Clair W. Perry’s Short Story, ‘Faithful to the End’

“La Belle Dame sans Merci,” 1893, by John William Waterhouse. Oil on canvas; 44 inches by 31 4/5 inches. A young man promises to be faithful in Clair W. Perry's short story. Public Domain

A promise is unlike other spoken words: It binds the promiser and the promised in a bond that isn’t lightly broken.

In his short story, “Faithful to the End,” Clair W. Perry contemplates the significance and power of a simple promise. Perry writes of a young soldier who makes a promise to a strange girl. Though it was made in haste, the promise creates a powerful bond between the two, which the war threatens to tear asunder.

Promises Made

World War I rages and Lt. Topham, a commander in the 10th London Reservists, was charged with loading airplanes for transport from England to France.  

With the airplanes safely aboard the boat, Topham turns towards the dock where soldiers are embarking and bidding farewell to their “wife, mother, sweetheart, [or] sister.” Such a sight moves Topham, for he has no one to bid him farewell, or kiss him goodbye.

Continuing his woeful contemplations, he runs into a young lady. Topham is struck by the young lady’s beauty and lively eyes. Hearing the boat’s bell and thinking of the possible death to come, he asks her: “Are you sending—some one away?” She replies that her father died, so she has no one.

Encouraged by this, he wistfully continues: “I am going—over there ... and I have no one. I feel that I—shall never return. I wonder if you—Will you kiss me good-bye? I promise you I shall never kiss another woman—that I will be faithful—until the end.” She smiles and kisses him, then he leaps onto the moving gangplank and is gone.

A week later, after victoriously fighting a German Taube, Topham lies on a stretcher in the hospital with death hovering over him. As he lays there, a woman nurse comes to him and gently touches him.

Feeling death grow closer, Topham mutters to the nurse: “I am going ... Will you kiss me good-bye? I can promise you—I will be faithful—until the end.” The nurse kisses him, and he passes out.

When Topham regains consciousness, he finds himself in a nice, clean, white bed. Though his eyesight is blurry, he knows that he is in England. Yet he still feels the grip of death descending upon him again.

Feeling his life grow thin, he rings for the nurse. With her blurry figure before him, he says: “I—I am almost gone ... My heart is stopping. I—I am not afraid—but—it is so lonely. I have no one. Could you—kiss me—good-bye?” In response, the nurse pours a strong liquid down his throat.

Through this story, Perry demonstrates the ease with which this young man makes a promise. Yet, through his trials, the young woman he meets by chance shows that a promise made is all the more powerful when it is loyally kept.

Perry’s story echoes Robert Frost’s poem, “Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening”:

These woods are lovely, dark and deep,  But I have promises to keep,  And miles to go before I sleep,        And miles to go before I sleep.

If promises are made, they must be kept, even if sleep and darkness threaten to tear them asunder.

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