CAPTAIN CUB

Auckland Star, Volume XLVIII, Issue 143, 16 June 1917, Page 18

CAPTAIN CUB

(ALiL RIGHTS 'RESERVED.) !

By ETHEL, TURNER {Mrs. H. R. Curlewia), Author of "The Cub," "Flower of the Vine" "That Qirl," "Seven Little Australians," etc. CHAPTER Xlll.—(Continued.) The girls felt really very tender to Brigid, and more than a little touched. They wore grown fonder of the Cub than they liad !>ccn, and prouder, certainly prouder. They had quite wiped it from their minds that he had never taken a prize upon his school's speech day. His rapid advancements as a soldier had I made them swell with prirle in him; they . were able to tell it to all their frionjN that he mis the youngest captain of all j the men pone from the Srate. True, he i had only made the briefest mention of his advancements in his own letters to his mother—indeed, he would have left it entirely without mention but for a wistful desire he had to in gome slight measure give her the pleasure of pride that she had once had in Alec. Hut the colonel i.f the regiment had himself writI ten to Mrs. Calthrop, telling her of the hoy "a fine performances and dogged courage under extreme hardship. Yes, ("oneie r.nd Eva were immensely pleased with him; they railed him .lack nowadays, hardly ever referring to him as -The Cub." And when he r.howed himself human after all, no iiuste.ro zealot as they had feared, no anchorite, just human boy falling wildly in love with human girl—well, it 'added a warmth to their new-found affection for him that would have surprised him. It even made them take over resignedly the stewardship of his philanthropic affairs that Krigid's approaching departure from Sydney forced her to give up. Thin particular afternoon was being |inai:i!v devoted to the detail-, of their I approaching duties. ■ They professed themselves fihakin" in their shoes at the prosper*. "1 remember quaking at the thought of meeting a duchess in London," said Kva, "and feeling very shaky about the knees when 1 was lirst introduced to trillfts to what I'll feel at the thought of knocking at the door of Jimniie thie and "Lonely Dcvi! That" and yarning with them, as .Tack ealU it. Yarn! 1 know I'll never pet beyond the weather CJ-g-aood d-dday, Mr Lonely Devil, 1 l> b-believe it'e gg going to 'be f f tine. Uood-bve." "Oh," *aid Hrigid. indulgently, "I felt like that, at first, but it grows Very ea=y as you go on. They are really jtiit like everyone else." "Tliie .limruie, now—thie'crippled boy you speak of," pursued Eva, "you sn\ ; he's eleven. Now how on earth am I to gucse what will interei-t a crippled boy of eleven? I don't suppose even the weather would do fur him.'' She consulted the note-book which Brigid had drawn Up for her. amplifying the notebook the Cub had presented to Urigid': "Let's see—Timmie—.lLmmie Walters. Number 11, Charles Street, the little street behind the poet office. Like* books about pirates and highwaymen and Zeppelin battles, and all thrilling lights, including any street boy tights you may yourself have witnessed. Likes oranges and cool drinks and iee-creanus. as it is a hot room. Spend a shilling a B-e-ek on .limniie. Is that right?" "Quito right," eaid Urigid, "you can do a lot with a shilling a wceK. you 11 find.' , " ' ' "A shilling a week! Heavens, Brigid, what a world! And I epent a shilling a day every day of the voyage to have my nails manicured!" Kva's pretty face looked startled for a second. "I agree. It is a world," eaid Brigid. shortly. "Almost unbelievable, you'll find, as you go on." "Well," said Constance, querulously, "we never made it." lirigid Hashed a glance at her that might have been the Cubs. "I'm not m> sure of that." she faid, "aoraetinicd I get afraid we did." "WelU' eaid Eva, trying to break away from such terrifying changes. "Let's vet on. let's get on. I may be tonguetied with your cripple, but I'll undertake to keep him going with icei ream* and cool things. A shilling a week. heavens. Concie, how much trickles out of our purses every week for afternoon teas and ' thirstquenchers in summer!"

• oncie attempted no computation. 'is lie a fixture in that hot room!" demanded Kva. whose h< art wa3 certainly if unwillingly, ntirring towards the hoy who \v;s to he :us she formed it "dumped™ on to her by Bri<-id and the Cub.

"les; lie's tried on a crutch several timiM. but it wrenches him too much," Baid Brigid. "I believe the Cub— •1-john-took him to Manly and Balmoral and a picture show now and again nnd used to caiTy him up and down stairs, but I've not been able to manage, that."

