CHAPTER XII.
VULTURES AND LUCK—GOOD AND BAD.
To the strongest and sanest mind there is something a small trifle disturbing, perhaps, in riding silently hour after hour on a soft-footed camel over soft sand in a silent empty land through the moonlit silent night, beside an overland-telegraph wire on every individual post of which sits a huge vulture!… Just as the sun set, a fiery red ball, behind the distant mountains, Damocles de Warrenne, gentleman-at-large, had caught sight of what he had sought in the desert for some days, the said overland telegraph, and thereby saved himself from the highly unpleasant death that follows prolonged deprivation of water. He had also saved his camel from a little earlier death, inasmuch as he had decided to probe for the faithful creature’s jugular vein and carotid artery during the torturing heats of the morrow and prolong his life at its expense. (Had he not promised Lucille to do his best for himself?)
The overland telegraph pointed absolutely straight to the border city of Kot Ghazi and, better still, to a river-bed which would contain pools of water, thirty miles this side of it, at a spot a few miles from which stood a lost lone dak-bungalow on Indian soil—a dak-bungalow whereat would be waiting a shikarri retainer, and such things as tea, fuel, potted foods, possibly fresh meat, and luxury of luxuries, a hot bath….
And, with a sigh of relief, he had wheeled his camel under the telegraph wires after a glance at the stars and brief calculation as to whether he should turn to left or right. (He did not want to proceed until he collapsed under the realization that he was making for the troubled land of Persia.)
Anyhow, without knowing where he was, he knew he was on the road to water, food, human companionship (imagine Abdul Ghani a human companion!—but he had not seen a human face for three weeks, nor heard nor uttered a word), and safety, after suffering the unpleasant experience of wandering in circles, lost in the most inhospitable desert on the earth. Vultures! He had not realized there were so many in the world. Hour after hour, a post at every few yards, and on every post a vulture—a vulture that opened its eyes as he approached, regarded him from its own point of view—that of the Eater whose life is an unending search for Meat—calculatingly, and closed them again with a sigh at his remaining vigorousness.
He must have passed hundreds, thousands,—had he died of thirst in actual fact and was he doomed to follow this line through this desert for evermore as a punishment for his sins? No—much too mild a punishment for the God of Love to inflict, according to the Chaplain. This would be Eternal Bliss compared with the Eternal Fire. He must be still alive … Was he mad, then, and imagining these unending bird-capped posts? If not mad, he soon would be. Why couldn’t they say something—mannerless brutes! Should he swerve off and leave the telegraph line? No, he had starved and suffered the agonies of thirst for nearly a week—and, if he could hang on all night, he might reach water tomorrow and be saved. Food was a minor consideration and if he could drink a few gallons of water, soak his clothes in it, lie in it,—he could carry on for another day or two. Nearly as easy to sprawl face-downward on a camel-saddle as on the ground—and he had tied himself on. The camel would rub along all right for days with camel-thorn and similar dainties…. No, better not leave the line. Halt and camp within sight of it till the morning, when the brutes would fly away in search of food? No … might find it impossible to get going again, if once man and beast lay down now … Ride as far as possible from the line, keeping it in sight? No … if he fell asleep the camel would go round in a circle again, and he’d wake up a dozen miles from the line, with no idea of direction and position. Best to carry straight on. The camel would stick to the line so long as he was left exactly on it … think it a road … He could sleep without danger thus. He would shut his eyes and not see the vultures, for if he saw a dozen more he knew that he would go raving mad, halt the camel and address an impassioned appeal to them to say something—for God’s sake to say something. Didn’t they know that he had been in solitary confinement in a desert for three weeks or three centuries (what is time?) without hearing a sound or seeing a living thing—expecting the SNAKE night and day, and, moreover, that he was starving, dying of thirst, and light-headed, and that he was in the awful position of choosing between murdering the camel that had stood by him—no, under him—all that fearful time, and breaking his word to Lucille—cheating and deceiving Lucille. Then why couldn’t they say something instead of sitting there in their endless millions, mile after billions of miles, post after billions of trillions of posts—menacing, watchful, silent, silent as the awful desert, silent as the SNAKE…. This would not do … he must think hard of Lucille, of the Sword, of his Dream, his Dream that came so seldom now. He would repeat Lucille’s last letter, word for word:—
“MY DARLING,
“It is over, thank God—Oh, thank God—and you can leave the army at once and become a ‘gentleman’ in position as well as in fact. Poor old Grumper died on Saturday (as I cabled) and before he died he became quite another man—weak, gentle and anxious to make any amends he could to anybody. For nearly a week he was like this, and it was a most wonderful and pathetic thing. He spent most of the time in telling me, General Harringport, Auntie Yvette or the Vicar, about wicked things he had done, cruelties, meannesses, follies—it was most distressing, for really he has been simply a strong character with all the faults of one—including, as we know too well, lack of sympathy, hardness, and sometimes savage cruelty, which, after all, was only the natural result of the lack of sympathy and understanding.
