Gil the Gunner: The Youngest Officer in the East

by George Manville Fenn

Then, as I lay there, confused and troubled, a fresh thought struck me—the firing? Yes, of course there was sharp firing; and I remembered now pretty clearly I was galloping away with troopers on each side. I must have been separated from my men in the desperate shock, and borne off by the foe as they retreated. Yes, of course, I thought, with growing excitement; they must have been retreating; and it was the colonel’s regiment that was firing upon us as we fled.

With these thoughts hope came back, and I could think no more, but dropped off into a deep sleep that was greatly like a swoon.

My next recollection is of lying in that heated tent, feverish and thirsty, and the tall, grey-bearded doctor coming in to busy himself about me, and at every touch of his hand seeming to give me ease.

Then I slept again, and slept—ah, how I must have slept, and dreamed of Brace being safe, and coming sooner or later to rescue me from that silent tent where I saw no one but the doctor and a couple of Hindu servants, who never answered any questions, only salaamed and left the tent if I spoke!

Neither could I get any information from the doctor. All I knew grew from my own calculations, and these taught me that I was the prisoner of some great chief who seemed to be reserving me to exchange for some other prisoner, perhaps to act as a hostage in case he should happen to be captured. I could come to no other conclusion; for so far the custom had been for the revolted people to murder and mutilate every one who fell into their hands.

I was lying there one afternoon, wondering where the tent could be, and why it was that everything was so silent about me. It was puzzling now that I was not quite so weak and feverish; for this could hardly be a camp in which I was a prisoner. If it had been, I should have heard the trampling of horses and the coming and going of armed men. Then I seldom heard voices, save those of the servants who came to attend upon me by the doctor’s orders. But I knew one thing—the tent in which I was sheltered had been pitched under a great tree; for at certain times, when the sun was low, I saw the shadows of leaves and boughs upon the canvas; and when the wind blew sometimes at night, I had heard the rushing sound through the branches.

Feeling a little better as I did that afternoon, I had quite made up my mind to attack the doctor when he came, as I knew he would later on, and try hard to get some particulars about where we were, and what had happened after the fight; for it seemed strange and I shrank at times from the thought that Brace and the colonel had not followed up their success. But had it been a success?

The question was terrible; for their long silence suggested that it might equally have been a failure; and this was the more likely from the odds they had to engage.

I lay there very patiently, for I was not in much pain now; but that afternoon the doctor did not come, and my patience was rapidly fading away; for it was growing late, and it appeared hard, now that I had come to such a determination, for my attendant to stay away. That he must come from a distance, I knew; and more than once I had detected little things which showed me that he had been attending wounded men—a fact which of course told me that there was trouble going on somewhere near at hand.

Perhaps there was trouble that day, I thought, and he was detained in consequence.