



Produced by Les Bowler






TOMASO'S FORTUNE AND OTHER STORIES

By Henry Seton Merriman.


     "The common problem, yours, mine, every one's,
      Is--not to fancy what were fair in life
      Provided it could be,--but, finding first
      What may be, then find how to make it fair...."




LIST OF CONTENTS.

     SISTER.
     A SMALL WORLD.
     IN A CROOKED WAY.
     THE TALE OF A SCORPION.
     ON THE ROCKS.
     "GOLOSSA-A-L".
     THE MULE.
     IN LOVE AND WAR.
     TOMASO'S FORTUNE.
     STRANDED.
     PUTTING THINGS RIGHT.
     FOR JUANITA'S SAKE.
     AT THE FRONT.
     THE END OF THE "MOOROO".
     IN A CARAVAN.
     IN THE TRACK OF THE WANDERING JEW.
     THROUGH THE GATE OF TEARS.
     A PARIAH.
     THE PRODIGAL'S RETURN.




SISTER


It does not matter where it was. I do not want other people--that is to
say, those who were around us--to recognize Sister or myself. It is not
likely that she will see this, and I am not sure that she knows my name.
Of course, some one may draw her attention to this paper, and she may
remember that the name affixed to it is that which I signed at the foot
of a document we made out together--namely, a return of deaths. At the
foot of this paper our names stood one beneath the other--stand there
still, perhaps, in some forgotten bundle of papers at the War Office.

I only hope that she will not see this, for she might consider it a
breach of professional etiquette; and I attach great importance to the
opinion of this woman, whom I have only seen once in my whole life.
Moreover, on that occasion she was subordinate to me--more or less in
the position of a servant.

Suffice it to say, therefore, that it was war-time, and our trade was
what the commercial papers call brisk. A war better remembered of the
young than of the old, because it was, comparatively speaking, recent.
The old fellows seem to remember the old fights better--those fights
that were fought when their blood was still young and the vessels
thereof unclogged.

It was, by the way, my first campaign, but I was not new to the business
of blood; for I am no soldier--only a doctor. My only uniform--my
full-parade dress--is a red cross on the arm of an old blue serge
jacket--such jacket being much stained with certain dull patches which
are better not investigated.

All who have taken part in war--doing the damage or repairing it--know
that things are not done in quite the same way when ball-cartridge
is served out instead of blank. The correspondents are very fond of
reporting that the behaviour of the men suggested a parade--which
simile, it is to be presumed, was borne in upon their fantastic brains
by its utter inapplicability. The parade may be suggested before the
real work begins--when it is a question of marching away from the
landing-stage; but after the work--our work--has begun, there is
remarkably little resemblance to a review.

We are served with many official papers which we never fill in, because,
on the spur of the moment, it is apt to suggest itself that men's
lives are more important. We misapply a vast majority of our surgical
supplies, because the most important item is usually left behind at
headquarters or at the seaport depot. In fact, we do many things that
we should leave undone, and omit to do more which we are expected
(officially) to do.

For some reason--presumably the absence of better men--I was sent up
to the front before we had been three days at work. Our hospital by the
river was not full when I received orders to follow the flying column
with two assistants and the appliances of a field-hospital.

Out of this little nucleus sprang the largest depot for sick and wounded
that was formed during the campaign. We were within easy reach of
headquarters, and I was fortunately allowed a free hand. Thus our
establishment in the desert grew daily more important, and finally
superseded the hospital at headquarters.

We had a busy time, for the main column had now closed up with the first
expeditionary force, and our troops were in touch with the enemy not
forty miles away from me.

In the course of time--when the authorities learnt to cease despising
the foe, which is a little failing in British military high places--it
was deemed expedient to fortify us, and then, in addition to two medical
assistants, I was allowed three Government nurses. This last piece of
news was not hailed with so much enthusiasm as might have been expected.
I am not in favour of bringing women anywhere near the front. They are,
for their own sakes and for the peace of mind of others, much better
left behind. If they are beyond a certain age they break down and have
to be sent back at considerable trouble--that is to say, an escort and
an ambulance cart, of which latter there are never enough. If they are
below the climacteric--ever so little below it--they cause mischief
of another description, and the wounded are neglected; for there is no
passion of the human heart so cruel and selfish as love.

