FullReads

The Major rose gravely from his seat, walked round the table and held out his hand.

“Put your hand there, lad,” he said gravely.

Knightley looked at the outstretched hand, then at the Major’s face. He took the hand diffidently, and the Major’s grasp was of the heartiest.

“Neither at Mequinez nor at Tangier did you play the coward,” said the Major. “You fell by my side in the van of the attack.”

And then Knightley began to cry. He blubbered like a child, and with his blubbering he mixed apologies. He was weak, he was tired, his relief was too great; he was thoroughly ashamed.

“You see,” he said, “there was need that I should know. My wife is waiting for me. I could not go back to her bearing that stigma. Indeed, I hardly dared ask news of her. Now I can go back; and, gentlemen, I wish you good-night.”

He stood up, made his bow, wiped his eyes, and began to walk to the door. Scrope rose instantly.

“Sit down, Lieutenant,” said the Major sharply, and Scrope obeyed with reluctance.

The Major watched Knightley cross the room. Should he let the Ensign go? Should he keep him? He could not decide. That Knightley would seek his wife at once might of course have been foreseen; and yet it had not been foreseen either by the Major or the others. The present facts, as they had succeeded one after another had engrossed their minds.

Knightley’s hand was on the door, and the Major had not decided. He pushed the door open, he set a foot in the passage, and then the roar of a gun shook the room.

“Ah!” remarked Wyley, “the signal for your sortie.”

Knightley stopped and listened. Major Shackleton stood in a fixed attitude with his eyes upon the floor. He had hit upon an issue, it seemed to him by inspiration. The noise of the gun was followed by ten clear strokes of a bell.

“That’s for the King’s Battalion,” said Knightley with a smile.

“Yes,” said Tessin, and picking up his sword from a corner he slung the bandolier across his shoulder.

The bell rang out again; this time the number of the strokes was twenty.

“That’s for my Lord Dunbarton’s Regiment,” said Knightley.

“Yes,” said two of the remaining officers. They took their hats and followed Captain Tessin down the stairs.

A third time the bell spoke, and the strokes were thirty.

“Ah!” said Knightley, “that’s for the Tangier Foot. Well, good luck to you, Major!” and he passed through the door.

“A moment, Knightley. The regiment first. You wear Ensign Barbour’s uniform. You must do more than wear his uniform. The regiment first.”

Major Shackleton spoke in a husky voice and kept his eyes on the floor. Scrope looked at him keenly from the table. Knightley hardly looked at him at all. He stepped back into the room.

“With all my heart, Major: the regiment first.”

“Your station is at Peterborough Tower. You will go there–at once.”

“At once,” replied Knightley cheerfully. “So she would wish,” and he went down the stairs into the street. Major Shackleton picked up his hat.

“I command this sortie,” he said to Wyley; but as he turned he found himself confronted by Scrope.

“What do you intend?” asked Scrope.

Major Shackleton looked towards Wyley. Wyley understood the look and also what Shackleton intended. He went from the room and left the two men together.

The grey light poured through the window; the candles still burnt yellow on the table.

“What do you intend?”

The Major looked Scrope straight in the face.

“I have heard a man speak to-night in a man’s voice. I mean to do that man the best service that I can. These two years at Mequinez cannot mate with these two years at Tangier. Knightley knows nothing now; he never shall know. He believes his wife a second Penelope; he shall keep that belief. There is a trench–you called it very properly a grave. In that trench Knightley will not hear though all Tangier scream its gossip in his ears. I mean to give him his chance of death.”

“No, Major,” cried Scrope. “Or listen! Give me an equal chance.”

“Trelawney’s Regiment is not called out. Again, Lieutenant, I fear me you will have the harder part of it.”

Shackleton repeated Scrope’s own words in all sincerity, and hurried off to his post.

Scrope was left alone in the guard-room. A vision of the trench, twelve feet deep, eight yards wide, yawned before his eyes. He closed them, but that made no difference; he still saw the trench. In imagination he began to measure its width and depth. Then he shook his head to rid himself of the picture, and went out on to the balcony. His eyes turned instinctively to a house by the city wall, to a corner of the patio the house and the latticed shutter of a window just seen from the balcony.

He stepped back into the room with a feeling of nausea, and blowing out the candles sat down alone, in the twilight, amongst the empty chairs. There were dark corners in the room; the broadening light searched into them, and suddenly the air was tinged with warm gold. Somewhere the sun had risen. In a little, Scrope heard a dropping sound of firing, and a few moments afterwards the rattle of a volley. The battle was joined. Scrope saw the trench again yawn up before his eyes. The Major was right. This morning, again, Lieutenant Scrope had the harder part of it.