Chapter XII: The Man Who Could Not Get Drunk (3)

“It was after Colombo that matters came to a head. We left the P. & O. there, and got into another boat going direct to Rangoon. The weather was glorious—hot as blazes by day, and just right at night. And it was after dinner one evening a couple of days before we were due in, that quite inadvertently I butted into the pair of them in a secluded spot on deck. His arms were round her, and they both sounded a bit incoherent. Of course, there was no use pretending I hadn’t seen—they both looked up at me. I could only mutter my apology and withdraw. But I determined, even at the risk of being told to go to hell, to have a word with young Jack that night.

“‘Look here, old man,’ I said to him a bit later, ‘you’ve got a perfect right to request me to mind my own business, but I’m going to risk that. I saw you two to-night, kissing to beat the band—confound it all, there wasn’t a dog’s earthly of not seeing you—and what I want to know is where Morrison comes in, or if he’s gone out?’

“He looked at me a bit shamefacedly, then he lit a cigarette.

“‘Hugh,’ he said, with a twisted sort of smile, ‘I just worship the ground that girl walks on.’

“‘Maybe you do, Jack,’ I answered. ‘But the point is, what are her feelings on the matter?’

“He didn’t answer, and after a while I went on.

“‘This show is not my palaver,’ I said ordering two whisky pegs from the bartender. ‘It’s nothing to do with me, except that you and I are going to share the same bungalow, which is within easy calling distance of Morrison’s. Now, Morrison is a funny-tempered fellow, but, apart from that altogether, the situation seems strained to me. If she breaks off her engagement with him and marries you, well and good. But if she isn’t going to do that, if she still intends to marry Morrison—well, then, old man, although I hold no brief for him, you’re not playing the game. I’m no sky pilot, but do one thing or the other. Things are apt to happen, you know, Jack, when one’s at the back of beyond and a fellow gets playing around with another fellow’s wife—things which might make an English court of justice sit up and scratch its head.’

“He heard me out in silence, then he nodded his head.

“‘I know it must seem to you that I wasn’t playing the game,’ he said quietly. ‘But, believe me, it’s not for want of asking on my part that Molly won’t marry me. And I believe that she’s as fond of me—almost—as I am of her.’

“‘Then why the——?’ I began, but he stopped me with a weary little gesture of his hand.

“‘She feels that she’s bound to him in honour,’ he went on. ‘I’ve told her that there can’t be much question of honour if she doesn’t love him any more, but she seems to think that, as he has waited four years for her, she can’t break her bargain. And she’s very fond of him; if it hadn’t been for fate chucking us together she would never have thought of not marrying him. To-night we both forgot ourselves, I suppose; it won’t occur again.’

“He sat back staring out of the port-hole. The smoke-room was empty, and I fairly let myself go.

“‘You very silly idiot,’ I exploded, ‘do you imagine I’ve been delivering a homily on the sins of kissing another man’s fiancée. What I want to get into your fat head is this. You’re going to a place where the only white woman you’ll see from year’s end to year’s end is that girl, if she marries Morrison. You can prattle about honour, and forgetting yourselves, and not letting it occur again, and it’s worth the value of that used match. Sooner or later it will occur again, and it won’t stop at kissing next time. And then Morrison will probably kill you, or you’ll kill him, and there’ll be the devil to pay. For Heaven’s sake, man, look the thing square in the face. Either marry the girl, or cut her right out of your life. And you can only do that by cabling the firm—or I’ll cable them for you from Rangoon—asking to be posted to another district. I shall be sorry, but I’d far rather lose you than sit on the edge of a young volcano.’

“I left him to chew over what I’d said and went to bed, feeling infernally sorry for both of them. But the one fact over which there was no doubt whatever in my mind was that if Morrison married Molly Felsted, then Jack Manderby would have to be removed as far as geographically possible from temptation.

“My remarks apparently had some effect, because the next day Jack buttonholed me on deck.

“‘I’ve told Molly what you said last night, old man, and we’ve been talking it over. Morrison is meeting her apparently at Rangoon, and she has agreed to tell him what has happened. And when he knows how the land lies it’s bound to be all right. Of course, I’m sorry for him, poor devil, but——’ and he went babbling on in a way common to those in love.

“I’m afraid I didn’t pay much attention; I was thinking of Morrison and wondering whether Jack’s optimism was justified. Apart from his moroseness and drinking, there were other stories about the man—stories which are not good to hear about a white man. I’d never paid any heed to them before, but now they came back to me—those rumours of strange things, which only the ignorant sceptic pretends to scorn; strange things done in secret with native priests and holy men; strange things it is not well for the white man to dabble in. And someone had it that Rupert Morrison did more than dabble.”

The Ordinary Man paused and sipped his whisky.

“He met the boat at Rangoon,” he continued after a while, “and came on board. Evidently the girl wasted no time in telling him what had occurred, because it was barely ten minutes before I saw him coming towards Jack and myself. There was a smouldering look in his eyes, but outwardly he seemed quite calm. He gave me a curt nod, then he addressed himself exclusively to Jack.

“‘Miss Felsted has just made a somewhat unexpected announcement to me,’ he remarked.

“Jack bowed gravely. ‘I am more than sorry, Mr. Morrison,’ he said, ‘if it should appear to you that I have acted in any way caddishly.’ He paused a little constrainedly and I moved away. The presence of a third person at such an interview helps nobody. But once or twice I glanced at them during the next quarter of an hour, and it seemed to me that, though he was trying to mask it, the look of smouldering fury in Morrison’s eyes was growing more pronounced. From their attitude it struck me that Jack was protesting against some course of action on which the other was insisting, and I turned out to be right.

