VII
COLONEL TIBBIT COMES HOME
I
"I'm afraid it's no good, sir. We've sent five runners already, and we've had no answer. It's unlikely they even got through. There's a regular hailstorm above stairs."
The speaker was very tall. He had to stoop to avoid the lamp, and by a ghoulish trick of light and shadow his head seemed to float bodiless in the luminous fog which hung over the evil-smelling cellar. His face heightened the illusion, for it had already something of the arrogant serenity of death. "So I just ran down for orders," he added calmly. He waited motionless. For it was difficult to move without treading on one of the shapeless heaps that lay against the dim walls or sprawled across the floor. They were very quiet. Now and then some of them would stir and cry out, and then fall back into themselves with a dull thud. But they had no part in the scene that was being enacted in their midst. They were divided from it by an immeasurable gulf They had gone on. Only two officers, who stood at the foot of the black upward winding staircase, listened and watched with a close yet dispassionate curiosity. One of them was smoking, and his cigarette tip burnt a bright little hole in the darkness.
"I am waiting for orders, Colonel."
The officer seated at the rickety table beneath the lamp started, and gave a nervous, pompous tug at his tunic.
"Ah—yes—orders—of course, of course." He looked about him challengingly. Contrasted with the other three, he was an old man. The light picked out pleasant silver threads from his thin hair, and his uniform fitted him with a limp resignation to failure. For though he jerked himself up for a moment it was only to collapse again into a round-shouldered, sagging ungainliness. "Orders—orders," he repeated to himself as though the word had some subtle double meaning which eluded him. He returned to the map, spread out before him, and his dirty, stubby forefingers ran up and down the clearly marked lines like a baffled terrier. Only once, when the incessant, muffled uproar overhead swept suddenly to a shrieking crescendo, his finger wavered. Then he held it to the light and examined it with a puzzled solemnity. "Of course, they'll be here any minute," he muttered. "They ought to have come up half an hour ago."
The grim, bitterly set face that gleamed palely beside him glanced, across at the two watchers by the staircase. Its composure held a kind of resigned disgust.
"I don't think they can have got our message, sir," the voice persisted patiently. "And anyhow they couldn't help us now"
"Yes, but they ought to; they can't leave us in the air like this. They ought to do something"
"No doubt—they ought." The voice that for an instant had been sardonically amused dropped into silence as the older man slipped his hand into his breast pocket and drew out something silvery and twinkling. They watched him expressionlessly. He drank with a shameless greed, but afterwards he hid the flask under his papers as though no one had seen it.
"It's—it's unprecedented," he said plaintively. Then he jerked himself up into a momentary attitude of indignation. "Unprecedented. Major—in all my career—assure you—their intelligence—disgraceful. No warning. I—I haven't had a chance. They ought to send relief. They ought to do something."
"It is for us to do something, sir."
"Of course—of course—all the same, I"
"God Almighty—don't you realise what is happenings sir? Whilst we stand here talking" The tall, thin man mastered himself with an effort. He made a gesture towards the patient figures huddled in the shadow. "There are wounded to consider," he said frigidly. "And in half an hour we shall be cut off. The enemy is working up round our flanks. Our men have had three days and nights of it. They're hanging on like bulldogs. But we can't expect miracles."
"Yes—you do—you do—you expect them from me."
"No, sir. Only our orders."
"Orders! What in God's name can I order?"
Overhead the muffled roar of storm receded. It made way for something else that came suddenly, stupefying like the fall of a titanic hammer. The cellar rocked and crumbled under it. The shadowy wounded lifted themselves up. Their deathly faces shone through the yellow atmosphere that was thick with dust and the stench of terror.
The major steadied the madly swaying lamp with a sure hand.
"If you wish it I can take over the command, Colonel."
The other glanced up dazedly. His blunt-featured, rugged face with its week's growth of stubble and deep lines of intolerable weariness had a baffled, frightened look. His hand fumbled under the papers for his flask. The tears stood in his eyes. They spilled over and mingled with the grey drops of sweat.
"I—I don't understand, Major."
"There's no time to mince words, sir. We're in a tight hole. If you're not feeling up to it."
"Not up to it!" He saw the direction of the tall man's involuntary glance. "My god, Major, I could 'ave you shot."
He broke off as though he had been stabbed with pain. None of the three had given a sign. Their faces were, as before, masks of imperturbable self-control They had an air of having deliberately not heard. Yet, secretly, even at that moment they were amused. And the old man lurched to his feet, driving his great fist down on to the table so that it rocked. "The 'ole regiment dies where it stands," he flung at them.
"Do you mean that, Colonel?"
"Are you—cowards, gentlemen?"
They waited a moment—waited deliberately as though savouring a rather bitter jest. And he stood and watched them, with his tunic rucked up under his arms and his whole ungainly bulk trembling. He was not pitiable now, but terrible, like a mortally wounded bull.
"You 'ave your orders," he said.
They saluted and went up the narrow steps leading out of the cellar. The Major led the way. He had a fatalistic idea that the first man above ground would "stop one," as he put it to himself. And the other two were married and unwounded.
"I think that about finishes old Tit-bits, eh, Major?"
"—And us, incidentally," the Major had time to answer over his shoulder.
II
They dealt fairly with him, but although they exceeded him in rank they were of a younger generation, having been swept upwards by the tide of prolonged warfare, and to them he was just an old man of the old school of fighters who had failed lamentably, and even criminally, to do his duty.
