I had thought of finishing my account of our opening day with the
impressions of a Corporal in the A.S.C., as recorded in his diary that
very night. But though the extract reached me in a most delightful way,
and though decency would have disqualified the flattering estimate of
'the Superintendent' (as 'a man of cheery temperament'), on examination
none of it quite fits in. As description it covers, though with the
fleeter pen of youth, ground on which I have already loitered: enough
that it was all 'a big surprise' to him: 'a "home from home"' already to
one soldier of a literary turn, and likely in his opinion to prove a joy
to 'some of the lonely hearts of the lads in khaki.' _Q.E.F._
And though it was weeks and months before the Corporal's testimony came
to hand, it felt from the beginning as though we really had 'done it.' I
say 'it felt,' because there was something in those few thousand cubic
feet of air that one could neither see nor hear; something atmospheric,
and yet far transcending any atmosphere, whether of the smoking-room or
library or what-not, that we had thought to create; for it was something
the men had brought with them, nothing that we had ready. Just as they
say on the stage that it is the audience who do half the acting, so it
was the soldiers who fought half our little battle--and the winning
half.
Each of those first days the hut seemed fuller than the day before; more
men came early and stayed late; more were to be counted napping round
the stoves (as in my rosiest visions) at the same time; more and more
books were taken out; and better books, because it was the
better-educated men who came flocking in, the intellectual pick of an
Army Corps who made our hut their club. If ever a dream came true, if
ever a reality excelled an ideal, it was in the wonderful success of our
little effort. Little enough, in all conscience; a bubble in the tide of
travail; but it is only in little that these delightful flukes come off,
and the bubble was soon enough to burst.
In the meantime there were elements of imperfection even in our Rest
Hut: one or two things, and on both sides of the counter, to pique a
passion for the impeccable.
To begin with the books, we really had _not_ enough Good Stuff. Not
nearly! Nor am I thinking only, nor yet chiefly, of Good Stuff in the
shape of narrative fiction. It is true that we had not Merediths enough,
nor a supply of Wessex Novels in any way equal to the demand among my
Red Cross friends (who read infernally fast) and others of the elect;
nor did the two complete Kipling sets, ordered long before the library
was opened, ever look like coming. These authors we had only in odd
volumes, and few were the nights they spent upon their shelves. But a
novel-reader is a novel-reader, one can generally find him something; my
difficulty was in coping with another type altogether--the real
bookworm--who is far more particular about his food. Anything but novels
for this gentleman as I knew him at the front; and he was often the last
person one would have suspected of his particular tastes, sometimes a
very young gentleman indeed. There was one such, a rugged lad with a
strong Lancashire or Yorkshire accent, whom I thought I should never
suit. Lamb, Emerson, Ruskin and Carlyle, he demanded in turn as glibly
as Woodbines or Gold Flakes; but either I had them not, or they were
out. Macaulay's Essays happened to be in. 'The literary ones?' said the
boy, suspiciously, to my suggestion. 'I don't want the political!' I
remember he took a _Golden Treasury_ in the end; as already noted, I had
several copies, and needed every one.
Then I found that I required a better selection of technical works of
all sorts. Engineers, especially, want engineering books and journals;
it is a rest to the fighting man to pursue his peace-time interests or
studies at the front. Nothing, one can well imagine, takes him out of
khaki quicker; and that is what his books are for, nor will he shut them
a worse soldier. Of devotional works, as I may have hinted, we opened
with a fair number; this was increased later by a strong consignment
from Tottenham Court Road. But it was impossible to be too strong on
that side--with a Division of Jocks in the sector!
'It's the only subject that interests me,' said a tight-lipped Scottish
Rifleman, quite simply, on the third day. He was not a man I would have
surrendered to with much confidence on a dark night, but he had brought
back a book called _The Fact of Christ_, and he wanted something else in
the same category. Just then there was nothing; but with imbecile
temerity I did say we had a number of 'religious novels' by a lady of
great eminence. 'I'm no a believer in _her_,' was his only reply. I can
still see his grim ghost of a smile. Himmel help the Hun who sees it
first!
The young man vanished for his sixteen days, and in his absence came the
bale of theology from Tottenham Court Road.
'Now I've got something for you,' said I when I saw his keen face again;
and lifted off its shelf Dr. Norman Macleod's most weighty tome. I
cannot check the Parisian typist who rendered the title _Caraid nan
Gaidherl_; the subject, however, was the only one that interested the
Scottish Rifleman, and I took the tongue for his very own. My mistake!
'But that'll be in Gaelic,' said he, without opening the book. 'I have
never studied Gaelic, though a Highlander born. Now, had it been
Hebrew,' and he really smiled, 'I micht have managed!'
I saw he might; for obviously he had been a theological student when he
felt it incumbent upon him (especially as such) to play a Jock's part in
the Holy War. I saw, too, that his smile was shy and gentle in its
depths, only grim on top. I think, after all, he would have given his
last cigarette to a prisoner of anything like his own manhood.
