“A beauty, sir!” Harry called out.
“Longer than ours,” Fred agreed.
The Colonel waved his driver valiantly in the air. “The weapon of a gentleman,” he announced vaingloriously. “I retract my remarks of a moment ago. After Fraser recovers from that trap you boys may play the odd. Permit an old man to exult.”
They tramped together down to the bunker, on their way meeting and exchanging greetings with another foursome coming back on the fourteenth hole. It might have been thought a pity that their interest in the game kept them from appreciation of the lovely landscape that spread itself out in four directions: woods and a winding ribbon of road to the left, a bubbling merry brook in front, and on the other two sides the gently swelling green hills, smiling in the sunshine, with the smooth turf of the links dotted here and there with thick clumps of underbrush, a solitary tree or a miniature grove; and all made alive by a group of players at a tee here or scattered there along the fairway, the caddies with their bright yellow caps making little dots of color in the most unexpected places, as though a painter had carelessly thrown drops of ochre about from the point of his palette knife.
Fraser Mawson, standing in a sand pit, niblick in hand, was certainly not thinking of the landscape. He took three to get out, and his fifth was played before they came up to the other balls. The two young men took brassies to make the green, just over a deep ditch two hundred yards aways; one reached it nicely, the other hooked a little to the left into some deep grass. The Colonel, with twenty yards less to go, used a driving mashie; again his jaw was set firmly, down came the heavy iron head, and the ball sailed through the air, just clearing the top of the ditch and dropping dead on the sloping green. Again the Colonel grinned.
“Nice approach, sir,” came from Fred Adams; and he added to his younger brother in an undertone, “We’ll have to go some, Harry; the old boy’s back on his game.”
Then he turned quickly at a swift expression of alarm in Harry’s eyes, and the two young men stepped forward together, calling out:
“What’s the matter, sir?”
The cause of their alarm came from their uncle the Colonel. He had let his mashie fall to the ground, and he stood with white face and eves drawn close in pain, trembling visibly, while a half comical expression of surprised dismay parted his lips.
“What the deuce — what—” he stammered, moving his hands uncertainly upwards to his chest, while his two nephews ran forward, crying out, “What is it, sir?” and Fraser Mawson stood still, opened his mouth and let out in a high-pitched voice the one word:
“Indigestion!”
Suddenly the Colonel straightened himself up with an apparent effort, and made his voice steady:
“Most curious sensation in my chest — no, here, lower down — I don’t think — indigestion — quite acute and — and painful—.”
By that time the two young men had him by the arm, one on either side, and were trying to lead him toward the seats at the sixth tee, but he shook them off impatiently and stood still on the green turf, swaying a little from side to side with his hands pressed tightly on his breast. Harry turned to Fraser Mawson with a frightened look:
“Maybe it’s his heart — I’d better—.”
As he spoke there came a cry from his brother, and again they sprang forward as the Colonel suddenly thrust his hands straight in front of him and sank to the ground. They caught him and let him gently onto the turf, while Fred knelt to hold his uncle’s head in his arms, calling frantically to the others:
“Run — quick — a doctor! Wortley’s around somewhere — for God’s sake hurry!”
Harry was off like a shot in the direction of the clubhouse. Fraser Mawson stood as one helpless with astonishment, his eyes staring. The caddies, who had gone on toward the green, came running back at the sound of the young man’s shouts, and were speedily scattered over the links in every direction in search of Doctor Wortley, as were several other golfers who hastened over from nearby tees and greens. Their shouts for a doctor soon filled the air over all the June landscape; meanwhile Fred knelt with his arms around the shoulders of his uncle, whose eyes had assumed a glassy, fearful stare, while unintelligible sputterings came from his lips and his fingers tore nervously at the grass. Fraser Mawson had knelt down beside him and was saying over and over, “What is it, Carson, for God’s sake what is it?” finally causing the young man to exclaim half angrily, “Shut up, don’t you see he can’t answer you?”
All at once a great shudder ran through the Colonel’s form and his hands were clenched tightly against his sides; a line of white foam appeared between his lips as his voice became articulate, barely so, a mere series of gasps:
“Fred — here, so I can see you — that’s right, my boy — goodbye — tell Harry — and you, Fraser — I don’t know what this is, but it’s the end — all on fire inside — water — cool me off a little, you know—”
The words gave place to meaningless sounds, little noises that escaped the old warrior in his terrible agony despite the tremendous effort he was making to control himself. His eyes were the eyes of a tortured man, rolling from side to side, and froth covered his lips; he had seized Fred’s arm with his right hand, and the crazy force of the grip crunched the bones so that the young man had to set his teeth on his lip to keep from crying out. Fraser Mawson had disappeared and now came running back with a pail of water from a nearby drinking tank; they tried to get the Colonel to drink, but he was beyond sensible action and the water ran over his neck onto the grass with little splotches of white in it. Shouts were heard, “The doctor!” and men seemed suddenly to appear from all sides, while from the direction of the clubhouse an automobile was seen dashing over the smooth fairway and leaping across the rough. By the time it arrived a crowd of twenty or thirty golfers had gathered; three or four of them had knelt down to assist Fred in his efforts as the Colonel’s body writhed and twisted horribly about in his pain. As the automobile jerked up suddenly with a grinding of brakes they made room for Doctor Wortley and he leaped out toward the group. Just as he arrived a mighty convulsive shudder ran over the prostrate form from head to foot, and then it lay still.
The doctor leaned over with an ejaculation of amazement, and silence fell over the crowd as he knelt to unbutton the old faded army shirt that the Colonel had always worn on the links. Mutterings and whisperings from forty throats accompanied his quick, deft movements, lasting for the space of two long minutes; then absolute silence again as he slowly rose to his feet and turned about. A glance to one side, a clearing of the throat, and he spoke in an undertone:
“Gentlemen, Colonel Phillips is dead.”
There was a gasp from the crowd and two muttered words of dismayed unbelief from Fraser Mawson as he stood whitefaced beside the doctor: