Blue Lights: Hot Work in the Soudan

“Well, then, Gaspard, will you sing me a song? I think it would do me good.”

“With the greatest pleasure,” answered the soldier; “but,” he added, looking round doubtfully, “I don’t know how they might like it here.”

“They’ll not object; besides, you can sing low. You’ve got the knack of singin’ soft—better than any man I ever heard.”

“Well, what shall it be?” returned the gratified Gaspard.

“One of Sankey’s hymns,” said the sergeant, with the remotest semblance of a twinkle in his eye, as he took a small hymn-book from under his pillow and gave it to his friend.

Gaspard did not seem to relish the idea of singing hymns, but he had often heard the Blue Lights sing them, and could not plead ignorance of the tunes; besides, being a man of his word, he would not refuse to fulfil his promise.

“Sing Number 68, ‘Shall we gather at the river?’ I’m very fond of that hymn.”

In a sweet, soft, mellow voice, that charmed all who were within hearing, Gaspard began the hymn, and when he had finished there was heard more than one “Amen” and “Thank God” from the neighbouring beds.

“Yes, comrades, we shall gather there,” said the sergeant, after a brief pause, “for the same Almighty Saviour who saved me died for you as well. I ain’t used to wettin’ my cheeks, as you know, lads, but I s’pose my wound has weakened me a bit! Now Sutherland, the favour I have to ask of—”

“If ye’re thinkin’ o’ askin’ me to pray,” broke in the alarmed Scotsman, “ye may save your breath. When I promised, I said, ‘if I can.’ Noo, I can not pray, an’ it’s nae use askin’ me to try. Whatever I may come to in this warld, I’ll no be a heepycrit for ony leevin’ man.”

“Quite right, Sutherland—quite right. I had no intention of asking you to pray,” replied Hardy, with a faint smile. “What I want you to do is to draw out my will for me.”

“Oh! I’m quite willin’ to do that,” returned the relieved Scot.

“You see,” continued the sergeant, “one never knows what may be the result of a bad wound in a climate like this, and if it pleases my Father in heaven to call me home, I should like the few trifles I possess to go in the right direction.”

“That’s a wise-like sentiment,” returned his friend, with an approving nod and thoughtful frown.

“Now, as you write a capital hand, and know how to express yourself on paper,” continued Hardy, “it strikes me that you will do the job better than any one else; and, being a friend, I feel that I can talk freely to you on my private affairs. So you’ll help me?”

“I’m wullin’ to try, serjint, and ac’ the legal adviser—amytoor-like, ye ken.”

“Thank you. Can you come to-morrow morning?”

“No, serjint, I canna, because I’ve to start airly the morn’s mornin’ wi’ a pairty to meet the Scots Gairds comin’ back frae Tamai, but the moment I come back I’ll come to ye.”

“That will do—thank you. And now, Gaspard, what’s the news from England? I hear that a mail has just come in.”

“News that will make your blood boil,” said Gaspard sternly.

“It would take a good deal of powerful news to boil the little blood that is left in me,” said Hardy, languidly.

“Well, I don’t know. Anyhow it makes mine boil. What d’you think of McNeill’s brave defence being represented in the papers as a disaster?”

“You don’t mean that!”

“Indeed I do. They say that it was a disaster! whereas it was a splendid defence under singularly adverse circumstances! They say that General McNeill permitted himself to be surprised! If he had tried to carry out his instructions to the full extent, it would indeed have been such a surprise that the surprising thing would have been if a single man of us had returned alive to tell the tale—as you and I know full well. The truth is, it was the fault of the Intelligence Department that nearly wrecked us, and it was McNeill’s prudence and our pluck that saved us, and yet these quill-drivers at home—bah!”

The soldier rose in hot indignation and strode from the room.

“He’s a wee thing roosed!” remarked Sutherland, with a good-humoured yet slightly cynical grin. “But guid-nicht to ye, ma man. Keep up hert an’ I’ll come an’ draft yer wull i’ the mornin’.”

So saying the “amytoor” lawyer took his departure, and was soon tramping over the desert sands with a band of his comrades.

They were not, however, permitted to tramp in peace, for their indefatigable foe hung on their skirts and annoyed them the greater part of the way. Toward evening they met the Guards, and as it was too late to return to Suakim the force bivouacked in McNeill’s deserted zereba, surrounded by graves and scarcely buried corpses.

