She caught the parcel out of his hand, and taking the "angels' tear"
from the tumbler, fixed it in his coat.
"Here's a spring flower for you, Max; out of your own little hothouse.
You're home again; home again, my dearie. Auntie's upstairs, and the
girls'll be coming soon. And we'll have dinner."
"I'm not well, Dollee," he said.
Terrified by that reiteration, she drew him down on the little horsehair
sofa, and sat on his knee. "You're home, Max, kiss me. There's my man!"
and she rocked him to and fro against her, yearning yet fearing to look
into his face and see that "something" wander there--light up, go out,
light up. "Look, dearie," she said, "I've got some beer for you. You'd
like a glass of beer?"
He made a motion of his lips, a sound that was like the ghost of a
smack. It terrified her, so little life was there in it.
He clutched her close, and repeated feebly:
"Yes, all right in a day or two. They let me come--I'm not well,
Dollee." He touched his head.
Straining him to her, rocking him, she murmured over and over again,
like a cat purring to its kitten:
"It's all right, my dearie--soon be well--soon be well! We must look on
the bright side--My man!"
V
"CAFARD"
The soldier Jean Liotard lay, face to the earth, by the bank of the
river Drome. He lay where the grass and trees ended, and between him and
the shrivelled green current was much sandy foreshore, for summer was at
height, and the snows had long finished melting and passing down. The
burning sun had sucked up all moisture, the earth was parched, but
to-day a cool breeze blew, willow and aspen leaves were fluttering and
hissing as if millions of tiny kisses were being given up there; and a
few swathes of white cloud were drawn, it seemed--not driven--along the
blue. The soldier Jean Liotard had fixed his eyes on the ground, where
was nothing to see but a few dry herbs. He had "_cafard_," for he was
due to leave the hospital to-morrow and go up before the military
authorities, for "_prolongation_." There he would answer perfunctory
questions, and be told at once: _Au depot_; or have to lie naked before
them that some "_major_" might prod his ribs, to find out whether his
heart, displaced by shell-shock, had gone back sufficiently to normal
position. He had received one "_prolongation_," and so, wherever his
heart now was, he felt sure he would not get another. "_Au depot_" was
the fate before him, fixed as that river flowing down to its death in
the sea. He had "_cafard_"--the little black beetle in the brain, which
gnaws and eats and destroys all hope and heaven in a man. It had been
working at him all last week, and now he was at a monstrous depth of
evil and despair. To begin again the cursed barrack-round, the driven
life, until in a month perhaps, packed like bleating sheep, in the
troop-train, he made that journey to the fighting line again--"_A la
hachette--a la hachette!_"
He had stripped off his red flannel jacket, and lay with shirt opened to
the waist, to get the breeze against his heart. In his brown
good-looking face the hazel eyes, which in these three God-deserted
years had acquired a sort of startled gloom, stared out like a dog's,
rather prominent, seeing only the thoughts within him--thoughts and
images swirling round and round in a dark whirlpool, drawing his whole
being deeper and deeper. He was unconscious of all the summer hum and
rustle--the cooing of the dove up in that willow tree, the winged
enamelled fairies floating past, the chirr of the cicadas, that little
brown lizard among the pebbles, almost within reach, seeming to listen
to the beating of summer's heart so motionless it lay; unconscious, as
though in verity he were again deep in some stifling trench, with German
shells whining over him, and the smell of muck and blood making foetid
the air. He was in the mood which curses God and dies; for he was
devout--a Catholic, and still went to Mass. And God had betrayed the
earth, and Jean Liotard. All the enormities he had seen in his two years
at the front--the mouthless mangled faces, the human ribs whence rats
would steal; the frenzied tortured horses, with leg or quarter rent
away, still living; the rotted farms, the dazed and hopeless peasants;
his innumerable suffering comrades; the desert of no-man's land; and all
the thunder and moaning of war; and the reek and the freezing of war;
and the driving--the callous perpetual driving, by some great Force
which shovelled warm human hearts and bodies, warm human hopes and loves
by the million into the furnace; and over all, dark sky without a break,
without a gleam of blue, or lift anywhere--all this enclosed him, lying
in the golden heat, so that not a glimmer of life or hope could get at
him. Back into it all again! Back into it, he who had been through forty
times the hell that the "_majors_" ever endured, five hundred times the
hell ever glimpsed at by those _deputes_, safe with their fat salaries,
and their gabble about victory and the lost provinces, and the future of
the world--the _Canaille!_ Let them allow the soldiers, whose lives they
spent like water--"_les camarades_" on both sides--poor devils who bled,
and froze, and starved, and sweated--let them suffer these to make the
peace! Ah! What a peace that would be--its first condition, all the
sacred politicians and pressmen hanging in rows in every country; the
mouth fighters, the pen fighters, the fighters with other men's blood!
