Bit by bit I heard the whole miserable story--or rather that naked
kernel of it which passed publicly for the whole story. I had to make my
own footnotes, my own queries.
The first night Harry was with the battalion Philpott had sent him up
with a carrying-party to the Front Line, or thereabouts, fifty men and
some engineering stuff of sorts, wiring trestles, barbed wire, or
something. It was shell-hole country, no communication trenches or
anything, and since there had been an attack recently, the Boche
artillery was very active on the roads and back areas. Also there was
the usual rotten valley to cross, with the hell of a barrage in it. So
much these young braves conceded. Harry had started off with his party,
had called at the Brigade Dump, and picked up the stuff. Later on some
one rang up Brigade from the line and said no party had arrived. Brigade
rang up Philpott, and he sent up the Assistant Adjutant to investigate.
Somewhere in the Arras Road he had come upon Harry, with most of the
party, _running down the road--towards the Dump--away from the line_.
The stores were urgently needed at the front; they never got there. That
was all. The court-martial was to-morrow.
* * * * *
Well, it was a black story, but I made one or two footnotes at once.
_The very first night he was back._ The awful luck--the cruelty of it!
Just back, in the condition of nerves I knew him to be in, with that
first miserable feeling upon him, wondering probably why the hell he had
driven himself out there, and praying to be let down easy for one night
at least--and then to be sent straight up on a job like that, the job
that had broken him before.
And by Philpott! I seemed to see Philpott arranging that, with a kind of
savage glee: 'Oh, here's Master Penrose again--well, he'd better take
that party to-night--instead of Mr. Gibson....'
And who was the Assistant Adjutant? God knows, if every working-party
that went wrong meant a court-martial, there would be no officers left
in the army; and if some busy-body had been at work....
'Who's the Assistant Adjutant?' I asked.
'Fellow who was attached to Division--used to be in this battalion in
your time, I believe--what's-his-name?--Burnett--Burnett--he rang up the
Colonel and told him about it.'
_Burnett!_ I groaned. The gods were against Harry indeed. Burnett had
been away from the battalion for eighteen months, drifting about from
odd job to odd job--Town Major here, Dump Officer there, never in the
line.... Why the devil had he come back now to put his foot in it--and,
perhaps----But I could not believe that.
Stephenson's two young officers--Wallace and Brown--made no footnote,
naturally. They had come out by the same draft as Harry, one from
Sandhurst, the other from a cadet school; they were fresh, as Harry had
been, and they had no mercy. And while I resented their tone, I tried to
remember that they knew not Harry, and said nothing.
But when young Wallace summed up the subject with 'Well, all I can say
is he's a cold-footed swine, and deserves all he gets,' I exploded. 'You
---- young pup,' I said, 'just out, and hardly seen a shot fired--you
dare to say anything about Penrose. I tell you you're not fit to lick
his boots. Do you know that he joined up in the ranks in August '14, and
went through Gallipoli, and had done two years' active service before
you even had a uniform? Do you know he's just refused a job at home in
order to come out here, and another job at the Base? Does that look like
cold feet? You wait till you've been out a year, my son, before you talk
about cold feet. You----' But I couldn't control myself any further. I
went out, cursing.