It was late in November when the events just recorded took place, and a
few days later the English newspapers contained special paragraphs
headed "Heroism of a Lancashire Lad." Few details were given about
Waterman, but Tom's bravery was fully commented on.
More than one journalist who had obtained details of what Tom had done
made special reference to him and spoke of him in glowing terms. Mrs.
Pollard received many applications for Tom's photograph, and presently
when she learnt that it appeared in newspapers all over the country,
she gave expression to remarks more forcible than elegant.
"Our Tom an 'ero, eh?" she laughed. "Weel, I never knowed it afore. I
always looked upon him as a bit of a coward, but it's this 'ere
sodgering as has done it, I suppose. 'Appen there's summat in th'
uniform. When a lad's got sodger's clothes on, I reckon as aa' it
makes him feel cocky. But it's a pity he's still such a fool as to
keep on wi' Polly Powell. I wrote him a letter a while sin' telling
him as aa' Polly wur walking out wi' other lads, but she still boasts
as aa' Tom's faithful to her, and that she's got him under her thumb."
"'Appen he will give her the sack now," said a neighbour.
"Nay, our Tom wur always a fool. He might have had Alice Lister if he
hadn't been such a ninny, but she's engaged to Harry Briarfield now. I
wrote and told him about it only last week. I suppose George Lister is
fairly suited about it."
"I hear that Tom's going to have the V.C. or D.C.M. or summat o' that
sort," remarked a neighbour; "dost 'a know what that means?"
"Nay, I know nowt about it, but I hope as he will get a bit o' brass
wi' it, onyhow."
"Will he come home, dost 'a' think?"
"Nay, I don't know. Why should he leave his job for a thing like that?
I expect if he wur to come home they'd stop his pay, and I hope Tom is
noan such a fool as to lose his pay, but there, there's no tellin'."
In spite of all this, however, Mrs. Pollard was in no slight degree
elated. She knew that Tom was the talk of Brunford, and that special
articles were devoted to him in the Brunford newspapers.
"He will be sure to come home," said Ezekiel Pollard to her one night
after supper; "when a lad's done a job like that, he's sure to have a
bit of a holiday."
"Maybe, and I suppose tha'll be showing him around as though he wur a
prize turkey. Ay, but I am glad about this drinking order."
"Why?"
"Because else all th' lads in the town 'ud be wanting to treat our Tom;
they 'd be proud to be seen wi' him, and they'd make him drunk afore he
know'd where he wur. Our Tom never could sup much beer wi'out it goin'
to his head."
"Our Tom has give up that sort o' thing," replied Ezekiel.
"How dost tha' know?"
"I do know, and that's enough," replied Ezekiel, thinking of Tom's last
letter, which, by the way, he had never shown to his wife.
I am not going to try to describe Tom's feelings when he was told that
he had been recommended for the D.C.M.
"Thank you, sir, but I've done nowt to deserve it," cried the lad,
lapsing for the moment into the Lancashire dialect.
Colonel Blount laughed. Ever since Waterman's death he had felt as
though a burden had been lifted from him. He felt sure now that his
plans would not be frustrated.
"We are the best judges of that, my lad," he said. "You can tell your
father and mother that, as a Lancashire man, I'm proud of you."
It was on a Saturday in December when Tom arrived in Brunford on leave
of absence. He had spent Friday in London, and caught the ten o'clock
train at King's Cross Station. There was no prouder lad in England
that day, although, truth to tell, he was not quite happy. Naturally
he had read what had been written about him in the newspapers, and
reflected upon what the people in Brunford would be saying about him.
He imagined meeting people whom he knew, in the Brunford streets, and
the greeting they would give him. He knew it would be a great
home-coming, and yet he had a heavy heart.
