On the Firing Line Part 34

"Now it is over, I am less sorry than I was. The fact is, the future holds a good deal for us."

"For you, perhaps."

"For you, too. The whole future of a man doesn't go to wreck in an hour. There are other crises later on, and some of them are bound to come out well. Save yourself for those, Weldon. There is no especial use in throwing yourself away."

"I'm not. But, when the order comes, I must obey it," Weldon said gloomily.

"It depends something on the order; but it depends a good sight more on the way you obey it. When a man comes into collision with a bulldog, it's generally wise to grapple with him back of his teeth; else, you may lose a thumb or two. It's the same way with your orders here. Because you don't funk, there is no reason you should flirt with an early death."

"But I don't."

"What about now?"

"What do you mean?"

"That you ought to be in hospital."

Weldon threw back his head and laughed, but mirthlessly.

"Why, then?"

Without speaking, Carew took out his pipe, filled it and began fumbling in his pocket.

"Have you a match?" he asked.

Weldon nodded, produced the match, lighted it and held it to the extended pipe. Carew's eyes, drooped to the bowl, watched the bit of flame.

"Do you call that a steady hand?" he asked then. "Man, you're ill, I tell you. Your face is hot and your hands are cold, and your nerves are worn to shoestrings, frayed shoestrings at that. If you keep on, you'll be down flatter than you like. You ought to have stopped four weeks ago."

Weldon crossed his arms at the nape of his neck and lay back at his ease on the ground.

"Then what would have become of my V. C.?" he queried, with languid indifference.

"But I thought you claimed not to care for your V. C."

"I don't. My friends may, however." "As a legacy? I think your friends may possibly choose you to the V. C."

"Foolish of them," Weldon commented. "Still, 'If we could choose the time, and choose aright, 'T were best to die, our honor at the height.' I learned that when I was a small boy; but I've only just found out what it means."

With scoffing lips, but eyes full of unspoken love, Carew turned on his friend.

"Don't dodder, Weldon," he counselled him. "That's canting drivvle, made to console the unsuccessful. No man knows when he has reached his high-water mark. Yours may have come on the day you licked Stevie Ballard for gilding the tailless cat; it may not come till you are ninety."

"No." The syllable was quiet, deliberate. Then Weldon roused himself and sat up to speak with sudden energy. "Promise me this, Carew, that while the matter is hanging fire, you won't mention this V. C.

business to any one."

Carew stared at him in unmixed surprise.

"What's the matter now?" he asked blankly.

"Nothing, only that I want you to promise."

"Not to--"

"Not to a living soul."

"Why? What's the use?"

"No use, but my wish. If it comes off, let it be as a joyous surprise. If it misses fire, as it quite well may, then there'll be no harm done. In either case, it is best to keep still. My own notion is that I'll not get it. As a rule, one doesn't get the V. C.

for s.h.i.+nning up the side of a hill, no matter how steep it is."

Carew made no attempt to discuss the chances. Instead, he merely asked,--

"Mayn't I tell Miss Mellen?"

Weldon shook his head. It was exactly to prevent the inevitable consequences of Alice Mellen's knowing the story that he was seeking to extort the promise from Carew. To protect his motive, however, he took a sudden resolution.

"I shall not even tell my mother," he answered, with slow emphasis.

Carew raised his brows.

"Then I suppose that ties my tongue. I am sorry. What's the use of being so confoundedly modest, Weldon?"

"Do you promise?"

"I suppose I must."

"On your honor?"

"On my honor."

Weldon stretched himself out at full length once more.

"So be it. Give me a light. You took my last match," he said as unconcernedly as if they had merely been talking of the weather.

Indeed, the weather might well have been the subject of their talk.

The earth was baked until it cracked beneath the parching sun and wind. There had been no rain for weeks; but, to-day, the raw wind sent the lead-colored clouds flying over the sky, and the lead-colored clouds were heavy with rain. All the morning and till mid-afternoon, the column had been camping not far away, while their weary, hungry mounts had been turned out on the veldt to graze. For men and mounts, the halt was needed.

The fight about the laager had been no easy victory. Twelve hundred half-starved Britons are no match for fifteen hundred Boers fat with easy living. Weldon's hold on the crest had decided the game; but the game had not played itself out without wounds for some and utter weariness for all. War mad, yet half-dazed in all other respects, Weldon had watched the reinforcements come swarming up the hill to his relief, had heard their cheers mingling themselves with the sound of his name. Then, listless, but with his arm still about Paddy's shoulders, he had seen the fight move to its destined finish. He came down from the hilltop, feeling that something had taken yet one more turn in the evertightening coil of his brain. For one instant, as they were laying Paddy into the narrow grave scooped out of the veldt, the coil relaxed. Then, as the lumps of earth closed over his plucky, loyal little comrade, it tightened again and pressed on him more closely than ever.

And that was a week ago; and the week between had been one long trek in search of errant Boers. Weldon still rode in the front of the column. He had been ordered into hospital; but, bracing himself, he had looked the doctor steadily between the eyes and had refused to obey. The hospital was not for him--as yet. "By Jove!" Carew was remarking deliberately. "Look at the horses!"

Noses in air, tails las.h.i.+ng and eyes staring wildly, the frightened groups had swept together and were rus.h.i.+ng down upon them in one mad stampede. Straight towards the two troopers they came das.h.i.+ng along, swerved slightly and went sweeping past them, wrapped in a thick column of dust which parted, just as the horde rushed by, before the fierce impact of the breaking storm. From zenith to horizon, the leaden sky was marked with wavering lines of golden fire; but the shock of the thunder was outborne by the clash of falling hail. Half a mile away, the tents were riddled by the egg-sized lumps of ice; and, out on the open veldt, Carew threw himself on the earth, face downward, and buried his head in his sheltering arms. But Weldon staggered to his feet. In the thick of the flying troop of horses, he had seen the little gray broncho, and now, before she swept on out of hearing, he turned his back to the gale and gave a high, shrill whistle. It was months, now, since Piggie had learned that call. Again and again she had come trotting up to him, to rub her muzzle against his neck in token that she had heard and understood.

There was scant chance that the call would be carried to her by the boisterous wind, scanter chance still that, hearing it now in that mad rout, she would heed. Nevertheless, Weldon took the chance.

Obviously stampeded by the enemy, the missing horses would leave the column powerless to repel the attack which was imminent. If Piggie could be recalled, there was still a chance to regain the other mounts. Yet, even while he was weighing all the chances, he smiled to himself as he recalled the ineffectual little whistle that had gone out on the whistling wind. The chance was gone. Like Carew, he would lie down and seek what shelter he could get from the earth and from his own clasping arms.

The hail, falling thickly, shut down about the troop of horses and took them from his sight. If his eyes could have followed them, he would have seen one little gray head toss itself upward from the heart of the throng, one st.u.r.dy little gray back move more and more slowly, turn slightly, then weave its patient way in and out between its frightened companions until, free from the press of the crowd, it stood alone on the hail-lashed plain. Ten minutes later, Weldon felt a soft, wet muzzle poking its way between his tight-locked arms. The rest was simple. It amounted to riding back to the column to give warning of the enemy who rode close in the rear, to summoning Kruger Bobs and The Nig, and then, without stopping for a saddle, to go galloping away to the sky-line to round up the stampeded herd. The first dash of hail over, the rain fell fast upon them; but, above its roar, they could hear the steady firing of the pom pom behind them and the crackle of musketry mingled with the heavier fire.