“Quite. I am going as far as Abbeville in charge of this crowd. Why not do duty with us?”
A sudden decision comes to me.
“I would like to, sir.”
“Well, I’ll give you a chit to the authorities, and apply for you as M.O. on the train. I’m just going to get my things together.”
He leaves me alone by the ship’s rail, and with a feeling of exultant recklessness I take Templeman’s little bit of paper from my pocket, tear it into small pieces, and present it to the sea.
Marseilles. It seems very gay and sunny and debonair, and unvexed by the war. I find that there is an A.D.M.S. Marseilles, and with Colonel Praed’s chit in my pocket I go and report. The face of authority is bland and unsuspicious. There is no suggestion that the Taranto will need a medical officer on her return journey, and I am assigned to Colonel Praed as his M.O. train. I go forth feeling like a bad boy who has fooled the head master. Damn Templeman and his little bit of paper! If he should ever wonder what has become of me I shall be out of the jaws of the machine, an obscure country doctor driving his car along Sussex lanes.
The troops are still on board the Taranto, and I am met by Captain Marsden who tells me that I have to hold a venereal inspection before the men are allowed ashore. I hold it on the lower deck, and on the side away from the quay, so that no one shall be shocked, though this war is acting as an analgesia against shock. The men amuse me; some are shy, others ironic, a few brazen, but I find the whole crowd clean. Thomas has not so many opportunities for the sex adventure as have his officers, though I cannot picture either Marsden or Henderson in a brothel.
Colonel Praed and I go and explore Marseilles, and lunch at a restaurant on the Cannebière. Marseilles with its va-et-vient, and its almost exotic shops and suggestions of feminine prevalence, does not appear to be war conscious. Praed, who speaks French, remarks upon the apparent normality of this southern city to the little hunchbacked waiter who attends to us. He gives a little cynical smirk and says, “They are so far away from the front here, gentlemen,” and he, too, is safe and secure, thanks to that old tuberculous spine of his.
* * *
Late in the afternoon we entrain at a suburban station. The battery is without its guns and horses, so the entraining is a simple affair. Colonel Praed and I share a first-class compartment, Marsden and his officers another.
The men are in the ordinary French closed trucks. We crawl off about sunset. Dinner is an improvisation, plus a bottle of red wine. We are going to be fairly comfortable, as we can open our valises on the seats and lie down.
Praed asks me where my home is. Sussex. He is a Somerset man, and I should imagine very much the country gentleman in a world of horses and of dogs. The type is so English and pleasant, but somewhat out of favour in this war, perhaps because there is a prejudice against the country tradition, which associates itself with Red Hats and is credited with being tragically stupid. Praed is anything but stupid. He realizes how the old things are passing, and that he and his may disappear in this fierce solvent which is both so democratic and enslaved.
When we turn in I lie and listen to the complaining of the wheels, and think of the life to which I am returning. I shall be able to send Mary a telegram from Abbeville and tell her to meet me at the Lancaster Hotel in York Street. We will have a celebration; a little dinner, a little wine, and then, to bed.
* * *
This train journey across France is a deliberate business. We are let out now and again to relieve nature, and for an opportunity of getting hot food. Shaving water comes from the engine. We contrive to obtain hot coffee from occasional station buffets. The atmosphere becomes more tense and austere as we travel north. Marsden and Henderson join us sometimes, and we play Bridge. Marsden impresses me immensely. He will be in this ruddy show till death or the end, and yet you would think that he was a man going down into the country for a week’s shooting. His calmness is amazing, and I feel that this man has ideals, and a secret religion of his own. His stark serenity makes me feel very small.
* * *
Abbeville at last. I say good-bye to these good friends of passage, dump my kit at the station, and go off in search of authority. Praed has given me a chit. I find that there is an A.D.M.S. in Abbeville, and I present my chit and explain my situation, and receive without demur one of those precious yellow tickets. I can travel to-morrow and embark at Boulogne. I hurry out in search of the Abbeville post office and send Mary a wire.
