What hope is ours--what hope? To find no mercy
After much war, and many travails done?
“Well, somebody must go; that is certain.”
And more than one man looked at me. It was not because I could possibly
be that somebody, although I was young enough and of little enough
consequence. But Fortune had been busy with me. She had knocked all the
interest out of my life, and then she had proceeded to shower her fickle
favours upon me. I was by way of becoming a success in that line of life
wherein I had been cast. I had been mentioned in despatches, and somehow
the bullets had passed by on the other side. Her gracious Majesty had
written to me twice as her dearly beloved Thomas, and I was well up in
my profession.
In those days things were differently done in India. There was less
telegraphing here and there for instructions. There was more action and
less talk. The native gentleman did not sit on a jury then.
“Yes,” said young Martello, “somebody must go. Question is--who?”
And they looked at me again.
“There be those in high places,” I said, “who shall decide.”
They laughed and made no answer. They were pleased to think that I
should have to decide which doctor should go to Capoo, where a sickness
unknown and incomprehensible had broken out. It was true that I was
senior surgeon of the division; indeed, I was surgeon-major of a tract
of country as big as Scotland. It is India now, but in the days of
which I write the question had not been settled with a turbulent native
prince. We were, in fact, settling that question.
Capoo was right in the heart of the new country, while we were in
occupation of a border town. Behind us lay India; in front, the Unknown.
The garrison of Capoo was small and self-important, but sickness
made itself conspicuous among its members. Their doctor--poor young
Barber--died, and the self-importance of the Capoo garrison oozed out
of their finger-ends. They sent down post-haste to us for help, and a
special letter addressed to me detailed symptoms of no human malady.
I had two men under me. The question seemed simple enough. One of them
would have to go. As to which one there was really no doubt whatever.
The duty fell upon Thurkow. Thurkow was junior. This might prove to be
Thurkow's opportunity, or--the other thing.
We all knew that he would be willing enough to go; nay, he would
be eager. But Thurkow's father was in command, which made all the
difference.
While we were thinking over these things an orderly appeared at the
mess-room door.
“Brigadier would like to see you, sir,” he said to me. And I had to
throw away the better half of a first-class manilla.
The brigadier's quarters were across a square in the centre of a long
rambling palace, for which a handsome rent was duly paid. We were not
making war. On the contrary, we were forcing peace down the throat of
the native prince on the point of a sword.
Everything was upon a friendly footing. We were not an invading force.
Oh, no! we were only the escort of a political officer. We had been
quartered in this border town for more than a year, and the senior
officers' lady-wives had brought their lares and penates in three
bullock-carts a-piece.
I suppose we were objects of envy. We had all the excitement of novelty
without any of the penalties of active warfare. We were strong enough to
make an awful example of the whole Principality at a day's notice, and
the Principality knew it, which kept bazaar prices down and made the
coloured brother remember the hue of his cheek.
In the palace there were half a dozen officers' quarters, and these had
been apportioned to the married; consequently the palace had that air
of homeliness which is supposed to be lacking in the quarters of single
men.
As I was crossing the square I heard some one running after me, and,
turning, I faced Fitz. Fitz Marner--usually called Fitz--was my second
in command and two years my junior. He was quite a different sort of man
to myself, and, if I may say so, a much better man. However, I am not
going to talk about myself more than I can help this time. Some day I
shall, and then I shall have a portrait on the cover. This is an age of
portraits. But some day the British public will wake up and will refuse
to read the works of a smug-faced man in spectacles who tries to make
them believe that he is doughty, fearless, and beloved of beautiful
damsels. The bookstalls are full to-day of works written in the first
person singular, and relating deeds of the utmost daring; while on
the cover is a portrait of the author--the aforesaid smug man in
spectacles--who has not the good sense to suppress himself.
Fitz was tall and lithe. He had a large brown moustache and pleasantly
thoughtful eyes. His smile was the kindliest I have ever met. Moreover,
a modester man than Fitz never breathed. He had a way of carrying his
chin rather low, so that when he looked at one he had to raise his eyes,
which imparted a pleasing suggestion of attention to his face. It always
seemed to me that Fitz listened more carefully to what was said to him
than other men are in the habit of doing.
“Say, doctor,” he said, looking up at me in his peculiar thoughtful way,
“give me a chance.”
