And Mrs. Cartwright glancing at him over that rumpled head buried on her shoulder, beheld a Captain Ross quite new to her; not merely the finest judge of women in Europe, but the fine comrade of men. It was with an admirable mixture of gentleness and matter-of-factness that he spoke, moving as he did so quietly and quickly about the room; closing the shutters, to banish the ghastly radiance of the moon; turning up the yellow, mercifully ordinary lights; finding flask, a tobacco, pipe, and matches; handier and swifter with his one arm than many a man with two.
"Put a pipe on, man. Here. No? All right; presently. Rotten luck; I thought we were clear of these attacks. It"s this darned moon.... He was shot down in the moonlight, I heard.... We used to get "em every week one time, Mrs. Cartwright; the whole ward pulled up standing, and the girls on night duty thinking it was blue murder, I guess, the first time. I knew when I heard him; we were in hospital together."
"He thought he was still in hospital when he saw me," put in Mrs.
Cartwright softly.
"Is that so? You only reached him first by seconds, I guess; I was up before he"d finished hollering," said Captain Ross, with a glance at the spent boy who was leaning up against the woman, his face still hidden, his breath coming in gasps. "It was a baddish go, this trip. A drink, man?"
Young Awdas shook his head without raising it. "I"m ... all right.
Dashed sorry ... all right in a second...."
"Give it him presently," murmured Captain Ross; then glancing at the woman beside the bed, "There won"t be much sleeping for him or me; but it"s no reason why you should lose your night"s rest, Mrs. Cartwright.
I"m staying. No need for you to wait up any longer."
But at this, those clutching hands of the boy gripped her tight again, closing upon the silken folds above her breast. She answered the quick involuntary appeal, feeling herself caught back to the times when little Keith, waking in fright, had clutched her, and cried: "_Don"t go Mums! I want you to stay with me!_"
"I"m not going," she said, just as she had said then. She let herself slip down in a sitting posture to the edge of the bed.
Captain Ross paused, with another swift glance at the group.
"You"ll stay with him?"
"Of course."
"I guess he"s better in your hands; I"ll leave him there," said Captain Ross with a nod. He glanced about, picked up the thick dressing-gown that lay over the bed-rail, and tucked it like a railway rug about her.
Then he turned to the door. "I"m just across the corridor. If you want anything, just call, ever so softly. I shall hear."
He went out, leaving Mrs. Cartwright to the oddest vigil she had ever spent. For the first time she found herself watching through the small hours in the company of a wounded lad who had come through that h.e.l.l which is not always left behind on the battlefield. They bring some of it away with them, too many of these boys! its fiery traces still impressed upon mind and brain and nerve, however plucky. Its memory persists, robbing them of laughter, despoiling them of that dreamless perfect sleep which is Youth"s heritage, making of night a thing to be dreaded.
So this young airman, who had been shot down in an air duel one moonlight night last spring, must live it through again and again before he might live it away....
Presently he raised his head. He began to mutter.
She listened, pitifully, knowing that the lad scarcely knew even yet whom he was holding--save that it was human, and friendly, and warm. He scarcely cared to whom he was babbling in hoa.r.s.e little s.n.a.t.c.hes, incoherently--save that it was a woman, and kind.
"Five--five of them! Five Australians!" he began, suddenly. "You know what splendid fine chaps.... I had to watch.... I was lying ... out there ... pinned under the wing. They ... they tried to get at me with stretchers--six times they tried ... came across No Man"s Land...."
"Yes; but you were dreaming," she said, in the most soothing tone of her deep voice. "You just had a bad dream----"
"No, No! It was what happened," he said hoa.r.s.ely. "They were trying to bring me in after I"d crashed. Those blighters ... turned a machine-gun on to them. They did in five. I--I saw it!"
She could only look at him, only give him the comfort of her touch, could only put out to him, silently, all the pity that was in her.
He took one hand away for a moment, pa.s.sed it back over his hair in the known gesture of the flyer who adjusts his crest like cap, then returned his clasp to her arm.
