THE WILLING HORSE (continued 5)

"Yes, sir."

"Good! Ah! here is Captain Birnie, with A Company. Now, Roy, young fellow-my-lad, what about it?"

Five minutes later Roy and I were heading up the sunken lane, followed by A Company, with steel helmets adjusted and gas-masks at the ready.

"By rights," I grunted, "I suppose I ought to be sitting in Michelin Forge maintaining touch with Brigade Headquarters. But I think this is going to be one of those occasions upon which a C.O. is justified in leading his regiment from the front. I am fed up with this Duke of Plaza Toro business."

Roy did not reply. He struck me as a little distrait, which did not altogether surprise me, considering that we were both going, in all probability, straight to an early demise. In fact, I was feeling a little distrait myself. But this was no time for preoccupation. Progress along the lane was not too easy. There was a good deal of traffic coming the other way—stragglers, stretcher-cases, walking wounded, and dispatch-riders urging their reluctant motor-cycles through a river of mud. Phlegmatic cave-dwellers in dug-outs in the banks of the lane, mainly signallers, looked out upon us, exchanging grisly jests with my followers. Sappers, imperturbable as ever, were running out wire across an open space to the right. A water-party met us, jangling empty petrol-cans. At one point we passed a row of our dead, awaiting removal. On nearly every sleeve I noticed one, two, or even three gold stripes. It seemed desperately hard that The Willing Horse, healed three times of his wounds, should have gone down for good so near the end—as the event proved it to be—when others had never left the stable.

Presently we overtook a slow-moving procession, advancing with that injured bearing and gait which mark Thomas Atkins when employed upon an uncongenial job. They were a fatigue party, carrying enormous trench-mortar bombs.

"We can never get past this crowd," I said to Roy. "We'll climb out here, and deploy to the left."

Roy gave the order, and soon A Company were advancing in extended formation with their faces set towards Fountain Keep. Roy and I tramped ahead of them: the ridge of Primrose Hill was barely a thousand yards away now. The morning mists had cleared away, and we could see it quite distinctly.

Suddenly Roy turned to me.

"Uncle Alan," he began—

But he got no further. There came a roar and a shock that shook the ground. Five hundred yards ahead of us the brown face of Primrose Hill broke into a spouting row of earth-fountains, intermingled with the smoke of shrapnel and whizz-bangs. The evening's barrage had begun. The line of men behind us recoiled for a moment, then pressed stolidly forward.

"We have got to get through that," I announced—a little superfluously.

Roy replied—somewhat unexpectedly—right in my left ear, at the top of his voice:

"Uncle Alan, I want to tell you that I am married!"

"So I have been given to understand!" I bellowed. The din was growing louder.

"Who told you? Old Eskerley?"

I nodded; halted; and sniffed the air,

"I thought so," I said. "Gas-masks, Roy—quick!"

Roy turned and waved an order to his company. In a few seconds we were advancing again: each man had transformed God's image into a goggled deformity, and was breathing God's air from a box of chemicals through a jointed tube.

Roy and I adjusted our masks last.

"Come along," I said, with a glance ahead of us: "the longer we look at it the less we shall like it!" I tried to fit my mask to my face, but found that Roy was shouting into my ear again.

"Uncle Alan—"

I inclined my head towards him.

"Well?"

"I am a father!"

I nodded my hideous head, and smiled congratulations as well as I could.

"I only got word this morning," I heard him bawl as his face disappeared into his mask. "BOY!" And with that he led his company into the barrage.

I felt convinced if we got through it Roy would tell the first German he met about the baby.

CHAPTER XX

FOUNTAIN KEEP

Of the next half-hour my recollection is mercifully blurred. All that I know is that most of us got through the barrage and foregathered at the back of Fountain Keep, which proved to be a circular point d'appui intersected and honeycombed with trenches, saps and tunnels.

"Carry right on with the company," I said to Roy. "I think you will find some hand-to-hand work going on just over the ridge; so your men will be welcome. I will try to find the Headquarters of the Royal Loyals. Take care of yourself, laddie!"

Our gas-masks were off again by this time, so we could smile at one another as we parted.

Ultimately Herriott and I discovered the Headquarters of the Fifth Royal Loyals—a dug-out at the back of the Keep, occupied by a slightly hysterical second lieutenant (apparently the adjutant) and a telephone orderly vainly trying to make connection with a Brigade Headquarters which we learned afterwards had been shelled out of existence twenty minutes before.

"The battalion are cut to pieces, sir," gasped the second lieutenant. "They are fighting more or less in the open.... There are hardly any trenches.... The C.O. was killed half an hour ago.... Most of the company commanders have been scuppered too. The line's broken in two or three places, and we are fighting in small groups.... They are putting up a wonderful kick.... But there's hardly anybody left ... no platoon commanders or anything. I seem to be in command of the battalion!" He giggled, foolishly. "I came back here to try and telephone for help.... All the numbers seem to be engaged, though!" He began to sob. He looked barely twenty.

"That's all right," I said. "I have sent a company of my Jocks to stiffen your front line, and three more are coming up. Here, take a pull at my flask, and then show me the way through this Keep of yours! Looks like the Maze at Hampton Court, doesn't it? We must hold on to it whatever happens: it's the key to the whole business. Who's in command up in front, by the way?"

"A corporal, I think."

"A corporal? Come along! The sooner we reinforce him the better."

But the boy was too badly shell-shocked to guide me, so Herriott and I went on alone. We plunged into the depths of the Keep, and followed its deep mazes as best we could. Here and there I noticed traces of the ornamental garden. We passed by the wrecked fountain, with a broken stucco figure lying across its basin. Once our road took us through an artificial rockery, reinforced with sandbags. The trenches were deep, and we could see nothing but the sky above our heads. Everywhere was the old familiar reek—humanity and chloride of lime. The noise was terrific now. Our own shells were whistling over our heads: evidently my grimy friend with the four-point-fives had got to work again. Enemy artillery was silent, probably through fear of hitting its own men; but bombs and trench-mortars were busy.

The windings of the Keep were tortuous, and we wandered more or less at random, stepping here and there over some obstruction—an abandoned case of ammunition, or a dead soldier. Suddenly we emerged into what was obviously a firing-trench. It was lined with men, mounted on the step and maintaining a steady fusillade. From their deliberate movements I saw that they were fighting well within themselves. Some were Roy's men, others members of that sturdy Territorial unit, the Fifth Royal Loyals. There were other details—cyclists, signallers, Labour Corps men—all contributing. Evidently some organising influence had been at work. A few yards along the trench to the right I observed a sort of projection, or bastion, in which a Lewis gun team were maintaining enfilade fire along the wire to their own right.

Realising that I had reached the forward edge of Fountain Keep, I was about to hoist myself on to the firing step in order to see what was happening on the other side of the parapet, when my attention was attracted to the man who appeared to be in general charge of the sector. It was difficult to discern his rank, for he was in his shirt sleeves, like many of his comrades. (Tommy Atkins has a passion for déshabillé.) Obviously he was not an officer, for he wore the unæsthetic boots and grey flannel shirt of the rank-and-file. His steel helmet had fallen off, and I could see that his hair was quite grey. His face, like those of most present, was framed in a six days' beard, with a top-dressing of dirt; but he was an undoubted leader of men. When first I saw him he was directing the Lewis gun team. Presently he came down the trench towards me, throwing up fresh clips of ammunition and shouting encouragement to the men on the firing-step—though in that hellish din I doubt if they heard much of what he said.

He passed the mouth of the communication trench in which I was standing without noticing me, and disappeared round a traverse on the left, evidently on his way to stiffen morale in the next bay. I found myself gazing after him with an interest for which I could not quite account. Probably he was the corporal of whom the shell-shocked boy behind us had spoken....

I became suddenly conscious that Herriott was stiffening to attention. This meant that Herriott desired permission to deliver himself of a remark.

"Well, Herriott?" I said.

"I beg your pardon, sirr—"

"Yes? What?"

"Yon, sirr, is—"

At that moment a German trench-mortar bomb came sailing over, and burst some thirty yards to our left. Fortunately our bay was screened from the effects by a stout island-traverse. However, I fear I missed the purport of Herriott's statement. In fact, I doubt if I heard it at all, for at that moment Roy appeared round the corner on the right, followed by an orderly.

He was bleeding from a scratch on the cheek, and held his Colt automatic in his hand.

"We have just pushed them back on the right, sir," he announced. His eyes were blazing. "They tried to rush a bad bit of our line about a hundred yards along; but our boys were splendid, and very few Boches got as far as the parapet. They simply withered up when they got to the wire."

I pointed to the bastion, where the Lewis gunners were recharging magazines.

"Those are the fellows you have to thank," I said. "How is the situation generally?"

"The Boche has gone back everywhere, for the moment," Roy replied. "I fancy he will give us a dose of trench-mortars and H.E., and then try again. I am going along the line now, to see if all the men are in place."

"You will find a very efficient understudy round that traverse," I said—"a corporal. I found him handling this bit of line like a field-marshal."

Again I was aware of the dour presence of Herriott at my elbow.

"I beg your pardon, sirr—" he began again.

Again the words were taken out of his mouth. Round the corner of the traverse to our left struggled a pitifully familiar group—two stooping men supporting a third between them. The wounded man held an arm resolutely round the neck of each supporter, but his feet dragged in the mud. It was the grey-headed corporal.

"Stretcher-bearers, there!" cried one of the men gruffly.

"How did they cop you, Corporal?" inquired a Royal Loyal, leaning down sympathetically from the firing-step.

"That last trench-mortar!" gasped the grey-haired man, as they set him down on the floor of the trench, just below the Lewis gun emplacement. He turned his head feebly in our direction, and our eyes met for the first time. At the same moment Roy gave a cry and started forward.

Then I understood what Herriott had been trying to tell me. Tom Birnie lay dying before our eyes—at the feet of his own son.

Roy, very white, dropped on his knees beside his father. A stretcher came, and we did what we could. Tom had a dreadful wound in his side; plainly it was only a matter of minutes. I remember seeing Roy unbuckle his own equipment, take off his tunic, and wrap it round his father's shoulders. Tom's eyes were closed; his breathing was laboured; he recognised no one.

For a moment the tempest of battle around us seemed to stand still. The crowded trench was silent; the men on the firing-step looked down curiously. Roy still knelt beside his father, motionless. Herriott, who had worked on the Baronrigg estate ever since he could walk, stood rigidly at attention at the foot of the Laird's stretcher, with tears trickling down his cheeks.

At last Tom's eyes opened. He smiled and said faintly:

"That you, Roy? Good boy! I was expecting you.... I carried on as well as I could, until you came to take over.... I knew you would come.... I knew! Give your father a kiss, old man."

Roy bowed his head....

Next moment, with the shriek of an express train emerging from a tunnel, a German shell whirled out of the blue and exploded against the traverse a few yards away.

When I came to myself I was being carried in Herriott's arms—and I weigh nearly fourteen stone—back through the mazes of Fountain Keep in the direction of the first aid post. After more than three years of continuous seeking I had achieved the soldier's ambition—a "blighty."

