Tomaso\'s Fortune and Other Stories
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Henry Seton Merriman >> Tomaso\'s Fortune and Other Stories
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15 This etext was prepared by Les Bowler, St. Ives, Dorset.
TOMASO'S FORTUNE and other stories
by HENRY SETON MERRIMAN.
"The common problem, yours, mine, every one's,
Is--not to fancy what were fair in life
Provided it could be,--but, finding first
What may be, then find how to make it fair . . ."
CONTENTS.
SISTER.
A SMALL WORLD.
IN A CROOKED WAY.
THE TALE OF A SCORPION.
ON THE ROCKS.
"GOLOSSA-A-L".
THE MULE.
IN LOVE AND WAR.
TOMASO'S FORTUNE.
STRANDED.
PUTTING THINGS RIGHT.
FOR JUANITA'S SAKE.
AT THE FRONT.
THE END OF THE "MOOROO".
IN A CARAVAN.
IN THE TRACK OF THE WANDERING JEW.
THROUGH THE GATE OF TEARS.
A PARIAH.
THE PRODIGAL'S RETURN.
SISTER
It does not matter where it was. I do not want other people--that
is to say, those who were around us--to recognize Sister or myself.
It is not likely that she will see this, and I am not sure that she
knows my name. Of course, some one may draw her attention to this
paper, and she may remember that the name affixed to it is that
which I signed at the foot of a document we made out together--
namely, a return of deaths. At the foot of this paper our names
stood one beneath the other--stand there still, perhaps, in some
forgotten bundle of papers at the War Office.
I only hope that she will not see this, for she might consider it a
breach of professional etiquette; and I attach great importance to
the opinion of this woman, whom I have only seen once in my whole
life. Moreover, on that occasion she was subordinate to me--more or
less in the position of a servant.
Suffice it to say, therefore, that it was war-time, and our trade
was what the commercial papers call brisk. A war better remembered
of the young than of the old, because it was, comparatively
speaking, recent. The old fellows seem to remember the old fights
better--those fights that were fought when their blood was still
young and the vessels thereof unclogged.
It was, by the way, my first campaign, but I was not new to the
business of blood; for I am no soldier--only a doctor. My only
uniform--my full-parade dress--is a red cross on the arm of an old
blue serge jacket--such jacket being much stained with certain dull
patches which are better not investigated.
All who have taken part in war--doing the damage or repairing it--
know that things are not done in quite the same way when ball-
cartridge is served out instead of blank. The correspondents are
very fond of reporting that the behaviour of the men suggested a
parade--which simile, it is to be presumed, was borne in upon their
fantastic brains by its utter inapplicability. The parade may be
suggested before the real work begins--when it is a question of
marching away from the landing-stage; but after the work--our work--
has begun, there is remarkably little resemblance to a review.
We are served with many official papers which we never fill in,
because, on the spur of the moment, it is apt to suggest itself that
men's lives are more important. We misapply a vast majority of our
surgical supplies, because the most important item is usually left
behind at headquarters or at the seaport depot. In fact, we do many
things that we should leave undone, and omit to do more which we are
expected (officially) to do.
For some reason--presumably the absence of better men--I was sent up
to the front before we had been three days at work. Our hospital by
the river was not full when I received orders to follow the flying
column with two assistants and the appliances of a field-hospital.
Out of this little nucleus sprang the largest depot for sick and
wounded that was formed during the campaign. We were within easy
reach of headquarters, and I was fortunately allowed a free hand.
Thus our establishment in the desert grew daily more important, and
finally superseded the hospital at headquarters.
We had a busy time, for the main column had now closed up with the
first expeditionary force, and our troops were in touch with the
enemy not forty miles away from me.
In the course of time--when the authorities learnt to cease
despising the foe, which is a little failing in British military
high places--it was deemed expedient to fortify us, and then, in
addition to two medical assistants, I was allowed three Government
nurses. This last piece of news was not hailed with so much
enthusiasm as might have been expected. I am not in favour of
bringing women anywhere near the front. They are, for their own
sakes and for the peace of mind of others, much better left behind.
If they are beyond a certain age they break down and have to be sent
back at considerable trouble--that is to say, an escort and an
ambulance cart, of which latter there are never enough. If they are
below the climacteric--ever so little below it--they cause mischief
of another description, and the wounded are neglected; for there is
no passion of the human heart so cruel and selfish as love.
"I am sorry to hear it," I said to light-hearted little Sammy Fitz-
Warrener of the Naval Brigade, who brought me the news.
