Part 15 (1/2)

”You are taking life easily this morning.”

”I have not eight weeks' arrears of letters to clear off, as you have, Colonel,” Calder returned with a laugh; and he saw Durrance's face cloud and his forehead contract.

”True,” he said, after a pause. ”I had forgotten my letters.” And he rose from his seat at the table, mounted the steps, and pa.s.sed into the mess-room.

Calder immediately sprang up, and with his eyes followed Durrance's movements. Durrance went to a nail which was fixed in the wall close to the gla.s.s doors and on a level with his head. From that nail he took down the key of his office, crossed the room, and went out through the farther door. That door he left open, and Calder could see him walk down the path between the bushes through the tiny garden in front of the mess, unlatch the gate, and cross the open s.p.a.ce of sand towards his office. As soon as Durrance had disappeared Calder sat down again, and, resting his elbows on the table, propped his face between his hands.

Calder was troubled. He was a friend of Durrance; he was the one man in Wadi Halfa who possessed something of Durrance's confidence; he knew that there were certain letters in a woman's handwriting waiting for him in his office. He was very deeply troubled. Durrance had aged during these eight weeks. There were furrows about his mouth where only faint lines had been visible when he had started out from Halfa; and it was not merely desert dust which had discoloured his hair. His hilarity, too, had an artificial air. He had sat at the table constraining himself to the semblance of high spirits. Calder lit his pipe, and sat for a long while by the empty table.

Then he took his helmet and crossed the sand to Durrance's office. He lifted the latch noiselessly; as noiselessly he opened the door, and he looked in. Durrance was sitting at his desk with his head bowed upon his arms and all his letters unopened at his side. Calder stepped into the room and closed the door loudly behind him. At once Durrance turned his face to the door.

”Well?” said he.

”I have a paper, Colonel, which requires your signature,” said Calder.

”It's the authority for the alterations in C barracks. You remember?”

”Very well. I will look through it and return it to you, signed, at lunch-time. Will you give it to me, please?”

He held out his hand towards Calder. Calder took his pipe from his mouth, and, standing thus in full view of Durrance, slowly and deliberately placed it into Durrance's outstretched palm. It was not until the hot bowl burnt his hand that Durrance s.n.a.t.c.hed his arm away.

The pipe fell and broke upon the floor. Neither of the two men spoke for a few moments, and then Calder put his arm round Durrance's shoulder, and asked in a voice gentle as a woman's:--

”How did it happen?”

Durrance buried his face in his hands. The great control which he had exercised till now he was no longer able to sustain. He did not answer, nor did he utter any sound, but he sat s.h.i.+vering from head to foot.

”How did it happen?” Calder asked again, and in a whisper.

Durrance put another question:--

”How did you find out?”

”You stood in the mess-room doorway listening to discover whose voice spoke from where. When I raised my head and saw you, though your eyes rested on my face there was no recognition in them. I suspected then.

When you came down the steps into the verandah I became almost certain.

When you would not help yourself to food, when you reached out your arm over your shoulder so that Moussa had to put the brandy-and-soda safely into your palm, I was sure.”

”I was a fool to try and hide it,” said Durrance. ”Of course I knew all the time that I couldn't for more than a few hours. But even those few hours somehow seemed a gain.”

”How did it happen?”

”There was a high wind,” Durrance explained. ”It took my helmet off. It was eight o'clock in the morning. I did not mean to move my camp that day, and I was standing outside my tent in my s.h.i.+rt-sleeves. So you see that I had not even the collar of a coat to protect the nape of my neck.

I was fool enough to run after my helmet; and--you must have seen the same thing happen a hundred times--each time that I stooped to pick it up it skipped away; each time that I ran after it, it stopped and waited for me to catch it up. And before one was aware what one was doing, one had run a quarter of a mile. I went down, I was told, like a log just when I had the helmet in my hand. How long ago it happened I don't quite know, for I was ill for a time, and afterwards it was difficult to keep count, since one couldn't tell the difference between day and night.”

Durrance, in a word, had gone blind. He told the rest of his story. He had bidden his followers carry him back to Berber, and then, influenced by the natural wish to hide his calamity as long as he could, he had enjoined upon them silence. Calder heard the story through to the end, and then rose at once to his feet.

”There's a doctor. He is clever, and, for a Syrian, knows a good deal. I will fetch him here privately, and we will hear what he says. Your blindness may be merely temporary.”

The Syrian doctor, however, pursed up his lips and shook his head. He advised an immediate departure to Cairo. It was a case for a specialist.

He himself would hesitate to p.r.o.nounce an opinion; though, to be sure, there was always hope of a cure.