THE PITT LEAGUE
§ 1
At the beginning of May we had all resigned ourselves to a stay of at
least two years in Germany. After that we should be probably exchanged,
or interned in a neutral country. Perhaps the war might be over. At any
rate soldiering was more or less done with; and the eye began to turn
once again towards civilian occupations. In consequence the Future
Career Society was born.
It opened very modestly, under the auspices of a field officer and two
subalterns. Its programme was to find out what each person wanted to
learn, and to provide classes as far as was possible in the required
subjects. It was hoped to bring together members of the same profession
and form circles for Schoolmasters, Bankers, and Farmers.
This scheme presented countless opportunities for the Bureaucrat. There
is in every community a certain number of people who are never so happy
as when they are confronted with a host of particulars that demand
tabulation. They glory in the sight of a ledger, ruled off into
meticulously exact columns. They love to write at the top of each
column: size of boots, colour of hair, number of distinguishing marks.
To such a one was entrusted the clerkship of the Future Career Society.
It was announced that at such and such an hour he would receive
applicants. Wishing to learn French, I attached myself to a queue, and
after a wait of twenty minutes duly presented myself at the desk.
I was received with the stern official gaze that seems to say, “Now
then, young fellow, I’m a hard-worked man and can’t afford to waste time
on you. Let’s get to business at once.”
“Name?”--Waugh.
“Initials?”--A. R.
“Married?”--No.
“Single?”--Yes.
“Children?”--None.
“Age?”--Nearly twenty.
The questions followed each other with the rapidity of machine-gun
bullets. These preliminaries over, he looked up at me with the
benevolent Fairy Godfather expression of, “Now, young fellow, I’m doing
my best, I want to help you, but you must meet me half-way.”
“Now,” he said kindly, “what work did you do before the war?”
“None at all,” I answered truthfully; “I was at school.”
“Then you don’t know what you are going to do when you get back?”
“Oh, something to do with books,” I hazarded.
“Ah, yes, Book-keeping. Then I suppose that what you want is a really
sound commercial education?”
And he was about to jot down “Commerce” when I pointed out that what I
really wanted to do was not to keep books, but to write them.
“Journalism? Then why couldn’t you say so at once,” and he returned to
the official “Busyman” attitude.
Finally we reached the stage to which this examination had led.
“Now, then, what classes do you think of taking up?”
“French.”
He looked at me, doubtfully avuncular.
“You know, I don’t know whether French will be much use to you. Is that
all you are taking up? Because, of course, French is very amusing, but
from a commercial point of view really I should advise shorthand. No?
well, then, I must just put you down for French. Some notices will come
round about the classes.”
And he began his inquisition of my successor. Really, considering that
to be entered in a French class was the whole object of my visit, the
interview was sufficiently prolix, but the fellow enjoyed doing it. That
was the great thing.
* * * * *
Like all innovations, the F.C.S. (as it appeared on official
abbreviations) met with great support, numerous classes were formed, so
numerous, in fact, were they that there was hardly enough room for them.
At all periods of the day students could be observed hurrying across the
court, a stool under one arm, and a pile of books under the other. The
whole day was mapped out into periods; there was no vacant spot but it
had to serve as a classroom; and the attendance was admirable. Over a
hundred officers attended the first lecture of the shorthand expert. The
elementary French class was so large that it had to be divided up into
three.
Great trade flourished then in the _Kantine_. Otto’s Grammars were at a
premium. They were hoarded deliberately. One enterprising linguist went
so far as to amass within the space of a week, grammars of Spanish,
French, German, Italian, Arabic and Hindustani, together with their
keys.
It did not last long: within a week the numbers were diminished by a
half; they then sank to a quarter, then an eighth. Within a month no
class numbered more than half a dozen, which was just as well, for
really people do not want to be taught things. Educational experts who
spend years working out theories do not make a sufficient point of this.
It is not enough to form a system, and expect the world to fit into it.
Only a very few desire knowledge, and those few should be catered for.
They will profit by instruction. But those who are taught things against
their will, speedily forget whatever they have learnt. There are, it is
true, those men who can inspire a love of work, who can produce results
from any material, but they are not schoolmasters. There is rarely more
than one in each school. For the profession presents insufficient
attractions to the really brilliant man, with the result that
schoolmasters are drawn from the ranks of mediocrity; and as long as
this state of things continues, all that the average schoolmaster can
hope to do is to keep the lazy in order, and impart his knowledge to
those who want to learn. For the masses education can only mean
information, and information by itself has little value.
