On The Firing Line

A >> Anna Chapin Ray and Hamilton Brock Fuller >> On The Firing Line

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ON THE FIRING LINE

by Anna Chapin Ray and Hamilton Brock Fuller

CHAPTER ONE

Six feet one in his stockings, broad-shouldered and without an ounce
of extra flesh, Harvard Weldon suddenly halted before one of a line
of deck chairs.

"I usually get what I want, Miss Dent," he observed suggestively.

"You are more fortunate than most people." Her answering tone was dry.

Most men would have been baffled by her apparent indifference.
Not so was Weldon. Secure in the possession of a good tailor and
an equally good digestion, he was willing to await the leisurely
course of events.

"My doctor always advises mild exercise after lunch," he continued.

"You are in the care of a physician?" she queried, with a whimsical
glance up at his brown face and athletic figure.

"Not just now. I was once, however." She raised her brows in polite
interrogation. Her involuntary thawing of a moment before had given
place to absolute conventionality. Weldon smiled to himself, as he
noted the change. He had been at sea for three days now, and those
three days had been chiefly spent in trying to penetrate the social
shell of his next neighbor at table. It was not so much that Ethel
Dent was undeniably pretty as that he had been piqued by her frosty
reception of his efforts to supplement the services of a careless waiter.

Now, uninvited, he dropped into the empty chair next her own.

"If I may?" he said questioningly, as he raised his cap. "Yes, I
have had a doctor twice. Once was measles, once a collar bone broken
in football. Both times, I was urged to take a walk after luncheon.
Is Miss Arthur--?"

He hesitated for the right word. Still ignoring his obvious hint,
Ethel Dent supplied the word, without charity for her luckless
chaperon. "Horridly seasick." She pointed out to the level steely-
gray sea. "And on this duck-pond," she added.

Her accent was expressive. Weldon laughed.

"Perhaps she isn't as used to the duck-pond as you are."

The girl brushed a lock of vivid gold hair from her eyes; then she
sat up, to add emphasis to her words. "Miss Arthur has been to
America and back seven times and to Australia once," she said
conclusively.

"As globe-trotter, or as commercial traveller?"

"Neither. As professional chaperon. When she applied for me, she stated--"
The girl caught her breath and stopped short.

"Well?" he asked encouragingly. She shook her head. Again, for an
instant, Weldon could see the humanity beneath the veneering.
Moreover, he liked what he saw. The blue eyes were honest and
steady. One mocking dimple belied the gravity of the firm lips.

"What did she state?" he asked again.

"It's not manners to tell tales about one's companion," she demurred.

"Not if you spell it with a little c. With a capital, it becomes
professional, and you can say what you choose. Miss Arthur is
a righteous lady; nevertheless, she is a bit professional.
And you were saying that the lady stated--"

"That she never had been seasick in her life."

"Oh. And did she also produce certificates as to her moral
character? Or is fibbing merely bad form nowadays?"

With swift inconsequence, the girl shifted to the other side of the
discussion.

"Of course, this may be a first attack."

"Of course," Weldon assented gravely. But again she shifted her
ground. "Only," she continued, with her eyes thoughtfully fixed on
the distant, impersonal point where sea and sky met; "only it is a
little strange that, yesterday, I heard her tell the stewardess she
never took beeftea when she was seasick."

"Oh." Weldon's eyes joined hers on the sky-line. "I have heard of
similar cases before."

"She offered to come on deck," Ethel went on quietly. "It was
generous of her, for she knew I was left entirely alone.
Nevertheless, I persuaded her that she was better off in her berth."

Leaning back in the chair of the absent invalid, Weldon watched his
companion out of the corners of his eyes and rejoiced at the change
in her. Even while he rejoiced, he marvelled. A Canadian by birth
and education, he had rarely come in contact with English girls. At
first, he had been totally at a loss to account for the haughty
chill in the manner of this one. Grown accustomed to that, he was
still more at a loss to account for this sudden awakening into
humanity. He had as yet to learn that two days of having her only
companion seasick, coupled with a sparkling sun and a crisp breeze,
can rouse even a duenna-led English girl to the point of expressing
her opinions pithily and with vigor.

As the Dunottar Castle had slid away from Southampton, three days
before, Weldon had tramped briskly up and down the crowded deck,
taking mental note of his companions for the next two weeks. Among
the caped and capped throng leaning over the rail and staring after
the receding shore with homesick eyes, he saw little to interest
him. Neither did the shore interest him in the least. His own
partings had come, two weeks before, when the steam yacht had put
back from Sandy Hook. Now, accordingly, he went in search of the
dining-room steward to whom he gave much gold and instruction. Then
he betook himself to his stateroom where his mates were already busy
settling their belongings.

