Part 39 (2/2)
”I shall miss the Legion,” he said regretfully. ”I had no idea how much I should miss it until this moment.”
Its proud past history had grown dear to him. The recklessness of its soldiers, the endless perplexing variety of their characters, the secrets of their lives, of which every now and then, in a rare moment of carelessness, a glimpse was revealed, as though a curtain were raised and lowered--all these particular qualities of the force had given to it a grip upon his affections of which he felt the full strength now.
”Any other life,” he said, ”cannot but be a little dull, a little uninteresting afterwards. I shall miss the Legion very much.”
Suddenly he put his hand into his pocket and took out of it that letter from the French War Office which his colonel had handed to him.
”Look!” and he handed it over to Warrisden. ”That is what I joined the Legion to win--a commission; and I have just not won it. In a month or two, perhaps in a week, perhaps even to-morrow, it might have been mine. Very soon I should have been back at home, the life I have dreamed of and worked for ever since I left London, might have been mine to live. It was to have been a good life of great happiness”--he had forgotten, it seemed, that he would regret the Legion--”a life without a flaw. Now that life's impossible, and I am a deserter. It's hard lines, isn't it?”
He rose from his chair, and looked for a moment at Warrisden in silence.
”I am feeling sorry that I ever came,” said Warrisden.
”Oh no,” Stretton answered, with a smile. ”It would have been still worse if I had stayed here, ignorant of the news you have brought me, and had come home in my own time. Things would have been much worse--beyond all remedy. Do you know a man named Callon--Lionel Callon?” he asked abruptly. And before Warrisden could answer, the blood rushed into his face, and he exclaimed, ”Never mind; don't answer! Be at the corner of the barracks with the mule at eight.” And he went from the tent, cautiously made his way out of the garden, and returned to his quarters.
A few minutes before eight Warrisden drove the mule, packed with Stretton's purchases, to the south-western corner of the barracks. The night was dark, no one was abroad, the place without habitations. He remained under the shadow of the high wall, watching this way and that for Stretton's approach; and in a few minutes he was almost startled out of his wits by a heavy body falling from the top of the wall upon the ground at his side. Warrisden, indeed, was so taken by surprise that he uttered a low cry.
”Hus.h.!.+” said a voice close to the ground. ”It's only me.”
”And Stretton rose to his feet. He had dropped from the summit of the wall.
”Are you hurt?” whispered Warrisden.
”No. Have you the clothes? Thanks!”
Stretton stripped off his uniform, and put on the Jewish dress. He had shaved off his moustache and blacked his hair. As he dressed he gave two or three small packages to Warrisden.
”Place them in the pack; hide them, if possible. That package contains my medals. I shall need them. The other's lamp-black. I shall want that for my hair. Glossy raven locks,” he said, with a low laugh, ”are not so easily procured in Ain-Sefra as in Bond Street. I have been thinking. You can help me if you will; you can shorten the time of my journey.”
”How?” asked Warrisden.
”Go back to Oran as quickly as possible. Take the first boat to Tangier. Hire an outfit there, mules and horses--but good ones, mind!--and travel up at once to Fez. If you are quick you can do it within a fortnight. I shall take a fortnight at the least to reach Fez. I may be three weeks. But if I find you there, ready to start the moment I come to the town, we shall save much time.”
”Very well; I will be there.”
”If I get through sooner than I expect, I shall go straight on to Tangier, and we will meet on the road. Now let me climb on to your shoulders.” Stretton made a bundle of his uniform, climbed on to Warrisden's shoulders, and threw it over the wall into the barrack yard.
”But that will betray you!” cried Warrisden, in a whisper. ”They will find your clothes in the morning--clothes with a sergeant's stripes.”
”I cannot help that,” replied Stretton, as he jumped to the ground. ”I do not intend to be shot as a thief, for that is what may happen when a man deserts and takes his uniform with him. Don't fail me in Fez.
Good-bye.”
He held out his hand, and, as Warrisden grasped it, he said--
”I have not said much to you in the way of thanks; but I am very grateful, however much I may have seemed to have been made unhappy by your coming. Since things are as they are, I am glad you came. I thank you, too, for that other visit to the North Sea. I will give you better thanks when we meet in Fez.”
He cast a glance back to the wall of the barracks, and, in a voice which trembled, so deeply was he moved, he whispered to himself, rather than to Warrisden--
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