Fix Bay'nets: The Regiment in the Hills

“Forward again, Gedge,” he cried. “This must be right, for we are getting a trifle nearer to our journey’s end, and more out of reach of our pursuers.”

“Then it is right, sir; but I suppose we shall get a bit o’ downhill some time.”

They tramped on for the next hour, but not without making several halts, three of which were involuntary, and caused by more or less sudden slips. These were saved from being serious by the quick action of driving dagger-like the bayonet each carried into the frozen snow; and after repetitions of this the falls seemed to lose; their risky character, the man who went down scrambling to his feet again the next instant and being ready to proceed. The still air was piercingly cold, but it only seemed to make their blood thrill in their veins, and a sense of exhilaration arose from the warm glow which pervaded them, and temptingly suggested the removal of their woollen poshtins. But the temptation was forced back, and the tramp continued hour after hour up what seemed to be an interminable slope, while fatigue was persistently ignored.

At last, though, Bracy was brought to a halt, and he stood panting.

“Anything wrong, sir?” whispered Gedge hoarsely.

“No; only that I can get no farther in this way. We must fix bayonets, and use our rifles as staves.”

“Right, sir.”

“Be careful not to force your barrel down too far, so as to get it plugged with the snow,” said Bracy; and then, as soon as the keen-pointed weapons were fixed, he started onward again, the rifles answering this new purpose admirably, and giving a steadiness to the progress that had before been wanting.

Consequently far better progress was made for the next half-hour, with much less exertion, and Bracy made up his mind that the first patch of pines they came to on the lower ground should supply them with a couple of saplings whose poles should have the bayonets fixed or bound upon them, so as to take the place of the rifles.

“I’m longing for the daylight, Gedge,” said Bracy suddenly, for they had plunged into a mist which obscured the stars, “so that we can see better in which direction to go, for we ought to be high enough now to be safe from – Ha!”

Then silence.

“Safe from what, sir?” said Gedge, stopping short.

There was no reply, and after waiting a few seconds, feeling alarmed, the lad spoke again.

“Didn’t quite hear what you said, sir; safe from what?”

There was no reply, and Gedge suddenly turned frantic.

“Mr Bracy, sir,” he said hoarsely, and then, raising his voice, he called his officer by name again and again; but the same terrible darkness and silence reigned together, and he grew maddened now.

“Oh Lor’!” he cried, “what’s come to him?” and he went upon his hands and knees to crawl and feel about. “He’s gone down in a fit, and slipped sudden right away; for he ain’t here. He’s half-way down the mountain by now, and I don’t know which way to go and help him, and – Ah!” he shrieked wildly, and threw himself over backwards, to begin rolling and sliding swiftly back in the way he had come, his rifle escaping from his grasp.

Chapter Thirty

A Prayer for Light

Gedge glided rapidly down the icy slope for a good fifty yards in the darkness, with the pace increasing, before he was able to turn on his back and check himself by forcing his heels into the frozen snow.

“And my rifle gone – where I shall never find it again,” was his first thought, as he forced back his helmet, which had been driven over his eyes: but, just as the thought was grasped, he was conscious of a scratching, scraping noise approaching, and he had just time to fling out his hands and catch his weapon, the effort, however, sending him gliding down again, this time to check himself by bringing the point of the bayonet to bear upon the snow. And now stopped, he lay motionless for a few moments.

“Mustn’t be in a flurry,” he panted, with his heart beating violently, “or I shan’t find the gov’nor, and I must find him. I will find him, pore chap. Want to think it out cool like, and I’m as hot as if I’d been runnin’ a mile. Now then; he’s gone down, and he must ha’ gone strite down here, so if I lets myself slither gently I’m sure to come upon him, for I shall be pulled up same as he’d be.”

He lay panting, still, for a few minutes, and his thinking powers, which had been upset by the suddenness of the scare, began to settle themselves again. Then he listened as he went on, putting, as he mentally termed it, that and that together.

“Can’t hear nothing of him,” he said to himself. “He must have gone down with a rush ’stead o’ falling in a fit as I thought fust; but it ain’t like a fall. He wouldn’t smash hisself, on’y rub some skin off, and he’ll be hollering to me d’reckly from somewheres below. Oh dear! if it only warn’t so precious dark I might see him: but there ain’t no moon, and no stars now, and it’s no use to light a match. I say, why don’t he holler? – I could hear him a mile away – or use his whistle? He’d know that would bring me, and be safer than shouting. But I can’t hear nothing on him. Here: I know.”

Gedge rose to his feet and drove his bayonet into the snow to steady himself, without turning either to the right or the left.

“Mustn’t change front,” he said, “or I may go sliding down wrong and pass him,” he thought. Then raising his hand, he thrust two fingers into his mouth and produced a long drawn whistle, which was a near imitation of that which would be blown by an officer to bring his men together to rally round him and form square.

“That ought to wake him up,” he thought. “He’d hear that if he was miles away.”

There was a faint reply which made his heart leap; and thrusting his fingers between his lips, he whistled again in a peculiar way, with the result that the sound came back as before, and Gedge’s heart sank with something akin to despair.

