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Show NO HEROTHIS By WARWICK DEEPING SYNOPSIS Stephen Brent. Bnsllsh country doctor volunteers for a rear's service In -Jh World war to avoid criticism, though he longs only for a ciulrt life at Hun with Ms wife, Mary. He takes part In the disastrous Ds-denelles ex-pedltlon. ex-pedltlon. and goes bar home st the end of his year with the knowledge that be hatea war and all It stands for, and that he It no hero. the peaceful and lovely things." Mary has gone to her hospital for an hour. I take a look out ol the window and see the sunset hanging hang-ing In the church elms. Surgery time I decide to wander along and see old Randall and give him a hand How pleasant it is gathering up all the.ie threads! I enter the surgery by the yard door, pass through the waiting room with its little crowd of club patients pa-tients and find Randall dressing a whitlow in the surgery. He looks at me. drops the bandage and his face lights up. Stephen!" He grips my hand and clasps my arm with the other Jiand. "Well, this is good." "More than good." I stoop and recover the bandage and reroll it. Both of us remember the patient, an old griiiled farm laborer with a face that is ail blue eyes and hair. "What have you been doing. Spray?" I. "Pricked he on a bit of barbed ! wire. sir. My boy he do write that he be mrssin' 'bout with t' same mucky stuff out there in France." I lake over Spray's case and leave Randall free to deal with one of the others. I suppose this first week back in harness has been one of the happiest happi-est weeks of my life. We have had a Marcn bluzard. I shall have ( Cmiti'Kie.t un KollnHitr pir.. She bends forward Into the firelight fire-light to look at her own photo. "Were you In mud like that?" "It arrived one night in my dugout dug-out and In my bed." "I want to keep this. Stephen." "A war relic! The fact Is. Mary, happily married men don't make good soldiers." "I'm sure you were " "No. not to the uttermost You see there is always something pulling pull-ing a man toward aafety. holding him bark from taking risks. One's so terribly keen to survive and to come home. One does not give oneself one-self utterly." She slips down on her knees by the fire. "But Colonel Frost? You wrote "Frost Is a rather unique sort of person, much tougher than I am. Besides he hsd a command. Then you ars a sort of symbol to other men.", "Yes. I understand. In my way I was trying to help you, dear." "Your letters." "Yes. Would It have been easier without Uters?" "Good God. no. They helped to keep one sane and In touch with CHAPTER 14 I have reported te the necessary authority, and though nearly a fortnight fort-night of my year la still to run, they discharge mo and send me home. In the train Mary and I decide that this fortnight's pay shall be given to Mary's hospital. How good this England is even In March with the grass still winter gray and the plowed fields looking frosen and the woods black under a hurrying sky! It strikes me as a land In miniature, but how lovable and kind and secure! We drive In an old closed fly to our home, and hold hands. The familiar whits door with its lion-headed lion-headed knocker and my brass plate welcome me. Old Sellers carries In my kit I Am Glad "Glad te be bark, sir?" Does he know how glad I am. how this littls house has for me a particular warmth, perfume and peace? I follow Mary into the drawing room, taking deep breaths. We have tea In front of the fire and there are logs of Sussex oak. a present, I hear, from old Rob Guthrie. I feel kindly disposed even to Guthrie and his dyspeptic breath. Is he atill talking of driving an ambulance In France? Mary laughs and fella me that Guthrie spends his time making patriotic speeches and sitting on committees. But enough of Guthrie. I light my pipe and get deep into my armchair and find that I can talk to Mary as I have not talked to her before. Has she divined the secret shames and humiliations and meannssses of this war businsss? I think not. I take her photo from my tunic pocket; It is still soiled with Galll-peli Galll-peli mud. "That is one of the dirty tricks the war played on me." NO HERO-THISEjfcgg-,, (Contlnurd from Prseedlng Pss reason to remember it because 1 had a midwifery case at one in the morning at the Old Forge. I got back home at about S In the morning. morn-ing. My Old Forge mother aaya to me. "Doctor, I'm praying that my boy will never be taken for a soldier," and I echo that prayer. These working folk do not seem to want to talk about the war, but the people of my own class are different, dif-ferent, especially the few who, though brought