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Tatterdemalion

by John Galsworthy · English · Gutenberg #28089 · 369,319 chars · public domain (US)

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Title: Tatterdemalion

Author: John Galsworthy


        
Release date: February 15, 2009 [eBook #28089]

Language: English

Other information and formats: www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/28089

Credits: E-text prepared by D. Alexander, Barbara Kosker, and the Project Gutenberg Online Distributed Proofreading Team (http://www.pgdp.net) from digital material generously made available by Internet Archive (http://www.archive.org/index.php)


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material generously made available by Internet Archive
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TATTERDEMALION

by

JOHN GALSWORTHY


"Gentillesse cometh fro' God allone."
--_Chaucer_







New York
Charles Scribner's Sons
1920

Copyright, 1917, 1918, 1920, by
Charles Scribner's Sons

Copyright, 1915, 1916, by The Ridgway Company
Copyright, 1919, by The New Republic Publishing Co., Inc.
Copyright, 1914, 1916, 1919, by The Atlantic Monthly Co.

[Illustration]


       *       *       *       *       *


BY THE SAME AUTHOR

VILLA RUBEIN, and Other Stories
THE ISLAND PHARISEES
THE MAN OF PROPERTY
THE COUNTRY HOUSE
FRATERNITY
THE PATRICIAN
THE DARK FLOWER
THE FREELANDS
BEYOND
FIVE TALES
SAINT'S PROGRESS
TATTERDEMALION

A COMMENTARY
A MOTLEY
THE INN OF TRANQUILLITY
THE LITTLE MAN, and Other Satires
A SHEAF
ANOTHER SHEAF
ADDRESSES IN AMERICA: 1919


PLAYS: FIRST SERIES
_and Separately_

THE SILVER BOX
JOY
STRIFE


PLAYS: SECOND SERIES
_and Separately_

THE ELDEST SON
THE LITTLE DREAM
JUSTICE


PLAYS: THIRD SERIES
_and Separately_

THE FUGITIVE
THE PIGEON
THE MOB


A BIT O' LOVE

MOODS, SONGS, AND DOGGERELS
MEMORIES. Illustrated


       *       *       *       *       *



TO
ELIZABETH LUCAS




CONTENTS

   PART I.--OF WAR-TIME
                                                  PAGE

       I. THE GREY ANGEL                             3

      II. DEFEAT                                    27

     III. FLOTSAM AND JETSAM                        51

      IV. THE BRIGHT SIDE                           75

       V. "CAFARD"                                 105

      VI. RECORDED                                 117

     VII. THE RECRUIT                              125

    VIII. THE PEACE MEETING                        137

      IX. "THE DOG IT WAS THAT DIED"               147

       X. IN HEAVEN AND EARTH                      169

      XI. THE MOTHER STONE                         173

     XII. POIROT AND BIDAN                         179

    XIII. THE MUFFLED SHIP                         187

     XIV. HERITAGE                                 191

      XV. 'A GREEN HILL FAR AWAY'                  199


   PART II.--OF PEACE-TIME

       I. SPINDLEBERRIES                           209

      II. EXPECTATIONS                             227

     III. MANNA                                    239

      IV. A STRANGE THING                          255

       V. TWO LOOKS                                271

      VI. FAIRYLAND                                279

     VII. THE NIGHTMARE CHILD                      283

    VIII. BUTTERCUP-NIGHT                          295




TATTERDEMALION




_PART I_

OF WAR-TIME




I

THE GREY ANGEL


Her predilection for things French came from childish recollections of
school-days in Paris, and a hasty removal thence by her father during
the revolution of '48, of later travels as a little maiden, by
diligence, to Pau and the then undiscovered Pyrenees, to a Montpellier
and a Nice as yet unspoiled. Unto her seventy-eighth year, her French
accent had remained unruffled, her soul in love with French gloves and
dresses; and her face had the pale, unwrinkled, slightly aquiline
perfection of the 'French marquise' type--it may, perhaps, be doubted
whether any French marquise ever looked the part so perfectly.

How it came about that she had settled down in a southern French town,
in the summer of 1914, only her roving spirit knew. She had been a widow
ten years, which she had passed in the quest of perfection; all her life
she had been haunted by that instinct, half-smothered in ministering to
her husband, children, and establishments in London and the country.
Now, in loneliness, the intrinsic independence of her soul was able to
assert itself, and from hotel to hotel she had wandered in England,
Wales, Switzerland, France, till now she had found what seemingly
arrested her. Was it the age of that oldest of Western cities, that
little mother of Western civilisation, which captured her fancy? Or did
a curious perversity turn her from more obvious abodes, or was she kept
there by the charm of a certain church which she would enter every day
to steep herself in mellow darkness, the scent of incense, the drone of
incantations, and quiet communion with a God higher indeed than she had
been brought up to, high-church though she had always been? She had a
pretty little apartment, where for very little--the bulk of her small
wealth was habitually at the service of others--she could manage with
one maid and no "fuss." She had some "nice" French friends there, too.
But more probably it was simply the war which kept her there, waiting,
like so many other people, for it to be over before it seemed worth
while to move and re-establish herself. The immensity and wickedness of
this strange event held her, as it were, suspended, body and spirit,
high up on the hill which had seen the ancient peoples, the Romans,
Gauls, Saracens, and all, and still looked out towards the flat
Camargue. Here in her three rooms, with a little kitchen, the maid
Augustine, a parrot, and the Paris _Daily Mail_, she dwelt as it were
marooned by a world event which seemed to stun her. Not that she
worried, exactly. The notion of defeat or of real danger to her country
and to France never entered her head. She only grieved quietly over the
dreadful things that were being done, and every now and then would glow
with admiration at the beautiful way the King and Queen were behaving.
It was no good to "fuss," and one must make the best of things, just as
the "dear little Queen" was doing; for each Queen in turn, and she had
seen three reign in her time, was always that to her. Her ancestors had
been uprooted from their lands, their house burned, and her pedigree
diverted, in the Stuart wars--a reverence for royalty was fastened in
her blood.

Quite early in the business she had begun to knit, moving her slim
fingers not too fast, gazing at the grey wool through glasses, specially
rimless and invisible, perched on the bridge of her firm, well-shaped
nose, and now and then speaking to her parrot. The bird could say,
"Scratch a poll, Poll," already, and "Hullo!" those keys to the English
language. The maid Augustine, having completed some small duty, would
often come and stand, her head on one side, gazing down with a sort of
inquiring compassion in her wise, young, clear-brown eyes. It seemed to
her who was straight and sturdy as a young tree both wonderful and sad
that _Madame_ should be seventy-seven, and so frail--_Madame_ who had no
lines in her face and such beautiful grey hair; who had so strong a
will-power, too, and knitted such soft comforters "_pour nos braves
chers poilus_." And suddenly she would say: "_Madame n'est pas
fatiguee?_" And _Madame_ would answer: "No. Speak English,
Augustine--Polly will pick up your French! Come here!" And, reaching up
a pale hand, she would set straight a stray fluff of the girl's
dark-brown hair or improve the set of her fichu.

Those two got on extremely well, for though madame was--oh! but very
particular, she was always "_tres gentille et toujours grande dame_."
And that love of form so deep in the French soul promoted the girl's
admiration for one whom she could see would in no circumstances lose her
dignity. Besides, _Madame_ was full of dainty household devices, and
could not bear waste; and these, though exacting, were qualities which
appealed to Augustine. With her French passion for "the family" she used
to wonder how in days like these _Madame_ could endure to be far away
from her son and daughter and the grandchildren, whose photographs hung
on the walls; and the long letters her mistress was always writing in a
beautiful, fine hand, beginning, "My darling Sybil," "My darling
Reggie," and ending always "Your devoted mother," seemed to a warm and
simple heart but meagre substitutes for flesh-and-blood realities. But
as _Madame_ would inform her--they were too busy doing things for the
dear soldiers, and working for the war; they could not come to her--that
would never do. And to go to them would give so much trouble, when the
railways were so wanted for the troops; and she had their lovely
letters, which she kept--as Augustine observed--every one in a
lavender-scented sachet, and frequently took out to read. Another point
of sympathy between those two was their passion for military music and
seeing soldiers pass. Augustine's brother and father were at the front,
and _Madame's_ dead brother had been a soldier in the Crimean war--"long
before you were born, Augustine, when the French and English fought the
Russians; I was in France then, too, a little girl, and we lived at
Nice; it was so lovely, you can't think--the flowers! And my poor
brother was so cold in the siege of Sebastopol." Somehow, that time and
that war were more real to her than this.

In December, when the hospitals were already full, her French friends
first took her to the one which they attended. She went in, her face
very calm, with that curious inward composure which never deserted it,
carrying in front of her with both hands a black silk bag, wherein she
had concealed an astonishing collection of treasures for the poor men! A
bottle of acidulated drops, packets of cigarettes, two of her own
mufflers, a pocket set of drafts, some English riddles translated by
herself into French (very curious), some ancient copies of an
illustrated paper, boxes of chocolate, a ball of string to make "cat's
cradles" (such an amusing game), her own packs of Patience cards, some
photograph frames, post-cards of Arles, and--most singular--a
kettle-holder. At the head of each bed she would sit down and rummage in
the bag, speaking in her slow but quite good French, to explain the use
of the acidulated drops, or to give a lesson in cat's cradles. And the
_poilus_ would listen with their polite, ironic patience, and be left
smiling, and curiously fascinated, as if they had been visited by a
creature from another world. She would move on to other beds, quite
unconscious of the effect she had produced on them and of their remarks:
"_Cette vieille dame, comme elle est bonne!_" or "_Espece d'ange aux
cheveux gris._" "_L'ange anglaise aux cheveux gris_" became in fact her
name within those walls. And the habit of filling that black silk bag
and going there to distribute its contents soon grew to be with her a
ruling passion which neither weather nor her own aches and pains, not
inconsiderable, must interfere with. The things she brought became more
marvellous every week. But, however much she carried coals to Newcastle,
or tobacco pouches to those who did not smoke, or homoeopathic
globules to such as crunched up the whole bottleful for the sake of the
sugar, as soon as her back was turned, no one ever smiled now with
anything but real pleasure at sight of her calm and truly sweet smile,
and the scent of soap on her pale hands. "_Cher fils, je croyais que
ceci vous donnerait un peu de plaisir. Voyez-vous comme c'est commode,
n'est ce pas?_" Each newcomer to the wards was warned by his comrades
that the English angel with the grey hair was to be taken without a
smile, exactly as if she were his grandmother.

In the walk to the hospital Augustine would accompany her, carrying the
bag and perhaps a large peasant's umbrella to cover them both, for the
winter was hard and snowy, and carriages cost money, which must now be
kept entirely for the almost daily replenishment of the bag and other
calls of war. The girl, to her chagrin, was always left in a safe place,
for it would never do to take her in and put fancies into her head, and
perhaps excite the dear soldiers with a view of anything so taking. And
when the visit was over they would set forth home, walking very slowly
in the high, narrow streets, Augustine pouting a little and shooting
swift glances at anything in uniform, and _Madame_ making firm her lips
against a fatigue which sometimes almost overcame her before she could
get home and up the stairs. And the parrot would greet them indiscreetly
with new phrases--"Keep smiling!" and "Kiss Augustine!" which he
sometimes varied with "Kiss a poll, Poll!" or "Scratch Augustine!" to
_Madame's_ regret. Tea would revive her somewhat, and then she would
knit, for as time went on and the war seemed to get farther and farther
from that end which, in common with so many, she had expected before
now, it seemed dreadful not to be always doing something to help the
poor dear soldiers; and for dinner, to Augustine's horror, she now had
nothing but a little soup, or an egg beaten up with milk and brandy. It
saved such a lot of time and expense--she was sure people ate too much;
and afterwards she would read the _Daily Mail_, often putting it down to
sigh, and press her lips together, and think, "One must look on the
bright side of things," and wonder a little where it was. And
Augustine, finishing her work in the tiny kitchen, would sigh too, and
think of red trousers and peaked caps, not yet out of date in that
Southern region, and of her own heart saying "Kiss Augustine!" and she
would peer out between the shutters at the stars sparkling over the
Camargue, or look down where the ground fell away beyond an old, old
wall, and nobody walked in the winter night, and muse on her nineteenth
birthday coming, and sigh with the thought that she would be old before
any one had loved her; and of how _Madame_ was looking "_tres
fatiguee_."

Indeed, Madame was not merely _looking "tres fatiguee"_ in these days.
The world's vitality and her own were at sad January ebb. But to think
of oneself was quite impossible, of course; it would be all right
presently, and one must not fuss, or mention in one's letters to the
dear children that one felt at all poorly. As for a doctor--that would
be sinful waste, and besides, what use were they except to tell you what
you knew? So she was terribly vexed when Augustine found her in a faint
one morning, and she found Augustine in tears, with her hair all over
her face. She rated the girl soundly, but feebly, for making such a fuss
over "a little thing like that," and with extremely trembling fingers
pushed the brown hair back and told her to wash her face, while the
parrot said reflectively: "Scratch a poll--Hullo!" The girl who had seen
her own grandmother die not long before, and remembered how "_fatiguee_"
she had been during her last days, was really frightened. Coming back
after she had washed her face, she found her mistress writing on a
number of little envelopes the same words: "_En bonne Amitie._" She
looked up at the girl standing so ominously idle, and said:

"Take this hundred-franc note, Augustine, and go and get it changed into
single francs--the ironmonger will do it if you say it's for me. I am
going to take a rest. I sha'n't buy anything for the bag for a whole
week. I shall just take francs instead."

"Oh, _Madame!_ You must not go out: _vous etes trop fatiguee_."

"Nonsense! How do you suppose our dear little Queen in England would get
on with all she has to do, if she were to give in like that? We must
none of us give up in these days. Help me to put on my things; I am
going to church, and then I shall take a long rest before we go to the
hospital."

"Oh, _Madame!_ Must you go to church? It is not your kind of church. You
do not pray there, do you?"

"Of course I pray there. I am very fond of the dear old church. God is
in every church, Augustine; you ought to know that at your age."

"But _Madame_ has her own religion?"

"Now, don't be silly. What does that matter? Help me into my cloth
coat--not the fur--it's too heavy--and then go and get that money
changed."

"But _Madame_ should see a doctor. If _Madame_ faints again I shall die
with fright. _Madame_ has no colour--but no colour at all; it must be
that there is something wrong."

_Madame_ rose, and taking the girl's ear between thumb and finger
pinched it gently.

"You are a very silly girl. What would our poor soldiers do if all the
nurses were like you?"

Reaching the church she sat down gladly, turning her face up towards her
favourite picture, a Virgin standing with her Baby in her arms. It was
only faintly coloured now; but there were those who said that an
Arlesienne must have sat for it. Why it pleased her so she never quite
knew, unless it were by its cool, unrestored devotion, by the faint
smiling in the eyes. Religion with her was a strange yet very real
thing. Conscious that she was not clever, she never even began to try
and understand what she believed. Probably she believed nothing more
than that if she tried to be good she would go to God--whatever and
wherever God might be--some day when she was too tired to live any more;
and rarely indeed did she forget to try to be good. As she sat there she
thought, or perhaps prayed, whichever it should be called: "Let me
forget that I have a body, and remember all the poor soldiers who have
them."

It struck cold that morning in the church--the wind was bitter from the
northeast; some poor women in black were kneeling, and four candles
burned in the gloom of a side aisle--thin, steady little spires of gold.
There was no sound at all. A smile came on her lips. She was forgetting
that she had a body, and remembering all those young faces in the wards,
the faces too of her own children far away, the faces of all she loved.
They were real and she was not--she was nothing but the devotion she
felt for them; yes, for all the poor souls on land and sea, fighting and
working and dying. Her lips moved; she was saying below her breath, "I
love them all"; then, feeling a shiver run down her spine, she
compressed those lips and closed her eyes, letting her mind alone murmur
her chosen prayer: "O God, who makes the birds sing and the stars shine,
and gives us little children, strengthen my heart so that I may forget
my own aches and wants and think of those of other people."

On reaching home again she took gelseminum, her favourite remedy against
that shivering, which, however hard she tried to forget her own body,
would keep coming; then, covering herself with her fur coat, she lay
down, closing her eyes. She was seemingly asleep, so that Augustine,
returning with the hundred single francs, placed them noiselessly beside
the little pile of envelopes, and after looking at the white, motionless
face of her mistress and shaking her own bonny head, withdrew. When she
had gone, two tears came out of those closed eyes and clung on the pale
cheeks below. The seeming sleeper was thinking of her children, away
over there in England, her children and their children. Almost
unbearably she was longing for a sight of them, not seen for so long
now, recalling each face, each voice, each different way they had of
saying, "Mother darling," or "Granny, look what I've got!" and thinking
that if only the war would end how she would pack at once and go to
them, that is, if they would not come to her for a nice long holiday in
this beautiful place. She thought of spring, too, and how lovely it
would be to see the trees come out again, and almond blossom against a
blue sky. The war seemed so long, and winter too. But she must not
complain; others had much greater sorrows than she--the poor widowed
women kneeling in the church; the poor boys freezing in the trenches.
God in his great mercy could not allow it to last much longer. It would
not be like Him! Though she felt that it would be impossible to eat, she
meant to force herself to make a good lunch so as to be able to go down
as usual, and give her little presents. They would miss them so if she
didn't. Her eyes, opening, rested almost gloatingly on the piles of
francs and envelopes. And she began to think how she could reduce still
further her personal expenditure. It was so dreadful to spend anything
on oneself--an old woman like her. Doctor, indeed! If Augustine fussed
any more she would send her away and do for herself! And the parrot,
leaving his cage, which he could always do, perched just behind her and
said: "Hullo! Kiss me, too!"

That afternoon in the wards every one noticed what a beautiful colour
she had. "_L'ange anglaise aux cheveux gris_" had never been more
popular. One _poilu_, holding up his envelope, remarked to his
neighbour: "_Elle verse des gouttes d'ciel, notr' 'tite gran'me_." To
them, grateful even for those mysterious joys "cat's cradles," francs
were the true drops from heaven.

She had not meant to give them all to-day, but it seemed dreadful, when
she saw how pleased they were, to leave any out, and so the whole
ninety-seven had their franc each. The three over would buy Augustine a
little brooch to make up to the silly child for her fright in the
morning. The buying of this brooch took a long time at the jeweller's in
the _rue des Romains_, and she had only just fixed on an amethyst before
feeling deadly ill with a dreadful pain through her lungs. She went out
with her tiny package quickly, not wanting any fuss, and began to mount
towards home. There were only three hundred yards to go, and with each
step she said to herself: "Nonsense! What would the Queen think of you!
Remember the poor soldiers with only one leg! You have got both your
legs! And the poor men who walk from the battlefield with bullets
through the lungs. What is your pain to theirs! Nonsense!" But the pain,
like none she had ever felt--a pain which seemed to have sharp double
edges like a knife--kept passing through and through her, till her legs
had no strength at all, and seemed to move simply because her will said:
"If you don't, I'll leave you behind. So there!" She felt as if
perspiration were flowing down, yet her face was as dry as a dead leaf
when she put up her hand to it. Her brain stammered; seemed to fly
loose; came to sudden standstills. Her eyes searched painfully each
grey-shuttered window for her own house, though she knew quite well
that she had not reached it yet. From sheer pain she stood still, a wry
little smile on her lips, thinking how poor Polly would say: "Keep
smiling!" Then she moved on, holding out her hand, whether because she
thought God would put his into it or only to pull on some imaginary rope
to help her. So, foot by foot, she crept till she reached her door. A
most peculiar floating sensation had come over her. The pain ceased, and
as if she had passed through no doors, mounted no stairs--she was up in
her room, lying on her sofa, with strange images about her, painfully
conscious that she was not in proper control of her thoughts, and that
Augustine must be thinking her ridiculous. Making a great effort, she
said:

"I forbid you to send for a doctor, Augustine. I shall be all right in a
day or two, if I eat plenty of francs. And you must put on this little
brooch--I bought it for you from an angel in the street. Put my fur coat
on Polly--he's shivering; dry your mouth, there's a good girl. Tell my
son he mustn't think of leaving the poor War Office; I shall come and
see him after the war. It will be over to-morrow, and then we will all
go and have tea together in a wood. Granny will come to you, my
darlings."

And when the terrified girl had rushed out she thought: "There, now
she's gone to get God; and I mustn't disturb Him with all He has to see
to. I shall get up and do for myself." When they came back with the
doctor they found her half-dressed, trying to feed a perch in the empty
cage with a spoon, and saying: "Kiss Granny, Polly. God is coming; kiss
Granny!" while the parrot sat away over on the mantelpiece, with his
head on one side, deeply interested.

