Muriel, it was sufficiently obvious, had forgiven him—free and full was the measure of the forgiveness. Could she, she rightly thought, do less. Perhaps she had judged him rather quickly; perhaps she had been young, and hardly understood. After all, he had not been much more than a boy himself, and one should not be too hard. She knew better now: one learns a good deal after a year or so in war-time in a London office. She was glad that he was to be out of that horrid hospital and at Edenhurst for Christmas; it would give her a chance to show him, to let him know. She hadn’t seen so much of him as she would have liked to, as he seemed always to be in camps or hospital when she had been at home. Well, she’d make up for it. Poor boy, to think of the time he’d had; to think of his lying out there, only a few weeks ago, with a broken leg; to think. . . .
The thinking, it appeared, was to be a co-operative process. John Mann was fully determined for the time being to put all gloomy reflections upon the Government’s attitude towards the struggles of a hard-working and honest tradesman far from him, and see to it that that boy of his they’d knocked about so should see what a Christmas dinner should be like. Even, Aunt Jane reflected, even if this world was a vale of iniquity and wickedness—and she was sure from all she heard and saw, much as she tried not to see and hear it, that it was hard to disagree with what the dear minister had said last Sunday week—well, even then there was no reason why one shouldn’t make the best of it, come Christmas, and try to cheer the poor boy up a bit, seeing that it must all worry him as much as it worried her. To Cousin Helen, to whom a captain was obviously of greater intrinsic value than a lieutenant, it was sufficiently obvious that Christmas was the one time when all members of a family who were trying to do their bit should be together, and try to get out of their own little grooves by finding out a bit more about what each other knew, and there would be nothing like a long Christmas talk to get at the full story of the mess at Passchaendale, if Aunt Emma didn’t butt in too much with her eternal Pharasaical preaching—which Aunt Emma most fully intended to do, for if one couldn’t put the highest aspects of the struggle before her nephew’s mind at such a time as this, what, she demanded very naturally, could be expected to happen to the poor dear boy’s ideals? And her choice of that little book, The White Souled Warrior, was most suitable, and she would give it to him in plenty of time so that they could talk it all over quietly round the fire on Christmas Day.
Mr. Farrant, Muriel’s father, who had, it was to be gathered, fallen into a Government contract or two in the building way, which rendered the falsification of his prophecies as to the early end of a war of attrition a matter of slightly less concern, took a more direct line in the matter and contented himself with remarking that he would supply the fizz, and how the hell did John Mann or anybody else think they were going to get going without a dozen bottles. While all his mother wanted was to see to it that there was no nonsense with the cook, to know that her boy was happy, to tell God that she was thankful, and to keep a watchful eye on Uncle Wal.
Whether this last precaution was as strictly necessary as was popularly believed, there can be little doubt that the problem presented by Uncle Wal was no less difficult in 1917 than it had been two years before. In some respects, indeed, it was distinctly aggravated: for the fact that Uncle Wal had come into a bit o’ money increased his standing with the ne’er-do-well elements in the population of Edenhurst, and tended at times to make him slightly self-assertive even when in the company of his cousins and “in-laws.” A further difficulty arose from the habit which Freddy Mann had formed of seeking, quite unconsciously, of course, his company to a greater extent than was perhaps desirable. Even now, at this Christmas feast, when sundry sniggered accompanied observations and uncalled-for lapses into a species of levity of questionable taste, should have warned all present that Uncle Wal had better be kept in his place till “it had worked off a bit,” Freddy Mann, it was regretfully noted, saw fit to forsake the claims of Muriel and the port and cigars which were thrust upon him alternately by Mr. Farrant and his father, and bury himself in a secluded parlour behind the shop with Uncle Wal. This must, however, be said in justice that Uncle Wal, with a humility that years of steady repression had engendered, was among the first to realise the unappropriateness of Freddy Mann’s action.
“Damned nice of yer, me lad, but it ain’t yer place, not to be sitting here with yer old uncle while there’s others round. That gel, for example—that gel Muriel—pretty bit——”
“Damn Muriel.”
“Pretty bit o’ goods, though, all the same. Fair knockout tonight. Bit o’ gold stuff in ’er ’air, too: gives class, that does—bit o’ tone. Sweet on yer, too, she seems. If she’d been like that before, p’raps yer wouldn’t——”
He stopped.
“You mean Irene?”
“Yes: no offence, lad——”
“Of course not. Good sort, Irene—used to be. Damned good sort. I remember my second leave and that time in hospital. Gave them fits at Millfield, did Irene. But—no, Uncle, old chap, Irene’s not her rival. She’s in America now, my pretty Irene—film comedienne, you know. Saw her off last year. Thought it would break my heart at the time, and all that. But no, it didn’t break my heart.”
Freddy Mann lit a cigarette indifferently.
“Your case, Uncle. Have one?”
“Thanks.” Under cover of lighting a cigarette Uncle Wal watched his nephew narrowly.
“You know, lad, seems to me you’ve hardened a bit like. Natural, of course, along o’ this war. But it’s working on yer.”
“Strange, isn’t it?” Freddy Mann’s voice was hard and toneless, and he lit his cigarette as he spoke with an expression of indifference.
