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Do not change or edit the +header without written permission. + +Please read the "legal small print," and other information about the +eBook and Project Gutenberg at the bottom of this file. Included is +important information about your specific rights and restrictions in +how the file may be used. You can also find out about how to make a +donation to Project Gutenberg, and how to get involved. + + +**Welcome To The World of Free Plain Vanilla Electronic Texts** + +**eBooks Readable By Both Humans and By Computers, Since 1971** + +*****These eBooks Were Prepared By Thousands of Volunteers!***** + + +Title: Tales of War + +Author: Lord Dunsany + +Release Date: May, 2004 [EBook #5713] +[Yes, we are more than one year ahead of schedule] +[This file was first posted on August 14, 2002] +[Date last updated: November 16, 2004] + +Edition: 10 + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ASCII + +*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK, TALES OF WAR *** +</pre> + +<h1>Tales of War</h1> +<h2>by Lord Dunsany</h2> + +<cite>Tales of War</cite> was first published in 1918 and the text is +in the public domain. The transcription was done by <a +href="mailto:info@sattre-press.com">William McClain</a>, 2002. + +<p>A printed version of this book is available from <a +href="http://tow.sattre-press.com">Sattre Press</a>. It includes +a new introduction and a photograph of the author. + +<hr> + +<strong>The Prayer of the Men of Daleswood</strong> + +<p>He said: ``There were only twenty houses in Daleswood. A place you +would scarcely have heard of. A village up top of the hills. + +<p>``When the war came there was no more than thirty men there between +sixteen and forty-five. They all went. + +<p>``They all kept together; same battalion, same platoon. They was like +that in Daleswood. Used to call the hop pickers foreigners, the ones +that come from London. They used to go past Daleswood, some of them, +every year, on their way down to the hop fields. Foreigners they used +to call them. Kept very much to themselves, did the Daleswood +people. Big woods all round them. + +<p>``Very lucky they was, the Daleswood men. They'd lost no more than five +killed and a good sprinkling of wounded. But all the wounded was back +again with the platoon. This was up to March when the big offensive +started. + +<p>``It came very sudden. No bombardment to speak of. Just a burst of Tok +Emmas going off all together and lifting the front trench clean out of +it; then a barrage behind, and the Boche pouring over in +thousands. `Our luck is holding good,' the Daleswood men +said, for their trench wasn't getting it at all. But the platoon on +their right got it. And it sounded bad too a long way beyond that. No +one could be quite sure. But the platoon on their right was getting +it: that was sure enough. + +<p>``And then the Boche got through them altogether. A message came to say +so. `How are things on the right?' they said to the +runner. `Bad,' said the runner, and he went back, though +Lord knows what he went back to. The Boche was through right +enough. `We'll have to make a defensive flank,' said the +platoon commander. He was a Daleswood man too. Came from the big +farm. He slipped down a communication trench with a few men, mostly +bombers. And they reckoned they wouldn't see any of them any more, for +the Boche was on the right, thick as starlings. + +<p>``The bullets were snapping over thick to keep them down while the +Boche went on, on the right: machine guns, of course. The barrage was +screaming well over and dropping far back, and their wire was still +all right just in front of them, when they put up a head to +look. There was the left platoon of the battalion. One doesn't bother, +somehow, so much about another battalion as one's own. One's own gets +sort of homely. And there they were wondering how their own officer +was getting on, and the few fellows with them, on his defensive +flank. The bombs were going off thick. All the Daleswood men were +firing half right. It sounded from the noise as if it couldn't last +long, as if it would soon be decisive, and the battle be won, or lost, +just there on the right, and perhaps the war ended. They didn't notice +the left. Nothing to speak of. + +<p>``Then a runner came from the left. `Hullo!' they said, +`How are things over there?' + +<p>```The Boche is through,' he said. `Where's the officer?' +`Through!' they said. It didn't seem possible. However did +he do that? they thought. And the runner went on to the right to look +for the officer. + +<p>``And then the barrage shifted further back. The shells still screamed +over them, but the bursts were further away. That is always a +relief. Probably they felt it. But it was bad for all that. Very bad. +It meant the Boche was well past them. They realized it after a +while. + +<p>``They and their bit of wire were somehow just between two waves of +attack. Like a bit of stone on the beach with the sea coming in. A +platoon was nothing to the Boche; nothing much perhaps just then to +anybody. But it was the whole of Daleswood for one long generation. + +<p>``The youngest full-grown man they had left behind was fifty, and some +one had heard that he had died since the war. There was no one else in +Daleswood but women and children, and boys up to seventeen. + +<p>``The bombing had stopped on their right; everything was quieter, and +the barrage further away. When they began to realize what that meant +they began to talk of Daleswood. And then they thought that when all of +them were gone there would be nobody who would remember Daleswood just +as it used to be. For places alter a little, woods grow, and changes +come, trees get cut down, old people die; new houses are built now and +then in place of a yew tree, or any old thing, that used to be there +before; and one way or another the old things go; and all the time you +have people thinking that the old times were best, and the old ways +when they were young. And the Daleswood men were beginning to say, +`Who would there be to remember it just as it was?' + +<p>``There was no gas, the wind being wrong for it, so they were able to +talk, that is if they shouted, for the bullets alone made as much +noise as breaking up an old shed, crisper like, more like new timber +breaking; and the shells of course was howling all the time, that is +the barrage that was bursting far back. The trench still stank of +them. + +<p>``They said that one of them must go over and put his hands up, or run +away if he could, whichever he liked, and when the war was over he +would go to some writing fellow, one of those what makes a living by +it, and tell him all about Daleswood, just as it used to be, and he +would write it out proper and there it would be for always. They all +agreed to that. And then they talked a bit, as well as they could +above that awful screeching, to try and decide who it should be. The +eldest, they said, would know Daleswood best. But he said, and they +came to agree with him, that it would be a sort of waste to save the +life of a man what had had his good time, and they ought to send the +youngest, and they would tell him all they knew of Daleswood before +his time, and everything would be written down just the same and the +old time remembered. + +<p>``They had the idea somehow that the women thought more of their own +man and their children and the washing and what-not; and that the deep +woods and the great hills beyond, and the plowing and the harvest +and snaring rabbits in winter and the sports in the village in summer, +and the hundred things that pass the time of one generation in an old, +old place like Daleswood, meant less to them than the men. Anyhow they +did not quite seem to trust them with the past. + +<p>``The youngest of them was only just eighteen. That was Dick. They told +him to get out and put his hands up and be quick getting across, as +soon as they had told him one or two things about the old time in +Daleswood that a youngster like him wouldn't know. + +<p>``Well, Dick said he wasn't going, and was making trouble about it, so +they told Fred to go. Back, they told him, was best, and come up +behind the Boche with his hands up; they would be less likely to shoot +when it was back towards their own supports. + +<p>``Fred wouldn't go, and so on with the rest. Well, they didn't waste +time quarrelling, time being scarce, and they said what was to be +done? There was chalk where they were, low down in the trench, a +little brown clay on the top of it. There was a great block of it +loose near a shelter. They said they would carve with their knives on +the big bowlder of chalk all that they knew about Daleswood. They +would write where it was and just what it was like, and they would +write something of all those little things that pass with a +generation. They reckoned on having the time for it. It would take a +direct hit with something large, what they call big stuff, to do any +harm to that bowlder. They had no confidence in paper, it got so +messed up when you were hit; besides, the Boche had been using +thermite. Burns, that does. + +<p>``They'd one or two men that were handy at carving chalk; used to do +the regimental crest and pictures of Hindenburg, and all that. They +decided they'd do it in reliefs. + +<p>``They started smoothing the chalk. They had nothing more to do but +just to think what to write. It was a great big bowlder with plenty of +room on it. The Boche seemed not to know that they hadn't killed the +Daleswood men, just as the sea mightn't know that one stone stayed dry +at the coming in of the tide. A gap between two divisions probably. + +<p>``Harry wanted to tell of the woods more than anything. He was afraid +they might cut them down because of the war, and no one would know of +the larks they had had there as boys. Wonderful old woods they were, +with a lot of Spanish chestnut growing low, and tall old oaks over +it. Harry wanted them to write down what the foxgloves were like in +the wood at the end of summer, standing there in the evening, +`Great solemn rows,' he said, `all odd in the +dusk. All odd in the evening, going there after work; and makes you +think of fairies.' There was lots of things about those woods, he +said, that ought to be put down if people were to remember Daleswood +as it used to be when they knew it. What were the good old days +without those woods? he said. + +<p>``But another wanted to tell of the time when they cut the hay with +scythes, working all those long days at the end of June; there would +be no more of that, he said, with machines come in and all. + +<p>``There was room to tell of all that and the woods too, said the others, +so long as they put it short like. + +<p>``And another wanted to tell of the valleys beyond the wood, far afield +where the men went working; the women would remember the hay. The +great valleys he'd tell of. It was they that made Daleswood. The +valleys beyond the wood and the twilight on them in summer. Slopes +covered with mint and thyme, all solemn at evening. A hare on them +perhaps, sitting as though they were his, then lolloping slowly +away. It didn't seem from the way he told of those old valleys that he +thought they could ever be to other folk what they were to the +Daleswood men in the days he remembered. He spoke of them as though +there were something in them, besides the mint and the thyme and the +twilight and hares, that would not stay after these men were gone, +though he did not say what it was. Scarcely hinted it even. + +<p>``And still the Boche did nothing to the Daleswood men. The bullets had +ceased altogether. That made it much quieter. The shells still +snarled over, bursting far, far away. + +<p>``And Bob said tell of Daleswood itself, the old village, with queer +chimneys, of red brick, in the wood. There weren't houses like that +nowadays. They'd be building new ones and spoiling it, likely, after +the war. And that was all he had to say. + +<p>``And nobody was for not putting down anything any one said. It was all +to go in on the chalk, as much as would go in the time. For they all +sort of understood that the Daleswood of what they called the good old +time was just the memories that those few men had of the days they had +spent there together. And that was the Daleswood they loved, and +wanted folks to remember. They were all agreed as to that. And then +they said how was they to write it down. And when it came to writing +there was so much to be said, not spread over a lot of paper I don't +mean, but going down so deep like, that it seemed to them how their +own talk wouldn't be good enough to say it. And they knew no other, +and didn't know what to do. I reckon they'd been reading magazines and +thought that writing had to be like that muck. Anyway, they didn't +know what to do. I reckon their talk would be good enough for +Daleswood when they loved Daleswood like that. But they didn't, and +they were puzzled. + +<p>``The Boche was miles away behind them now, and his barrage with +him. Still in front he did nothing. + +<p>``They talked it all over and over, did the Daleswood men. They tried +everything. But somehow or other they couldn't get near what they +wanted to say about old summer evenings. Time wore on. The bowlder was +smooth and ready, and that whole generation of Daleswood men could +find no words to say what was in their hearts about Daleswood. There +wasn't time to waste. And the only thing they thought of in the end +was `Please, God, remember Daleswood just like it used to +be.' And Bill and Harry carved that on the chalk between them. + +<p>``What happened to the Daleswood men? Why, nothing. There come one of +them counter-attacks, a regular bastard for Jerry. The French made it +and did the Boche in proper. I got the story from a man with a hell of +a great big hammer, long afterwards when that trench was well behind +our line. He was smashing up a huge great chunk of chalk because he +said they all felt it was so damn silly.'' + +<p><strong>The Road</strong> + +<p>The battery Sergeant-Major was practically asleep. He was all worn out +by the continuous roar of bombardments that had been shaking the +dugouts and dazing his brains for weeks. He was pretty well fed up. + +<p>The officer commanding the battery, a young man in a very neat uniform +and of particularly high birth, came up and spat in his face. The +Sergeant-Major sprang to attention, received an order, and took a +stick at once and beat up the tired men. For a message had come to +the battery that some English (God punish them!) were making a road +at X. + +<p>The gun was fired. It was one of those unlucky shots that come on days +when our luck is out. The shell, a 5.9, lit in the midst of the British +working party. It did the Germans little good. It did not stop the +deluge of shells that was breaking up their guns and was driving +misery down like a wedge into their spirits. It did not improve the +temper of the officer commanding the battery, so that the men suffered +as acutely as ever under the Sergeant-Major. But it stopped the road +for that day. + +<p>I seemed to see that road going on in a dream. + +<p>Another working party came along next day, with clay pipes and got to +work; and next day and the day after. Shells came, but went short or +over; the shell holes were neatly patched up; the road went on. Here +and there a tree had to be cut, but not often, not many of them were +left; it was mostly digging and grubbing up roots, and pushing +wheelbarrows along planks and duck-boards, and filling up with +stones. Sometimes the engineers would come: that was when streams were +crossed. The engineers made their bridges, and the infantry working +party went on with the digging and laying down stones. It was +monotonous work. Contours altered, soil altered, even the rock beneath +it, but the desolation never; they always worked in desolation and +thunder. And so the road went on. + +<p>They came to a wide river. They went through a great forest. They +passed the ruins of what must have been quite fine towns, big +prosperous towns with universities in them. I saw the infantry working +party with their stumpy clay pipes, in my dream, a long way on from +where that shell had lit, which stopped the road for a day. And behind +them curious changes came over the road at X. You saw the infantry +going up to the trenches, and going back along it into reserve. They +marched at first, but in a few days they were going up in motors, grey +busses with shuttered windows. And then the guns came along it, miles +and miles of guns, following after the thunder which was further off +over the hills. And then one day the cavalry came by. Then stores in +wagons, the thunder muttering further and further away. I saw +farm-carts going down the road at X. And then one day all manner of +horses and traps and laughing people, farmers and women and boys all +going by to X. There was going to be a fair. + +<p>And far away the road was growing longer and longer amidst, as always, +desolation and thunder. And one day far away from X the road grew very +fine indeed. It was going proudly through a mighty city, sweeping in +like a river; you would not think that it ever remembered +duck-boards. There were great palaces there, with huge armorial eagles +blazoned in stone, and all along each side of the road was a row of +statues of kings. And going down the road towards the palace, past the +statues of the kings, a tired procession was riding, full of the flags +of the Allies. And I looked at the flags in my dream, out of national +pride to see whether we led, or whether France or America. America +went before us, but I could not see the Union Jack in the van nor the +Tricolour either, nor the Stars and Stripes: Belgium led and then +Serbia, they that had suffered most. + +<p>And before the flags, and before the generals, I saw marching along on +foot the ghosts of the working party that were killed at X, gazing +about them in admiration as they went, at the great