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She recognized him the first person who had spoken to her of her husband on her arrival, the cheerful Corporal Shorter, who had told her of Wortmann's Drift and the saving of "Old Gunter." She touched his arm gently. "I am glad it is you," she said in a low tone. "Not so glad as I am," he answered.
"I came to see one of my troop who was wounded at Wortmann's Drift," he answered her. "Old Gunter," she said mechanically. "Old Gunter, if you like," he returned, surprised. "How did you know?" "The world gossips still," she rejoined bitterly. "Well, I came to see Gunter." "On the grey mare," she said again like one in a dream. "On the grey mare. I did not know that you were here, and "
But again, peradventure, I've seen a man that had lost ten thousand sheep tramp fifty miles in a blazing sun with a basket of lambs on his back, savin' them two switherin' little papillions worth nothin' at all, at the risk of his own life just as mates have done here on this salamanderin' veld; same as Colonel Byng did to-day along o' Wortmann's Drift."
He turned towards the door of the hospital again. "One of my men? What battery? Do you know?" "Not yours Schiller's." "Schiller's! A Boer?" She nodded. "A Boer spy, caught by Boer bullets as he was going back." "When was that?" "This morning early." "The little business at Wortmann's Drift?" She nodded. "Yes, there." "I don't quite understand. Was he in our lines a Boer spy?" "Yes.
The chance to do this thing was the reward he received for his gallant and very useful fight at Wortmann's Drift twenty-four hours before. It would not do to fail in justifying the choice of the Master Player, who had had enough bad luck in the campaign so far. The first of his force to salute him in the darkness was his next in command, Barry Whalen.
Not far off to the left of him and his mounted infantry there were coming on for this purpose two batteries of artillery and three thousand infantry Leary's brigade, which had not been in the action the day before at Wortmann's Drift. But all depended on what he was able to do, what he and his hard-bitten South Africans could accomplish. Well, he had no doubt.
These fighters under Byng had had their fill of tactics and strategy which led nowhere forward; and at Wortmann's Drift the day before they had done a big thing for the army with a handful of men.
Now, when she heard of Rudyard's bravery at Wortmann's Drift, a curious thrill of excitement ran through her veins, or it would be truer to say that a sensation new and strange vibrated in her blood.
She had noticed nothing as she mounted the cart neither the driver nor the horses; but, as they hurried on, she was roused by a familiar voice saying, "'E done it all right at Hetmeyer's Kopje done it brown. First Wortmann's Drift, and then Hetmeyer's Kopje, and he'll be over the hills and through the Boers and into Lordkop with the rest of the hold-me-backs."
She had heard many tales of valour in this war, and more than one hero of the Victoria Cross had been in her charge at Durban; but as a child's heart might beat faster at the first words of a wonderful story, so she felt a faint suffocation in the throat and her brooding eyes took on a brighter, a more objective look, as she heard the tale of Wortmann's Drift.
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