Behind the barriers of Victoria Station the same eager throng of mothers, wives, and lovers awaited the arrival of the leave-train as had waited there every day for the past two years. Among them were others, neither relations nor friends, but kindly people who liked to share at second hand the fierce joy of those reunions, and grateful citizens past fighting age who came to murmur a word of thanks to the fighting men or to press a present upon a grinning Tommy. Predatory women were there too in search of prey, and idle sightseers who ran excitedly to another platform, as to a rival show, when a long hospital train slid slowly in.
But Bretherton had neither friends nor relatives awaiting him, and he threaded his way through the throng on the platform to join the crowd that waited on the pavement outside the station. Every minute a taxi with an urchin hanging out from the footboard descended the slope with a pleasant crackling sound of wheels on tarred wood blocks, loaded up, and whirred off. But the supply was unequal to the demand, and ten minutes elapsed before Bretherton secured a car.
He had been warned that he would find London crowded, but he had not expected to spend two hours in a fruitless search for hotel accommodation. The taxi driver insisted on dropping him at the end of twenty minutes, and he had to continue the search on foot.
After tea he found himself again in the neighbourhood of Victoria, and his attention was attracted by a party of half a dozen men who were moving parallel with him on the side of the road. They were in full marching order—enamel mugs dangling from haversacks, steel helmets under pack-straps, and slung rifles with khaki breech-covers. But it was the way in which they were marching that arrested his attention.
They were on the right side of the road, and that in itself was enough to show that they had come recently from France. The traffic streamed past them on one side, and on the other the throng of pedestrians moved along the pavement or loitered by the shop windows; but the busy life of London passed unheeded by these men. With heads thrust forward, expressionless faces, and hands clutching the web braces of their equipment, they trudged along with the slow, fatalistic, beast-of-burden step that was so familiar on the tracks leading to the trenches. And at their head walked a guide; not a man in fatigue dress and gas-helmet nor an old-young subaltern, but a girl in the neat blue uniform of a V.A.D., with head erect and elastic step. Presently she led off the road across the pavement, and the six trudging figures followed her like sheep up the steps of a large building which had been turned into a soldier’s home.
Bretherton walked on, thinking of Joan of Arc at the head of the dejected veterans of the English wars, till a short distance beyond the building he saw an empty taxi coming towards him. He signalled to the driver, and as he stood waiting for it to come up he saw the little V.A.D. run back down the steps of the soldiers’ home and walk quickly towards him. Then suddenly she glanced at the watch on her wrist and broke into a run.
He acted upon impulse. He had opened the door of the taxi, but he left it, and as she drew level with him he saluted and said, “I’m afraid you have made yourself late by showing those fellows the soldiers’ home. Won’t you take my taxi?”
She looked up at him quickly, and there was a glint of suspicion in her grey eyes; but his face reassured her apparently, for she smiled frankly and said, “That’s awfully good of you. I am so late. But taxis are scarce; couldn’t we share it?” Her voice was low, clear, and unhurried.
“By all means, if you don’t mind,” he said.
She gave the address of one of the many improvised hospitals, and he followed her into the cab.
“It was very good of you to guide those poor fellows,” he said conversationally.
She turned a face full of distress towards him. “Oh, weren’t they too tragic!” she cried. “I found them outside Victoria Station—standing like dumb animals in a market. They are going north, and there is no train till the early morning. The soldiers’ home is full, but they will be looked after.”
Bretherton nodded. “They will get a hot drink and something to eat, anyway. They have had a rough time by the look of them.” There was silence for a moment, and then he said, “London is very full. I haven’t found even a soldiers’ home yet.”
She turned from the window. “Can’t you get in anywhere:” she inquired.
“I’ve tried dozens of places, and so far I’ve had no luck.”
“But that’s serious at this time of the day. Would you like me to ask at the hospital? They may know of some place.”
“That’s very good of you, but please don’t bother. A subaltern of mine lives at Woodside Park, and I’m sure his people would put me up, if necessary. But you might be able to tell me the best way of getting there.”
She laughed. “Rather! I live at Woodside Park. You want the Piccadilly Tube.”
“Then you may know his people; Gurney is the name.”
Her eyebrows went up in two little arches of surprise. “Know them! Yes, I know them. Why, David Gurney is my brother. I am his sister, Helen.”
