“Why I should thank God we parted as friends, I don’t quite know,” said Doggie, “but I do.”
“I suppose, laddie,” said Phineas, “it’s good to feel that smiling eyes and hearty hands will greet us when we too pass over the Border. My God, man,” he added reflectively, after a pause, “have you ever considered what a goodly company it will be? When you come to look at it that way, it makes Death quite a trivial affair.”
“I suppose it does to us while we’re here,” said Doggie. “We’ve seen such a lot of it. But to those who haven’t—my poor Peggy—it’s the end of her universe.”
Yes, it was all very well to take death philosophically, or fatalistically, or callously, or whatever you liked to call it, out there, where such an attitude was the only stand against raving madness; but at home, beneath the grey mass of the cathedral, folks met Death as a strange and cruel horror. The new glory of life that Peggy had found, he had blackened out in an instant. Doggie looked again at the old man’s letter—his handwriting was growing shaky—and forgot for a while the familiar things around him, and lived with Peggy in her sorrow.
Then, as far as Doggie’s sorely tried division was affected, came the end of the great autumn fighting. He found himself well behind the lines in reserve, and so continued during the cold dreary winter months. And the more the weeks that crept by and the more remote seemed Jeanne, the more Doggie hungered for the sight of her. But all this period of his life was but a dun-coloured monotony, with but few happenings to distinguish week from week. Most of the company that had marched with him into Frélus were dead or wounded. Nearly all the officers had gone. Captain Willoughby, who had interrogated Jeanne with regard to the restored packet, and, on Doggie’s return, had informed him with a friendly smile that they were a damned sight too busy then to worry about defaulters of the likes of him, but that he was going to be court-martialled and shot as soon as peace was declared, when they would have time to think of serious matters—Captain Willoughby had gone to Blighty with a leg so mauled that never would he command again a company in the field. Sergeant Ballinghall, who had taught Doggie to use his fists, had retired, minus a hand, into civil life. A scientific and sporting helper at Roehampton, he informed Doggie by letter, was busily engaged on the invention of a boxing-glove which would enable him to carry on his pugilistic career. “So, in future times,” said he, “if any of your friends among the nobility and gentry want lessons in the noble art, don’t forget your old friend Ballinghall.” Whereat—incidentally—Doggie wondered. Never, for a fraction of a second, during their common military association, had Ballinghall given him to understand that he regarded him otherwise than as a mere Tommy without any pretensions to gentility. There had been times when Ballinghall had cursed him—perhaps justifiably and perhaps lovingly—as though he had been the scum of the earth. Doggie would no more have dared address him in terms of familiarity than he would have dared slap the Brigadier-General on the back. And now the honest warrior sought Doggie’s patronage. Of the original crowd in England who had transformed Doggie’s military existence by making him penny-whistler to the company, only Phineas and himself were left. There were others, of course, good and gallant fellows, with whom he became bound in the rough intimacy of the army; but the first friends, those under whose protecting kindliness his manhood had developed, were the dearest. And their ghosts remained dear.
At last the division was moved up and there was more fighting.
One day, after a successful raid, Doggie tumbled back with the rest of the men into the trench and, looking about, missed Phineas. Presently the word went round that “Mac” had been hit, and later the rumour was confirmed by the passage down the trench of Phineas on a stretcher, his weather-battered face a ghastly ivory.
“I’m alive all right, laddie,” he gasped, contorting his lips into a smile. “I’ve got it clean through the chest like a gentleman. But it gars me greet I canna look after you any longer.”
He made an attempt at waving a hand, and the stretcher-bearers carried him away out of the army for ever.