"(fll toko him to thp pan torn me,"' r,aid Eva, fired. "I'll take him out in the car to every place round. Ihe harbour. Smith e>lll carry him up nnd down the Blairs."

"All," said Brigifl regretfully. "I've had a car and v hefty chauffeur, of course. Why. Eva, I'll bo jealous of you—you'll supplant mc entirely in his alfpetions if you do things like that fur him. lie U just eaten up with h'B ileflire for movement and adventures."

I C'oncic lincl listened restlessly, enviously. The notion of the Cub, whom they had e<) relentlessly badgered, parrying the high-hearted little cripple up and flown a narrow staircase in a iiiivrow house, in v narrow strpet. to and from a cab. paid for out of his own pocket .money, made an inexplicable appeal to her. "Look here," she said. "X don't mind if I take him out a bit myeelf. And buy him things. Yes. I'll take ■i'iill on for two hours every week if y.m like. Hrigid." But Eva <iim<» to her burden with unexpected obstinacy. "'Xα, that's not fair, C'oncie,' , eho said. "I undertook him first, didn't I. ISrigid? Jimniie » mine. You can have one of the others." "No taking him up though, and then dropping him suddenly, Eva." paid Brisjid. sternly. "I'll give him to Concia unlefy; you promise to stick by him t ill ,1-juhn romea back." Eva Rave the bond of her -word, and Concie was forced to take into her tare "Number 77." cost half a crown a week, the old man whoee daughter-in-law kept him, but would not go as far as tobacco or matches; or even a decent coat to pander to his natural tidiness. "Perhaps he too would like runs in the car," she said a trifle sardonically. "No, but I'll tell you who would," ;aid Brisid, eagerly, "the woman at 5,

I Rose Street." She proceeded to tell 'such a graphic and eloquent story of I the struggled and life of Number i>. j Rose Street, that Coacie succumbed I after a half-feigned protest, and began to be secretly attached bj- the notion of "standing by." The rest of the Cub's cases Brigid divided between the girls with strict impartiality, and warmly recommended the employment of the car as an unsurpassable tonic for dull lives. "Do you suppose. Kva?" said Concie. with facetious gravity, "that we shall be able to retain the vehicle for our own use on one afternoon a week?" "I doubt it. Concie." said Eva. 'This war has a lot to answer for, hasn't it'/" CIT AFTER XIV. GALMroLI GOv>D-BYE. Gallrpoll, jrood-byc! Bare strip of saiwl uud scrub ami blood and tears. You shall be ours through all the deathless years; Home of our early hopes and later fears, Our Anzac still, till all the seas ure dry, (Jalllpoll, good-bye: -Dal. W. McCoy. Sunday night, moonlight, midnight, cold as .St. Agnes Kve when bitter-chill it was. The sea heaved in its white unclouded stretches not angrily but uneasily; you knew that in its black spaces unlighted by the moon it heave I still more uneasily; you heard it sobbing beneath its breath where it ran thin and white on the thin white beaches; you heard it moaning, but beneath its breath, ahvuyn beneath its breath, where it washed black as mii round the base of the beetling cliffs named "Walker's. Kear was upon it. Fear was upon the face of the waters of the Aegean ■ J ea on Sunday, midnight, moonlght: Sunday, December, the 18th, the bCi'ond December of the war. For fear was on the face of the land. and tlie communicable breath of it had spread to the close clinging sea. On Friday night the marvellous hail jeen performed; thousands of black dots had crept through the bushes, through the pups, and down to the black cliffs in the shadow of which bobbed the lighter?. (In Saturday night the still more marvellous had been performed; still greater numbers of thousands of dots had crept down, down through the wounds of the conquered, conquering country, and had been ferried silently over the quivering, expectant waters lo the hliado-.vy transports. But this'war, Simdav. This wii the bust of overythin.e. Not a third time surely might a miracle happen. Tv.o of tlie last few thousand dots, tlie Cub p.nd Halileo. found themselves not far from each other from time to time as they made their way with their companies through the three miles that lay between the position they hail so long held and the sea. They Wked at each other steadily once, knowing that it win barely within the bounds of possibility that' both would V alive on the morrow. Then they looked swiftly nway from each other. "BeasMy unfriendly behaviour, the moon's." was all thai the Cub said. "Kottrn." agreed Colileo. "They've spotted i:s by this, 1 reckon." "Oh. yon never know your luck." 'aid the' Cub. striding along a.s they all of them strod" when they were pausing iver unshadowed, unsheltered stretches.

