I
Towards the end of April it occurred to me that Burgess might like a short account of Tom Dainton's death for publication in the "Meltonian." I gave him the story as I had received it from Longton, and in thanking me for my letter Burgess sent me half a dozen pages of the proofs of the "Melton Roll of Honour." It was a formidable list. Of all my friends from Melton and elsewhere, Val Arden, Greville Oakleigh and Loring were still untouched; Sam Dainton was in hospital with a flesh wound and might be expected back in the fighting line in eight weeks, and a score of civilians from twenty peaceful walks of life were still in training. The rest would never return—and the war was but nine months old. I could not yet classify O'Rane's fate, but it was five months since he had gone out, and the Midland Fusiliers had been through murderous fighting. I had long since given up reading the closely printed daily "Casualties among non-commissioned officers and men."
"I am afraid," I wrote to Burgess, "the odds are against our seeing him again."
Then I corrected the proofs and dropped them into the letter-box in the passage. My uncle had left the flat at half-past eight for his turn of duty as a Special Constable, and in his absence I settled down to deal with the month's accounts from the hospital in Princes Gardens. It was a cold night, with a wind that sent gusts of smoke blowing into the room; I shivered and coughed for a while, but the draught at my back was unbearable, and I was jumping up to close the door when a low voice immediately behind me said:
"You left the door open, so I thought I'd walk in."
O'Rane was standing within a yard of me. Thinner even than when I met him first as a half-starved waif at Melton, white-cheeked and lined, with his skin drawn tight as drum parchment over the bones of his face, but alive and smiling, with his great black eyes fixed on my face, he grasped his hat with one hand while the other rested on the handle of the door.
"I've just been telling Burgess you were dead," I cried.
"Infernal cheek!" he answered, with a faint breathless laugh. "Steady on with my hand, old man, it's bandaged! I've just come up from Melton. You might ask me to come in, George."
I looked at him and drew a long breath.
"Thank Heaven, Raney!"
"May I ... I say, go gently with me!" He leant against the door, panting with exertion. "Did you come here to dodge me? I went straight from Waterloo to your house, but there was a reek of iodoform.... I've had my fill of iodoform lately. I want you to give me a bed, George, and help me out of my coat and put me into a comfortable chair."
"Where were you wounded?" I asked, as I took his coat and pressed him into a chair by the fire.
He held out his hands, which were covered by loose chamois leather gloves.
"A bit cut about," he explained. "I'm just keeping the dirt out."
"Was that all?"
"My only wounds," he answered rather deliberately.
"You look a most awful wreck, Raney."
He was lying back in the chair as though he had no bones in his body, and his weak, tired voice had lost its tone and music.
"I only left hospital yesterday," he protested.
"How much leave have you got?"
"As much as I like. The Army's bored with me. That's why I went to Melton."
"Do try to be intelligible, Raney," I begged.
He assumed a comical expression of grievance.
"Really, George! You know how fond of me Burgess is——"
"I remember he asked you to join his staff ten years ago."
His lank body became alert with interest.
"You hadn't forgotten that either? They were my first words to him. I marched into his library,—he hasn't had a window open since I left,—seized him by the hand and told him I hadn't seen him since he offered me a place on his staff. 'Which thou didst greet with mockery and scorn, laddie,' he said.
"'Was it a firm offer, sir?' I asked.
"'I know not this babble of the money-changers,' he said. 'The vineyard is full.'
"'Haven't you room for one more labourer, sir?' I asked.
"'Laddie,' he said, 'thy place is set in the forefront of the hottest battle. Wherefore hast thou broken and fled?'"
O'Rane's gloved right hand travelled up and covered his eyes.
"I talked to him for a bit, with the result that I propose to stay with you till Thursday and then go back to Melton as a master."
He uncovered his eyes and looked at me as if to see how I should take the news.
"But how soon are you going back to France?" I asked.
He shook his head slowly.
"I told you the Army was bored with me, George. I've been invalided out."
"For a cut hand?"
He laughed sadly.
