"Have you got another uniform, Charlie?" the girl asked on the following evening. "Certainly I have," Carter answered in some surprise.
"Well, I wish you would send it over here."
"Send it over here, Miss Ackworth! What on earth do you want it for?"
[Pg 21]
"Well, it is this. It is as well to be prepared for all contingencies. I certainly do not mean to be carried away, if the fort should be captured, and made the slave of some Afridi chief. If I find things going badly I shall run back here and put on the uniform, cut my hair off short, and then go out and fight till the last. It would be a thousand times better to be killed fighting than to be captured."
"Certainly it would," the young officer said gravely; "it would be a hard lot for a woman to be carried off a captive by these Afridis."
"Very well, then, you will lend me a uniform?"
"Yes I will, Miss Ackworth, but I should advise you to keep the last bullet in your revolver for yourself."
"I mean to," she said, "but something might happen; I might fall seriously wounded and be unable to use it, and then, if they found me lying wounded, they would fire a bullet into me and so finish me."
"God forbid that it should come to that!" he said, "though it is as well to make provision against it. I am now quite of your opinion that there is a possibility of our being attacked. For the last two days many of the villagers have abandoned their homes and cleared off. There must be some reason for this, and the only one that I can see is that[Pg 22] the men are aware that we are going to be attacked. They have no ground for complaint against us, we have always paid for everything that we have had of them. There has been no enforced labour, and we have every reason for supposing that they are well content to have us established here, as the fort would be a protection in case of an Afridi raid. This move on their part certainly is ominous. Should we be driven from our walls, which, I hope, will not take place, I suppose that we must rally in the mess-house and make our last stand there. The walls are solid, and I have this morning set some of the men, who know something of carpentering, to work at once to make thick shutters for all the windows and to store the house with provisions. I think we could make a stout defence there."
"I think it is a very good plan, Charlie; a bugle call would bring all the men down from the walls in no time. There are no buildings round, and the enemy would have to attack us across the open; I believe if only twenty men get there in safety we ought to be able to drive them off."
"We will have a good try for it, anyhow," the young lieutenant said; "they will know that the major will not be many days before he is back, and after one or two sharp repulses they may deem it expedient to move off, lest they should find the[Pg 23] tables turned upon them. You are rather a bloodthirsty little person, Miss Ackworth!"
"Do you think so? I hope not. I know very well that if we are attacked it will be a very serious matter, and I fear there will be great loss of life. But I do think that if they made a trifling attack, and drew off, I should enjoy the excitement. I most certainly hope that there will not be any regular attacks. Still, if there are, I fancy that I should, in a sort of way, enjoy them. It would be very wrong, I have no doubt, but I don't think that I could help it."
"I think that is the way with all soldiers, Miss Ackworth. They may feel nervous before action, but when they are once engaged they lose all sense of fear, and their great anxiety is to get hand to hand with the enemy. If it were not for that feeling, I fancy that very few attacks would ever succeed. The man who deliberately said to himself, 'No one could live under such a storm of bullets as this', would not be likely to march steadily through it."
"It is a funny thing, isn't it, that men should be so fond of fighting?"
"It is; I have wondered over it many a time. All savage races love fighting, and certainly our own people do. If there were a great war, hundreds and thousands of men would volunteer at once. I am afraid this instinct brings us very near[Pg 24] the savage. I think no other nation possesses it to anything like the same extent as the British race. The Germans are fine soldiers and fight well, but they do it purely because they are commanded and have to obey. The Frenchmen are nearly the same, and I think it is something like this with the Russians. The Turk, now, is a thorough good fighter, and with him it is a matter of religious fanaticism. It is curious that our Indian subjects, for the most part, go into battle with the same feelings as do our own people. There are no finer fighters in the world than the Sikhs, the Punjaubis, and the Ghoorkhas. They are all magnificent, but are equalled in Africa by the Hausas and other tribes from whom we draw our soldiers. All these people go into a fray as if they were going to a feast."
"I expect," Nita said, "it is because we have that feeling that we always win our battles."
"No doubt that is so, and I only hope that the feeling will not be knocked out of us by school-boards and other contrivances of that sort."
Nita shook her head. This was beyond her. "Why should it do so?" she asked.
"The school-board trains up the boys to despise their fathers' callings. I am afraid they all want to go into shops, or to get some small clerkship, and to struggle, in fact, for anything where they can[Pg 25] wear black clothes instead of fustian. Still, I hope they won't lose the courage that our race has always possessed. At any rate a very large number of young fellows who have been to board schools become Volunteers afterwards, and I thoroughly believe that the Volunteers would turn out as one man if we had a very serious war, say, with France or Germany."
