Mufti/Chapter 14

by Herman Cyril McNeile

During the weeks that followed Vane did his best to put Joan out of his mind. He had given her his promise not to write, and as far as in him lay he tried his hardest not to think. A Medical Board passed him fit for light duty, and he joined up at the regimental depot in the cathedral city of Murchester. Once before he had been there, on a course, before he went overseas for the first time, and the night he arrived he could not help contrasting the two occasions. On the first he, and everyone else, had had but one thought--the overmastering desire to get across the water. The glamour of the unknown was calling them--the glory which the ignorant associate with war. Shop was discussed openly and without shame. They were just a band of wild enthusiasts, only longing to make good.

And then they had found what war really was--had sampled the reality of the thing. One by one the band had dwindled, and the gaps had been filled by strangers. Vane was sitting that night in the chair where Jimmy Benton had always sat. . . . He remembered Jimmy lying across the road near Dickebush staring up at him with sightless eyes. So had they gone, one after another, and now, how many were left? And the ones that had paid the big price--did they think it had been worth while . . . now? . . . They had been so willing to give their all without counting the cost. With the Englishman's horror of sentimentality or blatant patriotism, they would have regarded with the deepest mistrust anyone who had told them so. But deep down in each man's heart--it was England--his England--that held him, and the glory of it. Did they think their sacrifice had been worth while . . . now? Or did they, as they passed by on the night wind, look down at the seething bitterness in the country they had died for, and whisper sadly, "It was in vain--You are pulling to pieces what we fought to keep standing; you have nothing but envy and strife to put in its place. . . . Have you not found the truth--yet? . . ."

Unconsciously, perhaps, but no less certainly for that, Vane was drifting back into the same mood that had swayed him when he left France. If what Ramage had said to him was the truth; if, at the bottom of all the ceaseless bickering around, there was, indeed, a vital conflict between two fundamentally opposite ideas, on the settlement of which depended the final issue--it seemed to him that nothing could avert the catastrophe sooner or later. It was against human nature for any class to commit suicide--least of all the class which for generations had regarded itself and been regarded as the leading one. And yet, unless this thing did happen; unless voluntarily, the men of property agreed to relinquish their private rights, and sink their own interests for the good of the others, Ramage had quite calmly and straightforwardly prophesied force. Apparently the choice lay between suicide and murder. . . .

It all seemed so hopelessly futile to Vane. He began to feel that only over the water lay Reality; that here, at home, he had discovered a Land of Wild Imaginings. . . .

Though he refused to admit it to himself, there was another, even more potent, factor to account for his restlessness. Like most Englishmen, however black the outlook, however delirious the Imagining, he had, deep down in his mind, the ingrained conviction that the country would muddle through somehow. But the other factor--the personal factor- Joan, was very different. Try as he would he could not dismiss her from his mind entirely. Again and again the thought of her came back to torment him, and he began to chafe more and more at his forced inaction. Where large numbers of officers are continually passing through a depot, doing light duty while recovering from wounds, there can be nothing much for the majority to do. Twice he had begun a letter to Margaret, to tell her that after all she had been right--that it had been nervous tension--that it wasn't her after all. And twice he had torn it up after the first few lines. It wasn't fair, he pacified his conscience, to worry her when she was so busy. He could break it far more easily by degrees--when he saw her. And so the restlessness grew, and the disinclination to do anything but sit in the mess and read the papers. His arm was still too stiff for tennis, and the majority of the local people bored him to extinction. Occasionally he managed to get ten minutes' work to do that was of some use to somebody; after that his time was his own.

One day he tried his hand at an essay, but he found that the old easy style which had been his principal asset had deserted him. It was stiff and pedantic, and what was worse--bitter; and he tore it up savagely after he had read it through. He tried desperately to recover some of his old time optimism--and he failed. He told himself again and again that it was up to him to see big, to believe in the future, and he cursed himself savagely for not being able to.

There was a woman whom he had met at lunch on one of his periodical visits to London. She was a war widow, and a phrase she had used to him rang in his brain for many days after. It seemed to him to express so wonderfully the right feeling, the feeling which in another form he was groping after.

"It wouldn't do," she had said very simply, "for the Germans to get a 'double casualty.'" It was the sort of remark, he thought, that he would have expected Margaret to make. With all the horror of genteel pauperism staring her in the face, that woman was thinking big, and was keeping her head up. With all the bitterness of loss behind her, she had, that very day, so she told him, been helping another more fortunate one to choose frocks for her husband's next leave. . . .

Try as he might, he could not rid himself of the mocking question "Cui bono?" What was the use of this individual heroism to the country at large? As far as the woman herself was concerned it kept her human, but to the big community . . .? Would even the soldiers when they came back be strong enough, and collected enough, to do any good? And how many of them really thought . . .?

Surely there must be some big, and yet very simple, message which the war could teach. Big because the result had been so wonderful; simple because the most stupid had learned it. And if they had learned it over the water, surely they could remember it afterwards. . . . pass it on to others. It might even be taught in the schools for future generations to profit by.

It was not discipline or so-called militarism; they were merely the necessary adjuncts to a life where unhesitating obedience is the only thing which prevents a catastrophe. It was not even tradition and playing the game, though it seemed to him he was getting nearer the answer. But these were not fundamental things; they were to a certain extent acquired. He wanted something simpler than that--something which came right at the beginning, a message from the bedrock of the world; something which was present in France--something which seemed to be conspicuous by its absence in England.

"We've caught these fellows," he said one evening after dinner to a regular Major whose life had taken him all over the world, "and we've altered 'em. Their brothers are here at home; they themselves were here a short while ago--will be back in the future. They are the same breed; they come from the same stock. What is this thing that has done it? What gospel has been preached to 'em to turn them into the salt of the earth, while at home here the others are unchanged, except for the worse?"

The Major shifted his pipe from one corner of his mouth to the other. "The gospel that was preached two thousand odd years ago," he answered shortly. Vane looked at him curiously. "I admit I hardly expected that answer, Major," he said.

"Didn't you?" returned the other. "Well, I'm not an authority on the subject; and I haven't seen the inside of a church for business purposes since before the South African War. But to my mind, when you've shorn it of its trappings and removed ninety per cent. of its official performers into oblivion, you'll find your answer in what, after all, the Church stands for." He hesitated for a moment, and glanced at Vane, for he was by nature a man not given to speech. "Take a good battalion in France," he continued slowly. "You know as well as I do what's at the bottom of it--good officers. Good leaders. . . . What makes a good leader? What's the difference between a good officer and a dud? Why, one has sympathy and the other hasn't: one will sacrifice himself, the other won't. . . . There's your gospel. . . ." He relapsed into silence, and Vane looked at him thoughtfully.

"Sympathy and sacrifice," he repeated slowly. "Is that your summing up of Christianity?

"Isn't it?" returned the other. "But whether it is or whether it isn't, it's the only thing that will keep any show going. Damn it, man, it's not religion--it's common horse sense." The Major thumped his knee. "What the deuce do you do if you find things are going wrong in your company? You don't snow yourself in with reports in triplicate and bark. You go and see for yourself. Then you go and talk for yourself; and you find that it is either a justifiable grievance which you can put right, or an error or a misunderstanding which you can explain. You get into touch with them. . . . Sympathy. Sacrifice. Have a drink?" He pressed the bell and sank back exhausted. As has been said, he was not addicted to speech.

Neither of them spoke until the waiter had carried out the order, and then suddenly the Major started again. Like many reserved men, once the barrier was broken down, he could let himself go with the best. And Vane, with his eyes fixed on the quiet face and steady eyes of the elder man, listened in silence.

"I'm a fool," he jerked out. "Every Regular officer is a fool. Numbers of novelists have said so. Of course one bows to their superior knowledge. But what strikes me in my foolishness is this. . . . You've got to have leaders and you've got to have led, because the Almighty has decreed that none of us have the same amount of ability. Perhaps they think He's a fool too; but even they can't alter that. . . . If ability varies so must the reward--money; and some will have more than others. Capital and Labour; leader and led; officer and man. . . . In the old days we thought that the best leader for the Army was the sahib; and with the old army we were right. Tommy . . . poor, down trodden Tommy, as the intellectuals used to call him, was deuced particular. He was also mighty quick on the uptake at spotting the manner of man he followed. Now things have changed; but the principle remains. And it answers. . . . You'll always have an aristocracy of ability who will be the civilian leaders, you'll always have the rank and file who will be led by them. The same rules will hold as you apply in the army. . . . You'll have good shows and bad shows, according to whether the leader has or has not got sympathy. A good many now should have it; they've learned the lesson over the water. And on their shoulders rests the future. . . ."

