“In the end,” I said, “she persuaded him to tell her his inmost secrets and to confide to her the tragedy of his soul. That’s just what she would do.”
Mrs. Daintree is a very kind and sympathetic lady. When she talks to me I feel ready to tell her anything. A man like Simcox, shy, reserved, and wholly unaccustomed to charming ladies, would succumb to her easily and pour out a love story or anything else he happened to have on his chest at the time.
“You see,” said Daintree, “his leg was pretty stiff and he couldn’t get about much, even if he’d wanted to. There was nothing for him to do except sit in a deck-chair. My wife felt it her duty to talk to him a good deal.”
Daintree seemed to be making excuses for Mrs. Daintree and Simcox. They were unnecessary. Mrs. Daintree would have got his story out of him if she thought he was really in need of sympathy, whether he sat in a chair all day or was able to row races in the lake in the gardener’s punt.
“Anyhow,” said Daintree, “what he told her—he told it to me afterwards, so there’s no secret about it—was this: He got hit in the leg during an advance through one of those woods north of the Somme, Mametz, I think. It was a beastly place. Our fellows had been in there two days before and had to clear out again. Then Simcox’s lot went in—you know the sort of thing it was?”
I nodded.
“Shell holes, and splintered tree trunks,” I said. “Machine-guns enfilading you, and H.E. bursting promiscuous. I know.”
“Well, Sirmcox’ fellows went in all right, and stayed there for a while. Simcox says he remembers noticing that the ground was strewed with débris left by the Germans when they cleared out, and by our fellows afterwards. Equipment, rifles and all the rest of it lying about, as well as other things—pretty ghastly things.”
“You needn’t go into details,” I said. “I can guess.”
“I’m only telling you this,” said Daintree, “because all the stuff lying about seems to have interested Simcox. It’s odd the feelings men have at these times. Simcox says the thing he chiefly wanted to do was to tidy up. He had a kind of strong desire to pick things up and put them away somewhere. Of course he couldn’t; but he did pick up one thing, a cigarette case. He showed it to me. It was one of those long-shaped, flat white metal cases which fellows carry because they hold about thirty cigarettes. Simcox says he doesn’t know why he picked it up. He didn’t want it in the least. He just saw it lying there on the ground and stuffed it into his pocket. Almost immediately after that he was hit. Bit of shrapnel under the knee.”