That night, as I passed on my jolting way to the base, with a smashed collar-bone and a damaged skull, my rambling dreams ran naturally on one subject—that strange meeting between father and son; and the spectacle of the one passing on to the other, as it were some precious inheritance, the safe custody of Fountain Keep.

CHAPTER XXI

IDENTITIES

I

Night had fallen on Fountain Keep; for the moment the guns were silent and the battle had died down. To-morrow the Boche would come again—and again. But he would get no farther. The high-water mark of the great spring offensive of Nineteen Eighteen had been reached—in this region at any rate, though none knew it. To the right the long, attenuated British line had been pressed back to the village of Villers Bretonneux, within sight of Amiens; the Australians were destined to do historic work here six weeks later, when the bundling-out process began. On the left, before Arras, despite massed attacks and reckless expenditure of German cannon-fodder, the line had held fast. On every side, for the moment, the enemy had sullenly withdrawn, to lick his wounds. He would try again later on further north, in the flat plain of the sluggish Lys—only to create a second spectacular and untenable salient in the British line, with the Vimy Ridge standing up invincibly between the two, like a great rock splitting the force of a spring spate.

Fountain Keep was very still and silent. It lay once more well within the British lines. It had been captured by the enemy in a massed attack at three o'clock that afternoon, despite the gallant defence put up by A Company and the great-hearted remnants of the Royal Loyals—to be recaptured in a most skilfully directed counter-attack just before nightfall by the three remaining companies of the Royal Covenanters. With the key position restored, a gallant rally had taken place all along the line, and once more the whole of Primrose Hill was in British hands.

Out in front weary men were consolidating the position—replacing sandbags and running out wire. Fountain Keep itself, lying snugly behind its restored trench-line, had resumed its proper function of point d'appui and battalion headquarters. But British prestige had been restored at the usual prodigal cost. Stretcher-bearers were everywhere, stumbling about in the darkness from shell-hole to shell-hole, where wounded men usually contrive to drag themselves. Many of those wounded had seen khaki puttees, then German field-boots, then khaki puttees pass over their heads that day.

They were nearly all collected by this time; our own particular Alan Laing had passed through the field dressing-station hours ago. Now the battle-ground was occupied by other search-parties, whose business lay with those who had been delivered for ever from the pain of wounds and the weariness of convalescence.

Such a party was at this moment employing itself in Fountain Keep, under the direction of a conscientious but not over-imaginative sergeant, named Busby.

"We'll go along the front parapet first," he announced; "that's where most of 'em are.... Yes, 'ere's one—a Jock; lance-corporal, by his stripe. Get his pay-book out of his pocket, 'Erb. Not got one? Well, he ought to 'ave, that's all; it's in Regulations. Look at his identity-disc, then. Read it out, and read it slow; my pencil's blunt. Number Seven-Six-Five-Fower-Eight—Private J. Couper—been promoted since he got that—Second Royal Covenanters—Presbyterian. Righto! Now, this one—No, never mind 'im, it's only a 'Un; no need to take his number! Pass along, boys! Get a move on; we've got a lot to do."

The little procession moved on, performing its grim duties with characteristic sang-froid, lightened by the incurable, untimely, invaluable flippancy of the British soldier. Presently they came to a place where a bastion of sandbags had been improvised as an emplacement for a Lewis gun. The gun itself lay twisted and earthy on a heap of burst sandbags; below the emplacement lay the gun's crew.

"One shell got the lot, I fancy," remarked Sergeant Busby. "Switch on your torch, Alf; there are four or five of 'em here. Lift them clear of one another, boys."

Four bodies were lifted, not irreverently, and laid side by side on the ground behind the emplacement, with sightless eyes upturned to the twinkling stars. One remained—a long-legged figure in shirt-sleeves, lying with face turned to the parapet.

"Help me to turn this feller over, 'Erb," commanded the sergeant. "Seems to have lost his toonic; Government property, too! Well, he can't be brought up for it now. Hallo! ... 'Strewth! ... Did you see that, 'Erb? It give me a turn for a minute. 'Alf a tick!" He bent down hurriedly, and listened. "He's breathing! There's a stretcher-party round that traverse; you, Richards, double off and bring them, quick!"

Five minutes later the insensible form of the man who had mislaid Government property was borne away, and Sergeant Busby proceeded with the identification of his less (or more) fortunate companions. 'Erb, the littérateur of the party, read off the identity-discs one by one.

"Smith—Turner—'Opkins," repeated the sergeant, labouring with the blunt pencil. "That's the first lot of Loyals we've struck. There must be a heap more somewhere; we'll find 'em presently. What's the name of this last one? Give us his number first. Six-O-Four-O-Two; Private T. Birnie—spelt with two I's—right! Royal Loyals, I suppose? Religion? Eh, what's the trouble now?"

"Sergeant," interposed 'Erb, in a puzzled voice, "look 'ere! This ain't no private; it's an orficer! Look at his tunic—three stars, and all!"

Sergeant Busby flashed his electric torch once more. It revealed a grey-haired man, with a captain's tunic wrapped round his shoulders, tied by the sleeves.

"Yes," he announced judicially, "he's an officer, all right; and what's more, he's an officer in a Jock regiment. I know a bit about uniforms, my lad; and no English officer wears a cutaway tunic like that, or his pips in that position. And there's his collar-badges! He's not a Loyal at all, this feller; he's a Covenanter."

"What about his identity-disc?" inquired 'Erb, respectfully. "That says 'Private.'"

