Simon Called Peter by Robert Keable

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"'No,' said the second; 'down in Alsace-Lorraine, I believe. She was
burnt here, and they threw her ashes into the Grand Pont.'"

Peter laughed silently, and the other smiled at him. "Fact," he said.
"That's one type of ass, and the second is (dropping his voice) your
friend here and his like, if you don't mind my saying so. Look at him
with that girl now. Somebody'll spot it, and they'll keep an eye on him.
Next time he meets her on the sly he'll be caught out, and be up for it.
Damned silly fool, I think! The bally girl's only a waitress from Lyons."

Peter glanced at Mackay. He was leaning back holding the menu, which she,
with covert glances at the cashier's desk, was trying to take away from
him. "Isobel," he said, "I say, come here--no, I really want to see
it--tell me, when do you get out next?"

"We don't get no leave worth talking of, you know," she said. "Besides,
you don't mean it. You can't talk to me outside. Oh, shut up! I must go.
They'll see us," and she darted away.

"Damned pretty girl, eh?" said Mackay contentedly. "Don't mind me, padre.
It's only a bit of a joke. Come on, let's clear out."

The four went down the stairs together and stood in a little group at
the entrance-door. "Where you for now, Mac?" asked the second officer,
a subaltern of the West Hampshires.

"Don't know, old sport. I'm with the padre. What you for, padre?"

"I should think we had better be getting back," said Peter, glancing at
the watch on his wrist. "We've a long way to go."

"Oh, hang it all, not yet! It's a topping evenin'. Let's stroll up the
street."

Peter glanced at the Labour Corps Captain, who nodded, and they two
turned off together. "There's not much to do," he said. "One gets sick of
cinemas, and the music-hall is worse, except when one is really warmed up
for a razzle-dazzle. I don't wonder these chaps go after wine and women
more than they ought. After all, most of them are just loose from home.
You must make allowances, padre. It's human nature, you know."

Peter nodded abstractedly. It was the second time he had heard that.
"It's all so jolly different from what I expected," he said meditatively.

"I know," said the other. "Not much danger or poverty or suffering here,
seemingly. But you never can tell. Look at those girls: I bet you would
probably sum them up altogether wrongly if you tried."

Peter glanced at a couple of French women who were passing. The pair were
looking at them, and in the light of a brilliantly lit cinema they showed
up clearly. The paint was laid on shamelessly; their costumes, made in
one piece, were edged with fur and very gay. Each carried a handbag and
one a tasselled stick. "Good-night, cherie," said one, as they passed.

Peter gave a little shudder. "How ghastly!" he said. "How can anyone
speak to them? Are there many like that about?" He glanced back again:
"Why, good heavens," he cried, "one's Marie!"

"Hullo, padre," said his friend, the ghost of a smile beginning about his
lips. "Where have you been? Marie! By Jove! I shall have to report you to
the A.C.G."

Peter blushed furiously. "It was at an inn," he said, "this morning, as
we were coming back from the forest. But she seemed so much better then,
Mackay knew her; why, I heard him say...."

He glanced back at the sudden recollection. The two girls were speaking
to the two others, twenty paces or so behind. "Oh," he exclaimed, "look
here!..."

The tall Labour man slipped his arm in his and interrupted. "Come on,
padre," he said; "you can't do anything. Mackay's had a bit too much as
it is, and the other chap is looking for a night out. We'll stroll past
the cathedral, and I'll see you a bit of the way home."

"But how damnable, how beastly!" exclaimed Peter. "It makes one
sick!..." He broke off, and the two walked on in silence.

"Is there much of that?" Peter demanded suddenly.

The other glanced at him. "You'll find out without my telling you," he
said; "but don't be too vehement till you've got your eyes open. There
are worse things."

"There can't be," broke in Peter. "Women like that, and men who will go
with them, aren't fit to be called men and women. There's no excuse. It's
bestial, that's what it is."

"You wouldn't speak to one?" queried the other.

"Good heavens, no! Do you forget what I am?"

"No, I don't, padre, but look here, I'm not a Christian, and I take a
common-sense view of these things, but I'm bound to say I think you're on
the wrong tack, too. Didn't Christ have compassion on people like that?
Didn't He eat and drink with publicans and sinners?"

