Chapter 31

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?"

Gilbert answered, "Yes, I thought I might as well!"

"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!"

THE SIXTH CHAPTER

1

Mr. Quinn died at Christmas. The old man, weakened by his long illness, had been stunned by the War, and when his second illness seized him, he made no effort to resist it. He would lie very quietly for a long while, and then a paroxysm of fury would possess him, and he would shake his fist impotently in the air. "If they wanted a war," he shouted once, "why didn't they go and fight it themselves. They were paid to keep the peace, and ... and!..."

He fell back on his pillow, exhausted, and when Henry, hurrying up the stairs to him the moment he heard the shout, reached him, he was gasping for breath. "It's all right, son!" he said when he had recovered himself. "It's all right!..."

"It's foolish of you, father, to agitate yourself like that," Henry said to him, putting his arms round him and lifting him into a more comfortable position.

"I can't help it, Henry, when I think of ... of all the young lads!... By God, they'd no right to do it!..."

"Hush, father!..."

"They'd no right to do it! You'd think they were greedy for blood ... young men's blood!" He pointed to an English newspaper lying on the floor. "Did you read that paper?" he said.

"Yes."

"Houndin' them into it," the old man went on. "Yellin' for young men! By God, I'd be ashamed ... parsons an' women an' old men that can't fight themselves, houndin' young men into it! If they'd any decency, they'd shut up...."

"All right, father!"

"The man that owns this paper ... whatshisname!..."

"It doesn't matter, does it? Lie still and be quiet!"

"I can't be quiet. Like a damned big monster, yellin' for boys to eat. Has he any childher, will you tell me?..."

"I don't know, father!"

"Of course he hasn't. An' here he is, yelpin' in his damned rag every day, 'Fee-fo-fum, I smell the blood of a young man!' Why don't they shove him at the Front ... the very front!"

"You must keep quiet, father!"

"All right, Henry, all right!"

He was silent for a few minutes, and then he began again, in a quieter voice. "I'd have put the men that made it, the whole lot of them, in the front rank, and let them blow themselves to blazes. Old men sittin' in offices, an' makin' wars, an' then biddin' young men to pay the price of them! By God, that's mean! By God, that's low!..."

"But old men couldn't bear the strain of it, father!" Henry interjected, and he recalled some of the horrors of the trenches where the soldiers had stood with the water reaching to their waists; but Mr. Quinn insisted that the old men should have fought the war they made.

"Who cares a damn whether they can bear it or not," he said. "Let 'em die, damn 'em! They're no good!" He turned quickly to Henry, and demanded, "What good are they? Tell me that now!" but before Henry could make an answer to him, he went off insistently, "They're no good, I tell you. I know well what they're like ... sittin' in their clubs, yappin' an' yappin' an' demandin' this an' demandin' that, an' gettin' on one another's nerves; an' whatever happens it's not them that suffers for it: it's the young lads that pays for everything. Look at the way the old fellows go on in Parliament, Henry! By God, I want to vomit when I read about them! Yappin' an' yappin' when they should be down on their knees beggin' God's forgiveness...."

He spoke as if he were not himself an old man, and it did not seem strange to Henry that he should speak in that fashion, for Mr. Quinn's spirit had always been a young spirit.

"An' these wee bitches with their white feathers," he went on, "ought to be well skelped. If I had a daughter, an' she did a thing like that, by God, I'd break her skull for her!"

"I suppose they think they're doing their duty, father, and they're young!..."

"There's women at it, too. I read in the paper yesterday mornin' that there was grown women doin' it. There's nobody has any right to bid a man go to that except them that's been to it themselves. If the women an' the parsons an' the old men can't fight for their country, they can hold their tongues for it, an' by God they ought to be made to hold them...."

He asked continually after Gilbert.

"He's a sergeant now, father. He's been offered a commission, but he won't take it!..."

"Why?"

"Oh, one of his whimsy-whamsies, I suppose. He says the non-commissioned officers are the backbone of the Army, and he prefers to be part of the backbone. You remember Ninian Graham, father?"

"I do, rightly!..."

"He's come home to join. He's in the Engineers!"

Mr. Quinn did not make any answer to Henry. He slipped a little further into the bed, and lay for a long while with his eyes closed, so long that Henry thought he had fallen asleep; but, just when Henry began to tiptoe from the room, he opened his eyes again, and suddenly they were full of tears.

"The fine young fellows," he said. "The fine young lads!"

2

And at Christmas, he died. He had called Henry to him that morning, and had enquired about "The Fennels," which had lately been published after a postponement and much hesitation, and about the new book on which Henry was now working.

"That's right," he said, when he heard that Henry was working steadily on it. "It'll keep your mind from broodin'. How's the Ulster book goin'?"

"'The Fennels'?"