The sapient Busby pondered. Then—

"He was a private once," he explained, "in the Loyals; then he got his commission and was gazetted to the Covenanters; but he never got himself issued with a new identity disc. Economical that's what he was. Real Scotch, I expect! Well, if he's an officer, we needn't worry with his regimental number; that goes out." The blunt pencil thudded. "I'll just put him down as Captain Birnie, Royal Covenanters—Presbyterian; that's enough. Carry on, boys!"

The heavy-footed procession filed away through the mud, round the traverse, and out of this narrative.

And that was how it came to pass that Sir Thomas Birnie, Baronet, of Baronrigg, who in the humility of his heart had enlisted as a private and died as a corporal, was buried next day, with absolute justice, as the officer and gentleman that he really was.

II

Meanwhile Roy, with his stout young skull almost riven by a glancing Boche nose-cap, lay tossing and muttering in a Base Hospital.

One dream beset and obsessed him for weeks. He, Roy Birnie—the soldierly, the punctilious, the immaculate—had been haled by an escort of overwhelming numbers and terrifying appearance before his commanding officer—Uncle Alan, swollen to enormous size and invested with Mephistophelean eyebrows—upon the charge of coming upon parade improperly dressed. It was not merely a question of an unbuttoned pocket, or a pair of badly-wound puttees; he had paraded in his shirt-sleeves—minus his tunic! And in his dream, try as he might, poor Roy could not for the life of him recall, in response to the nightmare cross-examination of his satanic superior and relative, what he had done with it.

All he could recollect was that he had wrapped it round someone—someone who appeared to have lost his own and to be badly in need of another; because he was lying on the ground in the mud. Roy had fitful glimpses of the face—the face of a man dying in great pain, but in great peace—a strangely familiar face. Roy had tried to converse with its owner; but in his dreams their intercourse was limited chiefly to intensely affectionate smiles. Then, suddenly, he had recognised the face, and was stooping, in an awkward, boyish fashion, to kiss it, when something happened, and he remembered no more.

III

Gradually these troubled visions faded, and with the steady healing of his wound came healthy sleep and tranquillity of mind. Finally he came to himself; and one bright morning in May was carried on board a hospital ship and transferred, across the most efficiently guarded strip of water in the world, to a convalescent hospital in a great country house in Kent.

That night he slept in a little room in a long passage full of doors, behind each of which lay a boy, seldom older than himself, who had squandered his youth, mayhap a limb, too often his whole constitution, in the service of his country.

Next morning, when he awoke, the sun was streaming down the passage. All the doors stood wide open, and the air was rent by a raucous and irregular chorus, proceeding from the doorways and beginning:

Nurse, Nurse, I'm feeling rather worse;

Come and kiss me on my little brow!

Words of rebuke were audible, and the riot died down. A majestic young woman, admirably composed, presented herself at Roy's door.

"Good morning, Captain Birnie. I hope you slept well."

"Thank you, I did," replied Roy. "Are you the Sister?"

Across the passage came a voice:

"Let me present you, sir, to Little Lily, our Cross Red nurse! She—"

The lady indicated whirled round upon the offender, whose grinning face, partially obscured by a patch over one eye, could be discerned upon the pillow of the bed in the room opposite.

"Mr. Abercrombie," she announced, "if you can't behave I shall report you to the Matron."

Mr. Abercrombie was all contrition at once.

"All right, Nurse!" he announced. "I apologise! I only want to warn you, sir," he added to Roy, "that she's married! But she never tells us that until it's too late! Do be careful!"

Little Lily, the Cross Red nurse—otherwise the Lady Hermione Mulready—turned an unruffled countenance to Roy. It was true that she was married; she possessed what Mr. Abercrombie would have called "a perfectly good husband of her own" in the Irish Guards. She had once possessed two brothers also, somewhat akin in appearance and disposition to the effervescent Abercrombie. Perhaps that was why she suffered his impertinences so readily.

"Here is your breakfast, Captain Birnie," she continued. "The Matron says you can't have bacon yet; but if you are good you may reach an ordinary diet next week."

Roy thanked her.

"After breakfast," he asked politely, "may I write a letter—just one? And see a paper? I'm a bit behind with the war, and—"

"You can have anything you want, in reason, so long as you lie still and don't fidget. We have enough babies in this place already!" announced Little Lily, with a withering glance in the direction of the room opposite where Master Abercrombie was acting foolishly.

"It's all right," Roy assured her. "You will have no trouble with me. I'm quite an old man, really: a kind husband, and an indulgent father, and all that," he added, with a curious little air of pomposity.

His nurse looked down upon him with quickened interest.

"Are you a father?" she asked.

"Yes. Only just, though! I—I—haven't seen It yet!" His voice quivered suddenly, to think how near he had gone to not seeing It at all.

"I am glad you came through," said Little Lily quietly; and handed him The Times to read with his breakfast.

Roy poured out his tea, stretched back luxuriously, and unfolded the paper. Like most of us in those days, he turned first to the casualty list. The names of the officers alone filled two columns.

"I wonder if my old cracked cranium has figured here yet," he ruminated. "What a nice little thrill if it's in to-day!"

He glanced down the long list of wounded.

"No, nothing doing! It has probably been in already." He turned in more leisurely fashion to the previous column, and began to read the names of the killed. But his eye got no further than the first name. There were no A's to-day: this began with B.

He laid the paper down, and grinned to himself.

"I'd rather read it than be it!" he reflected.

Then, suddenly, a blinding thought smote him.

Marjorie! What if she had seen it? He sat up excitedly, as a further probability occurred to him.

