THE CINDER PATH (37 page)

They have a farm over Bellingham way. She must be

all of ten years older than him. She was the only

daughter and her parents are pretty old. You can

see the picture, can't you? Apparently Betty

didn't know a thing about it until it was all done.

Then he wrote to her. It was enough to send any girl

round the bend; you can't blame her his

"Oh my God!" Charlie held his brow with his

hand. "It's my fault really. I should have

let her have him there during the war. But I knew

once he was in I wouldn't get him out, and I

couldn't stand him." He now looked at Nellie and

asked, "How is she taking it? I mean, she

wouldn't do anything silly."

She smiled gently at him as she said, "Not

Betty, not like me, no, no, Charlie, you needn't

worry on that score, she's too practical."

"Oh, I wish I were home."

She rose from the chair now and, going to the

side of the window and looking out, she said, "They're lovely grounds here." Then turning to him again, she added, "You mustn't rush; you'd be no good at all

back on the farm the way you are now, you know that.

You've got to get your strength up and get some flesh

on your bones, and get..." She couldn't finish

by adding, "Get your nerves steadied", for one thing he didn't seem to understand was that it wasn't only his

body that had been shattered.

"Get what?"

"Well, I meant get yourself well enough to fork

hay."

"I'll be well enough to fork hay, never you worry.

It's odd how I longed to get away from

that place and now I long to be back. How's the

farm looking?"

She blinked, pressed her lips together for a moment

while she swallowed, then said, "Fine, fine, as

usual, and I've brought you evidence of it in there."

She pointed towards a case at the foot of the bed,

then added hastily, "Oh, I forgot. You'll never

guess who I saw, and in this very place, today."

He shook his head and caught at her hand as she

sat beside him again.

"Polly."

"Polly, here?"

"Yes; just as I was going out of the gate. There's a big new wing over there"-she turned her head towards the window-"at the far side, and Arthur's there."

He opened his mouth twice before he could say the

name, "Arthur? Why! I thought Arthur was gone."

"No, no, he's still alive, what's left of

him."

"B. . . but when I saw him on the quay, I

think I told you, his legs were gone and his arm; they

didn't expect him to last."

"Well, he has."

"Good Lord!" He shook his head. "And . . . and I've never given him a thought all this

time except to think, Poor Arthur. Well!

well!" He smiled. "I'll have to go and see him."

"Yes, he'd like that, I'm sure. I told

Polly."

"Was she surprised that I was here?"

"Yes, very surprised. ... Of course you know

Slater's dead, don't you?"

He leant back in the chair. The tiredness was

assailing him again. He opened his mouth and gasped for breath; then he said quietly, "Yes, yes, I

heard about it."

"Polly looked well, quite bonny in fact. But

then she was always bonny. You were gone on her at one

time, weren't you?" She pushed her face playfully

towards him, and he said absent-mindedly, "Was

I?"

She tapped his cheek and brought his gaze on to her

as she said, "You know you were."

"Yes," he smiled faintly. "Yes, I

suppose I was. The madness of youth."

"I was mad in my youth too. I fell in love

with a tall, lanky lad, and my madness didn't

fade away, it developed into a mania." She

took his face between her hands now and said softly,

"If you and I, Charlie, were to have nothing more than we've got at this moment I'd still thank God that

I've loved you. . . .

Oh! Charlie, don't cry. Oh my dear, my

dearest, please, please don't cry."

The door opened and Sister Bernard entered carrying

a tray laden with tea things and she did not exclaim

loudly at the scene before her but, putting the tray

down on a side table, she went to the other side of the chair and, lifting Charlie's drooping head, she said

briskly, "Do you the world of good, we don't cry

enough. Englishmen are fools, they keep it

bottled up." Now nodding across at Nellie, whose

eyes, too, were full of tears, she went on, "The

French and Italians and suchlike, they howl like

banshees on the slightest provocation, and they're

better for it. Now what you both want is a good

cup of tea; I've made it nice and strong."

She indicated the tray with a jerk of her thumb over

her shoulder; then looking towards the case at the

bottom of the bed, she said, "I understand he's got a farm, I hope you've brought something worthwhile from

it, for in the main it's bread and scrape and so-called jam in here. I suppose we should thank God for that

but somehow I can't give praise unless it's due.

Well, I'll leave you to pour out the tea." She

nodded her head towards Nellie, and almost without

seeming to change

its motion she jerked it in Charlie's direction

while still speaking to Nellie and said, "He hates me guts but I don't care, I'm here for his

punishment and I'm going to see that he gets it."

Her lips pressed tight together now, a twinkle

deep in her eye, she nodded from one to the other, then marched out.

The door closed, their glances held for a moment

before they fell about each other trying to smother

their tear-mixed laughter.

ATER the first week which had seemed long and endless

the days slipped by unnoticed. He woke up one

morning to see the window sill banked with snow; it was winter, he hadn't seemed to take it in before. His time was filled with eating and sleeping and sitting by the window.

As Christmas approached the activity in the

hospital heightened and an excitement ran through the

place. It was the first Christmas of peace, and on

Christmas Day he went for the first time from the narrow confines of the ward to the main dining-room and the Christmas tea party, and he found to his surprise that he

enjoyed the change and the company. He also discovered that the two toughies were universally beloved clowns, and that in a way he was lucky to be under their care.

