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diff --git a/old/52451-0.txt b/old/52451-0.txt deleted file mode 100644 index 9ea10e0..0000000 --- a/old/52451-0.txt +++ /dev/null @@ -1,4598 +0,0 @@ -*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 52451 *** - - - - -LIVING BAYONETS - -A Record of The Last Push - -By Coningsby Dawson - -London: John Lane, The Bodley Head New York: - -1919 - - - -“Our spirits are living bayonets. The ideals which we carry in our hearts are -more deadly to the enemy than any man-made weapons.” - - - - - -CONTENTS - -FOREWORD - -LIVING BAYONETS - -GERMANY PLEADS FOR PEACE - - - - -FOREWORD - -THESE selections from collected letters of Coningsby Dawson have been edited -by his sister, Muriel Dawson, and are published in response to hundreds of -requests. Readers of his first volume of correspondence from the Front, issued -under the title of “Khaki Courage,” have written from all over the country -asking that a further series be given them. The generous appreciation and -personal interest expressed by these readers have induced Lieutenant Coningsby -Dawson’s family to publish these letters. They take up his story at the point -where “Khaki Courage” laid it down, at the time when America entered the war. - - - - -LIVING BAYONETS - -A RECORD OF THE LAST PUSH - - -I - -France April 14, 1917 - -THE other night at twelve your letters came to me just as I was climbing into -my bunk, so recently tenanted by a Hun. I immediately lit another candle, -stuck it on the wall in a manner peculiar to myself, and started on a feast of -genuine home gossip. - -What a difference it must make to you to know that the United States are at -last confessedly our Ally. Their financial and industrial support will be -invaluable to us and will make a difference at once. And the moral advantage -of having them on our side is the greatest wound to the spirit of Germany that -she has received since the war started. It will be real fun to be able to come -back to New York in khaki, won’t it?—instead of slinking in as a civilian. -Besides, if I get wounded, I’ll be able to come home to visit you on leave -now. - -This big decision has made me almost gay ever since it happened. I have such a -new affection for everything across the Atlantic—almost as if New York and the -Hudson were just across the lawn from England, the nearest of near neighbours. -I wish with all my heart that I could drop in on you for a day and just sit -down on the sunny verandah and talk and talk. There’s so much I want to hear -and so much I want to understand in the changed attitude of America. I’m sure -everyone must be much more happy now that the cloud of reproach has lifted and -the brightness of heroism is in the air. It shines in my imagination like the -clear blueness above the white towers of New York. There’s one thing certain; -now that the President has made up his mind, the country will go as -baldheadedly for war as it has for everything else it ever set out to attain. -The real momentousness of this happening hasn’t been appreciated by the -fighting men out here yet. With a sublime arrogance they feel themselves quite -capable of licking Germany without the assistance of anyone. - - -II - -France April 17, 1917 - -Last night I was out on a working party—a moonlight night with sleet falling, -and did not get back till past two. The first thing my flash-light fell on as -I entered my dug-out was a pile of letters from home. At past 3 a.m. I was -still reading them, when H. and B. woke up and asked if there was anything for -them. There was. So there we were all lying in our bunks and reading our -love-letters till nearly 4 a.m. - -Yesterday I had a very exciting time. I was doing some reconnoitring along the -front when a bullet whizzed by and almost scorched the ear of my sergeant. We -hopped into a trench about two feet full of water. But whenever we showed -ourselves the sniping started up again. At last we got tired of wading, so -climbed out and made a dash across the open. None of us was caught, but by -pure bad luck another sergeant of mine, who was waiting quite 300 yards away, -got it in the back. He was a big, heavy chap, and we had quite a slippery time -carrying him out on a stretcher to the dressing-station. That’s the second -N.C.O. who’s been hit with me in the last ten days. The other chap got it in -his side. - -Either of these wounds would have been nice to get for anyone who wanted a -rest. But I don’t want to get out yet; all the really sporting part of this -war will be this summer. We are praying that we may come into action at the -gallop, “Halt, action front!” bang off our rounds and follow up again. - -For some reason, to-day my memory has been full of pictures of that wonderful -leave we had together in London. Things have come back that I’d -forgotten—visits to theatres, to restaurants, rides in taxis, so many -things—all the time there’s that extraordinary atmosphere of intense love. I -suppose I must have spent the night dreaming of you. Living in the daylight -hours in this deep dug-out makes spring seem like winter; I expect that helps -me to remember. How I wish I could have those ten days again. Perhaps our next -will be in New York, when I come back in khaki for an odd week. The thought of -such a happening in the future and the recollection of the meeting that is -past are like coming to a fire out of a dark, cold night. This war is so -monstrously impersonal; the attachments one forms with those among whom he -lives are so few, that the passionately personal affections of the old days -shine out like beacon fires. It will be wonderful when the war ends and one -can sit still in a great hush. - -Yesterday I had a day off for a bath behind the lines—I hadn’t tubbed for well -over a month and hadn’t been back of the guns; also I had slept in my -clothes—so you may judge that warm water and soap were a necessity. Afterwards -I had great fun shopping for the mess, but I didn’t manage to buy much, as the -country is all eaten up. All that is beautiful in the way of landscape lies -ahead, so we’re very anxious to capture it from the Hun. One looks out over -his back country, so green and beautiful and untouched, and feels like an Old -Testament spy having a peep at the Promised Land. Without doubt it will be -ours in the ordained time. When I went out this morning it was to see a blue, -blue sky, a battery pulling into action and behind it a desolated town. But -the feature that caught my attention was the spring sky. I stared and stared -at it and thought of when the war is ended. To-day I had to go to another town -which is in process of being battered. On my way back I passed through a -wood—most of the trees were levelled to the ground. In the wood I found a hawk -wounded by shrapnel, and pressing close behind a fallen trunk. And I found my -first spring flower—a daffodil—which I am enclosing to you. I’ve sent you many -flowers, but none which carries with it more love than this little withered -daffodil—my first token of spring—gathered from a fought-over woodland of -France. - -Since writing thus far it has been raining cats and dogs, and I’ve been -catching the mud, which leaks through my roof, in a soup-plate. Little things -like mud and rain don’t damp our ardour, however; we press on and on to -certain victory. - -One of our officers came back from leave to-day—he’d spent his freedom in -Devon, and was full of the beauty of the spring-time there. Happy Devon! War -has changed the seasons in France. Winter started in October; it’s the middle -of April and winter has not yet ended. Oh, to wake up again with the splendid -assurance of a summer day with nothing but beauty—such a peaceful day as we -have so often spent at Kootenay. That wounded hawk, crouching among the -daffodils, is a symbol—we’re like that: beasts of prey for our country’s sake, -maimed in mind and spirit, and waiting till our wings grow strong again. And -yet—who would be anywhere else but here so long as the war lasts? Oh, the fine -clean courage of the men in the face of danger and their brave endurance in -the presence of privation! It passes understanding. I saw a chap with a mortal -wound the other day thinking nothing of himself—only of his pal, who was but -slightly wounded. The most unendurable people act like heroes in the face of -death. There’s a fundamental nobility in all men which comes to the surface -when life is most despairing. - - -III - -France April 19, 1917 - -I sit in a hole in a recent battlefield. Over my head is some tattered canvas, -upheld by Fritzie shovels. In a battered bucket wood splutters, and the rain -it raineth every day. To make my appearance more gipsy-like I may add that my -hands are cracked with the mud. When the war is ended I shall lie in bed for a -month. - -We’ve come through some very lively times of late, and I shall have plenty of -local colour to impart to you when the war is ended. My mind is packed with -vivid pictures which I cannot tell. This huge silence which rests between -individuals is the most terrific thing about the war. You get the terror made -concrete for you when you creep to your Observation Post and spy upon the Hun -country. In the foreground is a long stretch of barbed wire, shell-holes and -mud. Behind that a ruined town; then gradually, greenness growing more vivid -as it recedes to the horizon. Nothing stirs. You may look through your -telescope all day, but nothing stirs. - -Yet you know that in every hole the hidden death lurks; should you for a -moment forget and raise your head unwarily, you are reminded of your folly by -the crack of a rifle. I’ve always made the mistake of believing the best of -everyone—and, as a soldier, I’ve never been able to credit the fact that -anyone of a big nation would count himself happy to get my scalp. The actual -passes belief. I recall so vividly that story of the final war, written by a -German, The Human Slaughter-house. The chap never realizes the awfulness of -his job until for the first time he comes face to face with the young boy he’s -called upon to kill. We kill by hundreds from a distance, but the destroyed -and the destroyers rarely have a hint of each other’s identity. I came to a -dug-out the other day in a battered trench. Even the water in the shell-holes -was dyed by explosives to the colour of blood. Outside lay a German, face -downwards in the mud—an old man with grizzled hair. I shoved my revolver round -the mouth of the dug-out and called to anyone who was there to come out. A -Cockney voice answered; then followed a scrambling; two huge feet came up -through the dark; they belonged to a dead German; two of his comrades grinned -cheerfully at me from behind the corpse and propelled it none too reverently -into the mud. Behind the party I discovered my Cockney-adventurer—a -machine-gunner who, having lost his company, made amends by capturing three -Fritzes and killing two others with the aid of a pal with a shattered leg. I -told him to bring his pal up. Under his directions the Fritzes trotted back -into the hole and brought out the wounded fellow. They were extraordinarily -meek-looking and quite surprisingly gentle; when I’d told them where the -dressing-station was, they made a bandy-chair of their hands, placed our -fellow’s arms about their necks and staggered away through the barrage—or -curtain of fire, as the papers like to call it—back to safety with their -wounded enemy. And yet within the hour all these people had been chucking -bombs at one another. - -A few days ago I was detailed for a novel experience—to follow up the infantry -attack across No Man’s Land to the Hun Front line and as far as his support -trenches. I called for volunteers to accompany me and had a splendid lot of -chaps. My party got away with the adventure without a scratch—which was -extraordinarily lucky. Moreover, we accomplished the particular job that we -were called upon to do. - -To-night I’m out from dusk to daylight poking through the darkness in a -country where one dare not use a flash-light. Between two ruined towns I have -to pass a battered Calvary. - -The Christ upon His Cross is still untouched, though the shrine and -surrounding trees are smashed to atoms. I think He means more to me like -that—stripped of His gorgeousness—than ever. He seems so like ourselves in His -lonely and unhallowed suffering. The road which leads to and from Him is -symbolic—shell-torn, scattered with dead horses and men, while ahead the snarl -of shrapnel darts across the sky and spends itself in little fleecy puffs. All -this desolation will be re-created one day, the country will grow green and, -in another country, greener than any upon earth, those dead men will walk and -laugh—and in that other country the Christ will no longer hang alone and -aloofly. I like to think of that—of the beauty in the future, if not in this, -then in some other world. One grows tired, just like that image on the Cross. -How little the body counts! War teaches us that. - - -IV - -France April 22, 1917 - -I had a letter from each one of you the day before last, and they reached me -within three weeks of being written—it made you all seem very near. - -I am writing this to you from a mercifully deep dug-out, which was the home of -Huns considerably less than a fortnight ago. I’m sure it was very obliging of -them to think ahead and provide us with such safe hiding-places from their -villainous shells. They have knocked the house down overhead. In the yard is a -broken bird-cage—the owner must have set the captive free before he made good -his own escape. Hanging at the head of my bunk is an iron crucifix and on the -wall is a beautiful woman’s portrait. One hardly thinks of his enemy as being -human these days—he seems only an impersonal devastating force; but it was a -man with affections who lately tenanted my dug-out. - -In a recent attack I saw a curious happening. I was up with the infantry as -liaison officer when one of our planes was shot down. The pilot made an effort -to land behind our trenches, but his machine was unmanageable and he came down -in Boche territory—or what had been Boche territory a quarter of an hour -before. Through my glasses I saw the pilot and observer get out and start to -creep cautiously back. We ourselves didn’t know for certain where the Huns -were—all we knew was that they were supposed to be withdrawing. When the -airmen arrived at our battalion headquarters they were still scarcely -convinced that our chaps were not Huns in khaki. When we gave them a meal of -bully-beef they knew that wc were British. So very much I could tell you which -is thrilling and heroic if only I were allowed. - -Do you know, sometimes I marvel at my contented loneliness? It isn’t like me. -I ought to be homesick and—but I’m not. I’m too much consumed with the frenzy -of an ideal to care for anything but to see the principle for which we fight -established. What one man can do isn’t much—only a Jesus can save the world -singlehanded; the real satisfaction is in one’s own soul, that softness and -success had not made him deaf to the voice of duty when she called to him. For -me this undertaking is as holy as a crusade; if it were not I could not endure -the sights. As it is I keep quiet in my soul, feeling humbly glad that I am -allowed to fulfil the dreams of my boyhood. I always wanted to do something to -save the world, you remember. First I was going to be a missionary; then a -reformer; then a preacher; then a poet. Instead of any of these I “struck -luck” as a novelist—and I can see now how success was corroding to one’s -ideals. Success in America is so inevitably measured in terms of praise and -money. I wanted to save the world; never in my wildest dreams did it occur to -me that I should get my chance as a soldier. I remember when I was studying -history at Oxford how I used to shudder at the descriptions of battles, -especially mediaeval battles waged by mailed Titans. I don’t know what change -has taken place in me; this is a more damnable war in its possibilities for -suffering than any of a bygone age; in comparison, those old wars seem -chivalrous and humane. And yet because of the spiritual goal for which we -fight I no longer shudder. Yes, that is the reason for the change. A man -doesn’t often get the chance in these commercial times to risk all that he -holds most dear for humanity’s sake. I think of the morning family prayers of -childhood in the old panelled room in Highbury and the petitions you used to -make for us—everything has shaped towards this great moment in our lives; the -past was a straight road leading to this crisis. I don’t forget the share you -three contribute—the share of your brave loneliness and waiting. Your share is -the greatest. God bless you. - -Our major was twice wounded in the recent offensives and has now left us for a -higher position. I was terribly sorry to lose him. - - -V - -France April 30,1917 - -The mud has gone. Spring is here and the sun shines all the time. Oh, a most -enjoyable war, I do assure you. When I wakened this morning I wandered up the -thirty stairs from my dug-out into the former garden, which is now a scene of -the utmost desolation. A row was going on as though the Celestial housemaid -had lost her temper and given notice, and was tumbling all the plates from the -pantry through the clouds. Above the clatter I heard a sound which was almost -alarming: the clear, brave note of a thrush, piping, piping, piping. He didn’t -seem to care a rap how often the guns blew their noses or how often the Hun -shrapnel clashed like cymbals overhead; he had his song to sing in the -sunshine, and was determined to sing it, no matter that the song might go -unheard. So there I stood and listened to him among the ruins, as one might -listen to a faithful priest in a fallen church. I re-created in imagination -the people who had lived here for generations, their tragedies, kindnesses, -love-affairs. It must have been a beautiful place once, for everywhere there -are stumps of fruit-trees, hedges of box trodden almost underground, circular -patches which were flower-beds. I can picture the exiles’ joy when they hear -that their village has been recaptured. Presently they’ll come back, these old -women and men—for their sons are fighting—and they’ll look in vain for even -the landmarks of the little house which once sheltered their affections. The -thrush in the tree is all that the Huns have left of past history. We British -lose our men in the fight, but the sacrifice of the French is immeasurable, -for when their sons are dead they have no quiet place of recollections. They -can’t say, “Do you remember how he walked here two years back?” or “These -hollyhocks he planted,” or “How he waved us goodbye as we watched him from the -gate!” The same cyclone of passion which has taken their sons’ fives, has -robbed them of everything tangible which would remind them of him. - -As regards the U.S.A. joining with us, I have spoken with several Huns. They -one and all seem very dejected about it, and seem to consider the loss of -America’s friendship one of the greatest blows of the war. - - -VI - -France May 10, 1917 - -It’s just back at the guns from a two days’ rest at the wagon-fines. It’s the -first time I’ve been back since March. I rose early on a blazing morning and -started down to the point where I was to meet my horses. I say “rose early,” -but as a matter of fact I had only had four hours’ sleep in forty-eight, and -hadn’t had my clothes off for nearly three weeks. As I drew away, the low -thunder that we make grew less and less, the indescribable smell of bursting -explosives fainter; soon I realized that a lark was singing overhead; then -another—then another. Brave little birds to come so near to danger to sing for -us. At the edge of a wood I found my chestnut mare, Kitty, and my groom—the -chap who used to work at the Silver King mine, which overlooks our ranch at -Kootenay. That we should share that memory always forms a bond of kindness -between us. We didn’t stop long at the wagon-line, but soon started out to get -farther back for lunch. I had it in the shack of an officer who was with me at -Petewawa. Then off I went at a gallop for green trees and clean country. I -hadn’t gone far before I came to a God’s Acre full of crowded little white -crosses and newly turned earth. Our captain was with me, and he learnt that an -old friend from one of our batteries was on the way down with a Union Jack -spread over him. We went into the brown field where the men who have “gone -west” lie so closely and snugly side by side, and came to a place where six -shallow holes were dug like clay coffins. Presently, winding through the -forest of crosses, the hard blue sky overhead, we saw the little band -advancing, the stretcher carried high on the shoulders of four officers. The -burden was set down and the flag lifted, showing the mummy-like form sewn up -in the blanket in which the living man had slept. The chaplain began -tremulously, “I am the Resurrection and the life; he who believeth in Me,” -etc., and while he recited I watched the faces of the gunners drawn up at -attention in the strong sunlight. To them, whatever else the ceremony meant, -it at least meant this—a day away from the guns. Suddenly I discovered that -the Lord’s Prayer was being said. Then heads were again covered and the word -of command was given. “Right turn. Quick march.” The stretcher was gathered up -and the little crowd dispersed. I suppose there is a woman somewhere who would -have given ten’ years of life to have stood in my shoes beside that narrow -grave. For myself I thought, “Well, the chap’s got what we long for most out -here—rest. He won’t have to stand in the mud any more, when his feet are like -stones and eyes like lead, watching and watching the rockets go up along the -front. And he won’t have to guide his guns in at night, or wonder what life -will do to him when the war is ended. He longed for sleep and now he sleeps -endlessly.” It didn’t impress me as at all sad. He’d played his part like a -man and was at last rewarded. But we—we were alive, and we hadn’t had a bath -for a month—so we jumped on our horses and trotted off to the nearest shower. - -It was five in the afternoon when we again took to the highway. We wanted to -sponge out our minds by looking at something beautiful, just as we had sponged -down our bodies. We, I should explain, were myself and the captain of my -battery. Soon we found ourselves among fields from which all the wrinkles of -trenches and pit-marks of shell-holes had been smoothed out. There was a river -winding between tall trees unblasted by the curtain of fire. Peasants were at -work on their little patches—women and either very old men or boys. We came to -a town as quiet and unspoiled as those we used to visit in pre-war days. In a -courtyard we tethered our horses and then sat down to one of those -incomparable French meals. It was splendid after canned stuff, and you -couldn’t hear the boom of a single gun. The peace of the place got hold of -us—we didn’t want to go back too hurriedly, and kept postponing and -postponing. A blue and gold haze with a touch of silver shining through it was -blurring all the sky, when we remounted. We travelled slowly, singing—thinking -up the twilight songs of other times. My thoughts went back to Scotch holidays -at Arran and Loch Katrine—the daringly late evenings of childhood. Reluctantly -we came back and saw the frantic city of Very lights grow up, which indicate -the Hun front. The air began to be shaken again by the prolonged agony of -rushing shells and stamping guns. It was only after midnight, when we had -reached our hut, that I remembered the need of sleep. But when I struck a -match on entering, I found letters from each one of you awaiting—so lay late -in bed reading them by candlelight for another hour. One snatches at small -pleasures and magnifies them into intensity. - -Your letters told me about Khaki Courage, and seeing “Colonel Newcome,” and -about the Highlanders in New York. What a very much more homely place America -must be to you now. I must say I am keen to see the book. It’s not mine at -all—it’s you dear home people’s—you called it out and you put it together. - -Here I sit in the underground place which I have to call “home” at present. -You go through all kinds of contortions to enter. Stephen Leacock could be -very funny at my expense. - - -VII - -France June 2, 1917 - -It is 11 a.m., and I’m sitting at the bottom of a dug-out waiting for the Hun -to finish his morning hate before I go upstairs. He seems very angry, and has -just caved in one of our walls. - -Mother seemed most awfully sorry for me in her last letter. But you know I’m -really having rather a good time, despite having a minimum amount of washing -and having our mess kitchen blown in every few days. The only time that one -gets melancholy is when nothing is doing. An attack or the preparations for an -attack are real fun. Everybody is on his toes, and there’s no time to think. - -It’s four hours later. Just as I had reached this point news came that some of -our chaps were buried, so I had a little brisk spade-work, then a wriggling -voyage through a hole, and then a lot of messy work pouring iodine into wounds -and binding up. I’m afraid my hands are still rather like a murderer’s. -Incidentally our kitchen is entirely done for this time. We’ve got the wounded -fellows on their way to Blighty, and are fairly confident that they’re not -going west this time. - -I am so glad that the coming of America into the game has made so much -difference to you. I wish I could come back for a fortnight and share the -excitement with you. It’s difficult to picture New York as a military pageant -in khaki. Tell me all about the young fellows I know and what they are doing. -I wonder how many are in the Field Artillery—which is about the most -interesting part of the game. - -You remember that Calvary I told you about. I saw it under another guise after -writing. Something happened and, instead of the spring peace, it was a shamble -with horses and men dying. In such cases one can’t do anything—he has to go on -about his own errand. - -I’m so very dirty that I’ll leave off now while there’s a chance to have a -wash. I’m awfully muddy, and my hair is just ready for growing -potatoes—there’s about a pound of the real estate of France in it. - - -VIII - -France June 6,1917 - -You certainly are owed a whole lot of letters, but it is very difficult to -find the time under present conditions—I didn’t get my breakfast until 7.30 -p.m. yesterday. And to-day I was up at 4 a.m., and didn’t come back from up -front till dusk. So you see I really have some excuse for being temporarily a -bad correspondent. You don’t need to be sorry for me, though, or anything like -that, for I’m having quite a good time. After the mud this hard white sunlight -is a godsend. Do you remember——— - -June 7.—Thus far I got when I was interrupted, and another day has gone by. -I’m just back again from up front. I went there at dawn to do some -reconnaissance work. By eight the heat was sweltering—just the way it was when -we made our memorable trip down the Loire valley—only now there are no -estaminets at which to drink Ciro Citron. The only inhabitants of the place -where I am now are the mayor and his daughter, who returned the moment the -town was captured. Rather fine of them. Yesterday a French soldier looked in -(on special leave) to claim what was left of his cottage; just as much, I -should imagine, as you could make into a road. And yet, despite the fallen -houses, the fruit-trees are green and not so long ago were white with bloom -and nodding. - -I’m feeling extraordinarily lazy and comfortable. I’ve taken two hours over -shaving and washing. My basin was the brass case of a big eight-inch naval -shell which was formerly the property of the Hun. I wish I could send you one -back. Two mornings ago I had a dive and swim in a shell-hole filled with -rain-water, which gives you some idea of the sized crater a big shell can -make. From henceforth, however, I shall have to eschew this pleasure, as I -understand that the ground is so poisoned with corpses, etc., that the water -is likely to bring on skin disease. I have that to a slight extent already. -Most of us have—it comes from eating no vegetables and nothing but tinned -stuff. - -How interested you’d be if you could just go for a couple of hours’ walk with -me. Coming back to-day I marvelled that we had ever managed to make our -advance; the Hun machine-gun emplacements were so strongly fortified and well -chosen. It speaks volumes for the impetuosity of our infantry. - - -IX - -France June 17, 1917 - -I believe it must be nearly a week since I wrote. The reason is that I’m down -at the wagon-lines, supposed to be resting, which is when we work the hardest. -First of all, we had a grand inspection of the Brigade, which kept one going -from 5 a.m. to 10.30 p.m., cleaning harness. Then we had Brigade sports, which -are not yet over, and which don’t leave an officer with any leisure. The best -time for letter-writing is when one is in action, since you sit in a dug-out -for interminable hours with nothing much to keep you busy. - -I’m looking forward very much to the receipt of Khaki Courage; it hasn’t come -yet. It will be like reading something absolutely beyond my knowledge. - -It is now evening. This has been a mixed day. I’ve been orderly officer. This -morning I heard Canon Scott preach—he was the father I wrote to you about whom -I met going up front in the winter to look for the body of his son. He’s a -fine old chap, and fully believes that he’s fated to leave his bones in -France. This afternoon was spent in harness-cleaning and this evening in -watching a Brigade display of boxing. A strange world! But you’ll judge that -we’re having quite good times. Last night we had an open-air concert—“Silver -Threads among the Gold,” “The Long, Long Trail,” etc. Trenches lay behind us -and ahead of us—not so long ago Huns could have reached us with a revolver -shot, where we were all sitting. Overhead, like rooks through the twilight, -our fighting planes sailed home to bed. Far away on the horizon, observers in -the Hun balloons must have been watching us. It was almost possible to forget -that a war existed; almost, until’ a reminder came with a roar and column of -black smoke to a distant flank. - -Monday. - -This letter gets scribbled in pieces. I’m now waiting for the afternoon parade -to fall in. The gramophone is strumming out a banjo song, and in my galvanized -hut it’s as hot as———. Most of the men strip off everything but their breeches -and go about their horses dripping like stokers. The place isn’t so unlike -Petewawa in some respects, except that there is no water. You look for miles -across a landscape of sage-green and chalk, with straight French roads running -without a waver from sky-line to sky-line. There’s nothing habitable in -sight—only grey piles and splintered trees. But in spite of the wholesale -destruction one finds beauty. You’d smile if you could see our camp—it looks -like a collection of gipsy bivouacs made of lean-tos of wood with canvas and -sand-bags for roofs. The rats are getting bold, and coming out of the -trenches—rather a nuisance. It’s strange to be here playing football on the -very ground over which not so long ago I followed the infantry within half an -hour of the commencement of the attack. Our wounded chaps were crawling back, -trying to drag themselves out of the Hun barrage, which was ploughing up the -ground all around, and the Huns were lying like piled-up wheatsacks in their -battered front line. One learns to have a very short memory and to be glad of -the present. - -Within sight a little trench tramway runs just like the Welsh toy-railway of -our childhood. It leads all the way to Blighty and New York and Kootenay. One -can see the wounded coming out on it, and sometimes sees them with a little -envy. - - -X - -France June 23,1917 - -Last night Khaki Courage arrived. I found the Officers’ Mess assembled round -my mail—they’d guessed what was in the package. I had intended smuggling the -book away, and did actually succeed in getting it into my trench-coat pocket. -A free fight ensued and, since there were four against one, I was soon -conquered. Then one of them, having taken possession of the little volume, -danced about our tin tabernacle reading extracts. I had planned to ride into a -neighbouring city for dinner that night, but sat reading till nearly twelve. I -can’t thank you all enough for your loving work. I think the proof of how well -you have done it is, that my brother officers are quite uncynically keen about -it. If they, who have shared the atmosphere which I have unconsciously set -down in its pages, can read with eagerness and without ridicule, I think the -book, as compiled by you, dear people, should stand the test. - -Do you remember a description I gave you some months back of seeing Huns -brought up from a captured dug-out? That’s long enough ago now for me to be -able to give you a few details. A fortnight before the show commenced it was -planned that an officer from each battery with a party of volunteers should -follow up the infantry attack and build a road through the Hun Front line over -which our artillery should advance. The initial work was carried on at night, -and the road was built right up to our own front-line. On the morning of the -attack I took my volunteers forward and hid with the rest of the party in one -of our support trenches. We judged that we should escape the Hun barrage -there, and should have advanced before his retaliation on our back country -commenced. Soon after midnight, on a cold morning when the sleet was falling, -we set out. The sky was faintly tinged with a grey dawn when our offensive -opened. Suddenly the intense and almost spiritual quiet was changed into -frantic chaos. The sky was vividly lit with every kind of ingeniously -contrived destruction. In addition to his other shells, the Hun flung back gas -and liquid fire. It looked as though no infantry could live in it. Within an -hour of the offensive starting, each officer crept out of his trench and went -forward to reconnoitre the ground, taking with him one N.C.O. and a runner. My -runner carried with him a lot of stakes with white rags attached for marking -out our route. We wound our way carefully through the shells until we reached -our own Front line. Here the Hun barrage was falling briskly, and gas-shells -were coming over to beat the band. The bursting of explosives was for all the -world like corn popping in a pan. We ran across what had been No Man’s Land -and entered the Hun wire. My job was to build from here to his -support-trenches. His frontline trench was piled high with dead. The whole -spectacle was unreal as something that had been staged; the corpses looked -like wax-works. One didn’t have time to observe much, for flames seemed to be -going off beneath one’s feet almost every second, and it seemed marvellous -that we contrived to live where there was so much death. As we went farther -back we began to find our own khaki-clad dead. I don’t think the Huns had got -them; it was our own barrage, which they had followed too quickly in the -eagerness of the attack. Then we came to where the liquid fire had descended, -for the poor fellows had thrown themselves into the pools in the shell-holes -and only the faces and arms were sticking out. Then I recognised the -support-trench, which was the end of my journey, and planted my Union Jack as -a signal for the other officers who were to build ahead of me. With my runner -and N.C.O. I started to reconnoitre my road back, planting my stakes to mark -the route. When I was again at what had been our Front line, I sent my runner -back to guide in my volunteers. What a day it was! For a good part of the time -the men had to dig, wearing their gas-helmets. You never saw such a mess—sleet -driving in our faces, the ground hissing and boiling as shells descended, dead -men everywhere, the wounded crawling desperately, dragging themselves to -safety. I saw sights of pity and bravery that it is best not to mention, and -all the time my brave chaps dug on, making the road for the guns. Soon through -the smoke grey-clad figures came in tottering droves, scorched, battered, -absolutely stunned. They looked more like beasts in their pathetic dumbness. -One hardly recognized them as enemies. All day we worked, not stopping to eat, -and by the evening we saw the first of our guns advancing. It’s a great game, -this war, and searches the soul out. That night I slept in the mud, clothes -and all, the dreamless sleep of the dog-tired. - -Note.