 CHAPTER XV The next morning he strode in while I was at breakfast, handsome, erect, deep-chested, the incarnation of physical strength, with a glad light in his eyes. Take me, old man, he cried, gripping my frail shoulder. I have three days extra leave, and more than that I go out in command of the regiment. No temporary business, but permanent rank, gazetted in due course. Benetine, that's our Colonel, damned good soldier, has got a staff appointment. I take his place. I promise you the Fourth King's rifles are going to make history, either history or manure. History for choice. As I say, Benetine's a damned good soldier, and personally as brave as a lion, but when it comes to the regiment he's too much on the cautious side, the regiment's only longing to make things hum, and I'm going to let him do it. I congratulated him in politely appropriate terms, and went on with my bacon and eggs. He sat on the window-seat and tapped his gators with his cane life-preserver. He wore his cap. I thought you'd like to know, said he, you've been so good to the old mother while I've been away, and been so charitable listening to my yarns while I've been here, that I couldn't resist coming round and telling you. I suppose your mother's delighted, said I. He threw back his head and laughed, as though he had never a black thought or memory in the world. Dear old mother, she has the impression that I'm going out to take charge of the blessed campaign, so if she talks about my dear son's army, don't let her down like a good chap, for she'll think either me a fraud or you a liar. He rose suddenly with a change of expression. You're the only man in the world I could talk to like this about my mother. You know the sterling goodness and loyalty that lies beneath her funny little ways. He strode to the window which looks out onto the garden, his back turned to me. And there he stood silent for a considerable time. I helped myself to marmalade and poured out a second cup of tea. There was no call for me to speak. I had long realized that whatever may have been the man's sins and weaknesses. He had a very deep and tender love for the Dresden China old lady that was his mother. There was London of the clubs and the theatres and the restaurants and the nightclubs, a war London full and alive. Not dead as in August's afar-off tradition, all ready to give him talk and gaiety and the things that matter to the man who escapes for a brief season from the never-ending hell of the battlefield, ready too to pour flattery into his ear to touch his scars with the softest of its lingers. Yet he chose to stay a recluse in our dull little town, avoiding even the kindly folk roundabout in order to devote himself to one dear but entirely uninteresting old woman. It is not that he despised London preferring the life of the country gentlemen. On the contrary, before the war Leonard Boyce was very much the man about town. He loved the glitter and the chatter of it. From chance words during this spell of leave I had divine hankering after its various flush pots. For the sake of one old woman he made reckless and gallant sacrifice. When he was bored to misery he came round to me. I learned later that in visiting Wellingsford he faced more than boredom. All of this you must put to the credit side of his ledger. There he stood, his great broad shoulders and bull-neck silhouetted against the window. That broad expanse a bit fleshy below the base of the skull indicates brutality. Never before, to my eyes, had the sign asserted itself with so much aggression. I had often wondered why, apart from the Villebook firm legend, I had always disliked and distrusted him. Now I seem to know. It was the neck not of a man, but of a brute. The curious repulsion of the previous evening when he had carried me into the house came over me again. On junction of arm and body protruded six inches of the steel-covered life-preserver, the wash leather that hid its ghastly knob staring at me blankly. I hated the thing. The gallant English officer, and in my time I have known and loved many of the most gallant, does not go about in private life fondling a trophy reeking with the blood of his enemies. It is the trait of a savage. That truculent knob and that truculent bull-neck correlated themselves most horribly in my mind. And again with a shiver I had the haunting flash of a vision of him out of the tail of my eye, standing rigid and gaping between the two cars, while my rugged old marigold and a business-like old soldier sort of away, without thought of danger or death, was swaying at the head of the runaway horse. Presently he turned, and his brows were set above unfathomable hard eyes. The short cropped mustache could not hide the curious twitch of the lips which I had seen once before. It was obvious that these few minutes of silence had been spent in deep thought and had resulted in a decision. A different being from the gay, successful soldier who had come in to announce his honors confronted me. He threw down cap and stick, and passed his hand over his crisp brown hair. I don't know whether you're a friend of mine or not, he said, hands on hips and gaitered legs slightly apart. I've never been able to make out. All through our intercourse, in spite of your courtesy and hospitality, there has been some sort of reservation on your part. If that is so, said I diplomatically, it is because of the defects of my national quality. That's possibly what I've felt, said he, but it doesn't matter a damn with regard to what I want to say. It's a question not of your feelings towards me, but my feelings towards you. I don't want to make polite speeches, but you're a man whom I have every reason to honor and trust. And unlike all my other brother officers, you have no reason to be jealous. My dear fellow, I interrupted. What's all this about? Why, jealousy? You know what a pot-hunter is in athletics? A chap that is simply out for prizes? Well, that's what a lot of them think of me, that I'm just out to get orders and medals and distinctions and so forth. That's nonsense, said I. I happen to know your reputation in the brigade is unassailable. In the way of my having done what I'm credited with, it is, he answered. But all the same, they're right. What do you mean? I asked. What I say. They're right. I'm out for everything I can get. Now I'm out for a VC. I see you think it abominable. That's because you don't understand. No one but I myself could understand. I feel like I owe it to myself. He looked at me for a second or two and then broke into a sardonic sort of laugh. I suppose you think me a conceited ass, he continued. Why should Leonard Boyce be such a vastly important person? Isn't that, I assure you? I lit a cigarette, having waved an invitation to join me, which with a nod he refused. But is it then? Has it ever struck you that often a man's most merciless creditor is himself? Here was a chasmistic proposition thrown at my head by the last person I should have suspected of doing so. It was immensely interesting, in view of my long puzzle-dom. I spoke warily. That depends on the man, on the nice balance of his dual nature. On the one side is the power to demand, mercilessly. On the other the instinct to respond. Of course, the criminal. What are you dragging in criminals for? He said sharply. I'm talking about honorable men with consciences. Criminals haven't consciences. The devil, who has just been hung from murdering three women in their baths, haven't any dual nature, as you call it. Those murders didn't represent to him a mountain of debt to God, which his soul was summoned to discharge. He went to his death, thinking himself a most unlucky and hardly used fellow. His fingers went instinctively into the cigarette box. I passed in the matches. Precisely, said I, that was the point I was about to make. He puffed at his cigarette and looked rather foolish as though regretting his outburst. We've got a way, he said after a pause, from what I was meaning to tell you. And I want to tell you, because I may and have another chance. He turned to the window seat and picked up his life preserver. I'm out for two things. One is to kill Germans, he patted the covered knob, and there flashed across my mind a boyhood's memory of Martin. Wasn't it, Martin? In Hereward the Wake, who had a deliciously blood-curdling habit of patting his revengeful acts. I've done in eighty-five with this and my revolver, that I consider is my duty to my country. The other is to get the VC, that's for payment to my credit herself. In full or on account, said I. There's only one payment in full, he answered grimly, and that I've been offering for the past twelve months, and it's a thousand chances to one it will be accepted before the end of this year. And that, after all this palaver, is what I've just made up my mind to talk to you about. You mean your death? Just that, said he. A man pot-hunting for Victoria Crosses takes a thousand to one chance. He paused abruptly and shot an eager and curiously wavering glance at me. Am I boring you with all this? Good heavens know. And then as the insistence of his great figure towering over me had begun to fret my nerves, sit down, man, said I, with an impatient gesture, and put that sickening toy away and come to the point. He tossed the cane on the window-seat and sat near me on a straight-back chair. All right, he said, I'll come to the point. I shan't see you again. I'm going out in command. Thank God we're in the thick of it, round about loose. It's a thousand to one I'll be killed. Life doesn't add her much to me, in spite of what you may think. There are only two people on God's earth I care for. One, of course, is my old mother. The other is Betty Fairfax, I mean Betty Connor. I spoke to you once about her, after I had met her here, and I gave you to understand that I had broken off our engagement from conscientious motives. It was an awkward position, and I had to say something. As a matter of fact, I acted abominably, but I couldn't help it. The corners of his lips suddenly worked in the odd little twitch. Sometimes circumstances, especially if a man's own damn foolishness has contrived them, tie him hand and foot, sometimes physical instincts that he can't control. He narrowed his eyes and bent forward, looking at me intently, and he repeated the phrase slowly, physical instincts that he can't control. Was he referring to the incident of yesterday? I thought so. I also believed that it was the mote of power of this strangely intimate conversation. He rose again as though restless, and once more went to the window and seemed to seek inspiration or decision from the sight of my roses. After a short while he turned and dragged up from his neck a slim chain at the end of which hung a round object in a talc case. This he unfastened and threw on the table in front of me. Do you know what that is? Yes, I said your identification disc. Look on the other side. I took it up and found that the reverse contained the head cut out from some photograph of Betty. After I had handed back the locket, he slipped out on the chain and dropped it beneath his collar. I'm not a damned fool, said he. I nodded understandingly. No one would have accused him of mockish sentiment. The woman whose portrait he wore night and day next to skin was the woman he loved. He had no other way of proving his sincerity than by exhibiting the token. I see, said I. What do you propose to do? I've told you, the VC, or he snapped his fingers. But if it's the VC and a brigade and perhaps a division, if it's everything else imaginable except, I snapped my fingers in imitation. What then? Again the hateful twitch of the lips which he quickly dissimulated into a smile. I'll begin to try to be a brave man. He lit another cigarette. But all that, my dear Meredith, he continued, is away from the point. If I live, I'll ask you to forget this rotten palaver. But I have a feeling that I shan't come back. Something tells me that my particular form of extermination will be a head knocked into slush. I'm absolutely certain that I shall never see you again. Oh, I'm not morbid, he said, as I raised a protesting hand. You're an old soldier and know what these premonitions are. When I came in, before I had finally made up my mind to pan out to you like this, I felt like a boy who has been made captain of the school. But all the same, I know I shan't see you again. So I want you to promise me two things, quite dishonorable and easy. Of course, my dear fellow, said I rather tardily, for I did not like the wind-up of his sentence. It was unthinkable that an officer and a gentleman should unveil a brother-officer into a solemn promise to do anything dishonorable. Of course, anything you like. One is to look after the old mother. That goes without promising, said I. The other is to, well, shall I say, to rehabilitate my memory in the eyes of Betty Connor. She may hear all kinds of things about me. Some true, others false. I have my enemies. She has heard things already. I didn't know it till our last meeting here. There's no one else on God's earth can do what I want but you. Do you think I'm putting you into an impossible position? I don't think so, said I. Go on. Well, there's not much more to be said. Try to make her realize that whatever may be my faults, my crimes if it comes to that. I've done my damnedest out there to make reparation. By God I have, he cried in a sudden flash of passion. See that she realizes it. And, you thump the hidden identification, does, tell her that she is the only woman that has ever really mattered in the whole of my blasted life. He threw his half-smoked cigarette into the fireplace and walked over to the cupboard, where stood decanters and siphon. May I help myself to a drink? Certainly, said I. He gulped down half a whiskey and soda and turned on me. You promise? Of course, said I. She may have reasons to think the