On the promenade deck, gay in a scarlet jumper, over-weighted a little by his large khaki-covered helmet, leans upon a stanchion a very junior subaltern. His boyish, hairless face is blue with the cold frost-fog, he is biting very rapidly and nervously at the end of a cigar that went out ere half its length was smoked. Looking up at him from the wharf below, a group isolated from other groups holds a tall lady clad in furs, heavily veiled, her handkerchief peeping from her muff, and one arm resting heavily upon that of a grey-haired military man, while son and daughter, or nephew and niece, perhaps, gather protectingly to her side.
There is still delay. The gangways are removed, but still the hawsers hold. The cold compels the watchers on the wharf to take a few hurried, swiftly-turned paces up and down its length. The voyagers stamp upon the deck, or beat a furtive arm across a swelling chest. But they do not turn even for a second from contemplation of that shore they may never see again.... A whistle blows, there is the sound of a cable slipping through the water, the lady in the furs comes hastily forward, puts up her veil a little way and tries to shout. The youthful subaltern leans out perilously over the side. The words come faintly up.... "Goodbye! Rex.... God bless you!... I know I shall see you again...." The lady beats her hand desperately upon her muff, and dabs her handkerchief unknowingly against her veil....
The band aft is playing "Auld Lang Syne," a stretch of greenish water spreads between ship and shore, a few half-hearted cheers are rising through the grey fog, and the sound of a melancholy chapel bell in the distant town tells of a half-forgotten Sabbath.... The subaltern's eyes no longer see things clearly, and the handkerchief he waves as answer to those fluttering along the grey length of the quay is heavy and damp....
So we come a little closer to the realities of war.
*****
Lights flicker and gleam in the dark shade of the poplar trees fringing the platform. There is a hush over those who hold space upon the gravel before the station-master's office. In the darkness it is difficult to see who one's neighbour may chance to be. But voices betray the presence of the P.M.O. and half a dozen officers from the Field Hospital behind the church. At the other end of the platform lie the sinister stretchers of a bearer company laid out in an interminable row. Up to the line comes the low melancholy whistle of the armoured train....
All day from far beyond the ring of hills that cages the camp upon the plain has come the dull booming of heavy guns. There has been a battle and there have been losses: this we know. The approaching train is bringing in the wounded from the scene of action, but who they may be who suffer we have yet to learn. As the light comes round the bend above the water-tank, there is a stir among the waiting groups. A command rings out, and is followed by the shuffle of feet as the bearer company stands to its stretchers. The train glides slowly, looming up in its solid armoured squareness between the goods sheds and the rolling-stock upon the sidings. It draws into the little colonial wayside station with a flash of its headlight that renders the platform darker than ever. The form of its commander drops from the rear carriage, with its maxim-portals, and its loop-holes for rifles, all sliding by dim and grey and sinister. In a low voice he tells the P.M.O. "six killed, fourteen wounded. I have brought down eight." "Any officers?" questions some one in the background. "Jones is killed, and Spindrift missing," comes the response, "and young Michael is here, shot in five places." ...
Lanterns swing back and forth, the doctors get into the carriage, there is a low, subdued murmur of voices from within; a breath of some antiseptic comes from the interior; a groan is audible. Then the Bearer Company marches slowly along the edge of the platform. Four men enter with their stretcher, and after a painful lapse of time, the lanterns swing again, the group stands back a little, and slowly, carefully, feet foremost, the first wounded man is brought out, and lowered upon his stretcher to the ground. While his blankets are being arranged there is time to see him indistinctly: a bandage round his head with a dark, tell-tale patch soaking through it, a pale face with closed eyes and a pale moustache disarranged across his mouth. Last night we dined and drank together. Now, as he is borne off out of hearing, the medical officers whisper, "poor chap, there is no hope for him; he cannot last the night."
Gradually the armoured train disgorges its unhappy load, the stretchers receive their burdens, the marshalled procession goes slowly over the line towards the hospital, the medical officers in close attendance, and the engine pushes and pulls its bullet-proof trucks back through the night to fetch another cargo.
War and its horrors are with us now, and are scarcely so terrible after all. Our gradual approach has softened them or possibly hardened us—who shall say which?