“Ah, I thought it was a cut; but I’d forgotten all about it when I come to again in the dark, and couldn’t make it out. My head was all of a swim like, and I couldn’t recklect anything about what had happened, nor make out where I was, only that I was in the dark. All I could understand was that my head was aching awful and swimming round and round, and I seemed to have been fast asleep for hours and hours, and that I had woke up. That was all.”
“Well, go on,” said the sergeant, in obedience to a hint from Roby.
“Yes, direckly,” said the man. “I’m trying to think, but my head don’t go right. It’s just as if some sand had got into the works. Ah, it’s coming now. It was like waking up and finding myself in the dark, and not knowing how I got there.”
“Well, you said that before,” said the sergeant gruffly.
“Did I, sergeant? Well, that’s right; and I tried to get up, but I couldn’t stand, my head swam so. Then I got on my hands and knees, and began to crawl to the ladder; and I went on and kept stopping on account of my head, till I knocked against my helmet and put it on, and began crawling again, thinking I must be where I’d lain down and gone to sleep. Then I went on again for ever so long till I could go no farther, for I was in a place where the rock came down over my head so that I could touch it; but it was all narrow-like, and I was so tired that I lay down, got out my pipe, lit up, and had a smoke.”
“What next?” said the sergeant, exchanging glances with Roby and Dickenson, who were listening.
“That’s all,” said the man quietly. “So I’ll just have a nap to set my head right. It’s a touch of fever, I think.”
“Stop a moment, my lad,” said Roby. “Can’t you recollect what came next?”
“No, sir,” said the man drowsily. “Oh yes, I do. I know I began crawling again without my helmet after I’d smoked a pipe of tobacco—for the hard rim hurt my head—and went on and on for hours, till I thought I could hear water running; and then in a minute I was sure, and I made for it, for at that time I was so thirsty I’d have given anything for a drink to cool my hot, dry throat. Yes, it’s all coming back now. I crept on till all at once the water falling sounded loud, and the next moment I was sinking down sidewise into a deep place where I was hanging across a stone to get at the water in the dark, and couldn’t. It was just like a nightmare, sergeant, that it was, and I felt my head go down and my legs hanging till my back was ready to break, but I couldn’t get away, and I lay and lay, till all at once I was snatched up, and that hurt me so that I yelled for help, and then the nightmare seemed to be gone and I was lying all asleep like till I saw you and the captain; and here I am, somewhere, and that’s all.”
It was all, for the corporal swooned away, and had to be lifted and carried up.