The luncheon hour disclosed the fact that the dining-room steward
had earned his money and had digested his instruction. A short pause
on the threshold informed Weldon that the Dunottar Castle held
exactly one pretty girl; the steward informed Weldon that the vacant
chair beside her was his own. Weldon picked up his napkin with a
brief prayer of thanksgiving. What if he was going out to Africa in
search of Boers and glory? There was no especial reason he should
not enjoy himself on the way.

Weldon had gained a wide experience of American girls. well-bred,
well-chaperoned, nevertheless they offered possible points of
contact to the strangers with whom they were thrown. To all seeming,
Ethel Dent was as accessible as the outer wall of an ice palace.
Beside her decorous ignoring of his existence, Miss Arthur, lean and
spectacled and sniffy, appeared to be of maternal kindliness, albeit
her only advances had been a muffled request for the salt. The next
morning, Miss Arthur's chair had been empty, and her charge, left to
herself, had been more glacially circumspect than ever. Whatever
skittish traits the pair might develop, Weldon felt assured that
they would be solely upon the side of Miss Ophelia Arthur.

Now, however, he was giving himself praise for his own astute
generalship. It was no slight matter, at the end of the third day,
to find himself sitting next to Miss Dent in the line of steamer
chairs and even bending over to pick up the novel she had dropped.
In his elation, Weldon neglected to give credit to Miss Arthur whose
digestive woes were the cause of the whole situation. Only the riper
Christianity which comes with declining years can make one wholly
loyal to a seasick comrade.

He gave himself yet more praise, next morning at sunrise, when he
found himself pacing the deck at Ethel Dent's side. As a rule, he
and his mates rose betimes and, clad in slippers and pajamas, raced
up and down the decks to keep their muscles in hard order, before
descending for the tubbing which is the matin duty of every self-
respecting British subject. This morning, instead of the deserted
decks and the pajama-clad athletes, the passengers were out early to
catch the first glimpse of Madeira, and Weldon, starchy and glowing
with much cold water, was on deck to catch the first glimpse of
Ethel.

Miss Arthur was still invisible, and the girl was discreetly late
about appearing. The deck was full, when at last she came in sight;
and it seemed, to her first glance, that she was the only unattended
person abroad, that morning. Her chin rose a little aggressively as
she moved forward. Then her eyes lighted. Cap in hand, Weldon stood
in her direct path.

"Good morning," he said. "We've just passed the lighthouse and are
nearly opposite Canical. If you come over here, you can see it."

His tone was matter-of-course, yet masterful. At the very beginning
of her fourth solitary day, Ethel admitted to herself that it was
good to have some one take possession of her in this summary
fashion.

"Is Miss Arthur still unhappy?" he asked, as he swung into step at
her side.

"Yes. She has taken to her hymnal, this morning, in search of
consolation. I tried to coax her to get up and go ashore; but she
said there was no use in experiencing the same woe twice."

"I am afraid I do not quite catch the lady's line of argument,"
Weldon remarked doubtfully.

The girl laughed. Then she decorously checked her laugh and
endeavored to turn sympathetic once more.

"She means to make one prolonged illness. Else she will only recover
in order to fall ill again." "Oh." Weldon's tone was still blank.
"And shall you go ashore?"

She shook her head.

"I am sorry. You would find any amount to see."

"I am sorry, too," she said frankly. "Still, I don't see how I can,
without Miss Arthur."

His hands in his pockets, Weldon took a dozen steps in doubtful
silence.

"I'll tell you what we can do, Miss Dent: Harry Carew, one of the
fellows going out with me, had a note of introduction to Colonel
Scott and his wife. He is the pompous old Englishman across the
table. I'll get Carew to introduce us, and perhaps they will let us
go ashore with them."

"But are they going?" she asked irresolutely.

"Surely. We have three hours here. I know Carew's mother well; she
and Mrs. Scott were schoolmates at Madame Prather's in London."

She looked up with sudden interest.

"Madame Prather's? That is where I have been, for the past five
years."

"Then we are all right," Weldon said coolly. "The arrangement is
made. Carew is the only missing link. Excuse me, and I will go in
search of him."

