Even now I can't realize it: I went into that nursing home on a
beautiful peaceful evening in July with nothing more important to worry
about than my silly old appendix, and somehow while I was lying low and
not worrying the entire world seems to have changed. I came in thinking
that it might be exciting to go to Ireland, because there was a chance
of a slight "scrap," and I come out and find the whole world in a
death-struggle. It is like some hideous nightmare. I suppose war must
have come upon most people as a surprise, a bomb-shell, but for me it
has come as all part of another existence. My life is now divided into
two parts, before I went into the nursing home, and after.
I was operated on quite successfully, though the doctor took two hours
to cut out my appendix and I recovered fairly quickly, though I quite
made up my mind that I was at the point of death hourly. My father and
mother came down to see me and were awfully good, but Elspeth after a
few days took a holiday because she was so "run down." I felt miserable
without her, but she was quite right to go. I must have been getting on
her nerves badly. The first news I got about the war was on a certain
morning when I looked out of my window and saw in the place where I
expected to see the summer circus a whole troop of yeomanry and their
horses. Then my doctor went away to join up.
I had to lie in bed and hear the most amazing stories. First the banks
all closed down and everybody thought that there was going to be no
money, then people began to fill their cellars with foodstuffs, then
day after day came more horrible news of disasters, of Germany breaking
through Mons and overrunning Belgium, of the wonderful defence put up
by the handful of English troops; gradually it seemed as if the war was
already over, that Paris would fall and England be invaded. Horrible
stories of atrocities in Belgium I can't understand. All the Germans
I've known were dear old Koenig at Radchester, fat old bald-headed
tourists at Lynton, sweating horribly as they climbed the hills behind
the coach, and three ripping flappers at Oxford years ago. Somehow I
had never imagined such a war as this to be possible. I remember now
that night at Radchester three years ago when that War Office man came
down and implored us to make the O.T.C. as smart as we could because we
should be needed in a few years. I had plenty of time lying on my back
for three weeks in that nursing home to think it all out. I had heaps
of visitors bringing flowers and fruit and papers, but I was restless
and miserable none the less.
As soon as I was able I went up to Bath and took Elspeth to Ilfracombe:
there I heard Hemmerde calling for recruits--it was just like Amyas
Leigh asking for another generation of Devon lads to help to beat the
Spaniards. All the same it's different now. All the glamour and glory
of war seem to have gone for ever: this is simply horrible, a massacre
by machinery. Perhaps my mind is not attuned to it. I am still very
weak, but the whole business seems preposterous.
We went down to Portsmouth to see some friends who had just joined
up and we saw the troopships, the searchlights at night, the coast
defences, the trains full of cheering soldiers, the streets full
of raw recruits. We went on to London and there were posters like
advertisements for soap imploring every man to join up and save his
country. Girls presented white feathers to any one in mufti, people in
trains invariably asked each other fiercely why they weren't in khaki.
By far the most violent of these interrogators were peaceful-looking
old ladies and young, healthy parsons. I went down to Hampton Court to
stay with Tony, who, of course, has gone into the Army. All Radchester
was in camp at Aldershot when war broke out and the entire school went
_en bloc_ to try to enlist. Those who were refused are crying with
anger at the thought that they will have to go back to Radchester next
term. There was some talk of the schools all being closed down. All
the young masters on the staff at Marlton have gone, and every boy of
eighteen and over and many a good deal younger. They needn't complain
that the Public Schools aren't doing their part. Every single fit man
in them joined at once. I wish I hadn't had my appendix out: then I
could have gone. Elspeth says I couldn't, because of my incipient
madness. I bet I would, though it would have been Hell to have left
her. How I should have gloried in this war before I became engaged. All
the Radcastrians are greatly "bucked" about it. At last adventure has
come to them with arms full.
_November 10, 1914_
Just when I ought to keep up my diary more accurately than ever I leave
it for weeks. It's no good putting in all the news about the war: that
is all seared into my soul. These three months have seen the deaths of
all the men who seemed to me to matter when I was at Oxford. All the
men of my age were killed off at once: they got out at the beginning.
