Book: The Red Planet

W >> William J. Locke >> The Red Planet




Perhaps I had better narrate what happened and tell you afterwards
why I hesitate.

Marigold had driven me over to Godbury, where I had business
connected with a County Territorial Association, and we were
returning home. It was a moist, horrible, depressing August day. A
slimy, sticky day. Clouds hung low over the reeking earth. The
honest rain had ceased, but wet drops dribbled from the leaves of
the trees and the branches and trunks exuded moisture. The
thatched roofs of cottages were dank. In front gardens roses and
hollyhocks drooped sodden. The very droves of steers coming from
market sweated in the muggy air. The good slush of the once dusty
road, broken to bits by military traffic, had stiffened into black
grease. Round a bend of the road we skidded alarmingly. Marigold
has a theory that in summer time a shirt next the skin is the only
wear for humans and square-tread tyres the only wear for motor-
cars. With some acerbity I pointed out the futility of his
proposition. With the blandness of superior wisdom he assured me
that we were perfectly safe. You can't knock into the head of an
artilleryman who has been trained to hang on to a limber by the
friction of his trousers, that there can be any danger in the
luxurious seat of a motor-car.

There is a good straight half mile of the Godbury Road which is
known in the locality as "The Gut." It is sunken and very narrow,
being flanked on one side by the railway embankment, and on the
other by the grounds of Godbury Chase. A most desolate bit of
road, half overhung by trees and oozing with all the moisture of
the country-side. On this day it was the wettest, slimiest bit of
road in England. We had almost reached the end of it, when it
entered the head of a stray puppy dog to pause in the act of
crossing and sit down in the middle and hunt for fleas. To spare
the abominable mongrel, Marigold made a sudden swerve. Of course
the car skidded. It skidded all over the place, as if it were
drunk, and, aided by Marigold, described a series of ghastly half-
circles. At last he performed various convulsive feats of
jugglery, with the result that the car, which was nosing steadily
for the ditch, came to a stand-still. Then Marigold informed me
in unemotional tones that the steering gear had gone.

"It's all the fault of that there dog," said he, twisting his head
so as to glare at the little beast, who, after a yelp and a bound,
had calmly recaptured his position and resumed his interrupted
occupation.

"It's all the fault of that there Marigold," I retorted, "who
can't see the sense of using studded tyres on a greasy surface.
What's to be done now?"

Marigold thrust his hand beneath his wig and scratched his head.
He didn't exactly know. He got out and stared intently at the car.
If mind could have triumphed over matter, the steering gear would
have become disfractured. But the good Marigold's mind was not
powerful enough. He gave up the contest and looked at me and the
situation. There we were, broadside on to the narrow road, and
only manhandling could bring us round to a position of safety by
the side. He was for trying it there and then; but I objected,
having no desire to be slithered into the ditch.

"I would just as soon," said I, "ride a giraffe shod with roller
skates."

He didn't even smile. He turned his one reproachful eye on me.
What was to be done? I told him. We must wait for assistance. When
I had been transferred into the vehicle of a passing Samaritan, it
was time enough for the manhandling.

Fate brought the Samaritan very quickly. A car coming from Godbury
tooted violently, then slowed down, stopped, and from it jumped
Leonard Boyce. As he was to rescue me from a position of peculiar
helplessness, I regarded his great khaki-clad figure as that of a
ministering angel. I beamed on him.

"Hallo! What's the matter?" he asked cheerily.

I explained. Being merciful, I spared Marigold and threw the blame
on the dog and on the County Council for allowing the roads to get
into such a filthy condition.

"That's all right," said Boyce. "We'll soon fix you up. First
we'll get you into my car. Then Marigold and I will slue this one
round, and then we'll send him a tow."

Marigold nodded and approached to lift me out.

Then, what happened next, happened in the flash of a few
breathless seconds. There was the dull thud of hoofs. A scared bay
thoroughbred, coming from Godbury, galloping hell for leather,
with a dishevelled boy in khaki on his back. The boy had lost his
stirrups; he had lost his reins; he had lost his head. He hung
half over the saddle and had a death grip on the horse's mane. And
the uncontrolled brute was thundering down on us. There was my
infernal car barring the narrow road. I remember bracing myself to
meet the shock. An end, thought I, of Duncan Meredyth. I saw Boyce
leap aside like a flash and appear to stand stock-still. The next
second I saw Marigold semaphore a few yards in front of the car
and then swing sickeningly at the horse's bit; and then the whole
lot of them, Marigold, horse and rider, come down in a convulsive
heap on the greasy road. To my intense relief I saw Marigold pick
himself up and go to the head of the plunging, prostrate horse. In
a moment or two he had got the beast on his feet, where he stood
quivering. It was a fine, smart piece of work on the part of the
old artilleryman. I was so intent on his danger that I forgot all
about Boyce: but as soon as the three crashed down, I saw him run
to assist the young subaltern who had rolled himself clear.

