Missing

by Mrs. Humphry Ward

'ERNEST HOWSON.'

'H'm, a great pity!' said the major, as she handed the note to him. 'Howson has taken a tremendous interest in the case. But Vincent is next best. Not the same thing perhaps—but still—Of course the whole medical staff here has been interested in it. It has some extraordinary features. You I think have had a brother-in-law "missing" for some time?'

He had piloted her into the bare salle à manger, where two young officers, with a party of newly-arrived V.A.D.'s were having dinner, and where through an open window came in the dull sound of waves breaking on a sandy shore.

'My brother-in-law has been missing since the battle of Loos,' said
Bridget—'more than a year. We none of us believe that he can be alive.
But of course when Dr. Howson wrote to me, I came at once.'

'Has he a wife?'

'Yes, but she is very delicate. That is why Dr. Howson wrote to me. If there were any chance—of course we must send for her. But I shall know—I shall know at once.'

'I suppose you will—yes, I suppose you will,' mused the major. 'Though of course a man is terribly aged by such an experience. He's English—that we're certain of. He often seems to understand—half understand—a written phrase or word in English. And he is certainly a man of refinement. All his personal ways—all that is instinctive and automatic—the subliminal consciousness, so to speak—seems to be that of a gentleman. But it is impossible to get any response out of him, for anything connected with the war. And yet we doubt whether there is any actual brain lesion. So far it seems to be severe functional disturbance—which is neurasthenia—aggravated by his wounds and general state. But the condition is getting worse steadily. It is very sad, and very touching. However, you will get it all out of Vincent. You must have some dinner first. I wish you a good-night.'

And the good man, so stout and broad-shouldered that he seemed to be bursting out of his khaki, hurried away. The lady seemed to him curiously hard and silent—'a forbidding sort of party.' But then he himself was a person of sentiment, expressing all the expected feelings in the right places, and with perfect sincerity.

Bridget took her modest dinner, and then sat by the window, looking out over a lonely expanse of sand, towards a moonlit sea. To right and left were patches of pine wood, and odd little seaside villas, with fantastic turrets and balconies. A few figures passed—nurses in white head dresses, and men in khaki. Bridget understood after talking to the little patronne, that the name of the place was Paris à la Mer, that there was a famous golf course near, and that large building, with a painted front to the right, was once the Casino, and now a hospital for officers.

It was all like a stage scene, the sea, the queer little houses, the moonlight, the passing figures. Only the lights were so few and dim, and there was no music.

'Miss Cookson?'

Bridget turned, to see a tall young surgeon in khaki, tired, pale and dusty, who looked at her with a frown of worry, a man evidently over-driven, and with hardly any mind to give to this extra task that had been put upon him.

'I'm sorry to be late—but we've had an awful rush to-day,' he said, as he perfunctorily shook hands. 'There was some big fighting on the Somme, the night before last, and the casualty trains have been coming in all day. I'm only able to get away for five minutes.

'Well now, Miss Cookson'—he sat down opposite her, and tried to get his thoughts into business shape—'first let me tell you it's a great misfortune for you that Howson's had to go off. I know something about the case—but not nearly as much as he knows. First of all—how old was your brother-in-law?'

'About twenty-seven—I don't know precisely.'

'H'm. Well of course this man looks much older than that—but the question is what's he been through? Was Lieutenant Sarratt fair or dark?'

'Rather dark. He had brown hair.'

'Eyes?'

'I can't remember precisely,' said Bridget, after a moment. 'I don't notice the colour of people's eyes. But I'm sure they were some kind of brown.'

'This man's are a greenish grey. Can you recollect anything peculiar about Lieutenant Sarratt's hands?'

Again Bridget paused for a second or two, and then said—'I can't remember anything at all peculiar about them.'

The surgeon looked at her closely, and was struck with the wooden irresponsiveness of the face, which was however rather handsome, he thought, than otherwise. No doubt, she was anxious to speak deliberately, when so much might depend on her evidence and her opinion. But he had never seen any countenance more difficult to read.

'Perhaps you're not a close observer of such things?'

'No, I don't think I am.'

'H'm—that's rather a pity. A great deal may turn on them, in this case.'

Then the face before him woke up a little.

'But I am quite sure I should know my brother-in-law again, under any circumstances,' said Bridget, with emphasis.

