like snow,” we can talk of “the silver, silver music of her footsteps on the
stair,” but we’re mortally afraid that in less exultant moments, when the
heart is not so starved for affection, we shall discover that the “silver
music” is only the irritating sound of squeaky shoes.
I can’t hear from you again for at least six days—a long time to wait! I can’t
be bothered nowadays to let the mail-clerk sort out the letters: I grab the
bag and go through it myself.
There may be an interval between this letter and those that follow. If there
is, don’t worry yourselves. It is not possible to find the time or place to
write under all circumstances.
XLVII
France June 1, 1918
I can’t remember when last I wrote you. It isn’t always easy to get the time.
Recently I’ve spent a good many hours in the saddle and have been up early in
the morning; when work is done the fresh air leaves one too tired for anything
but sleep. But you mustn’t worry about me. I’m stronger than I’ve been for
months, and tanned to the colour of an Indian.
I have recently met the doctor who did so much to pull me through at the
Casualty Clearing Station when I was wounded last June. He’s still the same
tall, thin, silent man, with the kindest and sternest of faces. His brother,
he tells me, is in America on the British Mission, and had informed him of
America’s immense preparations. Like all the men out here, I found him keenly
eager to see the U.S.A. proportionately represented in the Front line. We are
holding, and counting on the States to turn the tide dramatically in our
favour. Our chaps are to calm and confident of success—out here there’s none
of the strain and nervousness which are felt by civilians. Our chaps are as
philosophical and cheery as ever. “Good old Fritz,” they say, “so he’s taken
another fifteen miles! Well, it’ll be our turn next.” Through defeat and
success we carry on quite normally and unperturbed, confident of ultimate
victory. The general opinion is that the Hun by his advances is only causing
himself a lot of unnecessary trouble, as he’ll have a longer distance to run
back to Germany.
Here’s the first of June and mid-summer approaching when so many pleasant
things used to happen—flights to the country, the purchasing of bathing-suits,
fishing-nets, maps—the planning of such quantities of family adventures. It
would be happy to think that some of these old pleasures might return one day.
The longer the war goes on the more impossible it is to conjure up the picture
of civilian ways of life or to see oneself as again in the picture. Everything
grows blurred except the present, with the early risings, routine, orders,
marches, and attacks. To be given our freedom would leave us dazed.
This will probably reach you after you have left New York and settled down for
the holidays in some quiet country place. There’s only one spot which seems
permanent in our family life—the little grey shack among the orchards in the
Rockies. My thoughts fly to it very often these hot summer days. I see the
lake like a blue mirror, reflecting the mountains and the clouds. I hear the
throbbing of the launch. Bruce is barking on the wharf. Figures are moving
about the boat-house. We climb the hill together where the brook sings through
the flowers and the evening meal awaits us. And afterwards those long sleepy
evenings when the dusk comes down and the flowers shine more vaguely, and we
talk so endlessly, planning books, retraversing the past, mapping out a road
to so many future El Dorados. I can remember these former happinesses without
self-torture or regret. The present is so splendid that it outshines all
former beauties. I go forward happily, believing that any bend of the future
may bring the old kindnesses into view again.
The old haunting dream of Blighty is growing up in me once again—the Blighty
we speak of, think of, worship and imagine every hour of the day. It’s worth
being wounded if only to wake up the first morning in the long white English
ward, with the gold-green sunlight dripping in from the leaves through the
open windows. These are the exquisite moments of peace and rest which come to
one in the midst of warfare. Of such moments within the last year I have had
my share; they are happy to remember.
And the war goes on and on. I was so afraid that it would be ended before ever
I got back. The fear was needless. I shall be out here at least another year
before peace is declared. There are times when I think that the Americans are
not so far wrong in their guess when they give themselves “four years to do
this job.” The Hun may be desperate; his very energy may be a proof of his
exhaustion. But his death struggle is too vigorously successful to promise any
very rapid end. Our hope is in America, with her high courage, her sacrifice,
and her millions of men. If she had not joined us, we would still stand here
chaffingly and be battered till not one of us was left. The last one would die
with the smile of victory on his mouth. Whatever happens, they’ll never catch
any British fighting-man owning that his tail is down. But the thought of the
American millions gives us confidence that, though we are wiped out, we shall
not have lost. Like runners in a relay race, though we are spent, the pace we
have set will enable those who come after us to win in the last lap.
