Part 36 (2/2)
”I didn't think I'd ever see you laugh again!”
”Not laugh!” Norah echoed. ”Why, it wouldn't be fair to Jim if we didn't. We keep him as near us as we can--talk about him, and about all the old, happy times. We did have such awfully good times together, didn't we? We're never going to get far away from him.”
The boy gave a great sigh.
”I've been getting a long way from everything,” he said.
”Since--since it happened I couldn't let myself think: it was just as if I were going mad. The only thing I've wanted to do was to fight, and I've had that.”
”He looks as if his mind were more tired than his body,” David Linton said that evening. ”One can see that he has just been torturing himself with all sorts of useless thoughts. You'll have to take him in hand, Norah. Put the other work aside for a while and go out with him--ride as much as you can. It won't do you any harm, either.”
”We never thought old Wally would be one of the Tired People,” Norah said musingly.
”No, indeed. And I think there has been no one more utterly tired.
It won't do, Norah: the boy will be ill if we don't look after him.”
”We've just got to make him feel how much we want him,” Norah said.
”Yes. And we have to teach him to think happily about Jim--not to fight it all the time. Fighting won't make it any better,” said David Linton, with a sigh.
But there was no riding for Wally, for a while. The next day found him too ill to get up, and the doctor, sent for hastily, talked of shock and over-strain, and ordered bed until his temperature should be pleased to go down: which was not for many a weary day. Possibly it was the best thing that could have happened to Wally. He grew, if not reconciled, at least accustomed to his loss; grew, too, to thinking himself a coward when he saw the daily struggle waged by the two people he loved best. And Norah was wise enough to call in other nurses: chief of them the Hunt babies, Alison and Michael, who rolled on his bed and played with him, while Geoffrey sat as close to him as possible, and could hardly be lured from the room. It was not for weeks after his return that they heard Wally laugh; and then it was at some ridiculous speech of Michael's that he suddenly broke into the ghost of his old mirth.
Norah's heart gave a leap.
”Oh, he's better!” she thought. ”You blessed little Michael!”
And so, healing came to the boy's bruised soul. Not that the old, light-hearted Wally came back: but he learned to talk of Jim, and no longer to hug his sorrow in silence. Something became his of the peace that had fallen upon Norah and her father. It was all they could hope for, to begin with.
They said good-bye to him before they considered him well enough to go back to the trenches. But the call for men was insistent, and the boy himself was eager to go.
”Come back to us soon,” Norah said, wistfully.
”Oh, I'm safe to come back,” Wally said. ”I'm n.o.body's dog, you know.”
”That's not fair!” she flashed. ”Say you're sorry for saying it!”
He flushed.
”I'm sorry if I hurt you, Nor. I suppose I was a brute to say that.”
Something of his old quaint fun came into his eyes for a moment.
”Anyhow it's something to be somebody's dog--especially if one happens to belong to Billabong-in-Surrey!”
CHAPTER XV
PRISONERS AND CAPTIVES
The church was half in ruins. Great portions of the roof had been torn away by sh.e.l.l-fire, and there were gaping holes in the walls through which could be caught glimpses of sentries going backwards and forwards. Sometimes a grey battalion swung by; sometimes a German officer peered in curiously, with a sneer on his lips. The drone of aircraft came from above, through the holes where the rafters showed black against the sky. Ever the guns boomed savagely from beyond.
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