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diff --git a/14823-0.txt b/14823-0.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..63ef237 --- /dev/null +++ b/14823-0.txt @@ -0,0 +1,3590 @@ +*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 14823 *** + +[Illustration: DONALD HANKEY] + +A + +STUDENT IN ARMS + +SECOND SERIES + +BY + +DONALD HANKEY + +WITH AN INTRODUCTION BY J. ST. LOE STRACHEY + +EDITOR OF _THE SPECTATOR_ + + +NEW YORK + +B.P. DUTTON & CO. + +681 FIFTH AVENUE + + + + +Published 1917 BY E.P. DUTTON & CO. + + + + +CONTENTS + + PAGE + + SOMETHING ABOUT "A STUDENT IN ARMS" 1 + + AUTHOR'S FOREWORD 33 + + I.--THE POTENTATE 37 + + II.--THE BAD SIDE OF MILITARY SERVICE 51 + + III.--THE GOOD SIDE OF "MILITARISM" 65 + + IV.--A MONTH'S REFLECTIONS 79 + + V.--ROMANCE 93 + + VI.--IMAGINARY CONVERSATIONS (I) 109 + + VII.--THE FEAR OF DEATH IN WAR 115 + + VIII.--IMAGINARY CONVERSATIONS (II) 127 + + IX.--THE WISDOM OF "A STUDENT IN ARMS" 139 + + X.--IMAGINARY CONVERSATIONS (III) 145 + + XI.--LETTER TO AN ARMY CHAPLAIN 153 + + XII.--"DON'T WORRY" 165 + + XIII.--IMAGINARY CONVERSATIONS (IV) 175 + + XIV.--A PASSING IN JUNE, 1915 181 + + XV.--MY HOME AND SCHOOL: + + I MY HOME 199 + + II SCHOOL 216 + + SOME NOTES ON THE FRAGMENT OF AUTOBIOGRAPHY BY "HILDA" 237 + + + + +SOMETHING ABOUT "A STUDENT IN ARMS" + +BY H.M.A.H. + + +"His life was a Romance of the most noble and beautiful kind." So says +one who has known him from childhood, and into how many dull, hard +and narrow lives has he not been the first to bring the element of +Romance? + +He carried it about with him; it breathes through his writings, +and this inevitable expression of it gives the saying of one of his +friends, that "it is as an artist that we shall miss him most," the +more significance. + +And does not the artist as well as the poet live forever in his works? +Is not the breath of inspiration that such alone can breathe into the +dull clods of their generation bound to be immortal? + +Meanwhile, his "Romance" is to be written and his biographer will be +one whose good fortune it has been to see much of the "Student" in +Bermondsey, the place that was the forcing-house of his development. +In the following pages it is proposed only to give an outline of his +life, and particularly the earlier and therefore to the public unknown +parts. + +Donald Hankey was born at Brighton in 1884; he was the seventh child +of his parents, and was welcomed with excitement and delight by a +ready-made family of three brothers and two sisters living on his +arrival amongst them. He was the youngest of them by seven years, and +all had their plans for his education and future, and waited jealously +for the time when he should be old enough to be removed from the +loving shelter of his mother's arms and be "brought up." + +His education did, as a matter of fact, begin at a very early age; for +one day, when he was perhaps about three years old, dressed in a white +woolly cap and coat, and out for his morning walk, a neighbouring baby +stepped across from his nurse's side and with one well-directed blow +felled Donald to the ground! Donald was too much astonished and hurt +at the sheer injustice of the assault to dream of retaliation, but +when they reached home and his indignant nurse told the story, he was +taken aside by his brothers and made to understand that by his failure +to resist the assault, and give the other fellow back as good as he +gave, "the honour of the family" was impugned! He was then and there +put through a systematic course of "the noble art of self-defence." +"And I think," said one of his brothers only the other day, "that he +was prepared to act upon his instructions should occasion arise." +It will be seen from this incident that his bringing-up was of a +decidedly strenuous character and likely to make Donald's outlook on +life a serious one! + +He was naturally a peace-loving and philosophical little boy, very +lovable and attractive with his large clear eyes with their curious +distribution of colour--the one entirely blue and the other three +parts a decided brown--the big head set proudly on the slender little +body, and the radiant illuminating smile, that no one who knew him +well at any time of his life can ever forget. It spoke of a light +within, "that mysterious light which is of course not physical," as +was said by one who met him only once, but was quick to note this +characteristic. + +Donald's more strenuous times were in the boys' holidays--those +tumultuous of seasons so well known to the members of all big +families! His eldest brother, Hugh, was bent on making an all-round +athlete of him; another brother saw in him an embryo county cricketer, +while a third was most particular about his music, giving him lessons +on the violoncello with clockwork regularity. The games were terribly +thrilling and dangerous, especially when the schoolroom was turned +into a miniature battlefield, with opposing armies of tiny lead +soldiers. But Donald never turned a hair if Hugh were present, even at +the most terrific explosions of gun-powder. His confidence in Hugh was +complete. Nor did he mind personal injuries. When on one occasion he +was hurled against the sharp edge of a chair, cutting his head open +badly, and his mother came to the rescue with indignation, sympathy +and bandages, whilst accepting the latter he deprecated the two +former, explaining apologetically, "It's only because my head's so +big." + +He admitted in after years to having felt most terribly swamped by the +personalities of two of his brothers. The third he had more in common +with, for he was more peace-loving, and he seemed to have more time +to listen to the small boy's confidences and stories, which Donald +started to write at the age of six. + +Hugh, however, was his hero--a kind of demi-god. And truly there +was something Greek about the boy--in his singular beauty of person, +coupled with his brilliant mental equipment, and above all in the +nothing less than Spartan methods with which, in spite of a highly +sensitive temperament, he set himself to overcome his handicap of +a naturally delicate physique and a bad head for heights. He turned +himself out quite an athlete, and actually cured his bad head by a +course of walking on giddy heights, preferably roofs--the parapet of +the tall four-storied house the children lived in being a favourite +training ground. + +Donald was the apple of his eye, and he was quick to note a certain +lack of vitality about the little boy--especially when he was growing +fast--and a certain natural timidity. His letters from school are full +of messages to and instructions concerning Donald's physical training, +and from Sandhurst he would long to "run over and see after his +boxing." He called him Don Diego, a name that suited the rather +stately little fellow, and he used to fear sometimes that Donald +was "getting too polite" and say he must "knock it out of him in +the holidays." Needless to say, his handling of him was always very +gentle. + +The other over-vital brother, if a prime amuser, was also a prime +tease, and being nearer Donald in age was also much less gentle. + +Before very long these great personages took themselves off "zum neuen +taten." But their Odysseys came home in the shape of letters, which, +with their descriptions of strange countries and peoples and records +of adventures--often the realization of boyish dreams--and also of +difficulties overcome, were well calculated to appeal to Donald's +childish imagination, and to increase his admiration for the +writers--and also his feeling of impotence, and of the impossibility +of being able to follow in the tracks of such giants among men! + +His mother, however, was his never-failing confidante and friend. +His love and admiration for her were unbounded, as for her courage, +unselfishness and constant thought for others, more especially for +the poor and insignificant among her neighbours. Though the humblest +minded of women, she could, when occasion demanded, administer a +rebuke with a decision and a fire that must have won the heartfelt +admiration of her diffident little son. + +He was not easily roused himself, but there is one instance of his +being so that is eminently characteristic. He had come back from +school evidently very perturbed, and at first his sister could get +nothing out of him. But at last he flared up. His face reddened, his +eyes burned like coals and, in a voice trembling with rage, he said, +"---- (naming a school-fellow) talks about things that I won't even +_think_!" + +At the age of about 14 he, too, went to Rugby, and there is an +interesting prophecy about him by his brother Hugh belonging to this +time. Hugh had by now earned a certain right to pronounce judgment, +having already started to fulfil his early promise by making some mark +as a soldier and a linguist. He had been invited to join the Egyptian +Army at a critical time in the campaign of 1897-98, thanks to his +proficiency in Arabic. His work was cut short by serious illness, the +long period of convalescence after which he had utilized in working +for and passing the Army Interpreter's examination in Turkish as +well as the higher one in Arabic and his promotion exam. All of which +achievements had been of use in helping him to wring out of the War +Office a promise of certain distinguished service in China. In a +letter home he writes:-- + + 2ND BATT. THE ROYAL WARWICKSHIRE, REGT., + THE CAMP, + COLCHESTER. + 28th Sept., 1899. + + MY DEAR MAMMA,-- + + I packed Donald off to school to-day in good time and + cold-less.... He was wonderfully calm and collected. He was + more at his ease in our mess than I should have been in a + strange mess, and made himself agreeable to his neighbours + without being forward. Also he looked very clean and smart, + and was altogether quite a success. + + That child has a future before him if his energy is up to + form, which I hope. His philosophy is most amazing. He looks + remarkably healthy, and is growing nicely.... + +Shortly after this letter was written the South African War broke out, +and before six months were over the writer was killed in action, at +the age of 27, whilst serving with the Mounted Infantry at Paardeberg. + +It was the first sorrow of Donald's life, but six months later he was +to suffer a yet more crushing blow in the loss of his dearly loved +mother. The loss of his best confidante and his ideal seemed at first +to stun the boy completely, and to cast him in upon himself entirely. +Later on he remembered that he had felt at that time that he had +nothing to say to any one. He had wondered what the others could have +thought of him, and had thought how dreadfully unresponsive they must +be finding him. His sister should have been of some use. But she +can only think of herself then as of some strange figure, veiled +and petrified with grief--grief _not_ for her mother, but for the +young hero whose magnetism had thrilled through every moment of her +life--yet pointing onwards, with mutely insistent finger, to the +path that her hero had trodden. And Donald, dazed also himself by +grief--though from another cause--of his own accord, placed his first +uncertain steps on the road that leads to military glory. No "voice" +warned him as yet, and he had no other decisive leading. + +If his sister failed him then, his father did not. Of him Donald wrote +recently to an aunt, "Papa's letters to me are a heritage whose value +can never diminish. His was indeed the pen of a ready writer, and +in his case, as in the case of many rather reserved people, the pen +did more justice to the man than the tongue. I never knew him until +Mamma's death, when the weekly letter from him took the place of hers, +and never stopped till I came home." + +At Rugby, Donald was accounted a dreamer. Without the outlet he +had hitherto had for his confidences and his thoughts no doubt the +tendency to dream grew upon him. "Behold this dreamer cometh," was +actually said of him by one of his masters. + +Nevertheless there were happy times when youth asserted itself and +boyish friendships were made. In work he did well, for he entered the +sixth form at the early age of 16½, and was thereby enabled, though he +left young, to have his name painted up "in hall" below those of his +three brothers, and also on his "study" door which belonged to each of +the four in turn. + +He entered the Royal Military Academy, Woolwich, straight from +Rugby, and before he was seventeen. We have his word for it that +he was spiritually very unhappy there, finding evils with which he +was impotent to grapple, going up as he did so young from school +and before he had had time to acquire a "games" reputation--that +all-important qualification for a boy if he wishes to influence +his fellows. Nevertheless youthful spirits were bound to triumph +sometimes. He was a perfectly sound and healthy, well-grown boy and a +friend who was with him at "the Shop" says he can remember no apparent +trace of unhappiness, and is full of tales of his jokes and his fun, +his quaint caricatures and doggerel rhymes, his love of flowers and +nature, his hospitalities, and his joy in getting his friends to meet +and know and like each other. Though he made no mark at Woolwich he +did carry off the prize for the best essay on the South African War. +With it he made his first appearance in print, for it was printed in +the R.M.A. Magazine. While he was at Woolwich the family circle was +enlarged by the arrival of a cousin from Australia, and she and Donald +became the greatest of friends. She reminded him in some way of his +mother, and this made all the difference. + +The Island of Mauritius, to which he was sent at the age of twenty, +not so very long after having received his commission in the Royal +Garrison Artillery, stood for him later on, he has told us, as +"Revelation"--"for there it was that I was first a sceptic, and was +first shown that I could not remain one." Also towards the end of his +stay there, when he was doubting as to what course he should take, +a sentence came to him insistently, "Would you know Christ? Lo, He +is working in His vineyard." It was these things that decided him +eventually to resign his commission, but of them his letters home +make little or no mention. They are full, on the other hand, of +descriptions of the beauties of the Island which, curious, odd, +freakish and unexpected, held him as did those of no other place. The +curious inconsistencies of the Creole nature also interested him, and +he spent much of his spare time sketching and studying the people. Two +friendships he made there were diverse and lasting, but he complains +very much of feeling the lack of a woman friend--no one to tease and +pick flowers for! + +While he was still there, there appeared at home a baby +nephew--another "Hugh"--"trailing clouds of glory," but to return all +too soon to his "Eternal Home." Some years previously, when his eldest +sister had told him of her engagement, he congratulated her warmly, +and said he "had always longed for a nephew"! He never saw the child, +but wrote after his death that he had heard so much about him that +he seemed to know him, and "I think I must have played with him in +my dreams." Possibly the baby nephew, in his short ten months of +life, did more for his uncle than either knew, for no frozen hearts +could do otherwise than melt in the presence of the insistent needs +of that gallant little spirit and fragile little body, and a more +whole-hearted sister was awaiting him on his return home, which took +place at the end of two years, after he had fallen a victim to the +prevalent complaint in the R.G.A--abscess on the liver. It was caused +by the shocking conditions under which the R.G.A. had to live in +Mauritius during that hot summer when the Russian Fleet sojourned +in Madagascan waters, and in Donald's case it necessitated a severe +operation. + +His joy in his homecoming was quickly clouded over, for his father +died only a month or two after his return; not, however, before he +had given a delighted acquiescence to Donald's proposal to resign +his commission and go to Oxford in order to study theology--his own +favourite pursuit--with the object of eventually taking Holy Orders. + +In the spring of 1907 Donald took a trip to Italy with his sister and +a Rhodes Scholar cousin from Australia. It was the young men's first +visit, and each brought back a special trophy: Donald's, a large +photograph of a fine virile "Portrait of a man" by Giorgione in black +and white, and his cousin, a sweet Madonna head by Luini. + +Donald gave his sister her trophy on their return home, in remembrance +of the lectures she had given the two of them on the pre-Raphaelite +painters in Florence. It took the form of a water-colour caricature of +herself, sitting enthroned in a Loggia as a sort of Sybil Saint with +a halo and a book (Baedeker). Behind her, and outlined against a pale +sky as seen through an archway of the Loggia in the typical Florentine +fashion, are the blue mountains near Florence, some tall cypresses, +a campanile and a castle perched on the top of a hill--all features +of the landscapes through which they had passed together. In the +foreground are himself and his cousin as monks adoring, also with +haloes, and expressions of mock ecstasy! + +On his return Donald went for a few months to Rugby House, the Rugby +School Mission, in order to cram for Oxford. He thereby made a friend, +and learned to love Browning. + +After living so long at Brighton, and then in barracks, the beauty of +Oxford was in itself alone a revelation to him. The work there, too, +was entirely congenial. As a gunner subaltern he had been a square peg +in a round hole. As regards the work there had been far too much to +be accepted on authority for one of his fundamental type of mind; the +relations existing between an officer and his men--in peace time, +at any rate--seemed to him hardly human, and the making of quick +decisions, which an officer is continually called upon to do, was +then as always very difficult to him. His tastes, too, unusual in a +subaltern, had made him rather lonely. He found much more in common +with the undergraduate than with the subaltern. Going up as an +"oldster" (22) was to him an advantage rather than otherwise, for his +six years in the Army had given him a certain prestige which was a +help to his natural diffidence, and helped to open more doors to him, +so that he was not limited to any set. + +He gained some reputation as a host, for he had the born host's gift +of getting the right people together and making them feel at their +ease. There was also, as a rule, some little individual touch about +his entertainments that made them stand out. His manner, though +naturally boyish and shy, could be both gay and debonair, quite +irresistible in fact, when he was surrounded by congenial spirits! He +played hockey, and was made a member of several clubs, sketched and +made beautiful photographs. His time he divided strictly between the +study of man and the study of theology, and though he did much hard, +thorough and careful work in connexion with the latter, he always +maintained that for a man who was going to be a parson the former was +the more important study of the two. + +He used, however, to complain much at this time of feeling himself +incapable of any very strong emotion, even that of sorrow. + +No doubt there is more stimulation to the brain than to the heart in +the highly critical atmosphere of all phases of the intellectual life +at Oxford; also Donald had hardly yet got over the shocks of his youth +and the loneliness of his life abroad. He was, too, essentially and +curiously the son of his father--even to his minor tastes, such as his +connoisseur's palate for a good wine and his judgment in "smokes"--and +this feeling of a certain detachment from the larger emotions of life +was always his father's pose--the philosopher's. In his father's case +it was perhaps engendered, if not necessitated, by his poor health and +wretched nerves. + +But can we not trace his dissatisfaction at this time in what he felt +to be his cold philosophical attitude towards life to the same cause +as much of the misery he suffered as a boy! In the paper he calls +"School," which follows with that entitled "Home," he tells us how he +would have liked to have chastised a school-fellow "had he dared," +and his failure to dare was evidently what reduced him to the state of +impotent rage described on page 9 of this sketch. Again at Woolwich, +what made him unhappy was not so much the evils which he saw but +his impotence to deal with them. So now again at Oxford he feels +"impotent," impotent this time to feel and sympathize as he would +have wished with suffering humanity. But within him was the light, +"the light which is, of course, not physical," which betrayed itself +through his wonderful smile--the same now as in babyhood; and from +his mother, and perhaps also from the young country that gave her +birth, he had inherited, as well as her great heart and broad human +sympathies, the vigour that was to carry him through the experiences +by means of which, in the fullness of time, that light, no longer +dormant, was to break into a flame of infinite possibilities. + +Donald's one complaint against Oxford was that the ideas that are born +and generated there so often evaporate in talk and smoke. He left with +the determination to "do," but before going on to a Clergy School he +decided to accept a friend's invitation to visit him in savage Africa +so that he might think things over, and put to the test, far away from +the artificialities of Modern Life, the ideas he had assimilated in +the highly sophisticated atmosphere of Oxford. As he quaintly put it: +"Since Paul went into Arabia for three years, I don't see why I should +not go to