“I have told you what to do,” he said at last quite calmly. “You must use your brains.”
“Never had much, sir,” replied Gedge bitterly; “and now they’re about froze up with cold and hungriness and trouble. I ain’t fit to send on such a job as this, sir. I’m sure to muff it.”
“Do you want to find out some day, my lad, that those poor comrades of ours have been massacred to a man through your hanging back from doing what might have saved them?”
“I wish I may die if I do, sir!” cried Gedge passionately.
“Then go.”
“But I’m cold and hungry, sir, and it’s getting dark, and I don’t know my way.”
“Crush those feelings down like a hero, and go.”
“Hero, sir? Me a hero!” cried Gedge bitterly. “Oh? there’s none of that stuff in me.”
There was just enough light reflected from the upper peaks to enable the couple to see each other’s faces—the one frowning and angry, and belying the calm, stern fixedness into which it had been forced; the other wild, anxious, and with the nerves twitching sharply at the corners of the eyes and mouth, as if its owner were grimacing in mockery of the young officer’s helplessness and suffering.
“Gedge,” said Bracy suddenly, after making an effort as if to swallow down the rage and despair from which he suffered.