"Yes, to convert them. You can't name the two things in the same breath.
He had compassion on the multitude of hungry women and children and
misguided men, but He hated sin. You can't deny that." Peter recalled his
sermon; he was rather indignant, unreasonably, that the suggestion should
have been made.

"So?" said the other laconically. "Well, you know more about it than
I do, I suppose. Come on; we go down here."

They parted at the corner by the river again, and Peter set out for his
long walk home alone. It was a lovely evening of stars, cool, but not too
cold, and at first the streets were full of people. He kept to the curb
or walked in the road till he was out of the town, taking salutes
automatically, his thoughts far away. The little _cafes debits_ were
crowded, largely by Tommies. He was not accosted again, for he walked
fast, but he saw enough as he went.

More than an hour later he swung into camp, and went to his room, lit a
candle, and shut the door. Tunic off, he sat on the edge of the camp-bed
and stared at the light. He seemed to have lived a year in a day, and he
felt unclean. He thought of Hilda, and then actually smiled, for Hilda
and this life seemed so incredibly far apart. He could not conceive of
her even knowing of its existence. Yet, he supposed, she knew, as he had
done, that such things were. He had even preached about them.... It
suddenly struck him that he had talked rot in the pulpit, talked of
things of which he knew nothing. Yet, of course, his attitude had been
right.

He wondered if he should speak to Mackay, and, so wondering, fell forward
on his knees.

CHAPTER IV

Hilda's religion was, like the religion of a great many Englishwomen of
her class, of a very curious sort. She never, of course, analysed it
herself, and conceivably she would object very strongly to the
description set down here, but in practical fact there is no doubt about
the analysis. To begin with, this conventional and charming young lady of
Park Lane had in common with Napoleon Bonaparte that Christianity meant
more to them both as the secret of social order than as the mystery of
the Incarnation. Hilda was convinced that a decent and orderly life
rested on certain agreements and conclusions in respect to marriage and
class and conduct, and that these agreements and conclusions were
admirably stated in the Book of Common Prayer, and most ably and
decorously advocated from the pulpit of St. John's. She would have said
that she believed the agreements and conclusions because of the Prayer
Book, but in fact she had primarily given in her allegiance to a social
system, and supported the Prayer Book because of its support of that.
Once a month she repeated the Nicene Creed, but only because, in the
nature of things, the Nicene Creed was given her once a month to repeat,
and she never really conceived that people might worry strenuously about
it, any more than she did. Being an intelligent girl, she knew, of
course, that people did, and occasionally preachers occupied the pulpit
of St. John's who were apparently quite anxious that she and the rest
of the congregation should understand that it meant this and not that,
or that and not this, according to the particular enthusiasm of the
clergyman of the moment. Sentence by sentence she more or less understood
what these gentlemen keenly urged upon her; as a whole she understood
nothing. She was far too much the child of her environment and age not
to perceive that Mr. Lloyd George's experiments in class legislation were
vastly more important.

Peter, therefore, had always been a bit of an enigma to her. As a rule
he fitted in with the scheme of things perfectly well, for he was a
gentleman, he liked nice things, and he was splendidly keen on charity
organisation and the reform of abuses on right lines. But now and again
he said and did things which perturbed her. It was as if she had
gradually become complete mistress of a house, and then had suddenly
discovered a new room into which she peeped for a minute before it was
lost to her again and the door shut. It was no Bluebeard's chamber into
which she looked; it was much more that she had a suspicion that the room
contained a live mistress who might come out one day and dispute her own
title. She could tell how Peter would act nine times out of ten; she knew
by instinct, a great deal better than he did, the conceptions that ruled
his life; but now and again he would hesitate perplexedly as if at the
thought of something that she did not understand, or act suddenly in
response to an overwhelming flood of impulse whose spring was beyond her
control or even her surmise. Women mother all their men because men are
on the whole such big babies, but from a generation of babies is born
occasionally the master. Women get so used to the rule that they forget
the exception. When he comes, then, they are troubled.

But this was not all Hilda's religion. For some mysterious reason this
product of a highly civilised community had the elemental in her. Men and
women both have got to eliminate all trace of sex before they can
altogether escape that. In other words, because in her lay latent the
power of birth, in which moment she would be cloistered alone in a dark
and silent room with infinity, she clung unreasonably and all but
unconsciously to certain superstitions which she shared with primitive
savages and fetish-worshippers. All of which seems a far cry from the War
Intercession Services at wealthy and fashionable St. John's, but it was
nothing more or less than this which was causing her to kneel on a high
hassock, elbows comfortably on the prayer-rail, and her face in her
hands, on a certain Friday evening in the week after Peter's arrival in
France, while the senior curate (after suitable pauses, during which her
mind was uncontrollably busy with an infinite number of things, ranging
from the doings of Peter in France to the increasing difficulty of
obtaining silk stockings), intoned the excellent stately English of
the Prayers set forth by Authority in Time of War.

