Glenluce struck a match, but the hand that held the match was terribly unsteady.
“Stand still, damn you. You haven’t forgotten, kid, what I said to you?”
“Rot—old boy, rot.”
It was growing dusk when that fatal shell pitched into the crater. It knocked out five men, Glenluce among them. There was confusion, a moment of panic, some of the men crowding back into the half finished communication trench that was to link up with the front line. Fothergill was bending over his friend.
“Jimmie——”
The body of Glenluce was down in the dirt, but now that fate had smitten him his courage somehow transcended the horror and the confusion.
“All right—I’ve got it in the leg, kid. Get the men back, make ’em line the lip of the crater. He’ll attack in a moment.”
Fothergill hesitated, and Glenluce cursed him.
“Don’t you understand an order? Damn it, we’ve got to hold this hole. Get ’em steady. Get ’em glued to the earth on the edge facing Abdul. Use your pistol if necessary. And grin, kid, grin.”
Young Fothergill seemed to catch the flame of his friend’s courage. He rushed into the half-dug trench where some twenty men were huddled. He cursed them.
“Come on you chaps. Abdul’s going to attack. Do you want to be spitted like a lot of pigs. Line the lip of the crater. Come on.”
He got these men out of the trench. They were raw hands many of them, lads who had come out with a draft, and he shepherded them to the ledge of soil and sandbags where a dozen die-hards were pressing their tummies against the earth, and waiting with rifles levelled.
“Sergeant Bloxom.”
“Here, sir.”
“Abdul’ll be coming over in two ticks. We’ve got to hold on. Better fix bayonets.”
“Right, sir.”
Fothergill turned to where Glenluce was lying with his face to the sky, and his face looked as frail as a piece of paper.
“I want to get you back, Jimmie. I’ll send a man over for stretcher bearers.”
“Oh—I’ll just stick here, old lad. Keep him out—for God’s sake keep him out. I’ve got a chance if you do.”
The counter-attack came and was beaten off, one solitary Turk reaching the crater and remaining in it as a prisoner. Just when the rifle fire had slackened a crowd of brown figures poured through into the work. The communicating trench had been linked up by those digging forward from the front line, and with these reinforcements came stretcher-bearers, and Dr. Martin.
“Doc—Jimmie’s hit.”
“Badly?”
“In the leg, I think. He’s here.”
Martin bent over Glenluce who lay with a little smile on his white-paper face.
“I’ve got it in the leg, doc.”
“Let’s have a look at you, my lad.”
Martin had a torch with him, and when he flashed it on that twisted and stained limb with its torn khaki, his lips pressed themselves together.
“I’ll get you back to the aid-post. Someone give me a rifle. Here, Johnson, bandages.”
He lashed the rifle to Glenluce’s leg and body, had him lifted carefully on to a stretcher, and gave him a pat on the head.
“Be with you in ten minutes, Jimmie. Blighty, my lad. Must have a look at the others.”
Glenluce was carried down the new trench and back to the aid-post in “Chester Row.” Martin was busy with another case, and Fothergill, having seen that his men were ready for any second assault on the crater, came and stood by the doctor.
“Tell me the truth about Jimmie, doc.”
Martin was examining a man who had been hit in the chest. It was a hopeless case.
“Jimmie’s out of the show, my lad.”
“Not——”
“No, not that. Tell you later. I’m busy.”
Fothergill lit a cigarette.
“Damned rotten luck if he went under, doc., after the show he put up here.”
“I don’t think he’ll go under.”
When Captain Martin went back to the aid-post he found Sherring sitting on a box beside Glenluce’s stretcher. He had lit a cigarette for Glenluce and tucked it between the wounded man’s lips. He looked up at Martin, and made way for him.
“Get him down to the ambulance, doc.”
“My friend, he’ll be on board a hospital ship in half a jiffy. Now—Jimmie, my lad, I want to patch you up for the first stage.”
Glenluce lay and stared at the tin roof of the aid-post. He was aware of a needle pricking his wrist and of Martin’s busy hands, and the snipping of scissors. He made no attempt to look at his smashed leg. He was surprised that it pained him so little. A gradual and exquisite feeling of peace possessed him.
