A Complete Story

New Zealand Tablet, Volume XLVIII, Issue 44, 8 November 1923, Page 9

A Complete Story

What the Soldier Saw

(By M. E. M. Young, in the London Month.) Through the night went the Paris-Bordeaux train. Often it stood still in the open for quite a stay and gave itself to prolonged and hideous shrieking. Then it clanked on again, till it clanked into some wide, gaUnt, reverberating, iron shed, which called itself Poitiers, or Tours or Orleans. When it got into one of these, the passengers in Gunner P. J. Burton's —English-speaking soldiers like himself —woke, and wondered if it was any good these days making a try for something to eat, and concluded it didn't look as if it was, and went to sleep again. Gunner P. J. Burton, 1257631 G.F.A., didn't join in these discussions with any heartiness. When they said "No good," he said "No good," for company. When they shut their eyes and dropped into heavy-breathing sleep, ho shut his bright blue childlike eyes, for company too. He didn't go to sleep though. Very soon the lids opened on the bright blue eyes. But P. J. Burton wasn't seeing the haggard-faced Sergeant of the Irish Guard who snored in the opposite corner. — He was seeing Widdington, Alberta. Widdington is a very young thing in the way of towns. The only bit of sidewalk it has is in front of Joe Pantwise's big concrete dry-goods-store. The general store and the post office and the three saloons are wooden shanties still, and the town isn't even lighted. So that when you go ploughing through the deep dust of a dark night, and Pantwise's proud sidewalk gets you unawares upon the shin-bone, your opinion of that enterprising citizen suffers a change. But Widdington couldn't be too young for P. J. Burton. Faith in young towns had made him what he was last June: in young towns and ladies' shirt-waists. He travelled in shirt-waists, to young towns, and he wasn't likely to leave a live man like Pantwise out of his round. The sun can shine in Widdington: it fairly glares. The blue eyes,- turned now towards Sergt. Brady in the dark, are remembering that white glare. They had come out into it from the shade of Pantwise's store, where they had been having a pretty good time looking at Miss Cullen, the shirt-waist Buyer. She was mighty easy to look at. Coming out, and down off the slice of sidewalk into the dust, who's this comes along but John Shores, an old-time pal of Burton's (a man with more education though). Shores is wearing khaki, and he gets Burton by the buttonhole, and starts talking. . . That's how it all happened. If Burton had come out of the 'back entrance, instead of the front, he wouldn't have met Shores wearing khaki, and—who knows?he'd have stayed behind, maybe, the way Miss Cullen would have had him do. He was mighty glad he hadn't stayed behind. —Three men got out at the next stop, and brought back bread and apples. They shared them with four others, and they looked at Burton in his corner, but his eyes were shut again, so they didn't wake him. They didn't quite know where to have this chap. He had been there when they rattled up late on a ration-lorry, and fell over him into the train —and there he stayed, not to call surly, but kept himself to himself more than there was any need. — He was seeing the lower deck of the transport that brought them from Halifax to the Scotch port of landing. He was on guard down there, and mortally sea-sick. The place was thick with a leaden stuffiness which tried to pass itself off under a bright smell of soap. Such a mixture. And cold! Talk of cold! His head was awful. It wasn't his head any more. Anybody might do what they liked with that head, for all he cared. He kept himself on the go for a while by watching out for the slap of the water, that camenow on this side of the boat—now on that. That told they kept changing their course: they were dodging a submarine. Well—if the fool submarine thought it worth its trouble—drowning a man with a head ■ like that He put his rifle down on the tableit came to that— his head, and his two arms—all down together on the table. jj He couldn't stand. up to it -any longer. .-.:..; But he was mighty glad he came. * -