“As he grew weaker he grew more sympathetic with illness and suffering, I suppose, for he sent for me in the middle of the night to say that he had suddenly remembered Major Decies’ story about your probably being subject to fits and seizures in certain circumstances, and that he was coming to the conclusion that he had been hasty and unjust and had unmercifully punished you for no fault whatever. He said ‘I have punished him for being punished. I have added my injustice to that of Fate. Write to him that I ask his pardon and confess my fault. Tell him I’ll make such reparation as I can,’ and oh, Dam—he leaves you Monksmead, and me his money, on the understanding that we marry as soon as any physician, now living in Harley Street, says that you are fit to marry (I must write it I suppose) without fear of our children being epileptic, insane, or in any way tainted. If none of them will do this, I am to inherit Monksmead and part of the money and you are to have a part of the money. If we marry then, we lose everything and it goes to Haddon Berners. Mr. Wyllis, who has been his lawyer and agent for thirty years, is to take you to Harley Street (presumably to prevent your bribing and corrupting the whole of the profession there residing).
“Come at once, Darling. If the silly old physicians won’t certify, why—what does it matter? I am going to let lodgings at Monksmead to a Respectable Single Man (with board) and Auntie Yvette will see that he behaves himself.
“Cable what boat you start by and I’ll meet you at Port Said. I don’t know how I keep myself sitting in this chair. I could turn head over heels for joy! (And poor Grumper only just buried and his Will read!) He didn’t lose quite all his grim humour in that wonderful week of softening, relenting and humanizing. What do you think he solemnly gave and bequeathed to the poor Haddock? His wardrobe!!! And nothing else, but if the Haddock wears only Grumper’s clothes, including his boots, shirts, ties, collars and everything else, for one full and complete year, and wears absolutely nothing else, he is to have five thousand pounds at the end of it—and he is to begin on the day after the funeral! And even at the last poor Grumper was a foot taller and a foot broader (not to mention thicker) than the Haddock! It appears that he systematically tried to poison Grumper’s mind against you—presumably with an eye on this same last Will and Testament. He hasn’t been seen since the funeral. I wonder if he is going to try to win the money by remaining in bed for a year in Grumper’s pyjamas!
“Am I not developing ‘self-control and balance’? Here I sit writing news to you while my heart is screaming aloud with joy, crying ‘Dam is coming home. Dam’s troubles are over. Dam is saved!’ Because if you are ever so ‘ill,’ Darling, there is nothing on earth to prevent your coming to your old home at once—and if we can’t marry we can be pals for evermore in the dear old place of our childhood. But of course we can marry. Hurry home, and if any Harley Street doctor gives you even a doubtful look, throw him up his own stairs to show how feeble you are, or tie his poker round his neck in a neat bow, and refuse to undo it until he apologizes. I’m sure you could! ‘Ill’ indeed! If you can’t have a little fit, on the rare occasions when you see a snake, without fools saying you are ill or dotty or something, it is a pity! Anyhow there is one small woman who understands, and if she can’t marry you she can at any rate be your inseparable pal—and if the Piffling Little World likes to talk scandal, in spite of Auntie Yvette’s presence—why it will be amusing. Cable, Darling! I am just bursting with excitement and joy—and fear (that something may go wrong at the last moment). If it saved a single day I should start for Motipur myself at once. If we passed in mid-ocean I should jump overboard and swim to your ship. Then you’d do the same, and we should ‘get left,’ and look silly…. Oh, what nonsense I am talking—but I don’t think I shall talk anything else again—for sheer joy!
“You can’t write me a lot of bosh now about ‘spoiling my life’ and how you’d be ten times more miserable if I were your wife. Fancy—a soldier to-day and a ‘landed proprietor’ to-morrow! How I wish you were a landed traveller, and were in the train from Plymouth—no, from Dover and London, because of course you’d come the quickest way. Did my cable surprise you very much?
“I enclose fifty ten-pound notes, as I suppose they will be quicker and easier for you to cash than those ‘draft’ things, and they’ll be quite safe in the insured packet. Send a cable at once, Darling. If you don’t I shall imagine awful things and perhaps die of a broken heart or some other silly trifle.
“Mind then:—Cable to-day; Start to-morrow; Get here in a fortnight—and keep a beady eye open at Port Said and Brindisi and places—in case there has been time for me to get there.
“Au revoir. Darling Dam,
“Your
“LUCILLE.
“Three cheers! And a million more!”
Yes, a long letter, but he could almost say it backwards. He couldn’t be anything like mad while he could do that?… How had she received his answer—in which he tried to show her the impossibility of any decent man compromising a girl in the way she proposed in her sweet innocence and ignorance. Of course he, a half-mad, epileptic, fiend-ridden monomaniac—nay, dangerous lunatic,—could not marry. Why, he might murder his own wife under some such circumstances as those under which he attacked Captain Blake. (Splendid fellow Blake! Not every man after such a handling as that would make it his business to prove that his assailant was neither drunk, mad, nor criminal—merely under a hallucination. But for Blake he would now be in jail, or lunatic asylum, to a certainty. The Colonel would have had him court-martialled as a criminal, or else have had him out of the regiment as a lunatic. Nor, as a dangerous lunatic, would he have been allowed to buy himself out when Lucille’s letter and his money arrived. Blake had got him into the position of a perfectly sober and sane person whose mind had been temporarily upset by a night of horror—in which a coffin-quitting corpse had figured, and so he had been able to steer between the cruel rocks of Jail and Asylum to the blessed harbour of Freedom.)