"You put the future on the leaders, too," said Vane a little curiously.

"Why, naturally," returned the other. "What else fits a man to lead?"

"But your broad doctrine of sympathy"--pursued Vane. "Don't you think it's one of those things that sounds very nice in a pulpit, but the practical application is not quite so easy. . . ."

"Of course it isn't easy," cried the other. "Who the deuce said it was? Is it easy to be a good regimental officer? Sympathy is merely the--the spiritual sense which underlies all the work. And the work is ceaseless if the show is going to be a good one. You know that as well as I do. You take an officer who never talks to his men, practically never sees 'em--treats 'em as automatons to do a job. Never sacrifices his own comfort. What sort of a show are you going to have?"

"Damn bad," said Vane, nodding his head.

"And you take a fellow who talks to 'em, knows 'em well, is a friend to 'em, and explains things--that's the vital point--explains things; listens to what they have to say--even makes some small amendments if he thinks they're right. . . . A fellow who makes them take a pride in their show. . . . What then?"

"But could you apply it to civil life?" queried Vane.

"Don't know," returned the other, "because I'm a fool. Everybody says so; so I must be. But it seems to me that if you take a concern, and every week the boss sends for his men, or some chosen representative of theirs, and explains things to 'em, it won't do much harm. Shows 'em how the money is going--what it's being spent on, why he's putting in fresh plant, why his dividends ain't going to be as big this year as they were last--all that sort of thing. Don't play the fool with them. . . . Dividends may be bigger, and he'll have to stump up. . . . A good many of the bosses will have to alter their ways, incidentally. No man is going to sweat himself in order that someone else up the road can keep a second motor car, when the man himself hasn't even a donkey cart. You wouldn't yourself--nor would I. Up to a point it's got to be share and share alike. Over the water the men didn't object to the C.O. having a bedroom to himself; but what would they have said if he'd gone on to battalion parade in a waterproof one bad day, while they were uncloaked?"

"Yes, but who is going to decide on that vital question of money?" pursued Vane. "Supposing the men object to the way the boss is spending it. . . ."

The other thoughtfully filled his pipe. "Of course, there will always be the risk of that," he said. "Seventeen and twenty per cent. dividends will have to cease--I suppose. And after all--not being a Croesus myself I'm not very interested--I'm blowed if I see why man should expect more than a reasonable percentage on his money. I believe the men would willingly agree to that if they were taken into his confidence and sure he wasn't cooking his books. . . . But when one reads of ten, herded together in one room, and the company paying enormous dividends, do you wonder they jib? I would. Why shouldn't the surplus profit above a fair dividend be split up amongst the workmen? I'm no trade expert, Vane. Questions of supply and demand, and tariffs and overtime, leave me quite cold. But if you're going to get increased production, and you've got to or you're going to starve, you can't have civil war in the concern. And to ensure that you must have all the cards on the table. The men must understand what they're doing; the boss must explain.

"What made a man understand the fact of dying over the water? What made thousands of peace-loving men go on in the filth and dirt, only to die like rats at the end. . . . What made 'em keep their tails up, and their chests out? Why--belief and trust in their leaders. And how was it inculcated? By sympathy--nothing more nor less. God above--if it was possible when the stakes were life and death--can't it be done over here in the future? The men won't strike if only they understand; unless in the understanding they find something they know to be wrong and unjust."

"I was talking to that Labour fellow--Ramage--the other day," said Vane thoughtfully. "According to him State control of everything is the only panacea. And he says it's coming. . . ."

"Dare say it will," returned the other. "The principle remains the same. With sympathy nine out of ten strikes will be averted altogether. Without it, they won't. The leaders will be in touch with their men; as leaders they will be able to feel the pulse of their men. And when things are going wrong they'll know it; they'll anticipate the trouble. . . . Sympathy; the future of the Empire lies in sympathy. And this war has taught many thousands of men the meaning of the word. It has destroyed the individual outlook. . . . There, it seems to me, lies the hope of our salvation." He finished his drink and stood up. "If we're going to continue a ceaseless war between leaders and led- it's me for Hong-Kong. And it is only the leaders who can avert it. . . ."

