“Some one give me a drink of water,” he cried hoarsely; and a canteen having been handed to him, he drank deeply, and then tried to rise, but failed.
“You’ll have to go on, captain,” he said hoarsely. “I’ve got a bit of a hurt. I did not think it was so much as it is. Makes me a bit faint. If some one took my arm perhaps I could struggle on.”
“We are close to the jungle, sahib,” whispered Dost.
“Two of you support the sergeant,” cried the captain; and a couple of men being detailed for the duty, the sergeant struggled on again for about a couple of hundred yards, the last hundred being in the deep shadows of the trees; and none too soon, for a few bird notes were heard announcing the coming day. Ten minutes later sentries were posted, the horses picketed, and the men were lying down to drop asleep directly, while the doctor busily examined the sergeant’s wound.
“A big and ugly one,” he said, “but nothing to mind. Made you faint, of course. There, it isn’t your sword arm.”
“’Tisn’t your sword arm” rung in my ears again and again, mingled with the whistling and singing of birds; and to me the bird song had something to do with the dressing of the wound; and then all was blank, and I was plunged in a deep sleep which after some time grew disturbed, and I seemed to be back at the college, drilling, and studying under General Crucie. Then I was getting into difficulties with my fellow cadets and being sent to Coventry, as the most ill-humoured fellow they knew; and then I was awake, gazing up at the trees whose boughs shaded us from the sun, bathed in perspiration, and smelling tobacco smoke.
Note 1. Dhoolies are light ambulances.
Note 2. Purdahs, curtains or hangings.