The Red Planet | Page 4

and will you be so kind as to step
round to Sir Anthony at once?"
Heaven knows that never another step shall I take in this world again;
but Sergeant Marigold has always ignored the fact. That is one of the
many things I admire about Marigold. He does not throw my poor
paralysed legs, so to speak, in my face. He accepts them as the normal
equipment of an employer. I don't know what I should do without
Marigold. ... You see we were old comrades in the South African War,
where we both got badly knocked to pieces. He was Sergeant in my
battery, and the same Boer shell did for both of us. At times we join in
cursing that shell heartily, but I am not sure that we do not hold it in
sneaking affection. It initiated us into the brotherhood of death. Shortly
afterwards when we had crossed the border-line back into life, we
exchanged, as tokens, bits of the shrapnel which they had extracted
from our respective carcases. I have not enquired what he did with his
bit; but I keep mine in a certain locked drawer. ... There were only the
two of us left on the gun when we were knocked out. ... I should like to

tell you the whole story, but you wouldn't listen to me. And no wonder.
In comparison with the present world convulsion in which the
slaughtered are reckoned by millions, the Boer War seems a trumpery
affair of bows and arrows. I am a back-number. Still, back-numbers
have their feelings--and their memories.
I sometimes wonder, as I sit in this wheel-chair, with my abominable
legs dangling down helplessly, what Sergeant Marigold thinks of me. I
know what I think of Marigold. I think him the ugliest devil that God
ever created and further marred after creating him. He is a long, bony
creature like a knobbly ram-rod, and his face is about the colour and
shape of a damp, mildewed walnut. To hide a bald head into which a
silver plate has been fixed, he wears a luxuriant curly brown wig, like
those that used to adorn waxen gentlemen in hair-dressing windows.
His is one of those unhappy moustaches that stick out straight and
scanty like a cat's. He has the slit of a letter-box mouth of the Irishman
in caricature, and only half a dozen teeth spaced like a skeleton
company. Nothing will induce him to procure false ones. It is a matter
of principle. Between the wearing of false hair and the wearing of false
teeth he makes a distinction of unfathomable subtlety. He is an
obstinate beast. If he wasn't he would not, with four fingers of his right
hand shot away, have remained with me on that gun. In the same way,
neither tears nor entreaties nor abuse have induced him to wear a glass
eye. On high days and holidays, whenever he desires to look smart and
dashing, he covers the unpleasing orifice with a black shade. In
ordinary workaday life he cares not how much he offends the aesthetic
sense. But the other eye, the sound left eye, is a wonder--the precious
jewel set in the head of the ugly toad. It is large, of ultra-marine blue,
steady, fearless, humorous, tender--everything heroic and beautiful and
romantic you can imagine about eyes. Let him clap a hand over that eye
and you will hold him the most dreadful ogre that ever escaped out of a
fairy tale. Let him clap a hand over the other eye and look full at you
out of the good one and you will think him the Knightliest man that
ever was--and in my poor opinion, you would not be far wrong.
So, out of this nightmare of a face, the one beautiful eye of Sergeant
Marigold was bent on me, as he delivered his message.

I thrust back my chair from the writing-table.
"Is Sir Anthony ill?"
"He rode by the gate an hour ago looking as well as either you or me,
sir."
"That's not very reassuring," said I.
Marigold did not take up the argument. "They've sent the car for you,
sir."
"In that case," said I, "I'll start immediately."
Marigold wheeled my chair out of the room and down the passage to
the hall, where he fitted me with greatcoat and hat. Then, having
trundled me to the front gate, he picked me up--luckily I have always
been a small spare man--and deposited me in the car. I am always
nervous of anyone but Marigold trying to carry me. They seem to
stagger and fumble and bungle. Marigold's arms close round me like an
iron clamp and they lift me with the mechanical certainty of a crane.
He jumped up beside the chauffeur and