CHAPTER XIX.
THE SECOND ROUND.
IT seemed only natural to Eveleen, who had learnt the hour of the start from Brian, to bind Ketty by promises and threats to wake her at half-past three, so that she was able not merely to ply Richard with coffee and sandwiches—an attention he received with tolerance rather than enthusiasm,—but to ride a short way with the army on its march. Unfortunately Richard did not take the same view. He was not going to be made a fool of before the new reinforcements by his wife’s sticking to him as if he was not to be trusted out by himself! Eveleen looked at him critically.
“Sure y’have got up too early, Ambrose, and your temper is spoilt for the day! It’s Brian I’ll ride with, don’t be afraid, and you can be cross all to yourself.”
“D’ye think I don’t know you have set your heart on emulating Lady Cinnamond by riding in the ranks, Mrs Ambrose? But this ain’t Salamanca, and I ain’t old Cinnamond. I tell you plainly I won’t have it.”
“Wouldn’t you better wait till y’are asked?” sweetly.
Richard snorted furiously. “Well, just understand this, if you please. If you attempt it, I’ll go sick and come straight back, rather than look like a figure of fun before the whole army.”
“Indeed and you have got your way now. Will I let my husband shame himself and me, and fail the General? Make your mind easy; I’ll not come. But listen now; my mind is easy too. I might have been afraid for y’if y’had started out this morning like a decent reasonable man, but now y’are so cross I need have no fear at all that anything will happen you.”
This assurance failed to mollify Richard to any particular extent, and he took his leave of her with distinct coldness. Nor was he specially pleased, when the force was at length in motion, marching eastwards through a blind maze of wooded nullahs and shikargahs cut up by canals, in which the whole enemy army might have been concealed close at hand, to hear Brian laugh suddenly, and on looking up to see Eveleen sitting on her horse on a hillock which commanded some approach to a view. She leaned forward eagerly and waved her handkerchief as they passed beneath her, and the General saluted and shook his fist at her in the same breath. It was to please Richard that she turned and rode back to camp as soon as the staff had gone by, but the ungrateful Richard, having saluted with extreme stiffness, was unaware of her consideration, since he refused to look at her again. Sir Harry and the rest thought he was anxious lest she might fall into the hands of the enemy—for the spies had brought word that Kamal-ud-din had moved from the position reconnoitred three days ago, and might be lying in wait in this tangle of woods and ravines, instead of waiting at his old headquarters to be attacked,—and tried to console him with assurances that, much as she deserved it, nothing worse was likely to happen to her, even if the Arabit scouts did appear, than a good fright. Sir Harry’s force, numbering five thousand men, was double that which he had led to victory at Mahighar, and he had been able to leave eight hundred to guard the camp and five hundred in garrison in the Fort, so that Kamal-ud-din would certainly keep his men well together, and not allow desultory raiding. But had Eveleen known what the General learned from a herdsman after a weary march of some miles, she might have had the fright Brian kindly desired for her. Kamal-ud-din had moved, not towards his original position, but towards Qadirabad, so that he was now on the left rear of the column, and threatening not only its communications, but also the city and the camp. But since she did not know, she was not alarmed, and unaware that the column had turned aside at right angles from its first line of march, only wondered, when the boom of the guns began, that the sound should seem so near.
She wandered about the house restlessly all morning, trying to guess at the changing course of the battle by the varying cannonade, and sorely tempted to ride out again and find her way to the hospital tents, that she might be as close to the fighting as she had been at Mahighar. Now and then an officer passed, from whom she learned that the battle was certainly taking place well to the north of the General’s line of march, but that there was no sign of the attack on the city which had been anticipated for the same moment. Tired out with anxiety, she sat down wearily at last on the verandah, looking out over the wooded country, and distinguishing in impossible places clouds of smoke that could only come from the guns. Then at last her waiting was rewarded, for two men rode into the compound—Brian, a gruesome figure in aggressive bandages and a deeply stained coat, and a native orderly who was keeping so close at hand as to suggest he had been supporting him on his horse. Eveleen dashed out—hatless, of course, but happily by this time there was shade on this side of the house.