But there was one worse failure than any deficiency on our shelves, and
that, alas! was my own poor dear New Book Table. I had not looked after
it as I ought, and neither had my friend and fellow-worker; in my
eagerness to keep our respective departments ideally distinct, this
fancy one had fallen between two stools. Several of the new books were
missing before we actually missed one; then we took nightly stock, and
with mortifying results. At last it could go on no longer, and the new
books were replaced by old bound volumes of magazines, more difficult
to deport. But I was determined to have it out with the hut; and I chose
the next Sunday evening service, in the course of which I made it a rule
to have my say about things in general, for the delicate duty.
I didn't a bit like doing it, as I held my regular readers above
suspicion, and they formed the bulk of the little congregation; and that
night I was in any case more nervous than I meant them to see, as for
once I had decided to tackle the 'sermon' myself. It was the first
evening of Summer Time; lamplight was unnecessary; and the splendid men
sitting at ease in the arm-chairs, which they had drawn up to the
platform end, or at the tables or on the floor, made a great picture in
the soft warm dusk. One candle glimmered at the piano, and one on that
egregious rostrum, as I stood up behind it and trembled in my boots.
I told them the New Book Table had ceased to exist as such; that I had
prostrated myself before fifteen of my natural enemies, in order to
spread that table to their liking; but that there had been so many
desertions from my crack corps that we were obliged to disband it. Not
quite so pat as all that, but in some such words (and to my profound
relief) I managed to get a laugh, which enabled me to say I thought it
hard luck on the ninety-and-nine just persons that the hundredth man
should borrow books without going through the preliminary formalities.
But I added that if they came across any of the deserters, and would
induce them to return to their unit, I should be greatly obliged. They
were jolly enough to clap before I launched into my discourse, and it
was what their rum ration must have been to them. I wish as much could
be done for poor deacons before going over _their_ top.
But the point is that at least one deserter did return next day; and
what touched me more, the little gifts of books, which they had taken to
bringing me for the library, increased and multiplied from that night.
Nor must I forget the humorist (not one of my high-brows) who
button-holed me on my way back to the counter:--
'Beg yer pardon, Mr. 'Ornung, but that pinchin' them new books--wasn't a
Raffles trick, was it?'
But if we failed where I had thought we were doing something extra
clever, we met with great success in a less deliberate innovation for
which I can claim but little credit.
In our quiet hut there was no need for the usual Quiet Room; but there
it was, at the platform end, as much use as in the heart of the Great
Sahara. I had thought of turning it into a little informal sort of
lecture-room, for readings and other entertainments which might not be
to everybody's taste. But I had no time to organise or run a side-show;
neither of us had a spare moment in the beginning. Though we never
opened in the morning, except to officers who cared to come in as
friends, there was plenty to do behind the scenes--parcels of new books
to unpack and acknowledge, supplementary catalogues to prepare--all
manner of preparations and improvements that took the two of us all our
time. Then my second mate, the minister, fell from Heaven--for he was
just our man.
He had made a hobby of the literary evening in his Border parish; had
come out armed with a number of vivacious appreciations of his favourite
authors, the very thing for our Quiet Room. I handed it over to him
forthwith, and we embarked together upon a series of Quiet Room
Evenings, which I do believe were a joy to all concerned. At any rate we
always had an audience of forty or fifty enthusiasts, who took part in
the closing discussion, and in time might have been encouraged to put up
a better lecture than either of us. The minister, however, was very
good; and what he had cut out, in his unselfish pursuit of brevity, I
could sometimes put into a more ponderous performance at the end. It was
a greater chance than any that one got on Sunday evening; for though I
promise them there was never any previous idea of improving the
occasion, yet it was impossible to sit, pipe in mouth, chatting about
some great writer to that roomful of thinking, fighting men, and not to
touch great issues unawares. Life and death--wine and women--I almost
shudder to think what subjects were upon us before we knew where we
were! But a great, big, heavenly heart beat back at me, the composite
heart of fifty noblemen on easy terms with Death; and if they heard
anything worth remembering, it came from themselves as much as though
they had written the things down and handed them up to me to read out. I
have known an audience of young schoolboys as kindlingly responsive to a
man who loved them; but here were grown soldiers on the battle's brink;
and their high company, and their dear attention, what a pride and
privilege were they!
If only it had been earlier in the season, not the very hush before the
hurricane! There were so many lives and works that we were going to
thresh out together--Francis Thompson's, for one. He had crept into our
evening with Edgar Allan Poe. I had promised them a long evening with
Francis; the stretcher-bearers, especially, were looking forward to it
as much as I was; but I had to send for the books, and they were not in
time.
And on the last of these Quiet Room Evenings, a young lad in a Line
regiment had stayed behind and said:
'May we have a lecture on Sir John Ruskin, sir?'
I said of course they might--but I was not competent to deliver it
myself. His books were on the way, however, for there had been more than
one inquiry for them. They also arrived too late.
I had never seen the boy before, nor did I again. I may this winter. He
shall have his 'lecture on Sir John Ruskin'--if I have to get it up
myself!