“Guess anybody could be a soldier and swing a sword, while it takes brains to make a doctor.”
Now I was a doctor, and a very young one in those days, new to the regiment1 and conscious of my inferiority to its merest subaltern. The young person who made the above observation was, moreover, pretty, with dark eyes and the most bewitching lips that ever gave voice to an American accent. My heart was young, and therefore easily stirred by such vanities—nothing stirs it now but the cry of the bugle2 and the sullen3 roar that rises from the ranks when, at last, T. Atkins is allowed to get to the bayonet.
We were sitting in the verandah of the Residency in the capital of a northern tributary4 state which need not be further specified5 here. The Rajah was in difficulties and unable, without our aid, to dispose of a claimant to his throne, whose hereditary6 right originated somewhere in the lifetime of St. Paul. General Elias J. Watson, of Boston, U.S.A., was travelling for the enlargement of his own and his daughter's mind.
“Pa is just going to write a book about things in general,” explained Miss Bertha Watson, with a wise little smile, when her father's thirst for information became irksome.
Hearing in Simla that an expeditionary force was about to be despatched to the assistance of the Rajah of Oadpur, General Watson hastened thither7. He had letters of introduction from sundry8 persons who wished to get rid of him to sundry others who had no desire to assist in any way. But the old man's naivete and characteristically simple interest in details soon made their way, while Bertha's wise little smile carried all before it. It somehow conveyed the impression that she knew a thing or two of which we were ignorant, and like one man we fell to desiring knowledge of those things. I was nowhere. Doctors never are anywhere in regimental competitions, for they are usually, like myself, deadly poor. Sometimes Bertha danced with me, as on this occasion, at the impromptu9 entertainments given by the Resident.
“Say, shall we have another?” she observed before my heart had recovered from the effect of the last remark. And she handed me the stationery10 department envelope which served as a programme on these occasions.
I fumbled11 for my pencil in a seventh heaven of joy. I had read somewhere that women sometimes give their hearts to small and insignificant12 men. But it seemed unlikely that this referred to such women as Bertha Watson. I had never dreamt of cutting out the other men: Major Le Mesurier-Groselin, who had money, for instance, or Austin Graham—especially Austin Graham. There had been a rumour13 in the air—planted there, no doubt, by some of the women who have a marvellous scent14 for a light trail—that there was an understanding between Graham and Bertha. I noticed that she never looked at him with her bewitching little smile as she did at the rest of us. But that was all I could detect. Perhaps she thought that he was wiser than herself. Perhaps, moreover, she was right; for Graham was the wisest man up there, and I think the bravest. He meant business, he told me, and had come to make his name in this little war.
He was a quiet-going, fair man, with that inestimable advantage of looking at all times exactly what he was, namely, a gentleman by long descent. He was a great friend of mine, and we shared quarters in a sort of gatehouse to the Rajah's palace, where I knew that he worked night and day, for he was chief of the staff, and had a great scheme of crushing the insurrection, at one blow, by a surprise assault of the fortified16 town twenty miles away, where the claimant lay with his forces.
“Seems to me,” said Bertha, when I had duly inscribed17 my name on the Government envelope, “that this is what you call a demonstration18 in force. This is not serious war. You are not going to fight at all. Things are much too quiet and orderly—with church parade, and soirees-dansantes, and visiting cards.”
She looked at me, and if I had had any secrets I should have told them to her then and there.
“Then you think there'll be fighting,” she added, with a calmness of demeanour which was in itself unusual and fascinating enough.
She had no reason to arrive at such a conclusion, for I had not uttered a sound. I probably did not know, however, in those days that the lies requiring the minutest care are the unspoken ones.
“You see, I'm only a doctor,” I answered, “and, strange to say, the Brigadier has not as yet taken me into his confidence.”
“I know a lot about war,” she went on after a momentary21 pause. She appeared to have some misgiving22 about one of the buttons on her long glove which she had undone23 and was tentatively tugging24 at the thread.
“May I button that?” I said hurriedly in my extreme youth, and with a palpitating courage.
“Why, yes—if you have any ambition that way.” And she extended her arm towards me. “Now,” she said, with a grave air of confidence which I now distrust whenever it is tried upon me, “if I was the man in charge of this show, I would just go on like this, giving balls and private theatricals25 and exchanging visiting cards. This place is full of spies, of course. The very servants who wait on the General probably read all his letters and send copies of them to the enemy. The plan of campaign is probably as well known to What-'em-you-call-it Khan as it is to the Brigadier.”
