Part 10

'And then I think of a 5-9--and I know I'm done for.... I've got too much imagination, that's the trouble (I hope you're not fed up with all this, but I want your advice).... It's funny, one never used to think about getting killed, even in the war ... it seemed impossible somehow that _you yourself_ could be killed (did you ever have that feeling?) ... though one was ready enough in those days ... but now--even in the train the other day, going down to Bristol by the express, I found I was imagining what would happen if there was a smash ... things one reads of, you know ... carriages catching fire, and so on ... just "wind-up." And the question is--is it any _good_ going out, if you've got into that state?... And if one says "No," is one just making it an excuse?... It's no good telling a military doctor all this ... they'd just say, "Haw, skrim-shanker! what you want is some fresh air and exercise, my son!..." And for all I know they may be right.... As a matter of fact, I don't think I'm physically fit, really ... my own doctor says not ... but you're never examined properly before you go out, as you know.... You all troop in by the dozen at the last moment ... and the fellow says, "Feeling quite fit?..." And if you've just had a good breakfast and feel buckish, you say, "Yes, thank you," and there you are.... Unless you _ask_ them to examine you you might have galloping consumption for all they know, and I'm damned if I'd ask them.... After all, I suppose the system's right.... If a man can stick it for a month or two in the line, he's worth sending there if he's an officer ... and it doesn't matter to the country if he dies of consumption afterwards.... But my trouble is--_can_ I stick it for a month or two ... or shall I go and do some awful thing, and let a lot of fellows down?... Putting aside my own inclinations, which are probably pretty selfish, what is it my duty to do?... After friend Philpott I don't know that I'm so keen on duty as I was ... but I do want to stick this ---- war out on the right line, if I can.... What do _you_ think?'

'Before I answer that,' I said, 'there's one consideration you seem to have overlooked--and that is Mrs. Penrose.... After all, you're a married man, and that makes a difference, doesn't it?'

'Well, does it? I don't really see why it _should_ make any difference about going out, or not going out ... otherwise every shirker could run off and marry a wife, and live happily ever after.... But it certainly makes it a damned sight harder to decide ... and it makes the hell of a difference when you're out there.... You can make up your mind not to think of it when you're at home ... like this ... but out there, when you're cold and fed up, and just starting up the line with a working-party ... you can't help thinking of it, and it makes things about ten times more difficult ... and as you know, it's jolly hard not to let it make a difference to what you do.... But, damn it, why did you remind me of that? I didn't want to think about it.'

And then Mrs. Penrose came in, and we went down to dinner.

II

I did not enjoy that dinner. To begin with, I felt like a vulgar intruder on something that was almost sacred, and certainly very precious. For all the signs of the 'last evening' were there. The dishes we had were Harry's favourites, procured at I know what trouble and expense by Mrs. Harry; and she watched tremulously to see that he liked them. She had gone out and bought him a bottle of well-loved Moselle, for a special surprise, and some port; which was a huge extravagance. But that was nothing, if these things could only give a special something to this meal which would make him remember it; for the flowers he never saw, and the new dress went unnoticed for a long time. But I felt that it would all have gone much better, perhaps, if I had not been there, and I hoped she did not hate me.

And Harry was not at his best. The question he asked me I had had no time to answer, and he had not answered it himself. Through most of that dinner, which by all the rules should have been, superficially at least, cheerful and careless, as if there were no such thing as separation ahead, Harry was thoughtful and preoccupied. And I knew that he was still arguing with himself, 'What shall I say to Mackenzie? Yes or No?'--wandering up and down among the old doubts and resolutions and fears.... Mrs. Harry saw this as well as I ... and, no doubt, she cursed me for being there because in my presence she could not ask him what worried him.

But the Moselle began to do its work: Harry talked a little and noticed the new dress, and we all laughed a lot at the pudding, which came up in such a curious shape.... We were very glad to laugh at something.

Then Mrs. Harry spoke of some people in the regiment of whom she had heard a good deal--George Dawson, and Egerton, and old Colonel Roberts. I knew that in a minute we should stumble into talking about the trenches or shells, or some such folly, and have Harry gloomy and brooding again. I could not stand that, and I did not think Mrs. Harry could, so I plunged recklessly into the smoother waters of life in France. I told them the old story about General Jackson and the billet-guard; and then we came on to the famous night at Forceville, and other historic battalion orgies--the dinner at Monchy Breton, when we put a row of candles on the floor of the tent for footlights, and George and a few subs made a perfect beauty chorus. Those are the things one likes to remember about active service, and I was very glad to remember them then. The special port came in and was a great success; Harry warmed up, and laughed over those old gaieties, and was in great form. At that moment I think his answer to Major Mackenzie would have been definitely 'No.'

