THE CREED OF A FIGHTER
It was growing very hot in the plains. A faint breeze born at sunset
had died away long ago, leaving a wonderful, breathless stillness
behind. The man who sat at work on his verandah with his shirt-sleeves
turned up above his elbows sighed heavily from time to time as if
he felt some oppression in the atmosphere. He was quite a young man,
fair-skinned and clean-shaven, with an almost pathetically boyish look
about him, a wistful expression as of one whose youth still endured
though the zest thereof was denied to him. His eyes were weary and
bloodshot, but he worked on steadily, indefatigably, never raising
them from the paper under his hand.
Even when a step sounded in the room behind him, he scarcely looked
up. "One moment, old chap!" He was still working rapidly as he spoke.
"I've a toughish bit to get through. I'll talk to you in a minute."
There was no immediate reply. A man's figure, dressed in white linen,
with one arm quite invisible under the coat, stood halting for a
moment in the doorway, then moved out and slowly approached the table
at which the other sat.
The lamplight, gleaming upwards, revealed a yellow face of many
wrinkles, and curious, glancing eyes that shone like fireflies in the
gloom.
He stopped beside the man who worked. "All right," he said. "Finish
what you are doing."
In the silence that followed he seemed to watch the hand that moved
over the paper with an absorbing interest. The instant it rested he
spoke.
"Done?"
The man in the chair stretched out his arms with a long gesture of
weariness; then abruptly leapt to his feet.
"What am I thinking of, keeping you standing here? Sit down, Nick!
Yes, I've done for the present. What a restless beggar you are! Why
couldn't you lie still for a spell?"
Nick grimaced. "It's an accomplishment I have never been able to
acquire. Besides, there's no occasion for it now. If I were going to
die, it would be a different thing, and even then I think I'd
rather die standing. How are you getting on, my son? What mean these
hieroglyphics?"
He dropped into the empty chair and pored over the paper.
"Oh, you wouldn't understand if I told you," the other answered.
"You're not an engineer."
"Not even a greaser of wheels." admitted Nick modestly. "But you
needn't throw it in my teeth. I suppose you are going to make your
fortune soon and retire--you and Daisy and the imp--to a respectable
suburb. You're a very lucky chap, Will."
"Think so?" said Will.
He was bending a little over his work. His tone sounded either absent
or dubious.
Nick glanced at him, and suddenly swept his free right hand across the
table. "Put it away!" he said. "You're overdoing it. Get the wretched
stuff out of your head for a bit, and let's have a smoke before
dinner. I'll bring her out to you next winter. See if I don't!"
Will turned towards him impulsively. "Oh, man, if you only could!"
"Only could!" echoed Nick. "I tell you I will. Ten quid on it if you
like. Is it done?"
But Will shook his head with a queer, unsteady smile. "No, it
isn't. But come along and smoke, or you will be having that infernal
neuralgia again. It was confoundedly good of you to look me up like
this when you weren't fit for it."
Nick laughed aloud. "Man alive! You don't suppose I did it for your
sake, do you? Don't you know I wanted to break the journey to the
coast?"
"Odd place to choose!" commented Will.
Nick arose in his own peculiarly abrupt fashion, and thrust his hand
through his friend's arm.
"Perhaps I thought a couple of days of your society would cheer me
up," he observed lightly. "I daresay that seems odd too."
Will laughed in spite of himself. "Well, you've seen me with my
nose to the grindstone anyhow. You can tell Daisy I'm working like a
troop-horse for her and the boy! Jove! What a knowing little beggar
that youngster used to be! He isn't very strong though, Daisy writes."
"How often do you hear?" asked Nick.
"Oh, the last letter came three weeks ago. They were all well then,
but she didn't stop to say much because Grange was there. He is
staying with them, you know."
"You haven't heard since then?" There was just a hint of indignation
in Nick's query.
Will shook his head. "No. She's a bad correspondent, always was. I
write by every mail, and of course, if there were anything I ought
to know, she would write too. But they are leading a fairly humdrum
existence just now. She can't have much to tell me."
