AMID THE BLAZE OF NOON
"In the fell clutch of circumstance
I have not winced nor cried aloud.
Under the bludgeonings of chance
My head is bloody, but unbow'd."
W. E. HENLEY, "Invictus."
I
Towards the end of April it occurred to me that Burgess might like a
short account of Tom Dainton's death for publication in the "Meltonian."
I gave him the story as I had received it from Longton, and in thanking
me for my letter Burgess sent me half a dozen pages of the proofs of the
"Melton Roll of Honour." It was a formidable list. Of all my friends
from Melton and elsewhere, Val Arden, Greville Oakleigh and Loring were
still untouched; Sam Dainton was in hospital with a flesh wound and
might be expected back in the fighting line in eight weeks, and a score
of civilians from twenty peaceful walks of life were still in training.
The rest would never return--and the war was but nine months old. I
could not yet classify O'Rane's fate, but it was five months since he
had gone out, and the Midland Fusiliers had been through murderous
fighting. I had long since given up reading the closely printed daily
"Casualties among non-commissioned officers and men."
"I am afraid," I wrote to Burgess, "the odds are against our seeing him
again."
Then I corrected the proofs and dropped them into the letter-box in the
passage. My uncle had left the flat at half-past eight for his turn of
duty as a Special Constable, and in his absence I settled down to deal
with the month's accounts from the hospital in Princes Gardens. It was a
cold night, with a wind that sent gusts of smoke blowing into the room;
I shivered and coughed for a while, but the draught at my back was
unbearable, and I was jumping up to close the door when a low voice
immediately behind me said:
"You left the door open, so I thought I'd walk in."
O'Rane was standing within a yard of me. Thinner even than when I met
him first as a half-starved waif at Melton, white-cheeked and lined,
with his skin drawn tight as drum parchment over the bones of his face,
but alive and smiling, with his great black eyes fixed on my face, he
grasped his hat with one hand while the other rested on the handle of
the door.
"I've just been telling Burgess you were dead," I cried.
"Infernal cheek!" he answered, with a faint breathless laugh. "Steady on
with my hand, old man, it's bandaged! I've just come up from Melton. You
might ask me to come in, George."
I looked at him and drew a long breath.
"Thank Heaven, Raney!"
"May I ... I _say_, go gently with me!" He leant against the door,
panting with exertion. "Did you come here to dodge me? I went straight
from Waterloo to your house, but there was a reek of iodoform.... I've
had my fill of iodoform lately. I want you to give me a bed, George, and
help me out of my coat and put me into a comfortable chair."
"Where were you wounded?" I asked, as I took his coat and pressed him
into a chair by the fire.
He held out his hands, which were covered by loose chamois leather
gloves.
"A bit cut about," he explained. "I'm just keeping the dirt out."
"Was that all?"
"My only wounds," he answered rather deliberately.
"You look a most awful wreck, Raney."
He was lying back in the chair as though he had no bones in his body,
and his weak, tired voice had lost its tone and music.
"I only left hospital yesterday," he protested.
"How much leave have you got?"
"As much as I like. The Army's bored with me. That's why I went to
Melton."
"Do try to be intelligible, Raney," I begged.
He assumed a comical expression of grievance.
"Really, George! You know how fond of me Burgess is----"
"I remember he asked you to join his staff ten years ago."
His lank body became alert with interest.
"You hadn't forgotten that either? They were my first words to him. I
marched into his library,--he hasn't had a window open since I
left,--seized him by the hand and told him I hadn't seen him since he
offered me a place on his staff. 'Which thou didst greet with mockery
and scorn, laddie,' he said.
"'Was it a firm offer, sir?' I asked.
"'I know not this babble of the money-changers,' he said. 'The vineyard
is full.'
"'Haven't you room for one more labourer, sir?' I asked.
"'Laddie,' he said, 'thy place is set in the forefront of the hottest
battle. Wherefore hast thou broken and fled?'"
O'Rane's gloved right hand travelled up and covered his eyes.
"I talked to him for a bit, with the result that I propose to stay with
you till Thursday and then go back to Melton as a master."
He uncovered his eyes and looked at me as if to see how I should take
the news.
"But how soon are you going back to France?" I asked.
He shook his head slowly.
"I told you the Army was bored with me, George. I've been invalided
out."
"For a cut hand?"
He laughed sadly.
