A. Mason - The Four Feathers

"From him?" asked Sutch.

"No; from her."

"Ah!"

General Feversham read the letter through slowly, while Lieutenant Sutch tried not to peep at it across the table. When the general had finished he turned back to the first page, and began it again.

"Any news?" said Sutch, with a casual air.

"They are very pleased with the house now that it's rebuilt."

"Anything more?"

"Yes. Harry's finished the sixth chapter of his history of the war."

"Good!" said Sutch. "You'll see, he'll do that well. He has imagination, he knows the ground, he was present while the war went on. Moreover, he was in the bazaars, he saw the under side of it."

"Yes. But you and I won't read it, Sutch," said Feversham. "No; I am wrong. You may, for you can give me a good many years."

He turned back to his letter and again Sutch asked: "Anything more?"

"Yes. They are coming here in a fortnight."

"Good," said Sutch. "I shall stay."

He took a turn along the terrace and came back. He saw Feversham sitting with the letter upon his knees and a frown of great perplexity upon his face.

"You know, Sutch, I never understood," he said. "Did you?"

"Yes, I think I did."

Sutch did not try to explain. It was as well, he thought, that Feversham never would understand. For he could not understand without much self-reproach.

"Do you ever see Durrance?" asked the general, suddenly.

"Yes, I see a good deal of Durrance. He is abroad just now."

Feversham turned towards his friend.

"He came to Broad Place when you went to Suakin, and talked to me for half an hour. He was Harry's best man. Well, that too I never understood. Did you?"

"Yes, I understood that as well."

"Oh!" said General Feversham. He asked for no explanations, but, as he had always done, he took the questions which he did not understand and put them aside out of his thoughts. But he did not turn to his other letters. He sat smoking his cigar, and looked out across the summer country and listened to the sounds rising distinctly from the fields. Sutch had read through all of his correspondence before Feversham spoke again.

"I have been thinking," he said. "Have you noticed the date of the month, Sutch?" and Sutch looked up quickly.

"Yes," said he, "this day next week will be the anniversary of our attack upon the Redan, and Harry's birthday."

"Exactly," replied Feversham. "Why shouldn't we start the Crimean nights again?"

Sutch jumped up from his chair.

"Splendid!" he cried. "Can we muster a tableful, do you think?"

"Let's see," said Feversham, and ringing a handbell upon the table, sent the servant for the Army List. Bending over that Army List the two veterans may be left.

But of one other figure in this story a final word must be said. That night, when the invitations had been sent out from Broad Place, and no longer a light gleamed from any window of the house, a man leaned over the rail of a steamer anchored at Port Said and listened to the song of the Arab coolies as they tramped up and down the planks with their coal baskets between the barges and the ship's side. The clamour of the streets of the town came across the water to his ears. He pictured to himself the flare of braziers upon the quays, the lighted port-holes, and dark funnels ahead and behind in the procession of the anchored ships. Attended by a servant, he had come back to the East again. Early the next morning the steamer moved through the canal, and towards the time of sunset passed out into the chills of the Gulf of Suez. Kassassin, Tel-el-Kebir, Tamai, Tamanieb, the attack upon McNeil's zareeba-Durrance lived again through the good years of his activity, the years of plenty. Within that country on the west the long preparations were going steadily forward which would one day roll up the Dervish Empire and crush it into dust. Upon the glacis of the ruined fort of Sinkat, Durrance had promised himself to take a hand in that great work, but the desert which he loved had smitten and cast him out. But at all events the boat steamed southwards into the Red Sea. Three nights more, and though he would not see it, the Southern Cross would lift slantwise into the sky.