'Yes, yes,' he cried, 'but man-power is the final court of appeal, and we have been wasting our man-power, wasting it,—wasting it!'

'What do you mean by that? A finer lot of men never put on uniform than we had.'

'In a way you are right. No one could admire the heroism of our fellows more than I do. You have to get farther back.'

'How can we get farther back?'

'You have to get back to the Government. Look here, Luscombe,' and evidently he had forgotten the difference in our ranks, 'let me put the case into a nutshell. I was sent over here, to France, in a hurry. Never mind how I found out what I am going to tell you,—it is a fact. Two battalions of ours were urgently ordered here; our men here were hardly pressed, the Germans outnumbered us. Our chaps hadn't enough rest, and the slaughter was ghastly. So we were ordered over to relieve them, and the command was that we were to travel night and day, so urgent was the necessity.

'What happened? The boat by which I came was held up in the harbour for twenty-four hours. Why? I am not talking without my book,—I know, I have made investigations, and I will tell you why. The firemen were in public-houses, and would not come away. And the Government allowed those public-houses to be open; the Government allowed those firemen to drink until they were in an unfit condition to take us across. The Government allowed the stuff that robbed them of their manhood, and of their sense of responsibility, to be manufactured. The Government allowed private individuals to make fortunes out of that stuff! Just think of it! There we were, all waiting, but we could not go. Why could not we go? Why were we held up, when the lives of thousands of others depended upon us? when the success of the war probably depended upon it? Drink! there is your answer in one word.

'Here's this affair of the last two or three days; it didn't come off. Ammunition was wasted, men's lives were wasted, hearts were broken; but it didn't come off. Why was it?

'What are we fighting? We are fighting devilry, inhumanity, Prussian barbarism. Search your dictionary, and you can't find names too bad to describe what we are fighting. But in order to do it, we use one of the devil's chief weapons, which is robbing us of victory.

There was a strange intensity in his voice, and I think he forgot all about himself in what he said.

'Look here,' he went on, 'you remember how some time ago we were crying out for munitions. "Let us have more guns, more munitions," we said. The Germans, who had been preparing for war for so many years, had mountains of it, and as some one has said, thousands of our men were blown into bloody rags each day. And we could not answer back. We had neither guns nor shells. Why?'

'Because we were not properly organized. You see——'

'Yes, it was partly that, but more because our power was wasted, in the gun factories and the munition factories. You know as well as I do that it was on the continual and persistent work of the people in those factories that our supplies depended. What happened? Hundreds, thousands of them left work at noon on Saturdays, and then started drinking, and did not appear at their work until the Tuesday or Wednesday following, and when they came they were inefficient, muddled. Work that required skilled hands and clear brains had to be done by trembling hands and muddled brains. The War Minister told us that there was a wastage of 10 per cent. of our munition-making power. He told us, too, that between thirty and forty days of the whole working force of the country were lost every year,—what by? Drink.

'And meanwhile our chaps out here were killed by the thousand, because of shortage of munitions. Is it any wonder that the war drags on? Is it any wonder that we are not gaining ground? We were told months ago that we should shorten the war by blockading Germany, by keeping food from the nation. Now I hear rumours that there is going to be a shortage of food in our own country. Whether that will be the case or not, I don't know. If there is a shortage, it will be our own fault. I see by the English newspapers that bread is becoming dearer every day, and people say that there'll soon be a scarcity, and all the time millions upon millions of bushels of grain intended for man's food is being wasted in breweries and distilleries. Hundreds of thousands of tons of sugar, which are almost essential to human life, are utilized for man's damnation; and all by the consent of the Government.

'When the war broke out, the King signed the pledge, so did Lord Kitchener, so did the Chancellor of the Exchequer. Did the people follow? They only laughed. I tell you, Luscombe, every distillery and every brewery is lengthening the war, and I sometimes doubt whether we shall ever win it,—until the nation is purged of this crime! Yes, we are making vast preparations, and we have raised a fine Army. But all the time, we are like a man trying to put out a fire by pouring water on it with one hand, and oil with the other.'

'But, my dear chap,' I said, 'these brewers and distillers have put their fortunes into their business, and they employ thousands of hands. Would you rob them of their properties, and would you throw all these people out of work?'

'Great God! man,' was his reply, 'but the country's at stake, the Empire's at stake! Truth, righteousness, liberty are at stake! If we don't win in this war, German devilry will rule the world, and shall the country allow the Trade, as it calls itself, to batten upon the vitals of the nation? That's why I am bewildered. I told you just now that perhaps I look at things differently from what I ought to look at them. I have lost all memory of my past life, and I judge these things by their face value, without any preconceived notions or prejudices. I have to begin de novo, and perhaps can't take into account all the forces which have been growing up through the ages. But, Heavens! man, this is a crisis! and if we are going to win this war, not only must every one do his bit, but all that weakens and all that destroys the resources of the nation must be annihilated!'

Our conversation came abruptly to an end at that moment, caused by the entrance of my orderly, who told me that a gentleman wished to see me.

'Who is it, Jenkins?' I asked.

'Major St. Mabyn, sir.'

He had scarcely spoken when, with a lack of ceremony common at the front, George St. Mabyn entered.

'Ah, there you are, Luscombe! Did you know that both Springfield and I have had a remove? We got here last night. I fancy there are going to be busy times. I was awfully glad when I heard you were here too.'

'No, I never heard of your coming,' I replied, 'but this is really a great piece of luck.'

I had scarcely uttered the words, when I turned towards Paul Edgecumbe, who was looking steadily at St. Mabyn. There was no suggestion of recognition in his eyes, but I noticed that far-away wistful look, as though he were trying to remember something.

Instinctively I turned towards George St. Mabyn, who at that moment first gave a glance at Edgecumbe. Then I felt sure that although Edgecumbe knew nothing of St. Mabyn, his presence startled the other very considerably. There was a look in George St. Mabyn's eyes difficult to describe; doubt, wonder, fear, astonishment, were all there. His ruddy cheeks became pale, too, and I was sure his lips quivered.

'Who—who have you got here?' he asked.

'It's a chap who has got knocked about in a scrap,' I replied.

St. Mabyn gave Edgecumbe a second look, and then I thought his face somewhat cleared. His colour came back; his lips ceased twitching.

'What did you say your name was, my man?'

'Edgecumbe, sir.'

'D.C.L.I., I see.'

'Yes, sir.' He saluted as he spoke, and left the room, while George St. Mabyn stood looking after him.



CHAPTER VIII

I BECOME AN EAVESDROPPER

For some seconds he was silent, while I, with a score of conflicting thoughts in my mind, stood watching him. I had often wondered how I could bring these two men together, for, while I had but little reason to believe that they were in any way connected, I was constantly haunted by the idea that had been born in my mind on the night I had first met George St. Mabyn. I had imagined that if they could suddenly be brought together, my suspicions could be tested, and now, as it seemed to me, by sheer good fortune, my wishes had been gratified; but they had led to nothing definite.

'Who is that fellow, Luscombe?' he asked presently.

'Don't you remember?' I replied. 'He is the man whom I met at Plymouth Harbour, the man who had lost his memory.'

'Oh, yes. Funny-looking fellow; he—he almost startled me,' and he laughed nervously.

'Do you know him? Did you ever see him before?' I asked.

'No, I never saw him before.'

'I thought you looked as though you—you recognized him.'

'No, I never saw him before.'

He spoke quite naturally, and in spite of everything I could not help being convinced that he and Paul Edgecumbe had met for the first time.

'Have you heard from Devonshire lately?'

'No,' I replied.

'Then you don't know the news?'

'What news?' I asked eagerly.

'Miss Blackwater and I are engaged.'

'Congratulations,' I said; 'you'll be the envy of all the marriageable men in Devonshire.'

'Shan't I just! Yes, I'm the happiest man in the British Army, and that's saying a great deal.'

'I suppose it is publicly announced?' I said.

'No, not yet. Norah wants to wait a bit. I would like to have got married before I came out this time, but—but there's no understanding women. Still, if I live through this business, it'll come off in due time.'

'Where do you hang out, exactly?' I asked.

'At a village about two miles up the line. You can't miss the house I am billeted in; it's the first decent house on your right-hand side, at the entrance to the place. Springfield is with me. We are a bit quiet just now, but there'll be gay doings in a week or so. You must look me up, Luscombe, when you have a few hours to spare. By the way, you remember that Miss Bolivick you saw at the Granville's? She's out here in France somewhere.'

'What, nursing?'

'Yes, I suppose so.'

'A remarkably fine girl,' I ventured; 'if I am a judge of character, she's capable of doing anything.'

'Is she? Lorna and I never hit it off somehow. She was great pals with my brother Maurice, although she was only a kid at the time. She—she didn't congratulate me on my engagement. You'll be sure to look me up down at St. Pinto, won't you, Luscombe?'

When he had gone, I sat a long time thinking. It is true I no longer believed that Paul Edgecumbe could be his brother; but it set me wondering more than ever as to who Edgecumbe could be. I wondered if the poor fellow's memory would ever come back, and if the dark veil which hid his past life would be removed.

