Ever After (41 page)

“Go some place else, you’re wastin’ your time!” he yelled. “We aren’t dead enough!
Scat!
”

“Water,” said Bracken, fingering the watch.

“Can’t drink that water. I found you some limes.” Fitz slid an arm behind Bracken’s head and held the cut lime to his lips. “You know, you were right about that fever,” he said, while Bracken sucked. “Remember what you told me when you turned back after Shafter? It’s coming down on me again soon, and there’s something I’ve got to tell you first. You listenin’?” Bracken’s head fell back against him, his eyes were closed. Fitz bent over him. “Bracken, you’ve got to hear. Uncle Cabot is gone. You’re the Boss now.”

“They won’t let her wear it,” Bracken mumbled, feeling for the watch. “They open her letters, I think—I daren’t say how I feel—not yet—”

“Bracken. Your father is dead.”

“What?” said Bracken, lying very still.

“I hate to tell you, but it’s kind of up to us. Uncle Cabot died last Monday.”

“It’s Fitz,” said Bracken, without moving.

“Yeh, it’s me. The battle’s over. Looks like we won. I’ve been chasin’ you all day, as though it was good news I had.”

“You said—Father—”

“Yes. At Tampa. Wendell told me.”

Bracken lay quiet against him, and Fitz could not see his face—so quiet that the land crabs stole out again to see, on tiptoe, twiddling their eyes. Then Bracken tried to sit up, and they all disappeared into the leaves, while he swayed against Fitz’s shoulder.

“I’ve got to get down to the coast,” he said.

“Sure, sure, we’ll get down all right. Only, you know that fever you promised me? Well, I got it.”

“That’s tough. Any first-aid men around?”

“Not a soul. We seem to be sort of on the edge of things here.”

“Sun’s going down already,” Bracken discovered with surprise. “Where’s the day gone, to? Is that the river there?”

“Yep, we’ve got to cross it, just for a starter. Up to our necks right here.”

“Oh, go on, Fitz, it’s never more than waist deep.”

“Banks are steep,” said Fitz. “Come and see.”

Bracken was trying to feel around on the ground under him.

“My notebook—I had it—I had the whole story up till I got hit—I wrote some with my left hand after that—”

“Here’s your notebook.” Fitz put it in his own pocket. “Let’s
get on our way now, Wendell will be having a fit. Can you walk if I hold you up?”

He made a sling of his own yellow scarf for Bracken’s right arm, and by lifting and heaving they got Bracken to his feet.

“Gosh, I’m tall,” he said wonderingly. “It looks such a long way to
the ground. Gimme your shoulder—”

“You got it!”

“Hell, we’re off!”

And so they were, with a rather drunken stagger, through the trees and down to the river bank, which was decorated just beyond by a dead mule, his insides running out into the water.

“He’s down-stream,” said Fitz. “Come on.”

“Let’s find the ford,” said Bracken.

“Things were pretty thick there when I came through.”

“Probably still are. We can get hold of somebody going down to Siboney and ask him to deliver us to Wendell in case you give out.”

“Oh, shucks, I’m good for hours yet,” said Fitz, who was
momentarily
dreading the recurrence of the first chill.

For some minutes they floundered along the bank which was
slippery
with mud, afraid to lose sight of the water, often throwing
themselves
down with panting groans to rest.

“
By
the
river
of
Babylon,
there
we
sat
down,
yea,
we
wept
when
we
remembered
Zion
,”
Fitz chanted unexpectedly. “Remember when we used to go to church? Where
is
Zion? Don’t I hear voices?”

Bracken seemed to recall something about an innumerable
company
of angels in connection with Zion, and said he wasn’t ready for that just yet, he had things to do.

By the time they reached the ford a train of empty ammunition and ration wagons returning from the front had already removed the rows of wounded men Fitz had seen there on his way up, taking them to the field hospital established near Shafter’s headquarters back of El Poso. Bates’s brigade was now coming up the trail from El Caney to reinforce the exhausted troops who were in perilous possession of San Juan heights. There was almost no traffic in the other direction, and not much chance of getting a ride to Siboney just then.