“Brian, what’s happened you? Is it wounded y’are?”
“Not a bit of it.” Brian grinned languidly from the saddle. “Pricked my finger, that’s all.”
“Ah then, don’t try to tease now! Will I bring a chair to help you get down?”
“You will not. Go in and get a nice comfortable chair ready for me, and Nizam Ali will help me get to it. And—I say—salts or something!”
That this last request was a heartless ruse on Brian’s part to get her out of the way while he was helped down and into the house was clear to her when she heard him whistling “Jim Crow” as she rummaged for the salts, and on returning breathless found him established in a long chair and again grinning. He rewarded her efforts so far as to take a tremendous sniff at the salts and declare that he was “kilt,” even before he thanked and dismissed the trooper, and then lay back in the chair and laughed quietly.
“Oughtn’t you go to bed, Brian?” asked Eveleen anxiously.
“Not dis nigger. Why, d’ye think I’d be here but that my old lad said I was making too much mess of his nice clean battlefield, and ordered me off? The sawbones who tied me up wanted to put me in a doolie, regardless of the other poor chaps waiting, but I says in my best English History manner, ‘Brother,’ says I, ‘their need is greater than mine,’ beckoned to Nizam Ali, and came away on my own four feet—leastways on little Bawn’s. And here I am.”
“I’m sure y’are over-excited. Y’oughtn’t be talking so much. Brian!” a horrible suspicion darting into her mind—“what about Ambrose?”
“Riding hard, when I saw him last, with a message from the General to the cavalry not to chase the enemy too far, lest they’d be cut off before the infantry could come up.”
“Then ’twas another victory?”
“Will you listen to the woman! Another victory? Of course it is—as big as Mahighar, if not bigger. But it’s got to have a name found for it, for did y’ever hear of such a name for a victory as Mussuck?”
“Mussuck? There’s some little bit of a village called that, I remember. So ’twas there you fought? But sure you were all going quite wrong when I saw you, then.”
“And would have done, but for a decent man minding cattle, who saved us a big disappointment, and Kamal-ud-din a big triumph. We had to turn almost straight back and march full two miles before we found him in the position he’d prepared for himself.”
“The one you explored the other day?”
“No, much nearer the city. Didn’t I tell ye ’twas at Mussuck? Place very like Mahighar. ‘Not much originality about them?’ says the General. Same little river, even—except that it had a bit of water in it by now, not just mud,—but farther down, of course, and ’twas on our left instead of across our front. It was two nullahs they had chosen for stopping us this time—one behind the other, tremendous places; shikargahs to right and left, village behind the left one, as per usual. Nullahs scarped everywhere, and every scrap of jungle and cover cleared away in front, of course, to give ’em a clear field of fire. They do know their business, those chaps, if they can find the place to suit ’em. Some fellow said he saw a European among ’em, but that ain’t like——”
“Now oughtn’t you be quiet and rest a little? I love to hear about it, but I’m afraid——”
“You needn’t be that. Why wouldn’t I get it clear in my own mind? We had a bit of a check just at first, for after all the jungle and the nullahs we’d been traversing, the army came out on the plain a good deal mixed up, and the General had to go from regiment to regiment straightening ’em out, instead of reconnoitring as he did at Mahighar. That might have done for us, for Keeling, who was exploring under fire, couldn’t get near enough to make certain how things lay. Somehow we all had the notion that the village behind the enemy’s right wasn’t held—the spies swore it. And what seemed to show they were concentrated on their left was that men would keep on running out from the edge of the wood there, take a good look at us, and run back again—we could see ’em through our glasses. What would be more natural than that they’d have an ambush there, as they did before, but without any wall to keep ’em from coming out and falling on us? So the General avoided that side, meaning to give ’em a good run under fire across the cleared space before they could reach us. Through an opening in the trees beyond the two nullahs, we could see the Arabits in great numbers hurrying to their right, and it looked for all the world as though the same idea had come to them and the General at the same moment—each determined to rush the village before t’other side could get there. But it was a