GENTLEMEN AT ARMS 
 
GENTLEMEN AT ARMS 
 
 BY 
 "CENTURION" 
 
 A CAPTAIN IN THE BRITISH ARMY 
 WHO HAS SERVED IN FRANCE 
 
 "The nobler a soul u, the more 
 objects of compassion it hath'* 
 
 GARDEN CITY NEW YORK 
 
 DOUBLEDAY, PAGE & COMPANY 
 
 1918 
 
Copyright, 1918, by 
 DOUBLEDAY, PAGE & COMPANY 
 
 All rights reserved, including thai of 
 
 translation into foreign languages t 
 
 including the Scandinavian 
 
TO 
 THE DUKE OF CORNWALL'S LIGHT INFANTRY 
 
 THE DORSETS 
 
 THE SOMERSET LIGHT INFANTRY 
 
 THE WILTSHIRES 
 
 THE DEVONS 
 
 389674 
 
PREFACE 
 
 These stones, with the exception of the two chapters 
 entitled "The Husbandmen," are all based on the ex- 
 periences of the writer when serving in France and else- 
 where, or on those of fellow-officers with whom he has been 
 brought into contact. The writer makes no claims 
 and possesses none to be considered a writer of fiction. 
 Several of these stories deal with the battle of Mons, the 
 Marne, the Aisne, Ypres, and the Somme; in each of 
 these cases an attempt has been made to describe things 
 as they actually occurred, though the art of "camouflage" 
 has been practised to the extent of disguising the names 
 of the characters and units concerned. Other and more 
 strategical pens have described these mighty battles 
 viewed at leisure as examples of the art of war; the 
 writer has limited himself to describing them as they 
 presented themselves in glimpses to the eyes of men who, 
 being engaged in fighting them, had no time to speculate 
 about them. The particular phases recorded in these 
 pages are here made public for the first time; some day 
 they will doubtless receive more orderly treatment in the 
 records of certain West-country regiments and the his- 
 tory of two batteries of artillery. For the truth 
 of the story called "No Man's Land" the author does 
 not vouch; it is sufficient to say that it is based on a 
 conversation with a fellow-officer one night in billets 
 behind the lines. CENTURION. 
 
 February, igi8 
 
 Vll 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 PACK 
 
 PREFACE vii 
 
 LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS xi 
 
 I. The Lieutenant ..... 3 
 
 II. The Tide of Battle 18 
 
 III. The Sower of Tares . . . 36 
 
 IV. The Crown of Thorns . . . 52 
 V. The A. P. M 68 
 
 VI. No Man's Land 85 
 
 VII. "Hot Air" . . . ... .104 
 
 VIII. A Day on the Somme . . . 115 
 
 IX. The Husbandmen (i) . . . 133 
 
 X. The Old Guard 151 
 
 XI. The Batman 168 
 
 XII. The Attack . . . . -~ . 177 
 
 XIII. Field Punishment .... 196 
 
 XIV. The Lost Platoon . . . ' . 207 
 XV. Drafts 226 
 
 XVI. The Canadians 235 
 
 XVII. The Husbandmen (2) . . . . 257 
 
 XVIII. A Farm in Flanders . " . . . 273 
 
 XIX. The Allies 281 
 
 XX. The Powers of Darkness . . . 297 
 
 EPILOGUE: The Faith of the Soldier . . 319 
 
LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS USED 
 IN THIS VOLUME 
 
 O.P. Observation Post. 
 F.O.O. Forward Observing Officer. 
 M.G. Machine Gun. 
 
 L.G. Lewis Gun. 
 
 F.P. Field Punishment. 
 
 C.B. Confinement to Barracks. 
 I.H.L. Imprisonment with Hard 
 Labour. 
 
 CM. Court Martial. 
 G.C.M. General Court Martial. 
 
 M.I. Military Intelligence. 
 A. P.M. Assistant Provost-Marshal. 
 
 L.I. Light Infantry. 
 R.F.A. Royal Field Artillery. 
 R.GA Royal Garrison Artillery. 
 
 C.O. 
 
 o.c. 
 
 G.O.C. 
 
 N.C.O. 
 
 H.Q. 
 G.H.Q. 
 
 M.O. 
 R.T.O. 
 L.ofC. 
 
 H.E. 
 A.A.G. 
 
 A.G. 
 A.D.M.S. 
 
 Commanding Officer. 
 
 Officer Commanding. 
 
 General Officer Com- 
 manding. 
 
 Non-commis'ed Officer. 
 
 Headquarters. 
 
 General Headquarter*. 
 
 Medical Officer. 
 
 RailwayTransp' t Officer. 
 
 Lines of Communication. 
 
 High Explosive. 
 
 Assistant Adjutant Gen- 
 eral. 
 
 Adjutant-General. 
 
 Assistant Director of 
 Medical Services. 
 
 GLOSSARY 
 
 A.B.C. Shop. 
 
 Mr. Cox. 
 
 Bully Beef. 
 
 [Bob. 
 
 Chit. 
 
 Trolley. 
 
 Aerated Bread Company's refreshment and tea room. 
 
 Of Cox & Co., Army Bankers. 
 
 Canned corned beef. 
 
 Shilling (24 cents). 
 
 Memo, or note. 
 
 Hand-car or push-car. 
 
GENTLEMEN AT ARMS 
 
GENTLEMEN AT ARMS 
 
 I 
 
 THE LIEUTENANT 
 
 ON THE day he was born his father wrote two 
 letters. One was addressed to the head of a 
 certain school of ancient foundation in a 
 southern county; the other to the Dean of a col- 
 lege at Oxford. For, like some London clubs, they 
 took a good deal of getting into and his father, whose 
 name was on the registers of both of them, deter- 
 mined to leave nothing to chance. 
 
 The boy grew and waxed strong in spirit. He lay 
 for hours on his back cooing to himself and doing 
 mighty Swedish exercises, breasting the air like a 
 strong swimmer with his arms and kicking lustily 
 with his legs. "Isn't he sweet?" said his mother to 
 the doctor for the thousandth time. 
 
 "Hum! his patellar reflexes seem all right," said 
 the doctor who was used to such maternal ecstasies. 
 
 They called him Anthony Tony for short. He 
 began life with a face of extraordinary solemnity that 
 was almost senile, but it grew younger as he grew 
 older. His eyes, which were at first a neutral colour 
 inclining to mouse-gray, gradually changed till the 
 irises revealed the deep brown tint of his mother's, 
 
4 - GENTLEMEN AT ARMS 
 
 so that looking into them she seemed to be looking 
 into a mirror. But his nondescript nose took on the 
 clear-cut Grecian profile of his father. You could 
 see just that nose, slightly defaced by time, on the 
 stone effigies of chain-mail knights in the village 
 church, where they lay under the trefoil arches with 
 their feet crossed and their hands folded, resting 
 from the last crusade. The first discovery that he 
 made was that his toes, which seemed to remain 
 with him, were his own. The next thing he dis- 
 covered was that in the immensity around him 
 some things were near and others distant, and 
 that sometimes, as he put out an exploring hand to 
 grasp her breast, his mother was within reach and 
 sometimes not whereby he arrived at a distinction 
 which has vexed the metaphysicians for centuries: the 
 difference between self and not-self. But in the case 
 of his mother, unlike other of the big people who 
 hovered round him from time to time, he never suc- 
 ceeded in completely establishing this distinction, 
 and all through his life distance only brought her 
 more near, till one day but that comes later. 
 
 One night, when he was about three years old, he 
 was lying asleep in his cot in the nursery when a log 
 fell from the untended fire, and sending up a spurt of 
 flame threw a gigantic shadow on the wall by his 
 bed. He woke with a start and a cry, for the shadow 
 was now leaping, now crouching, as though it were 
 going to pounce upon him. And he cried lustily. 
 The next moment there was a light footfall of bare 
 feet, two soft arms were clasping his neck, and a 
 
THE LIEUTENANT 5 
 
 shower of auburn hair, soft as silk, fell around his 
 face. "What is the matter with Mummy's boy? Is 
 he frightened then ? Where's the little man who was 
 going to kill Apollyon? What will poor Mummy 
 do when she meets Aoollyon if her little man is 
 afraid?" 
 
 "Tse not afraid," he said stoutly, his lips quivering. 
 And after that, although he sometimes knew fear, he 
 was never afraid. For he always remembered in 
 the nick of time that some day Mummy would want 
 him to fight Apollyon. But he had made a great 
 discovery almost as portentous as the discovery of 
 self and not-self. He had discovered that he had 
 two selves, the self which said "I am afraid" and the 
 self which said "Go to! I am not afraid." And 
 from that day he learnt to despise the former and 
 respect the latter. The first he called "Mr. Feeble- 
 Mind," and the second "Mr. Great-Heart." And 
 when he was sure he was alone he often talked with 
 the former, hurling the most derisive epithets at it 
 and bidding it get behind him, for it had an alias 
 which was "Temptation." 
 
 His early world was bounded by a yew hedge 
 which marked the end of the bowling green. The 
 house, which was visited on one occasion by a party 
 of grave gentlemen in spectacles he learnt after- 
 ward that they called themselves the County 
 Archaeological Society was shaped like the letter 
 "E" and had great gables with mullioned windows 
 whose leaden casements glowed like fire in the 
 westering sun. The oak-panelling was black with 
 
6 GENTLEMEN AT ARMS , 
 
 age, and on the plaster wall of one of the bedrooms 
 Moses and the patriarchs were frescoed in doublet 
 and hose, and Pharaoh's daughter stooped over the 
 bulrushes in a farthingale. Tony loved it at first 
 because it seemed specially designed to enable him 
 to play hide and seek in its oak closets, long corridors, 
 and deep alcoves, and he loved it to the end of his 
 life because it was his home. Beyond the yew 
 hedge was the paddock, beyond the paddock was the 
 park, and above the tops of the beeches Tony could 
 see the edge of the world, which was a chalk down. 
 Beyond that chalk down, he felt assured, was the 
 Celestial City, although he had heard grown-ups 
 call it "the howizon." 
 
