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diff --git a/old/52451-h/52451-h.htm b/old/52451-h/52451-h.htm deleted file mode 100644 index b9bafda..0000000 --- a/old/52451-h/52451-h.htm +++ /dev/null @@ -1,5779 +0,0 @@ -<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?> - -<!DOCTYPE html - PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Strict//EN" - "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-strict.dtd" > - -<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml" lang="en"> - <head> - <meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html;charset=UTF-8" /> - <title> - Living Bayonets, by Coningsby Dawson - </title> - <link rel="coverpage" href="images/cover.jpg" /> - <style type="text/css" xml:space="preserve"> - - body { margin:5%; background:#faebd0; text-align:justify} - P { text-indent: 1em; margin-top: .25em; margin-bottom: .25em; } - H1,H2,H3,H4,H5,H6 { text-align: center; margin-left: 15%; margin-right: 15%; } - hr { width: 50%; text-align: center;} - .foot { margin-left: 5%; margin-right: 5%; text-align: justify; font-size: 80%; font-style: italic;} - blockquote {font-size: 97%; font-style: italic; margin-left: 20%; margin-right: 20%;} - .mynote {background-color: #DDE; color: #000; padding: .5em; margin-left: 10%; margin-right: 10%; font-family: sans-serif; font-size: 95%;} - .toc { margin-left: 10%; margin-bottom: .75em;} - .toc2 { margin-left: 20%;} - .xx-small {font-size: 60%;} - .x-small {font-size: 75%;} - .small {font-size: 85%;} - .large {font-size: 115%;} - .x-large {font-size: 130%;} - .indent5 { margin-left: 5%;} - .indent10 { margin-left: 10%;} - .indent15 { margin-left: 15%;} - .indent20 { margin-left: 20%;} - .indent30 { margin-left: 30%;} - .indent40 { margin-left: 40%;} - div.fig { display:block; margin:0 auto; text-align:center; } - div.middle { margin-left: 20%; margin-right: 20%; text-align: justify; } - .figleft {float: left; margin-left: 0%; margin-right: 1%;} - .figright {float: right; margin-right: 0%; margin-left: 1%;} - .pagenum {position: absolute; right: 1%; font-size: 0.6em; - font-variant: normal; font-style: normal; - text-align: right; background-color: #FFFACD; - border: 1px solid; padding: 0.3em;text-indent: 0em;} - .side { float: left; font-size: 75%; width: 15%; padding-left: 0.8em; - border-left: dashed thin; text-align: left; - text-indent: 0; font-weight: bold; font-style: italic; - font-weight: bold; color: black; background: #eeeeee; border: solid 1px;} - .head { float: left; font-size: 90%; width: 98%; padding-left: 0.8em; - border-left: dashed thin; text-align: center; - text-indent: 0; font-weight: bold; font-style: italic; - font-weight: bold; color: black; background: #eeeeee; border: solid 1px;} - p.pfirst, p.noindent {text-indent: 0} - span.dropcap { float: left; margin: 0 0.1em 0 0; line-height: 0.8 } - pre { font-style: italic; font-size: 90%; margin-left: 10%;} - -</style> - </head> - <body> -<div>*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 52451 ***</div> - - <div style="height: 8em;"> - <br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /> - </div> - <h1> - LIVING BAYONETS - </h1> - <h3> - A Record of The Last Push - </h3> - <h2> - By Coningsby Dawson - </h2> - <h4> - London: John Lane, The Bodley Head New York: - </h4> - <h3> - 1919 - </h3> - <p> - <br /><br /><a name="linkimage-0001" id="linkimage-0001"> </a> - </p> - <div class="fig" style="width:50%;"> - <img src="images/0001.jpg" alt="0001 " width="100%" /><br /> - </div> - <div style='text-align:center;'> - <a href="images/0001.jpg"><img src="images/enlarge.jpg" alt="" /> </a> - </div> - <p> - <br /><br /><a name="linkimage-0002" id="linkimage-0002"> </a> - </p> - <div class="fig" style="width:50%;"> - <img src="images/0009.jpg" alt="0009 " width="100%" /><br /> - </div> - <div style='text-align:center;'> - <a href="images/0009.jpg"><img src="images/enlarge.jpg" alt="" /> </a> - </div> - <blockquote> - <p> - <i>"Our spirits are living bayonets. The ideals which we carry in our - hearts are more deadly to the enemy than any man-made weapons.</i>” - </p> - </blockquote> - <p> - <br /><br /> - </p> - <hr /> - <p> - <br /><br /> - </p> - <p> - <b>CONTENTS</b> - </p> - <p class="toc"> - <a href="#link2H_FORE"> FOREWORD </a> - </p> - <p class="toc"> - <a href="#link2H_4_0002"> LIVING BAYONETS </a> - </p> - <p class="toc"> - <a href="#link2H_4_0003"> GERMANY PLEADS FOR PEACE </a> - </p> - <p> - <br /><br /> - </p> - <hr /> - <p> - <a name="link2H_FORE" id="link2H_FORE"> </a> - </p> - <div style="height: 4em;"> - <br /><br /><br /><br /> - </div> - <h2> - FOREWORD - </h2> - <p class="pfirst"> - <span class="dropcap" style="font-size: 4.00em">T</span>HESE 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. - </p> - <p> - <br /><br /> - </p> - <hr /> - <p> - <a name="link2H_4_0002" id="link2H_4_0002"> </a> - </p> - <div style="height: 4em;"> - <br /><br /><br /><br /> - </div> - <h2> - LIVING BAYONETS - </h2> - <h3> - A RECORD OF THE LAST PUSH - </h3> - <h3> - I - </h3> - <p> - France <i>April</i> 14, 1917 - </p> - <p class="pfirst"> - <span class="dropcap" style="font-size: 4.00em">T</span>HE 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. - </p> - <p> - 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. - </p> - <p> - 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. - </p> - <h3> - II - </h3> - <p> - France <i>April</i> 17, 1917 - </p> - <p class="pfirst"> - <span class="dropcap" style="font-size: 4.00em">L</span>ast 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. - </p> - <p> - 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. - </p> - <p> - 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. - </p> - <p> - 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. - </p> - <p> - 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. - </p> - <p> - 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. - </p> - <p> - 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. - </p> - <h3> - III - </h3> - <p> - France <i>April</i> 19, 1917 - </p> - <p class="pfirst"> - <span class="dropcap" style="font-size: 4.00em">I</span> 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. - </p> - <p> - 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. - </p> - <p> - 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, <i>The Human Slaughter-house</i>. - 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. - </p> - <p> - 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. - </p> - <p> - 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. - </p> - <p> - 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. - </p> - <h3> - IV - </h3> - <p> - France <i>April</i> 22, 1917 - </p> - <p class="pfirst"> - <span class="dropcap" style="font-size: 4.00em">I</span> 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. - </p> - <p> - 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. - </p> - <p> - 