Private Wakeman stood in the middle of the hut and looked around him. He sought companionship, longed to find some one to whom he could tell his story and make his boast about the Prussian Guard. His eyes wandered from one to another of the men who were writing or playing games. He found little encouragement. It seemed impossible to join himself to any one of them. He looked at the lady busy with the bowls and plates. His eyes rested at last on a great dish of stewed figs which stood on the counter. He had eaten an incredible quantity of food in the dining-hall two hours before, soup, beef, potatoes, cabbage, pudding, cheese. But he had not eaten stewed figs. His whole boy’s nature rose in him in one fierce longing for stewed figs. He remembered. Before he went into the attack he had possessed half a franc and two sous. He thrust his hand into his one trouser pocket. It was empty. He tore at the string with which he had laced up the slit in his trousers. On that side there was not a pocket left. It and all it ever contained, were gone. He fumbled in the pockets of his tunic, found three mangled cigarettes, the stump of a pencil, a letter from his mother, and, at last, two English penny stamps, survivals of days which seemed years ago, when he had been in camp in England.
His eyes were fixed on the stewed figs. The longing in him grew fiercer, intolerable. He approached the counter slowly. He laid on it the two stamps, dirty almost beyond recognition. He smoothed them out carefully.
“Lady,” he said, “I haven’t got no money but——”
The worker laid down her bowls, looked at the two stamps, and then at the boy. She was a woman of experience and discernment She saw the muddy, tattered clothes. She read the look of desire in the eyes. She understood.
“What do you want?” she said.
“Stewed fruit, lady, and—and custard.”
She turned from the boy to Mrs. Jocelyn.
“It’s clean against all rules,” she said. “I know I oughtn’t to, but I must—-I simply must give this boy something.”
Mrs. Jocelyn looked up from her writing. She saw all that the other had seen. She had talked with many men. One glance was enough for her. She knew what the boy had been through. With swift intuition she guessed at what he felt and how he yearned. She saw the name of his regiment on his one remaining shoulder strap. It was her dead boy’s regiment, and every man in it was dear to her. Already the other lady was at work, putting a spoonful of stewed figs on a soup plate. Mrs. Jocelyn seized her by the arm and dragged her roughly back from the counter.
“Don’t dare to do it,” she said, “it’s my right. No one else has so good a right to do it as I have.”