worst of me. But whatever I am, there is some good in me. And not altogether a worthless hound. If you promise to make her think the best of me, I'll go away happy. I don't care a damn whether I die or live. That's the truth. As long as I'm alive, I can take care of myself. I'm not dreaming of asking you to say a word to win her favor. That would be outrageous impudence. You clearly understand. I don't want you ever to mention my name unless I'm dead. If I feel that I have an advocate in you, Advocatus Diablo, you feel like, I'll go away happy. You've got your brief. You know my life at home. You know my record. My dear fellow, said I, I promise to do everything in my power to carry out your wishes. But as to your record, are you quite certain that I know it? You must realize that there was a curious tension in the situation at any rate as far as it affected myself. Here was a man with whom, for reasons you know, I had studiously cultivated the most formal social relations, claiming my active participation in the secret motives of his heart. Since his first return from the front, a bluff friendliness had been the key note of her intercourse. Nothing more. Now he came, and without warning, enmeshed me in his intimate net of love and death. I promised to do his bidding, I could not do otherwise. I was in the position of an executor according to the terms of a last will and testament. Our comradeship in arms, those of our old army who survive will understand, forbade refusal. Besides, his intensive purpose won my sympathy and admiration. But I loved him none the more. To my cripples detested sensitiveness, as he stood over me, he loomed more than ever the hulking brute. His semi-confessions and innuendos exacerbated my feelings of distrust and repulsion. And yet at the same time I could not, nor did I try to, repress an immense pity for the man, perhaps less for the man than for the soul in pain. At the back of his words some torment burned at red heat remorselessly. He saw relief. Perhaps he saw it for me, because I was as a part as a woman from his physical splendor, a kind of bodyless creature with just a brain and a human heart, the ghost of an old soldier, far away from the sphere of poor passions and little jealousies. I felt the tentacles of the man's nature blindly and convulsively groping after something within me that eluded them. That is the best way in which I can describe the psychology of these strange moments. The morning sun streamed into my little oak-paneled dining room and caught the silver and fruit on the breakfast table, and made my freeze of old delft glow blue like the response of western sky. With his back to the vivid window Leonard Boyce stood cut out black like a silhouette. That he too felt the tension, I know, for a wasp crawled over his face, from cheekbone across his temples to his hair, and he did not notice it. Instinctively, I said the words, your record, are you quite certain that I know it? With what intensity, with what significance in my eyes I may have said them, I know not. I repeat that I had a subconsciousness, almost uncanny, that we were souls rather than men talking to each other. He sat down once more, drawing the chair to the table and resting his elbow on it. My record, said he, what about it? Again, please understand that I felt I had the man's soul naked before me. An imponderable hand plopped away the garments of convention. Some time ago, said I, you spoke of my attitude towards you being marked by a certain reserve. That is quite true. It dates back many years. It dates back from the South African War, from an affair at Vilbuck's Farm. Again, his lips twitched, but otherwise he did not move. I remember, he answered. My men saw me run away. I came out of it quite clean. I said, I saw the man afterwards in hospital at Cape Town. His name was Summers. He told me quite a different story. His face grew gray. He glanced at me for a fraction of a second. What did he tell you? He asked, quietly. In the fewest possible words, I repeated what I have set down already in this book. When I had ended, he said in the same homeless way, you have believed that all these years? I have done my best not to believe it. The last 12 months have disproved it. He shook his head. They haven't. Nothing I can do in this world can disprove it. What that man said was true. True? I drew a deep breath and stared at him hard. His eyes met mine. They were very sad, and behind them lay great pain. Although I expressed astonishment, they proceeded rather from some reflex action than from any realized shock to my consciousness. I say the whole thing was uncanny. I knew as soon as he sat down by the table that he would confess to the Villebook story. And yet, at last, when he did confess, and there were no doubts lingering in my mind, I gasped and stared at him. I was a bloody coward, he said. That's frank enough. When they rode away and left me, I tried to shoot myself. And I couldn't. If the man Summers hadn't returned, I think I should have waited until they sent to arrest me. But he did come back, and the instinct of self-preservation was too strong. I know my story about the man's desertion, and my forcing him to back me up was vile and despicable. But I clung to life, and it was my only chance. Afterwards, with the horror of the thing hanging over me, I didn't care so much about life. And the little fighting that was left for me, I deliberately tried to throw it away. I ask you to believe that. I do, I said. You were mentioned in dispatches for gallantry and action? He passed his hand over his eyes. Looking up, he said, it is strange that you of all men in my neighbor here should have heard of this. Not a whisper of its being known has ever reached me. How many people do you think have any idea of it? I told him all that I knew, and concluded by showing him Reggie Daker's letter, which I had kept in a letter case in my pocket. He returned it to me without a word. Presently he broke a spell of silence. All this time he had sat fixed in the one attitude, only shifted once when Marigold entered to clear away the breakfast things, and was dismissed by me with a glance and a gesture. Do you remember, he said, a talk we had about fear in April the first time I was over? I described what I knew, the paralysis of fear. Since we are talking, as I never thought to talk with a human being, I may as well make my confession. I'm a man of strong animal passions. When I see red, I dare say I'm just a brute beast. But I'm a physical coward. Owing to this paralysis of fear, this ghastly inhibition of muscular or nervous action, I've gone through things even worse than that South African business. I go about like a man under a curse. Even out there, when I don't care a damn whether I live or die, the blasted thing gets hold of me. He swung himself away from the table and shook his great clenched fists. By the grace of God, no one yet has seemed to notice it. I suppose I have a swift brain, and as soon as the thing is over, I can cover it up. It's my awful terror that one day I shall be found out, and everything I've gained shall be stripped away from me. What about a thing like this? said I, tapping Colonel Daker's letter. That's all right, he answered grimly. That's when I know what I'm facing. That's deliberate pot-hunting. It's saving face, as the Chinese say. It's doing any damn thing that will put me right with myself. He got up and swung about the room. I envied him. I would have given a thousand pounds and do the same just for a few moments. But I was stuck in my confounded chair deprived of physical outlet. Suddenly he came to a halt and stood once more over me. Now you know what kind of a fellow I am. What do you think of me? It was a brutal question to fling at my head. It gave me no time to coordinate my ideas. What was one to make of a man avowedly subject to fits of the most despicable cowardice, from the consequences of which he used any unscrupulous craftiness to extricate himself, and yet was notorious in his achievement of deeds of the most reckless courage. It is a problem to which I have devoted all the months occupied in writing this book. How the dickens could I solve it at a minute's notice? The situation was too blatant, too raw, too near bedrock, too naked and unashamed for me to take refuge in platitudinous generalities of excuse. The bravest of men know fear. They know him pretty intimately. But they managed to kick him to Hades by the very reason of their being brave men. I had to take Leonard Boyce as I found him, and I must admit that I found him a tragically miserable man. That is how I answered his question in so many words. You're not far wrong, said he. He picked up cap and stick. When I go up to town I shall make my will. I've never worried about it before. Can I appoint you my executor? Certainly, said I. I'm very grateful. I'll assure you a fireworks sort of finish, so that you shan't be ashamed. And I don't ask impossibilities. I can't hold you to your previous promise. But what about Betty Conner? You may count, said I, on my acting like an officer and a gentleman, and if I may say so like a Christian. He said, thank you, Meredith. Goodbye. Then he stuck on his cap, brought his fingers to the peak and salute and marched to the door. Boyce, I cried sharply. He turned. Yes? Aren't you going to shake hands with me? He retraced the few steps to my chair. I didn't know whether it would be, he paused, seeking for a word, whether it would be agreeable. Then I broke down. The strain had been too great for my sick man's nerves. I forgot all about the brutality of his bull neck, for he faced me in all his gallant manhood, and there was a damnable expression in his eyes like that of a rated dog. I stretched out my hand. My dear good fellow, I cried. What the hell are you talking about? End of Chapter 15, recording by Sean Michael Hogan, St. John, Sneathland, Canada. Chapter 16 of The Red Planet. This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org, recording by Sean Michael Hogan. The Red Planet by William J. Locke, Chapter 16. Boyce left Wellingsford that afternoon, and for many months I heard little about him. His astonishing avowal had once more turned topsy-turvy my conception of his real nature. I had to reconstruct the man, a very complicated task. I had to reconcile in him all kinds of opposites, the lusty brute and the sentimental lover, the physical coward and the bear-sark hero, the man with hell in his soul and the debonair gentleman. After a vast deal of pondering, I arrived not very much nearer a solution of the problem. The fact remained, however, that I found myself in far closer sympathy with him than ever before. After all that he had said, I should have had a heart of stone if it had not been stirred to profound pity. I had seen an instance both of his spellbound cowardice and of his almost degrading craft and extrication. That in itself repelled me. It lost its value in the light that he had cast on the never-ceasing torment that consumed him. At any rate he was at death-grips with himself, strangling the devils of fear and dishonour with a hand relentlessly certain. He appeared to me a tragic figure warring against a doom. At first I expected every day to receive an agonized message from Mrs. Boyce announcing his death. Then, as is the way of humans, the keenness of my apprehension grew blunted, until at last I took his continued existence as a matter of course. I wrote him a few friendly letters to which he replied in the same strain, and so the months went on. Looking over my diary I find that these months were singularly uneventful as far as the lives of those dealt with in this chronicle were concerned. In the depths of our souls we felt the long drawn-out agony of the war with its bitter humiliations, its heart-rending disappointments. In our daily meetings, one with another, we cried aloud for a great voice to awaken the little folk in Great Britain from their selfish lethargy, the little folk in high office, in smug Burgestum, in seditious factory and shipyard. There were months of sordid bargaining between all sections of our national life, in the murk of which the glow of patriotism seemed to be eclipsed. In the meantime, the heroic millions from all corners of our far-flung empire were giving their lives on land and sea gaily and gallantly, too often in tragic futility for the ideals to which the damnable little folk at home were blind, the little traitorous folk who gambled for their own hands in politics, the little traitorous folk who put the outworn shibboleths of a party before the war cry of an empire, the little traitorous folk who strove with all their power to starve our navy of ships, our ships of coal, our men in the trenches of munitions, our armies of men, our country of honor. All these will one day be mercilessly arraigned at the bar of history. The plains of France, the steeps of Gallipoli, the swamps of Mesopotamia, the seven seas will give up their dead as witnesses. We thought bitterly of all these things and thought of them with raging impotence, but the even tenor of our life went on. We continued to do our obscure and undistinguished work for the country. It became a habit, part of the day's routine. We almost forgot why we were doing it. The war seemed to make little real difference in our social life. The small town was pitch black at night, prices rose, small economies were practiced, labor was scarce. Fewer young men out of uniform were seen in the streets and neighboring roads and lanes. Groups of wounded from the hospital in their uniform of deep blue jean with red ties and khaki caps gave a note of actuality to the streets. Otherwise there were few signs of war. Even the troops who hitherto swarmed about the town had gradually been removed from billets to a vast camp of huts some miles away and appeared only sporadically about the place. I