Charlie Smithers: Adventures in India (The Charlie Smithers Collection Book 2) by C W Lovatt

Author:C W Lovatt [Lovatt, C W]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Wild Wolf Publishing
Published: 2015-02-19T20:00:00+00:00

Chapter Twelve

We heard the cry just outside our tents, first raised by the sepoys, and it was soon pandemonium, drawing nearer by the minute. “Austen sahib! Captain Austen has returned!” I stuck my head out of the flap, and there was the man himself, looking like death warmed over, staggering along with the remnants of his party, amidst much hubbub and rejoicing.

I dashed out, stumbling through the drifts.

“Austen! Thank God you’re safe!”

He had that faraway look. It was the strangest thing, freezing the breath in my lungs, for I had seen that expression before – haunted, disbelieving – it had been on all of our faces, coming back up the north valley after the Charge. It’s not something you easily forget, no matter how hard you try.

His face was haggard, with patches of frostbite on his cheeks beneath a thick growth of beard. His lips were cracked and bleeding, his hand trembling when he reached out to grasp my sleeve.

“My men are missing,” his voice was scarcely above a whisper. “Have they returned?”

I was searching for a reply when the doctor suddenly appeared, shouldering me aside. He sized up the situation at a glance. “You’d best come with me,” he told him. Then off they went with Simpson shouting over his shoulder for his aides to see to the others.

He came around to see me that evening, shaking the snow off his shoulders as would a dog, then rubbing his hands over the small oil flame I kept burning in my tent.

“He’s resting,” he said. “I’ve seen to his frostbite, and given him a dose of laudanum to help him sleep. He’ll be fit as a fiddle in no time at all.”

“He mentioned that some of his men were missing,” I said.

Simpson’s shoulders slumped. He must have known that I would ask, but it wasn’t difficult to see that it was a question he would have gladly avoided.

“Four of his bearers are unaccounted for,” he said, distractedly studying a corner of the tent. “The storm caught them while they were still on the mountain. Austen thought it best to spend the night in shelter, hoping that it would blow over before dawn.”

“But of course it didn’t,” I said.

“No,” he replied, “it didn’t.”

I tried to imagine what it must have been like for them. Finding their situation untenable, they would have had little choice but to break camp and press on before the snow got any deeper. For two days they had struggled through those drifts. Every step must have been a test to their endurance, lulling the mind into a state of hypnosis. It seemed a miracle that only four men were missing, even though I knew that would be small comfort to Austen. Once having dropped by the wayside, their chances of survival would have been slim to nil.

“You know what this means, don’t you?” the doctor asked, but before I could reply he supplied his own answer. “It means that, with Austen and his party…returned,” I had thought

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