If Winter Comes

by A. S. M. Hutchinson

CHAPTER V

I

The enormous and imponderable world awfully unbalanced. Upside down. Extraordinarily unreal. Furiously real.

Life, which had been a thing of the clock and of the calendar, became a thing of events in which there was no time,—only events.

Things began one day very shortly after the declaration of war when, passing the barracks on his way home, Sabre was accosted and taken into the Mess by Cottar, a subaltern of the Pinks.

"You must come along in and have a cup of tea," young Cottar urged. "We've got a hell of a jamborino on. At least we shall have to-night. We're just working up for it. I can't tell you why. You can guess."

Sabre felt a sudden catch at his emotions. "Is the regiment going?"

They were at the door of the anteroom. Cottar swung it open. The room was full of men and tobacco smoke and noise. A very tall youth, one Sikes, was standing on the table, a glass in his hand. "Hullo, Sabre! Messman, one of those very stiff whiskies for Mr. Sabre—go on, Sabre, you must. Because—" He had not Cottar's reticence. He burst into song, waving his glass—"Because—

"We shan't be here in the morning—"

They all took it up, bawling uproariously:

We shan't be here in the morning,
We shan't be here in the morning,
We shan't be here in the mor-or-ning,
Before the break of day!

Otway came in. "Shut up, you noisy young fools. What the—"

Sikes from the table. "Ah, Papa Otway! Three cheers for Papa Otway in very discreet whispers. Messman, one of those very stiff whiskies for Captain Otway."

Otway laughed pleasantly. "No, chuck it, I'm not drinking. Hood, I want you; and you, Carmichael, and you, Bullen." He saw Sabre and came to him. "Hullo, Sabre. You've heard now. We've managed to keep it pretty close, but it's all over the place now. Yes, we entrain at daybreak."

Sabre felt frightfully affected. He could hardly speak. "Good Lord. I can't realise it. I say, Otway, do you remember predicting this nearly two years ago? You said this would find us all unawares. You were one of the people every one laughed at."

Precisely the same Otway who had spoken with such extraordinary intensity outside the Corn Exchange eighteen months before began to speak with extraordinary intensity now. "That? Oh, I don't give a damn for any of that now. This is our show now, Sabre. The Army's show. I don't give a damn for what happens at home now. This is our show. Sabre, you don't know what this is for me. I've lived for this, dreamt about it, thought about it, eaten it, drunk it ever since I was a kid at Sandhurst. Now it's come. By God, it's come at last!"

The same Otway! Positively the little beads of perspiration were shining about his nose. His eyes scintillated an extraordinary light. He said, "By God, Sabre, you ought to have seen the battalion on parade this morning! By God, they were magnificent. They're the finest thing that ever happened. There's nothing in the Army List to touch us. When I think I'll be in action with them perhaps inside a week—I—"

An orderly approached and spoke to him. "Right. Right. I'll come along at once." He was swiftly away. "Patterson, I want you too. There's a man in your company says his wife—"

And, stilled during his presence, babel broke out anew with his departure. Some one, standing on a sofa, caught up Otway's last word into a bawling song—

I've got a wife and sixteen kids,
I've got a wife and sixteen kids,
I've got a wife and—

A cushion whizzed across the room into his face. A tag began. Sikes on the table was laying down laws of equipment at the top of his voice. "Well, I'm going to take nothing but socks. I'm going to stuff my pack absolutely bung full of socks. Man alive, I tell you nothing matters except socks. If you can keep on getting clean socks every—I'm going to stuff in socks enough to last me—"[1]

[1] A very short time afterwards, while the incident was fresh in his memory, Sabre heard that Sikes took out eleven pairs of socks and was killed, at Mons, in the pair he landed in.

II

The blessed gift in the war was to be without imagination. The supreme trial, whether in endurance on the part of those who stayed at home, or in courage on the part of those who took the field, was upon those whose mentality invested every sight and every happening with the poignancy of attributes not present but imagined. For Sabre the war definitely began with that visit to the Mess on the eve of the Pinks' departure. The high excitement of the young men, their eager planning, the almost religious ecstasy of Otway at the consummation of his life's dream, moved Sabre, visioning what might await it all, in depths profound and painful in their intensity. His mind would not abandon them. He sat up that night after Mabel had gone to her room. How on earth could he go to bed, be hoggishly sleeping, while those chaps were marching out?