"My looks don't pity me, do they? A patriotic lady at Waterloo was quite
indignant because I wasn't in uniform. I feel shaken up, George, and if
you offer me a drink I shan't refuse it."
He was unaccountably distraught and stayed my hand before I had begun to
pour out the whisky. Then he accepted a cigar and threw it back on to
the table. I felt that he had been allowed out of hospital too soon.
"How did you get wounded?" I asked.
"In a counter-attack," he answered listlessly. "We were shelled out of
our trench, then we got it back, then they cleared us again, and
I--well, you see, I didn't run fast enough."
The account was sufficiently vague, but phrase following phrase had a
ring of familiarity, and a picture began to form itself in my mind.
"Where did this happen, Raney?" I asked.
"I don't know whereabouts it was on the map," he answered. "If you want
to put up a tablet in my honour, get anyone on our front to direct you
to Seven Dials."
As long as I could I resisted the memories stirred by that name. O'Rane
sat carelessly swinging one leg over the arm of the chair and staring
into the fire. As I watched his pale face and nervous movements, a wave
of nausea swept over me, and moments passed, leaden-footed, before I
could be sure of my voice.
"What's the matter with the other hand?" I asked carelessly.
"A bayonet jab," he answered.
I sprang to my feet as the last web of uncertainty was swept away.
"God in Heaven! It was _you_, Raney!"
"_What_ was me?" he flung back, leaping out of the chair as though I
were attacking him.
We stood face to face, panting with excitement.
"I heard what happened," I said. "Of course I didn't know who it was. A
fellow in the hospital train, after you were cut down----"
O'Rane stumbled forward and laid his maimed hands clumsily on my
shoulders.
"Man, you don't want to drive me mad, do you?" he whispered.
I threw an arm round his waist and led him back to his chair. He dropped
limply back and sat motionless, save when he wiped his forehead with the
back of his glove.
"It's been touch-and-go as it is," he murmured, pressing his hand
against his side. "Now and again ... when I can't sleep, you know ...
and it all comes back ... I--I--I never know how long I can keep my
brain." He stretched out his hand for me to take. "Promise me one thing,
George!" he begged, with a graver note in his voice. "You'll never ask
me about it or mention it to me? And you won't pity me? And--and--well,
you know the sort of thing I can't stand, George."
"I promise."
"It was--just a bayonet wound. You know how I was caught?"
"You were wounded before, weren't you? I heard you went down two or
three times in the charge."
He rose slowly and stood before me.
"I've been invalided out, and yet nothing shows? Burgess thought I was a
deserter, and the patriotic lady at Waterloo.... You see nothing wrong?"
I walked slowly round him.
"I may be blind, Raney----" I began.
His face twitched into a smile, and one hand shot out and closed over my
wrist.
"Old man, you're almost as blind as I am!" he whispered. "Mind my hand,
for God's sake! Yes, I told you at Chepstow we should have to risk
everything we valued.... Both, yes.... Oh, stone-blind.... Old man,
if--if I can stand it, you can too!"
* * * * * * * *
That night I sat up by myself waiting for my uncle to return. He was on
duty till two, but I could not go to bed without seeing him. O'Rane had
retired early in a state of complete exhaustion and dropped asleep
almost as soon as he was between the sheets. He would--as ever--accept
no assistance. I showed him his room, watched him touch his way round
the walls and furniture and then left him. He rejoined me for a moment
to complete his tour and find out where the bathroom lay, and we said
good night a second time. A few moments later I strolled in to say I had
given orders that he was not to be called. The room was in darkness when
I entered, and he was unpacking his suitcase and arranging brushes and
razors on the dressing-table. It may be to confess a want of
imagination, but I think I realized then for the first time something of
the meaning of blindness.
Bertrand returned punctually at two-thirty.
"You're late, George," he said. "Hallo, are you seedy? You look as if
you'd seen a ghost."
"I have," I said. "Look here, I've got a peculiarly revolting story to
tell you. D'you like it now or in the morning?"
"I'm not very keen to have it any time," Bertrand answered, with a
distaste in his tone.
"I'm afraid you must. Raney's back from the Front and staying here----"
"Raney?"
"Yes, and there are one or two things that mustn't be mentioned before
him. I only want to put you on your guard."
"Oh, if that's all ... drive along; I may as well sleep on it."
"If you can," I said. "You remember that story of Longton's I told you?"
"About the man...." My uncle shuddered. "Please don't let's have that
again."
"Only two sentences," I said. "The man they crucified was Raney. And
the reason they caught him was because he was blind."