“No, ’tain’t strange: it’s natural. But it’s a pity; and all these ’ere clackin’ ’ens——”
Good chap, Uncle Wal. Unconsciously, as so often before, Freddy Mann warmed towards him. He could have gone soldiering happily enough with Uncle Wal. Uncle Wal didn’t go down in the accepted circle of Edenhurst: so much the worse for them. He wasn’t giving much away so far as the rest of the Edenhurst crowd were concerned; but it wasn’t quite the same with Uncle Wal.
“ ’Tain’t as if I haven’t watched yer, lad: watched yer since the beginning. You was keen enough then, time yer first went out. Wore off a bit even then, though, time o’ Loos, when that gel played up, and then again last year, and now——”
He looked at his nephew, leaning slightly forward, and then sat back.
“ ’Tain’t I want to worry yer—not like that crowd in there,” as he jerked his finger towards the doorway. “But it’s just—no kids o’ me own, yer know—and if I could be a bit of help——”
Yes, let him hear. Why keep up the artificial reserve with Uncle Wal? He’d seen a good deal, he might as well know all.
“P’raps you’re right, Uncle. It’s just—that the bottom’s dropped out somehow. Sometimes does with fellows, you know, after they’ve been out there. Not with all—not with chaps like Robbie. But we aren’t all Robbies—and—it has with me.”
He helped himself to a liberal whisky, leaned back and smoked for a few moments before continuing.
“Seems to have gone, you know, just bit by bit. Look at 1915, for example—we were going through in 1915—damned lot of going through at the end of it. Look at the Somme, Passchaendale—all that: three years, and now——”
Poor spirited, but you have to pick your Greathearts very carefully if it is from boys of nineteen that they are to come.
“And all that rot they talk about it—war for humanity, war to end war, war for God knows what. Go and look at a battlefield, and you’ll soon cease to believe that quack. Leverett told me a thing or two about that, I remember—Dick Leverett, you know—but I guessed before.”
“You ain’t the only one.”
“Funny way to free humanity, to drive conscripts into Wipers with pistols at their heads—done that in my time, you know.”
Freddy Mann looked half doubtful
ly at Uncle Wal. Was he giving too much away? He was a civilian, after all.
“Go on, lad—Uncle Wal don’t split.”
“And it’s such bloody hell, you know. Fools like Farrant don’t know what they’re talking about. But when you’ve had two years of it—just hell—only thing to do is, not to care. That’s what you learn after a time—just not to care. Pretend to listen when fellows like Wingate preach, but the only thing to do is not to care.”
He stopped a moment.
“Funny way you’d be in if you did. Look at our crowd, for example. Pretty well all gone now—just Robbie left and one or two. But most of ’em went at the flame attack on Loos, and Mitchell went at Glencorse Wood, and Bamford’s done—suppose his bullet came, poor chap—and Chips and Bill——”
He got up suddenly.
“Be damned to it all. I’m through. Got to carry on, I suppose, but I’m through. That’s all it comes to—ceased to care.”
“Nothing then, now, you don’t care for? Bad, that, in life, if there ain’t nothing left.”
“Nothing: how could——” Freddy Mann stopped and flushed and Uncle Wal looked quickly across the room.
“Sure? Dead sure? Ain’t there nothing left to care for?”
“Nothing: except just——”
“Tell me, lad: just tell me.”
“Ypres. That’s all. That’s all there is now—Wipers. But it’s that that Leverett forgot. That’s all. Funny thing is, though, it sometimes seems enough.”
CHAPTER XXXIII
He’d stay here a minute or two, for here of all places in Ypres was where he would choose to be—here, between the ramparts and St. Jacques Church, before the tunnel where they had halted on that first evening, when Baggallay and Field and Bill were still with them, and Ypres and the war were new. He had come, as he knew he would have to come, for Ypres had called him back. He was afraid at one time last year that she’d forgotten him, but no, she hadn’t done that: she wanted something from him still, and that was why he had not been left to drown in the wastes before Gheluvelt or allowed with the passing of winter to linger in hospitals or camps at home. He had come direct, and with speed, for the call was swift. There was no need for a Madame Fouquière to point to the red glare to the south, beyond the Lille Gate, or bid him listen to the incessant thunders round. But he’d always known at heart that this would be so, that one day Ypres would call him back. Why else did she allow Robbie to get him back from Forward Cottage, or that stretcher bearer fellow to find him just as he was sinking headlong in the mud last year? She always knew exactly whom she wanted, and how she wanted them. Some she wanted dead, like Baggallay, but others, like himself, were to remain alive, so that they could come to be with her at her call.
