[A British Surgeon, in The London Times, Dec. 22, 1914.]
If you would realize fully what the war, as an event in the procession
of events, means you must come to France and visit a military
hospital. You must make this visit not as a sightseer, nor yet in the
spirit of a philanthropist, but only as a friend. You must come
prepared to listen to stories that have no relation to war and the
affairs of war--most soldiers, I think, are reluctant to speak of the
things they have seen--to stories that concern home ties and the
doings, real and conjectured, of children--queer, sentimental stories
woven around old ideas like the Christmas idea and the idea of home.
They will fill you with wonder at first, those unwarlike tales,
because they belong to the truly unexpected, against which it is
impossible to be prepared. It would not be an exaggeration to describe
the first effect of them as startling. They kill so many illusions and
they discredit so many beliefs. War, rendered thus the background of
life, assumes a new proportion and a new meaning. Or, rather, it
becomes vague and meaningless, like a darkness.
A few days ago I sat by the bedside of a wounded sapper--a
reservist--and heard the story of life in a signal-box on a branch
line in the North of England. The man was dying. I think he knew it.
But the zest of his everyday life was still strong in him. He
described the manner in which, on leaving the army originally, he had
obtained his post on the railway. He told me that there were three
trains each way in the day, and mentioned that on Winter nights the
last train was frequently very late. This meant a late supper, but his
wife saw to it that everything was kept hot. Sometimes his wife came
to the box to meet him if it was a dry night.
In the next bed there was a young Scotsman from a Highland district
which I know very well. We were friends so soon as he learned that I
knew his home. He was a roadman, and we talked of his roads and the
changes which had been wrought in them of late years by motor traffic.
He recalled a great storm, during which the sea wall around a certain
harbor was washed away and the highway rendered impassable. Then,
rather diffidently, he confessed that he had lost a foot and would be
handicapped in his work--"at Ypres."
At the far end of the ward there was a German who spoke a little
English. He was a married man and came from Saxony. His wife and
children, he said, would miss him at Christmas. We spoke a long time
on the subject of Christmas. I suppose by all the orthodox canons that
this German should have told me that he was glad to be a prisoner or
else should have declared his conviction that the German Army would
speedily carry everything before it to victory. But somehow he forgot
to say these things and I forgot to ask him about them. These things
seemed far away in the quiet ward, even--and for this I beg
forgiveness--grotesque and uninteresting.
I had the curiosity to return to the young Scot and to ask him if he
regretted the decision which had led to his being maimed for life. He
shook his head. "No, because I've had a good home. A man with a good
home should fight for it." He added that his father had advised him
very strongly to enlist.
By the touchstone of the men it has broken this war is judged, and the
makers of this war. And more than ruined villages and desecrated
churches these soldiers pronounce condemnation. They, who have given
so much, are, in a sense, without joy and without enthusiasm; rather
they shun recollection. There is no zest in the killing of men. Their
thoughts, especially at this season, are directed away from the dull,
mechanic force which labors against its bonds across Europe, and dwell
in the homes it has threatened. The war is revealed as a thing gross
and dull-witted, a crime even against the ancient, chivalrous spirit
of war.