By the end of the South African war Sergeant Cane had got one thing
very well fixed in his mind, and that was that war was an overrated
amusement. He said he “was fed up with it,” partly because that
misused metaphor was then new, partly because every one was saying it:
he felt it right down in his bones, and he had a long memory. So when
wonderful rumours came to the East Anglian village where he lived, on
August 1, 1914, Sergeant Cane said: “That means war,” and decided
then and there to have nothing to do with it: it was somebody else’s
turn; he felt he had done enough. Then came August 4th, and England
true to her destiny, and then Lord Kitchener’s appeal for men.
Sergeant Cane had a family to look after and a nice little house: he
had left the army ten years.
In the next week all the men went who had been in the army before, all
that were young enough, and a good sprinkling of the young men too who
had never been in the army. Men asked Cane if he was going, and he
said straight out “No.”
By the middle of August Cane was affecting the situation. He was a
little rallying point for men who did not want to go. “He knows what
it’s like,” they said.
In the smoking room of the Big House sat the Squire and his son, Arthur
Smith; and Sir Munion Boomer-Platt, the Member for the division. The
Squire’s son had been in the last war as a boy, and like Sergeant Cane
had left the army since. All the morning he had been cursing an
imaginary general, seated in the War Office at an imaginary desk with
Smith’s own letter before him, in full view but unopened. Why on earth
didn’t he answer it, Smith thought. But he was calmer now, and the
Squire and Sir Munion were talking of Sergeant Cane.
“Leave him to me,” said Sir Munion.
“Very well,” said the Squire. So Sir Munion Boomer-Platt went off
and called on Sergeant Cane.
Mrs Cane knew what he had come for.
“Don’t let him talk you over, Bill,” she said.
“Not he,” said Sergeant Cane.
Sir Munion came on Sergeant Cane in his garden.
“A fine day,” said Sir Munion. And from that he went on to the war.
“If you enlist,” he said, “they will make you a sergeant again at
once. You will get a sergeant’s pay, and your wife will get the new
separation allowance.”
“Sooner have Cane,” said Mrs Cane.
“Yes, yes, of course,” said Sir Munion. “But then there is the
medal, probably two or three medals, and the glory of it, and it is
such a splendid life.”
Sir Munion did warm to a thing whenever he began to hear his own
words. He painted war as it has always been painted, one of the most
beautiful things you could imagine. And then it mustn’t be supposed
that it was like those wars that there used to be, a long way off.
There would be houses where you would be billeted, and good food, and
shady trees and villages wherever you went. And it was such an
opportunity of seeing the Continent (“the Continent as it really
is,” Sir Munion called it) as would never come again, and he only
wished he were younger. Sir Munion really did wish it, as he spoke,
for his own words stirred him profoundly; but somehow or other they
did not stir Sergeant Cane. No, he had done his share, and he had a
family to look after.
Sir Munion could not understand him: he went back to the Big House and
said so. He had told him all the advantages he could think of that
were there to be had for the asking, and Sergeant Cane merely
neglected them.
“Let me have a try,” said Arthur Smith. “He soldiered with me
before.”
Sir Munion shrugged his shoulders. He had all the advantages at his
fingers’ ends, from pay to billeting: there was nothing more to be
said. Nevertheless young Smith went.
“Hullo, Sergeant Cane,” said Smith.
“Hello, sir,” said the sergeant.
“Do you remember that night at Reit River?”
“Don’t I, sir,” said Cane.
“One blanket each and no ground sheet?”
“I remember, sir,” said Cane.
“Didn’t it rain,” said Smith.
“It rained that night, proper.”
“Drowned a few of the lice, I suppose.”
“Not many,” said Cane.
“No, not many,” Smith reflected. “The Boers had the range all right
that time.”
“Gave it us proper,” said Cane.
“We were hungry that night,” said Smith. “I could have eaten
biltong.”
“I did eat some of it,” said Cane. “Not bad stuff, what there was
of it, only not enough.”
“I don’t think,” said Smith, “that I’ve ever slept on the bare
earth since.”
“No, sir?” said Cane. “It’s hard. You get used to it. But it will
always be hard.”
“Yes, it will always be hard,” said Smith. “Do you remember the
time we were thirsty?”
“Oh, yes, sir,” said Cane, “I remember that. One doesn’t forget
that.”
“No. I still dream of it sometimes,” said Smith. “It makes a nasty
dream. I wake with my mouth all dry too, when I dream that.”
“Yes,” said Cane, “one doesn’t forget being thirsty.”
“Well,” said Smith, “I suppose we’re for it all over again?”
“I suppose so, sir,” said Cane.