Jim Brent Read online

  “They are going to relieve us tonight, Sergeant-Major.” The two men with tired eyes faced one another in the major’s dugout. The bombardment was over, and the dying rays of a blood-red sun glinted through the door. “I think they took it well.”

  “They did, sir – very well.”

  “What are the casualties? Any idea?”

  “Somewhere about seventy or eighty, sir – But I don’t know the exact numbers.”

  “As soon as it’s dark I’m going back to headquarters. Captain Standish will take command.”

  “That there Meyrick is reported missing, sir.”

  “Missing! He’ll turn up somewhere – if he hasn’t been hit.”

  “Probably walked into the German trenches by mistake,” grunted the C-S-M dispassionately, and retired. Outside the dugout men had moved the corporal; but the red pools still remained – stagnant at the bottom of the trench…

  “Well, you’re through all right now, Major,” said a voice in the doorway, and an officer with the white and blue brassard of the signals came in and sat down. “There are so many wires going back that have been laid at odd times, that it’s difficult to trace them in a hurry.” He gave a ring on the telephone, and in a moment the thin, metallic voice of the man at the other end broke the silence.

  “All right. Just wanted to make sure we were through. Ring off.”

  “I remember kicking that damn’ thing this morning when I found we were cut off,” remarked Seymour, with a weary smile. “Funny how childish one is at times.”

  “Aye – but natural. This war’s damnable.” The two men fell silent. “I’ll have a bit of an easy here,” went on the signal officer after a while, “and then go down with you.”

  A few hours later the two men clambered out of the back of the trench. “It’s easier walking, and I know every stick,” remarked the major. “Make for that stunted pollard first.”

  Dimly the tree stood outlined against the sky – a conspicuous mark and signpost. It was the signal officer who tripped over it first – that huddled quiet body, and gave a quick ejaculation. “Somebody caught it here, poor devil. Look out – duck.”

  A flare shot up into the night, and by its light the two motionless officers close to the pollard looked at what they had found.

  “How the devil did he get here!” muttered Seymour. “It’s one of my men.”

  “Was he anywhere near you when you kicked the telephone?” asked the other, and his voice was a little hoarse.

  “He may have been – I don’t know. Why?”

  “Look at his right hand.” From the tightly clenched fingers two broken ends of wire stuck out.

  “Poor lad.” The major bit his lip. “Poor lad – I wonder. They called him the Company Idiot. Do you think…?”

  “I think he came out to find the break in the wire,” said the other quietly. “And in doing so he found the answer to the big riddle.”

  “I knew he’d make good – I knew it all along. He used to dream of big things – something big for the regiment.”

  “And he’s done a big thing, by Jove,” said the signal officer gruffly, “for it’s the motive that counts. And he couldn’t know that he’d got the wrong wire.”

  “When ’e doesn’t forget, ’e does things wrong.”

  As I said, both the sergeant-major and his officer proved right according to their own lights.

  James Henry

  James Henry was the sole remaining son of his mother, and she was a widow. His father, some twelve months previously, had inadvertently encountered a motor car travelling at great speed, and had forthwith been laid to rest. His sisters – whom James Henry affected to despise – had long since left the parental roof and gone to seek their fortunes in the great world; while his brothers had in all cases died violent deaths, following in the steps of their lamented father. In fact, as I said, James Henry was alone in the world saving only for his mother: and as she’d married again since his father’s death he felt that his responsibility so far as she was concerned was at an end. In fact, he frequently cut her when he met her about the house.

  Relations had become particularly strained after this second matrimonial venture. An aristocrat of the most unbending description himself, he had been away during the period of her courtship – otherwise, no doubt, he would have protected his father’s stainless escutcheon. As it was, he never quite recovered from the shock.

  It was at breakfast one morning that he heard the news. Lady Monica told him as she handed him his tea. “James Henry,” she remarked reproachfully, “your mother is a naughty woman.” True to his aristocratic principle of stoical calm, he continued to consume his morning beverage. There were times when the mention of his mother bored him to extinction. “A very naughty woman,” she continued. “Dad” – she addressed a man who had must come into the room – “it’s occurred.”