 He passed from the hands of a tutor to the puolic 
 school for which his father had put his name down on 
 the day of his birth. He began as the lowliest of fags 
 and the first thing he discovered was that for his 
 name, which was illustrious, was rudely substituted 
 another and a homelier "Freckles." He came 
 back after his first half with an immense stock of 
 knowledge, not to be found in books, and a vocabu- 
 lary which was unfamiliar to everyone at home 
 except his father a vocabulary in which "to thoke" 
 is to slack, "to brock," is to bully, in which "Long- 
 meads" stands for a day off and "Moab" does duty 
 for a lavatory. "It is a vocabulary which once 
 learnt is never forgotten; men of his school speak it in 
 the hill-stations of India, on the African veldt, in the 
 back flats of Australia, and wherever two or three of 
 them are gathered together. Also he exhibited a 
 
THE LIEUTENANT 7 
 
 discoloured eye. At all of which his father rejoiced, 
 but his mother was sorrowful, feeling that he had 
 passed without the cloister of her heart. But in 
 this she was mistaken. 
 
 In due time he reached the dizzy heights of the 
 Sixth and became a prefect with the right to turn his 
 trousers up and to wear brown boots, which is only 
 permitted to the elect. Also he won his cap as 
 centre forward in the School Fifteen. Small boys 
 imitated him, big boys envied him, and he had a 
 retinue of clients like a Roman patron. He put 
 down bullying in his house with a strong hand and 
 other things. By this time he had learnt to turn out 
 a good hexameter and a neat iambic; also to put 
 Burke into a Latin prose that was stately without 
 being pompous. 
 
 Thence he went to Oxford. His name was already 
 on the books of his father's old college, but, as it 
 turned out, he needed no precedence, for he took a 
 classical scholarship. There he learned the same 
 lesson that he had learnt at school namely, that 
 the first thing to do is to live down an outside repu- 
 tation; the greater the reputation the more modest 
 it behoves you to be. He found that a first-year man 
 does not call on a second-year man, but waits to 
 be called on. No! not though the one be a scholar 
 and the other a commoner. Also that one is never 
 elected into the best clubs or college societies in 
 one's first term. But not being a pushful person 
 he had really no need to learn these things, for he 
 knew them by instinct. But men sought him out 
 
8 GENTLEMEN AT ARMS 
 
 and discovered his worth so that in his second term, 
 when he lavishly returned the hospitalities of the 
 first, the size of his battels drew a mild rebuke from 
 the Dean. But beyond occasionally getting gated, 
 he managed to keep on good terms with the Dons, 
 who can rarely resist the man who is at once an 
 athlete and a scholar. After tubbing in the Morri- 
 son fours, he rowed seven in the Torpids and his 
 boat did a bump every night near the "gut." Great 
 faggots blazed in the quad the last night, and for 
 once in his life Tony got rather drunk and was with 
 difficulty restrained from mounting the pyre, having 
 to be put to bed by his friends, loudly protesting 
 that he was Joan of Arc. He got ploughed in 
 Divinity Mods for a character-sketch of St. Peter, 
 which the Examiners voted learned but profane; 
 your Anglican don does not like to hear the disciple 
 described as "the enfant terrible of the Twelve." Also 
 he entertained a Socialist chimney-sweeper in his 
 rooms like a man and a brother and (what was far 
 worse in the eyes of Anglican Dons), a Nonconform- 
 ist draper with whom he insisted on discussing the 
 right of entry in single-school areas. For it was his 
 fashion to try all things. In long walks over Shot- 
 over and Cumnor, in high talks at night in the quad 
 or in his rooms, he discussed in the manner of Plato's 
 dialectics, the Nature of the State, the Responsibili- 
 ties of the Empire toward Subject-races, the Mean- 
 ing of Good, the Nature of Truth, and the Orna- 
 ments Rubric. For of such things do men talk at 
 Oxford, plumbing the depths of speculation in a 
 
THE LIEUTENANT 9 
 
 world where speculation takes the place of experi- 
 ence and men see Life, like the dwellers in the cave of 
 Plato's myth, by the shadows that the outer world 
 throws upon its enchanted walls. 
 
 His first long vacation was less than half-way 
 through when a cloud no bigger than a man's hand 
 rose upon the horizon. It first appeared when his 
 father opened the newspaper at breakfast one 
 morning and read out that an Archduke had been 
 assassinated in a tiny satrapy of the Austrian 
 Empire. "Another of those Balkan melodramas/' 
 he said lightly as he turned to the stock markets. 
 But in a few days the cloud grew bigger. The bank- 
 rate went up like a rocket, dark hints of "mobiliza- 
 tion" appeared, the word "ultimatum" was repeated 
 in the papers, one read curiously of an encounter 
 between patrols on the Franco-German frontier, 
 and noted with consternation that a man had been 
 killed. And then the storm burst. The King called 
 for men. 
 
 The cornfields were brilliant with scarlet pimper- 
 nel and rest-harrow, and the wheat, changing from 
 sea-green to gold and heavy in the ear, gave prom- 
 ise of an early harvest. But father and son ceased 
 to talk of days among the stubble; the boy was silent, 
 until one day he announced his intention of "doing 
 his bit." His mother turned pale but said nothing. 
 That night she entered his room, according to her 
 habit, to kiss him good-night. She went down on 
 her knees beside him and with her arms round his 
 neck said: "Don't you are all I have." He looked 
 
io GENTLEMEN AT ARMS 
 
 straight into her face and said reproachfully: 
 "Mummy! who was it told me do you remember? 
 never to fear Apollyon?" And from that mo- 
 ment she knew it was useless, nor did she try to dis- 
 suade him, for she would not have had it otherwise. 
 They remained in long communion as he told her all 
 the secrets of his heart, and when she rose to go her 
 eyes were dry, for in that hour she knew, as she had 
 not known since he was a little child, that he and 
 she were one. 
 
 He joined the O.T.C. He learnt section drill, 
 platoon drill, company drill, and many other things. 
 And then one day he applied for a commission. He 
 duly filled up all the interrogatories on M.T. 392 and 
 against "unit preferred" he wrote the name of a 
 well-known West-Country regiment in whose officers' 
 mess his family name was a household word. And he 
 sent it to his old Head for the usual certificate of 
 moral character. He blushed when it came back, and 
 was slightly annoyed, for the Head, not content with 
 the words, "I certify," had added an afterthought: 
 "He is an excellent fellow; one of the best." 
 
 At the School of Instruction he learnt the art of 
 war, his tutor being a Major invalided home from the 
 front who taught him all that can be learnt by oral 
 instruction on rationing, patrols, relief by sections, 
 and the making out of work-tables. And when all 
 home-keeping folk were in bed he marched them out 
 in column of fours to a lacerated field where they 
 practised "Night Op. "with the aid of a trip-wire, a 
 flare pistol, and implements of husbandry. The 
 
THE LIEUTENANT u 
 
 Major was a wise man; he had drilled with the 
 recruits of his own regiment on the square when he 
 had been first gazetted from Sandhurst, and he held 
 that the best training for an officer is to learn to do 
 what you want done. Wherefore he made his 
 cadets learn their job by the sweat of their brow, 
 dig their own trenches, and throw out their own saps 
 always remembering, when you begin to dig a sap, 
 to put up a sandbag on the end of a fork first, other- 
 wise you may never live to finish it. 
 
 The palms of their hands became as hard as a 
 cobbler's, but it was good schooling, for it taught 
 them the most valuable of all lessons: to know when 
 they were giving orders exactly how much they were 
 asking of their men to do. And in dealing with men 
 this is the beginning of wisdom. Also he gave them 
 two pieces of advice, one of which was that at Mess 
 you are practically on parade and should behave 
 accordingly; the other that the first duty of a young 
 officer is to place the comfort and well-being of his 
 men before his own. But being a gentleman Tony 
 did not need to learn the one; and having been head 
 of his house he had already learned the other. So 
 that when the O.C. sent in his report upon him, on 
 his "paper-work," "bearing," "punctuality," and 
 "power of handling men," he marked the first three 
 "good," but the fourth "excellent." 
 
 The Major must, I think, have taken rather a 
 fancy to him, for one day he asked him if he knew 
 anything about revolver-shooting and on being an- 
 swered in the negative, he took him privily aside and 
 
12 GENTLEMEN AT ARMS 
 
 taught him a thing or two first that you mustn't 
 grip the revolver too tight or it will throw your 
 wrist ofF, second that you really fire with the whole 
 hand rather than with the trigger-finger and should 
 absorb the shock into your whole frame, and, last 
 and greatest of these, that in shooting a descending 
 figure you should incline the whole body as you 
 lower the arm and never make a series of elbow- 
 jerks. At the end of it all he plugged the target with 
 six shots in an eight-inch circle and the Major gave 
 him his blessing and his revolver. He was to 
 owe his life more than once to what the Major 
 had taught him. 
 
 Then he joined his battalion and was put in com- 
 mand of a platoon. 
 
 "It's very like being a prefect again with the Adju- 
 tant as the 'Head,'" he wrote to his mother of his 
 first day's duty as orderly officer, and so it was. To 
 carry on as orderly officer from reveille to tattoo 
 and later requires tact. From the time when he 
 inspected the issue of rations in the early dawn to the 
 hour when he turned out the quarter-guard just 
 before midnight he was responsible for the "tone" 
 of that camp. He had to see that everything from 
 cook-house to guard-room was "clean and regular," 
 to examine the rations with the eye of an Inspector 
 of Food and Drugs and to smell the men's dinners 
 with the nose of a chef, to see that the utensils were 
 unspotted from the world and the rifles of the guard, 
 barring the safety-catch, ready to go off of them- 
 selves. Also he had to hear and adjudicate upon 
 
THE LIEUTENANT 13 
 
 "complaints" like a cadi under a palm-tree. To do 
 this kind of thing properly you have to be vigilant 
 without being fussy and alert without being restive 
 otherwise your orderly sergeant and sergeant of 
 the guard get fussy and restive, too, and that kind of 
 thing is catching and bad for the men. He com- 
 pleted his report to the Adjutant next morning with 
 the words, "Nothing unusual has occurred during my 
 tour of duty with the exception of that noted over- 
 leaf." The Adjutant said nothing and an Adju- 
 tant's silence is golden. It means that you will do. 
 
