this condition and that; avoiding danger by instinct; finding his needed
relaxation in petty amusements; making to himself, even, some social
order out of the chaos wherein he dwelt. And since none, sallying forth,
might know if he would come back alive, a certain careless spirit,—more
hysteria than the “war humour” stay-at-homes christened it,—stiffened
endurance, irradiated relaxation.
In the Ramparts, vast catacombe of old brickwork impervious to any
artillery, were pianos, gramophones, picture-galleries selected from
coloured supplements of the _Sketch_ or _La Vie Parisienne_; cheery
Messes whereto came mud-soaked men out of the noisy night, eager for
whisky, always ready to break into song. Some of those men died; some
were wounded; some sickness took: but always other men replaced
them—and life went on. Moreover, since the human animal cannot now
exist without the written word, he even discovered, buried away among
the ruins of the City, a printing-press, and type, and paper, from which
evolved itself the semblance of a news-sheet—which he called _The
Wipers Times_.
In this atmosphere, whatever glamour “active service” once possessed for
P.J. soon disappeared. He did his work now, office and telephone duties
varied by trips to front-line or batteries, with the meticulous accuracy
of an automaton; wrote much to Patricia; and read the daily, weekly and
monthly newspapers from cover to cover.
Towards the end of February, however, chance provided him with a new
interest. Monsieur Van Woumen, the Belgian who had taken furnished his
house in Lowndes Square, was anxious to renew the agreement. Peter,
purely from habit, wrote back to the agent who made the offer, that he
thought there should be an increase in the rent. The agent replied that
his client would not increase the furnished rent; but might be prepared,
on certain conditions, to take the remainder of the Crown lease off
Peter’s hands. “Would you,” wrote the agent, “consider an offer for the
furniture?”
The little deal kept Peter amused for a whole two months. He had no
particular sentiment about either house or chattels. Patricia, consulted
in a long business-like letter, approved of the scheme: making only
certain reservations—some of her own bedroom furniture, the desk and
sideboard in the dining-room, a blue carpet, and various other pieces
she thought it inadvisable to dispose of. Monsieur Van Woumen paid his
deposit; signed the agreement and completed the purchase-money by the
time that—after three months and twenty-seven days which are best left
to the imagination—the Southdown Artillery was ordered a week’s rest at
Eecke.
§ 3
In and around Eecke, the Southdown Division Artillery abode ten good
days. It was earliest April. Sun shone on clean farms, on green fields
and white pavé roads. Men, cleaning harness and equipment or leading
teams to water, whistled at their work: the lines which the City had
graven on their faces, disappeared. They chaffered merrily with the
peasants for eggs or milk; sang songs in the _estaminets_; strolled,
cigarettes in mouth, to Steenvoorde or Caestre, to Godewaersvelde or
Sylvestre Cappel.
General Blacklock gave a dinner to his Colonels; the Colonels dined and
wined their Battery Commanders. They held a “race-meeting” at which
Peter and Little Willie—to the intense joy of all spectators—took a
scunner at the post-and-rails, rolling headlong and unharmed in the mud.
But, principally, the Fourth Brigade played poker.
Night after night, Headquarter Mess resounded to, “Raise you fifty,
sir,” “All right, P.J., I’ll see you.” Even Lodden caught the infection.
They played high; and they played fast: but they played neither high
enough nor fast enough to catch the Weasel. Always, he defeated them;
his hard blue eyes, his firm lips, gave never a hint of the cards in his
hand. Even Conway, who had learned his poker wisdom in Iquique (where
there is no rain but much whisky) and completed his education at the
“Spotted Dog” in Kualalumpur (where there is much rain and still more
whisky) acknowledged himself overmastered. Sandiland, the newcomer,—a
blond clean-shaven Regular who looked more like an actor than a
soldier—stone-walled in vain; was lured from his caution; heavily
mulcted: Lodden, the richest member of the party, found bluff met with
counter-bluff. Only Peter held his own. For Peter, in addition to
knowing the game, knew his Colonel.
“Very wrong for me to play so high with my juniors,” Stark used to
say—crushing notes into his pocket-book after the defeated ones had
gone; “but they’ll only rob each other if I don’t rob them. Where did
you learn the game, P.J.?”
“I, sir.” Peter would smile. “Oh, I’ve sat in some rather hot games in
my time. In Havana, with the Tobacco Trust crowd; and when I was in New
York.”
Then they would sit up over a last whisky-and-soda, discussing the play
of this hand or that; till Stark produced his pet theory: “Say what you
like, P.J., no man ever knows another till he’s drunk port and played
poker with him.”