—Lieutenant Coningsby Dawson was wounded in the right arm at Vimy on 26th -June. He was evacuated with a serious case of gas-gangrene, and after being -in, first, a Casualty Clearing Hospital and then a Base Hospital, was sent -back to England on 8th July, where he was in a hospital at Wandsworth, London, -till the end of August. His arm was in such a serious condition that at first -it was thought necessary to amputate it. Fortunately after days of ceaseless -care this was avoided. - - -XI - -Hospital - -London July 8, 1917 - -A fortnight ago to-day I got wounded. The place was stitched up and didn’t -look bad enough to go out with. Three days later there was an attack and I was -to be observer. My arm got poisoned while I was on the job, and when I came -back I was sent out. Blood-poisoning started, and they had to operate three -times; for a little while there was a talk of amputation. But you’re not to -worry at all about me now, for I’m getting on splendidly and there’s no cause -for anxiety. They tell me it will take about two months before I get the full -use of my arm back. Reggie was in London on leave and got his leave extended—I -missed him by an hour. J. L. was round to see me this morning and is cabling -to you. I don’t think you ought to cross while the risk is so great and -there’s a difficulty in obtaining passports—though you know how I’d love to -have you. - -I’ve missed all my letters for the past fortnight. Please excuse me, for my -arm gets very tired, and I’m not supposed to use it. - - -XII - -London July 25, 1917 - -I’m going on all right, but can’t use my arm much for writing just at present, -so you won’t mind short letters, will you? I got the first written by you -since I was hurt, yesterday. I am so glad that America is so patriotic. - -Yesterday, to my great surprise, I was called up by the High Commissioner of -Canada, and on going to see him found he wanted me to start at once on -preparing an important government statement. Since I’m forbidden to use my arm -for writing, I’m to have a stenographer and dictate my stuff after doing the -interviewing. This job is only temporary. And I think it is possible after I -have finished it, if they refuse to allow me to return to the Front at once, -that I may get a leave to America. I wouldn’t want to get a long one, as I am -so anxious to get back to France. - -Don’t worry at all about me. I feel quite well now, and go about with my arm -in a sling and am allowed out of hospital to do this work all day. As soon as -my ann grows stronger I’ll write you a good long letter, but while it is as it -is at present I have to restrict myself to bare essentials. - -Oh, did I tell you? I wouldn’t have missed coming through London on a -stretcher for pounds. The flower-girls climbed into the ambulance and showered -us with roses. All the way as we passed people waved and shouted. It was a -kind of royal procession, and, like a baby, I cried. XIII - -London August 3,1917 - -I’ve just come back to my office in Oxford Circus from lunching at the -Rendezvous. Next to my table during lunch were two typical Wardour Street -dealers, rubbing their hands and chortling over a cheap buy. - -I wonder how long this different way of life is going to last. Someone will -snap his fingers and heigh-ho, presto! I shall be back in France. This little -taste of the old life gives me a very vivid idea of the sheer glee with which -I shall greet the end of the war. How jolly comfortable it will be to be your -own master—not that one ever is his own master while there are other people to -live for. But I mean, what an extraordinary miracle it will seem to be allowed -to reckon one’s life in years and not in weeks—to be able to look forward and -plan and build. And yet—this is a confession—I can see myself getting up from -my easy-chair and going out again quite gladly directly there is another war, -if my help is needed. There was a time, long ago, when I used to regard a -soldier with horror, and wondered how decent folk could admire him; the red of -his coat always seemed to me the blood-red of murder. But it isn’t the killing -that counts—you find that out when you’ve become a soldier; it’s the power to -endure and walk bravely, and the opportunity for dying in a noble way. One -doesn’t hate his enemy if he’s a good soldier, and doesn’t even want to kill -him from any personal motive—he may even regret killing him while in the act. -I think it’s just this attitude that makes our Canadians so terrible—they kill -from principle and not from malice. - -I’m seeing all my old friends again, lunching with one and dining with -another, and have been to some matinees. But I can go to no evening -performances, because I have to be in the hospital at 10 p.m. - -I really am hoping to get a week in New York after this piece of work is done, -after which back to France till the war is ended. - - -XIV - -London August 30, 1917 - -I’ve just left hospital and am staying at this hotel. You keep saying in your -letters that you never heard how I got my injury. I described it—but that -letter must have gone astray. On 26th June I was wounded not by a shell, but -by a piece of an iron chimney which was knocked down on to my right arm. I had -it sewn up and for two days it was all right. The third I went up for an -attack and it started to swell—by the time I came back I had gas-gangrene. The -arm is better now and I’m on sick leave, though still working. They’ve made me -an offer of a job here in London, but I should break my heart if I could not -go back to the Front. But I think when I’ve finished here that I may get a -special leave, with permission to call in at New York. Wouldn’t that be grand? - -I don’t want to raise your hopes too high, but it seems extremely likely that -I shall see you shortly. I was to-day before my medical board, and they gave -me two months’ home service. I have been promised that as soon as a new -Canadian ruling on home leave is confirmed, my application for leave will go -through. - -If that happens, I shall cable you at once that I am coming. It doesn’t seem -at all possible or true that this can be so, and I’m making myself no promises -till I’m really on the boat. It would be better that you should not, also. I’m -taking a gamble and am going to order a new tunic for the occasion this -afternoon. - -It’s a golden afternoon outside—the kind that turns the leaves red at -Kootenay, with the tang of iced wine in the air. The sound of London is like -the tumming of a thousand banjos. It’s good to be alive, and very wonderful -after all that has happened. - -Note.—Lieutenant Coningsby Dawson arrived at Quebec on 26th September and came -home on the following day. He was at home for a month. During that time he -spoke in public on several occasions, and wrote the book which was brought out -the following spring, entitled “The Glory of the Trenches.” - - -XIV - -Somewhere on the Atlantic November 11, 1917 - -Here’s the first letter since I left New York, coming to you. It’s seven in -the morning; I’m lying in my bunk, expecting any minute to be called to my -bath. - -So far it’s been a pleasant voyage, with rolling seas and no submarines. There -are scarcely a hundred passengers, of whom only four are ladies, in the first -class. The men are Government officials, Army and Navy officers going on -Cook’s Tours, and Naval attachés. The American naval men are an especially -fine type. We do all the usual things—play cards, deck-golf and sleep -immoderately, but always at the wrong times. - -I’m going back for the second time, and going back in the most placid frame of -mind. I compare this trip with my first trip over as a soldier. I was awfully -anxious then, and kept saying good-bye to things for the last time. Now I live -day by day in a manner which is so take-it-for-granted as to be almost -commonplace. I’ve locked my imagination away in some garret of my mind and the -house of my thoughts is very quiet. - -What bricks you all were in the parting—there wasn’t any whining—you were a -real soldier’s family, and I felt proud of you. It was just a kind of “Good -luck, old chap”—with all the rest of the speaking left to the eyes and hands. -That’s the way it should be in a world that’s so full of surprises. - -This trip has done a tremendous lot for me—I shall always know now that the -trenches are not the whole of the horizon. Before, when I landed in France, it -seemed as though a sound-and sight-proof curtain had dropped behind and -everything I had known and loved was at an end. One collects a little bit of -shrapnel and, heigho, presto! one’s home again. On my second trip, the war -won’t seem such a world without end. - -To-night I have to pack—that’s wonderful, too. I’m wondering whether Reggie -will be on the station. I shall send a telegram to warn him. - - -XVI - -The Ritz Hotel, London November 11, 1917 - -This was the date at which I had to report back at Headquarters. Actually I -reported back yesterday, because to-day is Sunday. I found that I had been -detailed not for France, but for work under the High Commissioner. You know -what such news means to me. I at once did my best to fight the order, but was -told that it was a military order in which I had no choice. I start work -to-morrow at Oxford Circus House, but shall put in an urgent request to go to -France.-I shall at least try to get some limitations to the period of my stay -in England. Even when I was in hospital I used to feel that the last -stretcher-case out of the fighting was someone to be worshipped—he was nearer -to the sacrifice than I. And now I’m not to go back for months, perhaps—I -shall eat my heart out in England. - -Reggie fell asleep and has just wakened. He was dreaming, he said, the best -dream in the world. It was that he might land back in New York on 20th -December and spend Christmas with you—then go up to Kootenay to get a glimpse -of his little green home among the snow and apple trees and—— “And then what?” - -I asked. He made a wry face. “Go back to hunting submarines,” he said quickly. -Go back! We all want to go back. Why? Because it’s so easy to find reasons for -not going back probably. I shall raise heaven and earth to be sent back—and -you’ll be glad of it. - -There’s something that I shouldn’t tell you were I going back to-morrow. Last -week I met one of my gunners on leave. He was standing on the island in -Piccadilly Circus. I learnt from him that every officer who was with me at the -battery when I was wounded has since been wiped out. Even some who joined -since have been done for. Three have been killed, the rest wounded, gassed, -and the major has gone out with concussion. Among the killed is poor S., the -one who was my best friend in France, You remember he had a young wife, and -his first baby was born in February. He used to carry the list of all the -people I wanted written to if I were killed, and I had promised to do the same -for him. In addition to the officers, many of the men whom I admired have -“gone west.” All this was told me casually in the heart of London’s pleasure, -with the taxis and buses streaming by. - -A few days ago a pitiful derelict of the streets crossed my path. I’d been -dining out in the West End with L. and P. and was on my way back, when a girl -stopped me. She stopped me for the usual reason, and I suppose I refused her -rudely. The next thing I knew she was crying. She said she had been walking -for twelve hours, and was cold and tired, and ready to fall from weariness. It -was very late, and I scarcely knew where to take her, but we found a little -French restaurant open in Gerrard Street. On coming into the light, I -discovered that she had a little toy dog under her arm, just as tired of life -as herself. It was significant that she attended to the dog’s before her own -needs. We had to tempt it with milk before it would eat—then she set to work -herself ravenously. I learnt her story by bits. She was a discharged munition -worker, had strained herself lifting shells, and hadn’t the brains or strength -for anything but the streets. When she left the restaurant the lap-dog was -again tucked beneath her arm. It was nearly midnight when she disappeared in -the raw chilliness of the scant electric light. People die worse deaths than -on battle-fields. - -Wednesday.—I’ve been working for the last three days at the Minister’s, and -still have no inkling of what is to happen to me. My major walked in to-day; -he wants me to wait till his sick-leave is over, after which we can return -together. He’ll put in a strong personal request for me to be allowed to -return. He got concussion of the brain eight weeks ago through a shell -bursting in his dug-out. S. was wounded at the same time, but didn’t go out -till next day. He had got one hundred yards from the battery when he and his -batman were killed instantly by the same shell. - -Reggie wasn’t in town when I arrived. He didn’t meet me till Friday. What with -playing with him and working here I don’t get much time for writing. But -you’ll hear from me again quite soon. - - -XVII - -The Ritz, London November 15, 1917 - -This hanging round London seems a very poor way to help win a war. I couldn’t -stand very much of it, however invaluable they pretended I was, when my pals -are dying out there. Poor old S.! He’s in my thoughts every hour of the day. -He was always getting new photos of his little daughter. He longed for a -Blighty that he might see her again. He was wounded, but stopped on duty for -two days. At last, only one hundred yards down the trench on his way to the -dressing-station a shell caught him. He was dead in an instant. Before the -Vimy show two of our chaps in the mess had peculiar dreams: one saw D.’. grave -and the other S.’.. Both S. and D. are dead. The effect that all this has on -me is not what might be expected—makes me the more anxious to get back. I hate -to think that others are going sleepless and cold and are in danger, and that -I am not there. When the memory comes at meal-times I feel like leaving the -table. - -It was ripping to hear from you last night. Your letter greeted me as I -returned from the theatre. We’d been out with my major. At the theatre we -picked up with a plucky chap, named K., who belonged to the same battery as -B., to whom, you remember, I was carrying a present from some girl in New -York. The present which she was so keen should reach him by Christmas turned -out to be a neck-tie which she had knitted for him. On asking K., I found out -that B. was killed on October 31st. It’s the same story all the time so far as -the 18-pounders are concerned. - -When Reggie leaves me I’m going to start on another book, Out to Win, which is -to be an interpretation for England of the new spirit which is animating -America, and a plea for a closer sense of kinship between my two nations. - -Don’t worry about me, you’ll get a cabled warning before I go to France. My -major expects to go back in a month or two, and we’ve arranged to return -together if possible. But you needn’t get worried—I’m afraid I shall probably -spend Christmas in London. - - -XVIII - -The Ritz, London November 17, 1917 - -Your minds can be at rest as regards my safety for a few weeks at least. I’ve -been collared for fair, but I think I’ll manage to get free again presently. I -suppose you’ll say that I’m a donkey to want so much to get back to the Front; -perhaps I am—the war will last quite long enough for every man in khaki to get -very much more of it than he can comfortably stomach. The proper soldierly -attitude is to take every respite as it turns up and be grateful for it. But -then I’m not a professional soldier. I think in saying that I’ve laid my -finger on the entire reason for the splendour of our troops—that they’re not -professional soldiers, but civilian idealists. Your professional soldier isn’t -particularly keen on death—his game is to live that he may fight another day. -Our game is to fight and fight and fight so long as we have an ounce of -strength left. My major and myself are all that are left of the officers in my -battery. A great many of our best men are gone. They need us back to help them -out. - -Here’s a story of stories—one which answers all the questions one hears asked -as to whether the Army doesn’t lower a man’s morals and turn saints into -blackguards. - -When we were on the Somme, a batch of very worthless-appearing remounts -arrived at our wagon-lines direct from England. When they were paraded before -us, they made the rottenest impression—they looked like molly-coddles whom the -Army had cowed. Among them was a particularly inoffensive-looking young man -who had been a dental student, whom, if the Huns could have seen him as a -sample of the kind of reinforcements we were getting, they would certainly -have taken new courage to win the war. All the officers growled and prayed God -for a consignment of the old rough-and-tumble knockabout chaps who came out of -gaols, from under freight-trains, and from lumber-camps to die like -gentlemen—the only gentlemanly thing some of them ever did, I expect—with the -Canadian First Contingent. - -A few weeks later we sent back to the wagonlines for a servant to be sent up -to the guns, two of our batmen having been killed and a third having been -returned to duty. The wagon-line officer sent us up this fellow with the -following note: “I’m sending you X. He’s the most useless chap I have—not bad, -but a ninny. I hope he’ll suit you.” He didn’t. He could never carry out an -order correctly, and seemed scared stiff: by any N.C.O. or officer. We got rid -of him promptly. When he returned to the wagon-lines, he was put on to all the -fatigues and dirty jobs. - -The first time we got any hint that the chap had guts was when we were out at -rest at Christmas. He’d been shifted from one section to another, because no -one wanted him.. Each new Number One as he received him put him on to his -worst horses, so as to get rid of him the more quickly. The chap was grooming -a very ticklish mare, when she up with her hind-legs and caught him in the -chest, throwing him about twenty yards into the mud. He lay stunned for a full -minute; we thought he was done. Then, in a dazed kind of way, he got upon his -feet. He was told he could fall out, but he insisted upon finishing the -grooming of his horse. When the stable parade was dismissed, much against his -will he was sent to be inspected by the Brigade doctor. - -The doctor looked him over and said, “I ought to send you out to a hospital, -but I’ll see how you are to-morrow. You must go back to your billets and keep -quiet. The kick has chipped the point of your breast-bone.” - -“It didn’t,” said Driver X., “and I’m not going to lie down.” - -The doctor, who is very small, looked as much like the Last Judgment as his -size would allow. “You’ll do what you’re told,” he said sharply. “You’ll find -yourself up for office if you speak to me like that. If I told you that both -your legs were broken, they would be broken. You don’t know very much about -the Army, my lad.” - -“But my breast-bone isn’t chipped,” he insisted. Contrary to orders he was out -on the afternoon parade and was up to morning stables next day at six o’clock. -When strafed for his disobedience, he looked mild and inoffensive and -obstinate. He refused to be considered, and won out. You can punish chaps for -things like that; but you don’t. - -The next thing we noticed about him was that he was learning to swear. Then he -began to look rough, so that no one would have guessed that he came from a -social grade different from that of the other men. And this was the stage he -had arrived at when I got wounded last summer and left the battery. The story -of his further progress was completed for me this week when I met my major in -town. - -“Who’s the latest hero, do you think?” he questioned. “You’d never guess—the -dental student. He did one of the most splendid bits of work that was ever -done by an Artillery driver.” - -Here’s what he did. He was sent along a heavily shelled road at nightfall to -collect material from blown-in dug-outs for building our new battery position. -He was wheel-driver on a G.S. wagon which had three teams hooked into it. -There was a party of men with him to scout up the material and an N.C.O. in -charge. As they were halted, backed up against an embankment, a shell landed -plumb into the wagon, crippling it badly, wounding all the horses and every -man except the ex-dental student. The teams bolted, and it was mainly due to -the efforts of the wheel-driver that the stampede was checked. He must have -used quite a lot of language which really polite people would not have -approved. He then bound up all the wounds of his comrades—there was no one to -help him—and took them back to the field dressing-station two at a time, -mounted on two of the least wounded horses. When he had carried them all to -safety, he removed their puttees and went back alone along the shelled road to -the wounded horses and used the puttees to stop their flow of blood. He -managed to get the wagon clear, so that it could be pulled. He tied four of -the horses on behind; hooked in the two that were strongest, and brought the -lot back to the wagonlines single-handed. - -And here’s the end of the story. The O.C. put in a strong recommendation that -he be decorated for his humanity and courage. The award came through in the -record time of fourteen days, with about a yard of Military Medal ribbon and -congratulations from high officers all along the line. The morning of the day -it came through thieving had been discovered in the battery, and a warning had -been read out that the culprit was suspected, and that it would go hard with -him when he was arrested. The decoration was received in the afternoon while -harness-cleaning was in progress. Without loss of time the O.C. went out, a -very stern look on his face, and had the battery formed up in a hollow square. -There was only one thought in the men’s heads—that the thief had been found. -There was a kind of “Is it I” look in their faces. Without explanation, the -O.C. called upon the ex-dental student to fall out. He fell out with his knees -knocking and his chin wobbling, looking quite the guilty party. Then the O.C. -commenced to read all the praise from officers at Brigade, Division, Corps, -Army, of the gallant wheel-driver who had not only risked his life to save his -pals, but had even had the fineness of forethought to bind up the horses’ -wounds with the puttees. Then came the yard of Military Medal ribbon, a piece -of which was snipped off and pinned on to the lad’s worn tunic. The battery -yelled itself crimson. The dental student had learnt to swear, but he’d won -his spurs. He’s been promoted to the most dangerous and coveted job for a -gunner or driver in the artillery; he’s been put on to the B.C. party, which -has to go forward into all the warm spots to observe the enemy and to lay in -wire with the infantry when a “show” is in progress. Can you wonder that I get -weary of seeing the London buses trundle along the well-swept asphalt of -Oxford Street and long to take my chance once more with such chaps? - - -XIX - -London - -November 29, 1917 - -Here’s such a November London day as no American ever imagines. A feeling of -spring and greenness is in the air, and a glint of subdued gold. This morning -as I came across Battersea Bridge it seemed as though war could not be—that, -at worst, it was only an incident. The river lay below me so old and -good-humoured—in front Cheyne Walk comfortably ancient and asleep. Through the -chimneys and spires of the distant city blue scarfs of mist twisted and -floated. Everything looked very happy. Boys—juvenile cannon-fodder—went -whistling along the streets; housemaids leant shyly out of upstairs windows, -shaking dusters to attract their attention. In the square by the Chelsea -Pensioners, soldiers, all spit and polish, were going through their -foot-drill; they didn’t look too earnest about it—not at all as if in two -months they would be in the trenches. It’s the same with the men on leave—they -live their fourteen days with cheery common sense as though they were going to -live for ever. It’s impossible, even when you meet the wounded, to discover -any signs of tragedy in London. The war is referred to as “good old war,” “a -bean-feast,” “a pretty little scrap,” but never as an undertaking of blood and -torture. Last night there was strong moonlight, very favourable to an air -raid. When I bought my paper this morning, the fat woman, all burst out and -tied in at the most unexpected places, remarked to me with an air of -disappointment: “They fergot h’us.” - -“Who forgot us?” I asked. - -“The bloomin’ 'Uns. I wus h’expecting them lawst night.” - -She spoke as though she’d had tea ready and the kettle boiling for a dear -friend who had mis-remembered his engagement. England has set out to behave as -if there was no death; she’s jolly nearly succeeded in eliminating it from her -thoughts. She’s learnt the lesson of the chaps in the front-line trenches, and -she’s like a mother—like our mother—who has sons at the war—she’s going to -keep on smiling so as not to let her fellows down. - -All the streets are full of girls in khaki—girls with the neatest, trimmest -little ankles. The smartest of all are the Flying Corps girls, many of whom -drive the army cars in the most daring manner. When you think of what they are -and were, the war hasn’t done so badly for them. They were purposeless before. -Their whole aim was to get married. They felt that they weren’t wanted in the -world. They broke windows with Mother Pankhurst. Now they’ve learnt discipline -and duty and courage. They’d man the trenches if we’d let them. They used to -sneer at our sex; whether they married or remained single, quite a number of -them became man-haters. But now—that kind of civil war is ended. Ask the young -subaltern back on leave how much he is disliked by the girls. Babies and home -have become the fashion. I received quite a shock last Sunday when I was -saluted by one of these girls—saluted in a perfectly correct and soldierly -fashion. The idea is right; if they outwardly acknowledge that they are a part -of the Army, military discipline becomes their protection. But what a queer, -changed world from the world of sloppy blouses, cheap and much-too-frequent -jewellery, and silly sentimental ogling! England’s become more alert and -forthright; despite the war, she’s happier. This isn’t meant for a -glorification of war; it’s simply a statement of fact. The time had to come -when women would become men; they’ve become men in this most noble and womanly -fashion—through service. They’re doing men’s jobs with women’s alacrity. - -There is only one thing that will keep me from rejoining my battery in -January, and that’s this American book. We have come to the conclusion that to -complete the picture of American determination to win out, I ought to go on a -tour of inspection in France. The Government is interested in the book for -propaganda work. The extreme worthwhileness of such an undertaking would -reconcile me to a postponement of my return to the Front—nothing else will. -All the papers here are full of the details of the advance at Cambrai. I want -to be “out there” so badly. What does it matter that there’s mud in the -trenches, and death round every traverse, and danger in each step? It’s the -hour of glorious life I long for; for such an hour I would exchange all the -sheeted beds and running bath-taps, not to mention the æons of Cathay. I can -see those gunners forcing up their guns through the mire, and can hear the -machine guns clicking away like infuriated typewriters. The whole gigantic -pageant of death and endeavour moves before me—and I’m sick of clubs and -safety. People say to me, “You’re of more use here—you can serve your country -better by being in England.” But when chaps are dying I want to take my chance -with them. Don’t be afraid I’ll be kept here. I won’t. I didn’t know till I -was held back against my will what a grip that curious existence at the Front -had got on me. It isn’t the horror one remembers—it’s the exhilaration of the -glory. - -Cheer up, I’ll be home some Christmas to fill your Christmas stocking. It -won’t be this Christmas—perhaps not the next; but perhaps the next after that. -The young gentlemen from the Navy will be there too to help me. It’s a -promise. - -I was present at the opening of the American Officers’ Club by the Duke of -Connaught. This club is the private house of Lord Leconfield. Other people -have presented furniture, pictures, and money. It costs an American officer -next to nothing, and is the best attempt that has been made to give a welcome -to the U.S.A. in London. It’s the most luxurious club in the West End at -present. - - -XX - -London - -December 10, 1917 - -I got a letter from the Foreign Office, asking me to go back to America to do -writing and lecturing for the British Mission. I’m sure you’ll appreciate why -I refused it, and be glad. I couldn’t come back to U.S.A. to talk about -nobilities when their sons and brothers are getting their first baptism of -fire in the trenches. If I’d got anything worth saying I ought to be out there -in the mud—saying it in deeds. But I’ve told Colonel B. that if ever I come -out again wounded I will join the British Mission for a time. So now you have -something to look forward to. - -I hear though that permission will probably be granted to me within the next -few days to start for France to go through the American lines and activities. -You can guess how interesting that will be to me. I only hope they have a -fight on while I’m in the American lines. I suppose the tour will take me the -best part of a month, so I’ll be away from England for Christmas. I rather -hope I’ll be in Paris—ever since reading Trilby I’ve longed to go to the -Madeleine for Noël—which reminds me that I must get Trilby to read on the -journey. It’s rather a romantic life that I’m having nowadays, don’t you -think? I romp all over the globe and, in the intervals, have a crack at the -Germans. - -After I have finished writing this book on the American activities in France I -shan’t be content a moment till I’ve rejoined my battery. I feel a terrible -shyster stopping away from the fighting a day longer than can be helped. This -book, which I intend to be a spiritual interpretation of the soul of America, -ought to do good to Anglo-American relations; so it seems of sufficiently -vital importance. I can’t think of anything that would do more to justify the -blotting out of so many young lives than that, when the war is ended, England -and America should have reason to forget the last hundred and thirty years of -history, joining hands in a worldwide Anglo-Saxon alliance against the future -murdering of nations. If I can contribute anything towards bringing that -about, the missing of two months in the trenches will be worth it. - -I went to a “good luck” dinner the other night, which we gave to my major on -the occasion of his setting sail for Canada. Two others of the officers who -used to be with me in the battery are to be on the same ship. A year ago in -the Somme we used to pray for a Blighty—to-day, every officer in our mess has -either got a Blighty or is dead. It gives one some idea of the brevity of our -glory. - -You’d love the West End shops were you here. I’ve just drawn down my blinds on -Oxford Street; I walked back by way of Regent Street after lunch—all the -windows are gay and full. Men in khaki are punting their girls through the -crowds, doing their Christmas shopping. You can see the excited faces of -little children everywhere. There doesn’t seem to be much hint of war. One -wonders whether people are brave to smile so much or only careless. You hear -of tremendous lists of casualties, but there are just as many men. It looks as -though we had man-power and resources to carry on the war interminably. -There’s only one class of person who is fed-up—and that’s the person who has -done least sacrificing. The person who has done none at all is a nervous wreck -and can’t stand the strain much longer. But ask the fighting men—they’re -perfectly happy and contented. Curious! When you’ve given everything, you can -always give some more. - -This may reach you before Christmas, though I doubt it. If it does, be as -merry as we shall be, though absent. - - -XXI - -London - -December 10, 1917 - -I hope you feel as I do about my refusal of Colonel B.’