Echo of a Curse

by R. R. Ryan

  Terry glanced at the new-comer, who smiled. Now, indeed, he did not look holy, but satanic. His teeth, small and rather pointed, were plainly all his own and undecayed. Yet . . . However, a second glance discovered nothing wrong with the smile and nothing sophisticated in Border’s gaze, which was as ingenious as his unflawed beauty. This a soldier! It sounded fabulous.

  “Well,” the major said, preparing to take himself off, “you’d better dig out the Psychic and a spot of tea.”

  “The Psychic,” Terry explained to Border, “is our orderly.”

  “Why Psychic?”

  His voice, too, was attractive, almost purring.

  “Wait till you get to know him—you’ll understand. He’s a bit weird, that’s all.”

  Corporal Huges was a bit weird, in looks as well as in mentality. He looked like a man with a permanent grievance. An exiguous morsel, nature had assembled his features to scale, given him a pair of globulous eyes that were at once peevish and frightened. A somewhat fluent moustache hid a puffy, obstinate mouth. Whether it was true or not, the corporal had acquired a rather unhappy reputation for dismal prophecy that had an awkward way of proving true, and, seemingly, extraordinary powers of assessing the true natures of those with whom he mixed.

  “Pore Mr. Norreys, ’e’s for it,” Huges had announced the night before that direct hit. “ ’E’ll be blown to bits termorrer.”

  Boots were thrown and Huges fully instructed as to the desserts of bloody pessimists; but Norreys had been blown to bits next day.

  Dug out, Huges stared at his new superior as if with awe—though it might have been merely astonishment; on the other hand it might have been for some reason quite apart from the commonplace.

  “Gor bli!” he breathed; then fell silent.

  And that was how Terry met Vincent Border, who was destined to become much more than a casual contact in his life.

  The newcomer talked informedly about the various danger spots with which he had been associated from the war’s early days; and it soon became apparent to all concerned that we was a soldier in more than name. Indeed, he was as fearless, as careless of danger as Terry himself. But he was more. He was a devotee to violence, bloodshed, frightfulness. The horrors of these front-line trenches were his sacrament. Mars was his deity.

  In their dug-out Terry and the others found their new comrade placid, non-assuming, and each acknowledged his curious charm.

  But Terry was strangely fascinated by “Second Lieutenant Adonis,” as he had been almost immediately nicknamed. It really seemed as if Border possessed a nature corresponding to his appearance, and an easy, agreeable mind, sufficiently well-informed. Life in the front-line had become more bearable, Terry concluded, for the coming of Vincent Border. But then two events happened that modified his views.

  The first of these occurred one night quite soon after Border’s advent and when Terry was turning round the corner of Bone’s Lane into Dead Man’s Causeway, off which lay his dug-out. The uncertain illumination of Very lights had momentarily failed, but, as he turned into the Causeway, it seemed to Terry that two pin-points of light gleamed catlike in the gloom. Like a flash, someone turned and ran, lightly, soundlessly; but not before Terry had detected a strong smell of spirits. The truth was hardly in question, for he knew well that his better-known companions were not only temperate by nature but also entirely minus supplies. That lurker had been the new man. What had he been up to?

  There had been something almost uncanny about that silent lurking—coupled as it was with that odd impression of shining eyes . . . Imagination, of course; or an illusion associated with the sudden ceasing of the Very lights.

  Tired, and for some reason dispirited, Terry decided to get into bed without delay. They all had beds, curiously and ingeniously arranged by the admirable Huges, whose shining gift was extemporisation. Everyone was asleep except Border, who, in his night kit, sat with feet dangling over the side of his make-shift couch.

  He stared at Terry in a strange, fixed fashion, his eyes alight, but expressionless. Something dead, but miraculously animated, might have been seated there. Terry realized at once that in an odd, contained, compos mentis way the man was drunk, dangerously, savagely drunk. Neither spoke and, half asleep in his fatigue, Terry undressed and got into bed.