“‘Morrison has made the following proposal,’ he said irritably to me when their conversation had finished. ‘That Molly should be left here in Rangoon with the English chaplain and his wife—apparently he’d fixed that already—and that we—he and I—should both go up country for a month or six weeks. Neither of us to see her during that time, and at the end of it she to be free to choose. As he pointed out, I suppose quite rightly, he had been engaged to her for more than four years, and it was rather rough on him to upset everything for what might prove only a passing fancy, induced by being thrown together on board ship. Of course, I pointed out to him that this was no question of a passing fancy—but he insisted.’

“‘And you agreed?’ I asked.

“‘What else could I do?’ he cried. ‘Heaven knows I didn’t want to—it’s such awful rot and waste of time. But I suppose it is rather rough luck on the poor devil, and if it makes it any easier for him to have the agony prolonged a few weeks, it’s up to me to give him that satisfaction.’

“He went off to talk to the girl, leaving me smoking a cigarette thoughtfully; for, try as I would, I could not rid my mind of the suspicion that there was something behind this suggestion of Morrison’s—something sinister. Fortunately, Jack would be under my eye—in my bungalow; but even so, I felt uneasy. Morrison had been too quiet for safety, bearing in mind what manner of man he was.

“We landed shortly after and I went round to the club. I didn’t see Morrison—he seemed to have disappeared shortly after his interview with Jack; but he had given the girl full directions as to how to get to the chaplain’s house. Jack took her there, and I’d arranged with him that he should come round after and join me.

“The first man I ran into was McAndrew—a leather-faced Scotsman from up my part of the country—who was down in Rangoon on business.

“‘Seen the bridegroom?’ he grunted as soon as he saw me.

“‘Travelled out with the bride,’ I said briefly, not over-anxious to discuss the matter.

“‘And what sort of a lassie is she?’ he asked curiously.

“‘Perfectly charming,’ I answered, ringing the bell for a waiter.

“‘Is that so?’ he said slowly, and our eyes met. ‘Man,’ he added still more slowly, ‘it should not be, it should not be. Poor lassie! Poor lassie!’

“And then Jack Manderby came in, and I introduced him to two or three other fellows. I’d arranged to go up country that evening—train to Mandalay, and ride from there the following morning—and Jack, of course, was coming with me. He had said good-bye to the girl; he wasn’t going to see her again before he went up country, and we spent the latter part of the afternoon pottering round Rangoon. And it was as we were strolling down one of the native bazaars that he suddenly caught my arm.

“‘Look—there’s Morrison!’ he muttered. ‘I distinctly saw his face peering out of that shop.’

“I looked in the direction he was pointing. It was an ordinary native shop where one could buy ornaments and musical instruments and trash like that—but of Morrison I could see no sign.

“‘I don’t see him,’ I said; ‘and anyway there is no reason why he shouldn’t be in the shop if he wants to.’

“‘But he suddenly vanished,’ persisted Jack, ‘as if he didn’t want to be seen.’ He walked on with me slowly. ‘I don’t like that man, Hugh; I hate the swine. And it’s not because of Molly, either.’

“He shut up at that, and I did not pursue the topic. It struck me that we should have quite enough of Morrison in the next few weeks.”

The Ordinary Man paused and lit a cigarette; then he smiled a little grimly.

“I don’t know what I expected,” he continued thoughtfully: “I certainly never said a word to Jack as to my vague suspicions. But all the time during the first fortnight, while he was settling down into the job, I had the feeling that there was danger in the air. And then, when nothing happened, my misgivings began to go.

“After all, I said to myself, what could happen, anyway? And perhaps I had misjudged Rupert Morrison. On the two or three occasions that we met him he seemed perfectly normal; and though, somewhat naturally, he was not over effusive to Jack, that was hardly to be wondered at.

“And then one morning Jack came to breakfast looking as if he hadn’t slept very well. I glanced at him curiously, but made no allusion to his appearance.

“‘Did you hear that music all through the night?’ he said irritably, half-way through the meal. ‘Some infernal native playing a pipe or something just outside my window.’

“‘Why didn’t you shout at him to stop?’ I asked.

“‘I did. And I got up and looked.’ He took a gulp of tea; then he looked at me as if he were puzzled.

“‘There was no one there that I could see. Only something black that moved over the compound, about the size of a kitten.’

“‘He was probably just inside the jungle beyond the clearing,’ I said. ‘Heave half a brick at him if you hear it again.’

“We said no more, and I dismissed the matter from my mind. I was on the opposite side of the bungalow, and it would take more than a native playing on a pipe to keep me awake. But the following night the same thing happened—and the next, and the next.

“‘What sort of a noise is it?’ I asked him. ‘Surely to Heaven you’re sufficiently young and healthy not to be awakened by a bally fellow whistling?’

“‘It isn’t that that wakes me, Hugh,’ he answered slowly. ‘I wake before it starts. Each night about the same time I suddenly find myself wide awake—listening. Sometimes it’s ten minutes before it starts—sometimes almost at once; but it always comes. A faint, sweet whistle—three or four notes, going on and on—until I think I’ll go mad. It seems to be calling me.’

“‘But why the devil don’t you go and see what it is?’ I cried peevishly.

“‘Because’—and he stared at me with a shamefaced expression in his eyes—‘because I daren’t.’

“‘Rot!’ I said angrily. ‘Look here, young fellow, nerves are bad things anywhere—here they’re especially bad. You pull yourself together.’

“He flushed all over his face, and shut up like an oyster, which made me rather sorry I’d spoke so sharply. But one does hear funny noises in the jungle, and it doesn’t do to become fanciful.

