DEAD YESTERDAY
"... I myself commend
Unto thy guidance from this hour;
Oh! let my weakness have an end!
Give unto me, made lowly wise,
The spirit of self-sacrifice...."
WILLIAM WORDSWORTH, "Ode to Duty."
I
At eleven o'clock at night--by West European time--on Tuesday the fourth
of August, a state of war was established between Great Britain and
Germany.
Three-quarters of an hour later I stood on the steps of my uncle's house
and said good-bye to Sir Roger Dainton. Our united eloquence had
half-convinced him that it was merely vexatious to goad the Foreign
Office at a moment when in all likelihood our Ambassadors in Berlin and
Vienna were being handed their passports. Representations must
henceforth be made through a neutral channel, and he left us with the
intention of calling early next day at the American Embassy. My uncle's
confidential opinion of father and daughter is uncomplimentary and
irrelevant.
The facts in the case, as given me between the Club and Princes Gardens,
were that Sonia had left England in April, a few days after our meeting
at Covent Garden. Sir Roger was in the predicament of disliking the
whole idea of the tour and being unable to say that a man who was good
enough to be trusted for early financial advice was not also good enough
to be trusted with a worldly young woman of eight-and-twenty. The
Baroness Kohnstadt, nominal hostess of the party, might have her name
coupled with that of Lord Pennington, but she was Sir Adolf's sister and
had been at school with Lady Dainton in Dresden. Baronesses, moreover,
are always Baronesses. Of the relations existing between Erckmann and
Mrs. Welman, everything was suspected and nothing known. Webster's
record was only blemished by a breach of promise case--which might have
happened to anyone. Dainton shrugged his shoulders resignedly, and his
daughter took silence for assent.
During May and June the party toured through France, Spain and Italy; in
the middle of July a postcard announced that they had reached Bayreuth
and that the Festival was in full swing. Then followed confusion.
1. Sonia had wired from Bayreuth asking for money to be sent her in
Nürnberg.
2. Sir Roger had immediately remitted £30 by registered post.
3. Four days later, on presentation of the Austrian ultimatum to
Servia, Sir Roger had telegraphed ordering Sonia to return home at
once.
4. Two days afterwards a second telegram was received from Sonia,
"Must have money wire Hotel de l'Europe Munich or post Hotel
Continental Innspruck."
5. Her father had telegraphed another £30 to Munich, asking in
addition where Sonia was going and what she was doing.
6. Sir Adolf had called on Dainton at the House of Commons late on
August Bank Holiday to announce that:
(_a_) Sonia had lingered at Bayreuth, promising to follow as soon
as Webster's car was in order.
(_b_) Webster, arriving alone, alleged that she was returning
immediately to England.
(_c_) They had barely escaped into France before the declaration of
war, and
(_d_) They hoped she had enjoyed a comfortable journey home.
I drove to Loring House after breakfast next day, put the facts on paper
and fitted the date to each.
"That little swine Webster could throw some light on this," O'Rane
muttered between his teeth as the three of us tried to read a connected
story into the fragments.
"Well, let's get hold of him," said Loring. "He's probably in town.
Mayhew saw him yesterday."
"Oh, it's only to satisfy idle curiosity," O'Rane answered. "The party
starts out from Bayreuth, leaving Sonia and Webster to follow. They
don't follow, and Sonia flies off north to Nürnberg and wires for money.
That means there was a scene--he probably proposed or tried to kiss her
or something--and she lets him have it between the eyes. Before she
receives the money she finds she's put her head in a hornet's
nest--armies mobilizing on both sides of her--and turns south to Munich
to get away in the opposite direction. She's begged, borrowed or stolen
enough to reach Innspruck and there she's stuck. Old Dainton's wiring
money all over the globe, but I don't suppose a penny of it reaches her.
As like as not she's been arrested."
"And what then?" I asked.
"If she behaves herself they may let her go as soon as they've finished
moving troops. If she doesn't, they'll keep her till the end of the
war."
He walked up and down with his hands in his pockets and a pipe thrust
jauntily out of one corner of his mouth. The story of the missing
American girls was still fresh in my mind, and I felt little of his
apparent cheerfulness.
"It's the deuce of a position," said Loring. "When will Dainton be
through with the Ambassador?"
"You can ring him up now," said O'Rane. "They'll have been very polite,
and they'll do all they can, and the matter will receive attention, and
in the meantime they've just as much power as the man in the moon. Dear
man, the whole of Germany's littered with pukka Americans this time of
year, and the Embassy isn't going to trouble about us till it's gathered
in its own waifs and strays. Dainton's just wasting their time and his.
Anybody else got any helpful suggestions?"
"You're a shade discouraging, Raney," I said.
He laughed without malice, and his black eyes shone with the excitement
of coming battle.
"I'm just blowing away the froth," he explained. "If you want business,
here you are. Jim, will you lend me five hundred pounds?"
Loring nodded without a word.
"You probably won't see it again in this world."
"I'll risk that."
"Good. Let me have it as soon as possible, and all in gold. You may have
trouble in raising it just now, but raise it you must. Then.... No, I
think that's all. As soon as you let me have it I'll get under way."
"Where are you off to, Raney?" I asked.
I feel that I remain human even in a crisis, and Loring's lack of
curiosity was as maddening as O'Rane's uncommunicativeness.
"I'm going for a short holiday abroad," he answered, with a smile.
"Ass!" I said.
"Why?"
"You're of military age. If they don't shoot you as a spy, they'll lock
you up till the end of the war."
"Guess you underrate the pres-tige of the U-nited States Government," he
answered, with a shattering twang. "I'm doing this stunt as an American
citizen."
Loring jumped up and laid his hand on O'Rane's shoulder.
"This is all rot, Raney," he said. "You can't go. She's at Innspruck--or
will be shortly. Well, that's in Austria, and you've made Austria a bit
too hot to be comfortable."
O'Rane picked up a cigar from the box on the table and began to chew
one end with lazy deliberation. Never have I met a grown man who so
loved to play a part.
"Say, I reckon you're mistaking me for my partner O'Rane--David B.
O'Rane," he remarked. "My name's Morris--James Morris of Newtown,
Tennessee. Lord Loring? Pleased to meet you, Lord Loring. I'm travelling
Europe for a piece of business. The Austrians just love me. I've an oil
proposition down Carinthia way and I guess I got the whole durned
country in my vest pocket."
"You can't go," Loring repeated, quite unmoved by manner or twang.
"And who'll stop me, Lord Loring? See here, you haven't figured out the
proposition. I start away as an American citizen talking good United
States, and my name stencilled all six sides of my baggage. Well, I
don't anticipate dropping across Vienna, and any blamed customs-officer
will do a sight of head-scratching before he measures my finger-prints
or hitches me out o' my pants to see if I've a bowie-knife scar in the
small of my back. They got their war to keep 'em occupied first of all.
And, if that ain't enough, they can look at my passport for a piece.
