WITHIN ten days of the battle of Courcelette, Lieut. Richard Starkley was able to see; and twenty days after that he was able to walk. His walking at first was an extraordinary thing, and extraordinary was the amount of pleasure that he derived from it. With a crutch under one shoulder and Sister Gilbert under the other, bandaged and padded from hip to neck, and with his battered but entire legs wavering beneath him, he crossed the ward that first day without exceeding the speed limit. Brother officers in various stages of repair did not refrain from expressing their opinions of his performance.
"Try to be back for tea, old son," said a New Zealand major.
"Are those your legs or mine you're fox-trotting with?" asked an English subaltern; and an elderly colonel called, "I'll hop out and show you how to walk in a minute, if you don't do better than that!"
The colonel laughed, and the inmates of the other beds laughed, and Dick and Sister Gilbert laughed, for that, you must know, was a very good joke. The humor of the remark lay in the fact that the elderly colonel had not a leg to his name.
Day by day Dick improved in pace and gait, and his activities inspired a number of his companions to shake an uncertain leg or two. The elderly colonel organized contests; and the great free-for-all race twice round the ward was one of the notable sporting events of the war.
At last Dick was shipped to Blighty and admitted to a hospital for convalescent Canadian officers. There Capt. J. A. Starkley-Davenport soon found him. No change that the eye could detect had taken place in Jack Davenport. His face was as thin and colorless as when Dick had first seen it; his eyes were just as bright, and their glances as kindly and intent; his body was as frail and as immaculately garbed. Dick wondered how one so frail could exist a week without either breaking utterly or gaining in strength.
"You're a wonder, Dick!" exclaimed Davenport.
"It strikes me that you are the wonder," said Dick.
"But they tell me that you stopped a whiz-bang and will be as fit as ever, nerve and body, in a little while."
"I stopped bits of it—but I don't think it actually detonated on me. All I got was some of the splash. I was lucky!"
"You were indeed," said the other, with a shadow in his eyes. "I was lucky, too—though there have been times when I have been fool enough to wish that I had been left on the field." Then he straightened his thin shoulders and laughed quietly. "But if I had gone west I should have missed Frank Sacobie and Hiram Sill. They lunched with me last week and have promised to turn up on Sunday. You'll be right for Sunday, Dick, and I'll have a pucka party in your honor."
"How are they, and what are they up to?" asked Dick.
"They are at the top of their form, both of them, and up to anything," replied Davenport. "Your Canadian cadet courseis the stiffest thing of its kind in England, but it doesn't seem to bother those two. Frank is smarter than anything the Guards can show and is believed to be a rajah; and Hiram writes letters to Washington urging the formation of an American division to be attached to the Canadian Corps and suggesting his appointment to the command of one of the brigades."
"Those letters must amuse the censors," said Dick with a grin.
"I imagine they do. Washington hasn't answered yet; and so Hiram is getting his dander up and is pitching each letter a little higher than the one before it. Incidentally, he has a great deal to say to our War Office, and his novel suggestions for developing trench warfare seem to have awakened a variety of emotions in the brains and livers of a lot of worthybrass hats."
Dick laughed. "What are his ideas for developing trench warfare?"
"One is the organization of a shot-gun platoon in every battalion. The weapon is to be the duck gun, number eight bore, I believe. Hiram maintains that, used within a range of one hundred and fifty yards, those weapons would be superior to any in repulsing attacks in mass and in cleaning up raided trenches. He is a great believer in the deadly and demoralizing effects of point-blank fire."
"He is right in that—once you get rid of the parapet."
"He gets rid of the parapet with the point-blank fire of what he calls trench cannon—guns, three feet long, mounted so that they can be carried along a trench by four men; they are to fire ten- or twelve-pound high explosive shells from the frontline smack against the opposite parapet."
"It sounds right, too; but so many things sound right that work all wrong. What are his other schemes?"
"One has to do with a thundering big six-hooked grapnel, with a wire cable attached, that is to be shot into the hostile lines from a big trench mortar and then winched back by steam. He expects his grapnel—give him power enough—to tear out trenches, machine-gun posts and battalion headquarters, and bring home all sorts of odds and ends of value for identification purposes. Can't you see the brigadier stepping out before brekker to take a look at the night's haul?"
"My hat! What did the War Office think of that?"