 The first thing he did was to get to know his men. 
 He taught them that cleanliness was next to godli- 
 ness and having commended their souls to the 
 padre he devoted himself to their bodies. He made 
 them take their caps off on parade to see if their 
 hair was parted and hold out their hands like bishops 
 at confirmation to see if their finger-nails were 
 clean. Also he encouraged them to play "footer," 
 which keeps the pores open and is an infallible 
 remedy for "grouse" disease. And one night he 
 talked to them like a man and a brother in one of 
 the hutments on the history of the regiment. He 
 told them of a certain glorious episode in the de- 
 fence of the Residency in virtue of which they were 
 entitled to call themselves "L.I." and how the soup- 
 tureen, now safely banked with the regimental 
 mess-plate, got the hole in it. Also why they were 
 entitled to wear a red flash on their hats and a half- 
 red pugaree on their helmets in virtue of their hav- 
 ing shown the red feather by way of biting their 
 
i 4 GENTLEMEN AT ARMS 
 
 thumbs at Montcalm's men in Quebec. And other 
 such things, till his men felt and, as things turned 
 out later, proved that the honour of the regiment 
 was dearer to them than their lives. They began to 
 think better of the geometry of platoon drill after 
 this, and to see that platoon, advancing in column of 
 fours, form forward into column of sections when he 
 uttered the words "On the left, form sections," was 
 as good as watching the rhythmical swing of a well- 
 stroked eight. And by reason of all this, the O.C. 
 commended him, the captain of his company cher- 
 ished him, and his platoon-sergeant delighted to do 
 his bidding. And when the battalion went route- 
 marching over the downs, moving like a long cater- 
 pillar as each section of fours rose and fell over the 
 crest, and he marched at the head of his platoon, he 
 felt it was good, very good, to be alive. 
 
 He went out with his battalion to the front. His 
 letters home told his mother that he was having "a 
 ripping time." He did not tell her that he wrote 
 them in a cave of clay with his feet in water and his 
 head in a cloud of smoke from damp coke and 
 damper wood. He endured without grousing rain and 
 cold and frost and mud and, what was far harder to 
 bear, a sad deficiency in machine-guns and trench- 
 mortars that were made out of stove-pipes. 
 
 He went through the second battle of Ypres, and 
 when his company officer and all his fellow officers 
 were knocked out he carried on with a handful of 
 men in a hole about the size of a dewpond and saved 
 the position. The next thing he knew was that his 
 
THE LIEUTENANT 15 
 
 name appeared in the Gazette with the Military Cross. 
 The only comment he made was that other fellows 
 had a better claim to it which was untrue. And 
 when he came home on seven days' leave his mother 
 discovered that her boy had become a man. At 
 twenty he was wise with the wisdom of thirty-five 
 wiser, perhaps, for he had seen things such as come 
 not once in a generation to the sons of men. His 
 leave coincided with one of those recurrent interludes 
 in which that elusive mirage "the end of the war" 
 appears before the wistful eyes of men, and they 
 talked of his future at Oxford. But he shook his 
 head. 
 
 "No," he said pensively. "I shall never go 
 back, Mummy I couldn't. My year's scattered 
 like the leaves of the forest," he went on as, with his 
 back to them, he gazed through the window at the 
 dead leaves spinning under the beeches in the park. 
 "And anyhow I'm too old." This at twenty. 
 But they knew what he meant and talked of the 
 Bar, a seat in Parliament, Quarter Sessions. To all 
 of which he returned no answer. 
 
 He went back. They saw him off by the boat- 
 train from Victoria. He held his mother a long 
 time and kissed the eyes into which his own had first 
 looked when he opened them in wonder upon the 
 world. And father and mother went home to- 
 gether to the big country-house which suddenly 
 seemed to have grown still bigger so forlorn and 
 empty did it seem. 
 
 One night he had to go out on patrol a recon- 
 
16 GENTLEMEN AT ARMS . 
 
 noitring patrol, which is always a small affair and 
 does not command the full complement of a fighting 
 patrol. He sat in his dug-out writing a letter home 
 on the flimsy of a "Messages and Signals" form. 
 The N.C.O. appeared at the dug-out and raised the 
 screen of sacking. Tony folded up the letter, sealed 
 it, addressed it, and marked the envelope, "To be 
 forwarded only in the event of my death." Then he 
 examined the chambers of his revolver and rose and 
 went out into the night. 
 
 Far away across a sodden land lit up by the flashes 
 of guns like sheet-lightning, across a waste of waters 
 where a chain of destroyers rose and fell with the 
 Channel swell, beyond the rolling downs of the south 
 country, a woman in a great house awoke with a cry 
 out of a troubled sleep and put out her hand. "Jack, " 
 she said, "Tony's dead!" 
 
 Her husband woke with a start and bent over her. 
 
 "Nonsense, Mary," he said with faltering lips, 
 "you've been dreaming." She was'sitting up in bed, 
 a shower of hair, still auburn, and still soft as silk, 
 falling about her shoulders as she gazed at the win- 
 dow. She sank back and buried her head in the 
 pillows. 
 
 "No!" she said. "I've seen him." 
 
 Three days later a boy came up the drive with an 
 orange-coloured envelope in his hand. The father 
 saw him approaching from the dining-room window, 
 and something pierced him like a two-edged sword. 
 He learnt but that was later that Tony had gone 
 
THE LIEUTENANT 17 
 
 out on patrol with a corporal; they had been sur- 
 prised by a party of the enemy and the N.C.O. 
 had got badly hit. He begged Tony to leave him. 
 But the boy took him up on his young shoulders and 
 made his way back. Sometimes he fell, for the man 
 was heavy and the ground bad, but he laboured on. 
 A star-shell went up behind them, and the earth 
 was suddenly stricken with a pallid glare of light. 
 Then a hail of bullets enveloped them and the boy 
 fell this time to rise no more. The corporal said 
 afterward this to the boy's parents when they 
 came to see the corporal in hospital that the boy 
 had said something at the last "something I 
 couldn't quite understand, ma'am, not being a 
 scholar like him, something that sounded like 'Apol- 
 lyon.' But I fancy his mind was wandering-like. 
 And he never said no more." 
 
II 
 
 THE TIDE OF BATTLE 
 
 .- 
 
 "Thf Tide of Battle" is a story of the first battle of Ypres, and it is based 
 on actual incidents. 
 
 THE aromatic mist of a late autumn morning 
 wrapped the wood in a woolly shroud, and 
 there was an unmistakable nip in the air. 
 From every twig of beech and pine and chestnut 
 hung beads of moisture which, when they caught the 
 sun as it pierced the mists, sparkled like crystals. 
 Little drops of moisture hung also on the grass of 
 some newly-turned sods of earth close by the turf 
 emplacements, and as the mist cleared one could see 
 that these sods formed a mound some six feet by two. 
 It was the grave of the battery sergeant-major. 
 Some eight hours earlier it had been dug by the gun 
 detachment, in the darkness of the night, while the 
 owls hooted in the wood; and the captain com- 
 manding the battery had recited so much of the 
 Burial Service as he could remember, throwing in a 
 few handfuls of earth upon the still form under the 
 blanket when he reached the solemn words of com- 
 mittal. He looked at the grave as he walked to the 
 telephone dug-out, and wondered what furthercasual- 
 ties the day had in store for him. 
 
 At that moment an orderly came up and handed 
 
 18 
 
THE TIDE OF BATTLE 19 
 
 him a note. He opened it. It was written on a 
 " Messages and Signals" form, in blue pencil. 
 
 "A new target," he said to the subaltern. 
 "Miller, I want you to go forward and observe. 
 
 We're to take on Z church. The Germans 
 
 must have been using it as an O.P. since they drove 
 back the yth Cavalry Brigade yesterday. We 
 haven't got it registered." 
 
 He took his map and ivory scale, and worked out 
 the angle of sight from the range and the height of 
 the new target. The gun detachments were already 
 at their stations. The direction was put on the dial- 
 sight. Two men then threw the trail over with the 
 aid of handspikes. As he shouted out the range and 
 angle of sight, No. I of each gun repeated his words 
 like a litany; there was a pause as the layer moved the 
 handle of the clinometer-sight till he shouted "set." 
 
 "Lyddite," said the Captain. The loader thrust 
 a shell into the breach and closed the wedge. 
 
 The Captain took out a cigarette, lit it, and waited. 
 
 About ten minutes later the telephonist, who had 
 been waiting with his ear at the receiver, spoke: 
 
 "Mr. Miller has arrived at the O. P., sir." 
 
 "No. I gun ready?" 
 
 "Ready, sir," said the sergeant. 
 
 "Fire." 
 
 The loader pulled the lanyard. There was a loud 
 report and a sheet of orange flame. 
 
 "One degree more right, sir," said the telephonist, 
 with the receiver still at his ear. The section com- 
 mander repeated it. 
 
20 GENTLEMEN AT ARMS 
 
 The layer readjusted the dial-sight, and the gun 
 was fired again. There was a pause. 
 
 "Ten minutes more left, sir," called the telephonist. 
 
 "Ten minutes more left," chanted the Section 
 Commander and Number One in succession. 
 
 There was another pause. "Hit, sir," said the 
 telephonist. The Captain, having given the order 
 "repeat," mounted a ladder by a haystack and 
 turned his glasses to the southeast. What he saw 
 apparently satisfied him, and he descended the 
 haystack. 
 
 The air fluttered, there was a loud thud, a crashing 
 of timber some fifty yards to the left, and out of the 
 living trees rose the mirage-like silhouette of a dead 
 tree outlined in a crayon of coal-black smoke above 
 the wood which drifted into nothingness against the 
 sky. No one took any notice. At such times the 
 russet-brown leaves of the beeches overhead trem- 
 bled violently, and for some minutes afterward 
 floated down upon the men below till they came to 
 rest on their heads and tunics and there remained. 
 From the direction of the morning sun there came a 
 loud and continuous crackle of musketry, the mo- 
 notonous tap-tap of machine-guns, and occasionally 
 there was a sound like the crack of a whip over the 
 heads of the gunners. 
 
 "What d'you make of it, Bovington?" said the 
 Battery Commander. 
 
 "It sounds nearer, sir," said the subaltern. 
 
 "So I think," said the other pensively. "I don't 
 like it. I'm afraid we're being driven back. The 
 
THE TIDE OF BATTLE 21 
 
 2nd Welsh and the Queen's are up there. And the 
 German heavies are busy. God! I wish Ordnance 
 rationed us half as liberally." 
 
 "Yes, I thought so," he added, as he read another 
 H.Q. message, brought up by an orderly. "We've 
 got to shorten the range again. Give them shrapnel 
 over an arc of ninety. Hullo, wait a minute, ser- 
 geant. The wagon limber's on fire. Get some 
 earth and that tarpaulin! Quick!" 
 