And, when they're tired of that, they can wrap 'emselves up and go off
to sleep in my naturalization papers. Guess there's nothing much wrong
with them anyway." He turned and spat scientifically into the fireplace,
warming to his work. "I've thought this up some. If you'll come forward
with a better stunt, why! start in to do it and take all of my blessing
you can use. Getting quit of Austria's about as easy as going through
hell without singeing your pants. For you, that is. You don't speak
decent German, you've no more hustle to you than a maggot in a
melon-patch, the rankest breed of blind beggar on a side walk couldn't
take you for anything but a Britisher. I've told you what the Embassy's
been saying to old man Dainton. If you think you've filed a patent for
catching the American Eagle by the tail feathers, cut in and test it:
there's not a dime to pay for entrance. Otherwise, keep your head shut
for a piece while James Morris gets to work. I been most kinds of fool
in my time, but not the sort that goes out of his way to hunt big game
with a can of flea-powder. I'm not out for that brand of heroism. I'm
going now 'cos I can't find much use for any other way. If I haven't
delivered the goods inside of a fortnight, you can picture me leaning
graceful and easy 'gainst a wall and handing round prizes for the best
show of fixed target fancy shooting. And, if the United States don't
declare war inside of twenty-four hours after that, you'll know I been
wasting my time and getting all I deserve."
He ended abruptly and regarded us with a provocative smile. I am far
from claiming an exhaustive knowledge of O'Rane's character, but both
Loring and I were familiar with a certain outthrust of the lower jaw
which meant that further argument was superfluous.
"When d'you start?" I asked.
"Morris ought to be here any minute. He's lending me an approved
Saratoga trunk covered with most convincing labels. I rang him up last
night after you left the Club. And a complete set of papers with all the
signs and countersigns and _visas_ you can imagine. Morris really is an
American citizen. He had to get naturalized when we moved out of Mexico
into the States and floated some of our concessions as an American
company. You won't forget about the money, Jim?"
"Raney, you're an awful fool to go," said Loring uneasily.
"My dear fellow, you'd do exactly the same thing if it were Violet out
there. And you'd probably make a hash of it," he added unflatteringly.
"I don't mind betting I get Sonia away without even calling on the
Ambassador. I shall sugar a bit, and bluff a bit, and bribe a bit.
They'll probably be as keen to get rid of her as she'll be to go, and a
chance to be civil to the great United States isn't to be disregarded in
war times."
Loring shrugged his shoulders resignedly.
"I'll see about the money at once," he said. "I suppose all the banks
are shut to-day, but I'll let you have it as soon as I can."
II
O'Rane had come very near the truth in the explanation he hazarded of
Sonia's movements and changes of purpose.
The first two months of the tour had been uneventful. She had whirled
with her companions through one country after another, too busy to think
or quarrel, almost too busy to be conscious of herself: it was only as
they left the long plains of Lombardy behind them, and mounted the first
green-clad spurs of the Alps, that a restlessness and discontent settled
on their spirits. There was a new tendency to find fault with their
hotels, a general disagreement over what they were to do next, a candour
of criticism that was less amiable than free. The party found itself
disintegrating and taking sides for or against the victim of the day:
Lord Pennington confided to Sonia that Sir Adolf and the Baroness would
be less unbearable if they had studied table-manners. Mrs. Welman
complained to Webster that Lord Pennington ought to dine alone, as no
one--least of all himself--knew what stories he would tell in mixed
company when he felt himself replete and cheerful. Sir Adolf
wondered--in Mrs. Welman's hearing--what "liddle Zonia" could see in
"thad gread zleeby Websder. He is not half awäg: she musd zdir him up,
hein? He is a gread wed planked."
In justice to Sonia, who never let sentiment obscure the main chance, it
should be said that she had seldom regarded Webster otherwise than as a
beast of burden: he was devoted and docile, would lie somnolently in his
corner of the car without venturing on "clever conversation," and could
be ignored from the moment when he tucked the dust-rug round her knees
till the time when she dispatched him to procure her strawberries in a
wayside village.
Sometimes, indeed, she may have wondered lazily what was going on inside
the sleepy brain behind the half-closed little eyes; once she looked on
with amused detachment while Mrs. Welman tried to filch him from her
side; once, too, she tried to make him jealous by changing places with
the Baroness and driving for a day and a half in Lord Pennington's car.
This last experiment was slightly humiliating, as her placid slave
received her back at the end of it without reproach, surprise or
rapture. Sonia half decided to abandon the invertebrate to the
first-comer and was only checked by a feeling that she might be
ostentatiously resigning an empire she had never won. Alternatively on
the fourth day after their arrival at Bayreuth, in the purgatory of
tedium which a Wagner festival must provide for auditors of only
simulated enthusiasm, she accepted Sir Adolf's challenge and set herself
to rouse "that great sleepy Webster" to an interest in herself.
The details of the campaign can only be supplied from imagination.
Sonia, who confessed much, and Webster, who preserved his customary
sphinx-like silence, united in suppressing all reference to what passed:
the other members of the party saw only as much as the protagonists
thought fit to allow. The results--which are all that is relevant
here--came to light on the last morning of their stay in Bayreuth. Sir
Adolf paid the bill, ordered his car, expounded the route and drove
away. Lord Pennington followed suit, only waiting to ask if Sonia would
care to drive with the Baroness and himself, as Webster's chauffeur had
reported trouble with the timing-gear. Sonia replied that she would give
the car another half-hour to come to its senses, and, if the repairs
were not complete by then, Webster would have to bring her on by train
and leave the chauffeur to pursue them as best he might. On that
understanding Lord Pennington also drove away, and Sonia wandered
through the gardens in front of the hotel and sent Webster once every
quarter of an hour to inquire what progress was being made.
It was two o'clock before they got under way, and the car ran without
mishap until eight. Then they halted for dinner, and Webster asked if
Sonia thought it advisable to go any farther, or whether they should
stay where they were till the following morning.
"We'll start again the moment we've finished dinner," she ordained, with
great firmness.
"Right!" said Webster, "but we shan't get in till about eleven. D'you
mind that?"
"Doesn't look as if it could be helped," she answered. "But I don't see
myself staying alone with you in a village without a name in the middle
of Bavaria."
Webster said nothing, but excused himself as soon as dinner was over and
retired to discuss the condition of the car with his chauffeur.
"It's held up all right so far," he reported on his return, "but I don't
know if we shall get through without a break-down. Wouldn't it be
better----?"
"We'll start at once, please," said Sonia, and the car was ordered
without further delay.
They ran uneventfully from nine till half-past eleven: then, as they
left the single street of a slumbering village, the engines became
suddenly silent, there, was a muttered oath from the chauffeur, and the
car slowed down and came to a standstill at the side of the road.
"What's up?" Webster inquired, without any great show of interest.
The chauffeur detached a headlight, opened the bonnet and explored in
silence for a few moments. Then he remarked, "Ignition."
Webster lit a cigarette and leant back in his corner.
"How long's it going to take you?" asked Sonia.
"Can't get another yard to-night, miss," was the answer. "If you'll get
out and give a hand, sir, we'll push her back and see if we can wake
anybody up in the village."
Sonia jumped out with a feeling of exasperation towards Webster for the
untrustworthiness of his car and herself for refusing Lord Pennington's
offer. They walked slowly back to the village, and patrolled the one
street till the chauffeur discovered a house that looked like an inn,
and battered on the door with a spanner.
"It couldn't be helped, you know," Webster urged in anxious apology as
they waited in front of the silent houses; and then, to make his words
more convincing by iteration, "You know, it simply couldn't be helped."
