There was no machinery for that purpose.
Even if there were such machinery, there was no one to pull the
levers. Nothing was ever set in motion in the War Office without
pulling a diversity of levers. So much for that. Hollister, recalling
his experience in London, smiled sardonically at thought of the
British War Office voluntarily troubling itself about dead men who
came to life. The War Office would not know him. The War Office did
not know men. It only knew identification numbers, regiments, ranks,
things properly documented, officially assigned. It was disdainful of
any casual inquiry; it would shunt such from official to official,
from department to department, until the inquirer was worn out, his
patience, his fund of postage and his time alike exhausted.
No, the British War Office would neither know nor care nor tell.
Surely the slate was sponged clean. Should he condemn himself and
Doris Cleveland to heartache and loneliness because of a technicality?
To Hollister it seemed no more than that. Myra had married again.
Would she--reckoning the chance that she learned he was alive--rise up
to denounce him? Hardly.
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