XV
“Yus!” saidMrs Skirrow, with an emphasis that carried conviction. “It may seem a vi’lent utt’rance to you, mum, but, for me, I’m bound to say I’m right down glad o’ this war. It’s tuk my three off o’ me hands, an’ it’s givin’ me the time o’ me life.”
“Where have they got to?” asked Mrs Dare sympathetically.
“Jim and George, they’re in Kitchener’s lot at Colchester—the Hoozars, and me old man’s back in th’ Army Transport, an’ if that don’t mek him move his lazy bones I d’n know annything this side the other place that will. It tired him so last time he was in it, that he’s bin resting ever since. But it’s the thing he knows best, and when the call come he forgot his tiredness an’ up an’ went like a man. ‘Damn that Keyzer!’ he says,—you’ll pardon me, mum, but them was his identical words,—‘Damn that Keyzer!’ he says. ‘He is the limit,—walking over little Belgium with ’is ’obnails like that without so much as a by-your-leave or beg-pardon. He’s got to be knocked out, he has, and I’m on to help jab him one in the eye. And you two boys,’ he says, ‘you’re onto this job too, or I’ll have the skin off of you both before you know where y’are. Yer King and yer country needs yer.’ An’ if you’ll b’lieve me, mum, they went like lambs.”
“And why did they go into the Hussars? Can they ride?”
“Divv—I mean, not a bit of it, mum. But they talked it over atween themselves, and Jim, he said, if it come to riding or walking, he’d sooner ride any day, an’ the spurs made a man look a man. So they went up together and they was took on like a shot. An’ I’m to get twelve-and-sixa week now and mebbe more later on, they do say. I ain’t got it yet, but it’s a-comin’ all right, an’then——”
“Well, I hope you’ll save all you can, Mrs Skirrow. You never know what the future may bring, you know.”
“That’s true, mum. But I’ve worked harder than most for these three this many a year, and I’m inclined to think I’ll mebbe tek a bit of a holiday and have a decent rest. How long d’you think it’ll go on, mum?”
“I’m afraid no one can tell that, Mrs Skirrow. Colonel Luard says he will be glad if it’s over in six months.”
“Ah,—well,”—with a satisfied look on her face,—“that’s a tidy spell. For me, if it was a year I d’n know as I’d mind. It’ll keep a lot o’ men out o’ mischief.”
“And put many out of life altogether, I’m afraid.”
“Ay—well—mebbe! But there’s always the pension to look forward to, an’ they do say it’s goin’ to be bigger than ever it was before.”
“Yes, I’m sure everybody feels that everything possible should be done for the men at the front and those they leave behind them.”
“That’s right, mum. ’Tain’t such a bad old world after all. D’you hear about the Chilfers down the road, mum?”
“No. What about them?”
“A rare joke. Everybody’s laughing at ’em. When yon first pinch come and it lukt ’s if we might all be starvin’ inside a week, Mr Chilfer he went up in his big motor to th’ Stores, and he come back with it full,—’ams and sides o’ bacon, all nicely done up, an’ flour, an’ cheeses, an’ I d’n know what all. Lukt like a Carter Paterson at Christmas time, he did. An’ now prices is down again he wants to get rid o’ the stuff, an’ nob’dy’ll luk at it ’cos it’s all goin’ bad on ’is ’ands. And serve him jolly well right!—that’s what I say.”
“And I say the same. It was inconsiderate and selfish and decidedly unpatriotic. If everybody had done like that where would the rest of us have been?”
“That’s it, mum. But it’s them Chilfers all over. I’m glad to say they’ve tuk his car f’r the war, and they’ve tuk all the horses they could lay their hands on. That’s rough on some. There’s Gilling down our way. He runs a laundry. They stopped him in the street t’other day an’ tuk his horse and left th’ van and th’ laundry he was delivering right there. It’ll put a stop on him I’m thinking, and folks’ll have to go dirty, unless th’ big laundries pick up all the business.”
“There will be discomforts in all directions, I’m afraid, Mrs Skirrow. But we’re much better off than the poor people in Belgium who are being turned out in thousands and their homes burnt over their heads. It’s dreadful work.”
“’Tis that, mum. An’ begging your pardon, I says like my old man, ‘Damn that Keyzer, and put the stopper on ’im as quick as may be!’”
“One cannot help hoping he will suffer as he deserves.”