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. - </p> - <p> - 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. - </p> - <p> - 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. - </p> - <h3> - V - </h3> - <p> - France <i>April</i> 30,1917 - </p> - <p class="pfirst"> - <span class="dropcap" style="font-size: 4.00em">T</span>he 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. - </p> - <p> - 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. - </p> - <h3> - VI - </h3> - <p> - France <i>May</i> 10, 1917 - </p> - <p class="pfirst"> - <span class="dropcap" style="font-size: 4.00em">I</span>t'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. - </p> - <p> - 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. - </p> - <p> - Your letters told me about <i>Khaki Courage</i>, 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. - </p> - <p> - 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. - </p> - <h3> - VII - </h3> - <p> - France <i>June</i> 2, 1917 - </p> - <p class="pfirst"> - <span class="dropcap" style="font-size: 4.00em">I</span>t 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. - </p> - <p> - 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. - </p> - <p> - 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. - </p> - <p> - 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. - </p> - <p> - 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. - </p> - <p> - 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. - </p> - <h3> - VIII - </h3> - <p> - France <i>June</i> 6,1917 - </p> - <p class="pfirst"> - <span class="dropcap" style="font-size: 4.00em">Y</span>ou 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——— - </p> - <p> - <i>June</i> 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. - </p> - <p> - 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. - </p> - <p> - 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. - </p> - <h3> - IX - </h3> - <p> - France <i>June</i> 17, 1917 - </p> - <p class="pfirst"> - <span class="dropcap" style="font-size: 4.00em">I</span> 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. - </p> - <p> - I'm looking forward very much to the receipt of <i>Khaki Courage</i>; - it hasn't come yet. It will be like reading something absolutely - beyond my knowledge. - </p> - <p> - 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. - </p> - <p> - <i>Monday.</i> - </p> - <p> - 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. - </p> - <p> - 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. - </p> - <h3> - X - </h3> - <p> - France <i>June</i> 23,1917 - </p> - <p class="pfirst"> - <span class="dropcap" style="font-size: 4.00em">L</span>ast night <i>Khaki - Courage</i> 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. - </p> - <p> - 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. - </p> - <p> - Note.—<i>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.</i> - </p> - <h3> - XI - </h3> - <p> - Hospital - </p> - <p> - London <i>July</i> 8, 1917 - </p> - <p class="pfirst"> - <span class="dropcap" style="font-size: 4.00em">A</span> 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. - </p> - <p> - 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. - </p> - <h3> - XII - </h3> - <p> - London July 25, 1917 - </p> - <p class="pfirst"> - <span class="dropcap" style="font-size: 4.00em">I</span>'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. - </p> - <p> - 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. - </p> - <p> - 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. - </p> - <p> - 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. - </p> - <h3> - XIII - </h3> - <p> - London <i>August</i> 3,1917 - </p> - <p class="pfirst"> - <span class="dropcap" style="font-size: 4.00em">I</span>'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. - </p> - <p> - 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. - </p> - <p> - 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. - </p> - <p> - 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. - </p> - <h3> - XIV - </h3> - <p> - London <i>August</i> 30, 1917 - </p> - <p class="pfirst"> - <span class="dropcap" style="font-size: 4.00em">I</span>'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? - </p> - <p> - 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. - </p> - <p> - 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. - </p> - <p> - 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. - </p> - <p> - Note.—<i>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</i>.” - </p> - <h3> - XIV - </h3> - <p> - Somewhere on the Atlantic <i>November</i> 11, 1917 - </p> - <p class="pfirst"> - <span class="dropcap" style="font-size: 4.00em">H</span>ere'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. - </p> - <p> - 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. - </p> - <p> - 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. - </p> - <p> - 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. - </p> - <p> - 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. - </p> - <p> - 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. - </p> - <h3> - XVI - </h3> - <p> - The Ritz Hotel, London <i>November</i> 11, 1917 - </p> - <p class="pfirst"> - <span class="dropcap" style="font-size: 4.00em">T</span>his 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. - </p> - <p> - 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?” - </p> - <p> - I asked. He made a wry face. “Go back to hunting submarines,” - he said quickly. <i>Go back!</i> 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. - </p> - <p> - 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. - </p> - <p> - 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. - </p> - <p> - <i>Wednesday</i>.—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. - </p> - <p> - 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. - </p> - <h3> - XVII - </h3> - <p> - The Ritz, London <i>November</i> 15, 1917 - </p> - <p class="pfirst"> - <span class="dropcap" style="font-size: 4.00em">T</span>his 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. - </p> - <p> - 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. - </p> - <p> - When Reggie leaves me I'm going to start on another book, <i>Out to - Win</i>, 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. - </p> - <p> - 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. - </p> - <h3> - XVIII - </h3> - <p> - The Ritz, London <i>November</i> 17, 1917 - </p> - <p class="pfirst"> - <span class="dropcap" style="font-size: 4.00em">Y</span>our 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. - </p> - <p> - 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. - </p> - <p> - 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. - </p> - <p> - 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. - </p> - <p> - 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. - </p> - <p> - 