combe on the very edge of the big hill to work in the kitchen and farm
dairy, would turn her dark taciturn head, with still plentiful black
hair, towards his face which, for all its tan, was so weirdly
reminiscent of a withered baby, pinkish and light-lashed, with forelock
and fair hair thin and rumpled, and small blue eyes, and she would
mutter:
"Don't yu never fret, boy. They'll come for 'ee fast enough when they
want 'ee." No one, least of all perhaps his mother, could take quite
seriously that little square short-footed man, born when she was just
seventeen. Sure of work because he was first-rate with every kind of
beast, he was yet not looked on as being quite 'all there.' He could
neither read nor write, had scarcely ever been outside the parish, and
then only in a shandrydan on a Club treat, and he knew no more of the
world than the native of a small South Sea Island. His life from school
age on had been passed year in, year out, from dawn till dark, with the
cattle and their calves, the sheep, the horses and the wild moor ponies;
except when hay or corn harvest, or any exceptionally exacting festival
absorbed him for the moment. From shyness he never went into the bar of
the Inn, and so had missed the greater part of village education. He
could of course read no papers, a map was to him but a mystic mass of
marks and colours; he had never seen the sea, never a ship; no water
broader than the parish streams; until the war had never met anything
more like a soldier than the constable of the neighbouring village. But
he had once seen a Royal Marine in uniform. What sort of creatures these
Germans were to him--who knows? They were cruel--he had grasped that.
Something noxious, perhaps, like the adders whose backs he broke with
his stick; something dangerous like the chained dog at Shapton Farm; or
the big bull at Vannacombe. When the war first broke out, and they had
called the younger blacksmith (a reservist and noted village marksman)
back to his regiment, the little cowman had smiled and said: "Wait till
regiment gets to front, Fred'll soon shoot 'em up."
But weeks and months went by, and it was always the Germans, the
Germans; Fred had clearly not yet shot them up; and now one and now
another went off from the village, and two from the farm itself; and the
great Fred returned slightly injured for a few weeks' rest, and, full of
whisky from morning till night, made the village ring; and finally went
off again in a mood of manifest reluctance. All this weighed dumbly on
the mind of the little cowman, the more heavily that because of his
inarticulate shyness he could never talk that weight away, nor could
anyone by talk relieve him, no premises of knowledge or vision being
there. From sheer physical contagion he felt the grizzly menace in the
air, and a sense of being left behind when others were going to meet
that menace with their fists, as it were. There was something proud and
sturdy in the little man, even in the look of him, for all that he was
'poor old Tom,' who brought a smile to the lips of all. He was
passionate, too, if rubbed up the wrong way; but it needed the
malevolence and ingenuity of human beings to annoy him--with his beasts
he never lost his temper, so that they had perfect confidence in him. He
resembled indeed herdsmen of the Alps, whom one may see in dumb
communion with their creatures up in those high solitudes; for he too
dwelt in a high solitude cut off from real fellowship with men and women
by lack of knowledge, and by the supercilious pity in them. Living in
such a remote world his talk--when he did say something--had ever the
surprising quality attaching to the thoughts of those by whom the normal
proportions of things are quite unknown. His short square figure,
hatless and rarely coated in any weather, dotting from foot to foot, a
bit of stick in one hand, and often a straw in the mouth--he did not
smoke--was familiar in the yard where he turned the handle of the
separator, or in the fields and cowsheds, from daybreak to dusk, save
for the hours of dinner and tea, which he ate in the farm kitchen,
making sparse and surprising comments. To his peculiar whistles and
calls the cattle and calves, for all their rumination and stubborn
shyness, were amazingly responsive. It was a pretty sight to see them
pushing against each other round him--for, after all, he was as much the
source of their persistence, especially through the scanty winter
months, as a mother starling to her unfledged young.
When the Government issued their request to householders to return the
names of those of military age ready to serve if called on, he heard of
it, and stopped munching to say in his abrupt fashion: "I'll go--fight
the Germans." But the farmer did not put him down, saying to his wife:
"Poor old Tom! 'Twidden be 'ardly fair--they'd be makin' game of 'un."
