THE VETERANS OF OTHER DAYS
WHEN Peter was able to travel, he was taken home to Beaver Dam, and
there a medical officer, a major in spurs, examined him and
congratulated him on being alive. Peter was given six months' sick
leave; and that, he knew, killed his chance of crossing the ocean with
his battalion. He protested, but the officer told him that, whether in
bed in his father's house or with his platoon, he was still in the army
and would have to do as he was told. The officer said it kindly and
added that as soon as he was fit he should return to his battalion,
whether it was in Canada, England or Flanders.
Jim Hammond vanished. The army marked him as a deserter, and even his
own battalion forgot him. Confused rumors circulated round his home
village for a little while and then faded and expired. As Jim Hammond
vanished from the knowledge and thought of men, so vanished the
mysterious rifleman who had splintered Peter's rib.
Spring brought the great news of the stand of the First Canadian
Division at Ypres--the stand of the few against the many, of the
Canadian militia against the greatest and most ruthless fighting machine
of the whole world. The German army was big and ready, but it was not
great as we know greatness now. The little Belgians had already checked
it and pierced the joints of its armor; the French had beaten it against
odds; the little old army of England, with its monocles and its tea and
its pouter-chested sergeant majors, had outshot it and outfought it at
every meeting; and now three brigades of Canadian infantry and a few
batteries of Canadian artillery had stood undaunted before its deluge of
metal and strangling gas and held it back from the open road to Calais
and Paris.
Lieut. Pat Hammond wrote home about the battle. He had been in the edge
of it and had escaped unhurt. Henry Starkley, of the First Field
Company, was there, too. He received a slight wound. Private letters and
the great stories of the newspapers thrilled the hearts of thousands of
peaceful, unheroic folk. Volunteers flowed in from lumber camps and
farms.
In May Dick Starkley made the great move of his young life. He was now
seventeen years old and sound and strong. He saw that Peter could not
get away with his battalion--that, unless something unexpected happened,
the Second Canadian Division would get away without a Starkley of Beaver
Dam.
So he did the unexpected thing: he went away to St. John without a word,
introduced himself to Sgt. Dave Hammer as Peter's brother, added a year
to his age and became a member of the 26th Battalion. He found Frank
Sacobie there, already possessed of all the airs of an old soldier.
Dick sent a telegram to his father and a long, affectionate, confused
letter to his mother. His parents understood and forgave and went to St.
John and told him so--and Peter sent word that he, too, understood; and
Dick was happy. Then with all his thought and energy and ambition he set
to work to make himself a good soldier.
Peter did not grumble again about his sick leave. His wound healed; and
as the warm days advanced he grew stronger with every day. He had been
wounded in the performance of his duty as surely as if a German had
fired the shot across the mud of No Man's Land; so he accepted those
extra months in the place and life he loved with a gratitude that was
none the less deep for being silent.
In June the Battalion embarked for England, in strength eleven hundred
noncommissioned officers and men and forty-two officers. After an
uneventful voyage of eleven days they reached Devenport, in England, on
the twenty-fourth day of the month. The three other battalions of the
brigade had reached England a month before; the 26th joined them at the
training camps in Kent and immediately set to work to learn the science
of modern warfare. They toiled day and night with vigor and constancy;
and before fall the battalion was declared efficient for service at the
front.
Both Dick Starkley and Frank Sacobie throve on the hard work. The
musketry tests proved Sacobie to be one of the best five marksmen in the
battalion. Dick was a good shot, too, but fell far below his friend at
the longer ranges. In drill, bombing and physical training, Dick showed
himself a more apt pupil than the Malecite. At trench digging and route
marching there was nothing to choose between them, in spite of the fact
that Sacobie had the advantage of a few inches in length of leg. Both
were good soldiers, popular with their comrades and trusted by their
officers. Both were in Dave Hammer's section and Mr. Scammell's platoon.
