THUNDER IN THE TROPICS
The scene changes.
For one moment we look, with clearer eyes than the poor old
Dowager’s, across the cruel waste of waters into a very real
dreamland, and we see Gerard, Baron van Helmont, after two years of
weary waiting for glory, wearily waiting for glory still.
* * * * *
Gerard van Helmont stood before his hut in the compound of the
little fort under his command on the Acheen River. All round him
trembled, with soft persistence, the thousand breathings of the
tropic night.
An hour ago it had flung itself, the sudden blackness, down the
slopes of the Barissan Mountains, and away across the green
islands of the Indian Ocean. It had fallen with the swiftness of
a blow, wiping out all the luxuriance of dreamy glories that lay
reposefully burning in endless variations of verdure under the
moist veil of paludal heat. The wide sea of tropical foliage that
laughed down the sides of the valley till within a few yards of
the river fort had sunk back from view like a swiftly receding
tide, and a living silence now brooded over these jungles a-quiver
with hate. The roar of the million frogs in the marshes had at
last ceased to beat against never-accustomed ears, and all the
other manifold murmurs and flutterings had died down to one dully
penetrative tone, whose ringing music, in its rhythmical rise and
fall, swelled upon the ear of the listener like the pulse-beat of
the world. Now and then the sudden howlings of distant wild dogs
broke out hideously, or the clattering shriek of the _tokkèh_
resounded from the woods. And throughout the long darkness came
the swish of the turbid water among its reeds and overhanging
branches, as it went playing around the masses of logs and rotten
refuse over which it quarrels day and night in slow pushings with
the sea.
Nature under the equator knows not even the semblance of rest. In
Northern countries she at least appears to sleep; here she sits
through the cooler hours on her couch listening.
Certainly there was no rest for Gerard van Helmont, or for any
Dutchman at that time in Acheen; there was only the tension of
expectant inactivity amid all-encompassing treachery, hundred-eyed
and hundred-handed. Barbaric murder lurked behind every tree and
behind every smiling face that bent in allegiance. For if an
Achinese stoop low before the Kafir it is with the idea, in rising,
of ripping him up.
Gerard in this small “Benting” had fifty men under his orders,
European and native fusileers. His nearest neighbors were
established about half a mile off in a similar intrenchment, a
certain number of these permanent camps having been constructed to
keep open the way to the sea, for the invading force had gone up
the valley into the interior.
The lanterns along the outer side of the wall had been lighted;
their yellow reflection created a circle of vaguely lessening
defence. Across this, into the dark tangle beyond the clearing,
peered solitary sentinels by their guns. A sergeant tramped past.
The night was starless and misty.
“Werda?” cried a sentry.
Something had moved, he thought, behind the glooming bushes.
Something always seemed to be moving--creeping forward through the
whispers of the forest, in the incessant alarm of guerilla night
attack.
“Nonsense, it’s too early,” said the sergeant. “Besides, we’re
quite safe now, here in these pacified districts. Keep a good
lookout, all the same.”
Gerard smiled, overhearing the concluding exhortation. He knew that
they were not safe--no, not for one moment. The friendly villagers
from the farther side of the marsh who had sold them victuals that
morning might even now be meditating a raid, one of those terrible
Achinese swoops and withdrawals, the hand-to-hand swarm up the
battlements--Allah il Allah!--On!
He lighted a cigarette, and wondered how many he still had left.
It was painfully lonely and humdrum and wearing. Danger becomes
humdrum; death can become humdrum, they say. Occasionally he
met his brother officer from the neighboring fort. Otherwise
not a white-faced Christian, except his own garrison, and the
commissariat people from the camp, at long intervals, with stores.
He was thinking--no, not of home. Soldiers--thank God!--do not
always think of home.
He was thinking of his men. One of them, an Amboinese, had
got himself killed that morning through sheer temerity and
disobedience. There were a couple of these insubordinates in the
Benting, who, wearying of inaction, had broken out once before on
the spree--that is to say, on the hunt for a grinning, long-haired
devil with a klewang. He had punished them, of course, but at
daybreak this morning Adja had slipped away alone, and had fallen
into the hands of friendly Achinese. Gerard knew what that meant.
