Gil the Gunner, George Manville Fenn [fun books to read for adults txt] 📗
- Author: George Manville Fenn
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All was quiet in the camp at last, and, fortunately for us, the weather lovely. We had our quiet talk after watch-setting, and it fell to my lot that night to have to make the rounds, so that I had plenty of time for thought, as I leaned against a tree, and tried once more to make some plan, but tried in vain.
Then I listened to faint distant sounds in the rajah’s village, and to the howling of the jackals, with the croakings, whisperings, and mutterings which came out of the black forest, all sounding so weird and strange that I was glad to keep going from post to post, to chat in a whisper with the men, and make sure that no attempt at evasion was being made by our prisoners, who all appeared to be asleep.
And so my part of the uneasy night watch passed away, and I was relieved by Brace.
“Thought out anything?” I said.
“No,” he replied. “Have you?”
I shook my head, and went and lay down to drop asleep on the instant, and wake up at daybreak according to my custom.
I had hardly risen when the doctor came to me.
“Vincent, my lad,” he said, “I don’t think Craig is any worse, but he is uneasy. He has got something on his mind, and wants to speak to you.”
“To me?” I said eagerly. “I’ll go.”
I hurried to where the poor fellow lay, and he signed to me to kneel down by him.
“Why, Craig, man,” I said, “what is it?”
“What is it?” he said angrily. “That doctor has been giving me stuff to keep me asleep just at a time when I could help you all so.”
“Help us? How? With that plan of yours for getting the guns and horses back?”
“Yes,” he whispered eagerly. “I wouldn’t say a word to any one else as I spoke to you first.”
I looked at him curiously.
“Oh no,” he said, as he interpreted my look. “I’m not feverish or delirious. Quite calm and cool, sir. Listen!”
I bent down, and he began talking in a low whisper, full of earnestness, as he unrolled his plan, and as he went on my heart began to beat, and my cheeks to flush.
“That makes your eyes sparkle, sir, doesn’t it?” he said. “That will do, won’t it?”
“Do, Craig!” I whispered. “It’s glorious. If it succeeds, they ought to give you a commission.”
“Think so?” he said. “Ah, well, perhaps I shan’t live to want it. But what are you going to do?”
“Go and tell the captain, of course,” I cried.
“That’s right; go and tell him, sir,” whispered the wounded man; “and good luck to you. Oh, if I could only have been in the game!”
“I wish from my heart you could have been, Craig,” I said, pressing his hand.
“And you won’t leave me behind, sir, to the crows?”
“If you are left behind, Craig, I shall be left behind too,” I said. “But left! Why, you’ll be riding on a limber or in the waggon, man. There, I must go and tell him. Hurrah! Oh, Craig, if I had only been born with a brain like yours!”
“Perhaps you would have only wasted your life, sir, as I did. But go along and tell him, and God bless your efforts, for it may mean saving thousands of innocent lives, and preventing the pandies from running riot over the country, and marking their track in blood.”
The next minute I was seeking Brace, feeling that I had the guns under my hands; and so occupied that I did not notice a peculiar fact.
Our prisoners were not in their customary places, though the sentries were on guard!
Bubbling over with excitement, I was not long in finding Brace, whom I took aside and told of the plan.
He stood with knitted brows in perfect silence, hearing me to the very end, and then, feeling chilled and disappointed, I looked into his stern face, and said—
“Then you don’t think it will do?”
He did not speak for a few moments. Then he gripped my wrist with all his might.
“Gil,” he said huskily, “it almost stunned me. The idea is as grand as it is simple. It is certain of success. My dear boy, what a brain you have!”
“Oh no,” I said hastily; “it was not I. It was poor Craig. He thought of it the day before yesterday, but I only got to know of it this morning.”
“I wish it had been you,” said Brace. “But never mind; it is glorious. Craig will have saved us and our reputation far more than he thinks for.”
“Then he ought to be rewarded,” I said.
“Of course!”
“Then you will put the plan in force?”
“Directly, my dear fellow,” cried Brace, excitedly. “There, I must be calm, and make my plans.”
He stood thinking for a few minutes, and then turned to me.
“Yes,” he said, “that will do. Now then; you will take the men, and—”
“Oh no,” I cried, “don’t send me away. I must be in it, Brace.”
He looked at me searchingly.
“It’s a daring thing to do,” he said. “And you are very young yet, my lad.”
“But I brought you the idea.”
“Yes; but carrying it out is another thing. Mr Haynes must come.”
“Oh no,” I cried passionately. “It wouldn’t be fair to me. Besides, it would be with my horses.”
“The Queen’s horses for the time being, my boy. Don’t you see that it will require strength and dash?”
“Yes; and I feel as if I could dash into it.”
“But the risk?”
“Never mind the risk, Brace,” I cried excitedly. “Pray, pray, let me be in it.”
“Very well,” he said—and my heart leaped. “You shall go; but follow my orders to the smallest point, and don’t let your excitement get the better of you.”
“No; I’ll be calm,” I said.
