Part 12

“You’ll find plenty to do at home, my dear. Only the fully qualified are any use out there. Presently,--ay already,--there are widows and orphans to look after, and your out-of-work girls, and the wives and children who are not yet widows and orphans but may be any day. Plenty to do at home for all of us. But, for the moment, we’ve got to quiet Mrs Dare’s fears for Con.”

“It would be too awful if--if the worst had come to him,” she said, with a glistening in the eyes.

“It would be very sad for us all. But for him--my dear, a man can do no better than die at his post. If it should be so, be sure he died doing his duty. But we’re not to think of him as gone. Con’s one of the finest boys I know, and, please God, he’s alive and well and will come back to us.”

Mrs Dare and Honor had just suspended work and were sitting down to tea when they were shown in, and Mrs Dare rang for additional supplies as soon as she had greeted them.

“Well, Colonel? Any new news?” she asked cheerfully.

“Yes,--I came on purpose to tell you. I have just been to see Alma.”

They both sat up at attention and eyed him anxiously, and he hurried on, “It is disquieting, but not necessarily more than that. Con’s name is in the list of ‘missing.’ That means he has been captured and so may be out of further danger till the end of the war.”

“Thank God, it is no worse!” said Mrs Dare, with a sigh of relief. And then, as her mind travelled quickly the possibilities, with a downward tendency natural under the circumstances, “Can we be sure it is no worse?”

“If he were known to be dead or wounded, it would be so reported. ‘Missing’ leaves us every ground for hope, Mrs Mother. And it is our bounden duty to hope for the best. And we will. A great many of our R.A.M.C.’s were captured at the same time. The retirement was very hurried, you see. They would be busy with their wounded. Probably they would not leave them. The Germans swept on, and there they were--behind the lines--prisoners.”

“They have been behaving very brutally,” said Mrs Dare depressedly.

“In cases--where they will probably claim to be justified, and even they are probably much exaggerated. Is it any good treading the stony ways before we actually come to them? There may be more than enough for us before we’re through.”

“You are right, my friend. I’m afraid I’m sadly lacking in faith. One gets somewhat disjangled with thinking overmuch about things.”

“Mustn’t think down,” said the Colonel, shaking his finger reprovingly at her. “Think up! Half the ill things we fear never come to pass. Isn’t that your experience now?”

“It is. But the times are out of joint, and----”

“And it’s our business to put them in again, and we’re going to do it.”

“We’re still falling back, I suppose,” she said, uncheerfully, and he knew she was wondering if there would be any hope of news of Con if a change should come in that respect.

“Still retiring on Paris, and doing it uncommonly well too,” he said, very much more cheerfully than he actually felt.

For the black Sunday of Mons still lay heavy on him, and he knew better than any of them the certain cost of those terrible rear-guard actions--from Cambrai-le Cateau to the Somme--Oise--Meuse, to Seine--Oise--Meuse, to Seine--Marne--Meuse, and he dreaded the thought of the tardy lists which would be hard to compile and harder still to read.

“You’ll see we’ll find the ground we’re looking for soon,” he said stoutly. “Then we’ll right about face and maybe give them the lesson they’re spoiling for. They are suffering terribly, as it is, but there seems no end to them. But, anyhow, Con will be all right in Germany by this time, and truly I don’t think we need worry about him unduly.”

“I’ll try not to, but it is not easy,--hearing the things one does.”

“If duty were easy it would lose half its virtue,”--and then the door flew open and Noel and Gregor MacLean stood in the opening, with their hands to their foreheads in most punctilious salute and broad grins of delight on their heated faces.

“London Scottish!” they said in unison.

“You’re in?” cried the girls, jumping up.

“For King and Country! At your service,” and they broke off and demanded tea,--much tea and all the cakes that were going.

The girls flew round ministeringly and buzzed about them full of questions and congratulations.

“And how soon do you get to work?” asked the Colonel.

“Medical inspection 9 a.m. to-morrow morning. But we’re as fit as fiddles, so that’s all right.”

“And when will you get your kilts?” asked Honor.

“A-a-a-a-a-ah!” said Noel. “Now you’re asking.”