Bertrand twice moistened his lips with the tip of his tongue. All the
vigour seemed to have gone out of him, and his hands twitched as though
he had no control over them. I thought I had better finish what I had
begun.
"It was the concussion of a bursting shell," I said. "Double detachment
of the retina. He wandered about dazed and half mad, got into the wrong
trench, charged ... Well, you know the rest."
My uncle rose slowly to his feet, steadied himself against the table and
stumbled towards the door.
"Where have you put him?" he asked.
"I'll show you," I answered. "He's asleep, so you mustn't disturb him,
and--the subject's never discussed."
My uncle nodded.
I could have sworn that we crossed the hall and opened the door opposite
without a sound being made, yet before I had time to turn on the light,
Raney was sitting up in bed demanding who we were.
"We didn't mean to wake you," I said. "My uncle's just come in."
The startled expression passed from his face and left it smiling.
"The last time we met, sir," he said, in the terrible weak whisper that
did duty for a voice, "I was once again a self-invited guest in your
house."
He held out a bandaged hand in the direction from which my voice was
coming, and my uncle clasped it tenderly.
"It's the most welcome compliment you can pay me, David," he said. "When
first we met I asked leave to help you in any way I could. I ask again,
though I'm afraid there'll be no change in the answer."
No better appreciated tribute could have been offered, and I saw Raney's
white cheeks flush with pleasure.
"You don't think I'm done for, sir?" he demanded, drawing his thin body
erect in the bed. "They--they couldn't kill me, you see."
"You're only just beginning. Good night, my boy." He paused as though he
had something else to say, then laid a hand on O'Rane's head, and
repeated, "Good night, my boy."
At the door I heard myself recalled. Raney waited till my uncle's
footsteps had died away and then beckoned me to the bedside.
"I want to clear up one thing, George," he said. "That charge, you know.
I can't say what your version may be, but I tell you frankly I went out
because I wanted to be finished off." He wriggled down under the sheets
and lay with his hands clasped under his head. "I don't feel like that
now. There's any amount of kick left in me. The only things.... Look
here, George, give me time to get used to it, to put some side on, you
know. I've always ridden a pretty high horse, and it's a bit of an
effort to get down and walk.... Don't spring any surprises on me, will
you? There are some people I feel I can't meet.... Let me down gently:
you can prepare people a bit.... George, I'm not going to chuck the
House. Fawcett was blind, and he was a Minister.... I'm not going to
chuck anything!"
In the morning I wrote half a dozen notes to the people I thought would
be most interested to hear of O'Rane's return. The half-dozen did not
include Sonia, and I am not in the least concerned to know whether I did
right or wrong in omitting her. When we met at the hospital on the
following Sunday, she announced her intention of coming back to tea with
me. I told her of O'Rane's presence, adding that he was wounded and that
the ordering of the flat was no longer in my hands. She inquired the
extent of his wounds, and I made a clean breast of the whole story.
Sonia whitened to the lips, pressed for further information and
formulated a grievance that she had not been told before.
"You must take me to see him at once," she said, as I attempted no
defence.
"He's not always very keen to meet people," I warned her.
"There's something I want to say to him," she answered.
I bowed to the inevitable, and we returned to Queen Anne's Mansions.
Sonia waited in the hall while I went in to O'Rane, but there was no
sign of her when I returned. Hurrying along the corridor I found her
standing by the lift.
"I'm sorry, Sonia...." I began.
"Oh, I knew when you didn't come back that he wouldn't see me."
"He's nothing like himself yet," I explained lamely.
Sonia laughed sceptically.
"He'll have to be all right before he goes to Melton on Thursday. My
dear George, I thought you and I were always candid with each other!"
I said nothing.
"Don't bother to come down with me," she begged, as the lift door
opened.
II
On the morning after Sonia's brief call I went into O'Rane's bedroom
while he was dressing and asked him if he would give her a chance of
meeting him before he went down to Melton. It was a difficult overture
to make, for I knew something of his personal sensitiveness, but he
could not indefinitely plead ill-health as a reason for avoiding her,
and--at worst--I wished to be furnished with a new excuse.
His brows contracted when I mentioned her name, and I was sorry to have
introduced the subject, for though in mind, body and voice he was
rapidly recovering strength, I felt he required still to be handled
delicately.
"I'm very busy," he told me, "and if I weren't I see no good in meeting
her. To-night your uncle's piloting me down to the House----"
"I think you will be doing her a kindness, Raney," I suggested.