It was high noon when the Dunottar Castle finally weighed anchor at
Funchal and started on her long, unbroken voyage to the southward.
Side by side in the stern, Weldon and Ethel looked back at the blue
harbor dotted with the myriad little boats, at the quaint town
backed with its amphitheatre of sunlit hills and, poised on the
summit, the church where Nossa Senhora do Monte keeps watch and ward
over the town beneath. Ethel's experience was the broader for her
hilarious ride in a bullock-drawn palanquin. Weldon's experience was
more instructive. It taught him that, her hat awry and her yellow
hair loosened about her laughing face, Ethel Dent was tenfold more
attractive than when she made her usual decorous entrance to the
dining-room.

Mrs. Scott had been a willing chaperon and an efficient one.
Nevertheless, as they stood together in the stern, looking out
across the gold-flecked sea, Weldon felt that he had made a long
stride, that morning, towards acquaintance with his companion. And,
even now, the voyage was nearly all before them.

As if in answer to his thoughts, she lifted her eyes to his face.

"Twelve more days!" she said slowly.

"Are you sorry?"

She shook her head.

"Glad and sorry both. I love the sea; but home is at the end of it."

"You live out there?" he asked.

She smiled at the question. "Yes, if out there means Cape Town. At
least, my parents live there."

"How long have you been in England?" he queried, while, abandoning
all pretence of interest in the fast-vanishing town, he turned his
back to the rail in order to face his companion more directly.

"Always, except for one year, six years ago, and a summer--summer in
England, I mean--two years later."

Rather inconsequently, Weldon attacked the side issue suggested by
her words.

"How does it seem to have one's seasons standing on their heads?"

She answered question with question. "Haven't you been out before?"

"No."

"I supposed you had taken the voyage any number of times. But about
the seasons, it doesn't count for much until you come to Christmas.
No England-born mortal can hang up his stocking in mid-summer
without a pang of regretful homesickness."

Weldon laughed.

"Do you substitute a refrigerator for a chimney corner?" he asked.
"But are you England-born?"

"Yes. My father went out only seven years ago. The 'home' tradition
is so strong that I was sent back to school and for a year of social
life. My little brother goes to Harrow in two years. Even in Cape
Town, a few people still hold true to the tradition of the public
school."

Weldon nodded assent.

"We meet it in Canada, now and then; not too often, though. So in
reality you are almost as much a stranger to Cape Town as I am."

"Quite. My father says it is all changed now. It used to be a lazy
little place; now it is pandemonium, soldiers and supplies going
out, time-expired men and invalids coming in. Mr. Weldon--"

His questioning smile answered the pause in her sentence.

"Well?" he asked, after a prolonged interval.

Her teeth shut on her lower lip, she stared at the wide blue sea
with wide blue eyes. Something in its restless tossing, in the
changing lights that darted back to her from the crests of the
waves, seemed to be holding her in an hypnotic trance. Out of the
midst of the trance she spoke again, and it was plain to Weldon, as
he listened to her low, intent voice, that her thoughts were not
upon the sea nor yet upon him.

"It ought to terrify me," she said. "I mean the war, of course. I
ought to dread the going out into the atmosphere of it. I don't.
Sometimes I think I must have fighting blood in my veins. Instead of
being frightened at what my father writes me, I feel stirred by it
all, as if I were ready for anything. I went out to Aldershot, one
day last year; but that was only so many dainty frills, so much
playing soldier. That's not what I mean at all." Turning suddenly,
she looked up directly into Weldon's dark gray eyes. "One of my
cousins wants to be a nurse. She lives at Piquetberg Road, but she
has been visiting friends who live in Natal on the edge of the
fighting, where she has seen things as they happen. In her last
letter, she told me that she was only waiting for my uncle's
permission to go out as a nurse."

"Is that what you would do?"

Her head lifted itself proudly.

"No. She can take care of the wounded men, if she chooses. For my
part, I'd rather cheer on the men who are starting for the front. If
I could know that one man, one single man, fought the better for
having known me, I should feel as if I had done my share."

She spoke with fiery vigor; then her eyes dropped again to the
dancing waves. When at length she spoke again, she was once more the
level-voiced English girl who sat next him at the table.

"You are going out to Cape Town to stay, Mr. Weldon?" she asked,
with an accent so utterly conventional that Weldon almost doubted
his own ears.

"To stay until the war ends," he replied, in an accent as
conventional as her own.

"In Cape Town?" Then she felt her eyes drawn to meet his eyes, as he
answered quietly,--

"I shall do my best to make myself a place in the firing line."

Again her conventionality vanished, and she gave him her hand, as if
to seal a compact.

"I hope you will win it and hold it," she responded slowly. "I can
wish you nothing better."

