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We're just off to smoke the old Khan out, and something has gone wrong with Graham. For God's sake, man, hurry up! It will be a pretty fight, and I would not miss it for worlds." I looked at Le Mesurier-Groselin as I hauled on my clothes.
He had eight thousand a year, an Elizabethan manor in England, and the certainty of a baronetcy; but the thought of these things never brought to his eyes the light that was there now. "What is wrong with Graham?" "I don't know wish I did. Can't move him. Seems quite stupid or dead drunk," answered Le Mesurier-Groselin, handing me my belt.
Le Mesurier-Groselin dropped his eye-glass for the first and last time on record, and looked at me with a surprised eye and a solemn one. "I'll obey orders," he said. "But I take it that you are very drunk or else mad." We carried him downstairs and I climbed into Graham's saddle.
I was examining Austin Graham with a thumping heart, for a queer suspicion was in my mind. Presently I ran downstairs and uncorked the bottle which I now label "Bertha." The smell was identical, and I went upstairs again. "Help me to get him into his boots and tunic," I said. And Le Mesurier-Groselin and I huddled the man's fighting clothes on to him by the light of a flickering candle.
Le Mesurier-Groselin called me to him, and only we three know of it. I am the only medical man connected with the affair, and I can certify that it was a native drug that was used, and that therefore a native must have done this thing. Probably a native spy, Miss Watson, who, finding out the proposed surprise too late to warn the rebels, attempted to disorganize the force by this means.
One night, about midnight, I was aroused by Le Mesurier-Groselin, who was in full fighting kit and had a queer light in his eyes which was new to me, though heaven and the Horse Guards know that I have seen it often enough since. "Get up Sawbones!" said Le Mesurier-Groselin. "You'll be wanted at any rate, but now I want you badly.
I had never dreamt of cutting out the other men: Major Le Mesurier-Groselin, who had money, for instance, or Austin Graham especially Austin Graham. There had been a rumour in the air planted there, no doubt, by some of the women who have a marvellous scent for a light trail that there was an understanding between Graham and Bertha.
Le Mesurier-Groselin was a big man, and my trade had taught me a certain skill in the handling of the dead. We soon had Austin Graham in full uniform sitting up in my arms, with the helmet crammed on his head at an unseemly angle. He was perfectly insensible, but his heart went well. "Now help me to get him on to his horse," I said.
Le Mesurier-Groselin lifted Graham, who must have weighed fourteen stone, into the saddle in front of me, and I rode twenty miles that night with him there. He recovered consciousness an hour before we reached the Khan's stronghold, and, as I expected, awoke, as if from sleep, refreshed and ready for any exertion. We had no time for explanations.
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