A look of understanding and sympathy dawned on Harding’s face, and he nodded slowly.
“I planned that raid last night,” continued Bretherton. “You said it was last night, didn’t you? And I did not come over to escape to our lines, but in dead earnest—to kill… and I did kill… God forgive me!
“I led those fellows over because they had been driven back. But I am glad old Baron stopped my fellows. Both lots were my fellows—English and German. Lord, what a devilish mix-up it is!
“It is not one story, but two: G. B.’s escape from the prison camp at Ebenthal, and von Wahnheim’s tour of duty. The two stories do not overlap; when von Wahnheim enters, G. B. exits.”
Harding nodded. “Let’s have them both—if you feel equal to it,” he said.
“I am all right, I think,” answered Bretherton.
“That whack on the shoulder will keep you quiet for a bit, but it is a straightforward proposition,” said Harding. “And you have had a bump on the head—a touch of concussion, nothing more. Shock is your chief trouble, and you ought to keep quiet; but you have got this affair on your mind, and the sooner you get it off, the better. So go ahead, but take it easily.”
Bretherton then related his experiences from the time of his capture on the Somme up to the moment that he recovered consciousness in the marquee ward.
“Poor old G. B.!” said Harding, when he had finished. “You have been through it. I have met with one or two cases of dual personality before, and I have heard of several, but I have never heard of such circumstances as yours.”
“You see, the firing party was not delirium,” smiled Bretherton wanly.
“No-o,” replied Harding thoughtfully. “But for the medical evidence there is quite a case against you. Anyway, I guess it was providence that brought you to this C.C.S. Don’t you worry. I can get you out of this mess.”
“I’m not worrying—not about that. When a fellow has killed two men of his own Company and borne arms against his country, he doesn’t worry much about his personal fate.”
Harding shook his head. “You must not worry about that, G. B., old man. It was unpleasant, it’s true; but war is made up of unpleasantnesses. You couldn’t help it. Two hundred thousand men have been killed in the first few days of a big battle; so what are two after all? And as for bearing arms against your country, you couldn’t help that either. You didn’t do it voluntarily. It was physical and mechanical treason, if you like; but not mental.”
“But the devil of it is, Uncle Sam, I can remember everything now. I am G. B., but at the same time I know and feel what von Wahnheim thought and felt. I can feel two ways and think two ways about everything. I am not the fellow I was. I am half German now; I sympathize with both sides. And when I give information to the Staff, as I suppose I shall, I shall feel like a cad giving away my comrades. For they were my comrades.”
Harding nodded his head while his keen eyes scanned Bretherton’s face. “You must try not to think of it from that point of view,” he insisted. “It was a bad dream—vivid and concrete at the time, but none the less a state of things created by your mind and for which you are not responsible. And now you have woken up. You are G. B. of the old battalion and of the old pre-battalion company. That is what you must concentrate upon. Think of it—the old company. We are scattered now since those days round Albert, eh! Groucher went with a Blighty one, you were missing on the Somme, I was pushed off to this C.C.S., Hubbard has gone…”
“What happened to him?” asked Bretherton.
“His cultivation of the A.P.M. bore fruit. He is a full-blown A.P.M. himself now.”
“He meant well,” commented Bretherton.
“Well, he has gone, anyway,” continued Harding. “Now Baron has gone with a good Blighty one—that means Gurney will have the company; you and I are here, and they have killed poor old Melford. Good luck to him! He was a soldier and a white man.”
“One of the best,” agreed Bretherton.
“So there are not many of the old crowd left with the battalion: Pagan, Gurney, Dodd… and that’s all.” He rose to his feet. “Will you leave this business to me? Keeping quiet about it is out of the question. I shall have so see the A.D.M.S. and I will ask to see the Corps Commander or the B.G.G.S. Meanwhile, till we know how the land lies, you had better lie doggo. I will leave instructions with the matron and get her to send you a dose.”
“You are a dear old heathen, Uncle Sam. I know you will do your best for me—though I don’t much care. I’m very tired: I’m going to sleep now.”
