No Man's Land Part 19

"I don't believe you've been listening to me, Billy." The egregious Jackson emitted a plaintive wail. "I don't believe you've heard a word I said."

"Perfectly correct in both statements, dear boy!" Billy rose abruptly to his feet and smacked him on the back. "One must give up something in Lent, you know."

"But it isn't Lent." Jackson looked aggrieved. "And you've made me spill my drink."

But he spoke to the empty air and a melancholy waiter, for Billy was back in the ballroom, waiting. . . .

"You smiled at me, lady, a while ago," he said softly in her ear, as they swung gently through the crowded room. "I thought it was a smile that said things. Was thy servant very presumptuous in thus reading his queen's glance? Confound you, sir; that's my back!"

He glared furiously at a bull-necked thruster in a pink coat.

"Hush, Billy!" laughed the girl, as they lost him in the crowd.

"That's our master!"

"I don't care a hang who he is, but he's rammed one of my brace-b.u.t.tons into my spine! He's the sort of man who knocks you down and tramples on your face, after supper!"

For a few moments they continued in silence, perhaps the two best dancers in the room, and gradually she seemed to come closer to him, to give herself up entirely to him, until, as in a dream, they moved like one being and the music softly died away. For a moment the man stood still, pressing the girl close to him, and then, with a slight sigh that was almost one of pain, he let her go.

"Are you glad I taught you to dance?" she asked laughingly; while the room shouted for an encore.

"Glad," he whispered, "glad! Ah! my lady, my lady, to dance with you is the nearest approach to heaven that we poor mortals may have. For all that"--he steered her swiftly through the expectant couples towards a door covered with a curtain--"I want an answer to a question I asked you just before my spine was broken!" He held up the curtain for her to pa.s.s through, and piloted her to an easy-chair hidden behind some screens in a discreetly lighted room. "Did your smile say things, my lady? Did you tell me something as you went into the ballroom with that long-haired lawyer?"

"My dear boy, I wasn't smiling at you! I was smiling at that nice Mr.

Jackson man."

"Molly, you're a liar! You know you hate that a.s.s; you told me so yourself yesterday!"

"All the more reason to smile at him. Billy, give me a cigarette."

She leaned towards him slightly as he offered her his case, and their eyes met. Her breath came a little quicker as she read the message blazing out of his, and then she looked away again. "And a match, please," she continued quietly.

"Confound the match and the cigarette, too!" His voice was shaking.

"Molly, Molly, I know I'm mad! I know it's just the height of idiocy from a so-called worldly point of view, but I can't help it. I've tried and struggled; I've been away for two years and haven't seen you.

But, oh! my dear, the kisses you gave me when you were a flapper, before you came out, before your mother got this bee in her bonnet about some big marriage for you--those kisses are still burning my lips. I can feel them now, princess, and the remembrance of 'em drives me mad! I know I'm asking you to chuck your mother's ambitions; I know I've got nothing to offer you, except the old name, which doesn't count for much these days. But, oh! my lady, I just wors.h.i.+p the very ground you walk on. Is there just a chance for me? I'd simply slave for you, if you'd let me!"

Through the closed door came stealing the soft music of a waltz, while from another corner came the sound of a whispered tete-a-tete. Very still was the girl as she sat in the big arm-chair, with the man pleading pa.s.sionately at her side. Once she caught her breath quickly when he recalled the time gone by--the time before her mother's political ambitions had ruthlessly waged war on her, and done their best to drive Nature out of her outlook on life; and, when he had finished speaking, she gave a little tired smile.

"Billy boy," she whispered, "is that how you've felt about it all this while?"

He made no answer, but, stretching out his hands, he took hold of her two wrists.

"You've really remembered those kisses when we were kids?" she went on softly.

"Remembered them? Dear heavens, my lady, I wouldn't lose that remembrance for untold wealth! It's been with me in Alaska; it's been with me in Hong Kong. I've woken up at nights with the feel of your lips on mine, and all the glory of you, and the sweetness; and it's helped me on when everything was black, and made things bright when the world was rotten!" With a bitter sigh he took his hands away and sat back in his chair. "And I've failed! Jove! the wild schemes and the plans, the golden visions and the Eldorados--all failed. Just a little money, just enough to have a burst in England, just enough to be able to see you. And then it slipped out. Lady, dear, I never meant to before I came to the Towers. I knew you were there, but I never meant to ask you. Wash it out, my princess; wash it out! I haven't said a word. You've been teaching me a new step; let's go back and dance.

I've been mad this evening, and, unless we go back and dance, I can't guarantee remaining sane!"

But the girl made no move. With parted lips she swayed towards him, while he watched her, with the veins standing out on his forehead.

"Billy--I don't care; I'm mad, too!" The scent she used was mounting to his brain--the nearness of her was driving him mad.

