"LIVE DEEP, AND LET THE LESSER THINGS LIVE LONG"
§1
One thing I shall always believe, and it is that Doe found on the
Peninsula that intense life, that life of multiplied sensations,
which he always craved in the days when he said: "I want to have
lived."
You would understand what I mean if you could have seen this Brigade
Bombing Officer of ours hurling his bombs at a gentleman whom he
called "the jolly old Turk." Generally he threw them with a jest on
his lips. "One hundred and _two_. One hundred and _three_," he would
say. "Over she goes, and thank the Lord I'm not in the opposite
trench. BANG! I told you so. Stretcher-bearers for the Turks,
please." Or he would hurl the bomb high into the air, so that it
burst above the enemy like a rocket or a star-shell. He would blow a
long whistle, as it shot skyward, and say "PLONK!" as it exploded
into a shower of splinters.
For Doe was young and effervescing with life. He enjoyed himself,
and his bombers enjoyed him as their officer. Everybody, in fact,
enjoyed Edgar Doe.
In these latter days the gifted youth had suddenly discovered that
all things French were perfect. Gone were the days of classical
elegancies. Doe read only French novels which he borrowed from
Pierre Poilu at Seddel Bahr.
And why? Because they knew how to live, _ces français_. They lived
deeply, and felt deeply, with their lovely emotionalism. They ate
and drank learnedly. They suffered, sympathised, and loved, always
deeply. They were _bons viveurs_, in the intensest meaning of the
words. "They live, they live." And because of this, his spiritual
home was in France. "You English," said he, "_vous autres anglais_,
with your damned un-emotionalism, empty your lives of spiritual
experience: for emotion is life, and all that's interesting in life
is spiritual incident. But the French, they live!"
He even wrote a poem about the faith which he had found, and started
to declaim it to me one night in our little dug-out, "Seaview":
"For all emotions that are tense and strong,
And utmost knowledge, I have lived for these--
Lived deep, and let the lesser things live long,
The everlasting hills, the lakes, the trees,
Who'd give their thousand years to sing this song
Of Life, and Man's high sensibilities--
"Yes, Roop, living through war is living deep. It's crowded,
glorious living. If I'd never had a shell rush at me I'd never have
known the swift thrill of approaching death--which is a wonderful
sensation not to be missed. If I'd never known the shock of seeing
sudden death at my side, I'd have missed a terribly wonderful thing.
They say music's the most evocative art in the world, but, _sacré
nom de dieu_, they hadn't counted the orchestra of a bombardment.
That's music at ten thousand pounds a minute. And if I'd not heard
that, I'd never have known what it is to have my soul drawn out of
me by the maddening excitement of an intensive bombardment.
And--and, _que voulez-vous_, I have _killed_!"
"Hm!" muttered I. He was too clever for me, but I loved him in his
scintillating moments.
"_Tiens_, if I'm knocked out, it's at least the most wonderful
death. It's the _deepest_ death."
I laughed deprecatingly.
"Oh, I'm resigned to the idea," he pursued. "It's more probable than
improbable. Sooner or later. _Tant va la cruche à l'eau qu' à la fin
elle se casse._"
"_Tant_--'aunt,'" thought I. "_Va_--'goes.' _La cruche_--'the
crust.' _Qu' à la fin elle se casse._" And I said aloud: "I've got
it! 'Aunt goes for the crust at the water, into which, in fine, she
casts herself.'"
"No," corrected Doe, looking away from me wistfully and
self-consciously. "'The pitcher goes so often to the well that at
last it is broken.'"
§2
About this time the great blizzard broke over Gallipoli. On the last
Sunday in November I awoke, feeling like iced chicken, to learn that
the blizzard had begun. It was still dark, and the snow was being
driven along by the wind, so that it flew nearly parallel with the
ground, and clothed with mantles of white all the scrub that opposed
its onrush. This morning only did the wild Peninsula look beautiful.
But its whiteness was that of a whited sepulchre. Never before had
it been so mercilessly cruel. For now was opening the notorious
blizzard that should strike down hundreds with frost-bite, and drown
in their trenches Turks and Britons alike.
It was freezing--freezing. The water in our canvas buckets froze
into solid cakes of ice, which we hewed out with pickaxes and kicked
about like footballs. And all the guns stopped speaking. No more was
heard the whip-crack of a rifle, nor the rapid, crisp, unintelligent
report of a machine-gun. Fingers of friend and foe were too numbed
to fire. An Arctic silence settled upon Gallipoli.
