William Le Queux - The Mystery of the Green Ray

“Gad!” he cried savagely, “if you beggars weren’t going, I could stick it. But you three leaving me behind, it’s – ”

“Leaving you behind?” I echoed in astonishment. “But why, old man? Aren’t you coming too?”

“I hope so,” said Dennis bitterly; “I hope so with all my heart, and I shall have a jolly good shot at it. But I know what it will be, worse luck.”

“But why, Dennis?” I asked again. “I don’t understand.”

“Of course you don’t,” he replied, “but you’ve got your own troubles, and there’s no point in worrying about me, in any case.”

I begged him to tell me; I pleaded our old friendship, and the fact that I had taken him into my confidence in the various vicissitudes of my own love affair. It struck me at the time that it was I who should have been indebted to him for his patient sympathy and help; and here he was, poor old fellow, with a real, live trouble of his own, refusing to bother me with it.

“So you’ve just got to own up, old man,” I finished.

“Oh, it’s really nothing,” said Dennis miserably. “I’m a crock, that’s all. A useless hulk of unnecessary lumber.”

“How, my dear chap?” I asked incredulously. Here was Dennis Burnham, who had put up a record for the mile in our school days, and lifted the public school’s middle-weight pot, a champion swimmer, a massive young man of six-foot-two in his socks, calling himself a crock.

“You remember that summer we did the cruise from Southampton to Stranraer?”

“Heavens! yes,” I exclaimed, “and we capsized the cutter in the Solway, and you were laid up in a farmhouse at Whithorn with rheumatic fever. Am I ever likely to forget it?”

“I’m not, anyway,” said Dennis, ruefully. “That rheumatic fever left me with a weak heart. I strained it rowing up at Oxford, you remember, and that fever business put the last touches on it for all practical purposes.”

“Are you sure, old man?” I asked. It seemed impossible that a great big chap like Dennis, the picture of health, should have anything seriously wrong with him.

“I’m dead sure, Ron; I wish I weren’t. Not that it matters much, of course; but just now, when one has a chance to do something decent for one’s Motherland and justify one’s existence, it hits a bit hard.”

“Is it serious?” I asked – “really serious?”

“Sufficient to bar me from joining you chaps, though I’ll see if I can sneak past the doctor. You remember about three weeks ago we were to have played a foursome out at Hendon, and I didn’t turn up? I said afterwards that I had been called out of town, and had quite forgotten to wire.”

“Which was extremely unlike you,” I interposed; “but go on.”

“Well, as a matter of fact, I was on my way. I was a bit late, and when I got outside Golders Green Tube Station I ran for a ’bus. The rest of the day I spent in the Cottage Hospital. No, I didn’t faint. The valve struck, and I simply lay on the pavement a crumpled mass of semi-conscious humanity till they carted me off on the ambulance. It’s the fourth time it’s happened.”

“Of course you had good advice?” I asked anxiously.

“Heavens! yes,” he exclaimed; “any amount of the best. And they all say the same thing – rest, be careful, no sudden excitement, no strain, and I may live for ever – a creaking door.”

“My dear old Den,” I said, for I was deeply touched. “Why didn’t you tell me?”

“Plenty of worries of your own, old man,” he answered, more cheerfully; “and, besides, it would have spoiled everything. You fellows would have been nursing me behind my back, to use an Irishism, and trying to prevent my noticing it. You know as well as I do that if you had known I should have been a skeleton at the feast.”

“You must promise me two things,” I said presently. “One is that you won’t try to join the army; there is sure to be a rush of recruits in the next few days, and the doctors will be flurried, and may skip through their work roughshod. The other is that you will take care of yourself, run no risks, and do nothing rash while we are away.”

The first he refused. He said he must do what he could to get through, if only to satisfy his conscience; but he made me the second promise, and solemnly gave me his word that he would do nothing that would put him in any danger. Then at last, at his suggestion, we turned in; he insisted that I had an all-night journey in front of me. And so eventually I fell asleep, saddened by the knowledge of my friend’s trouble, but somewhat relieved that I had extracted from him a promise to take care of himself.

Little did I dream that he would break his promise to save one who was dearer to me than life itself, or that I should owe all my present and future happiness to poor old Dennis’s inability to join the army. Truly, as events were to prove, “he did his bit.”

We “made” Richmond about half-past eleven, and completed the necessary arrangements for the housing of the boats and the disposal of our superfluous fodder, as Jack called it, for by this time we had all made up our minds that the war was inevitable.

The bustle of mobilisation had already taken possession of the streets, and as we stepped out of Charing Cross Station we stumbled into a crowd of English Bluejackets and Tommies and French reservists in Villiers Street. We parted for the afternoon, each to attend to his private affairs, and arranged to meet again at the Grand Hotel Grill Room for an early dinner, as I had to catch the 7.55 from King’s Cross.

I dashed out to Hampstead to my flat, and packed the necessary wearing apparel, taking care to include my fly-book and my favourite split-cane trout rod in my kit. I should only be in Scotland for a couple of days, but I knew that I should be fishing with Myra at least one of them, and no borrowed rod is a patch on one’s own tried favourite. I snatched an half-hour or so to write to the few relatives I have and tell them that I was joining the army after a hurried visit to Scotland to say good-bye to Myra. And then I got my kit to Dennis’s rooms in Panton Street, Haymarket, just in time to have a chat with him before we joined the others at the Grand Hotel. I found him hopefully getting things ready for a long absence, sorting out unanswered letters, putting away papers, etc. On the table was an open copy of a stores catalogue. He had been trying to find suitable presents for his two small step-sisters. Dennis invariably thought of himself last of all, and then usually at someone else’s request.

“Well, old man,” I asked, “how do you feel about it now?”

“Rotten, Ronnie,” he replied, with a rueful smile. “I’ve been on the ’phone to my silly doctor chap, and he shouted with laughter at me. Still, I shall have a jolly good shot at it as soon as the thing is definite.”

“I only pray to heaven,” I said seriously, “that no slipshod fool of a doctor lets you through.”

“They won’t let me in, old chap; no such luck. It’s a ghastly outlook. What on earth am I to do with myself while the war lasts?”

“My dear chap,” I exclaimed, “it won’t be as bad as all that. There will be thousands of men who won’t go to the war. I shan’t be surprised if you see very little difference about town even when the war’s in full swing. You can’t go, although you want to, and it’s jolly bad luck, old man. Don’t think I don’t understand, but, believe me, you won’t be the only man left in London by a million or two.”

“I know,” he said penitently, “I’m grousing and worrying you. Sorry! But I can see you setting out for the Temple in the morning and leaving your house on fire. It wouldn’t make it easier simply because you knew you weren’t able to do anything to put out the fire. In fact, it would make it a jolly lot worse. Still, we’ll cut that and change the subject. When you get back from Invermalluch give me a look up. I expect I shall be here. And, of course, give my kindest regards to Miss McLeod – oh, and the General,” he added, as an afterthought.