Yes—in spite of Blake’s noble goodness and help, Dam knew that he was not normal, that he was dangerous, that he spent long periods on the very border-line of insanity, that he stood fascinated on that border-line and gazed far into the awful country beyond—the Realms of the Mad….
Marry! Not Lucille, while he had the sanity left to say “No”!
As for going to live at Monksmead with her and Auntie Yvette—it would be an even bigger crime. Was it for him to make Lucille a “problem” girl, a girl who was “talked about,” a by-word for those vile old women of both sexes whose favourite pastime is the invention and dissemination of lies where they dare, and of even more damaging head-shakes, lip-pursings, gasps and innuendoes where they do not?
Was it for him to get Lucille called “The Woman Who Did,” by those scum of the leisured classes, and “That peculiar young woman,” by the better sort of matron, dowager and chaperone,—make her the kind of person from whose company careful mothers keep their innocent daughters (that their market price may never be in danger of the faintest depreciation when they are for sale in the matrimonial market), the kind of woman for whom men have a slightly and subtly different manner at meet, hunt-ball, dinner or theatre-box? Get Lucille “talked about”?
No—setting aside the question of the possibility of living under the same roof with her and conquering the longing to marry.
No—he had some decency left, tainted as he doubtless was by his barrack-room life.
Tainted of course…. What was it he had heard the senior soldierly-looking man, whom the other addressed as “General,” say concerning some mutual acquaintance, at breakfast in the dining-car going up to Kot Ghazi?
“Yes, poor chap, was in the ranks—and no man can escape the barrack-room taint when he has once lived in it. Take me into any Officers’ Mess you like—say ‘There is a promoted gentleman-ranker here,’ and I’ll lay a thousand to one I spot him. Don’t care if he’s the son of a Dook—nor yet if he’s Royal, you can spot him alright….”
Pleasant hearing for the “landed proprietor,” whom a beautiful, wealthy and high-bred girl proposed to marry!
Tainted or not, in that way—he was mentally tainted, a fact beside which the other, if as true as Truth, paled into utterest insignificance.
No—he had taken the right line in replying to Lucille that he was getting worse mentally, that no doctor would dream of “vetting” him “sound,” that he was not scoundrel enough to come and cause scandal and “talk” at Monksmead, and that he was going to disappear completely from the ken of man, wrestle with himself, and come to her and beg her to marry him directly he was better—sufficiently better to “pass the doctor,” that is. If, meanwhile, she met and loved a man worthy of her, such a man as Ormonde Delorme, he implored her to marry him and to forget the wholly unworthy and undesirable person who had merely loomed large upon her horizon through the accident of propinquity …
(He could always disappear again and blow out such brains as he possessed, if that came to pass, he told himself.)
Meanwhile letters to the Bank of Bombay would be sent for, at least once a year—but she was not to write—she was to forget him. As to searching for him—he had not quite decided whether he would walk from Rangoon to Pekin or from Quetta to Constantinople—perhaps neither, but from Peshawur to Irkutsk. Anyhow, he was going to hide himself pretty effectually, and put himself beyond the temptation of coming and spoiling her life. Sooner or later he would be mad, dead, or cured. If the last—why he would make for the nearest place where he could get news of her—and if she were then happily married to somebody else—why—why—she would be happy, and that would make him quite happy …
Had the letter been quite sane and coherent—or had he been in a queer mental state when he wrote it?…
He opened his eyes, saw a vulture within a few yards of him, closed them again, and, soon after, fell into an uneasy slumber as the camel padded on at a steady seven miles an hour unurged—save by the smell of pure clear water which was still a score of miles distant….
When Damocles de Warrenne awoke, he was within a few hundred yards of the nearly dry River Helnuddi, where, failing occasional pools, the traveller can always procure water by digging and patiently awaiting the slow formation of a little puddle at the bottom of the hole.
For a minute he halted. Should he dig while he had strength, or should he turn to the left and follow the river-bed until he came to a pool—or could go no farther? Perhaps he would be too weak to dig, though, by that time…. Remarkable how eager to turn to the left and get on, the camel was—considering how tired he must be—perhaps he could smell distant water or knew of a permanent pool hereabouts. Well, let that decide it….
An hour later, as the camel topped a rise in the river-bank, a considerable pool came into view, tree-shaded, heron-haunted, too incredibly beautiful and alluring for belief. Was it a mirage?…
A few minutes later, Damocles de Warrenne and his camel were drinking, and a few hours later entered the dreary featureless compound of a wretched hovel, which, to the man at least, was a palatial and magnificent asylum (no, not asylum—of all words)—refuge and home—the more so that a camel knelt chewing in the shade of the building, and a man, Abdul Ghani himself, lay slumbering in the verandah….
