Everyman's Land

								

Beckett, Senior, and his wife.
Someone had contrived to tear a fragmentary interview from the "bereaved
railway magnate," as he was called in the potted phrase of the
journalist. Apparently the poor, trapped man had been too soft-hearted
or too dazed with grief to put up a forceful resistance, and the
reporter had been quick to seize his advantage.
He had learned that Mr. and Mrs. James W. Beckett, Senior, had nearly
died of homesickness for their son. They had thought of "running across
to surprise Jimmy." And then a letter had come from him saying that in a
fortnight his training would be over. He was to be granted eight days'
leave, which he didn't particularly want, since he couldn't spend it
with them; and immediately after he would go to the front.
"We made up our minds that Jimmy should spend that leave of his with
us," the old man had said. "We got our papers in a hurry and engaged
cabins on the first boat that was sailing. Unluckily there wasn't one
for nearly a week, but we did the best we could. When everything was
fixed up, I wired Jimmy to meet us at the Ritz, in Paris. We had a
little breeze with a U-boat, and we ran into some bad weather which made
my wife pretty sick, but nothing mattered to us except the delay, we
were so crazy to see the boy. At Bordeaux a letter from him was waiting.
It told how he was just as crazy to see us, but we'd only have
twenty-four hours together, as his leave and orders for the front had
both been advanced. The delay at sea had cost a day, and that seemed
like hard lines, as we should reach Paris with no more than time to wish
the lad God-speed. But in the train, when we came to look at the date,
we saw that we'd miscalculated. Unless Jimmy'd been able to get extra
leave we'd miss him altogether. His mother said that would be too bad to
be true. We hoped and prayed to find him at the Ritz. Instead, we found
news that he had fallen in his first battle."
The interviewer went on, upon his own account, to praise "Jimmy"
Beckett. He described him as a young man of twenty-seven, "of singularly
engaging manner and handsome appearance; a graduate with high honours
from Harvard, an all-round sportsman and popular with a large circle of
friends, but fortunately leaving neither a wife nor a fiancée behind him
in America." The newly qualified aviator had, indeed, fallen in his
first battle: but according to the writer it had been a battle of
astonishing glory for a beginner. Single-handed he had engaged four
enemy machines, manoeuvring his own little Nieuport in a way to excite
the highest admiration and even surprise in all spectators. Two out of
the four German 'planes he had brought down over the French lines; and
was in chase of the third, flying low above the German trenches, when
two new Fokkers appeared on the scene and attacked him. His plane
crashed to earth in flames, and a short time after, prisoners had
brought news of his death.