XXX
Thenews of the London Scottish charge at Messines, and their success in holding back the enemy at that time and point of terrific pressure, was made public by the Censor almost at once. And great was the jubilation at Head-Quarters and throughout the Second Battalion, and grievous the anxiety in many a home over the tardy casualty lists, for it was recognised that the losses must necessarily be heavy.
Lois suffered only one day of acutest mental distress, thanks to Ray’s precious bits of pencilled notes, three of which—addressed to “Lady Luard”—arrived all together the day after the news was made known.
But that one long day taught her to the full what long-drawn agonies thousands of other anxious hearts must be suffering until all the details were published.
Ray’s latest note, scribbled by the roadside just after his elevating chat with the Adjutant, was very short and very scrawly in its writing. But it told that he was alive and that was all she cared for.
“Can’t write much,” he said in it, “for my hand’s got the jumps yet. We’ve just come through hell and I haven’t a scratch. I live and marvel. God’s great mercy. They say we’ve done well. It was certainly hot. Going to have a bit off-time, I believe, and we need it. Keep your heart up. I can’t imagine anything worse than we’ve come through.”
Noel and Gregor MacLean swelled visibly with pride in the prowess of their First Battalion,—so the girls asserted,—and certainly in their at-length-completed uniforms they looked unusually big and brawny and ready for anything.
A draft was preparing for the front to fill up the gapsin the depleted First, and they enthusiastically put in for it. And, as they were about the two fittest men in the regiment, thanks to their own arduous preliminary training, they were accepted, and—again according to the girls—forthwith became so massive in their own estimation that it was as much as one’s place was worth for ordinary mortals to venture to address them.
But the keenness of the draft for the front could not prevent a certain heaviness of heart in those at home. The very necessity and the urgency of the call induced forebodings as to the future. The First Battalion had made a record. The draft would be emulous to live up to it. Not one of them, as they helped the happy warriors in their preparations and kept strong and cheerful faces over it all, but felt that they were most likely parting with the boys for good, and that when the good-byes were said they might well be the last ones.
Mrs Dare especially felt bruised to the heart’s core. Con gone, and lying wounded somewhere,—and undoubtedly sorely wounded, for they had never had a line from himself yet. Ray out there in the thick of it, and any moment might bring word of his death. And now Noel plunging into the mêlée with a joyous zest such as he had never shown for anything in life before. And Alma and Lois on the tenterhooks of ceaseless anxiety. It was a time that kept the women-folk much upon their knees, and their hearts welled with unuttered prayers as they went about their daily work.
A time, however, that was not without its compensations. If anxieties filled the air, all hearts were opened to one another in amazingly un-English fashion. Men with whom Mr Dare had had no acquaintance, made a point of coming up to him and congratulating him on his son-in-law’s safety in that hot night at Messines.
They expressed their sympathy in the matter of Con and hoped he would soon have better news, and spoke admiringly of Noel’s pluck in volunteering so speedily for the front.
And everywhere Mrs Dare and Lois and the girls went it was the same. The frigid angularities of the British character were everywhere broken down. The touch of common feeling evoked a new spirit of national kinship. What touched one touched all. But in varying degree. Pleasant and helpful as it was to experience this new feeling of kindliness and sympathy in the air, the hearts most vitally affected alone knew how sorely the war was bruising them.
But, as Alma said, whenever she could rush away from her patients for a breath of home, “Work is the only thing to keep one’s thoughts off one’s troubles, and it doesn’t pay to dwell on them. Here’s another letter from Robert Grant. He says Con is progressing and hints that there is a chance of his being exchanged as soon as he can travel. I do wish we could hear from himself, if it was only just a word. I can’t help fearing he’s more hurt than Mr Grant tells us.”
“It’s a great comfort to know that he’s alive, my dear,” said Mrs Dare, “—when so many have gone for good.”
“Oh, it is. I assure you I am grateful, Mother. And yet I can’t help longing for just that one word from himself. If he only signed his letters even, it would be something.”