“You understand, then,” said Dam in the vernacular, to the malodorous, hideous, avaricious Abdul who reappeared from Kot Ghazi a few days later, “you return here again, one week from to-day, bringing the things written down on this paper, from the shop of Rustomji at Kot Ghazi. Here you wait until I come. If I find there is truth in your khubbar[27] of ibex you will be rewarded … Why don’t I take you? Because I want to be alone. Set out now for Kot Ghazi. I may return.” A stone fell and clattered. Dam shrank, cringed, and shut his eyes—as one expecting a heavy blow. Ah-h-h-h-h—had the beast bolted? With the slowness of an hour-hand he raised his head above the bank of the watercourse until his eye cleared the edge. No—still there. After a painful crawl that seemed to last for hours, he reached the point where the low ridge ran off at right-angles, crept behind it, and lay flat on his face, to rest and recover breath. He was soaked in perspiration from head to foot, giddy with sun and unnatural posture, very sore as to elbows and knees, out of breath, trembling—and entirely happy. The half-mile crawl, with the greater part of his body on the burning ground, and the rifle to shuffle steadily along without noise or damage, was the equivalent of a hard day’s work to a strong man. At the end of it he lay gasping and sick, aching in every limb, almost blind with glare and over-exertion, weary to death—and entirely happy. Thank God he would be able to stand up in a moment and rest behind a big cactus. Then he would have a spell of foot-work for a change, and, though crouching double, would not be doing any crawling until he had crossed the plateau and reached the bushes.
[27] News, information.
The upward climb was successfully accomplished with frequent halts for breath, behind boulders. On the plateau all that was required was silence. The ibex could not see him up there. In his rubber-soled khaki-coloured shoes he could almost run, but it was a question whether a drink of cold water would not be worth more than all the ibexes in the world.
He tip-toed rapidly across the level hill-top, reached the belt of low bushes, dropped, and lay to recover breath before resuming the painful and laborious crawling part of his journey. Was it possible to tap one’s tongue against one’s teeth and hear the noise of it as though it were made of wood? It seemed so. Was this giddiness and dimness of vision sunstroke? What would he give to have that fly (that had followed him for hundreds of thousands of miles that morning) between his fingers?
Last lap! There was the rock, and below it must be the quarry—if it had not fled. He must keep that rock between himself and his prey and he must get to it without a sound. It would be easy enough without the rifle. Could he stick it through his belt and along his back, or trail it behind him? What nonsense! He must be getting a touch of sun. Would these stones leave marks of burns on his clothes? Surely he could smell himself singeing. Enough to explode the rifle … The big rock at last! A rest and then a peep, with infinite precaution. Dam held his breath and edged his face to the corner of the great boulder. Moving imperceptibly, he peeped … No ibex! … He was about to spring up with a hearty malediction on his luck when he perceived a peculiar projection on a large stone some distance down the hill. It moved—and Dam dropped back. It must be the top of the curve of one of the horns of the ibex and the animal must be lying down…. What to do? It might lie for hours and he himself might go to sleep. It might get up and depart at any moment without coming into the line of fire—without being seen indeed. Better continue the stalk and hope to get a standing shot, or, failing that, a running one.
It looked a nasty descent, since silence was essential—steep, slippery, and strewn with round stones. Anyhow, he could go down on his feet, which was something to be thankful for, as it was agony to put a knee or elbow to the ground. He crept on.
Surely his luck was changing, for here he was, within fifty yards of a stone behind which lay an unsuspecting ibex with a world’s-record head. Hullo! a nasty little precipice! With a nastily sloping shelf at the bottom too, eight feet away—and then another little precipice and another sloping shelf at its base.
Better lay the rifle on the edge, slip over, hang by the hands, grab it with one, and then drop the intervening few inches. Rubber soles would play their part here! Damn this giddiness—touch of sun, no doubt. Damocles de Warrenne knelt on the edge of the eight-foot drop, turned round, swayed, fell, struck the sloping ledge, rolled off it, fell, struck the next sloping ledge, fell thirty feet—arousing an astounded ibex en route—and landed in a queer heap on a third shelf, with a few broken ribs, a dislocated shoulder, broken ankles, and a fractured thigh.
A vulture, who had been interested in his proceedings for some time, dropped a few thousand feet and had a look. What he saw decided him to come to earth. He perched on a rock and waited patiently. He knew the symptoms and he knew the folly of taking risks. A friend or two joined him—each, as he left his place in the sky, being observed and followed by a brother who was himself in turn observed and followed by another who brought others….
One of the hideous band had drawn quite near and was meditating rewarding his own boldness with a succulent eye, when Dam groaned and moved. The pretty birds also moved and probably groaned in spirit—but they didn’t move far.
What was that Miss Smellie had been so fond of saying? “There is no such thing as ‘luck,’ Damocles. All is ordered for the best by an all-seeing and merciful Providence.” Yes. No doubt.
What was that remark of his old friend, “Holy Bill”?
“What do you mean by ‘luck,’ Damocles? All that happens is ordained by God in His infinite mercy.” Yes.
Holy Bill had never done a day’s work in his life nor missed a meal—save when bilious from overeating….
