Part 65 (1/2)

”My dear, my dear, thousands of men do that every day for the same reason, only they don't find themselves out; and if they did they wouldn't care. You're finding yourself out all the time, and killing yourself with caring.”

”Of course I care. Can't you see it proves that I never meant to go at all?”

”It proves that you knew you'd have to go through h.e.l.l first and you were determined that even h.e.l.l shouldn't keep you back.”

”Ronny--that's what it _has_ been. Simply h.e.l.l. It's been inconceivable.

Nothing--absolutely nothing out there could be as bad. It went on all yesterday and to-day--till you came.”

”I know, Michael. That's why I came.”

”To get me out of it?”

”To get you out of it.

”It's all over,” she said.

”It may come back--out there.”

”It won't. Out there you'll be happy. I saw Nicky on Sunday--the minute before he was killed, Michael. And he was happy.”

”He would be.” He was silent for a long time.

”Ronny. Did Nicky know I funked it?”

”Never! He knew you wouldn't keep out. All he minded was your missing any of it.”

She got up and put on her hat. ”I must go. It's getting late. Will you walk up to Morfe with me? I'm sleeping there. In the hotel.”

”No, I say--I'm not going to let you turn out for me. _I_'ll sleep at the hotel.”

She smiled at him with a sort of wonder, as if she thought: ”Has he forgotten, so soon?” And he remembered.

”I can't stop here,” she said. ”That would be more than even _I_ can bear.”

He thought: ”She's gone through h.e.l.l herself, to get me out of it.”

May, 1916.

B.E.F., FRANCE.

DEAREST MOTHER AND FATHER,--Yes, ”Captain,” please. (I can hardly believe it myself, but it is so.) It was thundering good luck getting into dear old Nicky's regiment. The whole thing's incredible. But promotion's nothing. Everybody's getting it like lightning now. You're no sooner striped than you're starred.

I'm glad I resisted the Adjutant and worked up from the ranks. I own it was a bit beastly at the time--quite as beastly as Nicky said it would be; but it was worth while going through with it, especially living in the trenches as a Tommy. There's nothing like it for making you know your men. You can tell exactly what's going to bother them, and what isn't. You've got your finger on the pulse of their morale--not that it's jumpier than yours; it isn't--and their knowing that they haven't got to stand anything that you haven't stood gives you no end of a pull.

Honestly, I don't believe I could have faced them if it wasn't for that.

So that _your_ morale's the better for it as well as theirs. You know, if you're shot down this minute it won't matter. The weediest Tommy in your Company can ”carry on.”

_We_'re a funny crowd in my billet all risen from the ranks except my Senior. John would love us. There's a chap who writes short stories and goes out very earnestly among the corpses to find copy; and there's another who was in the publis.h.i.+ng business and harks back to it, now and then, in a dreamy nostalgic way, and rather as if he wanted to rub it into us writing chaps what he _could_ do for us, only he wouldn't; and there's a tailor who swears he could tell a mile off where my tunic came from; and a lawyer's clerk who sticks his cigarette behind his ear. (We used to wonder what he'd do with his revolver till we saw what he did with it.) They all love thinking of what they've been and telling you about it. I almost wish I'd gone into Daddy's business. Then perhaps I'd know what it feels like to go straight out of a shop or an office into the most glorious Army in history.

I forgot the Jew p.a.w.nbroker at least we _think_ he's a p.a.w.nbroker--who's always inventing things; stupendous and impossible things. His last idea was machine-howitzers fourteen feet high, that take in sh.e.l.ls exactly as a machine-gun takes in bullets. He says ”You'll see them in the next War.” When you ask him how he's going to transport and emplace and hide his machine-howitzers, he looks dejected, and says ”I never thought of _that_,” and has another idea at once, even more impossible.

That reminds me. I've seen the ”Tanks” (Nicky's Moving Fortresses) in action. I'd give my promotion if only he could have seen them too. We mustn't call them Fortresses any more--they're most violently for attack. As far as I can make out Nicky's and Drayton's thing was something between these and the French ones; otherwise one might have wondered whether their plans and models really did go where John says they did! I wish I could believe that Nicky and Drayton really _had_ had a hand in it.

I'm most awfully grieved to hear that young Vereker's reported missing.