"Yes," I answered, "it is."
I suppose he did not detect the sarcasm.
"Makes me look a fool," he said heatedly. "Why couldn"t the governor let me go and take my chance?"
The answer to this question being beyond my ken, I kept a discreet silence. Giving him further instructions, I presently left my junior to complete the task of packing up the necessary medicaments for Capoo.
In less than half an hour Fitz and I mounted our horses. A few of the fellows came out of the messroom, cigar in mouth, to say good-bye to Fitz. One or two of them called out "Good luck" as we left them. Each wish was followed by a little laugh, as if the wisher was ashamed of showing even so minute an emotion. It was, after all, all in the way of our business. Many a time Fitz and I had stood idle while these same men rode out to face death. It was Fitz"s turn now--that was all.
The Sikh trooper was waiting for us in the middle of the square--in the moonlight--a grand picturesque figure. A long-faced, silent man, with deep eyes and a grizzled moustache. He wheeled his horse, and dropped ten paces in our rear.
In the course of a varied experience Fitz and I had learnt to ride hard.
We rode hard that night beneath the yellow moon, through the sleeping, odorous country. We both knew too well that cholera under canvas is like a fire in a timber-yard. You may pump your drugs upon it, but without avail unless the pumping be scientific. Fitz represented science. Every moment meant a man"s life. Our horses soon settled into their stride with a pleasant creaking sound of warm leather and willing lungs.
The moon was above and behind us; we each had a galloping shadow beneath our horse"s forefeet. It was a sandy country, and the hoofs only produced a dull thud. There was something exhilarating in the speed--in the shimmering Indian atmosphere. A sense of envy came over me, and I dreaded the moment when I should have to turn and ride soberly home, leaving Fitz to complete his forty-five miles before daylight.
We were riding our chargers. They had naturally fallen into step, and bounded beneath us with a regular, mechanical rhythm. Both alike had their heads down, their shoulders forward, with that intelligent desire to do well which draws a man"s heart towards a horse in preference to any other animal. I looked sideways at Fitz, and waited for him to speak. But he was staring straight in front of him, and seemed lost in thought.
"You know," I said at length, "you have done that old man an ill-turn.
Even if you come back he will never forgive himself. He will never look either of us straight in the face again."
"Can"t help that," replied Fitz. "The thing--" He paused, as if choosing his words. "If," he went on rather quickly, "the worst comes to the worst, don"t let people--ANY ONE--think that I did it because I didn"t care, because I set no value on my life. The thing was forced upon me. I was asked to volunteer for it."
"All right," I answered, rather absent-mindedly perhaps. I was wondering who "any one" might be, and also who had asked him to throw away his life. The latter might, of course, be the brigadier. Surely it could not have been Elsie. But, as I said before, I always was uncertain about women.
I did not say anything about hoping for the best. Fitz and I had left all that nonsense behind us years before. We did our business amidst battle, murder, and sudden death. Perhaps we were callous, perhaps we had only learnt to value the thing at its true worth, and did not set much fear on death.
And then, I must ask you to believe, we fell to talking "shop." I knew a little more about cholera than did Fitz, and we got quite interested in our conversation. It is, I have found, only in books that men use the last moment to advantage. Death has been my road-fellow all through life, and no man has yet died in my arms saying quite the right thing.
Some of them made a joke, others were merely commonplace, as all men really are whether living or dying.
When the time came for me to turn back, Fitz had said nothing fit for post-mortem reproduction. We had talked unmitigated "shop," except the few odd observations I have set down.
We shook hands, and I turned back at once. As I galloped I looked back, and in the light of the great tropical moon I saw Fitz sitting forward in his saddle as the horse rose to the slope of a hill, galloping away into the night, into the unknown, on his mission of mercy. At his heels rode the Sikh, enormous, silent, soldierly.
During my steady run home I thought of those things concerning my craft which required immediate consideration. Would it be necessary to send down to India for help? Cholera at Capoo might mean cholera everywhere in this new unknown country. What about the women and children? The Wandering Jew was abroad; would he wander in our direction, with the legendary curse following on his heels? Was I destined to meet this dread foe a third time? I admit that the very thought caused a lump to rise in my throat. For I love Thomas Atkins. He is manly and honest according to his lights. It does not hurt me very much to see him with a bullet through his lungs or a sabre cut through the collar-bone down to the same part of his anatomy. But it does hurt me exceedingly to see honest Thomas die between the sheets--the death of any common civilian beggar. Thomas is too good for that.
It was nearly three o"clock in the morning when I rode into the palace square. All round I saw the sentinels, their bayonets gleaming in the moonlight. A man was walking backwards and forwards in the middle of the square by himself. When he heard me he came towards me. At first I thought that it was my servant waiting to take the horse, but a moment later I recognized Charlie Thurkow--recognized him by his fair hair, for he was hatless. At the same time my syce roused himself from slumber in the shadow of an arch, and ran forward to my stirrup.