“That’s right, mum! Bet you I’d trounce ’im if I got half a chance. I’d twist his old neck like that, I would,”—and she wrung her wet floor-cloth into her pail with a vehemence that imperilled its further usefulness. “He’s an old divvle, he is, an’ th’ young one’s worse, they say. All the same, if they c’d do it so’s none of ’em got killed, for me I wouldn’t mind th’ war going on for quite a goodish bit.”
“And I would be thankful if it all ended to-morrow.”
“Ah! ’twon’t do that, mum,” was Mrs Skirrow’s safe prophecy.
Since Con’s post-card saying they were expecting to leave within an hour or two, they had had no word from him, nor was any information as to the movements of the troops permitted in the papers. The rigid censorship dropped an impenetrable vail between the anxious hearts at home and the active operations abroad.
It was a time and an occasion for the exercise of unparalleled and implicit faith and hope and trust in the powers that held the ways, and still more in the HighestPower of all. And on all sides was manifested an extraordinary strengthening and quickening of those higher and deeper feelings which had become somewhat atrophied during the long fat years of peace. The nation and the Empire drew itself together, forgot the little family disputes which had enlivened its existence for so long, and stood shoulder to shoulder as never before. The waters were troubled and the sick were healed.
The Colonel, in the pursuit of his duties, was frequently at the War Office. He heard, there and at his club, many things of which he never spoke even to Mr and Mrs Dare in their intimate evening confabulations.
The full bleak blackness of the days of Mons and Maubeuge were known to him, and the peril of Le Cateau and Landrecies, and it was as much as he could do to keep the weight of these grave matters out of his face at times.
He saw the casualty lists as they were compiled at the office, long before they were issued, and groaned over them in general and in particular. Killed, wounded, missing,—many whom he had known, and more whose people he knew, were already gone. Who would be left when the full tale was told?—he asked himself gloomily,—when this was barely the beginning.
Then, one day, his anxious old finger, following the list down, name by name, stopped with a sudden stiffening on the name of “Dare, Lieut. C., R.A.M.C.” under the head of “Missing,” and he had to inflate his chest with a very deep breath and hold himself very tightly, before he could mechanically get through the rest of the list.
“Missing!”—Under all the ordinary circumstances of civilised warfare that would leave abundant ground for hope. But the appalling stories he had been hearing of late as to the newest German methods left only room for fear.
They were, on the most indisputable evidence, behaving worse than the worst of savages. Their barbarous cruelties were the result of a deliberate system of frightfulness andterrorism inspired by headquarters. They had shocked and wounded his soul till at times it had felt sick of humanity at large. But they filled him also with a most righteous anger which helped to brace him up again.
That a hitherto reputedly civilised nation could, of cold deliberation, do such things!—and exult in them!—Faugh! It was savages they were,—and worse than any savages he had ever come across!
And so he feared the worst for Con, and his heart was heavy for Con’s wife and mother and father.
He went over to his club to think it over, but found too many friends there for his present humour. So he turned into St James’s Park, and walked on and on, with his mind full of Con and Alma, past the Palace and the Duke’s statue, and found himself in Hyde Park, where the London Scottish were drilling and manœuvering with a huge crowd looking on.
That made him think of Ray, and he wondered briefly where those two had got to. If Ray had been at home, as he ought to have been, he would have been among these stalwart kilties who looked fine and fit for anything. As soon as he got home he would take his place of course. And young Noel and Gregor MacLean,—he had heard that very day that reserve battalions were to be raised pretty generally. So they would be in it too. And that was all right. Duty called, and it was the part of the young to bear the burden and heat of this desperate life-struggle to the death.
But his heart gave a twinge, all the same, at the possibilities. Con was possibly gone. Suppose these others went too! It would leave a dreadful gap in their homes, and wounds in their hearts that would never heal. This was what war meant. God help them all!
He watched the brave swing of the boys in hodden gray for a time with approving eye, till they fell out to munch exiguous lunches on the grass, which reminded him that he was hungry himself, and he went off to feed thoughtfully all by himself at a quiet little restaurant in Jermyn Street.
Alma must be told at once. Sudden sight of the ominous news in the list when it was published would be very trying for her. He could break it gently and put a better face on it than, to his own mind, it actually bore. And then he must break it also to Mrs Dare and she would tell her husband and the others.
But he nodded his head gravely over the whole matter as he ate, and was full of bitterness and wrath as those stories he had been hearing of ghastly brutalities perpetrated by the Germans even on the wounded came surging up in his memory. He cursed them heartily, and prayed High Heaven to requite them in full for all.
