(_From Captain Claude Seaforth to a novelist friend_)
MY DEAR MAN,--You asked me to tell you if anything very remarkable came
my way. I think I have a story for you at last. If I could only write I
would make something of it myself, but not being of Kitchener's Army I
can't.
The other day, while I was clearing up papers and accounts, and all over
ink, as I always get, the Sergeant came to me, looking very rum. "Two
young fellows want to see you," he said.
Of course I said I was too busy and that he must deal with them.
"I think you'd rather see them yourself," he said, with another odd
look.
"What do they want?" I asked.
"They want to enlist," he said; "but they don't want to see the
doctor."
We've had some of these before--consumptives of the bull-dog breed, you
know. Full of pluck but no mortal use; knocked out by the first route
march.
"Why don't you tell them that they must see the doctor and have done
with it?" I asked the Sergeant.
Again he smiled queerly. "I made sure you'd rather do it yourself," he
said. "Shall I send them in?"
So I wished them farther and said "Yes"; and in they came.
They were the prettiest boys you ever saw in your life--too pretty. One
had red hair and the other black, and they were dressed like navvies.
They held their caps in their hands.
"What's this rubbish about not seeing a doctor?" I asked. You know my
brutal way.
"We thought perhaps it could be dispensed with," Red Hair said, drawing
nearer to Black Hair.
"Of course it can't," I told them. "What use to the Army are weaklings
who can't stand the strain? They're just clogs in the machinery. Don't
you see that?"
"We're very strong," Red Hair said, "only----"
"Only what?"
"Only----" Here they looked at each other, and Red Hair said, "Shall
we?" and Black Hair said, "Yes"; and they both came closer to me.
"Will you promise," said Red Hair, "that you will treat as confidential
anything we say to you?"
"So long as it is nothing dangerous to the State," I said, rather proud
of myself for thinking of it.
"We want to fight for our country," Red Hair began.
"No one wants to fight more," Black Hair put in.
"And we're very strong," Red Hair continued.
"I won a cup for lawn-tennis at Devonshire Park," Black Hair added.
"But----" said Red Hair.
"Yes," I replied.
"Don't you believe in some women being as strong as men?"
"Certainly," I said.
"Well, then," said Red Hair, "that's like us. We are as strong as lots
of men and much keener, and we want you to be kind to us and let us
enlist."
"We'll never do anything to give ourselves away," said Black Hair; but,
bless her innocent heart, she was giving herself away all the time.
Every moment was feminine.
The rum thing is that, although I had been conscious of something odd, I
never thought they were girls. Directly I knew it, I knew that I had
been the most unobservant ass alive; for they couldn't possibly be
anything else.
"My dear young ladies," I said at last, "I think you are splendid and an
example to the world; but what you ask is impossible. Have you thought
for a moment what it would be like to find yourselves in barracks with
the ordinary British soldier? He is a brave man and, when you meet him
alone, he is nearly always a nice man; but collectively he might not do
as company for you."
"But look at this," said Red Hair, showing me a newspaper-cutting about
a group of Russian girls known as "The Twelve Friends," who have been
through the campaign and were treated with the utmost respect by the
soldiers.
"And there's a woman buried at Brighton," said Black Hair, "who fought
as a man for years and lived to be a hundred."
"And think of Joan of Arc," said Red Hair.
"And Boadicea," said Black Hair.
"Well," I said, "leaving Joan of Arc and Boadicea aside, possibly those
Russians and that Brighton woman looked like men, which it is certain
you don't!"
"Oh!" said Black Hair, who was really rather peculiarly nice. "Then why
didn't you spot us before?"
One for me.
"I have no doubt I should have done so in a moment more," I said. "The
fact is"--what cowards we are!--"I was preoccupied when you came in."
Black Hair looked adorably as if she didn't believe it.
"But anyway," I went on, "we must be serious. What would your people
say?"
"We left word," said Red Hair, "that we were going off to do something
for our country. They won't worry. Oh, please be kind and help us!"
Here all four of their beautiful eyes grew moist.
I could have hugged both of them, especially perhaps Black Hair, but I
kept an iron hand on myself.
"You nice absurd creatures," I said, "do be reasonable. To begin with,
passing the doctor is an absolute necessity. That shuts you out. But
even if you got through, how do you think you would be helping your
country? All the men would be falling in love with you; and that's bad
enough as it is after working hours; it would be the ruin of discipline.
And you could not bear the fatigue. No, go back and learn to be nurses
and let your lovely hair grow again."
They were very obstinate and very unwilling to entertain the thought of
drudgery such as nursing after all their dreams of excitement; but at
last they came to reason, and I sent for a cab and packed them off in it
(I simply could not bear the idea of other people seeing them in that
masquerade), and told them that the sooner they changed the better.
After they had gone the Sergeant came in about something.