 CHAPTER XIV. The spell of night-centry duty had always been Doggy's black hour. To most of the other military routine he had grown hardened or deadened. In the depths of his heart he hated the life as much as ever. He had schooled himself to go through it with the dull fatalism of a convict, with no use railing at inexorable laws, irremediable conditions. The only alternative to the acceptance of his position was military punishment, which was far worse, to say nothing of the outrage to his pride. It was pride that kept the little ironical smile on his lips, while his nerves were almost breaking with strain. The first time he came under fire he was physically sick, not from fear, for he stood it better than most, keeping an eye on his captain, whose function it was to show an unconcerned face, but from sheer nervous reaction against the hideous noise, the stench, the ghastly upheaval of the earth, the sight of mangled men. When the bomb bomb was over, if he had been alone he would have sat down and cried. Never had he grown accustomed to the foulness of the trenches. The sound of his physical condition, the more did his delicately trained senses revolt. It was only when fierce animal cravings dulled these senses that he could throw himself down anywhere and sleep, that he could swallow anything in the way of food or drink. The rats nearly drove him crazy. Yet what had once been to him a torture, the indecent, nerve-rasping publicity of the soldier's life, had now become a compensation, if not so much in companionship, like his friendly intercourse with Phineas and Moe, that he found an anodyne, but in the consciousness of being magnetically affected by the crowd of his fellows. They offered him protection against himself. Whatever pangs of self-pity he felt, whatever one little pleadings for the bit of fine porcelain compelled to a rough usage which vessels of course of clay could disregard, came lingeringly into his mind. He dared not express them to a living soul around. On the contrary, he set himself assiduously to cultivate the earth-and-ware habit of spirit, not to feel, not to think, only to endure. To a humorously incredulous genre he proclaimed himself ablouti. Finally the ceaseless grind of the military machine left him little time to think. But in the solitary sleepless hours of sentry duty there was nothing to do but think, being wherewith to while away the time, but an orgy of introspection. First came the almost paralyzing sense of responsibility. He must keep, not only awake, but alert to the slightest sound, the slightest movement. Lives of men depended on his vigilance. A man can't screw himself up to this beautifully emotional pitch for very long and be an efficient sentry. If he did, he would challenge mice and shoot at cloud-shadows and bring the juice of a commotion about his ears. And this doggy, who did not lack ordinary intelligence, realised. So he strove to think of other things. And the other things all focused down upon his doggy self. And he never knew what to make of his doggy self at all. For he would curse the things that he once loved as being the cause of his inexperable strain, and at the same time yearn for them with an agony of longing. And he would force himself to think of Peggy and her unswerving loyalty, of her weakly parcel of dainty food which had arrived that morning, of the joy of Phineas and the disappointment of the unsophisticated Moe over the pâté de foie gras. But his mind wandered back to his doggy self and its humiliations and its needs and its yearnings. He welcomed enemy flares and star-shells and excursions and alarms. They kept him from thinking, enabled him to pass the time. But in the dead, lonely, silent dark, the hours were like centuries. He dreaded them. Tonight they fled like minutes. It was a pitch-black night, spitting fine rain. It was one of doggy's private grievances that it invariably reigned when he was on century duty. One of heaven's little ways of strafing him for doggie-ism. But tonight he did not heed it. Often the passage of transport had been a distraction for which he had longed and which, when it came, was warmly welcome. But tonight, during his spell, the roadway of the village was as still as death, and he loved the stillness and the blackness. Once he had welcomed familiar approaching steps. Now he resented them. Who goes there? Round! And the officer, recognized, flashing an electric torch, passed on. The diminuendo of his footsteps was agreeable to doggy's ear. The rain dripped monotously off his helmet onto his soddened shoulders. But doggy did not mind. Now and then he strained an eye upwards to that part of the living-house that was above the gateway. Little streaks of light came downwards through the shutter-slats. And I had required no great intellectual effort to surmise that the light proceeded not from the bedroom of the invalide Madame Morin, who would naturally have the best bedroom situated in the comfortable main block of the house, but from that of somebody else. Madame Morin was therefore ruled out. So was Twanette, ridiculous to think of her keeping all night vigil. There remained only Jean. He was supremely silly of him to march with super-martiality of tread-up to the pavement. But then it is often the way of young men to do supremely silly things. The next day was fuss and bustle from the private soldier's point of view. They were marching back to the trenches that night, and a crack company must take over with flawless equipment and in flawless bodily health. In the afternoon doggy had a breathing-smell of leisure. He walked boldly into the kitchen. A madame, said he to Twanette, I suppose you know that we are leaving tonight. The old woman sighed. It is always like that. They come, they make friends, they go, and they never return. You mustn't make that little soldier weep, grandmaire, said doggy. No, it is the grandmaire who weep, replied Twanette. I'll come back all right, said he. Where is Mum without Jean? She is upstairs, monsieur. If she had gone out, I should have been disappointed, smiled doggy. You desire to see her, monsieur? To thank her before I go for her kindness to me. The old face wrinkled into a smile. It was not them for the beau-yeux of the grandmaire that you entered. Cici, of course it was, he protested, but one nevertheless must be polite to Mamoiselle. Ha, ha, ha! said the old woman, busting out. I'll call her. Presently Jean came in alone, calm, cool, and in her plain black dress, looking like a sweet fate. From the top of her dark brown hair to her trim stout shoes, she gave the impression of being exquisitely ordered, bodily and spiritually. It was good of you to come, he cried, and they shook hands instinctively, scarcely realising it was for the first time. But he was sensitive to the frank grip of her long and slender fingers. Toine, I had said you wished to see me. We are going to-night. I had to come and bid you au revoir. Is the company returning? So I hear the quartermaster says. Are you glad? Yes, I am glad. What doesn't like to lose friends? You regard me as a friend, Jean? Pulseur? She replied simply. When you don't mind my calling you, Jean, said he. What does it matter? There are graver questions at stake in the world. She crossed the kitchen and opened the yard door which Doggy had closed behind him. Meeting a query in his glance, she said, I like the fresh air, and I don't like secrecy. She leaned against the edge of the table, and Doggy, emboldened, seated himself on the corner by her side, and they looked out into the little-flagged court-yard in which the men, some in grey-shirt sleeves, some in tunics, were lounging about among the little piles of accoutrements and packs. Here and there a man was shaving by the aid of a bit of a mirror supported on a hand-cart. Jests and laughter were flung in the quiet afternoon air. A little group was feeding pigeons, which, at the sight of crumbs, had swarmed iridescent from the tall Colombier in the far corner near the gable-de-barne. As Jean did not speak, at last Doggy bent forward, and, looking into her eyes, found the moist with tears. What is the matter, Jean? he asked in a low voice. The war, mon ami, she replied, turning her face towards him. The haunting tragedy of the war. I don't know how to express what I mean. If all those brave fellows there went about with serious faces, I should not be affected. Mon ami, voyez-vous, la gaité, fait peur? Their laughter frightened her. Doggy, with his quick responsiveness, understood. She had put into a phrase the haunting tragedy of the war. The eternal laughter of youth quenched in a gurgle of the throat. He said admiringly, You are a wonderful woman, Jean. Her delicate shoulders moved ever so little. A woman? I said, boys, I am. The day before we fled from Combré, it was my jour de fête. I was eighteen. Doggy drew in his breath with a little gasp. He had thought she was older than he. I am twenty-seven, he said. She looked at him calmly and critically. Yes, now I see. Until now I should have given you more. But the war ages, people, isn't it true? I suppose so, said Doggy. Doggy had a brilliant idea. But when the war is over, we'll remain the same age for ever and ever. Do you think so? I'm sure of it. We'll still both be in our twenties. Let us suppose the war puts ten years of experience and suffering and what not onto our lives. We'll only then be in our thirties, and nothing possibly can happen to make us grow any older. At seventy we shall still be thirty. You are consoling, she admitted. But what if the war had added thirty years to one's life? What if I felt now an old woman of fifty? But yes, it is quite true. I have the feeling and the disregard and convention of a woman of fifty. If there had been no war, do you think I could have gone among an English army, sangin, like an old matron? Do you think a jeune, filet français bien-élevé could have taught to you alone as I have done the past two days? Absurd. The explanation is the war. Doggy laughed. Vive la guerre, said he. Mais non, be serious, we must come to an understanding. In her preoccupation she forgot the rules laid down for the guidance of a jeune filet bien-élevé, and unthinkingly