Part 62 (1/2)

XXIV

The young men had gone--Morton Ellis, who had said he was d.a.m.ned if he'd fight for his country; and Austin Mitch.e.l.l who had said he hadn't got a country; and Monier-Owen, who had said that England was not a country you could fight for. George Wadham had gone long ago. That, Michael said, was to be expected. Even a weak gust could sweep young Wadham off his feet--and he had been fairly carried away. He could no more resist the vortex of the War than he could resist the vortex of the arts.

Michael had two pitiful memories of the boy: one of young Wadham swaggering into Stephen's room in uniform (the first time he had it on), flushed and pleased with himself and talking excitedly about the ”Great Game”; and one of young Wadham returned from the Front, mature and hard, not talking about the ”Great Game” at all, and wincing palpably when other people talked; a young Wadham who, they said, ought to be arrested under the Defence of the Realm Act as a quencher of war-enthusiasms.

The others had gone later, one by one, each with his own gesture: Mitch.e.l.l and Monier-Owen when Stephen went; Ellis the day after Stephen's death. It had taken Stephen's death to draw him.

Only Michael remained.

He told them they were mistaken if they thought their going would inspire him to follow them. It, and Stephen's death, merely intensified the bitterness he felt towards the War. He was more than ever determined to keep himself pure from it, consecrated to his Forlorn Hope. If they fell back, all the more reason why be should go on.

And, while he waited for the moment of vision, he continued Stephen's work on the _Green Review_. Stephen had left it to him when he went out.

Michael tried to be faithful to the tradition he thus inherited; but gradually Stephen's spirit disappeared from the _Review_ and its place was taken by the clear, hard, unbreakable thing that was Michael's mind.

And Michael knew that he was beginning to make himself felt.

But Stephen's staff, such as it was, and nearly all his contributors had gone to the War, one after another, and Michael found himself taking all their places. He began to feel a strain, which he took to be the strain of overwork, and he went down to Renton to recover.

That was on the Tuesday that followed Veronica's Sunday.

He thought that down there he would get away from everything that did him harm: from his father's and mother's eyes; from his sister's proud, cold face; and from his young brother's smile; and from Veronica's beauty that saddened him; and from the sense of Nicky's danger that brooded as a secret obsession over the house. He would fill up the awful empty s.p.a.ce. He thought: ”For a whole fortnight I shall get away from this infernal War.”

But he did not get away from it. On every stage of the journey down he encountered soldiers going to the Front. He walked in the Park at Darlington between his trains, and wounded soldiers waited for him on every seat, shuffled towards him round every turning, hobbled after him on their crutches down every path. Their eyes looked at him with a shrewd hostility. He saw the young Yorks.h.i.+re recruits drinking in the open s.p.a.ces. Sergeants' eyes caught and measured him, appraising his physique. Behind and among them he saw Drayton's, and Reveillaud's, and Stephen's eyes; and young Wadham's eyes, strange and secretive and hard.

At Reyburn Michael's train was switched off to a side platform in the open. Before he left Darlington, a thin, light rain had begun to fall from a shred of blown cloud; and at Reyburn the burst ma.s.s was coming down. The place was full of the noise of rain. The drops tapped on the open platform and hissed as the wind drove them in a running stream.

They drummed loudly on the station roof. But these sounds went out suddenly, covered by the trampling of feet.

A band of Highlanders with their bagpipes marched into the station. They lined up solemnly along the open platform with their backs to Michael's train and their faces to the naked rails on the other side. Higher up Michael could see the breast of an engine; it was backing, backing, towards the troop-train that waited under the cover of the roof. He could hear the clank of the coupling and the recoil. At that sound the band had their mouths to their bagpipes and their fingers ready on the stops. Two or three officers hurried down from the station doors and stood ready.

The train came on slowly, packed with men; men who thrust their heads and shoulders through the carriage windows, and knelt on the seats, and stood straining over each other's backs to look out; men whose faces were scarlet with excitement; men with open mouths shouting for joy.

The officers saluted as it pa.s.sed. It halted at the open platform, and suddenly the pipers began to play.

Michael got out of his train and watched.

Solemnly, in the grey evening of the rain, with their faces set in a sort of stern esctasy, the Highlanders played to their comrades. Michael did not know whether their tune was sad or gay. It poured itself into one mournful, savage, sacred cry of salutation and valediction. When it stopped the men shouted; there were voices that barked hoa.r.s.ely and broke; voices that roared; young voices that screamed, strung up by the skirling of the bagpipes. The pipers played to them again.

And suddenly Michael was overcome. Pity shook him and grief and an intolerable yearning, and shame. For one instant his soul rose up above the music, and was made splendid and holy, the next he cowered under it, stripped and beaten. He clenched his fists, hating this emotion that stung him to tears and tore at his heart and at the hardness of his mind.

As the troop-train moved slowly out of the station the pipers, piping more and more shrilly, swung round and marched beside it to the end of the platform. The band ceased abruptly, and the men answered with shout after shout of violent joy; they reared up through the windows, straining for the last look--and were gone.

Michael turned to the porter who lifted his luggage from the rack. ”What regiment are they?” he said.

”Camerons, sir. Going to the Front.”

The clear, uncanny eyes of Veronica's father pursued him now.