ONE OF MANY.

Sun (Christchurch), Volume III, Issue 864, 16 November 1916, Page 4

ONE OF MANY.

[Written for THE SUN.] "Tea!" she said. "The very thing! You've saved my life, my dear. I've been rushing about amongst the shops until I'm almost finished. Yes, please, sugar and cream. I need all the sustainment I can get." "Why this frenzied shopping?" I inquired, after the second cup. My companion had by this time somewhat recovered. "Well," she said, "I was searching for a pair of shoes to match my tete-de-negre gown. I always was one for details, and I try to be specially particular these days " She broke off and fidgetted a little with her teaspoon, averting her eyes from mine. To tell the truth, I was glad, for I did not want her to see the involuntary look of surprise that had darted into my tell-tale face—a look of surprise at the thought that a woman could study details of dress so keenly when her youngest and favourite son was out on that red battle-front in France. Such chums as they had been, too! Her next remark shamed me.

"Jack made, me promise all kinds of things before he left," she said, "and one was never to become a 'slacker' in dress, lie did so love to see me look nice. 'Whatever happens, mother,' he said, 'you're never to forget how to dress, or to do your hair, or to laugh. Never let me hear of your becoming a dowdy!' So I promised, and that's why I tracked those shoes from Beersheba unto Dan, as it were, until I finally ran them to earth. But, oh, how glad I am for tea and this peaceful spot after the dust and heat of the streets! Another cup please." She adjusted a cushion behind her handsome head and leaned back luxuriously. "Have you heard from Jack lately'?" I said, as I put the tea on a little table at. her elbow. She sat up and answered. '' Last week,'' she said briefly. After a pause she added: "He was at an observation post—had to go on duty every night. He told me how he had to climb up, ever so high, by a leather ladder, and sit there, cramped and cold, for hours and hours, the guns growling below, snipers all around him Sometimes I feel that I am out there with him—that I have bulwarked his heart, with mine against the snipers' bullets. There is such an ache in it at times that I think maybe one of them has got the range "

"In one letter 1 sent him,'' she went on, "I said I did hope he had at least one real pal amongst his company. He wrote back: 'The chaps are all right, mother, but I'll never have such a pal as you again!' lam so proud of that." "When he comes back you'll take up the palship where you left it off,'' I promised her, and she smiled back at me, but back of the smile there was something I could not analyse. It was not fear —it was more as if she were holding back fear, but had to be watchful, lest it might spring. She took up her tea and drank it as thirstily as if it were her first cup, and then she plunged into a description of a fete which had raised a big sum of money for patriotic purposes, and of which, although she did not say so, J knew her to have been the leading spirit. When 1 asked her if she hadn't felt fearfully done up after it all she answered in the affirmative. "I was simply too tired to think," she said thankfully, and I knew that she had had the best reward the gods could give her. Too tired to think! So there was one night when her weary spirit rested quietly with weary body, instead of keeping vigil on that lone observation post, keeping vigil as so many million mother-spirits do nightly, out there where the fight goes on. S.I.R.