CHAPTER IX
FRANK SACOBIE OBJECTS
WITHIN ten days of the battle of Courcelette, Lieut. Richard Starkleywas able to see; and twenty days after that he was able to walk. Hiswalking at first was an extraordinary thing, and extraordinary was theamount of pleasure that he derived from it. With a crutch under oneshoulder and Sister Gilbert under the other, bandaged and padded fromhip to neck, and with his battered but entire legs wavering beneath him,he crossed the ward that first day without exceeding the speed limit.Brother officers in various stages of repair did not refrain fromexpressing their opinions of his performance.
"Try to be back for tea, old son," said a New Zealand major.
"Are those your legs or mine you're fox-trotting with?" asked an Englishsubaltern; and an elderly colonel called, "I'll hop out and show you howto walk in a minute, if you don't do better than that!"
The colonel laughed, and the inmates of the other beds laughed, and Dickand Sister Gilbert laughed, for that, you must know, was a very goodjoke. The humor of the remark lay in the fact that the elderly colonelhad not a leg to his name.
Day by day Dick improved in pace and gait, and his activities inspired anumber of his companions to shake an uncertain leg or two. The elderlycolonel organized contests; and the great free-for-all race twice roundthe ward was one of the notable sporting events of the war.
At last Dick was shipped to Blighty and admitted to a hospital forconvalescent Canadian officers. There Capt. J. A. Starkley-Davenportsoon found him. No change that the eye could detect had taken place inJack Davenport. His face was as thin and colorless as when Dick hadfirst seen it; his eyes were just as bright, and their glances as kindlyand intent; his body was as frail and as immaculately garbed. Dickwondered how one so frail could exist a week without either breakingutterly or gaining in strength.
"You're a wonder, Dick!" exclaimed Davenport.
"It strikes me that you are the wonder," said Dick.
"But they tell me that you stopped a whiz-bang and will be as fit asever, nerve and body, in a little while."
"I stopped bits of it--but I don't think it actually detonated on me.All I got was some of the splash. I was lucky!"
"You were indeed," said the other, with a shadow in his eyes. "I waslucky, too--though there have been times when I have been fool enough towish that I had been left on the field." Then he straightened his thinshoulders and laughed quietly. "But if I had gone west I should havemissed Frank Sacobie and Hiram Sill. They lunched with me last week andhave promised to turn up on Sunday. You'll be right for Sunday, Dick,and I'll have a pucka party in your honor."
"How are they, and what are they up to?" asked Dick.
"They are at the top of their form, both of them, and up to anything,"replied Davenport. "Your Canadian cadet course is the stiffest thing ofits kind in England, but it doesn't seem to bother those two. Frank issmarter than anything the Guards can show and is believed to be a rajah;and Hiram writes letters to Washington urging the formation of anAmerican division to be attached to the Canadian Corps and suggestinghis appointment to the command of one of the brigades."
"Those letters must amuse the censors," said Dick with a grin.
"I imagine they do. Washington hasn't answered yet; and so Hiram isgetting his dander up and is pitching each letter a little higher thanthe one before it. Incidentally, he has a great deal to say to our WarOffice, and his novel suggestions for developing trench warfare seem tohave awakened a variety of emotions in the brains and livers of a lot ofworthy _brass hats_."
Dick laughed. "What are his ideas for developing trench warfare?"
"One is the organization of a shot-gun platoon in every battalion. Theweapon is to be the duck gun, number eight bore, I believe. Hirammaintains that, used within a range of one hundred and fifty yards,those weapons would be superior to any in repulsing attacks in mass andin cleaning up raided trenches. He is a great believer in the deadly anddemoralizing effects of point-blank fire."
"He is right in that--once you get rid of the parapet."
"He gets rid of the parapet with the point-blank fire of what he callstrench cannon--guns, three feet long, mounted so that they can becarried along a trench by four men; they are to fire ten- ortwelve-pound high explosive shells from the front line smack against theopposite parapet."
"It sounds right, too; but so many things sound right that work allwrong. What are his other schemes?"
"One has to do with a thundering big six-hooked grapnel, with a wirecable attached, that is to be shot into the hostile lines from a bigtrench mortar and then winched back by steam. He expects hisgrapnel--give him power enough--to tear out trenches, machine-gun postsand battalion headquarters, and bring home all sorts of odds and ends ofvalue for identification purposes. Can't you see the brigadier steppingout before brekker to take a look at the night's haul?"
"My hat! What did the War Office think of that?"