Harding remained some moments watching the motionless figure that lay with closed eyes upon the bed; and then, with a little smile of affection playing about the corners of his mouth, he left the ward.
IV
Some hours later Harding returned.
“Well, I have fixed up things for you, G. B.,” he said. “I have seen the A.D.M.S., and he saw the Corps Commander; and then the General called me in. I caused quite a flutter. They told me to wait. Corps got on to Army, and Army on to G.H.Q. Finally, they made up their minds about you; though what they are up to I don’t know.
“They wanted to move you at once; but I would not have that. I am going to keep my eye on you for a day or two at least. Then they wanted your information at once; but I would not have that either. I said not before the day after to-morrow at the earliest. They are going to move you in a day or two. Where, I don’t know. A base hospital. Meanwhile—while you are here, that is—you are to remain as Colonel von Wahnheim, and speak German if necessary. That’s an order. What the game is, I don’t know; but I do know that they have reported through the usual channels that Colonel von Wahnheim was captured in an abortive trench raid, and also—through the usual channels—that Captain Bretherton who escaped from Ebenthal prisoner-of-war camp some months ago, has reached our lines. I fancy that when you leave here you are to be G. B. again. But meanwhile, you are von W., and nobody except myself is to know that you are not.”
V
During the next few days Bretherton was visited by a high staff officer from G.H.Q., who questioned and cross-questioned him, and who was obviously very pleased with the several hundred pages of information that were taken down. A mental specialist also visited him. This officer, however, did not communicate the result of his examination to Harding, but sent his report direct to G.H.Q. On the fifth day Colonel Liddel, the staff officer from G.H.Q., appeared again.
“I want to have a chat with you, Bretherton,” he said. “We are going to move you to-morrow. We are going to send you to Le Touquet. You have had a bad time and you have been very useful to us. We have notified the O.C. hospital, and you can stay there more or less as long as you like. Get absolutely fit again. There is no hurry. You will arrive there as Captain Bretherton and nobody will know anything about the other business. And you must give me your word that you will not mention it to a soul, nor let anyone know that you have suffered from loss of memory. You may talk about your escape from Germany—not too fully; information gets through to the Hun, and it is not wise to let him know too much about how prisoners escape—and to account for the gap in time, you can say that you were hiding in a wood or were concealed by a civilian, or anything. But not a word about von Wahnheim, you understand? I ask for your word as an officer, but it is an order—and disobedience will be treated accordingly.”
“I suppose it is useless to ask questions—reasons?” said Bretherton.
“Quite.”
“I give you my word,” said Bretherton.
“Good.” The Colonel rose and held out his hand. “Good luck, Bretherton. I am going on leave next week, and if there is anything I can do for you—see your people or anything…”
“No, thanks very much,” replied Bretherton. “I have only a stray uncle, and he is abroad.”
“So much the better,” was the Colonel’s cryptic remark. “Good-bye. Make the most of the sea-air down there. I will come and have a look at you one of these days.”
&
nbsp; And Bretherton was left wondering.
CHAPTER XIX
I
White-capped rollers driven before a strong north-westerly wind were breaking upon the coast of northern France. From the clear but distant horizon they came surging in, a never-ceasing succession of green, foam-flecked ridges, mounting higher and higher till one by one they curved glassy green in the sunlight to crash in a cascade of white, and foam far up the broad beach towards the dunes. The dunes, too, ran in parallel ridges like the breakers: the outer ridge bare and dazzling white in the sunshine, the inner ridges clothed with dark pines that converted the bleak bare coast into a green miniature mountain-land.
In one of the wind-sheltered valleys among the sand-hills walked a little group of officers from the Lewis Gun School at Le Touquet. With one exception they were subalterns, smooth-faced boys from infantry battalions in the line, to whom the Lewis-gun coarse was a joyous two weeks’ holiday. They laughed and chattered as they trudged along, and when three V.A.D.s from one of the many hospitals in the neighbourhood passed, several of them looked back hopefully for some sign of encouragement.