When she had been properly undressed and made to lie down on the sofa,
for she insisted so that she would not go to bed that they dared not
oppose her, the doctor made his diagnosis. It was double pneumonia, of
that sudden sort which declares for life or death in forty-eight hours.
At her age a desperate case. Her children must be wired to at once. She
had sunk back, seemingly unconscious; and Augustine, approaching the
drawer where she knew the letters were kept, slipped out the lavender
sachet and gave it to the doctor. When he had left the room to extract
the addresses and send those telegrams, the girl sat down by the foot of
the couch, leaning her elbows on her knees and her face on her hands,
staring at that motionless form, while the tears streamed down her broad
cheeks. For many minutes neither of them stirred, and the only sound
was the restless stropping of the parrot's beak against a wire of his
cage. Then her mistress's lips moved, and the girl bent forward. A
whispering came forth, caught and suspended by breathless pausing:

"Mind, Augustine--no one is to tell my children--I can't have them
disturbed--over a little thing--like this--and in my purse you'll find
another--hundred-franc note. I shall want some more francs for the day
after to-morrow. Be a good girl and don't fuss, and kiss poor Polly, and
mind--I won't have a doctor--taking him away from his work. Give me my
gelseminum and my prayer-book. And go to bed just as usual--we must
all--keep smiling--like the dear soldiers--" The whispering ceased, then
began again at once in rapid delirious incoherence. And the girl sat
trembling, covering now her ears from those uncanny sounds, now her eyes
from the flush and the twitching of that face, usually so pale and
still. She could not follow--with her little English--the swerving,
intricate flights of that old spirit mazed by fever--the memories
released, the longings disclosed, the half-uttered prayers, the curious
little half-conscious efforts to regain form and dignity. She could only
pray to the Virgin. When relieved by the daughter of _Madame's_ French
friend, who spoke good English, she murmured desperately: "_Oh!
mademoiselle, madame est tres fatiguee--la pauvre tete--faut-il enlever
les cheveux? Elle fait ca toujours pour elle-meme._" For, to the girl,
with her reverence for the fastidious dignity which never left her
mistress, it seemed sacrilege to divest her of her crown of fine grey
hair. Yet, when it was done and the old face crowned only by the thin
white hair of nature, that dignity was still there surmounting the
wandering talk and the moaning from her parched lips, which every now
and then smiled and pouted in a kiss, as if remembering the maxims of
the parrot. So the night passed, with all that could be done for her,
whose most collected phrase, frequently uttered in the doctor's face,
was: "Mind, Augustine, I won't have a doctor--I can manage for myself
quite well." Once for a few minutes her spirit seemed to recover its
coherence, and she was heard to whisper: "God has given me this so that
I may know what the poor soldiers suffer. Oh! they've forgotten to cover
Polly's cage." But high fever soon passes from the very old; and early
morning brought a deathlike exhaustion, with utter silence, save for the
licking of the flames at the olive-wood logs, and the sound as they
slipped or settled down, calcined. The firelight crept fantastically
about the walls covered with tapestry of French-grey silk, crept round
the screen-head of the couch, and betrayed the ivory pallor of that
mask-like face, which covered now such tenuous threads of life.
Augustine, who had come on guard when the fever died away, sat in the
armchair before those flames, trying hard to watch, but dropping off
into the healthy sleep of youth. And out in the clear, hard shivering
Southern cold, the old clocks chimed the hours into the winter dark,
where, remote from man's restless spirit, the old town brooded above
plain and river under the morning stars. And the girl dreamed--dreamed
of a sweetheart under the acacias by her home, of his pinning their
white flowers into her hair, till she woke with a little laugh. Light
was already coming through the shutter chinks, the fire was but red
embers and white ash. She gathered it stealthily together, put on fresh
logs, and stole over to the couch. Oh! how white! how still! Was her
mistress dead? The icy clutch of that thought jerked her hands up to her
full breast, and a cry mounted in her throat. The eyes opened. The white
lips parted, as if to smile; a voice whispered: "Now, don't be silly!"
The girl's cry changed into a little sob, and bending down she put her
lips to the ringed hand that lay outside the quilt. The hand moved
faintly as if responding, the voice whispered: "The emerald ring is for
you, Augustine. Is it morning? Uncover Polly's cage, and open his door."

_Madame_ spoke no more that morning. A telegram had come. Her son and
daughter would arrive next morning early. They waited for a moment of
consciousness to tell her; but the day went by, and in spite of oxygen
and brandy it did not come. She was sinking fast; her only movements
were a tiny compression now and then of the lips, a half-opening of the
eyes, and once a smile when the parrot spoke. The rally came at eight
o'clock. _Mademoiselle_ was sitting by the couch when the voice came
fairly strong: "Give my love to my dear soldiers, and take them their
francs out of my purse, please. Augustine, take care of Polly. I want to
see if the emerald ring fits you. Take it off, please"; and, when it had
been put on the little finger of the sobbing girl: "There, you see, it
does. That's very nice. Your sweetheart will like that when you have
one. What do you say, _Mademoiselle_? My son and daughter coming? All
that way?" The lips smiled a moment, and then tears forced their way
into her eyes. "My darlings! How good of them! Oh! what a cold journey
they'll have! Get my room ready, Augustine, with a good fire! What are
you crying for? Remember what Polly says: 'Keep smiling!' Think how bad
it is for the poor soldiers if we women go crying! The Queen never
cries, and she has ever so much to make her!"

No one could tell whether she knew that she was dying, except perhaps
for those words, "Take care of Polly," and the gift of the ring.

She did not even seem anxious as to whether she would live to see her
children. Her smile moved _Mademoiselle_ to whisper to Augustine: "_Elle
a la sourire divine_."

"_Ah! mademoiselle, comme elle est brave, la pauvre dame! C'est qu'elle
pense toujours aux autres._" And the girl's tears dropped on the emerald
ring.

Night fell--the long night; would she wake again? Both watched with her,
ready at the faintest movement to administer oxygen and brandy. She was
still breathing, but very faintly, when at six o'clock they heard the
express come in, and presently the carriage stop before the house.
_Mademoiselle_ stole down to let them in.

Still in their travelling coats her son and daughter knelt down beside
the couch, watching in the dim candle-light for a sign and cherishing
her cold hands. Daylight came; they put the shutters back and blew out
the candles. Augustine, huddled in the far corner, cried gently to
herself. _Mademoiselle_ had withdrawn. But the two still knelt, tears
running down their cheeks. The face of their mother was so transparent,
so exhausted; the least little twitching of just-opened lips showed that
she breathed. A tiny sigh escaped; her eyelids fluttered. The son,
leaning forward, said:

"Sweetheart, we're here."

The eyes opened then; something more than a simple human spirit seemed
to look through--it gazed for a long, long minute; then the lips parted.
They bent to catch the sound.

"My darlings--don't cry; smile!" And the eyes closed again. On her face
a smile so touching that it rent the heart flickered and went out.
Breath had ceased to pass the faded lips.

In the long silence the French girl's helpless sobbing rose; the parrot
stirred uneasily in his still-covered cage. And the son and daughter
knelt, pressing their faces hard against the couch.




II

DEFEAT


She had been standing there on the pavement a quarter of an hour or so
after her shilling's worth of concert. Women of her profession are not
supposed to have redeeming points, especially when--like May Belinski,
as she now preferred to dub herself--they are German; but this woman
certainly had music in her soul. She often gave herself these "music
baths" when the Promenade Concerts were on, and had just spent half her
total wealth in listening to some Mozart and a Beethoven symphony.

She was feeling almost elated, full of divine sound, and of the
wonderful summer moonlight which was filling the whole dark town. Women
"of a certain type" have, at all events, emotions--and what a comfort
that is, even to themselves! To stand just there had become rather a
habit of hers. One could seem to be waiting for somebody coming out of
the concert, not yet over--which, of course, was precisely what she
_was_ doing. One need not forever be stealthily glancing and perpetually
moving on in that peculiar way, which, while it satisfied the police
and Mrs. Grundy, must not quite deceive others as to her business in
life. She had only "been at it" long enough to have acquired a nervous
dread of almost everything--not long enough to have passed through that
dread to callousness. Some women take so much longer than others. And
even for a woman "of a certain type" her position was exceptionally
nerve-racking in war-time, going as she did by a false name. Indeed, in
all England there could hardly be a greater pariah than was this German
woman of the night.

She idled outside a book-shop humming a little, pretending to read the
titles of the books by moonlight, taking off and putting on one of her
stained yellow gloves. Now and again she would move up as far as the
posters outside the Hall, scrutinising them as if interested in the
future, then stroll back again. In her worn and discreet dark dress, and
her small hat, she had nothing about her to rouse suspicion, unless it
were the trail of violet powder she left on the moonlight.

For the moonlight this evening was almost solid, seeming with its cool
still vibration to replace the very air; in it the war-time precautions
against light seemed fantastic, like shading candles in a room still
full of daylight. What lights there were had the effect of strokes and
stipples of dim colour laid by a painter's brush on a background of
ghostly whitish blue. The dreamlike quality of the town was perhaps
enhanced for her eyes by the veil she was wearing--in daytime no longer
white. As the music died out of her, elation also ebbed. Somebody had
passed her, speaking German, and she was overwhelmed by a rush of
nostalgia. On this moonlight night by the banks of the Rhine--whence she
came--the orchards would be heavy with apples; there would be murmurs,
and sweet scents; the old castle would stand out clear, high over the
woods and the chalky-white river. There would be singing far away, and
the churning of a distant steamer's screw; and perhaps on the water a
log raft still drifting down in the blue light. There would be German
voices talking. And suddenly tears oozed up in her eyes, and crept down
through the powder on her cheeks. She raised her veil and dabbed at her
face with a little, not-too-clean handkerchief, screwed up in her
yellow-gloved hand. But the more she dabbed, the more those treacherous
tears ran. Then she became aware that a tall young man in khaki was also
standing before the shop-window, not looking at the titles of the books,
but eyeing her askance. His face was fresh and open, with a sort of
kindly eagerness in his blue eyes. Mechanically she drooped her wet
lashes, raised them obliquely, drooped them again, and uttered a little
sob....

This young man, Captain in a certain regiment, and discharged from
hospital at six o'clock that evening, had entered Queen's Hall at
half-past seven. Still rather brittle and sore from his wound, he had
treated himself to a seat in the Grand Circle, and there had sat, very
still and dreamy, the whole concert through. It had been like eating
after a long fast--something of the sensation Polar explorers must
experience when they return to their first full meal. For he was of the
New Army, and before the war had actually believed in music, art, and
all that sort of thing. With a month's leave before him, he could afford
to feel that life was extraordinarily joyful, his own experiences
particularly wonderful; and, coming out into the moonlight, he had taken
what can only be described as a great gulp of it, for he was a young man
with a sense of beauty. When one has been long in the trenches, lain out
wounded in a shell-hole twenty-four hours, and spent three months in
hospital, beauty has such an edge of novelty, such a sharp sweetness,
that it almost gives pain. And London at night is very beautiful. He
strolled slowly towards the Circus, still drawing the moonlight deep
into his lungs, his cap tilted up a little on his forehead in that
moment of unmilitary abandonment; and whether he stopped before the
book-shop window because the girl's figure was in some sort a part of
beauty, or because he saw that she was crying, he could not have made
clear to any one.

Then something--perhaps the scent of powder, perhaps the yellow glove,
or the oblique flutter of the eyelids--told him that he was making what
he would have called "a blooming error," unless he wished for company,
which had not been in his thoughts. But her sob affected him, and he
said:

"What's the matter?"

Again her eyelids fluttered sideways, and she stammered:

"Not'ing. The beautiful evening--that's why!"

That a woman of what he now clearly saw to be "a certain type" should
perceive what he himself had just been perceiving, struck him forcibly,
and he said:

"Cheer up."

She looked up again swiftly: "Cheer up! You are not lonelee like me."

For one of that sort, she looked somehow honest; her tear-streaked face
was rather pretty, and he murmured:

"Well, let's walk a bit, and talk it over."

They turned the corner, and walked east, along streets empty, and
beautiful, with their dulled orange-glowing lamps, and here and there
the glint of some blue or violet light. He found it queer and rather
exciting--for an adventure of just this kind he had never had. And he
said doubtfully:

"How did you get into this? Isn't it an awfully hopeless sort of life?"

"Ye-es, it ees--" her voice had a queer soft emphasis. "You are
limping--haf you been wounded?"

"Just out of hospital to-day."

"The horrible war--all the misery is because of the war. When will it
end?"

He looked at her attentively, and said:

"I say--what nationality are you?"

"Rooshian."

"Really! I never met a Russian girl."

He was conscious that she looked at him, then very quickly down. And he
said suddenly:

"Is it as bad as they make out?"

She slipped her yellow-gloved hand through his arm.

"Not when I haf any one as nice as you; I never haf yet, though"; she
smiled--and her smile was like her speech, slow, confiding--"you stopped
because I was sad, others stop because I am gay. I am not fond of men
at all. When you know, you are not fond of them."

"Well! You hardly know them at their best, do you? You should see them
at the front. By George! they're simply splendid--officers and men,
every blessed soul. There's never been anything like it--just one long
bit of jolly fine self-sacrifice; it's perfectly amazing."

Turning her blue-grey eyes on him, she answered:

"I expect you are not the last at that. You see in them what you haf in
yourself, I think."

"Oh! not a bit--you're quite out. I assure you when we made the attack
where I got wounded, there wasn't a single man in my regiment who wasn't
an absolute hero. The way they went in--never thinking of themselves--it
was simply superb!"

Her teeth came down on her lower lip, and she answered in a queer voice:
"It is the same too perhaps with--the enemy."

"Oh yes, I know that."

"Ah! You are not a mean man. How I hate mean men!"

"Oh! they're not mean really--they simply don't understand."

"Oh! you are a baby--a good baby, aren't you?"

He did not quite like being called a baby, and frowned; but was at once
touched by the disconcertion in her powdered face. How quickly she was
scared!

She said clingingly:

"But I li-ike you for it. It is so good to find a ni-ice man."

This was worse, and he said abruptly:

"About being lonely? Haven't you any Russian friends?"

"Rooshian! No!" Then quickly added: "The town is so beeg! Haf you been
in the concert?"

"Yes."

"I, too--I love music."

"I suppose all Russians do."

She looked up at his face again, and seemed to struggle to keep silent;
then she said quietly:

"I go there always when I haf the money."

"What! Are you so on the rocks?"

"Well, I haf just one shilling now." And she laughed.

The sound of that little laugh upset him--she had a way of making him
feel sorry for her every time she spoke.

They had come by now to a narrow square, east of Gower Street.

"This is where I lif," she said. "Come in!"

He had one long moment of violent hesitation, then yielded to the soft
tugging of her hand, and followed. The passage-hall was dimly lighted,
and they went upstairs into a front room, where the curtains were drawn,
and the gas turned very low. Opposite the window were other curtains
dividing off the rest of the apartment. As soon as the door was shut she
put up her face and kissed him--evidently formula. What a room! Its
green and beetroot colouring and the prevalence of cheap plush
disagreeably affected him. Everything in it had that callous look of
rooms which seem to be saying to their occupants: "You're here to-day
and you'll be gone to-morrow." Everything except one little plant, in a
common pot, of maidenhair fern, fresh and green, looking as if it had
been watered within the hour; in this room it had just the same
unexpected touchingness that peeped out of the girl's matter-of-fact
cynicism.

Taking off her hat, she went towards the gas, but he said quickly:

"No, don't turn it up; let's have the window open, and the moonlight
in." He had a sudden dread of seeing anything plainly--it was stuffy,
too, and pulling the curtains apart, he threw up the window. The girl
had come obediently from the hearth, and sat down opposite him, leaning
her arm on the window-sill and her chin on her hand. The moonlight
caught her cheek where she had just renewed the powder, caught her fair
crinkly hair; it caught the plush of the furniture, and his own khaki,
giving them all a touch of unreality.

"What's your name?" he said.

"May. Well, I call myself that. It's no good askin' yours."

"You're a distrustful little party, aren't you?"

"I haf reason to be, don't you think?"

"Yes, I suppose you're bound to think us all brutes?"

"Well, I haf a lot of reasons to be afraid all my time. I am dreadfully
nervous now; I am not trusting anybody. I suppose you haf been killing
lots of Germans?"

He laughed.

"We never know, unless it happens to be hand to hand; I haven't come in
for that yet."

"But you would be very glad if you had killed some?"

"Glad? I don't think so. We're all in the same boat, so far as that's
concerned. We're not glad to kill each other. We do our job--that's
all."

"Oh! it is frightful. I expect I haf my broders killed."

"Don't you get any news ever?"

"News! No indeed, no news of anybody in my country. I might not haf a
country; all that I ever knew is gone--fader, moder, sisters, broders,
all--never any more I shall see them, I suppose, now. The war it breaks
and breaks, it breaks hearts." Her little teeth fastened again on her
lower lip in that sort of pretty snarl. "Do you know what I was thinkin'
when you came up? I was thinkin' of my native town, and the river there
in the moonlight. If I could see it again, I would be glad. Were you
ever homeseeck?"

"Yes, I have been--in the trenches; but one's ashamed, with all the
others."

"Ah! ye-es!" It came from her with a hiss. "Ye-es! You are all comrades
there. What is it like for me here, do you think, where everybody hates
and despises me, and would catch me, and put me in prison, perhaps?"

He could see her breast heaving with a quick breathing painful to listen
to. He leaned forward, patting her knee, and murmuring: "Sorry--sorry."

She said in a smothered voice:

"You are the first who has been kind to me for so long! I will tell you
the truth--I am not Rooshian at all--I am German."

Hearing that half-choked confession, his thought was: "Does she really
think we fight against women?" And he said:

"My dear girl, who cares?"

Her eyes seemed to search right into him. She said slowly:

"Another man said that to me. But he was thinkin' of other things. You
are a veree ni-ice boy. I am so glad I met you. You see the good in
people, don't you? That is the first thing in the world--because there
is really not much good in people, you know."

He said, smiling:

"You're a dreadful little cynic!" Then thought: "Of course she is--poor
thing!"

"Cyneec? How long do you think I would live if I was not a cyneec? I
should drown myself to-morrow. Perhaps there are good people, but, you
see, I don't know them."

"I know lots."

She leaned forward eagerly.

"Well now--see, ni-ice boy--you haf never been in a hole, haf you?"

"I suppose not a real hole."

"No, I should think not, with your face. Well, suppose I am still a good
girl, as I was once, you know, and you took me to some of your good
people, and said: 'Here is a little German girl that has no work, and no
money, and no friends.' Your good people they will say: 'Oh! how sad! A
German girl!' and they will go and wash their hands."

Silence fell on him. He saw his mother, his sisters, others--good
people, he would swear! And yet--! He heard their voices, frank and
clear; and they seemed to be talking of the Germans. If only she were
not German!

"You see!" he heard her say, and could only mutter:

"I'm sure there _are_ people."

"No. They would not take a German, even if she was good. Besides, I
don't want to be good any more--I am not a humbug--I have learned to be
bad. Aren't you going to kees me, ni-ice boy?"

She put her face close to his. Her eyes troubled him, but he drew back.
He thought she would be offended or persistent, but she was neither;
just looked at him fixedly with a curious inquiring stare; and he leaned
against the window, deeply disturbed. It was as if all clear and simple
enthusiasm had been suddenly knocked endways; as if a certain splendour
of life that he had felt and seen of late had been dipped in cloud. Out
there at the front, over here in hospital, life had been seeming so--as
it were--heroic; and yet it held such mean and murky depths as well! The
voices of his men, whom he had come to love like brothers, crude burring
voices, cheery in trouble, making nothing of it; the voices of doctors
and nurses, patient, quiet, reassuring voices; even his own voice,
infected by it all, kept sounding in his ears. All wonderful somehow,
and simple; and nothing mean about it anywhere! And now so suddenly to
have lighted upon this, and all that was behind it--this scared girl,
this base, dark, thoughtless use of her! And the thought came to him: "I
suppose my fellows wouldn't think twice about taking her on! Why! I'm
not even certain of myself, if she insists!" And he turned his face, and
stared out at the moonlight. He heard her voice:

"Eesn't it light? No air raid to-night. When the Zepps burned--what a
horrible death! And all the people cheered--it is natural. Do you hate
us veree much?"

He turned round and said sharply:

"Hate? I don't know."

"I don't hate even the English--I despise them. I despise my people
too--perhaps more, because they began this war. Oh, yes! I know that. I
despise all the peoples. Why haf they made the world so miserable--why
haf they killed all our lives--hundreds and thousands and millions of
lives--all for not'ing? They haf made a bad world--everybody hating, and
looking for the worst everywhere. They haf made me bad, I know. I
believe no more in anything. What is there to believe in? Is there a
God? No! Once I was teaching little English children their
prayers--isn't that funnee? I was reading to them about Christ and love.
I believed all those things. Now I believe not'ing at all--no one who is
not a fool or a liar can believe. I would like to work in a hospital; I
would like to go and help poor boys like you. Because I am a German they
would throw me out a hundred times, even if I was good. It is the same
in Germany and France and Russia, everywhere. But do you think I will
believe in love and Christ and a God and all that?--not I! I think we
are animals--that's all! Oh! yes--you fancy it is because my life has
spoiled me. It is not that at all--that's not the worst thing in life.
Those men are not ni-ice, like you, but it's their nature, and," she
laughed, "they help me to live, which is something for me anyway. No, it
is the men who think themselves great and good, and make the war with
their talk and their hate, killing us all--killing all the boys like
you, and keeping poor people in prison, and telling us to go on hating;
and all those dreadful cold-blooded creatures who write in the
papers--the same in my country, just the same; it is because of all them
that I think we are only animals."