up on Waterloo. Balaclava and Kipling, have a suspicion sus-picion that all is not well. Even the rector corners me and trlee to pump me. What is the truth about the Gallipoli affair? I tell him one or two truths and he looks ahocked. I realize that he and all the others understand nothing of the war and that if one is wise one will not attempt to unsettle un-settle their illusions. The men are splendid, everything is splendid, everyone courts wounds and death, everyone is supremely unselfish, all wounded men are thirsting to be back In the blood bath. April comes suddenly and sweetly and as I drive on my rounds I seem to see this Sussex world snew. It Is rolling country under great skies mountainous with white clouds. My awareness of things is like a mirror in which little pictures are brilliantly brilliant-ly reflected. How's the flatus?" I "What do you mean?" e "Wind. A little gentian and sodi t seems indicated. His mouth hangs open for a ma ment under that huge and untid) !- mustache. y "Are you trying to be offensive Brent?" "I was merely giving you a dosi 1 of your own medicine, Guthrie. Ma ' I tell you that we people who havi seen the real thing haven't much ' use for the windy guff they talk at ' home?" He is furiously offended. He 1 glares at me, nibbles like a rabbit and passes on. ' Mary is so very full of her hospital. hos-pital. It seems to be the new nu-1 nu-1 cleus of Brackenhurat'a life and 1 ' have no share in it. It is a Murchi-1 Murchi-1 son-Viner show and I rather resent the intrusion of these two men. And " from Mary I get the iApression " though I know she ia Innooent oi ' any ulterior purpose, that their work is the real work, while I am looking 1 at old people's tongues. ' I am hearing so much about Murchison. No doubt he is sn able ' surgeon and doing good work, but 1 need Mary alwaya come back and ' tell me about Murchison's opera-1 opera-1 tions? ' He is a rather auperior person, ' tall, dark and debonair, with a supremely confident manner. Gos-, Gos-, sip has whispered that his lady patients pa-tients always fall in love with Murchison. Surely I am not jealous of the fellow? Yes, I am jealous of Murchison, not of the man and his looks and bis sex appeal, but of the work he is doing and the position he holds. Ha la skillful and complacent and secure while I seem to be a poor disgruntled fumbier. unable to possess pos-sess my soul In peace. Damn Murchison ! Why am I not in his place? Because I have neither the skill nor the confidence. But I regsrd him bitterly as an interloper inter-loper and despise my mean little soul for feeling this way. The instinct for self-preservstlon. It seems to be that it Is the strong-eat strong-eat of all the elemental urges, stronger than aex and than hunger, and that I have been and am the slave of my natural self. Nature wills us either to be cowards or to fight, and to run away from er toward one's enemy are both legitimate legiti-mate and natural actions. It depends de-pends upon how big one's enemy bulks and how shrewd and right one's fear is. But society, even In its most elementary ele-mentary phases, sets itself to condemn con-demn and to coerce the natural urges of the individual if the urge is antisocial. We must fight for our clsn or our country, and no high metaphysical argument will save ui from being damned and scorned as cowards If we dare to vmloe the one self more than the stark need of the many. I wish I could talk to Mary about it, but somehow I cannot. These secret agonies, like an ache In one's belly, are resolvable only by the tissues of one's own souL I don't suppose my wife has any auspicion of the secret shames and urges that are contending in me. Beaides, why should she suffer? It would be even greater cowardice to involve her in the aeufflings of my conscience. con-science. But what does all this mean? That I. who only a few weeks ago escaped from a life that I loathed But there are little specks of dust upon the surface of this mirror. mir-ror. I run up against Rob Guthrie. He is full of patriotic self-importance. Back Again ! "What, Brent, back again? How did they manage to let you out of the army?" I explain that doctors can enlist on a yearly contract. "Very peculiar. I was unaware that any citiien was allowed to barter his services for a year and a day." He is an offensive fooL Perhaps my year In the army has caused me to be a little more fierce and frank, i but I let fly at Guthrie. and who put off the livery of war ; with joy and exultation, am being driven by something In myself to return to the life that I hate! I (Continued Wednesday! Copyright, 137, for The Telegram |
