Chapter XLI (3)

The mettle and temperament of the Anzac fit him peculiarly for dashing enterprises. He is wasted on slow and dogged nibbling and unsuited for the tame but valuable task of following up the pioneer. His psychological attitude and mental equipment, like his physique, are those of the race-horse: he _may_ break his heart if he is badly ridden in a race, but he will surely break it if he is put to ploughing.

‘I’m ashamed of this jacket,’ said Donald Macleod, surveying his shabby sleeve with disfavour. ‘I bought it off a fellow the other day when I hadn’t a rag to my back, but I’ll get a tailored jacket, not an “issued” one, in London.’ ‘I hear the Anzacs’ measurements are an inch every way more than the English soldiers,’ said Phœbe proudly. ‘That’s right,’ answered the boy. ‘And an inch or so less in every way in boots,’ said I to myself. Corporal Macleod was wearing a pair of clumsy-looking English-made boots, and I remembered the beautifully cut boots and gaiters I had seen worn by a couple of newly arrived Australian Tommies in London a month or two ago. It is a fact that Australian khaki and leather equipment is vastly superior to that produced in England. Australian sheep and cattle have afforded their very best, and Australian factories have put their finest work into the Anzacs’ uniforms, so that the most ordinary private has a look of unusual smartness as long as his workaday rig holds together.

Our Anzac had been given ten days’ furlough as soon as ever he was fit to leave the hospital where he had been for ten weeks, and had come north to visit his unknown Highland ‘aunties’ a few miles from Z⸺. They were kind and hospitable, but it wasn’t ‘life,’ and Donald Macleod is very human, bubbling with vitality, eager for experiences. The lift he had been offered to Z⸺ that morning gave him a chance to stretch a mind weary with answering questions about his family in Western Australia on his last morning in Scotland, and when his fellow-travellers, two elderly members of a School Board Committee, had been deposited at our door, he was free to browse around alone. But we did not let him browse alone. In our own sitting-room we gave him ‘morning tea,’ an institution dear to Australians and easily adopted by those who visit Australia, and then we went and sat on a great purple rock, crested with white and orange lichens and three parts surrounded by the falling tide, and talked about the war. Corporal Macleod was as completely free from shyness as he was from ‘swank,’ answering our questions frankly but minimising his own share in the world’s earthquake. ‘They’re awfully good to us in England, but the papers insist on making us all out heroes, whereas we’re really only good soldiers,’ was the refrain of his reminiscences. ‘And it’s the same in France, mind you. I talk French a bit (there’s all sorts to talk to up at Broome), but the French beat me once they begin to chat. They were ripping to us at Dijon; the French ladies couldn’t do enough for us at the railway station with flowers and fruit and what not. One of our chaps pondered a bit and then said to the leading lady: “Madame, le rose de Dijon est le gloire de Dijon, mais _je_ dis les dames de Dijon est le vrai gloire de Dijon.” She seemed to grasp what he meant and went on talking nineteen to the dozen and smiled more than that. But some of the peasants were completely “boxed” by the Australian badges. They kept asking if we were _Autrichiens_. You see we were the first Australians to get over. They know all about it now, and nothing is too good for us.’

It was near Armentières that our Anzac was wounded. A bursting shell made five holes in him as he was lying on the ground. ‘I got the news of the Battle of Jutland when they were dressing my wounds, and, my word! it hurt more than the dressing. I said to myself, “This is _my_ bad day, sure enough.” It beats me now how the papers made such a sad song about that victory. The day before I was near being wiped out by a shell. Only that something made me wait and talk to a parson—not a habit of mine—it would have got me clean. He was a good chap too, and I don’t mind owing him my life. You’d be surprised to see the way the French and the Belgians carry on their business as if nothing was happening. There was an old woman used to bring the newspapers into our trenches as regular as clockwork, no matter how the Boche was strafing us.’

‘Aren’t you proud of being a Highlander?’ we asked, for our minds were so full of the charm of the place and the history of its people that we felt positively envious of the boy’s origin.

He smiled disarmingly and answered ‘I haven’t much of an eye for scenery: I don’t seem to notice it much, anyway; and, to say the truth, I’m keen on getting to a place in Hampshire called A⸺ where a big swell a friend in Westralia gave me an introduction to lives. There’ll be more people there, and I’ve not seen many so far outside the hospital at X⸺.’ ‘Were they good to you there?’ I asked. ‘Good as gold, but uncommon strict, and there were more flowers to smell than food to eat on the table at meals some days. But they were kind, and no mistake. The ward-sister opened all the windows of the ward I was in to let me hear the gramophone in another wing spouting out “Australia will be there.” There were a lot of enterics among the patients, poor chaps. Queer, isn’t it? how the ones I’m most sorry for seem to get the least attention from visitors. Why, I wouldn’t wear my wound stripe in hospital for fear they’d feel out of it, but there were ladies, young and pretty and old and ugly, who’d come into the ward and, if they saw a man with a couple of fingers missing or a bandage round his head, it was “Oh, I _am_ so sorry you are wounded! Does it hurt much? Would you care to come out for a motor-ride and have tea at our house this afternoon?” ... The wounded chap would say “My wound’s all right, thank you, I’m only wearing that bandage to please the doctor”; but she’d go on pouring out sympathy and invitations till the poor devil was forced to accept. Next bed, perhaps, there’d be an enteric, dead sick of hospital and feeling like nothing on earth. “Where were _you_ wounded?” the lady would ask. “Not wounded, miss—enteric (or perhaps dysentery)’s my trouble.” “Ooo-hh!” says the sympathiser with wounded men only, and on she goes to the next bed. No drives or tea-parties for the men that were lying there weeks and weeks, while we that were well and fit, but for a bullet-hole or two or a scratch of a shell, would be fairly smothered with attention. My word! it used to make me feel sick and ashamed.’