missed them and the stimulus of their presence. It brought me into closer touch with things. The diary gold, too, pined for more occupation for his one critical eye than was afforded by the local volunteers. He grew more roasts, sick of a surfeit of newspapers. If he could have gone to France and got through to the firing line, I'm sure he would have dug a little trench all to himself and defied the Germans on his own account. In November, Colonel Daker was brought home gravely wounded to a hospital for officers in London. A nurse gave me the news and a letter in which she said that he had asked to see me before an impending hazardous operation. I went up to town and found him wrecked almost beyond recognition. As we were the marist of acquaintances with nothing between us, save our common link with boys. I feared lest he should desire to tell me of some shameful discovery. But his gay greeting and the brave smile pathetically grotesque through the bandages in which his head was wrapped reassured me. Only his eyes and mouth were visible. It's worthwhile being done in, said he. It makes one feel like a sultan. You have just to clap your hands and say, I want this, and you've got it. I have a good mind to say to this dear lady, fetch their gracious majesties from Buckingham Palace, and I'm sure they'd be here in a tick. It's awfully good of you to come, Meredith. I signed to Marigold who'd carried me into the ward and set me down on a chair, and to the sister, the dear lady of Daker's reference, to withdraw. And after a few sympathetic words, I asked him why he had sent for me. I'm broken to bits all over, he replied. The doctors here say they never saw such a blooming mess up of flesh pretending to be alive. And as for talking, they'd just as soon expect speech from a jellyfish squashed by a steamroller. If I do get through, I'll be a helpless crock all my days. I've hunked it till I thought of you. I thought the sight of another fellow who's gone through it and stuck it out might give me courage. I've had my wife here, or rather fond of one another, you know. My God, what brave things women are. If she had broken down all over me, I could have risen to the occasion. But she didn't, and I felt a cowardly worm. I had a brave wife too, said I. And for a few moments we talked shyly about the women who had played sacred parts in our lives. Whether he was comforted by what I said, I don't know. Probably he only listened politely. But I think he found comfort in a sympathetic ear. Presently he turned on to Boyce the real motive of his summons. He repented much that he had told and written to me. His long defamation of the character of her brother officer had lain on his conscience. And lately he had at last met Boyce personally and his generous heart had gone out to the man's soldierly charm. I never felt such a slander as brute in my life as when I shook him by the hand. You know the feeling. How one wants to get behind a hedge and kick oneself? Kick oneself, he repeated faintly. Then he closed his eyes and his lips contracted in pain. The sister who had been watching him from a distance came up. He had talked enough. It was time to go. But at the announcement he opened his eyes again and with an effort recovered his gaiety. The whole gist of the matter lies in the post script. Like a woman's letter, I must have my post script. Very well, two more minutes. Mercyless dragon, said he. She smiled and left us. The dearest angel, bar one in the world, said he. What were we talking about? Colonel Boyce. Oh yes, forgive me. My head goes FUT now and then. It's idiotic not to be able to control one's brain. The point is this, I may peg out. I know this operation they're going to perform is just touch and go. I want to face things with clear conscience. I've convinced you, haven't I, that there wasn't a word of truth in that South African story. If ever it crops up, you'll scotch it like a venomous snake. The ethics of my answer I leave to the chaswist. I am an old fashioned church of England person as I am so mentally constituted that I am unable to believe cheerfully in nothing. I believe in God and Jesus Christ and accept the details of doctrine as laid down in the 39 articles. For liars I have the apocryphal condemnation. Yet I lied without the faintest rippling quam of conscience. My dear fellow, said I, steadily, there's not the remotest speck of truth in it you have in a second's occasion to worry. That's all right, he said. The sister approached again. Instinctively I stretched out my hand. He laughed. No good. You must take it as crypt. Goodbye, old chap. I bade him goodbye and Marigold wheeled me away. A few days afterwards they told me that this gay, gallant, honorable, sensitive gentleman was dead. Although I had known him so little it seemed that I knew him very intimately and I deeply mourned his loss. I think this episode was the most striking of what I may term personal events during those autumn months. Of Randall Holmes we continue to hear in the same mysterious manner. His mother visited the firm of solicitors in London through whom his correspondence passed. They pleaded ignorance of his doings and professional secrecy as to the disclosure of his whereabouts. In December he ceased writing altogether and twice a week Mrs. Holmes received a formal communication from the lawyers to the effect that they had been instructed by her son to inform her that he was in perfect health and sent her his affectionate greetings. Such news of this kind as I received I gave to Betty, passed it on to Phyllis Gage. Of course my intimacy with my dear Betty continued unbroken. If the unmarried Betty had a fault it was a certain sweet truculance, a pretty self-assertiveness which sometimes betrayed intolerance of human foibles. Her widowhood had in a subtle way softened these little angularities of her spiritual contour and bodily the curves of her slim figure had become more rounded. She was no longer the young Diana of a year ago. The change into the gracious woman who had passed through the joy and the sorrow of life was obvious even to me to whom it had been all but imperceptibly gradual. After a while she rarely spoke of her husband. The name of Leonard Boyce was never mentioned between us. With her as with me the weeks ate up the uneventful days and the months the uneventful weeks. In her humdrum life the falling away of Mrs. Tufton loomed catastrophic. For four months Mrs. Tufton Sean splendid as the wife of the British warrior. The Wellingsford hospital rang with her praises and glistened with her scrubbing brush. She was the admirable chryton of the institution. What with men going off to the war and women going off to make munitions there were never ending temporary gaps in the staff and it was never a gap that Mrs. Tufton did not triumphantly fill. The pride of Betty who had wrought this reformation was simply monstrous. If she had created a real live angel wings and all out of the dustbin she could not have boasted more arrogantly. Being a member of the hospital committee I must confess to a bemused chair in the popular enthusiasm. And was I not one of the original discoverers of Mrs. Tufton? When Marygold inspired doubtless by his wife from time to time suggested disparagement of the incomparable woman I rebuked him for an errant scandal monger. There had been a case or two of drunkenness at the hospital. Wounded soldiers had returned the worst for liquor and almost unforgivable offense. Not that the poor fellows desired to get drunk. A couple of pints of ale or a couple of glasses of whiskey will set swimming the head of any man who has not tasted alcohol for months. But to a man with a septic wound or trench nephritis or smashed up skull alcohol is poison and poison is death. And so it is sternly forbidden to our wounded soldiers. They cannot be served in public houses, where then did the hospital defaulters get their drink. If I was you, sir, said Marygold, I'd keep an eye on that there, Mrs. Tufton. I instantly annihilated him or should have done so had his expressionless face not been made of non-inflammable timber. He said, very good, sir. But there was a damnably ironical and insubordinate look in his one eye. Gradually the lady lapsed from grace. She got up late and complained of spasms. She left dustpan and brush on a patient's bed. She wrongfully interfered with the cook, insisting until she was forcibly ejected from the kitchen on throwing lettuces into the Irish stew. Finally, one Sunday afternoon, a policeman wandering through some waste ground, a deserted brick field behind flowery end, came upon an unedifying spectacle. There were madam and an elderly Irish soldier sprawling blissfully comatose with an empty flask of gin and an empty bottle of whiskey lying between them. They were taken to the hospital and put to bed. The next morning the lady being sober was summarily dismissed by the matron. Late at night she rang and battered at the door, clamouring for admittance which was refused. Then she went away, apparently composed herself to slumber in the roadway of the pitch-black high street and was killed by a motor car. And that, bar the funeral, was the end of Mrs. Tufton. From her bereaved husband, with whom I had once communicated, I received the following reply. Dear sir, yours to hand announcing the accidental death of my wife, which I need not say I deeply regret. You will be interested to hear that I have been offered a commission in the Royal Fusilliers, which I am now able to accept. In view of the same, any expense to which you may be put to give my late wife honorable burial, I shall be most ready to defray. With many thanks for your kindness in informing me of this unfortunate circumstance, I am, yours faithfully, John P. Tufton. I think he's a horrid, callous, cold-blooded fellow, cried Betty when I showed her this epistle. After all, said I, she wasn't a model wife. If the fatal motor car hadn't come along, the probability is that she would have received poor Tufton on his next leave, with something even more deadly than a poker. Now, and again, the fates of brilliant inspirations. This was one of them. Now you see the Virago-clog Tufton as a free man, able to accept a commission and start a new life as an officer and a gentleman. I think you're perfectly odious, odious and cynical, she exclaimed wrathfully. I think, said I, that a living warrior is better than a dead, disappointment. You don't understand, she stormed. If I didn't love you, I could rend you to pieces. It is because I do understand, my dear, said I, enjoying the flashing beauty of her return to Artemisian attitudes, that I particularly characterized the dear lady as a disappointment. I think, she said, in dejected generalization, the working out of the whole scheme of the universe is a disappointment. The high originators of the scheme seemed to bear it pretty philosophically, I rejoined. So why shouldn't we? They're gods and we're human, said Betty. Precisely, said I, an alternate to be our ideal to approximate to the divine attitude. Again, Betty declared that I was odious. From her point of view, no, that is an abusive language. There are mental states in which a woman has no point of view at all. She wanders over an ill-defined circular area of vision. That is why, in such conditions, you can never pin a woman down with a shaft of logic and compel her surrender, as you can compel that of a mere man. We went on arguing, and after a time I really did not know what I was arguing about. I advanced and tried to support the theory that on the whole, the progress of humanity as represented by the British Empire in general and the about to be Lieutenant Tufton in particular was advanced by the opportune demise of an unfortunately balanced lady. From her point, or rather her circular area of vision, perhaps my dear Betty was right in declaring me odious. She hated to be reminded of the intolerable goosiness of her swan. She longed for comforting, corroborative evidence of essential swanniness for her own justification. In a word, the poor dear girl was sore all over with mortification, and wherever one touched her, no matter with how gentle a finger one heard. I would have trusted that woman, she cried tragically, with a goldmine or a distillery. We trusted her with something more valuable, my dear, said I. Our guileless faith in human nature. Anyhow, we'll keep the faith undamaged. She smiled, that's considerably less odious. Nothing more could be said. We let the unfortunate subject rest in peace forever after. These two episodes, the death of poor Reggie Daker and the Tufton catastrophe, are the only incidents in my diary that are worth recording here. Christmas came and went, and we entered on the new year of 1916. It was only at a date in the middle of February, a year since I had driven to Welling's Park to hear the tragic news of Oswald Fenimore's death that I find an important entry in my diary. End of Chapter 16, recording by Sean Michael Hogan, St. John's, Newfoundland, Canada. Chapter 17 of The Red Planet. This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. Recording by Sean Michael Hogan. The Red Planet by William J. Locke, Chapter 17. Mrs. Boyce was shown into my study. Her comely Dresden china face very white and her hands shaking. She held a telegram. I had seen faces like that before. Every day in England there are hundreds thus stricken. I feared the worst. It was a relief to read the telegram and find that Boyce was only wounded. The message said seriously wounded but gave consolation by adding that his life was not in immediate danger. Mrs. Boyce was for setting out for France forthwith. I dissuaded her from a project so embarrassing to the hospital authorities and so fatiguing to herself. In spite of the chivalry and humanity of our medical staff, old ladies of 70 are not welcome at a busy base hospital. As soon as he was fit to be moved, I assured her, he would be sent home. Before she could even obtain her permits and passes and passport and make other general arrangements for her journey, there was nothing for it but her English woman's courage. She held up her hand at that and went away to live like many another patiently through the long hours of suspense. For two or three days no news came. I spent as much time as I could with my old friends seeking to comfort her. On the third morning it was announced in the papers that the king had been graciously pleased to confer the Victoria Cross on Lieutenant Colonel Leonard Boyce for conspicuous gallantry in action. It did not occur in a list of honours. It had a special paragraph all to itself. Such isolated announcements generally indicate immediate recognition of some splendid feat. I was thrilled by the news. It was a grand achievement to win through death to the greatest of all military rewards deliberately coveted. Here, as I had strange reason for knowing, was no sudden act of sublime valor. The final achievement was the result of months of heroic, almost suicidal daring and it was repayment of a terrible debt, the whole extent of which I knew not, owed by the man to his tormented soul. I rang up Mrs. Boyce who replied tremulously to my congratulations. Would I come over on lunch? I found a very proud and tearful old lady. She may not have known the difference between a platoon and a howitzer and have conceived the williest notions of the nature of her son's command, but the Victoria Cross was a matter on which her ideas were both definite and correct. She had spent the morning at the telephone receiving calls of congratulation. A great chief of telegrams had arrived. Two or three of them were from the high and mighty of the military hierarchy. She was in such a twitter of joy that she almost forgot her anxiety as to his wounds. Do you think he knows? I telegraphed to him at once. So did I. She glanced at the Ormaloo clock on the mantelpiece. How long would it take for a telegram to reach him? You may be sure he has it by now, said I, and it has given him a prodigious appetite for lunch. Her face clouded over. That horrid tin stuff. It's so dangerous. I remember once Mary's aunt, or was it Crook's aunt, one of them anyway, nearly died of eating tinned lobster. Tomein poisoning. I've always told Leonard not to touch it. They don't give kernels and VCs tinned lobster at Bologna, I answered cheerfully. He's living now on the fat of the land. Let us hope so, she sighed dubiously. It's no use my sending out things for him as they always go wrong. Some time ago I sent him three brace of grouse and three brace of partridges. He didn't acknowledge them for weeks. And then he said there were most handy things to kill Germans with, but were an expensive form of ammunition. I don't quite know what he meant, but at any rate they were not eatable when they arrived. Poor fellow, she sighed again. If only I knew what was the matter with him. It can't be much, I reassured her, or you would have heard again, and this news will act like a sovereign remedy. She patted the back of my hand with her plump palm. They're always so sympathetic and comforting. I'm an old soldier like Leonard, said I, and never meet trouble halfway. At lunch the old lady insisted on opening a bottle of champagne, a Viv Clicquot which Leonard loved in honor of the glorious occasion. We could not drink to the hero's health in any meaner vintage, although she swore that a teaspoonful meant death to her, and I protested that a confession of champagne to my medical advisor meant a dog's rating. We each conscience-bound put up the tips of our fingers to the glasses as soon as Mary had filled them with froth and solemnly drank the toast in the eighth of an inch residuum. But by some freakish chance or the other, there was nothing left in that quart bottle by the time Mary cleared the table for dessert. And to tell the honest truth, I don't think the health of either my hostess or myself was a penny the worse. Let no man despise generous wine. Treated with due reverence, it is a great loosener of human sympathy. Generous ale, similarly treated, produces the same effect. Marygold, driving me home, cocked a luminous eye on me and said, begging your pardon, sir, would you mind very much if I broke the neck of that there gedge? You would be aiding the good cause, said I, but I should deplore the hanging of an old friend. What has gedge been doing? Marygold sounded his horn and slowed down round a bend, and as soon as he got into a straight road, he replied, I'm not going to say, sir, if I may take the liberty that I was ever sweet on Colonel Boyce. People affect you in different ways. You either like him or you don't like him. You can't tell why, and a sergeant being, as you may say, a human being, has as much right to his private feelings regarding a Colonel as any officer. Undoubtedly, said I. Well, sir, I never thought Colonel Boyce was true metal, but I take it all back, every bit of it. For God's sake, I cried, stretching out a foolish but instinctive hand to the wheel. For God's sake, control your emotions, or you'll be landing us in the ditch. That's all right, sir, he replied, staring a straight course. She's a bit skittish at times. I was saying as how I did the Colonel in injustice. I'm very sorry. No man who wasn't steel all through ever got the VC. They don't check it around on blighters. That's all very interesting and commendable, said I, but what has it to do with Gage? He has been slandering the Colonel something dreadful the last few months, sneering at him, saying nothing definite, but insinuatingly taking away his character. In what way, I asked. Well, he tells one man that the Colonel's a drunkard, another that it's women, another that he gambles and doesn't pay, and another that he pays the newspapers to put in all these things about him, while all the time in France he's in a blue funk hiding in his dugout. That's moonshine, said I, and his regards to drinking, drabbing, and gaming, of course it was, but the suggestion of cowardice gave me a sharp stab at surprise and dismay. I know it is, said Marigold, but the people hereabouts are so ignorant you can make them believe anything. Marigold was a man of Kent and had a poor opinion of those born on bread in other counties. I met Gage this morning, he continued, and thereupon gave me the substance of the conversation. I hardly think the adjectives of the report were those that were really used. So your precious Colonel has got the VC, sneered Gage. He has, said Marigold, and it's too great an honor for your inconsiderable town. If this inconsiderable town knew as much about him as I do, it would give him the order of the precious boot. And what do you know, asked Marigold. That's what all you downtrodden slaves of militarism would like to find out, replied Gage. The time will come when I, and such as I, will tear the veils away and expose them and say, these be thy gods, O Israel. The time will come, retorted Marigold, when if you don't hold your precious jaw, I, and such as I, will smash it into a thousand pieces. For two pence I'd knock your ugly head off this present minute, whereupon Gage apparently wilted before the indignant die of Sergeant Marigold and faded away down the high street. All this in itself seemed very trivial, but for the past year the attitude of Gage had been mysterious. Could it be possible that Gage thought himself the sole repository of the secret which Boyce had so desperately confided to me? But when had the life of Gage and the military life of Leonard Boyce crossed? It was puzzling. Well, to tell the truth, I thought no more about the matter. The glow of Mrs. Boyce's happiness remained with me all the evening. Rarely had I seen her so animated, so forgetful of her own ailments. She had taken the rosiest view of Leonard's physical condition and sunned herself in the honor conferred on him by the king. I had never spent a pleasanter afternoon at her house. We had comfortably criticized our neighbors and Lattatore's temporeous acty had extolled the days of our youth. I went to bed as well pleased with life as a man can be in this convulsion of the world. The next morning she sent me a letter to read. It was written in Boyce's dictation. It ran, Dear mother, I'm sorry to say I knocked out Pro Tem. I was fooling about where a CO didn't ought to and a Bosch bullet got me so that I can't write. But don't worry at all about me. I'm too tough for anything the Boschers can do. To show how little serious it is, they tell me that I'll be conveyed to England in a day or two. So get hot water bottles and bath salts ready. You're ever-loving Leonard. This was good news. Over the telephone wire, we agreed that the letter was a justification of our yesterday's little merry-making. Obviously I told her he would live to fight another day. She was of opinion that he had done enough fighting already. If he went on much longer, the poor boy would get quite tired out. To say nothing of the danger of being wounded again. The king ought to let him rest on his laurels and make others who hadn't worked a quarter as hard do the remainder of the war. Perhaps, I said lightheartedly, Leonard will drop the hint when he writes to thank the king for the nice cross. She said that I was laughing at her and rang off in the best of spirits. In the evening came Betty inviting herself to dinner. She had been on night duty at the hospital and I had not seen her for some days. The sight of her bright-eyed and brave, fresh and young always filled me with happiness. I felt her presence like wine and the sea wind and the sunshine. So greatly did her vitality enrich me that sometimes I called myself a horrid old vampire. As soon as she had greeted me, she said in her downright way, so Leonard Boyce has got his VC. Yes, said I, what do you think of it? A spot of color rose to her cheek. I'm very glad. It's no use, Magie, pretending that I ignore his existence. I don't and I can't, because I loved and married someone else doesn't alter the fact that I once cared for him, does it? Many people, said I, judicially, find out that they have been mistaken as to the extent and nature of their own sentiments. I wasn't mistaken, she replied, sitting down on the piano stool, her hands on the leathern seat, her neatly shod feet stretched out in front of her, just as she had sat on her wedding eve talking nonsense to Willie Conner. I wasn't mistaken. I was never addicted to silly schoolgirl fancies. I know my own mind. I cared a lot for Leonard Boyce. A bien, said I. Well, don't you see what I'm driving at? I don't, a bit. She sighed, oh, dear, how dull some people are. Don't you see that when an affair like that is over, a woman likes to get some evidence of the man's fine qualities in order to justify her for having once cared for him? Quite so, yet, I felt argumentative. The breach, as you know, between Betty and Boyce was wrapped in exasperating obscurity, yet, on the other hand, said I, she might welcome evidence of his worthlessness, so as to justify her for having thrown him over. If a woman isn't a damn fool already, said Betty, and I don't think I'm one, she doesn't like to feel that she ever made a damn fool of herself. She is proud of her instincts and her judgments and the sensitive emotional intelligence that is hers. When all these seem to have gone wrong, it's pleasing to realize that originally they went right. It soothes one's self-respect, one's pride. I know now that all these blind perceptions in me went straight to certain magnificent essentials, those that make the great, strong, fearless fighting man. That's attractive to a woman, you know, at any rate to an independent barbarian like myself. My dear Betty, I interrupted with a laugh. You a barbarian? You whom I regard as the last word, the last charming and delightful word in modern womanhood? Of course, I'm the child of my century, she cried, flushing. I want votes, freedom, opportunity for expansion, power, everything that can develop Betty Conner into a human product worthy of the God who made her, but how she could fulfill herself without the collaboration of a man has baffled her ever since she was a girl of 16, when she began to awake to the modern movement. On one side, I saw women perfectly happy in the mere savage state of wifehood and motherhood and not carrying a hang for anything else. On the other side, women who threw babies back into limbo and preached of nothing but intellectual and political and economic independence. Oh, I worry terribly about it, Meiji, when I was a girl, each side seemed to have such a lot to say for itself. Then it dawned upon me that the only way out of the dilemma was to combine both ideals, that of the savage woman in skins and the lady professor in spectacles. That is what allowing for the difference of sex a man does. Why shouldn't a woman? The woman, of course, has to droop a bit more to the savage because she has to produce the babies and suckle them and so forth, and a man hasn't. That was my philosophy of life when I entered the world as a young woman. Love came into it, of course. It was a sanctification of the savagery. I've gone on like this, she laughed, because I don't want you to protest in your dear old-fashioned way against my calling myself an independent barbarian. I am, and I glory in it. That's why, as I was saying, I'm deeply glad that Leonard Boyce has made good. His honor means a good deal to me, to my self-esteem. I hope, she added, rising and coming to me with a caressing touch. I hope you've got the hang of the thing now. Within myself, I sincerely hoped I had. My first sentiments were just as she analyzed them, all was well. If, on the other hand, the little demon of love for Boyce still lurked in her heart, in spite of the marriage and widowhood, there might be trouble ahead. I