city and at the +palaces. And one man, wondering at the Sièges Allée, turned +round to the Lance Corporal in charge of the party: ``That is a +fine road that we made, Frank,'' he said. + +<p><strong>An Imperial Monument</strong> + +<p>It is an early summer's morning: the dew is all over France: the train +is going eastwards. They are quite slow, those troop trains, and there +are few embankments or cuttings in those flat plains, so that you seem +to be meandering along through the very life of the people. The roads +come right down to the railways, and the sun is shining brightly over +the farms and the people going to work along the roads, so that you +can see their faces clearly as the slow train passes them by. + +<p>They are all women and boys that work on the farms; sometimes perhaps +you see a very old man, but nearly always women and boys; they are out +working early. They straighten up from their work as we go by and +lift their hands to bless us. + +<p>We pass by long rows of the tall French poplars, their branches cut +away all up the trunk, leaving only an odd round tuft at the top of +the tree; but little branches are growing all up the trunk now, and +the poplars are looking unkempt. It would be the young men who would +cut the branches of the poplars. They would cut them for some useful +thrifty purpose that I do not know; and then they would cut them +because they were always cut that way, as long ago as the times of the +old men's tales about France; but chiefly, I expect, because youth +likes to climb difficult trees; that is why they are clipped so very +high. And the trunks are all unkempt now. + +<p>We go on by many farms with their shapely red-roofed houses; they +stand there, having the air of the homes of an ancient people; they +would not be out of keeping with any romance that might come, or any +romance that has come in the long story of France, and the girls of +those red-roofed houses work all alone in the fields. + +<p>We pass by many willows and come to a great marsh. In a punt on some +open water an old man is angling. We come to fields again, and then to +a deep wood. France smiles about us in the open sunlight. + +<p>But towards evening we pass over the border of this pleasant country +into a tragical land of destruction and gloom. It is not only that +murder has walked here to and fro for years, until all the fields are +ominous with it, but the very fields themselves have been mutilated +until they are unlike fields, the woods have been shattered right down +to the anemones, and the houses have been piled in heaps of rubbish, +and the heaps of rubbish have been scattered by shells. We see no more +trees, no more houses, no more women, no cattle even now. We have come +to the abomination of desolation. And over it broods, and will +probably brood for ever, accursed by men and accursed by the very +fields, the hyena-like memory of the Kaiser, who has whitened so many +bones. + +<p>It may be some satisfaction to his selfishness to know that the +monument to it cannot pass away, to know that the shell holes go too +deep to be washed away by the healing rains of years, to know that the +wasted German generations will not in centuries gather up what has +been spilt on the Somme, or France recover in the sunshine of many +summers from all the misery that his devilish folly has caused. It is +likely to be to such as him a source of satisfaction, for the truly +vain care only to be talked of in many mouths; they hysterically love +to be thought of, and the notice of mankind is to them a mirror which +reflects their futile postures. The admiration of fools they love, and +the praise of a slavelike people, but they would sooner be hated by +mankind than be ignored and forgotten as is their due. And the truly +selfish care only for their imperial selves. + +<p>Let us leave him to pass in thought from ruin to ruin, from wasted +field to field, from crater to crater; let us leave his fancy haunting +cemeteries in the stricken lands of the world, to find what glee he +can in this huge manifestation of his imperial will. + +<p>We neither know to what punishment he moves nor can even guess what +fitting one is decreed. But the time is surely appointed and the +place. Poor trifler with Destiny, who ever had so much to dread? + +<p><strong>A Walk to the Trenches</strong> + +<p>To stand at the beginning of a road is always wonderful; for on all +roads before they end experience lies, sometimes adventure. And a +trench, even as a road, has its beginnings somewhere. In the heart of +a very strange country you find them suddenly. A trench may begin in +the ruins of a house, may run up out of a ditch; may be cut into a +rise of ground sheltered under a hill, and is built in many ways by +many men. As to who is the best builder of trenches there can be +little doubt, and any British soldier would probably admit that for +painstaking work and excellence of construction there are few to rival +Von Hindenburg. His Hindenburg line is a model of neatness and +comfort, and it would be only a very ungrateful British soldier who +would deny it. + +<p>You come to the trenches out of strangely wasted lands, you come +perhaps to a wood in an agony of contortions, black, branchless, +sepulchral trees, and then no more trees at all. The country after +that is still called Picardy or Belgium, still has its old name on the +map as though it smiled there yet, sheltering cities and hamlet and +radiant with orchards and gardens, but the country named Belgium -- or +whatever it be -- is all gone away, and there stretches for miles +instead one of the world's great deserts, a thing to take its place no +longer with smiling lands, but with Sahara, Gobi, Kalahari, and the +Karoo; not to be thought of as Picardy, but more suitably to be named +the Desert of Wilhelm. Through these sad lands one goes to come to +the trenches. Overhead floats until it is chased away an aëroplane +with little black crosses, that you can scarcely see at his respectful +height, peering to see what more harm may be done in the desolation +and ruin. Little flashes sparkle near him, white puffs spread out +round the flashes: and he goes, and our airmen go away after him; +black puffs break out round our airmen. Up in the sky you hear a faint +tap-tapping. They have got their machine guns working. + +<p>You see many things there that are unusual in deserts: a good road, a +railway, perhaps a motor bus; you see what was obviously once a +village, and hear English songs, but no one who has not seen it can +imagine the country in which the trenches lie, unless he bear a desert +clearly in mind, a desert that has moved from its place on the map by +some enchantment of wizardry, and come down on a smiling country. +Would it not be glorious to be a Kaiser and be able to do things like +that? + +<p>Past all manner of men, past no trees, no hedges, no fields, but only +one field from skyline to skyline that has been harrowed by war, one +goes with companions that this event in our history has drawn from all +parts of the earth. On that road you may hear all in one walk where is +the best place to get lunch in the City; you may hear how they laid a +drag for some Irish pack, and what the Master said; you may hear a +farmer lamenting over the harm that rhinoceroses do to his coffee +crop; you may hear Shakespeare quoted and <em>La vie Parisienne.</em> + +<p>In the village you see a lot of German orders, with their silly notes +of exclamation after them, written up on notice boards among the +ruins. Ruins and German orders. That turning movement of Von Kluck's +near Paris in 1914 was a mistake. Had he not done it we might have +had ruins and German orders everywhere. And yet Von Kluck may comfort +himself with the thought that it is not by his mistakes that Destiny +shapes the world: such a nightmare as a world-wide German domination +can have had no place amongst the scheme of things. + +<p>Beyond the village the batteries are thick. A great howitzer near the +road lifts its huge muzzle slowly, fires and goes down again, and +lifts again and fires. It is as though Polyphemus had lifted his huge +shape slowly, leisurely, from the hillside where he was sitting, and +hurled the mountain top, and sat down again. If he is firing pretty +regularly you are sure to get the blast of one of them as you go by, +and it can be a very strong wind indeed. One's horse, if one is +riding, does not very much like it, but I have seen horses far more +frightened by a puddle on the road when coming home from hunting in +the evening: one 12-inch howitzer more or less in France calls for no +great attention from man or beast. + +<p>And so we come in sight of the support trenches where we are to dwell +for a week before we go on for another mile over the hills, where the +black fountains are rising. + +<p><strong>A Walk in Picardy</strong> + +<p>Picture any village you know. In such a village as that the trench +begins. That is to say, there are duck-boards along a ditch, and the +ditch runs into a trench. Only the village is no longer there. It was +like some village you know, though perhaps a little merrier, because +it was further south and nearer the sun; but it is all gone now. And +the trench runs out of the ruins, and is called Windmill Avenue. There +must have been a windmill standing there once. + +<p>When you come from the ditch to the trench you leave the weeds and +soil and trunks of willows and see the bare chalk. At the top of +those two white walls is a foot or so of brown clay. The brown clay +grows deeper as you come to the hills, until the chalk has disappeared +altogether. Our alliance with France is new in the history of man, +but it is an old, old union in the history of the hills. White chalk +with brown clay on top has dipped and gone under the sea; and the +hills of Sussex and Kent are one with the hills of Picardy. + +<p>And so you may pass through the chalk that lies in that desolate lane +with memories of more silent and happier hills; it all depends on what +the chalk means to you: you may be unfamiliar with it and in that case +you will not notice it; or you may have been born among those +thyme-scented hills and yet have no errant fancies, so that you will +not think of the hills that watched you as a child, but only keep your +mind on the business in hand; that is probably best. + +<p>You come after a while to other trenches: notice boards guide you, and +you keep to Windmill Avenue. You go by Pear Lane, Cherry Lane, and +Plum Lane. Pear trees, cherry trees and plum trees must have grown +there. You are passing through either wild lanes banked with briar, +over which these various trees peered one by one and showered their +blossoms down at the end of spring, and girls would have gathered the +fruit when it ripened, with the help of tall young men; or else you +are passing through an old walled garden, and the pear and the cherry +and plum were growing against the wall, looking southwards all through +the summer. There is no way whatever of telling which it was; it is +all one in war; whatever was there is gone; there remain to-day, and +survive, the names of those three trees only. We come next to Apple +Lane. You must not think that an apple tree ever grew there, for we +trace here the hand of the wit, who by naming Plum Lane's neighbour +``Apple Lane'' merely commemorates the inseparable connection that +plum has with apple forever in the minds of all who go to modern +war. For by mixing apple with plum the manufacturer sees the +opportunity of concealing more turnip in the jam, as it were, at the +junction of the two forces, than he might be able to do without this +unholy alliance. + +<p>We come presently to the dens of those who trouble us (but only for +our own good), the dugouts of the trench mortar batteries. It is noisy +when they push up close to the front line and play for half an hour or +so with their rivals: the enemy sends stuff back, our artillery join +in; it is as though, while you were playing a game of croquet, giants +hundreds of feet high, some of them friendly, some unfriendly, +carnivorous and hungry, came and played football on your croquet lawn. + +<p>We go on past Battalion Headquarters, and past the dugouts and +shelters of various people having business with History, past stores +of bombs and the many other ingredients with which history is made, +past men coming down who are very hard to pass, for the width of two +men and two packs is the width of a communication trench and sometimes +an inch over; past two men carrying a flying pig slung on a pole +between them; by many turnings; and Windmill Avenue brings you at last +to Company Headquarters in a dugout that Hindenburg made with his +German thoroughness. + +<p>And there, after a while, descends the Tok Emma man, the officer +commanding a trench mortar battery, and is given perchance a whiskey +and water, and sits on the best empty box that we have to offer, and +lights one of our cigarettes. + +<p>``There's going to be a bit of a strafe at 5.30,'' he says. + +<p><strong>What Happened on the Night of the Twenty-Seventh</strong> + +<p>The night of the twenty-seventh was Dick Cheeser's first night on +sentry. The night was far gone when he went on duty; in another hour +they would stand to. Dick Cheeser had camouflaged his age when he +enlisted: he was barely eighteen. A wonderfully short time ago he was +quite a little boy; now he was in a frontline trench. It hadn't seemed +that things were going to alter like that. Dick Cheeser was a +plowboy: long brown furrows over haughty, magnificent downs seemed +to stretch away into the future as far as his mind could see. No +narrow outlook either, for the life of nations depends upon those +brown furrows. But there are the bigger furrows that Mars makes, the +long brown trenches of war; the life of nations depends on these too; +Dick Cheeser had never pictured these. He had heard talk about a big +navy and a lot of Dreadnoughts; silly nonsense he called it. What did +one want a big navy for? To keep the Germans out, some people +said. But the Germans weren't coming. If they wanted to come, why +didn't they come? Anybody could see that they never did come. Some of +Dick Cheeser's pals had votes. + +<p>And so he had never pictured any change from plowing the great +downs; and here was war at last, and here was he. The Corporal showed +him where to stand, told him to keep a good lookout and left him. + +<p>And there was Dick Cheeser alone in the dark with an army in front of +him, eighty yards away: and, if all tales were true, a pretty horrible +army. + +<p>The night was awfully still. I use the adverb not as Dick Cheeser +would have used it. The stillness awed him. There had not been a shell +all night. He put his head up over the parapet and waited. Nobody +fired at him. He felt that the night was waiting for him. He heard +voices going along the trench: some one said it was a black night: the +voices died away. A mere phrase; the night wasn't black at all, it was +grey. Dick Cheeser was staring at it, and the night was staring back +at him, and seemed to be threatening him; it was grey, grey as an old +cat that they used to have at home, and as artful. Yes, thought Dick +Cheeser, it was an artful night; that was what was wrong with it. If +shells had come or the Germans, or anything at all, you would know how +to take it; but that quiet mist over huge valleys, and stillness! +Anything might happen. Dick waited and waited, and the night waited +too. He felt they were watching each other, the night and he. He felt +that each was crouching. His mind slipped back to the woods on hills +he knew. He was watching with eyes and ears and imagination to see +what would happen in No Man's Land under that ominous mist: but his +mind took a peep for all that at the old woods that he knew. He +pictured himself, he and a band of boys, chasing squirrels again in the +summer. They used to chase a squirrel from tree to tree, throwing +stones, till they tired it: and then they might hit it with a stone: +usually not. Sometimes the squirrel would hide, and a boy would have +to climb after it. It was great sport, thought Dick Cheeser. What a +pity he hadn't had a catapult in those days, he thought. Somehow the +years when he had not had a catapult seemed all to be wasted +years. With a catapult one might get the squirrel almost at once, with +luck: and what a great thing that would be. All the other boys would +come round to look at the squirrel, and to look at the catapult, and +ask him how he did it. He wouldn't have to say much, there would be +the squirrel; no boasting would be necessary with the squirrel lying +dead. It might spread to other things, even rabbits; almost anything, +in fact. He would certainly get a catapult first thing when he got +home. A little wind blew in the night, too cold for summer. It blew +away, as it were, the summer of Dick's memories; blew away hills and +woods and squirrel. It made for a moment a lane in the mist over No +Man's Land. Dick Cheeser peered down it, but it closed +again. ``No,'' Night seemed to say, ``you don't guess my +secret.'' And the awful hush intensified. ``What would they do?'' +thought the sentry. ``What were they planning in all those miles +of silence?'' Even the Verys were few. When one went up, far hills +seemed to sit and brood over the valley: their black shapes seemed to +know what would happen in the mist and seemed sworn not to say. The +rocket faded, and the hills went back into mystery again, and Dick +Cheeser peered level again over the ominous valley. + +<p>All the dangers and sinister shapes and evil destinies, lurking +between the armies in that mist, that the sentry faced that night +cannot be told until the history of the war is written by a historian +who can see the mind of the soldier. Not a shell fell all night, no +German stirred; Dick Cheeser was relieved at ``Stand to'' and his +comrades stood to beside him, and soon it was wide, golden, welcome +dawn. + +<p>And for all the threats of night the thing that happened