AMONG THE MISSING.

Marlborough Express, Volume XLIX, Issue 12, 15 January 1915, Page 2

AMONG THE MISSING.

ABSENCE OF NEWS. It will be :i relier to many to "hear ! that more is being done to trace those { who have been lost in the Avar (says a I London paper). The Red Cross in France now have an officer whoso solo i businesses to search, to follow up] clues, and track down the wounded in { all tl.-' J;;k4:waters over rrliicli theg

! _nj,iyi.niililiiilWfn I'liMM — iii urn ii ii I mini i iimimin i Wave of fighting has passed. No doubt it will mean the saying of life, as there must be many sick men in France now in remote farms and vil lages where there are no trained doctors or nurses available. There must be more heart-searching I in. soldiers' homes over tne missing

{• than over the wounded, and killed. If one has lost no friend in this way one has only to turn to the agony column of English newspapers to realise the appalling uncertainty that the bald communication "Missing" conveys. There.is nothing -more pathetic in all the pages of the London Times than I these appeals by wives or parents for news of men. who have been lost sight of, dropped out in tiie dark, n ouitposts or reconnaisances, or cut off in [detachments, perhaps ■as long ago as the 'retreat from Moils. The nearest relatives will have received the official intimation, necessarily so curt and coldly impersonal, a day or'two before the name is publishi cd"in the casualty list. They are told by the authorities that when further information is received it will be communicated to them. Weeks pass. They call at the War Office, advertise lvi the newspapers, write to the Headquarters Staff, and to every friend they have in the Expeditionary Force. But up to the present no adequate machinery of search has been devised in the case of those who are not known to be dead, or prisoners of war, or wounded in. a hospital. If there is a long silence it is generally assumed that, the missing man is j either a prisoner or dead. One feels that his friends, if they had any information./: would naturally send his people news oi: when and where he was last seen. But one does not allow for the indescribable chaos of war. An officer may be fighting for weeks on end with little rest. Neither his friend's life nor his own seems to him of the same importance-as to us by our quiet firesides when we try to imagine the shock ot' war. ■ The individual is sunk in .the collective spirit of the regiment. One lias to carry on: nothing else matters: the thought of his friend's friends, if it occurs, is but part of the overshadowing cloud of the general pity of things. The missing man may be too ill to write: or ht\ or his friends, may have I written and the letter has miscarried. tlt must, be remembered that there is no longer any regular post in the departments which are invaded, and a letter posted elsewhere in France int the ordinary way takes-many days to

j reach England, and the stream of men on the line of communications may pass him by. One has heard of these pathetic letters from the (trenches, cheery, humorous, and confident, coming to a soldier's widow days after she has heard that he is dead. During the South African War there were many cases in which people were left totally in the dark about the fajte of their relatives. The -miscarriage of news is sometimes inevitable. There was an incident at Paardeburg where a, cavalry subaltern found himself by the side of an infantry n;ajor in a shallow improvised trench under a heavy fire. The subaltern was hit in the shoulder and arm, and tlie major had bullets through the chest and both klnees. He was in. a bad! way, dying from loss of blood, and he told the subaltern his name and/ regiment ;tnd his father's address. Tn going for, aid the subaltern lost consciousness when he had crawled a few yards from the trench. When he came to he saw the man die in the arms of an ambulance man. The subaltern then gave his neighbor's message to an officer, made him promise to write, and then lost consciousness again. Two months afterwards, when invalided home, he called on the father, who believed that his son was still alive. The man to whom the subaltern had given the message had been shot through the head immediately afterwards. Stories like this help one ito understand the need of organised search work such as the Red Cross are now undertaking. , .