I knew what he meant. He wanted me to send him to a certain death
instead of young Thurkow. Those little missions to that bourne from
whence no traveller returns are all in the work of a soldier's life, and
we two were soldiers, although ours was the task of repairing instead of
doing the damage. Every soldier-man and most civilians know that it is
sometimes the duty of a red-coat to go and get killed without pausing
to ask whether it be expedient or not. One aide-de-camp may be sent on a
mad attempt to get through the enemy's lines, while his colleague rides
quietly to the rear with a despatch inside his tunic, the delivery of
which to the commander-in-chief will ensure promotion. And in view of
this the wholesome law of seniority was invented. The missions come in
rotation, and according to seniority the men step forward.
Fitz Marner's place was at my side, where, by the way, I never want a
better man, for his will was iron, and he had no nerves whatever. Capoo,
the stricken, was calling for help. Fitz and I knew more about cholera
than we cared to discuss just then. Some one must go up to Capoo to
fight a hopeless fight and die. And old Fitz--God bless him!--was asking
to go.
In reply I laughed.
“Not if I can help it. The fortune of war is the same for all.”
Fitz tugged at his moustache and looked gravely at me.
“It is hard on the old man,” he said. “It is more than you can expect.”
“Much,” I answered. “I gave up expecting justice some years ago. I am
sorry for the brigadier, of course. He committed the terrible mistake of
getting his son into his own brigade, and this is the result. All that
he does to-night he does on his own responsibility. I am not inclined to
help him. If it had been you, I should not have moved an inch--you know
that.”
He turned half away, looking up speculatively at the yellow Indian moon.
“Yes,” he muttered, “I know that.”
And without another word he went back to the mess-room.
I went on and entered the palace. To reach the brigadier's quarters I
had to pass down the whole length of the building, and I was not in
the least surprised to see Elsie Matheson waiting for me in one of the
passage-like ante-rooms. Elsie Matheson was bound to come into this
matter sooner or later--I knew that; but I did not quite know in what
capacity her advent might be expected.
“What is this news from Capoo?” she asked, without attempting to
disguise her anxiety. Her father, assistant political officer in this
affair, was not at Capoo or near there. He was upstairs playing a
rubber.
“Bad,” I answered.
She winced, but turned no paler. Women and horses are always surprising
me, and they never surprise me more than when in danger. Elsie Matheson
was by no means a masculine young person. Had she been so, I should not
have troubled to mention her. For me, men cannot be too manly, nor women
too womanly.
“What is the illness they have?” she asked.
“I really cannot tell you, Elsie,” I answered. “Old Simpson has written
me a long letter--he always had a fancy for symptoms, you know--but I
can make nothing of it. The symptoms he describes are quite impossible.
They are too scientific for me.”
“You know it is cholera,” she snapped out with a strange little break in
her voice which I did not like, for I was very fond of this girl.
“Perhaps it is,” I answered.
She gave a funny little helpless look round her as if she wanted
something to lean against.
“And who will go?” she asked. She was watching me keenly.
“Ah--that does not rest with me.”
“And if it did?”
“I should go myself.”
Her face lighted up suddenly. She had not thought of that. I bore her no
ill-feeling, however. I did not expect her to love ME.
“But they cannot spare you,” she was kind enough to say.
“Everybody can always be spared--with alacrity,” I answered; “but it is
not a question of that. It is a question of routine. One of the others
will have to go.”
“Which one?” she asked with a suddenly assumed indifference.
It was precisely the question in my own mind, but relative to a very
different matter. If the decision rested with Miss Matheson, which
of these two men would she send to Capoo? Perhaps I looked rather too
keenly into her face, for she turned suddenly away and drew the gauzy
wrap she had thrown over her evening dress more closely round her
throat, for the passages were cold.
“That does not rest with me,” I repeated, and I went on towards the
brigadier's quarters, leaving her--a white shadow in the dimly lighted
passage.
I found the chief at his own dinner-table with an untouched glass of
wine before him.
“This is a bad business,” he said, looking at me with haggard eyes. I
had never quite realized before what an old man he was. His trim beard
and moustache had been white for years, but he had always been a hale
man up to his work--a fine soldier but not a great leader. There was a
vein of indolence in Brigadier-General Thurkow's nature which had the
same effect on his career as that caused by barnacles round a ship's
keel. This inherent indolence was a steady drag on the man's life. Only
one interest thoroughly aroused him--only one train of thought received
the full gift of his mind. This one absorbing interest was his son
Charlie, and it says much for Charlie Thurkow that we did not hate him.