He could not. At two in the morning he went quietly from the house and got out his bicycle and rode down into Tidborough.

He was just in time. The news had been well kept, or in those early days had not the meaning it came to have. Nevertheless a few people stood about the High Street in the thin light of the young morning, and when, almost immediately, the battalion came swinging out of the Market Place, many appeared flanking it, mostly women.

"Here they come!"

Frightful words! Sabre caught them from a young woman spoken to a very old woman whose arm she held a few paces from where he stood. Frightful words! He caught his breath, and, more dreadfully upon his emotions, as the head of the column came into sight, the band, taking them to the station, burst into the Pinks' familiar quickstep.

The Camp Town races are five miles long,
Doo-da! Doo-da!
The Camp Town races are five miles long,
Doo-da! Doo-da! Day!
Gwine to run all night. Gwine to run all day.
I bet my money on the bob-tail nag,
Somebody bet on the bay!

He never in his life had experienced anything so utterly frightful or imagined that anything could be so utterly frightful. His throat felt bursting. His eyes were filled. They were swinging past him, file by file. Doo-da! Doo-da! Day! He scarcely could see them. They were marching at ease, their rifles slung. They seemed to be appallingly laden with stupendous packs and multitudinous equipment. A tin mug and God knows what else beside swung and rattled about their thighs. The women with them were running to keep up, and dragging children, and stretching hands into the ranks, and crying—all crying.

...Doo-da! Doo-da!
The Camp Town races are five miles long,
Doo-da! Doo-da! Day!

He thought, "Damn that infernal music." He wiped his eyes. This was impossible to bear ... Doo-da! Doo-da! A most frightful thing happened. A boy broke out of the ranks and came running, all rattling and jingling with swinging accoutrements, to the old woman beside Sabre, put his arms around her and cried in a most frightful voice, "Mother! Mother!" And a sergeant, also rattling and clanking, dashed up and bawled with astounding ferocity, "Get back into the bloody ranks!" And the boy ran on, rattling. And the old woman collapsed prone upon the pavement. And the sergeant, as though his amazing ferocity had been the buttress of some other emotions, bent over the old woman and patted her, rattling, and said, "That's all right, Mother. That's all right. I'll look after him. I'll bring him back. That's all right, Mother." And ran on, jingling. Doo-da! Doo-da! Day!

III

He turned away. He absolutely could not bear it. He walked a few paces and equally could not forbear to stop and look again. The men were nearly all laughing and whistling and singing.... This bursting sensation in all his emotions! It was beyond anything he had ever experienced before. But he had experienced something like it before. His mind threw back across the years and presented the occasion to him. It was when he was a very small boy in his first term at Tidborough. The Christmas term and he was on the Strip, trying frantically behind a crowd of boys to get a glimpse of the match in progress,—one of the great matches of the season, vs. Tidborough Town. One of the boys against whose waist his frantic head was butting turned and said in a lordly way, "Let that kid through," and he was roughly bundled to a front position. The boy who had commanded his presence jolted him in the back with his knee and said, using the school argot for to cheer or shout, "Swipe up, you ghastly young ass! Swipe up! Can't you see they're pressing us?"

Couldn't he see! He felt that the end of the world was coming at what he saw. The enormous, full-grown town men were almost on the school goal-line; the school team clinging to them and battling with them like tiger-cats. He had only been at Tidborough a month, but he felt he would die if the line was crossed. He swiped till he thought his throat must crack. When his cracking throat incontinently took intervals of rest, he prayed to God for the school, visioning God on his throne on the school goalposts and mentioning to Him the players whose names he knew:

"Oh, let Barnwell get in his kick! Oh, do let Harris see they're heeling the ball! Oh, help Tufnell to get that man! Help him! Help him! Schoo-o-ool! Schoo-oo-ool! Schoo-oo-ool!"