British East Africa for six months!" He did not, however, +stay the whole time there, but re-visited his beloved Mauritius, and +also stayed in Madagascar. + +The beginning of 1911 found him at the Clergy School. But what he +wanted he did not find there. During his Oxford vacations he had made +many expeditions to poorer London, at first to Notting Dale where +was the Rugby School Mission, and afterwards to Bermondsey. But these +expeditions had not been entirely satisfactory. He had then gone as +a "visitor." The lessons he wanted to learn now from "the People" +could only be learned by becoming as far as possible one of them. The +story of his struggles to do so in his life in Bermondsey, and of +his journey to Australia in the steerage of a German liner and of his +roughing it there, always with the same object in view, cannot be told +here. The first outcome of it all was the writing of his book, _The +Lord of All Good Life_. Of this book he says, in a letter to his +friend Tom Allen of the Oxford and Bermondsey Mission: + +"The book I regard as my child. I feel quite absurdly about it; to me +it is the sudden vision of what lots of obscure things really meant. +It is coming out of dark shadows into--moonlight ... I would have you +to realize that it was written spontaneously in a burst, in six weeks, +without any consultation of authorities or any revision to speak of. +I had tried and tried, but without success. Then suddenly everything +cleared up. To myself, the writing of it was an illumination. I did +not write it laboriously and with calculation or because I wanted to +write a book and be an author. I wrote it because problems that had +been troubling me suddenly cleared up and because writing down the +result was to me the natural way of getting everything straight in my +own mind." + +The book was written not away in the peace of the country, nor in the +comparative quiet of a certain sunny little sitting-room I know of, +looking on to a leafy back garden in Kensington, where Donald often +sat and smoked and wrote, but in a little flat in a dull tenement +house in a grey street in Bermondsey, where I remember visiting him +with a cousin of his. + +Here the Student lived like a lord--for Bermondsey! For he possessed +two flats, one for his "butler"--a sick-looking young man in list +slippers, and his wife and family--and the other for himself. + +The little sitting-room in which he entertained us was very pleasant, +with light walls, a bright table-cloth, a gleam of something brass +that had come from Ceylon, one or two gaily painted dancing shields +from Africa, and two barbaric looking dolls, about a foot high, +dressed chiefly in beads and paint, that he had picked up in an +Antananarivo shop in Madagascar. They came in usefully when he was +lecturing on Missions! + +His bedroom he did not want us to see. It struck cold and appeared to +be reeking with damp! + +The weather had been rather dull when we arrived, but suddenly there +was a glint of sunshine, and a grind-organ that had wandered up the +street started playing just opposite. Two couple of children began +to dance. A girl with a jug stopped to watch them, and mothers with +babies came to their doors. A window was thrown open opposite and a +whole family of children leaned out to see the fun. + +Bermondsey was gay, and after we had gone the "Student" perpetuated +the fact in a water-colour drawing which he sent to his cousin +afterwards. + +In the evening, however, the sounds would be more discordant, also +the Student was running a Boys' Club, taking several Sunday services +at the Mission, visiting some very sick people, and attending to a +multifarious list of duties which left me breathless when I saw it, +knowing too how many casual appeals always came to him and that he +never was known to refuse a helping hand to any one! Nevertheless +it was there, and in six weeks, that the _Lord of All Good Life_ was +written! + +"Then came the war," and the Student shall tell us in his own words +what it meant to him. Writing still to Tom Allen, who had also +enlisted, and afterwards also gave his life in the war, he says: + +"For myself the war was, in a sense, a heaven-sent opportunity. Ever +since I left Leeds I have been trying to follow out the theory that +the proper subject of study for the theologian was man, and had +increasingly been made to feel that nothing but violent measures could +overcome my own shyness sufficiently to enable me to study outside +my own class. Enlistment had always appealed to me as one of the few +feasible methods of ensuring the desired results.... + +"I was interested to hear that you found the ---- so illuminating as +regards human potentialities for bestiality. I think that I plumbed +the depths between sixteen and a half and twenty-two. I have learned +nothing more since then about bestiality. In fact I am hardened, and, +I am afraid, take it for granted. Since then I have been discovering +human goodness, which is far more satisfactory. And oh, I have found +it! In Bermondsey, in the stinking hold of the _Zieten_, in the wide, +thirsty desert of Western Australia, and in the ranks of the 7th +Battalion of the Rifle Brigade. I enlisted very largely to find out +how far I really believed in the brotherhood of man when it comes to +the point--and I do believe in it more and more." + +Donald Hankey enlisted in August, 1914, and after a period of +training, part of which was certainly the happiest time of his life, +he went to the front in May, 1915, coming home wounded in August, when +he wrote for the _Spectator_ most of the articles that were published +anonymously the following spring under the title of _A Student in +Arms_. Before he left hospital he received a commission in his old +regiment, the R.G.A., but still finding himself with no love for +big guns, he transferred to his eldest brother's regiment, the Royal +Warwickshire, hoping that by doing so he might get back to the front +the sooner. He did not, however, leave until May, 1916, after he had +written his contribution to _Faith or Fear_. + +Most of the numbers of the present volume were written in or near +the trenches, and a fellow-officer gave his sister an interesting +description of how it was done. "Your brother," said he, "will sit +down in a corner of a trench, with his pipe, and write an article for +the _Spectator_, or make funny sketches for his nephews and nieces, +when none of the rest of us could concentrate sufficiently even to +write a letter." + +On October 6th, Donald Hankey wrote home: "We shall probably be +fighting by the time you get this letter, but one has a far better +chance of getting through now than in July. I shall be very glad if we +do have a scrap, as we have been resting quite long enough. Of course +one always has to face possibilities on such occasions; but we have +faced them in advance, haven't we? I believe with all my soul that +whatever will be, will be for the best. As I said before, I should +hate to slide meanly into winter without a scrap.... I have a top-hole +platoon--nearly all young, and nearly all have been out here eighteen +months--thoroughly good sporting fellows; so if I don't do well it +will be my fault." + +Six days after this the Student knelt down for a few seconds with his +men--we have it on the testimony of one of them--and he told them a +little of what was before them: "If wounded, 'Blighty'; if killed, the +Resurrection." Then "over the top." He was last seen alive rallying +his men, who had wavered for a moment under the heavy machine gun and +rifle fire. He carried the waverers along with him, and was found that +night close to the trench, the winning of which had cost him his life, +with his platoon sergeant and a few of his men by his side. + +What wonder that his cousin and best friend, when asked a short time +previously what he was like, had replied, "He is the most beautiful +thing that ever happened." + + + + +AUTHOR'S FOREWORD + +(BEING EXTRACTS FROM LETTERS TO HIS SISTER) + + +"I am very much wondering whether you will receive 'A Diary' in four +parts. It is very much founded on fact, though altered in parts. You +will probably be surprised at a certain change in tone, but remember +that my previous articles were written in England, while this was +written on the spot.... The Diary was not my diary, though it was +so very nearly what mine might have been that it is difficult to +say what is fiction and what is actuality in it. With regard to the +'conversation' during the bombardment, it represents in its totality +what I believe the ordinary soldier feels. He loathes the war, and the +grandiloquent speeches of politicians irritate him by their failure to +realize how loathesome war is. At the same time he knows he has got to +go through with it, and only longs for the chance to hurry up. In the +'Diary,' again, I quite deliberately emphasized the depression of the +man who thought he was being left out, and the mental effect of the +clearing-up process because I thought that it would be a good thing +for people to realize this side, and also partly because I felt that +in previous articles I had glossed over it too much.... If I get a +chance of publishing another book I shall certainly include them." + + _Note_.--Not only "A Diary" and "Imaginary Conversations," but + every paper in the present collection, with the exception of + "The Wisdom," "The Potentate," and "A Passing in June," were + written in France in 1916, and many of them actually in the + trenches. The rough sketch for "A Passing in June" was written + in France in 1915, but was completed when the author was in + hospital at home. + + "The Potentate" was written for the original volume of _A + Student in Arms_, but was not published on account of its + likeness in subject to Barrie's play, _Der Tag_, which, + however, Donald had not seen or even heard of when he wrote + his own. + + + + +I + +THE POTENTATE[1] + + + SCENE. _A tent (interior). The_ POTENTATE _is sitting at a + table listening to his_ COURT CHAPLAIN. + +[Footnote 1: It is necessary to state that _The Potentate_ was written +before Sir James Barrie's play _Der Tag_ appeared.] + +COURT CHAPLAIN (_concluding his remarks_). Where can we look for the +Kingdom of God, Sire, if not among the German people? Consider your +foes. The English are Pharisees, hypocrites. Woe to them, saith +the Lord. The French are atheists. The Belgians are ignorant and +priest-ridden. The Russians are sunk in mediæval superstition. As for +the Italians, half are atheists and the other half idolators. Only +in Germany do you find a reasonable and progressive faith, devoid +of superstition, abreast of scientific thought, and of the highest +ethical value. Germany then, Sire, is the Kingdom of God on earth. The +Germans are the chosen people, the heirs of the promise, and let their +enemies be scattered! + + (_The_ POTENTATE _rises, leans forward with his hands on the + table, and an expression of extreme gratification, while the_ + CHAPLAIN _stands with a smug and respectful smile on his white + face._) + +POTENTATE. You are right, my dear Clericus, abundantly right. Very +well put indeed! Yes, Germany is the Kingdom of God, and I (_drawing +himself up to his full height_)--I am Germany! The strength of the +Lord is in my right arm, and He teaches it terrible things for the +unbeliever and the hypocrite. With God I conquer! Good-night, my dear +Clericus, good-night. + + (CLERICUS _departs with a low bow, and_ _the_ POTENTATE _sinks + into his chair with a gesture of fatigue. Enter a_ GENERAL _of + the Headquarters Staff with telegrams._) + +POTENTATE (_brightening_). Ha, my dear General, you have news? + +GENERAL. Excellent news, Sire! On the Eastern front the Russians +continue to give way. In the West a French attack has been repulsed +with heavy loss, and our gallant Prussians have driven the British out +of half a mile of trenches. + + (_At this last bit of news the_ POTENTATE _springs to his feet + with a look of joy._) + +POTENTATE. A sign! My God, a sign! Pardon, General, I was thinking of +a conversation that I have just had with Dr. Clericus. Come now, show +me where these trenches are. + + (_The_ GENERAL _produces a map, over which they pore + together._) + +POTENTATE. Excellent, excellent! A most valuable capture. Our losses +were ...? + +GENERAL. Slight, Sire. + +POTENTATE. Better and better. I cannot afford to lose my good +Prussians, my heroic, my invincible Prussians. To what do you +attribute the success? + +GENERAL. The success was due in a large measure to the perfection +of the apparatus suggested a week ago by your Majesty's scientific +adviser. + +POTENTATE (_blanching a little_). Ah, then it was not a charge, eh? + +GENERAL. The charge followed, Sire; but the work was already done. The +defenders of the trench were already dead or dying before our heroes +reached it. + +POTENTATE (_sinking back in his chair with his finger to his lips, +and a slight frown_). Thank you, General, your news is of the best. +I will detain you no longer. (_The_ GENERAL _bows._) Stay! Has a +counterattack been launched yet? + +GENERAL. Not yet, Sire. No doubt one will be attempted to-night. Our +men are prepared. + +POTENTATE. Good. Bring me fresh news as soon as it arrives. +Good-night, General, good-night. + + (_Exit_ GENERAL.) + + (_The_ POTENTATE _sits musing for a considerable time. A + slight cough is heard, and he raises his head._) + +POTENTATE (_slowly_). Enter! + + (_Enter a tall figure in a long black academic gown and black + clothes._) + +POTENTATE (_with an attempt at gaiety_). Come in, my dear Sage, come +in. You are welcome. (_A little anxiously_) You have the crystal? +Good. How is the Master? Still busy devising new means of victory? + +THE SAGE. My master's poor skill is always at your service, Sire. You +have only to command. + +POTENTATE. I know it. Now let me have the crystal. I would see if +possible the scene of to-day's victory in Flanders. + + (_The_ SAGE _hands him the crystal with a low bow. The_ + POTENTATE _seizes it eagerly, and gazes into it. A pause._) + +POTENTATE (_raising his head suddenly_). Horrible, horrible! + +SAGE. Sire? + +POTENTATE. This last invention of your master's is inhuman! + +SAGE. War is inhuman, Sire. Where a speedy end is desired, is it not +kindest to be cruel? + + (_The_ POTENTATE _gazes again into the crystal,_ _but starts + up immediately with a gasp of horror._) + +POTENTATE. Again the same vision! Always after my victories the vision +of the Crucified, with the stern reproachful eyes! Am I not the Lord's +appointed instrument? What means it? Tell your master that I will have +no more of his inventions. They are too diabolical! They imperil my +cause! + +SAGE (_pointing to the crystal_). Look again, Sire. + +POTENTATE (_gazing into the crystal, and in a low and agonized +voice_). Time with his scythe raised menacingly against me. +(_Abruptly_) This is a trickery, Sirrah! Have a care! But I will not +be tricked. Are my troops not brave? Are they not invincible? Can they +not win by their proven valour? Who can stand against them, for the +strength of the Lord is in their right hands? + + (_Enter GENERAL hastily_) + +GENERAL. Sire.... (_He starts, and stops short_). + +POTENTATE (_testily_). Go on, go on. What is it? + +GENERAL. Sire, the English counterattack has for the moment succeeded. +Infuriated by their defeat they fought so that no man could resist +them. They have regained the trenches they had lost, but we hope to +attack again to-morrow, when-- + +POTENTATE. Enough! Leave me! + + (_The_ GENERAL _withdraws, and the_ POTENTATE _leans forward + with his head on his hands._) + +SAGE (_commiseratingly_). Apparently other troops are brave besides +your own, Sire! + +POTENTATE (_brokenly_). The cowards! The cowards! Five nations against +three! Alas, my poor Prussians! + +SAGE. If you will look once more into the crystal, Sire, I think you +will see something that will interest you. + + (_The_ POTENTATE _takes the crystal again, but without + confidence._) + +POTENTATE (_in a slow recitative_). A stricken field by night. The +dead lie everywhere, German and English, side by side. But all are not +dead. Some are but wounded. They help one another. Prussian and Briton +help one another, with painful smiles on their white faces. What? Have +they forgotten their hate? My Prussians! Can you so soon forget? I +mourn for you! But who are these? White figures, vague, elusive! See, +they seem to come down from above. They are carrying away the souls +of my Prussians! And of the accursed English! What! One Paradise for +both! Impossible! And who is that watching? He who with a smile so +loving, and yet so stern ... Ah!... My God ... no!... not I.... + + (_The_ POTENTATE _rises with a strangled cry, and sinks into + his chair a nerveless wreck. The_ SAGE _watches coolly, with a + cynical smile._) + +SAGE. So, Sire, you must find room for the English in that kingdom of +yours and God's! Perchance it is more catholic than we had thought! + + (_The_ POTENTATE _groans._) + +SAGE. Sire, you have seen some truth to-night. Is courage, is God, all +on your side? Is Time on your side? Shall I go back to my master and +tell him that you need no more of his inventions? + + (_He pauses, and glances at the_ POTENTATE _with a look of + contempt, and then turns to go. The_ POTENTATE _looks round + him with a ghastly stare._) + +POTENTATE (_feebly_). No ... the Crucified ... Time ... Stay, stay! + + (_The_ SAGE _turns with a gesture of triumph._) + + (_Curtain._) + + + + +II + +THE BAD SIDE OF MILITARY SERVICE + + +A Padre who has earned the right to talk about the "average Tommy," +writes to me that _A Student in Arms_ gives a very one-sided picture +of him. While cordially admitting his unselfishness, his good +comradeship, his patience, and his pluck, my friend challenges me +to deny that military, and especially active, service often has a +brutalizing effect on the soldier, weakening his moral fibres, and +causing him to sink to a low animal level. + +Those who are in the habit of reading between the lines will, I +think, often have seen the shadow of this darker side of army life +on the pages of _A Student in Arms_; but I have not written of it +specifically for several reasons. It will suffice if I mention two. +First, I was writing mainly of the private and the N.C.O. Rightly +or wrongly, I imagined that those for whom I was writing were in the +habit of taking for granted this darker side of life in the ranks. I +imagined that they thought of the "lower classes" as being naturally +coarser and more animal than the "upper classes." I wanted then, and I +want now, to contradict that belief with all the vehemence of which I +am capable. Officers and men necessarily develop different qualities, +different forms of expression, different mental attitudes. But I am +confident that I speak the truth when I say that essentially, and in +the eyes of God there is nothing to choose between them. + +If I must write of the brutalizing effect of war on the soldier, let +it be clearly understood that I am speaking, not of officers only, +nor of privates only, but of fighting men of every class and rank. +As a matter of fact I have never, whether before or during the war, +belonged to a mess where the tone was cleaner or more wholesome than +it was in the Sergeants' Mess of my old battalion. + +My second reason for not writing about the bad side of Army life was +that mere condemnation is so futile. I have listened to countless +sermons in which the "lusts of the flesh" were denounced, and have +known for certain that their power for good was _nil_. If I write +about it now, it is only because I hope that I may be able to make +clearer the causes and processes of such moral deterioration as +exists, and thus to help those who are trying to combat it, to do so +with greater understanding and sympathy. + +Even in England most officers, and all privates, are cut off from +their womenfolk. Mothers, sisters, wives, and sweethearts are +inaccessible. All have a certain amount of leisure, and very little +to do with it. All are physically fit and mentally rather unoccupied. +All are living under an unnatural discipline from which, when the +last parade of the day is over, there is a natural reaction. Finally, +wherever there are troops, and especially in war time, there are "bad" +women and weak women. The result is inevitable. A certain number of +both officers and men "go wrong." + +Fifteen months ago I was a private quartered in a camp near Aldershot. +After tea it began to get dark. The tent was damp, gloomy, and cold. +The Y.M.C.A. tent and the Canteen tent were crowded. One wandered off +to the town. The various soldiers' clubs were filled and overflowing. +The bars required more cash than one possessed. The result was that +one spent a large part of one's evenings wandering aimlessly about +the streets. Fortunately I discovered an upper room in a Wesleyan +soldiers' home, where there was generally quiet, and an empty chair. +I shall always be grateful to that "home," for the many hours which I +whiled away there with a book and a pipe. But most of us spent a great +deal of our leisure, bored and impecunious, "on the streets"; and if +a fellow ran up against "a bit of skirt," he was generally just in the +mood to follow it wherever it might lead. The moral of this is, double +your subscriptions to the Y.M.C.A., Church huts, soldiers' clubs, or +whatever organization you fancy! You will be helping to combat vice in +the only sensible way. + +I don't suppose that the officers were much better off than we were. +Their tents may have been a little lighter and less crowded than ours. +They had a late dinner to occupy part of the long evening. They had +more money to spend, and perhaps more to occupy their minds. But I +fancy that as great a proportion of them as of us took the false step; +and