. offer to send me back -to America on the British Mission. I was also approached to-day to do press -work for the Canadians. It seems as though everyone was conspiring to throw -tempting plums in my way to keep me from returning to the Front. I don’t know -that I’m much good as a soldier; probably I’m very much better as a writer; -but it’s as though my soul, my decency, my honour were at stake—I must get -back to the Front. The war is going to be won by men who go back to the -trenches in the face of reason and common sense. If I had a leg off I should -try for the Flying Corps. I may be a fool in the Front line, but I won’t be -finished as a fighting man till I’m done. They can keep all their cushy jobs -for other chaps—I want the mud and the pounding of the guns. It doesn’t really -matter if one does get killed, provided he’s set a good example. Do you -remember that sermon we heard Dr. Jowett give about St. Paul at Lystra, going -back after they had stoned him? “Back to the stones”—that expresses me -exactly. I hate shell-fire and discomfort and death as much as any other man. -But I’d rather lose everything than have to say good-bye to my standard of -heroism. I don’t want to kill Huns particularly, but I do want to prove to -them that we’re the better men. I can’t do that by going through oratorical -gymnastics in America or by writing racy descriptions of the Canadians’ -bravery for the international press. I shall be less than nothing when I -return to France—merely subaltern whose life isn’t very highly valued. But in -my heart I shall know myself a man. There’s no one understands my motive but -you three, who have most to lose by my cripplement or death. All my friends -over here think me an ass to throw away such chances—they say I’m economically -squandering myself in the place where I’m least trained to do the best work. I -know they talk sense; but they don’t talk chivalry. If every man took the -first chance offered him to get out of the catastrophe, where would the Huns’ -offensive end? - -You’ve probably been writing hard at The Father of a Soldier, and saying all -that you would like to say to me in that. I’m most anxious to see the -manuscript of it. If you please, how could the son of the man who wrote that -book accept a cushy job? - -I wonder if you’ve reached the point yet where you don’t think that dying -matters? I suspect you have. You remember what Roosevelt said after seeing his -last son off, “If he comes back he’ll have to explain to me the why and how.” -That’s the Japanese spirit—honour demands when a man returns from battle that -he can give good reasons why he is not dead. Others, his friends and comrades, -are dead; how does he happen to be living? In that connection I think of -Charlie S., lying somewhere in the mud of Ypres, with an insignificant cross -above his head. He won a dozen decorations which were not given him. He had a -baby whom he had only seen once. He was my pal. Why should I live, while he is -dead? I can always hear him singing in the mess in a pleasant tenor voice. We -used to share our affections and our troubles. He was what the Canadians call -“a white man.” I can’t see myself living in comfort while he is dead. It’s odd -the things one remembers about a man. We got the idea in the Somme that oil on -the feet would prevent them from becoming frozen. One time when Charlie was -going up forward we hadn’t any oil, so he used brilliantine. It smelt of -violets, and we made the highest of game of him. Poor old Charlie, he doesn’t -feel the cold now! - -I’m afraid I’ve written a lot of rot in this letter—I’ve talked far too much -of a host of things which are better left unsaid. But I had to—I wanted to -make quite certain that you wouldn’t blame me for refusing safety. I’ve -relieved myself immensely by getting all of this off my chest. - - -XXII - -London - -December 17, 1917 - -I’m waiting for Eric, and, while waiting, propose to tell you the story of my -past few days. I think when you’ve come to the end of my account you’ll agree -that I’ve been mixing my drinks considerably with regard to the personalities -whose acquaintance I have made. - -On Friday evening I was invited to dinner by Lieutenant C., the American Navy -man with whom I crossed in November. I met—whom do you think?—George -Grossmith, Leslie Henson, Julia James, Madge Saunders, and Lord C————. - -I may say that Lord C————is not a member of the Gaiety Company, though I seem -to have included him. The occasion was really the weekly dinner given by the -American Officers’ Club; the Gaiety Company was there to entertain. I think it -is typical of England’s attitude towards the American Army that people from -such different walks of life should have been present to do the U.S.A. honour. -Lord C————is a splendid type of old-fashioned courtier, with a great, kindly, -bloodhound face. He had ensigns and officers of whatsoever rank brought to -him, and spoke to them with the fine manly equality of the true-bred -aristocrat. It was amusing to see the breezy American boys quite -unembarrassed, most of them unaware of Lord C————'s political eminence, -exchanging views in the friendliest of fashions, while the old gentleman, -keeping seated, leaning forward on his stick with one hand resting attentively -on a young fellow’s arm, expressed his warm appreciation of America’s -eagerness. - -Grossmith was in the uniform our boys wear—that of a lieutenant in the -R.N.V.R. Leslie Henson is now a mechanic in the motor-transport by day and a -Gaiety star in the evenings. He says that it costs him much money to cure the -ache which the Army gives to his back—but he continues to do his “bit” by day -and to amuse Tommies home on leave in the evenings. - -Next day, Saturday, I went down to Bath to meet Raemaekers, the Dutch -cartoonist. Mr. Lane was our host. Raemaekers is a great man. On the journey I -tried to picture him. I saw him as a pale-faced man, with lank black hair and -a touch of the Jew about him. I rather expected to find him worn and slightly -more than middle-aged, with nervous hands and hollow eyes. I reminded myself -that of the world’s artists, he was the only one who had risen to the -sheerness of the occasion. He expresses the conscience of the aloof -cosmopolitan as regards Germany’s war-methods. England, incurably -good-humoured, has only Bairnsfather’s comic portrayals of Old Bill to place -beside this indignant Dutchman’s moral hatred of Hun cruelty. From the station -I went to the Bath Club; there I met not at all what I had imagined. He looks -like a Frans Hals burgher, comfortable, with a high complexion, a small -pointed beard, chestnut hair, and searching grey eyes. His charity of -appearance belies him, for his eyes and mouth have a terrific purpose. His -hands are the hands of a fighting man which crush. You would pass him in the -street as unremarkable unless he looked at you—his eyes are daggers which stop -you dead. - -There were four of us at lunch—he sat at my right and we talked like a river -in flood. He’s just back from America, thrilled by the Americans’ -unimpassioned, lawful thoroughness. He had found something akin to his own -temperament in the nation’s genius—the same capacity to brush aside -facetiousness in a crisis, and to attain a Hebrew prophet’s faculty for -hatred. One doesn’t want to laugh when women lie dead in the ash-pits of -Belgium. I have been with him many hours and have scarcely seen him smile, and -yet his face is kindly. As you know, the Kaiser had set a price upon his head. -His death would mean more to the Hun than the destruction of many British -Divisions. He has pilloried the Kaiser’s beastliness for all time. When future -ages want to know what the Kaiser said to Christ, they will find it all in the -thousand Raemaekers’ sketches. Traps have been laid for his capture from time -to time. Submarines have been dispatched with orders to take him alive. He -knows what awaits him if such plans should meet with success—a lingering, -tortured death; consequently he travels armed, and has promised his wife to -blow his brains out the moment he is captured. We talked of many things—of the -Hague and H. among other things. He knew the P.’., and drew a sketch of Mr. P. -on the tablecloth with his pencil. I tried to purchase the tablecloth that I -might send it to America, but the club secretary was before me. - -In the afternoon I went to the railway-station and spoke with a porter who was -pushing a barrow—Henry Chappell, who wrote “The Day”—the first war-poet of -1914. As luck would have it, it was Saturday, the day upon which John Lane had -brought out his volume of poems; it was rather pathetic to find him carrying -on with his humble task on the proudest afternoon of his life. I told him how -I had seen his poem pasted up in prominent places all the way from the -Atlantic to the Pacific. He smiled in a patient fashion, and said that he had -heard about it. I understand that he made one hundred pounds out of this poem -and gave it all to the Red Cross. A gentleman, if you want to find one! I -asked him if he didn’t look forward to promotion now. He shook his head -gravely—he liked portering. At parting I shook his hand, but, when I had -dropped it, he touched his cap—and touched my heart in the doing of it. - -On Sunday I was back in town. Eric turned up this morning, looking gallant and -smiling, with an exceedingly glad eye. He’s just the same as he always was, -discontented with his job because he thinks it’s too safe and trying to find -one more dangerous. We’re going to have a great time together, unless I get my -marching orders from the Foreign Office. - -I lunched with Raemaekers at Claridge’s today and have just come back. He’s an -elemental moralist, encased in a burgher’s exterior. He affects me with a -sense of restrained power. One is surprised to see him eating like other men. -How I wish that I could detest as he detests! And yet he has heart in plenty. -He told me a story of a French battalion going out to die. The last soldier -stepped out of the ranks towards his colonel, who was weeping for his men who -would not come back. Flinging his arms about his commanding officer, he kissed -him and said, “Do not fear, my Colonel; we shall not disgrace you.” He has an -eye for magnanimity, that man. - - -XXIII - -London - -December 31, 1917 - -This foggy London morning early your three letters from 5th to 18th December -arrived. I jumped out of bed, lit the gas, retreated under the blankets, and -devoured them, leaning on my elbow. - -This is the last day of the old year—a quaint old year it has been for all of -us. I commenced it quite reconciled to the thought that it would be my last; -and here I am, while poor Charlie S. and so many other fellows whom I loved -are dead. It only shows how very foolish it is to anticipate trouble, for the -last twelve months have been the very best and richest of my life. If I were -to die now, I should feel that I had at least done something with my handful -of years. - -I’d like to have another glimpse of America now that in the face of reverses -she has grown sterner. It’s certain at last that there’ll be a lot of American -boys who won’t come back. They’re going to be real soldiers, going to go over -the top and to endure all the fierce heroisms of an attack. It’s cruel to say -so, but it’s better for America’s soul that she should have her taste of -battle after all the shouting. - -On Saturday F. R. came to see us. He’s home on leave. He and P. and I sitting -down together after all the years that have intervened since we were at Oxford -together! As F. expressed it, blinking through his spectacles, “Doesn’t it -seem silly that I should be dressed up like this and that you should be -dressed like that?” He went out in January as a second lieutenant, and -returned commanding his battalion. God moves in a mysterious way, doesn’t He? -One can’t help wondering why some should “go west” at once and others should -be spared. Bob H., who was also with us at Oxford, as you will remember, -lasted exactly six days. The first day in the trenches he was wounded, but not -sufficiently to go out. The sixth day he was killed. - -Did I tell you that there’s a nerve hospital near here crowded with -nerve-shattered babies on one floor and nerve-shattered Tommies on the next? -The babies are all dressed in red and the Tommies in the usual hospital blue. -Each day the shell-shocked chaps go up to visit the children; the moment the -door opens and the blue figures appear, the little red crowd stretch out their -arms and cry, “My soldier! My soldier!” for each Tommy has his own particular -pet. When a child gets a nervous attack, it is often only the one particular -soldier who can do the soothing. Who’d think that men fresh from the carnage -could be so tender! And people say that war makes men brutal. Humph! - - -XXIV - -A French Port - -January 3, 1918 - -Here I am again in France and extraordinarily glad to be here. I feel that I’m -again a part of the game—I couldn’t feel that while I was in London. I landed -here this morning and arrive in Paris to-night. The crossing was one of the -quietest. I know a lot of people didn’t lie down at all, and still others -slept with their clothes on. Like a sensible fellow I crept into my berth at 9 -p.m., and slept like a top till morning. If we’d been submarined I shouldn’t -have known it. - -I feel tremendously elated by the thought of this new adventure, and intend to -make the most of it. As you know, nothing would have persuaded me to delay my -return to the Front except an opportunity for doing work of these dimensions. -I really do believe that I have the chance of a lifetime to do work of -international importance. I want to make the Americans feel that they have -become our kinsmen through the magnitude of their endeavour. And I want to -make the British shake off their reticence in applauding the magnanimity of -America’s enthusiasm. - -It’s been snowing here; but I don’t feel cold because of the warmth inside me. -The place where I am now is one of the pleasure-haunts which Eric and I -visited together in that golden summer of long ago. Little did I think that I -should be here next time in such belligerent attire and on such an errand. -Life’s a queer kaleidoscope. But, oh, for such another summer, with the long -secure peace of July days, and the whole green world to wander! One doubts -whether El Dorado will ever come again. - -I see the girl-soldiers of England everywhere nowadays. A reinforcing draft -crossed over with me on the steamer—high complexions and laughing faces, trim -uniforms and tiny ankles. They’re brave! It’s a pity we can’t give them a -chance of just one crack at the Huns. But they have to stop behind the lines -and drive lorries, and be good girls, and beat typewriters. Their little -girl-officers are mighty dignified. What a gallant world! I wouldn’t have it -otherwise. - -For me the New Year is starting well. I face it in higher spirits than any of -its predecessors. And well I may, for I didn’t expect to be alive to greet -1918. I hope you are all just as much on the crest of the wave in your hopes -and anticipations. Nothing can be worse than some of the experiences that lie -behind—and that’s some comfort. Nothing can be more chivalrous than the -opportunities which lie before us. - -So here’s good-bye to you from France once again. - - -XXV - -Paris January 8, 1918 - -Here I am in Paris, starting on my new adventure of writing the story of what -the Americans are doing in the war. I left England on 2nd January, which was a -Wednesday, and arrived here Thursday evening. As you know, while I was in the -Front line I had very little idea of what France at war was like. One crossed -from England, clambered on a military train with all the windows smashed, had -a cold night journey, and found himself at once among the shell-holes. I was -very keen on seeing what Paris was like; now that I’ve seen it, it’s very -difficult to describe. It’s very much the same as it always was—only while its -atmosphere was once champagne, now it is a strong, still wine. As in England, -only to a greater extent, women are doing the work of men. The streets are -full of the wounded—not the wounded with well-fitted artificial limbs that you -see in London, but with ordinary wooden stumps, etc. Our English wounded are -always gay and laughing—determined to treat the war as a humorous episode to -the end. The French wounded are grave, afflicted, and ordinary. I think the -Frenchman, with an emotional honesty of which we are incapable, has from the -first viewed the war as a colossal Calvary, and has seen it against the -historic skyline of a travailing world. Never by speech or gesture has he -disguised the fact that he, as an individual, is engaged in a fore-ordained -and unparalleled adventure of sacrifice. The Englishman, self-conscious of his -own heroic gallantry, cloaks his fineness with pretended indifference and has -succeeded in deceiving the world. Our sportsmanship in the face of death -impresses more complex nations as irreligion. So while London is outwardly -gayer than ever, Paris has a stiff upper lip, a look of sternness in its eyes, -and very little laughter on its mouth. By nine-thirty in the evening every -restaurant is closed, and the streets are empty till the soldiers on leave -troop out from the theatres. - -As for the food, I have seen no shortage in France as yet. You can get plenty -of butter and sugar, whereas in London margarine is rare and sugar is doled -out. The talk of France being ex hausted is all rubbish; you can feel the -muscles of a great nation struggling the moment you land. - -I have had a most kindly and helpful reception from the American Press -Division. They have realized with the usual American quickness of mind the -importance of what I propose to do. One of their officers starts out with me -to-night on my first tour of military activities. It will take about five -days. I then return to Paris to write up what I have seen, and afterwards set -out again in a new direction. If I take the proper advantage of my -opportunities, I ought to get an amazingly interesting lot of material. - -Saturday I was lucky enough to secure a car, and went the round of my -introductions, to the British Embassy and your friends from Newark. - -I’ve been to two theatres. The audiences were composed for the most part of -soldiers on leave—American, British, Canadian, Australian, Belgian, French, -with the merest sprinkling of civilians. Sunday I walked through the -Luxembourg, most of the galleries of which are closed. Afterwards I walked in -the Gardens and watched the Parisians sliding on the ice. For the moment they -forgot they were at war, and became children. There were little boys and -girls, soldiers with their sweethearts, fat old men and women, all running and -pushing and sliding and falling and chattering. I thought of Trilby with her -grave, kind eyes. Then I walked down the Boule Miche to Notre Dame, where -women were praying for their dead. - -To-day Paris is under snow, and again the child spirit has asserted itself. -Soldiers and sailors are pelting one another with snowballs in the streets, -and Jupiter continues to pluck his geese and send their feathers drifting down -the sky. - -This time last year I was marching into action with temperature of 104 -degrees, and you were reaching London, wondering whether I was truly coming on -leave. A queer year it has been; in spite of all our anticipations to the -contrary, we’re still alive. I wish we were to meet again this year, and we -may. We know so little. As Whitcomb Riley says in complete acceptance of human -fortuitousness, “No child knows when it goes to sleep.” - - -XXVI - -Paris - -January 13, 1918 - -About an hour ago I got into Paris from my first trip. I’ve been where M. and -I spent our splendid summer so many years ago, only now the river is spanned -with ice and the country is a grey-sage colour. From what I can see the -Americans are preparing as if for a war that is going to last for thirty -years. America is in the war literally to her last man and her last dollar; -when her hour comes to strike, she will be like a second England in the fight. - -I made my tour with an officer who was with Hoover three years in Belgium, and -who before that was a student in Paris. As a consequence, he speaks French -like a native. Every detail of my trip was arranged ahead by telephone and -telegram; automobiles were waiting. There is no pretence about the American -Army. My rank as lieutenant is, of course, quite inadequate to the task I have -undertaken. But the American high officer carries no side or swank. Having -produced my credentials, I am seated at the mess beside generals and allowed -to ask any questions, however searching. Everyone I have met as yet is hats -off to the English and the French—they go out of their way to make comparisons -which are in their own disfavour and unjust to themselves. I have been making -a particular study of their transport facilities and their artillery training. -Both are being carried out on a magnificently thorough scale. I undertake to -assert that they will have as fine artillery as can be found on the Western -Front by the time they are ready. I certainly never saw such painstaking and -methodical training. - -As you know, the phase of the war that I am particularly interested in is the -closeness of international relations that will result when the war is ended. -The tightening of bonds between the French, Americans and English can be daily -witnessed and felt. The Americans are loud in their praise of their French and -British instructors—the instructors are equally proud of their pupils. On the -street, in hotels and trains, the three races hobnob together. - -I came back to-day with a French artillery and cavalry officer—splendid -fellows. We had fought together on the Somme, we discovered, and had occupied -the same Front, though at separate times, at Vimy. The artilleryman was a -young French noble, and, as only noblemen can these days, had a car waiting -for him at the station He insisted on taking me to my hotel, and we parted the -most excellent friends. - -I have two days in which to write up my experiences, and on Tuesday I shall -set out on a tour in a new direction. So much I am able to tell you; the rest -will be in my book when it is published. - -This time last year we were together in London—how long ago it seems and -sounds! Years are longer and of more value than they once were. This year I’m -here. Next year where? This time next year the war will not be ended, I’m -certain, nor even the year after that, perhaps. The more we feel our strength, -the more we are called upon to suffer, the sterner will become our terms. - -It’s nearly eleven, my dear ones, and time that I was asleep. I have Henri -Bordeaux’s story of The Last Days of Fort Vaux beside me—it’s most heroic -reading. What shall we do when the gates of heroism grow narrow and peace has -been declared? Something spiritual will have gone out of life when the -challenge of the horrible is ended. - - -XXVII - -Paris - -January 19, 1918 - -I’m expecting to go to American Headquarters on Tuesday and to see something -of work immediately behind the lines. I find what I am doing exceptionally -interesting, and hope to do a good book on it. - -Wherever one goes the best men one meets are Hoover’s disciples from Belgium. -They tell extraordinary stories of the heroism of the patriots whom they knew -there—people by the score who duplicated Miss Cavell’s courage and paid the -penalty. Their experience of Hun brutality has somehow dulled their sense of -horror—they speak of it as something quite commonplace and to be expected. - -On Friday I saw Miss Holt’s work for the blind. She bears out for France all -that I have said about the amazing sharing of the wounded in England. One man -in her care was not only totally blind, but he had also lost both arms. In the -hospital there were men less grievously mutilated than himself, who hardly -knew how to endure their loss. For the sake of the cheeriness of his example, -he used to go round the ward with gifts of cigarettes, which he almost thought -he lit for the men himself, for he used to say to Miss Holt before undertaking -such a journey, “You are my hands.” - -We, in England, and still less in America, have never approached the loathing -which is felt for the Boche in France. Men spit as they utter his name, as -though the very word was foul in the mouth. Wherever you go lonely men or -women are pointed out to you; all of his or her family are behind the German -lines. We think we have suffered, but we have not sounded one fathom of this -depth of agony. On every hand I hear that the French Army is stronger than -ever, better equipped and more firm in its moral. As an impassioned Frenchman -said to me yesterday, his eyes blazing as he banged the table, “They shall not -pass. I say so—and I am France.” - -In the face of all this I do not wonder that the French misunderstand the easy -good-humour with which we English go out to die. In their eyes and with the -throbbing of their wounds, this war is a matter for neither good-humour nor -sportsmanship, but only for the indignant, inarticulate wrath of a Hebrew god. -If every weapon was taken from their hands and all the young men were gone, -with clenched fists those who were left would smite and smite to the last. It -is fitting that they should feel this way, but I’m glad that our English boys -can still laugh while they die. - -And now I’m going out on the Boulevards to get lunch. - - -XXVIII - -Paris - -January 30, 1918 - -Yesterday on my return to Paris I found all your letters awaiting me—a real -big pile which took me over an hour to read. The latest was written on New -Year’s Day in the throes of coal shortage and intense cold. Really it seems -absurd that you should be starved for warmth in America. Last week I was -within eighteen kilometres of the Front line staying in a hotel as luxurious -as the Astor, with plenty of heat and a hot bath at midnight in a private -bathroom. All the appointments and comforts were perfect; booming through the -night came the perpetual muttering of the guns. There were troops of all kinds -marching up for an attack; the villages were packed, but there was no -disorganization. - -Well, I’ve had a great trip this last time. I went to see refugee work—and saw -it. There were barracks full of babies—the youngest only six days’ old. There -were very many children who have been re-captured from the Huns. - -To-morrow I start off for the borders of Switzerland to see the repatriated -French civilians arrive. Then I go with the head of the Red Cross for a tour -to see the reconstruction work in the devastated districts. When that is -finished, I return to London to put my book together. I hope to get back to my -battery about the end of March. - -What a time I have had. A year ago it would have seemed impossible. I’ve -motored, gone by speeders and trains to all kinds of quiet and ancient places -which it would never have entered my head to visit in peace times. The -American soldier is everywhere, striking a strange note of modernity and -contrast. He sits on fences through the country-side, swinging his legs and -smoking Bull Durham, when he isn’t charging a swinging sack with a bayonet. He -is the particular pal of all the French children. - -I’m now due for a day of interviews and shall have to ring off. I rose at -seven this morning so as to write this letter. At the moment I’m sitting in a -deep arm-chair, with an electric lamp at my elbow. It’s an awful war! In less -than two months I’ll be sitting in clothes that I haven’t taken off for a -fortnight—the mud will be my couch and the flash of the guns my reading lamp. -It’s funny, but up there in the discomfort I shall be ten times more happy. - - -XXIX - -Paris - -February 13, 1918 - -I’ve not heard from you for two weeks—which is no fault of yours. There was a -delay in getting passports—so I’m only just back from the devastated districts -and get on board the train for London to-night. It’s exactly six weeks today -since I left England on this adventure. - -I’ve done a good many things since last I wrote you. Did I tell you that among -others I visited Miss Holt’s work for the blind? I can think of nothing which -does more to call out one’s sympathy than to sit among those sightless eyes. I -have talked about courage, but these men leave me appalled and silent. They -are covered with decorations—the Legion d’.onneur, etc. They all have their -stories. One, after he had been wounded and while there was still a chance of -saving his sight, insisted on being taken to his General that he might give -information about a German mine. When his mission was completed his chance of -ever seeing again was ended. - -On the way back I saw Joffre walking. I now know why they call him Papa -Joffre. He is huge, ungainly, and white and kind. Somehow he made me think of -a puppy—he had such an air of surprise. There was a premature touch of spring -in the tree-tops. The grand old man of France was aware of it—he looked as -though it were his first spring, so young in an ancient sort of way. He was -stopping all the time to watch the sparrows flying and the shrubs growing -misty with greenness. For all his braid and decorations he looked like an -amiable boy of splendid size. - -And then I went to Amiens. When I was in the line, it was always my dream to -get there. Our senior officers used to play hooky in Amiens and come back with -wonderful tales of sheeted beds and perpetual baths. I got there toward -evening and was met by a British Staff officer with a car. After dinner I -escaped him and wandered through the crooked streets, encountering everywhere -my dearly beloved British Tommy, straight out of the trenches for a few hours’ -respite. As I passed estaminets I could hear concertinas being played and -voices singing. It was London and heroism and home-sickness all muddled up -together that these voices sang. And they sang just one song. It is the first -song I heard in France, when the war was very much younger. When the war is -ended, I expect it will be the last. If the war goes on for another thirty -years, our Tommies will be singing it—wheezing it out on concertinas and -mouth-organs, in rain and sunshine, on the line of march, on leave or in their -cramped billets. Invincible optimists that they are—so ordinary, so -extraordinary, so good-humoured and mild! I peered in through the estaminets’ -windows of Amiens—there they sat with their equipment off, their elbows on the -table and their small beer before them. And here’s what they sang, as so many -who are dead have sung before them: - - “Après la guerre fini - Tous les soldats parti, - Mademoiselle 'ave a souvenir— - Apres la guerre fini.” - -After all my wandering along French and American fronts, I was back among my -own people. - -My final night in Amiens was equally typical. I went to the officers’ club and -found a sing-song in progress. There was a cavalry major there who had been in -the show at Cambrai. He was evidently a hunting-man, for he kept on getting -off his hunting calls whenever things threatened to become dull. Most of the -music was rag-time, which offended him very much. “Let’s sing something -English,” he kept on saying. So we gave him “John Peel,” “Hearts of Oak,” -“Drink to me only with thine Eyes”—and he went to bed happy. - -I had a good fast car, so using Amiens as our base we struck into the Aisne, -Oise, and Somme, covering a good many kilometres a day. In these districts the -Huns were masters a year ago—and now we are ploughing. The enemy withdrew from -these districts last March. Nearly all the demolition is wilful, and very -little of it is due to shell-fire. In town after town scarcely a house is left -standing—everything is gutted. The American Red Cross is trying to do -something to alleviate this distress. It was in a ruined château I found the -Smith College Unit and, much to my surprise, Miss W. from Newark, who had just -received a letter from M. She was wanting to go to Amiens, so we put her in -the car and took her back with us. - -I’m longing to get to England to read all your letters. I feel quite out of -touch. To-morrow I shall be in London. - -I was in Paris when the Huns were overhead, and saw one of them come down. The -calmness of the people was amazing. There was no dashing for the Métro or -other funk holes; only a contemptuous cheeriness. The French are great. - - -XXX - -London - -February 18, 1918 - -To-day I have made a start on my book Out to Win, and miss you very much. It’s -quite a difficult thing, I find, to really concentrate on literary work in a -strange environment. I wish I could take a magic powder and find myself back -in my own little study, with my own little family, till the book is written. - -Heaps of people I met in France were returning to America, and promised to -telephone you to say they had seen me. - -I stumbled across a most inspiring conversation which I overheard the other -day, and which, if I had time, I would work into a story, entitled “His Bit.” - -I was sitting in front of two women on a bus. - -“Well,” said one, “when they told me that Phil was married, you could 'ave -knocked me darn wiv a feather.” - -It transpired that Phil was a C3 class man, no good for active service. He had -met a girl, turned out into the streets by her parents because she was about -to have a child by a soldier now dead, whom she had not married. Phil, without -asking her any questions, did his “bit”—led her off and married her right away -because he was sorry for her. - -“And she ain’t a wicked girl,” said one of the good ladies on the bus. “She -didn’t mean no harm. She was just soft-like to a Tommy on leave, I expect. It -was 'ard lines on 'er. But that Phil—my goodness, he’ll make 'er a good -'usband. Is the child born? I should just fink so. 