Before going out, I scribbled a line to Lorna Bolivick, telling her of my meeting with Edgecumbe, and of the wonderful way he had helped me to escape from the German trenches. It was true that, according to St. Mabyn, she was in France, but I imagined that her letters would be forwarded to her.

After that, several days elapsed before I had opportunity to pay my promised visit to St. George Mabyn. It was a case of every man to the wheel, for we were making huge preparations for the great Somme push which took place immediately afterwards. Still, I did at length find time to go, and one evening I started to walk there just as the day was beginning to die. It had been very hot and sultry, I remember, and I was very tired.

St. Pinto was well behind the lines, but I could hear the booming of the big guns away in the distance. I had no difficulty in finding the house where St. Mabyn was billeted, for, as he said, it was the first house of importance that I came across on the outskirts of the village.

I was disappointed, however, in finding that neither he nor Springfield was in. I could not complain of this, as I had not sent word that I was coming. But being tired, and having decided to walk, I did not relish the thought of my tramp back, especially as I had not taken the trouble to change my heavy field boots.

Not a breath of wind blew, and the air was heavy and turgid. On my way back, I had to pass a little copse which lay in a dell, and having noticed a little stream of water, I climbed over the fence in order to get a drink. Then, feeling deadly tired, I stretched myself at full length on the undergrowth, and determined to rest for an hour before completing my journey.

I think I must have fallen asleep, for presently I suddenly realized that it was quite dark, and that everything had become wonderfully still. The guns no longer boomed, and it might seem as though the conflicting armies had agreed upon a truce. I imagine that even then I was scarcely awake, for I had little consciousness of anything save a kind of dreamy restfulness, and the thought that I needn't hurry back.

Suddenly, however, I was wholly awake, for I heard voices close by, and I judged that some one was standing close to where I was. I was about to get up, and make my way back to my billet, but I remained quite still. I was arrested by a word, and that word was 'Edgecumbe.'

I did not realize that I was playing the part of an eaves-dropper, and even if I had, I doubt if I should have made my presence known. Anything to do with Edgecumbe had a strong interest for me.

The murmur of voices continued for some seconds without my being able to detect another word. Then some one said distinctly:

'You say he has been down at our place to-night?'

'Yes,' was the reply, and I recognized St. Mabyn's voice; 'he called about an hour before I got back.'

'What did he come for?' It was Springfield who spoke.

'Oh, that's all right. I asked him to look us up, and I expect that he, being off duty, came down to smoke a pipe with us.'

'I don't like the fellow.'

'Neither do I.'

Again there was low murmuring for several seconds, not a word of which reached me. Then I heard Springfield say: 'I shan't sleep soundly till I'm sure.'

'You weren't convinced, then?'

'I didn't see him plainly,' was Springfield's reply. 'You see, I had no business there, and we can't afford to arouse suspicions.'

'I tell you, Springfield,' and George St. Mabyn spoke as though he were much perturbed, 'I don't like it. I was a fool to listen to you in the first place. If you hadn't told me you were certain about it, and that——'

'Come that won't do, George. We are both in it together; if I have benefited, so have you, and neither of us can afford to have the affair spoilt now. You are squire, and I am your friend, and you are going to remain squire, whatever turns up, unless,' he added with a laugh, 'you are potted in this show.'

'What do you mean by that?'

'I mean that if it is he, he must never go back to England alive. It wouldn't do, my dear fellow.'

'But he remembers nothing. He doesn't even know his own name. He doesn't know where he came from; he doesn't know what he did.'

'Yes, but if it is he, what would happen, if his memory suddenly came back? Where should we be then? It won't bear thinking about!'

'But he knows nothing. Besides, who would take his word?'

'Are you sure Luscombe has no suspicions?' and Springfield asked the question sharply.

'How can he have? and yet—oh hang it all, Springfield, it hangs like a millstone round one's neck! But mind you, I am going to have no foul play.'

Springfield gave an unpleasant laugh. 'Foul play, my son?' he said, 'we are both too deep in this business to stick at trifles. You can't afford it, neither can I.'

A few seconds later, I heard them trudging back towards St. Pinto, still talking eagerly.

I lay on the thick undergrowth for some minutes without moving. The scraps of conversation which I had heard, and which I have set down here, gave me enough food for reflection for a long time. I was not yet quite clear as to the purport of it all, but I was clear that villainy was on foot, and that not only was Paul Edgecumbe's life in danger, but my own as well, and if the truth must be told, I feared Springfield's threat more than I feared the danger which I had to meet every day as a soldier at the front in war time.

The next day I received the following note:—

'MY DEAR LUSCOMBE,—

'I was awfully disappointed to learn, on my return to-night, that you had looked us up in our show here, and had not found us. Why didn't you, like a decent chap, let us know you were coming? We would then have made it a point to be in. Springfield was even more disappointed than I at our absence. Can't you come over on Thursday night and have a bit of grub with us? We will both make it a point to have the entire evening at liberty, always supposing that the Boches don't pay us special attention. Let me have a line by bearer.

'Yours, with the best of regards 'GEORGE ST. MABYN.'

'Yes,' I reflected, 'I will go. But I'll have another talk with Edgecumbe first.'



CHAPTER IX

EDGECUMBE IS MISSING

On the following Thursday I again made my way to St. Pinto, where I received an almost effusive welcome from St. Mabyn and Springfield. Both expressed great vexation at being away when I had called before, and seemed to vie with each other in being friendly. In fact they overdid it. After all, I had barely known them in England, and there seemed no reason why they should act as though I were a long lost brother in France.

'By the way, Luscombe,' said St. Mabyn after dinner, 'Springfield is awfully interested in that experience of yours. He says it's one of the greatest jokes of the war.'

'By Jove, that's true,' added Springfield. 'That fellow,—what do you call him?—must be a great chap. I should like to hear more about him.'

'He is a great chap,' I replied. 'I don't believe he knows what fear means, and the way he talked over those Boches was nothing short of a miracle.'

Almost before I realized it, I found myself submitted to a keen examination as to what I knew about Edgecumbe. As I reflect on it now, I can see that Springfield's methods were very clever. He asked no direct questions, but he led the conversation into channels which led me, almost in spite of myself, to divulge my thoughts about him. Still I do not think I committed any grave error, and when at length I left them, I felt fairly satisfied with the interview.

During my walk back to my billet I felt sure I was being followed and watched. It was true I neither heard nor saw anything out of the ordinary, but I seemed to be possessed of a sixth sense, and that sixth sense made me conscious of an unfriendly presence. But nothing happened, and presently when I reached my quarters without molestation or happening of any sort, I laughed at myself for harbouring baseless impressions.

I found Edgecumbe awaiting me, as I had previously arranged.

'Been here long?' I asked.

'About an hour,' and then he looked at me eagerly.

'No,' I said, noting his glance, 'I've nothing to tell you—-yet.'

I could see he was disappointed. I had aroused his curiosity and he had been wondering what I had in my mind.

'Then I may as well be going,' he said, after a few seconds' silence.

'No, not yet.'

I could see the eager questions in his eyes, so I went on. 'I can't tell you anything yet, Edgecumbe; it would not be fair to you, and it might not be fair to others. It may be I'm only following the will-o'-the-wisp of my fancies; all the same I want you to stay with me at least an hour. I think it will be the safest plan. I will send a note with you that will answer all questions, and meanwhile I'll get these shutters closed.'

It was quite midnight when he left me, and I watched him as he walked away from my billet. He had not gone more than two minutes when I heard the sound of angry voices, and as far as I could judge they came from the spot where he was likely to be. Then coming from the same locality there was the sound of a pistol shot.

Without hesitating a second, I ran towards the spot from which I thought the sound came. It was not a very dark night, but there was not light enough to discern anything very plainly. For half an hour I searched and listened, but I could discover nothing.

I tried to persuade myself that what I had heard was only fancy, nevertheless I did not sleep well that night. As soon as morning dawned I hurried to the spot again, but if there had been a struggle the rain which had fallen had washed the traces away. Neither was there anything suspicious to be seen.

Later in the day, however, news came to me that Private Edgecumbe was missing, and as he had last been to my billet, I was to be questioned as to whether I knew anything of his whereabouts.

As may be imagined when these questions were asked I could give no satisfactory answers. I could not say that I suspected foul play without giving my reasons, and those reasons were not good enough to give. I could only say that he had come to me bringing a message from Captain Wilkins, that he had left me about midnight bearing my reply. That about two minutes after he had left I heard the sound of angry voices, as well as a pistol shot, but beyond that nothing.

'Have you no idea where he is?' I asked anxiously.

'Not the slightest. I have made every inquiry—in vain. The fellow has disappeared as though he had deserted.'

'He hasn't done that,' I replied. 'He's not that sort.'

'Then what's become of him?'

I shook my head. I was very anxious, but I could say nothing. I dared not impugn two brother officers on such evidence as I had. Nevertheless, as may be imagined, I thought a great deal about what had taken place.



