"I want to get away," I said, and to my own amazement and shame I burst into tears.
"My boy!" he gasped, astonished and terrified. "You've--you've not done--some foolish thing?"
"No," I said, already wiping the tears from my face, "nothing.... But I want to go away."
"You shall do as you please," he said, and sat for a moment regarding his only son with unfathomable eyes.
Then he got up with a manner altogether matter-of-fact, came half-way round the table and mixed me a whisky and soda. "It won't be much of a war, I'm told," he said with the syphon in his hands, breaking a silence. "I sometimes wish--I had seen a bit of soldiering. And this seems to be an almost unavoidable war. Now, at any rate, it's unavoidable.... Drink this and have a biscuit."
He turned to the mantelshelf, and filled his pipe with his broad back to me. "Yes," he said, "you---- You'll be interested in the war. I hope---- I hope you'll have a good time there...."
Mary and I did not meet again for five years, and for nearly all that time I remained in South Africa. I went from England a boy; I came back seasoned into manhood. They had been years of crowded experience, rapid yet complicated growth, disillusionment and thought. Responsibility had come to me. I had seen death, I had seen suffering, and held the lives of men in my hands.
Of course one does not become a soldier on active service at once for the wishing, and there was not at first that ready disposition on the part of the home military authorities which arose later, to send out young enthusiasts. I could ride and shoot fairly well, and accordingly I decided to go on my own account to Durban--for it was manifest that things would begin in Natal--and there attach myself to some of the local volunteer corps that would certainly be raised. This took me out of England at once, a thing that fell in very well with my mood. I would, I was resolved, begin life afresh. I would force myself to think of nothing but the war. I would never if I could help it think of Mary again.
The war had already begun when I reached Durban. The town was seething with the news of a great British victory at Dundee. We came into the port through rain and rough weather and passed a big white liner loaded up feverishly from steam tenders with wealthy refugees going England-ward. From two troopships against the wharves there was a great business of landing horses--the horses of the dragoons and hussars from India. I spent the best part of my first night in South Africa in the streets looking in vain for a bedroom, and was helped at last by a kindly rickshaw Zulu to a shanty where I slept upon three chairs. I remember I felt singularly unwanted.