Magazine 'The Bystander' of the 12th of June 1918, pages 16 until 20., item 5

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The Bystander, June 12, 1918

465

EDDIES of WAR

"YOU'VE LET US DOWN."

BY DELL LEIGH

A weak gleam of sun struggled through the dirt

of the board-room windows, and lit up for

a moment the green baize cloth covering the

large mahogany table. Jarvis had just spoken

again. "You've let us down," he repeated for the

fourth time. He kept on saying this monotonously,

in strained voice, as if by so doing some of that which

had been lost could be retrieved. And Leeder sat

facing his three accusers. Not in his accustomed

place, but apart, further down the table, in his soiled

uniform; his right hand clutching the cloth, and his

haggard eyes traveling listlessly from face to face,

as each of his three partners pieced together the charge

against him. He noticed, in a dull, detached way,

how curiously these three men differed, as the recital

of their losses was unfolded by Jarvis. Jarvis it was

who had convened the meeting, and had evidently

arranged with much difficulty at the War Office for

the defaulting partner to be brought home for three

days, "on pressing affairs for the firm." He was

the only one of the four men present who seemed

to retain any poise, and he was the heaviest loser.

Taylor, short, thick-set, red of face, and oozing commercial

prosperity, had attacked the soldier with

virulent, acid abuse, as he entered the room.

"You dirty dog, you..."

he had begun, and

followed this by a string

of epithets, ending, when

his breath failed, with

an exhortation to the

other two for immediate

publicity and prosecution.

Roberts, the thin, studious

man, who grew roses at

Redhill, and seldom made a

loss in the City (he still used

the big limousine for "Red

Cross" work), had passed

from cold contempt to ashy-faced

fright as the knots

of figures, all on the wrong

side, were unravelled by

Jarvis.

"What?" he had almost

screamed, when the long list

had been cast and checked,

"twenty-seven thousand

pounds, but we can't

hold up against —" and

catching the steady eye

of Jarvis he stopped, and

fell to breaking a penholder between shaking

fingers.

Taylor mumbled incoherencies of hate against

hoodwinked auditors; and then a silence fell, broken

by the pained voice of Jarvis.

"You've let us down, Leader, badly—irretrievably.

What have you to say?"

The defaulting partner fought desperately within

himself for speech. He was deadly tired. These

sleek-clothed City men knew nothing of the strain

he had been through a bare forty-eight hours ago,

in a front-line trench. There had been no sleep since

. . . . He loosened the collar of his tunic, a private

soldier's tunic, gazed with unseeing eyes at the boardroom

clock, and spoke, carefully and very slowly.

After all, they were children in his hands as regards

all these most intricate transactions. His was the

brain for the underwriting of capital issues. They

had left everything to him, and had merely provided

the money. A genius at this class of business, he

could "smell a market in his sleep"—Taylor's own

words, two years ago, after the highly successful

flotation of the Trans-Alsation Trust. He had no

need of reference to the confused heap of documents

which lay accusingly on the table. He had the figures.

MEDICAL INSPECTION ROOM

PASSED BY CENSOK

"What did they give yer mate—C 3?"

"No—see France!"