 They ran to the limber, and the sergeant snatched 
 the loose sods from the newly-covered grave and 
 threw them on the limber, while the gunners plas- 
 tered it with spadefuls of damp earth. There was a 
 loud pop, then another. Then silence. The Cap- 
 tain inspected the limber-wagon cautiously. 
 
 "It's all right," he said to the subaltern with a 
 sigh of relief. "There are only two or three cart- 
 ridges gone off. If the back of the limber hadn't 
 been forced outward, the whole box of tricks would 
 have exploded. And we haven't any to spare. I 
 hope the teams are all right. We've already lost a 
 leader and a wheeler of No. I gun." 
 
 Meanwhile the gun had been swung round again 
 to its former position facing east. The gunners 
 threw off their tunics and rolled up their shirt- 
 sleeves. The gun-layer, having moved the sight- 
 elevating gear to adjust the shortened range, gave 
 a twist to the gun-elevating gear till, seeing the' 
 insect-like crawl of the bubble, he stopped. This 
 done, they commenced to spray the German lines 
 with a hail of shrapnel. 
 
22 GENTLEMEN AT ARMS 
 
 The sun rose higher in the heavens, and the mists 
 cleared. The Captain advanced to the edge of the 
 wood some ten yards in front of the guns, keeping 
 well away to the left to avoid the blast of his guns, 
 and with his glasses swept the long road marked by 
 a line of tall, fluttering poplars still in leaf. He saw 
 an irregular procession of figures drifting up the 
 road; he noted that all of them limped painfully. 
 Every now and then spurts of brilliant flame would 
 suddenly appear from nowhere in the sky, a white 
 ball of smoke would unfold itself into a scroll shaped 
 like a sculptured dolphin, and one or two of the 
 limping figures would fall in the road, and lie where 
 they fell. At such times, or rather a moment before, 
 some of the figures would dart for the shelter of the 
 poplars and behind the trunks; it was the slower ones 
 who fell. In the distance, about half a mile away, 
 was a solitary figure moving so slowly that he 
 hardly seemed to move at all, and executing as he 
 went a kind of clog dance, making no attempt to 
 dodge the shells which fell around him. A soldier 
 passed; his right arm hung uselessly down, and the 
 side of his face nearest the Captain was plastered 
 with coagulated blood. Stretcher-bearers were no- 
 where visible. This surprised the Captain the less 
 as he knew that every battalion detail who could 
 carry anything was carrying on with a rifle. 
 
 As the morning advanced, the omens darkened. 
 The units of the German armies in front of the sunken 
 road that cut the road to Menin at right angles 
 through Gheluvelt were thrusting forward like the 
 
THE TIDE OF BATTLE 23 
 
 fingers of a gigantic outstretched hand, and in the 
 narrow spaces between each pair of fingers each 
 British battalion was being slowly squeezed to death. 
 Such was the picture which presented itself to the 
 Battery Commander's imagination as he pieced 
 together the fragments of intelligence that came in 
 at frequent intervals and were passed along, some 
 formally in a bewildering series of orders, others 
 informally in hurried scraps of conversation that 
 passed like missiles from one mounted officer to 
 another as they met, saluted, and went their ways. 
 That the staff was hard put to it was obvious; cooks 
 left their field-kitchens, A. S. C. men their lorries and 
 were hurried up to the front with rifles to take their 
 places in the firing line. There were no reserves left. 
 The Captain looked at the four guns in their turf 
 emplacements. In the last forty-eight hours he had 
 shortened his fuses from four to two thousand yards; 
 every H.Q. message calling upon him to engage a new 
 target had indicated an objective that was getting 
 nearer and nearer. The guns were now firing over 
 an arc of ninety degrees, sweeping the German front, 
 and the range was little more than a mile. The 
 enemy advance was creeping on like an oil-stain and, 
 if the reports that our centre was being driven in 
 were true, in no long time his gunners would be shot 
 down where they stood and the guns turned on our 
 own infantry in retreat. He ran his eye rapidly over 
 the vital parts of the guns, and as it rested on each 
 part he thought out all the orders he might have to 
 give in the hour of extremity. There were the 
 
24 GENTLEMEN AT ARMS 
 
 sights, their brass-work glinting in the sun; with a 
 blow from one of the spades strapped behind the 
 shield he could smash their delicate mechanism. 
 There was the breech-loading wedge, fitting like the 
 back of a watch; it might be possible to dent the 
 edges. At the back of it was the striker plug; if he 
 unscrewed that, he could fire a rifle-bullet into the 
 opening. There was the elevating-gear; a hand- 
 spike through its diminutive wheel would settle that 
 main-spring of the gun forever. Or he could take 
 out the bolt below the muzzle which secured the 
 piston-rod and fire a last round at high angle in the 
 direction of the enemy, and with the gun's recoil the 
 shock would dismount her. But to lay violent 
 hands on the guns that had served him so well was a 
 counsel of despair, and for the moment he put it 
 from him. At all costs he must save them. 
 
 As he meditated on these things, he heard a loud 
 droning hum overhead. He looked up between the 
 smooth oval leaves of a beech-tree. A Taube 
 aeroplane was flying over the wood, the black iron 
 crosses clearly marked on its diaphanous wings, and 
 as it passed on it dropped a white fire-ball. He 
 knew what that meant. In no long time the right 
 section of his battery might be knocked out by a 
 direct hit. He rode back to the gun teams a few 
 hundred yards away, to warn them to prepare to go 
 up to the guns at a moment's notice. He found 
 them grouped where he had left them the day before, 
 some of the horses off-saddled and the drivers mas- 
 saging their backs with the flat of the hand. He 
 
THE TIDE OF BATTLE 25 
 
 ran his eye rapidly over the teams; they mustered 
 the same strength as overnight. If they sustained 
 no more casualties he might hope to get his guns 
 away. 
 
 "Get ready to go up and hook in," he said to the 
 drivers. 
 
 As he looked at the sleek and well-groomed teams, 
 he felt thankful that he had never let pass an oppor- 
 tunity of impressing on his men the duty of dis- 
 mounting to ease the girths, of looking after the 
 horses' feet, and all the little arts of horsemastership. 
 He had bidden them remember the horses were their 
 best friends, and that some day they might have to 
 make a heavy draft on that friendship. The day 
 had come. 
 
 At that moment there was a rush in the air behind 
 him, and a loud thud. His horse reared on her 
 haunches and then came down on her fore feet with 
 a plunge that nearly threw him out of the saddle. 
 He could feel her quivering under him in every 
 nerve as he reined her in and patted her neck. He 
 was nearly blinded, but as the coal-black smoke 
 cleared before his eyes he saw one of the horses on 
 her back with her legs lashing the air in agony and 
 her smoking entrails exposed. She screamed as only 
 a "dumb" animal can scream a long-drawn-out 
 shriek that was like an expiration. 
 
 "Drag him out of the way, sergeant, quick, or 
 she'll lash his brains out," he shouted, as she rolled 
 toward her driver. The latter lay quite still, both 
 legs severed below the knee with jets of blood spurt- 
 
26 GENTLEMEN AT ARMS 
 
 ing from the severed arteries. Some of the horses 
 were plunging, and one was bolting madly down 
 the road. The men, dazed by the shock, were hold- 
 ing on to the others. 
 
 The Captain jumped off his horse, handed the 
 bridle to an orderly, and pulled his revolver out of its 
 holster. With one shot he put the mangled beast out 
 of her futile agonies. He ordered the rest of the team 
 to be withdrawn a few hundred yards to such thicker 
 cover as the wood afforded. But the German guns 
 were searching that wood with inexorable persis- 
 tency, shivering the chestnut and beech and pine 
 into splinters, and pollarding the poplars as with a 
 gigantic axe. The four teams were now reduced 
 to twenty-four horses, and each gun would have 
 to be brought away with a pair short. He would 
 think himself lucky if he lost no more. 
 
 He galloped back to Headquarters for instructions, 
 and as he rode down the long, straight road, bordered 
 by a parallel line of poplars which met in a diminish- 
 ing perspective, he passed more men limping along 
 in every stage of decrepitude, some breathing hard, 
 their faces livid and their uniforms covered with 
 black earth from head to foot as though they had 
 been dipped in pitch. Wounded men, with blood 
 streaming down their faces, were dodging from tree 
 to tree, seeking a wholly imaginary shelter from the 
 shells which, with freakish malignity, fell here and 
 there, as though playing a diabolical game of hide 
 and seek. Three men wearing their equipment and 
 with their rifles at the carry paused irresolutely in 
 
THE TIDE OF BATTLE 27 
 
 the road. An A.P.M. advanced from behind a tree 
 and met them in the middle. 
 
 "Hullo! Who are you? Where are you going?" 
 
 "We was the 2nd Welsh, sir," said the spokesman 
 
 of the party. "We's all that's left of B Company 
 
 1 we've lost touch with the Borderers on our left 
 
 flank and the line's broken in. We was looking for 
 
 someone to post us, sir." , 
 
 The A.P.M. shepherded them together at the side 
 of the road for despatch to the collecting station. 
 
 Other stragglers came up. They were from the 
 1st Queen's, and they brought news of an over- 
 whelming enemy attack on their right and a mur- 
 derous enfilading fire. 
 
 The A.P.M. fell them in with the rest to send up in 
 support. The debris of other units came straggling 
 in, Welsh Fusiliers, Queen's, a man of the Black 
 Watch, and it struck the Captain whimsically, as he 
 reined in to gather information, that this show was 
 strangely like a cotillon d' Albert in the sergeants' 
 mess with everybody changing partners. Only there 
 was no "sitting out." 
 