put herself full on the kitchen table on the corner of which Doggy sat in a one-legged way. Doggy gasped again. Until her assumed age fell from her like a garment. Youth proclaimed herself in her attitude of the supple lines of her figure. She was, but a girl, after all, a girl with a steadfast soul that had been tried in unutterable fars. But a girl, appealing, desirable. He felt mighty protective. And understanding? All right, said he. I don't want you to go away and think you live me, that I am one of those women. Des affronchers, I think they call them, who think themselves above social laws. I am not. I am bourgeois to my fingertips, and I reverence all the old maxims and prejudices in which I was born. But conditions are different. It is just like the priests who have been called into the ranks. To look at them from the outside you would never dream they were priests, but their hearts and their souls are untouched. She was so earnest in her pathetic youthfulness to put herself right with him, so unlike the English girls of his acquaintance who would have taken this charged companionship as a matter of course, that his face lost the smile and became grave, and he met her sad eyes. That was very bravely said, Jean. To me you will be always the most wonderful woman I have ever known. What caused you to speak to me the first day? She asked after a pause. I explained to you to apologise for staring rudely into your house. It was not because you said to yourself, here is a pretty girl looking at me, our girl and talk to her. Doggy threw his leg over the corner of the table and stood on indignant feet. Jean, how could you? He cried. She leaned back, her open palms on the table. The rare light came into her eyes. That's what I wanted to know. Now we understand each other, Monsieur Trevor. I wish you wouldn't call me Monsieur Trevor, said he. What else can I call you? I know no other name. Now he had in his pocket a letter from Peggy received that morning, beginning, my dearest Marmaduke. Peggy seemed far away, and the name still father. He was deliberating whether he should say, a pelémoire James or a pelémoire Jacques, and inclined to the latter as be more picturesque and intimate, when she went on, Denis, what is it your comrades call you? Doggy? Say that again. Doggy? He'd never dreamed that the hated appellation could sound so adorable. Well, no one except his officers called him by any other name, and he came with a visible charm from her lips. He brought about the most fascinating flash of the tips of her white teeth. He laughed. A la guerre comme à la guerre. If you call me that, you belong to the regiment. And I promise you it is a fine regiment. Eh bien, monsieur Doggy? There's no monsieur about it, he declared very happily. Tommy's a not monsieur. I know one who is, said Jean. So they talked in a young and foolish way, and Jean for a while forgot the tragedies that had gone and the tragedies that might come, and Doggy forgot both the peacock and ivory room and the fetid hold into which he would have to creep when the night's march was over. They talked of simple things, of Tronette, who'd been with Aunt Morin ever since she could remember. You've won her heart with your snuff. She has won mine with her discretion. Oh, oh! said Jean, shocked. And so on and so forth as they sat side by side on the kitchen table, swinging their feet. After a while they drifted to graver questions. What will happen to Jean if your aunt dies? Mondeur, said Jean. But you will inherit the property and the business? By no means. Aunt Morin had still a son who was already very old. He must be forty-six. He had expatriated himself many years ago, and was in Madagascar. The son who was killed was her Benjamin, the child of her old age. But all her little fortune would go to the colonial Gaspard whom Jean had never seen. But the farmer Lafollette. It has been taken and re-taken by Germans and French and English, Mont-Paul-Ramey, until there's no farm left. You ought to understand that. It was the thing that Doggie most perfectly understood, a patch of hideous wilderness, of poisoned, shells-guarded, ditch-defiled, barren, loathsome earth. And her other relations? Her near-uncle, her father's youngest brother, a curee in Douay in enemy occupation. She had not heard of him since the flight from Combray. But what is going to become of you? So long as one keeps a brave heart, what does it matter? I am strong. I have a good enough education. I can earn my living. Oh, don't make any mistake. I have no pity for myself. Those who wait their efforts in pitying themselves are not other stuff to make France victorious. I'm afraid I have done a lot of self-pitying, Jean. Don't do it any more, she said gently. I won't, said he. If you keep to the soul you have gained, you can't, said Jean. Toujours la sagesse. You were laughing at me. Koffe bid, said Doggie. Vanessa Mer came strolling towards the kitchen door. My two friends to pay their visit at overdue, said he. Jean slipped from the table and welcomed the newcomers in her calm, dignified way. Once more Doggie find himself regarding her as his senior in age and wisdom and conduct of life. The pathetic girlishness which he had revealed to him had gone. The age-investing ghosts had returned. Moe Grinde, interjected a British army French word now and then, and manifested delight when Jean understood. Phineas talked laboriously, endeavouring to expound his responsibility for Doggie's welfare. He bid his tutor. He used the word tutor. That's a guardian, you silly ass, cried Doggie. He means, as to tutor. Go on, or rather, don't go on, the lady isn't interested. Mais si, said Jean, catching at the last English word, it interests me greatly. Merci mademoiselle, said Phineas Grandly. I only wish to explain to you that while I live you need to have no fear for Doggie. I will protect him with my body from shells and promise to bring him safe back to you. And so will Monsieur Chendish. Morte, asked Moe. Phineas translated. Oui, oui, oui, said Moe, nodding vigorously. A spot of colour burned on Jean's pale cheek, and Doggie grew red under his tan skin. He cursed Phineas below his breath and exchanged a significant glance with Moe. Jean said, in her even voice, I hope all of the three muscadiers will come back safe. Moe extended a grimy hand. Well, good-bye, Miss. McPhail here and I must be going. She shook hands with both, wishing them bon chance, and they strolled away. Doggie lingered. You mustn't mind what McPhail says. He's only an old imbecile. You have two comrades who love you. That is the principal thing. I think they do, each in his own way. As for Moe, Moe, she laughed. He is delicious. Well, said he reluctantly, after a pause. Good-bye, Jean. Au revoir, Doggie. If I shouldn't come back, I mean if you were billeted somewhere else. I should like to write to you. Moe, ma musée bassière chez Madame Morin frédoux. That is the address. And would you write to? Without waiting for a reply, he scribbled what was necessary on a sheet torn from a notebook and gave it to her. Their hands met. Au revoir, Jean. Au revoir, Doggie. But I shall see you again tonight. Where? which is my secret. Mon chance." She smiled and turned to leave the kitchen. Doggy clattered into the yard. "'Being doing a fine bit of cart in Duggy,' said Private Appley-Yard from Taunton, who was sitting on a box nearby and writing a letter on his knees. "'Not so much of your courting, Spud,' replied Doggy-Chefley. "'Who are you writing to? Your best girl?' "'I'll be writing to my own lawful Mrs,' replied Spud-Appley-Yard. "'Then give her my love. Doggy Trevor's love,' said Doggy, and marched away through the groups of men. At the entrance to the barn he fell in with Phineas and Moe. "'Lady,' said the former, "'although I meant it as the time as a testimony of my affection, I'd be thinking that what I said to the young lady may not have been over-attacked full.' "'It was taking it too much for granted,' explained Moe, that you and her were sort of keeping in company.' "'You're a pair of idiots,' said Doggy, sitting down between them, taking out his pink packet of cup of rye. "'Have a cigarette.' "'Not if I was dying of—' "'Look here,' said Moe, with the light on his face of the earnest seeker after truth. "'If a chap ain't got no food, he's dying of hunger. If he ain't got no drink, he's dying of thirst. What the hell is he dying of? He ain't got no tobacco.' "'Army, serve his core,' said Phineas, pulling out his pipe. It was dark when a company marched away. Doggy had seen nothing more of Jean. He was just a little disappointed, for she had promised. He could not associate her with light words, yet perhaps she had kept her promise. She had said, Je vous verrai.' She had not undertaken to exhibit herself to him. He derived comfort from the thought. There was indeed something delicate and subtle and enchanting in the notion. As on the previous day the fine weather had changed with the night and a fine rain was falling. Doggy, an indistinguishable pac-laden ant in the middle of the four-abreast ribbon of similar pac-laden ants, trampled on in silence, thinking his own thoughts. A regiment going back to the trench in the night is, from the point of view of the pomp and circumstance of glorious war, a very lugubrious procession. The sight of it would have hurt an old-time poet. An experienced regiment has no lovely illusions. He knows what it is going to, and the knowledge makes it serious. It would much rather be in bed or on snug straw than plodding through the rain to four nights and days of eternal mud and stinking high explosive shell. It sets its teeth and is a very stern, silent, ugly conglomeration of men. Bloody night! growled Doggy's right-hand neighbour. Bloody! Doggy responded mechanically. But the Doggy was less bloody than usual. Jean's denunciation of self-pity had struck deep. Compared with her calamities, half of which would have been the stocking trade of a Greek dramatist were with to ring tears from mankind for a couple of thousand years. What were his own piffling grievances? As for the bloody night, instead of a drizzle he would have welcomed a water-spout, something that really mattered. Let