was one that +the lonely sentry had never foreseen: in the hour of his watching Dick +Cheeser, though scarcely eighteen, became a full-grown man. + +<p><strong>Standing To</strong> + +<p>One cannot say that one time in the trenches is any more tense than +another. One cannot take any one particular hour and call it, in +modern nonsensical talk, ``typical hour in the trenches.'' The +routine of the trenches has gone on too long for that. The tensest +hour ought to be half an hour before dawn, the hour when attacks are +expected and men stand to. It is an old convention of war that that is +the dangerous hour, the hour when defenders are weakest and attack +most to be feared. For darkness favours the attackers then as night +favours the lion, and then dawn comes and they can hold their gains in +the light. Therefore in every trench in every war the garrison is +prepared in that menacing hour, watching in greater numbers than they +do the whole night through. As the first lark lifts from meadows they +stand there in the dark. Whenever there is any war in any part of the +world you may be sure that at that hour men crowd to their parapets: +when sleep is deepest in cities they are watching there. + +<p>When the dawn shimmers a little, and a grey light comes, and widens, +and all of a sudden figures become distinct, and the hour of the +attack that is always expected is gone, then perhaps some faint +feeling of gladness stirs the newest of the recruits; but chiefly the +hour passes like all the other hours there, an unnoticed fragment of +the long, long routine that is taken with resignation mingled with +jokes. + +<p>Dawn comes shy with a wind scarce felt, dawn faint and strangely +perceptible, feeble and faint in the east while men still watch the +darkness. When did the darkness go? When did the dawn grow golden? It +happened as in a moment, a moment you did not see. Guns flash no +longer: the sky is gold and serene; dawn stands there like Victory +that will shine, on one of these years when the Kaiser goes the way of +the older curses of earth. Dawn, and the men unfix bayonets as they +step down from the fire-step and clean their rifles with +pull-throughs. Not all together, but section by section, for it would +not do for a whole company to be caught cleaning their rifles at dawn, +or at any other time. + +<p>They rub off the mud or the rain that has come at night on their +rifles, they detach the magazine and see that its spring is working, +they take out the breechblock and oil it, and put back everything +clean: and another night is gone; it is one day nearer victory. + +<p><strong>The Splendid Traveller</strong> + +<p>A traveller threw his cloak over his shoulder and came down slopes of +gold in El Dorado. From incredible heights he came. He came from where +the peaks of the pure gold mountain shone a little red with the +sunset; from crag to crag of gold he stepped down slowly. Sheer out of +romance he came through the golden evening. + +<p>It was only an incident of every day; the sun had set or was setting, +the air turned chill, and a battalion's bugles were playing +``Retreat'' when this knightly stranger, a British aëroplane, +dipped, and went homeward over the infantry. That beautiful evening +call, and the golden cloud bank towering, and that adventurer coming +home in the cold, happening all together, revealed in a flash the fact +(which hours of thinking sometimes will not bring) that we live in +such a period of romance as the troubadours would have envied. + +<p>He came, that British airman, over the border, sheer over No Man's +Land and the heads of the enemy and the mysterious land behind, +snatching the secrets that the enemy would conceal. Either he had +defeated the German airmen who would have stopped his going, or they +had not dared to try. Who knows what he had done? He had been abroad +and was coming home in the evening, as he did every day. + +<p>Even when all its romance has been sifted from an age (as the +centuries sift) and set apart from the trivial, and when all has been +stored by the poets; even then what has any of them more romantic than +these adventurers in the evening air, coming home in the twilight with +the black shells bursting below? + +<p>The infantry look up with the same vague wonder with which children +look at dragon flies; sometimes they do not look at all, for all that +comes in France has its part with the wonder of a terrible story as +well as with the incidents of the day, incidents that recur year in +and year out, too often for us to notice them. If a part of the moon +were to fall off in the sky and come tumbling to earth, the comment on +the lips of the imperturbable British watchers that have seen so much +would be, ``Hullo, what is Jerry up to now?'' + +<p>And so the British aëroplane glides home in the evening, and the +light fades from the air, and what is left of the poplars grows dark +against the sky, and what is left of the houses grows more mournful in +the gloaming, and night comes, and with it the sounds of thunder, for +the airman has given his message to the artillery. It is as though +Hermes had gone abroad sailing upon his sandals, and had found some +bad land below those winged feet wherein men did evil and kept not the +laws of gods or men; and he had brought this message back and the gods +were angry. + +<p>For the wars we fight to-day are not like other wars, and the wonders +of them are unlike other wonders. If we do not see in them the saga +and epic, how shall we tell of them? + +<p><strong>England</strong> + +<p>``And then we used to have sausages,'' said the Sergeant. + +<p>``And mashed?'' said the Private. + +<p>``Yes,'' said the Sergeant, ``and beer. +And then we used to go home. It was grand in the evenings. We used to +go along a lane that was full of them wild roses. And then we come to +the road where the houses were. They all had their bit of a garden, +every house.'' + +<p>``Nice, I calls it, a garden,'' the Private said. + +<p>``Yes,'' said the Sergeant, ``they all had their garden. It +came right down to the road. Wooden palings: none of that there wire.'' + +<p>``I hates wire,'' said the Private. + +<p>``They didn't have none of it,'' the N. C. O. went on. +``The gardens came right down to the road, looking lovely. Old +Billy Weeks he had them tall pale-blue flowers in his garden nearly as +high as a man.'' + +<p>``Hollyhocks?'' said the Private. + +<p>``No, they wasn't hollyhocks. Lovely +they were. We used to stop and look at them, going by every +evening. He had a path up the middle of his garden paved with red +tiles, Billy Weeks had; and these tall blue flowers growing the whole +way along it, both sides like. They was a wonder. Twenty gardens there +must have been, counting them all; but none to touch Billy Weeks with +his pale-blue flowers. There was an old windmill away to the +left. Then there were the swifts sailing by overhead and screeching: +just about as high again as the houses. Lord, how them birds did +fly. And there was the other young fellows, what were not out walking, +standing about by the roadside, just doing nothing at all. One of them +had a flute: Jim Booker, he was. Those were great days. The bats used +to come out, flutter, flutter, flutter; and then there'd be a star or +two; and the smoke from the chimneys going all grey; and a little cold +wind going up and down like the bats; and all the colour going out of +things; and the woods looking all strange, and a wonderful quiet in +them, and a mist coming up from the stream. It's a queer time +that. It's always about that time, the way I see it: the end of the +evening in the long days, and a star or two, and me and my girl going +home. + +<p>``Wouldn't you like to talk about things for a bit the way you +remember them?'' + +<p>``Oh, no, Sergeant,'' said the other, ``you go on. You do +bring it all back so.'' + +<p>``I used to bring her home,'' the Sergeant said, ``to her +father's house. Her father was keeper there, and they had a house in +the wood. A fine house with queer old tiles on it, and a lot of large +friendly dogs. I knew them all by name, same as they knew me. I used +to walk home then along the side of the wood. The owls would be about; +you could hear them yelling. They'd float out of the wood like, +sometimes: all large and white.'' + +<p>``I knows them,'' said the Private. + +<p>``I saw a fox once so close I could nearly touch him, walking +like he was on velvet. He just slipped out of the wood.'' + +<p>``Cunning old brute,'' said the Private. + +<p>``That's the time to be out,'' said the Sergeant. ``Ten +o'clock on a summer's night, and the night full of noises, not many of +them, but what there is, strange, and coming from a great way off, +through the quiet, with nothing to stop them. Dogs barking, owls +hooting, an old cart; and then just once a sound that you couldn't +account for at all, not anyhow. I've heard sounds on nights like that +that nobody 'ud think you'd heard, nothing like the flute that young +Booker had, nothing like anything on earth.'' + +<p>``I know,'' said the Private. + +<p>``I never told any one before, because they wouldn't believe +you. But it doesn't matter now. There'd be a light in the window to +guide me when I got home. I'd walk up through the flowers of our +garden. We had a lovely garden. Wonderful white and strange the +flowers looked of a nighttime.'' + +<p>``You bring it all back wonderful,'' said the Private. + +<p>``It's a great thing to have lived,'' said the Sergeant. + +<p>``Yes, Sergeant,'' said the other, ``I wouldn't have missed +it, not for anything.'' + +<p>For five days the barrage had rained down behind them: they were +utterly cut off and had no hope of rescue: their food was done, and +they did not know where they were. + +<p><strong>Shells</strong> + +<p>When the aëroplanes are home and the sunset has flared away, and +it is cold, and night comes down over France, you notice the guns more +than you do by day, or else they are actually more active then, I do +not know which it is. + +<p>It is then as though a herd of giants, things of enormous height, came +out from lairs in the earth and began to play with the hills. It is as +though they picked up the tops of the hills in their hands and then +let them drop rather slowly. It is exactly like hills falling. You see +the flashes all along the sky, and then that lumping thump as though +the top of the hill had been let drop, not all in one piece, but +crumbled a little as it would drop from your hands if you were three +hundred feet high and were fooling about in the night, spoiling what +it had taken so long to make. That is heavy stuff bursting, a little +way off. + +<p>If you are anywhere near a shell that is bursting, you can hear in it +a curious metallic ring. That applies to the shells of either side, +provided that you are near enough, though usually of course it is the +hostile shell and not your own that you are nearest to, and so one +distinguishes them. It is curious, after such a colossal event as this +explosion must be in the life of a bar of steel, that anything should +remain at all of the old bell-like voice of the metal, but it appears +to, if you listen attentively; it is perhaps its last remonstrance +before leaving its shape and going back to rust in the earth again for +ages. + +<p>Another of the voices of the night is the whine the shell makes in +coming; it is not unlike the cry the hyena utters as soon as it's dark +in Africa: ``How nice traveller would taste,'' the hyena seems to +say, and ``I want dead White Man.'' It is the rising note of the +shell as it comes nearer, and its dying away when it has gone over, +that make it reminiscent of the hyena's method of diction. If it is +not going over then it has something quite different to say. It begins +the same as the other, it comes up, talking of the back areas with the +same long whine as the other. I have heard old hands say ``That +one is going well over.'' ``Whee-oo,'' says the shell; but just +where the ``oo'' should be long drawn out and turn into the +hyena's final syllable, it says something quite +different. ``Zarp,'' it says. That is bad. Those are the shells +that are looking for you. + +<p>And then of course there is the whizz-bang coming from close, along +his flat trajectory: he has little to say, but comes like a sudden +wind, and all that he has to do is done and over at once. + +<p>And then there is the gas shell, who goes over gurgling gluttonously, +probably in big herds, putting down a barrage. It is the liquid inside +that gurgles before it is turned to gas by the mild explosion; that is +the explanation of it; yet that does not prevent one picturing a tribe +of cannibals who have winded some nice juicy men and are smacking +their chops and dribbling in anticipation. + +<p>And a wonderful thing to see, even in those wonderful nights, is our +thermite bursting over the heads of the Germans. The shell breaks +into a shower of golden rain; one cannot judge easily at night how +high from the ground it breaks, but about as high as the tops of trees +seen at a hundred yards. It spreads out evenly all round and rains +down slowly; it is a bad shower to be out in, and for a long time +after it has fallen, the sodden grass of winter, and the mud and old +bones beneath it, burn quietly in a circle. On such a night as this, +and in such showers, the flying pigs will go over, which take two men +to carry each of them; they go over and root right down to the German +dugout, where the German has come in out of the golden rain, and they +fling it all up in the air. + +<p>These are such nights as Scheherazade with all her versatility never +dreamed of; or if such nightmares came she certainly never told of +them, or her august master, the Sultan, light of the age, would have +had her at once beheaded; and his people would have deemed that he did +well. It has been reserved for a modern autocrat to dream such a +nightmare, driven to it perhaps by the tales of a white-whiskered +Scheherazade, the Lord of the Kiel Canal; and being an autocrat he has +made the nightmare a reality for the world. But the nightmare is +stronger than its master, and grows mightier every night; and the +All-Highest War Lord learns that there are powers in Hell that are +easily summoned by the rulers of earth, but that go not easily home. + +<p><strong>Two Degrees of Envy</strong> + +<p>It was night in the front line and no moon, or the moon was +hidden. There was a strafe going on. The Tok Emmas were angry. And the +artillery on both sides were looking for the Tok Emmas. + +<p>Tok Emma, I may explain for the blessed dwellers in whatever far happy +island there be that has not heard of these things, is the crude +language of Mars. He has not time to speak of a trunk mortar battery, +for he is always in a hurry, and so he calls them T. M.'s. But +Bellona might not hear him saying T. M., for all the din that she +makes: might think that he said D. N; and so he calls it Tok +Emma. Ak, Beer, C, Don: this is the alphabet of Mars. + +<p>And the huge minnies were throwing old limbs out of No Man's Land into +the frontline trench, and shells were rasping down through the air that +seemed to resist them until it was torn to pieces: they burst and +showers of mud came down from heaven. Aimlessly, as it seemed, shells +were bursting now and then in the air, with a flash intensely red: the +smell of them was drifting down the trenches. + +<p>In the middle of all this Bert Butterworth was hit. ``Only in the +foot,'' his pals said. ``Only!'' said Bert. They put him on a +stretcher and carried him down the trench. They passed Bill +Britterling, standing in the mud, an old friend of Bert's. Bert's +face, twisted with pain, looked up to Bill for some sympathy. + +<p>``Lucky devil,'' said Bill. + +<p>Across the way on the other side of No Man's Land there was mud the +same as on Bill's side: only the mud over there stank; it didn't seem +to have been kept clean somehow. And the parapet was sliding away in +places, for working parties had not had much of a chance. They had +three Tok Emmas working in that battalion front line, and the British +batteries did not quite know where they were, and there were eight of +them looking. + +<p>Fritz Groedenschasser, standing in that unseemly mud, greatly yearned +for them to find soon what they were looking for. Eight batteries +searching for something they can't find, along a trench in which you +have to be, leaves the elephant hunter's most desperate tale a little +dull and insipid. Not that Fritz Groedenschasser knew anything about +elephant hunting: he hated all things sporting, and cordially approved +of the execution of Nurse Cavell. And there was thermite +too. Flammenwerfer was all very well, a good German weapon: it could +burn a man alive at twenty yards. But this accursed flaming English +thermite could catch you at four miles. It wasn't fair. + +<p>The three German trench mortars were all still firing. When would the +English batteries find what they were looking for, and this awful +thing stop? The night was cold and smelly. + +<p>Fritz shifted his feet in the foul mud, but no warmth came to him that +way. + +<p>A gust of shells was coming along the trench. Still they had not found +the minnewerfer! Fritz moved from his place altogether to see if he +could find some place where the parapet was not broken. And as he +moved along the sewerlike trench he came on a wooden cross that marked +the grave of a man he once had known, now buried some days in the +parapet, old Ritz Handelscheiner. + +<p>``Lucky devil,'' said Fritz. + +<p><strong>The Master of No Man's Land</strong> + +<p>When the last dynasty has fallen and the last empire passed away, when +man himself has gone, there will probably still remain the +swede. [The rutabaga or Swedish turnip.] + +<p>There grew a swede in No Man's Land by Croisille near the Somme, and +it had grown there for a long while free from man. + +<p>It grew as you never saw a swede grow before. It grew tall and strong +and weedy. It lifted its green head