I
The enormous and imponderable world awfully unbalanced. Upside down.
Extraordinarily unreal. Furiously real.
Life, which had been a thing of the clock and of the calendar, became a
thing of events in which there was no time,--only events.
Things began one day very shortly after the declaration of war when,
passing the barracks on his way home, Sabre was accosted and taken into
the Mess by Cottar, a subaltern of the Pinks.
"You must come along in and have a cup of tea," young Cottar urged.
"We've got a hell of a jamborino on. At least we shall have to-night.
We're just working up for it. I can't tell you why. You can guess."
Sabre felt a sudden catch at his emotions. "Is the regiment going?"
They were at the door of the anteroom. Cottar swung it open. The room
was full of men and tobacco smoke and noise. A very tall youth, one
Sikes, was standing on the table, a glass in his hand. "Hullo, Sabre!
Messman, one of those very stiff whiskies for Mr. Sabre--go on, Sabre,
you must. Because--" He had not Cottar's reticence. He burst into song,
waving his glass--"Because--
"We shan't be here in the morning--"
They all took it up, bawling uproariously:
We shan't be here in the morning,
We shan't be here in the morning,
We shan't be here in the mor-or-ning,
Before the break of day!
Otway came in. "Shut up, you noisy young fools. What the--"
Sikes from the table. "Ah, Papa Otway! Three cheers for Papa Otway in
very discreet whispers. Messman, one of those very stiff whiskies for
Captain Otway."
Otway laughed pleasantly. "No, chuck it, I'm not drinking. Hood, I want
you; and you, Carmichael, and you, Bullen." He saw Sabre and came to
him. "Hullo, Sabre. You've heard now. We've managed to keep it pretty
close, but it's all over the place now. Yes, we entrain at daybreak."
Sabre felt frightfully affected. He could hardly speak. "Good Lord. I
can't realise it. I say, Otway, do you remember predicting this nearly
two years ago? You said this would find us all unawares. You were one of
the people every one laughed at."
Precisely the same Otway who had spoken with such extraordinary
intensity outside the Corn Exchange eighteen months before began to
speak with extraordinary intensity now. "That? Oh, I don't give a damn
for any of that now. This is our show now, Sabre. The Army's show. I
don't give a damn for what happens at home now. This is our show. Sabre,
you don't know what this is for me. I've lived for this, dreamt about
it, thought about it, eaten it, drunk it ever since I was a kid at
Sandhurst. Now it's come. By God, it's come at last!"
The same Otway! Positively the little beads of perspiration were shining
about his nose. His eyes scintillated an extraordinary light. He said,
"By God, Sabre, you ought to have seen the battalion on parade this
morning! By God, they were magnificent. They're the finest thing that
ever happened. There's nothing in the Army List to touch us. When I
think I'll be in action with them perhaps inside a week--I--"
An orderly approached and spoke to him. "Right. Right. I'll come along
at once." He was swiftly away. "Patterson, I want you too. There's a man
in your company says his wife--"
And, stilled during his presence, babel broke out anew with his
departure. Some one, standing on a sofa, caught up Otway's last word
into a bawling song--
I've got a wife and sixteen kids,
I've got a wife and sixteen kids,
I've got a wife and--
A cushion whizzed across the room into his face. A tag began. Sikes on
the table was laying down laws of equipment at the top of his voice.
"Well, I'm going to take nothing but socks. I'm going to stuff my pack
absolutely bung full of socks. Man alive, I tell you nothing matters
except socks. If you can keep on getting clean socks every--I'm going to
stuff in socks enough to last me--"[1]
[Footnote 1: A very short time afterwards, while the incident was fresh
in his memory, Sabre heard that Sikes took out eleven pairs of socks and
was killed, at Mons, in the pair he landed in.]
II
The blessed gift in the war was to be without imagination. The supreme
trial, whether in endurance on the part of those who stayed at home, or
in courage on the part of those who took the field, was upon those whose
mentality invested every sight and every happening with the poignancy of
attributes not present but imagined. For Sabre the war definitely began
with that visit to the Mess on the eve of the Pinks' departure. The high
excitement of the young men, their eager planning, the almost religious
ecstasy of Otway at the consummation of his life's dream, moved Sabre,
visioning what might await it all, in depths profound and painful in
their intensity. His mind would not abandon them. He sat up that night
after Mabel had gone to her room. How on earth could he go to bed, be
hoggishly sleeping, while those chaps were marching out?
