I. A. R. Wylie

“ As to Helen, your fiancée—one day she will understand what she has done and be ashamed. Perhaps she will come back, and, if she is worthy of you, I pray that she will—but, indeed, my own heart is sore against her. You did your duty, and a true woman understands duty as well as any man. And if she is not a true woman, I begrudge her your loyalty. ”

“ Though he wore the same uniform, the same badges, as the two men in front of him, he looked as if he had been cast in a different mold, and not even the democratic, all-leveling khaki could conceal the fact. He was small, neatly made enough, and his kit proclaimed the Bond Street military tailor at the top of its voice. The difference expressed itself most clearly, perhaps, in the small waxed mustache, in the red, clumsy-looking hand that caressed it, and in his whole attitude of forced ease. ”

“ There were two lines written across the single sheet:
When you come back, I will show you all I have to give you. Edwin Binns smiled with a grave happiness. The letter slipped from his weak hold onto the counterpane, and he laid his hand upon it as if it had been something sacred.
“She's not like any other woman in the world,” he said dreamily. “She does things other women wouldn't do. And now she'll be so glad—so glad!”
The nurse nodded. She thought he had become light-headed in the fitful way common to men recovering from severe injuries. ”

“ And Edwin Binns, who had met death with cheerfulness, fought for the strength to face life decently, according to his lights.
The taxi drew up at the curb with a jolt, and Edwin Binns got out. The big house loomed up somberly before him, and it seemed to him that the old-fashioned bell rang through eternities of silence. An old woman, neatly dressed in black, with a white apron, opened the door to him. ”

“ If you write again, tell me about your wound and the poor fellow you tried to save. Also tell me if there is anything you need. I have sent you all sorts of funny little offerings to-day—under disguised handwritings—so that the “other fellows” might turn green with jealousy——
Edwin Binns crunched the letter in his hand. He had seen the surgeon major in charge of the hospital coming up the steps, and he rose sharply to his feet, saluting, with the blood hammering in his temples and the old mist before his eyes. ”

“ But for the merciful uniform, he might have been a shop assistant posing for his photograph.
Presently he coughed affectedly, and Somers glanced around.
“Hello, Binns; that you?” he asked, with good-natured fatuity. “Looking for letters?”
“Yes.” The answer sounded at once sullen and pleased, as if the man had not expected to be spoken to. “It's all the excitement one gets in this beastly hole.”
“There's excitement enough elsewhere for any one who likes it,” Oswald remarked carelessly. “Now, then, sergeant, what's the bag?” ”

“ Somers escaped into the carriage.
“I won't forget. Good luck!”
As the train steamed out of the station, he glanced casually at the envelope that had been thrust into his hand, and whistled to himself. Then, conscious that he had committed an indiscretion, he thrust the letter hurriedly into his pocket.
“It takes all sorts to make a world,” he remarked philosophically and apparently apropos of nothing in particular.
Meanwhile, Lieutenant Edwin Binns stood on the platform and watched the train disappear. He was still panting, and in the moment of heat and excitement seemed less vulgar. ”

“ The surgeon major turned his head away.
“I'm not so sure. A man knows his own constitution best. Anyhow, we can't keep you here much longer. You're not wounded, and we haven't any room to spare. Besides—the men will begin to wonder. At the same time, it is not desirable for you or us that you should be taken ill again—in the trenches.”
The blood receded from Edwin Binns' cheeks, and then flowed back, mounting in a dark flood to his fair brows. ”

“ We will look death in the face together, and not flinch. We will not pretend that it is easy, but we will go on. Will it make the fight easier if I tell you that I care, that whatever you are, whatever you have been, I am your friend—in the proud thought of what you will be. ”

“ If you know anything about military folk, you'll understand. I didn't care so long as I was out in the trenches—then I had my men, who didn't mind what I was so long as I was a man—but I got wounded trying to pull some poor fellow out of the enemy's fire, and now I'm stuck here by myself. I haven't any one to write to me. My father's busy, and he didn't want me to go. Helen, my fiancée, has broken off our engagement. She was pleased enough to see me in my uniform, but she didn't like being left alone, and now she's picked up with some rotter who's skulking at home. ”