A pity the infinite mercy didn’t run to a little water! It would have been easy for the all-seeing and merciful Providence to move him to retain his water-bottle when starting the stalk—if it were necessary to the schemes of the Deity to have him smashed like a dropped egg…. What agony a human being could endure!…
Not even his rifle at hand with its means of speedy death. He might live for days and then be torn alive by those accursed vultures. One mighty effort to turn on his back and he would breathe easier—but that would bring his eyes to the sun—and the vultures…. Had he slept or fainted? How long had he lain there?… Chance of being found? Absolutely none. Shikarri would have visited the dak-bungalow a week ago. Camel left below on the plain—and it would wander miles from where he left it when it grew hungry. Even if Abdul and an organized search-party were after him now they might as well be searching for a needle in a hay-stack. No one knew which of the thousand gullies he had ascended and no one could track camel-pads or flat rubber soles over bare solid rock, even if given the starting-point. No—he had got to die of thirst, starvation, and vultures, barring miracles of luck—and he had never had any good luck—for luck existed, undoubtedly, in spite of mealy-mouthed platitude-makers and twaddle about everything being pre-arranged and ordained with care and deliberation by a kind paternal Providence.
And what luck he had had—all his life! Born fated!
Had he fainted again or slept? And could he hear the tinkle of ice against the sides of a tall thin tumbler of lemonade, or was it the sound of a waterfall of clear, cold water close by? Were the servants asleep, or was the drink he had ordered being prepared?… No—he was dying in agony on a red-hot rock, surrounded by vultures and probably watched by foxes, jackals and hyenas. And a few yards away were the rifle that would have put him out of his misery, and the water-bottle that would have alleviated his pain—to the extent, at any rate, of enabling him to think clearly and perhaps scribble a few words in blood or something, somehow, for Lucille … Lucille! Would the All-Merciful let him see her once again for a moment in return for an extra thousand years of Hell or whatever it was that unhappy mortals got as a continuation of the joys of this gay world? Could he possibly induce the vultures to carry him home—if he pledged himself to feed them and support their progeny? They could each have a house in the compound. It would pay them far better than eating him now. Did they understand Pushtoo or was it Persian? Certainly not Hindustani and Urdu. People who came shooting alone in the desert and mountains, where vultures abounded, should learn to talk Vulture and pass the Higher Standard in that tongue. But even if they understood him they might be unwilling to serve a coward. Was he a coward? Anyhow he lay glued with his own blood to the spot he would never leave—unless the vultures could be bribed. Useless to hope anything of the jackals. He had hunted too many foxes to begin now to ask favours. Besides they could only drag, and he had been dragged once by a horse. Quite enough for one lifetime. But he had never injured a vulture. Pity he had no copy of Grimm or Anderson with him—they contained much useful information about talking foxes, obliging birds, and other matters germane to the occasion. If he could only get them to apply it, a working-party of vultures and jackals certainly had the strength to transport him a considerable distance—alternately carrying and dragging him. The big bird, stalking nearer, was probably the macuddam or foreman. Would it be at all possible for vultures to bring water? He would be very willing to offer his right hand in return for a little water. The bird would be welcome to eat it off his body if it would give him a drink first. Did not ravens bring meat to the prophet Elijah? Intelligent and obliging birds. Probably cooked it, too. But water was more difficult to carry, if easier to procure.
How close they were coming and how they watched with their horrible eyes—and pretended not to watch!…
Oh, the awful, unspeakable agony! Why was he alive again? Was his chest full of terribly rusty machinery that would go on when it ought to stop for want of oil?… If pain is punishment for sin, as placid stall-fed Holy Bill held (never having suffered any), then Damocles de Warrenne must have been the prince of sinners. Oh God! a little drop of water! Rivers of it flowing not many miles away!
Monsoons of it falling recently! A water-bottle full a few yards distant—and he must die for want of a drop … What a complete circle the vultures made on the rocks and stunted trees of the sloping hill-side. Oh, for a revolver! A man ought to carry one on shikar expeditions. One would give him a chance of life when under a tiger or panther—and a chance of decent death in a position such as this. Where had he read that vultures begin on the eyes of their prey? Without awaiting its death either, so long as it could not defend itself. There were other depraved gustatory preferences, too, if he remembered rightly-He would have an opportunity of testing the accuracy of the statement—though not of assuring its author as to its correctness.
Water … Water … Water …
Had he fainted again, that the vultures were so much nearer?… Why should he be a second Prometheus? Had he not had suffering enough in his life, without having more in his death?… If the sending of a little water were too obvious a miracle, was it too much to ask that his next fainting and collapse might last long enough for the vultures to get to work, make a beginning, and an end?
Surely that would not be too great a miracle, since he had lain for years on a red-hot rock with blood in his mouth and his body wrecked like a smashed egg. He must be practically dead. Perhaps if he held his laboured breath and closed his eyes they would begin, and he would have the strength to keep still when they did so. That would be the quickest way. Once they started, it would not be long before his bones were cleaned. No possible ghost of a chance of being saved. Probably no human foot had been on these particular rocks since human feet existed. Nor would he ever again have the strength to drag his shattered body to where the rifle lay. Only a few yards away lay speedy happy release.
