Part 16

“I shouldn’t wonder if it’s a touch of influenza,” said Miss Mitten, when she returned from compounding the posset. “They say there’s a good deal of it about. I don’t know that a posset is the best thing for him. He seems hot enough to me. But it’s no good arguing with him. He always does just as he pleases.”

“I thought you agreed that he always obeyed superior orders,” smiled Mrs Dare.

“And so he does, but they’re always his own. When he was in the army I have no doubt he did all he was told and sometimes perhaps a bit more. That’s how he won his V.C. But since he retired he’s been his own master entirely.”

“If he seems feverish in the morning I should send for Dr Rhenius, if I were you. He has been grievously overworking himself of late, and, since he won’t take care himself, you must be careful for him.”

“Yes, I will,” said Auntie Mitt, with a very decided nod and pursed lips. “He forgets his age sometimes.”

Next morning the Colonel was so limp and full of pains that he raised no objection when Miss Mitten suggested the Doctor.

“A stitch in time sometimes saves nine,” quoth she.

“I’ve got ’em already,” grunted the patient.

“Then it’s a touch of pleurisy, I expect,” and she hastened to get advice on the subject.

Dr Rhenius at once confirmed her speculative diagnosis.

“You’re my prisoner, Colonel, till I say the word, or I won’t answer for consequences. You’ve been altogether overdoing it, you know.”

“King and Country need you,” grunted the Colonel in extenuation.

“Well, you’ll be more use to them alive than dead, and you’ve got to knock off now, or you’ll knock out. Besides, they can spare you well enough for a bit. They’re getting all the men they can handle, aren’t they? In fact they don’t seem able to handle properly those they’ve got, according to the papers.”

“Big job, you see, ... machinery hardly in order yet.... Took us unawares, ... but we’re going to see it through.”

“What have you got up to now?”

“What Kitchener asked for.... Half a million or so.... We’ll need lots more before we’ve done with it.... Get me right again as quick as you can.... I’ll go crazy lying here.”

“If you follow my instructions, and keep still, and don’t talk so much, I’ll get you right again. And when I do, just try and remember that you can’t stand as much as you could when you were five-and-twenty.”

The Colonel grunted, since talking set the pain in his side stabbing again. Dr Rhenius wrote out a prescription, gave Miss Mitten very specific directions as to treatment, shook a warning finger at the obstreperous one, and promised to call back in the evening.

“He’ll not be easy to manage,” he said to Miss Mitten, as he went downstairs. “Shall I send you in a nurse?”

“Is it as bad as that?” asked Auntie Mitt, to whom an outside nurse suggested extremity. “If you think it necessary, Doctor, we must have one.”

“No need to be alarmed--as yet. But I know him, and he’ll be a handful. And then there’s the night work, you see.”

“If you think it necessary then.”

But as he went down the path he met Mrs Dare coming up to enquire how things were. And when he told her, she said at once, “Nurse? We don’t need any outside nurse. We’ll manage him between us all right. Lois will be a great assistance.”

“She’s home then? And Ray?”

“They’ve all gone,--to the front, we suppose;--the first Territorials to go. They consider it a great honour. For myself ... it makes me sick to think of it all.”

“Very well, then. The three of you ought to be able to manage him among you. We will leave it so.”

“We’ll manage him all right. Tell us just what you want done and we’ll do it. It will be good for us all and keep our minds off other things.”

No man could have had three more devoted and indefatigable nurses. They spared themselves nothing and put up with the safety-valve growlings of their patient like angels.

The Colonel had had so little illness in his life--apart from wounds, which were quite a different matter--and felt so keenly his country’s need for him to be up and doing, that he took his shelving with anything but a good grace. Auntie Mitt and Lois alone would never have been able to manage him. But to Mrs Dare he submitted--a little grumpily, at times--but still submitted, and exploded all his objurgations on things in general under cover of the bed-clothes.

He insisted on Lois reading all the latest news to him from the morning and evening papers, and forbade her to say a word in her letters to Ray about his illness. “No good worrying him,” he said. “He’ll have his hands full out there without having me on his mind.”