Phœbe was in Cairo in March and had seen the shocked faces and up-raised hands of those who unsparingly condemned the mad pranks of idle Anzacs in that city, the most unsuitable headquarters for half-disciplined troops imaginable. ‘Were you one of the men who decorated Ibrahim Pasha’s equestrian statue by putting a nose-bag on his horse?’ she asked. ‘I wasn’t in that,’ said Corporal Macleod, ‘but I helped to throw a piano out of the window of one of the houses we wrecked in the quarter that ruined so many of our men. I wish the fire that followed had burnt the whole beastly place up.’ ‘So do I,’ Phœbe agreed. ‘Why, in the name of common sense, they didn’t create a camp city on the banks of the canal I shall never understand. It was a crazy thing to turn loose a pack of new-made soldiers, cramped and restless after a six weeks’ voyage on board crowded troopships, in a place like Cairo, that breeds more harpies and sharpers to the square yard than perhaps any other city in the world, unless it’s San Francisco.’

‘What about General Birdwood?’ I asked. ‘Have you ever spoken to him?’ The Anzac’s eyes disappeared behind their lashes and his teeth flashed in a glad grin. ‘Once,’ he answered. ‘There’s hardly one of us who can’t say he had the opportunity. He asked me when I thought the war’d be over, and I had to smile. My word! he’s a fine chap.’

The gentlemen of the School Board Committee had done their work, and when we saw the ‘machine’ drive round from the stables we left our rock and returned to the hotel. The minister climbed stiffly into the front seat, and our Anzac, after a warm handshake, saluted and took his place beside the white-haired grocer at the back. Phœbe and I gazed and waved from the door till the merry face with its strong oval framed in the curve of a brown chin-strap receded in a blur of white dust from the long straight road. ‘I wish he had seemed the least little bit impressed by the Highlands,’ I said regretfully.

‘You needn’t worry,’ answered Phœbe. ‘When he gets back to West Australia and has time to sort out his memories and talk things over with his people he’ll be just as proud of being a Highlander as he is of being an Anzac.’

_THE BRINK OF ACHERON._

Far down the glen, on the crest of a conspicuous spur—a bright spot of colour. Major Duckworth of King George III.’s Own Fusiliers dived his hand into the mighty pocket of his overcoat, drew out his glass, and focussed it on the object. It was a scarlet coat—the King’s uniform.

Four hours had passed since then, and at length Duckworth was forced to recognise that not alone would he have only his pains for his labour, but that he was hopelessly lost amongst the intricacies of the Sierra de Avila. The valley that had seemed so full of feature at first, was for him featureless. Each subsidiary glen seemed exactly like the other; every spur looked the twin of the next. To add to the difficulties of the situation the mists had come down to within a hundred feet of the bottoms.

Moreover, he had disobeyed orders; and he realised that when he returned—_if_ he returned—to camp, his reception by Sir Edward Pakenham, however reasonable his excuses, would be the reverse of sympathetic.

He had excuses, or rather explanations, which had appeared quite satisfactory an hour or so ago. It was true that a general order had been issued that scouts were not to venture far out of touch with the outposts; but in the circumstances, the order had seemed inapplicable—a few hours ago.

The reason for the order was that recently no fewer than four officers employed on reconnaissance duty among the hills had failed to return to headquarters at Fuente Aguenaldo. The French knew nothing of them, and the French were honourable adversaries. On the other hand, the inhabitants of the Sierra were Spanish irregulars—our allies, guerrillas who varied the intervals between action and retreat by remunerative military exploits, flavoured under favourable conditions by torture. It was not inconceivable that these gentlemen might have failed to differentiate between the French and English nationalities in the case of the absentees.

Explanation I.—Duckworth had seen the King’s uniform on a stray figure—presumably that of one of the missing officers. It was therefore his duty to ride in search of him.

Explanation II.—The hills in that neighbourhood were innocent of guerrilla—for a season, at least. Early in the day, Duckworth had watched a force of French rounding up a large body of his irregular allies at the point of the bayonet, in a businesslike manner that evoked his enthusiastic admiration.

Result!—Disobedience to orders and nothing whatever to show for it.

If his thoughts were gloomy, his surroundings were depressing. Every stream, every runnel, every trickle, was frothing with dirty grey soapsud-coloured water; the clean white limestone cliffs had taken a dull, grey, lifeless, unwashed hue; the dripping dank leaves seemed to be doing their best to turn grey, and over all the mist stretched its grey, unwholesome canopy.

For some time he had followed the river, the general direction of which would, he knew, take him towards the British lines; but all at once the water, after the exasperating habit of mountain streams in limestone countries, slipped underground, leaving a trackless chaos of stones and boulders. Disgustedly the Major turned his charger’s head, trusting to luck to find a way out somehow to somewhere.

Now and again he would halt and give a hail in the hope of attracting the attention of the wandering brother officer he was seeking.

Unexpectedly his hail was answered—almost at his elbow. The intonation was not English, and Duckworth swung round, pistol in hand, to find himself face to face with a Spanish priest.