"By Jove, that was a narrow shave!" he cried cordially, giving him
a hand.

"It was indeed, sir," said the young man, scraping the mud off his
face. "That's the second time the brute has done it. He shies and
bucks and kicks like a regular devil. This time he shied at a
steam lorry and bucked my feet out of the stirrups. Everybody in
the squadron has turned him down, and I'm the junior, I've had to
take him." He eyed the animal resentfully. "I'd just like to get
him on some grass and knock hell out of him!"

"I'm glad to see you're not hurt," said Boyce with a smile.

"Oh, not a bit, sir," said the boy. He turned to Marigold. "I
don't know how to thank you. It was a jolly plucky thing to do.
You've saved my life and that of the gentleman in the car. If we
had busted into it, there would have been pie." He came to the
side of the car. "I think you're Major Meredyth, sir. I must have
given you an awful fright. I'm so sorry. My name is Brown. I'm in
the South Scottish Horse."

He had a courteous charm of manner in spite of his boyish desire
to appear unshaken by the accident. A little bravado is an
excellent thing. I laughed and held out my hand.

"I'm glad to meet you--although our meeting might have been
contrived less precipitously. This is Sergeant Marigold, late
R.F.A., who does me the honour of looking after me. And this is
Major Boyce."

Observe the little devil of malice that made me put Marigold
first.

"Of the Rifles?"

A quick gleam of admiration showed in the boy's eyes as he
saluted. No soldier could be stationed at Wellingsford without
hearing of the hero of the neighbourhood. A great hay waggon came
lumbering down the road and pulled up, there being no room for it
to pass. This put an end to social amenities. Brown mounted his
detested charger and trotted off. Marigold transferred me to
Boyce's car. Several pairs of brawny arms righted the two-seater
and Boyce and I drove off, leaving Marigold waiting with his usual
stony patience for the promised tow. On the way Boyce talked gaily
of Marigold's gallantry, of the boy's spirit, of the idiotic way
in which impossible horses were being foisted on newly formed
cavalry units. When we drew up at my front door, it occurred to me
that there was no Marigold in attendance.

"How the deuce," said I, "am I going to get out?"

Boyce laughed. "I don't think I'll drop you."

His great arms picked me up with ease. But while he was carrying
me I experienced a singular physical revolt. I loathed his grip. I
loathed the enforced personal contact. Even after he had deposited
me--very skilfully and gently--in my wheel-chair in the hall, I
hated the lingering sense of his touch. He owed his whisky and
soda to the most elementary instinct of hospitality. Besides, he
was off the next day, back to the trenches and the hell of battle,
and I had to bid him good-bye and God-speed. But when he went, I
felt glad, very glad, as though relieved of some dreadful
presence. My old distrust and dislike returned increased a
thousandfold.

It was only when he got my frail body in his arms, which I
realized were twice as strong as my good Marigold's, that I felt
the ghastly and irrational revulsion. The only thing to which I
can liken it, although it seems ludicrous, is what I imagine to be
the instinctive recoil of a woman who feels on her body the touch
of antipathetic hands. I know that my malady has made me a bit
supersensitive. But my vanity has prided itself on keeping up a
rugged spirit in a fool of a body, so I hated myself for giving
way to morbid sensations. All the same, I felt that if I were
alone in a burning house, and there were no one but Leonard Boyce
to save me, I should prefer incineration to rescue.

And now I will tell you why I have hesitated to give a place in
this chronicle to the incident of the broken-down car and the
runaway horse.