And his wife, her eyes shining with motherliness, answered: "Poor lad,
he's not fit-like."
The months went on--winter passing to spring--and the slow decking of
the trees and fields began with leaves and flowers, with butterflies and
the songs of birds. How far the little cowman would notice such a thing
as that no one could ever have said, devoid as he was of the vocabulary
of beauty, but like all the world his heart must have felt warmer and
lighter under his old waistcoat, and perhaps more than most hearts, for
he could often be seen standing stock-still in the fields, his browning
face turned to the sun.
Less and less he heard talk of Germans--dogged acceptance of the state
of war having settled on that far countryside--the beggars were not
beaten and killed off yet, but they would be in good time. It was
unpleasant to think of them more than could be helped. Once in a way a
youth went off and ''listed,' but though the parish had given more
perhaps than the average, a good few of military age still clung to life
as they had known it. Then some bright spirit conceived the notion that
a county regiment should march through the remoter districts to rouse
them up.
The cuckoo had been singing five days; the lanes and fields, the woods
and the village green were as Joseph's coat, so varied and so bright the
foliage, from golden oak-buds to the brilliant little lime-tree leaves,
the feathery green shoots of larches, and the already darkening bunches
of the sycamores. The earth was dry--no rain for a fortnight--when the
cars containing the brown-clad men and a recruiting band drew up before
the Inn. Here were clustered the farmers, the innkeeper, the grey-haired
postman; by the Church gate and before the schoolyard were knots of
girls and children, schoolmistress, schoolmaster, parson; and down on
the lower green a group of likely youths, an old labourer or two, and
apart from human beings as was his wont, the little cowman in brown
corduroys tied below the knee, and an old waistcoat, the sleeves of his
blue shirt dotted with pink, rolled up to the elbows of his brown arms.
So he stood, his brown neck and shaven-looking head quite bare, with
his bit of stick wedged between his waist and the ground, staring with
all his light-lashed water-blue eyes from under the thatch of his
forelock.
The speeches rolled forth glib; the khaki-clad men drank their second
fill that morning of coffee and cider; the little cowman stood straight
and still, his head drawn back. Two figures--officers, men who had been
at the front--detached themselves and came towards the group of likely
youths. These wavered a little, were silent, sniggered, stood their
ground--the khaki-clad figures passed among them. Hackneyed words,
jests, the touch of flattery, changing swiftly to chaff--all the
customary performance, hollow and pathetic; and then the two figures
re-emerged, their hands clenched, their eyes shifting here and there,
their lips drawn back in fixed smiles. They had failed, and were trying
to hide it. They must not show contempt--the young slackers might yet
come in, when the band played.
The cars were filled again, the band struck up: 'It's a long long way to
Tipperary.'
And at the edge of the green within two yards of the car's dusty passage
the little cowman stood apart and stared. His face was red. Behind him
they were cheering--the parson and farmers, school children, girls, even
the group of youths. He alone did not cheer, but his face grew still
more red. When the dust above the road and the distant blare of
Tipperary had dispersed and died, he walked back to the farm dotting
from one to other of his short feet. All that afternoon and evening he
spoke no word; but the flush seemed to have settled in his face for good
and all. He milked some cows, but forgot to bring the pails up. Two of
his precious cows he left unmilked till their distressful lowing caused
the farmer's wife to go down and see. There he was standing against a
gate moving his brown neck from side to side like an animal in pain,
oblivious seemingly of everything. She spoke to him:
"What's matter, Tom?" All he could answer was:
"I'se goin', I'se goin'." She milked the cows herself.
For the next three days he could settle to nothing, leaving his jobs
half done, speaking to no one save to say:
"I'se goin'; I'se got to go." Even the beasts looked at him surprised.
On the Saturday the farmer having consulted with his wife, said quietly:
"Well, Tom, ef yu want to go, yu shall. I'll drive 'ee down Monday. Us
won't du nothin' to keep yu back."
The little cowman nodded. But he was restless as ever all through that
Sunday, eating nothing.
On Monday morning arrayed in his best clothes he got into the dog-cart.
