What I said by way of sympathy and consolation is neither here nor there. I spoke sincerely from my heart, for I felt overwhelmed by the tragedy of it all. He stretched out his hand and grasped mine.
"I knew you wouldn't fail me. Your sort never does. You understand now why I wanted you to come?--To prepare the old mother for the shock.
You've seen for yourself that I'm sound of wind and limb--as fit as a fiddle. You can make it quite clear to her that I'm not going to die yet awhile. And you can let her down easy on the real matter. Tell her I'm as merry as possible and looking forward to going about Wellingsford with a dog and string."
"You're a brave chap, Boyce," I said.
He laughed again. "You're anticipating. Do you remember what I said when you asked me what I should do if I won all the pots I set my heart on and came through alive? I said I should begin to try to be a brave man. God! It's a tough proposition. But it's something to live for, anyway."
I asked him how it happened.
"I got sick," he replied, "of bearing a charmed life and nothing happening. The Bosch shell or bullet that could hit me wasn't made. I could stroll about freely where it was death for anyone else to show the top of his head. I didn't care. Then suddenly one day things went wrong. You know what I mean. I nearly let my regiment down. It was touch and go. And it was touch and go with my career. I just pulled through, however. I'll tell you all about it one of these days--if you'll put up with me."
Again the familiar twitch of the lips which looked ghastly below the bandaged eyes. "No one ever dreamed of the hell I went through. Then I found I was losing the nerve I had built up all these months. I nearly went off my head. At last I thought I would put an end to it. It was a small attack of ours that had failed. The men poured back over the parapet into the trench, leaving heaven knows how many dead and wounded outside. I'm not superstitious and I don't believe in premonitions and warnings, and so forth; but in cases of waiting like mine a man suddenly gets to know that his hour has come.... I got in six wounded.
Two men were shot while I was carrying them. How I lived God knows. It was cold hell. My clothes were torn to rags. As I was going for the seventh, the knob of my life-preserver was shot away and my wrist nearly broken. I wore it with a strap, you know. The infernal thing had been a kind of mascot. When I realised it was gone I just stood still and shivered in a sudden, helpless funk. The seventh man was crawling up to me. He had a bloody face and one dragging leg. That's my last picture of God's earth. Before I could do anything--I must have been standing sideways on--a bullet got me across the bridge of the nose and night came down like a black curtain. Then I ran like a hare. Sometimes I tripped over a man, dead or wounded, and fell on my head. I don't remember much about this part of it. They told me afterwards. At last I stumbled on to the parapet and some plucky fellow got me into the trench. It was the regulation V.C. business," he added, "and so they gave it to me."
"Specially," said I.
"Consolation prize, I suppose, for losing my sight. They had just time to get me away behind when the Germans counter attacked. If I hadn't brought the six men in, they wouldn't have had a dog's chance. I did save their lives. That's something to the credit side of the infernal balance."
"There can be no balance now, my dear chap," said I. "God knows you've paid in full."
He lifted his hand and dropped it with a despairing gesture.
"There's only one payment in full. That was denied me. God, or whoever was responsible, had my eyes knocked out, and made it impossible for ever. He or somebody must be enjoying the farce."
"That's all very well," said I. "A man can do no more than his utmost--as you've done. He must be content to leave the rest in the hands of the Almighty."
"The Almighty has got a down on me," he replied. "And I don't blame Him. Of course, from your point of view, you're right. You're a normal, honourable soldier and gentleman. Anything you've got to reproach yourself with is of very little importance. But I'm an accursed freak.
I told you all about it when you held me up over the South African affair. There were other affairs after that. Others again in this war.
Haven't I just told you I let my regiment down?"
"Don't, my dear man, don't!" I cried, in great pain, for it was horrible to hear a man talk like this. "Can't you see you've wiped out everything?"
"There's one thing at any rate I can't ever wipe out," he said in a low voice. Then he laughed. "I've got to stick it. It may be amusing to see how it all pans out. I suppose the very last passion left us is curiosity."
"There's also the unconquerable soul," said I.
"You're very comforting," said he. "If I were in your place, I'd leave a chap like me to the worms." He drew a long breath. "I suppose I'll pull through all right."
"Of course you will," said I.
"I feel tons better, thanks to you, already."
"That's right," said I.
He fumbled for the box of cigarettes on the bed. Instinctively I tried to help him, but I was tied to my fixed chair. It was a trivial occasion; but I have never been so terrified by the sense of helplessness. Just think of it. Two men of clear brain and, to all intents and purposes, of sound bodily health, unable to reach an object a few feet away. Boyce uttered an impatient exclamation.
"Get hold of that box for me, like a good chap," he said, his fingers groping wide of the mark.
"I can't move," said I.
"Good Lord! I forgot."
He began to laugh. I laughed, too. We laughed like fools and the tears ran down my cheeks. I suppose we were on the verge of hysterics.
I pulled myself together and gave him a cigarette from my case. And then, stretch as I would, I could not reach far enough to apply the match to the end of the cigarette between his lips. He was unable to lift his head. I lit another match and, like an idiot, put it between his fingers. He nearly burned his moustache and his bandage, and would have burned his fingers had not the match--a wooden one--providentially gone out. Then I lit a cigarette myself and handed it to him.