“Does it mean—home, doc?”
Martin grunted.
“Hurting much?”
“No.”
“No more war for you, Jimmie. You’ll be an interesting veteran drilling drafts at home.”
“I’m going to lose that leg?”
“Did I say so? You just play the babe and take things easy. A cushy time for you, my lad, and you’ve earned it.”
Stars were shining when the stretcher-bearers raised Glenluce and carried him out into the trench on his way to the ambulance dressing-station. Sherring walked for a hundred yards beside the stretcher, and when they reached “Oxford Circus” someone came running behind them. It was young Fothergill.
“That Jimmie?”
“Hallo—kid.”
“Won my bet, old man. Good luck. Sorry, Skipper. Yes, it’s quite all right. Old Jacker took over for ten minutes. He said I could buzz off to see Jimmie.”
Glenluce put out a hand.
“Wish you were coming, kid.”
Fothergill’s voice was just a little unsteady.
“God, so do I! Give my love to the girls, Jimmie. Perhaps you’ll see that pretty nurse.”
Sherring and Fothergill had turned back, and Glenluce lay and looked at the sky. The stretcher-squad were moving down the gully, and the stretcher swayed gently, and now and again it tilted slightly or gave a jerk, but Glenluce felt no pain. He was under the influence of morphia; he had been released from hell, the torture of his doubtings and self dreads. He felt that he was both asleep and awake in a starlit world of wonderful peace.
One of the stretcher-bearers spoke to him.
“Feeling all right, sir?”
“Absolutely.”
They called at the Advanced Dressing Station, where a little doctor with big spectacles and a bald head examined him. Glenluce smiled at him as though the doctor carried wings.
“Quite all right, doc. Martin fixed me up.”
The journey was resumed, and at the mouth of the Great Gully Glenluce saw the sea. He could smell it and hear it. Little waves were rolling in and making a moist plash along the shore. Shadowy figures passed him and over yonder he could divine the shadows of Imbros. The sea seemed to be waiting for him like some beautiful, unvexed world where war was not.
They carried him into the sandbagged shelter of the Main Dressing Station, and here—yet another doctor—summoned from the Field Ambulance mess, examined him and his tally. His passage from the Peninsula was full of pauses, a slow measure set to an official rhythm that could not be hastened. He began to be a little impatient, with the peevishness of a sick child.
“I’m so tired, doc.”
Once more the stretcher was raised, and four men carried him along the sandy road and up the cliff to where an ambulance was waiting. He found himself inside the ambulance with two of his own men. He recognised Smith, a little red-headed fellow whom nothing could depress.
“Hallo—Smith.”
“Why, it’s you, sir. Got a good one?”
“I hope so.”
“High-tiddle-di-ity, take me home to Blighty. It’s a blinking good war, sir, when you’re out of it.”
To Glenluce time had ceased to be a reality. He just drifted. He seemed to be carried along like a body floating down
a stream, caught every now and again by some obstruction, but moving inevitably towards the sea. He was being carried into a lighter. There was faint movement. He was at sea. The dreadful earth has been left behind, and the dark space above him was full of stars.
Lights, a dim white cliff which was the side of a ship, voices, swayings. More lights, other voices strangely dim and muffled. He found himself lying in a cot, and someone was standing and looking at him. It was the young nurse whom he had seen in the pinnace.
Was he alive or dead, awake or dreaming? He lay and stared, and then his lips moved.
“Excuse me, nurse, but you are real, aren’t you?”
She smiled at him.
“I think so.”
He seemed to draw a breath of deep relief.
“I just want to look at you, nurse. You don’t mind, do you? I just want to look at you.”
A WAXWORK SHOW
Nobody recognized him, though there were a few people left in Barfleet who might have done so.
He appeared as a little old man with very bright eyes, and rather wild white hair. He put up at the Queen’s Hotel. He gave his name as Joshua T. Toil, and his habits were as simple as his name.
