“That only shows you never knew what it means to have a mother. No tenderness can replace hers, though I am sure your sister did her best.”
“She did, indeed. And do you tell me now I must leave her out of my mind entirely? Ah, General, y’have a better heart than that!”
“Who talked about putting her out of your mind, pray? Because I decline to hand over my troops to you to fritter away on this bank when every man is wanted on t’other, is there any need to talk like a fool? Puggy shall go after her, with a free hand and as much cash as he wants at call. If he finds her he may be able to negotiate for her ransom, or even help her to escape. That—what-d’ye-call-it?—sheet with a grating in it—which these women wear”—“burqa,” murmured Brian apologetically—“would disguise anybody first-rate—hide those tell-tale eyes, and we may find her waiting for us when we get back. Master Kamal-ud-din thinks he’s going to surround me, but it’s t’other way about. I am going to surround him, and we march out to-morrow to do it.”
“March out? Ah, General, not you! To take the field in this heat! We can’t afford to lose you.”
“Precious little loss, according to the Bombay fellows. Yes, I am going myself; it is necessary. Why, if they give us the slip now, it means a ruinous delay, for the river will rise and cut us off from Qadirabad till the cold weather. Provisions for five months! how could we carry ’em? and yet without ’em we must perish. This inundation is the most plaguy unaccountable thing! the old officers here tell me they have known it complete six weeks before this; when the river rose after that storm, everybody assured me it was here, yet the water has gone down again, and I mean to take advantage of it. We have to march against the enemy from all sides, and then strike hard, and you know as well as I do that if I ain’t there my concentration will fail, and some soft-hearted or white-livered chap will let the game out of the net.”
Brian was to remember the prophecy a week later, when he rode one morning into the desert camp where the General’s force was sweltering in such heat as even the natives had rarely known, and the Europeans had never even dreamt of. He had ridden all night on a self-imposed mission, and after his strenuous forty miles dropped limply from his horse more dead than alive. He had accompanied, as the General’s representative, one of the other columns—that which was detailed to prevent Kamal-ud-din from breaking away southwards between Umarganj and the river, and getting down into the Delta, where he might evade pursuit indefinitely. Colonel Bleackley was one of those officers whose moral support and aim in life is exact obedience to orders, and when news came that the river was rising again, his first impulse was to remember that he had been told on no account to let himself be cut off by the floods, but to retire upon the main body, and this he prepared to do. Brian opposed his decision with might and main. The column marching down from Sahar had turned back Kamal-ud-din’s brother, Jamal-ud-din, and driven him towards the General, who had dispersed his force and taken him prisoner. Kamal-ud-din himself, who had been hurrying to the boy’s support, quailed under the unexpected blow, and turned back into the desert. By advancing upon Umarganj, Colonel Bleackley would catch the Khan in a trap, since the only wells adequate to the needs of a mounted force were on the route he was following. To retire now would be to destroy the General’s hopes, and leave Kamal-ud-din free to be a thorn in his side for the future. After much expostulation, a compromise was agreed upon. Brian might go and ascertain Sir Harry’s wishes, and until he returned Colonel Bleackley would hold his ground. Sir Harry’s wishes were expressed in no uncertain voice.
“Tell the fellow to go on, go on, go on—no matter what’s in his way. If he is caught by the water, let him get into Umarganj and maintain himself there, and when Kamal-ud-din is tired of dancing about outside, he’ll come in and surrender. Heaven only grant he don’t slip through during this insane halt. What’s the good of our capturing Jamal-ud-din if t’other one escapes? Nice young villain Jamal-ud-din is too. Offered to make away with his brother and bring all his chiefs to submit, if I would let him go, and recognise him as successor. But that sort of thing don’t go down with me, as he knows now, and I am sending off one of the Arabits captured with him to find Kamal and warn him what a dear affectionate brother he’s got. Go and take a rest now—if you can—while I concoct a despatch, with a dash of pepper in it, for Bleackley. You’ll find your own tent cooler than this—only have to simmer there, while we’re boiling alive here.”
There was a reason for this, since Sir Harry, unable to bear the sight of his beloved Black Prince’s sufferings in the heat outside, had taken him into his tent, where the charger lay on the ground exhausted and gasping, and making the place, if possible, hotter than it would otherwise have been. Brian retired thankfully, with a glance of commiseration at Stewart, who durst not affront the General’s eyes with shirt-sleeves, and was suffocating in his scarlet coat. In his own tent he did as most of the Europeans in the force were doing—lay down with wet cloths about his head, and bade a servant pour water over him. The heat lay above him like a heavy pall, impeding his breath, sucking away his strength, and from the tents near he heard the repressed groans of men in torment like himself, while every now and then a horrible stertorous sound—a kind of choking screech—showed that some sufferer had succumbed to the appalling oppression. Brian was listlessly counting the seizures within his hearing, and speculating from which side the next gulp of agony would come, when he was startled by a suffocating gasp from Sir Harry’s tent.
“The General or Black Prince?” he asked himself, and staggering to his feet, caught up his hat and reeled blindly across the few yards of glaring sand between one semi-darkness and another. Sir Harry lay prone across the table—a dreadful inarticulate noise coming from his lips. Brian ran to lift him up, shouting for help as he did so, and in a moment the camp was in a turmoil. Stewart, who had been sent to find out something from the Brigade-Major, ran back, surgeons rushed up, and volunteer helpers crowded to the tent in such numbers that they had to be summarily dispersed. The General was bled, of course—people were bled for every thing in those days,—and while he demanded angrily but drowsily to be let alone and allowed to sleep, cold water was applied to his head and hot to his feet, and he was vigorously rubbed and slapped back to consciousness. He was the forty-fourth victim of the heat that forenoon, and of the forty-three others not one was alive three hours later.
The next morning he sent for Brian, who found him in bed—if his narrow charpoy could be called a bed,—looking very ill and haggard and by no means comfortable—under a dirty sheet which was more like a tent-cloth. He spoke fast and eagerly.