Fix Bay'nets: The Regiment in the Hills

“Did I?”

“Course you did, sir. Digging through the snow.”

“Oh yes, I remember now,” said Bracy, with a sigh. “Yes, I remember having some idea that the snow hung above me like some enormous wave curling right over before it broke, and then becoming frozen hard. Then I remember feeling that I was like one of the rabbits in the sandhills at home, burrowing away to make a hole to get to the surface, and as fast as I got the sand down from above me I kept on kicking it out with my feet, and it slid away far below with a dull, hissing sound.”

“Yes, sir, I heard it; but that was this morning. How did you get on in the night, after you began to breathe again? You couldn’t ha’ been buried long, or you’d ha’ been quite smothered.”

“Of course,” said Bracy rather vacantly – “in the night?”

“Yes; didn’t you hear me hollering?”

“No.”

“When you were gone all in a moment I thought you’d slipped and gone sliding down like them chaps do the tobogganing, sir.”

“You did call to me, then?”

“Call, sir? I expect that made me so hoarse this morning.”

“I did not hear you till I whistled and you answered, not long ago.”

“Why, I whistled too, sir, lots o’ times, and nigh went mad with thinking about you.”

“Thank you, Gedge,” said Bracy quietly, and he held out his hand and gripped his companion’s warmly. “I give you a great deal of trouble.”

“Trouble, sir? Hark at you! That ain’t trouble. But after you got out of the snow?”

“After I got out of the snow?”

“Yus, sir; you was there all night.”

“Was I? Yes, I suppose so. I must have been. But I don’t know much. It was all darkness and snow, and – oh yes, I remember now! I did not dare to move much, because whenever I did stir I began to glide down as if I were going on for ever.”

“But don’t you remember, sir, any more than that?”

“No,” said Bracy, speaking with greater animation now. “As I told you, I must have been stunned by my terrible fall, and that saved me from a time of agony that would have driven me mad. As soon as it was light I must have begun moving in a mechanical way to try and escape from that terrible death-trap: but all that has been dream-like, and – and I feel as if I were still in a kind of nightmare. I am quite faint, too, and giddy with pain. Yes, I must lie down here in the sunshine for a bit. Don’t let me sleep long if I drop off.”

“No, sir; I won’t, sir,” replied Gedge, as Bracy sank to his elbow and then subsided with a restful sigh, lying prone upon the snow.

“He’s fainted! No, he ain’t; he’s going right off to sleep. Not let him sleep long? Yes, I will; I must, poor chap! It’s knocked half the sense out of him, just when he was done up, too. Not sleep? Why, that’s the doctor as’ll pull him round. All right, sir; you’re going to have my sheepskin too, and you ain’t going to be called till the sun’s going down, and after that we shall see.”

Ten minutes later Bracy was sleeping, carefully wrapped in Gedge’s poshtin, while the latter was eating heartily of the remains of his rations.

“And he might ha’ been dead, and me left alone!” said Gedge, speaking to himself. “My! how soon things change! Shall I have a bit more, or shan’t I! Yes; I can’t put my greatcoat on outside, so I must put some extra lining in.”

Chapter Thirty Two

Only Human

As the sun gathered force in rising higher, a thin veil of snow was melted from off a broad patch of rock, which dried rapidly; and, after a little consideration, Gedge went to Bracy’s shoulders, took fast hold of his poshtin, and drew him softly and quickly off the icy surface right on to the warm, dry rock, the young officer’s eyes opening widely in transit, and then closing again without their owner becoming conscious, but, as his head was gently lowered down again upon its sheepskin pillow, the deep sleep of exhaustion went on.

“Needn’t ha’ been ’fraid o’ waking you,” said Gedge softly, and looking down at the sleeper as if proud of his work. – “There, you’ll be dry and warm as a toast, and won’t wake up lying in a pond o’ water. – Now I’ll just have a look round, and then sit down and wait till he wakes.”

