The war went on and the boys grew up. Willie passed into Sandhurst at the earliest opportunity. His arrival there in August 1917 coincided with a prolongation of the course, which had formerly lasted nine months, and in future was to last a year. This was a cruel blow to him. It meant three further months away from the front. He had seriously thought of going through a course in a temporary officers’ training corps, which would have lasted only four or six months. But it might have prevented him from getting a regular commission after the war, and the thought that his father had been at Sandhurst had clinched his decision, which he now regretted.
He did not distinguish himself at Sandhurst except by hard work and devotion to duty. He had hitherto had very little opportunity of riding, which he now took to with enthusiasm. He was not, and never became, a fine horseman, but he knew no fear, and the frequency of his falls became a legend. These, combined with his keen enjoyment of work and play, his easy good-nature and his guileless modesty, made him one of the most popular cadets of his year. The fact that he had plenty of money and no hesitation in spending it may have added a little gilding to his genuine charm.
He enjoyed that year. There are few more precious moments than those in which a boy feels for the first time the independence of manhood, when he can take decisions for himself, has no longer to ask permission or account for every action.
One anxiety only marred his happiness, and even made it difficult for him sometimes to share sincerely in the alternate rejoicing and gloom of his companions. When, in the autumn of 1917, orders were given for the church-bells to be rung in celebration of a British victory they brought no message of cheerfulness to Willie’s heart, and when, in the following spring, the French and British armies were driven back, until it seemed that the retreat might turn into a rout, he could not suppress a secret thrill of satisfaction. That England could lose the war was not a possibility that ever entered into his calculations. When one of his companions suggested that this might happen he was not even angry, but looked upon that cadet ever after with indulgent pity, as someone who was not in possession of all his wits.
What Willie feared was not defeat but that the war should end before he crossed the Channel. It was not unnatural. During the four most formative years of his life he had had only one ambition. To go into battle with his regiment had been for him the summit of human desire. That regiment had seen comparatively little active service during the previous half-century. Willie had read its history again and again. Perhaps another fifty years would pass without a great war. He had seen somewhere a book called The War to End War. The title had sent a shiver of horror down his spine. And he had heard with deep dismay people talking about a League of Nations, which would make war impossible. So all the news that seemed good to others seemed bad to him, and whatever brought hope to most of the world brought him despair.
At the end of the following summer Willie left Sandhurst. He had acquitted himself with credit there, if without distinction, and he had made many friends. It was a proud day when he received his commission, and an anxious one when he presented himself to his regiment. Friends of his father ensured him a good reception among the senior officers; and among the junior ones he already had friends of his own.
The regiment had suffered casualties during the enemy offensive in the spring. There was a shortage of officers in France and every reason to suppose that Willie would find his way there within two or three months. Such leisure as he had from training was therefore devoted to the purchase of kit. No bride ever selected her trousseau with greater care and delight than Willie devoted to the buying of the drab little articles that compose an officer’s kit. He never tired of consulting those with experience of such matters concerning the latest gadgets, and he was interested in the smallest details of such objects, from periscopes to writingpads.
If only the news from the front had been less favourable he would have been the happiest of men. But he consoled himself with the thought – a thought which depressed so many others that it was only the swing of the pendulum, that pendulum which had swung so often and so far since August 1914. There had been similar waves of optimism, like that which had followed the Battle of Cambrai only a year ago, when many had prophesied that the war would be over by Christmas, only to find that six months later the Allies were seriously thinking of abandoning Paris, and pessimists whispered that the war was lost.
These hopes and fears were for a while expelled by the exultation with which he received orders to be ready to go to France with the next draft. Earlier in the war officers had been granted a week or more ‘draft leave’ before going overseas. This had now been abolished, but there were few if any duties imposed on those who were awaiting departure. Farewells to relatives – a tiresome obligation or a trying ordeal – filled the time of most young men in these circumstances. But no such obligation or ordeal awaited Willie. So that these were idle, happy and proud days for him. He frequented the military club to which he now belonged, and could not suppress a little swagger when he informed his acquaintances that he might be off ‘any day now’. The departure of the draft was twice postponed, to his extreme annoyance, but at last the day was fixed, and Willie, who had promised to spend his last Saturday to Monday at Mrs. Osborne’s, travelled down to Camberley on November 9th.
