The Amazing Years

by W. Pett Ridge

"Brrrh!"

It seemed likely that friendship would diminish if meetings were to be conducted on these lines, and in seeing the Colonel out, at the end, I urged him not to call again for a week. Within that period I found a three-quarter size billiard table in good condition, late the property of a local club now, owing to the absence of youthful members, in need of money. Katherine and I cleared out the half room, half conservatory at the back of the rooms occupied by the Wintertons, and used by the old couple as a lumber room for odd articles accumulated during a lifetime, and of no use, as we managed to persuade them, of no use to anybody. Apart, the Captain assured me he had been for years anxious to destroy the rubbish, but feared this might pain his wife, and she declared to me in private that her impression had always been that he valued the collection dearly. We set up thick curtains over the glass, arranged for the electric light to be fixed over the table, placed a high long seat against the wall for the use of spectators, and when Colonel Edgington paid his next visit, he and Mr. Hillier were taken down to the newly furnished room, and the old sea captain, with great importance, took up the position of marker. The game not only checked conversation on a debatable subject, but brought the two chums into something like their former terms of intimacy; each discovered an excuse for the other when any failure occurred, and said,

"If you had been playing on a full-size table, that stroke of yours would have come off!"

Captain Winterton was well intentioned at the scoring board, but seldom remembered who was spot and who was plain, and his wife, with many apologies for intruding upon the company of gentlemen, entered to assist him in the perplexing task, with the result that one of the two opponents, at the close of the game, was able to declare, upstairs, that he would not have been the first to reach the two hundred if the score had been correctly kept. The time came when Edward offered to give lessons to the old captain, and this was self-denying on the part of the lad, for no plan, however ingeniously devised—giving eighty-five in a hundred, or three strokes to one—ever assisted Captain Winterton to get near to a close finish. We encouraged him with judicious flattery, and although he usually took about two minutes to decide how to play a ball, he invariably declared that his one fault was recklessness; this defect amended, he felt sure he would be numbered amongst the experts. Meanwhile, he quickly adopted one method of the billiard room by giving copious and truculent advice to Edward, using for this a booming fog-horn voice, altogether different from his normal tones.

"Play it off the cushion, my lad!" And "For Heaven's sake, don't pot the red; the white's in baulk!" And "Chalk your cue, sir; damme, chalk your cue!" The game over, and the result announced, he went back to the usual manner of courtesy. One advantage gained from the presence of the old gentleman was that as he still declined to argue about the war, or to recognise that it existed, all of us, including Colonel Edgington, decided to imitate this peculiarity.

Which did not mean that our minds were permitted, for long, to escape the subject. From a customer, I heard that some exchanged men had arrived at the Third London General Hospital at Wandsworth, and I went over there on a Wednesday afternoon that Millwood was able to give to the shop, to ascertain whether any of them had been in the camp from which Master John's letters and post cards, with now and again an alteration in number, or company, or barracks, were now dated. There was some trouble at the gates because I had no permit, but I mentioned I had come from Greenwich, and the sentry, remarking with pride that his birthplace was Maze Hill, found a solution of the difficulty. "I'll turn my back," he said, "and pretend to have a sudden fit of a cough: you take advantage of my infirmity, and slip through."

Maimed soldiers in blue uniforms were about on the sloping lawn that went to the railway; some had groups of friends around them, and a few were alone. I went past the main building, and entered a corridor that took me past a number of wards, well ventilated, cheerful and with the faint scent of anæsthetics, and to nurses I put an inquiry; for the most part they could give no information, but one or two suggested C5. Outside C5 I found two men who had no visitors, and they replied to my question alertly and re-assuringly. They had said good-bye to Corporal Hillier but five days previously. He had gone up for examination with the others selected, but was sent back. They felt certain he would come along in the next group. They said Corporal Hillier was bright and well; his knowledge of French and German proved helpful. Being amongst the wounded, he was not called upon to perform arduous tasks. Both said the treatment was as good as one could hope for, excepting in regard to food. "The food, miss, is absolutely—well, there's no word for it! At any rate, not one that could be repeated to you." They agreed that no British prisoner could keep alive unless he received parcels from home, and assured me Corporal Hillier was more fortunate than many in this respect. "He gets two a week, he does, regular, besides them from his own family. Two a week, sent by a particular donah of his called Weston. We've noticed her name on the labels." I was about to make further inquiries, but a child's voice at the doorway of C5 called "Daddie—Daddie. Don't you know me?" and one hobbled off to greet the little girl; the other man was summoned by a Yorkshireman who, engaged in writing a letter, needed some counsel in regard to spelling. On my return I noticed in the wards of the corridor, one or two men in their beds who looked dejected and tired of everything; a Sister was explaining to some callers that these suffered from gas poison. For the rest, they were so cheery, and good-spirited that you might have thought—to look at their features, and to disregard their injured bodies—that they had been taking a share in nothing more serious than a rather exhilarating football match.

The times were all the more interesting because the age of miracles re-appeared. In a local hospital which I visited, with Katherine, on Sunday afternoons, there was a young soldier afflicted with loss of speech, following upon shell-shock. He proved a ready student, and we were gratified by the way in which, under our tuition, he picked up the deaf and dumb alphabet. We might have saved ourselves the trouble. One afternoon we called, and went directly to his corner, prepared to give advanced lessons.

"Begun to think," he remarked, in a natural voice, "that you two were going to give me the slip. What's delayed you?"

It appeared that on the Saturday, a group of amateurs had come to give a harlequinade entertainment. One dressed as a clown, in going through the ward, advanced playfully towards our soldier, holding out the red painted poker that was to take a share in the acting. The youth started back affrighted, and speaking for the first time for months, told the clown to be careful, adding that he had no desire to find himself burnt. From that moment, onwards, he made up by vivacious conversation for the period of enforced silence.