Chapter VIII: Part 8

"It was just before a battle that he got the wire he had been expecting, and after he'd read it he sat staring at it dazedly. It just couldn't be; of course there was a mistake. There must be. He knew that sometimes women did die at such times; but ... but not his woman. It couldn't be his wife that was dead--the thing was preposterous. Such a thing couldn't happen, any more than the one man's name can ever appear in the casualty list. Other names perhaps--but not his."

He hit at a tuft of grass with the club in his hand. "At last it penetrated into his brain, and by that time the battle was over. He gathered that he had done rather well--been recommended for a decoration of sorts, and he laughed like hell at the folly of it all. He felt he only wanted one thing, and that was to go after his girl. He didn't care a rap about the son he'd never seen; he knew it was being well looked after, and he wouldn't even go on leave to see it. It was only the girl he thought about, and she--well, she was unattainable except by one method. So he deliberately set to work to secure that method."

Ralton's eyes were fixed on the girl now, and her cigarette had dropped unheeded on the grass.

"He ran the most unheard-of risks; he volunteered for any and every stunt that came along--but the Boche seemed to miss him on purpose. For weeks and months it continued--but it was no good: he bore a charmed life.

"And now, my lady of the links, comes the point. There came a time--one night, to be exact--when in the silence of his dugout a thought crept into his mind, a nasty, persistent thought. He was furious at the thought; he argued with it fiercely--but the thought remained. And so, in order to prove that the thought was wrong, he redoubled his efforts to secure the end which he assured himself he wanted. Before he had been foolish, now he became damned foolish. He did the most utterly stupid things, just to prove to himself that he intended to die; and Fate decreed otherwise. He didn't die--but one evening the other man did----"

"I don't quite follow," said the girl. "What other man?"

"His orderly," said Ralton, briefly. "Quite unnecessarily he was walking up a road in full sight of the Boches. They were some distance away--true; but a rifle-bullet carries some distance. Behind him was his orderly." With a frown he looked at the girl beside him. "You've never heard a rifle-bullet probably," he continued, after a moment. "Never heard that sudden ping past your head which sounds like a huge mosquito. He heard it that evening--twice; and the first time he took no notice. You understand, don't you, that there was no necessity for him to have been on the road?"

She nodded.

"The second bullet did not miss. It hit the orderly, and Jones just got him into the ditch beside the road before he died...."

Ralton was examining his niblick with unusual care. "This old club seems to have suffered some."

"Is that your story?" demanded the girl.

"Yes, that is the story. The story of a man who posed."

"You mean..." began Ruth Seaton, tentatively.

"I mean that the thought which had come to him in his dugout, the thought which he had striven so hard against, was that he didn't really want to die. He was young, and his wife's death was beginning to lose its sting. He wanted to live; to see his son; and he posed because he thought it was disloyal to her memory. He posed even to himself. And it was only as he knelt over the man in the ditch that he realized it...." Ralton turned to the girl impulsively. "My dear," he cried, "he learned his lesson at a great price--the price of a man's life. There is no call for you to do that. But you're young, and life, and all that it means, is crying out to you. And you're posing. The sympathy of all those people at the hotel isn't real sympathy; and you know it isn't. They're posing, too. When things are really cutting one, when one's really up against it, one's just got to go away and hide. The crowd is no use then." He stood up and looked at her with a grave smile. "He won't think it disloyal, believe me. You see--he understands."

She watched the tall, straight figure striding away towards the green where his ball lay, and then for a long while she sat motionless staring out to sea. Once or twice she saw him in the distance, as he continued on his solitary round, until a sudden shiver of cold warned her that March at Portsdown was not the ideal month for sitting out-of-doors.

She rose, and started to walk towards the club-house. In her path lay the seventeenth green, and as she reached the pin she paused. Not a soul was in sight: save for the screaming gulls the girl was alone in the falling dusk.

"Jimmy," she said aloud, "it was here you holed that fifteen-yard putt. Do you remember, old man? It was behind that mound you kissed me for the first time. D'you remember, old man? I shan't forget--ever. But it's just a dream, Jimmy, a beautiful dream; and one mustn't pay too much attention to dreams, must one--not after they've gone? You won't think I'm a blighter, boy, will you? _but_ it has lost its sting. You know what it was--at first. But now--oh! my dear--he's right, that stranger. I've been posing. And, Jimmy, I'm going to stop. You'll understand, lad ... and you'll be glad too, won't you--for my sake?"

She glanced from one well-remembered spot to another; then, deliberately, she looked up into the grey sky.

"_Au revoir_, old chap.... God bless you."

It all depended on a four-foot putt. If Ralton holed out, the match would be all square, and they would have to play the nineteenth. By faultless golf he had pulled his opponent down from dormy three at the sixteenth, and now at the last hole he was left with what seemed a certainty, judging by his form up to date. And, as so often happens with certainties, it failed to come off.

The ball lipped the hole--hesitated, and stopped a bare inch from the edge. For a moment Ralton looked at it, and then, with a grin, congratulated the victor and strode through the crowd around the green.

"Bad luck, sir--bad luck." Complete strangers condoled with him as he passed them, and Ralton smiled his thanks. The game had been a good one, which was all that mattered; and now that it was over, there was no reason why he shouldn't return at once to Portsdown-on-Sea. It was a nice place, he told himself--good golf--and...

"Well played, my friend--well played." He stopped abruptly, and stared at the speaker.

"You! But what are you doing here?"

"I understood it was a public place," she murmured.

"I thought you were at Portsdown," he said, slowly.

"I was until last night," she answered. "I'm going back to-morrow."

"So am I." Ralton smiled. "I wonder if you'd help me on the journey."

"Help you?" The girl seemed a little surprised.

"I'm taking down my small son," he explained, "and I feel certain I shall lose the nurse."

She looked at him in silence for a while. "Why, yes, Mr. ... er ... Jones," and her voice was very low, "I think I might be able to manage it--now."

THE END

Made and Printed in Great Britain.
Hazell, Watson & Viney, Ld., London and Aylesbury.

* * * * * * * *

*BOOKS BY "SAPPER"*

The Final Count
Out of the Blue
The Third Round
Jim Maitland
The Dinner Club
The Black Gang
Bull-Dog Drummond
The Man in Ratcatcher
Mufti
The Human Touch
No Man's Land
Men, Women, and Guns
Sergeant Michael Cassidy
The Lieutenant and Others
Shorty Bill

HODDER AND STOUGHTON Ltd., London