"Get over there, you deserter. Save the lieutenant--Lieutenant Dudley.
Go."
For one instant I thought it was no good and I was due to have him shot, if we both lived through the night. And then--I never in my life saw such a face of abject fear as the one he turned first to me and then across that horror of No Man"s Land. The whites of his eyes showed, it seemed, an eighth of an inch above the irises; his black eyebrows were half way up his forehead, and his teeth, luxuriously upholstered with fillings, shone white and gold in the unearthly light. It was such a mad terror as I"d never seen before, and never since. And into it I, mad too with the thought of my sister if I let young John Dudley die before my eyes--I bombed again the order to go out and bring in Dudley. I remember the fading and coming expressions on that Frenchman"s face like the changes on a moving picture film. I suppose it was half a minute.
And here was the coward face gazing into mine, transfigured into the face of a man who cared about another man more than himself--a common man whose one high quality was love.
"_C"est bien, Mon Capitaine_," Beaurame spoke, through still clicking teeth, and with his regulation smile of good will he had sprung over the parapet in one lithe movement, and I saw him crouching, trotting that absurd, powerful fast trot through the lane in our barbed wire, like lightning, to the shallow new trench, to Dudley. I saw him--for the Germans had the stretch lighted--I saw the man pick up my brother-in-law and toss him over his shoulders and start trotting back. Then I saw him fall, both of them fall, and I knew that he"d stopped a bullet. And then, as I groaned, somehow Beaurame was on his feet again. I expected, that he"d bolt for cover, but he didn"t. He bent over deliberately as if he had been a fearless hero--and maybe he was--and he picked up Dudley again and started on, laboring, this time in walking. He was. .h.i.t badly.
But he made the trench; he brought in Dudley.
Then such a howl of hurrahs greeted him from the men who watched the rescue as poor little Aristophe Beaurame--"
"Ah!" I interjected, and Bobby turned and stared--"as the poor little scared rat had not dreamed, or had any right to dream would ever greet his conduct on earth. He dropped Dudley at my feet and turned with his flabby mouth open and his great stupid eyes like saucers, towards the men who rushed to shake his hand and throw at him words of admiration that choked them to get out. And then he keeled over. So you see. It was an equal chance at one second, whether a man should be shot for a deserter or--win the Victoria Cross."
"What!" I shouted at my guest. "What! Not the Victoria Cross! Not Aristophe!"
Bobby looked at me in surprise. "You"re a great claque for me," he said.
"You seem to take an interest in my hero. Yes, he got it. He was badly hurt. One hand nearly gone and a wound in his side. I was lucky enough to be in London on a day three months later, and to be present at the ceremony, when the young French-Canadian, spoiled for a soldier, but splendid stuff now for a hero, stood out in the open before the troops in front of Buckingham Palace and King George pinned the V.C. on his breast. They say that he"s back in his village, and the whole show. I hear that he tells over and over the story of his heroism and the rescue of "_Mon Lieutenant_." to never failing audiences. Of course, John is looking after him, for the hand which John saved was the hand that was shot to pieces in saving John, and the Tin Lizzie can never make his living with that hand again. A deserter, a coward--decorated by the King with the Victoria Cross! Queer things happen in war!" There was a stir, a murmur as of voices, of questions beginning, but Bobby was not quite through.
"War takes the best of the best men, and the best of the cheapest, and transfigures both. War doesn"t need heroes for heroism. She pins it on anywhere if there"s one spot of greatness in a character. War does strange things with humanity," said Bobby.
And I, gasping, broke out crudely in three words: "Our Tin Lizzie!" I said, and n.o.body knew in the least what I meant, or with what memories I said it.
HE THAT LOSETH HIS LIFE SHALL FIND IT
The Red Cross women had gone home. Half an hour before, the large library had been filled with white-clad, white-veiled figures. Two long tables full, forty of them today, had been working; three thousand surgical dressings had been cut and folded and put away in large boxes on shelves behind gla.s.s doors where the most valuable books had held their stately existence for years. The books were stowed now in trunks in the attic. These were war days; luxuries such as first editions must wait their time. The great living-room itself, the center of home for this family since the two boys were born and ever this family had been, the dear big room with its dark carved oak, and tapestries, and stained gla.s.s, and books, and memories was given over now to war relief work.