Horry was there on his arrival and greeted him with a cheer.
‘Hail, little Willie. Come and kiss me. The war’s over, and we’re both safe.’
‘What rot you talk!’ said Willie angrily. ‘I rang up barracks before I left. They had heard nothing. Everything was proceeding according to plan, and the draft is leaving on Wednesday. Instructions from the War Office were to carry on.’
‘Oh, I don’t suppose your rotten old barracks has heard anything, nor the War Office either. It took them about a year to know the war had started, and they’ll go on fighting it for a year after it’s over, but everybody outside the War Office has heard that the Kaiser’s chucked his hand in.’
‘You think you’re very clever, Horry,’ said Willie, who was now flushed and heated, ‘but there was an officer at the club this morning, an old officer of my regiment, who did frightfully well in the Matabele war, and he’s always been right about this war – Colonel Wright his name is, and he says the Kaiser’s abdication will only make the Germans fight more doggedly, and he can speak German, and he thinks the Kaiser had only been a hindrance to Ludendorff and it’s probably the German General Staff that have made him get out.’
‘All right, Willie,’ said Horry, seeing how deeply the other was feeling. ‘Three cheers for Colonel Wright, but I hope the old bastard’s wrong this time. We’ll drink his health in a glass of sherry, if Mum’s got one, and hope for the worst.’
Willie’s wrath, which always went as quickly as it came, evaporated before Horry’s smile, and at that moment Mrs. Osborne came into the room. She kissed the two boys with unusual warmth, and Willie noticed with surprise that there was colour in her cheeks and that her eyes were shining as they had not shone for four long years.
When Horry asked if there was any sherry in the house, she said that she had bought a bottle that afternoon and two bottles of claret.
‘You’ll be surprised,’ she added, for she saw they were, neither of them ever having seen her drink anything but water, or spend a shilling on the smallest luxury – ‘but Garnet may be coming tonight or tomorrow, and it will be the first family reunion we’ve had for so long.’
Willie felt that he was not to be the hero of the evening, as he had expected, and he vaguely resented it. Knowing Mrs. Osborne’s economy, he had taken his precautions, and he said, as gaily as he could:
‘It’s not only a family reunion, it’s also the orphan’s good-bye. I’m off to the war on Wednesday, and I’ve brought some champagne for you all to drink my health.’
Mrs. Osborne gave him a quick look, and the light in her eyes went out for a moment.
‘It was very sweet of you, Willie, to think of it,’ she said quietly. ‘We shall be very happy to drink your health, and happier still to think that the war is probably not going on much longer.’
‘Don’t be too sure of that,’ said Willie, adding rather pompously, ‘There are, if I may say so, two schools of thought on the subject.’
‘One headed by Colonel Wright and the other by Colonel Wrong,’ sang Horry as he poured out the sherry.
Sunday was a day of rumours. There was nothing definite in the one newspaper which came to the house. Horry walked into Camberley while Willie played with Felicity, a beautiful, large-eyed, quiet child. Garnet arrived in the afternoon. He was careful not to commit himself, but said that there was no doubt at all that the Kaiser had abdicated and that the German delegates had gone to meet Foch in order to discuss the terms of an armistice.
‘After all,’ said Willie, ‘an armistice doesn’t necessarily mean peace. It’s only a kind of an entr’acte.’
‘Quite,’ said Garnet, ‘but once the troops have stopped fighting I think it’ll be very difficult to persuade them to begin again.’
They drank champagne that evening, to which none of them was accustomed, and under its reassuring influence Mrs. Osborne lost her last fears that the war might continue, and Willie forgot his anxiety lest it should stop. Horry was in wonderful form, or at least they all thought he was, and they sat up later than they had ever done in that house.
Willie overslept the next morning, and when he came down found the dining-room empty. Mrs. Osborne was attending to household duties. Garnet and Horry had walked into the village to collect the news. Willie felt deeply depressed. Disconsolately he consumed the tepid remains of breakfast and strolled into the sitting-room, where he found Felicity engrossed in some obscure game with two battered dolls. She took no notice of him. He walked up and down for a minute or two and then he cried out:
‘Oh, Felicity, I’m so unhappy.’