"I can't afford it."
"It will cost you nothing."
He lathered his face in silence for a few moments.
"George, I once had Sonia Dainton in the hollow of my hand," he said.
"I've done my share of handling crowds and getting my orders carried
out, and when we came back from Austria last summer I'd bent her will.
You've known me some time, old man, and you know I don't placate
Nemesis. I've had a good run for my money and I've not done yet, but
Sonia saw me climb from nothing to--well, at least, something. I had
money and a position--and by God! I didn't need a Bobby's arm to get
across the street! You can tell her that!"
I lit a cigarette and waited for his passion to cool.
"Tell her that, George!" he repeated more quietly.
"If you want to insult her," I said, "you must do it yourself."
"I don't want to meet her!"
"Are you afraid to, Raney?"
"Fear isn't a common fault of mine," he answered.
"Are you afraid to meet her, Raney?" I repeated.
He turned round and faced me, his thin body silhouetted by the sun
shining through his pyjamas.
"I've not got the courage to hear people say she married me out of pity
for a blind man," he answered through closed teeth, "if that's what you
mean."
"I have only asked you to see her for five minutes before you go down to
Melton," I reminded him.
He covered his face with his hands and turned away.
"Did your friend on the hospital train tell you that when I was
delirious I shouted her name till they heard me the other end of
Boulogne? I'm flesh and blood like other people old man; I know my
limitations----"
"What shall I tell her?" I asked as I got up to go.
"Anything you like! The flat's yours, you can let in whom you please....
No, I don't want to make your position any harder, but the account's
closed. I paid for the fun of bringing her back from Innspruck by
telling her what I thought of her. It may have done her good.... She's
got no claim on me, and I don't see that I'm bound to meet her."
As we sat down to breakfast I was handed a telegram from Val Arden,
asking if I should be lunching at the Club, as he was home on leave. I
am growing used to this as to a thousand other developments of war, yet
I long found it strange to meet a man driving from Victoria in the mud
that had plastered his clothes in the trenches, to see him change into
mufti, dine and spend the evening at a music-hall, hurry away to the
country for a day's shooting and return to his regiment ninety-six hours
after leaving it.
I have met a score of friends enjoying this short reprieve, all in
riotous spirits and splendid health, full of confidence for the future
and treating war and its ghastly concomitants with the cheerful
flippancy that makes our race the despair of other nations. And if these
meetings had their _macabre _side, I hope it was hidden at least from my
guests. Yet I should be sorry to count the men who have scrambled back,
leave over, into the trenches to be killed almost before their feet
touch the ground.
"You must come and help, Raney," I said, after reading the telegram.
From hints in Loring's rare letters I gathered--what any but a
professional soldier might have guessed--that all men are not equally
fitted to shoulder a rifle and that more than six months' route-marching
and musketry practice was needed to turn a neurotic novelist into a
nerveless fighter. Indeed, there are few professions so modest as the
army in its assumption that a few months' drill and a shilling manual
will make a soldier. "Pick me up at the Admiralty and we'll go
together."
"I must call at the bank first." He paused and crumbled his toast
between his fingers. "George, in two words how do I stand?"
Like many questions that have to be answered sooner or later, I should
have preferred to answer this later.
"I realized everything," I told him. "You came out square."
He sat in silence, calculating in his head.
"You realized everything?" he said at last. "That's not the whole truth,
George. You didn't bring me out square on _that_."
I pushed away my plate and filled a pipe.
"Jove! I must get down to the Admiralty!" I said. "There was a small
balance against you, Raney. One or two people offered to advance it, and
as I had your power of attorney----"
"Who were they, George?"
" ... I accepted the money, which was accompanied by a request that
their names should not be disclosed. Meet me at one, Raney. Good-bye."
I started to the door, but his troubled expression was so piteous that I
did not like leaving him.
"I get paid as a member ..." he murmured to himself. "Burgess will pay
me, too ... and I shall get a pension.... It doesn't cost much to
live...." Then turning to me imploringly he cried, "George, you _must_
tell me who they were! I must repay them! Old man, you don't want to
break my luck?"
With his wonderful black eyes on mine--eyes that I could hardly yet
believe were sightless--I was unable to discuss what he was pleased to
call his luck.
"The secret's not mine," I said. "But I'll arrange for the repayment."
"Jim Loring was one."
