A HERO AFTER THE MANNER OF ROLAND.
December.
General Vaughan Campbell, Brigadier of the --th Infantry Brigade,
having done us the honour to pay us a visit, invited us, for this
Thursday, to share his meal.
The General has made his winter quarters in a country house, beside
which there is a duck-pond. An English breakfast awaited us; that is to
say, a hearty welcome, no ceremony, and food of the best.
Outside in the park, under the trees that the hoar-frost loads, the
brigade band favours us with the liveliest melodies from _Bric-à-brac_,
_The Girl in the Taxi_ and, above all, those _Bing Boys_, who seem
fated to eclipse _Tipperary_ itself in the general favour. It is three
degrees below freezing-point. All round the band they have had to
set a circle of braziers. I am on the General's left, a particular
distinction which I purchase at the cost of sitting with my back
against an open window, where I become the sport of a whole battlefield
of draughts. But it is a cheap price for the company of General Vaughan
Campbell.
This is one of the most popular men in the British Army. He must surely
be the youngest of its Generals, for he is not yet 38. This very month
King George has still further swelled the number of his orders by
giving him the Victoria Cross. Only 250 men in the whole Army can boast
of this honour.
The man's quality is evident. He is strength and good nature
personified. With his rider's legs, his broad, short body, muscular
yet supple, he is the picture of a sporting Englishman. The merry eye
betrays the simple heart. The wind and the open-air life have tanned
his face like a seaman's. He wears, moreover, an odd little cat's
moustache, two red, bristling tufts, which makes one think of the
traditional musketeers of Louis XIV. A little time ago I saw him run in
a two-mile race against some of his younger Staff Officers.
This General is a hero; a hero in that great style which glorifies
every gallant action with the touch of chivalry. One evening in the
trenches he performed a feat worthy of Roland.
The story is well known. In September last General Vaughan Campbell was
a Colonel in the Guards. His regiment held the first line, immediately
next to the Germans.
One evening the order came to attack at midnight. It fell to the
Coldstreams to undertake this dangerous business. It was a sweet and
tranquil autumn night. The men fought with sleep, harder to resist than
any pain. But the hour for the attack had come.
This Colonel has a knightly soul. He perceives that his men, far from
their home, living for ever in holes, and mud and fog, sometimes lose
their vision of the true meaning of this war. It is their souls that
must be stirred. And the Colonel, who used to be the keenest Master of
Fox Hounds in Shropshire, recollected that he had among his things a
hunting-horn whose call was clearer than any cornet's.
He got his men together, gave them the word to "go over," and then,
jumping on to the parapet, blew "gone away" with the full strength of
his lungs. As if in this fierce summons they heard the very voice of
their own country, the Coldstreams, wild with delight, charged madly
on the heels of this new Roland. The call of the horn sounded weirdly
through the night above "No Man's Land." It is to these men like the
bagpipes to the Highlander; a voice from the Homeland and the call of
the Empire.
Colonel Campbell is the first man in the enemy's trench. His cat's
moustache has become a tiger's. Even with his horn he lays about him.
With it he stuns the first Saxon he meets, to whose dazed eyes he seems
like some spectre from another age. And two lines of trenches are taken.
[Illustration: FORRARD AWAY!
THE DREAM
THE REALITY
11. A DRAWING IN "PUNCH" INSPIRED BY GENERAL CAMPBELL'S HEROIC ACT.
_Reproduced by special permission of the proprietors of "Punch."_]
All England has heard the tale. The Guards, whom the Colonel left
but yesterday to become a General, have presented him with a silver
hunting-horn, inscribed, in commemoration of his deed, with an account
of it and this glorious motto: "Nulli Secundus." The King has rewarded
his magnificent exploit with the rank of General. And the Empire has
awarded him unhesitatingly that for which the bravest soldiers of this
brave race rejoice to die--the Cross that bears the words "For Valour."
A little time after the splendid action which I have recorded a young
girl, whose name is not known, sent the following letter to General
Campbell. This touching message alone would be enough to illustrate
this Book of the Friendship of France and Britain.
"Paris,
"8th December, 1916.
"I send you the thanks of a French girl for the gallant deed--the deed
_à la française_--which you have performed. We do not know one another,
perhaps we never shall, but in the sky there is many a meeting between
the stars. Why should not souls on earth come sometimes, then, together?
"General--Paladin, should I not say?--I knew your country very little.
I thought that the Divine Pity and the Greatest Beauty were unknown
to you; that through your fogs the light could never find its way.
And then you put your hunting horn to your lips; you were inspired so
beautifully to go to your encounter with Death, your head held high,
the music of your homeland sounding your advance.
"My ancestor fought at Fontenoy, and I can appreciate the refinements
of chivalry. And so I beg you to receive my apologies. You have
conquered much more than a horde out of Saxony. You have disclosed to
France the fabric of your soul, and you know that my country values
above all the courage that can laugh and the dazzling chivalry that
meets Death, as we say, in white gloves.
"And if, now and then, you are ever sad, think, I pray you, of the
fair little twenty-year-old French girl whose ignorance you have
enlightened, whom you have shown how to judge England. And if you have
no love of your own, no woman's tender care to warm your heart with
its genial kindliness, permit me to embrace you with all my soul. And
smile, sometimes, to think that the daughter of an officer of France,
the Land of Chivalry, is thinking of you.
"'A Happy Christmas. A Glad New Year.' I wish you a great victory and a
great love."
"Copy of a letter sent to General John Vaughan Campbell by favour
of Monsieur Tudesq. Will you have the very great kindness to bring
this expression of my admiration to the General? Accept also my
congratulations upon your truly heart-stirring narrative.
"J. F."