Sometimes, as the mistress walked into the s.p.a.cious, low-ceilinged, bright place, presences long past seemed to fill it intolerably. Brock and Hugh, little chaps, roared in untidy and tumultuous from football, or came, decorous and groomed, handsome, smart little lads, to be presented to guests. Her own Hugh, her husband, proud of the beautiful new house, smiled from the hearth to her as he had smiled twenty-six years back, the night they came in, a young Hugh, younger than Brock was now. Her father and mother, long gone over "to the majority," and the exquisite old ivory beauty of a beautiful grandmother--such ghosts rose and faced the woman as she stepped into the room where they had moved in life, the room with its loveliness marred by two long tables covered with green oilcloth, by four rows of cheap chairs, by rows and rows of boxes on shelves where soft and bright and dark colors of books had glowed. She felt often that she should explain matters to the room, should tell the walls which had sheltered peace and hospitality that she had consecrated them to yet higher service. Never for one instant, while her soul ached for the familiar setting, had she regretted its sacrifice. That her soul did ache made it worth while.
And the women gathered for this branch Red Cross organization, her neighbors on the edge of the great city, wives and daughters and mothers of clerks, and delivery-wagon drivers, and icemen, and night-watchmen, women who had not known how to take their part in the war work in the city or had found it too far to go, these came to her house gladly and all found pleasure in her beautiful room. That made it a joy to give it up to them. She stood in the doorway, feeling an emphasis in the quiet of the July afternoon because of the forty voices which had lately gone out of the sunshiny silence, of the forty busy figures in long, white ap.r.o.ns and white, sweeping veils, the tiny red cross gleaming over the forehead of each one, each face lovely in the uniform of service, all oddly equalized and alike under their veils and crosses. She spoke aloud as she tossed out her hands to the room:
"War will be over some day, and you will be our own again, but forever holy because of this. You will be a room of history when you go to Brock--"
Brock! Would Brock ever come home to the room, to this place which he loved? Brock, in France! She turned sharply and went out through the long hall and across the terrace, and sat down where the steps dropped to the garden, on the broad top step, with her head against the pillar of the bal.u.s.trade. Above her the smell of box in a stone vase on the pillar punctured the mild air with its definite, reminiscent fragrance.
Box is a plant of antecedents of sentiment, of memories. The woman inhaling its delicate sharpness, was caught back into days past. She considered, in rapid jumps of thought, events, episodes, epochs. The day Brock was born, on her own twentieth birthday, up-stairs where the rosy chintz curtains blew now out of the window; the first day she had come down to the terrace--it was June--and the baby lay in his ba.s.sinet by the bal.u.s.trade in that spot--she looked at the spot--the baby, her big Brock, a bundle of flannel and fine, white stuff in lacy frills of the ba.s.sinet. And she loved him; she remembered how she had loved that baby, how, laughing at herself, she had whispered silly words over the stolid, pink head; how the girl"s heart of her had all but burst with the astonishing new tide of a feeling which seemed the greatest of which she was capable. Yet it was a small thing to the way she loved Brock now. A vision came of little Hugh, three years younger, and the two toddling about the terrace together, Hugh always Brock"s satellite and adorer, as was fitting; less st.u.r.dy, less daring than Brock, yet ready to go anywhere if only the older baby led. She thought of the day when Hugh, four years old, had taken fright at a black log among the bushes under the trees.
"It"s a bear!" little Hugh had whispered, shaking, and Brock, brave but not too certain, had looked at her, inquiring.
"No, love, it"s not a bear; it"s an old log of wood. Go and put your hand on it, Hughie."
Little Hugh had cried out and shrunk back. "I"m afraid!" cried little Hugh.
And Brock, not entirely clear as to the no-bear theory, had yet bluffed manfully. "Come on, Hughie; let"s go and bang "um," said Brock.
Which invitation Hugh accepted reluctantly with a condition, "If you"ll hold my hand, B"ocky."