Still they took what there was in his favour and weighed it—his praiseworthy rise from the ranks, his unblemished record, his unquestioned valour, to which the strip of magenta ribbon on his breast, and even the catastrophe itself, bore witness. For the sake of these things they might have labelled the act which had sacrificed a gallant regiment as an error of judgment—had it not been for the belated and reluctant testimony of two surviving officers.
What pardon could there be for a man who had wilfully befuddled himself at such a crisis—who had made himself incapable of judgment? Moreover, there were sinister rumours abroad that because the accused had married a woman of title, justice would be adulterated with official whitewash. And public opinion was aroused and very bitter.
The accused himself offered no loophole for mercy—scarcely a defence. He had been very tired, he said, and had drunk a little to give himself fresh energy. He did not know what had happened to him. But he had an air of withholding some vital truth.
He sat before his judges, a bowed, clumsy figure of a man with blue, rather childlike eyes, full of unspeakable distress.
There was no question as to the verdict—no doubt as to the final sentence that "would be promulgated in due course".
He went out of the Court as he had come, alone, but now he had no right to the uniform he wore.
III
The passers-by glanced up at him as he lingered on the steps of the great, grey-faced building. For by this time the least military of them had learnt to recognise the insignia of rank and to know the meaning of those gay stripes of ribbon. And this grey-haired officer gave them a vicarious thrill of adventure—of pride and hope. He commanded men, and once in his life he had risen splendidly above the common level of human valour. And he was just a simple, unromantic-looking old fellow—one of themselves. In their mould heroes were made.
The soldiers smartened up in earnest as they passed him.
He stood there as though immersed in grave, impersonal consideration. The uniform lent his burliness dignity, and the peak of his cap threw a stern shadow over his face. No one could have told that he was so dazed and feeble that he was afraid to move.
At last he lumbered off the step into the crowd. It carried him westwards, but he moved slowly like a heavy log in a hurrying, shallow stream. He kept to the wallside of the pavement, and went with his head bowed, saluting mechanically—sometimes needlessly—because he dared not look up. If he looked up people would know who he was and what had happened to him. He knew that he was in everybody's mind—his shame was in everybody's mouth. There had been questions asked in the House—hints in the papers. He had seen people whispering together as he had passed through the lounge of his hotel.
"You know the Neuville affair—well, that's the man."
The burden of a million eyes weighed on his shoulders.
They could not help but recognise him. He felt that it was written in his face. And, moreover, in his way, he had been a popular figure amidst a people who liked their heroes to be simple and even commonplace men. At every milestone in his life he had been dragged under the limelight. He remembered, in particular, a photograph of his wife and himself at their daughter's wedding—"Colonel Tibbit, V.C., and Lady Tibbit leaving the church". It had been in all the illustrated papers. That was two years ago—six months before Lady Tibbit's death.
The thought of her made him wince, as though someone had slashed a whip across his face. It made him stumble and go sick with pain.
To-morrow the papers would mention him for the last time. Then it would be gazetted. Men in India, where he had won his honours, men whom he had commanded, would stop a minute to exclaim incredulously. It would be spoken of in France—in the trenches—at the mess.
"Cashiered—old Tit-bits—good Lord!"
The regiment—what remained of it—would cover him over with its own glory. But it would not forget. The people of the men who had fallen would not forget; they would remember his name as long as they lived.
He crept deeper into himself. Sooner or later he would meet one of them—or someone whom he knew—a friend who had dined with him at his own table, who had shot with him over the famous Elderswater preserves—a young officer perhaps—a friend of his son's—who had looked up to him. And then—what then? How did one behave to a man who had been cashiered? He tried to remember how he had behaved to young Carrington who had gone that way, but his brain was numb and tired, and would not concentrate. His thoughts ran hither and thither like ants in a disturbed ant-heap. They ran back to the scene he had just left—to the things that had been said, and further back still to the stifling cellar, to the lean, hawk-faced Major and the final catastrophe.
He stopped short. He forgot where he was. He forgot to be afraid. Wave after wave of humiliation broke over him, submerging him. How had it happened? In all those years it had not happened once—not even when he had been beside himself with rage or broken with fatigue—and then—all of a sudden
He tottered on again, shaking his head. It was too much. He had ceased to feel or think. He was just the husk of an old man, blowing before any idle wind.
An early winter's night settled on the streets. One by one the shops closed their brazen eyes solemnly, but from under their lids furtively twinkling notices with the magic word "Open" made fun of their own cautiousness. The squat, black buildings themselves refused to take it seriously. In the daytime they were places of business—grave and inclined to be a little pompous. Now they had the look of a whole range of robber mountains whose secret portals swung open at a word, revealing hidden treasure of indescribable fascination. And the little shadowy people themselves might have been so many Ali Babas carrying off their pelf joyfully. Now and then one of them would lift a speculative glance to the frosty stars as though it was from thence the robbers might be expected to return.
"Well, if they comes they comes," a voice said at the Colonel's elbow. "But I likes to be at 'ome myself so's I can get me cup of tea afterwards."
He had blundered into the maelstrom at Piccadilly Circus, where a dense crowd watched one teeming 'bus after another lumber past with patient resignation. The woman who had spoken was small and elderly, and knobby with parcels. She kept on shaking her head backwards and forwards in the vain effort to restore her hat to its correct angle. "Most times I'm a winner at 'bus-raiding," she said, "but wot with all these 'ere things there ain't no fight left in me."
