Garth, Able Seaman

Published in 1923, this adventure novel for boys is set in New England during the First World War. Garth, the central character, is a nine-year-old boy with a keen interest in the sea and sailing, largely due to his father having been a lighthouse keeper and now serving on a navy destroyer off the coast of Europe. The novel is remarkable for its portrayal of a character with shell shock. It reminded me of Sébastien Japrisot's novel Un long dimanche de fiançailles (adapted into the film with an ambiguous English title, A Very Long Engagement). In both cases, a returning soldier loses his memory and cannot recognise his fiancée.

The author, Edith Ballinger Price (born 26 April 1897), was both a writer, an illustrator and a keen proponent of the girl scouts movement. At least one of her brothers did military service during the war. The author includes in the novel three characters serving in the war: Garth's father, his uncle and the fiancée of Celia, a family friend. Garth’s mother tells her sister-in-law about Celia’s sorrow:
“It's simply that she was in love and her man’s dead — or as good as dead... His name is Wyeth Merriman and he went over at once with the Foreign Legion. Nothing has been heard of him since last summer and he's listed as missing — which usually means dead, of course. He wanted to go in the navy, being fond of water things apparently, but I gather that she discouraged him, holding that the soldier's is the nobler career.”

While being treated in hospital, Garth is befriended by a returning soldier called John Loomis. Garth had been told about him:
“He was shell-shocked; they just found him walking around without any identification-disc or anything. They've been sending him to lots of hospitals... but they can't find out if there are people he knows anywhere.”
When John visits Garth after they have both left hospital, Celia recognises him as her fiancée but John has no sense of knowing who she is.

When out walking one afternoon, Garth and his mother experience something “strange and terrifying and wildly beautiful” when “suddenly, out of the stillness, whistles began to blow, whistles from the factories and the power houses... every boat in the harbour raised her voice in a prolonged bellow; the sound swelled, a distant, solemn unflagging scream of exultation... The war — is over.” It's not until the navy ships return to Newport, Rhode Island, that the denouement of the novel takes place with Garth saving the day and being commended by his father as an able seaman.