"Yes," Carew said meditatively; "I wish there had been glory enough
to go around. As long as there wasn't, though, I am glad it was
fated to fall to your share."
Weldon hurled a little black stone at a great black rock.
"Not so much glory, after all."
Carew raised his eyes and apostrophized the dark gray clouds rushing
across the paler gray arch of the sky.
"Just listen to the man! What can he be wanting? 'Not so much
glory!' And he recommended for a V. C.!"
Weldon shook his head.
"What does it profit a man," he paraphrased; "if he gain the V. C.
and lose one of his best friends? Besides, I didn't gain it; it was
fated. Paddy was as brave as I, and so were half a dozen more of
them. It was only chance that brought me through the bullets."
"Poor Paddy!" Carew's tone was full of thoughtful regret.
"Not poor at all. He had the end we all are wishing for. He died
with his boots on, and fighting pluckily for a forlorn hope. We
can't mourn a man that we envy."
Half way to the distant sky-line, the horses of the squadron were
grazing peacefully over the stubbly grass. The corporal and the
third of the troopers appointed to guard them were far away towards
the crest of a ridge to the westward, and Carew and Weldon were
alone. Carew sat silent for a moment, his eyes on the scattered
groups of horses. Then he turned and looked directly at his friend.
"Perhaps," he assented. "I was sorry to be out of the scrimmage. It
took all my grit to obey you, old man; but it was an order. Now it
is over--"
"Well?" Weldon prompted him.
"Now it is over, I am less sorry than I was. The fact is, the future
holds a good deal for us."
"For you, perhaps."
"For you, too. The whole future of a man doesn't go to wreck in an
hour. There are other crises later on, and some of them are bound to
come out well. Save yourself for those, Weldon. There is no especial
use in throwing yourself away."
"I'm not. But, when the order comes, I must obey it," Weldon said
gloomily.
"It depends something on the order; but it depends a good sight more
on the way you obey it. When a man comes into collision with a
bulldog, it's generally wise to grapple with him back of his teeth;
else, you may lose a thumb or two. It's the same way with your
orders here. Because you don't funk, there is no reason you should
flirt with an early death."
"But I don't."
"What about now?"
"What do you mean?"
"That you ought to be in hospital."
Weldon threw back his head and laughed, but mirthlessly.
"Why, then?"
Without speaking, Carew took out his pipe, filled it and began
fumbling in his pocket.
"Have you a match?" he asked.
Weldon nodded, produced the match, lighted it and held it to the
extended pipe. Carew's eyes, drooped to the bowl, watched the bit of
flame.
"Do you call that a steady hand?" he asked then. "Man, you're ill, I
tell you. Your face is hot and your hands are cold, and your nerves
are worn to shoestrings, frayed shoestrings at that. If you keep on,
you'll be down flatter than you like. You ought to have stopped four
weeks ago."
Weldon crossed his arms at the nape of his neck and lay back at his
ease on the ground.
"Then what would have become of my V. C.?" he queried, with languid
indifference.
"But I thought you claimed not to care for your V. C."
"I don't. My friends may, however." "As a legacy? I think your
friends may possibly choose you to the V. C."
"Foolish of them," Weldon commented. "Still, 'If we could choose the
time, and choose aright, 'T were best to die, our honor at the
height.' I learned that when I was a small boy; but I've only just
found out what it means."
With scoffing lips, but eyes full of unspoken love, Carew turned on
his friend.
"Don't dodder, Weldon," he counselled him. "That's canting drivvle,
made to console the unsuccessful. No man knows when he has reached
his high-water mark. Yours may have come on the day you licked
Stevie Ballard for gilding the tailless cat; it may not come till
you are ninety."
"No." The syllable was quiet, deliberate. Then Weldon roused himself
and sat up to speak with sudden energy. "Promise me this, Carew,
that while the matter is hanging fire, you won't mention this V. C.
business to any one."
Carew stared at him in unmixed surprise.
"What's the matter now?" he asked blankly.
"Nothing, only that I want you to promise."
"Not to--"
"Not to a living soul."
"Why? What's the use?"
"No use, but my wish. If it comes off, let it be as a joyous
surprise. If it misses fire, as it quite well may, then there'll be
no harm done. In either case, it is best to keep still. My own
notion is that I'll not get it. As a rule, one doesn't get the V. C.
for shinning up the side of a hill, no matter how steep it is."
Carew made no attempt to discuss the chances. Instead, he merely
asked,--
"Mayn't I tell Miss Mellen?"
Weldon shook his head. It was exactly to prevent the inevitable
consequences of Alice Mellen's knowing the story that he was seeking
to extort the promise from Carew. To protect his motive, however, he
took a sudden resolution.
"I shall not even tell my mother," he answered, with slow emphasis.
Carew raised his brows.
"Then I suppose that ties my tongue. I am sorry. What's the use of
being so confoundedly modest, Weldon?"
