A WAR-TIME ENOCH ARDEN

Dominion, Volume 11, Issue 294, 31 August 1918, Page 9

A WAR-TIME ENOCH ARDEN

TRAGEDY OF A LOST MEMORY,

Tennyson's "Enoch Arden" is the story of a man, who was cast away on a desert island for years. Ho returns to find that his wife has long given him up for dead, and is liappily ro-mar-ned. Enoch Ardcn turns away, and leaves her in ignorance o'i his existence. To-day in England there -ire manv cases of prisoners who have lost their memories and remained in Germany for one or two years after Iming reported missing. In course of tuna they are exchanged, and return home to find they were believed to bo dead, and that the world has moved without them. Writing in an English paper Mr. Max Pemberton tells this story:— _ "A brilliant soldier and most admirablo officer was taken prisoner very early in. the. war and sent into Germany. Ho lost his memory completely, and could not toll the Germans who lio was. Thero was no record of his capture made, and his commanding officer returned him as missing. At homo. his wife, who was devoted to him, waited many weary months before she would believe that he was dead, but no news coming, and ether women hearing from our prisoners, she at last coivoluded that the worst had happened, and that she was a widow. _ "It must have been just about this time that the prisoner in Germany began to recover his memory. Very slowly his faculties were restored to him, and ho recollected who ho was and how lie had come to the place. Even then he delayed io write to his wife, his health being too feeble and his mind still wandering._ AVhen at length the letter was. dispatched the widow had been sonio months married and a child was about to be born to her. We need not dwell upon the more piteous sid'e nil' the weeks that tame after. Both men loved the lady passionately; both were men _of honour. A tragedy of war had intervened, and they faced ib resolutely. "And in the end some kind of a solution loomed upon the horirani of the men's desires. Both wero fienl to Franco. The first, husband had lrcovered his health and' 'Iho line' became hi-? sanctuary. He was followed there by his devoted friend, and. together they are serving in the trenches today, conscious, first, of their duty, and leaving the future in the hands of God. ,r