1
It was odd, that journey from Holyhead to London, odd and silent; for
all the way from Wales to Euston they passed but one train. They drove
through the long stretch of England, past wide and windy fields where
the harvesters were cutting the corn, through the dark towns of the
Potteries, by the collieries where the wheels still revolved as the
cages were lowered and raised, and then, plunging into the outer areas
of London, they drove swiftly up to the station. In the evening, they
went to Hampstead to see Roger and Rachel, and found them reading
newspapers.
"I don't seem able to do anything else," said Roger. "I buy every
edition that comes out. I read the damn things over and over, and then I
read them again...."
Rachel nodded her head. "So do I," she said.
A girl came in, a friend of Rachel, who had been in Finland when the war
began. She had hurried home by Berlin, where she had spent an hour or
two, while waiting for a train, before England declared war on
Germany....
"What were they like?" Gilbert asked.
"Wild with excitement. We went to a restaurant to get something to eat,
and while we were there, the news came that Russia was at war with
them.... My goodness! There was a Russian in the room, and they went for
him!... I had my aunt with me, and I was afraid she'd get hurt, so we
cleared out as quickly as we could, and when we got to the station, we
had to fight to get into the train. My aunt fainted ... and they were
beastly to us, oh, beastly! I tried to get things for her, but they
wouldn't give us anything! They kept on telling us we'd be shot, and
threatening us!... They were frightened, those big fat men were
frightened. If you'd touched them suddenly, they'd have squealed ...
like panic-stricken rabbits!..."
They sat and talked and talked, and gloom settled on them. What was to
be the end of this horrible thing which no one had desired, but no one
was able to prevent.
"I believe they all lost their nerve at the last," Roger said, "and they
just ... just let things rip. They call it a brain-storm in America.
They lost their heads ... and they let things rip. My God, what a thing
to have happened!"
They sat in silence, full of foreboding, and then the girl who had come
from Finland went home.
"It's all up with the Bar, I suppose!" said Roger, when he had let her
out. "Whatever else people want to do, they won't want to go to law.
Having a youngster makes things awkward!..."
"If you should need any money, Roger," said Gilbert, "you might let me
know!"
"And me, Roger!" said Henry.
"Thanks awfully!" Roger replied. "I won't forget. I've got some, of
course, and Rachel has a little. I daresay we'll manage. It can't last
long. A couple of months, perhaps!..."
"I can't see how it can last longer. It's too big, and ... oh, it can't
last longer!"
"Kitchener says three years!..."
"He wants to be on the safe side, I suppose, but my God, three years of
... of that!..."
2
Rachel got up suddenly. "You haven't seen my baby yet," she said.
"So we haven't," Gilbert exclaimed. "Where is it?"
"She's upstairs asleep. You must come quietly!..."
"It's a girl, then?" said Henry.
Rachel nodded, and led the way upstairs to the bedroom where the baby
lay in her cot.
"Isn't she a darling?" she said, bending over the child.
They did not answer, afraid, as men are in the presence of a sleeping
child, that they might disturb her; and while they stood looking at the
cot, Rachel bent closer to her baby, and lightly kissed her cheek.
They moved away on tiptoe.
"What do you call her?" Henry whispered to Roger, as they left the
bedroom.
"Eleanor," he answered. "That was my mother's name. Jolly little kid,
isn't she?"
Gilbert turned and went back to the bedroom. Rachel was still bending
over the baby, and she looked up at him warningly. He went up to the cot
and, leaning towards Rachel, whispered, "Do you mind if I kiss her, too,
Rachel? I'm going to enlist to-morrow, and perhaps I won't get so good a
chance as this!..."
She stood up quickly and put her arms round him. "Oh, Gilbert!" she
said, and then she drew him down, so that he could kiss the baby easily.
3
Henry told Roger of Gilbert's intention, while Rachel and Gilbert were
in the bedroom with the baby.
"Enlist?" said Roger.
Henry nodded his head.
"Well, of course!..." Roger began, and then he stopped. "I suppose so,"
he said, moving towards the tray which Rachel had brought into the room
earlier in the evening. "Whisky?" he said.
"No, thanks, Roger!" Henry answered. "He's going down to-morrow!"
"He'd better wait a few days. There's been a hell of a scrum already to
join. Queues and queues of chaps, standing outside Scotland Yard all
day. He'd better wait 'til the rush is over...."
"I think he'd rather like to be in the rush," Henry said.
Then Rachel came into the room, followed by Gilbert.
"Roger," she said, "Gilbert's going to enlist!..."
"So Quinny's just been telling me. Have a whisky, Gilbert?"
"No, thanks, old chap," said Gilbert, "but if you have a cigarette!..."
"I'll get them," Rachel exclaimed.
She brought the box of cigarettes to him, and while he was choosing one,
she said to Roger, "I was so excited when he told me, that I got up and
hugged him!"
"Good!" said Roger.
4
They walked home to Bloomsbury, where they had easily obtained rooms,
for the sudden withdrawal of Germans and Austrians had left Bloomsbury
in a state of vacancy. As they went down Haverstock Hill towards Chalk
Farm, an old man lurched against them.
"All the young chaps," he mumbled thickly. "Thash wot sticks in my
gizzard! All the young chaps! Gawblimey, why don't they tyke the ole
ones!..."