Death by the most prolonged of cruelties, a slow chopping away of
all parts except such as keep life extant. He sighed as he thought
of the poor fellow’s fate, and the inevitable reprisals, and all
the official bother and blame.
And he reflected on certain instructions issued not long ago. The
army, whose women and children were daily exposed to fiendish
barbarities, had been reminded that every Achinese was a man and a
brother, and must be treated as such. Kindness to prisoners (even
if they owned to having boiled your envoy); kindness to villagers
(even if they potted you as you passed their houses)--these were
of the elements of Christian warfare. It was quite true. And,
moreover, the good people at home that write, in their slippers, to
the newspapers never pardoned an act of cruelty, unless practised
by the foe.
“I must speak to the other fellow, I suppose,” said Gerard. “I
wonder how he takes it? Sergeant, send Popa along,” and he passed
into his hut, that the interview might seem more imposing under
the yellow glare of the lamp. The hut certainly had nothing
impressive about it, with its bamboo walls and uneven furniture.
There was a small rug by the bed, a red blot on the planks which
alone distinguished this abode from the mud-floored homes of the
soldiery. And two or three of the articles scattered about bespoke
the refinement of their owner.
Popa presented himself, a lithe little fellow, brown and fierce. He
saluted.
“Popa, you know what has happened to Adja?”
“Tjingtjang, Lieutenant,” replied Popa, saluting again.[L]
“You may be thankful that you didn’t accompany him this time. If
you had--” He paused, and looked at the man.
“Perhaps--forgive me that I say it--we should not have been caught,
Lieutenant.”
“In that case your punishment would have awaited you here. You
understand that _any_ attempt at insubordination will henceforth be
repressed with the utmost severity. I _will_ not have it. You can
go.”
Popa saluted again, and tripped off. His heart was hot within him
for the loss of his comrade.
“They call us ‘tiger-faces,’” he reflected; “they will call us
‘tiger-tails.’”
“A splendid fighter,” said Gerard, aloud, “like so many of these
Amboinese. And nothing to be gained but death or unrecorded glory.
God forgive the worthies at home, who care for no man’s soul or
body as long as consols remain at par! If some of us didn’t love
fighting for its own mad sake (which I certainly don’t) where would
their Excellencies’ consols be?”
Then he lighted another cigarette, and once more told himself that
really this time he must count his store. So he would--to-morrow.
He threw himself in his single rocking-chair and yawned. What
should he do the live-long evening? What had he done through the
creeping weeks and months? What could one do? It was the emptiness
which tormented him--the not doing anything: he wanted to be
with the invaders on ahead. He groaned over this misfortune for
the five-hundredth time. Otherwise, Acheen was not half a bad
place--much more spacious and much more _mouvementé_ than Holland.
Of course it was always horribly hot, and here where he lay, by the
marsh, it was even especially unhealthy. Everybody sickened. But
then, on the other hand, there were no duns. Gerard looked down at
his lean, yellow fingers. Yes, he had altered.
But what matter? Who cared? Only he wished he had had something to
show for it. He felt that the Home Government may send you to kill
savages, but they ought to provide plenty of savages for you to
kill.
In the military club at Kotta Radja he was popular. He would always
be popular with brave men anywhere because of his unpretending
unselfishness. And many of his comrades liked a fellow who was
Baron van Helmont, you know, by George! and he never seems to
remember, though, somehow, you never forget.
He devoutly wished himself in the club at this moment. They would
be playing, and there would be unlimited tobacco.
“Werda?” He leaped to his feet. A swift brightness swept across the
gloom outside. A signal rang clear. At his cabin door a sergeant
met him.
“Friends, Lieutenant,” said the man.
Under the protection of a suddenly uplifted fire-ball, half a
dozen soldiers in dark uniform were seen approaching the Benting,
whistling a signal as they came. Gerard recognized a party from the
neighboring fort, his companion in exile at their head. Greatly
surprised, he went down to the gate.
“You, Streeling!” he cried. “What, in the name of mischief, brings
you here? That light of yours will rouse the neighborhood.”