CHAPTER X

THE STRUGGLE IN THE TRENCHES

The events I have been writing about took place towards the end of May, 1916, and, as I have before stated, we were at this time making huge preparations for the Great Advance. As fortune would have it, moreover, I was, two days after my parting with Edgecumbe, given a job five miles further south, and then life became such a rush, that to make anything like satisfactory inquiries about a missing soldier was absolutely impossible. I imagine that few newspaper readers at home, when they read the first accounts of the battle of the Somme, and noted that we took a few villages and a few thousand prisoners on the first days of the battle, little realized the tremendous preparations which had to be made. So hardly were we kept at it, that oftimes we had scarce time for food or rest.

During the month of June, I received a letter from Lorna Bolivick, in reply to the one I had sent her informing her of my meeting with Paul Edgecumbe. It was so characteristic of her that I will insert it here.

'Now please confess at once,' she wrote, 'that it was because I witnessed your promise to tell me all about him, that you sent that letter, otherwise you wouldn't have thought of writing to a poor silly girl. And wasn't it interesting! I told you he was a wonderful man, and you see how he has paid you already for the little kindness you showed him. Why, in all probability he saved your life! And now I want you to do something else for me; I want you to send me his photograph. I have conjured up a picture of what I think he is like, and I am anxious to see if I am right. Aren't I taking a lot of liberties with you! But you see I like you,—I do really. I fell in love with you when you came to Granitelands with Sir Roger Granville that day. Oh, no, there's nothing romantic about it, I can assure you! But you looked so kind, and trustworthy, and strong, that I took to you from the very first moment. Father tells me I am wrong to take violent likes and dislikes to people at a first meeting; but I can't help it, I am made that way. Of course you are not a bit attractive in the ordinary way. You don't say sharp, clever things, and you don't flatter. Besides, you're old. Now don't be angry. Every girl looks upon a man who is getting on for forty as old. But I am fond of you all the same. There's a sense of security about you; I am sure I could trust you, just the same as I trust my father.

'Send me that photograph of your friend as soon as you can, I am anxious to get it. I am awfully busy here in this hospital, and there are such a lot of wounded men, many of them with a limb shot off. Do you know, I am tremendously interested in a poor Tommy who has lost both his legs. Horrible, isn't it! But he's the most cheerful man in the place, and keeps us laughing all day long.

'He wrote a letter to his mother yesterday, and told her to get him a pair of patent-leather dancing shoes.

'You will be sure to be careful, won't you?—I can't bear the idea of anything happening to you; and although I know you are old enough to be cautious, and not to take foolish risks,—that is, in the ordinary way,—I am sure you are one of those men who forget everything like caution when you are aroused. This is awfully silly, isn't it? so I'll stop. I command you, write me at once, and do as I tell you.

'Yours obediently,

'LORNA BOLIVICK.'

I answered this letter at once. I was in a dug-out at the time, and I remember a lump of mud falling on the writing-pad and making a huge smear, and explaining to her what the smear meant. As it happened, too, I was able to send her Paul Edgecumbe's photograph. It was not a very good one; it had been produced by one of his comrades who was an amateur photographer. But it gave a fair idea of him. I obtained it from him the last evening we were together. I did not tell her that he was missing, even although my fears concerning him were very grave; I thought it better not;—why, I don't know.

At length the great first of July arrived, and it was impossible to think of anything clearly. For days there had been a cannonade such as the world had never witnessed before; the whole countryside shook, the air was thick with shrieking shells, the ground trembled with bursting bombs. Every breath one drew was poison; the acrid smells of high explosives were everywhere. Then, after days of bombardment, which I will not try to describe, for it beggars all the language I ever learnt, the attack commenced.

I have been sitting here trying to conjure up a picture of all I saw that day, trying to find words in order to give some general impression of what took place; but I simply can't. As I look back now, it only seems a combination of a vast mad-house and a vast charnel-house. I have confused memories of bodies of men creeping up behind deadly barrages; I can see shells tearing up great holes in the earth, and scattering mud and stones around them. I can see, too, where trenches were levelled, just as I have seen pits which children make on the seashore levelled by the incoming tide. Now and then there come back to my mind dim, weird pictures of Germans crawling out of their dug-outs, holding up their hands, and piteously crying, 'Kamerad! Kamerad!'

I have recollections, too, of the great awkward tanks toiling along their cumbersome way, smashing down whatever opposed them, and spitting out flame and death on every hand. But I can record nothing. Men talk about the history of this war being written some day; it never will be,—the whole thing is too tremendous, too ghastly.

Personally, there are only a few incidents which I can recall clearly. In the main, the struggle comes back to me as a series of bewildering, chaotic, and incomplete events. Scraps of conversation come back to me, too, and those scraps have neither sequence nor meaning.

'Fricourt taken, is it?'

'Yes, and La Boisselle.'

'No, La Boisselle is not taken.'

'Yes, it is, and Contalmaison too.'

'Nonsense, you fool! that's miles on.'

'The French are doing very well, too. Fritz is having a hot time. We'll be in Bapaume in no time.' And so on.

My general impression was that our men were doing very well south of the Ancre, up as far as Thiepval, but north of the Ancre we were not so successful. The Germans were putting up a tremendous resistance, and I, unfortunately, was north of the Ancre. I will not give the exact locality, nor the name of the village which was our objective; but this village had been, as we thought, bombarded with such intensity that our work ought to be easy. Our casualties were very heavy, and I shall never forget the heartaches I had when I knew that many of my men whom I had learned to know and to love were lying in nameless graves, torn, battered and unrecognizable, while many more would linger for a few hours in agony, and presently a little mound would cover them, and a little wooden cross would indicate their last resting-place.

I never saw braver men. Even now my heart thrills at the abandon with which they rushed into every kind of danger, not grimly and doggedly, so much, as gaily, and with a laugh. They mocked at danger. I have seen men crossing No Man's Land, with machine-gun bullets flying all round them, stop coolly to light their cigarettes, and then go on again humming a song.

The advance had been in progress some days, at least I think so, but I am not sure,—one day seemed just like another. We had been at it for many hours, I remember, and we were all dead tired. I could see that some of the poor lads were half asleep, and ready to drop, through sheer weariness. We had taken a difficult position, but we were assured before we took it that our success would mean certainty to the accomplishment of the larger plan. Our objective was the taking of a fortified village a little farther on.

Heavy-eyed and heavy-limbed, the boys still stuck to it, and looked eagerly forward towards the accomplishment of their work. It is true our ranks were terribly decimated, but the enemy had suffered far worse than we, and therefore we were confident. Then the news came that we were to be relieved. Fresh battalions had come up to take our places, and we were told that we might get back and rest.

Our boys were disappointed at this, although they were glad of the reprieve.

'Anyhow, we've done our bit,' said one.

'A dirty bit, too,' said another. 'Still, the job's easy now, and a fresh lot of men should take it in a couple of hours.'

'I'd rather go on with it,' said a third. 'I don't see why these other blokes should have the easy job, and we have the hard one.'

'Cheer up, old sport,' said another, 'what do we care who does the job, as long as it's done? We're not here for a picnic.'

And so on, while we retired. How far we went back, I don't know. I have a confused remembrance of the fellows throwing themselves down on the ground, almost sleeping as they fell, and not waiting for the food which was provided for them, while others ate ravenously.

'Anyhow, we've given Fritz a twisting up to-day, and we've left the other blokes a soft job,' were the last words I heard as I dragged my weary legs to the place where I promised myself a good long sleep.

How long I slept I don't know, but it did not seem to me two minutes, although it might have been as many hours.

'The Boches have broken through!' Those were the words that came to my stupefied brain.

'What!' I exclaimed, 'it is impossible!'

'Yes, back at once!'

There was no time to ask questions, no time to argue. The poor fellows who had been fighting so long and bravely were with difficulty roused out of their sleep, and all had to retrace their weary steps towards the positions for which we had fought, and which we had won.

'Why is it? why is it?'—'There must be a mistake!'—'Why, we had got 'em on toast.'—'I tell you, we left 'em nothing but a picnic!'

The men were angry, discontented, grumbling, but they went back to their job determined to see it through nevertheless.

After that, I have but a dim recollection of what took place, except that it was grim, hard, stern fighting. The air was sulphurous, the ground hideous with filth, and blood, and dead bodies.

I don't know how it came about, but the Germans were more numerous than we. It was not we who were taking prisoners, but they, and then suddenly I found myself alone, with three Germans before me. One, I remember, had a rag saturated with blood tied round his head. He had a great gash in his cheek, too, and was nearly beaten; but there was the look of a devil in his eye. Had I been a private soldier, I expect I should have been killed without ado, but they called upon me to surrender. I was mad at the idea. What, surrender after we had won the position! Surrender to the men whom we had sworn to conquer! The Army which had set out to make an advance must not surrender!

I was dog-tired, and a bit stupefied; but that was the feeling which possessed me. I remember that a dead German lay in the trench close behind me, and that his rifle had fallen from his nerveless hand. Seizing the rifle by the barrel, I blindly and recklessly attacked them; I had a grim sort of feeling that if I was to die, I would die fighting. I remember, too, that I comforted myself with the thought that no one depended on me, and that I had no near relatives to bemoan my death.