"Steady on," Gilbert exclaimed, catching his arm and holding him up.
"You'll fall, if you're not careful!"
"Don't marrer a damn wherrer I do or not!" He reeled a little, and
Gilbert caught hold of him again. "I woul'n be a young chap," he
muttered, "not for ... not for nothink. You ... you're a young chap,
ain't you? Yesh you are! You needn't tell me you ain't! I can see as
wellsh anythink! You're a young chap ri' enough. Well ... well, Gawd,
'elp you, young feller! Thash all I got to sy ... subjec!' Goo-ni',
gen'lemen!" He staggered off the pavement, and went half way across the
deserted street. Then he turned and looked at them for a few moments.
"Ain't it a bloody treat, eih?" he shouted to them. "_Ain't_ it a bloody
treat?"
"Drunk," said Gilbert.
Henry did not reply, and they walked on through Chalk Farm, through
Camden Town, into the tangle of mean streets by Euston, and then across
the Euston Road to Bloomsbury. They did not speak to each other until
they were almost at their destination.
"It's awfully quiet," said Henry, turning and looking about him.
"I don't see any one," Gilbert answered, "except that old fellow ahead
of us!..."
"No!"
They walked on, and when they came up to the old man, who walked slowly,
and heavily in the same direction, they called "Good-night!" to him. He
looked round at them, an old, tired, bewildered man, and he made a
gesture with his hands, a gesture of despair. "Ach, mein freund!" he
said brokenly, and again he made the suppliant motion with his hands.
"Poor old devil!" Gilbert muttered almost to himself.
5
They went to their rooms at once, too tired to talk to each other, and
Henry, hurriedly undressing, got into bed. But he could not sleep. "I
suppose I ought to join, too!" he said to himself, as he lay on his
back, staring at the ceiling. "Gilbert and I could go together!..."
But what would be the good of that? The war would be over quite soon.
Even Roger thought it would be over in a couple of months, and if that
were so, there would be no need for him to throw up his work and take to
soldiering. "It'll be over before Gilbert's got through his training.
Long before!..."
"Anyhow, I can wait until the rush is over. I might as well go on
working as stand outside Scotland Yard all day, waiting to be taken
on.... Or I could apply for a commission!..."
He lay very still, hoping that he would fall asleep soon, but sleep
would not come to him. He sat up in bed, and glanced about the room.
"I suppose," he said aloud, "they're fighting now!"
He lay down again quickly, thrusting himself well under the bedclothes
and shut his eyes tightly. "Oh, my God, isn't it horrible!" he groaned.
He saw again that crowd of hurried soldiers detraining at Holyhead,
thinking that perhaps they were going to Ireland, but not quite sure ...
and he could see them stumbling up the gangways of the transport, each
man heavily accoutred; and sometimes a man would laugh, and sometimes a
man would swear ... and then the ship sailed out of the harbour,
rounding the pier and the breakwater, churning the sea into a long white
trail of foam as she set her course past the South Stack.... They could
see the lights on her masthead diminishing as she went further away, and
then, as the cold sea wind blew about them, they shivered and went
home.... Now, lying here in this stillness, warm and snug, Henry could
see those soldiers, huddled together on the ship. He could imagine them,
murmuring to one another, "I say, d'ye think we _are_ goin' to Ireland?"
and hear one answering, "You'll know in three hours. We'll be there
_then_, if we are!" and slowly there would come to each man the
knowledge that their journey was not to Ireland, but to France, and
there would be a tightening of the lips, an involuntary movement here
and there and then.... "Well, o' course, we're goin' to France! 'Oo the
'ell thought we was goin' anywhere else?" The ship would carry them
swiftly down the Irish Sea and across the English Channel ... and after
that!...
"Some of them may be dead already," he murmured to himself.
Torn up suddenly from their accustomed life, hurried through the
darkness along the length of England, and then, after long, cold nights
on the sea, landed in France and set to slaying....
"And they won't know what's it for?"
But did that matter? Would it be any better if they were aware of the
cause of the fight? One lived in a land and loved it. Surely, that was
sufficient?
In his mind, he could still see the soldiers, but always they were
moving in the dark. He could see very vividly the man who had asked
Perkins to write to his wife ... and it seemed to him that he was still
demanding of passers-by that they should write to her. "Tell 'er I'm all
right," he kept on saying. "So far, any'ow!..."
He turned over on his side, dragging the clothes about his head, and
tried to shut out the vision of the soldiers marching through the fields
of France, but he could not shut it out. They still marched, endlessly,
ceaselessly marched....
6
When they got to Scotland Yard, there was a great crowd of men waiting
to be enlisted.
"You'd better come again, Gilbert," Henry said. "You'll have to hang
about here all day, and then perhaps you won't be reached!"
"I think I'll hang about anyhow," Gilbert answered.
He had become queerly quiet since the beginning of the War. The old,
light-hearted, exaggerated speech had gone from him, and when he spoke,
his words were abrupt and colourless. He took his place at the end of
the file of men, and as he did so, the man in front of him, a
fringe-haired, quick-eyed youth with a muffler round his neck, turned
and greeted him. "'Illoa, myte!" he said with the cheery friendliness of
the East End. "You come too, eih?"