  “What – have they come?”

  “Yes – last night. Five.”

  “Are they good ones?”

  Lady Alice laughed. “I was just telling James Henry what I thought of his family when you came in. I’m afraid Harriet Emily is incorrigible.”

  “Look at James!” exclaimed the Earl – “he’s spilled his tea all over the carpet.” He was inspecting the dishes on the sideboard as he spoke.

  “He always does. His whiskers dribble. Jervis tells me that he thinks Harriet Emily must have – er – flirted with a most undesirable acquaintance.”

  “Oh, has she?” Her father opened the morning paper and started to enjoy his breakfast. “We must drown ’em, my dear, drown – Hullo! the Russians have crossed the–” It sounded like an explosion in a soda-water factory, and James Henry protested.

  “Quite right, Henry. He oughtn’t to do it at breakfast. It doesn’t really make one any happier. Did you know about your mother? Now don’t gobble your food.” Lady Monica held up an admonishing finger. “Four of your brothers and sisters are more or less respectable, James, but there’s one – there’s one that is distinctly reminiscent of a dachshund. Oh! ’Arriet, ’Arriet – I’m ashamed of you.”

  James Henry sneezed heavily and got down from the table. Always a perfect gentleman, he picked up the crumbs round his chair, and even went so far as to salvage a large piece of sausage skin which had slipped on to the floor. Then, full of rectitude and outwardly unconcerned, he retired to a corner behind a cupboard and earnestly contemplated a little hole in the floor.

  Outwardly calm – yes: that at least was due to the memory of his blue-blooded father. But inwardly he seethed. With his head on one side he alternately sniffed and blew as he had done regularly every morning for the past two months. His father’s wife the mother of a sausage dog! Incredible! It must have been that miserable fat beast who lived at the ‘Pig and Whistle’. The insolence – the inconceivable impertinence of such an unsightly corpulent traducer daring to ally himself with ‘One of the Fox Terriers’. He growled slightly in his disgust, and three mice inside the wall laughed gently. But – still, the girls are ever frail. He blushed slightly at some recollection, and realised that he must make allowances. But a sausage dog! Great heavens!

  “James – avançons, mon brave.” Lady Monica was standing in the window. “We will hie us to the village. Dad, don’t forget that our branch of the Federated Association of Women War Workers are drilling here this afternoon.”

  “Good heavens! my dear girl – is it?” Her father gazed at her in alarm. “I think – er – I think I shall have to – er – run up to Town – er – this afternoon.”

  “I thought you’d have to, old dear. In fact, I’ve ordered the car for you. Come along, Henry – we must go and get a boy scout to be bandaged.”

  James Henry gave one last violently facial contortion at the entrance of the mouse’s lair, and rose majestically to his feet. If she wanted to go out, he fully realised that he must go with her: Emily would have to wait. He would go round later and see his poor misguided mother and reason with her; but just at present th
e girl was his principal duty. She generally asked his advice on various things when they went for a walk, and the least he could do was to pretend to be interested at any rate.

  Apparently this morning she was in need of much counsel and help. Having arrived at a clearing in the wood, on the way to the village, she sat down on the fallen trunk of a tree, and addressed him.

  “James – what am I to do? Derek is coming this afternoon before he goes back to France. What shall I tell him, Henry – what shall I tell him? Because I know he’ll ask me again. Thank you, old man, but you’re not very helpful, and I’d much sooner you kept it yourself.”

  Disgustedly James Henry removed the carcass of a field mouse he had just procured, and resigned himself to the inevitable.

  “I’m fond of him; I like him – in fact at times: more than like him. But is it the real thing? Now what do you think, James Henry? – tell me all that is in your mind. Ought I–”

  It was then that he gave his celebrated rendering of a young typhoon, owing to the presence of a foreign substance – to wit, a fly – in a ticklish spot on his nose.