"Perhaps; or again, perhaps not."
My luncheon-party opened uncomfortably, for I had first to warn Arden
what fate had overtaken O'Rane and then whisper to Raney that he must
exert himself to make the meal cheerful. Valentine greeted me
unsmilingly with the words, "They prolong the agony scientifically,
don't they?"
"Three months without a scratch isn't bad," said O'Rane.
"But if you're going to be killed in the end?" he asked, spreading out
his hands. "I don't mind roughing it, I don't mind responsibility--I'd
send a battalion to certain death as blithely as the most incompetent
staff officer. I suppose I can stand being killed like other people, but
I can't face being wounded and--my God!--I can't stand that infernal,
never-ending noise!" He shuddered and was silent for a while. "I'm an
exception to the general rule," he went on. "Out there, there's only
one religion--you're going to escape and your neighbour's going to be
killed. It must be cheering to believe that."
We survived luncheon because O'Rane took hold of the conversation on
that word and discussed the new wave of mysticism that was passing over
the world. "The ways of God to man" were justified in a hundred
different fashions, and from the first week of the war the Book of the
Revelation had been more quoted--and perhaps less understood--than at
any time since the middle of the seventeenth century. The exegesis of
the day contemplated the war as a Divine purge to cleanse Germany of
moral perversion and punish Belgium for the Congo atrocities. France was
being held to account for a stationary birthrate and the expulsion of
the religious orders, and England--_faute de mieux_--shared the guilt of
a Liberal Government which had carried a Welsh Disestablishment Bill.
"_Is_ there anything below the surface, Raney?" I asked. "I see a
megalomaniac preaching universal empire for a generation of people who
have some show of reason for regarding themselves as invincible. Will
the history books endorse that view in a hundred years' time?"
"A hundred--yes. A thousand--no." He shook his head reflectively. "In a
thousand years, when the world's a single State, it will be able to
criticize and abolish an institution without going to war. There's a
survival of the fittest among institutions as well as among animals, and
all the non-dynastic wars have been challenges flung to an existing
order. The Holy Roman Empire was challenged by Napoleon--and couldn't
justify itself. Philip the Second challenged the Reformed
Church--unsuccessfully. Alexander the Fifth challenged John Huss--and
beat him. Alaric challenged Rome, Hannibal challenged Rome. And Rome
justified herself once, but not the second time. It's a non-moral system
which let the Inquisition survive four hundred years and slavery as many
thousand.
"Lift not your hands to it for help, for it
Rolls impotently on as thou or I."
You've six different civilizations struggling to justify themselves in
this war."
My guests walked back with me to the Admiralty, and we parted at the
Arch.
"Let me know when you're home again, Val," I said, as we shook hands.
He looked at me absent-mindedly for a moment, then turned on his heel,
only pausing to call back over his shoulder, "Good-bye to you both."
O'Rane put his hand on my shoulder and whispered in my ear:
"Make Jim Loring state a case to the colonel and get the boy sent back
to train recruits at the Base. I've seen fellows go like that before."
I wrote to Loring that night, and received a reply six days later.
Valentine had diagnosed his own case better than any of us, and the
letter contained the news of his death. "It was instantaneous, I am glad
to say," Loring wrote. "But a stray bullet, miles behind the line----!
There's an awful perversity about this dreadful business."
After O'Rane left me at the Admiralty I received a message inviting me
to join him and my uncle at the House for dinner. I had to decline, as I
could not say how soon my work would be over, and I was preparing to
dine alone at the flat when Sonia was announced.
"Come and join me," I said, but she hesitated at the door and shook her
head.
"I've dined already, but I wanted to say good-bye. You know I've had to
leave the hospital?"
"Do come in, Sonia," I said.
"D'you allow dogs in? I've brought Jumbo."
She opened the door to its widest extent and a vast St. Bernard squeezed
past her and ambled up to my chair.
"My dear, where did you get him?" I asked. "I understood the mastodon
was extinct."
"Darling, don't let him call you names!" she cried, throwing off her
cloak and flinging her white arms round the great shaggy neck. "He was
Tom's, and I've had him since--you know. Is David in?"
"He's dining at the House," I told her.
She dropped on to her knees and pulled the dog's head on to her lap.
"Come and look at the new collar, George," she said, crumpling his ears
with her fingers.
