Old Bill Dane? Yes, he's married now. We got a week's refitting leave,
and I've just been seeing him through it. Ye--es, there was a bit of a
hitch when they were engaged, but----Well, I'll tell you the story. I
saw most of it, because I was sort of doing second for him then too.
You see, he and I got it rather in the neck in the August scrap, and
we came out of hospital together. I had a smashed leg and he had a
scalp wound. Nothing to write home about, but it didn't make any more
of a Venus of him when it healed. They sent us on sick-leave, and we
stayed with his people. His guvnor's the eye specialist, you know--got
a home in town, and keeps the smell of iodoform in Harley Street, and
doesn't let it come into the house. We were all right. We led the
quiet life, and just pottered around, and saw the shows and so on. We
gave the social life a miss until Bill's sister let us in. Bill didn't
want to go, but she put it to me, and as I was sort of her guest I had
to make him come. Who? The sister? Oh! all right, you know. Don't be a
fool, or I won't tell you the yarn. Well, she took us poodlefaking,
and it cost me a bit at Gieves' for new rig, too. It was about our
third stunt that way when Bill got into trouble. We were at some bally
great house belonging to a stockbroker or bookie or some one, and they
were doing fox-trots up and down the drawing-room, and Bill and I were
rather out of it. I was lame and he's no dancing man, unless it's just
dressed in a towel or two to amuse guests in the wardroom when there's
a bit of table-turning going on. Some woman came and told him he'd got
to join up, and took him over to the girl. She was dressed regular
war-flapper fashion, you know, like a Bank of Expectation cheque,
except she hadn't got a top-hat on as some of them had lately. Most
of 'em in the room were togged out like that, and Bill and I had just
agreed we didn't go much on the style at all, but Bill is a proper
lamb about women. He did one turn of the room with the girl, dancing a
sort of Northern Union style, and then she stopped, and he brought her
over to me and plumped her on the sofa between us. I think he wanted
to see if I was laughing. She started on me at once, and asked me all
about my leg and Bill's head, and talked like a Maxim. Asked me if we
were great friends, and made me laugh. I said we had only forgathered
because I had beaten him in the middle-weights in the Grand Fleet
championships, and though I had never seen his face before, his left
stop had touched my heart. She dropped me then--she thought I was
pulling her leg--and turned to Bill, and then his sister took me off
to get her tea. I didn't realise Bill was getting soft about it till
his sister told me, though the fact of our going to tea and dinner at
the girl's home that week had seemed funny to me at the time. The
sister was rather pleased about it--said she knew the girl and liked
her. I said I didn't think much of that sort, but she smoothed me down
a bit. She thought that they would do each other good. I said Bill was
such an old lamb he'd only get sloppy, and do what the girl told him;
but she laughed. She told me I might know Jim in the ring, but I
didn't know much about him otherwise. I was rather shirty at that, but
I think now she was talking sense, though I didn't then. Well, Bill
can get quite busy when he makes his mind up, and the way he rushed
that girl was an education to watch. They were engaged in ten days
from the first time we went to her house, and I don't think we missed
seeing her for more than twelve hours in that time. I? Oh, I and the
sister were chaperons. I didn't mind. I was sorry for Bill, but I
wasn't going to spoil things for him if he was set on it.
The girl's people were all right. They were rather the Society type,
you know--thought London was capital of the world, and that a Gotha
bomb in the West End ought to mean a new Commander-in-Chief to relieve
Haig; but they were quite decent.
The trouble? Well, I'm coming to that. It came about a week after they
had announced the engagement. Old Bill had been getting a bit restive
over things. You see, he had begun to wonder just where _he_ came into
the business. He wanted to get the girl off by her lonesome to a
desert island, and tell her what a peach she was, for the rest of her
natural life; but the girl hadn't got an inkling of what he thought
about it. He was towed round like a pet bear and told to enjoy
himself, while people talked over his head. She was just a kid, and
she didn't know. It seemed to her that being engaged was good fun, and
getting married was a matter they could think about later, when she'd
had time to consider it. She was all for the tango-tea and the latest
drawing-room crazes. I didn't feel enthusiastic about his affairs, and
I told the sister so; but she laughed about it all. I didn't. The
girl, Hilda--her name was Hilda Conron--was just like a kid with a
toy. She took him around and showed him off, and she went on quacking
away to all her pals as if Bill wasn't in the room. She seemed to take
it for granted he was going to join up with her crowd and learn to do
the same tricks and talk the same patter as they did. Bill certainly
tried; but they treated him like a fool, and he told me several times
he felt like one. Well then, we came to the smash. Lord, it _was_ a
queer show, and I'd sooner have had my leg off than have missed it. We
were taken off to a charity auction, Red Cross or something, where
they sold bits of A. A. shell with the Government marks on them as
bits of Zepp. bombs, and Pekinese dogs for a hundred quid or so. After
the sale, about twenty of the household and the guests that had paid
most clustered round to add up the takings and drink tea and talk.
Miss Conron had been selling things, and was dressed up to the nines.
There was a bishop there, and some young staff officers and some
civilians, M.P.'s, or editors or something like that. Old Bill was
sitting with me and his sister, looking like a family lawyer at a
funeral, and the girl was perched on a sofa with a lanky
shopwalker-looking bloke alongside her. He was an indispensable of
sorts--Secretary to the Minister of some bloomin' thing or other. He
was the lad, I tell you,--sort of made you feel you were waiting on
the mat when he talked. He was laying down the law about the War and
all about it, and he talked like all the Angels at a Peace Conference.
But it was the bishop that put his foot in the mulligatawny first. He
agreed with the smooth-haired draper-man about the need of peace, but
he said we should see that Germany provided suitable reparation for
Belgium. Bill sat up and got red and stuttered, and said: "I don't
think Germany or anybody can give Belgium back what she has lost."
