He awakened from that lost moment of enthralment to the pang and the shock
of self-discovery, and to the knowledge that somebody was hailing him by
name from the top of the ladder.
"Saxham! Doctor! Are you below there?"
It was the gay, fresh voice of Beauvayse, halted with a handful of
Irregulars, bandoliered, carrying their rifles and the day's provisions,
wearing their bayonets on their hips, and sitting their wiry little horses
with the ease of old troopers in the lee-side of the piled-up mound of
sandbags that roofed the underground convent. Five men and a Corporal of
the Town Guard, similarly burdened and accoutred--we know the pale Cockney
eyes and the thin face of the Corporal, whose freckles have long ago
vanished in a uniform gingerbread hue--had also taken momentary shelter
from one of the intermittent blizzards of Mauser bullets that drifted
through Gueldersdorp.
One Irregular was sitting on an earth-filled packing-case, swearing
softly, nursing a disabled right arm, and looking at the corded network of
hairy, sunburned muscles that were delicately outlined in the bright red
stream that trickled from beneath the rolled-up shirt-sleeve of raspy
"greyback."
"We saw your hairy tied up outside, Doctor, and 'sensed' your whereabouts,
as McFadyen says. Can the ladies spare you for a moment? Sorry to be a
nuisance, but one of my fellows has got winged on our way to relieve the
garrison at Maxim Outpost South, and though he swears he is as fit as a
fiddle, I don't believe he ought to come on."
"I'm all right, Sir, 'pon me Sam I am!" protested the dismounted trooper.
"It's a bit stiff, but the bleedin' 'll take that off. I shan't shoot a
tikkie the worse for it. Lay anybody 'ere a caulker I don't!"
Nobody took up the bet, fortunately for the sportsman, as surgical
examination proved that the bullet had gone sheer through the fleshy part
of the upper arm, breaking the bone, just missing the artery, and leaving
a clean hole.
"You'll have to go to Hospital, my man," pronounced Saxham.
The face of the wounded Irregular lengthened in disgust. "My crimson luck!
And I'd made up my mind to pick off a brace o' them blasted Dutch wart
'ogs over that there bad job of pore Bob Ellis."
He blinked violently, and gulped down something that rose in his brown,
muscular throat as the voice of a comrade, middle-aged like himself,
coffee-baked as a Colonial, and also speaking with the accents of the
English barrack-room, took up the tale.
"Bob Ellis was 'is pal, Sir, and mine, too. We was in the same battery of
'Orse Artillery at Ali Musjid, an' we went up along of Lord Kitchener to
Khartoum. An' they shot Bob yesterday. Through the 'ead, clean, an' 'e
never spoke another word."
"Through the loop-'ole o' the parapet, it was," went on the wounded man.
"Bein' in the advance trench, we've got on neighbourly terms like, with
the Dutchies, and Tom Kelly, wot 'as just bin speakin', 'eard Bob Ellis
promisin' this bloke as 'ow if 'e'd on'y 'urry up an' git killed soon
enough, Bob would 'ave 'is farm and 'is frow when 'e come marchin' along
to Pretoria. 'Oppin' mad the Dopper was at that, an' the names 'e called
pore Bob was something disgraceful. An' when 'e got Bob through the
loop-'ole, me an' Kelly made our minds up to show a bit o' fancy shootin'
and lay 'im out in turn. That's 'ow it was, Sir. An' now"--the voice grew
shaky--"they've corked me. Corked me, by God I--an' there's not a bloke
among the lot of us but me can play the concertina." With his undamaged
arm he swung round his haversack, bulging at the top with a cheap,
bone-keyed, rosewood-veneered, gaudy-paper-sided instrument of German
make, and hung his head over it in silence.
"But what on earth has the concertina got to do with it?" Saxham was
frankly puzzled, and Beauvayse, with all his professional knowledge of
"Tommy," was for once nonplussed.
"You'd better explain to the Doctor, Corporal Leash. I'm out of the
running when it comes to killing men with concertinas. And--you don't play
as badly as all that, do you?"
"On the contrywise, Sir," explained the comrade Kelly, "plays uncommon
well, he does--all the tunes of the latest music-'all and patriotic
songs."
"An' them blasted Doppers are uncommon fond o' music, d'ye see, Sir,"
explained the wounded trooper. "They can't keep their ugly 'eads down
behind the sand-bags when they hears it. Up they pops 'em over the edge
and then--you take care they don't pop down no more."
The gay young laughter of Beauvayse was infectious, while white teeth
showed, or teeth that were not white, in the tanned faces of Irregulars
and Town Guardsmen. Even the mourning comrades grinned, and Saxham smiled
grimly as Beauvayse cried:
"By George, a more original method of reprisal I never came across! But
it's clear if you can't shoot with that drilled arm of yours you can't
play the concertina. Wish I could knock a tune out of the thing, Leash,
for your sake--enough to make a Boer put his head up. But I'm a duffer at
musical instruments--always was. What do you say, my man?"
"Beg pardon, Sir." The Corporal with the Town Guardsmen saluted, making
the most of his five feet two inches. "I can pl'y the squiffer--I mean the
concertina, Sir--a fair treat for a hammatore. And if I might be let to
tyke this man's plyce at Maxim Outpost South, Sir, I could 'elp serve the
gun, too, Sir--we've bin' attendin' Artillery Drill in spare hours."
"I shouldn't think you had any spare hours to spare?" Beauvayse looked at
the thin, tanned face with liking, and the keen pale eyes met his fairly.
"We haven't, Sir, but we manage some'ow."
"But what about your own duty?"
"I'm tykin' these men over, Sir." He indicated a solid family grocer, a
clerk of the County Court, a pseudo-Swiss baker, and two Navy Reserve men
reduced to the ranks for aggressive intemperance of the methylated-spirit
kind, which, in the absence of other liquor, had prevailed among a certain
class, until the intoxicating medium was confiscated by Government.
"Captain Thwaite 'as spared us from the Cemetery Works to relieve Corporal
Brice an' 'is little lot at Angle VII. South Trenches. A telephone-message
come from our Colonel to say Brice's men was bad with rheumatism and
dysentery--but Brice is all right an' fit, Sir--and"--the pale eyes
pleaded out of the brickdust-coloured face--"I'd like the charnce o'
gettin' nearer to the enemy, Sir--an' that's the truth."
Beauvayse conceded. "Very well. I'll square things with your commanding
officer as we go along, and explain matters to the Colonel per telephone
from Maxim Outpost South. Come on there when you've handed over your men
to Brice."