FROM THE FRONT.
"Hurrah!" I said, "I've got a letter from the Front."
"Well done!" said Francesca. "Who's it from?"
"From Walter. It's not a very long one."
"That doesn't matter a bit. The great thing is to have one from the Front, even if it's only to thank you for a pair of socks."
"Mine's better than that," I said. "It runs into nearly two pages."
"Yes," she said, "but it doesn't tell you much, now does it?"
"No, to tell you the truth it doesn't. They're under an honourable obligation, you know, not to reveal things."
"Poor boys! It isn't much a Second-Lieutenant could reveal, is it. There's nothing said in your letter about Sir Douglas Haig having called Walter up to Headquarters——"
"You mustn't say Headquarters; you must say G.H.Q. if you want to impress people."
"I'm not talking to people; I'm talking to you. There's nothing said in your letter, is there, about Walter having been asked by Sir Douglas Haig to draw up a plan for the Big Push?"
"No, there isn't; but Walter would draw up a dozen if he were asked. He's that sort."
"Don't talk about my first cousin once removed in that flippant way."
"I'm not."
"You are, and it's most ungrateful of you."
"Ungrateful?"
"Yes, ungrateful. He's written you a letter that you'll be able to chat about for a fortnight. I can hear you mentioning it to your train-friends, Major Boger and Dr. Apthorpe. You'll bring it in in a careless kind of way. 'I've had a letter,' you'll say, 'from a chap at the Front, a cousin of my wife's, and he tells me they're expecting a move now at any moment.' Then they'll both say, 'Ah,' as if they didn't think much of your chap, and each of them will produce a chap of his own with some highly private information about the Crown Prince having been taken to a lunatic asylum in a motor-car so heavily iron-clad that nobody could see who was inside, but he was recognised by his shrieks; and Dr. Apthorpe will cap it all with some cock-and-bull story about German ships having bombarded one another in the Canal last week. And so you'll get to London."
"Francesca," I said, "you are a holy terror. How do you know all these things? You have never travelled to London with Major Boger and Dr. Apthorpe, and yet you're able to misrepresent them as if you'd heard them speak every day of your life. It's wonderful."
"Clever fellow," said Francesca; "we won't pursue the question of your boastings. They're innocent enough, I dare say. Let me hear what Walter actually does say in his letter."
"Well," I said, "he doesn't actually say very much. The weather is fine, he says, and his particular lot have been having rather a slack time lately. There was a stampede of horses last week, but his Battery was not involved in it, and would I mind sending him a packet or two of chocolate, some strong brown boot-laces and a briar-root pipe, he having broken his last one, and he's never felt fitter in his life, and anybody who wants to know what health is had better come out to France at once. That's about all; but you can read it for yourself." I handed it over to her and she skimmed through it.
"I'll tell you what," she said, "I strongly advise you not to show this letter about."
"I certainly shall show it," I said, "but only to friends."
"Well," she said, "I wouldn't even do that, unless you want to get Walter into trouble."
"What nonsense!" I said. "It's the most discreet and honourable letter I ever received.".
"Yes," she said, "but it's so cheerful. If certain newspapers got hold of it there wouldn't be any peace for Second-Lieutenant Walter Carlyon. He'd be told he was like all other Englishmen—he didn't take a serious view of the War. Then they'd say that he was one of the men who were responsible for the French not understanding us, and for the Russians failing to appreciate our efforts, which, indeed, could hardly be called efforts at all, and for the Italians despising us as we deserved to be despised for tolerating such a Government as we were afflicted with—and lots more of the same sort, all because poor Walter doesn't go about in a state of perpetual gloom, as if he expected the whole of Great Britain to be sunk into the sea the next minute."
"Francesca," I said, "your warmth is excusable, and there's a good deal in what you say, but I shall show Walter's letter all the same."
"Well," she said, "when the storm bursts I shall let him know whom he's got to thank for it."
"I shall write to him," I said, "and warn him to write a really pessimistic letter next time, so that I may show it to influential people and get his name up."
"It'll be no good," she said. "Walter isn't one of that sort. He 's cursed with a profound and unreasoning belief in his country, and, being an Englishman, he'll go to his grave if necessary believing that England is bound to win the War."
"And, by Jove," I said, "I thoroughly agree with him."
"Yes," she said, "and so do I, but it doesn't do to say so to everybody nowadays."
R. C. L.