“What happened?” I asked.
“It happened thuswise,” he answered, breaking out into fresh eloquence, with fantastic similes and expressions of which I can give only the spirit. “Leaving Pozières, which, as you doubtless know, unless you are a bloody staff-officer, is a place where the devil goes about like a roaring lion seeking whom he may devour, where he leaves his victims’ entrails hanging on to barbed wire, and where the bodies of your friends and mine lie decomposing in muddy holes—you know the place?—I put my legs across the colonel’s horse, which was in the wagon-lines, and set forth for Amiens. That horse knew that I had pinched him—forgive my slang. I should have said it in the French language, volé—and resented me. Thrice was I nearly thrown from his back. Twice did he entangle himself in barbed wire deliberately. Once did I have to coerce him with many stripes to pass a tank. Then the heavens opened upon us and it rained. It rained until I was wet to the skin, in spite of sheltering beneath a tree, one branch of which, owing to the stubborn temper of my steed, struck me a stinging blow across the face. So in no joyful spirit I came at last to Amiens, this whited sepulcher, this Circe’s capital, this den of thieves, this home of vampires. There I dined, not wisely, but too well. I drank of the flowing cup—une bouteille de champagne—and I met a maiden as ugly as sin, but beautiful in my eyes after Pozières—you understand—and accompanied her to her poor lodging—in a most verminous place, sir—where we discoursed upon the problems of life and love. O youth! O war! O hell! … My horse, that brute who resented me, was in charge of an ostler, whom I believe verily is a limb of Satan, in the yard without. It was late when I left that lair of Circe, where young British officers, even as myself, are turned into swine. It was late and dark, and I was drunk. Even now I am very drunk. I may say that I am becoming drunker and drunker.”
It was true. The fumes of bad champagne were working in the boy’s brain, and he leaned heavily against me.
“It was then that that happened which will undoubtedly lead to my undoing, and blast my career as I have blasted my soul. The horse was there in the yard, but without saddle or bridle.
“ ‘Where is my saddle and where is my bridle, oh, naughty ostler?’ I shouted, in dismay.
“The ostler, who, as I informed you, is one of Satan’s imps, answered in incomprehensible French, led the horse forth from the yard, and, giving it a mighty blow on the rump, sent it clattering forth into the outer darkness. In my fear of losing it—for I must be at Pozières at dawn—I ran after it, but it ran too fast in the darkness, and I stopped and tried to grope my way back to the stableyard to kill that ostler, thereby serving God, and other British officers, for he was the devil’s agent. But I could not find the yard again. It had disappeared! It was swallowed up in Cimmerian gloom. So I was without revenge and without horse, and, as you will perceive, sir—unless you are a bloody staff-officer who doesn’t perceive anything—I am utterly undone. I am also horribly drunk, and I must apologize for leaning so heavily on your arm. It’s awfully good of you, anyway, old man.”
The crowd was mostly moving, driven indoors by the rain. The woman who had spoken to me said, “I heard a horse’s hoofs upon the bridge, lá-bas.”
Then she went away with her apron over her head.
Thomas and I walked each side of the officer, giving him an arm. He could not walk straight, and his legs played freakish tricks with him. All the while he talked in a strain of high comedy interlarded with grim little phrases, revealing an underlying sense of tragedy and despair, until his speech thickened and he became less fluent. We spent a fantastic hour searching for his horse. It was like a nightmare in the darkness and rain. Every now and then we heard, distinctly, the klip-klop of a horse’s hoofs, and went off in that direction, only to be baffled by dead silence, with no sign of the animal. Then again, as we stood listening, we heard the beat of hoofs on hard pavements, in the opposite direction, and walked that way, dragging the boy, who was getting more and more incapable of walking upright. At last we gave up hope of finding the horse, though the young officer kept assuring us that he must find it at all costs. “It’s a point of honor,” he said, thickly. “Not my horse, you know Doctor’s horse. Devil to pay tomorrow.”
He laughed foolishly and said:
“Always devil to pay in morning.”
We were soaked to the skin.
“Come home with me,” I said. “We can give you a shakedown.”
“Frightfully good, old man. Awfully sorry, you know, and all that. Are you a blooming general, or something? But I must find horse.”
By some means we succeeded in persuading him that the chase was useless and that it would be better for him to get into our billet and start out next morning, early. We dragged him up the rue des Augustins, to the rue Amiral Courbet. Outside the iron gates I spoke to him warningly:
“You’ve got to be quiet. There are staff-officers inside …”
“What? … Staff officers? … Oh, my God!”
The boy was dismayed. The thought of facing staff-officers almost sobered him; did, indeed, sober his brain for a moment, though not his legs.
“It’s all right,” I said. “Go quietly, and I will get you upstairs safely.”
It was astonishing how quietly he went, hanging on to me. The