She smiled up at him with a tired friendliness.
"P'raps I can 'elp," he said suddenly.
People made way for him. Even in the midst of their own preoccupations they were touched at the sight of the big "brass hat" and the shabby little woman. So he had luck with the next 'bus, and just before she was swept into its dim maw she looked back at him, her hat more than ever over one ear.
"You're a real gent.," she announced shrilly; "a real gent., and 'ere's luck to yer."
The crowd laughed. They threw him good-humoured, kindly glances. It was as though they nodded agreement. "Yes, a real gent." And he smiled back quaveringly, sheltered by their warmth, their ignorance. Their spirit crept into his empty, battered heart. His identity slipped from him. He was just what they thought he was—one of themselves—an elderly soldier on leave, shopping secretly, and trying to make his way home.
And he had meant to buy something. Of course. It had been in his mind all the time. Something really splendid, that the little chap would be proud of later on. Something gorgeous, that would make even Gerald and Constance open their mouths and their eyes with astonishment and respect. And the money was in his pocket.
He pushed his way out of the crowd. He had a purpose now that kept his poor bewildered thoughts fixed and happy. He knew just what he wanted and where to get it He had seen it in a shop window—a gold box marvellously inlaid with enamel. It would do for a show thing until the boy grew up, and then it would do for his cigarette-box—the young beggar. The idea amused him. He was even a little proud of it. He explained it to the salesman who bowed towards him deferentially. What was the good of giving babies expensive toys which they broke, or ridiculous mugs which they didn't know what to do with when they grew up? But a swagger cigarette-box—gold and enamel—that would be something to grow up for!
He handled the vulgar, costly thing lovingly.
"Will you want it engraved, sir?"
He looked up with a vague smile in his childish blue eyes. Engraved? Of course. "To my grandson from Colonel Tibbit, V.C." That was simple and complete. It said everything. One of these days the young beggar would boast about him. "My grandfather, you know, who fought in the Great War"
The salesman's face, seemed to spring out at him from a dense mist. It grimaced at him malevolently. It threatened.
He wasn't Colonel Tibbit any more. And the face knew.
His big hands fumbled and trembled. He wanted to give the box back but he was afraid. If he didn't propitiate him the man would point at him and shout: "The Neuville affair—that's the fellow who lost the regiment. Look at him!" So he slipped the box into his pocket. He even left his change on the counter. And apparently the shop-man was appeased, for when he caught him up in the street he smiled and bowed as deferentially as ever.
It was quite dark now. The old-time London that had once bedizened the night with blatant glare and vulgar wealth had become a place of enchantment, dim, mysterious, ennobled, its background a deepening silence against which each sound, almost each footfall, stood out alone. The people came and went like ghosts haunting some forsaken city. The rare lights of the streets, the dying traffic, were like fire-flies dancing through the purple darkness. But eastwards the jagged roofs stood out, knife sharp, as though beyond them a great light was rising in solemn state.
The air was still and very cold. The late Colonel Tibbit shivered in it. His mind, that had been stung to activity by terror, wandered again. He thought vaguely that he would like to rest somewhere—in some big chair before a fire—to hold his hands out to the blaze—to sleep a little. He thought of the smoking-room in the club where the great fire roared day and night, of the rich luxurious scent of cigars, of the familiar hum of friendly voices. He was thinking of all this and hardly knew that he had crossed through into Piccadilly. He was on the park side and met no one to disturb him. The great thoroughfare shone under the brilliant moonlight like a dim, empty river, serene, untroubled, without a ripple.
And then suddenly he stopped. For opposite him was his destination. The blinds were drawn, but he could see James, the hall-porter, standing on the steps looking up earnestly at the metallic sky.
James had served all through the Boer War. He knew everyone—everything. He was a standing joke with his uncanny knowledge.
The old man hiding in the shadow had a moment of terrible lucidity. He knew that in the familiar room towards which he had turned in his despair there were friends who would look away when he entered, out of pity or disgust, and that to-morrow he would resign to save them trouble.
Where did men go who were cashiered?
He thought of his daughter's home in Eaton Square, and of his son's old chambers in the Albany. His son was lieutenant in the Guards and home on leave. His son and his daughter were very like their mother. He thought of the way in which they would look at him
He thought of Elderswater, his by courtesy, of the cosy, expensive rooms in his hotel, where every servant knew him and his whole history.
What happened to men who were cashiered? Were they given little pensions by their disgraced people and told to hide themselves? But where in the whole world was there a hiding-place?
He did not know. He was quite lost now, and sick and weak, so that he clung to the park railings, crawling along like some broken old tramp. Even when the burly shadow of a policeman loomed up over him he could not hold himself upright.
"Na then—wot's orl this about?" The round eye of a lantern flashed inquisitively over the bowed figure. The Colonel's face was hidden, but not the uniform or the gaudy strips of ribbons. And the policeman was an old soldier. "Beg pardon, sir. Nothing wrong, I hope?"
"No—nothing—nothing."
The man lifted his face to the crescent moon riding over the city.
"First warning's out, sir. Better be getting home."
The Colonel nodded to himself. His hand groped in his pocket.
"Home," he said. "Yes, that's it—home—thank you, constable."
"Thank you, sir. Good 'ealth, sir, and—good-night, sir."