He got up, acutely miserable. He could see her following him with her
eyes, and knew she was afraid she had driven him away. She said
coaxingly: "Don't mind me talking, ni-ice boy. I don't know any one to
talk to. If you don't like it, I can be quiet as a mouse."

He muttered:

"Oh! go on, talk away. I'm not obliged to believe you, and I don't."

She was on her feet now, leaning against the wall; her dark dress and
white face just touched by the slanting moonlight; and her voice came
again, slow and soft and bitter:

"Well, look here, ni-ice boy, what sort of a world is it, where millions
are being tortured--horribly tortured, for no fault of theirs, at all? A
beautiful world, isn't it! 'Umbug! Silly rot, as you boys call it. You
say it is all 'Comrade'! and braveness out there at the front, and
people don't think of themselves. Well, I don't think of myself veree
much. What does it matter--I am lost now, anyway; but I think of my
people at home, how they suffer and grieve. I think of all the poor
people there and here who lose those they love, and all the poor
prisoners. Am I not to think of them? And if I do, how am I to believe
it a beautiful world, ni-ice boy?"

He stood very still, biting his lips.

"Look here! We haf one life each, and soon it is over. Well, I think
that is lucky."

He said resentfully:

"No! there's more than that."

"Ah!" she went on softly; "you think the war is fought for the future;
you are giving your lives for a better world, aren't you?"

"We must fight till we win," he said between his teeth.

"Till you win. My people think that, too. All the peoples think that if
they win the world will be better. But it will not, you know, it will be
much worse, anyway."

He turned away from her and caught up his cap; but her voice followed
him.

"I don't care which win, I despise them all--animals--animals--animals!
Ah! Don't go, ni-ice boy--I will be quiet now."

He took some notes from his tunic pocket, put them on the table, and
went up to her.

"Good-night."

She said plaintively:

"Are you really going? Don't you like me, enough?"

"Yes, I like you."

"It is because I am German, then?"

"No."

"Then why won't you stay?"

He wanted to answer: "Because you upset me so"; but he just shrugged his
shoulders.

"Won't you kees me once?"

He bent, and put his lips to her forehead; but as he took them away she
threw her head back, pressed her mouth to his, and clung to him.

He sat down suddenly and said:

"Don't! I don't want to feel a brute."

She laughed. "You are a funny boy, but you are veree good. Talk to me a
little, then. No one talks to me. I would much rather talk, anyway. Tell
me, haf you seen many German prisoners?"

He sighed--from relief, or was it from regret?

"A good many."

"Any from the Rhine?"

"Yes, I think so."

"Were they very sad?"

"Some were--some were quite glad to be taken."

"Did you ever see the Rhine? Isn't it beaudiful? It will be wonderful
to-night. The moonlight will be the same here as there; in Rooshia too,
and France, everywhere; and the trees will look the same as here, and
people will meet under them and make love just as here. Oh! isn't it
stupid, the war?--as if it was not good to be alive."

He wanted to say: "You can't tell how good it is to be alive, till
you're facing death, because you don't live till then. And when a whole
lot of you feel like that--and are ready to give their lives for each
other, it's worth all the rest of life put together." But he couldn't
get it out to this girl who believed in nothing.

"How were you wounded, ni-ice boy?"

"Attacking across open ground--four machine-gun bullets got me at one go
off."

"Weren't you veree frightened when they ordered you to attack?" No, he
had not been frightened just then! And he shook his head and laughed.

"It was great. We did laugh that morning. They got me much too soon,
though--a swindle!"

She stared at him.

"You laughed?"

"Yes, and what do you think was the first thing I was conscious of next
morning--my old Colonel bending over me and giving me a squeeze of
lemon. If you knew my Colonel you'd still believe in things. There _is_
something, you know, behind all this evil. After all, you can only die
once, and if it's for your country all the better."

Her face, with intent eyes just touched with bistre, had in the
moonlight a most strange, otherworld look. Her lips moved:

"No, I believe in nothing. My heart is dead."

"You think so, but it isn't, you know, or you wouldn't have been crying,
when I met you."

"If it were not dead, do you think I could live my life--walking the
streets every night, pretending to like strange men--never hearing a
kind word--never talking, for fear I will be known for a German. Soon I
shall take to drinking, then I shall be 'Kaput' very quick. You see, I
am practical, I see things clear. To-night I am a little emotional; the
moon is funny, you know. But I live for myself only, now. I don't care
for anything or anybody."

"All the same, just now you were pitying your people, and prisoners, and
that."

"Yes, because they suffer. Those who suffer are like me--I pity myself,
that's all; I am different from your Englishwomen. I see what I am
doing; I do not let my mind become a turnip just because I am no longer
moral."

"Nor your heart either."

"Ni-ice boy, you are veree obstinate. But all that about love is 'umbug.
We love ourselves, nothing more."

Again, at that intense soft bitterness in her voice, he felt stifled,
and got up, leaning in the window. The air out there was free from the
smell of dust and stale perfume. He felt her fingers slip between his
own, and stay unmoving. Since she was so hard, and cynical, why should
he pity her? Yet he did. The touch of that hand within his own roused
his protective instinct. She had poured out her heart to him--a perfect
stranger! He pressed it a little, and felt her fingers crisp in answer.
Poor girl! This was perhaps a friendlier moment than she had known for
years! And after all, fellow-feeling was bigger than principalities and
powers! Fellow-feeling was all-pervading as this moonlight, which she
had said would be the same in Germany--as this white ghostly glamour
that wrapped the trees, making the orange lamps so quaint and
decoratively useless out in the narrow square, where emptiness and
silence reigned. He looked around into her face--in spite of bistre and
powder, and the faint rouging on her lips, it had a queer, unholy,
touching beauty. And he had suddenly the strangest feeling, as if they
stood there--the two of them--proving that kindness and human fellowship
were stronger than lust, stronger than hate; proving it against meanness
and brutality, and the sudden shouting of newspaper boys in some
neighbouring street. Their cries, passionately vehement, clashed into
each other, and obscured the words--what was it they were calling? His
head went up to listen; he felt her hand rigid within his arm--she too
was listening. The cries came nearer, hoarser, more shrill and
clamorous; the empty moonlight seemed of a sudden crowded with
footsteps, voices, and a fierce distant cheering. "Great victory--great
victory! Official! British! Defeat of the 'Uns! Many thousand
prisoners!" So it sped by, intoxicating, filling him with a fearful joy;
and leaning far out, he waved his cap and cheered like a madman; and the
whole night seemed to him to flutter and vibrate, and answer. Then he
turned to rush down into the street, struck against something soft, and
recoiled. The girl! She stood with hands clenched, her face convulsed,
panting, and even in the madness of his joy he felt for her. To hear
this--in the midst of enemies! All confused with the desire to do
something, he stooped to take her hand; and the dusty reek of the
table-cloth clung to his nostrils. She snatched away her fingers, swept
up the notes he had put down, and held them out to him.

"Take them--I will not haf your English money--take them." And suddenly
she tore them across twice, three times, let the bits flutter to the
floor, and turned her back to him. He stood looking at her leaning
against the plush-covered table which smelled of dust; her head down, a
dark figure in a dark room with the moonlight sharpening her
outline--hardly a moment he stayed, then made for the door....

When he was gone she still stood there, her chin on her breast--she who
cared for nothing, believed in nothing--with the sound in her ears of
cheering, of hurrying feet, and voices; stood, in the centre of a
pattern made by fragments of the torn-up notes, staring out into the
moonlight, seeing, not this hated room and the hated square outside, but
a German orchard, and herself, a little girl, plucking apples, a big dog
beside her; a hundred other pictures, too, such as the drowning see. Her
heart swelled; she sank down on the floor, laid her forehead on the
dusty carpet, and pressed her body to it.

She who did not care--who despised all peoples, even her own--began,
mechanically, to sweep together the scattered fragments of the notes,
assembling them with the dust into a little pile, as of fallen leaves,
and dabbling in it with her fingers, while the tears ran down her
cheeks. For her country she had torn them, her country in defeat! She,
who had just one shilling in this great town of enemies, who wrung her
stealthy living out of the embraces of her foes! And suddenly in the
moonlight she sat up and began to sing with all her might--"_Die Wacht
am Rhein_."

1916.




III

FLOTSAM AND JETSAM

A REMINISCENCE


The tides of the war were washing up millions of wrecked lives on all
the shores; what mattered the flotsam of a conscripted deep-sea Breton
fisherman, slowly pining away for lack of all he was accustomed to; or
the jetsam of a tall glass-blower from the 'invaded countries,' drifted
into the hospital--no one quite knew why--prisoner for twenty months
with the Boches, released at last because of his half-paralysed
tongue--What mattered they? What mattered anything, or any one, in days
like those?

Corporal Mignan, wrinkling a thin, parchmenty face, full of suffering
and kindly cynicism, used to call them '_mes deux phenomenes_.' Riddled
to the soul by gastritis, he must have found them trying roommates, with
the tricks and manners of sick and naughty children towards a
long-suffering nurse. To understand all is to forgive all, they say;
but, though he had suffered enough to understand much, Mignan was
tempted at times to deliver judgment--for example, when Roche, the
Breton fisherman, rose from his bed more than ten times in the night,
and wandered out into the little courtyard of the hospital, to look at
the stars, because he could not keep still within four walls--so
unreasonable of the '_type_.' Or when Gray, the tall glass-blower--his
grandfather had been English--refused with all the tenacity of a British
workman to wear an undervest, with the thermometer below zero,
Centigrade.

They inhabited the same room, Flotsam and Jetsam, but never spoke to one
another. And yet in all that hospital of French soldiers they were the
only two who, in a manner of speaking, had come from England. Fourteen
hundred years have passed since the Briton ancestors of Roche crossed in
their shallow boats. Yet he was as hopelessly un-French as a Welshman of
the hills is to this day un-English. His dark face, shy as a wild
animal's, his peat-brown eyes, and the rare, strangely-sweet smile which
once in a way strayed up into them; his creased brown hands always
trying to tie an imaginary cord; the tobacco pouched in his brown cheek;
his improperly-buttoned blue trousers; his silence eternal as the stars
themselves; his habit of climbing trees--all marked him out as no true
Frenchman. Indeed, that habit of climbing trees caused every soul who
saw him to wonder if he ought to be at large: monkeys alone pursue this
pastime. And yet,--surely one might understand that trees were for Roche
the masts of his far-off fishing barque, each hand-grip on the branch of
plane or pine-tree solace to his overmastering hunger for the sea. Up
there he would cling, or stand with hands in pockets, and look out, far
over the valley and the yellowish-grey-pink of the pan-tiled town-roofs,
a mile away, far into the mountains where snow melted not, far over this
foreign land of '_midi trois quarts_,' to an imagined Breton coast and
the seas that roll from there to Cape Breton where the cod are. Since he
never spoke unless spoken to--no, not once--it was impossible for his
landsmen comrades to realise why he got up those trees, and they would
summon each other to observe this '_phenomene_,' this human
ourang-outang, who had not their habit of keeping firm earth beneath
their feet. They understood his other eccentricities better. For
instance, he could not stay still even at his meals, but must get up and
slip out, because he chewed tobacco, and, since the hospital regulations
forbade his spitting on the floor, he must naturally go and spit
outside. For '_ces types-la_' to chew and drink was--life! To the
presence of tobacco in the cheek and the absence of drink from the
stomach they attributed all his un-French ways, save just that one
mysterious one of climbing trees.

And Gray--though only one-fourth English--how utterly British was that
'arrogant civilian,' as the '_poilus_' called him. Even his clothes,
somehow, were British--no one knew who had given them to him; his short
grey workman's jacket, brown dingy trousers, muffler and checked cap;
his long, idle walk, his absolute _sans-gene_, regardless of any one but
himself; his tall, loose figure, with a sort of grace lurking somewhere
in its slow, wandering movements, and long, thin fingers. That wambling,
independent form might surely be seen any day outside a thousand British
public-houses, in time of peace. His face, with its dust-coloured hair,
projecting ears, grey eyes with something of the child in them, and
something of the mule, and something of a soul trying to wander out of
the forest of misfortune; his little, tip-tilted nose that never grew on
pure-blooded Frenchman; under a scant moustache his thick lips,
disfigured by infirmity of speech, whence passed so continually a
dribble of saliva--sick British workman was stamped on him. Yet he was
passionately fond of washing himself; his teeth, his head, his clothes.
Into the frigid winter he would go, and stand at the '_Source_' half an
hour at a time, washing and washing. It was a cause of constant
irritation to Mignan that his '_phenomene_' would never come to time, on
account of this disastrous habit; the hospital corridors resounded
almost daily with the importuning of those shapeless lips for something
clean--a shirt, a pair of drawers, a bath, a handkerchief. He had a
fixity of purpose; not too much purpose, but so fixed.--Yes, he was
English!

For '_les deux phenomenes_' the soldiers, the servants, and the 'Powers'
of the hospital--all were sorry; yet they could not understand to the
point of quite forgiving their vagaries. The twain were outcast,
wandering each in a dumb world of his own, each in the endless circle of
one or two hopeless notions. It was irony--or the French system--which
had ordered the Breton Roche to get well in a place whence he could see
nothing flatter than a mountain, smell no sea, eat no fish. And God
knows what had sent Gray there. His story was too vaguely understood,
for his stumbling speech simply could not make it plain. '_Les
Boches--ils vont en payer cher--les Boches_,' muttered fifty times a
day, was the burden of his song. Those Boches had come into his village
early in the war, torn him from his wife and his '_petite fille_.' Since
then he had 'had fear,' been hungry, been cold, eaten grass; eyeing some
fat little dog, he would leer and mutter: '_J'ai mange cela, c'est
bon!_' and with fierce triumph add: '_Ils ont faim, les Boches!_' The
'arrogant civilian' had never done his military service, for his
infirmity, it seemed, had begun before the war.

Dumb, each in his own way, and differing in every mortal thing except
the reality of their misfortunes, never were two beings more lonely.
Their quasi-nurse, Corporal Mignan, was no doubt right in his estimate
of their characters. For him, so patient in the wintry days, with his
'_deux phenomenes_,' they were divested of all that halo which
misfortune sets round the heads of the afflicted. He had too much to do
with them, and saw them as they would have been if undogged by Fate. Of
Roche he would say: '_Il n'est pas mon reve. Je n'aime pas ces types
taciturnes; quand meme, il n'est pas mauvais. Il est marin--les
marins--!_' and he would shrug his shoulders, as who should say: 'Those
poor devils--what can you expect?' '_Mais ce Gray_'--it was one bitter
day when Gray had refused absolutely to wear his great-coat during a
motor drive--'_c'est un mauvais type! Il est malin--il sait tres bien ce
qu'il veut. C'est un egoiste!_' An egoist! Poor Gray! No doubt he was,
instinctively conscious that if he did not make the most of what little
personality was left within his wandering form, it would slip and he
would be no more. Even a winter fly is mysteriously anxious not to
become dead. That he was '_malin_'--cunning--became the accepted view
about Gray; not so '_malin_' that he could 'cut three paws off a duck,'
as the old grey Territorial, Grandpere Poirot, would put it, but
'_malin_' enough to know very well what he wanted, and how, by sticking
to his demand, to get it. Mignan, typically French, did not allow enough
for the essential Englishman in Gray. Besides, one _must_ be _malin_ if
one has only the power to say about one-tenth of what one wants, and
then not be understood once in twenty times. Gray did not like his
great-coat--a fine old French-blue military thing with brass
buttons--the arrogant civilian would have none of it! It was easier to
shift the Boches on the Western front than to shift an idea, once in his
head. In the poor soil of his soul the following plants of thought alone
now flourished: Hatred of the Boches; love of English tobacco--'_Il est
bon--il est bon!_' he would say, tapping his Virginian cigarette; the
wish to see again his 'petite fille'; to wash himself; to drink a '_cafe
natur_' and bottled beer every day after the midday meal, and to go to
Lyons to see his uncle and work for his living. And who shall say that
any of these fixed ideas were evil in him?

But back to Flotsam, whose fixed idea was Brittany! Nostalgia is a long
word, and a malady from which the English do not suffer, for they carry
their country on their backs, walk the wide world in a cloud of their
own atmosphere, making that world England. The French have eyes to see,
and, when not surrounded by houses that have flatness, shutters, and
subtle colouring--yellowish, French-grey, French-green--by cafe's, by
plane-trees, by Frenchwomen, by scents of wood-smoke and coffee roasted
in the streets; by the wines, and infusions of the herbs of France; by
the churches of France and the beautiful silly chiming of their
bells--when not surrounded by all these, they know it, feel it, suffer.
But even they do not suffer so dumbly and instinctively, so like a wild
animal caged, as that Breton fisherman, caged up in a world of hill and
valley--not the world as he had known it. They called his case
'shell-shock'--for the French system would not send a man to
convalescence for anything so essentially civilian as home-sickness,
even when it had taken a claustrophobic turn. A system recognises only
causes which you can see; holes in the head, hamstrung legs, frostbitten
feet, with other of the legitimate consequences of war. But it was not
shell-shock. Roche was really possessed by the feeling that he would
never get out, never get home, smell fish and the sea, watch the
bottle-green breakers roll in on his native shore, the sun gleaming
through wave-crests lifted and flying back in spray, never know the
accustomed heave and roll under his feet, or carouse in a seaport
cabaret, or see his old mother--_la veuve_ Roche. And, after all, there
was a certain foundation for his fear. It was not as if this war could
be expected to stop some day. There they were, in the trenches, they and
the enemy set over against each other, 'like china dogs,' in the words
of Grandpere Poirot; and there they would be, so far as Roche's ungeared
nerves could grasp, for ever. And, while like china dogs they sat, he
knew that he would not be released, not allowed to go back to the sea
and the smells and the sounds thereof; for he had still all his limbs,
and no bullet-hole to show under his thick dark hair. No wonder he got
up the trees and looked out for sight of the waves, and fluttered the
weak nerves of the hospital 'Powers,' till they saw themselves burying
him with a broken spine, at the expense of the subscribers. Nothing to
be done for the poor fellow, except to take him motor-drives, and to
insist that he stayed in the dining-room long enough to eat some food.

Then, one bright day, a 'Power,' watching his hands, conceived the idea
of giving him two balls of string, one blue, the other buff, and all
that afternoon he stayed up a single tree, and came down with one of his
rare sweet smiles and a little net, half blue, half buff, with a handle
covered with a twist of Turkey-red twill--such a thing as one scoops up
shrimps with. He was paid for it, and his eyes sparkled. You see, he had
no money--the '_poilu_' seldom has; and money meant drink, and tobacco
in his cheek. They gave him more string, and for the next few days it
rained little nets, beautifully if simply made. They thought that his
salvation was in sight. It takes an eye to tell salvation from
damnation, sometimes.... In any case, he no longer roamed from tree to
tree, but sat across a single branch, netting. The 'Powers' began to
speak of him as 'rather a dear,' for it is characteristic of human
nature to take interest only in that which by some sign of progress
makes you feel that you are doing good.

Next Sunday a distinguished doctor came, and, when he had been fed, some
one conceived the notion of interesting him, too, in Flotsam. A learned,
kindly, influential man--well-fed--something might come of it, even that
'_reforme_,' that sending home, which all agreed was what poor Roche
needed, to restore his brain. He was brought in, therefore, amongst the
chattering party, and stood, dark, shy, his head down, like the man in
Millet's 'Angelus,' his hands folded on his cap, in front of his
unspeakably buttoned blue baggy trousers, as though in attitude of
prayer to the doctor, who, uniformed and grey-bearded, like an old
somnolent goat, beamed on him through spectacles with a sort of shrewd
benevolence. The catechism began. So he had something to ask, had he? A
swift, shy lift of the eyes: 'Yes.' 'What then?' 'To go home.' 'To go
home? What for? To get married?' A swift, shy smile. 'Fair or dark?' No
answer, only a shift of hands on his cap. 'What! Was there no one--no
ladies at home?' '_Ce n'est pas ca qui manque!_' At the laughter
greeting that dim flicker of wit the uplifted face was cast down again.
That lonely, lost figure must suddenly have struck the doctor, for his
catechism became a long, embarrassed scrutiny; and with an: '_Eh bien!
mon vieux, nous verrons!_' ended. Nothing came of it, of course. '_Cas
de reforme?_' Oh, certainly, if it had depended on the learned, kindly
doctor. But the system--and all its doors to be unlocked! Why, by the
time the last door was prepared to open, the first would be closed
again! So the 'Powers' gave Roche more string--so good, you know, to see
him interested in something!... It does take an eye to tell salvation
from damnation! For he began to go down now of an afternoon into the
little old town--not smelless, but most quaint--all yellowish-grey, with
rosy-tiled roofs. Once it had been Roman, once a walled city of the
Middle Ages; never would it be modern. The dogs ran muzzled; from a
first-floor a goat, munching green fodder, hung his devilish black beard
above your head; and through the main street the peasant farmers, above
military age, looking old as sun-dried roots, in their dark _pelerines_,
drove their wives and produce in little slow carts. Parched oleanders in
pots one would pass, and old balconies with wilting flowers hanging down
over the stone, and perhaps an umbrella with a little silver handle, set
out to dry. Roche would go in by the back way, where the old town
gossips sat on a bench in the winter sunshine, facing the lonely cross
shining gold on the high hill-top opposite, placed there in days when
there was some meaning in such things; past the little '_Place_' with
the old fountain and the brown plane-trees in front of the Mairie; past
the church, so ancient that it had fortunately been forgotten, and
remained unfinished and beautiful. Did Roche, Breton that he was--half
the love-ladies in Paris, they say--falsely, no doubt--are
Bretonnes--ever enter the church in passing? Some rascal had tried to
burn down its beautiful old door from the inside, and the flames had
left on all that high western wall smears like the fingermarks of hell,
or the background of a Velasquez Crucifixion. Did he ever enter and
stand, knotting his knot which never got knotted, in the dark loveliness
of that grave building, where in the deep silence a dusty-gold little
angel blows on his horn from the top of the canopied pulpit, and a dim
carved Christ of touching beauty looks down on His fellow-men from above
some dry chrysanthemums; and a tall candle burned quiet and lonely here
and there, and the flags of France hung above the altar, that men might
know how God--though resting--was with them and their country? Perhaps!
But, more likely, he passed it, with its great bell riding high and open
among scrolls of ironwork, and--Breton that he was--entered the nearest
cabaret, kept by the woman who would tell you that her soldier husband
had passed 'within two fingers' of death. One cannot spend one's
earnings in a church, nor appease there the inextinguishable longings of
a sailor.