But presently he developed pneumonia in addition to the pleurisy, and the Doctor put a peremptory embargo on all war news, since it invariably sent his temperature up. Absolute lack of news, however, had just as bad an effect, and finally he was permitted to hear from day to day that things were going well, and all the papers were kept for him to read when he got better.

They made much of the fresh loyal offers of help from India, and of the successful aeroplane raid on the Dusseldorf Zeppelin sheds, carefully withheld any hint of the sinking of the Aboukir, Cressy, and Hogue, and the impudent quarter-of-an-hour’s bombardment of Madras by the lively Emden, and soothed him with assurances that France and Britain were splendidly holding their own along the Aisne, that Russia was forging ahead in Galicia, and that recruiting was quite up to expectations. In fact they played motherly censor to him with the already over-heavily censored news, and permitted nothing whatever of an upsetting nature to reach him; and of course they overdid it,--just as the other censor did.

He grew suspicious of all this cotton-woolling, and at last insisted on Lois holding the paper before him each morning so that he might scan the head-lines. Then he indicated what he wanted read and there was no getting out of it.

Dr Rhenius, appealed to, did his best to break him off it, but the result was disastrous. The Colonel’s temperature went up a degree and a half through suppressed indignation, and he had to be allowed his news.

“Not a da-asht infant,” he murmured. “Can stand it--good or bad. Must know.”

But the fever sapped his strength to such an extent that at times he lay so listless and apparently careless even of news that Auntie Mitt grew apprehensive.

“I don’t like it,” she confined to Mrs Dare. “It’s so very unlike him. I would really be thankful to hear him swear a little.”

“The fever has weakened him. Once the crisis is past he’ll begin to pick up again, and then we’ll tell him you want to hear him swear again.”

“It’s not really that I want to hear him swear, you understand, my dear,” Auntie Mitt superfluously explained, “but that I wish he were well enough to do so.”

“I know. I would like to hear him too.”

To keep the house quiet Victoria was stopping with Honor at The Red House, which was quite to Noel and Gregor’s taste.

They were still doing heavy route-marching almost every day, and on the off-days and Friday, which was pay-day, they mouched about Head-Quarters or put in a bit of drill in Hyde Park.

The pay of three shillings a day--to cover travelling expenses and daily rations--was to Gregor a negligible matter. But to Noel, who had never earned a farthing in his life, it was uplifting. He was actually keeping himself--in cigarettes and amusements,--and in conjunction with Gregor even took the girls to a theatre now and again. It was a grand thing not to be dependent on anyone for his pocket-money, and it made him feel excessively manly.

He and Gregor--who, like a good chum, did his best to keep his purse to the level of his friend’s--made many quaint discoveries in the matter of restaurants where they got a cut off the joint and two vegetables and bread, and choice of cheese or sweets, for the all-round sum of one shilling.

Marching days, however, were lean days with them, when they were dependent on the none-too-filling sandwiches and biscuits, and apples and ginger-beer, of the travelling canteen. And those nights they took home tremendous appetites and were unjovial till they had been satisfied,--a task which they divided about equally between The Red House and the White.

Mrs MacLean rejoiced whenever they went to her, and would have liked them to come every night, and she was never caught short. The girls did their best. But the boys’ movements were as a rule so unforeseeable, and at all times subject to such unexpected alteration on the spur of the moment, that providing for them was no easy matter.

Gregor, at all events, showed no sign of complaint, and doubtless the presence of the girls more than made up for any little defects in the commissariat. Noel expressed himself freely on the subject if occasion offered.

“Wait till we go into camp,” grinned Gregor. “You’ll learn things, my boy. Bully beef and hard potatoes, and mouldy cheese, and jam that’s all the same whatever it calls itself!”

“Rotten! They might at all events feed us properly.”

“It’s a shame,” said Honor. “I should strike, or mutiny, or whatever’s the proper thing to do in such a case.”

“Proper thing is to grin and bear it and buy some extra grub outside to fill up with. If you kicked you’d be taken out and shot at dawn,” said Gregor gravely.

“I don’t think soldiering’s as nice as I thought it was.”

