As the Colonel marched up the platform in search of a suitable seat in
the Willstead train, he spied his niece, Victoria, sitting in a corner,
knitting--though not with the practised ease of the born knitter--for
dear life, regardless of observation, and obviously full of thought.
“Hello, Uncle Tony!”--as he sat down beside her. “What’s the latest
from Head-Quarters? I’ve been up at a meeting of the Committee that is
to look after Out-of-Work Girls. We’re going to start them all knitting
and sewing for the men at the front both on land and sea.”
“Capital! And you’re by way of setting them an example.”
“I was just thinking some things out, and Auntie Mitt and Mrs Dare are
quite right----”
“Of course they are.”
“You can think a great deal better when your hands are employed.”
“Personally, I----”
“Oh--you’re only a man. You know nothing about it. Any news?”
“Yes. I’ve just been to see Alma,”--she stopped knitting and eyed him
sharply,--“Con’s name is in the list of missing--” she gave a sigh
of relief and went on knitting furiously,--“It may be no more than
that,--prisoner of war in Germany----”
“They’re treating prisoners and wounded abominably,” she said
severely,--to hide the anxiety that was in her.
“There have been such cases reported. Let us hope they are the natural
exaggerations of war. Anyway, till we hear more we can hope for the
best, and to his people we must keep hopeful faces. His mother will
naturally fear the worst. Do all you can to keep her spirits up and
make no more of it than the facts warrant.”
“I’ll do my best. But ... I’ll not be satisfied he’s all right till we
hear from himself. How long will it be--if he is all right?”
“It may be weeks, my dear. Things are in something of a mess over
there, you see. Everything has gone so quickly. One hardly has time
to breathe, and the Germans are too busy driving on to Paris to spare
time for such little details as that. Anyway he’s not among the dead or
wounded--not officially so far----”
“It might mean either. We’re falling back. Many of our dead and wounded
must get left behind. I wish I could go out and help.”
“Alma’s going,--at least she’s put down her name. But I hope she’ll
think better of it. She’ll get news quicker here than out there. But
you could do nothing without training, you know.”
“To be sitting on Committees and talking,--and knitting, when our poor
fellows are bleeding to death out there!” she said bitterly. “Why on
earth didn’t you insist on me learning nursing too? I could wash their
hands and faces anyway.”
“You’ll find plenty to do at home, my dear. Only the fully qualified
are any use out there. Presently,--ay already,--there are widows and
orphans to look after, and your out-of-work girls, and the wives and
children who are not yet widows and orphans but may be any day. Plenty
to do at home for all of us. But, for the moment, we’ve got to quiet
Mrs Dare’s fears for Con.”
“It would be too awful if--if the worst had come to him,” she said,
with a glistening in the eyes.
“It would be very sad for us all. But for him--my dear, a man can do
no better than die at his post. If it should be so, be sure he died
doing his duty. But we’re not to think of him as gone. Con’s one of the
finest boys I know, and, please God, he’s alive and well and will come
back to us.”
Mrs Dare and Honor had just suspended work and were sitting down to tea
when they were shown in, and Mrs Dare rang for additional supplies as
soon as she had greeted them.
“Well, Colonel? Any new news?” she asked cheerfully.
“Yes,--I came on purpose to tell you. I have just been to see Alma.”
They both sat up at attention and eyed him anxiously, and he hurried
on, “It is disquieting, but not necessarily more than that. Con’s name
is in the list of ‘missing.’ That means he has been captured and so may
be out of further danger till the end of the war.”
“Thank God, it is no worse!” said Mrs Dare, with a sigh of relief. And
then, as her mind travelled quickly the possibilities, with a downward
tendency natural under the circumstances, “Can we be sure it is no
worse?”
“If he were known to be dead or wounded, it would be so reported.
‘Missing’ leaves us every ground for hope, Mrs Mother. And it is our
bounden duty to hope for the best. And we will. A great many of our
R.A.M.C.’s were captured at the same time. The retirement was very
hurried, you see. They would be busy with their wounded. Probably they
would not leave them. The Germans swept on, and there they were--behind
the lines--prisoners.”