But don’t worry about me. I’m having a splendid run for my money, and am far
more happy than I deserve.
XLVIII
France June 1, 1918
As per usual when I write to you, I have my nose up against a solitary candle,
am hedged in by shadows, and have the stump of a cigarette in my mouth. For
days I have been waiting for letters from home, but none has arrived as yet.
Either the ship has gone down or some other calamity has happened. I now
promise myself that to-morrow there will be a huge package of belated mail for
me.
We’re travelling very light at present. The first thing I did on my return was
to cut down my kit to the barest necessities and send all the balance back to
England. It’s better to have it safe in London, if out of immediate reach,
than to have to abandon it in a ditch or shell-hole. While the summer lasts
there are a great number of things that one can do without.
What an unsportsmanly crowd the Germans are! I think more than anything else
it will be their lack of fair play that we shall hold against them when war is
ended. Yesterday at the Pope’s request we were foolish enough to refrain from
bombing Cologne, so the Hun took the opportunity to both bomb and shell the
Catholics of Paris. It makes one itch to grab a bayonet and go over the top to
do him as much damage as opportunity will allow. The Hun is educating us out
of our good-humoured contempt into a very deep-seated hatred of him. The other
day I was in a forward town recently evacuated by its population. You walked
through silent, torn streets, the windows all broken by shells, the doors
sagging from their hinges and open. You peered across the thresholds into the
houses. In many cases meals were still on the tables, partly eaten and hastily
left. A stray cat scurried out into the yard; nothing else stirred. Over the
entire death-like silence the summer sun shone down and far away a cuckoo was
calling. One gets accustomed to the outward symbols of such tragedies—the
broken homes, abandoned security and foregone happiness. The people themselves
get used to it. To-day I met a farm-wagon piled high with the household gods,
while a peasant woman walked beside with her best hat carried in a paper-bag
in her hand. That was very typical—in all the ruin that had befallen a home to
still cling to the best hat.
I’m very happy and well, living almost entirely in the open and in the saddle
a good part of the day. The part of France I have lived in since my return is
by far the cleanest and most beautiful that I have seen on active service. The
weather has been golden and glorious. There is none of that fear in our hearts
that you must experience for us. We’re as certain of victory as we were during
the days of the big Vimy advance.
The Army is a nursery organization, full of annoying pomposities and amusing
class distinctions. Just at present we’re being pestered with continual
inspections, when each battery tries to invent some new trick for making
itself look smarter. Soldiers, on such occasions, are like a lot of old women
at a spring cleaning. The men much prefer killing Boches to being inspected.
Burnishing steel, chasing all over the country to buy Brasso, spending
fortunes on polish for the harness all seem such a fruitless waste of time
when the Huns are hammering our line. But, of course, cleanliness has a moral
effect on men who have been long under shell-fire.
This is a discursive sort of letter, and doesn’t contain much real news. It’s
just for remembrance.
XLIX
France June 4, 1918
I’ve just left the gramophone shrilly declaring that “When he fancies he is
past love, it is then he meets his last love and he loves her as he never
loved before.” London comes with us to the Front. We hum the tunes of
Piccadilly and Leicester Square, and we scheme such splendid times for our
return. Leave has opened up again, but by a careful calculation I have
discovered that it will take twenty-one years four months and three days till
my turn comes round at the present rate of allotments.
Some New York papers have just arrived and an exceedingly ancient cake, but no
letters. In the midst of a great offensive it is wonderful that anything gets
to us at all. We’re as far away from you both in reality and imagination as
though we lived in a different world. Our standards of conduct, normality,
right living are not your standards—our hopes and fears are all different.
