Chapter II: Front Matter (2)

Before the war I too hated "militarism." I despised soldiers as men who had sold their birthright for a mess of pottage. The sight of the Guards drilling in Wellington Barracks, moving as one man to the command of their drill instructor, stirred me to bitter mirth. They were not men but manikins. When I first enlisted, and for many months afterwards, the "mummeries of military discipline," the saluting, the meticulous uniformity, the rigid suppression of individual exuberance, chafed and infuriated me. I compared it to a ritualistic religion, a religion of authority only, which depended not on individual assent but on tradition for its sanctions. I loathed militarism in all its forms. Now ... well, I am inclined to reconsider my judgment. Seeing the end of military discipline, has shown me something of its ethical meaning--more than that, of its spiritual meaning.

For though the part of the "great push" that it fell to my lot to see was not a successful part, it was none the less a triumph--a spiritual triumph. From the accounts of the ordinary war correspondent I think one hardly realizes how great a spiritual triumph it was. For the war correspondent only sees the outside, and can only describe the outside of things. We who are in the Army, who know the men as individuals, who have talked with them, joked with them, censored their letters, worked with them, lived with them we see below the surface.

The war correspondent sees the faces of the men as they march towards the Valley of the Shadow, sees the steadiness of eye and mouth, hears the cheery jest. He sees them advance into the Valley without flinching. He sees some of them return, tired, dirty, strained, but still with a quip for the passer-by. He gives us a picture of men without nerves, without sensitiveness, without imagination, schooled to face death as they would face rain or any trivial incident of everyday life. The "Tommy" of the war correspondent is not a human being, but a lay figure with a gift for repartee, little more than the manikin that we thought him in those far-off days before the war, when we watched him drilling on the barrack square. We soldiers know better. We know that each one of those men is an individual, full of human affections, many of them writing tender letters home every week, each one longing with all his soul for the end of this hateful business of war which divides him from all that he loves best in life. We know that every one of these men has a healthy individual's repugnance to being maimed, and a human shrinking from hurt and from the Valley of the Shadow of Death.

The knowledge of all this does not do away with the even tread of the troops as they pass, the steady eye and mouth, the cheery jest; but it makes these a hundred times more significant. For we know that what these things signify is not lack of human affection, or weakness, or want of imagination, but something superimposed on these, to which they are wholly subordinated. Over and above the individuality of each man, his personal desires and fears and hopes, there is the corporate personality of the soldier which knows no fear and only one ambition--to defeat the enemy, and so to further the righteous cause for which he is fighting. In each of those men there is this dual personality: the ordinary human ego that hates danger and shrinks from hurt and death, that longs for home, and would welcome the end of the war on any terms; and also the stronger personality of the soldier who can tolerate but one end to this war, cost what that may--the victory of liberty and justice, and the utter abasement of brute force.

And when one looks back over the months of training that the soldier has had, one recognizes how every feature of it, though at the time it often seemed trivial and senseless and irritating, was in reality directed to this end. For from the moment that a man becomes a soldier his dual personality begins. Henceforth he is both a man and a soldier. Before his training is complete the order must be reversed, and he must be a soldier and a man. As a soldier he must obey and salute those whom, as a man, he very likely dislikes and despises. In his conduct he no longer only has to consider his reputation as a man, but still more his honour as a soldier. In all the conditions of his life, his dress, appearance, food, drink, accommodation, and work, his individual preferences count for nothing, his efficiency as a soldier counts for everything. At first he "hates" this, and "can't see the point of" that. But by the time his training is complete he has realized that whether he hates a thing or not, sees the point of a thing or not, is a matter of the uttermost unimportance. If he is wise, he keeps his likes and dislikes to himself.

All through his training he is learning the unimportance of his individuality, realizing that in a national, a world crisis, it counts for nothing. On the other hand, he is equally learning that as a unit in a fighting force his every action is of the utmost importance. The humility which the Army inculcates is not an abject self-depreciation that leads to loss of self-respect and effort. Substituted for the old individualism is a new self-consciousness. The man has become humble, but in proportion the soldier has become exceeding proud. The old personal whims and ambitions give place to a corporate ambition and purpose, and this unity of will is symbolized in action by the simultaneous exactitude of drill, and in dress by the rigid identity of uniform. Anything which calls attention to the individual, whether in drill or in dress, is a crime, because it is essential that the soldier's individuality should be wholly subordinated to the corporate personality of the regiment.

As I said before, the personal humility of the soldier has nothing in it of abject self-depreciation or slackness. On the contrary, every detail of his appearance, and every most trivial feature of his duty assumes an immense significance. Slackness in his dress and negligence in his work are military crimes. In a good regiment the soldier is striving after perfection all the time.

And it is when he comes to the supreme test of battle that the fruits of his training appear. The good soldier has learnt the hardest lesson of all--the lesson of self-subordination to a higher and bigger personality. He has learnt to sacrifice everything which belongs to him individually to a cause that is far greater than any personal ambitions of his own can ever be. He has learnt to do this so thoroughly that he knows no fear--for fear is personal. He has learnt to "hate" father and mother and life itself for the sake of--though he may not call it that--the Kingdom of God on earth.

