"That talk suits me," he said readily. "I----"
He broke off, his eyes searching the distance, his hearing straining.
Kars, too, had turned, searching beyond the embankment.
"It"s coming," he said. "It"s coming plenty."
But Abe had not waited. His lean figure was swallowed up in the darkness as he made off to his post where his men were already a.s.sembled.
In less than two minutes the battle was raging with all its original desperation. The black night air was filled with the fury of yelling voices which vied with the rattle of firearms for domination. Bare, shadowy bodies hurled themselves with renewed impetus against the defences, and went down like grain before the reaper.
The embankments were held with even greater confidence. Earlier experience, the respite; these things had made their contribution, a contribution which told heavily against the renewed a.s.sault.
Kars wondered. He had said these men were like sheep. Now they were like sheep herded on to the slaughter-house. The senselessness of it was growing on him with his increased confidence. It all seemed unworthy of the astute half white mind lying behind the purpose. These were the thoughts which flashed through his mind as he plied his weapons and encouraged the men of his command, and they grew in conviction with each pa.s.sing moment.
But there was more wit in it all than he suspected.
The battle was at its height. The insensate savages came on, regardless of the numbers who fell. The whole line of defence was resisting with all the energy and resource at its disposal. Then came the diversion.
It came by water. It came with a swirl of paddles in the black void enveloping the great river. Out of the darkness grew the shadowy outlines of four laden canoes, and the beaching of the craft was the first inkling Abe Dodds, who held the left defences, had of the adventure.
Action and thought were almost one with him. Claiming the men nearest him he hurled himself on the invaders with a ferocity which had for its inspiration a full understanding of the consequences of disaster in such a direction. Outflanking stared at him with all its ugly meaning, and as he went he shouted hoa.r.s.ely back to Kars his ill-omened news.
Kars needed no second warning. He pa.s.sed the call on to Bill. He claimed the reinforcement which only desperate emergency had the right to demand. Then he flung himself to the task of making good the depleted defence where Abe had withdrawn his men.
The crisis was more deadly than could have seemed possible a moment before. The whole aspect of the scene had been changed. The breach, that dreaded breach with all its deadly meaning, was achieved in something that amounted only to seconds.
The neches swarmed on the embankments on the lower foresh.o.r.e. The defenders who had been left were driven back before the fierce onslaught. They were already giving ground when Kars flung himself to their support. The whole position looked like being turned.
It was no longer a battle of coldly calculated method. Here at least it had become a conflict where individual nerve and ability alone could win out. Already some dozen of the half-nude savages had forced themselves across the embankment, and more were pressing on behind. It was a moment to blast the sternest courage. It was a moment when the whole edifice of the white man"s purpose looked to be tottering, if not falling headlong. Kars understood. He had the measure of the threat to the last fraction, and he flung himself into the battle with a desperateness of energy and resolve that bore almost immediate fruit.
His coming had checked the breaking of the defenders. But he knew it was like patching rotten material. His influence could not last without Bill and his reinforcements. He plied his guns with a discrimination which no heat or excitement could disturb, and the first invaders fell under his attack amidst a din of fierce-throated cries.
His men rallied. But he knew they were fighting now with a shadow at the back of their minds. It was his purpose to remove that shadow, and he strove with voice and act to do so.
The first support of his coming pa.s.sed with the emptying of his pistols. He flung them aside without a moment"s hesitation, and grabbed a rifle from a fallen neche. It was the act of a man who knew the value of every second gained. He knew, even more, the value of his own gigantic strength.
The weapon in his hands became a far-reaching club. And, swinging it like a fiercely driven flail, he rushed into the crowd of savages, scattering them like chaff in a gale. The smashing blows fell on heads that split under their superlative force, and the ground about him became like a shambles. In a moment he discovered another figure in the shadowy darkness, fighting in a similar fashion, and he knew by the crude, disjointed oaths which were hurled with each blow, so full of a venomous hate, that Peigan Charley had somehow come to his support.
His heart warmed, and his onslaught increased in its bitter ferocity.
He was holding. Just holding the rush, and that was all. Without the reinforcements he had claimed he could not hope to drive his attack home. He knew. Nor did he attempt to blind himself. The whole thing was a matter of minutes now. Defeat, complete disaster hung by a thread, and the fever of the knowledge fired his muscles to an effort that was almost superhuman.
He drove his way through the raging savages, whose crude weapons for close quarters were aimed at him from every direction. He was fighting for time. He was fighting to hold--simply hold. He was fighting to demoralize the rush, and drive terror into savage hearts. And he knew his limits were steadily approaching.
His first call had reached the ears of the man for whom it was intended. Nor had they been indifferent. A call for help from Kars was an irresistible clarion of appeal to Bill Brudenell. Mercy? There was no consideration of healing or mercy could claim him from his friend"s succor. He flung aside his drugs, his bandages. He had no thought for his wounded. He had no thought for himself.
To collect reinforcements from the northern defences was the work of a few minutes. Even the elderly breed cook at the cook-house was claimed, though his only weapons were an ancient patterned revolver and a pick-haft he had s.n.a.t.c.hed up. Fifteen men in all he was able to collect and at the head of them he rushed for the battle-ground.