remembered how once she had called him a devil. I remembered too uncomfortably the scrap of conversation I had overheard between Boyce and herself in the hall. She had lashed him with her scorn and he had taken his whipping without much show of fight. Still, a woman's love, especially that of a lady barbarian, was a curiously complex affair and had been known to impel her to trample on a man one minute and the next to fall at his feet. Now the worm she had trampled on had turned, stood erect as a properly authenticated hero. I felt dubious as to the ensuing situation. I wrote to old Mrs. Boyce, she added, after a while. I thought it only decent. I wrote yesterday but only posted the letter today so as to be sure I wasn't acting on impulse. The latter part of the remark was by way of apology. The breach of the engagement had occasioned a cessation of social relations between Betty and Mrs. Boyce. Betty's aunts had ceased calling on Mrs. Boyce and Mrs. Boyce had ceased calling on Betty's aunts. Whenever the estranged parties met, which now and then was inevitable in a little town, they bowed with distant politeness but exchanged no words. Everything was conducted with complete propriety. The old lady, knowing how beloved and intimate of mine was Betty, alluded but once to the broken engagement. That was when Betty got married. It has been a great unhappiness to me, Major, she said. In spite of her daring ways, which an old woman like myself can't quite understand, I was very fond of her. She was just the girl for Leonard. They made such a handsome couple. I have never known why it was broken off. Leonard won't tell me. It's out of the question that it could be his fault and I can't believe it is all Betty Fairfax's. She's a girl of too much character to be a mere jilt. I remember that I couldn't help smiling at the application of the old fashioned word to my Betty. You may be quite certain she isn't that, said I. Then what was the reason, do you know? I didn't. I was as mystified as herself, I told her so. I didn't mention that a few days before she had implied that Leonard was a devil and she wished that he was dead, thereby proving to me who knew Betty's uprightness that Boyce and Boyce only was to blame in the matter. It would have been a breach of confidence and it would not have made my old friend any the happier. It would have fired her with flaming indignation against Betty. Young people, said I, must arrange their own lives. And we left it at that. Now and then afterwards she inquired politely after Betty's health and when Willie Conner was killed she spoke to me very feelingly and begged me to convey to Betty the expression of her deep sympathy. In the unhappy circumstances she explained she was naturally precluded from writing. So Betty's letter was the first direct communication that had passed between them for nearly two years. That is why to my meddlesome mind itself it appeared to have some significance. You did, did you? said I. Then I looked at her quickly with an idea in my head. What did Mrs. Boyce say in reply? She has had no time to answer. Didn't I tell you I only posted the letter today? Then you've heard nothing more about Leonard Boyce except that he has got the VC? No, what more is there to hear? Even Betty's are sly folk. It behoved me to counter with equal slinus. I wondered whether she had known all along of Boyce's mishap or had been informed of it by his mother. Knowledge might explain her unwanted outburst. I looked at her fixedly. What's the matter? She asked, bending slightly down to me. You haven't heard that he is wounded? She straightened herself. No, when? Five days ago. Why didn't you tell me? I haven't seen you. I mean this evening. I reached for her hand. Will you forgive me, my dear Betty, for remarking that for the last 20 minutes you have done all the talking? Has he badly hurt? She ignored my playful rejoinder. I noted the fact. Usually she was quick to play Beatrice to my Benedict. Had I caught her off her guard? I told her all that I knew. She seated herself again on the piano stool. I hope Mrs. Boyce did not think me unfeeling for not referring to it, she said calmly. You will explain, won't you? Marigold entered announcing dinner. We went into the dining room. All through the meal Bella, my parlor maid, set it about with dishes and plates, and Marigold, when he was not solemnly pouring claret, stood grim behind my chair, roasting, as usual, his posterior before a blazing fire with soldierly devotion to duty. Conversation fell a little flat. The arrival of the evening newspapers, half an hour belated, created a diversion. The war is sometimes subversive of nice table decorum. I read out the cream of the news. Discussion thereon lasted us until coffee and cigarettes were brought in, and the servants left us to ourselves. One of the curious little phenomena of human intercourse is the fact that now and again the outer personality of one with whom you are daily familiar suddenly strikes you afresh, thus printing as it were, a new portrait on your mind. At varying intervals I had received such portrait impressions of Betty, and I had stored them in my memory. Another I received at this moment, and it is among the most delectable. She was sitting with both elbows on the table. Her palms clasped, and her cheek resting on the back of the left hand. Her face was turned towards me. She wore a low-cut black chiffon evening dress. The thing had mare straps over the shoulders, and all but discarded vanity of pre-war days. I had never before noticed what beautiful arms she had. Perhaps in her girlhood, when I had often seen her in such exiduous finery, they had not been so shapely. I have told you already of the softening touch of her womanhood. An exquisite curve from arm to neck faded into the shadow of her hair. She had a single string of pearls around her neck. The fatigue of last week's night-duty had cast an added spirituality over her frank, sensitive face. We had not spoken for a while. She smiled at me. What are you thinking of? I wasn't thinking at all, said I. I was only gratefully admiring you. Why gratefully? And want to be grateful to God for the beautiful things he gives us? She flushed and averted her eyes. You were very good to me, Meiji. What made you attire yourself in all this splendor, I asked, laughing. The wise man does not carry sentiment too far. He keeps it like a little precious nugget of pure gold. The less wise beats it out into a flabby film. I don't know, she said, shifting her position and casting a critical glance at her bodice. All kinds of funny little feminine vanities. Perhaps I wanted to see whether I hadn't gone off. Perhaps I wanted to try to feel good looking, even if I wasn't. Perhaps I thought my dear old Meiji was sick to death of the hospital uniform perfumed with disinfectant. Perhaps it was just a cat-like longing for comfort. Anyhow, I'm glad you like me. My dear Betty said, I adore you. And I you, she laughed, so there's a bear of us. She lit a cigarette and sipped her coffee, then, breaking a short silence. I hope you quite understand, dear, what I said about Leonard Boyce. I shouldn't like to leave you with the smallest little bit of a wrong impression. What wrong impression could I possibly have? I asked it disingenuously. You might think that I was still in love with him. That would be absurd, said I. Utterly absurd. I should feel it to be almost an insult if you thought anything of the kind. Long before my marriage, things that had happened had killed all such feelings outright. She paused for a few seconds and her brow darkened, just as it had done when she had spoken of him in the days immediately preceding her marriage with Willie Connor. Presently it cleared. The whole beginning and end of my present feelings, she continued, is that I'm glad the man I once cared for has won such high distinction, and I'm sorry that such a brave soldier should be wounded. I could do nothing else than assure her of my perfect understanding. I upgraded myself as a monster of indelicacy for my touch of doubt before dinner. Also for a devilish and malicious suspicion that flitted through my brain while she was cataloging her possible reasons for putting on the old evening dress. The thought of Betty's beautiful arm and the man's bull-neck was a shivering offence. I craved purification. If you finished your coffee, I said, let us go into the drawing room and have some music. She rose with the impulsiveness of a child, told that it can be excused, and responded startlingly to my thought. I think we need it, she said. In the drawing room I swung my chair so that I could watch her hands on the keys. She was a good musician and had the well-taught executance certainty and grace of movement. It may be the fancy of an outer Philistine, but I'd love to forget the existence of the instrument and to feel the music coming from the human fingertips. She found a volume of Chopin's nocturnes on the rest. In fact, she had left it there a fortnight before, the last time she had played for me. I am very fond of Chopin. I am an uneducated fellow and the lyrical mostly appeals to me both in poetry and in music. Besides, I have understood him better since I have been a crock. And I loved Betty's sympathetic interpretation. So I sat there listening and watching and I knew that she was playing for the ease of both our souls. Once more, I thank to God for the great gift of Betty to my crippled life. Peace gathered round my heart as Betty played. The raucous buzz of the telephone in the corner of the room knocked the music to shatters. I cried out impatiently. It was the fault of that giant of ineptitude Marigold and his incompetent satellites, whose duty it was to keep all upstairs extensions turned off and receive calls below. Only two months before I had been the victim of their culpable neglect, when I was forced to have an altercation with a man at Harrod's Stores who seemed pained because I declined to take an interest in some idiotic remark he was making about fish. I'll strangle Marigold with my own hands, I cried. Betty, unmoved by my ferocity, laughed and rose from the piano. Shall I take the call? To Betty I was all urbanity. If you'll be so kind, dear, said I. She crossed the room and stopped the abominable buzzing. Yes, hold on for a minute. It's the post office, she turned to me, telephoning a telegram that has just come in. Shall I take it down for you? More urbanity on my part. She found pencil and paper on an escritoir nearby and went back to the instrument. For a while she listened and wrote. At last she said, are you sure there's no signature? She got the reply, waited until the message had been read over and hung up the receiver. When she came round to me, my back had been half turned to her all the time. I was astonished to see her looking rather shaken. She handed me the paper without a word. The message ran, thanks yesterday's telegram, just got home, Queen Victoria Hospital Belton Square. Must have talked with you before I communicate with my mother. Rely absolutely on your discretion. Come tomorrow, forgive inconvenience caused, but most urgent. It's from Boyce, I said, looking up at her. Naturally. I suppose he omitted the signature to avoid any possible leakage through the post office here. She nodded, what do you think is the matter? God knows, said I, evidently something very serious. She went back to the piano seat. It's odd that I should have taken down that message, she said after a while. I'll sack Marigold for putting you in that abominable position, I exclaimed wrathfully. No, you won't, dear. What does it signify? I'm not a silly child. I suppose you're going tomorrow. Of course, for Mrs. Boyce's sake alone, I should have no alternative. She turned round and began to take up the thread of the nocturne from the point where she had left off, but she only played half a page and quitted the piano abruptly. The pretty little spell is broken, Meiji. No matter how we try to escape from the war, it is always shrieking in upon us. We're up against naked facts all the time. If we can't face them, we go under, either physically or spiritually. Anyhow, she smiled with just a little touch of weariness, we may as well face them in comfort. She pushed my chair gently nearer to the fire and sat down by my side. And there we remained in intimate silence until Marigold announced the arrival of her car. End of Chapter 17, recording by Sean Michael Hogan, St. John's, Newfoundland, Canada. Chapter 18 of The Red Planet. This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. Recording by Sean Michael Hogan. The Red Planet by William J. Locke. Chapter 18. I shrink morbidly from visiting strange houses. I shrink from the unknown discomforts and trivial humiliations they may hold for me. I hate, for instance, not to know what kind of a chair may be provided for me to sit on. I hate to be carried up many stairs even by my steel crane of a Marigold. Just try doing without your legs for a couple of days and you will see what I mean. Of course I despise myself for such nervous apprehensions and do not allow them to influence my actions. Just as one under heavy fire does not satisfy one's simple yearning to run away. I would have given a year's income to be able to refuse Boyce's request with a clear conscience, but I could not. I shrank all the more because my visit in the autumn to Reggie Daker had shaken me more than I cared to confess. It had been the only occasion for years when I had entered a London building other than my club. To the club, where I was as much at home as in my own house, all those in town with whom I now and then had to transact business were good enough to come. This penetration of strange hospitals was an agitating adventure. Apart, however, from the mere physical nervousness against which, as I say, I fought, there was another element in my feelings with regard