They all looked at Bill as if he had just dawned on them, and Bill
looked more foolish. The draper-man shipped an eyeglass and looked him
over like a new specimen. "Ah!" he said, "our naval friend? Perhaps
you will tell us in what way you consider the War can be ended before
the world comes to economic ruin. Must we wait until you have had your
fill of fighting or have destroyed the High Sea Fleet?"
Bill stood up and stopped looking silly. Miss Dane leaned back in her
chair, and I heard her sigh as if she was pleased about something.
"Never mind the High Sea Fleet," said Bill. "That's not your business
to worry about. But as to 'fill of fighting,' you've said it there.
When we've had our fill of fighting Germany will have had more, but
we're a long way from that yet."
The long stiff turned to Miss Conron. "Why, little Miss Hilda," he
said, "your fiancé is charming. He should speak in the Park on Sundays
and we would all come to listen."
The girl got red and looked daggers at Bill. She didn't like his
making a fool of himself, and she wanted him back in his chair again.
The long man put a hand on her knee and spoke quietly to her, and she
shook her head at him and laughed. That did it. My oath! that did it
all right. Bill shrugged his shoulders back and took station in the
outer ring of draper-worshippers, and spoke like a--a Demosthenes.
"You blank, blank, blank," he said, "get off that sofa and get away
from Miss Conron."
The Bishop looked as if the end of the world had come and he was
adrift with his cash accounts. The staff officers looked blank and the
women got scary. I got up and took station on Bill's quarter in case
any one got excited. The long man put up his glass again and showed
symptoms of an approaching oration.
"You stay then, you half-breed dog," said Bill; "I'm going to talk to
you." Bill put his hands in his coat pockets and looked around. "Now
listen," he said; "I'm talking for a lot of men who aren't here.
_We're_ fighting this show, and there are some millions of us. Who
are you to talk of War or Peace? By God, if you try and pack up we'll
put you to work again. If you're going to compromise with Germany, we
won't. Have you forgotten what the Germans can do? My oath, you make
me sick. What can it matter if the nations are all broken and ruined
so long as we smash Germany? _We_ don't want money and luxuries to
fight on. Give us food and munitions till we have done what we started
to do. You whining people--what do you know of it? Have you got no
guts at all? Have you read the Bryce Report? Yes, I bet you have, and
locked it away so that your women shouldn't see it. I tell you, it
doesn't matter to us, and we're about four million men, if we are all
killed so long as we kill eight million Huns. I know a sergeant who
has killed five Prussian officers, and I think he's a real man, not
like you. He took to it after he saw a five-year-old girl with her
hands cut off hanging like a sucking-pig on a meat-hook in a wrecked
French village. Doesn't that make you feel it? I tell you, if you
play the fool behind our backs we'll take charge of you. Yes, Bishop,
you'll keep up the good work in a munition factory, and you'll work
hard too. If you can't be a patriot now, you will be when you've been
caned across your lathe."
They were as still as mice, and the rumble of traffic along Piccadilly
sounded very loud. Miss Conron was as white as a sheet, and her eyes
were staring as if she were scared to death. Bill took a long breath
and went on--
"I've tried to see your point of view while I've been among you, and I
can't. I'm going to leave you and get back to my own lot. I'm giving
up something I didn't think I could give up, but I won't join you just
to get it. There are not so many of us as there are of you, but you'll
do what you're told if we take charge. Most of us have seen dead men,
and some of us have seen dead women. None of you have seen either, and
you don't understand. You want to hide things away and pretend
they're not there. They _are_ there, and they are going on wherever
the Germans are, you fools. There's a man here who has been
impertinent to me because he thinks I'm a fool. I'm a better man than
any six of his sort, and I'm going to show him how. It will do the
rest of you good to watch, because you haven't seen death yet, and a
man with a bruise or two will seem a big thing to you. Come along, my
sofa-king, you're for it."
Bill walked up to him with his hands down and the women began to
squeal. The draper-man was game. He took a step forward and swung his
right. Bill hooked him under the chin and gave him the left in the
stomach. The poor beggar backed off, taking a wicked upper-cut as he
did so. As he straightened again Bill sent a couple of full swings to
his head. He was going down, but Bill wouldn't let him. I think if he
hadn't been so clever with Miss Conron on the sofa he would have got
off fairly cheap, but a girl makes a lot of difference to any scrap.
He took about six more before he hit the deck, and then he looked
like a Belgian atrocity picture by Raemaekers. Bill came over to me
and signalled his sister to the door. She moved off. My oath, she
hadn't turned a hair--she's a sportsman. He looked across at Miss
Conron, who was still on the sofa looking at the huddled figure in the
middle of the carpet. "I'm going now, Hilda," he said; "your people
aren't my people. I'm sorry."
She never moved, but the colour had come back into her face again.
Bill shrugged back his shoulders and turned his back, and we started
for the door. Miss Dane was there, holding the handle and looking past
us at the horrified group we had left. As we got almost up to her she
smiled and came to Bill. She took him by the shoulders and turned him
round, and I turned to see what she was looking at. Miss Conron was
walking that sixty-foot plank after us, and I knew when I saw her face
that she and Bill were going to be all right. She didn't say anything,
and the four of us went out, and Bill kissed her in the hall in front
of the servants. Trouble? No--not much. You see, Bill had had a scalp
wound, and they put it all down to that. The draper-man didn't want to
publish things much, and Miss Conron's father has got a bit of a pull.
If he had no kick coming other people could shut up, and--oh yes!
Sound as a bell--he wouldn't have got married otherwise. But, by gum,
his sister was right--wasn't she?