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.” - </p> - <p> - “It didn't,” said Driver X., “and I'm not - going to lie down.” - </p> - <p> - 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.” - </p> - <p> - “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. - </p> - <p> - 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. - </p> - <p> - “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.” - </p> - <p> - 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. - </p> - <p> - 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? - </p> - <h3> - XIX - </h3> - <p> - London - </p> - <p> - <i>November</i> 29, 1917 - </p> - <p class="pfirst"> - <span class="dropcap" style="font-size: 4.00em">H</span>ere'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.” - </p> - <p> - “Who forgot us?” I asked. - </p> - <p> - “The bloomin' 'Uns. I wus h'expecting them lawst - night.” - </p> - <p> - 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. - </p> - <p> - 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. - </p> - <p> - 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>I won't</i>. 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. - </p> - <p> - 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. - </p> - <p> - 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. - </p> - <h3> - XX - </h3> - <p> - London - </p> - <p> - <i>December</i> 10, 1917 - </p> - <p class="pfirst"> - <span class="dropcap" style="font-size: 4.00em">I</span> 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. - </p> - <p> - 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 <i>Trilby</i> I've longed to go to the Madeleine for - Noël—which reminds me that I must get <i>Trilby</i> 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. - </p> - <p> - 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. - </p> - <p> - 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. - </p> - <p> - 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. - </p> - <p> - This may reach you before Christmas, though I doubt it. If it does, be as - merry as we shall be, though absent. - </p> - <h3> - XXI - </h3> - <p> - London - </p> - <p> - <i>December</i> 10, 1917 - </p> - <p class="pfirst"> - <span class="dropcap" style="font-size: 4.00em">I</span> 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? - </p> - <p> - You've probably been writing hard at <i>The Father of a Soldier</i>, - 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? - </p> - <p> - 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! - </p> - <p> - 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. - </p> - <h3> - XXII - </h3> - <p> - London - </p> - <p> - <i>December</i> 17, 1917 - </p> - <p class="pfirst"> - <span class="dropcap" style="font-size: 4.00em">I</span>'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. - </p> - <p> - 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————. - </p> - <p> - 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. - </p> - <p> - 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. - </p> - <p> - 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. - </p> - <p> - 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. - </p> - <p> - 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. - </p> - <p> - 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. - </p> - <p> - 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. - </p> - <h3> - XXIII - </h3> - <p> - London - </p> - <p> - <i>December</i> 31, 1917 - </p> - <p class="pfirst"> - <span class="dropcap" style="font-size: 4.00em">T</span>his 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. - </p> - <p> - 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. - </p> - <p> - 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. - </p> - <p> - 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. - </p> - <p> - 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! - </p> - <h3> - XXIV - </h3> - <p> - A French Port - </p> - <p> - <i>January</i> 3, 1918 - </p> - <p class="pfirst"> - <span class="dropcap" style="font-size: 4.00em">H</span>ere 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. - </p> - <p> - 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. - </p> - <p> - 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. - </p> - <p> - 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. - </p> - <p> - 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. - </p> - <p> - So here's good-bye to you from France once again. - </p> - <h3> - XXV - </h3> - <p> - Paris <i>January</i> 8, 1918 - </p> - <p class="pfirst"> - <span class="dropcap" style="font-size: 4.00em">H</span>ere 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. - </p> - <p> - 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. - </p> - <p> - 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. - </p> - <p> - 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. - </p> - <p> - 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. - </p> - <p> - 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. - </p> - <p> - 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.” - </p> - <h3> - XXVI - </h3> - <p> - Paris - </p> - <p> - <i>January</i> 13, 1918 - </p> - <p class="pfirst"> - <span class="dropcap" style="font-size: 4.00em">A</span>bout 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. - </p> - <p> - 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. - </p> - <p> - 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. - </p> - <p> - 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. - </p> - <p> - 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. - </p> - <p> - 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. - </p> - <p> - It's nearly eleven, my dear ones, and time that I was asleep. I have - Henri Bordeaux's story of <i>The Last Days of Fort Vaux</i> 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. - </p> - <h3> - XXVII - </h3> - <p> - Paris - </p> - <p> - <i>January</i> 19, 1918 - </p> - <p class="pfirst"> - <span class="dropcap" style="font-size: 4.00em">I</span>'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. - </p> - <p> - 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. - </p> - <p> - 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.” - </p> - <p> - 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 <i>moral</i>. - 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.” - </p> - <p> - 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. - </p> - <p> - And now I'm going out on the Boulevards to get lunch. - </p> - <h3> - XXVIII - </h3> - <p> - Paris - </p> - <p> - <i>January</i> 30, 1918 - </p> - <p class="pfirst"> - <span class="dropcap" style="font-size: 4.00em">Y</span>esterday 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. - </p> - <p> - 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. - </p> - <p> - 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. - </p> - <p> - 