Remembrance

THROUGH the unshuttered windows of the ward, the shadows of the late afternoon steal quietly in. The Sergeant stirs restlessly in his bed. Above him hangs the Military Medal, and a last, lingering sunbeam, quivering obliquely on the bare white wall, touches the deep colours of the ribbon with wayward hands, and suddenly departs. Slowly the shadows lengthen.

The Sergeant’s eyes are closed, and his dark lashes lie like twilight on his still face. He is a glorious lad—as splendid in his young manhood as an Athenian marble. In the gathering dusk, he assumes an almost luminous pallor. It is as though his departing spirit were already casting about him a halo of transplendent light. Softened by approaching death, his features have assumed the deep impress of the final sleep, and folded above his heart, his hands lie nerveless and attenuated, like withered lilies.

For seven days I have watched his chart, but the hieroglyphic lines of temperature and pulse give no encouragement. Apparently there has been no resistance voluntarily offered, no heroic effort made; it is as though he knew the futility of hope, and, in his heart, was very glad—and waited. Some men fight their battles inch by inch; some men, not at all.

In the morning, and in the afternoon, and then at night, I do his dressing. He seldom speaks, so it is difficult to say just what degree of suffering he endures. Only once or twice have I found his dark eyes upon me, as I worked, and then, his gaze was so remote, so utterly removed, that to have challenged him, and brought him back to the grey horror of reality, would have seemed a desecration, almost, of some dim, spiritual aloofness of his own. So we have gone on, patiently, and in silence.

The surgeons have done what they could for him—probed and drained, and given blood transfusions; but from the very start, his chance was wretched. In his left lung there lies a great, torn fragment of shrapnel, and when he coughs, it turns and writhes within him, lacerating its way through muscle and tissue, and severing the vessels that obstruct its course. Then, stains of crimson steal across his lips, and, presently, great basins brim with his own blood . . .

After supper, the trays are cleared away, the men quiet down, and the Medical Officer comes on his nightly round. Captain Bartholomew studies the Sergeant’s chart, takes his pulse and temperature, and then calls me aside.

“I think we’d better have screens to-night, Corporal—he can’t last very much longer, at this rate.”

So I bring the screens and put them about the Sergeant’s bed. The other men look on, unmoved, and whisper between themselves in a low monotone.

At nine o’clock, I fetch my dressing-tray from the instrument cupboard. The ward is very quiet now, and many of the men are asleep. With a soft, kindly radiance, the lamp-light floods the screen-enclosed area. The Sergeant’s eyes are open, and he is moving his hands about, over the coverlet.

“Here we are again, old man!—You look pretty fit, to-night. Feeling better?”

“Oh,—I don’t know—thanks.” He turns his head wearily towards me, and tries to take an interest in what I am doing. His black hair looms like a shadow on the pillow.

I unbutton the coat of his pyjamas, and carefully remove the surgical pads that cover his wound. His body is burning to the touch—like the beating of the sun on a mid-summer’s afternoon. Apparently his fever is up again, on one of its periodic flights. Surely the end—the beginning of the end—is near.

The dressing takes some twenty minutes. When I have finished, and am gathering up my basins and tubes and instruments, and am about to depart, a waxen hand strays out from the bed, and detains me. I put down my tray on the floor.

“Yes, old man; what can I do for you? A drink?”

The Sergeant negatively closes his eyes, and then slowly opens them.

“No, I’m not thirsty, thanks, Corporal. I only wanted to know—if you’d—come back—and sit with me awhile—for, you see—I’m dying—to-night—and it’s lonely here—behind these screens.”

I take both his hands in mine, and hold them fast.

“We’re not afraid, old pal. Try to sleep. I shall not leave you.”

Thus draws his mortal day to its close.

Towards eleven o’clock, he passes into a light delirium. His dreams are broken, disjointed—dim memories of dead days, lived long ago, and ever at their heels, urging them on, blood-stained remembrances of the more immediate past—the far prairies of his native Canada, gloriously golden under their Autumn harvest of wheat; his mother, patiently waiting; his brother; the battlefields of the Somme. A little strangled sob floats upwards for an instant, and dies in fluttering accents.

