"She's not sure, James, my son—she's not sure." The man pulled out his cigarette case and contemplated him thoughtfully. "And how the deuce arewe to make her sure? I want it, and her father wants it, and so does she if she only knew it. They're the devil, James Henry—they're the devil."
But his hearer did not want philosophy; he wanted his tummy rubbed. He lay with one eye closed, his four paws turned up limply towards the sky, and sighed gently. Never before had the suggestion failed; enthusiastic admirers had always taken the hint gladly, and he had graciously allowed them the pleasure. But this time—horror upon horror—not only was there no result, but in a dreamy, contemplative manner the soldier actually deposited his used and still warm match carefully on the spot where James Henry's wind had been. Naturally there was only one possible course open to him. He rose quietly, and left. It was only when he was thinking the matter over later that it struck him that his exit would have been more dignified if he hadn't sat down halfway across the lawn to scratch his right ear. It was more than likely that a completely false construction would be put on that simple action by anyone who didn't know he'd had words with Harriet Emily.
Thus James Henry—gentleman, at his country seat in England. I have gone out of my way to describe what may be taken as an average day in his life, in order to show him as he was before he went to Franceto be banished from the country—cashiered in disgrace a few weeks after his arrival. Which only goes to prove the change that war causes in even the most polished and courtly.
I am told that the alteration for the worse started shortly after his arrival at the front. What did it I don't know—but he lost one whisker and a portion of an ear, thus giving him a somewhat lopsided appearance; though rakish withal. It may have been a detonator which went off as he ate it—it may have been foolish curiosity over a maxim—it may even have been due to the fact that he found a motor-bicycle standing still, what time it made strange provocative noises, and failed to notice that the back wheel was off the ground and rotating at a great pace.
Whatever it was it altered James Henry. Not that it soured his temper—not at all; but it made him more reckless, less careful of appearances. He forgot the repose that stamps the caste of Vere de Vere, and a series of incidents occurred which tended to strain relations all round.
There was the question of the three dead chickens, for instance. Had they disappeared decently and in order much might have been thought but nothing would have been known. But when they were deposited on their owner's doorstep, with James Henry mounting guard over the corpses himself, it was alittle difficult to explain the matter away. That was the trouble—his sense of humour seemed to have become distorted.
The pastime of hunting for rats in the sewers of Ypres cannot be too highly commended; but having got thoroughly wet in the process, James Henry's practice of depositing the rat and himself on the Adjutant's bed was open to grave criticism.
But enough: these two instances were, I am sorry to state, but types of countless other regrettable episodes which caused the popularity of James Henry to wane.
The final decree of death or banishment came when James had been in the country some seven weeks.
On the day in question a dreadful shout was heard, followed by a flood of language which I will refrain from committing to print. And then the Colonel appeared in the door of his dug-out.
"Where is that accursed idiot, Murgatroyd? Pass the word along for the damn fool."
"'Urry up, Conky. The ole man's a-twittering for you." Murgatroyd emerged from a recess.
"What's 'e want?"
"I'd go and find out, cully. I think 'e's going to mention you in 'is will." At that moment a fresh outburst floated through the stillness.
"Great 'Eavens!" Murgatroyd reluctantly rose tohis feet. "So long, boys. Tell me mother she was in me thoughts up to the end." He paused outside the dug-out and then went manfully in. "You wanted me, sir."
"Look at this, you blithering ass, look at this." The Colonel was searching through his Fortnum and Mason packing-case on the floor. "Great Heavens! and the caviar too—imbedded in the butter. Five defunct rodents in the brawn"—he threw each in turn at his servant, who dodged round the dug-out like a pea in a drum—"the marmalade and the pâté de fois gras inseparably mixed together, and the whole covered with a thick layer of disintegrating cigar."
"It wasn't me, sir," Murgatroyd spoke in an aggrieved tone.
"I didn't suppose it was, you fool." The Colonel straightened himself and glared at his hapless minion. "Great Heavens! there's another rat on my hairbrush."
"One of the same five, sir. It ricocheted off my face." With a magnificent nonchalance his servant threw it out of the door. "I think, sir, it must be James 'Enry."
"Who the devil is James Henry?"
"Sir Derek Temple's little dawg, sir."
"Indeed." The Colonel's tone was ominous. "Goround and ask Sir Derek Temple to be good enough to come and see me at once."
What happened exactly at that interview I cannot say; although I understand that James Henry considered an absurd fuss had been made about a trifle. In fact he found it so difficult to lie down with any comfort that night that he missed much of his master's conversation with him.
"You've topped it, James, you've put the brass hat on. The old man threatens to turn out a firing party if he ever sees you again."
James feigned sleep: this continual harping on what was over and done with he considered the very worst of form. Even if he had put the caviar in the butter and his foot in the marmalade—well, hang it all—what then? He'd presented the old buster with five dead rats, which was more than he'd do for a lot of people.
"In fact, James, you are not popular, my boy—and I shudder to think what Monica will do with you when she gets you. She's come over, you may be pleased to hear, Henry. She is V.A.D.-ing at a charming hospital that overlooks the sea. James, why can't I go sick—and live for a space at that charming hospital that overlooks the sea? Think of it: here am I, panting to have my face washed by her, panting——"
For a moment he rhapsodised in silence. "Breakfastin bed, poached egg in the bed: oh! James, my boy, and she probably never even thinks of me."