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. - </p> - <p> - 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. - </p> - <h3> - XXIX - </h3> - <p> - Paris - </p> - <p> - <i>February</i> 13, 1918 - </p> - <p class="pfirst"> - <span class="dropcap" style="font-size: 4.00em">I</span>'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. - </p> - <p> - 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. - </p> - <p> - 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. - </p> - <p> - 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: - </p> - <p> - <br /> - </p> - <p class="indent20"> - “Après la guerre fini - </p> - <p class="indent20"> - Tous les soldats parti, - </p> - <p class="indent20"> - Mademoiselle 'ave a souvenir— - </p> - <p class="indent20"> - Après la guerre fini.” - </p> - <p> - <br /> - </p> - <p> - After all my wandering along French and American fronts, I was back among - my own people. - </p> - <p> - 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. - </p> - <p> - 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. - </p> - <p> - 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. - </p> - <p> - 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. - </p> - <h3> - XXX - </h3> - <p> - London - </p> - <p> - <i>February</i> 18, 1918 - </p> - <p class="pfirst"> - <span class="dropcap" style="font-size: 4.00em">T</span>o-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. - </p> - <p> - Heaps of people I met in France were returning to America, and promised to - telephone you to say they had seen me. - </p> - <p> - 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.” - </p> - <p> - I was sitting in front of two women on a bus. - </p> - <p> - “Well,” said one, “when they told me that Phil was - married, you could 'ave knocked me darn wiv a feather.” - </p> - <p> - 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. - </p> - <p> - “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.” - </p> - <p> - 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. - </p> - <p> - That's a little bit of real life to help you along. Now I'm - going to knock off and rest. - </p> - <h3> - XXXI - </h3> - <p> - London - </p> - <p> - <i>February</i> 24, 1918 - </p> - <p class="pfirst"> - <span class="dropcap" style="font-size: 4.00em">I</span>'m not - spending much time on letter-writing just at present. From morning till - night, just as I did when I was writing <i>The Glory of the Trenches</i>, - 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. - </p> - <p> - 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. - </p> - <p> - 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?” - </p> - <p> - 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.” - </p> - <p> - 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. - </p> - <h3> - XXXII - </h3> - <p> - London <i>March</i> 31, 1919 - </p> - <p class="pfirst"> - <span class="dropcap" style="font-size: 4.00em">B</span>elow 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! - </p> - <p> - 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. - </p> - <h3> - XXXIII - </h3> - <p> - Bath - </p> - <p> - <i>March</i> 24, 1918 - </p> - <p class="pfirst"> - <span class="dropcap" style="font-size: 4.00em">H</span>ere 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. - </p> - <p> - 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. - </p> - <p> - 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 <i>The School for Scandal</i>. - </p> - <p> - 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. - </p> - <h3> - XXXIV - </h3> - <p> - London <i>March</i> 31, 1918 - </p> - <p class="pfirst"> - <span class="dropcap" style="font-size: 4.00em">E</span>ric 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. - </p> - <p> - 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. - </p> - <p> - 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 <i>Out to Win</i>. 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. - </p> - <p> - 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. - </p> - <h3> - XXXV - </h3> - <p> - In Camp. England <i>April</i> 4, 1918 - </p> - <p class="pfirst"> - <span class="dropcap" style="font-size: 4.00em">I</span> 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. - </p> - <p> - 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. - </p> - <p> - 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. - </p> - <p> - 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. - </p> - <p> - Keep your tails up, my dear ones, and don't get worried. This line - is only to let you know the good news. - </p> - <h3> - XXXVI - </h3> - <p> - London <i>April</i> 6, 1918 - </p> - <p class="pfirst"> - <span class="dropcap" style="font-size: 4.00em">I</span>'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. - </p> - <p> - 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. - </p> - <p> - 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. - </p> - <p> - 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. - </p> - <h3> - XXXVII - </h3> - <p> - London <i>April</i> 14, 1918 - </p> - <p class="pfirst"> - <span class="dropcap" style="font-size: 4.00em">W</span>e'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. - </p> - <p> - 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. - </p> - <p> - 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. - </p> - <p> - 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. - </p> - <h3> - XXXVIII - </h3> - <p> - France <i>April</i> 21, 1918 - </p> - <p class="pfirst"> - <span class="dropcap" style="font-size: 4.00em">I</span>'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. - </p> - <p> - 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. - </p> - <p> - 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. - </p> - <p> - 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. - </p> - <p> - 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. - </p> - <h3> - XXXIX - </h3> - <p> - France <i>April</i> 22, 1918 - </p> - <p class="pfirst"> - <span class="dropcap" style="font-size: 4.00em">Y</span>ou 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. - </p> - <p> - 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. - </p> - <p> - 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. - </p> - <p> - 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. - </p> - <h3> - XL - </h3> - <p> - France <i>April</i> 26, 1918 - </p> - <p class="pfirst"> - <span class="dropcap" style="font-size: 4.00em">I</span> 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. - </p> - <p> - 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. - </p> - <p> - 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. - </p> - <p> - 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. - </p> - <p> - 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. - </p> - <p> - 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. - </p> - <h3> - XLI - </h3> - <p> - France <i>April</i> 28, 1918 - </p> - <p class="pfirst"> - <span class="dropcap" style="font-size: 4.00em">I</span>t'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. - </p> - <p> - 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. - </p> - <p> - It's intensely still. The stillness is made more noticeable by the - booming of an occasional gun. - </p> - <p> - 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 <i>moral</i> 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 <i>Out to - Win</i> 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. - </p> - <p> - 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. - </p> - <p> - 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. - </p> - <p> - 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. - </p> - <h3> - XLII - </h3> - <p> - France <i>May</i> 2, 1918 - </p> - <p class="pfirst"> - <span class="dropcap" style="font-size: 4.00em">H</span>ere 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 <i>The - Triumphant Lover</i>; this time it's an exceedingly purple effort by - Victoria Cross, entitled <i>Five Nights</i>. So you see I do not allow my - interest in matters intellectual to rust. - </p> - <p> - 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. - </p> - <p> - 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. - </p> - <p> - 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. - </p> - <p> - 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. - </p> - <p> - 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.” - </p> - <p> - 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. - </p> - <p> - 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. - </p> - <p> - Oh, our latest excitement! We received our new gramophone last night with - about thirty of the latest records! - </p> - <p> - 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. - </p> - <h3> - XLIII - </h3> - <p> - France <i>May</i> 3, 1918 - </p> - <p class="pfirst"> - <span class="dropcap" style="font-size: 4.00em">I</span>t'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 <i>The Garden Without Walls</i>. 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. - </p> - <p> - 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. - </p> - <p> - 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. - </p> - <p> - 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. - </p> - <h3> - XLIV - </h3> - <p> - France <i>May</i> 7, 1918 - </p> - <p class="pfirst"> - <span class="dropcap" style="font-size: 4.00em">I</span> 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. - </p> - <p> - 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. - </p> - <p> - 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. - </p> - <p> - 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. - </p> - <p> - 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. - </p> - <p> - 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. - </p> - <h3> - XLV - </h3> - <p> - France <i>May</i> 14, 1918 - </p> - <p class="pfirst"> - <span class="dropcap" style="font-size: 4.00em">I</span>'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. - </p> - <p> - 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. - </p> - <h3> - XLVI - </h3> - <p> - France <i>May</i> 18, 1918 - </p> - <p class="pfirst"> - <span class="dropcap" style="font-size: 4.00em">T</span>his is the third - day that I have planned to write you. Perhaps I may be able to do so this - time. - </p> - <p> - 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. - </p> - <p> - 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. - </p> - <p> - 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 <i>The Glory of the Trenches</i>. A small - world, isn't it? - </p> - <p> - I have been reading a book lately that would interest you; it's by - Ford Madox Hueffer and is called <i>On Heaven</i>. 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—— - </p> - <p> - One of Hueffer's poems on the subject is very beautiful. It starts - this way: - </p> - <p> - <br /> - </p> - <p class="indent20"> - “In Chepstow stands a castle; - </p> - <p class="indent20"> - My love and I went there; - </p> - <p class="indent20"> - The foxgloves on the wall all heard - </p> - <p class="indent20"> - Her footsteps on the stair. - </p> - <p class="indent20"> - The sun was high in heaven - </p> - <p class="indent20"> - And the perfume in the air - </p> - <p class="indent20"> - Came from purple cat's valerian— - </p> - <p class="indent20"> - But her footsteps on the stair - </p> - <p class="indent20"> - Made a sound like silver music - </p> - <p class="indent20"> - Thro' the perfume in the air.” - </p> - <p> - <br /> - </p> - <p> - 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: - </p> - <p> - <br /> - </p> - <p class="indent20"> - “And another soldier fellow - </p> - <p class="indent20"> - Shall come courting of my dear. - </p> - <p class="indent20"> - And it's I shall not be with her - </p> - <p class="indent20"> - With my lip beside her ear. - </p> - <p class="indent20"> - For it's he shall walk beside her - </p> - <p class="indent20"> - In the perfume of the air - </p> - <p class="indent20"> - To the silver, silver music - </p> - <p class="indent20"> - Of her footstep on the stair.” - </p> - <p> - <br /> - </p> - <p> - 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. - </p> - <p> - 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 <i>One - Day's List</i>; it's a list of three officers and 270 other - ranks of his regiment who were killed in action. It commences: - </p> - <p> - <br /> - </p> - <p class="indent20"> - “My dears, - </p> - <p class="indent20"> - The rain drips down on Rouen Town, - </p> - <p class="indent20"> - The leaves drip down - </p> - <p class="indent20"> - And so the mud - </p> - <p class="indent20"> - Turns orange brown.” - </p> - <p> - <br /> - </p> - <p> - And it has for its refrain - </p> - <p> - <br /> - </p> - <p class="indent20"> - “But you—at least—are out of it.” - </p> - <p> - <br /> - </p> - <p> - 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: - </p> - <p class="indent20"> - “One wonders why you died.” - </p> - <p> - <br /> - </p> - <p> - And then, - </p> - <p> - <br /> - </p> - <p class="indent20"> - “We never talked of glory, - </p> - <p class="indent20"> - And each thought a lot of one girl - </p> - <p class="indent20"> - And waited most days for hours in the rain - </p> - <p class="indent20"> - Till she came: - </p> - <p class="indent20"> - But we never talked of Fame——” - </p> - <p> - <br /> - </p> - <p> - And lastly, addressing the dead, - </p> - <p> - <br /> - </p> - <p class="indent15"> - “But we who remain shall grow old, - </p> - <p class="indent20"> - We shall know the cold - </p> - <p class="indent15"> - Of cheerless - </p> - <p class="indent15"> - Winter and the rain of Autumn and the sting - </p> - <p class="indent15"> - Of poverty, of love despised and of disgraces, - </p> - <p