and gazed round over No Man's +Land. Yes, man was gone, and it was the day of the swede. + +<p>The storms were tremendous. Sometimes pieces of iron sang through its +leaves. But man was gone and it was the day of the swede. + +<p>A man used to come there once, a great French farmer, an oppressor of +swedes. Legends were told of him and his herd of cattle, dark +traditions that passed down vegetable generations. It was somehow +known in those fields that the man ate swedes. + +<p>And now his house was gone and he would come no more. + +<p>The storms were terrible, but they were better than man. The swede +nodded to his companions: the years of freedom had come. + +<p>They had always known among them that these years would come. Man had +not been there always, but there had always been swedes. He would go +some day, suddenly, as he came. That was the faith of the swedes. And +when the trees went the swede believed that the day was come. When +hundreds of little weeds arrived that were never allowed before, and +grew unchecked, he knew it. + +<p>After that he grew without any care, in sunlight, moonlight and +rain; grew abundantly and luxuriantly in the freedom, and increased in +arrogance till he felt himself greater than man. And indeed in those +leaden storms that sang often over his foliage all living things +seemed equal. + +<p>There was little that the Germans left when they retreated from the +Somme that was higher than this swede. He grew the tallest thing for +miles and miles. He dominated the waste. Two cats slunk by him from a +shattered farm: he towered above them contemptuously. + +<p>A partridge ran by him once, far, far below his lofty leaves. The +night winds mourning in No Man's Land seemed to sing for him alone. + +<p>It was surely the hour of the swede. For him, it seemed, was No Man's +Land. And there I met him one night by the light of a German rocket +and brought him back to our company to cook. + +<p><strong>Weeds and Wire</strong> + +<p>Things had been happening. Divisions were moving. There had been, +there was going to be, a stunt. A battalion marched over the hill and +sat down by the road. They had left the trenches three days march to +the north and had come to a new country. The officers pulled their +maps out; a mild breeze fluttered them; yesterday had been winter and +to-day was spring; but spring in a desolation so complete and +far-reaching that you only knew of it by that little wind. It was +early March by the calendar, but the wind was blowing out of the gates +of April. A platoon commander, feeling that mild wind blowing, forgot +his map and began to whistle a tune that suddenly came to him out of +the past with the wind. Out of the past it blew and out of the South, +a merry vernal tune of a Southern people. Perhaps only one of those +that noticed the tune had ever heard it before. An officer sitting +near had heard it sung; it reminded him of a holiday long ago in the +South. + +<p>``Where did you hear that tune?'' he asked the platoon commander. + +<p>``Oh, the hell of a long way from here,'' the platoon commander +said. + +<p>He did not remember quite where it was he had heard it, but he +remembered a sunny day in France and a hill all dark with pine woods, +and a man coming down at evening out of the woods, and down the slope +to the village, singing this song. Between the village and the slope +there were orchards in blossom. So that he came with his song for +hundreds of yards through orchards. ``The hell of a way from +here,'' he said. + +<p>For a long while then they sat silent. + +<p>``It mightn't have been so very far from here,'' said the platoon +commander. ``It was in France, now I come to think of it. But it +was a lovely part of France, all woods and orchards. Nothing like +this, thank God.'' And he glanced with a tired look at the unutterable +desolation. + +<p>``Where was it?'' said the other. + +<p>``In Picardy,'' he said. + +<p>``Aren't we in Picardy now?'' said his friend. + +<p>``Are we?'' he said. + +<p>``I don't know. The maps don't call it Picardy.'' + +<p>``It was a fine place, anyway,'' the platoon commander said. +``There seemed always to be a wonderful light on the hills. A +kind of short grass grew on them, and it shone in the sun at +evening. There were black woods above them. A man used to come out of +them singing at evening.'' + +<p>He looked wearily round at the brown desolation of weeds. As far as +the two officers could see there was nothing but brown weeds and bits +of brown barbed wire. He turned from the desolate scene back to his +reminiscences. + +<p>``He came singing through the orchards into the village,'' +he said. ``A quaint old place with queer gables, called +Ville-en-Bois.'' + +<p>``Do you know where we are?'' said the other. + +<p>``No, said the platoon commander.'' + +<p>``I thought not,'' he said. ``Hadn't you better take a look +at the map?'' + +<p>``I suppose so,'' said the platoon commander, and he smoothed out +his map and wearily got to the business of finding out where he was. + +<p>``Good Lord!'' he said. ``Ville-en-Bois!'' + +<p><strong>Spring in England and Flanders</strong> + +<p>Very soon the earliest primroses will be coming out in woods wherever +they have been sheltered from the north. They will grow bolder as the +days go by, and spread and come all down the slopes of sunny +hills. Then the anemones will come, like a shy pale people, one of the +tribes of the elves, who dare not leave the innermost deeps of the +wood: in those days all the trees will be in leaf, the bluebells will +follow, and certain fortunate woods will shelter such myriads of them +that the bright fresh green of the beech trees will flash between two +blues, the blue of the sky and the deeper blue of the bluebells. Later +the violets come, and such a time as this is the perfect time to see +England: when the cuckoo is heard and he surprises his hearers; when +evenings are lengthening out and the bat is abroad again; and all the +flowers are out and all the birds sing. At such a time not only Nature +smiles but our quiet villages and grave old spires wake up from winter +in the mellow air and wear their centuries lightly. At such a time you +might come just at evening on one of those old villages in a valley +and find it in the mood to tell you the secret of the ages that it hid +and treasured there before the Normans came. Who knows? For they are +very old, very wise, very friendly; they might speak to you one warm +evening. If you went to them after great suffering they might speak to +you; after nights and nights of shelling over in France, they might +speak to you and you might hear them clearly. + +<p>It would be a long, long story that they would tell, all about the +ages; and it would vary wonderfully little, much less perhaps than we +think; and the repetitions rambling on and on in the evening, as the +old belfry spoke and the cottages gathered below it, might sound so +soothing after the boom of shells that perhaps you would nearly sleep. +And then with one's memory tired out by the war one might never +remember the long story they told, when the belfry and the +brown-roofed houses all murmured at evening, might never remember even +that they had spoken all through that warm spring and evening. We may +have heard them speak and forgotten that they have spoken. Who knows? +We are at war, and see so many strange things: some we must forget, +some we must remember; and we cannot choose which. + +<p>To turn from Kent to Flanders is to turn to a time of mourning through +all seasons alike. Spring there brings out no leaf on myriad oaks, nor +the haze of green that floats like a halo above the heads of the birch +trees, that stand with their fairylike trunks haunting the deeps of +the woods. For miles and miles and miles summer ripens no crops, +leads out no maidens laughing in the moonlight, and brings no harvest +home. When Autumn looks on orchards in all that region of mourning he +looks upon barren trees that will never blossom again. Winter drives +in no sturdy farmers at evening to sit before cheery fires, families +meet not at Christmas, and the bells are dumb in belfries; for all by +which a man might remember his home has been utterly swept away: has +been swept away to make a maniacal dancing ground on which a murderous +people dance to their death led by a shallow, clever, callous, +imperial clown. + +<p>There they dance to their doom till their feet shall find the +precipice that was prepared for them on the day that they planned the +evil things they have done. + +<p><strong>The Nightmare Countries</strong> + +<p>There are certain lands in the darker dreams of poetry that stand out +in the memory of generations. There is for instance Poe's ``Dark +tarn of Auber, the ghoul-haunted region of Weir''; there are some queer +twists in the river Alph as imagined by Coleridge; two lines of +Swinburne: + +<p><blockquote> +By the tideless dolorous inland sea<br> +In a land of sand and ruin and gold<br> +</blockquote> + +<p>are as haunting as any. There are in literature certain regions of +gloom, so splendid that whenever you come on them they leave in the +mind a sort of nightmare country which one's thoughts revisit on +hearing the lines quoted. + +<p>It is pleasant to picture such countries sometimes when sitting before +the fire. It is pleasant because you can banish them by the closing of +a book; a puff of smoke from a pipe will hide them altogether, and +back come the pleasant, wholesome, familiar things. But in France they +are there always. In France the nightmare countries stand all night in +the starlight; dawn comes and they still are there. The dead are +buried out of sight and others take their places among men; but the +lost lands lie unburied gazing up at the winds; and the lost woods +stand like skeletons all grotesque in the solitude; the very seasons +have fled from them. The very seasons have fled; so that if you look +up to see whether summer has turned to autumn, or if autumn has turned +to winter yet, nothing remains to show you. It is like the eccentric +dream of some strange man, very arresting and mysterious, but lacking +certain things that should be there before you can recognize it as +earthly. It is a mad, mad landscape. There are miles and miles and +miles of it. It is the biggest thing man has done. It looks as though +man in his pride, with all his clever inventions, had made for himself +a sorry attempt at creation. + +<p>Indeed when we trace it all back to its origin we find at the +beginning of this unhappy story a man who was only an emperor and +wished to be something more. He would have ruled the world but has +only meddled with it; and his folly has brought misery to millions, +and there lies his broken dream on the broken earth. He will never +take Paris now. He will never be crowned at Versailles as Emperor of +Europe; and after that, most secret dream of all, did not the +Cæsars proclaim themselves divine? Was it not whispered among +Macedonian courtiers that Alexander was the child of God? And was the +Hohenzollern less than these? + +<p>What might not force accomplish? All gone now, that dream and the +Hohenzollern line broken. A maniacal dream and broken farms all mixed +up together: they make a pretty nightmare and the clouds still gleam +at night with the flashes of shells, and the sky is still troubled by +day with uncouth balloons and the black bursts of the German shells and +the white of our anti-aircraft. + +<p>And below there lies this wonderful waste land where no girls sing, +and where no birds come but starlings; where no hedgerows stand, and +no lanes with wild roses, and where no pathways run through fields of +wheat, and there are no fields at all and no farms and no farmers; and +two haystacks stand on a hill I know, undestroyed in the desolation, +and nobody touches them for they know the Germans too well; and the +tops have been blown off hills down to the chalk. And men say of this +place that it is Pozières and of that place that it is Ginchy; +nothing remains to show that hamlets stood there at all, and a brown, +brown weed grows over it all for ever; and a mighty spirit has arisen +in man, and no one bows to the War Lord though many die. And Liberty +is she who sang her songs of old, and is fair as she ever was, when +men see her in visions, at night in No Man's Land when they have the +strength to crawl in: still she walks of a night in Pozières and +in Ginchy. + +<p>A fanciful man once called himself the Emperor of the Sahara: the +German Kaiser has stolen into a fair land and holds with weakening +hands a land of craters and weed, and wire and wild cabbages and old +German bones. + +<p><strong>Spring and the Kaiser</strong> + +<p>While all the world is waiting for Spring there lie great spaces in +one of the pleasantest lands to which Spring cannot come. + +<p>Pear trees and cherry and orchards flash over other lands, blossoming +as abundantly as though their wonder were new, with a beauty as fresh +and surprising as though nothing like it before had ever adorned +countless centuries. Now with the larch and soon with the beech trees +and hazel, a bright green blazes forth to illumine the year. The +slopes are covered with violets. Those who have gardens are beginning +to be proud of them and to point them out to their neighbours. Almond +and peach in blossom peep over old brick walls. The land dreams of +summer all in the youth of the year. + +<p>But better than all this the Germans have found war. The simple +content of a people at peace in pleasant countries counted for nothing +with them. Their Kaiser prepared for war, made speeches about war, +and, when he was ready, made war. And now the hills that should be +covered with violets are full of murderous holes, and the holes are +half full of empty meat tins, and the garden walls have gone and the +gardens with them, and there are no woods left to shelter +anemones. Boundless masses of brown barbed wire straggle over the +landscape. All the orchards there are cut down out of ruthless spite +to hurt France whom they cannot conquer. All the little trees that +grow near gardens are gone, aspen, laburnum and lilac. It is like this +for hundreds of miles. Hundreds of ruined towns gaze at it with vacant +windows and see a land from which even Spring is banished. And not a +ruined house in all the hundred towns but mourns for some one, man, +woman or child; for the Germans make war equally on all in the land +where Spring comes no more. + +<p>Some day Spring will come back; some day she will shine all April in +Picardy again, for Nature is never driven utterly forth, but comes +back with her seasons to cover up even the vilest things. + +<p>She shall hide the raw earth of the shell holes till the violets come +again; she shall bring back even the orchards for Spring to walk in +once more; the woods will grow tall again above the southern anemones; +and the great abandoned guns of the Germans will rust by the rivers of +France. Forgotten like them, the memory of the War Lord will pass +with his evil deeds. + +<p><strong>Two Songs</strong> + +<p>Over slopes of English hills looking south in the time of violets, +evening was falling. + +<p>Shadows at edges of woods moved, and then merged in the gloaming. + +<p>The bat, like a shadow himself, finding that spring was come, slipped +from the dark of the wood as far as a clump of beech trees and +fluttered back again on his wonderful quiet wings. + +<p>Pairing pigeons were home. + +<p>Very young rabbits stole out to gaze at the calm still world. They +came out as the stars come. At one time they were not there, and then +you saw them, but you did not see them come. + +<p>Towering clouds to the west built palaces, cities and mountains; +bastions of rose and precipices of gold; giants went home over them +draped in mauve by steep rose-pink ravines into emerald-green +empires. Turbulences of colour broke out above the departed sun; +giants merged into mountains, and cities became seas, and new +processions of other fantastic things sailed by. But the chalk slopes +facing south smiled on with the same calm light, as though every blade +of grass gathered a ray from the gloaming. All the hills faced the +evening with that same quiet glow, which faded softly as the air grew +colder; and the first star appeared. + +<p>Voices came up in the hush, clear from the valley, and ceased. A light +was lit, like a spark, in a distant window: more stars appeared and +the woods were all dark now, and shapes even on the hill slopes began +to grow indistinct. + +<p>Home by a laneway in the dim, still evening a girl was going, singing +the Marseillaise. + +<p>In France where the downs in the north roll away without hedges, as +though they were great free giants that man had never confined, as +though they were stretching their vast free limbs in the evening, the +same light was smiling and glimmering softly away. + +<p>A road wound over the downs and away round one of their shoulders. A +hush lay over them as though the giants slept, or as though they +guarded in silence their ancient, wonderful history. + +<p>The stillness deepened and the dimness of twilight; and just before +colours fade, while shapes can still be distinguished, there came by +the road a farmer leading his Norman horse. High over the horse's +withers his collar pointed with brass made him fantastic and huge and +strange to see in the evening. + +<p>They moved together through that mellow light towards where unseen +among the clustered downs the old French farmer's house was sheltered +away. + +<p>He was going home at evening humming ``God Save the King.'' + +<p><strong>The Punishment</strong> + +<p>An exhalation arose, drawn up by the moon, from an old battlefield +after the passing of years. It came out of very old craters and +gathered from trenches, smoked up from No Man's Land, and the ruins of +farms; it rose from the rottenness of dead brigades, and lay for half +the night over two armies; but at midnight the moon drew it up all +into one phantom and it rose and