"She must have been notified privately by the War Office long ago. Then, of all times!" He was talking to himself now, in a low, agitated voice. "My God! I wonder where she is! The old man never told me when he wired; but he'll know." His voice rose. "Nurse! Nurse! Nurse!"

"Great Scott!" announced Mr. Abercrombie from the opposite room: "The lad has succumbed already! And I warned him!"

But already Lady Hermione's tall figure was framed in Roy's doorway.

"Here I am," she said. "Don't shout, please. You will find a bell-push under your pillow, if you look.... Why, my dear, what is it?"

Roy handed her the paper, pointing dumbly.

"My wife!" he whispered. "She'll think I'm— And I don't even know where she is—to contradict it! Have you a telephone here? Could you ring up Lord Eskerley's house in London? He'll know! He knows everything! He knows—"

Lady Hermione laid a cool hand upon his bandaged forehead.

"Don't get flustered!" she said. "Get up, and put on your dressing-gown. I will show you where the telephone is."

Next moment, with Roy swaying on her arm, she was sailing down the passage in the direction of the office in the front hall.

"They're keeping company already! Quick work! Quick work!" commented Master Abercrombie, admiringly.

CHAPTER XXII

THE MILLS OF GOD

"He must have left a will of some kind," said Lord Eskerley.

"He made one before he went to France," I replied; "but that has been invalidated by his marriage. It doesn't really matter; because everything—the baronetcy, Baronrigg, and so on—will pass automatically to the child."

"Still, you know what lawyers are when a man dies intestate! There will be nothing left worth scraping up if we don't provide something of a documentary nature for them to bite on. Didn't they find anything in his pockets, when they—found him?"

"Nothing but his cigarette-case, and Marjorie's last letter."

We were standing in the outer library of Lord Eskerley's great house in Curzon Street. It was a bright morning in May, and the sun, streaming between the heavy window-curtains, made the rest of the room look more than usually funereal by comparison. At one end, double doors opened into his lordship's sanctum sanctorum, where few but the faithful Meadows ever presumed to track him. At the other yawned a great empty fireplace, with a curiously carved mantelpiece, over which hung Millais' radiant portrait of Lady Eskerley as a bride.

Beside the fire-place stood the secretary's own particular writing-table. To the wall just above it was fixed an incongruously modern-looking telephone switch-board. Lord Eskerley's eye fell on this; and he was off in a moment down one of his usual by-paths.

"Private wire, and so on!" he explained. "Meadows had it put in. He just pushes a few buttons, and puts a plug in a hole; and I can telephone not only to the outside world but direct to the office, or the War Cabinet, or to my own bathroom. Wonderful invention! Wonderful fellow! It's the devil, though, when he goes out for a walk: I'm no good at it myself. I tried to ring up the P.M. the other day, and found myself breathing private and confidential war secrets to my own laundry-maid. By the way, have you looked through those things yet? You may find what you want there."

He pointed to the corner of the room, where a mud-stained, sun-bleached Wolseley valise of green Willesden canvas lay rolled and strapped. It had once been Roy's, and had arrived the previous day, forwarded to me as next-of-kin, bearing that pitiful designation: "Deceased Officers Effects."

"I will go through it this morning," I said, "and report. Eric is coming along; he'll help me. By the way, how is Marjorie to-day? Eric is sure to want to know."

"Why should he want to know—eh? Why this solicitude?"

"I don't know. He always does. Why shouldn't he take an interest in her, like the rest of us?"

But plainly my old friend was not quite satisfied.

"To take an interest in a beautiful young widow is right and proper," he said—"especially if you happen to be an eligible D.S.O. But not too premature an interest, please! Bethune is a gallant soldier; but fine feeling never was his forte." Suddenly the old man blazed up. "Good God! Has he realised that the poor child doesn't even know she is a widow?"

That Eric should be taking, or ever have taken, a more than fatherly interest in Marjorie was news to me. I am not very perceptive in these matters; but the possibility of such a thing explained a good deal to me—Eric's persistent dislike of Roy, for instance. Still, I had no desire to pursue the topic; and switched accordingly.

"I am afraid she will have to be told now," I said. "It's in the paper this morning. People will be writing to condole, and so on."

"I know," said Lord Eskerley. "I shall tell her myself—this afternoon." He shook his white head sorrowfully. "It will be pretty awful, though: a woman ought to do it really." He glanced up at the portrait of his long dead wife. "We will give her one more morning, poor little soul! Hark!"

The door into the hall stood open; so, apparently, did the door of Marjorie's room, on the first floor above us. As we stood, we could hear her voice uplifted in a somewhat exaggerated apostrophe to her own son; also that self-satisfied infant's gurgling reception of the same. Mother and son, by the way, had been in the house for more than three weeks, having been conveyed thither from a nursing home in Kensington, where, thanks to the timely warning of a flamboyant but attractive young person named Liss Lyle, we had been constrained to look for them. Miss Lyle was now our constant visitor, and had completely enmeshed the hitherto impregnable Meadows.

"Extraordinary gibberish, baby talk!" remarked Lord Eskerley. "Primeval, of course, and quite unaltered through the ages." Then, suddenly:

"Poor child, she's had a hard time! Three years of exhausting self-imposed drudgery—then maternity! And now she has to be told that she's a widow. My God, Alan, how I hate Wilhelm sometimes! And he once dined in this house!"

"What is the news, by the way?" I asked.