  He had, perhaps, been asleep an hour when that extra sense which war vouchsafes to its helots warned him of immediate danger. He awoke. Looked up. The glazed, drink-mad eyes of Border stared down at him with the fascination that blinkless eyes have for the startled.

  Poised for instant descent was a wicked-looking, opened clasp-knife. A second more and that keen-edged knife would have ripped open his throat.

  But, used to the alarms of war, Terry habitually awoke unflurried, prepared to grapple swiftly with any danger; and, drunk-strong or not, Border was immediately helpless in a grip cruelly powerful. The knife fell. Terry twisted the other’s somewhat fragile wrists, till anguish brought some sanity to those uncoordinated eyes.

  “I’ll give him a little of his own medicine,” Terry thought. And taking Border by the throat he half-throttled him before changing pressure into violent shaking. Under this treatment Border’s whisky-elevated state suddenly subsided. He began to whimper and would have embraced Terry, had the latter consented. Instead he mercilessly slapped the drunk man’s cheeks. Subsiding on to his bed, Border began to mumble and Terry tossed him into his blankets, tucking him comfortably up. This done, he sat awhile on the edge of his own bed, watching for any fresh demonstration; but none came. Soon it was clear that Border had succumbed to the claims of drunken sleep.

  The next morning nothing could have exceeded the humility and regret with which the culprit approached his senior officer.

  Expecting penitence and disliking any drunkard’s abject repentance, Terry eyed the approaching figure quizzically.

  “Hell of a hang-over, eh?”

  “I say, please forgive . . .”

  And now came the full flood of humility and confession.

  “I should never touch whisky.”

  “Hanged if you should. A few nips of special are not worth a man’s life.”

  “I attacked you?”

  “Oh dear me, yes. All but knifed me.”

  “It’s my second warning. I swear I’ll never touch the beastly stuff again.”

  “Certainly you’re no end of a fool to bring it into the trenches. It wouldn’t have made any difference to you last night had I been Number One Brass Hat. It’s my duty to report the matter.”

  And then Border’s eloquence burst into full flood. Despite all, Terry had a strong reaction in his favour. The sinner’s penitence was as charming as his lapse had been horrible. Finally, at a plea for help, the stronger nature capitulated entirely. Terry never could resist an appeal for aid.

  “The thing is, have you any more of the stuff?”

  “No. I swear I haven’t.”

  “Will you let me search your kit?”

  “You doubt my word?”

  “I doubt any whisky-addict’s word.”

  “But I’m not an addict.”

  “So you say; but, if you’ve none hidden, why this obstruction?”

  “Go ahead. Search me and my things.”

  Border’s reproachful dignity had the ironical consequence of making Terry feel guilty. Nevertheless, he took the other at his word, searching not only his person, but his kit with care. It seemed pretty evident from the empty bottles that Border had no secret reserve.

  “Well, I don’t suppose you’re likely to get a new supply while we’re in the line. It’s when we’re relieved that you’ll get your chance . . . I warn you, Border, that I’d not treat a repetition leniently. You’re lucky I didn’t shoot you last night. I’d have been justified. It would be well to remember we’re here to kill Germans, not each other.”

  “Look here, I see you guess. I have a craving; but, honest to God, I’m fighting it. You know, Cliffe, a hell of a lot goes on inside chaps out
here that no one guesses. We’re all scared more or less; and it affects us in different ways. Some pray—secretly; some gamble; some drug; some drink. It’s to stifle imagination . . . Those chaps who have none or little are lucky. When we’re in camp, will you watch me? I’ll fight like hell; and I believe I could win through—with a pal. Someone strong to talk with and keep my mind off blood and bombs and mess in leisure hours. It’s the leisure hours that get me . . .”

  And so Terry promised, half cursing himself for a fool. Wasn’t everything hell enough without saddling oneself with a troublesome responsibility like Border’s fear-complex?

  However, he accepted the fear-complex with cordiality, glad to do so; for his conscience-charge had won his warmest regard. If he could help this lad, (no younger than himself), he’d be proud. He was a chap worth reclaiming. Trench-nerves demanded sympathy, however they expressed themselves. He could well understand this sensitive-looking, yet undoubtedly brave, young fellow suffering from suppressed terror, dread of noise, dread of sights, dread of slaying, dread of being slain; and the general circumstances, not least of which—the rats. Yes, he’d look after Border when their lot were resting. He’d try and disperse this accumulated carnage-dread.