though perhaps when they compared notes their language may have +been less blunt than ours, I am not sure that, for this very reason, +it may not have been more poisonous. But mind you, we did not all +go wrong, by any means, though I believe that some fellows did, both +officers and men, who would not have done so if they had stayed at +home with their mothers, sisters, sweethearts, or wives. + +So much for the Army at home. When we cross the Channel every feature +is a hundred times intensified. Consider the fighting man in the +trenches--and I am still speaking of both officers and men--the most +ordinary refinements of life are conspicuously absent. There is no +water to wash in. Vermin abound, sleeping and eating accommodations +are frankly disgusting. One is obliged for the time to live like a +pig. Added to this one is all the time in a state of nervous tension. +One gets very little sleep. Every night has its anxieties and +responsibilities. Danger or death may come at any moment. So for a +week or a fortnight or a month, as the case may be. Then comes the +return to billets, to comparative safety and comfort--the latter +nothing to boast about though! Tension is relaxed. There is an +inevitable reaction. Officers and men alike determine to "gather +rosebuds" while they may. Their bodies are fit, their wills are +relaxed. If they are built that way, and an opportunity offers, they +will "satisfy the lusts of the flesh." + +When there is real fighting to be done the dangers of the +after-reaction are intensified. You who sit at home and read of +glorious bayonet charges do not realize what it means to the man +behind the bayonet. You don't realize the repugnance for the first +thrust--a repugnance which has got to be overcome. You don't realize +the change that comes over a man when his bayonet is wet with the +blood of his first enemy. He "sees red." The primitive "blood-lust," +kept under all his life by the laws and principles of peaceful +society, surges through his being, transforming him, maddening him +with the desire to kill, kill, kill! Ask any one who has been through +it if this is not true. And that letting loose of a primitive lust is +not going to be without its effect on a man's character. + +At the same time, of course, not all of us become animals out here. +There are other influences at work. Caring for the wounded, burying +the mutilated dead, cause one to hate war, and to value ten times more +the ways of peace. Many are saved from sinking in the scale, by a love +of home which is able to bridge the gulf which separates them +from their beloved. The letters of my platoon are largely love +letters--often the love letters of married men to their wives. + +There is immorality in the Army; when there is opportunity immorality +is rife. Possibly there is more abroad than there is at home. If so it +is because there is far greater temptation. Nevertheless, I fancy that +my correspondent, who is a padre, a don, and at least the beginning of +a saint, is perhaps inclined to exaggerate the extent of the evil in +the Army as compared with civil life. I imagine that very few padres, +especially if they are dons, and most of all if they are saints, +realize that in civil life as in Army life, the average man is +immoral, both in thought and deed. Let us be frank about this. What +a doctor might call the "appetites" and a padre the "lusts" of the +body, hold dominion over the average man, whether civilian or soldier, +unless they are counteracted by a stronger power. The only men who +are pure are those who are absorbed in some pursuit, or possessed by a +great love; be it the love of clean, wholesome life which is religion, +or the love of a noble man which is hero-worship, or the love of a +true woman. These are the four powers which are stronger than "the +flesh"--the zest of a quest, religion, hero-worship, and the love of +a good woman. If a man is not possessed by one of these he will be +immoral. + +Probably most men are immoral. The conditions of military, and +especially of active service merely intensify the temptation. Unless +a soldier is wholly devoted to the cause, or powerfully affected by +religion, or by hero-worship, or by pure love, he is immoral. + +Perhaps most men are immoral if they get the chance. Most soldiers +are immoral if they get the chance. But those who are trying to help +the soldier can do so with a good heart if they realize that in +him they have a foundation on which to build. Already he is half a +hero-worshipper. Already he half believes in the beauty of sacrifice +and in the life immortal. Already he is predisposed to value +exceedingly all that savours of clean, wholesome home life. On that +foundation it should be possible to build a strong idealism which +shall prevail against the flesh. And this is my last word--it is by +building up, and not by casting down, that the soldier can be saved +from degradation. The devil that possesses so many can only be cast +out by an angel that is stronger than he. + + + + +III + +THE GOOD SIDE OF "MILITARISM" + + +I had a letter the other day from an Oxford friend. In it was this +phrase: "I loathe militarism in all its forms." Somehow it took me +back quite suddenly to the days before the war, to ideas that I had +almost completely forgotten. I suppose that in those days the great +feature of those of us who tried to be "in the forefront of modern +thought" was their riotous egotism, their anarchical insistence on the +claims of the individual at the expense even of law, order, society, +and convention. "Self-realization" we considered to be the primary +duty of every man and woman. + +The wife who left her husband, children, and home because of her +passion for another man was a heroine, braving the hypocritical +judgments of society to assert the claims of the individual soul. +The woman who refused to abandon all for love's sake, was not only +a coward but a criminal, guilty of the deadly sin of sacrificing her +soul, committing it to a prison where it would languish and never +blossom to its full perfection. The man who was bound to uncongenial +drudgery by the chains of an early marriage or aged parents dependent +on him, was the victim of a tragedy which drew tears from our eyes. +The woman who neglected her home because she needed a "wider sphere" +in which to develop her personality was a champion of women's rights, +a pioneer of enlightenment. And, on the other hand, the people +who went on making the best of uncongenial drudgery, or in any way +subjected their individualities to what old-fashioned people called +duty, were in our eyes contemptible poltroons. + +It was the same in politics and religion. To be loyal to a party +or obedient to a Church was to stand self-confessed a fool or a +hypocrite. Self-realization, that was in our eyes the whole duty of +man. + +And then I thought of what I had seen only a few days before. First, +of battalions of men marching in the darkness, steadily and in step, +towards the roar of the guns; destined in the next twelve hours to +charge as one man, without hesitation or doubt, through barrages +of cruel shell and storms of murderous bullets. Then, the following +afternoon, of a handful of men, all that was left of about three +battalions after ten hours of fighting, a handful of men exhausted, +parched, strained, holding on with grim determination to the last bit +of German trench, until they should receive the order to retire. And +lastly, on the days and nights following, of the constant streams +of wounded and dead being carried down the trench; of the unceasing +search that for three or four days was never fruitless. + +Self-realization! How far we have travelled from the ideals of those +pre-war days. And as I thought things over I wondered at how faint a +response that phrase, "I loathe militarism in all its forms," found in +my own mind. + +Before the war I too hated "militarism." I despised soldiers as men +who had sold their birthright for a mess of pottage. The sight of +the Guards drilling in Wellington Barracks, moving as one man to the +command of their drill instructor, stirred me to bitter mirth. They +were not men but manikins. When I first enlisted, and for many months +afterwards, the "mummeries of military discipline," the saluting, the +meticulous uniformity, the rigid suppression of individual exuberance, +chafed and infuriated me. I compared it to a ritualistic religion, a +religion of authority only, which depended not on individual assent +but on tradition for its sanctions. I loathed militarism in all its +forms. Now ... well, I am inclined to reconsider my judgment. Seeing +the end of military discipline, has shown me something of its ethical +meaning--more than that, of its spiritual meaning. + +For though the part of the "great push" that it fell to my lot to see +was not a successful part, it was none the less a triumph--a spiritual +triumph. From the accounts of the ordinary war correspondent I think +one hardly realizes how great a spiritual triumph it was. For the war +correspondent only sees the outside, and can only describe the outside +of things. We who are in the Army, who know the men as individuals, +who have talked with them, joked with them, censored their letters, +worked with them, lived with them we see below the surface. + +The war correspondent sees the faces of the men as they march towards +the Valley of the Shadow, sees the steadiness of eye and mouth, +hears the cheery jest. He sees them advance into the Valley without +flinching. He sees some of them return, tired, dirty, strained, but +still with a quip for the passer-by. He gives us a picture of men +without nerves, without sensitiveness, without imagination, schooled +to face death as they would face rain or any trivial incident of +everyday life. The "Tommy" of the war correspondent is not a human +being, but a lay figure with a gift for repartee, little more than +the manikin that we thought him in those far-off days before the war, +when we watched him drilling on the barrack square. We soldiers know +better. We know that each one of those men is an individual, full of +human affections, many of them writing tender letters home every +week, each one longing with all his soul for the end of this hateful +business of war which divides him from all that he loves best in +life. We know that every one of these men has a healthy individual's +repugnance to being maimed, and a human shrinking from hurt and from +the Valley of the Shadow of Death. + +The knowledge of all this does not do away with the even tread of the +troops as they pass, the steady eye and mouth, the cheery jest; but +it makes these a hundred times more significant. For we know that what +these things signify is not lack of human affection, or weakness, or +want of imagination, but something superimposed on these, to which +they are wholly subordinated. Over and above the individuality of +each man, his personal desires and fears and hopes, there is the +corporate personality of the soldier which knows no fear and only one +ambition--to defeat the enemy, and so to further the righteous cause +for which he is fighting. In each of those men there is this dual +personality: the ordinary human ego that hates danger and shrinks from +hurt and death, that longs for home, and would welcome the end of the +war on any terms; and also the stronger personality of the soldier who +can tolerate but one end to this war, cost what that may--the victory +of liberty and justice, and the utter abasement of brute force. + +And when one looks back over the months of training that the soldier +has had, one recognizes how every feature of it, though at the time +it often seemed trivial and senseless and irritating, was in reality +directed to this end. For from the moment that a man becomes a +soldier his dual personality begins. Henceforth he is both a man and +a soldier. Before his training is complete the order must be reversed, +and he must be a soldier and a man. As a soldier he must obey and +salute those whom, as a man, he very likely dislikes and despises. In +his conduct he no longer only has to consider his reputation as a man, +but still more his honour as a soldier. In all the conditions of his +life, his dress, appearance, food, drink, accommodation, and work, his +individual preferences count for nothing, his efficiency as a soldier +counts for everything. At first he "hates" this, and "can't see +the point of" that. But by the time his training is complete he has +realized that whether he hates a thing or not, sees the point of a +thing or not, is a matter of the uttermost unimportance. If he is +wise, he keeps his likes and dislikes to himself. + +All through his training he is learning the unimportance of his +individuality, realizing that in a national, a world crisis, it counts +for nothing. On the other hand, he is equally learning that as a unit +in a fighting force his every action is of the utmost importance. The +humility which the Army inculcates is not an abject self-depreciation +that leads to loss of self-respect and effort. Substituted for the old +individualism is a new self-consciousness. The man has become humble, +but in proportion the soldier has become exceeding proud. The old +personal whims and ambitions give place to a corporate ambition +and purpose, and this unity of will is symbolized in action by the +simultaneous exactitude of drill, and in dress by the rigid identity +of uniform. Anything which calls attention to the individual, whether +in drill or in dress, is a crime, because it is essential that the +soldier's individuality should be wholly subordinated to the corporate +personality of the regiment. + +As I said before, the personal humility of the soldier has nothing in +it of abject self-depreciation or slackness. On the contrary, every +detail of his appearance, and every most trivial feature of his duty +assumes an immense significance. Slackness in his dress and negligence +in his work are military crimes. In a good regiment the soldier is +striving after perfection all the time. + +And it is when he comes to the supreme test of battle that the fruits +of his training appear. The good soldier has learnt the hardest +lesson of all--the lesson of self-subordination to a higher and bigger +personality. He has learnt to sacrifice everything which belongs to +him individually to a cause that is far greater than any personal +ambitions of his own can ever be. He has learnt to do this so +thoroughly that he knows no fear--for fear is personal. He has learnt +to "hate" father and mother and life itself for the sake of--though he +may not call it that--the Kingdom of God on earth. + +It is a far cry from the old days when one talked of self-realization, +isn't it? I make no claim to be a good soldier; but I think that +perhaps I may be beginning to be one; for if I am asked now whether I +"loathe militarism in all its forms," I think that "the answer is in +the negative," I will even go farther, and say that I hope that some +of the discipline and self-subordination that have availed to send men +calmly to their death in war, will survive in the days of peace, and +make of those who are left better citizens, better workmen, better +servants of the State, better Church men. + + + + +IV + +A MONTH'S REFLECTIONS + + +Timothy and I are on detachment. We are billeted with M. le Curé, and +we mess at the schoolmaster's. Hence we are on good terms with all +parties, for of course a good schoolmaster shrugs his shoulders at +a priest, and a good priest returns the compliment. In war time, +however, the hatchet seems to be buried pretty deep. We have not seen +it sticking out anywhere. + +M. le Curé has a beautiful rose garden, a cask of excellent cider, a +passable Sauterne, and a charming pony. He is a good fellow, I should +think, though without much education. His house--or what I have seen +of it--is the exact opposite of what an English country vicar's +would be. The only sitting-room that I have seen is as neat as an old +maid's. There is a polished floor, an oval polished table on which +repose four large albums at regular intervals, each on its own little +mat. There is a mantelpiece with gilt candlesticks and an ornate clock +under a glass dome. Round the walls are photographs of brother clergy, +the place of honour being assigned to a stout _Chanoine_. The chairs +are stiff and uncomfortable. One of them, which is more imposing +and uncomfortable than the rest, is obviously for the Bishop when he +comes. There are no papers, no books, no ash-trays, no confusion. I +have never seen M. le Curé sit there. I fancy he lives in the kitchen +and in his garden. + +Timothy sleeps in the bed which the Bishop uses, and is told he ought +to feel _très saint_. + +The wife of the schoolmaster cooks for us. She is an excellent soul. +We give her full marks. She has a smile and an omelette for every +emergency, and waves aside all Timothy's vagaries with "Ah, monsieur, +la jeunesse!" I am not sure that Timothy quite likes it! + +Timothy is immense. He is that rarest of birds, a wholly delightful +egotist. He is the sun, but we all bask and shine with reflected +glory. The men are splendid, because they are his men. I am a great +success because I am his subaltern. Fortunately we all have a sense of +humour and so are highly pleased with ourselves and each other. After +all, if one is a Captain at twenty-two ...! But he's a good soldier, +too, and we all believe in him. Timothy's all right, in spite of _la +jeunesse_! + + * * * * * + +Rain! The men are fifteen in a tent in a sea of mud. Poor beggars! +They are having a thin time. Working parties in the trenches day and +night; every one soaked to the skin; and then a return to a damp, +crowded, muddy tent. No pay, no smokes, and yet they are wonderfully +cheery, and all think that the "Push" is going to end the war. I wish +I thought so! + + * * * * * + +These rats are the limit! The dugout swarms with them. Last night they +ate half my biscuits and a good part of Timothy's clean socks, and +whenever I began to get to sleep one of them would run across my face, +or some other sensitive part of my anatomy, and wake me up. I shall +leave the candle alight to-night, to see if that keeps them away. + + * * * * * + +Last night the rats tried to eat the candle, and very nearly set me on +fire. If it were not for the rain I would try the firestep. + +The men are having a rotten time again--no proper shelter from the +rain, and short rations, to say nothing of remarkably good practice by +the Boche artillery. C----, just out from England, got scuppered this +afternoon. A good boy--made his communion just before we came in. I +suppose he didn't know much about it, and that he is really better off +now; but at the same time it makes one angry. + + * * * * * + +The rain has lifted, so last night I tried the firestep, and got a +good sleep. The absurd thing was that I couldn't wake up properly. I +came on duty at midnight, was roused, got to my feet, and started to +walk along the trench. And then the Nameless Terror, that lurks in +dark corners when one is a small boy, gripped me. I was frightened of +the dark, filled with a sense of impending disaster! It took about +ten minutes to wake properly and shake it off. I must try to get more +sleep somehow; but it is jolly difficult. + + * * * * * + +The great bombardment has begun, the long-promised strafing of the +Boche. According to the gunners they will all be dead, buried, or +dazed when the time comes for us to go over the top. I doubt it! If +they have enough deep dug-outs I don't fancy that the bombardment will +worry them very much. + + * * * * * + +Now we are at rest for a day or two before the Push. I am to be left +out--in charge of carriers. Damn! I might as well be A.S.C. I see +myself counting ration bags while the battalion is charging with +fixed bayonets; and in the evening sending up parties of weary laden +carriers over shell-swept areas, while I myself stay behind at +the Dump. Damn! Damn!! Damn!!! Then I shall receive ironical +congratulations on my "cushy" job. + + * * * * * + +Have just seen the battalion off. I don't start for another five +hours. I loathe war. It is futile, idiotic. I would gladly be out +of the Army to-morrow. Glory is a painted idol, honour a phantasy, +religion a delusion. We wallow in blood and torture to please +a creature of our imagination. We are no better than South Sea +Islanders. + + * * * * * + +Just here the attack was a failure. When I got to the Dump I found the +battalion still there. By an irony of fate I was the only officer of +my company to set foot in the German lines. After a day of idleness +and depression I had to detail a party to carry bombs at top speed to +some relics of the leading battalions, who were still clinging to the +extremest corner of the enemy's front line some distance to our left. +Being fed up with inaction, I took the party myself. It was a long +way. The trenches were choked with wounded and stragglers and troops +who had never been ordered to advance. In many places they were broken +down by shell-fire, in others they were waist-deep in water. By dint +of much shouting and shoving and cursing I managed to get through +with about ten of my men, but had to leave the others to follow with a +sergeant. + +At last we sighted our objective, a cluster of chalk mounds surrounded +with broken wire, shell craters, corpses, wreathed in smoke, dotted +with men. I think we all ran across the ground between our front +line and our objective, though it must have been more or less dead +ground. Anyhow, only one man was hit. When we got close the scene +was absurdly like a conventional battle picture--the sort of picture +that one never believes in for a minute. There was a wild mixture of +regiments--Jocks, Irishmen, Territorials, etc., etc. There was no +proper trench left. There