Only those who were there can fully understand what that meant. All round the zereba, and for three miles on the Suakim side of it, the ground was strewn thickly with the graves of Europeans, Indians, and Arabs, and so shallow were these that from each of them there oozed a dark, dreadful stain. To add to the horrors of the scene, portions of mangled and putrefying corpses protruded from many of them—ghastly skulls, from the sockets of which the eyes had been picked by vultures and other obscene birds. Limbs of brave men upon which the hyena had already begun his dreadful work, and half-skeleton hands, with fingers spread and bent as if still clutching the foe in death-agony, protruded above the surface; mixed with these, and unburied, were the putrefying carcases of camels and mules—the whole filling the air with a horrible stench, and the soul with a fearful loathing, which ordinary language is powerless to describe, and the inexperienced imagination cannot conceive.

Oh! it is terrible to think that from the Fall till now man has gone on continually producing and reproducing scenes like this—sometimes, no doubt, unavoidably; but often, too often, because of some trifling error, or insult, on the part of statesmen, or some paltry dispute about a boundary, or, not infrequently, on grounds so shadowy and complex that succeeding historians have found it almost impossible to convey the meaning thereof to the intellects of average men!

Amid these dreadful memorials of the recent fight the party bivouacked!

Next day the troops returned to Suakim, and Sutherland, after breakfast, and what he called a wash-up, went to see his friend Sergeant Hardy, with pen, ink, and paper.

“Weel, serjint, hoo are ye the day?”

“Pretty well, thank you—pretty well. Ah! Sutherland, I have been thinking what an important thing it is for men to come to Jesus for salvation while in their health and strength; for now, instead of being anxious about my soul, as so many are when the end approaches, I am rejoicing in the thought of soon meeting God—my Father! Sutherland, my good fellow, it is foolish as well as wrong to think only of this life. Of all men in the world we soldiers ought to know this.”

The sergeant spoke so earnestly, and his eyes withal looked so solemnly from their sunken sockets, that his friend could not help being impressed.

“I believe ye’re no’ far wrang, serjint, an’ I tak’ shame to mysel’ that I’ve been sic a harum-scarum sinner up to this time.”

Sutherland said this with a look so honest that Hardy was moved to put out his large wasted hand and grasp that of his friend.

“Comrade,” he said, “God is waiting to be gracious. Jesus is ever ready and willing to save.”

Sutherland returned the pressure but made no reply; and Hardy, praying for a blessing on the little that had been said, changed the subject by saying—

“You have brought paper and ink, I see.”

“Ay, but, man, ye mauna be speakin’ o’ takin’ yer depairture yet. This draftin’ o’ yer wull is only a precaution.”

“Quite right, lad. I mean it only as a precaution,” returned Hardy, in a cheerful tone. “But you seem to have caught a cold—eh? What makes you cough and clear your throat so?”

“A cauld! I wush it was only a cauld! Man, it’s the stink o’ thae corps that I canna get oot o’ my nose an’ thrapple.”

Hereupon Sutherland, by way of entertaining his invalid friend, launched out into a graphic account of the scene he had so recently witnessed at McNeill’s zereba. When that subject was exhausted, he arranged his writing materials and began with all the solemnity of a lawyer.

“Noo, serjeant, what div ye want me to pit doon?”

“Well, I must explain first that I have very little to leave, and no one to leave it to.”

“What! Nae frien’s ava?”

“Not one. I have neither wife nor child, brother nor sister. I have indeed one old cousin, but he is rich, and would not be benefited by my poor little possessions; besides, he’s a cross-grained old fellow, and does not deserve anything, even though I had something worth leaving. However, I bear him no ill-will, poor man, only I don’t want what I do leave to go to him, which it would if I were to die without a will; because, of course, he is my natural heir, and—”

“Haud ye there, man,” said the Scot abruptly but slowly. “If he’s your nait’ral heir, ye’re his nait’ral heir tae, ye ken.”

“Of course, I am aware of that,” returned the sergeant with an amused look; “but the old man is eccentric, and has always boasted that he means to leave his wealth to some charity. Indeed, I know that he has already made his will, leaving his money to build an hospital—for incurables of some sort, I believe.”