The woman turned her head to see the place where the black log had lain, there in the old high bushes. And behold! Two strong little figures in white marched along--she could all but see them today--and the bigger little figure was dragging the other a bit, holding a hand with masterful grip. She could hear little Hugh"s laughter as they arrived at the terrible log and found it truly a log. Even now Hugh"s laugh was music.
"Why, it"s nuffin but an old log o" wood!" little Hugh had squealed, as brave as a lion.
As she sat seeing visions, old Mavourneen, Brock"s Irish wolf-hound, came and laid her muzzle on the woman"s shoulder, crying a bit, as was Mavourneen"s Irish way, for pleasure at finding the mistress. And with that there was a brown ripple and a patter of many soft feet, and a broken wave of dogs came around the corner, seven little cairn-terriers.
Sticky and Sandy and their offspring. The woman let Sticky settle in her lap and drew Sandy under her arm, and the puppies looked up at her from the step below with ten serious, anxious eyes and then fell to chasing quite imaginary game up and down the stone steps. Mavourneen sighed deeply and dropped with a heavy thud, a great paw on the edge of the white dress and her beautiful head resting on her paws, the topaz, watchful eyes gazing over the city. The woman put her free hand back and touched the rough head.
"Dear dog!" she spoke.
Another memory came: how they had bought Mavourneen, she and Hugh and the boys, at the kennels in Ireland, eight years ago; how the huge baby had been sent to them at Liverpool in a hamper; the uproarious drive the four of them--Hugh, the two boys, and herself--and Mavourneen had taken in a taxi across the city. The puppy, astonished and investigating throughout the whole proceeding, had mounted all of them, separately and together, and insisted on lying in big Hugh"s lap, crying broken-heartedly at not being allowed. How they had shouted laughter, the four and the boy taxi-driver, all the journey, till they ached! What good times they had always had together, the young father and mother and the two big sons! She reflected how she had not been at all the conventional mother of sons. She had not been satisfied to be gentle and benevolent and look after their clothes and morals. She had lived their lives with them, she had ridden and gone swimming with them, and played tennis and golf, and fished and shot and skated and walked with them, yes, and studied and read with them, all their lives.
"I haven"t any respect for my mother," young Hugh told her one day. "I like her like a sister."
She was deeply pleased at this att.i.tude; she did not wish their respect as a visible quality. Vision after vision came of the old times and care-free days while the four, as happy and normal a family as lived in the world, pa.s.sed their alert, full days together before the war. Memory after memory took form in the brain of the woman, the center of that light-hearted life so lately changed, so entirely now a memory. War had come.
At first, in 1914, there had been excitement, astonishment. Then the horror of Belgium. One refused to believe that at first; it was a lurid slander on the kindly German people; then one believed with the brain; one"s spirit could not grasp it. Unspeakable deeds such as the Germans"
deeds--it was like a statement made concerning a fourth dimension of s.p.a.ce; civilized modern folk were not so organized as to realize the facts of that b.e.s.t.i.a.lity.
"Aren"t you thankful we"re Americans?" the woman had said over and over.
One day her husband, answering usually with a shake of the head, answered in words. "We may be in it yet," he said. "I"m not sure but we ought to be."
Brock, twenty-one then, had flashed at her: "I want to be in it. I may just have to be, mother."
Young Hugh yawned a bit at that, and stretching his long arm, he patted his brother"s shoulder. "Good old hero, Brock! I"ll beat you a set of tennis. Come on."
That sudden speech of Brock"s had startled her, had brought the war, in a jump which was like a stab, close. The war and Lindow--their place--how was it possible that this nightmare in Europe could touch the peace of the garden, the sunlit view of the river, the trees with birds singing in them, the scampering of the dogs down the drive? The distant hint of any connection between the great horror and her own was pain; she put the thought away.
Then the _Lusitania_ was sunk. All America shouted shame through sobs of rage. The President wrote a beautiful and entirely satisfactory note.
"It should be war--war. It should be war today," Hugh had said, her husband. "We only waste time. We"ll have to fight sooner or later. The sooner we begin, the sooner we"ll finish."
