Theodore Goodridge Roberts

“ At last Dick was shipped to Blighty and admitted to a hospital for convalescent Canadian officers. There Capt. J. A. Starkley-Davenport soon found him. No change that the eye could detect had taken place in Jack Davenport. His face was as thin and colorless as when Dick had first seen it; his eyes were just as bright, and their glances as kindly and intent; his body was as frail and as immaculately garbed. Dick wondered how one so frail could exist a week without either breaking utterly or gaining in strength. ”

“ PETER'S ROOM IS AGAIN OCCUPIED LIFE was very dull round Beaver Dam after Peter had gone away. John and Constance Starkley and Flora and Emma felt that every room of the old house was so full of memories of the three boys that they could not think of anything else. John Starkley worked early and late, but a sense of numbness was always at his heart. There were times when he glowed with pride and even when he flamed with anger, but he was always conscious of the weight on his heart. ”

“ As Jim Hammond vanished from the knowledge and thought of men, so vanished the mysterious rifleman who had splintered Peter's rib.
Spring brought the great news of the stand of the First Canadian Division at Ypres—the stand of the few against the many, of the Canadian militia against the greatest and most ruthless fighting machine of the whole world. The German army was big and ready, but it was not great as we know greatness now. ”

“ But the colonel wouldn't understand. No one who does not know you would understand. People would think I'd done it for the step, or that I hadn't hit it off, as an officer, with the old crowd. I want to stay, and yet I want to go. I want to fight on, as far as my luck will take me, with the 26th, and yet I'd be proud as a brigadier to sport three pips with your lot. As for doing something that you want me to do—why, to be quite frank with you, there isn't another man in the world I'd sooner please than you. Give me a few months more in which to decide. Give me until my next leave from France. ”

“ It was a long way for a busy young farmer to go courting; but Constance Emma Garden was worth a thousand longer journeys.
When Henry, the oldest of the five Starkley children, went to college to study civil engineering, sixteen-year-old Peter, fourteen-year-old Flora, twelve-year-old Dick and eight-year-old Emma were at home. Peter, who was done with school, did a man's work on the farm; he owned a sorrel mare with a reputation as a trotter, contemplated spending the next winter in the lumber woods and planned agriculture activities on a scale and of a kind to astonish his father. ”

“ Three days later Dave Hammer, in his official capacity as a section commander, fell upon Jim Hammond in his official capacity as a private soldier. Reason and justice, as well as authority, were with the sergeant. Jim came to Peter that evening.
"Look a-here, who does Dave Hammer think he is, anyhow?" he asked.
"I guess he knows who he is," replied Peter.
"Well, whoever he is," Hammond declared wrathfully, "I won't be bawled out by him. I guess I'm as good a man as he is—and better."
"You'll have lots of chances, from now on, to show how good a man you are. ”

“ Davenport, with his crutch and stick and shadowing valet, visited him daily in hospital. He and Peter wrote letters to Beaver Dam—and Peter wrote a dozen to Stanley.
Capt. Starkley-Davenport had power. Warbroken and propped between his crutch and stick, still he was powerful. A spirit big enough to animate three strong men glowed in his weak body, and he went after the medical officers, nursing sisters and V. A. D.'s of that hospital like a lieutenant general looking for trouble. ”

“ A fellow should make an effort to oblige a man like Jack—dead or alive." He was silent for several seconds, then went on: "Henry has been offered a staff job in London. Peter is safe. Sacobie has brought down four Boche machines already. What have you heard about Jim Hammond?"
"It's Blighty for him—and then Canada. He'll never in the world bend that leg again."
For a while Dick continued to pace back and forth across the muddy floor in silence.
"We are scattering, Old Psychology," he said. "This war is a great scatterer—but there are some things it can't touch. ”

“ Peter did not grumble again about his [pg 60] sick leave. His wound healed; and as the warm days advanced he grew stronger with every day. He had been wounded in the performance of his duty as surely as if a German had fired the shot across the mud of No Man's Land; so he accepted those extra months in the place and life he loved with a gratitude that was none the less deep for being silent.
In June the Battalion embarked for England, in strength eleven hundred noncommissioned officers and men and forty-two officers. ”