And lo!--on Christmas day Roche came back so drunk that his nurse Mignan
took him to his bedroom and turned the key of the door on him. But you
must not do this to a Breton fisherman full of drink and
claustrophobia. It was one of those errors even Frenchmen may make, to
the after sorrow of their victims. One of the female 'Powers,' standing
outside, heard a roar, the crash of a foot against the panel of a door,
and saw Roche, 'like a great cat' come slithering through the hole. He
flung his arm out, brushed the 'Power' back against the wall, cried out
fiercely: '_La boite--je ne veux pas la boite!_' and rushed for the
stairs. Here were other female 'Powers'; he dashed them aside and passed
down. But in the bureau at the foot was a young Corporal of the '_Legion
Etrangere_'--a Spaniard who had volunteered for France--great France; he
ran out, took Roche gently by the arm, and offered to drink with him.
And so they sat, those two, in the little bureau, drinking black coffee,
while the young Corporal talked like an angel and Roche like a wild
man--about his mother, about his dead brother who had been sitting on
his bed, as he said, about '_la boite_,' and the turning of that key.
And slowly he became himself--or so they thought--and all went in to
supper. Ten minutes later one of the 'Powers,' looking for the twentieth
time to make sure he was eating, saw an empty place: he had slipped out
like a shadow and was gone again. A big cavalryman and the Corporal
retrieved him that night from a _cafe_ near the station; they had to
use force at times to bring him in. Two days later he was transferred to
a town hospital, where discipline would not allow him to get drunk or
climb trees. For the 'Powers' had reasoned thus: To climb trees is bad;
to get drunk is bad; but to do both puts on us too much responsibility;
he must go! They had, in fact, been scared. And so he passed away to a
room under the roof of a hospital in the big town miles away--_la boite_
indeed!--where for liberty he must use a courtyard without trees, and
but little tobacco came to his cheek; and there he eats his heart out to
this day, perhaps. But some say he had no heart--only the love of drink,
and climbing. Yet, on that last evening, to one who was paying him for a
little net, he blurted out: 'Some day I will tell you something--not
now--in a year's time. _Vous etes le seul--!_' What did he mean by that,
if he had no heart to eat?... The night after he had gone, a little
black dog strayed up, and among the trees barked and barked at some
portent or phantom. 'Ah! the camel! Ah! the pig! I had him on my back
all night!' Grandpere Poirot said next morning. That was the very last
of Flotsam....

And now to Jetsam! It was on the day but one after Roche left that Gray
was reported missing. For some time past he had been getting stronger,
clearer in speech. They began to say of him: 'It's wonderful--the
improvement since he came--wonderful!' His salvation also seemed in
sight. But from the words 'He's rather a dear!' all recoiled, for as he
grew stronger he became more stubborn and more irritable--'cunning
egoist' that he was! According to the men, he was beginning to show
himself in his true colours. He had threatened to knife any one who
played a joke on him--the arrogant civilian! On the day that he was
missing it appears that after the midday meal he had asked for a '_cafe
natur_' and for some reason had been refused. Before his absence was
noted it was night already, clear and dark; all day something as of
Spring had stirred in the air. The Corporal and a 'Power' set forth down
the wooded hill into the town, to scour the _cafes_ and hang over the
swift, shallow river, to see if by any chance Gray had been overtaken by
another paralytic stroke and was down there on the dark sand. The sleepy
gendarmes too were warned and given his description. But the only news
next morning was that he had been seen walking on the main road up the
valley. Two days later he was found, twenty miles away, wandering
towards Italy. '_Perdu_' was his only explanation, but it was not
believed, for now began that continual demand: '_Je voudrais aller a
Lyon, voir mon oncle--travailler!_' As the big cavalryman put it: 'He is
bored here!' It was considered unreasonable, by soldiers who found
themselves better off than in other hospitals; even the 'Powers'
considered it ungrateful, almost. See what he had been like when he
came--a mere trembling bag of bones, only too fearful of being sent
away. And yet, who would not be bored, crouching all day long about the
stoves, staunching his poor dribbling mouth, rolling his inevitable
cigarette, or wandering down, lonely, to hang over the bridge parapet,
having thoughts in his head and for ever unable to express them. His
state was worse than dumbness, for the dumb have resigned hope of
conversation. Gray would have liked to talk if it had not taken about
five minutes to understand each thing he said--except the refrain which
all knew by heart: '_Les Boches--ils vont en payer cher--les Boches!_'
The idea that he could work and earn his living was fantastic to those
who watched him dressing himself, or sweeping the courtyard, pausing
every few seconds to contemplate some invisible difficulty, or do over
again what he had just not done. But with that new access of strength,
or perhaps the open weather--as if Spring had come before its time--his
fixed idea governed him completely; he began to threaten to kill himself
if he could not go to work and see his uncle at Lyon; and every five
days or so he had to be brought back from far up some hill road. The
situation had become so ridiculous that the 'Powers' said in despair:
'Very well, my friend! Your uncle says he can't have you, and you can't
earn your own living yet; but you shall go and see for yourself!' And go
he did, a little solemn now that it had come to his point--in specially
bought yellow boots--he refused black--and a specially bought overcoat
with sleeves--he would have none of a _pelerine_, the arrogant civilian,
no more than of a military _capote_. For a week the hospital knew him
not. Deep winter set in two days before he went, and the whole land was
wrapped in snow. The huge, disconsolate crows seemed all the life left
in the valley, and poplar-trees against the rare blue sky were dowered
with miraculous snow-blossoms, beautiful as any blossom of Spring. And
still in the winter sun the town gossips sat on the bench under the
wall, and the cross gleamed out, and the church bell, riding high in its
whitened ironwork, tolled almost every day for the passing of some
wintered soul, and long processions, very black in the white street,
followed it, followed it--home. Then came a telegram from Gray's uncle:
'Impossible to keep Aristide (the name of the arrogant civilian), takes
the evening train to-morrow. Albert Gray.' So Jetsam was coming back!
What would he be like now that his fixed idea had failed him? Well! He
came at midday; thinner, more clay-coloured in the face, with a bad
cold; but he ate as heartily as ever, and at once asked to go to bed. At
four o'clock a 'Power,' going up to see, found him sleeping like a
child. He slept for twenty hours on end. No one liked to question him
about his time away; all that he said--and bitterly--was: 'They wouldn't
let me work!' But the second evening after his return there came a knock
on the door of the little room where the 'Powers' were sitting after
supper, and there stood Gray, long and shadowy, holding on to the
screen, smoothing his jaw-bone with the other hand, turning eyes like a
child's from face to face, while his helpless lips smiled. One of the
'Powers' said: 'What do you want, my friend?'

'_Je voudrais aller a Paris, voir ma petite fille._'

'Yes, yes; after the war. Your _petite fille_ is not in Paris, you
know.'

'_Non?_' The smile was gone; it was seen too plainly that Gray was not
as he had been. The access of vigour, stirring of new strength,
'improvement' had departed, but the beat of it, while there, must have
broken him, as the beat of some too-strong engine shatters a frail
frame. His 'improvement' had driven him to his own undoing. With the
failure of his pilgrimage he had lost all hope, all 'egoism.'... It
takes an eye, indeed, to tell salvation from damnation! He was truly
Jetsam now--terribly thin and ill and sad; and coughing. Yet he kept the
independence of his spirit. In that bitter cold, nothing could prevent
him stripping to the waist to wash, nothing could keep him lying in bed,
or kill his sense of the proprieties. He would not wear his overcoat--it
was invalidish; he would not wear his new yellow boots and keep his feet
dry, except on Sundays: '_Ils sont bons!_' he would say. And before he
would profane their goodness, his old worn-out shoes had to be reft from
him. He would not admit that he was ill, that he was cold, that he
was--anything. But at night, a 'Power' would be awakened by groans, and,
hurrying to his room, find him huddled nose to knees, moaning. And now,
every evening, as though craving escape from his own company, he would
come to the little sitting-room, and stand with that deprecating smile,
smoothing his jaw-bone, until some one said: 'Sit down, my friend, and
have some coffee.' '_Merci, ma soeur--il est bon, il est bon!_' and
down he would sit, and roll a cigarette with his long fingers, tapering
as any artist's, while his eyes fixed themselves intently on anything
that moved. But soon they would stray off to another world, and he would
say thickly, sullenly, fiercely: '_Les Boches--ils vont en payer
cher--les Boches!_' On the walls were some trophies from the war of
'seventy.' His eyes would gloat over them, and he would get up and
finger a long pistol, or old _papier-mache_ helmet. Never was a man who
so lacked _gene_--at home in any company; it inspired reverence, that
independence of his, which had survived twenty months of imprisonment
with those who, it is said, make their victims salute them--to such a
depth has their civilisation reached. One night he tried to tell about
the fright he had been given. The Boches--it seemed--had put him and two
others against a wall, and shot those other two. Holding up two tapering
fingers, he mumbled: '_Assassins--assassins! Ils vont en payer cher--les
Boches!_' But sometimes there was something almost beautiful in his
face, as if his soul had rushed from behind his eyes, to answer some
little kindness done to him, or greet some memory of the days before he
was 'done for'--_foutu_, as he called it.

One day he admitted a pain about his heart; and time, too, for at
moments he would look like death itself. His nurse, Corporal Mignan,
had long left his _'deux phenomenes!_' having drifted away on the tides
of the system, till he should break down again and drag through the
hospitals once more. Gray had a room to himself now; the arrogant
civilian's groaning at night disturbed the others. Yet, if you asked him
in the morning if he had slept well, he answered invariably,
'_Oui--oui--toujours, toujours!_' For, according to him, you see, he was
still strong; and he would double his arm and tap his very little
muscle, to show that he could work. But he did not believe it now, for
one day a 'Power,' dusting the men's writing-room, saw a letter on the
blotter, and with an ashamed eye read these words:--

     _'Cher Oncle,_

     _J'ai eu la rage contre toi, mais c'est passe maintenant. Je
     veux seulement me reposer. Je ne peux pas me battre pour la
     France--j'ai voulu travailler pour elle; mais on ne m'a pas
     permi._

     _Votre neveu, qui t'embrasse de loin.'_

_Seulement me reposer_--only to rest! Rest he will, soon, if eyes can
speak. Pass, and leave for ever that ravished France for whom he wished
to work--pass, without having seen again his _petite fille_. No more in
the corridor above the stove, no more in the little dining-room or the
avenue of pines will be seen his long, noiseless, lonely figure, or be
heard his thick stumbling cry:

_'Les Boches--ils vont en payer cher--les Boches!_'

1917.




IV

THE BRIGHT SIDE


A little Englishwoman, married to a German, had dwelt with him eighteen
years in humble happiness and the district of Putney, where her husband
worked in the finer kinds of leather. He was a harmless, busy little man
with the gift for turning his hand to anything which is bred into the
peasants of the Black Forest, who on their upland farms make all the
necessaries of daily life--their coarse linen from home-grown flax,
their leather gear from the hides of their beasts, their clothes from
the wool thereof, their furniture from the pine logs of the Forest,
their bread from home-grown flour milled in simple fashion and baked in
the home-made ovens, their cheese from the milk of their own goats. Why
he had come to England he probably did not remember--it was so long ago;
but he would still know why he had married Dora, the daughter of the
Putney carpenter, she being, as it were, salt of the earth: one of those
Cockney women, deeply sensitive beneath a well-nigh impermeable mask of
humour and philosophy, who quite unselfconsciously are always doing
things for others. In their little grey Putney house they had dwelt
those eighteen years, without perhaps ever having had time to move,
though they had often had the intention of doing so for the sake of the
children, of whom they had three, a boy and two girls. Mrs.
Gerhardt--she shall be called, for her husband had a very German name,
and there is more in a name than Shakespeare dreamed of--Mrs. Gerhardt
was a little woman with large hazel eyes and dark crinkled hair in which
there were already a few threads of grey when the war broke out. Her boy
David, the eldest, was fourteen at that date, and her girls, Minnie and
Violet, were eight and five, rather pretty children, especially the
little one. Gerhardt, perhaps because he was so handy, had never risen.
His firm regarded him as indispensable and paid him fair wages, but he
had no "push," having the craftsman's temperament, and employing his
spare time in little neat jobs for his house and his neighbours, which
brought him no return. They made their way, therefore, without that
provision for the future which necessitates the employment of one's time
for one's own ends. But they were happy, and had no enemies; and each
year saw some mild improvements in their studiously clean house and tiny
back garden. Mrs. Gerhardt, who was cook, seamstress, washerwoman,
besides being wife and mother, was almost notorious in that street of
semi-detached houses for being at the disposal of any one in sickness or
trouble. She was not strong in body, for things had gone wrong when she
bore her first, but her spirit had that peculiar power of seeing things
as they were, and yet refusing to be dismayed, which so embarrasses
Fate. She saw her husband's defects clearly, and his good qualities no
less distinctly--they never quarrelled. She gauged her children's
characters too, with an admirable precision, which left, however,
loopholes of wonder as to what they would become.

The outbreak of the war found them on the point of going to Margate for
Bank Holiday, an almost unparalleled event; so that the importance of
the world catastrophe was brought home to them with a vividness which
would otherwise have been absent from folks so simple, domestic, and
far-removed from that atmosphere in which the egg of war is hatched.
Over the origin and merits of the struggle, beyond saying to each other
several times that it was a dreadful thing, Mr. and Mrs. Gerhardt held
but one little conversation, lying in their iron bed with an immortal
brown eiderdown patterned with red wriggles over them. They agreed that
it was a cruel, wicked thing to invade "that little Belgium," and there
left a matter which seemed to them a mysterious and insane perversion of
all they had hitherto been accustomed to think of as life. Reading their
papers--a daily and a weekly, in which they had as much implicit faith
as a million other readers--they were soon duly horrified by the reports
therein of "Hun" atrocities; so horrified that they would express their
condemnation of the Kaiser and his militarism as freely as if they had
been British subjects. It was therefore with an uneasy surprise that
they began to find these papers talking of "the Huns at large in our
midst," of "spies," and the national danger of "nourishing such vipers."
They were deeply conscious of not being "vipers," and such sayings began
to awaken in both their breasts a humble sense of injustice as it were.
This was more acute in the breast of little Mrs. Gerhardt, because, of
course, the shafts were directed not at her but at her husband. She knew
her husband so well, knew him incapable of anything but homely, kindly
busyness, and that he should be lumped into the category of "Huns" and
"spies" and tarred with the brush of mass hatred amazed and stirred her
indignation, or would have, if her Cockney temperament had allowed her
to take it very seriously. As for Gerhardt, he became extremely silent,
so that it was ever more and more difficult to tell what he was feeling.
The patriotism of the newspapers took a considerable time to affect the
charity of the citizens of Putney, and so long as no neighbour showed
signs of thinking that little Gerhardt was a monster and a spy it was
fairly easy for Mrs. Gerhardt to sleep at night, and to read her papers
with the feeling that the remarks in them were not really intended for
Gerhardt and herself. But she noticed that her man had given up reading
them, and would push them away from his eyes if, in the tiny
sitting-room with the heavily-flowered walls, they happened to rest
beside him. He had perhaps a closer sense of impending Fate than she.
The boy, David, went to his first work, and the girls to their school,
and so things dragged on through that first long war winter and spring.
Mrs. Gerhardt, in the intervals of doing everything, knitted socks for
"our poor cold boys in the trenches," but Gerhardt no longer sought out
little jobs to do in the houses of his neighbours. Mrs. Gerhardt thought
that he "fancied" they would not like it. It was early in that spring
that she took a deaf aunt to live with them, the wife of her mother's
brother, no blood-relation, but the poor woman had nowhere else to go;
so David was put to sleep on the horsehair sofa in the sitting-room
because she "couldn't refuse the poor thing." And then, of an April
afternoon, while she was washing the household sheets, her neighbour,
Mrs. Clirehugh, a little spare woman all eyes, cheekbones, hair, and
decision, came in breathless and burst out:

"Oh! Mrs. Gerhardt, 'ave you 'eard? They've sunk the _Loositania_! Has I
said to Will: Isn't it horful?"

Mrs. Gerhardt, with her round arms dripping soap-suds, answered: "What a
dreadful thing! The poor drowning people! Dear! Oh dear!"

"Oh! Those Huns! I'd shoot the lot, I would!"

"They _are_ wicked!" Mrs. Gerhardt echoed: "That was a dreadful thing to
do!"

But it was not till Gerhardt came in at five o'clock, white as a sheet,
that she perceived how this dreadful catastrophe affected them.

"I have been called a German," were the first words he uttered; "Dollee,
I have been called a German."

"Well, so you are, my dear," said Mrs. Gerhardt.

"You do not see," he answered, with a heat and agitation which surprised
her. "I tell you this _Lusitania_ will finish our business. They will
have me. They will take me away from you all. Already the papers have:
'Intern all the Huns.'" He sat down at the kitchen table and buried his
face in hands still grimy from his leather work. Mrs. Gerhardt stood
beside him, her eyes unnaturally big.

"But Max," she said, "what has it to do with you? You couldn't help it.
Max!"

Gerhardt looked up, his white face, broad in the brow and tapering to a
thin chin, seemed all distraught.

"What do they care for that? Is my name Max Gerhardt? What do they care
if I hate the war? I am a German. That's enough. You will see."

"Oh!" murmured Mrs. Gerhardt, "they won't be so unjust."

Gerhardt reached up and caught her chin in his hand, and for a moment
those two pairs of eyes gazed, straining, into each other. Then he said:

"I don't want to be taken, Dollee. What shall I do away from you and the
children? I don't want to be taken, Dollee."

Mrs. Gerhardt, with a feeling of terror and a cheerful smile, answered:

"You mustn't go fancyin' things, Max. I'll make you a nice cup of tea.
Cheer up, old man! Look on the bright side!"

But Gerhardt lapsed into the silence which of late she had begun to
dread.

That night some shop windows were broken, some German names effaced. The
Gerhardts had no shop, no name painted up, and they escaped. In Press
and Parliament the cry against "the Huns in our midst" rose with a fresh
fury; but for the Gerhardts the face of Fate was withdrawn. Gerhardt
went to his work as usual, and their laborious and quiet existence
remained undisturbed; nor could Mrs. Gerhardt tell whether her man's
ever-deepening silence was due to his "fancying things" or to the
demeanour of his neighbours and fellow workmen. One would have said that
he, like the derelict aunt, was deaf, so difficult to converse with had
he become. His length of sojourn in England and his value to his
employers, for he had real skill, had saved him for the time being; but,
behind the screen, Fate twitched her grinning chaps.

Not till the howl which followed some air raids in 1916 did they take
off Gerhardt, with a variety of other elderly men, whose crime it was to
have been born in Germany. They did it suddenly, and perhaps it was as
well, for a prolonged sight of his silent misery must have upset his
family till they would have been unable to look on that bright side of
things which Mrs. Gerhardt had, as it were, always up her sleeve. When,
in charge of a big and sympathetic constable, he was gone, taking all
she could hurriedly get together for him, she hastened to the police
station. They were friendly to her there: She must cheer up, Missis,
'e'd be all right, she needn't worry. Ah! she could go down to the 'Ome
Office, if she liked, and see what could be done. But they 'eld out no
'ope! Mrs. Gerhardt waited till the morrow, having the little Violet in
bed with her, and crying quietly into her pillow; then, putting on her
Sunday best she went down to a building in Whitehall, larger than any
she had ever entered. Two hours she waited, sitting unobtrusive, with
big anxious eyes, and a line between her brows. At intervals of half an
hour she would get up and ask the messenger cheerfully: "I 'ope they
haven't forgotten me, sir. Perhaps you'd see to it." And because she was
cheerful the messenger took her under his protection, and answered: "All
right, Missis. They're very busy, but _I'll_ wangle you in some'ow."