“No such thing as luck, Damocles.”
Perhaps the vultures thought otherwise.
Colonel John Decies, still of Bimariabad, but long retired on pension from the Indian Medical Service, was showing his mental and physical unfitness for the service of the Government that had ordered his retirement, by devoting himself at the age of fifty-nine to aviation—aviation in the interests of the wounded on the battlefield. What he wanted to live to see was a flying stretcher-service of the Royal Army Medical Corps that should flash to and fro at the rate of a hundred miles an hour between the rear of the firing-line and the field hospital and base hospital in aeroplanes built especially for the accommodation of wounded men—an officer of the Corps accompanying each in the dual capacity of surgeon and potential pilot. When he allowed his practical mind to wander among the vast possibilities of the distant future, he dreamed of bigger and bigger aeroplanes until they became fully equipped flying hospitals themselves, and removed the wounded from the danger zone to the nearest salubrious spot for their convalescence. Meanwhile, he saw no reason why the more powerful biplanes should not carry an operating-table and all surgical accessories, a surgeon, and two or three wounded men who could not be made sitting-up cases.
To Colonel John Decies it seemed that if soldiers schemed to adapt the flying-machine to purposes of death and destruction, doctors might do the same to purposes of life and salvation. Think of the difference between being jolted for hours in a bullock-cart in the dust and heat and being borne through the air without jerk or jar. Think of the hundreds of men who, in the course of one campaign, would be saved from the ghastly fate of lying unfound, unseen by the stretcher-bearers, to starve to death, to lie weltering in their blood, to live through days of agony….
He was making quite a name for himself by his experiments at the Kot Ghazi flying-school and by his articles and speeches on the formation and training of a R.A.M.C. flying branch. Small beginnings would content him (provided they were intended to lead to great developments)—an aeroplane at first, that could carry one or two special cases to which the ordinary means of transport would be fatal, and that could scour the ground, especially in the case of very broken terrain and hill-country, for overlooked cases, wounded men unable to move or call, and undiscovered by the searchers.
He was hard at work on the invention of a strong collapsible operating-table (that could readily be brought into use in the field and also be used in aerial transport) and a case for the concentration of equipment—operation instruments, rubber gloves, surgical gauntlets, saline infusion apparatus, sterilizer, aseptic towels, chloroform, bandages, gauze, wool, sponges, drainage-tubing, inhaler, silk skeins, syringes, field tourniquets, waterproof cloth, stethoscope—everything, and the whole outfit, table and all, weighing forty pounds. This would be an improvement on the system of having to open half a dozen medical and surgical cases when operating on the line of march, cases requiring the most expert repacking after use …
Perhaps it was a sign of advancing years and weakening mind that this fine specimen of a fine service felt that, when flying some thousands of feet above the earth, he was nearer to Lenore in Heaven. All his science and sad experience had failed to deprive him of a sub-conscious belief in an actual place “above,” a material Hereafter beyond the sky, and, when clouds cut him off from sight of the earth, he had a quaint, half-realized feeling of being in the ante-room of the Great House of many mansions, wherein dwelt Lenore.
Yes, when flying, Colonel John Decies felt that he was nearer to the woman he had lost nearly a quarter of a century before. In one sense he may have been so, for he was a very reckless airman, and never in greater danger than when engaged in what he called “ground-scouring” among the air-current haunted, mist-haunted mountains of the Border. He anticipated an early Border-war and realized that here would be a great opportunity for a keen-sighted and iron-nerved medical airman to locate, if not to pick up, overlooked wounded. Here, too, would be a double need of such service in a country where “the women come out to cut up what remains”! Imagine, too, cavalry reconnaissances and bad casualties a score of miles from medical help …
Whether it brought him nearer in any sense to Lenore de Warrenne, it brought him nearer to her son, on one of those hundred-mile circular “scours” which he practised when opportunity offered, generally accompanied by a like-minded officer of the R.A.M.C., to which Corps he had become a kind of unofficial and honorary instructor in “First- Aid Flying” at the Kot Ghazi flying-school, situate in the plains at the foot of the “Roof of the World”.
“Hullo!” said Colonel John Decies to himself—“vultures! I suppose they might be referred to in my manual as a likely guide to the wounded. Good idea. ‘The flying casualty-scout should always take note of the conduct of vultures, noting the direction of flight if any are seen dropping to earth. These birds may prove invaluable guides. A collection of them on the ground may indicate a wounded man who may be alive.’ …”
The Colonel was thinking of his magnum opus, “The Aeroplane and the Surgeon, in War,” wherewith he lived laborious days at Bimariabad in the intervals of testing, developing, and demonstrating his theories at Kot Ghazi.
Turning his head, he shouted to Surgeon-Captain Digby-Soames, R.A.M.C., his passenger and pupil:—
“Vultures on the left-front or starboard bow. ‘Invariable battle-field sign of wounded man. Note spot if unable to land and rescue. Call up stretcher-party by signal—Vide page 100 of Decies’ great work,’ what?”
“By Jove, it is a wounded man,” replied Captain Digby-Soames, who was using field-glasses. “Damned if it isn’t a Sahib, too! Out shikarring and sprained his ankle, I suppose. Dead, I’m afraid. Poor devil!”
