Indeed our friends had as much as they could, manage in transporting their wounded comrade with all the comfort—rough at best—that they could muster under the circumstances; but it had to be done, and the poor fellow went through agonies. His pluck and cheerfulness never failed him. “I say, Claverton,” he remarked, with an attempt at a smile, “that old humbug McShane will have the laugh of me now. How the old beggar will crow!” But the speaker knew full well that not a soul among the forces now in the field would be more concerned and grieved on his account than the fiery but soft-hearted Irish doctor.
The camp was reached at last; but long before it was reached, the whole force had overtaken them, returning from the pursuit. The bodies of those who had fallen were found, horribly mutilated, and were hastily buried where they fell. But the undertaking had been a failure. The Boer commando had been unable to arrive at the rendezvous in time, owing to the same reason which had delayed Brathwaite’s Horse. It had been engaged by a large body of the enemy evidently thrown out for the purpose, and as soon as it had beaten these off it hastened to the relief of our friends, as we have seen. And the upshot of the whole affair was that nearly two thousand rebels, with an immense number of cattle, had succeeded in breaking through, and had gone to join their countrymen in the fastnesses of the Amatola Mountains.
All through that night the wounded man lay, watched in turns by his old comrades, those among whom he had spent his life. A stupor had succeeded the agony which he had first undergone, and now he lay comparatively free from pain and breathing heavily. It happened that there was no surgeon in the camp, McShane being with the larger column some twenty-five miles off; and though three men were galloping across country to fetch him, it had long since become evident to all, even the sufferer himself, that the whole Faculty of Medicine could not save his life. He was doomed from the very first; that ball in the side had decided his fate. So they watched beside him there, and many times in the course of the night would his companions-in-arms steal to the door of the tent to whisper for news, for poor Jack was a favourite with the whole corps. So still and beautiful was the night that it required some extent of imagination to realise the stirring drama which had been enacted the day before, and an hour after midnight the camp was wrapped in slumber and darkness, save for that one faint light burning in the dying man’s tent, a meet symbol of the life that was flickering within, fainter, and fainter, and fainter. Away on the slopes of the far Amatola the red signal fires of the savages twinkled and glowed, and above rose the eternal peaks in dark outline.
It was towards dawn. Jim Brathwaite and Claverton alone were in the tent when Armitage seemed suddenly to awake from his death-like stupor.
“Who’s there?” he whispered. “That you, Jim?”
In a moment Jim was at his side.
“Well, look here, old chap, I’m off the hooks this time, and no mistake. It wouldn’t much matter—only—” and he paused.
“It wouldn’t much matter,” he continued, as if with an effort; “but—Jim—hang it, it’s Gertie I’m thinking of. Poor little girl, she’ll be left all alone—,” again he seemed to hesitate, and by the light of the dim lantern, it could be seen that the dying man’s eyes were very moist. “You’ll look after her a little, now and then, won’t you, Jim, for the sake of old times? There’ll be enough to keep her comfortably—when everything’s realised—that’s one consolation. And tell the little girl not to fret. It can’t be helped.”
Solemnly Jim promised to carry out his wishes. He was a man of few words, but they were from his heart.