When at length she was wangled into the presence of a grave gentleman in
eye-glasses, realisation of the utter importance of this moment overcame
her so that she could not speak. "Oh! dear"--she thought, while her
heart fluttered like a bird--"he'll never understand; I'll never be
able to make him." She saw her husband buried under the leaves of
despair; she saw her children getting too little food, the deaf aunt,
now bedridden, neglected in the new pressure of work that must fall on
the only breadwinner left. And, choking a little, she said:

"I'm sure I'm very sorry to take up your time, sir; but my 'usband's
been taken to the Palace; and we've been married over twenty years, and
he's been in England twenty-five; and he's a very good man and a good
workman; and I thought perhaps they didn't understand that; and we've
got three children and a relation that's bedridden. And of course, we
understand that the Germans have been very wicked; Gerhardt always said
that himself. And it isn't as if he was a spy; so I thought if you could
do something for us, sir, I being English myself."

The gentleman, looking past her at the wall, answered wearily:

"Gerhardt--I'll look into it. We have to do very hard things, Mrs.
Gerhardt."

Little Mrs. Gerhardt, with big eyes almost starting out of her head, for
she was no fool, and perceived that this was the end, said eagerly:

"Of course I know that there's a big outcry, and the papers are askin'
for it; but the people in our street don't mind 'im, sir. He's always
done little things for them; so I thought perhaps you might make an
exception in his case."

She noticed that the gentleman's lips tightened at the word outcry, and
that he was looking at her now.

"His case was before the Committee no doubt; but I'll inquire.
Good-morning."

Mrs. Gerhardt, accustomed to not being troublesome, rose; a tear rolled
down her cheek and was arrested by her smile.

"Thank you, sir, I'm sure. Good-morning, sir."

And she went out. Meeting the messenger in the corridor, and hearing
his: "Well, Missis?" she answered: "I don't know. I must look on the
bright side. Good-bye, and thank you for your trouble." And she turned
away feeling as if she had been beaten all over.

The bright side on which she looked did not include the return to her of
little Gerhardt, who was duly detained for the safety of the country.
Obedient to economy, and with a dim sense that her favourite papers were
in some way responsible for this, she ceased to take them in, and took
in sewing instead. It had become necessary to do so, for the allowance
she received from the government was about a quarter of Gerhardt's
weekly earnings. In spite of its inadequacy it was something, and she
felt she must be grateful. But, curiously enough, she could not forget
that she was English, and it seemed strange to her that, in addition to
the grief caused by separation from her husband from whom she had never
been parted not even for a night, she should now be compelled to work
twice as hard and eat half as much because that husband had paid her
country the compliment of preferring it to his own. But, after all, many
other people had much worse trouble to grieve over, so she looked on the
bright side of all this, especially on those days once a week when
alone, or accompanied by the little Violet, she visited that Palace
where she had read in her favourite journals to her great comfort that
her husband was treated like a prince. Since he had no money he was in
what they called "the battalion," and their meetings were held in the
bazaar, where things which "the princes" made were exposed for sale.
Here Mr. and Mrs. Gerhardt would stand in front of some doll, some
blotting-book, calendar, or walking-stick, which had been fashioned by
one of "the princes." There they would hold each others' hands and try
to imagine themselves unsurrounded by other men and wives, while the
little Violet would stray and return to embrace her father's leg
spasmodically. Standing there, Mrs. Gerhardt would look on the bright
side, and explain to Gerhardt how well everything was going, and he
mustn't fret about them, and how kind the police were, and how auntie
asked after him, and Minnie would get a prize; and how he oughtn't to
mope, but eat his food, and look on the bright side. And Gerhardt would
smile the smile which went into her heart just like a sword, and say:

"All right, Dollee. I'm getting on fine." Then, when the whistle blew
and he had kissed little Violet, they would be quite silent, looking at
each other. And she would say in a voice so matter-of-fact that it could
have deceived no one:

"Well, I must go now. Good-bye, old man!"

And he would say:

"Good-bye, Dollee. Kiss me."

They would kiss, and holding little Violet's hand very hard she would
hurry away in the crowd, taking care not to look back for fear she might
suddenly lose sight of the bright side. But as the months went on,
became a year, eighteen months, two years, and still she went weekly to
see her "prince" in his Palace, that visit became for her the hardest
experience of all her hard week's doings. For she was a realist, as well
as a heroine, and she could see the lines of despair not only in her
man's heart but in his face. For a long time he had not said: "I'm
getting on fine, Dollee." His face had a beaten look, his figure had
wasted, he complained of his head.

"It's so noisy," he would say constantly; "oh! it's so noisy--never a
quiet moment--never alone--never--never--never--never. And not enough to
eat; it's all reduced now, Dollee."

She learned to smuggle food into his hands, but it was very little, for
they had not enough at home either, with the price of living ever going
up and her depleted income ever stationary. They had--her "man" told
her--made a fuss in the papers about their being fed like turkeycocks,
while the "Huns" were sinking the ships. Gerhardt, always a spare little
man, had lost eighteen pounds. She, naturally well covered, was getting
thin herself, but that she did not notice, too busy all day long, and
too occupied in thinking of her "man." To watch him week by week, more
hopeless, as the months dragged on, was an acute torture, to disguise
which was torture even more acute. She had long seen that there _was_ no
bright side, but if she admitted that she knew she would go down; so she
did not. And she carefully kept from Gerhardt such matters as David's
overgrowing his strength, because she could not feed him properly; the
completely bedridden nature of auntie; and worse than these, the
growing coldness and unkindness of her neighbours. Perhaps they did not
mean to be unkind, perhaps they did, for it was not in their nature to
withstand the pressure of mass sentiment, the continual personal
discomfort of having to stand in queues, the fear of air raids, the
cumulative indignation caused by stories of atrocities true and untrue.
In spite of her record of kindliness towards them she became tarred with
the brush at last, for her nerves had given way once or twice, and she
had said it was a shame to keep her man like that, gettin' iller and
iller, who had never done a thing. Even her reasonableness--and she was
very reasonable--succumbed to the strain of that weekly sight of him,
till she could no longer allow for the difficulties which Mrs. Clirehugh
assured her the Government had to deal with. Then one day she used the
words "fair play," and at once it became current that she had "German
sympathies." From that time on she was somewhat doomed. Those who had
received kindnesses from her were foremost in showing her coldness,
being wounded in their self-esteem. To have received little benefits,
such as being nursed when they were sick, from one who had "German
sympathies" was too much for the pride which is in every human being,
however humble an inhabitant of Putney. Mrs. Gerhardt's Cockney spirit
could support this for herself, but she could not bear it for her
children. David came home with a black eye, and would not say why he had
got it. Minnie missed her prize at school, though she had clearly won
it. That was just after the last German offensive began; but Mrs.
Gerhardt refused to see that this was any reason. Little Violet twice
put the heart-rending question to her: "Aren't I English, Mummy?"

She was answered: "Yes, my dear, of course."

But the child obviously remained unconvinced in her troubled mind.

And then they took David for the British army. It was that which so
upset the applecart in Mrs. Gerhardt that she broke out to her last
friend, Mrs. Clirehugh:

"I do think it's hard, Eliza. They take his father and keep him there
for a dangerous Hun year after year like that; and then they take his
boy for the army to fight against him. And how I'm to get on without him
I don't know."

Little Mrs. Clirehugh, who was Scotch, with a Gloucestershire accent,
replied:

"Well, we've got to beat them. They're such a wicked lot. I daresay it's
'ard on you, but we've got to beat them."

"But _we_ never did nothing," cried Mrs. Gerhardt; "it isn't us that's
wicked. We never wanted the war; it's nothing but ruin to him. They did
ought to let me have my man, or my boy, one or the other."

"You should 'ave some feeling for the Government, Dora; they 'ave to do
'ard things."

Mrs. Gerhardt, with a quivering face, had looked at her friend.

"I have," she said at last in a tone which implanted in Mrs. Clirehugh's
heart the feeling that Dora was "bitter."

She could not forget it; and she would flaunt her head at any mention of
her former friend. It was a blow to Mrs. Gerhardt, who had now no
friends, except the deaf and bedridden aunt, to whom all things were the
same, war or no war, Germans or no Germans, so long as she was fed.

About then it was that the tide turned, and the Germans began to know
defeat. Even Mrs. Gerhardt, who read the papers no longer, learned it
daily, and her heart relaxed; that bright side began to reappear a
little. She felt they could not feel so hardly towards her "man" now as
when they were all in fear; and perhaps the war would be over before her
boy went out. But Gerhardt puzzled her. He did not brighten up. The iron
seemed to have entered his soul too deeply. And one day, in the bazaar,
passing an open doorway, Mrs. Gerhardt had a glimpse of why. There,
stretching before her astonished eyes, was a great, as it were,
encampment of brown blankets, slung and looped up anyhow, dividing from
each other countless sordid beds, which were almost touching, and a
whiff of huddled humanity came out to her keen nostrils, and a hum of
sound to her ears. So that was where her man had dwelt these thirty
months, in that dirty, crowded, noisy place, with dirty-looking men,
such as those she could see lying on the beds, or crouching by the side
of them, over their work. He had kept neat somehow, at least on the days
when she came to see him--but _that_ was where he lived! Alone again
(for she no longer brought the little Violet to see her German father),
she grieved all the way home. Whatever happened to him now, even if she
got him back, she knew he would never quite get over it.

And then came the morning when she came out of her door like the other
inhabitants of Putney, at sound of the maroons, thinking it was an air
raid; and, catching the smile on the toothless mouth of one of her old
neighbours, hearing the cheers of the boys in the school round the
corner, knew that it was Peace. Her heart overflowed then, and,
withdrawing hastily, she sat down on a shiny chair in her little empty
parlour. Her face crumpled suddenly, the tears came welling forth; she
cried and cried, alone in the little cold room. She cried from relief
and utter thankfulness. It was over--over at last! The long waiting--the
long misery--the yearning for her "man"--the grieving for all those poor
boys in the mud, and the dreadful shell holes, and the fighting, the
growing terror of anxiety for her own boy--over, all over! Now they
would let Max out, now David would come back from the army; and people
would not be unkind and spiteful to her and the children any more!

For all she was a Cockney, hers was a simple soul, associating Peace
with Good-will. Drying her tears, she stood up, and in the little cheap
mirror above the empty grate looked at her face. It was lined, and she
was grey; for more than two years her man had not seen her without her
hat. What ever would he say? And she rubbed and rubbed her cheeks,
trying to smooth them out. Then her conscience smote her, and she ran
upstairs to the back bedroom, where the deaf aunt lay. Taking up the
little amateur ear trumpet which Gerhardt himself had made for "auntie,"
before he was taken away, she bawled into it:

"Peace, Auntie; it's Peace! Think of that. It's Peace!"

"What's that?" answered the deaf woman.

"It's Peace, Auntie, Peace."

The deaf lady roused herself a little, and some meaning came into the
lack-lustre black eyes of her long, leathery face. "You don't say," she
said in her wooden voice, "I'm so hungry, Dolly, isn't it time for my
dinner?"

"I was just goin' to get it, dearie," replied Mrs. Gerhardt, and hurried
back downstairs with her brain teeming, to make the deaf woman's bowl of
bread, pepper, salt, and onions.

All that day and the next and the next she saw the bright side of things
with almost dazzling clearness, waiting to visit her "prince" in his
Palace. She found him in a strange and pitiful state of nerves. The news
had produced too intense and varied emotions among those crowded
thousands of men buried away from normal life so long. She spent all her
hour and a half trying desperately to make him see the bright side, but
he was too full of fears and doubts, and she went away smiling, but
utterly exhausted. Slowly in the weeks which followed she learned that
nothing was changed. In the fond hope that Gerhardt might be home now
any day, she was taking care that his slippers and some clothes of
David's were ready for him, and the hip bath handy for him to have a
lovely hot wash. She had even bought a bottle of beer and some of his
favourite pickle, saving the price out of her own food, and was taking
in the paper again, letting bygones be bygones. But he did not come. And
soon the paper informed her that the English prisoners were
returning--many in wretched state, poor things, so that her heart bled
for them, and made her fiercely angry with the cruel men who had treated
them so; but it informed her too, that if the paper had its way no
"Huns" would be tolerated in this country for the future. "Send them all
back!" were the words it used. She did not realise at first that this
applied to Gerhardt; but when she did, she dropped the journal as if it
had been a living coal of fire. Not let him come back to his home, and
family, not let him stay, after all they'd done to him, and he never did
anything to them! Not let him stay, but send him out to that dreadful
country, which he had almost forgotten in these thirty years, and he
with an English wife and children! In this new terror of utter
dislocation the bright side so slipped from her that she was obliged to
go out into the back garden in the dark, where a sou'-westerly wind was
driving the rain. There, lifting her eyes to the evening sky she uttered
a little moan. It couldn't be true; and yet what they said in her paper
had always turned out true, like the taking of Gerhardt away, and the
reduction of his food. And the face of the gentleman in the building at
Whitehall came before her out of the long past, with his lips
tightening, and his words: "We have to do very hard things, Mrs.
Gerhardt." Why had they to do them? Her man had never done no harm to no
one! A flood, bitter as sea water, surged in her, and seemed to choke
her very being. Those gentlemen in the papers--why should they go on
like that? Had they no hearts, no eyes to see the misery they brought to
humble folk? "I wish them nothing worse than what they've brought to him
and me," she thought wildly: "nothing worse!"

The rain beat on her face, wetted her grey hair, cooled her eyeballs. "I
mustn't be spiteful," she thought; and bending down in the dark she
touched the glass of the tiny conservatory built against the warm
kitchen wall, and heated by the cunning little hot-water pipe her man
had put there in his old handy days. Under it were one little monthly
rose, which still had blossoms, and some straggly small chrysanthemums.
She had been keeping them for the feast when he came home; but if he
wasn't to come, what should she do? She raised herself. Above the wet
roofs sky-rack was passing wild and dark, but in a little cleared space
one or two stars shone the brighter for the blackness below. "I must
look on the bright side," she thought, "or I can't bear myself." And she
went in to cook the porridge for the evening meal.

The winter passed for her in the most dreadful anxiety. "Repatriate the
Huns!" That cry continued to spurt up in her paper like a terrible face
seen in some recurrent nightmare; and each week that she went to visit
Gerhardt brought solid confirmation to her terror. He was taking it
hard, so that sometimes she was afraid that "something" was happening in
him. This was the utmost she went towards defining what doctors might
have diagnosed as incipient softening of the brain. He seemed to dread
the prospect of being sent to his native country.

"I couldn't stick it, Dollee," he would say. "What should I do--whatever
should I do? I haven't a friend. I haven't a spot to go to. I should be
lost. I'm afraid, Dollee. How could you come out there, you and the
children? I couldn't make a living for you. I couldn't make one for
myself now."

And she would say: "Cheer up, old man. Look on the bright side. Think of
the others." For, though those others were not precisely the bright
side, the mental picture of their sufferings, all those poor "princes"
and their families, somehow helped her to bear her own. But he shook
his head:

"No; I should never see you again."

"I'd follow you," she answered. "Never fear, Max, we'd work in the
fields--me and the children. We'd get on somehow. Bear up, my dearie.
It'll soon be over now. I'll stick to you, Max, never you fear. But they
won't send you, they never will."

And then, like a lump of ice pressed on her breast, came the thought:
"But if they do! Auntie! My boy! My girls! However shall I manage if
they do!"

Then long lists began to appear, and in great batches men were shovelled
wholesale back to the country whose speech some of them had well-nigh
forgotten. Little Gerhardt's name had not appeared yet. The lists were
hung up the day after Mrs. Gerhardt's weekly visit, but she urged him if
his name did appear to appeal against repatriation. It was with the
greatest difficulty that she roused in him the energy to promise. "Look
on the bright side, Max," she implored him. "You've got a son in the
British army; they'll never send you. They wouldn't be so cruel. Never
say die, old man."

His name appeared but was taken out, and the matter hung again in awful
suspense, while the evil face of the recurrent nightmare confronted
Mrs. Gerhardt out of her favourite journal. She read that journal again,
because, so far as in her gentle spirit lay, she hated it. It was slowly
killing her man, and all her chance of future happiness; she hated it,
and read it every morning. To the monthly rose and straggly little
brown-red chrysanthemums in the tiny hothouse there had succeeded spring
flowers--a few hardy January snowdrops, and one by one blue scillas, and
the little pale daffodils called "angels' tears."

Peace tarried, but the flowers came up long before their time in their
tiny hothouse against the kitchen flue. And then one wonderful day there
came to Mrs. Gerhardt a strange letter, announcing that Gerhardt was
coming home. He would not be sent to Germany--he was coming home!
To-day, that very day--any moment he might be with her. When she
received it, who had long received no letters save the weekly letters of
her boy still in the army, she was spreading margarine on auntie's bread
for breakfast, and, moved beyond all control, she spread it thick,
wickedly, wastefully thick, then dropped the knife, sobbed, laughed,
clasped her hands on her breast, and without rhyme or reason, began
singing: "Hark! the herald angels sing." The girls had gone to school
already, auntie in the room above could not hear her, no one heard her,
nor saw her drop suddenly into the wooden chair, and, with her bare arms
stretched out one on either side of the plate of bread and margarine,
cry her heart out against the clean white table. Coming home, coming
home, coming home! The bright side! The little white stars!

It was a quarter of an hour before she could trust herself to answer the
knocking on the floor, which meant that "auntie" was missing her
breakfast. Hastily she made the tea and went up with it and the bread
and margarine. The woman's dim long face gleamed greedily when she saw
how thick the margarine was spread; but little Mrs. Gerhardt said no
word of the reason for that feast. She just watched her only friend
eating it, while a little moisture still trickled out from her big eyes
on to her flushed cheeks, and the words still hummed in her brain:

 "Peace on earth and mercy mild,
 Jesus Christ a little child."

Then, still speaking no word, she ran out and put clean sheets on her
and her man's bed. She was on wires, she could not keep still, and all
the morning she polished, polished. About noon she went out into her
garden, and from under the glass plucked every flower that grew
there--snowdrops, scillas, "angels' tears," quite two dozen blossoms.
She brought them into the little parlour and opened its window wide. The
sun was shining, and fell on the flowers strewn on the table, ready to
be made into the nosegay of triumphant happiness. While she stood
fingering them, delicately breaking half an inch off their stalks so
that they should last the longer in water, she became conscious of
someone on the pavement outside the window, and looking up saw Mrs.
Clirehugh. The past, the sense of having been deserted by her friends,
left her, and she called out:

"Come in, Eliza; look at my flowers!"

Mrs. Clirehugh came in; she was in black, her cheekbones higher, her
hair looser, her eyes bigger. Mrs. Gerhardt saw tears starting from
those eyes, wetting those high cheekbones, and cried out:

"Why, what's the matter, dear?"

Mrs. Clirehugh choked. "My baby!"

Mrs. Gerhardt dropped an "angels' tear," and went up to her.

"Whatever's happened?" she cried.

"Dead!" replied Mrs. Clirehugh. "Dead o' the influenza. 'E's to be
buried to-day. I can't--I can't--I can't--" Wild choking stopped her
utterance. Mrs. Gerhardt put an arm round her and drew her head on to
her shoulder.

"I can't--I can't--" sobbed Mrs. Clirehugh; "I can't find any flowers.
It's seein' yours made me cry."

"There, there!" cried Mrs. Gerhardt. "Have them. I'm sure you're
welcome, dearie. Have them--I'm so sorry!"

"I don't know," choked Mrs. Clirehugh, "I 'aven't deserved them." Mrs.
Gerhardt gathered up the flowers.

"Take them," she said. "I couldn't think of it. Your poor little baby.
Take them! There, there, he's spared a lot of trouble. You must look on
the bright side, dearie."

Mrs. Clirehugh tossed up her head.

"You're an angel, that's what you are!" she said, and grasping the
flowers she hurried out, a little black figure passing the window in the
sunlight.

Mrs. Gerhardt stood above the emptied table, thinking: "Poor dear--I'm
glad she had the flowers. It was a mercy I didn't call out that Max was
coming!" And from the floor she picked up one "angels' tear" she had
dropped, and set it in a glass of water, where the sunlight fell. She
was still gazing at it, pale, slender, lonely in that coarse tumbler,
when she heard a knock on the parlour door, and went to open it. There
stood her man, with a large brown-paper parcel in his hand. He stood
quite still, his head a little down, the face very grey. She cried out;
"Max!" but the thought flashed through her: "He knocked on the door!
It's _his_ door--he knocked on the door!"

"Dollee?" he said, with a sort of question in his voice.

She threw her arms round him, drew him into the room, and shutting the
door, looked hard into his face. Yes, it was his face, but in the eyes
something wandered--lit up, went out, lit up.

"Dollee," he said again, and clutched her hand.

She strained him to her with a sob.

"I'm not well, Dollee," he murmured.

"No, of course not, my dearie man; but you'll soon be all right
now--home again with me. Cheer up, cheer up!"

"I'm not well," he said again.

She caught the parcel out of his hand, and taking the "angels' tear"
from the tumbler, fixed it in his coat.

"Here's a spring flower for you, Max; out of your own little hothouse.
You're home again; home again, my dearie. Auntie's upstairs, and the
girls'll be coming soon. And we'll have dinner."

"I'm not well, Dollee," he said.

Terrified by that reiteration, she drew him down on the little horsehair
sofa, and sat on his knee. "You're home, Max, kiss me. There's my man!"
and she rocked him to and fro against her, yearning yet fearing to look
into his face and see that "something" wander there--light up, go out,
light up. "Look, dearie," she said, "I've got some beer for you. You'd
like a glass of beer?"

