CHAPTER XVII
THE RAM-CORPS ANGEL
Grannie was writing letters. Grandfather had gone into London to the War Office, and it was only ten o'clock. Grannie was safe for an hour or two, for she was sending out notices about something, and that always took a long time.
Ger was rather at a loose end, but with the admirable spirit of the adventurous for making the best of things, he decided to go forth and see what he could see. No one was in the hall to question him as he went out, and he made straight for the common, where something exciting was always toward. He had forgotten to put on a coat, and the wind was cold, so he ran along with his hands in the pockets of his jacket. His cap was old, his suit, "a descended suit," was old, and his face, though it was still so early in the day, was far from clean.
For once the common was almost deserted; but far away in front of the "Shop" a thin line of khaki proclaimed the fact that some of the cadets were drilling.
Ger loved the Shop. He had been there on several occasions, accompanied by one or other of his grandparents, to see Grantly, and he knew that he must not go in alone, or his brother would, as he put it, "get in a bate." But there could be no objection to his standing at the gate and looking in at the parade ground. He knew the porter, a nice friendly chap who would not drive him away.
He turned off the common into the road that runs up past the Cadet Hospital. He knew the Cadet Hospital, for once he had gone there with Grannie to visit "a kind of cousin" who had broken his collar-bone in the riding-school. As he passed Ger looked in at the open door. A little crowd of rather poor-looking people stood in the entrance, among them a boy about his own age, with a great pad of cotton-wool fastened over his ear by a bandage.
A crowd of any sort had always an irresistible fascination for Ger. He skipped up the path and pushed in among the waiting people to the side of the boy with the tied-up head.
"Got a sore ear?" he murmured sympathetically.
"Wot's it to you wot I got?" was the discouraging reply.
"Well, I'm sorry, you know," said Ger with obvious sincerity.
The boy looked hard at him and grunted.
"What are you here for?" Ger whispered.
"The Myjor, 'e got to syringe it," the boy mumbled, but this time his tone was void of offence.
"Does it hurt?"
"'E don't 'urt, not much, 'e is careful; 'e's downright afraid of urtin' ya'. . . . An' if 'e does 'urt, it's becos 'e can't 'elp it, an' so," here he wagged his head impressively, "ya' just doesn't let on . . . see? Wots the matter wiv you?"
Here was a poser. Yet Ger was consumed by a desire to see this mysterious "myjor" who syringed ears and didn't hurt people. He had fallen upon an adventure, and he was going to see it out.
"I don't know exactly," he whispered mysteriously, "but I've got to see him."
"P'raps they've wrote about ya'," the bandaged boy suggested.
Ger thought this was unlikely, but let the suggestion pass unchallenged. He watched the various people vanish into a room on the right, saw them come out again, heard the invariable "Next please" which heralded the seclusion of a new patient, till everybody had gone and come back and gone forth into the street again save only the bandaged boy and himself.
"You nip in w'en I comes out," the boy said encouragingly, "it's a bit lyte already, but 'e'll see ya' if yer slippy."
It seemed a long time to Ger as he waited. The little crowd of women and children had melted away. Men in blue cotton jackets passed to and fro across the hall, "Sister," in a curious headdress and scarlet cape, looking like a picture by Carpaccio, came out of another room, went up the staircase and vanished from view. No one spoke to him or asked his business, and Ger stood in a dark corner holding his cap in his hands and waiting.
At last the boy came back with a clean bandage and a big new pad of cotton-wool over the syringed ear.
"'Urry up," he whispered as he passed. "I told 'im as there was one more."
Ger hurried.
Once inside that mysterious door he started violently, for a tall figure clad in a long white smock was standing near a sink brushing his nails. He wore a black band round his head, and on his forehead, attached to the band, was a round mirror. The very brightest mirror Ger had ever seen.
So this was the Myjor.
The uniform was quite new to Ger.
The eyes under the mirror were very blue, and for the rest this strangely clad tall man had a brown moustache and a pleasant voice as he turned, and drying his hands the while, said:
"Well, young shaver, what's the matter with you?"
In his eight years Ger had had but few aches and pains save such as followed naturally upon falls or fights, but he knew that if this interview was to be prolonged he must have something, so he hazarded an ailment.
"I've a muzzy feeling in my head sometimes, sir, a sort of ache, not bad, you know."
The Myjor looked very hard at Ger as he spoke—evidently the little boy's voice and accent were in some way unexpected.
He sat down and drew him forward close to his knees. The round mirror on his forehead flashed into Ger's eyes and he winced.
"Headache, eh?" said the Myjor cheerfully. "You don't look as though you ought to get headaches. Can you read?"
"No, sir, that's just what I can't do, and there's awful rows about it. I can't seem to read, I don't want to much, but I do try . . . I do really, but it's so muddly."
"How long have you been learning?"
"Years and years," said Ger mournfully. "They say Kitten 'll read before me, and she's only four."
"Um," said the Myjor, "that will never do. We can't have Kitten stealing a march on us that way. This must be seen into. By the way, what's your name?"
"Gervais Folaire Ffolliot," Ger answered solemnly, as though he were saying his catechism.
"Ffolliot . . . Ffolliot . . . where d'you live?"
"Redmarley . . . it's a long way from here."
"What are you doing here, then?"
"I'm stopping with grannie and grandfather."
"And who is grandfather?"
"General Grantly," Ger answered promptly, smiling broadly. He always felt that his grandfather was a trump card anywhere, but in Woolwich most of all, "and he's got such a lot of medals, teeny ones, you know, like the big ones. I can read them," he added proudly. "I know them all. Grannie taught me."
