“No, no. We don’t want ladies mixing themselves up in this sort of work,” blissfully unconscious of the change a mere dozen of years was to bring forth, and Eveleen retired to the shelter of her tent, and stopped her ears from the sounds she thought she heard. Then the surgeon hurried across to her.
“Fellow here, Mrs Ambrose—Kenton of the N.I.—pretty bad—if you would sit by him and talk, or let him talk. We shall have to amputate presently, but our hands are full just now, and he’s a nervous sort of chap. If you can get him to talk to you, it’ll take his mind off it.”
Horribly scared, but ashamed to refuse, Eveleen went back with him, to find the wounded man—boy rather, for he must have been younger than Brian—laid in the shade of the trees. His face was white and drawn, but over his body, at which Eveleen glanced fearfully, a covering had been thrown. The doctor broke a branch from the nearest tree and put it into her hand.
“That will keep the flies off, at any rate. And if he’s thirsty, you can give him some water. Now please talk!”—in an urgent whisper, as he went off.
It seemed horrible to disturb any one who was in such pain, but as Eveleen sat down beside the boy she managed to say, “Don’t answer if it hurts you too much, but just tell me—we are winning?”
“Of course!” The closed eyes opened with an effort, and met hers indignantly. “With such a commander, and such men, how could we possibly lose?”
“Sure y’are a boy after the General’s own heart!” said Eveleen approvingly. Then, catching the doctor’s nod of encouragement as he disappeared round a tent, she went on. “But tell me now, why did Sir Harry turn to the right, when the poor Khemistan Horse had been under fire so long on the left?”
“Because the matchlock-fire from the village was too heavy. Keeling’s men were in skirmishing order, lying down behind their horses, and couldn’t take much harm, but to lead a column of infantry into it would have been destruction. But tell you what”—he spoke vivaciously, though in a thin weak voice, and she had grown sufficiently accustomed to the noise of the battle to be able to hear—“we very nearly caught it just as hot on the right, and if the enemy commander knew his business we should have done. That shikargah there, which Sir Henry reconnoitred with the Bengalis without seeing a soul, has a wall in front of it, and in the wall was a gap—just broken by accident, as you might say. But as we came near, there was a chap sitting astride upon the wall, near the gap, who fired at the General, and missed. Then another matchlock was handed up to him, and another, but he missed every time, and one of our men toppled him off the wall with a bullet. The General stood up in his stirrups and looked at the place with his telescope, and then dismounted and went quite close. Then he told Captain Crosse, of my regiment, to take his company just inside the gap and hold it at all costs. And he is holding it, I tell you! We heard the firing break out in the wood as we marched on. They had prepared an ambush there to fall upon our flank, do you see? and if they’d had the sense to cut loopholes, or throw up a banquette for firing over the wall, they might have swept us all away—if they hadn’t betrayed themselves by setting their sharpshooter to pick off the General.”
“And then? if y’are not too tired,” said Eveleen quickly.
“Tired? It helps me to forget, you see. They were firing at us from the opposite bank of the dry river as we got closer, but we held our fire till we were not more than a hundred yards off. We marched on up to the very bank, and then—give you my word, we did get a start! Looking down into the bed of the stream was like looking into a sea of turbaned heads, with rolling eyes and grinning teeth, and swords and shields; and they all came at us with a frightful yell. They had been crouching behind the bank to surprise us—and they did. We went at it ding-dong, musket and matchlock and pistol, and bayonet and shield and tulwar, they rushing up the bank in waves and rolling us back, and then our men rallying and pouring in a volley that checked ’em a bit. And the General riding up and down between, holloing us on! Didn’t you hear ’em cheer him when he rallied the Queen’s —th? I should have thought it could have been heard at Qadirabad! And then I went down, and he sent an orderly to get a doolie, and Paddy the aide—oh, I beg your pardon; that’s your brother, ain’t it?—helped to get me into it, and that’s all I know. But tell me, what time is it?”