The stranger’s bearing was refined, his manner courteous, his voice cultured, his features handsome and prepossessing. Nevertheless, Duckworth decided out of hand that the man was a scoundrel, and that he was in that strange place at that strange hour for some sinister purpose. Not even when, after a few words of salutation, the priest offered his poor hospitality for the night and his services as guide in the morning, did he modify his opinion. He hated Spanish priests.

‘’Tis the eye of childhood that fears a painted devil’; and when a grown man is offered the choice between a desperately certain deep sea of night, on storm-swept, brigand-haunted hills, and shelter with a prejudicate devil, the alternative is not difficult of decision. With fair words on his lips and mistrust in his heart, Duckworth permitted himself to be guided by the priest.

The way led sharply upwards; then once and again twisted smartly between colonnades of fantastic spikes of limestone, and so on, through a path, or rather alley, over-roofed with interlacing boughs of tangled trees.

Emerging from the wood, they found themselves in a towering amphitheatre of rock, sheer or overhanging, broken by little terraces of vivid green, and with here and there a yew or birch or mountain ash growing out of the crevices. It recalled to the Major a place he had once seen in his own country—a mighty rift in the scarp of the great Craven Fault, Gordale Scar. For a moment he stood gazing upwards, overawed by the grandeur and the gloomy majesty of it.

‘We are here!’

It was the priest who spoke, and at the sound of the voice Duckworth started, then laughed foolishly. Here! This was anchorite hospitality indeed. He looked round through the increasing darkness in the hope of finding so much as a cave.

The priest laughed also, and pointed ahead to where a low barrier of limestone stretched across the gorge.

At first sight it appeared part of the parent cliff, but closer inspection showed it to be strangely regular in outline. It was in fact the wall of a considerable building, and a second glance sufficed to recognise it as such, although an attempt had been made to emphasise its resemblance to its surroundings by piling broken rock along the top of the wall and leaving the edges ragged. Again the priest laughed, and, taking Duckworth by the arm, led him onwards, and so through an opening—which even scrutiny might have mistaken for the entrance to a cave—to the interior.

There was shelter here—solid shelter; but the Major could not throw off the feeling that he would prefer to be out in the storm on the mountains. The place was uncomfortably like a prison—a low, square, featureless edifice, enclosed within a quadrangle of massive wall through which he had just passed.

He had no opportunity for immediate reflection, however, for the priest, who had hitherto been somewhat taciturn, began to talk with great volubility. It seemed to Duckworth that he was endeavouring to attract his interest, or rather to distract it. Still, there was neither sight nor sound to justify suspicion, so he suffered himself to be led to a shed, built within the court between the containing walls and the building, which he was gratified to find was a stable. Here the priest took his leave for a few minutes, with apologies that he had no servant and a light observation on the fondness of the English for their horses.

‘The foolish fondness for his horse,’ characteristic of the English according to Mauvillon, did not deter Duckworth from thinking, and thinking hard. The place did not look like a monastery, though there was no reason to suppose it was not. For the matter of that, the man did not look like a priest.

Ere long, Duckworth began to realise that he was physically as well as mentally uncomfortable. Before he had finished grooming his steed, the perspiration was running off him. The atmosphere was something like that of a vapour bath. Up till then, he had been unpleasantly chilly and only too glad of the warmth of his great-coat. Neither was it the temperature only that was oppressive. The place was unnaturally still. Without, had been clangour and anger of elements; within the gorge, was quiet. The tumult of the wind passed high overhead and was shut off by the overhanging cliffs. The only obtrusive sound was a dull, unusual murmur that seemed, to the Major’s imagination, to come from far below him.

He was wondering what it might mean, when a step on the flags of the court arrested his attention. A man was coming towards him—a man who was not a priest. In an instant his pistol was cocked and ready.

The man laughed.

‘Surely, sir,’ he said, ‘yours is a somewhat discourteous way of greeting your host!’

Duckworth stared. The voice and features were those of the priest, but the costume was that of a Spanish gentleman, and Duckworth noted that the hair was untonsured.

‘Come!’ continued the Spaniard, ‘if you have finished with your horse, you will be glad of some refreshment. I can offer you but little. Still, it will be more palatable than bread and water.’

He turned as he spoke, and led the way across the court. Duckworth noted with a thrill that he limped slightly. There were ill tales in the camp of a bandit with a limp.

They passed into the house, crossed a hall, and entered a small room, roughly but comfortably furnished. On the hearth a newly lighted fire of logs was crackling. The window was wide open.

The stranger courteously assisted Duckworth out of his great-coat, which he threw over an arm-chair in front of the blaze. Then, indicating a chair at a table on which food and wine were laid out, he seated himself in his turn and poured out two goblets of wine.

‘I dare say, sir,’ he said, with twinkling eyes, ‘you are wondering—and perhaps with not a little suspicion—what the meaning of all this is?’

Duckworth flushed, and made a deprecating movement with his hand. The other laughed again.

‘To begin at the beginning,’ he resumed. ‘Why the disguise of a priest? Because, sir, I value my skin. You English, I do not fear—except on a retreat. The French, however, are most inconsiderate to all Spaniards—even non-combatants—but they leave the clergy alone. Finally, on these hills, there are countrymen of my own, who, I fear, prey on all and sundry. Fortunately, they are superstitious or excessively religious—call it which you will—and so⸺’ he ended with an expressive gesture.

Duckworth had been studying the man carefully. He was of fine presence and soldierly bearing.

‘Why not join the army?’ he asked.

