The Day of Wrath Part 30

"We've had the time of our lives!" was the cheery comment. "After Mons we were left in a field hospital with a mixed crowd of British, French, and Germans. Of course, we looked after all alike, and that saved our bacon, because even a German general had to try and behave decently when he found a thousand of his own men in our care. So he sent us to Brussels with a safe conduct, and from Brussels we were allowed to make for Ostend--had to leg it, though, the last twenty miles to the Belgian outposts. Then we refitted, and started for Bruges, where we've been at work in a convent for five weeks. The remnant of the Belgian army pa.s.sed through Bruges yesterday and the day before, so we cleared out all possible cases, and started away with the crocks early this morning. At the last minute we were hustled a bit by a Taube dropping bombs on the station. One bomb took from us a van-load of kit. We haven't a thing except the stretchers and what we're wearing."

"I'll ride on now, and meet you at Ostend," said Dalroy. He had not the heart to damp the spirits of the party by telling of the chaos awaiting them. Sufficient for the next hour would be the evil thereof.

"I say, it's awfully good of you to take all this trouble," said the doctor.

"I've lost my job with the departure of our troops, so I had to find something to do," smiled the other.

A fleet of Belgian armoured cars cleared a road through the stream of fugitives, and Dalroy kept close in rear, so he made a fast return journey. Dashing past the town station, near which the steam-tram would disgorge its freight, he headed straight for the Gare Maritime. It was now dusk, but he saw at once that the crowd besieging the entrance was denser and more frantic than ever, though the last steamer whose departure was announced officially had left early in the day.

He ascertained from a helpless policeman that the rumour had gone round of a vessel coming in; the sullen, apathetic mult.i.tude, waiting there for it knew not what chance of rescue, had suddenly become dangerous.

"The American Consul, who has worked hard all day, has had to give it up," added the man. "He is closing his office."

Just then a harbour official, minus his cap, and with coat badly torn during a violent pa.s.sage through the mob, strode by, breathless but hurried.

Dalroy recognised him, having had much business with the port authorities during the preceding week.

"Is it true that a steamer is in sight?" he asked.

"Monsieur, what am I to say?" and the accompanying gesture was eloquent.

"It is only a little cargo boat, an English coaster. If she nears the quay there will be a riot, and perhaps thousands of lives lost. The harbour-master has sent me to ask the mayor if he should not signal her to anchor outside until daylight."

Prompt decision and steadfast action were Dalroy's chief qualities. If luck favoured him he might set his own project on foot before the mayor's messenger burked it by a civic order. He thanked the man and rode off.

Happily the tram came from Blankenberge without undue delay. He had only dismounted when the engine clanked into the station square. Already his soldier's eye had noted that the Gordons and some of the Belgian soldiers had retained their rifles and bayonets.

"Get your crowd into motion at once," he said to the doctor, as soon as the latter alighted. "Nothing you have gone through during the last two months will equal the excitement of the next quarter of an hour. But, if your cripples can fix bayonets and show a bold front, we have a fighting chance--no more. And unless we leave Ostend before to-morrow morning it'll be a German prison for you and a firing party for me."

Men who have smelt war and death, not once but many times, do not hesitate and argue when a staff officer talks in that strain.

With an almost marvellous rapidity the members of the mission and the wounded able to walk were formed up, stretchers were lifted, and the march began. Dalroy and the doctor headed the procession with the Gordons, and the mere appearance of a Highlander enforces awe in any part of Europe.

Dalroy explained matters as they went, and impressed on the escort the absolute necessity of showing a determined front. On nearing the packed ma.s.s of people clamouring outside the Gare Maritime he vociferated some sharp orders, the rifles came from the "slope" to the "ready," and those on the outskirts of the throng saw a number of war-stained kilties advancing on them with threatening mien.

By some magic a way was opened out. The vanguard knew exactly how to act, and faced about when the main gates were reached. Here there was a hitch, but a threat to fire a volley through the bars was effectual, and the whole party got through, though even the hardened doctors looked grave when they heard the wail of anguish that went up from the mult.i.tude without as the gates clashed against further ingress.

Of course, as might be expected, there were hundreds of influential people, both British subjects and Belgians, already inside. To them Dalroy gave no immediate heed. Merely requesting the doctor to keep his contingent together and distinct, he sought the harbour-master.

No orders had been received as yet from the mayor, and the incoming steamer, quite a small craft, was already in the channel.

The harbour-master, a decent fellow, whose sole anxiety was to act for the best, readily agreed to Dalroy's plan, so the vessel, whose skipper had actually brought her to Ostend that evening "on spec," as he put it, was moored at a distance of some ten feet from the quay.

"How many people can you carry?" was Dalroy's first question to the captain.