Fitz and Bracken crossed the ford, for the river seemed to be rising, and sat down on the other side where the trail widened for a space, hoping for a stray ambulance or provision wagon going their way. While they sat there the jungle echoed to the
whoop-la
!
and the shrill whistles of the mule-packers, the pistol-like snap of their
black-snake
whips, and the rural tinkle of the cowbell round the lead mule’s neck, as a pack-train emerged from the shadows of the trail in the wake of Bates’s men. It splashed recklessly through the ford, and
disappeared behind the trees which rimmed the meadow, bound for the front.

They said very little as they sat there waiting beside a trail strewn with everything from tin cups and toothbrushes to the wreckage of the balloon. Fitz’s head felt twice the size of a football, his clothes were wet to the waist from the ford and had set him shivering again even without the malarial chill which still held off. He had begun to think of Gwen, with a need which gnawed like the hunger he had half forgotten because he was now so accustomed to it. He longed for Gwen till it ached in his bones—for her little half-smile, her quiet voice, her sweet, warm hands—and he began to try to remember everything they had done together, hoarding it against oblivion, building it into a shelter for his weary spirit there beside the trail.

He remembered the first time he had ever seen her, and how she had trembled under his hand for terror of Fagan and his small-time gang—and the night she had sung at Eden’s party, wearing the new dress, and he had realized that she was beautiful—and the night he asked her to marry him and she said—what had she said?—
I
don’t
belong
as
your
wife
—a funny idea—well, she knew different now—by the time they had their wedding supper at Delmonico’s, maybe, she knew different—and he remembered going to Lord and Taylor’s with her to buy a trousseau out of his option money—two new dresses, and three hats—slippers, things to go underneath—Gwen was half shocked at his extravagance, half like a greedy child, holding the froth of silk and lace in both her hands, looking up at him across her treasures, saying, “Are you
sure
it’s all right? Can we
really
afford it?” She had had so little all her life—there was so much he wanted to give her of cherishing and good times. She had come a long, hard way but now she was safe, now she had a home, he had seen to that—because if anything happened to him they would always look after Gwen at Williamsburg—had he asked them to?—but Cousin Sue would know—Cousin Sue would always take care of Gwen….

Bracken, lying beside Fitz at the ford that night, covered with a white mist and drenched with dew, was his father’s son, and he thought mostly of the man who was dead at Tampa and what that would mean back at the Shop in Park Row—what would they do without the Boss?—Temple, the Managing Editor, was
Murray-trained
and knew all there was to know about newspapers—but there would never be the feeling about Temple that there was for the Boss—that took a Murray, and the only Murray left was one called Bracken—he wasn’t ready for that job yet—he didn’t know enough, he hadn’t done enough, he wasn’t big enough—he had always known dimly that some day he would be expected to sit at his father’s mahogany desk and run the
Star
—but that time had always seemed
a long way off—his father was still a young man, healthy, except for the malaria, straight as a flagpole, confident, successful, looked up to, at the height of his powers—and now he was gone, and the
mahogany
desk was waiting for his son, who felt small and humble and forlorn in the face of his inheritance. Inevitably, the question came: What about Dinah now?

What about the leisurely life he had meant to live in England with week-ends at Farthingale, waiting for Dinah to grow up and marry him? He couldn’t very well court Dinah from the New York office in Park Row. Separations like that might not be fatal once you were engaged, once you knew where you were, but Dinah would soon be at the age where she might fall in love with anybody. She might even be pushed into some sort of suitable marriage without ever falling in love at all—some marriage arranged by Alwyn and Clare, no doubt with the best intentions, to better the family fortunes or to get her a comfortable establishment of her own. They would rule him out of their plans for Dinah because of Lisl. Alwyn, at least, knew that he was married. And that was another thing. How was he going to get the divorce now, with Lisl hiding on the
Continent
with her California millionaire, and himself dependent on the New York courts, where conclusive evidence would be exceedingly hard to produce? And then he reproached himself for thinking of his father’s death as an inconvenience in his own affairs, and mourned him bitterly and sincerely, and thought about his mother and Virginia and how he must get back to them as quickly as
possible
and put things to rights as far as he could. Daisy would take him to Jamaica and he could get a steamer to New York from there. Fitz and Wendell would have to run the war in Cuba now. Unless Fitz was through too, because of the fever. He put out his hand in the dark. Fitz had the shakes again.