trap again, though a different kind of one. They had the place packed with men already, and the men that were running were only in support. Eleven guns they brought to bear on us, and before ours could get into position to reply, our line wavered a bit, but there was never anything like falling back. The queer thing was that the moment we stuck, off went our cavalry on the right in a tremendous charge straight at the wood. Whether Keeling and Rickmer had taken to heart the General’s remarks on the slackness of the Bengallers at Mahighar, and thought he was in straits again and now was their time I don’t know, but ’twas the finest sight I ever saw. They plunged right down the nullahs and up again, all shouting their war-cries, and we stood staring after ’em till the red turbans and the gleaming swords were lost in the trees. If the wood had been held as we thought, ’twould have been madness and destruction, that charge, but ’twas not, and seeing the enemy as confounded as ourselves, the General rallied the infantry and led ’em on. I give you my word not a man faltered. The Queen’s —th led, as was their right after Mahighar, and they marched straight up to the entrenchments as steady as on parade. The Arabits tried to jump out on us with a howl, as they did that first time, but ’twas a mighty poor imitation. ’Twas our men jumped down among them instead, and we had a hand-to-hand fight all along that nullah and the next. We had ’em much more at our mercy this time—if you can call it that when they must have been six times our numbers,—for Keeling and Rickmer were pressing ’em from the right, and as fast as they got out of the nullah and ran for their lives, they only ran into the arms of the rest of our cavalry, which had skirted round the shikargah on the left, and was waiting to receive ’em and turn ’em back. We had a frightful time in the village, clearing ’em out of every house in turn, for they fought like tigers, and of course our guns could do nothing for fear of hurting us.”
“And would that be where you were wounded?”
“Just outside it. Chap made a cut at me wrong way about—up instead of down—nasty sort of blow. If it hadn’t been that I got in my cut at the same minute, and spoiled the force of his—well, the old man’s despatches would have regretted the loss of another promising young officer. So you were very near rid of me, don’t you know?”
“Ah now, don’t, then! I can’t bear to think of it. How do any of y’ever come out alive? Y’are sure”—with a break in her voice—“that Ambrose was safe after that?”
“Didn’t I say so? Keeling sent back a message to the General that he had cot sight of Kamal-ud-din’s elephant, and was going to pursue him to Umarganj if necessary, and the old man sent Ambrose to catch him up and see what direction he was taking. Couldn’t have the Khemistan Horse lost in the desert and perhaps cut off, you see.”
“There, now! your voice is quite weak and shaky, and it’s my fault for letting you talk so much. I wish Sir Harry would come—sure he’d soon send you to bed.”
“He may not come back at all to-night—that’s why I’d so greatly have liked to stay on the field. If he finds there’s reason to hope Kamal-ud-din ain’t got very far, he’ll risk everything to catch him and end the war at one blow, if I know him. But if he’s taken to the desert, then it’s a case of rest for the troops before they can push on farther.”
But Sir Harry did return that evening, though only for an hour. The joyful shouts of the soldiers in the camp heralded his appearance, and he rode into the compound looking very old and bent. After a word or two to the Munshi salaaming respectfully at the door of the great tent, he came across at once to the Residency.
“And what d’ye think of this fellow, ma’am?” he demanded of Eveleen as Brian staggered to his feet and supported himself by one of the verandah pillars. “No thanks to him that you have got him back safe, I can tell you! I found him riding furiously all over the battlefield, bleeding like a pig, looking for some other village to give its name to the day, because he wouldn’t have it put on his tombstone that he was mortally wounded at the battle of Mussuck!”
“And did he find one?” asked Eveleen, rather absently. It might have been that the coarseness of the General’s language—so unheard-of when speaking to a lady—betrayed unusual turmoil in his mind, or—had she really caught him trying to signal to Brian unperceived?
“Not the ghost of one! To get him to go home quietly, I had to decree that it should be for ever called the battle of Qadirabad, and he promised me to die happy on that condition.”