‘Because, sir, your British methods of fighting do not appeal to me. I fought at Albuera. Ah! I know hard things have been said of my nation, but it is not given to all nations to stand still like a wall and be shot down. Also, I was unhorsed, ridden over by the cavalry, speared whilst on the ground by a Polish lancer, and lamed for life. In fact, sir, I have had enough of war.’

Duckworth began rather to like the man. After all, it was not given to every nation to breed regiments of Fusiliers and Die-Hards, and the Spaniard had fought and taken punishment.

‘You have been very frank with me, señor,’ he said, ‘may I ask of your courtesy one more question?’

‘Who am I, and what am I doing here?’ laughed the Spaniard.

Duckworth nodded.

‘It is easily answered—I am Don Luiz Aguinaldo, once a wealthy hidalgo, now a poor fugitive. The accursed French have swept my estates like a flight of locusts: my mines are unworked, my vineyards destroyed. My cousin was a priest in this monastery: I had visited him here and knew of it. When war broke out, the Fathers, to a man, left their sanctuary and went out to serve the sick and the wounded. I made my way here, found the place deserted, and here I have lived ever since.’

All Duckworth’s mistrust returned in a moment. ‘I don’t believe a word of it,’ was his unspoken comment. What he said was:

‘I wonder you can stand it. It is the most enervating place I have ever been in. I should die of exhaustion in a week.’

‘Yes,’ assented Aguinaldo, ‘that fire is not for comfort, but to dry your coat. Your boots would be none the worse for a toasting either. Wait, I will get a light.’

As he spoke, he kindled a taper at the fire and proceeded to light a lamp. This he placed for a moment on a table in the window and then, as if on second thoughts, set it down by Duckworth. All the time he kept up an incessant flow of talk.

‘It is the hot springs,’ he explained. ‘This is, in fact, the real Fuente Aguinaldo. The town—your headquarters—is a by-product, an offshoot. A strange place it is, and a strange place this old monastery is, too. It is a quadrangle within a quadrangle, and right in the centre of the building is a great tank. I suppose it was a natural formation in the first instance, and was carved into regular shape by the monks. The waters are always warm, and at one time had a great reputation for healing rheumatism and such complaints. Cripples used to come on crutches and go away dancing, so say the monks. I have no doubt the holy men made a good thing out of it. However, somehow or other, it lost credit, and I believe I am about the only person who uses it now. I have a bathe every morning. Not,’ he ended ruefully, ‘that it does my wounded leg any good.’

Duckworth was puzzled. He scented mischief. He was confident that the Spaniard was deceiving him, yet he was, paradoxically, sure he was speaking the truth. Nothing, however, was to be gained by conjecture, so he affected an interest in his surroundings, talked of the waters at Bath and all kinds of bagatelles. Eventually, almost inevitably, the conversation came round to the war. Duckworth had missed Albuera, and was delighted at the prospect of a first-hand account from an eyewitness.

Don Aguinaldo spoke like a soldier. He understood and appreciated the cleverness of Soult’s manœuvres and was unsparing in his denunciation of Blake. For Beresford his admiration knew no bounds. His desperate courage and heroic strength dominated the Spaniard’s imagination. Duckworth concluded that his host was unacquainted with the Marshal’s exploit of carrying a runaway Spanish ensign, colours and all, to the front, and deemed it courteous not to enlighten him.

The evening passed pleasantly without word or act that could be construed into confirmation of Duckworth’s suspicions—save one. He chanced to mention the encounter between the French and Spaniards he had witnessed that morning, and he thought that his host for an instant changed countenance. He could not be sure, for at that moment Aguinaldo chanced to spill his glass of wine, and the annoyance his face exhibited might have been attributable to the accident.

At an early hour they retired for the night. Duckworth was weary in head and body. The day had been a trying one physically, the tepid atmosphere of the gorge was most exhausting, and finally he could not shake off the impression that his host was a villain who would cut his throat if opportunity offered. Suddenly suspicion became conviction.

Aguinaldo was conducting him down a long corridor of the monastery to his bedroom, when Duckworth recognised an odour that was not incense. It was quite unmistakably a mixture of rank tobacco and garlic. Now, his host’s cigars he had found singularly good, and the hidalgo did not reek of garlic. Moreover, the smell was too strong to be the ‘drag’ of one individual, however high. A less intelligent man than the Major would have recognised that the chances were that he was in a brigands’ nest. Duckworth felt his appreciation of the French he had seen that morning increase immensely. But for them, he might by that time have died rather painfully. As it was, he was confident from the admirable manner in which they had attended to the business in hand, there was nothing to fear from the Spanish gentlemen of the hills for some time to come. As for Aguinaldo, he could, and would, wring his neck as soon as look at him, for the Major was certainly no weaker a man than Marshal Beresford.

Nevertheless, he lay down with his pistols under his pillow and his drawn sword by his side. The point of his scabbard he had jammed under the door—a most effective wedge.

Tired as he was, he could not sleep. He could not even rest. That dull, unusual murmur he had noticed in the courtyard, that never-ceasing, monotonous, subterranean muttering, was unmistakable. It was closer, clearer, and more insistent. It seemed to come now actually from beneath his feet. He tossed impatiently from his couch and leaned out of the open window.

The murmur was, if anything, less distinct, and there was nothing to be seen but the unsightly gloom of the pallid limestone cliffs, barely visible in a drip of sickly moonlight that filtered down through the dank atmosphere. It was pleasanter to keep the eyes closed than to look on a scene so sepulchral, and Duckworth was turning away when he noted that the thin rays trembled below him into broken radiance.

