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Charge! - A Story of Briton and Boer, a novel by George Manville Fenn |
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Chapter 35. In Doleful Dumps |
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_ CHAPTER THIRTY FIVE. IN DOLEFUL DUMPS Mine was a strange awakening to what appeared like a confused dream. There was a terrible pain in my head, and a sensation as of something warm and wet trickling down the side of my face, accompanied by a peculiar smarting which made me involuntarily raise my hand and quickly draw it away again, for I had only increased the pain. Then I lay quite still, trying to puzzle out what was the matter. At first I could only realise the fact that the darkness was intense. After a time the idea occurred that I must have been out with my troop attacking the Boers, and that a bullet had struck me diagonally on the forehead and glanced off after making the cut, which kept bleeding; but I was so stunned that a kind of veil seemed to be raised between the present and the past. "I shall think all about it soon," I mused. "It's of no use to worry after a fall." Then I wondered about Sandho, and how the poor beast had fared, a pang of mental agony shooting through me as I listened. I could not hear a sound. "He's killed," was my next thought; "for if he had been alive he would have stopped directly I fell from his back, and waited for me to remount." I began to feel about with my hands; but instead of touching soft earth or bush I felt rough stones, wet and slimy as if coated with fine moss, and it had lately been raining. A faint musical drip, as of falling water, strengthened this notion; but I did not try to follow it out, for my head throbbed severely. So I lay still trying to rest, and gazing upward expecting to see the stars. All above, however, was black with a solid intensity that was awe-inspiring. I could see nothing; but I could feel, and became aware of another fact: I was lying among rocks in a most uncomfortable and painful position, with my head and shoulders in a niche between two pieces of stone, and my feet high above me. "At the foot of some kopje," I remember fancying. Then my mind grew clearer--so much clearer that I felt for my handkerchief, got it out of my breast, doubled it, and bound it round my forehead to stop the bleeding. This took me some time; but the movement, painful though it was, seemed to give me more power of thinking, and I began to do more. After an effort, I managed to get my back and shoulders out of the crevice in the rocks where they were wedged. Then my legs slipped down of their own weight, and I felt myself gliding down a sharp incline. I spread out my hands to stop myself, and succeeded, bringing up against some loose stones. "Sandho's somewhere at the bottom of this slope," I thought, and I called him by name; but I was horrified to hear my words go reverberating from me with strange, whispering echoes which died slowly away. "How strange!" I muttered, as the intense darkness made my feeling of confusion return. "Where am I? What place is this?" I knew I was saying these words aloud; and what followed came like an answer to my question, for from somewhere close at hand there was a deep moaning sigh. I started violently and tried to creep away; but my head began to swim with terrible giddiness on attempting to move. As this subsided a little I thrust out my hand cautiously and began to feel about, touching at the end of a few seconds something which brought back my memory with a rush. My fingers had come in contact with the tin contrivance we had used for a lamp; and, naturally enough, the touch recalled to me who had borne it, and the accident that had befallen us. Accident? No; it must have been an attack. However, my head was clearing rapidly, and the sense of horror and pain was passing off like mist; and now I began again to feel cautiously about, but without avail, till I turned upon my hands and knees and crawled a yard or two, slipped, and clung to the rugged surface to check my descent. Then my feet went down to the full extent before they were stopped by something soft, and a thrill of satisfaction ran through me, for a well-known voice said peevishly: "Don't--don't!--What is it?" "Val," I cried, and my voice was caught up, and died away in whispers. Then there was a pause, and I lay listening till, from below, came the words: "Did any one speak?" "Yes, yes, I did," I cried. "Where are you?" "I--I don't know. Think I must have had a fall." I was about to lower myself to the speaker, when a sudden thought made me turn a little over on my left side. The next moment I was clinging hard with both hands, for a stone I had touched gave way, and there was a rushing sound, silence, and then a horrible echoing splash which set my heart beating fast. In imagination I saw the loosened stone slide down to an edge below me, and bound off, to fall into the water, which I could hear lapping, sucking, and gliding about the sides of the chasm, strangely suggestive of live creatures which had been disturbed and had made a rush at the falling stone in the belief it was something they might tear and devour. Recovering from my momentary panic, I set one hand free to search for and get out my little tin match-box. It was no easy task, under the circumstances, to get it open and strike one of the tiny tapers. "Val, is that you?" came from just below. "Yes; wait a moment. Hold tight," I said in a choking voice, as I rubbed the match on the bottom of the box, making a phosphorescent line of light, then another, and another, before impatiently throwing the match from me and seeing its dim light die away in the darkness. I knew the reason why I had not got the match to light. As I opened the box again to get another, I did not insert finger and thumb till they got a good rub on my jacket to free them from the dampness caused by holding on to the wet stones. Now, as I struck, there was a sharp crackling noise, and the light flashed out, caught on, and the match burned bravely, giving me light enough to look for the tin lamp I had touched before. There it was, some little distance above me, on a terribly steep, wet slope. No time was to be lost; so, mastering my hesitation as I thought of what was before