"Good, decidedly good! I think we have the Boche cold at last. Internally Germany is on her last legs. Only one thing could have braced her up—a spectacular success last March. As things turned out, that enterprise went off at half-cock—though it gave us a most salutary scare. Now our morale is returning: Foch has the situation well in hand. I fancy he will encourage the enemy to attack a little longer: then, when he has blown a few more swollen salients in our line, come right back at him and puncture them one by one. That and the arrival of the Americans—they are splendid troops, I hear, and are being rushed over at the rate of three hundred thousand a month now—should put the last nail into the Teutonic coffin." The old man paused, and sighed. "Not before it was time, though! Our casualties passed the three million mark the other day, Alan! Still, our tribulations of the past three months may have been worth while. They have taught us two things: firstly, that this blundering, flat-footed old country of ours retains its ancient staying-power; secondly, never to be too cocksure about winning until you have won! What time is he coming?"

"Eleven o'clock," I replied, concluding that this lightning reference was to Eric.

"Umph! I have to be at Downing Street at twelve. Meanwhile, I shall be in my own inner chamber if you want me. Good-bye! There are cigarettes in that box. Poor little girl!"

The double doors closed, and I was left alone.

I unstrapped Roy's valise without much difficulty—my comminuted collar-bone was mending nicely, though I had been warned that I might never be able to wield a salmon-rod again—and emptied out its jumbled contents on to the floor. At the same moment Eric was announced.

"Come along," I said, "and get that new tin arm of yours to work. Sort out everything in the shape of papers from that mess, and let us go through them."

"Are we looking for anything in particular?" asked Eric, reluctantly setting to work. He always hated drudgery.

"Roy's will."

Eric nodded; and laid a heap of documents on the table. There was a tattered sheaf of battalion orders; an old field dispatch book, a number of maps; and a bundle of letters.

"I fancy the letters are from Marjorie," I said. "We need not bother to read them."

"How is she, by the way?" asked Eric, looking up.

"Getting along, I believe."

"One would like to show her any little kindness that is possible," Eric continued. "One has sent her flowers, of course, and so on. Is there anything else? I wonder if she would like to see me? It would probably do her good."

It was the old touch. I smiled despite myself.

"I wouldn't suggest it at present, if I were you," I said. "She is to have some news broken to her this afternoon."

"You mean—?"

I nodded.

"It's in the paper this morning," I said. "The War Office telegram we could keep from her; but not that."

Eric was silent, and began to turn over the papers.

"These maps had better go back to Ordnance," he remarked. "They ought to have been taken out at Battalion Headquarters, by rights. Some of these old Orders are interesting: they have a musty flavour now. Listen to this":

The C.O. has observed that N.C.O.'s and Men are falling into the habit of washing their gas-helmets.

"Do you remember those noisome old flannel jelly-bags, Alan?"

"I do! They were abolished, as far as I can remember, about the middle of nineteen sixteen."

"Yes, that's right. They were about as much use as the sick headache which they produced."

Officers Commanding Companies will see that this practice is discontinued at once. Helmets so washed are entirely useless against a gas attack.

"Still," I commented, "if you wore them unwashed you died whether there was a gas attack on or not; so altogether, I don't blame the washers!"

"Hallo," continued Eric; "here's a billet-doux from Corps Headquarters."

"What is it?"

Eric grinned.

"Mules, Brief Notes on the Treatment of. They do manage to think of things on Olympus!..."

The mule is much more dainty about what he drinks than about what he eats.

"I think that's true: my last consignment ate seventeen nose-bags and three pack-saddles in a single night."

The mule is not really of a vicious disposition; he is only shy and nervous, and is very responsive to petting—

"So am I, for that matter! But let's get on, Eric. Here's a field despatch book. It has been lying in a puddle, I fancy: these carbon duplicates have run a bit. Never mind! I don't suppose there is anything of importance inside it."

"The only legible despatch is the last one," said Eric, turning over the pages. "A pretty stately epistle, too! Listen!"

To O.C. 7th Battalion, the Grampian Regiment.

Sir,—Reference your FZ/357, in which it is stated that the one hundred picks and shovels which this Battalion was directed to hand over to yours on the 16th inst. were handed over deficient five picks and four shovels; I am to inform you that an N.C.O. was duly sent in charge of the picks and shovels in a G.S. Waggon to Bluepoint Farm at seven a.m. on that date, and there handed over the full number of picks and shovels to an N.C.O. of your Battalion, who counted them and gave a receipt for same, a copy of which I now enclose.

Your obedient servant, R. T. C. Birnie, Lieut., For Lt.-Col. Commanding 2nd Battalion, Royal Covenanters.

"That fairly puts it across the Grampian Regiment!" was Eric's verdict. "I congratulate you!"

"It was Roy who was responsible," I said. "He got me out of a nasty mess with the C.R.E. by producing that receipt. He was a grand adjutant, bless him!"

Eric continued to turn over the leaves of the despatch book.

"There is nothing in the shape of a will or testament here," he said at last. "No; wait a minute; there's something in the pocket of the flap."

He held the pocket open, and shook out its contents on to the table cloth—two faded slips of pinkish paper.

"These don't look very promising," he said. "Field telegraph despatches!"

He unfolded the first slip, smoothed it out, and read aloud:

The expression "Dud" will no longer be employed in Official Correspondence.

He laughed. "There's Staff work for you!"

"Eric—!" I began suddenly. Some inward monitor had jerked an alarm-cord in my brain. Where had I heard that message before? And in conjunction with what? I leaned across the table and stretched out my hand; but already Eric had unfolded the second despatch, and was smoothing it out with the wrist of his artificial arm. I noticed that a covering slip was pinned to the despatch.

Passed to you, read Eric—for immediate compliance, please.—J. E. F.

"That was old Forrester, the Brigade Major. It sounds quite urgent; I wonder what it is all about."