There, without good-bye to anyone, not even to his beasts, he sat
staring straight before him, square, and jolting up and down beside the
farmer, who turned on him now and then a dubious almost anxious eye.
So they drove the eleven miles to the recruiting station. He got down,
entered, the farmer with him.
"Well, my lad," they asked him, "what d'you want to join?"
"Royal Marines."
It was a shock, coming from the short, square figure of such an obvious
landsman. The farmer took him by the arm.
"Why, yu'm a Devon man, Tom, better take county regiment. An't they gude
enough for yu?"
Shaking his head he answered: "Royal Marines."
Was it the glamour of the words or the Royal Marine he had once seen,
that moved him to wish to join that outlandish corps? Who shall say?
There was the wish, immovable; they took him to the recruiting station
for the Royal Marines.
Stretching up his short, square body, and blowing out his cheeks to
increase his height, he was put before the reading board. His eyes were
splendid; little that passed in hedgerows or the heaven, in woods or on
the hillsides, could escape them. They asked him to read the print.
Staring, he answered: "L."
"No, my lad, you're guessing."
"L."
The farmer plucked at the recruiting officer's sleeve, his face was
twitching, and he whispered hoarsely:
"'E don' know 'is alphabet."
The officer turned and contemplated that short square figure with the
browned face so reminiscent of a withered baby, and the little blue eyes
staring out under the dusty forelock. Then he grunted, and going up to
him, laid a hand on his shoulder.
"_Your_ heart's all right, my lad, but you can't pass."
The little cowman looked at him, turned, and went straight out. An hour
later he sat again beside the farmer on the way home, staring before him
and jolting up and down.
"They won't get me," he said suddenly: "I can fight, but I'se not
goin'." A fire of resentment seemed to have been lit within him. That
evening he ate his tea, and next day settled down again among his
beasts. But whenever, now, the war was mentioned, he would look up with
his puckered smile which seemed to have in it a resentful amusement, and
say:
"They a'nt got me yet."
His dumb sacrifice passing their comprehension, had been rejected--or so
it seemed to him He could not understand that they had spared him. Why!
He was as good as they! His pride was hurt. No! They should not get him
now!
1916.
VIII
THE PEACE MEETING
Colin Wilderton, coming from the West on his way to the Peace Meeting,
fell in with John Rudstock, coming from the North, and they walked on
together. After they had commented on the news from Russia and the
inflation of money, Rudstock said abruptly:
"We shall have a queer meeting, I expect."
"God knows!" answered Wilderton.
And both smiled, conscious that they were uneasy, but predetermined not
to show it under any circumstances. Their smiles were different, for
Rudstock was a black-browed man, with dark beard and strong, thick
figure, and Wilderton a very light-built, grey-haired man, with kindly
eyes and no health. He had supported the war an immense time, and had
only recently changed his attitude. In common with all men of warm
feelings, he had at first been profoundly moved by the violation of
Belgium. The horrors of the German advance through that little country
and through France, to which he was temperamentally attached, had
stirred in him a vigorous detestation, freely expressed in many ways.
Extermination, he had felt all those early months, was hardly good
enough for brutes who could commit such crimes against humanity and
justice; and his sense of the need for signal defeat of a noxious force
riding rough-shod over the hard-won decency of human life had survived
well into the third year of the war. He hardly knew, himself, when his
feeling had begun--not precisely to change, but to run, as it were, in a
different channel. A man of generous instincts, artistic tastes, and
unsteady nerves too thinly coated with that God-given assurance which
alone fits a man for knowing what is good for the world, he had become
gradually haunted by the thought that he was not laying down his own
life, but only the lives of his own and other peoples' sons. And the
consideration that he was laying them down for the benefit of their own
future had lost its grip on him. At moments he was still able to see
that the war he had so long supported had not yet attained sufficient
defeat of the Prussian military machine to guarantee that future; but
his pity and distress for all these young lives, cut down without a
chance to flower, had grown till he had become, as it were, a gambler.