A head projected itself at length from an upper window and was
addressed by Webster in halting German. It was withdrawn after the
exchange of a few sentences, and there came a sound of heavy feet on the
stairs and a hand fumbling with bolts and a chain.
"He says he's not got much accommodation," Webster explained, "but he'll
do his best."
The door opened, and a sleepy-eyed landlord admitted them to the house.
Lights appeared mysteriously, there were sounds of movement upstairs and
in the kitchen and, by the time the car was lodged in a stable and the
luggage carried into the house, Sonia found herself seated at a meal of
ham and eggs washed down with draughts of dark Munich beer. The food
gradually restored her good temper, and she became disposed to treat
their break-down as a new and rather amusing experience: Webster,
however, remained silent, when he was not apologetic, and seemed nervous
and unsettled.
"D'you mind being left alone with me like this?" he asked. "You know, it
might have happened to either of the other cars."
"I'd sooner be with you than with Lord Pennington or Sir Adolf," she
admitted.
"If you don't mind, you can bet _I_ don't," he answered, with a gleam of
excitement in his dull eyes.
"It's rather a joke," she went on, looking round the old-fashioned,
heavily-timbered room; and then warningly--"Provided it isn't repeated."
"_I_ shan't say anything," he promised.
Sonia found that it was one thing for her to treat their misadventure as
a joke and quite another to be exchanging the language of conspiracy
with him.
"That'll do, Fatty," she said. "And it wasn't what I meant."
Webster's eyes dulled at the rebuke.
"No offence," he murmured indistinctly. "May I smoke?"
"You may do whatever you like. I'm going to bed."
He opened a cigar-case and crossed to the fireplace in search of
matches.
"I'm afraid you'll find the accommodation rather limited," he remarked,
with his face turned away from her.
"I don't expect the Ritz in a village of six houses," she answered.
"There's only one room."
Sonia sat up very erect in her chair; her breath came and went quickly
and all her pulses seemed to be throbbing.
"Are you suggesting I should toss you for it?" she asked, with a
flurried laugh.
He turned half round and regarded her out of the corner of one eye.
"No need, is there?" he mumbled.
Sonia jumped up hastily.
"Well, then, I'll take possession," she said. "You finish your cigar in
peace; the landlord'll show me the way."
She hurried into the hall and rapped on a table till the proprietor
appeared. He asked some question in German, but she could only shake her
head and point up the stairs. Her meaning must have been clear, for he
nodded and led the way with a lighted candle in his hand. There were two
doors at the head of the stairs, and he opened the first. Looking over
his shoulder, Sonia saw a bed without sheets or pillow-cases, and a jug
standing upside down in the basin. The landlord closed the door with a
muttered "Nein" and opened the one opposite. It was a room of the same
size and character, but there were sheets on the bed and hot-water cans
by the wash-hand stand. Two cabin trunks stood side by side under the
window, their straps unloosed and hanging to the floor.
Sonia thanked the landlord and bade him good night. Left to herself, she
inspected the lock, which seemed in order, removed her coat and hat--and
tried to lift down Webster's trunk and drag it across the room. Her hand
slipped as she tilted it off the chair, and there was a heavy thud,
which reverberated through the silent house. She paused and listened.
There was a footstep on the stairs and a subdued tapping at the door;
then her name was called.
"You can come in, Fatty," she answered.
He entered quickly, yet with embarrassment, and stood at the door,
smiling lop-sidedly.
"You're a bit of a liar, aren't you?" she suggested, as she bent once
more over the trunk.
"Here, let me help!" he said, coming forward and seizing the handle.
"Where d'you want this put?"
"In the next room--the room you're going to sleep in. Hurry up!"
Webster straightened his back and looked at her reproachfully.
"I say!--Sonia!" he protested.
His mouth seemed suddenly to have taken on a new flabbiness of outline.
"Hurry up, Fatty," she repeated, "and don't look so down on your luck.
You've a lot to be thankful for. I've two brothers, and if either of
them were in this house he'd be taking the skin off your back in strips.
Clear the box out and then come back for your suitcase."
Webster obeyed her with docile humility.
"Now then," she went on, when he returned, "one or two questions, Fatty.
There's nothing wrong with your car, is there? And never was? This is
all a little plot between you and your man. I thought so. Why?"
He smiled--and avoided her eyes.
"It was rather a joke. You said so."
"But not to be carried too far. How old am I, Fatty? Well, I'll tell
you. Twenty-eight. And I've knocked about a bit. D'you think I go in for
jokes of that kind?" He made no answer. "Well, as it happens, I don't.
And if I did----! Tell me candidly, Fatty, _do_ you think I should
choose you?"
She stood watching him with an expression of such contempt that the worm
turned in spite of himself.
"Then why the devil did you go on as you've been doing the last week?"
he demanded, looking up and flushing under her gaze.
"What have I done?"
"You've led me on--the whole way."
"_You?_" She laughed and put her hands on his shoulders. "Go to bed, Fat
Boy, and we'll hope you'll wake up sane."
The touch of her hands seemed to fire him.
"This is _my_ joke!" he exclaimed, catching her round the waist with one
arm and pressing her head forward with the other till their lips met.
"What are you afraid of, Sonia?" he whispered, as she struggled to break
free from his arms. "No one'll ever know.... My God, you've nearly
blinded me!"
He loosed her with a shrill cry of pain and staggered back, holding both
hands to an eye that she had all but driven through its socket with the
pressure of her thumb.
"That'll teach you!" she panted. "Get out, you little cur! Get out, I
say, and let me never see your face again! Get out! Get out!!"
He stumbled from the room, and she slammed and bolted the door behind
him. Then she flung herself on the bed with one hand over her mouth,
sobbing, "To be kissed by _that_ brute! Oh, you devil, you devil!"
III
The following morning Sonia set herself to escape from a village whose
name was unknown to her to a destination on which she was not yet
decided, with the aid of three pounds in English money and an entire
ignorance of the German language.
During the night three or four dominant ideas had crystallized in her
mind: she must get away from Webster; she could hardly face the rest of
the party and their inevitable questions; it was necessary to wait
somewhere within the fare-radius of her money while she telegraphed for
more. During breakfast she summoned the landlord and repeated "Bayreuth.
Train. Me," with many gesticulations, until he left off scratching his
head and harnessed a country cart to drive her to a station five miles
away.
After that there was no difficulty in reaching Bayreuth, where she was
made welcome at her former hotel. She telegraphed home for money and
only left at the end of two days, when instead of the money she received
a wire from Sir Adolf Erckmann asking if she were still in Bayreuth and
where he was to meet her. The manager of the hotel paid her fare to
Nürnberg, where she invented friends to send her home, and in the
meantime telegraphed again to her father.
This time she gave Innspruck as her next address: from Bayreuth she had
gone north through the midst of mobilizing troops and fleeing visitors,
and it became clear that, if she waited long, her only chance of escape
would be to turn south on her own tracks and cross through Austria into
Italy. The manager of the Nürnberg hotel proved another friend, and with
the money lent her by him she made her way over the frontier and
resigned herself to waiting in Innspruck till her unaccountable father
vouchsafed some reply to her telegrams.