He could not. At two in the morning he went quietly from the house and
got out his bicycle and rode down into Tidborough.
He was just in time. The news had been well kept, or in those early days
had not the meaning it came to have. Nevertheless a few people stood
about the High Street in the thin light of the young morning, and when,
almost immediately, the battalion came swinging out of the Market Place,
many appeared flanking it, mostly women.
"Here they come!"
Frightful words! Sabre caught them from a young woman spoken to a very
old woman whose arm she held a few paces from where he stood. Frightful
words! He caught his breath, and, more dreadfully upon his emotions, as
the head of the column came into sight, the band, taking them to the
station, burst into the Pinks' familiar quickstep.
The Camp Town races are five miles long,
Doo-da! Doo-da!
The Camp Town races are five miles long,
Doo-da! Doo-da! Day!
Gwine to run all night. Gwine to run all day.
I bet my money on the bob-tail nag,
Somebody bet on the bay!
He never in his life had experienced anything so utterly frightful or
imagined that anything could be so utterly frightful. His throat felt
bursting. His eyes were filled. They were swinging past him, file by
file. _Doo-da! Doo-da! Day!_ He scarcely could see them. They were
marching at ease, their rifles slung. They seemed to be appallingly
laden with stupendous packs and multitudinous equipment. A tin mug and
God knows what else beside swung and rattled about their thighs. The
women with them were running to keep up, and dragging children, and
stretching hands into the ranks, and crying--all crying.
...Doo-da! Doo-da!
The Camp Town races are five miles long,
Doo-da! Doo-da! Day!
He thought, "Damn that infernal music." He wiped his eyes. This was
impossible to bear ... _Doo-da! Doo-da!_ A most frightful thing
happened. A boy broke out of the ranks and came running, all rattling
and jingling with swinging accoutrements, to the old woman beside Sabre,
put his arms around her and cried in a most frightful voice, "Mother!
Mother!" And a sergeant, also rattling and clanking, dashed up and
bawled with astounding ferocity, "Get back into the bloody ranks!" And
the boy ran on, rattling. And the old woman collapsed prone upon the
pavement. And the sergeant, as though his amazing ferocity had been the
buttress of some other emotions, bent over the old woman and patted her,
rattling, and said, "That's all right, Mother. That's all right. I'll
look after him. I'll bring him back. That's all right, Mother." And ran
on, jingling. _Doo-da! Doo-da! Day!_
III
He turned away. He absolutely could not bear it. He walked a few paces
and equally could not forbear to stop and look again. The men were
nearly all laughing and whistling and singing.... This bursting
sensation in all his emotions! It was beyond anything he had ever
experienced before. But he had experienced something like it before. His
mind threw back across the years and presented the occasion to him. It
was when he was a very small boy in his first term at Tidborough. The
Christmas term and he was on the Strip, trying frantically behind a
crowd of boys to get a glimpse of the match in progress,--one of the
great matches of the season, vs. Tidborough Town. One of the boys
against whose waist his frantic head was butting turned and said in a
lordly way, "Let that kid through," and he was roughly bundled to a
front position. The boy who had commanded his presence jolted him in the
back with his knee and said, using the school argot for to cheer or
shout, "Swipe up, you ghastly young ass! Swipe up! Can't you see they're
pressing us?"
Couldn't he see! He felt that the end of the world was coming at what he
saw. The enormous, full-grown town men were almost on the school
goal-line; the school team clinging to them and battling with them like
tiger-cats. He had only been at Tidborough a month, but he felt he would
die if the line was crossed. He swiped till he thought his throat must
crack. When his cracking throat incontinently took intervals of rest, he
prayed to God for the school, visioning God on his throne on the school
goalposts and mentioning to Him the players whose names he knew:
"Oh, let Barnwell get in his kick! Oh, do let Harris see they're heeling
the ball! Oh, help Tufnell to get that man! Help him! Help him!
Schoo-o-ool! Schoo-oo-ool! Schoo-oo-ool!"