"Fight!" young Hugh threw at him. "What with? We can just about make faces at "em, father."
The boy"s father did not laugh. "We had better get ready to do more than make faces; we"ve got to get ready." He hammered his hand on the stone bal.u.s.trade. "I"m going to Plattsburg this summer, Evelyn."
"I"m going with you." Brock"s voice was low and his mouth set, and the woman, looking at him, saw suddenly that her boy was a man.
"Well, then, as man power is getting low at Lindow, I"ll stay and take care of Mummy. Won"t I? We"ll do awfully well without them, won"t we, Mum? You can drive Dad"s Rolls-Royce roadster, and if you leave on the handbrake up-hill, I"ll never tell."
Father and son had gone off for the month in camp, and, glad as she was to have the younger boy with her, there was yet an uneasy, an almost subconscious feeling about him, which she indignantly denied each time that it raised its head. It never quite phrased itself, this fear, this wonder if Hugh were altogether as American as his father and brother.
Question the courage and patriotism of her own boy? She flung the thought from her as again and yet again it came. People of the same blood were widely different. To Brock and his father it had come easily to do the obvious thing, to go to Plattsburg. It had not so come to young Hugh, but that in good time he would see his duty and do it she would not for an instant doubt. She would not break faith with the lad in thought. With a perfect delicacy she avoided any word that would influence him. He knew. All his life he had breathed loyalty. It was she herself, reading to them night after night through years, who had taught the boys hero worship--above all, worship of American heroes, Washington, Paul Jones, Perry, Farragut, Lee; how Dewey had said, "You may fire now, Gridley, if you are ready"; how Clark had brought the _Oregon_ around the continent; how Scott had gone alone among angry Indians. She had taught them such names, names which will not die while America lives. It was she who had told the little lads, listening wide-eyed, that as these men had held life lightly for the glory of America, so her sons, if need came, must be ready to offer their lives for their country. She remembered how Brock, his round face suddenly scarlet, had stammered out:
"I _am_ ready, Mummy. I"d die this minute for--for America. Wouldn"t you, Hughie?"
And young Hugh, a slim, blond angel of a boy, of curly, golden hair and unexpected answers, had ducked beneath the hero, upsetting him into a hedge to his infinite anger. "I wouldn"t die right now, Brocky," said Hugh. "There"s going to be chocolate cake for lunch."
One could never count on Hugh"s ways of doing things, but Brock was a stone wall of reliability. She smiled, thinking of his youth and beauty and entire boyishness, to think yet of the saying from the Bible which always suggested Brock, "Thou shalt keep him in perfect peace whose mind is stayed on Thee." It was so with the lad; through the gay heart and eager interest in life pulsed an atmosphere of deep religiousness. He was always "in perfect peace," and his mother, less balanced, had stayed her mind on that quiet and right young mind from its very babyhood. The lad had seen his responsibilities and lifted them all his life. It came to her how, when her own mother, very dear to Brock, had died, she had not let the lads go with her to the house of death for fear of saddening their youth, and how, when she and their father came home from the hard, terrible business of the funeral, they met little Hugh on the drive, rapturous at seeing them again, rather absorbed in his new dog. But Brock, then fourteen, was in the house alone, quiet, his fresh, dear face red with tears, and a black necktie of his father"s, too large for him, tied under his collar. Of all the memories of her boys, that grotesque black tie was the most poignant and most precious. It said much. It said: "I also, O, my mother, am of my people. I have a right to their sorrows as well as to their joys, and if you do not give me my place in trouble, I shall do what I can alone, being but a boy. I shall give up play, and I shall wear mourning as I can, not knowing how very well, but pushed by all my being to be with my own in their mourning."
Quickly affection for the other lad a.s.serted itself. Brock and Hugh were different, but Hugh was a dear boy, too--undeveloped, that was all. He had never taken life seriously, little Hugh, and now that this war-cloud hung over the world, he simply refused to look at it; he turned away his face. That was all, a temperament which loved harmony and shrank from ugliness; these things were young Hugh"s limitations, and no ign.o.ble quality.