“And then one evening McAndrew came over to dinner. It was during the meal that I mentioned Jack’s nocturnal serenader, expecting that Mac would treat it as lightly as I did.

“‘Seven times you’ve heard him, Jack, haven’t you,’ I said, ‘and always the same tune?’

“‘Always the same tune,’ he answered quietly.

“‘Can you whistle it now?’ asked McAndrew, laying down his knife and fork and staring at Jack.

“‘Easily,’ said Jack. ‘It goes like this’—and he whistled about six notes. ‘On and on it goes—never varying——Why, McAndrew, what the devil is the matter?’

“I glanced at McAndrew in amazement; then out of the corner of my eye I saw the native servant, who was shivering like a jelly.

“‘Man—are you sure?’ said Mac, and his face was white.

“‘Of course I’m sure,’ answered Jack quietly. ‘Why?’

“‘That tune you whistled—is not good for a white man to hear.’ The Scotsman seemed strangely uneasy. ‘And ye’ve heard it seven nights? Do you know it, Walton?’

“‘I do not,’ I said grimly. ‘What’s the mystery?’

“But McAndrew was shaking his head dourly, and for a while he did not answer.

“‘Mind ye,’ he said at length, ‘I’m not saying there’s anything in it at all, but I would not care to hear that whistled outside my window. I heard it once—years ago—when I was ’way up in the Arakan Mountains. Soft and sweet it was—rising and falling in the night air, and going on ceaselessly. ’Way up above me was a monastery, one into which no white man has ever been. And the noise was coming from there. I had to go; my servants wouldn’t stop. And when I asked them why, they told me that the priests were calling for a sacrifice. If they stopped, they told me, it might be one of us. That no one could tell how Death would come, or to whom, but come it must—when the Pipes of Death were heard. And the tune you whistled, Manderby, was the tune the Pipes of Death were playing.’

“‘But that’s all bunkum, Mac,’ I said angrily. ‘We’re not in the Arakans here.’

“‘Maybe,’ he answered doggedly. ‘But I’m a Highlander, and—I would not care to hear that tune.’

“I could see Jack was impressed; as a matter of fact I was myself—more than I cared to admit. Sounds rot here, I know, but out there, with the dim-lit forest around one, it was different.

“McAndrew was stopping with us that night. Jack, with the stubbornness of the young, had flatly refused to change his room, and turned in early, while Mac and I sat up talking. And it was not till we went to bed ourselves that I again alluded to the whistle.

“‘You don’t really think it meant anything, Mac, do you?’ I asked him, and he shrugged his shoulders.

“‘Maybe it is just a native who has heard it,’ he said guardedly, and further than that he refused to commit himself.

“I suppose it was about two o’clock when I was awakened by a hand being thrust through my mosquito curtains.

“‘Walton, come at once!’ It was McAndrew’s voice, and it was shaking. ‘There’s devil’s work going on, I tell you—devil’s work.’

“I was up in a flash, and together we crept along the passage towards Jack’s room. Almost instinctively I’d picked up a gun, and I held it ready as we paused by the door.

“‘Do you hear it?’ whispered Mac a little fearfully, and I nodded. Sweet and clear the notes rose and fell, on and on and on in the same cadence. Sometimes the whistler seemed to be far away, at others almost in the room.

“‘It’s the tune,’ muttered McAndrew, as we tiptoed towards the bed. ‘The Pipes of Death. Are ye awake, boy?’

“And then he gave a little cry and gripped my arm.

“‘In God’s name,’ he whispered, ‘what’s that on the pillow beside his head?’

“For a while in the dim light I couldn’t make out. There was something big and black and motionless on the white pillow, and I crept nearer to see what it was. And then suddenly seemed to stand still. I saw two beady, unwinking eyes staring at Jack’s face close by; I saw Jack’s eyes wide open and sick with terror, staring at the thing which shared his bed. And still the music went on outside.

“‘What is it?’ I muttered through dry lips.

“‘Give me your gun, man,’ whispered McAndrew hoarsely. ‘If the pipes stop, the boy’s doomed.’

“Slowly he raised the gun an inch at a time, pushing the muzzle forward with infinite care towards the malignant, glowing eyes, until at last the gun was almost touching its head. And at that moment the music died away and stopped altogether. I had the momentary glimpse of two black feelers shooting out towards Jack’s face—then came the crack of the gun. And with a little sob Jack rolled out of bed and lay on the floor half-fainting, while the black mass on the pillow writhed and writhed and then grew still.

“We struck a light, and stared at what was left of the thing in silence. And it was Jack who spoke first.

“‘I woke,’ he said unsteadily, ‘to feel something crawling over me on the bed. Outside that infernal whistling was going on, and at last I made out what was—what was——My God!’ he cried thickly, ‘what was it, Mac—what was it?’

“‘Steady, boy!’ said McAndrew. ‘It’s dead now, anyway. But it was touch and go. I’ve seen ’em bigger than that up in the Arakans. It’s a bloodsucking, poisonous spider. They’re sacred to some of the sects.’

“Suddenly out of the jungle came one dreadful, piercing cry.

“‘What was that?’ Jack muttered, and McAndrew shook his head.

“‘Well find out to-morrow,’ he said. ‘There are strange things abroad to-night.’

“We saw the darkness out—the three of us—round a bottle of whisky.

“‘They’ve been trying to get you for a week, Manderby,’ said the Scotsman. ‘To-night they very near succeeded.’

“‘But why?’ cried Jack. ‘I’ve never done ’em any harm.’