Nick changed the subject. "How long has Grange been there?"
"I don't know. Some time, I think. But I really don't know. They are
very old pals, you know, he and Daisy. There was a bit of a romance
between them, I believe, years ago, when she was in her teens. Their
people wouldn't hear of it because they were first cousins, so it
fizzled out. But they are still great friends. A good sort of fellow,
I always thought."
"Too soft for me," said Nick. "He's like a well-built ship adrift
without a rudder. He's all manners and no grit--the sort of chap who
wants to be pushed before he can do anything. I often ached to kick
him when we were boxed up at Wara."
Will smiled. "The only drawback to indulging in that kind of game
is that you may get kicked back, and a kick from a giant like Grange
would be no joke."
Nick looked supremely contemptuous. "Fellows like Grange don't kick.
They don't know how. That's why I had to leave him alone."
He turned into Will's sitting-room and stretched himself out upon an
ancient _charpoy_ furnished with many ancient cushions that stood by
the window.
Will gave him a cigarette, and lighted it. "I wonder how many nights I
have spent on that old shake-down," he remarked, as he did it.
Nick glanced upwards. "Last year?"
Will nodded. "It was like hell," he said, with terrible simplicity. "I
came straight back here, you know, after Daisy left Simla. I suppose
the contrast made it worse. Then, too, the sub was ill, and it meant
double work. Well," with another sigh, "we pulled through somehow,
and I suppose we shall again. But, Nick, Daisy couldn't possibly stand
this place more than four months out of the twelve. And as for the
kiddie--"
Nick removed his cigarette to yawn.
"You won't be here all your life, my son," he said. "You're a rising
man, remember. There's no sense in grizzling, anyhow, and you're
getting round-shouldered. Why don't you do some gymnastics? You've
got a swimming bath. Go and do a quarter of a mile breast-stroke every
day. Jupiter! What wouldn't I give to"--He broke off abruptly. "Well,
I'm not going to cry for the moon either. There's the _khit_ on the
verandah. What does he want?"
Will went out to see. Nick, idly watching, saw the native hand him
something on a salver which Will took to the lamp by which he had been
working. Dead silence ensued. From far away there came the haunting
cry of a jackal, but near at hand there was no sound. A great
stillness hung upon all things.
To Nick, lying at full length upon the cushions, there presently came
the faint sound of paper crackling, and a moment later his friend's
voice, pitched very low, spoke to the waiting servant. He heard the
man softly retire, and again an intense stillness reigned.
He could not see Will from where he lay, and he smoked on placidly for
nearly five minutes in the belief that he was either answering
some communication or looking over his work. Then at last, growing
impatient of the prolonged silence, he lifted his voice without
moving.
"What in the world are you doing, you unsociable beggar? Can't you
tear yourself away from that beastly work for one night even? Come in
here and entertain me. You won't have the chance to-morrow."
There was no reply. Only from far away there came again the weird yell
of a jackal. For a few seconds more Nick lay frowning. Then swiftly
and quietly he arose, and stepped to the window.
There he stopped dead as if in sudden irresolution; for Will was sunk
upon his knees by the table with his head upon his work and his arms
flung out with clenched hands in an attitude of the most utter, the
most anguished despair. He made no sound of any sort; only, as Nick
watched, his bowed shoulders heaved once convulsively.
It was only for a moment that Nick stood hesitating. The next, obeying
an impulse that he never stopped to question, he moved straight
forward to Will's side; and then saw--what he had not at first seen--a
piece of paper crumpled and gripped in one of his hands.
He bent over him and spoke rapidly, but without agitation. "Hullo, old
boy! What is it! Bad news, eh?"
Will started and groaned, then sharply turned his face upwards. It was
haggard and drawn and ghastly, but even then its boyishness remained.
He spoke at once, replying to Nick in short, staccato tones. "I've
had a message--just come through. It's the kiddie--our little chap--he
died--last night."
Nick heard the news in silence. After a moment he stooped forward and
took the paper out of Will's hand, thrusting it away without a glance
into his own pocket. Then he took him by the arm and hoisted him up.