_Doo-da! Doo-da! Day!_
His bursting heart was now saying, "England! England!"
IV
The column passed and was gone. He was left with his most frightful
feelings. He could do nothing now. Four o'clock in the morning. But he
must do something now. He could not go home till he had. He must. He
followed to the station. The men were entraining in the goods yard. He
waited about, not trusting himself to speak to Otway or any of the
others who were going. Presently his opportunity came in a sight of
Colonel Rattray, who commanded the depot and was not going, standing for
a minute alone. Sabre went quickly to him and they exchanged greetings
and said the obvious things proper to the occasion. Then Sabre said,
feeling extraordinarily embarrassed, "I say, Colonel, I want to get into
this. I absolutely must get into this."
"Eh? Into what?"
"The war." It was easier after the plunge, and he went on quickly, "I
see in the papers that civilians are being given commissions, getting
them by recommendation. Can you get me a commission? _Can_ you?"
Colonel Rattray showed surprise. He turned squarely about and faced
Sabre and looked him up and down, but not in the way in which soldiers
looked civilians up and down rather later on. "Well, I don't know. I
might. I've no doubt I could, if you're eligible. How old are you,
Sabre?"
"Thirty-six."
Colonel Rattray said doubtfully, "It's a bit on the steep side for a
commission."
"Well, I'd go in the ranks. I must get in. I absolutely must."
The soldier smiled pleasantly. "Oh, I wouldn't get thinking about the
ranks, Sabre. There're heaps before you, you know. Still, I wouldn't
stop any man getting into the Army if I could help him. I'll see what I
can do. Certainly I will. Mind you, I'm doubtful. Are you fit?"
"I think I am. I'm supposed to have a bit of a heart. But it's absolute
rot. It never affects me in the slightest degree. I can do anything."
"Well, that's the first thing, you know. Look here, I'm wanted. Come up
to the Mess in the morning and I'll get our doctor to have a look at
you. Then we'll see what can be done. All right, eh?"
V
He rode home much relieved from the stresses he had suffered in that
awful business of watching the regiment march out. He felt that if only
he could be "in it" he could equably endure any of these things that
were happening and that would get worse; if he had just to stand by and
watch them his portion would be insupportable. England! Other people
whom he knew could not possibly feel it in the way he felt it. His
history with its opening sentence, "This England you live in is
_yours_", had arisen out of his passionate love for all that England
meant to him. In all Shakespeare there was no passage that moved him in
quite the same way whenever he recalled it as Richard the Second's
Dear earth, I do salute thee with my hand....
Mock not my senseless conjuration, lords,
This earth shall have a feeling....
Stooping and touching the soil of England as one might bend and touch a
beloved face. That was what England for years had meant to him. And
now.... It was upon these emotions, vaguely, "in case", that he had gone
to Doctor Anderson on the morning of the frightful news. Anderson had
told him he couldn't possibly be passed for the Army, but at the moment
the idea of ever wanting to go into the Army had only been an almost
ridiculously remote contingency, and what did Anderson know about the
Army standard, anyway?
VI
He said nothing to Mabel of his intention. It was just precisely the
sort of thing he could not possibly discuss with Mabel. Mabel would say,
"Whyever should you?" and of all imaginable ordeals the idea of exposing
before Mabel his feeling about England ... he would tell her when it was
done, if it came off. He could say then, in what he knew to be the
clumsy way in which he had learnt to hide his ideas from her, he could
say, "Well, I _had_ to."
And his thought was, when a few hours later he was walking slowly away
from his interview with Major Earnshaw, the doctor at the barracks,
"Thank God, I never said anything to Mabel about it."
The very few officers left behind at the depot were at breakfast when he
arrived to keep Colonel Rattray to his word. Major Earnshaw had very
pleasantly got up from the table to "put him out of his misery" there
and then without formality and had "had a go at this heart of yours" in
the billiard room. Withdrawn his stethoscope and shaken his head. It was
"no go; absolutely none, Sabre."
"Well, but that's for a commission. I'll go into the ranks. Isn't that
any different?"
No different. "You can't possibly go in as you are--now. In time, if
this thing goes on, the standards will probably be reduced. But they'll
have to be reduced a goodish long way before you'll get in, I don't mind
telling you."
