After a long time some one spoke. Some one had the fearful courage to stammer from twisted lips a question:
“Who were they? Tell us the names.” Robert Burney’s steady glance passed from face to face, and he gave us the names.
“Alan Wilson,” he repeated lingeringly, as though he loved the sound of those two words; and there is indeed something gallant-sounding, something intrepid and chivalrous, in the rhythm of that man’s name whom other men so much loved—that dauntless leader who instilled the spirit of courageous adventure and loyal comradeship into every one with whom he came in contact; whose comrades so loved him that it is certain they followed him to death as gaily as they would have ridden by his side to victory.
“Alan Wilson—Borrow—Kirton—Judd—Greenfield—” Sometimes he paused for a moment, but he never repeated a name twice and he gave us every one of the thirty-four. Some one checked them off, slowly and relentlessly, like a clock ticking and bringing us at each tick nearer to some dreadful doom. When he had finished a sigh passed over us like a ghostly wind.
Some of them were names we knew well; some we had never heard before; all were names to be thereafter written in our memories, and in letters of scarlet and gold across the deathless page of Fame. In other places many a woman’s head would be bowed to the dust, many a bereaved heart torn and broken, while yet it thrilled with pride for the glorious “Last Stand” of those thirty-four dauntless men.
But for most of us standing there, hanging upon the words of Robert Burney, breathing heavily after every name as from a deathblow escaped, all that it seemed possible to feel at that moment was a savage joy; a joy so painful that it seemed as if it must burst the heart that felt it.
God knows we grudged Fame to none for their noble dead. We mourned with them, and would weep for them. But at first, just at first, in that great pain of relief, we could not help that little ghostly sighing wind of relief and thanks that escaped from our dry lips—thanks to God for the omission of the special name we loved from that terrible roll-call of Honour.
Alas! for one among us who could not so thank God—for the wife of one of the only two married men who fell with that heroic band. When we realised what had befallen her we gathered round her. We could do nothing to comfort her. No one tried to beguile her from her grief with words. But it seemed a kind thing to do to shelter her stricken eyes from the gay and flaunting sunshine.
All was not yet told. There had been other engagements. After the loss of the Wilson patrol the main column had retreated down the Shangani River to Umhlangeni, and all the way were continuously attacked. Moreover, they had run short of food and been forced to eat some of their horses; their boots had given out; many of them were obliged to march with their broken feet thrust into the regulation leather wallets; fever also had attacked them. Another list of casualties was necessarily attached to this retreat. One of the nice cheeky boys had been killed; Mrs Shand’s husband wounded; Dr Marriott—
When Burney came to this name his eyes rested for a moment on Mrs Marriott’s listening face, and by something that came into his expression I knew that his news for her was of the worst. God knows if she too read his look aright, but she was the first to speak: