ENOCH ARDENS OF THE WAR

Dominion, Volume 9, Issue 2693, 12 February 1916, Page 11

ENOCH ARDENS OF THE WAR

MISSING MEN WHOSE WIVES

REMARRY

Out of the lists of the "missiiig" have arisen a few tragoclies that recall Tennyson's haunting poem of Enoch Arden, the shipwrecked and marooned sailor, given up as dead, who returned to find his wife remarried. * Tlie other day I met one of tho soldier Enoch Ardens, writes iu the "Daily Mail." It was in a train. I noticed him because, all through the long journey, , lie sat silent and statuesque, staring with unseeing eyes out of the window. Tho car attendants came and summoned us to lunch, lut' tho lonely, crippled soldier sat on. Other passengers brought out bags of sandwiches or fruit, but the lonely soldier ate nothing. One jovial follow passed him food with e tough hospitality. "You must bo • hungry, olcl mate," he urged. '."No, f I'm not hungry, thanks," said the sol- t dier leadenly. The other passengers alighted, and I was left alone with him. I refilled my pipe and passed tho pouch silently to the lonely soldier. His stony eyes camc from their unseeing vigil upon the grey landscape and mot mine. "Aye," he said heavily, "thanks. A pipe o' baccy is the only meal a man like me is good for." Wo sat without words again, and 1 opened a magazine. Suddenly, abovo tho roaring of the train, I heard tho silent soldier speaking to me. "I've gat to talk to someone —and tell someone," he said, slowly arid heavily, "or else I shall just break." I looked up to him, leaning towards me in the dim light of tho waning afternoon, and tho stony eyes were on me with a look of nppcah : As lightly as I could, I asked: | "What's the trouble, old manP" 1 Aud tben he told mo. i He was a Sunderland man, a riveter ' in the shipbuilding yards and an Army Reservist. When the war broke out ho was called upon on the first mobilisation. He had only been married four years, had two children, and lived only for them and his wife. He was sent to France with the First Expeditionary force, with tho Gordons, and fought in the battle of Mons. He was severely wounded and captured . just outside Bertry on August. 26, 19M. Aftei lying on the field all night ho was brought into a captured British hospital in', a school building at Bertry by a British R.A.M.C. prisoner, whose party were told off by the Germans to collect British wounded. He remained thcro for a week, treated by captive British medical officers under German super, vision. As soon as he-was recovered enough to travel—according to tho Ger, man idea of a wounded prisoner's ?n. durance—ho was sent in a batch of , thirty other British prisoners on a four days' journey to Duisburg, on tlia Rhine. 'He nearly died, on the journey, was again "placed in hospital, and was sent home by tho German authorities as "imtfit for further military service" last October. His fellow-British prisoners were allowed to write homo a month after their capture. For some reason he could not elicit this man was forbidden to write, and his fellows were forbidden to menlion his Jiame in their letters. If ever they tried to do so the letter was torn up by tho Germans, and they wero throatenod with punishment. His name was never furnished to the British authorities by . the Germans, and he was gazetted as "missiug." I Cako up the tale of the war Enoch Arden m his own words. "Ah left Duisburg on October tho first. Ah couldna' believe it was true when the Gorman commandant chap com an' told me I was to go. 'Why, gang away, man,' I says, 'whoso leg are you i)uUing?'_ Tho commandant he says fiercely, in a sort of 'arf English, 'Ged your dose on in den minudes! Yogo i England.' An' I did dress in ten minutes an' all. Twenty other poor broken chaps went with 'me, an' some of 'em didn't 'arf laugh and cry in turns. At a place called Aachcn (Aix-la-Chapolle) wo were joined up by a lot more British; then wo went to Leecgee (Liege), Antwerp, and then Bosytarl (llosendaal) or summat like that, in Holland. An' it didn't 'arf churn us up when we crossed that frontier and saw tho Dutchies smiling at us. No smiles ever in Germany. "Wo crossed in a rough sea, but 'ad it been ever so rough 1 was 'too sick with nomc-siekness to 'ave any other sort. I tliowt an' thowt o' my wife and bairns, an' the moment when I would walk oop Coronation Street in Sun'nerland and turn oop that other littlo street where yarm (homo) lies. An' after we landed at Tilbury they told me to go to a hospital in London for ono night, an' then they said, 'Ya can gang yarm now.' An', all the time, I thinks L won't telegraph the wife I'm dooming. I wanted to : just walk iu t' hoiise like and say, 'Ah've coom.' "Ah 'ardly knew bow to sit still iii\ yon train that day to Sun'laud, master. Ah've sat still enough to-day, though. Just as t'wero gettin' dark— just at time she used t' make me coop o' tea —I steps oop t' door —all shakin' —and turns t' handle. Ah walks in, tremblin' so ah could 'ardly breatho— straaight into kitchen." The lonely soldier here stopped and bent his head. He' did not speak for a few minutes, and we both sat stilly in the roaring train. AVhen he spoko again he looked up, and his eyes were st-onier than ever. "Master,"-he cried, "my Mary had married again. She thowt I was dead. She had no man to keep the yarm goin'; an' a man— a pal as I'd knowed years —'ad coom along, courted her—an' married her. I don't blame her," lie said hoarsely, "a yarm an' a woman wi'out a man is a. poor thing. I don't blame him, mister. Both were certain I was dead." He was silent again. "What did you do?" I asked gently. "Ah've done nowt," he cried brokenly. "What could I do—Ah've just coomed away. I shull never see Mary and t' bairns again. An' my heart's broken—an' I know Mary's is too."