The Major Part 63

"Did you hear about Ramsay Dunn? Oh, he did splendidly. He was wounded; got a cross or something."

"Did you know that Mr. Murray had organised a battalion and is Lieutenant-Colonel and that Doctor Brown is organising a Field Ambulance unit and going out in command?"

"Oh, that is settled, is it? Jane told me it was possible."

"Yes, and perhaps Jane and Ethel Murray will go with the Ambulance Unit.

Oh, Larry, is there any way I might go? I could do so much--drive a car, an ambulance, wash, scrub, carry despatches, anything."

"By Jove, you would be a good one!" exclaimed her brother. "I would like to have you in my company."

"Couldn't it be worked in any possible way?" cried Nora.

But Larry made no reply. He knew well that no reply was needed. What was her duty this splendid girl would do, whether in Flanders or in Alberta.

At the door of their home the mother met them. As her eyes fell upon her son in his khaki uniform she gave a little cry and ran to him with arms uplifted.

"Come right in here," she whispered, and took him to the inner room.

There she drew him to the bedside and down upon his knees. With their arms about each other they knelt, mingling tears and sobs together till their strength was done. Then through the sobs the boy heard her voice.

"You gave him to me," he heard her whisper, not in her ordinary manner of reverent formal prayer, but as if remonstrating with a friend.

"You know you gave him to me and I gave him back.--I know he is not mine.--But won't you let me have him for a little while?--It will not be so very long.--Yes, yes, I know.--I am not holding him back.--No, no, I could not, I would not do that.--Oh, I would not.--What am I better than the others?--But you will give him back to me again.--There are so many never coming back, and I have only one boy.--You will let him come back.--He is my baby boy.--It is his mother asking."

Larry could bear it no longer. "Oh, mother, mother, mother," he cried.

"You are breaking my heart. You are breaking my heart." His sobs were shaking the bed on which he leaned.

His mother lifted her head. "What is it, Lawrence, my boy?" she asked in surprise. "What is it?" Her voice was calm and steady. "We must be steadfast, my boy. We must not grudge our offering. No, with willing hearts we must bring our sacrifice." She pa.s.sed into prayer. "Thou, who didst give Thy Son, Thine only Son, to save Thy world, aid me to give mine to save our world to-day. Let the vision of the Cross make us both strong. Thou Cross-bearer, help us to bear our cross." With a voice that never faltered, she poured forth her prayer of sacrifice, of thanksgiving, of supplication, till serene, steady, triumphant, they arose from their knees. She was heard "in that she feared," in her surrender she found victory, in her cross, peace. And that serene calm of hers remained undisturbed to the very last.

There were tears again at the parting, but the tears fell gently, and through them shone ever her smile.

A few short days Larry spent at his home moving about among those that were dearer to him than his own life, wondering the while at their courage and patience and power to sacrifice. In his father he seemed to discover a new man, so concentrated was he in his devotion to business, and so wise, his only regret being that he could not don the king's uniform. With Kathleen he spent many hours. Not once throughout all these days did she falter in her steady, calm endurance, and in her patient devotion to duty. Without tears, without a word of repining against her cruel fate, with hardly a suggestion, indeed, of her irreparable loss, she talked to him of her husband and of his glorious death.

After two months an unexpected order called the battalion on twenty-four hours' notice for immediate service over seas, and amid the cheers of hundreds of their friends and fellow citizens, although women being in the majority, the cheering was not of the best, they steamed out of Melville Station. There were tears and faces white with heartache, but these only after the last cheer had been flung upon the empty siding out of which the cars of the troop-train had pa.s.sed. The tears and the white faces are for that immortal and glorious Army of the Base, whose finer courage and more heroic endurance make victory possible to the army of the Fighting First Line.

At Winnipeg the train was halted for a day and a night, where the battalion ENJOYED the hospitality of the city which never tires of welcoming and speeding on the various contingents of citizen soldiers of the West en route for the Front. There was a dinner and entertainment for the men. For Larry, because he was Acting Adjutant, there was no respite from duty through all the afternoon until the men had been safely disposed in the care of those who were to act as their hosts at dinner. Then the Colonel took him off to Jane and her father, who were waiting with their car to take them home.

"My! but you do look fine in your uniform," said Jane, "and so strong, and so big; you have actually grown taller, I believe." Her eyes were fairly standing out with pride and joy.

"Not much difference north and south," said Larry, "but east and west, considerable. And you, Jane, you are looking better than ever. Whatever has happened to you?"

"Hard work," said Jane.

