Bretherton

by Morris, W. F. ;

  Sailing in mid-air, he saw a little flame stab the gloom below him; some huge thing struck him a terrible blow on the shoulder and swung him round. He realised that he was plunging head downwards into a pit. A wall of dark earth rushed up at him, and then all became still and dark.

  CHAPTER XVIII

  I

  Consciousness floated back to Gerard Bretherton, consciousness of dull pains and aches, and above all of extreme lassitude. He lay inert upon his back, possessed, it seemed, of a leaden body that was no longer the servant of his will. It was useless, therefore, to attempt to move, but his eyelids fluttered and lifted. Above him stretched a luminous grey surface—a dull dawn, his sluggishly working brain surmised. But as his eyes travelled slowly downwards towards the expected horizon, they encountered instead a row of iron beds like an armoured car company on parade.

  He closed his eyes in order to assimilate this discovery, which filled him with vague surprise. He opened them again a few moments later and made further discoveries. He himself was lying in a bed, one of a line that faced the other martial rank and left an arrow-straight avenue between. They grey dawn sky above resolved itself into the canvas roof of a hospital marquee.

  He closed his eyes and pondered. He was puzzled. Laboriously his mind travelled back over the events of the last twenty-four hours. He felt again the hot, dull glow of anger at Melford’s death; with wounded leg he stumbled through the darkened woods near Eitorf; he lay long, anxious hours beneath the tarpaulin on the slowly-moving goods train; tramped again the weary night march westward to the trenches; saw again the Verey lights close ahead, and made the final semi-conscious effort to cross the German fire-trench; stumbled and fell into darkness and oblivion.

  Slowly his mind grappled with the facts. He had been a few yards behind the German fire-trench when he fell. Therefore he had been retaken; he was a prisoner once more.

  His eyes opened again and went questing down the avenue of beds. Outlined in the doorway of the tent a figure in familiar khaki and glossy sam-brown belt stood talking to a girl who wore the plain white coif and red-ribbed cloak of the British Army Nursing Sisters. He was in British hands, then.

  The tired eyes closed again, and he pondered on this joyful discovery. He must have gone farther than he had thought. He must have fallen not behind but in front of the German fire-trench—in no-man’s-land; and some stout fellow had brought him in to the British lines and safety. He took another gratified look at the neatness of the hospital tent, and then lay with closed eyes still visualizing the ordered ranks of beds, the uniformed doctor, and the army sister in her cool white coif.

  And then gradually a change took place in this vivid scene of the mind’s eye. The ordered ranks of beds were there, but they were beds of a different pattern. The medical officer in khaki changed to a bespectacled man in field-grey, the white-coifed army sister became a fair-haired Saxon nurse. The change was like a screen transformation wherein one picture fades into another.

  This new picture was not strange to him. He recognized it, remembered it—an officer’s ward in a C.C.S. near Douai. Captain—no, Colonel—Otto von Wahnheim lay wounded in that ward. Otto von Wahnheim! The fellow he had shared rooms with in Berlin. A good enough fellow, but a Prussian of the Prussians—and an officer. He did not know what had become of him since the war… yes… taken prisoner and escaped. How did he know that? They had told him… the pompous little Kommandant… von Artenveldt had told him. No, not him; it was von Wahnheim he had told. And then he recovered and went to the Black Forest and to a staff job in Cologne. But that was von Wahnheim… not himself. He was thinking as though he were von Wahnheim. Was this delirium?

  He opened his eyes, and there again was the hospital ward, the English marquee ward… not the German one near Douai. He closed his eyes again. What queer tricks one’s brain played when one was ill. But he remembered it all quite clearly, that time in Cologne… there was young Leo von Arnberg… good-looking chap and a good fellow too… and his sister, the Duchess of Wittelsberg-Strelitz… striking girl… half Cologne was mad about her, and no wonder… that night ride to Godesberg with her that young Leo had let him in for… just as well he had left Cologne… one never knows…

  But that was von Wahnheim… all that… the fellow he had not seen since ’13 in Berlin… The Duchess liked him better than von Wahnheim… he was the reserved, rather charming English boy, she said… Bretherton, that was the name… she had forgotten the name; and he had not remembered it either… nor the incident…

  God! He must be going mad. He was Bretherton—not von Wahnheim… but he remembered that pretty schoolgirl von Wahnheim had taken him to dine with… she had changed, grown into a woman, and a very beautiful woman…

  He was mad. Curious one could feel so calm and yet be mad.