It is a far cry from the old days when one talked of self-realization, isn't it? I make no claim to be a good soldier; but I think that perhaps I may be beginning to be one; for if I am asked now whether I "loathe militarism in all its forms," I think that "the answer is in the negative," I will even go farther, and say that I hope that some of the discipline and self-subordination that have availed to send men calmly to their death in war, will survive in the days of peace, and make of those who are left better citizens, better workmen, better servants of the State, better Church men.

IV

A MONTH'S REFLECTIONS

Timothy and I are on detachment. We are billeted with M. le Curé, and we mess at the schoolmaster's. Hence we are on good terms with all parties, for of course a good schoolmaster shrugs his shoulders at a priest, and a good priest returns the compliment. In war time, however, the hatchet seems to be buried pretty deep. We have not seen it sticking out anywhere.

M. le Curé has a beautiful rose garden, a cask of excellent cider, a passable Sauterne, and a charming pony. He is a good fellow, I should think, though without much education. His house--or what I have seen of it--is the exact opposite of what an English country vicar's would be. The only sitting-room that I have seen is as neat as an old maid's. There is a polished floor, an oval polished table on which repose four large albums at regular intervals, each on its own little mat. There is a mantelpiece with gilt candlesticks and an ornate clock under a glass dome. Round the walls are photographs of brother clergy, the place of honour being assigned to a stout _Chanoine_. The chairs are stiff and uncomfortable. One of them, which is more imposing and uncomfortable than the rest, is obviously for the Bishop when he comes. There are no papers, no books, no ash-trays, no confusion. I have never seen M. le Curé sit there. I fancy he lives in the kitchen and in his garden.

Timothy sleeps in the bed which the Bishop uses, and is told he ought to feel _très saint_.

The wife of the schoolmaster cooks for us. She is an excellent soul. We give her full marks. She has a smile and an omelette for every emergency, and waves aside all Timothy's vagaries with "Ah, monsieur, la jeunesse!" I am not sure that Timothy quite likes it!

Timothy is immense. He is that rarest of birds, a wholly delightful egotist. He is the sun, but we all bask and shine with reflected glory. The men are splendid, because they are his men. I am a great success because I am his subaltern. Fortunately we all have a sense of humour and so are highly pleased with ourselves and each other. After all, if one is a Captain at twenty-two ...! But he's a good soldier, too, and we all believe in him. Timothy's all right, in spite of _la jeunesse_!

* * * * *

Rain! The men are fifteen in a tent in a sea of mud. Poor beggars! They are having a thin time. Working parties in the trenches day and night; every one soaked to the skin; and then a return to a damp, crowded, muddy tent. No pay, no smokes, and yet they are wonderfully cheery, and all think that the "Push" is going to end the war. I wish I thought so!

* * * * *

These rats are the limit! The dugout swarms with them. Last night they ate half my biscuits and a good part of Timothy's clean socks, and whenever I began to get to sleep one of them would run across my face, or some other sensitive part of my anatomy, and wake me up. I shall leave the candle alight to-night, to see if that keeps them away.

* * * * *

Last night the rats tried to eat the candle, and very nearly set me on fire. If it were not for the rain I would try the firestep.

The men are having a rotten time again--no proper shelter from the rain, and short rations, to say nothing of remarkably good practice by the Boche artillery. C----, just out from England, got scuppered this afternoon. A good boy--made his communion just before we came in. I suppose he didn't know much about it, and that he is really better off now; but at the same time it makes one angry.

* * * * *

The rain has lifted, so last night I tried the firestep, and got a good sleep. The absurd thing was that I couldn't wake up properly. I came on duty at midnight, was roused, got to my feet, and started to walk along the trench. And then the Nameless Terror, that lurks in dark corners when one is a small boy, gripped me. I was frightened of the dark, filled with a sense of impending disaster! It took about ten minutes to wake properly and shake it off. I must try to get more sleep somehow; but it is jolly difficult.

* * * * *

The great bombardment has begun, the long-promised strafing of the Boche. According to the gunners they will all be dead, buried, or dazed when the time comes for us to go over the top. I doubt it! If they have enough deep dug-outs I don't fancy that the bombardment will worry them very much.

* * * * *

Now we are at rest for a day or two before the Push. I am to be left out--in charge of carriers. Damn! I might as well be A.S.C. I see myself counting ration bags while the battalion is charging with fixed bayonets; and in the evening sending up parties of weary laden carriers over shell-swept areas, while I myself stay behind at the Dump. Damn! Damn!! Damn!!! Then I shall receive ironical congratulations on my "cushy" job.

* * * * *

Have just seen the battalion off. I don't start for another five hours. I loathe war. It is futile, idiotic. I would gladly be out of the Army to-morrow. Glory is a painted idol, honour a phantasy, religion a delusion. We wallow in blood and torture to please a creature of our imagination. We are no better than South Sea Islanders.

