THE WORLD WAR COLLECTION OF H. C. MCNEILE (SAPPER). Sapper
months, I'm longing to come back. I'm sick of it. Looking at this country with what I call my French eyes—it nauseates me. It seems so utterly petty. . . . What the devil are we fighting for? It's going to be a splendid state of affairs, isn't it, if the immediate result of beating the Boche is anarchy over here? . . . . And one feels that it oughtn't to be so; one feels that it's Gilbertian to the pitch of frenzied lunacy. You've seen those boys in hospital; I've seen 'em in the line—and they've struck me, as they have you, as God's elect. . . . Then why, WHY, WHY, in the name of all that is marvellous, is this state of affairs existing over here? . . . .
"I went to lunch with Sir James Devereux before I left Rumfold. A nice old man, but money, or rather the lack of it, is simply rattling its bones in the family cupboard. . . ."
Vane laid down his pen as he came to this point, and began to trace patterns idly on the blotting paper. After a while he turned to the sheet again.
"His daughter seems very nice—also his sister, who is stone deaf. One screams at her through a megaphone. He, of course, rants and raves at what he calls the lack of patriotism shown by the working man. Fears an organised strike—financed by enemy money—if not during, at any rate after, the war. The country at a standstill—anarchy, Bolshevism. 'Pon my soul, I can't help thinking he's right. As soon as men, even the steadiest, have felt the power of striking—what will stop them? . . . And as he says, they've had the most enormous concessions. By Jove! lady—it sure does make me sick and tired. . . .
"However, in pursuance of your orders delivered verbally on the beach at Paris Plage, I am persevering in my endeavours to find the beaten track. I am lunching to-day with Nancy Smallwood, who has a new craze. You remember at one time it used to be keeping parrots—and then she went through a phase of distributing orchids through the slums of Whitechapel, to improve the recipients' aesthetic sense. She only gave that up, I have always understood, when she took to wearing black underclothes!
"I met her yesterday in Bond Street, and she tackled me at once.
"'You must lunch to-morrow . . . Savoy . . . 1.15 . . . Meet Mr.
Ramage, Labour leader . . . Intensely interesting. . . .'
"You know how she talks, like a hen clucking. 'Coming, man. . . . Has already arrived, in fact. . . . One must make friends with the mammon of unrighteousness these days. . . . Life may depend on it. . . . He's such a dear, too. . . . Certain he'll never let these dreadful men kill me. . . . But I always give him the very best lunch I can. . . . In case, you know. . . . Good-bye.'
"I feel that she will sort of put down each course on the credit side of the ledger, and hope that, if the total proves sufficiently imposing, she may escape with the loss of an arm when the crash comes. She'll probably send the receipted bills to Ramage by special messenger. . . . I'm rather interested to meet the man. Sir James was particularly virulent over what he called the intellectuals. . . .
"Well, dear, I must go. Don't do too much and overtire yourself. . . ." He strolled out of the smoking-room and posted the letter. Then, refusing the offer of a passing taxi, he turned along Pall Mall on his way to the Savoy.
As Vane had said in his letter, Nancy Smallwood had a new craze. She passed from one to another with a bewildering rapidity which tried her friends very highly. The last one of which Vane had any knowledge was when she insisted on keeping a hen and feeding it with a special preparation of her own to increase its laying capacity. This necessitated it being kept in the drawing-room, as otherwise she forgot all about it; and Vane had a vivid recollection of a large and incredibly stout bird with a watery and furtive eye ensconced on cushions near the piano.
But that was years ago, and now the mammon of unrighteousness, as she called it, apparently held sway. He wondered idly as he walked along what manner of man Ramage would prove to be. Everyone whom he had ever met called down curses on the man's head, but as far as he could remember he had never heard him described. Nor did he recollect ever having seen a photograph of him. "Probably dressed in corduroy," he reflected, "and eats peas with his knife. Damn clever thing to do too; I mustn't forget to congratulate him if he does. . . ."
He turned in at the courtyard of the hotel, glancing round for Nancy Smallwood. He saw her almost at once, looking a little worried. Incidentally she always did look worried, with that sort of helpless pathetic air with which very small women compel very big men to go to an infinity of trouble over things which bore them to extinction.
"My dear man," she cried as he came up to her. "Mr. Ramage hasn't come yet. . . . And he's always so punctual. . . ."
"Then let us have a cocktail, Nancy, to keep the cold out till he does." He hailed a passing waiter. "Tell me, what sort of a fellow is he? I'm rather curious about him."
"My dear," she answered, "he's the most fascinating man in the world." She clasped her hands together and gazed at Vane impressively. "So wonderfully clever . . . so quiet . . . so . . . so . . . gentlemanly. I am so glad you could come. You would never think for a moment when you saw him that he sympathised with all these dreadful Bolsheviks and Soviets and things; and that he disapproved of money and property and everything that makes life worth living. . . . Sometimes he simply terrifies me, Derek." She sipped her cocktail plaintively. "But I feel it's my duty to make a fuss of him and feed him and that sort of thing, for all our sakes. It may make him postpone the Revolution. . . ."
Vane suppressed a smile, and lit a cigarette gravely. "They'll probably give you a vote of thanks in Parliament, Nancy, to say nothing of an O.B.E. . . . Incidentally does the fellow eat all right?"
With a gesture of horrified protest, Nancy Smallwood sat back in her chair. "My dear Derek," she murmured. . . . "Far, far better than you and I do. I always mash my bread sauce up with the vegetables if no one's looking, and I'm certain he never would. He's most respectable. . . ."
"My God!" said Vane, "as bad as that! I was hoping he'd eat peas with his knife."
She looked towards the door and suddenly stood up. "Here he is, coming down the stairs now. . . ." She held out her hand to him as he came up. "I was afraid you weren't going to come, Mr. Ramage."
"Am I late?" he answered, glancing at his watch. "A thousand apologies, Mrs. Smallwood. . . . A committee meeting. . . ."
He turned towards Vane and she introduced the two men, who followed her into the restaurant. And in his first quick glance Vane was conscious of a certain disappointment, and a distinct feeling of surprise.
Far from being clad in corduroy, Ramage had on a very respectable morning coat. In fact, it struck him that Nancy Smallwood's remark exactly described him. He looked most respectable—not to say dull. By no stretch of imagination could Vane imagine him as the leader of a great cause. He might have been a country lawyer, or a general practitioner, or any of those eminently worthy things with which utility rather than brilliance is generally associated. He recalled what he had read in the papers—paragraphs describing meetings at which Mr. Ramage had taken a prominent part, and his general recollection of most of them seemed to be summed up in the one sentence . . . "the meeting then broke up in disorder, Mr. Ramage escaping with difficulty through a window at the back." Somehow he could not see this decorous gentleman opposite escaping through windows under a barrage of bad eggs. He failed to fill the part completely. As a cashier in a local bank gravely informing a customer that his account was overdrawn—yes; but as a fighter, as a man who counted for something in the teeming world around—why no. . . . Not as far as appearance went, at any rate. And at that moment the eyes of the two men met for an instant across the table. . . .
It seemed to Vane almost as if he had received a blow—so sudden was the check to his mental rambling. For the eyes of the man opposite, deep set and gleaming, were the eyes of greatness, and they triumphed so completely over their indifferent setting that Vane marvelled at his previous obtuseness. Martyrs have had such eyes, and the great pioneers of the world—men who have deemed everything well lost for a cause, be that cause right or wrong. And almost as if he were standing there in the flesh, there came to him a vision of Sir James raving furiously against this man.
He watched him with a slightly puzzled frown for a moment. This was the man who was deliberately leading the masses towards discontent