She turned and looked at him very gravely. Then she nodded her head slowly and said:
‘Yes, and I’m unhappy because you are.’
The front door was opened and slammed to with a bang. The two young men dashed into the room. Mrs. Osborne followed them, breathless.
‘It’s all over!’ shouted Horry. ‘No more doubts or rumours. Official announcement. The armistice will be signed this morning at 11 a.m.’
‘That is to say,’ added Garnet, looking at his wrist-watch, ‘in exactly forty-three minutes from now.’
Mrs. Osborne’s eyes were damp as she stretched out her hands and caught both her sons by an arm. Then she looked at Willie, and saw that his face was white and his lips were quivering.
‘Run upstairs, Willie dear,’ she said quickly, ‘and see if I left my spectacles in your room.’
Willie was through the door, up the stabs and into his room in a flash. He locked the door, threw himself on the bed and burst into tears.
As he lay there sobbing, two superficial sentiments almost made him forget his deeper sorrow. The first of these was shame that he, a grown man, holding the King’s Commission, should have broken down and cried as he had never cried since he could remember. The other sentiment was one of profound gratitude to Mrs. Osborne, gratitude that made him love her, for having saved him from disgracing himself before the others. One could see that she was a soldier’s daughter, he thought, by the rapidity with which she had appreciated the situation and given the right word of command. That was how he must act if ever he found himself in a critical situation in the war, and then he remembered again, with a fresh pang, that the war was over. But he could not lie there all day blubbing like a baby. It was nearly eleven o’clock. He must go downstairs and show a brave face, not a tear-stained one, if he could help it.
Having bathed his eyes and brushed his hair, he went downstairs, hearing the hall clock strike eleven as he went. He found them in the dining-room, where Horry was too busy struggling with the recalcitrant cork of a champagne bottle to pay any undue attention to his entry. The cork came out, followed by some of the contents of the bottle, which flowed over the table-cloth. Horry mopped up the spilt wine with his fingers, which he then rubbed behind his ears, explaining to his surprised companions that this was for luck. Then he filled the four glasses.
‘Here, Willie,’ he said, ‘have a glass of your own champagne, and as you won’t like to drink to peace, let’s drink to the next war.’
‘No,’ said Mrs. Osborne; ‘that would be wicked. Let us drink to the British Army,’ which they did, she adding softly to herself as the glass touched her lips, ‘Alive and dead.’
‘We’ve forgotten Felicity,’ cried Horry. ‘If she never drinks champagne again in her life she must have some to-day.’
They found her in the next room, still absorbed in her play. Horry filled a liqueur glass and told her she must drink it all for luck. She obeyed solemnly, and when asked if she liked it, she felt that the occasion called for something special, so she brought out an expression of Horry’s.
‘Yes,’ she said, ‘damned good.’
When the young men shouted with laughter, her large dark eyes sparkled with success and mischief.
That afternoon Horry accompanied Willie to London. The sorrows of youth, like the sorrows of childhood, although they may leave deep wounds and lasting scars, can be quickly, if only temporarily, banished by other distractions. Among the crowds that thronged the streets that day, waving flags and cheering vociferously, there were few who waved more enthusiastically or cheered louder than Willie, who had felt a few hours earlier that there was nothing left to live for on earth.
By dinner-time they were both exhausted, and Horry said that if Willie would pay the bill he would take him to the best restaurant in London. Willie didn’t mind what he paid, so they dined at Ornano’s, which did seem to Willie a very wonderful place indeed, and he was glad to notice that even some of Horry’s self-assurance deserted him when the urbane head-waiter of historic fame approached them with the menu. His attentions were mainly owing to the fact that the restaurant was almost empty, for they were dining at an unfashionably early hour, and this was also why, Horry explained, none of the famous men and beautiful women, whose presence he had promised, had yet arrived. Food was bad in those days and insufficient; sugar and butter were almost unobtainable, but what was served to the young men, seated on one of the corner sofas in a dim pink light, with music gently playing, seemed to them delectable. The champagne was really good, and so was the brandy, though it had not, as they imagined, been bottled in the reign of Napoleon I.
