Poor Clayton-Vane's case is one of the most poignant peace tragedies
that have come to my notice. He had just acquired an inexplicable
but genuine enthusiasm for stockbroking when the War gave him the
opportunity of developing into a remarkably brilliant officer. Not
only did he attain his majority, but gathered a perfect chestful of
decorations, including all the common varieties and several which
leave civilians guessing.
Yet strange to say the man who has won these honours in war detests
soldiering with all his heart. He fought as a duty, and did his share
with furious energy in the hope of so shortening the War. His hatred
of the military profession is indeed equalled only by his love of
stockbroking and by his natural pride in having scrapped right on
from the word "Go!" till November 10th, 1918, when he was sent home
slightly wounded.
Now the tragedy of which he is the pathetic central figure is the
result of his remarkably youthful appearance. Every time his portrait
figures in _The Daily Scratch_, people say, "Why, he looks a mere
child! But then these Press photographs always do distort one so." Yet
in this instance people are unjust. Clayton-Vane, after a four years'
flirtation with death, has the face and figure of a careless chubby
schoolboy. When he is in uniform this youthfulness only adds lustre to
his blushing honours.
Now my unhappy friend is on the horns of a dilemma. He pines to go
back to broking as sincerely as some men pine to travel or to write
poetry, but every time he ventures out in mufti some painful incident
warns him what he will have to suffer as a civilian, with his round
rosy face, innocent blue eyes, curly hair and bright smile. He hears
himself referred to as a chip of the old block. Chance acquaintances
ask him if his father or big brothers were at the Front. To-day, he
told me very bitterly, he was asked if he did not wish the War had
lasted a little longer so that he might have been old enough to go out
and fight!
"I can't bear it, old man," he said. "There's something about me that
draws out their sentimentality, and they've all got to say something
about my youth, and the heritage of peace that the 1917 conscripts won
for me. They talk as if I had been busy with a feeding-bottle instead
of compressing my silly face in a box-respirator."
His dilemma is a very painful one for a man so sensitive and at the
same time so enamoured of stockbroking. Hard as the renunciation will
be, I really believe he will end by turning his back on the Exchange
for ever and taking a regular commission, though I try to persuade
him that if he will only brave the horrors of peace as he braved the
horrors of war he will win through in the end and grow out of his
face.
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