"An acting assistant something or other of the name of Smythers and therank of major was inspired by it to ask Hiram whether he had ever servedin France. Hiram put over a twenty-page narrative of his exploits withthe battalion, with appendixes of maps and notes and extracts frombrigade and battalion orders, and, so far as I know, the major has notyet recovered sufficiently to retaliate."
"Well, I hope Frank Sacobie has left the War Office alone."
"Frank writes nothing and says very little more than that. He seems togive all his attention to his kit; but I have a suspicion that he is adeep thinker. However that may be, his taste in dress is astonishinglygood, and his deportment in society is in as good taste as hisbreeches."
"So he has a good time?"
"He is very gay when he comes up to town," answered Davenport.
"He deserves a good time, but he can't get it and at the same time dollhimself up, even in uniform, on his pay. How does he do it?"
"You have guessed it, Dick."
"I think I have."
"Then there is no need of my saying much about it. I live on one sixthof my income. That leaves five sixths for my friends; and often, Dick,it is the thought of the spending of the five parts that gives mecourage to go on keeping life in this useless body with the one part.Sometimes a soldier's wife buys food for herself and children, or paysthe rent, with my money; and the lion's share of the pleasure of thattransaction is mine. Sometimes a chap on leave spends a fistful of mytreasury notes on dinners for himself and his girl; and those dinnersgive me more pleasure than the ones I eat myself. I haven't much of astomach of my own now, you know; and I haven't a girl of my own to takeout to one--even if Wilson would let me go out at night. It is notcharity. I satisfy my own lost hunger for food through the medium ofpoor people with good appetites: I have my fun and cut a dash in newbreeches and swagger service jackets through the medium of hard fightingfellows from France. I am not apologizing, you understand."
"You needn't," said Dick dryly; and then they both laughed.
Hiram Sill and Frank Sacobie called on Dick at the hospital soon afterten o'clock on Sunday morning. They had come up to town the eveningbefore. The greetings of the three friends were warm. Sacobie's pleasureat the reunion found no voice, but shone in his eyes and thrilled in thegrip of his hand. Hiram Sill added words to the message of his beamingface. He expressed delighted amazement at Dick's appearance.
"I couldn't quite believe it until now," he said. "Neither could you ifyou had seen yourself as we saw you when you were picked up. Nothing thematter with your face, except a dimple or two that you weren't bornwith. All your legs and arms still your own. I'd sooner see this than aletter from Washington. With your luck you'll live to command thebattalion."
Dick grinned. His greetings to his friends had been as boyishlyimpulsive and cheery as ever; yet there was something looking outthrough the affection in his eyes that would have puzzled his people inNew Brunswick if they had seen it. There was a question in the look anda hint of anxiety and perhaps the faintest s
hade of the airs of a fondfather, a sympathetic judge and a hopeful appraiser. Frank and Hiramrecognized and accepted it without thought or question. The look wasnothing more than the shadow of the habit of responsibility and command.
Hiram talked about Washington and the War Office, and discussed hisgrapnel idea with considerable heat. Frank Sacobie took no part in thatdiscussion and little in the general conversation. Soon after twelveo'clock all three set out in a taxicab for Jack Davenport's house.
The luncheon was successful. The other guests were three women--a cousinof Jack's on the Davenport side and her two daughters. The host andHiram Sill both conversed brilliantly. Frank was inspired to make atleast five separate remarks of some half dozen words each. Dick soon letthe drift of the general conversation escape him, so interested did hebecome in the girl on his right.
Kathleen Kingston seemed to him a strange mixture of shyness andself-possession, of calmness and vivacity. The coloring of her smallface was wonderfully mobile--so Dick expressed it to himself--and yether eyes were frank, steady and unembarrassed. Her voice was curiouslylow and clear.
Dick was conscious of feeling a vague and unsteady wonder at himself.Why this sudden interest in a girl? He had never felt anything of thekind before. Had this something to do with the wounds in his head? Hecould not entertain that suggestion seriously. However that might be, hefelt that his sudden interest in this young person whom he had not somuch as heard of an hour ago greatly increased his interest in manythings. He was conscious of a sure friendship for her, as if he hadknown her for years. He knew that this friendship was a more importantthing to him than his friendships with Hiram Sill and Frank Sacobie--andyet those friendships had grown day by day, strengthened week by weekand stood the test of suffering and peril.
She told him that her father was still in France, but safe now atGeneral Headquarters, that her eldest brother had been killed in actionin 1914, that another was fighting in the East, and that still anotherwas a midshipman on the North Sea. Also, she told him that she wanted togo to France as a V. A. D., that she had left school six months ago andwas working five hours every day making bandages and splints, and thatshe was seventeen years old. Those confidences melted Dick's tongue. Hetold her his own age and that he had added a little to it at the time ofenlisting; he spoke of night and daylight raids and major offensiveoperations in which he had taken part, of the military careers of Henryand Peter and of life at Beaver Dam. She seemed to be as keenlyinterested in his confidences as he had been in hers. In the library,where coffee was served, Dick continued to cling to his new friend.
