A CONFLICT OF EMOTIONS.
(With the British Army in France.)
"I've seen rivetters at New York pie-foundries and stew-specialists on North Sea trawlers," said Percival severely, "but I never realised how monotonous feeding could be till I got into a Mess controlled by Binnie."
Binnie puffed his pipe severely, being of the tough fibre which enables Mess Presidents to endure. Frederick, who had been silent, rose from his seat, heaved a distressing sigh and left the room.
"There's the moral that adorns the tale, you—you public danger!" continued Percival, indicating Frederick's retreating figure. "Look to what a condition that once bright youth has been brought by your endless stews and curries."
"Not a bit of it," answered Binnie lightly. "Frederico could eat patent breakfast food and toasted doormats without taxing his digestion. His complaint is the tender passion. I recognise the symptoms."
"It looks like an acute attack, anyhow," said Percival, rising, "and prompt counter-irritants are indicated. But I'll confirm your diagnosis first."
Inside Frederick's quarters the sound of regular and sustained sighing suggested that the sufferer was in the throes of a spasm of melancholy. Percival entered and narrowly escaped being drawn into the vortex of a particularly powerful inspiration.
"Freddy, old pard," he said kindly, "why so triste? If the trouble's financial, my cheque-book is unreservedly at your service. Havin' no balance at the bank I've no use for it myself."
"It's not that—at least not worse than usual," groaned Frederick.
"Then tell me all about it."
"It's a long story," commenced Frederick.
"Let me off with a synopsis," interrupted Percival.
"Once upon a time," continued Frederick, "there was a big war, which made quite a stir in the daily papers and was a common subject of discussion in the clubs. There were many casualties, amongst them being a blithe young laddy who came down to the Base with a fractured maxilla caused by nibbling an M. and V. ration without previously removing the outside tin—or something of the sort. He was sent to hospital and devotedly tended by a Sister of exquisite beauty—such a figure and such hair! It wasn't exactly auburn and not exactly burnished bronze—"
"And it wasn't pale puce and it wasn't ultramarine," broke in Percival impatiently. "Tell me what it was, not what it wasn't."
"I can't. It baffled description. Well, they drifted apart; but often afterwards, when that young laddy was studying his Manual of Military Law in his lonely dug-out, the image of Sister Carruthers glowed on the printed page. But I never met her again until the other day, when I was having a gentle toddle round Quelquepart and saw her gliding along the quay. Something gripped me by the heart; I took my courage in both hands and spoke to her.
"'Don't you remember me, Sister?' I said. 'It was you who nursed me in No. 99 General.'
"She looked at me coldly.
"'As you are the third young officer who has adopted a similar method of introduction this afternoon,' she said, 'you must forgive me if I ask for some confirmation.'
"'Surely you haven't forgotten?' I cried. 'You drew me a sweet little design in dots and dashes to hang over my bed. When I was evacuated to England I wanted to thank you, to ask if we might meet again, but you thrust a clinical thermometer between my teeth and told me not to speak till you gave me permission. Then you left me, and I was whisked away to the boat clinging grimly to the thermometer, inarticulate and heartbroken.'
"'And I presume your object in speaking to me to-day is to return the thermometer?' she said primly.
"That's where I took the full count," continued Frederick, sadly. "If I could have produced any old thing in the thermometer line my bona fides would have been established an' I could have gone ahead like cotton-mill shares. Instead of which, she'd said Good-day and gone while I was thinkin' out explanations. Since that time I've been parading Quelquepart simply bristling with thermometers, but I've never met her again."
"The old Army fault of unpreparedness," remarked Percival. "You ought to go to hospital."
"Don't be juvenile! What have hospitals to do with heartache?"
"Everything, if you go to the right one—the one where your ministering angel ministrates, for instance."
"Percival, old ace," said Frederick, with admiration, "you'll rank among the world's great thinkers yet. Turn on the current again and tell me what is my complaint."
"Digestive trouble," said Percival promptly. "There's already been rumours about, and you'll be doing a public service by going to dock with dyspepsia. Binnie will be so stricken by remorse that he'll at once start providing the Mess with decent food."
"Then for your sakes I'll rehearse the symptoms. But my curse will be on your head if I get to the wrong hospital."
It was unfortunate that the M.O. was in an unsympathetic mood next morning. He thumped Frederick on the lower chest and pooh-poohed the idea of hospital. "All you want is a few of these tablets," he said, "and you'll be fit as nails in a day or two."
Frederick crawled away dispiritedly to confide in Percival. That sapient youth counselled perseverance.
"You must go right off your feed," he said. "Let the doc. see you feebly pecking and he'll soon get alarmed. In the meantime I'm off to give Binnie critical accounts of your appetite and send him to market right away."
Only a burning passion and stealthy bars of chocolate could have sustained Frederick through the next few days. To sit down to breakfast with a healthy appetite and refuse his egg and rasher put the biggest possible strain on his constancy. His task was made doubly difficult by the scheming of Percival, who was constantly inciting Binnie to procure fresh delicacies.
"You've crocked poor Freddy," he said; "and there will be others going the same way if you don't improve the messing. Now I saw some nice plump chickens to-day in the...."
Thus harried, that evening Binnie provided a dinner that almost reduced Frederick to breaking-point. Only the fact that the M.O. was sitting opposite gave him strength to refuse the soup and fish, to trifle with the chicken and turn wearily from the sweet. As the savoury was being served he caught a scrap of conversation across the table.
"... to the boat to see her off for demob.," the M.O. was saying to the Padre. "Jolly nice girl—Jim Carruthers' daughter, you know."
Frederick pricked up his ears.
"I remember," said the Padre. "She used to be at 99 General."
There was no doubt who was the girl referred to. Frederick sat back in his chair with a heavy sense of disappointment and loss. He felt acutely sorry for himself. But presently above the pain in his heart there arose a stronger and more compelling feeling.
"Corporal," he said, "I think after all I'll try one of those crab patties. Or you might tell the waiter to bring in two."
