Part 31 (1/2)

”So am I. Till my boat sails. I thought before I left I'd look at a merrier end of France. By Gos.h.!.+ They're a happy crowd”--he pointed to the packed ma.s.s on board the ancient tub of the Compagnie Generale Transatlantique.

”You share their feelings,” said Andrew.

Arbuthnot glanced at him keenly.

”I heard they made you a Brigadier. Yes? And you've chucked it?”

”I'm a civilian, even as you are,” said Andrew.

Arbuthnot pushed back his hat and wiped the perspiration from his forehead.

”For goodness' sake let us get out of this and sit down somewhere and have a talk.”

He moved away, Andrew following, and hailed a broken down cab, a victoria which had just deposited a pa.s.senger by the steamer's side.

”To the Cannebiere,” said he, and they drove off. ”If you have anything to do, please tell me. But I know n.o.body in this furnace of a town. You're a G.o.dsend.”

A while afterwards they were seated beneath the awning of a crowded cafe on the Cannebiere. Ceaseless thousands of the globe's population pa.s.sed by, from the bare-headed, impudent work girls of Ma.r.s.eilles, as like each other and the child Elodie as peas in a pod, to the daintily costumed maiden; from the feathered, flas.h.i.+ng quean of the streets to the c.r.a.pe enc.u.mbered figure of the French war-widow; from the abject shuffler clad in flapping rags and frowsy beard to the stout merchant dressed English fas.h.i.+on, in grey flannels and straw hat, with two rolls of comfortable fat above his silk collar; from the stray British or American private perspiring in khaki to splendid officers, French, Italian, Roumanian, Serbian, Czecho-Slovak, be-medalled like the advertis.e.m.e.nts of patent foods; from the middle aged, leaden pipe laden Ma.r.s.eilles plumber, in his blue smock, to the blue-uniformed Senegalese private, staring with his childish grin, at the mult.i.tudinous hurrying sights of an unfamiliar crowd. Backwards and forwards they pa.s.sed in two thick unending streams. And the roadway clashed with trams following each other, up and down, at fraction of a second intervals, and with a congestion of waggons, carts, cabs, automobiles, waiting patiently on the pleasure of these relentless, strident symbols of democracy.

In his troubled mood, Andrew found Arbuthnot also a G.o.dsend. It was good to talk once more with a man of his own calibre about the things that had once so intensely mattered. He lost his shyness and forgot for a time his anxieties. The rus.h.i.+ng life before him had in its way a soothing charm to one resting, as it were, on the quiet bank. It was good, too, to talk English--or listen to it; for much of the talking was done by his companion. Arbuthnot was full of the big, beloved life that lay before him.

Of the wife and children whom he had not seen for four years. Of his home near Sydney. Of the Solomon Islands, where he spent the few healthy months of the year growing coco-nuts for copra and developing a pearl fishery.

A glorious, free existence, said he. And real men to work with. Every able-bodied white in the Solomon Islands had joined up--some hundred and sixty of them. How many would be going back, alas! he did not yet know.

They had been distributed among so many units of the Australian Forces. But he was looking forward to seeing some of the old hard-bitten faces in those isles of enchantment.

”I thought,” said Andrew, ”that it rained all the year round on the Solomon Islands; that they were so depressing, in fact, that the natives ate each other to keep up their spirits.”

Arbuthnot protested vehemently. It was the loveliest climate in the world during the time that white folk stayed there. Of course, there was a rainy season, but then everybody went back to Australia. As for cannibals--he laughed.

”If you're at a loose end,” said he, ”come out with me and have a look round. It will clear the war out of your system.”

Andrew held a cigarette between the tips of his fingers and looked at the curling smoke. The picture of the reefs and surfs and white sands and palm-trees of these far off islands rose, fascinating, before his eyes. And then he remembered that he had once a father and mother--and a birth-place.

”Curiously enough,” said he, ”I am Australian born.”

He had scarcely ever realized the fact.

”All the more reason,” said Arbuthnot heartily. ”Come with me on the Osway.

The captain's a pal of mine. He'll fix up a bunk for you somewhere.”

He offered boundless hospitality. Andrew grew more wistful. He thanked Arbuthnot. But----

”I'm a poor man,” said he, ”and have to earn my living at my old job.”

”And what's that?”

”I'm a music-hall artist,” said Andrew.

”You? Good Lord! I thought you had been a soldier all your life. One of the old contemptibles.”

”I enlisted as a private in the Grenadier Guards,” smiled Andrew.