Sabre wheeled his bicycle slowly away across the barrack square. "Thank
goodness, I never said anything to Mabel about it." A cluster of young
men of various degrees of life were waiting outside the door of the
recruiting office. The rush of the first few days was thinning down but
recruits were still pouring in. They were all laughing and talking
noisily. He had the wish that he could take the thing in that spirit.
Why couldn't he? After all, what did it really matter that he was not
able to get "in it"? Even if he had been accepted it would only have
been pretending. He never would have got really "in it"; none of those
chaps would; every one knew the war couldn't last long; it would be over
long before any of these recruits could be trained.
VII
This "common sense" argument carried him through following days; then
came another of the frightful undoings of his emotions; and just as the
war definitely began for him with the glimpse of the beginnings of that
"jamborino" in the Mess, so from this new occasion began, unceasingly
and increasingly, and with shocking effect upon his sensitiveness, a
dreadful oppression by the war and, adding to its darkness, a gnawing
and unreasonable self-accusation that he was not "in it."
The occasion was that of his meeting with Harkness outside the _County
Times_ office. Harkness was a captain of the battalion that had gone out
who had been left behind owing to some illness. The British
Expeditionary Force had been in action. There had been scraps of news of
some heavy fighting. Harkness said dully, "Hullo, Sabre. I've just been
in to see that chap Pike to see if he'd got anything. We've had some
news, you know." He stopped. His face was twitching.
Sabre said, "News? Anything about the Pinks?"
Harkness nodded. He seemed to be swallowing. Then he said, "Yes, the
regiment. Pretty bad."
Sabre said, "Any one--?" and also stopped.
Harkness looked, not at Sabre, but straight across the top of his head
and began an appalling, and as it seemed to Sabre, an endless
recitative. "The Colonel's killed. Bruce is killed. Otway's killed--"
"Otway...."
"Cottar's killed. Bullen's killed--"
Endless! The names struck Sabre like successive blows. Were they never
going to end?
"Carmichael's killed. My young brother's--" his voice cracked--"killed.
Sikes is killed."
"Sikes killed.... And your brother...."
Harkness said in a very thin, squeaking voice, "Yes, the regiment's
pretty well--The regiment's--" He looked full at Sabre and said in a
very loud, defiant voice, "I bet they were magnificent. By God, I bet
you they were magnificent. Oh, my God, why the hell wasn't I there?" He
turned abruptly and went away, walking rather funnily.
This was the moment at which there descended upon Sabre, never to leave
him while he remained not "in it", the appalling sense of oppression
that the war exercised upon him. On his brain like a weight; on his
heart like a pressing hand. He thought of Otway's intense, gleaming
face. "My God, Sabre, you ought to have seen the battalion on parade
this morning." He saw Otway's face cold and stricken. He thought of
Sikes, on the table. "Well, I'm going to take nothing but socks. I'm
going to stuff my pack absolutely bung full of socks." He saw Sikes
flung like a disused thing in some field....
VIII
And still events; still, and always, now, disturbing things.
While he stood there he was suddenly aware of Young Rod, Pole or Perch,
rather breathlessly come up.
"I say, Sabre, have you heard this frightful news about the Pinks?--I
say, Sabre, I want your help most frightfully. I want you to talk to my
mother. She likes you. She'll listen to you. I'm going to enlist. I've
been putting it off day after day, trying to fix up things for my mother
and trying to persuade her; but I haven't done much and I absolutely
can't wait any longer."
Sabre said, "Good Lord, are you, Perch? Must you? Your mother, why, what
on earth will she do without you? She'll--"
Young Perch winced painfully. "I know. I know. It pretty well kills me
to think of it and I'm having the most frightful scenes with her. But
I've thought it all out, Sabre, and I know I'm doing the right thing.
I've looked after my mother all my life, and a month ago the idea of
leaving her even for a couple of nights would have been unthinkable. But
this is different. This is--" He flushed awkwardly--"you can't talk that
sort of patriotic stuff, you know, but this is, well this is a chap's
country, and I've figured it out it's got to come before my mother. It's
got to. She says it will kill her if I go. I believe it will, Sabre. And
my God, if it does--but I can't help it. I know what's the right thing.