"Molly, get back to that ballroom; get back quick, or----" He spoke through his clenched teeth.

"Or what, Billy boy?" She smiled deliciously.

And then he kissed her: a kiss that seemed to draw her soul to her lips: a kiss that lifted him until he travelled through endless s.p.a.ces in a great aching void where time and distance ceased, and nothing happened save a wonderful ecstasy, and ever and anon the mighty booming of a giant drum.

He seemed to be treading on air, and though the ballroom had vanished, and the discreet apartment with shaded lights had faded away, yet he was very conscious of the nearness of his girl. But just now, he could not see her--she eluded him, leaving an ever-present feeling that she would be waiting for him round the next of those intangible ma.s.ses he seemed to be drifting through.

"You don't mind waiting, my princess?" he murmured ceaselessly. "After this war it will all come right. Just now I've got to go--I must go out there; but afterwards, it will all come right--and we'll live in a house in the country and grow cabbages and pigs. You'll wait, you say?

Ah! my dear, my dear; it's sweet of you; but perhaps you ought to have married the lawyer man. You might have been Mrs. Prime Minister one of these days."

For a while the tired brain refused to act; the man felt himself falling into unplumbed depths--depths which echoed with monstrous reverberations.

"Molly, where are you, dear? It's cold, and my head is throbbing to beat the band. If only that cursed drum would stop! Do you hear it echoing through the air? And the noise hurts--hurts like h.e.l.l, Molly.

Ah! Heaven, but it's cold; and I can't see you, my lady; I don't know where you are."

Once again he became conscious of figures moving around him. They seemed to be carrying motionless men past his feet--men on stretchers covered with blankets. With staring eyes he watched the proceeding, trying to understand what was happening. In front of him was a window in which the gla.s.s had been smashed, leaving great jagged pieces sticking out from the sides of the frame. He wondered vaguely why it had been left in such a dangerous condition; when he and Molly had their house such a thing would never be allowed to happen--if it did it would be mended at once. He asked one of the pa.s.sing figures what had caused the damage, and when he got no answer he angrily repeated the question.

He fretted irritably because no one seemed to take any notice of him, and suddenly his head began throbbing worse than ever. But the hazy indistinctness was gone; the man was acutely conscious of everything around him. Memory had come back, and he knew where he was and why he was there. He remembered the fierce artillery bombardment; he recalled getting over the parapet, out on to the brown sh.e.l.l-pocked earth, sodden and heavy with the drenching rain; he recalled the steady shamble over the ground with boots so coated with wet mud that they seemed to drag him back. Then clear in his mind came the picture of Chilcote cheering, shouting, lifting them on to the ruins of what once had been a village; he saw Chilcote falter, stop, and, with a curious spinning movement, crash forward on to his face; he saw the Germans--he saw fierce-faced men like animals at bay, snarling, fighting; he heard once again that trembling cry of "_Kamerade_"; and then--a blank. The amazing thing was that it was all jumbled up with Molly. He seemed to have been with her lately--and yet she couldn't have been out there with him. He puzzled a bit, and then gave it up: it hurt his head so terribly to think. He just lay still, gazing fixedly at the jagged, torn pane of gla.s.s. . . .

"They are all out, Doctor, except this one."

A woman was speaking close beside him, and his eyes slowly travelled round in the direction of the voice. It was another woman--a woman he hadn't seen before--swaying slightly as if she would drop.

"Good heavens! it's Billy Saunders!"

A man in khaki was bending over him--a man whom he recognised as a civilian doctor he'd known at home--a man, moreover, who knew Molly.

"Do you know me, old chap?"

"Of course," answered the man. "What's all the trouble?"

The doctor bit his lip, and the man noticed his hand clench hard. Then there started a low-voiced conversation, a conversation to which he listened attentively--his hearing seemed abnormally acute.

"Has he spoken since he's been in, sister?"

"No--only those dreadful moans. The whole of his face--absolutely hopeless--spinal cord."

The man lying motionless caught the disjointed words. What did they mean? They were mad--insane. Dying? He--Billy Saunders! What about Molly--his Molly? What about. . . . Gentle fingers once again touched his head, and, looking up, he saw the doctor's eyes fixed on his.

"They're sh.e.l.ling the hospital, dear old man; we've got to get---- Great Scott, look out!"

Like the moan of a giant insect, the shrill whine came through the air, rising to an overwhelming scream. There was a deafening crash--a great hole was torn in the wall just by the window with the jagged pane, and the room filled with stifling black fumes. A sudden agonising stab, and the man, looking up, saw Molly in front of him. She was standing in the acrid smoke--beckoning.

"I'm coming, dear, I'm coming!" he cried; "it's good of you to have waited, girl of mine--so good."

"Are you hurt, sister?" The doctor, who had been crouching by the bed, stood up.