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 protegé.
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.