“Meet me Lancaster Hotel to-morrow. Book room. Love. Stephen.”
I do not remember much of that night at Abbeville. The hotel is full of youngsters in khaki making the most of the food and the wine, and becoming noisy over it, but I do not mind their noise. All my thoughts and desires are across the water, but next day the dream is actual. I recover my kit, entrain, arrive at Boulogne, and embark on the leave boat. Everything is grey save the mood of that home-going crowd. The sea is choppy and it begins to drizzle, but no one seems to be sick. The spirit of the occasion transcends such physical lapses. I sit on the boat-deck and watch for England, and see it as a streak of a more sombre greyness above the grey sea. There is a boyish exultation in me. Everything is marvellous and good, and even conventional Folkestone on a drizzly day in March has the face of romance. I get a seat in a Pullman car, and eat my first English tea and watch Kent sliding by. For me it has a beauty that no words can express.
London in the dusk, lights, a dim squalor of innumerable little houses and back yards. The Thames. We are sliding into Victoria station. Will Mary be there, or will she be waiting for me in the hotel? I find my kit dumped on the platform, but porters are scarce, and I have to wait ten minutes before I can secure one.
“I want a taxi.”
My porter is a gruff soul.
“You may be lucky, sir, and you may not.”
Just beyond the barrier I pause, looking for Mary in the crowd. An elderly man accosts me. “Excuse me, can you tell me whether Captain Sangster is on the train. He was coming from Egypt.” I smile and confess that I do not know anything about Captain Sangster, and my old gentleman smiles back. “You see, I thought you must be from Egypt, by your face. Such a colour. You’ll excuse me.” I smile at him tolerantly, and still scanning faces, follow my porter. No, Mary is not here. My porter has managed to commandeer a taxi, and I get in and we drive off. My impression of London is that it is strangely dark and empty, a city that does not share my excitement and my exultation, but pulls its cap down over its eyes, and suffers the war and the raw March drizzle. I keep saying to myself, “I am in England.” Oxford Street is incredibly familiar, for my old hospital is not three hundred yards away. We pass the particular Lyons where I used to lunch and tea as a student. My taxi turns into York Street, and pulls up outside the Lancaster Hotel.
A porter comes out and opens the door.
“Room booked, sir?”
“I hope so.”
“No use getting out, sir, unless you have booked.”
His attitude annoys me. Damn it, this is not the sort of salutation that one welcomes!
“All right. My wife should be here.”
But he refuses to remove the luggage, and I shoulder past him and go in and look round the lounge. It is crowded, but I cannot see Mary. Surely she must have received my wire? I go to the office and ask if a room has been booked in the name of Brent, and a bored and anæmic woman examines a ledger.
“Lieutenant and Mrs. Brent?”
“Yes. That’s right.”
“No. 77.”
I hurry out and curtly give the porter his orders.
“Yes, No. 77. Take the stuff off. You people seem to be a little spoilt here.”
He gives me a surly look and drags my valise across the pavement, holding it by one strap.
I ask for the key of 77, and being told that the lady must have it I assume that Mary is upstairs, unpacking. The lift-boy takes me to the third floor, and feeling like the passionate lover I walk along the corridor, f
ind room No. 77 and knock. There is no answer. I try the door, and of course it is locked. A chambermaid appears, and I explain the situation, and ask her to let me in. She does so, and turns on the lights for me, and I find myself in the conventional and anonymous hotel bedroom, shabbily pink and white. One small suitcase lies on the luggage stand at the foot of the bed, but Mary has not unpacked any of her things and the room retains its air of unfriendly strangeness.
I am conscious of disappointment, the chill of the room and its anticlimax.
I go downstairs and look into the drawing-room and writing-room, but Mary is not there. Has she gone to the station and missed me? I return to the lounge, and as I enter it I see my wife coming in through the hotel doorway. She is in some sort of dark blue uniform and wearing a pleated, helmet-like hat. She is carrying a brown-paper parcel.
