WHEN THE BOYS COME HOME
“Oh! the spring is here again, and all the ways are fair.
The wattle-blossom’s out again, and do you know it there?”
MARGERY RUTH BETTS.
‟THEY’RE doing quite well,” the doctor said, patting Norah benevolently
on the shoulder. He was a plump little man, always busy, always in a
hurry; but David Linton and his daughter had been regular visitors to
the hospital for some time, and he had a regard for them. (“Sensible
people,” he was wont to say, approvingly: “they don’t talk too much to
patients, and they don’t fuss!”) Now he knew that war had hit them
personally, and he gave them two of his few spare minutes. “They’re
tired, of course; and you must expect to see them looking queer. Gas
isn’t a beautifier. But they’ll be all right. Don’t stay too long. Don’t
talk war, if you can keep them off it. And above all, don’t speak about
gas.” He smiled at them both. “Buck them up, Miss Norah—buck them up!”
Some one called him hurriedly, and he fled. The khaki ambulances had
delivered a heavy load at the hospital that day.
In a little room off a quiet corridor, the scent of golden wattle flung
a breath of Australia to greet them, as it had greeted the tired boys
when the orderlies had carried them in hours before. Jim and Wally
smiled at them from their pillows. No one seemed able to say anything.
Afterwards, Norah had a dim idea that she had kissed Wally as well as
Jim. It did not appear to matter greatly.
They were white-faced boys, with black shadows under their eyes; but the
old merriment was there. A great wave of relief swept over Norah and her
father. They had feared they knew not what from this evil choking enemy:
it was sudden happiness to see that their boys were not so unlike their
old selves.
“We had visions of being up to meet you,” said Jim, keeping a hand on
Norah’s, as she perched on his bed. “But the doctor thought otherwise.
Doctors are awful tyrants.”
“You had a good crossing?” David Linton found words hard—they stuck in
his throat as he looked at his son.
“Oh yes. We didn’t know much about it. The hospital train runs you
almost on to the ship, and the orderlies have you in a swinging cot
before you know where you are. Same at the other side: those fellows do
know their job,” Jim said, admiringly. “Of course, you get a little
tired of being handled, towards the finish, and this room—and
bed—seemed awfully good.”
“And the wattle was ripping,” said Wally. “However did you manage to get
it?”
“It comes from the South of France,” Norah answered. “There’s quite a
lot of it in London; only they stare at you if you ask for ‘wattle’, and
you have to learn to say ‘mimosa.’ One gets broken into anything. I’ve
learned to say ‘field’ quite naturally when I’m talking of a paddock.”
“I wish Murty could hear you,” said Wally solemnly. Murty O’Toole was
head stockman on Billabong, the home in Australia. He was a very great
friend.
“Can’t you picture his face!” Norah uttered. “It would be interesting to
watch Murty’s expression if dad told him to bring in the cattle from the
field when he wanted the bullocks mustered in the home-paddock!”
“He’d give me notice,” said Mr. Linton, firmly. “Neither long service
nor affection would keep him!”
“Well, Murty was born in Ireland, though he did come out to Australia
when he was a small boy,” Norah said. “So he ought not to feel
astonished. But the person I do want to import to England is black
Billy. It’s part of Billy’s principles not to show amazement at
anything, but I don’t think they’d be proof against a block of traffic
in Piccadilly!”
“He’d only say, ‘Plenty!’” said Jim, laughing—“that is, if he had any
speech left. Poor old Billy, he hates everything but horses, and any
motor is a ‘devil-wagon’ to him. A fleet of big red and yellow ’buses
would give him nervous prostration.”
“There’s one thing that would scare him more,” Mr. Linton said. “Do you
remember the day last winter when we took Norah to Hampton Court, and
you chucked a stone at the Round Pond?” He laughed, and every one
followed his example.
“And the stone ran along tinkling over the top of the water,” said
Norah, recovering. “I never was so taken aback in my life. And all the
small children and their nursemaids laughed at me. How was I to know
water turned to ice like that? The only frozen thing I had ever seen was
ice-cream in Melbourne!”
“Billy never saw ice in his life,” said her father. “He would have
thought it very bad magic.”
“He’d have taken to his heels and made for the bush,” said Wally,
grinning. “Probably he’d have made himself a boomerang and turned into
an up-to-date black Robin Hood, living on those tame old Bushy Park
deer.”
