The Parts Men Play Part 46

V.

The last act of _Madam b.u.t.terfly_ was ending. The cruel little story wound to a close with the return of Pinkerton and his sympathy-uninspiring American wife, and then the suicide of b.u.t.terfly--the logical, but comparatively unmoving, finale to the opera.

But Elise neither saw the actors nor heard the music. With her hands covering her eyes, she had been listening for the voice of d.i.c.k. She could hear it, distant and faint, growing nearer, as if he were coming towards her through a forest. There was in it a despair she had never heard before. He was in danger--where or how she could not fathom--but over the surging music of the orchestra she could hear the voice of Boy-blue crying through the infinity of s.p.a.ce.

The opera was over, and there was a storm of applause that developed into an ovation.

'The tenor isn't really handsome, after all,' said Lady Erskin.

'I think the women of to-day are shameless,' said the rector's wife, casting a last indignant glance at the box across the theatre.

'I feel a perfect rag,' said Lady Erskin's daughter. 'Good heavens!

Elise, what's the matter?'

'Nothing. I--I don't know,' Elise answered, looking up with terror-stricken eyes. 'I'm just overwrought. That's all.'

'You poor dear!' said Lady Erskin. 'You shouldn't take the opera so seriously. After all, it didn't really happen--and I have no doubt in real life the tenor is quite a model husband, with at least ten children.'

VI.

'Drunk,' said the company commander, stooping over the prostrate body of d.i.c.k Durwent. 'He was all right when he took over. Where did he get the stuff?'

'Smell that, sir,' said the subaltern of the night, handing him a water-bottle.

'Humph! This looks bad. Have him carried to the rear and placed under arrest.'

CHAPTER XXIV.

THE SENTENCE.

I.

On the outskirts of a village near the junction of the British and French armies, two guards with loaded rifles kept watch at the doors of a hut. The warm sunlight of May was bathing the fields in gold, where here and there a peasant woman could be seen sprinkling seed into the furrows. Across a field, cutting its way through a farmyard, a light railway carried its occasional wobbling, narrow-gauged traffic; and outside half-a-dozen huts soldiers were lolling in the warmth of early afternoon, polis.h.i.+ng accoutrements and exchanging the lazy philosophy of men resting after herculean tasks. Elsewhere there was no sign of war. Cattle browsed about the meadows, and the villagers, long since grown used to the presence of foreign soldiers, pursued their endless duties.

A sergeant walked briskly from a cottage in the village and went directly to the field where lay the hut guarded by the sentries. 'Fall in outside!' he said sharply, opening the door.

Bareheaded, and with his dark hair seeming to cast the shadows that had gathered beneath his eyes, d.i.c.k Durwent emerged and took his place between the guards.

'To receive the sentence of the court,' said the sergeant in answer to his questioning glance. 'Escort and prisoner--'shun! Right turn!

Quick march!'

Past the lounging soldiers to the road, and on to the village, they marched. Women glanced up, curious as to the meaning of the little procession, but with a shrug of their shoulders resumed their work, and soon forgot all about it. The escort halted outside the cottage from which the sergeant had come, and he entered it alone. A minute later he reappeared, and marched prisoner and guards into the room where the court-martial had been held that morning. The three officers were sitting in the same places--a lieutenant-colonel, whose set, sun-tanned face told nothing; a captain, whose firmness of jaw and steadiness of eye could not hide his twitching lip; and a subaltern, pale as d.i.c.k Durwent himself.

As president of the court, the senior officer handed a sealed envelope to the prisoner. Not a word was spoken on either side. The sergeant's command rang out, and the noise of metalled heels upon the floor was startlingly loud.

Still without a word, carrying the unread sentence in his hand, Durwent was marched back to the hut. Again the women cast curious glances, and a little urchin in a c.o.c.ked-hat stood at the salute as they pa.s.sed.

When he was alone once more, d.i.c.k broke the seal of the envelope, and without his face altering, except that the shadows grew darker beneath his eyes, he read the finding of the court.

He was to be shot.

He read it twice. With a long, quivering intake of the breath, he tore the thing slowly into a dozen pieces and threw them into a corner.

Walking to the end of the hut, he leaned against the ledge of a little window, and looked out towards the horizon where the great blue of the sky stooped to earth. There was the laughter of soldiers, and from an adjoining meadow came the neighing of a restive horse. The sunlight deepened, and from a hundred branches birds were trilling welcome to the promise of another summer.