And yet I remember the first day of the blizzard as a day of glowing
things. For on the previous night I had read in Battalion Orders
that I was to be Captain Ray. And so, this piercing morning, I could
go out into the blizzard with three stars on my shoulders. With
Gallipoli suddenness I had leapt into this exalted rank, while Doe,
a more brilliant officer, remained only a Second Lieutenant. For
him, as a specialist, there was no promotion. For me, no sooner had
my O.C. Company been buried alive by the explosion of a Turkish
mine, and his second-in-command gone sick with dysentery, than I,
the next senior though only nineteen, was given the rank of Acting
Captain. And Doe, always most generous when most jealous, had been
profuse in his congratulations.
I confess that not even the hail, with its icy bite, could spoil the
glow which I felt in being Captain Ray. I walked along my company
front, behind parapets massed with snow, to have a look at the men
of my command. All these lads with the chattering lips--lads from
twenty to forty years old--were mine to do what I liked with. They
were my family--my children. And I would be a father to them.
And when, at the end of my inspection, a shivering post corporal put
into my hands a letter addressed by my mother to 2nd-Lieut. R. Ray,
I delighted to think how out-of-date she was, and how I must
enlighten her at once on the correct method of addressing her son. I
would do it that day, so that she might have opportunities of
writing "Capt. Ray." For one never knew: some unpleasantly senior
person might come along and take to himself my honourable rank.
I seized the letter and hurried home to our dug-out. Doe was already
in possession of his mail, so, having wrapped ourselves in blankets
to defeat the polar atmosphere, we crouched over a smoking oil-stove
and read our letters.
I was the first to break a long silence.
"Really," I said, "Mother's rather sweet. Listen to this:--
"'Rupert, I had such a shock yesterday. I heard the postman's
knock, which always frightens me. I picked up a long, blue
envelope, stamped "War Office." Oh, my heart stood still. I
went into my bedroom, and tried to compose myself to break the
envelope. Then I asked my new maid to come and be with me when
I opened it. After she had arrived, I said a prayer that all
might be well with you. Then I opened it: and, Rupert, it was
only your Commission as 2nd Lieutenant arriving a year late.
Oh, I went straight to church and gave thanks!'"
Doe gazed into the light of the oil-stove.
"The dear, good, beautiful woman!" he said.
And so it is that the famous blizzard carries with it two glowing
memories: the one, my promotion to Captain's rank; the other, the
sudden arrival of my mother's letter like a sea-gull out of a storm.
Her loving words threw about me, during the appalling conditions of
the afternoon, an atmosphere of England. And, when in the biting
night our elevated home was quiet under the stars, and Doe and I
were rolled up in our blankets, I was quite pleased to find him
disposed to be sentimental.
"I've cold feet to-night," he grumbled. "Roll on Peace, and a
passage home. Let's cheer ourselves up by thinking of the first
dinner we'll have when we get back to England. _Allons_, I'll begin
with turtle soup."
"And a glass of sherry," added I from my pillow.
"Then, I think, turbot and white sauce."
"Good enough," I agreed, "and we'll trifle with the wing of a fowl."
"Two cream buns for sweets," continued the Brigade Bombing Officer,
"or possibly three. And fruit salad. _Ah, mon dieu, que c'est
beau!_"
"And a piece of Stilton on a sweet biscuit," suggested the Captain
of D Company, "with a glass of port."
"Yes," conceded the Bombing Officer, "and then café noir, and an
Abdulla No. 5 in the arm-chair. _Sapristi_! isn't it cold?" He
turned round sulkily in his bed. "If it's like this to-morrow I
shan't get up--no, not if Gladys Cooper comes to wake me."
So he dropped off to sleep.... And, with Doe asleep, I can say that
to which I have been leading up. Always before the war I used to
think forced and exaggerated those pictures which showed the soldier
in his uniform, sleeping on the field near the piled arms, and
suggested, by a vision painted on the canvas, that his dreams were
of his hearth and loved ones. But I know now of a certain
Captain-fellow, who, on that first night of the blizzard, after he
had received a letter from his mother, dreamt long and fully of
friends in England, awaking at times to find himself lying on a
lofty wild Bluff, and falling off to sleep again to continue dreams
of home.