CHAPTER III

THE WOMAN AND THE MAN

"When's your board, Jim?" The flickering light of the fire lit up the old oak hall, playing on the face of the girl buried in an easy chair.

Tea was over, and they were alone.

"On Tuesday, dear," he answered gravely.

"But you aren't fit, old man; you don't think you're fit yet, do you?"

There was a note of anxiety in her voice.

"I'm perfectly fit, Sybil," he said quietly--"perfectly fit, my dear."

"Then you'll go back soon?" She looked at him with frightened eyes.

"Just as soon as they'll send me. I am going to ask the Board to pa.s.s me fit 'for General Service.'"

"Oh, Jim!"--he hardly caught the whisper. "Oh, Jim! my man."

"Well----" he came over and knelt in front of her.

"It makes me sick," she cried fiercely, "to think of you and Hugh and men like you--and then to think of all these other cowardly beasts. My dear, my dear--do you _want_ to go back?"

"At present, I don't. I'm utterly happy here with you, and the old peaceful country life. I'm afraid, Syb--I'm afraid of going on with it I'm afraid of its sapping my vitality--I'm afraid of never wanting to go back." His voice died away, and then suddenly he leant forward and kissed her on the mouth.

"Come over here a moment," he stood up and drew her to him. "Come over here." With his arm round her shoulders he led her over to a great portrait in oils that hung against the wall, the portrait of a stern-faced soldier in the uniform of a forgotten century. To the girl the picture of her great-grandfather was not a thing of surpa.s.sing interest--she had seen it too often before. But she was a girl of understanding, and she realised that the soul of the man beside her was in the melting-pot; and, moreover, that she might make or mar the mould into which it must run. So in her wisdom she said nothing, and waited.

"I want you to listen to me for a bit, Syb," he began after a while.

"I'm not much of a fist at talking--especially on things I feel very deeply about. I can't track my people back like you can. The corresponding generation in my family to that old buster was a junior inkslinger in a small counting-house up North. And that junior inkslinger made good: you know what I'm worth to-day if the governor died."

He started to pace restlessly up and down the hall, while the girl watched him quietly.

"Then came this war and I went into it--not for any highfalutin motives, not because I longed to avenge Belgium--but simply because my pals were all soldiers or sailors, and it never occurred to me not to. In fact at first I was rather pleased with myself--I treated it as a joke more or less. The governor was inordinately proud of me; the mater had about twelve dozen photographs of me in uniform sent round the country to various bored and unwilling recipients; and lots of people combined to tell me what a d.a.m.n fine fellow I was. Do you think he'd have thought so?" He stopped underneath the portrait and for a while gazed at the painted face with a smile.

"That old blackguard up there--who lived every moment of his life--do you think he would have accounted that to me for credit? What would _he_ say if he knew that in a crisis like this there are men who cloak perfect sight behind blue gla.s.ses; that there are men who have joined home defence units though they are perfectly fit to fight anywhere? And what would he say, Sybil, if he knew that a man, even though he'd done something, was now resting on his oars--content?"

"Go on, dear!" The girl's eyes were shining now.

"I'm coming to the point This morning the old dad started on the line of various fellows he knew whose sons hadn't been out yet; and he didn't see why I should go a second time--before they went. The business instinct to a certain extent, I suppose--the point of view of a business man. But would _he_ understand that?" Again he nodded to the picture.

"I think----" She began to speak, and then fell silent.

"Ah! but would he, my dear? What of Hugh, of the Rabbit, of Torps? With them it was bred in the bone--with me it was not. For years I and mine have despised the soldier and the sailor: for years you and yours have despised the counting-house. And all that is changing. Over there the tinkers, the tailors, the merchants, are standing together with the old breed of soldier--the two lots are beginning to understand one another--to respect one another. You're learning from us, and we're learning from you, though _he_ would never have believed that possible."

Jim was standing very close to the girl, and his voice was low.

