The Missing Father by M J Lee (Jayne Sinclair Genealogical Mysteries Book 9) Read Online And Epub File Download
Overview: Alice Taylor was adopted in 1942 when she was three years old. Her adoptive parents never told her about her birth family and even changed her Christian name. Now, seventy-seven years later, she wants to know the truth.
Who were her birth parents?
How did her mother die?
What happened to her missing father?
Jayne Sinclair, genealogical investigator, has just a few days to discover the truth before she goes for a well-earned break in Australia.
Can she discover the truth hidden in the chaos of the war?
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The Missing Father by M J Lee (Jayne Sinclair Genealogical Mysteries Book 9) Read Online Chapter One
March, 1943
Chungkai Camp, Thailand
It was a day just like any other.
Captain David Stephens held the hand of a man as he died, talking constantly to him in a low voice so as not to disturb the others. The doctor had seen him that morning but nothing could be done. The man had already drifted into that semi-conscious state where reality and dreams collide.
Before the war, he had known Harry Jarvis. He had been fit and healthy then, a boxer for the regiment. Of course, Harry didn’t recognise him any more, trapped as he was in the depths of delirium, talking incessantly about his mother and the ocean, reliving some long-forgotten trip to the seaside during Wakes week.
Harry was smiling when he died. One moment he was chattering away and the next he was gone.
The captain wrote his name, rank and number in the school exercise book, taking care to ensure he made no mistakes. It was the one thing he could do, a last respect to the man.
There were four other names already for that day.
A slow day for deaths.
A good day.
He stood up and wiped his forehead, the sweat and grime staining the rag he wore around his neck.
Across in Bed Three, a man cried out for water. He went to the bamboo barrel they kept in the corner and, using the coconut shell, filled it half full, carrying it carefully to the man.
He would die soon, the captain was sure. He’d seen it before. The tiredness in the eyes, the faraway look as if the threshold between life and death had already been crossed, the future already here in the present.
A future where there was no hunger, no pain, no mosquitoes and no unrelenting prattle about the damp heat of the jungle.
He raised the man’s head and let the water trickle across the dry lips.
What was this man’s name?
He couldn’t remember.
There was a time when he knew all of them, but most had gone now. The new ones were coming in every day.
He took the tiny picture wrapped in its greaseproof paper out of his pocket and stared at it as he often did. His wife and child, gone now, gone forever, but in some strange way, still here with him, his memory of them keeping him alive.
The doctor approached him, a rusty belt holding up his ragged trousers, a sweat-stained shirt all that remained of his once pristine uniform. ‘Can you get the detail to bury Bed Twelve? There’s three more coming in from upcountry later today and we need the cot.’
‘Will do. I’ll ask the bugler to play the last post as they bury him.’
The captain had lost the polite formalities of the army long ago. For him, they no longer seemed to matter. But the formalities for the dead still remained.
It was a matter of respect for their life. And for the manner of their death.
‘I think Bed Three will be free later,’ he added glancing at the man to whom he had just given water.
The doctor looked across at the patient, a sad helplessness in his eyes. ‘Make him as comfortable as you can,’ he said quietly.
‘No more quinine?’
‘We’ll save it for the new arrivals. Perhaps one of them is strong enough to survive.’
The captain nodded.
It was a day just like any other.
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