* * * * *

Just here the attack was a failure. When I got to the Dump I found the battalion still there. By an irony of fate I was the only officer of my company to set foot in the German lines. After a day of idleness and depression I had to detail a party to carry bombs at top speed to some relics of the leading battalions, who were still clinging to the extremest corner of the enemy's front line some distance to our left. Being fed up with inaction, I took the party myself. It was a long way. The trenches were choked with wounded and stragglers and troops who had never been ordered to advance. In many places they were broken down by shell-fire, in others they were waist-deep in water. By dint of much shouting and shoving and cursing I managed to get through with about ten of my men, but had to leave the others to follow with a sergeant.

At last we sighted our objective, a cluster of chalk mounds surrounded with broken wire, shell craters, corpses, wreathed in smoke, dotted with men. I think we all ran across the ground between our front line and our objective, though it must have been more or less dead ground. Anyhow, only one man was hit. When we got close the scene was absurdly like a conventional battle picture--the sort of picture that one never believes in for a minute. There was a wild mixture of regiments--Jocks, Irishmen, Territorials, etc., etc. There was no proper trench left. There were rifles, a machine gun, a Lewis rifle, and bombs all going at the same time. There were wounded men sitting in a kind of helpless stupor; there were wounded trying to drag themselves back to our own lines; there were the dead of whom no one took any notice. But the prevailing note was one of utter weariness coupled with dogged tenacity.

Here and there were men who were self-conscious, wondering what would become of themselves. I was one of them, and we were none the better for it. Most of the fellows, though, had forgotten themselves. They no longer flinched, or feared. They had got beyond that. They were just set on clinging to that mound and keeping the Huns at bay until their officer gave the word to retire. Their spirit was the spirit of the oarsman, the runner, or the footballer, who has strained himself to the utmost, who if he stopped to wonder whether he could go on or not would collapse; but who, because he does not stop to wonder, goes on miraculously long after he should, by all the laws of nature, have succumbed to sheer exhaustion.

Having delivered my bombs into eager hands, I reported to the officer who seemed to be in charge, and asked if I could do anything. I must frankly admit that my one hope was that he would not want me to stay. He began to say how that morning he had reached his objective, and how for lack of support on his flank, for lack of bombs, for lack of men, he had been forced back; and how for eight hours he had disputed every inch of ground till now his men could only cling to these mounds with the dumb mechanical tenacity of utter exhaustion. "You might go to H.Q.," he said at last, "and tell them where I am, and that I can't hold on without ammunition and a barrage."

I am afraid that I went with joy on that errand. I did not want to stay on those chalk mounds.

* * * * *

I only saw a very little bit of the battle. Thank God it has gone well elsewhere; but here we are where we started. Day and night we have done nothing but bring in the wounded and the dead. When one sees the dead, their limbs crushed and mangled, their features distorted and blackened, one can only have repulsion for war. It is easy to talk of glory and heroism when one is away from it, when memory has softened the gruesome details. But here, in the presence of the mutilated and tortured dead, one can only feel the horror and wickedness of war. Indeed it is an evil harvest, sown of pride and arrogance and lust of power. Maybe through all this evil and pain we shall be purged of many sins. God grant it! If ever there were martyrs, some of these were martyrs, facing death and torture as ghastly as any that confronted the saints of old, and facing it with but little of that fierce fanatical exaltation of faith that the early Christians had to help them.

For these were mostly quiet souls, loving their wives and children and the little comforts of home life most of all, little stirred by great emotions or passions. Yet they had some love for liberty, some faith in God,--not a high and flaming passion, but a quiet insistent conviction. It was enough to send them out to face martyrdom, though their lack of imagination left them mercifully ignorant of the extremity of its terrors. It was enough, when they saw their danger in its true perspective, to keep them steadfast and tenacious.

For them "it is finished." _R.I.P._

V

ROMANCE

I suppose that there are very few officers or men who have been at the front for any length of time who would not be secretly, if not openly, relieved and delighted if they "got a cushy one" and found themselves _en route_ for "Blighty"; yet in many ways soldiering at the front is infinitely preferable to soldiering at home. One of the factors which count most heavily in favour of the front, is the extraordinary affection of officers for their men.

In England, officers hardly know their men. They live apart, only meet on parade, and their intercourse is carried on through the prescribed channels. Even if you do get keen on a particular squad of recruits, or a particular class of would-be bombers, you lose them so soon that your enthusiasm never ripens into anything like intimacy. But at the front you have your own platoon; and week after week, month after month, you are living in the closest proximity; you see them all day, you get to know the character of each individual man and boy, and the result in nearly every case is this extraordinary affection of which I have spoken.

You will find it in the most unlikely subjects. I have heard a Major, a Regular with, as I thought, a good deal of regimental stiffness, talk about his men with a voice almost choked with emotion. "When you see what they have to put up with, and how amazingly cheery they are through it all, you feel that you can't do enough for them. They make you feel that you're not fit to black their boots." And then he went on to tell how it was often the fellows whom in England you had despaired of, fellows who were always "up at orders," who out at the front became your right-hand men, the men on whom you found yourself relying.

I had a letter not long ago from a gunner Captain, also a Regular, who has been out almost since the beginning of the war. He wrote: "One of my best friends has just been killed"; and the "best friend" was not the fellow he had known at "the shop," or played polo with in India, or hunted with in Ireland, but a scamp of a telephonist, who had stolen his whisky and owned up; who had risked his life for him, who had been a fellow-sportsman who could be relied on in a tight corner in the most risky of all games.