"Sorry to hear it? Gad! I shouldn't be. The place has got a
different look about it when there are women-folk around. They are
so jolly clever in their ways--worth ten of your red-cross
ruffians."
"That is as may be," I answered, breaking open the case of whisky
which Sammy had brought up on the carriage of his machine-gun for my
private consumption.
He was taking this machine-gun up to the front, and mighty proud he
was of it.
"A clever gun," he called it; "an almighty clever gun."
He had ridden alongside of it--sitting on the top of his horse as
sailors do--through seventy miles of desert without a halt; watching
over it and tending it as he might have watched and tended his
mother, or perhaps some other woman.
"Gad! doctor," he exclaimed, kicking out his sturdy legs, and
contemplating with some satisfaction the yellow hide top-boots which
he had bought at the Army and Navy Stores. (I know the boots well,
and--avoid them.) "Gad! doctor, you should see that gun on the war-
path. Travels as light as a tricycle. And when she begins to talk-
-my stars! Click-click-click-click! For all the world like a
steam-launch's engine--mowing 'em down all the time. No work for
you there. It will be no use you and your satellites progging about
with skewers for the bullet. Look at the other side, my boy, and
you'll find the beauty has just walked through them."
"Soda or plain?" I asked, in parenthesis.
"Soda. I don't like the flavour of dead camel. A big drink,
please. I feel as if I were lined with sand-paper."
He slept that night in the little shanty built of mud and roofed
chiefly with old palm-mats, which was gracefully called the head
surgeon's quarters. That is to say, he partook of such hospitality
as I had to offer him.
Sammy and I had met before he had touched a rope or I a scalpel. We
hailed from the same part of the country--down Devonshire way; and,
to a limited extent, we knew each other's people--which little
phrase has a vast meaning in places where men do congregate.
We turned in pretty early--I on a hospital mattress, he in my bed;
but Sam would not go to sleep. He would lie with his arms above his
head (which is not an attitude of sleep) and talk about that
everlasting gun.
I dozed off to the murmur of his voice expatiating on the extreme
cunning of the ejector, and awoke to hear details of the rifling.
We did not talk of home, as do men in books when lying by a camp-
fire. Perhaps it was owing to the absence of that picturesque
adjunct to a soldier's life. We talked chiefly of the clever gun;
and once, just before he fell asleep, Sammy returned to the question
of the nurses.
"Yes," he said, "the head saw-bones down there told me to tell you
that he had got permission to send you three nurses. Treat 'em
kindly, Jack, for my sake. Bless their hearts! They mean well."
Then he fell asleep, and left me thinking of his words, and of the
spirit which had prompted them.
I knew really nothing of this man's life, but he seemed singularly
happy, with that happiness which only comes when daily existence has
a background to it. He spoke habitually of women, as if he loved
them all for the sake of one; and this not being precisely my own
position, I was glad when he fell asleep.
The fort was astir next morning at four. The bugler kindly blew a
blast into our glassless window which left no doubt about it.
"That means all hands on deck, I take it," said Sam, who was one of
the few men capable of good humour before tiffin time.
By six o'clock he was ready to go. It was easy to see what sort of
officer this cheery sailor was by the way his men worked.
While they were getting the machine-gun limbered up, Sam came back
to my quarters, and took a hasty breakfast.
"Feel a bit down this morning," he said, with a gay smile. "Cheap--
very cheap. I hope I am not going to funk it. It is all very well
for some of you long-faced fellows, who don't seem to have much to
live for, to fight for the love of fighting. I don't want to fight
any man; I am too fond of 'em all for that."
I went out after breakfast, and I gave him a leg up on to his very
sorry horse, which he sat like a tailor or a sailor. He held the
reins like tiller-lines, and indulged in a pleased smile at the
effect of the yellow boots.
"No great hand at this sort of thing," he said, with a nod of
farewell. "When the beast does anything out of the common, or
begins to make heavy weather of it, I AM NOT."
He ranged up alongside his beloved gun, and gave the word of command
with more dignity than he knew what to do with.
All that day I was employed in arranging quarters for the nurses.
To do this I was forced to turn some of our most precious stores out
into the open, covering them with a tarpaulin, and in consequence
felt all the more assured that my chief was making a great mistake.
At nine o'clock in the evening they arrived, one of the juniors
having ridden out in the moonlight to meet them. He reported them
completely exhausted; informed me that he had recommended them to go
straight to bed; and was altogether more enthusiastic about the
matter than I personally or officially cared to see.