From the other side they tell me it's just an endless line of blood and
mud, periods of intense boredom relieved by moments of fearful fright.
Every one thought in August that it would be all over by Christmas.
Kitchener gives it three years. My God! there'd be no England left
after three years. I went up to London to lecture on the teaching
of English and found the streets all darkened, which makes the town
incredibly beautiful and eerie. I suppose the idea is to bring the war
home to us more closely.
This term has been altogether strange. We are chastened and quite
different. Young boys are now prefects, heads of Houses, captains of
games: the Corps has ousted athletics. It seems wrong to be chasing
up and down a "Rugger" field while our brothers and dearest friends
are being killed within a few hundred miles. We have done an amazing
amount of Corps work this term: everybody is as keen as mustard to
make himself really fit. Boys are reading their Stonewall Jackson, and
Haking, and John Buchan, and everything that they can lay their hands
on to inform themselves of what is going on across the Channel and how
they shall best occupy their time here in preparation. By a very quaint
irony, for the first time in my life I have noticed that boys are
becoming really anxious to learn. Somehow intellectual pursuits seem
to be worth striving after: there is a perceptible wish in every boy's
mind to explore the garner-house of wisdom.
Never have I felt that the schoolmaster's job was so important as I do
now. Many of these boys will, please God, not have to fight, but they
will all have to take an active part in the reconstruction of England.
Every hour of every day we shall have to keep before them the ideals
which we mean to see put into practice by the next generation. Last
year we were in danger of getting sloppy: we were too rich, we were
chasing after every kind of new pleasure, not a thought was given to
the myriad problems of capital and labour, of poverty, of housing, of
health, of education. We are all trying our best at last to see which
of us can do the most for the sake of England: the name didn't mean
much to us so long as she was safe; now that she is in deadly peril
we are beginning to realize all that she is to us. Our new activity
in the Corps is a beginning: we are drilling, digging, scouting,
signalling, lecturing, bombing, bridge-building, range-finding,
entrenching--learning up tactics and strategy. So far as actual
military skill is concerned we are doing our best, but there is an
enormous amount of leeway to be made up in other departments of life.
For one thing, I believe the school is far more devout than it was.
Suffering has sent us back to the Cross. We have weekly Intercession
Services for our old boys. These are voluntary, but very few boys
absent themselves. Our preachers seem almost inspired. It must be much
easier to preach now than it used to be: we are all only too anxious
to know what to do: "Here am I, send me" is the cry of every one in
chapel. Our religion is a much more vital thing than it ever used to
be. We are all working at top speed all the time. I only hope we don't
break down as the newspapers have. Every one of the papers except the
_Daily Telegraph_ has lost its head not once nor twice since war broke
out. It is almost painful to read the leading articles at present.
They blame everybody in authority for failure to cope with the present
situation. How the German Press must gloat.
In the place of the young men who have left us we have had to employ
very old men, who are for the most part extraordinarily genial and
take to the work as a trout to water. Not all of them, alas, have been
successful. Boys still "rag" a man who is incompetent, and they have
little respect for age, but on the whole these old men have fallen into
line far better than any one would have dreamt possible.
_December 13, 1914_
Our first term of war is nearly over. It has been a strange, unreal
sort of life. Every day some fresh disaster befalls us in the shape
of casualties. Every week some boys come back, healthy, handsome and
extraordinarily grown-up in their officers' uniforms: we at school seem
to be settling down to play our part. The officers of the O.T.C. have
been told to carry on where they are, that the work they are doing is
invaluable: so we content ourselves with that, though it seems very
little. We have had a naval victory at the Heligoland Bight, and
a defeat and a victory off the coast of South America. The Germans
advance no more in France, the whole world seems to be preparing to
rise in arms on the slightest provocation. Every week Horatio Bottomley
and Belloc explain to us that the end is in sight and the Northcliffe
Press tells us that we can never win but shall wage an age-long war. We
hope the one and fear the other--and carry on.