Nor was he a moment too soon. Kars" vigor was rapidly exhausting itself. Peigan Charley was fighting with a demoniac fury, but weakening. The handful of men who were still supporting were nearly defeated.
Bill knew the value of creating panic. As he came he set up a yell.
His men took it up, and it sounded like the advance of a legion of demons. In a moment they were caught in the whirl of battle, and the flash of their weapons lit the scene, while the clatter of firearms, and the hoa.r.s.e-throated shouting, gave an impression of overwhelming force. Back reeled the yelling horde in face of the onslaught. Back and still back. Confusion with those pressing on behind set up a panic. The wretched creatures fell like flies in the darkness. Then came flight. Headlong flight. The panic which Bill had sought.
In half an hour from the moment of the first break the position was restored. Within an hour Kars knew the Battle of Bell River had been won. But it had been won at a cost he had never reckoned upon. The margin of victory had been the narrowest.
Abe had been able to complete his work in the cold businesslike manner which was all his own. The attack from the river was an unsupported diversion with forces limited to its need. How nearly it had succeeded no doubt remained. But in that direction Abe"s heavy hand had fallen in no measured fashion. Those of the landing party who were not awaiting burial on the foresh.o.r.e were meeting death in the deep waters of the swiftly flowing river. Even the smashed canoes were flotsam on the bosom of the tide.
The battle degenerated from the moment of the failure of the intended breach. There was no further attack in force. Small, isolated raids came at intervals only to be swept back by rifle fire from the embankments. These, and a desultory and notoriously wild fire, which, to the defence, was a mere expression of impotent, savage rage, wore the long night through. Kars had achieved his desire. The night had been fought out, and the defence had held.
Kars was standing in the doorway of the storehouse where Bill was calmly prosecuting his work of mercy. The doctor"s smallish figure was moving rapidly about the crowded hut. His preoccupation was heart whole. He had eyes and thought for nothing but those injured bodies under their light blanket coverings, and the groans of suffering that came from lips, which, in health, were usually tainted with blasphemy.
All Kars" thoughts were at the moment concerned with the busy man.
That array of figures had already told him its story. A painful story.
A story calculated to daunt a leader. Just now he was thinking how his debt to this man was mounting up. Years of intimate friendship had been sealed by incident after incident of devotion. Now he felt that he owed his present being to the prompt response to his signal of distress. But Bill had never failed him. Bill would never fail when loyalty was demanded. He breathed devotion in every act of his life.
There could be no thanks between them. There never had been thanks between them. Their bond was too deep, too strong for that.
The dull lamplight revealed the makeshift of the hospital. There were no bunks, only the hard earthen floor cleared of stones. Its log walls were stopped with mud to keep the weather out. A packing case formed the table on which the doctor"s instruments were laid out. It was rough, uncouth. Its inadequacy was only mitigated by the skill and gentle mercy of the man.
Kars" voice broke in upon the doctor"s preoccupation.
"Twenty," he said. "Twenty out of eighty."
Bill glanced up from the wounded head he was dressing.
"And the fight just started."
Kars stirred from the support of the door-casing which had served to rest his weary body.
"Yes," he admitted.
Then he turned away. There seemed to be nothing further to add. He drew a deep breath as he moved into the open.
A moment later he was moving with rapid strides in the direction of the battle-ground. A hard light was shining in his steady eyes, his jaws were sternly set. All feeling of the moment before had pa.s.sed. The gray of dawn was spreading over the eastern sky. His nightmare was over. There was only left for him the execution of those plans he had so carefully worked out during the long days of preparation.
CHAPTER XXVIII
THE HARVEST OF BATTLE
The sun rose on a scene of great activity. It was the garnering of the harvest of battle. The light of day smiled down on this oasis on a barren foresh.o.r.e of Bell River and searched it from end to end. It was so small in the immensity of its surroundings. Isolated, cut off from all outside help, it looked as though a deep breath of the Living Purpose of Life must have swept it away like some ant heap lying in the path of a thrusting broom. Yet it had withstood the shock of battle victoriously, and those surviving were counting the harvest.
But there was no smile in the heart of man. A hundred dead lay scattered on the foresh.o.r.e. They congested the defences of the camp.
They had even breathed their last agony within the precincts which they had sought to conquer. Mean, undersized, dusky-skinned, half-nude creatures sprawled everywhere, revealing in their att.i.tudes something of that last suffering before the great release. Doubtless the price had been paid with little enough regret, for that is the savage way.
It was for their living comrades to deplore the loss, but only for the serious depletion of their ranks.
The victorious defenders had no thought beyond the blessings of the harvest. They had no sympathy to waste. These dead creatures were so much carrion. The battle was the battle for existence which knows neither pity nor remorse.
So the dead clay was gathered and thrown to its last rest on the bosom of the waters, to be borne towards the eternal ice-fields of the Pole, or lie rotting on barren, rock-bound sh.o.r.es, where only the cries of the wilderness awaken the echoes. There was no reverence, no ceremony.