The Parts Men Play Part 50

d.i.c.k tried to reply, but not only was he ignorant of the locality through which he had travelled, but his soul burned with resentment at being forced into lying. Mathews said nothing, and seemed quite untroubled.

He was prepared to accept his young master's choice of engagements for his own, no matter where or when it might have taken place.

'I don't like this,' said the officer. 'These men are a long way from the British lines, and are either deserters or worse. Guard them closely, and if things get hot, tie their arms together so they will give no trouble.'

'Very good, sir,' answered the sergeant, preparing to lead them away; but Durwent, whose blood, had run cold with dismay at the officer's words, struggled forward.

'Sir,' he cried, 'if you think I'm not to be trusted, give me a dirty job--anything. A bombing-raid, or a patrol--I'll do anything at all, sir, if you'll only give me a chance.'

'Well spoke, Mas'r d.i.c.k,' said Mathews proudly. 'Werry well spoke indeed.'

The officer, who had been about to issue a peremptory order, stopped at the st.u.r.dy honesty of the groom's voice. 'Send for Captain Selwyn,' he said. 'You will find him at the creek.'

III.

By a creek that trickled across the road, Captain Austin Selwyn was watching the brushwood which concealed the enemy. Beside him, lining the bank, every available man was on the alert, waiting the developments which would follow the raising of night's curtain. In the misty gray of dawn they looked fabulous in size, and indistinct.

The night in January at the University Club in New York had marked a reconciliation between Selwyn and Van Derwater. With the issue between America and Germany so clearly defined, they had both lent their voices to the insistent demand for war. At first people had been incredulous, and hazarded the guess that the young author was endeavouring to cover his own tracks; but when he enlisted in the ranks at the outbreak of hostilities, they made a popular hero of him. They spoke of him as the Spirit of the Cause; but he paid little attention to the clamour. His joy in the prospect of action, and the release from all his mental tortures, had produced in him a kind of frenzy, that crystallised into an intense hatred of Germany.

The pendulum had swung to its extreme. Once a man animated with a pa.s.sionate humanitarianism, in whom the spirit of universal brotherhood burned with an inextinguishable force, he had become a creature drunk with l.u.s.t for revenge. Patriotism, Justice, Freedom--they were all catch-words to hide the brutal, primeval instinct to kill.

In the little thought which he permitted himself, Selwyn argued that the ignorance of many nations had made war possible, but only Germany had been vile enough to try to exploit it for the achievement of world-power.

For that reason alone she was a thing of detestation.

His enthusiasm and quickly acquired knowledge of army routine marked him for promotion. He was given a commission, and at the request of Van Derwater was attached to the same regiment as himself. Together they had crossed to France, and were among the first American troops in action.

In the months that followed, Selwyn had revelled in the carnage and the excitement of war. He was reckless to the point of bravado, and his keen dramatic instinct drove him into unnecessary escapades where his senses could enjoy a thrill not far removed from insanity. Only when out of the line, when the mockery and the hideousness of the whole thing demanded his mind's solution, would the mood of despondency return. But in the trenches he knew neither pity nor fear. Men fought for the privilege of serving under him, and with their instinct for euphony and love of the bizarre gave him the name of 'h.e.l.l-fire.' He gloried in the physical ascendancy of it all--in the dangers--in the discomforts. He was an instrument of revenge, a weapon without feeling.

On the other hand, Van Derwater had undergone no appreciable change. He carried himself with the same dignity and formality as in his days at Was.h.i.+ngton--except when emergency would scatter the wits of his fellow-officers, and he would suddenly become a dynamic force, vigorous in conception and swift of action. Yet success or failure left him unmoved, once a crisis had pa.s.sed. His men respected but did not understand him. They wove a legend about his name. They said he had come to France wanting to be killed, but that no bullet could touch him.

And even those who scoffed, when they saw him, unruffled and strangely solitary, moving about with almost ironic contempt of danger, wondered if there might not be some truth in the story.

'Major Van Derwater would like to speak to you right away, sir.'

Telling a non-commissioned officer to take his place, Selwyn followed the messenger along the road until they came to the spot which Van Derwater had chosen for his headquarters. Daylight was emerging from its retreat, and there was the promise of a warm day in the glowing east.

'You sent for me, sir?' he said.

'Yes. You might question these two British stragglers. Their story is not straight, but they seem decent enough fellows. If you are not satisfied'----

He was interrupted by an exclamation of astonishment from Selwyn, who had noticed the Englishmen for the first time.

'Great Scott!' gasped Selwyn. 'd.i.c.k Durwent!'

d.i.c.k looked up, and at the sight of the American's face he uttered a cry of relief. 'Is that really you, Selwyn? What luck! You remember Mathews at Roselawn, don't you? You can say'----

'Good-mornin', sir,' said the unperturbed groom. 'This is a werry pleasant surprise, to be sure. How are you, sir?'

'Van,' said Selwyn, after shaking hands with them both, 'this is Lord Durwent's son, and the other is his groom, Mathews. I will vouch for them absolutely.'