He took a letter out of his pocket and held it under the light of the candle. "'Not much to do at present, but delightful weather. The hospital is nearly empty, though there's one perfect dear who is almost fit—a Major in some Highland regiment.'
"Listen to that, James. Some great raw-boned, red-kneed Scotchman, and she calls him a perfect dear!" His listener blew resignedly and again composed himself to slumber.
"'How is James behaving? I'd love to see the sweet pet again.' Sweet pet: yes—my boy—you look it. 'Do you remember how annoyed he was when I put him in your arms that afternoon at home?' Do you hear that, James?—do I remember? Monica, you adorable soul...." He relapsed into moody thought.
At what moment during that restless night the idea actually came I know not. Possibly a diabolical chuckle on the part of James Henry, who was hunting in his dreams, goaded him to desperation. But it is an undoubted fact that when Sir Derek Temple rose the next morning he had definitely determined to embark on the adventure which culminated in the tragedy of the cat, the General, and James. The latter is reputedto regard the affair as quite trifling and unworthy of the fierce glare of publicity that beat upon it. The cat, has, or rather had, different views.
Now, be it known to those who live in England that it is one thing to say in an airy manner, as Derek had said to Lady Monica, that he would come and see her when she landed in France; it is another to do it. But to a determined and unprincipled man nothing is impossible; and though it would be the height of indiscretion for me to hint even at the methods he used to attain his ends, it is a certain fact that in the afternoon of the second day following the episode of the five rodents he found himself at a certain seaport town with James Henry as the other member of the party. And having had his hair cut, and extricated his companion from a street brawl, he hired a motor and drove into the country.
Now, Derek Temple's knowledge of hospitals and their ways was not profound. He had a hazy idea that on arriving at the portals he would send in his name, and that in due course he could consume a tête-à-tête tea with Monica in her private boudoir. He rehearsed the scene in his mind: the quiet, cutting reference to Highlanders who failed to understand the official position of nurses—the certainty that this particular one was a scoundrel: the fact that, on receiving her letter, he had at once rushed off to protect her.
And as he got to this point the car turned into the gates of a palatial hotel and stopped by the door. James Henry jumped through the open window, and his master followed him up the steps.
"Is Lady Monica Travers at home; I mean—er—is she in the hospital?" He addressed an R.A.M.C. sergeant in the entrance.
"No dawgs allowed in the 'ospital, sir." The scandalised N.C.O. glared at James Henry, who was furiously growling at a hot-air grating in the floor. "You must get 'im out at once, sir: we're being inspected to-day."
"Heel, James, heel. He'll be quite all right, Sergeant. Just find out, will you, about Lady Monica Travers?"
"Beg pardon, sir, but are you a patient?"
"Patient—of course I'm not a patient. Do I look like a patient?"
"Well, sir, there ain't no visiting allowed when the sisters is on duty."
"What? But it's preposterous. Do you mean to say I can't see her unless I'm a patient? Why, man, I've got to go back in an hour."
"Very sorry, sir—but no visiting allowed. Very strict 'ere, and as I says we're full of brass 'ats to-day."
For a moment Derek was nonplussed; this was a complication on which he had not reckoned.
"But look here, Sergeant, you know..." and even as he spoke he looked upstairs and beheld Lady Monica. Unfortunately she had not seen him, and the situation was desperate. Forcing James Henry into the arms of the outraged N.C.O., he rushed up the stairs and followed her.
"Derek!" The girl stopped in amazement. "What in the world are you doing here?"
"Monica, my dear, I've come to see you. Tell me that you don't really love that damn Scotchman."
An adorable smile spread over her face. "You idiot! I don't love anyone. My work fills my life."
"Rot! You said in your letter you had nothing to do at present. Monica, take me somewhere where I can make love to you."
"I shall do nothing of the sort. In the first place you aren't allowed here at all; and in the second I don't want to be made love to."
"And in the third," said Derek grimly, as the sound of a procession advancing down a corridor came from round the corner, "you're being inspected to-day, and that—if I mistake not—is the great pan-jan-drum himself."
"Oh! good Heavens. Derek, I'd forgotten. Do go, for goodness' sake. Run—I shall be sacked."
"I shall not go. As the great man himself rounds that corner I shall kiss you with a loud trumpeting noise.'
"You brute! Oh! what shall I do?—there they are. Come in here." She grabbed him by the wrist and dragged him into a small deserted sitting-room close by.
"You darling," he remarked and promptly kissed her. "Monica, dear, you must listen——"
"Sit down, you idiot. I'm sure they saw me. You must pretend you're a patient just come in. I know I shall be sacked. The General is dreadfully particular. Put this thermometer in your mouth. Quick, give me your hand—I must take your pulse."
"I think," said a voice outside the door, "that I saw—er—a patient being brought into one of these rooms."
"Surely not, sir. These rooms are all empty." The door opened and the cavalcade paused. "Er—Lady Monica... really."