"Do you promise?"
"I suppose I must."
"On your honor?"
"On my honor."
Weldon stretched himself out at full length once more.
"So be it. Give me a light. You took my last match," he said as
unconcernedly as if they had merely been talking of the weather.
Indeed, the weather might well have been the subject of their talk.
The earth was baked until it cracked beneath the parching sun and
wind. There had been no rain for weeks; but, to-day, the raw wind
sent the lead-colored clouds flying over the sky, and the
lead-colored clouds were heavy with rain. All the morning and till
mid-afternoon, the column had been camping not far away, while their
weary, hungry mounts had been turned out on the veldt to graze. For
men and mounts, the halt was needed.
The fight about the laager had been no easy victory. Twelve hundred
half-starved Britons are no match for fifteen hundred Boers fat with
easy living. Weldon's hold on the crest had decided the game; but
the game had not played itself out without wounds for some and utter
weariness for all. War mad, yet half-dazed in all other respects,
Weldon had watched the reinforcements come swarming up the hill to
his relief, had heard their cheers mingling themselves with the
sound of his name. Then, listless, but with his arm still about
Paddy's shoulders, he had seen the fight move to its destined
finish. He came down from the hilltop, feeling that something had
taken yet one more turn in the evertightening coil of his brain. For
one instant, as they were laying Paddy into the narrow grave scooped
out of the veldt, the coil relaxed. Then, as the lumps of earth
closed over his plucky, loyal little comrade, it tightened again and
pressed on him more closely than ever.
And that was a week ago; and the week between had been one long trek
in search of errant Boers. Weldon still rode in the front of the
column. He had been ordered into hospital; but, bracing himself, he
had looked the doctor steadily between the eyes and had refused to
obey. The hospital was not for him--as yet. "By Jove!" Carew was
remarking deliberately. "Look at the horses!"
Noses in air, tails lashing and eyes staring wildly, the frightened
groups had swept together and were rushing down upon them in one mad
stampede. Straight towards the two troopers they came dashing along,
swerved slightly and went sweeping past them, wrapped in a thick
column of dust which parted, just as the horde rushed by, before the
fierce impact of the breaking storm. From zenith to horizon, the
leaden sky was marked with wavering lines of golden fire; but the
shock of the thunder was outborne by the clash of falling hail. Half
a mile away, the tents were riddled by the egg-sized lumps of ice;
and, out on the open veldt, Carew threw himself on the earth, face
downward, and buried his head in his sheltering arms. But Weldon
staggered to his feet. In the thick of the flying troop of horses,
he had seen the little gray broncho, and now, before she swept on
out of hearing, he turned his back to the gale and gave a high,
shrill whistle. It was months, now, since Piggie had learned that
call. Again and again she had come trotting up to him, to rub her
muzzle against his neck in token that she had heard and understood.
There was scant chance that the call would be carried to her by the
boisterous wind, scanter chance still that, hearing it now in that
mad rout, she would heed. Nevertheless, Weldon took the chance.
Obviously stampeded by the enemy, the missing horses would leave the
column powerless to repel the attack which was imminent. If Piggie
could be recalled, there was still a chance to regain the other
mounts. Yet, even while he was weighing all the chances, he smiled
to himself as he recalled the ineffectual little whistle that had
gone out on the whistling wind. The chance was gone. Like Carew, he
would lie down and seek what shelter he could get from the earth and
from his own clasping arms.
The hail, falling thickly, shut down about the troop of horses and
took them from his sight. If his eyes could have followed them, he
would have seen one little gray head toss itself upward from the
heart of the throng, one sturdy little gray back move more and more
slowly, turn slightly, then weave its patient way in and out between
its frightened companions until, free from the press of the crowd,
it stood alone on the hail-lashed plain. Ten minutes later, Weldon
felt a soft, wet muzzle poking its way between his tight-locked
arms. The rest was simple. It amounted to riding back to the column
to give warning of the enemy who rode close in the rear, to
summoning Kruger Bobs and The Nig, and then, without stopping for a
saddle, to go galloping away to the sky-line to round up the
stampeded herd. The first dash of hail over, the rain fell fast upon
them; but, above its roar, they could hear the steady firing of the
pom pom behind them and the crackle of musketry mingled with the
heavier fire.
Four o'clock had brought the stampede and the storm. Seven o'clock
brought Weldon and Kruger Bobs, drenched to the skin, back into a
demoralized camp. Nine o'clock found Weldon still in the saddle, his
teeth chattering, his brown cheeks ablaze and his eyes hot with
fever, while he waited for the pitching of his tattered tent. Then,
even before its soggy, torn folds were stretched and pegged into
position, he turned and rode off in search of a doctor.
"Sorry," he said briefly; "but I think I've a touch of fever. Can
you put me to bed somewhere?"
The next morning, he greeted Kruger Bobs by the name of a girl
cousin who had died, ten years before.