"What now?" "Kruger Bobs got despatch from Syb for Boss."
Weldon's face expressed his amusement.
"Much obliged to the lady. Give her mine." "Syb say--" Again the
thick black lips approached Weldon's ear, and the bristly head
nodded energetically in time to the moving lips.
"Who?" Weldon said incredulously. "Miss Mellen?"
"Ya, Boss."
"How does Syb--Is that what you call her?--how does she know? Oh, I
remember now. It is the girl who served at Miss Mellen's home,"
Weldon said, as light began to dawn.
"Ya, Boss; dat Syb."
"And she is here with Miss Mellen?"
Kruger Bobs nodded.
"What are they doing?"
"Dey is nurses sick mens." "How long have they been here?"
"One, tree, five day."
"Five days," Weldon translated to himself. "It was an odd chance,
your running on her so soon. Did she know we were here?"
"She tink ya," Kruger Bobs replied. "Syb no tell." "But why not?"
The matter-of-course question appeared to fill Kruger Bobs with
amazement.
"Boss make night march," he answered. "She may not care to have me.
Still, we'll ride out there with you in the morning."
"Boss?"
"Mr. Carew and myself."
Kruger Bobs looked hurt. In hot excitement, the black fingers closed
on a fold of the brown sleeve.
"Kruger Bobs go, too?"
"What makes you want to go?"
"Syb dere, Boss."
"I don't see what difference that makes," Weldon said reflectively.
Once more Kruger Bobs turned coy.
"Boss go see his vrouw; me go see Syb," he explained briefly.
Weldon's laugh astonished him; still more Weldon's answer.
"Oh, Kruger Bobs, you love-struck calf! Because you're in love with
Syb, do you think it follows that I am in love with Miss Mellen?"
Kruger Bobs plotted geometrical problems with his left toe.
"Syb say," he replied at length. Then he raised his eyes from his
problem. "Boss vrouw good," he ventured persuasively.
Weldon laughed again.
"So we all think. Mr. Carew knows her much better than I do, though,
and Miss Mellen would be hurt, if he didn't go out to see her."
But Kruger Bobs stood his ground. "Boss Weldon go see his vrouw;
Kruger Bobs go see his vrouw; Boss Carew no vrouw."
However, in spite of the advice of Kruger Bobs, Carew was at
Weldon's side, as they rode through Winburg, the next morning.
Already the country was taking on the look of summer, and the dusty
stretches of veldt were tinged here and there with thin patches of
growing green. Over the hills nearest the town were scattered the
lines of ruined trenches, still littered here and there with rusty
tools dropped there by the Boers when, long months before, they had
caught sight of the advancing armies of French and Hutton. As they
drew nearer, Weldon could make out the familiar details of a field
hospital: the low white tents in their circle of whitewashed stones,
the Red-Cross nurses hurrying to and fro and the blue-coated
convalescents strolling leisurely about the enclosure. Carew,
meanwhile, had pushed forward. Above the P. M. O.'s tent fluttered
the Red Cross, and he had caught sight of a white apron and a
scarlet cape in the open door.
"Miss Mellen! Alice!"
In the still air of a summer noon, Carew's voice carried distinctly
back to Weldon. He glanced towards the tent. Then, beckoning to
Kruger Bobs, he turned and rode away to inspect the distant
landscape.
An hour later, Kruger Bobs was squatting on the ground, a heaped
plate on his knees and a smile of rapture surrounding his smacking
lips. Near him, the three horses munched contentedly, stamping
lightly now and then and whisking their tails to drive off the
buzzing flies. Outside the door of the tent, Alice Mellen sat on a
bench, with Carew at her side and Weldon sprawling lazily on the
ground at her feet.
"Twenty-seven inside," she told them. "It is mostly enteric and S.
C., men who have been sent here from Bloemfontein. Their hospitals
are overcrowded. We have both sorts here, you know."
"Nursing Boers?" Carew asked, disapprovingly.
