At exactly the same time Edith was entering the elevator of a small, very respectable hotel in Kensington. The boy, smiling, watched her in.
He did not kiss her, greatly to the disappointment of the hall porter. As the elevator rose the boy stood at salute, the fingers of his left hand to the brim of his shabby cap. In his eyes, as they followed her, was all that there is of love--love and a new understanding.
She had told him, and now he knew. His creed was still the same.
Right was right and wrong was wrong. But he had learned of that shadowy No Man"s Land between the lines, where many there were who fought their battles and were wounded, and even died.
As he turned and went out two men on crutches were pa.s.sing along the quiet street. They recognised him in the light of the doorway, and stopped in front of him. Their voices rang out in cheerful unison:
"Are we downhearted? No!"
Their crutches struck the pavement with a resounding thump.
THE GAME
I
The Red Un was very red; even his freckles were red rather than copper-coloured. And he was more prodigal than most kings, for he had two crowns on his head. Also his hair grew in varying directions, like a wheatfields after a storm. He wore a coat without a tail, but with bra.s.s b.u.t.tons to compensate, and a celluloid collar with a front attached. It was the Red Un"s habit to dress first and wash after, as saving labour; instead of his neck he washed his collar.
The Red Un was the Chief Engineer"s boy and rather more impressive than the Chief, who was apt to decry his own greatness. It was the Red Un"s duty to look after the Chief, carry in his meals, make his bed, run errands, and remind him to get his hair cut now and then.
It was the Red Un"s pleasure to a.s.sist una.s.sumingly in the surveillance of that part of the ship where the great G.o.d, Steam, ruled an underworld of trimmers and oilers and stokers and a.s.sistant engineers--and even, with reservations, the Chief. The Red Un kept a sharp eye on the runs and read the Chief"s log daily--so much coal in the bunkers; so much water in the wells; so many engine-room miles in twenty-four hours--which, of course, are not sea miles exactly, there being currents and winds, and G.o.d knows what, to waste steam on.
The Red Un, like the a.s.sistants, was becoming a bear on the speed market. He had learned that, just when the engines get heated enough to work like demons, and there is a chance to break a record and get a letter from the management, some current or other will show up--or a fog, which takes the very tripe out of the cylinders and sends the bridge yapping for caution.
The Red Un was thirteen; and he made the Chief"s bed by pulling the counterpane neatly and smoothly over the chaos underneath--and got away with it, the Chief being weary at night. Also, in odd moments he made life miserable for the crew. Up to shortly before, he had had to use much energy and all his wits to keep life in his starved little body; and even keeping an eye on the log and the Chief"s hair, and slipping down into the engine room, where he had no manner of business, hardly used up his activities. However, he did not lie and he looked the Chief square in the eye, as man to man.
The Chief had salvaged him out of the Hudson, when what he had taken for a bobbing red tomato had suddenly revealed a blue face and two set and desperate eyes. After that the big Scot had forgotten all about him, except the next day when he put on his shoes, which had shrunk in the drying. The liner finished coaling about that time, took on pa.s.sengers, luggage, steamer baskets and a pilot, and, having stowed the first two, examined the cards on the third and dropped the last, was pointed, nose to the east wind, for the race.
The arrow on the twin dials pointed to Stand By! for the long voyage--three thousand miles or so without a stop. The gong, and then Half Ahead!--great elbows thrust up and down, up and down; the grunt of power overcoming inertia, followed by the easy swing of limitless strength. Full Ahead!--and so off again for the great struggle--man"s wits and the engines and the mercy of G.o.d against the upreaching of the sea.
The Chief, who sometimes dreamed his greatness, but who ignored it waking, snapped his watch shut.
"Eleven-eleven!" he said to the Senior Second. "Well, here"s luck!"
That is what he said aloud; to himself he always said a bit of a prayer, realising perhaps even more than the bridge how little man"s wits count in the great equation. He generally said something to the effect that "After all, it"s up to Thee, O Lord!"
He shook hands with the Senior Second, which also was his habit; and he smiled too, but rather grimly. They were playing a bit of a game, you see; and so far the Chief had won all the tricks--just an amusing little game and nothing whatever to do with a woman; the Second was married, but the Chief had put all such things out of his head years before, when he was a youngster and sailing to the Plate.
Out of his head, quite certainly; but who dreams of greatness for himself alone? So the Chief, having glanced about and run his hand caressingly over various fearful and pounding steel creatures, had climbed up the blistering metal staircase to his room at the top and was proceeding to put down eleven-eleven and various other things that the first cabin never even heard of, when he felt that he was being stared at from behind.