The first streaks of dawn were showing over the tree tops when they were roused from a feverish stupor by the crack of the
black-snakes
and the language and the bell which accompanied the
pack-train
returning across the ford. Bracken dragged himself up and hailed the packer who rode the lead mule. The man slid down and called up one of his fellows. Together they hoisted Bracken and Fitz aboard a couple of mules and held them on for the jolting, wretched journey to the field hospital, and there lifted them down and half-carried them to the crowded cluster of inadequate dog-tents and canvas flies where the surgeons worked wearily in the morning sunlight.

Wounded men in every degree of misery were waiting in
uncomplaining
, prostrate groups for attention, from the exhausted doctors. Those who had come back from the operating tables, where
blood-soaked
, sweat-drenched clothing had been cut away, were some of
them almost completely naked. There were no spare garments, no cots, practically no blankets. Most of the men lay or sat on the bare ground.

Each regiment of Regulars was supposed to have carried with it three months’ hospital supplies, and practically all of this equipment had in each case been left on board the transports. Most of the rest was piled up at Siboney awaiting the trickle of wagons and
mule-trains
. Many of the ambulances had been left behind at Tampa for lack of shipping space. Each Regular was supposed to have carried on his person a small emergency packet of antiseptic gauze, but most of these had been lost or thrown away along with the blanket-rolls and knapsacks, and the best of them needed replacement.

Fitz was now quite helpless with fever and weakness, and lay where he was dumped by the packers, breathing unevenly, his eyes closed. Bracken retained consciousness by a supreme effort and circulated with difficulty among the driven hospital orderlies, begging for a quinine pill—even just one—which he finally captured and carried back to Fitz. After that they lay side by side in the shifting shade cast by a tent already full. Someone came round with black coffee. It was all the food they saw, though a cook-fire smoked somewhere in the middle distance.

Along about mid-afternoon someone dressed Bracken’s wound, which was fortunately open at both ends, the bullet having passed clean through, missing the lung. Soon after that it began to rain, but they lay still where they were for every inch of shelter was
occupied
. As the night went on they formed little human islands in standing water, for the hospital ground was as level as a floor with no drainage and the rain came down too fast to soak in. Both were half delirious now and they carried on a fantastic dialogue in which neither one really replied to the other or was quite aware of what he himself was saying, but the sound of each other’s voices was
comforting
.

The ghastly night passed in this way, and with the drizzling dawn Fitz began to emerge from the second fever attack, and sat up
waveringly
, a hand to his head, and gazed about him. The sun came out and began to dry things a little. Apart from everything else, they were now faint with hunger, and he made his way somehow to where the fire burned sulkily with damp green wood, and begged a quinine pill and some coffee. There was a kettle of soup stewing sluggishly, but after one swallow he poured it out on the ground and secured a cup of coffee for Bracken instead. As he was turning away from the fire, he saw approaching it a group of people, among them three women in white nurse’s uniforms. The Red Cross had come up from Siboney.

“Miss Barton is here,” he told Bracken, patiently pouring the
coffee into him. “Give
them
a few hours and this place will be run right! Now that I’m able to wobble around again, I’ll see about gettin’ us down to Siboney. You stay right here, now, so I can find you again.”

Bracken had no intention of moving.

Fitz hovered a while in Miss Barton’s vicinity, his subconscious reporter’s mind taking notes while he admired the efficient way they got a new fireplace built, much larger and higher, and set their
ten-gallon
agate kettles going with oatmeal gruel and soup. “I never thought to make gruel over a campfire again,” he heard her say to one of her helpers. “How it takes one back! Is this Sharpsburg or San Juan? Was it ever as bad as this in the old days?”