"I hear you are in the Big Business up to your neck," said Larry. "There is so much to do, I can well believe it. And so your father is going?

How splendid of him!"

"Oh, every one is doing what he can do best. Father will do the ambulance well."

"And I hear you are going too."

"I do not know about that," said Jane. "Isn't it awfully hard to tell just what to do? I should love to go, but that is the very reason I wonder whether I should. There is so much to do here, and there will be more and more as we go on, so many families to look after, so much work to keep going; work for soldiers, you know, and for their wives and children, and collecting money. And it is all so easy to do, for every one is eager to do what he can. I never knew people could be so splendid, Larry, and especially those who have lost some one. There is Mrs. Smart, for instance, and poor Scallan's mother, and Scuddy's."

"Jane," said Larry abruptly, "I must see Helen. Can we go at once when we take the others home?"

"I will take you," said Jane. "I am glad you can go. Oh, she is lovely, and so sweet, and so brave."

Leaving the Colonel in Dr. Brown's care, they drove to the home of Helen Brookes.

"I dread seeing her," said Larry, as they approached the house.

"Well, you need not dread that," said Jane.

And after one look at Helen's face Larry knew that Jane was right. The bright colour in the face, the proud carriage of the head, the saucy look in the eye, once so characteristic of the "beauty queen" of the 'Varsity, were all gone. But the face was no less beautiful, the head carried no less proudly, the eye no less bright. There was no shrinking in her conversation from the tragic fact of her lover's death. She spoke quite freely of Scuddy's work in the battalion, of his place with the men and of how they loved him, and all with a fine, high pride in him.

"The officers, from the Colonel down, have been so good to me," she said. "They have told me so many things about Harry. And the Sergeants and the Corporals, every one in his company, have written me. They are beautiful letters. They make me laugh and cry, but I love them. Dear boys, how I love them, and how I love to work for them!" She showed Larry a thick bundle of letters. "And they all say he was so jolly. I like that, for you know, being a Y. M. C. A. man in college and always keen about that sort of thing--I am afraid I did not help him much in that way--he was not so fearfully jolly. But now I am glad he was that kind of a man, a good man, I mean, in the best way, and that he was always jolly. One boy says, 'He always bucked me up to do my best,' and another, a Sergeant, says, 'He put the fear of G.o.d into the slackers,'

and the Colonel says, 'He was a moral tonic in the mess,' and his chum officer said, 'He kept us all jolly and clean.' I love that. So you see I simply have to buck up and be jolly too."

"Helen, you are wonderful," said Larry, who was openly wiping away his tears. "Scuddy was a big man, a better man I never knew, and you are worthy of him."

They were pa.s.sing out of the room when Helen pulled Larry back again.

"Larry," she said, her words coming with breathless haste, "don't wait, oh, don't wait. Marry Jane before you go. That is my great regret to-day. Harry wanted to be married and I did too. But father and mother did not think it wise. They did not know. How could they? Oh! Larry,"

she suddenly wrung her hands, "he wished it so. Now I know it would have been best. Don't make my mistake, don't, Larry. Don't make my mistake.

Thank you for coming to see me. Good-bye, Larry, dear. You were his best friend. He loved you so." She put her arms around his neck and kissed him, hastily wiped her eyes, and pa.s.sed out to Jane with a smiling face.

They hurried away, for the hours in Winnipeg were short and there was much to do and much to say.

"Let her go, Jane," said Larry. "I am in a deuce of a hurry."

"Why, Larry, what is the rush about just now?" said Jane in a slightly grieved voice.

"I have something I must attend to at once," said Larry. "So let her go." And Jane drove hard, for the most part in silence, till they reached home.

Larry could hardly wait till she had given her car into the chauffeur's charge. They found Dr. Brown and the Colonel in the study smoking.

"Dr. Brown," said Larry, in a quick, almost peremptory voice, "may I see you for a moment or two in your office?"

"Why, what's up? Not feeling well?" said Dr. Brown, while the others looked anxiously at him.

"Oh, I am fit enough," said Larry impatiently, "but I must see you."

"I am sure there is something wrong," said Jane, "he has been acting so queer this evening. He is so abrupt. Is that the military manner?"

"Perhaps so," said the Colonel. "Nice chap, Larry--hard worker--good soldier--awfully keen in his work--making good too--best officer I've got. Tell you a secret, Jane--expect promotion for him any time now."

Meantime Larry was facing Dr. Brown in his office. "Doctor," he said, "I want to marry Jane."

"Good heavens, when did this strike you?"

"This evening. I want to marry her right away."

"Right away? When?"