If Winter Comes Part 33

Messman, one of those very stiff whiskies for Mr. Sabre--go on, Sabre, you must. Because--" He had not Cottar's reticence. He burst into song, waving his gla.s.s--"Because--

"We shan't be here in the morning--"

They all took it up, bawling uproariously:

We shan't be here in the morning, We shan't be here in the morning, We shan't be here in the mor-or-ning, Before the break of day!

Otway came in. "Shut up, you noisy young fools. What the--"

Sikes from the table. "Ah, Papa Otway! Three cheers for Papa Otway in very discreet whispers. Messman, one of those very stiff whiskies for Captain Otway."

Otway laughed pleasantly. "No, chuck it, I'm not drinking. Hood, I want you; and you, Carmichael, and you, Bullen." He saw Sabre and came to him. "Hullo, Sabre. You've heard now. We've managed to keep it pretty close, but it's all over the place now. Yes, we entrain at daybreak."

Sabre felt frightfully affected. He could hardly speak. "Good Lord. I can't realise it. I say, Otway, do you remember predicting this nearly two years ago? You said this would find us all unawares. You were one of the people every one laughed at."

Precisely the same Otway who had spoken with such extraordinary intensity outside the Corn Exchange eighteen months before began to speak with extraordinary intensity now. "That? Oh, I don't give a d.a.m.n for any of that now. This is our show now, Sabre. The Army's show. I don't give a d.a.m.n for what happens at home now. This is our show. Sabre, you don't know what this is for me. I've lived for this, dreamt about it, thought about it, eaten it, drunk it ever since I was a kid at Sandhurst. Now it's come. By G.o.d, it's come at last!"

The same Otway! Positively the little beads of perspiration were shining about his nose. His eyes scintillated an extraordinary light. He said, "By G.o.d, Sabre, you ought to have seen the battalion on parade this morning! By G.o.d, they were magnificent. They're the finest thing that ever happened. There's nothing in the Army List to touch us. When I think I'll be in action with them perhaps inside a week--I--"

An orderly approached and spoke to him. "Right. Right. I'll come along at once." He was swiftly away. "Patterson, I want you too. There's a man in your company says his wife--"

And, stilled during his presence, babel broke out anew with his departure. Some one, standing on a sofa, caught up Otway's last word into a bawling song--

I've got a wife and sixteen kids, I've got a wife and sixteen kids, I've got a wife and--

A cushion whizzed across the room into his face. A tag began. Sikes on the table was laying down laws of equipment at the top of his voice.

"Well, I'm going to take nothing but socks. I'm going to stuff my pack absolutely bung full of socks. Man alive, I tell you nothing matters except socks. If you can keep on getting clean socks every--I'm going to stuff in socks enough to last me--"[1]

[Footnote 1: A very short time afterwards, while the incident was fresh in his memory, Sabre heard that Sikes took out eleven pairs of socks and was killed, at Mons, in the pair he landed in.]

II

The blessed gift in the war was to be without imagination. The supreme trial, whether in endurance on the part of those who stayed at home, or in courage on the part of those who took the field, was upon those whose mentality invested every sight and every happening with the poignancy of attributes not present but imagined. For Sabre the war definitely began with that visit to the Mess on the eve of the Pinks' departure. The high excitement of the young men, their eager planning, the almost religious ecstasy of Otway at the consummation of his life's dream, moved Sabre, visioning what might await it all, in depths profound and painful in their intensity. His mind would not abandon them. He sat up that night after Mabel had gone to her room. How on earth could he go to bed, be hoggishly sleeping, while those chaps were marching out?

He could not. At two in the morning he went quietly from the house and got out his bicycle and rode down into Tidborough.

He was just in time. The news had been well kept, or in those early days had not the meaning it came to have. Nevertheless a few people stood about the High Street in the thin light of the young morning, and when, almost immediately, the battalion came swinging out of the Market Place, many appeared flanking it, mostly women.

"Here they come!"

Frightful words! Sabre caught them from a young woman spoken to a very old woman whose arm she held a few paces from where he stood. Frightful words! He caught his breath, and, more dreadfully upon his emotions, as the head of the column came into sight, the band, taking them to the station, burst into the Pinks' familiar quickstep.

The Camp Town races are five miles long, Doo-da! Doo-da!

The Camp Town races are five miles long, Doo-da! Doo-da! Day!

Gwine to run all night. Gwine to run all day.

I bet my money on the bob-tail nag, Somebody bet on the bay!

He never in his life had experienced anything so utterly frightful or imagined that anything could be so utterly frightful. His throat felt bursting. His eyes were filled. They were swinging past him, file by file. _Doo-da! Doo-da! Day!_ He scarcely could see them. They were marching at ease, their rifles slung. They seemed to be appallingly laden with stupendous packs and mult.i.tudinous equipment. A tin mug and G.o.d knows what else beside swung and rattled about their thighs. The women with them were running to keep up, and dragging children, and stretching hands into the ranks, and crying--all crying.

...Doo-da! Doo-da!