"A new patient, Colonel," she remarked. "I am just taking his temperature." Derek, his eyes partially closed, lay back in a chair, occasionally uttering a slight groan.
"The case looks most interesting." The General came and stood beside him. "Most interesting. Haveyou—er—diagnosed the symptoms, sister?" His lips were twitching suspiciously.
"Not yet, General. The pulse is normal—and the temperature"—she looked at the thermometer—"is—good gracious me! have you kept it properly under your tongue?" She turned to Derek, who nodded feebly. "The temperature is only 93." She looked at the group in an awestruck manner.
"Most remarkable," murmured the General. "One feels compelled to wonder what it would have been if he'd had the right end in his mouth." Derek emitted a hollow groan. "And where do you feel it worst, my dear boy?" continued the great man, gazing at him through his eyeglass.
"Dyspepsia, sir," he whispered feebly. "Dreadful dyspepsia. I can't sleep, I—er—Good Lord!" His eyes opened, his voice rose, and with a fixed stare of horror he gazed at the door. Through it with due solemnity came James Henry holding in his mouth a furless and very dead cat. He advanced to the centre of the group—laid it at the General's feet—and having sneezed twice sat down and contemplated his handiwork: his tail thumping the floor feverishly in anticipation of well-merited applause.
It was possibly foolish, but, as Derek explained afterwards to Monica, the situation had passed beyond him. He arose and confronted the General, who wassurveying the scene coldly, and with a courtly exclamation of "Your cat, I believe, sir," he passed from the room.
The conclusion of this dreadful drama may be given in three short sentences.
The first was spoken by the General. "Let it be buried." And it was so.
The second was whispered by Lady Monica—later. "Darling, I had tosaywe were engaged: it looked so peculiar." And it was even more so.
The third was snorted by James Henry. "First I'm beaten and then I'm kissed. Damn all cats!"
You come on it unexpectedly, round a little spur in the side of the valley, which screens it from view. It stands below you as you first see it, not a big house, not a little one, but just comfortable. It seems in keeping with the gardens, the tennis courts, the orchards which lie around it in a hap-hazard sort of manner, as if they had just grown there years and years ago and had been too lazy to move ever since. Peace is the keynote of the whole picture—the peace and contentment of sleepy unwoken England.
Down in the valley below, the river, brown and swollen, carries on its bosom the flotsam and jetsam of its pilgrimage through the country. Now and then a great branch goes bobbing by, only to come to grief in the shallows round the corner—the shallows where the noise of the water on the rounded stones lulls oneto sleep at night, and sounds a ceaseless reveille each morning. On the other side of the water the woods stretch down close to the bank, though the upper slopes of the hills are bare, and bathed in the golden light of the dying winter sun. Slowly the dark shadow line creeps up—creeps up to meet the shepherd coming home with his flock. Faint, but crisp, the barks of his dog, prancing excitedly round him, strike on one's ears, and then of a sudden—silence. They have entered the purple country; they have left the golden land, and the dog trots soberly at his master's heels. One last peak alone remains, dipped in flaming yellow, and then that too is touched by the finger of oncoming night. For a few moments it survives, a flicker of fire on its rugged tip, and then—the end; like a grim black sentinel it stands gloomy and sinister against the evening sky.
The shepherd is out of sight amongst the trees; the purple is changing to grey, the grey to black; there is no movement saving only the tireless swish of the river....
To the man leaning over the gate the scene was familiar—but familiarity had not robbed it of its charm. Involuntarily his mind went back to the days before the Madness came—to the days when others had stood beside him watching those same darkening hills, with the smoke of their pipes curling gentlyaway in the still air. Back from a day's shooting, back from an afternoon on the river, and a rest at the top of the hill before going in to tea in the house below. So had he stood countless times in the past—with those others....
The Rabbit, with a gun under his arm, and his stubby briar glowing red in the paling light. The Rabbit, with his old shooting-coat, with the yarn of the one woodcock he nearly got, with his cheery laugh. But they never found anything of him—an eight-inch shell is at any rate merciful.
Torps—the naval candidate: one of the worst and most gallant riders that ever threw a leg across a horse. Somewhere in the depths of the Pacific, with the great heaving combers as his grave, he lies peacefully; and as for a little while he had gasped and struggled while hundreds of others gasped and struggled near him—perhaps he, too, had seen the hills opposite once again even as the Last Fence loomed in front and the whispered Kismet came from his lips....
Hugh—the son of the house close by. Twice wounded, and now out again in Mesopotamia. Did the sound of the water come to him as the sun dropped, slow and pitiless, into the west? The same parching, crawling days following one another in deadly monotony: the same....
"Dreaming, Jim?" A woman's voice behind him broke on the man's thoughts.
"Yes, lady," he answered soberly. "Dreaming. Some of the ghosts we knew have been coming to me out of the blue grey mists." He fell into step beside her, and they moved towards the house.
"Ah! don't," she whispered—"don't! Oh! it's wicked, this war; cruel, damnable." She stopped and faced him, her breast rising and falling quickly. "And we can't follow you, Jim—we women. You go into the unknown."
"Yes—yours is the harder part. You can only wait and wonder."