Now and then, after sh.o.r.e leave, a drunken trimmer or stoker gets up to the Chief"s room and has to be subdued by the power of executive eye or the strength of executive arm. As most Chiefs are Scots, the eye is generally sufficient. So the Chief, mightily ferocious, turned about, eye set, as one may say, to annihilate a six-foot trimmer in filthy overalls and a hangover, and saw--a small red-haired boy in a Turkish towel.
The boy quailed rather at the eye, but he had the courage of nothing to lose--not even a pair of breeches--and everything to gain.
"Please," said the apparition, "the pilot"s gone, and you can"t put me off!"
The Chief opened his mouth and shut it again. The mouth, and the modification of an eye set for a six-foot trimmer to an eye for a four-foot-ten urchin in a Turkish towel, produced a certain softening. The Red Un, who was like the Chief in that he earned his way by pitting his wits against relentless Nature, smiled a little--a surface smile, with fear just behind.
"The Captain"s boy"s my size; I could wear his clothes," he suggested.
Now, back in that time when the Chief had kept a woman"s picture in his breast pocket instead of in a drawer of his desk, there had been small furtive hopes, the pride of the Scot to perpetuate his line, the desire of a man for a manchild. The Chief had buried all that in the desk drawer with the picture; but he had gone overboard in his best uniform to rescue a wharf-rat, and he had felt a curious sense of comfort when he held the cold little figure in his arms and was hauled on deck, sputtering dirty river water and broad Scotch, as was his way when excited.
"And where ha" ye been skulking since yesterday?" he demanded.
"In the bed where I was put till last night. This morning early----"
he hesitated.
"Don"t lie! Where were ye?"
"In a pa.s.senger"s room, under a bed. When the pa.s.sengers came aboard I had to get out."
"How did ye get here?"
This met with silence. Quite suddenly the Chief recognised the connivance of the crew, perhaps, or of a kindly stewardess.
"Who told you this was my cabin?" A smile this time, rather like the Senior Second"s when the Chief and he had shaken hands.
"A n.i.g.g.e.r!" he said. "A coloured fella in a white suit."
There was not a darky on the boat. The Red Un, whose code was the truth when possible, but any lie to save a friend--and that"s the code of a gentleman--sat, defiantly hopeful, arranging the towel to cover as much as possible of his small person.
"You"re lying! Do you know what we do with liars on this ship? We throw them overboard!"
"Then I"m thinking," responded the Turkish towel, "that you"ll be needing another Chief Engineer before long!"
Now, as it happened, the Chief had no boy that trip. The previous one had been adopted after the last trip by a childless couple who had liked the shape of his nose and the way his eyelashes curled on his cheek. The Chief looked at the Red Un; it was perfectly clear that no one would ever adopt him for the shape of his nose, and he apparently lacked lashes entirely. He rose and took a bathrobe from a hook on the door.
"Here," he said; "cover your legs wi" that, and say a prayer if ye"
know wan. The Captain"s a verra hard man wi" stowaways."
The Captain, however, who was a gentleman and a navigator and had a sense of humour also, was not hard with the Red Un. It being impracticable to take the boy to him, the great man made a special visit to the boy. The Red Un, in the Chief"s bathrobe, sat on a chair, with his feet about four inches from the floor, and returned the Captain"s glare with wide blue eyes.
"Is there any reason, young man, why I shouldn"t order you to the lockup for the balance of this voyage?" the Captain demanded, extra grim, and trying not to smile.
"Well," said the Red Un, wiggling his legs nervously, "you"d have to feed me, wouldn"t you? And I might as well work for my keep."
This being a fundamental truth on which most economics and all governments are founded, and the Captain having a boy of his own at home, he gave a grudging consent, for the sake of discipline, to the Red Un"s working for his keep as the Chief"s boy, and left. Outside the door he paused.
"The little devil"s starved," he said. "Put some meat on those ribs, Chief, and--be a bit easy with him!"
This last was facetious, the Chief being known to have the heart of a child.
So the Red Un went on the payroll of the line, and requisition was made on the storekeeper for the short-tailed coat and the long trousers, and on the barber for a hair-cut. And in some curious way the Red Un and the Chief hit it off. It might have been a matter of red blood or of indomitable spirit.
Spirit enough and to spare had the Red Un. On the trip out he had licked the Captain"s boy and the Purser"s boy; on the incoming trip he had lashed the Doctor"s boy to his triumphant mast, and only three days before he had settled a row in the stokehole by putting hot ashes down the back of a drunken trimmer, and changing his att.i.tude from menace with a steel shovel to supplication and prayer.
He had no business in the stokehole, but by that time he knew every corner of the ship--called the engines by name and the men by epithets; had named one of the pumps Marguerite, after the Junior Second"s best girl; and had taken violent partisanship in the eternal rivalry of the liner between the engine room and the bridge.