I bent down and read the inscription:
"DAVID O'RANE, ESQRE, M.P.,
HOUSE OF COMMONS"
"It's the only address I know," she explained. "George, I simply can't
bear to think of him going off and living all alone at Melton--in the
dark. Just introduce them and--and please, George, don't tell him it
comes from me or I know he'll refuse it."
"I'll do my best," I said.
In the distance I heard the grating sound of a latchkey. Sonia scrambled
to her feet with terror in her brown eyes.
"George, was that the front door?"
It was barely nine, but before I could speak the door slammed and
cautious feet crossed the hall.
"Any dinner left, George?" O'Rane demanded, as he put his head into the
room. "The House is up, and your uncle's gone to the Club. I was rather
tired, so I thought I'd come here." He paused to sniff. "Onion sauce!
Say there's enough for two!"
"Any amount," I answered. "Tell me how you got on."
Sonia nodded to the door and telegraphed me a question with her eyes.
"I'd better tell you----" I began.
"Everyone was as kind as kind could be," he said, pulling in a chair to
the table and placing his hat carefully within reach. "Everyone tumbled
over everyone else to shake hands with me.... I say, have you started a
dog? I thought I touched something warm and soft. It's all right.... Of
course, the voices are the very devil at first. Your uncle piloted me
in...." He stopped suddenly and faced round to every corner of the room
with head thrown back and dilated nostrils. "George, is there anyone
here?"
Sonia rose from her chair.
"I am, David."
"I was trying to explain----" I began.
"I didn't think you'd be back so soon," she added.
O'Rane pushed back his chair.
"Why should _you_ apologize?" he asked, with a laugh. "I'm afraid I
interrupted you without knowing it."
His hand felt its way along the table until his fingers closed over the
brim of his hat.
"Where are you off to, Raney?" I asked.
"I'll slip round to the Club," he answered, as he moved to the door.
Sonia laid her hand on his shoulder.
"I'm really going, David," she said. "The doctor says I've got to be in
bed by ten. As I'm here, I must just tell you how pleased I am to hear
you're getting on all right. Mother will be very glad to see you any
time you can come over from Melton."
"Very kind of her," he murmured conventionally.
Sonia turned and held out her hand to me. The line of her lips was very
straight.
"Good-bye, George."
She stretched out her hand to O'Rane, but had to touch his before he
understood what she was doing. "I have never thanked you for bringing me
back from Innspruck."
O'Rane's face, already hard, seemed to grow tighter in every muscle.
"That was before we came into the war," he said. "I've forgotten
everything before that."
"You told me then that I shouldn't be able to help anyone----" she
began.
"I apologize, Sonia."
"I'm afraid it was true. I can't carry a tray from one room to another.
If, in spite of that, I can be of any assistance to you"--he made an
almost imperceptible gesture of impatience, but she went on
deliberately,--"If I can help you by body or soul in any way--at any
time--in any place----"
"It's sufficiently comprehensive, Sonia."
She dropped on one knee and kissed his gloved hand. I had to put my arm
round her as we went into the hall, for her eyes were dim with tears,
and her whole body trembled. The St. Bernard followed us to the door and
looked reproachfully at her as she bent down and pressed kisses on to
his broad forehead.
"You've been the devil of a time," O'Rane said irritably, when I
returned.
"I couldn't take her through the hall with the tears running down her
cheeks," I answered.
He got up and walked to the fireplace, where he stood resting his head
on his hand. He was still there twenty minutes later when my uncle came
in from the Club.
"Could George give you any dinner?" asked Bertrand.
"I didn't feel inclined for any, thank you, sir."
III
On the day before the opening of the Melton term I went as usual to talk
to O'Rane while he was dressing for breakfast. Burgess was allotting him
rooms in the bachelor quarters, and there O'Rane's interest in the
subject ceased. There might be furniture, carpets and bedding, and in
that case he would--in his own phrase--"be striking it rich"; or again
there might be bare boards, and in that event his travelling rug would
be useful. Someone would lend him a cap and gown, there were shops in
Melton, and, above all, he was an old campaigner.
My first idea had been to ask Lady Dainton to see him settled. Then I
discovered a wish to go myself and see how my young cousin Laurence was
progressing. Finally I produced an old letter from Burgess, reproaching
me for never going near the school.
"You do fuss so!" Raney exclaimed, walking barefoot round the room
until he found a sunny piece of carpet. "I've got to start on my own
sometime. And I've got a dog. Where did Jumbo come from, George?"
"The clouds," I said. "Why shouldn't I be allowed to see my own cousin?"
