Chorus

"I'm on my way back to dear old Shepherd's Bush,

That's the spot where I was born,

Can't you hear the porter calling,

Queen's Road, Piccadilly, Marble Arch and Bond Street?

Oh, I'll not hesitate, I'll reach the gate;

Through the crowd I mean to push,

Find me a seat anywhere--please anywhere,

Tram, train, tube, 'bus I don't care--

For mother and daddy are waiting there--

In dear old Shepherd's Bush."

On the eve of one big battle, a soldier handed me a letter in which he

gave me the addresses of his father and his sweetheart, so that I could

write to them if he fell.

"In the last battle," he said, "one of my brothers was killed and

another wounded. If I fall I shall die without regrets and with a heart

content; but it will go hard with those at home; and I want you to break

the news gently. These are terrible times for those at home." "These

are terrible times _for those at home_." That is their constant

refrain, and it finds an echo in a song often sung by them.

"It's a long long way to my home in Kentucky,

Where the blue-bells grow 'round the old cabin door;

It's a long, long way and I'll be mighty lucky

When I see my dear old mammy once more.

So weep no more, my lady,

Just brush those tears away;

It's a long long way to my home in Kentucky,

But I'm bound to get there some day."

But the chief favorite of all Home Songs is, I think, the following:

"There's an old-fashioned house in an old-fashioned street;

In a quaint little old-fashioned town;

There's a street where the cobble stones harass the feet,

As it straggles up hill and then down;

And, though to and fro through the world I must go,

My heart while it beats in my breast,

Where e'er I may roam, to that old-fashioned home

Will fly like a bird to its nest.

"In that old-fashioned house in that old-fashioned street,

Dwell a dear little old-fashioned pair;

I can see their two faces so tender and sweet,

And I love every wrinkle that's there.

I love ev'ry mouse in that old-fashioned house

In the street that runs up hill and down;

Each stone and each stick, ev'ry cobble and brick,

In that quaint little old-fashioned town."

The charm of the Army is its comradeship. Our soldiers have left their

homes and friends but they have found new friends, and some of the

friendships have become very precious. Men slept side by side in barn

and trench, cooked their rations at the same little wood fire, and stood

together in the hour of danger and imminent death. Many of them owe

their lives to their comrades. There are few songs that express this

wonderful comradeship, but there is one that is known and sung through

the army. It represents the Songs of Comradeship:

"When you come to the end of a perfect day,

And you sit alone with your thought,

While the chimes ring out with a carol gay,

For the joy that the day has brought;

Do you think what the end of a perfect day

Can mean to a tired heart,

When the sun goes down with a flaming ray,

And the dear friends have to part?

"Well, this is the end of a perfect day,

Near the end of a journey too;

But it leaves a thought that is big and strong,

With a wish that is kind and true.

For mem'ry has painted this perfect day

With colors that never fade;

And we find at the end of a perfect day

_The soul of a friend we've made_."

The fifth class of song is that of the inner life. It is the Religious

Hymn. The soldiers are extremely fond of hymns in their services. You

cannot give them too many. "Rock of Ages," "Jesus lover of my soul,"

"Fight the good fight," "There is a green hill," "At even ere the sun

was set," "O God our help in ages past," and "Eternal Father strong to

save" cannot be chosen too often. But there are two hymns which have

stood out above all others; they are "Abide with me," and "When I survey

the wondrous Cross."

There is nothing written by the hand of man which can compete with these

two in the blessing and strength which they have brought to our

soldiers, especially during an offensive when death has cast his shadow

over the hearts of all. During the bitterest weeks in the Somme

fighting there was scarcely a service in which we did not sing "When I

survey the wondrous Cross." With its assurance of redemption it gave

comfort in the face of death. It also gave, for an example, the Supreme

Sacrifice.

Some of the songs I have quoted look bare and ungainly as trees in

winter, but when the musician has clothed them with music and the singer

added to them a touch of his own personality they are fair as trees in

summer. Still the fact remains that none of these songs will live on

their own merits. They are not born to immortality. Like the daisies

they have their day and pass away to make room for others. It is best

so. There is not room in the world for everything to be immortal, and

the transient has a work of its own to do. The charm and rare beauty of

the English countryside are due to the transience of its flowers and

foliage and little of the evergreen is enough. We tire of the eternal.

The transient songs I have quoted here have been meat and drink to our

soldiers in the most terrible war ever waged. They may be poor stuff in

comparison with our classic songs but a good appetite can get

nourishment out of plain food and grow strong on it. For the purpose in

hand these songs have been better than the classics; otherwise they

would not have been chosen. There is a time and place for all things.

The robin may not be compared with the nightingale but it is not the

less welcome, for it sings when the nightingale is silent. Our

soldiers' songs will die, some are already dead, but they have done

their work and justified their existence. They have given pleasure and

strength to men as they went out to do immortal deeds. No wounded

soldier, or parched traveler, thinks lightly of a cup of water because

it perished in the using; and so it is with the songs our soldiers sing.

*VI*

*EASTER SUNDAY*

Night and day for a week, the fearful bombardment continued. Our guns

were everywhere, and belching forth without intermission. Dumps of

shells were almost as common as sheaves in a corn-field, and processions

of ammunition-wagons piled the shells up faster than the gorging guns

could take them. The noise was something beyond imagination. It was as

though all the devils in hell had come out to demoniacally celebrate the

end of the world. We were living--two transport officers and I--in an

empty farm-house that, some time before we came in, had been a target

for direct hits. One shell had gone through the roof, and another

through the gable wall. The windows had been shattered, and the garden

and fields were pitted with shell-holes. Our first care had been to

look at the cellar, but we had decided, if things became too hot, to

make for the open fields. We all slept in the same room, and were at

times wakened up by "an arrival" and passed an opinion as to its

distance. If, for a time, none came nearer, we turned over and went to

sleep again, for a man must sleep even though it be on the edge of a

volcano.

One morning the servants found a shell nose-cap beneath the window--just

that, and nothing more. The week was wearing on. Another morning some

of the 7th Middlesex Regiment were in the baths in the village over the

way, and a company of the London Scottish was passing by. Two shells

fell in the road. The bathers scampered out of the bath and ran naked,

here and there, for shelter; the Scottish "scattered"; but some

forty-five soldiers, mostly kilted, lay in the road dead or wounded. In

the dead of night a party of machine gunners, just returned from the

firing-trench, stood outside their billet in our village square debating

if they should make a cup of tea before turning in to sleep. A shell

decided the matter, and, next morning, I laid two of them to rest in the

little cemetery, and the others stood by as mourners.

The week of terror reached its crisis on the Sunday--an Easter Sunday

never to be forgotten. The infantry of the Brigade had been away to a

camp, beyond range, for a week's rest. They had now returned ready for

the battle. Three of the regiments had taken up their positions in the

reserve trenches, but my own regiment was quartered in the fatal

village. The day dawned bright and fair, but its smiles were the smiles

of a deceiver. The Germans had decided on the destruction of the

village, a sort of devil's "hail-and-farewell" before being driven back

at the points of bayonets. We were awakened by the firing of

machine-guns over our heads, and rushed to the door to see a fight in

the air. High up in the blue, two aeroplanes circled about for

positions of vantage, and then rushed at one another like hawks in

mortal combat. A silence followed. Then one rose and made off towards

the battle-line but fell to a shot of our gunners before it could reach

safety. The other, with its petrol-tank on fire, was planing down to

earth. Down and down an invisible spiral staircase it seemed to rush,

while the golden fire burnt at its vitals, and a trailing cloud of smoke

marked its path of doom. Breathlessly we watched its descent. It was

under perfect control, but its path to the ground was too long and

spiral, and the faster it rushed through the air the greater the draught

became and the more madly the flames leapt up. Every second was precious

and the certainty of its doom made us sick. We saw the body of the

observer fall out, and still the flaming machine pursued its course.

Then the wings fell away and twirled to the ground like feathers, while

the engine and the pilot dropped like a stone. When the bodies were

picked up, it was found that the observer had been shot through the

head, and that the pilot, with his dead comrade behind him, had worked

the wheel until the furious encroaching flame had swept over him, and

robbed him of mortal life.

Shells were now dropping in the village every few minutes. Our

farm-house was on the right wing, and we stood watching the bombardment.