Again, I am conscious of vague disappointment. I am sick of uniforms. I have been visualizing my wife as a woman in a pretty frock.
Her face lights up, but the kisses we exchange are public and austere, and a strange muteness seems to possess us both.
“I have been hunting the whole hotel. You haven’t been to the station?”
“No, I had to go and buy something before the shops shut.”
I glance at her dangling parcel and she explains it with a gravity that is almost official and humourless.
“So silly of me. I packed in a hurry, and forgot my nightdress. Have you seen our room, dear?”
“Yes.”
We go upstairs, but there is a feeling of restraint between us, as though these months of separation had made us partial strangers. I feel a passionate urge to break down this intangible barrier, and as I close the bedroom door my impulse is to take Mary in my arms. She has placed her parcel on the bed, and is bending over her suitcase. She opens it, takes something out, and says brightly, “O, I brought you some letters, Stephen.”
I take them from her and am about to toss them on the bed when there are sounds of activity in the corridor, and someone knocks. It is my luggage. I shout, “Come in,” and sit down on a hard chair with my letters while my kit is carried in by a little alien porter. Mary is unpacking her suitcase; I see a sponge bag in her hand. Mechanically I look at my letters. The first one happens to be one of those unpleasant and official communications in a buff-coloured envelope. I open it. The Inland Revenue authorities are asking me rudely and peremptorily about a certain trivial detail that concerns my return of a year ago. I had received a communication on this subject at Gallipoli and had replied, giving an explanation, but obviously they have not troubled to read my letter intelligently, and curtly demand an immediate payment.
“Well I’m damned!”
Mary is extracting various articles from her sponge bag.
“What’s the matter, dear?”
“These people make me sick. They seem to think themselves ruddy little autocrats.”
I tear the thing up and chuck it into the empty grate. Mary looks faintly shocked.
“My dear!”
“To come back from the war and strike that sort of thing!”
I am aware of her looking at me anxiously, and with a scrutiny that is almost unfriendly.
“Sorry, dear.”
I get up, put my arms round her, and kiss her, and suddenly she turns and clings to me.
“O, Stephen, you’re not different, are you?”
“My dear——”
I kiss her on the mouth.
“I have been thinking of this for months. One gets a bit strung up. No, I’m not different.”
“I’ve been like that, too.”
“My darling.”
I hold her close, pressing her to me.
“We’ll stay up here a night or two, what, and celebrate? A little dinner and a little wine, and a theatre to-morrow. Got a party frock?”
I hold her off, and put a finger on her bosom.
“Rather official, this.”
“I’m sorry, dear. I only got your wire late, and I came as I am.”
“No feathers! Well, it doesn’t matter. We’ll buy a frock to-morrow. Besides, you don’t go to bed in this.”
She colours up, and looks suddenly confused. Is the sex in me too rampant and sudden? Also, I have been living among men who do not talk like curates, and to whom life has become a thing of stark reality.
“All right. I’m in love with you, Mary, you know.”
She presses her face against my shoulder.
“Yes, dear, I know.”
* * *
I cannot help feeling that Mary is a little shy of me, and that during this year of independence and authority she has developed a new entity of her own, or rather her individuality has been by itself, and slipped into the habit of giving orders. She is inclined to be gently bossy, and as we sit at dinner and I consider the mature and comely woman in her, her faint perfume of dominance seems to provoke the male in me. Am I like a savage sailor come back from the sea?
XI
I have reported to the necessary authority, and though nearly a fortnight of my year is still to run, they discharge me and send me home.
In the train, Mary and I decide that this fortnight’s pay shall be given to Mary’s hospital.
* * *
How good this England is even in March with the grass still winter grey, and the ploughed fields looking frozen, and the woods black under a hurrying sky. There is no greenness yet, and even the sallow is asleep. It strikes me as a land in miniature, but how lovable and kind and secure. Brackenhurst on its hill looks almost mediæval grouped about the square tower of the church and the tall, sky-brushing elms.