Mrs. Harry laughed very much too, and said she envied us the amusing times we had together 'out there.' 'You men have all the fun.' And that made me feel a heartless ass for having started on that topic. For I knew that when Harry was away there was little 'fun' for her; and whether he was lying on his stomach in a shell-hole, or singing songs in an estaminet, not thinking much of his wife, perhaps, except when they drank 'Sweethearts and Wives'--it was all one uniform, hideous wait for her. So I think it was hollow laughter for Mrs. P....

Moreover, though I did not know how much she knew about Harry's difficulties, the 'job' and so one, I felt sure that with the extraordinary instinct of a wife she scented something of the conflict that was going on; and she knew vaguely that this exaggerated laudation of the amenities of France meant somehow danger to her.... So that just as I was beginning to congratulate myself on the bucking up of Harry, I tardily perceived that between us we were wounding the wife. And I more than ever wished myself anywhere than sitting at that pretty table with the shaded lights.

Well, we nearly finished the port--Harry still in excellent form--and went upstairs. Harry went off to look for smokes or something, and I knew at once that Mrs. Harry was going to ask me questions about him. You know how a woman stands in front of the fire, and looks down, and kind of paws the fender with one foot when she is going to say something confidential. Then she looks up suddenly, and you're done. Mrs. Harry did that, and I was done. At any other time I should have loved to talk to her about Harry, but that night I felt it was dangerous ground.

'How do you think Harry is looking?' she said. 'You probably know better than I do, nowadays.'

I said I thought he seemed pretty fit, considering all things.

'Do you think he'll have to go out again?' she asked. 'I don't think he ought to--but they seem so short of men still. He's not really strong, you know.'

So she knew nothing about the 'job'; and this put me in a hole. For if I told her about it, and he did not take it, but went out again, the knowledge would be a standing torture to her. On the other hand, I _wanted_ him to take it, I thought he ought to--and if she knew about it she might be able to make him. Wives can do a great deal in that way. But that would be disloyal to Harry....

Well, I temporized with vague answers while I wrestled with this problem, and she told me more about Harry. 'You know, he has the most _terrible_ dreams ... wakes up screaming at night, and quite frightens me. And I don't think they ought to be _allowed_ to go out again when they're like that.... I don't _want_ him to go out again.... At least,' she added half-heartedly (as a kind of concession to convention), 'if it's his duty, of course....' Then, defiantly, 'No, I _don't_ want him to go ... anyhow ... I think he's done his bit ... hasn't he, Mr. Benson?'

'He has, indeed,' I said, with sincerity at last.

'Well, you have some influence with him. Can't you----'

But then Harry came in, and I had lost my chance. I have noticed that while on the stage, conversations which must necessarily be private are invariably concluded without interruption, in private life, and especially private houses, are always interrupted long before the end.

Mrs. Harry went to the piano, and Harry and I sat down to smoke; and since it was the last night Harry was allowed to smoke his pipe. The way Mrs. Harry said that nearly made me weep.

So I sat there and watched Harry, and his wife played and played--soft, melancholy, homesick things (Chopin, I think), that leagued with the wine and the warm fire and the deep chairs in an exquisite conspiracy of repose. She played for a long time, but I saw that she too was watching. And the fancy came to me that she was fighting for Harry, fighting, perhaps unconsciously, that vague danger she had seen at dinner, when it had beaten her ... fighting it with this music that made war seem so distant and home so lovable....

And soon I began to see that she was winning. For when she began playing Harry had sat down, a little restless again, and fidgeted, as if the music reminded him of good things too much ... and his eyes wandered round the room and took in all the familiar things, like a man saying good-bye--the old chair with the new chintz, and the yellow curtains, and the bookcase his father left him--and the little bookcase where his history books were (he looked a long time at them) ... and the firelight shining on the piano ... and his wife playing and playing.... And when he had looked at her, quickly, he sat up and poked the fire fiercely, and sat back, frowning. He was wondering again. This music was being too much for him. Then she stopped, and looked across at Harry--and smiled.

When she played again it was, I think, a nocturne of Chopin's (God knows which--but it was very peaceful and homesick), and as I watched, I made sure that she had won. For there came over Harry a wonderful repose. He no longer frowned or fidgeted, or raised his eyebrows in the nervous way he had, but lay back in a kind of abandonment of content.... And I said to myself, 'He has decided--he will say "Yes" to Mackenzie.'

Mrs. Harry, perhaps, also perceived it. For after a little she stopped and came over to us. And then I did a fateful thing. There was a copy of _The Times_ lying by my chair, and because of the silence that was on us, I picked it up and looked aimlessly at it.