She knew him, too: he guessed that that would be so as well. That wasn’t the midnight wind whispering between the broken towers of the Cloth Hall, that was the voice of Ypres. It was hard to know what she was saying, but it was to him she spoke. She knew him, as well she might: there wasn’t much he hadn’t done for her, or given when she asked it. Perhaps she was asking for more yet; he couldn’t make out what the voice was saying, perhaps it was that that it was telling him all the while. He couldn’t find out here, but he’d know perhaps if he went through the gate and down the road. It wasn’t so far this time; no footslogging, like last year, to Clapham Junction and Glencorse Wood—no further than just past the White Château and on to the railway crossing and the little shrine, for the circle of lights was very close to Ypres, and the towers and ramparts were near to watch you, to see that you stood your guard. That was why she wanted him, because her hour of greatest need had come. She’d stripped him of friends, strength and hope, and she called him again now to keep barred the gates that bound the Menin Road. She’d taken all he had, but what of that? She wanted him, and those, he knew, whom Ypres wants have to come. And he could still hear her speaking to him, as he passed eastwards down the road.
Colonel George Harvey bent over the motionless form of his young company commander. For two hours on end he’d watched him, trying from time to time to detect the faintest flicker of his pulse, or the smallest sign of colour in the bloodless cheeks. He was breathing still, but it didn’t seem that now he could breathe much longer, even if the shelling stopped and they could get him down to the G.H.Q. trench and back along the Menin Road. He’d asked for this, of course; sooner or later it had to come. For the whole of those last mad weeks, as the British line fell further back to the south of Zillebeke and the iron grip closed more tightly upon them here at Ypres, it seemed that he’d sought this end. What fury of possession was it that had caused him blindly to leave trench or shell-hole upon the smallest hint of attack or raid? What madness had been working which had led him so often to turn backwards and speak aloud to Ypres as if in savage rejoicing in the moments of most awful and paralyzing thunder? Partly, perhaps, he was himself responsible. Long ago—he’d forgotten, until Freddy Mann had reminded him, of that chance meeting before Witteport when he, George Harvey, had watched him bury those early dead, those first guardians of the Salient. It was he who had told him that June evening how they’d fallen hanging on. Perhaps it was just that—some madness of association and memory working in a schoolboy’s mind.
But Freddy Mann was no longer a schoolboy, no longer the Cherub now. Old—old. George Harvey looked at those lines graven so deep in the white chalky face—the drawn lips and hunted eyes now nearly closed. His head had once been a mop, he remembered, of lighted curls—there were only dank, lifeless strands now where the gold had been. His cheeks had been full, his forehead white and clear—there was parchment now for skin, and cheek-bones showed high above the sunken hollows of his face. It could not only have been the schoolboy’s madness, for Freddy Mann had seen too much. Perhaps it was just the old story, the old lust for death that would not come to end the torture when men sought it most. Or perhaps again not even that, but—George Harvey bent low as the lips moved to frame a trembling whisper. “We’ve kept—you—Ypres.” Was it after all just that? Was Ypres to Freddy Mann, who had known for three years Ypres and Ypres alone, a sacred thing to be defended? Were the torn streets, towers and ramparts hallowed? He’d guarded Ypres, and the shattered spine was the price he had to pay. Was that, after all, the secret of the madness, that to him at least there had been a glory in the guardianship? Men had died, here and in olden times, for lesser things. Perhaps, after all, while still a schoolboy he had understood.
Hear, now, Freddy Mann, for the Voices are speaking clearly: lie still upon your stretcher, for you cannot move, and answer as they speak.
“You have returned: has all been taken from you?”
“All.”
“Comrades?”
“Yes, comrades.”
“And strength?”
“Strength also.”
“And the hopes that once burned brightly?”
“They are dead.”
“What have you left to dwell with you?”
“But memories.”
“And to speak with?”
“Ghosts.”
The Voices are louder. They are very clear.
“What do you seek now?”
“Rest.”
“You did not know that this would be the end, the day you took the Road?”
“How could I know?”
“You had much to give. Were you ready to give it?”
“Yes, ready.”
“And now that you have given all, and for you the fight is ended?”
“I am tired.”
“Is pain yet with you?”
“I am past pain. I am tired.”
“Is there anything you seek for?”
“Nothing, nothing. I am very tired.”
“New life?”
“Not now.”
“Or hope, or warmth, or friendship?”
“No, not now.”
The Voices are louder: they are clearer yet. It is the Cathedral now that speaks, and the Church
of St. Martin, the crucifix of St. Jacques, the Square, the Cloth Hall, the Menin Gate. And, as they speak, their Voices swell suddenly to a mighty flood of sound that fills the midnight, so that at last of their mingling is born the Voice of Ypres.
“Mine are high lessons, soldier: have you learned?”
“What lessons should a soldier learn?”
“Courage.”
“I have learned much of Courage.”
“Faith?”
“Yes, Faith—but I had forgotten.”
“Friendship, too, so great that before it death is a little thing?”
“I have known such friendship: Robbie——”
“Sacrifice, also: have you learned to give?”
“I have given all.”
“And Pain: is Pain your master?”
“No.”
“Or utter Weariness?”
“I have fought Weariness and overcome.”
“Death, then. Is death yet fearful?”
“I am prepared to die.”
“These are high lessons: have you learned them all?”
“A little: I have tried——”
O mighty Voice of Ypres triumphant, speak!
“PASS ON, THRICE TRIED, TO
BE FOR EVER OF THE
BROTHERHOOD!”
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This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, events, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
Copyright © 2016 by Casemate Publishers
978-1-5040-4218-5
Casemate Publishing
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