“He did damned well in the War,” Agnew said sharply. “And the War pretty well broke his heart. It did mine! We stuck here, sucking sugar-cane and ghee, with the greatest war in history going on over there—and pretty nearly going to blazes, and every fool regiment in the British army in the beautiful thick of it—some of ’em not fit to rub up our buttons or learn the goose-step! Damn it—but I don’t want to talk about it.”
“Some one had to stay here, I suppose,” Traherne said conciliatingly.
“Who the hell said they didn’t? But it needn’t have been the best regiment in the British Army, need it?” Agnew blazed. “Yes, yes,—poor Crespin did his mothers’-meeting, curate-to-tea bit, and he did it well. Wireless! Wireless—do-re-me-fa-sol! for a full-blooded man who aches and itches, and curses his guts out to be in at the fun——Oh, well——” he pushed the cigars towards Traherne, and took one himself. “May as well,” he said sadly as he struck a match. “I need something, and it’s too early for pegs, and now I’ve let the mail slip, half an hour won’t matter.” Dr. Traherne wondered ruefully how much it was mattering to Tony Crespin!—but he lit his cigar. He was up against the most difficult thing he’d ever tackled, and he knew it. He must not push Agnew too hard, he must bide Agnew’s time, and wear his determination out gently—if he could wear it out. “Yes, he did well in the War. What he don’t know about wireless no one does. But, Lord, how he felt it—not going over there. He cried about it, talking to me about it one day—when he was half sprung, poor lad—the only time I saw him much the worse for it while the War was on. Traherne,” the old soldier leaned over the table, and whispered, “I cried! with the rage and shame and homesickness for it all—I stuck here nursing sweepers to keep ’em ‘loyal’, I cried,—and I wasn’t drunk.”
The physician understood—and honored. But he couldn’t think what to say.
“You did get to the front!” the old soldier said enviously.
“Pretty well,” Traherne admitted. “There was plenty for doctors to do there.”
“Doctors and surgeons,” Colonel Agnew amended.
“And surgeons,” Traherne said gravely.
They smoked in silence for a moment or two.
Agnew spoke first “I did all I could for Crespin, as long as I could. Did it because he was one of ours, because there was a good officer in him once, if ever I saw one, because of his people—mine know some of them at home—and because of his wife. Lord, Traherne, I could forgive him all the rest—all but last night—but not how he’s treated his wife!”