“Echo answers ‘When?’” said Gregor. “From all accounts it may be months.”

“O-o-o-oh!” remonstratively from the girls.

“But we want to see how you’ll look in them,” said Honor.

“You go right up to Head-Quarters, my child, and put it to them straight, and I shouldn’t be a bit surprised if we got them by mid-day Monday,” said Noel.

“‘The kilt is but the guinea stamp, the man’s the gowd for a’ that,’” said Gregor with a grin, and a reddening under his tan at so unusual an outburst and an approving glance from Honor.

“Well, it’s been worth waiting for,” said the Colonel.

“I should say so. We’d sooner be full privates in the London Scottish than potty little lieutenants in anything else, wouldn’t we, Greg, my boy?”

“Rather!”

“Do you know Con is missing?” said Honor.

“No?” unbelievingly from both of the boys. “Missing?”--and they stood staring from one to another with such startled looks that the Colonel thought well to interject a bluff, “He’s probably tucked safely away in some remote corner of Germany by this time. But we shall hear in due course,”--and he accompanied it with so straight and meaning a look at the boys that they understood, and fell in with his intention.

“Poor old Con! How mad he’ll be to be out of it,” said Noel hastily. “Say, Greg, my boy, we’ve got to get out there as quick as ever we can. What a joke if we came across him--er--languishing in captivity and were the means of setting him free.”

“Are the lists out then, sir?” asked Gregor.

“Not yet, my boy. I was up at Head-Quarters and they’re compiling them as fast as they can. Pretty heavy, I’m afraid.”

“Sure to be, sir. There’s been some mighty tough work out there.”

“The German lists will be ten times as heavy. That’s one consolation,” said Noel.

“No amount of German losses will compensate one mother for the loss of her son,” said Mrs Dare soberly. “My heart is sore for all those German mothers too. It is terrible waste. And all so unnecessary too.”

“Always bear in mind, Mrs Mother, that we did not want it,” said the Colonel. “It was forced upon us, and we are fighting for freedom and the rights of the smaller peoples. It is an honour to fight in such a cause. It would be an honour to die for it.”

“Hear, hear!” said Noel.

But when the Colonel took his leave, and the two boys lit their pipes and strolled along with him, Noel broke out impetuously, “Is there any more behind, sir, that you haven’t told us? ‘Missing’ may mean anything.”

“That is absolutely all that is known as yet, my boy. It may, as you say, mean anything. But until more is known we have every right to hope for the best. And for that reason I want you to take the brighter side of the possibility and do your best not to let your mother dwell on the other side. You understand?”

“I understand, sir,” said Noel, very soberly.... “It would be awful if--if the worst had happened to him. Does Alma know?”

“I went and told her at once and minimised it as much as possible. But I’ve very little doubt they all understand what it may mean just as well as we do.”

“They’re behaving like perfect devils over there, from all accounts,” said Gregor. “I can’t understand it. I’ve known heaps of Germans, as nice folks as you’d wish to meet. And now--devils unloosed, and up to every dirty underhand trick imaginable. What do you make of it, sir?”

“War is a terrible unloosener of the worst that is in man, and there are black sheep in every army. And I’ve no doubt there’s a great deal of exaggeration in the stories we hear.”

“I’d like to stamp the whole darned lot out of existence like so many black beetles,” said Noel hotly.

“I’m afraid they’ll take a lot of stamping out,” said the Colonel, as he turned and went through his own gate.

“By--Jing, Greg, I don’t like it one little bit!” said Noel, as they linked arms and went on down the road to tell their own good news to Mrs MacLean.

“It may be as bad as we can’t help fearing. But, as the Colonel says, it may not, and it’s cheerfuller to look on the bright side. I can’t imagine Con being killed.”

“Neither can I, but they say we’ve lost about fifteen thousand already, and when you think of that it doesn’t take much more thinking to think he may be one of them.”

“That’s not all killed, man. It’s everything.”

“I know, but it’s been beastly hot work, and ... dash it, Greg, you know what I’m thinking of. They say they’re sparing none and making a dead set at the Red Cross men.”

And Gregor nodded gloomily.

