Red and Black

by Grace S. Richmond

At the wedding breakfast, Cary, self-appointed master of ceremonies, rose in his place. He looked around at the little company, his eyes resting first on one and then another, till he had swept the circle. Then he made a speech, which he always afterward asserted to be his masterpiece in the way of rhetorical effort, struck off, as it was, on the inspiration of the hour.

Getting up in the correspondent’s uniform which it had pleased him to put on once more for the occasion, since Black, as yet undischarged, was obliged still to wear the olive-drab with the cross upon the collar, Cary began:—

“In view of the fact that the bridegroom is still in O. D., it seems to me that it ought to be known to you people what it looks as if he never meant to tell you for himself. It’s only by chance that I found it out, but, by George! I’m going to tell you, since he won’t.”

He walked around to Black, and laid hand upon the topmost button of his new brother-in-law’s tunic. Black put up a hand and attempted to restrain him, but it could not be done, without a fight. He therefore submitted, the colour rising in his cheek, while Cary unfastened the tunic and threw back its left side, whereupon a certain famous war medal for distinguished service became visible.

“My faith!” burst from Red’s lips. “I knew it! But I never dared ask.”

“The wearer of this,” Cary went on, while Black’s eyes fell before the glow of joy he had caught in Jane’s, “went over the top with his men every blooming time they went, till Fritz finally got him. But before the shrapnel that put him out at last left the guns he had brought in wounded under every sort of hot fire, had taken every chance there was, and that last day—turned the trick that brought him this,——” and Cary laid a reverent hand upon the medal. “It happened this way——”

“No—please!——” began Black quickly, turning in protest. “Not now—nor here——”

But Cary wouldn’t be restrained. “Now—and here, by your leave, Bob, or without it. I won’t go into details, if you don’t like me to, but I will say this much: The story concerns a machine-gun on our side which had lost its last gunner, trying to put out a machine-gun nest of the enemy’s which was enfilading our men and mowing them down. This Bob Black of ours comes up, jumps in, and keeps things going all by himself till—the spit-fire over there was silenced. It may not have been the proper deed for the chaplain—I don’t know—but I do know that he saved ten times more lives than he took—and I say—here’s to him—and God bless him!”

The toast to which all had risen was drunk in a quivering silence, with Jane’s hand upon her husband’s shoulder, and her proud and beautiful eyes meeting his with a glance which said it all.

Then Black rose. “Sometime, Cary,” he said, with a glance, “I’ll be even with you for this. Sometime I shall have found out all the chances you took, and I’ll recite them on some public occasion and make you wince as you never winced under shot and shell. But while we are drinking toasts—in this crystal clear water of our wedding feast which is better than any wine for such an hour—I want to propose one which is very near my heart. Not all the war medals that ever were struck would be big enough or fine enough to pin upon some of the breasts that most deserved them. One man I know, who desperately wanted to go across and take his part in the salvaging of life from the wreck, but couldn’t go, nevertheless contributed one of the most efficient means to saving life that has been used by some of the best surgeons there. And I want to say—‘here and now’—as Cary says—that I consider it took more gallantry on the part of this same red-headed—and red-blooded—fellow to stay here and carry on, as he did, with speeches and loan-raising, and all the rest of the unthanked tasks that he put through at heavy cost to his own endurance, than to have gone across, as he longed to do, and won medals by spectacular work that would have made his name famous on both sides of the water. So here’s to Dr. Redfield Pepper Burns, bearer of a heavier cross than I have ever borne,—and winner of one more shining. And I, too, say—God bless him!”