"An acting assistant something or other of the name of Smythers and the rank ofmajor was inspired by it to ask Hiram whether he had ever served in France. Hiram put over a twenty-page narrative of his exploits with the battalion, with appendixes of maps and notes and extracts from brigade and battalion orders, and, so far as I know, the major has not yet recovered sufficiently to retaliate."
"Well, I hope Frank Sacobie has left the War Office alone."
"Frank writes nothing and says very little more than that. He seems to give all his attention to his kit; but I have a suspicion that he is a deep thinker. However that may be, his taste in dress is astonishingly good, and his deportment in society is in as good taste as his breeches."
"So he has a good time?"
"He is very gay when he comes up to town," answered Davenport.
"He deserves a good time, but he can't get it and at the same time doll himself up, even in uniform, on his pay. How does he do it?"
"You have guessed it, Dick."
"I think I have."
"Then there is no need of my saying much about it. I live on one sixth of my income. That leaves five sixths for my friends; and often, Dick, it is the thought of the spending of the five parts that gives me courage to go on keeping life in this useless body with the one part. Sometimes a soldier's wife buys food for herself and children, or pays the rent, with my money; and the lion's share of the pleasure of that transaction is mine. Sometimes a chap on leave spends a fistful of my treasury notes on dinners for himself and his girl; and those dinners give me more pleasure than the ones I eat myself.I haven't much of a stomach of my own now, you know; and I haven't a girl of my own to take out to one—even if Wilson would let me go out at night. It is not charity. I satisfy my own lost hunger for food through the medium of poor people with good appetites: I have my fun and cut a dash in new breeches and swagger service jackets through the medium of hard fighting fellows from France. I am not apologizing, you understand."
"You needn't," said Dick dryly; and then they both laughed.
Hiram Sill and Frank Sacobie called on Dick at the hospital soon after ten o'clock on Sunday morning. They had come up to town the evening before. The greetings of the three friends were warm. Sacobie's pleasure at the reunion found no voice, but shone in his eyes and thrilled in the grip ofhis hand. Hiram Sill added words to the message of his beaming face. He expressed delighted amazement at Dick's appearance.
"I couldn't quite believe it until now," he said. "Neither could you if you had seen yourself as we saw you when you were picked up. Nothing the matter with your face, except a dimple or two that you weren't born with. All your legs and arms still your own. I'd sooner see this than a letter from Washington. With your luck you'll live to command the battalion."
Dick grinned. His greetings to his friends had been as boyishly impulsive and cheery as ever; yet there was something looking out through the affection in his eyes that would have puzzled his people in New Brunswick if they had seen it. There was a question in the look and a hint of anxiety and perhaps the faintest shade of the airsof a fond father, a sympathetic judge and a hopeful appraiser. Frank and Hiram recognized and accepted it without thought or question. The look was nothing more than the shadow of the habit of responsibility and command.
Hiram talked about Washington and the War Office, and discussed his grapnel idea with considerable heat. Frank Sacobie took no part in that discussion and little in the general conversation. Soon after twelve o'clock all three set out in a taxicab for Jack Davenport's house.
The luncheon was successful. The other guests were three women—a cousin of Jack's on the Davenport side and her two daughters. The host and Hiram Sill both conversed brilliantly. Frank was inspired to make at least five separate remarks of some half dozen words each. Dick soonlet the drift of the general conversation escape him, so interested did he become in the girl on his right.
Kathleen Kingston seemed to him a strange mixture of shyness and self-possession, of calmness and vivacity. The coloring of her small face was wonderfully mobile—so Dick expressed it to himself—and yet her eyes were frank, steady and unembarrassed. Her voice was curiously low and clear.
Dick was conscious of feeling a vague and unsteady wonder at himself. Why this sudden interest in a girl? He had never felt anything of the kind before. Had this something to do with the wounds in his head? He could not entertain that suggestion seriously. However that might be, he felt that his sudden interest in this young person whom he had not so muchas heard of an hour ago greatly increased his interest in many things. He was conscious of a sure friendship for her, as if he had known her for years. He knew that this friendship was a more important thing to him than his friendships with Hiram Sill and Frank Sacobie—and yet those friendships had grown day by day, strengthened week by week and stood the test of suffering and peril.