Those comfortable citizens would never rest till there was not a young
man with whole limbs left in France! Had he not killed enough Boches,
that they might leave him and his tired heart in peace? He thought of
his first charge; of how queer and soft that Boche body felt when his
bayonet went through; and another, and another. Ah! he had "_joliment_"
done his duty that day! And something wrenched at his ribs. They were
only Boches, but their wives and children, their mothers--faces
questioning, faces pleading for them--pleading with whom? Ah! Not with
him! Who was he that had taken those lives, and others since, but a poor
devil without a life himself, without the right to breathe or move
except to the orders of a Force which had no mind, which had no heart,
had nothing but a blind will to go on, it knew not why. If only he
survived--it was not possible--but if only he survived, and with his
millions of comrades could come back and hold the reckoning! Some
scare-the-crows then would waggle in the wind. The butterflies would
perch on a few mouths empty at last; the flies enjoy a few silent
tongues! Then slowly his fierce unreasoning rancour vanished into a mere
awful pity for himself. Was a fellow never again to look at the sky, and
the good soil, the fruit, the wheat, without this dreadful black cloud
above him, never again make love among the trees, or saunter down a
lighted boulevard, or sit before a cafe, never again attend Mass,
without this black dog of disgust and dread sitting on his shoulders,
riding him to death? Angels of pity! Was there never to be an end? One
was going mad under it--yes, mad! And the face of his mother came before
him, as he had seen her last, just three years ago, when he left his
home in the now invaded country, to join his regiment--his mother who,
with all his family, was in the power of the Boche. He had gone gaily,
and she had stood like stone, her hand held over her eyes, in the
sunlight, watching him while the train ran out. Usually the thought of
the cursed Boches holding in their heavy hands all that was dear to him,
was enough to sweep his soul to a clear, definite hate, which made all
this nightmare of war seem natural, and even right; but now it was not
enough--he had "_cafard_." He turned on his back. The sky above the
mountains might have been black for all the joy its blue gave him. The
butterflies, those drifting flakes of joy, passed unseen. He was
thinking: No rest, no end, except by walking over bodies, dead, mangled
bodies of poor devils like himself, poor hunted devils, who wanted
nothing but never to lift a hand in combat again so long as they lived,
who wanted--as he wanted--nothing but laughter and love and rest!
_Quelle vie!_ A carnival of leaping demonry! A dream--unutterably bad!
"And when I go back to it all," he thought, "I shall go all shaven and
smart, and wave my hand as if I were going to a wedding, as we all do.
_Vive la France!_ Ah! what mockery! Can't a poor devil have a dreamless
sleep!" He closed his eyes, but the sun struck hot on them through the
lids, and he turned over on his face again, and looked longingly at the
river--they said it was deep in mid-stream; it still ran fast there!
What was that down by the water? Was he really mad? And he uttered a
queer laugh. There was his black dog--the black dog off his shoulders,
the black dog which rode him, yea, which had become his very self, just
going to wade in! And he called out:
"_He! le copain!_" It was not his dog, for it stopped drinking, tucked
its tail in, and cowered at the sound of his voice. Then it came from
the water, and sat down on its base among the stones, and looked at him.
A real dog was it? What a guy! What a thin wretch of a little black dog!