  Or at least so he determined until he discovered that the object of his sympathy had no fear of war, of blood, of human offal lying about; but, on the contrary, a gruesome appetite for all. This occurred when during a push their regiment had captured some important enemy trenches after an exhausting and ferocious fight. Corpses of both sides lay piled upon each other. The slaughter had been so severe that some confusion now resulted. Border was needed, but seemed to be missing. Terry set off to find him and, while so engaged, let his thoughts dwell upon the subject of his recent commiseration. He felt puzzled. During that mad rush across No-man’s Land, he had turned to shout general encouragement and looked full into Border’s face—convulsed with sheer, demoniac joy, with murderous ecstasy. His eyes were as unfocused, as alight, as upon the occasion of his drunken bout. He was drunk now. With the delight of slaughter, with the smell of blood, with the sight of indiscriminate human butchery.

  “Hell,” Terry thought, “I believe the fellow’s a dangerous devil, an evil fellow, a conscienceless liar.”

  And then the idea occurred to him that perhaps the very effect he had seen during that short, sharp trip across hell was the off-spring of those causes in regard to which he had offered Border his sympathy and help.

  Abruptly passing from one to another of these muddy, bloody corridors, he discovered Border, stooped over a body rent from neck to groin. For that instant they were isolated, he and his conscience-charge, who, absorbed in his grim survey, failed either to hear or to see the suddenly-arrived witness to his preoccupation. He was smiling at the flowing blood and presently glanced from left to right; but it was plain he did not see Terry, despite the fact that his gaze fell full upon him . . . He muttered. A little froth had gathered at his lips. Bending, he dipped his forefinger in the blood . . . then immersed his hand.

  “Border!”

  As if electrified, the possessed man shot erect, an exclamation that might have been pain issuing from his lips. He seemed literally to hurl himself out of his tranced condition, back to cognizance of his immediate surroundings and circumstances; but not before Terry had seen a flame of excited glee suffusing his eyes.

  “What am I to think?” the would-be Samaritan asked himself later. “Was he temporarily off his head? Had his nerves gone?”

  These seemed the most charitable conclusions. And there was one thing; even if he had not a sufficiently tough mentality to face war in its more ghastly forms, at least he had neither shirked the fighting nor fought badly. Terry knew many soldiers who literally exalted themselves into Ajaxes, Hectors, Hannibals, Davids when zero hour arrived and they must either kill or run.

  The next day both Terry and Border were wounded and returned to the base where both woke to consciousness in neighbouring beds.

  Simultaneously they rolled languid heads to see what manner of comrade they each had and lo:

  “Hello!”

  “Well!”

  Even in pain, even affected by illness, Border’s smile, Terry thought, was ineffably sweet.

  “I was a fool to believe rotten things. He wasn’t normal. Maybe I was not myself.”

  This kindly opinion strengthened during convalescence in England, where both men became more than commonly intimate. Closer relationship with Border revealed no sinister qualities. Whisky might be poison to his lovely nature, Terry decided, but fundamentally he was as pure as his profile.

  CHAPTER II

  Great changes had taken place in the homes and lives of both Terry’s people and Mary’s people since the beginning of war. His father was himself now a soldier, his mother matron of a recreation home for wound-recovered soldiers, his sister nursing in Mesopotamia; Mary’s father, the doctor, on active service. But she still lived in the warm-hued provincial home where she had grown up next door to Terry.

  Till now the latter had scarcely considered Border’s material affairs, taking him and his circumstances for granted in the haphazard way which war makes inevitable. But now he began to wonder a little about the earthly lot of this strange, attractive creature. Who was he? What was he? During convalescence they had grown more and more friendly. There were qualities in Vincent Border that Terry found irresistible and, just as at first he had found the former’s advent into their section of the line a boon, so now he found life infinitely the brighter for his conscience-charge.

