The Nets of Fate

Sun (Auckland), Volume II, Issue 356, 17 May 1928, Page 5

The Nets of Fate

SERIAL STORY

By

OTTWELL BINNS

CHAPTER XXV “It is a romance,” she said to the doctor, “and either the letter holds a great secret, or he is afraid to learn what its contents are. But if the woman could see him now ” “All women are not like you, Marie,” said the doctor, smilingly. “Some have hearts of the rock. Monsieur Lancaster knows that, perhaps, and, as you say, is afraid to learn what the woman may have to say to him.” “But he has courage for all that,” answered the nurse. “They say that he led the charge at Ghiluvelt, and that- ” “It is not death that makes brave men afraid,” said the surgeon, with the air of one delivering an epigram, “it is life. A man can face death, while life may be terrible to endure.” Sister Marie did not quarrel with this statement. She knew that it might be altogether true. “He is young,” she said, glancing toward John Lancaster, “and if he is to be blind —-” “ ‘lf,’ Sister,” said the surgeon, “there is no ‘if’ in the case. It was not the gravel only, ilfere was the shock of the explosion. You have seen men come here deaf and dumb; well, this one is blind in the same way. The day after to-morrow we are sending him to Paris to the great Nanterre. He will look into his eyes, and he will confirm my decision. He can do no other.” , “Then he will never read that letter?” “With his own eyes, never!” The surgeon moved away, and Sister Marie looked toward that forlorn figure with the bandaged eyes and ravaged face. Ohe hand lay outside the white quilt, and in it was the letter which had not been read. The tragic pity of it all touched the Sister’s responsive heart. She would make one more attempt—she would try to persuade him to have the letter read. She crossed quickly to the cot. “Monsieur Lancaster!” “Yes, Sister!” answered Lancaster, turning his face toward her. “In two days’ time you are to go to Paris to the great Nanterre. He will look into your eyes; he will do what he can. But until then you must remain in darkness, perhaps after—l do not know! And there is your letter. Maybe it requires an answer. Perhaps some one is waiting for that answer, heartsick because it is delayed. Will you not let me read it for you, monsieur? Then if that is so you can reply.” For a moment a new look came on John Lancaster’s face, and it was quite a long time before he replied. “Perhaps you are right, Sister Marie. I never thought of it that way. Bfit this is a letter that no eyes but mine should read, I am sure of that, and ” i “My eyes, would be yours for the time,” urged the Sister. “I read so l many letters that are not mine; and some I write for others come near

breaking my heart. You need have no fear ” “It. is not that Sister,” interrupted Lancaster with a smile. “I have never seen your face, but I know that it is that of one of God’s ministering angels, and that what your eyes read your mind forgets. But it is the letter I am afraid of —it is what it contains that X fear. To-day I have not the courage to have you read it. Perhaps to-morrow ” “And to-morrow you will laugh at your fears, aud I shall laugh with you.” She moved away, a tragic look in her eyes. » “Dear God!” she whispered to herself, “to be blind, and to be afraid of a letter!” Jocelyn Lancaster found that her position at Lady Mary Abingdon’s private hospital was no sinecure. Nearly always there was work to be done, some matter requiring individual attention, and when spare moments occurred they could be used to advantage in the wards, reading to wounded men, writing letters, or explaining to them, so far as it was known, the position of affairs at the front. And she was glad to be kept busy. As the days passed aud no letter came from her husband in answer to the one she had written on the day of their parting, she tended to grow despondent, and the work, always setting demands on her, and leaving her little time for thought, was more or less her salvation in these trying days. One day, when she had finished some accounts, she turned into one of the wards, where were some new arrivals from the front, whom, as yet, she had not seen. As she passed through the doorway, hidden by a tall screen which stood just inside the room, she heard a man’s voice in the the full tide of narration. With a half smile on her face she paused to listen, in the shadow of the screen, as the men’s stories had a trick of becoming very bald and matter-of-fact when others than their own comrades were present, and that this particular narrative was of interest was proved by the profound silence in the ward. “Well, as I was a-tellin’, we was crawlin’ on in the half dark, tryin’ to find the regiment we were to support and gettin’ more mixed every moment by reason of the firin’ which was going on promiscuously in several places at once, in front bf us; when a horse comes galloping up the road. The man on it stops our C. 0., and says, sharp-like, ‘You’re the Busbies, aren’t you?’ “ ‘Yes,’ says the C. 0., glad to find somebody who knew who we were, for we were beginning to feel like the Babes in the Wood. “ ‘Then hurry,’ says the man on the horse, ‘for you’re wanted damned badly.’ “We were all but worn out with fightin’ and marching, but when the news went down the line that we were wanted, somebody struck up ‘The