"Incidentally that's what Ramage said," remarked Vane. "Only he demands complete equality . . . the abolition of property. . . ."

The other paused as he got to the door. "Then the man's a fool, and a dangerous fool," he answered gravely. "Night-night. . . ."

For a long while Vane sat on, staring at the fire. Though only early in October, the night was chilly, and he stretched his legs gratefully to the blaze. After a time he got up and fetched an evening paper. The great push between Cambrai and St. Quentin was going well; behind Ypres the Boche was everywhere on the run. But to Vane gigantic captures in men and guns meant a very different picture. He saw just the one man crawling on his belly through the mouldering bricks and stinking shell holes of some death-haunted village. He saw the sudden pause--the tense silence as the man stopped motionless, listening with every nerve alert. He felt once again the hideous certainty that he was not alone; that close to, holding his breath, was someone else . . . then he saw the man turn like a flash and stab viciously; he heard the clatter of falling bricks--the sob of exultation as the Boche writhed in his death agony. . . . And it might have been the other way round.

Then he saw the other side; the long weary hours of waiting, the filthy weariness of it all--the death and desolation. Endured without a murmur; sticking it always, merry, cheerful, bright--so that the glory of the British soldier should be written on the scroll of the immortals for all eternity.

Was it all to be wasted, thrown away? His jaw set at the thought. Surely--surely that could never be. Let 'em have their League of Nations by all manner of means; but a League of Britain was what these men were fighting for. And to every Britisher who is a Britisher--may God be praised there are millions for whom patriotism has a real meaning--that second League is the only one that counts.

The door opened and Vallance, the Adjutant, came in. "There's a letter for you, old boy, outside in the rack," he remarked. He walked over to the fire to warm his hands. "Bring me a large whisky and a small soda," he said to the waiter, who answered his ring. "Drink, Vane?"

Vane looked up from the envelope he was holding in his hand and shook his head. "No, thanks, old man," he answered. "Not just now. . . . I think I'll read this letter first." And the Adjutant, who was by nature an unimaginative man, failed to notice that Vane's voice was shaking a little with suppressed excitement.

It was ten minutes before either of them spoke again. Twice Vane had read the letter through, and then he folded it carefully and put it in his pocket.

"Contrary to all service etiquette, old boy," he said, "I am going to approach you on the subject of leave in the mess. I want two or three days. Can it be done?"

Vallance put down his paper, and looked at him.

"Urgent private affairs?" he asked lightly.

"Very urgent," returned Vane grimly.

"I should think it might be managed," he said. "Fire in an application and I'll put it up to-morrow."

"Thanks," said Vane briefly, "I will."

For a moment or two after he had left the room Vallance looked at the closed door. Then he picked the envelope out of the grate, and studied the handwriting.

"Confound these women," he muttered, and consigned it to the flames. He liked to think himself a misogynist, and, incidentally, thoughts of drafts were worrying him.

Up in his own room Vane was poking the fire. His face was stern, and with care and deliberation he pulled up the arm chair to the blaze. Then he took the letter out of this pocket, and proceeded to read it through once again.

MELTON HOUSE, OFFHAM, NEAR LEWES.

MY DEAR,--It's just on midnight, but I feel in the mood for doing what I've been shirking for so long. Don't you know the feeling one gets sometimes when one has put off a thing again and again, and then there suddenly comes an awful spasm and one fairly spreads oneself? . . . Like putting one's bills away for months on end, and then one day becoming insane and paying the whole lot. I've been putting this off, Derek, for what I'm going to write will hurt you . . . almost as much as it hurts me. I'm not going to put in any of the usual cant about not thinking too hardly of me; I don't think somehow we are that sort. But I can't marry you. I meant to lead up to that gradually, but the pen sort of slipped--and, anyway you'd have known what was coming.

I can't marry you, old man--although I love you better than I ever thought I'd love anyone. You know the reasons why, so I won't labour them again. They may be right and they may be wrong; I don't know- I've given up trying to think. I suppose one's got to take this world as it is, and not as it might be if we had our own way. . . . And I can't buy my happiness with Blandford, Derek--I just can't.