“Good Lord!” exclaimed Bretherton, sitting up in surprise.
“And of course you are G. B.—sorry! I mean Captain Bretherton.” She regarded him with engaging friendliness. “I feel I know you awfully well, though we’ve never met before. I feel I know you all—Melford, Dicky Baron, Pagan, Dodd, Hubbard, that nice American doctor, and that awful man Groucher.” She clasped her hands round one knee. “And to think that you are the great G. B.!” She examined him with her small head on one side like a bird’s.
“And to think that you are young Gurney’s sister!” he retorted smiling. “You are very much alike.”
“We are twins,” she said with twinkling eyes. “Of course we will put you up. We will kill the fatted calf for you. You are rather a hero, you know. We have heard all about you from Davy. Davy’s friends are my friends; and as for Mummy and Daddy—well, you know what parents are in these warlike days! They will probably weep over you.”
“You are very kind,” he said.
Her little face became very earnest. “You have been kind to Davy,” she answered simply.
She was on duty till nine o’clock, and Bretherton suggested calling for her at that hour so that they could travel to Woodside Park together. She agreed, and he left her on the steps of a large house that had been turned into a hospital by the generosity of its owner.
Bretherton was welcomed very warmly by Gurney’s people. In those trying days parents were greedy of first-hand news of their soldier-sons, and their sons’ comrades-in-arms were treated as honoured members of the family. He was pressed to stay, and willingly consented. He played tennis with Helen in her limited spare time, and an evening which she had free from the hospital duty they spent at the theatre. And he passed quiet half-hours in the study discussing the military situation with Mr. Gurney senior, an alert, white-haired man who was an enthusiastic member of the Royal Defence Corps, known as the Gorgeous Wrecks from the letters G.R. on their armlets.
On Sunday afternoon, which Helen had free, they walked across the fields towards Totteridge, but a sudden rain-squall drove them to take shelter in an inn. A piano stood in one corner of the parlour, and she insisted on his playing.
“Do not pretend that you cannot,” she said severely, “for I know that you can.”
Obediently he played, passing from one air to another—grand opera, Gilbert and Sullivan, ballads, and selections from the latest revues—while the rain beat against the window-panes and the little low-ceilinged parlour was in semi-darkness, Helen sat in an old horsehair armchair near the piano, occasionly singing the words of a song and suggesting an air when he was at a loss.
“Play ‘Tipperary,’” she cried as he hesitated with his fingers caressing the keys.
Obediently he played the music-hall air that had become the marching-song of the first Expeditionary Force. Helen had risen from her chair and stood beside him singing the words.
“I wish I were a man,” she said suddenly, when he had ended.
He turned on the stool to look at her. “Why?” he demanded.
“A woman is so useless in a time like this.” There was a faraway look in her eyes. He was strumming the air again very softly with one hand.
“I think it’s splendid the way men back one another up in times of danger. I wish I were a man.”
“And what would you do if you were one?” he asked, amused at her earnestness.
She turned to the window and stood watching the rain running down the panes. “I should be a private in A Company,” she said at last.
“Splendid! And why A Company?” he asked.
“Because I feel that it is mine. I feel I know its officers, its men, its spirit. I am my brother’s twin. It is the best company in the battalion, and its company commander…”
“Well, what about him?” asked Bretherton, swinging round to face her.
She turned from the window, and her intense, serious look gave way to a mischievous smile.
“Davy says he is a woman-hater,” she ended.
He made a grimace. “I shall run Davy in for ‘conduct to the prejudice of good order and military discipline,’” he grinned. “Now you play.”
She moved to the piano and began to play softly. And presently she began to sing in her clear little voice: “Just a song at twilight.”
Bretherton listened enchanted, and turning from the window saw her at the piano, flooded in the sunlight which had at last broken through the rain-clouds—a picture framed in the old parlour with its low-beamed ceiling and antimacassared chairs.
He crossed the room and stood beside her. “That makes me think of what is going on out there—in the line,” he said. “Contrast, I suppose. Out there we get a song of hate at twilight—and dawn.”
She looked up at his serious face with its contracted brows.
“Don’t wish to be a man,” he said suddenly. “Remain a woman; and comfort some poor broken devil who comes back.”