the heavens or the Han rain molten lead! Something that would put him on an equality with Jean. Jean, with her dark, haunting eyes and mobile lips, and her slim young figure and her splendid courage, a girl apart from the girls he had known, apart from the women he had known, the women whom he had imagined, and he had not imagined many, his training had atrophied such imaginings of youth. Jean. Again her name conjured up visions of the great Jean of Doremi. If only you could have seen her once again. At the north end of the village the road took a sharp twist, scutting a bit of rising ground. There was just a glimmer of a warning light which streamed a thwart the turning ribbon of laden ants. And as Doggy wheeled through the dim ray, he heard a voice that rang out clear. Bon chance! He looked up swiftly, caught the shadow of a shadow. But it was enough. It was Jean. She kept her promise. The men responded incoherently, waving their hands. And Doggy's shout of Merci was lost. Though he knew with a wonderful throbbing knowledge that Jean's cry was meant for him alone, he was thrilled by his comrades' instant response to Jean's voice. Not a man, but he knew that it was Jean. But no matter, the company paid homage to Jean. Jean had come out in the rain and the wind and the dark, and had waited, waited, to redeem her promise. C'est mon secret. He cried on. Left, right. Thud, thud. Left, right. Jean, Jean. End of Chapter 14. In the village of Freilu life went on as before. The same men, though a different regiment, filled its streets and its houses. For by what signs could the inhabitants distinguish one horde of English infantrymen from another? Once a Highland battalion had been billeted on them, and for the first day or so they derived some excitement from the novelty of the costume. The historic Franco-Scottish tradition still lingered, and they welcomed the old allies of France with a special kindliness. But they found that the habits and customs of the men in kilts were identical in their franchise with those of the men in trousers. It is true that the Scotch had bankpipes. The village turned out to listen to them in whole-eyed and whole-earred wonder, and the memory of the scurling music remained indenable. Otherwise there was little difference. And when a Midland regiment succeeded a South Coast regiment, where was the difference at all? They might be the same men. Jean, standing by the kitchen door, watching the familiar scene in the courtyard, could scarcely believe that there had been a change. Now and again she caught herself wondering why she could not pick out any one of her three musketeers. There were two or three soldiers, as usual, helping Twanette with her crocs of the well. There she was herself, moving among them, as courteously treated as though she were a princess. Perhaps these men, whom she heard had come from manufacturing centers, were a trifle rougher in their manners than her later guests, but the intention of civility and rude chivalry was no less sincere. They came and asked for odds and ends very politely. To all intents and purposes they were the same set of men. Why was not doggy among them? It seemed very strange. After a while she made some sort of an acquaintance with a sergeant who had a few words of French and appeared anxious to improve his knowledge of the language. He explained that he had been a teacher in what corresponded to the French école normal. He came from Birmingham, which he gave her to understand was a glorified lille. She found him very earnest, very self-centered in his worship of efficiency. As he had striven for his class of boys, so now was he striving for his platoon of men. In a dogmatic way he expanded to her ideals severely practical. In their few casual conversations he interested her. The English, from the first terrible day of their association with her, had commanded her deep admiration. But until lately, in the most recent past, her sex, her national aloofness, and her ignorance of English had restrained her from familiar talk with the British Army. But now she keenly desired to understand this strange, imperturbable, kindly race. She put many questions to the sergeant, always at the kitchen door, in full view of the courtyard, for she never thought of abitting him into the house, and his answers, even when he managed to make himself intelligible, puzzled her exceedingly. One of his remarks led her to ask for what he was fighting, beyond his apparently fixed idea of the efficiency of the men under his control. What was the spiritual idea at the back of him? The democratization of the world and the universal brotherhood of mankind. When the British lunch shall lie down with the German lamb? He flashed a suspicious glance. Strangere schoolmasters in primary schools have little time for the cultivation of a sense of humour. Something of the sort must be the ultimate result of the war. But in the meantime you have got to change the German wolf into the petty mutton. How are you going to do it? By British efficiency, by proving to him that we are superior to him in every way, we'll teach him that it doesn't pay to be a wolf. And do you think he will like being transformed into a lamb while you remain a lion? I don't suppose so, but we'll give him his chance to try to become a lion too. Jean shook her head. No, monsieur, wolf he is, and wolf he will remain, a wolf with venomous teeth. The civilized world must see that the teeth are always drawn. I'm speaking of fifty years hence, said the sergeant. And I of three hundred years hence. Ah, you're mistaken, mademoiselle. Jean shook her head. No, I'm not mistaken. Tell me, why do you want it to become brother to the Bosch? I'm not going to be his brother till the war is over, said the sergeant stoddedly. At present I'm devoting all my faculties to killing as many of him as I can. She smiled. Sufficient for the day is the good thereof. Go on, killing them, monsieur. The more you kill, the fewer there will be for your children and your grandchildren to lie down with. She left him and tried to puzzle out his philosophy. For the ordinary French philosophy of the war is very simple. They have no highfalutin altruistic ideas of improving the Bosch. They don't care a tinker's curse what happens to the unholy brood beyond the Rhine, so long as they are beaten, humiliated, subjected. So long there is no chance of their ever deflowering again with their brutality, the sacred soil of France. The French mind cannot conceive the idea of this beautiful brotherhood. But on the contrary, rejects it as something loathsome, something bordering on spiritual defilement. No, Jean could not accept the theory that we were waging war for the ultimate chastening and beatification of Germany. She preferred Doggy's reason for fighting, for his soul. There was something which she could grip. And having gripped it, it was something around which her imagination could weave a web of noble fancy. After all, when she came to think of it, every one of the allies must be fighting for his soul. For his soul's sake had not her father died. Although she knew no word of German, it was obvious that the Ulaan officer had murdered him because he had refused to betray his country. And her uncle, to fight for his soul, had he not gone out with his heroic but futile sporting gun? And this pragmatical sergeant, what else had led him from his schoolroom to the battlefield? Why couldn't he be honest about it, like Doggy? She missed Doggy. He ought to be there, as she'd often seen him unobserved, talking with his friends, or going about his military duties, or playing the phallagiolet with a magical touch of the musician. She knew far more of Doggy than he was aware of. And at night she prayed for the little English soldier who was facing death. She had much time to think of him during the hours when she sat by the bedside of Antmarin, who talked incessantly of François-Marie, who was killed on the Argonne, and Gaspard, who as a territorial was no doubt defending Madagascar from invasion. And it was pleasant to think of him, because he was a new distraction from tragical memories. He seemed to lay the ghosts. He was different from all the Englishmen she had met. The young officers who had helped her in her flight have very much the same charm of breeding, very much the same intonation of voice. Instinctively she knew him to be of the same social caste, but they, and the officers whom she saw about the street and in the courtyard, when duty called them there, had the military air of command. And this her little English soldier had not. Of course he was only a private, and privates are trained to obedience. She knew that perfectly well. But why was he not commanding instead of obeying? There was a reason for it. She had seen it in his eyes. She wished she had made him talk more about himself. Perhaps she had been unsympathetic and selfish. He assumed, she reflected, a certain cranerie with his fellows, and cranerie is swagger bereft of vulgarity. We have no word to connote his conception in a French mind. And she admired it. But her swift intuition pierced the assumption. She devined a world of hesitancies behind the musketeer swing of the shoulders. He was so gentle, so sensitive, so quick to understand, and yet so proud, and yet again so unconfessedly dependent. Her woman's protective instinct responded to a mute appeal. —But, Maman Zorgen, you have went through, you are perished with cold. What folly have you been committing? —Toinette scalded, when she returned after wishing doggy the last bon chance. The folly of putting my French woman's heart, moqueur de Francaise, into the hands of a brave little soldier to fight with him in the trenches. —Mondieu, Maman Zorgen, you better go straight to bed, and I will bring you a bon dilule which will calm your nerves and produce a good perspiration. So, Tooinette put Jean to bed and administered the infallible infusion of lime leaves, and Jean was never the worst for her adventure. But the next day she wondered a little why she had undertaken it. She had a vague idea that it paid a little debt of sympathy. An evening or two afterwards, Jean was sewing in the kitchen, when