were rifles, a machine gun, a Lewis rifle, +and bombs all going at the same time. There were wounded men sitting +in a kind of helpless stupor; there were wounded trying to drag +themselves back to our own lines; there were the dead of whom no one +took any notice. But the prevailing note was one of utter weariness +coupled with dogged tenacity. + +Here and there were men who were self-conscious, wondering what would +become of themselves. I was one of them, and we were none the better +for it. Most of the fellows, though, had forgotten themselves. They no +longer flinched, or feared. They had got beyond that. They were just +set on clinging to that mound and keeping the Huns at bay until their +officer gave the word to retire. Their spirit was the spirit of the +oarsman, the runner, or the footballer, who has strained himself to +the utmost, who if he stopped to wonder whether he could go on or not +would collapse; but who, because he does not stop to wonder, goes on +miraculously long after he should, by all the laws of nature, have +succumbed to sheer exhaustion. + +Having delivered my bombs into eager hands, I reported to the officer +who seemed to be in charge, and asked if I could do anything. I must +frankly admit that my one hope was that he would not want me to stay. +He began to say how that morning he had reached his objective, and how +for lack of support on his flank, for lack of bombs, for lack of men, +he had been forced back; and how for eight hours he had disputed every +inch of ground till now his men could only cling to these mounds with +the dumb mechanical tenacity of utter exhaustion. "You might go to +H.Q.," he said at last, "and tell them where I am, and that I can't +hold on without ammunition and a barrage." + +I am afraid that I went with joy on that errand. I did not want to +stay on those chalk mounds. + + * * * * * + +I only saw a very little bit of the battle. Thank God it has gone well +elsewhere; but here we are where we started. Day and night we have +done nothing but bring in the wounded and the dead. When one sees the +dead, their limbs crushed and mangled, their features distorted and +blackened, one can only have repulsion for war. It is easy to talk of +glory and heroism when one is away from it, when memory has softened +the gruesome details. But here, in the presence of the mutilated and +tortured dead, one can only feel the horror and wickedness of war. +Indeed it is an evil harvest, sown of pride and arrogance and lust of +power. Maybe through all this evil and pain we shall be purged of many +sins. God grant it! If ever there were martyrs, some of these were +martyrs, facing death and torture as ghastly as any that confronted +the saints of old, and facing it with but little of that fierce +fanatical exaltation of faith that the early Christians had to help +them. + +For these were mostly quiet souls, loving their wives and children +and the little comforts of home life most of all, little stirred by +great emotions or passions. Yet they had some love for liberty, some +faith in God,--not a high and flaming passion, but a quiet insistent +conviction. It was enough to send them out to face martyrdom, though +their lack of imagination left them mercifully ignorant of the +extremity of its terrors. It was enough, when they saw their danger in +its true perspective, to keep them steadfast and tenacious. + +For them "it is finished." _R.I.P._ + + + + +V + +ROMANCE + + +I suppose that there are very few officers or men who have been at the +front for any length of time who would not be secretly, if not openly, +relieved and delighted if they "got a cushy one" and found themselves +_en route_ for "Blighty"; yet in many ways soldiering at the front +is infinitely preferable to soldiering at home. One of the factors +which count most heavily in favour of the front, is the extraordinary +affection of officers for their men. + +In England, officers hardly know their men. They live apart, only meet +on parade, and their intercourse is carried on through the prescribed +channels. Even if you do get keen on a particular squad of recruits, +or a particular class of would-be bombers, you lose them so soon that +your enthusiasm never ripens into anything like intimacy. But at the +front you have your own platoon; and week after week, month after +month, you are living in the closest proximity; you see them all day, +you get to know the character of each individual man and boy, and the +result in nearly every case is this extraordinary affection of which I +have spoken. + +You will find it in the most unlikely subjects. I have heard a Major, +a Regular with, as I thought, a good deal of regimental stiffness, +talk about his men with a voice almost choked with emotion. "When +you see what they have to put up with, and how amazingly cheery they +are through it all, you feel that you can't do enough for them. They +make you feel that you're not fit to black their boots." And then he +went on to tell how it was often the fellows whom in England you had +despaired of, fellows who were always "up at orders," who out at the +front became your right-hand men, the men on whom you found yourself +relying. + +I had a letter not long ago from a gunner Captain, also a Regular, who +has been out almost since the beginning of the war. He wrote: "One of +my best friends has just been killed"; and the "best friend" was not +the fellow he had known at "the shop," or played polo with in India, +or hunted with in Ireland, but a scamp of a telephonist, who had +stolen his whisky and owned up; who had risked his life for him, who +had been a fellow-sportsman who could be relied on in a tight corner +in the most risky of all games. + +There is indeed a glamour and a pathos about the private soldier, +especially when, as so often happens, he is really only a boy. When +you meet him in the trenches, wet, covered with mud, with tired eyes +speaking of long watches and hours of risky work, he never fails to +greet you with a smile, and you love him for it, and feel that nothing +you can do can make up to him for it. For you have slept in a much +more comfortable place than he has. You have had unlimited tobacco +and cigarettes. You have had a servant to cook for you. You have fared +sumptuously compared with him. You don't feel his superior. You don't +want to be "gracious without undue familiarity." Exactly what you want +to do is a bit doubtful--the Major said he wanted to black his boots +for him, and that is perhaps the best way of expressing it. + +When he goes over the top and works away in front of the parapet with +the moon shining full and the machine guns busy all along; when he +gets back to billets, and throws off his cares and bathes and plays +games like any irresponsible schoolboy; even when he breaks bounds and +is found by the M.P. skylarking in ----, you can't help loving him. +Most of all, when he lies still and white with a red stream trickling +from where the sniper's bullet has made a hole through his head, there +comes a lump in your throat that you can't swallow; and you turn away +so that you shan't have to wipe the tears from your eyes. + +Gallant souls, those boys, and all the more gallant because they hate +war so much. Their nerves quiver when a shell or a "Minnie" falls into +the trench near them, and then they smile to hide their weakness. They +hate going over the parapet when the machine guns are playing; so +they don't hesitate, but plunge over with a smile to hide their fears. +Their cure for every mental worry is a smile, their answer to every +prompting of fear is a plunge. They have no philosophy or fanaticism +to help them--only the sporting instinct which is in every healthy +British boy. + +Then there are "the old men," less attractive, less stirring to the +imagination, less sensitive, but who grow upon you more and more as +you get to know them. Any one over twenty-three or so is an "old +man." They have lost the grace, the irresponsibility, the sensibility +of youth. Their eyes and mouths are steadier, their movements more +deliberate. But they are the fellows whom you would choose for a +patrol, or a raid, where a cool head and a stout heart are what is +wanted. It takes you longer to know these. They are less responsive to +your advances. But when you have tested them and they have tested you, +you know that you have that which is stronger than any terror of night +or day, a loyalty which nothing can shake. + +And then when he thinks how little he deserves all this love and +loyalty, the subaltern's heart aches with a feeling that can find no +expression either in word or deed. + +This is a tale that has often been told, and that people in England +know by heart. It cannot be told too often. It cannot be learnt too +well. For the time will come when we shall need to remember it, and +when it will be easy to forget. Will you remember it, O ye people, +when the boy has become a man, and the soldier has become a workman? +But there are other tales to tell. There are the tales of the +sergeant-major and the sergeants, the corporals and the "lance-jacks." +Sergeant-majors, sergeants, and corporals are not romantic figures. If +you think of them at all, you probably think of rumjars and profanity. +Yet they are the very backbone of the Army. I have been a sergeant and +I have been a private soldier, and I know that the latter has much +the better time of the two. He at least has the kind of liberty +which belongs to utter irresponsibility. If he breaks bounds in the +exuberance of his spirits, no one thinks much worse of him as long as +he does not make a song about paying the penalty! + +Of course he has to be punished. So many days of sleeping in the guard +tent, extra fatigues, pack-drill, and perhaps a couple of hours tied +up, as an example to evil-doers. But if he has counted the cost, and +pays the price with a grin, we just say "Young scamp!" and dismiss +the matter. But if a sergeant or a corporal does the same, that's a +very different matter. He has shown himself unfit for his job. He +has betrayed a trust. We cannot forgive him. Responsibility has its +disadvantages. The senior N.C.O. gets no relaxation from discipline. +In the line and out of it he must always be watchful, self-controlled, +orderly. He must never wink. These men have not the glamour of the boy +private; but their high sense of duty and discipline, their keenness +and efficiency, merit all the honour that we can give them. + +Finally--for it would not do for a subaltern to discuss his +superiors--we come to the junior officer. Somehow I fancy that in the +public eye he too is a less romantic figure than the private. One does +not associate him with privations and hardships, but with parcels from +home. Well, it is quite right. He has such a much less uncomfortable +time than his men that he does not deserve or want sympathy on that +score. He is better off in every way. He has better quarters, better +food, more kit, a servant, and in billets far greater liberty. And yet +there is many a man who is now an officer who looks back on his days +as a private with regret. Could he have his time over again ... yes, +he would take a commission; but he would do so, not with any thought +for the less hardship of it, but from a stern sense of duty--the sense +of duty which does not allow a man with any self-respect to refuse to +shoulder a heavier burden when called upon to do so. + +Those apparently irresponsible subalterns whom you see entertaining +their lady friends at the Canton or Ciro's do, when they are at the +front, have very heavy responsibilities. Even in the ordinary routine +of trench life, so many decisions have to be made, with the chance of +a "telling off" whichever way you choose, and the lives of other men +hanging in the balance. Suppose you are detailed for a wiring party, +and you arrive to find a full moon beaming sardonically down at you. +What are you to do? If you go out you may be seen. Half a dozen of +your men may be mown down by a machine gun. You will be blamed and +will blame yourself for not having decided to remain behind the +parapet. If you do not go out you may set a precedent, and night after +night the work will be postponed, till at last it is too late, and +the Hun has got through, and raided the trench. If you hesitate or ask +advice you are lost. You have to make up your mind in an instant, and +to stand by it. If you waver your men will never have confidence in +you again. + +Still more in a push; a junior subaltern is quite likely to find +himself at any time in command of a company, while he may for a day +even have to command the relics of a battalion. I have seen boys +almost fresh from a Public School in whose faces there were two +personalities expressed: the one full of the lighthearted, reckless, +irresponsible vitality of boyhood, and the other scarred with +the anxious lines of one to whom a couple of hundred exhausted +and nerve-shattered men have looked, and not looked in vain, for +leadership and strength in their grim extremity. From a boy in such +a position is required something far more difficult than personal +courage. If we praise the boy soldier for his smile in the face of +shells and machine guns, don't let us forget to praise still more the +boy officer who, in addition to facing death on his own account, has +to bear the responsibility of the lives of a hundred other men. There +is many a man of undoubted courage whose nerve would fail to bear that +strain. + +A day or two ago I was reading _Romance_, by Joseph Conrad and Ford +Madox Hueffer. It is a glorious tale of piracy and adventure in the +West Indies; but for the moment I wondered how it came about that +Conrad, the master of psychology, should have helped to write such +a book. And then I understood. For these boys who hate the war, and +suffer and endure with the smile that is sometimes so difficult, and +long with a great longing for home and peace--some day some of them +will look back on these days and will tell themselves that after all +it was Romance, the adventure, which made their lives worth while. And +they will long to feel once again the stirring of the old comradeship +and love and loyalty, to dip their clasp-knives into the same pot of +jam, and lie in the same dug-out, and work on the same bit of wire +with the same machine gun striking secret terror into their hearts, +and look into each other's eyes for the same courageous smile. For +Romance, after all, is woven of the emotions, especially the elemental +ones of love and loyalty and fear and pain. + +We men are never content! In the dull routine of normal life we sigh +for Romance, and sometimes seek to create it artificially, stimulating +spurious passions, plunging into muddy depths in search of it. Now we +have got it we sigh for a quiet life. But some day those who have not +died will say: "Thank God I have lived! I have loved, and endured, and +trembled, and trembling, dared. I have had my Romance." + + + + +VI + +IMAGINARY CONVERSATIONS + + +I + + SCENE. _A field in Flanders. All round the edge are bivouacs, + built of sticks and waterproof sheets. Three men are squatting + round a small fire, waiting for a couple of mess-tins of water + to boil_. + +BILL (_gloomily_). The last three of the old lot! Oo's turn next? + +FRED. Wot's the bleedin' good of bein' dahn in the mahf abaht it? Give +me the bleedin' 'ump, you do. + +JIM. Are we dahn-'earted? Not 'alf, we ain't! + +BILL. I don't know as I cares. Git it over, I sez. 'Ave done wiv it! +I dessay as them wot's gone West is better off nor wot we are, arter +all. + +JIM. Orlright, old sport, you go an' look for the V.C., and we'll pick +up the bits an' bury 'em nice an' deep! + +BILL. If this 'ere bleedin' war don't finish soon that's wot I +bleedin' well will go an' do. Wish they'd get a move on an' finish it. + +FRED. If ever I gets 'ome agin, I'll never do another stroke in +my natural. The old woman can keep me, ---- 'er, an' if she don't +I'll--well--'er ---- ----. + +JIM (_indignantly_). Nice sort o' bloke you are! Arter creatin' abaht +ole Bill makin' you miserable, you goes on to plan 'ow you'll make +other folks miserable! Wot's the bleedin' good o' that? Keep smilin', +I sez, an' keep other folks smilin' too, if you can. If ever I gets +'ome I'll go dahn on my bended, I will, and I'll be a different sort +o' bloke to wot I been afore. Swelp me, Bob, I will! My missus won't +'ave no cause to wish as I've been done in. + +BILL. Ah well, it don't much matter. We're all most like to go afore +this war's finished. + +JIM. If yer goes yer goes, and that's all abaht it. A bloke's got to +go some day, and fer myself I'd as soon get done in doin' my dooty as +I would die in my bed. I ain't struck on dyin' afore my time, and I +don't know as I'm greatly struck on livin', but, whichever it is, you +got ter make the best on it. + +BILL (_meditatively_). I woulden mind stoppin' a bullet fair an' +square; but I woulden like one of them 'orrible lingerin' deaths. +"Died o' wounds" arter six munfs' mortal hagony--that's wot gets at +me. Git it over an' done wiv, I sez. + +FRED (_querulously_). Ow, chuck it, Bill. You gives me the creeps, you +do. + +JIM. I knowed a bloke onest in civil life wot died a lingerin' death. +Lived in the second-floor back in the same 'ouse as me an' my missus, +'e did. Suffered somefink' 'orrible, 'e did, an' lingered more nor +five year. Yet I reckon 'e was one o' the best blokes as ever I come +acrost. Went to 'eaven straight, 'e did, if ever any one did. Wasn't +'alf glad ter go, neither. "I done my bit of 'ell, Jim," 'e sez to +me, an' looked that 'appy you'd a' thought as 'e was well agin. Shan't +never forget 'is face, I shan't. An' I'd sooner be that bloke, for all +'is sufferin's, than I'd be old Fred 'ere, an' live to a 'undred. + +BILL (_philosophically_). You'm right, matey. This is a wale o' tears, +as the 'ymn sez, and them as is out on it is best off, if so be as +they done their dooty in that state o' life.... Where's the corfee, +Jim? The water's on the bile. + + + + +VII + +THE FEAR OF DEATH IN WAR + + +I am not a psychologist, and I have not seen many people die in their +beds; but I think it is established that very few people are afraid of +a natural death when it comes to the test. Often they are so weak that +they are incapable of emotion. Sometimes they are in such physical +pain that death seems a welcome deliverer. + +But a violent death such as death in battle is obviously a different +matter. It comes to a man when he is in the full possession of his +health and vigour, and when every physical instinct is urging him +to self-preservation. If a man feared death in such circumstances +one could not be surprised, and yet in the present war hundreds of +thousands of men have gone to meet practically certain destruction +without giving a sign of terror. + +The fact is that at the moment of a charge men are in an absolutely +abnormal condition. + +I do not know how to describe their condition in scientific terms; +but there is a sensation of tense excitement combined with a sort of +uncanny calm. Their emotions seem to be numbed. Noises, sights, and +sensations which would ordinarily produce intense pity, horror, or +dread, have no effect on them at all, and yet never was their mind +clearer, their sight, hearing, etc., more acute. They notice all sorts +of little details which would ordinarily pass them by, but which now +thrust themselves on their attention with absurd definiteness--absurd +because so utterly incongruous and meaningless. Or they suddenly +remember with extraordinary clearness some trivial incident of their +past life, hitherto unremembered, and not a bit worth remembering! But +with the issue before them, with victory or death or the prospect of +eternity, their minds blankly refuse to come to grips. + +No; it is not at the moment of a charge that men fear death. As in +the case of those who die in bed, Nature has an anesthetic ready for +the emergency. It is before an attack that a man is more liable to +fear--before his blood is hot, and while he still has leisure to +think. The trouble may begin a day or two in advance, when he is first +told of the attack which is likely to mean death to himself and so +many of his chums. This part is comparatively easy. It is fairly easy +to be philosophic if one has plenty of time. One indulges in regrets +about the home one may never see again. One is rather sorry for +oneself; but such self-pity is not wholly unpleasant. One feels mildly +heroic, which is not wholly disagreeable either. Very few men are +afraid of death in the abstract. Very few men believe in hell, or are +tortured by their consciences. They are doubtful about after-death, +hesitating between a belief in eternal oblivion and a belief in a new +life under the same management as the present; and neither prospect +fills them with terror. If only one's "people" would be sensible, one +would not mind. + +But as the hour approaches when the attack is due to be launched the +strain becomes more tense. The men are probably cooped up in a very +small space. Movement is very restricted. Matches must not be struck. +Voices must be hushed to a whisper. Shells bursting and machine guns +rattling bring home the grim reality of the affair. It is then more +than at any other time in an attack that a man has to "face the +spectres of the mind," and lay them if he can. Few men care for those +hours of waiting. + +Of all the hours of dismay that come to a soldier there are really few +more trying to the nerves than when he is sitting in a trench under +heavy fire from high-explosive shells or bombs from trench mortars. +You can watch these bombs lobbed up into the air. You see them slowly +wobble down to earth, there to explode with a terrific detonation +that sets every nerve in your body a-jangling. You can do nothing. You +cannot retaliate