Gueldersdorp turned out to do them honour. We have heard the people cheer. Three days and three nights of the Express, delayed in places by the wrecking of the line, and then the Alpine mountain-ranges sank and dwindled with the mercury in the thermometer. The little white towns succeeded each other like pearls on a green string. Humpy blue hills gave way to the flats, and then in the shadow of Table Mountain—Babel's confusion of tongues—and the stalwart flower of many nations, arrayed and armed for battle, and the glory, and pomp, and power of War.
The grey and white transports disgorged them, ants of sober, neutral colours, marching in columns to attack other ants. They grew upon the vision and filled it, and the sound of their feet was louder than the beating of the surf on Sea Point, and although martial music beat and blew them on—a brazen whirlwind dominating the mind, blaring at the ears—the trampling of men's feet and the hoofs of horses, and the rolling of iron-shod wheels, triumphed in the long-run.
Saxham engaged rooms at the Trafalgar Hotel, a handsome caravanserai standing in its own gardens at the top of Imperial Avenue, for himself and his wife, and the savage irony that can be conveyed in the term struck him, not for the first time since he had laid gold and silver on the open book, and endowed a woman with the gift of himself and all his worldly goods.
It was early in the forenoon. They were to sail next day. The big building was crammed, not only with officers under orders for the Front, and their wives, who had come to see them start. Society had descended like a flock of chattering, gaudily-plumaged paroquets upon the spot where new and exciting sensations were to be had. For the trampling feet and the rolling wheels that ceaselessly went North imparted one set of thrills, and the long trains of wounded and dying that met and passed them, coming down as they went up, gave another kind. Amongst the poor dears in the trucks, and waggons, and Ambulance-carriages you might eventually find a man you knew.... The sporting odds were given and taken on these exciting chances; and the fluttering and screaming paroquets that crowded the Railway Stations, in spite of their gay feathers, bore no little resemblance to carrion-feeding birds of prey.
Saxham, Recently Attached Medical Staff, Gueldersdorp, suffered from the notoriety inseparable from the name of a man who has been thrice mentioned in Despatches, and has been publicly thanked by the representatives of an Imperial Government. The Interviewer yapped at his heels whithersoever he went, and the Correspondent strove to lure him into confidences, and Society fluttered at him with shrill squawkings, and wanted to know, don't you know? It must have been "devey" and "twee" to have gone through all those experiences. It was the year when "devey," and "twee," and similar abbreviations first became fashionable.
There were pleasanter episodes than these, when soldierly, bronzed warriors and simple, unaffected men of great affairs, expressed to Saxham in few words their belief that he had done his duty. The approval of these warmed him and helped to raise him higher. It was a little creature, a human insect no bigger than a bar-tender, that brought about the mischief.
There was an American bar on the ground-floor of the Trafalgar. Saxham stood upon the threshold of the place, replying to the questions of a group of Colonial officers, New South Wales Mounted Engineers and Canadian Rangers, when somebody suggested Drinks, and led the way in. Invited to make his choice from a long list of alcoholic mixtures, beginning with Whisky Straight, and ending with Bosom Caresser and Gin Sour, Saxham said that he would take a glass of ice-water.
"Well, boss, since you're on the Temperance Walk," said the Australian, his would-be host, a little huffily, "you'll please yourself, I suppose?" He collected the preferences of his other guests, and gave the orders to the man behind the bar.
The barman had the misfortune to be a joker of the practical kind. Seeing Saxham held in conversation by one of the other men, he winked portentously at the New South Waler, and whispered in his ear.
The Australian understood. A reason for Saxham's abstinence had been given him. The new-made bridegroom as a rule shuns Alcohol. And in proportion to his desire to avoid, grows the determination of other men to compel him to drink. The bridegroom is fair game all the world over for the Rabelaisian jest and the clown's horseplay.