She was still at her hotel when war was declared. The city police called
and demanded a passport which she did not possess; they inspected her
luggage and removed all books and papers; finally she was ordered to
report herself twice daily at the Town Hall, to remain in her hotel from
eight at night till ten next morning and in no circumstances--on pain of
death--to venture outside the city boundaries. It was too early as yet
to say whether more stringent measures would be necessary: when her
story had been checked, it might be possible to release her if no
discrepancy were discovered in it: if she had any responsible friends or
relations in Innspruck or the surrounding country, much time and trouble
might be saved by getting them to attest her identity and _bona fides_.
The interview was conducted with every mark of courtesy. With a sinking
heart Sonia settled down to wait--in a hostile country, without money or
friends, till the end of an endless war.
Her treatment for the first day or two was sympathetic. The hotel
manager explained that he had no quarrel with the English, who were
among his best customers: it would indeed be a tragedy if they and the
Austrians met and killed each other in battle: possibly if England
confined herself to a naval war.... He grew less suave when it became
known that troops were being poured across the Channel into France, and
in her morning and evening walks to the Town Hall Sonia found herself
greeted with menacing and contemptuous murmurs.
At the end of the week the public spirit had changed to a note of
jubilant exultation. Her waiter, under the eyes of the manager and
unchecked by word or sign, would hand her copies of the "Kölnische
Zeitung" or "Neue Freie Presse" at luncheon, with a triumphant finger to
the heavy headlines and a word or two of translation thrown out between
the courses.
"Paris one week--one," he would say, "zen Calais, zen London. London in
dree week. Belgrade next week. And zen Warsaw. Warsaw in one months from
now. See, it is all here, all. Yes. Ze war will be all over in one
months."
Sonia attempted no reply. For ten days she spoke no word save to repeat
her name night and morning to an officer of police and after the first
week only ventured outside the hotel to report herself at the Town Hall.
She was waiting her turn one afternoon in the now familiar queue when
the Chief of Police summoned her into his room and presented her with a
letter: the envelope had been opened and bore some initials and a date
in blue pencil on the flap:
"DEAR MISS DAINTON,"--it ran--"I wonder if you remember me and the
visit I gave myself the pleasure of paying you and your father when
I was over from the States a year or two back? I am in this city
for a day or two on business in connection with some oil-wells in
which my firm is interested. I thought--and I sincerely hope I was
not mistaken--that I caught sight of you as I drove from the depot
to the Imperial (where I am staying). I am sending this by hand to
every hotel in the town on the off chance of finding you. If it
really was you, I trust you will grant me permission to call on
you, and perhaps you will give me the pleasure of your company at
luncheon or dinner before I go on into Italy.--Believe me to be,
dear Miss Dainton, very truly yours,
JAS. MORRIS."
Sonia read the letter under the vigilant scrutiny of the Chief of
Police. The stilted phrasing was as unfamiliar as the name, but the
neat, precise writing, small and regular as a monkish manuscript, was
the writing of O'Rane.
"You are acquainted with this Mr. Morris?" asked the Chief of Police.
"I--I've met him once," stammered Sonia, "some years ago.
"He knows you? Well enough to identify you? I have asked him to attend
here this afternoon. Be good enough to be seated."
Sonia walked uncertainly to a chair and sat with thumping heart while
the Chief of Police went on with his writing. Five, ten and fifteen
minutes passed: there was no sign of O'Rane, and she felt herself
growing desperate under the suspense. Then the door opened, and he was
ushered in.
"Guess you're the Chief of Police," he hazarded, stretching out his hand
and not noticing the corner in which Sonia was sitting. "Pleased to meet
you, sir. I got your note. What's your trouble anyway?"
The Chief of Police presented him with his own letter and put a question
in German.
"Say, I don't use German," O'Rane answered. "French is the best I can
manage. Why, that's uncommon like my fist! What way d'you come to have
it?"
It was explained that Miss Dainton was under police supervision and that
any letters were liable to be opened and read.
"_Gee!_ What's _she_ been doing?" asked O'Rane. "Oh, I forgot! This
blamed war. Yes. I reckon she's a prisoner. And I wanted her to dine
with me."
"Miss Dainton is in the room," said the Chief of Police, and O'Rane
turned with a start of surprise. "It was hoped you might be able to
verify the particulars she has given about herself."
Sonia rose from her chair and came forward, with a feeling that every
movement was betraying her and that the Chief of Police saw through the
whole piece of play-acting and only waited an opportunity to break in
and expose the masquerading American. O'Rane eyed her with superb
deliberation.
"It's Miss Dainton, sure," he said, with a bow. "Pleased to meet you,
Miss Dainton. Now, sir, what's the piece I'm to say?"
The Chief of Police extracted a foolscap sheet from his table-drawer.
"Perhaps you can check the lady's statements," he said. "We only keep
her till someone gives us guarantees of her good faith."
O'Rane was affected with sudden scruples.
"Guess you'd better find someone that knows her a bit better," he
suggested. "I met her folk often enough, but I've not seen her for
years."
His hand moved towards his hat as though the last word had been said,
but the more he strove to avoid responsibility the more it was pressed
upon him.
"Quite formal questions," the Chief of Police kept repeating; but O'Rane
continued to excuse himself.
"See here," he explained. "It's God knows how many years since I met
her. I wrote that letter 'cos I've known her father since I was a boy
and I wanted to do the civil to his daughter. This war's an
international proposition, and we Americans aren't backing either side.
If you let her go on my evidence, maybe you'll regret it and start
getting off protests to my Government. And, if you keep her here, I
shall be up against her folk and all the everlasting State Departments
of Great Britain. Guess I'd sooner be quit of the proposition right
now."
"We will take all responsibility," urged the Chief of Police; and O'Rane
began to yield with a bad grace. "They are just formal questions...."
For five minutes O'Rane reluctantly allowed a minimum of uncompromising
information to be corkscrewed out of him. Sonia's Christian name,
surname and address were confirmed, but he knew nothing of her age and
the reason for her presence in Austria. On the subject of her parents he
was slightly more communicative, but Sir Roger Dainton, Baronet (or
Knight--O'Rane knew little of these dime distinctions among, the British
aristocracy) was only known to fame as the director of a company which
his firm had the honour to supply with Carinthian oil. That was all he
could say, and more than he cared to take the responsibility of saying.
He was, of course, happy to be of assistance to either party, provided
the strict neutrality of his country were maintained, and would hold
himself at the disposal of Miss Dainton or of the police authorities
until his departure for Italy the following day. Perhaps in return the
Chief of Police would tell him if any difficulties were to be
anticipated in crossing the frontier....
The next morning a clerk from the police head-quarters called at the
Imperial Hotel. O'Rane was seated in shirtsleeves in his private room,
with a green cigar jutting out of his mouth and the table in front of
him littered with specifications and oil-prices. The clerk announced
that there seemed no reason to detain Miss Dainton any longer, but she
had exhausted her money and could hardly travel back to England without
assistance.
"Guess that young woman regards me as a pocket-size providence,"
observed O'Rane impatiently. "I'm not through with my mail yet. What's
the damage anyway? No, figure it out in dollars, I've no use for your
everlasting krones. Or see here, you freeze on to these bills and fix
things at the hotel, and, if Miss Dainton can get her baggage to the
depot by four o'clock, I'll take her slick through to Genoa and put her
on a packet there. It's no great way out of my road. I guess your Chief
will fix her papers for her. That all? Then I'll finish off my mail."