And so within a month the educational life of the camp had assumed
modest limits; but, as those who remained were genuinely keen, the
classes became infinitely more efficacious. Conversational French, for
instance, was possible as it would never have been in a gathering of
thirty. For the enthusiasts the decreased numbers were in every way
advantageous, but it gave no pleasure to Colonel Westcott.
Colonel Westcott was one of those delightful persons whom captivity had
turned into a burlesque. He was as extravagant as a character out of
Dickens, and it was hard to believe in his reality. He was so exactly
the type of army officer that is caricatured on the music-hall stage. He
had all the foibles and loyalties of his caste. He believed fearlessly
in discipline, in the Anglo-Saxon race, in an Utopia made not with hands
but with muskets.
In the time when his enthusiasms had been kept in control by the
business of war, he had been an excellent soldier; but once captured, he
had no outlet for his temperament. Looking down on the court from the
window of his room, he was horrified at the thought of so many
subalterns passing out of his hands, out of the hands of discipline back
into the individual energies of civilian life. And Colonel Westcott
hated individualism: he liked to see humanity moving forward in one
compact body, with himself at its head. He loathed, and was frightened
by, the small bodies that went their own way and in their own time.
During the four years of war nothing had given him more pleasure than to
watch the slow conscription of England. In it he saw unity and safety.
He was with the majority and was therefore safe.
But now all those good things were ending. He saw the splitting up of
all this common impulse into countless cliques, with interests not his
own; and he felt that he must make one effort before the close. For
Colonel Westcott was a brave man. He would sell everything for the
comfort and assuagement of his soul. And so he founded the Pitt League.
As an essay in the floating of a bogus company, it was a notable
achievement. Never was such a web of words woven round such a dummy. Not
that the Colonel spake one word that he did not believe. He was
impeccably honest. He really valued the goods that he extolled.
One evening in the theatre he laid his wares before us. With an
unconscious skill, he began by an appeal to the vanity and the emotions
of his hearers.
“Gentlemen,” he said, “I have been told by one of the padres that in the
lesson for March 21st, the day on which most of us were captured, occurs
the text, ‘Be thou a ruler even in the midst among thine enemies.’
That, gentlemen, is what I want to say to you to-night. Be rulers, I
will tell you how.”
The prospect of gaining the mastery over the generous supply of armed
sentries was alluring. There was an instant and unanimous attention.
“We can only do it in one way, gentlemen, and that is by combination. We
must all work together, we must work not towards individual prosperity,
but towards the prosperity of the community. No longer can we fight our
enemies in the field, but we can wage a silent war, we can prepare
ourselves so that afterwards we may be triumphant. We must work
collectively: we must unite: the life of this camp should be like one
machine, in which you are all cogs. And so, gentlemen, I have brought
forward my scheme. I have called it the Pitt League, because, well,
gentlemen, because it rhymes with _grit_.”
And then followed an exposition worthy of the great Tartarin. But even
the hero of Tarascon can hardly have brought to play in the account of
his visionary Saharas such a fancy, such an overwhelming unreason, such
a complete contempt for the bounds of probability. Slowly idea followed
on idea, slowly the colossal fabric was raised. That Colonel Westcott
was a caricature must always be kept in mind; but even so I think the
excitement of the moment must have caught him up. Even he could not in
cold blood have conceived such fabulous creations.
The scheme began by amalgamating The Future Career Society; and starting
at the point where that society had wisely halted, proceeded to include
every department of Imperial life. Committees would be formed; debates
and lectures arranged. A research committee would be able to provide
information on any subject; a trade and commerce department would
provide a comprehensive study of the growth of trade and of Colonial
expansion. It would work out every problem of navigation, and every fine
question of markets, their rise and fall. A department for home affairs
would provide recipes by which thirty million people could live without
competition. Divorce, Politics, Education, State control of vice, small
holdings, all these would be settled. And then the Dominions, each
Colony would have its own department, where Colonials would decide on
how best they could further the Imperial ideals. Then there was the
regular soldier side, the Imperial Force branch. And here perhaps the
Colonel’s fancy flew farthest and highest, military strategy would be
dealt with from primeval time. Sand-maps on the floor would show the
site of battle-fields and the dispositions of the rival armies; tactics
would be exhaustively discussed. A new and infallible method of attack
would be evolved for the next war.