She told him that her father was still in France, but safe now at General Headquarters, that her eldest brother had been killed in action in 1914, that another was fighting in the East, and that still another was a midshipman on the North Sea. Also, she told him that she wanted to go to France as a V. A. D., that she had left school six months ago and was working five hours every day making bandages andsplints, and that she was seventeen years old. Those confidences melted Dick's tongue. He told her his own age and that he had added a little to it at the time of enlisting; he spoke of night and daylight raids and major offensive operations in which he had taken part, of the military careers of Henry and Peter and of life at Beaver Dam. She seemed to be as keenly interested in his confidences as he had been in hers. In the library, where coffee was served, Dick continued to cling to his new friend.
The party came to an end at last, leaving Dick in a somewhat scattered state of mind. Before leaving with her daughters, Mrs. Kingston gave her address and a cordial invitation to make use of it to each of the three. Before long Wilson took Jack off to bed. Then Hiram left to keep an appointmentat the Royal Automobile Club with a captain who knew some one at the War Office. That left Frank and Dick with Jack Davenport's library to themselves. One place was much the same as another to Dick just then. He was again wondering if he could possibly be suffering in some subtle and painless way from the wounds in his head. With enquiring fingers he felt the spotless bandage that still adorned the top of his head.
Sacobie got out of his chair suddenly, with an abruptness of movement that was foreign to him, and walked the length of the room and back. He halted before Dick and stared down at him keenly for several seconds without attracting that battered youth's attention. So he fell again to pacing the room, walking lightly and with straight feet, the true Indian walk. Atlast he halted again in front of Dick's chair.
"I am not going back to the battalion," he said.
Dick sat up with a jerk and stared at him.
"I am not going back," repeated Sacobie. "I shall get my commission, that is sure; but I shall not be an officer in the battalion."
"Why the mischief not?" exclaimed Dick. "What's the matter with the battalion, I'd like to know?"
"Nothing," replied the other. He moved away a few paces, then turned back again. "A good battalion. I was a good sergeant there. But I met Capt. Dodds, on leave, one day, and we had lunch together at Scott's; and he feel pretty good—he felt pretty good—and he talked a lot. He toldme how some officers and other ranks say the colonel didn't do right when he put in my name for cadet course and a commission. You know why, Dick. So I don't go back to the infantry with my two stars."
"Do you mean because you are an Indian? That is rot!"
"No, it is good sense. You think about it hard as I have thought about it day and night. They don't say I don't know my job. The captain told me the colonel was right and everybody knew it when he said I should make the best scout officer in the brigade; and the men like me, you know that; but the men don't want an Injun for an officer. They are white men. I am a Malecite—red. That is right. I don't go back with my officer stars."
"Do you mean that you won't take your commission?" asked Dick.
"No. I take it, sure. But not in the 26th."
Dick did not argue. He had never considered his friend's case in that light before, but now he knew that Sacobie was right. The noncommissioned officers and men would not question Frank's military qualifications, his ability or his personal merits. His race was the only thing about him to which they objected—and that appeared objectionable in him only when they considered him as an officer. As a "non-com" he was one of themselves, but as an officer they must consider him impersonally as a superior. There was where the New Brunswick soldiers would cease to consider their friend and comrade Frank Sacobie and see only a member of an inferior race. Their point of view would immediately revert to that of the old days before the war,when they would have laughed at a Malecite's undertaking to perform any task except paddling a canoe.
"Will you transfer to another battalion?" asked Dick, as a result of his reflections.
Frank shook his head but made no reply.
"Then to an English battalion?" Dick persisted. "There are dozens that would be glad to have you, Frank. A Canadian with your record would not have to look far for a job in this war. Jack Davenport's old regiment would snap you up quick as a wink, commission and all, I bet a dollar."
The other smiled gravely. "That is right," he said. "Capt. Davenport is my friend and knows what I am; but most English people want me to be some kind of prince from India. I am myself—a Canadian soldier. I don't want to play themonkey. Two-Blanket Sacobie was a big chief, with his salmon spear and sometimes nothing to eat. His squaw chopped the wood and carried the water. I am not a prince, nor I'm not a monkey. I come to the war, and the English people call me rajah; but the Englishman come to our country and hire me for a guide in the woods and call me a nigger. No, I am myself with what good I have in me. I can do to fight the Germans, and that is all I want, Dick. I try to be a gentleman, like Peter and Capt. Davenport, and the King will make me an officer. That is good. I will join the Royal Flying Corps. Then they will name me for what I am by what I do."