“We’ll say nothing to my mother about it at present,” he said. “Maybe better word’ll come in a day or two, and it’s no good fashin’ her unduly. She’ll be glad we’ve got in all right, because she knows we’ve been wanting it so much, but she’ll feel it, you know, when we have to go.”

“That’ll not be for a good while yet. And anyway we’re doing our duty to our country.”

But this news about Con distinctly sobered their exuberance, and Mrs MacLean, as she congratulated them on the attainment of their wishes, thought what a fine sensible pair they were, and what a change the prospect of service was making in them already.

She was well over middle age, white-haired, and had the kindliest face and sweetest soft Scotch voice Noel knew, outside his own family. Gregor was her only child and her heart was wrapped up in him.

“I’m glad you’re going to wear the kilt,” she said gently. “When will you be getting them, do you think?”

“Oh, not for a while yet, I expect. First Battalion want everything they can get, you see. We’re only in the nursery yet.”

“You’ll find it queer at first, but you’ll soon get used to the bare knees,” she smiled, to Noel.

“It’s no worse than footer, you know. By Jove, Greg, my boy, we’ll Condy them a bit to subdue their natural shiny whiteness. Then they won’t startle people as we pass.”

“All right. But we may as well wait till we get there,--unless you want to begin training them right away in the way they should go.”

“And when do you start work?”

“Medical exam to-morrow morning, and then as soon as the top-knutties can lick themselves into shape.”

And so they chattered on, very full of themselves and their new importance, and Mrs MacLean rejoiced in them,--but hoped fervently, nevertheless, that the war would be over before they would have to do any actual fighting.

XVII

In the Post Office at Montreux, Ray and Lois, with startled looks, faced the fact that only a modest five pounds stood between them and poverty in a land which esteemed its visitors according to the size of their purses.

The quietly portentous statement of the young man behind the glass screen at the Post Office, as to the unlikelihood of their telegram ever reaching its destination, was well calculated to take away their breath. It left them floundering like incapable swimmers washed suddenly out of their depth.

Lois, having infinite faith in Ray, was the first to recover herself with a glimmer of amusement.

“We’ll manage somehow,” she said. “It’s all part of the adventure.”

Ray had had experience of shortage in foreign lands and knew how small was the sympathy it evoked. But it was assuredly not for him to emphasise the sorriness of their plight, which, he kept saying to himself, was all due to his own idiocy in losing his purse.

“Seems to me a cup of tea is indicated,” he said. “Perhaps it will stimulate our jaded brains to see the way out,” and he led her to the little tea-shop near the Kursaal.

They had it to themselves at the moment, and Mademoiselle in charge welcomed them with smiles as possible harbingers of a revival of business.

“Iff you please,--tea?” she asked, proud of her accomplishment.

“A good pot of tea and some of those cakes. How well you speak English!” said Ray.

“We haf many English, you see, and I wass in Bhry-tonn for one year. Yes, sank you, saire.”

“Perhaps she could recommend us to some cheap pension,” suggested Lois, as Mademoiselle tinkled among the tea-cups behind the screen. “She looks a sensible kind of girl and we can make her understand the position.”

“Good idea!”--and when she came back with the tea and arranged it before them with an ingratiating, “Iff you please,”--he asked, “I wonder if you know of any pension, mademoiselle, where they take in stranded foreigners for nothing a day and feed them well?”

But that was altogether too cryptic for her.

“Please?” she asked, with a puzzled smile, scenting a joke but not fathoming it.

“We want to find a very cheap pension,” explained Lois. “We are on our way home to England but have had the misfortune to lose our purse up there on the Rhone Glacier. And at the Post Office they tell us we may not be able to get any money sent from England for some time, because of the war.”

“Ah--zis horreeble war! It is ruining us all. But yess, madame, I know a pension which is cheap. Pension Estèphe, opposite the Gare. It is not everything, but it is clean and it is honest, and it is cheap. I have myself stopped there once.”

“Thank you. That is just what we want. We have telegraphed for more money, you see, but they cannot be sure it will ever get there, and we can’t tell when we can get away.”

“Ach! It is terreeble. There are many caught like that. Zis horreeble war! It will ruin everybody, yess!”