It sat and stared--a mongrel who might once have been pretty. It stared
at Jean Liotard with the pathetic gaze of a dog so thin and hungry that
it earnestly desires to go to men and get fed once more, but has been so
kicked and beaten that it dare not. It seemed held in suspense by the
equal overmastering impulses, fear and hunger. And Jean Liotard stared
back. The lost, as it were despairing look of the dog began to penetrate
his brain. He held out his hand and said: "_Viens!_" But at the sound
the little dog only squirmed away a few paces, then again sat down, and
resumed its stare. Again Jean Liotard uttered that queer laugh. If the
good God were to hold out his hand and say to him: "_Viens!_" he would
do exactly as that little beast; he would not come, not he! What was he
too but a starved and beaten dog--a driven wretch, kicked to hell! And
again, as if experimenting with himself, he held out his hand and said:
"Viens!" and again the beast squirmed a little further away, and again
sat down and stared. Jean Liotard lost patience. His head drooped till
his forehead touched the ground. He smelt the parched herbs, and a faint
sensation of comfort stole through his nerves. He lay unmoving, trying
to fancy himself dead and out of it all. The hum of summer, the smell of
grasses, the caress of the breeze going over! He pressed the palms of
his outstretched hands on the warm soil, as one might on a woman's
breast. If only it were really death, how much better than life in this
butcher's shop! But death, his death was waiting for him away over
there, under the moaning shells, under the whining bullets, at the end
of a steel prong--a mangled, foetid death. Death--his death, had no
sweet scent, and no caress--save the kisses of rats and crows. Life and
Death what were they? Nothing but the preying of creatures the one on
the other--nothing but that; and love, the blind instinct which made
these birds and beasts of prey. _Bon sang de bon sang!_ The Christ hid
his head finely nowadays! That cross up there on the mountain top, with
the sun gleaming on it--they had been right to put it up where no man
lived, and not even a dog roamed, to be pitied! "Fairy tales, fairy
tales," he thought; "those who drive and those who are driven, those
who eat and those who are eaten--we are all poor devils together. There
is no pity, no God!" And the flies drummed their wings above him. And
the sun, boring into his spine through his thin shirt, made him reach
for his jacket. There was the little dog, still, sitting on its base,
twenty yards away. It cowered and dropped its ears when he moved; and he
thought "Poor beast! Someone has been doing the devil's work on you, not
badly!" There were some biscuits in the pocket of his jacket, and he
held one out. The dog shivered, and its thin pink tongue lolled out,
panting with desire, and fear. Jean Liotard tossed the biscuit gently
about half way. The dog cowered back a step or two, crept forward three,
and again squatted. Then very gradually it crept up to the biscuit,
bolted it, and regained its distance. The soldier took out another. This
time he threw it five paces only in front of him. Again the little beast
cowered, slunk forward, seized the biscuit, devoured it; but this time
it only recoiled a pace or two, and seemed, with panting mouth and faint
wagging of the tail, to beg for more. Jean Liotard held a third biscuit
as far out in front of him as he could, and waited. The creature crept
forward and squatted just out of reach. There it sat, with saliva
dripping from its mouth; seemingly it could not make up its mind to
that awful venture. The soldier sat motionless; his outstretched hand
began to tire; but he did not budge--he meant to conquer its fear. At
last it snatched the biscuit. Jean Liotard instantly held out a fourth.
That too was snatched, but at the fifth he was able to touch the dog. It
cowered almost into the ground at touch of his fingers, and then lay,
still trembling violently, while the soldier continued to stroke its
head and ears. And suddenly his heart gave a twitter, the creature had
licked his hand. He took out his last biscuit, broke it up, and fed the
dog slowly with the bits, talking all the time; when the last crumb was
gone he continued to murmur and crumple its ears softly. He had become
aware of something happening within the dog--something in the nature of
conversion, as if it were saying: "O my master, my new master--I
worship, I love you!" The creature came gradually closer, quite close;
then put up its sharp black nose and began to lick his face. Its little
hot rough tongue licked and licked, and with each lick the soldier's
heart relaxed, just as if the licks were being given there, and
something licked away. He put his arms round the thin body, and hugged
it, and still the creature went on feverishly licking at his face, and
neck, and chest, as if trying to creep inside him. The sun poured down,
the lizards rustled and whisked among the pebbles; the kissing never
ceased up there among the willow and aspen leaves, and every kind of
flying thing went past drumming its wings. There was no change in the
summer afternoon. God might not be there, but Pity had come back; Jean
Liotard no longer had "_cafard_." He put the little dog gently off his
lap, got up, and stretched himself. "_Voyons, mon brave, faut aller voir
les copains! Tu es a moi._" The little dog stood up on its hind legs,
scratching with its forepaws at the soldier's thigh, as if trying to get
at his face again; as if begging not to be left; and its tail waved
feverishly, half in petition, half in rapture. The soldier caught the
paws, set them down, and turned his face for home, making the noises
that a man makes to his dog; and the little dog followed, close as he
could get to those moving ankles, lifting his snout, and panting with
anxiety and love.