He made a motion of his lips, a sound that was like the ghost of a
smack. It terrified her, so little life was there in it.

He clutched her close, and repeated feebly:

"Yes, all right in a day or two. They let me come--I'm not well,
Dollee." He touched his head.

Straining him to her, rocking him, she murmured over and over again,
like a cat purring to its kitten:

"It's all right, my dearie--soon be well--soon be well! We must look on
the bright side--My man!"




V

"CAFARD"


The soldier Jean Liotard lay, face to the earth, by the bank of the
river Drome. He lay where the grass and trees ended, and between him and
the shrivelled green current was much sandy foreshore, for summer was at
height, and the snows had long finished melting and passing down. The
burning sun had sucked up all moisture, the earth was parched, but
to-day a cool breeze blew, willow and aspen leaves were fluttering and
hissing as if millions of tiny kisses were being given up there; and a
few swathes of white cloud were drawn, it seemed--not driven--along the
blue. The soldier Jean Liotard had fixed his eyes on the ground, where
was nothing to see but a few dry herbs. He had "_cafard_," for he was
due to leave the hospital to-morrow and go up before the military
authorities, for "_prolongation_." There he would answer perfunctory
questions, and be told at once: _Au depot_; or have to lie naked before
them that some "_major_" might prod his ribs, to find out whether his
heart, displaced by shell-shock, had gone back sufficiently to normal
position. He had received one "_prolongation_," and so, wherever his
heart now was, he felt sure he would not get another. "_Au depot_" was
the fate before him, fixed as that river flowing down to its death in
the sea. He had "_cafard_"--the little black beetle in the brain, which
gnaws and eats and destroys all hope and heaven in a man. It had been
working at him all last week, and now he was at a monstrous depth of
evil and despair. To begin again the cursed barrack-round, the driven
life, until in a month perhaps, packed like bleating sheep, in the
troop-train, he made that journey to the fighting line again--"_A la
hachette--a la hachette!_"

He had stripped off his red flannel jacket, and lay with shirt opened to
the waist, to get the breeze against his heart. In his brown
good-looking face the hazel eyes, which in these three God-deserted
years had acquired a sort of startled gloom, stared out like a dog's,
rather prominent, seeing only the thoughts within him--thoughts and
images swirling round and round in a dark whirlpool, drawing his whole
being deeper and deeper. He was unconscious of all the summer hum and
rustle--the cooing of the dove up in that willow tree, the winged
enamelled fairies floating past, the chirr of the cicadas, that little
brown lizard among the pebbles, almost within reach, seeming to listen
to the beating of summer's heart so motionless it lay; unconscious, as
though in verity he were again deep in some stifling trench, with German
shells whining over him, and the smell of muck and blood making foetid
the air. He was in the mood which curses God and dies; for he was
devout--a Catholic, and still went to Mass. And God had betrayed the
earth, and Jean Liotard. All the enormities he had seen in his two years
at the front--the mouthless mangled faces, the human ribs whence rats
would steal; the frenzied tortured horses, with leg or quarter rent
away, still living; the rotted farms, the dazed and hopeless peasants;
his innumerable suffering comrades; the desert of no-man's land; and all
the thunder and moaning of war; and the reek and the freezing of war;
and the driving--the callous perpetual driving, by some great Force
which shovelled warm human hearts and bodies, warm human hopes and loves
by the million into the furnace; and over all, dark sky without a break,
without a gleam of blue, or lift anywhere--all this enclosed him, lying
in the golden heat, so that not a glimmer of life or hope could get at
him. Back into it all again! Back into it, he who had been through forty
times the hell that the "_majors_" ever endured, five hundred times the
hell ever glimpsed at by those _deputes_, safe with their fat salaries,
and their gabble about victory and the lost provinces, and the future of
the world--the _Canaille!_ Let them allow the soldiers, whose lives they
spent like water--"_les camarades_" on both sides--poor devils who bled,
and froze, and starved, and sweated--let them suffer these to make the
peace! Ah! What a peace that would be--its first condition, all the
sacred politicians and pressmen hanging in rows in every country; the
mouth fighters, the pen fighters, the fighters with other men's blood!
Those comfortable citizens would never rest till there was not a young
man with whole limbs left in France! Had he not killed enough Boches,
that they might leave him and his tired heart in peace? He thought of
his first charge; of how queer and soft that Boche body felt when his
bayonet went through; and another, and another. Ah! he had "_joliment_"
done his duty that day! And something wrenched at his ribs. They were
only Boches, but their wives and children, their mothers--faces
questioning, faces pleading for them--pleading with whom? Ah! Not with
him! Who was he that had taken those lives, and others since, but a poor
devil without a life himself, without the right to breathe or move
except to the orders of a Force which had no mind, which had no heart,
had nothing but a blind will to go on, it knew not why. If only he
survived--it was not possible--but if only he survived, and with his
millions of comrades could come back and hold the reckoning! Some
scare-the-crows then would waggle in the wind. The butterflies would
perch on a few mouths empty at last; the flies enjoy a few silent
tongues! Then slowly his fierce unreasoning rancour vanished into a mere
awful pity for himself. Was a fellow never again to look at the sky, and
the good soil, the fruit, the wheat, without this dreadful black cloud
above him, never again make love among the trees, or saunter down a
lighted boulevard, or sit before a cafe, never again attend Mass,
without this black dog of disgust and dread sitting on his shoulders,
riding him to death? Angels of pity! Was there never to be an end? One
was going mad under it--yes, mad! And the face of his mother came before
him, as he had seen her last, just three years ago, when he left his
home in the now invaded country, to join his regiment--his mother who,
with all his family, was in the power of the Boche. He had gone gaily,
and she had stood like stone, her hand held over her eyes, in the
sunlight, watching him while the train ran out. Usually the thought of
the cursed Boches holding in their heavy hands all that was dear to him,
was enough to sweep his soul to a clear, definite hate, which made all
this nightmare of war seem natural, and even right; but now it was not
enough--he had "_cafard_." He turned on his back. The sky above the
mountains might have been black for all the joy its blue gave him. The
butterflies, those drifting flakes of joy, passed unseen. He was
thinking: No rest, no end, except by walking over bodies, dead, mangled
bodies of poor devils like himself, poor hunted devils, who wanted
nothing but never to lift a hand in combat again so long as they lived,
who wanted--as he wanted--nothing but laughter and love and rest!
_Quelle vie!_ A carnival of leaping demonry! A dream--unutterably bad!
"And when I go back to it all," he thought, "I shall go all shaven and
smart, and wave my hand as if I were going to a wedding, as we all do.
_Vive la France!_ Ah! what mockery! Can't a poor devil have a dreamless
sleep!" He closed his eyes, but the sun struck hot on them through the
lids, and he turned over on his face again, and looked longingly at the
river--they said it was deep in mid-stream; it still ran fast there!
What was that down by the water? Was he really mad? And he uttered a
queer laugh. There was his black dog--the black dog off his shoulders,
the black dog which rode him, yea, which had become his very self, just
going to wade in! And he called out:

"_He! le copain!_" It was not his dog, for it stopped drinking, tucked
its tail in, and cowered at the sound of his voice. Then it came from
the water, and sat down on its base among the stones, and looked at him.
A real dog was it? What a guy! What a thin wretch of a little black dog!
It sat and stared--a mongrel who might once have been pretty. It stared
at Jean Liotard with the pathetic gaze of a dog so thin and hungry that
it earnestly desires to go to men and get fed once more, but has been so
kicked and beaten that it dare not. It seemed held in suspense by the
equal overmastering impulses, fear and hunger. And Jean Liotard stared
back. The lost, as it were despairing look of the dog began to penetrate
his brain. He held out his hand and said: "_Viens!_" But at the sound
the little dog only squirmed away a few paces, then again sat down, and
resumed its stare. Again Jean Liotard uttered that queer laugh. If the
good God were to hold out his hand and say to him: "_Viens!_" he would
do exactly as that little beast; he would not come, not he! What was he
too but a starved and beaten dog--a driven wretch, kicked to hell! And
again, as if experimenting with himself, he held out his hand and said:
"Viens!" and again the beast squirmed a little further away, and again
sat down and stared. Jean Liotard lost patience. His head drooped till
his forehead touched the ground. He smelt the parched herbs, and a faint
sensation of comfort stole through his nerves. He lay unmoving, trying
to fancy himself dead and out of it all. The hum of summer, the smell of
grasses, the caress of the breeze going over! He pressed the palms of
his outstretched hands on the warm soil, as one might on a woman's
breast. If only it were really death, how much better than life in this
butcher's shop! But death, his death was waiting for him away over
there, under the moaning shells, under the whining bullets, at the end
of a steel prong--a mangled, foetid death. Death--his death, had no
sweet scent, and no caress--save the kisses of rats and crows. Life and
Death what were they? Nothing but the preying of creatures the one on
the other--nothing but that; and love, the blind instinct which made
these birds and beasts of prey. _Bon sang de bon sang!_ The Christ hid
his head finely nowadays! That cross up there on the mountain top, with
the sun gleaming on it--they had been right to put it up where no man
lived, and not even a dog roamed, to be pitied! "Fairy tales, fairy
tales," he thought; "those who drive and those who are driven, those
who eat and those who are eaten--we are all poor devils together. There
is no pity, no God!" And the flies drummed their wings above him. And
the sun, boring into his spine through his thin shirt, made him reach
for his jacket. There was the little dog, still, sitting on its base,
twenty yards away. It cowered and dropped its ears when he moved; and he
thought "Poor beast! Someone has been doing the devil's work on you, not
badly!" There were some biscuits in the pocket of his jacket, and he
held one out. The dog shivered, and its thin pink tongue lolled out,
panting with desire, and fear. Jean Liotard tossed the biscuit gently
about half way. The dog cowered back a step or two, crept forward three,
and again squatted. Then very gradually it crept up to the biscuit,
bolted it, and regained its distance. The soldier took out another. This
time he threw it five paces only in front of him. Again the little beast
cowered, slunk forward, seized the biscuit, devoured it; but this time
it only recoiled a pace or two, and seemed, with panting mouth and faint
wagging of the tail, to beg for more. Jean Liotard held a third biscuit
as far out in front of him as he could, and waited. The creature crept
forward and squatted just out of reach. There it sat, with saliva
dripping from its mouth; seemingly it could not make up its mind to
that awful venture. The soldier sat motionless; his outstretched hand
began to tire; but he did not budge--he meant to conquer its fear. At
last it snatched the biscuit. Jean Liotard instantly held out a fourth.
That too was snatched, but at the fifth he was able to touch the dog. It
cowered almost into the ground at touch of his fingers, and then lay,
still trembling violently, while the soldier continued to stroke its
head and ears. And suddenly his heart gave a twitter, the creature had
licked his hand. He took out his last biscuit, broke it up, and fed the
dog slowly with the bits, talking all the time; when the last crumb was
gone he continued to murmur and crumple its ears softly. He had become
aware of something happening within the dog--something in the nature of
conversion, as if it were saying: "O my master, my new master--I
worship, I love you!" The creature came gradually closer, quite close;
then put up its sharp black nose and began to lick his face. Its little
hot rough tongue licked and licked, and with each lick the soldier's
heart relaxed, just as if the licks were being given there, and
something licked away. He put his arms round the thin body, and hugged
it, and still the creature went on feverishly licking at his face, and
neck, and chest, as if trying to creep inside him. The sun poured down,
the lizards rustled and whisked among the pebbles; the kissing never
ceased up there among the willow and aspen leaves, and every kind of
flying thing went past drumming its wings. There was no change in the
summer afternoon. God might not be there, but Pity had come back; Jean
Liotard no longer had "_cafard_." He put the little dog gently off his
lap, got up, and stretched himself. "_Voyons, mon brave, faut aller voir
les copains! Tu es a moi._" The little dog stood up on its hind legs,
scratching with its forepaws at the soldier's thigh, as if trying to get
at his face again; as if begging not to be left; and its tail waved
feverishly, half in petition, half in rapture. The soldier caught the
paws, set them down, and turned his face for home, making the noises
that a man makes to his dog; and the little dog followed, close as he
could get to those moving ankles, lifting his snout, and panting with
anxiety and love.

1917




VI

RECORDED


Just as the train was going out the compartment was stormed by a figure
in khaki, with a rifle, a bad cold, a wife, a basket, a small bundle,
and two babies. Setting his rifle down in the corner, he said:

"Didn't think we shud ever 'a caught it!"

His lean face was streaming with perspiration, and when he took off his
overcoat there rose the sweetish sourish scent of a hot goatskin
waistcoat. It reached below his waist, and would have kept cold out from
a man standing in a blizzard, and he had been carrying a baby, a rifle,
a bundle, a basket, and running, on a warmish day.

"Grand things, these," he said, and took it off. He also took off his
cap, and sat down with the elder baby in a howling draught.

"Proper cold I've caught comin' over here," he added.

His wife, quite a girl, broad-faced, fresh-coloured, with small grey
eyes and a wonderfully placid, comely face, on which a faint shadow
seemed printed, sat beside him with the younger baby, a real hairless
one, as could be seen when its white knitted cap slipped. The elder
baby, perhaps two years old, began whimpering a little. He jigged it
gently, and said:

"We 'ad a lot o' trouble wi' this one yesterday. The Doctor didn't think
'er fit to travel; but I got to see the old people down there, before I
go back out across. Come over Sunday night--only got a week's leave. So
here we are," and he laughed.

"What is your corps?" I asked.

"Engineers."

"Join since the war?"

He looked at me as if to say: What a question!

"Twelve years' service. Been everywhere--India, South Africa, Egypt.
Come over to the front from Egypt."

"Where? Ypres?"

"Beg pardon? Wipers? No, Labassy."

"Rough time?"

He winked. "Proper rough time."

He looked straight at me, and his eyes--Celtic-grey, with a good deal of
light in them--stared, wide and fixed, at things beyond me, as only do
the eyes of those who have seen much death. There was a sort of
burnt-gunpowder look about their rims and lashes, and a fixity that
nothing could have stared down.

"The Kazer he says it'll all be over by April!" He laughed, abandoning
the whole of him to enjoyment of that joke.

He was thin as a rail; his head with its thick brown hair was narrow,
his face narrowish too. He had irregular ears, and no feature that could
be called good, but his expression was utterly genuine and unconscious
of itself. When he sat quiet his face would be held a little down, his
eyes would be looking at something--or was it at nothing?--far-off, in a
kind of frowning dream. But if he glanced at his babies his rather thick
mouth became all smiles, and he would make a remark to his wife about
them. Once or twice she looked at him softly, but I could never catch
him responding to that; his life was rather fuller than hers just now.
Presently she took from him the elder baby which, whimpering again, was
quieted at once by her broad placidity. The younger baby she passed to
him; and, having secured it on his knee, he said:

"This one's a proper little gem; never makes a sound; she's a proper
little gem. Never cude stand hearin' a baby cry." It certainly was an
admirable baby, whether her little garments were lifted so that you saw
portions of her--scarlet from being held too tight, whether the shawl
was wrapped over her too much or too little, or her little knitted
trousers seemed about to fall off. For both these babies were elegantly
dressed, and so was the mother, with a small blue hat and a
large-checked blouse over her broad bosom, and a blue skirt all crumbs
and baby. It was pleasant to see that he had ceased to stream with
perspiration now, and some one at the other end of the carriage having
closed the window, he and the babies no longer sat in a howling
draught--not that they had ever noticed it.

"Yes," he said suddenly, "proper rough time we 'ad of it at first.
Terrible--yu cude 'ardly stick it. We Engineers 'ad the worst of it, tu.
But must laugh, you know; if yu're goin' to cop it next minute--must
laugh!" And he did. But his eyes didn't quite lose that stare.

"How did you feel the first day under fire?"

He closed one eye and shook his head.

"Not very grand--not very grand--not for two or three days. Soon get
used to it, though. Only things I don't care about now are those Jack
Johnsons. Long Toms out in South Africa--now Jack Johnsons--funny
names--" and he went into a roar. Then leaning forward and, to make sure
of one's attention, sawing the air with a hand that held perhaps the
longest used handkerchief ever seen, "I seen 'em make a hole where you
could 'ave put two 'underd and fifty horses. Don't think I shall ever
get to like 'em. Yu don't take no notice o' rifle fire after a
little--not a bit o' notice. I was out once with a sapper and two o' the
Devons, fixin' up barbed wire--bullets strikin' everywhere just like
rain. One o' the Devons, he was sittin' on a biscuit-tin, singin': 'The
fields were white wi' daisies'--singing. All of a sudden he goes like
this--" And giving a queer dull "sumph" of a sound, he jerked his body
limp towards his knees--"Gone! Dig a hole, put 'im in. Your turn
to-morrow, perhaps. Pals an' all. Yu get so as yu don't take no notice."

On the face of the broad, placid girl with the baby against her breast
the shadow seemed printed a little deeper, but she did not wince. The
tiny baby on his knees woke up and crowed faintly. He smiled.

"Since I been out there, I've often wished I was a little 'un again,
like this. Well, I made up my mind when first I went for a soldier, that
I'd like to 'ave a medal out of it some day. Now I'll get it, if they
don't get me!" and he laughed again: "Ah! I've 'ad some good times, an'
I've 'ad some bad times----"

"But never a time like this?"

"Yes, I reckon this has about put the top hat on it!" and he nodded his
head above the baby's. "About put the top hat on! Oh! I've seen
things--enough to make your 'eart bleed. I've seen a lot of them country
people. Cruel it is! Women, old men, little children, 'armless
people--enough to make your 'eart bleed. I used to think of the folk
over 'ere. Don't think English women'd stand what the French and Belgian
women do. Those poor women over there--wonderful they are. There yu'll
see 'em sittin' outside their 'omes just a heap o' ruins--clingin' to
'em. Wonderful brave and patient--make your 'eart bleed to see 'em.
Things I've seen! There's some proper brutes among the Germans--must be.
Yu don't feel very kind to 'em when yu've seen what I've seen. We 'ave
some games with 'em, though"--he laughed again: "Very nervous people,
the Germans. If we stop firin' in our lines, up they send the star
shells, rockets and all, to see what's goin' on--think we're goin' to
attack--regular 'lumination o' fireworks--very nervous people. Then we
send up some rockets on our side--just to 'ave some fun--proper display
o' fireworks." He went off into a roar: "Must 'ave a bit o' fun, you
know."

"Is it true they can't stand the bayonet?"

"Yes, that's right--they'll tell yu so themselves--very sensitive,
nervous people."

And after that a silence fell. The elder babe was still fretful, and the
mother's face had on it that most moving phenomenon of this world--the
strange, selfless, utterly absorbed look, mouth just loosened, eyes off
where we cannot follow, the whole being wrapped in warmth of her baby
against her breast. And he, with the tiny placid baby, had gone off into
another sort of dream, with his slightly frowning, far-away look. What
was it all about?--nothing perhaps! A great quality, to be able to rest
in vacancy.

He stirred and I offered him the paper, but he shook his head.

"Thank yu; don't care about lookin' at 'em. They don't know half what we
do out there--from what I've seen of 'em since I come back, I don't seem
to 'ave any use for 'em. The pictures, too--" He shrugged and shook his
head. "We 'ave the real news, y'see. They don't keep nothin' from us.
But we're not allowed to say. When we advance there'll be some lives
lost, I tell yu!"

He nodded, thinking for a second perhaps of his own. "Can't be helped!
Once we get 'em on the run, we shan't give 'em much time." Just then the
baby on his knee woke up and directed on him the full brunt of its
wide-open bright grey eyes. Its rosy cheeks were so broad and fat that
its snub nose seemed but a button; its mouth, too tiny, one would think,
for use, smiled. Seeing that smile he said:

"Well, what do yu want? Proper little gem, ain't yu!" And suddenly
looking up at me, he added with a sort of bashful glee: "My old
people'll go fair mad when they see me--go fair mad they will." He
seemed to dwell on the thought, and I saw the wife give him a long soft
smiling look. He added suddenly:

"I'll 'ave to travel back, though, Saturday--catch the six o'clock from
Victoria, Sunday--to cross over there."

Very soon after that we arrived at where he changed, and putting on his
goatskin, his cap, and overcoat, he got out behind his wife, carrying
with the utmost care those queer companions, his baby and his rifle.

Where is he now? Alive, dead? Who knows?

1915.




VII

THE RECRUIT


Several times since that fateful Fourth of August he had said: "I sh'll
'ave to go."

And the farmer and his wife would look at him, he with a sort of
amusement, she with a queer compassion in her heart, and one or the
other would reply smiling: "That's all right, Tom, there's plenty
Germans yet. Yu wait a bit."

