"Well 'ave to wyte a 'ell of a time," the Cockney went on. "Some of
'em's bin 'ere since six this mornin'. Gawblimey, you'd think they was
givin' awy prizes. I dunno wot the 'ell I come for. I jus' did, sort
of!..."
Some one standing by, turned to a recruiting sergeant and whispered
something to him, pointing to the guttersnipes in the queue.
"Fight!" said the recruiting sergeant. "Gawd love you, guv'nor, they'd
fight 'ell's blazes, them chaps would!"
Henry tried again to induce Gilbert to fall out of the queue and wait
until there was more likelihood of being enlisted quickly, but Gilbert
would not be persuaded.
"You'll have to get something to eat," Henry urged. "They'll never get
near you until this evening, and if you've got to fall out to get food,
you might as well fall out now!"
"I think I'll wait," Gilbert repeated. "Perhaps," he went on, "you'll
get me some sandwiches. Get a lot, will you. This chap in front of me
doesn't look as if he'd brought anything!"
"You could get a commission, Gilbert, easily," Henry said.
"I don't think I should be much good as an officer, Quinny.... Go and
get the sandwiches like a decent chap!"
Henry went away to do as Gilbert had bidden him, and after a while, he
returned with a big packet of sandwiches and apples.
"I shan't wait, Gilbert," he said. "I can't stand about all day. I'll
come back when the rush is over...."
"But why, Quinny?"
"I'm going to join, too, with you!..."
"You're going to join?... That's awf'lly decent of you, Quinny!"
"Decent! Why? It isn't any more decent than your joining is!"
"P'raps not, but I always think it's very decent of an Irishman to fight
for England. If there doesn't seem any chance of my getting in to-day,
I'll come back to tea. There's a fellow here says this is the second day
he's been waiting!"
Henry went away. He walked along the Embankment towards Blackfriars, and
when he had reached the Temple, he turned up one of the steep streets
that link the Embankment to Fleet Street.
"I'll go and see Delap," he said to himself.
Delap was the editor of a weekly paper for which Henry had sometimes
written articles. Delap, however, was not at the office, but Bundy, the
manager of the paper, who was also the financier, was there.
"It's all up with us," said Bundy. "We're closing down next week!"
"Closing down!"
"Yes. We're bust. Damn it, we're getting on splendidly, too. Just
turning the corner! We should have had a magnificent autumn if it hadn't
been for this...."
He came away from Bundy, and walked aimlessly down Fleet Street. "Lots
of other people would have had a fine autumn if it hadn't been for
this," he thought to himself, and then he saw Leadenham and Crowborough,
who worked on the _Cottenham Guardian_. They were very pale and
tired-looking.
"Hilloa!" he said, slapping Leadenham on the back.
Leadenham jumped ... startled! "Oh, it's you," he said, smiling weakly.
"Yes. What's up? You look frightened!" He turned to greet Crowborough.
"Well, we're all rather jiggered by this," Leadenham replied. "We're
going to get something to eat. Come with us?"
They went into a tea-shop and sat down. "Is the _Guardian_ all right?"
Henry asked.
"Oh, yes," said Leadenham wearily, "as right as anything is. Nobody in
Fleet Street knows how long his job'll last. Half the men on the _Daily
Circle_ have had the sack. Some of our chaps have gone! Fleet Street's
full of men looking for jobs. About fifty papers have smashed up since
the thing began ... sporting papers mostly. It frightens you, this sort
of thing!..."
He came away from Fleet Street as quickly as possible. The nervous,
hectic state of the journalists made him feel nervous too.
"I'd better get among less jumpy people," he said to himself, and he
hurried towards Charing Cross. And there he met Jimphy. He did not
recognise him at first, for Jimphy was in khaki, and he would have
passed on without seeing him, had Jimphy not caught hold of his arm and
stopped him.
"Cutting a chap, damn you!" said Jimphy....
"Good Lord, I didn't know you!"
"Thought you didn't. Where you going?"
"Oh, nowhere. Just loafing about. Gilbert's down at Scotland Yard trying
to enlist."
"Is he, begad? Everybody seems to be trying to enlist. He'd much better
try to get a commission. I'm going home now. You come with me, Quinny.
Hi, hi!..." He hailed a taxi-cab, and, without waiting to hear what
Henry had to say, bundled him into it.
"Lord," he exclaimed, as he leant back in the cab, "it's years an' years
an' years since I saw you. Well, what do you think of this for a bally
war, eh? Millions of 'em ... all smackin' each other. I'm going out
soon!" He leant out of the window and shouted at the driver, "Hi, you
chap, hurry up, will you!
"I don't seem able to get anywhere quick enough nowadays," he said as he
sat back again in his seat. "You know," he went on, "we've never been to
the Empire yet, you an' me. Damned if we have! Never mind! We'll go when
the War's over!"
7
There were half a dozen women in the drawing-room with Cecily when Henry
and Jimphy entered it. In addition to the women, there were a
photographer and Boltt. The photographer had finished his work and was
preparing to depart, and Boltt was talking in his nice little clipped
voice about the working-class. It appeared that the working-class had
not realised the seriousness of the situation. The other classes had
been quick to understand and to offer themselves, but the
working-class.... No! Oo, noo! Boltt had written an article in the
_Evening Gazette_ full of gentle reproach to the working-class, but
without effect. The working-class had taken no notice. "Democracy, dear
ladies," said Boltt, with a downward motion of his fingers. "Democracy!"
