SHOCK.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXI, Issue 18711, 17 May 1924, Page 23 (Supplement)

SHOCK.

. - - • ■A.-, ■ L l ■ i', , BY H. T. REYNOLDS, . ... (Copyright.) ' * Drowsily, sitting in a deck chair on board the s.s. Niagara while tin Pacific Ocean, dressed in it 3 daintiest frock of Hue, trimmed with irresistibli trimmings •of • snow-white frothy lacings, occasionally leapt over the side of tin boat in the form of (he lightest of light warm spray «nd fell softly on my face. I should most certainly have govt into dreamland had not a • woman's voice struck cipon my ear and the words sha ottered, simple as they were, "It is often , the smallest things in life that have the I most far-reaching electrified mv sleepy brain into wakefulness. What a strange thing the brain is! In a second my brain had suggested a blue-bottle, and this repulsive fly had thrown my thought" back many years and all that had happened in them. For ' it was a blue-bottle that had settled my destiny and that of my greatest} friend.

Bob Rothery and I had gone through school together; passed through Sandhurst together and were drafted out to India in the same regiment. Ho was blessed with a considerable amount ol this world's goods. I was not so fortunate, and had to transfer to the Indian Army. But we always spent our leav4 together either shooting or fishing.

No one had ever to ask Bob what ha was. .. He ..had army written all over him from the crown of his sleek head to tha soles of his immaculate boots. He was quite the neatest and most fastidious person I have ever met. Though his whola being was wrapt up in his soldiering, hi had the strangest aptitude and gift fot picking up knowledge.

His courage was a while Same, We had wounded a tigress on one occasion. We followed her up and shot lief just before dusk. On our return to camp Bob called me into his tont. Ho was looking wretchedly white and tucked up. ."I'm afraid, old man, this little shoot, as far as I am concerned is over. I am afraid that thorn I got) into my left cyn has blinded me." He then quietly did a faint. , It transpired that while we had been following the. tigress ap, a thorny branch had whipped back ana one of th« thorns had pierced the pupil of his left eye. He knew perfectly well that if lift had said a word" I should have insisted on hia going to the doctor then and there. He also knew that a sahib who wounds a dangerous animal,, like a tiger .or leopard, must in . honour bound kill that beast. , He was not going to leave me to face this by myself. He lent hid eye. The only fuss he ever made over i it was when they were making his glass I eye. <: He had ten or twelve made—each varying in some respect—thus he had a clear eye, a bloodshot eye, a streaky eye, etc. At " different hours of the day "lie would retire and match his good eye. The result was excellent. Unless or.o knew he had a glass eyo, it was practically impossible to detect it. It can clearly bo understood that the ordinary typo of man' would not. like to back himself for> the affections of a girl against a man like. Bob. As far as ho and I were concerned, this I , always considered was quite out •of the question, simply and solely for the very good reason that women had never had any sort of attraction for me. I was perfectly contented with my . little brown men, my shooting and fishing and I was frightened of women. .-Ii never knew what to talk' to them about. If we got on to the subject of polo,' for instance, I would suddenly look up "to find a faraway look in the lady's eye, and I knew she had nob been a bit interested in the fact that Mr. Jones' far-famed ointment for reducing splints on my Jacko's fore-leg:; had turned out an unholy frost; nor did she seem to care a tinker s cuss whether the mud bath I had' been standing Molly in for a week would reduce . her bowed tendon, though I had taken the greatest trouble to explain to her how difficult it was in India to keep the mud to the right consistency. Naturally : I shut up like ! a sensitive snail, and when she politely turned th'i subject on to the " Sorrows of Satan," I would blurt out some / inapt remark such as " The^—er—music was rather good, don't you think?" and I would not realise till I" saw her' haughtily moving away th.-.t Marie Correlli had not written " Faust."

Still, ; there is ..." a destiny," and . there are exceptions. ■■kx M Returning to India on the P., and 0. S.S. -Egypt, steaming down the Mediterranean a day oat from Marseilles, I found myself standing at the stern of the ship watching V the moonlight sparkling and lighting up the , wake of the ship. I imagined that from •a . height the sea would f represent . the heavens, and the white moonlit wake of . the ship be the . Milky Way. My mind, ] I suppose, was more 'or : less drunk V with the beauty of •the night and the wonderful ch'»rm of the loneliness of the sea 6 and when , a soft voice said, " It is far more beautiful than I ever imagined," a far less beautiful girl thin Grace Gore would have looked beautiful .tome. , '' v

■I: remember -we did not speak much on that occasion.: I rathersurprised myself by i finding I could 5: talk- and ; wanted to ialk 3 about all : the most beautiful things [•• had seen. The grandeur and ineffable rawer' of : the mountains of China as one steams up the western 'channel at sunrise a Hongkong, as cdmpared with the del cate beauty of Venice a3 viewed from ibouti a mile outside the Grand Canal, when for a moment or two tha scene looks ike : a beautiful little Japanese painting. 3r the terrific sense of vastus and grim

ietermination ' the snow-covered plain's 01 Danada'convevs to one, or the utter sense }{ . voidness' that engulfs one as the sun bobs down in the jungles of India and for a second • or i two . the world is dead till with .what' sounds -to one like the birth of an unknown universe the night insects and * animals come to life.. I not only wanted to talk like this, which was quite foreign to my custom with women, but I •somehow knew she understood I was not blathering. If that is love at first sight, then 1' must have loved Grace Gore from that moment.- But, as the voyage went on, I realised that I could not bring the look into her eyes that Bob could—that,* though, I'was a better dancer than Bob, she would rather dance with him. After Aden, Bob told me he meant to propose to the girl before we reached Bombay, Three days more and ail would be over. But for some unaccountable reason, Grace Gore took to her cabin, and none of us saw her again. She went directly from the ship to her brother's house in Bombay We, of course, had to catch the special train and be off to our various stations. I, however, had:obtained her address, ' and wrote to her constantly. When I heard she was going up to Simla the next year, I made a point of going up there too. and I did not waste any time about asking her to marry me. IV We had bean engaged for a month when I told her I thought at one time she would have married Bob. No, she said, " I might have, but it was impossible/ He'wrote and asked, me a week after we had landed. I refused him. You see, dear, - the day we left Aden 1 had left my book in my deck chair. After lunch I went up on deck to fetch it. Bob was asleep in his deck chair. His right ; side was. towards me, and I thought how,. nice he . looked and • how peacefully he slept. As I passed in front of him I looked at him, and oh, Hugh, I thought I should scream and faint. I just managed to turn round and flee to my cabin— was 4 perfectly ghusiVv. There he lay with his right eye shut and his left eye wide opt-m, looking at me, and a bluebottle was 011 his eve Oh, and he neve? even moved when he saw me."

" Holy snakes, that is his glass eye." "("{lass eye ? . Glass . eve? I never knew* he had one.' , After a pause, " Well it can never make any difference now; I could never marry him." . : '' You /certainly could not," I said firmly. • t ' All * my v married life bluebottles . have been ' the only fly in my ointment. I haw spent hundreds of pounds 011 wirenetting for doors and windows. : . the END. <{ mm