The incident, as I say, was trivial, but it had deep symbolic significance. All symbols in their literal objectivity are trivial.
What more trivial than the eating of a bit of bread and the sipping from a cup of wine? This trumpery business with the cigarette revolutionised my whole feelings towards Boyce. It initiated us into a sacred brotherhood. Hitherto, it had been his nature which had reached out towards me tentacles of despair. My inner self, as I have tried to show you, had never responded. It was restrained by all kinds of doubts, suspicions, and repulsions. Now, suddenly, it broke through all those barriers and rushed forth to meet him. My death in life against which I had fought, I hope like a brave man (it takes a bit of fighting) for many years, would henceforth be his death in life, at whose terrors he too would have to snap a disdainful finger. I had felt deep pity for him; but if pity is indeed akin to love, it is a very poor relation. Now I had cast pity and such like superior sentiment aside and accepted him as a sworn brother. The sins, whatever they were, that lay on the man's conscience mattered nothing. He had paid in splendid penance and in terrible penalty.
I should have liked to express to him something of this surge of emotion. But I could find no words. As a race, our emotions are not facile, and therefore we lack the necessary practice in expressing them. When they do come, they come all of a heap and scare us out of our wits and leave us speechless. So the immediate outcome of all this psychological upheaval was that we went on smoking and said nothing more about it. As far as I remember we started talking about the recruiting muddle, as to which our views most vigorously coincided.
We parted cheerily. It was only when I got outside the room that the ghastly irony of the situation again made my heart as lead. We passed by the conservatory and the statuary and down the great staircase, but the ghosts had gone. Yet I cast a wistful glance at the spot--it was just under that Cuyp with the flashing white horse--where we had sat twenty years ago. But the new tragedy had rendered the memory less poignant.
"It's a dreadful thing about the Colonel, sir," said Marigold as we drove off.
"More dreadful than anyone can imagine," said I.
"What he's going to do with himself is what I'm wondering," said Marigold.
What indeed? The question went infinitely deeper than the practical dreams of Marigold's philosophy. My honest fellow saw but the outside--the full-blooded man of action cabined in his lifelong darkness. I, to whom chance had revealed more, trembled at the contemplation of his future. The man, goaded by the Furies, had rushed into the jaws of death. Those jaws, by some divine ordinance, had ruthlessly closed against him. The Furies meanwhile attended him unrelenting. Whither now would they goad him? Into madness? I doubted it. In spite of his contradictory nature, he did not seem to be the sort of man who would go mad. He could exercise over himself too reasoned a control. Yet here were passions and despairs seething without an outlet. What would be the end? It is true that he had achieved glory. To the end of his life, wherever he went, he would command the honour and admiration of men. Greater achievement is granted to few mortals. In our little town he would be the Great Hero.
But would all that human sympathy and veneration could contrive keep the Furies at bay and soothe the tormented spirit?
I tried to eat a meal at the club, but the food choked me. I got into the car as soon as possible and reached Wellingsford with head and heart racked with pain. But before I could go home I had to execute Boyce's mission.
If I accomplished it successfully, my heart and not my wearied mind deserves the credit. At first Mrs. Boyce broke down under the shock of the news, for all the preparation in the world can do little to soften a deadly blow; but breed and pride soon asserted themselves, and she faced things bravely. With charming dignity she received Marigold's few respectful words of condolence. And she thanked me for what I had done, beyond my deserts. To show how brave she was, she insisted on accompanying us downstairs and on standing in the bleak evening air while Marigold put me in the car.
"After all, I have my son alive and in good strong health. I must realise how merciful God has been to me." She put her hand into mine.
"I shan't see you again till I bring him home with me. I shall go up to London early to-morrow morning and stay with my old friend Lady Fanshawe--I think you have met her here--the widow of the late Admiral Fanshawe. She has a house in Eccleston Street, which is, I think, in the neighbourhood of Belton Square. If I haven't thanked you enough, dear Major Meredyth, it is that, when one's heart is full, one can't do everything all at once."
She waved to me very graciously as the car drove off--a true "Spartian"
mother, dear lady, of our modern England.
Oh! the humiliation of possessing a frail body and a lot of disorganized nerves! When I got home Marigold, seeing that I was overtired, was all for putting me to bed then and there. I spurned the insulting proposal in language plain enough even to his wooden understanding. Sometimes his imperturbability exasperated me. I might just as well try to taunt a poker or sting a fire-shovel into resentment of personal abuse.
"I'll see you hanged, drawn, and quartered before I'll go to bed," I declared.
"Very good, sir." The gaunt wretch was carrying me. "But I think you might lie down for half an hour before dinner."
He deposited me ignominiously on the bed and left the room. In about ten minutes Dr. Cliffe, my inveterate adversary who has kept life in me for many a year, came in with his confounded pink smiling face.
"What's this I hear? Been overdoing it?"
"What the deuce are you doing here?" I cried. "Go away. How dare you come when you're not wanted?"
He grinned. "I'm wanted right enough, old man. The good Marigold's never at fault. He rang me up and I slipped round at once."
"One of these days," said I, "I'll murder that fellow."