He began again:
"I ... I never take an Australian"s salute in the street without remembering ... that!... I had to lie there ... couldn"t lift ...
finger. Five of them, were stretched out ... killed.... Just for me! My G.o.d! Think of it----" He seemed about to break down once more.
"Hush!" Mrs. Cartwright said, steadily. She bent her eyes upon his.
"Hush! One can"t think like that. It"s impossible."
"Those splendid chaps----"
"S"sh! Remember only that they were killed doing one of the finest things a soldier is called to do," interrupted the soldier"s widow, quickly. "Remember that their people would be proud to know how it happened. They volunteered to save you; took their chance. Think how your own people would have been proud, Mr. Awdas----"
"Yes," he muttered, letting her hold his eyes, clinging to her for the strength that had slipped.
She repeated, firmly: "When you see Australians in the street, think only of _that_!"
"Yes," said the youngster, simply. "Yes.... All right, I will."
When he next spoke there was a thought less strain in his husky voice.
"I"m everlastingly sorry, routing people up like this. They got quite fed-up in the hospital.... I couldn"t help it.... Falling, falling--oh, it"s beastly.... So weird, too.... You wouldn"t think.... Well, I couldn"t _take_ more than about two and a half minutes to crash, could I?"
"I suppose not," she said, forcing herself to be as matter-of-fact as Captain Ross had been.
"Two and a half minutes; well, it seemed a _week_, at least. Absolutely.
It always seems a week till I come down.... Down, down, down--I seemed to have time to think ... no end of things. I yelled out to my observer.... That"s why I always shout in those dreams of mine.... I was falling, falling; and calling out to my observer, trying to make him hear. He was killed."
"Was he?" she responded gently--not too gently, lest he should melt.
"Yes! He was dead before we came down. Jolly good chap, my observer.
(Ross knew him.) Ferris, his name was. The first time we went up together over the Boche lines, I remember his saying to me: "Now, when you hear a dog bark, don"t take any notice; it"s only Archie!""
Here the ghost of a smile seemed hovering about the young flyer"s face.
Mrs. Cartwright did not speak; but surely the warm sympathy that flowed from her caught him in some restoring current. His voice grew less strained with every sentence.
"It"s--it"s a funny thing how fond one gets of one"s observer; the man one"s always with. Each of you depending so much on the other, I suppose; being for it together, always together. You"ve no idea what pals one gets. I--I sometimes think there can be nothing like it. We _were_ pals; I was sick; they"d done him in----"
Mrs. Cartwright nodded; listening to the husky English boy"s voice, that seemed to fill this room of a sleeping, silent French hotel, and hearing also in her heart that immortal plaint of the young fellow-soldier mourning down the ages--"_I am distressed for thee, my brother Jonathan...._"
"D"you know, I sometimes think there can be nothing else in the world as good as just friendship. To be absolute friends with some other fellow,"
young Awdas said presently; shyly, but earnestly looking into the woman-face so near him. Without speaking a word, Mrs Cartwright was encouraging him to talk on and on. Yes; let him talk--of Friendship or the Differential Calculus, if he liked; anything, rather than let him be haunted again by this useless, this unreasoning Remorse that he had been the death of five other brave men--or by this dream of falling, falling.
He talked on, sitting up; taking his hands at last from her (badly-marked) arms and clasping them about his knees.
"Absolute friends," he mused. "Understanding everything the other chap means, or doesn"t mean. Not minding if he"s ratty sometimes; being ratty yourself if you want to, and going off on your own, knowing it"ll be all right whenever you come back. Good times or rotten times, always with him. Not seeing each other for ages, perhaps. Then finding him just the same. Caring for all the things you"re keenest about; barring the same things. I don"t think it could be ever exactly like that with a girl."
"Never," murmured Mrs. Cartwright; "the girl will be more to you or less to you, but not the same."
"A girl would never be more to me," said young Awdas, and now his voice sounded almost normal. He broke off suddenly, and turned to her protestingly. "Mrs. Cartwright, I don"t know what you must think of me.
Keeping you up like this----Good Lord! it"s three o"clock. Sitting there, catching cold----?"
"I"m never cold."
"And I"m all right now. Please--please do go to bed."