“Then there is no time to lose; they will be out soon, this cool pleasant morning.”
He took a few steps to one side, and gave the order to the men to fall in.
The men saw that something was on the way, and sprang to their places, when Brace ordered the three horses to be saddled and bridled.
This was quickly done, and by that time, and while they were being tethered to the nearest trees, the men had buckled on their belts, and taken the carbines from their rustic stand among the undergrowth.
Then there was a dead silence, and Brace signed to me, and then marched off Haynes towards the edge of the forest, while I followed.
When we got to the border, and stood by the plain with the rajah’s town on our right, and the level extending to the left, till the forest swept round about a mile away, Brace pointed out a spot in the curve of verdure, where some half-dozen large trees towered up.
“You see those, Haynes?” said Brace.
“Yes.”
“March all the men to that spot, and form an ambush at the foot of those trees. Be quite ready for us when we join you.”
“What are you going to do?”
“Silence, and listen to my orders,” said Brace sternly. “You will march the men there in single file by keeping just at the edge of the forest, where it is more open; but the greatest care will be necessary so that you are not seen from the town. If you are, the plan is spoiled.”
“Right; I’ll be careful. I understand. When am I to attack?”
“When I or Vincent give the word. You ought to be at that spot in less than an hour, in spite of dense growth.”
“Yes; I’ll be there.”
“Keep your men hidden, and whatever you see take place, don’t stir, even if we are taken prisoners.”
“Well— I’ll obey orders, sir.”
“That is good. Now then, back to your men; and, mind, it is of vital importance that you carry out my orders to the smallest item.”
“You may trust me,” said Haynes, quietly; and it was the soldier speaking now to his superior. The friendly, easy-going ways of brother-officers were gone, and we stood together watching him till he disappeared among the trees.
For a few moments Brace made no movement, but stood as if plunged in thought. Then, turning suddenly, he moved to the very edge of the forest, and leaning forward gazed intently at the town, whose houses looked bright in the morning sun, and among which were throngs of white-clothed people emerging here and there. We could see the guns too glistening in the sun, but no sign of armed men excepting the sentries, whose swords glittered as they walked to and fro.
“Why, Gil,” said Brace, drawing a long breath, “how satisfied they seem of their safety; a squadron of lancers would capture those guns with ease.”
“And we are going to capture them without,” I said.
“Hist! what was that?”
“Haynes giving an order to march,” I said.
“No; some one coming this way! Well, what is it?” he cried to a man who came on at the double, and saluted.
“The lieutenant, sir,” replied the man. “Will you come at once?”
“Something wrong,” I heard Brace mutter, as he strode back through the trees to where the men were drawn up with Haynes in front.
“Now, what is it?” said Brace, sharply. “Why are you not gone, sir?”
“I thought it my duty to stop and see if you would change your plans,” replied Haynes. “The prisoners have escaped.”
“What?” cried Brace, excitedly, as he ran his eyes along the men. “Who were on duty?”
“The men were all ordered to fall in,” said Haynes.
“Yes; quite right. Oh, what a blunder!” added Brace, excitedly, beneath his breath. Then turning to me—“Gil,” he murmured, “our plan is thwarted.”
“Don’t give up yet,” I whispered.
“But they will have gone to the town and given warning of our presence.”
“They may have fled in another direction.”
Brace was silent for a few moments, and then he said quickly—
“Well, it need not interfere; we should be obliged to move off, but must alter our plans a little.”
He spoke to Haynes, who gave the orders for four men to fall out. The litter was seized, Sergeant Craig carefully lifted upon it, the doctor looking on wonderingly; and then, as the men raised the handles, Brace spoke again.
“Dobbs,” he said sharply, “fall out and take charge of the horses.”
The lad stepped back, and as he did so a gleam of sunshine through the trees made his trumpet flash for a moment. The next he was standing by the beautiful animals which were impatiently champing their bits and pawing the ground.
Then Brace made Haynes a sign, and the men turned right face, and with Haynes at their head, filed off, the bearers falling in with their load, and the doctor looking undecided.
“Follow the wounded man, sir,” said Brace, and the doctor immediately took his place at the end of the little column, while we stood watching them till they had disappeared among the trees.
“We may succeed even now, Gil,” said my companion; “but once more, while there is time, speak out frankly to me as if I were your brother; the trumpeter cannot hear. Do you feel—well, to be plain—frightened?”
“I suppose so,” I said. “It’s a curious nervous sensation.”
“Then give up, and follow the men, and I’ll go alone.”
“You said I was to speak to you as if you were my brother,” I said.
“Yes.”
“Then I will speak,” I said through my teeth. “It is to my brother, and not to my commanding-officer. I won’t. I’ll go with you now if I die for it.”
And all the time the feeling of dread I felt was horrible, and worse than all was that the feeling grew.
Brace caught my hand and wrung it.
“Well done!” he said in a low voice. “I can see. I know the sensation; but that’s the way. Fight it down.”
“I’m trying,” I said, huskily; “but I wish I was not such a
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