“It’s not,--not all of it. But it’s got to be done since the Kaiser’s said so.”

“The wretch! I wish he would die.”

“Not yet. He’ll suffer a lot more if he lives. At least I hope so.”

“He can never suffer as he deserves to,” said Vic. “I would have all the pain and misery he has brought about visited on his own head, but that’s not humanly possible.”

“He’ll suffer,” said Gregor weightily.

“If we lick him all to pieces, as we shall do,” said Noel, “he’ll surrender to England and be given a palace to live in and a nice little pension. We’re altogether too soft-hearted. When a man’s down we’re always sorry for him, no matter what he’s done, and we sentimentalise over him like a lot of silly schoolgirls.”

“That all you know?” said Honor.

“What about those kilts?” asked Vic.

“Next week, please the powers! Things are turning up by degrees. A lot of sporrans and spats came in this afternoon. I saw them myself.”

“We’ll be getting clothed bit by bit,” said Gregor. “You’ll see us swanking it in one spat and a sporran maybe. There’s no kilts come yet, and as for tunics!--you see there’s more khaki wanted than they can turn out, though the mills are working night and day, they say.”

“And pretty poor stuff it is, from all accounts,” said Noel. “You should hear a song the fellows have about the rotten time they’re taking to give us our uniforms. How does it go now? They roar it at top of their voice whenever the Colonel comes along,--

‘There’s a matter here to which we call attention, Concerning which we feel a trifle warm,-- The days are getting cold, and we’re slowly growing old, And here we are without our uniform.’

“Chorus, Greg!”

‘Sunday we pray we soon may get ’em; Monday, our spirits rise a bit; Tuesday is the day they say they’re on the way, but not a bit of it! Wednesday, we grow a shade mistrustful, Thursday our hopes begin to fall; On Friday we’re despairing, On Saturday we’re swearing, We’ll never get the--er--ruddy things--at all.’”

“Bravo!” cried the girls. “Encore!”

But just at that point Mr Dare came in, with a tired nod to them all, and Noel’s high spirits seemed to lower at once by several degrees.

“How is the Colonel to-night?” Mr Dare asked Vic.

“He’s just about the same, Mr Dare. The stabbing pain has gone, they say. But he’s very limp. Even good news of the war hardly bucks him up. He seems to want just to lie quiet, and I’ve never in my life known him do that before. It shows how pulled down he is.”

“It’s the crisis to-night, I think, and it’s going to be a wild night,”--as the wind shook the windows as though trying to force its way in. “A bad night for the trenches and a worse on the sea,” and he subsided into the evening paper.

“Lois had another post-card from Ray this morning, father,” said Honor.

“That’s good. He’s all right so far then. Doesn’t say where, I suppose?”

“Gives no clue. Not allowed. Simply says he’s quite all right and awfully busy.”

“Well, we must be thankful for that much. The losses all round are terrible to think of. If it goes on much longer at this rate----” but consideration for the boys cut his Cassandra ruminations short.

“Has the City any views as to how long it’ll last, sir?” asked Gregor.

“Any amount of views but no knowledge. Some are sure it’ll be all over by Christmas----”

“Rotten! I jolly well hope not,” jerked Noel.

“--And some say it will last two years or even three.”

“There’ll be a lot of wastage if it goes on that long,” said Gregor. “And all the countries would be bankrupt, I should say.”

“It’s too ghastly to think of. We’ll hope for better things,” and he took to his papers again.

XXIV

The big trees clashed and roared all night in the gale. In the morning a huge limb of one of the Oakdene elms lay on the lawn, and Vic, running across, anxious for news of the Colonel, brought back word that he had had a very restless night but was now sleeping quietly, and that Mrs Dare was sure he was no worse,--which in itself was great gain--and was not sure that he was not even a little better.

And so it proved when the Doctor called. He pronounced the crisis passed and had every hope that his patient was now on the road to recovery. Every care was still needed, however, as one could never tell what might happen in the case of such a trying combination as pneumonia and seventy-eight years of age.