Two hours pa.s.sed. The warmth of early afternoon was giving way to the cool mood of twilight--but the solitary figure had not moved.

II.

Nine days had pa.s.sed when a motor-lorry drew up on the road, and the same sergeant ordered d.i.c.k Durwent to take his place outside the hut with his escort. The prisoner asked as to his destination, and was told that the sentence, having been confirmed, was to be promulgated before his unit.

They had been travelling for half-an-hour when they reached a field in which Durwent saw two companies of his battalion drawn up in the form of a hollow square. Faint with shame, staggering under the hideous cruelty of the whole thing, he was marched into the centre and ordered to take a pace forward, while the commanding officer read the sentence of court-martial to the men: that Private Sherwood, being found guilty of drunkenness while on guard--it being further proved that he had obtained unlawful possession of the liquor--was to be shot at dawn, and that the sentence would be carried out the following morning.

Although his senses reeled with the shock and ignominy of it all, the prisoner's bearing showed no sign of it. With his head erect, he looked into the faces of the men whom he had lived and slept and fought beside; men with whom he had shared privation and danger; men who had been his comrades through it all. But as he searched their faces he felt an overpowering loneliness. In the eyes of every one there was horror; To be killed in battle--what was that? But to be shot like a cur in the grizzly morning! Yet their horror, their anger, was against the military law, and was born of a fear that the same thing might come to them. It was that which cut him to the quick. It was not that _he_ was to be shot the next day, but that _they_ might meet a similar fate.

That was the fear which drove the blood from their cheeks and left their lips parted in awe.

And then he saw a face which almost broke down his manhood, and sent scalding tears to the very brink. It was the face of the lad he had saved from deserting that terrible night. The boy's agony was for him alone; it was pleading for understanding; it was trying to tell him that he would never forget--that the condemned man would not go to his death unmourned by one human heart.

III.

It was his last night. All evening the chaplain had been with him, offering the solace of divine mercy and forgiveness; but though he was grateful for the good man's ministrations, Durwent felt that he wanted to be alone. He hardly knew why; but there were many things to think of, things which would be remembered more easily if he were by himself.

Towards eleven o'clock he made the request of the chaplain, who left him, promising to return shortly after midnight; and, with his hands clasped behind his back, d.i.c.k walked slowly up and down the hut.

His mind journeyed to Roselawn--and Elise. At least--and at the thought he struck his hands together with joy--she would never know.

She would think he had died in China. For several minutes he walked without his thoughts taking any other form than that, but gradually the realisation of his surroundings began to leave him. He was roaming through the woods with Elise; they were climbing a great tree for birds' eggs; they were casting flies for trout in the stream that ran through their estate; they were riding across country on ponies that whinnied with pleasure at the feel of the soft turf. But wherever his hungry imagination painted her, there was in her face the womanly tenderness that had always been hers in their companions.h.i.+p.

He stopped in his walk and pressed his clenched fingers against his lips. She had always believed in him. Through all the h.e.l.l in which the Fates had cast his destiny, she had been one star towards which he could grope. But now--a drunkard--a renegade soldier of a renegade battalion--to be shot. He had killed her trust! The horrors of the night closed on him like hounds on a dying stag.

Uttering a dull cry of agony, he staggered across the hut with outstretched hands--and in the darkness his poor disordered fancy saw once more the vision of his sister's face. It was as he had seen her when, as a boy bruised by life, he had gone to her for solace. She had not changed. She could not change. Her eyes, her lips, were saying that in the morning she would stand beside him, holding his hand in hers, until the levelled rifles severed his soul and his body for eternity.

He sank to his knees, and for the first time in many years he prayed.

It was a prayer to an unknown G.o.d, in words that were meaningless, disjointed things. It was a soul crying out to its source, a soul struggling towards the throne of Eternal Justice, through a darkness lit only by a sister's love and the grat.i.tude of an eighteen-year-old boy saved from shameful death.

The commands of the sergeant of the guard could be heard as sentries were changed. Durwent rose to his feet and tried to look from the window, but the night was as black as the grave which had already been dug for him. Once more there was no sound but the wind moaning about the deserted fields.

'Mas'r d.i.c.k.'

d.i.c.k's body grew rigid. Was it a prank of his mind, or had he really heard the words?

'Mas'r d.i.c.k.'