“ John Starkley was vastly relieved to find his son doing so well. His bewilderment that any one in that country should pull a trigger on Peter almost swamped his indignation. The more he thought it over the more bewildered he became.
"You haven't an enemy in the world, [pg 53] Peter—except the Germans," he said. "But that was no chance shot. If it had been an accident, the fellow with the rifle would have come out to lend a hand."
"I guess that's so," replied Peter. "Maybe it was a German. It means a lot to the Kaiser to keep me out of this war." ”

“ The butler was a one-armed man of forty-five years who had served as a company sergeant major in the early days of the war; in rallying half a dozen survivors of his company he had got his arm in the way of a chunk of high-explosive shell and had decorated his chest with the Distinguished Conduct Medal. He had only the vaguest notions what his duties as butler required of him but occupied his time in arguing the delicate question of seniority with Wilson and the coachman and making frequent reports to the captain. ”

“ Dick laughed. "What are his ideas for developing trench warfare?"
"One is the organization of a shot-gun platoon in every battalion. The weapon is to be the duck gun, number eight bore, I believe. Hiram maintains that, used within a range of one hundred and fifty yards, those weapons would be superior to any in repulsing attacks in mass and in cleaning up raided trenches. He is a great believer in the deadly and demoralizing effects of point-blank fire." ”

“ No, I am myself with what good I have in me. I can do to fight the Germans, and that is all I want, Dick. I try to be a gentleman, like Peter and Capt. Davenport, and the King will make me an officer. ”

“ For four years after the conversation that took place on the bank of Frying Pan River Flora and Dick and the rest of the Starkley family except Henry lived on in the quiet way of the folk at Beaver Dam. The younger children continued to go daily to school at the Crossroads, to take part in the lighter tasks of farm and house, to play and fish and argue and dream great things of the future. ”

“ After breakfast he and Dick went over to his own place to have a look at his house and barns.
"Frank Sacobie came home last week," said Dick. "He's been out to see us twice. He wants to enlist in your outfit, but I am trying to hold him off till next year so's we can go over together."
"You babies had better keep your bibs on a few years longer," said Peter. "I guess there will be lots of time for all of you to fight in this war without forcing yourselves under glass." ”

“ I haven't much of a stomach of my own now, you know; and I haven't a girl of my own to take out to one—even if Wilson would let me go out at night. It is not charity. I satisfy my own lost hunger for food through the medium of poor people with good appetites: I have my fun and cut a dash in new breeches and swagger service jackets through the medium of hard fighting fellows from France. I am not apologizing, you understand."
"You needn't," said Dick dryly; and then they both laughed.
Hiram Sill and Frank Sacobie called on Dick at the hospital soon after ten o'clock on Sunday morning. ”

“ At the near edge of the village a number of New Brunswickers, including their colonel, overtook and mingled with the second line of the 22d. Our barrage was lifted clear of Courcelette by this time and set like a spouting wall of fire and earth along the far side of it; but the shells of the enemy continued to pitch into it, heaving bricks and rafters and the soil of little gardens into the vibrating twilight. ”

“ Peter Starkley that in the course of time he was passed along to Dick, who told him about Peter.
"I'm downright sorry to hear that," said the new arrival. "I saw him in Mr. Hammond's store one day and took a shine to him, but as you're his own brother I guess I'm in the right outfit. Hiram Sill is my name."
They shook hands cordially.
"I'm an American citizen and not so young as I used to be," continued Sill, "but the minute this war started I knew I'd be into it before long. Soldiering is a business now, and I am a business man. ”

“ He proved himself to be a good engineer.
In the spring of 1914 Frank Sacobie, now seventeen years of age, left Beaver Dam to work in a sawmill on the big river. Peter Starkley invested his winter's wages in another mare, two cows and a ton of chemical [pg 11] fertilizers. He ploughed ten acres of his meadows and sowed five with oats, four to buckwheat, and planted one to potatoes. The whole family was thrilled with the romance of his undertaking. His father helped him to put in his crop; and Dick and Flora found the attractions of Peter's farm irresistible. ”