At a quarter to four he met Sonia at the station and greeted her with
the words, "Guess you don't give a row of beans how soon you're quit of
this township, Miss Dainton."
As they crossed the frontier he threw his cigar out of the window and
began filling a pipe.
"Now, young lady, perhaps you'll explain yourself," he said.
IV
In what follows I have for authority the account of O'Rane, given
hurriedly and with unconcentrated mind, and that of Sonia, acidulated
with the bitterness of a pampered woman suddenly exposed to a torrent of
unexpected insult. Sonia's conscience, if she have one, must have been
disturbed when her deliverance came at the hands of a man whom her
greatest adulators could hardly say she had treated well. She was
prepared to make acknowledgement. O'Rane, however, gave her no
opportunity.
"Come along!" he said, slapping a cane against his leg.
"David ...!" she exclaimed in astonishment at his tone.
His brows contracted and he became very still.
"Look here, Sonia," he said. "Let's clear away romance and come to
grips. Possibly you don't know that, if I'd been caught on Austrian
territory, I should have been shot----"
"I do. It's just that ..."
"Don't interrupt! There's a war on, and your father's been mobilized, so
that I came in his place. From now until we get back to England you will
obey whatever orders I choose to give you. First of all, what's the
latest game you've been up to?"
Sonia stared at him in amazement. He was lying negligently back in his
corner with his feet stretched out on the seat, drawling his words in a
tone that a half-caste might use to a dog. She kept her lips tightly
shut until he rapped the window menacingly with his knuckles.
"If you talk to me like that, David ..." she began.
He laughed derisively and watched her angry, flushed face until she
turned and looked out of the window to avoid his eyes.
No other word was spoken. As the train wound its way in and out of the
mountains, afternoon changed to evening, and the low-flung last shaft of
sunlight showed her that O'Rane's eyes were closed and his lips smiling.
Sonia became suddenly frightened, as though he were laughing at her in
his sleep. Turning away, she closed her own eyes, but the stifling
August heat parched her mouth and set the skin of her body pricking.
At a wayside station an old woman hobbled to the window with a basket of
grapes. Sonia felt in her purse and found it empty. After a moment's
uneasy hesitation, she took a bunch with one hand and pointed to O'Rane
with the other. The old woman nodded smilingly and tapped him gently on
the shoulder. Still smiling he awoke, glanced round and spoke a few
words in Italian: Sonia saw the old woman argue for a moment
unavailingly, then shrug her shoulders and extend a skinny brown hand
for the return of the grapes.
"No, no! They're mine! I want them!" Sonia cried.
The old woman gesticulated violently and touched O'Rane's arm for
support against his countrywoman.
"Have you paid for them?" he asked.
Sonia glared at him through a mist of tears, bit her lip and threw the
grapes back into the basket. O'Rane felt in his pocket and produced a
lira, which he gave to the old woman as the train moved away from the
station. She hurried painfully alongside with both hands full of the
largest bunches, but he only shook his head and pulled the window up.
The carriage was suddenly darkened as they entered a tunnel; on shooting
into daylight the other side, he saw that Sonia's face was hidden and
her shoulders heaving. O'Rane knocked out his pipe and composed himself
for sleep.
Night had fallen before she spoke again.
"You must get me something to eat, David," she said. "I'm simply sick
for want of food."
He yawned slightly and filled another pipe.
"I'm starving," she went on hysterically. "I've had nothing since
breakfast."
"Nor have I, if it comes to that," he answered, breaking his long
silence.
"You may be different," she replied, covering her eyes with her hand.
"You forget what I've been through."
"You forget I am still waiting to hear," he answered politely.
Sonia relapsed into silence for a few moments, but the sight of O'Rane
lighting his pipe and settling comfortably into his corner was too much
for her.
"I _must_ have food," she exclaimed. "I'll tell you, if you'll give me
something to eat."
"You'll tell me unconditionally," O'Rane answered lazily.
A wave of passion swept over her. "You brute!" she gasped, springing to
her feet. "You utter brute! I'll never tell you as long as I live!"
O'Rane took a second match to his pipe, blew it out and threw it under
the seat. "You sit there smoking----"
"I'll stop if you like, and we'll run level. I warn you that I can hold
out for four days without food and two or three without drink."
The anger passed as suddenly as it had come, and she dropped back on to
the seat.
"I think you probably get fainter if you wear your nerves out," he
remarked disinterestedly.
"I'd kill you if I could!" she muttered between her teeth.
An hour later he was roused by a slight choking cry and looked up to
find Sonia sitting huddled in a heap, with her head fallen forward on
her chest and her arms hanging limply to her sides. Pulling out his
watch, he looked at her for a few moments, and then observed:
"You must relax _all_ your muscles for a pukka faint, not only the neck
and arms." She made no movement. "I used to sham faint on trigonometry
afternoons at school," he went on, with a yawn. "Go flop on the floor
and make Greenbank himself carry me out. I assure you it's not done like
that, Sonia."
The limp arms gradually stiffened, and she looked round with half-opened
eyes. "Where am I?"
"Some few hours from Genoa, I should think," he answered cheerfully.
"I've not booked beyond Milan, so as to have complete liberty of
action."
She closed her eyes and lay back. "You're killing me, David," she
moaned.
He took a paper-backed novel out of his pocket and began to read it
without troubling to answer.
The capitulation took place four hours later, when the dawn came
stealing in at the window and illumined the dusty carriage with its cold
grey light. Sonia raised a tear-stained face, and with swollen, parched
lips begged for mercy. O'Rane lifted his suitcase from the rack and
slowly unlocked it.
"This is unconditional?" he asked.
She nodded.
"You will do as I tell you as long as I find it worth while to give you
orders?"
"Don't make me do anything horrid!"
He locked the suitcase and replaced it in the rack. Sonia looked at him
for a moment without understanding and then burst into convulsive
weeping.
"I can't bear it! I can't bear it any longer!" she sobbed. "You're
torturing me! I'll do what_ever_ you want!"
O'Rane smiled and lifted down the case once more.
"I haven't laid a finger on you," he remarked contemptuously. "I haven't
spoken a dozen sentences. You've just had eighteen hours without food
and eleven in my agreeable company. And you're broken! And you thought
to measure wills with me! Have some food--and a drink. It's weak brandy
and water. Not too much or your pride'll get the better of you, to say
nothing of indigestion."
He handed her bread and a wing of chicken, which she ate ravenously in
her fingers; then hard-boiled eggs and a piece of cheese.
"Say 'Thank you,'" he commanded at the end. She murmured something
inaudible. "Clearly!" She repeated the words. "That's better. Now I'll
start my breakfast, and you shall entertain me by telling the full and
true account of your latest scrape. And after that I'll tell you what
I'm going to do with you. Fire away."
He began a leisurely, nonchalant meal, but Sonia made no sound.
"I'm waiting," he was prompt to remind her.
She sat with folded arms, bidding him a silent defiance.
"Sonia, I'm not disobeyed--much," he told her very quietly.
Her brave attempt to look unwaveringly into his purposeful black eyes
broke down precipitately.