Again, as when I first came to the Front, everything civilian seems a tale I
have read about. I cannot believe that that person who was in New York last
October was really myself. I rather wonder at him and at his capacity for
writing about the commonplace events of the present life. Now I couldn’t write
a line about the war if my life depended on it. I see nothing in perspective
except the endless path of duty which leads on ahead as each day introduces
itself. To what goal that path leads I sometimes try to guess—to something
wonderful and unforeseen, I have no doubt.
I judge from what I read that the entire world which is not at the Front is
anxious and depressed. We’re just the same as ever—cheery and waiting whatever
may befall with a stoicism born of confidence. Our belief in ourselves, our
cause, and our ability to win, never wavers. How extraordinarily normal we are
you could hardly imagine. The moment our men get out of the trenches they
begin to play baseball, football, cricket, etc. There’s a big lake near to
where we are with red cliffs around it. Here every evening you can see the
poised white figures of soldiermen. Last Sunday we held aquatic sports there,
and had a fine display of swimming. It’s wonderful to see the chaps so happy
when you remember that nine-tenths of their companions of this time last year
are either wounded or dead. As you may guess, we never in our conversation
call attention to this fact, though there can be few, if any, who forget.
There are children where we are at present. It’s amusing to see them making
friends with our boys. They slip their little paws into the big brown hands
and toddle along quite proudly.
I don’t see how anyone could help loving our men—they’re so simple. Their
faults, when you know the hearts which they hide, become endearing. I think,
especially when I see them with the French kiddies, “Of such are the Kingdom
of Heaven.”
Please thank the donor of the cake which arrived to-day. We’re eating it—don’t
tell her it was dry.
L
France June 7,1918
Here’s a glorious summer evening—the end of a perfect day, during which I have
done my share in capturing two German spies, who now repose unrestfully in our
guard-room.
This morning, when I was leading a hundred mounted men along a road, a
terrible thing happened. The road was narrow and on one side of it
motor-lorries were standing; on the other side was a little unfenced river.
Suddenly and without warning, tearing down the hill ahead of us, came the
enemy. The enemy consisted of a pair of mules harnessed to a heavy iron
roller. The roller caught my lead-driver and threw him and his two horses to
the ground, then it charged on into the mass behind us. Miraculously no bones
were broken; we all have nine lives. Those mokes have put us up to a new trick
for dispersing enemy cavalry which ought to be effective. Believe me, two mad
mules, going thirty miles an hour with an iron roller behind them, are utterly
demoralizing. It is impossible for any cavalry in the world to withstand them.
You don’t know, can’t guess, how letters from home buck me up and keep the
lamp of my ideals still burning. There are moments when the mere mechanical
side of warfare fills one’s mind with an infinite depression. One sees men
doing splendid acts, day in day out, like automatons animated by the spring of
duty. One almost forgets that there is any human element of choice in the
matter, or a difference between fighting and fighting well. When your pages
come, I remember—remember that just such affections and human ties bind the
hearts of all who are out here to life. I begin to see my chaps as
personalities again and not as only soldiers.
Outside the chaps are singing “O my, I don’t want to die; I want to go home.”
Now they’ve changed to “Take me Over to Blighty.”
LI
France June 8, 1918
Last night I saw the old lady who nursed me up so that I was fit to come and
meet you in London when you all came in 1917 from America. Seeing her again
brought back all sorts of memories of the depressions and exaltations of other
days. I think I have been both sadder and more happy since the war began than
in all the other years of my life. And I used to write about the world not as
it is, but about the world as I would have made it, had I been God. Now I’m
trying to see things as they are, with the inevitable God shining through
them. Here, at the Front, God is everywhere apparent—but not the cathedral God
I had imagined—not the majestic God with sublime uplifted eyes which know
nothing of finite terror. The God of the Front has brave eyes which have
suffered; His mouth is a human mouth, which has known the pain of parting and
kisses; His hands are roughened and burnt and bloody; there is the stoop of
agony in His shoulders and the hint of a valiant jest in His splendid bearing
of defiance. He is one of us. He is us entirely. He is no longer remote and
eternal. For us He has again become flesh—He is our comrade; He is the man
upon our left and our right hand, who goes into battle with us; He is our
dead. We cannot escape Him; the pettinesses of our sins are forgotten in the
resemblance of our neighbours to His majesty. Nowadays I cannot think of the
poet’s Christ, wandering through Galilean lilies in a woman’s robes. It’s His
manly death, His white timeless body on the Cross that I remember. Without
Calvary all His words would have been unconvincing and He Himself a dreamer’s
fancy. It was only on the Cross that Christ became flesh—all that went before
is like a lovely legend gradually materializing in the atmosphere of tragedy.
