CHAPTER XXIV
A wild December morning was breaking over the great British camp. Masses of storm-cloud swept overhead, the wind howled, and gusts of rain and sleet beat against the black streaming tents. In the broad lanes and square parade grounds, deep in mud and patched with rapidly-widening pools, arms and accoutrements could be seen lying, thrown down by their owners, and left to rot and rust at will.
Some distance away from the camp rose a cluster of huge marquees, their flags of white marked with the red cross of Geneva proclaiming them to be the field hospital, and towards them, phantom-like in the drear half-dark of morning, an apparently never-ending procession was moving. Swaying ambulance waggons and creaking litters—their canvas bottoms red-stained and dripping—toiled through the slush of the road, their path impeded by a throng of limping, maimed, and cursing pedestrians.
The heart of Surgeon-General Macpherson, standing at the main entrance of the hospital, grew heavy as he watched, and his face dark with shame and grief, for never before in a life of more than sixty years had he seen a sight like this.
"Poor old England," he muttered, "you're done at last," and then suddenly his spare form stiffened, and his lips twisted into a smile, for a young officer was approaching; and to Macpherson, and such as he, the maintaining of a stiff upper lip before juniors is a rule of life never to be forgotten, no matter how imminent and certain disaster.
"Hullo, Newton," he said, "what's the matter with you now? Can't have the A.D.C.'s going sick, you know, or who's to run the army?"
"I'm all right, sir," answered the new-comer, touching his cap; "it's not about myself I've come to see you, but Lord Harford, Sir Archibald wants to know how he is."
Macpherson looked away, for despite his efforts the mask for a second had slipped, though this was the question he had known was coming, and one which would have to be answered, not once, but many times that day. At that moment he would have given the half of his small worldly possessions to be no longer Surgeon-General Macpherson, Principal Medical Officer to the British Forces, but instead a junior officer—nay, even a private soldier—in one of his beloved Highland regiments. Still, there was no use burking it, and he answered:
"Lord Harford died two hours ago, Newton; he was shot through the lungs; there was no chance of saving him from the first."
The boy's face fell, and an expression of dismay, almost of terror, was displayed on it.