With each burst there rose a cloud of black smoke and red brick-dust,

and we knew that another cottage has been destroyed. Then the shells

began to creep round to the right as if the enemy was feeling for the

bridge over which the ammunition wagons were passing. On one side of

the little bridge was a white bell-tent, and we watched the shells

dropping within a few feet of it without destroying it. Between the

tent and our street lay a stagnant pool, and we saw about a dozen shells

fall in its water. The range was lengthening and it seemed as if some

invisible octopus were stretching out its feelers towards us. A shell

smashed against the farm-house at the bottom of our street. The deadly

thing was coming nearer. Some of our sergeants were in a farm-house a

few doors away, and, hearing a shell fall in the field between them and

the pool, they came to the decision that the moment had come "to

scatter," but they were too late. It would have been better had they

stayed indoors. As they rushed out a shell burst over the yard three of

them fell to the ground dead, and three more were blown back into the

house by the force of the explosion. The coping stone of the outhouse

where the shell burst was blown away and three ragged seams were scored

on the green doorway of the yard outside which the three lads lay dead.

One of them had, ten days before, shown me to my billet thirty yards

farther up. He acted as interpreter to the regiment and as he had not

to go into the line, we thought that he was one of those who would see

the end of the war. Yet there he lay.

But the worst calamity of the day was yet to befall. Some fifteen or

sixteen ammunition wagons, unable to get through the village, had halted

in the Square--"Wipers Square" it had been named. Each wagon was loaded

with nine-point-two shells. An enemy-shot fell on a wagon and set it on

fire; then the village became like unto Sodom and Gomorrah on their day

of doom. One or two drivers bravely stuck to their wagons, and got them

out but the rest of the wagons were lost. The scene that followed was

indescribable. Dore could never have pictured such horrors. The wagons

all caught fire and their loads of shells began to explode. We stood

out in the fields and watched the conflagration, while all the time the

Germans continued to shell the village. The large village-hall and the

houses on each side of the square were utterly destroyed. Great

explosions sent fragments of wagons and houses sky-high, and showers of

missiles fell even where we stood. The fore part of one wagon was blown

on to the roof of a house. Houses caught fire and blazed all afternoon.

Some machine-gunners joined us and told how, when choking smoke began to

penetrate into their cellar they had to rush through the square and its

bursting shells to preserve their lives. A German shell burst in a

billet where a platoon of our men were sheltering in the cellar, and

those who were not killed by the shell were crushed to death by the fall

of the house. Another shell hit the roof of the house in the cellar of

which was our Advanced Dressing Station for the morrow's battle. Two

orderlies who happened to be in the street were killed, and the colonel

was knocked down. In the cellars of almost every house were soldiers or

civilians, and all day the ammunition wagons continued burning; shell

after shell getting red hot and exploding.

All day the German bombardment continued and, amid a terrific din, our

own gunners returned a score or more for every one received. By the

bridge another long line of loaded ammunition wagons stood for two

hours, and though shells were bursting close by, not one hit the wagons.

The drivers stood by them and, as soon as the road was cleared, got them

away to the guns. Yet, while the Square was burning and the German

shells falling, hundreds of men from the London regiments entered the

village from the right, and crossed the bridge to stack their packs so

as to be ready for the coming battle. They walked in single file and

with wide gaps between, but not a man ran or quickened his pace. My

blood tingled with pride at their courage and anger at their

carelessness. What _would_ make a British soldier run? An officer was

walking near the pool. A shell fell near enough for fragments to kill

him, but he merely looked round, stopped to light a cigarette and walked

leisurely on as if nothing had happened. Three men stood with their

backs against a small building near the bridge as if sheltering from the

rain. Several shells fell uncomfortably near, so, concluding that the

rain had changed its direction, they moved round the corner. And it was

not till more shells had fallen near them that they condescended to move

away altogether.

Yet this was not bravado for, so far as they knew, no one was watching

them. It was due to a certain dignity peculiar to our fighting man. He

is too proud to acknowledge defeat. He is a man, and whether any one is

watching or not, he is not going to run away from a shell. Hundreds of

lives must have been lost through this stubborn pride but, on the other

hand, thousands of lives must have been saved by it, for it makes the

Army absolutely proof against panic, than which, nothing is so fatal in

war. In eighteen months on the Front I have never seen or heard of a

single case of panic either with many or few. Our soldiers are always

masters of themselves. They have the coolness to judge what is the

wisest thing to do in the circumstances, and they have the nerve to

carry it out. They run unnecessary risks through pride but never

through panic. All that day on the bridge, a military policeman stood at

his post of duty. Like Vesuvius of old the exploding shells in the

Square sent up their deadly eruption, and like the Roman sentry at

Pompeii, he stood at his post. As he stood there I saw a young French

woman leave her house and pass him on the bridge. She was leaving the

village for a safer place but she seemed quite composed and carried a

basket on her left arm.

While our village was being destroyed we were startled by a tremendous

explosion a few miles away; and looking to our left we saw a huge tongue

of flame leap up to the sky, followed by a wonderful pillar of smoke

which stood rigid for some moments like a monster tower of Babel

reaching up to the heavens. Evidently a dump of cordite had been fired

by an enemy shell. Farther off still, another dump was on fire. Time

and again, bright flames leapt from the ground only to be smothered

again by dense curling masses of smoke. It seemed as if our whole front

was on fire, and news came to us that our main road of communication had

been heavily shelled, and was now strewn with dead horses and men.

Before the battle of the Somme there were no signs and portents so

terrible as these: It was evident that the enemy knew what was in store

for him on the morrow, and was preparing against it, but if the prelude

was so magnificent in its terror, what would the battle be? Imagination

staggered under the contemplation. By four o'clock the bombardment was

almost at an end, and nearly all the shells in the Square had exploded.

The soldiers began to creep out of the cellars. On passing through the

Square we were amazed at the sight. In fact the Transport Officer

passed through at my side without recognizing the place. At the

entrance was a team of six dead mules lying prone on the ground and

terribly torn. Two rows of houses had disappeared, leaving mere heaps

of stones in their places. The pavement was torn up, and the wrecks of

the ammunition wagons lay scattered about. Two houses were still

burning. Our colonel and adjutant we found by the side of the stream.

They had been in a cellar near the Square all day but, fortunately, they

were little the worse for the experience. They were giving orders for

the assembling of the scattered regiment.

By this time, civilians were leaving the cellars, and with armfuls of

household goods hastening from the village. To them it seemed the end

of all things--the day of doom. Some of them had slight wounds and as

they passed us they cried mournfully, "Finis, Messieurs, Finis." All

was lost. This exodus of the despairing civilians was the saddest sight

of the day. By sunset the regiment had been gathered together--all

except the wounded who had been sent to the Main Dressing Station and

the dead who had been placed side by side and covered with blankets.

Most of our officers and men had lost all their belongings, but in the

twilight they marched out of the village and took their places in the

reserve trenches near the other battalions. These had suffered no

losses. They had been saved the long day's agony. Early in the morning

the battle was to begin but the Westminsters knew that no worse

experience could await them than that through which they had already

passed.

Next morning I buried, near the ruined church, the bodies of the

sergeants who had been killed a few doors from us; and on the following

day I laid to rest, side by side, in one long grave, two drivers who had

died at their posts in the Square, together with an officer and twenty

men belonging to the 1st Queen's Westminster Rifles.

*VII*

*"NOW THE DAY IS OVER"*

Achicourt is a little village about a mile out of Arras. It has two

churches, one Roman Catholic, the other, Lutheran. The former church

has been utterly destroyed by German shells, and will have to be rebuilt

from the foundations. The Lutheran church was less prominently placed,

and its four walls are still standing. Its humility has saved it, but,

as by fire. All its windows are gone, and its walls are torn and

scarred by fragments of shells. Most of its slates have been destroyed

and the rain pours through the roof. But, on dry days, and until the

Battle of Arras, it was a beloved little place for services. It stood,

however, at a corner of the village Square, and the Square was destroyed

by hundreds of exploding shells on Easter Sunday. As I passed it in the

afternoon of that day, and saw how it had suffered, my heart grew sad

within me.

Often it had sheltered us at worship, and many of our most sacred

memories will, for ever, cling like ivy to its walls. The door was

smashed in, the vestibule torn into strips as by lightning. The pews

were strewn on the floor with their backs broken; even the frames of the

windows had been blown out. There was a little portable organ that we

had used with our hymns, and it lay mutilated on the floor like a

slaughtered child. The floor was white with plaster, as when a sharp

frost has brought low the cherry blossom. Never again, I thought,

should I gather my men for worship within its humble, hospitable walls.

One more of the beautiful and sacred things of life had perished in this

all-devouring war. Only the fields remained, and there all my future

services must be held.

