Part 38 (1/2)
Tybar's V.C. was the first thing Sabre spoke of to Nona when, a fortnight later, she came down and he went up to her at Northrepps in the afternoon. Its brilliant gallantry, rendered so vivid to him by the intimacy with which he could see that thrice attractive figure engaged in its performance, stirred him most deeply. He had by heart every line of its official record in the restrained language of the _Gazette_.
...The left flank of the position was insecure, and the post, when taken over, was ill prepared for defence.... When the battalion was suffering very heavy casualties from a 77mm. field gun at very close range, Captain Lord Tybar rushed forward under intense machine gun fire and succeeded in capturing the gun single-handed after killing the entire crew.... Later, when repeated attacks developed, he controlled the defence at the point threatened, giving personal a.s.sistance with revolver and bombs....
Single-handed he repulsed one bombing a.s.sault.... It was entirely owing to the gallant conduct of this officer that the situation was relieved....
Oh, rare and splendid spirit! Fortune's darling thrice worthy of her dowry!
Nona had written of it in ringing words. She flushed in beautiful ardour of the enthusiasm she joined with Sabre's at his opening words of their meeting; but she ended with a sad little laugh. ”And then!” she said.
”What do you mean, Nona, 'And then'?”
She took a letter from her bag. ”I only got this this morning just as I was coming away. It's in reply to the one I wrote him about his V.C. Oh, Marko, so splendid, so utterly splendid as he is, and then to be like this. Look, he says he's just got leave and he's going to spend it in Paris! One of his women is there. That Mrs. Winfred. He's taken up with her again. He says, 'Poor thing. She's all alone in Paris. I know how sorry you will feel for her, and I feel I ought to go and look after her. I know you will agree with me. I'll tell her you sent me. That will amuse and please her so.'”
She touched her eyes with her handkerchief. ”It rather hurts, Marko.
It's not that I mind his going. It's just what he would do. But it's the way he tells me. He just says it like that deliberately to be cruel because he knows it will hurt. So utterly splendid, Marko, and so utterly graceless.” She gave her little note of sadness again. ”Utterly splendid! Look, this is all he says about his V.C. Isn't this fine and isn't it like him? He says, 'P.S. Yes, that V.C. business. You know why I got it, don't you? It stands for Very Cautious, you know.'”
They laughed together. Yes, like him! Tybar exactly! Sabre could see him writing the letter. Delighting in saying words that would hurt; delighting in his own whimsicality that would amuse. Splendid; airy, untouched by fear; untouched by thought; fearless, faithless, heedless, graceless. Fortune's darling; invested in her robe of mockery.
Nona's laughter ended in a little catch at her breath. He touched her arm. ”Let's walk, Nona.”
IV
He thought she was looking thin and done up. Her face had rather a drawn look, its soft roundness gone. He thought she never had looked so beautiful to him. She spoke to him of what she had tried to say in her letters of his disappointments in offering himself for service. Never had her sweet voice sounded so exquisitely tender to him. They spoke of the war. Never, but in their letters, had he been able thus to give his feelings and receive them, touched with the same perceptions, kindled and enlarged, back into his sympathies again. With others the war was all discussion of chances and circ.u.mstances, of this that had happened and that that might happen, of this that should be done and that that ought not to have been done. Laboratory examination of means and remedies. The epidemic everything and the patient upstairs nothing. The wood not seen for the trees. With Nona he talked of how he felt of England:
_Dear earth, I do salute thee with my hand_.
He told her that.
She nodded. ”I know. I know. Say it all through, Marko.”
He stumbled through it. At the end, a little abashed, he smiled at her and said, ”Of course, no one else would think it applies. Richard was saying it in Wales where he'd just landed, and it's about civil war, not foreign; but where it comes to me is the loving of the soil itself, as if it were a living thing that knew it was being loved and loved back in return. Our England, Nona. You remember Gaunt's thing in the same play:
”This royal throne of kings, this sceptre'd isle, This other Eden, demi-paradise....
This happy breed of men, this little world, This precious stone set in the silver sea....
This blessed plot, this earth, this realm, this England....”
She nodded again. He saw that her dear eyes were br.i.m.m.i.n.g. She said, ”Yes--yes.--Our England. Rupert Brooke said it just perfectly, Marko:
”And think, this heart, all evil shed, away....
Gives somewhere back the thoughts by England given; Her sights and sounds; dreams happy as her day; And laughter, learnt of friends; and gentleness, In hearts at peace, under an English heaven.”
She touched his hand. ”Dear Marko--” She made approach to that which lay between them. ”'This heart, all evil shed away.' Marko, in this frightful time we couldn't have given back the thoughts by England given if we had.--And that was you, Marko.”
He shook his head, not trusting himself to look at her. He said, ”You.
Not I. Any one can know the right thing. But strength to do it--Strength flows out of you to me. It always has. I want it more and more. I shall want it. Things are difficult. Sometimes I've a frightful feeling that things are closing in on me. There's Sh.e.l.ley's 'Ode to the West Wind.'
It makes me--I don't know--wrought up. And sometimes I've the feeling that I'm being carried along like that and towards that frightful cry at the end, 'O Wind, if winter comes-'”