 Looking down the road which ran straight as an 
 arrow between the poplars, he perceived about fifty 
 yards away the same figure which had arrested his 
 attention half an hour before. How it had escaped 
 the hail of shrapnel was a mystery. It had taken 
 that half hour to cover barely half a mile. He saw 
 now that it was a Highlander without cap or equip- 
 ment or rifle, a short man with the thick knees, 
 powerful deltoid muscles, thin lips, and high cheek- 
 
28 GENTLEMEN AT ARMS 
 
 bones, so characteristic of his kind. There was 
 something about his gait which was at once ludicrous 
 and pathetic. The upper part of his body was rigid, 
 but the lower part described a semi-circular move- 
 ment as though it were a pivot, and his agitated legs 
 pirouetted on the balls of his feet, so that he seemed 
 to hesitate between a shuffle and a dance. But it 
 was a melancholy dance in which the dancer's legs 
 seemed to move of themselves, and in their convul- 
 sive movements he betrayed neither interest nor 
 volition. His arms hung at his sides curiously im- 
 mobile, but the hands twitched ceaselessly, turning 
 on his wrists as on a hinge. The corners of his 
 mouth also twitched and his eyelids perpetually 
 rose and fell. 
 
 The Brigadier, who had spent the night in a dug- 
 out by the side of the road, caught sight of him. 
 All the morning he had moved to and fro in the 
 open, receiving reports and issuing orders, while 
 smoking a cigarette with unstudied nonchalance. 
 Now and again he found time to speak to the strag- 
 glers, rounding them up with words of encourage- 
 ment. It is not often that a general plays the part 
 of "battle police," but the General knew that in this 
 vital hour every man was worth his weight in gold 
 also that every man had earned, and should receive, 
 a general's commendation. He took the man 
 gently by the arm. "What unit are you, my lad? 
 The 2nd Gordons?" The man blinked at him and 
 made a resolute effort to speak. 
 
 "I d-d-d-d-dinna k-k-k-ken, sir," he said, jerking 
 
THE TIDE OF BATTLE 29 
 
 out the syllables as though he were jumping a terrific 
 obstacle. 
 
 "Who's your company commander?" 
 
 "I d-d-d-dinna k-k-k-ken, sir." 
 
 "Well, what's your name, my lad?" 
 
 "I c-c-c-canna " And tears came into his 
 
 eyes. 
 
 The General led him gently to the side of the road, 
 and made him sit down. He sat there, and a man 
 of the 2nd Welsh handed him a "woodbine." He 
 took it and put it uncertainly between his lips. 
 Then he struck a match. He tried to apply it to the 
 cigarette, but the match danced in his hand like a 
 will-o'-the-wisp and went out. He struck another, 
 but the distance between the match and the cigarette 
 was insurmountable, and he dropped it. 
 
 "Shell shock. I've seen cases like it before," said 
 the General laconically. "C Company of the Gor- 
 dons had a devil of a time on Thursday, and he's one 
 of the relics of it." And with a word to the A.P.M. 
 to get the stricken man to the chateau in the wood 
 he turned to his brigade-major. The Captain 
 looked after the man, following his quivering move- 
 ments with a strange fascination. He had seen his 
 gunners blown to pieces by his side, and the horses 
 of his teams frightfully mangled, but to this day 
 the remembrance of that convulsive figure remains 
 with him as a symbol of the hell in which the in- 
 fantry fought and died. 
 
 "He wass blown up," said a survivor of the 1st 
 Welsh Fusiliers, whose face was pitted with the blue 
 
30 GENTLEMEN AT ARMS 
 
 marks that betray the collier. "By a coal-box. 
 My butty wass buried by one, and all his section. 
 I wass dig him out, but he wass dead. And his face 
 wass swell up like the fire-damp. There's swelled 
 up it wass ! " 
 
 "Aye," said a man of the ist Queen's, as though 
 dismissing a platitude. "I tell you what, mate, 
 this isn't war." 
 
 "Ho! I don't think," said his neighbour. "What 
 is it, then? We've been outflanked and enfiladed 
 on both sides; outflanked we have. All our officers 
 is gone, and there aren't seventy of us have got 
 back. If that ain't war, what is it?" 
 
 "It's b - murder," said the other. 
 
 No one seemed inclined to dispute this proposition. 
 The little group was not talkative. The nervous 
 jocularity which precedes action, the almost sub- 
 conscious profanity which carries men through it, 
 the riotous gaiety which follows after it all these 
 were absent. They were worn out with want of 
 sleep, parched with thirst, stunned with concussion, 
 and their speech was thick and slow like that of a 
 drunken man. But the Welshman, with the volu- 
 bility of his race, talked on, no one heeding him. 
 
 "But we wass give Fritz hell, boys. They come 
 on like a football crowd a bloke couldn't miss them, 
 even if he wass only just off the square. And they 
 fire from the hip! But Duw anwyl! they're eight to 
 one in machine-guns, and their coal-boxes is some- 
 thing cruel. I heard their chaps singing last night 
 singing splendid, look you like the Rhondda Male 
 
THE TIDE OF BATTLE 31 
 
 Voice Choir it was. But we give them a funeral 
 to-day, yes, indeed." 
 
 "Fall in," said an N.C.O. whom the A.P.M. had 
 impounded. "Fr-r-om the left, number!" They 
 numbered off from one to twenty. "Four paces to 
 the right ex-tend! One to ten right half section. 
 Eleven to twenty left half section! Right turn. 
 Sections right wheel. Quick march!" And he 
 marched them off to a farm in the wood. The 
 Captain looked after them for a moment. They were 
 going back into the hell from which they came, and 
 they knew it. But they betrayed no more con- 
 sciousness of this than if they had been marching 
 back into billets. The Captain remembered that the 
 Welsh Fusiliers had Nee aspera terrent for their 
 motto and that "Albuera" was blazoned on their 
 colours. "It's the same breed," he said to himself 
 reflectively. While he waited, the Brigade-Major 
 returned from the telephone with his instructions 
 from Divisional H.Q. He was to withdraw both 
 
 sections of his battery to D without delay. 
 
 He galloped back, followed by the trumpeter, and 
 putting his horse at the ditch, leaped it and tore up 
 through a clearing. A branch overhead whipped 
 his cap off and just shaved his head as he ducked; 
 he dashed on. He drew rein by the teams and was 
 relieved to find there had been no more casualties. 
 
 "We are going to retire," he said, curtly. "Take 
 the teams up at once and hook in." And leaving the 
 orderly to bring them up, he rode on to the guns and 
 gave his orders to the section commanders. One 
 
32 GENTLEMEN AT ARMS 
 
 gun was in action, firing shrapnel at short range; 
 the others were already being dug out, in readiness 
 for limbering up. He stepped forward to the edge 
 of the wood where it broke away into ploughed land 
 and looked over his left shoulder in the direction 
 of the northwest. A battalion was coming up in 
 gun "groups," moving steadily forward under a hail 
 of shrapnel and thinning as it went. It was obvious 
 that they were going to hurl themselves into the 
 breach. It was the last throw of the die and the 
 fate of Europe hung upon it. He did not know at 
 the time the name of the unit; he was to learn after- 
 ward that it was the 2nd Worcesters. He left the 
 section commander in charge of his guns, and rode 
 back along the lane to the cross-roads. He found 
 a field battery commander looking down the road 
 with his glasses, and right in the centre of it an 
 eighteen pounder was in position, with the gun- 
 layer on the left of the gun, the loader behind her, 
 and her nonchalant subaltern smoking a cigarette 
 under the enemy's shrapnel. It seemed a miracle 
 that he was not hit, and the Captain stopped in mild 
 astonishment to ask the battery commander what 
 the gun was doing there. 
 
 "Doing?" said the latter laconically. "Firing. 
 We've got word that the Germans have driven in the 
 Welsh and are coming down that road in mass 
 formation. Well, we're ready for them. That's 
 all. What a target, eh?" And putting his glasses 
 back in their case, he rubbed his hands as though 
 he were having the time of his life. Which he was. 
 
THE TIDE OF BATTLE 33 
 
 The Captain crossed the road and turned down a 
 lane, and in a few minutes had returned to his bat- 
 tery. The guns were dug out, the teams brought up 
 to the left of the carriages, the rings were slipped on 
 the poles, and the gunners fastened the wheel- 
 traces. 
 
 Shells were crashing through the wood, bursting 
 all round the battery, but the drivers sat motionless 
 on their horses. 
 
 "Walk ! March ! " said the battery commander. 
 
 The drivers eased the reins and closing their legs 
 each to his riding horse, they rested their whips 
 across the neck of each off horse. There was a 
 "hwit! hwit!" overhead and a shower of broken 
 leaves and crackling twigs. The rattle of musketry 
 was strangely near and there seemed to be voices 
 in the wood. There was another crack and No. I 
 leader of the team fell like a stone, bringing her driver 
 down with her. He was up in an instant and stoop- 
 ing over the dead horse he unhooked the "quick 
 release" and mounted the off horse. The Captain 
 looked back over his shoulder as he eased the reins 
 of his horse. At that moment he sighted some- 
 thing over the top of the hedge, and he rose in his 
 stirrups. He saw at a glance a number of spiked 
 helmets and heard the push of bodies through the 
 bracken. 
 
 "Gallop!" he shouted. And then the blow fell. 
 Something seemed to snap in his head and he felt 
 himself soaring up and up into space, as though 
 propelled by some tremendous force. 
 
34 GENTLEMEN AT ARMS 
 
 Then the pace gradually slackened, the impene- 
 trable blackness was stabbed with points of light, 
 he saw the face of one he loved, and he wondered 
 whether he was in this world or the next. Objects 
 suddenly became distinct, trees took shape before his 
 eyes, he was conscious of his own body, and tried 
 to move. But he seemed to be held in a vise. In 
 his agony he dug his heels into the soil, and he saw 
 that his right arm was gone. A face was bending 
 over him. It was the shoeing-smith. 
 
 "Are you alive, sir?" 
 
 He turned his head. "Am I alive?" he asked 
 himself. "I I think so," he gasped. "But my 
 number's up. Leave me!" 
 
 Someone got a stretcher and they took him 
 through the undergrowth to the cross-roads. There 
 a doctor injected morphia into his arm and they took 
 him to the dressing-station at Hooge. He was in 
 the trance of morphia, but could hear the doctors, 
 apparently a long way off, saying that he was a bad 
 case. At Ypres they put him under chloroform, 
 and he knew no more till he woke at Boulogne. 
 
 His case was grave. He had lost a great deal of 
 blood, and his wounds were septic. Rest, mental 
 as well as physical, was vital; but he could not rest. 
 The exhortations of the doctor were lost upon him: 
 he seemed to have something on his mind. He was 
 allowed no newspapers on the ground that they 
 might excite him, which was a mistake. A box of 
 cigarettes by his bedside he left untouched. At 
 length he called the doctor to him. 
 
