The Gentleman A Romance of the Sea by Ollivant, Alfred, 1874-1927

"That you, Mr. Joy?" came the ghostly voice, terrible in its remoteness.

The Parson dropped his point.

"Knapp?"

The little bandaged figure, in grey shirt and bloody drawers, wrapped about with an old horse-blanket, looked at him with stagnant eyes.

"What's left o me."

There was no gladness in his voice, no light of welcome in his eyes.

The merry little fighter of the morning, then cockiest of men, was now no more than a yellow shadow; dead, you would have said, but for that ghost of a voice, dribbling dreadfully out of his corpse.

The Parson went towards him.

"I never thought to see you alive again, Knapp."

"I'm a little alive," said the man wearily. "They done me--all but."

The Cockney snap was out of his voice. His words came like a drunkard's: he was slurring them, running them together, skipping hard consonants.

"I'll never be a man no more, I won't," he added with a dry sob.

The Parson gripped his hand.

A look of beastly rage darted into the other's eyes.

"Blast ye!" he screamed, and struck at the Parson's face with his elbow. "I'm one--great wownd, you--." He spewed out a torrent of hideous names. "And yet you must go for to wring my and!"

He lifted his foot to stamp it. His wounds twitched at him. He lowered it gingerly and with a groan.

"I ain't a man," he sobbed. "I'm one--great wownd."

"My poor chap," choked the Parson.

The other turned, body, legs, neck, and head moving all of a piece, and shuffled into the cottage on his heels.

The Parson followed.

"Don't touch me!" screamed the other, striking back with his elbows. "Don't come anigh me, my God! or I'll--"

He hobbled in, muffled to the feet in bandages.

II

He led into the parlour.

It was much the same, save that now a great clothes-horse, hung with soldiers' cloaks, made as it were a Sanctuary at one end of the room.

Piper's wheel-chair stood empty in the twilight Knapp let himself down in it with screwed face.

For a time he whimpered tearlessly. He was too weak to weep, and not strong enough to contain himself.

The Parson bent over him.

"Your heroism has not been in vain, my brave fellow," he said. "But for you Lord Nelson would be now in the hands of the French."

"Blast Nelson!" snarled the little rifleman. "What's Nelson to me? Blame fool that I were."

The heroic soul was quenched for the moment. He was flesh distraught--no more.

A flask of brandy was on the window-sill. The Parson poured from it into a glass and gave it him.

Knapp revived.

The Parson took down the shutters, and the evening light streamed in, calm and healing.

"Take your time," said the Parson gently. "Tell us what you can when you can."

Knapp sipped his brandy.

"It was the knives--when they closed. That done me up. Ow, my God!" He shuddered. "If it hadn't been for the Genelman."

"Yes?" said Kit eagerly.

A glow lit the man's eye. The yellow of his cheek flushed ever so faintly.

"I'd die for im," he said, "only he's died for me--what pull his nose and all."

"Is he dead then?" asked Kit.

"Who's tellin this tale?--you or me?"

He put down his glass.

"That there's a genelman."