“ Henry Starkley, of the First Field Company, was there, too. He received a slight wound. Private letters and the great stories of the newspapers thrilled the hearts of thousands of peaceful, unheroic folk. Volunteers flowed in from lumber camps and farms.
In May Dick Starkley made the great move of his young life. He was now seventeen years old and sound and strong. He saw that Peter could not get away with his [pg 59] battalion—that, unless something unexpected happened, the Second Canadian Division would get away without a Starkley of Beaver Dam. ”

“ We were in, and I had a big sentry by the neck when Dick Starkley woke me up. I had grabbed Dick."
"The colonel is right," said Capt. Keen. "You're working too hard, Hammer, and you're beginning to show it; your eyes look like the mischief. This fighting in your sleep is a bad sign." ”

“ Standing in the doorway of the compartment, Dick saluted, then turned, trod on the toes of a sapper major, moved heavily from there to the spurred boots of an artillery colonel and sat down violently and blindly on his lumpy haversack. ”

“ I live on one sixth of my income. That leaves five sixths for my friends; and often, Dick, it is the thought of the spending of the five parts that gives me courage to go on keeping life in this useless body with the one part. Sometimes a soldier's wife buys food for herself and children, or pays the rent, with my money ”

“ Dave Hammer as Peter's brother, added a year to his age and became a member of the 26th Battalion. He found Frank Sacobie there, already possessed of all the airs of an old soldier.
Dick sent a telegram to his father and a long, affectionate, confused letter to his mother. His parents understood and forgave and went to St. John and told him so—and Peter sent word that he, too, understood; and Dick was happy. Then with all his thought and energy and ambition he set to work to make himself a good soldier. ”

“ Two seconds later Peter pulled open the porch door and dashed into the frosty night. He jumped into the pung, and away went the mare as if something of her master's madness had been communicated to her. The corporal had kissed Vivia!
Peter returned to his battalion two days later. In St. John he found everything [pg 39] much as usual. Hammer was as brisk and soldierly as ever, but Jim Hammond was more sulky than before. Peter considered the battalion with a new interest. Life, even away from Beaver Dam, seemed more worth while, and he went at his work with a jump. ”

“ Peter Starkley of the 26th Canadian Infantry Battalion will be glad to see him when he comes home; tell him not to cut himself on those spurs of his in the meantime; and you'd better advise him to warn his father not to shoot his mouth off in future to military men about things he is ignorant of. ”

“ What are you going to do, Peter? You are a man, Starkley—a big man—big enough to be merciful. What d'you mean to do?"
"Nothing," said Peter. "I came to find Jim, and I haven't found him. I got shot instead by some one I haven't seen hair, hide or track of. It's up to the army to [pg 55] find Jim, if they still want him; but as far as I am concerned he may be back with the battalion this minute for all I know. I hope he is. ”

“ Hammond, "but you won't hear any kick out of Peter Starkley, whether he likes it or not."
"It's easier than working in the woods, [pg 33] either chopping or teaming," said Peter pleasantly, "and I'll bet a dollar it is a sight easier than the real fighting will be."
"That's the way to look at it, corporal," said the stranger. "I guess that in a war like this a man has to make up his mind to take the fun and the ferocity, the music and the mud, and the pie and the pain, just as they come." ”

“ Jim, who was a year or two older than Peter, was a thickset, dull-looking young man with a reputation as a shrewd trader. He was his father's chief assistant in the business. Patrick, the son who had sailed with the first contingent, had a reputation as a fisherman and hunter, which meant that he was considered as frivolous and that he had no [pg 20] standing at all as a business man. Vivia, the daughter, resembled Patrick rather than Jim. She was about seventeen years old. Peter, who had not seen her for twelve months, wondered how such a heavy duffer as Jim Hammond came by such a sister. ”