Doo-da! Doo-da! Day!

His bursting heart was now saying, "England! England!"

IV

The column passed and was gone. He was left with his most frightful feelings. He could do nothing now. Four o'clock in the morning. But he must do something now. He could not go home till he had. He must. He followed to the station. The men were entraining in the goods yard. He waited about, not trusting himself to speak to Otway or any of the others who were going. Presently his opportunity came in a sight of Colonel Rattray, who commanded the depot and was not going, standing for a minute alone. Sabre went quickly to him and they exchanged greetings and said the obvious things proper to the occasion. Then Sabre said, feeling extraordinarily embarrassed, "I say, Colonel, I want to get into this. I absolutely must get into this."

"Eh? Into what?"

"The war." It was easier after the plunge, and he went on quickly, "I see in the papers that civilians are being given commissions, getting them by recommendation. Can you get me a commission? Can you?"

Colonel Rattray showed surprise. He turned squarely about and faced Sabre and looked him up and down, but not in the way in which soldiers looked civilians up and down rather later on. "Well, I don't know. I might. I've no doubt I could, if you're eligible. How old are you, Sabre?"

"Thirty-six."

Colonel Rattray said doubtfully, "It's a bit on the steep side for a commission."

"Well, I'd go in the ranks. I must get in. I absolutely must."

The soldier smiled pleasantly. "Oh, I wouldn't get thinking about the ranks, Sabre. There're heaps before you, you know. Still, I wouldn't stop any man getting into the Army if I could help him. I'll see what I can do. Certainly I will. Mind you, I'm doubtful. Are you fit?"

"I think I am. I'm supposed to have a bit of a heart. But it's absolute rot. It never affects me in the slightest degree. I can do anything."

"Well, that's the first thing, you know. Look here, I'm wanted. Come up to the Mess in the morning and I'll get our doctor to have a look at you. Then we'll see what can be done. All right, eh?"

V

He rode home much relieved from the stresses he had suffered in that awful business of watching the regiment march out. He felt that if only he could be "in it" he could equably endure any of these things that were happening and that would get worse; if he had just to stand by and watch them his portion would be insupportable. England! Other people whom he knew could not possibly feel it in the way he felt it. His history with its opening sentence, "This England you live in is yours", had arisen out of his passionate love for all that England meant to him. In all Shakespeare there was no passage that moved him in quite the same way whenever he recalled it as Richard the Second's

Dear earth, I do salute thee with my hand....
Mock not my senseless conjuration, lords,
This earth shall have a feeling....

Stooping and touching the soil of England as one might bend and touch a beloved face. That was what England for years had meant to him. And now.... It was upon these emotions, vaguely, "in case", that he had gone to Doctor Anderson on the morning of the frightful news. Anderson had told him he couldn't possibly be passed for the Army, but at the moment the idea of ever wanting to go into the Army had only been an almost ridiculously remote contingency, and what did Anderson know about the Army standard, anyway?

VI

He said nothing to Mabel of his intention. It was just precisely the sort of thing he could not possibly discuss with Mabel. Mabel would say, "Whyever should you?" and of all imaginable ordeals the idea of exposing before Mabel his feeling about England ... he would tell her when it was done, if it came off. He could say then, in what he knew to be the clumsy way in which he had learnt to hide his ideas from her, he could say, "Well, I had to."

And his thought was, when a few hours later he was walking slowly away from his interview with Major Earnshaw, the doctor at the barracks, "Thank God, I never said anything to Mabel about it."

The very few officers left behind at the depot were at breakfast when he arrived to keep Colonel Rattray to his word. Major Earnshaw had very pleasantly got up from the table to "put him out of his misery" there and then without formality and had "had a go at this heart of yours" in the billiard room. Withdrawn his stethoscope and shaken his head. It was "no go; absolutely none, Sabre."

"Well, but that's for a commission. I'll go into the ranks. Isn't that any different?"

No different. "You can't possibly go in as you are—now. In time, if this thing goes on, the standards will probably be reduced. But they'll have to be reduced a goodish long way before you'll get in, I don't mind telling you."