"My looks don't pity me, do they? A patriotic lady at Waterloo was quite indignant because I wasn't in uniform. I feel shaken up, George, and if you offer me a drink I shan't refuse it."
He was unaccountably distraught and stayed my hand before I had begun to pour out the whisky. Then he accepted a cigar and threw it back on to the table. I felt that he had been allowed out of hospital too soon.
"How did you get wounded?" I asked.
"In a counter-attack," he answered listlessly. "We were shelled out of our trench, then we got it back, then they cleared us again, and I—well, you see, I didn't run fast enough."
The account was sufficiently vague, but phrase following phrase had a ring of familiarity, and a picture began to form itself in my mind.
"Where did this happen, Raney?" I asked.
"I don't know whereabouts it was on the map," he answered. "If you want to put up a tablet in my honour, get anyone on our front to direct you to Seven Dials."
As long as I could I resisted the memories stirred by that name. O'Rane sat carelessly swinging one leg over the arm of the chair and staring into the fire. As I watched his pale face and nervous movements, a wave of nausea swept over me, and moments passed, leaden-footed, before I could be sure of my voice.
"What's the matter with the other hand?" I asked carelessly.
"A bayonet jab," he answered.
I sprang to my feet as the last web of uncertainty was swept away.
"God in Heaven! It was you, Raney!"
"What was me?" he flung back, leaping out of the chair as though I were attacking him.
We stood face to face, panting with excitement.
"I heard what happened," I said. "Of course I didn't know who it was. A fellow in the hospital train, after you were cut down——"
O'Rane stumbled forward and laid his maimed hands clumsily on my shoulders.
"Man, you don't want to drive me mad, do you?" he whispered.
I threw an arm round his waist and led him back to his chair. He dropped limply back and sat motionless, save when he wiped his forehead with the back of his glove.
"It's been touch-and-go as it is," he murmured, pressing his hand against his side. "Now and again ... when I can't sleep, you know ... and it all comes back ... I—I—I never know how long I can keep my brain." He stretched out his hand for me to take. "Promise me one thing, George!" he begged, with a graver note in his voice. "You'll never ask me about it or mention it to me? And you won't pity me? And—and—well, you know the sort of thing I can't stand, George."
"I promise."
"It was—just a bayonet wound. You know how I was caught?"
"You were wounded before, weren't you? I heard you went down two or three times in the charge."
He rose slowly and stood before me.
"I've been invalided out, and yet nothing shows? Burgess thought I was a deserter, and the patriotic lady at Waterloo.... You see nothing wrong?"
I walked slowly round him.
"I may be blind, Raney——" I began.
His face twitched into a smile, and one hand shot out and closed over my wrist.
"Old man, you're almost as blind as I am!" he whispered. "Mind my hand, for God's sake! Yes, I told you at Chepstow we should have to risk everything we valued.... Both, yes.... Oh, stone-blind.... Old man, if—if I can stand it, you can too!"
* * * * * * * *
That night I sat up by myself waiting for my uncle to return. He was on duty till two, but I could not go to bed without seeing him. O'Rane had retired early in a state of complete exhaustion and dropped asleep almost as soon as he was between the sheets. He would—as ever—accept no assistance. I showed him his room, watched him touch his way round the walls and furniture and then left him. He rejoined me for a moment to complete his tour and find out where the bathroom lay, and we said good night a second time. A few moments later I strolled in to say I had given orders that he was not to be called. The room was in darkness when I entered, and he was unpacking his suitcase and arranging brushes and razors on the dressing-table. It may be to confess a want of imagination, but I think I realized then for the first time something of the meaning of blindness.
Bertrand returned punctually at two-thirty.
"You're late, George," he said. "Hallo, are you seedy? You look as if you'd seen a ghost."
"I have," I said. "Look here, I've got a peculiarly revolting story to tell you. D'you like it now or in the morning?"
"I'm not very keen to have it any time," Bertrand answered, with a distaste in his tone.
"I'm afraid you must. Raney's back from the Front and staying here——"
"Raney?"
