III
AN OFFICER AND — A LIAR

LITTLE Madame Gallais was always a trifle inclined to the occult, to spiritualism, and to dabbling in the latest thing psychic and metaphysical. At home, in Marseilles, she was a prominent member and bright particular star of a Cercle which was, in effect, a Psychical Research Society. She complained that one of the drawbacks of accompanying her husband on Colonial service was isolation from these so interesting pursuits and people.

   Successful and flourishing occultism needs an atmosphere, and it is difficult for a solitary crier in the wilderness to create one. However, Madame Gallais did her best. She could, and would, talk to you of your subliminal self, your subconscious ego, your true psyche, your astral body, and of planes. On planes she was quite at home. She would ask gay and sportive sous-lieutenants, fresh from the boulevards of Paris, as to whether they were mediumistic, or able to achieve clairvoyant trances. It is to be recorded that, at no dance, picnic, garden-party, "fiv' o'clock," or dinner did she encounter a French officer who confessed to being mediumistic or able to achieve clairvoyant trances.

   Nor was big, fat Adjudant-Major Gallais any better than the other officers of the Legion and the Infanterie de la Marine and the Tirailleurs Tonkinois who formed the circle of Madame's acquaintance in Eastern exile. No — on the contrary, he distinctly inclined to the materialistic, and preferred red wines to bluestockings — (not blue silk stockings, bien entendu). For mediums and ghost-seers he had an explosive and jeering laugh. For vegetarians he had a contempt and pity that no words could express.

   A teetotaller he regarded as he did a dancing dervish.

   He had no use for ascetics and self-deniers, holding them mad or impious.

   No, it could not be said that Madame's husband was mediumistic or able to achieve clairvoyant trances, nor that he was a tower of strength and a present help to her in her efforts to create the atmosphere which she so desired.

   When implored to gaze with her into the crystal, he declared that he saw things that brought the blush of modesty to the cheek of Madame.

   When begged to take a hand at "planchette" writing, he caused the innocent instrument to write a naughty guinguette rhyme, and to sign it Eugenie Yvette Gallais.

   When besought to witness the wonders of some fortune-teller, seer, astrologer or yogi, he put him to flight with fearful grimaces and gesticulations.

   And this was a great grief unto Madame, for she loved astrologers and fortune-tellers in spite of all, or rather of nothing. And yet malgré the fat Adjudant-Major's cynicism and hardy scepticism, the very curious and undeniable fact remained, that Madame had the power to influence his dreams. She could, that is to say, make him dream of her, and could appear to him in his dreams and give him messages. The Adjudant-Major admitted as much, and thus there is no question as to the fact. (Indeed, when Madame died in Marseilles many years later, he announced the fact to us in Algeria, more than forty-eight hours before he received confirmation of what he knew to be the truth of his dream.)

   Two people less alike than the gallant Adjudant-Major and his wife you could not find. Perhaps that is why they loved each other so devotedly.

   "I wonder if my boy will be mediumistic," murmured little Madame Gallais, as she hung fondly over the cot in which reposed little Edouard André. "Oh, to be able to hold communion with him when we are parted and I am in the spirit-world."

   "Give the little moutard plenty of good meat," said the big man. "We want le petit Gingembre to be a heavy-weight — a born and bred cuirassier." . . .

   "Mon ange, do you see any reason why twin souls, united in the bonds of purest love and closest relationship, should not be able to communicate quite freely when far apart?" Madame Gallais would reply.

   "Save postage, in effect?" grinned the Adjudant-Major.

   "I mean by medium of rappings, 'planchette,' dreams — if not by actual appearance and communication in spirit guise?"

   "Spirit guys?" queried the stronger and thicker vessel.

   "Yes, my soul, spirit guise."

   "Oh, ah, yes. . . . Better not let me catch the young devil in spirit guise, or I'll teach him to stick to good wine and carry it like a gentleman . . . . He must learn his limit . . . . How soon do you think we could put him into neat little riding-breeches? . . . Cavalry for him . . . . Not but what the Legion is the finest regiment in the world . . . . Still Cuirassiers for him."

   "My Own! Let the poor sweet angel finish with his first petticoats before we talk of riding-breeches . . . . And how, pray, would the riding-breeches accord with his so-beautiful long curls. They would not, mon ange, n'est ce pas?" . . .

   "No — but surely the curls can be cut off in a very few moments, can't they?" argued the Major, with the conscious superiority of the logical sex.

   But she, of the sex that needs no logic, only smiled and replied that she would project herself into her son's dreams every night of his life.