“We must be thankful for the smallest sparing mercy in these days. It seems incredible that any of them should come back alive when one reads the accounts of the fighting.”
“I don’t believe it helps one to read about it,” said Lois, who had sat listening quietly.
“I’m sure it doesn’t,” said Alma. “I’m glad to say I have very little time for reading. On the other hand one cannot help hearing our men talk about it, and perhaps that’s worse, for they were in the thick of it and know what they’re talking about. And, oh, if only the slackers and shirkers at home could hear how the others think of them! Their ears would tingle red for the rest of their lives. You hear pretty regularly from Ray, Lo?”
“Every two or three days. I’ll get you his last ones,” and she slipped quietly away.
“She is on the rack too,” said Mrs Dare with a sigh. “Any day may bring us ill news. I dread the postman’s ring. And in a few days Noel will be in it too. It’s hard on those who sit at home and wait.”
“But the boys are just splendid,” said Alma cheerfully. “They’re doing their duty nobly. Just think how you, and we all, would have felt if Noel had kept out of it. Why, we couldn’t have held our heads up, Mother, and you know it.”
“I know,” nodded Mrs Dare. “I try to look at it that way, but the other side will insist on being looked at also.”
“If any of them never come back,—well, we know that they will be infinitely better off. They will have attained the very highest. No man can do more than give his life for his country, and these boys are giving themselves splendidly. I tell you my heart is in my throat at thought of it all whenever I meet a regiment in the street. I could cheer and cry at the same time. They are splendid!—splendid!—and you can see in their eyes and faces that they understand. War is very terrible, Mother, but I cannot help feeling that as a people we are on a higher level than we were six months ago. There’s a new and nobler spirit abroad.”
“To think—that it had to come in such a way!”
“That is one of the mysteries.”
Lois came quietly in with her precious letters.
“I envy you, dear,” said Alma, when she had read them. “Just one little precious scrawl like those would be worth more to me than all Mr Grant’s letters, glad as I am to get them.”
“But you know Con is safe,” said Lois softly.
“I have Mr Grant’s word for it, but I don’t know him from Adam. All I’ve been able to learn is that he was an R.A.M.C. man and was taken at the same time as Con. He is not a doctor, just one of the helpers.”
“I think I would be glad to have Ray wounded and a prisoner—if it wasn’t very bad,” said Lois. “Though I’m sure he wouldn’t like to know I feel like that.”
“And I——” began Mrs Dare. “No, it’s no good talking about it,” and then almost in spite of herself, she said what was in her mind. “I really cannot help feeling that if—if the worst had to come to any of them, it would be better to be killed outright than shattered and useless for life. Oh, it is terrible to think of. And so many willbe——”
“I would sooner have them back in pieces than not at all,” said Lois quickly.
“So would I,” said Alma. “Half a man is better than no man when he’s all you’ve got. Especially when the other half has been given to his country. No, indeed! Let us get back all we can and be thankful.”
They were kept very busy at Oakdene with their wounded. In search of extra help Mrs Dare had sent for Mrs Skirrow. But Mrs Skirrow had risen on the wings of the storm.
She came, indeed, but it was only to explain why she could not come as formerly.
“You see, mum, I got me ’ands as full as they’ll ’old at present. When I heard they was goin’ to billet some o’ the boys in Willstead, I says to myself, ‘That’s your ticket, Thirza Skirrow. Billeting’s your job. You’re a born billeter.’ So I did up my place a bit, and made it all nice an’ tidy and clean as a new pin. An’ I got four of ’em. Big lads too an’ they eats a goodish lot. But we get on together like a house afire. They calls me ‘Mother,’ an’ I makes thirty bob a week and me keep off ’em, and feeds ’em well too. It’s better’n charing an’ more to me taste, and it’s helping King and Country. An’ for me, I don’t mind how long it lasts.”
“I’m glad you’ve been so sensible,” said Mrs Dare. “Perhaps you know of someone else who could lend us a hand?”
“Know of plenty that’s needing it,—spite o’ the money they’re drawin’ from Government. But most o’ them that could if they would’s too happy boozing in the pubsto do anything else. I’ll try and find you someone, mum, an’ if I can I’ll send her along—or bring her by the scruff.”