'Ah, don't be so sure! Privation and illness change people terribly. And this poor fellow has suffered!'—he shrugged his shoulders expressively. 'Well, you will see him to-morrow. There is of course no external evidence to help us whatever. The unlucky accident that the Englishman's companion—who was clearly a Belgian peasant, disguised—of that there is no doubt—was shot through the lungs at the very moment that the two men reached the British line, has wiped out all possible means of identification—unless, of course, the man himself can be recognised by someone who knew him. We have had at least a dozen parties—relations of "missing" men—much more recent cases—over here already—to no purpose. There is really no clue, unless'—the speaker rose with a tired smile—'unless you can supply one, when you see him. But I am sorry about the fingers. That has always seemed to me a possible clue. To-morrow then, at eleven?'

Bridget interrupted.

'It is surely most unlikely that my brother-in-law could have survived all this time? If he had been a prisoner, we should have heard of him, long ago. Where could he have been?'

The young man shrugged his shoulders.

'There have been a few cases, you know—of escaped prisoners—evading capture for a long time—and finally crossing the line. But of course it is very unlikely—most unlikely. Well, to-morrow?' He bowed and departed.

Bridget made her way to her small carpetless room, and sat for long with a shawl round her at the open window. She could imagine the farm in this moonlight. It was Saturday. Very likely both Cicely and Sir William were at the cottage. She seemed to see Nelly, with the white shawl over her dark head, saying good-night to them at the farm-gate. That meant that it was all going forward. Some day,—and soon,—Nelly would discover that Farrell was necessary to her—that she couldn't do without him—just as she had never been able in practical ways to do without her sister. No, there was nothing in the way of Nelly's great future, and the free development of her—Bridget's—own life, but this sudden and most unwelcome stroke of fate. If she had to send for Nelly—supposing it really were Sarratt—and then if he died—Nelly might never get over it.

It might simply kill her—why not? All the world knew that she was a weakling. And if it didn't kill her, it would make it infinitely less likely that she would marry Farrell—in any reasonable time. Nelly was not like other people. She was all feelings. Actually to see George die—and in the state that these doctors described—would rack and torture her. She would never be the same again. The first shock was bad enough; this might be far worse. Bridget's selfishness, in truth, counted on the same fact as Farrell's tenderness. 'After all, what people don't see, they can't feel'—to quite the same degree. But if Nelly, being Nelly, had seen the piteous thing, she would turn against Farrell, and think it loyalty to George to send her rich suitor about his business. Bridget felt that she could exactly foretell the course of things. A squalid and melancholy veil dropped over the future. Poverty, struggle, ill-health for Nelly—poverty, and the starving of all natural desires and ambitions for herself—that was all there was to look forward to, if the Farrells were alienated, and the marriage thwarted.

A fierce revolt shook the woman by the window. She sat on there till the moon dropped into the sea, and everything was still in the little echoing hotel. And then though she went to bed she could not sleep.

* * * * *

After her coffee and roll in the little salle à manger, which with its bare boards and little rags of curtains was only meant for summer guests, and was now, on this first of November, nippingly cold, Bridget wandered a little on the shore watching the white dust of the foam as a chill west wind skimmed it from the incoming waves, then packed her bag, and waited restlessly for Dr. Vincent. She understood she was to be allowed, if she wished, two visits in the hospital, so as to give her an opportunity of watching the patient she was going to see, without undue hurry, and would then be motored back to D—— in time for the night boat. She was bracing herself therefore to an experience the details of which she only dimly foresaw, but which must in any case be excessively disagreeable. What exactly she was going to do or say, she didn't know. How could she, till the new fact was before her?

Punctually on the stroke of eleven, a motor arrived in charge of an army driver, and Bridget set out. They were to pick up Vincent in the town of X—— itself and run on to the Camp. The sun was out by this time, and all the seaside village, with its gimcrack hotels and villas flung pell-mell upon the sand, and among the pines, was sparkling under it. So were the withered woods, where the dead leaves were flying before the wind, the old town where Napoleon gathered his legions for the attack on England, and the wide sandy slopes beyond it, where the pine woods had perished to make room for the Camp. The car stopped presently on the edge of the town. To the left spread a river estuary, with a spit of land beyond, and lighthouses upon it, sharp against a pale blue sky. Every shade of pale yellow, of lilac and pearl, sparkled in the distance, in the scudding water, the fast flying westerly clouds, and the sandy inlets among the still surviving pines.

'You're punctuality itself,' said a man emerging from a building before which a sentry was pacing—'Now we shall be there directly.'

The building, so Bridget was informed, housed the Headquarters of the Base, and from it the business of the great Camp, whether on its military or its hospital side, was mainly carried on. And as they drove towards the Camp her companion, with the natural pride of the Englishman in his job, told the marvellous tale of the two preceding years—how the vast hospital city had been reared, and organised—the military camp too—the convalescent camp—the transports—and the feeding.