The brigadier had lost his wife years before. All that belonged to
ancient history--to the old Company days before our time. To say that he
was absorbed in his son is to state the case in the mildest imaginable
form. The love in this old man's heart for his reckless, happy-souled
offspring was of that higher order which stops at nothing. There is a
love that worketh wonders, and the same love can make a villain of an
honest man.
I looked at old Thurkow, sitting white-lipped behind the decanter, and
I knew that there was villainy in his upright, honest heart. He scarcely
met my eyes. He moved uneasily in his chair. All through a long life
this man had carried nobly the noblest name that can be given to
any--the name of gentleman. No great soldier, but a man of dauntless
courage. No strategist, but a leader who could be trusted with his
country's honour. Upright, honourable, honest, brave--and it had come
to this. It had come to his sitting shamefaced before a poor unknown
sawbones--not daring to look him in the face.
His duty was plain enough. Charlie Thurkow's turn had come. Charlie
Thurkow must be sent to Capoo--by his father's orders. But the old
man--the soldier who had never turned his back on danger--could not do
it.
We were old friends, this man and I. I owed him much. He had made my
career, and I am afraid I had been his accomplice more than once. But
we had never wronged any other man. Fitz had aided and abetted more than
once. It had been an understood thing between Fitz and myself that
the winds of our service were to be tempered to Charlie Thurkow, and
I imagine we had succeeded in withholding the fact from his knowledge.
Like most spoilt sons, Charlie was a little selfish, with that
convenient blindness which does not perceive how much dirty work is done
by others.
But we had never deceived the brigadier. He was not easily deceived in
those matters which concerned his son. I knew the old man very well, and
for years I had been content to sit by the hour together and talk with
him of Charlie. To tell the honest truth, Master Charlie was a very
ordinary young man. I take it that a solution of all that was best in
five Charles Thurkows would make up one Fitz Marner.
There was something horribly pathetic in the blindness of this usually
keen old man on this one point. He would sit there stiffly behind the
decanter fingering his wine-glass, and make statements about Charlie
which would have made me blush had that accomplishment not belonged to
my past. A certain cheery impertinence which characterized Charlie was
fondly set down as savoir-faire and dash. A cheap wit was held to be
brilliancy and conversational finish. And somehow we had all fallen into
the way of humouring the brigadier. I never told him, for instance, that
his son was a very second-rate doctor and a nervous operator. I never
hinted that many of the cures which had been placed to his credit were
the work of Fitz--that the men had no confidence in Charlie, and that
they were somewhat justified in their opinion.
“This is a bad business,” repeated the brigadier, looking hard at the
despatch that lay on the table before him.
“Yes,” I answered.
He tossed the paper towards me and pointed to a chair.
“Sit down!” he said sharply. “Have you had any report from poor Barber?”
In response I handed him the beginning of an official report. I say the
beginning, because it consisted of four lines only. It was in Barber's
handwriting, and it broke off suddenly in the middle of a word before it
began to tell me anything. In its way it was a tragedy. Death had called
for Barber while he was wondering how to spell “nauseous.” I also gave
him Colonel Simpson's letter, which he read carefully.
“What is it?” he asked suddenly, as he laid the papers aside.
“Officially--I don't know.”
“And unofficially?”
“I am afraid it is cholera.”
The brigadier raised his glass of claret a few inches from the
table, but his hand was too unsteady, and he set the glass down again
untouched. I was helplessly sorry for him. There was something abject
and humiliating in his averted gaze. Beneath his white moustache his
lips were twitching nervously.
For a few moments there was silence, and I dreaded his next words. I was
trembling for his manhood.
“I suppose something must be done for them,” he said at length,
hoarsely, and it was hard to believe that the voice was the voice of our
leader--a man dreaded in warfare, respected in peace.
“Yes,” I answered uncompromisingly.
“Some one must go to them--”
“Yes.”
Again there was that horrid silence, broken only by the tramp of the
sentinel outside the glassless windows.
“Who?” asked the brigadier, in little more than a whisper.