Tooinette, sitting in the armchair by the extinct fire, fished out of her pocket the little olive wood box with the pandies and forget-me-nots on the lid, and took a long pinch of snuff. She did it with somewhat of an air which caused Jean to smile. —D'y donc, Pooinette, you are insupportable with your snuff-box, one would say a marquise of the old school. —Ah, mames aux gens, said the old woman. You must not laugh at me. I was just thinking that if anything happened to the petty monsieur, I couldn't have the heart to go on putting his snuff up my old nose. —Nothing will happen to him, said Jean. The old woman sighed and re-engulfed the stuff-box. —Who knows? From one minute to another, who knows whether the little ones who adhere to us are alive or dead? —And this petty monsieur is dear to you, Tooinette? —Jean asked, in her even voice, without looking up from her sewing. Since you resemble my betio. —He will come back, said Jean. —I hope so, said the old woman mournfully. In spite of manifold duties, Jean found the days curiously long. She slept badly. The tramp of the century below her window over the archway brought her no sense of comfort, as it had done for months before the coming of doggy. All the less did it produce the queer little thrill of happiness which was hers, when, looking down through the shutter-slats, she had identified in the darkness, on a change of guard, the little English soldier to whom she had spoken so intimately. And when he had challenged the rounds, she had recognised his voice. If she had obeyed an imbecile and an unmaidly impulse, she would have drawn open the shutter and revealed herself. But apart from maidenly shrinkings, familiarity with war had made her realise the sacred duties of a century, and she had remained in discreet seclusion, awake until his spell was over. But now the rhythmical beat of the heavy boots kept her from sleeping, and would have irritated her nerves intolerably, had not her sound common sense taught her that the stout fellow who wore them was protecting her from the hung, together with a million or so of his fellow countrymen. She found herself counting the days to doggy's return. At last it is to-morrow, she said to Twanette. What is to-morrow? asked the old woman. The return of our regiment, replied Jean. That is good, we have our regiment now, said Twanette ironically. The Midland Company marched away, as so many had marched away before. But Jean did not go to the little embankment at the turn of the road to wish any one good luck. She stood at the house door, as she had always done, to watch them pass in the darkness. For there is always something in the sight of men going into battle, which gives you a lump in the throat. For Jean it had almost grown into a religious practice. The sergeant had told her that the newcomers would arrive at dawn. She slept a little, awake with a start as day began to break. Dressed swiftly and went downstairs to wait. And then her ear caught the rumble and the tramp of the approaching battalion. Presently transport rolled by, and squads of men, haggard in the grey light, bending double under their packs, staggered along to their billets. And then came a rusty crew, among whom she recognized Macphail's tall, gaunt figure. She stood by the gateway, bare-headed, in her black dress and blue apron, defying the sharp morning air, and watched them pass through. She saw Mo Chendish, his eyes on the heels of the man in front. She recognized nearly all. But the man she looked for was not there. He could not have passed without her seeing him. But as soon as the gateway was clear, she ran into the courtyard and fled across it to cut off the men. There was no doggie. Blank disappointments were succeeded by sudden terror. Phineas saw her coming. He stumbled up to her, dropped his pack at her feet, and spread out both his hands. She lost sight of the horde of weary clay-covered men around her. She cried, Where is he? I don't know. He's dead. No one knows. But you must know you! cried Jean, with a new fear in her eyes, which Phineas could not bear to meet. You promised to bring him back? It was not my fault, said Phineas. He was out last night. No, the night before. This is morning. Repairing Baltoir. I was not with him. Me monture, why not? Because the duties of soldiers are arranged for them by their officers, mademoiselle. It is true. Pardon, but continue. A party went out to repair a wire. It was quite dark. Suddenly a German rifle-shot gave the alarm. The eminy threw up star-shells and the front trenches on each side open fire. The wiring party, of course, lay flat on the ground. One of them was wounded, when it was all over, didn't last long. Our men got back, bringing the wounded man. He is severely wounded. Speak! cried Jean. Ah, the wounded man was not Doggie. Doggie went out with the party, but he did not come back. That's why I said no one knows where he is. She's different. He's lying out there. He is dead. Chendish and I and Corporal Wilson over there, he was with the party, got permission to go out and search. We searched all round where the repair had been going on, but we couldn't find him. Merci. I ought not to have reproached you, she said steadily. C'est un grand meleur. You are right. Life for me is no longer of much value. She looked at him in her penetrating way. I believe you, she said. For the moment, oh revoir, you must be worn out with your fatigue. She left him and walked through the straggling men who made respectful way for her. All knew of her friendship with Doggie Trevor, and all realised the nature of this interview. They liked Doggie because he was good-natured and plucky and never complained, and would play the whistle on march as long as breath-enough remained in his body. As his uncle, the dean, had said, breed told. In a curious, half-grudging way they recognised the fact. They laughed at his singular inefficiency in the multitudinous arts of the handyman, proficiency in which is expected from the modern private, but they knew that he would go on till he dropped. And knowing that, they saved him from many a reprimand which his absurd efforts in the arts of Orso would have brought upon him, and now that Doggie was gone they deplored his loss. But so many had gone, so many had been deplored. Human nature is only capable of a certain amount of deploring while retaining its sanity. The men let the pale French girl, who was Doggie Trevor's friend, pass by in respectful silence. And that, for them, was their final tribute to Doggie Trevor. Jean passed into the kitchen. Tuanet drew a sharp breath at the sight of her face. Quoi, il n'est pas là? No, c'est Jean. Il is wounded. It was impossible to explain to Tuanet. Badly, they don't know. Oh, la la, sighed Tuanet. That always happens. That is what I told you. We have no time to think of such things, said Jean. The regimental cooks came up for the hot water, and soon the hungry, weary, nerve-wracked men were served with their morning meal. And Jean stood in the courtyard in front of the kitchen door and helped with the filling of the tea-cattles, as though no little English soldier called Doggie had ever existed in the regiment. The first pale shaft of sunlight fell upon the kitchen side of the courtyard, and in it Jean stood, illuminated. He touched the shades of gold in her dark brown hair, and lit up her pale face and great, unsmiling eyes. But her lips smiled valiantly. What you think, Mac? said Meshendish, squatting on the flag-stones. Do you think she was really sweet on him? Man, replied Phineas, similarly engaged. All I know is that she has added him to her collection of ghosts. It's not an overbought company for a lassie to live with. And then, soon afterwards, the trench-broken men stumbled into the barn to sleep, and all was quiet again, and Jean went about her daily tasks with the familiar hand of death once more closing idly around her heart. End of Chapter 15 The Sikrum was very hot, and Aunt Marat very quarrelous. Jean opened a window, but Aunt Marat complained of cuttings of air. Did Jean want to kill her? So Jean closed the window. The internal malady from which Aunt Marat suffered, and from which it was unlikely that she would recover, caused her considerable pain from time to time, and on these occasions she grew fractious and hard to bear with. The retired septuogenarian village doctor who had taken the modest practice of his son, now far away with the army, advised an operation. But Aunt Marat, with her peasants' prejudice, declined flatly. She knew what happened in those hospitals where they cut people up just for the pleasure of looking at their insides. She was not going to let a lot of butchers amuse themselves with her, old carcass. Oh, no! When he pleased the bondeur to take her, she was ready. The bondeur required no assistance from Saint Monsieur. And even if she had consented, how to take her to Paris, and once there, how to get the operation performed, with all the hospitals full and all the surgeons at the front? The old doctor shrugged his shoulders and kept life in her as best he might. Today, in the close room, she told a long story of the doctor's neglect. The medicine he gave her was water and nothing else, water with nothing in it. And to ask people to pay for that, she would not pay. What would Jean advise? Oui, m'attends, Saint-Jean. Oui, m'attends, but you are not listening to what I say. The least one can be polite. I am listening, m'attends. You should be grateful to those who lodge and not issue. I am grateful, m'attends," said Jean, patiently. Aunt Mara complained of being robbed on all sides. The doctor, Twanette, Jean, the English soldiers, the last, the worst of all. Besides not paying sufficiently for what they had, they were so wasteful in the things they took for nothing. If they begged for a few packets to make a fire, they walked away with the whole wood-stack. She knew them. But all soldiers were the same. They thought that in times of war civilians had no right. One of these days she would get up and come downstairs and see for herself the robbery that was going on. The windows were tightly sealed. The sunlight hurting Aunt Mara's eyes. The outside shutters were half-closed. The