But "fears may be liars" and so mine proved. I had reckoned without the

man in khaki--that master of fate whose head "beneath the bludgeonings

of chance, is bloody but unbowed." In a week he had cleared the Square

of its dead--mules and men--filled in its craters, and cleared away the

debris that blocked the roads. He was even removing the fallen houses

in order to mend the roads with their bricks and stones; and he had

thrown together all the scraps of iron for salvage. There I found, lying

side by side, the burned tin-soldiers of the children; officers'

revolvers which, being loaded, had exploded in the heat; bayonets and

rifle-barrels of the men; broken sewing machines of the women. He had

taken in hand, too, the little church. Sacking was spread across the

windows; the remnants of the little organ were carefully placed under

the pulpit where they lay like the body of a saint beneath an altar; the

floor was swept of its fallen plaster. The pews were repaired and

placed in order again, and a new door was made. Even timber was brought

for a new vestibule. The wood was rough and unpainted--Tommy had to use

what he could get--but it served. The twisted railings were drawn away

from the entrance, and, on the following Sunday, we were back in our old

sanctuary. We felt that it was more sacred than ever. These are the

deeds of our fighting-man that make us love him so much, and these are

the acts of kindness and common sense that make us admire our

commanders. Both officers and men have the heart of a lion in the hour

of battle, the gentleness of a lamb when it is over. Whatever their

circumstances, they cannot cease to be gentlemen, nor forget the fathers

that begat them.

Let him who doubts the future of England come hither. He will see the

past through the present, and the future through both. Tommy's eyes are

the crystal gazing-glasses in which he will discern the future. Tommy

is living history and the prophecy of the future made flesh. The

pessimists have not seen Tommy here, and that is why they are what they

are. "Age cannot wither nor custom stale" his infinite freshness and

resource. He is a sword that the rust of time cannot corrode, nor the

might of an enemy break, and he will be found flashing wherever there

are wrongs to right and weak to be defended. On Easter Sunday he was

calmly enduring the horror of the German bombardment and the explosions

of his own dump of shells. On Easter Monday he was driving the Germans

at the point of his bayonet, or accepting their surrender at the doors

of their dug-outs! On Easter Tuesday and Wednesday he was repairing a

little French chapel for worship. Take him which day you will, and you

will find him mighty hard to match. To me he is the king of men, and

his genius, cheerfulness and resourcefulness beyond the range of

explanations.

After some weeks of fighting we had come to our last Sunday in

Achicourt, and were gathered for the evening service. The chapel was

jammed with officers and men, but not all my flock was there. There was

Rifleman Gibson absent. He was carrying his beloved Lewis gun in an

attack when a bullet struck him, and he died, as his comrades report,

with a smile upon his face. Before going into the battle he had given

me his father's address and thanked me for the spiritual help he had

received at the services. It was his farewell to me, and his father now

has the penciled words. And Rifleman Stone was absent, too. He was but

a boy, and beautiful with youth and goodness. His comrades loved him as

David loved Jonathan, with a love passing the love of women. Every day,

they told me in their grief, he knelt in the trench to say his prayers

and to read his Bible. One night after praying he laid him down and

slept. He had often sung the evening hymn:

"Jesus protects; my fears, be gone!

What can the Rock of Ages move?

Safe in Thy arm I lay me down,

Thy everlasting arms of love.

"While Thou art intimately nigh,

Who, then, shall violate my rest?

Sin, earth, and hell I now defy;

I lean upon my Saviour's breast.

"Me for Thine own Thou lov'st to take,

In time and in eternity,

Thou never, never wilt forsake

A helpless soul that trusts in Thee."

And as he slept, God took him from the misery of this world--took him

without waking him. His broken-hearted comrades gathered together his

broken body, and a friend, a Congregational preacher, who, though over

military age, was serving in the ranks, read the burial service over

him. Lance-corporal Gilbert James was missing, too--he whom I had known

to lose his breakfast to attend a service in a cold, dirty, old barn.

And many others were absent whose departure to the Land beyond our

mortal reach was to us like the putting out of stars.

We were leaving the Arras front and we sang a hymn for those who had

taken our places:

"O Lord of Hosts, Whose mighty arm

In safety keeps 'mid war's alarm,

Protect our comrades at the Front

Who bear of war the bitter brunt.

And in the hour of danger spread

Thy sheltering wings above each head,

"In battle's harsh and dreadful hour,

Make bare Thine arm of sovereign power,

And fight for them who fight for Thee,

And give to justice, victory.

O in the hour of danger spread

Thy sheltering wings above each head.

"If by the way they wounded lie,

O listen to their plaintive cry;

And rest them on Thy loving breast,

O Thou on Whom the cross was pressed;

And in the hour of danger shed

Thy glorious radiance o'er each head.

"When pestilence at noonday wastes,

And death in triumph onward hastes,

O Saviour Christ, remember Nain,

And give us our beloved again.

In every ward of sickness tread,

And lay Thy hand upon each head.

"O Friend and Comforter divine,

Who makest light at midnight shine,

Give consolation to the sad

Who in the days of peace were glad.

And in the hour of sorrow spread

Thy wings above each drooping head.

Amen."

I had to find a new voice to start it, for our little organ had been

destroyed by a shell, and our precentor was lying in a grave beside his

Medical Aid Post at Guemappe. When, on Good Friday, we had sung the

hymn before, the regiment returned from rest billets to the line, he had

started the tune. His love for music was second only to that of risking

his life for the wounded. In one of his letters given me to censor, he

had written, "How nice it will be to be back in my old place in the

choir." But he was destined not to go back. His path was onward and

upward, and his place was in the heavenly choir. I had seen it in his

large, tender blue eyes. There was in them an expression as if he had

seen "the land that is very far off." I felt that he was chosen as a

sacrifice--that the seal of God was on his forehead.

Still, we had to sing, though his voice was silent. So we sang--several

tunes, for hymns seemed all our spirits needed. What need was there for

a sermon when we had hymns? We left the rag-time type of hymn and sang

the real deep things that come from men's hearts, and ever after are

taken up by their fellows to express their deepest aspirations and

experiences. The ruined chapel vibrated with music, and men, I am told,

stood in the street to listen while "Jesus, Lover of my Soul," "Rock of

Ages," "When I Survey the Wondrous Cross" and "The Sands of Time are

Sinking" told of the faith and love that lift up the heart. We also

sang "Abide with Me." After hearing us sing it one night, a Roman

Catholic officer in the regiment, a Canadian and one of the bravest,

most beloved men that ever walked, told me that he was a great-grandson

of the author. He is in hospital now with severe wounds, but his men

were present.

"Couldn't we take up a collection for the repair of the chapel when

peace comes?" whispered a rifleman; "it would be a sort of thanksgiving

for the good times we have had in it, and for the kindness of the

congregation in giving us the use of it so freely."

I put the suggestion to the men and they voted for it with enthusiasm.

Two of them went round with their caps and out of their shallow purses

the big-hearted fellows gave over 100 francs. In the name of the men I

presented the full caps to a lady of the congregation who was present,

and she was moved to tears. The time was quickly passing, so I mounted

the pulpit and told them of words spoken after the earth's first great

trouble, when the black wings of death had cast their shadow over every

home: "And God said, I do set my bow in the cloud, and it shall be for a

token of a covenant between me and the earth. And it shall come to

pass, when I bring a cloud over the earth, that the bow shall be seen in

the cloud."

"God," I said, "has made a covenant with man, for man is His neighbor

and subject; and there must be an understanding between them, if there

is to be peace and happiness. Man must know God's will or he will

grieve Him and there will be discord and pain. Also, man must know

God's intentions concerning him, and something of His ways, or else he

will live in fear and dread of the Almighty One in whose power he lies.

There were no books and parchment in the first days, so God took the sky

for His parchment, and dipping His fingers in the most lovely of colors,

wrote out His covenant with man. He spread it out between earth and

heaven so that man might look up and see it without obstruction, and so

that He Himself might look down on it and remember His agreement. 'The

bow,' He said, 'shall be in the cloud; and I will look upon it, that I

may remember the everlasting covenant.'"

"When you draw up a covenant with a neighbor, you look well at it and

then give it to your attorney, who puts it away in the darkness of the

safe. But it is taken out at intervals for fresh examination. And the

rainbow-covenant was put away behind the clouds, to be brought out again

from time to time to bring comfort and strength to man by its

appearance. The rainbow is only half seen by man. The lower half of its

circle is lost in the earth. It exists, but unseen. And the full

circle of God's beautiful covenant with man has never appeared to our

eyes. A full half is lost in the unapprehending darkness of man's mind.