It all happened so quickly, my mind was so taken up with the
sudden peril, that for the life of me I cannot swear to the part
played by Leonard Boyce. I saw him leap aside, and had the
fragment of an impression of him standing motionless between the
radiator of his car and the tail of mine which was at right
angles. The next time he thrust himself on my consciouness was
when he was lugging young Brown out of reach of the convulsive
hoofs. In the meanwhile Marigold, single-handed, had rushed into
the jaws of death and stopped the horse. But as it was a matter of
seconds, I had no reason for believing that, but for adventitious
relative positions on the road, Boyce would not have done the
same. ... And yet out of the corner of my eye I got an
instantaneous photograph of him standing bolt upright between the
two cars, while the abominable bay brute, with distended red
nostrils and wild eyes, was thundering down on us.

On the other hand, the swift pleasure in the boy's eyes when he
realised that he was in the presence of the popular hero, proved
him free of doubts such as mine. And when Marigold, having put the
car in hospital, came to make his report, and lingered in order to
discuss the whole affair, he said, in wooden deprecation of my
eulogy:

"If Major Boyce hadn't jumped in, sir, young Mr. Brown's head
would have been kicked into pumpkin-squash."

Well, I have known from long experience that there are no more
untrustworthy witnesses than a man's own eyes; especially in the
lightning dramas of life.

I was kept awake all night, and towards the dawn I came into
thorough agreement with Sir Anthony and I heartily damned the
fellow.

What had I to do with him that he should rob me of my sleep?





CHAPTER XV


The next morning he strode in while I was at breakfast, handsome,
erect, deep-chested, the incarnation of physical strength, with a
glad light in his eyes.

"Congratulate me, old man," he cried, gripping my frail shoulder.
"I've three days' extra leave. And more than that, I go out in
command of the regiment. No temporary business but permanent rank.
Gazetted in due course. Bannatyne--that's our colonel--damned good
soldier!--has got a staff appointment. I take his place. I promise
you the Fourth King's Rifles are going to make history. Either
history or manure. History for choice. As I say, Bannatyne's a
damned good soldier, and personally as brave as a lion, but when
it comes to the regiment, he's too much on the cautious side. The
regiment's only longing to make things hum, and I'm going to let
'em do it."

I congratulated him in politely appropriate terms and went on with
my bacon and eggs. He sat on the window-seat and tapped his
gaiters with his cane life-preserver. He wore his cap.

"I thought you'd like to know," said he. "You've been so good to
the old mother while I've been away and been so charitable,
listening to my yarns, while I've been here, that I couldn't
resist coming round and telling you."

"I suppose your mother's delighted," said I.

He threw back his head and laughed, as though he had never a black
thought or memory in the world.

"Dear old mater! She has the impression that I'm going out to take
charge of the blessed campaign. So if she talks about 'my dear
son's army,' don't let her down, like a good chap--for she'll
think either me a fraud or you a liar."

He rose suddenly, with a change of expression.

"You're the only man in the world I could talk to like this about
my mother. You know the sterling goodness and loyalty that lies
beneath her funny little ways."

He strode to the window which looks out on to the garden, his back
turned on me. And there he stood silent for a considerable time. I
helped myself to marmalade and poured out a second cup of tea.
There was no call for me to speak. I had long realized that,
whatever may have been the man's sins and weaknesses, he had a
very deep and tender love for the Dresden china old lady that was
his mother. There was London of the clubs and the theatres and the
restaurants and the night-clubs, a war London full and alive, not
dead as in Augusts of far-off tradition, all ready to give him
talk and gaiety and the things that matter to the man who escapes
for a brief season from the never-ending hell of the battlefield;
ready, too, to pour flattery into his ear, to touch his scars with
the softest of its lingers. Yet he chose to stay, a recluse, in
our dull little town, avoiding even the kindly folk round about,
in order to devote himself to one dear but entirely uninteresting
old woman. It is not that he despised London, preferring the life
of the country gentleman. On the contrary, before the war Leonard
Boyce was very much the man about town. He loved the glitter and
the chatter of it. From chance words during this spell of leave, I
had divined hankering after its various fleshpots. For the sake of
one old woman he made reckless and gallant sacrifice. When he was
bored to misery he came round to me. I learned later that in
visiting Wellingsford he faced more than boredom. All of this you
must put to the credit side of his ledger.

