GOING BACK
A largecrowd packed the wide platform, hemmed in on one side by a barrier, on the other by a line of soldiers two paces apart. The boat-train was leaving in five minutes. That a feeling of tension permeated the crowd was evident, from the forced smiles and laughter, and the painful endeavours of the departing ones to look preternaturally cheerful. In each little group there were sudden silences.
Almost at the last moment a tall, lean officer pressed through the crowd, made for a smoking-carriage, and got in. He surveyed the scene with a rather compassionate interest, while occasionally a wistful look passed over his face as he watched for a moment an officer talking with a very pretty girl, almost a child, who now and then mopped her eyes defiantly with a diminutive handkerchief.
“All aboard.”
The pretty girl lifted up her face, and the lonely one averted his eyes, pulled a newspaperhastily from his overcoat pocket, and proceeded to read it upside down!
As the train pulled out of the station a cheer went up and handkerchiefs fluttered. The sole other occupant of the carriage, a young—very young—subaltern who had just said good-bye to his mother, muttered to himself and blinked hard out of the window. The Lonely One shrugged himself more deeply into his seat, and abstractedly reversed the newspaper. A paragraph caught his eye: “Artillery activity developed yesterday in the sector south of Leuville St. Vaast. An enemy attempt to raid our trenches at this point was foiled.” He smiled a trifle, and putting down the paper fell to thinking. Unable to contain himself any longer, the boy in the corner spoke.
“Rotten job, this going back show,” he said. The other assented gravely, and they fell to talking, spasmodically, of the Front. Pure, undiluted shop, but very comforting.
Finally the train arrived at the port of embarkation. A crowd of officers of all ranks surged along the platform, glanced at the telegram board, and passed on towards theboat. The Lonely One stopped, however, for his name in white chalk stared at him. He got the telegram eventually and opened it. It contained only two words and no signature: “Good luck.” Flushing a trifle he walked down to the waiting mail-boat, and getting his disembarkation card passed up the gangway.
An air of impenetrable gloom hung over the dirty decks. Here and there a few men chatted together, but for the most part the passengers kept to themselves. The lonely man found the young lieutenant waiting for him, and together they mounted to the upper deck, and secured two chairs aft, hanging their life-belts on to them.
A little later the boat cast off, and they watched the land fade from sight as many others were watching with them. “Ave atque Vale.”
“I wonder ...” said the youngster, and then bit his lips.
“Come below and have some grub,” the other said cheerily. They ate, paid for it through the nose, and felt better. Half an hour later they were in Boulogne.
As they waited outside the M.L.O.’s office for their turn, the younger asked:
“I say, what Army are you?”
“First.”
“So’m I,” joyfully, “p’raps we’ll go up together.”
“I hope so, but we shall have to stop here the night, I expect.”
Even as he said so a notice was hung outside the little wooden office: “Officers of the First Army returning from leave will report to the R.T.O., Gare Centrale, at 10.00A.M.to-morrow, Saturday, 17th instant.”
“That settles it,” said the elder man, “come along, and we’ll go to the Officers’ Club and bag a couple of beds.”
“Nineteen hours,” wailed the other, “in this beastly place! What on earth shall we find to do?”
“Don’t worry about that—there is usually some one to whom one can write.” It was both a hint and a question.
“Yes—ra—ther!”
They had tea, and afterwards the boy wrote a long letter, in which he said a great deal more to the mother who received it thanwas actually written on the paper. The Lonely One sat for some time in front of the fire, and finally scribbled a card. It was addressed to some place in the wilds of Scotland, and it bore the one word “Thanks.”
After dinner they sat and smoked awhile. The Lonely One knew much of the life-history of the other by now. It had burst from the boy, and the Lonely One had listened sympathetically and with little comment, and had liked to hear it. It is good to hear a boy talk about his mother.
“What shall we do now?”
“We might go to the cinema show; it used to be fairly good.”
“Right-oh! I say”—a little diffidently—“last time I was on leave, the first time too, I came back with some fellows who were pretty—well—pretty hot stuff. They wanted me to go to a—to a place up in the town, and I didn’t go. I think they thought I was an awful blighter, don’t-you-know, but——”
“What that kind of chap thinks doesn’t matter in the least, old man,” interposed the other. “You were at Cambridge, weren’t you?”
“Yes.”
“Well, you may have heard the old tag? Besides, I don’t think—some one—somebody ...” he hesitated and stopped. The youngster flushed.
“Yes, I know,” he said softly.
They boarded the train together, and shared the discomforts of the long tedious journey. Every hour, or less, the train stopped, for many minutes, and then with a creak and a groan wandered on again like an ancient snail. Rain beat on the window-panes, and the compartment was as drafty as a sieve.
It was not until the small hours that they reached their destination, a cold, bleak, storm-swept platform.
“This is where we say good-bye,” the youngster began regretfully, “thanks awf’ly for——”
“Rot,” broke in the other brusquely, taking the proffered hand in his big brown one. “Best of luck, old man, and don’t forget to drop me a card.”
“A nice boy, averynice boy,” he mused, as he climbed into the military bus, and wasrattled off, back to the mud and slush and dreariness of it all.
“Have a good time?” asked the Transport Officer the next morning, as the Lonely One struggled into his fighting kit, preparatory to rejoining the battalion in the trenches.
“Yes, thanks. By the way, any mail for me?”
“One letter. Here you are.”
He took it, looked an instant at the handwriting, and thrust it inside his tunic. The postmark was the same as that of the wire he had received at the port of embarkation.