EIGHT DAYS’ LEAVE.

Wairoa Bell, Volume XXXI, Issue 215, 11 January 1918, Page 1 (Supplement)

EIGHT DAYS’ LEAVE.

The Tangled Love Story of Jack Stanton.

By

JOHN LAURENCE.

■ X\TELL, Stanton* another day and i. we shall be back aagin in old l Blighty. I haven’t seen home for close i o neigh teen months.” . _ ‘ Nor have I*” replied his compani ion. “ Yes, I shall <be glad to see the old ■ girl again, Stanton.” “You are lucky in some ways to have . a wife,” replied l Sergeant Stanton a lit- ► tie wistfully. “I haven’t got a sweetheart yet. But perhaps- ” !. He broke off, thinking of the time • when he would arrive home again, thei L little house on the outskirts of Purl ton, r on of the prettiest villages in Devonshire. There he and his twin brother we're born, and there they had lived the [ greater part of their lives. “Stanton’s L Stores*,” the universal supply shop of , the village, which had -been fojunded by L their father, had been kept on by their ; mother after her husband’s death. ! But it wasn’t >so much of his early L struggles that Sergeant John Stalrbon was thinking now, his thoughts were of L pretty Mary Holbrook.* Ja;ck Stanton r had been head over ears in love with ! . Mhry Holbrook, but he had refrained from proposing to her until he had , some prospect of a home to offer her. i That prospect was well in sight when , the war broke out, and he had hurried ’ to join a Devon regiment, leaving his L medically unfit brother, Jasper, to look after his mother—and Mary, for Jack • had told his brother of his determina- ' tion to ask Mary to be his wife if he ever came safely back. “It isn’t fair to ask her now,” Jasper,” he said) on their last evening together. “ But by Giod’s will I shall return safe. Until then, look after her.” , Jasper had said little in his letters , about Mary, and sometimes it seemed to Jack Stanton that his brother was ‘ deliberately avoiding telling him anything about the girl he loved. |. Late in the afternoon, two days later, Jack Stanton stood on the plat- j j form ,at Paddington, waiting for the ! [ train that was to take him to Purlton —-and Mary. He had decided; not to wire, but to cornel quietly into the little ’ village that he had left so many months . ago. _ ' Quickly he strode up the little vilL laige street a few 'hours later. The lit— I tie shop was closed', hut through the ? window of the little sitting-room came ; a tiny beam of light showing through a [ crack in the blind. The fancy came to i r him to peep through, and ina moment . his whole being seemed to change. For [ some minutes he stood there) in the . darkness as though turned to stone; ' by the sight he had seen, then he stum- j , bled away. | [ In that brief space of time he had = seen Mary Holbrook ' in the arms of his j brother Jasper! Mary and Jasper lovers! That explained his (brother’s sil- ' ence about he ran his letters. He had never suspected his brother, and indeed Jasper had told him that he never intended to marry. { But Jasper Stanton had been as \ ‘ fiercely in love with Mary Holbrook as \ . his twin brother Jack. He had eagerly seized the opportunity to get his j ' brother out of (the way, and every i morning since Jack had been in the j trenches he had! feverishly read the , casualty lists. At every .opportunity he ‘ pressed! his suit with Mary, though she had told him to his face that she would ! never marry him. . “Does Jack 3ver ask to he remean- \ tbered?” she had once summoned up courage to ask him. “He seems too busy flirting in France,” Jasper had glibly replied. ; “He often mentions a girl <named Julie who is in the village where he is billeted. “I don’t believe yooi!” retorted Mary angrily. “Jack wasn’t the kind of man to flirt with.guy woman !” and sJie hurried away, leaving Jasper amazeu at her sudden outburst. “'So that’s how the land lies,” he v muttered to himself. “The little vixen ! ” From that day Jasper Stanton nevei lost an opportunity to hint in Mary’s hearing at a /darker side to his brother’s character. The more, however, he blackmailed Jack’s character the more Mary Holbrook showed her open dislike to him. “I must try some other way,” he snid angrily one day When she had walked out of the cosv little sittingroom at the side of “ Stanton’s Stores. ' But plan as he would he could think of no seheme effective enough to break down tlie faith that Miry had in Jack. It was' the finger of sheer chance which in the end pointed out a way to him that held out a greater hope of success than any of tlie schemes that had entered his brain. One morning, during the slack hour In the shop, he was idly reading through the lists of killed when ins heart gave a great jump, for there he read: “Stanton, John, Sergeant, 4th Devons.” For a moment he had thought it was his brother, hut Jack was in the 14th. The 14th ! It was the easiest thing in the world to print, the figure one before the four in the casualty list! If carefully done no one 'would notice it; and once his brother was dead—dead, that is to say, as far as Maa*y Holbrook knew—his chances were all the greater. * * * '“Mary, I hiave some news for you,” said Jasper Stanton, the evening of her usual visit to his mother. “About about Jack?” faltered Mary. “Yes.” He picked up tlie paper and pointed to .the casualty list. Just below his finger she read the terrible word's among the list of killed: “Stanton, John, Sergeant, 14th Devons.” For one tragic moment she failed to understand the dreadful news, and then, with a half-stifled sob, she fell forward into Jasper Stanton’s arms, mercifully unconscious or her surroundings. It was at tint moment that Sergeant Jack Stanton looked through the little window cf his old' home/ * *■ * All through the. night Jack Stanton walked madly away from Purlton. Mile