The full purpose of God is not realized. His plans are too vast and

glorious for the intellect or imagination to span; but half the rainbow

is seen and it is enough. Seeing half we can take the rest on trust. In

the covenant we are assured that we shall never be given darkness

without light, winter without summer, seedtime without harvest, death

without birth, sorrow without joy, or a thick cloud without a rainbow.

He binds Himself not to give evil without good, or to bring tears

without laughter. "I do set My bow in the cloud; and it shall come to

pass when I bring a cloud over the earth, that the bow shall be seen in

the cloud."

"A rainbow is made up of rain and sunshine and life is woven of the same

stuff--tears and laughter. The most glorious sunshine is incapable of a

rainbow without the co-operation of the dark trailing clouds; and it is

impossible for the human character to reach its ripest maturity and

beauty on joy alone. Sorrow is as beneficent and necessary as joy.

There are untutored natives who dread the rainbow. They believe that it

is a serpent that rises out of the pools to devour men; and there are

unbelieving men in cultured lands who dread adversity no less. They do

not believe that _God_ 'brings the cloud.' The rainbow is their

refutation and it is written across the sky for all to see. On the

other hand, there are unbelieving men who see only the cloud and are

blind to the sunshine. To them life is one long tragedy. It is an

immense futility. They regard man as a mere cork in the sea, thrown

about by blind, deaf, unintelligible natural forces void of purpose;

active indeed but ungoverned. Human life to them is a black cloud

driven through immensity by the winds of unintelligent fate. It has no

meaning and its darkness is the deeper because they cannot call a halt

and disperse it into nothingness. Like Job's wife they would say 'Curse

God and die,' yet they cannot die. But Job, as he sits on the dunghill,

looks up at the rainbow and finds a truer philosophy. 'What?' says he,

'shall we receive good at the hand of God, and shall we not receive

evil?' Under the rainbow's arch there are fruitful fields and beautiful

gardens for where the rainbow hangs in air there is sunshine and there

is rain--the parents of fruitfulness. And to whom God gives in equal

measure joy and sorrow there is beauty and fruitfulness of heart and

life. His promise to 'every living creature' is that He will never send

the cloud without the sunshine and, what is not less gracious, He will

never send the sunshine without the cloud. When by day the Israelites

tramped the fiery desert He led them by a pillar of cloud, and they

marched in its shade; and in the blackness of night He threw in the sky

a pillar of sunshine; and they walked through the gloom in its light.

"In these terrible days of war when our hearts begin to fail us and dark

doubts cloud the mind, let us look at the Covenant God has made with us.

He has set it in rainbow colors across the sky, that 'he who runs may

read' and 'the wayfaring man though a fool may not err.' God has flung

his rainbow over the trench and the grave; over the Garden of

Gethsemane; over the Cross on Calvary. It is over the tomb in the

Arimathean's Garden; and over Olivet, as Christ ascends to heaven. We

are born under the rainbow, live under it, die under it. At the last we

shall find it over the throne of Judgment. Water and blood flowed from

Christ's side; and life and death, joy and pain, light and darkness,

summer and winter, peace and war come forth from God.

"Let us take life as it comes with obedient wills and grateful hearts.

The bee finds honey in the thistle as well as in the rose, and 'where

the bee sucks there suck I,' for He who guides the bee guides me. Only

in loving obedience to God shall we find true wisdom. It is not so much

what we are given as how we take it that matters. To be humble nothing

may be so sweet as sorrow; and to the proud nothing may be so bitter as

pleasure. Let us leave God to mix the ingredients of our life, for 'all

things work together for good to them that love God.' It is all in the

covenant written by God's fingers in the colors of the rainbow, and

whenever He brings it from beyond the clouds, let us look at it with

reverent eyes, and ponder its promise. Then shall we be able to say,

with Wordsworth,

'My heart leaps up when I behold

A rainbow in the sky.'"

After I had finished speaking we sang, at the request of one of the

sergeants, the hymn commencing

"The Day Thou gavest Lord is ended,

The darkness falls at Thy behest."

And beautiful indeed was the singing of it.

The Benediction followed. Just as I was ending it an impulse came to

me, and I yielded to its importunity. "Before we part and before we

leave Achicourt which has meant so much to us of joy and sorrow," I

said, "let us sing a kiddies' hymn. We still shelter in our hearts a

little child. Though we have grown moustaches and some of us gray

hairs, the child that we once were, never quite dies. Let us have a

hymn for the boy within us who never grows up and never dies." Then I

read out verse by verse, for it was not in their books:

"Now the day is over,

Night is drawing nigh,

Shadows of the evening

Steal across the sky.

"Jesus, give the weary

Calm and sweet repose;

With Thy tenderest blessing

May their eyelids close.

"Grant to little children

Visions bright of Thee;

Guarding the sailors tossing

On the angry sea.

"Comfort every sufferer

Watching late in pain;

Those who plan some evil

From their sin restrain.

"When the morning wakens,

Then may I arise

Pure and fresh, and sinless

In Thy holy eyes."

I have witnessed many moving sights in my time and heard much deep and

thrilling music; but I have never been so deeply moved by anything as by

the rich, deep voices of these gallant men and boys who, after winning

the Battle of Arras, had come into this ruined church and were singing

this beautiful kiddies' hymn as their last farewell.

The collection the boys had taken up had been so heavy that we carried

it to the French lady's house for her. As we entered her home she said

in her simple way, as her eyes grew radiant with gratitude, "I like the

English soldiers." It was the voice of France. And she was worthy to

speak for France. For two-and-a-half years her house had stood within a

mile of the German trenches, and but a few hundred yards from our own

firing line. Yet she and her mother had never left it. She introduced

me to her mother, who had lived in London, and spoke English. Then she

brought in coffee. I had noticed a most remarkable thing about the

house. There was not a piece of glass broken, nor a mark of war on the

walls. It was the only house I have seen, either in Achicourt or Arras,

upon which the war has not laid its monstrous and bloody finger. "How

is it," I asked the mother, "that your house has not been touched?" Her

eyes shone and a sweet smile lit up her face. "It is the will of God,"

she said simply. "Shells have fallen a little short of us and a little

beyond us. They have passed within a yard of the house, and we have

heard the rushing of the wind as they passed, but they have not touched

us. When the village has been bombarded we have gone down into the

cellar as was but discretion and duty, but we have had the conviction

all along that we should be spared, and we refused to leave the house.

We do not know God's purpose but we believe that it is God's will to

spare us." I leave the fact to speak for itself and offer no

explanation. Skeptics will say the house was spared by accident; but

they would not have stayed there two-and-a-half years trusting to such

an accident. These two women, without a man in the house, stayed on the

very confines of hell with its hourly suspense and danger for nearly

three years, because they believed it was God's will and that, though

they walked through the fiery furnace heated seven times hotter than it

was wont to be heated, He would not allow so much as a hair of their

heads to be singed. And not a hair was singed. They were women in whom

faith burned like a bright pillar of fire. One caught its light, and

felt its heat. I have met patriots and heroes and know their quality

when I see them and come near them. These were "the real thing." Faith

in God and faith in their country were interwoven in their spirits like

sun and shower in a rainbow. They were of the same breed as the Maid of

France, and like her, with their white banner bearing the device of the

Cross, they withstood and defied the might and terror of the invader.

They believed it was God's will they should stay, to "Be still and know

that I am God." Their experience was expressed by the Psalmist

centuries ago: "God is our refuge and strength, a very present help in

trouble. Therefore will not we fear, though the earth be removed, and

though the mountains be carried into the midst of the sea. Though the

waters thereof roar and be troubled, though the mountains shake with the

swellings thereof ... Come behold the works of the Lord, what

desolations He hath made in the earth. He maketh wars to cease unto the

end of the earth; He breaketh the bow, and cutteth the spear in sunder;

He burneth the chariot in the fire.... The Lord of Hosts is with us; the

God of Jacob is our refuge."

Such was the faith of these two women, and their courage few men have

approached. It is a practical matter, and after comparing it with the

skeptic's theory of accident and coincidence and remembering his

probable haste in seeking a place not so liable to untoward accidents, I

accept the explanation of the women. Their house was spared and not a

hair of their heads injured because "it was God's will." If it is not

the correct theory, it ought to be. Otherwise falsehood is more

sustaining than truth, and inspires nobler conduct.

The day was now over. A new chapter of life had been written, and in

the morning, we left behind us this village of precious memories, and

marched out again into the unknown.