me if I slipped, I began to climb; but, before I had drawn myself up a yard, Denham's voice rose to me, its tones full of agony and despair: "Don't leave me, Val, old fellow!" "Not going to," I shouted. "I'm getting the lamp." "Ah!" came from below. Almost before the exclamation had died away I was within reach of the fallen lamp; but just then I dislodged another loose stone, which went rolling down and plunged into the water below. The match had burned out. "All right," I shouted. "I'll get another." The same business had to be gone through again. Untaught by experience, I moistened the top of the first match I took out, my fingers trembling the while with nervous dread that I would drop the box or spill the matches, when the result might be death to one, if not to both. I tried the damp match three times before throwing it away; then, taking out two together and striking them, my spirits rose as I got a light, which was passed into my left hand, and with the other I secured the lamp, which lay bottom up. "The tallow and wick will have fallen out," I thought. No; the hard fat was in its place. Again I took out a match, shivering as I saw how rapidly it burned away. The very next moment I had laid it against the bent-down wick, which had been flattened by the fall; and it sputtered and refused to burn. All I could do till my fingers began to burn was to melt out some of the tallow and partially dry the wick. Then all was darkness again. "Cheer up!" I cried hoarsely; "third time never fails." There was no response. I turned cold as I fumbled at the box once more; my fingers needed no moisture from the slippery stones now to make them wet, for the perspiration seemed to be oozing out of every pore. I was again successful when I struck a match, and it burned up brightly. My heart now beat more hopefully, as one tiny strand of the cotton caught and ceased sputtering, giving forth a feeble blue flame, which I was able to coax by letting the fat it melted drain away till more and more of the wick caught and began to burn. I dared not wait to light the second wick, but looked for a safe place to set the lamp; this I found directly, within reach of my hand. My hurried glance showed that we were in a rough tunnel or shoot, sloping down rapidly into darkness--a darkness too horrible to contemplate; and, to my despair, I could not see Denham. Then, as the sight of the light revived him, I could hear his shivering sigh. "Where are you?" I said, trying to speak firmly. "Just below you," came faintly. I felt my teeth were clenched together as I asked the next question, knowing only too well what must be the answer: "Can you see to climb up to me?" "No," came back after a pause of a moment or two. "I'm hurt and sick. I feel as if I shall faint." "Can you hold on till I get down to you?" "I--I think so, old fellow," he said faintly. "I'm on a sort of shelf. But don't try--you can't do it--you'll send the loose stones down upon me. That last one grazed my head." "But I must," I said harshly, and I remember fancying that my voice sounded savage and brutal. "I can't leave you like this." "Climb up out of this horrible hole yourself, old fellow, and leave me." "I won't," I shouted, so that my voice went echoing away; but as I looked up past the light it seemed to me that I could not, even if willing. "You must," said Denham more firmly. "Climb up and call for help." At that moment, sounding faint and distant, there was the report of a rifle; then another, and another, followed by four or five in a volley. "The Boers are attacking," I cried. My heart sank as something seemed to say to me, "Well, if they are, what does it matter to you?" The firing went on, and just then the wick of the lamp, of which a good deal must have been loosened by the fall, began to blaze up famously. I looked around to ascertain if I could get down to help Denham; but it seemed impossible. I saw, however, that I might lower myself a couple of feet farther, and get my heels in a transverse crack in the rock, where I could check myself and perhaps afford some help to a climber. "Look here, Denham," I shouted out as if I had been running, "I can help you if you can climb up here. You must pluck up and try." He muttered, with a low groan: "Don't talk like that, old chap. I've got the pluck, but feel as if I haven't got the power. If I stir I shall go down into that awful pool, and then--Oh dear, it's very horrible to die like a rat in a flooded hole!" "Hold your tongue, you idiot!" I shouted, in a rage. "Who's going to die? Look here; I can't get down to you, so I must climb out and fetch help. I'll go if you'll swear you'll sit fast and be patient, even if the light goes out." There was no answer. "Denham, old fellow, do you hear me?" I cried, with a thrill of horror running through me as I imagined he had fainted, and that the next moment I should hear a sullen splash. "Yes, I hear you," he said. "I'll try. It's all right. But why don't you shout?" "No one could hear me, even if that firing was not going on," I said. Looking upwards, I felt that the only chance was to try; but I was almost certain that I should slip, fall, and most likely carry my poor friend with me. The flickering light made the rocks above appear as if in motion; and, as I stared up wildly, the various projections looked as if a touch would send them rushing down. Then I uttered a gasp and tried to shout, but my voice failed. Was I deceiving myself? Almost within reach was a rope hanging down, close to the wall of the shaft on my right. Then I could speak again. "Hurrah!" I shouted. "Here's help, Denham. Hold on; some one's letting down a rope. Ahoy, there! swing it more into the middle." Echoes were the only answer. Almost in despair, I crept sideways, and made a frantic dash just as I felt I was slipping, and a stone gave way beneath my feet. There I hung, flat upon the rock, listening to a couple of heavy splashes, but with the rope tight in my grasp as if my fingers had suddenly become of steel. I could not speak again for a few minutes; but at last, as the echoes of the splashes died out, the words came: "All right, Denham?" A horrible pause followed; then, with a gasp: "Yes--all right--yes--I thought it was all over then." _ |
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