room felt like a stuffy, overheated, overcrowded sepulchre. An enormous oak press, part of her Breton diary, took up most of the side of one wall. This, and a great handsome chest, a couple of tables, a stiff-arm chair, were all too big for the moderately-sized apartment. Cut-up prints of sacred subjects, tilted at violent angles, seemed eager to occupy as much airspace as possible. And in the middle of the floor sprawled the vast oaken bed, with its heavy green brocade curtains falling tent-wise from a great tarnished gilt crown in the ceiling. Jean said nothing. What was the good? She shifted the enviride's hot pillow and gave her a drink of Tissan, moving about the over-furnished, airless room in her calm and efficient way. Her face showed no sign of trouble, but an arn-band clamped her forehead above her burning eyes. She could perform her nurse's duties, but it was beyond her part to concentrate her mind on the sick woman's unending litany of grievances. Far away beyond that darkened room, beyond that fretful voice, she saw vividly a hot waist, hideous with holes and rusted wire and shapes of horror. And in the middle of it lay huddled up a little karky-clad figure, with the sun blazing fiercely in his unblinking eyes. And his very body was beyond the reach of man, even of the most larn-hearted. —Mais couture, ma fille, a spant mara, you do not speak, when people are ill they need to be amused. —I am sorry, ma tuant, but I am not feeling very well to-day. It will pass. I hope so. Young people have no business not to feel well, otherwise what is the good of youth? It is true, Jean assented. But what she thought was indeed the good of youth in these terrible days of war. Her own was but a panorama of death. And now one more figure. This time one of youth, too, had joined it. —Tranat came in. —Mamuse en Jean, there are two English officers downstairs who wish to speak to you. —What do they want? Jean asked wearily. They do not say they just asked for Mamuse al-Bossierre. —They never leave one in peace, ces gens-là, grumbled Al-Bara. If they want more concessions in price, do not let them frighten you. Go to M. Le Maire to have it arranged with justice. These people would eat the skin off your back. Remember, Jean. —Bien, ma tante, c'est Jean. She went downstairs, conscious of gripping herself in order to discuss with the officers whatever business of billeting was in hand. For she dealt with all such matters since her arrival in Flédu. She reached the front door and saw a dusty car with a military chauffeur at the wheel, and two officers standing on the pavement of the foot of the steps. One she recognized as the commander of the company to which her billeted men belonged. The other was a stranger, a lieutenant with a different badge on his cap. They were talking and laughing together, like old friends newly met, which, by one of the myriad coincidences of the war, was rarely the case. On the appearance of Jean, they drew themselves up and saluted politely. —Amamuse al-Bossierre? —Oui, monsieur. Then, would you enter, monsieur? They entered the vestibule where the great casque gleamed in its polish and mahogany and brass. She bade them to be seated. —Amamuse al-Captain Willoughby tells me that you had billeted here last week a soldier by the name of Trevor, said the stranger, in excellent French, taking out notebook and pencil. Jean's lips grew white. She had not suspected their errand. —Oui, monsieur. Did you have much talk with him? —Much, monsieur. —Pardon, my indiscretion, Amamuse al-It is military service, and I am an intelligence officer. But did you tell him about your private affairs? —Very intimately, said Jean. The intelligence officer made a note or two, and smiled pleasantly. But Jean could have struck him for daring to smile. —You had every reason for thinking him a man of honour? —What's the good of asking her that, Smithers? —Captain Willoughby interrupted in English. —Haven't I given you my word? The man's a mysterious little devil. But any kafool can see that he's a gentleman. —What do you say? —Jean asked tensely. —Parle-français-très-per, replied Captain Willoughby with an air of regret. Smithers explained. Monsieur le captain says he guarantees the honesty of the soldier, Trevor. Jean flashed rigid. —Who could doubt it, monsieur? He was a gentleman, a fide-famille of the English aristocracy. —Excuse me for a moment, said Smithers. He went out. Jean, uncomprehending, sat silent. Captain Willoughby cursing an idiot education composed in his head a polite French sentence concerning the weather. But before he had finished, Smithers reappeared with a strange twisted packet in his hand. He held it out to Jean. —Ah, mademoiselle, do you recognise this? She looked at it, darling, for a moment. Then suddenly sprang to her feet and clenched her hands and stared, open-mised. She nodded. She could not speak. Her brain swam. There come to her about Doggy, who was dead, and they showed her pair Grigour's packet. What was the connection between the two? Willoughby rose impassively. —For God's sake, Smithers, let her down easy. She'll be feinting all over the place in a minute. —If this is your property, mademoiselle, said Smithers, laying the packet on the chenille-covered table, you have to thank your friend Trevor for restoring it to you. She put up both hands to her reading-head. —But he's dead, monsieur. —Ah, not a bit of it. He's just as much alive as you or I. Jean swayed, tried to laugh, threw herself half on a chair, half over the great casque, and broke down in a passion of tears. The two men looked at each other uncomfortably. —For exquisite tact, said Willoughby, commend me to an intelligence officer. —But how the deuce was I to know, Smithers muttered with an injured air. My instruction was to find out the truth of a cock-and-bull story, for that's what it seems to come to, and a girl in billets. Well, how was I to know what she was like? —Anyhow, here we've got hysterics, said Willoughby. —But who told her the fellow is dead? —Why, his pals! I thought so myself. When a man's missing, where's one supposed him to be, having supper at the Savoy? —Well, I give women up, said Smithers. I thought she'd be glad. —I believe you're a married man? —Yes, of course. —Well, I ain't, said Willoughby. And in a couple of strides, he's took close to Jean. He laid a gentle hand on her heaving shoulders. —Masked to a, sous-mong-blessé, he shouted. She sprang, as if it were, to attention, like a frightened recruit. —He's wounded? —Ah, not very seriously, Mamazelle. Smithers, casting an indignant glance at his superior officer's complacent smile, reassumed mastery of the situation. A botched sniper got him in the leg. He would put him out of service for a month or two, but there's no danger. —Grass adieu, said Jean. She leaned for a while against the casque, her hands behind her, looking away from the two men. And the two young men stood, somewhat embarrassed, looking away from her and from each other. At last, she said, with an obvious striving for the even note in her voice. —I ask your pardon, monsieur, but sometimes sudden happiness is more overwhelming than misfortune. I am now quite at your service. —My God, he's a wonder, murmured Willoughby, who is fair, unmarried, and impressionable. —Go on with your dirty work. —Smithers, conscious of linguistic superiority, in civil life she'd be concerned with the wine-trade in Bordeaux, proceeded to carry out his instructions. He turned over a leaf in his notebook and poised a ready pencil. —I must ask you, Mamazelle, some formal questions. —Perfectly, monsieur. —Where was this packet when last you saw it? —She made her statement calmly. —Can you tell me its contents? —Not all, monsieur. I, as a young girl, was not in the full confidence of my parents. But I remember my uncle saying there were about 20,000 francs in notes. Some gold, I know not how much. Some jewellery of my mother's, or a big handful. Rings, one, a hoop of emeralds and diamonds, a brooch, with a black pearl belonging to my great-grandmother. It is enough, Mamazelle, said Smithers, jotting down notes. —Anything else besides money and jewellery? There were papers of my father, sheer certificates, bonds, caissure, moi. —Smithers opened the packet, which had already been examined. —You're a witness, sir, to the identification of the property. —No, said Willoughby. I am just a baby captain of infantry. I wonder why the Brainy Intelligence Department doesn't hand the girl her belongings and decently clear out. —I've got to make my report, sir, said Smithers, stiffly. So the schedule was produced, and the notes were solemnly counted. Twenty-one thousand five hundred francs, and the gold four hundred francs, and the jewels were identified, and the bonds, of which Jean knew nothing, were checked by a list in her father's handwriting, and Jean signed a paper with Smithers' fountain pen, and Willoughby witnessed her signature, and thus she entered into possession of her heritage. The officers were about to depart, but Jean detained them. —Monsieur, you must pardon me, but I am quite bewildered. As far as I can understand, Monsieur Trevor rescued the packet from the well at my uncle's farm of La Follette, and got wounded in doing so. —That is quite so, said Smithers. But, Monsieur, they tell me he was with a party in front of his trench mending wire. How did he reach the well of La Follette? I don't comprehend at all. —Smithers turned to Willoughby. —Yes, how the dickens did you know the exact spot to go for? —Oh, we'd taken over a new section. I was getting the topography right with a map. Trevor was nearby doing nothing, and as he's a man of education, I asked him to help me. There was the site of the farm, marked by name, and the ruined well away over to the left in no-man's land. I remember the beggar calling out La Follette in a startled voice. When I asked him what was the matter, he said, —Nothing, sir. —Smithers translated and continued. —You see, ma'am, this is what happened, as far as I'm concerned. I belong to the Lancash of Fusiliers. Our battalion is in the trenches farther up the line than our friends. Well, just before dawn yesterday morning, a man rolled over