'The Boche thought they were the only organisers in the world!—We've taught them better!' he said, with a laugh in his pleasant eyes, the whole man of him, so weary the night before, now fresh and alert in the morning sunshine.

Bridget listened with an unwilling attention. This bit of the war seen close at hand was beginning to suggest to her some new vast world, of which she was wholly ignorant, where she was the merest cypher on sufferance. The thought was disagreeable to her irritable pride, and she thrust it aside. She had other things to consider.

They drew up outside one of the general hospitals lined along the Camp road.

'You'll find him in a special ward,' said Vincent, as he handed her out.
'But I'll take you first to Sister.'

They entered the first hut, and made their way past various small rooms, amid busy people going to and fro. Bridget was aware of the usual hospital smell of mingled anesthetic and antiseptic, and presently, her companion laid a hasty hand on her arm and drew her to one side. A surgeon passed with a nurse. They entered a room on the right, and left the door of it a little ajar.

'The operating theatre,' said Vincent, with a gesture that shewed her where to look; and through the open door Bridget saw a white room beyond, an operating table and a man, a splendid boy of nineteen or twenty lying on it, with doctors and nurses standing round. The youth's features shewed waxen against the white walls, and white overalls of the nurses.

'This way,' said Vincent. 'Sister, this is Miss Cookson. You remember—Dr. Howson sent for her.'

A shrewd-faced woman of forty in nurse's dress looked closely at
Bridget.

'We shall be very glad indeed, Miss Cookson, if you can throw any light on this case. It is one of the saddest we have here. Will you follow me, please?'

Bridget found herself passing through the main ward of the hut, rows of beds on either hand. She seemed to be morbidly conscious of scores of eyes upon her, and was glad when she found herself in the passage beyond the ward.

The Sister opened a door into a tiny sitting-room, and offered Bridget a chair.

'They have warned you that this poor fellow is deaf and dumb?'

'Yes—I had heard that.'

'And his brain is very clouded. He tries to do all we tell him—it is touching to see him. But his real intelligence seems to be far away. Then there are the wounds. Did Dr. Howson tell you about them?'

'He said there were bad wounds.'

The Sister threw up her hands.

'How he ever managed to do the walking he must have done to get through the lines is a mystery to us all. What he must have endured! The wounds must have been dressed to begin with in a German field-hospital. Then on his way to Germany, before the wounds had properly healed—that at least is our theory—somewhere near the Belgian frontier he must have made his escape. What happened then, of course, during the winter and spring nobody knows; but when he reached our lines, the wounds were both in a septic state. There have been two operations for gangrene since he has been here. I don't think he'll stand another.'

Bridget lifted her eyes and looked intently at the speaker—

'You think he's very ill?'

'Very ill,' said the Sister emphatically. 'If you can identify him, you must send for his wife at once—at once! Lieutenant Sarratt was, I think, married?'

'Yes,' said Bridget. 'Now may I see him?'

The Sister looked at her visitor curiously. She was both puzzled and repelled by Bridget's manner, by its lack of spring and cordiality, its dull suggestion of something reserved and held back. But perhaps the woman was only shy; and oppressed by the responsibility of what she had come to do. The Sister was a very human person, and took tolerant views of everything that was not German. She rose, saying gently—

'If I may advise you, take time to watch him, before you form or express any opinion. We won't hurry you.'

Bridget followed her guide a few steps along the corridor. The Sister opened a door, and stood aside to let Bridget pass in. Then she came in herself, and beckoned to a young probationer who was rolling bandages on the further side of the only bed the room contained. The girl quietly put down her work and went out.

There was a man lying in the bed, and Bridget looked at him. Her heart beat so fast, that she felt for a moment sick and suffocated. The Sister bent over him tenderly, and put back the hair, the grey hair which had fallen over his forehead. At the touch, his eyes opened, and as he saw the Sister's face he very faintly smiled. Bridget suddenly put out a hand and steadied herself by a chair standing beside the bed. The Sister however saw nothing but the face on the pillow, and the smile. The smile was so rare!—it was the one sufficient reward for all his nurses did for him.

'Now I'll leave you,' said the Sister, forbearing to ask any further questions. 'Won't you sit down there? If you want anyone, you have only to touch that bell.'

She disappeared. And Bridget sat down, her eyes on the figure in the bed, and on the hand outside the sheet. Her own hands were trembling, as they lay crossed upon her lap.

How grey and thin the hair was—how ghostly the face—what suffering in every line!