Sabre wheeled his bicycle slowly away across the barrack square. "Thank goodness, I never said anything to Mabel about it." A cluster of young men of various degrees of life were waiting outside the door of the recruiting office. The rush of the first few days was thinning down but recruits were still pouring in. They were all laughing and talking noisily. He had the wish that he could take the thing in that spirit. Why couldn't he? After all, what did it really matter that he was not able to get "in it"? Even if he had been accepted it would only have been pretending. He never would have got really "in it"; none of those chaps would; every one knew the war couldn't last long; it would be over long before any of these recruits could be trained.

VII

This "common sense" argument carried him through following days; then came another of the frightful undoings of his emotions; and just as the war definitely began for him with the glimpse of the beginnings of that "jamborino" in the Mess, so from this new occasion began, unceasingly and increasingly, and with shocking effect upon his sensitiveness, a dreadful oppression by the war and, adding to its darkness, a gnawing and unreasonable self-accusation that he was not "in it."

The occasion was that of his meeting with Harkness outside the County Times office. Harkness was a captain of the battalion that had gone out who had been left behind owing to some illness. The British Expeditionary Force had been in action. There had been scraps of news of some heavy fighting. Harkness said dully, "Hullo, Sabre. I've just been in to see that chap Pike to see if he'd got anything. We've had some news, you know." He stopped. His face was twitching.

Sabre said, "News? Anything about the Pinks?"

Harkness nodded. He seemed to be swallowing. Then he said, "Yes, the regiment. Pretty bad."

Sabre said, "Any one—?" and also stopped.

Harkness looked, not at Sabre, but straight across the top of his head and began an appalling, and as it seemed to Sabre, an endless recitative. "The Colonel's killed. Bruce is killed. Otway's killed—"

"Otway...."

"Cottar's killed. Bullen's killed—"

Endless! The names struck Sabre like successive blows. Were they never going to end?

"Carmichael's killed. My young brother's—" his voice cracked—"killed. Sikes is killed."

"Sikes killed.... And your brother...."

Harkness said in a very thin, squeaking voice, "Yes, the regiment's pretty well—The regiment's—" He looked full at Sabre and said in a very loud, defiant voice, "I bet they were magnificent. By God, I bet you they were magnificent. Oh, my God, why the hell wasn't I there?" He turned abruptly and went away, walking rather funnily.

This was the moment at which there descended upon Sabre, never to leave him while he remained not "in it", the appalling sense of oppression that the war exercised upon him. On his brain like a weight; on his heart like a pressing hand. He thought of Otway's intense, gleaming face. "My God, Sabre, you ought to have seen the battalion on parade this morning." He saw Otway's face cold and stricken. He thought of Sikes, on the table. "Well, I'm going to take nothing but socks. I'm going to stuff my pack absolutely bung full of socks." He saw Sikes flung like a disused thing in some field....

VIII

And still events; still, and always, now, disturbing things.

While he stood there he was suddenly aware of Young Rod, Pole or Perch, rather breathlessly come up.

"I say, Sabre, have you heard this frightful news about the Pinks?—I say, Sabre, I want your help most frightfully. I want you to talk to my mother. She likes you. She'll listen to you. I'm going to enlist. I've been putting it off day after day, trying to fix up things for my mother and trying to persuade her; but I haven't done much and I absolutely can't wait any longer."

Sabre said, "Good Lord, are you, Perch? Must you? Your mother, why, what on earth will she do without you? She'll—"

Young Perch winced painfully. "I know. I know. It pretty well kills me to think of it and I'm having the most frightful scenes with her. But I've thought it all out, Sabre, and I know I'm doing the right thing. I've looked after my mother all my life, and a month ago the idea of leaving her even for a couple of nights would have been unthinkable. But this is different. This is—" He flushed awkwardly—"you can't talk that sort of patriotic stuff, you know, but this is, well this is a chap's country, and I've figured it out it's got to come before my mother. It's got to. She says it will kill her if I go. I believe it will, Sabre. And my God, if it does—but I can't help it. I know what's the right thing. I'll tell you something else." His face, which had been red and cloudy as with tears, became dark and passionate. "I'll tell you something else. People are saying things about me and to me because I'm young and unmarried and haven't got a wife to support. Curse them, Sabre—what do they know about it? Aren't their wives young, strong, able to take care of themselves? My mother can't come downstairs without me and can't let any one else—"

