Red and Black

by Grace S. Richmond

CHAPTER XXI
A PEAL OF BELLS

BY THE time that a certain note of a few lines, written outside a Field Hospital window in France, had reached a certain Base Hospital, many miles away, Robert Black was able to open his own mail, for a fortnight had gone by. He was so fortunate as to have two other letters in this mail, a happening which of itself would have made the rainy day much less dismal. But to find this particular handwriting upon the third envelope was enough to flood the ward with light—for him, though to some others, near him, who had had no letters, it remained a sombre place, as before.

He kept this third letter unopened till the morning dressings were over, the carts of surgical supplies had ceased to move through the ward, and the surgeons and nurses had left behind them patients soothed and made comfortable and ready for the late morning nap which followed naturally upon the pain and fatigue of the dressings. Then, when his neighbours in the beds on either side were no longer observant, Black drew out the single sheet, feeling an instant sense of disappointment that the lines were so few. Then—he read them, and his regret was changed in an instant to a joy so profound that he could only lie drawing deep breaths of emotion, as he stared out of a near-by window at tossing tree tops dripping with rain, against the sky of lead. The sky for him had opened, and let through a sea of glory.

Again and again, after a little, his eager eyes re-read the words, so few, yet so full of meaning. Among them certain lines stood out:

I know, at last, that you are right. I don’t understand it yet—but I believe it. Somebody does hear—and it is possible to speak to Him—— You were right when you said that I would find it all around me here—— It took this dear, wise boy to make it real to me—as you made it real to him—— So—it has come through you, after all—— God keep you safe, Robert Black—I pray for it on my knees.

Jane.

It was well for him that this stimulus came when it did, for within twenty-four hours arrived another message of the sort which is not good for convalescents. Cary Ray sent a scrawl of a letter from some post upon the Front, which was three weeks in getting through, so that the news it contained was already old. Black read it, and then turned upon his pillow and hid his face in his arm. When his fellow patients saw that face again, though it was composed, and the Chaplain’s manner was as they had known it all along, not a man but understood that he had had a heavy blow. By and by he asked for his writing tablet and pen, and they saw him slowly write a short letter. These were the words he wrote:

My dear Mr. and Mrs. Lockhart:

I wish that this word I send you might be the first to reach you, that you might receive the news of your boy from the hand of a friend. But whether the official word comes first or not, you will be glad to have me tell you all I know—which comes to me through Cary Ray, and which he says has been absolutely verified.

Tom’s division was one sent forward to replace the remnant of two British and French divisions which had been long in the field. The men went into position to hold the line under the hottest possible machine-gun fire. Tom’s battalion lost all its officers except himself and a second lieutenant, and these two were forced to take command. They succeeded in holding the position for many hours and until relief came, thus saving the day in that sector, and causing the final retirement of the enemy. The second lieutenant, Fisher, himself severely wounded, told Cary Ray that “Lockhart was a regular bull-dog for hanging on, nothing could make him turn back. His men would go anywhere he told them to, for he always went with them—and went first.” When he fell it was under a rain of gunfire, and there could not have been an instant’s survival.