It was several months now since he had left Brunford, and he could not
help reflecting on the change that had taken place in him. He still
wore a private's uniform, and carried the mud of the trenches on his
clothes. But the Tom Pollard who had enlisted at the Mechanics'
Institute was not the same lad who now made his way to his Lancashire
home. Since then he had been through strange scenes, and had realised
wonderful experiences. New facts and new forces had come into his
life; day by day he had been face to face with death, and this had led
him to touch the very core of life. Thoughts which were unknown to him
a year before now possessed his being; powers of which he had never
dreamed had been called into life.
Tom could not put these things into words, he didn't even clearly
realise them, but he knew that he was different. The very thought that
he had looked into the face of death made him realise the wondrousness
of life. Tom did not feel that he had been a hero, and yet he knew
that the life he had been living, and the work he had been doing,
especially during the last few months, had called qualities, which lay
latent in his being, into life and action. The war had not made him a
different man, it had only aroused dormant qualities within him. The
fires through which he had passed had cleansed him, and he knew that
life would never be the same again. But more than all that, he, like
thousands of others, had learnt the great secret of life, and realised
that it was only by opening his life to the Eternal Life that the
highest manhood could be known.
And yet he was strangely dissatisfied. He had read his mother's letter
telling him that Alice Lister was engaged to Harry Briarfield, and his
heart was very sore at the thought of it. Never before had he realised
the meaning of the choice he had made, when more than a year before he
had left Alice to walk out with Polly Powell. "And yet I loved Alice
all the time," he reflected, as the train rushed northward. "I never
knew how I did love her till now. I must have been mad and worse than
mad!"
For a long time he had ceased to care for Polly Powell; when he was in
Surrey his mother's letter had opened his eyes to the kind of girl she
really was. He saw her, coarse, loud-talking, and vulgar; a girl who
had appealed only to what was coarse in his own nature. And he had
yielded to her blandishments; he had left a pure, refined girl for her,
and he had lost Alice for ever.
That was the bitterness in Tom's cup of joy. He was proud of what he
had done--what fellow situated as he was would not be? His heart
thrilled with exultation as he remembered what the Colonel had said and
written about him. He remembered with joy, too, what his comrades had
said when he left for home, and the cheers they gave him.
Oh, if he hadn't been such a fool!
He thought of what his home-coming might have been if he had remained
true to Alice; he fancied the look in her eyes as she greeted him; of
the feelings which would fill his heart as he sat by her side in the
church which she attended. But that was impossible now; he had made
his choice, and she had made hers. Thus his home-coming would be
robbed of half its joy. If he saw Alice at all she would be in the
company of Harry Briarfield, and Briarfield, he knew, had always looked
down upon him. "But there," he said to himself, "I'll bear it like a
man. I have done my bit, and that's something, anyhow."
He had sent a telegram to his mother the day before, telling her of the
time he expected to arrive in Brunford, and presently when the train
drew into the station he looked out of the window eagerly expectant,
and with fast-beating heart.
Yes, there his father and mother were, waiting for him. But what was
the meaning of the crowd?
No sooner did he set foot on the platform than a great cheer arose.
"There he is! There's Tom Pollard!"
"Gi't tongue, lads! Gi't tongue! Hip! hip! hip! hoorah!"
Tom, heedless of the cheering and shouting, went straight to his
mother. For a second this lady looked at him, and seemed to be on the
point of greeting him with a caustic remark; then her mother's heart
melted.
"Ay, Tom, I'm fair glad to see thee," she sobbed.
"And I am glad to see you, mother. Ay, father, it is good to see you,
it is."
"And I am fair proud on you, Tom," and Ezekiel Pollard's voice was
hoarse as he shook his son's hand.
"But, Tom," cried Mrs. Pollard, wiping her eyes, "thy clothes be dirty;
I shall have a rare job to get th' muck out of 'em."
This was followed by a general laugh by those who had come to greet Tom
and bid him welcome.
"Ay, and thou look'st as though thou hasn't weshed for a week. I
thought as aa' sodjers kept theirsens clean."
"I'll wash right enough when I get home, mother," laughed Tom.