THE TIDE OF BATTLE 35 
 
 "Look here, doctor, will you do me a favour? 
 Well, I want you to find out what's become of my 
 battery. Did they get the guns away? I want to 
 know; I want an official answer." 
 
 The doctor promised to do what he could. The 
 Divisional H.Q., who had their hands full, were 
 somewhat annoyed when they got a telephone 
 message from a Base Hospital, asking for informa- 
 tion about a battery. But they gave it. 
 
 The doctor returned. 
 
 "Your battery's all right. All your guns are in 
 action at Z " 
 
 "Thank you, doctor," said the Captain, and they 
 lit his first cigarette. 
 
 From that hour he began to mend. Three years 
 have passed; the Captain still lives, but he is a 
 cripple for life. His fighting days are done; he will 
 never give the word "Action Front!" again. The 
 battery itself is but a memory; near the grave of the 
 sergeant-major lie a subaltern, gunners, drivers, and 
 the horses they loved so wisely and so well. Their 
 graves have long ago been pounded into dust by 
 guns of whose calibre they never dreamed; old things 
 are passed away and all things have become new; 
 the very wood in which they fell has long since dis- 
 appeared from off the face of the earth. But these 
 mortals in dying put on immortality, being dead, 
 they live, being silent, they speak; and, leaving 
 behind them an imperishable memory, they need 
 no memorial 
 
Ill 
 
 THE SOWER OF TARES 
 
 EIGHT points starboard!" called the Lieuten- 
 ant from the bridge. 
 "Eight points starboard, sir," chanted the 
 skipper in antiphon from the wheel-house as he 
 glanced at the compass overhead. 
 
 As our drifter changed her course, making a right 
 turn, a pennant fluttered up the flag-staff at a sig- 
 nalling station on our port bow, paused interroga- 
 tively at the truck, descended, and then ran up to the 
 truck again. It was the "Pass friend, all's well" of 
 those that go down to the sea in ships. The ex- 
 change of salutations was repeated at the guardship 
 as we cleared the harbour mouth and stood out to 
 sea. The sun glinted on the brasswork of the six- 
 pounder in our bows, the sea was smooth, and the 
 telegraph was set at full speed ahead. Our mizzen 
 sail was furled and our masts bare, save for the 
 spidery web of our "wireless"; nothing was to be 
 heard except the faint throb of the triple-expansion 
 reciprocating engines in the bowels of the ship. Our 
 craft had an ingenuous air, and but for one or two 
 unobtrusive things might have been merely putting 
 to sea for a quiet trawl among the herrings as she 
 did in the old days before my Lords of the Admiralty 
 
 36 
 
THE SOWER OF TARES 37 
 
 requisitioned her and made her stout, smooth-faced 
 skipper with the puckered eyes a warrant officer in 
 the R.N.V.R. The flaws in the illusion were the 
 presence of the six-pounder forward, certain ex- 
 tremely lethal cases under the bulwarks aft, a wireless 
 operator secreted in his dark room down below, and 
 the fact that we all wore life-belts. And in the 
 wheel-house was a small armoury of rifles. 
 
 Still, it seemed extremely like a pleasure trip, and 
 I settled myself down on the bridge behind the 
 "dodger" with a leisurely conviction that I had 
 chosen the quietest way I could of spending a few 
 days' leave. The crew moved softly about the deck 
 stowing away gear; one of them peeled potatoes into 
 a bucket outside the galley, and my friend the 
 Lieutenant went below to the chart-house to read 
 some cryptic naval messages and glance at the 
 Admiralty "monthly orders." The Admiralty can 
 give points to the War Office in the matter of periodi- 
 cal literature; you would never look for a plot in an 
 Army Council Instruction, but in the Admiralty 
 Orders every order "tells a story." But if you ask 
 a naval-patrol man on shore leave, he will answer 
 you like the needy knife-grinder: "'Story?' God 
 bless you, sir, I've none to tell." The Admiralty 
 does not love story-tellers. This is not a story. 
 
 "Something ahead on the port bow, sir," shouted 
 the look-out man forward. 
 
 The Lieutenant, whose faculty of hearing, like his 
 faculty of vision, seems to be abnormally developed, 
 came rushing out of the chart-house, scaled the 
 
38 GENTLEMEN AT ARMS 
 
 bridge ladder like a cat, and in two seconds was by 
 my side. He pulled a pair of binoculars out of a 
 pocket in the "dodger" and looked through them for 
 a moment. Then he ran to the telegraph and put her 
 at "slow." At the same moment one of the crew, 
 without waiting for orders, handed him a rifle from 
 the wheel-house. No one spoke a word. 
 
 About a quarter of a mile ahead, a point or two off 
 our course, I saw a dark round object bobbing up and 
 down like a cork. 
 
 The Lieutenant got a "bead" on it, and I watched 
 him intently. The next moment he lowered his rifle 
 and laughed. 
 
 "It's only a ship's tub," he said. "Like to have a 
 shot at her?" he added as he pumped two cartridges 
 at the vagabond. One shot fell just short, the other 
 just over. I saw the skipper's eye on me as the 
 Lieutenant handed me the rifle, and feeling the repu- 
 tation of the junior service was at stake I did not wel- 
 come the invitation. But luck was with me. 
 
 "A bull's eye," said the Lieutenant approvingly. 
 My reputation was saved. 
 
 "It might have been a floating mine," the Lieuten- 
 ant explained. "One never knows." 
 
 "So that's why we're wearing these beastly cork 
 jackets," I said to myself. I began to understand the 
 Admiralty instruction that you must never stop to 
 pick anything up. For, in these days, things are not 
 what they seem, and a tub, a life-buoy, a sleeper, an 
 upturned boat, all the ingenuous flotsam and jetsam 
 of the sea may be and often are merely a trap 
 
THE SOWER OF TARES 39 
 
 for the unwary. The Admiralty does not encourage 
 souvenir-hunting. We only collect two things 
 mines and submarines. 
 
 We were out on an uncharted sea. So long as we 
 had kept in the channel swept by the mine-sweepers 
 in the gray dawn our charts were useful; once outside 
 it, those charts were about as helpful to us as one 
 of Taride's maps would be to a divisional staff at 
 the front. Trenches, saps, dumps, listening-posts, 
 "strong points," have altered the geography of the 
 front; floating and anchored mines have confused 
 the hydrography of the Channel. The soundings on 
 our charts were more delusive than the roads and 
 water-courses on a French ordnance-map of the 
 Somme. But at the front the R.E. can, and do, 
 make new maps for old, whereas we had to grope in 
 the dark, making the best use we could of our senses. 
 The earth is solid, stable, and open to aerial recon- 
 naissance and survey; the sea is forever shifting and 
 inscrutable. We had our secret staff map of the sea, 
 and very useful it is for wireless work, but it tells us 
 nothing of the tares sown in the deep, and the sound- 
 ings on our charts reveal to us none of the shoal water 
 of the mine-fields. Once we leave the fairway kept 
 clear for the merchantmen, and make for our line of 
 traffic patrols on point duty, we are like a recon- 
 noitring party that goes "over the top" at night. 
 We are out on the No Man's Land of the sea. 
 ; We were leaving the fairway now. We had 
 altered our course a few points to the south, steaming 
 in "line ahead" formation, a motor launch following 
 
40 GENTLEMEN AT ARMS 
 
 us, then another drifter, each keeping a distance of 
 about half a mile apart. If we sighted a periscope 
 to port or starboard we could suddenly put the helm 
 over and bear down on it. Steering thus in a bad 
 light, our drifter had once rammed the mast-truck 
 of a sunken ship in mistake for a periscope and 
 scraped her bottom badly, for she never misses a 
 sporting chance. But our distance was also a de- 
 fence formation. One does not march in column of 
 fours when the enemy batteries have got the range. 
 And when you are cruising over No Man's Land of 
 the sea you must proceed on the assumption that at 
 any moment you will strike a mine, in which case it 
 is just as well that Number One should go to the 
 bottom on her own. We were Number One. 
 
 But the naval patrol takes these things as a matter 
 of course. Down in the bowels of the ship in the 
 crew's quarters, reached by a perpendicular iron lad- 
 der opening at a hatchway about the size of a pin- 
 cushion, two members of the crew slept like dormice in 
 a blissful "fug." Next door, the wireless operator, 
 with the receiver to his ear, was immured in his 
 sound-proof box, calling spirits from over the vasty 
 deep. Below the engine-room hatch the engineer, 
 with his eye on his pressure gauges, was dreamily 
 making apple dumplings out of cotton waste. If we 
 scraped a mine they would all be drowned like rats in 
 a hole a mine always gets you amidships. The 
 skipper would probably go through the roof of the 
 wheel-house, and the Lieutenant beside me on the 
 bridge would execute a series of graceful gambols in 
 
THE SOWER OF TARES 41 
 
 the air like a "flying pig" from a trench mortar. This 
 had happened to one of the drifters in that patrol a 
 week before; they picked up one man, who will never 
 go to sea again, and the others are all "gone west." 
 
 "They were good men some of the best," said the 
 Lieutenant. 
 
 As I looked at the cloudless horizon and the smooth 
 sea sparkling in the sun I reflected on the treachery of 
 the illusion, and it occurred to me that of all the risks 
 of active service, those endured by the "Auxiliaries" 
 of the naval patrol were the most unpleasant. Per- 
 sonally, I prefer the trenches. But the Lieutenant 
 would have none of it. He said and obviously 
 thought that his was a "cushy" place in comparison. 
 I had heard a submarine commander to the same 
 effect. Also my pilot in a Maurice-Farman. It's 
 a curious fact that every arm of both services thinks 
 the other arms take nearly all the risks. Which is 
 as it should be. 
 
