His Big Opportunity
Copyright© 2024 by Amy Le Feuvre
Chapter 17: Roy’s Big Opportunity
“Roy, Mrs. Hawthorn wants you. She has got some letters for you.”
Dudley came up excitedly to Roy, directly after dinner was over one Saturday afternoon.
“And I say,” he continued; “bring them out and let us go down to the beach to read them together. The tide will be out till the evening.”
Roy hastened off, and wondered at Mrs. Hawthorn’s grave look.
“Your aunt has sent me some letters to give you, Roy. She has only just received them herself. They are about your friend in India.”
“From Rob?” said Roy, with sparkling eyes. “Oh, I thought he never would write. How jolly! And I see his writing, that’s my letter.”
He held out his hand eagerly but Mrs. Hawthorn laid her hand on his shoulder gently.
“Yes, that was a letter he wrote to you before the fighting. Your aunt has heard since—from a nurse who nursed him.”
Something in her tone frightened Roy.
“Has he been wounded? He is well again, isn’t he?”
“He is quite well now,” she said, in a hushed voice.
For a minute Roy gazed at her, with horror and doubt dawning in his dark eyes, then snatching the letters out of her hand he rushed out of the room; and seizing hold of Dudley in the hall he exclaimed almost frantically:
“Dudley, something awful has happened to Rob, let us get away from the house and read these letters.”
He held them tightly in his hand, and would not let Dudley take them from his grasp, till they reached the beach.
Then sitting down and leaning against an old weather-beaten rock, Roy, with trembling fingers, first unfolded Rob’s letter to himself.
“MY DEAR MASTER ROY:
“We are going up to the mountains to-morrow
to fight. The men say it will be stiff
work, driving an old chief from his stronghold.
Some of them don’t like it, but I am
ready. I am a better writer now, I hope, so
want to tell you what I never have yet. I do
thank you with all my heart for being so kind
to a homeless lad and taking him in and giving
him a happy home. And I thank you
much more for teaching him to read and write
and giving up your playtime to get him on.
But if I was to thank you for a hundred years,
I couldn’t thank you enough for telling me
about my Saviour and showing me the way to
heaven. Every word you ever said is sticking
to me. I mind all our talks, and if I may
have had some rough times in trying to serve
God first, I have been as happy as a king.
And I have found that the Lord has kept me
through the worst times, and I love Him with
all my heart. When I get to heaven I shall
be able to thank you proper. I do feel thankful
to you and Master Dudley. And now
good-bye and God bless you.
“Your faithful ROB forever.”
Roy read this through.
“He’s all right, Dudley. What did she mean? Why did she look so funny?”
Dudley shook his head.
“I don’t know, read what Aunt Judy says.”
Roy spread out his aunt’s letter, and read it in unfaltering tones to the end.
“MY POOR DEAR LITTLE JONATHAN:
“If granny were not really very unwell
I should have come straight off to soften the
blow to you, but I send the letters which I
have just received, and I have asked Mrs.
Hawthorn to explain them to you. You must
be comforted by knowing that our dear Rob
has proved himself a hero and died a hero’s
death. I know you would like to see the
nurse’s letter written from the hospital, and I
also send you one from the major of his regiment
who used to know me years ago. I know
you will be a brave boy and bear this trouble
like a man. Tell Dudley to write to me by
the first post to tell me you have got the letters
safely.
“Your loving aunt,
“JULIA BERTRAM.”
The letter dropped from Roy’s grasp, and he flung himself down on the beach face foremost.
Dudley sat staring out at the sea without speaking. The blow had fallen so heavily, and so unexpectedly, that speech was not forthcoming.
At last Roy looked up.
“You read the other letters to me, Dudley,” he said, in a choked voice.
And Dudley, with a good deal of hesitation and effort interrupted by tears, read out as follows:
“DEAR MADAM:
“I have been asked to write to you
about Robert White who I am sorry to say
was brought into the military hospital the
other day dangerously wounded. He lingered
three days and was perfectly conscious up to
the last. I never saw a braver or more patient
lad. He told me all about your goodness to
him, and his devotion to a little nephew of
yours was most touching. His name was always
on his lips. He asked me to tell you the
circumstances of his death, and added, ‘She
will tell Master Roy, I have tried to do my
duty. And I will be waiting now in heaven to
welcome him. I would have liked to be his servant,
but God wants me, and God comes first.’
I heard from his sergeant the details of the
engagement. A small party of them—White
among them—had been ordered to go and
take a certain mountain pass, and their officer
in command was shot just before they reached
it. I wish I could give you the account in the
sergeant’s own words as he told it me. I will
try. ‘We were marching up in single file, for
the pass was a very narrow one. Through
the clefts round it, we saw projecting the enemy’s
bayonets and spears, and we knew it
was certain death for the first one in our
ranks. I led the men, and I tell you, Mum, it
was a cold-blooded way of meeting one’s
death, worse than in the fiercest battle fighting
shoulder to shoulder! I pulled myself together,
tried to say a prayer and marched on,
wondering where I should be the next minute,
when suddenly before I knew where I was,
Corporal White had placed himself in front of
me. “You are not ready, sergeant,” he said;
“I am, let me take your place.” It wasn’t time
to stand arguing, but I tell you I felt queer
when I saw the lad stretched for dead under
my feet. We had a sharp skirmish, but we
drove the enemy back, and the first one I
went to look for was White.’
“The sergeant told me this with a sob in
his voice; he added that for months he had
ridiculed White for his religion and tried to
drive it out of him. But he came every morning
to the hospital, and I saw him on his knees
by White’s bedside, offering up a prayer that
he might be made a different man.
“And now I must try to give you more details
about White himself. I asked him if I
could do anything for him the last day he was
alive and then he asked me to write to you.
He kept the photo of your little nephew under