“Vultures aren’t at work, anyhow,” commented Colonel Decies. “Can’t land anywhere hereabouts, and I’m afraid ‘calling up the stretcher party’ isn’t in the game here.”
“Nothing nearer than Kot Ghazi and that’s a good thirty miles,” replied Captain Digby-Soames as the aeroplane hovered and slowly sank.
“Let’s see all we can and then find the nearest landing-place. Search all round for any sign of a tent or encampment. There may be a dak-bungalow somewhere down in the plains, too. The river-bed down on the right there, marks the border.”
Captain Digby-Soames “scoured” earnestly with his glasses.
“Camel on the port-bow, at the foot of the hills,” he announced. “What may be a dak-bungalow several miles away … a white square dot, anyhow … Camel saddled up, kneeling … His, no doubt. Wonder where his shikarri is—”
As the aeroplane approached, the disappointed vultures departed, misliking the size, shape and sounds of the strange fowl. As it passed over him, and the Major shouted, Dam opened his eyes.
This must be pretty well the end—when he heard the voice of some one he knew well, and saw a flying-machine just above him. He would see blocks of ice and cascades of cold water in a moment, doubtless, and hear Lucille calling.
A flying-machine in Ghazistan! The voice of an old, old friend to whom he could not, for the moment, give a name … Why couldn’t the cowardly brutes of vultures begin their business, and end his? What was that familiar voice calling:—
“Hold on a bit, we’ll soon be with you! Don’t give up. We can’t land just here. If we drop anything can you crawl and get it?”
“He opened his eyes,” said Captain Digby-Soames, “but I doubt if he’s conscious. He must have come a frightful cropper. You can see there’s a compound fracture of the right femur from here, and one of his feet is fairly pointing backwards. Blood from the mouth, too. Anyhow he’s alive. Better shoot him if we can’t shift him——”
“We’ll get him all right. This is a Heaven-sent ‘problem’ and we’ll solve it—and I’ll quote it in my ‘manual’. Quite war-conditions. Very badly wounded man—inaccessible position—stretcher-parties all out of sight—aeroplane can’t land for any first-aid nor to pick up the casualty—excellent problem and demonstration. That oont[28] will simplify it, though. Look here—I’ll drop down and land you by it, and then come here again and hover. You bring the beast up—you’ll be able to ride most of the way if you zig-zag, and lead him most of the rest. Then you’ll have to carry the casualty to the oont and bring him down.”
[28] Camel.
The aeroplane swooped down and grounded gently within a hundred yards of the kneeling camel, who eyed it with the cold and supercilious disdain of his kind.
“Tell you what,” said Colonel Decies, “when I get up there again, have a good squint and see if you think you can locate the spot for yourself from below. If you can, I’ll come down again and we’ll both go up on the oont. Bring the poor beggar down much better if one of us can hold him while the other drives the camel. It’s no Grand Trunk Road, by Jove.”
“Right-O,” acquiesced Captain Digby-Soames. “If I can get a clear bearing to a point immediately below where you hover, I’ll lie flat on the ground as an affirmative signal. If there’s no good landmark I’ll stay perpendicular, what?”
“That’s it,” said Colonel Decies, and, with a swift run and throbbing whirr, the aeroplane soared from the ground and rose to where, a thousand feet from the plain, lay the mangled “problem”. As it came to a halt and hovered[29] (like a gigantic dragon-fly poised on its invisibly-rapid wings above a pool), the junior officer’s practised eye noted a practicable gully that debouched on a level with, and not far from, the ledge over which the aeroplane hung, and that a stunted thorn-tree stood below the shelf and two large cactus bushes on its immediate left. Having taken careful note of other landmarks and glanced at the sun, he lay on the ground at full length for a minute and then arose and approached the camel, who greeted him with a bubbling snarl. On its great double saddle were a gun-cover and a long cane, while from it dangled a haversack, camera, cartridge-case, satchel, canvas water-bag, and a cord-net holdall of odds and ends.
[29] By means of its “Decies Horizontal Screw Stabilizer,” which enabled it to “hover” with only a very slight rise and fall.
Obviously the “problem’s” shikar-camel. Apparently he was out without any shikarri, orderly, or servant—a foolish thing to do when stalking in country in which a sprained ankle is more than a possibility, and a long-range bullet in the back a probability anywhere on that side of the border.
The aeroplane returned to earth and grounded near by. Stopping the engine Colonel Decies climbed out and swung himself into the rear seat of the camel saddle. Captain Digby-Soames sprang into the front one and the camel lurched to its feet, and was driven to the mouth of the gully which the Captain had noted as running up to the scene of the tragedy.
To and fro, in and out of the gully, winding, zig-zagging, often travelling a hundred yards to make a dozen, the sure-footed and well-trained beast made its way upward.
“Coming down will be joy,” observed the Colonel. “I’d sooner be on a broken aeroplane in a cyclone.”