It is a strange thing, but the beginning of war which I expected would
quash all chance of writing has seen the beginning of my success.
_Blackwood's_, the _Contemporary_ and the _National Review_ have all
printed articles of mine, and I am writing as much as I can, spurred on
by this undreamt-of piece of luck.
Although it is a time of war and full of horrors the term passed very
quickly indeed. Elspeth and I are now absolutely united. Her father
has gone out to Egypt with a staff appointment, her mother is still
in Bath, both her brothers are out in France. All entertainments at
Marlton have suddenly ceased. There are no more dinner-parties, no more
House suppers, school matches were all "scratched" this term, and the
people in the town no longer play "bridge." We are rapidly becoming a
soberer people and our efforts are directed to one object only, the
winning of the war. Yet the strange thing is that so many things go
on just as usual. People seem to have any amount of money, the shops
advertise the same old extravagant useless things; dances, theatres,
horse-racing, football matches still continue--there is no lack of
these things any more than there was during the Boer War.
Perhaps we are learning to "do without" gradually. It must be
different in France and Belgium. I shall never forget my first sight
of Belgian refugees and wounded soldiers arriving at Marlton station.
Somehow we don't, we can't realize the horror of it in this peaceful
valley, but the tragic faces of these tortured, homeless women
penetrates at one flash into the very heart. All the gay, irresponsible
women who last July spent their days on the polo ground now vie with
one another in providing homes for the Belgians and hospitals for the
wounded. Girls who were accustomed to do nothing more arduous than hunt
or take the spaniels for a walk now nurse through the night, scrub
floors, act as kitchenmaids, drive motor-vans and generally carry on
the work that is left for them to do. So many of them have husbands or
brothers fighting that they would go mad with brooding too much if they
were not working every hour of every day. There may be a few who are
still untouched by the war, but there are certainly none in Marlton.
Boys who left at the end of last term have already come back decorated
with the Military Cross. Letters reach me from all parts of the globe
from old boys of Radchester who are sailing to fight in some region I
never heard of before the war. And all the time we try to preserve the
spirit that has made England great here at home in Marlton. It used to
seem something of a backwater before the war--how much more is it one
now: the milkmen and the farm labourers, the shop assistants, and the
railway porters who had never been farther afield than Exeter are now
in Egypt, Malta, India, France, all over the globe. What a widening of
experience, what books will be written when it is all over. For the
last year we have thought of nothing but the wonderful adventures of
Captain Scott and his fellow-adventurers in their quest for the South
Pole. Commander Evans came to Marlton and lectured to us about the
heroic death of Captain Oates: we were all swept off our feet with
enthusiasm but no one in the hall ever dreamt that he would be called
upon to emulate such a deed, and yet now daily, hourly, that feat is
being rivalled. So long as there are any men left in this country
there is no need to fear that we shall lack for heroes. Boys, who when
they were at school were looked upon as feckless funks, have performed
valorous exploits, which any one remembering their school days would
have regarded as absolutely beyond the bounds of belief.
_January 20, 1915_
I get heartily sick of the holidays these days because there is so
little to do, and I hate to see all my pals training while I am doing
nothing at all. Schoolmastering seems so dull, but there is no doubt
where one's duty lies.
_April 15, 1915_
I have now finished a second term at Marlton under war conditions. I
find that the war has brought us closer together, masters and boys
alike. We have had lectures from wounded soldiers on the campaign in
different parts of the globe. The Corps is more flourishing than ever.
Our favourite amusement now is the night-attack, which is nearer the
real thing than anything else we do. I went down to a depot the other
day to get some "tips" and saw some first-rate signalling, the Lewis
gun, and some bombing practice.
Poor Elspeth about half-way through the term complained to me one day
that she felt too rotten to keep some engagement that she was due for
and I fetched the doctor much against her will, and to my horror he
told me that she had appendicitis and must be operated on immediately.