Mulligan Guards/ an* we drove forward at express rate. The officer who had brought the news rode with our C.O. to show the way, an’ before long we began to see that ’t was going to be lively. In front there was a village burning, and the smell of the smoke came down to us, while we could see the flames run along the thatches. Before we reached it, we began to meet men who’d been knocked out, and who were making for a field hospital somewhere at th’ back of the lines. They gave us the news. The Germans had swamped the middle of the lines and they were

in the village in front of us, where fighting was going on in the strets. “‘Hurry, boys!’ cried the C. 0., an’ we hurried all we knew. “That village was a little hell all by itself. ’Twas getting dark, but in the village in front of us, where too thick, there was light enough from the blazing houses—an’ we could see a fistful of Britishers trying to keep back swarms of Germans. We gave a roar as we went in, an’ the Britishers in the street joined in, an’ we drove at the enemy like a blooming ram. "Our C.O. went down inside of two minutes, an’ as we’d nobody but junior officers left, the man who’d come to fetch us took charge. His horse was shot under him at the same time as the C.O. went down, but he took us on like a man doing a jig. The Germans tried to stand, hut it was no use. We drove up that street like a w-edge, an’ we cleaned ’em out of it like one o’clock, though there was thousands of them, then we went on purusing them if we couldn’t stop. “An’ if we’d wanted to, our new C.O. wouldn’t have let us. He had heard that the trenches were lost, an’ that meant Bill getting to Calais if we couldn’t shove ’em out of them in no time. We knew it, too, an’ our blood was up, an’ I tell you that we just rolled them beggars back as if we’d been playing football with them. They tried to stand n a turnip field, and there was a whole line o’ them that we just trampled with our boots. I was close to our new C.O. an’ X heard him laugh as he kicked a man in front of him, without troubling to do more, an’ the man was that astonished that he just took to his heels an’ ran like a Waterloo courser. I laughed too, an’ so we came to a field of stubble where we lay down to get wind for the final rush, for the lost trench was at the further side, an’ the Germans were firing like mad, not seeming to care two penn’orth o’ cold gin whether they hit their own men or not; an’ after a mi-ute or two we started again. “It wasn’t a case of short rushes, you understand. No tumbling down to fire, an’ then on your feet aga n an’ forward once more. We simply kept straight on; rollin’ the Germans in front into the trench, and chucking them out the other side. I tell you we played battledore an’ shuttlecock with them. Not that they didn’t try to fight. They did. They stood, but we went slap bang through them, and though there were thousands of them they couldn’t stop us. We drove ’em back on their own lines, and then our new C.O. blew his whistle. “We’ve done enough,” he says to me. “Pass the word to fall back on the trench.” “I passed the word and we fell back to the trench, two hundred of u» out of five hundred what went into that business. But what did we care? W T e’d saved Ghiluvelt, an’ the -oral to Ypres an’ Calais, an’ we was almighty proud of ourselves an’ what we’d done; as well as proud o’ the officer what took us in, though he was a stranger to us, an’ though „o’’l never take any other men in.” “Why not?” demanded someone, “did he get his ticket?” “Worse nor that,” was the reply. “While we were in the trench a shell

burst close to him, an’ in the morning they took him out with his eyes bandaged.*” “Blind? Poor beggar! I'd as iief De dead!” “An’ me,” said another voice. “What was the man’s name?” “His name? Let me see, I did hear it. Oh, yes, it was Lancaster, John Lancaster, a millionaire, or so the chaps ” The speaker stopped abruptly as a pale-faced but beautiful woman emerged from behind the screen at j the doorway and almost ran to the cot-side. “Did you say that John Lancaster was hurt—blinded?” “So Colonel Chomley's orderly said, ma’am,” answered the soldier, too astonished to say more. “And where is he, do you know? Tell me, quickly.” ‘ Sorry, ma’am, I can’t tell von that. He was sent away two days before I was hit.” “But you can tell me how he looked?” persisted Jocelyn.

“Well, ma'am, you see. naif his face was hidden in white bandages, an’ there wasn’t much one could see. but Colonel Chomley, who went down with him, had to hold his arm an* lead him ” l The man stopped, as he caught the look on Jocelyn’s face. “I’m sorry, ma’am,” he began again, “but ” “There is nothing else you can tell me?” interrupted Jocelyn quickly. I “No, ma’am, except that they said ; at the front that he’d be recommended for the V.C., sure/’ j “Thank you.** Jocelyn turned and left the ward, and the man who had told the '•tory j of Ghiluvelt looked round.