A newspaper, a Labour newspaper, had been rather rude to Boltt. It had
put some intimate, he might say, impertinent, questions to Boltt, but
Boltt had borne this impertinent inquisition with fortitude. He had not
made any answer to it....
"Hilloa, Paddy!" Lady Cecily called across the room to Henry. "Aren't
you at the war?"
"Well, no, I only got to London...."
"Oh, but everybody's going. Jimphy and everybody! Except Mr. Boltt, of
course. He's unfit or something. Aren't you, Mr. Boltt?"
"Ah, if I were only a young man again, Lady Cecily!..."
"But he's writing to the papers, and that's something, isn't it?" Cecily
interrupted. "And I'm making mittens for the soldiers. We're all making
mittens. Except Mr. Boltt, of course."
"Who was the johnny who's just gone out?" Jimphy demanded. "Was he the
chap who sells the stuff you make the mittens out of?..."
"Oh, no, Jimphy, he was a photographer. We're all to have our
photographs in the _Daily Reflexion_...."
"Except Mr. Boltt?" Henry asked maliciously.
"No, Mr. Boltt's to be in it too. Holding wool. I've been photographed
in three different positions ... beginning to knit a mitten, half-way
through a mitten, and finishing a mitten. I was rather anxious to be
taken with a pile of socks, but I can't knit socks!..."
"You can't knit mittens either," said Jimphy.
It appeared that Lady Cecily's maid was allowed to undo her mistress's
false stitches and finish the mittens properly....
"Well, of course, I'm not really a knitter," Cecily admitted, "but I
feel I must do something for the country. I've a good mind to take up
nursing. I met Jenny Customs this morning, and she says it's quite easy,
and the uniform is rather nice...."
"But don't you require to be trained?" Henry asked dubiously.
"Oh, yes, if you're a professional. But I'm not. I'm doing it for the
country. Jenny Customs went to a First Aid Class, and learnt quite a lot
about bandaging. She can change sheets while the patient is in bed, and
she says he can scarcely tell that she's doing it. I should love to be
able to do that. She told me a lot of things, and I really know the
first lesson already. I can shake a bottle of medicine the proper
way!..."
"Can't we have tea or something?" said Jimphy. "Oh, by the way, Cecily,
Quinn says that chap Gilbert Farlow's hanging about Scotland Yard...."
"Goodness me, what for?" Cecily demanded in a startled voice. "He hasn't
done anything, has he?"
"No, of course he hasn't. He's trying to enlist!"
"Enlist!" she said.
"Yes. Silly ass not to ask for a commission!" said Jimphy.
Boltt burbled about the priceless privilege of youth. If only he were a
youngster once again!...
They drank their tea, while Jimphy discoursed on the war. Henry had
entered Cecily's house with a feeling of alarm, wondering whether she
would be friendly to him, wondering whether he would be able to look
into her eyes and not care ... and now he knew that he did not care.
There was something incredibly unfeeling and trivial about Cecily,
something ... vulgar. While the world was still reeling from the shock
of the War, she was arranging to be photographed with mittens that she
had not made and could not make. The portrait would be reproduced in the
_Daily Reflexion_ under the title of "Lady Cecily Jayne Does Her Bit."
... But she was beautiful, undeniably she was beautiful. As he looked at
her, she raised her eyes, conscious perhaps of his stare, and smiled at
him....
"She'd smile at anybody," he said to himself. "If she had any feeling at
all for me, she'd be angry with me!"
She came to him. "I wish you'd tell Gilbert to come and see me," she
said, sitting down beside him.
"Very well," he answered, "I will!"
"I'm sure he'll look awfully nice in khaki. And I should love to see him
saluting Jimphy. He'll have to do that, you know, if he's a private...."
8
He got away as soon as he could decently do so, and went back to
Bloomsbury. "That isn't England," he told himself, "that mitten-making,
posturing crew!" and he remembered the great queues of men, standing
outside Scotland Yard, struggling to get into the Army, and suffering
much discomfort in the effort.
"Perhaps," he said to himself, "Gilbert's at home now. I wonder if he
managed to get in!"
A man and a woman were standing at the corner of a street, talking, and
he overheard them as he passed.
"'Illoa, Sarah," the man said, "w'ere you goin', eih?"
"Goin' roan' the awfices," she answered, "to see if I kin get a job o'
charin'!"
"Gawblimey!" said the man, laughing at her.
"Well, you got to do somethink, 'aven't you? No good sittin' on your
be'ind an' 'owlin' because there's a war on, is there?"
There was more of the spirit of England in that, Henry thought, than in
Cecily's mitten-making....
Gilbert was not at home when he reached the Bloomsbury boarding-house.
"Still trying, I suppose," Henry thought.
There was a telegram for him. His father was ill again, "seriously ill"
was the message, and he was needed at home.
He hurriedly wrote a note to be given to Gilbert when he returned, in
case he should not see him again, but before he had begun his packing,
Gilbert came in.
"It's all right," he said. "I've joined. I've had a week's leave.... I'm
damned tired!"
"My father's ill again, Gilbert. I've just had a telegram, and I'm going
back to-night!..."
"I'm awf'lly sorry, Quinny!" Gilbert said, quickly sympathetic.
"I met Jimphy at Charing Cross. He's in khaki. He took me back to tea.
Cecily's making mittens!..."
"She would," said Gilbert.
"She told me to tell you to go and see her!"
"Did she, indeed?"
"You'll stay here, I suppose," Henry went on, "until you're called up?"
Gilbert nodded his head. "Let me know what happens to you afterwards,
will you?"
"Righto!"
"I'll come back as soon as I can, Gilbert!"