the parapet into our trench and prompted fainted. He'd been wounded to the leg and was half dead from loss of blood. Under his tunic was this package. We identified him and his regiment, and fixed him up and took him to the dressing-station. But things looked very suspicious. He was a man who didn't belong to us, with a little fortune in loot on his person. As soon as he was fit to be interrogated, the CEO took him in hand. He told the CEO about you and your story. He regarded the nearness of the well as something to do with destiny, and resolved to get you back your property, if it was still there. The opportunity occurred when the wiring party was alarmed. He crept out to the ruins by the well, fished out the packet, and a sniper got him. He managed to get back to our lines, having lost his way a bit, and tumbled into our trench. But he was in danger of death all the time, said Jean, losing the steadiness of her voice. He was, every second. It was one of those daredevil scatter-brained things I've ever heard of. And I've heard of many, ma'am, as well. The only pity is that instead of being rewarded, he will be punished. Punished? cried Jean. Not very severely, laughs Mathers. Captain Willoway will see to that. But reflect, Mamazelle. His military duty was to remain with his comrades, not to go and risk his life to get your property. Anyhow, it is clear that he was not out for loot. Of course, they sent me here as intelligence officer to get corroboration of his story. He paused for a moment. Then he added, Mamazelle, I must congratulate you on the restoration of your fortune and the possession of a very brave friend. For the first time the red spots burned on Jean's pale face. Je vous remercie infiniment, monsieur. Oh, sir, all right! said Willoway. The officers saluted and went their ways. Jean took up her packet and mounted to her little room in a dream. Then she sat down on her bed, the unopened packet by her side, and strove to realise it all. But the only articulate thought came to her in the words which she repeated over and over again. Il a fait cela pour moi. Il a fait cela pour moi. He had done that for her. It was incredible, fantastic, thrillingly true, like the fairy tales of her childhood. The little sensitive English soldier whom his comrades protected, whom she herself in a feminine way longed to protect, had done this for her. In a shy, almost reverent way, she opened out the waterproof covering as though to reassure herself of the reality of things. For the first time since she left Combray, a smile came into her eyes, together with grateful tears. Il a fait cela pour moi. Il a fait cela pour moi. A while later she relieved Twanette's guard in the Sichrum. Immure, and the two officers, craied Aunt Marat after Twanette had gone, they have stayed a long time. What did they want? Jean was young. She had eaten the bread of dependence, which Aunt Marat, by reason of racial instinct and the stress of sorrow and infirmity, had contrived to render very bitter. She could not repress an exultant note in her voice. Doggy, too, were kinder for something, for much. They came to bring good news, Matante. The English have found all the money and the jewels and the shared certificates the Père Grigou hid in the well of Lafollette. Mon Dieu, it is true. Oui, Matante. And they have restored them to you? Yes. It is extraordinary. It is truly extraordinary. At last these English seem to be good for something. And they found that and gave it to you without taking anything? Without taking anything, said Jean. Aunt Marat reflected for a few moments, then she stretched out a thin hand. Ma petite chante, chérie, you are rich now. I don't know exactly, replied Jean, with a mingling of truth and caution. I have enough for the present. How did it all happen? It was part of a military operation, said Jean. Perhaps later she might tell Aunt Marat about Droggy. But now the thing was too sacred. Aunt Marat would question, question maddingly, until the rainbow of her fairy tale was unwoven. The salient fact of the recovery of her fortune should be enough for Aunt Marat. It was. The old woman of the pain-pinched features looked at her wistfully from sunk and gray eyes. And now that you are rich, my little Jean, you will not leave your poor old aunt who loves you so much to die alone? Ah, mais non, mais non, mais non! cried Jean indignantly. What did you think I am made of? Ma, breathed Aunt Marat comforted. Also, said Jean, in the matter-of-fact French way, si tu veux, I will henceforth pay for my lodging and nourishment. You are very good, my little Jean, said Aunt Marat. That will be a great help for what we are very poor. Oui, ma tante, it is the war. Ah, the war, the war, this awful war! One has nothing left. Jean smiled. Aunt Marat had a very comfortably invested fortune left, for the late Monsieur Marat, corn, hay, and seed-merchant, had been a very astute person. It would make little difference to the comfort of Aunt Marat, or to the prospects of cousin Gaspar de Madagascar, whether the present business of Verve Marat at Fuy went on or not. Of this, Aunt Marat, in lighter moods, had boasted many times. Everyone must do what they can, said Jean. Perfectly, said Aunt Marat, you are a young girl who well understands things. And now it is not good for young people to stay in a sick room. One needs the fresh air. What a destremer petit! I am quite comfortable. Saint Jean went out to distract herself already distraught with great wonder, great pride, and great fear. He had done that for her. The wonder of it bewildered her. The pride of it thrilled her. But he was wounded. Fear smothered her joy. They had said there was no danger. But soldiers always made light of wounds. It was their way in this horrible war, in the intimate midst of which she had her being. If a man was not dead, he was alive, and thereby accounted lucky. In their gay optimism they had given her month or two of absence from the regiment. But even in a month or two, where would the regiment be? Far, far away from Thélu. Would she ever see Doggy again? To distract herself she went down the village street, bareheaded, and up the lane that led to the little church. The church was empty, cool, and smelt of the hillside. Before the tinsel-crowned, mild-faced image of the Virgin was spread to the poor, voted offerings of the village. And Jean sank on her knees, and bowed her head, and without special prayer or formula or devotion, gave herself into the hands of the mother of Soros. She walked back comforted, vaguely conscious of her strengthening of soul. In the vast catalysm of things, her own hopes and fears and destiny matter very little. If she never saw Doggy again, if Doggy recovered and returned to the war and was killed, her own grief mattered very little. She was but a stray straw, and mattered very little. But what mattered infinitely, what shone with an immortal flame, though never so tiny, was the wonderful spiritual something that had guided Doggy through the jaws of death. That evening she had a long talk in the kitchen with Phineas. The news of Doggy's safety had been given out by Willoughby without any details. Most shengish had leaped about her like a fox-terrier, and she had laughed, difficulty restraining her tears. But to Phineas alone, she told her whole story. He listened in bewilderment, and the greater the bewilderment, the worse his crude translations of English into French. She wound up a long eager speech by saying, He has done this for me, why? Love replied Phineas bluntly. It is more than love, said Jean, thinking of the wonderful spiritual something. If you could understand English, said Phineas, I would enter into the metaphysics of the subject with pleasure, but in French it is beyond me. Jean smiled and turned to the matter of fact. He would go to England now that he is wounded. He is on the way now, said Phineas. Has he many friends there? I ask because he talks so little of himself, he is so modest. Oh, many friends! You see Mamma Zelle, said Phineas, with a view to setting her mind at rest. Doggy is an important person in his part of the country. He was brought up in luxury. I know, because I live with him as his tutor for seven years. His father and mother are dead, and he could go on living in luxury now, if he liked. He is then rich, Doggy. He has a fine house of his own in the country, with many servants and automobiles, and— Wait! He made a swift arithmetical calculation, and an income of eighty thousand francs a year. Comment! cried Jean, sharply, with a little frown. Phineas McPhail was enjoying himself, basking in the sunshine of Doggy's wealth. Also, when conversation in French resolved itself into the statement of simple facts, he could get along famously. So the temptation of the dlib phrase outran his discretion. Doggy has a fortune of about two million francs. He will do a fair, a beau mariage, said Jean, with stony calm. Phineas suddenly became aware of pitfalls, and summoned his craft, and astuteness, and knowledge of affairs. He smiled, as he thought, encouragingly. We only find marriages with the person one loves. Not always, Monsieur, said Jean, who had watched the gathering of the sagacities with her deep eyes. In any case, she rose and held out her hand, our friend will be well looked after in England. Like a prince, said Phineas. He strayed away greatly pleased with himself, and went and found Moe Shendish. Man said he, have you ever reflected that the dispensing of happiness is the cheapest form of human diversion? What you've been doing now, asked Moe. I've just left a lassie tottering over with blissful dreams. Call Blimey, said Moe, and to think that if I could sling the lingo, I might have done the same. But Phineas had knocked all the dreams out of Jean. The British happy-go-lucky ways of marriage are not those of the French Bois-Jazis, and Jean had no notion of British happy-go-lucky ways. Phineas had knocked the dream out of Jean by kicking Doggy out of her sphere. And there was a girl in England in Doggy's sphere whom he was to marry. She knew it. A man does not gather his sagacities in order to answer crookedly a direct challenge, unless there is some necessity. Well, she