"Why not? They are men, plucky men, too, some of them. I rather like
the race. Anyway, it makes an interesting mixture. We have had to
put them all together, and they get on capitally, exchanging stories
and gossip and sympathy like men of the same company. One of them, a
Boer,--" she hesitated for the right word; then she adopted the
vernacular of the service--"went out, the other day; and, among his
mourners, the sincerest ones were the two London Tommies in the two
next beds. War isn't all hatred, by any means. Turn nurse for a
month and you'll find it out."
"Or else turn patient," Carew interpolated quietly.
Her color came; but she only turned more directly to Weldon.
"I was glad to come here for a change," she added. "Shall you stay
here long?"
"It is impossible to tell. The other nurses here are younger at it
than I, and there are some hard cases. If it were not for Syb, I
should be at my wits' end sometimes."
"Then ought you to stay here?" Carew urged, with a sudden assumption
of proprietorship which sat well upon him.
She faced him with a smile.
"Oh, but this is nothing in comparison with Johannesburg. There the
work is agonizing. Between wounds and enteric, the place is crammed,
and we can't get the nurses we absolutely need. My mother thought I
was growing too tired, and she sent Syb up here to take care of me.
Instead, I have pressed her into the service and trained her until
she is one of the best nurses I have ever had under me. The men
adore her, she is so strong and so full of her queer, jolly fun."
With his head pillowed on his arms, Weldon lay watching her
thoughtfully. Under her piles of inky hair, her face looked thin,
and the shadows lay heavy around her eyes. Nevertheless, the eyes
were shining and the curves of the lips were all upward. Plainly the
day had brought her a tonic; yet the past six months had told upon
the girl pitilessly.
"But, for God's sake, when is it all to end?" he burst out suddenly.
"Tired of the service, Mr. Weldon?" she asked gravely, but with no
accent of reproach.
"Not tired of my own. But the worst of it all comes back on you
women, and that is maddening."
She smiled down at him, and the light in her eyes deepened and grew
yet more womanly.
"It is all we can do to help, Mr. Weldon. Let us take what share we
can. The work is hard, hard and discouraging; but--" involuntarily
she glanced at Carew's happy, handsome face; "but now and then it
brings its own reward."
The short silence was broken only by Kruger Bobs, scraping his spoon
along his fast-emptying plate. Then Alice spoke again.
"You hear often from Cooee, Mr. Weldon?"
"Now and then. Not often."
"Did you know that she may come to us, after Christmas?"
"No," he said alertly. "To Johannesburg?"
She nodded.
"We need her, and my aunt has almost given her consent. The need
grows greater, every day; we can't hold out much longer, unless we
can have more help. Cooee isn't trained at all; but she has endless
tact and she knows how to take orders. Unless January brings us
fewer patients, I think she will come north for a month." "Does she
wish to?"
Alice laughed.
"As a matter of mere conscience. Cooee hates lint and disinfectants
and the hush of things; but she begins to see the need before her.
She makes all manner of fun of me, and of the whole hospital scheme
of things; but still I think she will come. My aunt opposes it; but
we are trying to compromise on a month. That won't wear Cooee out,
and the novelty will last for that length of time, and help keep up
her enthusiasm."
"Did you know Captain Frazer is coming up, in a week or two?"
For an instant, Alice's eyes clouded.
"No. When did you hear?"
"Just as I left camp. The appointment took him quite by surprise,
and he wrote to me at once," Weldon answered with quiet dignity, for
he was not slow to read the question in the girl's mind.
Her face cleared.
"I hadn't heard. Cooee's last letter is three weeks old, so it
couldn't bring the news." Then she glanced over her shoulder, as one
of the doctors halted on the threshold. "Am I needed?"
"Young Walpole is just going," he said gravely. "He has asked for
you."
Both men rose to their feet. It was Carew, however, who lingered.
"We are leaving Winburg, to-morrow, so this is good by," he said
regretfully. "Take care of yourself, Alice, and bless you!" And,
underneath its happiness, his boyish face was unusually grave, as he
mounted and rode away at Weldon's side.