It was water—the surface of the tank of which he had been told, the innermost of the quadrangles—reflecting the moonbeams. The sinister murmur was caused no doubt by the overflow or escape of the drainage. And this was the bogey that had fretted him.

A broad, harsh, yellow glare flashed crudely across the water. Duckworth instinctively stepped away from the window into the darkness of his room.

The precaution seemed unnecessary. The cause of the light appeared innocent enough. Through a casement on the opposite side of the quadrangle could be distinguished the form of Don Aguinaldo, silhouetted against the light of a lamp he held in his hand. He appeared to be hanging up some bright-coloured garment beside a row of others on the wall of the chamber. Duckworth could not distinguish details as the glare of the light was between him and them.

‘Inspecting his wardrobe!’ grunted he. ‘I dare say the fellow has as many disguises as a mountebank, and⸺’

A low, hideous laugh poisoned the stillness, and bore on its evil wings a hideous suggestion that made Duckworth’s scalp creep and his seated heart knock at his ribs. Those bright garments on the wall—might they not be—were they not British—the tunics of the missing officers? The light of the lamp had disappeared, but enough came from the moon to enable him to locate the casement, the third from the left-hand end. He resolved to inspect it in the morning at all hazards, and if he found his suspicions correct, Don Aguinaldo should indeed guide him back to the British camp, but with a pistol at his ear and a gallows in prospect.

He was worn out in mind and body, and recognised that sleep he must. He accordingly wheeled his couch parallel to, and immediately below the window-sill, so that anyone attempting to steal in by that route must inevitably tread on him, and dropped off in profound slumber.

He awoke feeling thoroughly out of sorts. He had lain down almost fully dressed in case of emergencies, and the discomfort inseparable from a night in one’s clothes was aggravated by the clammy warmth of the atmosphere. His head was aching, his mouth was dry, and he was sticky all over—skin, clothes, and hair. He felt detestably unclean, and began to think longingly of the possibilities of a bathe in the tank.

As if in response to his thought, there came a hail from below his window, and, looking out, he saw Aguinaldo, standing at the water’s edge, clothed in a towel. The Spaniard’s face darkened as he noted Duckworth’s attire. Nevertheless, he wished him a fair good morning and courteously invited him to join him in a swim.

‘He can’t do me any mischief in that kit,’ thought Duckworth. ‘I wonder if I am wronging the fellow!’

He sent back a cheery reply, and in a few moments had swung himself out of the window and was by Aguinaldo’s side, similarly attired.

The tank was of considerable size—some forty feet in length by twenty across. It had obviously been hewn into its present rectangular formation, but no attempt had been made to polish the sides, which remained covered with small excrescences and seamed with minute fissures. Near one corner stood a crude apparatus—a sort of combination between a ship’s wheel and a lock-sluice, by which, Aguinaldo explained, they regulated the water which welled in through a crack in the centre and escaped into the bowels of the earth through an opening in the corner of the tank immediately below the wheel.

To Duckworth it seemed that the water was lower than it had been during the night—it was quite four feet below the edge—an impression doubtless due to the change of light. The fact was, however, vexatious. It had been his intention during his swim, quite unobtrusively, to get out of the water under the third casement from the left and take a glance at the interior. As it was, he perceived there was only one exit from the bath—by a rope ladder close to where he was standing. Whilst he was revolving these things in his mind, the Spaniard’s voice broke in.

‘I am wondering,’ he said, ‘whether it would be possible for a man to cover the entire length of the tank in one plunge. I have tried, and failed. The breadth is as much as I can do.’

Duckworth measured the distance with his eye. It was a sporting suggestion. He poised himself for a moment, and then launched his superb frame out in a magnificent header, neither did he move muscle till his fingers touched the limestone at the far side. When he had shaken the water from his eyes and turned, he saw Aguinaldo had drawn up the ladder.

‘Fairly trapped, Major!’ sneered the Spaniard. ‘Bah! what a fool you are! How you came to the lure of the uniform! It belonged to one Vavasour, of the 14th Dragoons. My merry men brought him in, but those thrice-accursed French have driven them away. That uniform hangs in yonder room as a memorial of an insult to a Spanish hidalgo, and yours shall hang there too.’

So the vision had not lied. Duckworth felt no fear, only a fierce remorse. Had he but verified his suspicions—and the Spaniard could not have prevented him—he would have brought the murderer to execution. As it was:

‘Fairly trapped!’ came the taunting voice. ‘I had to work by myself, and here you are, the strongest of them all, helpless to my hand! I am glad you are strong—that you can swim long. I have much to say. Only please do not attempt to climb out. I have a brace of pistols on that window-sill, and am a good shot.’

He paused, hoping against hope for appeal for mercy, but Duckworth made no reply. He was reckoning up his chances. His silence exasperated Aguinaldo.

‘Curse you English!’ he shouted. ‘Ah! you are brave now, whilst you are strong and warm, but wait—wait till you are weak and cold and death is at hand. Then—then, you will weep for mercy like your comrades⸺’

‘Liar!’ interrupted Duckworth coolly.

‘For that word,’ returned Aguinaldo, stamping, ‘I would have the skin scourged from your back if my men were here. As it is⸺’ He broke into blasphemy and imprecations.

Duckworth, paddling easily, watched him, well content. However slight his chances, they would be immeasurably increased if his enemy lost his self-command. After a while the Spaniard resumed.

