What had I to do with him that he should rob me of my sleep?
CHAPTER XV
The next morning he strode in while I was at breakfast, handsome, erect, deep-chested, the incarnation of physical strength, with a glad light in his eyes.
"Congratulate me, old man," he cried, gripping my frail shoulder. "I"ve three days" extra leave. And more than that, I go out in command of the regiment. No temporary business but permanent rank. Gazetted in due course. Bannatyne--that"s our colonel--d.a.m.ned good soldier!--has got a staff appointment. I take his place. I promise you the Fourth King"s Rifles are going to make history. Either history or manure. History for choice. As I say, Bannatyne"s a d.a.m.ned good soldier, and personally as brave as a lion, but when it comes to the regiment, he"s too much on the cautious side. The regiment"s only longing to make things hum, and I"m going to let "em do it."
I congratulated him in politely appropriate terms and went on with my bacon and eggs. He sat on the window-seat and tapped his gaiters with his cane life-preserver. He wore his cap.
"I thought you"d like to know," said he. "You"ve been so good to the old mother while I"ve been away and been so charitable, listening to my yarns, while I"ve been here, that I couldn"t resist coming round and telling you."
"I suppose your mother"s delighted," said I.
He threw back his head and laughed, as though he had never a black thought or memory in the world.
"Dear old mater! She has the impression that I"m going out to take charge of the blessed campaign. So if she talks about "my dear son"s army," don"t let her down, like a good chap--for she"ll think either me a fraud or you a liar."
He rose suddenly, with a change of expression.
"You"re the only man in the world I could talk to like this about my mother. You know the sterling goodness and loyalty that lies beneath her funny little ways."
He strode to the window which looks out on to the garden, his back turned on me. And there he stood silent for a considerable time. I helped myself to marmalade and poured out a second cup of tea. There was no call for me to speak. I had long realized that, whatever may have been the man"s sins and weaknesses, he had a very deep and tender love for the Dresden china old lady that was his mother. There was London of the clubs and the theatres and the restaurants and the night-clubs, a war London full and alive, not dead as in Augusts of far-off tradition, all ready to give him talk and gaiety and the things that matter to the man who escapes for a brief season from the never-ending h.e.l.l of the battlefield; ready, too, to pour flattery into his ear, to touch his scars with the softest of its lingers. Yet he chose to stay, a recluse, in our dull little town, avoiding even the kindly folk round about, in order to devote himself to one dear but entirely uninteresting old woman. It is not that he despised London, preferring the life of the country gentleman. On the contrary, before the war Leonard Boyce was very much the man about town. He loved the glitter and the chatter of it. From chance words during this spell of leave, I had divined hankering after its various fleshpots. For the sake of one old woman he made reckless and gallant sacrifice. When he was bored to misery he came round to me. I learned later that in visiting Wellingsford he faced more than boredom. All of this you must put to the credit side of his ledger.
There he stood, his great broad shoulders and bull-neck silhouetted against the window. That broad expanse, a bit fleshy, below the base of the skull indicates brutality. Never before, to my eyes, had the sign a.s.serted itself with so much aggression. I had often wondered why, apart from the Vilboek Farm legend, I had always disliked and distrusted him. Now I seemed to know. It was the neck not of a man, but of a brute. The curious repulsion of the previous evening, when he had carried me into the house, came over me again. From junction of arm and body protruded six inches of the steel-covered life-preserver, the washleather that hid its ghastly k.n.o.b staring at me blankly. I hated the thing. The gallant English officer--and in my time I have known and loved a many of the most gallant--does not go about in private life fondling a trophy reeking with the blood of his enemies. It is the trait of a savage. That truculent k.n.o.b and that truculent bull-neck correlated themselves most horribly in my mind. And again, with a shiver, I had the haunting flash of a vision of him, out of the tail of my eye, standing rigid and gaping between the two cars, while my rugged old Marigold, in a businesslike, old-soldier sort of way, without thought of danger or death, was swaying at the head of the runaway horse.
Presently he turned, and his brows were set above unfathomable hard eyes. The short-cropped moustache could not hide the curious twitch of the lips which I had seen once before. It was obvious that these few minutes of silence had been spent in deep thought and had resulted in a decision. A different being from the gay, successful soldier who had come in to announce his honours confronted me. He threw down cap and stick and pa.s.sed his hand over his crisp brown hair.
"I don"t know whether you"re a friend of mine or not," he said, hands on hips and gaitered legs slightly apart. "I"ve never been able to make out. All through our intercourse, in spite of your courtesy and hospitality, there has been some sort of reservation on your part."
"If that is so," said I, diplomatically, "it is because of the defects of my national quality."
"That"s possibly what I"ve felt," said he. "But it doesn"t matter a d.a.m.n with regard to what I want to say. It"s a question not of your feelings towards me, but my feelings towards you. I don"t want to make polite speeches--but you"re a man whom I have every reason to honour and trust. And unlike all my other brother-officers, you have no reason to be jealous--"
"My dear fellow," I interrupted, "what"s all this about? Why jealousy?"