CHAPTER TWO

A berugged, bedraggled bundle of apologies, Miss Ophelia Arthur lay
prone in her steamer chair, her cheeks pale, her eyes closed. Her
conscience, directed towards the interests of her charge, demanded
her presence on deck. Once on deck and apparently on guard, Miss
Arthur limply subsided into a species of coma. Her charge,
meanwhile, rosy and alert, sat in the lee of a friendly ventilating
shaft. Beside her, also in the lee of the ventilating shaft, sat Mr.
Harvard Weldon.

The past week had been full of the petty events which make up life
on shipboard. The trail of smoke from a passing steamer, the first
shoal of flying fish, the inevitable dance, the equally inevitable
concert and, most inevitable of all, the Sabbatic contest between
the captain and the fresh-water clergyman who insists upon reading
service: all these are old details, yet ever new. Throughout them
all, Weldon had sturdily maintained his place at Ethel's side. By
tacit consent, the girl had been transferred to the motherly care of
Mrs. Scott who, after a keen inspection of Weldon, had decided that
it was safe to take upon trust this clean-eyed, long-legged Canadian
who was so obviously well-born and well-bred.

Now and then Carew joined the group; but the handsome, dashing young
fellow had no mind to play the part of second violin. He would be
concertmaster or nothing. Accordingly, he withdrew to the rival
corner where a swarthy little French girl maintained her court
without help from any apparent chaperonage whatsoever. Left in
possession of the field, Weldon made the most of his chances. The
acknowledged attendant of Ethel, his jovial ministrations overflowed
to Mrs. Scott, until the sedate colonel's wife admitted to herself
that no such pleasant voyage had fallen to her lot since the days
when she had started for India on her wedding journey. Weldon had
the consummate tact to keep the taint of the filial from his
chivalry. His attentions to Mrs. Scott and Ethel differed in degree,
but not in kind, and Mrs. Scott adored him accordingly. One by one,
the languid days dropped into the past. Neptune had duly escorted
them over the Line, to the boredom of the first-class passengers and
the strident mirth of the rest of the ship's colony. Winter was
already behind them, and the late December days took on more and
more of the guise of summer, as the log marked their passing to the
southward. To many on board, the idle passage was a winter holiday;
but to Weldon and Carew and a dozen more stalwart fellows, those
quiet days were the hush before the breaking of the storm. Home,
school, the university were behind them; before them lay the crash
of war. And afterwards? Glory, or death. Their healthy, boyish
optimism could see no third alternative.

For ten long days, Miss Ophelia Arthur lay prone in her berth. Her
hymnal and her Imitation lay beside her; but she read less than she
pondered, and she invariably pondered with her eyes closed and her
mouth ajar. On the eleventh day, however, she gathered herself
together and went on deck. With anxious care Weldon tucked the rugs
about her elderly frame. Then he exchanged a glance with Ethel and
together they sought the shelter of the ventilating shaft.

Nothing shows the temperature more surely than the tint of the gray
sea. It was a warm gray, that morning, and the bowl-like sky above
was gray from the horizon far towards the blue zenith. From the
other end of the ship, they could hear the plaudits that accompanied
an impromptu athletic tournament; but the inhabitants of the nearest
chairs were reading or dozing, and the deck about them was very
still. Only the throbbing of the mighty screw and the hiss of the
cleft waves broke the hush.

Out of the hush, Ethel spoke abruptly.

"Do you know, Mr. Weldon, you have never told me what brings you out
here."

He had been sitting, chin on his fists, staring out across the gray,
foam-flecked water. Now he looked up at her in surprise.

"I thought you knew. The war, of course."

"Yes; but where are you going?"

"To somewhere on the firing line. Beyond that I've not the least
idea."

"Where is your regiment now?"

"I haven't any."

She frowned in perplexity.

"I think I don't quite understand."

"I mean I haven't enlisted yet."

"But your commission?" she urged.

"I have no commission, Miss Dent."

"Not--any commission!" she said blankly.

In site of himself, he laughed at her tone.

"Certainly not. I am going as a soldier."

She sat staring at him in thoughtful silence.

"But you are a gentleman," she said slowly at length.

Weldon's mouth twitched at the corners.

"I hope so," he assented.

"Then how can you go as soldier, for I suppose you mean private?"

Dictated by generations-old tradition, the question was eloquent.
Weldon's one purpose, however, was to combat that tradition; and he
answered calmly,--

"Why not?"

"Because--because it isn't neat," she responded unexpectedly.

This time, Weldon laughed outright. Trained in the wider, more open-
air school of Canadian life, he found her insular point of view
distinctly comic.

"I have a portable tub somewhere among my luggage," he reassured
her.

She shook her head.

