The Parts Men Play Part 45

On an April evening, fifteen months later, a certain liveliness could have been noted in the vicinity of Drury Lane Theatre. The occasion was another season of opera in English, and as the offering for the night was _Madam b.u.t.terfly_, the usual heterogeneous fraternity of Puccini-worshippers were gathering in large numbers.

Although the splendour of Covent Garden (which had been closed for the war) was missing, the boxes held their modic.u.m of brilliantly dressed women; and through the audience there was a considerable sprinkling of soldiers, mostly from the British Dominions and America, grasping hungrily at one of the few war-time London theatrical productions that did not engender a deep and lasting melancholy--to say nothing of a deep and lasting doubt of English humour and English delicacy.

In one of the upper boxes Lady Erskin had a small unescorted party.

Lady Erskin herself was a plump little miniature who was rather exercised over the dilemma of whether to display a huge feathery fan and obliterate herself, or to sacrifice the fan to the glory of being stared at by common people. With her was her sister, the wife of a country rector, who a.s.sumed such an elaborate air of _ennui_ that any one could have told it was her first time in a box. Between them was Lady Erskin's rather pretty daughter, and behind her, with all her vivid personality made glorious in its setting of velvety cloak and creamy gown, was Elise Durwent, enjoying a three days' respite from her long tour of duty.

The lights went out, and with the rising of the curtain the little drama of tenderness and cruelty held the stage. From the distance, b.u.t.terfly could be heard approaching, her voice coming nearer as the typical Puccini progressions followed her ascent. There was the marriage, the cursing of b.u.t.terfly by the Bonze, and the exquisite love duet, so full of pa.s.sionate _abandon_, and yet shaded with such delicacy. At the conclusion of the act, where the orchestra adds its overpowering _tour de force_ to the singers', the audience burst into applause that lasted for several minutes. It was the spontaneous grat.i.tude of hundreds of war-tired souls whose bonds had been relaxed for an hour by the magic touch of music.

'Do you think the tenor is good-looking?' asked Lady Erskin of no one in particular.

'Who is that in the opposite box, with the leopard's skin on her shoulders?' queried the rector's wife.

'I think b.u.t.terfly is topping,' said Lady Erskin's daughter. 'I always weep buckets in the second act.'

'I should like to die to music like that,' said Elise, almost to herself.

II.

Close by a communication-trench, d.i.c.k Durwent stood shivering in the cool night-air. He was waiting to go forward on sentry-duty, the remainder of the relief having gathered at the other end of the reserve-trench in which he was standing; but though it was spring, there was a chill and a dampness in the air that seemed to breathe from the pores of the mutilated earth. A desultory sh.e.l.ling was going on, but for a week past a comparative calm had succeeded the hideous nightmare of March and early April, when Germany had so nearly swept the board clean of stakes.

He heard the voices of a carrying-party coming up, and suddenly he crouched low. There was a horrible whine, growing to a shriek--and a sh.e.l.l burst a few yards away. Shaken and almost deafened, Durwent remained where he was until he saw an object roll nearly to his feet.

It was a jar of rum that was being brought up for issue. He lifted the thing up, and again he shivered in the raw air like one sickening of the ague. Quick as the thought itself, he put the jar down, and seizing his water-bottle, emptied its contents on the ground. Kneeling down, he filled it with rum, and leaving the jar lying at such an angle that it would appear to have spilled a certain amount, he hurriedly joined the rest of the relief warned for duty.

d.i.c.k had been on guard in the front line for an hour, when he received word that a patrol was going out. A moment later they pa.s.sed him, an officer and two men, and he saw them quietly climb over the parapet which had been hastily improvised when the battalion took over the position. They had been gone only a couple of minutes when pistol-shots rang out, and the flares thrown up revealed a shadowy fight between two patrols that had met in the dark. The firing stopped, and Durwent's eyes, staring into the blackness, saw two men crouching low and dragging something after them. He challenged, to find that it was the patrol returning, and that the one they were bringing back was the officer, killed.

The trench was so narrow that they could not carry him back, and they left the body lying on the parapet until a stretcher could be fetched.

Dulled as he had become to terrible sights, the horror of that silent, grotesque figure began to freeze d.i.c.k Durwent's blood. A few minutes before it had been a thing of life. It had loved and hated and laughed; its veins had coursed with the warm blood of youth; and there it sprawled, a ghastly jumble of arms and legs--motionless, silent, _dead_. He tried to keep his eyes turned away, but it haunted him.

When he stared straight ahead into the dark it beckoned to him--he could see the fingers twitching! And not till he crept near could he be satisfied that, after all, it had not moved.

'Sherwood!' He heard a quivering voice to his right. It was the nearest sentry, an eighteen-year-old boy, who had called him by the name given him by Austin Selwyn, the name under which he had enlisted.

'What's the matter?' called Durwent.

Without his rifle, the little chap stumbled towards him, and, dark as it was, d.i.c.k could see that his face was livid and his eyes were wide with terror.

'Sherwood,' whimpered the boy, 'I can't stand it--I've lost my nerve. . . . That thing there--there. . . . It moves. It's dead, and it moves. . . . Look, it's grinning at me now! I'm going back. I can't stay here--I can't.'

'Steady, steady,' said Durwent, gripping the boy by the shoulder and shaking him roughly. 'Pull yourself together. Don't be a kid. You've seen far worse than this and never turned a hair.'

