“What can we do?” said Miss Willmot.
“I can’t do anything, of course,” said Digby, “but I thought you might.”
“I don’t see what I can do.”
“Well, try,” said Digby. “If you’d seen the poor fellow—— But you’ll do something for him, won’t you?”
Digby had a fine faith in Miss Willmot’s power to do “something” under any circumstances. Experience strengthened his faith instead of shattering it. Had not Miss Willmot on one occasion faced and routed a medical board which tried to seize the men’s recreation-room for its own purposes? And in the whole hierarchy of the Army there is no power more unassailable than that of a medical board. Had she not obtained leave for a man that he might go to see his dying mother, at a time when all leave was officially closed, pushing the application through office after office, till it reached, “noted and forwarded for your information, please,” the remote General in Command of Lines of Communication? Had she not bent to her will two generals, several colonels, and once even a sergeant-major? A padre, fourth class, though he had once been curate of St. Ethelburga’s, was a feeble person. But Miss Willmot! Miss Willmot got things done, levelled entanglements of barbed red tape, captured the trenches of official persons by virtue of a quiet persistence, and—there is no denying it—because the things she wanted done were generally good things.
The Major opened the door of the kitchen. He stood for a moment on the threshold, the water dripping from his cap and running down his coat, great drops of it hanging from his white moustache. He was nearer sixty than fifty years of age. The beginning of the war found him settled very comfortably in a pleasant Worcestershire village. He had a house sufficiently large, a garden in which he grew wonderful vegetables, and a small circle of friends who liked a game of bridge in the evenings. From these surroundings he had been dug out and sent to command a base camp in France. He was a professional soldier, trained in the school of the old Army, but he had enough wisdom to realize that our new citizen soldiers require special treatment and enough human sympathy to be keenly interested in the welfare of the men. He grudged neither time nor trouble in any matter which concerned the good of the Camp. He had very early come to regard Miss Willmot as a valuable fellow-worker.
“Padre,” he said, “I put it to you as a Christian man, is this an evening on which anyone ought to be asked to practise Christmas carols?”
“Hear, hear,” said Miss Nelly.
“We’ve only had one practice, sir,” said Digby, “and I’ve put up notices all over the Camp that the carols will be sung to-morrow evening. It’s awfully good of you to come.”
“And of me,” said Miss Nelly.