trailed away eastwards. + +<p>It passed over men in grey that were weary of war; it passed over a +land once prosperous, happy and mighty, in which were a people that +were gradually starving; it passed by ancient belfries in which there +were no bells now; it passed over fear and misery and weeping, and so +came to the palace at Potsdam. It was the dead of the night between +midnight and dawn, and the palace was very still that the Emperor +might sleep, and sentries guarded it who made no noise and relieved +others in silence. Yet it was not so easy to sleep. Picture to +yourself a murderer who had killed a man. Would you sleep? Picture +yourself the man that planned this war! Yes, you sleep, but nightmares +come. + +<p>The phantom entered the chamber. ``Come,'' it said. + +<p>The Kaiser leaped up at once as obediently as when he came to +attention on parade, years ago, as a subaltern in the Prussian Guard, +a man whom no woman or child as yet had ever cursed; he leaped up and +followed. They passed the silent sentries; none challenged and none +saluted; they were moving swiftly over the town as the felon Gothas +go; they came to a cottage in the country. They drifted over a little +garden gate, and there in a neat little garden the phantom halted like +a wind that has suddenly ceased. ``Look,'' it said. + +<p>Should he look? Yet he must look. The Kaiser looked; and saw a window +shining and a neat room in the cottage: there was nothing dreadful +there; thank the good German God for that; it was all right, after +all. The Kaiser had had a fright, but it was all right; there was only +a woman with a baby sitting before the fire, and two small children and +a man. And it was quite a jolly room. And the man was a young soldier; +and, why, he was a Prussian Guardsman, -- there was his helmet hanging +on the wall, -- so everything was all right. They were jolly German +children; that was well. How nice and homely the room was. There shone +before him, and showed far off in the night, the visible reward of +German thrift and industry. It was all so tidy and neat, and yet they +were quite poor people. The man had done his work for the Fatherland, +and yet beyond all that had been able to afford all those little +knickknacks that make a home so pleasant and that in their humble +little way were luxury. And while the Kaiser looked the two young +children laughed as they played on the floor, not seeing that face at +the window. + +<p>Why! Look at the helmet. That was lucky. A bullet hole right through +the front of it. That must have gone very close to the man's head. How +ever did it get through? It must have glanced upwards as bullets +sometimes do. The hole was quite low in the helmet. It would be +dreadful to have bullets coming by close like that. The firelight +flickered, and the lamp shone on, and the children played on the floor, +and the man was smoking out of a china pipe; he was strong and able +and young, one of the wealth-winners of Germany. + +<p>``Have you seen?'' said the phantom. + +<p>``Yes,'' said the Kaiser. It was well, he thought, that a Kaiser +should see how his people lived. + +<p>At once the fire went out and the lamp faded away, the room fell +sombrely into neglect and squalor, and the soldier and the children +faded away with the room; all disappeared phantasmally, and nothing +remained but the helmet in a kind of glow on the wall, and the woman +sitting all by herself in the darkness. + +<p>``It has all gone,'' said the Kaiser. + +<p>``It has never been,'' said the phantom. + +<p>The Kaiser looked again. Yes, there was nothing there, it was just a +vision. There were the grey walls all damp and uncared for, and that +helmet standing out solid and round, like the only real thing among +fancies. No, it had never been. It was just a vision. + +<p>``It might have been,'' said the phantom. + +<p>Might have been? How might it have been? + +<p>``Come,'' said the phantom. + +<p>They drifted away down a little lane that in summer would have had +roses, and came to an Uhlan's house; in times of peace a small +farmer. Farm buildings in good repair showed even in the night, and +the black shapes of haystacks; again a well-kept garden lay by the +house. The phantom and the Kaiser stood in the garden; before them a +window glowed in a lamplit room. + +<p>``Look,'' said the phantom. + +<p>The Kaiser looked again and saw a young couple; the woman played with +a baby, and all was prosperous in the merry room. Again the hard-won +wealth of Germany shone out for all to see, the cosy comfortable +furniture spoke of acres well cared for, spoke of victory in the +struggle with the seasons on which wealth of nations depends. + +<p>``It might have been,'' said the phantom. Again the fire died out +and the merry scene faded away, leaving a melancholy, ill-kept room, +with poverty and mourning haunting dusty corners and the woman sitting +alone. + +<p>``Why do you show me this?'' said the Kaiser. ``Why do you +show me these visions?'' + +<p>``Come,'' said the phantom. + +<p>``What is it?'' said the Kaiser. ``Where are you bringing me?'' + +<p>``Come,'' said the phantom. + +<p>They went from window to window, from land to land. You had seen, had +you been out that night in Germany, and able to see visions, an +imperious figure passing from place to place, looking on many scenes. +He looked on them, and families withered away, and happy scenes faded, +and the phantom said to him ``Come.'' He expostulated but +obeyed; and so they went from window to window of hundreds of farms in +Prussia, till they came to the Prussian border and went on into +Saxony; and always you would have heard, could you hear spirits speak, +``It might have been,'' ``It might have been,'' repeated from +window to window. + +<p>They went down through Saxony, heading for Austria. And for long the +Kaiser kept that callous, imperious look. But at last he, even he, at +last he nearly wept. And the phantom turned then and swept him back +over Saxony, and into Prussia again and over the sentries' heads, back +to his comfortable bed where it was so hard to sleep. + +<p>And though they had seen thousands of merry homes, homes that can +never be merry now, shrines of perpetual mourning; though they had +seen thousands of smiling German children, who will never be born now, +but were only the visions of hopes blasted by him; for all the leagues +over which he had been so ruthlessly hurried, dawn was yet barely +breaking. + +<p>He had looked on the first few thousand homes of which he had robbed +all time, and which he must see with his eyes before he may go +hence. The first night of the Kaiser's punishment was accomplished. + +<p><strong>The English Spirit</strong> + +<p>By the end of the South African war Sergeant Cane had got one thing +very well fixed in his mind, and that was that war was an overrated +amusement. He said he ``was fed up with it,'' partly because that +misused metaphor was then new, partly because every one was saying it: +he felt it right down in his bones, and he had a long memory. So when +wonderful rumours came to the East Anglian village where he lived, on +August 1, 1914, Sergeant Cane said: ``That means war,'' and +decided then and there to have nothing to do with it: it was somebody +else's turn; he felt he had done enough. Then came August 4th, and +England true to her destiny, and then Lord Kitchener's appeal for +men. Sergeant Cane had a family to look after and a nice little house: +he had left the army ten years. + +<p>In the next week all the men went who had been in the army before, all +that were young enough, and a good sprinkling of the young men too who +had never been in the army. Men asked Cane if he was going, and he +said straight out ``No.'' + +<p>By the middle of August Cane was affecting the situation. He was a +little rallying point for men who did not want to go. ``He knows +what it's like,'' they said. + +<p>In the smoking room of the Big House sat the Squire and his son, Arthur +Smith; and Sir Munion Boomer-Platt, the Member for the division. The +Squire's son had been in the last war as a boy, and like Sergeant Cane +had left the army since. All the morning he had been cursing an +imaginary general, seated in the War Office at an imaginary desk with +Smith's own letter before him, in full view but unopened. Why on earth +didn't he answer it, Smith thought. But he was calmer now, and the +Squire and Sir Munion were talking of Sergeant Cane. + +<p>``Leave him to me,'' said Sir Munion. + +<p>``Very well,'' said the Squire. So Sir +Munion Boomer-Platt went off and called on Sergeant Cane. + +<p>Mrs Cane knew what he had come for. + +<p>``Don't let him talk you over, Bill,'' she said. + +<p>``Not he,'' said Sergeant Cane. + +<p>Sir Munion came on Sergeant Cane in his garden. + +<p>``A fine day,'' said Sir Munion. And from that he went on to the +war. ``If you enlist,'' he said, ``they will make you a +sergeant again at once. You will get a sergeant's pay, and your wife +will get the new separation allowance.'' + +<p>``Sooner have Cane,'' said Mrs Cane. + +<p>``Yes, yes, of course,'' said Sir Munion. +``But then there is the medal, probably +two or three medals, and the glory of it, +and it is such a splendid life.'' + +<p>Sir Munion did warm to a thing whenever he began to hear his own +words. He painted war as it has always been painted, one of the most +beautiful things you could imagine. And then it mustn't be supposed +that it was like those wars that there used to be, a long way +off. There would be houses where you would be billeted, and good food, +and shady trees and villages wherever you went. And it was such an +opportunity of seeing the Continent (``the Continent as it really +is,'' Sir Munion called it) as would never come again, and he only +wished he were younger. Sir Munion really did wish it, as he spoke, +for his own words stirred him profoundly; but somehow or other they +did not stir Sergeant Cane. No, he had done his share, and he had a +family to look after. + +<p>Sir Munion could not understand him: he went back to the Big House and +said so. He had told him all the advantages he could think of that +were there to be had for the asking, and Sergeant Cane merely +neglected them. + +<p>``Let me have a try,'' said Arthur Smith. ``He soldiered with +me before.'' + +<p>Sir Munion shrugged his shoulders. He had all the advantages at his +fingers' ends, from pay to billeting: there was nothing more to be +said. Nevertheless young Smith went. + +<p>``Hullo, Sergeant Cane,'' said Smith. + +<p>``Hello, sir,'' said the sergeant. + +<p>``Do you remember that night at Reit River?'' + +<p>``Don't I, sir,'' said Cane. + +<p>``One blanket each and no ground sheet?'' + +<p>``I remember, sir,'' said Cane. + +<p>``Didn't it rain,'' said Smith. + +<p>``It rained that night, proper.'' + +<p>``Drowned a few of the lice, I suppose.'' + +<p>``Not many,'' said Cane. + +<p>``No, not many,'' Smith reflected. ``The Boers had the +range all right that time.'' + +<p>``Gave it us proper,'' said Cane. + +<p>``We were hungry that night,'' said Smith. ``I could +have eaten biltong.'' + +<p>``I did eat some of it,'' said Cane. ``Not bad stuff, +what there was of it, only not enough.'' + +<p>``I don't think,'' said Smith, ``that I've ever slept on +the bare earth since.'' + +<p>``No, sir?'' said Cane. ``It's hard. You get used to it. +But it will always be hard.'' + +<p>``Yes, it will always be hard,'' said Smith. ``Do you +remember the time we were thirsty?'' + +<p>``Oh, yes, sir,'' said Cane, ``I remember that. One +doesn't forget that.'' + +<p>``No. I still dream of it sometimes,'' said Smith. ``It +makes a nasty dream. I wake with my mouth all dry too, when I dream +that.'' + +<p>``Yes,'' said Cane, ``one doesn't forget being thirsty.'' + +<p>``Well,'' said Smith, ``I suppose we're for it all over +again?'' + +<p>``I suppose so, sir,'' said Cane. + +<p><strong>An Investigation Into the Causes and Origin of the War</strong> + +<p>The German imperial barber has been called up. He must have been +called up quite early in the war. I have seen photographs in papers +that leave no doubt of that. Who he is I do not know: I once read his +name in an article but have forgotten it; few even know if he still +lives. And yet what harm he has done! What vast evils he has +unwittingly originated! Many years ago he invented a frivolity, a <em> +jeu d'esprit</em> easily forgivable to an artist in the heyday of his +youth, to whom his art was new and even perhaps wonderful. A craft, of +course, rather than an art, and a humble craft at that; but then, the +man was young, and what will not seem wonderful to youth? + +<p>He must have taken the craft very seriously, but as youth takes things +seriously, fantastically and with laughter. He must have determined to +outshine rivals: he must have gone away and thought, burning candles +late perhaps, when all the palace was still. But how can youth think +seriously? And there had come to him this absurd, this fantastical +conceit. What else would have come? The more seriously he took the +tonsorial art, the more he studied its tricks and phrases and heard +old barbers lecture, the more sure were the imps of youth to prompt +him to laughter and urge him to something outrageous and +ridiculous. The background of the dull pomp of Potsdam must have made +all this more certain. It was bound to come. + +<p>And so one day, or, as I have suggested, suddenly late one night, +there came to the young artist bending over tonsorial books that +quaint, mad, odd, preposterous inspiration. Ah, what pleasure there is +in the madness of youth; it is not like the madness of age, clinging +to outworn formulæ; it is the madness of breaking away, of +galloping among precipices, of dallying with the impossible, of +courting the absurd. And this inspiration, it was in none of the +books; the lecturer barbers had not lectured on it, could not dream of +it and did not dare to; there was no tradition for it, no precedent; +it was mad; and to introduce it into the pomp of Potsdam, that was the +daring of madness. And this preposterous inspiration of the absurd +young barber-madman was nothing less than a moustache that without any +curve at all, or any suggestion of sanity, should go suddenly up at +the ends very nearly as high as the eyes! + +<p>He must have told his young fellow craftsmen first, for youth goes +first to youth with its hallucinations. And they, what could they have +said? You cannot say of madness that it is mad, you cannot call +absurdity absurd. To have criticized would have revealed jealousy; and +as for praise you could not praise a thing like that. They probably +shrugged, made gestures; and perhaps one friend warned him. But you +cannot warn a man against a madness; if the madness is in possession +it will not be warned away: why should it? And then perhaps he went +to the old barbers of the Court. You can picture their anger. Age does +not learn from youth in any case. But there was the insult to their +ancient craft, bad enough if only imagined, but here openly spoken +of. And what would come of it? They must have feared, on the one hand, +dishonour to their craft if this young barber were treated as his +levity deserved; and, on the other hand, could they have feared his +success? I think they could not have guessed it. + +<p>And then the young idiot with his preposterous inspiration must have +looked about to see where he could practise his new absurdity. It +should have been enough to have talked about it among his fellow +barbers; they would have gone with new zest to their work next day for +this delirious interlude, and no harm would have been +done. ``Fritz,'' (or Hans) they would have said, ``was a bit +on last night, a bit full up,'' or whatever phrase they use to touch on +drunkenness; and the thing would have been forgotten. We all have our +fancies. But this young fool wanted to get his fancy mixed up with +practice: that's where he was mad. And in Potsdam, of all places. + +<p>He probably tried his friends first, young barbers at the Court and +others of his own standing. None of them were fools enough to be seen +going about like that. They had jobs to lose. A Court barber is one +thing, a man who cuts ordinary hair is quite another. Why should they +become outcasts because their friend chose to be mad? + +<p>He probably tried his inferiors then, but they would have been timid +folk; they must have seen the thing was absurd, and of course daren't +risk it. Again, why should they? + +<p>Did he try to get some noble then to patronize his invention? Probably +the first refusals he had soon inflamed his madness more, and he threw +caution insanely to the winds, and went straight to the Emperor. + +<p>It was probably about the time that the Emperor dismissed Bismarck; +certainly the drawings of that time show him still with a sane +moustache. + +<p>The young barber probably chanced on him in this period, finding him +bereft of an adviser, and ready to be swayed by whatever whim should +come. Perhaps he was attracted by the barber's hardihood, perhaps the +absurdity of his inspiration had some fascination for him, perhaps he +merely saw that the thing was new and, feeling jaded, let the barber +have his way. And so the frivolity became a fact, the absurdity +became visible, and honour and riches came the way of the barber. + +<p>A small thing, you might say, however fantastical. And yet I believe +the absurdity of that barber to be among the great evils that have +brought death nearer to man; whimsical and farcical as it was, yet a +thing deadlier than Helen's beauty or Tamerlane's love of skulls. For +just as character is outwardly shown so outward things react upon the +character; and who, with that daring barber's ludicrous fancy visible +always on his face, could quite go the sober way of beneficent +monarchs? The fantasy must be mitigated here, set off there; had you +such a figure to dress, say for amateur theatricals, you would realize +the difficulty. The heavy silver eagle to balance it; the glittering +cuirass lower