"Wait and wonder!" She laughed bitterly. "Hope and pray—while God sleeps."
"Hush, lady!" he answered quietly; "for that way there lies no peace. Is Sybil indoors?"
"Yes—she's expecting you. Thank goodness you're not going out yet awhile, Jim; the child is fretting herself sick over her brother as it is—and when you go...."
"Yes—when I go, what then?" he asked quietly. "Because I'm very nearly fit again, Lady Alice. My arm is nearly all right."
"Do you want to go back, Jim?" Her quiet eyes searched his face. "Look at that."
They had rounded a corner, and in front of thema man was leaning against a wall talking to the cook. They were in the stage known as walking-out—or is it keeping company? The point is immaterial and uninteresting. But the man, fit and strong, was in a starred trade. He was a forester—or had been since the first rumour of compulsion had startled his poor tremulous spirit. A very fine, but not unique example of the genuine shirker....
"What has he to do with us?" said Jim bitterly. "That thing takes his stand along with the criminals, and the mental degenerates. He's worse than a conscientious objector. And we've got no choice. He reaps the benefits for which he refuses to fight. I don't want to go back to France particularly; every feeling I've got revolts at the idea just at present. I want to be with Sybil, as you know; I want to—oh! God knows! I was mad over the water—it bit into me; I was caught by the fever. It's an amazing thing how it gets hold of one. All the dirt and discomfort, and the boredom and the fright—one would have thought...." He laughed. "I suppose it's the madness in the air. But I'm sane now."
"Are you? I wonder for how long. Let's go in and have some tea." The woman led the way indoors; there was silence again save only for the sound of the river.
When Jim Denver told Lady Alice Conway that he was sane again, he spoke no more than the truth. A few weeks in France, and then a shattered arm had brought him back to England with more understanding than he had ever possessed before. He had gone out the ordinary Englishman—casual, sporting, easy going, somewhat apathetic; he had come back a thinker as well, at times almost a dreamer. It affects different men in different ways—but none escape. And that is what those others cannot understand—those others who have not been across. Even the man who comes back on short leave hardly grasps how the thing has changed him: hardly realises that the madness is still in his soul. He has not time; his leave is just an interlude. He is back again in France almost before he realises he has left it. In mind he has never left it.
There is humour there in plenty—farce even; boredom, excitement, passion, hatred. Every human emotion runs its full gamut in the Land of Topsy Turvy;in the place where the life of a man is no longer three-score years and ten, but just so long as the Great Reaper may decide and no more. And you are caught in the whirl—you are tossed here and there by a life of artificiality, a life not of one's own seeking, but a life which, having once caught you, you are loath to let go.
Which is a hard saying, and one impossible of comprehension to those who wait behind—to the wives, to the mothers, to the women. To them the leave-train pulling slowly out of Victoria Station, with their man waving a last adieu from the carriage window, means the ringing down of the curtain once again. The unknown has swallowed him up—the unknown into which they cannot follow him. Be he in a Staff office at the base or with his battalion in the trenches, he has gone where the woman to whom he counts as all the world cannot even picture him in her mind. To her Flanders is Flanders and war is war—and there are casualty lists. What matter that his battalion is resting; what matter that he is going through a course somewhere at the back of beyond? He has gone into the Unknown; the whistle of the train steaming slowly out is the voice of the call-boy at the drop curtain. And now the train has passed out of sight—or is it only that her eyes are dim with the tears she kept back while he was with her?
At last she turns and goes blindly back to the room where they had breakfast; she sees once more the chair he used, the crumpled morning paper, the discarded cigarette. And there let us leave her with tear-stained face and a pathetic little sodden handkerchief clutched in one hand. "O God! dear God! send him back to me." Our women do not show us this side very much when we are on leave; perhaps it is as well, for the ground on which we stand is holy....
And what of the man? The train is grinding through Herne Hill when he puts down hisTimesand catches sight of another man in his brigade also returning from leave.
"Hullo, old man! What sort of a time have you had?"
"Top-hole. How's yourself? Was that your memsahib at the station?"
"Yes. Dislike women at these partings as a general rule—but she's wonderful."
"They're pulling the brigade out to rest, I hear."
"So I believe. Anyway, I hope they've buried that dead Hun just in front of us. He was getting beyond a joke...."
He is back in the life over the water again; there is nothing incongruous to him in his sequence of remarks; the time of his leave has been too short forthe contrast to strike him. In fact, the whirl of gaiety in which he has passed his seven days seems more unreal than his other life—than the dead German. And it is only when a man is wounded and comes home to get fit, when he idles away the day in the home of his fathers, with a rod or a gun to help him back to convalescence, when the soothing balm of utter peace and contentment creeps slowly through his veins, that he looks back on the past few months as a runner on a race just over. He has given of his best; he is ready to give of his best again; but at the moment he is exhausted; panting, but at rest For the time the madness has left him; he is sane. But it is only for the time....