class="indent15"> - And mirrors showing stained and ageing faces, - </p> - <p class="indent15"> - And the long ranges of comfortless years - </p> - <p class="indent15"> - And the long gamut of human fears— - </p> - <p class="indent15"> - But, for you, it shall be for ever Spring, - </p> - <p class="indent15"> - And only you shall be for ever fearless, - </p> - <p class="indent15"> - And only you have white, straight, tireless limbs, - </p> - <p class="indent15"> - And only you, where the water-lily swims - </p> - <p class="indent15"> - Shall walk along the pathways, thro' the willows - </p> - <p class="indent15"> - Of your west. - </p> - <p class="indent15"> - You who went west, - </p> - <p class="indent15"> - And only you on silvery twilight pillows - </p> - <p class="indent15"> - Shall take your rest - </p> - <p class="indent15"> - In the soft sweet glooms, - </p> - <p class="indent15"> - Of twilight rooms——” - </p> - <p> - <br /> - </p> - <p> - 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. - </p> - <p> - 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. - </p> - <p> - 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. - </p> - <p> - 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. - </p> - <h3> - XLVII - </h3> - <p> - France <i>June</i> 1, 1918 - </p> - <p class="pfirst"> - <span class="dropcap" style="font-size: 4.00em">I</span> 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. - </p> - <p> - 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. - </p> - <p> - 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. - </p> - <p> - 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. - </p> - <p> - 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. - </p> - <p> - 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. - </p> - <p> - But don't worry about me. I'm having a splendid run for my - money, and am far more happy than I deserve. - </p> - <h3> - XLVIII - </h3> - <p> - France <i>June</i> 1, 1918 - </p> - <p class="pfirst"> - <span class="dropcap" style="font-size: 4.00em">A</span>s 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. - </p> - <p> - 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. - </p> - <p> - 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. - </p> - <p> - 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. - </p> - <p> - 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. - </p> - <p> - This is a discursive sort of letter, and doesn't contain much real - news. It's just for remembrance. - </p> - <h3> - XLIX - </h3> - <p> - France <i>June</i> 4, 1918 - </p> - <p class="pfirst"> - <span class="dropcap" style="font-size: 4.00em">I</span>'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. - </p> - <p> - 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. - </p> - <p> - 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. - </p> - <p> - 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. - </p> - <p> - 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.” - </p> - <p> - Please thank the donor of the cake which arrived to-day. We're - eating it—don't tell her it was dry. - </p> - <h3> - L - </h3> - <p> - France <i>June</i> 7,1918 - </p> - <p class="pfirst"> - <span class="dropcap" style="font-size: 4.00em">H</span>ere'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. - </p> - <p> - 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. - </p> - <p> - 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. - </p> - <p> - 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.” - </p> - <h3> - LI - </h3> - <p> - France <i>June</i> 8, 1918 - </p> - <p class="pfirst"> - <span class="dropcap" style="font-size: 4.00em">L</span>ast 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. - </p> - <p> - 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. - </p> - <p> - 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—— - </p> - <p> - 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.” - </p> - <p> - 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! - </p> - <p> - Good-night, I'm going to bed now. - </p> - <h3> - LII - </h3> - <p> - France <i>June</i> 12, 1918 - </p> - <p class="pfirst"> - <span class="dropcap" style="font-size: 4.00em">W</span>ith 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. - </p> - <p> - 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. - </p> - <p> - 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. - </p> - <p> - 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. - </p> - <p> - I'm at present reading <i>Gulliver's Travels</i>. 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. - </p> - <p> - 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. - </p> - <h3> - LIII - </h3> - <p> - France <i>June</i> 20,1918 - </p> - <p class="pfirst"> - <span class="dropcap" style="font-size: 4.00em">H</span>ere 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. - </p> - <p> - 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. - </p> - <p> - 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. - </p> - <p> - 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? - </p> - <p> - 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 <i>moral</i> all along the - line; we fight better because we know that she is behind us. - </p> - <p> - You're somewhere where the world is intensely quiet. I shall think - of you where the world is happy. - </p> - <h3> - LIV - </h3> - <p> - France <i>June</i> 20, 1918 - </p> - <p class="pfirst"> - <span class="dropcap" style="font-size: 4.00em">I</span>'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! - </p> - <p> - 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. - </p> - <p> - 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. - </p> - <p> - I'm off to do my rounds as orderly officer now. My sergeant is - waiting, so, as the men say, “I must ring off.” - </p> - <h3> - LV - </h3> - <p> - France <i>June</i> 23, 1918 - </p> - <p class="pfirst"> - <span class="dropcap" style="font-size: 4.00em">H</span>ere 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. - </p> - <p> - 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. - </p> - <p> - 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.” - </p> - <p> - 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. - </p> - <p> - 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. - </p> - <p> - 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! - </p> - <h3> - LVI - </h3> - <p> - France <i>June</i> 27, 1918 - </p> - <p class="pfirst"> - <span class="dropcap" style="font-size: 4.00em">H</span>ere'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. - </p> - <p> - 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. - </p> - <p> - 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. - </p> - <p> - 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. - </p> - <p> - 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. - </p> - <p> - 