Knight Without Armour

One day in April the Harvard man approached him with an item of news that he evidently felt sure would lead to confidences. “Oh, I put through an enquiry,” he began, trying to appear very official, “about that young girl you were interested in. It seems she was in the first batch sent over to America. She must be there by now. Very lucky for her—I don’t think they’re intending to send any more.”

A.J. made no comment, and the other went on: “Yes, that’s right—she must have crossed on the Bactria some weeks ago. She hadn’t any name that our people knew of, so she was given one—’Mary Denver’—Denver being the city she was to be sent to on arrival the other side. Of course that’s only provisional—doubtless she’ll eventually take the name of the family that adopts her. I could find out who they are, I daresay though strictly speaking it would be against the rules.”

“Oh, it doesn’t matter,” was all that A.J. said.

In the summer of 1919 the American Relief detachment was ordered home. A.J. had by that time saved up two hundred and fifty American dollars. When the time approached for the break-up of the organisation, he was rather surprised to find that he disliked the prospect of wandering vaguely about the earth again, even with American money in his pocket; he had grown so used to the clean, orderly rhythm of events with the Americans, to the daily baths, and the breakfast cereals, and the card-indexing system. Decadence, perhaps, but excusable. He felt too tired to break out of the comfortable groove, too uninterested ever again to find his own way about the world; he wanted just to be told quietly to do certain things, and to be given regular meals and a bed in return for doing them.

He applied for permission to go to America with the others, but though the heads of the medical staff strongly supported his application, it was turned down because of his supposedly Russian nationality. Then he told them, suddenly communicative after all those months of reticence, that he was not Russian but English by birth and parentage, and that his real name was Fothergill. The psycho-analyst doctor, who had all along been deeply interested in his case, was more than ever interested now. He questioned him further, about his birth, education, family, and so on, and to every question A.J. gave full and simple, answers, no longer wishing to conceal anything if concealment were to mean being flung back into the chaos of the world around.

All these particulars, together with the doctor’s earnest recommendation, were sent to the American Embassy at Constantinople, with the request that the hitherto mysterious but now elucidated Fothergill should be given a visa and allowed to proceed with the Relief detachment to America, where his services would continue to be of value. After a week or so came a somewhat curious reply. The visa could not be granted, but one of the attachés had been so interested in the case that he had got into touch with a friend of his in a British Military Mission. This friend knew the Fothergill family, it appeared, and knew, further, that one of them, presumably a brother of the applicant, had been an officer in Palestine during the War, and was now, he believed, stationed in Cairo awaiting demobilisation.

The American doctor informed A.J. of this, and suggested that he should proceed to Cairo on the trail of the long-lost brother. A.J. agreed, willing enough for anything, and after some further delay was provided with a visa from the British authorities at Constantinople.

He left Odessa on August 11th, 1919, and arrived in Cairo a week later. Captain William Fothergill had been informed, and the two men met at Shepheard’s Hotel. Neither, of course, could recognise the other, but by the time the second cocktail appeared they were in no doubt as to their proved brotherhood. As befitted Englishmen in such an emergency, they were restrained almost to the point of being embarrassed. “I suppose you must have had all sorts of adventures, living in Russia throughout the Revolution?” Captain William Fothergill remarked, with one finger running down the wine- list; and A.J. answered: “Oh yes, a few.”

Captain Fothergill was apt to be equally cursory about his own personal affairs: he owned rubber and coconut plantations in Sumatra which he had had to leave in the hands of a ‘damned artful Dutchman’ during the period of his war service. Now, of course, he was only waiting for demobilisation to be off to Singapore by the first available boat. “Seems to me you might as well come along too, if you’re at a loose end,” he said, and A.J. replied: “Yes, all right, I don’t mind. Will there be any job for me?”

“Oh Lord, yes, I can find you plenty to do. Ever looked after niggers’”

“No.”