to Boyce's summons. If I talk about the iron hand of fate, you may think I am using a cliche of melodrama. Perhaps I am, but it expresses what I mean. Something unregenerate in me, some lingering atavistic savage instinct towards freedom, rebelled against the same iron hand of fate that, first clapping me on the shoulder long ago in Cape Town, was now dragging me against my will into ever-thickening entanglement with the dark and crooked destiny of Leonard Boyce. I tell you all this because I don't want to pose as a kind of a poodle angel of mercy. I was also deadly anxious as to the nature of the communication Boyce would make to me, before his mother should be informed of his arrival in London. In spite of his frank confession, there was still such a cloud of mystery over the man's soul as to render any revelation possible. Had his hurt declared itself to be a mortal one, had he summoned me to unburden his conscience while yet there was time, was it going to be a repetition with the difference of my last interview with Reggie Daker? I worried myself with unnecessary conjecture. After a miserable drive through February rain and slush, I reached my destination in Belton Square, a large mansion presumably equipped by its owner as a hospital for officers and given over to the nation. A telephone message had prepared the authorities for my arrival. Marigold, preceded by the sister-in-charge, carried me across a tessellated hall and began to ascend to the broad staircase. I uttered a little gasp and looked around me. For in a flash I realized where I was. Twenty years ago I had danced in this house. I had danced here with my wife before we were married. On the half-landing we had sat out together, it was the townhouse of the late Lord Madalow with whose wife I shared the acquaintance of a couple of hundred young dancing men inscribed on her party list. Both were dead long since. To whom the house belonged now I did not know, but I recognized pictures and statuary and a conservatory with palms, and the place shimmered with brilliant ghosts and was haunted by hot perfumes and by the echo of human voices and by elfin music. And the cripple forgot that he was being carried up the stairs in the grip of the old soldier. He was mounting them with heart beating high and the presence of a beloved hand on his arm. You see it was also sudden. It took my breath away and sent my mind whirling back over twenty years. It was like awakening from a dream to find a door flung open in front of me and to hear the sister announce my name. I was on the threshold not of a ward but of a well-appointed private room fairly high up and facing the square. For the first thing I saw was the tops of the leafless trees through the windows. Then I was conscious of a cheery fire. The last thing I took in was the bed running at right angles to door and window and Leonard Boyce lying in it with bandages about his face. For the dazed second or two he seemed to be Reggie Jaker over again. But he had thrown back the bedclothes and his broad chest and great arms were free. His pleasant voice rang out at once. Hello, hello, you are a good Samaritan. Is that you, Marigold? There's a comfortable chair by the bedside for Major Meredith. He seemed remarkably strong and hearty, far from any danger of death. Stubs of cigarettes were lying in an ashtray on the bed. In a moment or two they settled me down and left me alone with him. As soon as he heard the click of the door he said, I've done more than I set out to do. You remember our conversation. I said I should either get the VC or never see you again. I've managed both. What do you mean? I asked. I shall never see you or anybody else again or a dog or a cat or a tree or a flower. Then for the first time the dreadful truth broke upon me. Good heavens, I cried. Your eyes? Done in, blind. It's a bit ironical, isn't it? He laughed bitterly. What I said by way of sympathy and consolation is neither here nor there. I spoke sincerely from my heart for I felt overwhelmed by the tragedy of it all. He stretched out his hand and grasped mine. I knew you wouldn't fail me. Your assort never does. You understand now why I wanted you to come? To prepare the old mother for the shock. You've seen for yourself that I'm silent of wind and limb as fit as a fiddle. You can make it quite clear to her that I'm not going to die yet awhile and you can let her down easy on the real matter. Tell her I'm as merry as possible and looking forward to going about Wellingsford with a dog and string. You're a brave chap, boys, I said. He laughed again. You're anticipating. Do you remember what I said when you asked me what I should do if I won all the pots I set my heart on and came through alive? I said I should begin to try to be a brave man. God, it's a tough proposition, but it's something to live for anyway. I asked him how it happened. I got sick, he replied, of bearing a charmed life and nothing happening. The boss shell or bullet that could hit me wasn't made. I could stroll about freely where it was death for anyone else to show the top of his head. I didn't care. Then suddenly one day things went wrong. You know what I mean. I nearly let my regiment down. It was touch and go. And it was touch and go with my career. I just pulled through, however. I'll tell you all about it one of these days, if you'll put up with me. Again the familiar twitch of the lips which looked ghastly below the bandage dies. No one ever dreamed of the hell I went through. Then I found I was losing the nerve I had built up all these months. I nearly went off my head. At last I thought I would put an end to it. It was a small attack of ours that had failed. The men poured back over the parapet into the trench, leaving heaven knows how many dead and wounded outside. I'm not superstitious and I don't believe in premonitions and warnings and so forth. But in cases of waiting like mine, a man suddenly gets to know that his hour has come. I got in six wounded. Two men were shot while I was carrying them. How I lived, God knows. It was cold hell. My clothes were torn to rags. As I was going for the seventh, the knob of my life preserver was shot away and my wrist nearly broken. I wore it with a strap, you know. The infernal thing had been a kind of mascot. When I realized it was gone I just stood still and shivering in a sudden helpless funk. The seventh man was crawling up to me. He had a bloody face and one dragging leg. That's my last picture of God's earth. Before I could do anything, I must have been standing sideways on. A bullet got me across the bridge of the nose and night came down like a black curtain. Then I ran like a hare. Sometimes I tripped over a man, dead or wounded and fell on my head. I don't remember much about this part of it. They told me afterwards. At last I stumbled onto the parapet and some plucky fellow got me into the trench. It was the regulation VC business, he added, and so they gave it to me. Especially, said I. Consolation prize, I suppose, for losing my sight. They had just time to get me away behind when the Germans counter-attacked. If I hadn't brought the six men in, they wouldn't have had a dog's chance. I did save their lives. That's something to the credit side of the infernal balance. There can be no balance now, my dear chap, said I. God knows you've paid in full. He lifted his hand and dropped it with a despairing gesture. There's only one payment in full. That was denied me. God, or whoever was responsible, had my eyes knocked out and made it impossible for ever. He or somebody must be enjoying the first. That's all very well, said I. A man can do no more than his utmost, as you've done. He must be content to leave the rest in the hands of the Almighty. The Almighty has got a down on me, he replied, and I don't blame him. Of course, from your point of view, you're right. You're a normal, honorable soldier and gentleman. Anything you've got to reproach yourself with is of very little importance. But I'm in a cursed freak. I told you all about it when you held me up over the South African affair. There were other affairs after that, others again in this war. Haven't I just told you I let my regiment down? Don't, my dear man, don't, I cried in great pain, for it was horrible to hear a man talk like this. Can't you see you've wiped out everything? There's one thing at any rate I can't ever wipe out, he said in a low voice. Then he laughed. I've got to stick it. It may be amusing to see how it all pans out. I suppose the very last passion left us is curiosity. There's also the unconquerable soul, said I. You're very comforting, said he. If I were in your place, I'd leave a chap like me to the worms. He drew a long breath. I suppose I'll pull through all right. Of course you will, said I. I feel tons better thanks to you already. That's right, said I. He fumbled for the box of cigarettes on the bed. Instinctively I tried to help him, but I was tied to my fixed chair. It was a trivial occasion, but I had never been so terrified by the sense of helplessness. Just think of it, two men of clear brain and to all intents and purposes of sound, bodily health, unable to reach an object a few feet away. Boys uttered an impatient exclamation. Get hold of that box for me like a good chap, he said, his fingers groping wide of the mark. I can't move, said I. Good Lord, I forgot. He began to laugh. I laughed too. We laughed like fools and the tears ran down my cheeks. I suppose we were on the verge of hysterics. I pulled myself together and gave him a cigarette from my case, and then, stretch as I would, I could not reach far enough to apply the match to the end of the cigarette between his lips. He was unable to lift his head. I lit another match and, like an idiot, put it between his fingers. He nearly burned his mustache and his bandage and would have burned his fingers had not the match, a wooden one, providentially gone out. Then I lit a cigarette myself and handed it to him. The incident, as I say, was trivial, but it had deep symbolic significance. All symbols in their literal objectivity are trivial. What more trivial than the eating of a bit of bread and the sipping from a cup of wine. This Trumpery business with the cigarette revolutionized my whole feelings towards boys. It initiated us into a sacred brotherhood. Hitherto it had been his nature which had reached out towards me tentacles of despair. My inner self, as I have tried to show you, had never responded. It was restrained by all kinds of doubts, suspicions, and repulsions. Now suddenly it broke through all those barriers and rushed forth to meet him. My death in life against which I had thought, I hope like a brave man, it takes a bit of fighting for many years, would henceforth be his death in life, at whose terrors he too would have to snap a disdainful finger. I had felt deep pity for him, but if pity is indeed akin to love, it is a very poor relation. Now I had cast pity and such-like superior sentiment aside and accepted him as a sworn brother. The sins whatever they were that lay on the man's conscience mattered nothing. He had paid in splendid penance and in terrible penalty. I should have liked to express to him something of this surge of emotion, but I could find no words. As a race our emotions are not facile and therefore we lack the necessary practice in expressing them. When they do come they come all of a heap and scare us out of our wits and leave us speechless. So the immediate outcome of all this psychological upheaval was that we went on smoking and said nothing more about it. As far as I remember we started talking about the recruiting model as to which our views most vigorously coincided. We parted cheerily. It was only when I got outside the room that the ghastly irony of the situation again made my heart as lead. We passed by the conservatory and the statuary and down the great staircase, but the ghosts had gone. Yet I cast a wistful glance at the spot. It was just under that quip with the flashing white horse where we had sat 20 years ago, but the new tragedy had rendered the memory less poignant. It's a dreadful thing about the colonel, sir, said Marigold as we drove off. More dreadful than anyone can imagine, said I. What's he going to do with himself is what I'm wondering, said Marigold. What indeed, the question went infinitely deeper than the practical dreams of Marigold's philosophy. My honest fellow saw, but the outside, the full-blooded man of action cabined in his lifelong darkness. I, to whom Chance had revealed more, trembled at the contemplation of his future. The man, goaded by the furies, had rushed into the jaws of death. Those jaws, by some divine ordinance, had ruthlessly closed against him. The furies, meanwhile, attended him unrelenting. Whither now would they goad him into madness? I doubted it. In spite of his contradictory nature, he did not seem to be the sort of man who would go mad. He could exercise over himself too reason to control. Yet here were passions and despairs seething without an outlet. What would be the end? It is true that he had achieved glory. To the end of his life, wherever he went, he would command the honor and admiration of men. Greater achievement has granted to few mortals. In our little town, he would be the great hero, but would all that human sympathy and veneration could contrive keep the furies at bay and soothe the tormented spirit? I tried to eat a meal at the club, but the food choked me. I got into the car as soon as possible and reached Wellingsford with head and heart racked with pain. But before I could go home, I had to execute Boyce's mission. If I accomplished it successfully, my heart and not my wearied mind deserved the credit. At first Mrs. Boyce broke down under the shock of the news. For all the preparations in the world can do little to soften a deadly blow. But breed and pride soon asserted themselves and