‘I did not tell you how I was unhorsed at Albuera. It was that great bully, Beresford. He struck me from the saddle with his hand. He called me—_me_—coward! And I swore, as I lay on the ground, I would have an English officer’s life for every finger on his hand. Four have I taken. You are the fifth, and you shall die, die, die!’

Duckworth continued silently swimming. There was just one chance for him—a desperate chance. Everything depended on swiftness of execution. Scarcely had he conceived the idea when his tormentor furnished an opportunity.

‘Have you any idea what will happen to you?’ he cried. ‘See this wheel! Below, in that corner, is the sluice-gate—a great slab of stone. One turn of the wheel and the water will sweep you down, down, with irresistible force, through the sluice, deep into the earth, where you shall lie with your comrades. No one will ever know your fate. There, in those dreadful caverns, you shall lie and rot. Ah, I wish I could see you! I wish I could know whether death came swiftly or slowly!’

Again he broke into curses. At length Duckworth spoke.

‘I am interested in that sluice-gate,’ he said, with studied carelessness. ‘I will have a look at it.’

As he spoke, he dived easily to the bottom—the water was barely eight feet deep. Aguinaldo craned over to watch him. It was what Duckworth had hoped.

Bracing his feet firmly against the bottom, he crouched a moment; then with a spring and a tremendous down-stroke of the arms, he leaped upwards, half his height out of the water, and in an instant was gripping the edge of the tank with both hands.

Aguinaldo might have dislodged his hold. Instead, he dashed to the wheel and spun it round. For a moment the downward drag of the rushing water on Duckworth’s legs was sickening. Then the broad edge of the sluice-gate, heaved upwards by the Spaniard’s mad energy, came against his feet. It gave him just the required purchase for his toes. The Spanish devil had saved his life.

With a spring, Duckworth was on the edge. The next moment, Aguinaldo was swung from the ground and sent hurling through the air into the tank, and so came the horror of it.

Duckworth had determined that he should die, but in good set fashion, after trial. It was not to be. The escaping water seized the wretched man in its merciless grip, and whirled him to his death. Duckworth frantically tore at the wheel. He could not move it; it was locked by some device. He flung himself on the edge, if by chance he might catch the man’s hand. It was too late. There was a dreadful vision of staring eyes and wildly gripping hands—and the tank was empty.

* * * * *

Very white and shaken was Duckworth as he rode into camp to report himself, and Sir Edward Pakenham’s face was scarcely less white by the time the tale was told.

‘Major Duckworth!’ he said, at length. ‘You have disobeyed orders, but you have been dreadfully punished. On one condition will I overlook your fault. You will take a hundred men of your regiment, and you will report to me to-morrow morning that not one stone of that accursed place is left on another.’

CLAUDE E. BENSON.

WHAT OUR SOLDIERS READ.

BY BEATRICE HARRADEN.

About eighteen months ago Miss Elizabeth Robins and myself entered on our duties as Honorary Librarians to the Military Hospital, Endell Street, the only Military Hospital in England officered entirely by women. The doctor in charge is Dr. Flora Murray and the chief surgeon Dr. L. Garrett Anderson. There is a staff of fourteen doctors, including a pathological and an ophthalmic surgeon, a staff of thirty-six nursing sisters and ninety orderlies—all women. There are eighteen large wards, accommodating about 550 wounded.

We were asked to collect a number of suitable books and magazines, and by personal intercourse with the soldiers, to encourage reading amongst the men, and to do our best to help them through the long hours of illness and inaction by offering them books which would amuse and interest them. From the very onset it seemed an interesting project, but nothing like so stimulating and gratifying as it has proved itself to be. And it has struck me that a short record of our work may perhaps be acceptable to the reading public, and also useful in indicating what can be done in hospitals by the help of an organised Library Department.

We began by writing to our publisher friends, who, in generous response to our requests, sent us splendid consignments of volumes of fiction, travel, and biography and hundreds of magazines. Authors likewise rallied willingly to our aid. We were presented by a lady with an enormous bookcase, a dignified and imposing structure, which we planted in the Recreation Room, and regarded as a proud outward and visible sign of our official existence. Other bookcases followed and were soon filled, and we were still engaged in the heavy task of sorting and rejecting literally shoals of all sorts and conditions of books, when suddenly the hospital was opened and the men arrived from the front. It was remarkable what private people did send—and do still send. It was as if they had said to themselves: ‘_Here is a grand opportunity of getting rid of all our old, dirty, heavy book encumbrances._’ I never in my life remember being so dirty, nor so indignant. However, in due time we emerged triumphantly from this period of trial—a trial mitigated for us by the generosity and understanding of other people who sent new books or money with which we were to buy books of our own choice. And we instituted at a very early date a system of sacks, in which we despatched all our good surplus matter either to one of the war libraries to be sent to the troops abroad or elsewhere, or to the Salvation Army, which was glad to collect old books and papers to be used for pulp.

We determined to have no red tape, and to leave all the bookcases unlocked at all times, so that the men who were able to move about could come and pick out what they liked. And we arranged to go into the wards and take books ourselves to the men who were confined to their beds. Our view was that we should give them what _they_ wanted, not necessarily what _we_ wanted for them. They were there for rest and recuperation, and we felt that we had no right to impose on them in their enfeebled condition books which would tax them unduly or depress their spirits. We had to remember that many of them at best have very little power of concentration, and of course still less in the suffering and shattered condition in which they arrive home. So our point was to take note of their different temperaments, and see what we could do for each separate individual.