One afternoon in August Henry Starkley turned up at Westenhanger, on
seven days' leave from France. He looked years older than when Dick had
last seen him and thinner of face, and on his left breast was stitched
the ribbon of the military cross. He obtained a pass for Dick and took
him up to London. They put up at a quiet hotel off the Strand, at which
Henry had stopped on his frequent week-end visits to town from Salisbury
Plain. As they were engaged in filling in the complicated and exhaustive
registration form the hall porter gave Henry three letters and told him
that a gentleman had called several times to see him.
"What name?" asked Henry.
"That he didn't tell me, sir," replied the porter, "but as it was him
wrote the letters you have in your hand you'll soon know, sir."
Henry opened one of the envelopes and turned the inclosure over in quest
of the writer's signature. There it was--J. A. Starkley-Davenport. All
three letters were from the same hand, penned at dates several weeks
apart. They said that before her marriage the writer's mother had been a
Miss Mary Starkley, daughter of a London merchant by the name of Richard
Starkley. Richard Starkley, a colonial by birth with trade connections
with the West Indies, had come from Beaver Dam in the province of New
Brunswick. The letters said further that their writer had read in the
casualty lists the name of Lieut. Henry Starkley of the Canadian
Engineers, and that after diligent inquiry he had learned that this same
officer had registered at the Canadian High Commissioner's office in
October, 1914, and given his London address as the Tudor Hotel. Failing
to obtain any further information concerning Henry Starkley, the writer
had kept a constant eye on the Tudor Hotel. He begged Mr. Henry Starkley
to ring up Mayfair 2607, without loss of time, should any one of these
letters ever come to his hand.
"What's his hurry, I wonder?" remarked Henry. "After three generations
without a word I guess he'll have to wait until to-morrow morning to
hear from the Starkleys of Beaver Dam."
"Why not let him wait for three more generations?" suggested Dick. "His
grandfather, that London merchant, soon forgot about the people back in
the woods at Beaver Dam. Since the second battle of Ypres, this lad with
the hitched-up-double name wants to be seen round with you, Henry."
"If that's all, he does not want much," said Henry. "We'll take a look
at him, anyway. Don't forget that the first Starkley of Beaver Dam was
once an English soldier and that there was a first battle of Ypres
before there was a second."
The brothers, the lieutenant of engineers and the infantry private, had
dinner at a restaurant where there were shaded candles and music; then
they went to a theater. Although the war was now only a year old, London
had already grown accustomed to the "gentleman ranker." Brothers,
cousins and even sons of officers in the little old army were now
private soldiers and noncommissioned officers in the big new army. The
uniform was the great thing. Rank badges denoted differences of degree,
not of kind. So Lieut. Henry Starkley and Private Dick Starkley,
together at their little luxurious table for two and later elbow to
elbow at the theater, did not cause comment. Immediately after breakfast
the next morning Henry rang up the Mayfair number. A voice of inquiring
deference, a voice that suggested great circumspection and extreme
polish, answered him. Henry asked for Mr. Starkley-Davenport.
"You want the captain, sir," corrected the voice. "Mr. David was killed
at Ypres in '14. What name, sir?"
"Starkley," replied Henry.
"Of Canada, sir? Of Beaver Dam? Here is the captain, sir."
Another voice sounded in Henry's ear, asking whether it was Henry
Starkley of the sappers on the other end of the line. Henry replied in
the affirmative.
"It is Jack Davenport speaking--Starkley-Davenport," continued the
voice. "Glad you have my letters at last. Are you at the same hotel? Can
you wait there half an hour for me?"
"I'll wait," said Henry.
He and Dick awaited the arrival of the grandson of Richard Starkley with
lively curiosity. That he was a captain, and that some one connected
with him, perhaps a brother, had been killed at Ypres in 1914, added
considerable interest to him in their eyes.
"Size him up before trying any of your old-soldier airs on him, young
fellow," warned Henry.
