A Letter
(From Captain Claude Seaforth to a novelist friend)
My dear Man,—You asked me to tell you if anything very remarkable came my way. I think I have a story for you at last. If I could only write I would make something of it myself, but not being of Kitchener's Army I can't.
The other day, while I was clearing up papers and accounts, and all over ink, as I always get, the Sergeant came to me, looking very rum. "Two young fellows want to see you," he said.
Of course I said I was too busy and that he must deal with them.
"I think you'd rather see them yourself," he said, with another odd look.
"What do they want?" I asked.
"They want to enlist," he said; "but they don't want to see the doctor."
We've had some of these before—consumptives of the bull-dog breed, you know. Full of pluck but no mortal use; knocked out by the first route march.
"Why don't you tell them that they must see the doctor and have done with it?" I asked the Sergeant.
Again he smiled queerly. "I made sure you'd rather do it yourself," he said. "Shall I send them in?"
So I wished them farther and said "Yes"; and in they came.
They were the prettiest boys you ever saw in your life—too pretty. One had red hair and the other black, and they were dressed like navvies. They held their caps in their hands.
"What's this rubbish about not seeing a doctor?" I asked. You know my brutal way.
"We thought perhaps it could be dispensed with," Red Hair said, drawing nearer to Black Hair.
"Of course it can't," I told them. "What use to the Army are weaklings who can't stand the strain? They're just clogs in the machinery. Don't you see that?"
"We're very strong," Red Hair said, "only——"
"Only what?"
"Only——" Here they looked at each other, and Red Hair said, "Shall we?" and Black Hair said, "Yes"; and they both came closer to me.
"Will you promise," said Red Hair, "that you will treat as confidential anything we say to you?"
"So long as it is nothing dangerous to the State," I said, rather proud of myself for thinking of it.
"We want to fight for our country," Red Hair began.
"No one wants to fight more," Black Hair put in.
"And we're very strong," Red Hair continued.
"I won a cup for lawn-tennis at Devonshire Park," Black Hair added.
"But——" said Red Hair.
"Yes," I replied.
"Don't you believe in some women being as strong as men?"
"Certainly," I said.
"Well, then," said Red Hair, "that's like us. We are as strong as lots of men and much keener, and we want you to be kind to us and let us enlist."
"We'll never do anything to give ourselves away," said Black Hair; but, bless her innocent heart, she was giving herself away all the time. Every moment was feminine.
The rum thing is that, although I had been conscious of something odd, I never thought they were girls. Directly I knew it, I knew that I had been the most unobservant ass alive; for they couldn't possibly be anything else.
"My dear young ladies," I said at last, "I think you are splendid and an example to the world; but what you ask is impossible. Have you thought for a moment what it would be like to find yourselves in barracks with the ordinary British soldier? He is a brave man and, when you meet him alone, he is nearly always a nice man; but collectively he might not do as company for you."
"But look at this," said Red Hair, showing me a newspaper-cutting about a group of Russian girls known as "The Twelve Friends," who have been through the campaign and were treated with the utmost respect by the soldiers.
"And there's a woman buried at Brighton," said Black Hair, "who fought as a man for years and lived to be a hundred."
"And think of Joan of Arc," said Red Hair.
"And Boadicea," said Black Hair.
"Well," I said, "leaving Joan of Arc and Boadicea aside, possibly those Russians and that Brighton woman looked like men, which it is certain you don't!"
"Oh!" said Black Hair, who was really rather peculiarly nice. "Then why didn't you spot us before?"
One for me.
"I have no doubt I should have done so in a moment more," I said. "The fact is"—what cowards we are!—"I was preoccupied when you came in."
Black Hair looked adorably as if she didn't believe it.
"But anyway," I went on, "we must be serious. What would your people say?"
"We left word," said Red Hair, "that we were going off to do something for our country. They won't worry. Oh, please be kind and help us!"
Here all four of their beautiful eyes grew moist.
I could have hugged both of them, especially perhaps Black Hair, but I kept an iron hand on myself.
"You nice absurd creatures," I said, "do be reasonable. To begin with, passing the doctor is an absolute necessity. That shuts you out. But even if you got through, how do you think you would be helping your country? All the men would be falling in love with you; and that's bad enough as it is after working hours; it would be the ruin of discipline. And you could not bear the fatigue. No, go back and learn to be nurses and let your lovely hair grow again."
They were very obstinate and very unwilling to entertain the thought of drudgery such as nursing after all their dreams of excitement; but at last they came to reason, and I sent for a cab and packed them off in it (I simply could not bear the idea of other people seeing them in that masquerade), and told them that the sooner they changed the better.
After they had gone the Sergeant came in about something.
I said nothing, and he said nothing, each of us waiting for the other.
He moved about absolutely silently, and I dared not meet his glance because I knew I should give myself away. The rascal has not been running his eye over young women all these years without being able to tell them in a moment, even in navvy's clothes.
At last I could stand it no longer. "Damn it," I said, "what are you doing? Why don't you go? I didn't send for you." But still I didn't dare look up.
"I thought perhaps you had something to say to me, sir," he said.
"No, I haven't," I replied. "Why should I? What about?"
"Only about those two young men, sir," he replied.
"Get out," I said; but before he could go I had burst into laughter.
"Better not mention it," I managed to say.
He promised.
There—won't you find that useful?
Yours, C. S.