He moved on, stolid and imperturbable, a vary epitome of his race under a threat. Behind him two stragglers, a man and a woman, arms linked, came out into the lamplight. They too, stopped to glance skywards, and the woman put her fingers to her nose rudely.
"Stop the 'busses? You bet. And the tubes crammed like sardine-tins. If we sees 'ome to-night we 'as to foot it, old boy!"
"Wot! Orl the way to the Old Kent Road?"
"And why not? With bloomin' fire-works and a band playing to keep you in step? G'arn, Samuel. You don't 'arf want somethink for your money, you don't! Fergotten there's a war on, ain't you?"
They proceeded on their way, vociferously cheerful, and the colonel looked after them. His face was puckered with the puzzled, wistful lines of a man striving to lay hold on some old memory. For a minute it lasted. Then, like a clumsy, rudderless boat suddenly caught by the full swing of a swift current he turned and followed in the wake of the two receding shadows eastwards.
IV
When she waved to him from the ward door she was still smiling. She even winked, though his bed was too far off for him to have appreciated the effort. But outside she broke down. Everything about her seemed to go to pieces, as though she and her clothes had been hung together on a wire which had suddenly given way. When she had gone into the ward she had been rather a smart, trim figure, but now her feather hat flopped on one side, and her hair fell over her puckered face in wisps, and her coat with the real imitation skunk collar hung about her shapelessly like an old dressing-gown.
"Oh, Gawd!" she said. "Oh, Gawd!"
The nurse patted her consolingly on the arm.
"Of course, it's a shock to you. You're not accustomed to seeing people like that"
"And you're too bloomin' well accustomed to it," Lizzy Phipps retorted viciously. "You're always seein' 'em like that. My belief is you don't know what an 'ole 'uman being looks like."
"Oh, come!" the nurse protested, smiling.
The girl rubbed the tears off her chin.
"Oh, I knows I'm a pig. I 'aven't no cause to bite your 'ead off, any'ow. You've all been angels to 'im—that's wot 'e said. I ought to be on me knees to you. But I ain't got the sweetest temper in the world, and when I sees 'im like that—a little bit of a white thing—'im that was so fine and upstanding—why I wants to knife somebody, for choice that old blighter, that dodderin' old shunk wot's done it all."
"It's no use blaming people," the nurse interposed quietly; "your husband might have been wounded anyhow. We ought not to blame people in authority. We don't know enough."
The girl turned on her with a curious expression on her bitter, tear-stained face.
"Some of us knows a lot more than you'd think," she said; "and I know that when a man's done one real low down dirty trick in 'is life and 'asn't owned up and paid for it 'e'd do another sooner or later, no matter if 'is 'ole chest is jingling with V.C.s. I said it long ago and it's true."
The nurse looked doubtful.
"Anyhow your husband is doing finely. You don't need to worry."
"I ain't going to worry. I'm goin' to 'ave a drink—one drink, two drinks, three drinks—till I get his poor white face out of me 'ead. That's what I'm goin' to do."
"But you can't. It's only four o'clock."
"I can wait then," the girl answered grimly. "I ain't goin' 'ome to 'is people till I'm soaked jolly, so there!"
The nurse sighed but made no protest, for her work lay in a neighbourhood where the dullest of us gets understanding. "Well, each man his own medicine," she said; "but don't get yourself into trouble."
"I carries my liquor like a lidy," the other retorted with some pride.
So it came about that Mrs. Lizzy Phipps had her three drinks and more at the "Green Lion," and as the night wore on and an uneasy peace descended upon the teeming east-end streets she became the centre of an appreciative crowd which leaned against the bar, glass in hand, and nodded grave, slightly fuddled agreement to her bitter and pungent criticisms. By the time she had finished with them there were few lights left in England that had not begun to burn very low indeed. If they had been as resplendent electric globes in the popular imagination she turned them into penny dips flickering dismally in the wind of her wrath. She poured her Cockney wit over them with a liberality which brought her within the reach of the Defence of the Realm Act, but a policeman himself would hardly have cared to remind her of the fact. For her flushed, unhappily grinning face had a look of something withheld—something dangerous.
"And now this blighter," she exploded finally, "this old fool wot goes and chucks away 'is men for the fun of the thing—wot about 'im? Oh, I know 'e's a fine 'ero. Not much chance of forgettin' it, I 'adn't. Nothing would quiet my boy but getting into 'is regiment, and talk about 'im every time 'e come 'ome on leave—my ears, 'ow 'e talked. And now look at 'im. 'E'"never play footer agin, not in this life. I say they ought to put 'is bloomin' 'ero up against a wall—but they won't. They'll give 'im a smack and tell 'im to run away and do it again somewhere else. I knows 'em." She brought her clenched fist down on the counter so that the glasses jingled.
"Gawd! If it weren't for them 'Uns I'd wash me 'ands of the 'ole country, I would"
At that identical moment a maroon signal went up from the next street. The detonation seemed to silence the whole city. It was repeated at intervals, now close at hand, now in the muffled distance, till there was no corner which had not received its message. Everywhere people stood still and looked up at the night sky and said, "There they are again!" in various tones of boredom.
In the "Green Lion" the hush lasted barely a few seconds. Then a man tipped down the contents of his glass and wiped his mouth with the back of his hand with an air of regretful finality.