*VIII*

*SONS OF THE MOTHERLAND*

It is said that the eel is born in the deepest part of the ocean,

thousands of miles from any country, and that, urged by an overpowering

instinct it begins almost at once to rise towards the light and to head

for the land. After slowly swimming thousands of miles it reaches our

rivers, and pushes its way up to their sources, and even crawls through

the grass out of one stream into another. Here, if uncaught by man, it

lives for years gorging an appetite which only developed on reaching the

fresh water. Then, the overmastering instinct that brought it out,

takes it back. It returns through the illimitable waters until it finds

the place where it was born. There the female lays her eggs and there

male and female die. The eggs hatch, and the young do as their parents

did before them.

I do not think I could kill or eat an eel. I have too much reverence for

it now that I have learned its story. When in the fish market I see an

eel struggling, I feel that I want to take it and drop it into the sea

that it may go to its long home "far from the madding crowd's ignoble

strife." How passionate and wild must be its desire to get back to its

own ocean depths where it may perpetuate its kind and die in peace. Its

appetite is voracious, but then, what but the mightiest and most

elemental instincts and appetites could carry it through achievements so

sublime and tragic. Picture it on its lone way through the deep, urged

on by it knows not what. Scientists say that man has evolved from a

tiny form of life that passed through the fish stage. If so, it

explains a lot and I, for one, shall not be ashamed to acknowledge

relationship to a fish with a life story as sublime as that of the eel.

I know that Genesis speaks truly when it says that God made us out of

the dust of the earth and breathed into our souls the breath of His own

being thus animating dust with divinity. And if from the other inspired

book, the book of Nature, scientists can teach how God mixed the clay

when He fashioned man I will accept the teaching with gratitude, for it

will help me to understand things that are dark in me and in my fellows.

It will throw light on the wild longings, and instincts immature, that

baffle the mind, and come into the clear shallow streams of life like

eels out of the dark unfathomable depths of the ocean.

Since I went to France I have been amazed at the homing instinct as

revealed in the coming together of the sons of the British Motherland.

People at home do not quite realize what has happened. Britain's sons

have come back to her--have come back to die that their race may be

saved and perpetuated. The British are a roving race. A large number

of them yield to an overpowering desire to go out into the world. The

South Pole and the North Pole have known the tread of their feet. Their

ships have anchored in every creek of every sea. There is no town or

country however remote where their voices have not been heard. Even

Mecca could not keep the Briton out. He must look upon its Black Stone.

All lands call him to come, and see, and conquer. He colonizes and

absorbs but cannot be absorbed. He is a Briton still. A friend of mine

told me that when visiting Australia strangers who had never seen

England, except in and through their fathers, would come to him in

railway carriage or 'bus, and ask "How is everything at _Home_?" And

Dr. Fitchett, Australia's splendid author, confesses that when he first

saw the land of his fathers he knelt down and kissed its shore.

Loving the homeland with a passion stronger than death the Briton leaves

it, for he hears the call of the world borne on the winds and waves from

afar, and cannot refuse it. In foreign lands he lives and labors. He

roams their fields and swims in their streams, but always with an ear

listening for the voice of the Motherland; for he is hers, and at her

service if she calls.

The Declaration of War on Aug. 4, 1914, was the Mother's call to her

children. Swifter than lightning it passed through the waves and on the

wings of the wind. The settler left his lonely cabin, the gold-digger

his shovel, the prospector his surveying instruments, the rancher his

herds, the missionary his church, the teacher his school, the clerk his

office, and all made for the nearest port. Within a month there was not

a ship on the wide seas but was bearing loyal sons back to their

Motherland's defense. I have met, in France, British soldiers from

every country under heaven. I bent over a dying soldier near Arras who

was a clerk in Riga, Russia, when the call came. And one night on the

Somme a fine young fellow from Africa entered my tent, and slept by my

side. He was one of the most charming and handsome men I have ever met,

and had come from Durban. He had fought with Botha in Southwest Africa,

and at the conclusion of that campaign had shipped for home. Next day I

took him to Delville Wood for he wanted to see the place where his

brother had died. I found that he was of my own communion and we talked

about some of my college friends who had gone out to Natal. Two days

later, he died of wounds in a dressing station. Most of the transport

officers in our Division have come home from abroad, and have been given

their posts because they are accustomed to horses. One was prospecting

in Nigeria, another salmon-canning in Siberia, a third on a plantation

in South America.

In addition to Canadians, South Africans, Australians, and New

Zealanders, who have come by the hundred thousand at the call of the

Motherland, there are hundreds of thousands who have come singly, or in

small parties, from remote corners of the earth. For five weeks I was a

patient in a Canadian hospital in France. The entire staff was

Canadian. Some were Canadian born; others had gone out to that country

years ago. All were of British blood. The colonel was a magnificent

specimen of manhood from London, Ontario, in which city he had been

born. He would sit on the bed and tell us tales of the great snow-land.

Sometimes he would scold us for being so blind to the greatness of the

Empire and tell us what Canada thought of the Motherland. One of the

night orderlies would, on occasion, recite to us some poem such as "Jim

Bludso," before the lights went out. Then he would come to my locker

and take "Palgrave's Treasury of Songs and Lyrics" with which to regale

his soul during the long watches of the night. He was of the full

stature of men and straight as a pine. He had gone out from Ireland as

a boy, and settled on a cattle ranch in the United States. One day

there was trouble and one of the other cowboys sent a bullet clean

through his chest. The moment war was declared he left his roving herds

of cattle, crossed the frontier into Canada and traveled hundreds of

miles to Winnipeg to enlist. The doctor looked at him. "What is this

scar on your chest?" he asked. "Oh," replied the cowboy, "I fell off a

wagon and knocked the skin off." The doctor turned him round and put

his finger in the scar on his back where the bullet had passed out.

"And what is this scar at the back? Did you fall off another wagon?"

And the two men understood one another and laughed. The doctor could

not find it in his heart to send the cowboy back to his ranch, so he was

passed into the Canadian contingent.

One of the nurses we called "the Little Mother." She had gone to Canada

five years before, but the war had brought her back, and well was it for

us that it had. Among the patients was a doctor in the American A.M.C.

His ancestors had left England generations ago and settled in New

England, but he had come back at the call of war--a grandson of the

Motherland. Then there was a lieutenant of British stock who had been

born and brought up at Antwerp, but as the German guns were destroying

his native city he took ship to enlist in the British army. "Anzac"

was, as his nickname denotes, an Australian. He was in the Flying

Corps. He had heard the call at school and had come "home" to the land

of his fathers.

In one regiment I found a bunch of lads who had been born in China.

But, out there in Hong Kong, they heard the call of a Motherland they

had never seen, and came post haste to her help. Sitting near me as I

write, is an officer back from the Argentine, and already, on his arm,

is a gold wound-stripe. Another in the mess had been pearl-fishing in

Australia, but stored his boats to come and fight. Another at our table

was born in Australia. He was with Captain Falcon Scott on his last

expedition, and saw him go out to the South Pole and death. He has

already been wounded. When the war broke out its tumult seemed to wake

our fathers and we felt them stir in our blood; for ancestors are not

put into graves but are buried alive in their sons. We felt the call to

defend our race as our fathers did in their day. It was a master

instinct, and the millions of men who voluntarily left home and business

to fight show how deeply nationality is rooted in human nature.

Returning from a far land to die--if needs be--that their kind may live,

the scattered sons of our Motherland have come by all the seas to defend

her, in her hour of need.

"They came as the winds come

When forests are rended;

They came as the waves come

When navies are stranded."

*IX*

*THE TERROR BY NIGHT*

June was a flaming month on the high ground we had captured beyond

Arras. The Quartermaster and Transport Officer with whom I was messing

were both "on leave" so, as I was the only officer left in the camp, a

Baptist padre, whose regiment was near, came to live with me. I had a

little brown tent five feet wide and six feet long which a rifleman had

lent to me because the bell-tent I was expecting had not arrived. The

rifleman did not need his tent, for he and his chums had built

themselves a little dug-out. Next day the bell-tent arrived, and the

other padre took possession of it, while I held on to the little brown

shelter. Next to it was the kitchen where the servants slept and

cooked. It was a truly wonderful contrivance of wood, corrugated iron

and ground-sheets. The Baptist chaplain's tent was round, my shelter

oblong, but what shape the kitchen was, would pass the wit of man to

say. It was a shape never seen on earth before. It had no ancestor and

it could have no descendant. Such a design could not occur twice.