Two pews ahead of her knelt Sir Robert Doyle, in uniform. That simple
soldier was a bigger child than most men, and was, therefore, still
conscious of a number of unfathomable things about him, for the which
Hilda, his godchild, adored and loved him as a mother will adore her
child who sits in a field of buttercups and sees, not minted, nor
botanical, but heavenly gold. He was all the more lovable, because he
conceived that he was much bigger and stronger than she, and perfectly
capable of looking after her. In that, he was like a plucky boy who gets
up from his buttercups to tell his mother not to be frightened when a cow
comes into the field.

They went out together, and greeted each other in the porch.
"Good-evening, child," said the soldier, with a smile. "And how's Peter?"

Hilda smiled back, but after a rather wintry fashion, which the man was
quick to note. "I couldn't have told you fresh news yesterday," she said,
"but I had a letter this morning all about his first Sunday. He's at
Rouen at a rest camp for the present, though he thinks he's likely to be
moved almost at once; and he's quite well."

"And then?" queried the other affectionately.

"Oh, he doesn't know at all, but he says he doesn't think there's any
chance of his getting up the line. He'll be sent to another part where
there is likely to be a shortage of chaplains soon."

"Well, that's all right, isn't it? He's in no danger at Rouen, at any
rate. If we go on as we're going on now, they won't even hear the guns
down there soon. Come, little girl, what's worrying you? I can see
there's something."

They were in the street now, walking towards the park, and Hilda did not
immediately reply. Then she said: "What are you going to do? Can't you
come in for a little? Father and mother will be out till late, and you
can keep me company."

He glanced at his watch. "I've got to be at the War Office later," he
said, "but my man doesn't reach town till after ten, so I will. The
club's not over-attractive these days. What with the men who think one
knows everything and won't tell, and the men who think they know
everything and want to tell, it's a bit trying."

Hilda laughed merrily. "Poor Uncle Bob," she said, giving him her
childhood's name that had never been discontinued between them. "You
shall come home with me, and sit in father's chair, and have a still
decent whisky and a cigar, and if you're very good I'll read you part
of Peter's letter."

"What would Peter say?"

"Oh, he wouldn't mind the bits I'll read to you. Indeed, I think he'd
like it: he'd like to know what you think. You see, he's awfully
depressed; he feels he's not wanted out there, and--though I don't know
what he means--that things, religious things, you know, aren't real."

"Not wanted, eh?" queried the old soldier. "Now, I wonder why he resents
that. Is it because he feels snubbed? I shouldn't be surprised if he had
a bit of a swelled head, your young man, you know, Hilda."

"Sir Robert Doyle, if you're going to be beastly, you can go to your
horrid old club, and I only hope you'll be worried to death. Of course
it isn't that. Besides, he says everyone is very friendly and welcomes
him--only he feels that that makes it worse. He thinks they don't
want--well, what he has to give, I suppose."

"What he has to give? But what in the world has he to give? He has to
take parade services, and visit hospitals and" (he was just going to say
"bury the dead," but thought it hardly sounded pleasant), "make himself
generally decent and useful, I suppose. That's what chaplains did when I
was a subaltern, and jolly decent fellows they usually were."

"Well, I know. That's what I should feel, and that's what I don't quite
understand. I suppose he feels he's responsible for making the men
religious--it reads like that. But you shall hear the letter yourself."

Doyle digested this for a while in silence. Then he gave a sort of snort,
which is inimitable, but always accompanied his outbursts against things
slightly more recent than the sixties. It had the effect of rousing
Hilda, at any rate.

"Don't, you dear old thing," she said, clutching his arm. "I know
exactly what you're going to say. Young men of your day minded their
business and did their duty, and didn't theorise so much. Very likely.
But, you see, our young men had the misfortune to be born a little later
than you. And they can't help it." She sighed a little. "It _is_ trying
sometimes.... But they're all right really, and they'll come back to
things."

