My Dear Charles,--What about this Peace? I suppose that, what with
your nice new Governments and all, this is the very last thing you
are thinking of making at the moment. I wouldn't believe that the old
War was ever going to end at all if it wasn't for the last expert and
authoritative opinion I hear has been expressed by our elderly barber
in Fleet Street. At the end of July, 1914, he told me confidentially,
as he snipped the short hairs at the back of my head, that there was
going to be no war; the whole thing was just going to fizzle out. Now
he says it is going to be a very, very long business, as he always
thought it would.
I find it difficult to maintain consistently either the detached point
of view, in which one discusses it as if it was a European hand of
bridge, or the purely interested point of view, in which one regards
it only as a matter affecting one's individual comfort. I know a Mess,
well up in the Front where they measure the mud by feet, in which
they were discussing the War raging at their front door as if it had
nothing to do with them beyond being a convenient thing to criticise.
Men who were then likely to be personally removed at any moment by
it saw nothing in the progress of it to be depressed about. As the
evening wore on and they all came to find that they knew much more
about the subject than they supposed, they were prepared to increase
the allowance of casualties in pressing the merits of their own pet
schemes. No gloom arose from the possibility that this generous offer
might well include their own health and limbs. There was no gloom;
there was even no desire to change the subject. Indeed, the better to
continue it they called for something to drink. There was nothing to
drink, announced the Mess Orderly. Why was there nothing to drink?
asked the Mess President, advocate of enormous offensives on a wide
front for an indefinite period of years, if need be. The Mess Orderly
explained that more drink was on order, it had not arrived because
of difficulties of carriage. Why were there difficulties of carriage?
Because of the War. "Confound the War," said the Mess President. "It
really is the most infernal nuisance."
I know a Captain Jones, resident a cottage on the road to the
trenches (he calls this cottage his "Battle Box"), whose mind was very
violently moved from the impersonal to the personal point of view by a
quite trifling incident. He has one upstairs room for office, bedroom,
sitting, reception and dining room. His meals are brought over to
him by his servant from an estaminet across the road over which his
window looks. The other morning he was standing at this window waiting
for his breakfast to arrive. It was a fine frosty day, made all the
brighter by the sound of approaching bagpipes. Troops were about to
march past, suggesting great national thoughts to Jones and reminding
him of the familiar details of his own more active days. Jones
prepared to enjoy himself.
Colonels on horses, thought Jones as he contemplated, are much of a
muchness--always the look of the sahib about them, the slightly
proud, the slightly stuffy, the slightly weather-beaten, the slightly
affluent sahib. Company Commanders, also on horses, but somehow or
other not quite so much on horses as the Colonels, are the same
all the army through--very confident of themselves, but hoping
against hope that there is nothing about their companies to catch
the Adjutant's eye. The Subaltern walks as he has always done,
lighthearted if purposeful, trusting that all is as it should be, but
feeling that if it isn't that is some one else's trouble. Sergeants,
Corporals, Lance-corporals and men have not altered. The Sergeants
relax on the march into something almost bordering on friendliness
towards their victims; the Corporals thank Heaven that for the moment
they are but men; the Lance-corporals thank Heaven that always they
are something more than men, and the men have the look of having
decided that this is the last kilometre they'll ever footslog for
anybody, but while they are doing it they might as well be cheerful
about it. The regimental transport makes a change from the regularity
of column of route, and the comic relief is provided, as it has always
been and always will be provided whatever the disciplinary martinets
may say or do, by the company cooks.
This was a sight, thought Jones, he could watch for ever. He was sorry
when the battalion came at last to an end; he was glad when another
almost immediately began. He was in luck; doubtless this was a brigade
on the move. He proposed to have his breakfast at the window, when
it came as come it soon must, thus refreshing his hungry body and
his contemplative mind at the same time. The second battalion, as the
first, were fine fellows all, suggesting the might of the Allies and
the futility of the enemy's protracted resistance. Again the comic
relief was provided by the travelling cuisine, reminding Jones of the
oddity of human affairs and the need of his own meal, now sufficiently
deferred.
The progress of the Brigade was interrupted by the intervention of
a train of motor transport. Jones spent the time of its passing in
consulting his watch, wondering where the devil was his breakfast and
ascertaining that his servant had indeed gone across the road for it
at least forty minutes ago.
It was not until there came a break, after the first company of the
third battalion, that the reason of this delay became apparent.
There was his servant on the far side of the road, and there was his
breakfast in the servant's hand, all standing to attention, as they
should do when a column of troops was passing....
The remainder of that Brigade suggested no agreeable thoughts to
Captain Jones. He saw nothing magnificent in the whole and nothing
attractive in any detail of it. It was in fact just a long and
tiresome sequence of monotonous and sheeplike individuals who really
might have chosen some other time and place for their silly walks
abroad. And as for the spirit of discipline exemplified in the
servant, who scrupled to defy red tape and slip through at a
convenient interval, this was nothing else but the maddening
ineptitude of all human conceits.
A wonderful servant is that servant of Captain Jones; but then they
all are. Valet, cook, porter, boots, chambermaid, ostler, carpenter,
upholsterer, mechanic, inventor, needlewoman, coal-heaver, diplomat,
barber, linguist (home-made), clerk, universal provider, complete
pantechnicon and infallible bodyguard, he is also a soldier, if a very
old soldier, and a man of the most human kind. Jones came across him
in the earlier stages of the War, not in England and not in France.
The selection wasn't after the usual manner or upon the usual
references. He recommended himself to Jones by the following
incident:--
A new regiment had come to the station; between them and the old
regiment, later to become the firmest friends, some little difference
of opinion had arisen and, upon the first meeting of representative
elements in the neighbouring town, there had been words. Reports,
as they reached Jones at the barracks some four miles from the town,
hinted at something more than words still continuing. Jones, having
reason to anticipate sequels on the morrow, took the precaution of
going round his company quarters then, and there, to find which of his
men, if any, were not involved. "There's a fair scrap up in town," he
heard a man saying. As he entered, a second man was sitting up in bed
and asking, "Dost thou think it will be going on yet?" Hoping for the
best, he was for rising, dressing, walking four miles and joining in.
Jones stopped his enterprise that night, but engaged him for servant
next day. I don't know why, nor does he; but he was right all the
same. Yours ever, HENRY.
* * * * *
[Illustration: _M.O._ "WHAT'S THE MATTER WITH YOU, MY MAN?"
_Private_. "VALVULAR DISEASE OF THE HEART, SIR."
_M.O._ "MY WORD! HOW DID YOU GET THAT?"
_Private_. "LAST MEDICAL BOARD GIVE IT ME, SIR."]
* * * * *
"Will anyone knowing where to obtain the game of 'Bounce'
kindly inform A.T.?"--_Advt. in "The Times."_
"A.T." should address himself to the Imperial Palace at Potsdam.
* * * * *