They sat in the lounge of the hotel and kept a sharp watch on everyone
who entered by the revolving doors. It was a quiet place, as hotels go
in London, but during the half hour of their watching more people than
the entire population of Beaver Dam were presented to their scrutiny. At
last a pale young fellow in a Panama hat and a gray-flannel suit
entered. Under his left shoulder was a crutch and in his right hand a
big, rubber-shod stick. His left knee was bent, and his left foot swung
clear of the ground. His hands were gloved in gray, and he wore a
smoke-blue flower in his buttonhole. Only his necktie was out of tone
with the rest of his equipment: it was in stripes of blue and red and
yellow. Behind him, close to his elbow, came a thin, elderly man who was
dressed in black.
"Lieut. Starkley?" he inquired of the hall porter.
At that Henry and Dick both sprang to their feet and went across to the
man in gray. Before they could introduce themselves the young stranger
edged himself against his elderly companion, thus making a prop of him,
hooked the crook of his stick into a side pocket of his coat, and
extended his right hand to Henry. He did it all so swiftly and smoothly
that it almost escaped notice; and, pitiful as it was, it almost escaped
pity.
"Will you lunch with me--if you have nothing better to do?" he asked.
"You're on leave, I know, and it sounds cheek to ask--but I want to talk
to you about something rather important."
"Of course--and here is my young brother," said Henry.
The captain shook hands with Dick and then stared at him.
"You are only a boy," he said; and then, seeing the blood mount to
Dick's tanned cheeks, he continued, "and all the better for that,
perhaps. The nippiest man in my platoon was only nineteen."
"Of course you remember, sir, Mr. David had not attained his twentieth
birthday," the elderly man in black reminded him.
"You are right, Wilson," said the captain. "Hit in October, '14. He was
my young brother. There were just the two of us. Shall we toddle along?
I kept my taxi."
Capt. J. A. Starkley-Davenport occupied three rooms and a bath in his
own house, which was a big one in a desirable part of town. The
remaining rooms were occupied by his servants. And such servants!
The cook was so poor a performer that whenever the captain had guests
for luncheon or dinner she sent out to a big hotel near by for the more
important dishes--but her husband had been killed in Flanders, and her
three sons were still in the field. Wilson, who had been Jack's father's
color sergeant in South Africa, was the valet.
The butler was a one-armed man of forty-five years who had served as a
company sergeant major in the early days of the war; in rallying half a
dozen survivors of his company he had got his arm in the way of a chunk
of high-explosive shell and had decorated his chest with the
Distinguished Conduct Medal. He had only the vaguest notions what his
duties as butler required of him but occupied his time in arguing the
delicate question of seniority with Wilson and the coachman and making
frequent reports to the captain.
The coachman, who had served forty years in the navy, most of the time
as chief petty officer, claimed seniority of the butler and Wilson on
the grounds of belonging to the senior service. But the ex-sergeants
argued that the captain's house was as much a bit of the army as brigade
headquarters in France, and that the polite thing for any sailorman to
do who found a home there was to forget all about seniority; and that
for their part they did not believe the British navy was older than the
British army.
Captain Starkley-Davenport introduced into this household his cousins
from Beaver Dam, without apologies and with only a few words of
explanation. In spite of the butler's protests, the valet and the
coachman intruded themselves on the luncheon party, pretending to wait
on table, but in reality satisfying their curiosity concerning the
military gentlemen from Canada whose name was the front half of the
captain's name. They paused frequently in their light duties round the
table and frankly gave ear to the conversation. Their glances went from
face to face with childish eagerness, intent on each speaker in turn.
The captain did not mind, for he was accustomed to their ways and their
devouring interest in him; Henry was puzzled at first and then amused;
and Dick was highly flattered.