There is indeed a glamour and a pathos about the private soldier, especially when, as so often happens, he is really only a boy. When you meet him in the trenches, wet, covered with mud, with tired eyes speaking of long watches and hours of risky work, he never fails to greet you with a smile, and you love him for it, and feel that nothing you can do can make up to him for it. For you have slept in a much more comfortable place than he has. You have had unlimited tobacco and cigarettes. You have had a servant to cook for you. You have fared sumptuously compared with him. You don't feel his superior. You don't want to be "gracious without undue familiarity." Exactly what you want to do is a bit doubtful--the Major said he wanted to black his boots for him, and that is perhaps the best way of expressing it.

When he goes over the top and works away in front of the parapet with the moon shining full and the machine guns busy all along; when he gets back to billets, and throws off his cares and bathes and plays games like any irresponsible schoolboy; even when he breaks bounds and is found by the M.P. skylarking in ----, you can't help loving him. Most of all, when he lies still and white with a red stream trickling from where the sniper's bullet has made a hole through his head, there comes a lump in your throat that you can't swallow; and you turn away so that you shan't have to wipe the tears from your eyes.

Gallant souls, those boys, and all the more gallant because they hate war so much. Their nerves quiver when a shell or a "Minnie" falls into the trench near them, and then they smile to hide their weakness. They hate going over the parapet when the machine guns are playing; so they don't hesitate, but plunge over with a smile to hide their fears. Their cure for every mental worry is a smile, their answer to every prompting of fear is a plunge. They have no philosophy or fanaticism to help them--only the sporting instinct which is in every healthy British boy.

Then there are "the old men," less attractive, less stirring to the imagination, less sensitive, but who grow upon you more and more as you get to know them. Any one over twenty-three or so is an "old man." They have lost the grace, the irresponsibility, the sensibility of youth. Their eyes and mouths are steadier, their movements more deliberate. But they are the fellows whom you would choose for a patrol, or a raid, where a cool head and a stout heart are what is wanted. It takes you longer to know these. They are less responsive to your advances. But when you have tested them and they have tested you, you know that you have that which is stronger than any terror of night or day, a loyalty which nothing can shake.

And then when he thinks how little he deserves all this love and loyalty, the subaltern's heart aches with a feeling that can find no expression either in word or deed.

This is a tale that has often been told, and that people in England know by heart. It cannot be told too often. It cannot be learnt too well. For the time will come when we shall need to remember it, and when it will be easy to forget. Will you remember it, O ye people, when the boy has become a man, and the soldier has become a workman? But there are other tales to tell. There are the tales of the sergeant-major and the sergeants, the corporals and the "lance-jacks." Sergeant-majors, sergeants, and corporals are not romantic figures. If you think of them at all, you probably think of rumjars and profanity. Yet they are the very backbone of the Army. I have been a sergeant and I have been a private soldier, and I know that the latter has much the better time of the two. He at least has the kind of liberty which belongs to utter irresponsibility. If he breaks bounds in the exuberance of his spirits, no one thinks much worse of him as long as he does not make a song about paying the penalty!

Of course he has to be punished. So many days of sleeping in the guard tent, extra fatigues, pack-drill, and perhaps a couple of hours tied up, as an example to evil-doers. But if he has counted the cost, and pays the price with a grin, we just say "Young scamp!" and dismiss the matter. But if a sergeant or a corporal does the same, that's a very different matter. He has shown himself unfit for his job. He has betrayed a trust. We cannot forgive him. Responsibility has its disadvantages. The senior N.C.O. gets no relaxation from discipline. In the line and out of it he must always be watchful, self-controlled, orderly. He must never wink. These men have not the glamour of the boy private; but their high sense of duty and discipline, their keenness and efficiency, merit all the honour that we can give them.

Finally--for it would not do for a subaltern to discuss his superiors--we come to the junior officer. Somehow I fancy that in the public eye he too is a less romantic figure than the private. One does not associate him with privations and hardships, but with parcels from home. Well, it is quite right. He has such a much less uncomfortable time than his men that he does not deserve or want sympathy on that score. He is better off in every way. He has better quarters, better food, more kit, a servant, and in billets far greater liberty. And yet there is many a man who is now an officer who looks back on his days as a private with regret. Could he have his time over again ... yes, he would take a commission; but he would do so, not with any thought for the less hardship of it, but from a stern sense of duty--the sense of duty which does not allow a man with any self-respect to refuse to shoulder a heavier burden when called upon to do so.

Those apparently irresponsible subalterns whom you see entertaining their lady friends at the Canton or Ciro's do, when they are at the front, have very heavy responsibilities. Even in the ordinary routine of trench life, so many decisions have to be made, with the chance of a "telling off" whichever way you choose, and the lives of other men hanging in the balance. Suppose you are detailed for a wiring party, and you arrive to find a full moon beaming sardonically down at you. What are you to do? If you go out you may be seen. Half a dozen of your men may be mown down by a machine gun. You will be blamed and will blame yourself for not having decided to remain behind the parapet. If you do not go out you may set a precedent, and night after night the work will be postponed, till at last it is too late, and the Hun has got through, and raided the trench. If you hesitate or ask advice you are lost. You have to make up your mind in an instant, and to stand by it. If you waver your men will never have confidence in you again.

