Simon Called Peter, Robert Keable [read e books online free txt] 📗

time for a sun-downer. Orderly!"

He pulled up a large easy-chair, and Peter subsided into it with a pleasant feeling of welcome. He remembered, now, having heard that Donovan was at Havre, but it was none the less a surprise to meet him.

Donovan played a good hand when he liked, but when he was not meeting his mettle, or perhaps when the conditions were not serious enough, he usually kept up a diverting, unorthodox run of talk the whole time. Peter listened and took in his surroundings lazily. "Come on," said his friend, playing a queen. "Shove on your king, Pennell; everyone knows you've got him. What? Hiding the old gentleman, are you? Why, sure it's myself has him all the time"—gathering up the trick and leading the king. "Perhaps somebody's holding up the ace now…." and so on.

Pennell played well too, but very differently. He was usually bored with his luck or the circumstances, and until you got to know him you were inclined to think he was bored with you. He was a young-looking man of thirty-five, rather good-looking, an engineer in peace-time who had knocked about the world a good deal, but hardly gave you that impression. The Australian played poorly. With curly dark hair and a perpetual pipe, his face was almost sullen in repose, but it lit up eagerly enough at any chance excitement. Arnold was easily the eldest, a short man with iron-grey hair and very kindly eyes, a man master of himself and his circumstances. Peter watched him eagerly. He was likely to see a good deal of him, he thought, and he was glad there would be a padre as well in camp.

Donovan and Ferrars won the game and so the rubber easily, and the former pushed his chair back from the table. "That's enough for me, boys," he said. "I must trek in a minute. Well, padre, and what do you think of the Army now?"

"Mixed biscuits rather," Peter said. "But I had a rum experience getting here. You wouldn't have thought it possible," and he related the story of the movement order. At the close, Pennell nodded gloomily. "Pack of fools they are!" he said. "Hardly one of them knows his job. You can thank your lucky stars that the D.A.Q.M.G. had a down on that Colonel What's-his-name, or it would have taken you another month to get here, probably—eh, Donovan?"

"That's so, old dear," said that worthy, "But I'm hanged if I'd have cared. Some place, Rouen. Better'n this hole."

"Well, at Rouen they said this was better," said Peter.

Arnold laughed. "That's the way of the Army," he said. "It's all much the same, but you would have to go far to beat this camp."

Pennell agreed. "You're right there, padre," he said. "This is as neat a hole as I've struck. If you know the road," he went on to Peter, "you can slip into town in twenty-five minutes or so, and we're much better placed than most camps. There's no mud and cinders here, is there, Donovan? His camp's built on cinders," he added.

"There are not," said that worthy, rising. "And you're very convenient to the hospital here, padre. You better get Arnold to show you round; he's a dog with the nurses."

"What about the acting matron, No. 1 Base?" demanded Arnold. "He has tea there every Sunday," he explained to Peter, "and he a married man, too."

"It's time I went," said Donovan, laughing; "all the same, there's a concert on Tuesday in next week, a good one, I believe, and I've promised to go and take some people. Who'll come? Pennell, will you?"

"Not this child, thanks. Too many nurses, too much tea, and too much talk for me. Now, if you would pick me out a pretty one and fix up a little dinner in town, I'm your man, old bean."

"Well, that might be managed. It's time we had a flutter of some sort. I'll see. What about you, Graham? You game to try the hospital? You'll have to get to know the ropes of them all, you know."

"Yes, I'll come," said Peter—"if I can, that is." He looked inquiringly at Arnold.

"Oh, your time is more or less your own," he replied—"at least, it is our side of the house. Are you C.G. or P.C.?"

"Good God, padre!" said the Australian, getting up too, "what in the world do you mean?"

"Chaplain-General's Department or Principal Chaplain's Department, Church of England or Nonconformist. And it's sixpence a swear in this mess." Arnold held out a hand.

Donovan caught his friend by the arm. "Come on out of it," he said. "You won't get back in time if you don't. The padre's a good sort; you needn't mind him. So long everybody. Keep Tuesday clear, Graham. I'll call for you."

"Well, I'd better fix you up, Graham," said Arnold. "For my sins I'm mess secretary, and as the president's out and likely to be, I'll find a place for you."

He led Peter into the passage, and consulted a board on the wall. "I'd like to put you next me, but I can't," he said. "Both sides occupied. Wait a minute. No. 10 Pennell, and No. 11's free. How would you like that? Pennell," he called through the open door, "what's the next room to yours like? Light all right?"

"Quite decent," said Pennell, coming to the door. "Going to put him there, padre? Let's go and see." Then the three went off together down the passage.

The little room was bare, except for a table under the window, Arnold opened it, and Peter saw he looked out over the sea. Pennell switched on the light and found it working correctly, and then sauntered across the couple of yards or so of the cubicle's width to look at the remains of some coloured pictures pasted on the wooden partition.

"Last man's made a little collection from La Vie Parisienne for you, padre," he said, "Not a very bright selection, either. You'll have to cover them up, or it'll never do to bring your A.C.G. or A.P.C., or whatever he is, in here. What a life!" he added, regarding them. "They are a queer people, the French…. Well, is this going to do?"