“McAndrew shrugged his shoulders.

“‘Don’t ask me that,’ he answered. ‘Their ways are not our ways.’

“‘Has that brute been in my room every night?’ the boy asked.

“‘Every night,’ answered McAndrew gravely. ‘Probably two of them. They hunt them in pairs. They starve ’em, and then, when the music stops, they feed.’ He thoughtfully poured out some more whisky.

“And then at last came the dawn, and we went out to investigate. It was Jack who found him. The face was puffed and horrible, and as we approached, something black, about the size of a big kitten, moved away from the body and shambled sluggishly into the undergrowth.

“‘You’re safe, boy,’ said McAndrew slowly. ‘It was not the priests at all. Just murder—plain murder.’

“And with that he took his handkerchief and covered the dreadful, staring eyes of Rupert Morrison.”

_V_ _The Soldier’s Story, being A Bit of Orange Peel_

“YOU can set your minds at rest about one thing, you fellows,” began the Soldier, with a grin. “My yarn isn’t about the war. There have been quite enough lies told already about that performance without my adding to the number. No; my story concerns peace soldiering, and, strangely enough, I had an ocular demonstration when dining at the Ritz two nights ago that everything had finished up quite satisfactorily, in the approved story-book manner. At least, when I say quite satisfactorily—there was a price, and it was paid by one of the principal actors. But that is the unchangeable rule: one can but shrug one’s shoulders and pay accordingly.

“The regiment—I was a squadron-leader at the time—was quartered at Murchester. Not a bad station at all: good shooting, very fair hunting, especially if you didn’t scorn the carted stag, polo, and most excellent cricket. Also some delightful houses in the neighbourhood; and as we’d just come home from our foreign tour we found the place greatly to our liking. London was an hour and a bit by train; in fact, there are many worse stations in England than the spot I have labelled Murchester.

“The only fly in the ointment when we first arrived was a fairly natural one, and a thing which only time could cure. The men were a bit restive. We’d been abroad, don’t forget, for more than ten years—India, Egypt, South Africa—and the feel of the old country under their feet unsettled ’em temporarily. Nothing very bad, but an epidemic of absence without leave and desertion broke out, and the officers had to settle down to pull things together. Continual courts-martial for desertion don’t do a regiment any good with the powers that be, and we had to stop it.

“Of course, one of the first things to look to, when any trouble of that sort is occurring, is the general type and standard of your N.C.O.’s. In my squadron they were good, though just a little on the young side. I remember one day I discussed the matter pretty thoroughly with the squadron sergeant-major—an absolute top-notcher.

“‘They’re all right, sir,’ he said. ‘In another two or three years there will be none better in the British Army. Especially Trevor.’

“‘Ah! Sergeant-Major,’ I said, looking him straight in the face, ‘you think Trevor is a good man, do you?’

“‘The best we’ve got, sir,’ he answered quietly, and he stared straight back at me.

“‘You weren’t so sure when he first came,’ I reminded him.

“‘Well, I reckon there was a bit of jealousy, sir,’ he replied, ‘his coming in from the link regiment over a good many of the chaps’ heads. But he’s been with us now three months—and we know him better.’

“‘I wish I could say the same,’ I answered. ‘He defeats me, does Sergeant Trevor.’

“The Sergeant-Major smiled quietly. ‘Does he, sir? I shouldn’t have thought he would have. That there bloke Kipling has written about the likes of Trevor.’

“‘Kipling has written a good deal about the Army,’ I said, with an answering smile. ‘Mulvaney and Co. are classics.’

“‘It’s not Mulvaney I’m meaning, sir,’ he answered. ‘But didn’t he write a little bit of poetry about “Gentlemen-rankers out on the spree”?’

“‘Why, yes, he did.’ I lit a cigarette thoughtfully. ‘I’d guessed that much, Manfield. Is Trevor his real name?’

“‘I don’t know, sir,’ and at that moment the subject of our discussion walked past and saluted.

“‘Sergeant Trevor,’ I called after him, on the spur of the moment, and he came up at the double. I hadn’t anything really to say to him, but ever since he’d joined us he’d puzzled me, and though, as the sergeant-major said, the other non-commissioned officers might know him better, I certainly didn’t.

“‘You’re a bit of a cricketer, aren’t you?’ I said, as he came up.

“A faint smile flickered across his face at my question. ‘I used to play quite a lot, sir,’ he answered.

“‘Good; we want to get games going really strong.’ I talked with them both—squadron ‘shop’—a bit longer, and all the time I was trying to probe behind the impassive mask of Trevor’s face. Incidentally, I think he knew it; once or twice I caught a faint gleam of amusement in his eyes—a gleam that seemed to me a little weary. And when I left them and went across the parade ground towards the mess, his face haunted me. I hadn’t probed—not the eighth of an inch; he was still as much a mystery as ever. But he’d got a pair of deep blue eyes, and though I wasn’t a girl to be attracted by a man’s eyes, I couldn’t get his out of my mind. They baffled me; the man himself baffled me—and I’ve always disliked being baffled.

“It was a few nights after, in mess, that the next piece in the puzzle came along. We had in the regiment—he was killed in the war, poor devil!—a fellow of the name of Blenton, a fairly senior captain. He wasn’t in my squadron, and his chief claim to notoriety was as a cricketer. Had he been able to play regularly he would have been easily up to first-class form—as it was he periodically turned out for the county; but he used to go in first wicket down for the Army. So you can gather his sort of form.

“It was over the port that the conversation cropped up, and it interested me because it was about Trevor. As far as cricket was concerned I hardly knew which end of a bat one held.

