The Major Part 62

"Oh, Larry, Larry," cried the child, flinging herself upon him. "Let me cry, then. I can't hold in any longer."

"Neither can I, little girl. See, Elfie, there is no use trying not to, and I am not ashamed of it, either," said Larry.

The pent-up emotion broke forth in a storm of sobbing and tears that shook the slight body as the tempest shakes the sapling. Larry, holding her in his arms, talked to her about the good days they had had together.

"And isn't it fine to think that we have those forever, and, whenever we want to, we can bring them back again? And I want you to remember, Elfie, that when I was very lonely and homesick here you were the one that helped me most."

"And you, Larry, oh, what you did for me!" said the child. "I was so sick and miserable and bad and cross and hateful."

"That was just because you were not fit," said Larry. "But now you are fit and fine and strong and patient, and you will always be so. Remember it is a soldier's duty to keep fit." Elfie nodded. "And I want you to send me socks and a lot of things when I get over there. I shall write you all about it, and you will write me. Won't you?" Again Elfie nodded.

"I am glad you let me cry," she said. "I was so hot and sore here," and she laid her hands upon her throat. "And I am glad you cried too, Larry; and I won't cry before people, you know."

"That is right. There are going to be too many sad people about for us to go crying and making them feel worse," said Larry.

"But I will say good-bye here, Larry. I could go to the train, but then I might not quite smile."

But when the train pulled out that night the last face that Larry saw of all his warm-hearted American friends was that of the little girl, who stood alone at the end of the platform, waving both her hands wildly over her head, her pale face effulgent with a glorious smile, through which the tears ran unheeded down her cheeks like rain on a sunny day.

And on Larry's face, as he turned away, there was the same gleam of suns.h.i.+ne and of rain.

"This farewell business is something too fierce," he said to himself savagely, thinking with a sinking heart of the little group at Wolf Willow in the West to whom he must say farewell, and of the one he must leave behind in Winnipeg. "How do these women send their husbands off and their sons? G.o.d knows, it is beyond me."

Throughout the train journey to Calgary his mind was chiefly occupied with the thought of the parting that awaited him. But when he reached his destination he found himself so overwhelmed with the rush of preparation and with the strenuous daily grind of training that he had no time nor energy left for anything but his work. A change, too, was coming swiftly over the heart of Canada and over his own heart. The tales of Belgian atrocities, at first rejected as impossible, but afterwards confirmed by the Bryce Commission and by many private letters, kindled in Canadian hearts a pa.s.sion of furious longing to wipe from the face of the earth a system that produced such horrors. Women who, with instincts native of their kind, had at the first sought how they might with honour keep back their men from the perils of war, now in their compa.s.sion for women thus relentlessly outraged and for their tender babes pitilessly mangled, consulted chiefly how they might best fit their men for the high and holy mission of justice for the wronged and protection for the helpless. It was this that wrought in Larry a fury of devotion to his duty. Night and day he gave himself to his training with his concentrated powers of body, mind and soul, till he stood head and shoulders above the members of the Officers' Training Corps at Calgary.

After six weeks of strenuous grind Larry was ordered to report to his battalion at Wolf Willow. A new world awaited him there, a world recreated by the mysterious alchemy of war, a world in which men and women moved amid high ideals and lofty purposes, a world where the dominant note was sacrifice and the regnant motive duty.

Nora met him at the station in her own car, which, in view of her activity in connection with the mine where her father was now manager, the directors had placed at her disposal.

"How big and fine you look, Larry! You must be pounds heavier," she cried, viewing him from afar.

"Twenty pounds, and hard as hickory. Never so fit in my life," replied her brother, who was indeed a picture of splendid and vigorous health.

"You are perfectly astonis.h.i.+ng. But everything is astonis.h.i.+ng these days. Why, even father, till he broke his leg--"

"Broke his leg?"

"There was no use worrying you about it. A week ago, while he was pottering about the mine, he slipped down a ladder and broke his leg. He will probably stay where he belongs now--in the office. But father is as splendid as any one could well be. He has gripped that mine business hard, and even Switzer in his palmiest days could not get better results. He has quite an extraordinary way with the men, and that is something these days, when men are almost impossible to get."

"And mother?" enquired Larry.

"Mother is equally surprising. But you will see for yourself. And dear old Kathleen. She is at it day and night. They made her President of the Women's War a.s.sociation, and she is--Well, it is quite beyond words.