His mother, too, who came daily from the lonely cottage in the little
combe on the very edge of the big hill to work in the kitchen and farm
dairy, would turn her dark taciturn head, with still plentiful black
hair, towards his face which, for all its tan, was so weirdly
reminiscent of a withered baby, pinkish and light-lashed, with forelock
and fair hair thin and rumpled, and small blue eyes, and she would
mutter:

"Don't yu never fret, boy. They'll come for 'ee fast enough when they
want 'ee." No one, least of all perhaps his mother, could take quite
seriously that little square short-footed man, born when she was just
seventeen. Sure of work because he was first-rate with every kind of
beast, he was yet not looked on as being quite 'all there.' He could
neither read nor write, had scarcely ever been outside the parish, and
then only in a shandrydan on a Club treat, and he knew no more of the
world than the native of a small South Sea Island. His life from school
age on had been passed year in, year out, from dawn till dark, with the
cattle and their calves, the sheep, the horses and the wild moor ponies;
except when hay or corn harvest, or any exceptionally exacting festival
absorbed him for the moment. From shyness he never went into the bar of
the Inn, and so had missed the greater part of village education. He
could of course read no papers, a map was to him but a mystic mass of
marks and colours; he had never seen the sea, never a ship; no water
broader than the parish streams; until the war had never met anything
more like a soldier than the constable of the neighbouring village. But
he had once seen a Royal Marine in uniform. What sort of creatures these
Germans were to him--who knows? They were cruel--he had grasped that.
Something noxious, perhaps, like the adders whose backs he broke with
his stick; something dangerous like the chained dog at Shapton Farm; or
the big bull at Vannacombe. When the war first broke out, and they had
called the younger blacksmith (a reservist and noted village marksman)
back to his regiment, the little cowman had smiled and said: "Wait till
regiment gets to front, Fred'll soon shoot 'em up."

But weeks and months went by, and it was always the Germans, the
Germans; Fred had clearly not yet shot them up; and now one and now
another went off from the village, and two from the farm itself; and the
great Fred returned slightly injured for a few weeks' rest, and, full of
whisky from morning till night, made the village ring; and finally went
off again in a mood of manifest reluctance. All this weighed dumbly on
the mind of the little cowman, the more heavily that because of his
inarticulate shyness he could never talk that weight away, nor could
anyone by talk relieve him, no premises of knowledge or vision being
there. From sheer physical contagion he felt the grizzly menace in the
air, and a sense of being left behind when others were going to meet
that menace with their fists, as it were. There was something proud and
sturdy in the little man, even in the look of him, for all that he was
'poor old Tom,' who brought a smile to the lips of all. He was
passionate, too, if rubbed up the wrong way; but it needed the
malevolence and ingenuity of human beings to annoy him--with his beasts
he never lost his temper, so that they had perfect confidence in him. He
resembled indeed herdsmen of the Alps, whom one may see in dumb
communion with their creatures up in those high solitudes; for he too
dwelt in a high solitude cut off from real fellowship with men and women
by lack of knowledge, and by the supercilious pity in them. Living in
such a remote world his talk--when he did say something--had ever the
surprising quality attaching to the thoughts of those by whom the normal
proportions of things are quite unknown. His short square figure,
hatless and rarely coated in any weather, dotting from foot to foot, a
bit of stick in one hand, and often a straw in the mouth--he did not
smoke--was familiar in the yard where he turned the handle of the
separator, or in the fields and cowsheds, from daybreak to dusk, save
for the hours of dinner and tea, which he ate in the farm kitchen,
making sparse and surprising comments. To his peculiar whistles and
calls the cattle and calves, for all their rumination and stubborn
shyness, were amazingly responsive. It was a pretty sight to see them
pushing against each other round him--for, after all, he was as much the
source of their persistence, especially through the scanty winter
months, as a mother starling to her unfledged young.

When the Government issued their request to householders to return the
names of those of military age ready to serve if called on, he heard of
it, and stopped munching to say in his abrupt fashion: "I'll go--fight
the Germans." But the farmer did not put him down, saying to his wife:

"Poor old Tom! 'Twidden be 'ardly fair--they'd be makin' game of 'un."

And his wife, her eyes shining with motherliness, answered: "Poor lad,
he's not fit-like."

The months went on--winter passing to spring--and the slow decking of
the trees and fields began with leaves and flowers, with butterflies and
the songs of birds. How far the little cowman would notice such a thing
as that no one could ever have said, devoid as he was of the vocabulary
of beauty, but like all the world his heart must have felt warmer and
lighter under his old waistcoat, and perhaps more than most hearts, for
he could often be seen standing stock-still in the fields, his browning
face turned to the sun.

Less and less he heard talk of Germans--dogged acceptance of the state
of war having settled on that far countryside--the beggars were not
beaten and killed off yet, but they would be in good time. It was
unpleasant to think of them more than could be helped. Once in a way a
youth went off and ''listed,' but though the parish had given more
perhaps than the average, a good few of military age still clung to life
as they had known it. Then some bright spirit conceived the notion that
a county regiment should march through the remoter districts to rouse
them up.

The cuckoo had been singing five days; the lanes and fields, the woods
and the village green were as Joseph's coat, so varied and so bright the
foliage, from golden oak-buds to the brilliant little lime-tree leaves,
the feathery green shoots of larches, and the already darkening bunches
of the sycamores. The earth was dry--no rain for a fortnight--when the
cars containing the brown-clad men and a recruiting band drew up before
the Inn. Here were clustered the farmers, the innkeeper, the grey-haired
postman; by the Church gate and before the schoolyard were knots of
girls and children, schoolmistress, schoolmaster, parson; and down on
the lower green a group of likely youths, an old labourer or two, and
apart from human beings as was his wont, the little cowman in brown
corduroys tied below the knee, and an old waistcoat, the sleeves of his
blue shirt dotted with pink, rolled up to the elbows of his brown arms.
So he stood, his brown neck and shaven-looking head quite bare, with
his bit of stick wedged between his waist and the ground, staring with
all his light-lashed water-blue eyes from under the thatch of his
forelock.

The speeches rolled forth glib; the khaki-clad men drank their second
fill that morning of coffee and cider; the little cowman stood straight
and still, his head drawn back. Two figures--officers, men who had been
at the front--detached themselves and came towards the group of likely
youths. These wavered a little, were silent, sniggered, stood their
ground--the khaki-clad figures passed among them. Hackneyed words,
jests, the touch of flattery, changing swiftly to chaff--all the
customary performance, hollow and pathetic; and then the two figures
re-emerged, their hands clenched, their eyes shifting here and there,
their lips drawn back in fixed smiles. They had failed, and were trying
to hide it. They must not show contempt--the young slackers might yet
come in, when the band played.

The cars were filled again, the band struck up: 'It's a long long way to
Tipperary.'

And at the edge of the green within two yards of the car's dusty passage
the little cowman stood apart and stared. His face was red. Behind him
they were cheering--the parson and farmers, school children, girls, even
the group of youths. He alone did not cheer, but his face grew still
more red. When the dust above the road and the distant blare of
Tipperary had dispersed and died, he walked back to the farm dotting
from one to other of his short feet. All that afternoon and evening he
spoke no word; but the flush seemed to have settled in his face for good
and all. He milked some cows, but forgot to bring the pails up. Two of
his precious cows he left unmilked till their distressful lowing caused
the farmer's wife to go down and see. There he was standing against a
gate moving his brown neck from side to side like an animal in pain,
oblivious seemingly of everything. She spoke to him:

"What's matter, Tom?" All he could answer was:

"I'se goin', I'se goin'." She milked the cows herself.

For the next three days he could settle to nothing, leaving his jobs
half done, speaking to no one save to say:

"I'se goin'; I'se got to go." Even the beasts looked at him surprised.

On the Saturday the farmer having consulted with his wife, said quietly:

"Well, Tom, ef yu want to go, yu shall. I'll drive 'ee down Monday. Us
won't du nothin' to keep yu back."

The little cowman nodded. But he was restless as ever all through that
Sunday, eating nothing.

On Monday morning arrayed in his best clothes he got into the dog-cart.
There, without good-bye to anyone, not even to his beasts, he sat
staring straight before him, square, and jolting up and down beside the
farmer, who turned on him now and then a dubious almost anxious eye.

So they drove the eleven miles to the recruiting station. He got down,
entered, the farmer with him.

"Well, my lad," they asked him, "what d'you want to join?"

"Royal Marines."

It was a shock, coming from the short, square figure of such an obvious
landsman. The farmer took him by the arm.

"Why, yu'm a Devon man, Tom, better take county regiment. An't they gude
enough for yu?"

Shaking his head he answered: "Royal Marines."

Was it the glamour of the words or the Royal Marine he had once seen,
that moved him to wish to join that outlandish corps? Who shall say?
There was the wish, immovable; they took him to the recruiting station
for the Royal Marines.

Stretching up his short, square body, and blowing out his cheeks to
increase his height, he was put before the reading board. His eyes were
splendid; little that passed in hedgerows or the heaven, in woods or on
the hillsides, could escape them. They asked him to read the print.

Staring, he answered: "L."

"No, my lad, you're guessing."

"L."

The farmer plucked at the recruiting officer's sleeve, his face was
twitching, and he whispered hoarsely:

"'E don' know 'is alphabet."

The officer turned and contemplated that short square figure with the
browned face so reminiscent of a withered baby, and the little blue eyes
staring out under the dusty forelock. Then he grunted, and going up to
him, laid a hand on his shoulder.

"_Your_ heart's all right, my lad, but you can't pass."

The little cowman looked at him, turned, and went straight out. An hour
later he sat again beside the farmer on the way home, staring before him
and jolting up and down.

"They won't get me," he said suddenly: "I can fight, but I'se not
goin'." A fire of resentment seemed to have been lit within him. That
evening he ate his tea, and next day settled down again among his
beasts. But whenever, now, the war was mentioned, he would look up with
his puckered smile which seemed to have in it a resentful amusement, and
say:

"They a'nt got me yet."

His dumb sacrifice passing their comprehension, had been rejected--or so
it seemed to him He could not understand that they had spared him. Why!
He was as good as they! His pride was hurt. No! They should not get him
now!

1916.




VIII

THE PEACE MEETING


Colin Wilderton, coming from the West on his way to the Peace Meeting,
fell in with John Rudstock, coming from the North, and they walked on
together. After they had commented on the news from Russia and the
inflation of money, Rudstock said abruptly:

"We shall have a queer meeting, I expect."

"God knows!" answered Wilderton.

And both smiled, conscious that they were uneasy, but predetermined not
to show it under any circumstances. Their smiles were different, for
Rudstock was a black-browed man, with dark beard and strong, thick
figure, and Wilderton a very light-built, grey-haired man, with kindly
eyes and no health. He had supported the war an immense time, and had
only recently changed his attitude. In common with all men of warm
feelings, he had at first been profoundly moved by the violation of
Belgium. The horrors of the German advance through that little country
and through France, to which he was temperamentally attached, had
stirred in him a vigorous detestation, freely expressed in many ways.
Extermination, he had felt all those early months, was hardly good
enough for brutes who could commit such crimes against humanity and
justice; and his sense of the need for signal defeat of a noxious force
riding rough-shod over the hard-won decency of human life had survived
well into the third year of the war. He hardly knew, himself, when his
feeling had begun--not precisely to change, but to run, as it were, in a
different channel. A man of generous instincts, artistic tastes, and
unsteady nerves too thinly coated with that God-given assurance which
alone fits a man for knowing what is good for the world, he had become
gradually haunted by the thought that he was not laying down his own
life, but only the lives of his own and other peoples' sons. And the
consideration that he was laying them down for the benefit of their own
future had lost its grip on him. At moments he was still able to see
that the war he had so long supported had not yet attained sufficient
defeat of the Prussian military machine to guarantee that future; but
his pity and distress for all these young lives, cut down without a
chance to flower, had grown till he had become, as it were, a gambler.
What good--he would think--to secure the future of the young in a Europe
which would soon have no young! Every country was suffering
hideously--the criminal country not least, thank God! Suppose the war
were to go on for another year, two, three years, and then stop from
sheer exhaustion of both sides, while all the time these boys were being
killed and maimed, for nothing more, perhaps, than could be obtained
to-day. What then? True, the Government promised victory, but they never
promised it within a year. Governments did not die; what if they were to
go on promising it a year hence, till everybody else was dead! Did
history ever show that victory in the present could guarantee the
future? And even if not so openly defeated as was desirable, this
damnable Prussianism had got such a knock that it could never again do
what it had in the past. These last, however, were but side reflections,
toning down for him the fact that his nerves could no longer stand this
vicarious butchery of youth. And so he had gradually become that
"traitor to his country, a weak-kneed Peace by Negotiation man."
Physically his knees really were weak, and he used to smile a wry smile
when he read the expression.

John Rudstock, of vigorous physique, had opposed the war, on principle,
from the start, not because, any more than Wilderton, he approved of
Prussianism, but because, as an essentially combative personality, he
opposed everything that was supported by a majority; the greater the
majority, the more bitterly he opposed it; and no one would have been
more astonished than he at hearing that this was his principle. He
preferred to put it that he did not believe in opposing Force by Force.
In peace-time he was a "stalwart," in war-time a "renegade."

The street leading to the chapel which had been engaged seemed quiet
enough. Designed to make an impression on public opinion, every care had
been taken that the meeting should not attract the public eye. God's
protection had been enlisted, but two policemen also stood at the
entrance, and half a dozen others were suspiciously near by. A thin
trickle of persons, mostly women, were passing through the door. Colin
Wilderton, making his way up the aisle to the platform, wrinkled his
nose, thinking: "Stuffy in here." It had always been his misfortune to
love his neighbours individually, but to dislike them in a bunch. On the
platform some fifteen men and women were already gathered. He seated
himself modestly in the back row, while John Rudstock, less retiring,
took his place at the chairman's right hand. The speakers began with a
precipitancy hardly usual at a public meeting. Wilderton listened, and
thought: "Dreadfully cliche; why can't someone say straight out that
boys enough have been killed?" He had become conscious of a muttering
noise, too, as of the tide coming in on a heavy wind; it broke suddenly
into component parts--human voices clamouring outside. He heard blows
raining on the door, saw sticks smashing in the windows. The audience
had risen to its feet, some rushing to defend the doors, others standing
irresolute. John Rudstock was holding up the chair he had been sitting
on. Wilderton had just time to think: "I thought so," when a knot of
young men in khaki burst into the chapel, followed by a crowd. He knew
he was not much good in a scrimmage, but he placed himself at once in
front of the nearest woman. At that moment, however, some soldiers,
pouring through a side-door, invaded the platform from behind, and threw
him down the steps. He arrived at the bottom with a bump, and was unable
to get up because of the crowd around him. Someone fell over him; it was
Rudstock, swearing horribly. He still had the chair in his hand, for it
hit Wilderton a nasty blow. The latter saw his friend recover his feet
and swing the weapon, and with each swing down went some friend or foe,
until he had cleared quite a space round him. Wilderton, still weak and
dizzy from his fall, sat watching this Homeric battle. Chairs, books,
stools, sticks were flying at Rudstock, who parried them, or diverted
their course so that they carried on and hit Wilderton, or crashed
against the platform. He heard Rudstock roar like a lion, and saw him
advance, swinging his chair; down went two young men in khaki, down went
a third in mufti; a very tall young soldier, also armed with a chair,
dashed forward, and the two fought in single combat. Wilderton had got
on his feet by now, and, adjusting his eyeglass, for he could see little
without, he caught up a hymn-book, and, flinging it at the crowd with
all his force, shouted: "Hoo-bloodyray!" and followed with his fists
clenched. One of them encountered what must have been the jaw of an
Australian, it was so hard against his hand; he received a vicious punch
in the ribs and was again seated on the ground. He could still hear his
friend roaring, and the crash of chairs meeting in mid-air. Something
fell heavily on him. It was Rudstock--he was insensible. There was a
momentary lull, and peering up as best he could from underneath the
body, Wilderton saw that the platform had been cleared of all its
original inhabitants, and was occupied mainly by youths in navy-blue and
khaki. A voice called out:

"Order! Silence!"

Rubbing Rudstock's temples with brandy from a flask which he had had the
foresight to slip into his pocket, he listened as best he could, with
the feet of the crowd jostling his anatomy.

"Here we are, boys," the voice was saying, "and here we'll always be
when these treacherous blighters try their games on. No peace, no peace
at any price! We've got to show them that we won't have it. Leave the
women alone--though they ought to be ashamed of themselves; but for the
men--the skunks--shooting's too good for them. Let them keep off the
course or we'll make them. We've broken up this meeting, and we'll break
up every meeting that tries to talk of peace. Three cheers for the old
flag!"

During the cheers which followed Wilderton was discovering signs of
returning consciousness in his friend. Rudstock had begun to breathe
heavily, and, pouring some brandy into his mouth, he propped him up as
best he could against a wooden structure, which he suddenly perceived to
be the chapel's modest pulpit. A thought came to his dazed brain. If he
could get up into that, as if he had dropped from Heaven, they might
almost listen to him. He disengaged his legs from under Rudstock, and
began crawling up the steps on hands and knees. Once in the pulpit he
sat on the floor below the level of visibility, getting his breath, and
listening to the cheers. Then, smoothing his hair, he rose, and waited
for the cheers to stop. He had calculated rightly. His sudden
appearance, his grey hair, eyeglass, and smile deceived them for a
moment. There was a hush.

"Boys!" he said, "listen to me a second, I want to ask you something.
What on earth do you think we came here for? Simply and solely because
we can't bear to go on seeing you killed day after day, month after
month, year after year. That's all, and it's Christ's truth. Amen!"

A strange gasp and mutter greeted this little speech; then a dull voice
called out:

"Pro-German!"

Wilderton flung up his hand.

"The Germans to hell!" he said simply.

The dull voice repeated:

"Pro-German!" And the speaker on the platform called out: "Come out of
that! When we want you to beg us off we'll let you know."

Wilderton spun round to him.

"You're all wonderful!" he began, but a hymn-book hit him fearfully on
the forehead, and he sank down into the bottom of the pulpit. This last
blow, coming on the top of so many others, had deprived him of
intelligent consciousness; he was but vaguely aware of more speeches,
cheers, and tramplings, then of a long hush, and presently found
himself walking out of the chapel door between Rudstock and a policeman.
It was not the door by which they had entered, and led to an empty
courtyard.

"Can you walk?" said the policeman.

Wilderton nodded.

"Then walk off!" said the policeman, and withdrew again into the house
of God.

They walked, holding each other's arms, a little unsteadily at first.
Rudstock had a black eye and a cut on his ear, the blood from which had
stained his collar and matted his beard. Wilderton's coat was torn, his
forehead bruised, his cheek swollen, and he had a pain in his back which
prevented him from walking very upright. They did not speak, but in an
archway did what they could with pins and handkerchiefs, and by turning
up Rudstock's coat collar, to regain something of respectability. When
they were once more under way Rudstock said coldly:

"I heard you. You should have spoken for yourself. I came, as you know,
because I don't believe in opposing force by force. At the next peace
meeting we hold I shall make that plainer."

Wilderton murmured:

"Yes, yes; I saw you--I'm sure you will. I apologise; I was carried
away."

Rudstock went on in a deep voice:

"As for those young devils, they may die to a man if they like! Take my
advice and let them alone."

Wilderton smiled on the side which was not swollen.

"Yes," he said sadly, "it does seem difficult to persuade them to go on
living. Ah, well!"

"Ah, well!" he said again, five minutes later, "they're wonderful--poor
young beggars! I'm very unhappy, Rudstock!"

"I'm not," said Rudstock, "I've enjoyed it in a way! Good-night!"

They shook hands, screwing up their mouths with pain, for their fists
were badly bruised, and parted, Rudstock going to the North, Wilderton
to the West.

1917.




IX

"THE DOG IT WAS THAT DIED"


Until the great war was over I had no idea that some of us who stayed at
home made the great sacrifice.

My friend Harburn is, or rather was, a Northumbrian, or some kind of
Northerner, a stocky man of perhaps fifty, with close-clipped grizzled
hair and moustache, and a deep-coloured face. He was a neighbour of mine
in the country, and we had the same kind of dogs--Airedales, never less
than three at a time, so that for breeding purposes we were useful to
each other. We often, too, went up to Town by the same train. His
occupation was one which gave him opportunity of prominence in public
life, but until the war he took little advantage of this, sunk in a kind
of bluff indifferentism which was almost cynical. I used to look on him
as a typically good-natured blunt Englishman, rather enjoying his
cynicism, and appreciating his open-air tendencies--for he was a devotee
of golf, and fond of shooting when he had the chance; a good companion,
too, with an open hand to people in distress. He was unmarried, and
dwelled in a bungalow-like house not far from mine, and next door to a
German family called Holsteig, who had lived in England nearly twenty
years. I knew them pretty well also--a very united trio, father, mother,
and one son. The father, who came from Hanover, was something in the
City, the mother was Scotch, and the son--the one I knew best and liked
most--had just left his public school. This youth had a frank, open,
blue-eyed face, and thick light hair brushed back without a parting--a
very attractive, slightly Norwegian-looking type. His mother was devoted
to him; she was a real West Highlander, slight, with dark hair going
grey, high cheekbones, a sweet but rather ironical smile, and those grey
eyes which have second sight in them. I several times met Harburn at
their house, for he would go in to play billiards with Holsteig in the
evenings, and the whole family were on very friendly terms with him.

The third morning after we had declared war on Germany Harburn,
Holsteig, and I went up to Town in the same carriage. Harburn and I
talked freely. But Holsteig, a fair, well-set-up man of about fifty,
with a pointed beard and blue eyes like his son, sat immersed in his
paper till Harburn said suddenly:

"I say, Holsteig, is it true that your boy was going off to join the
German army?"

