“Yus!” said Mrs Skirrow, with an emphasis that carried conviction. “It
may seem a vi’lent utt’rance to you, mum, but, for me, I’m bound to say
I’m right down glad o’ this war. It’s tuk my three off o’ me hands, an’
it’s givin’ me the time o’ me life.”
“Where have they got to?” asked Mrs Dare sympathetically.
“Jim and George, they’re in Kitchener’s lot at Colchester--the Hoozars,
and me old man’s back in th’ Army Transport, an’ if that don’t mek him
move his lazy bones I d’n know annything this side the other place that
will. It tired him so last time he was in it, that he’s bin resting
ever since. But it’s the thing he knows best, and when the call come he
forgot his tiredness an’ up an’ went like a man. ‘Damn that Keyzer!’ he
says,--you’ll pardon me, mum, but them was his identical words,--‘Damn
that Keyzer!’ he says. ‘He is the limit,--walking over little Belgium
with ’is ’obnails like that without so much as a by-your-leave or
beg-pardon. He’s got to be knocked out, he has, and I’m on to help jab
him one in the eye. And you two boys,’ he says, ‘you’re onto this job
too, or I’ll have the skin off of you both before you know where y’are.
Yer King and yer country needs yer.’ An’ if you’ll b’lieve me, mum,
they went like lambs.”
“And why did they go into the Hussars? Can they ride?”
“Divv--I mean, not a bit of it, mum. But they talked it over atween
themselves, and Jim, he said, if it come to riding or walking, he’d
sooner ride any day, an’ the spurs made a man look a man. So they
went up together and they was took on like a shot. An’ I’m to get
twelve-and-six a week now and mebbe more later on, they do say. I
ain’t got it yet, but it’s a-comin’ all right, an’ then----”
“Well, I hope you’ll save all you can, Mrs Skirrow. You never know what
the future may bring, you know.”
“That’s true, mum. But I’ve worked harder than most for these three
this many a year, and I’m inclined to think I’ll mebbe tek a bit of a
holiday and have a decent rest. How long d’you think it’ll go on, mum?”
“I’m afraid no one can tell that, Mrs Skirrow. Colonel Luard says he
will be glad if it’s over in six months.”
“Ah,--well,”--with a satisfied look on her face,--“that’s a tidy spell.
For me, if it was a year I d’n know as I’d mind. It’ll keep a lot o’
men out o’ mischief.”
“And put many out of life altogether, I’m afraid.”
“Ay--well--mebbe! But there’s always the pension to look forward to,
an’ they do say it’s goin’ to be bigger than ever it was before.”
“Yes, I’m sure everybody feels that everything possible should be done
for the men at the front and those they leave behind them.”
“That’s right, mum. ’Tain’t such a bad old world after all. D’you hear
about the Chilfers down the road, mum?”
“No. What about them?”
“A rare joke. Everybody’s laughing at ’em. When yon first pinch come
and it lukt ’s if we might all be starvin’ inside a week, Mr Chilfer
he went up in his big motor to th’ Stores, and he come back with it
full,--’ams and sides o’ bacon, all nicely done up, an’ flour, an’
cheeses, an’ I d’n know what all. Lukt like a Carter Paterson at
Christmas time, he did. An’ now prices is down again he wants to get
rid o’ the stuff, an’ nob’dy’ll luk at it ’cos it’s all goin’ bad on
’is ’ands. And serve him jolly well right!--that’s what I say.”
“And I say the same. It was inconsiderate and selfish and decidedly
unpatriotic. If everybody had done like that where would the rest of us
have been?”
“That’s it, mum. But it’s them Chilfers all over. I’m glad to say
they’ve tuk his car f’r the war, and they’ve tuk all the horses they
could lay their hands on. That’s rough on some. There’s Gilling down
our way. He runs a laundry. They stopped him in the street t’other day
an’ tuk his horse and left th’ van and th’ laundry he was delivering
right there. It’ll put a stop on him I’m thinking, and folks’ll have to
go dirty, unless th’ big laundries pick up all the business.”
“There will be discomforts in all directions, I’m afraid, Mrs Skirrow.
But we’re much better off than the poor people in Belgium who are being
turned out in thousands and their homes burnt over their heads. It’s
dreadful work.”
“’Tis that, mum. An’ begging your pardon, I says like my old man, ‘Damn
that Keyzer, and put the stopper on ’im as quick as may be!’”
“One cannot help hoping he will suffer as he deserves.”
“That’s right, mum! Bet you I’d trounce ’im if I got half a chance.