   And in the fulness of time, Edouard André having arrived at boy's estate, the curse of the Colonial came upon little Madame Gallais, and she had to take her son home to France and leave him there with her heart and her health and her happiness. She, in her misery, could conceive of only one fate more terrible — separation from her large, dull husband, whom she adored for his strength, placidity, courage, adequacy, and, above all, because he adored her. Separation from him would be death, and she preferred the half-death of separation from le petit Gingembre.

   She wrote daily to him on her return to Indo-China — printing the words large and clear for his easier perusal and, at the end of each weekly budget, she added a postscript asking him whether he dreamed of mother often. She also wrote to her own mother by every mail, each letter containing new and fresh suggestions for his mental, moral, and physical welfare, in spite of the fact that the urchin already received the entire devotion, care, and love of the little household at Marseilles.

   Their unceasing, ungrudging devotion, care and love, however, did not prevent a gentle little breeze from springing up one summer evening, from bulging the bedroom window-curtain across the lighted gas-jet, and from acting as the first cause of poor little Edouard André being burnt to death in his bed, before a soul was aware that the tall, narrow house was on fire.

   Big Adjudant-Major Gallais was in a terrible quandary and knew not what to do. He had but little imagination, but he had a mighty love for his wife — and she was going stark, staring mad before his haggard eyes . . . . And, if she died, he was going to take ship from Saigon and just disappear overboard one dark night, quietly and decently, like a gentleman, with neither mess, fuss, nor post-mortem enquête.

   But there was just a ghost of a chance, a shadow of a hope — this "planchette" notion that had come to him suddenly in the dreadful sleepless night of watching . . . . It could not make things worse — and it might bring relief, the relief of tears. If she could weep she could sleep. If she could sleep she could live, perhaps — and the Major swallowed hard, coughed fiercely, and scrubbed his bristly head violently with both big hands.

   It would be a lying fraud and swindle; but what of that if it might save her life and reason — and he was prepared to forge a cheque, cheat at cards, or rob a blind Chinese beggar of his last sabuk, to give her a minute's comfort, rest, and peace . . . . For clearly she must weep or die, sleep or die, unless she were to lose her reason — and while she was in an asylum he could not take that quiet dive overboard so that they could all be together again in the keeping and peace of le bon Dieu . . . . Rather death than madness, a thousand times . . . . But if she died and he took steps to follow her — was there not some talk about suicides finding no place in Heaven?

   Peste! What absurdity! For surely le bon Père had as much sense of fair-play and mercy as a battered old soldier-man of La Légion? But it had not come to that yet. The Legion does not surrender — and the Adjudant-Major of the First Battalion of The Regiment had still a ruse de guerre to try against the enemy. He would do his best with this "planchette" swindle, and play it for what it was worth. While there is life there is hope, and he had been in many a tight place before, and fought his way out.

   To think of Edouard André Lucien Gallais playing with "planchette"! She had often begged him to join hands with her on its ebony board, and to endeavour to "get into communication" with the spirits of the departed — but he had always acted the farceur.

   "Ask the sacred thing to tip us the next Grand Prix winner," he had said, or "But, yes — I would question the kind spirits as to the address of the pretty girl I saw at the station yesterday," and then he would cause the innocent machine to say things most unspiritual. Well — now he would see what sort of lying cheat he could make of himself. To lie is not gentlemanly but to save life and reason is. If to lie is to blacken the soul — let the soul of Adjudant-Major Gallais be black as the blackest ibn Eblis, if thereby an hour's peace might descend upon the tortured soul of his wife. The good Lord God would understand a gentleman — being one Himself.

   And the Major, large, heavy, and slow-witted, entered his wife's darkened room, and crept toward the bed whereon she lay, dry-eyed, talking aloud and monotonously.