 The Lieutenant was an imperturbably cheerful 
 person. A perpetual smile dimpled the corners of his 
 mouth and completed the illusion of precocious boy- 
 hood produced by his diminutive stature, his frank, 
 ingenuous countenance, laughing blue eyes, and kit- 
 tenish agility. His face was tanned to the colour 
 of newly-dressed leather, but when he removed his 
 cap the tan was seen to terminate suddenly in a sharp 
 horizontal line on his forehead, above which the infan- 
 tile pink and white of his brow presented a contrast 
 so startling as to suggest that he wore the false scalp of 
 a low comedian. But the palms of his hands were as 
 
42 GENTLEMEN AT ARMS 
 
 hard as a cobbler's, and his muscles like tempered 
 steel. There were many deficiencies in his kit, and, 
 seeing me glance at the toes of his feet which peeped 
 out of his sea-boots, he gravely explained that as the 
 water came in at the top, the holes at the toe were 
 useful to let it out at the bottom! He was the only 
 commissioned officer on board, and his repertoire 
 was extensive he was commander, gunnery lieuten- 
 ant, signalling officer, and half a dozen other things 
 besides, and he carried in his head all the secrets, which 
 are many and complicated, of the Admiralty codes 
 and instructions. I suppose he sometimes slept 
 (though I never once saw him asleep), for he showed 
 me his sleeping cabin forward, which I shared, and it 
 did not escape me that the stove chimney was red 
 with the rust of sea water to the height of about five 
 feet which opened my eyes to the luxury of his exist- 
 ence in the winter gales. At one time, early in the 
 war, he conducted a series of brilliant tactical opera- 
 tions against a number of Medical Boards who shared 
 a belief, amounting to an infatuation, that a man who, 
 as the result of an accident in childhood, could not 
 march a mile without falling out and suffered excruciat- 
 ing agonies at regular intervals of about a week, 
 was "unfit for general service." They know better 
 now. 
 
 Our approach to our immediate objective was the 
 occasion of a spirited display by the Lieutenant of his 
 gifts as a trapeze artist. We had run up a hoist of 
 signals as we neared the line of patrols, and the engines 
 being put at half speed, the Lieutenant took two 
 
THE SOWER OF TARES 43 
 
 signalling flags in his hands like a pair of Indian clubs 
 and perched himself upon the rail of the bridge. He 
 twined his calves with simian-like flexibility round the 
 uprights, his feet suddenly became prehensile as he 
 anchored them to the middle rail, and, with his lower 
 limbs thus moored, he proceeded to hurl his body 
 about in space. His arms described an arc of three- 
 quarters of a circle with dazzling rapidity as he exe- 
 cuted a series of alphabetic jerks in the medium of 
 semaphore varied by almost imperceptible commas 
 and full stops. Then he paused to take breath. 
 
 An ecstatic figure on the upper rail of the bridge of 
 the other drifter answered with similar gesticulations, 
 to which the Lieutenant feelingly articulated in reply. 
 
 The interlocutory proceedings of these knock-about 
 comedians concluded with an inquiry from the patrol 
 boat, which had been on point duty in mid-channel for 
 fourteen days, as to the success of a wedding ashore, 
 at which the Lieutenant of our drifter had assisted as 
 best man. 
 
 "A. i. THE BEST MAN LOOKED LOVELY," signalled 
 the Lieutenant, and we descended to the chart-room 
 for a midday dinner. 
 
 He apologized for the menu, which was simple 
 enough. I discovered afterward that he made it a 
 point of honour to share the same rations as the crew. 
 The table appointments were also exiguous, and there 
 seemed a shortage of plates. 
 
 "They're 'gone West,' sir," said the orderly with a 
 faint smile. "That depth-charge did them in." 
 
 I raised my eyebrows interrogatively. And the 
 
44 GENTLEMEN AT ARMS 
 
 Lieutenant, by way of explanation, told a tale. It 
 cannot be told here, but there is a certain U-boat 
 which will never make a "land-fall" in German waters 
 again. The Admiralty, which is hard to convince, 
 paid the blood-money over to the Lieutenant a few 
 weeks ago and the patrol shared it out, according to 
 their ratings, like a herring catch. And there was a 
 "bump supper" at the Naval Base. But the auxili- 
 aries hide their light under a bushel, and the lady 
 visitors at a fashionable watering-place are still won- 
 dering querulously why the sea is so lustrously wet 
 they say their bathing-dresses won't dry and that they 
 smell strangely of oil. 
 
 So one more of the Thugs of the sea had been put 
 out of the way, and her crew lie fathoms deepen the 
 Channel awaiting the day when the sea gives up its 
 dead. 
 
 "Dirty devils I call them, sir," said the skipper 
 quietly, smoking his pipe with his hands thrust into 
 his pockets and a reef in his jumper as we did a dog 
 watch together. He was a large stalwart man, speak- 
 ing the East Anglian dialect, in which an "a" fre- 
 quently does duty for an "e" and a "w" for a "u." 
 Apart from these phonetic peculiarities his speech was 
 good King's English, and I noticed that he used none 
 of that truculent pidgin English which by a curious 
 literary convention so many longshoremen of letters 
 put into the mouth of those who go down to the sea 
 in ships. Your novelist, dealing in words, is so apt to 
 mistake strong language for strength of mind. 
 
 The skipper paused and refilled his pipe, pursuing 
 
THE SOWER OF TARES 45 
 
 some obscure strain of thought. Then he found 
 speech. 
 
 "Did you hear tell of the Belgian Prince, sir?' 
 Aye, everybody has. There's never a dog watch kept 
 in any ship afloat in which that story isn't told. I've 
 heard as men tell it in every boarding-house in Lime- 
 house and 'Frisco and Sydney and Shanghai. It's 
 gone round the Horn, and it's gone east of Suez. 
 Why, there's sailor-men as doan't know enough to read 
 their own discharge-note as have got that story by 
 heart like a 'chantey.' They'll never forget it till the 
 Day of Judgment. I'm thinking as sailor-men as are 
 not yet born will be telling that tale round the galley 
 fire at night long after your an' my watch is up. ..." 
 
 He paused and gazed out over a "lipper" sea. I 
 noticed he had forgotten to light his pipe. "I knew 
 a skipper as had once done the dirty at sea. No one 
 knew the rights of it exactly, and the 'Old Man* 
 never lost his 'ticket,' but the story I heard tell was 
 that he'd been 'spoken' by a ship flying signals of 
 distress, and instead of putting down his helium to 
 stand by, he'd kept on his course and left her to sink 
 with all hands. And from that day he never entered a 
 'pub' parlour but all the skippers 'ud get up and lave 
 their glass untouched and walk out. If they saw him 
 making down street on their port bow they'd port 
 their helium so as to give him a wide berth. Never 
 a one as ever passed the time of day with him or said 
 'what's yours?' And it grew so that not a sailor- 
 man would sign on if he knew as he was to sail with 
 that skipper; some of them 'ud desart at first port they 
 
46 GENTLEMEN AT ARMS 
 
 ' '-"V 
 
 made wi'out waiting to be paid off. They got the idea 
 as he brought bad luck, like a Russian Finn. And if 
 you once get a notion like that in a sailor-man's head, 
 he'll never get it out. Fve heard tell of that skipper 
 hauling up to 'speak* a ship, and when his hoist had 
 told the name of his craft t'other ship wouldn't so 
 much as dip her ens'n to wish him 'God speed.' And 
 if ye're an outcast at sea, God help ye; for the sea's a 
 lonesome place. It so preyed on the mind of him that 
 he began to see ships flying signals of distress a-beck- 
 oning of him, ships as wasn't there till one night he 
 put her straight on a reef and then went over her 
 bows. . . . You see, sir, sailor-men have got 
 their share of original sin, I'm no saying they haven't, 
 but there's one sin no sailor dare commit, for it's the 
 sin against the Holy Ghost and that's leaving other 
 sailor-men to perish. The sea's shifty enough and 
 tarrible enough and treacherous enough as 'tis without 
 
 men being " He did not finish the sentence. 
 
 "Well, sir, I'm hanging about tack and tack instead of 
 trimming my yards for a straight run, but the course 
 I'm steering is this: the outlawry of that skipper 
 warn't nothing to the outlawry as awaits the German 
 when he once more weighs anchor and puts to sea." 
 
 And he lit his pipe. It seemed to me that his hand 
 shook slightly. 
 
 The sun was sinking slowly in the west, his light 
 lingering on the headlands; in the east the sky was a 
 deep blue flushed with rose-pink, but nearer the heart 
 of the sun these delicate tints gave place to fleeces of 
 ochre, and these in turn to flames of molten gold. 
 
THE 'SOWER OF TARES 47 
 
 The next moment the sun seemed to cease breathing 
 upon the sky, all the colours swooned and went slowly 
 out, and even the golden aureole changed to a dull 
 vermilion. The rocks became silhouettes, the clouds 
 turned black, and the shoals of rose-shadow on the 
 surface of the sea sank out of sight and gave place to a 
 purple bloom. As the sun disappeared below the 
 horizon a lingering ray tinged the darkling clouds 
 with silver surge. 
 
 With the last expiration of the sun the wine-dark 
 sea changed to a leaden hue, and one by one stars 
 twinkled overhead the crescent of the Corona Bore- 
 alis to port, the Pleiades to starboard, and over the 
 truck of our foremast the constellation of the Great 
 Bear. The air grew very cold. A great silence en- 
 compassed us, broken only by the lapping of the water 
 against the ship's sides. Round about us was a waste 
 of waters stretching away into impenetrable darkness. 
 All the friendly lights that guide the homing ships in 
 time of peace were put out. More than once before 
 this our drifter, smothered in a fog with no warning 
 light or siren to guide her, and unable to take a cross 
 bearing, had found herself casting the lead in thirty- 
 five fathoms right under the lee of a towering cliff with 
 only just time to put her engines full speed astern. 
 Nothing lightened our darkness except a great beacon 
 which, elusive as lightning, winked at intervals across 
 the sea, revealing for a second the dark silhouette of the 
 motor launch as she drifted about a mile' away. Our 
 isolation was as complete as that of a listening-post. 
 We were out in the No Man's Land of the sea. 
 
48 GENTLEMEN AT ARMS 
 
 "The letter is "said the Lieutenant softly to one 
 
 of the watch as he passed along the deck. It was our 
 secret signal in the event of our bumping up against a 
 destroyer seeking to speak with her adversary in the 
 gate. If our watch forgot it our number would be up. 
 We showed no lights; but hooded lamps, making faint 
 patches of radiance on the deck, were stowed away 
 under our bulwarks. 
 
 Our station was one of the favourite beats of the 
 German submarines and we lay there waiting for the 
 deadly sower of tares, waiting for her as for a thief in 
 the night. From time to time pale shafts of light, 
 terminating in an arc of phosphorescent cloud, crept 
 across the sky, searching for the secret menace of the 
 air as we were searching for the lurking terror of the 
 sea. Now and again wraith-like ships with all lights 
 out stole across the field of our vision, and sometimes 
 our ears caught the pulsation of the engines of a ship 
 we could not see. 
 