"I'll tell you!" she promised breathlessly, and, as he resumed his
breakfast, smiling, "You can see how you like it, you brute!"
I have often thought over the story she told him without ever quite
understanding its spirit. There was no longer the old endeavor to shock
for the sake of shocking, but something more angry and bitter, as though
she were matching his account of the risk he had undergone in reaching
her by proving him a fool for his pains. The effect on his mind was
shown in his brief, acid comment at the end:
"And men have been ready to spoil their lives for you!"
"I didn't think you'd like it when you got it," she taunted.
O'Rane looked wistfully out of the window.
"And I've dreamed of you in five continents," he murmured half to
himself. "Lying out under the stars in Mexico, just whispering your name
in very hunger.... Ever since I was a boy at Oxford, and you promised
... you promised...."
"You've waited patiently for your revenge, David."
"You weren't taking risks even then," he retorted. "_Toujours le grand
jeu._ I could always get men to trust me ... put their lives in my hand.
_They_ knew I shouldn't let them down, but you could never stand your
soul being seen naked...."
She broke in violently on his meditation.
"Why did you ever come here?" she demanded.
"Because I've lived in a world of dreams, Sonia. I've been poor and
rich and poor again--that made no difference--but I fancied that one day
you would need me----"
"You've insulted me ...!" she interrupted.
He laid his hand gently on her knee.
"If anyone had had the courage ten years ago to tell you what I've told
you to-day, instead of spoiling you, petting you, filling your head with
the idea that the whole world revolved round you----"
"Yet--you came out here----!" she put in mockingly, brushing his hand
disdainfully away.
"There's a war on, Sonia," he answered. "Your old world's been blotted
out. You'll find everything changed when you get back, and no niche for
you to fill. Everything we value or love will have to be sacrificed, and
you've never sacrificed anything but your friends. I came out here
because I hoped the war would have sobered you. It might have been the
making of you. It might have made a woman of you."
Nine days later they parted at Paddington. From Genoa they had taken an
Italian boat to Marseilles, changed to a P. & O. and landed at Plymouth.
Lady Dainton was engaged in turning Crowley Court into a hospital, and
at Sir Roger's request I met Sonia, gave her a late luncheon, notified
the Foreign Office of her return and put her on board a Melton train at
Waterloo.
She was communicative with the volubility of an aggrieved woman, and
more than one passer-by on the platform looked curiously at her flushed
face and indignant brown eyes.
"No, I decline to be mixed up in the quarrel," I told her, when she
invited my opinion of O'Rane.
"Then you agree with him?"
"I have no views, Sonia," I said.
"That's nonsense!" she exclaimed. "I've told you what he said, and it's
either true or not true." Her voice suddenly softened and became
pleading. "George, I'm--I'm _not_ like that."
"I _will_ not discuss you with yourself," I said. "Generally speaking, I
don't understand the modern Society girl----"
"And you hate her!" Sonia put in.
I said nothing.
"Why?" she pursued.
"Too much of an _arriviste_," I hazarded. "Too much on the make, too
keen to get there."
She pondered my criticism deliberately.
"You were born there," she observed, as though explaining a distinction
I ought to have appreciated.
"My dear Sonia, a bachelor has no social status," I said. "Whether he's
received or not depends on the possession of respectable dress-clothes."
"Beryl was born there," she continued, following her own line of
thought. "So was Violet, or Amy Loring. If you're the daughter of a
successful brewer, packed off to London to get married----"
"This is morbid," I interrupted, looking at my watch to see how much
longer we were to be kept waiting.
"That little cur talked as if it were my _fault_!" she cried in shrill
excitement.
I found a note at the Admiralty to say that O'Rane would be grateful for
a bed in Princes Gardens as the Gray's Inn rooms had been let. During
dinner that night he made no mention of his Austrian expedition and
seemed only interested to learn how the war had progressed in his
absence. We discussed the changes in the War Office and Cabinet,
speculated on the untried Haldane Expeditionary Force and came back
eternally to the reputed infallibility of German arms. No man alive at
that time will forget his thrill on reading that the massed might of
Germany had been brought to a standstill before Liège. The engine of
destruction was so perfect that a single pebble might seemingly throw it
out of gear, and with the crude optimism of those early days we talked
of the Russians hammering at the gates of East Prussia and the
possibility of peace by Christmas.
O'Rane, unwontedly taciturn and out of humour, laughed scornfully.
"A five months' war when Germany knows that if she fails she'll sink to
the level of Spain? We've got a superhuman job. Every man we can
get.... I hope you'll forgive me, sir, I'm treating your house as my own
and inviting a few men for a recruiting campaign----"
"Go carefully," urged Bertrand. "I suggested you for an interpretership
in France or Russia, whichever they wanted."
"I wonder how long they'll take to make up their minds?" O'Rane asked,
with a touch of impatience. "I applied for a commission before I left
England. I--I can't wait, sir."
"My dear boy ...!"
"Oh, I know it's very childish, sir," O'Rane answered, with a laugh.
"But I'm desperate."
Bertrand, who knew of his financial troubles, raised his eyebrows and
said nothing. The next evening we had our informal recruiting
committee-meeting and divided the home counties into twelve districts,
pledging each member to gather in five hundred recruits within a week.
The Government machinery was slow to gather motion, and patriotism and
restlessness combined to make of every man an amateur Napoleon. As I
looked round my uncle's dining-room, one feature of O'Rane's committee
was noticeable as illustrating a simple philosophy he had held in
boyhood. On his right sat Sinclair, whose adherence had been won more
than fifteen years ago in the matter of a forged copy of Greek Alcaics
for the Shelton Prize; on his left I recognized Brent, elected to an All
Souls' Fellowship shortly after O'Rane had retired from the contest; at
the foot of the table was James Morris of Ennismore Gardens, Mexico City
Gaol and elsewhere. The others I had not met before, but their sole
common characteristic seemed to be that at some period of their careers
David O'Rane had made himself indispensable to them all.
"I want a week of your undivided time," said the Chairman. "Each one
will have a district, a car and a doctor. I want each to raise five
hundred men, and you'll find it easiest to borrow a system, which Mr.
Sinclair can explain to you, of getting hold of the enthusiasts and
making each one bring in another, snowball fashion. You're on strong
ground if you're in first yourselves. Is there anybody here who won't
help me?"
The house--at full strength--went into committee. With what he described
as poetic justice and I preferred to call malice, O'Rane gave me the
town of Easterly, which is known to history for its anti-Government
riots in the South African War and to the Disarmament League for the
flattering reception accorded to five years of peace propaganda. As I
could only address evening meetings, when my work at the Admiralty was
over, Bertrand undertook to canvass the district by day in such time as
he could spare from turning Princes Gardens into a hospital.
"How soon do we start, Raney?" I asked, when the committee was
dispersed, and we were walking upstairs to bed.
"To-morrow," he answered. "Five hundred multiplied by twelve, six
thousand. Most of them will take a bullet in their brain; you can't
begin that sort of thing too soon."
"You're in a cheerful mood," I observed.
"If I could get out to-morrow ...! Man, I know the drill from A to Z, I
was under fire all through the Balkan Wars ... and your uncle, in the
kindness of his heart, talks about interpreterships! My God!"
