“I’m waiting to hear what the spell is.”
“It’s this—self sacrifice with a capitol S. Young men going to get killed for us.—We would have been their wives—we can’t be—therefore we’ll be as much as we can. And that’s the story.”
“Good God!”
“Young officer comes back,” she went on; “must amuse him, must amuse him; must give him the impression that people here are with him, that it’s a big home he’s coming to, that he’s appreciated. Now you know, of course, in the lower classes that sort of thing means children. Whether that will ever spread to us will depend on the duration of the war.”
“How about old ideas, and standards of woman and that sort of thing?” he asked, rather sheepishly.
“Sky-high, my dear—dead and gone. It might be said for utility that it’s better and safer for the race that officers stay with women of their own class. Think of the next generation in France.”
To Clay the whole compartment had suddenly become smothering. Bubbles of conventional ethics seemed to have burst and the long stagnant gas was reaching him. He was forced to seize his mind and make it cling to whatever shreds of the old still floated on the moral air. Eleanor’s voice came to him like the grey creed of a new materialistic world, the contrast was the more vivid because of the remains of erratic honor and sentimental religiosity that she flung out with the rest.
“So you see, my dear, utility, heroism and sentiment all combine and le voice. And we’re pulling into Rochester,” she turned to him pathetically. “I see that in trying to clear myself I’ve only indicted my whole sex,” and with tears in their eyes they kissed.
On the platform they talked for half a minute more. There was no emotion. She was trying to analyze again and her smooth brow was wrinkled in the effort. He was endeavoring to digest what she had said, but his brain was in a whirl.
“Do you remember,” he asked, “what you said last night about love being a big word like Life and Death?”
“A regular phrase; part of the technique of—of the game; a catch word.” The train moved off and as Clay swung himself on the last car she raised her voice so that he could hear her to the last—“Love is a big word, but I was flattering us. Real Love’s as big as Life and Death, but not that love—not that—” Her voice failed and mingled with the sound of the rails, and to Clay she seemed to fade out like a grey ghost on the platform.
III
When the charge broke and the remnants lapped back like spent waves, Sergeant O’Flaherty, a bullet through the left side, dropped beside him, and as weary castaways fight half listlessly for shore, they crawled and pushed and edged themselves into a shell crater. Clay’s shoulder and back were bleeding profusely and he searched heavily and clumsily for his first aid package.
“That’ll be that the Seventeenth Sussex gets reorganized,” remarked O’Flaherty, sagely. “Two weeks in the rear and two weeks home.”
“Damn good regiment, it was, O’Flaherty,” said Clay. They would have seemed like two philosophic majors commenting from safe behind the lines had it not been that Clay was flat on his back, his face in a drawn ecstasy of pain, and that the Irishman was most evidently bleeding to death. The latter was twining an improvised tourniquet on his thigh, watching it with the careless casual interest a bashful suitor bestows upon his hat.
“I can’t get up no emotion over a regiment these nights,” he commented disgustedly. “This’ll be the fifth I was in that I seen smashed to hell. I joined these Sussex byes so I needn’t see more o’ me own go.”
“I think you know every one in Ireland, Sergeant.”
“All Ireland’s me friend, Captain, though I niver knew it ’till I left. So I left the Irish, what was left of them. You see when an English bye dies he does some play actin’ before. Blood on an Englishman always calls rouge to me mind. It’s a game with him. The Irish take death damn serious.”
Clayton rolled painfully over and watched the night come softly down and blend with the drifting smoke. They were certainly between the devil and the deep sea and the slang of the next generation will use “no man’s land” for that. O’Flaherty was still talking.
“You see you has to do somethin’. You haven’t any God worth remarkin’ on. So you pass from life in the names of your holy principles, and hope to meet in Westminster.”
“We’re not mystics, O’Flaherty,” muttered Clay, “but we’ve got a firm grip on God and reality.”
