XIV

DAVID AND JONATHAN

I

Strangely different though they were, they had been friends ever since they first met at school, eleven years before. Jonathan—for what other names are necessary than the obvious David and Jonathan?—was then a fat, sandy-haired boy, with a deep love of the country, and hands that, however often he washed them, always seemed to be stained with ink. He had a deep admiration, an adoration almost, for his dark-haired, dark-eyed David, wild and musical.

The love of the country it was that first made them friends, and David became, so to speak, Jonathan's means of expression, for David could put into words, and, later on, into music, what Jonathan could only feel dimly and vaguely. Jonathan was the typical British public-schoolboy with a twist of artistic sense hidden away in him, while David was possessed of a soul, and knew it. A soul is an awkward thing to possess at school in England, for it brings much "ragging" and no little contempt on its owner, and Jonathan fought many battles in defence of his less-understood friend.

Eleven years had wrought but little material change in them. Jonathan, after a few minor rebellions, had settled down in his father's office and was learning to forget the call of the open road and the half-formed dreams of his youth. David, on the other hand, was wandering over the Continent nominally studying languages for the Consular Service, really picking up a smattering of poetry, a number of friends, and a deep knowledge of music. From Jonathan, he had learned to hide his sentiments in the presence of those who would not understand, and to make his reason conquer the wilder of the whims that ran through his brain. Jonathan, in turn, had gained a power, which he scarcely realised, of appreciating music and scenery, and which no amount of office life would ever diminish.

Then the war broke out, and brought them together again.

At the beginning of it, David, who had been amusing himself in Madrid by teaching the elements of grammar and a large vocabulary of English slang to any Spaniard who would pay for it, came home and enlisted with Jonathan in a line regiment. For two months they drilled and exercised themselves in the so-called "arts of war." Then, chiefly on account of a soulless section commander, they applied for, and obtained, commissions in the same regiment.

In the same billet, they re-lived their schooldays, and over the fire in the evenings would call up old memories, or David would tell of his adventures abroad, until late in the night.

When the time came for them to go to the front, the Fates still favoured them; they went out together to the same regiment in France, and were drafted to the same company. Together they went up to the trenches for the first time, together they worked, together they crouched under the parapet when the German shells came unpleasantly close, and, all the time, Jonathan, calm and stolid, unconsciously helped the other, who, being cursed with a vivid imagination, secretly envied his friend's calm.

Now, nothing has more power to cement or break friendships than war. The enforced company, the sharing of danger, the common bearing of all imaginable discomforts combine to make comrades or enemies. There are so many things to tax one's patience, that a real friend in whom one may confide becomes doubly dear, while you end by hating a man who has the misfortune to irritate you day after day. War made David and Jonathan realise how much their friendship meant, and how necessary each was to the other, the one because of his continued calm, the other because of the relief his love of music and of Nature brought with it.

II

Near the end of April 1915 they came back to billets near Ypres. To the north a terrific battle was in progress, the last inhabitants were fleeing from the town, and huge shells screamed on their way, and burst with appalling clouds of smoke among the already shattered houses. Occasionally a motor cyclist would come racing down the road, and, once or twice, an ambulance came by with its load of gassed and wounded from the fighting to the north.

One morning, when the Germans seemed fairly quiet, David and Jonathan set out arm in arm towards Ypres, to explore. An occasional shell—a hum, increasing until it became a roar, followed, a moment after, by a fearful explosion—warned them not to proceed beyond the outskirts of the town, and here it was that they came upon a large villa, with lilac budding in the garden. By mutual consent, they turned in at the tall iron gate, and entered the half-ruined house.

The part of the house giving on the road had been destroyed by a large shell. Over a gaping hole in the ceiling was a bed, its iron legs weirdly twisted, which threatened to overbalance at any minute and to come hurtling down into the hall beneath. Shattered picture frames still hung on the walls, and on the floor near at hand lay a rosary, the Crucifix crushed by some heedless boot. The furniture lay in heaps, and the front door was lying grotesquely across a broken mirror. Everywhere was wreckage.

The other half of the house was still almost intact. In what had once been the salon they found comfortable chairs and an excellent Pleyel piano, while a copy of the Daily Mirror gave the clue that the room had until recently been occupied by British troops.

David seated himself at the piano and began to play, and Jonathan threw himself in an arm-chair near the window to listen, and to watch the alternate cloud and sunshine outside. It was one of those perfect mornings of April, bright-coloured and windy, and the breeze in the lilacs combined with the notes of the piano until they could hardly be told apart. The rare whirr and explosion of a shell only had the effect of accentuating the intervening peace. Jonathan had never felt so at one with Nature and with his friend, and more than once, stolid and calm though he generally was, he felt a tear in his eye at an extra beautiful little bit of music or the glory of the world outside.

III

"Coming up to the villa this morning?" asked David of his friend a day or two later.

"I've got a confounded rifle inspection at half-past ten. You go on and I'll get up there as soon as I can," answered Jonathan, and he went off to talk to his platoon sergeant while his friend strolled off to the villa.

When he was going up the road to Ypres an hour later, he met an orderly on horseback. "Excuse me, sir, I don't think the road's extry nice now," he said. "They're dropping some heavy stuff into Yips again."

Jonathan smiled. "Oh, that's all right," he said. "Thanks, all the same, for warning me. I'll take care." And he hurried on up the road.

It was not until he was inside the villa that he noticed anything out of the ordinary. Suddenly, however, he stopped aghast. The door by which they entered the salon was gone, and in its place was a huge gap in the wall. The furniture was buried under a mass of debris, and instead of the gilded ceiling above him was only the blue sky. The piano was still untouched, but on the keys, and on the wall behind, were splashes of blood. Lying on the ground near it, half covered in plaster, was David. He forced himself to approach, and looked again. His friend's head was completely smashed, and one arm was missing.

For some minutes he stood still, staring. Then, with a sudden quiver, he turned and ran. In the garden he tripped over something, and fell, but he felt no hurt, for mad terror was upon him, and all sense had gone. He must get away from the dreadful thing in there; he must put miles between himself and the vision; he must run ... run ... run....

IV

Two privates found him, wild-eyed and trembling, and brought him to a medical officer. "Nerves, poor devil, and badly too!" was the diagnosis; and before Jonathan really knew what had happened, he was in hospital in Rouen.

Everyone gets "nervy" after a certain amount of modern warfare; even the nerves of the least imaginative may snap before a sudden shock.

So with stolid Jonathan. After a year, he is still in England. "Why doesn't he go out again?" people ask. "He looks well enough. He must be slacking." But they realise nothing of the waiting at night for the dreaded, oft-repeated dreams; they cannot tell of the horrible visions that war can bring, they do not know what it means, that neurasthenia, that hell on earth.

It is difficult to forget what must be forgotten. If you have "nerves" you must do all you can to forget the things that caused them, but when everything you do or say, think or hear, reminds you in some remote way of all you must forget, then recovery is hard indeed.

That is why Jonathan is still in England. If he hears or reads of the war he thinks of his dead friend: if he hears music—even a street organ—the result is worse; if he tries to escape from it all, and hides himself away in the country, the birds and the lilac blossom take him back to that morning near Ypres, when he first realised how much his friendship meant to him. And whenever he thinks of his friend, that horrible corpse near the piano comes back before his tight-closed eyes, and his hands tremble again in fear.