We drive in an old closed fly to our home, and hold hands. I do not want to see anybody yet. The familiar white door with its lion-headed knocker and my brass plate welcome me. Old Sellars carries in my kit.
“Glad to be back, sir?”
Does he know how glad I am, how this little house has for me a particular warmth, perfume, and peace? I follow Mary into the drawing-room, drawing deep breaths. Tea is ready. We stand a moment before the fire, hands interlocked, and then I draw her to the french window. Our garden. It is still very wintry, with three pale daffodils daring the wind, and a string of crocus down the edge of one border. We stand a moment in silence, gazing.
“How utterly good everything is.”
We have tea in front of the fire, and there are logs of Sussex oak, a present I hear from old Rob Guthrie. I feel kindly disposed even to Guthrie and his dyspeptic breath. Is he still talking of driving an ambulance in France? Mary laughs and tells me that Guthrie spends his time making patriotic speeches and sitting on committees. But enough of Guthrie. I light my pipe and get deep into my arm-chair, and find that I can talk to Mary as I have not talked to her before. Has she divined the secret shames and humiliations and meannesses of this war business? I think not.
I take her photo from my tunic pocket; it is still soiled with Gallipoli mud.
“That is one of the dirty tricks the war played on me.”
She bends forward into the firelight to look at her own photo.
“Were you in mud like that?”
“It arrived one night in my dug-out and in my bed.”
“I want to keep this, Stephen.”
“A war relic! The fact is, Mary, happily married men don’t make good soldiers.”
“I’m sure you were——”
“No, not to the uttermost. You see, there is always something pulling a man towards safety, holding him back from taking risks. One’s so terribly keen to survive and to come home. One does not give oneself utterly.”
She slips down on to her knees by the fire.
“But Colonel Frost? You wrote——”
“Frost is a rather unique sort of person, much tougher than I am. Besides he had a command. Then you are a sort of symbol to other men.”
“Yes, I understand. In my way I was trying to help you, dear.”
“Your letters.”
“Yes. Would it h
ave been easier without letters?”
“Good God, no. They helped to keep one sane, and in touch with peaceful and lovely things. But how’s old Randall?”
“Really wonderful. A little tired.”
“I can take things off his shoulders. I suppose he has had no holiday?”
“Not a day.”
“And there were scores of doctors knocking about in Egypt doing nothing! What news of Roger?”
“He’s somewhere in France, and a major now. Second in command of his battalion.”
“Poor old Roger. I’ll bet home things are pulling him rather badly.”
When my pipe is finished I wander round the garden. The buds of the big ribes where the path turns down into the vegetable garden are showing pink. I examine the fruit trees for their promise of blossom. The almond in the Sayles’s garden next door has a few flowers out on its lower branches. I go to the old coach-house which serves as a garage and say how-do-you-do to my car. One of the rear wings has a bad crumple in it, Mary’s war-driving I suppose. I sit in the familiar seat and play with the steering-wheel and controls. I decide to have the car repainted, but in the same colours, cream picked out with green.
Mary has gone to her hospital for an hour, and I carry up my kit to my dressing-room and unpack. Same old chest of drawers, same old tallboy which I use as a wardrobe, with its wayward lock that opens when you tread on a particular board in the floor. Deliberately savouring the process I unpack, only to realize that my civilian clothes are there ready for me, and that there is no place for khaki. Shall I change into mufti? I do, and feel strange in the familiar clothes. I find room for my two tunics and overcoat in the cupboard beside the chimney, and hang my Sam Browne belt beside them. How that belt used to irk me, and now I find that I miss it.
I take a look out of the window and see the sunset hanging in the church elms. Surgery time. I decide to wander along and see old Randall and give him a hand. How pleasant it is gathering up all these threads.
No Hero-This Page 16