Three Soldiers Part 90

"Man, you've got to be there."

"Oh, I'll turn up," said Andrews with a smile.

They shook hands nervously.

"Say, Andy," said Chrisfield, still holding on to Andrews's hand, "Ah went A.W.O.L. 'cause a sergeant...G.o.d d.a.m.n it; it's weighin' on ma mind awful these days.... There's a sergeant that knows."

"What you mean?"

"Ah told ye about Anderson...Ah know you ain't tole anybody, Andy."

Chrisfield dropped Andrews's hand and looked at him in the face with an unexpected sideways glance. Then he went on through clenched teeth: "Ah swear to Gawd Ah ain't tole another livin' soul.... An' the sergeant in Company D knows."

"For G.o.d's sake, Chris, don't lose your nerve like that."

"Ah ain't lost ma nerve. Ah tell you that guy knows."

Chrisfield's voice rose, suddenly shrill.

"Look, Chris, we can't stand talking out here in the street like this.

It isn't safe."

"But mebbe you'll be able to tell me what to do. You think, Andy. Mebbe, tomorrow, you'll have thought up somethin' we can do...So long."

Chrisfield walked away hurriedly. Andrews looked after him a moment, and then went in through the court to the house where his room was.

At the foot of the stairs an old woman's voice startled him.

"Mais, Monsieur Andre, que vous avez l'air etrange; how funny you look dressed like that."

The concierge was smiling at him from her cubbyhole beside the stairs.

She sat knitting with a black shawl round her head, a tiny old woman with a hooked bird-like nose and eyes sunk in depressions full of little wrinkles, like a monkey's eyes.

"Yes, at the town where I was demobilized, I couldn't get anything else," stammered Andrews.

"Oh, you're demobilized, are you? That's why you've been away so long.

Monsieur Valters said he didn't know where you were.... It's better that way, isn't it?"

"Yes," said Andrews, starting up the stairs.

"Monsieur Valters is in now," went on the old woman, talking after him.

"And you've got in just in time for the first of May."

"Oh, yes, the strike," said Andrews, stopping half-way up the flight.

"It'll be dreadful," said the old woman. "I hope you won't go out. Young folks are so likely to get into trouble...Oh, but all your friends have been worried about your being away so long."

"Have they?'" said Andrews. He continued up the stairs.

"Au revoir, Monsieur."

"Au revoir, Madame."

III

"No, nothing can make me go back now. It's no use talking about it."

"But you're crazy, man. You're crazy. One man alone can't buck the system like that, can he, Henslowe?"

Walters was talking earnestly, leaning across the table beside the lamp. Henslowe, who sat very stiff on the edge of a chair, nodded with compressed lips. Andrews lay at full length on the bed, out of the circle of light.

"Honestly, Andy," said Henslowe with tears in his voice, "I think you'd better do what Walters says. It's no use being heroic about it."

"I'm not being heroic, Henny," cried Andrews, sitting up on the bed.

He drew his feet under him, tailor fas.h.i.+on, and went on talking very quietly. "Look.. It's a purely personal matter. I've got to a point where I don't give a d.a.m.n what happens to me. I don't care if I'm shot, or if I live to be eighty...I'm sick of being ordered round. One more order shouted at my head is not worth living to be eighty... to me.

That's all. For G.o.d's sake let's talk about something else."

"But how many orders have you had shouted at your head since you got in this School Detachment? Not one. You can put through your discharge application probably...." Walters got to his feet, letting the chair crash to the floor behind him. He stopped to pick it up. "Look here; here's my proposition," he went on. "I don't think you are marked A.W.O.L. in the School office. Things are so d.a.m.n badly run there.

You can turn up and say you've been sick and draw your back pay. And n.o.body'll say a thing. Or else I'll put it right up to the guy who's top sergeant. He's a good friend of mine. We can fix it up on the records some way. But for G.o.d's sake don't ruin your whole life on account of a little stubbornness, and some d.a.m.n fool anarchistic ideas or other a feller like you ought to have had more sense than to pick up...."

"He's right, Andy," said Henslowe in a low voice.

"Please don't talk any more about it. You've told me all that before,"

said Andrews sharply. He threw himself back on the bed and rolled over towards the wall.

They were silent a long time. A sound of voices and footsteps drifted up from the courtyard.

"But, look here, Andy," said Henslowe nervously stroking his moustache.

"You care much more about your work than any abstract idea of a.s.serting your right of individual liberty. Even if you don't get caught.... I think the chances of getting caught are mighty slim if you use your head.... But even if you don't, you haven't enough money to live for long over here, you haven't...."

"Don't you think I've thought of all that? I'm not crazy, you know. I've figured up the balance perfectly sanely. The only thing is, you fellows can't understand. Have you ever been in a labor battalion? Have you ever had a man you'd been chatting with five minutes before deliberately knock you down? Good G.o.d, you don't know what you are talking about, you two.... I've got to be free, now. I don't care at what cost. Being free's the only thing that matters."

Andrews lay on his back talking towards the ceiling.

Henslowe was on his feet, striding nervously about the room.

"As if anyone was ever free," he muttered.

"All right, quibble, quibble. You can argue anything away if you want to. Of course, cowardice is the best policy, necessary for survival. The man who's got most will to live is the most cowardly... go on." Andrews's voice was shrill and excited, breaking occasionally like a half-grown boy's voice.

"Andy, what on earth's got hold of you?... G.o.d, I hate to go away this way," added Henslowe after a pause.

"I'll pull through all right, Henny. I'll probably come to see you in Syria, disguised as an Arab sheik." Andrews laughed excitedly.

"If I thought I'd do any good, I'd stay.... But there's nothing I can do. Everybody's got to settle their own affairs, in their own d.a.m.n fool way. So long, Walters."

Walters and Henslowe shook hands absently.