“With his headquarters in the Hampton Court Maze!” added Jim. “Wouldn’t
it have been an enormous attraction—the halfpenny papers would have
called it ‘Wild Life in Quiet Places,’ and London would have run special
motor-bus trips to see our Billy!”
His laugh ended in a fit of coughing, which left him trembling. Norah
patted him anxiously, watching him with troubled eyes.
“Don’t you talk too much, or we’ll get sent away,” she warned him.
“We’ll do the talking—dad and I. We’ve heaps to tell you: and such
jolly plans.”
“You have to make haste and get better,” said Mr. Linton, looking from
one white face to the other. “Then we’re going to take possession of
you.”
“Kitchener will do that, I guess,” said Wally.
“No, Kitchener won—not until you’re quite fit. You’ll be handed over to
us, and it will be our job to get you thoroughly well. And Norah and I
have agreed that it can’t be done in London.”
“So we’re all going to Ireland,” said Norah, happily.
“Ireland!” Jim uttered.
“Yes. You’re sure to get leave, so that you can be thoroughly repaired.
We’re going to find some jolly place in Donegal, where it’s quiet and
peaceful, and we’re all going to buy rods and find out how to catch
trout. Brown trout,” said Norah, learnedly. “We know all about it,
because we bought ever so many guide-books and studied them all last
night.”
“I say!” ejaculated both patients as one man.
“It sounds rather like Heaven,” said Jim, drawing a long breath. “Do you
really think it can be managed, dad?”
“I don’t see why not,” said his father.
“We must get back to our job as soon as we can.”
“Certainly you must. But there’s no sense in your going back until you
are perfectly fit. They wouldn’t want you. And though you were not as
badly gassed as many—thank goodness!—and your recovery won’t be such a
trying matter as if you had had a bigger dose, every one agrees that gas
takes its time.”
“I shouldn’t wonder,” Jim said, grimly.
“That being so, London does not strike me as a good place for
convalescents,” said Mr. Linton. “Pure air is what you’ll need; and that
is not the fine, solid, grey variety of atmosphere you get here. And
Zeppelins will be happening along freely, once they feel at home on the
track to England. I don’t believe they will limit their raids to London.
The big manufacturing towns will come in for a share of their attention
sooner or later; and they won’t spare the country places over which they
fly.”
“Not they!” said Wally.
“So, all things considered, I think you would be better in Ireland. I
believe it’s peaceful there, if you don’t talk politics. We don’t want
any adventures.”
“We’ve had quite enough since we left Billabong,” said Norah.
“Hear, hear!” said Wally. “I guess the calm peace of a bog in Ireland is
just about our form until we’re ready to go back and take our turn at
strafing.”
“Then that’s settled—if the doctors will back me up,” Mr. Linton said.
“Just as soon as they will let you we’ll pack up the fewest possible
clothes and set out for a sleepy holiday in Ireland: trout-fishing, old
ruins, bogs, heather, and no adventures at all.”
Later on, they were to recall this peaceful forecast with amazement. At
present it seemed a dream of everything the heart could desire; they
fell into a happy discussion of ways and means, of the best places to
buy fishing-tackle, of the clothes demanded by bogs and heathery
mountains; until a nurse arrived with tea, and a warning word that the
patients had talked nearly enough. At which the patients waxed
indignant, declaring that their visitors had only been with them about
ten minutes.
“Ten minutes!” said the nurse, round-eyed. “Over an hour—and doctor’s
orders were——”
“Never you mind the doctor’s orders,” Jim said solemnly. “Doctors don’t
know everything. Why, in Boulogne——” He broke off, assuming an air of
meek unconsciousness of debate as the doctor himself appeared suddenly.
“I beg your pardon,” said the doctor, transfixing patients with an eagle
glance, while the nurse made an unobtrusive escape. “You were saying
something about doctors, I think?”
“Nothing, I assure you, sir,” said Jim, grinning widely.
“Doctors—and Boulogne,” repeated the new-comer, firmly. “Don’t let me
interrupt you.”
“No, sir. Certainly not,” said Jim. “The doctors in Boulogne are very
hard-worked.”
“H’m!” said his medical attendant, receiving this piece of information
with the suspicion it merited. “Quite so. We’re all hard-worked, these
times, chiefly with looking after bad boys who ought to be back at
school, getting swished. It’s an awful fate for a respectable M.D.” He
gazed severely at the cheerful faces on the pillows. “You ought to be
asleep; and of course you are not. Is this a hospital ward, or an
Australian picnic?”