“I hope you have good news of your own boys and Mr Skirrow.”
“Never a blessed word, mum, not since they left. They’ll be all right, I reckon, or I’d heard about it. We’re not a family that worries much so long as things is goin’ right. They’ll look after themselves out there, wherever they are. And I’m doin’ me little bit at ’ome and quite ’appy, thank ye, mum!” and Mrs Skirrow, looking very solidly contented with life, sailed away to buy in for her boys, and round up some help for Mrs Dare if she could lay hands on it.
Out of that came the idea—already essayed in other parts of the country—of opening rooms where the wives of the men who had gone to the front could meet and talk, and spend their spare time in better surroundings than the public-houses offered. And another channel for helpful ministry, and another distraction from brooding thought, was opened to them.
The boys were waiting in hourly expectation of orders to proceed to the front, in the highest of spirits, and with a gusto not entirely explicable to their womankind. By processes of severe elimination they had reduced their absolutely necessary baggage to official requirements and the restricted proportions of their new stiff green-webbing knapsacks. They were now going up and down each day in full campaigning kit, and looked, as Noel said, like blooming Father Christmases, so slung about were they with bulging impedimenta of all kinds. They looked bigger and burlier than ever,—‘absolutely massive,’ said Honor.
Then at last the call came. They were to parade at Head-Quarters and remain there ready to go on at a moment’s notice.
Farewells to the elders were said at home. Neither Mrs Dare nor Mrs MacLean would venture on them in public. Lois knew what it would be like, having been through italready, and she stayed with them. Auntie Mitt wept unashamedly, though she pretended it was only the beginning of a cold. And when they had gone, all four shut themselves up for a space in their bedrooms and betook themselves to their knees.
Honor and Vic, however, went up with them to Head-Quarters, to see the impression they created in the trains with such loads on their backs, to share in their reflected glory, and to delay the parting by that much.
And the impression was highly satisfactory to all concerned. For all minds were full still of the gallant work of the First Battalion at Messines, and all knew that these young stalwarts were off presently to fill the gaps. Appreciative glances followed their bumping progression in and out of trains and stations, and the girls really felt it an honour to be in such high company.
At Head-Quarters they—being connected with the draft—were admitted to the floor of the house and found themselves in a bewildering maelstrom of circulating Scots.
“I never saw so many bare knees in all my life,” whispered Vic.
“Aren’t they all splendid?” said Honor, sparkling all over, but not referring entirely to brawny knees.
And splendid they were, though there were many eyes that saw them but mistily—whereby they doubtless looked more splendid still. And obtrusive lumps had to be forcibly choked down many throats, as fathers and mothers, and sisters and other fellows’ sisters, tried their best to keep brave and cheerful faces while they watched—knowing only too well that they might be looking for the last time on the clear fresh faces and bright eyes and stalwart forms.
It was dreadful to think that within a day or two these eager upstanding boys, with their swinging kilts and cocked bonnets and cheery looks, might be lying stiff and stark, rent into bloody fragments by German shells. It did not do to think of it.
Honor and Vic went up into the gallery and watched the multifarious crowd below.
“It makes me think of one of those colonies of ants you buy at Gamage’s in a glass case at Christmas,” murmured Vic. “I had one once, but the glass got broken and they all got out and got lost.... I suppose they all know what they’re supposed to be doing, but they’re awfully like those ants pushing about every whichway——”
“They’ll get out soon. But I hope they’ll not get lost,” said Honor, with a glimpse of the chill foreboding.
“Do you know, Nor, those boys walk quite differently since they got their kilts,” said Vic, as they watched their two down below.
“I know. They fling out their toes with a kind of free kick as though the world was at their feet. See that man—he does it beautifully. He’s a sergeant or something. He looks as if he’d done it all his life.”
“It’s rather like the way cats walk on wet grass,” said Vic.
And then, suddenly, sharp words of command down below,—the floor cleared as if by magic of all but the draft for the front, and they formed up in two long lines, and a General came along and inspected them and said a few cheery words to them.