Holsteig looked up.

"Yes," he said. "He was born in Germany; he's liable to military
service. But thank heaven, it isn't possible for him to go."

"But his mother?" said Harburn. "She surely wouldn't have let him?"

"She was very miserable, of course, but she thought duty came first."

"Duty! Good God!--my dear man! Half British, and living in this country
all his life! I never heard of such a thing!" Holsteig shrugged his
shoulders.

"In a crisis like this, what can you do except follow the law strictly?
He is of military age and a German subject. We were thinking of his
honour; but of course we're most thankful he can't get over to Germany."

"Well, I'm damned!" said Harburn. "You Germans are too bally
conscientious altogether."

Holsteig did not answer.

I travelled back with Harburn the same evening, and he said to me:

"Once a German, always a German. Didn't that chap Holsteig astonish you
this morning? In spite of living here so long and marrying a British
wife, his sympathies are dead German, you see."

"Well," I replied; "put yourself in his place."

"I can't; I could never have lived in Germany. I wonder," he added
reflectively, "I wonder if the chap's all right, Cumbermere?"

"Of course he's all right." Which was the wrong thing to say to Harburn
if one wanted to re-establish his confidence in the Holsteigs, as I
certainly did, for I liked them and was sure of their good faith. If I
had said: "Of course he's a spy"--I should have rallied all Harburn's
confidence in Holsteig, for he was naturally contradictious.

I only mention this little passage to show how early Harburn's thoughts
began to turn to the subject which afterwards completely absorbed and
inspired him till he died for his country.

I am not sure what paper first took up the question of interning all the
Huns; but I fancy the point was raised originally rather from the
instinct, deeply implanted in so many journals, for what would please
the public, than out of any deep animus. At all events I remember
meeting a sub-editor, who told me he had been opening letters of
approval all the morning. "Never," said he, "have we had a stunt catch
on so quickly. 'Why should that bally German round the corner get my
custom?' and so forth. Britain for the British!"

"Rather bad luck," I said, "on people who've paid us the compliment of
finding this the best country to live in!"

"Bad luck, no doubt," he replied, "_mais la guerre c'est la guerre_. You
know Harburn, don't you? Did you see the article he wrote? By Jove, he
pitched it strong."

When next I met Harburn himself, he began talking on this subject at
once.

"Mark my words, Cumbermere, I'll have every German out of this country."
His grey eyes seemed to glint with the snap and spark as of steel and
flint and tinder; and I felt I was in the presence of a man who had
brooded so over the German atrocities in Belgium that he was possessed
by a sort of abstract hate.

"Of course," I said, "there have been many spies, but----"

"Spies and ruffians," he cried, "the whole lot of them."

"How many Germans do you know personally?" I asked him.

"Thank God! Not a dozen."

"And are they spies and ruffians?"

He looked at me and laughed, but that laugh was uncommonly like a snarl.

"You go in for 'fairness,'" he said; "and all that slop; take 'em by the
throat--it's the only way."

It trembled on the tip of my tongue to ask him whether he meant to take
the Holsteigs by the throat, but I swallowed it, for fear of doing them
an injury. I was feeling much the same general abhorrence myself, and
had to hold myself in all the time for fear it should gallop over my
commonsense. But Harburn, I could see, was giving it full rein. His
whole manner and personality somehow had changed. He had lost geniality,
and that good-humoured cynicism which had made him an attractive
companion; he was as if gnawed at inwardly--in a word, he already had a
fixed idea.

Now, a cartoonist like myself has got to be interested in the psychology
of men and things, and I brooded over Harburn, for it seemed to me
remarkable that one whom I had always associated with good humour and
bluff indifference should be thus obsessed. And I formed this theory
about him: 'Here'--I said to myself--'is one of Cromwell's Ironsides,
born out of his age. In the slack times of peace he discovered no outlet
for the grim within him--his fire could never be lighted by love,
therefore he drifted in the waters of indifferentism. Now suddenly in
this grizzly time he has found himself, a new man, girt and armed by
this new passion of hate; stung and uplifted, as it were, by the sight
of that which he can smite with a whole heart. It's deeply
interesting'--I said to myself--'Who could have dreamed of such a
reincarnation; for what on the surface could possibly be less alike than
an 'Ironside,' and Harburn as I've known him up to now?' And I used his
face for the basis of a cartoon which represented a human weather-vane
continually pointing to the East, no matter from what quarter the wind
blew. He recognised himself, and laughed when he saw me--rather pleased,
in fact, but in that laugh there was a sort of truculence, as if the man
had the salt taste of blood at the back of his mouth.

"Ah!" he said, "you may joke about it, but I've got my teeth into them
all right. The swine!"

And there was no doubt he had--the man had become a force; unhappy
Germans, a few of them spies, no doubt, but the great majority as
certainly innocent, were being wrenched from their trades and families,
and piled into internment camps all day and every day. And the faster
they were piled in, the higher grew his stock, as a servant of his
country. I'm sure he did not do it to gain credit; the thing was a
crusade to him, something sacred--'his bit'; but I believe he also felt
for the first time in his life that he was really living, getting out of
life the full of its juice. Was he not smiting hip and thigh? He
longed, I am sure, to be in the thick of the actual fighting, but age
debarred him, and he was not of that more sensitive type which shrinks
from smiting the defenceless if it cannot smite anything stronger. I
remember saying to him once:

"Harburn, do you ever think of the women and children of your victims?"

He drew his lips back, and I saw how excellent his teeth were.

"The women are worse than the men, I believe," he said. "I'd put them
in, too, if I could. As for the children, they're all the better for
being without fathers of that kidney."

He really was a little mad on the subject; no more so, of course, than
any other man with a fixed idea, but certainly no less.

In those days I was here, there, and everywhere, and had let my country
cottage, so I saw nothing of the Holsteigs, and indeed had pretty well
forgotten their existence. But coming back at the end of 1917 from a
long spell with the Red Cross I found among my letters one from Mrs.
Holsteig:


     "Dear Mr. Cumbermere,

     You were always so friendly to us that I have summoned up
     courage to write this letter. You know perhaps that my
     husband was interned over a year ago, and repatriated last
     September; he has lost everything, of course; but so far he
     is well and able to get along in Germany. Harold and I have
     been jogging on here as best we can on my own little
     income--'Huns in our midst' as we are, we see practically
     nobody. What a pity we cannot all look into each other's
     hearts, isn't it? I used to think we were a 'fair-play'
     people, but I have learned the bitter truth--that there is no
     such thing when pressure comes. It's much worse for Harold
     than for me; he feels his paralysed position intensely, and
     would, I'm sure, really rather be 'doing his bit' as an
     interned, than be at large, subject to everyone's suspicion
     and scorn. But I am terrified all the time that they _will_
     intern him. You used to be intimate with Mr. Harburn. We have
     not seen him since the first autumn of the war, but we know
     that he has been very active in the agitation, and is very
     powerful in this matter. I have wondered whether he can
     possibly realise what this indiscriminate internment of the
     innocent means to the families of the interned. Could you not
     find a chance to try and make him understand? If he and a few
     others were to stop hounding on the government, it would
     cease, for the authorities must know perfectly well that all
     the dangerous have been disposed of long ago. You have no
     notion how lonely one feels in one's native land nowadays; if
     I should lose Harold too I think I might go under, though
     that has never been my habit.

     Believe me, dear Mr. Cumbermere,
     Most truly yours
     HELEN HOLSTEIG."



On receiving this letter I was moved by compassion, for it required no
stretch of imagination to picture the life of that lonely British
mother and her son; and I thought very carefully over the advisability
of speaking to Harburn, and consulted the proverbs: "Speech is silver,
but Silence is golden--When in doubt play trumps." "Second thoughts are
best--He who hesitates is lost." "Look before you leap--Delays are
dangerous." They balanced so perfectly that I had recourse to
Commonsense, which told me to abstain. But meeting Harburn at the Club a
few days later and finding him in a genial mood, I let impulse prevail,
and said:

"By the way, Harburn, you remember the Holsteigs? I had a letter from
poor Mrs. Holsteig the other day; she seems terrified that they'll
intern her son, that particularly nice boy. Don't you think it's time
you let up on these unhappy people?"

The moment I reached the word Holsteig I saw I had made a mistake, and
only went on because to have stopped at that would have been worse
still. The hair had bristled up on his back, as it were, and he said:

"Holsteig? That young pup who was off to join the German army if he
could? By George, is he at large still? This Government will never
learn. I'll remember him."

"Harburn," I stammered, "I spoke of this in confidence. The boy is half
British, and a friend of mine. I thought he was a friend of yours too."

"Of mine?" he said. "No thank you. No mongrels for me. As to confidence,
Cumbermere, there's no such thing in war time over what concerns the
country's safety."

"Good God!" I exclaimed. "You really are crazy on this subject. That
boy--with his bringing-up!"

He grinned. "We're taking no risks," he said, "and making no exceptions.
The British army or an internment camp. I'll see that he gets the
alternatives."

"If you do," I said, rising, "we cease to be friends. I won't have my
confidence abused."

"Oh! Hang it all!" he grumbled; "sit down! We must all do our duty."

"You once complained to Holsteig himself of that German peculiarity."

He laughed. "I did," he said; "I remember--in the train. I've changed
since then. That pup ought to be in with all the other swine-hounds. But
let it go."

There the matter rested, for he had said: "Let it go," and he was a man
of his word. It was, however, a lesson to me not to meddle with men of
temperament so different from my own. I wrote to young Holsteig and
asked him to come and lunch with me. He thanked me, but could not, of
course, being confined to a five-mile radius. Really anxious to see him,
I motorbiked down to their house. I found a very changed youth; moody
and introspective, thoroughly forced in upon himself, and growing
bitter. He had been destined for his father's business, and, marooned as
he was by his nationality, had nothing to do but raise vegetables in
their garden and read poetry and philosophy--not occupations to take a
young man out of himself. Mrs. Holsteig, whose nerves were evidently at
cracking point, had become extremely bitter, and lost all power of
seeing the war as a whole. All the ugly human qualities and hard people
which the drive and pressure of a great struggle inevitably bring to the
top seemed viewed by her now as if they were the normal character of her
fellow countrymen, and she made no allowance for the fact that those
fellow countrymen had not commenced this struggle, nor for the certainty
that the same ugly qualities and hard people were just as surely to the
fore in every other of the fighting countries. The certainty she felt
about her husband's honour had made her regard his internment and
subsequent repatriation as a personal affront, as well as a wicked
injustice. Her tall thin figure and high-cheekboned face seemed to have
been scorched and withered by some inner flame; she could not have been
a wholesome companion for her boy in that house, empty even of servants.
I spent a difficult afternoon in muzzling my sense of proportion, and
journeyed back to Town sore, but very sorry.

I was off again with the Red Cross shortly after, and did not return to
England till August of 1918. I was unwell, and went down to my cottage,
now free to me again. The influenza epidemic was raging, and there I
developed a mild attack; when I was convalescent my first visitor was
Harburn, who had come down to his bungalow for a summer holiday. He had
not been in the room five minutes before he was off on his favourite
topic. My nerves must have been on edge from illness, for I cannot
express the disgust with which I listened to him on that occasion. He
seemed to me just like a dog who mumbles and chews a mouldy old bone
with a sort of fury. There was a kind of triumph about him, too, which
was unpleasant, though not surprising, for he was more of a 'force' than
ever. 'God save me from the fixed idea!' I thought, when he was gone.
That evening I asked my old housekeeper if she had seen young Mr.
Holsteig lately.

"Oh! no," she said; "he's been put away this five month. Mrs. 'Olsteig
goes up once a week to see 'im, 'Olsteig. She's nigh out of her mind,
poor lady--the baker says; that fierce she is about the Gover'ment."

I confess I could not bring myself to go and see her.

About a month after the armistice had been signed I came down to my
cottage again. Harburn was in the same train, and he gave me a lift from
the station. He was more like his old good-humoured self, and asked me
to dinner the next day. It was the first time I had met him since the
victory. We had a most excellent repast, and drank the health of the
Future in some of his oldest port. Only when we had drawn up to the
blazing wood fire in that softly lighted room, with our glasses beside
us and two Airedales asleep at our feet, did he come round to his hobby.

"What do you think?" he said, suddenly leaning towards the flames, "some
of these blazing sentimentalists want to release our Huns. But I've put
my foot on it; they won't get free till they're out of this country and
back in their precious Germany." And I saw the familiar spark and
smoulder in his eyes.

"Harburn," I said, moved by an impulse which I couldn't resist, "I
think you ought to take a pill."

He stared at me.

"This way madness lies," I went on. "Hate is a damned insidious disease;
men's souls can't stand very much of it without going pop. You want
purging."

He laughed.

"Hate! I thrive on it. The more I hate the brutes, the better I feel.
Here's to the death of every cursed Hun!"

I looked at him steadily. "I often think," I said, "that there could
have been no more unhappy men on earth than Cromwell's Ironsides, or the
red revolutionaries in France, when their work was over and done with."

"What's that to do with me?" he said, amazed.

"They too smote out of sheer hate, and came to an end of their smiting.
When a man's occupation's gone----"

"You're drivelling!" he said sharply.

"Far from it," I answered, nettled. "Yours is a curious case, Harburn.
Most of our professional Hun-haters have found it a good stunt, or are
merely weak sentimentalists; they can drop it easily enough when it
ceases to be a good stunt, or a parrot's war-cry. You can't; with you
it's mania, religion. When the tide ebbs and leaves you high and
dry----"

He struck his fist on the arm of his chair, upsetting his glass and
awakening the Airedale at his feet.

"I won't let it ebb," he said; "I'm going on with this--Mark me!"

"Remember Canute!" I muttered. "May I have some more port?" I had got up
to fill my glass when I saw to my astonishment that a woman was standing
in the long window which opened on to the verandah. She had evidently
only just come in, for she was still holding the curtain in her hand. It
was Mrs. Holsteig, with her fine grey hair blown about her face, looking
strange and almost ghostly in a grey gown. Harburn had not seen her, so
I went quickly towards her, hoping to get her to go out again as
silently, and speak to me on the verandah; but she held up her hand with
a gesture as if she would push me back, and said:

"Forgive my interrupting; I came to speak to that man."

Startled by the sound of her voice, Harburn jumped up and spun round
towards it.

"Yes," she repeated quite quietly; "I came to speak to you; I came to
put my curse on you. Many have put their curses on you silently; I do
so to your face. My son lies between life and death in your prison--your
prison. Whether he lives or dies I curse you for what you have done to
poor wives and mothers--to British wives and mothers. Be for ever
accursed! Good-night!"

She let the curtain fall, and had vanished before Harburn had time to
reach the window. She vanished so swiftly and silently, she had spoken
so quietly, that both he and I stood rubbing our eyes and ears.

"A bit theatrical!" he said at last.

"Perhaps," I answered slowly; "but you have been cursed by a live
Scotswoman. Look at those dogs!"

The two Airedales were standing stock-still with the hair bristling on
their backs.

Harburn suddenly laughed, and it jarred the whole room.

"By George!" he said, "I believe that's actionable."

But I was not in that mood, and said tartly:

"If it is, we are all food for judges."

He laughed again, this time uneasily, slammed the window to, bolted it,
and sat down again in his chair.

"He's got the 'flue,' I suppose," he said. "She must think me a prize
sort of idiot to have come here with such tomfoolery."

But our evening was spoiled, and I took my leave almost at once. I went
out into the roupy raw December night pondering deeply. Harburn had made
light of it, and though I suppose no man likes being cursed to his face
in the presence of a friend, I felt his skin was quite thick enough to
stand it. Besides, it was too cheap and crude a way of carrying on.
Anybody can go into his neighbour's house and curse him--and no bones
broken. And yet--what she had said was no doubt true; hundreds of
women--of his fellow countrywomen--must silently have put their curse on
one who had been the chief compeller of their misery. Still, he had put
_his_ curse on the Huns and their belongings, and I felt he was man
enough to take what he had given. 'No,' I thought, 'she has only fanned
the flame of his hate. But, by Jove! that's just it! Her curse has
fortified my prophecy!' It was of his own state of mind that he would
perish; and she had whipped and deepened that state of mind. And, odd as
it may seem, I felt quite sorry for him, as one is for a poor dog that
goes mad, does what harm he can, and dies. I lay awake that night a long
time thinking of him, and of that unhappy, half-crazed mother, whose son
lay between life and death.

Next day I went to see her, but she was up in London, hovering round
the cage of her son, no doubt. I heard from her, however, some days
later, thanking me for coming, and saying he was out of danger. But she
made no allusion to that evening visit. Perhaps she was ashamed of it.
Perhaps she was demented when she came, and had no remembrance thereof.

Soon after this I went to Belgium to illustrate a book on
Reconstruction, and found such subjects that I was not back in Town till
the late summer of 1919. Going into my Club one day I came on Harburn in
the smoking-room. The curse had not done him much harm, it seemed, for
he looked the picture of health.

"Well, how are you?" I said. "You look at the top of your form."

"Never better," he replied.

"Do you remember our last evening together?"

He uttered a sort of gusty grunt, and did not answer.

"That boy recovered," I said. "What's happened to him and his mother,
since?"

"The ironical young brute! I've just had this from him." And he handed
me a letter with the Hanover post mark.


     "Dear Mr. Harburn,

     It was only on meeting my mother here yesterday that I
     learned of her visit to you one evening last December. I
     wish to apologise for it, since it was my illness which
     caused her to so forget herself. I owe you a deep debt of
     gratitude for having been at least part means of giving me
     the most wonderful experience of my life. In that camp of
     sorrow--where there was sickness of mind and body such as I
     am sure you have never seen or realised, such endless
     hopeless mental anguish of poor huddled creatures turning and
     turning on themselves year after year--I learned to forget
     myself, and to do my little best for them. And I learned, and
     I hope I shall never forget it, that feeling for one's fellow
     creatures is all that stands between man and death; I was
     going fast the other way before I was sent there. I thank you
     from my heart, and beg to remain,

     Very faithfully yours
     HAROLD HOLSTEIG."



I put it down, and said:

"That's not ironical. He means it."

"Bosh!" said Harburn, with the old spark and smoulder in his eyes. "He's
pulling my leg--the swinelet Hun!"

"He is not, Harburn; I assure you."

Harburn got up. "He _is_; I tell you he _is_. Ah! Those brutes! Well! I
haven't done with them yet."

And I heard the snap of his jaw, and saw his eyes fixed fiercely on some
imaginary object. I changed the subject hurriedly, and soon took my
departure. But going down the steps, an old jingle came into my head,
and has hardly left it since:

 "The man recovered from the bite,
 The dog it was that died."

1919.




X

IN HEAVEN AND EARTH


We were yarning after dinner, and, whether because three of us were
fishermen, or simply that we were all English, our yarns were taking a
competitive turn. The queerest thing seen during the War was the subject
of our tongues, and it was not till after several tit-bits had been
digested that Mallinson, the painter, ill and ironical, blue-eyed, and
with a fair pointed beard, took his pipe out of his mouth, and said:

"Well, you chaps, what I saw last week down in Kent takes some beating.
I'd been sketching in a hay-field, and was just making back along the
top hedge to the lane when I heard a sound from the other side like a
man's crying. I put my eye to a gap, and there, about three yards in,
was a grey-haired bloke in a Norfolk jacket and flannel trousers,
digging like a fiend, and crying like a baby--blowing, and gasping and
sobbing, tears and sweat rolling down into his beard like rivers. He'd
plunge his pick in, scratch, and shovel, and hack at the roots as if for
dear life--he was making the hole too close to the hedge, of
course--and all the time carrying on like that. I thought he must be
digging his own grave at least. Suddenly he put his pick down, and there
just under the hedge I saw a dead brown dog, lying on its side, all
limp. I never see a dead animal myself, you know, without a bit of a
choke; they're so soft, and lissom; the peace, and the pity--a sort of
look of: "Why--why--when I was so alive?" Well, this elderly Johnny took
a good squint at it, to see if the hole was big enough, then off he went
again, sobbing and digging like a fiend. It was really a bit too weird,
and I mouched off. But when I'd gone about half a mile, I got an attack
of the want-to-knows, came back, and sneaked along the hedge. There he
was still, but he had finished, and was having a mop round, and putting
the last touches to a heap of stones. I strolled up, and said:

'Hot work, Sir, digging, this weather!'

He was a good-looking old grey-beard, with an intellectual face, high
forehead and all that.

'I'm not used to it,' he said, looking at his blisters.

'Been burying a dog? Horrid job that!--favourite, I'm afraid.'

He seemed in two minds whether to shut me up and move off, but he
didn't.

'Yes,' he said; 'it's cut me up horribly. I never condemned a creature
to death before. And dogs seem to know.'

'Ah! They're pretty uncanny,' I said, for I wasn't going to let on, of
course, that I had seen him.

'I wouldn't have done it but for the War,' he muttered; 'but she stole
eggs, poor thing; you couldn't break her of it. She ate three times as
much as any other dog, too, and in spite of it was always a perfect
skeleton--something wrong inside. The sort of dog, you know, no one
would take, or treat decently if they did. Bad habits of every kind,
poor dear. I bought her because she was being starved. But she trusted
me, that's why I 

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