"Come inside!" he said briefly.
Will went with him blindly, too stricken to direct his own movements.
And so he presently found himself crouching forward in a chair staring
at Nick's steady hand mixing whiskey and water in a glass at his
elbow. As Nick held it towards him he burst into sudden, wild speech.
"I've lost her!" he exclaimed harshly. "I've lost her! It was only the
kiddie that bound us together. She never cared a half-penny about
me. I always knew I should never hold her unless we had a child. And
now--and now--"
"Easy!" said Nick. "Easy! Just drink this like a good chap. There's no
sense in letting yourself go."
Will drank submissively, and covered his face. "Oh, man," he whispered
brokenly, "you don't know what it is to be despised by the one being
in the world you worship."
Nick said nothing. His lips twitched a little, that was all.
But when several miserable seconds had dragged away and Will had
not moved, he bent suddenly down and put his arm round the huddled
shoulders. "Keep a stiff upper lip, old chap," he urged gently. "Don't
knock under. She'll be coming to you for comfort presently."
"Not she!" groaned Will. "I shall never get near her again. She'll
never come back to me. I know. I know."
"Don't be a fool!" said Nick still gently. "You don't know. Of course
she will come back to you. If you stick to her, she'll stick to you."
Will made a choked sound of dissent. Nevertheless, after a moment he
raised his quivering face, and gripped hard the hand that pressed his
shoulder. "Thanks, dear fellow! You're awfully good. Forgive me for
making an ass of myself. I--I was awfully fond of the little nipper
too. Poor Daisy! She'll be frightfully cut up." He broke off, biting
his lips.
"Do you know," he said presently in a strained whisper, "I've wanted
her sometimes--so horribly, that--that I've even been fool enough to
pray about it."
He glanced up as he made this confidence, half expecting to read
ridicule on the alert face above him, but the expression it wore
surprised him. It was almost a fighting look, and wholly free from
contempt.
Nick seated himself on the edge of the table, and smote him on the
shoulder. "My dear chap," he said, with a sudden burst of energy,
"you're only at the beginning of things. It isn't just praying now and
then that does it. You've got to keep up the steam, never slack for an
instant, whatever happens. The harder going it is, the more likely
you are to win through if you stick to it. But directly you slack,
you lose ground. If you've only got the grit to go on praying, praying
hard, even against your own convictions, you'll get it sooner or
later. You are bound to get it. They say God doesn't always grant
prayer because the thing you want may not do you any good. That's
gammon--futile gammon. If you want it hard enough, and keep on
clamouring for it, it becomes the very thing of all others you
need--the great essential. And you'll get it for that very reason.
It's sheer pluck that counts, nothing else--the pluck to go on
fighting when you know perfectly well you're beaten, the pluck to hang
on and worry, worry, worry, till you get your heart's desire."
He sprang up with a wide-flung gesture. "I'm doing it myself," he
said, and his voice rang with a certain grim elation. "I'm doing it
myself. And God knows I sha'n't give Him any peace till I'm satisfied.
I may be small, but if I were no bigger than a mosquito, I'd keep on
buzzing."
He walked to the end of the room, stood for a second, and came slowly
back.
Will was looking at him oddly, almost as if he had never seen him
before.
"Do you know," he said, smiling faintly, "I always thought you were a
rotter."
"Most people do," said Nick. "I believe it's my physiognomy that's
at fault. What can any one expect from a fellow with a face like an
Egyptian mummy? Why, I've been mistaken for the devil himself before
now." He spoke with a semi-whimsical ruefulness, and, having spoken,
he went to the window and stood there with his face to the darkness.
"Hear that jackal, Will?" he suddenly said. "The brute is hungry. You
bet, he won't go empty away."
"Jackals never do," said Will, with his weary sigh.
Nick turned round. "It shows what faithless fools we are," he said.
In the silence that followed, there came again to them, clear through
the stillness, and haunting in its persistence, the crying of the
beast that sought its meat from God.