after mile of the dusty Devon roads he covered till the breaking of dawn. As j in ia dream he read on a milestone as j he passed “Oranstown, 37 miles.” That meafit that he must have walked over t thirty miles since that moment when his heart had been broken, for Purlton i was only a few miles from Cranstown. Gradually with the rising of the sun ! the revengeful feelings he had) hlad : tearing at his breast all night died I down, and he began to look upon wliat he had passed through, in a idalnier light. After ally he argued to himself a. little •‘bitterly, it was bub the wtiy of the world. | With an effort he shook himself free from his thoughts as lie {passed'' along the main street of a large village. Already the people were astir, and from the village inn there came such a tempting smell of cooking that Jack suddenly realised that he was famished, and that he had had no food for the last twelve hours. Over his breakfast he clearly made up his mind as to his course of action. J He would disappear, join another regiment., and, he hoped, die on the battlefields of France, if Fate , were kind to him. If not, well, he would have to work out his life in some other part of the world than Devonshire, at any rat© for some years till the wound had partly healed. That was why the 23rd Service Battalion of the Royal Fusiliers got one of the finest it had had for many a long day. | It was clear, indeed, that] Private James Wilcox, as he called himself, had seen Army discipline before, but liis' company officer forbore to make too close inquiries, for no officer likes to lose a good soldier. Oin the contrary, lie marked him out for promotion. Though “James Wilcox” had! given himself out to be a Londoner, his accent betrayed him to be a Devon man. * j Another thing which would have ! made it more certain that “James Wilcox” was not a native of London, had his companions known it. wfas the fact that regularly he called at the London offices of the “ Cranstown Daily Cour- : ier” and bought copies of the paper. Every day he dreaded to see the news for which he searched so eagerly a/nd yet with such anxiety, the ahouncement of a marriage between Jasper Stanton and Mary - Holbrook . j When the news of Jasper did come, it came so suddenly and in siich a fearful form that he stood like a. main stunned. Mechanically he read the fateful paragraph again and again: I “ FATAL MISTAKEN IDENTITY. i “A remarkable case of mistaken identity, with unhappily,/ fatal consequences, is sent us by our reporter in Purlton. Last month Sergeant { John Stanton, brother of the owner j of ‘Stanton’s Stores,’ Purlton, was ; sent home on eight days’ lenve. He 1 was seen to arrive ;U Purlton Sta- ; tion by the eight-thirty train, but ! from that moment all trace of him has been lost. “On Thursday last his twin brother, Jasper Stanton, was arrested by the military authorities as a deserter, in mistake for his brother, to whom he bear-s ji striking resemblance. He was definitely identified: by Sergeant Maylonk, who received leave at the same time, and who had served with Stanton in, France for the last eighteen months. “Despite his protests and those of his mother and! friends in the village of Purlton, he was taken under military escort to France, there to stand his trial as a deserter. While on his way to the court-martial- he attempted! to escape, and ignoring the warning shouts of his escort was fired upon. A bullet struck him in the small of the back, inflicting fatal injuries from which the unfortunate msan died a few hours later. One of the saddest sidelights of the tragedy was that, owing to the energetic measures taken by the Vicar of Purlton, the War Office authorities had actually telegraphed to France admitting the mistake, and ordering Jasper Stanton to be released and sent bacs. to his home. _ “Meanwhile every inquiry is being made to discover the real deserter, Sergeant John Stanton. We understand from the military authorities that the missing sergeant had such a sulendid record that it . is extremely unlikely he has deserted deliberately. They suggest that he has probably lost his memory- They ask that any news ,of the missing man should be sent to the Commanding Officer, 14th Devons, High Street, Cranstown.” *■ * * There was no mention of Mary. That was tbe first thought that ran through Jack Stanton’s brain as it slowly began to recover from the shook of his brother’s death. Well, lie must go and face his punishment. though he knew that, at the very least, it meant degradation, and perhaps death. But he could not’ let Mary think for one moment! longer than necessary that he was a coward, a deserter. _ There is little more to he told. Private “James Wilcox” obtained four days’ leave for “urgent faimily reasons,” and as ‘quick as tram would carry him he was hurried to Purlton — and Mary. . . , . . In the little sitting-room he found hnr, trying to comfort his mother. Tna K.o-h’t in her eyes when she saw him standing in the open doorway was a sufficient answer to all his inward questioninars, but it was not for some hours later that he whs left alone with, her that he obtained a full explanation of the scene which had driven him' from home and had had such . a tragic endintr for his brother Jasper. Tlie militarv authorities don’t punish heav’ilv men like Sergeant John Stanton He lived to lead his men through j some of the fiercest battles in fence, j and when he was invalided! out of the ! service it was as Lieutenant John Stanton, M.C. j And cone c.f his former rivals lie- | grudged him his iluck as he led the : prettiest girl in Purlton to the altar.