“They have been behaving very brutally,” said Mrs Dare depressedly.
“In cases--where they will probably claim to be justified, and even
they are probably much exaggerated. Is it any good treading the stony
ways before we actually come to them? There may be more than enough for
us before we’re through.”
“You are right, my friend. I’m afraid I’m sadly lacking in faith. One
gets somewhat disjangled with thinking overmuch about things.”
“Mustn’t think down,” said the Colonel, shaking his finger reprovingly
at her. “Think up! Half the ill things we fear never come to pass.
Isn’t that your experience now?”
“It is. But the times are out of joint, and----”
“And it’s our business to put them in again, and we’re going to do it.”
“We’re still falling back, I suppose,” she said, uncheerfully, and he
knew she was wondering if there would be any hope of news of Con if a
change should come in that respect.
“Still retiring on Paris, and doing it uncommonly well too,” he said,
very much more cheerfully than he actually felt.
For the black Sunday of Mons still lay heavy on him, and he knew
better than any of them the certain cost of those terrible rear-guard
actions--from Cambrai-le Cateau to the Somme--Oise--Meuse, to
Seine--Oise--Meuse, to Seine--Marne--Meuse, and he dreaded the thought
of the tardy lists which would be hard to compile and harder still to
read.
“You’ll see we’ll find the ground we’re looking for soon,” he said
stoutly. “Then we’ll right about face and maybe give them the lesson
they’re spoiling for. They are suffering terribly, as it is, but there
seems no end to them. But, anyhow, Con will be all right in Germany by
this time, and truly I don’t think we need worry about him unduly.”
“I’ll try not to, but it is not easy,--hearing the things one does.”
“If duty were easy it would lose half its virtue,”--and then the door
flew open and Noel and Gregor MacLean stood in the opening, with their
hands to their foreheads in most punctilious salute and broad grins of
delight on their heated faces.
“London Scottish!” they said in unison.
“You’re in?” cried the girls, jumping up.
“For King and Country! At your service,” and they broke off and
demanded tea,--much tea and all the cakes that were going.
The girls flew round ministeringly and buzzed about them full of
questions and congratulations.
“And how soon do you get to work?” asked the Colonel.
“Medical inspection 9 a.m. to-morrow morning. But we’re as fit as
fiddles, so that’s all right.”
“And when will you get your kilts?” asked Honor.
“A-a-a-a-a-ah!” said Noel. “Now you’re asking.”
“Echo answers ‘When?’” said Gregor. “From all accounts it may be
months.”
“O-o-o-oh!” remonstratively from the girls.
“But we want to see how you’ll look in them,” said Honor.
“You go right up to Head-Quarters, my child, and put it to them
straight, and I shouldn’t be a bit surprised if we got them by mid-day
Monday,” said Noel.
“‘The kilt is but the guinea stamp, the man’s the gowd for a’ that,’”
said Gregor with a grin, and a reddening under his tan at so unusual an
outburst and an approving glance from Honor.
“Well, it’s been worth waiting for,” said the Colonel.
“I should say so. We’d sooner be full privates in the London Scottish
than potty little lieutenants in anything else, wouldn’t we, Greg, my
boy?”
“Rather!”
“Do you know Con is missing?” said Honor.
“No?” unbelievingly from both of the boys. “Missing?”--and they stood
staring from one to another with such startled looks that the Colonel
thought well to interject a bluff, “He’s probably tucked safely away in
some remote corner of Germany by this time. But we shall hear in due
course,”--and he accompanied it with so straight and meaning a look at
the boys that they understood, and fell in with his intention.
“Poor old Con! How mad he’ll be to be out of it,” said Noel hastily.
“Say, Greg, my boy, we’ve got to get out there as quick as ever we can.
What a joke if we came across him--er--languishing in captivity and
were the means of setting him free.”
“Are the lists out then, sir?” asked Gregor.
“Not yet, my boy. I was up at Head-Quarters and they’re compiling them
as fast as they can. Pretty heavy, I’m afraid.”
“Sure to be, sir. There’s been some mighty tough work out there.”
“The German lists will be ten times as heavy. That’s one consolation,”
said Noel.
