Gil the Gunner, George Manville Fenn [fun books to read for adults txt] 📗

lay back, it was like looking at some photograph, every figure stood out so sharply in the bright sunshine, and I was just thinking that I did not feel so indignant at what had taken place as I had when I had first witnessed such a thing, when I half sleepily noticed that the native had left the group of syces by the open doorway which looked black on the white walls. Then he appeared to be crossing the great barrack square, and passed out of my sight, while my eyes closed, and I was dropping off to sleep, when I started wide-awake again listening.

The sound which had aroused me was repeated close to the open window, and it was a sharp hissing drawing in of the breath, as of one in pain; and directly after the syce who had crossed over to my side of the square, passed my window, halting slightly, and with a strange expression on his face, which impressed me even then. As I watched him it passed away, and he drew himself up, walking as usual, and salaaming to some one approaching in the opposite direction, and Major Lacey and Captain Brace sauntered by, while I lay thinking about the syce’s expression, and the patient way in which he had hidden the pain from which he was suffering. I had recognised him, too, as the tall, handsome native who had been struck by Barton—a man who, ever since, had saluted me with a grave, gentle smile.

“It’s too bad,” I was saying to myself; and then, in my listless weariness, I was dropping off to sleep again, as I generally did after a hard drill, when my black servant entered silently, and presented me with a little packet.

“What is it?” I said lazily.

“No know, sahib. Ny Deen bring, and say tell master dhoby man keep it and couldn’t get back.”

I opened the packet, which smelt most fragrantly, and found first some white flowers, and beneath them, very carefully washed, ironed, and scented, a pocket-handkerchief.

“Mine,” I said half wonderingly, and then I grasped what it meant. “Did that syce, Lieutenant Barton’s man, bring this just now?”

“Yes, sahib. Ny Deen.”

“That will do,” I said; and I lay back thinking of the morning when I saw the man come out of Barton’s quarters bleeding, and bound up the cut.

“A set of black scoundrels, are they,” I said to myself. “Well, some of them have feeling, and a way of showing their gratitude.”

I took up and smelt the fragrant white blossoms thoughtfully; and then I remember saying to myself, for those events were stamped pretty deeply in my memory—

“An Englishman would never have dreamed of sending flowers like that. I dare say it means something, if one only knew.”

A few days after, when I had almost forgotten the incident, save that I always politely returned Ny Deen’s salute when I passed him, I was returning to my quarters one evening, when—not at all an uncommon thing—I heard loud voices in front, and saw that three of our men were going unsteadily along, evidently after too long a stay at one of the wretched places where they were supplied with the poisonous arrack which was answerable for the miserable death of so many British soldiers. One of the men in particular was in that noisy, excited state when reason seems to have run riot, and folly and madness have been taken for companions.

The man’s two companions were greatly under the influence of drink, but they had sense enough left to try and control their drunken friend; and as I kept back unseen in the darkness, I saw them check the fellow when an insane desire had come upon him to kick and hammer at the officers’ quarters; and later on they engaged in a struggle, when he swore that he would go and let loose every horse in the troop.

All this made me so indignant with the idiot that I was several times on the point of interfering, but I thought that nature would punish the fellow enough the next day, and kept back, waiting to see the others get him to his quarters.

But, in spite of my determination, I found myself unexpectedly dragged into the affair; for, just as they were near Lieutenant Barton’s quarters, two of the syces’ wives came by, and with a shout the man escaped from his comrades’ grasp, made a rush at the two frightened women, and caught one of them in his arms.

She cried aloud for help, and a couple of the native servants rushed out; one of them seizing the drunken gunner, and, in the brief struggle which ensued, I saw the two women run away, while their assailant held on to one of the white-clothed men, and, steadying himself, began striking him savagely, while the syce made no resistance, but passively received the blows.

“The fool!” I said to myself, as I hurried up, thinking that if it had been an Englishman instead of a native, our drunken gunner would have received a severe thrashing. I did not pause to consider any consequences, but just watched my opportunity, and as the Englishman struck the syce heavily with his right hand, as he held the poor fellow with his left, I, too, delivered a stinging blow, as I ran in, right in the gunner’s ear, and then stood astonished at what I had done. For the next moment the fellow had gone down heavily, his head striking against a stone, and then he rolled over and lay still, with the syce standing close by looking on.

“You’ve killed him, sir,” said one of the man’s comrades, as he went down on one knee by his side and raised his head.

“Serve the brute right,” I said passionately.

“Yes; he’s pretty bad,” growled the other, as he, too, bent down over his comrade, the affair having pretty well sobered them, as it had sobered me, too; for a chill of horror ran through me at the very thought of the man’s words being true.

“Here, you,” I said roughly; “go and tell the sergeant of the guard. What, you in trouble again, Ny Deen?”