At midnight he rouses, and I give him water to drink. Thereafter, he seems easier, and does not care to sleep; so I talk to him quietly of Canada—of the prairies and the mountains and the sea—of the beauty and the gladness—that is home. Patiently he holds my hand, and listens. Backward I lead him, step by step, in memory.

When I believe him to be at the very verge of sleep, his fingers suddenly close hard on mine, and he stirs uneasily beside me.

“It’s Eric, though, Corporal,” his voice is very faint and I must stop to hear, “Eric, my brother, that I’m longing for. Can’t you see—he’s dead, and I’ve been waiting for him—all this time.”

What can I say? The cold hand trembles in my own.

“He was only a kid—was Eric—seventeen. Mother should never have let him go: but God, how he loved me—better than life itself—and he would come along. All his life before him,—and happy,—why, he never knew a care!—It seems years ago to me, now.—Only seventeen when he died! God,—the pity of it all!

“I was with him the morning he was killed; we’d never been apart, he and I,—just pals,—and he was a proper soldier, too, even though he was a kid.

“Yes, I’ve lived it all over a good many times, since I’ve been lying here,—that day he died.—I’ve only got to close my eyes, and Gad!—I’m back on that old road again, with Eric beside me on the gun-carriage. We were drivers, you see,—he and I,—in the Somme. Been through some pretty heavy fighting, too.

“I’ll never forget that day,—the heat and the dust. There wasn’t a breath of air. The old girl lumbered along, rattling and clanking like all-possessed. First, we were up on one wheel, and then we were down on the other.—And what a road!—pools of water, green with slime, and shell-holes a horse could break his leg in.—The dust rose and fell like smoke, around us: we were grey with it,—we breathed it in with every breath. It drifted in shuddering clouds,—hung motionless in the still air. At times, we could not see the man ahead of us,—our own horses, even.”

Faint, the Sergeant pauses for an instant, and his eyes slowly open. They mirror a horror,—a remembrance, that is beyond human words.

“The kid was half-asleep, you see, hanging on beside me, and jolting about. The sun was in his eyes, and he’d been up all night, besides. I tried to watch him,—God knows,—had my arm around him, most of the time, so that he could put his head down on my shoulder, and sleep more easily.—It was all play to him; like a boy, he was tired out, and wanted to forget.

“Then—we struck a crater!—God, I thought we’d never stop; down and down, slipping and sliding. The horses were wild with fear. Struggling to hold them back, I wrenched my arm from the kid.—lt only lasted a moment;—then, slowly, the great gun righted itself,—the wheels groaned, the chains pulled taut.—Out of the dust beneath me,—suddenly there came a cry! I looked for Eric;—he was gone!”

The Sergeant’s eyes fill slowly with tears. They course unheeded down his wan face. He makes a supreme effort to regain his self-control. Out of his increasing weakness, and the mists of delirium, which are slowly gathering again, he wrests a final moment of lucidity.

“I left the horses standing, and went back.—At the bottom of the crater, I found him, face-downward in the dust, his arms spread out before him. There was blood on the sand,—great pools of it, that quickly sank and disappeared.—The wheels had gone over his chest,—poor kid, but his hands were still twitching when I reached him,—clawing the sand, and digging themselves in.—I tried to lift him up in my arms, but he was bent, and broken, and twisted. His blood poured over me,—my hands, my tunic. It was on my lips, and my eyes were blinded with it.

“Then, they shelled us, there on the road, as I was burying him, and—and—”

Exhausted, he falls back. The watch, hanging above his head, ticks away the moments, listlessly. An oppressive silence weighs upon me. In the dim light, I conjure the terrible scene,—the devastated road, the shimmering veils of dust and heat, the crater, the plunging gun-carriage, the body, the sand, the blood.

I cannot breathe, and rise to go. The lifeless hand slips from my own. On the pale cheeks, the tears are slowly drying, leaving faint, brackish stains.

From the wall I take down the Military Medal, and place it between the relaxed fingers of the waxen hands. His eyes are glazing rapidly. The broken dreams rush headlong through his brain;—the Somme; the far prairies of his native Canada, gloriously golden under their Autumn harvest of wheat;—his mother, patiently waiting;—his brother.

Calmly, serenely, the lamp-light throws a dim radiance about him.