Beyond the kitchen were the horse-lines of the regiment and close by

them the regimental stores. It was so hot that we all wore our lightest

clothing; and when the servants got lemons from Arras, the lemonade they

made lasted about five minutes only, for what was left by us was quickly

drunk up by the servants with the assistance of those who like to

frequent such happy places as mess kitchens.

All our meals were served out of doors, under the blue sky. We had

guests most days, for officers coming out from the homeland stayed with

us for a night or a day before going up with the rations to join the

regiment in the trench. Other officers had come down to stay with us on

their way to a course at some military school; and one, at least, came

to wait for the day on which he was to take his "leave." We were,

therefore, a very merry party. It was almost like camping on the

Yorkshire moors, for we had an uninterrupted view of many miles. To

those who love vast stretches of wild barren country as I do, the scene

under the flaming June sun was exceedingly impressive. There were no

houses, streams, hedges, or trees, but the whole area was scored with

trenches cut into the white chalk, and showing clearly at great

distances. The ground, with but short spaces between, was covered with

encampments. These consisted of the stores and horse-lines of the

regiments and batteries in the line. The circle of the horizon was

bounded by the charred ruins of French villages--Beaurains, Neuville,

Vitasse, Wancourt, Monchy and Tilloy. We could see the flashing of our

own guns, and the black bursts of shells from those of the enemy.

All day the sky was thick with aeroplanes, and many were too high to be

seen except through strong field glasses. We watched a German aeroplane

circling over Arras and directing the fire of the long guns. Soon the

streets were strewn with dead and wounded, for the town was full of

troops. The firing only lasted a few minutes, however. One of our

aeroplanes quickly challenged the enemy to single combat; and we soon

saw the German machine falling from an immense height, wing over wing

and head over tail, utterly out of control.

Dinner, in the cool of the evening, was a most pleasant meal. As we

drank our coffee we watched the aeroplanes returning from the line like

birds to their nests. Sometimes we counted as many as twenty, all

heading for home at the same time. The sun set in red and golden

splendor, and we wondered what darkness would bring. On the night

before our arrival, the regiment which made way for us had one of its

storemen killed by a shell; and on most nights a few shells fell in some

part or other of the vast camp. One evening shells fell a little beyond

us and the transport-sergeant moved his horse-lines. After that, he

moved them every evening at dark, so that the ground where the enemy had

observed the horses in the day-time was left vacant when he opened fire

at night. It was a game of chess with horses and men for pawns, and

life and death for the stakes.

On the evening before, our guest--a young lieutenant--was to go on

leave, he got very uneasy. As gulls scent the approach of stormy

weather and come inland, or blackbirds and larks feel the approach of

winter and migrate to summer lands, so men can sometimes scent danger

and coming death. He had with him a bottle of whisky, and he kept it on

the table outside my tent--a safe place for it.

"I don't mind telling you, Padre," he said, as he poured out a glass,

"I've got the 'wind-up' badly to-night. I don't like the feel of

things. I would rather be in the trenches than here, because I know

what is likely to happen there, but here in the open I feel strange and

unprotected. I shall be glad when it is morning."

His feeling was quite natural. We always feel another man's dangers

more than our own because they are new to us and we don't know what to

expect or how to meet them. A man will choose a big danger that he is

used to, sooner than a lesser danger that is new to him. Besides, the

lieutenant had his "leave-warrant" in his breast pocket and that will

sap any man's courage. He has a feeling that the shells are after his

"leave-warrant" and that the gunners know where it is. He suspects that

fate is malignant and takes a special delight in killing a man when he

is on the way to "Blighty." Many a man has been killed with a

"leave-warrant" in his pocket, or "commission papers" in it which were

taking him home.

Our doctor told me how one night he and the chaplain who preceded me

were riding on the front of an ambulance car when a shell burst and with

a fragment killed the chaplain. In the padre's pocket was his warrant,

and he was taking his last ride before going home; but instead of going

home in "Blighty" he went to his _long_ home, and the warrant lies in

the grave with him. A man feels particularly vulnerable when the

long-looked-for "leave-warrant" is in his pocket. He does not fear

death after "leave," but he does on the eve of "leave." He wants one

more look at his home and loved ones before going on the long and lone

journey which, despite all the comfort which the Christian religion

gives, still retains much of its terror to the human spirit. There have

been few better Christians than Samuel Johnson and John Bunyan, but

neither of them could contemplate fording the river of death without

misgivings. When they came to it they found it much less formidable

than they had expected. Had they been at the Front with

"leave-warrants" in their pockets to "Fleet Street, London," or "Elstow,

Bedford," I fancy neither of them would have taken undue risks.

I could sympathize with the young lieutenant for, a few months before, a

"leave-warrant" had made a bit of a coward of myself. I was in two

minds whether or not to go up to the firing line to see the men again

before shipping for home. The "leave-warrant" was in my pocket, and I

was to go next morning; but the doctor's story of my predecessor came to

my mind, and the "leave-warrant" spread itself out before the eyes of my

imagination. I saw the faces of my wife, and mother, and dog, and the

faces of my friends. The old home and the green fields stretched out

before me; and I decided to see them first and the "boys" after. I had

just been with my men, but it was a long time since I had been with

those at home. If there was a shell with my name and address on it, I

thought I would make the Hun wait till I had been home, before I let him

deliver it into my hands. I think a "leave-warrant" would make a coward

of any man. At any rate, the feeling is quite understood and recognized

by everyone at the Front; and this young officer had been sent down from

the trenches to us, three days before his train was due to start, so

that he might have a better chance of using his "warrant," and at the

same time, feel more at ease in mind.

I undressed and got into bed, and lay reading by the light of a candle

when the lieutenant came to the tent door again. "It's no use, Padre,"

he said, "I can't go to bed yet. I feel too uneasy. I wish I were on

the train." He went back to the bell-tent he was sharing with the other

chaplain, and I put out my light.

There was the silence of a summer evening broken only by the distant

bursting of shells. Then, suddenly, there was a crash about seventy

yards from our tents, and two more near the horse-lines. "To run or not

run?" that was the question; and my answer was in the negative. If I

ran, it was just as likely that I should run into a shell, as out of the

way of one. On Easter Sunday I had seen three of our non-commissioned

officers killed in that way. Besides, I like my bed, once I have taken

the trouble to get into it. I therefore put on my steel helmet which I

had placed by the bed-side, and waited to see what would happen. (A

steel helmet is a wonderful comfort when men are under fire. We may not

have much in our heads but we feel more anxious about them than about

all the rest of the body. The helmets are heavy and uncomfortable and

we don't like wearing them, but, nevertheless, may blessings ever rest

on the head of the man who invented them. I have seen scores of lives

saved by them, and they have given infinite comfort and assurance in

trying moments.)

A long silence elapsed, then the lieutenant appeared at the door of the

tent again.

"You haven't been here all the time, have you?" he asked. "We went down

to the old trenches at the bottom of the camp; but it is rather cold and

wearisome there, and I think the worst is over now. I'm just going to

take another sip of the 'Scotch wine' and then turn in for the night;

but I'm not going to undress."

Ten minutes later there was a tremendous crash as if a star had fallen

on top of us. There came a blinding flash of light, a strong smell of

powder, and a spluttering of bullets on the ground. That was enough to

get the laziest man living out of bed, and to answer the question, "to

run or not to run?" in the affirmative. I slipped on my boots without

fastening them, put on my trench coat and bade my little tent a fond

farewell. There were some old German gun-pits close by, and I sought

refuge there. "Come in here, sir," cried a voice, and I found myself by

the side of a sergeant. Then the cook ran in bare-foot and laughing.

No one seemed to have been hit, and all had now sought shelter. We

waited for some time and nothing further happened. The night was cold

and I began to shiver in my pajamas. So I started to look about for a

place to sleep in, for a feeling of estrangement had grown up between me

and the little brown tent. There was a path across a shallow bit of

trench, and underneath it I found the barber, lying comfortably on his

bed. He invited me in, and said that I could have the bed, and he would

sleep at the side of it on his ground-sheet. He could, he said, sleep

as soundly on the ground as on the bed of stretched sacking. I therefore

returned to my tent to get blankets. The time-fuse of a shell had gone

through the kitchen and rebounded from a beam on to my servant, but

without doing him any injury and he proposed sleeping there for the

night. He only agreed to move to some safer place, when I ordered him

to do so. There was no one in the bell-tent so I knew the occupants

were quite safe somewhere. On striking a light to get my blankets, I

noticed three small holes in the top of the tent, and knew that shrapnel

bullets had missed me only by inches. It had been a close shave and it

was not inappropriate that I was now going to be the guest of a barber.