And with that thought P. J. Burton, in his corner of the Paris-Bordeaux train, really did go off sound asleep. —While he slept, the train passed out of the black night into the tenderest light of dawn that ever was. Everything was touched with pink— the little clouds above only, but all the earth around was pink. Low-lying ponds, with trees that seemed just born —dreaming meadows, vine-patches, and again more fresh deep trees everything was wet, everything pink. The men stirred one by one, sat up, rubbed their eyes and looked about them.—" "Tis the sky-color. has got into the earth-color," says Sergeant Brady; and thinks to himself wonder, when it's Our Lady's country they're travelling to. And, in fact, when this pink of- dawn changes, it does not fade, it only changes, till all the green things now become softly blue as well as green, and in the. sweet bewilderment of color (which is whichor are all one?) pink or blue whichever it may be, the sky-colors "do be gettin' into" the earth-colors, all the time. The breeze of morning blowing in at the window had waked Gunner Burton too, but he didn't sit up like the rest. He heard their sleepy comments, and stayed in his corner, silent and still. — He was seeing a stretch of open country in the Surrey hills. Behind him, just back of a sandy road, lay the whole of his life in England. He sat in the heather, looking away from all that, away, far, far away, across heather and sparsely dotted pines, to another line of hills that shut the horizon and were purple-black with coming storm. Behind him the parade-ground and the gunnery-school, the P.T. ground and the Y, and the office where they gave him his final look over, and dealt out his identity disc. Behind, too, the R.C. Church Hut, where the priests, English or French, were "in the box" from 4 to 10 last night, with men of his draft: where this morning at the altar-rails he had united to God his solitary soul: where the medals of Our Lady, and rosaries, and scapulars, would lie heaped, still, on the softwood table, along with the matches and writing-paper and such. Behind himall. From three o'clock he sat in the heather and waited for seven o'clock. John Shores was by him, talking. Shores was a great chap to talk, and when he was excited, he talked double. But he didn't care whether you listened or notthat's how they kept good pals. John went off presently. An aunt of his was come to say good-bye. Shores had folks this side. When John was gone, P. J. Burton sat alone. At seven he went and loaded up his miscellaneous hardware, and went on parade. They were fairly well worked up when they went on parade and they did a lot of cheering. There was another bunch going with them, at the end of the ground—looked like a wood of trees, they were so far off. The bunches cheered at each other, and cheered at the speeches— were a lot of speeches. When the dusk began to fall they began to sing. They sang everything they knew and everything they didn't know, and when they had finished singing both they began again. It got mighty dark, not just ordinary night dark, but black clouds coming up and closing up all over. It looked like getting a soak before they entrained. Time went on, and the moon got up and they cheered the moon, but she didn't make much of a job of it —just pale gleams shooting through to show how black the black was. Soon the lights in the huts were the only spots you saw against the black. You couldn't see the man next you. P. J. 'Burton was disappointed. They were a big draft, and they were to be played to the rail-road depot by the band. Folks would be coming, sure, to see them march, and how were they going to see them march, this way? "Lights Out" sounded, and then the hut lights were gone. The men were drowned in a sea of black. It was past ten, and they'd been standing loaded up since seven. John Shores had some poetry he was fond of that said there was such a number of things in the world, you ought to be as happy as a king. Burton wanted to ask him now if that was the way he felt about it, with all the things in the world hung from his shoulders —7 to 10. But he couldn't see John Shores to ask him. He couldn't see anything. Then two lights twinkled out in the dark. He hadn't noticed them coming but they were there, and in a second there was a cheer—a real cheer this time. And they were

moving— they were moving —the light-bearers walking backwards at the head of them, warning them off the broken pjaces, leading them down towards ithe road. How they yelled! You couldn't hardly hear the band. for it. Now, that's the hard road—yes—hard under their feet! But the folks to see them off? Twenty, or maybe twenty-five, that hadn't got sick of waiting and gone home. You caught sight, as the lights touched them, first one face) then another, coming out and disappearing. Two or three men, some girls who smiled in a vague sort of way—not as if they knew you —one old woman who peered hard and ran a few steps as if she was looking for somebody. Burton thought it might be John Shores' aunt, and wished it was his. Imagine wishing you had an aunt! The band played, though, and the Sergeant roared "Left!—Left! —Left!" —and the men were flourishing their rifles over their heads and shouting "Good-bye, Mother!" "Good-bye, Sweetheart!"—as if there was anybody to hear them. And them, "7'm coming back!" Nobody answered him. They'd got past those few strange people in the road. They'd left the camp. They were on their way to France. To the Hindenburg line. —The train stopped at Bordeaux, and in about three seconds the men in Burton's carriage had rushed the buffet. Pie got up on his feet when the carriage was empty, and went to the door and stood hesitating, while the crowd # pressed past below. Hot coffee ? Good. Yes, but not good enough. He sat down and pulled out a stalish paper parcel of bread and ham. They found him munching this when they came back and thought him more different sorts of an ass than they had up to date. But they left the word to Sergeant Brady, and the Sergeant wasn't after pickin' a quarrel with a man just now, on pilgrimage .to Our Lady's town, and when Burton shut his eyes again they let him be. Afternoon came and the Pyrenees. The friendly spreading, various trees, and the fertile fields, at hand. The great hills closing round —hills only, nothing less gentle, although they were so great, and though on some of them, soon, there was snow. And the rushing stream of emerald water.— Gave, was it? Then look out! They were getting near to Lourdes. P. J. Burton didn't move. He was seeing mud: and more mud: and more mud. Miles of mud under a mud-colored sky. In the mud were jagged cracks. He stood in one; stiff and cold, and fair fed up. The dirty damp rose from the ground and mixed with the clammy damp from the sky, and the thud, thud, of the devil's carpet-beating went on all the time. P. J. Burton hadn't fired a shot nor struck a blow, nor so much as seen another man struck. Nothing but stand, and hear the carpet-beating. He was fed up with that. He was going to say so to John Shores, but when he turned his head Shores had moved off a bit, round a corner of the trench, where he could cook himself some tea. Shores was always cooking tea. If Shores hadn't moved off, Burton would have made him hark to that new noise, coming now long sort of soft squeal, and then — Nothing. Nothing, ever any more. He was mighty glad Shores had moved off. • -The men in the carriage were singing. All the train was singing. Sergeant Brady had Burton by the shoulder, shaking him. "Wake up, man! 'Tis the Grotto we're passing. No. Not there. There I Can't you see?" "No, I can't," says Burton, curtly. "Are you drunk or mad or sulky?" "I'm blind," says P. J. Burton. 11. P. J. Burton was at the Grotto. ;. .v ~: .■' '.':■.; He knew he was at the Grotto because Sergeant Brady said so. The Sergeant, once he had found himself out for a fool upon the train, was become father and mother both to Burton. So with the other men. And they let him alone. Sergeant Brady was gone off now with one of them and would just turn up to fetch him home. So this was the Grotto. . . . v ''.' ' Burton shivered. *\ -. . "'.,„ Seven in the evening, mid-September, and the wind

