"You're making a toil of a pleasure, Percy."
And he said:
"No, I'm not. Whenever I go to sleep, I dream of my Tommy in the
trenches; and the parcels are being given out by Lord French, and my
Tommy stretches up his hand eagerly and hopefully; but there's no parcel
for him. And he shrugs his shoulders and just bears it, and goes back
to his gun; but it's simply hell for me."
"What's he like?" I asked, to get Percy minimus off the sad side of it.
"Huge and filthy," said Percy minimus. "He has a brown face and a big,
black moustache and one of the new steel hats; and he's plastered with
mud, and his eyes roll with craving for cigarettes and chocolates."
"You needn't worry," I said. "He'll get his parcel all right. Of
course, they won't miss him."
"What a fool you are, Cornwallis!" he answered, still sniffing. "Can't
you see that, if I don't send a parcel, there will be one parcel less;
and so one man will go without who would otherwise have had a parcel;
and that man will be this one I see in my dreadful dreams."
"If you put it like that," I said--"of course."
Then he had another beastly thought.
"I've got an idea the man is Peacock's son," he said. "And I feel a
regular traitor to Peacock now every time I look at him."
"Then why don't you ask him for some money?" I naturally answered.
"I feel he hasn't got any," replied Percy. "But I can try."
"Besides," I said, "his son may be an officer, and, of course, they
would be far above parcels."
"I hope he is," said Percy; "but I don't think he is. And nobody would
be above a parcel at a time like that."
Anyway he asked Peacock, and Peacock gave him sixpence, and wished he
could do better. This made two and twopence; and the same day Percy
found a threepenny piece in the playground; and though, at another time,
he would have mentioned this, with a view of returning it to the proper
owner, now he didn't, but said it was a Providence, and added it to the
rest.
And this gave him another hopeful idea, and he mentioned the parcel for
his Tommy in his prayers, morning and evening, and asked me to do so
too. I was fed up with the whole thing by now, because Percy was getting
fairly tormented by it, and even said he saw the Tommy looking at him in
broad daylight sometimes--over the playground wall, or through the
window in the middle of a class. Still I obliged him, and prayed four
times for him to get his two and sevenpence; but there was no reply
whatever; and in this way two days were wasted.
Then he had a desperate but brilliant idea, and told me. He said:
"After school on Friday, in the half-hour before tea, I'm going to break
bounds and go down into Merivale and stand by the pavement and sing the
solo from the anthem we did last Sunday! Many people who sing along by
the pavement make money by doing so, and I might."
"If you're caught, Dunston will flog you," I reminded him.
But he was far past a thing like that. His eyes had glittered in rather
a wild way for three days now, and he said the Tommy with the black
moustache was always looking reproachfully at him, and if he shut his
eyes he saw him more distinctly than ever. In fact, he was getting
larger and more threatening every minute. He said:
"A mere flogging is nothing to what they endure in the trenches."
It was a sporting idea, and I would have risked it and gone with him; in
fact, I offered, being his great chum, but he would not allow me.
"No," he said, "nothing is gained by your coming. This is entirely my
affair. Besides, you wouldn't tempt people to subscribe."
So he went, and escaped in the darkness, and I waited at the limit of
"bounds" with great anxiety to meet him when he came back. My last word
to him was not to sing his bit out of an anthem, but something comic
about the War. But he didn't know anything comic about the War, and he
said, even if he did, that such a thing would only amuse common people,
who could not be supposed to give more than halfpence, if they gave
anything at all; whereas a solo from a fine anthem would attract a
better class, who understood more about music, and were more religious,
and consequently had more money.
So he went, and in about twenty minutes, to my great horror, I saw him
being brought back in the custody of Brown--our well known master!
The hateful Brown always loves to score off anybody not in his own
class, and so, seeing Percy warbling out of bounds in the middle of
Merivale, and about ten people, mostly kids, listening to him, he
pounced on the wretched Percy and dragged him away. He'd been singing
about ten minutes when the blow fell, and he was fearfully upset about
it, because everything had been going jolly well, and he had already
made no less than sevenpence in coppers, all from oldish women. He had
been told to go away from in front of a butcher's shop, but nobody else
had interfered with him in the least, and he had sung the anthem solo
through twice, and was just off again when the brutal Brown came along
and saw the Merivale colours on his cap, recognized Percy minimus, and
very nearly had a fit.
So there it was; and he got flogged, and Dr. Dunston said it showed low
tastes, and would have been a source of great sorrow to his father. And
he also said that to explode a sacred air in that way in hope of
touching the charitable to fill his own pocket was about the limit, and
a great disgrace to the school in general. All of which went off Percy
like water off a duck's back, and the flogging didn't seem to hurt him
either.
And there were four days still, and he said his Tommy grew larger and
larger, until he was almost as big as a house. In fact, Percy minimus
was rapidly growing dotty, and, as his great friend, I felt I must do
something, or he would very likely get some other dangerous illness, or
have a fit, or lose his mind for ever and become a maniac in real
earnest. So I told Percy minor; but unfortunately he and my Percy had
quarrelled rather bitterly for the moment, and Percy minor said he
didn't care what happened to Percy minimus; and that if he went out of
his mind he wouldn't have far to go; while, as to Percy major, I
couldn't tell him, because he had left Merivale the term before.
