In Secret

"If you—knew—"

"I do know! When these crises come try to fix your mind on what you have become."

"Yes…. A hell of a soldier. Do you really believe that my country needs a thing like me?" She stood looking at him in silence—knowing that he was in a torment of some terrible sort. His eyes were still covered by his arm. On his boyish brow the blonde-brown hair had become damp.

She went across and passed her arm through his. His hand rested, fell to his side, but he suffered her to guide him through the corridors toward a far bluish spark that seemed as distant as Venus, the star.

They walked very slowly for a while on deck, encountering now and then the shadowy forms of officers and crew. The personnel of the several hospital units in transit were long ago in bed below.

Once he said: "You know, Miss Erith, it is not I who behaves like a scoundrel to you."

"I know," she said with a dauntless smile.

"Because," he went on, searching painfully for thought as well as words, "I'm not really a brute—was not always a blackguard—"

"Do you suppose for one moment that I blame a man who has been irresponsible through no fault of his, and who has made the fight and has won back to sanity?"

"I—am not yet—well!"

"I understand."

They paused beside the port rail for a few moments.

"I suppose you know," he muttered, "that I have thought—at times—of ending things—down there. … You seem to know most things. Did you suspect that?"

"Yes."

"Don't you ever sleep?"

"I wake easily."

"I know you do. I can't stir in bed but I hear you move, too…. I should think you'd hate and loathe me—for all I've done—for all I've cost you."

"Nurses don't loathe their patients," she said lightly.

"I should think they'd want to kill them."

"Oh, Mr. McKay! On the contrary they—they grow to like them—exceedingly."

"You dare not say that about yourself and me."

Miss Erith shrugged her pretty shoulders: "I don't have to say anything, do I?"

He made no reply. After a long silence she said casually: "The sea is calmer, I think. There's something resembling faint moonlight up among those flying clouds."

He lifted his tragic face and gazed up at the storm-wrack speeding overhead. And there through the hurrying vapours behind flying rags of cloud, a pallid lustre betrayed the smothered moon.

There was just enough light, now, to reveal the forward gun under its jacket, and the shadowy gun-crew around it where the ship's bow like a vast black, plough ripped the sea asunder in two deep, foaming furrows.

"I wish I knew where we are at this moment," mused the girl. She counted the days on her fingertips: "We may be off Bordeaux…. It's been a long time, hasn't it?"

To him it had been a century of dread endured through half-awakened consciousness of the latest inferno within him.

"It's been very long," he said, sighing.

A few minutes later they caught a glimpse of a strangled moon overhead—a livid corpse of a moon, tarnished and battered almost out of recognition.

"Clearing weather," she said cheerfully, adding: "To-morrow we may be in the danger zone…. Did you ever see a submarine?"

"Yes. Did you?"

"There were some up the Hudson. I saw them last summer while motoring along Riverside Drive."

The spectral form of an officer appeared at her elbow, said something in a low voice, and walked aft.

She said: "Well, then, I think we'd better dress. … Do you feel better?"

He said that he did, but his sombre gaze into darkness belied him. So again she slipped her arm through his and he suffered himself to be led away along the path of shinning arrows under foot.

At his door she said cheerfully: "No more undressing for bed, you know. No more luxury of night-clothes. You heard the orders about lifebelts?"

"Yes," he replied listlessly.

"Very well. I'll be waiting for you."

She lingered a moment more watching him in his brooding revery where he stood leaning against the doorway. And after a while he raised his haunted eyes to hers.

"I can't keep on," he breathed.

"Yes you can!"

"No…. The world is slipping away—under foot. It's going on without me—in spite of me."

"It's you that are slipping, if anything is. Be fair to the world at least—even if you mean to betray it—and me."

"I don't want to betray anybody—anything." He had begun to tremble when he stood leaning against his door. "I—don't know—what to do."

"Stand by the world. Stand by me. And, through me, stand by your own self."

The young fellow's forehead was wet with the vague horror of something. He made an effort to speak, to straighten up; gave her a dreadful look of appeal which turned into a snarl.

He whispered between writhing lips: "Can't you let me alone? Can't I end it if I can't stand it—without your blocking me every time—every time I stir a finger—"

"McKay! Wait! Don't touch me!—don't do that!"

But he had her in a sudden grip now—was looking right and left for a place to hurl her out of the way.

"I've stood enough, by God!" he muttered between his teeth. "Now I'm through—"