"He only wanted to preserve your precious young life," I said.
"You damned fool, d'you think I _want_ my life preserved?" he blazed
out, with such passion as I had not seen in his face since the first
weeks that I knew him at Melton.
V
A recruiting campaign presents sorry studies in psychology. Easterly was
the only ground I worked, but I imagine the Easterly types are to be
found everywhere. There were hale, open-air men who enlisted because it
was the obvious thing to do, over-age men who struggled to circumvent
the doctor, and boys who rushed forward adventurous and unheeding as
they would have rushed to a race-meeting or polar expedition.
Others reflected longer and advanced more slowly--men with domestic
responsibilities who yet appreciated the gravity of what was at stake;
men who were urged on by speeches or taunts; and again, and with
pathetic impetuosity, boys whose fathers and brothers were already
falling in the tragic glory of the Mons retreat.
Slower still came the self-conscious men who could never visualize
themselves as soldiers, some so slowly that they never reached the
booth. There was an almost articulate struggle of mind with those who
had mounted socially until they affected contempt for mere privates and
yet saw no likelihood of securing a commission; yet this was to some
extent balanced by the readiness of others to sink in the social scale.
Many a clerk, who had starved to preserve black-coated gentility,
grasped the opportunity of abandoning pretension and a semi detached
villa. "I'm comfortable--for the first time in my life," one of them
told my uncle. And there was an appreciable minority of sons with
excessive mothers, and husbands with too persistent wives, crowding to
the Colours like schoolboys on holiday.
By the time that my canvass started in earnest, the cream had been
skinned from the district. Lord Kitchener's magic name and the alarm of
the great retreat had attracted the willing fighters, and we were left
with some whose imagination was unstirred and others who frankly opposed
our efforts. My first meeting was strongly reminiscent of old political
wrangles in the Cranbourne Division. I was met at the doors of the
National School by Kestrell, the secretary of the Easterly Democratic
Union, who had habitually sat on my platform and moved votes of thanks
when I discoursed on international disarmament. Some years earlier he
had abandoned an assured livelihood to organize the hotter-headed
section of labour in the town. Throughout the week he preached the
General Strike and on Sundays performed the office of Reader in the
conventicle of a microscopic sect. Frail and passionate, with excited
gestures and the eyes of a fanatic, I always regarded him as a man who
would burn or be burned with almost equal serenity.
"I'm surprised to see _you_ here, Mr. Oakleigh," he remarked, with
strong disapproval in his tones as he shook hands.
"I'm afraid we can't talk about the federation of Europe till we've won
this war," I said.
He sniffed contemptuously and walked to the back of the hall, where he
opened fire with extracts from my speeches and articles, lovingly culled
and flatteringly sandwiched between those of the Right Honourable
Michael Bendix, one-time self-styled leader of pro-Boer nonconformity,
later the chief ornament of the "Little Navy" group, later still--in the
first days of August--the Cabinet champion of non-intervention, and
subsequently a fire-eating Conscriptionist and parvenu War Lord.
Bertrand and I laboured unremittingly for the first four out of our
appointed seven days, but the numbers never rose beyond a daily average
of fifty, and I was compelled to warn O'Rane that if he wanted better
results he must come and lend a hand. Two evenings later he appeared
with Loring, scornful and charged with his new resentment against the
world.
"The fellows have been falling over each other in my district," he said.
"I always told you I could make men follow me."
"Let's have an ocular demonstration here," I suggested.
"You get up and do your turn," he answered. "I'll stampede the meeting
later if you don't catch on."
Our meeting was held in Easterly Market Square round the steps of the
Cross as the men returned from work. As there were two new speakers
present, I introduced them and left Bertrand to prove for the hundredth
time that the war had been engineered by Germany and that the stakes
were no less than the whole order of civilization which England
represented. As the speech began, Kestrell moved to the foot of the
steps and quoted my uncle's earlier assurances that Germany was entirely
amicable: when it was over he invited the audience to say whether the
German working man had willed the war and what the English labouring
classes stood to get out of it.
"What I says is, it takes two to make a quarrel," he proceeded, thumping
a clenched fist into the open palm of the other hand. "'Oo done it 'ere?
You? Me? I don't think. Was it Parliament? Ask these gentlemen: you've
got a lord 'ere and two members. Of course the workin' man was gettin'
uppish with 'is strikes and what not, but that's jest 'is pore misguided
way. A bit o' martial law will set that right. You bin given King and
Country for three weeks--'ard, and your duty's plain: work for Capital
when there's peace and fight for it when there's war. It must be you as
fights, 'cause there's no one else. An' you'll fight so that when it's
over you can come back--if you 'aven't been killed--and find everything
jest as it was before. I know what war is, and I saw our chaps when they
came back from fighting for Capital in the Transvaal. You won't get no
more of this blessed country by fightin' for it, and you couldn't lose
more if the Germans came and collared the lot. Now if some of these
lords and members 'ere went out and did a bit of fighting
themselves----"
Loring rose swiftly to his feet.
"Of the three 'lords and members' present," he said, "one is
considerably over military age, another _has_ a commission, the third
has applied for one."
"And 'ow soon are you going out?" inquired Kestrell.
"As soon as I can get transferred to a service battalion."
Kestrell grimaced knowingly.
"Do they send lords out?" he inquired, with a wink to his supporters.
Loring, who had been spared the wit and urbanity of a contested
election, turned suddenly white, and I, remembering the day fifteen
years before when the news of his father's death in the Transvaal
reached Oxford, pulled him back into his seat before he could reply.
O'Rane yawned and pulled his hands slowly out of his pockets.
"Dam' dull meeting, George," he observed. "What's the fellow's name?
Kestrell? Bet you I enlist him within seven minutes."
"A fiver you don't," I whispered back.
He rose to his feet and slowly swept the circle of faces with his eyes,
waiting deliberately to let the graceful debonair poise of his body be
seen. The crowd watched him silently, as a music-hall audience awaits
the development of a new turn; but he seemed indifferent to their
interest and appeared to linger for a yet profounder depth of silence.
Then with a quick turn of the head he faced Kestrell.
"Will you come to France with me?" he asked. "I am going as soon as
possible, because the men there who are defending us and our women are
heavily outnumbered. I don't care who made the war, but I do care about
my friends being killed. _You_'ll probably be killed if you come, but
you'll have done your best--just as you would if a dozen hooligans
knocked down a friend of yours and jumped on him. Will you come?"
Kestrell's lips parted, but before he could speak a boy at the back of
the crowd called out:
"I'll come, mister!"
O'Rane raised his hand to silence the interruption.
"I am speaking to Mr. Kestrell," he said, "he knows what war is."
"The working man never wanted this one," Kestrell cried excitedly.
"Nobody in England wanted it. But it's upon us, and the working man is
being killed like everyone else. Don't you care to help?"
There was no reply, but the crowd moved restlessly. O'Rane glanced at
his watch and picked up his dustcoat from the seat of the car.
"There are two lads here, sir," called a farmer from the left of the
circle.
O'Rane shook his head and thrust his arms into the coat.
"Unless Mr. Kestrell comes I prefer to go alone," he said: and then to
my uncle, "Shall we get back sir?"
The farmer's two recruits hurried forward, blushing deeply as the eyes
of the meeting turned on to them.