would never see Doggy again. He would pass out of her life. His destiny caught him, if he survived the slaughter of the war, to the shadowy girl in England. Yet he had done that for her. For no other woman could he ever in his life do that again. It was past love. Her brain boggled at an elusive spiritual idea. She was very young, flung cleanly trained from the convent into the war's terrific tragedy, wherein maiden romantic fancies were scorched in the tender bud. Only her honest traditions of marriage remained. Of love she knew nothing. She leaped beyond it, seeking, seeking. She would never see him again. There she met the absolute. But he had done that for her. That which she knew not why, but she knew. He would do it for no other woman. The splendour of it would be her everlasting possession. She undressed that night, proud, dried-eyed, heroical, and went to bed, and listened to the rhythmic tramp of the sentry across the gateway below her window. And suddenly a lump rose in her throat, and she fell to crying miserably. End of Chapter 16 How are you feeling, Trevor? Nicely, thank you, sister. Glad to be in Blighty again? Doggy smiled. Good old Blighty. Leg hurting you? A bit, sister, he replied, with a little grimace. It's bound to be stiff after the long journey, but we'll soon fix it up for you. I'm sure you will, he said politely. The nurse moved on. Doggy drew the cool, clean sheet around his shoulders, and gave himself up to the luxury of bed, real bed. The morning sunlight poured through the open windows, attended by a delicious odour, which after a while he recognized the scent of the sea. Where he was he had no notion. He had absorbed so much of Tommy's philosophy as not to care. He had arrived with a convoy the night before, after much travel in ambulances by land and sea. If he had been a walking-case, he might have taken more interesting things. But the sniper's bullet in his thigh had touched the bone, and in spite of being carried most tenderly about like a baby, he had suffered great pain, and longed for nothing, and thought of nothing, but a permanent resting-place. Now, apparently, he had found one, and, looking about him, he felt peculiarly content. He seemed to have seen no cleaner, whiter, brighter place in the world than this airy ward swept by the sea breeze. He counted seven beds beside his own. On a table running down the ward stood a vase of sweet peas and a bowl of roses. He thought there was never in the world so clean and cool a figure as the great glad nurse in her spotless white apron, cuffs, and cap. When she passed near him again, he summoned her. She came to his bedside. What do you call this particular region of Fairyland? She stared at him for a moment, adjusting things in her mind. For his name and style were 35792 Private Trevor J.M., but his voice and phrase were those of her own social class. Then she smiled and told him. The corner of Fairyland was a private auxiliary hospital in a Lancashire seaside town. Lancashire, said Doggy, knitting his brow in a puzzled way. But why have they sent me to Lancashire? I belong to a west country regiment, and all my friends are in the south. What's he grousing about, sister? Suddenly asked the occupant of the next bed. He's the sort of shout that doesn't know when he's in luck and when he isn't. Arm in the duty of Cormor's Light Infantry, I am, and when I was hit before, they sent me to a military hospital in Inverness. That'll teach you, my lad. It is for me every time. You ought to have something to grouse at. I'm not grousing, you idiot, said Doggy. Yeah, who's he calling an idiot? cried the Duke of Cormor's Light Infantryman, raising himself on his elbow. The nurse intervened. Explained that no one could be said to grumble at a hospital when he called it Fairyland. Trevor's question was that of one in search of information. He did not realise that in assigning men to the various hospitals in the United Kingdom, the authorities could not possibly take into account an individual man's local association. Oh, well, if it's only his blooming ignorance. That's just it, mate, smiled Doggy, my blooming ignorance. That's all right, said the nurse. Now, your friends. He had all right to call me an idiot, said the Duke of Cormor's Light Infantryman. He was an aggressive, red-visaged man with bristly black hair and stubbly black mustache. If you'd agree that he wasn't grousing, Penworthy, I'm sure Trevor will apologise for calling you an idiot. And into the nurse's eyes crept the queer smile of the woman learned in the ways of children. Didn't I say he wasn't grousing? It was only his ignorance? Doggy responded, I meant no offense, mate, in what I said. The other growled in acceptance, whereupon the nurse smiled on ironic benediction and moved away. Where did you get it? asked Penworthy. Doggy gave the information, and in his turn made the polite counter-inquiry. Penworthy's bit of shrapnel, which had broken a rib or two, had been acquired just north of Albear. When he left, he said, we were putting it over in great quantities. That's rather great, but it's going to be in a few days. Aren't you sorry you're out of it? Me? The Duke of Cormor's Light Infantryman shook his head. I take things as I find them, and I find this quite good enough. So they chatted, and in the soldier's way became friends. Later the surgeon arrived and probed Doggy's wound and hurt him exquisitely, so that the perspiration stood out on his forehead, and his jaws ached afterwards from his clenching of them. While his leg was being dressed, he reflected that, a couple of years ago, if anyone had inflicted a twentieth part of such torture on him, he would have yelled the house down. He remembered, with an inward grin, the anguished precautions on which he had insisted whenever he sat down in the chair of his expensive London dentist. It must have hurt like fun, said the nurse, busily engaged with the Gaul's dressing. It's all in the day's work, replied Doggy. The nurse pinned the bandage and settled him comfortably in bed. No one will worry you till dinner time. You'd better try to have a sleep. So Doggy nodded and smiled, and curled up as best he could, and slept the heavy sleep of the tired young animal. It was only when he awoke, physically vested and comparatively free from pain, that his mind, hitherto confused, began to work clearly, to straighten out for three days' tangle. Yes, just three days, a fact almost impossible to realise, till now it had seemed an eternity. He lay with his arms crossed under his head and stared at the blue sky, a soft, comforting English sky. The ward was silent. Only two beds were occupied, one by a man asleep, the other by a man reading a novel. His other roommates, including his neighbour Penworthy, were so far confalescent as to be up and away, presumably by the life-giving sea, whose rhythmic murmur he could hear. For the first time since he awoke to find himself bandaged up in a strange dugout, and surrounded by strange faces, did the chaos of his ideas resolve itself into anything like definite memories? Yet many of them were still vague. He'd been out there with a wiring-party in the dark. He'd been glad, he remembered, to escape from the prison of the trench into the open air. He was having some difficulty with a recalcitrant bit of wire, that refused to come straight and jammed him diabolically in unexpected places. When a shot rang out and German flares went up, and everybody lay flat on the ground, while bullets spat about them. As he lay on his stomach, a flare lit up the ruined well of the farm of Lafollette. And the well and his nose and his heels were in a beeline. The realisation of the fact was the inception of a fascinating idea. He remembered that quite clearly. Of course, his discovery two days before of the spot where Jean's fortune lay hidden, when Captain Willoughby, with map and periscope, had called him into consultation, had set his heart beating and his imagination working. But not till that moment of stark opportunity had he dreamed of the mad adventure which he undertook. There, in front of him, at the very farthest three hundred yards away, in beeline with nose and heels, that was the peculiar and arresting fact, Les Jean's fortune. In thinking of it, he lost kind of shots and star shells, and heard no orders, and saw no dim forms creeping back to the safety of the trench. And then all was darkness and silence. Doggy lay on his back and stared at the English sky, and wondered how he did it. His attitude was out of a man who cannot reconcile his sober self with the idiot hero of a drunken freak. And yet, at the time, the journey to the ruined well seemed the simplest thing in the world. The thought of Jean's delight shone uppermost in his mind. Oh! he was forgetting the star which hung low beneath the canopy of cloud, the extreme point of the famous feet, nose, and well, beeline. He made for it, now and then walking low, now and then crawling. He did not mind his clothes and hands being torn by the unseen refuse of no man's land. His chief sensation was one of utter loneliness mingled with exultance and freedom. He did not remember feeling afraid, which was odd, because when the star shells had gone up, and the German trenches had opened fire on the wiring party, his blood had turned to water, and his heart had sunk into his boots, and he had been ducidly frightened. Heaven must have guided him straight to the well. He had known all along that he merely would have to stick his hand down to find the rope, and he felt no surprise when the rope actually came in contact with his groping fingers. No surprise when he pooled and pooled and fished up the packet. It had all been preordained. That was the funny part of the business which Doggy now could not understand, but he remembered that when he had buttoned his tunic over the precious packet, he had been possessed of an insane desire to sing and dance. He repressed his desire to sing, but he leaped about and started to run. Then the star in which he trusted must have betrayed him. He must have shed upon him a ray just strong enough to make him a visible object. For suddenly, bing, something hit him violently on the leg, and bolt