"You know what a pot-hunter is in athletics? A chap that is simply out for prizes? Well, that"s what a lot of them think of me. That I"m just out to get orders and medals and distinctions and so forth."
"That"s nonsense," said I. "I happen to know. Your reputation in the brigade is una.s.sailable."
"In the way of my having done what I"m credited with, it is," he answered. "But all the same, they"re right."
"What do you mean?" I asked.
"What I say. They"re right. I"m out for everything I can get. Now I"m out for a V.C. I see you think it abominable. That"s because you don"t understand. No one but I myself could understand. I feel I owe it to myself." He looked at me for a second or two and then broke into a sardonic sort of laugh. "I suppose you think me a conceited a.s.s," he continued. "Why should Leonard Boyce be such a vastly important person?
It isn"t that, I a.s.sure you."
I lit a cigarette, having waved an invitation to join me, which with a nod he refused.
"What is it, then?"
"Has it ever struck you that often a man"s most merciless creditor is himself?"
Here was a casuistical proposition thrown at my head by the last person I should have suspected of doing so. It was immensely interesting, in view of my long puzzledom. I spoke warily.
"That depends on the man--on the nice balance of his dual nature. On the one side is the power to demand mercilessly; on the other, the instinct to respond. Of course, the criminal--"
"What are you dragging in criminals for?" he said sharply. "I"m talking about honourable men with consciences. Criminals haven"t consciences.
The devil who has just been hung for murdering three women in their baths hadn"t any dual nature, as you call it. Those murders didn"t represent to him a mountain of debt to G.o.d which his soul was summoned to discharge. He went to his death thinking himself a most unlucky and hardly used fellow."
His fingers went instinctively into the cigarette-box. I pa.s.sed him the matches.
"Precisely," said I. "That was the point I was about to make."
He puffed at his cigarette and looked rather foolish, as though regretting his outburst.
"We"ve got away," he said, after a pause, "from what I was meaning to tell you. And I want to tell you because I mayn"t have another chance."
He turned to the window-seat and picked up his life-preserver. "I"m out for two things. One is to kill Germans--" He patted the covered k.n.o.b--and there flashed across my mind a boyhood"s memory of Martin--wasn"t it Martin?--in "Hereward the Wake," who had a deliciously blood-curdling habit of patting his revengeful axe.--"I"ve done in eighty-five with this and my revolver. That, I consider, is my duty to my country. The other is to get the V.C. That"s for payment to my creditor self."
"In full, or on account?" said I.
"There"s only one payment in full," he answered grimly, "and that I"ve been offering for the past twelve months. And it"s a thousand chances to one it will be accepted before the end of this year. And that, after all this palaver, is what I"ve just made up my mind to talk to you about."
"You mean your death?"
"Just that," said he. "A man pot-hunting for Victoria Crosses takes a thousand to one chance." He paused abruptly and shot an eager and curiously wavering glance at me. "Am I boring you with all this?"
"Good Heavens, no." And then as the insistence of his great figure towering over me had begun to fret my nerves--"Sit down, man," said I, with an impatient gesture, "and put that sickening toy away and come to the point."
He tossed the cane on the window-seat and sat near me on a straight-backed chair.
"All right," he said. "I"ll come to the point. I shan"t see you again.
I"m going out in command. Thank G.o.d we"re in the thick of it. Round about Loos. It"s a thousand to one I"ll be killed. Life doesn"t matter much to me, in spite of what you may think. There are only two people on G.o.d"s earth I care for. One, of course, is my old mother. The other is Betty Fairfax--I mean Betty Connor. I spoke to you once about her--after I had met her here--and I gave you to understand that I had broken off our engagement from conscientious motives. It was an awkward position and I had to say something. As a matter of fact I acted abominably. But I couldn"t help it." The corners of his lips suddenly worked in the odd little twitch. "Sometimes circ.u.mstances, especially if a man"s own d.a.m.n foolishness has contrived them, tie him hand and foot. Sometimes physical instincts that he can"t control." He narrowed his eyes and bent forward, looking at me intently, and he repeated the phrase slowly--"Physical instincts that he can"t control-"
Was he referring to the incident of yesterday? I thought so. I also believed it was the motive power of this strangely intimate conversation.
He rose again as though restless, and once more went to the window and seemed to seek inspiration or decision from the sight of my roses.
After a short while he turned and dragged up from his neck a slim chain at the end of which hung a round object in a talc case. This he unfastened and threw on the table in front of me.
"Do you know what that is?"
"Yes," said I. "Your identification disc."
"Look on the other side."
I took it up and found that the reverse contained the head cut out from some photograph of Betty. After I had handed back the locket, he slipped it on the chain and dropped it beneath his collar.