I'll tell you something else." His face, which had been red and cloudy
as with tears, became dark and passionate. "I'll tell you something
else. People are saying things about me and to me because I'm young and
unmarried and haven't got a wife to support. Curse them, Sabre--what do
they know about it? Aren't their wives young, strong, able to take care
of themselves? My mother can't come downstairs without me and can't let
any one else--"
He rubbed a hand across his eyes and broke off. "Never mind about that;
I know what I've got to do. Look here, Sabre, I tell you where I want
your help, like anything. You know lots of people. I don't. Well, I want
to get hold of some nice girl to live with my mother and take care of
her in my place while I'm away. A sort of companion, aren't they called?
Like that Bypass person up at old Boom Bagshaw's, only much nicer and
younger and friendlier than she is. You see, I know my mother. If it was
any one of any age, she wouldn't have her in the house at any price, and
she'd send her flying out of the window in about two days if she did
have her. She swears no power on earth will induce her to have any one
at all as it is. But I'm going to manage it if I can get the right
person. I want some one who my mother will indignantly call a chit of a
child"--he gave rather a broken little laugh--"can't I hear her saying
it! But she'll instantly begin to mother her because she is a chit of a
child, and to fuss over her and tell her what she ought to eat and what
she ought to wear, and does she wear a flannel binder, and all that,
just as she does to me. And in about a week she'll be as right as rain
and writing me letters all day and arguing with the girl how to spell
'being' and 'been'--you know what my mother is. I say, Sabre, do for
God's sake help me, if you can. _Do_ you know any one?"
Sabre, during this greatly troubled outpouring, had the feeling that
this was all of a part with the calamitous news he had just had from
Harkness,--a direct continuation of it. This frightful war! Was it going
to attack even that pathetic little old woman at Puncher's Farm with her
fumbling hands and her frail existence centred solely in her son? He
said, "I'm awfully sorry, Perch. Frightfully sorry for your mother and
for you. You know best what you ought to do. I won't say anything either
way. I think a man's only judge in this ghastly business is himself. Of
course, I'll help you. I'll help you all I can. It's a funny coincidence
but I believe I do know just the very girl that would be what you
want--"
Young Perch grasped his hand in delighted relief. "Oh, Sabre, if you do!
I felt you would help. You've always been a chap to turn to!"
"I've turned to you, Perch, you and your mother, a good deal more than
you might imagine. I'm glad to help if I can. The chance I'm thinking
about I was hearing of only a few days ago. The works' foreman in my
office, an old chap called Bright. He's got a daughter about eighteen or
thereabouts, and I was hearing he wanted to get her into some kind of
post like yours. I've spoken to her once or twice when she's been about
the place for her father and I took a tremendous fancy to her. She's as
pretty as a picture. Effie, she's called. I believe your mother would
take to her no end. And she'd just love your mother."
Young Perch said rather thickly, "Any one would who takes her the right
way."
Sabre touched him encouragingly on the shoulder. "This girl Effie will
if only we can get her. She's that sort, I know. I'll see about it at
once. Buck up, old man."
"Thanks most frightfully, Sabre. Thanks most awfully."
IX
It was from Twyning that Sabre had heard that a post of some sort was
being considered for Effie Bright. Her father, as he had told young
Perch, was works' foreman at Fortune, East and Sabre's. "Mr. Bright." A
massive old man with a massive, rather striking face hewn beneath a bald
dome and thickly grown all about and down the throat with stiff white
hair. He had been in the firm as long as Mr. Fortune himself and
appeared to Sabre, who had little to do with him, to take orders from
nobody. He was intensely religious and he had the deep-set and
extraordinarily penetrating eyes that frequently denote the religious
zealot. He was not liked by the hands. They called him Moses, disliked
his intense religiosity and feared the cold and heavy manner that he
had. He trod heavily about the workshops, looking into the eyes of the
young men as if far more concerned to search their souls than their
benches; and Sabre, when speaking to him, always had the feeling that
Mr. Bright was penetrating him with the same intention.
Extraordinary that such a stern and hard old man should have for
daughter such a fresh and lovable slip of a young thing as his Effie!