Her grey eyes followed him as he turned abruptly away and slowly unrolled his tobacco-pouch. She struck a note two or three times with her finger. “Sometimes I think war is almost worth all the bloodshed and filth,” she said irrelevantly.
On the last night of his leave he fetched her from the hospital in a taxi, and they sped through the dim streets, to which the blue-shaded lamps gave a ghostly air.
“It is funny to think that to-morrow you will be with my brother,” she said.
“You are awfully alike,” he answered thoughtfully; “both in looks and ways.”
“We are twins, you know,” she reminded him. “I believe that when you are with me you feel that you are with him, and so you don’t hate too much being with a woman.”
“I say!” he protested. “I suppose I have to thank Master David for this reputation.”
She nodded. “Do you know how he described you in one of his letters? He said, ‘G. B. is a thundering good soldier and a topping fellow, but he’s a woman-hater!’”
“That’s not true,” he protested. “The truth is I have always been busy getting on with my job and I’ve had no time for philandering. It’s true I’m not one of those fellows who fall in love with the first pretty face they meet and ten minutes later fall in love with another one. But it does not follow that I haven’t the capacity for appreciating one.”
“I was only ragging you,” she said seriously. “And I only hope that when the girl does come along she will appreciate you as you deserve.”
He gazed out of the window at the passing blue-shaded lamps for a moment or two. And then he said briefly, “She has come along.”
“Oh! I had no idea,” she said gently. “And—have you asked her?”
Again he was silent for a moment or two, and then he replied slowly and gently, “No; I’m asking her now.”
She shot a sudden, startled look at him. “You mean … me?”
He nodded. She saw his face fitfully in the passing lights, solemn and serious.
“But—but you’ve known me only a week.”
He laughed unsteadily. “Is it really only a week? It might be years… all my life. Does it matter how long?”
She was silent.
“I… I’m in deadly earnest… Helen, speak to me.”
“What can I say—what can I say?” she answered in a stifled voice. “I hardly know you.”
“Of course not,” he answered gently. “Of course not. I don’t expect you to be like me. I’m a clumsy great lout; I’m not used to women. But I’m going back to-morrow, and I had to tell you. Poor little girl! But you like me a little…?”
“Yes.” She was holding her lower lip between her teeth and staring out of the window.
“Well then, perhaps…”
“I like you; yes,” she interrupted gently. “But…”
“But what? Is there anyone else?”
She was silent for a moment, and then turned her head and looked at him. “In a way—yes.”
“Ah!” He made a little gesture with his hands. “I’m sorry. You must forgive me. I didn’t know.”
She sat gazing with contracted brows at the swiftly passing lights. “Listen,” she said suddenly. “It is only fair that I should tell you. Dicky Baron when he was home on leave—he asked me the same question. I told him that I didn’t know… and I don’t know now. I like him immensely, but…” She gave a little helpless shrug. “And we left it at that.”
He took her hand and kissed it. “I understand,” he said. “But I’m afraid I have spoilt your evening, little girl.”
He took a cigarette from his case and squared his shoulders with an unconscious gesture.
She glanced at him quickly. “For God’s sake, Gerard, don’t say that!” There was a catch in her voice. “I shall cry in a moment.”
He turned a puzzled face towards her. “You must not do that. Why should you?”
She beat her knees with her little clenched fists. “Why?” she exclaimed. “Why! Oh, for myself, for you, for the war, for life… for everything.”
And then she tilted her chin and laughed a trifle unsteadily. “That is the girl-twin speaking. I must be the soldier-twin. Swear for me Gerard. Swear!” she cried fiercely. “Good round Flanders oaths. Let us damn fortune together.”
Helen saw him off at Victoria on the following day. Here and there upon the crowded platform a white-faced girl stood in silent misery gazing at her bronzed, khaki-clad companion with eyes that spoke the unspeakable; and he fidgeted on his feet and cursed softly beneath his breath. But there were no scenes. The men’s train was the first to leave, and a half-stifled cheer went up as it moved slowly out. And then the whistle blew for the officers’ train. Bretherton got into his compartment.
“Look after my young brother,” said Helen as the train began to move.
“I will,” he assured her. “And Dicky Baron too,” he added.
She thanked him with a look. “Take care of yourself, Gerard,” were her last words. He smiled and waved his hand, and withdrew his head from the window only when the train rounded a curve and the diminutive figure with the fluttering handkerchief was hidden from view.