Читать книгу Word of Honour and Other Stories - Sapper - Страница 6

Table of Contents

IT was the Adjutant who first told Peggy that Jimmy Staunton was on leave. They had hacked out together to a meet not far from the barracks, and as hounds were moving off she had remarked on his absence.

“On leave!” she echoed staring at him. “For how long?”

“The C.O. granted him two months,” said the Adjutant, as he shortened one of his leathers.

“But—I didn’t know he intended to go on leave,” she said.

“It was rather sudden,” agreed the Adjutant. “For your ears alone, Miss Mayhew, I think there’s been a bit of trouble. Jimmy had a confidential interview with your father and left the orderly house walking as if he was tight. And the Colonel hasn’t been his usual self since.”

“I thought Daddy was worried at dinner last night,” she said slowly.

“And further—still more for your ears alone,” went on the Adjutant gravely, “the most amazing rumour has reached me through the Regimental Sergeant Major. He’s got a pal who is chief clerk at Divisional Head-quarters, and the devil of it is that his rumours have never been far out before. He tells me that Jimmy has sent in his papers.”

“What?” cried the girl, and every vestige of colour had left her face.

“I can hardly believe it,” he said; “but that’s what the Regimental said to me yesterday morning after Guard mounting. And as I said I’ve never known him wrong.”

“But why?” she cried. “What can have induced him to do such a thing?”

“Ask me another,” remarked her companion. “He was sweating like blazes for the Staff College. Of course it may be a complete canard. I certainly told the Regimental he was talking rot.”

“But surely you must know, Captain Sykes,” she said desperately. “Anything of that sort would go through you.”

“His application for leave did, of course,” answered the Adjutant. “But nothing else. If it is the truth—which God forbid—it must have gone direct to the C.O.”

And the next moment he was staring blankly at the retreating figure of a girl going back to barracks on a justly enraged horse.

“Tiny—stop eating, and answer some questions.”

Tiny Tim looked up from his solitary luncheon at his daughter, who had just burst into the room like a typhoon.

“Why has Jimmy gone on leave?”

“For reasons, my dear,” said her father quietly, “into which I do not propose to enter.”

“For reasons, Daddy, into which you’ve got to enter,” said his daughter, equally quietly. “In case you don’t know it, I’m going to marry him.”

Her father stared at her blankly.

“I thought you’d refused him,” he muttered. “Anyway, Peggy,” he went on sternly, “you may dismiss any such idea from your mind at once. I absolutely forbid it.”

“Why?” she remarked ominously. “I have a right to know.”

“So be it,” said her father. “Staunton has been guilty of a crime only less culpable in an officer than cowardice. For his father’s sake I spared him being cashiered, and have allowed him to resign his commission.”

“I don’t believe it,” she cried proudly.

“Unfortunately he admits it,” said her father.

“What has he done? You must tell me, Daddy.”

For a while he hesitated, then he shrugged his shoulders.

“Embezzled battalion money to pay his betting losses,” he said briefly. “Now you know.”

“Oh! my God.” It was scarcely more than breathed.

“He was in charge of the Regimental funds while Peterson was on leave, and he proceeded to steal a hundred and ninety pounds.”

“When did he do it?” she asked steadily.

“The point seems immaterial,” he remarked. “But if you want to know it was the day after he dined here—Thursday last.”

“Immaterial,” she said with a little sob. “Oh! Jimmy, my dear....”

She stood up suddenly, slim and erect in her riding habit.

“Get into mufti, Tiny; we’ve just got time to catch the 2.30. You know Jimmy’s address, don’t you?”

“What do you want to do?” said her father, staring at her amazed.

She flung her arms round his neck.

“Daddy dear, there’s been the most ghastly mistake. Only do what I ask, and you’ll see. It doesn’t matter what you were going to do this afternoon: everything else must wait.”

And because Tiny Tim was a man of understanding, he said nothing to her going, up in the train, but read Truth with great concentration. They took a taxi, and they went to an address somewhere in Bloomsbury, and all that he noticed was that Peggy’s eyes were full of a wonderful light.

He was sitting at the table was Jimmy, when they entered the room, his head on his arm. And Tiny Tim, looking over the girl’s shoulder, saw the hopelessness fade out of his face as he looked up at the sound of the door opening. She went straight up to him and kissed him on the lips.

“My darling,” she said quite steadily. “My darling boy.”

“Peggy,” stammered Jimmy, getting to his feet. “Peggy—is it all right?”

For a moment Tiny Tim was forgotten as he stood by the door.

“Quite all right, my dear,” she answered. “So you’ve been betting, have you, Jimmy?” She faltered for a moment: then she turned to her father.

“There was once a damned fool of a girl, Tiny, who went away to stop with one of her father’s cousins. And there she met a swine of a man, with whom she was idiot enough to play the fool—and bridge. And when she’d lost steadily for two days she found that instead of playing a shilling a hundred as she thought, they’d been playing a pound a hundred and a fiver on the rubber. He paid her losses—two hundred and eight pounds, and she gave him an IOU.

“He knew she couldn’t pay, and so he made a very definite suggestion as to the method of wiping off the debt. And because she’d promised her father not to play cards she was afraid of asking him for the money. And because she dearly loved someone else she told him, and made him promise not to pass it on. That someone else told her he’d just had some money left him by an aunt—and she believed him.”

With a sob she sat down and over her shaking shoulders the eyes of the two men met.

“Is that the truth, Jimmy?” said Tiny Tim gruffly.

Jimmy Staunton nodded.

“Yes, sir. That’s the truth.”

And Tiny Tim blew his nose with great violence.

“You blithering pair of young asses,” he fumed. “You’re absolute idiots—both of you, damn you. You’re neither of you fit to be allowed loose.”

He stumped up and down the room.

“Your leave is cancelled, Mr. Staunton. You will report at barracks to-night by the last train, bringing my daughter with you. Personally I’m going down to see the G.O.C. at once to discuss that resignation of yours. He’s still in his office, thank Heavens! I shall tell him—everything.”

And then the expression came over Tiny Tim’s face which had made men follow him to their deaths.

“Dear boy,” he muttered, and his voice was shaking. “I thank you.”