"Send him a fiver. He'll appreciate it much more. George, I know you
want to be helpful, but none of the masters knows I'm coming, nobody
knows I've been wounded. They--they can just dam' well find out,
especially the boys. You haven't given me away to your cousin?"
"I've said nothing, but if you're taking the Under Sixth you'll drop
across him. Raney, what in the name of fortune are you going to Melton
at all for?"
He gave a low whistle, and the great St. Bernard moved slowly forward
and touched his hand.
"What does a kiddie do when he's hurt?" he demanded, dropping
cross-legged on to the floor. "I wanted some place I knew ... out of the
turmoil ... some place where I could rest and think it all out. We've
got to get a New Way of Life out of this war, George."
"Those were pretty well Loring's last words before he went out," I said.
"There's the opportunity if anyone will take it. What's to be the new
Imperative, Raney?"
He caressed the dog for a moment and then said interrogatively:
"The old one, the same old one that I gave you years ago in Ireland,
'Thou shalt cause no pain.' Why shouldn't we revert to the parable of
the Good Samaritan as a standard of conduct?"
"Will you preach it in the smoking-room of the Eclectic Club?" I asked.
"Can't I preach it to boys before ever they get there?" he retorted.
"This war won't leave us much but lads and old men--and the old men will
die. I've been out there, George, and wounded. I did all I could and
stood all I could; I'm entitled to tell people what I conceive to be
their duty to mankind--infinitely better entitled than when we chopped
ethics at Lake House." His excited voice grew husky. "You mustn't put a
match to me yet, George. I'm as right as can be, but I--I--any arguing
makes me so tired. And I haven't had time to think anything out yet."
Before leaving for the Admiralty I made him promise to telegraph as soon
as he arrived at Melton, and it is perhaps superfluous to add that for a
fortnight I had no news of him, and that only a letter from my cousin
Laurence apprised me of his continued existence.
"MY DEAR GEORGE,"--it ran,--"Your fiver was as welcome as it was
unexpected. I thought the family had been broke by the war. This
place is much the same as usual, but an awful lot of our chaps have
been killed--fellows who were monitors when I was a fag. Two of our
dons have left and taken commissions. They were after your time,
though.
"Burgess worked off one of his pet surprises on the first day. He
gave out after Call-over that Villiers would run the Army Class and
the Under Sixth would go to a fellow called O'Rane--an old
Meltonian. I don't know what reputation the form had in your
immoral youth, but we're regarded as rather playful now, so it
seemed only fair to let the new man see us _au naturel_, as the
French say. Besides we all felt it was up to us to see what sort of
a fellow he was, and how much he knew about the place.
"_Quo jam constituto_, as they say in Latin, we strolled in half an
hour late and gave him a very fine 'Good morning, sir!--welcome to
Melton!' in chorus. He just bowed and said 'Good morning,' and lay
back in his chair. Funny looking fellow--very thin--with black hair
and great black eyes that made him rather like a panther. Everybody
calls him the Black Panther here.
"_Quibus factis_, which things having been done, he wanted our
names and ages and told us to arrange ourselves in alphabetical
order. Of course that was simply asking for trouble. Half the
fellows gave their Christian names and the other half didn't know
whether W came before V, and we fell over each other and there was
no end of a shindy. I thought we should bring Burgess up. Suddenly
the Panther sprang up and gave tongue. It was rather like cutting
a sheet of ice with a piece of forked lightning--if you take my
pretty meaning. 'Gentlemen, I dislike noise. It is one of my many
peculiarities, all of which you will have to learn. I never speak
twice and I am never disobeyed.' My hat! I should think he wasn't!
We saw we were up against something rather stiff and we all
remembered our names and ages in surprisingly quick time. He didn't
bother to write 'em down--just listened and repeated 'em out of his
head. Then he arranged the books we were to read this term and then
he got on to the holiday-task. I don't mind telling you it was a
bad moment, George. Not one of us had opened a book, and, though
that wouldn't have mattered with a mentally deficient like dear old
Villiers, the Panther had shown his teeth. He asked what the book
was, and Jordon told him it was 'Roman Society under the Later
Empire.' 'Has anybody looked at it?' asked the Panther. There was
the usual pin-dropping silence that you read about in the parish
magazine serials. Then the Panther smiled, and I could see he was
the sporting variety. He said, 'I understand from the Headmaster we
have two and a half hours in which I examine the extent of your
knowledge. The allowance errs on the side of generosity. How are we
to employ our remaining two hours?"
