“Makes me look a fool,” he said heatedly. “Why couldn't the governor let
me go and take my chance?”
The answer to this question being beyond my ken, I kept a discreet
silence. Giving him further instructions, I presently left my junior to
complete the task of packing up the necessary medicaments for Capoo.
In less than half an hour Fitz and I mounted our horses. A few of the
fellows came out of the messroom, cigar in mouth, to say good-bye to
Fitz. One or two of them called out “Good luck” as we left them. Each
wish was followed by a little laugh, as if the wisher was ashamed of
showing even so minute an emotion. It was, after all, all in the way of
our business. Many a time Fitz and I had stood idle while these same men
rode out to face death. It was Fitz's turn now--that was all.
The Sikh trooper was waiting for us in the middle of the square--in the
moonlight--a grand picturesque figure. A long-faced, silent man, with
deep eyes and a grizzled moustache. He wheeled his horse, and dropped
ten paces in our rear.
In the course of a varied experience Fitz and I had learnt to ride hard.
We rode hard that night beneath the yellow moon, through the sleeping,
odorous country. We both knew too well that cholera under canvas is like
a fire in a timber-yard. You may pump your drugs upon it, but without
avail unless the pumping be scientific. Fitz represented science. Every
moment meant a man's life. Our horses soon settled into their stride
with a pleasant creaking sound of warm leather and willing lungs.
The moon was above and behind us; we each had a galloping shadow
beneath our horse's forefeet. It was a sandy country, and the hoofs only
produced a dull thud. There was something exhilarating in the speed--in
the shimmering Indian atmosphere. A sense of envy came over me, and I
dreaded the moment when I should have to turn and ride soberly home,
leaving Fitz to complete his forty-five miles before daylight.
We were riding our chargers. They had naturally fallen into step, and
bounded beneath us with a regular, mechanical rhythm. Both alike had
their heads down, their shoulders forward, with that intelligent desire
to do well which draws a man's heart towards a horse in preference
to any other animal. I looked sideways at Fitz, and waited for him to
speak. But he was staring straight in front of him, and seemed lost in
thought.
“You know,” I said at length, “you have done that old man an ill-turn.
Even if you come back he will never forgive himself. He will never look
either of us straight in the face again.”
“Can't help that,” replied Fitz. “The thing--” He paused, as if choosing
his words. “If,” he went on rather quickly, “the worst comes to the
worst, don't let people--ANY ONE--think that I did it because I didn't
care, because I set no value on my life. The thing was forced upon me. I
was asked to volunteer for it.”
“All right,” I answered, rather absent-mindedly perhaps. I was wondering
who “any one” might be, and also who had asked him to throw away his
life. The latter might, of course, be the brigadier. Surely it could
not have been Elsie. But, as I said before, I always was uncertain about
women.
I did not say anything about hoping for the best. Fitz and I had left
all that nonsense behind us years before. We did our business amidst
battle, murder, and sudden death. Perhaps we were callous, perhaps we
had only learnt to value the thing at its true worth, and did not set
much fear on death.
And then, I must ask you to believe, we fell to talking “shop.” I knew a
little more about cholera than did Fitz, and we got quite interested in
our conversation. It is, I have found, only in books that men use the
last moment to advantage. Death has been my road-fellow all through
life, and no man has yet died in my arms saying quite the right thing.
Some of them made a joke, others were merely commonplace, as all men
really are whether living or dying.
When the time came for me to turn back, Fitz had said nothing fit for
post-mortem reproduction. We had talked unmitigated “shop,” except the
few odd observations I have set down.
We shook hands, and I turned back at once. As I galloped I looked back,
and in the light of the great tropical moon I saw Fitz sitting forward
in his saddle as the horse rose to the slope of a hill, galloping away
into the night, into the unknown, on his mission of mercy. At his heels
rode the Sikh, enormous, silent, soldierly.
During my steady run home I thought of those things concerning my craft
which required immediate consideration. Would it be necessary to send
down to India for help? Cholera at Capoo might mean cholera everywhere
in this new unknown country. What about the women and children? The
Wandering Jew was abroad; would he wander in our direction, with the
legendary curse following on his heels? Was I destined to meet this
dread foe a third time? I admit that the very thought caused a lump
to rise in my throat. For I love Thomas Atkins. He is manly and honest
according to his lights. It does not hurt me very much to see him with a
bullet through his lungs or a sabre cut through the collar-bone down
to the same part of his anatomy. But it does hurt me exceedingly to see
honest Thomas die between the sheets--the death of any common civilian
beggar. Thomas is too good for that.
It was nearly three o'clock in the morning when I rode into the palace
square. All round I saw the sentinels, their bayonets gleaming in the
moonlight. A man was walking backwards and forwards in the middle of
the square by himself. When he heard me he came towards me. At first I
thought that it was my servant waiting to take the horse, but a moment
later I recognized Charlie Thurkow--recognized him by his fair hair, for
he was hatless. At the same time my syce roused himself from slumber in
the shadow of an arch, and ran forward to my stirrup.
“Come to the hospital!” said Thurkow, the moment I alighted. His voice
was dull and unnatural. I once heard a man speak in the same voice while
collecting his men for a rush which meant certain death. The man was
duly killed, and I think he was trembling with fear when he ran to his
death.