"It's because I'm not very sure of one of the lessons I've learnt: it's because at times I do think it hard that others should not take their fair share that I must get back to that show quick--d.a.m.n quick.

"I want to be worthy of that old ancestor of yours--now that I'm going to marry one of his family. I know we're all mad--I know the world's mad; but, Syb, dear, you wouldn't have me sane, would you; not for ever?

And I shall be if I stay here any longer...."

"I understand, Jim," she answered, after a while. "I understand exactly.

And I wouldn't have you sane, except just now for a little while.

Because it's a glorious madness, and"--she put both her arms round his neck and kissed him pa.s.sionately--"and I love you."

Which was quite illogical and inconsequent--but there you are. What is not illogical and inconsequent nowadays?

From which it will be seen that Jim Denver was not of the first of the three types which I have mentioned. He did not love the game for itself alone; my masters, there are not many who do. But there was no job in England in which he would prove invaluable: though there were many which with a little care he might have adorned beautifully.

And just because there _is_ blood in the counting-house, which only requires to be brought out to show itself, he knew that he must go back--he knew that it was his job.

That wild enthusiasm which he had shared with other subalterns in his battalion before they had been over the first time was lacking now; he was calmer--more evenly balanced. He had attained the courage of knowledge instead of the courage of ignorance.

No longer did the men who waited to be fetched excuse him--even though he had "done his bit." No longer was it possible to shelter behind another man's failure, and plead for so-called equality of sacrifice. To him had come the meaning of tradition--that strange, nameless something which has kept regiments in a position, battered with sh.e.l.ls, stunned with shock, ga.s.sed, brain reeling, mind gone, with nothing to hold them except that nameless something which says to them, "Hold on!" While other regiments, composed of men as brave, have not held. To him had come that quality which has sent men laughing and talking without a quaver to their death; that quality which causes men--eaten with fever, lonely, weary to death, thinking themselves forsaken even of G.o.d--to carry on the Empire's work in the uttermost corners of the globe, simply because it is their job.

He had a.s.similated to a certain extent the ideas of that stern, dead soldier; he had visualised them; he had realised that the destinies of a country are not entrusted to all her children. Many are not worthy to handle them, which makes the glory for the few all the greater....

Winds of the world, give answer! They are whimpering to and fro-- And what should they know of England, who only England know?

The poor little street-bred people that vapour and fume and brag, They are lifting their heads in the stillness to yelp at the English Flag.

Never the lotos closes, never the wild-fowl wake, But a soul goes out on the East wind that died for England's sake-- Man or woman or suckling, mother or bride or maid-- Because on the bones of the English the English flag is stayed.

CHAPTER IV

"THE REGIMENT"

On the Tuesday a board of doctors pa.s.sed Jim Denver fit for General Service, having first given him the option of a month's home service if he liked. Two days after he turned up at the depot of his regiment, where he found men in various stages of convalescence--light duty, ordinary duty at home, and fit to go out like himself. One or two he knew, and most of them he didn't. There were a few old regular officers and a large number of very new ones--who were being led in the way they should go.

But there is little to tell of the time he spent waiting to go out. This is not a diary of his life--not even an account of it; it is merely an attempt to portray a state of mind--an outlook on life engendered by war, in a man whom war had caused to think for the first time.

And so the only incidents which I propose to give of his time at the depot is a short account of a smoking concert he attended and a conversation he had the following day with one Vane, a stockbroker. The two things taken individually meant but little: taken together--well, the humour was the humour of the Land of Topsy Turvy. A delicate humour, not to be appreciated by all: with subtle shades and delicate strands and b.l.o.o.d.y brutality woven together....

A sudden silence settled on the gymnasium; the man at the piano turned round so as to hear better; the soldiers sitting astride the horse ceased laughing and playing the fool.

At a table at the end of the big room, seen dimly through the smoke-clouded atmosphere, sat a group of officers, while the regimental sergeant-major, supported by other great ones of the non-commissioned rank near by, presided over the proceedings.