I went down there the morning after Our Day--oh! my God! boy, how I loved that time--and I saw Father. He was just broken down with it all; he seemed an old, old man. And after luncheon in the study he told me all about it. I didn't try to follow all the facts and figures--what was the use? I just sat there looking out over Blandford--my home--and I realised that very soon it would be that no longer. I even saw the horrible man smoking his cigar with the band on it in Father's chair.

Derek, my dear--what could I do? I knew that I could save the situation if I wanted to; I knew that it was my happiness and yours, my dear, that would have to be sacrificed to do it. But when the old Dad put his arm round my waist and raised his face to mine--and his dear mouth was all working--I just couldn't bear it.

So I lied to him, Derek. I told him that Mr. Baxter loved me, and that I loved Mr. Baxter. Two lies--for that man merely wants me as a desirable addition to his furniture--and I, why sometimes I think I hate him. But, oh! my dear, if you'd seen my Father's face; seen the dawning of a wonderful hope. . . . I just couldn't think of anything except him--and so I went on lying, and I didn't falter. Gradually he straightened up; twenty years seemed to slip from him . . ..

"My dear," he said. "I wouldn't have you unhappy; I wouldn't have you marry any man you didn't love. But if you do love him, little Joan, if you do--why it just means everything. . . . Baxter's worth millions. . . ."

But it makes one laugh, my Derek, doesn't it? laugh a little bitterly. And then after a while I left him, and went down to the boat-house, and pulled over to our weeping willow. But I couldn't stop there. . . . I can't try myself too high. I guess I'm a bit weak where you're concerned, boy--a bit weak. And I've got to go through with this. It's my job, and one can't shirk one's job. . . . Only sometimes it seems that one gets saddled with funny jobs, doesn't one? Try to see my point of view, Derek; try to understand. If it was only me, why, then, my dear, you know what would be the result. I think it would kill me if you ever thought I was marrying Mr. Baxter for money for myself. . . .

And you'll forget me in time, dear lad--at least, I'm afraid you will. That's foolish, isn't it?--foolish and weak; but I couldn't bear you to forget me altogether. Just once or twice you'll think of me, and the Blue Bird that we kept for one day in the roses at Sonning. You'll go to She who must be obeyed and I hope to God I never meet her. . . . For I'll hate her, loathe her, detest her.

I'm engaged to Mr. Baxter. I've exacted my full price to the uttermost farthing. Blandford is saved, or will be on the day I marry him. We are neither of us under any illusions whatever; the whole thing is on an eminently business footing. . . . We are to be married almost at once.

And now, dear, I am going to ask you one of the big things. I don't want you to answer this letter; I don't want you to plead with me to change my mind. I daren't let you do it, my man, because, as I said, I'm so pitifully weak where you are concerned. And I don't know what would happen if you were to take me in your arms again. Why, the very thought of it drives me almost mad. . . . Don't make it harder for me, darling, than it is at present--please, please, don't.

Mr. Baxter is not here now, and I'm just vegetating with the Suttons until the sale takes place--my sale. They were talking about you at dinner to-night, and my heart started pounding until I thought they must have heard it. Do you wonder that I'm frightened of you? Do you wonder that I ask you not to write?

It's one o'clock, my Derek, and I'm cold--and tired, awful tired. I feel as if the soul had departed out of me; as if everything was utterly empty. It is so still and silent outside, and the strange, old-fashioned ideas--do you remember your story?--have been sitting wistfully beside me while I write. Maybe I'll hear them fluttering sadly away as I close down the envelope.

I love you, my darling, I love you. . . . I don't know why Fate should have decreed that we should have to suffer so, though perhaps you'll say it's my decree, not Fate's. And perhaps you're right; though to me it seems the same thing.

Later on, when I'm a bit more used to things, we might meet. . . . I can't think of life without ever seeing you again; and anyway, I suppose, we're bound to run across one another. Only just at the moment I can't think of any more exquisite torture than seeing you as another woman's husband. . . .

Good-night, my dear, dear Love, God bless and keep you.

JOAN.

Oh! Boy--what Hell it all is, what utter Hell!

The fire was burning low in the grate as Vane laid the letter down on the table beside him. Bolshevism, strikes, wars--of what account were they all combined, beside the eternal problem of a man and a woman? For a while he sat motionless staring at the dying embers, and then with a short, bitter laugh he rose to his feet.

"It's no go, my lady," he muttered to himself. "Thank Heaven I know the Suttons. . . ."