Dick gripped Frank's right hand in a hearty clasp of respect and admiration.
"You're a brick!" he said. "Jack wasright when he said you were a deep thinker."
"I got to think deep—deeper than you," said Frank. "I got to think all for myself, because my fathers didn't think at all."
BOTH Hiram Sill and Frank Sacobie completed the cadet course and passed the final examinations. After one last fling at Washington and one more astounding suggestion to the War Office, Mr. Sill went back to France and his battalion and took command of a platoon. Mr. Sacobie transferred, with his new rank, to the Royal Flying Corps and immediately began another course of instruction. His brother officers decided that he was of a family of Italian origin. He did not bother his head about what they thought and applied himself with fervor to mastering the science of flying.
Dick recovered his strength steadily. He saw Davenport frequently and the Kingstonsstill more frequently. His friendship with the Kingstons—particularly with Kathleen—deepened without a check. No two days ever went by consecutively without his seeing one or another of that family—usually one.
On a certain Tuesday morning near the end of November he left the hospital at ten o'clock in high spirits. He had that morning discarded his last crutch and now moved along with the help of two big sticks. The dressing on his head was reduced to one thin strip of linen bound smoothly round just above the line of his eyebrows. It showed beneath his cap and gave him somewhat the air of a cheerful brigand. Though his left foot came into contact with the pavement very gingerly, he twirled one of the heavy sticks airily every now and again.
Dick found Jack Davenport in the library. A woman and two little girls were leaving the library as he entered. The woman was poorly dressed, and her eyelids were red from recent tears—but now a look of relief, almost of joy, shone in her eyes. She turned on the threshold.
"Bill will have more heart now, sir, for the fighting of his troubles and miseries over there," she said. "If I were to stand and talk an hour, sir, I couldn't tell you what's in my heart—but I say again, God bless you for your great kindness!"
She turned again then and passed Dick, and the butler opened the big door and bowed her out of the house with an air of cheery good will.
Capt. Starkley-Davenport sat with his crutch and stick leaning against the table. On the cloth within easy reach his checkbook lay open before him. He was dressed with his usual completeness of detail and studied simplicity.
"Have you been boarded yet?" asked Jack.
"To-morrow," replied Dick. "All the M. O.'s are friends of mine, so I expect to wangle back to my battalion in two weeks."
Jack smiled and shook his head. "Your best friend in the world—or the maddest doctor in the army—wouldn't send you back to France on one leg, old son. Six weeks is nearer the mark."
"I can make it in two. You watch me."
"And is it still your old battalion, Dick? I have refrained from worrying you about it this time, because you deserved a rest—but I'm keener than ever to see you in my old outfit; and your third pip is there foryou to put up on the very day of your transfer."
"I've been thinking about it, Jack—and of course I'd like to do it because you want me to. But the colonel wouldn't understand. No one who does not know you would understand. People would think I'd done it for the step, or that I hadn't hit it off, as an officer, with the old crowd. I want to stay, and yet I want to go. I want to fight on, as far as my luck will take me, with the 26th, and yet I'd be proud as a brigadier to sport three pips with your lot. As for doing something that you want me to do—why, to be quite frank with you, there isn't another man in the world I'd sooner please than you. Give me a few months more in which to decide. Give me until my next leave from France."
Dick had become embarrassed toward theend of his speech, and now he looked at Davenport with a red face. The other returned the glance with a flush on his thin cheeks.
"Bless you, Dick," he said and looked away. "Your next leave from France," he continued. "Six or seven months from now, with luck. They don't give me much more than that." Dick stared at his friend.
"I had to send for an M. O. early this morning," Jack went on in a level voice. "Wilson did it; he heard me fussing about. By seven o'clock there were three of the wisest looking me over—all three familiar with my case ever since I got out of hospital. They can't do anything, for everything that could be removed—German metal—was dug out long ago. A few odds and ends remain, here and there—and one or anotherof those is bound to get me within ten or twelve months. So it will read in theTimesas 'Died of wounds,' after all."
Dick's face turned white. "Are you joking?" he asked.
"Not I, old son," said the captain, smiling. "I have a sense of humor—but it doesn't run quite to that."
"And here you are all dolled up in white spats! Jack, you have a giant's heart! And worrying about me and your regiment! Jack, I'll do it! I'll transfer. I'll put in my application to-day."