"Well, the 'erald angels 'ave turned up any'ow," he said. "I'd better be gettin' 'ome. The missis likes to 'ave us all under one roof. All die together sort o' thing. Ain't my idea. I says, 'Scatter us,' so as the 'Uns won't 'ave the satisfaction of wipin' out the 'ole 'Iggins family at one swoop. But you can't argue with wimmin. Good night, lidies and gents."
He sauntered out through the swinging doors and the rest of the company followed him, all but one fatalist who ordered another pint.
"I sticks to me beer to the bitter end," he said, "and if I dies I dies 'appy."
The dark streets showed a passing liveliness. Belated revellers made their way home, and whole families laden with treasure and all the contraptions essential to an evening picnic streamed towards the Tubes. Such dogs and cats as could be smuggled under shawls and aprons went with them, and the air was full of muttered injunctions to "'urry up and not to let 'em bark."
But gradually the bustle passed. By the time Lizzy Phipps had reached her destination all but a few inveterate sightseers had sought shelter. The street was quiet and apparently empty. The squat little houses that had an air of having once been cottages in a country lane, were wrapped in dignified silence. They had no part with the over-crowded, noisy tenements of the great thoroughfare. They had their own way of meeting danger—their own memories and traditions.
Lizzy Phipps had her key in the latch when the distance shook with the first rumble of guns. She looked back. She knew the whole business by heart now—when the outer defences were at work, and when things were getting too hot to be comfortable, and even the quality of the guns themselves—and it had long since ceased to be amusing. Nevertheless, there was always a certain joy in watching the great searchlights hunting across the sky. They were the most beautiful things Lizzy Phipps had ever seen, and she wanted to have one look at them.
It was then she noticed the man leaning against the railings. He had been so motionless that she had passed him by as a shadow, but now he moved suddenly—it was almost as though he wanted to see past her through the half open door—and she caught a glimpse of his white face. She knew that he was in some sort of uniform, but as her eyes accustomed themselves to the half-light she saw that it was tattered and dishevelled-looking. There was a long horizontal tear on the left breast of his tunic as though something had been ripped off.
"You'd better be getting 'ome, old chap," she said over her shoulder. "Even if you are drunk you'll be safer there."
He did not answer, and she lifted her red, swollen eyes back to the sky across which the searchlights swept in disciplined but baffled pursuit. For the crescent moon, now at her zenith, drank up their strength. She seemed to lure them on with promises of help whilst she hid the malignant thing they sought. There was something evil about her—like a pallid witch.
The guns were silent. They held their breath, waiting. When they spoke again Lizzy Phipps, for one, knew that the enemy had broken through. Their chorus was a continuous roar. The shells ripped the air overhead like a sheet of calico. And in the midst of this there sounded, curiously isolated and distinct, a low-pitched, ominous droning.
Lizzy Phipps ran down the steps. She seized the unknown man by the arm.
"You come along," she said curtly. "We don't want no funerals in this street."
And she dragged him in, slamming the door just as the earth rocked under a terrific, reverberating blow.
V
"It's all right, Mammy. No 'arm done. Keep your 'air on, there's a dear!"
The narrow passage was in darkness except at the far end, where a door which apparently led underground showed a faint reflected light. The shadow of a woman flitted before it like a ghost.
"Oh, Lizzy, Lizzy, where have you been?"
The girl answered with a gruff, unwilling tenderness.
"Oh, go hon with you, Mammy, you're always anxious. As though anything ever 'appened to my sort. 'Ere, I've brought you a drunk. Leanin' up aginst the railings 'e was as though the place belonged to 'im. I ain't givin' the 'Un anything for nothing, so I brought 'im in. My word, it was a near thing, too!"
"They're overhead. Come down quick. We're all there. Father's almost asleep."
"Lucky to be deaf these nights." She jerked her companion's arm. "Now you come quiet," she urged. "The cellar steps aren't much catch for anyone in your state and you've been near enough to trouble for one evening." Then something in his silence, his feeble clinging to her touched her to pity. "Poor old boy! Ain't 'arf shaken up, are you? Ought to 'ave been tucked up in bed hours ago. Hold tight." But he did not stumble, not even over the last step of all, which was a trap for the unwary, and she congratulated him. "Might be at 'ome, you might," she said.
The cellar was low-roofed and dark, smelling mustily of old, discarded things. Wooden boxes, broken sticks of furniture, waste strips of carpet which had found their home there had been pushed aside or made to serve a new purpose. There was a divan of straw over a ragged mattress, and a candle stuck in its own grease stood on a soap-box table in the midst of cups, a tin kettle, and a battered spirit lamp. Though it gave a frail uncertain light, there was something brave and cheerful about it, as though with the rest of its companions it was making the best of trouble.
A very old man sat on the mattress nursing a bundle that whimpered feebly. He and his charge were so wrapped in blankets that they were almost hidden, but as the barrage overhead reached the height of its frenzy, a solemn, distressed old face lifted itself to the light.
"They didn't ought to do such things," he reproved drowsily. "'Tain't right—'tain't Christian."
And slept again.
Lizzy Phipps laughed.
"Christians! Oo's a Christian in this bloomin' world? Oo wants to forgive 'is enemies? I don't." She let go her hold on the stranger's arm and he slipped away from her and crouched down in the shadow, his hand over his eyes. He had lost his cap, and she saw that he was grey-haired and that his hands trembled. "Short of a direct 'it we're as safe as the Bank of England," she comforted roughly, "and if we gets a direct 'it—well we sha'n't know it, so it's orl right any'ow."