“Put it out, somebody,” said the new-comer. “I only fired it as
we emerged from the wood. I felt no desire to test your sentries,
thanks.”
“Well, what have you come for?”
“And why shouldn’t I take my walks abroad in the cool of the
evening? Isn’t this the pacified zone?”
Gerard’s brother-commander was a facetious little man, melancholy
by nature, and with a melancholy history, which he kept to himself.
“Let’s go into your hut and I’ll tell you,” he said. “Have you
anything left to drink?”
“Only brandy.”
“Lucky fellow to have plenty of spirits still!” He settled himself,
by right of sodality, in the rocking-chair, the proprietor of the
shanty crouching on the bed.
“It’s just this,” began Streeling, with suppressed excitement.
“Krayveld’s turned up at my place from the ships with important
despatches. The steam-launch can’t get any farther to-night, and he
says they must be taken on to the front, in any case, at once. It
appears they’ve big plans for to-morrow up yonder.” He jerked his
head in the direction of his hopes.
“Yes,” said Gerard, and his downcast eyelids twitched.
“His orders are that one of us is to take them on by road, and that
_he_ is to remain in command for the man that goes. He doesn’t know
the road, you know--what there is of it, damn it!”
“Yes,” replied Gerard, continuing the close study of his
cigarette-point. “_Which_ is to take them on?”
“There’s the nuisance. The ‘Vice’ has left that to us to settle.
Didn’t know which had least fever, you know. But one of us may go.”
“Yes,” repeated Gerard, with a sigh; “I suppose it must be you.”
“I suppose it must,” admitted the little man, echoing the sigh.
“I’m the oldest, you see. It’s risky work. You’re as likely as not
to get hashed into mince-meat by some of those klewang brutes. Save
us from our friends, say I!”
“True, I hadn’t thought of the risk,” replied Gerard, with much
alacrity. “I’ll go, if you like. In fact, you know, I think it had
better be I.”
“Why? Nonsense. You were awfully seedy when I was over here last
week. And it strikes me you’re looking pale to-day. The miasma’ll
be murderous at this time of night round by the second swamp.”
“Yes,” said Gerard again, endeavoring to improve the lamplight.
“How long is it--did you say--since your fever went?”
The other did not answer immediately, and in the silence that
ensued Gerard let fall one word from the tips of his lips:
“Humbug!”
“Humbug, am I? And what are you? Yah!”
The two men looked at each other.
“Well, then, if it must be, it must be,” said Streeling,
submissively; “I don’t want to spoil your chances, old man. Let’s
draw lots.”
“You _are_ the eldest,” admitted Gerard. “Thanks.”
“The eldest ought to remain in command,” replied Streeling, with a
grin. “But I’ll tell you what--we’ll sit by the doorway, and if the
first man that passes is a native, it’s yours. That’ll give me the
odds, for you’ve got more Europeans.”
“Done,” said Gerard, and they waited near the dark entry in
silence, puffing.
Presently Popa came by.
“Damn my luck!” ejaculated the little officer, with great energy,
somewhere deep down in his throat. He got up. “Well, it’s fairly
earned, and I wish you joy. I hope you’ll have a chance to-morrow
of getting near the blackguards. Meanwhile I must make myself as
comfortable as I can.”
“Oh, as likely as not you’ll see me back before breakfast
to-morrow. However, if there’s a fight on, of course I shall ask
leave to stay.”
“Of course. Well, here are the despatches. And--by Jove! Helmont,
I beg your pardon--here are your letters that Krayveld brought up
with him. I quite forgot, thinking of other things. Well, I wish
you joy, that’s all I can say.”
“Thanks. I suppose I had better be getting ready.”
“How many men will you take? Half a dozen?”
“A sergeant and six fusileers. I shall let the men volunteer.
But I want a couple of natives for the sake of their ears and
eyes.” Gerard went out and set to work at once, selecting the best
men from among a swarm of candidates. Half an hour afterwards
everything was ready; the eight dark figures filed through the
purposely darkened gateway: who could say what eyes might be
watching, alarmed by Streeling’s sudden blaze? Gerard came first,
with the sergeant, their loaded revolvers in their hands. Popa
brought up the rear.