He is able to think coherently; he is able to look on things in their proper perspective. He knows. The bits in the kaleidoscope begin to group coherently, to take definite form, and he views the picture from the standpoint of a rational man. To him the leave-train contains no illusions; the territory is not unknown. No longer does a dead Hun dwarf his horizon to the exclusion of all else. He has looked on the thing from close quarters; he has been mad with passion and shaking with fright; he has been cold and wet, he has been hot and thirsty. Like a blaze of tropical vegetation from which individual colours refuseto be separated, so does the jumble of his life in Flanders strike him as he looks back on it. Isolated occurrences seem unreal, hard to identify. The little things which then meant so much now seem so paltry; the things he hardly noticed now loom big. Above all, the grim absurdity of the whole thing strikes him; civilisation has at last been defined....
He marvels that men can be such wonderful, such super-human fools; his philosophy changes. He recalls grimly the particular night on which he crept over a dirty ploughed field and scrambled into a shell-hole as he saw the thin green streak of a German flare like a bar of light against the blackness; then the burst—the ghostly light flooding the desolate landscape—the crack of a solitary rifle away to his left. And as the flare came slowly hissing down, a ball of fire, he saw the other occupant of his hiding-place—a man's leg, just that, nothing more. And he laughs; the thing is too absurd.
It is; it is absurd; it is monstrous, farcical. The realisation has come to him; he is sane—for a time.
Sane: but for how long? It varies with the type. There are some who love the game—who love it for itself alone. They sit on the steps of the War Office, and drive their C.O.'s mad: they pull strings both male and female, until the powers that be rise in their wrath, and consign them to perdition and—France.
There are others who do not take it quite like that. They do notwantto go back particularly—and if they were given an important job in England, a job for which they had special aptitude, in which they knew they were invaluable, they would take it without regret. But though they may not seek earnestly for France—neither do they seek for home. Their wants do not matter; their private interests do not count: it is only England to-day....
And lastly there is a third class, the class to whom that accursed catch-phrase, "Doing his bit," means everything. There are some who consider they have done their bit—that they need do no more. They draw comparisons and become self-righteous. "Behold I am not as other men are," they murmur complacently; "have not I kept the home fires burning, and amassed money making munitions?" "I am doing my bit." "I have been out; I have been hit—andhehas not. Why should I go again? I have done my bit." Well, friend, it may be as you say. But methinks there is only one question worth putting and answering to-day. Don't bother about having done your bit. Are you doing yourall? Let us leave it at that.
"When's your board, Jim?" The flickering light of the fire lit up the old oak hall, playing on the face of the girl buried in an easy chair. Tea was over, and they were alone.
"On Tuesday, dear," he answered gravely.
"But you aren't fit, old man; you don't think you're fit yet, do you?" There was a note of anxiety in her voice.
"I'm perfectly fit, Sybil," he said quietly—"perfectly fit, my dear."
"Then you'll go back soon?" She looked at him with frightened eyes.
"Just as soon as they'll send me. I am going to ask the Board to pass me fit 'for General Service.'"
"Oh, Jim!"—he hardly caught the whisper. "Oh, Jim! my man."
"Well——" he came over and knelt in front of her.
"It makes me sick," she cried fiercely, "to think of you and Hugh and men like you—and then to think of all these other cowardly beasts. My dear, my dear—do youwantto go back?"
"At present, I don't. I'm utterly happy here with you, and the old peaceful country life. I'm afraid, Syb—I'm afraid of going on with it I'm afraid of its sapping my vitality—I'm afraid of never wanting to go back." His voice died away, and then suddenly he leant forward and kissed her on the mouth.
"Come over here a moment," he stood up and drew her to him. "Come over here." With his arm round her shoulders he led her over to a great portrait in oils that hung against the wall, the portrait of a stern-faced soldier in the uniform of a forgotten century. To the girl the picture of her great-grandfather was not a thing of surpassing interest—she had seen it too often before. But she was a girl of understanding, and she realised that the soul of the man beside her was in the melting-pot; and, moreover, that she might make or mar the mould into which it must run. So in her wisdom she said nothing, and waited.
"I want you to listen to me for a bit, Syb," he began after a while. "I'm not much of a fist at talking—especially on things I feel very deeply about. I can't track my people back like you can. The corresponding generation in my family to that old buster was a junior inkslinger in a small counting-house up North. And that junior inkslinger made good: you know what I'm worth to-day if the governor died."
He started to pace restlessly up and down the hall, while the girl watched him quietly.
"Then came this war and I went into it—not for any highfalutin motives, not because I longed to avenge Belgium—but simply because my pals were all soldiers or sailors, and it never occurred to me not to. In fact at first I was rather pleased with myself—I treated it as a joke more or less. The governor was inordinately proud of me; the mater had about twelve dozen photographs of me in uniform sent round the country to various bored and unwilling recipients; and lots of people combined to tell me what a damn fine fellow I was. Do you think he'd have thought so?" He stopped underneath the portrait and for a while gazed at the painted face with a smile.
"That old blackguard up there—who lived every moment of his life—do you think he would have accounted that to me for credit? What wouldhesay if he knew that in a crisis like this there are men who cloak perfect sight behind blue glasses; that there are men who have joined home defence units though they are perfectly fit to fight anywhere? And what would he say, Sybil, if he knew that a man, even though he'd done something, was now resting on his oars—content?"
"Go on, dear!" The girl's eyes were shining now.