The scarred hilb slept, continued to sleep; evnrv frozen Turkish eentry was ;ure of the fact; perhaps there was a little moving of dots here and there, but there was always a little moving of dots: still a shell was dropnod mice or twice during the night just to show that there was no evacuation if the Turkish lines; but it dropped harmlessly each time, though each time it brought a beating of the hearts of the stealthy moving dots that the falling of shells had of late quite ceased to bring.

Harsh edge of bitter land, bitter bitter land, captured with such a paesion of courage, such a wild, upleaping of men's hearts, clung to with euch tenacity, such a prim doughtiness, and now silently, mysteriously, irrevocably abandoned.

The abandonment twisted the hearts r,f them all.

Thoy experienced none of the sullcnnoss, the dull misery of conquered men. for the simple reason that they were well aware they went not conquered, all that they had done and suffered to conquer as far as they bad done they were ready to do and suffer again.

But suddenly to jrive up. silently to go away—it was that left, them still a Tittle stunned and bewildered as they obeyed orders, dost roving stores, leaving decoys, packing kits, parsing downwards and to the sea again. And the graves at the.m. all the way they went, the thousands of rude grnves behind them on the hillside? and in the gullies. The cheerful comrades cheerfully asleep! The Cub thought of one. of them as be trudged along, just one of them clung to his thoughts and his vision again ami again through the long tramp. A lighthaired boy it was. younger even than himself, eager, wiry, and fun-loving as a schoolboy, fond as ony of them of tlie Egyptian words that all the battalions had a-dde-d to ihe vocabulary—the '"im-

I Shi," go away: the "saadi," all's right, and so on. Sonic sweet woman's son, some brother of sweet sisters.

They were taking a new position, advancing over new ground. There was a eloping ridge at one place, over which it was necessary to reconnoitre; the captain called for a volunteer. Out sprang a dozen in a moment, the Cub and Galileo among them, 'but the captain chose the little light haired fellow. he was so lithe and quick, so exactly the one for the work. He sprang away. swelling with pride at the choice; he reached the top. looked cautiously over it. There came the crackling sound of a shot, and he fell 'backwards, fell over and over again as a rabbit might have done, till he was right among his comrades again. He sat up one si-con-d. and looked at his captain, with a smile that captain never forgot to his life's end. "Saadi," he said, with a light fingertouch to his forehead and chest. Then lie rolled over dead. For a moment it seemed intolerable to the Cub to be going ay.ay and leaving this boy behinci in the suns and the snows and the star-shine of this 'bitter edge of Kurope. He could almost have wished that the silent hills behind would suddenly burst into firing ho that they might all turn and give battle onc-e more, and so avenge these comrades ur lie down eternally beside them. But again the miracle was performed. Nothing happened. The last man of the last battalion shook the dust of the peninsula o(i' his feet, and stepped on board the last lighter. The last lighter shot silently away over the moonpatched darkr.es o f the sea to the last transport. Men were very quiet. Not one of them but had been quite prepared for death: they took the unexpected gift of their lives with a sort of gentleness. They felt it was munething entrusted afresh to each of "therrl for the service afresh of England. Tlie Cut, , * mood had changed by this time. Hi. stood by the rail of the moving transport and starod back at (iallipoll—Callipnlj beginning to full away. The stupendous significance of the place hurl gonr. It was as if Nature had taken on india rubber, and with a lnrge movement or two had smudged out all the marks that stood f:ir anything. It was merely a stretch of monotonous coastline, very quiet, almost unnoticeab!c. A stretch of coastline washed on by the moving waters at their priestlike task of pure ablution. The desolate graves no longer grippe*, til.' ( lib. They had become for him part of the va«t. mysterious rc-heme of Nature, to be brooded 'beneath her uplifted wing. More than just man was man. ami the only part of him that really mattered, his spirit, was f.till unhurt —was irnperislml.ic. Tint ooy who had tumble.! over ~nl sat all in one moment at the feet of his captain and at the feet of God had found truth, that unbelievable, shining thing we so perpetually roj.-ct: he had found it and proclaimed it with his last Jreatli. "Saadi. All's right." (To he Continued Next Saturday.)