But he did not answer, and the other woman looked at him across the candle-flame.
"It comes hard on some of us," she said gently. She was past middle-age. The hair, smoothed down gravely on either side of the small head, was worn thin, and the light cut the lines about her mouth and eyes to deep, sorrowful furrows. But the mouth itself had a certain sweetness and the eyes were young because of their expression of simple faith. They looked as though they had always hoped and believed the best. "One worries so about other people," she said. "If we're all together it seems easier. Oh, Liz, we've been so anxious—it's been so terrible waiting. We didn't know what to think. Why didn't you come back?"
Lizzy Phipps crouched down against the wall, her arms clasped about her knees, her hair hanging like a black web over her sullen, unhappy face.
"I couldn't," she said, "I wasn't coming 'ome feeling as I did. It wouldn't 'ave been fair. The nurse said 'e was doing fine—but I couldn't see it like that. I'd 'ave frightened you. I 'ad to get my feet first." She ground her teeth together. "Even now I can see 'im lying there with this going on over 'is 'ead, and 'im 'elpless, not able to save 'imself or to 'it back."
"Was he so bad, Liz?"
The girl stretched out her arms with a simple tenderness.
"'E was just a kid—just a 'andful. I could 'ave picked him up—like that—and carried 'im. And 'is voice—it might 'ave been a bird chirping. Gawd! It fair did fer me. I sat there grinning and winking, and making silly jokes so 'e shouldn't know. But inside, I was crying me 'eart out."
"Poor Jim—my poor Jim!"
"'E'll never run again," the girl muttered, "nor play footer no more." She sat with her face between her fists, staring blackly across the light, and for a moment the shadowy cellar was very still. The gunfire had shifted northwards. They felt rather than heard its muffled, continuous beat upon the earth. "I wouldn't 'ave felt it so," the girl went on sombrely, "if it had been for something worth while. 'E ain't the only one—I knows that. I didn't make no fuss when 'e went. I was ready for 'im to do 'is bit even if 'e never came back. But for nothing—just chucked away—scrap-'eaped because an old scamp couldn't do without 'is booze."
"That isn't true, Liz."
"Oh, isn't it?" She turned her fierce eyes on the older woman with a look almost of hate. "Oh, you'd say that of course. But other people knows better. There's talk in Parliament, and it's in the papers. There was a chap at the 'Green Lion' whose brother was in the regiment. 'E was in the very place where the order was given. 'E said the old man couldn't stand straight nor talk straight. 'E was just gobbling nonsense. And upstairs the boys were being blown to bits. But 'e didn't care. 'E got 'is V.C. and 'is cushy job. 'E could sit tight and swig"
"It isn't true," the old woman said quietly and authoritatively.
Lizzy Phipps threw back her dishevelled head and laughed. She laughed till the baby woke with a feeble cry, and the old man looked up, blinking and distressed.
"It ain't Christian," he said, "not to do things like that."
"You and 'im!" Lizzy Phipps flung out in wild scorn. "You make me sick. You'd stick up for 'im if 'e killed you. You'd say: 'Please Gawd, it ain't true—'e didn't do it'. I reckon when 'e married 'is precious Lady Wibbs you just threw up your eyes to 'Eaven and said, 'It's all for the best. 'E's done the right thing.' And now that 'e's 'arf killed your boy you ain't got a word to say. You won't believe what everyone knows."
The old woman clasped her gnarled, work-stained hands patiently.
"They don't know. Not really. It's better to think kindly."
"Oh, no, it ain't—not always—not by a long way." She drew herself up like someone who after long, bitter restraint closes with an enemy. "You listen 'ere, Mammy. You shall 'ave it straight for once. You've nigh on messed up my life, you and Jim, between you—with your kindly thinking. It weren't kindly. It was proud—blind proud. Oh, you couldn't kid me. I saw it in your face that day, Jim brought me 'ome as 'is girl. 'She ain't good enough.' That's what you thought. And I've seen it in Jim's face, too, though 'e loved me. I've seen 'im thinking. 'Supposing I got on, too—wot abart 'er?' Because 'e knew I wasn't classy and never could be—'cause I don't speak fine like you and Jim 'ave learnt to do and never shall. And when Jim got into that regiment I knew what 'e was thinking of, and it fair broke my 'eart." She gulped down the rising tears with a fierce, angry effort. "You've 'ad 'im in your minds all the time," she stammered; "you've never forgotten—you've never let Jim forget. It's been a sort of precious secret between you. You looked up at 'im as though 'e were a bloomin god—trying to be worthy of 'im—'im as did the meanest, dirtiest thing a man can do, and you looked down on me, 'oo would 'ave given my life to save Jim's little finger—or yours, Mammy, because I was common dirt."
"No, no, Liz."
The girl laughed again.
"Well, now look at your fine 'ero," she sneered. "Look at 'im. There aint nothing to be proud of now. If 'e'd been a poor Tommy they'd 'ave put 'im up against a wall and shot 'im. Drunk 'e was."
"That is'nt true," the old woman repeated gently. "I know it isn't."
They had forgotten the man huddled against the wall, but now he moved suddenly and violently, so that the rough table was overturned and the candle spluttered and went out. In the confined space the noise of falling crockery was deafening—terrifying. It synchronised with the returning boom of the guns, and in a moment the cellar had grown hot and stifling with panic.