“’Tain’t him,” he groaned. “It’s them blessed eckers. I’ll make sure, though.”

He stood listening for some minutes, and then, with his heart feeling like lead, took off his helmet and wiped his dripping brow.

“Oh dear!” he groaned; “ain’t it dark! Reg’lar fog, and cold as cold. Makes a chap shiver. I dunno how it is. When I’m along with him I feel as bold as a lion. I ain’t afeared o’ anything. I’d foller him anywheres, and face as many as he’d lead me agen. ’Tain’t braggin’, for I’ve done it; but I’m blessed now if I don’t feel a reg’lar mouse – a poor, shiverin’ wet mouse with his back up, and ready to die o’ fright through being caught in a trap, just as the poor little beggars do, and turns it up without being hurt a bit. I can’t help it; I’m a beastly coward; and I says it out aloud for any one to bear. That’s it – a cussed coward, and I can’t help it, ’cause I was born so. He’s gone, and I shan’t never find him agen, and there’s nothing left for me to do but sneak back to the fort, and tell the Colonel as we did try, but luck was agen us.

“Nay, I won’t,” he muttered. “I’ll never show my face there again, even if they call it desertion, unless I can get to the Ghoorkha Colonel and tell him to bring up his toothpick brigade.

“Oh, here, I say, Bill, old man,” he said aloud after a pause, during which he listened in vain for some signal from his officer, “this here won’t do. This ain’t acting like a sojer o’ the Queen. Standin’ still here till yer get yerself froze inter a pillar o’ salt. You’ve got to fetch your orficer just as much now as if if hailed bullets and bits o’ rusty ragged iron. Here goes. Pull yourself together, old man! Yer wanted to have a slide, so now’s your time.”

Grasping his rifle, he squatted down on his heels, and laid the weapon across his knees preparatory to setting himself in motion, on the faint chance of gliding down to where Bracy would have gone before him.

“Would you have thought it so steep that he could have slithered away like that? But there it is,” he muttered. “Now then, here goes.” Letting himself go, he began to glide slowly upon his well-nailed shoes; then the speed increased, and he would the next minute have been rushing rapidly down the slope had he not driven in his heels and stopped himself.

“Well, one can put on the brake when one likes,” he muttered; “but he couldn’t ha’ gone like this or I should have heard him making just the same sort o’ noise. He had no time to sit down; he must ha’ gone on his side or his back, heads up or heads down, and not so very fast. If I go down like this I shall be flying by him, and p’raps never stop till I get to the end of the snow. I know – I’ll lie down.”

Throwing himself over on his side, he gave a thrust with his hands and began to glide, but very slowly, and in a few seconds the wool of his poshtin adhered so firmly to the smooth surface that he was brought up and had to start himself again.

This took place twice, and he slowly rose to his feet.

“Wants a good start,” he muttered, and he was about to throw himself down when a fresh thought crossed his brain.

“I don’t care,” he said aloud, as if addressing some one who had spoken; “think what yer like, I ain’t afraid to pitch myself down and go skidding to the bottom, and get up with all the skin off! I sez he ain’t down there. I never heerd him go, and there’s something more than I knows on. It is a fit, and he’s lying up yonder. Bill Gedge, lad, you’re a-going wrong.”

He stood trying to pierce the thickening mist, looking as nearly as he could judge straight upward in the course they had taken, and was about to start: but, not satisfied, he took out his match-box, struck a light, and, holding it down, sought for the marks made by the bayonets in the climb. But there was no sign where he stood, neither was there to his left; and, taking a few paces to the right, with the rapidly-burning match close to the snow, the flame was just reaching his fingers when he uttered a sigh of satisfaction: for, as the light had to be dropped, there, one after the other, he saw two marks in the freshly-chipped snow glistening in the faint light. Keeping their direction fresh in his mind, he stalled upward on his search.

“How far did I come down?” he said to himself. “I reckon ’bout a hundred yards. Say ’undred and twenty steps.”

He went on taking the hundred and twenty paces, and then he stopped short.

“Must be close here somewhere,” he muttered; and he paused to listen, but there was not a sound.

“Nobody couldn’t hear me up here,” he thought, and he called his companion by name, to rouse up strange echoes from close at hand; and when he changed to whistling, the echoes were sudden and startling in the extreme.

“It’s rum,” said Gedge. “He was just in front of me, one minute talking to me, and then ‘Ha!’ he says, and he was gone.”

Gedge took off his helmet, and wiped his wet brow again before replacing it.

“Ugh, you idjit!” he muttered. “You were right at first. He dropped down in a sort o’ fit from overdoing it – one as took him all at wunst, and he’s lying somewheres about fast asleep, as people goes off in the snow and never wakes again. He’s lying close by here somewheres, and you ought to have done fust what you’re going to do last.

“Mustn’t forget where I left you,” he muttered as he gave a dig down with his rifle, driving the bayonet into the snow, and sending some scraps flying with a curious whispering noise which startled him.

“What does that mean?” he said, and he caught at the butt of his piece, now sticking upward in the snow, but dropped his hand again to his pocket and again took out his match-box.