Dr Rhenius himself was looking somewhat fagged and overworked. He said there was a great deal of sickness about, and set it down to some extent to the general depression of spirits caused by the war. Every house he went into had some connection with it, and the sense of anxiety was widespread,--not, he admitted, as to the ultimate issue, on which all minds were made up, but as to the fate of relatives at the front. For the descriptions which came home of the fierceness of the fighting and the effects of the huge German shells, which dug holes in the ground big enough to bury an omnibus in, seemed to leave small hope of escape to any who might be exposed to them.

The stories of the atrocious barbarities practised by the German hordes in Belgium and Northern France depressed them all greatly,--Malines, Termonde, Rheims--there seemed no bounds to the inhumanity of these twentieth-century Huns. They had shed off the thin veneer of their civilisation and reverted to savagery, and the whole world stood aghast. That a nation professedly Christian, and calling on God to assist its nefarious enterprises, could not only descend to such depths but could actually exult in them, was a shock to the moral sense of humanity at large.

What chance could there be for any who fell into their vengeful hands? What chance even for those who went out to meet them in fair fight? For trickery and treachery and every mean device were the chosen weapons of their dishonourable warfare. Nothing was sacred if it stood in the way of their winning. They played the game like dirty little gutter-snipes whose intention was to win at all costs, and the fouler the means the more they exulted in the success of them.

There were heavy hearts at home in those days, and ‘Missing’ came to be regarded as almost more hopeless than ‘Dead’;--certainly more pregnant of sorrows, for the dead were happily done with it all and could suffer no more.

Con was ever in their thoughts. When his mother read the grim accounts of the dastardly ill-treatment meted specially to British prisoners, she was tempted at times to wish his name had been in the fatal list which left no room for further hopes or fears.

And Ray,--any day might bring similar word concerning him. Now and again a brief post-card reached them saying he was well and busy. But even as they read the precious words and rejoiced in them, each one knew full well that since they were written the end might have come. When bullets are flying and shells are bursting it takes so little to end a life. And those venomous Germans made a point of picking off every officer they could crawl within range of.

And presently Noel and Gregor would go. They were as keen for the front as though they bore charmed lives and death and mutilation were not. There were sure to be drafts before long to make good the inevitable wastage in the First Battalion, and these two, splendidly fit and eager for the fray, were certain to be among the chosen.

Mrs Dare and Lois and Alma knelt long of a night, and carried prayers in their hearts all day; Honor and Vic perhaps also, but the matter had not come so poignantly home to them as yet. Their younger eyes were still somewhat misted with the pomp and glamour of war, but from the others’ the scales had fallen and only the horror and misery were apparent to them.

Alma had run over to see how Uncle Tony was getting on, and they were all six of them for once sitting over their tea together, working busily, and talking quietly in the shadow of the war-cloud. Lois had been sitting with Uncle Tony till he fell asleep. He slept much of late and was often listless and drowsy and very unlike himself, when awake, especially in the afternoon.

It was Alma who said, out of the fulness of her heart and of much inevitable brooding over the matter,

“You know, if the women of all the world would only say the word, and say it together, and not only say it but mean it with all their souls and lives, there could be no such thing as war in the world.”

Mrs Dare suspended work for a minute and regarded her thoughtfully. Auntie Mitt peered at her over her spectacles in wonder. Lois nodded comprehendingly, with a star in each eye. Honor shook her head doubtfully. Victoria said, “If we had the vote--perhaps.”

“The vote will come all right in time,” said Alma. “But I was thinking larger than that. In all wars the women are the greatest and final sufferers. If they could join hands all over the world and say ‘There shall be no more war!’--well ... there would be no more war.”

“I don’t see why,” said Honor. “The men would make war all the same if they wanted to--as they would.”

“Not if the women meant what they said, and were prepared to stand by it and all its consequences. Ey!” she said, throwing up her arms in a supplicatory gesture, “I wish I could rouse them to it! It could be done. I’m sure it could be done. And just think what it would mean!”

“It would mean new life and new hope,--a new Heaven and a new Earth,” said Mrs Dare impressively. “It would be a Second Advent.... My dear, it is a wonderful idea.... If only it were possible!”