“What’s the latest news about the war?” asked Ray.

“Mais, monsieur, we get little news. They are fighting all the time--oh, terreebly. But we do not know much about it. I do hope it will not come here. You do not think it will, monsieur?”

“We’ll hope not, ma’m’selle. But if it suited the Germans to come I’ve no doubt they would, in spite of you.”

“Ach, I do not like the Germans. No!”

“The feeling seems general. Well, we’ll go along presently and look at the Pension Estèphe, and if we like it we shall come in and see you again, ma’m’selle.”

“Iff you please, saire!”

Madame of the Pension Estèphe eyed them somewhat doubtfully at first. They were above her usual class of customer, and it took considerable explanation to make her understand why they wanted to stop with her, the exact relationship in which they at present stood to one another, and, more especially why they had no luggage but their rucksacs.

However, by dint of much talk, they came at last to terms. For a room each, and their meals, she would charge them seven francs per day for the two. If they got married and occupied only one room it would be a franc less. And she providently demanded a deposit of ten francs and that they should pay their bill each day.

“For,” said she, without any beating about the bush, “you have no luggage, you see, and you might walk away and leave me nothing but your rucksacs which do not contain much.”

Their rooms were alongside one another and their appointments were plain to the point of exiguity, but they were clean and the beds looked comfortable enough.

“From the mere point of economy it’s obvious we must get married at once,” laughed Ray, and Lois blushed but raised no objection.

“It’ll have to be a pauper’s wedding,” he ran on, “And we’ll have a wedding-tea at Ma’m’selle’s shop and blow out one franc each on it. I wonder what it will cost to get married? If it’s more than we save on the room in, say, a fortnight, we can’t do it,”--at which Lois laughed enjoyably.--“There used to be a jolly old Scotch parson here. We’ll look him up and put the case before him. Perhaps, in the circumstances, he’ll do it for nothing--or at all events, give us credit till we reach home.”

And, presently, they went along to the little church in the rue de la Gare and got the minister’s address and went along to his house, but they found that he was away on holiday and so they had to deal with his locum.

He proved very pleasant and amiable, however, and when the whole matter had been explained to him he undertook to marry them as soon as they chose and free of charge.

“Then to-morrow, please,” said Ray. “You see we save a franc a day by getting married, and when you’ve only got five pounds altogether it’s something.”

“If you get no reply to your telegram, you must see the Vice-Consul. He’s Swiss, but a good chap. Some provision is to be made, I believe, for our stranded fellow-countrymen. There are a great many here in much the same position, and more coming in every day. It’s making a lot of trouble, this wretched war.”

“It’ll make a lot more before it’s finished, I’m afraid. If I were home I’d probably be in it myself--I’m in the London Scottish, you see,----”

“Ah?--You’re a kiltie, are you?” with a sparkle in the eye.

“Been one four years, and I expect every man we can scrape will be needed before we’re through. What are folks here thinking about it all, sir?”

“Not over well for us, I’m afraid,”--with a gloomy shake of the head. “The Germans are not liked here, as you may have found----”

“We haven’t met one single person that has a good word to say for any one of them.”

“Exactly! Their bumptiousness and lack of manners make them a byword. But all the same they are believed to be overwhelmingly strong and wonderfully organised. I should describe the general feeling as a fear that Germany may win. In which case it will be a bad thing for us here. We have one powerful factor in our favour, however.”

“And what is that, sir?”

“We’re in the right this time. We haven’t always been, but this time we certainly are. And righteousness tells in the long run.”

“I hope it will. I can’t imagine England knocking under to Germany. It’s unthinkable.”

“The Right will win.... Meanwhile they are hammering away at poor little Belgium because she would not allow them free passage to Paris. And she’s doing magnificently----”

“Belgium! Think of it! I’d no idea she had it in her. One has come to associate Belgium so with Congo atrocities and purely material things that anything heroic in her surprises one.”

“Heroic is the word. She’s holding the fort while Britain and France and Russia get ready. It may be that she is saving Europe from Pan-Germanism.”

“Splendid! I take off my hat to her. Good thing old Leopold’s not in the saddle! The new man must be a good sort.”