He handed me a pencil note from my chief at headquarters, explaining
that he had not written me a despatch because he had nothing but a
"J" pen, with which instrument he could not make himself legible.
It struck me that he was suffering from a plethora of assistance,
and was anxious to reduce his staff.
I sent my enthusiastic assistant to the nurses' quarters, with a
message that they were not to report themselves to me until they had
had a night's rest. Then I turned in.
At midnight I was awakened by the orderly, and summoned to the tent
of the officer in command. This youth's face was considerably
whiter than his linen. He was consulting with his second in
command, a boy of twenty-two or thereabouts.
A man covered with sand and blood was sitting in a hammock-chair,
rubbing his eyes, and drinking something out of a tumbler.
"News from the front?" I inquired without ceremony, which hindrance
we had long since dispensed with.
"Yes, and bad news."
It certainly was not pleasant hearing. Some one mentioned the word
"disaster," and we looked at each other with hard, anxious eyes. I
thought of the women, and almost decided to send them back before
daylight.
In a few moments a fresh man was roused out of his bed, and sent
full gallop through the moonlight across the desert to headquarters,
and the officer in command began to regain confidence. I think he
extracted it from the despatch-bearer's tumbler. After all, he was
not responsible for much. He was merely a connecting-link, a point
of touch between two greater men.
It was necessary to get my men to work at once, but I gave
particular orders to leave the nurses undisturbed. Disaster at the
front meant hard work at the rear. We all knew that, and
endeavoured to make ready for a sudden rush of wounded.
The rush began before daylight. As they came in we saw to them,
dressing their wounds and packing them as closely as possible. But
the stream was continuous. They never stopped coming; they never
gave us a moment's rest.
At six o'clock I gave orders to awaken the nurses and order them to
prepare their quarters for the reception of the wounded. At half-
past six an Army Hospital Corps man came to me in the ward.
"Shockin' case, sir, just come in," he said. "Officer. Gun busted,
sir."
"Take him to my quarters," I said, wiping my instruments on my
sleeve.
In a few minutes I followed, and on entering my little room the
first thing I saw was a pair of yellow boots.
There was no doubt about the boots and the white duck trousers, and
although I could not see the face, I knew that this was Sammy Fitz-
Warrener come back again.
A woman--one of the nurses for whom he had pleaded--was bending over
the bed with a sponge and a basin of tepid water. As I entered she
turned upon me a pair of calmly horror-stricken eyes.
"OH!" she whispered meaningly, stepping back to let me approach. I
had no time to notice then that she was one of those largely built
women, with perfect skin and fair hair, who make one think of what
England must have been before Gallic blood got to be so widely
disseminated in the race.
"Please pull down that mat from the window," I said, indicating a
temporary blind which I had put up.
She did so promptly, and returned to the bedside, falling into
position as it were, awaiting my orders.
I bent over the bed, and I must confess that what I saw there gave
me a thrill of horror which will come again at times so long as I
live.
I made a sign to Sister to continue her task of sponging away the
mud, of which one ingredient was sand.
"Both eyes," she whispered, "are destroyed."
"Not the top of the skull," I said; "you must not touch that."
For we both knew that our task was without hope.
As I have said, I knew something of Fitz-Warrener's people, and I
could not help lingering there, where I could do no good, when I
knew that I was wanted elsewhere.
Suddenly his lips moved, and Sister, kneeling down on the floor,
bent over him.
I could not hear what he said, but I think she did. I saw her lips
frame the whisper "Yes" in reply, and over her face there swept
suddenly a look of great tenderness.
After a little pause she rose and came to me.
"Who is he?" she asked.
"Fitz-Warrener of the Naval Brigade. Do you know him?"
"No, I never heard of him. Of course--it is quite hopeless?"
"Quite."
She returned to her position by the bedside, with one arm laid
across his chest.
Presently he began whispering again, and at intervals she answered
him. It suddenly occurred to me that, in his unconsciousness, he
was mistaking her for some one else, and that she, for some woman's
reason, was deceiving him purposely.
In a few moments I was sure of this.
I tried not to look; but I saw it all. I saw his poor blind hands
wander over her throat and face, up to her hair.
"What is this?" he muttered quite distinctly, with that tone of
self-absorption which characterizes the sayings of an unconscious
man. "What is this silly cap?"
His fingers wandered on over the snowy linen until they came to the
strings.