I suppose he expected it of me--I suppose he knew that even for him,
even in mercy to an old man whose only joy in life trembled at that
moment in the balance, I could not perpetrate a cruel injustice.
“It devolves on Charlie,” I answered.
He gave one quick glance beneath his lashes, and again lowered his eyes.
I heard a long gasping sound, as if he found difficulty in breathing. He
sat upright, and threw back his shoulders with a pitiable effort to be
strong.
“Is he up to the work?” he asked quietly.
“I cannot conscientiously say that he is not.”
“D--n it, man,” he burst out suddenly, “is there no way out of it?”
“Yes--one way!”
“What is it?”
“I will go.”
“That is impossible,” he answered with a sublime unconsciousness of his
own huge selfishness which almost made me laugh. This man would have
asked nothing for himself. For his son he had no shame in asking all. He
would have accepted my offer, I could see that, had it been possible.
At this moment the door opened, and Charlie Thurkow came in. His eyes
were bright with excitement, and he glanced at us both quickly. He was
quite well aware of his father's weakness in regard to himself, and I
am afraid he sometimes took advantage of it. He often ignored discipline
entirely, as he did in coming into the room at that moment.
I suppose there is in every one a sense of justice which accounts for
the subtle annoyance caused by the devotion of parents and others--a
devotion which has not the good sense to hide itself. There are few
things more annoying than an exhibition of unjust love. I rose at once.
The coming interview would be either painful or humiliating, and I
preferred not to assist at it.
As I went down the dark passages a man in a staff uniform, wearing
spurs, clanked past me. I did not know until later that it was Fitz, for
I could not see his face.
I went back to my quarters, and was busy for some time with certain
technicalities of my trade which are not worth detailing here. While I
and my two dispensers were still measuring out and mixing drugs, Fitz
came to us.
“I am going to Capoo,” he said quietly.
In his silent, quick way he was taking in all that we were doing. We
were packing medical stores for Capoo. I did not answer him, but waited
for further details. We could not speak openly before the two assistants
at that moment, and somehow we never spoke about it at all. I glanced
up at him. His face was pale beneath the sunburn. There was a drawn look
just above his moustache, as if his lips were held tightly.
“I volunteered,” he said, “and the brigadier accepted my offer.”
Whenever the word “duty” is mentioned, I think of Fitz to this day.
I said nothing, but went on with my work. The whole business was too
disgusting, too selfish, too unjust, to bear speaking of.
I had long known that Fitz loved Elsie Matheson. In my feeble way,
according to my scanty opportunity, I had endeavoured to assist him.
But her name had never been mentioned between us except carelessly in
passing conversation. I knew no details. I did not even know whether
Elsie knew of his love; but it was exceedingly likely that if she did,
he had not told her. As to her feelings, I was ignorant. She loved
somebody, that much I knew. One can generally tell that. One sees it
in a woman's eyes. But it is one thing to know that a woman loves, and
quite another to find out whom she loves. I have tried in vain more than
once. I once thought that I was the favoured person--not with Elsie,
with quite another woman--but I was mistaken. I only know that those
women who have that in their eyes which I have learnt to recognize are
better women than those who lack it.
Fitz was the first to speak.
“Don't put all of that into one case,” he said to one of the dispensers,
indicating a row of bottles that stood on the floor. “Divide the
different drugs over the cases, so that one or two of them can be lost
without doing much harm.”
His voice was quite calm and practical.
“When do you go?” I asked curtly. I was rather afraid of trusting my
voice too long, for Fitz was one of the few men who have really entered
into my life sufficiently to leave a blank space behind them. I have
been a rolling stone, and what little moss I ever gathered soon got
knocked off, but it left scars. Fitz left a scar.
“My orders are to start to-night--with one trooper,” he answered.
“What time?”
“In half an hour.”
“I will ride with you a few miles,” I said.
He turned and went to his quarters, which were next to mine. I was still
at work when Charlie Thurkow came in. He had changed his dress clothes
for an old working suit. I was working in my evening dress--a subtle
difference.
“Do you want any help?” he asked. I could hear a grievance in his voice.
“Of course; get on packing that case; plenty of straw between the
bottles.”
He obeyed me, working slowly, badly, without concentration, as he always
did.
“It's a beastly shame, isn't it?” he muttered presently.
“Yes,” I answered, “it is.”