There he stood, his great broad shoulders and bull-neck
silhouetted against the window. That broad expanse, a bit fleshy,
below the base of the skull indicates brutality. Never before, to
my eyes, had the sign asserted itself with so much aggression. I
had often wondered why, apart from the Vilboek Farm legend, I had
always disliked and distrusted him. Now I seemed to know. It was
the neck not of a man, but of a brute. The curious repulsion of
the previous evening, when he had carried me into the house, came
over me again. From junction of arm and body protruded six inches
of the steel-covered life-preserver, the washleather that hid its
ghastly knob staring at me blankly. I hated the thing. The gallant
English officer--and in my time I have known and loved a many of
the most gallant--does not go about in private life fondling a
trophy reeking with the blood of his enemies. It is the trait of a
savage. That truculent knob and that truculent bull-neck
correlated themselves most horribly in my mind. And again, with a
shiver, I had the haunting flash of a vision of him, out of the
tail of my eye, standing rigid and gaping between the two cars,
while my rugged old Marigold, in a businesslike, old-soldier sort
of way, without thought of danger or death, was swaying at the
head of the runaway horse.

Presently he turned, and his brows were set above unfathomable
hard eyes. The short-cropped moustache could not hide the curious
twitch of the lips which I had seen once before. It was obvious
that these few minutes of silence had been spent in deep thought
and had resulted in a decision. A different being from the gay,
successful soldier who had come in to announce his honours
confronted me. He threw down cap and stick and passed his hand
over his crisp brown hair.

"I don't know whether you're a friend of mine or not," he said,
hands on hips and gaitered legs slightly apart. "I've never been
able to make out. All through our intercourse, in spite of your
courtesy and hospitality, there has been some sort of reservation
on your part."

"If that is so," said I, diplomatically, "it is because of the
defects of my national quality."

"That's possibly what I've felt," said he. "But it doesn't matter
a damn with regard to what I want to say. It's a question not of
your feelings towards me, but my feelings towards you. I don't
want to make polite speeches--but you're a man whom I have every
reason to honour and trust. And unlike all my other brother-
officers, you have no reason to be jealous--"

"My dear fellow," I interrupted, "what's all this about? Why
jealousy?"

"You know what a pot-hunter is in athletics? A chap that is simply
out for prizes? Well, that's what a lot of them think of me. That
I'm just out to get orders and medals and distinctions and so
forth."

"That's nonsense," said I. "I happen to know. Your reputation in
the brigade is unassailable."

"In the way of my having done what I'm credited with, it is," he
answered. "But all the same, they're right."

"What do you mean?" I asked.

"What I say. They're right. I'm out for everything I can get. Now
I'm out for a V.C. I see you think it abominable. That's because
you don't understand. No one but I myself could understand. I feel
I owe it to myself." He looked at me for a second or two and then
broke into a sardonic sort of laugh. "I suppose you think me a
conceited ass," he continued. "Why should Leonard Boyce be such a
vastly important person? It isn't that, I assure you."

I lit a cigarette, having waved an invitation to join me, which
with a nod he refused.

"What is it, then?"

"Has it ever struck you that often a man's most merciless creditor
is himself?"

Here was a casuistical proposition thrown at my head by the last
person I should have suspected of doing so. It was immensely
interesting, in view of my long puzzledom. I spoke warily.

"That depends on the man--on the nice balance of his dual nature.
On the one side is the power to demand mercilessly; on the other,
the instinct to respond. Of course, the criminal--"

"What are you dragging in criminals for?" he said sharply. "I'm
talking about honourable men with consciences. Criminals haven't
consciences. The devil who has just been hung for murdering three
women in their baths hadn't any dual nature, as you call it. Those
murders didn't represent to him a mountain of debt to God which
his soul was summoned to discharge. He went to his death thinking
himself a most unlucky and hardly used fellow."

His fingers went instinctively into the cigarette-box. I passed
him the matches.

"Precisely," said I. "That was the point I was about to make."

He puffed at his cigarette and looked rather foolish, as though
regretting his outburst.

"We've got away," he said, after a pause, "from what I was meaning
to tell you. And I want to tell you because I mayn't have another
chance." He turned to the window-seat and picked up his life-
preserver. "I'm out for two things. One is to kill Germans--" He
patted the covered knob--and there flashed across my mind a
boyhood's memory of Martin--wasn't it Martin?--in "Hereward the
Wake," who had a deliciously blood-curdling habit of patting his
revengeful axe.--"I've done in eighty-five with this and my
revolver. That, I consider, is my duty to my country. The other is
to get the V.C. That's for payment to my creditor self."

"In full, or on account?" said I.