They were at the gate by now. Sir Robert stood aside to let her pass. "I
know, dear," he said, "I'm an old fogey. Besides, young Graham has good
stuff in him--I always said so. But if he's on the tack of trying to
stick his fingers into people's souls, he's made a mistake in going to
France. I know Tommy--or I did know him. (The Lord alone knows what's in
the Army these days.) He doesn't want that sort of thing. He swears and
he grouses and he drinks, but he respects God Almighty more than you'd
think, and he serves his Queen--I mean his King. A parade service is a
parade, and it's a bore at times, but it's discipline, and it helps in
the end. Like that little 'do' to-night, it helps. One comes away feelin'
one can stand a bit more for the sake of the decent, clean things of
life."

Hilda regarded the fine, straight old man for a second as they stood, on
the top of the steps. Then her eyes grew a little misty. "God bless you,
Uncle Bob," she said. "You _do_ understand." And the two went in
together.

Hilda opened the door of the study. "I'm going to make you comfortable
myself," she said. She pulled a big armchair round; placed a reading-lamp
on a small table and drew it close; and she made the old soldier sit in
the chair. Then she unlocked a little cupboard, and got out a decanter
and siphon and glass, and a box of cigars. She placed these by his side,
and stood back quizzically a second. Then she threw a big leather cushion
at his feet and walked to the switches, turning off the main light and
leaving only the shaded radiance of the reading-lamp. She turned the
shade of it so that the light would fall on the letter while she sat
on the cushion, and then she bent down, kissed her godfather, and went
to the door. "I won't be a moment, Uncle Bob," she said. "Help yourself,
and get comfortable."

Five minutes later the door opened and she came in. As she moved into
the circle of light, the man felt an absurd satisfaction, as if he were
partly responsible for the dignified figure with its beautifully waved
soft, fair hair, of which he was so proud. She smiled on him, and sat
down at his feet, leaning back against his chair and placing her left
elbow on his knees. He laid a caressing hand on her arm, and then looked
steadily in front of him lest he should see more than she wished.

Hilda rustled the sheets. "The first is all about me," she explained,
"and I'll skip that. Let me see--yes, here we are. Now listen. It's
rather long, but you mustn't say anything till I've finished."

"'Saturday' (Peter's letter ran) I gave up to getting ready for Sunday,
though Harold' (he's the O.C. of the camp, Peter says, a jolly decent
sort of man) 'wanted me to go up town with him. I had had a talk with him
about the services, and had fixed up to have a celebration in the morning
in the Y.M.C.A. in camp--they have a quiet room, and there is a table in
it that one puts against the wall and uses for an altar--and an evening
service in the canteen-hall part of the place. I couldn't have a morning
service, as I was to go out to the forest camp, as I have told you.' He
said in his first letter how he had been motored out to see a camp in the
forest where they are cutting wood for something, and he had fixed up a
parade," said Hilda, looking up. Doyle nodded gravely, and she went on
reading: "'Harold said he'd like to take Communion, and that I could put
up a notice in the anteroom of the Officers' Mess.

"'Well, I spent the morning preparing sermons. I thought I'd preach from
"The axe is laid to the root of the tree" in the forest, and make a sort
of little parable out of it for the men. I planned to say how Christ was
really watching and testing each one of us, especially out here, and to
begin by talking a bit about Germany, and how the axe was being laid to
that tree because it wouldn't bear good fruit. I couldn't get much for
the evening, so I thought I'd leave it, and perhaps say much the same as
the morning, only differently introduced. I went and saw the hut manager,
a very decent fellow who is a Baptist minister at home, and he said he'd
like to come in the morning. Well, I didn't know what to say to that; I
hated to hurt him, and, of course, he has no Baptist chapel out here; but
I didn't know what the regulations might be, and excused myself on those
grounds.