Still more in a push; a junior subaltern is quite likely to find himself at any time in command of a company, while he may for a day even have to command the relics of a battalion. I have seen boys almost fresh from a Public School in whose faces there were two personalities expressed: the one full of the lighthearted, reckless, irresponsible vitality of boyhood, and the other scarred with the anxious lines of one to whom a couple of hundred exhausted and nerve-shattered men have looked, and not looked in vain, for leadership and strength in their grim extremity. From a boy in such a position is required something far more difficult than personal courage. If we praise the boy soldier for his smile in the face of shells and machine guns, don't let us forget to praise still more the boy officer who, in addition to facing death on his own account, has to bear the responsibility of the lives of a hundred other men. There is many a man of undoubted courage whose nerve would fail to bear that strain.

A day or two ago I was reading _Romance_, by Joseph Conrad and Ford Madox Hueffer. It is a glorious tale of piracy and adventure in the West Indies; but for the moment I wondered how it came about that Conrad, the master of psychology, should have helped to write such a book. And then I understood. For these boys who hate the war, and suffer and endure with the smile that is sometimes so difficult, and long with a great longing for home and peace--some day some of them will look back on these days and will tell themselves that after all it was Romance, the adventure, which made their lives worth while. And they will long to feel once again the stirring of the old comradeship and love and loyalty, to dip their clasp-knives into the same pot of jam, and lie in the same dug-out, and work on the same bit of wire with the same machine gun striking secret terror into their hearts, and look into each other's eyes for the same courageous smile. For Romance, after all, is woven of the emotions, especially the elemental ones of love and loyalty and fear and pain.

We men are never content! In the dull routine of normal life we sigh for Romance, and sometimes seek to create it artificially, stimulating spurious passions, plunging into muddy depths in search of it. Now we have got it we sigh for a quiet life. But some day those who have not died will say: "Thank God I have lived! I have loved, and endured, and trembled, and trembling, dared. I have had my Romance."

VI

IMAGINARY CONVERSATIONS

I

SCENE. _A field in Flanders. All round the edge are bivouacs,
built of sticks and waterproof sheets. Three men are squatting
round a small fire, waiting for a couple of mess-tins of water
to boil_.

BILL (_gloomily_). The last three of the old lot! Oo's turn next?

FRED. Wot's the bleedin' good of bein' dahn in the mahf abaht it? Give me the bleedin' 'ump, you do.

JIM. Are we dahn-'earted? Not 'alf, we ain't!

BILL. I don't know as I cares. Git it over, I sez. 'Ave done wiv it! I dessay as them wot's gone West is better off nor wot we are, arter all.

JIM. Orlright, old sport, you go an' look for the V.C., and we'll pick up the bits an' bury 'em nice an' deep!

BILL. If this 'ere bleedin' war don't finish soon that's wot I bleedin' well will go an' do. Wish they'd get a move on an' finish it.

FRED. If ever I gets 'ome agin, I'll never do another stroke in my natural. The old woman can keep me, ---- 'er, an' if she don't I'll--well--'er ---- ----.

JIM (_indignantly_). Nice sort o' bloke you are! Arter creatin' abaht ole Bill makin' you miserable, you goes on to plan 'ow you'll make other folks miserable! Wot's the bleedin' good o' that? Keep smilin', I sez, an' keep other folks smilin' too, if you can. If ever I gets 'ome I'll go dahn on my bended, I will, and I'll be a different sort o' bloke to wot I been afore. Swelp me, Bob, I will! My missus won't 'ave no cause to wish as I've been done in.

BILL. Ah well, it don't much matter. We're all most like to go afore this war's finished.

JIM. If yer goes yer goes, and that's all abaht it. A bloke's got to go some day, and fer myself I'd as soon get done in doin' my dooty as I would die in my bed. I ain't struck on dyin' afore my time, and I don't know as I'm greatly struck on livin', but, whichever it is, you got ter make the best on it.

BILL (_meditatively_). I woulden mind stoppin' a bullet fair an' square; but I woulden like one of them 'orrible lingerin' deaths. "Died o' wounds" arter six munfs' mortal hagony--that's wot gets at me. Git it over an' done wiv, I sez.

FRED (_querulously_). Ow, chuck it, Bill. You gives me the creeps, you do.

JIM. I knowed a bloke onest in civil life wot died a lingerin' death. Lived in the second-floor back in the same 'ouse as me an' my missus, 'e did. Suffered somefink' 'orrible, 'e did, an' lingered more nor five year. Yet I reckon 'e was one o' the best blokes as ever I come acrost. Went to 'eaven straight, 'e did, if ever any one did. Wasn't 'alf glad ter go, neither. "I done my bit of 'ell, Jim," 'e sez to me, an' looked that 'appy you'd a' thought as 'e was well agin. Shan't never forget 'is face, I shan't. An' I'd sooner be that bloke, for all 'is sufferin's, than I'd be old Fred 'ere, an' live to a 'undred.

