Blue Lights: Hot Work in the Soudan

by R. M. Ballantyne

Describes a few Meetings and several Surprises.

The fight described in the last chapter was only one of the numerous skirmishes that were taking place almost daily near Suakim at that time. But it turned out to be a serious occasion to our hero, for it cost him one of his hands, and put an end to his soldiering days for ever.

On being taken to the British lines the surgeons saw at once that amputation a little above the wrist was absolutely necessary. Of course Miles—although overwhelmed with dismay on hearing the fiat of the doctors—could offer no objection. With the informal celerity of surgical operations as practised in the field, the shattered limb was removed, and almost before he could realise the full significance of what was being done our poor hero was minus his left hand! Besides this, he was so cut and battered about, that most of his hair had to be cut off, and his head bandaged and plastered so that those of his old comrades who chanced to be with the troops at the time could recognise him only by his voice. Even that was scarcely audible when he was carried into Suakim.

At this time the hospitals at Suakim were overcrowded to such an extent that many of the wounded and invalids had to be sent on by sea to Suez and the hospitals at Ramleh. Miles was sent on along with these, and finally found rest at Alexandria.

And great was the poor fellow’s need of rest, for, besides the terrible sufferings and hardships he had endured while in captivity, the wounds and bruises, the loss of blood and of his left hand, and the fatigue of the voyage, his mind was overwhelmed by the consideration that even if he should recover he was seriously maimed for life. In addition to all this suffering, Miles, while at Suakim, had received a blow which well-nigh killed him. A letter came informing him of the sudden death of his father, and bitter remorse was added to his misery as he lay helpless in his cot on the Red Sea.

The consequent depression, acting on his already exhausted powers after he reached Alexandria, brought him to the verge of the grave. Indeed, one of the nurses said one day to one of her fellows, with a shake of her head, “Ah! poor fellow, he won’t last long!”

“Won’t he!” thought Miles, with a feeling of strong indignation. “Much you know about it!”

You see Miles possessed a tendency to abstract reasoning, and could meditate upon his own case without, so to speak, much reference to himself! His indignation was roused by the fact that any one, calling herself a nurse, should be so stupid as to whisper beside a patient words that he should not hear. He did not know that the nurse in question was a new one—not thoroughly alive to her duties and responsibilities. Strange to say, her stupidity helped to render her own prophecy incorrect, for the indignation quickened the soldier’s feeble pulse, and that gave him a fillip in the right direction.

The prostration, however, was very great, and for some time the life of our hero seemed to hang by a thread. During this dark period the value of a godly mother’s teaching became deeply impressed on him, by the fact that texts from God’s Word, which had been taught him in childhood, and which he seemed to have quite forgotten, came trooping into his mind, and went a long way to calm and comfort him. He dwelt with special pleasure on those that told of love and mercy in Jesus to the thankless and undeserving; for, now that strength, health, and the high hopes of a brilliant career were shattered at one blow, his eyes were cleared of life’s glamour to see that in his existence hitherto he had been ungodly—not in the sense of his being much worse than ordinary people, but in the sense of his being quite indifferent to his Maker, and that his fancied condition of not-so-badness would not stand the test of a dying hour.

About this time, too, he became desperately anxious to write to his mother, not by dictation, but with his own hand. This being impossible in the circumstances, he began to fret, and his power to sleep at length failed him. Then a strange desire to possess a rose seized him—perhaps because he knew it to be his mother’s favourite flower. Whatever the cause, the longing increased his insomnia, and as he did not say, perhaps did not know, that the want of a rose had anything to do with his complaint, no one at first thought of procuring one for him.