And all these activities would be accomplished, in spite of the fact
that no one in the camp possessed the least information on any of these
points; and that as a remedy for their defect there existed neither a
reference library nor the likelihood of obtaining one. But by this
Colonel Westcott was nothing daunted. Perhaps at the back of his mind
there was the unconscious knowledge that the end is nothing, the means
all, “and that to move is somewhat although the goal be far.”
“And when we go back to England,” he concluded, “you will be able to
effect the reforms you have thought out here. You will go back with a
collective and not an individual patriotism. You will be capable of
really efficient citizenship. We shall still be able to move forward as
one body. That is the Pitt League, gentlemen.”
And then followed the sentence for which he deserves immortality.
“It’s my scheme and I like it. I know you’ll like it too.”
He had out-tartarined Tartarin. Caricature in one human frame could go
no further.
§ 2
The Pitt League fared as might have been expected. It was born and
christened amid much enthusiasm. The whole camp found itself enrolled
under some branch or other, elaborate programmes were devised. The walls
of the theatre were covered with notices. Every Wednesday the heads of
each branch met in what was called the Parliament of the Pitt League, of
which Colonel Westcott was Prime Minister. This gave the required
semblance of unity and collective patriotism. A few field officers and
senior captains found that a certain amount of work had devolved upon
their shoulders, but the life of the average subaltern continued
undisturbed. In practice no one is a collectivist, unless it is likely
to prove to his advantage. No one wants to be a cog in any machine that
does not produce tangible results; and though the camp gave the Pitt
League its sympathy and encouragement, it did not see its way to
further any interests not its own. The Colonel, however, was quite
content with his work. He was Prime Minister of his own Parliament, and
everywhere his eyes were confronted with tabulated evidence of his
enterprise.
“A very different camp,” he would say to himself. “There is now a
purpose and an end ... a thorough change of attitude, and,” he would
proudly add, “it is all my doing.”
From this energy, however, there did spring two incidental results: one
touched me personally, the other only in as far as I was a member of the
general community. The former was that I discovered my name on the
syllabus of the Home Affairs branch as a future lecturer on Social
Reform, a privilege which was deferred weekly with considerable
ingenuity until the signing of the Armistice absolved me from my
promise; the other was the inauguration of the Priority Pass.
For it is one of the traits in human nature that no sooner does a man
begin to do any work for which he is not paid than he demands
recognition of some sort. He wants to be differentiated from the rest.
The man who has served twelve months as an A.S.C. batman clamours for an
extra chevron. Why should he be ranked on the same level as the
infantryman who has only been in the line thirteen weeks. The officer
who censored letters at the Base in the first October of the war demands
a riband to show he is not one of those mere conscripts who only landed
in 1915. They are working of course not “for glory or for honour.” Their
service is perfectly disinterested, all they want is to be of help to
the nation. But still, they do think, that in common justice some sort
of difference should be made, some privilege perhaps....
And it was so with the officials of the Pitt League. They all maintained
that it was their greatest delight to be of service to the camp, that
they were collectivists of the truest and most practical kind. Yet they
were only human, and when they saw lazy officers reaping where they had
themselves sown, the wedge of justice slipped itself beneath the barrier
of their altruism. The elemental idea of “mine and thine” once firmly
planted, strengthened and took root. They felt the need of recompense.
For some time they were in doubt as to the dress in which public
gratitude should be arrayed. But at last the shorthand expert was gifted
with an inspiration. Triumphantly he bore his commodity to the premier.
“Sir, couldn’t we have precedence in queues?”
“Precedence, Wilkins?”
“Yes, Sir, we have such a lot to do, that really we have not time to
waste half the morning in queues. Couldn’t we have a pass or something
so that we could go straight in?”
“Oh, yes, admirable, Wilkins, admirable. A Priority Pass, the very
thing.”
And so the abuse of privilege began.
The camp, not realising what it would lead to, received this news with
equanimity.
“Quite right too,” was the general opinion. “These fellows do a lot of
work. They have not got too much spare time.”