We soon learnt that we had to invest in a large number of detective books, and any amount of Nat Gould’s sporting stories. In fact, a certain type of man would read nothing except Nat Gould. However ill he was, however suffering and broken, the name of Nat Gould would always bring a smile to his face. Often and often I’ve heard the whispered words: ‘_A Nat Gould—ready for when I’m better._’

We also had to get Garvice’s books, and also Oppenheim’s. But even at the beginning of our venture, we were by no means limited in opportunity to authors of any particular class. It was quite possible that one man in a ward would be reading, say, Nat Gould’s ‘Jockey Jack’—a great favourite—and the man in the next bed would be reading Shakespeare, or ‘The Pilgrim’s Progress,’ or Shelley, or Meredith, Conrad, or the Encyclopædia. We found, in fact, so many different kinds of minds and upbringings, that we could never have remembered without the aid of a note-book what each man wanted.

So after various experiments, this became our system. We divided the wards between us, and went round with our note-book to each bedside, found out if our soldier cared to read, and, if he had no suggestion to make, found out in a vague sort of way, without worrying him, of course, what he would be _likely_ to want—if, indeed, he wanted anything at all. For in some cases the very thought of a book was apparently worse than a bomb. In instances like this, matches and cigarettes or tobacco served as a substitute for literature, and generally speaking as a natural concomitant too! Now and again we have had men who have never learnt to read at all. With one exception, these have invariably been miners.

One day our work took on a new phase, the development of which has been the source of great satisfaction, both to readers and librarians. We were asked for a book on high explosives. We made inquiries about the one in question, and found it cost eighteen shillings. That seemed a good deal to spend on one book for one person, but on mentioning this matter to our doctor in charge, we were told to go ahead and buy it, and also anything else that seemed to be wanted. This one incident fired us with the idea to find out what subjects the men were interested in, what had been their occupation before the war, or their plans for the future. And from that moment the work of the librarians became tenfold more interesting, and in some degree constructive.

We were asked for books on paper-making, printing, cabinet-making, engineering, marine engineering, veterinary work, Sheffield plate, old furniture, organic and inorganic chemistry, fish-curing, coal-mining, counterpoint, languages, meteorology, electricity, submarines, aeroplanes, flowers, trees, gardening, forestry, the Stone Age, painting and drawing, violin making, architecture, and so on. The fish-curing instance was particularly interesting. The soldier in question was from Nova Scotia, and his father’s business was fish-curing. He was anxious to learn the English methods, and gain all the information he could during his sojourn in England, before he was invalided out of the army and returned to his home.

We have therefore made it our business to supply these various needs, and also to provide any weekly papers bearing on the different subjects in which the men are interested. Our Department could not, of course, be always buying costly books, but with the aid of our subscription to Mudie’s, and by the help of friends who have come to the rescue and lent their valuable books to us for the special purpose which we have unfolded to them, we have been able so far to meet all demands; and this part of our work is increasing all the time. The Sheffield plate book lent us by a generous antiquary was a perfect godsend to one of our crippled men. His business was that of a second-hand dealer, and he said it was a rare chance to get hold of that book and make copious notes from it which would be invaluable to him afterwards.

Turning aside from technical subjects to literature in general, I would like to say that although we have not ever attempted to force good books on our soldiers, we have of course taken great care to place them within their reach. And it is not an illusion to say that when the men once begin on a better class of book, they do not as a rule return to the old stuff which formerly constituted their whole range of reading. My own impression is that they read rubbish because they have had no one to tell them what to read. Stevenson, for instance, has lifted many a young soldier in our hospital on to a higher plane of reading whence he has looked down with something like scorn—which is really very funny—on his former favourites. For that group of readers, ‘Treasure Island’ has been a discovery in more senses than one, and to the librarians a boon unspeakable.

We have had, however, a large number of men who in any case care for good literature, and indeed would read nothing else. Needless to say, we have had special pleasure in trying to find them some book which they would be sure to like and which was already in our collection, or else in buying it, and thus adding to our stock. The publishers, too, have been most generous in sending us any current book which has aroused public interest and on which we have set our hearts. For we have tried to acquire not only standard works, but books of the moment bearing on the war, and other subjects too.

The following are items from two or three of our order books. The order books have been chosen at random, but the items are consecutive; and the list will give some idea of the nature of our pilgrimages from one bedside to another bedside, and from one ward to another.