"I am sorry to hear it," I said to light-hearted little Sammy
Fitz-Warrener of the Naval Brigade, who brought me the news.

"Sorry to hear it? Gad! I shouldn't be. The place has got a different
look about it when there are women-folk around. They are so jolly clever
in their ways--worth ten of your red-cross ruffians."

"That is as may be," I answered, breaking open the case of whisky which
Sammy had brought up on the carriage of his machine-gun for my private
consumption.

He was taking this machine-gun up to the front, and mighty proud he was
of it.

"A clever gun," he called it; "an almighty clever gun."

He had ridden alongside of it--sitting on the top of his horse as
sailors do--through seventy miles of desert without a halt; watching
over it and tending it as he might have watched and tended his mother,
or perhaps some other woman.

"Gad! doctor," he exclaimed, kicking out his sturdy legs, and
contemplating with some satisfaction the yellow hide top-boots which
he had bought at the Army and Navy Stores. (I know the boots well,
and--avoid them.) "Gad! doctor, you should see that gun on the war-path.
Travels as light as a tricycle. And when she begins to talk--my stars!
Click-click-click-click! For all the world like a steam-launch's
engine--mowing 'em down all the time. No work for you there. It will
be no use you and your satellites progging about with skewers for the
bullet. Look at the other side, my boy, and you'll find the beauty has
just walked through them."

"Soda or plain?" I asked, in parenthesis.

"Soda. I don't like the flavour of dead camel. A big drink, please. I
feel as if I were lined with sand-paper."

He slept that night in the little shanty built of mud and roofed chiefly
with old palm-mats, which was gracefully called the head surgeon's
quarters. That is to say, he partook of such hospitality as I had to
offer him.

Sammy and I had met before he had touched a rope or I a scalpel. We
hailed from the same part of the country--down Devonshire way; and, to
a limited extent, we knew each other's people--which little phrase has a
vast meaning in places where men do congregate.

We turned in pretty early--I on a hospital mattress, he in my bed; but
Sam would not go to sleep. He would lie with his arms above his head
(which is not an attitude of sleep) and talk about that everlasting gun.

I dozed off to the murmur of his voice expatiating on the extreme
cunning of the ejector, and awoke to hear details of the rifling.

We did not talk of home, as do men in books when lying by a camp-fire.
Perhaps it was owing to the absence of that picturesque adjunct to a
soldier's life. We talked chiefly of the clever gun; and once, just
before he fell asleep, Sammy returned to the question of the nurses.

"Yes," he said, "the head saw-bones down there told me to tell you that
he had got permission to send you three nurses. Treat 'em kindly, Jack,
for my sake. Bless their hearts! They mean well."

Then he fell asleep, and left me thinking of his words, and of the
spirit which had prompted them.

I knew really nothing of this man's life, but he seemed singularly
happy, with that happiness which only comes when daily existence has a
background to it. He spoke habitually of women, as if he loved them all
for the sake of one; and this not being precisely my own position, I was
glad when he fell asleep.

The fort was astir next morning at four. The bugler kindly blew a blast
into our glassless window which left no doubt about it.

"That means all hands on deck, I take it," said Sam, who was one of the
few men capable of good humour before tiffin time.

By six o'clock he was ready to go. It was easy to see what sort of
officer this cheery sailor was by the way his men worked.

While they were getting the machine-gun limbered up, Sam came back to my
quarters, and took a hasty breakfast.

"Feel a bit down this morning," he said, with a gay smile. "Cheap--very
cheap. I hope I am not going to funk it. It is all very well for some
of you long-faced fellows, who don't seem to have much to live for, to
fight for the love of fighting. I don't want to fight any man; I am too
fond of 'em all for that."

I went out after breakfast, and I gave him a leg up on to his very sorry
horse, which he sat like a tailor or a sailor. He held the reins like
tiller-lines, and indulged in a pleased smile at the effect of the
yellow boots.

"No great hand at this sort of thing," he said, with a nod of farewell.
"When the beast does anything out of the common, or begins to make heavy
weather of it, I AM NOT."

He ranged up alongside his beloved gun, and gave the word of command
with more dignity than he knew what to do with.

All that day