Bridget drew closer.

'George!' she whispered.

No answer. The man's eyes were closed again. He seemed to be asleep.
Bridget looked at his hand—intently. Then she touched it.

The heavy blue-veined eyelids rose again, as though at the only summons the brain understood. Bridget bent forward. What colour there had been in it before ebbed from her sallow face; her lips grew white. The eyes of the man in the bed met hers—first mechanically—without any sign of consciousness; then—was it imagination?—or was there a sudden change of expression—a quick trouble—a flickering of the lids? Bridget shook through every limb. If he recognised her, if the sight of her brought memory back—even a gleam of it—there was an end of everything, of course. She had only to go to the nearest telegraph office and send for Nelly.

But the momentary stimulus passed as she looked—the eyes grew vacant again—the lids fell. Bridget drew a long breath. She raised herself and moved her chair farther away.

Time passed. The window behind her was open, and the sun came in, and stole over the bed. The sick man scarcely moved at all. There was complete silence, except for the tread of persons in the corridor outside, and certain distant sounds of musketry and bomb practice from the military camp half a mile away.

He was dying—the man in the bed. That was plain. Bridget knew the look of mortal illness. It couldn't be long.

She sat there nearly an hour—thinking. At the end of that time she rang the hand-bell near her.

Sister Agnes appeared at once. Bridget had risen and confronted her.

'Well,' said the Sister eagerly. But the visitor's irresponsive look quenched her hopes at once.

'I see nothing at all that reminds me of my brother-in-law,' said Bridget with emphasis. 'I am very sorry—but I cannot identify this person as George Sarratt.'

The Sister's face fell.

'You don't even see the general likeness Dr. Howson thought he saw?'

Bridget turned back with her towards the bed.

'I see what Dr. Howson meant,' she said, slowly. 'But there is no real likeness. My brother-in-law's face was much longer. His mouth was quite different. And his eyes were brown.'

'Did you see the eyes again? Did he look at you?'

'Yes.'

'And there was no sign of recognition?'

'No.'

'Poor dear fellow!' said the Sister, stooping over him again. There was a profound and yearning pity in the gesture. 'I wish we could have kept him more alive—more awake—for you, to see. But there had to be morphia this morning. He had a dreadful night. Are you quite sure? Wouldn't you like to come back this afternoon, and watch him again? Sometimes a second time—Oh, and what of the hands?—did you notice them?' And suddenly remembering Dr. Howson's words, the Sister pointed to the long, bloodless fingers lying on the sheet, and to the marked deformity in each little finger.

'Yet—but George's hands were not peculiar in any way.' Bridget's voice, as she spoke, seemed to herself to come from far away; as though it were that of another person speaking under compulsion.

'I'm sorry—I'm sorry!'—the Sister repeated. 'It's so sad for him to be dying here—all alone—nobody knowing even who he is—when one thinks how somebody must be grieving and longing for him.'

'Have you no other enquiries?' said Bridget, abruptly, turning to pick up some gloves she had laid down.

'Oh yes—we have had other visitors—and I believe there is a gentleman coming to-morrow. But nothing that sounded so promising as your visit. You won't come again?'

'It would be no use,' said the even, determined voice. 'I will write to Dr. Howson from London. And I do hope'—for the first time, the kindly nurse perceived some agitation in this impressive stranger—'I do hope that nobody will write to my sister—to Mrs. Sarratt. She is very delicate. Excitement and disappointment might just kill her. That's why I came.'

'And that of course is why Dr. Howson wrote to you first. Oh I am sure he will take every care. He'll be very, very sorry! You'll write to him? And of course so shall I.'

The news that the lady from England had failed to identify the nameless patient to whom doctor and nurses had been for weeks giving their most devoted care spread rapidly, and Bridget before she left the hospital had to run the gauntlet of a good many enquiries, at the hands of the various hospital chiefs. She produced on all those who questioned her the impression of an unattractive, hard, intelligent woman whose judgment could probably be trusted.

'Glad she isn't my sister-in-law!' thought Vincent as he turned back from handing her into the motor which was to take her to the port. But he did not doubt her verdict, and was only sorry for 'old Howson,' who had been so sure that something would come of her visit.

The motor took Bridget rapidly back to D——, where she would be in good time for an afternoon boat. She got some food, automatically, at a hotel near the quay, and automatically made her way to the boat when the time came. A dull sense of something irrevocable,—something horrible,—overshadowed her. But the 'will to conquer' in her was as iron; and, as in the Prussian conscience, left no room for pity or remorse.