"No. I like your suggestion better. Wait till your next leave from France. I have taken a fancy to that idea. You'll come home in six or seven months, and you'll ask me to let you put off your decision until you return again. Of course I shallhave to say yes—and, since I am determined to see the Essex badges on you, I'll wait another six or seven months. I am stubborn. Between your indecision and my stubbornness, the chances are that I'll fool the doctors. That would be a joke, if you like!"
Dick hobbled round the table and grasped Jack's hand.
"Done!" he exclaimed. "I am with you, Jack. We'll play that game for all it is worth. But you didn't seriously believe what the doctors said, did you?"
"Yes, until five minutes ago."
"Two years ago they said you would be right as wheat in six months; and now they say you will be dead in a year. If they think they're prophets—they are clean off their job. Would they bet money on it? I don't think! One year! Fifty yearswould have sounded almost as knowing and a good sight more likely."
Dick stayed to luncheon, and he remained at the table after Wilson had taken Jack away to lie down. Wilson came back within fifteen minutes and found the Canadian subaltern where he had left him.
"Sir, I am anxious about Capt. Jack," he said.
"Why do you say that?" asked Dick.
"Sir Peter Bayle and two other medical gentlemen of the highest standing warned him this very morning, sir, that he was only one year more for this world; and now he is singing, sir,—a thing he has not done in months,—and a song which runs, sir, with your permission, 'All the boys and girls I chance to meet say, Who's that coming down the street? Why, it's Milly; she's adaisy'—and so on, sir. I fear his wounds have affected his mind, sir."
"Wilson, I know that song and approve of it," said Dick. "If Sir Peter Bayle told you, in November, 1916, that you were to die in November, 1917, of wounds received in 1914, should you worry? Nix to that! You would seriously suspect that Sir Peter had his diagnosis of your case mixed up in his high-priced noddle with Buchan's History of the War; and if you are the man I think you are, you, too, would sing."
"I thank you, Mr. Richard. You fill my heart with courage, sir," said Wilson.
Dick reached the Kingston house at four o'clock and was shown as usual into the drawing-room. The ladies were not there, but an officer whom Dick had never seen before stood on the hearthrug with his backto the fire. He wore the crown and star of a lieutenant colonel on his shoulders, a wound stripe on his left sleeve, the red tabs of the general staff on his collar, on his right breast the blue ribbon of the Royal Humane Society's medal and on his left breast the ribbons of the D. S. O., of the Queen's and the King's South African medals, of several Indian medals and of the Legion of Honor. His figure was slight and of little more than the medium height. A monocle without a cord shone in his right eye, and his air was amiable and alert. Dick halted on his two sticks and said, "I beg your pardon, sir."
The other flashed a smile, advanced quickly and in two motions put Dick into a deep chair and took possession of the sticks. Then he shook the visitor's hand heartily.
"Glad to see you," he said. "There is no mistaking you. You are Kathleen's Canadian subaltern. I am Kathleen's father."
Dick knew that there were plenty of suitable things to say in reply, but for the life of him he could not think of one of them. So he said nothing, but returned the colonel's smile.
"Don't be bashful, Dick," continued the other. "I was a boy myself not so long ago as you think—but I hadn't seen a shot fired in anger when I was your age. It's amazing. I wonder what weight of metal has gone over your head, not to mention what has hit you and fallen short. Tons and tons, I suppose. It's an astounding war, to my mind. Don't you find it so?"
"Yes, sir," replied Dick.
"And you are right," continued the other."I wish I were your age, so as to see it more clearly. Stupendous!"
At that moment Mrs. Kingston and the two girls entered. It had been Dick's and Kathleen's intention to go out to tea; but the colonel upset that plan by saying that he was very anxious to hear Dick talk. So they remained at home for tea—and the colonel did all the talking. Dick agreed with everything he said about the war, however, and then he said that Dick was right—so it really made no difference after all which of them actually said the things.
During the ten days of the colonel's leave he and Dick became firm friends. They knocked about town together every morning, often lunched with Jack Davenport and every afternoon and evening took Mrs. Kingston and the girls out. Dickdined at home with the family on the colonel's last night of leave. After dinner, when the others left the table, the colonel detained Dick with a wink.