“It is quite possible,” said Alma, with a quiet confidence which impressed even Vic, who gazed at her in wondering amazement, “The idea came to me in the night, as I lay thinking of Con and Ray and the boys, and all the other men-folk of all the other women in the world. And I saw how it all might be done if it only could be done.”

“How then?” asked Vic, impatiently, as Alma fell silent and sat gazing thoughtfully into the fire.

“Why,--in this way.--All men--except the few in every country who hope to benefit by war--want peace. Peace and happiness are the natural and healthy states of life. War is unnatural and unhealthy. It is a lapse. Women crave peace still more, for they are the greatest sufferers by war. Let them unite all over the world----”

“Women don’t unite,” snapped Vic.

“Even for such a trifling thing as the Vote they have shown that they can unite. But when this war is over--it has got to be fought out, I quite see that.--But it will leave the heart of womanhood all over the world so sore and bruised that, unless I am mistaken in my sex, the women will be ready to do greater things than we have ever dreamed of to prevent a recurrence of such doings.... I can imagine a World-Wide Women’s League for Peace;--membership, every right-thinking woman in the whole world----”

“Phew!” whistled Vic. “How’d you get ’em?”

“Easily, I think. That is a detail. I’ll deal with it presently. Such an organisation, pledged to prevent war, would be all-powerful. And, if it could do this greatest thing of all, it would naturally have its say in all the minor matters which, through men’s mishandling and easily-roused passions, so often lead to war.”

“You’re a suffragette, Alma,” said Vic.

“I detest them and all their ways, as you very well know. But the greater necessarily includes the less. Let women ensure peace, and they will be accorded their rightful voice in all the smaller matters. Be sure of that.”

“And how would they go to work to ensure peace?” asked Mrs Dare.

“Perhaps my vague ideas will seem rather crazy to you. But they are something like this. Imagine the women of the world pledged to keep the peace at risk even of their lives. Two nations verge on war. To the women that means loss in every way--chiefly in the lives that are dearer to them than their own. Very well,--then let them stop it by risking their own lives. It is the smaller risk after all. After exhausting every other means of averting the war, let the women of each such nation rise in their millions and if necessary take their stand between the contending armies and defy their men to fight.”

“Through my heart first!” said Vic.

“Exactly. The Germans, they say, fire on Belgian women and children. Do you think they would mow down their own? Not for all the Kaisers ever heard of. War would stop. But I do not think it would ever come to that final test. Certainly it would never come to it more than once. A thousand women shot down by their own men would create such a revulsion of feeling that wars would end. Telemachus ended the fights in the arena by giving just his single life. Here would be a thousand Telemachuses,--a million if need be!!! If their determination was known, and that it would be persisted in to the very uttermost,--to death itself,--the men would understand that war was impossible, and they would find some other way out. But, mind you, if women had their proper share in the councils of the state their voice would always, on both sides, be for reason and righteousness. It only needs reason and righteousness on both sides to arrive at the proper solution of any dispute.”

“I wish with all my heart you could bring it about, my dear. It is a grand idea,” said Mrs Dare. “But----”

“How were you thinking of roping all the women of the world in, Al? It’s a mighty big contract,” asked Vic.

“At first it seemed to me that if you could show the militant women how much more likely they were to attain their ends by my ideas than by theirs--they could do it. But I am not sure. They have turned the world against them by their follies. Nobody would trust them. And then, suddenly, I thought of the Salvation Army. I see a good deal of them, you know, round our way. And those gentle-voiced women, with the quiet happy faces and shining eyes--it is just the very work for them. They are in and of every country in the world, and everywhere they are held in esteem. They certainly could do it. Those Salvation Army women could save the world from War.”

“Alma,” said Mrs Dare, with shining eyes and deep conviction. “You lay awake to some purpose, my dear. It is a noble idea. I wish it could be brought about.”

“It could. But whether it can----”

“The Krupps, and all the other war-mongers in every country, would fight you like Death,” said Vic.

“Of course. That is their only raison d’être. But the women could beat the war-mongers.”

“And all the Kings, Kaisers, Tzars, Emperors, and such like would be dead against you.”