It was not my inspiration to run one of our huts entirely as a library
for the troops. I was merely the fortunate person chosen to conduct the
experiment. In most of the huts there was already some small supply of
books for circulation, and at our headquarters in the town a dusty
congestion of several hundred volumes which nobody had found time to
take in hand. The idea was to concentrate these scattered units, to
obtain standard reinforcements from London and the base, indent for all
the popular papers and magazines, and go into action as a Free Library
at the Front. It was at first proposed to do without any kind of a
canteen; but I was all against driving a keen reader elsewhere for his
tea, and held out for light refreshments after four and cigarettes all
the time. On this and many other points I was given my way in a fashion
that would have fired anybody to make the venture a success.
The hut placed at my disposal was a very good one in the middle of the
town, indeed within the palisade of the once magnificent Town Hall. That
grandiose pile had been knocked into mountains of rubbish, with the mere
stump of its dizzy belfry still towering over all as the Matterhorn of
the range. These ruins formed one side of a square like a mouthful of
bad teeth, all hollow stumps or clean extractions; our upstart hut was
the only whole building of any sort within sight. It had a better saloon
than my last land-ship; on the other hand, it was infested with rats
from the surrounding wrecks. They would lope across the floor under
one's nose, or dangle their tails from the beams overhead, and I slept
with a big stick handy.
Relays of peace-time carpenters, borrowed from their units for a day or
two each, fell upon all the benches and table-tops they required, and
turned them into five long tiers of book-shelves behind the counter. In
the meantime our own Special Artist was busy on a new and noble scheme
of decoration, and two or three of us up to our midriffs in the first
thousand books. They were a motley herd: the sweepings of unknown
benefactors' libraries, the leavings of officers and men, cunning shafts
from the devout of all denominations, and the first draft of cheap
masterpieces from the base. Classification was beyond me, even if time
had been no object: how could one classify 'The Sol of Germany,' 'A
Yorkstireman Alroad,' 'The Livinz Waze,' 'From Workhouse to Westminster:
Life-Story of With Gooks, M.P.' (four copies), or even the books these
titles stood for in the typewritten catalogue that arrived (from Paris)
too late to entertain us? All authors in alphabetical order seemed the
simplest principle; and in practice even that arrangement ran away with
days.
Then each volume had to be labelled (over the publishers' imprint on the
binding) and the labels filled in with the letter and number of each in
one's least illegible hand; and this took more days, though the rough
draft of the catalogue emerged simultaneously; and the merit of the
plan, if any, was that the catalogue order eventually coincided with
that of the actual books on the shelves. The drawback was that books
kept dropping in or turning up too late for insertion in their proper
places. I could think of no better way out of this difficulty than by
resorting to a large Z class, or dump, for late-comers. This met the
case though far from satisfying my instincts for the rigour of a game.
Another time (this coming winter, for instance, when I hope to have it
all to do again) I shall be delighted to adopt some more approved method
of dealing with a growing library; last spring one had to do the best
one could by the light of nature. Nevertheless, there was not much amiss
(except the handwriting) with the clean copy (in carbon duplicate) of a
catalogue which ran to a good many thousand words, and kept two of us
out of bed till several successive midnights; for by this time I had a
staunch confederate who took the whole thing as seriously as I did, and
perhaps even found it as good fun.
We had hoped to open--it was really very like producing a play--early in
February, but a variety of vicissitudes delayed the event until the
twentieth of the month. As the day approached we had many visitors, who
had heard of our effort and were prepared to spread our fame; time was
well lost in showing them round, and I confess I enjoyed the job. They
had to begin by admiring the scraper. It was perhaps the worst scraper
in Europe--I ached for a week from sinking its two uprights into harder
chalk with a heavier pick-axe than I thought existed--but it was
symbolical. It meant that you could leave the mud of war outside our
hut; but I am afraid the first thing to be seen inside was inconsistent
with this symbol. It was the complete _Daily Mail_ sketch-map of the
Western Front, the different sheets joined together and mounted on the
locked door opposite the one in use. The feature of this feature was
that the Line was pegged out from top to bottom with the best red-tape
procurable in the town. It toned delightfully with the art-green of the
sketch-map.
In the ordinary Y.M.C.A. nobody would have seen it! In winter, at any
rate, it is dusk at high noon in the ordinary hut, which is lighted only
by canvas windows under the eaves. In our hut, however, we had a pair of
fine skylights, expressly cut to save our readers' eyes, and glazed with
some shimmering white stuff which seemed to increase the light, like a
fall of snow, instead of slightly diluting it like the best of glass.
The side windows glistened with the same material, so that a dull day
seemed to clear up as you entered. Between the skylights stood four
trestle tables under one covering of American cloth, whereon the day's
papers, magazines and weeklies, were to be displayed club-fashion; the
writing tables, likewise in American cloth, were arranged under the side
windows; and at an even distance from either end of the fourfold reading
table were the two stoves. One stove is the ordinary hut-allowance.
Round each stove ran a ring of canvas and wicker arm-chairs, in which a
tired man might read himself to sleep, and between the chairs stood
little round tables for his tea and biscuits when he woke. They were
garden tables painted for the part, with spidery black legs and bright
vermilion tops, and on each a nice new ash-tray (of the least possible
intrinsic value, I admit) in further imitation of the club smoking-room.
