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Fix Bay'nets: The Regiment in the Hills, a novel by George Manville Fenn |
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Chapter 32. Only Human |
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_ CHAPTER THIRTY TWO. ONLY HUMAN As the sun gathered force in rising higher, a thin veil of snow was melted from off a broad patch of rock, which dried rapidly; and, after a little consideration, Gedge went to Bracy's shoulders, took fast hold of his _poshtin_, and drew him softly and quickly off the icy surface right on to the warm, dry rock, the young officer's eyes opening widely in transit, and then closing again without their owner becoming conscious, but, as his head was gently lowered down again upon its sheepskin pillow, the deep sleep of exhaustion went on. "Needn't ha' been 'fraid o' waking you," said Gedge softly, and looking down at the sleeper as if proud of his work.--"There, you'll be dry and warm as a toast, and won't wake up lying in a pond o' water.--Now I'll just have a look round, and then sit down and wait till he wakes." Gedge took his good look round, making use of Bracy's glass, and in two places made out bodies of white-coated men whose weapons glinted in the sun shine; but they were far away, and in hollows among the hills. "That's all I can make out," said Gedge, closing the glass and replacing it softly in the case slung from Bracy's shoulders; "but there's holes and cracks and all sorts o' places where any number more may be. Blest if I don't think all the country must have heard that we're going for help, and turned out to stop us. My! how easy it all looked when we started! Just a long walk and a little dodging the niggers, and the job done. One never thought o' climbing up here and skating down, and have a launching in the snow." Gedge yawned tremendously, and being now in excellent spirits and contentment with himself, he chuckled softly. "That was a good one," he said. "What a mouth I've got! I say, though, my lad, mouths have to be filled, and there ain't much left. We were going, I thought, to shoot pheasants, and kill a sheep now and then, to make a fire and have roast bird one day, leg o' mutton the next, and cold meat when we was obliged; but seems to me that it was all cooking your roast chickens before they was hatched. Fancy lighting a fire anywhere! Why, it would bring a swarm of the beauties round to carve us up instead of the wittles; and as to prog, why, I ain't seen nothing but that one bear. Don't seem to hanker after bear," continued Gedge after a few minutes' musing, during which he made sure that Bracy was sleeping comfortably. "Bears outer the 'Logical Gardens, nicely fatted up on buns, might be nice, and there'd be plenty o' nice fresh bear's grease for one's 'air; but these here wild bears in the mountains must feed theirselves on young niggers and their mothers, and it'd be like being a sort o' second-hand cannibal to cook and eat one of the hairy brutes. No, thanky; not this time, sir. I'll wait for the pudden." Human nature is human nature, which nobody can deny; and, uncultivated save in military matters, and rough as he was, Bill Gedge was as human as he could be. He had just had a tremendous tramp for a whole day, a sleepless night of terrible excitement and care, a sudden respite from anxiety, a meal, and the glow of a hot sun upon a patch of rock which sent a genial thrill of comfort through his whole frame. These were the difficulties which were weighing hard in one of the scales of the young private's constitution, while he was doing his best to weigh down the other scale with duty, principle, and a manly, honest feeling of liking for the officer whom he had set up from the first moment of being attached to the company as the model of what a soldier should be. It was hard work. Those yawns came again and again, increasing in violence. "Well done, boa-constructor," he said. "Little more practice, and you'll be able to swallow something as big as yourself; but my! don't it stretch the corners of your mouth! I want a bit o' bear's grease ready to rub in, for they're safe to crack. "My! how sleepy I am!" he muttered a little later. "I ain't been put on sentry-go, but it's just the same, and a chap as goes to sleep in the face of the enemy ought to be shot. Sarve him right, too, for not keeping a good lookout. Might mean all his mates being cut up. Oh! I say, this here won't do," he cried, springing up. "Let's have a hoky-poky penny ice, free, grashus, for nothing." He went off on tiptoe, glancing at Bracy as he passed, and then stooped down over a patch of glittering snow, scraping up a handful and straightening himself in the sunshine, as he amused himself by addressing an imaginary personage. "Say, gov'nor," he cried, "you've got a bigger stock than you'll get shut of to-day.--Eh? You don't expect to? Right you are, old man. Break yer barrer if yer tried to carry it away. Say; looks cleaner and nicer to-day without any o' that red or yeller paint mixed up with it. I like it best when it's white. Looks more icy.--What say? Spoon? No, thank ye. Your customers is too fond o' sucking the spoons, and I never see you wash 'em after.--Ha! this is prime. Beats Whitechapel all to fits; and it's real cold, too. I don't care about it when it's beginning to melt and got so much juist.--But I say! Come! Fair play's a jewel. One likes a man to make his profit and be 'conimycal with the sugar, but you ain't put none in this. "Never mind," he added after a pause, during which the Italian ice-vendor faded out of his imagination; "it's reg'lar 'freshing when you're so sleepy. Wonder what made them Italians come to London and start selling that stuff o' theirs. Seems rum; ours don't seem a country for that sort o' thing. Baked taters seems so much more English, and does a chap so much more good." He walked back to the warm patch of rock, looked at Bracy, and then placed both rifles and bayonets ready, sat down cross-legged, and after withdrawing the cartridges, set to work with an oily rag to remove all traces of rust, and gave each in turn a good polish, ending by carefully wiping the bayonets after unfixing them, and returning them to their sheaths, handling Bracy's most carefully, for fear of disturbing the sleeper. This done, he began to yawn again, and, as he expressed it, took another penny ice and nodding at vacancy, which he filled with a peripatetic vendor, he said: "All right, gov'nor; got no small change. Pay next time I come this way." Then he marked out a beat, and began marching up and down. "Bah!" he cried; "that ice only makes you feel dry and thirsty.