The Comrade in White | Page 8

held on till
that bitter Tuesday faded into darkness and night. When relief came,
one man was left alive. He was wounded in four places, but he was still
loading and firing, and he wept when they picked him up and carried

him away for first aid. That solitary hero, absolutely the only survivor
of our local regiment, was Lieutenant Roger Fenton, V.C.
When his wounds were healed, and the King had done the needful bit
of decoration, we got him home. We did not make the fuss they did in
some places. Our disaster was too awful, and the pathos of that solitary
survivor too piercing. But some of us were at the station, and there in
the front row were the ten men of prayer. Poor Roger quite broke down
when he saw them. And he could find no words to thank them. But he
wrung their hands till they winced with the pain of that iron grip.
That night I got a chance of a talk with him alone. He was too modest
to tell me anything of his own great exploit. But there was evidently
something he wanted to say, and it was as if he did not know how to
begin. At last he said, "I have a story to tell that not one in fifty would
listen to. That Tuesday evening when I was left alone, and had given up
all hope, I remembered it was the hour of the old meeting, and I kept
my promise and prayed for the boys of my Class. Then everything
around me faded from my mind, and I saw the dear lads in the Mission
Room at prayer. I don't mean that I went back in memory. I knew with
an absolute certainty that I was there invisible in that night's meeting.
Whether in the body or out of the body, I cannot say, but there I was,
watching and listening."
"How wonderful!" I said.
"That's not all, there's something stranger still," he went on. "They were
kneeling on the floor, and Ted Harper was reading a prayer, and when
it was done they said 'Amen' as with one voice. I counted to see if they
were all there. I got to ten right enough, but I did not stop there. I
counted again, and this is the odd thing--there were eleven of them! In
my dream or vision or trance, call it what you will, I was vaguely
troubled by this unexpected number. I saw the ten troop out in their old
familiar way, and I turned back to find the eleventh, The Comrade in
White, and to speak to Him. I felt His presence still, and was glad of it,
for the trouble and perplexity were all gone and in their place a great
expectation. I seemed to know the very place where He had been
kneeling, and I hurried forward. But there was nothing to be seen,

nothing but the well-remembered text staring down at me from the
wall--'For where two or three are gathered together in my name, there
am I in the midst of them.' I remembered no more, till I found myself in
the base hospital. But of course I knew then how I had been saved, and
what my boys had done for me.
"It makes a man feel strange to have his life given back to him like that;
it's as if God would expect a great deal in return. But there's a stronger
feeling still in my heart. I believe the lads got their answer not for my
sake but for their own. Think what it means to them. They've got their
feet now on the rock of prayer. They know the truth of God. I'm not
sure, but I don't think I'll ever tell them that I saw Christ in their midst.
They know it in their own way, and perhaps their own way is best."
And as he said it, I saw that Lieutenant Roger Fenton was prouder of
his boys than of his Victoria Cross.

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