"When did Roy Birnie get this?"
"Immediately after you had moved off with the battalion—that afternoon at Caterpillar Farm, before the Somme show. He and I stayed to clear up, you remember?"
"Yes, yes!" he muttered, staring at the paper. "I remember. But—but why didn't he give it to me? Didn't he realise what it meant?"
"Yes, he realised all right. That was why he didn't give it to you."
Eric took up the despatch in his shaking hand.
"Roy Birnie deliberately held that back?" he said.
I nodded.
"And you?"
"Don't ask me about it," I replied, lighting my pipe and feeling thoroughly uncomfortable. "It's no part of a second-in-command's duty to supervise the adjutant's correspondence."
"But—didn't he show it to you?"
"Now you ask me, he did."
"But—but—it would have put you in command of the battalion!"
"My dear sir," I explained gruffly, "a man can't take command of a battalion if the adjutant neglects to publish the order which appoints him." I felt horribly mean, but this seemed to me to be a case where the dead could most conveniently bear the responsibility.
Suddenly Eric rose to his feet. I glanced at him, and flinched, for I knew what was coming. The colour had come back to his face, and his blue eyes were aglow. He was "up in the cloods." He came round to my side of the table, and laid his hands on my shoulders. It was strange to feel the lifeless weight of his artificial arm. I flinched again, and made a testy reference to my comminuted collar-bone.
But Eric was not to be denied. He had been exposed to himself as an incompetent and a failure; but what mattered more—solely—to him was that the world did not know about it; Roy and I had saved him from that. All that was grateful in his nature had been roused by that infernal telegram. He sat down beside me and took my hand in his. I felt very ridiculous.
"My God, old man," he said, "you saved me! You two saved me from being broke! You, who might have commanded the battalion—and young Roy! Young Roy! After what I had done to him—and—tried to do to him!"
"Oh, come!" I said. "You were a bit of a martinet, sometimes—the heavy C.O., and all that—but there's no need to reproach yourself over Roy."
Eric let go my hand—greatly to my relief— and began to walk about the room. Suddenly he turned to me.
"Alan, old man," he said, "do you know exactly what I did to Roy? I tried to take his girl away from him!"
I looked up. Lord Eskerley had been right, as usual.
"You mean—Marjorie?"
"Yes—Marjorie! Not once—nor twice—not accidentally—nor casually; but deliberately and continuously! Listen!" He was in the flood-tide of confession now, and I knew that in that mood he was not apt to be reticent.
"I made love to her at Craigfoot—in a 'you're-a-nice-little-girl' sort of way—while Roy was at Sandhurst. I made love to her in London, when I was on leave and he was in France—took her out to dinner and lunch, and so on—"
"Why not? It was up to her to refuse."
"She didn't refuse."
"In that case, she must have found your society agreeable."
"No, she didn't! I am pretty vain about myself, Alan; but I could see she didn't!"
"Then why did she accept your invitations?"
"I fancy it was because it gave her a chance to talk about the regiment—which meant Roy. Not that she ever mentioned him; but—I see it now! My God, what a cad I was! I let her sit there, while I crabbed him—talked patronisingly of him—belittled the good work he had always done for me and my battalion. Ugh!"
"Did you really care for her?"
"I was fascinated by her for the time. She is a glorious creature!"
"She certainly is."
"But I think that in the main it was jealousy—jealousy of Roy's youth, and the fact that instead of being my son, as he might have been, he was my rival. It was a mad business altogether. Finally, I asked her to marry me."
"She turned you down?" It was an unnecessary remark.
"Of course she turned me down! But she did it very sweetly. She was rather apologetic about it; said she was engaged already, and perhaps she ought to have made that fact a little clearer to me from the start; only she never suspected, and so on."
"She didn't mention Roy's name, I suppose?"
"No! I half thought that she would, just to score me off. It would have been a real slap in the face for me, his Colonel, if she had. But she didn't: she just said she was very, very sorry, but that she was engaged to some one else!"
"Well, there was no great harm done," I said, wishing he would stop. But he had not finished yet.
"And then—oh Lord, Alan!—do you know what I did then? I turned round on her, like a spoiled child, and accused her of having flirted with me, and led me on! And, not content with that, I turned on the pathetic tap. I said something rotten about expecting a little more consideration from her, seeing that I was going back to the trenches to-morrow—and muck like that! And she just looked at me, and said, quite quietly: 'He is there, too—now!' As if I didn't know! Oh, what a miserable rotter I was—and am!"
He dropped into a chair, and buried his face in his arms. He was "doon in the midden" now. I puffed wretchedly at my pipe and longed, from the bottom of my heart, for an air raid. I found myself wondering whether Marjorie had ever told Roy of this incident. I decided that my Eve would not have done so; and therefore probably not Marjorie.
Presently Eric began to talk again, with his forehead still close to the table.
"And this very morning," he said bitterly—"with Roy's death hardly made public—I came to this house fooling round Roy's widow with flowers, and silly old man's messages! I believe I was actually jealous of the dead, Alan! Well, that's over now. I needn't insult her any more—or him!" He sat up again, and took the pink slip. "This has killed my conceit at last—and perhaps saved my soul. Thank God I came across it! It has brought me to myself. And thank you, old friend"—Eric turned swiftly to me, and his face broke into the smile that I loved—"for what you did for me! You saved me from being sent home! Yes, and you provided me with a far more creditable exit from my soldiering career than I ever deserved!"
"That's all right," I said. "Let's clear up these papers."
But Eric was not listening. He had fallen into a rare mood—gentle and frank. He talked on—more calmly now.
"Men are queer mixtures. And, oh Lord, how truly some women judge us! Marjorie saw through me from the start, I believe. So did Diana. Did you ever know why she broke off our engagement?"
I shook my head. I had not heard Eric mention Diana's name for twenty years.
"Eve and I never spoke of it," I said.
"No, of course; you two wouldn't—being you two. Well, Diana said to me, quite suddenly, one day: 'Eric, I want to tell you that I can't marry you after all.' Just that! Of course, I asked her why."
"That was probably a mistake."
"It was. She asked me not to press her; but, being me, that only made me more unreasonable. So finally she told me.
"'Eric,' she said, 'I am very fond of you; I always shall be—more than I care to think about. But you have one fault that I can't get over: you have a mean streak in you. I would take you with every other fault in the world—but not that! So—good-bye!' They were the last words she ever spoke to me. You know, she was like that. I took my medicine with a smiling face, as you may remember; but it hurt like hell—and it taught me nothing! Well"—he tapped the telegraph form—"here is my second dose! It has got home this time. I have a mean streak in me, and I know it at last! Still"—he rose to his feet and held up his right hand: he could never resist the dramatic touch—"it's not too late. I am still on the right side of fifty; and I am going to spend the rest of my life eradicating that yellow streak from my system. I think I can do it. A thing's never dangerous once you know it's there." Suddenly he leaned over towards me. "Alan, old boy, I'm not a hopeless outsider, am I? Tell me! You know me! What am I?"
"You are what I have always thought you," I said—"a very brave soldier, with a weakness for facing difficult situations with both eyes shut! Also, you are my oldest friend. Now, for goodness sake, let's clear up this mess, and report entire lack of progress to Eskerley!"
The telephone bell rang sharply.