The party came to an end at last, leaving Dick in a somewhat scatteredstate of mind. Before leaving with her daughters, Mrs. Kingston gave heraddress and a cordial invitation to make use of it to each of the three.Before long Wilson took Jack off to bed. Then Hiram left to keep anappointment at the Royal Automobile Club with a captain who knew someone at the War Office. That left Frank and Dick with Jack Davenport'slibrary to themselves. One place was much the same as another to Dickjust then. He was again wondering if he could possibly be suffering insome subtle and painless way from the wounds in his head. With enquiringfingers he felt the spotless bandage that still adorned the top of hishead.
Sacobie got out of his chair suddenly, with an abruptness of movementthat was foreign to him, and walked the length of the room and back. Hehalted before Dick and stared down at him keenly for several secondswithout attracting that battered youth's attention. So he fell again topacing the room, walking lightly and with straight feet, the true Indianwalk. At last he halted again in front of Dick's chair.
"I am not going back to the battalion," he said.
Dick sat up with a jerk and stared at him.
"I am not going back," repeated Sacobie. "I shall get my commission,that is sure; but I shall not be an officer in the battalion."
"Why the mischief not?" exclaimed Dick. "What's the matter with thebattalion, I'd like to know?"
"Nothing," replied the other. He moved away a few paces, then turnedback again. "A good battalion. I was a good sergeant there. But I metCapt. Dodds, on leave, one day, and we had lunch together at Scott's;and he feel pretty good--he felt pretty good--and he talked a lot. Hetold me how some officers and other ranks say the colonel didn't doright when he put in my name for cadet course and a commission. You knowwhy, Dick. So I don't go back to the infantry with my two stars."
"Do you mean because you are an Indian? That is rot!"
"No, it is good sense. You think about it hard as I have thought aboutit day and night. They don't say I don't know my job. The captain toldme the colonel was right and everybody knew it when he said I shouldmake the best scout officer in the brigade; and the men like me, youknow that; but the men don't want an Injun for an officer. They arewhite men. I am a Malecite--red. That is right. I don't go back with myofficer stars."
"Do you mean that you won't take your commission?" asked Dick.
"No. I take it, sure. But not in the 26th."
Dick did not argue. He had never considered his friend's case in thatlight before, but now he knew that Sacobie was right. Thenoncommissioned officers and men would not question Frank's militaryqualifications, his ability or his personal merits. His race was theonly thing about him to which they objected--and that appearedobjectionable in him only when they considered him as an officer. As a"non-com" he was one of themselves, but as an officer they must considerhim impersonally as a superior. There was where the New Brunswicksoldiers would cease to consider their friend and comrade Frank Sacobieand see only a member of an inferior race. Their point of view wouldimmediately revert to that of the old days before the war, when theywould have laughed at a Malecite's undertaking to perform any taskexcept paddling a canoe.
"Will you transfer to another battalion?" asked Dick, as a result of hisreflections.
Frank shook his head but made no reply.
"Then to an English battalion?" Dick persisted. "There are dozens thatwould be glad to have you, Frank. A Canadian with your record would nothave to look far for a job in this war. Jack Davenport's old regimentwould snap you up quick as a wink, commission and all, I bet a dollar."
The other smiled gravely. "That is right," he said. "Capt. Davenport ismy friend and knows what I am; but most English people want me to besome kind of prince from India. I am myself--a Canadian soldier. I don'twant to play the monkey. Two-Blanket Sacobie was a big chief, with hissalmon spear and sometimes nothing to eat. His squaw chopped the woodand carried the water. I am not a prince, nor I'm not a monkey. I cometo the war, and the English people call me rajah; but the Englishmancome to our country and hire me for a guide in the woods and call me anigger. No, I am myself with what good I have in me. I can do to fightthe Germans, and that is all I want, Dick. I try to be a gentleman, likePeter and Capt. Davenport, and the King will make me an officer. That isgood. I will join the Royal Flying Corps. Then they will name me forwhat I am by what I do."
Dick gripped Frank's right hand in a hearty clasp of respect andadmiration.
"You're a brick!" he said. "Jack was right when he said you were a deepthinker."
"I got to think deep--deeper than you," said Frank. "I got to think allfor myself, because my fathers didn't think at all."