Harold Bindloss - The Ghost of Hemlock Canyon

Another two girls advanced along the platform. They were young and, in spite of their rather naïve shyness, attractive. Their eyes were liquidly bright, and the bloom the wet west wind gives was on their skin. Denis had got to know the Misses Cullen on board ship.

“We cannot find Danny,” said one in a disturbed voice, marked by a soft Irish intonation. “He went to the lawyer’s office and he’s not come back. The train is going to start. And what will we do?”

“Where is the office?” Denis inquired.

“Danny didn’t tell us. He was to be back in half an hour,” the other replied.

Denis jumped to his feet. He did not consciously stand like a soldier, but he was an athletic young fellow and his balance and pose were good. As a rule his look was careless, but now he knitted his brows. The Misses Cullen trusted him, he knew they had not much money, and he must think for them. Somehow one did trust Denis Aylward.

“You have got your tickets. I suppose your friends will meet you at the other end?”

They agreed and waited, with an implied respect for his judgment that Denis thought humorous.

“It’s awkward, but I think you ought to start,” he said. “You see, the next train goes to-morrow and Montreal hotels are expensive. Then your friends will be at the station and I believe Danny said their home was some distance off across the hills. But you must decide—”

An interpreter began to shout, gates were thrown back, and loaded foreign emigrants streamed across the platform. The girls glanced at the noisy, pushing crowd, hesitated, and then signing Denis, started for the train. He put them on board a second-class car and went back as fast as possible. Nobody had removed his luggage, but he admitted it was not remarkably tempting loot.

Pushing through the crowd about the steps, he put the stuff on board a Colonist car, and surveyed his quarters for the next five days. At one end, behind a partition, was a rusty stove, and a water-tank in the roof supplied a row of small basins. A passage went along the middle of the car, and between the seats on either side were sliding boards, on which one could dine and sleep. Above, hung by chains, polished shelves pulled down from the roof for upper berths. Since he had a British-warm and a dollar mattress, Denis thought he had not much grounds to grumble.

In another way, his luck was good; his traveling companions were British. The women were not numerous, and their clothes carried the stains of the crowded emigrant deck. After the stormy voyage they were pale and jaded. Denis thought the men small clerks, artisans, and so forth, who on their return from France had found their occupation gone. He saw some pinched faces and bent shoulders, but for the most part they were a sturdy lot. Men of their stamp had followed him nobly across the Salient’s mud. Moreover, it looked as if they were resolved to hold the car. Those who knew the Eastern Front had not much use for their recent allies, and three or four muscular fellows kept the steps.

“All British here! Next truck for that lot,” one shouted to a railroad official shepherding a foreign mob.

“I was at Salonika, and I’ve had some,” he explained to Denis.

“Some?” said a companion. “At my shop on another front, we had a ruddy sight too much. The blighters, to show how they liked us, charged us double for all we got—” He turned and gave Denis a twinkling glance. “Looks as if you’d got into the wrong horse-truck, sir!”

Denis smiled. “I expect you spotted the old coat? Well, you see, the pips are gone, and I was not entitled to wear them very long. Anyhow, my ticket is Colonist.”

He got a seat by a window and pulled out his pipe. On the platform the pushing crowd began to melt; steam throbbed, and raucous voices shouted, “All ab-o-a-rd.”

The throbbing steam was quiet, a bell tolled, and the couplings jarred.

“Tails up, the old brigade!” said somebody. “We’re over the top.”

The clanging bell got louder, wheels began to roll, and the long cars lurched ahead. Hoarse shouts marked the Colonists’ advance, and when somebody pulled out a concertina, swelled into a song, and Tipperary rolled along the half-mile train. Laughing and singing, the boys took the Western road, as they took the roads in France; but Denis had not thought to see Montreal citizens on the platforms stand fast and lift their hats. All had not forgotten, and where the job was sternest, the Maple Leaves lay thick in Flanders mud.

Denis thrilled with queer emotion. For one thing, he thought the joker’s remark logical. On board the swift, clean steamship he, so to speak, was yet on British soil; England went where the red ensign flew. Now the flag carried the Canadian beaver, and he fronted an adventure in which headquarters would not think for him. He must trust his luck and his talents, and for all his youth, he admitted they were not remarkably numerous.

In fact, when he studied his companions he thought their chance to make good better than his. For example, one was a blacksmith, and another a carpenter. Men like that could take a job for which, in Canada, the pay was first-class. He knew some athletic games, some old Greek and Latin, and a little about English law; but there he stopped. All he really had was his nerve and muscle. When he turned down his occupation he, so to speak, stripped himself of the rather imaginary advantages one claimed for his sort.

Yet he must not be daunted. In France he had more than once started on a forlorn hope and somehow had triumphantly seen it out. The morning was fresh, the sun shone, and adventure called.

IV

TRAVELING COMPANIONS

The train stopped for some time at Ottawa, and when the cars rolled into the station Denis was among the first who jumped from the crowded vestibules. Although the afternoon was sunny, he had pulled on his big coat. He hoped he was not unjust to his fellow-passengers, but in France a soldier’s best title to his property was his watchfulness. A British-warm was a useful article, and Denis had no other coat.

He went to the telegraph-office, and after a few minutes a clerk, who had not answered his polite inquiries, threw him an envelope, as one throws a bone to an importunate dog. Denis was young, and for a time had used command, but he smiled philosophically. In Canada, a telegraph-operator was, no doubt, important, but he himself was not.

“You got something on me?” the clerk inquired.

“I don’t know,” said Denis in a meditative voice. “Much depends on one’s point of view, and you might not see the joke.”

“You’re blocking the passage,” the clerk remarked. “If you’re through with your business, suppose you pull out.”

Denis went. His impulse was to climb across the counter, but to let himself go might be expensive and he imagined the Misses Cullen waited. They were on the platform, jostled about by the swarming emigrants, and looking anxious and forlorn. When one saw Denis she ran forward and touched his arm. He thought her disturbance vanished, and the light touch moved him.

“Will there be time to go to the post-office?” she asked. “Nobody will stop to tell us where it is.”

“As a rule, in Canada, the telegraph-office is at the station. Anyhow, I have got a message for Miss Monica Cullen.”

Monica tore open the envelope and smiled happily.

“Dan will follow in the morning; we are not to wait. What would we have done, Mr. Aylward, if you’d not been about?”

“You’d have stayed on board, as Danny orders,” Denis replied. “Well, we have half an hour. Let’s go and see the town.”

The girls he had remarked at Montreal went by, and one turned her head. Her glance was coolly critical, as if she were interested. Denis’s coat was shabby, but he carried the stamp of a British officer; the Misses Cullen were audibly Irish, and for all their youthful charm, fresh from the bogs. Anyhow, they were his friends, and with one on either side, he started for the town.