'E’s that proud, she might -be 'is own dawter. 'E carries 'er raund all over the plaice, Lord bless yer. -And 'is wife’s people, they can’t make too much of ’im. No, 'e’s not strong—a -C 3 man. I thought I told yer. She 'as ter work to 'elp ’im along. But between -’em——There! I’m 'ats h’orf to Phil. They’re a bloomin’ pair of love-birds.” - -I like to think of Phil, don’t you? I like to know that chaps like him are in -the world. He couldn’t fight the Germans; but he could play the man by a dead -soldier. - -That’s a little bit of real life to help you along. Now I’m going to knock off -and rest. - - -XXXI - -London - -February 24, 1918 - -I’m not spending much time on letter-writing just at present. From morning -till night, just as I did when I was writing The Glory of the Trenches, I -shove away at my new book. I am most anxious to get it creditably finished and -soon. The weather is getting quite ripping for the Front and I’m keen to be -back in time for the spring offensive. - -You’ll be pleased to know that, under my encouragement, your youngest son has -broken out into literature. He did it while I was away in France. And the -result is extraordinarily fine. He’s managed to fling the spirit of his job on -paper—it lives and gets you. When they are asked at the end of a patrol what -they have been doing, they answer, “Pushing Water”—so that he’s made that -answer his title. - -When I took the manuscript to W., he said: “But haven’t you another brother? -What’s he doing? Where’s his manuscript? And what about your mother and sister -in America, and your sister in Holland? Don’t tell me that they’re not all -writing?” - -At that moment I felt a deep sympathy for Solomon, who I’m sure must have been -a publisher. Only a publisher would say so tiredly: “Of making many books -there is no end.” - -On Tuesday another beastly birthday is due me—but I shan’t say anything about -it. I shall commence my new lease of life with a meat-card in my hand and no -prospect of being really fully fed till I get back to France. For the first -time England is feeling a genuine shortage. She isn’t particularly annoyed at -being rationed, but the worry you have over finding out how much you are -allowed to eat and where and when, causes people a good deal of trouble. My -own impression is that there is plenty of food in England at present, but that -we want to conserve it in order to be able to lend America our tonnage. - - -XXXII - -London March 31, 1919 - -Below my window, as I write, I can hear the stirring of the Strand. Newsboys -are calling the latest papers, motor-horns hoot, and the million feet of -London, each pair with their own separate story, clatter against the pavement. -What a world! How do we ever get tired of living! Every day there are new -faces, bringing new affections and adventure, new demands for tenderness and -strength. These footsteps will go on. They will never grow quiet. A thousand -years hence they will clatter along these pavements through the miracle of -re-creation. Why do we talk of death and old age? It is not true that we -terminate. Even in this world the river in whose movement we have our part -still goes on—the river of opinions, of effort, of habitation. The sound of us -dies faint up the road to the listener who stands stationary; but the fact -that at last he ceases to hear us does not mean that we have ceased to -exist—only that we have gone farther. How arbitrary we are in our petty -prejudices against immortality! God hears more distinctly the travellers to -whom men have ceased to listen. Nothing to me is more certain than that we go -on and on, drawing nearer to the source of our creation through the ages. Just -as I came home to you after so many risks, such suffering, elation, bloodshed, -so through the unthinkable adventure of time we journey home to our Maker. -Going out of sight is sad, as are all partings. But I can bear to part now in -a way that I could not before I saw the heavens open in the horror of war. I -have ceased to be afraid of the unguess-able, and better still, I have lost my -desire to guess. Not to stand still—to press onwards like soldiers—that is all -that is required of us. I have heard men talk about world-sorrows, but if you -trace them back, our sorrows are all for ourselves—they are a personal -equation. To develop one’s personality in the remembering of others seems to -me to be the only road to happiness. All this talk—why? Because of the -footsteps beneath my window! - -The leave train has just arrived at Charing Cross from France. It steamed -across the Thames with the men singing “The Land where the Bluebells grow.” -There was laughter and longing in their singing. - - -XXXIII - -Bath - -March 24, 1918 - -Here I am with Mr. Lane, spending the weekend. It’s a wonderful spring -Sunday—no hint of war or anything but flowers and sunshine. An hour ago I -halted outside the newspaper office and read the latest telegrams of the great -German offensive. It seemed like the autumn of 1914, reading of death and not -being a part of it. They’ll not take very long in letting me get back to my -battery now. One’s curiously egotistic—I feel, if only I were out there, that -with my little bit of extra help everything would go well. - -Yesterday we went to Batheaston Manor, a fine old Jacobean house, to tea—the -kind of house that one has dreamt of possessing. There were high elms with -rooks cawing and green lawns with immaculately gravelled paths. Inside there -were broken landings and rooms with little stairs descending, and panelling, -and pictures—everything for which one used to care. The late Belgian Minister -to England, Count de la Laing, was there—a sad, courteous man. As we walked -back with him to Bath along the canal, he remarked casually that all the art -treasures in his château outside of Brussels had been shipped to Germany. - -We spent the afternoon seeing the King’s pictures—mostly Gainsboroughs—which -have been brought to Bath from Buckingham Palace. From here we went to tea -with an old lady, Miss Tanner, who rode on her lonesome through Persia many -years ago and consequently has gained a Lady Hester Stanhope reputation and, -what is more important, a splendid selection of Eastern rugs and silverwork. -After that we walked home by way of the great crescent which forms the scene -in The School for Scandal. - -An odd day to dodge in between experiences of European war! I have to pinch -myself awake to remember what is happening at this moment in the Front-line -trenches. Probably within a few weeks I shall be there—and feeling very much -more contented with myself than I do now. - - -XXXIV - -London March 31, 1918 - -Eric is with me. I am very glad to have him for my last days in England, and I -do hope that Reggie may get here in time to see me. He’s ordered south in two -weeks’ time, but I may be in France by then. I report at Canadian Headquarters -to-morrow, and will probably be sent straight down to camp, and from there to -France within two weeks. - -Have you seen General Currie’s stirring message to the Canadians, saying that -he expects them to die to a man if, by so doing, they can push the Huns back? -This summer will see the biggest of all the battles. I’m wildly excited and -longing to get back. There’ll be some of the old glamour about this new -fighting—it’s all in the open. We’ve got away from trench warfare at last. The -beasts are all over the country which we fought for and have recaptured since -1916. They’ve destroyed for a second time all the reconstruction work that I -saw in the devastated areas. I’m wondering if all the girls got out in time. -There were so many American girls there. - -Don’t you dear people get down in the mouth when I’m again at the Front. It’s -where I’ve wanted to be for a great many months—ever since I recovered. To be -able to go back now, when there’s really something doing, is very fitting. I -should have been wasting my time, perhaps, during the inactivity of the -winter, if I’d been sitting in dug-outs when I might have been writing Out to -Win. But no man, whatever his capacities, is wasting his time in fighting at -this hour of crisis. I’ve been made ashamed by the excuses I’ve heard put up -for various quitters who have taken bomb-proof jobs. I’m in terror lest I -should be confused with such. Heaven knows, I’m no fonder of killing or of -being killed than anyone else, but there are times when everything decent -responds to the demand of duty. I shall absolutely be immensely happy to be a -man again, taking my chances. I know that you will be glad for me. If you -hadn’t known for certain that I was going back, you’d have been making excuses -for me in your hearts during these last five months. So smile and be proud. -And whatever happens, go on being proud and smiling. Your job is to set an -example. That’s your contribution towards winning the war. - -It’s past midnight, and I go to camp to-morrow. I’ll let you have a cable when -I go to the Front—so you needn’t be nervous. - - -XXXV - -In Camp. England April 4, 1918 - -I got down here last night and reported back this morning. I found the General -of my Division had already applied for me, so I am going back to my old -Brigade at the beginning of this week—on the Sunday, I think. To-day is -Wednesday, so I haven’t lost much time in getting into action. Probably I -shall go up to London to-morrow for a two days’ leave and meet Eric. - -There’s just a chance that Reggie may be with us as well, for I’ve sent him a -telegram to say that I’m going to France. - -And now, as you may imagine, I am at last happy and self-respecting. I’m going -to be a part of the game again and not a pretence-soldier. What’s more, I’m -going to go straight into a real battle—the biggest of the war. It’s really -splendid and I feel childishly elated. - -Well, I’ve had a run for my money if any man ever had. The good times in -England, France, and America will be worth remembering when I’m again in the -fighting. I contrast in my mind my present mood with that of the first time -when I went out—I was very much afraid then; now I’m extraordinarily happy. -I’ve learnt to appreciate the privilege of being in the glory and the heroism. -I’m more pleased than if I had won a decoration, that my Colonel should have -asked for my return at the first possible moment. It proves to me something -which one often doubts—that I really am some good out there. - -Keep your tails up, my dear ones, and don’t get worried. This line is only to -let you know the good news. - - -XXXVI - -London April 6, 1918 - -I’m the happiest person in London to-day at the thought of my return. This is -quite unreasonable, when I sit down to calculate the certain discomfort and -danger. I can’t explain it, unless it is that only by being at the Front can I -feel that I am living honourably. I’ve been self-contemptuous every minute -that I’ve been out of the line. I began to doubt myself and to wonder whether -all my protestations of wanting to get back, were not a camouflage for -cowardice. I can prove to myself that they weren’t now. “The Canadians will -advance or die to a man,” were the words that General Currie sent to his -troops. Isn’t it magnificent to be included in such a chivalrous adventure? I -don’t think you’ll read about the Canadians retiring. - -Whatever happens I’ve had a grand romance out of life—there’s nothing of which -to complain. I owe destiny no grudge. The world has been kind. I don’t think I -shall get killed; I never have thought that. But if I am, it will be as fine -an ending to a full day’s work as heart could desire. - -I think I’m younger than I ever was. I no longer know satiety. The job in -front of me fills all my soul and mind. I’m going to prove to myself and -others that my books are not mere heroic sentiment. Going out a second time, -despite the chances to hang back, will give a sincerity to what I’ve been -trying to say to America. Heaps of people would think it brutal to want so -much to go where men are being slaughtered—but it isn’t the slaughtering that -attracts, it’s the winning of the ideal that calls me. - -C. has command of my battery now. He’s a fine chap. You remember how he left - London before his leave was up, “because he wanted to be among men.” That’s - the sort he is, and I admire him. - - -XXXVII - -London April 14, 1918 - -We’re sitting together in the little flat at Battersea, and Reggie is with us. -It’s Sunday afternoon. To-morrow morning early I set out for France. The -little party wanted me to sleep here to-night so that they could get up about -6 a.m. and see me off. I wouldn’t have that. So we’re going to say good-bye -comfortably to-night and the boys will sleep with me at a hotel just outside -the station. - -You can’t guess how glad I am at the thought of going back. I was afraid I -should never be a fighting man again. Now that I’m once more to be allowed to -do my bit I feel extraordinarily grateful. I have the silly feeling that just -one more man might make all the difference at such a crisis, and I’m jealous -lest, when so many are being called upon for an exaggerated display of -heroism, I should lose my chance. I know now why soldiers sing when they go -out to war—they’re so proud that they have been chosen for the sacrifice. - -The boys came down to camp with me and lived near to the camp. I took an -anti-gas defence course before re-joining in France. Friday night we came up -to town and we’ve had a very jolly time. - -Well, dears, we’ve lived a happy crowded life since I was wounded, and we’ve -each one of us learnt more about the glory of this undertaking. - - -XXXVIII - -France April 21, 1918 - -I’ve been back at the Front six days. This is the first opportunity I have had -to write. I left England last Monday, having spent Saturday and Sunday in -London with the boys. Major H. came up to give me a send-off and we had a very -gay time. Saturday evening, after dinner and a theatre, we returned to -Battersea and all found beds in one or other of the flats. On Sunday evening -we slept at a hotel next to the station so that I might be sure of catching -the early morning train. We managed to get a room with three beds in it, and -so kept all together as in the old days. By 5 a.m. we were up and stirring. P. -and L. walked in on us as we were having breakfast, and S. met us on the -platform. They all seemed quite assured that they would never, never see me -again—which makes me smile. I suppose they all had visions of grey waves of -Germans deluging our infantry by force of numbers, while the gunners were left -far in front, trying to stem the tide. That is what we all hope for. It’s the -kind of chance we dream about; but it hasn’t happened yet. - -Monday afternoon I was in France and slept at the Base that night. Early -Tuesday morning I was on the move again, passing Red Cross trains packed with -wounded and trucks crammed with ordnance. I couldn’t help comparing this -return to the Front with my first trip up. We had a good time playing cards -and recalling the old fights—we were like schoolboys coming back for the -holidays. There wasn’t one of us who wasn’t wildly excited at the thought of -being a part of the game again. This was rather strange, if you come to -consider it, for each of us had been wounded at least once and knew the worst -of what war could do to us—yet fear was the emotion most remote from us. We -were simply and sheerly glad to be going into the thick of it; our great fear -had been that our fighting days were ended. - -By 2 p.m. we were dumped out at a town through which I used to ride last -summer. Here we had to report to the Provost Marshal for further transport -orders. He told me that I should have to go to the Corps Reinforcement Camp. I -didn’t intend to do that, so waited till he was engaged on the phone and then -made my escape. Taking the baggage I could carry, I beat my way back to my old -battery on foot and in lorries. I was just coming into the wagonlines when I -met Major C., who now commands us. I think he had been lonely for some of the -old faces; he went wild with delight. I had a magnificent welcome back. On the -spur of the moment he made me a present of his own charger and took me up to -the guns with him, where we arrived in time for a very late tea, within -thirty-six hours of my leaving England. - -The day after that I went forward to do my 24-hour spell at the observing -station. When I saw my first Hun after so long an absence, I felt more like -hugging him than trying to kill him. Of course I had to do the latter, and had -a very nice little strafe. I wrote you a fine long letter up there and somehow -lost it. So this is my second attempt. - -Don’t get nervous about me. Everything is quite all right with us and I’m -having a real holiday after my feverish literary spasms. But a lot of familiar -faces are absent. - - -XXXIX - -France April 22, 1918 - -You would hardly believe our peaceful state of mind unless you could drop in -on us for an hour. You, in America, are evidently very worked up about us, and -picture us as in desperate conditions. Don’t worry, we’ve got our tails up and -are happy as sand-boys. There’s nothing of the grimly set faces about our -attitude such as you imagine. We’re too confident to be grim; war is actually, -from our point of view, a gigantic lark. It must sound silly to you, I know, -but I love to hear the screaming of the shells in the darkness and the baying -of the guns. It’s like a pack of wolves being chased through the night by -bloodhounds. - -I hadn’t been back two days before they got the rumour at the wagon-lines that -I was wounded—a little previous, I thought it. I call that wishing a blighty -on me. - -I’ve just come back from a trip across one of our old battlefields. We’re in -the Hun support-trenches, behind us is his Front line, then No Man’s Land with -its craters and graves, and behind that the Front line from which we jumped -off. You can trace everything plainly and follow the entire attack by the -broken wire and blown-in dug-outs. We’re still filled with amused contempt for -the Hun on our part of the Front. - -We were discussing chaplains the other day—the way some of them have failed us -in this war. One of the officers told a story of Grannie M., one of our First -Division majors. A chaplain, who never went farther than the wagon-lines, was -always saying how much he’d like to see the Front. Grannie called his bluff -and took him for a trip into one of the warmest spots. The chaplain kept -dodging and crouching every time a shell fell within a hundred yards. Each -time Grannie, standing quietly silent, waited for him to get up and renew the -journey. At last the chaplain flopped into a shell-hole and refused to come -out. Grannie, who is a big man and well over six foot, grinned down at him -despisingly. “Priest,” he said, “if I thought I had half the pull with Christ -that you say you have, not all the shells in France would make me lie as flat -as that.” Later another chaplain came to that brigade. No one would give him -house-room. He went off and slept where he could; he never came near the -officers, but he haunted the men at the forward guns. When the brigade moved -out to another sector, he procured an old skate of a horse and trailed along -at the rear of the line of march like a hungry dog. The new Front proved to be -a warm one; there were many casualties, but the chaplain was always on his -job, especially when the shells were falling. From somewhere he got the money -to start a canteen for the men, which he ran himself. When no one else had -cigarettes, he could supply them. At last even the officers had to come to -him. He finished up by being the most popular chaplain the brigade had ever -had, honoured by everyone from the colonel down. There are your two types of -army chaplains: the one who plays the game, the other who issues season -tickets to heaven, but is afraid of travelling on them himself. - - -XL - -France April 26, 1918 - -I It is now over a week since I have been back with my battery, and it seems -as though all that trip along the American line and the rush back to New York -had never happened. I’m sitting in a little “house” in a deep chalk trench. -The house is made of half-circles of corrugated iron; there’s an anti-gas -blanket hanging at one end and at the other a window made of oiled calico. Up -one corner are the maps, scales, and office papers; pinned on boards is a -four-foot map of the entire English front. My sleeping bag is stretched on an -old French spring mattress, which was brought here some time ago by the Huns. -From the walls hang a higgledy-piggledy of trench coats, breeches, tunics. -This is the place in which we work out our ranges, play cards, have our meals, -and rest when we’re back from doing forward work. - -You can walk for miles where we are without ever being seen, if you follow the -various systems of Hun and British trenches, for we’re plumb in the heart of -an old battlefield. The only landmarks left to guide one are the craters as -big as churches—records of mines that have been sprung—and little rows of -lonely graves. At night when the moon is up, this country creates the curious -ghostly illusion of being an endless alkali desert, beaten into billows by the -wind. The shells go shrieking over it and wreaths of mist wander here and -there like phantoms. Destruction can create a terrible pretence and caricature -of beauty. I wish you might visit such a place just once so as to get an idea -of where our lives are spent. - -Your letters apropos of the latest German offensive bring home to me very -vividly the emotional terror which war excites in the minds of civilians. You -picture us as standing with our backs to the wall, desperately pushing death -from off our breasts with naked hands. The truth is so immensely different. -We’re having a thoroughly bang-up time, and we’re as amused by the Hun as -ever. He may force us to fall back; but while we fall back we laugh at him. -That is the attitude of every British soldier that I’ve met. We’re as happy -and unconcerned as children. There’s one chap here who’s typical of this -spirit of treating war as an immensely sporting event. He’s the raiding -officer of a certain battalion, and is known as “Battling Brown”—though Brown -is not his real name. He has a little company of his own, consisting of -seventy men. He’s been in over a hundred raids on the Hun Front line and has -only had two of his men killed in a year. A short while ago he went across -with his raiders and captured three Germans; on the return journey across No -Man’s Land something happened, and he lined up his prisoners and shot them. He -led his men safely back to our lines and then set out again alone on a private -excursion into the Boche territory. By dawn he once more returned, bringing -back four prisoners single-handed. You might picture such a man as a kind of -Hercules, but he isn’t. He’s thin, and tall, and fair, and high strung. His -age, I should guess, is about twenty-two. - -Far away in the distance I can hear the pipers playing. It always makes me -think of Loch Lomond and when we were little tads. How green and quiet and -cool those days seem now—the long rides across the moors and down the glens, -the bathing in little mountain streams, the walks in the sad twilights. There -are so many happy memories I have to thank you for. You were very wise and -generous in the way you planned my childhood. I’m less than a fortnight back -at the Front, but I’m already falling into the old habit of happy retrospect. -We don’t live here really. Our souls are in France only for brief and glorious -and intense intervals—during the moments of attack and repulse. The rest of -the time we’re away in the green valleys of remembered places, watching the -ghosts who are the shadows of what we were. - -My groom is a boy named Gilpin. The name has proved his downfall. He galloped -my horse on the hard road the other day, which is forbidden. A colonel caught -him going full tilt, stopped him and took his name. When the severities seemed -ended this innocent young party asked the colonel to hold his horse while he -mounted—so now he’s up on an extra charge of insolence. - -Army discipline is in many ways silly and old maidish. Here’s a chap who’s -faithful, well conducted, and honest. He’s likely to get a heavier punishment -for asking a superior officer to hold his horse than if he’d been drunk and -uproarious. - - -XLI - -France April 28, 1918 - -It’s funny to recall the different graveyards among the shell-holes that I’ve -learnt to call home. Once life was so definitely focused—much too definitely -for my patience. It seemed as though I was rooted and planted for all -eternity. It never seemed to me then that I should ever find the sacrificial -opportunity or be stirred to any prophetic exaltations. It’s wonderful the way -the angel of Death, as discovered in war, can give one visions of limitless -nobilities, each one of which is attainable and accessible. - -I’m by myself at the Battery. It’s late afternoon, and a thunderstorm is -brewing. The room is dark (I mean the dug-out); I feel as though it were -November instead of April. What a queer life this is. In one way I have not -had so much idleness since I was in hospital—then comes a burst of physical -strenuosity out of all proportion to one’s strength. Things happen by fits and -starts; you never know what is going to happen next. - -It’s intensely still. The stillness is made more noticeable by the booming of -an occasional gun. - -The whole hope and talk of our chaps is the Americans—what they’re going to -do, when they’re going to start doing it, and what kind of a moral they will -have. I hear the wildest rumours of the numbers they have in France—rumours -which I know to be untrue since my tour along the American lines. You will -have read the manuscript of Out to Win long before this letter reaches you. I -wonder what you all think of it and whether you like it. It was written in a -breathless, racing sort of fashion. I sat at it from morning till last thing -at night. All my desire was to do my duty as regards the Americans and then to -get out here before the big show started. I managed things just in time. I -don’t remember much of what I wrote—only a picture of Domremy and another of -Evian and Nancy. I hope it was as good as you expected. - -There are things one lives through and sees now which seem ordinary but which -to future ages will figure as stupendous. If one can record them now in just -that spirit of ordinariness which constitutes their real wonder, they will -together give an accurate portrait of Armageddon. My nine months out of the -line began to give me a little perspective—I began to see the awful -marvellousness of some of the scenes that I had lived through. Now, like the -mist which I see hanging above the Hun Front line, a curtain of normality is -blotting out the sharp abnormal edges of my landscape. - -This war, at the distance which removes you from it, must seem a filthy and -brutal kind of game. It is all of that. But it’s more than that. The game was -not of our inventing—it was thrust on us. We are not responsible for the game; -but we are responsible for the spirit in which we play it. The fine, clear, -visionary attitude of our chaps redeems for us the horror and pathos of the -undertaking. - -It will be towards the end of May when this arrives and you’ll be off to the -lakes and the mountains. I wonder where. I suppose we’ll still be plugging -along, sending death over into Fritz’s lines and receiving it back. - - -XLII - -France May 2, 1918 - -Here I am up forward again on my shift. I’m sitting in a hole sunk beneath the -level of the ground, with a slit that just peeps out across the dandelions to -the Hun Front line. From here I can catch any movement in the enemy -back-country without being seen myself. Below my O.P. there is a deep dug-out -to which I can retire in the event of enemy shelling; if one exit gets blown -in, there’s a second from which I can make good my escape. On each fresh trip -to this place I find a new gem of literature left behind by one or other of -the telephonists. Last time it was a priceless kitchen masterpiece by Charles -Garvice, entitled The Triumphant Lover; this time it’s an exceedingly purple -effort by Victoria Cross, entitled Five Nights. So you see I do not allow my -interest in matters intellectual to rust. - -There are many things of interest that I should like to tell you, but the -consciousness that the censor is for ever at my elbow prevents. Did I ever -tell you the story of the censor whom I met on the train from Boulogne, when I -was returning to the line in January 1917? If I happened to tell it to you, -the gentleman who uninvited shares all my letters with you hasn’t heard it, -and I’m sure his curiosity must be pricked by this time—so here goes. - -It was after that splendid leave in London which you came over from America to -share with me. The train from Boulogne to the Front was the usual draughty -affair, half the windows out, no heating system, no means of getting anything -to eat for goodness knows how many hours. I picked out the least disreputable -carriage and found that a gunner colonel was snuggled up in one corner and a -pile of rugs, pillows, hot-water bottles, eatables, etc., in another. Just as -the train was starting the owner of all these effeminate luxuries hopped in -and commenced to make himself comfortable. He was nearer fifty than forty. His -nose was inflamed and heavily veined, either from drink, dyspepsia, or both. -His rank was that of a lieutenant. His social grade that of a post-office -assistant, I should fancy. His uniform fitted abominably, and his appearance -was as unsoldierly as can well be imagined. He looked like a loose-living -spider. - -We hadn’t been moving very long when he started to unwrap his packages and to -gorge himself. He ate steadily like one whose life depended on it. The colonel -and I had forgotten to bring anything, so we had the joy of watching. - -In our chilly misery we became human and began to talk. The conversation -became reminiscent of the numerous offensives. The sloppy lieutenant with the -drooping walrus moustaches who sat opposite to us, persistently laid claim to -a more thorough knowledge of attacks that we had been in than we did -ourselves. He puzzled us; we couldn’t picture him as a combatant. Quite -haphazard one of us—I think it was the colonel—commenced to damn censors as -chaps who sat safely behind the lines and spied on fighting-men’s private -affairs. The lieutenant became very hot in the censors’ defence. He tried to -prove the necessity for them by quoting the case of a lieutenant named N., who -had sent back captured aeroplane photos to his friends. I happened to know N. -and that he was going to be tried by court-martial for his indiscretion, so -grew loud in proclaiming my contempt for the fellow safely behind the lines -who had caught him. We were particularly annoyed, because N. was a plucky -soldier. - -Our friend in the corner took my remarks extremely personally. To show his -resentment of me, he pointedly offered the colonel some of his fodder. At last -he said very haughtily, “It may interest you to know that I am the censor and -am at present going up the line to give evidence against Lieutenant N. at his -trial.” Just at that moment the train stopped at a station. He blinked through -the window with his shortsighted eyes, trying to read the name “This is M., I -think,” he said; “if it is, we stop here ten minutes and get time to stretch -our legs.” - -I looked out of the window helpfully. “It is M.,” I told him. It wasn’t. He -got out and commenced to walk up the platform. Almost immediately the train -started to pull out. He made a wild crab-wise dash for the carriage-door, but -the colonel and I were hanging to it on the inside. When we were safely on our -journey, we shared up his pillows, rugs, hot-water bottles, and eatables -between us, and had a comparatively pleasant journey. For once we thanked God -for the censor. - -It’s tea-time at home. You’ve probably come in from a walk and are smoking a -cigar at the family oak-table. I wish I could pop in on you. - -Oh, our latest excitement! We received our new gramophone last night with -about thirty of the latest records! - -You’ll be glad to know that I now have my old batman back. He’s the man who -took me out when I was wounded and was so tender to me on the way to the -hospital. That memory of his tenderness is rather embarrassing, for I can’t -bring myself to strafe him the way I ought to. I can always see the fellow’s -concern when he thought that I was done for. Now that he’s got me back he acts -as though I were still a very weak and indiscreet person who had to be coaxed -and managed. I have the feeling in his presence of being perpetually in -pyjamas and in bed. He has the advantage of me, to put it in a nutshell. - - -XLIII - -France May 3, 1918 - -It’s early morning. I’m still sitting in the little dug-out with the slit that -looks towards the Hun Front line. Everything but the immediate foreground is -blanketed in heavy mist at present. I can hear bombing going on somewhere—but -I can also hear a lark singing near to the sun, high overhead. The clumps of -dandelions are still sleeping. They haven’t opened—they’re green instead of -yellow. The grass sparkles with little drops of dew, more beautiful than the -most costly diamonds. With the first of the dawn I read a story by Tolstoy; -since then I’ve been sitting thinking—thinking of you and of the sleeping -house in Newark, which will soon be disturbed by your bath-water running, if -you still rise early; and thinking how strange it is that I should be here in -the greatest war in history. We planned to do such different things with our -lives. My first dream was to become extremely wise. At Oxford there seemed no -limit to the amount of knowledge I could acquire; it seemed only a matter of -patience and perseverance. Then that dream went, and I wanted to save the -world. I’m afraid one has to be a little aristocratic towards the world before -he can conceive of himself as capable of saving it or of the world as -requiring saving. The aristocratic touch grew on me and I decided to do my -saving not by touching people, but by writing poetry for the few who would -understand. It wasn’t half such good poetry as I thought it was at the time, -and it never could have re-made anything. Disappointed in that and because I -had now committed myself to a literary way of life, I took to writing novels, -which nobody wanted to publish, read, or buy. Then, because I had to live -somehow, I entered into the commercial end of publishing. There was always the -shadow of a dream which I pursued even then in my spare hours; it was the -dream that saved me and led me on to write The Garden Without Walls. But the -shadow was growing fainter when this war commenced. And here I am, human at -last, all touch of false aristocracy gone, peeping out across the grass wet -with the dew of May, beneath which lie the common clay heroes who have died -for democracy. How noiselessly these men gave up their lives and with how -little consciousness of self-appreciation. They rather put us to shame—we -privileged dawdlers in our haunted minds. They recognized the one straight -thing to do when the opportunity presented itself; they did it swiftly and -unreasoningly with their might. They didn’t write about what they did; for -them the doing was sufficient. I think I shall always be a humble man after -such companionship, if I survive. I see life in courageous vistas of actions -now; formerly I was like Hamlet—I thought myself into a green sickness. -Marriage and children, a home and family love are the best that anyone can -extract from life. There have been years when I didn’t like my kind. - -Out of the many things that have come to me in the past six months I am -particularly glad of little Tinker’s friendship—P.’. baby. She’s not two yet, -but we were real pals. She would never go to sleep until I had kissed her in -her cot “Good-night.” First thing in the morning she would be beside my bed, -tugging at the clothes and ordering me to “Det up.” Since I’ve been gone -they’ve had to ring the bell and pretend that I’m just entering the hall, so -that they may make her go to sleep contented. When they ask her, “Where’s -Con?” she reaches up to the window and points. “Dorn walk in park,” she says. -They talk about the love of a woman keeping a man straight, but I don’t think -it’s to be compared with the love of a little child. You can’t lie to them. - -The sharp rat-a-tat of the machine guns has started; but the mist is too thick -for me to see what is happening——It’s nothing; it’s died down. - -In an hour I shall be relieved, and shall return to the guns and post this -letter. It will reach you when? Sometime in June, I expect, when the summer is -really come and you’re wearing your cool dresses. I can see you going out in -the early morning to do your shopping. - - -XLIV - -France May 7, 1918 - -I am sitting in my bed—my sleeping-sack, I mean—which is spread out on the -red-tiled floor of a funny little cottage. There isn’t much of the floor left, -as four of the other officers are sharing the room with me. Coming in through -the window is the smell of sweet myrtle, old-fashioned and quiet; from far -away drifts in the continual pounding of the guns and, strangely muddled up -with the gunfire, the multitudinous croaking of frogs. I’m having an -extraordinary May month of it in lovely country, marching through the showers, -getting drenched and drying when the sun deigns to make an appearance. After -being off a horse for so long, I’m in the saddle for many hours every day. - -I am glad that you all feel the way you do about my returning to the Front. I -was sure you wouldn’t want me to be out of these great happenings. My fear, -when I was in England this spring, was the same as I had when I first -joined—that fighting would all-be ended before I got into the line. No fear of -that; I think we’re in for another two years of it. There’s hot work ahead—the -hottest of the entire war. Oddly enough my spirits rise as the struggle -promises to grow fiercer. I don’t know why, unless it is that as the action -quickens one has a chance of giving more. There’s nothing sad about being -wounded or dying for one’s country. In this war one does so much more than -that—he dies for the whole of humanity. - -Outside my window a stretch of hedges runs down to a little brook. Ducks, -geese, cocks and hens make farmyard noises from dawn till last thing at night. -Above all the peace and quiet, the distant guns keep up their incessant -murmur. What a variety of places are likely to shelter me before the summer is -ended—woods, ditches, open fields, trenches. It’s all in the game and is -romance of a sort. I’m sunburnt and hard. I feel tremendously alive. - -Once again all the striving and ambition of literary success has vanished. I’m -only a subaltern—and far prouder to be that than a writer. I’m estimated by -none but my soldiering qualities and power to show guts. We were lawyers, -engineers, business-men—now we’re soldiers and inquire nothing of each other’s -past. - -A thrush has started singing; he’s in the willows that stand by the brookside. -The planes go purring overhead, but he doesn’t care. He goes on singing -towards the evening sun as though his heart knew nothing but joy. He will be -here singing long after we have passed upon our way. - -Don’t get worrying about my safety. You’re sure to be feeling nervous at the -wrong times, when I’m perfectly safe. Just feel glad that I’m allowed to be -here, and don’t look ahead. - - -XLV - -France May 14, 1918 - -I’m afraid you’ll be feeling that I’ve neglected you. Whenever I miss a mail I -have the reproachful picture of the disappointed faces of you three at the -early morning breakfast—so it isn’t wilful neglect. I’ve had no time, for -reasons which I can’t explain. In this way of life one has to snatch the odd -moments for those he loves best and to break off when the sterner obligations -intrude themselves. - -I’m in a beautiful part of the country at present—it must be beautiful, for it -is providing us with three ducks for dinner to-night. I doubt whether you -could get three all at once in Newark. Moreover, we can get all the fresh -cream and butter that we like. Of course this won’t last. Any morning we may -wake up to find ourselves back on iron rations—bully-beef and hard tack. But -while it lasts we make the most of it. The most ripping attraction to me is -something that you’ll scarcely credit. The willow-groves are full of -nightingales. As you go back to your billets after midnight and the guns make -lightning through the grill-work of the trees, you see the little brown -fellows with their throats quivering, pouring out their song of love and -spring. When you’ve crept into your sleeping-sack, you lie awake -listening—thinking of another world where love and life were once so certain. - - -XLVI - -France May 18, 1918 - -This is the third day that I have planned to write you. Perhaps I may be able -to do so this time. - -I have just been reading a letter from a nurse out in Palestine describing the -little wooden crosses above fallen British soldiers which now star the Mount -of Olives. The poetry of the ordinary crops out everywhere to-day; we are -living on higher levels than we realize. For hundreds of years the future -generations will weave legends round us, making us appear titanic -spirit-people, just as we have clothed with almost unearthly splendour the -Crusaders of the Dark Ages. - -This is a pleasant May evening. The fields are golden with buttercups. Above -the singing of the birds I can hear a low droning as of bees among flowers; -but the droning is of homing aeroplanes. This is the kind of weather and -country in which it would not be unbeautiful to die. - -When I went down this morning to the barn in which my section is stationed, I -found notice printed on the door, on either side a British and American -flag-and underneath a luridly illustrated Sunday magazine selection of -extracts from The Glory of the Trenches. A small world, isn’t it? - -I have been reading a book lately that would interest you; it’s by Ford Madox -Hueffer and is called On Heaven. It consists of a number of poems written -while on active service. He’s managed to put down in a rough and tumble of -words a good many of our hungers and adorations. I hadn’t realized before I -read him how very much of the conversation of our soldiers is an exchange of -confidences about the women they love or have loved. I believe every man at -the Front has a hope of the girl he will be true to some day, and a fear -lest—— - -One of Hueffer’s poems on the subject is very beautiful. It starts this way: - - - “In Chepstow stands a castle; - My love and I went there; - The foxgloves on the wall all heard - Her footsteps on the stair. - The sun was high in heaven - And the perfume in the air - Came from purple cat’s valerian— - But her footsteps on the stair - Made a sound like silver music - Thro’ the perfume in the air.” - - -The last verse sums up the dread of many a fighting-man—that all his dreams -are only dreams, and that a return to reality may disappoint him: - - - “And another soldier fellow - Shall come courting of my dear. - And it’s I shall not be with her - With my lip beside her ear. - For it’s he shall walk beside her - In the perfume of the air - To the silver, silver music - Of her footstep on the stair.” - - -All the world’s idealists are in the trenches by now. What a shining cloud of -imaginings must rise up to the Soul which lies behind the world. God must be -amazed to find that horror can make His obstinate creations so simple and -childlike. Here are millions of us who once thought only of our social and -individual bellies, now thinking only of the unborn children and the things of -the spirit. All the fond and dear accepted affections have become a kind of -heaven that lies in the past instead of the future. If we die we don’t want -any heaven that isn’t a re-living of the old happy memories. - -I find that Hueffer expresses a feeling that many of us have secretly, but -which I have never heard any man acknowledge—the feeling that all the -remainder of his days he will have to be explaining if he comes to the end of -the war alive—almost the feeling that he will have lost his great chance of -nobility by not dying. Hueffer’s poem is called One Day’s List; it’s a list of -three officers and 270 other ranks of his regiment who were killed in action. -It commences: - - - “My dears, - The rain drips down on Rouen Town, - The leaves drip down - And so the mud - Turns orange brown.” - - -And it has for its refrain - - - “But you—at least—are out of it.” - - -It goes on to tell of the officers who fell, and repeats the reflection which -we all have when we gaze on the dead at the end of an attack and know that we -ourselves have escaped: - - - “One wonders why you died.” - - -And then, - - - “We never talked of glory, - And each thought a lot of one girl - And waited most days for hours in the rain - Till she came: - But we never talked of Fame——” - - -And lastly, addressing the dead, - - - “But we who remain shall grow old, - We shall know the cold - Of cheerless - Winter and the rain of Autumn and the sting - Of poverty, of love despised and of disgraces, - And mirrors showing stained and ageing faces, - And the long ranges of comfortless years - And the long gamut of human fears— - But, for you, it shall be for ever Spring, - And only you shall be for ever fearless, - And only you have white, straight, tireless limbs, - And only you, where the water-lily swims - Shall walk along the pathways, thro’ the willows - Of your west. - You who went west, - And only you on silvery twilight pillows - Shall take your rest - In the soft sweet glooms, - Of twilight rooms——” - - -There’s the whole of our one and only cowardice in a nut-shell—that we, who -have posed as conquerors for a while, will, if we survive, return to the -normal things of life to find our spirits unexalted and the commonplace still -commonplace. - -Out here, where there are corpses in the thistles and “the gas-shells burst -like snow,” we can talk of “the silver, silver music of her footsteps on the -stair,” but we’re mortally afraid that in less exultant moments, when the -heart is not so starved for affection, we shall discover that the “silver -music” is only the irritating sound of squeaky shoes. - -I can’t hear from you again for at least six days—a long time to wait! I can’t -be bothered nowadays to let the mail-clerk sort out the letters: I grab the -bag and go through it myself. - -There may be an interval between this letter and those that follow. If there -is, don’t worry yourselves. It is not possible to find the time or place to -write under all circumstances. - - -XLVII - -France June 1, 1918 - -I can’t remember when last I wrote you. It isn’t always easy to get the time. -Recently I’ve spent a good many hours in the saddle and have been up early in -the morning; when work is done the fresh air leaves one too tired for anything -but sleep. But you mustn’t worry about me. I’m stronger than I’ve been for -months, and tanned to the colour of an Indian. - -I have recently met the doctor who did so much to pull me through at the -Casualty Clearing Station when I was wounded last June. He’s still the same -tall, thin, silent man, with the kindest and sternest of faces. His brother, -he tells me, is in America on the British Mission, and had informed him of -America’s immense preparations. Like all the men out here, I found him keenly -eager to see the U.S.A. proportionately represented in the Front line. We are -holding, and counting on the States to turn the tide dramatically in our -favour. Our chaps are to calm and confident of success—out here there’s none -of the strain and nervousness which are felt by civilians. Our chaps are as -philosophical and cheery as ever. “Good old Fritz,” they say, “so he’s taken -another fifteen miles! Well, it’ll be our turn next.” Through defeat and -success we carry on quite normally and unperturbed, confident of ultimate -victory. The general opinion is that the Hun by his advances is only causing -himself a lot of unnecessary trouble, as he’ll have a longer distance to run -back to Germany. - -Here’s the first of June and mid-summer approaching when so many pleasant -things used to happen—flights to the country, the purchasing of bathing-suits, -fishing-nets, maps—the planning of such quantities of family adventures. It -would be happy to think that some of these old pleasures might return one day. -The longer the war goes on the more impossible it is to conjure up the picture -of civilian ways of life or to see oneself as again in the picture. Everything -grows blurred except the present, with the early risings, routine, orders, -marches, and attacks. To be given our freedom would leave us dazed. - -This will probably reach you after you have left New York and settled down for -the holidays in some quiet country place. There’s only one spot which seems -permanent in our family life—the little grey shack among the orchards in the -Rockies. My thoughts fly to it very often these hot summer days. I see the -lake like a blue mirror, reflecting the mountains and the clouds. I hear the -throbbing of the launch. Bruce is barking on the wharf. Figures are moving -about the boat-house. We climb the hill together where the brook sings through -the flowers and the evening meal awaits us. And afterwards those long sleepy -evenings when the dusk comes down and the flowers shine more vaguely, and we -talk so endlessly, planning books, retraversing the past, mapping out a road -to so many future El Dorados. I can remember these former happinesses without -self-torture or regret. The present is so splendid that it outshines all -former beauties. I go forward happily, believing that any bend of the future -may bring the old kindnesses into view again. - -The old haunting dream of Blighty is growing up in me once again—the Blighty -we speak of, think of, worship and imagine every hour of the day. It’s worth -being wounded if only to wake up the first morning in the long white English -ward, with the gold-green sunlight dripping in from the leaves through the -open windows. These are the exquisite moments of peace and rest which come to -one in the midst of warfare. Of such moments within the last year I have had -my share; they are happy to remember. - -And the war goes on and on. I was so afraid that it would be ended before ever -I got back. The fear was needless. I shall be out here at least another year -before peace is declared. There are times when I think that the Americans are -not so far wrong in their guess when they give themselves “four years to do -this job.” The Hun may be desperate; his very energy may be a proof of his -exhaustion. But his death struggle is too vigorously successful to promise any -very rapid end. Our hope is in America, with her high courage, her sacrifice, -and her millions of men. If she had not joined us, we would still stand here -chaffingly and be battered till not one of us was left. The last one would die -with the smile of victory on his mouth. Whatever happens, they’ll never catch -any British fighting-man owning that his tail is down. But the thought of the -American millions gives us confidence that, though we are wiped out, we shall -not have lost. Like runners in a relay race, though we are spent, the pace we -have set will enable those who come after us to win in the last lap. - -But don’t worry about me. I’m having a splendid run for my money, and am far -more happy than I deserve. - - -XLVIII - -France June 1, 1918 - -As per usual when I write to you, I have my nose up against a solitary candle, -am hedged in by shadows, and have the stump of a cigarette in my mouth. For -days I have been waiting for letters from home, but none has arrived as yet. -Either the ship has gone down or some other calamity has happened. I now -promise myself that to-morrow there will be a huge package of belated mail for -me. - -We’re travelling very light at present. The first thing I did on my return was -to cut down my kit to the barest necessities and send all the balance back to -England. It’s better to have it safe in London, if out of immediate reach, -than to have to abandon it in a ditch or shell-hole. While the summer lasts -there are a great number of things that one can do without. - -What an unsportsmanly crowd the Germans are! I think more than anything else -it will be their lack of fair play that we shall hold against them when war is -ended. Yesterday at the Pope’s request we were foolish enough to refrain from -bombing Cologne, so the Hun took the opportunity to both bomb and shell the -Catholics of Paris. It makes one itch to grab a bayonet and go over the top to -do him as much damage as opportunity will allow. The Hun is educating us out -of our good-humoured contempt into a very deep-seated hatred of him. The other -day I was in a forward town recently evacuated by its population. You walked -through silent, torn streets, the windows all broken by shells, the doors -sagging from their hinges and open. You peered across the thresholds into the -houses. In many cases meals were still on the tables, partly eaten and hastily -left. A stray cat scurried out into the yard; nothing else stirred. Over the -entire death-like silence the summer sun shone down and far away a cuckoo was -calling. One gets accustomed to the outward symbols of such tragedies—the -broken homes, abandoned security and foregone happiness. The people themselves -get used to it. To-day I met a farm-wagon piled high with the household gods, -while a peasant woman walked beside with her best hat carried in a paper-bag -in her hand. That was very typical—in all the ruin that had befallen a home to -still cling to the best hat. - -I’m very happy and well, living almost entirely in the open and in the saddle -a good part of the day. The part of France I have lived in since my return is -by far the cleanest and most beautiful that I have seen on active service. The -weather has been golden and glorious. There is none of that fear in our hearts -that you must experience for us. We’re as certain of victory as we were during -the days of the big Vimy advance. - -The Army is a nursery organization, full of annoying pomposities and amusing -class distinctions. Just at present we’re being pestered with continual -inspections, when each battery tries to invent some new trick for making -itself look smarter. Soldiers, on such occasions, are like a lot of old women -at a spring cleaning. The men much prefer killing Boches to being inspected. -Burnishing steel, chasing all over the country to buy Brasso, spending -fortunes on polish for the harness all seem such a fruitless waste of time -when the Huns are hammering our line. But, of course, cleanliness has a moral -effect on men who have been long under shell-fire. - -This is a discursive sort of letter, and doesn’t contain much real news. It’s -just for remembrance. - - -XLIX - -France June 4, 1918 - -I’ve just left the gramophone shrilly declaring that “When he fancies he is -past love, it is then he meets his last love and he loves her as he never -loved before.” London comes with us to the Front. We hum the tunes of -Piccadilly and Leicester Square, and we scheme such splendid times for our -return. Leave has opened up again, but by a careful calculation I have -discovered that it will take twenty-one years four months and three days till -my turn comes round at the present rate of allotments. - -Some New York papers have just arrived and an exceedingly ancient cake, but no -letters. In the midst of a great offensive it is wonderful that anything gets -to us at all. We’re as far away from you both in reality and imagination as -though we lived in a different world. Our standards of conduct, normality, -right living are not your standards—our hopes and fears are all different. -Again, as when I first came to the Front, everything civilian seems a tale I -have read about. I cannot believe that that person who was in New York last -October was really myself. I rather wonder at him and at his capacity for -writing about the commonplace events of the present life. Now I couldn’t write -a line about the war if my life depended on it. I see nothing in perspective -except the endless path of duty which leads on ahead as each day introduces -itself. To what goal that path leads I sometimes try to guess—to something -wonderful and unforeseen, I have no doubt. - -I judge from what I read that the entire world which is not at the Front is -anxious and depressed. We’re just the same as ever—cheery and waiting whatever -may befall with a stoicism born of confidence. Our belief in ourselves, our -cause, and our ability to win, never wavers. How extraordinarily normal we are -you could hardly imagine. The moment our men get out of the trenches they -begin to play baseball, football, cricket, etc. There’s a big lake near to -where we are with red cliffs around it. Here every evening you can see the -poised white figures of soldiermen. Last Sunday we held aquatic sports there, -and had a fine display of swimming. It’s wonderful to see the chaps so happy -when you remember that nine-tenths of their companions of this time last year -are either wounded or dead. As you may guess, we never in our conversation -call attention to this fact, though there can be few, if any, who forget. - -There are children where we are at present. It’s amusing to see them making -friends with our boys. They slip their little paws into the big brown hands -and toddle along quite proudly. - -I don’t see how anyone could help loving our men—they’re so simple. Their -faults, when you know the hearts which they hide, become endearing. I think, -especially when I see them with the French kiddies, “Of such are the Kingdom -of Heaven.” - -Please thank the donor of the cake which arrived to-day. We’re eating it—don’t -tell her it was dry. - - -L - -France June 7,1918 - -Here’s a glorious summer evening—the end of a perfect day, during which I have -done my share in capturing two German spies, who now repose unrestfully in our -guard-room. - -This morning, when I was leading a hundred mounted men along a road, a -terrible thing happened. The road was narrow and on one side of it -motor-lorries were standing; on the other side was a little unfenced river. -Suddenly and without warning, tearing down the hill ahead of us, came the -enemy. The enemy consisted of a pair of mules harnessed to a heavy iron -roller. The roller caught my lead-driver and threw him and his two horses to -the ground, then it charged on into the mass behind us. Miraculously no bones -were broken; we all have nine lives. Those mokes have put us up to a new trick -for dispersing enemy cavalry which ought to be effective. Believe me, two mad -mules, going thirty miles an hour with an iron roller behind them, are utterly -demoralizing. It is impossible for any cavalry in the world to withstand them. - -You don’t know, can’t guess, how letters from home buck me up and keep the -lamp of my ideals still burning. There are moments when the mere mechanical -side of warfare fills one’s mind with an infinite depression. One sees men -doing splendid acts, day in day out, like automatons animated by the spring of -duty. One almost forgets that there is any human element of choice in the -matter, or a difference between fighting and fighting well. When your pages -come, I remember—remember that just such affections and human ties bind the -hearts of all who are out here to life. I begin to see my chaps as -personalities again and not as only soldiers. - -Outside the chaps are singing “O my, I don’t want to die; I want to go home.” -Now they’ve changed to “Take me Over to Blighty.” - - -LI - -France June 8, 1918 - -Last night I saw the old lady who nursed me up so that I was fit to come and -meet you in London when you all came in 1917 from America. Seeing her again -brought back all sorts of memories of the depressions and exaltations of other -days. I think I have been both sadder and more happy since the war began than -in all the other years of my life. And I used to write about the world not as -it is, but about the world as I would have made it, had I been God. Now I’m -trying to see things as they are, with the inevitable God shining through -them. Here, at the Front, God is everywhere apparent—but not the cathedral God -I had imagined—not the majestic God with sublime uplifted eyes which know -nothing of finite terror. The God of the Front has brave eyes which have -suffered; His mouth is a human mouth, which has known the pain of parting and -kisses; His hands are roughened and burnt and bloody; there is the stoop of -agony in His shoulders and the hint of a valiant jest in His splendid bearing -of defiance. He is one of us. He is us entirely. He is no longer remote and -eternal. For us He has again become flesh—He is our comrade; He is the man -upon our left and our right hand, who goes into battle with us; He is our -dead. We cannot escape Him; the pettinesses of our sins are forgotten in the -resemblance of our neighbours to His majesty. Nowadays I cannot think of the -poet’s Christ, wandering through Galilean lilies in a woman’s robes. It’s His -manly death, His white timeless body on the Cross that I remember. Without -Calvary all His words would have been unconvincing and He Himself a dreamer’s -fancy. It was only on the Cross that Christ became flesh—all that went before -is like a lovely legend gradually materializing in the atmosphere of tragedy. -God save us from being always happy. It’s the chance of being always happy -that I dread most after the war. There’s a terrible corpulence about happiness -which borders very closely on physical grossness. To strive and keep on -striving—that is what I want for the world when war is ended, and to have to -pay with sacrifice for each advance. I don’t think any of us who come back -will covet virtue as our goal, save in as far as virtue embraces everything -that is meant by manliness. To be virtuous in the original sense was just -that—to be physically perfect. - -Ah, how