“And my rifle gone—where I shall never find it again,” was his first thought, as he forced back his helmet, which had been driven over his eyes: but, just as the thought was grasped, he was conscious of a scratching, scraping noise approaching, and he had just time to fling out his hands and catch his weapon, the effort, however, sending him gliding down again, this time to check himself by bringing the point of the bayonet to bear upon the snow. And now stopped, he lay motionless for a few moments.
“Mustn’t be in a flurry,” he panted, with his heart beating violently, “or I shan’t find the gov’nor, and I must find him. I will find him, pore chap. Want to think it out cool like, and I’m as hot as if I’d been runnin’ a mile. Now then; he’s gone down, and he must ha’ gone strite down here, so if I lets myself slither gently I’m sure to come upon him, for I shall be pulled up same as he’d be.”
He lay panting, still, for a few minutes, and his thinking powers, which had been upset by the suddenness of the scare, began to settle themselves again. Then he listened as he went on, putting, as he mentally termed it, that and that together.
“Can’t hear nothing of him,” he said to himself. “He must have gone down with a rush ’stead o’ falling in a fit as I thought fust; but it ain’t like a fall. He wouldn’t smash hisself, on’y rub some skin off, and he’ll be hollering to me d’reckly from somewheres below. Oh dear! if it only warn’t so precious dark I might see him: but there ain’t no moon, and no stars now, and it’s no use to light a match. I say, why don’t he holler?—I could hear him a mile away—or use his whistle? He’d know that would bring me, and be safer than shouting. But I can’t hear nothing on him. Here: I know.”
Gedge rose to his feet and drove his bayonet into the snow to steady himself, without turning either to the right or the left.
“Mustn’t change front,” he said, “or I may go sliding down wrong and pass him,” he thought. Then raising his hand, he thrust two fingers into his mouth and produced a long drawn whistle, which was a near imitation of that which would be blown by an officer to bring his men together to rally round him and form square.
“That ought to wake him up,” he thought. “He’d hear that if he was miles away.”
There was a faint reply which made his heart leap; and thrusting his fingers between his lips, he whistled again in a peculiar way, with the result that the sound came back as before, and Gedge’s heart sank with something akin to despair.
“’Tain’t him,” he groaned. “It’s them blessed eckers. I’ll make sure, though.”
He stood listening for some minutes, and then, with his heart feeling like lead, took off his helmet and wiped his dripping brow.