Gedge took his good look round, making use of Bracy’s glass, and in two places made out bodies of white-coated men whose weapons glinted in the sun shine; but they were far away, and in hollows among the hills.

“That’s all I can make out,” said Gedge, closing the glass and replacing it softly in the case slung from Bracy’s shoulders; “but there’s holes and cracks and all sorts o’ places where any number more may be. Blest if I don’t think all the country must have heard that we’re going for help, and turned out to stop us. My! how easy it all looked when we started! Just a long walk and a little dodging the niggers, and the job done. One never thought o’ climbing up here and skating down, and have a launching in the snow.”

Gedge yawned tremendously, and being now in excellent spirits and contentment with himself, he chuckled softly.

“That was a good one,” he said. “What a mouth I’ve got! I say, though, my lad, mouths have to be filled, and there ain’t much left. We were going, I thought, to shoot pheasants, and kill a sheep now and then, to make a fire and have roast bird one day, leg o’ mutton the next, and cold meat when we was obliged; but seems to me that it was all cooking your roast chickens before they was hatched. Fancy lighting a fire anywhere! Why, it would bring a swarm of the beauties round to carve us up instead of the wittles; and as to prog, why, I ain’t seen nothing but that one bear. Don’t seem to hanker after bear,” continued Gedge after a few minutes’ musing, during which he made sure that Bracy was sleeping comfortably. “Bears outer the ’Logical Gardens, nicely fatted up on buns, might be nice, and there’d be plenty o’ nice fresh bear’s grease for one’s ’air; but these here wild bears in the mountains must feed theirselves on young niggers and their mothers, and it’d be like being a sort o’ second-hand cannibal to cook and eat one of the hairy brutes. No, thanky; not this time, sir. I’ll wait for the pudden.”

Human nature is human nature, which nobody can deny; and, uncultivated save in military matters, and rough as he was, Bill Gedge was as human as he could be. He had just had a tremendous tramp for a whole day, a sleepless night of terrible excitement and care, a sudden respite from anxiety, a meal, and the glow of a hot sun upon a patch of rock which sent a genial thrill of comfort through his whole frame. These were the difficulties which were weighing hard in one of the scales of the young private’s constitution, while he was doing his best to weigh down the other scale with duty, principle, and a manly, honest feeling of liking for the officer whom he had set up from the first moment of being attached to the company as the model of what a soldier should be. It was hard work. Those yawns came again and again, increasing in violence.

“Well done, boa-constructor,” he said. “Little more practice, and you’ll be able to swallow something as big as yourself; but my! don’t it stretch the corners of your mouth! I want a bit o’ bear’s grease ready to rub in, for they’re safe to crack.

“My! how sleepy I am!” he muttered a little later. “I ain’t been put on sentry-go, but it’s just the same, and a chap as goes to sleep in the face of the enemy ought to be shot. Sarve him right, too, for not keeping a good lookout. Might mean all his mates being cut up. Oh! I say, this here won’t do,” he cried, springing up. “Let’s have a hoky-poky penny ice, free, grashus, for nothing.”

He went off on tiptoe, glancing at Bracy as he passed, and then stooped down over a patch of glittering snow, scraping up a handful and straightening himself in the sunshine, as he amused himself by addressing an imaginary personage.

“Say, gov’nor,” he cried, “you’ve got a bigger stock than you’ll get shut of to-day. – Eh? You don’t expect to? Right you are, old man. Break yer barrer if yer tried to carry it away. Say; looks cleaner and nicer to-day without any o’ that red or yeller paint mixed up with it. I like it best when it’s white. Looks more icy. – What say? Spoon? No, thank ye. Your customers is too fond o’ sucking the spoons, and I never see you wash ’em after. – Ha! this is prime. Beats Whitechapel all to fits; and it’s real cold, too. I don’t care about it when it’s beginning to melt and got so much juist. – But I say! Come! Fair play’s a jewel. One likes a man to make his profit and be ’conimycal with the sugar, but you ain’t put none in this.