"There's only one payment in full," he answered grimly, "and that
I've been offering for the past twelve months. And it's a thousand
chances to one it will be accepted before the end of this year.
And that, after all this palaver, is what I've just made up my
mind to talk to you about."

"You mean your death?"

"Just that," said he. "A man pot-hunting for Victoria Crosses
takes a thousand to one chance." He paused abruptly and shot an
eager and curiously wavering glance at me. "Am I boring you with
all this?"

"Good Heavens, no." And then as the insistence of his great figure
towering over me had begun to fret my nerves--"Sit down, man,"
said I, with an impatient gesture, "and put that sickening toy
away and come to the point."

He tossed the cane on the window-seat and sat near me on a
straight-backed chair.

"All right," he said. "I'll come to the point. I shan't see you
again. I'm going out in command. Thank God we're in the thick of
it. Round about Loos. It's a thousand to one I'll be killed. Life
doesn't matter much to me, in spite of what you may think. There
are only two people on God's earth I care for. One, of course, is
my old mother. The other is Betty Fairfax--I mean Betty Connor. I
spoke to you once about her--after I had met her here--and I gave
you to understand that I had broken off our engagement from
conscientious motives. It was an awkward position and I had to say
something. As a matter of fact I acted abominably. But I couldn't
help it." The corners of his lips suddenly worked in the odd
little twitch. "Sometimes circumstances, especially if a man's own
damn foolishness has contrived them, tie him hand and foot.
Sometimes physical instincts that he can't control." He narrowed
his eyes and bent forward, looking at me intently, and he repeated
the phrase slowly--"Physical instincts that he can't control-"

Was he referring to the incident of yesterday? I thought so. I
also believed it was the motive power of this strangely intimate
conversation.

He rose again as though restless, and once more went to the window
and seemed to seek inspiration or decision from the sight of my
roses. After a short while he turned and dragged up from his neck
a slim chain at the end of which hung a round object in a talc
case. This he unfastened and threw on the table in front of me.

"Do you know what that is?"

"Yes," said I. "Your identification disc."

"Look on the other side."

I took it up and found that the reverse contained the head cut out
from some photograph of Betty. After I had handed back the locket,
he slipped it on the chain and dropped it beneath his collar.

"I'm not a damned fool," said he.

I nodded understandingly. No one would have accused him of mawkish
sentiment. The woman whose portrait he wore night and day next his
skin was the woman he loved. He had no other way of proving his
sincerity than by exhibiting the token.

"I see," said I. "What do you propose to do?"

"I've told you. The V.C. or--" He snapped his fingers.

"But if it's the V.C. and a Brigade, and perhaps a Division--if
it's everything else imaginable except--"I snapped my fingers in
imitation--"What then?"

Again the hateful twitch of the lips, which he quickly
dissimulated in a smile.

"I'll begin to try to be a brave man." He lit another cigarette.
"But all that, my dear Meredyth," he continued, "is away from the
point. If I live, I'll ask you to forget this rotten palaver. But
I have a feeling that I shan't come back. Something tells me that
my particular form of extermination will be a head knocked into
slush. I'm absolutely certain that I shall never see you again.
Oh, I'm not morbid," he said, as I raised a protesting hand.
"You're an old soldier and know what these premonitions are. When
I came in--before I had finally made up my mind to pan out to you
like this--I felt like a boy who has been made captain of the
school. But all the same, I know I shan't see you again. So I want
you to promise me two things--quite honourable and easy."

"Of course, my dear fellow," said I rather tartly, for I did not
like the wind-up of his sentence. It was unthinkable that an
officer and a gentleman should inveigle a brother-officer into a
solemn promise to do anything dishonourable. "Of course. Anything
you like."

"One is to look after the old mother--"

"That goes without promising," said I.

"The other is to--what shall I say?--to rehabilitate my memory in
the eyes of Betty Connor. She may hear all kinds of things about
me--some true, others false--I have my enemies. She has heard
things already. I didn't know it till our last meeting here.
There's no one else on God's earth can do what I want but you. Do
you think I'm putting you into an impossible position?"

"I don't think so," said I. "Go on."

"Well--there's not much more to be said. Try to make her realise
that, whatever may be my faults--my crimes, if it comes to that--
I've done my damndest out there to make reparation. By God! I
have," he cried, in a sudden flash of passion. "See that she
realises it. And--" he thumped the hidden identification disc,
"tell her that she is the only woman that has ever really mattered
in the whole of my blasted life."

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