Within a day or two the opinion changed. For holders of passes always
used them at the same time, that is, when it was most inconvenient to
the rest of the queue. For the chief joy of a privilege lies in the
flaunting of it before the eyes of the less fortunate. There were low
murmurs of resentment.
Two afternoons later I met Stone in the last stage of exasperation.
After a stream of abuse, the “sad accidents of his tragedy” became
clear.
It was a wet, windy afternoon, and Stone had been waiting in the
“cheque” queue for over an hour. He was heartily sick of it, but had
been particularly anxious to draw his money before roll-call, having
booked the billiard-table for immediately afterwards. And it had really
looked as though he would be just in time. Five more minutes, and he
was fourth in the queue; a minute a man. It should have worked out all
right.
Slowly the queue had moved forwards. Too slowly for Stone. There had
been a delay of almost two minutes, because some ass had not been able
to remember the amount of his cheque. Numerous sheets had to be turned
over. It was “a bit thick.”
But at last the three men in front of him had been disposed of. With a
minute to spare, he had just been about to walk into the office, when a
voice had bawled, “Half a minute,” and a diminutive captain had rushed
up panting.
“Just in time.”
“Afraid you won’t get in before roll-call,” Stone had said, sunning
himself in his serenity.
“Oh, that’s all right. I’ve got a Priority Pass.”
“A what?”
“A Priority Pass.”
“But what for?”
“Botany. Ah, there’s that fellow coming out. My turn, cheerioh.”
And thirty seconds later the bell had gone for roll-call.
“It’s the limit,” said Stone, “the absolute limit, and do you know what
that absurd botany ass does, two hours a week, that’s all. Damn it all,
and then he can just saunter into a queue whenever he likes. I’ve a
jolly good mind to get a Priority Pass myself, it’s quite easy, all
you’ve got to do is to invent a language that no one else is likely to
know. Finnish, say, and old Westcott would be only too bucked to have
another branch to his ‘Up dogs and at ’em’ League.”
To invent a language.
The idea ran through my mind, a glimmering thread of thought. What was
it George Moore had said? A new tongue was needed. The day of the
English language was over. It had passed through so many hands, been
filtered in so many places, that it was now colourless and without
significance. But this new tongue, this child that was waiting to be
cradled; it was a lyre from which any rhythm might be struck; it was
virgin soil that would bear epic upon epic, masterpiece on masterpiece;
and it would be so simple, so childishly simple. All that was needed was
the purchase of an Otto-Sauer conversation grammar which we could
translate into Finnish. No one would be any the wiser. Colonel Westcott
could be taken in quite easily.
I began to picture the scene.
Stone and I would go to him one evening, when there had been potatoes
for supper. We should find him well filled and satisfied, puffing
contentedly at a cigar, and musing sentimentally over an ideal world
peopled with the Anglo-Saxon race, bred on collectivism and eugenics.
He would greet us with a kindly patronising smile.
“Well, Stone. Yes, and let me see, who is it, Waugh. Well?”
“Well, Sir, the fact is that Stone and myself have been thinking a good
deal lately about our duties as citizens. We were wondering whether we
were really doing all we could. It’s such a splendid opportunity here,
Sir. We could lay the foundations of so much.”
“Certainly, Waugh, certainly, an admirable thought.”
“And, Sir, we were wondering whether you had ever considered the
possibilities of Finland, Sir.”
“Finland, Waugh.”
“Yes, Sir. I believe it’s the coming centre of the herring trade, and
I’m sure if some of these fellows here realised it, they would be only
too keen to try their luck there, and it would be a great thing for the
Empire, Sir, if we could collar the herring trade.”
And Colonel Westcott, whose ideals of citizenship were more surely laid
than his knowledge of commerce, would not be able to withhold a grunt of
assent.
“But, Sir,” I should go on, “the fact is that in order to trade with the
Finns one must be able to speak their language, and you see, Sir, it’s
the only language they’ve got, and they’re very sensitive about it.”
“Of course, of course, very natural, very natural indeed.”
“And, Sir, Stone and I, well, I’ve lived there a good deal, and so has
Stone, and we thought, Sir, it might be a good thing to start a Finnish
class.”
“Admirable, Waugh, of course, if you think you can do it.”