"Ay. You had hard luck, son, in bringing out your best book at a time like this, but never matter, never matter!..."

"I don't know how it's doing. It's too soon to tell yet. The reviews have been good, but I don't suppose people are buying books at present!"

"You've done a good few now, Henry!"

"Five, father."

"Ay, I have the lot there on that ledge so's I can take them down easily an' look at them. I feel proud of you, son ... proud of you!"

He began to remind Henry of things that had happened when he was a boy. His mind became flooded with memories. "Do you mind Bridget Fallon?" he would say, and then he would recall many incidents that were connected with her. "Do you mind the way you wanted to go to Cambridge, an' I wouldn't let you," and "Do you mind the time you took the woollen balls from Mr. Maginn's house?...."

Henry remembered. Mr. Maginn, the vicar of Ballymartin, had invited Henry to spend the afternoon with his nephew and niece and some other children. They had played a game with balls made of coloured wool, and while they were playing, Henry, liking the pattern of one of them, had put it into his pocket. It had been missed, and there had been a search for it, in which Henry had joined. He was miserable, and he wanted to confess that he had the ball, but every time he opened his lips to say that he had it, he felt afraid, and so he had refrained from speaking. He felt, too, that every one knew that he had taken it, but still he could not confess that he had it, and when they said, "Isn't it queer? I wonder where it's gone!" he had answered, "Yes, isn't it queer?" They had abandoned the search, and had played another game, but all the pleasure of the party was lost for Henry. He kept saying to himself, "You've got it. _You've_ got it!..."

He had hurried home after the party was over, and when he reached the shrubbery, he dug a hole and buried the ball in it. He had closed his eyes as he took it out of his pocket, so that he should not see the bright colours of it, and had heaped the earth on to it as if he could not conceal it quickly enough ... but burying it had not quieted his mind. He felt, whenever he met Mr. Maginn, that the vicar looked at him as if he were saying to himself, "You stole the woollen ball!...." At the end of the month, he had gone to his father and told him of it, and Mr. Quinn had cocked his eye at him for a moment and considered the subject.

"If I were you, Henry," he had said, "I'd dig up that ball and take it back to Mr. Maginn and just tell him about it!"

Henry could remember how hard it had been to do that, how he had loitered outside the gates of the vicarage for an hour, trying to force himself to go up to the door and ask for the vicar ... and how kind Mr. Maginn had been when, at last, he had made his confession!

Oh, yes, he remembered!...

"You were a funny wee lad, Henry," Mr. Quinn said, taking his son's hand in his. "Always imaginin' things!" He thought for a second or two. "I suppose," he went on, "that's what makes you able to write books ... imaginin' things! Ay, that's it!"

They sat in quietness for a while, and then Mr. Quinn fell asleep, and Henry went down to the library and worked again on his new novel, for which he had not yet found a title; and in his sleep, Mr. Quinn died.

3

Henry had finished a chapter of the book, and he put down his pen, and yawned. He was tired, and he thought gratefully of tea. Hannah would bring a tray to his father's room. There would be little soda farls and toasted barn-brack, and perhaps she would have made "slim-jim," and there would be newly-churned butter and home-made jam, which Hannah, in her Ulster way, would call "Preserve." ...

He got up from the table and went into the hall.

"Will tea be long, Hannah?" he called down the stairs, leading to the kitchens.

"Haven't I it near ready?" she answered.

He had gone up the staircase at a run, and had entered his father's room, expecting to see him sitting up....

"Hilloa," he said, stopping sharply, "still asleep!" and he went out of the room and called softly to Hannah, now coming up the stairs, to take the tray to the library. "He's asleep, Hannah!" he said almost in a whisper.

"He's never asleep at this hour," she answered.

And somehow, as she said that, he knew. He went back into the room and leant over his father, listening....

"Is he dead, Master Henry?" Hannah said, as she came into the room. She had left the tray on a table on the landing.

Henry straightened himself and turned to her. "Yes, Hannah!" he said quietly.

The old woman threw her apron over her head and let a great cry out of her. "Och, ochanee!" she moaned, "Och, och, ochanee!..."

4

He had none of the terror he had had when Mrs. Clutters lay dead in the Bloomsbury house. He went into the room and stood beside his father's body. The finely moulded face had a proud look and a great look of peace. "I don't feel that he's dead," Henry murmured to himself. "I shall never feel that he's dead!"

"I wasn't with him enough," he went on. "I left him alone too often...."

Extraordinarily, they had loved each other. Underneath all that roughness of speech and violence of statement, there was great tenderness and understanding. He spoke his mind, and more than his mind, but he was generous and quick to retract and quicker to console. "I'm an Ulsterman," he said once. "Ulster to the marrow, an' begod I'm proud of it!"