greedy I become out here to see some of the sudden qualities which war -has called out, transplanted into the civilian world. I so fear that with -peace those qualities may be debased and lost. - -More than anything else the gramophone makes me remember the old days and the -old aims and desires. It’s the greatest miracle of the century that Caruso and -Harry Lauder and George Robey, with all the best of music and laughter-makers, -can step into our dug-out from the point of a needle. When we move, whatever -else is left behind, the gramophone always goes. It travels in G.S. wagons, on -the foot-board of limbers—in all sorts of ways. We’re feeling sentimental; we -crank up the canned music. Above the roar of the guns we hear, “All that I -want is someone to love me, and to love me well.” We’re feeling merry, so we -dance to “Arizona.” All the world of forgotten pleasures can come to us -through that needle-point. And I—whenever it starts—I see home pictures—— - -Then in an extraordinarily poignant way I feel earnest to have lived, loved, -done something big before I die. Everything already done seems insignificant -and worthless. It’s the feeling which you once called “divine discontent.” - -It’s evening, as it always is when I write to you. Next door a little refugee -child is chanting his prayers under the direction of his father. One can hear -the humming of planes overhead. A funny world! How persistent the religious -instinct is, that men should still credit God when their hearts are bankrupt! - -Good-night, I’m going to bed now. - - -LII - -France June 12, 1918 - -With me it’s 6.30 in the evening. I’m sitting in a farmhouse overlooking the -usual French farmyard. The chickens fly in at the window—also the cats. The -window is my own mode of entrance; I feel like a burglar when I enter my -“bedroom” in this fashion after midnight. Two other officers share the floor -with me—literally the floor, for we use our sleeping-sacks. - -There’s a little boy about three, with long hair, so that at first we mistook -him for a girl, who has become the temporary mascot of the battery. He carries -the broken remains of a toy rifle and falls in with the men on parades, -holding one of the fellows’ hands. He’s picked up the detail for “'Shun!” and -“Stand at Ease!” and carries out the orders as smartly as anyone, looking -terrifically serious about it. The men call him “little sister” on account of -his appearance, and make him a great pet. I left him sobbing his heart out -to-day when I had to leave him behind after he had fallen in with a squad of -riflemen. - -There’s a genuine little girl who is our friend, of whom I am even fonder. -She’s a refugee kiddy of about thirteen—slim and pretty as a fairy, with a -long corn-gold plait of hair down her back. - -As soon as we start the gramophone going she peeps noiselessly as a spirit -through the window; then one of us lifts her across the sill and she sits on -our knees with her face hidden shyly against our shoulders. - -I’m at present reading Gulliver’s Travels. That I should be reading them in -such different circumstances from any that Swift could have imagined, kindles -the art of writing books into a new romance. To be remembered years after you -yourself have forgotten, to have men prying into the workings of a brain which -has been dust in a shell for two centuries, is a very definite kind of -immortality. To be forgotten—that is what we most dread. Never to have -happened would not matter; but to have happened, to have walked the world, -laughed, loved, created, and then to be treated as though we had not happened, -there lies the sting of death. The thought of extinction offends our vanity; -we had thought that we were of more consequence to the universe. It doesn’t -comfort us to be recalled impersonally in the mass, as the men who captured -Vimy or thrust the Hun back from some dangerous objective. In the mass we -shall go down through history, no doubt, but not as human beings—only as -heroes. We would rather be recalled by our weaknesses—as so-and-so who loved a -certain girl, who played a good hand of poker, who overdrew his bank-account. -Out here, from the moment a man places foot in France, the anonymity of death -commences. No one cares who he was in a previous world, what he did for a -living, whether he was a failure or a success. None of his former virtues -stand to his credit except as they contribute to his soldier-life of the -present. None of us talk about our past; if we did, our company would yawn at -us. Only the mail arriving at irregular intervals keeps us in knowledge that -we once had other personalities. Letters are like ghosts of a world abandoned, -tiptoeing through the dream of a sleeper. Between you and us there is a great -gulf fixed——Not that we resent it. Someone has to pay a price for the future -safety of the world; out of all the ages we have been chosen as the persons. -There is nothing to resent,—quite the contrary. Only, now and then creeps in -the selfish longing that we may be remembered not as soldiers, but as what we -were—in our weakness as well as in our strength. - -You’re in a country place where I have not been and which I cannot picture. I -hope you’re all enjoying yourselves. There’s no need to worry on my account. - - -LIII - -France June 20,1918 - -Here I am in the kind of place that William Morris wrote about. My room is in -a monastery, from which all but two of the monks have long since fled. The -nunnery, in which the rest of the officers are billeted, was long since -vacated. A saint was born here, and there used to be pilgrimages to his -shrine; now only the two monks remain to toll the bell, play the organ, and to -go through all the religious observances. The walls of the room in which I am -writing are covered with illuminated prayers. Pinned on the door outside is -the list of all the duties for the day. From my window I can see the two -faithful ones pacing in the overgrown garden, counting their beads, murmuring -their prayers, and behaving in every way as though the war had not commenced. -Such despising of external happenings, even though it be mistaken, calls for -admiration of sorts. - -The country is lovely and green now, all except the immediate battle-line. -Birds sing, flowers bloom, and fleecy white clouds go drifting overhead. One -takes chance baths in chance-found brooks, and the men spread their tents in -the meadows. There’s everything that life can offer to tempt us to go on -living at present. There are moments so happy that I almost wish that you -could be here to share them. - -To-day I’m out of touch—no letters have arrived. Perhaps they will overtake us -tomorrow. A thrush is singing in the monastery garden and the slow blue -twilight is falling. Mingling as an accompaniment to the song of the thrush is -the slow continual droning of a plane. The reminders of war are persistent and -incessant. Nevertheless, in spite of war, I found a strawberry patch this -afternoon and glutted myself. - -I see by to-day’s paper that a racket has started on the Italian front. The -Central Powers are declaring their weakness by striking out in too many -directions. We give and we give, but we never break. We’re waiting for America -and her millions. How long before we can count on them to help us to attack? - -It’s extraordinary how the belief in America has grown. First of all we said, -“She has come in too late”; then, “She’ll help us to win more quickly”; and -now, “We need her.” If America has done nothing else, she has strengthened our -moral all along the line; we fight better because we know that she is behind -us. - -You’re somewhere where the world is intensely quiet. I shall think of you -where the world is happy. - - -LIV - -France June 20, 1918 - -I’ve just finished reading a big batch of mail, and have had dinner and now -sit looking out on the drenched country which is covered with a shabby evening -sky. In the church, which adjoins the monastery in which I stay, monks are -chanting. They are always chanting. One wonders for what it is that they pray; -deeds at any moment, let alone the present, are so much better. I can picture -what would happen here if the Germans came. I have caught myself thinking of -Marie Odelle; our scenery is similar to that pictured in the play. Strange how -one goes to imagination in search of illustrations of reality! - -You, at your end, seem to have been having some wildly exciting times with -your processions in which the Kaiser has been publicly done away with. It’s a -phase which all countries go through, I suppose. England did at the beginning -of the war. But now we entrain for the Front without bands playing, and do our -best not to attract attention. We’re a little ashamed of arousing other -people’s emotions on our behalf. All we want is a “Cheerio and God bless You,” -for our good-bye. If we come back, it will be “jolly fine”; and if we don’t, -“C’est la guerre”—we shrug our shoulders. In either event we see no reason why -the feelings should be harrowed of those who stop behind. - -After a series of very early morning rises, I have been picturing to myself -the day when I once again wake up at the Ritz, with a camouflaged foreigner to -bring my breakfast to my pillow and then leave me in peace till twelve -o’clock. I wonder now why I ever left my bed in peace times and find myself -marvelling at my unnecessary energy. The French patriot who held receptions -and did the business of the day while sitting in a bath of milk, had mastered -the art of life. Unfortunately, if I remember rightly, he was made a glaring -example of sloth by being “done in” while thus pleasurably occupied. - -I’m off to do my rounds as orderly officer now. My sergeant is waiting, so, as -the men say, “I must ring off.” - - -LV - -France June 23, 1918 - -Here I sit on a summer’s evening in the red-tiled kitchen of an old farmhouse. -Immediately under the open window to my right is the inevitable -manure-heap—the size of which, they say, denotes the extent of the farmer’s -wealth. Barn-roofs, ochre-red, shine vividly in the pale gold of the sunset; -at the end of the yard the walls fall away, giving the glimpse of an orchard -with gnarled, lichen-covered fruit-trees. All kinds of birds are twittering -and singing; house-swallows dart and dive across open spaces. In the distance -the guns are booming. War affords one strange contrasts of sight and sound. -Not many of the peasants have moved away; they have great faith in the -Canadians. Every now and then a forlorn group will come trailing down the road -between the hedges: an old tumbledown cart, drawn by an old tumble-down horse, -piled and pyramided dangerously high with old tumble-down furniture. The -people who accompany the vehicle are usually ancient and tumbledown as well. -They make me recall someone’s description of the Irish emigrants on the St. -Lawrence, travelling with “ragged poverty on their backs.” In contrast with -these few straggling fugitives, hounded by avaricious fear, is the calm of a -country billowy with grain and sociable with the grinning contentment of -quite-at-home British Tommies. Everything in their attitude seems to assure -the French peasant, “Don’t worry, old dear. We’re here. Everything’s all -right.” From barns and houses and bivouacs come the sounds of gramophones, -playing selections from quite the latest musical comedies. If you wander back -into the fields you will find horsemen going over the jumps, men playing -baseball and cricket, officers getting excited over tennis. We even held our -Divisional Sports the other day—and this in the midst of the war’s greatest -offensive. This “'Arf a mo’, Kaiser,” attitude of the Canadians would give you -some idea of the esteem in which we hold the Hun. Our backs are not against -the wall. We still have both the time and the inclination to be sportsmen and -to laugh. I’m sure the enemy, grimly obsessed by the idea of breaking our -line, never allows himself a moment for recreation, and I should think his -balloon-observers, spying on us from the baskets of his distant sausages, must -be very chagrined by our frivolity. The papers say, and very probably they’re -right, that German strategists are far ahead of those possessed by the Allies; -but our men have learnt a trick worth all the strategy—they have learnt to -laugh both in success and adversity. In this war, I believe we shall find that -he who has acquired the habit of a light heart will do the laughing last. I -should very much like to know how many gramophones travel with the German -Tommies; hardly any, I’ll bet. They have their bands with their patriotic -music, keeping always before the men the singleness of their purpose. The -singleness of their purpose tires them out. On our side of the line patriotism -is the last thing you hear about. Thank God, we’ve got time to forget it. - -Whenever I start trying to explain to you the psychology of our fighting-men -I’m always conscious that, even while I’m telling you the absolute truth, with -the same words I’m creating a wrong impression. Fighting-men aren’t -magnificent most of the time; they’re not idealists; they’re not heroic. Very -often they’re petty and cynical and cowards. They’re only magnificent and -idealistic and heroic in the decision that brought them here, and in the last -supreme moment when they bring their decision to fulfilment. - -In a letter I received from Paris the other day the puzzle of the modern -soldier was very well expressed. “I don’t believe,” it said, “I will ever get -used to the courage of the men who go on and on with this terrible game. I’m -thinking more now of the French and the British soldiers, who are mended up -only to go at it again. I never can get used to it or take it as a matter of -course. When I think for a minute how it hurts to have a tooth filled, I -wonder that all the armies of the world don’t get up and run away from each -other of one accord—every one who isn’t a hero or a fool, that’s to say.” - -When I think over the problem calmly I have the same wonder. The problem was -so neatly expressed that I read the passage out to the mess. They stopped in a -round of poker to listen. “Well, which are we,” I asked; “heroes or fools?” -“Fools,” they said unanimously, and then went on playing their hands again. -They’re right; we are fools. We’re certainly not heroes. We’re fools for a -kind of kingdom of heaven’s sake—but we don’t act like the heaven part of it -any more than we talk about our patriotism. Any mention of either would make -us shudder. - -I wonder what motive brought the heathen Chinee to the Western Front. I’ve -been told that he came that he might buy food for his family, because there’s -a famine in China. Maybe. His bronze face stares up into ours from out the -green-gold of the standing wheat—stares up into ours with the inscrutable gaze -of an age-old Buddha. He’s the one human being on the Western Front who -neither by acts nor words explains his nobility. Nobility there must have been -to induce him to come; no reasoning creature would have jeopardized his body -out of lust. - -Last night I rode beneath a full white moon for miles through the standing -crops. I only struck a road to cross it and say good-bye to it—then on and on -with the soft swish of the swelling stalks against my stirrups. Shall we -recall our old panics and delights if we live to reach normality again? Will -normality satisfy? Shall we be content to know that all the hoard of the -future years is ours? In a word, shall we ever again desire to be safe? -Questions which none of us can answer! - - -LVI - -France June 27, 1918 - -Here’s a glorious June morning with a touch of chill in the air and a jolly -gold sun shooting arrows into the wheatfields. The chief sound I hear is the -rattling of head-chains, for the drivers are hard at work shining up their -harness. These summer days go by very pleasantly, but they throw one’s -thoughts back a little wistfully to the Junes of other years—especially those -in which the train came skidding down the mountains from Spokane to the ranch -and the lake. All day, from first waking in the morning, we begin to gamble on -our chances with the mail. It arrives any time between two and five o’clock; -the evening passes in reading and re-reading our letters and concocting -replies. I think some letters from you are nearly due again and I’m hoping for -one this afternoon. - -I think I mentioned that our battery has a French baby boy of three for its -mascot, just at present. He has been christened Bully Beef, but for what -reason I don’t know. Bully Beef falls in beside the Sergeant-Major on all -parades. During stables he inspects the horses, toddling round the lines and -hanging on to the finger of an officer. The other day he fell into the river -while the horses were watering. No one noticed his disappearance for a minute -or two; then he was discovered standing nearly chin-deep, doing a very quiet -cry. He was consoled with pennies, and I undertook to lead him up to his -mother. There are many stories about Bully Beef’s origin. Some say that his -father is a rich Frenchman already married; others, a dead poilu; others, a -sergeant of a Highland Division which was encamped in this neighbourhood. His -mother is an exceedingly pretty French girl and she is not married. I can’t -help feeling that Bully Beef must be half British, for he isn’t timid like a -French child. On the contrary, he hides in the hedges and throws stones at us -when he is offended, and has a finely exaggerated sense of his childish -dignity. What memories he’ll have when he’s become a man. - -There was another character I mentioned in a previous letter—I called him -“Battling Brown”—the chap has D.S.O. and Military Crosses with bars to them -and delights in putting on raids. I’ve since found that he cuts a notch in his -revolver for every Hun he has killed with it. His present weapon has eighteen -notches and the wooden handle of the first is notched to pieces. - -It’s refreshing to find a man on our side of the line who knows how to hate. -If we had hated more at the first, the war would be ended. Personally I can -only hate ideas and nations—not persons; I acknowledge this as a weakness in -myself. - -I don’t think any of us realize quite how much war has changed us, -particularly in our relations to sex. Women had grown discontented with being -wives and mothers, and had proved that in many departments they could compete -with men. This competition was responsible for a growing disrespect. Men were -beginning to treat women in a way they demanded—as though they were men. Women -were beginning to regard men with a quiet sex-contempt. It looked as if -chivalry and all that made for knighthood were at an end. Then came war, -calling men to a sacrifice in which women had no share—could not share because -they were physically incapable of fighting—and women to the only contribution -they could make, mercy and motherhood. We’ve been flung back on our primal -differences and virtues. War has cut the knotted sex-emancipation; we stand up -to-day as elementally male and female as when the Garden of Eden was -depopulated. Amongst our fighting-men, women actually hold the place which was -allotted to them by idealists in troubadour times. - -Mothers and sisters and sweethearts, remembered at this distance, have made -all women sacred. A new medievalism and asceticism have sprung out of our -modern tragedy, enacted beneath the sea, on the land and in the clouds. The -tragedy, while modern to us, is actually the oldest in the world—merely death. - -It’s evening now. No letter from home came this afternoon. - - -LVII - -France July 4, 1918 - -I am now attached with two guns to the infantry on a special job. I live with -the battalion—speak about “our battalion,” in fact—and share quarters with the -Trench Mortar officer. The country is green and fragrant with dog-roses. The -dead have been gathered up and lie in little scattered graveyards. Our living -men spread their blankets between the mounds and at night hang their equipment -on the crosses. War robs men of all fear of the supernatural—or is it that the -dead have become our brothers? - -One writes a description of battlefields to-day and it is untrue to-morrow. -Everything has changed in the past year. Siege warfare, with deep trenches and -guns in positions of observation, is becoming more rare; we are more mobile -now and see more of the country. I believe, before many months are out, the -dream of every gunner along the Western Front will have come true, and we -shall be firing at the enemy over open sights and coming into action on the -gallop. It will be far more sporting and exciting. The Trench Mortar officer -with whom I am living remembers that kind of work in the early days, when my -battery was still firing on the enemy while the Hun was bayoneting the -batteries behind. He has a great tale of how he came right through the enemy -without knowing, bringing up with him a precious load of small-arms ammunition -to his General, who was cut off by the enemy. He and his five men were given -rifles, and together with the waifs and strays of many broken regiments held -the line against the advance on Calais. Experiences such as that are worth -living for; I’m hopeful that before I take off khaki I may be in something of -the kind. - -You needn’t think of me any more—at least for the present—as living in -beastliness and corruption. I daresay the country where I am is almost as -beautiful as where you are spending your holidays. The Hun did the Allies a -good turn when he advanced, for he shoved us back out of the filth of three -years’ fighting into cleanness. One can see deserted cottages with their -gardens full of flowers, and green woods shaking their plumes against blue -skies. At one of our halts the men did themselves very well with baskets of -trout; they caught the trout by the simple expedient of flinging bombs into -the river. The concussion killed the fish and they floated to the surface. - -For the present that is all my news. - - -LVIII - -France July 10, 1918 - -I am delighted to see that every day the prophecies I made in Out to Win are -coming true. The attack that the Americans put on on 4th July is, to my mind, -one of the most significant things that has happened yet. Their battle-cry, -“Lusitania,” says everything in one word concerning their purpose in coming to -France. If I were a Hun I should find it more terrifying than the most -astounding statements of armaments and men. I can picture the enemy in those -old shell-holes of the Somme that I know so well. It’s early morning, and a -low white mist steals ghost-like over that vast graveyard, where crumbling -trenches and broken entanglements mark the resting-places of the dead. The -enemy would be sleepy-eyed with his long vigil, but with the vanishing of -night he would fancy himself safe. Suddenly, hurled through the dawn, comes -the cry, “Lusitania!” It must have sounded like the voice of conscience—the -old and boasted sin for which medals were struck, the infamy of which was worn -as a decoration, rising out of the past to exact suffering for suffering, -panic for panic, blood for blood. Whoever chose that battle-cry was a poet—he -said everything in the shortest and most rememberable way. America is in -France to act as the revenge of God. She has suffered in the spirit what -France has suffered in the flesh; through being in France she has learnt from -the French the justice of passionate, punishing hate. I can think that -somewhere beneath the Atlantic the bodies of murdered children sat up at that -cry; I can believe that the souls of their mothers went over the top with -those American boys. “Lusitania!” The white-hot anger of chivalry was in the -cry. - -Yes, and we, too, are learning to hate. For years we have hesitated to -dogmatize as to which side God favours; but now, since hospitals have been -bombed and the women who came to nurse us have been slaughtered, Cromwell’s -religious arrogance has taken possession of our hearts—“Let God arise, and let -His enemies be scattered.” When it was only we men who were wounded and killed -by the Hun we could afford to regard him with an amused tolerance, but -now——This is how we have changed: we should welcome our chance to kill at -close quarters and to forget mercy. This time last year we were proud to say -that we had no personal animosity for the individual German; it sounded so -strong and impartial. We don’t feel that way now; can’t feel that way. At -last, because of our women who are dead, we have learnt the magnanimity of -hatred. Germany has entered a new phase of the war—a phase which her -persistent brutality has created. She will find no more smiling faces on our -side of No Man’s Land when she lifts up her hands, shouting “Kamerad!” We are -not her comrades; we never shall be again so long as our race-memory lasts. -Like Cain, the brand of murder is on her forehead and the hand of every living -creature is against her. When she pleads with us her common humanity, we will -answer “Lusitania!” and charge across the Golgotlias and the mists of the -dawn, driving her into oblivion with the bayonet. No truth of the spirit which -her voice utters will ever be truth for us again. It has taken four years to -teach us our lesson; we were slow; we gave quarter; but we have learnt. - - -LIX - -France July 11, 1918 - -I’ve returned from being with the infantry and am back with my battery now. -For the next few days I shall probably be out of touch with my incoming mail. - -I have spoken several times to you about the test of war; how it acknowledges -one chief virtue—courage. A man may be a poet, painter, may speak with the -tongue of angels; but, if he has not courage, he is as sounding brass or a -tinkling cymbal. The other day I was accidentally the witness to the -promulgation of a court-martial. The man was an officer; he had been sentenced -to be shot, but the order had been changed to cashiering. There, in the -sunlight, all his brother officers were drawn up at attention. Across the -fields the men whom he had commanded were playing baseball. He was led out -bareheaded. The sentence and the crime for which he had been sentenced were -read aloud to him in an unsteady voice. When that was ended, an officer -stepped forward and stripped the buttons and the badges of rank from his -uniform. It was like a funeral at which his honour was buried. Under an -escort, he was given “Right turn,” and marched away to meet the balance of -life that remained. In peace times he’d have been reckoned a decent-looking -chap, a little smart, but handsome—the kind of fellow of whom some mother must -have been proud and whom probably at least one girl loved. A tall chap, -too—six foot at least. I see him standing in the strong sunlight, white-faced -and dumb—better dead—despised. His fate was the fate which many of us feared -before we put on khaki when the call first came. We had feared that we might -not be able to stand the test and might be shot behind the lines. How and why -we can stand it we ourselves cannot say. It was all a gamble at the start. -Here was one man who had failed. The arithmetic of his spiritual values was at -fault: he had chosen bitter life when death would have been splendid. - -This must all sound very strange to you in your environment, where your honour -and life are safe. Perhaps I should not intrude such scenes upon you. - - -LX - -France July 15, 1918 - -The mail has just come up to us. The runner stuck his head into the hole in -the trench where I live and shoved in a pile of letters. “How many for me?” I -asked. “All of them,” he said. - -I’m all alone at the battery, the major having gone forward to reconnoitre a -position and all the other subalterns being away on duties—so I’ve had a quiet -time browsing through my correspondence. A Hun cat sits at the top of the -dug-out across the trench and blinks at me. We found him on the position. He’s -fat and sleek and plausible-looking. I can’t get it out of my mind that he’s -kept up his strength by battening on the corpses of his former owners. Between -the guns there are two graves; one to an unknown British and the other to an -unknown German soldier. - -The battlefield itself stretches away all billowy with hay for miles and -miles. When a puff of wind blows across it, it rustles like fire. The sides of -the trenches are gay with poppies and cornflowers. The larks sing -industriously overhead, and above them, like the hum of a swarm of bees, pass -the fighting planes. Miles to the rear I can hear the strife of bands, playing -their battalions up to the fine. A brave, queer, battling world! If one lives -to be old, he will talk about these days and persuade himself that he longs to -be back, if the time ever comes when life has lost its challenge. - -The Hun doesn’t seem to be so frisky as he was in March and April. Now that -he’s quieting down, we begin to lose our hatred and to speak of him more -tolerantly again. But whatever may be said in his defence, he’s a nasty -fellow. - -Since I started this letter I’ve dined, done a lot of work, watched a -marvellous sunset, and received orders to push up forward very early in the -morning. I shall probably send you a line from the O.P. The mystery of night -has settled down. Round the western rim of the horizon there is still a stain -of red. Under the dusk, limbers and pack horses crawl along mud trails and -sunken roads. We become populous when night has fallen. - - -LXI - -France July 17, 1918 - -To-night brought a great wad of American papers. What a time America is -having—all shouting and anticipation of glory without any suspicion of the -cost. War’s fine when it’s khaki and drums on Fifth Avenue—if it wasn’t -tortured bodies, broken hearts, and blinded eyes. Where I am the dead lie -thick beneath the sod; poppies pour like blood across the landscape, and -cornflowers stand tall in sockets empty of eyes. The inscription “Unknown -Soldier” is written on many crosses that grow like weeds from the shell-holes. -All the feet that marched away with shouting now lie silent; their owners have -even lost their names. Could death do more? Where I live at present everything -is blasted, stagnant, decayed, morose. War’s a fine spectacle for those who -only cheer from the pavement. - -It isn’t that I’m angry with people for seizing life and being gay. We’re gay -out here—but we’ve earned the right. Many of us are happier than we ever were -in our lives. Why not? For the first time we’re quite sure every minute of the -day that we’re doing right. And that certainty is the only excuse for being -happy while the Front line is suffering the tortures of the damned. - -I came down this morning from doing forward work; it had been raining in -torrents and the trenches were awash. I sleep to-night at the battery and -to-morrow I go forward again. It’s really great fun forward when it’s fine. -All day you watch the Hun country for signs of movement and snipe his -support-trenches and back-country. Far away on the horizon you watch plumes of -smoke trail from the chimneys of his towns, and try to guess his intentions -and plans. War’s the greatest game of the intellect yet invented; very little -of its success to-day is due to brute strength. - -It’s night now. I’m sitting in my shirt-sleeves, writing by the light of a -candle in an empty bottle. A row is going on outside as of “armed men falling -downstairs,” to borrow Stevenson’s phrase. It’s really more like a dozen -celestial cats with kettles tied to their tails. I wonder what God thinks of -it all; of all the kings, He alone is silent and takes no sides, -notwithstanding the Kaiser’s “Me und Gott.” - -My jolly little major has just looked up to suggest that the war won’t be -ended until all the world is under arms. He’s an optimist. - - -LXII - -France July 18, 1918 - -I’m up forward, sitting on a bank, looking at the Hun country through a hedge. -I know you’d give anything to be with me. In front there’s a big curtain of -sea-grey sky, against which planes crawl like flies. A beautiful half-moon -looks down at me with the tragic face of Harlequin. Far away across a plain -furrowed by shell-fire the spires and domes of cities in the captured -territory shine. Like all forbidden lands, there are times when the Hun -country looks exquisitely and unreally beautiful, as though it were tempting -us to cross the line. - -I’ve just left off to watch a squadron of enemy planes which have been -attempting to get across to our side. Everything has opened up on them; -machine guns are spouting their luminous trails of tracer bullets; archies are -bursting little cotton-wool clouds of death between them and their desire. -They evidently belong to a circus, for they’re slipping and tumbling and -looping like great gulls to whom the air is native. Ah, now they’ve given it -up and are going home thwarted. I wonder what the poor old moon thinks of all -these antics and turmoils in the domain which has been hers absolutely for so -many æons of nights. - -The horrible and the beautiful blending in an ecstasy, that is what war is -to-day. All one’s senses are unnaturally sharpened for the appreciation of -both happiness and pain. You walk down a road where a shell fell a minute ago; -the question always in your mind is, “Why wasn’t I there?” You shrug your -shoulders and smile, “I may be there next time”—and bend all your energies -towards being merry to-day. The threat of the end is very provocative of -intensity. - -It’s nearly dark now and I’m writing by the moonlight. One might imagine that -the angels were having pillow-fights in their bedrooms by the row that’s going -on in the sky. And there was a time when the occasional trolley beneath my -windows used to keep me awake at night! - -5 a.m. The letters came last night. You may imagine the place in which I read -them—lying on a kind of coffin-shelf in a Hun dug-out with the usual buzzing -of battened flies and the usual smell and snoring of an unwashed B.C. party. -How good it is to receive letters; they’re the only future we have. After I’d -sent the runner down to the battery I had to go forward to a Gomorrha of -fallen roofs, which stands almost on the edge of No Man’s Land. Stagnant -shell-holes, rank weeds, the silence of death, lay all about me, and along the -horizon the Hun flares and rockets danced an impish jig of joy. When the war -is ended we shall miss these nights. Strange as it sounds, we shall look back -on them with wistfulness and regret. Our souls will never again bristle with -the same panic of terror and daring. We shall become calm fellows, filling out -our waistcoats to a contented rotundity; no one will believe that we were once -the first fighting troops of the European cock-pit. We shall argue then, where -to-day we strike. We shall have to preach to make men good, whereas to-day we -club vice into stupor. We shall miss these nights. - -I glance up from my page and gaze out through the narrow slit from which I -observe. I see the dear scarlet poppies shining dewy amid the yellow -dandelions and wild ox-eyed daisies. I am very happy this morning. The world -seems a good place. For the moment I have even given over detesting the Hun. -With luck, I tell myself, I shall sit in old gardens again and read the old -volumes, and laugh with the same dear people that I used to love. With -luck—but when? - - -LXIII - -France |July 19|, 1918 - -We’re all sitting round the table studying maps of the entire Western Front -and prophesying the rapid downfall of the Hun. It’s too early to be -optimistic, but things are going excellently and the American weight is -already beginning to be felt. It may take two years to reach the Rhine, but we -shall get there. Until we do get there, I don’t think we shall be content to -stop. We may not all be above ground for the end, but people who are like us -will be there. - -My batman has just returned to the guns from the wagon-lines, bringing me two -letters and a post-card. They were most welcome. After reading them I went out -into the moonlight to walk over to the guns, and, such is the nature of this -country, though the journey was only 200 yards, I lost myself. Everything that -was once a landmark is levelled flat—there’s nothing but shell-holes covered -with tangled grass, barbed wire, exploded shell-cases, and graves. I can quite -understand how men have wandered clean across No Man’s Land and found -themselves the guests of the Hun. - -I think I once mentioned the man we have cooking for our mess at present—how -he was no good as a cook until he got word that his wife had been drowned in -Canada; his grief seemed to give him a new pride in himself and since his -disaster our meals have been excellent. This morning I found a curious -document on my table, which ran as follows: “Sir, I kan’t cock without stuf to -cock with.” I was at a loss to discover its meaning for some time. Why -couldn’t he cock? Why should he want to cock? How does one cock? And whether -he could or couldn’t cock, why should he worry me about it? - -Then the widower presented himself, standing sooty and forlorn in the trench -outside the mess. The mystery was cleared up. - -The mess-cart is just up, and I’m going to send this off, that it may reach -you a day earlier. - - -LXIV - -France July 23, 1918 - -I’m sitting in my “summer-house” in the trench. One side is unwalled and -exposed to the weather; a curtain of camouflage stretches over the front and -disguises the fact that I am “in residence.” For the last twenty-four hours -it’s been raining like mad, blowing a hurricane and thundering as though all -the clouds had a sneezing fit at once. You can imagine the state of the -trenches and my own drowned condition when I returned to the battery this -morning from my tour of duty up front. It seems hardly credible that in so -short a time mud could become so muddy. However, I usually manage to enjoy -myself. Yesterday while at the O.P. I read a ripping book by “Q.” with -almost—not quite—the Thomas Hardy touch. It was called The Ship of Stars, and -was published in 1899. Where it fails, when compared with Hardy, is in the -thinness of its story and unreality of its plot. It has all the characters for -a titanic drama, but having created them, “Q.” is afraid to let them be the -brutes they would have been. How many novelists have failed through their -determination to be quite gentlemanly, when merely to have been men would have -made them famous! If ever I have a chance again I shall depict men as I have -seen them out here—animals, capable of animal lusts, who have angels living in -their hearts. - -To-day has the complete autumn touch; we begin to think of the coming winter -with its drenched and sullen melancholy—its days and nights of chill and damp, -telescoping one into another in a grey monotony of grimness. Each summer the -troops have told themselves, “We have spent our last winter in France,” but -always and always there has been another. - -Yet rain and mud and melancholy have their romance—they lend a blurred -appearance of timelessness to a landscape and to life itself. A few nights ago -I was forward observing for a raid which we put on. The usual panic of flares -went up as the enemy became aware that our chaps were through his wire. Then -machine guns started ticking like ten thousand lunatic clocks and of a sudden -the S.O.S. barrage came down. One watched and waited, sending back orders and -messages, trying to judge by signs how affairs were going. Gradually the -clamour died away, and night became as silent and dark as ever. One waited -anxiously for definite word; had our chaps gained what they were after, or had -they walked into a baited trap? - -Two hours elapsed; then through the loneliness one heard the lagging tramp of -tired men, which came nearer and drew level. You saw them snowed on by the -waning moon as they passed. You saw their rounded shoulders and the fatness of -their heads—you knew that they were German prisoners. Limping in the rear, one -arm flung about a comrade’s neck, came our wounded. Just towards dawn the dead -went by, lying with an air of complete rest upon their stretchers. It was like -a Greek procession, frescoed on the mournful streak of vagueness which divides -eternal darkness from the land of living men. Just so, patiently and -uncomplainingly has all the world since Adam followed its appointed fate into -the fold of unknowingness. We climb the hill and are lost to sight in the -dawn. There’s majesty in our departure after so much puny violence. - -And God—He says nothing, though we all pray to Him. He alone among monarchs -has taken no sides in this war. I like to think that the Union Jack waves -above His palace and that His angels are dressed in khaki—which is quite -absurd. I think of the irresistible British Tommies who have “gone west,” as -whistling “Tipperary” in the streets of the New Jerusalem. They have haloes -round their steel helmets and they’ve thrown away their gas-masks. But God -gives me no licence for such imaginings, for He hasn’t said a word since the -first cannon boomed. In some moods one gets the idea that He’s contemptuous; -in others, that He takes no sides because His children are on both sides of No -Man’s Land. But in the darkest moments we know beyond dispute that it is His -hands that make our hands strong and His heart that makes our hearts -compassionate to endure. I have tried to inflame my heart with hatred, but I -cannot. Hunnishness I would give my life to exterminate, but for the -individual German I am sorry—sorry as for a murderer who has to be executed. I -am determined, however, that he shall be executed. They are all apologists for -the crimes that have been committed; the civilians, who have not actually -murdered, are guilty of thieving life to the extent of having received and -applauded the stolen goods. - -We had a heated discussion to-day as to when the war would be ended; we were -all of the opinion, “Not soon. Not in less than two years, anyway. After that -it will take another twelve months to ship us home.” I believe that, and yet I -hope. Along all the roads of France, in all the trenches, in every gun-pit you -can hear one song being sung by poilus and Tommies. They sing it while they -load their guns, they whistle it as they march up the line, they hum it while -they munch their bully-beef and hard-tack. You hear it on the regimental bands -and grinding out from gramophones in hidden dug-outs: - - “Over there. Over there. - Send the word, send the word over there, - That the Yanks are coming——” - -Men repeat that rag-time promise as though it were a prayer, “The Yanks are -coming.” We could have won without the Yanks—we’re sure of that. Still, we’re -glad they’re coming and we walk jauntily. We may die before the promise is -sufficiently fulfilled to tell. What does that matter? The Yanks are coming. -We shall not have died in vain. They will reap the peace for the world which -our blood has sown. - -To-night you are in that high mountain place. It’s three in the afternoon with -you. I wish I could project myself across the world and stand beside you. -Life’s running away and there is so much to do besides killing people. But all -those things, however splendid they were in achievement, would be shameful in -the attempting until the war is ended. - -Between writing this I’ve been making out the lines for the guns and running -out to fire them—so forgive anything that is disjointed. - - -LXV - -France July 29, 1918 - -I have just had a very large batch of letters to read. I feel simply -overwhelmed with people’s affection. I have to spend every moment of my -leisure keeping up with my mighty correspondence. The mail very rarely brings -me a bag which is totally empty. The American Red Cross in Paris keeps me in -mind continually. I had thirty gramophone records and twelve razors from them -the other day, together with a pressing invitation to get a French leave and -spend it in Paris. But your letters bulk much larger in numbers than any that -I receive from anywhere else. I always leave home-letters to the last—bread -and butter first, cake last, is my rule. - -I must apologize for the slackness of my correspondence for the past few days, -but two of them were spent forward while taking part in a raid, and the third -at the observing post. It rained pretty nearly all the time and sleep was not -plentiful. Yesterday I spent in “pounding my ear” for hours; to-day I’m as -fresh as a daisy and writing reams to you to make up for lost time. - -You’ll be sorry to hear that a favourite little chap of mine has been -seriously wounded and may be dead by now. A year ago, at the Vimy show, he did -yeoman service, and I got him recommended for the Military Medal. He was my -runner on the famous day. He’s been in all sorts of attacks for over three -years, and at last a stray shell got him. It burst about ten feet away, -wounding him in the head, arm, and knee, besides nearly cutting off a great -toe. His name was Joy. He lived up to his name, and was carried out on the -stretcher grim, but bravely smiling. You can’t dodge your fate; it searches -you out. You wonder—not fearfully, but curiously—whose turn it will be next. -For yourself you don’t much care; your regrets are for the others who are -left. Still, don’t you think that I’m going west, I have an instinct that I -shall last to the end. - -I think I mentioned the pathetic note of the mess cook, which I found awaiting -me one morning on the breakfast table: “I kan’t cock without stuf to cock -with.” The history of our experiments in cooks would make a novel in itself. -The man before the pathetic beggar was a miner in peace times; as a cook his -meals were like charges of dynamite—they blasted our insides. The worst of -them was that they were so deceptive, they looked innocent enough till it was -too late to refuse them. You may lay it down as final that all cooks are the -dirtiest men in any unit. The gentleman who couldn’t “cock” earned for himself -the title of the “World’s Champion Long Distance Dirt Accumulator.” I was -present when the O.C. discharged him. He sent for the man, and was stooping -forward, doing up his boot, when he entered. The man looked like the wrath of -God—as though he had been embracing all the denizens of Hell. Without looking -up the O.C. commenced, “Where did you learn to prepare all these tasty meals -you’ve been serving us?” - -“I kan’t cock without——” - -“I know you can’t cock,” said the O.C. tartly; “you can’t even keep yourself -clean. All you know how to do is to waste good food. I’m sending you down to -the wagon-lines, and if you’re not washed by guard-mounting, I’ve given orders -to have you thrown into the horse-trough.” - -Exit the “cock.” - -Your letters mean so much to me. I feel that my returns are totally -inadequate. Good-bye; some great news has come in and the major wants to -discuss it. - - -LXVI - -France July 30,1918 - -I’m writing to you to-day, because I may be out of touch for a few days, as it -looks as though I was going to get my desire—the thing I came back for. Any -time if my letters stop temporarily, don’t get nervous. Such things happen -when one is on active service. - -It’s about two years to-day since I landed in England for the first time in -khaki; since then how one has changed! I can scarcely recognise myself at all. -It’s difficult to believe that I’m the same person. Without exaggeration, the -world has become to me a much jollier place because of this martial -experience. I don’t know how it is with you, but my heart has grown wings. One -has changed in so many ways—the things that once caused panic, he now -welcomes. Nothing gives us more joy than the news that we’re to be shoved into -a great offensive. It’s for each of us as though we had been invited to our -own wedding. Danger, which we used to dodge, now allures us. - -I read a very true article the other day on the things which we have lost -through the war. We have lost our youth, many of us. We have foregone so many -glorious springs—all the seasons have sunk their tones into the sombre -brown-grey mud of the past four years. We have lost all our festivals of -affection and emotion. Sundays, Christmases, Easters—they are all the same as -other days—so many hours useful only for the further killing of men. “You will -say,” writes my author, “that the war, after all, will not last for ever, and -that the man and woman of average longevity will live through -threescore-and-ten years of God’s wonderful springs. That to a very minor -extent is true. The war will not last for ever; but the memory of it, the -suffering of it, the incalculable waste of it, will last for all that remains -of our lives—which is 'for ever,’ after all, so far as you and I are -concerned.” He goes on to say that there are years and years—but the years in -which a man and woman may know that they are alive are few—the years of love -and of beauty. - -I agree with all this writer says; his words voice an ache that is always in -our hearts. But he forgets—life, love, youth and even beauty are not -everything. The animals have them. What we have gained is a new standard of -worth, which we have won at the expense of our bodies. To me that outweighs -all that we have lost. I spoke to you in a previous letter of the divine -discontent which goads us on, so that when we have attained a standard of -which we never thought ourselves capable, we envy a new and nobler goal, and -commence to race towards it. In one of Q.’. books I came across a verse which -expresses this exactly: - - - “Oh that I were where I would be! - Then would I be where I am not. - But where I am there I must be; - And where I would be, I can not.” - - -Discontented, ungrateful creatures we are! And yet there is nobility in our discontent. - -By the way, over the doorway of my O.P. is chalked this sound advice—“Do unto -Fritzie as he doth unto you. But do it first.” - - -LXVII - -France - -August 13, 1918 - -I haven’t seen a paper for nearly a fortnight, so don’t know what news of the -Front has been published and can risk telling you nothing. Suffice it to say -that I’m having the most choice experience that I’ve had since I took up -soldiering. We are winged persons—the body is nothing; to use Homer’s phrase, -“our souls rush out before us.” This is the top-notch of life; there was -nothing like it before in all the ages. We triumph; we each individually -contribute to the triumph, and, though our bodies are tired, our hearts are -elated. We’ll win the war for you and bring peace back; even the most dreary -pessimist must believe that now. - -I try to keep notes of the tremendous tragedies and glories which I witness -hour by hour, so that one day I can paint the picture for you as it happened. -All day I am reminded of that motto of the Gesta Romanorum, “What I spent, I -had; what I saved, I lost; what I gave, I have.” So many men have given in -this war—given in the sense of giving all. I think it must be true of them -wherever they are now, that they have in proportion to their sacrifice. It -should be written on the white crosses above all our soldiers, “What He Gave, -He Has.” What we are trying to give is heaven to the world; it is just that -those who fall should receive heaven in return. - - -LXVIII - -France - -August 14, 1918 - -I am writing to you in a lull—I may not have another opportunity for days. In -a battle one has no transport for conveying letters—only for ammunition, -wounded, and supplies. I’m stunningly well and bronzed. The weather is royal -and tropical and, best of all, the Hun’s tail is down while ours is pointing -heavenwards. One of my gunners was complaining this morning that it was “a -hell of a war.” It was the smell of dead cavalry horses that nauseated him. -Another gunner cheered him up, “Where’s the use of complaining, Bill? It’s the -only war we have.” That’s the spirit of our men. It may be a hell of a war, -but it’s the only one we have, so we may as well grin and make the best of it. -In the past few days I have seen more than in all my former experience. I can -visualize Waterloo now—and the last trump: the hosts of death deploying before -my eyes. That one still walks the earth seems wonderful. God is very lenient. - -But there is nothing to fear in death—only the thing that is left is -horrible—and how horrible! But the things that are left are not us—we have -pushed onwards to God. - - -LXIX - -France August 15, 1918 - -I keep on dropping you little notes to let you know that everything is all -right with me. It makes me very happy to hear from you; it always does, but -more so than ever nowadays. - -You remember R.? A few days ago he was killed. He was just ahead of me, riding -up the road. I did not see his face, but recognized his square-set figure and -divisional patches. He’s not had much of a run for his money, poor chap. It -was his first show, but he died game. - -How much longer have we got to go? It’s like a long, long walk, with no -milestones, towards an unknown destination. If we only knew how much farther -our goal lay, it would be easier. I dreamed last night of Kootenay, all green -and cool and somnolent. It was rest, rest, rest. One gazed through the -apple-trees to the quiet lake and felt happy in the too much beauty. But -please don’t worry about me. - - -LXX - -France - -August 17, 1918 - -I’m in the support trenches to-night carrying on with the infantry. This is my -third day and I am relieved to-morrow. Yesterday I had a gorgeous spree which -I will tell you about some day. I was out in front of our infantry in an -attack, scouting for the enemy. This war may be boring at times, but its great -moments hold thrills which you could find nowhere else. It may sound mad, but -it’s extraordinary fun to be chased by enemy machine-gun bullets. I’ve -recently had fun of every kind. - -Once again death is a familiar sight—tired bodies lying in the August -sunshine. In places where men once were, birds are the only inhabitants -remaining. - -In this hole in the ground where I am sitting I found a copy of the New York -Times for 30th June, with the first advertisement of Out to Win. Less than -thirty hours ago the Hun was sitting here and making himself quite -comfortable. I wonder if he was the owner of the New York Times. - -I was relieved last night, and had a difficult walk back to the battery. There -were several letters from you all awaiting me. How tired I was you may judge -when I tell you that I fell asleep without reading them. For the first time in -a fortnight I had my breeches off last night. Up forward one got drenched with -sweat by day and lay sodden and itchy on the damp ground by night. But don’t -think we weren’t cheerful—we were immensely happy. There’s no game in the -world like pushing back the Hun. I had another example of how we treat our -prisoners. A young officer came in captive while I was shaving. “How long -before we win?” I asked him. “We are going to vin,” he replied. “If not, vhy -because?” Our Tommies started kidding him. “Say, beau, you don’t look much -like winning now.” And then they offered him water and food, although we were -short ourselves and his whole deportment was insolent. - -During an attack, while I was within 200 yards of the advanced post and pinned -under a barrage, a Canadian Tommy wormed his way towards me. “Say, sir, are -you hungry? Have some maple sugar and cake?” Was I hungry! He had received a -parcel from Canada the night before which he had taken with him into the -attack. There, amongst whizz-bangs and exploding five-nines, we feasted -together, washing it all down with water from the bottle of a neighbouring -dead Hun. - -You can’t beat chaps who joke, think of home, go forward, and find time to -love their enemies under shell-fire. They’re extraordinary and as normal as -the air. - - -LXXI - -France August 20, 1918 - -To-day I have spent some time in composing recommendations for decorations for -two of my signallers who were with me in my latest show. One of the lucky -fellows came straight out of the death and racket to find his Blighty -leave-warrant waiting for him. Not that I really envy him, for I wouldn’t -leave the Front at this moment if there were twenty leave-warrants offered to -me. I suppose I’m a little mad about the war. - -I’m still very tired from my last adventure and am limping about with very -sore feet—but I’m very happy. I begin to feel that we’re drawing to the end of -the war. The Hun knows now that the jig is up. He was going to have defeated -us this summer while the Americans were still preparing—instead of that we’re -pushing him back. I don’t think he will gain another square yard of France. -From now on he must go back and back. - -This moving battle has been a grand experience; it enables you to see -everything unfolding like a picture—tanks, cavalry, infantry, guns. The long -marches were very wearying, and we were always pushing on again before we were -rested. Not that we minded—the game was too big. The first day of the attack I -sailed out into the blue alone, following up the Hun. I had the huge felicity -of firing at his retreating back over open sights at a range of less than 1000 -yards. We pushed so far that night that we got in front of our infantry and -were turned back by enemy machine-gun fire. The Hun is a champion runner when -he starts to go and difficult to keep up with. However, we caught him up -several times after that and helped him to hurry a bit faster. I never saw -anything finer in my life than the clouds of cavalry mustering—the way the -horses showed their courage and never budged for shell-fire set an example to -us men. The destruction burst in the midst of them, but they stood like -statues till the order was given to advance. Then away they went, like a -whirlwind of death, with the artillery following at the trot and coming into -action point-blank. I came across one machine-gun emplacement that a horseman -had charged. The horse lay dead on top of the emplacement, having smothered -the machine gunner out of action. That day when I was off by myself with my -two guns, I fed my horses on the oats of the fallen cavalry and my men on the -rations in the haversacks of the dead. In the ripe wheat the dying stared at -us with uninterested eyes as we passed. The infantry going cheering by when we -were firing, waved their hands to us, shouting, “That’s the stuff, boys. Give -’em hell!” We gave them hell, right enough. - -I’ve come through without a scratch and now I’m off to bed. Don’t worry if I -don’t write you—it’s impossible sometimes, and I’ll always cable through -London as soon as I can. - - -LXXII - -France - -August 22,1918 - -I can’t sleep to-night. It’s nearly one. The candle lights up the mud walls -and makes the other occupants of my dug-out look contorted and grotesque. They -sigh and toss in their dreams. Now an arm is thrown out and a face is turned. -They’ve been through it, all of them, in the past few days. They have a -haggard look. And somewhere in shell-holes, wheatfields, woods, they lie -to-night—those others. Pain no longer touches them—their limbs have ceased to -twitch and their breath is quiet. They have given their all. For them the war -is finished—they can give no more. - -Do people at home at all realize what our men are doing and have done? Coarse -men, foulmouthed men—men whose best act in life is their manner in saying -good-bye to it. And then there are the high-principled fellows from whom -ideals are naturally to be expected—whatever we are, we all go out in the same -way and in the same rush of determined glory. We climb the steep ascent of -Heaven through peril, toil, and pain—and at last our spirits are cleansed. - -I think continually of the mothers who stand behind these armies of millions. -Mothers just like my mother, with the same hopes and ambitions for their sons. -Poor mothers, they never forget the time when the hands that smite to-day were -too strengthless to do more than grope at the breast. They follow us like -ghosts; I seem to see their thoughts like a grey mist trailing behind and -across our strewn battlefields. When the rain descends upon our dead, it is -their tears that are falling. The whispering of the wheat is like the tiptoe -rustling of approaching women. - -Pray for us; we need your prayers—need them more than you think, perhaps. Tuck -us up in our scooped-out holes with your love, the way you used to before we -began to adventure. Above all be proud of us, whether we stand or fall—so -proud that you will not fret. God will let us be little again for you in -Heaven. We shall again reach up our arms to you, relying on your strength. We -shall be afraid and cry out for your comfort. We’re not brave—not brave -naturally; we shall want you in Heaven to tell us we are safe. - -So many thoughts and pictures come to me to-night. One is of a ravine I was in -a few days ago, all my men mounted and waiting to move forward. Wounded horses -of the enemy are limping through the grass. German wagons, caught by our -shell-fire, stand silent, the drivers frozen to the seats with a terrifying -look of amazement on their faces, their jaws loose and their bodies sagging. -Others lie twisted in the grass—some in delirium, some watching. We shall need -all our water before the day is over, and have no time to help them. Besides, -our own dead are in sight and a cold anger is in our heart. The -stretcher-bearers will be along presently—time enough for mercy when the -battle is won! We ourselves may be dead before the sun has set. I know the -anger of war now, the way I never did in the trenches. You can see your own -killing. You can also see the enemy’s work. And yet, through it all down come -our wounded, supported by the wounded Huns. - -“Those chaps are very good to you,” one of our officers said. The Tommy -grinned. “They have to be. If they weren’t, I’d let the daylight into them. -I’ve a pocketful of bombs, and they know it.” Well, that’s one incentive to -friendship, however reluctant. - -The Huns are brave—I know that now. They endure tests of pluck that are -well-nigh incredible. We are not defeating craven curs. I can think of no one -braver than the man who stays behind with a machine gun, fighting a rearguard -action and covering his comrades’ road to freedom. He knows that he will -receive no quarter from our people and will never live to be thanked by his -own. His lot is to die alone, hated by the last human being who watches him. -They’re brave men; they cease fighting only when they’re dead. - -What a contrast between love and hatred—dreaming of our mothers to the last -and smashing the sons of other mothers. That’s war! - - -LXXIII - -France - -August 22, 1918 - -Here I am lying flat on my tummy in the grass and spying on the enemy 2000 -yards away. I shall be here for twenty-four hours. There’s no sort of cover -and the sun is scalding. Luckily we’ve found water in a captured village near -by and I sent our linesmen to refill our bottles. There’s a lull for the -moment and we stretch ourselves out in weary contentment The body is a traitor -to the spirit—it can become very tired. - -I begin to see the end of the war. I can feel it coming as I never did before -since I struck France. The unbelievable truth begins to dawn on me that we’ll -be coming back to you—that we shall wake up one morning to find that the world -has no further use for our bombs and bayonets. Strange! After so much killing, -to kill will be again a crime. We shall begin to count our lives in years -instead of in days. - -How will the pictures one’s memory holds seem then? I can see, as I saw the -other day, a huge German lying on the edge of a wheatfield. His knees were -arched. He was on his back. His head rolled wearily from side to side. The -thing that fixed my attention was a rubber groundsheet flung hastily across -his stomach, whether in disgust or pity, I cannot say. I had my guns drawn up -in column, my men mounted, all ready to trot into action—so I had no time for -compassion or curiosity. But from my saddle I saw an infantryman raise the -ground-sheet and underneath there was nothing but a scarlet gap. There were -many sights like that that day. There have been many since then. I have seen -as many parts of the human body that the beautiful white skin tents, as a -student of anatomy. What hatred and injustice has preceded the making possible -of such acts! - -But in these places where horrors have been committed, the birds still flit -about their nests. When the tanks and the cavalry and the guns have pushed -forward, Nature returns to her task of beautifying the world. - -How I would like to sit down and talk with you all. When the war is over I can -see us going away to some quiet place and re-living the past and re-building -the future with words. I may see you sooner than either of us expect; there’s -always the chance of a Blighty. So far, beyond an attack of trench-fever from -which I’ve almost recovered, I’ve come through scatheless. - -By the time this reaches you I shall be looking forward to leave. Casualties -have thinned out the numbers on the leave-list and I stand fairly high now. I -ought to see England again in October. - - -LXXIV - -France - -August 30,1918 - -This is only a brief note to say that all is well with me and to ask you not -to worry. It’s two years to-morrow since I first saw the Front—two centuries -it seems. I’m different inside. I don’t know whether my outside has changed -much—but I wish sometimes that I could be back again. I begin to be a little -afraid that I shan’t be recognizable when I return. - -The journalists have been very free in their descriptions of our doings—they -have told you everything. If I told a tithe, my letter would not reach you. - - -LXXV - -France - -September 1, 1918 - -This is just another little note to let you know that I am safe and well. I am -allowed to say so little to you; that’s one of the worst penalties of this -war—the silence. Yesterday your cable, sent in reply to mine and forwarded -from London, arrived. My only chance of relieving your suspense when I have -not been able to write for some time, is to get one of my English friends to -cable to you. - -Did you see the good news concerning R. B.? He’s got his V.C. for saving life -under shell-fire in Zeebrugge harbour. His M.L. was hit fifty times. I -remember the way his neighbours used to patronize him before the war. They all -laughed when he went to California to study for an aeroplane pilot. They -didn’t try to join themselves, but his keenness struck them as funny. What -could a man who was half-blind do at the war, they asked—a man who ran his -launch into logs on the lake, and who crashed in full daylight when -approaching a wharf? When he had been awarded his flying certificate at the -American Air School our R.F.C. refused to take him. He tried to get into the -infantry, into everything, anything, and was universally turned down on the -score of weak sight. His quixotic keenness made less keen spectators smile. -Then, by a careless chance, he got himself accepted by the R.N.V.R. and was -put on to a motor launch. Everyone pictured him as colliding with everything -solid that came his way, and marvelled at the slipshod naval tests. But it -wasn’t his eyesight and limitations that really counted—it was his keenness. -In two years he’s a V.C., a D.S.O., and a Lieutenant-Commander. Before the war -he was the kind of chap with whom girls danced out of kindness To-day he’s a -hero. - -We were discussing him out here the other day; he’s the type of hero this war -has produced—a man not strong physically, a man self-depreciating and shy, a -man with grave limitations and very conscious of his difference from other -men. This was his chance to approve himself. People laughed that he should -offer himself as a fighter at all, but he elbowed his way through their -laughter to self-conquest. That’s the grand side of war—its test of internals, -of the heart and spirit of a man! bone and muscle and charm are only -secondary. - -The big things one sees done out here—done in the way of duty—and so quietly! -Whether one comes back or stays, the test has made all the personal suffering -worth while—for one hour of living to know that you have played the man and -saved a fellow-creature’s life. One never knows when these chances will come; -they rush in on you unexpectedly and expect to find you ready. In the -encounter the character built up in a lifetime is examined and reported on by -the momentary result. - -And yet how one suffers for the suffering he witnesses—the suffering of horses -and Huns, as well as of the men on our own side. The silent, smashed forms -carried past on the stretchers; the little groups of busy men among whom a -shell bursts, leaving those who do not rise. And overhead the sky is blue and -the wind blows happily through the sunshine. “Gone west”—that’s all, to the -land of departing suns. Some of us will stay to sleep among the gentlemen of -France. In either event we are fortunate in having been given the privilege to -serve our kind. - - -LXXVI - -Prince of Wales Hospital, London, September 6, 1918 - -Here I am once again in a clean white bed with the discreet feet of nurses, -like those of nuns, making hardly any sound as they pass up and down the -corridor. There’s just one other officer in my room. His leg is full of -machine-gun bullets, and, like myself, he’s just arrived from France. I’ve not -got used to this new security yet, this right to live, this ordered -decency—all of which seems to be summed up in the presence of women. Less than -three days ago I saw two of my gun-teams scuppered by shellfire and the horses -rolling among the wounded men. I can’t get the sight out of my mind. To be -alive seems an unfair advantage I have taken.