He welcomed the dim turreted and domed outlines of Hasting Park. He recalled the mustering and drilling there, the housing of men by thousands in buildings designed for show cattle. By a curious association of ideas he reflected that many of those men had been butchered less mercifully than the stall-fed beeves once shown in those barn-like structures, every time a battalion went up the line, wherever bombing squadrons could locate trench or billet, whenever enemy field guns could get the range.
Well, it was over. As the train slowed into the eastern portion of the yards, creeping between the docks and the city, he had a momentary, fantastic impression of having passed through a vivid nightmare of four years' duration. Because all this was the same. The Europe he knew had been torn to pieces, disfigured to strange aspects. Here the North Vancouver ferries, the self-same vessels he had ridden on, were scurrying back and forth across the Inlet, passing each other in midstream. Masts and funnels of deep-sea ships rose beside well-known docks. The rumble of downtown traffic; the chaste pyramidic roof of the Provincial Courthouse pricked out with ten thousand incandescent bulbs; the Moorish pile of the Vancouver Hotel; the white monolith of the Burns Block; the arching crown of the World Building, all these were adumbrated in the thin hovering haze of light reflected from a million windows, thousands of arc lights, batteries of electric signs. Here were things he knew, greeting his eyes as if he had been gone merely overnight.
He took a final stare, before the coach slid under the long platform roof, at one familiar, flamboyant sign,
THE NORQUAY TRUST
Letters of fire, six foot high. He had never been able to look at that glowing emblem of Grove's career without a touch of scorn. It had been the last thing his eyes marked from the rear of a departing troop train. That, like this, had been on a wet, windy night.
His lip curled now. But his physical inertia, his moroseness, that appallingly critical inturning of his mind, vanished with the final clutch of the brakes. Something flowed through him, warming him like strong brandy. He relinquished his bags to a porter, passed eagerly to the vestibule. He was no stray dog of war now, wistful and lonely. Through the car window he had caught a glimpse of Mary's face, upturned in the glare of a light. Beside her stood his father, a tall, erect figure in a belted overcoat,—both smiling, expectant. This was something like! The old things, the things that mattered.
It was worth something to come home like this—to this—he thought as his wife's arms closed about his neck, and he cut off her glad, little cry with his lips. His father threw dignity, reserve, to the winds and pounded him on the back, while a score of familiar faces pressed about him and hands reached for his.
Then the reaction,—the unmistakable warning from a body too greatly abused.
"Let's get home," he said to Mary. "I'm getting wobbly. Good night, everybody. See you all again soon," he waved to the welcoming group. "Come on. I have to move. I must."
Mary slipped one arm through his, peering up anxiously. Rod's face was white, strained, in the station glare.