"Well, Reynolds asked him to tell us about the school when he was
here, and Carter invited him to read to us. He said he wouldn't
read, but we might talk to him, and he would choose the subject. It
didn't sound particularly exciting, and I thought he'd done the
dirty by us when we got back to his old 'Roman Society.' It was
rather alarming; he looked up to the ceiling and said, 'Nobody
knows why the Roman Empire fell. What are your views,
Marjoribanks?' Margy had a shot and broke down, and two or three
other chaps did the same, and then the Panther weighed in. It was
an amazing performance, George; I've never heard a fellow use such
marvellous language--all perfectly natural. He wandered about, five
centuries at a stride, from continent to continent. He's been
everywhere. We'd got to the Mexican Aborigines when the bell went.
He told us we could go, but I wanted to hear some more, so I
suggested we should lump the break and go straight on. We had a
vote on it, and my motion was carried _nem con_. He started again
like a two-year-old, and we tripped along from the marriage customs
of the Andaman Islanders to Single Chamber Government in Costa
Rica. Then he stopped dead. 'Oakleigh!' I jumped up--'Yes, sir!'
'We have now got to the constitutional devices of the Central
American Republics. We started with the decadence of the Roman
Empire. Find your way back.'
"George, old son! It was an awful thing to do, but with a little
help I floundered through and out the other side. 'Now you'll never
forget anything you've heard to-day, will you?' asked the Panther.
I preserved a modest silence, and then, fortunately, the second
bell went.
"We were all going out when he called me back and charged me with
being related to you. I admitted it. 'Did you get your fiver?' he
asked. 'How did you hear about it, sir?' I said. It was in my
pocket at the time. 'You're indebted to me for that,' he said. 'And
when you write to thank George for it, don't forget to tell him
exactly what you think of me. It'll amuse him and save me a letter.
Now, if you can spare a moment, will you pilot me to the
Cloisters?'
"He linked arms, and we started out of his room, but coming into
Great School I cut the corner too fine and sent him against the
Birch Table. I was frightfully apologetic and all that sort of
thing, but he only said, 'It's my fault, I ought to have told you
that I'm blind.' George, that absolutely bowled me over. You're a
swine for not telling me he was coming, and doubly a swine for not
warning me about the other thing. I dropped his arm and stared at
him. I'd never seen anybody less blind. I murmured something about
'Jolly bad luck, sir!' He just shrugged his shoulders and said,
'Whom therefore ye ignorantly worship, him declare I unto you. You
call it luck, I call it destiny.'
"As soon as I'd taken him to his rooms, I hared back to Great Court
and caught hold of our fellows. They were all discussing him, but I
shut them up and told them what I'd found out. Findlay just said in
his terse way, 'My God!' and after that there didn't seem much to
add, till Welby remarked, 'I wish we'd known that before we tried
to rag him. I vote we apologize.' No one raised any objection, so
Jordan, as head of the form, wrote out a crawling note, and, as
everybody seemed to think I knew him best, I was told off as
postman. When I got to his rooms, he said, 'A note? I shall have to
ask you to read it to me.' And when I'd read it, he smiled and
said, 'Thank you.'
"We haven't ragged him much since then. After all, any chap who can
take a form in Homer for an hour and a half without a book is a bit
out of the ordinary. Has he always been blind, or is it something
new?
"Well, George, I've spent three-quarters of prep. writing to you,
and if I go on any longer there will be wailing and gnashing of
teeth in first school to-morrow. The Panther will be responsible
for the teeth-gnashing stunt. He--the Panther--is very keen on your
coming down here when you can spare time from piling up
battle-cruisers on sunk reefs or whatever your function at the
Admiralty is. If you go over to Ireland at any time, tell the mater
I'm working very hard and giving the Panther every satisfaction.
Tell her also that according to the papers the cost of living has
gone up over forty per cent. I shan't send love to Uncle Bertrand,
because I don't think he can stand me as a gift, but, if Jim comes
home on leave, you can give him a fraternal shake of the hand from
me, and tell Vi to write here more regularly. I _am_ her brother,
even if she _is_ a rotten Scotch marchioness. _A bas les
aristocrats! A la lanterne!_--Ever yours (I did thank you for the
fiver, didn't I?),
"LAURENCE NEAL GERALDINE HUNTER-OAKLEIGH."
I do not see that my cousin's letter calls for comment.