"Eric—!" I said again. Then, suddenly, I held my peace. Who was I, to interfere with God?

"Hallo," continued Eric—"here's my name!"

Lieutenant-Colonel E. F. B. Bethune, D.S.O., Commanding Second Battalion Royal Covenanters—

He stopped suddenly—as I knew he would. I looked up, and watched his face go white, as he read the message to the end. I saw him re-read it, again and again. Then he examined the date, and hour of despatch. Then came a long, deathly silence.

At last he lifted his face to me—the face of a man suddenly aged. He pushed the pink slip in my direction.

"Have you ever seen that before?" he asked, in a hoarse voice.

I read the message mechanically through, though I knew it by heart. It said:

Lt.-Col E. F. B. Bethune, D.S.O., Commanding Second Battalion, Royal Covenanters, will return home forthwith, and report to War Office.

CHAPTER XXIII

THE SOUL OF ERIC BETHUNE

How long we sat there I do not know. But at last I was conscious that Eric was speaking again.

"When did Roy Birnie get this?"

"Immediately after you had moved off with the battalion—that afternoon at Caterpillar Farm, before the Somme show. He and I stayed to clear up, you remember?"

"Yes, yes!" he muttered, staring at the paper. "I remember. But—but why didn't he give it to me? Didn't he realise what it meant?"

"Yes, he realised all right. That was why he didn't give it to you."

Eric took up the despatch in his shaking hand.

"Roy Birnie deliberately held that back?" he said.

I nodded.

"And you?"

"Don't ask me about it," I replied, lighting my pipe and feeling thoroughly uncomfortable. "It's no part of a second-in-command's duty to supervise the adjutant's correspondence."

"But—didn't he show it to you?"

"Now you ask me, he did."

"But—but—it would have put you in command of the battalion!"

"My dear sir," I explained gruffly, "a man can't take command of a battalion if the adjutant neglects to publish the order which appoints him." I felt horribly mean, but this seemed to me to be a case where the dead could most conveniently bear the responsibility.

Suddenly Eric rose to his feet. I glanced at him, and flinched, for I knew what was coming. The colour had come back to his face, and his blue eyes were aglow. He was "up in the cloods." He came round to my side of the table, and laid his hands on my shoulders. It was strange to feel the lifeless weight of his artificial arm. I flinched again, and made a testy reference to my comminuted collar-bone.

But Eric was not to be denied. He had been exposed to himself as an incompetent and a failure; but what mattered more—solely—to him was that the world did not know about it; Roy and I had saved him from that. All that was grateful in his nature had been roused by that infernal telegram. He sat down beside me and took my hand in his. I felt very ridiculous.

"My God, old man," he said, "you saved me! You two saved me from being broke! You, who might have commanded the battalion—and young Roy! Young Roy! After what I had done to him—and—tried to do to him!"

"Oh, come!" I said. "You were a bit of a martinet, sometimes—the heavy C.O., and all that—but there's no need to reproach yourself over Roy."

Eric let go my hand—greatly to my relief— and began to walk about the room. Suddenly he turned to me.

"Alan, old man," he said, "do you know exactly what I did to Roy? I tried to take his girl away from him!"

I looked up. Lord Eskerley had been right, as usual.

"You mean—Marjorie?"

"Yes—Marjorie! Not once—nor twice—not accidentally—nor casually; but deliberately and continuously! Listen!" He was in the flood-tide of confession now, and I knew that in that mood he was not apt to be reticent.

"I made love to her at Craigfoot—in a 'you're-a-nice-little-girl' sort of way—while Roy was at Sandhurst. I made love to her in London, when I was on leave and he was in France—took her out to dinner and lunch, and so on—"

"Why not? It was up to her to refuse."

"She didn't refuse."

"In that case, she must have found your society agreeable."

"No, she didn't! I am pretty vain about myself, Alan; but I could see she didn't!"

"Then why did she accept your invitations?"

"I fancy it was because it gave her a chance to talk about the regiment—which meant Roy. Not that she ever mentioned him; but—I see it now! My God, what a cad I was! I let her sit there, while I crabbed him—talked patronisingly of him—belittled the good work he had always done for me and my battalion. Ugh!"

"Did you really care for her?"

"I was fascinated by her for the time. She is a glorious creature!"

"She certainly is."

"But I think that in the main it was jealousy—jealousy of Roy's youth, and the fact that instead of being my son, as he might have been, he was my rival. It was a mad business altogether. Finally, I asked her to marry me."

"She turned you down?" It was an unnecessary remark.

"Of course she turned me down! But she did it very sweetly. She was rather apologetic about it; said she was engaged already, and perhaps she ought to have made that fact a little clearer to me from the start; only she never suspected, and so on."

"She didn't mention Roy's name, I suppose?"

"No! I half thought that she would, just to score me off. It would have been a real slap in the face for me, his Colonel, if she had. But she didn't: she just said she was very, very sorry, but that she was engaged to some one else!"

"Well, there was no great harm done," I said, wishing he would stop. But he had not finished yet.

"And then—oh Lord, Alan!—do you know what I did then? I turned round on her, like a spoiled child, and accused her of having flirted with me, and led me on! And, not content with that, I turned on the pathetic tap. I said something rotten about expecting a little more consideration from her, seeing that I was going back to the trenches to-morrow—and muck like that! And she just looked at me, and said, quite quietly: 'He is there, too—now!' As if I didn't know! Oh, what a miserable rotter I was—and am!"