   ". . . To play such a trick on me! May Heaven reward those who play tricks. Of course, it is a hoax but why does not mother cable back that there never was any fire at all, and that she knows nothing about the telegram? . . . How could le petit Gingembre, be dead, when there he is, in the photo, smiling at me so prettily, and looking so strong and well? What a fool I am! Anyone can play tricks on me. People do. . . . I shall tell my husband. He would never play a trick on me, nor allow such a thing . . . . A trick! A hoax! . . . Of course, one can judge nothing from the handwriting of a telegram. Anybody could forge one. A letter would be so difficult to forge . . . . The sender of that wicked cable said to himself, 'Madame Gallais cannot pretend that the message does not come from her mother on grounds of the handwriting being different from that of her mother — because the writing is never that of the sender, but that of the telegraph-clerk. She will be deceived and think that her mother has really sent it.' . . . How unspeakably cruel and wicked! No, a letter could not be forged, and that is why there is no letter. Let them wait until my husband can get at them. Mon Petit Gingembre! And it is his birthday in a month . . . . What shall I get for him? I cannot make up my mind. One cannot get just what one wants out here, and if one sends the money for something to be bought at Home, it is not the same thing — it does not seem to the child as though his parents sent it at all. How lucky I am to have mother to leave him to. She simply worships him, and he couldn't have a happier time, nor better treatment, if I were there myself. No — that's just it — the happier a child is the less it needs you, and you wouldn't have it unhappy so that it did want you. How the darling will . . ." and then again rose the awful wailing cry as consciousness of the terrible truth, the cruel loss, the horrible fate, and the sensation of utter impotence of the bereaved, surged over the wearied, failing brain. She must cry or die.

   The Major sat beside her and gently patted her, in his dull yearning to help, to relieve the dreadful agony, to do something.

   A gust of rebellious rage shook him, and he longed to fight and to kill. Why was he smitten thus, and why was there no tangible opponent at whom he could rush, and whom he could hew and hack and slay? He rose to his feet, with clenched fists uplifted, and purpling face.

   "Be calm," he said, and took a hold upon himself.

   Useless to attempt to fight Fate or the Devil or whatever it was that struck you from behind like this, stabbed you in the back, turned life to dust and ashes . . . . He must grin and bear it like a man. Like a man — and what of the woman?

   "He's happy now, petit, our petit Gingembre," said the poor wretch.

   "He's just a jolly little angel, having a fête-day of a time. He's not weeping and unhappy. Not he, peaudezébie!"

   "Burning!" screamed the woman. "My baby is burning! My petit Gingembre is burning, and no one will help him . . . . My baby is burning and Heaven looks on! Oh, mother! — Annette! — Marie! — Gregoire! — rush up to the bedroom! . . . Quick — he is burning! The curtain is on fire. The blind has caught . . . . The dressing-table is alight . . . . The blind has fallen on the bed. His pillow is smouldering. He is suffocating. The bed is on fire . . ." and scream followed heartrending scream.

   The stricken husband seized the woman's hands and kissed them.

   "No, petit, he never woke. He never felt anything. He just passed away to le bon Dieu in his sleep, without pain or fright, or anything. He just died in his sleep. There is no pain at all about that sort of suffocation, you know," he said.

   "Oh, if I could but think so!" moaned the woman. "If I could only for a moment think so! . . . Burning to death and screaming for mother . . . . Edouard! Shoot me — shoot me! Or let me . . ."

   "See, Beloved of my Soul," urged her husband, gently shaking her. "I do solemnly swear that I know he was not hurt in the least. He never woke. I happen to know it. I am not saying it to comfort you. I know it."

   "How could you know, Edouard? . . . Oh, my little baby, my little son! Oh, wake me from this awful cauchemar, Edouard. Say I am dreaming and am going to wake."

   "The little chap's gone, darling, but he went easy, and he's well out of this cursed world, anyhow. He'll never have suffering and unhappiness. . . And he had such a happy little life." . . .

   Then, for the first time in his career, the Major waxed eloquent, and, for the first time in his life, lied fluently and artistically. "I wonder if you'll believe me if I tell you how I know he wasn't hurt," he continued. "It's the truth, you know. I wouldn't lie to you, would I?"

   "No, you wouldn't deceive me, and you haven't the wit if you would," replied his wife.

   "No, dearest, that's just it. I wouldn't and couldn't, as you say. Well, look here, last night the little chap appeared to me. Le petit Gingembre himself! Faith of gentleman, he did . . . . I may have been asleep, but he appeared to me as plain as you are now . . . . As pretty, I mean," he corrected with a heavy, anxious laugh and pat, peering into the drawn and disfigured face to see if his words reached the distraught mind, "and he said, 'Father, I want to speak to mother, and she cannot hear because she cries out and screams and sobs. It makes me so wretched that I cannot bear it.'"

   The man moistened parched lips with a leathery tongue.

   "And he said, 'Tell her I was not hurt a little bit — not even touched by the flames. I just slept on, and knew nothing . . . . And I couldn't be happy, even in Heaven, while she grieves so.'"

   The woman turned to him.

   "Edouard, you are lying to me — and I am grateful to you. It is as terrible for you as for me," and she beat her forehead with clenched fists.