in any way. You simply have to sit tight and hope +for the best. Some men joke and smile; but their mirth is forced. Some +feign stoical indifference, and sit with a paper and a pipe; but as a +rule their pipes are out and their reading a pretence. There are few +men, indeed, whose hearts are not beating faster, and whose nerves are +not on edge. + +But you can't call this "the fear of death"; it is a purely physical +reaction of danger and detonation. It is not fear of death as death. +It is not fear of hurt as hurt. It is an infinitely intensified +dislike of suspense and uncertainty, sudden noise and shock. It +belongs wholly to the physical organism, and the only cure that I +know is to make an act of personal dissociation from the behaviour of +one's flesh. Your teeth may chatter and your knees quake, but as long +as the real you disapproves and derides this absurdity of the flesh, +the composite you can carry on. Closely allied to the sensation of +nameless dread caused by high explosives is that caused by gas. No one +can carry out a relief in the trenches without a certain anxiety and +dread if he knows that the enemy has gas cylinders in position and +that the wind is in the east. But this, again, is not exactly the +fear of death; but much more a physical reaction to uncertainty and +suspense combined with the threat of physical suffering. + +Personally, I believe that very few men indeed fear death. The vast +majority experience a more or less violent physical shrinking from +the pain of death and wounds, especially when they are obliged to be +physically inactive, and when they have nothing else to think about. +This kind of dread is, in the case of a good many men, intensified +by darkness and suspense, and by the deafening noise and shock that +accompany the detonation of high explosives. But it cannot properly be +called the fear of death, and it is a purely physical reaction which +can be, and nearly always is, controlled by the mind. + +Last of all there is the repulsion and loathing for the whole business +of war, with its bloody ruthlessness, its fiendish ingenuity, and +its insensate cruelty, that comes to a man after a battle, when the +tortured and dismembered dead lie strewn about the trench, and the +wounded groan from No-Man's-Land. But neither is that the fear of +death. It is a repulsion which breeds hot anger more often than cold +fear, reckless hatred of life more often than abject clinging to it. + +The cases where any sort of fear, even for a moment, obtains the +mastery of a man are very rare. Sometimes in the case of a boy, +whose nerves are more sensitive than a man's, and whose habit of +self-control is less formed, a sudden shock will upset his mental +balance. Sometimes a very egotistical man will succumb to danger long +drawn out. The same applies to men who are very introspective. I have +seen a man of obviously low intelligence break down on the eve of an +attack. The anticipation of danger makes many men "windy," especially +officers who are responsible for other lives than their own. But even +where men are afraid it is generally not death that they fear. Their +fear is a physical and instinctive shrinking from hurt, shock, and the +unknown, which instinct obtains the mastery only through surprise, or +through the exhaustion of the mind and will, or through a man being +excessively self-centred. It is not the fear of death rationally +considered; but an irrational physical instinct which all men possess, +but which almost all can control. + + + + +VIII + +IMAGINARY CONVERSATIONS + + +II + + SCENE. _A dug-out in a wood somewhere in Flanders. Officers at + tea._ + +HANCOCK. Damned glad to be out of that infernal firing trench, +anyway. (_A dull report is heard in the distance._) There goes another +torpedo! Wonder who's copt it this time! + +SMITH. For Christ's sake talk about something else! + +HANCOCK (_ignoring him_). Are we coming back to the same trenches, +sir? + +CAPTAIN DODD. 'Spect so. + +HANCOCK. At the present rate we shall last another two spells. I hate +this sort of bisnay. You go on month after month losing fellows the +whole time, and at the end of it you're exactly where you started. I +wish they'd get a move on. + +WHISTON. Tired of life? + +HANCOCK. If you call this life, yes! If this damned war is going on +another two years, I hope to God I don't live to see the end of it. + +SMITH. If ever I get home ...! + +WHISTON. Well? + +SMITH. Won't I paint the town red, that's all! + +WHISTON. If ever I get home ... well, I guess I'll go home. No more +razzle-dazzle for master! No, there's a little girl awaiting, and I +know she thinks of me. Shan't wait any longer. + +HANCOCK (_heavily_). Don't think a chap's got any right to marry a +girl under present circs. It's ten to one she's a widow before she's +a mother. + +SMITH. Oh, shut up! + +CAPTAIN DODD (_gently_). To some women the kid would be just the one +thing that made life bearable. + +HANCOCK (_reddening_). Sorry, sir; forgot you'd just done it. Course +you're right. Depends absolutely on the girl. + +CAPTAIN DODD. Thanks. I say, Whiston, I'm going to B.H.Q. Care to come +along? + + (_They go out together._) + + SCENE. _A path through a wood_. CAPTAIN DODD _and_ WHISTON + _walking together, followed by a_ LANCE-CORPORAL. + +DODD. D'you believe in presentiments, Whiston? + +WHISTON (_doubtfully_). A year ago I should have laughed at you for +asking. Now ... + +DODD. More things in heaven and earth ...? + +WHISTON. My rationalism is always being upset! + +DODD. How exactly? + +WHISTON. For instance, I simply can't believe that old John is +finished. Can you? + +DODD (_quietly_). No. + +WHISTON. Funny thing. As far as I'm concerned I can quite imagine +myself just snuffing out. You can put one word on my grave, if I have +one--"Napu." But as for John, no. I want something else. Something +about Death being scored off after all. + +DODD. I know. "O Death, where is thy sting? O Grave, where is thy +victory?" + +WHISTON. Just that. Mind you, I don't think I'm afraid of Death. I +don't want to get killed. But if I saw him coming I think I could +smile, and feel that after all he wasn't getting much of a bargain. +But the idea of his getting old John sticks in my gullet. I believe in +all sorts of things for him. Resurrection and life and Heaven, and all +that. + +DODD. What do you think about it, Corporal? + +LANCE-CORPORAL. Same as Mr. Whiston, sir. + +WHISTON. But what about presentiments? + +DODD. Oh, I don't know. Funny thing; but all through this fortnight +I've been absolutely certain that I was not for it. + +LANCE-CORPORAL. Beg pardon, sir, we noticed that, sir! + +WHISTON. Well, it's practically over now. + +DODD. I'm not so sure. I'm not in a funk, you know. It's simply that I +don't feel so sure. + +WHISTON. Oh, rot, sir! I don't believe in that sort of presentiment. + +DODD. What do you think, Corporal? + +LANCE-CORPORAL. I think you goes when your time comes, sir. But it +won't come to-night, sir. Not after all we been through this spell, +and the spell just finished. + +DODD. I believe you're right, Corporal. We shall go when our time +comes, and not before. I like that idea, you know. It means one hasn't +got to worry. + +WHISTON. If it means that you go on as you've done the last fortnight, +it's a damnable doctrine, sir. You've no business to go taking +unnecessary risks simply because you've got bitten by Mohammedanism. + +DODD (_thoughtfully_). You're right, too, Whiston. "Thou shalt not +tempt the Lord thy God." One shouldn't take unnecessary risks. Mind +you, I don't admit that I have. It just enables one to do one's job +with a quiet mind, that's all. + + +TWO DAYS LATER + + SCENE. _A billet._ HANCOCK _and_ SMITH. + +HANCOCK. Damn! + +SMITH. What's up? Aren't you satisfied? The brigade's bound to go back +and re-form now, and that means that we shan't be in the trenches for +a couple of months at least. We may even go where there's a pretty +girl or two. My word! + +HANCOCK. Damnation! + +SMITH (_genuinely astonished_). What the hell's wrong? Any one would +think you liked the trenches! Personally, I don't care if I never see +them again. England's full of nice young, bright young things crying +to get out. Let 'em all come! They can have my job and welcome! + +HANCOCK (_to himself_). God! Why Dodd and Whiston? Why, why, why? Why +not me? Why just the fellows we can't afford to lose? + +SMITH. Oh, for God's sake stow it! What the hell's the good of going +on like that? Of course I'm sorry for them and all that. But I don't +see that it's going to help them to make oneself miserable about it. + +HANCOCK (_fiercely_). Sorry for them! It's not them I'm sorry for! +They ... they're the lucky ones! God! I suppose that's the answer! +They'd earned it! + +SMITH (_satirically_). Have you turned pi? We shall have you saying +the prayers that you learnt at your mother's knee next, I suppose! +I shall have to tell the Padre, and he'll preach a sermon about it! +I should never have thought you would have been _frightened_ into +religion! + +HANCOCK. Frightened! You little swine! _You_ talk about being +frightened after last night! I tell you I'd rather be lying out there +with Dodd and Whiston than be sitting here with you. Frightened into +religion! + +SMITH. Oh, I suppose you're the next candidate for death or glory! +Good luck to you! I'm not competing. I'll do my job; but I'm not going +to make a fool of myself. Dodd and Whiston deserved all they got. +You're right there. You'll get what you deserve some day, I expect! +Don't look at me like that. I've said I'm sorry, and all that. But +it's the truth I'm speaking, all the same. + +HANCOCK. And you'll get what you deserve too, I suppose, which is to +live in your own company till the end of your miserable existence. I +won't deprive you of your reward more than I can help, I promise you! + + (HANCOCK _goes out._) + + + + +IX + +THE WISDOM OF "A STUDENT IN ARMS" + + +It is no good trying to fathom "things" to the bottom; they have not +got one. + +Knowledge is always descriptive, and never fundamental. We can +describe the appearance and conditions of a process; but not the way +of it. + +Agnosticism is a fundamental fact. It is the starting-point of the +wise man who has discovered that it needs eternity to study infinity. + +Agnosticism, however, is no excuse for indolence. Because we cannot +know all, we need not therefore be totally ignorant. + +The true wisdom is that in which all knowledge is subordinate to +practical aims, and blended into a working philosophy of life. + +The true wisdom is that it is not what a man does, or has, or says, +that matters; but what he is. + +This must be the aim of practical philosophy--to make a man be +_something_. + +The world judges a man by his station, inherited or acquired. God +judges by his character. To be our best we must share God's viewpoint. + +To the world death is always a tragedy; to the Christian it is never a +tragedy unless a man has been a contemptible character. + +Religion is the widening of a man's horizon so as to include God. + +It is in the nature of a speculation, but its returns are immediate. + +True religion means betting one's life that there is a God. + +Its immediate fruits are courage, stability, calm, unselfishness, +friendship, generosity, humility, and hope. + +Religion is the only possible basis of optimism. + +Optimism is the essential condition of progress. + +One is what one believes oneself to be. If one believes oneself to be +an animal one becomes bestial; if one believes oneself spiritual one +becomes Divine. + +Faith is an effective force whose measure has never yet been taken. + +Man is the creature of heredity and environment. He can only rise +superior to circumstances by bringing God into environment of which he +is conscious. + +The recognition of God's presence upsets the balance of a man's +environment, and means a new birth into a new life. + +The faculties which perceive God increase with use like any other +perceptive faculties. + +Belief in God may be an illusion; but it is an illusion that pays. + +If belief in God is illusion, happy is he who is deluded! He gains +this world and thinks he will gain the next. + +The disbeliever loses this world, and risks losing the next. + +To be the centre of one's universe is misery. To have one's universe +centred in God is the peace that passeth understanding. + +Greatness is founded on inward peace. + +Energy is only effective when it springs from deep calm. + +The pleasure of life lies in contrasts; the fear of contrasts is a +chain that binds most men. + +In the hour of danger a man is proven. The boaster hides, and the +egotist trembles. He whose care is for others forgets to be afraid. + +Men live for eating and drinking, passion and wealth. They die for +honour. + +Blessed is he of whom it has been said that he so loved giving that he +even gave his own life. + + + + +X + +IMAGINARY CONVERSATIONS + + +III + + SCENE. _A trench unpleasantly near the firing line. There + has been an hour's intense bombardment by the British, with + suitable retaliation by the Boches. The retaliation is just + dying down._ + + CHARACTERS. ALBERT--_Round-eyed, rotund, red-cheeked, + yellow-haired, and deliberate; in civil life probably a + drayman._ JIM--_Small, lean, sallow, grey-eyed, with a kind + of quiet restlessness; in civil life probably a mechanic with + leanings towards Socialism._ POZZIE--_A thick-set, low-browed, + impassive, silent_ _country youth, with a face the colour of + the soil._ JINKS--_An old soldier, red, lean, wrinkled, with + very blue eyes. His face is rough-hewn, almost grotesque + like a gargoyle. In his eyes there is a perpetual glint of + humour, and in the poise of his head a certain irrepressible + jauntiness._ + +ALBERT (_whose eyes are more staring than ever, his cheeks pendulous +and crimson, his general air that of a partly deflated air-cushion_). +Gawd's truth! + +JINKS (_wagging his head_). Well, my old sprig o' mint, what's wrong +wi' you? + +ALBERT. It ain't right. (_Sententiously_) It's agin natur'. Flesh an' +blood weren't made for this sort o' think. + +JIM. It ain't flesh an' blood that can't stand it. It's Mind. Look at +old Pozzie. 'E's flesh an' blood, and don't turn an 'air! For myself +I'll go potty one o' these days. + +JINKS (_slapping POZZIE on the back_). You don't take no notice, do +you, old lump o' duff? + +POZZIE. Oi woulden moind if I got moy rations; but a chap can't keep a +good 'eart if 'e's got an empty stummick. + +JIM (_sarcastically_). You keep yer 'eart in yer stomach, don't yer? +You ain't got no mind, you ain't. Jinks was born potty, an' the rest +of us'll all go potty except you. It's you an' yer Ally Sloper's +Cavalry what'll win the war, I don't think! + +ALBERT. What I wants ter know is 'ow long the bleedin' war's a-goin' +ter last. If it goes on much longer I'll be potty if I ain't a gone +'un. + +JIM. There's only one way of ending it as I knows on. + +ALBERT. What's that, matey? + +JIM. Put all the bleedin' politicians on both sides in the bleedin' +trenches. Give 'em a week's bombardment, an' send 'em away for a week +to make peace, with a promise of a fortnight's intense at the end of +it if they've failed. They'd find a way, sure enough. + +ALBERT (admiringly). Ah, that they would an' all. If old "Wait +and See" 'ad been 'ere these last four days 'e wouldn't talk about +fightin' to the last man! + +JINKS. Don't talk stoopid. 'Oo began the bloomin' war? Don't yer know +what you're fightin' for? D'you want ter leave the 'Uns in France an' +Belgium an' Serbia an' all? It ain't fer us to make peace. It's fer +the 'Uns. An' if you are done in, you got to go under some day. I +ain't sure as they ain't the lucky ones what's got it over and done +with. And arter all, it's not us what's not proper. The 'Uns 'ave 'ad +two fer our one. + +ALBERT. They got dug-outs as deep as 'ell, it don't touch 'em. + +JINKS. (_but without conviction_). Don't talk silly. + +POZZIE. Oi reckon we got to go through with it. But they didn't ought +to give a chap short rations. That's what takes the 'eart out of a +chap. + + + + +XI + +LETTER TO AN ARMY CHAPLAIN[2] + + +_April 17, 1916._ + +Thank you very much for your letter of a week ago, which I should +have tried to answer before if I had had time. I am afraid that your +confidence in me as an oracle will be severely shaken when I confess +that I was once on the eve of being ordained, and that in the end +I funked it because it seemed such an awfully difficult job, and I +couldn't see my way to going through with it. + +[Footnote 2: This chapter is the actual text of a letter from "A +Student in Arms," and like the most of the other chapters appeared +originally in the _Spectator_.] + +However, I must try to answer your letter as best I can, and I hope +that you will not mind my speaking plainly what I think, and will +remember that I do so in no spirit of superiority, but very humbly, as +one who has funked the great work that you have had the pluck to take +up, and who has even failed in the little bit of work that he himself +did try and do. This last means that I have no business to be an +officer. It was the biggest mistake in my life, for my position in the +ranks did give me a hold on the fellows, the strength of which I have +only realized since I left. + +Now then to the point. As I understand you, your difficulty is that +you feel that you must devote yourself to strengthening a very few men +who are already Churchmen, and to whom you can talk in the language +of the Church of things which you know they want to hear about, or +you must appeal to the crowd of those who are merely good fellows and +often sad scamps too, who must be caught with buns and cinemas and who +are very difficult to get any farther. + +I fancy that you, like me, when you see a fine dashing young fellow, +with a touch of honesty and recklessness and wonderful mystery of +youth in his eyes, love him as a brother, and long to do something to +keep him clean, and to keep him from the sordid things to which you +and I know well enough he will descend in the long run if one cannot +put the love of clean, wholesome life into his heart. But how to get +at him? If you talk to him about his soul you disgust him, and you +feel a sort of sneaking sympathy with him too. It does not seem the +thing to make a chap self-conscious and a bit of a prig when he is +not one to start with. On the other hand, if you just keep to buns and +cinemas you never get any farther. Well, it is a big difficulty. The +only experience that I have had which counts at all is experience that +I gained while trying to run a boys' club in South London, and you +must not think me egotistical if I tell you what seems to me to have +been the secret of any power that I seem to have had over fellows. + +At first I used to have a short service at the close of the club every +evening, to which most of the boys used to stay. I also had a service +on Sunday afternoon. Something of the same sort might perhaps be +possible in the Y.M.C.A. tent if there is one where you are. When I +was talking to them at these services I always used to try and make +them feel that Christ was the fulfilment of all the best things that +they admired, that He was their natural hero. I would tell them some +story of heroism and meanness contrasted, of courage and cowardice, of +noble forgiveness and vile cruelty, and so get them on the side of the +angels. Then I would try and spring it upon them that Christ was the +Lord of the heroes and the brave men and the noble men, and that He +was fighting against all that was mean and cruel and cowardly, and +that it was up to them to take their stand by His side if they wanted +to make the world a little better instead of a little worse, and I +would try to show them how in little practical ways in their homes and +at their work and in the club they could do a bit for Christ. + +Well, they listened pretty well, and I think that they agreed in +a general sort of way, only 'they knew that I was a richish man in +comparison with them, and that I didn't have their difficulties to +contend with, and that all tended to undo the effect of what I had +said. And then accident gave me a sort of clue to the way to get them +to take one seriously. For some idiotic reason--I really couldn't say +just what it was--I dressed up as a tramp one day, and spent a night +in a casual ward. I didn't do it for any very worthy motive, and I +didn't mean any one to know about it; but it got round, and I suddenly +found that it had caught the imaginations of some of the fellows, and +I realized that if one was to have any power over them one must do +symbolic things to show them that one meant what one said about love +being really better than money, and all that sort of thing. So in +rather a half-hearted way I did try to do things which would show +them that I was in earnest. I took a couple of rooms in a little +cottage in a funny little bug-ridden court, instead of living at the +mission-house. I went out to Australia steerage to see why emigration +of London boys was not a success, and when war broke out I enlisted, +although I had previously held a commission. And all these little +things, though on reasonable grounds often rather indefensible, +undoubtedly had the effect of making my South London boys take me +more seriously than they did at first. Well, I am quite sure that with +Tommies, if ever you get a chance of doing something in the way of +sharing their privations and dangers when you aren't obliged to, or of +showing in practical ways humility and unselfishness, that will endear +you to them, and give you weight with them more than anything else. In +my time in the ranks I had that proved over and over again. If once +I was able to do even a small kindness for a fellow which involved a +bit of unnecessary trouble, he would never forget it, and would repay +me a thousand times over. I was a sergeant for about nine months in +England, and had one or two chances. Then I reverted to the ranks, +and for that the men could not do enough to show me kindness. (It was +my not valuing rank and comparative comfort for its own sake that +appealed to them.) Continually I have reaped a most gigantic reward of +goodwill for actions which cost very little, and which were not always +done from the motives imputed. + +I am not swanking--at least, I don't mean to--but that is just my +experience, that with Tommy it is actions, and specially actions that +imply and symbolize humility, courage, unselfishness, etc., that +count ten thousand times more than the best sermons in the world. I am +afraid that all this is not much good because you are an officer, and +your course of action is very clearly marked out for you by authority. +But I do say that if ever you have a chance of showing that you are +willing to share the often hard and sometimes humiliating lot of the +men it is that which above all things will give you power with them; +just as it is the Cross of Christ, and the spitting and the mocking +and the scourging, and the degradation of His exposure in dying, that +gives Him His power far more than even the Sermon on the Mount. After +all, it is always what costs most that is best worth having, and if +you only see Tommy in his easiest moments, when he is at the Y.M.C.A. +or the club, you see him at the time when he is least impressionable +in a permanent manner. + +Well, I must apologize for writing such an egotistical and intimate +sort of letter on so slight a provocation. But this that I have said +is all that my experience has taught me about influencing the Tommy. + +No doubt there are other ways; but I have not been able to strike +them. + +Yours very truly, DONALD HANKEY, 2nd Lieut. + +P.S.