“Sir Harry!” her voice was sharp. “Y’are not here to cut jokes about Brian. There’s something wrong with Ambrose. What’s happened him?”
“My dear Mrs Ambrose, what should make you imagine——?”
“Will you tell me what it is? Is he—is he——?”
“No, he ain’t,” said Sir Harry gruffly—“if you mean dead—nor even wounded. He had a slight sunstroke, but happily a surgeon was at hand to bleed him, and he is recovering his senses in due course.”
Eveleen put her hand to her head. “But the sun is not hot yet—to speak of,” she said in a puzzled voice.
“He had fever on him this morning, it seems. It was a foolish business his setting out to ride all day in that state, but nobly foolish. You must be proud of him.”
“’Twas my fault—I ought have seen it—begged him to remain behind. I noticed he was cr—unlike himself.”
“Sure if that was the way of it, he’d have gone all the more, the more you begged him,” said Brian, trying rather unsuccessfully to improve matters. She looked at him as though she had not heard him.
“It’s my fault, I tell you. And now he’s sick, and away from me. Sir Harry, you’ll let me——”
“I won’t let you go to seek him, ma’am, for he’s coming to you, as fast as a Medical Department palanquin can bring him. We are encamped on the battlefield, but the wounded must return hither, that the hospital establishment may follow the army. So your mind may be at rest as far as that’s concerned.”
“Y’are very good, Sir Harry. If you’ll excuse me, I’ll go see everything is ready for him.”
“Why, Evie, he’ll not be here for hours yet!” remonstrated Brian, but the General signed to him to be silent.
“Do, ma’am, do! Can’t make too much of our brave fellows, can we? I must be off too.”
“But not without some refreshment.” Her hospitable instincts prevailed even at this moment of desolation. “Brian, bid the servants bring some food for the General, will you not?”
“Only too thankful to avoid transporting my rheumatic old carcase across the compound again before it’s necessary,” said Sir Harry, when Brian had summoned the butler and given him orders. “I have bid Munshi get the office establishment on the march, for I must have ’em with me since I’m deprived of poor Ambrose.”
“He ain’t worse than y’have allowed my sister believe, General?” with sudden anxiety.
“No, but it’ll be a long business, I fear. To ride at all was bad enough, but to accept that chase across country after Keeling was pure madness. Had I had the slightest notion——! But there you are. I came across two of the Queen’s —th as I left the battlefield—one crouched almost double by the roadside, his comrade trying to cheer him on to reach the hospital tents. I bade my orderly give the sick soldier a lift, and learned from t’other that his friend ought to have reported sick this morning, but refused on account of the approaching battle, and so marched and fought all day before yielding to nature’s imperious weakness. Others I hear of who received wounds in the attack on Rickmer’s baggage, and concealed ’em, lest they should be forbid to fight to-day. Could any enemy in the world defeat such men as these?”
“Did poor Ambrose get the message to Keeling, General?” asked Brian, as Sir Harry wolfed down bread and meat and drank coffee in a way that said much for his digestion, if little for his palate.
“No. Rickmer called off the pursuit when Keeling swears another half-hour would have seen Kamal-ud-din a prisoner in his hands. Never a word of this to Ambrose or your sister, remember. It was the poor fellow’s excess of zeal led him to over-estimate his powers.”
“Then he fell from his horse at the moment you said you feared Kamal-ud-din must have left sharpshooters in ambush to delay the pursuit, sir? when he failed to cross the space of empty ground you were watching with your telescope?”
“That was the place. The patrol I sent out found him lying unconscious, his horse feeding beside him. And you came straight here, as I bid you?”
“As straight as a swimming head would permit, General! Of course I was beset for news as I passed through the camp, but I told all I could to the first officer I met, and stationed a sentry to keep the curious from approaching this house, according to your orders, so everything has been quite quiet.”
“‘Quite quite!’” Sir Harry mimicked Brian’s pronunciation. “Good, I am glad to leave you here to be a support to your sister—possibly also a consolation to poor Ambrose. You and he must keep up one another’s spirits.”