"That would be a serious war," Nita said. "Those nations have tremendous armies, so I have heard my father say."
"They have; but they are, in my opinion, too tremendous. If they were to fight in solid masses they would be literally swept away. If they fought in the open order, which is now the rule with us, the battle would extend over such an area that no general in the world could handle an army covering such an enormous space. I should say that from a hundred to a hundred and fifty thousand is the greatest body that could be efficiently worked under one command. I don't think the French are ever likely to fight us. The way the Fashoda affair was settled seems to show that their rulers are very adverse to plunging into war with us. When we fought them at the beginning of the century we had a population of five or six million, while the French had six times that number. Now our British Islands have something like[Pg 26] forty million, and are every day increasing, while the French are stationary, if not going back. Besides, if there were a big war, I believe that the colonists would, if we were hardly pushed, send us half a million fighting-men. Between us and Germany the matter is different. They are entering the field as our commercial rivals, and they fret that we should hold almost all the land in the world where a white man can work. I except, of course, North America. The Germans are uneasy in themselves. Democracy is making great strides, and the time may well come when a German Emperor may be driven to quarrel with us in order to prevent civil war at home. At present, however, the power of the emperor is supreme. Germany is adding to her navy, for without a powerful navy they could not hope to get into contact with us; but while they build one war-ship we can build three, so that we need not fear our supremacy at sea being threatened save by an alliance between France and Germany and Russia, an alliance which there is little fear of coming about, for the Germans hate the Russians and the Russians hate the Germans. You might as well think of an alliance between a dog, a cat, and a rat, as that those three Powers should pull together. No, the next war, when it comes, may be between us and Russia; and as it is certain that the little Japs[Pg 27] would join us, I think that between us we should make things pretty hot for her. There, Miss Ackworth, I have been giving you a sort of lecture on the politics of the world. I hope that you did not find it dull."
"Certainly not," Nita said. "I am very much obliged to you. Of course, I have heard these things talked over before, but never in such a way that I could exactly understand them. It seems funny to be discussing such matters up here on the frontier with the chance of being attacked every hour."
"Well, I must go my rounds. Good-night, Miss Ackworth! I hope your sleep will not be disturbed."
"I hope not, indeed," the girl said; "I have slept soundly every night so far. There has been so much to arrange and work out that I go off as soon as I lay my head upon the pillow."
Four hours later she sat suddenly up in bed. It was certainly a rifle-shot that she heard. This was followed almost instantaneously by a heavy roar of musketry. "It has come!" she exclaimed as she leapt out of bed and hurriedly dressed herself. She paused a moment as she looked at the suit of uniform, and then muttering "There will be time enough for that later on", she proceeded to put on her own clothes. She slipped a handful of cartridges into her pocket, and with her revolver in[Pg 28] her hand sallied out. It seemed to her that the place was attacked on all sides at once, for flashes of fire spat out round the whole circle of the walls; but this was as nothing to the roar outside. By the sound, she assured herself that the main attack was directed on the gate, and here the fire of the defenders was also exceptionally heavy. She made her way up to the top of the wall. Here she found the greater part of the men who had been in reserve, although some of them had, as arranged, hurried to other threatened points.
"Take steady aim, men, take steady aim!" Lieutenant Carter shouted. This told her where he was stationed, and she made her way to him. When his eye fell on her he said, "You ought not to be here, Miss Ackworth. If things were going badly with us I should say nothing against it; but at present, at any rate, you have no business here, and I must ask you to retire at once. What do you suppose the major would say if, on his return, he found that you had been killed by a chance shot on the walls? I must really beg of you to descend at once."
Never before had Nita heard the young lieutenant speak in such a tone of command and determination. "All right!" she said meekly; "just let me have one peep over the wall and then I will go down."
"You may take just one peep, but there is[Pg 29] nothing to see. They have failed in the expectation that they would take us by surprise. At present they are lying down and using up their ammunition."
Nita took a hasty glance over the parapet, and then, descending the steps, made her way to the bungalow, which it had been decided had better be used for the wounded, as it was a bullet-proof building, although less well ventilated and comfortable than the hospital would have been. She set to work to light the lanterns ranged along the wall, to get out bandages, and to prepare for the reception of the wounded. Two of the men had been told off to assist her, and these were already there when she arrived. It was not long before the first patient was brought in. He had been severely wounded in the head while firing over the parapet. Nita shuddered, but, putting on a thick white canvas apron which she had made on the previous day, began her work. The surgeon had unfortunately gone with the expedition, and she felt that the responsibility was a heavy one. She knew a little of bandaging, having been present when the doctor had given some lectures to the officers on the subject, but this was a case altogether beyond her. She could only bathe the man's head and then put a loose bandage round it. She gave him a drink of water and then sat[Pg 30] suddenly down on the next bed, faint and sick. She held out her hand to one of the men for a glass of water, drank it up, and then with a great effort got on to her feet again, and waited for the next patient.
