More than once had Melia urged him to do so. Her arguments were strong. He was not a young man and he had already “done his bit”; they were very happy together in their charming house; and her father had said that it would continue to be theirs as long as they cared to live in it. The Corporal, however, could not quite bring himself to quit the Army, even had such a course been possible. Something still held him. He didn’t know exactly what it was, but even now that the chance had been given him he was loathe “to cut the painter.” Pride seemed to lie at the root of his reluctance. Melia felt it must be that. But the Corporal knew that alchemies more potent were at work.
On this fateful Sunday in March, after the midday meal, as he sat smoking one of his father-in-law’s cigars in the little room across the hall he realized that pressure was being brought to bear upon him to make a decision. Moreover, in Josiah’s arguments, he heard the voice of his wife. Melia had lately astonished the world with the news that she was expecting a baby. The fact was very hard to credit that she was now preparing clothes for her first-born. A nine days’ wonder had ensued. Such a thing was almost beyond precedent, yet, after all, Dame Nature had been known to indulge in these caprices! The startled, fluttered, rather piqued Mrs. Doctor, after consultation with her lord, was able to furnish instances. Still, it was remarkable! And it lent much cogency to Melia’s desire that the Corporal should now apply for his discharge from the Army.
This afternoon it was clear that Josiah was pleading Melia’s case. There was an excellent billet waiting for the Corporal at Jackson and Holcroft’s if he cared to take it. They offered short hours and good pay. Why not? He was still going a trifle lame; the Medical Board was not likely to raise any objection; and it would be a relief to Melia who ought to be considered now.
The Corporal, however, shifted uneasily in his chair. All through luncheon he had seemed terribly gloomy; and, if anything, his father-in-law’s arguments had deepened the clouds. One reason was, perhaps, that Josiah himself was terribly gloomy. The whole country was terribly gloomy. It had suddenly swung back to the phase of August, 1914.
The simple truth was that disaster was in the air. A crushing blow had fallen, a blow doubly cruel because so long foreseen and, therefore, to be parried if not actually prevented.
“Over a wide front the British Army is beaten!” Such was the enemy message to the Sunday papers. “Ninety thousand prisoners and an enormous booty have been taken!” And the greatest disaster in the long history of British arms was confirmed by the artless official meiosis. “Our Fourth and Fifth Armies have retired to a previously prepared position.” It omitted to state that the position was some thirty miles nearer Paris, but that fact received confirmation from the French communiqué in the next column, “The capital is being bombarded by long-range guns.”
No day could have been less propitious for Melia. And after the Mayor had sat smoking a few minutes with his gloomy son-in-law he appeared to realize the state of the case. As the Corporal drew at his cigar in a silence that was almost morose, Josiah’s own thoughts and feelings began to take color from their surroundings. He lapsed into silence also. It seemed to come home to him all at once and for the first time in his life that he had been guilty of impertinence. This little man with his bloodshot eyes and few struggling wisps of gray hair, with his twitching hands and his air of smoldering rage, had been through it. Even to have been Mayor of Blackhampton three years running was very little by comparison. Josiah was man enough to feel keenly annoyed for having allowed his tongue so free a rein.
There came at last a deep growl from the Corporal. It was the note of an old dog, whose life of many battles has not improved his temper. “If the bloody politicians will interfere!”
The words found an echo in the heart of the Mayor. Sinister tales were rife on every hand. And of his own knowledge he was aware that there were hundreds of thousands of trained men in the country at that moment whose presence was most imperatively called for on the perilously weakened and extended British line to France.