Bright Effie, Sabre always called her, inverting her names. Mr. Bright
had a little cupboard called his office at the foot of the main stairway
and Bright Effie came often to see her father there. Sabre had spoken to
her in the little cupboard or just outside it. He had delight in
watching the most extraordinary shining that she had in her eyes. It was
like reading an entertaining book, he used to think, and he had the idea
that humor of that rarest kind which is unbounded love mingled with
unbounded sense of the oddities of life was packed to bursting within
her. All that she saw or heard seemed to be taken into that exhaustless
fount, metamorphosed into the most delicious sensations, and shone forth
in extraordinarily humorous delight through her eyes. Somewhere in the
dullest day light is found and thrown back by a bright surface. It was
just so, Sabre used to think, with Effie. All things were fresh to her
and she found freshness in all things.
Some such apprehension of her Sabre had expressed to Twyning on the
occasion that came to his mind during young Perch's entreaty for some
one to live with his mother. Sabre had been standing with Twyning at Mr.
Fortune's window, Mr. Bright and Effie leaving the office and crossing
the street together beneath them. Twyning, who was on intimate terms
with Mr. Bright, had given a short laugh and said, "Hullo, you seem to
have been thinking a lot about the fair Effie!"
The kind of laugh and the kind of remark that Sabre hated and he gave a
slight gesture which Twyning well knew meant that he hated it. This was
what Twyning called "stuck-uppishness" and equally hated, and he chose
words expressive of his resentment,--the class insistence.
"Well, she's got to earn her living, however jolly she is. She's not one
of your fine ladies, you know."
Sabre recognised the implication but ignored it. "What's old Bright
going to do with her?"
"He doesn't quite know. He was talking to my missus about it the other
day. He's as good as we are, you know. He's an idea of getting her out
as a sort of lady's companion somewhere."
This was what Sabre had remembered; and he went straight from young
Perch to Twyning and recalled the conversation.
Twyning said, "Hullo, still interested in the fair Effie?"
"It's for young Perch over at Penny Green I'm asking. For his mother.
He's a young man"--Sabre permitted his eyes to rest for a moment on
Harold, seated at his desk--"and he feels he ought to join the army. He
wants the girl to be with his mother while he's away."
Twyning, noting the glance, changed his tone to one of much
friendliness. "Oh, I see, old man. No, Effie's got nothing yet. She was
over to our place to tea last Sunday."
"Good. I'll go and talk to old Bright. I'm keen about this."
"Yes, you seem to be, old man."
X
Mr. Bright received the suggestion with a manner that irritated Sabre.
While he was being told of the Perches he stared at Sabre with that
penetrating gaze of his as though in the proposal he searched for some
motive other than common friendliness. His first comment was, "They'll
want references, I suppose, sir?"
Sabre smiled. "Oh, scarcely, Mr. Bright. Not when they know who you
are."
The old man was standing before Sabre in the little cupboard bending his
head close towards him as though he would sense out, if he could not
see, some hidden motive behind all this. He contracted his great brows
as if to squeeze more penetration into his gaze. "Yes, but I'll want
references, Mr. Sabre. My girl's been well brought up. She's not going
here, there, nor anywhere."
Extraordinary the intensity of his searching, suspicious stare! Hard,
stupid old man, Sabre thought. "Dash it, does he suppose I've got
designs on the girl?" He would have returned an impatient answer had he
not been so anxious on the Perches' behalf. Instead he said pleasantly,
"Of course she's not, Mr. Bright. You may be sure I wouldn't suggest
this if I didn't know it was in every way desirable. Mrs. Perch is a
very old friend of mine and a very simple and kind old lady. There'll be
only herself for Effie to meet. And she'll make a daughter of her."
Nothing, of the penetration abated from the deep-set eyes, nor came any
expression of thanks from the stern, pursed mouth. "I'll take my girl
over and see for myself, Mr. Sabre."
Surly, stupid old man! However, poor young Perch! Poor old Mrs. Perch!
The very thing, if only it would come off.