off the Gave at his back cool enough and a bit over. The good supper at the Heinz hadn't seemed to fill up for the long empty time that came before. He was exhausted as well as cold. But this was the Grotto. *•'',», The Sergeant had put him in the middle of the square of concrete, and had given him his bearings. Straight in front of where he knelt would be the altar. And "millions o' big candles blazin' away behind it." The statue of Our Lady was in her own niche, more to his right, and another "big burnin' bunch, like a Christmas-tree o' flames" near by it. And on his left was the "kind of trellis, as you might say, of all the crutches and things that they'd be leavin' behind 'em hangin' upon the rock, for thank-offerings." Well. All that was so, no doubt, as the Sergeant said so. He shivered again. And in a flash he was asking himself, why was he there? What had brought him to this cold, outlandish place? He was asking it coldly, roughly. If it was praying he wanted, couldn't he pray at home? Even the R.C. Hut at Witley was more like home than this. He'd know the way that was; he could find the wall of it and feel along the wall to where the softwood table was, with the rosaries, and from the table to the altarrails. Wasn't that good enough, eh? He was asking it violently, spitefully, a temper rising in him that was —he hadn't been a nasty-tempered man. Something was turning him quarrelsome inside. — Whose fault was that then ? What the devil had brought him out here? To the ends of the earth. —To a great big empty place where there was nothing he could donothing to tell him where he nothing he'd ever set eyes on, to remember by, or guess atnothing he could get a feel of. —No I —He stretched out both arms wide to —Nothing. • Nothing he could reach or touch, barring the ground under him. The ground? The ground reminded him of something. There was something about the ground. What was it? "You will pray for sinners. You will kiss the ground for sinners. Nothing here he could do? No, of course not. What a liar the devil was. Nothing. Except just the one thing that the Blessed Mother of God wanted done. Burton stooped and kissed the ground. It was muddy from a shower, and from the tread of a thousand feet. "For sinners," said Burton. He didn't say "of whom lam chief," not having the words by heart. The thought was in his heart. He said, "Good old mud," and "More fit for me than for her, I guess."—"Her" was the child Bernadette. And then he thought, "Funny thing, too. Mud's the last thing I ever saw. And it's the last I'm ever going to see in this world." "Is it?" He gasped, and knelt up suddenly quite straight. For another thought had cometremendous and overwhelming. It had to do with wet earth on a blind man's eyes. And now Burton knew, with absolute knowledge, where he was. He was at the feet of that same Person who did that. This place was the same place where He did it. It was D jg—y e 3; roomy — for everybodybut home-ywith that same Person going about in it seeing to things. "Go" and "Come" and "Do this," just the same as—always. Ask-and-have, of course. All so easy and wonderful and natural. The Faith had been saying it all the time, too. But he never saw'till now. It was all—just so. He couldn't think for the moment of anything he wanted to ask for, in a place like this, with God and His Blessed Mother waiting to hand it to him. He was thinking how he'd been blind all his life, and now he saw. And then he was thinking of the ones that hadn't begun to see. John Shores.—Others.Dozens of others. Why, he'd lived with them and liked them, and he'd never done a thing to help them see. Not a thing. He wanted to, now.- He wanted to. It was then that, through the blackness, lights began i; to. glimmer. A row of lights straight ahead of him —a bunch of lights more to one side. He began turning his - head where the bunch of lights was. It was getting clearer and clearer. And he was looking for Our Lady's statue; s that was the first thing he was going to look at. ';.

And then he stopped. He remembered Shores and the rest. He put up his two hands and shut down the lids on his two eyes, and he stretched out empty hands to God and His Blessed« Mother waiting to give, and what he meant to say was, /'Lord, that they may see." When Sergeant Brady came and led him home, he was more helpless than before. Easier, though, the way they are when they've left off trying to bluff. "And what did ye think o' the Grotto, boy?" asked the Sergeant. "Some place," said ex-Gunner P. J. Burton.