BILL (_philosophically_). You'm right, matey. This is a wale o' tears, as the 'ymn sez, and them as is out on it is best off, if so be as they done their dooty in that state o' life.... Where's the corfee, Jim? The water's on the bile.

VII

THE FEAR OF DEATH IN WAR

I am not a psychologist, and I have not seen many people die in their beds; but I think it is established that very few people are afraid of a natural death when it comes to the test. Often they are so weak that they are incapable of emotion. Sometimes they are in such physical pain that death seems a welcome deliverer.

But a violent death such as death in battle is obviously a different matter. It comes to a man when he is in the full possession of his health and vigour, and when every physical instinct is urging him to self-preservation. If a man feared death in such circumstances one could not be surprised, and yet in the present war hundreds of thousands of men have gone to meet practically certain destruction without giving a sign of terror.

The fact is that at the moment of a charge men are in an absolutely abnormal condition.

I do not know how to describe their condition in scientific terms; but there is a sensation of tense excitement combined with a sort of uncanny calm. Their emotions seem to be numbed. Noises, sights, and sensations which would ordinarily produce intense pity, horror, or dread, have no effect on them at all, and yet never was their mind clearer, their sight, hearing, etc., more acute. They notice all sorts of little details which would ordinarily pass them by, but which now thrust themselves on their attention with absurd definiteness--absurd because so utterly incongruous and meaningless. Or they suddenly remember with extraordinary clearness some trivial incident of their past life, hitherto unremembered, and not a bit worth remembering! But with the issue before them, with victory or death or the prospect of eternity, their minds blankly refuse to come to grips.

No; it is not at the moment of a charge that men fear death. As in the case of those who die in bed, Nature has an anesthetic ready for the emergency. It is before an attack that a man is more liable to fear--before his blood is hot, and while he still has leisure to think. The trouble may begin a day or two in advance, when he is first told of the attack which is likely to mean death to himself and so many of his chums. This part is comparatively easy. It is fairly easy to be philosophic if one has plenty of time. One indulges in regrets about the home one may never see again. One is rather sorry for oneself; but such self-pity is not wholly unpleasant. One feels mildly heroic, which is not wholly disagreeable either. Very few men are afraid of death in the abstract. Very few men believe in hell, or are tortured by their consciences. They are doubtful about after-death, hesitating between a belief in eternal oblivion and a belief in a new life under the same management as the present; and neither prospect fills them with terror. If only one's "people" would be sensible, one would not mind.

But as the hour approaches when the attack is due to be launched the strain becomes more tense. The men are probably cooped up in a very small space. Movement is very restricted. Matches must not be struck. Voices must be hushed to a whisper. Shells bursting and machine guns rattling bring home the grim reality of the affair. It is then more than at any other time in an attack that a man has to "face the spectres of the mind," and lay them if he can. Few men care for those hours of waiting.

Of all the hours of dismay that come to a soldier there are really few more trying to the nerves than when he is sitting in a trench under heavy fire from high-explosive shells or bombs from trench mortars. You can watch these bombs lobbed up into the air. You see them slowly wobble down to earth, there to explode with a terrific detonation that sets every nerve in your body a-jangling. You can do nothing. You cannot retaliate in any way. You simply have to sit tight and hope for the best. Some men joke and smile; but their mirth is forced. Some feign stoical indifference, and sit with a paper and a pipe; but as a rule their pipes are out and their reading a pretence. There are few men, indeed, whose hearts are not beating faster, and whose nerves are not on edge.

But you can't call this "the fear of death"; it is a purely physical reaction of danger and detonation. It is not fear of death as death. It is not fear of hurt as hurt. It is an infinitely intensified dislike of suspense and uncertainty, sudden noise and shock. It belongs wholly to the physical organism, and the only cure that I know is to make an act of personal dissociation from the behaviour of one's flesh. Your teeth may chatter and your knees quake, but as long as the real you disapproves and derides this absurdity of the flesh, the composite you can carry on. Closely allied to the sensation of nameless dread caused by high explosives is that caused by gas. No one can carry out a relief in the trenches without a certain anxiety and dread if he knows that the enemy has gas cylinders in position and that the wind is in the east. But this, again, is not exactly the fear of death; but much more a physical reaction to uncertainty and suspense combined with the threat of physical suffering.

Personally, I believe that very few men indeed fear death. The vast majority experience a more or less violent physical shrinking from the pain of death and wounds, especially when they are obliged to be physically inactive, and when they have nothing else to think about. This kind of dread is, in the case of a good many men, intensified by darkness and suspense, and by the deafening noise and shock that accompany the detonation of high explosives. But it cannot properly be called the fear of death, and it is a purely physical reaction which can be, and nearly always is, controlled by the mind.

Last of all there is the repulsion and loathing for the whole business of war, with its bloody ruthlessness, its fiendish ingenuity, and its insensate cruelty, that comes to a man after a battle, when the tortured and dismembered dead lie strewn about the trench, and the wounded groan from No-Man's-Land. But neither is that the fear of death. It is a repulsion which breeds hot anger more often than cold fear, reckless hatred of life more often than abject clinging to it.

