despondency was beginning to creep over even harry english's dauntless spirit: in the next sheet rosamond took up—she had to peer closer now in the gathering dusk—for the first time he expressed doubt of their reunion.
you will go back to england (he wrote). you will go to the old mother. my poor girl, i feel as if i had broken your life. but you are young and she is very strong. she will take you to that deep heart of hers, where i have been so well all my life; and you will both always remember that it is for england. and if you forget me, oh rosamond, my rosamond, you are young, you will forget!—no, i will write no more in this strain.... i won't bind you; but there are things that a man in his living flesh cannot regard without rebellion, whatever his sense of justice may tell him. the dead will be quiet. sometimes i think i am a little mad.
* * * * *
you will like to know how this old place looks that you have, all unconsciously, filled with your presence these days, these nights....
the valley is set in a sort of scoop between the mountains, and all round there are the peaks, snow-covered. the river runs brawling from east to west, where the plateau is narrowed between the two huge buttresses of rock which almost close the valley; the water falls there a pretty good height, and on quiet nights one can hear the churn of the rapids. the fort is built on the right bank, and on that side we are safe from attack, as the ledges are very precipitous. it is thus too we get our water, our salvation. but this is becoming increasingly difficult, in spite of our trenches, as the fellows over there are getting to know the range pretty closely.
the valley is beginning to grow beautifully green, but the rocks above and all about are grey and drab and arid all the year round, and the snows never pass. it is over the snows our help must come. in our courtyard we have an almond tree, in blossom. i think of you, of your face under the bridal veil.
* * * * *
the flag, rosamond, the old flag! what creatures we are with our symbols! so long as the spirit is enclosed in the flesh, so long must we grope in our efforts of expression. you can't conceive what this rag means to us, riddled with bullets, bleached, draggled! ... we are all in high spirits to-day. i doubt if even a score of fat sheep could have so cheered the garrison as our half-hour tussle on the roof, and the triumphant fact that the flag was not lowered, even for an instant. they gave us a hot time between seven and eight this morning; two or three of our best were bowled over, and i saw that our fellows had lost heart a bit—there's just a bad moment, rosamond, between the glory of the fight and the last desperation; and that's a dangerous moment! well, as if the fates were against us, the flagstaff was struck, repeatedly, and all at once, in the thick of it, we heard it crack and saw it bend. there was not a man but turned his head. rosamond, that flag's their fetish! it's astonishing how quickly one can take in a thing at an instant like that. i seemed to see all at once the change that swept over the dark faces. you know how the whole aspect of a field of corn can be changed in a moment by a puff of wind. i made one spring for the breaking pole and caught it just in time. and then i held it high, as high as i could, crying out to them in such a flood of hindustani as never fell from my lips before. god knows what i said, or didn't say! but they can do with a lot of talk, these boys of ours. i must have looked like a madman, i know i felt like one. one gets sort of light-headed in the fight, now and again. i felt as if i were growing taller, as if the old flag were lifting me up higher and higher. the bullets played about us like spray, and not one hit me. as for the boys—well, my madness got into them somehow—they fell to like devils; they shot like angels; it was as if magic wine had been poured into them. i don't suppose even the oldest soldier among us had seen anything like it before. we made a record score, i can tell you!
now it's over, i look back and think that we were all possessed. but it's had a useful effect on the khan and his tribes, for they had the worst of that hour, and the flag was not lowered, not an inch. i never let it out of my hands till a new pole had been spliced on—a stout one, you may be sure. and this is a happy garrison to-day. you should hear the goorkhas jabbering and laughing over their half-ration of rice. we have served out extra rum. they've drunk the great white empress's health, and are quite sure now that anything belonging to her must be safe.
as for me, the poor superstitious creatures have begun to regard me as a small god; they think i bear a charmed life. rosamond, if that flag had fallen, there is no knowing if we could have held the men. and if we'd lost the fort, i should never have seen you again, for we four englishmen could not let it go before our lives. the fellows are all kicking up an idiotic fuss about my share in the business—it makes a man feel such a fool to be made a hero of for nothing. rosamond, did i even do my duty? then, even then, upholding my country's flag, the fury of my thoughts was all with you: if the flag falls i shall never see her again—that was what i was saying to myself. god knows i am no hero.