   "Eugénie!" cried her husband. "Do you call me a liar! Me? Did I not give you my word of honour?"

   "Aren't you lying, Edouard? Aren't you? . . . Don't deceive me, Edouard André Gallais!" and she seized his wrist in a grip that hurt him.

   "I take my solemn oath I am not lying," lied the Major. "Heaven smite me if I am. I swear I am speaking the absolute truth. Nom de nom de Dieu! Would I lie to you?"

   He must convince her while she had the sanity to understand him . . . . "I believe you, Edouard. You are not deceiving me. Oh, thank God! I humbly thank the good merciful Father. And it was — it was — a real and actual communication, Edouard — and vouchsafed to you, the scoffer at spirit communication."

   "Yes, but that's not all, my Eugénie. The little chap said, 'I cannot come to mother while she cries out and moans. Tell her to talk with me by "planchette," you joining with her.' He did," lied the Major.

   "Oh! Oh! Edouard! Quick! Where is it? . . . Oh, my baby!" cried Madame Gallais, rising and rushing to a cabinet from which she produced a heart-shaped ebony board some ten inches long and six broad, having at the wide end two legs, an inch or so in length terminating in two swivelled ivory wheels, and, at the other end, a pencil of the same length as the legs.

   Seating herself at her writing-table, she placed the instrument on a large sheet of paper, while her husband brought a chair to her side.

   Both placed their hands lightly on the broad part of the board and awaited results.

   The pencil did not stir.

   Minute after minute passed.

   The Adjudant-Major was a cunning man of war, and he was using all his cunning now.

   The woman uttered a faint moan as the tenth minute ebbed away.

   "Patience, Sweetheart," said he. "It's worth a fair trial and a little patience, isn't it?"

   "Patience!" was the scornful reply. "I'll sit here till I die — or I'll hear from my boy . . . . You didn't lie to me, Edouard?"

   The pencil stirred — stirred, moved, and stopped.

   The woman groaned.

   The pencil stirred again. Then it moved — moved and wrote rapidly, improving in pace and execution as the Major gained practice in pushing it without giving the slightest impression of using "undue influence."

   His wife firmly and fanatically believed that the spirit of her child was actually present and utilizing, through their brains, the muscles of their arms, to convey to the paper the message it could neither speak nor write itself.

   Presently the pencil ceased to move, and, after another period of patient waiting, the stricken mother took the paper from beneath the instrument and read the "message" of the queer, wavering writing, feeble, unpunctuated, and fantastic, but quite legible, although conjoined.

   "My Dearest Maman," it ran. "Why do you grieve so for me and make me so unhappy? How can I be joyous when you are sad? Let me be happy by being happy yourself. I cannot come to you while you mourn. Be glad, and let me be glad and then you must be more happy still, because I am happy. I never felt any pain at all. I just awoke to find myself here, where all would be joy for me, except for your grief. I have left a world of pain, to wait a little while for you where we shall be together in perfect happiness for ever. Let me be happy, dearest Maman, by being resigned, and then happy, yourself. When you are at peace I can come to you always in your dreams, and we can talk together. Give me happiness at once, darling Mother. Please do. Your Petit Gingembre" . . . which was not a bad effort for an unimaginative and dull-witted man.

   He had his instant reward, for on finishing the reading of the "message," Madame Gallais threw her arms round his neck and burst into tears — the life-giving, reason-saving, blessed relief of tears.

   An hour later she slept, for the first time in five days, holding her husband's big hand as he sat by her bed.

   When she stirred and relinquished it, the next morning, the Major arose and went out.

   "What a sacred liar I am!" quoth he. "Garçon, bring me an apéritif."

   It is notorious that a tangled web we weave when first we practise to deceive. And Major Gallais practised hard. Two and three and four times daily did he manufacture " messages" from the dead child, and strive, with his heart in his mouth, to make the successful cheat last until the first wild bitterness of his wife's brief had worn off.

   His hair went grey in the course of a month.

   The mental strain of invention, the agony of rasping his own cruel wound by this mockery — for he had loved le petit Gingembre as much as the child's mother had done — and the constant terror lest some unconvincing expression or some unguarded pressure on the "planchette" should betray him, were more exhausting and wearing than two campaigns against the "pirates" of Yen Thé.

   But still he had his reward, for his wife's sane grief, heavy though it was and cruel, was a very different thing from the mad abandonment and wild insanity of those dreadful days before he had his great idea.