“No amount of German losses will compensate one mother for the loss of
her son,” said Mrs Dare soberly. “My heart is sore for all those German
mothers too. It is terrible waste. And all so unnecessary too.”
“Always bear in mind, Mrs Mother, that we did not want it,” said the
Colonel. “It was forced upon us, and we are fighting for freedom and
the rights of the smaller peoples. It is an honour to fight in such a
cause. It would be an honour to die for it.”
“Hear, hear!” said Noel.
But when the Colonel took his leave, and the two boys lit their pipes
and strolled along with him, Noel broke out impetuously, “Is there
any more behind, sir, that you haven’t told us? ‘Missing’ may mean
anything.”
“That is absolutely all that is known as yet, my boy. It may, as you
say, mean anything. But until more is known we have every right to hope
for the best. And for that reason I want you to take the brighter side
of the possibility and do your best not to let your mother dwell on the
other side. You understand?”
“I understand, sir,” said Noel, very soberly.... “It would be awful
if--if the worst had happened to him. Does Alma know?”
“I went and told her at once and minimised it as much as possible. But
I’ve very little doubt they all understand what it may mean just as
well as we do.”
“They’re behaving like perfect devils over there, from all accounts,”
said Gregor. “I can’t understand it. I’ve known heaps of Germans, as
nice folks as you’d wish to meet. And now--devils unloosed, and up to
every dirty underhand trick imaginable. What do you make of it, sir?”
“War is a terrible unloosener of the worst that is in man, and there
are black sheep in every army. And I’ve no doubt there’s a great deal
of exaggeration in the stories we hear.”
“I’d like to stamp the whole darned lot out of existence like so many
black beetles,” said Noel hotly.
“I’m afraid they’ll take a lot of stamping out,” said the Colonel, as
he turned and went through his own gate.
“By--Jing, Greg, I don’t like it one little bit!” said Noel, as they
linked arms and went on down the road to tell their own good news to
Mrs MacLean.
“It may be as bad as we can’t help fearing. But, as the Colonel says,
it may not, and it’s cheerfuller to look on the bright side. I can’t
imagine Con being killed.”
“Neither can I, but they say we’ve lost about fifteen thousand already,
and when you think of that it doesn’t take much more thinking to think
he may be one of them.”
“That’s not all killed, man. It’s everything.”
“I know, but it’s been beastly hot work, and ... dash it, Greg, you
know what I’m thinking of. They say they’re sparing none and making a
dead set at the Red Cross men.”
And Gregor nodded gloomily.
“We’ll say nothing to my mother about it at present,” he said. “Maybe
better word’ll come in a day or two, and it’s no good fashin’ her
unduly. She’ll be glad we’ve got in all right, because she knows we’ve
been wanting it so much, but she’ll feel it, you know, when we have to
go.”
“That’ll not be for a good while yet. And anyway we’re doing our duty
to our country.”
But this news about Con distinctly sobered their exuberance, and Mrs
MacLean, as she congratulated them on the attainment of their wishes,
thought what a fine sensible pair they were, and what a change the
prospect of service was making in them already.
She was well over middle age, white-haired, and had the kindliest face
and sweetest soft Scotch voice Noel knew, outside his own family.
Gregor was her only child and her heart was wrapped up in him.
“I’m glad you’re going to wear the kilt,” she said gently. “When will
you be getting them, do you think?”
“Oh, not for a while yet, I expect. First Battalion want everything
they can get, you see. We’re only in the nursery yet.”
“You’ll find it queer at first, but you’ll soon get used to the bare
knees,” she smiled, to Noel.
“It’s no worse than footer, you know. By Jove, Greg, my boy, we’ll
Condy them a bit to subdue their natural shiny whiteness. Then they
won’t startle people as we pass.”
“All right. But we may as well wait till we get there,--unless you want
to begin training them right away in the way they should go.”
“And when do you start work?”
“Medical exam to-morrow morning, and then as soon as the top-knutties
can lick themselves into shape.”
And so they chattered on, very full of themselves and their new
importance, and Mrs MacLean rejoiced in them,--but hoped fervently,
nevertheless, that the war would be over before they would have to do
any actual fighting.