“No, I am sure it isn't,” I interrupted; “because Graham keeps it locked up in a medical-comfort chest with his dressing-case locked, which we screwed on ourselves.”
“Ah, is that so, doctor? Well, you can't be too careful, can you? As I was saying, I should convey to the spies the impression that it was only a demonstration in force. Then one night I should start off quietly, march twenty miles, and give What-'em-you-call-it Khan Hail Columbia before sunrise.”
She looked at me, gave a knowing little nod of the head, and began fanning herself.
“That is my plan of campaign,” she said. “You know Pa is here on purpose to see the British soldier fight. We have been waiting here a month now, and I hope you are going to ring up the curtain soon. Pa has theories about the British soldier, and although he is a General, you know he has never seen a fight. I tell him if I was a General who hadn't seen a fight, I'd just go out and sell myself cheap! What?”
“Nothing.”
“I said you'd probably do that at any rate.”
“Not cheap,” she answered gravely, and then we changed the subject. So far as I recollect26, we returned to the discussion of doctors and their trade, and before long I had the opportunity of airing my special hobby at that time—the study of native drugs. Miss Watson was deeply interested—at least, she made me think so, and before we parted I had promised to send round to her “diggings,” as she called them, a bottle of a perfectly27 harmless narcotic28 which I had made up for the use of persons suffering from sea-sickness or toothache. I use it still, and have some always by me on service in a bottle labelled “Bertha,” for there is, after all, something in a name.
I went home to my quarters rather thoughtful that night; for Bertha Watson's plan of campaign was Austin Graham's plan of campaign, and I knew that Graham was not the man to divulge29 so much as a hint of this secret. I know now that if a woman loves a man she knows much that he never tells her, but I was ignorant of this and many other matters at the time when I made Bertha's acquaintance.
The days dragged on and we seemed to be no nearer solving the Rajah's difficulties. There were at that time no native newspapers, and bazaar30 gossip, which is, by the way, surer and speedier than the most enlightened press, made up for the want. Bazaar gossip held much the same opinion as Bertha Watson—namely, that we were only a demonstration in force. This opinion gained ground daily, and began like a hardy31 weed to throw out tendrils in the shape of details. We were afraid of the claimant to the throne, it seemed. We had quarrelled with the Rajah, and would not risk a defeat on his account.
Austin Graham came and went. I sometimes found mysterious natives waiting for him in our quarters. One of these natives spoke Hindustanee with a faint Scotch32 accent, and laughed when I told him so.
“I'm all right in the dialects though,” he said, in Glasgow English, and asked for a cigarette. We sat and talked for half an hour awaiting Graham's arrival, but he never told me who he was.
One night, about midnight, I was aroused by Le Mesurier-Groselin, who was in full fighting kit33 and had a queer light in his eyes which was new to me, though heaven and the Horse Guards know that I have seen it often enough since.
“Get up—Sawbones!” said Le Mesurier-Groselin. “You'll be wanted at any rate, but now I want you badly. We're just off to smoke the old Khan out, and something has gone wrong with Graham. For God's sake, man, hurry up! It will be a pretty fight, and I would not miss it for worlds.”
I looked at Le Mesurier-Groselin as I hauled on my clothes. He had eight thousand a year, an Elizabethan manor34 in England, and the certainty of a baronetcy; but the thought of these things never brought to his eyes the light that was there now.
“What is wrong with Graham?”
“I don't know—wish I did. Can't move him. Seems quite stupid or dead drunk,” answered Le Mesurier-Groselin, handing me my belt.
We hurried upstairs to the room occupied by Austin Graham, and there found him lying on the bed with his eyes almost, but not quite, shut.
“Where was he to-night—dining with you at mess?” I asked, raising one heavy lid with my finger.
“No, he dined with the Watsons.”
“When did you last see him?”
“About ten o'clock at my quarters. He was coming here to change in time for the assembly at eleven forty-five—the column is just marching. I came here to hurry him up and found him like this. The whole attack is his planning. It would have been the making of him. He was to have led the ladders. Gad20! what a chance the man had—and look at the poor devil now!”