“But sure you’ll let me rejoin you, sir? This scratch—not a cat’s scratch, I’ll allow, but equally not a tiger’s; will we say it’s a tiger-kitten’s?—can’t keep me laid up more than a day or two. One day, I’d say if I was asked, but I know what these medicos are when once they get their hands on you.”
“We march again to-morrow, as soon as the doolies that have brought the wounded hither rejoin. Why, my good fellow, are you blind not to see that all hangs on our catching Kamal-ud-din ek dum? With him in my hands, the last shot is fired, as I believe. But should he escape and raise another army, with the hot weather and the inundations coming on, he may bother us for another year. So hie after him! Let us hope the gentleman will have the politeness to wait for us at Khanpur, and not lead us away into the desert on an unmannerly wild-goose hunt for Umarganj.”
“Hard luck for you to lose him, General, when you so nearly had your fingers on him again!”
“Precious hard luck! But no, I won’t have a word said against my luck—my most astounding good luck! That Rickmer’s column should get in safe, despite its commander’s utmost efforts, that both my reinforcements, from up and down the river, should arrive in the very nick of time, that we should run across that herdsman this morning, and learn that while we were flourishing forth to fight empty air the enemy was in full march for our communications—what d’ye call that? Nay, I will go further, and instead of what in our pagan style we call luck, say that the hand of Providence has been manifest throughout. There is a great future before Khemistan—I’m convinced of it. I see all the hoarded wealth of Central Asia pouring down the river, and making Bab-us-Sahel a port richer and more extensive by far than Bombay. (As soon as I have time to think of anything but fighting, my first care shall be the provision of a proper harbour.) I see the great city of Victoria rising on the upper river, occupying the whole of the site now covered by the wretched hovels of Sahar and Bahar and the mouldering ramparts of Bori—the scene of an annual fair beside which the glories of Novgorod grow pale, where the silks of Gamara and the embroideries of China are spread forth to entrance the eyes of the simple Arabit bringing for sale the precious gums of his mountain deserts and the wiry beasts of his own breeding. I see that Arabit—son and brother of the grim fighters whose piled corpses I passed with unavailing horror and regret on my way hither,—his immemorial weapons laid aside at the behest of British power, not merely cultivating a desire for the manufactures of the West, and thereby benefiting my beloved native land, but perceiving for the first time the blessings of peace and the advantages of commerce, and carrying the tale to the dwellers in his rugged glens. Positively there’s no end to the wonders that will follow naturally upon this day’s conquest. The price is heavy—those gory heaps, not merely of the enemy, but of our own best and bravest,—but Heaven is my witness that had the choice lain with me, not one drop of blood had been shed. My hands are clean, for all that I have been ‘a man of war from my youth.’”
“Who could deny it, General? Certainly no one that knows you, or has taken part in the campaign. The enemy themselves will be the first to admit it, when they are learning under your guidance the lessons of peace as they have done—not by their own good will, I’ll confess—those of war.”
Undoubtedly Brian possessed to perfection the art of smoothing down the lion. Sir Harry’s rugged countenance radiated pleasure and contentment, though he felt bound to protest.