Gerard reflected that he owed his good-fortune to Popa’s opportune
appearance. “Well, I’ll take you,” he said. “You’re in want of
something to cheer you up. But none of your pranks, mind.”
Popa saluted.
A clearing, as has been said, surrounded the Benting; immediately
beyond that, however, the party plunged into the forest, and were
obliged to advance along the narrow path in single file. They had
about two miles to go.
The night hung heavy in the enormous trees and among the tangled
masses of underwood. Stars there were none, and the air seemed to
be full of gray floatings that veiled its usual transparency. So
much the better.
It was very silent now. The whole line of them went creeping
forward, with eyes to right and left, everywhere alert, every
footstep hushed, as the dim trunks loomed through the darkness in
continuous clumps. It was the custom of the Achinese to lurk by
these pathways day and night, waiting with infinite patience for
the rare chance of killing a single foe. At any moment their shriek
might burst forth and their scimitars might flash. The air all
around was full of indistinct movement, soft and sultry under the
palms and waringin-trees.
“’St! What was that?” They all stood as granite, finger on trigger.
Only some faint breath high above them touching the never-silent
tjimaras.
“Confound them tjimaras, sir!” whispers the sergeant. “They’re
every bit as bad, sir, as women’s tongues.”
“’St! Forward.” Every now and then Gerard halts and listens; his
thoughts are of the precious packet sleeping on his breast.
In fact, it was madness, this night excursion along the most
uncertain of foot-paths. Why couldn’t they send up their despatches
earlier?
Krayveld had answered that they couldn’t send them before they got
them. Gerard shrugged his shoulders in the dark. Despatches _from_
Government were hardly likely, he thought, to be worth a single
soldier’s life.
With a feeling of very real relief he reached the rice-fields
beyond the wood. He stopped and counted his men. Rear-guard there
all right? Forward. Who’s that making his poniard click?
Far in the distance, miles away, lay a couple of sleeping villages;
those nearest had been razed to the ground; some brute was howling
among the ruins. From the fort rang the beat of the hour, as struck
by a sentry on a wooden block, breaking across the solitude with
terrifying distinctness. Eleven.
Beyond the rice-fields, through the tall, still grass, and by the
sickening marshes, with their reeds and sleeping water-fowl, then
up again into the great forest, darkling, dangerous. Into the
depths of the forest, deeper, deeper.
“Hist!” In a moment the men had formed round their leader, for the
noise of crackling branches resounded in every ear. Again.
The enemy was upon them!
“Kalong. Kalong,” said one of the Amboinese.
“It’s the big bats, sir, out feeding,” echoed the sergeant.
“I know,” replied Gerard. “What’s all this row about? Single
file. We shall have to be doubly careful.” And on they went, with
that occasional breaking of twigs around them that was infinitely
worse than the silence had been. It would now prove impossible
immediately to distinguish an approaching assassin. The darkness
seemed to thicken, as with a flood of ink.
At last they once more stood outside the jungle. Before them,
with an open space intervening, lay the camp, black against the
darkness of the plain. All around stretched the rapid ruin of a
roughly widened clearing; the smell of roots and rotting plants and
freshly-hewn logs was almost insupportable. It would have signalled
the camp from afar. Every one who has slept in these clearings
knows the odor. From time to time a rocket went up in silence,
piloting the patrols.
“Halt!” said Gerard. “What’s wrong behind?”
“Rear man missing, sir.”
He turned sharply. “Impossible!” No one ventured to contradict him,
but their silence did not alter the fact that Popa had dropped away.
“We must go back,” said Gerard. “He must have fallen. How did you
not notice?”
“Please, Lieutenant, it was the crackling. I thought it was the
Kalongs.”
They retraced their steps in glum anxiety, and searched back into
the forest for nearly half a mile. At last Gerard dared go no
farther; already his military conscience pricked him. The military
conscience almost always pricks.
“I must take on the despatches,” he said. “After that we can see. I
don’t understand at all. He can’t have fallen. You, Drok, surely we
have gone far enough?”