It may be that my position gave me an advantage, otherwise they, being three, must have mastered me easily, although one of them was badly wounded; still, one desperate man can do much. I was thirty-nine years of age, and although not bred a soldier, I was an athlete. I was an old rowing blue, too, and that means good muscles and a strong heart. I weighed only a little over twelve stone, but I had not an ounce of spare flesh, and I was desperate. I had a little advantage in reach, too; I am over six feet in height, and long in limb.

But it was an unequal battle, and I knew they were bearing me down. One of my arms was numb, too; I expect it was from a blow, although I never felt it. I saw the look of murder in their eyes, as little by little they pressed me back. Then a change came.

It seems like a fantastic dream now, and the new-comer appeared to me more like a visitant from another world than tangible flesh and blood. I expect it was because my eyesight was failing me. My strength was gone, and I remember panting for life, while sparks of fire flitted before my eyes. I fell against the side of the trench, and watched the new-comer, who leapt upon two of the Germans, and hurled them from him as though they had been five-year-old children. It seemed to me that I had never seen such a feat of strength. A second later I knew that my antagonists would never fight again, and then my own senses departed.

'It's all right, sir, it's all right! You'll be as fresh as a daisy in a few minutes. There, that's better. You've fought a great fight!'

The voice seemed to stir something within me, and I felt myself in my right mind with a flash. Moreover, he had taken me to a place of comparative safety.

'Edgecumbe!' I cried, 'how in Heaven's name——!

'I've turned up like a bad penny, sir, haven't I? I was just in the nick of time, too.'

'This is twice you've saved my life,' I said.

'That's nothing,' was his reply. 'I have found more than life.'

I looked at him curiously. His clothes were torn and caked with mud; here and there I saw they were soaked with blood. His face looked haggard and drawn, too, but in his eyes was such a look as I had never seen before. The old wistfulness and yearning were gone; he no longer had the appearance of a man grieving because he had lost his past. Joy, realization of something wonderful, a great satisfaction, all revealed themselves in his eyes, as he looked at me.

'His memory has come back,' I said to myself.

I did not think of what had become of him on the night I had dined with Springfield and St. Mabyn, that was not worth troubling about. His past had come back, and evidently it was a joyous past, a past which gave all sorts of promises for the future!

'I have great things to tell you!' he cried excitedly.



CHAPTER XI

EDGECUMBE'S STORY

But my new-found strength was only fitful. He had barely spoken the words, when I heard a great noise in my ears, and I knew that my senses were becoming dim again. I heard other voices, too, and looking up I saw my own colonel standing near, with three or four others near him. And then I have a faint recollection of hearing Paul Edgecumbe telling him what had taken place. I know, too, that I was angry at his description. He was telling of the part I had taken in the struggle in glowing colours, while keeping his own part in it in the background. I was trying to tell the colonel this, when everything became black.

When I came to myself again, I was in a rest-station behind the lines. I remember feeling very sore, and my head was aching badly, but no bones were broken. I could move my limbs, although with difficulty; I felt as though every inch of my body had been beaten with big sticks. Still, my mind was clear, I was able to think coherently, and to recall the scenes through which I had passed.

I lay for some minutes wishing I could hear news of what was going on, when a brother officer came to me.

'Hullo, Luscombe, awake? That's right. You've had a rough time; you were lucky to get out of it so well.'

'I am in the dark about everything,' I said. 'Tell me what has happened.'

He mistook my meaning, and replied with a laugh:

'Oh, you were saved by that chap who took thirty Boches British prisoners. He seems to be a guardian angel of yours. He's a great man, too, there's no doubt about that. Ah, here's the M.O. coming!'

The doctor and I were good friends, and when he had examined me, and pronounced me a fraud for being in bed, I eagerly questioned him, and the sub. who still remained, as to how we were doing.

'Very well indeed, below Thiepval,' was his reply, 'but up here badly.'

'Have we taken Thiepval?'

He shook his head gloomily. 'That'll need a bit of doing. It's a regular fortress, man! Of course we shall get it in time. Our new guns are tremendous; but we ought to have done better up this way. We've thrown away our chances, too.'

'I don't understand,' I said. 'When we were relieved, we had practically won the key to the position we set out to get.'

'That's the mischief of the whole thing,' he replied moodily. He used language which I will not set down here; it was too strong for polite ears.

'What's the matter?' I asked.

'Oh, we're supposed to say nothing, but——'

'But what? Come, let us know. We hadn't been relieved long, when we were called back again, and we found the Boches in the very place we had taken.'

'Still, we are doing well south of the Ancre, and that's what the dispatches will be jubilant about, and that's what the people at home will know of. If we'd taken G——, we should have had the key of the whole position here, too. But there, I must be off. Cheer up, and look perky, my boy. There'll be no obituary notices about you this time. Yes, you can dress and get up when you want to, although I don't think you will want to. You will be fit for duty in two or three days.'

'By the way, do you know how Edgecumbe is?'

'He's all right. Wonderful chap! I hear he's to be recommended for all sorts of things.'

'He deserves them,' I said; 'he ought to have a commission.'

'I hear that's coming, too. Good-bye, old man.'

The next day I came across Edgecumbe. His face looked more like parchment than ever, but the wonderful look still remained in his eyes.

'You are better, sir. You are all right!' he exclaimed eagerly.

'Oh, yes, I am all right,' I replied. 'Now let us hear about the great things you have to tell me of. Your memory's come back, hasn't it?'

He laughed gaily. 'Better than that,' he cried, 'better than that, a thousand times! I have no past, Sir, but I have a future!'

I looked at him wonderingly. A doubt even crossed my mind as to whether he was quite sane.

'Tell me about it, anyhow,' I said.

'I have so much to tell you that I hardly know where to begin.'

'Better begin at the beginning. What have you been doing since that night you were at my billet over at St. Pierre?'

'Oh, yes, I'd forgotten all about that. I say, you were right there; I should imagine that some people think I am in their way. Anyhow, I'd hardly left your place when I suddenly found myself surrounded by three men, who went for me. They pretended to be drunk, but I am sure they were not.'

'Were they soldiers?'

'I don't know. It was too dark to tell. But I am pretty handy with my fives, and I gave one something to remember, and then thinking discretion was the better part of valour, I bolted. That was lucky, for they were trying to grab me. As you may remember, it was pretty dark, but still not so dark as to keep one from seeing things. I hadn't gone more than a few steps before a bullet whizzed by me. It didn't touch me, but as the road on which I ran was open, I turned up a narrow track,—I thought it might lead to a farmhouse, or something of that sort.'

'And then?'

'Then I had bad luck; The track led to a quarry, an old disused quarry. Then I must have had a very bad fall, for I was stunned and I sprained myself badly. When I came to myself, it was daylight, and I couldn't move; at least, I couldn't move without awful pain.'

'And what happened then?'

'I lay there a jolly long time. You see the blessed quarry had got overgrown, and all that sort of thing, and it was a long way from the road. I yelled, and yelled, but no one came. Then I saw that it would be all up with me, if I could make no one hear. That seemed silly.'

'And what did you do?'

'It was a bit of a tussle; you see I'd bruised and sprained myself so badly; but I got out after a bit, and—and—made an old man who was passing down the main road with a horse and cart hear me. The rest was very simple.'

'Did you get any punishment?'

'Oh, no, sir. I have to thank you for that. The statement I made tallied so exactly with yours that I got off all right. Besides, I was jolly shaken up. At the end of a fortnight I was able to get around again. Still, it's worth thinking about.'

'What do you mean?'

'Oh, there's no doubt some one is having his knife into me. Of course I can't help reflecting on what you said. In fact, it was your advice to look out for squalls, that made me a bit prepared when I left you. Would you mind telling me the grounds you had for your suspicions?'

'Go on with your story first. What happened after that?'

'What happened after that!' he cried, 'everything—everything! What happened after that has made a new man of me; life has become new, the world has become new!'

'You are talking riddles. Explain.'

'It's no riddle, sir,—it's a solution of all the riddles. I will tell you. While I was convalescing, I went to a Y.M.C.A. camp. I had never been to one of these places before; I don't know why I went then, except that the time hung a bit heavy on my hands. You see, every man was up to his neck in work, and there was great excitement in making preparations for the push, and I couldn't do anything. Not but what I had always respected the Y.M.C.A.,—what the British Army would have done without it I don't know. In my opinion, that body is doing as much to win the war as the War Office is—perhaps a bit more. They have kept thousands upon thousands of our chaps steady and straight. They have done more to fight the devil than—but there, I'll come to that presently.

'Well, one night I made my way into the Y.M.C.A. hut. At first I did nothing but read the papers, but presently I realized that a service was going on. The hall wasn't full by any means. Before this push it was full every night; but you see the boys were busy. Presently I caught sight of the man who was speaking, and I liked his face. I quickly found out that he was an intelligent man, too, and I went up nearer the platform to hear what he had to say. He was not a chaplain or anything of that sort, he was just one of the Y.M.C.A. workers. Who he was I didn't know then,—I don't now, although I have an idea I shall meet him some day, and I shall thank him as a man was never thanked yet.'

'Why?' I asked.