I’d twist his old neck like that, I would,”--and she wrung her wet
floor-cloth into her pail with a vehemence that imperilled its further
usefulness. “He’s an old divvle, he is, an’ th’ young one’s worse, they
say. All the same, if they c’d do it so’s none of ’em got killed, for
me I wouldn’t mind th’ war going on for quite a goodish bit.”
“And I would be thankful if it all ended to-morrow.”
“Ah! ’twon’t do that, mum,” was Mrs Skirrow’s safe prophecy.
Since Con’s post-card saying they were expecting to leave within an
hour or two, they had had no word from him, nor was any information
as to the movements of the troops permitted in the papers. The rigid
censorship dropped an impenetrable vail between the anxious hearts at
home and the active operations abroad.
It was a time and an occasion for the exercise of unparalleled and
implicit faith and hope and trust in the powers that held the ways,
and still more in the Highest Power of all. And on all sides was
manifested an extraordinary strengthening and quickening of those
higher and deeper feelings which had become somewhat atrophied during
the long fat years of peace. The nation and the Empire drew itself
together, forgot the little family disputes which had enlivened its
existence for so long, and stood shoulder to shoulder as never before.
The waters were troubled and the sick were healed.
The Colonel, in the pursuit of his duties, was frequently at the War
Office. He heard, there and at his club, many things of which he never
spoke even to Mr and Mrs Dare in their intimate evening confabulations.
The full bleak blackness of the days of Mons and Maubeuge were known to
him, and the peril of Le Cateau and Landrecies, and it was as much as
he could do to keep the weight of these grave matters out of his face
at times.
He saw the casualty lists as they were compiled at the office, long
before they were issued, and groaned over them in general and in
particular. Killed, wounded, missing,--many whom he had known, and more
whose people he knew, were already gone. Who would be left when the
full tale was told?--he asked himself gloomily,--when this was barely
the beginning.
Then, one day, his anxious old finger, following the list down, name by
name, stopped with a sudden stiffening on the name of “Dare, Lieut. C.,
R.A.M.C.” under the head of “Missing,” and he had to inflate his chest
with a very deep breath and hold himself very tightly, before he could
mechanically get through the rest of the list.
“Missing!”--Under all the ordinary circumstances of civilised warfare
that would leave abundant ground for hope. But the appalling stories he
had been hearing of late as to the newest German methods left only room
for fear.
They were, on the most indisputable evidence, behaving worse than
the worst of savages. Their barbarous cruelties were the result of
a deliberate system of frightfulness and terrorism inspired by
headquarters. They had shocked and wounded his soul till at times it
had felt sick of humanity at large. But they filled him also with a
most righteous anger which helped to brace him up again.
That a hitherto reputedly civilised nation could, of cold deliberation,
do such things!--and exult in them!--Faugh! It was savages they
were,--and worse than any savages he had ever come across!
And so he feared the worst for Con, and his heart was heavy for Con’s
wife and mother and father.
He went over to his club to think it over, but found too many friends
there for his present humour. So he turned into St James’s Park, and
walked on and on, with his mind full of Con and Alma, past the Palace
and the Duke’s statue, and found himself in Hyde Park, where the London
Scottish were drilling and manœuvering with a huge crowd looking on.
That made him think of Ray, and he wondered briefly where those two had
got to. If Ray had been at home, as he ought to have been, he would
have been among these stalwart kilties who looked fine and fit for
anything. As soon as he got home he would take his place of course. And
young Noel and Gregor MacLean,--he had heard that very day that reserve
battalions were to be raised pretty generally. So they would be in it
too. And that was all right. Duty called, and it was the part of the
young to bear the burden and heat of this desperate life-struggle to
the death.
But his heart gave a twinge, all the same, at the possibilities. Con
was possibly gone. Suppose these others went too! It would leave a
dreadful gap in their homes, and wounds in their hearts that would
never heal. This was what war meant. God help them all!
He watched the brave swing of the boys in hodden gray for a time with
approving eye, till they fell out to munch exiguous lunches on the
grass, which reminded him that he was hungry himself, and he went off
to feed thoughtfully all by himself at a quiet little restaurant in
Jermyn Street.
Alma must be told at once. Sudden sight of the ominous news in the list
when it was published would be very trying for her. He could break it
gently and put a better face on it than, to his own mind, it actually
bore. And then he must break it also to Mrs Dare and she would tell her
husband and the others.
But he nodded his head gravely over the whole matter as he ate, and
was full of bitterness and wrath as those stories he had been hearing
of ghastly brutalities perpetrated by the Germans even on the wounded
came surging up in his memory. He cursed them heartily, and prayed High
Heaven to requite them in full for all.