I was examining Austin Graham with a thumping35 heart, for a queer suspicion was in my mind. Presently I ran downstairs and uncorked the bottle which I now label “Bertha.” The smell was identical, and I went upstairs again.
“Help me to get him into his boots and tunic,” I said.
And Le Mesurier-Groselin and I huddled36 the man's fighting clothes on to him by the light of a flickering37 candle. Le Mesurier-Groselin was a big man, and my trade had taught me a certain skill in the handling of the dead. We soon had Austin Graham in full uniform sitting up in my arms, with the helmet crammed38 on his head at an unseemly angle. He was perfectly insensible, but his heart went well.
“Now help me to get him on to his horse,” I said.
Le Mesurier-Groselin dropped his eye-glass for the first and last time on record, and looked at me with a surprised eye and a solemn one.
“I'll obey orders,” he said. “But I take it that you are very drunk or else mad.”
We carried him downstairs and I climbed into Graham's saddle. Le Mesurier-Groselin lifted Graham, who must have weighed fourteen stone, into the saddle in front of me, and I rode twenty miles that night with him there. He recovered consciousness an hour before we reached the Khan's stronghold, and, as I expected, awoke, as if from sleep, refreshed and ready for any exertion39. We had no time for explanations.
“You were drugged,” I said, “by some native spy, who must have got wind of the intended attack to-night. I knew that the stuff would have to run its course, so I did not physic you, but brought you along with the column.”
I am glad to say he believed me.
Some one found me a restless field-artillery horse which was giving the gunners a lot of trouble, and I rode back to Oadpur alone—not having any business at the front. As I approached the old Gate House, the flutter of a white dress caught my eye. It was almost dawn, and a pink haze40 hung over the paddy-fields. The world had that appearance of peace and cleanliness which is left by the passage of an Indian night. My rooms were on the ground-floor, and it seemed to me that, at the sound of my horse's feet, some one had come out of them to pass up the stone stairs that led to Graham's quarters. As I slipped out of the saddle the sound of a distant cannon41 broke the silence of the night, and my horse, despite his forty miles accomplished42 in little more than five hours, pricked43 up his ears. I tied him up, and instead of going to my own rooms went upstairs.
Miss Watson was standing15 in the first room I entered. The quick tropic dawn had come, and I saw the face of a woman who had not slept.
“Major Graham's servant told me that he was ill. I have—a—a right to know how he is, and where he is,” she said with her imperturbable44 self-possession.
“Graham is at the front,” I answered, and the sound of the cannon, dull and distant, finished the sentence for me.
Bertha Watson bit her lip to hide its quivering, and looked at me, breathing hard.
“We have rung up the curtain,” I added, remembering our talk in the verandah of the Residency.
“How did he get there?”
“Across my saddle in a state of insensibility, which passed off, as I expected it would, an hour before the time fixed45 for the storming of the fortifications. Some one drugged him in order that he might not take part in this action. Some one who feared him—or for him. Le Mesurier-Groselin called me to him, and only we three know of it. I am the only medical man connected with the affair, and I can certify46 that it was a native drug that was used, and that therefore a native must have done this thing. Probably a native spy, Miss Watson, who, finding out the proposed surprise too late to warn the rebels, attempted to disorganize the force by this means. Do you understand?”
She looked at me with all her keen wits in her eyes.
“No one would ever dream that another had done it—say some one who was attached to Graham, and who, in a panic, gave way to temptation and did him a great wrong, while saving him from danger.”
I stood aside as I spoke and motioned her towards the door, for the place would soon be astir.
“My!” she exclaimed. “And I reckoned you were a fool—behind that single eye-glass. It is not you that is the fool, doctor.”
Then suddenly she turned at the head of the stairs and whispered hoarsely—
“And if he is killed?”
“That is what he is paid for, Miss Watson. We can only wait and hope that he isn't.”
Austin Graham was not killed, but came back with, as the Brigadier said, the Victoria Cross up his sleeve. I happened to be near Bertha Watson when they met, and there was that in her eyes when they encountered his which was a revelation to me and makes me realize even now what a lonely man I am.