'He made me know the greatest fact in the world,' and he spoke very earnestly. 'He made me realize that there was a God. That fact hadn't come within the realm of my vision,—I hadn't thought anything about it. You see,' and I could see he had forgotten all about military etiquette and the difference in our ranks, 'as I have said to you before, I have been like a man beginning to write the story of his life at the middle. Having no memory, I have had no preconceived notions, and very few prejudices. I suppose if some one had asked me if I believed that there was a God, I should have said yes, although I should have been a bit doubtful. Perhaps I should have thought that there was some great Force which brought all that we see into being, and then I should have said that, if this great Force were intelligent, He'd made an awful mess of things, that He'd found the Universe too big a thing to manage. But I didn't know; anyhow, the thought of God, the fact of God, hadn't troubled me, neither had I thought much about myself in a deeper way.

'Sometimes, when my pals were killed, I wondered in a vague way what had become of them, and whether they were really dead; but there was nothing clear or definite in my mind. But that night, while listening to that man, I woke up to the fact that there was a God; it came to me like a flash of light. I seemed to know that there was an Almighty Power Who was behind everything,—thinking,—controlling. Then I was staggered.'

'Staggered? How?' I asked.

'He said that a Man called Jesus Christ told us what God was like,—showed us by His own life and death. I expect I was a bit bewildered, for I seemed to see more than his words conveyed.'

He did not seem excited, he spoke quite calmly, although there was a quiver in his voice which showed how deeply he was moved, and his eyes glowed with that wonderful new light which made him seem like a new man. That he had experienced something wonderful, was evident. What I and thousands of others regarded as a commonplace, something which we had heard from our childhood, and which, I am afraid, did not hold us very strongly, was to him a wonderful reality, the greatest, the divinest thing in the world.

'I got a New Testament,' he went on, 'and for days I did nothing but read it. I think I could repeat those four Gospels. Man, it's the most wonderful thing ever known,—of course it is! Why——'

At that moment a change came over his face. It was as though he were attacked by great pain, as though indeed his body were torn with agony. His fists were clenched and quivering, his body became rigid, his face drawn and bloodless.

'Hark, what's that?'

'I hear nothing.'

'Yes, but listen—there!'

It was a curious cry I heard; it sounded partly like the cry of a seagull, mingled with the wail of a wounded animal. It was repeated once, twice, and then there was a laugh.

'I've heard that before, somewhere. Where?—where? It's back behind the black wall!'

I looked, and saw half hidden by a small belt of brushwood, a group of officers, and I could hear them laughing.

'Is that an Indian cry, Springfield?' some one said.

'Yes, there's a legend that it is always heard the night before there's a kind of vendetta.'

Springfield's voice reached us quite clearly, and I looked instinctively towards Paul Edgecumbe.

'I know that voice! I know it!' and the intensity of his feeling was manifested in every word he spoke.

'Silence,' I whispered, 'and come with me, quickly!'

I drew him to a spot from which, without being observed, he could see Springfield's face.

'That is he, that's he,' he whispered hoarsely. 'I know him,—I know him!'

'Who is he?' I asked.

'I—oh!—no,—I don't know.'

From pain, almost amounting to agony, the expression on his face had changed to that of intense loathing, of infinite contempt.

'Let's get away,' he said; 'this air is polluted.'

A few minutes later, we had come to the rest-house where I had been brought after my shaking-up, and I saw that the letters had come.

'Wait a minute,' I said. 'I want to hear the end of your story.'

There was only one letter for me, and I saw at a glance that it had come from Lorna Bolivick. It was a long, newsy epistle, only one part of which I need quote here. It referred to Paul Edgecumbe's photograph.

'Thank you,' she wrote, 'for sending me that picture of your protege. What a strange-looking man! I don't think I ever saw a face quite like it before, and hasn't he wonderful eyes! I felt, even while looking at it, that he was reading my very soul. I am sure he has had wonderful experiences, and has seen things undreamed of by such as I. I had a kind of feeling, when I asked you for it, that I might have met him, or seen him somewhere; but I never have. His face is like no other I have ever seen, although, in spite of its strangeness, it is wonderfully striking. If ever you have a chance, you must bring him to see me. I am sure I should like to talk to him. A man who has a face like that couldn't help being interesting.'

Here was the final blow which shattered all my suspicions. In spite of repeated assurances to the contrary, I retained the impression that Paul Edgecumbe and Maurice St. Mabyn were the same person. Now I knew that it was impossible. Lorna Bolivick's testimony was final, all the more final because she had no thought of what was in my own mind.

And yet I knew that Paul Edgecumbe was in some way associated with Springfield and St. Mabyn; everything pointed to that fact. Springfield's evident fear, St. Mabyn's anxiety, added to Edgecumbe's strange behaviour when he heard the peculiar cry, and saw Springfield's face, made me sure that in some way these men's lives were bound together, in a way I could not understand.



CHAPTER XII

THE STRUGGLE ON THE SOMME

I was not fated to hear the end of Edgecumbe's story. I had barely finished reading the letter, when events happened in quick succession which made it impossible for me to hear those things which he declared made all life new to him.

It must be remembered that we were in the early part of July, when the great battle of the Somme was gaining intensity at every hour, and when private experiences were at a discount. Each day the tornado of the great guns became more and more terrible, the air was full of the shrieks of shells, while the constant pep-pep-pep of machine-guns almost became monotonous. Village after village south of the Ancre fell into our hands, thousands of German prisoners were taken, while deadly fighting was the order of the day. It is no use trying to describe it, it cannot be described. Incidents here and there can be visualized, and to an extent made plain by words; but the movement as a whole, the constant roar of guns, the shriek of shells, the sulphur of explosives, the march of armies, the bringing in of prisoners, and our own wounded men, cover too vast a field for any one picture.

It was not one battle, it was a hundred battles, and each battle was more intense than the other. Position after position was taken, some of which were lost again, only to be retaken, amidst the thunder of guns and the groans of dying men.

If ever Tennyson's martial poem were true, it was true in that great struggle. Not that cavalry had much to do with it, neither was there any pageantry or any of the panoply of war. It was all too grim, too ghastly, too sordid for that. And yet there was a pageantry of which Tennyson never dreamed. The boom of guns, the weird light of the star shells, the sulphurous atmosphere, the struggle of millions, formed a pageant so Homeric, and on such an awful scale, that imagination reels before it.

It was towards the middle of July when my battalion was ordered south of the Ancre. What had become of Edgecumbe I did not know, and it was impossible to find out. Each battalion, each company, and each platoon, had its little scene of operations, and we knew nothing of who might be a few hundred yards from us. As an infantry officer, I was, during the advance, for the most time in the trenches. Then, after the artillery had done its work, we leapt the parapets, and made our way across the open, oft-times through a hailstorm of bullets, while shrieking shells fell and exploded at our feet. Now we were held up by barbed wire, which here and there had not been swept away by our artillery, or again we stumbled into shell holes, where we lay panting and bruised. But these are only small incidents in the advance.

I think it was toward the end of July when a section of my battalion lay in the trenches not far from Montauban. We had been there, I remember, a considerable time; how long, I can scarcely tell, for hours and sometimes days passed without definite note being taken. Above our heads aircraft sped through the heavens, mostly our own, but now and then Germans! We saw little puffs of cloud forming themselves around them, as shells exploded in the skies. Now and then one of the machines would be hit, and I saw them swerve, as I have seen birds swerve before they fall, at a shooting party. Behind us our guns were booming, while a few hundred yards away in front of us, the German trenches were being levelled. It was a fascinating, yet horrible sight. More than once I saw machine-gun emplacements, with the gunners, struck by the projectiles from our great howitzers, and hurled many feet high.

Not that we had it all our own way, although our artillery was superior to that of the enemy. If we had located their positions, so had they located ours, and their shells fell thick and fast along our lines, decimating our ranks.

How long we had waited, I don't know. We knew by the artillery preparations that the command for advance must soon come, and we crouched there, some quivering with excitement, others cracking jokes and telling stories, and most of the men smoking cigarettes, until the word of command should pass down the line. We knew what it meant. It was true our barrage would make it comparatively safe; but we knew, too, that many of the lads who were joking with each other, and telling stories of what they did in pre-war days, would never see England again, while many more, if they went back, would go back mutilated and maimed for life. Still, it was all in the day's work. The Boches had to be beaten, and whatever might happen to us we must finish our job.

The soldiers talked calmly about it, and even joked.

'Think your number's up, Bill?'

'I don't know. I've been home to Blighty twice. Perhaps I shan't have such good luck next time. But what's the odds? We're giving Fritz a rare old time.'

'Fritz ain't got no more fight in him.'

'Don't you be so sure of that, old cock. Fritz is chained to his guns, that's what he is.'

'Is it true the Kaiser and old Hindenburg have come up to see this job, I wonder? Wouldn't I just like to take 'em prisoners!'

And so on, minute after minute, while the heavens and the earth were full of the messengers of death.