"Yes, and there are one or two things that mustn't be mentioned before him. I only want to put you on your guard."
"Oh, if that's all ... drive along; I may as well sleep on it."
"If you can," I said. "You remember that story of Longton's I told you?"
"About the man...." My uncle shuddered. "Please don't let's have that again."
"Only two sentences," I said. "The man they crucified was Raney. And the reason they caught him was because he was blind."
Bertrand twice moistened his lips with the tip of his tongue. All the vigour seemed to have gone out of him, and his hands twitched as though he had no control over them. I thought I had better finish what I had begun.
"It was the concussion of a bursting shell," I said. "Double detachment of the retina. He wandered about dazed and half mad, got into the wrong trench, charged ... Well, you know the rest."
My uncle rose slowly to his feet, steadied himself against the table and stumbled towards the door.
"Where have you put him?" he asked.
"I'll show you," I answered. "He's asleep, so you mustn't disturb him, and—the subject's never discussed."
My uncle nodded.
I could have sworn that we crossed the hall and opened the door opposite without a sound being made, yet before I had time to turn on the light, Raney was sitting up in bed demanding who we were.
"We didn't mean to wake you," I said. "My uncle's just come in."
The startled expression passed from his face and left it smiling.
"The last time we met, sir," he said, in the terrible weak whisper that did duty for a voice, "I was once again a self-invited guest in your house."
He held out a bandaged hand in the direction from which my voice was coming, and my uncle clasped it tenderly.
"It's the most welcome compliment you can pay me, David," he said. "When first we met I asked leave to help you in any way I could. I ask again, though I'm afraid there'll be no change in the answer."
No better appreciated tribute could have been offered, and I saw Raney's white cheeks flush with pleasure.
"You don't think I'm done for, sir?" he demanded, drawing his thin body erect in the bed. "They—they couldn't kill me, you see."
"You're only just beginning. Good night, my boy." He paused as though he had something else to say, then laid a hand on O'Rane's head, and repeated, "Good night, my boy."
At the door I heard myself recalled. Raney waited till my uncle's footsteps had died away and then beckoned me to the bedside.
"I want to clear up one thing, George," he said. "That charge, you know. I can't say what your version may be, but I tell you frankly I went out because I wanted to be finished off." He wriggled down under the sheets and lay with his hands clasped under his head. "I don't feel like that now. There's any amount of kick left in me. The only things.... Look here, George, give me time to get used to it, to put some side on, you know. I've always ridden a pretty high horse, and it's a bit of an effort to get down and walk.... Don't spring any surprises on me, will you? There are some people I feel I can't meet.... Let me down gently: you can prepare people a bit.... George, I'm not going to chuck the House. Fawcett was blind, and he was a Minister.... I'm not going to chuck anything!"
In the morning I wrote half a dozen notes to the people I thought would be most interested to hear of O'Rane's return. The half-dozen did not include Sonia, and I am not in the least concerned to know whether I did right or wrong in omitting her. When we met at the hospital on the following Sunday, she announced her intention of coming back to tea with me. I told her of O'Rane's presence, adding that he was wounded and that the ordering of the flat was no longer in my hands. She inquired the extent of his wounds, and I made a clean breast of the whole story. Sonia whitened to the lips, pressed for further information and formulated a grievance that she had not been told before.
"You must take me to see him at once," she said, as I attempted no defence.
"He's not always very keen to meet people," I warned her.
"There's something I want to say to him," she answered.
I bowed to the inevitable, and we returned to Queen Anne's Mansions. Sonia waited in the hall while I went in to O'Rane, but there was no sign of her when I returned. Hurrying along the corridor I found her standing by the lift.
"I'm sorry, Sonia...." I began.
"Oh, I knew when you didn't come back that he wouldn't see me."
"He's nothing like himself yet," I explained lamely.
Sonia laughed sceptically.
"He'll have to be all right before he goes to Melton on Thursday. My dear George, I thought you and I were always candid with each other!"
I said nothing.
"Don't bother to come down with me," she begged, as the lift door opened.