He rubbed a hand across his eyes and broke off. "Never mind about that; I know what I've got to do. Look here, Sabre, I tell you where I want your help, like anything. You know lots of people. I don't. Well, I want to get hold of some nice girl to live with my mother and take care of her in my place while I'm away. A sort of companion, aren't they called? Like that Bypass person up at old Boom Bagshaw's, only much nicer and younger and friendlier than she is. You see, I know my mother. If it was any one of any age, she wouldn't have her in the house at any price, and she'd send her flying out of the window in about two days if she did have her. She swears no power on earth will induce her to have any one at all as it is. But I'm going to manage it if I can get the right person. I want some one who my mother will indignantly call a chit of a child"—he gave rather a broken little laugh—"can't I hear her saying it! But she'll instantly begin to mother her because she is a chit of a child, and to fuss over her and tell her what she ought to eat and what she ought to wear, and does she wear a flannel binder, and all that, just as she does to me. And in about a week she'll be as right as rain and writing me letters all day and arguing with the girl how to spell 'being' and 'been'—you know what my mother is. I say, Sabre, do for God's sake help me, if you can. Do you know any one?"

Sabre, during this greatly troubled outpouring, had the feeling that this was all of a part with the calamitous news he had just had from Harkness,—a direct continuation of it. This frightful war! Was it going to attack even that pathetic little old woman at Puncher's Farm with her fumbling hands and her frail existence centred solely in her son? He said, "I'm awfully sorry, Perch. Frightfully sorry for your mother and for you. You know best what you ought to do. I won't say anything either way. I think a man's only judge in this ghastly business is himself. Of course, I'll help you. I'll help you all I can. It's a funny coincidence but I believe I do know just the very girl that would be what you want—"

Young Perch grasped his hand in delighted relief. "Oh, Sabre, if you do! I felt you would help. You've always been a chap to turn to!"

"I've turned to you, Perch, you and your mother, a good deal more than you might imagine. I'm glad to help if I can. The chance I'm thinking about I was hearing of only a few days ago. The works' foreman in my office, an old chap called Bright. He's got a daughter about eighteen or thereabouts, and I was hearing he wanted to get her into some kind of post like yours. I've spoken to her once or twice when she's been about the place for her father and I took a tremendous fancy to her. She's as pretty as a picture. Effie, she's called. I believe your mother would take to her no end. And she'd just love your mother."

Young Perch said rather thickly, "Any one would who takes her the right way."

Sabre touched him encouragingly on the shoulder. "This girl Effie will if only we can get her. She's that sort, I know. I'll see about it at once. Buck up, old man."

"Thanks most frightfully, Sabre. Thanks most awfully."

IX

It was from Twyning that Sabre had heard that a post of some sort was being considered for Effie Bright. Her father, as he had told young Perch, was works' foreman at Fortune, East and Sabre's. "Mr. Bright." A massive old man with a massive, rather striking face hewn beneath a bald dome and thickly grown all about and down the throat with stiff white hair. He had been in the firm as long as Mr. Fortune himself and appeared to Sabre, who had little to do with him, to take orders from nobody. He was intensely religious and he had the deep-set and extraordinarily penetrating eyes that frequently denote the religious zealot. He was not liked by the hands. They called him Moses, disliked his intense religiosity and feared the cold and heavy manner that he had. He trod heavily about the workshops, looking into the eyes of the young men as if far more concerned to search their souls than their benches; and Sabre, when speaking to him, always had the feeling that Mr. Bright was penetrating him with the same intention.