"Holloa, Tom. I am glad to see you," and Polly Powell made her way
through the crowd.
"Thank you," replied Tom quietly; "have you brought one of your young
men with you, Polly?"
"I have not got any young men," was Polly's reply. Whereupon there was
a general laugh of incredulity.
Polly, heedless of the crowd, and although angered at the remarks that
were made, still held her ground.
"You are coming down to the Thorn and Thistle, aren't you, Tom?" she
said; "mother and father are expecting you."
"No, thank you, Polly," said Tom. "I am going home with my mother and
father. Besides, I don't want to play gooseberry."
At this there was general cheering. It was evident that Polly Powell
was ready to give up her latest lover in order that the glory of Tom's
lustre might shine upon her; but her power over him had gone.
"Nay, thou'lt come down to the Rose and Crown wi' us, won't 'a'?" cried
another.
"No, I am not going to the Rose and Crown," replied Tom.
"Nay, you doan't mean to say you've turned teetotaler?"
"Ay, that I have," replied the lad, "you see I'm following the example
of the King." Whereupon Polly went away abashed.
All the way Tom's progress down Liverpool Road was a great procession
of people. On every hand he was greeted and cheered. Other soldiers
who had gone out from Brunford had returned; some had been wounded, and
many had done brave deeds, but Tom's action had laid hold of the
imagination of the people. To discover a German spy in Waterman, whom
many in the town knew; to bring him to justice; to risk his life in
order to render his country a service; to face almost certain death
that he might obtain the plans which had been intended to help the
enemy, made him a hero.
Perhaps there are few parts of the world where the people are more
hearty and more generous than the dwellers in those busy manufacturing
towns in the North, and Tom was their own townsboy. He had been reared
amongst them, had gone out from them, and so they gave him a great
welcome.
No words can tell the joy which Mrs. Pollard felt when she found that
Tom was going straight home with her. As she said, she had got the
best dinner in Brunford for him, but she was afraid that Tom would
yield to all the inducements which would be held out to him.
"Never mind," she said to the neighbour whom she had asked to get
everything in readiness by the time she returned, "we'll have
everything as though we were sure he wur coming 'ome. Nobody shall say
as 'ow I didn't prepare a good dinner for my boy when he returned from
the War."
Thus when Tom had refused the invitation to go to the Rose and Crown,
and declared his intention of going straight home, her joy knew no
bounds.
"Dost 'a' really mean, Tom, as thou'rt coming straight home with thee
feyther and me?"
"Ay, I do," replied Tom, "there's no place but home for me to-day."
"Ay, then I mun kiss thee agean," she sobbed, throwing her arms around
his neck.
Throughout the whole of the afternoon and evening Ezekiel Pollard's
house was besieged with visitors. Reporters came from the newspapers
in order to hear any details which had been missed concerning Tom's
exploits. Relations whom Tom had not seen for years came to bid him
welcome, while the neighbours thronged the doors.
"Ay, it's good to be home again," said Tom, standing on the doorstep
and watching the last visitor depart that night, "I never thought that
it would be like this."
"Art 'a' tired, lad?" asked his father.
"Just a bit," said Tom. "I couldn't sleep last night, I was thinking
all the time about coming home, and now----"
"Ay, lad, I'm proud of thee," said his father for the hundredth time.
"Thou art a fool, lad," said his mother, "but thou'rt noan such a fool
as I feared. Thou'st done vary weel too, vary weel."
"Father," said Tom when they had entered the house and closed the door,
"do you ever pray now?"
"I hadna prayed for years," said Ezekiel Pollard, "till thou went to
the Front, but every night sin' I have asked God to take care o' thee.
I have asked nowt for myself," he added almost proudly. "I didn't
deserve it; but I've asked God to take care o' thee."
"So have I," said his mother. "I never towd anybody about it; I wur a
bit ashamed, I reckon, but I have prayed twenty times a day."
"Then," said Tom, "let us kneel down and thank God for His goodness."
And the three knelt down together.