she faced things bravely. With charming dignity she received Marygold's few respectful words of condolence and she thanked me for what I had done beyond my desserts. To show how brave she was, she insisted on accompanying us downstairs and on standing in the bleak evening air while Marygold put me in the car. After all, I have my son alive and in good strong health. I must realize how merciful God has been to me. She put her hand into mine. I shan't see you again till I bring him home with me. I shall go up to London early tomorrow morning and stay with my old friend Lady Fansha. I think you have met her here, the widow of the late Admiral Fansha. She has a house in Eccleston Street, which I think is in the neighborhood of Belton Square. If I haven't thanked you enough, dear Major Meredith, it is that when one's heart is full, one can't do everything all at once. She waved to me very graciously as the car drove off. The true Spartian mother, dear lady of our modern England. Oh, the humiliation of possessing a frail body and a lot of disorganized nerves. When I got home, Marygold, seeing that I was overtired, was all for putting me to bed, then and there. I spurned the insulting proposal and language plain enough, even to his wooden understanding. Sometimes his imperturbability exasperated me. I might just as well try to taunt a poker or sting a fire shovel into resentment of personal abuse. I'll see you hanged, drawn, and quartered before I'll go to bed, I declared. Very good, sir. The gaunt wretch was carrying me. But I think you might lie down for half an hour before dinner. He deposited me ignominiously on the bed and left the room. In about ten minutes, Dr. Cliff, my inveterate adversary who has kept life in me for many a year, came in with his confounded pink smiling face. What's this I hear? Been overdoing it? What the deuce are you doing here? I cried. Go away. How dare you come when you're not wanted? He grinned. I'm wanted right enough, old man. The good marigolds never at fault. He rang me up and I slipped round at once. One of these days said I'll murder that fellow. He replied by gagging me with his beastly thermometer. Then he felt my pulse and listened to my heart and stuck his fingers into the corners of my eyes so as to look at the whites. And when he was quite satisfied with himself, there was only one animal more self-complacent than your medical man in such circumstances, and that is a dog who has gorged himself with surreptitious meat. He ordained that I should forthwith go properly to bed and stay there and be perfectly quiet until he came again, and in the meanwhile swallow some filthy medicine which he would send round. One of these days, said he rebukingly, instead of murdering your devoted sergeant, you'll be murdering yourself if you go on such lunatic excursions. Of course I'm shocked at hearing about Colonel Boyce, and I'm sorry for the poor lady. But why you should have been made to half-kill yourself over the matter is more than I can understand. I happen, said I, to be his only intimate friend in the place. You happen, he retorted, to be a chronic invalid in the most infernal worry of my life. You're nothing but an overbearing bully, said I. He grinned again. That is what I have to put up with. If I curse marigold, he takes no notice. If I curse cliff, he grins. If what I should do without them, heaven only knows. God bless them both, said I, when my aching body was between the cool sheets. Although it was none of his duties, marigold brought me in a light supper, fish and a glass of champagne. Never a parlor maid would he allow to approach me when I was unwell. I often wondered what would happen if I were really ill and required the attendance of a nurse. I swear no nurse's touch could be so gentle as when he raised me on the pillows. He bent over the tray on the table by the bed, and began to dissect out the backbone of the soul. I can do that, said I, fretfully. He cocked a solitary, reproachful eye on me. I burst out laughing. He looked so dear and ridiculous with his preposterous curly wig in his battered face. He went on with his task. I wonder, marigold, said I, how you put up with me? He did not reply until he had placed the neatly arranged tray across my body. I've never heard, sir, said he, as how a man couldn't put up with his blessings. A bit of soul was on my fork when I was about to convey it to my mouth, but there came a sudden lump in my throat and I put the fork down. But what about the curses? A horrible contortion of the face and a guttural rumble indicated amusement on the part of marigold. I stared, very serious, having been profoundly touched. What are you laughing at? I asked. The idiot's merriment increased in vehemence. He said, you're too funny, sir, and just bolted in a manner unbecoming not only to a sergeant, but even to a butler. As I mused on this unprecedented occurrence, I made a discovery that of sergeant marigold's sense of humor. To that sense of humor my upbratings, often, I must confess, couched in picturesque and figurative terms, so as not too greatly to hurt his feelings, had made constant appeal for the past 15 years. Hitherto he had hidden all signs of humorous titillation behind his impassive mask. Tonight a spark of sentiment had been the match to explode the mind of his mirth. He was a serious position. Here had I been wasting on him half a lifetime's choices to objugations. What was I to do in the future to consolidate my authority? I never enjoyed a fried soul and a glass of champagne more in my life. He came in later to remove the tray, as wooden as ever. This is Connor called a little while ago, sir. Why didn't you ask her to come in to see me? Doctor's orders, sir. After the soul and champagne I felt much better. I should have welcomed my dear Betty with delight. That at any rate was my first impulsive thought. Confound the doctor, I cried. And I was going to confound Marigold, too, but I caught his steady, luminous eye. What was the use of any anathema when he would only take it away as a dog does a bone and enjoy it in a solitary corner? I recovered myself. Well, said I, with dignity. Did Mrs. Connor leave any message? I was to give you her compliments, sir, and say she was sorry you were so unwell, and she was shocked to hear of Colonel Boyce's sad affliction. This was sheer orderly room. Such an expression as sad affliction never passed Betty's lips. I, however, had nothing to say. Marigold settled me for the night and left me. When I was alone and able to consider the point, I felt a cowardly gratitude towards the doctor who had put me to bed like a sick man and forbidden access to my room. I had been spared breaking the news to Betty. How she received it I did not know. But it had been impossible to question Marigold. After all, it was a matter of no essential moment. I consoled myself with the reflection and tried to go to sleep. But I passed a wretched night, my head whirling with the day's happenings. The morning papers showed me that Boyce, wishing to spare his mother, had been wise to summon me at once. They all published an official paragraph describing the act for which he had received his distinction and announcing the facts of his blindness. They also gave a brief and flattering sketch of his career. The paper devoted to him a short leading article. The illustrated papers published his photograph. Boyce was on the road to becoming a popular hero. Cliff kept me in bed all that day, to my great irritation. I had no converse with the outside world, save vicariously with Betty, who rang up to inquire after my health. On the following morning, when I drove abroad with Hosea, I found the whole town ringing with Boyce. It was a Friday, the day of publication of the local newspaper. We've run to extravagant bills all over the place. Wellingsford Hero, honored by the King, tragic end to glorious deeds. The word, Marigolds, I suppose, had gone round that I had visited the hero in London. I was stopped half a dozen times on my way up the high street by folks eager for personal details. Outside pretty love of the hairdressers, I held quite a little reception, and instead of moving me on for blocking the traffic as any of his London colleagues would have done, the local police sergeant sank his authority and by the side of a butcher's boy formed part of the assembly. When I got to the market square, I saw Sir Anthony Fenimore's car standing outside the town hall. The chauffeur stopped me. Sir Anthony was going to call on you, sir, as soon as he had finished his business inside. I'll wait for him, I said. It was one of the few mild days of a wretched month, and I enjoyed the air. Springfield, the house agent, passed and engaged me in conversation on the absorbing topic, and then the manager of the gas works joined us. I listened so reverently to my utterances that I began to feel as if I had won the Victoria Cross myself. Presently Sir Anthony bustled out of the town hall, pink brisk full of business. At the august appearance of the mayor, my less civically distinguished friends departed. His eyes brightened as they fell on me, and he shook hands vigorously. My dear Duncan, I was just on my way to you. Only heard this morning that you've been seedy, knocked up I suppose by your journey to town. Just heard of that, too. Must have thought me a brute not to inquire, but Edith and I didn't know. I was away all yesterday. These infernal tribunals, with that example of men like Leonard Boyce before their eyes, it makes one sick to look at able-bodied young Englishmen trying to wriggle out of their duty to the country. Well, dear old chap, how are you? I assured him that I had recovered from Cliff and was in my usual state of health. He rubbed his hands. That's good. Now give me all the news. What is Boyce's condition? When will he be able to be moved? When do you think he'll come back to Wellingsford? With this series of questions I pricked a curious ear. Am I speaking to the man or the mayor? The mayor, said he, wished to goodness I could get you inside, so that you and I in Winterbotham could talk things over. Winterbotham was the town clerk. Sir Anthony cast an instinctive glance at his chauffeur, a little withered elderly man. I laughed and made a sign of dissent. When you have to be carried about, you shy at the prospect of little withered elderly men as carriers. Besides, unless it would lower Winterbotham's dignity or give him a cold in the head, said I, why shouldn't he come out here? Sir Anthony crossed the pavement briskly, gave a message to the doorkeeper of the town hall, and returned to Hosea and myself. It's a dreadful thing, dreadful. I never realized till to-day, when I read his record, what a distinguished soldier he was, a modern baird. For the last year or so he seemed to put my back up, behaved in rather a curious way, never came near the house where once he was always welcome, and when I asked him to dinner he turned me down flat. But that's all over. Sometimes one has these pedifogging personal vanities. The best thing is to be heartily ashamed of him like an honest man, and throw him out in the dung heap where they belong. That's what I told Edith last night, and she agreed with me. Don't you? I smiled. Here was another typical English gentleman, reading his conscience of an injustice done to Leonard Boyce. Of course I do, said I. Boyce is a queer fellow. A man with his exceptional qualities has to be judged in an exceptional way. And then, said Sir Anthony, it's that poor dear old lady that I've been thinking of. Edith went to see her yesterday afternoon, but found she had gone up to London. In her frail health it's enough to kill her. It won't, said I. A woman doesn't give birth to a lion without having something of the lion in her nature. I've never thought of that, said Sir Anthony. Haven't you? His face turned grave, and he looked far away over the red-brick post office on the opposite side of the square. Then he sighed, looked at me with a smile, and nodded. You're right, Duncan. I know I am, said I. I broke the news to Mrs. Boyce. That's why he asked me to go up and see him. Winterbotham appeared, a tall, cadaverous man in a fur coat and a soft felt hat. He shook hands with me in a melancholy way. In a humbler walk of life, I'm sure he would have been an undertaker. Now, said Sir Anthony, tell us all about your interview with Boyce. Before I commit myself, said I, with the civic authorities, will you kindly inform me what this conference quorum publico is all about? Why, my dear chap, haven't I told you? cried Sir Anthony. We're going to give Colonel Boyce a civic reception. End of Chapter 18, recording by Sean Michael Hogan, St. John's, Newfoundland, Canada. Chapter 19, Part 1 of The Red Planet. This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information, or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. The Red Planet by William J. Locke. Chapter 19, Part 1. Thence forward, nothing was talked of but the homecoming of Colonel Boyce. He touched the public imagination. All kinds of stories, some apocryphal, some having a basis of truth, some authentic, went the round of the little place. It's simmered with marshal fervor. Elderly laggards enrolled themselves in the volunteer training corps. Young married men who had not attested under the Darby scheme rushed out to enlist. The tribunal languished in idleness for lack of claimants for exemption. Exempted men with the enthusiastic backing of employers lost the sense of their indispensability and joined the colours. An energetic lady who had met the Serbian minister in London conceived the happy idea of organising a Serbian flag day in Wellingsford and reaped a prodigious harvest. We were all tremendously patriotic, living under Boyce's reflected glory. At first I had deprecated the proposal, fearing last Boyce might not find it acceptable. The reputation he had sought