You've forgotten to cock your head to the side. Not so bad. That's you. Like it?'
'It's rather nice, Dick. Dick, you and me by the fire!'
'Yes, but sit still. How often we might have been like this, father, and weren't.'
'Ah!'
'Face. How is Fido?'
'Never a dog missed her master more.'
'Oh,' frowning. 'She doesn't want to go and sit on my grave, or any of that tosh, does she? As if I were there!'
'No, no,' hastily; 'she goes ratting, Dick.'
'Good old Fido!'
'Dick, here's a good one. We oughtn't to keep a dog at all because we are on rations now; but what do you think Fido ate yesterday?'
'Let me guess. The joint?'
'Almost worse than that. She ate all the cook's meat tickets.'
They laugh, together, but when Dick says light-heartedly, 'That dog will be the death of me.' his father shivers. Dick does not notice this; his eyes have drawn him to the fishing-rods.
'Hullo!'
'Yes, those are your old fishing-rods.'
'Here's the little hickory! Do you remember, father, how I got the seven-pounder on a burn-trout cast? No, you weren't there. That was a day. It was really only six and three-quarters. I put a stone in its mouth the second time we weighed it!'
'You loved fishing, Dick.'
'Didn't I? Why weren't you oftener with me? I'll tell you a funny thing, When I went a soldiering I used to pray--just standing up, you know--that I shouldn't lose my right arm, because it would be so awkward for casting.' He cogitates as he returns to the ingle-nook. 'Somehow I never thought I should be killed. Lots of fellows thought that about themselves, but I never did. It was quite a surprise to me.'
'Oh, Dick!'
'What's the matter? Oh, I forgot. Face!' He is apparently looking down at his father wonderingly. Haven't you got over it yet, father? I got over it so long ago. I wish you people would understand what a little thing it is.'
'Tell me,' very humbly; 'tell me, Dick.'
'All right.' He is in the chair again.
'Mind, I can't tell you where I was killed; it's against the regulations.'
'I know where.'
Curiously, 'You got a wire, I suppose?'
'Yes.'
'There's always a wire for officers, even for 2nd Lieutenants. It's jolly decent of them.'
'Tell me, Dick, about the--the veil. I mean the veil that is drawn between the living and the----.'
'The dead? Funny how you jib at that word.'
'I suppose the veil is like a mist?'
'The veil's a rummy thing, father. Yes, like a mist. But when one has been at the Front for a bit, you can't think how thin the veil seems to get; just one layer of it. I suppose it seems thin to you out there because one step takes you through it. We sometimes mix up those who have gone through with those who haven't. I daresay if I were to go back to my old battalion the living chaps would just nod to me.'
'Dick!'
'Where's that pipe? Death? Well, to me, before my day came, it was like some part of the line I had heard a lot about but never been in. I mean, never been in to stay, because, of course, one often popped in and out.'
'Dick, the day that you----'
'My day? I don't remember being hit, you know. I don't remember anything till the quietness came. When you have been killed it suddenly becomes very quiet; quieter even than you have ever known it at home. Sunday used to be a pretty quiet day at my tutor's, when Trotter and I flattened out on the first shady spot up the river; but it is quieter than that. I am not boring you, am I?'
'My boy!'
'When I came to, the veil was so thin that I couldn't see it at all; and my first thought was, Which side of it have I come out on? The living ones lying on the ground were asking that about themselves, too. There we were, all sitting up and asking whether we were alive or dead; and some were one, and some were the other. Sort of fluke, you know.'
'I--I--oh, Dick!'
'As soon as each had found out about himself he wondered how it had gone with his chums, I halloo'd to Johnny Randall, and he halloo'd back that he was dead, but that Trotter was living. That's the way of it.