“‘Dog-face has got a winner,’ I heard Blenton say across the table. I may say that I answered to that tactful sobriquet, for reasons into which we need not enter. ‘One Sergeant Trevor in your squadron, old boy,’ he turned to me. ‘I was watching him at the nets to-night.’

“‘Is he any good?’ I said.

“‘My dear fellow,’ answered Blenton, deliberately, ‘he is out and away the best bat we’ve had in the regiment for years. He’s up to Army form!’

“‘Who’s that?’ demanded the commanding officer, sitting up and taking notice at once.

“‘Sergeant Trevor in B squadron, Colonel,’ said Blenton. ‘I was watching him this evening at nets. Of course, the bowling was tripe, but he’s in a completely different class to the average soldier cricketer.’

“‘Did you talk to him?’ I asked, curiously.

“‘I did. And he struck me as being singularly uncommunicative. Asked him where he learnt his cricket, and he hummed and hawed, and finally said he’d played a lot in his village before joining the Army. I couldn’t quite make him out, Dog-face. And why the devil didn’t he play for us out in Jo’burg?’

“‘Because he only joined a couple of months before we sailed,’ I answered. ‘Came with that last draft we got.’

“‘Well, I wish we had a few more trained in his village,’ said Blenton. ‘We could do with them.’

“After mess, I tackled Philip Blenton in the ante-room.

“‘What’s your candid opinion of Trevor, Philip?’ I demanded.

“He stopped on his way to play bridge, and bit the end off his cigar.

“‘As a cricketer,’ he said, ‘or as a man?’

“‘Both,’ I answered.

“‘Well, my candid opinion is that he learned his game at a first-class public school,’ he replied. ‘And I am further of the opinion, from the few words I spoke to him, that one would have expected to find him here and not in the Sergeants’ Mess. What’s his story? Do you know?’

“‘I don’t,’ I shook my head. ‘Haven’t an idea. But you’ve confirmed my own impressions.’

“And there I had to leave it for some months. Periodically I talked to Trevor, deliberately tried to trap him into some admission which would give me a clue to his past, but he was as wary as a fox and as close as an oyster. I don’t know why I took the trouble—after all, it was his business entirely, but the fellow intrigued me. He was such an extraordinarily fine N.C.O., and there was never a sign of his hitting the bottle, which is the end of a good many gentlemen-rankers. Moreover, he didn’t strike me as a fellow who had come a cropper, which is the usual cause of his kind.

“And then one day, when I least expected it, the problem began to solve itself. Philip Blenton rang me up in the morning after breakfast, from a house in the neighbourhood, where he was staying for a couple of two-day matches. Could I possibly spare Sergeant Trevor for the first of them? Against the I Z., who had brought down a snorting team, and Carter—the Oxford blue—had failed the local eleven at the last moment. If I couldn’t they’d have to rake in one of the gardeners, but they weren’t too strong as it was.

“So I sent for Trevor, and asked him if he’d care to play. I saw his eyes gleam for a moment; then he shook his head.

“‘I think not, thank you, sir,’ he said, quietly.

“‘It’s not quite like you to let Captain Blenton down, Trevor,’ I remarked. ‘He’s relying on you.’

“I knew it was the right note to take with him, and I was very keen on his playing. I was going out myself that afternoon to watch, and I wanted to see him in different surroundings. We argued for a bit—I knew he was as keen as mustard in one way to play—and after a while he said he would. Then he went out of the office, and as it happened I followed him. There was an old cracked mirror in the passage outside, and as I opened the door he had just shut behind him, I had a glimpse of Sergeant Trevor examining his face in the glass. He’d got his hand so placed that it blotted out his moustache, and he seemed very intent on his reflection. Then he saw me, and for a moment or two we stared at one another in silence. Squadron-leader and troop-sergeant had gone; we were just two men, and the passage was empty. And I acted on a sudden impulse, and clapped him on the back.

“‘Don’t be a fool, man,’ I cried. ‘Is there any reason why you shouldn’t be recognised?’

“‘Nothing shady, Major,’ he answered, quietly. ‘But if one starts on a certain course, it’s best to go through with it!’

“At that moment the pay-sergeant appeared, and Trevor pulled himself together, saluted smartly, and was gone.

“I suppose these things are planned out beforehand,” went on the Soldier, thoughtfully. “To call it all blind chance seems a well-nigh impossible solution to me. And yet the cynic would assuredly laugh at connecting a child eating an orange in a back street in Oxford, and the death while fishing in Ireland of one of the greatest-hearted men that ever lived. But unless that child had eaten that orange, and left the peel on the pavement for Carter, the Oxford blue, to slip on and sprain his ankle, the events I am going to relate would, in all probability, never have taken place. However, since delving too deeply into cause and effect inevitably produces insanity, I’d better get on with it.

“I turned up about three o’clock at Crosby Hall, along with four or five other fellows from the regiment. Usual sort of stunt—marquee and lemonade, with whisky in the background for the hopeless cases. The I Z. merchants were in the field, and Trevor was batting. There was an Eton boy in with him, and the score was two hundred odd for five wickets. Philip Blenton lounged up as soon as he saw me, grinning all over his face.

“‘Thank Heaven you let him come, old man! He’s pulled eighty of the best out of his bag already, and doesn’t look like getting out.’

“‘He wouldn’t come at first, Philip,’ I said, and he stared at me in surprise. ‘I think he was afraid of being recognised.’

