My heart grew bitter in me when the news came of Harry's operation.
I had been half relieved when I heard that he was wounded, and that
the wound was not dangerous. For the grim alternative was seldom out
of my thoughts, and at least his dear life was safe. Now I was
crushed by the brave, pathetic letter in which he told me that his
right leg had been amputated, and that he was lucky to get off so
easily. That made me rebellious and very, very bitter. And it was
against God that I felt worst--God who had allowed this unthinkable
thing to be.
Harry a cripple! Harry of all people! I could not imagine it, nor
accept it, nor even face the truth of it. And away at the bottom of
my heart lurked the thought that it had been better for himself that
he had died in the strength and beauty of his manhood. Why should
his spirit be doomed to live on in a ruined home?
Harry is my only brother, and he has been my hero always. Manliness,
strength, courage, unselfishness--I know what these things mean;
they mean Harry. And of course I was proud when he got his double
blue at Cambridge. Cricket and football were more than pastimes to
him. He put his heart and soul into them, and when he made 106 not
out against Oxford he was as happy as if he had found a new continent.
And now the great athlete, the pride of his College, the big
clean-limbed giant was a cripple. I could not weep for it, because I
could not believe it. I took the thought and flung it from me. And
then I picked it up again, and gazed at it with hard, unseeing eyes.
It was at that time I stopped praying. What was prayer but a mockery,
if Harry was maimed?
Harry was at Cairo, and I could not go to him. And though that made
me feel helpless, and almost mad with inaction, yet in my heart I
dreaded meeting him, seeing him, taking in the bitterness of it
through the eyes. I was a coward, you see, and my love for him a
poor thing at the best. But there are some who will understand how I
felt, and will forgive me.
His letters were all right, not a word of complaint, for Harry never
grumbled, and many a good story of the hospital and its patients and
its staff. But there was something else, a kind of gentle
seriousness as if life were different now. And I read my own misery
into that, and pictured him a man devoured by a secret despair,
while he smiled his brave undefeated smile in the face of all the
world.
The weeks passed, and I braced myself for the coming ordeal. Then
everything came with a rush at the last, and there I was at the docks
giving my brave soldier his welcome home. It was not any easier than
I expected. I tried my hardest, as you may guess, to be all joy and
brightness, but when we were alone in the motor together my eyes
were full of tears, and I broke down utterly. Poor Harry, poor Harry,
why are physical calamities so awful and so irrevocable?
He let me cry, and then he said suddenly, "Come, Mary, look at the
real 'me,' don't bother about that old leg, but look into my face,
and tell me what you see. There is something good for you to see if
you will look for it."
He said it so strangely that I was myself in a moment, and doing what
he told me just as in the good old days before the war. And then I
saw that Harry was a new Harry altogether, and that he was radiantly
happy. His face was pale and thin, but his eyes were ablaze with
something mysterious and wonderful. "Don't ask me anything now," he
said; "wait till we are in my old den, and then I will tell you
everything." And by this time I was so comforted that I was content
to lie back and watch that dear, happy face of his.
I shall never forget the talk we had afterwards. "Mary," he said, in
his straight, direct way, "I've come back a better man. I have been
all my life a healthy, happy pagan. We were brought up, you and I,
on the theory of a healthy mind in a healthy body, and, of course,
it's a good theory so far as it goes. But it did for me what it does
for many a fellow. It made me forget my soul. Sport did a lot for me,
I know, but sport became my world. The life I lived there was
wholesome enough, but at the best what a poor, contracted, limited
thing is the body, and its joy. And what a big, splendid world I've
found the door to now."
"How did it come about, Harry?" I said, and the frost and the
bitterness and the anger against God were all gone out of my heart
and voice.
"Well, I don't quite know. That's the queer thing about it. I don't
deny I was a bit savage at first at what had happened. And I often
wished I were dead, for I saw my old self wasn't much good for this
new life I was up against. Then one Sunday the padre, who was a very
decent sort, gave us a straight talk that opened my eyes a bit. He
was speaking about Paul and the difference Christ made in his life.
Paul was a splendid fellow, and as good as good could be, and just
like many a man to-day who seems all right without Christ. But what
a difference Christ made in him for all that! And how He made the
old Saul of Tarsus seem a poor thing in comparison with Paul the
apostle! There was something, too, about Paul's thorn in the flesh,
but I forget that bit. Anyhow I did some furious thinking that
Sunday in Cairo, though I saw nothing clearly, and didn't lay much
store by my own future.
"That night the strange thing happened. I woke up in the early hours
when no one was astir, and I saw a man come in by the door and walk
down the ward. He gave a sort of understanding, tender look at every
face as he passed, and when he saw that I was awake he came close
beside me and held my hand for a moment. Then he said, 'Will you let
me help you with this burden of yours?' I thought at first it was
the new doctor we were expecting. Then I knew quite suddenly that it
was _The Comrade in White_, and that He wanted me very much to say
'Yes.' And as I said it I felt the first real happiness that I had
known since I was wounded. And then He smiled and went away.
"I told myself next day that it was a dream, and perhaps it was, but
that strange, odd happiness has never left me since. I wouldn't be
back again in the old way, not for all the world could give me, not
even to have my leg restored."
"And is He really helping you with your burden?" I whispered.
"Why, Mary child, can't you see," he exclaimed, with his merry laugh;
"can't you see that He has carried my burden quite away? I was but
half a man before. He has made me whole."