* * * * *
no hero!
rosamond's heart was beating high, her eye had kindled, her cheek was glowing. was he not a hero? her harry. she could see him towering in his strength—the "archangel" of bethune's description; the born leader, stimulating his starving men to unheard-of valour!
* * * * *
but the end was drawing near. she must read on. the darkness had gathered so close that she had to light a candle and put it beside her on the floor. this she did mechanically, hardly aware of her own action—so bent upon her single thought. the handwriting had become irregular; it sprawled upon the page.
the hunger is nothing, it's the thirst! people who slowly starve can bear hunger, but thirst is an active devil. they've found an enfilading spot commanding our trench to the water. we lost three men in succession two days ago. dug all day yesterday to strike a well, no success. to-day it's gone hard with us. last night, i think i'd a touch of fever; you were so mixed up in my mind with my thirst that it seemed to me it was the want of you made me suffer so much. i found myself, found my dry tongue, calling for you, clamouring out loud in the silence. ah, there are miles and miles of mountains between us!
this is worse than death.
* * * * *
they've heliographed from the hills; the relief is in sight. they've had an awful time in the snows, and half the fellows are blind. they will have to recoup a bit before they can strike. but they have guns and that ought to settle it. meanwhile we can't wait—we're going to run up a fresh trench to the water, if we lose twenty men by it.
* * * * *
the job is done. leicester managed it splendidly with less loss than we expected. but he's got a nasty wound in the hip. we've got water again—rosamond, rosamond, when will you hold the cup for me to drink?
the first gun went to-day. they haven't got to the right spot yet, but such as it was the shooting flustered the ant-hill down there, finely. for two days yufzul has left us in peace, and meanwhile the guns on the hill get closer and pound away. but the enemy shows no sign of packing yet. the khan is a tough old boy; we'll have a tussle for it yet. they've flashed to say they are ready up there. we shall co-operate.
this last sheet but one was dated april 15, 8 a.m.
the next entry was marked 3 p.m. of the same day.
in measure as the relief approaches, i know not why, my hopes go down. rosamond—oh, if i should never see you again! what will you do with your life? you will have my mother, though that may not be for long, and there is enough to keep you both from want, thank god, under the roof of the old ancient house. go to her there; at least for the first. and then and then—i won't bind you.
if we had had a child you would be more mine!
i wish we had another night, even in this trap of death. i might perhaps dream of you once more. the dead won't dream. perhaps that is best. what if we should never meet again!
rosamond's breath came short, shudders ran through her. she laid down in its turn this record of the fever of a man's mind and took up the last sheet. the last sheet! this was, indeed, the end! it was dated, carefully written without any of the wildness or disjointedness of the previous entries. the strong man on the verge of action would do all things as became a soldier, even to his final letter to his beloved.
rosamond, my wife, i have decided to lead the counter-attack myself to-night. leicester is incapacitated. bethune's head is stronger than mine, now, and should the suspense be longer delayed and the relief fail, he will make a better job of it than i should here. yufzul shows no sign of budging, and we begin to suspect he is reckoning on fresh reinforcements. do not think that i should throw away that life which belongs to you without just reason. when you get this letter (perhaps after all i shall come back to-night to tear it up) you will know that i went out with the full acceptance of the inevitable.
god keep you, rosamond! my mother taught me to believe. i could not have remembered her all these years of manhood and forgotten my god. and to-night i am strong. what is to be, will be right. i kneel before you and i kiss your sweet hands, and i bless you.—your harry.
the woman read and dropped the letter on her lap. was that all? the end, the end! it was impossible. he could not have left her like that. there must be more from him. one word, one last word. and she did not even know how he died. there was no god, or life could not be so cruel!
she was tearing, with maddened fingers, in the depths of the box.... why will women hoard the orange blossom of their bridal hopes that it may torture them with its hideous relentless sweetness, when fate has fulfilled its mockery upon them!