They had had a long day and a great experience. They felt tired, but very pleasantly so. The sophisticated atmosphere of the restaurant made them feel suddenly older. The wine was able to have its soft, mellowing effect. Self-consciousness, the curse of English youth, fell from them, and they found words coming to them easily. Willie was able to pour forth all his sorrows, and the burden of them grew lighter for the telling. He even confessed that he had wept in his room that morning.
‘I knew you had, old boy,’ said Horry. ‘We all knew, and we all thought the more of you. But don’t you worry. You’re not nineteen yet, and you’ll be young for another twelve years. I’ll bet there’s another war in less time than that. You don’t insist on a European war, do you? They’re a damned sight too dangerous, in my opinion. You’d have much more fun smashing up the old Zulus or leading a cavalry charge against a pack of dancing Dervishes, like the 21st Lancers did at Omdurman. You see, you’ve got a vocation, Willie. I’ve always felt you had. You’re a born soldier. You’ve never dreamt of being anything else – have you? Admit it!’
Willie, who was now enjoying himself enormously, gladly admitted it, and Horry went on:
‘Now, if a man’s got a vocation he always makes good. Somehow, sometime, his opportunity comes, and because it’s the one thing he’s been waiting for all his life, he’s ready when it comes and he takes it. Your chance will come all right – and you’ll take it – don’t worry.’
He paused a moment and lit a cigarette, while Willie, profoundly believing all that he had said, felt as though he had already distinguished himself in a war, and tried to look modest.
‘You may not believe it,’ Horry went on, ‘but I’ve got a vocation too. But mine’s a secret. I don’t think I can tell you because, if you have a fault, it is that you’re a bit old-fashioned, and you might be shocked.’
‘Oh, do tell me about your vocation, Horry,’ said Willie. ‘I long to hear, and I swear not to tell anybody.’
‘Let’s have two more brandies first,’ said Horry, ‘one for you, to help you bear the shock, and one for me, because I like it.’
The brandies were ordered, and they took some time to come, while Horry smoked reflectively and Willie wondered what Horry’s vocation could possibly be.
‘Well,’ said Horry at last, speaking with deliberation as he sipped his brandy, ‘it may surprise you, Willie, to learn that ever since I was ten years old I have had only one ambition in life, and that is to go on the stage.’
Willie was shocked. Had he been in a less receptive mood the shock would have been greater, but tonight everything seemed strange and new; the world had changed since yesterday. His first thought was that Horry was making fun of him, as he had so often done before.
‘You’re pulling my leg?’ he asked hopefully.
‘I never was more serious in my life,’ was the reply.
‘But, but,’ Willie stammered, ‘chaps like us can’t be actors.’
‘What do you mean by chaps like us?’ asked Horry scornfully.
‘Damn it, Horry, I mean gentlemen.’ He could not have said it if he had been quite sober.
‘There you are,’ exclaimed Horry. ‘I said you were old-fashioned. I might say you were a snob, but I know you’re not. You’re living in the past. Times have changed. They had changed even before the war, and they’re going to change a jolly sight quicker after it. Not gentlemen, indeed! How about Sir Henry Irving and Sir Herbert Tree? And Charles Hawtrey was at Eton! And there’s Gerald du Maurier, just got a commission in the Irish Guards. Since when have the Irish Guards given commissions to chaps who weren’t gentlemen?’
This last argument, although the fact on which it was based was not strictly accurate, carried most weight with Willie. But he remembered hearing his father say that an officer, in a good regiment, who married an actress, would have to send in his papers. Yet it seemed to him easier for an actress to be a lady than for an actor to be a gentleman. He had heard of people’s daughters going on the stage, not without parental protest, but never of their sons doing so. However, he didn’t want to quarrel tonight, or even to argue. He had always been fond of Horry, but never so fond as now, so that he allowed himself to be easily converted, and soon he was discussing with animation the kind of parts in which Horry would do best.
When they left the restaurant the Strand was quiet, although sounds of revelry came from the Mall, where the mob were burning a German cannon. The two young men walked home arm in arm, feeling happy and very superior to the roisterers. Horry was taking his call at the end of a triumphant first night, and Willie was galloping across the veld, at the head of his regiment, under a hail of assegais.