“Both,” said Wally, laughing. “Don’t be rough on us, doctor; it isn’t
every day we kill a pig!”
The doctor stared.
“You put things pleasantly!” he said. “It seems to me that the pigs were
trying to kill you: but you’re all extraordinarily cheerful about it.
Now, where’s Miss Norah gone? I never saw such a girl—she moves like
quicksilver!”
Norah returned, bearing a spare cup.
“Do have some tea, doctor,” she begged.
“I haven’t time, but I will,” said the doctor, abandoning professional
cares, and sitting down. “One’s life is all topsy-turvy nowadays. A year
ago I would not have dreamed of having tea in a patient’s bedroom—let
alone two patients—but then, a year ago I was practising in Harley
Street, developing a sweet, bedside manner and the figure of an
alderman. Today I’m a semi-military hack, with no manner at all, and my
patients chaff me—actually chaff me, Miss Norah! It’s very distressing
to one’s inherited notions.”
“It must be,” said Norah, deeply sympathetic. “The cake is quite good,
doctor.”
“It is,” agreed the doctor, accepting some. “Occasionally I find a
pompous old colonel or brigadier among my patients, and we exchange
soothing confidences about the terrible future of the medical profession
and the Army. That helps; but then I come back to the long procession of
the foolish subalterns who go out to Flanders without ever having
learned to dodge!” His eye twinkled as he glared at Jim and Wally.
Norah, whose visits to wounded soldiers during many weeks had taught her
something beyond his reputation as the most skilful and most merciful of
surgeons, listened unmoved and offered him more tea.
“It’s no good trying to impress you!” said the doctor, surrendering his
cup. “Thank you, I will have some more—in pure kindness of heart
towards you, Miss Norah, since, when I leave this room, all visitors go
with me!”
“Oh!” said Norah. “I’ll get some fresh tea, doctor!”
“You will not,” said the doctor, severely. “The picnic is nearly at an
end: you can have another to-morrow, if you’re good.”
“When can we remove the patients, doctor?” asked Mr. Linton, who had
been sitting in amused silence. A great contentment had settled on his
face: already the lines of anxiety were smoothed away. He did not want
to talk; it was sufficient to sit and watch Jim, occasionally meeting
his eyes with a half-smile.
“Remove the patients—Good gracious!” ejaculated the doctor. “Why
they’ve only just been removed once! Can’t you let them settle down a
little?”
“We want to take them to Ireland,” said Norah, eagerly. “Can we,
doctor?”
“H’m,” said the doctor, reflectively. “There might be worse plans. We’ll
see. Ireland: that’s the place where the motto is, ‘When you see a head,
hit it!’ isn’t it?”
“I don’t think it’s universal,” said Mr. Linton mildly. “It’s really
much more peaceful than English legends would lead you to believe.”
“Between you and me, what the average Englishmen knows of Ireland might,
I believe, he put into one’s eye without inconvenience,” affirmed the
doctor. “I’m a Scot, and I don’t mind admitting I don’t know anything.
But no Englishman tells an Irish story without making his speakers say
‘Bedad!’ and ‘Begorra!’ in turn: and I’ve known a heap of Irishmen, and
their conversation was singularly free from those remarks. I have an
inward conviction that the English-made Irishman doesn’t exist; only I
never have time to verify any of my inward convictions. And perhaps
that’s as well, because then they never lose weight! Have I drunk all
the tea, Miss Norah?”
“I’m afraid so,” said Norah, tilting the teapot regretfully and without
success. “Do let me get you some more. I know quite well where they make
it.”
“Go to!” said the doctor, rising. “Don’t tempt an honest man from the
path of duty. I’m off—and I give you three minutes. Then the patients
are to compose themselves to slumber.”
“And Ireland, doctor?”
“Ireland?” said the doctor, pausing in the doorway. “Oh, there’s lots of
time to think about that distressful country.” He relented a little,
looking at the eager faces. “Very possibly. We’ll re-open the discussion
this day week. Three minutes, mind. Good-bye.” His quick steps died away
along the corridor.
Half an hour later Wally wriggled on his pillow.
“Asleep, Jim?”
“No—not quite.”
“D’you know something? Your people were here quite a while. And they
never said one word about gas or war or any silly rot like that!”
“No,” said Jim, drowsily. “Bricks, weren’t they? Go to sleep.”