  “You think that, do you? Well, perhaps you’re right. Come on, my lad, we must obtain the victim for this afternoon. I wonder if those little boys like it? To do some good and kindly action each day – that’s their motto, James. And as one person to another you must admit that to be revived from drowning, resuscitated from fainting, brought to from an epileptic fit, and have two knees, an ankle, and a collar-bone set at the same time is some good action even for a boy scout.”

  It was not until after lunch that James Henry paid his promised call on his mother. Maturer considerations had but strengthened his resolve to make allowances. After all, these things do happen in the best families. He was, indeed, prepared to be magnanimous and forgive; he was even prepared to be interested; the only thing he wasn’t prepared for was the nasty bite he got on his ear. That settled it. It was then that he finally washed his hands of his undutiful parent. As he told her, he felt more sorrow than anger; he should have realised that anyone who could have dealings with a sausage hound must be dead to all sense of decency – and that the only thing he asked was that in the future she would conceal the fact that they were related.

  Then he left her – and trotting round to the front of the house, found great activity in progress on the lawn.

  “Good heavens! James Henry, do they often do this?” With a shout of joy he recognised the speaker. And having told him about Harriet, and blown heavily at a passing spider and then trodden on it, he sat down beside the soldier on the steps. The game on the lawn at first sight looked dull; and he only favoured it with a perfunctory glance. In fact, what on earth there was in it to make the soldier beside him shake and shake while the tears periodically rolled down his face was quite beyond Henry.

  The principal player seemed to be a large man – also in khaki – with a loud voice. Up to date he had said nothing but “Now then, ladies,” at intervals and in a rising crescendo. Then it all became complicated.

  “Now then, ladies, when I says ‘Number’ – you numbers from right to left in an heven tone of voice. The third lady from the left ’as no lady behind ’er – seeing as we’re a hodd number. She forms the blank file. Yes, you, mum – you, I means.”

  “What are you pointing at me for, my good man?” The vicar’s wife suddenly realised she was being spoken to. “Am I doing anything wrong?”

  “No, mum, no. Not this time. I was only saying as you ’ave no one behind you.”

  “Oh! I’ll go there at once – I’m so sorry.” She retired to the rear rank. “Dear Mrs Goodenough, did I tread upon your foot? – so clumsy of me! Oh, what is that man saying now? But you’ve just told me to come here. You did nothing of the sort? How rude!”

  But as I said, the game did not interest James Henry, so he wandered away and played in some bushes. There were distinct traces of a recently moving mole, which was far more to the point. Then having found – after a diligent search and much delight in pungent odours – that the mole was a has-been, our Henry disappeared for a space. And far be it from me to disclose where he went: his intentions were always strictly honourable.

  When he appeared again the Earl had just returned from London, and was talking to the tall soldier man. The Women War Workers had departed, and, as James Henry approached, his mistress came out and joined the two men.

  “Have those dreadful women gone, my dear?” asked the Earl as he saw her.

  “You’re very rude, Dad. The Federated Association of the WWW is a very fine body of patriotic women. What did you think of our drill, Derek?”

  “Wonderful, Monica. Quite the most wonderful thing I’ve ever seen.” The soldier solemnly offered her a cigarette.

  “You men are all jealous. We’re coming out to France as VADs soon.”

  “Good Lord, Derek – you ought to have seen their first drill. In one corner of the lawn that poor devil of a sergeant with his face a shiny purple alternately sobbed and bellowed like a bull – while twenty-seven WWW’s tied themselves into a knot like a rugby football scrum, and told one another how they’d done it. It was the most heart-rending sight I’ve ever seen.”

  “Dear old Dad!” The girl blew a cloud of smoke. “You told it better last time.”

  “Don’t interrupt, Monica. The final tableau–”

  “Which one are you going to tell him, dear? The one where James Henry bit the vicar’s wife in the leg, or the one where the sergeant with a choking cry of ‘Double, damn you!’ fell fainting into the rhododendron bush?”

