"A Casualty of War"

Sydney M. Williams

November 22, 2017

“A Casualty of War”

Charles Todd

“We were so close to ending this wretched war. It was hard to watch

 men die when rumors promised safety and peace so near at hand.”

                                                                                                A Casualty of War

                                                                                                Charles Todd

This is the ninth Bess Crawford mystery by Charles Todd. The mother-son writing team have also published nineteen mysteries starring Ian Rutledge, a police detective haunted by memories of the Great War. The Todd’s interest is World War I, and especially the psychological effects that War had on those who served: “As if the mind could cope on demand, and put the darkness away.” The authors are Americans, but their characters British.

The story opens in the War’s final days, with Bess Crawford as a nurse in a forward aid station. The Germans are in retreat. Twice, a wounded Captain Alan Travis, a Barbadian related to a wealthy Suffolk family, is delivered to the aid station. He claims to have been shot both times by another English soldier who looked like his great uncle. He suspects it was his cousin James, a brother officer whom he had met earlier while on leave.  It turns out, though, that James had been killed in action shortly after the two cousins met – thus, the mystery. Doctors and the military claim he suffers from shell shock, or what we now know call PTSD – Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder. After the War, Captain Travis is returned to England for rehabilitation, where Bess finds him strapped down in a mental ward. As her former patient, she disbelieves the diagnosis and feels responsible to right a wrong. She and her family’s trusted friend, Sergeant Major Simon Brandon travel to the Travis ancestral home where contested wills, imposter claimants and murder charges greet them. After some harrowing adventures, Bess and Sergeant Major Brandon prevail and Captain Travis is vindicated.   

Vera Brittain is a heroine to Beatriz, with her moving account of the Great War and its aftermath, “A Testament to Youth.” Brittain must also have influenced the Todds. “A Strange Scottish Shore” and “A Casualty of War” are fun and compelling reads. Why not jump around that river of time, if not literally at least fictionally, to a point when political partisanship was less vicious than today?