“Mystics, my eye, beggin’ your pardon, lieutenant,” cried the Irishman, “a mystic ain’t no race, it’s a saint. You got the most airy way o’ thinkin’ in the wurruld an yit you talk about plain faith as if it was cloud gazin’. There was a lecture last week behind Vimy Y.M.C.A., an’ I stuck my head in the door; ‘Tan-gi-ble,’ the fellow was sayin’ ‘we must be Tan-gi-ble in our religion, we must be practicle’ an’ he starts off on Christian brotherhood an’ honorable death—so I stuck me head out again. An’ you got lots a good men dyin’ for that every day-tryin’ to be tan-gi-ble, dyin’ because their father’s a Duke or because he ain’t. But that ain’t what I got to think of. An’ right here let’s light a pipe before it gets dark enough for the damn burgomasters to see the match and practice on it.”
Pipes, as indispensible as the hard ration, were going in no time, and the sergeant continued as he blew a huge lung full of smoke towards the earth with incongruous supercaution.
“I fight because I like it, an’ God ain’t to blame for that, but when it’s death you’re talkin’ about I’ll tell you what I get an’ you don’t. Pere Dupont gets in front of the Frenchies an’ he says: ‘Allon, mes enfants!’ fine! an’ Father O’Brien, he says: ‘Go on in byes and bate the Luther out o’ them’—great stuff! But can you see the reverent Updike—Updike just out o’ Oxford—yellin’ ‘mix it up, chappies,’ or ‘soak ’em blokes?’—NO, Captain, the best leader you ever get is a six foot rowin’ man that thinks God’s got a seat in the House o’ Commons. All sportin’ men have to have a bunch o’ cheerin’ when they die. Give an Englishman four inches in the sportin’ page this side of the whistle an’ he’ll die happy—but not O’Flaherty.”
But Clay’s thoughts were far away. Half delirious, his mind wandered to Eleanor. He had thought of nothing else for a week, ever since their parting at Rochester, and so many new sides of what he had learned were opening up. He had suddenly realized about Dick and Eleanor, they must have been married to all intents and purposes. Of course Clay had written to Eleanor from Paris, asking her to marry him on his return, and just yesterday he had gotten a very short, very kind, but definite refusal. And he couldn’t understand at all.
Then there was his sister—Eleanor’s words still rang in his ear. “They either put on trousers and act as chauffers all day or put on paint and dance with officers all night.” He felt perfectly sure that Clara was still well—virtuous. Virtuous—what a ridiculous word it seemed, and how odd to be using it about his sister. Clara had always been so painfully good. At fourteen she had been sent to Boston for a souvenir picture of Louisa M. Alcott to hang over her bed. His favorite amusement had been to replace it by some startling soubrette in tights, culled from the pages of the Pink Un. Well Clara, Eleanor, Dick, he himself, were all in the same boat, no matter what the actuality of their innocence or guilt. If he ever got back—
The Irishman, evidently sinking fast, was talking rapidly.
“Put your wishy-washy pretty clothes on everythin’ but it ain’t no disguise. If I get drunk it’s the flesh and the devil, if you get drunk it’s your wild oats. But you ain’t disguisin’ death, not to me you ain’t. It’s a damn serious affair. I may get killed for me flag, but I’m goin’ to die for meself. ‘I die for England’ he says. ‘Settle up with God, you’re through with England’ I says.”
He raised himself on his elbow and shook his fist toward the German trenches.
“It’s you an’ your damn Luther,” he shouted. “You been protestin’ and analyzin’ until you’re makin’ my body ache and burn like hell; you been evolvin’ like mister Darwin, an’ you stretched yourself so far that you’ve split. Everythin’s in-tan-gi-ble except your God. Honor an’ Fatherland an’ Westminster Abbey, they’re all in-tan-gi-ble except God an’ sure you got him tan-gi-ble. You got him on the flag an’ in the constitution. Next you’ll be writin’ your bibles with Christ sowin’ wild oats to make him human. You say he’s on your side. Onc’t, just onc’t, he had a favorite nation and they hung Him up by the hands and feet and his body hurt him and burn’t him,” his voice grew fainter. “Hail Mary, full of grace, the Lord is wit’ thee—” His voice trailed off, he shuddered and was dead.
The hours went on. Clayton lit another pipe, heedless of what German sharpshooters might see. A heavy March mist had come down and the damp was eating into him. His whole left side was paralyzed
