Tell England Part 36

"Oh, only trying conclusions with an H.E., padre." The mouth smiled at the corners.

"What about a cup of tea, now? Could you drink it?"

"I'll--try, padre." The eyes twinkled a little.

So the chaplain brought a mug of stewed tea, and Penny, laughing weakly, said:

"You'll--have to pour it down--for me, padre. I can't move a muscle.

These b.l.o.o.d.y bandages--sorry, padre--these bandages. O G.o.d--"

"In pain?" gently inquired the chaplain.

"No. Only a prisoner. I can't move. Pour the tea down."

He gulped a little of the drink, and, dropping the heavily-fringed eyelids, so that he appeared to be asleep, muttered:

"I suppose--I haven't a dog's chance. Find out if--I'm done for.

Find out for me, please."

"I asked the doctor before I came to you, old chap."

On hearing this, Penny opened and shut his eyes, and remained so long just breathing that the chaplain wondered if he had lost consciousness. But the eyes unclosed again, and the lips asked:

"Aren't you going to tell me, padre?"

"Yes, I--you won't be a prisoner much longer, old chap."

Not a word said Penny, but stared in wonder at his informant. It was clear that he wanted to live, and to mould the world to his will.

There was a long silence, and then he murmured:

"Well, there are lots of others--who've gone through it--and lots more who'll--have to go." And he shut his eyes in weary submission.

The chaplain suggested a prayer with him, and Penny agreed in the half-jesting words: "But you'll--have to do it all for me, just as you poured the tea down. I'm no good at that sort of thing."

And, when the prayer was over, he said with his old haughtiness:

"You know, padre--I was thinking--while you prayed. I suppose I've led a selfish life--seeking my own ends--but, by Jove, I've had my good time--and am ready to pay for it--if I must." His eyes flashed defiantly. "If G.o.d puts me through it, _I_ shan't whine."

As the end drew nearer, he turned more and more into a child. After all, he had never come of age. He spoke about his mother, sending her his love, and saying: "I'm afraid, padre, that I led her a life--but I'll bet she'd rather have had me and my plagues than not.

Don't you think so?"

He mentioned us with affection as "those two kids," and sent the message that he hoped we at least should come through all right.

And then the lazy eyes closed in their last weariness, the impudent lips parted, and Penny was dead. The War had beaten him. It was too big a circ.u.mstance for him to tame.

--6

The night we heard of it, Doe threw himself into a chair and said:

"I'm miserable to-night, Rupert."

"So'm I," said I, looking out of the window over a moonlit sea.

"Poor old Penny. I don't know why it makes one feel a cur, but it does, doesn't it?"

"Surely," answered Doe.

For a time we smoked our pipes in silence. I gazed at the long silver pathway that the light of the moon had laid on the sea. Right on the horizon, where the pathway met the sky, a boat with a tall sail stood black against the light. Fancifully I imagined that its dark shape resembled the outline of a man--say, perhaps, the figure of Destiny--walking down the sparkling pathway towards us. I was in the mood to fancy such things. Then Doe from his chair said:

"Old Penny always took the lead with us, didn't he? He's taken it again."

"I don't see what you mean," answered I.

"Oh, it doesn't matter what I mean. I'm depressed to-night."

We spoke of it with the Colonel the next afternoon, when we were having tea in his private room.

"It doesn't seem fair," complained Doe. "He could have done anything with his life," and he added rather tritely: "Penny's story which might have been monumental is now only a sort of broken pillar over a churchyard grave."

"Nonsense," snapped the Colonel. "It was splendid, perfectly splendid." And he arose from his chair and took down from a shelf a little blue volume bearing the t.i.tle "1914." With a pencil he underlined certain phrases in a sonnet, and handed the book to us.

Doe brought his head close to mine, and we leant over the marked page and read the lines together:

"These laid the world away, poured out the red Sweet wine of youth, gave up the years to be Of hope and joy--

Blow, bugles, blow-- n.o.bleness walks in our ways again--"

The Colonel--how like him!--saw the story of Pennybet, not as a broken pillar, but as a graceful, upright column, with a richly foliated capital.

--7

The march of History in these wonderful months brought with it an event that stirred the world. This was the first great landing of the British Forces on the toe of the Gallipoli Peninsula, in their attempt to win a way for the Allied Navy through the Straits of the Dardanelles. On April 25th, 1915, as all the world knows, the men of the 29th Division came up like a sea-breeze out of the sea, and, driving the Turks and Germans from their coastal defences, swept clear for themselves a small tract of breathing room across that extremity of Turkey. Leaping out of their boats, and cras.h.i.+ng through a murderous fire, they won a footing on Cape h.e.l.les, and planted their feet firmly on the invaded territory.

Three Kensingtonians known to us fell dead in that costly battle.

Stanley, who tried me in the Prefects' Room, took seven machine-gun bullets in his body, and died in a lighter as it approached the beach. Lancaster, who in less grand years would undoubtedly have bowled for Oxford and England, lay down on W. Beach and died. And White, the gentle giant--Moles White, who swam so bravely in the Bramhall-Erasmus Race, was knocked out somewhere on the high ground inland.

And, almost immediately after that distant battle of the h.e.l.les beaches, in the early days of May, when England was all blossom and bud, our First Line of the Ches.h.i.+res was landed on Gallipoli to support the 29th Division. The news was all over the regiment in no time. The First Line had gone to the Dardanelles! Had we heard the latest? The First Line were actually on Gallipoli!

Consider what it meant to us. We were the Second Line, whose object was to supply reinforcing drafts to the First Line in whatever country it might be ordered to fight. The First Line--we were proud of the fact--had been the first territorial division to leave England. In September, 1914, it had sailed away, in an imposing convoy of transports escorted by cruisers and destroyers, under orders to garrison Egypt. There it had acted as the Army of Occupation till that April day when the 29th Division laughed at the prophecies of the German experts and stormed from the aegean Sea the beaches of Cape h.e.l.les. Scarcely had the news electrified Egypt before the First Line received its orders to embark for Overseas.

And every man of them knew what _that_ meant.

So all we of the 2nd Tenth seemed marked down like branded sheep for the Gallipoli front. The Colonel was full of it. With his elect mind that saw right into the heart of things, he quickly unveiled the poetry and romance of Britain's great enterprise at Gallipoli. He crowded all his young officers into his private room for a lecture on the campaign that was calling them. Having placed them on chairs, on the carpet, on the hearth-rug, and on the fender, he seated himself at his writing-table, like a hen in the midst of its chickens, and began:

"For epic and dramatic interest this Dardanelles business is easily top."

To the Colonel everything that he was enthusiastic about was epic and dramatic and "on top." Just as he told us that our day was _the_ day and our generation _the_ generation, so now he set out to a.s.sure us that Gallipoli was _the_ front.

"If you'll only get at the IDEAS behind what's going on at the h.e.l.les beaches," he declared, with a rap on the table, "you'll be thrilled, boys."