The cases where any sort of fear, even for a moment, obtains the mastery of a man are very rare. Sometimes in the case of a boy, whose nerves are more sensitive than a man's, and whose habit of self-control is less formed, a sudden shock will upset his mental balance. Sometimes a very egotistical man will succumb to danger long drawn out. The same applies to men who are very introspective. I have seen a man of obviously low intelligence break down on the eve of an attack. The anticipation of danger makes many men "windy," especially officers who are responsible for other lives than their own. But even where men are afraid it is generally not death that they fear. Their fear is a physical and instinctive shrinking from hurt, shock, and the unknown, which instinct obtains the mastery only through surprise, or through the exhaustion of the mind and will, or through a man being excessively self-centred. It is not the fear of death rationally considered; but an irrational physical instinct which all men possess, but which almost all can control.

VIII

IMAGINARY CONVERSATIONS

II

SCENE. _A dug-out in a wood somewhere in Flanders. Officers at
tea._

HANCOCK. Damned glad to be out of that infernal firing trench, anyway. (_A dull report is heard in the distance._) There goes another torpedo! Wonder who's copt it this time!

SMITH. For Christ's sake talk about something else!

HANCOCK (_ignoring him_). Are we coming back to the same trenches, sir?

CAPTAIN DODD. 'Spect so.

HANCOCK. At the present rate we shall last another two spells. I hate this sort of bisnay. You go on month after month losing fellows the whole time, and at the end of it you're exactly where you started. I wish they'd get a move on.

WHISTON. Tired of life?

HANCOCK. If you call this life, yes! If this damned war is going on another two years, I hope to God I don't live to see the end of it.

SMITH. If ever I get home ...!

WHISTON. Well?

SMITH. Won't I paint the town red, that's all!

WHISTON. If ever I get home ... well, I guess I'll go home. No more razzle-dazzle for master! No, there's a little girl awaiting, and I know she thinks of me. Shan't wait any longer.

HANCOCK (_heavily_). Don't think a chap's got any right to marry a girl under present circs. It's ten to one she's a widow before she's a mother.

SMITH. Oh, shut up!

CAPTAIN DODD (_gently_). To some women the kid would be just the one thing that made life bearable.

HANCOCK (_reddening_). Sorry, sir; forgot you'd just done it. Course you're right. Depends absolutely on the girl.

CAPTAIN DODD. Thanks. I say, Whiston, I'm going to B.H.Q. Care to come along?

(_They go out together._)

SCENE. _A path through a wood_. CAPTAIN DODD _and_ WHISTON
_walking together, followed by a_ LANCE-CORPORAL.

DODD. D'you believe in presentiments, Whiston?

WHISTON (_doubtfully_). A year ago I should have laughed at you for asking. Now ...

DODD. More things in heaven and earth ...?

WHISTON. My rationalism is always being upset!

DODD. How exactly?

WHISTON. For instance, I simply can't believe that old John is finished. Can you?

DODD (_quietly_). No.

WHISTON. Funny thing. As far as I'm concerned I can quite imagine myself just snuffing out. You can put one word on my grave, if I have one--"Napu." But as for John, no. I want something else. Something about Death being scored off after all.

DODD. I know. "O Death, where is thy sting? O Grave, where is thy victory?"

WHISTON. Just that. Mind you, I don't think I'm afraid of Death. I don't want to get killed. But if I saw him coming I think I could smile, and feel that after all he wasn't getting much of a bargain. But the idea of his getting old John sticks in my gullet. I believe in all sorts of things for him. Resurrection and life and Heaven, and all that.

DODD. What do you think about it, Corporal?

LANCE-CORPORAL. Same as Mr. Whiston, sir.

WHISTON. But what about presentiments?

DODD. Oh, I don't know. Funny thing; but all through this fortnight I've been absolutely certain that I was not for it.

LANCE-CORPORAL. Beg pardon, sir, we noticed that, sir!

WHISTON. Well, it's practically over now.

DODD. I'm not so sure. I'm not in a funk, you know. It's simply that I don't feel so sure.

WHISTON. Oh, rot, sir! I don't believe in that sort of presentiment.

DODD. What do you think, Corporal?

LANCE-CORPORAL. I think you goes when your time comes, sir. But it won't come to-night, sir. Not after all we been through this spell, and the spell just finished.

DODD. I believe you're right, Corporal. We shall go when our time comes, and not before. I like that idea, you know. It means one hasn't got to worry.

WHISTON. If it means that you go on as you've done the last fortnight, it's a damnable doctrine, sir. You've no business to go taking unnecessary risks simply because you've got bitten by Mohammedanism.

DODD (_thoughtfully_). You're right, too, Whiston. "Thou shalt not tempt the Lord thy God." One shouldn't take unnecessary risks. Mind you, I don't admit that I have. It just enables one to do one's job with a quiet mind, that's all.

TWO DAYS LATER

SCENE. _A billet._ HANCOCK _and_ SMITH.

HANCOCK. Damn!