'I can't help it,' whined the boy. 'There's dead men walking out there all over. Can't you see them? They whisper in the dark--I can hear them all the time. I'm going back.'

'You can't, you little idiot. They'll shoot you.'

'I don't care. Let them shoot.'

'Where's your rifle? Get back to your post. If you're caught like this, there'll be a firing-party at daybreak for you.'

'I don't care,' cried the lad hysterically. 'They can't keep me here.

I'm going'----

'Here'---- Throwing the young fellow against the parapet and holding him there by leaning heavily against him, Durwent felt for his water-bottle and withdrew the stopper. 'Drink this,' he said, forcing the mouth of the flask between the boy's lips. 'Take a shot of rum.

It will put the guts back into you.'

The young soldier choked with the burning liquid, and tears oozed from his eyes, but the chill of the body pa.s.sed, and with it the chill of cowardice. With a half-whimper, half-laugh, he forced a silly, coa.r.s.e jest from his lips. 'Where did you get it, Sherwood?'

'Never mind,' said d.i.c.k. 'Come on now. Back you go--and stick it out.'

III.

The second act of _Madam b.u.t.terfly_ was in progress.

With the sure touch of high artistry, both composer and librettist had delineated the result of Pinkerton's faithlessness--a faithlessness that was obvious to every one but Cho-cho-san, who still believed that her husband would return with the roses. Firm in her trust, she pictured to Sazuki the day when he would come, 'a little speck in the distance, climbing the hillock'--how she would wait 'a bit to tease him and a bit so as not to die at our first meeting'--ending with the triumphant a.s.surance (born of her woman's intuition, which, alas!

proves so frequently unreliable) that it would all come to pa.s.s as she told. She _knew_ it.

And so to the visit of the American consul, who tries to tell her that her husband has written that he has tired of her--she, poor soul, reading in his words the message that he still loves her. Then the final tableau of the act with b.u.t.terfly, her baby and Sazuki standing at the Shosi facing the distant harbour where his ship has just been signalled. Softly the humming of the priests at worship ceases, and the curtain descends on what must always remain a masterpiece of delicate pathos--a story that will never lose its appeal while woman's trust in man lends its charm to drab existence.

'The tenor didn't come in at all in that act,' said Lady Erskin.

'Really,' said the rector's wife, fixing her lorgnette on the opposite box, 'that person with the leopard's skin looks absolutely like a cannibal.'

'I'm just swimming in tears,' was the comment of Lady Erskin's daughter.

Elise said nothing; nor did she hear them speak. Her heart was fluttering wildly, and her hands were clasped tightly together. She had heard a far-away cry--and the voice was d.i.c.k's.

IV.

The raw air of the night, the dread of that loathsome, silent thing, the haunting terror of the boy's eyes a few minutes before, the whine of sh.e.l.ls, all bored their way into d.i.c.k Durwent's brain. He began to tremble. With every bit of will-power he fought it off, but he felt the fumes of madness coming over him.

For days on end he had had no rest. In the Fifth Army _debacle_ of March his battalion had been one of the first to break, although remnants had fought as few men had ever fought before; and when they had been reorganised they were moved back into the line, undermanned, ill-equipped, and branded with disgrace. It was the culmination of three years' service at the front, and his nerves were at the breaking-point. Mounds of earth ahead of him, and gnarled, dismembered trees, began to take the ghostly shapes that the frightened boy had told of.

Mumbling meaningless things, he reached for his water-bottle and poured a mouthful of rum down his throat. It set his heart beating more firmly, and his blood was no longer like ice in a sluggish river. He replaced the stopper and resumed his watch, but every fibre of his body was craving for more of the alcohol. With set teeth he struggled for self-control, but every instinct was fighting against him. He took another sip, then a long draught of the scorching liquid, and leaned against the parapet. He pressed his hot face against the damp earth, and burrowed his fingers into it in a frenzied effort for self-mastery.

Again he drank, and his mouth burned with the stuff. His head was swimming, and he could hear surf breaking on a rocky coast. The dead man was grinning at him, but death no longer held any terrors for him.

He raised the bottle in a mock toast and drank greedily of the rum again.

The pounding of the waves puzzled him. He could not remember that they were near any water. But more and more distinctly he could hear the roll of surf dashed into spray against the sh.o.r.e. . . . It was strange. . . . Once more he pressed the bottle to his lips, and it set his very arteries on fire. Yes. Over to the left he could see the glimmer of the ocean. There was a light; some one was beside it. It was Elise! She was giving a signal. That was it--the smugglers were landing their contraband, and she was signalling that all was clear.

He looked over to the dead man. The corpse was rising to its feet. It had all been a hoax on its part--it was an excise officer. His eyes were fixed on the light, too. His men would be near, and they would capture Elise--and afterwards the smugglers, led by their great-grandfather. He would have to warn her. He couldn't shout, for that would give everything away. He would crawl near to her first.

He finished the rum, draining the bottle to the last drop, and started to creep along the trench, his heavy, powerless limbs carrying him only inches where his imagination made it yards. He looked back once. The dead man was following him. It had become a race between himself and a corpse. He kept his eye on the light. He could see Elise quite plainly. She was looking out towards the sea.

Feeling his muscles growing weaker, and fearful that the dead man would overtake him, he struggled to his feet and clapped his hands to his mouth.

'_Elise_!' he yelled. '_Elise_!'

And with the roar of surf in his ears, he sank to the ground in a drunken stupor.