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Fix Bay'nets: The Regiment in the Hills, a novel by George Manville Fenn |
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Chapter 14. The Uncomfortable Symptoms |
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_ CHAPTER FOURTEEN. THE UNCOMFORTABLE SYMPTOMS Captain Roberts intended to go and sit with his friend for an hour or two next day, but he was called off on duty, and Drummond seized the opportunity to pay a visit. He was met at the door by Mrs Gee, who looked at him sourly as she passed, for she had just been summoned by one of Doctor Morton's ambulance men to go and attend to one of the men who had been taken worse. "How do, nurse?" said Drummond. "Just going in to see your patient." "Then you must not stay long, sir. Ten minutes will be plenty of time. Mr Bracy can't get well if he is so bothered with visitors." "Oh, I won't bother him, nurse; only cheer him up a bit." The woman frowned and hurried away, leaving the course open, and Drummond went straight on, thinking aloud. "Glad my arm's not worse," he said, as he nursed it gently, "for I shouldn't like to be under her ladyship's thumb. She ought to be called to order. Talk about a hen that can crow; she's nothing to my lady here. I wonder Bracy stands it. Hullo! what's the matter?" Loud voices came from the door of Bracy's room--those of the latter and Gedge; and upon hurrying in the young subaltern was astounded to find, as it seemed to him, Private Gedge with one knee upon the edge of the charpoy, bending over the patient, holding him down by the arm, which was pressed across his chest close up to the throat. "Here! Hi! Hullo here!" cried Drummond. "What's the meaning of this, sir?" The words acted like magic. Gedge slipped back, drawing Bracy's arm from where it lay, and he then carefully laid it down beside him. "It's all right, sir, now, sir; ain't it, Mr Bracy?" "Yes, yes," said the latter faintly, and looking up at his visitor in a weary, dazed way. "This fellow has not been assaulting you, has he?" cried Drummond. "Me? 'Saulting him, sir?" cried Gedge. "Well, come now, I do like that!" "Oh no; oh no," sighed Bracy. "It was like this here," continued Gedge; "I was a-hanging about waiting to see if he wanted me to give him a drink or fetch him anything." Bracy's lips moved, and an anxious expression came over his face; but he said nothing, only looked wildly from one to the other. "Then all at once I hears him calling, and I went in. 'Here, Gedge, my lad,' he says--just like that, sir, all wild-like--'take this here arm away; it's trying to strangle me.' "'What! yer own arm, sir?' I says, laughing. 'That won't do.'--'Yes, it will,' he says, just in that squeezy, buzzy way, sir; 'I can't bear it. Take it off, or it'll choke me!'" "Well?" said Drummond anxiously; "did you?" "Yes, sir, of course I did; for he spoke just as if it was so; and I got hold of it and tried to pull it away, but he wouldn't let me. He kep' it tight down close to his throat, and looked quite bad in the face." "You should have used force," said Drummond. "I did, sir; lots o' force; but he'd got it crooked, and it was just as if the joint had gone fast, so that I was afraid that if I pulled too hard I might break something; and it was just while I was hanging fire like that you came, and he let it come then quite easy. Didn't you, sir?" "Yes, yes," said Bracy hurriedly. "It had gone to sleep, I suppose, and was as heavy and as cold as marble." "Oh, I see," said Drummond, smiling; "been lying in an awkward position, I suppose?" Bracy nodded, but there was a curious look in his eyes that his visitor did not see. "Come to take a look at you and have a chat.--I say. You heard about me getting in for it?" "Yes, I heard," said Bracy sadly. "You were wounded." "Bit of a chop from a tulwar," replied Drummond, touching his bandaged arm lightly. "Nothing much, but I am off duty for a bit. Precious nuisance, isn't it?" Bracy looked at him so piteously that the young fellow coloured. "Of course," he said hurriedly; "I understand. Precious stupid of me to talk like that and make a fuss about being off duty for a few days, when you're in for it for weeks. But I say, you know, you are a lot better. Old Morton said you only wanted time." "He told you that?" cried Bracy eagerly. "Yes, last night when I met him and he asked me about my scratch. Said he was proud of your case, for with some surgeons you would have died. Ha, ha! He looked at my arm the while, with his face screwed up as if he pitied me for not being under his hands. I say, he's a rum chap, isn't he?" "He has been very good and patient with me," sighed Bracy; "and I'm afraid I have been very ungrateful." "Tchah! Not you, old fellow. We're all disagreeable and grumble when we're knocked over. That's only natural. Children are cross when they're unwell, and I suppose we're only big children. I say, heard the news?" "News? No; I hear nothing here." "Poor old man! Well, the scouts