I must confess that I was finding it rather galling to have no friends
at all at the Front. Everyone else was so well furnished with these
acquaintances, often actually relations. But I had no one I knew,
although gradually one by one my clerks joined KITCHENER'S Army and
passed to various training grounds, returning (in my opinion far too
often) to the office in their uniforms to disturb the routine and
waste the time of the others. Some drilling and instruction I am
assured go on in these camps, but I see in London every day sufficient
English soldiers to drive twice the present number of Germans out of
Belgium--if they really meant it.
My point, however, is that for far too long there was no one at the
Front, either living, dead or wounded, with whom I could claim any
intimacy, and this is the kind of thing which does not do a man any
good on his way to and back from the City.
Everyone else in my morning and evening trains has had friends at the
Front ever since we sent out our first draft, and to me their talk
about them has been extremely galling. Some of them have even had
letters from them, and these are either read or paraphrased and have
enormously sent up the stock of the recipients. In fact several men
whom I know to be very shaky in business, and others who have been
rather blown upon on account of their general bounderish demeanour,
have established themselves in improved social positions wholly
through letters from the Front.
There are people, of course, who, not having a soldier friend, would
invent one; but that is not my way. I would not do that. For one
thing, I should have great difficulty in keeping it up. It would mean
studying the map, reading all the reports and knowing more about the
army than I have time to learn.
Imagine then my delight and excitement when I opened the evening paper
a day or so ago, and found that the hero of the dashing and perilous
feat of which everyone was talking, and which resulted in the capture
of many Germans and machine guns, was no other than the son of my old
friend Wargrave. I had not seen Wargrave for some years, but we met
often once, and on my last visit to him his son had been home from
school, and I now remembered how fine a lad I had thought him. He had
a fearless eye and a high spirit; he was, in fact, the very stuff of
which bold warriors are made. There was no doubt about his identity
either, for a personal paragraph in the paper stated who his father
was.
I was so pleased about it all that I sat down at once and wrote a
congratulatory note to Wargrave senior; and on my way to the station I
thought of other things in connection with his brave son which I might
never have called to mind but for this deed of prowess: what a good
appetite he had had; how he had climbed a tree for cherries; how he
had torn his clothes; and how tedious I had found his addiction to
what was called a water-pistol. "Good old Clifford!"--that was his
name. Lieut. Clifford Wargrave, I said to myself, and my heart beat
the faster for having known him.
That evening the only man that I knew in my carriage coming home was
Barrington, and naturally I said something to him about the gallant
son of my old friend. Barrington is not a man that I ever liked, and
my young people say contemptuous things of his family as a whole. One
of the daughters, however, is rather pretty, but I should not care to
confess this at my own table. It is as dangerous to tell some girls
about the prettiness of others as to tell some people that they look
well. Anyway, since Barrington was there, I mentioned to him that it
was gratifying to me to think that my old friend's son had become such
a public hero, and I recollected as I was talking, and mentioned too,
certain further incidents in the young fellow's boyhood. We once
bathed together in Cornwall, I remembered, and I am not sure that it
was not I who taught him to swim. At another time we had been on a
picnic and I had made him and his sister laugh a good deal by my
jokes--poor simple things, no doubt, but tickling to him. "And no
doubt he is the same simple fellow now," I said, "always ready to
laugh and be merry." I told Barrington also about the cherries and the
torn clothes, and what a good appetite he had; and about the
water-pistol.
"Odd to think that that boy should grow into a hero," I said. "How
little we can read the future!"
"Yes, indeed," said Barrington.
I don't know why, but talking about this young friend of long ago, now
so illustrious, to Barrington, made me quite to like the man, and I
even went out of my way to accompany him to his gate.
I am wiser now. I now know that it is a mistake ever to change one's
opinion of a man. And the extraordinary pettiness of human nature! the
paltry little varieties of it! the straws it will clutch at to support
its self-esteem!
The next morning, owing to some delay over breakfast, I was a little
late at the station and failed to get my usual seat among my usual
set. I managed just to scramble into a carriage and subsided into the
far corner with my paper well before my face because I did not want to
be sociable in that company. One has to be careful. Just as the train
started, in dashed Barrington and took the only seat left--in fact
there was not really room for him. He did not see me.
The train had not left the station before one of the men remarked upon
the heroism of young Wargrave; when to my astonishment and annoyance
Barrington at once took him up.
"Ah! yes," he said. "Such a fine young fellow; I always knew he would
do something like that."
"Then you know him?" he was asked.
"Well, I don't say that I exactly know him," he said, "but I used to
hear a lot about him from one of the most intimate friends of the
family."
And one by one he told all my little anecdotes--trivial enough when in
the mouth of a stranger, but, coming from one who knew, interesting
and important. Will you believe it, Wargrave lasted Barrington and his
idiotic listeners all the way to London--my Wargrave, mind, not his at
all! And the way they listened! I personally sat hidden, and fumed but
said nothing. How could I suddenly claim Wargrave as my own without
being ridiculous? Nor would they have believed me. Besides, to put
myself in competition with Barrington....
I managed to elude Barrington's eye at the terminus, and sought my
office in a state of fury and contempt. At lunch I was again baulked,
for none of my regular companions were there. It was beginning to be
ridiculous. I might as well have not known the Wargraves at all.
That evening I was very carefully early for my train, determined that
I would score then. My own set should now know first-hand what my
association with the young hero was. After all, what did those others
matter? But here again I had been forestalled.
"I met that man Barrington at lunch," said one of my neighbours, "and
he was most interesting about this young Wargrave. Knew lots of things
about his boyhood. Often stayed there. A ripping boy it seems he was.
Really, Barrington's not such a bad chap when you get to know him. I
think we must have him in our carriage now and then. He was most
modest about it."
"Did Barrington say that Lieut. Wargrave was a friend of his?" I asked.
"Oh, yes. No doubt about it; Barrington taught him to swim."
* * * * *
[Illustration: A GOOD STAYER.
_Sergeant._ "GAWN TAE BE RELEEVIT, ARE WE? WEEL, WE'RE NO GAWN. WE'VE
BEEN HERE THE BEST PAIRT O' A WEEK NOO, AND WE'RE UP TAE A' THE
DIR-RTY TRICKS O' THAE GERMAN BEGGARS, AND IF THEY PIT NEW YINS IN
HERE THEY'LL JUST MAK A RARE MESS O' IT!"]
* * * * *