"There isn't anyone of our blood in our regiment now, and that is what I
particularly want to talk to you chaps about," said the captain, after a
little talk on general subjects. "My father and young brother are gone,
and the chances are that I won't get back. But the interests of the
regiment are still mine--and I want the family to continue to have a
stake in it. No use asking you to transfer, Henry, I can see that; you
are a sapper and already proved in the field, and I know how sappers
feel about their job; but Dick's an infantryman. What d'you say to
transfer and promotion, Dick? You can get your commission in one of our
new battalions as easy as kiss. It will help you and the old regiment."
"But perhaps I shouldn't make a good officer," replied Dick. "I've never
been in action, you know."
"Don't worry about that. I'll answer for your quality. You wouldn't have
enlisted if the right stuff wasn't in you."
"But I'd like to prove it, first--although I'd like to be an officer
mighty well. That's what I intend to be some day. I think I'll stick to
the 26th a while. That would be fairer--and I'd feel better satisfied,
if ever I won a commission, to have it in my own outfit. Frank Sacobie
would feel sore if I left him, before we'd ever been in France together,
to be an officer in another outfit. But there is Peter. He is a corporal
already and a mighty good soldier."
He told all about Peter and the queer way he was wounded back in Canada
and then all about his friend, Frank Sacobie. The captain and the three
attendants listened with interest. The captain asked many questions; and
the butler, the valet and the coachman were on the point of doing the
same many times.
After luncheon Wilson, the elderly valet, took command gently but firmly
and led the captain off to bed. The brothers left the addresses of
themselves and Peter with the captain and promised to call at every
opportunity and to bring Sacobie to see him at the first chance.
Dick and Frank Sacobie continued their training, and in July Dick got
his first stripe. A few members of the battalion went to the hospital,
and a few were returned to Canada for one reason or another. In August a
little draft of men fresh from Canada came to the battalion.
One of the new men kept inquiring so persistently for Corp. Peter
Starkley that in the course of time he was passed along to Dick, who
told him about Peter.
"I'm downright sorry to hear that," said the new arrival. "I saw him in
Mr. Hammond's store one day and took a shine to him, but as you're his
own brother I guess I'm in the right outfit. Hiram Sill is my name."
They shook hands cordially.
"I'm an American citizen and not so young as I used to be," continued
Sill, "but the minute this war started I knew I'd be into it before
long. Soldiering is a business now, and I am a business man. So it
looked to me as if I were needed--as if the energy I was expending in
selling boots and shoes for Maddock & Co. would count some if turned
against the Kaiser. So I swore an oath to fight King George's enemies,
and I guess I've made no mistake in that. King George and Hiram Sill see
eye to eye and tooth to tooth in this war like two coons at a
watermelon."
In spite of the fact that Mr. Scammell's platoon was already up to
strength, Sill worked his way into it.
He had a very good reason for wanting to be in that particular platoon,
and there were men already in it who had no particular reason for
remaining in it instead of going to some other platoon; so--as Sill very
justly remarked to Dick, to Sacobie, to Sergt. Hammer, to Lieut.
Scammell and to Capt. Long--he did not see why he could not be where he
wanted to be. Friendship for Frank Sacobie and Dick Starkley and
admiration for Sergt. Hammer and Lieut. Scammell were the reasons he
gave for wanting to be in that platoon.
"He seems a friendly chap," said the adjutant to Mr. Scammell. "Will you
take him? If so, you can let the Smith with the red head go over to
Number Three, where he will be with a whole grist of lads from his own
part of the country. What d'ye say? He looks smart and willing to me."
"Sure I'll take him," said Mr. Scammell. "He says he admires me."
So Hiram Sill became a member of Number Two Platoon. He worked with the
energy of a tiger and with the good nature of a lamb. He talked a great
deal, but always with a view to acquiring or imparting knowledge. When
he found that his military duties and the cultivation of friendships did
not use up all his time and energy, he set himself to the task of
ascertaining how many Americans were enrolled in the First and Second
Canadian divisions. Then indeed he became a busy man; and still his cry
continued to be that soldiering was a business.