--Of course in becoming a Second Lieutenant I have dished my own +influence most effectually. It has often appeared to me that among +ordinary working men humility was considered the Christian virtue _par +excellence_. Humility combined with love is so rare, I suppose, and +that is why it is marvelled at. + + + + +XII + +"DON'T WORRY" + + +This is at present the soldier's favourite chorus at the front-- + + "What's the use of worrying? + It never was worth while! + Pack up your troubles in your old kit-bag + And Smile, Smile, Smile!" + +Not a bad chorus, either, for the trenches! You can't stop a shell +from bursting in your trench, even if Mr. Rawson can! You can't stop +the rain, or prevent a light from going up just as you are half-way +over the parapet ... so what on earth is the use of worrying? If you +can't alter things, you must accept them, and make the best of them. + +Yet some men do worry, and by so doing effectually destroy their peace +of mind without doing any one any good. What is worse, it is often the +religious man who worries. I have even heard those whose care was for +the soldier's soul, deplore the fact that he did not worry! I have +heard it said that the soldier is so careless, realizes his position +so little, is so hard to touch! And, on the other hand, I have heard +the soldier say that he did not want religion, because it would make +him worry. Strange, isn't it, if Christianity means worry and anxiety, +and if it is only the heathen who is cheerful and free from care? Yet +the feeling that this is so undoubtedly exists, and it must have some +foundation. Perhaps it is one of the subjects which ought to engage +the attention of Churchmen in these days of "repentance and hope." + +Of course, worrying is about as un-Christian as anything can +be. [Greek: "mê merimnate tê psychê umôn"]--"Don't worry about your +life"--is the Master's express command. In fact, the call of Christ is +a call to something very like the cheerfulness of the soldier in the +trenches. It is a call to a life of external turmoil and internal +peace. "I came not to bring peace, but a sword"; "take up your +cross and follow Me"; "ye shall be hated"; "he that would save his +life shall lose it." It is a call to take risks, to risk poverty, +unpopularity, humiliation, death. It is a call to follow the way of +the Cross. But the way of the Cross is also the way of peace, the +peace of God that passeth understanding. It is a way of freedom from +all cares, and anxieties, and fears; but not a way of escape from them. + +Yet worrying is often a feature of the actual Churchman. The actual +Churchman is often a man whose conscience is an incubus. He can do +nothing without weighing motives and calculating results. It makes +him introspective to an extent that is positively morbid. He is +continually probing himself to discover whether his motives are really +pure and disinterested, continually trying to decide whether he is +"worthy" or "fit" to undertake this or that responsibility, or to +face this or that eventuality. He is full of suspicion of himself, +of self-distrust. In the trenches he is always wondering whether he +is fit to die, whether he will acquit himself worthily in a crisis, +whether he has done anything that he ought not to have done, or left +undone anything that he ought to have done. Especially if he is an +officer, his responsibility weighs on him terribly, and I have known +more than one good fellow and conscientious Churchman worry himself +into thinking that he was unfit for his responsibilities as an +officer, and ask to be relieved of them. + +There must be something wrong about the Christianity of such men. +Their over-conscientiousness seems to create a wholly wrong sense +of proportion, an exaggerated sense of the significance of their own +actions and characters which is as far removed as can be from the +childlike humility which Christ taught. The truth seems to be that we +lay far too much stress on conscience, self-examination, and personal +salvation, and that we trust the Holy Spirit far too little. + +If we look to the teaching of Christ, we do not find any +recommendation to meticulous self-analysis, but rather we are taught +a kind of spiritual recklessness, an unquestioning confidence in what +seem to be right impulses, and that quite regardless of results. We +are not told to be careful to spend each penny to the best advantage; +but we are told that if our money is preventing us from entering the +Kingdom, we had better give it all away. We are not told to set a high +value on our lives, and to spend them with care for the good of the +Kingdom. On the contrary, we are told to risk our lives recklessly +if we would preserve them. A sense of anxious responsibility is +discouraged. If our limbs cause us to offend, we are advised to cut +them off. + +The whole teaching of the Gospels is that we have got to find freedom +and peace in trusting ourselves implicitly to the care of God. We +have got to follow what we think right quite recklessly, and leave the +issue to God; and in judging between right and wrong we are only given +two rules for our guidance. Everything which shows love for God and +love for man is right, and everything which shows personal ambition +and anxiety is wrong. + +What all this means as far as the trenches are concerned is +extraordinarily clear. The Christian is advised not to be too +pushing or ambitious. He is advised to "take the lowest room." But +if he is told to move up higher, he has got to go. If he is given +responsibility, there is no question of refusing it. He has got to do +his best and leave the issue to God. If he does well, he will be given +more responsibility. But there is no need to worry. The same formula +holds good for the new sphere. Let him do his best and leave the issue +to God. If he does badly, well, if he did his best, that means that +he was not fit for the job, and he must be perfectly willing to take a +humbler job, and do his best at that. + +As for personal danger, he must not think of it. If he is killed, that +is a sign that he is no longer indispensable. Perhaps he is wanted +elsewhere. The enemy can only kill the body, and the body is not the +important thing about him. Every man who goes to war must, if he is to +be happy, give his body, a living sacrifice, to God and his country. +It is no longer his. He need not worry about it. The peace of God +which passeth all understanding simply comes from not worrying about +results because they are God's business and not ours, and in trusting +implicitly all impulses that make for love of God and man. Few of us +perhaps will ever attain to a full measure of such faith; but at least +we can make sure that our "Christianity" brings us nearer to it. + + + + +XIII + +IMAGINARY CONVERSATIONS + + +IV + +_AU COIFFEUR_ + + SCENE. _A barber's shop in a small French town about thirty + miles from the front. A_ SUBALTERN _and a stout_ BOURGEOIS + _are waiting their turn_. + +BOURGEOIS. Is it that it is the mud of the trenches on the boots of +Monsieur? + +SUBALTERN. Ah! but no, Monsieur, for then it would reach to my waist! + +BOURGEOIS. Nevertheless, Monsieur is but recently come from the +trenches, is it not so? + +SUBALTERN. Yes, I am arrived from the trenches yesterday. + +BOURGEOIS. Then Monsieur has assisted at the great attack! + +SUBALTERN. Oh, yes, I helped a very little bit. + +BOURGEOIS. There have been immense losses, is it not so? + +SUBALTERN (_vaguely_). There are always great losses when one attacks. + +BOURGEOIS. Ah! but much greater than one expected--I have seen, I, the +wounded coming down the river. + +SUBALTERN. I--I have always expected great losses. + +BOURGEOIS. 'Tis true. There are always great losses when one attacks. +But all goes well, Monsieur, is it not so? + +SUBALTERN. It is difficult to estimate the success of an attack until +after several weeks. But I think that all goes well. + +BOURGEOIS. But yes, the French, they have had a great success, and +also the English. The English are wonderful. Their equipment! It is +that which astonishes me. Everything is complete. They say that +the English have saved France; but the French also, they have saved +England, is it not so, Monsieur? + +SUBALTERN. But we are saving each other! + +BOURGEOIS. Good! We are saving each other! Very good! But after the +war, Monsieur, England will fight against France, _hein_? + +SUBALTERN. Never! + +BOURGEOIS. Never? + +SUBALTERN. Never in life! + +BOURGEOIS. You think so? + +SUBALTERN. We do not love war. We do not seek war. It is only when a +nation is so execrable that one is compelled to fight, as have been +the Germans, that we make war. + +BOURGEOIS. You do not love war, eh? Before the war you had a very +small Army, about three hundred thousand, is it not so? And now you +have about three million. You do not love war, you others. + +SUBALTERN. The Germans thought that they loved war, but I do not +believe that they will love it very much longer! + +BOURGEOIS. No! The war will give them the stomach-ache. They will love +it no longer! + +COIFFEUR. But these English, whom did they fight before? The Boers, +was it not? + +SUBALTERN. Yes, but a great many English think now that it was a +_bêtise_. There was also great provocation. And nevertheless, who +knows if there was not in that affair also a German plot? + +BOURGEOIS. It is very likely. Then Monsieur thinks that we are true +friends, the English and the French? + +SUBALTERN. But yes, Monsieur, because we love, both of us, liberty and +peace. + + + + +XIV + +A PASSING IN JUNE, 1915 + + +PROLOGUE + + SCENE. _The parlour of an Auberge._ + + PERSONS. _A stoist motherly_ MADAME, _a wrinkled fatherly_ + MONSIEUR, _and a plain but pleasant_ MA'MSELLE. _Some English + soldiers drinking_. CECIL _is talking in French to_ MONSIEUR, + _and they are all very friendly_. + +MADAME. Alors, vous n'avez pas encore été aux tranchées? + +CECIL. Mais non, Madame, peut-être ce soir. + +(MONSIEUR _and_ MADAME _exchange glances_. CECIL _rises to go._) + +CECIL. À Jeudi, Monsieur, Madame, Ma'mselle. + +MONSIEUR, MADAME, AND MA'MSELLE (_in chorus_). À Jeudi, Monsieur. + +MADAME (_earnestly_). Bon courage, Monsieur! + + (_Curtain_) + + +ACT I. DAWN + + CECIL _is discovered lying behind a wall of sandbags. On one + side are the sandbags, and on the other an idyllic spring scene, + with flowers and orchards seen in the half-light of a spring + morning. The dawn breaks gently, and soon bullets begin to ping + through the air, flattening themselves against the sandbags, or + passing over_ CECIL's _head. He wakes and yawns, and then + composes himself with his eyes open._ + + _Enter Allegorical personages_: FATHER SUN, MOTHER EARTH, _and + a chorus of_ GRASSES, POPPIES, CORNFLOWERS, RAGGED ROBINS, + DAISIES, BEETLES, BEES, FLIES, _and insects of all kinds._ + +FATHER SUN. + + Wake, children, rub your eyes, + Up and dance and sing and play, + Not a cloud is in the skies; + This is going to be _my_ day. + See the tiny dew-drop glisten + In my glancing golden ray; + See the shadows dancing, listen + To the lark so blithe and gay. + Up, children, dance and play, + This is my own festal day. + +FLOWERS, BEETLES, ETC. + + Dance and sing + In a ring, + Naughty clouds are chased away; + Oh what fun, + Father Sun + Is going to shine the whole long day. + +MOTHER EARTH. That's right, children. This is the day to grow in; but +don't forget to come home to dinner; I've got such a nice dinner for +you. + + (_The children dance away delightedly, while CECIL watches + them, fascinated._) + +MOTHER EARTH. What's this absurd young man doing, sitting behind that +ugly wall? Why don't he sit under a tree if he must sit? + +FATHER SUN. Oh, he's a lunatic! Must be. + + (RANDOM BULLET _jumps over the sandbags into the dug-out, and + jibbers impotently at_ CECIL, _who glances up at him with a + look of disgust._) + +RANDOM BULLET. Ping! Ping. It's me he's afraid of. He daren't stir a +yard from this wall, or I'd tear his brains out. Ping! Ping! + +MOTHER EARTH. Who are you, Monster? + +RANDOM BULLET. I'm Random Bullet. I _am_ a monster, I am! Ping! + +MOTHER EARTH. Who sent you, anyway? + +RANDOM BULLET. Why, the idiots behind the other wall, over there! +Sometimes I jump at them, and sometimes I jump over here. I don't care +which way it is; but I like tearing their brains out, I do. I don't +care which lot it is. + +MOTHER EARTH. What madness! + +FATHER SUN (_indignantly_). On my day too! + +RANDOM BULLET. Mad! I should think they were! Never mind, they give me +some fun! Ping! So long, I'm off, going to jump at the other fellows, +back in a second if you like to wait. + + (RANDOM BULLET _jumps out of sight, and_ MOTHER EARTH _and_ + FATHER SUN _move disgustedly away._) + +CECIL (_getting up_). Mad! By God, we are mad! Curse the war! Curse +the fools who started it! Why did I ever come out here? What a way to +spend a morning in June! + + (_Curtain._) + + +ACT II. MIDDAY + + SCENE. _The same._ CECIL _as before, but sweltering in the + sun. Enter the_ SPIRIT OF THIRST. + +THIRST. Oh for a drink! Water, anything! I could drink a bath full. +What a place to spend a June day in! When one thinks of all the drinks +one might be having, it is really infuriating. Gad! The very thought +of 'em makes me feel quite poetic! Think of the great barrels of still +cider in cool Devonshire cellars! Think of the sour refreshing wine +we used to get in Italy! And the iced cocktails of Colombo! And Pimm's +No. 1 in the City. Anywhere but here it's a pleasure to be a Thirst; +but here! Good Lord, it will send me off my head. How would a bath +go now, old chap? By God, don't you wish you were back in your canoe, +drawn up among the rushes near Islip, and you just going to plunge +into the cool waters of the Char? Or think of that day you bathed in +the deep still pool at the foot of the Tamarin Falls, with the water +crashing down above you, into the deep shady chasm. Even a dip in the +sea at Mount Lavinia wouldn't be bad now,--or, better still, a dive +into Como from a rowboat; you remember that hot summer we went to +Como? I'll tell you another thing that wouldn't go down badly either. +Do you remember a great bowl of strawberries and cream with a huge +ice in it, that you had the day before you left school, after that hot +bike ride to Leamington? Not bad, was it? + +CECIL (_fiercely_). Shut up, you beast! Oh, curse this idiotic war! +Why are we such fools? + + (_Curtain._) + + +ACT III. LATE AFTERNOON + + SCENE. _As before._ CECIL _is discovered reading a letter from + home._ + +CECIL (_to himself_). Tom dead. Good Lord! What times we have had +together! Where are all the good fellows I used to know? Half of them +dead, and the rest condemned to die! No more yachting on the broads! +No more convivial evenings at the Troc.! No more long nights spinning +yarns in Tom's old rooms in the Temple! Curse this blasted war that +robs one of everything worth having, that dulls every sense of decency +and kills all feeling for beauty, destroys the joy of life, and +mutilates one's dearest friends. Curse it! + + (_A sound as of an express train is heard, followed by the + roar of an explosion, while a dense cloud of smoke and dust + rises immediately in view of the trench._) + +PORTENTOUS VOICE. Prepare to face eternity! + +CECIL (_clenching his fists_). Beast, loathsome beast! Don't think I +am afraid of you. + + (_The sounds are repeated as a second shell drops, rather + nearer. A Shadow appears round the dug-out, and hesitates._) + +CECIL (_to the Shadow_). Who is that? Is that the Shadow of Fear? + +A THIN, QUAVERING VOICE. Yes, shall I come in? + +CECIL (_furiously_). Out of my sight, vile, cringing wretch! Not even +your shadow will I tolerate in my presence! + + (_A third shell bursts nearer still._) + +PORTENTOUS VOICE (_thunderously_). Set not your affections on things +below. + + (CECIL _pauses in a listening attitude_). + +CECIL (_more quietly, and with a new look in his eyes_). I think I +have forgotten something,--something rather important. + + (_Enter the twin Spirits of_ HONOUR _and_ DUTY, _Spirits of a + very noble and courtly mien._) + +CECIL (_simply and humbly_). Gentlemen, to my sorrow and loss I had +forgotten you. You are doubly welcome. + +THE SPIRIT OF DUTY. Young sir, we thank you. After all, it is but +right that in this hour of danger and dismay we should be with you. + +THE SPIRIT OF HONOUR. I am so old a friend of you and yours, Cecil, +that you may surely trust me. I was your father's friend. Side by +side we stood in every crisis of his varied life. Together faced the +Dervish rush at Abu Klea, and afterwards in India took our part +in many a desperate unnamed frontier tussle. I helped him woo your +mother, spoke for him when he put up for Parliament, advised him when +he visited the city. In fact, I was his companion all through life, +and I stood beside his bed at death. + +THE SPIRIT OF DUTY. I too may claim to have been as much your father's +friend as was my brother. Indeed, where one is, the other is never far +away. We do agree most wonderfully, and since our birth, no quarrel +has ever disturbed the harmony of our ways. + +CECIL. Gentlemen, you have recalled me to myself. I had forgotten that +I was no more a child. I wanted to dance in the sun with the flowers, +and sing with the birds, to swim in the pool with yonder newt, and +lie down to dry in the long meadow grass among the poppies. Because I +might not do this and other things as fond and foolish, I was petulant +and peevish, like a spoilt child. I look to you, gentlemen, to help me +to be a man, and play a man's part in the world. + +HONOUR. We will remain at hand, call us when you need us, we shall not +fail you. + + (_The bombardment increases in intensity. Shrapnel bursts + overhead. Shells with increasing rapidity and accuracy + explode both short and over the trench. The hail of bullets is + continuous. An N.C.O. rushes by shouting "Stand to"; men rush + from the dug-outs and seize their rifles_; CECIL, _like the + others, grasps his rifle and sees that it is fully loaded._) + + (_Curtain._) + + +ACT IV. SUNSET + + SCENE. _The same, but the wall of sand-bags_ _bags is broken + in many places. The dead lie half-buried beneath them._ CECIL + _lies, badly wounded, against a gap in the wall, his rifle + by his side._ HONOUR _and_ DUTY _kneel beside him tenderly. + The last rays of the sun light up his painful smile._ THIRST + _stands gloomily over him, and the wild flowers are peeping + at him with sleepy eyes through the gap, while_ MOTHER EARTH + _calls to them to go to bed._ FATHER SUN _leans sadly over the + broken parapet._ + +CECIL (_slowly and with difficulty_). Honour, Duty, I thank you. You +did not fail me. + +HONOUR. You played the man, Cecil, as your father did before you. + +DUTY. Your example it was that steadied your comrades, and kept craven +fear at a distance. You saved the trench. + +HONOUR. This is the beauty of manhood, to die for a good cause. There +is no fairer thing in all God's world. + +CECIL. I thank you. Good-night, Sun; good-night, Mother Earth. Think +kindly of me. I don't think I was mad after all. + +SUN. Good-night, brave lad. (_To_ MOTHER EARTH) I can hardly bear to +look on so sad a sight. + +CECIL. Good-night, Ragged Robins; good-night, Poppies. You have +played your game, and I mine. Only they are different because we are +different. + +CHORUS OF FLOWERS. Good-night, dear Cecil. We are so very sorry that +you are hurt. + + (_Enter the_ MASTER, _flowers shyly following him._ HONOUR + _and_ DUTY _raise_ CECIL _gently to a standing position._) + +THE MASTER (_extending his arms with a loving smile_). "Well done, +good and faithful servant. Enter thou into the joy of thy Lord." + + (CECIL, _with a look of wonder and joy, is borne forward._) + + (_Curtain._) + + + + +XV + +MY HOME AND SCHOOL[3] + +A FRAGMENT OF AUTOBIOGRAPHY + +I + +MY HOME + +What is one to say of home? It is difficult to know. I find that +biographers are particular about the date of