“Thank God, thank God!” said Clithering.
Then he crumpled up and fainted. He meant, I think, to express the relief he felt at the cessation of hostilities. He had not heard, or if he heard, had not heeded, Bland’s remark. Clithering is not the type of man to thank God for any one’s damnation, and he had no special dislike of Bland.
“I’m damned,” said Bland again.
“I suppose,” I said, “that it’s rather unusual in battles to do that sort of thing—march off, I mean—without giving some sort of notice to the other side. It strikes me as rather bad form. There ought to be a rule against it.”
Bob’s men returned, sheepishly and dejectedly, to their original posts. Crossan was arguing with McConkey about the condition of the machine gun. The young man who had taken off his coat before the battle picked it up from the ground, brushed it carefully, and put it on. Bob Power walked along the street with a note-book in his hands. He appeared to be writing down the names of the shop-keepers whose windows were broken. He is a young man of active and energetic disposition. I suppose he felt that he must do something.
Bland stared through the window for some time. He hoped, I dare say, that the soldiers would come back, with reinforcements, perhaps with artillery. At last he gave up this idea.
“Let’s have a drink,” he said. “We want one.”
He turned abruptly and stumbled over Clithering, who had fallen just beside him. I got hold of a waiter, the only one left in the club, and made him bring us a whisky and soda. Bland squirted the syphon into Clithering’s face, and I poured small quantities of whisky into his mouth. Clithering is a rigid teetotaller, and has for years been supporting every Bill for the suppression of public houses which has been brought before Parliament. The whisky which he swallowed revived him in the most amazing way.
“Have they gone?” he asked.
“If you mean the soldiers,” said Bland, “they have. I can’t imagine why, but they have.”