“What is it?” I asked.
“I don't know.”
We walked--almost ran--to the hospital, a long low building in the
palace compound. Charlie Thurkow led the way to a ward which we had
never used--a ward I had set apart for infectious cases. A man was
dozing in a long chair in the open window. As we entered he rose hastily
and brought a lamp. We bent over a bed--the only one occupied. The
occupant was a man I did not know. He looked like a Goorkha, and he was
dying. In a few moments I knew all that there was to know. I knew that
the Wandering Jew had passed our way.
“Yes,” I said, rising from my knees at the bedside; “we have it.”
Of the days that followed it is not my intention to say much. A woman
once told me that I was afraid of nothing. She was mistaken. If she
chance to read this and recognize it, I hope she will believe the
assertion: I am, and always have been, afraid of cholera--in India.
In Europe it is a different matter. The writing of those days would
be unpleasant to me; the reading would be still less pleasant to the
reader.
Brigadier-General Thurkow rose to the occasion, as we all expected him
to do. It is one thing to send a man to a distant danger, and quite
another to go with him into a danger which is close at hand. Charlie
Thurkow and I were the only two doctors on the spot, and before help
could reach us we should probably all be dead or cured. There was no
shirking now. Charlie and I were at work night and day, and in the
course of thirty-six hours Charlie got interested in it. He reached
the fighting point--that crisis in an epidemic of which doctors can
tell--that point where there is a certain glowing sense of battle over
each bed--where death and the doctor see each other face to face--fight
hand to hand for the life.
The doctor loses his interest in the patient as a friend or a patient;
all his attention is centred on the life as a life, and a point to be
scored against the adversary Death.
We had a very bad time for two days. At the end of that time I had
officers bearing Her Majesty's commission serving under me as assistant
nurses, and then the women came into it. The first to offer herself was
the wife of a non-commissioned officer in the Engineers, who had been
through Netley. I accepted her. The second woman was Elsie Matheson. I
refused point blank.
“Sooner or later,” she said, looking at me steadily with something in
her eyes which I could not make out, “you will have to take me.”
“Does your father know you have come to me?” I retorted.
“Yes; I came with his consent.”
I shook my head and returned to my writing. I was filling in a list of
terrific length. She did not go away, but stood in front of me with a
certain tranquillity which was unnatural under the circumstances.
“Do you want help?” she asked calmly.
“God knows I do.”
“But not mine--?”
“Not yet, Elsie. I have not got so far as that yet.”
I did not look up, and she stood quite still over me--looking down at
me--probably noting that the hair was getting a little thin on the top
of my head. This is not a joke. I repeat she was probably noting that.
People do note such things at such moments.
“If you do not take me,” she said, in a singularly even voice, “I shall
go up to Capoo. Can you not see that that is the only thing that can
save me from going to Capoo--or going mad?”
I laid aside my pen, and looked up into her face, which she made no
pretence of hiding from me. And I saw that it was as she said.
“You can go to work at once,” I said, “under Mrs. Martin, in ward number
four.”
When she had left me I did not go on filling in the list from the notes
in my pocket-book. I fell to wasting time instead. So it was Fitz. I was
not surprised, but I was very pleased. I was not surprised, because I
have usually found that the better sort of woman has as keen a scent for
the good men as we have. And I thought of old Fitz--the best man I ever
served with--fighting up at Capoo all alone, while I fought down in
the valley. There was a certain sense of companionship in the thought,
though my knowledge and experience told me that our chances of meeting
again were very small indeed.
We had not heard from Capoo. The conclusion was obvious: they had no one
to send.
Elsie Matheson soon became a splendid nurse. She was quite fearless--not
with dash, but with the steady fearlessness that comes from an
ever-present sense of duty, which is the best. She was kind and tender,
but she was a little absent. In spirit she was nursing at Capoo; with us
she was only in the body.
When Charlie Thurkow heard that she had gone into ward number four, he
displayed a sudden, singular anger.
“It's not fit for her,” he said. “How could you do it?”
And I noticed that, so far as lay in his power, he kept the worst cases
away from number four.
It occasionally happens in life that duty is synonymous with
inclination; not often, of course, but occasionally. I twisted
inclination round into duty, and put Elsie to night work, while Charlie
Thurkow kept the day watches. I myself was forced to keep both as best I
could.
Whenever I went into number four ward at night before (save the
mark) going to bed, I found Elsie Matheson waiting for me. It must
be remembered that she was quite cut off from the little world that
surrounded us in the palace. She had no means of obtaining news. Her
only link with the outer universe was an occasional patient brought
in more dead than alive, and too much occupied with his own affairs to
trouble about those of other people.
“Any news?” she would whisper to me as we went round the beds together;
and I knew that she meant Capoo. Capoo was all the world for her. It is
strange how some little unknown spot on the earth will rise up and come
into our lives never to leave the memory again.
“Nothing,” I replied with a melancholy regularity.
Once only she broke through her reserve--through the habit of bearing
pain in silence which she had acquired by being so much among dying men.
“Have you no opinion?” she asked, with a sharpness in her voice which I
forgave as I heard it.
“Upon what subject?”
“Upon... the chances.”