“ I want to tell you that I deserve all I get. I put “unpopular” in my ad in a fit of decency. I wanted people to know what they were in for—now I'm going on with it. It's only fair. Yours was such a sweet letter. When I got it, I thought at first it would be just a silly schoolgirl sort of thing, and I felt what an ass I'd been ever to want it. But as I've told you—I'm the only fellow who doesn't get something by every mail, and even the sergeant used to smother a grin when I asked him if there was anything for me. He looked small to-day, though—and jolly surprised. He hates me. They all do. ”

“ I have lost every one I care for, and if anything happened to me to-morrow, I do not think many tears would be shed. Isn't that a bond between us? You see, I am writing quite frankly about myself, too. Loneliness isn't always a fault—sometimes it's just chance. ”

“ You had a right to your tears, for you had your sorrows, and I had a right to mine because I am a woman, with a woman's rather terrible power of making the sufferings of others her own. And now I am so glad I overcame my shyness at writing to an unknown young man, for what I felt instinctively is really true. ”

“ I thought so many nice women would take pity on you. And then, after a little—I must confess my imaginary picture of you haunted me—I grew less amused. Nowadays every one seems to have some one, and I thought how really lonely—yes, and unloved—a man must be to whom no one writes, and who is driven to put such a notice in the paper—as you were. ”

“ Lately they have weighed heavily on me. All the other women in the world—so it seemed to me—had husbands or sons or brothers or lovers, of whom they might think with pride, for whom they might pray and work, whom they might remember. ”

“ One feels the loneliness worse out here than anywhere in the world, and I haven't deserved it more than other fellows. I put “unpopular” in my ad because I wanted people to understand that I wasn't joking. But I'm not what you might think. I haven't done anything to deserve the cold shoulder as I get it. The whole trouble is that I'm just a square peg in a round hole. My father has a furniture shop in the North, and this is a smart regiment. Everybody's somebody except me. ”

“ Not handsome at all—just a simple, straightforward boy—a boy any woman would be glad to call her son. Do you think me very sentimental? But there can be so little sentiment out there in your grim world that perhaps no harm is done. ”

“ A lonely and unpopular young officer at the front would be grateful if some one would write to him occasionally, Address Box 257, the Times. At the same moment that Somers had made the above discovery, Lieutenant Edwin Binns entered his garret in the base hospital “somewhere in France.” “Garret” is perhaps an ungrateful term. In the hospital the place was regarded as privileged, but architecturally there is no other way of describing it. ”

“ It's not the shop they mind. They're not prigs. If I had fought decently—but I didn't. I'm not wounded. It's awfully hard to tell you—but I broke down in the trenches—was so sick with sheer funk that they had to carry me off on a stretcher. Now they've got me here. Of course every one knows. My sub was brought in to-day with a bullet through his shoulder, and he wouldn't recognize me. Even Helen guessed. I lied about her, too. She's the finest, straightest girl on earth. ”

“ You can't do no conjurin' tricks with reserves. If reserves ain't there—well, they ain't there and there's an end of it. Besides, we was cut off, so to speak. The order to retire 'adn't got to us, and it's my belief we'd been forgotten. A 'undred men or so ain't so noticeable as you'd think when there's millions at it, and there'd been a bit of a muddle all round.
“Any'ow, there we was. First and second days we 'adn't time to breathe comfortably. 'Eaven knows 'ow many times the beggars came on at us, and more than once it was an 'and-to-'and scuffle in the trenches. ”

“ I got a knock-out jab on me chin, and knew nothin' about nothin' till I woke up and found all our chaps round us. The reserves had come up just after the Jack Johnson and saved the trench. But there wasn't much left of us. A chap 'oo looked as though 'e was somebody and knew it came along and wanted to know wot we was and 'oo was the orficer in command, and our little pipsqueak, lookin' like nothin' livin', saluted with 'is left 'and—'is right seemed to 'ave been whisked off, so to speak—and toppled over as though 'is back 'ad snapped. 'E was a man, 'e was. ”