“A burst of applause greeted a magnificent drive past cover-point, and for a while we watched the game in silence, until another long round of cheering announced that Sergeant Trevor had got his century. As I’ve said before, I’m no cricketer, but there was no need to be an expert to realise that he was something out of the way. He was treating the by-no-means-indifferent I Z. bowling with the utmost contempt, and old Lord Apson, our host, was beside himself with joy. He was a cricket maniac; his week was an annual fixture; and for the first time for many years he saw his team really putting it across the I Z. And it was just as I was basking in a little reflected glory that I saw a very dear old friend of mine arrive in the enclosure, accompanied by a perfectly charming girl.

“‘Why, Yeverley, old man!’ I cried, ‘how are you?’

“‘Dog-face, as I live!’ he shouted, seizing me by both hands. ‘Man-alive, I’m glad to see you. Let me introduce you to my wife; Doris, this is Major Chilham—otherwise Dog-face.’

“I shook hands with the girl, who was standing smiling beside him, and for a while we stopped there talking. He was fifteen years or so older than I, and had left the service as a Captain, but we both came from the same part of the country, and in days gone by I’d known him very well indeed. His marriage had taken place four years previously while I was abroad, and now, meeting his wife for the first time, I recalled bit by bit the gossip I’d heard in letters I got from home. How to everyone’s amazement he’d married a girl young enough to be his daughter; how everybody had prophesied disaster, and affirmed that she was not half good enough for one of the elect like Giles Yeverley; how she’d been engaged to someone else and thrown him over. And yet as I looked at them both it struck me that the Jeremiahs had as usual been completely wrong: certainly nothing could exceed the dog-like devotion in Giles’s eyes whenever he looked at his wife.

“We strolled over to find some easy chairs, and he fussed round her as if she was an invalid. She took it quite naturally and calmly with a faint and charming smile, and when he finally bustled away to talk to Apson, leaving me alone with her, she was still smiling.

“‘You know Giles well?’ she said.

“‘Awfully well,’ I answered. ‘And having now returned from my sojourn in the wilds, I hope I shall get to know his wife equally well.’

“‘That’s very nice of you, Dog-face’—she turned and looked at me—and, by Jove, she was pretty. ‘If you’re anything like Giles—you must be a perfect dear.’

“Now I like that sort of a remark when it’s made in the right way. It establishes a very pleasant footing at once, with no danger of miconstruction—like getting on good terms with a new horse the moment you put your feet in the irons, instead of messing around for half the hunt. Anyway, for the next ten minutes or so I didn’t pay very much attention to the cricket. I gathered that there was one small son—Giles junior—who was the apple of his father’s eye; and that at the moment a heavy love affair was in progress between the young gentleman aged three and the General’s daughter, who was as much as four, and showed no shame over the matter whatever. Also that Giles and she were stopping with the General and his wife for a week or ten days.

“And it was at that stage of the proceedings that a prolonged burst of applause made us look at the cricket. Sergeant Trevor was apparently out—how I hadn’t an idea—and was half-way between the wickets and the tent next to the one in which we were sitting, and which Apson always had erected for the local villagers and their friends. I saw them put up one hundred and twenty-five on the board as Trevor’s score, and did my share in the clapping line.

“‘A fine player—that fellow,’ I said, following him with my eyes. ‘Don’t know much about the game myself, but the experts tell me——’ And at that moment I saw her face, and stopped abruptly. She had gone very white, and her knuckles were gleaming like the ivory on the handle of her parasol.

“‘Major Chilham,’ she said—and her voice was the tensest thing I’ve ever heard—‘who is that man who has just come out?’

“‘Trevor is his name,’ I answered, quietly. ‘He’s one of the troop-sergeants in my squadron.’ I was looking at her curiously, as the colour slowly came back to her face. ‘Why? Did you think you knew him?’

“‘He reminded me of someone I knew years ago,’ she said, sitting back in her chair. ‘But of course I must have been mistaken.’

“And then rather abruptly she changed the conversation, though every now and then she glanced towards the next tent, as if trying to see Trevor. And sitting beside her I realised that there was something pretty serious in the wind. She was on edge, though she was trying not to show it—and Trevor was the cause, or the man who called himself Trevor. All my curiosity came back, though I made no allusion to him; I was content to await further developments.

“They weren’t long in coming. The house team, with the respectable total of three hundred and fifty odd, were all out by tea-time, and both elevens forgathered in the tent behind. All, that is, except Trevor, who remained in the other until Apson himself went and pulled him out. I watched the old man, with his cheery smile, take Trevor by the elbow and literally drag him out of his chair; I watched Trevor in his blue undress jacket, smart as be damned, coming towards us with our host. And then very deliberately I looked at Giles Yeverley’s wife. She was staring over my head at the two men; then she lowered her parasol.

“‘So you weren’t mistaken after all, Mrs. Giles,’ I said, quietly.

“‘No, Dog-face, I wasn’t,’ she answered. ‘Would you get hold of Giles for me, and tell him I’d like to get back. Say I’m not feeling very well.’

“I got up at once and went in search of her husband. I found him talking to the Zingari captain and Sergeant Trevor. He seemed quite excited, appealing as he spoke to the I Z. skipper, while Trevor stood by listening with a faint smile.

“‘What he says is quite right, Sergeant Trevor,’ remarked the Zingari man as I came up. ‘If you cared to consider it—you are absolutely up to the best county form. Of course, I don’t know about your residential qualifications, but that can generally be fixed.’

“‘Dog-face,’ cried Yeverley, as soon as he saw me, ‘he’s in your squadron, isn’t he? Well, it’s so long since I left the Army that I’ve forgotten all about discipline—but I tell you here—right now in front of him—that Sergeant Trevor ought to chuck soldiering and take up professional cricket. Bimbo here agrees with me.’