--My! how sleepy I am!--Here, steady!" he cried, as he yawned horribly; "you'll have your head right off, old man, if you do that.--Never was so sleepy in my life." He marched up and down a little faster--ten paces and turn--ten paces and turn--up and down, up and down, in the warm sunshine; but it was as if some deadly stupor enveloped him, and as he kept up the steady regulation march, walking and turning like an automaton, he was suddenly fast asleep and dreaming for quite a minute, when he gave a violent start, waking himself, protesting loudly against a charge made against him, and all strangely mixed up the imaginary and the real. "Swear I wasn't, Sergeant!" he cried angrily. "Look for yerself.-- Didn't yer see, pardners? I was walking up and down like a clockwork himidge.--Sleep at my post? Me sleep at my post? Wish I may die if I do such a thing. It's the old game. Yer allus 'ated me, Sergeant, from the very first, and--Phew! Here! What's the matter? I've caught something, and it's got me in the nut. I'm going off my chump." Poor Gedge stood with his hands clasped to his forehead, staring wildly before him. "Blest if I wasn't dreaming!" he said wonderingly. "Ain't took bad, am I? Thought old Gee come and pounced upon me, and said I was sleepin' on duty. And it's a fack. It's as true as true; I was fast asleep; leastwise I was up'ards. Legs couldn't ha' been, because they'd ha' laid down. Oh! this here won't do. It was being on dooty without arms." Drawing himself up, he snatched his bayonet from its scabbard, and resumed his march, going off last asleep again; but this time the cessation of consciousness descended as it were right below the waist-belt and began to steal down his legs, whose movements became slower and slower, hips, then knees, stiffening; and then, as the drowsy god's work attacked his ankles, his whole body became rigid, and he stood as if he had been gradually frozen stiff for quite a minute, when it seemed as if something touched him, and he sprang into wakefulness again, and went on with his march up and down. "Oh, it's horrid!" he said piteously. "Of course. That'll do it." He sheathed his bayonet, and catching up his rifle, went through the regular forms as if receiving orders: he grounded arms; then drew and fixed bayonet, shouldered arms, and began the march again. "That's done it," he said. "Reg'larly woke up now. S'pose a fellow can't quite do without sleep, unless he got used to it, like the chap's 'oss, only he died when he'd got used to living upon one eat a day. Rum thing, sleep, though. I allus was a good un to sleep. Sleep anywhere; but I didn't know I was so clever as to sleep standing up. Wonder whether I could sleep on one leg. Might do it on my head. Often said I could do anything on my head. There, it's a-coming on again." He stepped to the nearest snow and rubbed his temples with it before resuming his march; but the relief was merely temporary. He went to Bracy's side, to see that he was sleeping heavily, and an intense feeling of envy and longing to follow his officer's example and lie down and sleep for hours nearly mastered him. "But I won't--I won't sleep," he said, grinding his teeth. "I'll die first. I'm going to keep awake and do my dooty like a soldier by my orficer. I'd do it for any orficer in the ridgement, so of course I would for the gov'nor, poor chap! He's watched over me before now.-- Yes, I'm going to keep on. I shall be better soon. Ten minutes would set me right, and if there was a mate here to take my post I'd have a nap; but there ain't a pardner to share it, and I've got to do it on my head. Wonder whether I should feel better if I did stand on my head for a minute. Anyhow, I ain't goin' to try." Gedge spent the next ten minutes in carefully examining his rifle; then he turned to Bracy, and soon after he took out the latter's glass and swept the country round, to find more groups of men in motion. "Why, the place is getting alive with the beggars," he growled. "We shall be having some of 'em cocking an eye up and seeing us here. Don't know, though; they couldn't make us out, and even if they did we look like a couple o' sheep. I've got to look out sharp, though, to see as we're not surprised. Almost wish three or four would come now, so as I could have a set-to with 'em. That would wake me up, and no mistake.-- Ah! it's wonderful what one can see with a bit or two o' glass set in a brown thing like this.--Ah! there it is again." Gedge lowered the glass and started violently, for the feeling of sleep was now overmastering. "Nearly dropped and smashed his glass," he said petulantly, and, laying down his rifle, he closed the little lorgnette slowly and carefully with half-numbed fingers, which fumbled about the instrument feebly. "He'd ha'--he'd ha'--fine--tongue-thrashing when he woke--foun' glass-- smashed." Gedge sank upon his knees and bent over the sleeper, fumbling for the strap and case to replace the glass. "Where ha' you got to?" he muttered. "What yer swinging about half a mile away for? Ah! that's got yer," he went on, aiming at the case with a strange fixity of expression. "Now then--the lid--the lid--and the strap through the buckle, and the buckle--done it--me go to sleep--on dooty, Sergeant? Not me!--I--I--ha-h-h!" Poor Gedge was only human, and his drowsy head sank across Bracy's breast, so wrapped in sleep that the firing of a rifle by his ear would hardly have roused him up. _ |
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