  He had never really believed that the British would attack there again… but the General believed it… rather windy about it… however, it was as well to get as many identifications as one could… Why did they always bungle those raids? … And the British trench unoccupied on one occasion! … But he was to make sure of that last one… That was why he was so mad when they came drifting back from that firework display… He would get into the trench anyway, and they were bound to follow him… Of course it was not for a G.S.O.1 to go trekking across no-man’s-land, but the General relied upon him for the success of the raid… It certainly had been unhealthy out there in no-man’s-land; that Lewis gun had made a mess of his men… but he had shot two of the English swine before he jumped… he had seen them sag like half-filled sacks of corn… And then he had felt that whack on his shoulder and had come down headfirst…

  He broke into a cold sweat. He was mad—mad—mad. And yet he remembered it all as though he really were von Wahnheim… he, Gerard Bretherton. And, good God! he had been thinking in German… in German. But he was Gerard Bretherton, he was; he was English, he was thinking in English. He remembered the old company… A Company, his company—Baron, Pagan, young Gurney, and the rest. He had been captured on the Somme, and that swine of an intelligence officer had made him tramp about all night in order to get information out of him. But the little beast had lost his bounce when they lay in that ditch during that “hate.” Beastly noisy affair that was. Lights popping up and down, ear-shattering explosions. Made one dazed. But he had got to the trench and shot two white-faced English swine below there in the darkness…

  God! He was thinking in German again.

  He would not think. He would keep his mind a blank. He would sleep. He was very tired. Perhaps he would wake up sane—or not wake up at all.

  II

  He felt better and stronger when he awoke, and although that nightmare memory persisted, he felt better able to grapple with it. He forced himself to think the matter out calmly and coherently, and he collected what appeared to be illuminating facts. Firstly, he seemed to have two distinct memories: that of his ordinary life and that of what appeared to be a portion of the life of Otto von Wahnheim. And with regard to the latter memory his tendency was to think in German. Secondly, his memory of the life of Gerard Bretherton came to an end with that stumble of his a few yards behind the German front line, and began again with his awakening in this hospital marquee. Thirdly, the memory of Otto von Wahnheim began in a German hospital and ended with that headlong plunge into a British trench near Arras.

  He pondered long on these points. He remembered that von Wahnheim had suffered from amnesia, complete oblivion of his former life; and the explanation that himself and not Otto von Wahnheim had suffered from loss of memory came like a flash of light to illuminate the darkness in which he groped. He thought it out laboriously. Von Wahnheim was dead, no doubt, as reported, but he himself in his deranged mental state after his collapse behind the German lines had believed himself to be von Wahnheim; and by a coincidence of circumstances he had been accepted as such. That explained most of his difficulties, and especially his presence here in a British hospital with a bandaged shoulder and h
ead.

  Another question arose in his brain. Was he in this hospital as Gerard Bretherton or as von Wahnheim, a German officer taken in a trench raid, who had shot two British Tommies with his automatic? Good God! He, Gerard Bretherton, had shot two British Tommies! …

  Now and then sisters had moved about the ward and had approached his bed, and on these occasions he had lain with closed eyes feigning unconsciousness; for at first he had believed himself to be mad and had feared that others would discover it, and now he did not know whether they thought him English or German.

  Now again he saw a doctor approaching up the aisle between the beds, and his eyes closed. After some minutes, when he believed that the danger was past, he opened them slowly; but between his half-closed lids he saw not two feet from him a segment of khaki whipcord breeches. The man had halted noiselessly by the bed instead of passing on.