at the cannon's mouth was a bubble of a different kind from that which the good townsfolk were eager to celebrate. Vanity had no part in it. For what the outer world thought of his exploits he did not care a penny, he was past caring. His soul alone, for its own sore needs, had driven him to the search. Before his own soul, and not before his fellow countrymen, had he craved to parade as a recipient of the Victoria Cross. His own soul, as I knew not being satisfied, he would shrink from obtaining popular applause under false pretenses. No unhappy man ever took sterner measure of himself. Of all this no one but myself had the faintest idea. In explaining my opinion I had to leave out all essentials. I could only hint that a sensitive man like Colonel Boyce might be averse from exhibiting in public his physical disabilities, that he had always shown himself a modest soldier with a dislike of self-advertisement, that he would prefer to seek immediate refuge in the quietude of his home. But they would not listen to me. Colonel Boyce, they said, would be too patriotic to refuse the town's recognition. It was part of the game which he, as a brave soldier, no matter how modest, could not fail to play. He would recognize that such public honoreings of valor had widespread effect among the population. In face of such arguments I had to withdraw my opposition, otherwise it might have appeared that I was actuated by petty personal motives. God knows I only desired to save Boyce from undergoing a difficult ordeal. For the same reasons I could not refuse to serve on the reception committee which was immediately formed under the chairmanship of the mayor. Preliminaries having been discussed, the mayor and the town clerk waited on Boyce in Belt and Square and returned with the triumphant tidings that they had succeeded in their mission. I can't make out what you were running your head against, Duncan, said Sir Anthony. Of course, as you say, he's a modest chap and dislikes publicity, so do we all. But I quickly talked him out of that objection. I talked him out of all sorts of objections before he could raise them. At last, what do you think he said? I should have told you to go to blazes and not worry me. He didn't. He said, now I like the chap for it. It was so simple and honest. He said, if I were alone in the world, I wouldn't have it, for I don't like it. But I'll accept on one condition. My poor old mother has had rather a thin time and she's going to have a thinner. She never gets a look in. Make it as far as possible her show, and I'll do what you like. What do you think of that? I think it's very characteristic, said I. And it was. In my mental survey of the situation from Boyce's point of view, I had not taken into account the best and finest in the man. His reason rang true against my exceptional knowledge of him. I had worked myself into so sympathetic a comprehension that I knew he would be facing something unknown and terrible in the proposed ceremony. I knew that for his own sake he would have unequivocably declined. But, Ad Najoram Matris Gloriam, he assented. The main question at any rate was settled. The hero would accept the honor. It was for the committee to make the necessary arrangements. We corresponded far and wide in order to obtain municipal precedents. We had interviews with the military and railway authorities. We were in constant communication with the local volunteer training corps, with the Godbury volunteers and the Godbury School OTC, who both desired to take a part in the great event. In compliance with the conditions imposed, we gave as much publicity as we could to Mrs. Boyce. Lieutenant Colonel Boyce, V.C. and Mrs. Boyce were officially associated in the program of the reception. How to disentangle them afterwards when the presentation of the address engrossed on valunai and enclosed in a casket should be made to the Colonel was the subject of heated and confused discussion. Then the feminine elements in town and county desired to rally to the side of Mrs. Boyce. The Red Cross and volunteer aid detachment nurses claimed representation. So did the munitions workers of Godbury. The Countess of Laylam, the wife of the Lord Lieutenant of the county, a most imposing and masterful woman, signified in gentile though incisive language her intention to take a leading part in the proceedings and to bring along her husband, apparently as an unofficial ornament. This, of course, upset our plans, which had all to be reconsidered from the beginning. Who is giving the reception, cried Lady Fenimore, who could stand upon her dignity as well as anybody, the county or Wellingsford. I presume it's Wellingsford, and so long as I am merris that dreadful Laylam woman will have to take a back seat. So you see, we had our hands full. All this time I found Betty curiously elusive, now and then I met her for a few fugitive moments at the hospital. Twice she ran in for dinner in uniform, desperately busy, arriving on the stroke of the dinner hour and rushing away five minutes after her coffee and cigarette, alleging as excuse the epidemic of influenza, consequent on the vile weather, which had woefully reduced the hospital staff. She seemed to be feverish and ill at ease and tried to cover the symptoms by a reversion to her old offhand manner. As I was so seldom alone with her, I could find scant opportunity for intimate conversation. I thought that she might have regretted the frank exposition of her feelings regarding Leonard Boyce, but she showed no sign of it. She spoke in the most detached way of his blindness and the coming ceremony. Never once, even on the first occasion when I met her in the hospital corridor after my return from London, did her attitude vary from that of any kind-hearted English woman who deplores the mutilation of a gallant social acquaintance. Sometimes I wanted to shake her, though I could scarcely tell why. I certainly would not have had her weep on my shoulder over Boyce's misfortune, nor would I have cared for her to exhibit a vindictive callousness. She behaved with perfect propriety. Perhaps that is what disturbed me. I was not accustomed to associate perfect propriety with my dear Betty. The days went on. The reception arrangements were perfected. We only waited for the date of Boyce's arrival to be fixed. That depended on the date of the particular investiture by the King which Boyce's convalescence should allow him to attend. At last the date was fixed. A few days before the investiture I went to London and called at Lady Fanshawe's in Eccleston Street, with her he had been removed after leaving the hospital. I was received in the dining room on the ground floor by Boyce and his mother. He wore black glasses to hide terrible disfigurement. He lifted them to show me. One eye had been extracted, the other was seared and sightless. He greeted me as heartily as ever, made little jests over his infirmity, treating it lightly for his mother's sake. She on her side deemed it her duty to exhibit equal cheerfulness. She boasted of his progress in self-reliance and in the accomplishment of various little blind man's tricks. At her bidding he lit a cigarette for my benefit by means of a patent fuse. He said when he had succeeded, better than last time you saw me, eh, Meredith? What was that, asked Mrs. Boyce? He nearly burned his fingers, said I, shortly. I had no desire to relate the incident. We talked of the coming ceremony and I gave them the details of the programme. Boyce had been right in accepting on the score of his mother. Only once had she been the central figure in any public ceremony on her wedding day in the years long ago. Here was a new kind of wedding day in her old age. The prospect filled her with a tremulous joy which was to both of them a compensation. She bubbled over with pride and excitement at her inclusion in the homage that was to be paid to the valor of her only son. After all, she said, I did bring him into the world so I can claim some credit. I only hope I shan't cry and make a fool of myself. They won't expect me to keep on bowing, will they? I once saw Queen Victoria driving through the streets and I thought how dreadfully her poor old neck must have ached. On the latter point I reassured her. On the drive from the station Boyce would take the salute of the troops on the line of route. If she smiled charmingly at them, their hearts would be satisfied and if she just nodded at them occasionally in a motherly sort of way, they would be enchanted. She informed me that she was having a new dress made for the occasion. She had also bought a new hat which I must see. A servant was summoned and dispatched for it. She tried it on girlishly before the mirror over the mantelpiece and received my compliments. Tell me what it looks like, said Boyce. You might as well ask a savage in Central Africa to describe the interior of a submarine as the ordinary man to describe a woman's hat. My artless endeavors caused considerable merriment. To hear Boyce's gay laughter, one would have thought he had never a care in the world. When I took my leave, Mrs. Boyce accompanied Marigold and myself to the front door. Did you ever hear of anything so dreadful, she whispered? And I saw her lips quivering and the tears rolling down her cheeks. If he weren't so brave and wonderful, I should break my heart. What do you suppose you are yourself, my dear old friend, said I over Marigold's shoulder? On the evening before the reception Betty was shown into the library. It was late getting on towards my bedtime and I was nodding in front of the fire. I'm just in and out, Magie dear, she said. I had to come. I didn't want to give you too many shocks. At my expression of alarm she laughed. I've only run in to tell you that I've made up my mind to come to the town hall tomorrow. I looked at her and I suppose my hands moved in a slight gesture. By that she said, I suppose you mean you can never tell what I'm going to do next. You've guessed it, my dear, said I. Do you disapprove? I couldn't be so presumptuous. She bent over me and caught the lapels of my jacket. Oh, don't be so dreadfully dignified. I want you to understand. Everybody is going to pay honour tomorrow to a man who has given everything he could to his country. Don't you think it would be petty of me if I stood out? What have the dead things that have passed between us to do with my tribute as an English woman? What indeed? I asked her whether she was attending in her private capacity or as one of the representatives of the VAD nurses. I learned for the thousandth time that Betty Connor did not deal in half measures. If she went at all, it was as Betty Connor that she would go. Her aunts would accompany her. It was part of the municipal ordering of things that the town clerk should have sent them the special cards of invitation. I think it my duty to go, said Betty. If you think so, my dear, said I, then it is your duty. So there's nothing more to be said about it. Betty kissed the top of my head and went off. We come now to the morning of the great day. Everything had been finally settled. The Mayor and Alderman, Lady Fenimore and the Alderman's wives, the Lord Lieutenant in unofficial Mufti, and Lady Laylam, great though officially obscure lady, the general of the division quartered in the neighborhood and officers of his staff, and a few other magnets to meet the three o'clock train by which the voices were due to arrive. The station hung with flags and inscriptions, a guard of honor and a band in the station yard with a fleet of motor cars in waiting, troops lining the route from station to town hall, more troops in the decorated market square, including the Godbury School OTC and the Wellingsford and Godbury volunteers. I heard that the latter were very anxious to fire off a footageois, but were restrained owing to lack of precedent. The local fire brigade in freshly burnished helmets were to follow the procession of motor cars and behind them motor omnibuses with the nurses. Marigold, although his attendance on me precluded him from taking part in the parade of volunteers, appeared in full gray uniform with all his medals and the black patch of ceremony over his eyeless socket. I must confess to regarding him with some jealousy. I too should have liked to wear my decorations. If a man swears to you that he is free from such little vanities, he is more often than not a mere liar, but a broken down old soldier, although still drawing pay from the government, is not allowed to wear uniform, which I think is outrageous, and he can't go and plaster himself with medals when he is wearing on his head a hard felt hat. My envy of the marshal looking marigold is a proof that my mind was not busied with sterner preoccupations. I ate my breakfast with the serene conscience not only of a man who knows he has done his duty, but of an organizer confident in the success of his schemes. The abominable weather of snows and tempests from which we had suffered for weeks had undergone a change. It was a mild morning brightened by a pale convalescent sort of sun, and there was just a little hope of spring in the air. I felt content with everything and everybody. About eleven o'clock the buzz of the library telephone disturbed my comfortable perusal of the newspaper. I wheeled towards the instrument. Sir Antony was speaking. Can you come round at once? Very urgent. The car is on its way to you. What's the matter, I asked. He could not tell me over the wires. I was to take it that my presence was urgently needed. I'll come along at once, said I. Some hitch doubtless had occurred. Perhaps the war-office, whose ways were ever weird and unaccountable, had forbidden the general to take part in such a village-pump demonstration. Perhaps Lady Laylam had insisted on her husband coming down like a uniformed Lord Lieutenant on the fold. Perhaps the hero himself was laid up with measles.