But a couple of daintily-grilled cutlets, with crisp curly wafers of
chip potatoes, and a nut of real old Stilton, and a pint of Burgundy,
and a good cigar, induced a more hopeful state of mind.
There were black sheep in every army of course. With all our care we
had never been able to eliminate them entirely from our own. And war
was a terrible loosener of the passions. But a victorious army was
perhaps less likely to indulge in vicious devilry than a beaten one.
At least one might hope so. Unless, indeed, the Germans had all gone
Berserk mad, as some were saying.
Con, busy with his wounded, had probably had to be left behind in
the hurried retreat,--how hurried only those in the know really
comprehended as yet. He was a non-combatant and there could be no
possible reason for maltreating him. He was probably safe and sound in
Germany by this time.... If only one had not heard all those devilish
stories!... Even women and children! ... and the wounded!... God hold
them to account for it all!
By the time his taxi set him down at the big gate of St Barnabas’s, he
was fairly himself again. He rang the bell and requested audience of
the Matron.
“Bad news?” she asked, with an anxious look, as she shook hands with
him.
“Might be worse--perhaps. He’s in the list as ‘missing.’ And that
may mean anything or not so much. I thought I’d better let her know
beforehand. The list will be out in a day or two and....”
“I’ll send for her,” and she rang the bell and gave the order,
supplementing it after a second’s hesitation with, “Tell Nurse Luard
that her uncle has called to see her.”
“It will prepare her for possible ill-news,” she said, “and she will
have time to pull herself together.”
“Yes,--thank you! I am going to assume that it is not really very bad
news, though to tell you the truth----”
“It leaves a loophole for hope, of course. But the Germans seem
behaving very badly----”
“Damnably,” jerked the Colonel.
“--If all the stories we hear are true.”
“Must be some fire for all the smoke that’s about,” and then Alma came
hastily in, her face white and set, her eyes painful in their anxious
craving.
“Is he dead?” she asked quickly, and the Matron slipped quietly out.
“No, no, my dear!” said Uncle Tony, gripping her trembling hand firmly.
“Nor, so far as we know, even wounded. But in the list I have just
happened to see up yonder, his name is among the missing. And I did not
want you to come on it suddenly in the paper, and think it worse than
it is.”
“Thank God!” she said quietly, with a sigh of relief, and drew her hand
across her eyes as though wiping away a ghastly vision. “That is all
you know?” she asked with a searching look. And if the Colonel had been
breaking worse news by gentle steps he would have had a very bad time.
“That is all that is known by anyone, my dear. As soon as we hear more
you shall know it. It may be that he will be safer as a prisoner,
wherever he is, than if he were in the thick of it.”
“He would sooner be in the thick of it,” she said, with a decided shake
of the head. “He will be terribly put out at being shelved so soon. I
have put down my name for the next draft. I was hoping we might perhaps
come across one another.”
“One hundred to one against it, I should say. There will be so many
hospitals and you might be sent anywhere.”
“I’d have felt nearer him anyway. But if he’s.... Where would they be
likely to send him?”
“Away into some remote part of Germany, most likely. You think you’ll
go? If any further news comes you would get it quicker here than out
there.”
“They are needing all the help they can get. I think it is my duty to
go, Uncle.”
“Very well, my dear. Go, and God bless you! And bring you back safe to
us. We shall miss you all. Noel and young MacLean will be in the London
Scottish to-morrow, I expect. And Ray----”
“Any news of those two?”
“Not a word. I’m expecting a telegram any minute from Southampton or
Folkestone or Newhaven, saying they’ve just got across and will be
up in a couple of hours. And as soon as Ray gets back he’ll join his
battalion of course. We’ll have no one left but the two girls.”
“They’ll keep you lively.”
“We shall miss you all. But it wouldn’t be in any of our thoughts to
stand between any of you and what seems to you your duty.”
“Things are not going well with us from all accounts. Are they really
as bad as some of the papers seem to make out?”
“They have been too strong for us so far. They’ve simply rolled us back
by weight of numbers. But they haven’t rolled over us, and their losses
must have been terrible. I have great faith in French and Kitchener.
Safe men both. And the Frenchman, Joffre, seems a good steady sort
too. No froth about him and France believes in him. The tide will turn,
you’ll see.”
And presently he took his leave, bidding her keep her heart up and
promising to send her instantly any further news he could get of Con.
And then he went on home to break it gently to Con’s mother also.