down, preventing the eye from dwelling too long on the +barber's absurdity. And then the pose to go with the cuirass and to +carry off the wild conceit of that mad, mad barber. He has much to +answer for, that eccentric man whose name so few remember. For pose +led to actions; and just when Europe most needed a man of wise +counsels, restraining the passions of great empires, just then she had +ruling over Germany and, unhappily, dominating Austria, a man who +every year grew more akin to the folly of that silly barber's youthful +inspiration. + +<p>Let us forgive the barber. For long I have known from pictures that I +have seen of the Kaiser that he has gone to the trenches. Probably he +is dead. Let us forgive the barber. But let us bear in mind that the +futile fancies of youth may be deadly things, and that one of them +falling on a fickle mind may so stir its shallows as to urge it to +disturb and set in motion the avalanches of illimitable grief. + +<p><strong>Lost</strong> + +<p>Describing a visit, say the papers of March 28th, which the Kaiser +paid incognito to Cologne Cathedral on March 18th before the great +battle, the Cologne correspondent of the <em>Tyd</em> says: + +<p><blockquote> +There were only a few persons in the building. Under high arches and +in spacious solitude the Kaiser sat, as if in deep thought, before the +priests' choir. Behind him his military staff stood respectfully at a +distance. Still musing as he rose, the monarch resting both hands on +his walking-stick remains standing immovable for some +minutes... I shall never forget this picture of the musing monarch praying in +Cologne Cathedral on the eve of the great battle. +</blockquote> + +<p>Probably he won't forget it. The German casualty lists will help to +remind him. But what is more to the point is that this expert +propagandist has presumably received orders that we are not to forget +it, and that the sinister originator of the then impending holocaust +should be toned down a little in the eyes at least of the <em>Tyd</em> to +something a little more amiable. + +<p>And no doubt the little piece of propaganda gave every satisfaction to +those who ordered it, or they would not have passed it out to the <em> +Tyd,</em> and the touching little scene would never have reached our eyes. +At the same time the little tale would have been better suited to the +psychology of other countries if he had made the War Lord kneel when +he prayed in Cologne Cathedral, and if he had represented the Military +Staff as standing out of respect to One who, outside Germany, is held +in greater respect than the All Highest. + +<p>And had the War Lord really knelt is it not possible that he might +have found pity, humility, or even contrition? Things easily +overlooked in so large a cathedral when sitting erect, as a War Lord, +before the priests' choir, but to be noticed perhaps with one's eyes +turned to the ground. + +<p>Perhaps he nearly found one of those things. Perhaps he felt (who +knows?) just for a moment, that in the dimness of those enormous +aisles was something he had lost a long, long while ago. + +<p>One is not mistaken to credit the very bad with feeling far, faint +appeals from things of glory like Cologne Cathedral; it is that the +appeals come to them too far and faint on their headlong descent to +ruin. + +<p>For what was the War Lord seeking? Did he know that pity for his poor +slaughtered people, huddled by him on to our ceaseless machine guns, +might be found by seeking there? Or was it only that the lost thing, +whatever it was, made that faint appeal to him, passing the door by +chance, and drew him in, as the scent of some herb or flower in a +moment draws us back years to look for something lost in our youth; we +gaze back, wondering, and do not find it. + +<p>And to think that perhaps he lost it by very little! That, but for +that proud attitude and the respectful staff, he might have seen what +was lost, and have come out bringing pity for his people. Might have +said to the crowd that gave him that ovation, as we read, outside the +door: ``My pride has driven you to this needless war, my ambition +has made a sacrifice of millions, but it is over, and it shall be no +more; I will make no more conquests.'' + +<p>They would have killed him. But for that renunciation, perhaps, +however late, the curses of the widows of his people might have kept +away from his grave. + +<p>But he did not find it. He sat at prayer. Then he stood. Then he +marched out: and his staff marched out behind him. And in the gloom of +the floor of the vast Cologne Cathedral lie the things that the Kaiser +did not find and never will find now. Unnoticed thus, and in some +silent moment, passes a man's last chance. + +<p><strong>The Last Mirage</strong> + +<p>The desolation that the German offensive has added to the dominions of +the Kaiser cannot easily be imagined by any one who has never seen a +desert. Look at it on the map and it is full of the names of towns +and villages; it is in Europe, where there are no deserts; it is a +fertile province among places of famous names. Surely it is a proud +addition to an ambitious monarch's possessions. Surely there is +something there that it is worth while to have conquered at the cost +of army corps. No, nothing. They are mirage towns. The farms grow Dead +Sea fruit. France recedes before the imperial clutch. France smiles, +but not for him. His new towns seem to be his because their names +have not yet been removed from any map, but they crumble at his +approach because France is not for him. His deadly ambition makes a +waste before it as it goes, clutching for cities. It comes to them and +the cities are not there. + +<p>I have seen mirages and have heard others told of, but the best +mirages of all we never hear described; the mirage that waterless +travellers see at the last. Those fountains rising out of onyx basins, +blue and straight into incredible heights, and falling and flooding +cool white marble; the haze of spray above their feathery heads +through which the pale green domes of weathered copper shimmer and +shake a little; mysterious temples, the tombs of unknown kings; the +cataracts coming down from rose-quartz cliffs, far off but seen quite +clearly, growing to rivers bearing curious barges to the golden courts +of Sahara. These things we never see; they are seen at the last by men +who die of thirst. + +<p>Even so has the Kaiser looked at the smiling plains of France. Even so +has he looked on her famous ancient cities and the farms and the +fertile fields and the woods and orchards of Picardy. With effort and +trouble he has moved towards them. As he comes near to them the cities +crumble, the woods shrivel and fall, the farms fade out of Picardy, +even the hedgerows go; it is bare, bare desert. He had been sure of +Paris, he had dreamed of Versailles and some monstrous coronation, he +had thought his insatiable avarice would be sated. For he had plotted +for conquest of the world, that boundless greed of his goading him on +as a man in the grip of thirst broods upon lakes. + +<p>He sees victory near him now. That also will fade in the desert of old +barbed wire and weeds. When will he see that a doom is over all his +ambitions? For his dreams of victory are like those last dreams that +come in deceptive deserts to dying men. + +<p>There is nothing good for him in the desert of the Somme. Bapaume is +not really there, though it be marked on his maps; it is only a +wilderness of slates and brick. Peronne looks like a city a long way +off, but when you come near it is only the shells of +houses. Pozière, Le Sars, Sapigny, are gone altogether. + +<p>And all is Dead Sea fruit in a visible desert. The reports of German +victories there are mirage like all the rest; they too will fade into +weeds and old barbed wire. + +<p>And the advances that look like victories, and the ruins that look +like cities, and the shell-beaten broken fields that look like +farms, -- they and the dreams of conquest and all the plots and +ambitions, they are all the mirage of a dying dynasty in a desert it +made for its doom. + +<p>Bones lead up to the desert, bones are scattered about it, it is the +most menacing and calamitous waste of all the deadly places that have +been inclement to man. It flatters the Hohenzollerns with visions of +victory now because they are doomed by it and are about to die. When +their race has died the earth shall smile again, for their deadly +mirage shall oppress us no more. The cities shall rise again and the +farms come back; hedgerows and orchards shall be seen again; the woods +shall slowly lift their heads from the dust; and gardens shall come +again where the desert was, to bloom in happier ages that forget the +Hohenzollerns. + +<p><strong>A Famous Man</strong> + +<p>Last winter a famous figure walked in Behagnies. Soldiers came to see +him from their billets all down the Arras road, from Ervillers and +from Sapigny, and from the ghosts of villages back from the road, +places that once were villages but are only names now. They would walk +three or four miles, those who could not get lorries, for his was one +of those names that all men know, not such a name as a soldier or poet +may win, but a name that <em>all</em> men know. They used to go there at +evening. + +<p>Four miles away on the left as you went from Ervillers, the guns +mumbled over the hills, low hills over which the Verys from the +trenches put up their heads and peered around, -- greeny, yellowy +heads that turned the sky sickly, and the clouds lit up and went grey +again all the night long. As you got near to Behagnies you lost sight +of the Verys, but the guns mumbled on. A silly little train used to +run on one's left, which used to whistle loudly, as though it asked to +be shelled, but I never saw a shell coming its way; perhaps it knew +that the German gunners could not calculate how slow it went. It +crossed the road as you got down to Behagnies. + +<p>You passed the graves of two or three German soldiers with their names +on white wooden crosses, -- men killed in 1914; and then a little +cemetery of a French cavalry regiment, where a big cross stood in the +middle with a wreath and a tricolor badge, and the names of the +men. And then one saw trees. That was always a wonder, whether one saw +their dark shapes in the evening, or whether one saw them by day, and +knew from the look of their leaves whether autumn had come yet, or +gone. In winter at evening one just saw the black bulk of them, but +that was no less marvellous than seeing them green in summer; trees by +the side of the Arras-Bapaume road, trees in mid-desert in the awful +region of Somme. There were not many of them, just a cluster, fewer +than the date palms in an oasis in Sahara, but an oasis is an oasis +wherever you find it, and a few trees make it. There are little places +here and there, few enough as the Arabs know, that the Sahara's deadly +sand has never been able to devastate; and there are places even in +the Somme that German malice, obeying the Kaiser as the sand of Sahara +obeys the accursed sirocco, has not been able to destroy quite to the +uttermost. That little cluster of trees at Behagnies is one of these; +Divisional Headquarters used to shelter beneath them; and near them +was a statue on a lawn which probably stood by the windows of some +fine house, though there is no trace of the house but the lawn and +that statue now. + +<p>And over the way on the left a little further on, just past the +officers' club, a large hall stood where one saw that famous figure, +whom officers and men alike would come so far to see. + +<p>The hall would hold perhaps four or five hundred seats in front of a +stage fitted up very simply with red, white and blue cloths, but +fitted up by some one that understood the job; and at the back of that +stage on those winter evenings walked on his flat and world-renowned +feet the figure of Charlie Chaplin. + +<p>When aëroplanes came over bombing, the dynamos used to stop for +they supplied light to other places besides the cinema, and the shade +of Charlie Chaplin would fade away. But the men would wait till the +aëroplanes had gone and that famous figure came waddling back to +the screen. There he amused tired men newly come from the trenches, +there he brought laughter to most of the twelve days that they had out +of the line. + +<p>He is gone from Behagnies now. He did not march in the retreat a +little apart from the troops, with head bent forward and hand thrust +in jacket, a flat-footed Napoleon: yet he is gone; for no one would +have left behind for the enemy so precious a thing as a Charlie +Chaplin film. He is gone but he will return. He will come with his +cane one day along that Arras road to the old hut in Behagnies; and +men dressed in brown will welcome him there again. + +<p>He will pass beyond it through those desolate plains, and over the +hills beyond them, beyond Bapaume. Far hamlets to the east will know +his antics. + +<p>And one day surely, in old familiar garb, without court dress, without +removing his hat, armed with that flexible cane, he will walk over the +faces of the Prussian Guard and, picking up the Kaiser by the collar, +with infinite nonchalance in finger and thumb, will place him neatly +in a prone position and solemnly sit on his chest. + +<p><strong>The Oases of Death</strong> + +<p>While the German guns were pounding Amiens and the battle of dull +Prussianism against Liberty raged on, they buried Richthofen in the +British lines. + +<p>They had laid him in a large tent with his broken machine outside +it. Thence British airmen carried him to the quiet cemetery, and he +was buried among the cypresses in this old resting place of French +generations just as though he had come there bringing no harm to +France. + +<p>Five wreaths were on his coffin, placed there by those who had fought +against him up in the air. And under the wreaths on the coffin was +spread the German flag. + +<p>When the funeral service was over three volleys were fired by the +escort, and a hundred aviators paid their last respects to the grave +of their greatest enemy; for the chivalry that the Prussians have +driven from earth and sea lives on in the blue spaces of the air. + +<p>They buried Richthofen at evening, and the planes came droning home as +they buried him, and the German guns roared on and guns answered, +defending Amiens. And in spite of all, the cemetery had the air of +quiet, remaining calm and aloof, as all French graveyards are. For +they seem to have no part in the cataclysm that shakes all the world +but them; they seem to withdraw amongst memories and to be aloof from +time, and, above all, to be quite untroubled by the war that rages +to-day, upon which they appear to look out listlessly from among their +cypress and yew, and dimly, down a vista of centuries. They are very +strange, these little oases of death that remain unmoved and green +with their trees still growing, in the midst of a desolation as far as +the eye can see, in which cities and villages and trees and hedges and +farms and fields and churches are all gone, and where hugely broods a +desert. It is as though Death, stalking up and down through France +for four years, sparing nothing, had recognized for his own his little +gardens, and had spared only them. + +<p><strong>Anglo-Saxon Tyranny</strong> + +<p>``We need a sea,'' says Big-Admiral von Tirpitz, ``freed of +Anglo-Saxon tyranny.'' Unfortunately neither the British Admiralty nor +the American Navy permit us to know how much of the Anglo-Saxon +tyranny is done by American destroyers and how much by British ships +and even trawler. It would interest both countries to know, if it +could be known. But the Big-Admiral is unjust to France, for the +French navy exerts a tyranny at sea that can by no means be +overlooked, although naturally from her position in front of the mouth +of the Elbe England practises the culminating insupportable tyranny of +keeping the High Seas Fleet in the Kiel Canal. + +<p>It is not I, but the Big-Admiral, who chose the word tyranny as +descriptive of the activities of the Anglo-Saxon navies. He was +making a speech at Dusseldorf on May 25th and was reported in the +Dusseldorfer <em>Nachrichten</em> on May 27th. + +<p>Naturally it does not seem like tyranny to us, even the contrary; but +for an admiral, <em>ein Grosse-Admiral,</em> lately commanding a High +Seas Fleet, it must have been more galling than we perhaps can credit +to be confined in a canal. There was he, who should have been +breasting the blue, or at any rate doing something salty and nautical, +far out in the storms of that sea that the Germans call an Ocean, with +the hurricane raging angrily in his whiskers and now and then wafting +tufts of them aloft to white the halyards; there was he constrained to +a command the duties of which however nobly he did them could be +equally well carried out by any respectable bargee. He hoped for a +piracy of which the <em>Lusitania</em> was merely a beginning; he looked +for the bombardment of innumerable towns; he pictured slaughter in +many a hamlet of fishermen; he planned more than all those things of +which U-boat commanders are guilty; he saw himself a murderous old +man, terrible to seafarers, and a scourge of the coasts, and fancied +himself chronicled in after years by such as told dark tales of +Captain Kidd or the awful buccaneers; but he followed in the end no +more desperate courses than to sit and watch his ships on a wharf near +Kiel like one of Jacob's night watchmen. + +<p>No wonder that what appears to us no more than the necessary +protection of women and children in seacoast towns from murder should +be to him an intolerable tyranny. No wonder that the guarding of +travellers of the allied countries at sea, and even those of the +neutrals, should be a most galling thing to the Big-Admiral's thwarted +ambition, looking at it from the point of view of one who to +white-whiskered age has retained the schoolboy's natural love of the +black and yellow flag. A pirate, he would say, has as much right to +live as wasps or tigers. The Anglo-Saxon navies, he might argue, have +a certain code of rules for use at sea; they let women get first into +the boats, for instance, when ships are sinking, and they rescue +drowning mariners when they can: no actual harm in all this, he would +feel, though it would weaken you, as Hindenburg said of poetry; but if +all these little rules are tyrannously enforced on those who may think +them silly, what is to become of the pirate? Where, if people like +Beattie and Sims had always had their way, would be those rollicking +tales of the jolly Spanish Main, and men walking the plank into the +big blue sea, and long, low, rakish craft putting in to Indian +harbours with a cargo of men and women all hung from the yard-arm? A +melancholy has come over the spirit of Big-Admiral von Tirpitz in the +years he has spent in the marshes between the Elbe and Kiel, and in +that melancholy he sees romance crushed; he sees no more pearl earrings +and little gold rings in the hold, he sees British battleships +spoiling the Spanish Main, and hateful American cruisers in the old +Sargasso Sea; he sees himself, alas, the last of all the pirates. + +<p>Let him take comfort. There were always pirates. And in spite of the +tyranny of England and America, and of France, which the poor old man +perplexed with his troubles forgot, there will be pirates still. Not +many perhaps, but enough U-boats will always be able to slip through +that tyrannous blockade to spread indiscriminate slaughter amongst the +travellers of any nation, enough to hand on the old traditions of +murder at sea. And one day Captain Kidd, with such a bow as they used +to make in ports of the Spanish Main, will take off his ancient hat, +sweeping it low in Hell, and be proud to clasp the hand of the Lord of +the Kiel Canal. + +<p><strong>Memories</strong> + +<p><blockquote> +... far-off things<br> +And battles long ago.