No one spoke. The pitch darkness cut them off from each other. Each in his own utter isolation came back to the reality.
"They're nearer again," Lizzy Phipps whispered at last. "I thought it was a bomb. I wish I knew where I 'ad my matches. Wot cher do it for, old boy?"
"I couldn't bear it," the man answered loudly and passionately. "It was the same—out there—the noise—and the light—and the faces—I couldn't bear it." They turned amazedly in the direction of his voice. It was as though they realised him for the first time. He went on again, but in a changed tone—half-pompous, half-pitiful, each word separated by a sort of gasp. "He only drank a mouthful just to steady himself," he said. "It wasn't that—I—I assure you. He had had trouble, and then something happened—unexpected—and he broke down. He couldn't stand it. People say he was drunk. It—it was just trouble."
The old woman nodded to herself.
"I knew that." The old woman bent forward as though she were trying to come nearer to him. "He wasn't that sort. A man couldn't do what he did and not be sober and straight. Think of it, when 'e went to India he was just a common Tommy—Alf Tibbit, of the 42nd" She stopped for an instant, and they knew that she was smiling to herself. Through the venomous screaming of the shells overhead they waited for the comfort of her voice. "It was in a frontier war that his chance came," she said eagerly, like a child reciting a well-learned lesson. "His company had been sent on ahead to reconnoitre, and was ambushed by an overwhelming force of the enemy. All Sergeant Tibbit's officers were either killed or wounded, and no help came. Sergeant Tibbit rallied his men, and by extraordinary skill and courage extricated them and brought them back with all his wounded to the main force. Sergeant Tibbit risked his life repeatedly for his comrades, and his conduct is beyond all praise." The little recitation was at an end. "It was in all the papers," she said simply. "And they gave him the V.C."
Lizzy Phipps threw back her head with her vitriolic laugh.
"'E was out for it," she said, "a pot 'unter!"
"And later on he won his commission," the old woman continued steadily. "Though he was just a poor Tommy they couldn't hold him back. He was a fine soldier. People loved him too—his men and all the grand people there—and—and he married a real lady."
"A real lady—to 'ave married im!"
"And proud she must have been," the woman answered. "He was the best set-up man in the Army—tall and handsome he was. Any woman might have been proud."
Lizzy Phipps waited a moment, like a tiger-cat before it springs.
"Did you ever 'ear tell of the girl 'e left be'ind 'im?" she asked—"and of the kid—of 'ow 'e never came back, but left them both to shame and misery. Did you ever 'ear that of your precious 'ero, Mister?"
"Oh, Liz, you haven't any right to say that? No one has. He couldn't have come back. He was an officer and a gentleman. It wouldn't 'ave been fair—not to his country—not to—to anyone. It was kinder of him just to forget."
"He didn't forget," the man said out of the darkness—"not ever."
"I knew that," she answered.
"He was always thinking of them." His voice came back to them pitifully changed—not pompous any more, but thick with pain—rough with the familiar accent of their streets. "He never forgot. That was it. Couldn't forget anything—not who he was—nor where he came from—nor the way he used to talk and eat. He used to dream at night—every night—that he'd done something—said something in a crowd of people, and that they'd looked at him—not laughing—because they wouldn't do that—but amused and polite and scornful. Sometimes he'd use his knife wrong—or he'd drop his aitches. Hours and hours he'd practice his aitches—in his room—by himself—trying to make them come easy and natural. But they never would."
"Wot's it matter—dropping your aitches any'ow?" Lizzy Phipps demanded. "Bloomin' affectation."
But the man did not hear her. He pressed on with a feverish eagerness.
"At first he was a good soldier," he said. "That came natural to him all right. Sometimes he used to feel it like—like a sort of call from God—so that he had to go on over everything—everybody. But he had not reckoned with having to be a gentleman, too. He got to watch his brother-officers—seeing what they did and how they did it—trying to copy them. Always trying. He tried till he couldn't think of anything else. He'd given up everything to be a soldier—to get on. But he forgot all that. It didn't seem to matter. He knew that he'd have to be a gentleman first. And on top he was one—a sort of one. He got a grip on himself so that he didn't do or say what he wanted to—what came easy to him. But underneath it was always the same—always Alf Tibbit of the Old Kent Road. It was like being haunted—followed by some one who might jump out at you any minute. And his wife knew. She'd married him because she liked men who did things—fame and all that—and she was 'eadstrong in a cold sort of way. But he never did anything again. He just jogged along—doing the correct thing—worrying about Alf Tibbit—afraid of him. And she got to know—and afterwards the children. And they looked down on him and laughed at him in their sleeves. They hated him, too. He wasn't their sort. He was just a shoddy make-believe. They used to watch him trying to be like them. If he'd been anyone else they'd have thought him just funny, but he was their father—and—and they hated 'im."
"Gawd!" said Lizzy Phipps under her breath.
She did not jeer now. The ferocious contempt was lost in wonder at the picture which he painted against the darkness. It was like a heart-rending movie. And she loved movies.
"'E was never happy—never," he said pitifully,
"I knew that, too."
In the thin old voice there sounded a sorrowful triumph.
"And the old Alf Tibbit wouldn't let him alone. He was always asking for old things and the old places—worrying him for them. In the fine houses—at the fine dinners he was always there—remembering—jogging his elbow."