1917
VI
RECORDED
Just as the train was going out the compartment was stormed by a figure
in khaki, with a rifle, a bad cold, a wife, a basket, a small bundle,
and two babies. Setting his rifle down in the corner, he said:
"Didn't think we shud ever 'a caught it!"
His lean face was streaming with perspiration, and when he took off his
overcoat there rose the sweetish sourish scent of a hot goatskin
waistcoat. It reached below his waist, and would have kept cold out from
a man standing in a blizzard, and he had been carrying a baby, a rifle,
a bundle, a basket, and running, on a warmish day.
"Grand things, these," he said, and took it off. He also took off his
cap, and sat down with the elder baby in a howling draught.
"Proper cold I've caught comin' over here," he added.
His wife, quite a girl, broad-faced, fresh-coloured, with small grey
eyes and a wonderfully placid, comely face, on which a faint shadow
seemed printed, sat beside him with the younger baby, a real hairless
one, as could be seen when its white knitted cap slipped. The elder
baby, perhaps two years old, began whimpering a little. He jigged it
gently, and said:
"We 'ad a lot o' trouble wi' this one yesterday. The Doctor didn't think
'er fit to travel; but I got to see the old people down there, before I
go back out across. Come over Sunday night--only got a week's leave. So
here we are," and he laughed.
"What is your corps?" I asked.
"Engineers."
"Join since the war?"
He looked at me as if to say: What a question!
"Twelve years' service. Been everywhere--India, South Africa, Egypt.
Come over to the front from Egypt."
"Where? Ypres?"
"Beg pardon? Wipers? No, Labassy."
"Rough time?"
He winked. "Proper rough time."
He looked straight at me, and his eyes--Celtic-grey, with a good deal of
light in them--stared, wide and fixed, at things beyond me, as only do
the eyes of those who have seen much death. There was a sort of
burnt-gunpowder look about their rims and lashes, and a fixity that
nothing could have stared down.
"The Kazer he says it'll all be over by April!" He laughed, abandoning
the whole of him to enjoyment of that joke.
He was thin as a rail; his head with its thick brown hair was narrow,
his face narrowish too. He had irregular ears, and no feature that could
be called good, but his expression was utterly genuine and unconscious
of itself. When he sat quiet his face would be held a little down, his
eyes would be looking at something--or was it at nothing?--far-off, in a
kind of frowning dream. But if he glanced at his babies his rather thick
mouth became all smiles, and he would make a remark to his wife about
them. Once or twice she looked at him softly, but I could never catch
him responding to that; his life was rather fuller than hers just now.
Presently she took from him the elder baby which, whimpering again, was
quieted at once by her broad placidity. The younger baby she passed to
him; and, having secured it on his knee, he said:
"This one's a proper little gem; never makes a sound; she's a proper
little gem. Never cude stand hearin' a baby cry." It certainly was an
admirable baby, whether her little garments were lifted so that you saw
portions of her--scarlet from being held too tight, whether the shawl
was wrapped over her too much or too little, or her little knitted
trousers seemed about to fall off. For both these babies were elegantly
dressed, and so was the mother, with a small blue hat and a
large-checked blouse over her broad bosom, and a blue skirt all crumbs
and baby. It was pleasant to see that he had ceased to stream with
perspiration now, and some one at the other end of the carriage having
closed the window, he and the babies no longer sat in a howling
draught--not that they had ever noticed it.
"Yes," he said suddenly, "proper rough time we 'ad of it at first.
Terrible--yu cude 'ardly stick it. We Engineers 'ad the worst of it, tu.
But must laugh, you know; if yu're goin' to cop it next minute--must
laugh!" And he did. But his eyes didn't quite lose that stare.
"How did you feel the first day under fire?"
He closed one eye and shook his head.
"Not very grand--not very grand--not for two or three days. Soon get
used to it, though. Only things I don't care about now are those Jack
Johnsons. Long Toms out in South Africa--now Jack Johnsons--funny
names--" and he went into a roar. Then leaning forward and, to make sure
of one's attention, sawing the air with a hand that held perhaps the
longest used handkerchief ever seen, "I seen 'em make a hole where you
could 'ave put two 'underd and fifty horses. Don't think I shall ever
get to like 'em. Yu don't take no notice o' rifle fire after a
little--not a bit o' notice. I was out once with a sapper and two o' the
Devons, fixin' up barbed wire--bullets strikin' everywhere just like
rain. One o' the Devons, he was sittin' on a biscuit-tin, singin': 'The
fields were white wi' daisies'--singing. All of a sudden he goes like
this--" And giving a queer dull "sumph" of a sound, he jerked his body
limp towards his knees--"Gone! Dig a hole, put 'im in. Your turn
to-morrow, perhaps. Pals an' all. Yu get so as yu don't take no notice."
