Simon Called Peter Part 12

"Good G.o.d, padre!" said the Australian, getting up too, "what in the world do you mean?"

"Chaplain-General's Department or Princ.i.p.al Chaplain's Department, Church of England or Nonconformist. And it's sixpence a swear in this mess."

Arnold held out a hand.

Donovan caught his friend by the arm. "Come on out of it," he said. "You won't get back in time if you don't. The padre's a good sort; you needn't mind him. So long everybody. Keep Tuesday clear, Graham. I'll call for you."

"Well, I'd better fix you up, Graham," said Arnold. "For my sins I'm mess secretary, and as the president's out and likely to be, I'll find a place for you."

He led Peter into the pa.s.sage, and consulted a board on the wall. "I'd like to put you next me, but I can't," he said. "Both sides occupied.

Wait a minute. No. 10 Pennell, and No. 11's free. How would you like that? Pennell," he called through the open door, "what's the next room to yours like? Light all right?"

"Quite decent," said Pennell, coming to the door. "Going to put him there, padre? Let's go and see." Then the three went off together down the pa.s.sage.

The little room was bare, except for a table under the window, Arnold opened it, and Peter saw he looked out over the sea. Pennell switched on the light and found it working correctly, and then sauntered across the couple of yards or so of the cubicle's width to look at the remains of some coloured pictures pasted on the wooden part.i.tion.

"Last man's made a little collection from _La Vie Parisienne_ for you, padre," he said, "Not a very bright selection, either. You'll have to cover them up, or it'll never do to bring your A.C.G. or A.P.C., or whatever he is, in here. What a life!" he added, regarding them. "They are a queer people, the French.... Well, is this going to do?"

Graham glanced at Arnold, "Very well," he said, "if it's all right for me to have it."

"Quite all right," said Arnold. "Remember, Pennell is next door left, so keep him in order. Next door right is the English Channel, more or less.

Now, what about your traps?"

"I left them outside the orderly-room," said Peter, "except for some that a porter was to bring up. Perhaps they'll be here by now. I've got a stretcher and so on."

"I'll go and see," said Pennell, "and I'll put my man on to get you straight, as you haven't a batman yet." And he strolled off.

"Come to my room a minute," said Arnold, and Peter followed him.

Arnold's room was littered with stuff. The table was spread with mess accounts, and the corners of the little place were stacked up with a gramophone, hymn-books, lantern-slides, footb.a.l.l.s, boxing-gloves, and such-like. The chairs were both littered, but Arnold cleared one by the simple expedient of piling all its contents on the other, and motioned his visitor to sit down. "Have a pipe?" he asked, holding out his pouch.

Peter thanked him, filled and handed it back, then lit his pipe, and glanced curiously round the room as he drew on it. "You're pretty full up," he said.

"Fairly," said the other. "There's a Y.M.C.A. here, and I run it more or less, and Tommy likes variety. He's a fine chap, Tommy; don't you think so?"

Peter hesitated a second, and the other glanced at him shrewdly.

"Perhaps you haven't been out long enough," he said.

"Perhaps not," said Peter. "Not but what I do like him. He's a cheerful creature for all his grousing, and has sterling good stuff in him. But religiously I don't get on far. To tell you the truth, I'm awfully worried about it."

The elder man nodded. "I guess I know, lad," he said. "See here. I'm Presbyterian and I reckon you are Anglican, but I expect we're up against much the same sort of thing. Don't worry too much. Do your job and talk straight, and the men'll listen more than you think."

"But I don't think I know what to tell them," said Peter miserably, but drawn out by the other.

Arnold smiled. "The Prayer Book's not much use here, eh? But forgive me; I don't mean to be rude. I know what you mean. To tell you the truth, I think this war is what we padres have been needing. It'll help us to find our feet. Only--this is honest--if you don't take care you may lose them.

I have to keep a tight hold of that"--and he laid his hand on a big Bible--"to mind my own."

Peter did not reply for a minute. He could not talk easily to a stranger.

But at last he said: "Yes; but it doesn't seem to me to fit the case. Men are different. Times are different. The New Testament people took certain things for granted, and even if they disagreed, they always had a common basis with the Apostles. Men out here seem to me to talk a different language: you don't know where to begin. It seems to me that they have long ago ceased to believe in the authority of anyone or anything in religion, and now to-day they actually deny our very commonplaces. But I don't know how to put it," he added lamely.

Arnold puffed silently for a little. Then he took his pipe out of his mouth and regarded it critically. "G.o.d's in the soul of every man still,"

he said. "They can still hear Him speak, and speak there. And so must we too, Graham."

Peter said nothing. In a minute or so steps sounded in the pa.s.sage, and Arnold looked up quickly. "Maybe," he said, "our ordinary life prevented us hearing G.o.d very plainly ourselves, Graham, and maybe He has sent us here for that purpose. I hope so. I've wondered lately if we haven't come to the kingdom for such a time as this."

Pennell pushed the door open, and looked in. "You there, Graham?" he asked. "Oh, I thought I'd find him here, padre; his stuff's come."

Peter got up. "Excuse me, Arnold," he said; "I must shake in. But I'm jolly glad you said what you did, and I hope you'll say it again, and some more."

The older man smiled an answer, and the door closed. Then he sighed a little, and stretched out his hand again for the Bible.

CHAPTER VI

The great central ward at No. 1 Base Hospital looked as gay as possible.

In the centre a Guard's band sat among palms and ferns, and an extemporised stage, draped with flags, was behind, with wings constructed of j.a.panese-figured material. Pretty well all round were the beds, although many of them had been moved up into a central position, and there was a s.p.a.ce for chairs and forms. The green-room had to be outside the ward, and the performers, therefore, came and went in the public gaze. But it was not a critical public, and the men, with a plenitude of cigarettes, did not object to pauses. On the whole, they were extraordinarily quiet and pa.s.sive. Modern science has made the battlefield a h.e.l.l, but it has also made the base hospital something approaching a Paradise.

There were women in plenty. The staff had been augmented by visitors from most of the other hospitals in the town, and there was a fair sprinkling of W.A.A.C.'s, Y.M.C.A. workers, and so on, in addition. Jack Donovan and Peter were a little late, and arrived at the time an exceedingly popular subaltern was holding the stage amid roars of laughter. They stood outside one of the many gla.s.s doors and peered in.

Once inside, one had to make one's way among beds and chairs, and the nature of things brought one into rather more than the usual share of late-comers' scrutiny, but nothing could abash Donovan. He spotted at once a handsome woman in nurse's indoor staff uniform, and made for her.

She, with two others, was sitting on an empty bed, and she promptly made room for Donovan. Graham was introduced, and a quiet girl moved up a bit for him to sit down; but there was not much room, and the girl would not talk, so that he sat uncomfortably and looked about him, listening with one ear to the fire of chaff on his right. Donovan was irrepressible. His laugh and voice, and the fact that he was talking to a hospital personage, attracted a certain amount of attention. Peter tried to smile, but he felt out of it and observed. He stared up towards the band, which was just striking up again.

Suddenly he became conscious, as one will, that someone was particularly looking at him. He glanced back over the chairs, and met a pair of eyes, roguish, laughing, and unquestionably fixed upon him. The moment he saw them, their owner nodded and telegraphed an obvious invitation. Peter glanced at Donovan: he had not apparently seen. He looked back; the eyes called him again. He felt himself getting hot, for, despite the fact that he had a kind of feeling that he had seen those eyes before, he was perfectly certain he did not know the girl. Perhaps she had made a mistake. He turned resolutely to his companion.

"Jolly good band, isn't it?" he said.

"Yes," she replied.

"But I suppose at a hospital like this you're always hearing decent music?" he ventured.

"Not so often," she said.

"This band is just back from touring the front, isn't it? My friend said something to that effect."

"I believe so," she said.

Peter could have cursed her. It was impossible to get anything out of her, though why he had not a notion. The answer was really simple, for she wanted to be next Donovan, and wasn't, and she was all the while scheming how to get there. But Peter did not tumble to that; he felt an a.s.s and very uncomfortable, and he broke into open revolt.

He looked steadily towards the chairs. The back of the girl who had looked at him was towards him now, for she was talking sideways to somebody; but he noted an empty chair just next her, and that her uniform was not that of the nurses of this hospital. He felt confident that she would look again, and he was not disappointed. Instantly he made up his mind, nodded, and reached for his cap. "I see a girl I know over there,"

he said to his neighbour. "Excuse me, will you?" Then he got up and walked boldly over to the vacant chair. He was fast acclimatising to war conditions.

He sat down on that empty chair and met the girl's eyes fairly. She was entirely at her ease and laughing merrily. "I've lost my bet," she said, "and Tommy's won."

"And you've made me tell a thundering lie," he replied, laughing too, "which you know is the first step towards losing one's soul. Therefore you deserve your share in the loss."