“First English girls I’ve seen for months,” exclaimed one of them. “I shall develop shell-shock and have one of the darlings to mix me a spot when I’m thirsty, another to hold my hand, and the prettiest of the lot to tuck me up in bed and kiss me good night.”
“You are delirious, Bunface,” chaffed another. “Don’t you know that Generals and the gilded staff wallahs bag all the pretty ones and that subalterns in the P.B.I. get only moth-eaten hags from the vicar’s needlework guild? Isn’t that so, Skipper?”
The man thus appealed to smiled. He wore the ribbon of the Military Cross and was an older man and more careworn than the others. “Possibly,” he said. “I have been in hospital for some months now, and I have never had any such alarming experiences as Bunface suggests. But then I haven’t much of an eye for feminine beauty, and in any case I lack Bunface’s fascinating manner.”
The party separated at the end of the dunes where the seawall and parade of Paris Plage begins. The majority of the subalterns went towards the town, but the man with captain’s stars upon his shoulder-straps, Gerard Bretherton, crossed the beach towards the sea.
Four months had passed since he arrived in an ambulance at the hospital among the pines, and he was now fit and strong again.
It was six weeks since he had been passed as convalescent, and a month since that memorable day on which for the first time he had been allowed to wander off alone. How he had enjoyed those walks through the silent pine woods! The canters along the beach on a nag he had borrowed from the staff at Etaples! And the simple amusements of Paris Plage, the civilized shops, the tea-rooms, and the hotels had had the charm of novelty. And there had been the cheery companionship of other patients and of the succession of officers at the Lewis Gun School who flocked into Paris Plage after parades every afternoon, and in the evening hired the local fiacres to take them back, and recklessly raced their antiquated vehicles along the road through the pine woods to Le Touquet.
But gradually these amusements had palled. He grew well and strong and restless. Stirring news came from the line. The Messines Ridge had been stormed, and slowly the British were advancing across the almost impassable morass of Passchendaele at the cost of four hundred thousand casualties. He had watched the everchanging personnel of the great camp on the bare hillside of Etaples. He became restless. He was fit again, but he was not pulling his weight. He had applied to go back to his old battalion, but the authorities had replied that there was no hurry; and in these days when a continuous stream of hospital trains ran westward and a like stream of reinforcement trains ran eastward, he was puzzled to account for his special treatment.
That morning, however, he had received an official letter. He was appointed to the staff of G.H.Q. He was to go to Montreuil in two days’ time for an interview and to report for duty at the end of the week. He was not enthusiastic about this staff appointment. Many men would have been delighted, he knew. He would have preferred the old battalion and the life and men he knew, but since that could not be, he was resigned.
He turned from the sea and walked back across the beach towards the line of gimcracks, toy-like villas that showed above the digue. He turned down the central street and into the cosy tearoom of Le Chat Bleu. It was as usual rather crowded at this hour. There were a number of officers, a few civilians, and a sprinkling of V.A.D.s. He found a vacant table by the window and sat down.
Almost immediately, however, he had a feeling that somebody was staring at him, and his eyes, guided by that mysterious power that operates on such occasions, turned towards a table occupied by two V.A.D.s on the opposite side of the room. One of the girls had half-risen to her feet and was staring at him with eyes that were strangely dark against the pallor of her face. His own heart made a great leap and hung, as it seemed, poised for a second or two in his throat, suffocating him, and then hammered furiously.
He stumbled to his feet and moved towards her. They met in the alleyway between the tables.
“Gerard!” she cried in a hushed voice, and he noticed that her grey eyes were strangely dark.
“Helen!” he stammered, and was dumb.
The colour flowed back to her cheeks, and she turned hastily to the V.A.D. who was seated at the table watching them curiously.
“Marjorie, this is Captain Bretherton,” she said. “G. B. they call him in his regiment. He was my brother’s company commander. G. B. back from the dead!” she added.
Bretherton laughed awkwardly and accepted the invitation to join them. “Hardly from the dead,” he said. “From a prison camp in Germany.”