On the face of the broad, placid girl with the baby against her breast
the shadow seemed printed a little deeper, but she did not wince. The
tiny baby on his knees woke up and crowed faintly. He smiled.
"Since I been out there, I've often wished I was a little 'un again,
like this. Well, I made up my mind when first I went for a soldier, that
I'd like to 'ave a medal out of it some day. Now I'll get it, if they
don't get me!" and he laughed again: "Ah! I've 'ad some good times, an'
I've 'ad some bad times----"
"But never a time like this?"
"Yes, I reckon this has about put the top hat on it!" and he nodded his
head above the baby's. "About put the top hat on! Oh! I've seen
things--enough to make your 'eart bleed. I've seen a lot of them country
people. Cruel it is! Women, old men, little children, 'armless
people--enough to make your 'eart bleed. I used to think of the folk
over 'ere. Don't think English women'd stand what the French and Belgian
women do. Those poor women over there--wonderful they are. There yu'll
see 'em sittin' outside their 'omes just a heap o' ruins--clingin' to
'em. Wonderful brave and patient--make your 'eart bleed to see 'em.
Things I've seen! There's some proper brutes among the Germans--must be.
Yu don't feel very kind to 'em when yu've seen what I've seen. We 'ave
some games with 'em, though"--he laughed again: "Very nervous people,
the Germans. If we stop firin' in our lines, up they send the star
shells, rockets and all, to see what's goin' on--think we're goin' to
attack--regular 'lumination o' fireworks--very nervous people. Then we
send up some rockets on our side--just to 'ave some fun--proper display
o' fireworks." He went off into a roar: "Must 'ave a bit o' fun, you
know."
"Is it true they can't stand the bayonet?"
"Yes, that's right--they'll tell yu so themselves--very sensitive,
nervous people."
And after that a silence fell. The elder babe was still fretful, and the
mother's face had on it that most moving phenomenon of this world--the
strange, selfless, utterly absorbed look, mouth just loosened, eyes off
where we cannot follow, the whole being wrapped in warmth of her baby
against her breast. And he, with the tiny placid baby, had gone off into
another sort of dream, with his slightly frowning, far-away look. What
was it all about?--nothing perhaps! A great quality, to be able to rest
in vacancy.
He stirred and I offered him the paper, but he shook his head.
"Thank yu; don't care about lookin' at 'em. They don't know half what we
do out there--from what I've seen of 'em since I come back, I don't seem
to 'ave any use for 'em. The pictures, too--" He shrugged and shook his
head. "We 'ave the real news, y'see. They don't keep nothin' from us.
But we're not allowed to say. When we advance there'll be some lives
lost, I tell yu!"
He nodded, thinking for a second perhaps of his own. "Can't be helped!
Once we get 'em on the run, we shan't give 'em much time." Just then the
baby on his knee woke up and directed on him the full brunt of its
wide-open bright grey eyes. Its rosy cheeks were so broad and fat that
its snub nose seemed but a button; its mouth, too tiny, one would think,
for use, smiled. Seeing that smile he said:
"Well, what do yu want? Proper little gem, ain't yu!" And suddenly
looking up at me, he added with a sort of bashful glee: "My old
people'll go fair mad when they see me--go fair mad they will." He
seemed to dwell on the thought, and I saw the wife give him a long soft
smiling look. He added suddenly:
"I'll 'ave to travel back, though, Saturday--catch the six o'clock from
Victoria, Sunday--to cross over there."
Very soon after that we arrived at where he changed, and putting on his
goatskin, his cap, and overcoat, he got out behind his wife, carrying
with the utmost care those queer companions, his baby and his rifle.
Where is he now? Alive, dead? Who knows?
1915.
VII
THE RECRUIT
Several times since that fateful Fourth of August he had said: "I sh'll
'ave to go."
And the farmer and his wife would look at him, he with a sort of
amusement, she with a queer compassion in her heart, and one or the
other would reply smiling: "That's all right, Tom, there's plenty
Germans yet. Yu wait a bit."