The command to go over came at length, and I heard a cheer pass down the line. It sounded strangely amid the booming of the guns, and the voices of the men seemed small. All the same, it was hearty and confident. Many of them, I knew, would have a sense of relief at getting out into the open, and feel that they were no longer like rabbits in their burrows. Helter, skelter, we went across the open ground, some carelessly and indifferently, others with stern, set faces. Here one cracked a joke with his pal, while there another stopped suddenly, staggered, and fell.

The ground, I remember, was flat just there, and I could see a long way down the line, men struggling across the open space. There was no suggestion of military precision, that is in the ordinary sense of the word, yet in another there was. Each man was ready, and each man had that strange light in his eyes which no pen can describe.

We took the first trench without difficulty. The few Germans who remained were dazed, bewildered, and eager to surrender. They came up out of their dug-outs, their arms uplifted, piteously crying for mercy.

'All right, Fritz, old cock, we won't hurt you! You don't deserve it. But there, I suppose you had to do what you was told.'

Now and then, however, no mercy was shown. Many of the machine-gunners held up one hand, and cried for mercy, while with the other they worked the guns. However, the first line of trenches was taken, a great many prisoners captured, and then came the more difficult and dangerous business. The second line must be taken as well as the first, and the second line was our objective.

By this time we did not know where we were, and we were so mixed up that we didn't know to what battalion or regiment we belonged. In the gigantic struggle, extending for miles, there was no possibility of keeping together. The one thing was to drive the Germans out of the second line of trenches, or better still to make them prisoners. But every inch of ground became more dangerous. German shells were blowing up the ground around us, and decimating our advancing forces.

It was here that I thought my number was up. A shell exploded a few yards from me, shook the ground under my feet, threw me into the air, and half buried me in the debris. It was one of those moments when it seemed as though every man was for himself, and when, in the mad carnage, it was impossible to realize what had happened to each other. I was stunned by the explosion, and how long I lay in that condition I don't know.

When I became conscious, I felt as though my head were going to burst, while a sense of helplessness possessed me. Then I realized that, while my legs were buried, my head was in the open. Painfully and with difficulty I extricated myself, and then, scarcely realizing what I was doing, I staggered along in the direction in which I thought my boys had gone.

Evening was now beginning to fall, and I had lost my whereabouts. Meanwhile, there was no cessation in the roar of artillery. As I struggled along, I saw, not fifty yards away, a group of men. And then I heard, coming through the air, that awful note which cannot be described. It was a whine, a yell, a moan, a shriek, all in one. Beginning on a lower note, it rose higher and higher, then fell again, and suddenly a huge explosive dropped close where the men stood. A moment later, a great mass of stuff went up, forming a tremendous mushroom-shaped body of earth. When it subsided, a curly cloud of smoke filled the air. I was sick and bewildered by what I had passed through, and could scarcely realize the purport of what I had just seen. But presently I saw a man digging, digging, as if for his life.

Half mad, and bewildered, I made my way towards him. In different stages of consciousness I saw several soldiers lying. When I arrived close to the spot, I recognized the digger. It was Paul Edgecumbe. Never did I see a man work as he worked. It seemed as though he possessed the strength of three, while all the energy of his being was devoted to the rescue of some one who lay beneath the heap of debris. In a bewildered sort of way I realized the situation. Evidently the enemy had located it as an important spot, for shell after shell dropped near by, while the men who had so far recovered their senses as to be able to get away, crawled into the shell hole.

'Come in here, you madman!' one man said. 'You can't get him out, and you'll only get killed.'

But Paul Edgecumbe kept on digging, heedless of flying bullets, heedless of death.

'He can't get him out,' said a soldier to me in a dazed sort of way; 'he's buried, that's what he is.'

'Who is it?' I asked.

'Captain Springfield,' replied the man. 'Come in here,' he shouted to Edgecumbe, 'that fellow ain't worth it!'

Scarcely realizing what I was doing, and so weak that I could hardly walk, I crawled nearer to my friend.

'You have a hopeless task there,' I remember saying. 'Leave it, and get into the hole there.'

'Is that you, Luscombe? I shall save him, I am sure I shall. I was buried once myself, so I know what it means. There, I have got him!' He threw down the tool with which he was digging, and with his hands pulled away the stones and earth which lay over the body.

I don't quite recollect what took place after that. I have a confused remembrance of lying in the shell hole, while the tornado went on. I seemed to see, as in a dream, batches of soldiers pass by me in the near distance; some of them Germans, while others were our own men. Everything was confused, unreal. Even now I could not swear to what took place,—what I thought I saw and heard may not be in fact a reality at all, but only phantoms of the mind. Flesh and blood, and nerves and brain were utterly exhausted, and although I was not wounded, I was more dead than alive.

I have an indistinct remembrance of a dark night, and of being led over ground seamed with deep furrows, and made hideous with dead bodies. I had a fancy, too, that the sky was lit up with star shells, and that there was a continuous booming of guns. But this may have been the result of a disordered imagination.

When I came to consciousness, I was at a clearing-station, suffering, I was told, from shell shock.

'You're not a bad case,' said the M.O. to me, with a laugh, 'but evidently you've had a rough time. From what I can hear, too, you had a very great time.'

'A great time!' I said. 'I scarcely remember anything.'

'Some of your men do, anyhow. Yes, the second line was taken, and the village with it. Not that any village is left,' he added with a laugh. 'I hear that all that remains is one stump of a tree and one chimney. However, the ground's ours. Five hundred prisoners were taken. There now, you feel better, don't you? It's a wonder you are alive, you know.'

'But I was in no danger.'

'Weren't you? One of your men, who couldn't move, poor chap, because of a smashed leg and a broken arm, watched you crawl out of a great heap of stuff. He said that only your head was visible at first; but the way you wormed yourself through the mud was as good as a play.'

'I knew very little about it,' I said.

'Very possibly. Corporal Wilkins watched you, and shouted after you, as you staggered away; but you took no notice, and then, I hear, although you were half dead, you did some rescuing work.'

'I did rescuing work!' I gasped.

'Why, of course you did, you know you did.'

'But I didn't,' I replied.

'All right then, you didn't,' and the doctor laughed again. 'There now, you're comfortable now, so be quiet. I'll tell some one to bring you some soup.'

'But I say, I—I want to know. Is Captain Springfield all right?'

The doctor laughed again. 'I thought you didn't do any rescuing work?'

'I didn't,' I replied, 'it was the other man who did that; but is Springfield all right?'

'He's very bad. He may pull through, but I doubt it.'

'Private Edgecumbe,—what of him? He did everything, you know.'

'I think he has gone back to duty.'

'Duty!' I gasped. 'Why—why——'

'The fellow's a miracle, from what I can hear. No, he wasn't wounded. The man who told me about it said that he might have a charmed life. He's all right, anyhow. Now be quiet, I must be off.'

For the next few days, although, as I was told, I was by no means a bad case, I knew what it was to be a shattered mass of nerves. A man with a limb shot away, or who has had shrapnel or bullets taken from his body, can laugh and be gay,—I have seen that again and again. But one suffering from shell shock goes through agonies untold. I am not going to try to describe it, but I shall never forget what I suffered. As soon as I was fit, I was moved to another hospital nearer the base, and there, as fortune would have it, I met Edgecumbe's colonel. By this time I was able to think coherently, and my spells of nerves were becoming rarer and less violent.

'Yes, my boy, you are a case for home,' said Colonel Gray. 'You are a lucky beggar to get out of it so well. I was talking with your C.O. yesterday; you are going back to England at once. I won't tell you what else he told me about you; your nerves are not strong enough.'

'There's nothing wrong, is there?'

Colonel Gray laughed. 'No, it's all the other way. Don't your ears tingle?'

'Not a tingle,' I said. 'But what about Edgecumbe?'

'He's a friend of yours, isn't he?' asked the colonel.

'Yes,' I replied.

'Who is he?'

'I don't know,—I wish I did.'

'He's a wonderful chap. I've had my eye on him for a long time, and I haven't been able to make him out. What really aroused my interest in him was the way—but of course you know all about that, you were in that show. I never laughed so much in my life as when those Boches were brought in. Of course you know he's to get his decoration? It couldn't be helped after that Springfield affair.'

As it happened, however, I did not cross to England for several days, but stayed at a base hospital until, in the opinion of the M.O., I was fit to be removed. Meanwhile the carnage went on, and the great battle of the Somme developed according to the plans we had made, although there were some drawbacks. At length the day came when I was to go back to England, and no sooner had I stepped on board the boat than, to my delight, I saw Edgecumbe.

'I am glad to see you!' I cried.

'Thank you, sir.'

'Got it bad?'

'A mere nothing, sir. Just a bruised arm. In a few days I shall be as right as ever.'

It was a beautiful day, and as it happened the boat was not crowded. I looked for a quiet spot where we could talk.

'You didn't finish telling me your story when we met last,' I said presently. 'I want to hear it badly.'

'I want you to hear it,' was his reply, and I noted that bright look in his eyes which had so struck me before.



CHAPTER XIII

EDGECUMBE'S MADNESS

'After all, it's nothing that one can talk much about,' he continued. 'I've become a Christian, that's all. But it's changed everything, everything!'

'How?'

'I find it difficult to tell you, sir; but after I'd got back from the Y.M.C.A. meeting I got hold of a New Testament, and for days I did nothing but read it. You see it was a new book to me.'