"I won't keep you from Kathleen ten minutes, my boy," he said. "I want to tell you, in case I don't see you again for a long time,—meetings between soldiers are uncertain things, Dick,—that this little affair between you and my daughter has done me good to see. You are both babies, so don't take it too seriously. Take it happily. Whatever may happen in the future, you two children will have something very beautiful and romantic and innocent to look back at in this war. Though you should live to be ninety and marry a girl from Assiniboia, yet you will always remember this old town with pleasure. If, on the other hand, you should continue in your presentvein—that is, continue to feel like this after you grow up—that it is absolutely necessary to your happiness to have tea with my daughter every day—well, good luck to you! I can't say more than that, my boy. But in the meantime, be happy."
Then he shook Dick vigorously by the hand, patted his shoulder and pushed him out of the room.
Dick handled the medical officers so ably that he and his transportation were ready for France on New Year's Day. The Kingstons saw him off. He found a seat in a first-class compartment and deposited his haversack in it. Then the four stood on the platform and tried in vain to think of something to say. Even Mrs. Kingston was silent. Officers of all ranks of every branch of the service, with their friends and relatives, crowded the longplatform. Late arrivals bundled in and out of the carriages, looking for unclaimed seats. Guards looked at their big silver watches and requested the gentlemen to take their seats. Then Mrs. Kingston kissed Dick; then Mary kissed him; and then, lifted to a state of recklessness, he kissed Kathleen on her trembling lips. He saw tears quivering in her eyes.
"When I come back—next leave—will it be the same?" he asked.
She bowed her head, and the tears spilled over and glistened on her cheeks. Standing in the doorway of the compartment, Dick saluted, then turned, trod on the toes of a sapper major, moved heavily from there to the spurred boots of an artillery colonel and sat down violently and blindly on his lumpy haversack. The five other occupants of the compartment glancedfrom Dick to the group on the platform.
"STANDING IN THE DOORWAY OF THE COMPARTMENT, DICK SALUTED."
"STANDING IN THE DOORWAY OF THE COMPARTMENT, DICK SALUTED."
"STANDING IN THE DOORWAY OF THE COMPARTMENT, DICK SALUTED."
"We all know it's a rotten war, old son," said the gunner colonel and, stooping, rubbed the toes of his outraged boots with his gloves.
Dick found many old faces replaced by new in the battalion. Enemy snipers, shell fire, sickness and promotion had been at work. Dick acted as assistant adjutant for a couple of weeks and was then posted to a company as second in command and promised his step in rank at the earliest opportunity. In the same company was Lieut. Hiram Sill's platoon. Hiram, busy as ever, had distinguished himself several times since his return and was in a fair way to be recommended for a Military Cross.
The commander of the company was amiddle-aged, amiable person who had been worked so hard during the past year that he had nothing left to carry on with except courage. At sight of Dick he rejoiced, for Dick had a big reputation. He took off his boots and belt, retired to his blankets and told his batman to wake him when the war was over. The relief was too much for him; it had come too late. The more he rested the worse he felt, and at last the medical officer sent him out on a stretcher. Fever and a general breakdown held him at the base for several weeks, and then he was shipped to Blighty. So Dick got a company and his third star, and no one begrudged him the one or the other.
The Canadian Corps worked all winter in preparation for its great spring task. The Germans fortified and intrenched andmightily garrisoned along all the great ridge of Vimy, harassed the preparing legions with shells and bombs and looked contemptuously out and down upon us from their strong vantage points. Others had failed to wrest Vimy from them. But night and day the Canadians went on with their preparations.
Word that the United States of America had declared war on Germany reached the toilers before Vimy on April 7; and within the week there came a night of gunfire that rocked the earth and tore the air. With morning the gunfire ceased, only to break forth again in lesser volume as the jumping barrages were laid along the ridge; and then, in a storm of wind and snow, the battalions went over on a five-division front, company after company, wave after wave, riflemen, bombers and Lewis gunners. TheCanadians were striking after their winter of drudgery.
One of our men, a Yankee by birth, went over that morning with a miniature Stars and Stripes tied to his bayonet. We cleared out the Huns and took the ridge; and for days the water that filled the shell holes and mine craters over that ground was red with Canadian blood, and the plank roads were slippery with it from the passing of our wounded.
Dick went through that fight in front of his company and came out of it speechless with exhaustion, but unhit. Hiram Sill survived it with his arm in a sling. Maj. Henry Starkley was wounded again, again not seriously. Maj. Patrick Hammond was killed, and Corp. Jim Hammond was carried back the next day with a torn scalp and a crushed knee.