have brought in news that two more tribes have been bitten with the idea that they want their ranks thinned a bit, and so they've joined the Dwats; so I suppose we shall have some warm work." "And I am lying here as helpless as a lump of lead. No; I did not hear." "Why, sir, I telled you all that only this morning," broke out Gedge. "Eh? Did you, my lad?" "Yes, sir; d'reckly after breakfast." "So you did. I went to sleep afterwards, and it passed out of my memory. I'm getting weaker, I suppose." "Not you," cried Drummond. "Here, I say, as I'm a cripple too, I shall come on more. What do you say to a game or two every day? Chess?" Bracy shook his head. "Of course not; chess is hard work. Well, then, draughts?" Bracy shook his head again. "Right; not much of a game. What do you say to dominoes? We've got a set of double doubles; regular big ones. Shall I bring 'em on?" "No," said Bracy decisively; "bring your field-glass, and come and sit at that window. You can command a good deal of the valley there." "What! and tell you all the movements I can make out? To be sure, dear boy. Now, I never thought of that. So I will. I'll come on this afternoon, and you and I will criticise them all and see if we could have planned the beggars' attack better. There, I promised your she-dragon of a nurse not to stay long, so off I go. Bye, bye, old chap; you're beginning to look blooming. We'll do some Von Moltke, and--ah! would you? I say, you are getting better. Larks--eh? But I was too quick for you." The young officer smiled and nodded merrily, and then went out of the room, Gedge opening the door for him, and slipping out after. "Well, what is it?" said Drummond, as Gedge stood looking at him anxiously, and as if waiting for him to speak. "Thought you was going to say something to me, sir, 'bout Mr Bracy there. Don't speak so loud, or he'll hear you." "Don't matter if he does, my lad. We're not conspiring against him. What did you expect me to say?" "Something about that arm of his'n, sir, and about him trying to kick you just now." "Oh, pooh! nonsense! His arm had gone dead; and as for his kicking at me--well, we're getting old friends now, and it was for a bit of fun." "Think so, sir?" "Of course." "Then you wouldn't tell the Doctor about it?" "About that? Absurd! Here, you're not up to the mark yourself, my lad." "Well, no, sir; can't quite reach it yet; but I'm a deal better." "Full of fancies, that's all. What! were you thinking that your master was a bit off his head?" "Something o' that sort, sir." "Then don't think so any more. He's fanciful enough without you beginning." "Then you don't think it's anything to mind?" "No, of course not. I'm glad to see him getting so much stronger." Drummond nodded, and being in a good deal of pain, began to nurse his arm again, and tried whether whistling would soothe the sharp, gnawing ache which seemed to run from his wrist up to his shoulder. Gedge waited till his footsteps died out, and then turned to go back to Bracy's room. "His is only a clean cut of a tullywor," he muttered, "and'll soon grow together. Different thing to a ragged bullet-wound right through the chest and back, or one like mine, right in the back. I don't like the looks o' all this, though; but he must know better than me, after seeing a lot o' poor fellows cut down and shot; but I think I ought to tell the Doctor." He opened the door softly and went in, to find that Bracy had been watching for him anxiously. "Here, Gedge!" saluted him. "Yes, sir. Get yer a drink, sir?" "No, no; I want to speak to you. I think I can trust you, Gedge?" "Yes, sir; of course, sir. What yer want me to do?" "Hold your tongue, my lad." "Yes, sir." "Don't tell the Doctor or Mrs Gee that I hit Captain Roberts on the back yesterday." "How could I, sir? Did yer?" "Yes, yes," said Bracy hurriedly. "Nor yet about my arm doing what it did." "No, sir, cert'n'y not; but I say, sir, you know, your arm didn't do nothing but go to sleep." "Nor yet about my trying to kick Mr Drummond," said Bracy, without heeding his fellow--sufferer's words. "Oh no; I shan't say nothing to nobody, sir, unless you tell me to." "That's right," said Bracy, with a sigh of relief. "That will do. Go now; I want to sleep till Mr Drummond comes back." "Right, sir," said Gedge, and he went to the bed's head and gently raised the sufferer, while he turned the pillow. "Makes yer head a bit cooler, sir." "Yes, thanks, Gedge," said Bracy drowsily; and by the time the lad was outside he was half-asleep. "I don't like them games of the guvnor's," said Gedge to himself.--"Guvnor? Well, why not? I'm like being orficer's servant now. There's something queer about him, as if he was a bit off his head and it made him get up to larks; for he can't be--No, no, that's impossible, even if it looks like it. He ain't the sorter chap to be playing at sham Abram and make-believe because he was sick of fighting and didn't want to run no more risks." _ |
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