As an aspirant to the title of gentleman, I felt like running away--
many doctors know this feeling; as a doctor, I could only stay.
His fingers fumbled with the strings. Still Sister bent over the
bed. Perhaps she bent an inch or two nearer. One hand was beneath
his neck, supporting the poor shattered head.
He slowly drew off the cap, and his fingers crept lovingly over the
soft fair hair.
"Marny," he said, quite clearly, "you've done your hair up, and
you're nothing but a little girl, you know--nothing but a little
girl."
I could not help watching his fingers, and yet I felt like a man
committing sacrilege.
"When I left you," said the brainless voice, "you wore it down your
back. You were a little girl--you are a little girl now." And he
slowly drew a hairpin out.
One long lock fell curling to her shoulder. She never looked up,
never noticed me, but knelt there like a ministering angel--
personating for a time a girl whom we had never seen.
"My little girl," he added, with a low laugh, and drew out another
hairpin.
In a few moments all her hair was about her shoulders. I had never
thought that she might be carrying such glory quietly hidden beneath
the simple nurse's cap.
"That is better," he said--"that is better." And he let all the
hairpins fall on the coverlet. "Now you are my own Marny," he
murmured. "Are you not?"
She hesitated one moment. "Yes, dear," she said softly. "I am your
own Marny."
With her disengaged hand she stroked his blanching cheek. There was
a certain science about her touch, as if she had once known
something of these matters.
Lovingly and slowly the smoke-grimed fingers passed over the
wonderful hair, smoothing it.
Then he grew more daring. He touched her eyes, her gentle cheeks,
the quiet, strong lips. He slipped to her shoulder, and over the
soft folds of her black dress.
"Been gardening?" he asked, coming to the bib of her nursing apron.
It was marvellous how the brain, which was laid open to the day,
retained the consciousness of one subject so long.
"Yes--dear," she whispered.
"Your old apron is all wet!" he said reproachfully, touching her
breast where the blood--his own blood--was slowly drying.
His hand passed on, and as it touched her, I saw her eyes soften
into such a wonderful tenderness that I felt as if I were looking on
a part of Sister's life which was sacred.
I saw a little movement as if to draw back, then she resolutely held
her position. But her eyes were dull with a new pain. I wonder--I
have wondered ever since--what memories that poor senseless wreck of
a man was arousing in the woman's heart by his wandering touch.
"Marny," he said, "Marny. It was not TOO hard waiting for me?"
"No, dear."
"It will be all right now, Marny. The bad part is all past."
"Yes."
"Marny, you remember--the night--I left--Marny--I want--no--no, your
LIPS."
I knelt suddenly, and slipped my hand within his shirt, for I saw
something in his face.
As Sister's lips touched his I felt his heart give a great bound
within his breast, and then it was still. When she lifted her face
it was as pale as his.
I must say that I felt like crying--a feeling which had not come to
me for twenty years. I busied myself purposely with the dead man,
and when I had finished my task I turned, and found Sister filling
in the papers--her cap neatly tied, her golden hair hidden.
I signed the certificate, placing my name beneath hers.
For a moment we stood. Our eyes met, and--we said nothing. She
moved towards the door, and I held it open while she passed out.
Two hours later I received orders from the officer in command to
send the nurses back to headquarters. Our men were falling back
before the enemy.
A SMALL WORLD
"Thine were the calming eyes
That round my pinnace could have stilled the sea,
And drawn thy voyager home, and bid him be
Pure with their pureness, with their wisdom wise,
Merged in their light, and greatly lost in thee."
It was midday at the monastery of Montserrat, and a monk, walking in
the garden, turned and paused in his meditative promenade to listen
to an unwonted noise. The silence of this sacred height is so
intense that many cannot sleep at night for the hunger of a sound.
There is no running water except the fountain in the patio. There
are no birds to tell of spring and morning. There are no trees for
the cool night winds to stir, nothing but eternal rock and the
ancient building so closely associated with the life of Ignatius de
Loyola. The valley, a sheer three thousand feet below, is thinly
enough populated, though a great river and the line of railway from
Manresa to Barcelona run through it. So clear is the atmosphere
that at the great distance the contemplative denizens of the
monastery may count the number of the railway carriages, while no
sound of the train, or indeed of any life in the valley, reaches
their ears.
What the monk heard was disturbing, and he hurried to the corner of
the garden, from whence a view of the winding road may be obtained.