§ 4
Good days! but they came to an end: and once again the Brigade marched
out, polished to the last bandolier-buckle, for Neuve Eglise.
“A mighty good place,” assured the Canadians—serious-minded men—from
whom they “took over.” And so indeed, with one or two exceptions, they
found it.
Batteries barked from a pleasant valley, under real trees: a valley down
which a man might ride in safety. Peasants still lived, close to the
firing line, in unshelled farms; crops were reaped within two miles of
the trenches. Headquarters, instead of rat-infested cellars, found an
unholed house—fields in rear, farm in front, Belgian landlady in the
kitchen—at the foot of the village, below the skeleton of the Church.
But here, as everywhere along the front, danger lurked. Men, grown
careless by long immunity, had neglected to fortify their habitations.
During their first week, the Southdown Infantry paid—for this
neglect—the price of one hundred men, killed in their rest-billets
behind the firing line.
Still, compared with Ypres only a few miles away to northward, the place
was—for gunners at any rate—paradise. . . .
They had been at Neuve Eglise a week, were just getting comfortable,
when Miss Macpherson’s telegram arrived. The dispatch rider brought it,
shortly before tea; and Peter, busy signing the correspondence for
Artillery Headquarters in the bare back-room where Corporal Pitman and
Driver Norris had established themselves, let the thing lie for a good
five minutes before he opened it. Then he tore the envelope; read:
“Simpson died yesterday can you get leave macpherson.”
He stood there, flimsy paper in his hands: no longer Lieutenant and
Adjutant P. Jameson R.F.A., but Peter Jameson cigar merchant, of P.
Jameson & Co., Lime Street, London. For a moment, he felt sorrow, the
words “poor old Tom” framed themselves at his lips; till the brain,
putting sorrow aside, insisted on business.
“Tom Simpson being dead”—reasoned the brain—“meant that Tom Simpson’s
widow would have to be paid out in cash.” “In cash!” the brain repeated.
What a fool he had been to renew that partnership agreement. But then,
who would have imagined that of two partners, one on active service, the
other at home, the civilian should die first. A fantastic
trick—fantastic. . . .
Peter stalked out of the office, through the backyard, into the fields
beyond.
“Wonder what’s upset ’im,” commented Driver Norris, looking up from his
typewriter.
“He’s certainly worried,” admitted Corporal Pitman; and bent once more
over his interminable “Army Forms.”
Alone in the big hedged grass field Peter Jameson, business man,
wrestled with his problem. He must get leave of course. . . . But after
that. It was no use going home without a plan. . . . He remembered
suddenly that all leave had been cancelled the day before; strode back
to the house.
The Colonel sat in the Mess—a comfortable room looking onto the road,
light papered, tile-floored, furnished with some spindly chairs and a
good dining-table.
“Leave!” said the Weasel, looking up from the vari-coloured map he had
been studying. “You’ll be damn lucky if you get it. Hang it. I haven’t
had _my_ second leave yet.”
Peter explained rather curtly, ending up: “If you’ll sign the
application, sir, I’ll take it in to Bailleul tonight. . . .”
“Do you know, P.J.,” chaffed the Weasel as he wrote “Recommended. D.
Stark Lt. Col.” on the carefully-typed foolscap, “that you’re a damned
undisciplined fellow? God knows what’d happen if you were Adjutant to
any one except myself.”
But Peter was in far too serious a mood for back-chat. Outside, Jelks
waited with the horses. He took the paper; buttoned it carefully into
his tunic-pocket; mounted; rode off across the fields to the main road.
All the way to Bailleul—they made the eight miles of pavé within the
hour—he conned over his arguments. “Urgent Private Affairs!” Well, this
was urgent enough. . . .
Coolsdon the Staff Captain, busy with papers in a handsomely furnished
room, seemed doubtful. “Let me talk to him,” said Peter; and was ushered
into a plush-sofaed parlour where General Blacklock sat smoking a cigar.
“Leave!” sputtered Blacklock. “What for?”
“Urgent private affairs, sir. My partner died the day before yesterday.”
“Hm,” said the General. “Lot of money at stake?”
“About thirty thousand, sir.”
The Brigadier signed the application.
“Stay to dinner, won’t you?” he invited.
“No, thanks, sir. I want to take this to Division myself.”
At Divisional Headquarters, a vast house on the Rue d’Armentières,
Peter, running up an imposing stair-case, met the very man he sought—a
tall, fiery-eyed General with upturned moustaches and an eye-glass.