I can't talk about it, that's all." Nora's voice grew unsteady and she took refuge in silence. After a few moments she went on: "And she has had the most beautiful letter from Jack's colonel. It was on the Big Retreat from Mons that he was killed at the great fight at Landrecies.

You know about that, Larry?"

"No, never heard anything; I know really nothing of that retreat," said Larry.

"Well, we have had letters about it. It must have been great. Oh, it will be a glorious tale some day. They began the fight, only seventy-five thousand of the British--think of it! with two hundred guns against four hundred thousand Germans with six hundred guns. They began the fight on a Sat.u.r.day. The French on both their flanks gave way. One army on each flank trying to hem them in and an army in front pounding the life out of them. They fought all Sat.u.r.day. They began the retreat on Sat.u.r.day night, fought again Sunday, marched Sunday night, they fought Monday and marched Monday night, fought Tuesday, and marched Tuesday night. The letter said they staggered down the roads like drunken men. Wednesday, dead beat, they fought again--and against ever fresh ma.s.ses of men, remember. Wednesday night one corps came to Landrecies. At half-past nine they were all asleep in billets. At ten o'clock a perfectly fresh army of the enemy, field guns backing them up behind, machine guns in front, bore down the streets into the village.

But those wonderful Coldstreams and Grenadiers and Highlanders just filled the streets and every man for himself poured in rifle fire, and every machine gun fired into the enemy ma.s.ses, smashed the attack and then they went at them with the bayonet and flung them back. Again and again throughout the night this thing was repeated until the Germans drew off, leaving five hundred dead before the village and in its streets. It was in the last bayonet charge, when leading his men, that Jack was killed."

"My G.o.d!" cried Larry. "What a great death!"

"And so Kathleen goes about with her head high and Sybil, too,--Mrs.

Waring-Gaunt, you know," continued Nora, "she is just like the others.

She never thinks of herself and her two little kids who are going to be left behind but she is busy getting her husband ready and helping to outfit his men, as all the women are, with socks and mits and all the rest of it. Before Tom made up his mind to raise the battalion they were both wretched, but now they are both cheery as crickets with a kind of exalted cheeriness that makes one feel like hugging the dear things.

And, Larry, there won't be a man left in this whole country if the war keeps on except old McTavish, who is furious because they won't take him and who declares he is going on his own. Poor Mr. Rhye is feeling so badly. He was rejected--heart trouble, though I think he is more likely to injure himself here preaching as he does than at the war."

"And yourself, Nora? Carrying the whole load, I suppose,--ranch, and now this mine. You are getting thin, I see."

"No fear," said Nora. "Joe is really doing awfully well on the ranch.

He practically takes charge. By the way, Sam has enlisted. He says he is going to stick to you. He is going to be your batman. And as for the mine, since father's accident Mr. Wakeham has been very kind. If he were not an American he would have enlisted before this."

"Oh! he would, eh?"

"He would, or he would not be coming about Lakeside Farm."

"Then he does come about?"

"Oh, yes," said Nora with an exaggerated air of indifference. "He would be rather a nuisance if he were not so awfully useful and so jolly.

After all, I do not see what we should have done without him."

"Ah, a good man is Dean."

"I had a letter from Jane this week," continued Nora, changing the subject abruptly.

"I have not heard for two weeks," said Larry.

"Then you have not heard about Scuddy. Poor Scuddy! But why say 'poor'

Scuddy? He was doing his duty. It was a patrol party. He was scouting and ran into an enemy patrol and was instantly killed. The poor girl, Helen Brookes, I think it is."

"Helen Brookes!" exclaimed Larry.

"Yes, Jane says you knew her. She was engaged to Scuddy. And Scallons is gone too."

"Scallons!"

"And Smart, Frank Smart."

"Frank Smart! Oh! his poor mother! My G.o.d, this war is awful and grows more awful every day."

"Jane says Mrs. Smart is at every meeting of the Women's a.s.sociation, quiet and steady, just like our Kathleen. Oh, Larry, how can they do it?

If my husband--if I had one--were killed I could not, I just could not, bear it."

"I fancy, little girl, you would measure up like the others. This is a d.a.m.nable business, but we never knew our women till now. But the sooner that cursed race is wiped off the face of the earth the better."

"Why, Larry, is that you? I cannot believe my ears."

"Yes, it is me. I have come to see that there is no possibility of peace or sanity for the world till that race of mad militarists is destroyed.

I am still a pacifist, but, thank G.o.d, no longer a fool. Is there no other news from Jane?"