"'Then in the afternoon I went round the camp. Oh, Hilda, I was fearfully
nervous--I don't know why exactly, but I was. The men were playing "crown
and anchor," and sleeping, and cleaning kit (this is a rest camp you
know), and it seemed so cold-blooded somehow. I told them anyone could
come in the evening if he wanted to, but that in the morning the service
was for Church of England communicants. I must say I was very bucked up
over the result. I had no end of promises, and those who were going to be
out in the evening said so straight out. Quite thirty said they'd come in
the morning, and they were very respectful and decent. Then I wrote out
and put up my notices. The mess ragged a bit about it, but quite decently
("Here's the padre actually going to do a bit of work!" and the usual
"I shall be a chaplain in the next war!"); and I mentioned to one or two
whom I knew to be Church of England that Captain Harold had said he would
come to the early service. Someone had told me that if the O.C. of a camp
comes, the others often will. After dinner we settled down to bridge,
and about ten-thirty I was just going off to bed when Harold came in with
two or three other men. Well, I hate to tell you, dear, but I promised
I'd write, and, besides, I do want to talk to somebody. Anyway, he was
what they call "merry," and he and his friends were full of talk about
what they'd done up town. I don't know that it was anything very bad, but
it was awful to me to think that this chap was going to communicate next
day. I didn't know what to do, but I couldn't say anything then, and I
slipped off to bed as soon as I could. They made a huge row in the
anteroom for some time, but at last I got to sleep.

"'Next morning I was up early, and got things fixed up nicely. At eight
o'clock _one man_ came rather sheepishly--a young chap I'd seen the day
before--and I waited for some five minutes more. Then I began. About the
Creed, Harold came in, and so we finished the service. Neither of them
seemed to know the responses at all, and I don't think I have ever felt
more miserable. However, I had done all I could do, and I let it go at
that. I comforted myself that I would get on better in the forest, where
I thought there was to be a parade.

"'We got out about eleven o'clock, and I went to the O.C.'s hut. He
was sitting in a deck chair reading a novel. He jumped up when he saw
me, and was full of apologies. He'd absolutely forgotten I was coming,
and so no notice had been given, and, anyway, apparently it isn't the
custom in these camps to have ordered parade services. He sent for the
Sergeant-Major, who said the men were mostly cleaning camp, but he
thought he could get some together. So I sat and talked for about twenty
minutes, and then went over. The canteen had been opened, and there were
about twenty men there. They all looked as if they had been forced in,
except one, who turned out to be a Wesleyan, and chose the hymns out of
the Y.M.C.A. books in the place. They had mission hymns, and the only one
that went well was "Throw out the life-line," which is really a rather
ghastly thing. We had short Matins, and I preached as I had arranged. The
men sat stiffly and looked at me. I don't know why, but I couldn't work
up any enthusiasm and it all seemed futile. Afterwards I tried to talk to
this Wesleyan corporal. He was great on forming a choir to learn hymns,
and then I said straight out that I was new to this sort of work, and I
hoped what I had said was all right. He said: "Yes, sir, very nice, I'm
sure; but, if you'll excuse me, what the men need is converting."

"'Said I: "What exactly do you mean by that, corporal?"

"'"Well, sir," he said "they want to be led to put their trust in the
Lord and get right with God. There's many a rough lad in this camp, sir.
If you knew what went on, you'd see it."

"I said that I had told them God was watching them, and that we had to
ask His daily help to live clean, honest lives, and truly repent of our
sins.

"'"Yes, you did, sir," he said. "That's what I say, sir, it was very
nice; only somehow these chaps have heard that before. It don't grip,
sir. Now, we had a preacher in our chapel once...." And he went on to
tell me of some revival mission.

"'Well, I went back to the O.C. He wanted me to have a drink, and I did,
for, to tell you the truth, I felt like it. Then I got back to camp.

"'In the afternoon I went round the lines again. Hilda, I _wish_ I could
tell you what I felt. Everyone was decent enough, but the men would get
up and salute as I came up, and by the very sound of their voices you
could tell how their talk changed as soon as they saw me. Mind you, they
were much more friendly than men at home, but I felt all the time out of
touch. They didn't want me, and somehow Christ and the Gospel seemed a
long way off. However, we had the evening service. The hut was fairly
full, which pleased me, and I preached a much more "Gospel" address than
in the morning. Some officers came, and then afterwards two or three of
us went out for a stroll and a talk.

"'Among these officers was a tall chap I had met at the club, named
Langton. He had come down to see somebody in our mess, and had come on to
service. He is an extraordinarily nice person, different from most, a man
who thinks a lot and controls himself. He did most of the talking, and
began as we strolled up the hill.

"'"Padre," he said, "how _does_ Christ save us?"

"'I said He had died to obtain our forgiveness from God, and that, if we
trusted in Him, He would forgive and help us to live nobler and manlier
lives. (Of course, I said much more, but I see plainly that that is what
it all comes to.)

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