The psychological effect was not one I should have expected. The

incident caused no shell-shock, and but little immediate excitement; so

I was soon asleep. All the others were in a like case. The excitement

came with the morning when we examined the tents and the ground. In the

bell-tent there were ten shrapnel bullet holes. One had gone through

the piece of wood on which the officers' clothing had been hung, and

must have passed immediately over the body of the Baptist chaplain as he

lay in bed. Others must have passed equally near the lieutenant who was

not in bed, but, standing up at the time, fully dressed. In my own

little tent I found eleven holes and they were in all parts of the

canvas. Some of the bullets must have gone in at one side and out at

the other, for only five were found embedded in the hard, chalky ground.

A sixth had passed through the box at the bed-head and entered deeply

into the book I had been reading. Outside the kitchen, the servants

picked up a lump of shell a foot long and three or four inches wide.

Well was it for them that the fragment fell outside the kitchen and not

inside. The ground around the tents was sprinkled with shrapnel bullets

and bits of shell. The shells which fell near the horses had burst on

touching the ground, and not like ours, in the air. They had dug deep

holes in the earth, and as the horses were within a few yards of them,

it seemed miraculous that none was hurt. The transport had just

returned from taking up the rations, and, as one of the drivers leapt

off his horse, a bullet hit the saddle where his leg had been a second

before. Not a man or horse received a scratch, although the shells had

made a direct hit on our camp. On other occasions one shell has laid out

scores of men and horses.

They say that sailors don't like padres on board ship, because they

think the latter bring them bad luck. And most people are a little

afraid of the figure thirteen, but though it was the thirteenth of June

and there were two padres in the tents, we had the best of what is

called "luck." So I think we may say it was one up for the padres.

After breakfast we gathered together some of the fragments lying around

the tents, and found the nose-cap of a shell which had burst seventy

yards away. With these, and the time-fuse which hit my servant, the

other chaplain and I went to a battery and asked the officers to tell us

something about the gun, just as one might take a bone of some extinct

creature to a scientist, and ask him to draw an outline of the whole

animal. They told us that the gun was a long-range, high-velocity,

naval gun with a possible range of fifteen miles. They knew where it

was, but could not hit it. The shot was a large high-explosive,

shrapnel shell, and the time-fuse indicated that it had come to us from

about eleven miles away.

On our return we built ourselves dug-outs for the nights, and only lived

in the tents by day. Sometimes we were shelled in the day-time, but by

taking cover took no hurt, though a lad in the transport next to us was

seriously wounded. When they were shelling us by day, we could

distinctly hear the report of the gun, a second or two later, see the

shell burst in the air; and a second later still, we could hear it. We

saw the burst before we heard it.

I have given this personal incident not, I hope, out of any impulse of

egotism, but because it furnishes those who have not been at the Front

with an idea of the terror which assails our men by night, both in the

trenches and in the "back areas." There can be but few who, having been

any length of time at the Front, have not had similar experiences and

equally narrow escapes. They are so common that men get used to them

and do not take nearly enough care to protect themselves. Loss by such

stray shells is expected, and the soldiers regard it much as a tradesman

regards the deterioration of his stock. One gets used to the frequent

occurrence of death as he does to anything else. At home there are

thousands of preventable deaths--deaths through street accidents,

diseases and underfeeding. The number could be enormously reduced if

the nation would rouse itself. And human nature is much the same at the

Front. Men prefer ease and comfort to safety. Also, men grow

fatalistic. They have seen men sought out by shells after they have

taken every precaution to escape them; and they have seen others go

untouched when they seemed to be inviting shells to destroy them. Men

are conscious of a Power that is not themselves directing their lives.

They feel that in life which the Greek tragedians called Fate. They do

not know quite what to call it. Most of them would call it Providence

if they spoke frankly and gave it a name at all. One of the finest

Christian officers I know told me that he believed that God's finger had

already written what his fate should be. If he had to die nothing could

save him, and if he had to live, nothing could kill him. All he was

concerned with was to be able to do his duty, and take whatever God sent

him. This, he said, was the only suitable working philosophy for a man

at the Front.

There is a widespread fatalism at the Front, but it is the fatalism of

Christ rather than of old Omar Khayyam: "Take no thought for your life

... for your heavenly Father knoweth that ye have need of all these

things, but seek ye first the kingdom of God, and his righteousness.

Take therefore no thought for the morrow; for the morrow shall take

thought for the things of itself. Sufficient unto the day is the evil

thereof." And this works. It enables men to "put a cheerful courage

on" and do their duty. There is none of the paralysis of will and

cessation of effort which follows the fatalistic philosophy of the East.

All that Omar Khayyam's fatalism leaves a man to strive after is "Red,

Red Wine," in which he drowns memory, honor and reputation and

character. When he has passed from among his peers, there is nothing

left to remember him by but a "turned-down empty glass." The Christian

fatalism at the Front destroys no man's initiative, but keeps him merry

and bright, and helps him to "do his bit." When he shall pass from the

banqueting-house of life, into the Great Unexplored, he will leave as

his memorial, not a turned-down glass, but a world redeemed from tyranny

and wrong.

*X*

*"ETON BOYS NEVER DUCK!"*

An army is more courageous than the individuals who compose it. The

coward finds sufficient courage for his job while doing it with his

regiment, and the brave is at his bravest. He has a courage which is

not his own but which, somehow, he puts on with his uniform. He does

deeds of daring he could not have done as a civilian. The army has a

corporate courage and each soldier receives a portion of it just as he

receives a ration of the army's food. It is added to what he has of his

own.

The badge of the army is courage. When a recruit joins the army he

knows that he is putting away the civilian standard of courage with his

derby hat, and is putting on the soldier's standard of courage with his

uniform. His great fear is that he will not be able to live up to it.

He wonders if he is made of the stuff that produces heroes. He is a

mystery to himself and has a haunting fear that there may be a strain of

the coward in his make-up. He wishes it were possible to have a

rehearsal for he would rather die than fail on the appointed day.

The chaplain fears that he will faint and become a hindrance instead of

a help when he first sees blood and torn limbs in the dressing station;

and the recruit is afraid of being afraid in the hour of battle and of

bringing dishonor and weakness upon his regiment. He will be glad when

the trial is over--when he knows the stuff of which nature has made him.

A friend of mine told me one day that he was walking over a heavily

shelled field with a young aristocrat of a highly strung temperament.

The man was afraid, but would not yield to his fear. His lips twitched

and his face became drawn and white. His movements were jerky but he

made no other sign. He talked about paltry things in which, at the

moment, he had not the slightest interest, and passed jocular or

sardonic remarks about the things that were happening around them. My

friend ducked his head when a shell burst near as we all have done often

enough, but the young aristocrat kept his head as high and stiff as if

he were being crowned. He held it up defiantly; was it not filled with

the bluest blood of England? The shells might blow it off if they

liked. That was their concern, not his, but they should never make him

bow. His fathers had fought on British battlefields for centuries, and

had never bowed their heads to a foe, and he would not break the great

tradition. Shells might break his neck but they should never bend it.

He would face the enemy with as stiff an upper-lip and as stiff a neck

as ever his fathers did. He knew his personal weakness and reinforced

his strength with that of his fathers'. He was not afraid of death. He

was afraid of being afraid.

My friend was a coachman's son who by courage and capacity of the

highest order had won a commission. He had no traditions either to

haunt or help him, and he had often been tried in the fire and knew his

strength. He was not afraid of being afraid. It was natural to duck

when a shell burst near and it did him no harm and made no difference to

the performance of his duties; so he ducked as he felt inclined, and

then laughed at his nerves for the tricks they were allowing the shells

to play on them. But, knowing his companion's more sensitive nature and

temperamental weakness, he was immensely impressed by his stiff neck and

proudly erect head. He showed a self-control which only centuries of

breeding could give. Here was a hero indeed. The shells he was defying

were as nothing to the fears which haunted his imaginative nature and

which, with his back to the wall of his family traditions, he was

fighting and keeping at bay. My friend could not refrain from

complimenting him on resisting the natural tendency to duck the head

when a shell screamed above them.

"Eton boys never duck," replied the young aristocrat.

He was an Eton boy and would die rather than fall short of the Eton

standard. In this war hundreds of them have died rather than save

themselves by something which did not measure up to the Eton standard.