“Yes, sahib,” said the syce softly, for I had recognised Barton’s groom.

He ran off quickly, and the sergeant and a couple of men came up just as Barton was returning to his quarters.

“Hillo! what’s up?” he said; “an accident?”

“No,” I said shortly; “this drunken fellow was insulting our women, and then ill-using your syce for protecting them, and I knocked him down.”

“And you have done it, sir,” grumbled the sergeant. “I’m afraid he isn’t going to come to.”

Barton bent down over the man, who, I now saw, by a stable-lantern, was bleeding from the head, and the chill of horror increased as the lieutenant rose.

“Here,” he said; “carry him into hospital. Be smart. You, sergeant, go and rouse up the doctor.”

“Yes, sir;” and the men hurried off.

“He’ll be pleased,” said Barton to me, with a cynical laugh. “He has had nothing but cholera cases and a broken arm to see to for months. But, I say, Don Quixote, you’ve put your foot in it this time.”

“Enough to make me.” I cried petulantly. “I can’t stand by and see men such brutes.”

We stopped and saw the insensible man carried into the building used as an infirmary, and by that time the doctor, who had been dining with Major Lacey—Brace being of the party—came into the building, and was followed by the above-named officers, who looked on in silence till the surgeon made his report.

“Concussion of the brain, I’m afraid,” he said shortly. “Bad for a man in his state. This fellow is always on the drink. He must have fallen very heavily. Was he fighting?”

“Yes—no,” I said, rather confusedly.

“Not very clear, Vincent,” said the major. “Which was he doing?”

“The fact is, sir, he was brutally ill-using one of the syces, who did not dare to defend himself, and I knocked the fellow down.”

“Oh!” said the major, coldly; and he walked away, but turned back.

“You had better go to your quarters, sir,” he said. “I suppose we can do you no good, Danby?”

“No; thanks. Only let me have the nurse. Place will be cooler without company.”

I went to my quarters, feeling as if the whole of my military career had come to an end through my passionate, quixotic behaviour; and yet somehow I could not deeply regret my action.

I was sitting in my dim room, watching the moths and flies circling round the shaded lamp, when I received a summons to go to the major’s quarters, and on going across I found Brace there, and the doctor.

“This is a serious matter, Vincent,” said the major. “Dr Danby gives a very bad account of this man’s state. How did it all happen? Tell me everything.”

I explained all the circumstances, and then there was a pause. I glanced at Brace, who sat there in the shade, so that I could not see his face, and a curious sensation of misery attacked me as I began to think of court-martials, and dismissal, or resignation, if there were no worse punishment, and my brain had already pictured the man’s death, with the following military funeral, and volleys fired over the grave, when the major said—

“We must wait and see how this matter turns out, Vincent. It will be a most painful thing for me to report at head-quarters. But I will say no more to-night, only to warn you that you are too quixotic.”

That word again! How I did loathe it then.

“I have a great objection myself to seeing the natives beaten, and I have more than once punished men for it; but it will not do for a junior officer like you to take upon yourself the defence of every black whom you consider ill-used. There, sir; you can return to your quarters. No, no, don’t say anything to-night. Go back, and think of what I have said. Going, Brace?”

“Yes,” said the captain, rising. “I’ll walk back with Vincent: you don’t want me any longer. I’ll see Danby again to-night, and hear how the man is going on.”

A minute later I was walking across in the darkness, with Brace, waiting for him to speak, and listening to the regular tramp of the sentry near us, and the softer sound of another at a distance, like an echo of the one by the officers’ quarters.

But we had reached my quarters, and still Brace did not speak.

“Good night,” I said, coldly.

“I am very sorry, Vincent,” he said, ignoring my extended hand; and I felt, more than ever, that we never could be friends.

“Then you think I have done very wrong?” I said bitterly.

“Yes, very wrong. As an officer, you had no right to strike one of the men.”

“Then you would have me stand by and see the poor fellows about us struck, kicked, and insulted, until it is beyond bearing,” I cried passionately. “I declare I wonder sometimes that they don’t rise up against us, and put an end to the cruel oppression from which they suffer.”

“Hush!” he said gravely. “You are letting your tongue get the better of your discretion, Vincent. You, a young officer, can only amend these ways by your example. You must see, when you are cooler, that you have been guilty of a grave breach of discipline. I am speaking as your brother-officer, who sincerely wishes to see you rise in the profession you have chosen. We have been thrown together, and I hoped, by my experience, to help you—one so much younger—living, as you are, among strangers. It is not a pleasant task, Vincent, for I cannot help seeing that you resent my interference often, and think me cold, hard, and unsympathetic. There, good night for the present. I will come on later, and report how the man is.”

He turned on his heel, and I stood listening to the tramp of his feet till he turned in to his own quarters, while I sat down to think,