  “I think the second is the better,” remarked the soldier pensively. “Dogs always bite the vicar’s wife’s leg. Not a hobby I should personally take up, but–”

  They all laughed. “Now run indoors, old ’un, and tell John to get you a mixed vermouth – I want to talk to Derek.” The girl gently pushed her father towards the open window.

  It was at that particular moment in James Henry’s career that, having snapped at a wasp and partially killed it, he inadvertently sat on the carcass by mistake. As he explained to Harriet Emily afterwards, it wasn’t so much the discomfort of the proceeding which annoyed him, as the unfeeling laughter of the spectators. And it was only when she’d bitten him in the other ear that he remembered he had disowned her that very afternoon.

  But elsewhere, though he was quite unaware of the fact, momentous decisions as to his future were being taken. The Earl had gone in to get his mixed vermouth, and outside his daughter and the soldier man sat and talked. It was fragmentary, disjointed – the talk of old friends with much in common. Only in the man’s voice there was that suppressed note which indicates things more than any mere words. Monica heard it and sighed – she’d heard it so often before in his voice. James Henry had heard it too during a previous talk – one which he had graced with his presence – and had gone to the extent of discussing it with a friend. On this occasion he had been gently dozing on the man’s knee, when suddenly he had been rudely awakened. In his dreams he had heard her say, “Dear old Derek – I’m afraid it’s No. You see, I’m not sure”; which didn’t seem much to make a disturbance about.

  “Would you believe it,” he remarked later, “but as she spoke the soldier man’s grip tightened on my neck till I was almost choked!”

  “What did you do?” asked his friend, a disreputable ‘long dog’. “Did you bite him?”

  “I did not.” James Henry sniffed. “It was not a biting moment. Tact was required. I just gave a little cough, and instantly he took his hand away. ‘Old man,’ he whispered to me – she’d left us – ‘I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to – I wasn’t thinking.’ So I licked his hand to show him I understood.”

  “I know what you mean. I’m generally there when my bloke comes out of prison, and he always kicks me. But it’s meant kindly.”

  “As a matter of fact, that is not what I mean – though I dare say your experiences on such matters are profound.” James was becoming blue-blooded. “T
he person who owns you, and who is in the habit of going to – er – prison, no doubt shows his affection for you in that way. And very suitable too. But the affair to which I alluded is quite different. The soldier man is almost as much in my care as the girl. And so I know his feelings. At the time, he was suffering, though why I don’t understand; and therefore it was up to me to suffer with him. It helped him.”

  “H’m,” the lurcher grunted. “Dare say you’re right. What about a trip to the gorse? I haven’t seen a rabbit for some time.”

  And if Henry had not sat on the wasp his neck might again have been squeezed that evening. As it was, the danger period was over by the time he reappeared and jumped into the girl’s lap. Not only had the sixth proposal been gently turned down – but James’ plans for the near future had been settled for him in a most arbitrary manner.

  “Well, old man, how’s the tail?” laughed the soldier. James Henry yawned – the subject seemed a trifle personal even amongst old friends. “Have you heard you’re coming with me to France?”

  “And you must bring him to me as soon as I get over,” cried the girl.

  “At once, dear lady. I’ll ask for special leave, and if necessary an armistice.”

  “Won’t you bark at the Huns, my cherub?” She laughed and got up. “Go to your uncle – I’m going to dress.”

  What happened then was almost more than even the most long-suffering terrier could stand. He was unceremoniously bundled into his uncle’s arms by his mistress, and at the same moment she bent down. A strange noise was heard such as he had frequently noted, coming from the top of his own head, when his mistress was in an affectionate mood – a peculiar form of exercise, he deduced, which apparently amused some people. But the effect on the soldier was electrical. He sprang out of his chair with a shout – “Monica – you little devil – come back,” and James Henry fell winded to the floor. But a flutter of white disappearing indoors was the only answer…