harry's pocket-book—the familiar old pocket-book! it fell apart in her hands. a portrait.... her own face looked out on her with serious girl's eyes. she flung it from her: she had nothing in common with that creature. then she caught it up again and kissed the worn leather with wild passion. dear fingers had touched it. he had worn it, who knows, over his dear heart.... plans, service notes—"range to the shoulder of the north bluff works out at 1300." lists of stores, calculations of stores and rations, gone over and over again. oh, misery, there is sorrow beyond what human strength can bear! to think of him in these sordid straits of hunger, to stay on that thought is more than she can do and live. and she cannot die yet: she must know first.
ah! a letter, still in its envelope inviolate, addressed to mrs. harry english. not his the hand. oh, then, it is that he is dead now indeed! broken woman with her belated grief, what wonder that her brain should work confusedly!
it was mrs. english in very truth—fresh widowed, her boding heart telling her, but too surely, what last bitter detail she would find in this stranger's letter—who broke the seal at last after so many years.
dear mrs. english,—we have wired to your friends to break the bad news to you. you will want to hear all about it. i suppose you know by this time, broadly speaking, what happened to us. we were hard pressed. the relief force—worn out by the march across the snows—was not strong enough to take the hill, which was the key of the position, unassisted. it was agreed that we should co-operate. english insisted on taking charge of the party. we all knew it was a forlorn-hope business, and the men had a superstitious feeling about him; with any one else they would not have gone with the same spirit. it was an hour before dawn, and the fight went on till sunrise. we—such of us as were left in the fort, hardly an able-bodied man except myself and whiteley, the surgeon—did not know which way it was going with us till dawn, when we found the enemy in retreat. then our men and the relief party came straggling in; none of us were up to pursuit, and we began to count our loss. english had saved us with his life. he had succeeded in capturing and holding the post on the hill, completely occupying the enemy's attention, until the guns of the relief force came down upon their flank. it was carried through by a stroke of genius, but it was absolute sacrifice. only a third of his splendid fellows have come back to us—and english is gone.
his jemadar saw him fall (he swears it must have been instant death) amid the ghasi swordsmen, and then in the rush they were swept apart. mrs. english, you have the right to know the complete truth. we have been unable to recover any of our dead or wounded. the enemy carried them away; and, as we watched them in their retreat, we saw them strip the dead and roll them over the crags into the rapids. we shall not have harry english's grave—but would he have desired a better one than the great cold mountain waters, in the desolate valley, utmost boundary of that empire whose honour he died for? he will live in the hearts of his countrymen. to you i dare not offer any other words of consolation. what he was to us, these days of trial, i have no power to express. without him we should have come badly through this business. what he was to me—forgive me, i can write no more. all his papers i have placed together. they will be brought to you with this letter. his last letter to his mother was mailed to england.—yours truly,
raymond bethune.
rosamond stared. raymond bethune.—so it was he who wrote. she had not recognised his hand.
stupidly she sat, stunned. then the wave gathered, reared itself and broke upon her, overwhelming, drenching her with waters of irremediable bitterness! dead—he was dead—she had lost him. he had suffered hunger and thirst and fever, and longing for her and anguish of mind, and doubt; he had been hacked with swords, his beloved body had been dragged over the rocks, flung bleeding, perhaps still quick, into the swirling flood. but all this was nothing. all they had worked upon him was nothing compared with what she, his chosen one, had done! faithless, betrayer of his love, what part could lady gerardine have with anything of harry english? even bethune, even that cold, hard man, had been one with the old stricken mother in loyalty of grief. "he will live in the hearts of his countrymen." it was his wife who had thrust him away among the dead, to be forgotten.
"it is we who make our dead dead." for her now he must always be dead. on earth and in heaven alike she had lost him. what meeting could there ever be for her and him again, since she had given herself to another man; since she had willed him dead, in her cowardice; in base self-indulgence refused her soul to the dear and holy sorrow of his living memory?
she flung herself face downwards among his papers. no tears came to her relief, no blessed unconsciousness. for her there was no god; for her there could be no heaven, naught was left her but the hell of her own making!