Rumour had it that he came from America, and before long rumour could add that he was eccentric, but just how eccentric he was going to be Barfleet did not foresee. It saw him wandering about the cliffs overlooking the estuary; also, he appeared to have an affection for the gardens between Royal Row and the foreshore. He pottered about them, following the paths as though they were familiar to him. He seemed to know all the trees, the funny old oaks in the playground, and particularly that forked and twisted tree that years ago had held a seat. He could be seen touching the trees as though they were old friends of his.
He talked to very few people, but he talked with a purpose. He and old George the head porter at the Queen’s Hotel were often in conversation.
“I should say this place is pretty prosperous.”
“It is that, sir.”
“That’s a nice row of houses above the gardens.”
“You mean Royal Row, sir.”
“Sure, I do. Prosperity Place I call it.”
George laughed.
“You’re right on the mark, sir. When anyone strikes it rich in Barfleet he takes a house in Royal Row.”
“Just twenty houses, George.”
“Yes, sir.”
“And who lives in them? Sort of interesting to hear about the life of a town.”
“Oh, there’s old Huggins and young Huggins, sir, the big drapers. And the Smellies, and Pym the ironmonger, and two doctors, and a lawyer, and Mr. Corf who’s commodore of the yacht club, and Mrs. Blower whose husband owned the brewery. And two or three old ladies, and a retired stockbroker, and a few more.”
Said Mr. Toil—“I see No. 11 is to let.”
“I believe it is, sir. It won’t be to let long.”
It wasn’t. Mr. Joshua Toil called on the house-agents in High Street and made inquiries about No. 11, Royal Row. Rent it? Oh, no, he wanted to buy it. He more than hinted that No. 11 was marked down for him by fate, and that money did not matter. The agents were a little casual with him until with a kind of grim gentleness he produced a banker’s letter, and let it be known that he might be interested in other properties. Yes, very seriously so.
No. 11, Royal Row became his. The title deeds went back a good many years, and the name of Thomas Vance cropped up in them. Old Tom Vance had lived here nearly fifty years ago. He was buried in the churchyard of St. Jude, and for many years a local florist had received a cheque for keeping the grave in order. Flowers were to be placed on it four times a year. The florist was an honest man and did his job, though no one was there to see.
Mr. Toil had visited that grave on his first day in Barfleet. It had been April and the 19th, and Mr. Toil had found a large wreath of primroses lying on the strip of grass in front of the headstone. He had purloined one of the primroses and put it in his buttonhole.
Residents in Royal Row began to remark on No. 11. Alterations were in progress, and Royal Row—being conservative—did not approve of these alterations. The two windows of the front ground-floor room were being converted into one big window. It looked like a shop-front.
There were murmurings. It was expressly stated in the deeds that no house in Royal Row could be used for the purposes of trade, and old Huggins of Huggins & Huggins who still stalked Barfleet like a haberdashery Jehovah, showed signs of truculence. He was a large old man with a pendulous jowl, and a red and looming face, an unpleasant old man who had bullied more people in his day than any other man in Barfleet. He had big hands and big feet, and he had used them.
It was old Huggins who accosted Mr. Toil one morning in May. He pointed with his stick.
“What’s this—what’s this? I’m informed, sir, you are the new owner of No. 11.”
Mr. Toil’s eyes seemed to emit a faint glittering.
“Sure, that’s so. And that, sir, is a window.”
“Looks like a shop window to me. I may as well tell you, sir——”
“It is no shop window, sir. I like plenty of light.”
“Ha—light.”
“Especially in dark places.”
Old Huggins glared at him, cleared his throat, and stumped on.
“Just warning you, sir—that’s all.”
Mr. Toil smiled after him. He made a strange remark.
“Don’t throw stones.”
But other evidences of Mr. Toil’s eccentricity began to accumulate. Two Chinese servants arrived, demure, inscrutable men. The walls of the old dining-room of No. 11 were coloured red, and powerful lights were installed. As to furniture it contained nothing but an oak table and two oak chairs. Mr. Toil dined there in solitary state with the blinds up, and waited on by his Chinese servants.
