November 6th, 1916.
My Dear Ones:
Such a wonderful day it has been--I scarcely know where to start. I came
down last night from twenty-four hours in the mud, where I had been
observing. I'd spent the night in a hole dug in the side of the trench
and a dead Hun forming part of the roof. I'd sat there re-living so many
things--the ecstatic moments of my life when I first touched fame--and
my feet were so cold that I could not feel them, so I thought all the
harder of the pleasant things of the past. Then, as I say, I came back
to the gun position to learn that I was to have one day off at the back
of the lines. You can't imagine what that meant to me--one day in a
country that is green, one day where there is no shell-fire, one day
where you don't turn up corpses with your tread! For two months I have
never left the guns except to go forward and I have never been from
under shell-fire. All night long as I have slept the ground had been
shaken by the stamping of the guns--and now after two months, to come
back to comparative normality! The reason for this privilege being
granted was that the powers that he had come to the conclusion that it
was time I had a bath. Since I sleep in my clothes and water is too
valuable for washing anything but the face and hands, they were probably
right in their guess at my condition.
So with the greatest holiday of my life in prospect I went to the empty
gunpit in which I sleep, and turned in. This morning I set out early
with my servant, tramping back across the long, long battlefields which
our boys have won. The mud was knee-deep in places, but we floundered on
till we came to our old and deserted gun-position where my horses waited
for me. From there I rode to the wagon-lines--the first time I've sat a
horse since I came into action. Far behind me the thunder of winged
murder grew more faint. The country became greener; trees even had
leaves upon them which fluttered against the grey-blue sky. It was
wonderful--like awaking from an appalling nightmare. My little beast was
fresh and seemed to share my joy, for she stepped out bravely.
When I arrived at the wagon-lines I would not wait--I longed to see
something even greener and quieter. My groom packed up some oats and
away we went again. My first objective was the military baths; I lay in
hot water for half-an-hour and read the advertisements of my book. As I
lay there, for the first time since I've been out, I began to get a
half-way true perspective of myself. What's left of the egotism of the
author came to life, and--now laugh--I planned my next novel--planned it
to the sound of men singing, because they were clean for the first time
in months. I left my towels and soap with a military policeman, by the
roadside, and went prancing off along country roads in search of the
almost forgotten places where people don't kill one another. Was it
imagination? There seemed to me to be a different look in the faces of
the men I met--for the time being they were neither hunters nor hunted.
There were actually cows in the fields. At one point, where pollarded
trees stand like a Hobbema sketch against the sky, a group of officers
were coursing a hare, following a big black hound on horseback. We lost
our way. A drenching rainstorm fell over us--we didn't care; and we saw
as we looked back a most beautiful thing--a rainbow over green fields.
It was as romantic as the first rainbow in childhood.
All day I have been seeing lovely and familiar things as though for the
first time. I've been a sort of Lazarus, rising out of his tomb and
praising God at the sound of a divine voice. You don't know how
exquisite a ploughed field can look, especially after rain, unless you
have feared that you might never see one again.
I came to a grey little village, where civilians were still living, and
then to a gate and a garden. In the cottage was a French peasant woman
who smiled, patted my hair because it was curly, and chattered
interminably. The result was a huge omelette and a bottle of champagne.
Then came a touch of naughtiness--a lady visitor with a copy of _La Vie
Parisienne_, which she promptly bestowed on the English soldier. I read
it, and dreamt of the time when I should walk the Champs Elysées again.
It was growing dusk when I turned back to the noise of battle. There was
a white moon in a milky sky. Motor-bikes fled by me, great lorries
driven by Jehus from London buses, and automobiles which too poignantly
had been Strand taxis and had taken lovers home from the Gaiety. I
jogged along thinking very little, but supremely happy. Now I'm back at
the wagon-line; to-morrow I go back to the guns. Meanwhile I write to
you by a guttering candle.
Life, how I love you! What a wonderful kindly thing I could make of you
to-night. Strangely the vision has come to me of all that you mean. Now
I could write. So soon you may go from me or be changed into a form of
existence which all my training has taught me to dread. After death is
there only nothingness? I think that for those who have missed love in
this life there must be compensations--the little children whom they
ought to have had, perhaps. To-day, after so many weeks, I have seen
little children again.
And yet, so strange a havoc does this war work that, if I have to "Go
West," I shall go _proudly_ and quietly. I have seen too many men die
bravely to make a fuss if my turn comes. A mixed passenger list old
Father Charon must have each night--Englishmen, Frenchmen, and Huns.
To-morrow I shall have another sight of the greenness and then--the
guns.
I don't know whether I have been able to make any of my emotions clear
to you in my letters. Terror has a terrible fascination. Up to now I
have always been afraid--afraid of small fears. At last I meet fear
itself and it stings my pride into an unpremeditated courage.
I've just had a pile of letters from you all. How ripping it is to be
remembered! Letters keep one civilised.
It's late and I'm very tired. God bless you each and all.