   Many and frequent still were the dreadful throes of weeping and rebellions against Fate — but "planchette" could always bring distraction and comfort to the tortured mind, and the soothing belief in real presence and a genuine communion.

   But there was no anodyne for the man's bitter grief, and the "planchette" became a hideous nightmare to him. Even his work was no salvation to him, for though the Adjudant-Major is a regimental staff officer, corresponding somewhat to our Adjutant — (the "Adjudant" is a non-com. in the French army) — and a very busy man, Gallais found that his routine duties were performed mechanically, and by one side of his brain as it were, while, undimmed, in the fore-front of his mind, blazed the baleful glare of a vast "planchette," in the flames of which his little son roasted and shrieked.

   And still the daily tale of "messages" must be invented, and daily grew a greater and more distressing burden and terror.

   How much longer could he go on, day after day, and several times a day, producing fresh communications, conversations, messages, ideas? How much longer could he go on inventing plausible and satisfactory answers to the questions that his wife put to the "spirit" communicant? How could Adjudant-Major Gallais of La Légion Étrangère describe Heaven and the environment, conditions, habits, conduct and conversations of the inhabitants of the Beyond? How much longer would he be able to use the jargon of his wife's books on Occultism and Spiritualism, study them as he might, without rousing her suspicions? The swindle could not have lasted a day had she not been only too anxious to believe, and only too ready to be deceived.

   What would be the end of it all? What would his wife do if she found out that he had cheated her? Would she ever forgive him? Would she leave him? Would the shock of the disappointment kill her? Would she ever believe him again?

   What could the end of it be?

   He must stick it out — for life, if need be — and he was not an imaginative man.

   What would be the end?

   The end was — that she felt she must go home to France and see her boy's grave, tend it, pray by it, and give such comfort as she could to her poor mother, almost as much to be pitied as herself.

   Gallais encouraged the idea. The change would be good for her, and he would be able to join her in a few months. Also this terrible "planchette" strain would cease for him, and he might recover his sleep and appetite.

   "To think that we shall be parted, this time to-morrow, my dearest Edouard," wept Madame Gallais, as they sat side by side in their bed-sitting-room, in the Hôtel de la République at Saigon. "I on the sea and you on your way back alone. If everything were not arranged, I would not go. Let us have a last 'planchette' with our son, and get to bed. We are having petit déjeuner at five, you know."

   The Major racked his brain for something to write, as Madame went to her dressing-case for the little instrument (to the Major, an instrument of torture) — racked his brain for something he had not said before, and racked in vain. He grew hotter and hotter and broke into a profuse perspiration as she seated herself beside him. Nom de nom de Dieu de Dieu de sort! What could he write? Why had his brain ceased to operate?

   Nombril de Belzébuth! Could he not make up one more lie after carrying on for weeks — weeks during which his waking hours — riding, drilling, marching along the muddy causeways between the rice-fields, working in his office, inspecting, eating, and drinking — had been devoted to hatching "messages," conversations, communications and lies, till he had lost health, weight, sleep, and appetite . . . .

   No. . . . He could not write a single word, for his mind was absolutely blank.

   Minutes passed.

   Sweating, cursing, and praying, the unfortunate man sat in an agony of misery, and could not write a single word.

   Would not le bon Dieu help him? Just this one last time? . . .

   Minutes passed.

   Not to have saved his life, not to have saved the life of his wife, not to have brought back le Petit Gingembre, could the poor tortured wretch have written a single word . . . . What would his wife do when she discovered the cheat — for if no words came during the next minute or two he knew he must spring to his feet, make full confession, and throw himself upon his wife's mercy.

   That or go mad.

   What would she do? . . . . Leave him for ever? . . . Spit upon him and call him "Liar," "Cheat," and "Heartless, cruel villain"?

   Would the dreadful reaction and shock kill her? — deprive her of reason?

   Suddenly he perceived that, with hands which were acres in extent, he was endeavouring to move a "planchette" the size of Indo-China — a "planchette" that was red-hot and of which the fire burnt into his brain. Its smoke and fumes were choking him; its fierce white light was blinding him; the thing was killing him.

   By the time, several weeks later, that little Madame Gallais had nursed her husband back to sanity and consciousness, the first bitterness of grief was past and she herself could play the comforter.

   "Oh, my Edouard," she wept upon his shoulder when first the brain-fever left him and he knew her, "we have lost our little Gingembre — but you have me, and, oh, my brave hero-husband, I have you. I shall weep no more." . . .

   "Planchette" stands on Madame's desk — but she does not use it.