点击
收听单词发音
收听单词发音 |
1
regiment
|
|
| n.团，多数，管理；v.组织，编成团，统制 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
2
bugle
|
|
| n.军号，号角，喇叭；v.吹号，吹号召集 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
3
sullen
|
|
| adj.愠怒的，闷闷不乐的，(天气等)阴沉的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
4
tributary
|
|
| n.支流；纳贡国；adj.附庸的；辅助的；支流的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
5
specified
|
|
| adj.特定的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
6
hereditary
|
|
| adj.遗传的，遗传性的，可继承的，世袭的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
7
thither
|
|
| adv.向那里；adj.在那边的，对岸的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
8
sundry
|
|
| adj.各式各样的，种种的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
9
impromptu
|
|
| adj.即席的，即兴的；adv.即兴的(地)，无准备的(地) | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
10
stationery
|
|
| n.文具；(配套的)信笺信封 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
11
fumbled
|
|
| （笨拙地）摸索或处理（某事物）( fumble的过去式和过去分词 )； 乱摸，笨拙地弄； 使落下 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
12
insignificant
|
|
| adj.无关紧要的，可忽略的，无意义的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
13
rumour
|
|
| n.谣言，谣传，传闻 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
14
scent
|
|
| n.气味，香味，香水，线索，嗅觉；v.嗅，发觉 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
15
standing
|
|
| n.持续，地位；adj.永久的，不动的，直立的，不流动的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
16
fortified
|
|
| adj. 加强的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
17
inscribed
|
|
| v.写，刻( inscribe的过去式和过去分词 )；内接 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
18
demonstration
|
|
| n.表明，示范，论证，示威 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
19
spoke
|
|
| n.（车轮的）辐条；轮辐；破坏某人的计划；阻挠某人的行动 v.讲，谈（speak的过去式）；说；演说；从某种观点来说 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
20
gad
|
|
| n.闲逛；v.闲逛 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
21
momentary
|
|
| adj.片刻的，瞬息的；短暂的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
22
misgiving
|
|
| n.疑虑，担忧，害怕 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
23
undone
|
|
| a.未做完的，未完成的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
24
tugging
|
|
| n.牵引感v.用力拉，使劲拉，猛扯( tug的现在分词 ) | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
25
theatricals
|
|
| n.（业余性的）戏剧演出，舞台表演艺术；职业演员；戏剧的( theatrical的名词复数 )；剧场的；炫耀的；戏剧性的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
26
recollect
|
|
| v.回忆，想起，记起，忆起，记得 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
27
perfectly
|
|
| adv.完美地，无可非议地，彻底地 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
28
narcotic
|
|
| n.麻醉药，镇静剂；adj.麻醉的，催眠的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
29
divulge
|
|
| v.泄漏(秘密等)；宣布，公布 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
30
bazaar
|
|
| n.集市，商店集中区 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
31
hardy
|
|
| adj.勇敢的，果断的，吃苦的；耐寒的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
32
scotch
|
|
| n.伤口，刻痕；苏格兰威士忌酒；v.粉碎，消灭，阻止；adj.苏格兰(人)的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
33
kit
|
|
| n.用具包，成套工具；随身携带物 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
34
manor
|
|
| n.庄园，领地 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
35
thumping
|
|
| adj.重大的，巨大的；重击的；尺码大的；极好的adv.极端地；非常地v.重击(thump的现在分词)；狠打；怦怦地跳；全力支持 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
36
huddled
|
|
| 挤在一起（huddle的过去式与过去分词形式） | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
37
flickering
|
|
| adj.闪烁的，摇曳的，一闪一闪的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
38
crammed
|
|
| adj.塞满的，挤满的；大口地吃；快速贪婪地吃v.把…塞满；填入；临时抱佛脚( cram的过去式) | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
39
exertion
|
|
| n.尽力，努力 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
40
haze
|
|
| n.霾，烟雾；懵懂，迷糊；vi.(over)变模糊 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
41
cannon
|
|
| n.大炮，火炮；飞机上的机关炮 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
42
accomplished
|
|
| adj.有才艺的；有造诣的；达到了的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
43
pricked
|
|
| 刺，扎，戳( prick的过去式和过去分词 )； 刺伤； 刺痛； 使剧痛 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
44
imperturbable
|
|
| adj.镇静的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
45
fixed
|
|
| adj.固定的，不变的，准备好的；(计算机)固定的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
46
certify
|
|
| vt.证明，证实；发证书(或执照)给 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
| 欢迎访问英文小说网 |