The first thing I saw was the Casualty List, buried in small type among some vast advertisements of patent foods. I glanced down the list in that casual manner which came to us when we knew that all our best friends were already dead or disposed of. Then my eye caught the name of the regiment and the name of a man I knew. CAPTAIN EGERTON, V.R. Killed. There was another near it, and another, and many more; the list was thick with them. And the other battalions in the Brigade had many names there--fellows one had relieved in the line, or seen in billets, or talked with in the Cocktail Café at Noeux-les-Mines. There must have been a massacre in the Brigade ... ten officers killed and ten wounded in our lot alone.

I suppose I made that vague murmur of rage and regret which slips out of you when you read these things, for Harry looked up and asked, 'What's that?' I gave him the paper, and he too looked down that list.... Only two of those names were names of the Old Crowd, and many of them were the dull men; but we knew them very well for all that, and we knew they were good men ... Egerton, Gordon, young Matthews, Spenser, Smith, the bombing fellow, Tompkinson--all gone....

So we were silent for a long minute, remembering those men, and Mrs. Harry stared into the fire. I wondered what she was thinking of, and I was sorry for her. For when Harry got up there was a look about him which I had seen before, though not for many months--not since the first days on the Somme....

While I was groping after my coat in the hall, Harry came out of his den with a letter which he asked me to 'drop in the box.' I looked at it without shame; it was addressed to Major Mackenzie, D.S.O., etc.

'And what have you said?' I asked.

'No,' said Harry, with a kind of challenging look.

'Well, I think you're wrong----' I told him, though I knew then that I was too late. Mrs. Harry was beaten now, finally beaten, poor thing....

'And what are you two talking about?' said Mrs. Harry.

'About a dinner, my dear.'

I went out and posted that accursed letter, thanking God that I was not a wife.

XI

Harry went to France again a month later, after the futile kind of medical examination he had foretold. I had a letter from him from the Base, and after that there was silence. I even began to hunt about in the casualty lists, but he was never there. And seven weeks later they let me go out again myself, to the astonishment of all but the military doctors.

At the Base I heard of Harry. Some one had been wanted for some kind of job down there, an officer to instruct the Details in the mysteries of Iron Rations, or something of the sort. Harry, happening to be there at the time, and pleasing the eye of the aldermanic officer in command of our Base Depot, had been graciously appointed to the post. But he had caused a considerable flutter in the tents of the mighty by flatly declining it, and stating insanely that he preferred to go up to the line. This being still the one topic of conversation in the camp, I did not linger there longer than was absolutely necessary. Infantry Base Depots are bad places, and that one was very bad; you had worse food, worse treatment, and worse company than you ever had in the line--much discomfort, and no dignity. I never understood why officers should be treated with such contempt whenever there were a number of them together. If you went about by yourself, or with another officer or two, you had a certain amount of politeness and consideration from military officials; but as soon as you got with a 'herd' of officers you were doomed--you were dirt. If the intention at the Base was to make the line seem a haven of refuge and civility, it was highly successful as far as I was concerned....

I got back to the battalion under the usual conditions ... a long jog in the mess-cart under the interminable dripping poplars, with a vile wind lashing the usual rain over the usual flat fields, where the old women laboured and stooped as usual, and took no notice of anything. The heart sinks a little as you look at the shivering dreariness of it all. And if it is near the line you hope secretly that the battalion is 'out' for at least a few days more, that you may have just two days to get used to this beastliness again, and not be met by some cheery acclimatized ass with a 'Glad to see you, old son--just in time--going up to-night, doing a "stunt" on Tuesday!' Yet, as you come to the village, there is a strange sense of home-coming that comes with the recognition of familiar things--limbers clattering and splashing along, and the regimental postman trudging back with the mail, and C Company cooker steaming pleasantly under an outhouse, and odd men with waterproof sheets draped over the shoulders, wet and glistening.... To-day I was lucky, for the battalion was a long way back, resting, so that this home-coming sense was strong upon me. And I wanted to see Harry.

When I came near to the usual main street I saw the battalion marching in by a side road, coming back from a route march. I sent my gear ahead, and got down to see them pass. It was strangely pleasant. The drums of the little band were covered because of the wet, and only the bugles brayed harshly, but very cheerfully. Old Philpott was ahead of them, riding fatly on his mild black mare, and returned my salute quite pleasantly. You could see a lot of young recruits among the men, and there were many officers I had never seen, but the welcoming grins of the old men we had had from the beginning, mostly N.C.O.'s now, made up for that. Young Smith I saw, in command of C Company now, and Tarrant, our late Transport Officer, was squelching at the head of a platoon, obviously not liking it much. Then came D Company, and I looked eagerly for Harry. Stephenson I knew, in command (how young the company commanders were!), but there were only two other officers, and they both strange. The last of them tramped past, and I was left silent in the rain, foolishly disturbed.... Where was Harry? Ass--no doubt he is orderly officer, or away on a course. But I _was_ disturbed; and the thought came to me that if anything had happened to him I, too, should be lonely here, with none of the Old Crowd left.