God save us from being always happy. It’s the chance of being always happy
that I dread most after the war. There’s a terrible corpulence about happiness
which borders very closely on physical grossness. To strive and keep on
striving—that is what I want for the world when war is ended, and to have to
pay with sacrifice for each advance. I don’t think any of us who come back
will covet virtue as our goal, save in as far as virtue embraces everything
that is meant by manliness. To be virtuous in the original sense was just
that—to be physically perfect.
Ah, how greedy I become out here to see some of the sudden qualities which war
has called out, transplanted into the civilian world. I so fear that with
peace those qualities may be debased and lost.
More than anything else the gramophone makes me remember the old days and the
old aims and desires. It’s the greatest miracle of the century that Caruso and
Harry Lauder and George Robey, with all the best of music and laughter-makers,
can step into our dug-out from the point of a needle. When we move, whatever
else is left behind, the gramophone always goes. It travels in G.S. wagons, on
the foot-board of limbers—in all sorts of ways. We’re feeling sentimental; we
crank up the canned music. Above the roar of the guns we hear, “All that I
want is someone to love me, and to love me well.” We’re feeling merry, so we
dance to “Arizona.” All the world of forgotten pleasures can come to us
through that needle-point. And I—whenever it starts—I see home pictures——
Then in an extraordinarily poignant way I feel earnest to have lived, loved,
done something big before I die. Everything already done seems insignificant
and worthless. It’s the feeling which you once called “divine discontent.”
It’s evening, as it always is when I write to you. Next door a little refugee
child is chanting his prayers under the direction of his father. One can hear
the humming of planes overhead. A funny world! How persistent the religious
instinct is, that men should still credit God when their hearts are bankrupt!
Good-night, I’m going to bed now.
LII
France June 12, 1918
With me it’s 6.30 in the evening. I’m sitting in a farmhouse overlooking the
usual French farmyard. The chickens fly in at the window—also the cats. The
window is my own mode of entrance; I feel like a burglar when I enter my
“bedroom” in this fashion after midnight. Two other officers share the floor
with me—literally the floor, for we use our sleeping-sacks.
There’s a little boy about three, with long hair, so that at first we mistook
him for a girl, who has become the temporary mascot of the battery. He carries
the broken remains of a toy rifle and falls in with the men on parades,
holding one of the fellows’ hands. He’s picked up the detail for “'Shun!” and
“Stand at Ease!” and carries out the orders as smartly as anyone, looking
terrifically serious about it. The men call him “little sister” on account of
his appearance, and make him a great pet. I left him sobbing his heart out
to-day when I had to leave him behind after he had fallen in with a squad of
riflemen.
There’s a genuine little girl who is our friend, of whom I am even fonder.
She’s a refugee kiddy of about thirteen—slim and pretty as a fairy, with a
long corn-gold plait of hair down her back.
As soon as we start the gramophone going she peeps noiselessly as a spirit
through the window; then one of us lifts her across the sill and she sits on
our knees with her face hidden shyly against our shoulders.