He did not see Nellie over the holidays for

she was on duty, and when he did see her he was

troubled for during her last two visits he had

sensed there was something wrong with

her. The only comfort he had was the knowledge that it had nothing to do with her feeling for him. He had probed but to no avail; all he could get out of her was that everything was all right and he hadn't to worry, he had just to get

well.

He had made himself ask if she had

seen Victoria and she had answered no, but she had

heard quite a lot about her and did he want to hear it?

When he had replied, "Is it necessary?" her answer had been, "That all depends on how you feel about

her. If you are still bitter you're bound to think that she's the last one who deserves any happiness.

I... I understand she is going to marry her one-time

Major Smith."

"Really!" He hadn't been able to cover his

surprise and added somewhat cynically, "He's still going then?"

"As far as I understand he's a

lieutenantcolonel now and he's never been out of

England."

"No? Well there's greater merit due to him that

he has survived with her."

"Oh Charlie!" she had said; "it isn't like you to be bitter." And he answered and truthfully,

"I'm not the same Charlie you once knew,

Nellie."

But there was something wrong with Nellie, something troubling her. Was it her mother? He doubted it; she had said that Florence seemed willing now to countenance their

association; the fact that she would eventually be living only a few miles away seemed to have

modified her attitude. . . .

It wasn't until a day towards the end of

January that he found out what was troubling Nellie.

Then the earth was ripped from under him once again and he felt that Slater's curse was really on him ...

he was a loser, he had been born a loser and he

would die a loser.

It was a bright clear morning; there had been snow but

it was almost all gone except for that which lay on high ground. Sister Bernard and Sister Monica were

busily making the bed when he said, "I feel like a walk outside today."

"Good. Good. Now you're talking." It was Sister Bernard who answered him. When they were together Sister Monica never opened her mouth. It was, he

understood, some part of a rule that was enforced upon them that only one should talk.

"Wrap up well, put a scarf on "cos that

sun is deceptive. Don't think if you go and

get

pneumonia we're going to look after you because we're

not; are we. Sister?"

She nodded across the bed, then answered for Sister

Monica who simply smiled at her, saying,

"No, we're not."

He went to the wardrobe and, taking down his

greatcoat, he put it on, and as he buttoned it

up he looked towards the two black-robed,

furiously working figures, and he addressed Sister

Bernard saying, "Do you know, Sister, you would have made a splendid sergeantmajor. The army lost

something in you."

"Sergeant-major indeed!" She pulled herself up to her small height and, bristling now, she said,

"Who you insulting? I passed the sergeant-major

stage years ago; I'd have you know me rank is

equal to that of a general. I'm surprised that you

haven't noticed it!"

He laughed aloud now, saying, "I'm

surprised too. What do you say, Sister?" He

was looking at Sister Monica now, and Sister

Bernard, leaning across the bed again as if waiting for Sister Monica to repeat something, said,

"Cook-general, she says. Well! when your own

let you down what do you expect from others? Have you

put that scarf on?"

"Yes, I've got it on. Look." He

turned the

collar of his coat back, then asked, "Do you think it would be possible for me to pay a visit

to the annexe?"

"I don't see why not. You know someone there?"

"Yes, someone I knew well at one time."

"You've never mentioned him before . . . why?"

"I... I hadn't thought about it."

"Well"-she turned from him-"better late than never. Do you know how to get there?"

"I'll find my way."

"You needn't go out into the grounds at all, you can keep to the corridors all the way. If you get

lost ask a policeman."

As they both giggled at him, he went out.

They were a pair, they were really as good as a

music-hall turn. The stage had lost something in

them, especially Sister Bernard.

He had to ask his way several times, and when at

last he was walking along what seemed an endless

corridor, he could feel the change in the

atmosphere. The nurses he passed were young. There

were young nurses on his block but they seemed of a

different type. There were male nurses here too, but

they weren't young, at least they weren't

under thirty like many of the male staff back on the

block.

He came to the end of the corridor and

into a large comfortably furnished hall, with several

smaller corridors leading from it. At the far side

he saw what he thought to be a notice on the

wall, but before he reached halfway across he

recognized it was a plaque. On nearing it, he

looked at it casually and read: This stone was laid

on January 19th, 1914 by John Cramp

Esquire whose benevolence has made possible the

building of this annexe.

Cramp. Cramp. John Cramp. Yes, the

man in the Daimler; the taggerine man, the scrap

merchant. Well! Well! And he had done this before

he'd made his pile out of the war. Odd that he should have come across the name again. And he remembered the man himself vividly. He was a character.

"Can I help you, sir?" A nurse was smiling

up at him.

"I'm . . . I'm wondering if it would be

possible to see a Private Benton? ... I

think he's a private."

"Oh yes, sir, yes, Private Benton.

Will you come this way, sir, he's in the day-room."

He was being led along another corridor now. Here

wide doorless rooms went off at each

side, and he had glimpses of men or

what was left of them being lifted from the beds and

into wheel-chairs. In one room he saw a patient

being laid on a flat trolley face downwards.

Now they were in a large room with a great expanse

of polished floor, one wall being made up

entirely of huge windows, and everywhere he looked

there were men sitting in wheel-chairs; some he saw had legs but no arms, others arms and legs but their

bodies remained motionless. There were faces so

scarred that he found he had to turn his gaze away

quickly from them. And then he was being led in the direction of a small group of men in the corner of the room near

the window.

He knew that heads were turning in his direction, and

as he neared the group the chairs spread out.

The nurse said, "Arthur! you've got a

visitor."