We took her over to Lewes and put her into a nursing home, and I left
her there late one night after a last passionate embrace and was taken
over by Leary the next day in his side-car to hear the result of the
operation and was told that she had come through it all right. I shall
never forget the agony of waiting to hear the verdict. I made Leary
motor me at terrific speed half across Sussex to keep my mind from
dwelling too insistently on it. Her heart is weak and she nearly went
under, but thank God she pulled through in the end, although she was
very weak for a long time after. My life alone during her illness I
can't dwell upon: it was altogether too horrible. I roamed about the
countryside absolutely disconsolate. I have no use for life at all
without her. Every day as soon as work was over I "push-biked" the
eight miles into Lewes to see her and talk for a little, then cycled
home again to my lonely cottage. I was nearer dementia then than I have
ever been. I have got to know more of the boys in the school this last
term. They are a wonderfully fine lot, particularly O'Dowd and Raynes,
who still write weekly essays for me and discuss literary problems.
I tried to act _The Younger Generation_ in my Debating Society, but
the idea was quashed by the Censor. I have altered the old system of
reading round a table and substituted a much more effective plan. We
now read in Big School from the platform standing up, with action
and dresses complete. Instead of each individual member having to buy
copies of the play I have now bought numbers of copies and formed a
library upon which any member of the school may draw just as he likes.
We have had one or two strange temporary masters. One, an elderly
scholar, had an eccentric habit of always searching the bottoms of
one's trousers for matches: he had once heard of a man being burnt
alive that way and was in a continual fright lest it should happen to
some one whom he knew. We have got a new Sixth Form tutor, a fellow
of Queen's, Oxford, who has become a firm friend of mine. He is, like
most of my colleagues, very well off and has furnished himself with a
splendid library which he allows me to use. I have done a good deal
of writing and much reading: my books are costing me less because I
am doing a good deal of reviewing for the London papers. One of the
strangest effects of the war up to now has been its result upon the
world of papers and books. Paper is very expensive and there is great
difficulty in getting MSS. printed and bound, but people are all buying
books in great numbers, particularly poetry and fiction.
Owing to my own smaller successes I have received invitations to meet
and to stay with some of the leading writers of the day, which needless
to say I have accepted, though if I go I shall have to go without
Elspeth, for as soon as it was possible we took her by car from the
nursing home in Lewes all the way to her home at Bath, where the doctor
says she must stay for some months.
I can't face next term without her: I don't know what I shall do and
yet I cannot conscientiously expect her to come back to me until
she is quite fit to look after the house again. At present she is
recovering very slowly and looks dreadfully weak and thin.
_May 4, 1915_
When the term was over I did go round to the various houses to which
I had been invited and met the queerest people. I was nervous and
irritable without Elspeth and never stayed more than a night or two in
any one house and kept on rushing back to see how Elspeth was getting
on.
These Easter holidays have been rather nightmarish because of Elspeth's
illness. I could not settle down to anything, and of course we could
not go out much because she could not walk. On the other hand, for some
reason I was unable to concentrate my attention on writing. Everything
was in a state of blur owing to the shock I sustained at her operation.
In some degree last term was like the same term two years ago when I
was engaged. I tried to hurl myself into my work: I refereed on and
coached the junior games, I devised all sorts of schemes to interest my
boys in English, I had boys up to tea to remove some of my loneliness,
but I was gradually going out of my mind because I had no Elspeth by me
to soothe me. And all the time the war has been weighing very heavily
upon me. The waste of the flower of this country is frightful. On April
23 young Rupert Brooke died, and we have lost the premier poet of the
age before he had had the chance to transmit a quarter of the splendid
things that were burning inside him. Somehow I feel his loss more than
that of any one I have known.
