'DEAR MISS COOKSON,—I think I have made everything as easy for you as I can on this side. You won't have any difficulty. I'm awfully glad you're coming. I myself am much puzzled, and don't know what to think. Anyway I am quite clear that my right course was to communicate with you—first. Everything will depend on what you say.'
The following afternoon, Bridget found herself, with a large party of V.A.D.'s, and other persons connected with the Red Cross, on board a Channel steamer. The day was grey and cold, and Bridget having tied on her life-belt, and wrapped herself in her thickest cloak, found a seat in the shelter of the deck cabins whence the choppy sea, the destroyer hovering round them, and presently the coast of France were visible. A secret excitement filled her. What was she going to see? and what was she going to do? All round her too were the suggestions of war, commonplace and familiar by now to half the nation, but not to Bridget who had done her best to forget the war. The steamer deck was crowded with officers returning from leave who were walking up and down, all of them in life-belts, chatting and smoking. All eyes were watchful of the sea, and the destroyer; and the latest submarine gossip passed from mouth to mouth. The V.A.D.'s with a few army nurses, kept each other company on the stern deck. The mild sea gave no one any excuse for discomfort, and the pleasant-faced rosy girls in their becoming uniforms, laughed and gossiped with each other, though not without a good many side glances towards the khaki figures pacing the deck, many of them specimens of English youth at its best.
Bridget however took little notice of them. She was becoming more and more absorbed in her own problem. She had not in truth made up her mind how to deal with it, and she admitted reluctantly that she would have to be guided by circumstance. Midway across, when the French coast and its lighthouses were well in view, she took out the same letter which she had received two days before at the Grasmere post-office, and again read it through.
'X Camp, 102, General Hospital.
'DEAR MISS COOKSON,—I am writing to you, in the first instance instead of to Mrs. Sarratt, because I have a vivid remembrance of what seemed to me your sister's frail physical state, when I saw you last May at Rydal. I hope she is much stronger, but I don't want to risk what, if it ended in disappointment, might only be a terrible strain upon her to no purpose—so I am preparing the way by writing to you.
'The fact is I want you to come over to France—at once. Can you get away, without alarming your sister, or letting her, really, know anything about it? It is the merest, barest chance, but I think there is just a chance, that a man who is now in hospital here may be poor George Sarratt—only don't build upon it yet, please. The case was sent on here from one of the hospitals near the Belgian frontier about a month ago, in order that a famous nerve-specialist, who has joined us here for a time, might give his opinion on it. It is a most extraordinary story. I understand from the surgeon who wrote to our Commandant, that one night, about three months ago, two men, in German uniforms, were observed from the British front-line trench, creeping over the No Man's Land lying between the lines at a point somewhere east of Dixmude. One man, who threw up his hands, was dragging the other, who seemed wounded. It was thought that they were deserters, and a couple of men were sent out to bring them in. Just as they were being helped into our trench, however, one of them was hit by an enemy sniper and mortally wounded. Then it was discovered that they were not Germans at all. The man who had been hit said a few incoherent things about his wife and children in the Walloon patois as he lay in the trench, and trying to point to his companion, uttered the one word "Anglais"—that, everyone swears to—and died. No papers were found on either of them, and when the other man was questioned, he merely shook his head, with a vacant look. Various tests were applied to him, but it was soon clear, both that he was dumb—and deaf—from nerve shock, probably—and that he was in a terrible physical state. He had been severely wounded—apparently many months before—in the shoulder and thigh. The wounds had evidently been shockingly neglected, and were still septic. The surgeon who examined him thought that what with exposure, lack of food, and his injuries, it was hardly probable he would live more than a few weeks. However, he has lingered till now, and the specialist I spoke of has just seen him.
'As to identification marks there were none. But you'll hear all about that when you come. All I can say is that, as soon as they got the man into hospital, the nurses and surgeons became convinced that he was English, and that in addition to his wounds, it was a case of severe shell-shock—acute and long-continued neurasthenia properly speaking,—loss of memory, and all the rest of it.
'Of course the chances of this poor fellow being George Sarratt are infinitesimal—I must warn you as to that. How account for the interval between September 1915 and June 1916—for his dress, his companion—for their getting through the German lines?
'However, directly I set eyes on this man, which was the week after I arrived here, I began to feel puzzled about him. He reminded me of someone—but of whom I couldn't remember. Then one afternoon it suddenly flashed upon me—and for the moment I felt almost sure that I was looking at George Sarratt. Then, of course, I began to doubt again. I have tried—under the advice of the specialist I spoke of—all kinds of devices for getting into some kind of communication with him. Sometimes the veil between him and those about him seems to thin a little, and one makes attempts—hypnotism, suggestion, and so forth. But so far, quite in vain. He has, however, one peculiarity which I may mention. His hands are long and rather powerful. But the little fingers are both crooked—markedly so. I wonder if you ever noticed Sarratt's hands? However, I won't write more now. You will understand, I am sure, that I shouldn't urge you to come, unless I thought it seriously worth your while. On the other hand, I cannot bear to excite hopes which may—which probably will—come to nothing. All I can feel certain of is that it is my duty to write, and I expect that you will feel that it is your duty to come.
'I send you the address of a man at the War Office—high up in the R.A.M.C.—to whom I have already written. He will, I am sure, do all he can to help you get out quickly. Whoever he is, the poor fellow here is very ill.'