I am not strong enough in the science of psychology to understand the
origin of laughter and to get into touch with the mainsprings of gaiety.
The sharp contrast between normal ethics and an abnormality of action
provides a grotesque point of view arousing ironical mirth. It is
probable also that surroundings of enormous tragedy stimulate the sense
of humor of the individual, so that any small, ridiculous thing assumes
the proportion of monstrous absurdity. It is also likely--certain, I
think--that laughter is an escape from terror, a liberation of the soul
by mental explosion, from the prison walls of despair and brooding.
In the Decameron of Boccaccio a group of men and women encompassed by
plague retired into seclusion to tell one another mirthful immoralities
which stirred their laughter. They laughed while the plague destroyed
society around them and when they knew that its foul germs were on
the prowl for their own bodies... So it was in this war, where in many
strange places and in many dreadful days there was great laughter. I
think sometimes of a night I spent with the medical officers of a tent
hospital in the fields of the Somme during those battles. With me as a
guest went a modern Falstaff, a “ton of flesh,” who “sweats to death and
lards the lean earth as he walks along.”
He was a man of many anecdotes, drawn from the sinks and stews of life,
yet with a sense of beauty lurking under his coarseness, and a voice of
fine, sonorous tone, which he managed with art and a melting grace.
On the way to the field hospital he had taken more than one nip of
whisky. His voice was well oiled when he sang a greeting to a medical
major in a florid burst of melody from Italian opera. The major was a
little Irish medico who had been through the South African War and in
tropical places, where he had drunk fire-water to kill all manner of
microbes. He suffered abominably from asthma and had had a heart-seizure
the day before our dinner at his mess, and told us that he would drop
down dead as sure as fate between one operation and another on “the
poor, bloody wounded” who never ceased to flow into his tent. But he was
in a laughing mood, and thirsty for laughter-making liquid. He had two
whiskies before the dinner began to wet his whistle. His fellow-officers
were out for an evening's joy, but nervous of the colonel, an austere
soul who sat at the head of the mess with the look of a man afraid that
merriment might reach outrageous heights beyond his control. A courteous
man he was, and rather sad. His presence for a time acted as a restraint
upon the company, until all restraint was broken by the Falstaff with
me, who told soul-crashing stories to the little Irish major across the
table and sang love lyrics to the orderly who brought round the cottage
pie and pickles. There was a tall, thin young surgeon who had been
carving up living bodies all day and many days, and now listened to that
fat rogue with an intensity of delight that lit up his melancholy eyes,
watching him gravely between gusts of deep laughter, which seemed to
come from his boots. There was another young surgeon, once of Barts',
who made himself the cup-server of the fat knight and kept his wine at
the brim, and encouraged him to fresh audacities of anecdotry, with
a humorous glance at the colonel's troubled face... The colonel was
forgotten after dinner. The little Irish major took the lid off the
boiling pot of mirth. He was entirely mad, as he assured us, between
dances of a wild and primitive type, stories of adventure in far lands,
and spasms of asthmatic coughing, when he beat his breast and said, “A
pox in my bleeding heart!”
Falstaff was playing Juliet to the Romeo of the tall young surgeon,
singing falsetto like a fat German angel dressed in loose-fitting khaki,
with his belt undone. There were charades in the tent. The boy from
Barts' did remarkable imitations of a gamecock challenging a rival bird,
of a cow coming through a gate, of a general addressing his troops
(most comical of all). Several glasses were broken. The corkscrew was
disregarded as a useless implement, and whisky-bottles were decapitated
against the tent poles. I remember vaguely the crowning episode of the
evening when the little major was dancing the Irish jig with a kitchen
chair; when Falstaff was singing the Prologue of Pagliacci to the
stupefied colonel; when the boy, once of Barts', was roaring like a lion
under the mess table, and when the tall, melancholy surgeon was at the
top of the tent pole, scratching himself like a gorilla in his native
haunts... Outside, the field hospital was quiet, under a fleecy sky
with a crescent moon. Through the painted canvas of the tent city
candle-light glowed with a faint rose-colored light, and the Red Cross
hung limp above the camp where many wounded lay, waking or sleeping,
tossing in agony, dying in unconsciousness. Far away over the fields,
rockets were rising above the battle-lines. The sky was flickering with
the flush of gun-fire. A red glare rose and spread below the clouds
where some ammunition-dump had been exploded... Old Falstaff fell asleep
in the car on the way back to our quarters, and I smiled at the memory
of great laughter in the midst of tragedy.