"Well, sir," came the surprising answer, "we're licensed by the Board of Trade to carry forty-five pa.s.sengers in summer, but, in a pinch like this, I'll try and stow away two hundred!"

After that there was no hitch. A gangway was fixed in position, the armed guard were disposed around it, and the doctors and Dalroy, with a representative of the burgomaster who arrived later, const.i.tuted themselves a committee of selection. The hospital staff and their patients were placed on board first. Wounded soldiers picked up in Ostend itself were given the next claim. Then British subjects, and, finally, Belgian refugees, were admitted.

It was a long and tedious yet almost heart-breaking business, but the order of priority established a method whereby claims might be tested with some show of equity. At last, at some hour, none knew or cared exactly when, the steamer forged slowly out into the channel, backed, and swung, amid the shrieks and lamentations of the thousands who were left to the tender mercies of _Kultur_.

In addition to her crew, she carried 739 pa.s.sengers, mostly wounded soldiers, women, and children!

There was no room to lie down, save in the s.p.a.ce rigidly preserved for the stretcher cases. The decks, the cabins, the holds, were packed tight with a living freight. Surely never before has vessel put to sea so loaded with human beings.

The captain decided not to attempt the crossing by night and lay to till morning. The ship's boats returned to the quay, and brought off some food and water.

Meanwhile, leaders of sections were chosen, the people were instructed as to the danger of lurching, and ropes were arranged so that any unexpected movement of the hull might be counteracted.

At eight o'clock next morning the engines were started; at ten o'clock that night the ship was berthed at Dover. By the mercy of Providence the sea remained smooth all day, though the mid-channel tidal swell caused dangerous and anxious moments. Of course, there were mine-fields to be avoided, and strong tides to be cheated, but, allowing for these hindrances, the trip occupied fourteen hours, whereas the Belgian mail-packets employed on the same journey used to adhere steadily to a schedule of three hours and three-quarters!

On the way, death took his dread toll among the wounded, but to nothing like the extent that might well have been feared. The bringing of that great company of people from the horrors of the German occupation of Belgium to the safe harbourage of the United Kingdom was a magnificent achievement, worthy of high place in the crowded and glorious annals of British seamanship.

So Irene and her true knight met once more, only to part again after three blissful days. This time, Dalroy went to France, and took his place in the fighting line. He endured the drudgery of that first winter in the trenches, shared in the gain and loss of Neuve Chapelle, earned his majority, and seemed to lead a charmed life until a high explosive sh.e.l.l burst a little too close during the second day at Loos.

He was borne off the field as one nearly dead. But his wounds were slight, and he had only been stunned by the concussion. By the time this diagnosis was confirmed, however, he was at home and enjoying six weeks'

leave.

Nothing very remarkable would have happened if the Earl of Glas...o...b..ry, an elderly but most observant peer, had not created a rare commotion one day at luncheon.

Dalroy was up in town after a few days' rest at his uncle's vicarage in the Midlands; he and the younger members of the household were planning a round of theatres and suchlike dissipations, when the Earl said quietly:

"You people seem to be singularly devoid of original ideas. George Alexander, Charlie Hawtrey, and the latest revue star provide a sure and certain refuge for every country cousin who comes to London for a fortnight's mild dissipation."

"What do you suggest, dad?" demanded Irene.

"Why not have a war wedding?"

"Oh, let's!" cried the flapper sister ecstatically.

Dalroy swallowed whole some article of food, and Irene blushed scarlet.

But "father" had said the thing, and "mother" had smiled, so Dalroy, whose wildest dreams. .h.i.therto had dwelt on marriage at the close of the war as a remote possibility, bestirred himself like a good soldier-man, rushing all fences at top speed.

The brother in the Guards secured five days' leave, a wounded but exceedingly good-looking Bengal Lancer was empanelled as "best man" (to the joy and torment of the flapper, who pined during a whole week after his departure), and, almost before they well knew what was happening, Dalroy and his bride found themselves speeding toward Devon in a fine car on their honeymoon.

"And why not?" growled the Earl, striving to comfort his wife when she wept a little at the thought that her beautiful daughter, her eldest-born, would henceforth have a nest of her own. "Dash it all, Mollie, they'll only be young once, and this rotten war looks like lasting a decade! Had we searched the British Isles we couldn't have found a better mate for our girl. He's just the sort of chap who will worship Irene all his life, and he has in him the makings of a future commander-in-chief, or I'm a Dutchman!"

As his lordship is certainly not a Dutchman, but unmistakably English, aristocratic, and county, it is permissible to hope that his prophecy may be fulfilled. Let us hope, too, if Dalroy ever leads the armed manhood of Britain, it will be a cohort formed to render aggressive war impossible. That, at least, is no idle dream. It should be the sure and only outcome of the world's greatest agony.

THE END