XVII
_July 31, 1915_
This term has been the worst in my recollection. Elspeth was not
allowed to come back at the beginning of term because she was not able
to cope with the housework, so I thought to compromise by going up to
Bath every week-end to see her. I did this, but the five days between
each visit became so ghastly that I could not face them. I begged her
to come back at all costs to save my brain. She did so for a few weeks,
to her mother's intense indignation and her own no little wrath. Both
of them thought it merely gross selfishness on my part to demand such
a thing, as of course in a sense it was. But I really was ill. The
local doctor could do nothing and sent me up to a specialist in Harley
Street, who told me to go to the Highlands for the whole of the summer
holidays and take a complete rest. I'm suffering from an over-active
brain. So to-morrow we are to set off for the north of Scotland.
This term has passed uneventfully enough so far as the school is
concerned. I went to see the Bishop about being ordained and he
welcomed the suggestion, but I am still not clear in my mind about
it. I have always had a hankering after the church, but I wonder if
it is simply that I may find an excuse to preach. I know I am always
preaching in form. I spend the whole week preparing subjects for my
Sunday's divinity lesson, which is really a hotch-potch of the week's
events with a moral tag appended.
I have watched a few cricket matches and tried to rid myself of my
nervous behaviour in front of senior masters. I always behave in Common
Room as if I were a small boy: I have never been able to eradicate the
idea that these are _my_ masters whenever I meet them.
In my writings I am becoming too critical, but it is all rather
superficial. I know that there are grave abuses in the Public School
system, though the war swept away at least half of them; I also know
that I have a reputation here of indulging quite indiscriminately in
wholesale destructive diatribes: "the zeal of thine house hath eaten
me up" as they say of me. I have not tempered my enthusiasm with
reticence or bridled my tongue severely enough. The result is that I
have divided the school into two great factions, the loyalists and the
seceders. This is what my enemies lay to my charge. I cannot believe
that my influence carries any weight at all. I am only a junior master
and I don't mix with the boys here as I used to at Radchester for the
simple reason that I live too far away from the school and that I have
a wife. The only people who see much of the boys are the House-masters
and the House tutors. The rest of us take a few sets, control, say, a
debating or natural history society or choir, perhaps are responsible
for a form, and there's an end of our influence. By bowling at the
nets one meets a few others, in the Corps one comes across two Houses,
and of course the school prefects are known to all the staff. But
there is very little intimacy between boy and master, though such
relations are as much encouraged here as they were discouraged at
Radchester. A few of my closer friends come up to borrow books and
stay and talk sometimes, others again come to hear the gramophone or
to play the piano to me, but I have all too few friends among the
boys. There have been one or two colossal rows this term, in spite
of the fact that we are at war. Boy-nature seems to remain the same
in spite of all--and not only boy-nature but adult nature, for even
here members of Common Room fight one against the other like tigers
when one man infringes on another man's rights. All these disputes
have quite petty beginnings, but they assume alarming proportions in
a very short space of time. I have been preaching about the dangers
of over-athleticism. The consequence is that there is a blood-feud
between those who worship at the shrine of games and those who think
that games should be played merely as recreation. This has now become
a question of Houses. There are Houses where everything is put second
to games and others where games are put last. It is all rather comic
because it really means nothing at all. The whole matter is always just
personal. There are Houses with a tradition against taking the Corps
seriously: there are others where they think of nothing else. One good
sign I have noticed of late is the resuscitation of House Debating and
Literary Societies. Boys debate among themselves on all sorts of school
topics, internal politics; the spirit of criticism is abroad: boys are
beginning to think, there is hope for them. There are, however, many
masters who tell me that boys ought not to think: they ought to accept
and not question, that to inculcate the carping spirit is a malicious
practice. I wonder how much this is true. I stand and everyone knows
it, for the cultivation of the æsthetic and the intellectual first,
just because in the past they have been so despised. I am myself
neither æsthetic nor intellectual but I have a craving after each.
Athletics in themselves cannot satisfy the inner cravings of man: he
wants more nourishment than that. I like to see the school magazine
filled with good sound articles of general interest and poetry, as well
as accounts of the term's doings.