Extraordinary that such a stern and hard old man should have for daughter such a fresh and lovable slip of a young thing as his Effie! Bright Effie, Sabre always called her, inverting her names. Mr. Bright had a little cupboard called his office at the foot of the main stairway and Bright Effie came often to see her father there. Sabre had spoken to her in the little cupboard or just outside it. He had delight in watching the most extraordinary shining that she had in her eyes. It was like reading an entertaining book, he used to think, and he had the idea that humor of that rarest kind which is unbounded love mingled with unbounded sense of the oddities of life was packed to bursting within her. All that she saw or heard seemed to be taken into that exhaustless fount, metamorphosed into the most delicious sensations, and shone forth in extraordinarily humorous delight through her eyes. Somewhere in the dullest day light is found and thrown back by a bright surface. It was just so, Sabre used to think, with Effie. All things were fresh to her and she found freshness in all things.

Some such apprehension of her Sabre had expressed to Twyning on the occasion that came to his mind during young Perch's entreaty for some one to live with his mother. Sabre had been standing with Twyning at Mr. Fortune's window, Mr. Bright and Effie leaving the office and crossing the street together beneath them. Twyning, who was on intimate terms with Mr. Bright, had given a short laugh and said, "Hullo, you seem to have been thinking a lot about the fair Effie!"

The kind of laugh and the kind of remark that Sabre hated and he gave a slight gesture which Twyning well knew meant that he hated it. This was what Twyning called "stuck-uppishness" and equally hated, and he chose words expressive of his resentment,—the class insistence.

"Well, she's got to earn her living, however jolly she is. She's not one of your fine ladies, you know."

Sabre recognised the implication but ignored it. "What's old Bright going to do with her?"

"He doesn't quite know. He was talking to my missus about it the other day. He's as good as we are, you know. He's an idea of getting her out as a sort of lady's companion somewhere."

This was what Sabre had remembered; and he went straight from young Perch to Twyning and recalled the conversation.

Twyning said, "Hullo, still interested in the fair Effie?"

"It's for young Perch over at Penny Green I'm asking. For his mother. He's a young man"—Sabre permitted his eyes to rest for a moment on Harold, seated at his desk—"and he feels he ought to join the army. He wants the girl to be with his mother while he's away."

Twyning, noting the glance, changed his tone to one of much friendliness. "Oh, I see, old man. No, Effie's got nothing yet. She was over to our place to tea last Sunday."

"Good. I'll go and talk to old Bright. I'm keen about this."

"Yes, you seem to be, old man."

X

Mr. Bright received the suggestion with a manner that irritated Sabre. While he was being told of the Perches he stared at Sabre with that penetrating gaze of his as though in the proposal he searched for some motive other than common friendliness. His first comment was, "They'll want references, I suppose, sir?"

Sabre smiled. "Oh, scarcely, Mr. Bright. Not when they know who you are."

The old man was standing before Sabre in the little cupboard bending his head close towards him as though he would sense out, if he could not see, some hidden motive behind all this. He contracted his great brows as if to squeeze more penetration into his gaze. "Yes, but I'll want references, Mr. Sabre. My girl's been well brought up. She's not going here, there, nor anywhere."

Extraordinary the intensity of his searching, suspicious stare! Hard, stupid old man, Sabre thought. "Dash it, does he suppose I've got designs on the girl?" He would have returned an impatient answer had he not been so anxious on the Perches' behalf. Instead he said pleasantly, "Of course she's not, Mr. Bright. You may be sure I wouldn't suggest this if I didn't know it was in every way desirable. Mrs. Perch is a very old friend of mine and a very simple and kind old lady. There'll be only herself for Effie to meet. And she'll make a daughter of her."

Nothing, of the penetration abated from the deep-set eyes, nor came any expression of thanks from the stern, pursed mouth. "I'll take my girl over and see for myself, Mr. Sabre."

Surly, stupid old man! However, poor young Perch! Poor old Mrs. Perch! The very thing, if only it would come off.

