Only Human.
As the sun gathered force in rising higher, a thin veil of snow was melted from off a broad patch of rock, which dried rapidly; and, after a little consideration, Gedge went to Bracy’s shoulders, took fast hold of his poshtin, and drew him softly and quickly off the icy surface right on to the warm, dry rock, the young officer’s eyes opening widely in transit, and then closing again without their owner becoming conscious, but, as his head was gently lowered down again upon its sheepskin pillow, the deep sleep of exhaustion went on.
“Needn’t ha’ been ’fraid o’ waking you,” said Gedge softly, and looking down at the sleeper as if proud of his work.—“There, you’ll be dry and warm as a toast, and won’t wake up lying in a pond o’ water.—Now I’ll just have a look round, and then sit down and wait till he wakes.”
Gedge took his good look round, making use of Bracy’s glass, and in two places made out bodies of white-coated men whose weapons glinted in the sun shine; but they were far away, and in hollows among the hills.
“That’s all I can make out,” said Gedge, closing the glass and replacing it softly in the case slung from Bracy’s shoulders; “but there’s holes and cracks and all sorts o’ places where any number more may be. Blest if I don’t think all the country must have heard that we’re going for help, and turned out to stop us. My! how easy it all looked when we started! Just a long walk and a little dodging the niggers, and the job done. One never thought o’ climbing up here and skating down, and have a launching in the snow.”
Gedge yawned tremendously, and being now in excellent spirits and contentment with himself, he chuckled softly.
“That was a good one,” he said. “What a mouth I’ve got! I say, though, my lad, mouths have to be filled, and there ain’t much left. We were going, I thought, to shoot pheasants, and kill a sheep now and then, to make a fire and have roast bird one day, leg o’ mutton the next, and cold meat when we was obliged; but seems to me that it was all cooking your roast chickens before they was hatched. Fancy lighting a fire anywhere! Why, it would bring a swarm of the beauties round to carve us up instead of the wittles; and as to prog, why, I ain’t seen nothing but that one bear. Don’t seem to hanker after bear,” continued Gedge after a few minutes’ musing, during which he made sure that Bracy was sleeping comfortably. “Bears outer the ’Logical Gardens, nicely fatted up on buns, might be nice, and there’d be plenty o’ nice fresh bear’s grease for one’s ’air; but these here wild bears in the mountains must feed theirselves on young niggers and their mothers, and it’d be like being a sort o’ second-hand cannibal to cook and eat one of the hairy brutes. No, thanky; not this time, sir. I’ll wait for the pudden.”
Human nature is human nature, which nobody can deny; and, uncultivated save in military matters, and rough as he was, Bill Gedge was as human as he could be. He had just had a tremendous tramp for a whole day, a sleepless night of terrible excitement and care, a sudden respite from anxiety, a meal, and the glow of a hot sun upon a patch of rock which sent a genial thrill of comfort through his whole frame. These were the difficulties which were weighing hard in one of the scales of the young private’s constitution, while he was doing his best to weigh down the other scale with duty, principle, and a manly, honest feeling of liking for the officer whom he had set up from the first moment of being attached to the company as the model of what a soldier should be. It was hard work. Those yawns came again and again, increasing in violence.
“Well done, boa-constructor,” he said. “Little more practice, and you’ll be able to swallow something as big as yourself; but my! don’t it stretch the corners of your mouth! I want a bit o’ bear’s grease ready to rub in, for they’re safe to crack.
“My! how sleepy I am!” he muttered a little later. “I ain’t been put on sentry-go, but it’s just the same, and a chap as goes to sleep in the face of the enemy ought to be shot. Sarve him right, too, for not keeping a good lookout. Might mean all his mates being cut up. Oh! I say, this here won’t do,” he cried, springing up. “Let’s have a hoky-poky penny ice, free, grashus, for nothing.”