Esher managed to turn his head, and watched the Japanese officer copying an order by the light of a bicycle lamp. The order had just been delivered by a mounted messenger, who sat immovable as a statue on his exhausted and panting steed.
Suddenly the Japanese cavalryman seemed to grow enormous bats' wings, which spread out until they obscured the whole sky. The ghostly figure resembled a wild creature of fable, born of the weird fancy of a Doré, or an avenging angel of the Apocalypse. Then the rider shrank together again and seemed to be bouncing up and down on the back of his horse like a little grinning monkey.
The wounded man rubbed his eyes. What was that? Was he awake or had he been dreaming?
He asked the ambulance soldier for a drink, and the latter at once handed him some water in a tin cup. Now a real Japanese cavalryman was once more sitting up there on his horse, while the officer was still writing. Then the officer's arm began to grow longer and longer, until at last he was writing on the sky with a fiery pencil:
"In case there is no Japanese attack on August 15th, the Tenth Brigade under General Lawrence is to retain its present positions until the attack of our center——"
Good Lord, what was that? Yes, those were the very words of the message he was to have delivered to the Tenth Brigade, and not only were the words identical, but the hand-writing was the same, for the flaming letters had burnt themselves into his memory stroke for stroke and word for word and line for line.
He tried to get up, but could not. The lieutenant kept on writing, while the horseman stood beside him. The horse was brushing off the flies with his tail.
Then the awful, maddening thought came to him: This must be the beginning of wound-fever. If it kept up and he began to get delirious, he might betray his orders for Lawrence's brigade to the enemy.
And he saw hundreds of Japanese standing around him, all stretching their necks to catch his words, and more and more came from over the mountain ridges like a swarm of ants, and they all wanted to hear the secrets that he was trying to keep in his aching head, while the officer waved his note-book over him like a fluttering flag. Then the doctor seized him, and arm in arm they hopped to and fro—to and fro—to and fro.
Yes, he was certainly delirious. Lieutenant Esher thought of his home. He saw his little house on 148th Street. He came home from business, he walked through the garden, hung up his coat on the rack, opened the door, his young wife welcomed him, she nodded to him—Eveline—groaned the lieutenant, and then his thoughts turned to God.