Graham glanced at Arnold, "Very well," he said, "if it's all right for me to have it."

"Quite all right," said Arnold. "Remember, Pennell is next door left, so keep him in order. Next door right is the English Channel, more or less. Now, what about your traps?"

"I left them outside the orderly-room," said Peter, "except for some that a porter was to bring up. Perhaps they'll be here by now. I've got a stretcher and so on."

"I'll go and see," said Pennell, "and I'll put my man on to get you straight, as you haven't a batman yet." And he strolled off.

"Come to my room a minute," said Arnold, and Peter followed him.

Arnold's room was littered with stuff. The table was spread with mess accounts, and the corners of the little place were stacked up with a gramophone, hymn-books, lantern-slides, footballs, boxing-gloves, and such-like. The chairs were both littered, but Arnold cleared one by the simple expedient of piling all its contents on the other, and motioned his visitor to sit down. "Have a pipe?" he asked, holding out his pouch.

Peter thanked him, filled and handed it back, then lit his pipe, and glanced curiously round the room as he drew on it. "You're pretty full up," he said.

"Fairly," said the other. "There's a Y.M.C.A. here, and I run it more or less, and Tommy likes variety. He's a fine chap, Tommy; don't you think so?"

Peter hesitated a second, and the other glanced at him shrewdly.

"Perhaps you haven't been out long enough," he said.

"Perhaps not," said Peter. "Not but what I do like him. He's a cheerful creature for all his grousing, and has sterling good stuff in him. But religiously I don't get on far. To tell you the truth, I'm awfully worried about it."

The elder man nodded. "I guess I know, lad," he said. "See here. I'm Presbyterian and I reckon you are Anglican, but I expect we're up against much the same sort of thing. Don't worry too much. Do your job and talk straight, and the men'll listen more than you think."

"But I don't think I know what to tell them," said Peter miserably, but drawn out by the other.

Arnold smiled. "The Prayer Book's not much use here, eh? But forgive me; I don't mean to be rude. I know what you mean. To tell you the truth, I think this war is what we padres have been needing. It'll help us to find our feet. Only—this is honest—if you don't take care you may lose them. I have to keep a tight hold of that"—and he laid his hand on a big Bible—"to mind my own."

Peter did not reply for a minute. He could not talk easily to a stranger. But at last he said: "Yes; but it doesn't seem to me to fit the case. Men are different. Times are different. The New Testament people took certain things for granted, and even if they disagreed, they always had a common basis with the Apostles. Men out here seem to me to talk a different language: you don't know where to begin. It seems to me that they have long ago ceased to believe in the authority of anyone or anything in religion, and now to-day they actually deny our very commonplaces. But I don't know how to put it," he added lamely.

Arnold puffed silently for a little. Then he took his pipe out of his mouth and regarded it critically. "God's in the soul of every man still," he said. "They can still hear Him speak, and speak there. And so must we too, Graham."

Peter said nothing. In a minute or so steps sounded in the passage, and Arnold looked up quickly. "Maybe," he said, "our ordinary life prevented us hearing God very plainly ourselves, Graham, and maybe He has sent us here for that purpose. I hope so. I've wondered lately if we haven't come to the kingdom for such a time as this."

Pennell pushed the door open, and looked in. "You there, Graham?" he asked. "Oh, I thought I'd find him here, padre; his stuff's come."

Peter got up. "Excuse me, Arnold," he said; "I must shake in. But I'm jolly glad you said what you did, and I hope you'll say it again, and some more."

The older man smiled an answer, and the door closed. Then he sighed a little, and stretched out his hand again for the Bible.

CHAPTER VI

The great central ward at No. 1 Base Hospital looked as gay as possible. In the centre a Guard's band sat among palms and ferns, and an extemporised stage, draped with flags, was behind, with wings constructed of Japanese-figured material. Pretty well all round were the beds, although many of them had been moved up into a central position, and there was a space for chairs and forms. The green-room had to be outside the ward, and the performers, therefore, came and went in the public gaze. But it was not a critical public, and the men, with a plenitude of cigarettes, did not object to pauses. On the whole, they were extraordinarily quiet and passive. Modern science has made the battlefield a hell, but it has also made the base hospital something approaching a Paradise.

There were women in plenty. The staff had been augmented by visitors from most of the other hospitals in the town, and there was a fair sprinkling of W.A.A.C.'s, Y.M.C.A. workers, and so on, in addition. Jack Donovan and Peter were a little late, and arrived at the time an exceedingly popular subaltern was holding the stage amid roars of laughter. They stood outside one of the many glass doors and peered in.

Once inside, one had to make one's way among beds and chairs, and the nature of things brought one into rather more than the usual share of late-comers' scrutiny, but nothing could abash Donovan. He spotted at once a handsome woman in nurse's indoor staff uniform, and made for her. She, with two others, was sitting on an empty bed, and she promptly made room for Donovan. Graham was introduced, and a quiet girl moved up a bit for him to sit down; but there was not much room, and the girl would not talk, so that he sat uncomfortably and looked about him, listening with one ear to the fire