“We have gone too far, Lieutenant,” replied the man in an
awe-struck whisper. “I saw him farther on than this.”
“Very well; it can’t be helped. Forward.” In grave procession the
little party reached the camp.
* * * * *
Having delivered up his despatches, Helmont asked first for
leave to stay and see to-morrow’s operations, and secondly for a
search-party to hunt up his missing man. It cannot be said that the
Colonel jumped at the latter proposal.
The next day was to be an important one, and he wanted every soul
that could to get a decent sleep.
“Depend upon it,” he said, “the fellow has been cut down by a
marauder. They always cut down the last of the troop.”
“Yes, but I should like to find that marauder,” replied Gerard, “or
the corpse. May I go back with my own men?”
“Oh, certainly,” said the commanding officer, a little testily.
“You may go back all the way, if you like. Good-night.”
So the little troop slipped away from the encampment and back into
the jungle again. They all considered it hard lines, but entirely
unavoidable. And they peered the more closely into the dark.
Presently one of the native soldiers stopped on a slope and
pointed to the bush close behind him. None of the Europeans could
distinguish anything.
“Man gone down here,” he said; “there’s a track.” He knelt and
began cautiously feeling along the ground. “Lieutenant, there’s a
man gone down here,” he repeated; “gone into the Aleh-Aleh (the
long grass); you could see if it wasn’t so black.”
A path of any kind there certainly was not; still, Gerard consented
to reconnoitre a short distance, cautiously following the trail.
It turned abruptly, and after a few steps which rendered them clear
of the trees, the little party stood enclosed in tall green spikes
on every hand.
“’Tis along here to the right,” persisted the fusileer. Here, at
least, the dark sky hung free above them, and the air was fresher
than in the wood. Gerard hesitated. “We shall lose ourselves,” he
said. But even as he spoke a faint purl of human voices reached
them, evidently coming from some distance farther on down below.
For a moment they crouched, with straining ears. Then “Forward,”
said their leader, and they slunk through the labyrinth, with
constant precaution lest any weapon should catch, pausing to
hearken, seeking the sound.
Their pulses quickened as they realized that it was drawing
nearer. After a slow descent, which seemed wellnigh endless, they
could even distinguish a flow of sound in suppressed but eager
torrent. It was impossible to distinguish words, yet suddenly each
man’s heart asked the self-same, silent question: Why were these
Achinese marauders, with whom they were on the point of colliding,
conversing in _Malay_? The voice ceased.
The Aleh-Aleh broke off unexpectedly on the ridge of a steep
incline. Gerard, slipping forward, sprang back under shelter, not a
moment too soon. In the sudden opening he had descried above them,
a little to the right, as the fusileer had foretold, a dozen of the
enemy grouped on a narrow, bamboo-protected ledge round a tiny,
low-burning lamp. Cautiously he now peeped forth, and by the feeble
flicker recognized the wretched Popa, bound and stripped to the
waist, in the centre of the group.
“There,” he said, pointing. “Forward.” Slipping and crawling along
the edge, so as to keep clear of the swish of the grass, the men
followed him up. Under them the abyss fell straight.
On the skirts of the little plateau they stopped. They could now
plainly perceive that Popa had a gaping klewang wound across his
shoulder. What feeble light there was had been turned full upon
the prisoner, the wild forms of his captors sinking away into the
darkness. They have been arguing with him, reflected Gerard, trying
to induce him, by the usual horrible threats, to desert. Judging by
the man’s countenance, they had now accorded him time to consider.
Even while his comrades stood watching, waiting--to shoot were to
imperil the central figure--the allotted moments must have run
themselves out. One of the Achinese sprang to his feet, his big
gold button twinkling, and with a hideous flash of his scimitar
across the dilating stare of the soldiery, he swept off one of the
prisoner’s ears. Another started up with a similar movement, but
before he could fling himself forward a shrill chorus of shrieks
overflowed on all sides. Somehow, he can never tell how, Gerard was
up on the ledge, in the midst of them; Popa’s assailant had fallen,
shot through the breast; a dozen distorted, yelling faces were
seething around the drawn sword of the “Wolanda.”