On the tenth day after that battle Lieut. Hiram Sill and his company commander were the recipients of extraordinary news. Mr. Sill was requested to visit the colonel without loss of time. He turned up within the minute and saluted with his left hand.
"You are wanted back in the U. S. A., Hiram, for instructional purposes," said the colonel, looking over a mess of papers at his elbow. "You don't have to go if you don't want to. Here it is—and to be made out in triplicate, of course."
Hiram examined the papers.
"And here is something else that will interest you," continued the colonel. "News for you and Dick Starkley. You have your M. C."
Hiram's eyes shone.
"And Dick seems to have hooked thesame for his work on the Somme—and I had given up all hope of that coming through. I recommended him for a D. S. O. last week. The way these recommendations for awards are handled beats me. They put them all into a hat and then chuck the hat out of the window, I guess, and whatever recommendations are picked up in the street and returned through the post are approved and acted upon. I know a chap—come back here!"
Hiram turned at the door of the hut.
"Do you intend to accept that job?"
"Yes, sir."
"You have a choice between going over to the American army with your rank or simply being seconded from the Canadians for that duty. What do you mean to do?"
"Seconded, sir. I am an American citizenclear through, colonel, but I have worn this cut of uniform too long to change it in this war."
Hiram found Dick in his billet, reading a letter. Dick received the news of the awards and of Hiram's appointment very quietly.
"Jack Davenport has gone west," he said.
Hiram sat down and stared at Dick without a word.
"This letter is from Kathleen," continued Dick. "She says Jack went out on Monday to visit some of the people he helps. He had taken on six more widows and seven more babies since the Vimy show. On his way home toward evening he and Wilson were outside the Blackfriars underground station, looking for a taxi, when a lorry took a skid fair at an old woman and little boy who were just making the curb. Wilsonswears that Jack jumped from the curb as if there were nothing wrong with him, landed fair in front of the lorry, knocked the old woman and kid out from under, but fell before he could get clear himself."
"Killed?"
"Instantly."
Hiram gazed down at his muddy boots, and Dick continued to regard the letter in his hand.
"Can you beat it?" said Hiram at last.
Dick got up and paced about the little room, busy with his thoughts. Finally he spoke.
"Sacobie is flying, and you are booked for the States, and I am going to transfer to Jack's old lot," he said slowly.
Hiram looked up at him, but did not speak.
"Jack wanted me to," continued Dick."Well, why not? It's the same old army and the same old war. A fellow should make an effort to oblige a man like Jack—dead or alive." He was silent for several seconds, then went on: "Henry has been offered a staff job in London. Peter is safe. Sacobie has brought down four Boche machines already. What have you heard about Jim Hammond?"
"It's Blighty for him—and then Canada. He'll never in the world bend that leg again."
For a while Dick continued to pace back and forth across the muddy floor in silence.
"We are scattering, Old Psychology," he said. "This war is a great scatterer—but there are some things it can't touch. You'll be homesick at your new job, Hiram,—and I'll be homesick with the Essex bunch, I suppose,—but there are some things thatmake it all seem worth the rotten misery of it." He glanced down at Kathleen's letter, then put it into his pocket. "Jack Davenport, for one," he ended.
"A soldier and a gentlemen," said Hiram.
THE END
Transcriber Notes:Throughout the dialogues, there were words used to mimic accents of the speakers. Those words were retained as-is.The illustrations have been moved so that they do not break up paragraphs and so that they are next to the text they illustrate. Thus the page number of the illustration might not match the page number in the List of Illustrations, and the order of illustrations may not be the same in the List of Illustrations and in the book.Errors in punctuation and inconsistent hyphenation were not corrected unless otherwise noted.On page 142, "comissions" was replaced with "commissions".On page 243, "harrassed" was replaced with "harassed".
Throughout the dialogues, there were words used to mimic accents of the speakers. Those words were retained as-is.
The illustrations have been moved so that they do not break up paragraphs and so that they are next to the text they illustrate. Thus the page number of the illustration might not match the page number in the List of Illustrations, and the order of illustrations may not be the same in the List of Illustrations and in the book.
Errors in punctuation and inconsistent hyphenation were not corrected unless otherwise noted.
On page 142, "comissions" was replaced with "commissions".
On page 243, "harrassed" was replaced with "harassed".