Floating on the wind came the sound, as from another world, of
shouting, and the hollow rumble of wheels. The holy man peered down
into the valley, and soon verified his fears. It was the
diligencia, which had quitted the monastery a short hour ago, that
flew down the hill to inevitable destruction. Once before in the
recollection of the watcher the mules had run away, rushing down to
their death, and carrying with them across that frontier the lives
of seven passengers, devout persons, who, having performed the
pilgrimage to the shrine of our Lady of Montserrat, had doubtless
received their reward. The monk crossed himself, but, being human,
forgot alike to pray and to call his brethren to witness the scene.
It was like looking at a play from a very high gallery. The
miniature diligencia on the toy road far below swayed from the bank
of the highway to the verge--the four mules stretched out at a
gallop, as in a picture. The shouts dimly heard at the monastery
had the effect they were intended to create, for the monk could see
the carters and muleteers draw aside to let the living avalanche go
past.
There were but two men on the box-seat of the diligencia--the driver
and a passenger seated by his side. The monk recollected that this
passenger had passed two days at Montserrat, inscribing himself in
the visitors' book as Matthew S. Whittaker.
"I am ready to take the reins when your arms are cramped," this
passenger was saying at that precise moment, "but I do not know the
road, and I cannot drive so well as you."
He finished with a curt laugh, and, holding on with both hands, he
turned and looked at his companion. He was not afraid, and death
assuredly stared him in the face at that moment.
"Thanks for that, at all events," returned the driver, handling his
reins with a steady skill. Then he fell to cursing the mules. As
he rounded each corner of the winding road, he gave a derisive shout
of triumph; as he safely passed a cart, he gave voice to a yell of
defiance. He went to his death--if death awaited him--with a fine
spirit, with a light in his eyes and the blood in his tanned cheeks.
The man at his side could perhaps have saved himself by a leap which
might, with good fortune, have resulted in nothing more serious than
a broken limb. As he had been invited by the driver to take this
leap and had curtly declined, it is worth while to pause and give
particulars of this passenger on the runaway diligencia. He was a
slightly built man, dressed in the ordinary dark clothes and soft
black felt hat of the middle class Spaniard. His face was brown and
sun-dried, with deep lines drawn downwards from the nose to the lips
in such a manner that cynicism and a mildly protesting tolerance
were contending for mastery in an otherwise studiously inexpressive
countenance.
"The Excellency does not blame me for this?" the driver jerked out,
as he hauled round a corner with a sort of pride.
"No, my friend," replied the American; and he broke off suddenly to
curve his two hands around his lips and give forth a warning shout
in a clear tenor that rang down the valley like a trumpet.
A muleteer leading a heavily laden animal drew his beast into the
ditch, and leapt into the middle of the road. He stepped nimbly
aside and sprang at the leading mule, but was rolled into the ditch
like an old hat.
"That is an old torero," shouted the driver. "Bravo, bravo!"
As they flew on, Whittaker turned in his seat and caught a glimpse
of the man standing in the middle of the road, with arms spread out
in an attitude of apology and deprecation.
"Ah!" cried the driver, "we shall not pass these. Now leap!"
"No," answered the other, and gave his warning shout.
Below them on the spiral road two heavy carts were slowly mounting.
These were the long country carts used for the carriage of wine-
casks, heavily laden with barrels for the monastery. The drivers,
looking up, saw in a moment what to expect, and ran to the head of
their long teams of eight mules, but all concerned knew in a flash
of thought that they could not pull aside in time.
"Leap, in the name of a saint!" cried the driver, clenching his
teeth.
Whittaker made no answer. But he cleared his feet and sat forward,
his keen face and narrow eyes alert to seize any chance of life.
The maddened mules rushed on, seeking to free themselves from the
swaying destroyer on their heels. The leaders swung round the
corner, but refused to obey the reins when they caught sight of the
cart in front. The brakes had long ceased to act; the wooden blocks
were charred as by fire. The two heavier mules at the pole made a
terrified but intelligent attempt to check the pace, and the weighty
vehicle skidded sideways across the road, shuddering and rattling as
it went. It poised for a moment on the edge of the slope, while the
mules threw themselves into their collars--their intelligence
seeming to rise at this moment to a human height. Then the great
vehicle turned slowly over, and at the same moment Whittaker and the
driver leapt into the tangle of heels and harness. One of the
leaders swung right out in mid-air with flying legs, and mules and
diligencia rolled over and over down the steep in a cloud of dust
and stones.
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