What good--he would think--to secure the future of the young in a Europe
which would soon have no young! Every country was suffering
hideously--the criminal country not least, thank God! Suppose the war
were to go on for another year, two, three years, and then stop from
sheer exhaustion of both sides, while all the time these boys were being
killed and maimed, for nothing more, perhaps, than could be obtained
to-day. What then? True, the Government promised victory, but they never
promised it within a year. Governments did not die; what if they were to
go on promising it a year hence, till everybody else was dead! Did
history ever show that victory in the present could guarantee the
future? And even if not so openly defeated as was desirable, this
damnable Prussianism had got such a knock that it could never again do
what it had in the past. These last, however, were but side reflections,
toning down for him the fact that his nerves could no longer stand this
vicarious butchery of youth. And so he had gradually become that
"traitor to his country, a weak-kneed Peace by Negotiation man."
Physically his knees really were weak, and he used to smile a wry smile
when he read the expression.
John Rudstock, of vigorous physique, had opposed the war, on principle,
from the start, not because, any more than Wilderton, he approved of
Prussianism, but because, as an essentially combative personality, he
opposed everything that was supported by a majority; the greater the
majority, the more bitterly he opposed it; and no one would have been
more astonished than he at hearing that this was his principle. He
preferred to put it that he did not believe in opposing Force by Force.
In peace-time he was a "stalwart," in war-time a "renegade."
The street leading to the chapel which had been engaged seemed quiet
enough. Designed to make an impression on public opinion, every care had
been taken that the meeting should not attract the public eye. God's
protection had been enlisted, but two policemen also stood at the
entrance, and half a dozen others were suspiciously near by. A thin
trickle of persons, mostly women, were passing through the door. Colin
Wilderton, making his way up the aisle to the platform, wrinkled his
nose, thinking: "Stuffy in here." It had always been his misfortune to
love his neighbours individually, but to dislike them in a bunch. On the
platform some fifteen men and women were already gathered. He seated
himself modestly in the back row, while John Rudstock, less retiring,
took his place at the chairman's right hand. The speakers began with a
precipitancy hardly usual at a public meeting. Wilderton listened, and
thought: "Dreadfully cliche; why can't someone say straight out that
boys enough have been killed?" He had become conscious of a muttering
noise, too, as of the tide coming in on a heavy wind; it broke suddenly
into component parts--human voices clamouring outside. He heard blows
raining on the door, saw sticks smashing in the windows. The audience
had risen to its feet, some rushing to defend the doors, others standing
irresolute. John Rudstock was holding up the chair he had been sitting
on. Wilderton had just time to think: "I thought so," when a knot of
young men in khaki burst into the chapel, followed by a crowd. He knew
he was not much good in a scrimmage, but he placed himself at once in
front of the nearest woman. At that moment, however, some soldiers,
pouring through a side-door, invaded the platform from behind, and threw
him down the steps. He arrived at the bottom with a bump, and was unable
to get up because of the crowd around him. Someone fell over him; it was
Rudstock, swearing horribly. He still had the chair in his hand, for it
hit Wilderton a nasty blow. The latter saw his friend recover his feet
and swing the weapon, and with each swing down went some friend or foe,
until he had cleared quite a space round him. Wilderton, still weak and
dizzy from his fall, sat watching this Homeric battle. Chairs, books,
stools, sticks were flying at Rudstock, who parried them, or diverted
their course so that they carried on and hit Wilderton, or crashed
against the platform. He heard Rudstock roar like a lion, and saw him
advance, swinging his chair; down went two young men in khaki, down went
a third in mufti; a very tall young soldier, also armed with a chair,
dashed forward, and the two fought in single combat. Wilderton had got
on his feet by now, and, adjusting his eyeglass, for he could see little
without, he caught up a hymn-book, and, flinging it at the crowd with
all his force, shouted: "Hoo-bloodyray!" and followed with his fists
clenched. One of them encountered what must have been the jaw of an
Australian, it was so hard against his hand; he received a vicious punch
in the ribs and was again seated on the ground. He could still hear his
friend roaring, and the crash of chairs meeting in mid-air. Something
fell heavily on him. It was Rudstock--he was insensible. There was a
momentary lull, and peering up as best he could from underneath the
body, Wilderton saw that the platform had been cleared of all its
original inhabitants, and was occupied mainly by youths in navy-blue and
khaki. A voice called out:
"Order! Silence!"