That was the atmosphere I wanted for the body of the hut.
At the platform end we were ready for anything, from itinerant lecturers
to the most local preacher, and from hymns to comic songs; the best
piano in the area was equal to any strain; and a somewhat portentous
rostrum, though not knocked together for me, was just my height, while
the American cloth in which we found it was a dead match for our
extensive importations of that fabric. It was at this end of the hut
that our Special Artist and Decorator had excelled himself. All down the
sides were his frieze of flags, his dado of red and white cotton in
alternate stripes, and his own extraordinarily effective chalk drawings
on sheets of brown paper between the windows. But for the angle under
the roof, over the platform, he had reserved his masterpiece. One day,
while we were still busy with the books, our handy man of genius had
stood for an hour or two on a ladder; and descending, left behind him a
complete allegorical cartoon of Literature, including many life-size
figures in flowing robes busy with the primitive tools of one's trade.
I am not an art critic, like my friend the war correspondent, who
ruthlessly detected faults in drawing, instead of applauding all we had
to show him; to me, the pride of our walls was at least a remarkable
_tour de force_. The Official Photographer was to have come at a later
date to witness if I exaggerate. He left it too long. He may have
another chance this winter. 'Literature' has been preserved.
These private views too often started at the counter, because visitors
had a way of entering through my room; but to see the library as I do
think it deserved seeing, one had to turn one's back upon all I have
described, and with a proper piety bear down upon the books. In their
five long shelves, each edged and backed with the warm red cotton of the
dado, and broken only by my door behind the counter, those thirty yards
of good and bad reading were wholly good to see, on our opening day
especially, before the first borrower had made the first gap in their
serried ranks. There indeed stood they at attention, their labels at the
same unwavering height as so many pairs of puttees (except the few I had
not affixed myself); and I felt that I, too, had turned a mob into an
army.
Immediately over the top row, on a scroll expertly lettered by our
Special Illuminator (another of our talented band), its own new motto,
from Thomas a Kempis, ran right across the hut:
_Without Labour there is no Rest; nor without Fighting can the Victory
be Won._
I really think I was as pleased with that, on the morning I thought of
it in bed (having just decided to call the hut The Rest Hut), as
Thackeray is said to have been when he danced about his bedroom
crying--'"Vanity Fair"! "Vanity Fair"! "Vanity Fair"!' But I only once
heard a remark upon our motto from the men. 'Well, that's logic anyhow!'
said one when he had read it out across the counter. I could have wished
for no better comment from a soldier.
Higher still, in the angle of the roof at this end, the flags of the
Allies enfolded the Sign of the Rest Hut, which was an adaptation of the
Red Triangle. I was having a slightly more elaborate version compressed
into a rubber stamp for all literary matter connected with the hut.
The rubber stamp did not arrive in time for the opening; nor had there
been time to stick our few rules into more than a few of the books. But
I had a paste-pot and a pile of these labels ready on the counter. And
since we _are_ going into details, one may as well swing for the whole
sheep:--
THE REST HUT LIBRARY
(=Y.M.C.A.=)
_This book may be taken out on a deposit of =1 franc.=
which will be returned when the book is brought back._
_Books cannot be exchanged more than once daily, and
no Reader is entitled to more than one volume at a
time._
_A book may be kept as long as required: but in each
other's interests Readers are begged to return all
books as soon as they conveniently can, and in as good
order as possible._
Frankly, we flattered ourselves on dispensing with time-limit and fine;
and in practice I can commend that revolutionary plan to other amateur
librarians. Obviously you are much less likely to get a book back at all
if you want more money with it. You shall hear in what circumstances
many of ours were to come back, and at what touching trouble to men of
whom one can hardly bear to think to-day.
But all the books were not for circulation; a Poetry and Reference Shelf
bestrode my end of the counter. Duplicate Poets were to be allowed out
like novels; but they were not expected to have many followers. A more
outstanding feature, perhaps the apple of the librarian's glasses was
the New Book Table, just in front of the counter at the same end. I
thought a tableful of really new books would be tremendously attractive
to the real readers, that their mere appearance might convey a certain
element of morale. So one long day I had spent upon fifteen begging
letters to fifteen different publishers--not the same begging letter
either, for some of them I knew and some knew me not wisely but too
well. On the whole the fifteen played up, and the New Book Table was
well and truly spread for the inaugural feast. The novelties were to
grace it for a fortnight before going into the catalogue; and we started
with quite a brave display. There were travels and biographies, new
novels and books of verse, all spick-and-span in their presentation
wrappers; and we arranged them most artistically on a gaudy table-cloth
that cost thirty francs; with a large cardboard mug (by our Illuminator)
warning other mugs off the course. And I think that really is the last
of our preparations, unless I mention the receptacles for waste-paper,
which proved quite unable to compete against the floor.
They were, I daresay, the most fatuously faddy and elaborate
preparations ever made for a library which might be blown sky-high at
any moment by a shell. I had not forgotten that none too remote
contingency. But it was the last thing I wanted any man to remember
from the moment he crossed our threshold. We were just about five miles
from the Germans, and I had gone to work exactly as I should in the
peaceful heart of England. But that was just where I wanted a man to
think himself--until he stepped back into the War.