<br> +</blockquote> + +<p>Those who live in an old house are necessarily more concerned with +paying the plumber, should his art be required, or choosing wall paper +that does not clash with the chintzes, than with the traditions that +may haunt its corridors. In Ireland, -- and no one knows how old that +is, for the gods that lived there before the Red Branch came wrote few +chronicles on the old grey Irish stones and wrote in their own +language, -- in Ireland we are more concerned with working it so that +Tim Flanagan gets the job he does be looking for. + +<p>But in America those who remember Ireland remember her, very often, +from old generations; maybe their grandfather migrated, perhaps his +grandfather, and Ireland is remembered by old tales treasured among +them. Now Tim Flanagan will not be remembered in a year's time when he +has the job for which he has got us to agitate, and the jobberies that +stir us move not the pen of History. + +<p>But the tales that Irish generations hand down beyond the Atlantic +have to be tales that are worth remembering. They are tales that have +to stand the supreme test, tales that a child will listen to by the +fireside of an evening, so that they go down with those early +remembered evenings that are last of all to go of the memories of a +lifetime. A tale that a child will listen to must have much +grandeur. Any cheap stuff will do for us, bad journalism, and novels +by girls that could get no other jobs; but a child looks for those +things in a tale that are simple and noble and epic, the things that +Earth remembers. And so they tell, over there, tales of Sarsfield and +of the old Irish Brigade; they tell, of an evening, of Owen Roe +O'Neill. And into those tales come the plains of Flanders again and +the ancient towns of France, towns famous long ago and famous yet: let +us rather think of them as famous names and not as the sad ruins we +have seen, melancholy by day and monstrous in the moonlight. + +<p>Many an Irishman who sails from America for those historic lands knows +that the old trees that stand there have their roots far down in soil +once richened by Irish blood. When the Boyne was lost and won, and +Ireland had lost her King, many an Irishman with all his wealth in a +scabbard looked upon exile as his sovereign's court. And so they came +to the lands of foreign kings, with nothing to offer for the +hospitality that was given them but a sword; and it usually was a +sword with which kings were well content. Louis XV had many of them, +and was glad to have them at Fontenoy; the Spanish King admitted them +to the Golden Fleece; they defended Maria Theresa. Landen in Flanders +and Cremona knew them. A volume were needed to tell of all those +swords; more than one Muse has remembered them. It was not disloyalty +that drove them forth; their King was gone, they followed, the oak was +smitten and brown were the leaves of the tree. + +<p>But no such mournful metaphor applies to the men who march to-day +towards the plains where the ``Wild Geese'' were driven. They go +with no country mourning them, but their whole land cheers them on; +they go to the inherited battlefields. And there is this difference in +their attitude to kings, that those knightly Irishmen of old, driven +homeless over-sea, appeared as exiles suppliant for shelter before the +face of the Grand Monarch, and he, no doubt with exquisite French +grace, gave back to them all they had lost except what was lost +forever, salving so far as he could the injustice suffered by +each. But to-day when might, for its turn, is in the hands of +democracies, the men whose fathers built the Statue of Liberty have +left their country to bring back an exiled king to his home, and to +right what can be righted of the ghastly wrongs of Flanders. + +<p>And if men's prayers are heard, as many say, old saints will hear old +supplications going up by starlight with a certain wistful, musical +intonation that has linked the towns of Limerick and Cork with the +fields of Flanders before. + +<p><strong>The Movement</strong> + +<p>For many years Eliphaz Griggs was comparatively silent. Not that he +did not talk on all occasions whenever he could find hearers, he did +that at great length; but for many years he addressed no public +meeting, and was no part of the normal life of the northeast end of +Hyde Park or Trafalgar Square. And then one day he was talking in a +public house where he had gone to talk on the only subject that was +dear to him. He waited, as was his custom, until five or six men were +present, and then he began. ``Ye're all damned, I'm saying, +damned from the day you were born. Your portion is Tophet.'' + +<p>And on that day there happened what had never happened in his +experience before. Men used to listen in a tolerant way, and say +little over their beer, for that is the English custom; and that would +be all. But to-day a man rose up with flashing eyes and went over to +Eliphaz and gripped him by the hand: ``They're <em>all</em> damned,'' +said the stranger. + +<p>That was the turning point in the life of Eliphaz. Up to that moment +he had been a lonely crank, and men thought he was queer; but now +there were two of them and he became a Movement. A Movement in England +may do what it likes: there was a Movement, before the War, for +spoiling tulips in Kew Gardens and breaking church windows; it had its +run like the rest. + +<p>The name of Eliphaz's new friend was Ezekiel Pim: and they drew up +rules for their Movement almost at once; and very soon country inns +knew Eliphaz no more. And for some while they missed him where he +used to drop in of an evening to tell them they were all damned: and +then a man proved one day that the earth was flat, and they all forgot +Eliphaz. + +<p>But Eliphaz went to Hyde Park and Ezekiel Pim went with him, and there +you would see them close to the Marble Arch on any fine Sunday +afternoon, preaching their Movement to the people of +London. ``You are all damned,'' said Eliphaz. ``Your portion +shall be damnation for everlasting.'' + +<p>``<em>All</em> damned,'' added Ezekiel. + +<p>Eliphaz was the orator. He would picture Hell to you as it really +is. He made you see pretty much what it will be like to wriggle and +turn and squirm, and never escape from burning. But Ezekiel Pim, +though he seldom said more than three words, uttered those words with +such alarming sincerity and had such a sure conviction shining in his +eyes that searched right in your face as he said them, and his long +hair waved so weirdly as his head shot forward when he said +``You're <em>all</em> damned,'' that Ezekiel Pim brought home to you +that the vivid descriptions of Eliphaz really applied to <em>you.</em> + +<p>People who lead bad lives get their sensibilities hardened. These did +not care very much what Eliphaz said. But girls at school, and several +governesses, and even some young clergy, were very much +affected. Eliphaz Griggs and Ezekiel Pim seemed to bring Hell so near +to you. You could almost feel it baking the Marble Arch from two to +four on Sundays. And at four o'clock the Surbiton Branch of the +International Anarchists used to come along, and Eliphaz Griggs and +Ezekiel Pim would pack up their flag and go, for the pitch belonged to +the Surbiton people till six; and the crank Movements punctiliously +recognize each other's rights. If they fought among themselves, which +is quite unthinkable, the police would run them in; it is the one +thing that an anarchist in England may never do. + +<p>When the War came the two speakers doubled their efforts. The way they +looked at it was that here was a counter-attraction taking people's +minds off the subject of their own damnation just as they had got them +to think about it. Eliphaz worked as he had never worked before; he +spared nobody; but it was still Ezekiel Pim who somehow brought it +most home to them. + +<p>One fine spring afternoon Eliphaz Griggs was speaking at his usual +place and time; he had wound himself up wonderfully. ``You are +damned,'' he was saying, ``for ever and ever and ever. Your sins +have found you out. Your filthy lives will be as fuel round you and +shall burn for ever and ever.'' + +<p>``Look here,'' said a Canadian soldier in +the crowd, ``we shouldn't allow that in +Ottawa.'' + +<p>``What?'' asked an English girl. + +<p>``Why, telling us we're all damned like that,'' he said. + +<p>``Oh, this is England,'' she said. ``They +may all say what they like here.'' + +<p>``You are all damned,'' said Ezekiel, jerking forward his head and +shoulders till his hair flapped out behind. ``<em>All, all, all</em> +damned.'' + +<p>``I'm damned if I am,'' said the Canadian soldier. + +<p>``Ah,'' said Ezekiel, and a sly look came into his face. + +<p>Eliphaz flamed on. ``Your sins are remembered. Satan shall grin +at you. He shall heap cinders on you for ever and ever. Woe to you, +filthy livers. Woe to you, sinners. Hell is your portion. There shall +be none to grieve for you. You shall dwell in torment for ages. None +shall be spared, not one. Woe everlasting... Oh, I beg pardon, +gentlemen, I'm sure.'' For the Pacifists' League had been kept waiting +three minutes. It was their turn to-day at four. + +<p><strong>Nature's Cad</strong> + +<p>The claim of Professor Grotius Jan Beek to have discovered, or +learned, the language of the greater apes has been demonstrated +clearly enough. He is not the original discoverer of the fact that +they have what may be said to correspond with a language; nor is he +the first man to have lived for some while in the jungle protected by +wooden bars, with a view to acquiring some knowledge of the meaning of +the various syllables that gorillas appear to utter. If so crude a +collection of sounds, amounting to less than a hundred words, if words +they are, may be called a language, it may be admitted that the +Professor has learned it, as his recent experiments show. What he has +not proved is his assertion that he has actually conversed with a +gorilla, or by signs, or grunts, or any means whatever obtained an +insight, as he put it, into its mentality, or, as we should put it, +its point of view. This Professor Beek claims to have done; and though +he gives us a certain plausible corroboration of a kind which makes +his story appear likely, it should be borne in mind that it is not of +the nature of proof. + +<p>The Professor's story is briefly that having acquired this language, +which nobody that has witnessed his experiments will call in question, +he went back to the jungle for a week, living all the time in the +ordinary explorer's cage of the Blik pattern. Towards the very end of +the week a big male gorilla came by, and the Professor attracted it by +the one word ``Food.'' It came, he says, close to the cage, and +seemed prepared to talk but became very angry on seeing a man there, +and beat the cage and would say nothing. The Professor says that he +asked it why it was angry. He admits that he had learned no more than +forty words of this language, but believes that there are perhaps +thirty more. Much however is expressed, as he says, by mere +intonation. Anger, for instance; and scores of allied words, such as +terrible, frightful, kill, whether noun, verb or adjective, are +expressed, he says, by a mere growl. Nor is there any word for +``Why,'' but queries are signified by the inflexion of the voice. + +<p>When he asked it why it was angry the gorilla said that men killed +him, and added a noise that the professor said was evidently meant to +allude to guns. The only word used, he says, in this remark of the +gorilla's was the word that signified ``man.'' The sentence as +understood by the professor amounted to ``Man kill me. Guns.'' +But the word ``kill'' was represented simply by a snarl, +``me'' by slapping its chest, and ``guns'' as I have explained +was only represented by a noise. The Professor believes that +ultimately a word for guns may be evolved out of that noise, but +thinks that it will take many centuries, and that if during that time +guns should cease to be in use, this stimulus being withdrawn, the word +will never be evolved at all, nor of course will it be needed. + +<p>The Professor tried, by evincing interest, ignorance, and incredulity, +and even indignation, to encourage the gorilla to say more; but to his +disappointment, all the more intense after having exchanged that one +word of conversation with one of the beasts, the gorilla only repeated +what it had said, and beat on the cage again. For half an hour this +went on, the Professor showing every sign of sympathy, the gorilla +raging and beating upon the cage. + +<p>It was half an hour of the most intense excitement to the Professor, +during which time he saw the realization of dreams that many +considered crazy, glittering as it were within his grasp, and all the +while this ridiculous gorilla would do nothing but repeat the mere +shred of a sentence and beat the cage with its great hands; and the +heat of course was intense. And by the end of the half hour the +excitement and the heat seem to have got the better of the Professor's +temper, and he waved the disgusting brute angrily away with a gesture +that probably was not much less impatient than the gorilla's own. And +at that the animal suddenly became voluble. He beat more furiously +than ever upon the cage and slipped his great fingers through the +bars, trying to reach the Professor, and poured out volumes of +ape-chatter. + +<p>Why, why did men shoot at him, he asked. He made himself terrible, +therefore men ought to love him. That was the whole burden of what the +Professor calls its argument. ``Me, me terrible,'' two slaps on the +chest and then a growl. ``Man love me.'' And then the emphatic +negative word, and the sound that meant guns, and sudden furious +rushes at the cage to try to get at the Professor. + +<p>The gorilla, Professor Beek explains, evidently admired only strength; +whenever he said ``I make myself terrible to Man,'' a sentence he +often repeated, he drew himself up and thrust out his huge chest and +bared his frightful teeth; and certainly, the Professor says, there +was something terribly grand about the menacing brute. ``Me +terrible,'' he repeated again and again, ``Me terrible. Sky, sun, +stars with me. Man love me. Man love me. No?'' It meant that all the +great forces of nature assisted him and his terrible teeth, which he +gnashed repeatedly, and that therefore man should love him, and he +opened his great jaws wide as he said this, showing all the brutal +force of them. + +<p>There was to my mind a genuine ring in Professor Beek's story, because +he was obviously so much more concerned, and really troubled, by the +dreadful depravity of this animal's point of view, or mentality as he +called it, than he was concerned with whether or not we believed what +he had said. + +<p>And I mentioned that there was a circumstance in his story of a +plausible and even corroborative nature. It is this. Professor Beek, +who noticed at the time a bullet wound in the tip of the gorilla's +left ear, by means of which it was luckily identified, put his +analysis of its mentality in writing and showed it to several others, +before he had any way of accounting for the beast having such a mind. + +<p>Long afterwards it was definitely ascertained that this animal had +been caught when young on the slopes of Kilimanjaro and trained and +even educated, so far as such things are possible, by an eminent +German Professor, a <em>persona grata</em> at the Court of Berlin. + +<p><strong>The Home of Herr Schnitzelhaaser</strong> + +<p>The guns in the town of Greinstein were faintly audible. The family of +Schnitzelhaaser lived alone there in mourning, an old man and old +woman. They never went out or saw any one, for they knew they could +not speak as though they did not mourn. They feared that their secret +would escape them. They had never cared for the war that the War Lord +made. They no longer cared what he did with it. They never read his +speeches; they never hung out flags when he ordered flags: they hadn't +the heart to. + +<p>They