February 4th, 1917.
DEAR MR. B.:
War's a queer game--not at all what one's civilian mind imagined; it's
far more horrible and less exciting. The horrors which the civilian
mind dreads most are mutilation and death. Out here we rarely think
about them; the thing which wears on one most and calls out his gravest
courage is the endless sequence of physical discomfort. Not to be
able to wash, not to be able to sleep, to have to be wet and cold
for long periods at a stretch, to find mud on your person, in your
food, to have to stand in mud, see mud, sleep in mud and to continue
to smile--that's what tests courage. Our chaps are splendid. They're
not the hair-brained idiots that some war-correspondents depict from
day to day. They're perfectly sane people who know to a fraction what
they're up against, but who carry on with a grim good-nature and a
determination to win with a smile. I never before appreciated as I do
to-day the latent capacity for big-hearted endurance that is in the
heart of every man. Here are apparently quite ordinary chaps--chaps who
washed, liked theatres, loved kiddies and sweethearts, had a zest for
life--they're bankrupt of all pleasures except the supreme pleasure of
knowing that they're doing the ordinary and finest thing of which they
are capable. There are millions to whom the mere consciousness of doing
their duty has brought an heretofore unexperienced peace of mind. For
myself I was never happier than I am at present; there's a novel zip
added to life by the daily risks and the knowledge that at last you're
doing something into which no trace of selfishness enters. One can only
die once; the chief concern that matters is _how_ and not _when_ you
die. I don't pity the weary men who have attained eternal leisure in
the corruption of our shell-furrowed battles; they "went West" in their
supreme moment. The men I pity are those who could not hear the call of
duty and whose consciences will grow more flabby every day. With the
brutal roar of the first Prussian gun the cry came to the civilized
world, "Follow thou me," just as truly as it did in Palestine. Men
went to their Calvary singing Tipperary, rubbish, rhymed doggerel,
but their spirit was equal to that of any Christian martyr in a Roman
amphitheatre. "Greater love hath no man than this, that he lay down his
life for his friend." Our chaps are doing that consciously, willingly,
almost without bitterness towards their enemies; for the rest it
doesn't matter whether they sing hymns or ragtime. They've followed
their ideal--freedom--and died for it. A former age expressed itself in
Gregorian chants; ours, no less sincerely, disguises its feelings in
ragtime.
Since September I have been less than a month out of action. The game
doesn't pall as time goes on--it fascinates. We've got to win so that
men may never again be tortured by the ingenious inquisition of modern
warfare. The winning of the war becomes a personal affair to the chaps
who are fighting. The world which sits behind the lines, buys extra
specials of the daily papers and eats three square meals a day, will
never know what this other world has endured for its safety, for no
man of this other world will have the vocabulary in which to tell. But
don't for a moment mistake me--we're grimly happy.
What a serial I'll write for you if I emerge from this turmoil! Thank
God, my outlook is all altered. I don't want to live any longer--only
to live well.
Good-bye and good luck.
Yours,
CONINGSBY DAWSON.