SMITH. What's up? Aren't you satisfied? The brigade's bound to go back and re-form now, and that means that we shan't be in the trenches for a couple of months at least. We may even go where there's a pretty girl or two. My word!

HANCOCK. Damnation!

SMITH (_genuinely astonished_). What the hell's wrong? Any one would think you liked the trenches! Personally, I don't care if I never see them again. England's full of nice young, bright young things crying to get out. Let 'em all come! They can have my job and welcome!

HANCOCK (_to himself_). God! Why Dodd and Whiston? Why, why, why? Why not me? Why just the fellows we can't afford to lose?

SMITH. Oh, for God's sake stow it! What the hell's the good of going on like that? Of course I'm sorry for them and all that. But I don't see that it's going to help them to make oneself miserable about it.

HANCOCK (_fiercely_). Sorry for them! It's not them I'm sorry for! They ... they're the lucky ones! God! I suppose that's the answer! They'd earned it!

SMITH (_satirically_). Have you turned pi? We shall have you saying the prayers that you learnt at your mother's knee next, I suppose! I shall have to tell the Padre, and he'll preach a sermon about it! I should never have thought you would have been _frightened_ into religion!

HANCOCK. Frightened! You little swine! _You_ talk about being frightened after last night! I tell you I'd rather be lying out there with Dodd and Whiston than be sitting here with you. Frightened into religion!

SMITH. Oh, I suppose you're the next candidate for death or glory! Good luck to you! I'm not competing. I'll do my job; but I'm not going to make a fool of myself. Dodd and Whiston deserved all they got. You're right there. You'll get what you deserve some day, I expect! Don't look at me like that. I've said I'm sorry, and all that. But it's the truth I'm speaking, all the same.

HANCOCK. And you'll get what you deserve too, I suppose, which is to live in your own company till the end of your miserable existence. I won't deprive you of your reward more than I can help, I promise you!

(HANCOCK _goes out._)

IX

THE WISDOM OF "A STUDENT IN ARMS"

It is no good trying to fathom "things" to the bottom; they have not got one.

Knowledge is always descriptive, and never fundamental. We can describe the appearance and conditions of a process; but not the way of it.

Agnosticism is a fundamental fact. It is the starting-point of the wise man who has discovered that it needs eternity to study infinity.

Agnosticism, however, is no excuse for indolence. Because we cannot know all, we need not therefore be totally ignorant.

The true wisdom is that in which all knowledge is subordinate to practical aims, and blended into a working philosophy of life.

The true wisdom is that it is not what a man does, or has, or says, that matters; but what he is.

This must be the aim of practical philosophy--to make a man be _something_.

The world judges a man by his station, inherited or acquired. God judges by his character. To be our best we must share God's viewpoint.

To the world death is always a tragedy; to the Christian it is never a tragedy unless a man has been a contemptible character.

Religion is the widening of a man's horizon so as to include God.

It is in the nature of a speculation, but its returns are immediate.

True religion means betting one's life that there is a God.

Its immediate fruits are courage, stability, calm, unselfishness, friendship, generosity, humility, and hope.

Religion is the only possible basis of optimism.

Optimism is the essential condition of progress.

One is what one believes oneself to be. If one believes oneself to be an animal one becomes bestial; if one believes oneself spiritual one becomes Divine.

Faith is an effective force whose measure has never yet been taken.

Man is the creature of heredity and environment. He can only rise superior to circumstances by bringing God into environment of which he is conscious.

The recognition of God's presence upsets the balance of a man's environment, and means a new birth into a new life.

The faculties which perceive God increase with use like any other perceptive faculties.

Belief in God may be an illusion; but it is an illusion that pays.

If belief in God is illusion, happy is he who is deluded! He gains this world and thinks he will gain the next.

The disbeliever loses this world, and risks losing the next.

To be the centre of one's universe is misery. To have one's universe centred in God is the peace that passeth understanding.

Greatness is founded on inward peace.

Energy is only effective when it springs from deep calm.

The pleasure of life lies in contrasts; the fear of contrasts is a chain that binds most men.

In the hour of danger a man is proven. The boaster hides, and the egotist trembles. He whose care is for others forgets to be afraid.

Men live for eating and drinking, passion and wealth. They die for honour.

Blessed is he of whom it has been said that he so loved giving that he even gave his own life.

X

IMAGINARY CONVERSATIONS

III

SCENE. _A trench unpleasantly near the firing line. There
has been an hour's intense bombardment by the British, with
suitable retaliation by the Boches. The retaliation is just
dying down._

CHARACTERS. ALBERT--_Round-eyed, rotund, red-cheeked,
yellow-haired, and deliberate; in civil life probably a
drayman._ JIM--_Small, lean, sallow, grey-eyed, with a kind
of quiet restlessness; in civil life probably a mechanic with
leanings towards Socialism._ POZZIE--_A thick-set, low-browed,
impassive, silent_ _country youth, with a face the colour of
the soil._ JINKS--_An old soldier, red, lean, wrinkled, with
very blue eyes. His face is rough-hewn, almost grotesque
like a gargoyle. In his eyes there is a perpetual glint of
humour, and in the poise of his head a certain irrepressible
jauntiness._