Peter saluted; and the “Whirligig”—who prided himself on never
forgetting a face—growled out, “You’re Jameson of the 4th Brigade,
aren’t you?”
“Yes, sir. Can I speak to you for a minute?”
“Go ahead.”
For answer Peter, knowing his man, drew the application from his pocket.
The General glanced at; noted the signatures at foot; said “Got a
pencil?” . . .
“Hope you settle things all right,” he growled out as he handed back the
document. “Q’s at the end of the passage. Tell ’em, with my compliments,
to send this on to Corps at once, and mark it Urgent.”
* * * * *
Twenty-four hours later Peter, opening the big envelope from Artillery
Headquarters, found his Leave Warrant. This time, the yellow ticket
seemed to hold no promise of enjoyment!
PART TWENTY
THE HOME FRONT
§ 1
All through the thirty-six hours of his journey back to England,
business nagged at the mind of Peter Jameson. He made the first twenty
miles, Neuve Eglise—Strazeele—Borre—Hazebrouck, on horse-back; caught
an afternoon train which crawled through Amiens and Abbeville, making
Boulogne too late for dinner; slept at the Officers’ Club; and crossed
the Channel in smooth sunshine on a boat which carried only the mails
and a few fortunates to whom leave restrictions did not apply.
But neither Little Willie trotting happily along uncrowded roads, nor
the stammered friendliness of blue-clad gaudy-capped French Officers in
the antimacassared first-class compartment, nor a night in a civilized
bedroom, nor any of the petty pleasures of home-going, penetrated to a
conscience obsessed with uncomfortable thought, a brain occupied with
financial riddles.
Moreover—though this Peter failed to realize—that brain was not quite
the sure-functioning machine of old days. No man comes quite unscathed
through eight months of fighting: even if the body be unwounded, the
mind—which must force the body through its physical revulsion—pays
toll in restlessness, in loss of concentration.
And so Peter’s problem, instead of coming to him clear-cut and
impersonal, took at first the shape of a grievance, of a self-reproach.
Fate had not treated him quite fairly. No reasonable being could have
imagined that the renewal of the partnership deed with Simpson would
land him in such a coil. It was just rotten bad luck.
Arrived at which point, the wind began to reproach itself. Bad luck! Not
a bit of it. If he, Peter Jameson, had possessed any common-sense, he
might have foreseen this happening. He, Peter Jameson, thought himself a
damn clever fellow; whereas, actually, he was a fool. Otherwise, he
would have stayed at home, like Sir Hubert Rawlings and a thousand
others. . . .
But at that, the soul revolted; the dumb patriotism of the man
re-asserted itself. For, deep down in Peter’s consciousness, lay the
firm conviction that in volunteering for service he had done the one
possible thing. . . . Only, it did seem as though Fate were exacting a
highish price for his self-respect—first the loss of Nirvana, and now
this new complication.
He pulled himself together; set his brains to grapple the problem
resolutely. It was,—regarded as he now managed to regard it,
impersonally—a simple riddle. Jamesons’ capital consisted of
twenty-eight thousand pounds; half of this roughly belonged to him, half
to Simpson’s estate. Under the deed, he would have to pay out Simpson’s
executors within twelve months.
Had he been free, had there been no War, he could have borrowed the
money on the security of the business, taken in another partner,
amalgamated with a competitor. But he was not free, would not be free
till the War ended. And he had seen enough at first hand to know that
the War—unless America came in—could easily go on another five years.
He might, of course, compromise with Simpson’s executors, spread the
payment over a longer period. But, in that case, who would carry on the
concern? Miss Macpherson? He could hardly imagine a woman running
Jamesons’. Mallabone, their sole remaining traveller? Mallabone had no
brains. Besides—and here the effect of war on Peter’s temperament
clearly revealed itself—any such solution contained the element of
_risk_. He had lost more than half his capital: and he funked any
diminution of the rest.
Funked it! He, Peter Jameson, who had never funked a business gamble in
his life. . . .
“The only alternative,” said reason, “is to sell out. You’ll get hardly
anything for goodwill: outside the stock and book-debts, your only asset
was the Beckmann contract. That’s not worth twopence today. Still, if
you could sell the business as a going concern, your capital would, at
any rate, be _safe_. . . .”
So thinking, Peter stepped out of the Pullman on to the platform of
Victoria Station.