XI
It came off. Sabre went up to Puncher's Farm on the evening of the day
Mr. Bright, "to see for himself", had called with Effie. Young Perch
greeted him delightedly in the doorway and clasped his hand in
gratitude. "It's all right. It's fixed. She's coming. I've had the most
frightful struggle with my mother. But it's only her way, you know." He
stopped and Sabre heard him gulp. "Only her way. I could see she took to
the girl from the start. My mother's started knitting me a pair of socks
and old man Bright--I say, he's rather an alarming sort of person,
Sabre--had hardly opened his mouth when they arrived when the girl, in
the most extraordinary, making-a-fuss-of-her kind of way, told her she
was using the wrong size needles or something. And my mother, as if she
had known her all her life, said, 'There you are, I knew I was. It's
simply useless asking Freddie to do any shopping for me. He simply lets
them give him anything they like.' And she told the girl she thought she
had some other needles in one of those gigantic old boxes of ours. And
they went off together to look, and heaven only knows what they got up
to; they were away about half an hour and came back with about three
hundredweight of old wools and nine pounds of needles, and talking about
how they were going through all the other boxes, 'now I've got some one
to help me', as my mother said. By Jove, the girl's wonderful. D'you
know, she actually kissed my mother when she was leaving and said, 'Now
be sure to try that little pillow just under your side to-night. Just
press it in as you're falling asleep.' By Jove, you can't think how
grateful I am to you, Sabre."
"I am glad," Sabre told him. "I felt she'd be just like that. But why
have you been having a frightful struggle over it with your mother if
she's taken to her so?"
Young Perch gave the fond little laugh with which Sabre had so often
heard him conclude his enormous arguments with his mother. "Oh, you know
what my mother is. She's now made up her mind that the girl is coming
here to do what she calls 'catch me.' She'll forget that soon. Anyway,
the girl's coming. She's coming the day after to-morrow, the day I'm
going. Come along in and see my mother and keep her to it."
The subject did not require bringing up. "I suppose Freddie's told you
what he's forcing me into now, Mr. Sabre," old Mrs. Perch greeted him.
"It's a funny thing that I should be forced to do things at my time of
life. Of course she's after Freddie. Do you suppose I can't see that?"
"Well, but she won't see Freddie, Mrs. Perch. He won't be here."
"She'll catch him," declared Mrs. Perch doggedly. "Any girl could catch
Freddie. He's a positive fool with one of these girls after him. Now
she's got to have his uncle Henry's armchair in her room, if you please.
That's a nice thing, isn't it?"
"Now look here, Mother, you know perfectly well that was your own idea.
You said you felt sure she had a weak back and that--"
"I never supposed she was going to have your uncle Henry's chair for her
weak back or for any other back. Ask Mr. Sabre what he thinks. There he
is. Ask him."
Sabre said, "But you do like the girl, don't you, Mrs. Perch?"
Mrs. Perch pursed her lips.
"I don't say I don't like her. I merely ask what I'm going to do with
her in the house. When Freddie said he wanted to bring some one in to be
with me, I never supposed he was going to bring a chit of a child into
the house. I assure you I never supposed that was going to be done to
me."
And then quite suddenly Mrs. Perch dropped into a chair and said in a
horribly weak voice, "I don't mind who comes into the house, now. I
can't contend like I used to contend." Immense tears gathered in her
eyes and began to run swiftly down her cheeks. "I'm not fit for anything
now. I can't live without Freddie. I like the girl; but all this house
where we've been so happy ... without Freddie ... I shall see his dear,
bright face everywhere. Why must he go, Mr. Sabre? Why must he go? I
don't understand this war at all." Her voice trailed off. Her hands
fumbled on her lap. A tear fell on them. She brushed at it with a
fumbling motion but it remained there.
Young Perch took her hand and fondled it. Sabre saw the wrinkled,
fumbling old hand between the strong brown fingers. "That's all right,
Mother. Of course, you don't understand it. That's just it. You think
I'm going out to fighting and all that. And I'm just going into a
training camp here in England for a bit. And before Christmas it will
all be over and I shall come flying back and we'll send Miss Bright
toddling off home and--Don't cry, Mother. Don't cry, Mother. Isn't that
so, Sabre? Just training in England. Isn't that so? Now wherever's your
old handkerchief got to? Look here; here's mine. Look, this is the one
I chose that day with you in Tidborough. Do you remember what a jolly
tea we had that day? Remember what a laugh we had over that funny
teapot. There, let me wipe them, Mother...."
Sabre turned away. This frightful war....