“He must be.... Then to-morrow, Mr. Luard. Shall we say at eleven? And I hope, my dear,”--to Lois,--“it will make for your happiness.”

“Oh, it will,” she assured him. “And it is very very good of you.”

When Ray and Lois came down to their dinner-supper, that first night, in the common-room of their unpretentious pension, they found a numerous company already busily at work, and were somewhat taken aback by their looks,--burly, moustached and bearded men in blouses and dungarees, with an odour and look of trains and engines about them;--loud of voice, disputatious indeed, and oblivious of manners.

Lois shrank a little at sight and sound of them. But their hostess directed them to a small table apart, covered with a red-and-white-check cover, over which she spread a table cloth and even provided them with napkins. For seats they had high stools without backs. “It feels like a music-lesson,” whispered Lois,--and--“I hope it will be more satisfying,” murmured Ray. “I’m hungry,” and watched the black-a-vises critically out of the corners of his eyes. They toned down for a moment when the strangers entered, and passed remarks sotto voce between themselves, but in a minute or two were in full blast again.

“They look like brigands,” murmured Lois. “They won’t murder us in our beds, will they?”

“The fact of our being here will prove that we’re not worth it, I should say.”

“I shall barricade my door all the same ... if I can. There’s not overmuch to barricade with.”

“They’re probably quite decent fellows,--railway-men from the look of them, and they’re generally a good sort.”

And they proved entirely so and never gave them any trouble whatever, beyond the noise of their arguments, which was at all times tremendous and more than once looked like ending in blows.

Most of them drifted back to work when their meal was over. With the two or three who remained over their cigarettes, Ray got into conversation on the war and picked up some interesting bits of information.

Some of them had just, in the course of their work, come through from Italy, and the thing that was exercising them all at the moment was--what was Italy going to do? If she came in against France their opinion was that Germany would win. If Italy maintained neutrality, as some of them insisted was likely from what they saw and heard down there, then they thought the other side might have a chance, but it would be no easy job. They, also, were mightily impressed with the idea of Germany’s strength and preparedness. But they liked her no better than anyone else. Most of their Italian fellows had already been recalled to the colours.

“It’ll be a bad day for the world if she wins,” said Ray.

And, “You’re right, monsieur, without a doubt,” was their unanimous verdict.

Lois duly barricaded her door with her alpenstock and only chair, but no murderous attempt was made on her, and she laughed at herself in the morning, and felt like apologising to the noisy, good-humoured crew.

Promptly at eleven o’clock, too joyous of heart to let themselves be troubled by their outward shabbiness, they walked into the little dark gray church on the road above the station and were quietly married, with the delightful assistance of the pastor’s wife, who was immensely interested in their little romance. And afterwards he insisted on the newly-married pair joining them at their mid-day meal.

“It will be a very modest wedding-feast,” he said. “But such as it is----”

“We can’t afford to refuse such a noble offer,” laughed Ray. “We were going to celebrate the great occasion by spending a whole franc each at the tea-shop near the Kursaal. We save two francs and enjoy your good company. It’s great, and we are very much obliged to you.”

“You would do as much for us if ever the occasion offered.”

“Just give us the chance, sir, and you’ll see.”

Next day the kindly Scot accompanied him on a visit to the Vice-Consul, whom they found already being worried and badgered into desperation by the clamorous demands of their stranded fellow-countrymen and women, especially the latter. For every lady in distress seemed to think her own special plight the extremest limit in that direction, and each one claimed the individual attention of her country’s representative and required him to send her home instantly, bag and baggage, and to ensure her safe arrival there.

It was obviously something of a relief to him to meet a man whose requirements were definite and modest and his methods business-like.

Ray briefly stated his case and asked if he could do anything towards getting a telegram through for him.

“My uncle, Sir Anthony Luard, will send me money instantly when he learns of our plight,--that is, if it is possible to do so,” he said. “What do you think of the prospects?”

“At the moment--very doubtful. Later on things will settle down somewhat no doubt. I am trying to get through by way of the south. France and Germany are quite out of the question. What are your immediate needs, Mr Luard?”