§ 2
This time, no Patricia met him. Apparently his wire to her had not
arrived. He looked at the clock above the archway; saw it was half-past
two; and decided to go straight to the City.
In the Underground, an elderly civilian insisted on talking to him;
asked—looking at his high-laced boots, his soft cap, his bulging
haversack—if he had been to the Front.
“Just come from it,” answered Peter, lighting a fresh cigar.
“You’re in the R.F.A., aren’t you? I wonder if you’ve ever met my
nephew. No, he’s not got a commission. A sergeant, I believe he is. His
name’s Tomkins, same as mine: but I’ve forgotten the number of his
battery. . . .”
The conversation lasted till the train pulled up in the cavernous gloom
of Monument Station.
“Silly old ass,” thought Peter as he clinked along Gracechurch Street.
“These people at home seem to think the R.F.A. is about as big as a
platoon.”
Pushing his way through the glass doors of the office, he bumped his
haversack; vented an Expeditionary Force oath.
No office-girl sat at the reception window. The racks in the duty-paid
stock-rooms were quite empty; he passed between them into the back
office; found Miss Macpherson, busy with ledgers and foolscap, sitting
at Simpson’s old desk.
“I didn’t expect you so soon, Mr. Jameson,” she said, rising. The war
had altered the Scotswoman: higher pay had clad her in a well-cut skirt,
a silk blouse, good boots and stockings; she looked almost comely with
her dark hair, just graying, her firm well-moulded features, her keen
brown eyes.
“I’ve just been taking the bonded stock,” she went on. “There isn’t much
of it, I’m glad to say. Almost everything is sold before arrival now.
And the book-debts are low.”
They discussed details; and Peter found himself amazed at her knowledge,
her capability.
“Mr. Simpson left a good deal to me at the end,” she explained. “He was
ill for nearly three months before he died. But he wouldn’t have you
written to about it. Poor Mrs. Simpson! I went to see her yesterday. She
was so sorry you couldn’t be home to the funeral. You ought to go and
see her if you can.”
A girl brought tea. Over it, Miss Macpherson put her question:
“What are you going to do about the business? Will it have to be sold?
You don’t mind my asking, I hope. But it’s rather important _to me_.”
“I’m afraid it _will_ have to be sold, Miss Macpherson. You know about
the partnership deed, I suppose?”
“Yes. Mr. Simpson told me.” She finished her cup. “I could run it, you
know—easily—till you came back.”
“Could you?” Her earnestness appealed to Peter. This type of managing
woman, bred by the war, was new and very refreshing.
“Of course I could. It’s not a very difficult business.”
The telephone bell rang. Miss Macpherson picked up the receiver; pushed
the instrument across the desk. “It’s your wife, I think.”
“Peter”—the voice came faintly over the wire—“I just missed you at
Victoria. Shall I bring the car down to the office?”
“Yes, do,” he answered.
The little scene was—could Peter but have realized it—very typical of
war: women working with and for men, driving cars, running businesses,
doing a thousand jobs which would have seemed impossible two years
since. But Peter Jameson had no sense of drama; he accepted new
conditions, as most Englishmen, with nothing more than a mild surprise.
“I wish you’d get me the private ledger, Miss Macpherson,” he said: and
immersed in the “private ledger,” Patricia found him.
As she entered, tall, gauntleted, small toque low on her blond head, he
looked up from his work; rose to greet her. They did not kiss: they were
not of the breed that kisses before employés. But there was no
condescension in Patricia’s, “How do you do, Miss Macpherson?”
“I shan’t be more than ten minutes, Pat,” Peter said. “You don’t mind
waiting, do you?”
She sat there, looking at the two of them, the man in soldier’s uniform,
bending over the account book, the middle-aged woman with the
fountain-pen—holding her love for Peter in abeyance, recognizing that
this was “business,” a mystery beyond her scope. And with that
realization came a little flash of jealousy against the other woman who
could help where the wife must sit useless.
Peter snapped-to the catch of the private-ledger; pulled the telephone
across the desk; asked for a number.
“Mr. Reid in?”—Patricia heard—“No. Mr. George Reid. Gone for the day.
Confound it. Is he free at ten o’clock tomorrow? Right. Yes, Mr.
Jameson, Mr. Peter Jameson.”
He turned to Miss Macpherson, said “Do you think you can have those
figures ready by lunch-time tomorrow?” received her affirmative; asked
if she knew the names and addresses of Simpson’s executors; wrote them
down in his note-book.
“Ready now,” he told Patricia: and, as an afterthought, “How much petrol
have you got?”