  Bretherton did not close his eyes again. He knew that it was too late and that the officer’s eyes were upon his. His gaze travelled slowly upwards, up the long frock of the tunic to the first button and the polished buckle of the belt; then up again, past the second and third buttons and the cross-strap of the belt to the khaki tie and R.A.M.C. badges on the lapels of the coat. Here they paused, and then moved swiftly to the man’s face.

  The eyes beneath the peaked cap smiled into his, and a voice with a faint suggestion of a drawl said, “Well, G. B.! How goes it?”

  Bretherton stared giddily. His world was upside-down. He would get the hang of it presently, perhaps. He managed a wry smile. “It’s good to see you, Uncle Sam,” he said in a stifled voice.

  Harding nodded. “Feeling a bit cheap, eh?”

  Bretherton murmured, “Very cheap, Uncle Sam—and puzzled.”

  “So am I,” answered the other. “And curious.” He eyed Bretherton thoughtfully for a moment or two “I don’t know whether you are up to talking. Let’s have a look at you.”

  “Um!” he murmured when he had finished the examination. “Might have been better and might have been worse.” He fetched a folding chair and sat down close beside the bed.

  “How did I get here, Uncle Sam?” Bretherton asked.

  Harding took off his service cap and ran his fingers through his thin hair. “That is the interesting part,” he said. “And I am almighty curious to hear your adventures. After that show on the Somme last year we thought you had gone west. The C.O. was rather peeved about it, you know. Said you ought to have let Baron do the job. Good officer thrown away, was his point of view. Damned professional, these regular soldiers! And Baron also was rather peeved. Thought you were coveting his iron ration of honour and glory. However, he consoled himself with the command of the company and kept it pretty well up to standard, you will be glad to know.”

  Harding paused and watched his patient with a professional eye. “Not too done up to listen, eh? Well, to continue. The sergeant’s report that he had found the bodies of your men but not yours made me hopeful that you were only wounded; for Jerry was not likely to take a corpse for a souvenir. Much against my will, they shifted me to a base hospital last December; but the old battalion and particularly A Company was my first love, and I made inquiries among the brass hats in high places and eventually learned that you were a prisoner in Boscheland. That was in January. In April they gave me this C.C.S., and you can imagine my curiosity when the long-lost skipper of A Company suddenly turns up in one of my wards!”

  Bretherton watched him with tired eyes. A man was moaning monotonously at the far end of the ward. From far overhead sounded the bracketed pop-pop, pop-pop of bursting anti-aircraft shells and the pulsating drone of a German plane.

  “Tell me how I came here,” he repeated.

  The not far distant whu-ump of a bomb set the bottles clinking on a table near the tent door.

  “I thought we should get some of that,” commented Harding. “They moved a battalion into billets here yesterday.”

  “Tell me how I came here,” reiterated Bretherton.

  “But it is your story I want to hear,” protested Harding.

  “I will talk later,” murmured Bretherton. “How did I get here, Uncle Sam?”

  “Well, that is the intriguing part of it. Jerry made a raid last night near Gavrelle. He put down a box-barrage and came over. And curiously enough it was the old battalion that was holding that sector—at least A Company’s Lewis guns were. I got that information from one of them who got a knock on the thigh—a new man since your time and mine.”

  Harding paused to listen to the faint tap-tapping of machine guns far up in the sky. Bretherton lay with closed eyes, but gave no outward sign of the sudden dread with which Harding’s words had filled him.

  “One of our planes is after him,” commented Harding. “But to resume. They put up a good show. Baron was in command. He stopped a whizz-bang just as it was all over and was brought back here just after dawn—rather a mess, but he will pull through. I passed him on to the stationary hospital.”

  Bretherton’s eyes were closed, but his fingers twisted beneath the bedclothes.