birth, the exact address +of the babe, the social position and ancestry of the parent. I suppose +that it is all that they can learn. But as an autobiographer I want +to do something better; to give a picture of the home where, as I +can now see, ideals, tastes, prejudices and habits were formed which +have persisted through all the internal revolutions that have since +upheaved my being. + +[Footnote 3: "A Student" left a great deal of manuscript, among which +this fragment of autobiography is not the least interesting.] + +I try to form the picture in my mind, and a crowd of detail rushes +in which completely destroys its simplicity and harmony. How hard it +is to judge, even at this distance, what are the salient features. +I must try, but I know that from the point of view of psychological +development I may easily miss out the very factors which were really +most important. + +I remember a big house, in a row of other big houses, in a side street +leading from the East Cliff at Brighton right up to the edge of the +bare rolling downs. It was exactly like almost every other house +in that part of Brighton--stucco fronted, with four stories and a +basement, three windows in front on each of the upper stories, and two +windows and a door on the ground floor and basement. At the back was +a small garden, with flower beds surrounding a square of gravel, and +a tricycle house in one corner. There was a back door in this garden, +which gave on to a street of cottages. This back door was a point of +strategic importance. + +But I need not describe the house in detail. It was exactly like +thousands of other houses built in the beginning of the nineteenth +century. High, respectable, ugly and rather inconvenient, with many +stairs, two or three big rooms, a lot of small ones and no bathroom. +It was essentially a family house, intended for people of moderate +means and large families. Nowadays they build houses which are +prettier, and have bathrooms; but they are not meant for large +families. + +We were a large family, and a fairly noisy one. Moreover, we were +singularly self-sufficing. We hadn't many friends, we didn't entertain +much, we had dinner in the middle of the day, and supper in the +evening. + +There was my father who was a recluse, my mother who was essentially +our mother, the two girls and four boys. I was an afterthought, being +seven years younger than my next brother, who for seven years had +been called B. (for baby), and couldn't escape from it even after my +appearance. + +In addition to these, B. and I both had inseparable friends, who lived +within a stone's throw. Ronnie was my _alter ego_ till I was fourteen: +so much so that I had no other friend. Even now, though our ways +have kept us apart, and our interests and opinions are fundamentally +different, we can sit in each other's rooms with perfect content. We +know too much of each other for it to be possible to pretend to be +what we are not. We sit and are ourselves, naked and unashamed so to +speak, and it is very restful. + +Pictures float before my mind. Let me select a few. I see a rather +fat, stolid little boy in a big airy nursery at the top of the house, +sitting in the middle of the floor playing with bricks. Outside it is +gusty and wet, and the small boy hopes that he will be allowed to stay +in all the afternoon, and play with bricks. But that is not to be. A +small thin man, with gentle grey eyes, short curly beard, an old black +greatcoat and a black square felt hat, comes in. The child must have +some air. The child is resentful, but resigned, is wrapped up well, +put in his pram and wheeled up and down the Madeira Road. + +"Pa" didn't appear very much except on some such errand; but "Ma" was +in and out all the time. "Ma" was everything, the only woman who has +ever had my whole love, my whole trust and has made my heart ache with +the desire to show my love. + +A later picture. The boy is bigger, and not so fat. He no longer has +a nurse. He has vacated the nursery, which is now tenanted by his big +sisters. He has a little room all his own: a very small room, looking +west. The south-west gales beat upon the window in the winter, and not +so far away is the roar of the sea. It is good to curl up in a nice +warm little bed, and listen to the howling of the wind and the waves. + +In the morning come lessons from his eldest sister G. The schoolroom +has rings and a trapeze, a bookshelf full of boys' books, and +cupboards full of stone bricks, cannon and soldiers. The boy's mind +is set on bricks and soldiers. Lessons and walks with "Ma" and his +sisters or Ronnie and his nurse down the town are a nuisance. They +interfere with the building of cathedrals and the settling of the +destinies of nations by the arbitrament of war. + +It was a stolid, placid boy, intensely wrapt up in his cathedrals and +his generals, intensely devoted to "Ma," and regarding all else as +rather a nuisance. Ronnie he liked. He liked going to tea with him, +and going walks with him and his nurse; but they didn't have much +in common except cricket. Ronnie had big soldiers which could not be +knocked down by cannon balls, and which couldn't make history because +they were few in number, and nearly all English. Mine were of every +European power, and many Asiatic ones. They were diminutive and +numerous, could take shelter in a forest of pine cones and were +admirably suited to be mown down at the cannon's mouth. The King of +England was a person with a fine figure. He had one leg and one arm, +and the plume of his dragoon's helmet was shorn off; but his slight, +erect figure still looked noble on a stately white palfrey. The French +armies were usually commanded by Marshal Petit, a gay fellow with +his full complement of limbs, who sat a horse well. He had a younger +brother almost equally distinguished. I have no recollection of a King +of France. He must have been a poor fellow. The Sultan of Turkey, +the Khedive, and Li Hung Chang still live in my memory as persons of +distinction; but I have no personal recollection of the Tsar, or the +Emperors of Germany or Austria, or of the King of Italy, though I know +they existed. + +Into this placid existence turmoil would enter three times a year. The +elder brothers, Hugh, Tommy and B., would come home for the holidays +from Sandhurst and Rugby, and R. would appear, and become almost one +of the family. Then would occur troublous times, with a few advantages +and many disadvantages. + +"Tommy" was a curiously solitary youth as I remember him, who played +the 'cello with great perseverance and considerable success. At +soldiers he was something of a genius, though his games were of an +intricacy which failed to commend itself to me altogether. In his +great soldier days he not only made history, but wrote it--a height to +which I never attained. + +In the holidays, cricket in the back garden became a great feature, +and Tommy was a demon bowler. I fancy, too, that the very elaborate +but highly satisfactory form of the game must have originated with +him. In the back garden we not merely played cricket, but made +history--cricket history. Two county sides were written out, and +we batted alternately for the various cricketers, doing our best +to imitate their styles. We bowled also in a rough imitation of the +styles of the county bowlers whom we represented. This arrangement +secured us against personal rivalry, kept up a tremendous interest in +first-class cricket and enabled matches to continue, if necessary, +for weeks at a time. It encouraged, too, a fair, impersonal and +unprejudiced view of outside events. + +In cricket, war and music we undoubtedly benefited by the holidays, +especially in the summer, when we used to go to the country, often +occupying a school-house with gym, cricket nets and a fair-sized +garden. Ecclesiastical architecture suffered, however.... + +Hugh was a great and glorious person, a towering beneficent despot +when he did appear.... As for me I adored him with whole-hearted +hero-worship. He was the "protector of the poor," who kept the rest of +us in order. He was a magnificent person who revolutionized the art +of war by the introduction of explosives. He was a tremendous walker, +and first taught me to love great tramps over the downs, to sniff +appreciatively the glorious air and to love their bare, storm-swept +outlines. Hugh stood for all that is wholesome, strenuous, out of +doors in my life. Without him I should have been a mere sedentary. +Among other things he was an enthusiastic boxer and gymnast. For these +pursuits I sturdily feigned enthusiasm and suppressed timidity. + +A few more pictures. First, Sunday morning. Gertrude goes off to +Sunday School. She likes teaching and bossing. Hilda and Hugh, who +are greater pals than brother and sister can often be, go off to St. +James', where there will be good music and an interesting sermon. +Tommy goes to St. Mark's, a good Protestant place, or to the beach, +where curious and recondite doctrines are weekly disputed. B. goes to +St. George's, protesting. There is plenty of room for his hat, there +is a congenially aggressive spirit against Rome and it slightly +irritates Ma. Pa is not up yet. Ma and I go to All Souls', because it +is the nearest poor church, and Ma finds it easier to worship where +there are no pew rents, and the seats are uncushioned, and there are +few rich people. I am ever loyal to Ma. + +I often wonder whether the reason why my family are all Churchgoers +now is not that at that time we could choose our church. + +The next picture is Sunday night. "Pa" and I, and perhaps some of +the other boys, set out for St. Paul's, at the other end of the town. +Then, after the service, follows an immense walk all through the slums +of the town. We talk of Australia, where Pa once had a sheep run; of +theology, of the past and the future. This weekly walk is something of +a privilege, and rather solemn. It makes me feel older. + +It is spring. I am at Rugby, and in the "San" with ophthalmia. The +South African war is raging. Hugh is there. I am told that Hugh is +dead. He has been shot in a glorious but futile charge at Paardeberg. +I can't realize it. I am an object of interest, of envy almost, to the +whole school. The flag is half-mast because my brother is dead. Every +one is kind, touched. I put on an air as of a martyr. + +I get a heartbroken letter from my mother. Will I come home? Or hadn't +I better go to Uncle Jack's? If I go home we shall make each other +worse. It is better for me than for Maurice, who is with the fleet in +the Mediterranean with no one to comfort him. + +Ma has had a great shock. She feels it desperately. She thinks all +the others feel it as much. Except Hilda, we don't. There is a huge +piece taken out of Ma's life and Hilda's life, because they were so +unselfishly devoted to Hugh. Pa, also, has lost much, but he is a +philosopher. + +I go to Uncle Jack's and shoot rabbits. The holidays come and go. +Tommy is at Oxford; I am at Rugby. Pa is immersed in theological +speculation about the next world; B. is in the Mediterranean. Ma sends +Gertrude and Hilda away for a long change. They go, and come back. +Something about Ma frightens them. She and Pa come near Rugby and stay +with Uncle Jack. The holidays come. I learn that for the first time +for about twenty years Ma is to go away without Pa. I am to meet her +at Hereford, and we are to go to Wales. Ma forgets things. She is more +loving than ever, but her memory is going. We go to communion together +in the little village church. + +A few weeks later. We are back in Brighton. An Australian uncle and +family are staying with us. Ma is ill in bed. I get up at 6 A.M., +tramp over the downs and in a place I wot of, some five miles away, +I gather heather for Ma. I run. I get back by 8.30. I find my uncle +and cousins getting into a cab. Some one says, "How lovely! Are these +for me?" I grip them in despair. They are for Ma. "Quite right," says +someone. A day or two later my heather was placed, still blooming, on +Ma's grave. + +I was sixteen then. Six years later I return home from abroad. Within +a few weeks of my return I am sitting in Pa's room in agony, listening +to him fight for breath. The fight at last weakens. I hear him +whisper, "Help! help!" I set my teeth. The others come in. There +is silence. All is over. I am given my father's ring. It is my most +treasured possession. + +Henceforth all I have left of home is Hilda, for she alone is +unmarried. Ever since my mother's death she has been my confidante. +As far as was possible she has taken Ma's place in my life, and I have +taken Hugh's place in hers. We are substitutes. For that reason as +we get older we get to know each other better, and to know better how +much we can give to each other. There is more criticism between us +than there would have been between Ma and me, and Hilda and Hugh. But +it has its advantages. We live apart, but we correspond weekly, and +holiday together. It is all that is left of home, and it is infinitely +precious. + +Now that I have written these pages I can see as I have never seen +before how much the child was father of the man. Since those home days +I have had more variety of experience perhaps than falls to the lot +of most men, and I would almost say more varied and more epoch-making +friendships. Yet in these pages that I have written I seem to see all +the essential and salient features of my character already mirrored +and formed. + +I am still by nature lethargic and placid. I could still occupy myself +contentedly With bricks and soldiers, art and history, and trouble +no one. But there is still that other element, instilled by Hugh--a +love of the open air, of struggle with the elements, in lonely desert +places. + +I have never lost the craving for true religion, which induced my +mother to go to a poor church to worship, and to visit the drunken +and helpless in their slums. I have never lost the desire for her +singleness of mind, and simple loyalty to Christ and His Church. At +the same time I have never lost my father's inquiring spirit, broad +view, love of doctrine tempered by reason and founded on history and +tested by human experience. When these two beloved ones passed from +this world I learnt the meaning of the text, "Where your treasure is, +there will your heart be also." My heart has never been wholly in this +world. + +So, too, I have always been a man of few friends. Ronnie has had many +successors; but seldom more than one at a time. I have never cared +much for society. My father and mother neither of them attached much +importance to conventions, or to the fictitious values which society +puts on clothes or money or position. I have always looked rather +for some one to admire, some one whose ideals and personality were +congenial, whatever their position or occupation. I have also, on the +whole, always preferred comfort to show, simple to elaborate living. +This I trace to the simple comfort and naturalness of my old home. + + +II + +SCHOOL + +I went to a day school kept by Ronnie's father when I was nine. +At least, it was a day school for me; but nearly all the boys +were boarders. I worked fairly hard, and got prizes. I was fairly +good at cricket, and not much good at football. I had only one +friend--Ronnie--and about two enemies, both of whom were day boys, and +whom I should have liked to have fought if I had dared. My memories +of the school are few. I best remember leaving home, and going +back, and also playing cricket. Ronnie's father lives as a just and +straightforward gentleman, who never caned a boy except for what was +mean or dirty, and whom we all loved and respected. But then I have +known and loved him and his wife all my life. If our house was a +second home to Ronnie, theirs has always been a second home to me. + +There was one master whom I liked, and who perhaps did something to +develop my character. He was fond of poetry and history, and from him +I learnt--an easy lesson for me--to love history; but what is more, he +first gave me a glimmering idea, which was to develop long after, that +the classics are literature, and not torture. + +I left there to go to Rugby. + +Never did a boy enter Rugby with better chances. The memory of +my three brothers still lived in the house. They had all achieved +distinction in games, and been leading prefects (or sixths as they +are called at Rugby) in the house. Many masters remembered them for +good, particularly Jacky, the housemaster, who had loved them all, +especially Hugh. + +In addition to this, one of the leading fellows in the house, who was +afterwards to be captain of the school fifteen and cricket eleven, +lieutenant in the corps, and one of the racquet pair, had been at my +private school. I shared a study with another fellow who had been at +my private school. Two boys accompanied me from there, one of whom was +my next best friend to Ronnie. His parents were in India, and he had +spent some of his holidays with Ronnie and me. + +But though I loved Rugby and was happy there, I can't say I was a +success. I made few friends, who have since, with one exception, +drifted out of my life. I was too timid to enjoy Rugger. I never +achieved distinction at cricket. I got into the sixth my last term, +but hadn't the force of character to enjoy the prefectural powers +which that fact conferred upon me. The fact is that I left when I was +16, and it is between 16 and 18 that the full enjoyment of school life +comes and boys reap the harvest they have sown. Had I stayed another +year I should have belonged to the leading generation, strengthened +my friendships and developed what was latent in my character. As it +was, I left at an unfortunate age. I was pushed into the sixth a year +before my contemporaries. My friendships were only half formed, and +I had only just begun to feel strength of body and mind developing in +me. + +As a junior I was too conscientious, and not light-hearted enough. +I hardly had any adventures at Rugby, because I had an incurable +instinct for keeping rules. I worked hard at mathematics and French, +and my report generally read, "Good ability. Might exert himself +more." At classics and chemistry I did as little work as possible, +and any report generally read, "Hard-working but not bright." + +On the whole I think I was pretty happy at Rugby; but I never look +back to my school days as the happiest part of my life. I have had +many happier times since. But still, my house was a good one. Jacky, +the housemaster, was wonderfully kind and wise. He hardly ever +interfered with the affairs of the house, but left it all--in +appearance--to the "Sixths." Actually, nothing escaped him. The tone +of the house was on the whole extraordinarily clean and wholesome, +and the fellows who had dirty minds were a small minority, and easily +avoided. At all events, very little of that sort of thing reached me. + +At sixteen and a half I went to the Royal Military Academy at +Woolwich, commonly known as "the Shop." There I spent the two +most miserable years of my life, and made the second of my great +friendships. In these days the Shop was still a pretty rough place, +and at the moment it was unusually full. I think there were over 300 +fellows there altogether, and there were about 70 in my term. My first +experience was unfortunate. I was interviewing the Adjutant, a keen +sportsman and a bit of a tartar. He eyed me unfavourably, asked what +games I could play, and when I replied that I had no great proficiency +in any he commented, "Humph, a good-for-nothing!" and dismissed me. + +I am by nature slow, stolid and clumsy. I was bad at being "smart"; +I was slow and clumsy at drill; map making and geometrical drawing +were physical impossibilities to me; I was incredibly slow and stupid +at machinery, mechanism and electricity. The only subject which +interested me was military history. In my first term I dropped from +about forty-fourth to about seventieth in my class, and I kept near +the bottom until my fourth term, when I failed in my electricity +exam., and had to stay one term more. In the same term I received a +prize for the best essay on the lessons of the South African War. + +Oh, the misery of those terms at Woolwich! I hated the work, the +drill, the gym and even the riding school. I hated the officers, and +above all I hated the spirit of the place. As far as I remember, +the one eternal topic of conversation and subject of "wit" was the +sexual relation. Of course the boys had never been taught sensibly +anything about it. Consequently the place was continually circulated +with filthy books, pictures, stories, etc. When I went there I was +extraordinarily innocent, and devoid of curiosity. I had been recently +the more disposed to purity through the death of my mother. At +Woolwich I remained extraordinarily innocent and uncurious, letting +the poisonous stream flow continually by me, shrinking from its +stench, and finding more and more relief in my own company. I must +have been a very unpleasant person at that time. + +One friend I had. He was a small, compact, keen, and capable little +Rugbian named F----. He was like me in that he had recently lost his +parents, and was interested in religion and philosophy in a boyish +way. Unlike me he rather enjoyed Woolwich. He had a lot of friends, +was keen on riding and on a good deal of the work, and generally +speaking plunged into life, taking the rough with the smooth, and +both in good part. Although we have drifted far apart in ideals and +sympathies, and though misunderstanding has come in and destroyed our +friendship, I shall never cease to be grateful for all that F---- +did for me in those days. He routed me out when I was in the blues, +laughed at me, cheered me up and made me look at life with new eyes. +Moreover he did this, as I know, in defiance of the set with whom he +was friendly, who