There have been weeks together when one has had to scour the country far and wide to find a packet of cigarettes. After so much mystery and so many conjectures, it seems not unlikely that the push is to be put on to save Amiens.
The rumour concerning some Canadian troops having been sent to Yprhs to deceive the Hun, was confirmed yesterday by our Major. In his ride abroad he met the Colonel of one of the battalions which had sent a detachment. From him he learnt that not only were Canadians and Australians sent over in a series of raids that they might be identified by the enemy, but that Canadian Maple Leaf badges and Australian slouch-hats had been issued to other units who were holding that line, that they might be mistaken for the storm-troops. Whether the ruse has succeeded in drawing the Hun reserves up north he could not learn.
The Major and Captain Heming rejoined us last night just as I commenced to lead the battery out of the woods on to the high road. Directly I spoke to Heming I had the feeling that something was wrong; it was about half-an-hour later that the Major sent back word for me to ride beside him and told me what had happened. It appears that at the officers tea-room, where they had dinner, a number of week-old London dailies were strewn about. They sat glancing through them as they waited for the meal to be served. The Major had got hold of a torn sheet, when he came across a column headed, The Coldest Woman In London. “This sounds promising,” he said to Heming; “I’ve met some of her sort myself.” Then he started to read the item aloud, throwing in his own racy comments. The coldest woman in London, it appeared, was a Mrs. Percy Dragott. She was reputed to have ruined many notable careers by her unresponsive attraction. She was extraordinarily beautiful and had been painted by many artists. The best known of all her portraits was one by————.
“Hulloa, Heming, this can’t be you, can it? A chap of your name is mentioned.————By Jove, it must be you though; it says that this Heming was in Ottawa when war broke out, and is at present at the Front with the Canadian Artillery.”
“Go on, sir, will you, if you don’t mind? I’d like to hear a little more about this Mrs. Dragott.” That, according to the Major, was all that Heming had said; but his face was very white, though his voice was hard and steady. So the Major had no option but to read on. Mrs. Dragott’s social eminence was recorded and hints were thrown out as to the personalities of the various prominent men who had broken themselves against her coldness. Her husband had committed suicide five years before, under circumstances which had helped to confirm her reputation for being a woman incapable of affection. And now, dramatically, after a hectic affair with a man who had proved to be already married, she had committed————. It was at this point that the paper was torn, leaving no due as to what it was that she had done. Heming had been terribly upset, the Major said, and had turned the place upside down to find the missing portion. “I have an idea,” the Major told me, “that Heming himself must have been fond of her.”
“Perhaps,” I said, and kept my mouth shut, for I remembered that Mrs. Percy Dragott was the name which Heming had handed to me that day on the Somme, when we were caught by the Hun out in No Man’s Land and he had wriggled his way forward that he might risk his own life and save ours. What was it that she had done? Had she killed herself or the man? I could imagine all the questions that kept running through Heming’s head, as he followed behind the wagon that carried Suzette, riding through the darkness at the rear of the column.
It only required a happening of this sort to bring home to us how much we are cut off from the outside world. Whatever tragedies are suffered by those whom we have loved, we cannot go to their help. Between them and us there is a great gulf fixed.
It’s six o’clock in the evening. We had made up our minds that we would certainly be here for the night; it did not seem possible that, with men and horses so exhausted, they could send us on another march. That’s what they’re going to do, however. The harnessing up is nearly completed and the first of the teams are already being led out from the lines to the gun-park. A special order has just come in for me to join the Colonel with a blanket and rations for twenty-four hours. I and one officer from each of the batteries are to be prepared to go forward with him in a lorry. Where we are going and for what purpose, we are left to surmise.