Tom looked up and rose to his feet.
“What, old fellow?”
“Look here, Tom!” said Charlie, showing me.
At the sight of me, bruised and battered as I was, Tom’s feelings overcame him again. He seized me eagerly, and looked long and tenderly into my face; then his tears came again, and once more he sunk on his knees at Charlie’s side and buried his face in his hands.
The place was getting dark. The noise of voices outside and the distant roar of guns slowly died away; the guards for the night were called out, and one by one soldier and invalid fell asleep after their hard day’s toil. But Tom Drift never moved from Charlie’s bedside, nor did Charlie, by word or movement, disturb him. In the silence of that night I seemed to be back in the past—when, years ago, I first knew these two. The dreary hospital changed, in my imagination, into the old Randlebury dormitory.
These beds all round were occupied not by wounded soldiers, but by soundly-sleeping boys, worn out with sports or study. And the two between whom I lay were no longer suffering men, but the light-hearted lads of long ago. I could almost fancy myself ticking through the silent watches; and when now and then the fingers that held me closed over me, or fondled me tenderly, I could almost have believed I heard the low sweet whistling of an innocent boy as he furtively turned in his waking moments to his father’s precious gift.
It all seemed so strangely natural that as I woke from my dream it required an effort to remember where I really was. All was silent around me. I peered first at my master, then at Tom Drift; they were both asleep—sleeping, perhaps, as simply as ever they did in those bygone days—Tom kneeling still by the bedside with his head upon his arms, and Charlie turned towards him with one hand upon his friend’s, and I—I lay between them.
Thus the sultry Indian night passed, and then at the little window opposite there came a faint gleam of light.
Charlie woke first, and, laying his hand gently on Tom’s arm, said, “Tom Drift, old fellow!”
With a start and a bound Tom was awake and on his feet, staring in a bewildered way round him.