“Better hop off here, I should think,” said Captain Digby-Soames anon. “We can lead him a good way yet, though. Case of divided we stand, united we fall. Let him fall by himself if he wants to,” and at the next reasonably level spot the camel was made to kneel, that his riders might descend. Slithering down from a standing camel is not a sport to practise on a steep hillside, if indulged in at all.
Another winding, scrambling climb and the head of the nullah was reached.
“Have to get the beast kneeling when we climb down to him with the casualty,” opined the Colonel. “Better get him down here, I think. Doesn’t seem any decent place farther on,” and the camel was brought to an anchor and left to his own devices.
“By Jove, the poor beggar has come a purler,” said Captain Digby-Soames, as the two bent over the apparently unconscious man.
“Ever seen him at Kot Ghazi or Bimariabad?” inquired Colonel Decies.
“No,” said the Captain, “never seen him anywhere. Why—have you?”
“Certainly seen him somewhere—trying to remember where. I thought perhaps it might have been at the flying-school or at one of the messes. Can’t place him at all, but I’ll swear I’ve met him.”
“Manoeuvres, perhaps,” suggested the other, “or ’board ship.”
“Extraordinary thing is that I feel I ought to know him well. Something most familiar about the face. I’m afraid it’s a bit too late to—Broken ribs—fractured thigh—broken ankles—broken arm—perforated lungs—not much good trying to get him down, I’m afraid. He might linger for days, though, if we decided to stand by, up here. A really first-class problem for solution—we’re in luck,” mused Colonel Decies, making his rapid and skilful examination. “Yes, we must get him down, of course—after a bit of splinting.”
“And then the real ‘problem’ will commence, I suppose,” observed Captain Digby-Soames. “You couldn’t put him into my seat and fly him to Kot Ghazi while I dossed down with the camel and waited for you to come for me. And it wouldn’t do to camel him to that building which looks like a dak-bungalow.”
“No. I think you’ll have to stand by while I fly to Kot Ghazi and bring the necessary things for a temporary job, and then return and try to guide an ambulance waggon here. Oh, for an aeroplane-ambulance! This job brings it home to you pretty clearly, doesn’t it? Or I might first go and have a look at the alleged dak-bungalow and see if we could possibly run him over there on a charpoy[30] or an improvised camel-stretcher. It’ll be a ghastly job getting down. I don’t know that you hadn’t better stick to him up here while I go straight back for proper splints and bandages and so forth, and bring another chap too … Where the devil have I seen him before? I shall forget my own name next.”
[30] Native bed-frame.
The Colonel pondered a moment.
“Look here,” he decided. “This case is urgent enough to justify a risky experiment. He’s been here a devil of a time and if he’s not in a pukka hospital within the next few hours it’s all up with him. He’s going to have the distinction of being the first casualty removed to hospital by flying-machine. I’ll tie him on somewhere. We’ll splint him up as well as possible, and then make him into a blooming cocoon with the cord, and whisk him away.”
“Pity we haven’t a few planks,” observed Captain Digby-Soames. “We could make one big splint of his whole body and sling him, planks and all, underneath the aeroplane.”
“Well, you start splinting that right leg on to the left and stiffen the knees with something (you’ll probably be able to get a decent stick or two off that small tree), and shove the arm inside his leather legging. We’ve two pairs of putties you can bandage with, and there are puggries on all three topis. Probably his gun’s somewhere about, for another leg-splint, too. I’ll get down to the machine for the cord and then I’ll skirmish around for anything in the nature of poles or planks. I can get over to that hut and back before you’ve done. It’ll be the camelling that’ll kill him.”
At the distant building the Colonel found an abandoned broken-wheeled bullock-cart, from which he looted the bottom-boards, which were planks six feet long, laid upon, but not fastened to, the framework of the body of the cart. From the compound of the place (an ancient and rarely-visited dak-bungalow, probably the most outlying and deserted in India) he procured a bamboo pole that had once supported a lamp, the long leg-rests of an old chair, and two or three sticks, more or less serviceable for his purpose.
Returning to the camel, he ascended to where his passenger and pupil awaited him. Over his shoulder he bore the planks, pole and sticks that the contemptuous but invaluable camel had borne to a point a few yards below the scene of the tragedy.
“Good egg,” observed the younger man. “We’ll do him up in those like a mummy.”
“Yes,” returned the Colonel, “then carry him to the oont and bind him along one side of the saddle, and then lead the beast down. Easily sling him on to the machine, and there we are. Lucky we’ve got the coil of cord. Fine demonstration for the Kot Ghazi fellers! Show that the thing can be done, even without the proper kind of ’plane and surgical outfit. What luck we spotted him—or that he fell just in our return track!”
“Doubtless he was born to that end,” observed the Captain, who was apt to get a little peevish when hungry and tired.
And when the Army Aeroplane Hawk returned from its “ground-scouring for casualties” trip, lo, it bore, beneath and beside the pilot and passenger, a real casualty slung in a kind of crude coffin-cradle of planks and poles, a casualty in whose recovery the Colonel took the very deepest interest, for was he not a heaven-sent case, born to the end that he might be smashed to demonstrate the Colonel’s theories? But no credit was given to the vultures, without whom the “casualty” would never have been found.