The matron now discovered that Percy was queer, for she'd been making
him take pills for two days, and then one night, hearing him sigh
fearfully after he was in bed, she tried his temperature, and found it
about three hundred degrees of warmth. So she lugged him off to the
sick room, and Dr. Weston came in his motor, and said he couldn't see
any reason for it, and gave Percy some muck to calm him down.
Next day he was kept in the sick room, though cooler, and when Dr.
Weston came on that day and questioned Percy in a kind tone of voice, he
explained the whole thing to the doctor, and said that he was in fearful
difficulties of mind. And Dr. Weston asked him what difficulties, and
he said for two shillings, which, added to three, make five.
Then the doctor told him to go on, so he did, and showed the doctor the
advertisement from the paper about the simultaneous parcels. He also
said that his Tommy had now grown as big as a cloud in the sky, and was
always looking at him by night and day hungrily, and urging him on to
fresh efforts. And he also said that if he was only allowed to go into
the streets and sing an anthem for an hour or two, the two shillings
would be accomplished, and all would be well. And encouraged by the
great interest of Dr. Weston, Percy minimus ventured to ask him if he
thought he could ask Dr. Dunston to allow this to be done, seeing it
meant great comfort and joy for a Tommy in the trenches on Christmas
Day.
It made Percy much cooler and calmer explaining why his temperature had
run up, and the doctor said it was undoubtedly not good for Percy to
have the Tommy so much on his mind. He didn't approve of the idea of
Percy singing either; but he put his hand into his waistcoat pocket and
produced a two-shilling piece, as if it was nothing, and he said that if
the matron or somebody, would get a postal order for five shillings and
send it off at once, he had every reason to think that Percy would soon
recover.
Which was done, and I was allowed to see Percy, and bring from his desk
the cutting out of the newspaper, which he had already signed with his
name and address, which were to go to the Front with his parcel. And
Percy said that a great weight had now been lifted from his brain, which
no doubt it had.
Anyhow, when Dr. Weston came next day he found Percy in a bath of
perspiration, and was much pleased, and said he was practically cured.
And Percy told him that his Tommy had now shrunk to about the size of an
ordinary Tommy, and only came when he was asleep, and was not in the
least reproachful, but quite pleasant and nice. And one day later the
Tommy disappeared altogether, and Percy minimus became perfectly well.
In fact, before the holidays arrived he seemed to have forgotten all
about his Tommy, and I took jolly good care not to remind him.
He got fearfully keen about Dr. Weston then, and said that he was the
best man he had ever seen or heard of; and he even hoped that next term
he might run up to three hundred degrees again--just for the great
pleasure of seeing and talking to this doctor once more.
But that wasn't all by any means--in fact, you might say that far the
most remarkable part of the adventure of Percy minimus had yet to come.
He went home for the holidays, and when he came back, much to my
astonishment, he was full of his blessed Tommy again. He actually said
that he'd got a photograph of him!
I thought that coming back to school had made him queer once more, but
he wasn't in the least queer, for I saw the photograph with my own eyes.
It was like this: the Tommy who had got the Christmas parcel which
Percy's five shillings bought, found Percy's address in it, according to
the splendid arrangement of the newspaper, and, though far too busy in
the trenches to take any notice of it just then, he was not too busy to
smoke the new pipe and the cigarettes and eat the various sweets--no
doubt between intervals of fiery slaughter. But he kept Percy's address
in his pocket, for he was a good and grateful man; and then, most
unfortunately, he was hit in the foot by a piece of shrapnel shell, and
though far from killed, yet so much wounded that he had to retire from
the Front. In fact, he was sent home to recover, and one day in
hospital, about a week before the end of the holidays, he had found
Percy minimus's name and address in the pocket of his coat, and had
written Percy a most interesting letter of four pages, saying that the
parcel had been a great comfort to him, and that he had sucked the last
peppermint drop only an hour before being shrapnelled. And, having been
photographed several times in the hospital by visitors, he sent Percy
minimus one. And there he was!
I said it was a jolly interesting thing, and so on; but I couldn't for
the moment see why Percy was so frightfully excited about it, because it
was quite a possible thing to happen, though, of course, very good in
its way, and a letter he would always keep.
And he said:
"You don't seem to see the point, Cornwallis. It's a miracle."
And I said:
"Why?"
And he said:
"Because this is the very identical Tommy I was always seeing in my
dreams--the very identical one!"
I hadn't thought of that, but somehow taken it for granted. Then he
pointed out it wasn't in the least a thing to take for granted, but the
purest miracle that ever happened in the memory of man, and quite beyond
human power to explain it in the world.
I said there might be people in the world who could, but he wouldn't
hear of such a thing. He said:
"No--not in this world; but no doubt there are in the next."
And I said:
"Then you'll have to wait."
And he said:
"It's done one thing; it's quite decided me about my future. I'm going
to be a clergyman."
And I said:
"Not if your voice doesn't crack, surely?"
"My voice!" answered Percy minimus with great scorn. "What is a voice
compared to a miracle? If miracles happen to you, then, if you've got
any proper feeling, you ought to insist on being a clergyman."
So I suppose he will be. But whatever else he is--even if he rises to
be a Canon or a Bishop--he'll always be a maniac, the same as his
brothers.