* * * * *
April 1*st*.—The beginning of a new military year is not likely to add much to our store of anything, except appetite. Old Yufzul, the Khan, has been parleying with us, day after day, for the last week. He rigs up his blessed white rag, and up goes ours, and then comes the messenger—generally an aged woman, with one of the old devil's interminable letters. These never vary. He's ready to make the most favourable terms with us. First condition: surrender of the fort.... I send him back the same document with a polite note affixed—we keep all the decorum of civilised warfare! My conditions are simple: first, he is to lay down his arms unconditionally; then he is to send us in so many scores of sheep, so many measures of corn, and then I will see what I can do about making his peace with the Government of India. I end up with a delicate warning as to the flight of time. Down comes his rag, down comes ours, and the bullets begin to patter again!
The doctor has a bad opinion of Vane. He says he has no stamina. I never saw any one waste so quickly. Poor little chap, and I who used to think him too pink and too plump! Leicester, the fellow, you know, we found in the fort here with his forty Goorkhas, goes and nurses him like a woman, in the intervals of business. I went to see him to-day—Vane, I mean. He seemed very low, but quite conscious. I thought I worried him, so did not stop long. Leicester tells me he's deadly ashamed of himself for being ill, and thinks I must despise him. Good Lord!
Bethune's up.
* * * * *
April 3*rd*.—My sleep has gone. That's a weak thing for a soldier to have to confess. But I'm tough. I've got into the way of writing like this in the quiet hours. Not that night is always our quiet time, far from it. A black night is our worst enemy. We never know when the creatures will try and rush the fort. Last night we had a lively two hours of it, but I think they've had a lesson, and Rajab, my havildar, has suggested a plan for lighting the walls with pitch on little platforms hung out of the loopholes. If it works, we shan't be taken by surprise again.
* * * * *
We buried poor little Vane this morning. Whiteley came to me at eight o'clock last night and said he did not think he'd last out another twelve hours. I went to see him about eleven o'clock, but was no sooner in the room when they called the alarm from the tower—and we had a hot time of it. Our men were splendid, and I am thankful to say our casualties are comparatively few. Leicester made a sally with his Goorkhas, splendidly in the nick, and that settled the day, or rather the night, for us. There's been a good deal of wailing across the water this morning, at which you should see those little devils smile. In fact, the whole garrison would be in high spirits if it were not for Vane. Last night every one, even the orderly in charge, ran away from him in the scrimmage. I thought of this, I knew it would be so, but, of course, we can't waste time on the dying at such a time. The moment the pressure was over I clambered up to his room. The dawn was just breaking; there he was, lying on the boards under the window. Poor little beggar! flat on his back, in his pyjamas, his carbine by his side. He'd been potting at them out of his window, he was not gone, though. He opened his eyes and grinned at me.
"I'm done for, sir," he said. "But it's not the fever. I'm hit, thank God!"
I lifted him up. Poor little chappy, he had a scratch along his ribs, but it would not have killed a mouse! "You'll tell them," he said, "it was the wound, not the fever."
"I'll have you down: 'Killed in action,'" said I, loud into his ear. And he heard, though he was slipping away very fast. He grinned at me again, and then died without a sigh, his head on my breast, like a child.
This is the fifth week of siege.
* * * * *
I am haunted by your presence. We all dream a great deal when we sleep, these times. That's part of the game when one is half-starved. The fellows amuse themselves by telling their dreams at breakfast. It's almost like: "What's the news?" when one meets at the club.
Bethune makes every one laugh: he's so deadly matter-of-fact, "I dreamed I was sitting down to a Porterhouse steak!" You should hear the boys yell! Leicester, now, yarns away at a magnificent rate. Of course it's half invention; he's a real Irishman; but he keeps us alive. It's as good as a mutton chop to us to see him come dancing into mess—such a mess!—twanging his banjo and singing some absurd lilt of his own making.
"You see, boys," he says, with a piece of horse on his fork; "to a fellow brought up on 'potatoes and point,' this is positively gorgeous!"
But I don't tell my dreams, Rosamond. They are yours and mine.
* * * * *
Once you looked at me with fear in your eyes. It was on board ship. I think if I had ever seen that shadow in your beautiful eyes again, I should have had it in me to throw myself into the sea. Oh! what could you fear in me, Rosamond?