"But why have you come to me? And why on earth do you come in among the wives and children of the Shop servants?"
"The door was open," Ger explained, "and I talked to the ear boy, and he said you were most awfully gentle and didn't hurt and hated if you had to—so I knew you were kind, and I'm awfully fond of kind people, so I wanted to see you—you're not cross, are you?" he asked anxiously.
"Um," again remarked the Myjor, and stared at Ger thoughtfully. "Well," he said at last, "since you are here, what is it you find so hard about reading?"
"It's so muddly," Ger complained, "nasty little letters and all so much alike."
"Exactly so," said the Myjor.
Then he drew down the blinds.
Ger's heart beat fast. Here was an adventure indeed, and when you were once well in for an adventure all sorts of queer things happened.
Unprecedented things happened to Ger, but he was never very clear afterwards as to what they were. So many things were "done to him" that he became quite confused. Lights flashed into eyes, lights so brilliant that they quite hurt. Curious spectacles with heavy frames and glasses that took in and out were placed upon his nose, and he was only allowed to use one eye at a time, the other being blotted out by a black disk in the spectacles. At last he looked through with both eyes together at letters on a card, letters that were blacker and clearer than any he had ever seen before . . . and the blinds were drawn up.
"Will you please tell me," Ger asked politely, "what is that curious uniform you wear? I don't seem to have seen it before, an' I've seen a great many."
The Myjor laughed. "It's my working kit; don't you like it?"
"Very much," said Ger, "I think you look like an angel."
"Really," said the Myjor. "I haven't met any, so I don't know."
"I haven't exactly met any," said Ger, "but I've seen portraits of two, and . . . I know a lot about them."
"Now, young man, you listen to me," said the Ram-Corps Angel. "Eyes are not my job really, but I'm glad you looked in to see me, for I'll send you to someone who'll put you right and you'll read long before the Kitten. She'll never catch you. Right away you'll go, she won't be in the same field. You'd better go back now, or Mrs Grantly will be wondering where you are—cheer up about that reading."
"Will I?" Ger asked breathlessly. "Shall I be able to get into the
Shop? They pill you for eyes, you know."
"Your eyes will be all right by the time you're ready for the Shop. You see crooked just now, you know—and it wants correcting, that's all."
"What?" cried Ger despairingly. "Do I squint?"
"Bless you, no; the sight of your two eyes is different, that's all—when you get proper glasses you'll be right as rain. Lots of people have it . . . if you'd been a Board School you'd have been seen to long ago," he added, more to himself than to Ger.
Then Ger shook hands with the Ram-Corps Angel and walked rather slowly and thoughtfully across the common to grandfather's house though the wind was colder than ever. He forgot to look in at the Shop gate, but the parade ground was empty. The cadets had finished drilling. Ger had been so long in that darkened room.
He had lunch alone with his grannie, for grandfather was lunching at his club. There was no poking of the Ffolliot children into schoolrooms and nurseries for meals when they stayed with the ganpies. His face was clean and his hair very smooth, and he held back Mrs Granny's chair for her just as grandfather did. She stooped and kissed the fresh, friendly little face and told him he was a dear, which was most pleasant.
He was hungry and the roast mutton was very good, moreover he was going to the Zoo that afternoon directly after lunch, grannie's French maid was to take him. They were to have a taxi from Charing Cross, and lunch passed pleasantly, enlivened by the discussion of this enchanting plan.
Presently he asked, apropos of nothing: "Do all the Ram-Corps officers look like angels?"
"Like angels!" Mrs Grantly repeated derisively. "Good gracious, no!
Very plain indeed, some of them I've seen."
"The one at the Cadet Hospital does," Ger said positively, "like a great big angel and a dear."
"Who? Major Murray?" Mrs Grantly inquired, looking puzzled; "where have you seen him?"
But at this very moment someone came to tell Ger it was time to get ready, and in the fuss and excitement of seeing him off, his grannie forgot all about the Ram Corps and its angelic attributes.
It was her day. Guest after guest arrived, and she was pretty tired by the time she had given tea to some five and twenty people.
The General never came in at all till the last guest had gone. Then he sought his wife, and standing on the hearth-rug with his back to the fire he told her that Major Murray had been to see him, and had recounted Ger's visit of the morning, and the result of his investigations.
Mrs Grantly, which was unusual, never interrupted once.
"So you can understand," the General concluded, "I didn't feel like facing a lot of people."
"I shall write at once to Margie," Mrs Grantly cried breathlessly, "and tell her she is a fool."
"I wouldn't do that," the General said gently; "poor Margie, she has a good deal on her shoulders."
"All the same—do you remember that that unfortunate child has been punished—punished because he was considered idle and obstinate over his lessons . . . punished . . . little Ger—friendly, jolly little Ger . . . I can't bear it," and Mrs Grantly burst into tears.
The General looked very much as though he would like to cry too. "It's an unfortunate business," he said huskily, "but you see, none of us have ever had any eye trouble, and the other children have all such good sight . . . it never occurred to me . . . I must confess . . . of course it can be put right very easily; you're to take him to the oculist to-morrow; I've telephoned and made the appointment."
Mrs Grantly dried her eyes.
"We're all to blame," she exclaimed, "I'm just as much to blame as
Margie . . . she'll be fearfully upset I don't know how to tell her."
"Tell you what," exclaimed the General, "I'll write to Ffolliot . . . I'll do it now, this instant, and the letter will catch the 7.30 post . . ."
At the door he paused and added more cheerfully, "I shall enjoy writing to Ffolliot."