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. - </p> - <p> - It's evening now. No letter from home came this afternoon. - </p> - <h3> - LVII - </h3> - <p> - France <i>July</i> 4, 1918 - </p> - <p class="pfirst"> - <span class="dropcap" style="font-size: 4.00em">I</span> 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? - </p> - <p> - 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. - </p> - <p> - 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. - </p> - <p> - For the present that is all my news. - </p> - <h3> - LVIII - </h3> - <p> - France <i>July</i> 10, 1918 - </p> - <p class="pfirst"> - <span class="dropcap" style="font-size: 4.00em">I</span> am delighted to - see that every day the prophecies I made in <i>Out to Win</i> 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. - </p> - <p> - 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. - </p> - <h3> - LIX - </h3> - <p> - France <i>July 11</i>, 1918 - </p> - <p class="pfirst"> - <span class="dropcap" style="font-size: 4.00em">I</span>'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. - </p> - <p> - 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. - </p> - <p> - 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. - </p> - <h3> - LX - </h3> - <p> - France <i>July</i> 15, 1918 - </p> - <p class="pfirst"> - <span class="dropcap" style="font-size: 4.00em">T</span>he 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. - </p> - <p> - 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. - </p> - <p> - 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. - </p> - <p> - 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. - </p> - <p> - 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. - </p> - <h3> - LXI - </h3> - <p> - France <i>July</i> 17, 1918 - </p> - <p class="pfirst"> - <span class="dropcap" style="font-size: 4.00em">T</span>o-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. - </p> - <p> - 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. - </p> - <p> - 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. - </p> - <p> - 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.” - </p> - <p> - 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. - </p> - <h3> - LXII - </h3> - <p> - France <i>July</i> 18, 1918 - </p> - <p class="pfirst"> - <span class="dropcap" style="font-size: 4.00em">I</span>'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. - </p> - <p> - 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. - </p> - <p> - 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. - </p> - <p> - 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! - </p> - <p> - <i>5 a.m</i>. 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. - </p> - <p> - 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? - </p> - <h3> - LXIII - </h3> - <p> - France |July 19|, 1918 - </p> - <p class="pfirst"> - <span class="dropcap" style="font-size: 4.00em">W</span>e'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. - </p> - <p> - 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. - </p> - <p> - 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? - </p> - <p> - Then the widower presented himself, standing sooty and forlorn in the - trench outside the mess. The mystery was cleared up. - </p> - <p> - The mess-cart is just up, and I'm going to send this off, that it - may reach you a day earlier. - </p> - <h3> - LXIV - </h3> - <p> - France <i>July 23</i>, 1918 - </p> - <p class="pfirst"> - <span class="dropcap" style="font-size: 4.00em">I</span>'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 <i>The Ship of Stars</i>, 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. - </p> - <p> - 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. - </p> - <p> - 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? - </p> - <p> - 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. - </p> - <p> - 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. - </p> - <p> - 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: - </p> - <p> - <br /> - </p> - <p class="indent15"> - “Over there. Over there. - </p> - <p class="indent15"> - Send the word, send the word over there, - </p> - <p class="indent15"> - That the Yanks are coming——” - </p> - <p> - <br /> - </p> - <p> - 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. - </p> - <p> - 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. - </p> - <p> - 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. - </p> - <h3> - LXV - </h3> - <p> - France <i>July 29</i>, 1918 - </p> - <p class="pfirst"> - <span class="dropcap" style="font-size: 4.00em">I</span> 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. - </p> - <p> - 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. - </p> - <p> - 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. - </p> - <p> - 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?” - </p> - <p> - “I kan't cock without——” - </p> - <p> - “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.” - </p> - <p> - Exit the “cock.” - </p> - <p> - 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. - </p> - <h3> - LXVI - </h3> - <p> - France <i>July</i> 30,1918 - </p> - <p class="pfirst"> - <span class="dropcap" style="font-size: 4.00em">I</span>'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. - </p> - <p> - 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. - </p> - <p> - 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. - </p> - <p> - 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: - </p> - <p> - <br /> - </p> - <p class="indent15"> - “Oh that I were where I would be! - </p> - <p class="indent15"> - Then would I be where I am not. - </p> - <p class="indent15"> - But where I am there I must be; - </p> - <p class="indent15"> - And where I would be, I can not.” - </p> - <p> - <br /> - </p> - <p> - Discontented, ungrateful creatures we are! And yet there is nobility in - our discontent. - </p> - <p> - 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.” - </p> - <h3> - LXVII - </h3> - <p> - France - </p> - <p> - <i>August</i> 13, 1918 - </p> - <p class="pfirst"> - <span class="dropcap" style="font-size: 4.00em">I</span> 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. - </p> - <p> - 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 <i>have</i> - in proportion to their sacrifice. It should be written on the white - crosses above all our soldiers, “<i>What He Gave, He Has</i>.” - What we are trying to give is heaven to the world; it is just that those - who fall should receive heaven in return. - </p> - <h3> - LXVIII - </h3> - <p> - France - </p> - <p> - <i>August</i> 14, 1918 - </p> - <p class="pfirst"> - <span class="dropcap" style="font-size: 4.00em">I</span> 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. - </p> - <p> - 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. - </p> - <h3> - LXIX - </h3> - <p> - France <i>August</i> 15, 1918 - </p> - <p class="pfirst"> - <span class="dropcap" style="font-size: 4.00em">I</span> 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. - </p> - <p> - 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. - </p> - <p> - 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. - </p> - <h3> - LXX - </h3> - <p> - France - </p> - <p> - <i>August</i> 17, 1918 - </p> - <p class="pfirst"> - <span class="dropcap" style="font-size: 4.00em">I</span>'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. - </p> - <p> - 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. - </p> - <p> - In this hole in the ground where I am sitting I found a copy of the New - York <i>Times</i> for 30th June, with the first advertisement of <i>Out to - Win</i>. 