Burned Bridges

Below, the mass of humanity was gravitating into little groups here and

there about a khaki center. There was laughter, and shrill voices, with

an occasional hysterical note. There were men surrounded by women and

children, and there were others by twos and threes and singly who looked

enviously at these little groups of the reunited, men who moved

haltingly on their way to the city above, perfunctorily greeted,

perfunctorily handshaken, and perfunctorily smiled upon by the official

welcomers.

He looked at this awhile, with a speculative, pitying air, and continued

his climb, passing at last through great doors into a waiting-room, a

place of high, vaulted ceilings, marble pillars, beautiful tiled floors.

He evaded welcoming matrons on the watch for unattached officers, to

hale them into an anteroom reserved for such, to feed them sandwiches

and doubtful coffee, and to elicit tales of their part in the grim

business overseas. This man avoided the cordial clutches of the socially

elect by the simple expedient of saying that his people expected him. He

uttered this polite fiction in self-defense. He did not want to talk or

be fed. He was sick of noise, weary of voices, irritated by raucous

sounds. All he desired was a quiet place away from the confusion of

which he had been a part for many days, to get speedily beyond range of

the medley of voices and people that reminded him of nothing so much as

a great flock of seagulls swooping and crying over a school of herring.

He passed on to the outer door which gave on the street where taxi

drivers and hotel runners bawled their wares, and here in the entrance

met the first face he knew. A man about his own age, somewhat shorter, a

great deal thicker through the waist, impeccably dressed, shouldered

his way through a group at the exit.

Their eyes met. Into the faces of both leaped instant recognition. The

soldier pressed forward eagerly. The other stood his ground. There was a

look which approached unbelief on his round, rather florid features. But

he grasped the extended hand readily enough.

"By jove, it is you, Wes," he said. "I couldn't believe my eyes. So

you're back alive, eh? You were reported killed, you know. Shot down

behind the German lines. You made quite a record, didn't you? How's

everything over there?"

There was a peculiar quality in Tommy Ashe's tone, a something that was

neither aloofness nor friendliness, nor anything that Wes Thompson could

immediately classify. But it was there, a something Tommy tried to

suppress and still failed to suppress. His words were hearty, but his

manner was not. And this he confirmed by his actions. Thompson said that

things over there were going well, and let it go at that. He was more

vitally concerned just then with over here. But before he could fairly

ask a question Tommy seized his hand and wrung it in farewell.