THE word was like the lash of a whip. He stared at the patriot open-mouthed. “Yes, Poland,” said Boronowski. “Why not? You want to fight for a Great Cause. Is not a free and independent Poland the keystone of the arch of reconstructed Europe? It is a commonplace axiom. Poland overthrown, overrun with Bolshevism, all Europe crumbles into dust. The world is convulsed. Fighting for Poland is fighting for the salvation of the world. Could there be a greater cause?”
His dark eyes glowed with compelling inspiration. His outflung arm ended in a pointing finger. And Triona saw it as the finger of Salvation Yeo in his boyhood’s picture.
“Wonderful, wonderful,” he said, below his breath.
“And simple. Come with me to Warsaw. I have friends of some influence. Otherwise I should not be here. The Polish Army would welcome you with open arms.”
Triona thrust out a sudden hand, which the other gripped.
“By God!” he cried, “I’ll come.”
An hour afterwards, his brain dominated by the new idea, he danced his way through the melancholy streets. Here, indeed, was salvation. Here he could live the life of Truth. Here was the glorious chance—although he would never see her on earth again—of justifying himself in Olivia’s eyes. And in itself it was a marvellous adventure. There would be endless days when he should live for the hour that he was alive, without thought of an unconjecturable to-morrow. Into the cause of Poland he would fling his soul. Yes, Boronowski was right. The sovereign remedy. His individual life—what did it matter to him? All the beloved things were past and gone. They lay already on the further side of the Valley of the Shadow of Death. His personality was merged into a self-annihilating creature that would henceforth be the embodiment of a spiritual idea.
Thus for the rest of the day, and during the night, his mind worked. Arrived in Poland, he would press for the fiercest section of the front. The bullet that killed him would be welcome. He would die gloriously. Olivia should know.
As John Briggs, with his papers in order, he found his passport a simple matter. Boronowski, with whom he spent most of his time, obtained a speedy visa at the Polish and other Consulates. During the period of waiting he went carefully through the contents of the suit-case and removed all traces of the name and initials of Alexis Triona. The little black book he burned page by page with matches in the empty grate of his room. When it was consumed, he felt himself rid of an evil thing. In strange East London emporiums, unknown to dwellers in the West End, and discovered by restless wandering, he purchased an elementary kit for the campaign. Much of his time he spent in Boronowski’s quarters in Somers Town, reading propaganda pamphlets and other literature dealing with Polish actualities. When the Polish Army welcomed him with open arms, they must find him thoroughly equipped. He bought a Polish grammar, and compiled with Boronowski a phrase-book so as to be prepared with an elementary knowledge of the language. The Pole marvelled at his fervour.
“You spring at things like an intellectual tiger,” said he, “and then fasten on to them with the teeth of a bulldog.”
“I’m a quick worker when I concentrate,” said Triona.
And for many days he concentrated, sleeping and eating little, till his cheeks grew gaunt and his eyes bright and haggard. In his interminable talks with Boronowski, he concentrated all his faculties, until the patriot would laugh and accuse him of a tigerish spring on the secrets of his soul.
“It’s true,” cried Triona, “it’s the soul of Poland I want to make enter my being. To serve you to any purpose I must see through Polish eyes and feel with a Polish heart, and feel my veins thrill with the spirituality of Poland.”
“Is that possible?”
“You shall see,” answered Triona.
And just as he had fallen under the obsession of the dead Krilov during the night watches in the North Sea, so did he fall under the obsession of this new Great Cause. Something fundamentally histrionic in his temperament flung him into these excesses of impersonation. Already he began to regret his resumption of the plain name of John Briggs. Even in the pre-war Russian days he had seldom been addressed by it. For the first social enquiry in Russia elicited the Christian name of a man’s father. And his father’s name being Peter, he was called by all and sundry Ivan Petrovitch. So that even then, in his fervent zeal to merge himself into the Russian spirit, he had grown to regard the two downright words of his name as meaningless monosyllables. But he strangled the regret fiercely as soon as it arose.
“No, by heaven!” said he, “No more lies.”
And yet, in spite of unalterable resolve, as he lay sleepless with overwrought nerves in the sour room in the Euston Road, he was haunted by lunatic Polish forms, Brigiovski, Brigowski, which he might adopt without breaking his vow; he could not see himself in the part of a Polish patriot labelled as John Briggs; just as well might a great actor seek to identify himself with Hamlet while wearing cricketing flannels and a bowler hat.
Only once in his talks with Boronowski did he refer to the unhappiness to which he was to apply the sovereign remedy. The days were passing without sign of immediate departure. Boronowski, under the orders of his superiors, must await instructions. Triona chafed at the delay.
Boronowski smiled indulgently.
“The first element in devotion to a cause, or a woman, is patience. Illimitable patience. The demands of a cause are very much like those of a woman, apparently illogical and capricious, but really inexorable and unswerving in their purpose.”
“It’s all very well to talk of patience,” Triona fumed, “but when one is hag-ridden as I am——”
Boronowski smiled again. “Histoire de femme——”
Triona flushed scarlet and sprang to his feet.
“How dare you twist my words like that?”
Boronowski looked at him for a puzzled moment, seeking the association of ideas. Then, grasping it:
“Forgive me, my friend,” he said courteously. “My English, after all, is that of a foreigner. The word connection was far from my mind. I took your speech to mean that you were driven by unhappiness. And the unhappiness of a young man is so often—— Again, I beg your pardon.”
Triona passed his hand through his brown hair.
“All right,” he said, “I’m sorry. Yes. If you want to know, it’s a woman. She’s the day-spring from on high, and I’m damned beyond redemption. The best thing that could happen would be if she knew I were dead.”
Boronowski tugged at his little greyish-red beard. A follower of great causes was never the worse for having the Furies at his heels. But he was a man of kindly nature.
“No one while he is alive can be damned beyond redemption,” he said. “I don’t wish to press my indiscretion further. Yet, as an older man, could I be of service to you in any way?”
“No, you’re very kind, but no one can help me.” Then an idea flashed across his excited brain. “Not until I’m dead. Then, perhaps, you might do something for me.”
“You’re not going to die yet, my friend.”
“How do we know? I’m going to fight. The first day I may get knocked out. Should anything happen to me, would you kindly communicate with some one?”
He moved to the paper-littered table and began to scribble.
“It’s all rather premature, my friend,” said Boronowski. “But as you wish.” He took the scrap of paper which bore the name and address of Major Olifant. “This I may be liable to lose. I will enter it in my notebook.” He made the entry. Then, “May I say a serious word to you?”
“Anything you like.”
“There is such a thing as the fire of purification. But—” he put a hand on the younger man’s shoulder, “you can’t call it down from Heaven. You must await its coming. So we get back to my original remark. Patience, more patience, and always patience.”
This was consoling for the moment; but after a few days’ further grappling with the Polish language, he burst into Boronowski’s lodgings and found the patriot at his table, immersed in work.
“If we don’t start soon,” he cried, “I’ll go mad. I haven’t slept for nights and nights. I’ll only sleep when we are on our journey, and I know that all this is reality and not a dream.”
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