Part 9 (1/2)

And then the old man, pulling out the letter from the Colonel, and trying to read it through his blinding tears: ”He did well, my boy,” he whispered, ”he did well, and died well. But, Jerry, the Colonel says in his letter,” and he wiped his eyes and tried to read, ”he says in his letter that Jack must have been right into their trenches almost, as he was killed at point-blank range with a revolver. One of those swine of German officers, I suppose.” He shook his fist in the air. ”Still he was but doing his duty. I must not complain. But you say he was forty yards away?”

”It's difficult to say, sir, in the dark,” answered Jerry, still in the voice of an automatic machine. ”It may have been less than forty.”

And then he told them all over again; and while they, the two old dears, whispered and cried together, never noticing anything amiss, being only concerned with the telling, and caring no whit for the method thereof, Pat sat silently in the window, gazing at him with tearless eyes, with the wonder and amazement of her soul writ clear on her face for all to see. And I--I lay motionless in bed, and there was something I could not understand, for he would not look at me, nor yet at her, but kept his eyes fixed on the fire, while he talked like a child repeating a lesson.

At last it was over; their last questions were asked, and slowly, arm-in-arm, they left the room, to dwell alone upon the story of their idolised boy. And in the room the silence was only broken by the crackling of the logs.

How long we sat there I know not, with the firelight flickering on the stern set face of the man in the chair. He seemed unconscious of our existence, and we two dared not speak to him, we who loved him best, for there was something we could not understand. Suddenly he got up, and held out his arms to Pat. And when she crept into them, he kissed her, straining her close, as if he could never stop. Then, without a word, he led her to the door, and, putting her gently through, shut it behind her. Still without a word he came back to the chair, and turned it so that the firelight no longer played on his face. And then he spoke.

”I have a story to tell you, Winkle, which I venture to think will entertain you for a time.” His voice was the most terrible thing I have ever listened to.... ”Nearly four weeks ago the battalion was in the trenches a bit south of Ypres. It was bad in the retreat, as you know; it was bad on the Aisne; but they were neither of them in the same county as the doing we had up north. One night--they'd sh.e.l.led us off and on for three days and three nights--we were driven out of our trenches. The regiment on our right gave, and we had to go too. The next morning we were ordered to counter attack, and get back the ground we had lost. It was the attack in which we lost so heavily.”

He stopped speaking for a while, and I did not interrupt.

”When I got that order overnight Jack was with me, in a hole that pa.s.sed as a dugout. At the moment everything was quiet; the Germans were patching up their new position; only a maxim spluttered away a bit to one flank. To add to the general desolation a steady downpour of rain drenched us, into which, without cessation the German flares went shooting up. I think they were expecting a counter attack at once....”

Again he paused, and I waited.

”You know the condition one gets into sometimes when one is heavy for sleep. We had it during the retreat if you remember--a sort of coma, the outcome of utter bodily exhaustion. One used to go on walking, and all the while one was asleep--or practically so. Sounds came to us dimly as from a great distance; they made no impression on us--they were just a jumbled phantasmagoria of outside matters, which failed to reach one's brain, except as a dim dream. I was in that condition on the night I am speaking of; I was utterly cooked--beat to the world; I was finished for the time. I've told you this, because I want you to understand the physical condition I was in.”

He leaned forward and stared at the fire, resting his head on his hands.

”How long I'd dozed heavily in that wet-sodden hole I don't know, but after a while above the crackle of the maxim, separate and distinct from the soft splash of the rain, and the hiss of the flares, and the hundred and one other noises that came dimly to me out of the night, I heard Jack's voice--at least I think it was Jack's voice.”

Of a sudden he sat up in the chair, and rising quickly he came and leant over the foot of the bed.

”Devil take it,” he cried bitterly, ”I know it was Jack's voice--_now_.

I knew it the next day when it was too late. What he said exactly I shall never know--at the time it made no impression on me; but at this moment, almost like a spirit voice in my brain, I can hear him. I can hear him asking me to watch him. I can hear him pleading--I can hear his dreadful fear of being found afraid. As a whisper from a great distance I can hear one short sentence--'Jerry, my G.o.d, Jerry--I'm frightened!'

”Winkle, he turned to me in his weakness--that boy who had never failed before, that boy who had reached the breaking-point--and I heeded him not. I was too dead beat; my brain couldn't grasp it.”

”But, Jerry,” I cried, ”it turned out all right the next day; he...”

The words died away on my lips as I met the look in his eyes.

”You'd better let me finish,” he interrupted wearily. ”Let me get the whole hideous tragedy off my mind for the first and the last time. Early next morning we attacked. In the dim dirty light of dawn I saw the boy's face as he moved off to his platoon; and even then I didn't remember those halting sentences that had come to me out of the night. So instead of ordering him to the rear on some pretext or other as I should have done, I let him go to his platoon.

”As we went across the ground that morning through a fire like nothing I had ever imagined, a man wavered in front of me. I felt it clean through me. I knew fear had come. I shouted and cheered--but the wavering was spreading; I knew that too. So I shot him through the heart from behind at point-blank range as I had trained myself to do--in that eternity ago--before the war. The counter attack was successful.”

”Great Heavens, Jerry!” I muttered, ”who did you shoot?” though I knew the answer already.

”The man I shot was Jack Delawnay. Whether at the time I was actively conscious of it, I cannot say. Certainly my training enabled me to act before any glimmering of the aftermath came into my mind. _This_ is the aftermath.”

I shuddered at the utter hopelessness of his tone, though the full result of his action had not dawned on me yet; my mind was dazed.

”But surely Jack was no coward,” I said at length.

”He was not; but on that particular morning he gave out. He had reached the limit of his endurance.”