"I'm coming to the point This morning the old dad started on the line of various fellows he knew whose sons hadn't been out yet; and he didn't see why I should go a second time—before they went. The business instinct to a certain extent, I suppose—the point of view of a business man. But wouldheunderstand that?" Again he nodded to the picture.
"I think——" She began to speak, and then fell silent.
"Ah! but would he, my dear? What of Hugh, of the Rabbit, of Torps? With them it was bred in the bone—with me it was not. For years I and mine have despised the soldier and the sailor: for years you and yours have despised the counting-house. And all that is changing. Over there the tinkers, the tailors, the merchants, are standing together with the old breed of soldier—the two lots are beginning to understand one another—to respect one another. You're learning from us, and we're learning from you, thoughhewould never have believed that possible."
Jim was standing very close to the girl, and his voice was low.
"It's because I'm not very sure of one of the lessons I've learnt: it's because at times I do think it hard that others should not take their fair share that I must get back to that show quick—damn quick.
"I want to be worthy of that old ancestor of yours—now that I'm going to marry one of his family. I know we're all mad—I know the world's mad; but, Syb, dear, you wouldn't have me sane, would you; not for ever? And I shall be if I stay here any longer...."
"I understand, Jim," she answered, after a while. "I understand exactly. And I wouldn't have you sane, except just now for a little while. Because it's a glorious madness, and"—she put both her arms round his neck and kissed him passionately—"and I love you."
Which was quite illogical and inconsequent—but there you are. What is not illogical and inconsequent nowadays?
From which it will be seen that Jim Denver was not of the first of the three types which I have mentioned. He did not love the game for itself alone; my masters, there are not many who do. But there was no job in England in which he would prove invaluable: though there were many which with a little care he might have adorned beautifully.
And just because thereisblood in the counting-house, which only requires to be brought out to show itself, he knew that he must go back—he knew that it was his job.
That wild enthusiasm which he had shared withother subalterns in his battalion before they had been over the first time was lacking now; he was calmer—more evenly balanced. He had attained the courage of knowledge instead of the courage of ignorance.
No longer did the men who waited to be fetched excuse him—even though he had "done his bit." No longer was it possible to shelter behind another man's failure, and plead for so-called equality of sacrifice. To him had come the meaning of tradition—that strange, nameless something which has kept regiments in a position, battered with shells, stunned with shock, gassed, brain reeling, mind gone, with nothing to hold them except that nameless something which says to them, "Hold on!" While other regiments, composed of men as brave, have not held. To him had come that quality which has sent men laughing and talking without a quaver to their death; that quality which causes men—eaten with fever, lonely, weary to death, thinking themselves forsaken even of God—to carry on the Empire's work in the uttermost corners of the globe, simply because it is their job.
He had assimilated to a certain extent the ideas of that stern, dead soldier; he had visualised them; he had realised that the destinies of a country are not entrusted to all her children. Many are not worthy to handle them, which makes the glory for the few all the greater....
Winds of the world, give answer! They are whimperingto and fro—And what should they know of England, who onlyEngland know?The poor little street-bred people that vapour and fumeand brag,They are lifting their heads in the stillness to yelp atthe English Flag.
Never the lotos closes, never the wild-fowl wake,But a soul goes out on the East wind that died forEngland's sake—Man or woman or suckling, mother or bride or maid—Because on the bones of the English the English flag isstayed.
On the Tuesday a board of doctors passed Jim Denver fit for General Service, having first given him the option of a month's home service if he liked. Two days after he turned up at the depôt of his regiment, where he found men in various stages of convalescence—light duty, ordinary duty at home, and fit to go out like himself. One or two he knew, and most of them he didn't. There were a few old regular officers and a large number of very new ones—who were being led in the way they should go.
But there is little to tell of the time he spent waiting to go out. This is not a diary of his life—not even an account of it; it is merely an attempt to portray a state of mind—an outlook on life engendered by war, in a man whom war had caused to think for the first time.
And so the only incidents which I propose to give of his time at the depôt is a short account of a smoking concert he attended and a conversation he had the following day with one Vane, a stockbroker. Thetwo things taken individually meant but little: taken together—well, the humour was the humour of the Land of Topsy Turvy. A delicate humour, not to be appreciated by all: with subtle shades and delicate strands and bloody brutality woven together....
A sudden silence settled on the gymnasium; the man at the piano turned round so as to hear better; the soldiers sitting astride the horse ceased laughing and playing the fool.
At a table at the end of the big room, seen dimly through the smoke-clouded atmosphere, sat a group of officers, while the regimental sergeant-major, supported by other great ones of the non-commissioned rank near by, presided over the proceedings.
Occasionally a soldier-waiter passed behind the officers' chairs, armed with a business-like bottle and a box of dangerous-looking cigars; and unless he was watched carefully he was apt to replenish the liquid refreshment in a manner which suggested that he regarded soda as harmful in the extreme to the human system. Had he not received his instructions from that great man the regimental himself?