I walked on then, and came to the little flag of D Company headquarters flapping damply outside an estaminet. In the mess they greeted me very kindly and gave me tea--but there was still no Harry. But they all talked very fast, and the tea was good.

'And where's Penrose?' I asked at last. 'I haven't seen him yet?'

I had spoken to Stephenson. He did not answer immediately; but he picked up his cup and drank, assiduously; then he kind of mumbled, very low and apologetic:

'He's in his billet--under close arrest.'

'Under arrest! My God, what for?'

Stephenson began to drink again; he was a good fellow, who knew that Harry and I were friends; also he had known Harry in the Souchez days, and he did not like having to tell me this.

But one of his young subalterns, a young pup just out, was less sensitive, and told me, brutally:

'Running away--cowardice in the face of--_et cetera_--have some more tea?'

II

Bit by bit I heard the whole miserable story--or rather that naked kernel of it which passed publicly for the whole story. I had to make my own footnotes, my own queries.

The first night Harry was with the battalion Philpott had sent him up with a carrying-party to the Front Line, or thereabouts, fifty men and some engineering stuff of sorts, wiring trestles, barbed wire, or something. It was shell-hole country, no communication trenches or anything, and since there had been an attack recently, the Boche artillery was very active on the roads and back areas. Also there was the usual rotten valley to cross, with the hell of a barrage in it. So much these young braves conceded. Harry had started off with his party, had called at the Brigade Dump, and picked up the stuff. Later on some one rang up Brigade from the line and said no party had arrived. Brigade rang up Philpott, and he sent up the Assistant Adjutant to investigate. Somewhere in the Arras Road he had come upon Harry, with most of the party, _running down the road--towards the Dump--away from the line_. The stores were urgently needed at the front; they never got there. That was all. The court-martial was to-morrow.

* * * * *

Well, it was a black story, but I made one or two footnotes at once.

_The very first night he was back._ The awful luck--the cruelty of it! Just back, in the condition of nerves I knew him to be in, with that first miserable feeling upon him, wondering probably why the hell he had driven himself out there, and praying to be let down easy for one night at least--and then to be sent straight up on a job like that, the job that had broken him before.

And by Philpott! I seemed to see Philpott arranging that, with a kind of savage glee: 'Oh, here's Master Penrose again--well, he'd better take that party to-night--instead of Mr. Gibson....'

And who was the Assistant Adjutant? God knows, if every working-party that went wrong meant a court-martial, there would be no officers left in the army; and if some busy-body had been at work....

'Who's the Assistant Adjutant?' I asked.

'Fellow who was attached to Division--used to be in this battalion in your time, I believe--what's-his-name?--Burnett--Burnett--he rang up the Colonel and told him about it.'

_Burnett!_ I groaned. The gods were against Harry indeed. Burnett had been away from the battalion for eighteen months, drifting about from odd job to odd job--Town Major here, Dump Officer there, never in the line.... Why the devil had he come back now to put his foot in it--and, perhaps----But I could not believe that.

Stephenson's two young officers--Wallace and Brown--made no footnote, naturally. They had come out by the same draft as Harry, one from Sandhurst, the other from a cadet school; they were fresh, as Harry had been, and they had no mercy. And while I resented their tone, I tried to remember that they knew not Harry, and said nothing.

But when young Wallace summed up the subject with 'Well, all I can say is he's a cold-footed swine, and deserves all he gets,' I exploded. 'You ---- young pup,' I said, 'just out, and hardly seen a shot fired--you dare to say anything about Penrose. I tell you you're not fit to lick his boots. Do you know that he joined up in the ranks in August '14, and went through Gallipoli, and had done two years' active service before you even had a uniform? Do you know he's just refused a job at home in order to come out here, and another job at the Base? Does that look like cold feet? You wait till you've been out a year, my son, before you talk about cold feet. You----' But I couldn't control myself any further. I went out, cursing.

III

Then I got leave to go and see Harry. He was in his billet, in a small bedroom on the ground floor. There was a sentry standing at the window, fixed bayonet and all, so that he should neither escape nor make away with himself.

He was surprised and, I think, really pleased to see me, for before me, as he said, or any one who knew his history, he was not ashamed.... It was only when the ignorant, the Wallaces, were near that he was filled with humiliation, because of the things he knew they were thinking. 'That sentry out there,' he told me, 'was in my platoon at Gallipoli--one of my old men; just before you came in he tapped on the window and wished me luck; he said that all the "old lads" did the same.... It bucked me up no end.'