He hesitated a few seconds and then went on. 'Loss of memory is a curious thing, isn't it? I suppose I must have read it as a boy, just as nearly all other English boys have, but it was a strange book to me. I had not forgotten how to read, but I had forgotten what I had read. I seemed to remember having heard of some one called Jesus Christ, but He meant nothing to me. That was why the reading of the New Testament was such a revelation.'

'Well, go on,' I said when he stopped.

'Presently I began to pray,' and his voice quivered as he spoke. 'It was something new to me, but I did it almost unconsciously. You see, when I left the Y.M.C.A. hut, I had a consciousness that there was a God, but after I'd read the New Testament——; no I can't explain, I can't find words! But I prayed, and I felt that God was listening to me, and presently something new came into my life! It seemed to me as though some part of my nature which had been lying dormant leapt into life. I looked at things from a new standpoint. I saw new meanings in everything. I knew that I was no longer an orphan in the world, but that an Almighty, All-pervading God was my Father. That He cared for me, that nothing was outside the realm of His love. I saw what God was like, too. As I read that story of Jesus, and opened my life to Him, my whole being was flooded with the consciousness that He cared for me, that He watched me, and protected me. I saw, too, that there was no death to the man in whom Christ lived. That the death of the body was nothing because the man, the essential man lived on,—where I did not know, did not care, because God was.'

He looked across the sunlit sea as he spoke, and I think he had almost forgotten me.

'I had an awful time though,' he went on.

'How? In what way?'

'It was when I read the Sermon on the Mount. I could not for a time see how a Christian could be a soldier. The whole idea of killing men seemed a violation of Christianity.'

'It is,' I said.

'Yes, in a way you are right, and when I read those words of the Lord telling us that we must love our enemies, and bless them that cursed us, I was staggered. Where could there be any Christianity in great guns hurling men by the thousand into eternity?'

'There isn't,' I persisted.

'That's what I believed at first, but I got deeper presently. I saw that I had only been looking at the surface of things.'

'How?' I asked. I was curious to see how this man who had forgotten his past would look at things.

'I found after a daily study of this great Magna Charta of Jesus Christ, that He meant us to live by the law of love.'

'There's not much living by the law of love over yonder,' I said, nodding in the direction of the Somme.

'Yes there is,' he cried. 'Oh, I realize the apparent anomaly of it all, but don't you see? It wouldn't be living by the law of love to allow Germany to master the world by brute force! This was the situation. Prussianism wanted to dominate the world. The Germans wanted to dethrone mercy, pity, kindness, love, and to set up a god who spoke only by big guns. They wanted to rule the world by brute force, devilry. Now then, what ought Christians to do? It would be poor Christianity, it would be poor love to the world, to allow the devil to reign.

'You see,' he went on, 'Christ's law is, not only that we must love our enemies, but we must love our neighbours too. We must live for the overthrow of wrong and the setting up of His Kingdom of truth, and mercy, and love. But how? Here were Germany's rulers who were bent on forcing war. They were moral madmen. They believed only in force. For forty years they had been feeding on the poison of the thought that might was right, and that it was right to do the thing you could do.'

'And what is war but accepting that idea. It is simply overcoming force by force. Where does Christianity come in?'

'You don't argue with a mad dog,' he said. 'You kill it. It's best for the dog, and it's essential for the good of the community. Germany's a mad dog, and this virus of war must be overcome, destroyed. Oh, I've thought it all out. I believe in prayer. But it's no use praying for good health while you live over foul drains, and it's just as little praying for the destruction of such a system while you do nothing. God won't do for us what we can do for ourselves. That's why this is a holy war! That's why we must fight until Prussianism is overthrown. We are paying a ghastly price, but it has to be paid. All the same, we are fighting this war in the wrong way.'

'How?' I asked.

'Because we've forgotten God. Because, to a large extent, we regard Him too much as a negligible quantity; because we have become too much poisoned with the German virus.'

'I don't follow,' I said.

'I will try to make my meaning plain. In this war we have the greatest, the holiest cause man ever fought for. We are struggling for the liberty, the well-being of the world. We are fighting God's cause; but we are not fighting it in God's way. We are fighting as if there were no God.'

'How?'

'We started wrongly. Were our soldiers made to realize when they joined the Army that they were going to fight for God? Did the country, the Government ever tell them so? Oh, don't mistake me. I am a private soldier, and I've lived with the Tommies for a long time, and I know what kind of chaps they are. A finer lot of fellows never lived. Braver than lions, and as tender as women many of them; but does God count with the great bulk of them? Is Tommy filled with a passion for God? Is he made to feel the necessity of God? Does Tommy depend primarily on God for victory?'

'Well, do we depend on God for victory?' I asked.

'If God is not with us we are lost!' he said solemnly. 'And that's our trouble. I've read a good many of our English papers, our leading daily papers, and one might think from reading them that either there was no God, or that He didn't count. "How are we to win this war, and crush Germanism?" is the cry, and the answer of the British Government and of the British press is, "Big guns, mountains of munitions, conscription, national service, big battalions, and still more big battalions!"'

'Well, isn't that the only way to win? What can we do without these things?' I asked.

'Big guns by all means. Mountains of munitions certainly, and all the other things; but they are not enough. If we forget God, we are lost. And because we do not seek the help of God, we lose a great part of our driving power.'

He was in deadly earnest. To him Christianity, religion was not some formal thing, it was a great vital reality. He could not understand faith in God, without seeking Him and depending on Him.

'We have chaplains,' I urged. 'We are supposed to be a Christian people.'

'Yes, but do we depend on God? Do we seek Him humbly? When Tommy goes into battle, does he go into it like Cromwell's soldiers determined to fight in God's strength? Oh, yes, Tommy is a grand fellow, take him as a whole, and there are tens of thousands of fine Christians in the Army. But in the main Tommy is a fatalist; he does not pray, he does not depend on God. I tell you, if this battle of the Somme were fought in the strength of God, the Germans would have fled like sheep.'

'That's all nonsense,' I laughed. 'We can destroy brute force only by brute force.'

'That's the German creed,' he cried, 'and that creed will be their damnation.'

'No,' I said, more for the sake of argument than because I believed it, 'we shall beat them because we are better men, and because we shall be able to "stick it" longer.'

'Have you been to Ypres?' he asked quickly.

'No,' I replied.

'I have. I was there for months. I read the accounts of the Ypres battles while I was there, and I was able to study the terrain, the conditions. And Germany ought to have won. Germany would have won too, if force was the deciding power. Why, think, they had four men to our one, and a greater proportion of big guns and munitions. Humanly speaking, the battle was theirs and then Calais was theirs and they could dominate the Channel. But it is "Not by might, nor by power; but by My Spirit, said the Lord of Hosts." I tell you, Sir, no one can read the inwardness of the battles of Ypres without believing in Almighty God. By the way, did you ever read Victor Hugo's Les Miserables?'

'Years ago. What has that to do with it?'

'He describes the battle of Waterloo. He says that Napoleon by every human law ought to have won it. But Hugo says this: "Napoleon lost Waterloo because God was against him." That's why Germany didn't take Ypres, and rush through to Calais. That's why they'll lose this war.'

'And yet the Germans are always saying that God is on their side. They go to battle singing—

"A safe stronghold our God is still."'

'Yes, they are like the men in the time of Christ who said "Lord, Lord," and did not the things he said. I tell you, sir, if we had fought in God's strength, and obeyed God's commands, the war would have been over by now. German militarism would have been crushed and the world would be at peace.'

'Nonsense,' I replied with a laugh.

'It's not nonsense. This, as it seems to me, is the case: We are fighting God's cause, but God counts but very little. We are not laying hold of His Omnipotence; we are trusting entirely in big guns, while God is forgotten. That is why the war drags on. I tell you,' and his voice quivered with passion, 'what I am afraid of is this. This ghastly carnage will drag on, with all its horrors; homes will be decimated, lives will be sacrificed all because we believe more in material things than in spiritual things. More in the devil than in God. I think sometimes that God will not allow us to win because we are not worthy.'

'Come now,' I said, 'it is very easy to speak in generalities about such a question; but tell me how, in a practical way, faith in God, and religious enthusiasm would help us to win this war?'

'How?' he cried. 'Don't you see that in addition to what I will call the spiritual power which would come through faith in, and obedience to the will of God, you add a practical, human force? Let there be this faith, this enthusiasm, and the people, the soldiers, would be ready for anything. Our workpeople would cease going on strike, employers and tradespeople would no longer be profiteers, grumbling and disunity would cease. We should all unitedly throw ourselves, heart and soul into this great struggle, and nothing could withstand us.'

'But tell me why we are not worthy of victory, now,' I urged.



CHAPTER XIV

EDGECUMBE'S LOGIC

He was silent for a few seconds, and then went on quietly: 'You will forgive me, sir, if I seem assertive, but I look on you as my friend—and—and you know all about me—that I know myself. As I have said before, I naturally look at things differently from others. I have to be always beginning de novo. But tell me, sir, what do you think are the greatest curses in the British Army? What ruins most of our soldiers, body and soul?'