“‘Giles, you’ll burst your waistcoat if you get so excited,’ I remarked, casually. ‘And, incidentally, Mrs. Yeverley wants to go home.’

“As I said the name I looked at Trevor, and my last doubt vanished. He gave a sudden start, which Giles, who had immediately torn off to his wife, didn’t see, and proceeded to back into the farthest corner of the tea-tent. But once again old Apson frustrated him. Not for him the endless pauses and waits of first-class cricket; five minutes to roll the pitch and he was leading his team into the field. Trevor had to go from his sanctuary, and there was only one exit from the enclosure in front of the tent.

“They met—Mrs. Giles and Trevor—actually at that exit. By the irony of things, I think it was Giles who caused the meeting. He hurried forward as he saw Trevor going out, and caught him by the arm; dear old chap!—he was cricket mad if ever a man was. And so blissfully unconscious of the other, bigger thing going on right under his nose.

“‘Don’t you forget what I said, Trevor,’ he said, earnestly. ‘Any county would be glad to have you. I’m going to talk to Major Chilham about it seriously.’

“And I doubt if Trevor heard a word. Over Giles’s shoulder he was staring at Giles’s wife—and she was staring back at him, while her breast rose and fell in little gasps, and it seemed to me that her lips were trembling. Then it was over; Trevor went out to field—Giles bustled back to his wife. And I, being a hopeless case, went in search of alcohol.”

The Soldier paused to light another cigar.

“He carried out his threat, did Giles with regard to me. Two or three days later I lunched with the General, and it seemed to me that we never got off the subject of Trevor. It wasn’t only his opinion; had not Bimbo Lawrence, the I Z. captain, and one of the shrewdest judges of cricket in England, agreed with him? And so on without cessation about Trevor, the cricketer, while on the opposite side of the table, next to me, sat his wife, who could not get beyond Trevor, the man. Once or twice she glanced at me appealingly, as if to say: ‘For God’s sake, stop him!’—but it was a task beyond my powers. I made one or two abortive attempts, and then I gave it up. The situation was beyond me; one could only let him ramble on and pray for the end of lunch.

“And then he left the cricket and came to personalities.

“‘Know anything about him, Dog-face?’ he asked. ‘Up at old Apson’s place he struck me as being a gentleman. Anyway, he’s a darned nice fellow. Wonder why he enlisted?’

“‘Oh, Giles, for goodness’ sake, let’s try another topic?’ said his wife, suddenly. ‘We’ve had Sergeant Trevor since lunch began.’

“Poor old Giles looked at her in startled surprise, and she gave him a quick smile which robbed her words of their irritability. But I could see she was on the rack, and though I didn’t know the real facts, it wasn’t hard to make a shrewd guess as to the cause.

“It was just before we rose from the table, I remember, that she said to me under the cover of the general conversation: ‘My God! Dog-face—it’s not fair.’

“‘Will you tell me?’ I answered. ‘I might help.’

“‘Perhaps I will some day,’ she said, quietly. ‘But you can’t help; no one can do that. It was my fault all through, and the only thing that matters now is that Giles should never know.’

“I don’t quite know why she suddenly confided in me, even to that extent. I suppose with her woman’s intuition she realised that I’d guessed something, and it helps to get a thing off one’s chest at times. Evidently it had been an unexpected meeting, and I cursed myself for having made him play. And yet how could one have foretold? It was just a continuation of the jig-saw started by that damned bit of orange peel. As she said, all that mattered was that Giles—dear old chap!—should never know.”

The Soldier smiled a little sadly. “So do the humans propose; but the God that moves the pieces frequently has different ideas. He did—that very afternoon. It was just as I was going that two white-faced nurses clutching two scared children appeared on the scene and babbled incoherently. And then the General’s groom hove in sight—badly cut across the face and shaky at the knees—and from him we got the story.

“They’d started off in the General’s dogcart to go to some children’s party, and something had frightened the horse, which had promptly bolted. I knew the brute—a great raking black, though the groom, who was a first-class whip, generally had no difficulty in managing him. But on this occasion apparently he’d got clean away along the road into the town. He might have got the horse under control after a time, when, to his horror, he saw that the gates were closed at the railway crossing in front. And it was at that moment that a man—one of the sergeants from the barracks—had dashed out suddenly from the pavement and got to the horse’s head. He was trampled on badly, but he hung on—and the horse had ceased to bolt when they crashed into the gates. The shafts were smashed, but nothing more. And the horse wasn’t hurt. And they’d carried away the sergeant on an improvised stretcher. No; he hadn’t spoken. He was unconscious.

“‘Which sergeant was it?’ I asked, quietly—though I knew the answer before the groom gave it.

“‘Sergeant Trevor, sir,’ he said. ‘B squadron.’

“‘Is he—is he badly hurt?’ said the girl, and her face was ashen.

“‘I dunno, mum,’ answered the groom. ‘They took ’im off to the ’orspital, and I was busy with the ’orse.’

“‘I’ll ring up, if I may, General,’ I said, and he nodded.

“I spoke to Purvis, the R.A.M.C. fellow, and his voice was very grave. They’d brought Trevor in still unconscious, and, though he wouldn’t swear to it at the moment, he was afraid his back was broken. But he couldn’t tell absolutely for certain until he came to. I hung up the receiver and found Mrs. Giles standing behind me. She said nothing—but just waited for me to speak.

“‘Purvis doesn’t know for certain,’ I said, taking both her hands in mine. ‘But there’s a possibility, my dear, that his back is broken.’