"You don't know what war is," O'Rane told them. "I--_have_ been under
fire, and, like Mr. Kestrell, I _do_ know. If every man in this square
volunteered, the half of you would be killed and those that came back
would be cut about, crippled, blind. You'd have done the brave thing,
but a lifetime of helplessness is a long price to pay for it."
"I'll take my chance, sir!" This time the voice came from the right.
"Two--three--four." O'Rane shook his head and half turned away. "I'll go
alone and trust to luck. Mr. Kestrell----"
"Oh, damn old Kestrell!"
I could not locate the speaker, but the voice was new.
"He speaks for labour here," said O'Rane, "and, though I've worked with
my hands in most parts of the world, I was a capitalist till the war. He
says this is a capitalist's war----"
"Ay, and so it is!" burst from Kestrell.
"Then let Capital fight for Capital, and God help the working man who's
out there at this moment if the working man at home won't go out and
fight for him."
He stepped into the car and caught hold of the wheel, finding time to
whisper--
"I've never driven one of these dam' things, George."
There was a convulsive movement in the crowd, and a knot of men ran up
to the side of the car.
"Aren't you going to take us, sir?" they demanded.
"There are plenty of recruiting offices if you want to join," he
answered, rapidly counting the men with his eyes. "I want all or none
and I hoped when you knew your own friends were fighting and others were
going out to help...." He broke off and looked eagerly at the faces in
front of him. "We should have made a fine show!" he cried, his voice
ringing with excitement. "I--I've never let a man down yet, and you'd
have stood by me, wouldn't you? We've never had a chance like this
before--to risk everything so that if we're killed we shall have spent
our lives to some purpose, and if we come back--however maimed--we shall
have done the brave, proud thing. I wanted Kestrell on my right...."
He shrugged his shoulders slightly and buttoned his coat, but the
excitement in his voice and black eyes was infecting the crowd.
"Never mind him, sir," urged the little group round the car.
With sudden decision O'Rane jumped out and walked to the steps of the
Cross where Kestrell was standing. Not a man moved, but every eye
followed his progress, and in the silence of the crowded square there
was no sound but the light tread of his feet.
"Let's part friends, Mr. Kestrell," he said. "You were the only one here
with pluck enough to speak against this war."
"It's an unrighteous war!" cried Kestrell, two spots of colour burning
vividly on his white cheeks.
"Most wars are that, my friend, but as long as the boys I was at school
with are being shot down ... Good-bye ... if you _won't_ come?"
There was no answer, and the two faced each other until Kestrell's eyes
fell. O'Rane's voice sank and took on a softer tone.
"If it's ever right to shed blood, this is the time," he said. "We'll
see it through together, side by side----"
"You're an officer!" Kestrell interjected, as a man worsted in an
argument will seize on a slip of grammar.
"I'm nothing at present. If you'll come, we'll go into the ranks
together. Get another friend on your other side--no man comes with us
unless he brings a friend,--and if only one's hit, the other can bring
back word of him. Why won't you shake hands, Kestrell? This is the
morning of our greatest day."
That night Bertrand, Loring and I motored back to town alone. Until we
said good-bye in Knightsbridge, hardly a word had passed between us, but
as Loring and I shook hands I remarked:
"Well, you see how it's done? It took ten minutes instead of seven as
he promised, but the meeting stampeded all right."
"I've seen it done," he answered. "Seeing _how_ it's done is a different
thing."
We were all charged with something of O'Rane's electric personality that
night, but at breakfast next morning Bertrand set himself to undo the
effects of the Easterly meeting in so far as they concerned O'Rane.
"It's all nonsense, George," he said. "A man of his talents and
experience, a born leader of men----"
"I doubt if you shift him," I answered. "He's committed to it--like
thousands of others who are burying themselves in the ranks because they
can't wait for commissions."
"He must outgrow that phase," said my uncle impatiently.
When O'Rane called on me some weeks later in a private's uniform, he
would hardly discuss the subject. Morris was now in a Yeomanry regiment,
and the purpose of the visit was to ask me to accept power of attorney
in his absence, realize the scanty remaining assets of the firm, and
arrange what terms I could with the creditors--at best an extension of
time, at worst a scheme of composition. I had the books examined soon
afterwards by an accountant, and with every allowance for moratorium and
the "act of God or of the King's enemies" a deficit of £15,000 would
have to be faced within two months.
"Bertrand's very keen to get you a job where you'll be less wasted than
at present," I said, when our business was done.
"He still seems to think I want to come back," he commented scornfully.
"You're one and thirty, Raney, and in full possession of your powers, as
you told us at Chepstow a few weeks ago."
"A good deal's happened since then, George," he answered, offering me
his hand. "Look here, I must get back to camp. I'll say good-bye
now----"
"I shall see you before you go out," I said.
He shook his head.
"I shan't see anyone."
I caught hold of him by the shoulders and made him look me in the eyes.
"What the devil's the matter?" I asked. "You've lost all your pluck."
"Because I've the wit to see when the game's up?" he asked, with a curl
of the lip. "I'm broke----"
"You can start again, as you've done a dozen times."
"What for? I hoped once that I might rouse the public conscience and
give my whole life to reducing the total of human misery.... The one
thing I've done in the last month is to gather so much extra food for
powder."
"The world will still have to be rebuilt when the war's over," I
reminded him.
He wriggled out of my hands and picked up his cap from the table.
"If your uncle's about," he said, "I should like to say good-bye."
I went to Bertrand's room and found him at work with some of the women
who were to be responsible for turning the house into a hospital. To my
surprise, Sonia Dainton was among them, and I stayed to speak to her
while my uncle excused himself and went down to O'Rane in the
dining-room.
"I want Mr. Oakleigh to let me help here," she explained. "I must do
something, and mother's got all the nurses she wants."
"Are you trained?" I asked.
"No, but----"
"My dear Sonia, he spends his day turning away untrained amateurs."
"But I could do _something_," she insisted.
"I'm afraid it'll be a waste of time."
"But I _must_ do something, George! All the men I know are getting
commissions, all the girls are nursing or taking the men's places...."
She paused indignantly, as though I had suggested that she was in some
way exceptionally incompetent.
"Stay and see him by all means," I said. "He's only saying good-bye to
Raney."
"Is David going out?"
"Some time."
"What's he in?"
"The Midland Fusiliers. If you want to see him again, Sonia----"
The door opened, and my uncle came in with his forehead wrinkled in
annoyance.
"It's too late now," said Sonia, with a mixture of relief and regret in
her voice. "And in any case I don't know what I should have said."
"You might have just shaken hands," I suggested, as I got up to return
to my work.
She caught my arm and lowered her voice.
"George, why did he ever come out to Innspruck?"
"Because he had a good deal of affection for you," I said.
"Then why did he talk like that?" she demanded, with flushed cheeks.
"You know his disconcerting way of telling people what he thinks is good
for them," I said.
"_That_ wasn't the reason!"
But what the reason was, I have never been told. Sometimes I remind
myself that, when Sonia crossed the Austrian frontier into Italy, O'Rane
with the world at his feet knew himself to be insolvent. An early draft
of the Midland Fusiliers carried him to France in January, before I had
time to verify my hypothesis.