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Updated: May 9, 2025
I was turning away when Noon suddenly cried out in his natural voice, "There IS Berlyng." I turned and saw one of my men, Swearney, carrying in a gunner. It might be Berlyng, for the uniform was that of a captain, but I could not see his face. Noon, however, seemed to recognize him.
His face was livid under the sunburn, and as I wiped the perspiration from his forehead he closed his eyes with the abandon of a child. Some men, I have found, die like children going to sleep. He slowly recovered, and I gave him a few drops of brandy. I thought he was dying, and decided to let Berlyng wait.
She glanced at him with that waiting look which he knows to be there, but never meets. For he is a hard man hard to her, harder to himself. "I," she said, in a low voice, "I sit beside him." And who shall gauge a woman's dream? "Want Berlyng," he seemed to be saying, though it was difficult to catch the words, for we were almost within range, and the fight was a sharp one.
I bent my ear to his lips, and heard the words which sounded like "Want Berlyng." We had a man called Berlyng in the force a gunner who was round at the other side of the fort that was to be taken before night, two miles away at least. "Do you want Berlyng?" I asked slowly and distinctly. Noon nodded, and his lips moved. I bent my head again till my ear almost touched his lips.
Now I had not sent for Berlyng, and it requires more nerve than I possess to tell unnecessary lies to a dying man. The necessary ones are quite different, and I shall not think of them when I go to my account. "Berlyng could not come if I sent for him," I replied soothingly. "He is two miles away from here trenching the North Wall, and I have nobody to send.
"Is that Berlyng?" he asked excitedly. "Yes." He dragged himself up and tried to get nearer to Berlyng. And I helped him. They were close alongside each other. Berlyng was lying on his back, staring up at the blue patches between the pine trees. Noon turned on his left elbow and began whispering into the smoke- grimed ear. "Berlyng," I heard him say, "I was a blackguard. I am sorry, old man.
"Yes," I replied, with my hand inside his soaked tunic. I found a wounded water-carrier a fellow with a stray bullet in his hand who volunteered to find Berlyng, and then I returned to Noon and told him what I had done. I knew that Berlyng could not come. He nodded, and I think he said, "God bless you." "I want to put something right," he said, after an effort; "I've been a blackguard."
The messenger would have to run the gauntlet of the enemy's earthworks." "I'll give the man a hundred pounds who does it," replied Noon, in his breathless whisper. "Berlyng will come sharp enough if you say it's from me. He hates me too much." He broke off with a laugh which made me feel sick. "Could he get here in time," he asked after a pause, "if you sent for him?"
I waited a little in case Noon wished to repose some confidence in me. Things are so seldom put right that it is wise to facilitate such intentions. But it appeared obvious that what Noon had to say could only be said to Berlyng. They had, it subsequently transpired, not been on speaking terms for some months.
He was, I know, thought badly of by some, especially by the elders, who had found out the value of money as regards happiness, or rather the complete absence of its value. However, the end of it all lay on the sheet beneath the pines, and watched me with such persistence that I was at last forced to go to him. "Have you sent for Berlyng?" he asked, with a breathlessness which I know too well.
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