“Oh, yes, I think we could, Sir,” I should explain. “As I said to Stone,
‘we owe a duty to the State as well as to ourselves, and it would be
very selfish if we went to Finland alone.’ It’s our duty as citizens,
Sir, to think, not in terms of the individual, but of the community.”
Almost an echo of the Colonel’s own sentiments as expressed in his most
recent jeremiad. How benignly he would beam on us, how he would
recognise in us the objectification of his ideal.
“I’m very glad, very gratified indeed that you should feel like that,”
he would have said. “It’s the right spirit, the sooner you start the
class the better.”
We should have risen to go, but at the door we should have turned back.
“I’m sorry to trouble you again, Sir,” I should say, “but there is just
one little point. It’ll mean a great deal of work for Stone and myself.
We shall have no grammar or anything.”
“Of course, Waugh, I can quite see that.”
“And there’s very little spare time with these queues and things.”
“Oh, but I think we shall be able to manage that,” Colonel Westcott
would say. “I don’t see why you shouldn’t both be given Priority Passes.
It’s a very unselfish work, I’ll see about it. I think it’ll be all
right.”
And within two days our names would appear on the already lengthening
list of privileged persons.
And then what would happen? The Finnish class would follow the course of
all our studies in the Offiziergefangenenlager, Mainz. Upwards of
thirty would attend the initial lecture. Within a week this number would
have sunken within the teens, from which it would gradually recede to
the comfortable proportions of five or six. For these few enthusiasts we
should cater, and for their righteousness, as aforetime for Gomorrah’s,
would be issued the divine dispensation--a yellow ticket.
And what a language it would be. With what fancy would the common
articulation of the everyday world be passed into an æsthetic mould. How
arbitrary would be the rules of taste, what a harmonious blending of
sibilants and liquids. How George Moore would glory in our creation.
And then I supposed we should begin to tire of our toy; the novelty
would wear off; the lyric impulse would be lost. It would degenerate
into hackwork. And then we should try to get rid of it; with a sort of
false sentimentality we should muse over the pleasant hours we had spent
with it, and wonder if the affection had been returned, almost as the
hero of a French novel sighs over a discarded mistress.
Then, of course, there would be Colonel Westcott. We should not wish to
disillusion him, to show ourselves as we really were. We should wish to
maintain the deception to its end. His opinion of us would be very high.
We should present ourselves to him apologetically, as men for whom the
burden of reforming mankind had grown too heavy. We should give the
Colonel the impression that he and we were pioneers in advance of our
age, stationed at the outposts of progress; that where we stood to-day,
the world would stand to-morrow. But in the meantime....
“You see, Sir,” I should say, “there are only four fellows learning
Finnish, and none of them, if I may say so, seem to me the sort of
fellows we really want. They’re more of the class of chap who learns a
language merely to be able to say he knows it, and really, Sir, I don’t
know if it’s worth our while to spend so much time on them. You were
talking the other day about conservation of energy, Sir.”
The Colonel would bend confidingly. So far this catchword had not
suggested itself to him. But it was surely only a matter of time.
“And,” I should continue, “we thought we’d be really doing better if we
were to learn a language ourselves. Stone thought the same, Sir, but he
said, ‘We must ask Colonel Westcott first.’”
“Ah, quite right, quite right, it’s no use wasting our forces. If
fellows won’t back you up, well, it’s their fault, not yours. You’ve
done your best.”
And doubtless in that moment the Colonel’s thoughts would be flying
forward tentatively to the grey days of demobilisation, to the sundering
of the one river into its many streams. And he could see himself
standing there at the parting of the ways, his averted eyes turned back
to the pleasant pastures, to the unity and harmony of war. He could see
himself as the last relic of a more golden era, of a cleaner if not
more clever world.
“And you really think, Sir, that we have done our best?”
“No doubt about that, oh, none at all,” he would sigh. “I only wish we
had a few more like you in the camp. It’s the right spirit.”
And we should acknowledge the panegyric with a smile, and leave him to
his dreams and aspirations, his Pan-Saxon Utopia.
* * * * *
But it could not be done. In actuality the scheme would lose its
glamour, its wayward charm. It was better to let it remain in the
imagination, the fresh counterpart of some less noble phenomenon. _Aimez
ce que jamais on ne verra pas deux fois._