A WAR WEDDING.
Old Bill Dane? Yes, he's married now. We got a week's refitting leave, and I've just been seeing him through it. Ye—es, there was a bit of a hitch when they were engaged, but——Well, I'll tell you the story. I saw most of it, because I was sort of doing second for him then too. You see, he and I got it rather in the neck in the August scrap, and we came out of hospital together. I had a smashed leg and he had a scalp wound. Nothing to write home about, but it didn't make any more of a Venus of him when it healed. They sent us on sick-leave, and we stayed with his people. His guvnor's the eye specialist, you know—got a home in town, and keeps the smell of iodoform in Harley Street, and doesn't let it come into the house. We were all right. We led the quiet life, and just pottered around, and saw the shows and so on. We gave the social life a miss until Bill's sister let us in. Bill didn't want to go, but she put it to me, and as I was sort of her guest I had to make him come. Who? The sister? Oh! all right, you know. Don't be a fool, or I won't tell you the yarn. Well, she took us poodlefaking, and it cost me a bit at Gieves' for new rig, too. It was about our third stunt that way when Bill got into trouble. We were at some bally great house belonging to a stockbroker or bookie or some one, and they were doing fox-trots up and down the drawing-room, and Bill and I were rather out of it. I was lame and he's no dancing man, unless it's just dressed in a towel or two to amuse guests in the wardroom when there's a bit of table-turning going on. Some woman came and told him he'd got to join up, and took him over to the girl. She was dressed regular war-flapper fashion, you know, like a Bank of Expectation cheque, except she hadn't got a top-hat on as some of them had lately. Most of 'em in the room were togged out like that, and Bill and I had just agreed we didn't go much on the style at all, but Bill is a proper lamb about women. He did one turn of the room with the girl, dancing a sort of Northern Union style, and then she stopped, and he brought her over to me and plumped her on the sofa between us. I think he wanted to see if I was laughing. She started on me at once, and asked me all about my leg and Bill's head, and talked like a Maxim. Asked me if we were great friends, and made me laugh. I said we had only forgathered because I had beaten him in the middle-weights in the Grand Fleet championships, and though I had never seen his face before, his left stop had touched my heart. She dropped me then—she thought I was pulling her leg—and turned to Bill, and then his sister took me off to get her tea. I didn't realise Bill was getting soft about it till his sister told me, though the fact of our going to tea and dinner at the girl's home that week had seemed funny to me at the time. The sister was rather pleased about it—said she knew the girl and liked her. I said I didn't think much of that sort, but she smoothed me down a bit. She thought that they would do each other good. I said Bill was such an old lamb he'd only get sloppy, and do what the girl told him; but she laughed. She told me I might know Jim in the ring, but I didn't know much about him otherwise. I was rather shirty at that, but I think now she was talking sense, though I didn't then. Well, Bill can get quite busy when he makes his mind up, and the way he rushed that girl was an education to watch. They were engaged in ten days from the first time we went to her house, and I don't think we missed seeing her for more than twelve hours in that time. I? Oh, I and the sister were chaperons. I didn't mind. I was sorry for Bill, but I wasn't going to spoil things for him if he was set on it.
The girl's people were all right. They were rather the Society type, you know—thought London was capital of the world, and that a Gotha bomb in the West End ought to mean a new Commander-in-Chief to relieve Haig; but they were quite decent.
The trouble? Well, I'm coming to that. It came about a week after they had announced the engagement. Old Bill had been getting a bit restive over things. You see, he had begun to wonder just where he came into the business. He wanted to get the girl off by her lonesome to a desert island, and tell her what a peach she was, for the rest of her natural life; but the girl hadn't got an inkling of what he thought about it. He was towed round like a pet bear and told to enjoy himself, while people talked over his head. She was just a kid, and she didn't know. It seemed to her that being engaged was good fun, and getting married was a matter they could think about later, when she'd had time to consider it. She was all for the tango-tea and the latest drawing-room crazes. I didn't feel enthusiastic about his affairs, and I told the sister so; but she laughed about it all. I didn't. The girl, Hilda—her name was Hilda Conron—was just like a kid with a toy. She took him around and showed him off, and she went on quacking away to all her pals as if Bill wasn't in the room. She seemed to take it for granted he was going to join up with her crowd and learn to do the same tricks and talk the same patter as they did. Bill certainly tried; but they treated him like a fool, and he told me several times he felt like one. Well then, we came to the smash. Lord, it was a queer show, and I'd sooner have had my leg off than have missed it. We were taken off to a charity auction, Red Cross or something, where they sold bits of A. A. shell with the Government marks on them as bits of Zepp. bombs, and Pekinese dogs for a hundred quid or so. After the sale, about twenty of the household and the guests that had paid most clustered round to add up the takings and drink tea and talk. Miss Conron had been selling things, and was dressed up to the nines. There was a bishop there, and some young staff officers and some civilians, M.P.'s, or editors or something like that. Old Bill was sitting with me and his sister, looking like a family lawyer at a funeral, and the girl was perched on a sofa with a lanky shopwalker-looking bloke alongside her. He was an indispensable of sorts—Secretary to the Minister of some bloomin' thing or other. He was the lad, I tell you,—sort of made you feel you were waiting on the mat when he talked. He was laying down the law about the War and all about it, and he talked like all the Angels at a Peace Conference. But it was the bishop that put his foot in the mulligatawny first. He agreed with the smooth-haired draper-man about the need of peace, but he said we should see that Germany provided suitable reparation for Belgium. Bill sat up and got red and stuttered, and said: "I don't think Germany or anybody can give Belgium back what she has lost."
They all looked at Bill as if he had just dawned on them, and Bill looked more foolish. The draper-man shipped an eyeglass and looked him over like a new specimen. "Ah!" he said, "our naval friend? Perhaps you will tell us in what way you consider the War can be ended before the world comes to economic ruin. Must we wait until you have had your fill of fighting or have destroyed the High Sea Fleet?"
Bill stood up and stopped looking silly. Miss Dane leaned back in her chair, and I heard her sigh as if she was pleased about something.
"Never mind the High Sea Fleet," said Bill. "That's not your business to worry about. But as to 'fill of fighting,' you've said it there. When we've had our fill of fighting Germany will have had more, but we're a long way from that yet."
The long stiff turned to Miss Conron. "Why, little Miss Hilda," he said, "your fiancé is charming. He should speak in the Park on Sundays and we would all come to listen."