For an hour and a half the smoking concert had been in progress; the Brothers Bimbo, those masterly knock-about comedians, had given their performance amid rapturous applause. In life the famous pair werea machine-gun sergeant and a cook's mate; but on such gala occasions they became the buffoons of the regiment. They were the star comics: a position of great responsibility and not to be lightly thought of. An officer had given a couple of rag-time efforts; the melancholy corporal in C Company had obliged with a maundering tune of revolting sentimentality, and one of A Company scouts had given a so-called comic which caused the padre to keep his eyes fixed firmly on the floor, though at times his mouth twitched suspiciously, and made the colonel exclaim to his second in command in tones of heartfelt relief: "Thank Heavens, my wife couldn't come!" Knowing his commanding officer's wife the second in command agreed in no less heartfelt voice.
But now a silence had settled on the great room: and all eyes were turned on the regimental sergeant-major, who was standing up behind the table on which the programme lay, and behind which he had risen every time a new performer had appeared during the evening, in order to introduce him to the assembly. There are many little rites and ceremonies in smoking concerts....
This time, however, he did not inform the audience that Private MacPherson would now oblige—that is the mystic formula. He stood there, waiting for silence.
"Non-commissioned officers and men"—his voice carried to every corner of the building—"I think you will all agree with me that we are very pleased to see Colonel Johnson and all our officers here with us to-night. It is our farewell concert in England: in a few days we shall all be going—somewhere; and it gives us all great pleasure to welcome the officers who are going to lead us when we get to that somewhere. Therefore I ask you all to fill up your glasses and drink to the health of Colonel Johnson and all our officers."
A shuffling of feet; an abortive attempt on the part of the pianist to strike up "For he's a jolly good fellow" before his cue, an attempt which died horribly in its infancy under the baleful eye of the sergeant-major; a general creaking and grunting and then—muttered, shouted, whispered from a thousand throats—"Our Officers." The pianist started—right this time—and in a second the room was ringing with the well-known words. Cheers, thunderous cheers succeeded it, and through it all the officers sat silent and quiet. Most were new to the game; to them it was just an interesting evening; a few were old at it; a few, like Jim, had been across, and it was they who had a slight lump in their throats. It brought back memories—memories of other men, memories of similar scenes....
At last the cheering died away, only to burst out again with renewed vigour. The colonel was standing up, a slight smile playing round his lips, the glint of many things in his quiet grey eyes. To the second in command, a sterling soldier but one of little imagination, there came for the first time in his life the meaning of the phrase, "the windows of the soul." For in the eyes of the man who stood beside him he saw those things of which no man speaks; the things which words may kill.
He saw understanding, affection, humour, pain; he saw the pride of possession struggling with the sorrow of future loss; he saw the desire to test his creation struggling with the fear that a first test always brings; he saw visions of glorious possibilities, and for a fleeting instant he saw the dreadful abyss of a hideous failure. Aye, for a few moments the second in command looked not through a glass darkly, but saw into the unplumbed depths of a man who had been weighed in the balance and not found wanting; a man who had faced responsibility and would face it again; a man of honour, a man of humour, a man who knew.
"My lads," he began—and the quiet, well-modulated voice reached every man in the room just as clearly as the harsher voice of the previous speaker—"as the sergeant-major has just said, in a few days we shall be sailing for—somewhere. The bustle and fulnessof your training life will be over; you will be confronted with the real thing. And though I do not want to mar the pleasure of this evening in any way or to introduce a serious tone to the proceedings, I do want to say just one or two things which may stick in your minds and, perhaps, on some occasion may help you. This war is not a joke; it is one of the most hideous and ghastly tragedies that have ever been foisted on the world; I have been there and I know. You are going to be called on to stand all sorts of discomfort and all sorts of boredom; there will be times when you'd give everything you possess to know that there was a picture-palace round the corner. You may not think so now, but remember my words when the time comes—remember, and stick it.
"There will be times when there's a sinking in your stomach and a singing in your head; when men beside you are staring upwards with the stare that does not see; when the sergeant has taken it through the forehead and the nearest officer is choking up his life in the corner of the traverse. But—there's still your rifle; perhaps there's a machine-gun standing idle; anyway, remember my words then, and stick it.
"Stick it, my lads, as those others have done before you. Stick it, for the credit of the regiment, for the glory of our name. Remember always that that glorylies in your hands, each one of you individually. And just as it is in the power of each one of you to tarnish it irreparably, so is it in the power of each one of you to keep it going undimmed. Each one of us counts, men"—his voice sank a little—"each one of us has to play the game. Not because we're afraid of being punished if we're found out, but because itisthe game."
He looked round the room slowly, almost searchingly, while the arc light spluttered and then burnt up again with a hiss.
"The Regiment, my lads—the Regiment." His voice was tense with feeling. "It is only the Regiment that counts."
He raised his glass, and the men stood up:
"The Regiment."
A woman sobbed somewhere in the body of the gym., and for a moment, so it seemed to Denver, the wings of Death flapped softly against the windows. For a moment only—and then:
"Private Mulvaney will now oblige."
Jim walked slowly home. He remembered just such another evening before his own battalion went out. Would those words of the Colonel have their effect: would some white-faced man stick it the better for the remembrance of that moment: would some machine-gunfired with trembling dying hands take its toll? Perhaps—who knows? The ideal of the soldier is there—the ideal towards which the New Armies are led. Thus the first incident....