  By this time he had definitely decided that whisky and fear truly accounted for Border’s contradictions of character and had sworn again to protect him from his weakness, insofar as he could and insofar as the other wished it.

  When the time came for sick leave prior to more active service, Terry realized that he was going to miss Border acutely . . . But need he? So far he himself had made no plans in regard to his leave; now he gave attention to the question—where to spend his leave? His home was shut.

  He wrote to Mary. She replied:

  “Come here. Aunt Charlotte’s staying with me . . .”

  Gladly. But what of Border? A feeling of responsibility was, rather ridiculously, never far from Terry’s mind where his friend was concerned. Would he go home? Had he a home? Come to think of it, he knew nothing about Vincent Border.

  “Going to your people, Vin?” (It had become Vin and Terry between them.)

  The other shrugged.

  “My father’s dead and mother’s got another man on her string. A Colonel, whom I don’t cotton to.”

  “Well, what are your plans?”

  “None. Can’t we, you and I, go away somewhere? Let’s go and hit the bright spots somewhere. Make a splash.”

  “Unfortunately I’ve not the needful. Hard up bloke, me.”

  Terry looked inquiringly at Border, who laughed.

  “I’ve private means.”

  “Lucky dog!”

  “Oh, I don’t know. It takes purpose out of life. Deadens initiative.” For an instant he broke off, then added: “I was at Cambridge when the row began.”

  The explanation seemed made without any particular purpose, but it affected Terry favourably. University backgrounds do lend men a cachet, he thought; seal their credentials. Border had the university air, tone, outlook. He was “all right.”

  “Why don’t you come along with me?” He began to explain all about Mary, her nature, her curious claims to all the beauties, her definite claims to none. Vin, Terry observed, listened closely. Watching him, he faltered in his tale, struck by something curious in the other man’s attitude. “Never seems quite inside things,” he told himself. “Like someone artificially arranged in a group to which he doesn’t naturally belong . . . But, gosh, he’s too beautiful to be real, anyway.” Yet . . . come to think of it, he’d noticed that strange, non-associated attitude before when they’d been talking of women. Not indifference. No. Far from it. Terrible
intensity. “As if he were a being from Mars aware of special power to enjoy Earth’s voluptuous pleasures.”

  And yet, he didn’t look a voluptuous type, but more of the ascetic order, with his chiselled features, small, somewhat thin-lipped mouth.

  Interested in both physiological and psychological subjects, Terry found it hard to place Vin. There was mystery in him; but also, beyond question, much that was charming and admirable. In most aspects Vincent Border was delightfully normal. Modesty, kindliness, some culture, sociability—he could claim all these.

  So it was arranged that the precious leave should be spent in Terry’s home town.

  As the time for departure approached, he found himself looking forward with almost painful eagerness to seeing Mary again. Mary in her soft-hued home, cheek by jowl with his own soft-hued replica. A typical modest, middle-class English residence. It was nice to think of her in such surroundings, a link with that preciousness now blown off the earth by monster shells. He felt glad she was in no way associated with the war personally. Mary was hard to imagine in posts requiring bustling efficiency. She had, however, a beautiful voice, with which he knew she had done a lot of entertaining of troops. Good! Dear women with lovely gifts were rare, precious to wounded Tommies.

  He wrote at some length in explanation of Vin, to which she replied:

  “By all means bring him along; and between us we’ll keep him on the pilgrim path of rectitude.”

  And so he took his odd friend with him to place in the unguarded charge of Mary, whose sex had heard no call, had lain, restful but potent, in slumber, ready to raise alert ears at the first distant note.

  “Is there a war on?” he asked Vin as the train rolled on through vistas of bucolic peace, through valleys of misty beauty.

  Mary met them. She had the gift of making simple and commonplace clothes—whether cheap or costly—appear the products of infinite thought, money and skill; and she had a stride that had captured Diana’s untrammelled grace. Eyes radiant, lips apart, face alight and entire being athrill with eagerness, she came swinging down the platform into Vincent Border’s life.