“She was a thoroughbred, that girl. She didn’t make a fuss or cry out; she just looked me straight in the face and nodded her head once or twice.

“‘I must go to him, of course,’ she said, gravely. ‘Will you arrange it for me, please?’

“‘He’s unconscious still,’ I told her.

“‘Then I must be beside him when he comes to,’ she answered. ‘Even if there was nothing else—he’s saved my baby’s life.’

“‘I’ll take you in my car,’ I said, when I saw that she was absolutely determined. ‘Leave it all to me.’

“‘I must see him alone, Dog-face.’ She paused by the door, with her handkerchief rolled into a tight little ball in her hand. ‘I want to know that he’s forgiven me.’

“‘You shall see him alone if it’s humanly possible,’ I answered gravely, and at that she was gone.

“I don’t quite know how I did it, but somehow or other I got her away from the General’s house without Giles knowing. Giles junior was quite unhurt, and disposed to regard the entire thing as an entertainment got up especially for his benefit. And when she’d made sure of that, and kissed him passionately to his intense disgust, she slipped away with me in the car.

“‘You mustn’t be disappointed,’ I warned her as we drove along, ‘if you can’t see him alone. He may have been put into a ward with other men.’

“‘Then they must put some screens round him,’ she whispered. ‘I must kiss him before—before——.’ She didn’t complete the sentence; but it wasn’t necessary.

“We didn’t speak again until I turned in at the gates of the hospital. And then I asked her a question which had been on the tip of my tongue a dozen times.

“‘Who is he—really?’

“‘Jimmy Dallas is his name,’ she answered, quietly. ‘We were engaged. And then his father lost all his money. He thought that was why—why I was beastly to him—but oh! Dog-face, it wasn’t at all. I thought he was fond of another girl—and it was all a mistake. I found it out too late. And then Jimmy had disappeared—and I’d married Giles. Up at that cricket match was the first time I’d seen him since my wedding.’

“We drew up at the door, and I got out. It’s the little tragedies, the little misunderstandings, that are so pitiful, and in all conscience this was a case in point. A boy and a girl—each too proud to explain, or ask for an explanation; and now the big tragedy. God! it seemed so futile.

“I left her sitting in the car, and went in search of Purvis. I found him with Trevor—I still thought of him under that name—and he was conscious again. The doctor looked up as I tiptoed in, and shook his head at me warningly. So I waited, and after a while Purvis left the bed and drew me out into the passage.

“‘I’m not sure,’ he said. ‘He’s so infernally bruised and messed about. His left arm is broken in two places, and three ribs—and I’m afraid his back as well. He seems so numb. But I can’t be certain.’

“‘Mrs. Yeverley is here,’ I said. ‘The mother of one of the kids he saved. She wants to see him.’

“‘Out of the question,’ snapped Purvis. ‘I absolutely forbid it.’

“‘But you mustn’t forbid it, Doctor.’ We both swung round, to see the girl herself standing behind us. ‘I’ve got to see him. There are other reasons besides his having saved my baby’s life.’

“‘They must wait, Mrs. Yeverley,’ answered the Doctor. ‘In a case of this sort the only person I would allow to see him would be his wife.’

“‘If I hadn’t been a fool,’ she said deliberately, ‘I should have been his wife,’ and Purvis’s jaw dropped.

“Without another word she swept past him into the ward, and Purvis stood there gasping.

“‘Well, I’m damned!’ he muttered, and I couldn’t help smiling. It was rather a startling statement to come from a woman stopping with the G.O.C. about a sergeant in a cavalry regiment.

“And then, quite suddenly and unexpectedly, came the final turn in the wheel. I was strolling up and down outside with Purvis, who was a sahib as well as a Doctor and had asked no questions.

“‘If his back is broken it can’t hurt him,’ he had remarked, ‘and if it isn’t it will do him good.’

“At that we had left it, when suddenly, to my horror, I saw Giles himself going into the hospital.

“‘Good Lord, Doc!’ I cried, sprinting after him, ‘that’s her husband. And he doesn’t know she’s here.’

“But a lot can happen in a few seconds, and I was just a few seconds too late. As I got to the door I saw Giles in front of me—standing at the entrance to the ward as if he had been turned to stone. A big screen hid the bed from sight—but a screen is not sound proof. He looked at me as I came up, and involuntarily I stopped as I saw his face. And then quite clearly from the room beyond came his wife’s voice.

“‘My darling, darling boy!—it’s you and only you for ever and ever!’

“I don’t quite know how much Giles had guessed before. I think he knew about her previous engagement, but I’m quite sure he had never associated Trevor with it. A year or two later she told me that when she married him she had made no attempt to conceal the fact that she had loved another man—and loved him still. And Giles had taken her on those terms. But at the time I didn’t know that: I only knew that a very dear friend’s world had crashed about his head with stunning suddenness. It was Giles who pulled himself together first—Giles, with a face grey and lined, who said in a loud voice to me: ‘Well, Dog-face, where is the invalid?’

“And then he waited a moment or two before he went round the screen.

“‘Ah! my dear,’ he said, quite steadily, as he saw his wife, ‘you here?’

“He played his part for ten minutes, stiff-lipped and without a falter; then he went, and his wife went with him to continue the play in which they were billed for life. Trevor’s back was not broken—in a couple of months he was back at duty. And so it might have continued for the duration, but for Giles being drowned fishing in Ireland.”

The Soldier stared thoughtfully at the fire.

“He was a first-class fisherman and a wonderful swimmer, was Giles Yeverley, and sometimes—I wonder. They say he got caught in a bore—that perhaps he got cramp. But, as I say, sometimes—I wonder.