The following afternoon Denver, strolling back from the town, was hailed by a man in khaki, standing in the door of his house. He knew the man well, Vane, by name—had dined with him often in the days when he was in training himself. A quiet man, with a pleasant wife and two children. Vane was a stockbroker by trade: and just before Jim went out he had enlisted.
"Come in and have a gargle. I've just got back on short leave." Vane came to the gate.
"Good," Jim answered. "Mrs. Vane must be pleased." They strolled up the drive and in through the door. "You're looking very fit, old man. Flanders seems to suit you."
"My dear fellow, it does. It's the goods. I never knew what living was before. The thought of that cursed office makes me tired—and once"—he shrugged his shoulders—"it filled my life. Say when."
"Cheer oh!" They clinked glasses. "I thought you were taking a commission."
"I am—very shortly. The colonel has recommended me for one, and I gather the powers that be approve. But in a way I'm sorry, you know. I've got a great pal in my section—who kept a whelk stall down in Whitechapel."
"They're the sort," laughed Jim. "The Cockney takes some beating."
"This bird's a flier. We had quite a cheery little show the other night, just him and me. About a week ago we were up in the trenches—bored stiff, and yet happy in a way, you know, when Master Boche started to register.[1]I suppose it was a new battery or something, but they were using crumps, not shrapnel. They weren't very big, but they were very close—and they got closer. You know that nasty droning noise, then the hell of an explosion—that great column of blackish yellow smoke, and the bits pinging through the air overhead."
"I do," remarked Jim tersely.
Vane laughed."Well, he got a bracket; the first one was fifty yards short of the trench, and the second was a hundred yards over. Then he started to come back—always in the same line; and the line passed straight through our bit of the trench.
"''Ere, wot yer doing, you perishers? Sargint, go and stop 'em. Tell 'em I've been appointed purveyor of winkles to the Royal 'Ouse of the 'Un Emperor.' Our friend of the whelk stall was surveying the scene with intense disfavour. A great mass of smoke belched up from the ground twenty yards away, and he ducked instinctively. Then we waited—fifteen seconds about was the interval between shots. The men were a bit white about the gills—and, well the feeling in the pit of my tummy was what is known as wobbly. You know that feeling too?"
"I do," remarked Jim even more tersely.
Vane finished his drink. "Then it came, and we cowered. There was a roar like nothing on earth—the back of the trench collapsed, and the whole lot of us were buried. If the shell had been five yards short, it would have burst in the trench, and my whelk friend would have whelked no more."
Vane laughed. "We emerged, plucking mud from our mouths, and cursed. The Hun apparently was satisfied and stopped. The only person who wasn't satisfied was the purveyor of winkles to the Royal'Ouse. He brooded through the day, but towards the evening he became more cheerful.
"'Look 'ere,' he said to me, ''ave you ever killed a 'Un?'
"'I think I did once,' I said. 'A fat man with a nasty face.'
"'Oh! you 'ave, 'ave you? Well, wot abaht killing one to-night. If they thinks I'm going to stand that sort of thing, they're —— —— wrong.' The language was the language of Whitechapel, but the sentiments were the sentiments of even the most rabid purist of speech.
"To cut a long story short, we went. And we were very lucky."
"You bumped your face into 'em, did you?" asked Jim, interested.
"We did. Man, it was a grand little scrap while it lasted, and it was the first one I'd had. It won't be the last."
"Did you kill your men?"
"Did we not? Welks brained his with the butt of his gun; and I did the trick with a bayonet." Vane became a little apologetic. "You know it was only my first, and I can't get it out of my mind." Then his eyes shone again. "To feel that steel go in—Good God! man—it was IT: it was...."
Then came the interruption. "Dear," said a voiceat the door, "the children are in bed; will you go up and say good night."... Thus the second incident....
As I said, taken separately the two incidents mean but little: taken together—there is humour: the whole humour of war.
An itinerant fishmonger and a worthy stockbroker are inculcated with wonderful ideals in order to fit them for sallying forth at night and killing complete strangers. And they revel in it....
The highest form of emotionalism on one hand: a hole in the ground full of bluebottles and smells on the other....
War ... war in the twentieth century.
But there is nothing incompatible in it: it is only strange when analysed in cold blood. And Jim Denver, as I have said, was sane again: while Vane, the stockbroker, was still mad.
In fact, it is quite possible that the peculiar significance of the interruption in his story never struck him: that he never noticed the Contrast.
And what is going to be the result of it all on the Vanes of England? "Once the office filled my life." No man can go to the land of Topsy Turvy and come back the same—for good or ill it will change him. Though the madness leave him and sanity return, itwill not be the same sanity. Will he ever be content to settle down again after—the lawyer, the stockbroker, the small clerk? Back to the old dull routine, the same old train in the morning, the same deadly office, the same old home each evening. It hardly applies to the Jim Denvers—the men of money: but what of the others?
Will the scales have dropped from the eyes of the men who have really been through it? Shall we ever get back to the same old way? Heaven knows—but let us hope not. Anyway, it is all mere idle conjecture—and a digression to boot.