People began to peer in as they went by. Children sometimes congregated at the railings. Mr. Toil appeared to be fond of children. He would stand at the window and throw coins. Another scandal. Children—especially common children—were not encouraged to frequent the pavement of Royal Row. It was not a through street for traffic. It was sequestered and aloof.
Old Mr. Huggins began to growl and to agitate. He called on other residents. This damned interloper was spoiling the amenities. He was not quite right in the head. Obviously. You had only to look at the fellow’s eyes and hair. And who was he—anyway?
A polite inspector of police called on Mr. Toil.
“I am sorry, sir, but we have had complaints.”
Mr. Toil offered him a cigar and a whisky and soda.
“From my neighbours? About the children?”
“That’s so, sir. I’m not a busybody myself.”
“Sure, you don’t look like one, inspector. I’ll be more careful in the future.”
“That’s quite all right, sir.”
“Those are good cee-gars. Put a couple in your pocket. Besides, could you prevent me throwing a few sixpences to the youngsters?”
“Well, that might depend, sir. If you caused an obstruction—so to speak.”
“The pith of the matter is, inspector, I’m up against the gentleman who lives in No. 7.”
“Between you and me, sir.”
“Yes, an old rogue elephant. I quite understand your position in a place like this. Don’t get warm, inspector, I’ll look after Mr. Huggins.”
From his green balcony which overlooked the gardens and the estuary and the shipping that came and went, Joshua Toil could watch Royal Row going upon its affairs. Old Huggins stumped past regularly to the Yacht Club, while young Huggins—who was three and forty—passed on his way to supervise the store in High Street. Young Huggins was smug and well larded. Mr. Smellie, the son of the succulent and sanctimonious Smellie who had helped old Huggins to break Tom Vance, went sleekly to the sugar and tea. Reginald Pym, who furnished and ironmongered Barfleet, was a vast creature who overflowed his collar. With the rest of the residents Mr. Toil had no argu
ment. He liked the look of the doctor. Mr. Corf, the commodore, was a cheery old swashbuckler with a roving eye, a human sort of person, and usually at loggerheads with old Huggins. Mrs. Blower went out driving in her car with a very fat dog in a very fat lap. The lawyer was busy and preoccupied, and reminded Joshua Toil of a rat nibbling cheese.
But he sat and reflected upon the world of Huggins, Smellie, Pym, and agreed that the sins of the fathers might be visited upon the children. But old Huggins remained, the first and primordial offence.
Strange packing-cases arrived at No. 11. They disappeared in the grip of the two Chinese. A little dapper fellow who looked like a Frenchman visited Mr. Toil very frequently. He would sit on the balcony with him, drawing caricatures, and looking at old photographs. Joshua addressed him as Mr. Tolly. He appeared to supply Mr. Tolly with hints and suggestions.
“Remember, in those days, he had whiskers, black Piccadilly weepers.”
Mr. Tolly would pass him one of the sketches.
“How’s that, sir, for a Victorian gent?”
“You’ve got him, Tolly, exactly. Can you make a nice picture of that?”
“Tussaud couldn’t do better, sir.”
Mr. Toil was very active on his legs. He was much younger than his white hair suggested, but Barfleet did not know it, and not only did he use his legs in exploring the town, he hired an aeroplane from somewhere and flew over it. He made the pilot circle round and round while he surveyed Barfleet and its growth. He could trace all those new threads of brick and tile and concrete spreading their meshes into the surrounding country. But the new Barfleet was following the sun. It was shut in on the east by the old harbour and land that had been marsh. The town was losing its balance, and the congested and narrow High Street no longer served it as a central artery. It looked like a knitting-needle stuck through the superficies of a ball of wool.
Mr. Toil drew his own conclusions.
“The town’s going west, and the trade that doesn’t move west with it will go west in other senses. Huggins, Smellie, Pym & Co. still stuck in the High Street. No vision.”
Having spied out Canaan Mr. Toil prepared the attack. He located the new heart of Barfleet in Western Avenue, a broad, tree-lined street that would be the inevitable chord of the new arc. Here a large market garden still lingered. Mr. Toil fell upon that piece of ground. The transaction was carried through for him by a well-known firm of London agents. His name did not appear.
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