had had four sons. + +<p>The lonely old couple would go as far as the shop for food. Hunger +stalked behind them. They just beat hunger every day, and so saw +evening: but there was nothing to spare. Otherwise they did not go out +at all. Hunger had been coming slowly nearer of late. They had nothing +but the ration, and the ration was growing smaller. They had one pig +of their own, but the law said you might not kill it. So the pig was +no good to them. + +<p>They used to go and look at that pig sometimes when hunger +pinched. But more than that they did not dare to contemplate. + +<p>Hunger came nearer and nearer. The war was going to end by the first +of July. The War Lord was going to take Paris on this day and that +would end the war at once. But then the war was always going to +end. It was going to end in 1914, and their four sons were to have +come home when the leaves fell. The War Lord had promised that. And +even if it did end, that would not bring their four sons home now. So +what did it matter what the War Lord said. + +<p>It was thoughts like these that they knew they had to conceal. It was +because of thoughts like these that they did not trust themselves to +go out and see other people, for they feared that by their looks if by +nothing else, or by their silence or perhaps their tears, they might +imply a blasphemy against the All Highest. And hunger made one so +hasty. What might one not say? And so they stayed indoors. + +<p>But now. What would happen now? The War Lord was coming to Greinstein +in order to hear the guns. One officer of the staff was to be billeted +in their house. And what would happen now? + +<p>They talked the whole thing over. They must struggle and make an +effort. The officer would be there for one evening. He would leave in +the morning quite early in order to make things ready for the return +to Potsdam: he had charge of the imperial car. So for one evening they +must be merry. They would suppose, it was Herr Schnitzelhaaser's +suggestion, they would think all the evening that Belgium and France +and Luxemburg all attacked the Fatherland, and that the Kaiser, +utterly unprepared, quite unprepared, called on the Germans to defend +their land against Belgium. + +<p>Yes, the old woman could imagine that; she could think it all the +evening. + +<p>And then, -- it was no use not being cheerful altogether, -- then one +must imagine a little more, just for the evening: it would come quite +easy; one must think that the four boys were alive. + +<p>Hans too? (Hans was the youngest). + +<p>Yes, all four. Just for the evening. + +<p>But if the officer asks? + +<p>He will not ask. What are four soldiers? + +<p>So it was all arranged; and at evening the officer came. He brought +his own rations, so hunger came no nearer. Hunger just lay down +outside the door and did not notice the officer. + +<p>A this supper the officer began to talk. +The Kaiser himself, he said, was at the +Schartzhaus. + +<p>``So,'' said Herr Schnitzelhaaser; ``just +over the way.'' So close. Such an honour. + +<p>And indeed the shadow of the Schartzhaus darkened their garden in the +morning. + +<p>It was such an honour, said Frau Schnitzelhaaser too. And they began +to praise the Kaiser. So great a War Lord, she said; the most glorious +war there had ever been. + +<p>Of course, said the officer, it would end on the first of July. + +<p>Of course, said Frau Schnitzelhaaser. And so great an admiral, +too. One must remember that also. And how fortunate we were to have +him: one must not forget that. Had it not been for him the crafty +Belgians would have attacked the Fatherland, but they were struck down +before they could do it. So much better to prevent a bad deed like +that than merely to punish after. So wise. And had it not been for +him, if it had not been for him... + +<p>The old man saw that she was breaking down and hastily he took up that +feverish praise. Feverish it was, for their hunger and bitter loss +affected their minds no less than illness does, and the things they +did they did hastily and intemperately. His praise of the War Lord +raced on as the officer ate. He spoke of him as of those that benefit +man, as of monarchs who bring happiness to their people. And now, he +said, he is here in the Schartzhaus beside us, listening to the guns +just like a common soldier. + +<p>Finally the guns, as he spoke, coughed beyond ominous +hills. Contentedly the officer went on eating. He suspected nothing of +the thoughts his host and hostess were hiding. At last he went +upstairs to bed. + +<p>As fierce exertion is easy to the fevered, so they had spoken; and it +wears them, so they were worn. The old woman wept when the officer +went out of hearing. But old Herr Schnitzelhaaser picked up a big +butcher's knife. ``I will bear it no more,'' he said. + +<p>His wife watched him in silence as he went away with his knife. Out of +the house he went and into the night. Through the open door she saw +nothing; all was dark; even the Schartzhaus, where all was gay +to-night, stood dark for fear of aëroplanes. The old woman waited +in silence. + +<p>When Herr Schnitzelhaaser returned there was blood on his knife. + +<p>``What have you done?'' the old woman asked him quite calmly. +``I have killed our pig,'' he said. + +<p>She broke out then, all the more recklessly for the long restraint of +the evening; the officer must have heard her. + +<p>``We are lost! We are lost!'' she cried. ``We may not kill +our pig. Hunger has made you mad. You have ruined us.'' + +<p>``I will bear it no longer,'' he said. ``I have killed our pig.'' + +<p>``But they will never let us eat it,'' she cried. ``Oh, you +have ruined us!'' + +<p>``If you did not dare to kill our pig,'' he said, ``why did +you not stop me when you saw me go? You saw me go with the knife?'' + +<p>``I thought,'' she said, ``you were going to kill the Kaiser.'' + +<p><strong>A Deed of Mercy</strong> + +<p>As Hindenburg and the Kaiser came down, as we read, from Mont d'Hiver, +during the recent offensive, they saw on the edge of a crater two +wounded British soldiers. The Kaiser ordered that they should be cared +for: their wounds were bound up and they were given brandy, and +brought round from unconsciousness. That is the German account of it, +and it may well be true. It was a kindly act. + +<p>Probably had it not been for this the two men would have died among +those desolate craters; no one would have known, and no one could have +been blamed for it. + +<p>The contrast of this spark of imperial kindness against the gloom of +the background of the war that the Kaiser made is a pleasant thing to +see, even though it illuminates for only a moment the savage darkness +in which our days are plunged. It was a kindness that probably will +long be remembered to him. Even we, his enemies, will remember it. And +who knows but that when most he needs it his reward for the act will +be given him. + +<p>For Judas, they say, once in his youth, gave his cloak, out of +compassion, to a shivering beggar, who sat shaken with ague, in rags, +in bitter need. And the years went by and Judas forgot his deed. And +long after, in Hell, Judas they say was given one day's respite at the +end of every year because of this one kindness he had done so long +since in his youth. And every year he goes, they say, for a day and +cools himself among the Arctic bergs; once every year for century +after century. + +<p>Perhaps some sailor on watch on a misty evening blown far out of his +course away to the north saw something ghostly once on an iceberg +floating by, or heard some voice in the dimness that seemed like the +voice of man, and came home with this weird story. And perhaps, as the +story passed from lip to lip, men found enough justice in it to +believe it true. So it came down the centuries. + +<p>Will seafarers ages hence on dim October evenings, or on nights when +the moon is ominous through mist, red and huge and uncanny, see a +lonely figure sometimes on the loneliest part of the sea, far north of +where the <em>Lusitania</em> sank, gathering all the cold it can? Will +they see it hugging a crag of iceberg wan as itself, helmet, cuirass +and ice pale-blue in the mist together? Will it look towards them +with ice-blue eyes through the mist, and will they question it, +meeting on those bleak seas? Will it answer -- or will the North wind +howl like voices? Will the cry of seals be heard, and ice floes +grinding, and strange birds lost upon the wind that night, or will it +speak to them in those distant years and tell them how it sinned, +betraying man? + +<p>It will be a grim, dark story in that lonely part of the sea, when he +confesses to sailors, blown too far north, the dreadful thing he +plotted against man. The date on which he is seen will be told from +sailor to sailor. Queer taverns of distant harbours will know it +well. Not many will care to be at sea that day, and few will risk +being driven by stress of weather on the Kaiser's night to the bergs +of the haunted part of sea. + +<p>And yet for all the grimness of the pale-blue phantom, with cuirass +and helmet and eyes shimmering on deadly icebergs, and yet for all the +sorrow of the wrong he did against man, the women drowned and the +children, and all the good ships gone, yet will the horrified mariners +meeting him in the mist grudge him no moment of the day he has earned, +or the coolness he gains from the bergs, because of the kindness he +did to the wounded men. For the mariners in their hearts are kindly +men, and what a soul gains from kindness will seem to them well +deserved. + +<p><strong>Last Scene of All</strong> + +<p>After John Calleron was hit he carried on in a kind of twilight of the +mind. Things grew dimmer and calmer; harsh outlines of events became +blurred; memories came to him; there was a singing in his ears like +far-off bells. Things seemed more beautiful than they had a while ago; +to him it was for all the world like evening after some quiet sunset, +when lawns and shrubs and woods and some old spire look lovely in the +late light, and one reflects on past days. Thus he carried on, seeing +things dimly. And what is sometimes called ``the roar of battle,'' +those aërial voices that snarl and moan and whine and rage at +soldiers, had grown dimmer too. It all seemed further away, and +littler, as far things are. He still heard the bullets: there is +something so violently and intensely sharp in the snap of passing +bullets at short ranges that you hear them in deepest thought, and +even in dreams. He heard them, tearing by, above all things else. The +rest seemed fainter and dimmer, and smaller and further away. + +<p>He did not think he was very badly hit, but nothing seemed to matter +as it did a while ago. Yet he carried on. + +<p>And then he opened his eyes very wide and found he was back in London +again in an underground train. He knew it at once by the look of +it. He had made hundreds of journeys, long ago, by those trains. He +knew by the dark, outside, that it had not yet left London; but what +was odder than that, if one stopped to think of it, was that he knew +exactly where it was going. It was the train that went away out into +the country where he used to live as a boy. He was sure of that +without thinking. + +<p>When he began to think how he came to be there he remembered the war +as a very far-off thing. He supposed he had been unconscious a very +long time. He was all right now. + +<p>Other people were sitting beside him on the same seat. They all seemed +like people he remembered a very long time ago. In the darkness +opposite, beyond the windows of the train, he could see their +reflections clearly. He looked at the reflections but could not quite +remember. + +<p>A woman was sitting on his left. She was quite young. She was more like +some one that he most deeply remembered than all the others were. He +gazed at her, and tried to clear his mind. + +<p>He did not turn and stare at her, but he quietly watched her +reflection before him in the dark. Every detail of her dress, her +young face, her hat, the little ornaments she wore, were minutely +clear before him, looking out of the dark. So contented she looked you +would say she was untouched by war. + +<p>As he gazed at the clear calm face and the dress that seemed neat +though old and, like all things, so faraway, his mind grew clearer and +clearer. It seemed to him certain it was the face of his mother, but +from thirty years ago, out of old memories and one picture. He felt +sure it was his mother as she had been when he was very small. And yet +after thirty years how could he know? He puzzled to try and be quite +sure. But how she came to be there, looking like that, out of those +oldest memories, he did not think of at all. + +<p>He seemed to be hugely tired by many things and did not want to +think. Yet he was very happy, more happy even than tired men just come +home all new to comfort. + +<p>He gazed and gazed at the face in the dark. And then he felt quite +sure. + +<p>He was about to speak. Was she looking at him? Was she watching him, +he wondered. He glanced for the first time to his own reflection in +that clear row of faces. + +<p>His own reflection was not there, but blank dark showed between his +two neighbours. And then he knew he was dead. + +<p><strong>Old England</strong> + +<p>Towards winter's end on a high, big, bare down, in the south of +England, John Plowman was plowing. He was plowing the brown field +at the top of the hill, good soil of the clay; a few yards lower down +was nothing but chalk, with shallow flinty soil and steep to plow; +so they let briars grow there. For generations his forbears had +plowed on the top of that hill. John did not know how many. The +hills were very old; it might have been always. + +<p>He scarcely looked to see if his furrow was going straight. The work +he was doing was so much in his blood that he could almost feel if +furrows were straight or not. Year after year they moved on the same +old landmarks; thorn trees and briars mostly guided the plow, where +they stood on the untamed land beyond; the thorn trees grew old at +their guiding, and still the furrows varied not by the breadth of a +hoof-mark. + +<p>John, as he plowed, had leisure to meditate on much besides the +crops; he knew so much of the crops that his thoughts could easily run +free from them; he used to meditate on who they were that lived in +briar and thorn tree, and danced as folk said all through midsummer +night, and sometimes blessed and sometimes harmed the crops; for he +knew that in Old England were wonderful ancient things, odder and +older things than many folks knew. And his eyes had leisure to see +much beside the furrows, for he could almost feel the furrows going +straight. + +<p>One day at his plowing, as he watched the thorn ahead, he saw the +whole big hill besides, looking south, and the lands below it; one day +he saw in the bright sun of late winter a horseman riding the road +through the wide lands below. The horseman shone as he rode, and wore +white linen over what was shining, and on the linen was a big red +cross. ``One of them knights,'' John Plowman said to himself or +his horse, ``going to them crusades.'' And he went on with his +plowing all that day satisfied, and remembered what he had seen for +years, and told his son. + +<p>For there is in England, and there always was, mixed with the needful +things that feed or shelter the race, the wanderer-feeling for +romantic causes that runs deep and strange through the other thoughts, +as the Gulf Stream runs through the sea. Sometimes generations of John +Plowman's family would go by and no high romantic cause would come to +sate that feeling. They would work on just the same though a little +sombrely, as though some good thing had been grudged them. And then +the Crusades had come, and John Plowman had seen the Red Cross knight +go by, riding towards the sea in the morning, and Jon Plowman was +satisfied. + +<p>Some generations later a man of the same name was plowing the same +hill. They still plowed the brown clay at the top and left the slope +wild, though there were many changes. And the furrows were wonderfully +straight still. And half he watched a thorn tree ahead as he plowed +and half he took in the whole hill sloping south and the wide lands +below it, far beyond which was the sea. They had a railway now down in +the valley. The sunlight glittering near the end of winter shone on a +train that was marked with great white squares and red crosses on +them. + +<p>John Plowman stopped his horses and looked at the train. ``An +ambulance train,'' he said, ``coming up from the coast.'' He +thought of the lads he knew and wondered if any were there. He pitied +the men in that train and envied them. And then there came to him the +thought of England's cause and of how those men had upheld it, at sea +and in crumbling cities. He thought of the battle whose echoes reached +sometimes to that field, whispering to furrows and thorn trees that +had never heard them before. He thought of the accursed tyrant's cruel +might, and of the lads that had faced it. He saw the romantic +splendour of England's cause. He was old but had seen the glamour for +which each generation looked. Satisfied in his heart and cheered with +a new content he went on with his age-old task in the business of man +with the hills. + +<hr> + +<p>A printed version of this book is available from <a +href="http://tow.sattre-press.com">Sattre Press</a>. It includes +a new introduction and photographs of the author. + +<pre> +*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK, TALES OF WAR *** + +This file should be named towld10h.htm or towld10h.zip +Corrected EDITIONS of our eBooks get a new NUMBER, towld11h.htm +VERSIONS based on separate sources get new LETTER, towld10ah.htm + +Project Gutenberg eBooks are often created from several printed +editions, all of which are confirmed as Public Domain in the US +unless a copyright notice is included. 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