Five or six more men were brought in during the night. All had been hit either in the head or shoulder; some of them, however, were only gashed in the cheek, and these, as soon as their wounds were bandaged, took up their rifles and went off again to the wall. So the night passed; the fire had slackened a good deal, and it was evident that the Afridis had abandoned the idea of taking the fort by assault. Although it was two o'clock when the attack had begun, the night seemed endless to Nita, and she was grateful indeed when the first tinge of daylight appeared in the east. Presently Carter arrived. "You have done well indeed, Miss Ackworth," he said, "and have been far more useful than you could have been on the wall. It required a deal of nerve to carry out your work, and your looks show what a strain it has been. I beg that you will go and lie down for a time. Half the men have come down from the wall, and a good many of them are adepts in the art of bandaging wounds, having been enlisted among fighting tribes. Your bandaging has been really effective, but these men will make a neater job of it."
 
"SHE SUDDENLY SAT DOWN ON THE NEXT BED, FAINT AND SICK"
[Pg 31]
"How are things going on?" she asked.
"Very well. They have fallen back now to the mosque and village, and no doubt will spend the morning in consultation."
"You have not fired off the barrels, then?"
"Oh no! I shall keep that as a pill for them when matters become more serious. Now please go and lie down. Of course if there is a fresh attack you will get up and come out again."
Nita walked slowly across the yard to her room. "Why are my legs so ridiculously weak?" she said to herself; "I am sure that I have not been afraid, and as to the work of bandaging those poor fellows, it was nothing. I suppose it was the sight of blood, and having to wait so long for something to do. I am sure that I should have borne it ten times better if Mr. Carter had allowed me to remain on the wall. I should not have thought that I could have been overruled by what he said, but he spoke so sternly and sharply that I felt that I must obey him. I would not have believed that Charlie could have spoken so. I shall not be so quick in forming my opinion about people again. I think I spoke of him as 'stupid' when father said he was to take me down country, but I see that there is nothing stupid about him. He is very quiet, certainly, but he takes the command as if he had been accustomed to it all his[Pg 32] life. I am quite certain that if anyone can defend this place he can. How silly of me! I forgot to ask him what was the strength of the force attacking us. However, that will keep till I get up."
So saying, she lay down on the bed, dressed as she was, and in two minutes was fast asleep. It was eleven o'clock when she woke. "I did not think that I should have slept five minutes," she said indignantly to herself; "here I have had nearly six hours." She dipped her face in water, brushed her hair, and made herself as tidy as possible. When she went out Lieutenant Carter was talking to the two native officers; she waited till they both saluted and retired, then she went up to him. "Please tell me a little more about it, Mr. Carter. How many are there of the attackers? What do you think they are going to do? Did you kill many of them?"
"Three questions at once," he said with a smile, "and to none of them can I give you a satisfactory answer. In the first place, they are very strong; we have put them down as having fifteen hundred men. As to their intention, I can tell you nothing yet, for there has been no development. Thirdly, I think that we must have killed fifty at their first rush at the gate; but that is pure surmise, for they carried off the bodies as fast as they fell. I am waiting somewhat eagerly to see what their next[Pg 33] move will be. We have heard outbursts of yells twice in the last hour, and I expect that we shall soon see the result."
"It is long odds," the girl said.
"Very long," answered the lieutenant; "for there is no doubt that it is a preconcerted thing. An attack was made on that outlying post, a considerable distance from the fort, and probably only with the intention of getting our garrison to march away, while all the assembled tribes came down upon us, feeling, no doubt, that with the benefit of a surprise, and knowing how small our garrison must be, it would be carried at the first rush. Now that that has failed they will, no doubt, adopt some quite different tactics. I have had the men at work ever since daybreak, piling up sacks full of earth against the gate to within two or three feet of the top, where I have made some loopholes, so that our men can lie down on the sacks and keep up a heavy fire. That is all that I can do at present, until we see what game they mean to play."
"That is capital," the girl said; "if they make a real attack, that is the position where I shall place myself. There will be no chance of my being hit there, and at that distance I could calculate on bringing down an enemy at every shot."
"I am afraid that you are a very wilful young person," he said with a smile; "but as I know how[Pg 34] good a shot you are, I shall not refuse your aid in case of extremity."