“Never mind,” he added after a pause, during which the Italian ice-vendor faded out of his imagination; “it’s reg’lar ’freshing when you’re so sleepy. Wonder what made them Italians come to London and start selling that stuff o’ theirs. Seems rum; ours don’t seem a country for that sort o’ thing. Baked taters seems so much more English, and does a chap so much more good.”

He walked back to the warm patch of rock, looked at Bracy, and then placed both rifles and bayonets ready, sat down cross-legged, and after withdrawing the cartridges, set to work with an oily rag to remove all traces of rust, and gave each in turn a good polish, ending by carefully wiping the bayonets after unfixing them, and returning them to their sheaths, handling Bracy’s most carefully, for fear of disturbing the sleeper. This done, he began to yawn again, and, as he expressed it, took another penny ice and nodding at vacancy, which he filled with a peripatetic vendor, he said:

“All right, gov’nor; got no small change. Pay next time I come this way.”

Then he marked out a beat, and began marching up and down.

“Bah!” he cried; “that ice only makes you feel dry and thirsty. – My! how sleepy I am! – Here, steady!” he cried, as he yawned horribly; “you’ll have your head right off, old man, if you do that. – Never was so sleepy in my life.”

He marched up and down a little faster – ten paces and turn – ten paces and turn – up and down, up and down, in the warm sunshine; but it was as if some deadly stupor enveloped him, and as he kept up the steady regulation march, walking and turning like an automaton, he was suddenly fast asleep and dreaming for quite a minute, when he gave a violent start, waking himself, protesting loudly against a charge made against him, and all strangely mixed up the imaginary and the real.

“Swear I wasn’t, Sergeant!” he cried angrily. “Look for yerself. – Didn’t yer see, pardners? I was walking up and down like a clockwork himidge. – Sleep at my post? Me sleep at my post? Wish I may die if I do such a thing. It’s the old game. Yer allus ’ated me, Sergeant, from the very first, and – Phew! Here! What’s the matter? I’ve caught something, and it’s got me in the nut. I’m going off my chump.”

Poor Gedge stood with his hands clasped to his forehead, staring wildly before him.

“Blest if I wasn’t dreaming!” he said wonderingly. “Ain’t took bad, am I? Thought old Gee come and pounced upon me, and said I was sleepin’ on duty. And it’s a fack. It’s as true as true; I was fast asleep; leastwise I was up’ards. Legs couldn’t ha’ been, because they’d ha’ laid down. Oh! this here won’t do. It was being on dooty without arms.”

Drawing himself up, he snatched his bayonet from its scabbard, and resumed his march, going off last asleep again; but this time the cessation of consciousness descended as it were right below the waist-belt and began to steal down his legs, whose movements became slower and slower, hips, then knees, stiffening; and then, as the drowsy god’s work attacked his ankles, his whole body became rigid, and he stood as if he had been gradually frozen stiff for quite a minute, when it seemed as if something touched him, and he sprang into wakefulness again, and went on with his march up and down.

“Oh, it’s horrid!” he said piteously. “Of course. That’ll do it.”

He sheathed his bayonet, and catching up his rifle, went through the regular forms as if receiving orders: he grounded arms; then drew and fixed bayonet, shouldered arms, and began the march again.

“That’s done it,” he said. “Reg’larly woke up now. S’pose a fellow can’t quite do without sleep, unless he got used to it, like the chap’s ’oss, only he died when he’d got used to living upon one eat a day. Rum thing, sleep, though. I allus was a good un to sleep. Sleep anywhere; but I didn’t know I was so clever as to sleep standing up. Wonder whether I could sleep on one leg. Might do it on my head. Often said I could do anything on my head. There, it’s a-coming on again.”

He stepped to the nearest snow and rubbed his temples with it before resuming his march; but the relief was merely temporary. He went to Bracy’s side, to see that he was sleeping heavily, and an intense feeling of envy and longing to follow his officer’s example and lie down and sleep for hours nearly mastered him.