Thirty seconds, swift, interminable, an unbroken clash of steel
through the smoke and crash of the bullets--thirty seconds
intervened before his soldiers, getting up to him, plunged fiercely
forward, with bayonet and poniard, into the indistinguishable mass.
The little lamp had immediately rolled over; the solemn darkness
shook with a turmoil of oaths and outcries rising high above the
clang of the fighting and the thud of the fallen. In a moment it
was all over. Yet the trembling air still seemed to listen among
the sudden silence of the tall tjimara-trees.
A heavy groan shuddered slowly forth. Then another. And again
another in a different voice.
Gerard struck a match and lighted a pocket-lantern. Of his seven
men, three, including Popa, still stood upright; a fourth rose,
stumbling, from the dark confusion on the ground. Of the three
remaining, two were already dead (one decapitated), and the third
lay unconscious. Not one of the Achinese was able to continue the
fray.
“Hurry up,” said Gerard, cutting Popa’s bonds. “No, I’m not
wounded; it’s nothing but a scratch. We’re quite near the camp; the
least hurt must help the others.”
The tomtom, the enemy’s well-known alarm, came thumping down the
valley, re-echoed on every side from twenty watchful hiding-places.
“Hurry up for your lives!” cried Gerard. In shamefaced silence Popa
pointed to an easier track. Slowly and laboriously the two badly
wounded were passed down by the others; the trail was followed back
again; the foot-path was reached. Near the entrance to the wood a
patrol met them, sent out on the report of the firing.
“And you, Popa, speak,” said Gerard, after the tension was over.
“It is my crime, Lieutenant; the fault be on my head. I observed
the trail as we went by; my thoughts were heavy for the murdered
Adja. I wandered down it a few steps in my curiosity, knowing I
could soon rejoin you. Suddenly one struck at me from the darkness
through the grass.”
“And why did they not come after us?” questioned Gerard.
“You were gone on, up above; the grass is high. There were two of
them only; I was alone, marauding.”
“You shall be shot to-morrow,” said Gerard.
“Lieutenant, it is right.”
* * * * *
But on the morrow nobody had any time to think of shooting Popa.
At a very early hour, in the dewy silence of sunrise, the gates of
the fortified camp were thrown back, and the stream of soldiers,
solemnly emerging, went curling down into the rice-fields, with a
long glitter of guns. All eyes were fixed on the farther frontier
of forest, where stretched, half-hidden, the low, sullen line of
the enemy’s defence. A couple of advance forts, whose small cannon
were proving especially troublesome, had been marked out for
the morning’s attack. Of late these operations had been greatly
restricted, and the men now sent out accepted gratefully a
possibility of painless death. For the shadow of cholera lay lurid
upon the camp.
Gerard was indeed in luck, as Streeling had said, after all these
wistfully patient months. He had taken a sick man’s place, and was
acting as a (mounted) captain.
In the slow splendor of the burning daybreak, across that vast
expanse of increasing sun, the “right half of the seventeenth
battalion,” separating from the main body, advanced with half
a company of sappers, under cover of artillery, against the
fortifications of Lariboe. They were barely within range when
the enemy opened fire from his lilas or little cannon, almost
immediately backing up the discharge with the flat bang of numerous
blunderbusses and the rarer whistle of the breech-loader. The roar
of his resistance now became continuous, and soon his intrenchments
ran like a torrent of flame under rapidly thickening clouds.
At a distance of some two hundred and fifty paces the troops
halted, momentarily, to send back a volley in reply. Then on they
went again, silently filling up the gaps in their ranks, while,
after the custom of Eastern warfare, a hailstorm of curses and
abusive epithets now mingled with the deadlier missiles that poured
into their midst. At fifty paces the order was given to charge.
The men, rushing forward to their special point of attack, found
themselves arrested by an outer hedge of thick bamboo bushes,
with a broad border of bamboo spikes. Once close up against this
position they were somewhat more sheltered from the fire of the
central line, and, moreover, protected by the artillery behind
them; but the garrison of the fort did not leave them one moment
unharassed. They were now compelled to unsheathe their knives, and,
with the aid of the sappers, they began calmly carving a passage
through the dense obstruction of the bamboos.