"Come to the hospital!" said Thurkow, the moment I alighted. His voice was dull and unnatural. I once heard a man speak in the same voice while collecting his men for a rush which meant certain death. The man was duly killed, and I think he was trembling with fear when he ran to his death.
"What is it?" I asked.
"I don"t know."
We walked--almost ran--to the hospital, a long low building in the palace compound. Charlie Thurkow led the way to a ward which we had never used--a ward I had set apart for infectious cases. A man was dozing in a long chair in the open window. As we entered he rose hastily and brought a lamp. We bent over a bed--the only one occupied. The occupant was a man I did not know. He looked like a Goorkha, and he was dying. In a few moments I knew all that there was to know. I knew that the Wandering Jew had pa.s.sed our way.
"Yes," I said, rising from my knees at the bedside; "we have it."
Of the days that followed it is not my intention to say much. A woman once told me that I was afraid of nothing. She was mistaken. If she chance to read this and recognize it, I hope she will believe the a.s.sertion: I am, and always have been, afraid of cholera--in India.
In Europe it is a different matter. The writing of those days would be unpleasant to me; the reading would be still less pleasant to the reader.
Brigadier-General Thurkow rose to the occasion, as we all expected him to do. It is one thing to send a man to a distant danger, and quite another to go with him into a danger which is close at hand. Charlie Thurkow and I were the only two doctors on the spot, and before help could reach us we should probably all be dead or cured. There was no shirking now. Charlie and I were at work night and day, and in the course of thirty-six hours Charlie got interested in it. He reached the fighting point--that crisis in an epidemic of which doctors can tell--that point where there is a certain glowing sense of battle over each bed--where death and the doctor see each other face to face--fight hand to hand for the life.
The doctor loses his interest in the patient as a friend or a patient; all his attention is centred on the life as a life, and a point to be scored against the adversary Death.
We had a very bad time for two days. At the end of that time I had officers bearing Her Majesty"s commission serving under me as a.s.sistant nurses, and then the women came into it. The first to offer herself was the wife of a non-commissioned officer in the Engineers, who had been through Netley. I accepted her. The second woman was Elsie Matheson. I refused point blank.
"Sooner or later," she said, looking at me steadily with something in her eyes which I could not make out, "you will have to take me."
"Does your father know you have come to me?" I retorted.
"Yes; I came with his consent."
I shook my head and returned to my writing. I was filling in a list of terrific length. She did not go away, but stood in front of me with a certain tranquillity which was unnatural under the circ.u.mstances.
"Do you want help?" she asked calmly.
"G.o.d knows I do."
"But not mine--?"
"Not yet, Elsie. I have not got so far as that yet."
I did not look up, and she stood quite still over me--looking down at me--probably noting that the hair was getting a little thin on the top of my head. This is not a joke. I repeat she was probably noting that.
People do note such things at such moments.
"If you do not take me," she said, in a singularly even voice, "I shall go up to Capoo. Can you not see that that is the only thing that can save me from going to Capoo--or going mad?"
I laid aside my pen, and looked up into her face, which she made no pretence of hiding from me. And I saw that it was as she said.
"You can go to work at once," I said, "under Mrs. Martin, in ward number four."
When she had left me I did not go on filling in the list from the notes in my pocket-book. I fell to wasting time instead. So it was Fitz. I was not surprised, but I was very pleased. I was not surprised, because I have usually found that the better sort of woman has as keen a scent for the good men as we have. And I thought of old Fitz--the best man I ever served with--fighting up at Capoo all alone, while I fought down in the valley. There was a certain sense of companionship in the thought, though my knowledge and experience told me that our chances of meeting again were very small indeed.
We had not heard from Capoo. The conclusion was obvious: they had no one to send.
Elsie Matheson soon became a splendid nurse. She was quite fearless--not with dash, but with the steady fearlessness that comes from an ever-present sense of duty, which is the best. She was kind and tender, but she was a little absent. In spirit she was nursing at Capoo; with us she was only in the body.
When Charlie Thurkow heard that she had gone into ward number four, he displayed a sudden, singular anger.
"It"s not fit for her," he said. "How could you do it?"
And I noticed that, so far as lay in his power, he kept the worst cases away from number four.
It occasionally happens in life that duty is synonymous with inclination; not often, of course, but occasionally. I twisted inclination round into duty, and put Elsie to night work, while Charlie Thurkow kept the day watches. I myself was forced to keep both as best I could.
Whenever I went into number four ward at night before (save the mark) going to bed, I found Elsie Matheson waiting for me. It must be remembered that she was quite cut off from the little world that surrounded us in the palace. She had no means of obtaining news. Her only link with the outer universe was an occasional patient brought in more dead than alive, and too much occupied with his own affairs to trouble about those of other people.
"Any news?" she would whisper to me as we went round the beds together; and I knew that she meant Capoo. Capoo was all the world for her. It is strange how some little unknown spot on the earth will rise up and come into our lives never to leave the memory again.