He dropped into a chair, and buried his face in his arms. He was "doon in the midden" now. I puffed wretchedly at my pipe and longed, from the bottom of my heart, for an air raid. I found myself wondering whether Marjorie had ever told Roy of this incident. I decided that my Eve would not have done so; and therefore probably not Marjorie.

Presently Eric began to talk again, with his forehead still close to the table.

"And this very morning," he said bitterly—"with Roy's death hardly made public—I came to this house fooling round Roy's widow with flowers, and silly old man's messages! I believe I was actually jealous of the dead, Alan! Well, that's over now. I needn't insult her any more—or him!" He sat up again, and took the pink slip. "This has killed my conceit at last—and perhaps saved my soul. Thank God I came across it! It has brought me to myself. And thank you, old friend"—Eric turned swiftly to me, and his face broke into the smile that I loved—"for what you did for me! You saved me from being sent home! Yes, and you provided me with a far more creditable exit from my soldiering career than I ever deserved!"

"That's all right," I said. "Let's clear up these papers."

But Eric was not listening. He had fallen into a rare mood—gentle and frank. He talked on—more calmly now.

"Men are queer mixtures. And, oh Lord, how truly some women judge us! Marjorie saw through me from the start, I believe. So did Diana. Did you ever know why she broke off our engagement?"

I shook my head. I had not heard Eric mention Diana's name for twenty years.

"Eve and I never spoke of it," I said.

"No, of course; you two wouldn't—being you two. Well, Diana said to me, quite suddenly, one day: 'Eric, I want to tell you that I can't marry you after all.' Just that! Of course, I asked her why."

"That was probably a mistake."

"It was. She asked me not to press her; but, being me, that only made me more unreasonable. So finally she told me.

"'Eric,' she said, 'I am very fond of you; I always shall be—more than I care to think about. But you have one fault that I can't get over: you have a mean streak in you. I would take you with every other fault in the world—but not that! So—good-bye!' They were the last words she ever spoke to me. You know, she was like that. I took my medicine with a smiling face, as you may remember; but it hurt like hell—and it taught me nothing! Well"—he tapped the telegraph form—"here is my second dose! It has got home this time. I have a mean streak in me, and I know it at last! Still"—he rose to his feet and held up his right hand: he could never resist the dramatic touch—"it's not too late. I am still on the right side of fifty; and I am going to spend the rest of my life eradicating that yellow streak from my system. I think I can do it. A thing's never dangerous once you know it's there." Suddenly he leaned over towards me. "Alan, old boy, I'm not a hopeless outsider, am I? Tell me! You know me! What am I?"

"You are what I have always thought you," I said—"a very brave soldier, with a weakness for facing difficult situations with both eyes shut! Also, you are my oldest friend. Now, for goodness sake, let's clear up this mess, and report entire lack of progress to Eskerley!"

The telephone bell rang sharply.

CHAPTER XXIV

THROUGH

The double doors at the end of the room swung back, and Lord Eskerley appeared. The bell was still ringing. A tiny hinged metal flap on the switchboard had fallen open, revealing a white disc with a number on it. His Lordship gazed absently down upon the apparatus.

"The inestimable Meadows is still taking the air," he said, "so I must tackle this contraption myself. Let me think; what is the combination?"

He peered at the vibrating flap and the revealed number.

"Three!" he announced. "Aha! I haven't the faintest notion what that implies. Let us stop this noise, anyhow."

He pushed up the flap again, and the bell stopped ringing.

"Shall we retire?" I asked.

"No, no, no! If it's desperately confidential I will switch it through to the instrument in my room; but I don't expect"—he put the receiver to his ear—"Who wants me? What wants me? ... Caperton? Never heard of him! Oh, an exchange? A locality? A trunk call? Very well! Rien ne m'étonne! Carry on!"

Lord Eskerley's back was turned to us. Suddenly I saw his shoulders stiffen; he caught his breath sharply. As this was the first sign of emotion that he had betrayed, to my knowledge, for the last thirty years, I watched him with quickening interest.

"Yes!" he said ... "Yes, yes! This is Lord Eskerley ... Louder, please!" Then came a pause, while the receiver squeaked steadily. Then, a little unexpectedly: "Praise God from Whom all blessings flow!"

Eric was watching too, now. The old man steadied himself, grasping the end of the mantelpiece with his disengaged hand. Then he looked round over his shoulder at us, peering over his spectacles.

"A most interesting communication coming through here!" he announced. "Forgive my demeanour!" His voice was as harsh as ever, but there were tears in his old eyes. He turned to the instrument again.

"Yes," he said, "I concur. Such a rumour would be most prejudicial to your future career. Shall we contradict it? You are quite sure it's incorrect?" ... He chuckled; so did the receiver. Then he continued:

"Eh? ... Oh! Naturally! You would like to do that at once? ... Yes, I think I can put you in communication with the party in question.... When? Oh, within a fairly reasonable interval of time, I hope. Let us say next week—" He moved the receiver a few inches away from his ear. "I can hear you quite easily in your ordinary voice, thanks!"

He chuckled again, laid down the receiver, and brooded once more over the switchboard. Then, after a brief mental calculation, he selected a plug at the end of a wire, thrust it into a hole, and pressed a small ivory button.

A bell rang faintly upstairs, then ceased sharply. Our noble operator took up the receiver again.

"That you, Habakkuk?" he inquired.... "Good! Some mysterious individual in Kent wishes to speak to you on the telephone. Wonderful invention!"

The old gentleman made a final adjustment of the switches on the board, and spoke for the last time—apparently to the person in Kent:

"You still there?"

The telephone vibrated stormily.

"All right! You are through to her—dear boy!"

He hung up the receiver, and left them together.

THE END

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