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 <i>Times</i>. - </p> - <p> - 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. “<i>We</i> 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. - </p> - <p> - 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. - </p> - <p> - 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. - </p> - <h3> - LXXI - </h3> - <p> - France <i>August</i> 20, 1918 - </p> - <p class="pfirst"> - <span class="dropcap" style="font-size: 4.00em">T</span>o-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. - </p> - <p> - 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. - </p> - <p> - 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. - </p> - <p> - 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. - </p> - <h3> - LXXII - </h3> - <p> - France - </p> - <p> - <i>August</i> 22,1918 - </p> - <p class="pfirst"> - <span class="dropcap" style="font-size: 4.00em">I</span> 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. - </p> - <p> - 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. - </p> - <p> - 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. - </p> - <p> - 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. - </p> - <p> - 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. - </p> - <p> - “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. - </p> - <p> - 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. - </p> - <p> - What a contrast between love and hatred—dreaming of our mothers to - the last and smashing the sons of other mothers. That's war! - </p> - <h3> - LXXIII - </h3> - <p> - France - </p> - <p> - <i>August</i> 22, 1918 - </p> - <p class="pfirst"> - <span class="dropcap" style="font-size: 4.00em">H</span>ere 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. - </p> - <p> - 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. - </p> - <p> - 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! - </p> - <p> - 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. - </p> - <p> - 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. - </p> - <p> - 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. - </p> - <h3> - LXXIV - </h3> - <p> - France - </p> - <p> - <i>August</i> 30,1918 - </p> - <p class="pfirst"> - <span class="dropcap" style="font-size: 4.00em">T</span>his 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. - </p> - <p> - 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. - </p> - <h3> - LXXV - </h3> - <p> - France - </p> - <p> - <i>September</i> 1, 1918 - </p> - <p class="pfirst"> - <span class="dropcap" style="font-size: 4.00em">T</span>his 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. - </p> - <p> - 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. - </p> - <p> - 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. - </p> - <p> - 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. - </p> - <p> - 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. - </p> - <h3> - LXXVI - </h3> - <p> - Prince of Wales Hospital, London, <i>September</i> 6, 1918 - </p> - <p class="pfirst"> - <span class="dropcap" style="font-size: 4.00em">H</span>ere 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. - </p> - <p> - 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. - </p> - <p> - 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. - </p> - <p> - <i>3 p.m.</i> 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. - </p> - <p> - 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. - </p> - <p> - Note.—<i>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.</i> - </p> - <h3> - LXXVII - </h3> - <p> - London - </p> - <p> - <i>September</i> 8, 1918 - </p> - <p class="pfirst"> - <span class="dropcap" style="font-size: 4.00em">I</span>'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. - </p> - <p> - 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. - </p> - <p> - 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. - </p> - <h3> - LXXVIII - </h3> - <p> - London - </p> - <p> - <i>September</i> 12, 1918 - </p> - <p class="pfirst"> - <span class="dropcap" style="font-size: 4.00em">I</span>'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! - </p> - <p> - 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.” - </p> - <p> - 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?” - </p> - <p> - “'Cause I'm as good as a dook now,” the chap - replied; “for the rest of me life I'm a kerridge gent.” - </p> - <p> - 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. - </p> - <p> - 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. - </p> - <p> - 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. - </p> - <h3> - LXXIX - </h3> - <p> - London <i>October</i> 6, 1918 - </p> - <p class="pfirst"> - <span class="dropcap" style="font-size: 4.00em">I</span>t 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. - </p> - <p> - I opened my paper. Across the top of it, in one-inch type headlines, ran - the message: - </p> - <p> - <a name="link2H_4_0003" id="link2H_4_0003"> </a> - </p> - <h3> - GERMANY PLEADS FOR PEACE - </h3> - <p> - 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. - </p> - <p> - 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.” - </p> - <p> - 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. - </p> - <p> - 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. - </p> - <p> - 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. - </p> - <p> - 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. - </p> - <p> - 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. - </p> - <p> - 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. - </p> - <p> - 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. - </p> - <p> - 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 <i>German War Book</i>, - 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. - </p> - <p> - 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. - </p> - <p> - 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. - </p> - <p> - 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. - </p> - <div style="height: 6em;"> - <br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /> - </div> - -<div>*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 52451 ***</div> - </body> -</html> - - |