despised me for a milksop, and were at no pains to +conceal the fact. But for F----, my life at the Shop would have been +intolerable. + +Besides him, I had a few associates, boys with whom I naturally +associated for the simple reason that they, too, were left out of the +main current of the life of the place. But they were not particularly +congenial. One or two were hard workers. One was a great slacker, and +more timid, physically and morally, than even I. He was a boy with a +fatal facility for doing useless things moderately well, especially in +the musical line. He was even more frightened of gym and horses than +I was, and unlike me was not ashamed to show it. If the Shop was +purgatory to me, it must have been hell to him. + +My happiest times were week-ends spent at home. I used to arrive on +Saturday evening and leave on Sunday evening. About now I began to +get to know my father much better, and to develop my theological bent +under his advice. In my disillusionment as to my capacity for military +life I began to wish I had chosen the clerical profession. I think my +father had the shrewdness to see that failure in one profession was +not necessarily the sign of a "call" in another direction. Anyway, he +did not discourage me; but spoke of five years in the Army as the best +training for a parson. + +I remember avowing my intention of becoming a parson to one of my more +friendly acquaintances at the Shop, and he replied that I wouldn't set +the Thames on fire, because I had such a monotonous voice. + +In spite of seeking relief from my uncongenial surroundings in +religion and theology, I did not join myself to any one else. There +was a so-called "Pi Squad," or Bible class, held weekly, but I only +went once, and didn't like it. I was always peculiarly sensitive about +priggishness in those who professed themselves to be religious openly, +and generally thought I detected priggishness in any "Bible circle" +or similar institution that I came across. I think my theology +mainly consisted in speculations about the future state--I remember +I emphatically declined to believe in hell--and my religion consisted +mainly in fairly regular attendance at Matins and Communion. + +Another effect of the intensity with which I hated my surroundings was +that I read a lot of good novels--George Eliot, the Brontës, Scott, +Dickens, Jane Austen, Thackeray, Besant, etc. A book which I read +over and over again was Arthur Benson's _Hill of Trouble, and other +Stories_. Those legends, with their imaginative setting, charm of +language and beautiful religious ideas were more restful to my unquiet +spirit than anything else I read. + +The actual conditions of life at the Shop were pretty barbaric. The +aim was to make it as much like barracks as possible. Each term was +housed in a different side of the square of buildings which form the +Academy, and the fourth term were spread among the houses of the other +terms as corporals. My first term I shared a room with three other +fellows. I think it was the ugliest room I have ever lived in, without +exception. It had high whitewashed brick walls. In each corner was +a bed which folded up against the wall in the day time, and was +concealed by a square of print curtains. There were a deal table, four +windsor chairs, a shelf with four basins, and a cupboard with four +lockers. All the woodwork was painted khaki. The contrast with the +little study at Rugby, with its diamond-paned window, its matchboard +panelling surmounted by a paper of one's own choosing, its ledge +for photos and ornaments ("bim ledge" so called), its eggshell blue +cupboards, baize curtains and window box, was striking. + +It used to be the custom to go to and from the bathroom attired in a +sponge, in connexion with which an amusing incident once happened. + +A cadet in his second year was on the bathroom landing, when he +perceived that the mother and sisters of another cadet were coming +upstairs. From sounds in the bathroom he realized that they would +meet a naked corporal just as they reached the landing. The door of +the bathroom opened outwards, and with admirable presence of mind +he rushed back, and putting his back against the door and his feet +against the wall, imprisoned the corporal. The corporal, in the +approved Shop version of Billingsgate, began to blaspheme at the top +of his voice, so when the ladies reached the top of the stairs they +saw a vision of a cadet with his feet to the wall and his back to a +door singing at the top of his voice to drown a Commotion within! + +On another occasion in my second year, when I was sharing a room +with one other fellow, I had a sister to tea. On arriving in my room +I found that my stablemate had been playing hockey, and was at the +moment in the bathroom, having thoughtlessly left all his clothes in +the room--mostly on the floor. + +On the last day of my first term the corporals and officers were all +absent at a farewell dinner to the former, and we received information +that the third term were going to raid our house, with a view to +"toshing" us in a cold bath. We therefore prepared for action. Every +receptacle which would hold water was taken to the upper landing, +full. Then all the chairs in the house were roped together, and +placed on the stairs as an obstacle. The defenders then took up their +position at the windows and at the top of the stairs. In due course +the enemy's forces arrived, and stormed the stairs, under a heavy fire +of water. The obstacle was at length destroyed, and a solid phalanx +of wet bodies swarmed up the stairs. We formed a similar phalanx +and charged to meet them. I happened to be first, and much to my +discomfiture the enemy's phalanx parted in the middle, and I was +rapidly passed down the stairs--a prisoner! Fortunately at the bottom +I found a relieving party from the next house, making a diversion on +the enemy's rear. With great valour we dragged down a foe, and toshed +him in the bath that had been made ready for us. "The tosher toshed!" + +The next day we surveyed the damage. All the chairs and banisters were +broken, the whitewash was rubbed off the bricks by wet shoulders +and nearly all the basins were broken. That day was the day of Lord +Roberts's half-yearly inspection! + +There was not such another battle until my third term, when we +were the aggressors. This time the damage was even greater, for the +defenders let down tables across the stairs as an obstacle, and we +battered our way through with scaffolding poles. There were some +casualties that day, owing to an indiscriminate use of mop handles. + +On the day of Lord Roberts's inspection we had to change from parade +dress to gym dress, and it was during the change that Lord Roberts +inspected our quarters. He went into one room and found a fellow just +half-way through his change--with nothing at all on! The room was +called to attention, and with great presence of mind the boy dashed +into the bed curtains and stood to attention there, while Lord Roberts +had an animated conversation with him! + +There were jolly moments in the life at the Shop. On Saturdays, after +dinner, the unfortunates who had not got away for the week-end used to +have "stodges" after dinner. Having put away a substantial dinner, we +changed into flannels, and used to crowd into some one's room, and eat +muffins and smoke cigars. I remember one night there were eighteen of +us in one small room. + +In order to go away for a week-end one had to obtain (1) an +invitation, (2) permission from parent or guardian to accept the +invitation. One week my brother, who was working at the Admiralty, +offered his flat to myself and F----, as he was going to Brighton +himself. Fleming wrote to his guardian--a Scotsman--for permission +to stay with Captain Hankey. The guardian wrote back for more +information. He saw by the Army List that Captain Hankey existed, but +who were the Hankeys? etc., etc. F---- wrote back a furious letter, +saying that he expected to have his friends accepted without question, +and received the permission. We went. The awkward thing was that +Captain Hankey was not there, and we shuddered to think of the rage of +F----'s guardian if he should find out. Worse still, the guardian was +supposed to be staying at the Oriental Club in Hanover Square, and my +brother's flat was in Oxford Street! However, we didn't meet. + +F---- and I neither of us knew London, and had the time of our lives. +We dined at Frascati's--a palace of splendour in our eyes--and went to +His Majesty's to see Beerbohm Tree in Ulysses. When it came to Hades, +we held each other's hands! On Sunday we went to St. Peter's, Vere +Street, but were so furious at being kept waiting for pew holders +long after service had commenced, that we went on to the Audley Street +Chapel, a most queer little place. It was full of monuments to the +dependents of peers, in which the peers figured very largely and +the dependents fared humbly--the epitome of flunkeydom. Among these +tablets was one inscribed-- + + "To John Wilkes, + Friend of Liberty." + +Truly refreshing! + +We finished the day at some old friends of mine, and voted the +week-end a huge success. + +When I went to Woolwich I was just on the verge of getting keen +on games and beginning to feel self-confident, and to enjoy the +fellowship of my comrades. Woolwich nipped this in the bud. I left +with no self-confidence, having renounced games, and with a sense +of solitariness among my comrades. I was a misanthrope, and the +unhappiest sort of egotist--the kind that dislikes himself. To say +the truth, too, I was then, and always have been, a bit of a funk, +physically, which didn't make me happier. On the other hand, I was an +omnivorous reader of everything which did not concern my profession, +and a dabbler in military history. + +I have sometimes thought that I was unconsciously a bit of a hero at +Woolwich, standing out for purity and religion in an atmosphere of +filth and blasphemy. I have come to the conclusion, however, that +there was nothing in this. As to the general atmosphere, there is +no doubt that it was singularly pernicious; even the officers and +instructors contributed their quota of filthy jokes, and there was no +religious instruction or influence at all except the parade service at +the garrison church on Sunday, if one happened not to be on leave. But +as to my heroism I am reluctantly compelled to be sceptical. I went +as far as I felt my inclination, and stopped after a time because +instinct was too strong the other way. + +As I have said before, I have always had an insurmountable instinct +for keeping rules. At school I could never bring myself to transgress, +although I knew that transgression was the road to adventure. So +at the Shop, however much I may have wished to be in the swim, my +instinct for the moral and religious code of home was too strong for +me. It required no self-control to prevent myself from slipping into +blasphemy and filth. On the contrary, in order to do so I should have +had to violate my strongest instincts, and exercised a will to evil +much stronger than any will power that I possessed at that time. If, +when I left Woolwich, I was comparatively pure, it was because nature +did not allow me to be anything else. + +To say the truth, I have never felt the sway of passions to anything +like the same extent as most men seem to. I have never cared for the +society of women for its sexual attraction. Consequently all my women +friends have been just the same to me as my men friends--friends whom +I could talk to about the things that interested me. + +I don't boast of this, I only state the fact. I am not proud of it +because I know that some passion is necessary to make heroes and even +saints. + + + + +SOME NOTES ON THE FRAGMENT OF AUTOBIOGRAPHY BY "HILDA" + + +I have before me as I write a pencil sketch, limned with considerable +care, of a rather disagreeable looking young man, and beneath it is +written-- + + "D.W.A.H., by Himself." + +It is a profile. The eye has almost disappeared under the brow, the +mouth is tightly closed to a degree that is quite unpleasant and there +is a deliberate exaggeration of a slight defect he actually had--a +tendency for the lower jaw to protrude a little. This little defect +hardly any of his friends seem to have noticed, for most of them +execrate it as a libel in the otherwise admittedly beautiful +photograph at the beginning of this volume. The expression in the +sketch is above all--dubious. + +So did Donald see himself. + +For the rest of us no doubt the lessons Mr. Haselden has for us in his +caricatures, "ourselves as we see ourselves" and "as others see us," +are necessary. But not for Donald. The drawing is pasted into an album +which contains mainly Oxford College groups, and there is a certain +unpleasant resemblance between it and his full face presentment in one +of the groups--in which he has "the group expression" rather badly. +Assuming it to have been drawn at Oxford, or not very long after he +left, I think it must belong very nearly to a time when he was going +off abroad on one of his long trips, and I had the sympathy of a +dear old lady friend of ours on having to part with him. I remember +replying, "Yes, it always seems as if peace and happiness, truth and +justice, religion and piety went with him when he goes!" She laughed +a good deal, and then said, seriously, repeating over to herself the +stately mounting sixteenth century phrases, "But it's quite true, you +know!" I hardly think, though, that I should have said it of the young +man in the sketch! + +I am now going to make a comment or two on my brother's word-pictures +as I should if he were by my side. But first I should like his readers +to know and realize that both were written before the period of what +I may call Donald's "Renaissance," a period that can be roughly marked +by the publication of his first book, _The Lord of all Good Life_. + +Up to then he had been struggling in vain for self-expression. How he +had worked the amount of MSS. he has left alone proves--for we have it +on a friend's testimony that "he tore up much of what he wrote"; and +he also had experienced and suffered, violating his natural "timidity" +and his in some ways, precarious health, for he had never got over +certain weaknesses engendered by his illness in Mauritius--in his +struggle to get a true basis for a solution of the meaning of life +and of religion. What cost him most was the knowledge that he +was frequently doubted and misunderstood by many of those whose +approbation would have been very dear to him. This is proved by his +constantly expressed gratitude to the one or two who never doubted him +for one moment. + +With the writing of this book, as we know, all his difficulties began +to clear away, and at the same time he began to reap the harvest of +love and admiration that he had sown in his toils to produce it. +And the result was he opened out like a flower to the sun! No one +can doubt this for a moment who has read his book of a year later, +_The Student in Arms_, and rejoiced in the radiant happiness of its +inspiration. + +He had more than once said to me during the past two years, "You know +it makes a _tremendous_ difference to me when people really _like_ +me." No longer was it a case of "one friend at a time." The period for +that was over and done with. He had come into his own. He was ready +for a universal brotherhood, and no hand would ever be held out to him +in vain. + +It is impossible to believe that he does not now know of and +appreciate all the beautiful tributes that have come to him since +his "passing"--from the perfect wreath of immortelles weaved by Mr. +Strachey to the sweet pansy of thought dropped by a little fellow +V.A.D. of mine who said beautifully and courageously--though knowing +him solely through his book--"We feel since he gave us his thought +that he belongs a tiny bit to us, too," thus voicing the feeling of +many. + +I believe the paper entitled "My Home" to have been written at Oxford, +and "School" not so very long after. In any case, I have definite +proof of their both belonging to Donald's pre-"Renaissance" period, +for the friendship with F----, that began at "the Shop" and went under +a cloud for a time, was renewed with fresh vigour in 1914, and has +burned brightly ever since. Only last July was I sent by him a letter +of F----'s from the trenches, with the injunction, "Please put this +among my treasures," and there is an allusion to a story told in this +letter in the article entitled "Romance" of the present volume. + +To return to "My Home," I question whether the love and devotion of +"Hilda" and "Ma" for Hugh was so entirely unselfish. For my mother I +fully believe, as for "Hilda," Hugh was the epitome of all that was +fine, splendid and joyous in life. He was the glorious knight, the +"preux chevalier" "sans peur et sans reproche," who rode forth at dawn +with clean sword and shining armour, and all the world before him, yet +keeping his heart for ever in his home. He was the child of her youth +as Donald was the child of her maturity. Deep down in her wonderfully +varied nature there were certain bottomless springs of courage, daring +and enterprise which she herself had little chance of expressing and +of which Hugh alone was the personification. + +As long as I can remember Hugh had been my ideal and made all the +interest and joy of life for me. Whether he were at home or abroad I +never had a thought I did not share with him. When he died, the best +part of me died too, or was paralysed rather, and Heaven knows what +sort of a "substitute" I should have been for "Ma" to Donald, had not +the baby Hugh come, just in time, with healing in his wings to restore +life to the best part of me! + +I am glad to think that Donald's "Autobiography" was written before +1914, for I know that even before that I was becoming more to him than +a "substitute." I too have my memories and pictures! + +It is May, 1915. I am in the country-house--cleaning is going on at +home. + +I get a letter to say that the Rifle Brigade may leave for France +at any time, and that Donald _may_ get some "leave" on Saturday or +Sunday. + +I make a dash for town. + +There I find a telegram of reckless and unconscionable length, running +into two pages. He cannot come up--they may leave at any moment. It +seems hardly worth while my bothering to come to Aldershot on the +chance--he may be unable to leave barracks. + +I write a return telegram--also of reckless and unconscionable length, +and reply paid--it is a relief to do so--asking for a place of meeting +at Aldershot to be suggested. + +I get no answer at all, and on Sunday morning, in despair, I go +over to see my aunt and cousin. My aunt is my mother's sister and a +sportswoman. She counsels, "Go at all costs." Dorothy will come with +me: Dorothy is Donald's best woman pal--she reminds him of his mother. +She is all that is wholesome and comportable. + +The element of enjoyment comes in, and I go home and pack a nice +lunch. + +We arrive at Aldershot. + +There is no one on the platform to meet us, and we push our way +through the turnstile. + +There is Donald, on the outskirts of the waiting crowd--a tall, +soldierly figure in the uniform of a private--for he has resigned his +sergeant's stripes by now. + +His face is very boyish--not the face of the photograph at the +beginning of this book: that was taken after he had been to France, +and had been wounded, and had written "A Passing in June," and "The +Honour of the Brigade"--but a much younger face, really boyish. + +He glances quickly and anxiously at every face that passes, and each +time he is a little more disappointed--but he tries not to show it. + +I am not tall and cannot catch his eye. It is like being at a play, +watching him! All at once he sees me! Involuntarily a sudden quick +spasm of joy passes across his face, absolutely transfiguring it. + +He smooths it away quickly, for he is a Briton and does not like to +show his feelings--but he has given himself away! + +Dorothy and I shall never forget that look. And it was for _me_--at +first he does not see Dorothy. When he does it is an added pleasure. + +With _two_ ladies to escort he assumes a lordly air. + +He had thought of everything. We would like some tea? Yes, all the big +places are shut as it is Sunday, but he has marked down a little place +on his way to the station. + +It is a lovely day, and we are very happy! + +The girl who waits upon us at the little tea place likes us, and so do +the other Tommies and their friends who are having tea there. + +We sit at little tables, but at very close quarters with each other, +and we smile at them and they at us. + +I have brought Donald some letters, which pleases him, and Dorothy has +brought him some splendid socks, knitted by herself. + +After tea we walk across an arid plain to a little wood, and sit down +under the trees. + +Donald changes to the new socks--those he had on were wringing wet! + +He picks us little bunches of violets, hyacinths and wild strawberry +flowers--we have them still. + +We are very happy the whole of the day, and have my sandwiches and +cake and fruit for supper, there under the trees. And here in thought +let me leave "The Student in Arms," who was to me part son, best pal, +brother, comrade, and counsellor on all subjects--and more than a +little bit of grandpapa! + +He could be so many different things because, as another friend and +cousin said, "he seemed to know everything about everybody." + +I like to think of those two fine spirits--Hugh and Donald--each with +a hand to the tiny baby nephew, and a word of greeting for me when I +go over the top. + + +THE END + + + + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of A Student in Arms, by Donald Hankey + +*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 14823 *** |