him over like a rabbit into a providential shell-hole. And there he lay quaking for a long time, while the lunacy of his adventure coarsely and unsentimentally revealed itself. As to the rest, he was in a state of default memory. Only one incident in that endless, cruel, cruel home remained as a landmark in his mind. He paused to take breath, almost ready to give up the impossible flight. It seemed as though he were dragging behind him a ton of red-hot iron. When he became conscious of a stench violent in his nostrils, he put out a hand. It encountered a horrible, once human face, and his fingers touched a round, recognizable cap. Horror drove him away from the dead German, and inspired him with the strength of despair. Then all was fog and dark again, until he recovered consciousness in the strange dugout. Then the doctor had said to him, You must have a cast-iron constitution, my lad. The memory caused a flicker round his lips. It wasn't everybody who could crawl on his belly for nearly a quarter of a mile with a bullet through his leg, and come up smiling at the end of it. A cast-iron constitution. If he'd only known it fifteen, even ten years ago, what a different life he might have led. The great disgrace would never have come upon him. And Jean, what of Jean? After he had told his story, they had given him to understand that an officer would be sent to Trélu to corroborate it, and, if he found it true, that Jean would enter into possession of her packet. And that was all he knew, for they had bundled him out of the front trenches as quickly as possible. And once out he'd become a case, a stretchy case, although he had been treated as a case with almost superhuman tenderness, not as old regarded him as a human being with a personality or a history, not even with a military history. And this same military history had vaguely worried him all the time, and now that he could think clearly, worried him with a very definite worry. In leaving his firing-party, he had been guilty of a crime. Every Mr. Domino in the army is termed a crime, from murder to appearing buttonless on parade. Was it desertion? If so, he might be shot. He had not thought of that when he started on his quest. It had seemed so simple to account for half an hour's absence by saying that he had lost his way in the dark. But now that plausible excuse was invalid. Doggy thought terribly hard that quiet, sea-scented morning. After all, it did not very much matter what they did to him. Sticking him up against the wall and shooting him was a remote possibility. He was in the British, and not the German army. Field punishments of unpleasant kinds were only inflicted on people convictive of unpleasant delinquencies. If he were a sergeant or a corporal, he doubtless would be broken. But such is the fortunate position of a private that it cannot be degraded to an inferior rank. At the worst they might give him cells when he recovered. While he could stick it, it didn't matter. What really mattered was Jean. Was she in undisputed possession of her packet? When it was a question of practical warfare, Doggy had blind faith in his officers, and faith perhaps even more childlike than that of his fellow privates. For officers were the man who had come through the ordeal which he had so lamentably failed. But when it came to administrative affairs, he was more critical. He had suffered during his military career from more than one subordinate on whose arid consciousness the brainwave never beat. He never met even a field officer before whom, in the realm of intellect, he had stood in awe. If any one of those dimly envisaged and still more dimly remembered officers of the Lancashire fusiliers had ordered him to stand on his head on top of the parapet, he would have obeyed in cheerful confidence. But he was not at all certain that, in the effort to deliver the package to Jean, they would not make an unholy mess of things. He stole stacks of dirty yellowish bits of paper, with AF number, something rather, floating between Threlou and the Lancashire Battalion HQ and the Brigade HQ and the divisional HQ, and so on through the majesty of GHQ to the awful war office itself. In pessimistic mood he thought that if Jean recovered her property within a year she would be lucky. What a wonderful creature was Jean. He shut his eyes to the blue sky and pictured her as she stood in the light on the ragged escarpment, with the garments beaten by wind and rain. And he remembered the weary thud, thud of railway and steamer, which had resolved itself like the rhythmic tramp of feet that night, into the ceaseless refrain. Jean, Jean. He opened his eyes again and frowned at the blue English sky. It had no business to proclaim simple serenity when his mind was in such a state of complex tangle. It was all very well to think of Jean, who it was unlikely that fate would ever allow him to see again, even supposing the war ended during his lifetime. But there was Peggy, Peggy, his future wife, who had stuck to him loyally through good and evil repute. Yes, there was Peggy, not the faintest shadow of doubt about it. Doggy kept on frowning at the blue sky. Blighty was a very desirable country, but in it you were compelled to think. An enforced thought was an infernal nuisance. The beastly trenches had their good points after all. There you were not called upon to think of anything. The less you thought, the better for your job. You just etched your bully-beef and drank your tea and cursed whiz-bangs and killed a rattle-to, and thanked God you were alive. Now that he came to look at it in proper perspective, it wasn't at all a bad life. When had he been worried to death as he was now? And there were his friends, the humorous, genial, debauched, yet ever kindly, Phineas. Dear old Mo Shendish, whose material feet were hankering after the valga pavement of Mare Street, Hackney, but whose spiritual tread rang on golden floors dimly imagined by the seer of Patmos. Barrett, the DCM, the miniature Hercules, who, according to legend, though modestly he would never own to it, seized two Bosch by the neck and knocked their heads together till they died, and who, musically inclined, would sit at his, Doggy's, feet, while he played on his penny whistle all the sentimental tunes he had ever heard of. Sergeant Bellinghall, a tire of a man, a champion amateur heavyweight boxer, with a voice compared with which a megaphone sounded like a maiden's prayer, and a bardolfian nose and an eagle eye, and the heart of a broody hen, who not only given him boxing lessons, but who pulled him through difficult places innumerable, and scores of others. He wondered what they were doing. He also was foolish enough to wonder whether they missed him. Forgetting for the moment, that if a regiment took seriously to missing their comrades sent to kingdom come, more blightly, they would be more like weeping willows than destroyers of huns. All the same, he knew that he would always live in the hearts of two or three of them, and the knowledge brought him considerable comfort. It was strange to realise how the tentacles of his being stretched out gripenly towards these, from the old Dirtlebury point of view, impossible friends. They grafted themselves onto his life. Or was that a correct way of putting it? Had they not rather all grafted themselves onto a common stock of life, said that the one common sap ran through all their veins? It took him a long time to get this idea formulated, fixed, and accepted. But Doggy was not one to boggle at the truth as he saw it. And this was the truth. He, James Marmaduke Trevor of Denby Hall, was a tommy of the tommys. He had lived the tommy life intensely. He was living it now. And the extraordinary part of it was that he didn't want to be anything else but a tommy. From the social gregarious point of view, his life for the past year had been one of unclouded happiness. The realisation of it, now that he was clearly sizing up the ramshackle thing which he called his existence, hit him like the butt end of a rifle. Hardship, cold, hunger, fatigue, stench, rats, the dread of inefficiency. All these had been factors of misery which he could never eliminate from his soldier's equation. But such free, joyous, intimate companionship with real human beings, he'd never enjoyed since he was born. He longed to be back among them, doing the same old weary, dreary things, eating the same old Robinson Crusoe kind of food, crunching with them in the same old beastly hole in the ground, while the boss let loose hell on the trench. Most changes his grin and his ear, getting out of the rain, and his grip on his shoulder, dragging him a few inches farther into shelter, were a spiritual compensation transcending physical discomforture and perils. It's all damn funny, he said half aloud. But this was England, and although he was hedged about, protected and restricted by war-office regulation red tape, twisted round to the strength of steel cables, yet he was in command of telegraphs, of telephones, and in a secondary degree of the railway system of the United Kingdom. He found himself deprecating the compulsory facilities of communication in the civilized world. The deanery must be informed of his homecoming. As soon as he could secure the service of a nurse, he wrote out three telegrams, one addressed Conover, the deanery, Dirtlebury, one to Peddle, a Denby Hall, and one to Jean. The one to Jean was the longest and was reply paid. This is going to cost a small fortune, young man, said the nurse. Doggy smiled as he drew out a one-pound treasury note from his soldier's pocket-book, the pathetic object containing a form of will on the right-hand flap, and on the left the directions for the making of the will, including with the world-famous typical signature of Thomas Atkins. It's a bust, sister, said he. I've been saving up for it for months. Then, duly accomplished, he reconciled himself to the corner of Farreland in which he had awoke that morning. Things must take their course, and while they were taking it, why worry? So long as they didn't commit the outrage of giving him bully-beef for dinner, the present coolness and comfort sufficed for his happiness. End of Chapter 17