A few terrible minutes elapsed. Some of the soldiers, cut by the
spikes, flung themselves in furious effort against this living
wall; others recoiled for a moment, disheartened by the groans
of the wounded around them, feeling hopelessly arrested between
advance and retreat. Then, as death still continued to blaze
down upon them, amid the taunts of the enemy, they rushed bravely
to their task again, cheered by their officers, who well knew the
strain of such an obstinate impediment. Every moment of delay was
calamitous. Through an opening the fort became visible, lying well
back behind a field, its ramparts vaguely crowded with brightly
turbaned heads. And half-way between hedge and fort rose insolently
the banner of Acheen’s Sultan, with its crescent and klewangs, over
a stuffed doll, intended for a caricature of the idolized Dutch
General, ignominiously hanging by the feet.
[Illustration: “THEY BEGAN CALMLY CARVING A PASSAGE THROUGH THE
DENSE OBSTRUCTION”]
Not one man who was there but will remember with what a fury of
reprisal this childish insult filled our breasts. Amid shouts
of execration the attack on the breach was renewed; but at that
moment, above the hacking and swearing, a dark mass, rushing
swiftly from the background, rose mighty in mid-air, and at one
leap--grown historic--Helmont’s horse cleared spikes, soldiers, and
bamboos, and landed serenely on the farther side. Then, galloping
up to the derisive effigy, Helmont rapidly cut it loose, bringing
down the enemy’s flag along with it, and, flinging the colors
of Acheen across his revolver, he fired through them five swift
barrels at the clustering turbans which were concentrating their
aim on this unexpected target. Then, holding the image superbly
aloft, he began backing his horse--all in one exquisite instant of
time--and fell heavily, horse, rider, and effigy rolling together
amid a sudden rush of blood. Before and behind rose a mingling
yell as of wild beasts wounded. A little brown Amboinese, his
clothes and limbs torn and ensanguined, ran forward, having fought
his way first through the aperture, and flung himself as a screen
across the prostrate officer. Only a moment longer and the whole
lot of them, with faces distorted and uniforms disordered, came
pouring over the field under a fierce increase of projectiles. They
swept upward in the madness of the storm, the brief pandemonium
of shouts, shrieks, and imprecations, the whirlwind of firing and
fighting, in a mystery of dust and smoke. And a cheer, leaping
high above that hell, leaping high with a human note of gladness,
announced that the fort had been carried, that victory was won. Up
with our own orange rag on the summit! Hark to the shrill blare of
the bugle! Hurrah!
They disengaged Helmont from his dying charger and carried him away
to the ambulance. In undressing him, cutting loose the clothes, the
doctor came on his parcel of letters, and, a moment afterwards,
on an old brown glove. The left hand still firmly clutched the
hideously grinning doll. Popa would permit no one to force the
fingers asunder--Popa, who, in spite of his shoulder-wound, had
obtained leave that morning to get himself killed by the enemy if
he could, and who certainly had done his best. The doctor gently
put aside the relic and the opened letters. Gerard had still read
them the night before. There had been one more, which he had read
twice over, and had then burned carefully and ground to dust.
“Helmont,” cried the purple Colonel, hurriedly, stooping low by the
young man’s unconscious ear. “Can’t you understand what I’m saying?
I’ve only a moment. It’s the Military Cross. Gentlemen, surely that
should call him to life again. Helmont, I swear, by the heavens
above us, it’s bound to be the Military Cross!”
* * * * *
The Dowager looked up from her placid embroidery and smiled to
Plush. Beyond the great gray window the sleepy twilight was softly
sinking back into an unbroken veil of mist. “What a dull drab day
it has been!” said the Dowager. “I wonder--” But she left her
sentence unfinished. And the folds of the curtain hung dense. For
an Angel of Mercy has drawn it across our horizon.
FOOTNOTE:
[L] Achinese torture. The Dutch soldier says, “Lieutenant,” etc.