I’m at present reading Gulliver’s Travels. That I should be reading them in
such different circumstances from any that Swift could have imagined, kindles
the art of writing books into a new romance. To be remembered years after you
yourself have forgotten, to have men prying into the workings of a brain which
has been dust in a shell for two centuries, is a very definite kind of
immortality. To be forgotten—that is what we most dread. Never to have
happened would not matter; but to have happened, to have walked the world,
laughed, loved, created, and then to be treated as though we had not happened,
there lies the sting of death. The thought of extinction offends our vanity;
we had thought that we were of more consequence to the universe. It doesn’t
comfort us to be recalled impersonally in the mass, as the men who captured
Vimy or thrust the Hun back from some dangerous objective. In the mass we
shall go down through history, no doubt, but not as human beings—only as
heroes. We would rather be recalled by our weaknesses—as so-and-so who loved a
certain girl, who played a good hand of poker, who overdrew his bank-account.
Out here, from the moment a man places foot in France, the anonymity of death
commences. No one cares who he was in a previous world, what he did for a
living, whether he was a failure or a success. None of his former virtues
stand to his credit except as they contribute to his soldier-life of the
present. None of us talk about our past; if we did, our company would yawn at
us. Only the mail arriving at irregular intervals keeps us in knowledge that
we once had other personalities. Letters are like ghosts of a world abandoned,
tiptoeing through the dream of a sleeper. Between you and us there is a great
gulf fixed——Not that we resent it. Someone has to pay a price for the future
safety of the world; out of all the ages we have been chosen as the persons.
There is nothing to resent,—quite the contrary. Only, now and then creeps in
the selfish longing that we may be remembered not as soldiers, but as what we
were—in our weakness as well as in our strength.
You’re in a country place where I have not been and which I cannot picture. I
hope you’re all enjoying yourselves. There’s no need to worry on my account.
LIII
France June 20,1918
Here I am in the kind of place that William Morris wrote about. My room is in
a monastery, from which all but two of the monks have long since fled. The
nunnery, in which the rest of the officers are billeted, was long since
vacated. A saint was born here, and there used to be pilgrimages to his
shrine; now only the two monks remain to toll the bell, play the organ, and to
go through all the religious observances. The walls of the room in which I am
writing are covered with illuminated prayers. Pinned on the door outside is
the list of all the duties for the day. From my window I can see the two
faithful ones pacing in the overgrown garden, counting their beads, murmuring
their prayers, and behaving in every way as though the war had not commenced.
Such despising of external happenings, even though it be mistaken, calls for
admiration of sorts.
The country is lovely and green now, all except the immediate battle-line.
Birds sing, flowers bloom, and fleecy white clouds go drifting overhead. One
takes chance baths in chance-found brooks, and the men spread their tents in
the meadows. There’s everything that life can offer to tempt us to go on
living at present. There are moments so happy that I almost wish that you
could be here to share them.
To-day I’m out of touch—no letters have arrived. Perhaps they will overtake us
tomorrow. A thrush is singing in the monastery garden and the slow blue
twilight is falling. Mingling as an accompaniment to the song of the thrush is
the slow continual droning of a plane. The reminders of war are persistent and
incessant. Nevertheless, in spite of war, I found a strawberry patch this
afternoon and glutted myself.
I see by to-day’s paper that a racket has started on the Italian front. The
Central Powers are declaring their weakness by striking out in too many
directions. We give and we give, but we never break. We’re waiting for America
and her millions. How long before we can count on them to help us to attack?
It’s extraordinary how the belief in America has grown. First of all we said,
“She has come in too late”; then, “She’ll help us to win more quickly”; and
now, “We need her.” If America has done nothing else, she has strengthened our
moral all along the line; we fight better because we know that she is behind
us.
You’re somewhere where the world is intensely quiet. I shall think of you
where the world is happy.
LIV
France June 20, 1918
I’ve just finished reading a big batch of mail, and have had dinner and now
sit looking out on the drenched country which is covered with a shabby evening
sky. In the church, which adjoins the monastery in which I stay, monks are
chanting. They are always chanting. One wonders for what it is that they pray;
deeds at any moment, let alone the present, are so much better. I can picture
what would happen here if the Germans came. I have caught myself thinking of
Marie Odelle; our scenery is similar to that pictured in the play. Strange how
one goes to imagination in search of illustrations of reality!