“I filled up just before coming out.”
“Good.” He looked at his wrist-watch. “Then I think, if you don’t mind,
we’ll run down to Harrow to see Mrs. Simpson.”
§ 3
The drive to Harrow, through traffic and tramlines for the most part,
gave little opportunity for conversation.
“Are you very worried?” she managed to ask.
“Yes,” he confessed, “I am.”
They drew up, at about six in the afternoon, before an unpretentious,
comfortable villa in an unpretentious, comfortable side-street. It was
the usual English suburban home, a doll’s house of red-brick and stucco:
two lime trees sheltered the little iron gate; on either side of the
gravelled path which led to the front door, tiny well-clipt lawns gave
on to laurel-bushes. As they came up the path, a half-seen figure moved
behind the muslin curtains of the dining-room window.
Ringing the ivory knob of a well-polished brass bell-push, they were
welcomed by a maid in cap-and-apron; ushered, through a marble-papered
hall with a mahogany hat-stand, into an over-furnished room (piano and
sofa prominent) whose long French windows looked out on “the garden”—a
narrow strip of lawn ending in a fence crowned with trellis-work and
scant ivy.
“Mrs. Simpson will be down in a moment,” announced the maid.
She came in, a little faded woman, light-haired—the pallor of her
accentuated by the obviously new black dress. An open-faced gold locket
with the miniature of her dead husband hung from a gold chain at her
breast.
“This is very good of you,” began Mrs. Simpson.
Condoling with her, Peter felt—for the first time—a real sorrow at
loss of his partner. He remembered “Tom” bringing his wife to dinner at
Lowndes Square, remembered how Pat had laughed at his calling her
“mother.”
“Won’t you sit down?” said Mrs. Simpson; and began to talk about the
illness, the funeral. “Poor man, he was worried you know. Worried! The
work got too much for him. I used to say to him, ‘Tom, don’t go to the
office today.’ But he would go. And the trains are so crowded now—these
soldiers. Often, he’d have to stand up the whole way home. Then the
raids used to keep him awake.”
To Patricia, she seemed a pathetic figure; to Peter, she grew rapidly
irritating. Sorrow disappeared. He had come there to talk money-matters,
not to hear about the “dear departed.” The front had hardened him to
death: death was just an incident, a daily incident: one did not mention
the dead.
“Tell me, Mrs. Simpson,” he interrupted, not unsympathetically. “About
money? Are you all right? You know it will take some little time to get
the estate settled up. I thought of going to see the executors
tomorrow.”
“It’s very good of you to take so much trouble, Mr. Jameson. Very good
of you indeed. But I’ve got enough to go on with. And my brother-in-law
tells me. . . .”
In her narrow way she was shrewd—with the shrewdness of the English
middle-class. Business, taboo in Lowndes Square, had always been the
staple topic of conversation at “The Limes.” Mrs. Simpson knew all about
Nirvana, about Hagenburg, about the partnership deed; knew too, exactly
what she wanted.
And she wanted her money out of Jamesons; wanted it in War Loan. This,
without any definite statement beyond, “She hoped he wouldn’t have to
sell the business,” and “It seemed very difficult, his being at the
front,” she made very clear to the astute mind of Peter Jameson.
Yet she pressed them to have some tea, which they refused; pressed them
to come again. The visit, the car at the gate, flattered her vanity.
“Tom,” she said to herself, “had always thought very highly of young
Peter. Tom would be glad that young Peter and his wife had been to see
her. But Tom would not like her to leave his money in the business.”
She walked to the gate with them; said what a beautiful evening it was;
watched the car glide off round the corner of St. John’s road. Then she
turned back to her lonely house, her lonely life. For Tom Simpson’s
“mother” had only been a joke between them; and now, he would never joke
with her again. . . .
§ 4
Instead of swinging the car left for London, Patricia drove straight
past the Harrow foot-ball fields, up the Hill towards the School.
Holidays had emptied the Georgian street, the red-brick buildings; the
little low cake-shop at which they halted was quite empty.
“I haven’t had any tea,” she explained, as they sat down at a clean
table.
“Sorry, old thing,”—Peter’s voice sounded gentler than usual—“I’m
afraid I’m a selfish beast.”
“Sometimes,” she laughed, “but I’m glad to have you back all the same.”
A waitress appeared from the back of the shop. Patricia ordered tea for
two. They wandered up to the counter; chose cakes, sat down again.
“Now tell me about business,” she said. And Peter told her, a little
bitterly, the whole tale.