Rubbing Rudstock's temples with brandy from a flask which he had had the
foresight to slip into his pocket, he listened as best he could, with
the feet of the crowd jostling his anatomy.
"Here we are, boys," the voice was saying, "and here we'll always be
when these treacherous blighters try their games on. No peace, no peace
at any price! We've got to show them that we won't have it. Leave the
women alone--though they ought to be ashamed of themselves; but for the
men--the skunks--shooting's too good for them. Let them keep off the
course or we'll make them. We've broken up this meeting, and we'll break
up every meeting that tries to talk of peace. Three cheers for the old
flag!"
During the cheers which followed Wilderton was discovering signs of
returning consciousness in his friend. Rudstock had begun to breathe
heavily, and, pouring some brandy into his mouth, he propped him up as
best he could against a wooden structure, which he suddenly perceived to
be the chapel's modest pulpit. A thought came to his dazed brain. If he
could get up into that, as if he had dropped from Heaven, they might
almost listen to him. He disengaged his legs from under Rudstock, and
began crawling up the steps on hands and knees. Once in the pulpit he
sat on the floor below the level of visibility, getting his breath, and
listening to the cheers. Then, smoothing his hair, he rose, and waited
for the cheers to stop. He had calculated rightly. His sudden
appearance, his grey hair, eyeglass, and smile deceived them for a
moment. There was a hush.
"Boys!" he said, "listen to me a second, I want to ask you something.
What on earth do you think we came here for? Simply and solely because
we can't bear to go on seeing you killed day after day, month after
month, year after year. That's all, and it's Christ's truth. Amen!"
A strange gasp and mutter greeted this little speech; then a dull voice
called out:
"Pro-German!"
Wilderton flung up his hand.
"The Germans to hell!" he said simply.
The dull voice repeated:
"Pro-German!" And the speaker on the platform called out: "Come out of
that! When we want you to beg us off we'll let you know."
Wilderton spun round to him.
"You're all wonderful!" he began, but a hymn-book hit him fearfully on
the forehead, and he sank down into the bottom of the pulpit. This last
blow, coming on the top of so many others, had deprived him of
intelligent consciousness; he was but vaguely aware of more speeches,
cheers, and tramplings, then of a long hush, and presently found
himself walking out of the chapel door between Rudstock and a policeman.
It was not the door by which they had entered, and led to an empty
courtyard.
"Can you walk?" said the policeman.
Wilderton nodded.
"Then walk off!" said the policeman, and withdrew again into the house
of God.
They walked, holding each other's arms, a little unsteadily at first.
Rudstock had a black eye and a cut on his ear, the blood from which had
stained his collar and matted his beard. Wilderton's coat was torn, his
forehead bruised, his cheek swollen, and he had a pain in his back which
prevented him from walking very upright. They did not speak, but in an
archway did what they could with pins and handkerchiefs, and by turning
up Rudstock's coat collar, to regain something of respectability. When
they were once more under way Rudstock said coldly:
"I heard you. You should have spoken for yourself. I came, as you know,
because I don't believe in opposing force by force. At the next peace
meeting we hold I shall make that plainer."
Wilderton murmured:
"Yes, yes; I saw you--I'm sure you will. I apologise; I was carried
away."
Rudstock went on in a deep voice:
"As for those young devils, they may die to a man if they like! Take my
advice and let them alone."
Wilderton smiled on the side which was not swollen.
"Yes," he said sadly, "it does seem difficult to persuade them to go on
living. Ah, well!"
"Ah, well!" he said again, five minutes later, "they're wonderful--poor
young beggars! I'm very unhappy, Rudstock!"
"I'm not," said Rudstock, "I've enjoyed it in a way! Good-night!"
They shook hands, screwing up their mouths with pain, for their fists
were badly bruised, and parted, Rudstock going to the North, Wilderton
to the West.
1917.
IX
"THE DOG IT WAS THAT DIED"
Until the great war was over I had no idea that some of us who stayed at
home made the great sacrifice.