The girls thrilled at the general silence, the concentration on the draft. They watched their two absorbedly, and to both it came right home with almost overwhelming force that the parting that was upon them might well be the final one. They would march proudly away with their swinging kilts and skirling pipes, and then—they might never see them again.
“Look at their faces!” whispered Honor. “Are those two really our boys?”
“They’re ours right enough. That’s their fighting-face. They’re splendid.”
More words of command, they formed up in fours, the big doors swung open, the pipes shrilled a merry tune, and with heavy tread of ordered feet they passed out into the gray November day.
“Are they going?” gasped Honor, and turned to follow.
“Only to Central Hall,” said a Second Battalion man who was leaning on the rail alongside them. “They’re to come back here for lunch presently. They’ll go on later,—that is if they go on to-day at all. Somebody was saying the transports aren’t ready.”
“They say there’s a German submarine dodging about the Channel waiting for them,” said another next to him.
“This place breeds a fresh rumour every five minutes on an average. You’re never sure of anything till it’s happened.”
So the girls waited hopefully, and criticised the setting of the tables down below by obviously ’prentice hands; and in due course they were rewarded by the draft marching in again, without kits this time, and they all sat down at the tables and ate and drank in apparently jovial humour.
But to the girls, subdued in spirit somewhat by the pertinacious intrusion of the future possibilities which took advantage of this long-drawn farewell, the rough-and-ready banquet had in it something of the solemn and portentous,—something indeed of a sacrament, though the apparently jovial ones down below did not seem to regard it so. It was a farewell feast. It was hardly possible that all those stalwart diners would return. And as their eyes wandered over them, returning oftenest to their own two, they wondered who would be taken,—who left to return to them.
“I couldn’t eat to save my life,” said Vic.
“Nor I. And I don’t believe they’re eating much either. They’re just pretending to.”
When the feasting was over the place became a maelstrom again, with much hearty wringing of hands, and good lucks, and good wishes, and parting gifts of plethoric boxes of matches and cigars and cigarettes. And then they were all formed up into two long lines again, and the girls sped down the narrow stone staircases to be near them at the last.
They were just in time to march alongside their own twoas far as the Central Hall, but it was only when the hodden-gray mass was slowly making its way down the dark stairway that they had the chance to speak.
“We’ve got to sleep in this hole to-night, they say,” said Noel. “Rotten!”
“When do you think you’ll go?” asked Honor.
“Dear knows. We never know anything till we’re doing it.”
“We shall come up in the morning to see if you’re still here.”
“That’ll be nice. But don’t bother!”
“We may be here for days,” said Gregor. “We’ve got used to hanging on and waiting orders. It’s the weariest part of the work.”
“Well, we’ll keep on coming up till you go. We’d like to see the last of them, wouldn’t we, Vic?—I mean,” with a quick little catch of the breath that nearly choked her, “the last till you come back.”
“Rather! You see, we wouldn’t be sure you really had gone unless we saw it with our own eyes.”
“Think we’d bolt?—Or want to get rid of us?” grinned Noel.
“Oh—neither. Just to know, you know.”
And then the boys had to go below, and the girls went away home, and hardly spoke a word all the way.
They went up again next day and found the draft still standing-by in huge disgust at the delay.
And again the next day—and the next,—and the next; and each time found the boys growling louder and deeper.
“Got us out of Head-Quarters and forgotten us, the bally idiots!” was Noel’s opinion. “You might just trot round and ask ’em what they jolly well mean by it. Tell ’em we’re not going to put up with it much longer.”
“All going to desert for a change,” said Gregor. “It’s a sight harder work than fighting.”
Then one morning when the girls arrived at the Hall it was lonely and deserted. The draft had gone.
“Just as well, maybe,” said Honor philosophically, whenshe had got her face quite straight again. “I believe I should have cried at the last, and I hate crying in public.”
“Crying’s no good,” said Vic valiantly. “I’m glad they’re away at last. It was beginning to tell on all of us.”