front like a huge sea-lion doing
tricks, waved a lantern and spoke of the prospects of his garden. The
hard winter had done no harm. It had broken the clods and killed the
grubs. The war, the Commune, the black terror of Aramon did not exist
for Arcadius. Barres would not come to expropriate his cauliflowers and
early potatoes. He asked no questions about Keller Bey and genially cut
short any offer of explanation. His business was the soil, the fruit
trees, planting and transplanting, and the sale of young vegetables.
Beyond these he desired to know nothing.
His four Italians were there, big, good-looking lads from the north, who
found gardening more to their taste than making roads or piling up
railway embankments. Arcadius addressed them in a kind of _lingua
franca_ which included much gesticulation and even foot-stamping.
The men appeared to understand, and I put in a few words as to
remuneration in their own tongue. For the son of the historian of
Italian Art had, of course, been bred to the language. They started and
turned upon me eager eyes, and then broke into a torrent of Tuscan which
took me instantly to the scented bean-fields and beautiful hills about
Siena. Of course they would be proud to carry my friend up the hill. I
was the son of the Wise Man of the Many Books. I had been with
Garibaldi. Ah, then, that said all. One had a brother who had died
following the Little Father. Another had even been told to get out of
the way by hasty Menotti. He laughed at the oath which accompanied the
command. Of course they were all ready. They could find the boat. It was
quite safe. They knew where. They had emptied it once when a squall had
overturned it, so that it lay on its side facing the rain.
So with Hugh, Rhoda Polly, one of the Tuscans and myself at the oars we
were soon letting ourselves slip away from the shore on which stood
Arcadius and his lantern, urging us to bring the lads safe back, because
there was a big job with the sweet peas on the morrow.
We went slantingly, not fighting the current too hard, but gliding
easily, and avoiding the shallows where we could hear the current roar
over the sand and pebbles.
Presently we grounded in the shadow of woods. I knew the place well. The
path led almost directly up past Rameau's hut to the little door of the
Lycee St. Andre. We could not have fallen better. We would escape the
town altogether, and along a _clairiere_ or open vista of cleared forest
land we could easily gain the garden gate of Gobelet.
Keller Bey lay still, the wound on his head keeping him in a state of
unconsciousness, which was very helpful to our project. The bullet had
glanced from the bone and was now imbedded in the muscles of the neck.
During the transit Alida clove to Rhoda Polly when she could, and when
she could not (because of that young person's surprising activity), she
fell back on Hugh Deventer. Not once did she look at me, and if I
approached she would slip away to the other side.
The four Italians lifted the stretcher and began the ascent. Morn was
just beginning to break, so there was not much time. The Tuscans marched
to a kind of grunting chorus, as if they were counting numbers slowly.
They arranged their own work and rested when they had enough. Once the
cleared alley-way of the forest was reached the work became easy. Now
the march was on the level. We found the garden gate locked on the
inside, but Hugh gave me a hoist up, and in a moment I had it open.
My father, ever a light sleeper, was easily awakened, indeed his
student's lamp still burned in his room, and he took it up when he went
to warn Linn. She came out sternly composed, listened silently to my
report of what Dr. Wilson had said, and what still remained to be done.
Then she nodded, still without words, and with a decided air she moved
towards their bedroom.
At first sight of Linn, Alida had sprung forward and caught her
foster-mother in her arms. Linn gently kissed her, but immediately
released herself, that she might be able to give all her attention to
her husband.
The leave-takings were of the scantiest. The Italians were on fire to be
off before the morning broke. I repeated the directions about the
_interne_ Vallier up at the hospital to my father. Then we struck
riverward through the pines, racing the sun. Rhoda Polly arrived far in
front, and in a few minutes we were on the water again.
It was not till we landed on the little greensward above the backwater
where I hid the boat that we asked one another, "Where is Hugh?"
As we did so the sun rose and lighted up the world and all its problems
with the terrible clarity of morn, and by it we saw clearly that Hugh
Deventer had stayed behind.
Rhoda Polly and I looked at one another till we could look no longer,
and then, in spite of the danger, we burst into a peal of the gayest
laughter.