The ranks of young British aristocrats have been terribly thinned in

this war and I have heard their deeds spoken of with a reverence such as

is only given to legendary heroes. They have gone sauntering over the

crater-fields to their deaths with the same self-mastery and outward

calm which the French aristocracy manifested as they mounted the steps

of the guillotine in the Reign of Terror. To their own personal courage

was added the courage of their race, and the accumulation of the

centuries.

We speak of our new armies. There can be no "new" armies of Britons.

The tradition of our newest army goes back to Boadicea. Its forerunners,

without shields or armor, and almost without weapons, dared the

Romans--the proud conquerors of the world--to battle; and gave them the

longest odds warriors ever gave. They knew they could not win but they

knew they could die. Dead warriors they might become but never living

slaves. They ran up Boadicea's proud banner because they knew that

while the Romans might soak it in British blood, no power on earth could

drag it through the mire.

Our forefathers crossed swords with Caesar and his Roman legions, and

our newest army goes into battle with the prestige born of two thousand

years of war. They have a morale that belongs to the race in addition

to the morale they possess as individuals. It is said that "the British

do not know when they are beaten." How should they know? They have had

no teachers. All they know is that if they have not gained the victory

the battle is not ended and must go on until they pitch their tents on

the undisputed field. The German Emperor spreads out his War Map but it

is as undecipherable as the mountains in the moon to our soldiers.

Tyrants have never found them apt scholars at geography. They prefer to

make their own maps even though they have no paint to color them with

except the red blood in their veins. The Kaiser may roll up his War Map

of Europe; our soldiers have no use for it, and will not commit to

memory its new boundaries. They feel in their souls the capacity to

make a new one more in line with their ideas of fair play.

"Eton boys never duck." If the muscles of their necks show a tendency

to relax they call to mind how inflexible their fathers have stood in

bygone days, and their necks become stiff and taut once more.

Wellington said that Waterloo was won on the playing fields of Eton. It

is still true that "Eton boys never duck" to the foe; nor do the

soldiers they lead.

*XI*

*"MISSING"*

The word "Missing" has come to exercise an even more terrible power over

the human heart than the word "Death." The latter kills the heart's joy

and hope with a sharp clean cut, but "Missing" is a clumsy stroke from

the executioner's axe. In a few cases the wounded victim is spared and

allowed to recover, but in the majority of cases there is no reprieve

and a second blow is struck after a period of suspense and suffering. A

chaplain dreads the word. As he opens his correspondence after a

battle, it fixes him as the glittering eye of the Ancient Mariner

fastened the wedding guest. It leaps from the page at him with the

malignant suddenness of a serpent. Wounds and death he can explain to

relatives, but "missing" is beyond explanation. No one who has not been

at the Front can conceive how a lad can disappear and no one see what

becomes him. A man may read graphic accounts of conditions of life in

the battle-line, but it is beyond his imagination to visualize it with

any real approach to truth.

After the first day of the Somme Campaign we had hundreds of casualties

and most of them were classed as "Missing." The soldiers went "over the

top" and did not return, and no one knew why. They were simply

"missing." Why did no one know their fate? It came about in this way.

The men scrambled over the parapet and, forming in line, charged across

No Man's Land in extended order. Some fell immediately. The wounded

among them got back to the dressing station, and the bodies of the dead

were found within a few days, at least. So far, there are no "Missing."

The rest of the men press on, some falling at every step; the line

thins, and the men get separated. When a man falls his neighbor cannot

stay with him. He must press on to the objective, otherwise, if the

unwounded stayed to succor the wounded, there would be none to continue

the attack; and under the hail of shells and bullets sweeping the open

ground, everyone would perish. The only way to succor the wounded is to

press on, capture the enemy trench, and stop the rifle and machine-gun

fire. Consequently, the man who presses on does not, as a rule, know

whether his comrade fell dead, was wounded, or merely took cover in a

shell hole. And even though he were to know, he may be killed himself

later, and his knowledge die with him.

If the attack succeeds, and the German trench is held by us, No Man's

Land can be searched. The wounded and dead are found, and but few are

reported "missing." But if the attack fail, and the regiment has to

retire to its own line, it becomes impossible for us to search that part

of No Man's Land, adjoining the German trench (for there is rarely any

truce after a battle in this war), and so, it is impossible to find out

whether those who have failed to return were killed, wounded, or taken

prisoners. The comrades who saw them fall are probably killed, for the

return is as fatal as the attack. If they come back wounded they are

taken straight to the hospitals and so have no chance of reporting to

their officers the fate of those whom they saw fall. Only the unwounded

return to the regiment and, in a lost battle, these are few and know but

little of what happened to those around them. They were excited and

were fighting for their lives. They had no leisure to observe the fate

of others.

On one occasion our men took some German trenches opposite them and held

them for some hours by desperate fighting, but before dusk had to

retire. Many were left dead or wounded in the captured trenches, and

many fell on the return journey. The few who got back to us unwounded

could give very little information about individuals who were missing.

They had been separated one from another and fighting hour after hour

with desperation. All therefore who did not return to the regiment or

dressing station, and whose bodies were not recovered, were reported as

"Missing" unless declared dead by reliable eye-witnesses. The evidence

of eye-witnesses must be carefully examined before a regiment dare

report a soldier dead on the strength of it. During an attack a man is

in an abnormal state of excitement and the observations of his senses

are not entirely reliable. Men imagine they see things, and frequently

make mistakes in identity. I have known many cases in which a man has

sworn that he saw another being carried to the dressing station, yet the

missing man's body has afterwards been found near the German lines. The

eye-witness simply mistook one man for another. No end of pain to

relatives has been caused by these mistakes and a regiment rightly

declines on such evidence to report a soldier as killed.

Some weeks after the attack just referred to, we received letters from

some of the officers and men who had been taken prisoners; information

about others came through The Geneva Red Cross Society. Those of whom

we heard nothing for six months we knew to be, in all probability, dead.

Nine months later, the Germans retired from the position, and many of

our dead were found still lying out in No Man's Land. Some were

identified. Others could not be, their discs having perished by reason

of the long exposure. Many of the dead had been left in the German

trenches. These had been buried by the enemy and he had left no crosses

to mark the graves. After more than a year there is no direct evidence

of the death of many who fought on that day. They are "Missing," and we

can only conclude that they were killed.

In other cases, men are reported missing for several weeks, and then

reported dead. A typical case may be cited to show how it comes about.

We attacked one morning at dawn. The enemy were on the run, and in a

state of exhaustion. An immediate attack would, it was believed, carry

the position without much loss of life, even though our big guns had not

had time to come up in support. Unfortunately the Germans were, unknown

to us, reinforced during the night. Their new troops met our men with a

hail of rifle and machine-gun fire, and the regiment was ordered to

retire. Several failed to return. We knew that some of the men had been

forced to surrender, especially the wounded. Others had been killed.

Those who returned unwounded were not able, however, to give us the

names of those who had been killed or of those who had been taken

prisoners. The attack had been made in the half-light of dawn so that

our men could not be seen distinctly. They had also advanced in

extended order so as to avoid making themselves an easy target. The

half-light and the distance of one man from another made it difficult,

therefore, for anyone to see either who fell or why they fell. Most of

those who were killed or taken prisoners were therefore reported as

"missing."

A few days later the whole Division was moved to another part of the

Front. A fresh regiment took our place, and, a few weeks later, with

adequate artillery support, carried the German trenches. After the

battle, burial parties were sent out by the regiment to bury both its

own dead and ours who had been left in the German half of No Man's Land.

Each grave was marked with the soldier's name, and his disc and paybook

were sent to our regiment as proof of his death. The War Office was

then informed that such and such a man "previously reported missing, is

now reported killed."

There are, however, cases of missing men which cannot be explained. The

facts never come to light, and we can only guess what happened. They

may have been buried by the enemy, or they may have been buried in the

dark by some regimental burial party which could not find their discs.

They may even have been buried by a shell or blown to fragments by a

direct hit. We have no evidence.

After the attack on Gommecourt a youth I knew had his wound dressed at

the Regimental Aid post and was seen, by more than one of his chums,

passing down the communication trench to the Advanced Dressing Station

where I happened to be. Yet he never arrived, slight though his wound

was. It was impossible for him to have got lost. His brother and I

made every possible enquiry about him, but nothing ever came to light,

and we both came to the conclusion that on his way down the trench he

had been buried by a shell. In another case an officer was wounded and

four stretcher bearers went out to bring him in. None were ever seen

again, and later, when we came into possession of the ground, the body

of none of them were found. It was scarcely possible for them to have

been taken prisoners, and they were never reported as having been

captured. We concluded, therefore, that a shell had both killed and

buried them.