The Camp Town races are five miles long, Doo-da! Doo-da! Day!

He thought, "d.a.m.n that infernal music." He wiped his eyes. This was impossible to bear ... _Doo-da! Doo-da!_ A most frightful thing happened. A boy broke out of the ranks and came running, all rattling and jingling with swinging accoutrements, to the old woman beside Sabre, put his arms around her and cried in a most frightful voice, "Mother!

Mother!" And a sergeant, also rattling and clanking, dashed up and bawled with astounding ferocity, "Get back into the b.l.o.o.d.y ranks!" And the boy ran on, rattling. And the old woman collapsed p.r.o.ne upon the pavement. And the sergeant, as though his amazing ferocity had been the b.u.t.tress of some other emotions, bent over the old woman and patted her, rattling, and said, "That's all right, Mother. That's all right. I'll look after him. I'll bring him back. That's all right, Mother." And ran on, jingling. _Doo-da! Doo-da! Day!_

III

He turned away. He absolutely could not bear it. He walked a few paces and equally could not forbear to stop and look again. The men were nearly all laughing and whistling and singing.... This bursting sensation in all his emotions! It was beyond anything he had ever experienced before. But he had experienced something like it before. His mind threw back across the years and presented the occasion to him. It was when he was a very small boy in his first term at Tidborough. The Christmas term and he was on the Strip, trying frantically behind a crowd of boys to get a glimpse of the match in progress,--one of the great matches of the season, vs. Tidborough Town. One of the boys against whose waist his frantic head was b.u.t.ting turned and said in a lordly way, "Let that kid through," and he was roughly bundled to a front position. The boy who had commanded his presence jolted him in the back with his knee and said, using the school argot for to cheer or shout, "Swipe up, you ghastly young a.s.s! Swipe up! Can't you see they're pressing us?"

Couldn't he see! He felt that the end of the world was coming at what he saw. The enormous, full-grown town men were almost on the school goal-line; the school team clinging to them and battling with them like tiger-cats. He had only been at Tidborough a month, but he felt he would die if the line was crossed. He swiped till he thought his throat must crack. When his cracking throat incontinently took intervals of rest, he prayed to G.o.d for the school, visioning G.o.d on his throne on the school goalposts and mentioning to Him the players whose names he knew:

"Oh, let Barnwell get in his kick! Oh, do let Harris see they're heeling the ball! Oh, help Tufnell to get that man! Help him! Help him!

Schoo-o-ool! Schoo-oo-ool! Schoo-oo-ool!"

_Doo-da! Doo-da! Day!_

His bursting heart was now saying, "England! England!"

IV

The column pa.s.sed and was gone. He was left with his most frightful feelings. He could do nothing now. Four o'clock in the morning. But he must do something now. He could not go home till he had. He must. He followed to the station. The men were entraining in the goods yard. He waited about, not trusting himself to speak to Otway or any of the others who were going. Presently his opportunity came in a sight of Colonel Rattray, who commanded the depot and was not going, standing for a minute alone. Sabre went quickly to him and they exchanged greetings and said the obvious things proper to the occasion. Then Sabre said, feeling extraordinarily embarra.s.sed, "I say, Colonel, I want to get into this. I absolutely must get into this."

"Eh? Into what?"

"The war." It was easier after the plunge, and he went on quickly, "I see in the papers that civilians are being given commissions, getting them by recommendation. Can you get me a commission? _Can_ you?"

Colonel Rattray showed surprise. He turned squarely about and faced Sabre and looked him up and down, but not in the way in which soldiers looked civilians up and down rather later on. "Well, I don't know. I might. I've no doubt I could, if you're eligible. How old are you, Sabre?"

"Thirty-six."

Colonel Rattray said doubtfully, "It's a bit on the steep side for a commission."

"Well, I'd go in the ranks. I must get in. I absolutely must."

The soldier smiled pleasantly. "Oh, I wouldn't get thinking about the ranks, Sabre. There're heaps before you, you know. Still, I wouldn't stop any man getting into the Army if I could help him. I'll see what I can do. Certainly I will. Mind you, I'm doubtful. Are you fit?"

"I think I am. I'm supposed to have a bit of a heart. But it's absolute rot. It never affects me in the slightest degree. I can do anything."

"Well, that's the first thing, you know. Look here, I'm wanted. Come up to the Mess in the morning and I'll get our doctor to have a look at you. Then we'll see what can be done. All right, eh?"

V

He rode home much relieved from the stresses he had suffered in that awful business of watching the regiment march out. He felt that if only he could be "in it" he could equably endure any of these things that were happening and that would get worse; if he had just to stand by and watch them his portion would be insupportable. England! Other people whom he knew could not possibly feel it in the way he felt it. His history with its opening sentence, "This England you live in is _yours_", had arisen out of his pa.s.sionate love for all that England meant to him. In all Shakespeare there was no pa.s.sage that moved him in quite the same way whenever he recalled it as Richard the Second's

Dear earth, I do salute thee with my hand....