OF A FORM MASTER WHO DREAMS THAT HE HAS CALLED ON THE WAR
CORRESPONDENT OF "THE DAILY MAIL" FOR A LITERAL TRANSLATION
OF THE CÆSAR'S _DE BELLO GALLICO_.
"_Omnis Gallia in tres partes divisa est._" Is it fanciful to say of
the three parts into which all Gaul is divided that by their colours
may they be known, the blue, the brown and the ghastly, ghoulish,
intolerable, bestial, but, thank God, passing, grey? Yes, thank God,
the blight of greyness cannot last long; even now the scabrous plague
is being burnt up and swept back and overwhelmed by the resistless
flood, eager yet cautious, persistent yet fiery, of the blue and the
brown. Hideous, pitiable, soul-searing are the scars that it leaves in
its mephitic wake, but the cleansing tide of the brown and the blue
sweeps on, and the healing wand of time waves over them, and soon the
shell-holes and the waste places and the abominations of desolation
are covered with little flowers--or would be if it were Spring.
The Spring! No one knows what depth of meaning lies in that little
word for our brave fellows, what intensity of hopes and fears and
well-nigh intolerable yearnings it awakens beneath the cheery
insouciance of their exteriors; no one, that is, except me. They tell
me about it as they pass back, privates and generals, war-hardened
veterans and boys of nineteen with the youth in their eyes not yet
drowned by the ever-increasing encroachments of the war-devil; all
are alike in their cheerful determination to see this grim and bloody
business of fighting to an honourable end, and alike, too, in that
their souls turn frankly, as might children's, for refreshment and
relief to the kindly breast and simple beauties of Mother Nature.
The key-note of their attitude is given in the sentence, spoken
dreamily and as if in forgetfulness of my presence, by a Corporal of
the R.G.A. as I cleaned his boots--it was an honour. "The blue--the
blue--the blue--and the white!"
He was gazing skywards. I could see nothing but grey clouds, but I
knew that his young eyes were keener than mine, that he had learnt to
look into the inmost heart of things in that baptism of fire, that
travail of freedom, where desolation blossoms and hell sprouts like a
weed. Through the grey he could discern the triumph of the blue and
the white of peace, when the work of the brown shall be done. It was
an allegory. More he told me, too, in his simple country speech, so
good to hear in a foreign land: of the daisies in the yard at home,
of the dandelions on the lawn, of his pet pig: things too sacred to
repeat here. And he told me that the great event on the Front now is
the Autumn glory of the trees. Then he departed, and as he went he
broke into deep-throated, Homeric laughter, and I--I understood: he
was mocking Death. Even thus does laughter yap at the heels of that
dishonoured king out here.
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