: Dulcie Carlyon: A novel. Volume 3 (of 3) by Grant James - Fiction

@FreeBooksThu 08 Jun, 2023

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light, as he quitted his camp-bed, unrested and unrefreshed, though mere repose of the body is supposed to be a relief, and, as it was too early to disturb Hammersley, he went straight to visit Tattoo.

He was standing up now among the mealies of his litter, with his head drooping lower and his bright eyes more dim than ever; but they actually seemed to dilate and brighten at the sound of his master's voice. The latter had brought him the half of his ration-biscuit, soaked in water; and Tattoo looked at it with dumb longing, and turned it over in Florian's palm with his hot, soft, velvet nose; but after trying to champ it once or twice he let it fall to the ground. Tattoo was incapable of swallowing now.

There was little time to do much, as the troops were soon to march; but Tom Tyrrell brought some hot water in a bucket, and sluiced the wound with a sponge, and redressed it with such rough bandages as could be procured, and Florian got from Doctor Gallipot some laudanum to mix with the horse's drink to deaden the acuteness of the pain he suffered; but it was all in vain; Tattoo sank grovelling down upon his fore-knees and rolled heavily over on his side, and, as the wound welled forth again, he turned his head and looked at his master, and if ever eyes expressed a sense of gratitude, those of the old troop-horse did so then.

'Shot?'

'Yes.'

'Poor Tattoo!'

Florian turned away, sick at heart, as he saw a soldier quietly dropping a cartridge into the breech-block of his rifle in obedience to the stern but necessary order, for if left thus, the horse would be devoured while living by the monstrous Kaffir vultures.

With carefully sighted rifle, and distance as carefully judged, Florian had 'potted' many a Zulu at various hundreds of yards, in common with his comrades; he had shot, as he supposed, Josh Jarrett without an atom of compunction; but now, as he hurried away, he put his fingers in his ears to shut out the report of the rifle that announced the death of Tattoo.

As a souvenir of the latter--for Dulcie, perhaps--he desired Tom Tyrrell to cut off one of the hoofs, and Tom polished the hoof and burnished the iron shoe till the latter shone like silver--the hoof that never again would carry Florian across the wild karoo, or to the front in the face of the enemy.

The Second Division now began its march to encamp on the fatal hill of Isandhlwana--that place of ill omen.

Hammersley was conveyed with other wounded in an ambulance waggon, and it was decided that if he recovered sufficiently he should be sent home on sick leave to Britain. Florian occasionally rode by the side of the waggon, the motion of which was anything but easy or pleasant to those who were in pain.

How pale, he thought, Hammersley looked, with his delicate nostrils, clearly cut mouth, and dark moustache; and his mind went from thence to Finella Melfort, the girl he loved, who was so far away, and whom he might not be spared to see again.

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