Part 62 (2/2)

At last he had got away from it.

In Rathdale, at any rate, there was peace. The hills and their pastures, and the flat river fields were at peace. And in the villages of Morfe and Renton there was peace; for as yet only a few men had gone from them. The rest were tied to the land, and they were more absorbed in the hay-harvest than in the War. Even the old Belgians in Veronica's cottage were at peace. They had forgotten.

For three days Michael himself had peace.

He went up to Veronica's hill and sat on it; and thought how for hundreds of miles, north, south, east and west of him, there was not a soul whom he knew. In all his life he had never been more by himself.

This solitude of his had a singular effect on Michael's mind. So far from having got away from the War he had never been more conscious of it than he was now. What he had got away from was other people's consciousness. From the beginning the thing that threatened him had been, not the War but this collective war-spirit, clamouring for his private soul.

For the first time since August, nineteen-fourteen, he found himself thinking, in perfect freedom and with perfect lucidity, about the War.

He had really known, half the time, that it was the greatest War of Independence that had ever been. As for his old hatred of the British Empire, he had seen long ago that there was no such thing, in the continental sense of Empire; there was a unique thing, the rule, more good than bad, of an imperial people. He had seen that the strength of the Allies was in exact proportion to the strength and the enlightenment of their democracies. Reckoning by decades, there could be no deadlock in the struggle; the deadlock meant a ten years' armistice and another war. He could not help seeing these things. His objection to occupying his mind with them had been that they were too easy.

Now that he could look at it by himself he saw how the War might take hold of you like a religion. It was the Great War of Redemption. And redemption meant simply thousands and millions of men in troop-s.h.i.+ps and troop-trains coming from the ends of the world to buy the freedom of the world with their bodies. It meant that the very fields he was looking over, and this beauty of the hills, those unused ramparts where no batteries were hid, and the small, silent villages, Morfe and Renton, were bought now with their bodies.

He wondered how at this moment any sane man could be a Pacifist. And, wondering, he felt a reminiscent sting of grief and yearning. But he refused, resolutely, to feel any shame.

His religion also was good; and, anyhow, you didn't choose your religion; it chose you.

And on Sat.u.r.day the letters came: John's letter enclosing the wire from the War Office, and the letter that Nicky's Colonel had written to Anthony.

Nicky was killed.

Michael took in the fact, and the date (it was last Sunday). There were some official regrets, but they made no impression on him. John's letter made no impression on him. Last Sunday Nicky was killed.

He had not even unfolded the Colonel's letter yet. The close black lines showed through the thin paper. Their closeness repelled him. He did not want to know how his brother had died; at least not yet. He was afraid of the Colonel's letter. He felt that by simply not reading it he could put off the unbearable turn of the screw.

He was s.h.i.+vering with cold. He drew up his chair to the wide, open hearth-place where there was no fire; he held out his hands over it. The wind swept down the chimney and made him colder; and he felt sick.

He had been sitting there about an hour when Suzanne came in and asked him if he would like a little fire. He heard himself saying, ”No, thank you,” in a hard voice. The idea of warmth and comfort was disagreeable to him. Suzanne asked him then if he had had bad news? And he heard himself saying: ”Yes,” and Suzanne trying, trying very gently, to persuade him that it was perhaps only that Monsieur Nicky was wounded?

”No? _Then_,” said the old woman, ”he is killed.” And she began to cry.

Michael couldn't stand that. He got up and opened the door into the outer room, and she pa.s.sed through before him, sobbing and whimpering.

Her voice came to him through the closed door in a sharp cry telling Jean that Monsieur Nicky was dead, and Jean's voice came, hus.h.i.+ng her.

Then he heard the feet of the old man shuffling across the kitchen floor, and the outer door opening and shutting softly; and through the windows at the back of the room, he saw, without heeding, as the Belgians pa.s.sed and went up into the fields together, weeping, leaving him alone.

They had remembered.

It was then that Michael read the Colonel's letter, and learned the manner of his brother's death: ”... About a quarter past four o'clock in the afternoon his battalion was being pressed back, when he rallied his men and led them in as gallant an attack as was ever made by so small a number in this War. He was standing on the enemy's parapet when he was shot through the heart and fell. By a quarter to five the trench was stormed and taken, owing to his personal daring and impetus and to the affection and confidence he inspired.... We hear it continually said of our officers and men that 'they're all the same,' and I daresay as far as pluck goes they are. But, if I may say so, we all felt that your son had something that we haven't got....”

Michael lay awake in the bed that had been his brother's marriage bed.

<script>