"No; that's not what I mean. But you won't be thrown with men of
your own class. The private is a distinct race; you'll find him
unbearable, when you are really in close quarters with him."

Deliberately Weldon rose and stood looking down at her. His lips
were smiling; his eyes were direct and grave. His mother could have
told the girl, just then, that some one had touched him on the raw.

"Miss Dent," he asked slowly; "is this the way you cheer on the
men?"

She flushed under his rebuke and, for a moment, her blue eyes showed
an angry light.

"I beg your pardon. I was referring to the men whom I am likely to
know."

"And omitting myself?" he inquired.

"You are the exception which proves the rule," she answered a little
shortly. "Of course, I wish you all good; but I don't see how it is
to be gained, if you bury yourself in the ranks."

"It may depend a little upon what you mean by good," he returned,
with a dignity which, notwithstanding her momentary petulance, won
her full respect. "I am not going out in search of the path to a
generalship. Fighting isn't my real profession."

"Then what are you going for?" she demanded sharply. With no
consciousness of dramatic effect, his eyes turned to the Union Jack
fluttering above them.

"Because I couldn't stay away," he answered simply. "From
Magersfontein to Nooitdedacht, the pull on me has been growing
stronger. I am not needed at home; I can shoot a little and ride a
good deal. I am taking out my own horse; I shall draw no pay. I can
do no harm; and, somewhere or other, I may do a little good. For the
rest, I prefer the ranks. It's not always the broadest man who lives
entirely with his own class. For a while, I am willing to meet some
one outside. As soon as I get to Cape Town, I shall enlist in a
regiment of horse, put on the khaki and learn to wind myself up in
my putties. Then it will remain to be seen whether my old friends
will accept Trooper Weldon on their list of acquaintances."

"One of them will," the girl said quickly. "If only for the sake of
novelty, I shall be glad to know a man in the ranks."

He shook his head.

"No novelty, Miss Dent. I know any number of fellows who are doing
the same thing. We can't all be officers; a few of us must take
orders. Out in the hunting field, we say it is the thoroughbred dog
who answers to call most quickly."

She ignored his last words.

"And you don't even know where you are going?" she asked. "To Cape
Town."

"But after that?"

"To my banker. After that, to the nearest recruiting station."

"So you'll not stop in Cape Town?"

Weldon's quick ear caught the little note of regret in her voice.

"Not long. Long enough, however, to pull any latch-string that
offers itself to me."

Her eyes dropped to the shining sea.

"My mother will offer ours to you," she said quietly. Then she
added, with a swift flash of merriment, "And you will wish to see
Miss Arthur again."

Weldon cast a mocking glance over his shoulder at the recumbent,
open-mouthed form.

"Is the lady going to stop long with you?" he queried.

"Long enough to recover from her invalidism."

"To judge from her greeny-yellow cast of countenance, that may take
some time. But tell me, Miss Dent, does she always sleep out loud
like this?"

"Not always. It usually comes when she is taking what she calls
forty winks."

"Then may a merciful heaven prevent her from taking eighty," Weldon
observed piously. "Still, the sleeping cat--"

"Fox," she corrected him promptly.

"Fox be it, then. Miss Arthur seems to me to be feline, rather than
vulpine, though." Bending forward, the girl studied her chaperon
thoughtfully.

"She really isn't so bad, Mr. Weldon. She means well. It is only
that I don't like tight frizzles and a hymn-book in combination.
People should always have one point of absolute worldliness."

"Aren't fizzles--that is what you called the thatch over her
eyebrows; isn't it?--aren't they worldly?"

Ethel Dent laughed with the consciousness of a woman's superior
knowledge.

"It depends upon the season," she replied enigmatically, as she
rose.

It was five days later that Ethel closed and locked her steamer
trunk. Leaving Miss Arthur to grapple alone with the cabin bags, the
girl went out on deck. Regardless of the glaring sunshine of New
Year morning, groups of people were dotted along the rail, staring
up at the flat top and seamy face of cloud-capped Table Mountain. In
the very midst of a knot of eager, excited men, Weldon was leaning
on the rail, talking so earnestly to Carew that he was quite
unconscious of the girl, twenty paces behind him. She hesitated for
a moment. Then, as she walked away to the farther end of the deck,
she told herself that Weldon was like all other men, regardful of
women only when no more vital interest presented itself. Already she
regretted the girlish vanity which had dictated the choice of the
gown in which she was to go ashore. For all the young Canadian was
likely to know to the contrary, she might be clad in a calico
wrapper and a blanket shawl, rather than the masterpiece of a London
tailor.

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