Man-woman relationships -- Fiction; World War, 1914-1918 -- Fiction
They were putting him out of sight, under the hood of the ambulance, and
she waited there when the war correspondent came up.
"_Can_ you tell me the name of the volunteer who's been killed?"
"Conway. John Roden Conway."
"What? _That_ man? The man who raced the Germans into Zele?"
"Yes," she said, "that man."
* * * * *
She was in John's room, packing, gathering together the things she would
have to take to his father. Sutton came to her there.
They had orders to be ready for the retreat any time that night.
Billy had brought her John's wrist watch and cigarette case.
"Billy," she said, "that soldier gave me this."
She showed him the pocketbook.
"What soldier?"
"The one who was with the captain."
"_He_ gave it you?"
"Yes. He said he found it on the battlefield. It must have dropped out of
John's pocket."
"It couldn't have dropped.... I wonder why he kept that."
"But he didn't keep it. He gave it to me."
"He was going to keep it, or he'd have handed it over to me with the
other things."
"Does it matter?"
"Well--"
She thought: "Why can't he leave it alone? They _had_ all his things, his
poor things."
But Sutton was still thoughtful. "I wonder why he gave it you."
"I think he was sorry."
"_Was_ he!"
"Sorry for me, I mean."
Sutton said nothing. He was absorbed in contemplating the photograph.
They had been taken standing by the hurdle of the sheepfold, she with the
young lamb in her arms and John looking down at her.
"That was taken at Barrow Hill Farm," she said, "where we were together.
He looked just like that.... Oh, Billy, do you think the past's really
past?... Isn't there some way he could go on being what he _was_?"
"I don't know, Sharlie, I don't know."
"Why couldn't he have stayed there! Then he'd always have been like that.
We should never have known."
"You're not going to be unhappy about him?"
"No. I think I'm glad. It's a sort of relief. I shan't ever have that
awful feeling of wondering what he'll do next.... Billy--you were with
him, weren't you?"
"Yes."
"Was he all right?"
"Would it make you happier to think that he was or to know that he
wasn't?"
"Oh--just to _know_."
"Well, I'm afraid he wasn't, quite.... He paid for it, Sharlie. If he
hadn't turned his back he wouldn't have been shot."
She nodded.
"What? You knew?"
"No. No. I wasn't sure."
She was possessed of this craving to know, to know everything. Short of
that she would be still bound to him; she could never get free.
"Billy--what did happen, really? Did he _leave_ the German?"
"The German?"
"Yes. Was that why he shot him?"
"The German didn't shoot him. He was too far gone, poor devil, to shoot
anybody.... It was the Belgian captain that he left.... He was lying
there, horribly wounded. His servant was with him; they were calling out
to Conway--"
"_Calling_ to him?"
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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