One of Nat Gould’s novels; Regiments at the Front; Burns’s Poems; A book on bird life; ‘The Last Days of Pompeii’; _Strand Magazine_; _Strand Magazine_; _Wide World Magazine_; _The Spectator_; A scientific book; _Review of Reviews_; ‘By the Wish of a Woman’ (Marchmont); one of Rider Haggard’s; Marie Corelli; Nat Gould; Rider Haggard; Nat Gould; Nat Gould; Nat Gould; Good detective story; Something to make you laugh; _Strand Magazine_; Adventure story; ‘Tale of Two Cities’; ‘Gil Blas’; Browning’s Poems; Tolstoy’s ‘Resurrection’; Sexton Blake; ‘Scarlet Pimpernel’; Nat Gould; _Wide World Magazine_; _Pearson’s Magazine_; ‘Arabian Nights’; Jack London; Shakespeare; Nat Gould; ‘The Encyclopædia’; Rex Beach; Wm. Le Queux; _Strand Magazine_; Nat Gould; Something in the murder line; _Country Life_; _The Story Teller Magazine_; one of Oppenheim’s novels; ‘The Crown of Wild Olive’; ‘Kidnapped’; Nat Gould; Shakespeare; Nat Gould; Silas Hocking; Oppenheim; Le Queux; Nat Gould; Nat Gould; Jack London; ‘Handy Andy’; ‘Kidnapped’; ‘Treasure Island’; Book about rose growing; ‘Montezuma’s Daughter’ (Rider Haggard); ‘Prisoner of Zenda’; Macaulay’s Essays; ‘The Magnetic North’ (Elizabeth Robins); Nat Gould; Sexton Blake; Modern High Explosives; ‘Dawn’ (Rider Haggard); ‘Wild Animals’; Book on horse-breaking; ‘Radiography’; ‘Freckles’ (by Gene Stratton-Porter); ‘The Blue Lagoon’; ‘Caged Birds’; ‘The Corsican Brothers’; ‘Sherlock Holmes’; French Dictionary; Kipling; ‘Mysticism’; Nat Gould; ‘Pilgrim’s Progress’; ‘Mystery of Cloomber’ (Conan Doyle); and so on.

These are, of course, only a few items. I should say that on the whole, and leaving out entirely books on technical and special subjects, the authors most frequently asked for by the average soldier are: Nat Gould, Charles Garvice, Wm. Le Queux, Rider Haggard, Guy Boothby, Oppenheim, Rex Beach, Conan Doyle, Marie Corelli, Joseph and Silas Hocking, Jack London, Dickens, Mrs. Henry Wood, Kipling (whose ‘Barrack Room Ballads’ they learnt by heart), Dumas, Ian Hay, Baroness Orczy, and Hornung’s ‘Raffles.’

And very favourite books are those dealing with wild animals and their habits, with ferrets, rats, and birds, and all stories of adventure and travel, and of course detective stories.

The New Zealanders and Australians have always asked for books on England, and also for Bushranger stories, also for their own poets. And even before we began to pay special attention to technical subjects, all books on aeroplanes, submarines, electricity, and wireless telegraphy were much in request. An Encyclopædia was so much asked for that we wrote to Mr. Dent, who most kindly sent us the twelve volumes of the ‘Everyman’s Encyclopædia.’ And they are always ‘out.’ Shakespeare holds his own surprisingly and encouragingly well.

The Society novel is never read, and we weeded it out to make room for another class of book which would be in demand. We have been sometimes astonished by the kind of book asked for by some man who seemed to us a most unpromising reader. The puzzle has been solved when we learnt that he had seen it on the cinematograph. ‘The Last Days of Pompeii’ was one of the books asked for in these circumstances, and our soldier was literally riveted to it until he had finished it, when he passed it on to his neighbour as a sort of ‘real find.’ Similarly, ‘Much Ado about Nothing’ was asked for, and after that several volumes of Shakespeare were taken to that bedside. This experience certainly shows that the cinema has a great possibility of doing good as well as harm.

The magazines most in demand are _The Strand_, _The Windsor_, _Pearson’s_, _The Wide World_, _The Red_, and a few others. But some of our readers have refused to be interested in any magazines except their own pet ones. One man, for instance, confined himself entirely to _Blackwood’s_. He proudly preferred an old number of _Maga_ to a current number of any other magazine on earth. A second man remained loyal to the _Review of Reviews_, and a third to _Land and Water_. Another was never satisfied with anything except _The Nineteenth Century_. Others have asked only for wretched little rags which one would wish to see perish off the face of the earth. But as time has gone on, these have been less and less asked for, and their place has been gradually taken by the _Sphere_, the _Graphic_, the _Tatler_, the _Illustrated London News_, and the _Sketch_—another instance of a better class of literature being welcomed and accepted if put within easy reach. In our case this has been made continuously possible by friends who have given subscriptions for both monthly and weekly numbers, and by others who send in their back numbers in batches, and by the publishers, who never fail us.

_John Bull_ deserves a paragraph all to himself. The popularity of his paper is truly remarkable. The average soldier looks upon it as a sort of gospel; and new arrivals from the trenches are cheered up at once by the very sight of the well-known cover. Even if they are too ill to read it, they like to have it near them ready for the moment when returning strength gives them the incentive to take even a glance at some of its pages.

We have found that men who have not naturally been readers have acquired the habit of reading in our Hospital, and there have been many instances of men who have become out-patients asking for permission to continue to use the library. It has been one of our great pleasures to see old friends strolling into the recreation room and picking out for themselves some book by an author whom they have learnt to know and appreciate. Another gratifying feature of the work has been the anxiety of many of our readers to have a book waiting for them after an operation, so that as soon as possible they may begin to read it and forget some of their pains and sufferings. In many instances the author or the subject has been deliberately chosen beforehand.

Our experiences, in fact, have tended to show that a library department organised and run by people who have some knowledge of books might prove to be a useful asset in any hospital, both military and civil, and be the means of affording not only amusement and distraction, but even definite education, induced of course, not insisted on. To obtain satisfactory results it would seem, however, that even a good and carefully chosen collection of books of all kinds does not suffice. In addition, an official librarian is needed who will supply the initiative, which in the circumstances is of necessity lacking, and whose duty it is to visit the wards, study the temperaments, inclinations, and possibilities of the patients, and thus find out by direct personal intercourse what will amuse, help, stimulate, lift—and heal.

_LOST HORSES._