—And all the time I want to be -back in the thick of it. It was so glorious—such a bon little war, as we say -out there, while it lasted. - -You’ll want to know what happened. On 2nd September at dawn we set out as the -point of the attacking wedge to hammer our way to Cambrai. You will have read -this, and more than this, already in your papers. After we had fired on the -barrage for several hours, and our infantry had advanced, we began to move our -battery forward by sections. The major was away on leave to Blighty, so the -captain was acting O.C. He went forward to observe and reconnoitre; I was left -to move up the battery. My own section was the last to move. On the road I was -met by a mounted orderly who handed me a written order to join another battery -which was doing forward work on opportunity targets. I reported to this -battery and had brought my two guns into position on their right flank, when -the first shell burst. The gun-teams had not unhooked; it burst directly under -the centre team and scuppered the lot, wounding all the drivers and killing -one of the gunners. We had got the guns into action, when another shell burst -beside the left-hand gun, near which I was standing, wounding all the gun-crew -except one man. I myself got a piece in the head, between the ear and the left -temple. It was a lucky chance that I wasn’t killed outright. The fragment of -shell struck upwards and under my steel helmet, cutting the chin-strap and the -brass link which holds the strap to the helmet. It was diverted by a rivet in -the strap, so instead of going straight into my head, it glanced along the -skull. I was X-rayed in France and was to have been operated on, but there was -no time with so many casualties coming down, so I was sent to England for the -operation. I was in luck to escape so lightly. I was so grateful to my helmet -that I hid it in my trench coat and smuggled it back to England with me as a -curiosity—which is not allowed. - -But to return to my story. After the second shell had caught us and others -were popping all about us, I made up my mind that the enemy had a direct line -on us. I have since been told that he put on a strong counter-attack and bent -our line back for a time, so that our artillery were very near up and it’s -likely that he could observe us. I sent back for my teams after we had carried -out our wounded, intending to drag the guns out farther to the right flank. -Another gun-team was scuppered and all my gunners were knocked out but three -men. The enemy now started to pay attention to my ammunition wagons, putting -one shell straight in among the lot of them, so I had to leave the guns for -the moment and get my wagons away. I then rode forward to where the other guns -of my battery were in action and found that they had escaped casualties, so -arranged to bring my guns in beside them. About an hour and a half after I was -hit I went to an advance aid-post to have my head dressed. It was just a pile -of stretchers and bandages in a ditch—the living under cover in the ditch, the -dead lying out on top; here a doctor and four Red Cross orderlies were working -in silence. I was ordered to report at the next post back for an anti-tetanus -injection, so I got on my horse and rode. At the next post they had no -anti-tetanus, so I was put on a lorry and driven back to Arras. From there I -went to the Casualty Clearing Station, where I was dressed and got two hours’ -sleep—from there I travelled on the Red Cross train to the Base, arriving at 6 -a.m., only eighteen hours from the time that I was in the fighting. The -hospital I went to was the Number 20 General—the same one that I was in last -year. That same morning I was X-rayed and starved all day in preparation for -an operation which did not happen. In the evening I was warned for Blighty, -but it was the midday of 4th September before I got on the train for the port -of embarkation. The journey was rather long, for I did not reach Liverpool -Street till two in the morning. Yesterday, as soon as I woke up, I sent you a -cable. In the afternoon Mr. W. came to see me and is coming again to-day. I -left the Front without a bit of kit, so my first S.O.S. was for a pair of -pyjamas. Having studied the colour of my eyes and consulted with his -lady-clerks, W. sent me a suit of baby blue silk ones with thin white stripes -in them—so now I am ready to receive ladies. - -3 p.m. I was X-rayed, and there is a splinter between the scalp and skull. -Whether the skull is fractured I don’t know; I think not, however, as I feel -too well. What a contrast lying here in the quiet after so many night marches, -so much secrecy, such tiger pounces forward in the dawn, such agony and -courage and death. There were wounded men hobbling seven miles from the -Drocourt-Quéant line where I was hit, to the hospital at Arras. The roads were -packed with transports—ammunition, pontoons, rations—streaming forward, -gunners and infantry marching up to the carnage with eager faces, passing the -back-going traffic which was a scarlet tide of blood. It was worth living -for—worth doing—that busting of the Hindenburg Line. I hope to be patched up -in two months, so that I may be in on the final rush to the Rhine. I’ve only -been out of the fighting three days and I want to be in it again. - -Don’t worry about me at all. I’m all right and brown and strong. Thank God I’m -not dead yet and shall be able to fight again. - -Note.—Lieutenant Coningsby Dawson was wounded on 2nd September in the attack -on the Quéant-Drocourt Line, when the magnificent fighting of the Canadians -broke the Hindenburg Line. The above letter describes that attack and the -manner in which he got his wound. - - -LXXVII - -London - -September 8, 1918 - -I’ve returned from this offensive with a very healthy hatred of the Hun. One -of our tanks, commanded by a boy of twenty, got too far ahead and was -captured. When the rest of the attacking line caught up, they found him -stripped naked and bound to his tank—dead. The brutes had bombed him to death -mother-naked. When I tell you that no prisoners were taken for the next -twenty-four hours, I think you’ll applaud and wonder why the twenty-four hours -wasn’t extended. The men said they got sick of the killing. - -Why we’re decent to these vermin at all amazes me, until I remember that I -also am decent to them. I think the reason is that originally we set out to be -good sportsmen and are ashamed of being forced into hatred. All the way down -the line the German wounded received precisely the same treatment as our own -men—and treatment that was just as prompt. At the Casualty Clearing Station, -German officers sat at table with us and no difference was made. On the Red -Cross train they were given beds in our carriage and our English sisters -waited on them. I thought of how the German nurses treat our chaps, spitting -into the food and the cups before they hand them to them. Every now and then -you would see a wounded Canadian hop up the carriage and offer them -cigarettes. They sat stiffly and insolently, with absurd yellow gloves on, -looking as though every kindness shown was a national tribute to their -superiority. There were so many of us that at night two had to lie on beds -made for one. The Germans refused; they wanted a bed apiece. When they were -told they would have to sit up if they would not share, they said they would -sit up. Then the sister came along to investigate the disturbance. They eyed -her with their obstinate pig-eyes, as though daring her to touch them. She -told them that if they wanted to sit up all night they would have to do it in -the corridor, as they prevented the bed above them from being pulled down. At -the end of fifteen minutes they decided to share a bed as all of us had been -doing, but they muttered and grumbled all night. There were a good many of us -who wished for a Mills bomb and an open field in which to teach them manners. -It seems to me that the German is incorrigible. He was born a boor and he can -never respond to courtesy. Kindness and mercy are lost upon him; he accepts -them as his right and becomes domineering. If any peacemaker thinks that -Christian forbearance and magnanimity will make for a new brotherhood when -peace terms are formulated, he is vastly mistaken. The German is a bully, and -the only leadership that he acknowledges and the only righteousness to which -he bows, is the leadership and the armed force of a bully stronger than -himself. Sentimental leniency on the part of the Allies will only make him -swell out his chest afresh. - -You may have seen the account of a booby-trap which the Huns left behind—a -crucified kitten. They banked on the humanity of our chaps to release the -little beast; but the moment the first nail was drawn it exploded a mine which -killed our Tommies. In contrast to this is an incident which occurred the -night before our attack on the Hindenburg Line. A hare, frightened by -shell-fire, came panting through our gun-position. Some of the fellows gave -chase, till at last one fell on it and caught it. It started to cry like a -baby in a heartrending sort of way. We hadn’t had very much meat, and the -intention in catching it had been to put it in the pot; but there was no one -who could face up to killing it—so it was petted and set free again in the -wheat. Queer tender-heartedness on the part of men who next morning were going -to kill their kind! Their concern when the little beast began to sob was -conscience-stricken and ludicrous. - - -LXXVIII - -London - -September 12, 1918 - -I’ve a great piece of news for you. It’s exceedingly likely that I shall visit -the States on the British Mission. This must read to you like moonshine—but -it’s a quite plausible fact. I shall not be allowed to go back to the Front -for three months, as it will probably be that time before I am pronounced fit -for active service. It is suggested that during that time I come to the States -to speak on Anglo-American relations. I feel very loath to postpone my return -to the Front by a single day, and would only do so if I were quite sure that I -should not be fit for active service again before the winter settles down, -when the attack will end. I don’t want to miss an hour of the great offensive. -If I agree to come to the States, I shall only do it on the pledge that I am -sent straight back to France on my return. This would give me a right to speak -to Americans as nothing else would. I could not speak of the war unless I was -returning to it. I owe the Lord a death for every life of my men’s that has -been taken—and I want to get back to where I can pay the debt. But wouldn’t it -be ripping to have a few weeks all together again? Can’t I picture myself in -my little study at the top of the house and in my old bedroom! I may even -manage a Christmas with you! - -Having had my wound dressed and having togged myself up in my new uniform, I -jumped into the inevitable taxi and went to lunch at the Ritz with some of the -visiting American editors. It was delightfully refreshing to listen to Charlie -Towne’s, the editor of McClure’s, wild enthusiasm for the courageous high -spirits of England. “The streets are dark at night,” he said, “but in the -people’s hearts there is more light than ever.” Two stories were told, -illuminatingly true, of the way in which the average Englishman carries on. -There was an officer who had had an eye shot out; the cavity was filled with -an artificial one. Towne felt a profound pity for him, but at the same time he -was rather surprised to see that the chap wore a monocle in the eye that was -sightless. At last he plucked up courage to ask him what was the object of the -monocle. The chap smiled drolly. “I do it for a rag,” he said; “it makes me -look more funny.” - -A Canadian Tommy, without any legs, was being wheeled down a station platform. -Another wounded Tommy called out to him, “You’re not on the staff, Bill. Why -don’t yer get out and walk?” - -“'Cause I’m as good as a dook now,” the chap replied; “for the rest of me life -I’m a kerridge gent.” - -The thing that seems to have impressed these American visitors most of all is -the way in which our soldiers make adversity appear comic by their triumphant -capacity for mockery. - -Towne, being a lover of poetry, was terrifically keen to visit Goldsmith’s -grave. I hadn’t the foggiest idea where it was, but after lunch we set out in -search of it. At last we found it in a shady backwater of the Inner Temple—a -simple slab on which the only inscription was the name, “Oliver Goldsmith.” I -know of only one parallel to this for illustrious brevity; a gravestone in -Paris, from which even the Christian name is omitted and on which the solitary -word “Heine” is written. I liked to see the poet from Broadway bare his head -as he stood by the long-dead English poet’s grave. Behind us in the Temple -chapel the confident soprano of boys’ voices soared. It was a grey-blue day, -made tawny for brave moments by fugitive stabs of sunshine. Lime trees dappled -the cold courtyard with shadows; leaves drifted down like gilded largesse. Old -men, with dimming eyes and stooped backs, shuffled from stairway to stairway, -carrying heavy ledgers. The rumble of Fleet Street reached us comfortingly, -like the sound of distant surf on an unseen shore. My thoughts wrenched -themselves free from the scenes of blood and struggle in which I participated -less than two weeks ago. Here, in that simple inscription, was the symbol of -the one quality which survives Time’s erasures—character which loved and won -love intensely. - -Queer letters you get from me! I write the way I feel from London or the -battlefield. My room-mate is lying in bed, his poor shattered leg propped up -on a pillow and a cheery smile about his lips. In the well of the hospital -someone is playing—playing love-songs as though there were no war. The music, -muted by distance, drifts in to me through the open window. I feel that life -is mine again; I can hope. At the Front to hope too much was to court -disappointment. To be alive is thrilling and delicious. - - -LXXIX - -London October 6, 1918 - -It is Sunday morning. As I write the newsboys in the Strand are calling an -extra-special. Before entering the Savoy for lunch I purchased a copy, which I -read as I sat in the great gold and crimson lounge while I waited for a table. -You know what the Savoy is like, crowded with actresses, would-be-taken-for -actresses, officers on leave, chaps hobbling out of hospitals like myself, and -a sprinkling of Jews with huge noses and a magnificent disregard for the fact -that they are not in khaki. The orchestra was being kept up to the right pitch -of frenzy in their efforts by a gentleman who is reported to get in more extra -beats to the minute than any other person of his colour in London. The feet of -the girls tripped into an unconscious one-step as they entered, as though they -acted independently of their owners. At the end of the rather pompous hall, -with its false air of being too respectable for naughtiness, lay the terrace -and beyond that the Thames, benevolent and drowsy in the October sunshine. -Everything was gay and normal as though nothing except the war had happened or -would ever happen. I should like Berlin to have seen us—Berlin which waited -breathless for the detonation of the latest Big Bertha which she had fired on -the world. - -I opened my paper. Across the top of it, in one-inch type headlines, ran the -message: - - - GERMANY PLEADS FOR PEACE - -I am sorry to have to disappoint Germany, but the truth is I didn’t blink an -eyelid or turn a hair. I was scarcely mildly interested. I gazed round the -crowd; their eyelids had not blinked and their hair had not turned. The -Kaiser’s Big Bertha of peace had not roused them; she must have fired a dud. -Everyone looked quite contented and animated, as if the war was going to last -for ever. - -My eye slipped down the two columns of close printing in which the mercy of -the All Highest was revealed to the world. I learnt that the All Highest’s new -Imperial Chancellor was celebrating his new office by playing a little trick -on his own credulity; he was pretending that by Christmas Germany would have -sponged out all her debts of infamy with words. Prince Max of Baden was in -such a hurry to bring good-will upon earth that he had cabled to President -Wilson proposals for a lasting peace; he had gone to this trouble and expense -not because of anything that was happening on the Western Front, but solely -“in the interests of suffering humanity.” Glancing at a parallel column I read -words which would have led me to doubt the sincerity of any one less august: -“Germans Defeated in All-day Battle. Tanks do Great Execution among Hun -Infantry. 1000 Prisoners Taken.” - -Then I turned back to see what this spokesman of a nation of humanitarians had -to say for himself. I learnt that Germany had always been keen on the League -of Nations: that she was anxious, as she had always been anxious, to -rehabilitate Belgium; that her armies were still invincible, and that the -Western Front was still unbroken; that the Kaiser was God’s latest revelation -of His own perfection and His magnanimous shadow upon earth. - -Liars! Blasphemous liars! How can one treat with a nation which has not even -the sense to make its shamming decent and plausible? On the Western Front -to-day in their ignominious retreat the Germans are showing their ancient -ferocity for destruction. I know, for I have just come from before Cambrai. -Cities are being levelled before they make their exit; civilian populations -are being carried away captive; trains piled high with loot precede their -departure; they leave behind them the desolation of death. While with -“incomparable heroism” their armies are executing these brutalities, their -Chancellor recalls us to a lost humanity and presupposes that we shall accept -his professions at their face value. - -I looked up from my paper at the Sunday crowd, chatting gaily as it passed -through gaudy splendours into lunch. They were amazingly unmoved by anything -that the German Chancellor had said. So far as their attitude betrayed them, -he might never have become Chancellor. If I may state the case colloquially, -they didn’t care a damn. There were American officers newly landed, men with -the Mons ribbon, who had been in the game from the crack of the first gun, -wounded Johnnies like myself, wearing the blue armlet which denotes that you -are still in hospital. One and all were seizing this jolly moment before they -again caught sight of the trenches and carried on with pounding the Hun. They -weren’t going to spoil their leisure by discussing the perturbations of a -German Chancellor. - -Peace! For the Hun there shall be no peace. For him, for the next hundred -years, whether we fight him or guard the wall which we shall build about him, -there will be no peace. We, who have seen the mud of France grow red with -blood as if with poppy petals, will never forget. That we die is nothing, -provided always that two German lives pay for our death. Beyond the Rhine, -Germany lies intact; her towns are still snug and smiling. One journeys to -them through a hundred miles of rotting corpses—the corpses of men who were -our friends; yet the Imperial Chancellor appeals to our humanity and reminds -us of mercy. - -Mercy! While I have been in hospital several batches of returned British -prisoners have arrived. I have sat at table with them, seen their neglected -wounds, and talked to them. One officer, in addition to his battlefield wound, -has a face horribly disfigured. I scarcely know how to describe it. His jaw -has been broken; his entire face has been pushed to one side. It was done by -the butt of a Hun rifle in a prison hospital in Germany; an orderly woke him -up by smashing his face in one morning as he lay in bed. You may say that this -was the act of one man and cannot justly be taken as representative of a -nation. The time has long gone by for such generous discriminations; in four -years of warfare these ferocious cruelties have been too frequent and -organized for their odium to be borne by individual men. When Germany speaks -of mercy it is as though a condemned murderer on the scaffold appealed for his -reprieve on the grounds of Christ’s commandment, “Love thy neighbour as -thyself.” Bullies grow fluent at quoting scripture only when they feel the -rope about their necks; their use of scripture phrases at the eleventh hour is -proof of cowardice—not of repentance. - -Judas, the front-rank assassin of all times, set an example in decency which -it would behove Germany to follow, when he went out into the garden and hanged -himself. - -There will be sentimentalists among the Allies who will speak of forgiveness -and softer judgments. Their motives will be mixed and many: some will be -camouflaged pacifists; some will be influenced by personal advantages, such as -relations, business affiliations and financial investments in Germany; some -will be war-weary mothers and wives who will pounce on the first opportunity -of regaining their remaining men. None of them will be the men who have done -the fighting. Germany has turned to the American President as the intercessor -for Peace; the men at the Front look to America to back them up in exacting -the final penalty—they look to America above all the other Allies for firmness -for the reason that she is not war-weary, and because millions of her men who -are in khaki have yet to prove their manhood to themselves. America beyond all -Germany’s adversaries came into the war on indisputably righteous grounds: we -look to her to insist on a meticulously righteous settlement. In the face of -the enormities which have been perpetrated by the Hun armies from the first -violation of Belgium’s neutrality up to now, no vengeance could be made -adequate. The entire history of Germany’s method of making war is one of an -increasing ingenuity in devising new methods of making nations suffer while -withholding the release of death. The ravishing of women, the shooting of old -men, the sending of the girlhood of occupied territories into the shame of -unwilling prostitution, the wholesale destruction of all virtues that make -life decent and desirable cannot be exacted as part of our penalty; but the -extermination of the arch-culprits who have educated their human instruments -out of manhood into bestiality can. If the Kaiser and the herd of human -minotaurs who surround him escape the gallows, justice becomes a travesty and -there is no murderer, however diabolical his atrocities, who deserves to be -electrocuted. - -With the turning of the tide in the Allies’ favour the voice of France is -already making itself heard on the side of the argument for vengeance. Whoever -forgets, France has her landscapes billowed into mire by shells, her gallant -cities converted into monstrous blots of brick and dirt, always to remind her. -She is demanding that for every French city laid low, a German city, when the -day of settlement comes, shall suffer an equal nemesis. For these crimes -against civilian rights and properties, Germany has no martial motive. They -are wanton and carried out by organized incendiaries among her retreating -armies, having no provocation of battle to excuse them. Moreover, as Dr. Hugh -Bellot, the eminent International lawyer, has pointed out, Germany has -condemned herself out of her own mouth. In her treatment, for instance, of -such a city as St. Quentin, she commits three separate crimes against -International law. First, against the person of the civilian; second, against -the rights of movable property; third, against the rights of public and -private property. In her own military manual, known as the German War Book, -and regarded as her official guide for military conduct until this present -war, she lays down that “the devastation of occupied territory, destruction of -property, carrying away of inhabitants into bondage or captivity, and the -right of plundering private property, formerly permitted, can no longer be -entertained. The inhabitants are no longer to be regarded, generally speaking, -as enemies, and are not to be molested in life, limb, honour or freedom.” -Furthermore it states that “every insult, every disturbance against the -domestic peace, every attack on family honour and morality, every unlawful and -outrageous attack or act of violence, are just as strictly punishable as -though they had been committed against the inhabitants of one’s own land.” -There is not a single one of the above rulings that Germany is not violating -at this moment in her enforced withdrawal from France; and it is at this time -that her Chancellor appeals for peace in “the interests of suffering -humanity.” Magnanimity! It is a fine, large-sounding word and one which it -would be a disgrace to lose from our vocabulary; yet it is a word capable of -much abuse if employed in our peace dealings with the enemy. The day for -magnanimity has long gone by; in being magnanimous we are unjust to both our -future generations and our valiant dead. There are deeds of such vileness and -treachery that they put nations, equally with individuals, outside the pale of -all possible magnanimity. For four years Germany has figured in history as a -self-applauded assassin. While the rôle seemed to pay her, she gloried in her -ruthlessness. She succeeded too well both on sea and land ever to persuade us -that defeat has made her heart more tender. The only peace terms will be a -carefully audited reckoning of all the happiness and innocence that she has -strangled. That this may be accomplished the man at the Front is willing to go -on risking life and sanity for twice four years, if need be: in the certainty -that it will be accomplished, he will die without regret. - -We British and men of the Dominions did not always feel this way. When we -entered the war we determined to remain gentlemen whatever happened. We -weren’t going to be vulgar and lose our tempers; we weren’t going to be -un-sportsmanly and learn to hate. Though dirty tricks were played on us, we -would still play fair. Our code of honour demanded it. There should be no -retaliation. Then came the Germans’ employment of gas, his flame attacks, his -submarining of merchantmen, his bombing of hospitals and civilian towns. You -can’t play fair with an enemy who flies the flag of truce that he may shoot -you in the back. Tit for tat was the only code of honour which came within the -comprehension of such a ruffian. It took three years for us to stoop to the -bombing of the Rhine towns. The wisdom of the step has been proved; the -children of London now sleep safely in their beds. In my opinion, at least in -as far as the British armies are concerned, the success of the present -offensive has just one meaning: after four years of gallant smiling our -soldiers have attained a righteous anger—a determination to exact a just -revenge. They no longer make lenient discriminations between Germany and her -rulers. They know now that the breath of every individual German is tainted -with the odour of carnage. What makes our anger more bitter is the shame that -Germany should have forced us to stoop to hatred as a weapon. But there is -only one safe principle upon which to act in dealing with Germany, whether in -fighting her or making peace with her: With whatever measure she metes, it -should be measured to her again. Brute force is the only reasoning she -understands. - -The Imperial Chancellor has appealed for peace “in the interest of suffering -humanity.” Even in his cry for mercy he speaks vaingloriously, boasting of the -“incomparable heroism” of his mob of brutes who have made humanity suffer. - -In not one line of his appeal is there a hint of polite regret. By the time -you read this letter, this particular peace overture will be ancient history, -but there will be many more of them, each one more sentimental and frantic as -our armies batter their way nearer to Germany’s complacent smiling towns. As -these peace overtures arrive, as they will almost daily, there is a saying of -Richard Hooker’s which I wish every American would repeat night and morning as -a vow and prayer. It is a saying which was in my mind on the dawn of 8th -August, when we sailed out into the morning mist on the great Amiens attack. -It is a saying which was unconsciously in the mind of every British soldier; -its stern righteousness explains our altered attitude and the Cromwellian -strength with which we strike. “Lord, I owe thee a death,” said Richard -Hooker. Whether we be soldiers or civilians, we each one owe the Lord a Hun -death for the accumulated horror that has taken place. Such blasphemies -against God’s handiwork cannot be wiped out with words. To make peace before -the Hun has paid his righteous debt, is to shorten God’s right arm and to make -sacrifice seem trivial. We are not fighting to crush individuals or nations, -but against a strongly fortified vileness and to prove that righteousness -still triumphs in the world. If at the first whimpering our hearts are touched -and we allow the evil to escape its punishment, it will sneak off with a -cunning leer about its mouth to lick its wounds into health that it may take a -future generation unawares. Mercy at this juncture would be spiritual -slovenliness. God has given the Allies a task to accomplish; He has made us -His avengers that, when our work is ended, He may create a new heaven upon -earth. - -*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 52451 *** |