“Well, well, we mustn’t make too sure! Yet it seems as though Heaven had designs for me as well as for Khemistan. To be riding gently up and down for three mortal hours at Mahighar between opposing forces never more than fifteen yards apart, the target of both—for when the —th got excited and fired high their bullets came rattling about my head—and yet to go unscathed! To lead my soldiers unwittingly into the line of fire to-day, then down into that nullah, with matchlocks directed at my heart in dozens from the farther bank, and those fiery swordsmen dashing upon me whirling their deadly blades! Delany, I found my sword-hilt smashed by a bullet; after I had sent you away one of the enemy’s magazines blew up close to me; yet I was unhurt. Not even Black Prince was touched, poor beast!—which at Mahighar was neither more nor less than a miracle—though my orderly behind me was unhorsed both then and to-day. Nor have I been compelled to defend my own life at the cost of another’s. To-day an Arabit ran at me with his sword uplifted. I had a pistol ready, and could have shot him, but a soldier stopped him with his bayonet before he could reach me. Even my staff seem to share my immunity. Though riding hither and thither on errands in the thickest of the fray, not one of you has even been hit until you took this hurt of yours, and you came by that through your thirst for hand-to-hand fighting, against which I have warned you. There is indeed something remarkable in all this. D’ye know the people have found a new name for me? Several times as I rode here I saw groups of ’em bowing profoundly at the roadside, and on my orderly calling out that the Bahadar Jang was in a hurry and could hear no petitions now, their sole reply was to prostrate themselves reverently, ejaculating ‘Padishah!’”
“And why not, sir?” asked Brian heartily—he had been fearing the General had heard himself mentioned by the less complimentary title of “Brother of Satan.” “Who would be so fit as yourself to administer the territory you have added to Her Majesty’s dominions?”
“Well, that ain’t for me to say——” Sir Harry was obviously not ill-pleased. “The Governor-General will select whom he chooses—though I don’t pretend to be ignorant of his appreciation of the efforts of the army. That dâk which came in before we marched this morning was Lord Maryport’s, containing his congratulations to us on Mahighar. I have had no time to read it through, but it contained some awards—Keeling is promoted aide-de-camp to the G.-G., I remember—and he promises further promotions when he has been able to study my despatches more fully. To be elated by the praises of a civilian—pshaw! am I as weak as that? I trust not, I believe not. Praise from the Duke, now—the assurance that the humblest of his Grace’s pupils, endeavouring to put in practice lessons learnt from that great man, had made no heinous mistake,—that would gratify my most greedy desires, and lacking that, I shall remain unsatisfied. Put it that Lord Maryport appoints me Governor of Khemistan, as you suggest. I am touched by such a proof of his lordship’s confidence, and naturally strive to acquit myself to his satisfaction, but if he desired to do me a personal favour, he could please me no better than by sending me back to my wife and girls. What are Khemistan and the winning of battles to me compared with them?”
“But sure you’ll have both, General. Lady Lennox and the young ladies won’t consent to be kept at Poonah much longer with you up here, if I know ’em.”
“Possibly it may be feasible to get them here after the hot weather. Then indeed I should have nothing left to wish for. But I must be moving. I am glad to leave you here to look after your sister. See to it that she never rides alone, by the bye. Munshi was telling me some foolish tale of Kamal-ud-din’s believing that our luck resides in her presence with us, and no doubt he is capable of seeking to transfer my good fortune to himself. The lower he sees his cause sunk, the more likely he is to attempt to re-establish it by some desperate expedient. And see that she don’t drive the unfortunate Ambrose mad by her affectionate assiduities, if you can.”
“Will you tell me you think I’m able for it, General?”
Sir Harry chuckled. “Give the poor fellow the support of your presence when possible. But don’t attempt to dissuade your sister from a close attendance on him, for you’ll get the worst of it. Never interfere with a woman in her own province. She knows what will bring her consolation, though you mayn’t realise it. That’s the advice of one who has had a good deal to do with women.”
“I’m sorry the association has been so unfortunate as to teach you such wisdom, General.”
“You young dog!” Sir Harry turned back on the verandah step and chuckled again. “But you’re wrong there. I thank Heaven no woman has ever known sorrow through me. Many are the tears I have kissed away, but never caused one to flow. And you are thinking, you irreverent young rascal”—with a renewed chuckle—“that to be kissed by a battered old phiz like mine would be more likely to draw tears than to allay ’em. I know you young fellows!”
“I wouldn’t dream of such a thought, sir!” with virtuous indignation. “But all the same, I’d give a good deal to be sure you don’t draw floods of ’em from my little Sally when I ask you for her, before you say yes!” he added sotto voce, as he supported himself by the pillar while Sir Harry mounted his horse and called out a farewell message to Eveleen.