XI

It came off. Sabre went up to Puncher's Farm on the evening of the day Mr. Bright, "to see for himself", had called with Effie. Young Perch greeted him delightedly in the doorway and clasped his hand in gratitude. "It's all right. It's fixed. She's coming. I've had the most frightful struggle with my mother. But it's only her way, you know." He stopped and Sabre heard him gulp. "Only her way. I could see she took to the girl from the start. My mother's started knitting me a pair of socks and old man Bright—I say, he's rather an alarming sort of person, Sabre—had hardly opened his mouth when they arrived when the girl, in the most extraordinary, making-a-fuss-of-her kind of way, told her she was using the wrong size needles or something. And my mother, as if she had known her all her life, said, 'There you are, I knew I was. It's simply useless asking Freddie to do any shopping for me. He simply lets them give him anything they like.' And she told the girl she thought she had some other needles in one of those gigantic old boxes of ours. And they went off together to look, and heaven only knows what they got up to; they were away about half an hour and came back with about three hundredweight of old wools and nine pounds of needles, and talking about how they were going through all the other boxes, 'now I've got some one to help me', as my mother said. By Jove, the girl's wonderful. D'you know, she actually kissed my mother when she was leaving and said, 'Now be sure to try that little pillow just under your side to-night. Just press it in as you're falling asleep.' By Jove, you can't think how grateful I am to you, Sabre."

"I am glad," Sabre told him. "I felt she'd be just like that. But why have you been having a frightful struggle over it with your mother if she's taken to her so?"

Young Perch gave the fond little laugh with which Sabre had so often heard him conclude his enormous arguments with his mother. "Oh, you know what my mother is. She's now made up her mind that the girl is coming here to do what she calls 'catch me.' She'll forget that soon. Anyway, the girl's coming. She's coming the day after to-morrow, the day I'm going. Come along in and see my mother and keep her to it."

The subject did not require bringing up. "I suppose Freddie's told you what he's forcing me into now, Mr. Sabre," old Mrs. Perch greeted him. "It's a funny thing that I should be forced to do things at my time of life. Of course she's after Freddie. Do you suppose I can't see that?"

"Well, but she won't see Freddie, Mrs. Perch. He won't be here."

"She'll catch him," declared Mrs. Perch doggedly. "Any girl could catch Freddie. He's a positive fool with one of these girls after him. Now she's got to have his uncle Henry's armchair in her room, if you please. That's a nice thing, isn't it?"

"Now look here, Mother, you know perfectly well that was your own idea. You said you felt sure she had a weak back and that—"

"I never supposed she was going to have your uncle Henry's chair for her weak back or for any other back. Ask Mr. Sabre what he thinks. There he is. Ask him."

Sabre said, "But you do like the girl, don't you, Mrs. Perch?"

Mrs. Perch pursed her lips.

"I don't say I don't like her. I merely ask what I'm going to do with her in the house. When Freddie said he wanted to bring some one in to be with me, I never supposed he was going to bring a chit of a child into the house. I assure you I never supposed that was going to be done to me."

And then quite suddenly Mrs. Perch dropped into a chair and said in a horribly weak voice, "I don't mind who comes into the house, now. I can't contend like I used to contend." Immense tears gathered in her eyes and began to run swiftly down her cheeks. "I'm not fit for anything now. I can't live without Freddie. I like the girl; but all this house where we've been so happy ... without Freddie ... I shall see his dear, bright face everywhere. Why must he go, Mr. Sabre? Why must he go? I don't understand this war at all." Her voice trailed off. Her hands fumbled on her lap. A tear fell on them. She brushed at it with a fumbling motion but it remained there.

Young Perch took her hand and fondled it. Sabre saw the wrinkled, fumbling old hand between the strong brown fingers. "That's all right, Mother. Of course, you don't understand it. That's just it. You think I'm going out to fighting and all that. And I'm just going into a training camp here in England for a bit. And before Christmas it will all be over and I shall come flying back and we'll send Miss Bright toddling off home and—Don't cry, Mother. Don't cry, Mother. Isn't that so, Sabre? Just training in England. Isn't that so? Now wherever's your old handkerchief got to? Look here; here's mine. Look, this is the one I chose that day with you in Tidborough. Do you remember what a jolly tea we had that day? Remember what a laugh we had over that funny teapot. There, let me wipe them, Mother...."

Sabre turned away. This frightful war....