But a couple of daintily-grilled cutlets, with crisp curly wafers of chip potatoes, and a nut of real old Stilton, and a pint of Burgundy, and a good cigar, induced a more hopeful state of mind.
There were black sheep in every army of course. With all our care we had never been able to eliminate them entirely from our own. And war was a terrible loosener of the passions. But a victorious army was perhaps less likely to indulge in vicious devilry than a beaten one. At least one might hope so. Unless, indeed, the Germans had all gone Berserk mad, as some were saying.
Con, busy with his wounded, had probably had to be left behind in the hurried retreat,—how hurried only those in the know really comprehended as yet. He was a non-combatant and there could be no possible reason for maltreating him. He was probably safe and sound in Germany by this time.... If only one had not heard all those devilish stories!... Even women and children! ... and the wounded!... God hold them to account for it all!
By the time his taxi set him down at the big gate of St Barnabas’s, he was fairly himself again. He rang the bell and requested audience of the Matron.
“Bad news?” she asked, with an anxious look, as she shook hands with him.
“Might be worse—perhaps. He’s in the list as ‘missing.’ And that may mean anything or not so much. I thought I’d better let her know beforehand. The list will be out in a day or two and....”
“I’ll send for her,” and she rang the bell and gave the order, supplementing it after a second’s hesitation with, “Tell Nurse Luard that her uncle has called to see her.”
“It will prepare her for possible ill-news,” she said, “and she will have time to pull herself together.”
“Yes,—thank you! I am going to assume that it is not really very bad news, though to tell you thetruth——”
“It leaves a loophole for hope, of course. But the Germans seem behaving verybadly——”
“Damnably,” jerked the Colonel.
“—If all the stories we hear are true.”
“Must be some fire for all the smoke that’s about,” and then Alma came hastily in, her face white and set, her eyes painful in their anxious craving.
“Is he dead?” she asked quickly, and the Matron slipped quietly out.
“No, no, my dear!” said Uncle Tony, gripping her trembling hand firmly. “Nor, so far as we know, even wounded. But in the list I have just happened to see up yonder, his name is among the missing. And I did not want you to come on it suddenly in the paper, and think it worse than it is.”
“Thank God!” she said quietly, with a sigh of relief, and drew her hand across her eyes as though wiping away a ghastly vision. “That is all you know?” she asked with a searching look. And if the Colonel had been breaking worse news by gentle steps he would have had a very bad time.
“That is all that is known by anyone, my dear. As soon as we hear more you shall know it. It may be that he will be safer as a prisoner, wherever he is, than if he were in the thick of it.”
“He would sooner be in the thick of it,” she said, with a decided shake of the head. “He will be terribly put out at being shelved so soon. I have put down my name for the next draft. I was hoping we might perhaps come across one another.”
“One hundred to one against it, I should say. There will be so many hospitals and you might be sent anywhere.”
“I’d have felt nearer him anyway. But if he’s.... Where would they be likely to send him?”
“Away into some remote part of Germany, most likely. You think you’ll go? If any further news comes you would get it quicker here than out there.”
“They are needing all the help they can get. I think it is my duty to go, Uncle.”
“Very well, my dear. Go, and God bless you! And bring you back safe to us. We shall miss you all. Noel and young MacLean will be in the London Scottish to-morrow, I expect. AndRay——”
“Any news of those two?”
“Not a word. I’m expecting a telegram any minute from Southampton or Folkestone or Newhaven, saying they’ve just got across and will be up in a couple of hours. And as soon as Ray gets back he’ll join his battalion of course. We’ll have no one left but the two girls.”
“They’ll keep you lively.”
“We shall miss you all. But it wouldn’t be in any of our thoughts to stand between any of you and what seems to you your duty.”
“Things are not going well with us from all accounts. Are they really as bad as some of the papers seem to make out?”
“They have been too strong for us so far. They’ve simply rolled us back by weight of numbers. But they haven’t rolled over us, and their losses must have been terrible. I have great faith in French and Kitchener. Safe men both. And the Frenchman, Joffre, seems agood steady sort too. No froth about him and France believes in him. The tide will turn, you’ll see.”
And presently he took his leave, bidding her keep her heart up and promising to send her instantly any further news he could get of Con. And then he went on home to break it gently to Con’s mother also.