'Good!' Van Derwater slightly inclined his head as an indication that he was satisfied. 'We need every man. You had better take them in your section and equip them with rifles from casualties.'

IV.

A few minutes later, after he had procured food for the two men, who were growing faint with hunger, Selwyn resumed his post. The heavy gra.s.s fringing the bank made it possible to keep watch without being directly exposed as a target; but beyond a desultory rifle-fire about a mile on their right, there was no indication of enemy activity.

When Durwent had been equipped with a steel helmet and a rifle, Selwyn called him over to his side, and as concisely as possible explained the military situation. In the German attack against the French forces (with which the Americans were brigaded) the line had been swept back. Deep salients had been driven in on both their flanks, but orders had been received to hold the bridge at all costs, as, if a counter-attack could be launched, it would be an enfilading one made by troops brought across the river. Relying on their machine-gun and rifle fire to overcome the Americans' resistance, the enemy's artillery had been drawn into the deepening salients; but in spite of all-day fighting the straggling line had held.

After a few questions from Durwent they relapsed into silence, gazing at the undulating expanse of country revealed by the ascending sun.

'Selwyn.' d.i.c.k cleared his throat nervously. 'I must tell you the truth. You were decent enough to stand sponsor for Mathews and me, and I want you to know everything. The major was right. We're not stragglers--we're deserters.'

Selwyn made no comment, and both men stared fixedly through the long gra.s.s that drooped with heavy dew.

'Yesterday morning,' said Durwent dully, 'I was to have been shot. I was drunk in the line, and deserved it. It's no use trying to excuse myself.

I fancy my nerves were a bit gone after what we'd been through the last few months, but---- Well, I suppose I am simply a failure, as that chap said in London--there isn't much more to it than that. By a queer deal of the cards, Mathews was on guard, and helped me to escape. It was rotten of me to let him take the chance; but it's been that way all through. Even at the end of everything--after being a waster and a rotter since I was a kid--I have to drag this poor chap down with me.

Promise, Selwyn, if you come out of this alive, that you'll fight his case for him.'

Selwyn murmured a.s.sent, but he was trying to shake off a haunting feeling that was enveloping him like a mist--a feeling that everything the young Englishman was saying he had heard before. It left him dazed, and made Durwent's voice sound far away. He tried to dismiss it as an illogical prank of the mind, but the thing was relentless. He could not rid himself of the thought that sometime in the past--months, years, perhaps centuries ago--this pitiful scene had been enacted before.

It chilled his soul with its presage of disaster. He saw the hand of destiny, and everything in him rebelled against the inexorable cruelty of it all. It was infamous that any life should be dominated by a whim of the Fates; that any creature should enter this world with a silken cord about his throat. Destiny. Does it mould our lives; or do our lives, inundated with the forces of heredity, mould our destinies? He tried to grapple with the thought; but through the pain and confusion of his mind he could only feel the presence of unseen fingers spelling out the words written in a hidden past.

'I wonder,' said Durwent, after a pause of several minutes, during which neither had spoken, 'what happens when this is finished.'

'Do you mean--after death?' said Selwyn, forcing his mind clear of its clouds.

Durwent nodded and leaned wearily with his arms on the bank. 'I tried to think it out the night before I was to be shot,' he said. 'I can't just say what I did think--but I know there's something after this world.

Selwyn, is there a G.o.d? I wonder if there will be another chance for the men who have made a mess of things here.'

The American turned towards the young fellow, whose pale face looked singularly boyish, and had a wistfulness that touched him to his very heart. Durwent was gazing over the gra.s.s into the distance, oblivious of everything about him, and in the blue of his eyes, which borrowed l.u.s.tre from the morning, there was the mysticism of one who is searching for the land which lies beyond this life's horizon.

'I wonder,' repeated Durwent dreamily.

Selwyn tried to frame words for a reply, but skilled as he was in the interpretation of thought, he was dumb in confession of his faith. He longed to speak the things which might have brought comfort to the lad's hara.s.sed soul, but everything which came to him, echoing from his former years, was so inadequate, so tinctured with smug complacency. Was there a G.o.d?

The question left him mute.

'There are times,' went on Durwent, almost to himself, 'when my head is full of strange fancies--when I'm listening to music--or at dawn like this. While I was under arrest, a little French girl who had heard I was to die brought some flowers she had picked for me. When I think of that girl, and her flowers, and Elise, and the faithfulness of old Mathews, I do believe there is some kind of a G.o.d. . . . Selwyn'--unconsciously his hands stretched forward supplicatingly--'surely these things can't die? . . . There's been so much that's ugly and lonely in my life. . . .

Don't you believe that we fellows who have failed will be able to have a little of the things we've missed down here?'

'd.i.c.k,' said Selwyn hoa.r.s.ely, 'I believe'----

The words faltered on his lips, and in silence the two men stood together in the presence of the day's birth. There was a strange calm in the air.

The dew on the gra.s.s caught a faint sparkle from a ray of sunlight that penetrated the eastern skies.

V.

'_The Boches, sir! They're coming!_'