He laughed tremendously like a child amused in the midst of tears. "Winkle soup he was always asking for—always wanting winkle soup."
"And no blame to 'im," said Lizzy Phipps. "Winkle soup's all right"
"But he couldn't have it—no more than the old place or the old people. Turtle and oyster he could have had, but it wasn't what Alf Tibbit wanted. And, besides, he wasn't a good soldier any more. His men knew. He would have chucked it all, but it was all he had left, and he'd given too much for it."
The old woman sighed deeply to herself.
"Poor boy, poor boy!"
"And then the War came."
"That was 'is chance," said Lizzy Phipps.
"He wasn't fit to take it. It came ten years too late. He knew, but he hadn't the pluck to resign. He just hoped for the best. So long as things went straight he thought he could hold out; but they didn't—something frightful—unexpected—happened. The regiment lost contact—on both flanks—and the enemy was creeping up—and he had to choose." He stopped, panting, as though with physical exhaustion, and when he went on again it was in a voice that seemed to shrink and wince at its own sound. "It was in a cellar—like this—full of wounded men—and this noise, only ten times worse. And they stood—waiting—and he couldn't think. He'd been a rotten soldier and a sham gentleman too long. Then he drank a little, trying to steady himself, and the Major saw and hinted—hinted that he wasn't fit—and he lost his head and shouted, 'My God, Major, I could 'ave you shot!" It was like one of the dreams come true. They stood there and looked at him—just as he knew they would—not laughing—just amused—wondering how he got there."
"Go on," Lizzy Phipps whispered.
"Then he went to bits—cracked like an empty eggshell. He couldn't reason any more. He was blind mad. He could only hang on to the one thing—that he mustn't run—that he must stick his ground. They shouldn't ever say Alf Tibbit ran. They shouldn't laugh at him for that."
"He was always a great fighter," the old woman declared. "They couldn't expect Alf Tibbit to retreat."
Lizzy Phipps frowned.
"Poor blighter!"
"Yes. He hadn't any luck. He wasn't killed. Others were, but not him. When it was all over they sent him home, and to-day—a few hours ago—they finished it—he was cashiered."
"Cashiered!" Lizzy Phipps echoed. "Wot's it mean? Where do chaps go wot's cashiered?"
"There wasn't anywhere to go. Nowhere. His wife was dead. But there were his children—and his friends—his servants—the people who had lost their boys—because of him—people everywhere—who knew. There was nowhere to go—just the streets."
"He ought to 'ave told 'em—explained—they'd 'ave understood—that's wot one's folks are for."
"They weren't his people. After a bit he didn't care any more. They didn't belong to 'im—never 'ad. If only his people would understand."
"'E orter give 'em a chance."
"—so he came back to the old place."
The gunfire had rolled away into the far distance. It was very still. And in the stillness they could hear the sound of some one crying. The old man who had slept lifted his head.
"Ain't Christian," he mumbled to himself—"all this 'ating of one another."
VI
Lizzy Phipps had lit the lamp, and he looked about him and saw how little it had all changed. Things had grown older and shabbier, but at heart they were the same. There were the books laid out neatly and at regular intervals round the mahogany table, the glass cases of wax fruit, and the enlarged photographs of pleasant, plain-faced people smiling stiffly.
The old woman opened one of the books and laid it before him, and he saw that it was pasted full with newspaper cuttings. And each cutting had its inscription written at its side in a painful laborious hand: "Sergeant Tibbit, V.C., at the Investiture," "Captain Tibbit, V.C., and Lady Dorothea Tibbit, St. George's, Hanover Square." "Colonel Tibbit, V.C., and the Elderswater Boy Scouts."
"It was very kind of you, Em, to care." He put his trembling hand on the last page. "There'll be one more to-morrow," he said, "just one more."
"We've been so proud," she said.
Her eyes were hidden. But the tears ran down the deep furrows on her cheeks, and she did not seem to know that she was crying.
He tugged at the tunic from old habit, and his hand touched the square bulk in his pocket. He drew out the gold and enamel box.
"I bought it for my grandson." He seemed to be fumbling for words—for some half-formed thought, and because it wouldn't come he shook his head sadly. "I'm getting old," he said. "I'm not the man I was once, Em."
Lizzy Phipps came out of the dark passage.
"You ain't going," she said. "It ain't safe. They might begin again."
"I ought to have been shot," he said; "it would have been better—not to have come in. I just wanted you to know—'ow it was—I wanted Em to know."
But she barred his way.
"You ain't going," she said. "My Jim 'd never forgive me. And 'e was right, too, though 'e made me bitter angry at the time. 'Don't you listen to no talk, Liz,' 'e whispers to me, weak as a kitten. '’E was a fine soldier. There ain't one of us alive or dead as wouldn't tell you so. And I'm proud of 'im.'"
"We shall always be proud," the grey-haired woman said gently.
"I'd better go," he muttered. "I'd better go, Em."
But she followed him. Her hand rested with eagerness on his arm.
"D'you need to be going, Alf? They've had you all these years—and I've waited—in the old place—just on the chance." Her lips quivered into a smile. "I still make winkle soup, Alf."
Lizzy Phipps held open the front door. They heard her calling.
"There—listen all of you—ain't that the finest carol?"
They heard it then—sounding faint and thrilling through the tense stillness of the streets.
"All clear! All clear!"
The old hand slipped down to his and held it strongly and joyfully.
"You've come home, Alf; you've come home."