I hesitated a second, and then replied, 'Drink and—and impurity.'

'Exactly; and how much is the latter owing to the former?'

'A great deal, I dare say.'

'Just so. Now go a step further. Did not one of England's most prominent statesmen say that he feared drink more than he feared the Germans?'

'That was a rhetorical flourish,' I laughed.

'No, it was a sober considered statement. Now think. Before I—I—that is before God became real to me, I looked at this question from the standpoint of policy. I considered the whole thing in the light of the fact that it was sapping our strength, wasting our manhood. But I have had to go deeper, and now I see——great God, man, it's ghastly! positively ghastly!'

'What is ghastly?' I asked.

'Look here, sir,'—and his voice became very intense,—'I suppose you are typical of the educated Britisher. You stand half-way between the extreme Puritan on the one hand, and the mere man of the world on the other. Tell me this: Do you regard the body as of more importance than the soul? Do you think material success more vital than the uplifting of the real man? Do you look upon any gain won at the expense of a man's character as a good thing?'

'No,' I replied, 'I don't. I am afraid that, as a people, we are gripped very strongly by the material side of things, but theoretically, at all events, yes, and in a deeper way, too, we know that character is of more importance than material advancement.'

'Go a step further, sir. Supposing we could win this war at the expense of the highest ideals of the nation; supposing we could crush German militarism, and all the devilry which it has dragged at its heels, by poisoning our own national life, and by binding ourselves by the chains which we are trying to break in Germany; would it be a good thing?'

'Very doubtful, at all events,' I replied; 'but why are you harping on that?'

'Because I am bewildered, staggered. Don't mistake me; I have not the slightest doubt about the righteousness of our cause. If ever there was a call from Almighty God, there is a call now, and that call is increasing in its intensity as the days go by. If Germany won, the world would not be a fit place to live in; it would be crushed under the iron heel of materialism and brutalism. All that we regard as beautiful and holy, all that the best life of the world has been struggling after, would be strangled, and the race of the nations would be after material gain, material power, brute force. The more I think of it, the more I realize this,—we are fighting for the liberty of the world. But aren't our own men becoming enslaved while they are fighting? Aren't we seeking to win this war of God at the price of our own manhood?'

He was so earnest, so sincere, that I could not help being impressed. Besides, there was truth, a tremendous amount of truth, in what he was saying.

'Either this is God's war,' he went on, 'and we are fighting for God's cause, or we are not. If it is simply a matter of meeting force by force, devilry by devilry then there is not much to choose between us. But if we as a nation,—the pioneer of nations, the greatest nation under the sun,—are fighting for the advancement of the Kingdom of God, then we should eschew the devil's weapons. We should see to it that no victory is won at the cost of men's immortal souls. Besides, we gain no real advantage; I am certain of that. I have been in this war long enough to know that the stamina of our men, the quality of our men, is not made better by this damnable thing. It is all the other way. Our Army is a poorer army because of it, and we have lost more than we have gained by the use of it. That is looking at it purely from the physical standpoint. But surely, if a man believes in Almighty God, he has higher conceptions; when a man fights in the Spirit of God, and looks to Him for strength and for guidance, he has Omnipotent forces on his side. That is why we ought to have won months ago. In reality, this war at the beginning, was a war of might against right, and we have been making it a war of might against might, and we have been willing to sacrifice right for might.'

'But surely,' I said, 'you who have seen a lot of fighting, and have been over the top several times, know that the conditions are so terrible that men do need help. You know, as well as I do, that an artillery bombardment is hell, and that it needs a kind of artificial courage to go through what the lads have to go through.'

'And that brings me back to the point from which I started,' he cried. 'Are we willing to win this war at the cost of men's immortal souls? Mind you, I don't admit your premise for a moment; to admit it would be to impugn the courage of tens of thousands of the boys who have all along refused to touch it. Do you mean to tell me that the abstainers in the Army are less courageous than those who drink? Does any one dare to state that the lads who have refused to touch it have been less brave than those who have had it? To say that would be to insult the finest fellows who ever lived. But here is the point; we admit that drink is a curse, that it is a more baneful enemy than the Germans, that it is degrading not only the manhood of England, but cursing British womanhood, and yet we encourage its use. Now, assuming that our victory depends on this stuff, are we justified in using it? It may be rank treason to say so, but I say better lose the war than win it by means of that which is cursing the souls of our men. But we are not faced with that alternative. Our Army, brave as it is, great as it is, glorious as it is, would be braver, greater, and more glorious, if the thing were abolished for ever. And more than that, by making a great sacrifice for the sake of our highest manhood, we should link ourselves to Almighty God, and thus realize a power now unknown.'

'Is that what the New Testament teaches you?' I said at length. 'Is that the result of your becoming a Christian?'

'Yes,' he replied eagerly. 'I have read through the New Testament again and again. Every word which is recorded of our Lord's sayings I have committed to memory, and I am sure that what I say is right. Either Christianity is a dead letter, a mockery, or we have been fighting this war in a wrong way. We have not been trusting to God for strength, and what is more, the best men in our Army and Navy realize it. Take the two men who, humanly speaking, have the affairs of this war most largely in their hands: Admiral Beatty and Sir William Robertson. What did Sir William Robertson say to one of the heads of the Church of Jesus Christ in England? "Make the men religious, Bishop," he said, "make the men religious." Have you seen that letter he wrote? "We are trusting too much in horsemen and chariots, trusting too much in the arm of flesh, and when the nation depends more on spiritual forces, we shall be nearer victory." What did Admiral Beatty say in that remarkable letter he wrote only a little while ago? "When England looks out with humbler eyes, and with prayer on her lips, then she can begin to count the days towards the end." Does England believe that? "Not by might, nor by power, but by my Spirit, saith the Lord of Hosts." Does the British Government believe that? Do the people believe it? Do the Churches believe it?'

'But we must have might, and we must have power,' I urged.

'Of course we must. No one would think of denying it. But primarily, primarily, our great hope, our great confidence is not in material forces, but in spiritual. That is the point to which we as a nation must get back, and when we do, the hosts of German militarism will become but as thistledown. That is the call of God in these days, that is what this war should do for our country, it should bring us back to realities, bring us to God. Is it doing that, Captain Luscombe?'

'You know as well as I,' I replied. 'I have not been home for a long time.'

'I shall see presently,' he said, for by this time the shores of England were becoming more and more plain to us. 'Of course, while I was at home during my training, I did not realize things as I do now; my eyes had not been opened. But I shall study England in the light of the New Testament.'

'You will have a busy time,' I laughed.

'I suppose I am to have a commission, sir,' he said just before leaving the boat, 'and I am to go away into an Officers' Training Corps at once. But I have your address and you shall hear from me.'

That same night I wrote a letter to Lorna Bolivick, telling her of my arrival in England, and informing her that in all probability Edgecumbe would be in the country for some time. I wrote to Devonshire, because I had been previously informed that she had been obliged to return home on account of her health.

Three days later I got her reply.

'"Dear Captain Luscombe," she wrote, "I am awfully interested to hear that you are back in England; of course you will come and see us. Father insists that you shall, and you must be sure to bring your friend. I shall take no refusal. If you can give me his address, I will write to him at once, although, seeing we have never met, I think it will be better for you to convey my message. Tell him that I insist on you both coming as soon as possible. I have heaps of things to tell you, but I can't write them. Besides, as we shall be seeing each other soon, there is no need. Telegraph at once the time you will arrive, and remember that I cannot possibly hear of any excuse whatever from either of you."'

Edgecumbe having informed me of his whereabouts, I went to see him, and showed him the letter.

'Why on earth should she want to see me?' he asked.

'I don't know, except that I told her about our meeting,' I replied. 'She took a tremendous interest in you. Don't you remember?

For a few seconds there was a far-away look in his eyes, then evidently he came to a decision.

'Yes, I'll go,' he said, 'I will. I—I—think——' But he did not finish his sentence.

A few days later, we were on our way to Devonshire together, I little realizing the influence our visit would have on the future.



CHAPTER XV

DEVONSHIRE

Before leaving for England, I had learned that Captain Springfield was at a base hospital, and that although he was in a bad way, and not fit to return home, there were good hopes of his recovery. Of St. Mabyn I had heard nothing, but I imagined that very possibly Lorna Bolivick would have news of him. As I have said before, Lorna's letter, written on receipt of Paul Edgecumbe's photograph, had dispelled whatever ideas I had entertained about his being identical with Maurice St. Mabyn. Of course it was unthinkable, after what she had said. She had been so pronounced in her statement that Edgecumbe's face was altogether strange to her, and that she had never seen one like it before, that I was obliged to abandon all my former suspicions; and yet, at the back of my mind, I could not help believing that Edgecumbe and Springfield were not strangers.

Of another thing, too, I was certain. He had been an officer in the Army. On the night before we started for Devonshire I had a talk with the C.O. of the Officers' Training Corps to which Edgecumbe was attached. He had been under his command only a few days, but the attention of the C.O. had already been drawn to him. This man happened to be an old acquaintance of mine, and he talked with me freely.