The girl called Marjorie fixed a pair of very large blue eyes upon him, clasped her hands together, and cried excitedly, “An escaped prisoner-of-war! How thrilling!”
“From the dead really,” repeated Helen. “You were reported missing—I heard nothing more. And that was nearly a year ago.”
A waitress came to take their order, but Bretherton found his brain unequal to the simple task of giving it coherently. He asked the girl called Marjorie what she would like, realized suddenly that he was speaking in French, halted and glanced furtively at Helen. He found her eyes fixed upon him. He looked quickly away and spoke rapidly to the waitress in English, and when she replied in French, he broke wildly into German, stammered, and became dumb.
Marjorie laughed merrily and gave the order herself. He was obviously a hero to her. She plied him with questions about his experiences but he answered her absently with his mind on other things, and it was only later that he realized that she had done all the talking and that he and Helen had said scarcely a word.
And then suddenly Marjorie jumped up. “We must simply fly,” she said to Helen. “We have to be back in ten minutes and it is a good twenty minutes’ walk.”
They were at the door, and Bretherton realized that in a moment she would be gone and that he did not even know in which hospital she was employed.
“I want to talk to you,” he began desperately, “about—about your brother…”
“Come on, Helen,” cried Marjorie. “We must simply dash.”
Helen was standing on the pavement in the dark blue uniform that became her so well. Bretherton, pale-faced, was gazing pleadingly at the little face beneath the close-fitting blue hat. Her eyes strayed from his face, and she played with a button of her coat.
“I have two hours off to-morrow,” she said. “From six if you…”
“Yes, yes,” he agreed. “Where?”
“You know Gaudin’s?”
He nodded. Marjorie had taken her by the arm and was dragging her away.
“Soon after six,” she called back.
“Soon after six—Gaudin’s,” he repeated. And then she was Gone.
II
It was five minutes past six, and he sat in the little upper room of Gaudin’s with his eyes fixed on the clock. A subaltern from the Lewis Gun School w
as strumming idly upon the piano that stood in one corner, and two Army Nursing Sisters and a Frenchwoman occupied two of the little tables. He was glad that the room was not empty. He had not attained the calmness he had hoped for, and he was afraid to meet her alone. She was free at six. It was twenty minutes’ walk from the hospital, the girl Marjorie had said. Twenty past six then, unless she hurried.
At fourteen minutes past six by the ormolu clock on the mantelpiece she walked into the room, a neat figure in her dark blue uniform, and her cheeks were alive with colour. He had carefully rehearsed what he would say to her, but he only grinned foolishly and awkwardly, and said not a word.
They sat down at a table, and she began to talk—rather quickly, he fancied. Uncertain of herself, he thought, and was pleased. She chattered about the hospital, her work, her coming to France. He talked also, about the prison camp at Ebenthal and the humorous side of the life there; and they both laughed rather frequently and rather longer than was necessary at his jokes.
He was aware that another part of him was anxiously watching the other people in the room, and he was conscious of a quickening of his pulses when the subaltern rose from the piano and went out. Another ten minutes passed by, and then the two army sisters rose and went out. There was only the Frenchwoman left. A waitress came in to clear the tables. The Frenchwoman was buttoning her gloves. She rose to her feet and walked out. The waitress had piled the dirty plates on a tray and would be gone in a minute or two. Bretherton experienced the nearest approach to panic he had ever known. He talked rapidly and wildly about Ebenthal, Le Touquet, the Lewis Gun School, anything. From the corner of his eye he saw that the waitress had picked up the tray and was walking towards the door.
She was gone. They were alone. For a few seconds he continued his feverish conversation, and then he caught her eye, stammered, and became dumb. There was silence. He could hear his watch ticking on his wrist. He dared not look at her. The silence was vibrant—like a tuning-fork. Perspiration broke out upon his forehead. He went breathlessly to the piano and dropped upon the stool; and the silence, vibrant with her personality, seemed to follow him like a howling mob.
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