  “They put up a good show, as I said,” continued Harding. “Baron had kept them up to your pitch. Two men and a boy they were, more or less; but only two Germans got into the trench, and they were laid out. When things had quietened down a bit, Baron’s push began to tidy up. One of the Germans was dead; the other, an officer in colonel’s uniform, was not. They sent him back here. I was for passing him on; but after I’d a look at him, I decided to keep him.”

  Bretherton’s eyes were fixed on Harding’s face, and his brow was lined like that of an old man.

  “Von Wahnheim was the name on the identity disc,” continued Harding. “The green-hatted intelligence wallahs are like a dog with two tails at having captured a real live staff colonel. They have been ringing up every ten minutes to know when they can question him. And the joke is that not a soul except myself knows that he is old G. B. escaped from his prison camp. But I am agog to know how you got across Germany, commandeered that uniform complete with identity disc, and got across to our lines during that raid.”

  Bretherton lay silent and motionless for some moments, and then he asked: “If you keep your mouth shut, Uncle Sam, what will happen?”

  Harding rubbed his chin thoughtfully, and a grin slowly overspread his face. “Why the intelligence fellers will be buzzing round you like flies round candy, thirsting for information about the German staff that you can’t give.”

  “I can give them a good deal more information than they expect,” said Bretherton tonelessly.

  “What, pull their legs, eh?” grinned Harding. “But you would be interned as a prisoner of war, and there would be a hell of a row later. Sorry to spoil a good jest, G. B., but their sense of humour wouldn’t rise to it.”

  “And if you don’t keep your mouth shut, I stand a good chance of an A.P.M. complete with firing party at dawn—though I’m not sure that is not the best solution.”

  Bretherton’s expression and the sincere ring in his voice caused the amusement to fade from Harding’s face. He assumed his professional air. “What are you talking about, G. B.?” he said. “Let me have a look at you.” He laid his fingers on Bretherton’s wrist.

  “I am all right,” protested Bretherton wearily. “No fever or delirium. I meant what I said about a firing party. Isn’t that the usual end of a soldier who is caught in the enemy’s uniform with arms in his hands—after having shot two of his own men, men of his own company? Good God, Uncle Sam, I have killed two men of A Company! Killed them—those fellows I have licked into shape and led like trusting children through this inferno of war. Good God!”

  He covered his face with his hands. “But there were reinforcements in A Company, were there not?” he continued in a pleading voice. “You said there were, didn’t you, Uncle Sam? Reinforements—many of them? Perhaps they were not men I knew—my men, A Company men. They were not, Uncle Sam, were they? Say you don’t think they were.”

  Harding w
as bending over the bed. “All right, G. B.,” he said soothingly. “It’s all right, old lad. Don’t you worry. They were new men—worthless fellows,” he lied. “Don’t worry. Just try to have a good sleep. Old Uncle Sam is here to look after you.”

  For a few moments Bretherton clung to the hand that held his; then he pressed it and said in a tired but steady voice, “Sorry I have made a fool of myself, Uncle Sam, but I’m rather weak—been through it, you know. I’m all right now. No—no fever, delirium, or anything. Quite sane. And I was speaking the truth. Just let me lie quiet for a moment.”

  Harding regarded him with a look in which professional deliberation and affection were mixed. “I will get you a little something,” he said.

  “Thanks—but, Uncle Sam, no dope. A bracer is what I want. I want to talk—really.”

  III

  Harding returned with some potion in a graduated glass, and while Bretherton drank it, an orderly arranged screens round the bed.

  “Do fellows ever lose their memories, Uncle Sam?” asked Bretherton when they were alone. “I mean, do they forget their real identity and think they are someone else, and do all sorts of things—damnable things?”

  Harding sat with his elbow resting on his knee and his chin clasped in his hand. “Yes,” he answered slowly. “Yes, that has often happened.”

  “It has happened to me,” came the tired voice from the bed. “I have been another fellow for the last few months. G. B. has been—God knows where he has been! I have been Colonel von Wahnheim, G.S.O.1 to General Egon von Bulitz—and doing my damnedest to beat the Allies.”