 Time itself seemed to stand still, and how long we 
 lay like that I could not tell. Mystery brooded over 
 our watch and I found myself speaking to the Lieu- 
 tenant in subdued whispers. Suddenly, one of the 
 men, ascending through the hatchway that led down 
 to the tomb of the wireless operator, passed up a 
 piece of flimsy paper to the Lieutenant. He took it 
 into the unlighted chart-room, and, as I fell over the 
 table, he struck a match and by its flickering light I 
 saw his face* as he read the message HOSTILE SUB- 
 MARINES IN SIGHT. COURSE NOT KNOWN. As he 
 read these words aloud and others the match went 
 
THE SOWER OF TARES 49 
 
 out. He groped in the dark for a locker, detachable 
 and weighted, and taking something therefrom he 
 invited me to come below. Once down in our sleep- 
 ing cabin he unrolled a mysterious map under the 
 oil-lamp, and putting his finger on one of the squares 
 he said, "They're there." Then we went on deck. 
 
 He took an electric signalling-lamp and holding it 
 up over the bulwarks he flashed a message to the 
 distant motor launch. A sequence of flashes an- 
 swered it. And once more we resumed our vigil. 
 
 The night dragged on, the watch was relieved, the 
 stars changed their stations as the earth rolled on 
 through interstellar space. I sat in the bows gazing 
 into the mysterious night and hearing nothing but 
 the whispered soliloquy of the waters beneath me. 
 The dark-gray silhouette of a transport crept by, 
 deeply laden, for the sound of her propeller never 
 reached me. Then a barque glided past, but not a 
 murmur escaped her, not a sail thrashed, not a block 
 creaked. They might have been the ghosts of the 
 murdered ships that lay fathoms deep beneath us, 
 deep in the sepulchral sea. From time to time 
 dark objects floated by a packing case, a hatch, 
 an upturned boat, a derelict sleeper, the mute and 
 plaintive witnesses to a sinister and implacable terror 
 "more fell than hunger, anguish, or the sea." I 
 gazed down at the waters in which the phosphorus 
 glowed faintly like pale mangolds, wondering what 
 tragic secrets their inscrutable depths concealed. 
 There grew on my drowsy senses a feeling that the 
 sea, as it heaved on its bed under the tidal moon, 
 
So GENTLEMEN AT ARMS 
 
 was talking in its sleep. Faint peals of sound 
 seemed to animate the watery depths as though the 
 sea were a belfry in which the bell of every foundered 
 ship was tolling the watches of the night. I heard 
 a dull tapping on our stern I went aft but could see 
 nothing but the shadowy figure of one of the deck 
 hands. Then a hollow gasp, like a cork drawn from 
 a bottle, came from our port bow. The next mo- 
 ment a deep sepulchral cough echoed from amid- 
 ships; I looked down through the skylight and saw 
 one of the crew turning uneasily in his sleep. By 
 some strange acoustic illusion his coughing seemed 
 to be coming from the depths of the sea. Each 
 illusion was dispelled only to be succeeded by an- 
 other. A block creaked, the cordage chafed, a 
 chain rattled. And there grew on me a masterful 
 conviction that we were not alone. I lifted my eyes 
 and they lighted suddenly upon a dark, boat-shaped 
 object gliding stealthily past in the current about 
 two hundred yards away. The next moment the 
 beacon flashed across the waters, rending the veil of 
 night, and in one trenchant glimpse I saw that it 
 was a ship's lifeboat. Over the gunwale drooped 
 the body of a man, the head downward between 
 the extended arms and the hands lapped by the 
 hungry waters. Across the stern another head 
 rested with the pallid face turned upward and 
 gleaming in the cold, searching light. I heard a soft 
 footfall behind me, and turning, saw the skipper 
 gazing over my shoulder. The next moment the 
 beacon went out. 
 
THE SOWER OF TARES 51 
 
 One by one the stars paled, diminished, and dis- 
 appeared; the surface of the waters turned from black 
 to a leaden gray and, with the first flush of dawn, 
 gleamed like mother-of-pearl. I looked around me. 
 Far as the eye could reach I saw nothing but the 
 salt, inhospitable, secret sea. 
 
IV 
 
 THE CROWN OF THORNS 
 
 "La couronne du soldat est une couronne d'epines" DE VIGNY. 
 
 T^ yFY FRIEND paused for a moment and stared 
 \/j reflectively at the pattern of the dado; 
 1* * A "Courage. What is courage? I don't know. 
 Courage in the heat of action, we've all got that, I 
 suppose. It's an animal instinct. There's a certain 
 gregariousness in it, the instinct of the herd, the eyes 
 of other fellows on you. And after all, to face 
 death requires far less courage than to face life, 
 which, at any rate by the time you are forty, is 
 much the more terrible of the two. But there's 
 another kind of courage the courage to take lonely 
 decisions amid a dance of conflicting ideas, to resist 
 the importunities of pity, or maybe of prudence, and 
 all the beckoning spectres of imagination; that kind 
 of courage resolution, in fact well, that's not so 
 common. I mean what that chap Conrad calls a 
 power to ignore 'the solicitation of ideas/ That's 
 what I call the courage of the Higher Command. 
 The courage of a subaltern is one thing; the courage 
 of a commanding officer is quite another. You 
 know what I mean? A fellow may be a good obser- 
 ver, a good judge of positions, perfectly cool in 
 
 52 
 
THE CROWN OF THORNS 53 
 
 charge of the fire-control when the enemy's ranging 
 and. gets a bracket on you and yet he may be 
 utterly unfit to command a battery, still more a 
 brigade incapable of knowing when to take his 
 guns out of action, for example; he may hang on too 
 long or not long enough. He may think too much. 
 It's really not a question of cowardice at all a man's 
 more often undone by fear for the safety of others 
 than by fear for his own by a want of hardness in 
 his composition, if you know what I mean." 
 
 "Yes," I said, "I know. It's a distinction not un- 
 known to military law, after all. Physical cowardice: 
 cold feet, blue funk, means undue regard for one's 
 personal safety, as the charge sheet puts it. Moral 
 cowardice: irresolution, doubt, all that we call 
 'conduct to the prejudice of good order and military 
 discipline." 
 
 "Quite. And it's the second that is really seduc- 
 tive. It's not danger that intimidates the man of 
 forty, but responsibility. Even his affections may 
 betray him. I knew an O.C. who never got over 
 having his battalion cut up and losing three-fourths 
 of his officers it broke his nerve, he always got 
 calculating prospective losses in an attack; it wasn't 
 his own life he valued but the lives of his men. I 
 often think he courted the bullet that put an end to 
 his perplexities, poor chap. The Hun, who thinks 
 of everything, thought all that out long ago. Do 
 you remember that passage in his text-book in 
 which he warns the German officer against 'the 
 contagion of humanitarian ideas'? 
 
54 GENTLEMEN AT ARMS 
 
 "Now I knew a case, a hard case if ever there was 
 one, one of those dilemmas of duty and conscience 
 that De Vigny used to say were the baneful lot of 
 the soldier who thinks too much. Yes, I'll tell it to 
 you. It happened during the retreat from Mons. 
 I suppose there never was a show which called for 
 greater resolution, for all that one understands by 
 moral courage, than that; for uncertainty brooded 
 over us like a nightmare. It was not what we knew 
 we had to face, but what we did not know, that 
 troubled us. There were we constantly reconnoitr- 
 ing and taking up a position and then being ordered 
 to abandon it; continually getting alarms; sometimes 
 firing a round point blank with the fuse at zero, 
 through a hedge in a village, at Uhlans who were not 
 there; despatch riders rushing in from encounters 
 with enemy patrols and magnifying them into 
 armies; and the inscrutable woods dogging us the 
 whole way, dark and sinister. The air was thick 
 with rumour and suspicion, and every day came 
 fresh orders orders against spies, against inter- 
 mittent smoke from chimneys, against guides, 
 against refugees. I never took my clothes off the 
 whole time except on the 28th, when some damned 
 fool of a staff officer sent out the order to burn all 
 officers' kits, and, seeing that I might just as well 
 burn my old tunic and breeches instead of my new 
 ones in the valise, I did a quick change. We never 
 unlimbered after Le Cateau; and that night I'm 
 coming to it in a moment we didn't even unhar- 
 ness; the horses slept on their feet, and the drivers 
 
THE CROWN OF THORNS 55 
 
 beside them. Talk about scares! One never knew 
 what was behind one no, nor what was on our left 
 or on our right. Why, I remember the Cornwalls 
 received one of our supply columns in the dark at 
 the point of the bayonet. We moved in a mist 
 a mist of conjecture, rumour, invention, exaggeration, 
 and doubt. Mind you, Fm not saying the men 
 ever got the wind up. Oh, no! not they! Besides, 
 every O.C. told his men that it was all part of a great 
 strategic plan to lure the Germans on and catch 
 them in a trap. And the men believed it. So did 
 we officers for that matter, but our trouble was 
 that we did not know what that plan was. We did 
 not know we were playing a big game we knew the 
 rules of the game but we did not know what the 
 game might be. I'd have given anything to know 
 exactly what we were up against. At last we got 
 that Intelligence Summary of the 3ist. It told us 
 something like this: 'The march of a German col- 
 umn five hours 9 long was observed yesterday on the road 
 from Amiens to Saint- Just-en-Chaus see aerial recon- 
 naissance establishes the movement of strong and hostile 
 columns fifteen miles long, preceded by cavalry, from 
 Roye to Compiegne, also of a force southeast toward 
 Montdidier,' and so on. Pretty stiff, wasn't it? 
 And yet I felt positively bucked up. Yes, bucked 
 up. Anyhow, I thought, bad news is better than no 
 news and so it is, in war. But that was on the 3 1st, 
 remember. The story Fm going to tell you hap- 
 pened before that, at a time when no one knew 
 anything. 
 
56 GENTLEMEN AT ARMS 
 
 "It was in the retreat from Le Cateau. I didn't 
 see very much of the battle itself. As you know, a 
 gunner never does, unless he's observing, and my 
 battery was well under cover behind rising ground. 
 In fact, beyond stray shells searching for our wagon- 
 line positions which I had, of course, placed care- 
 fully about 400 yards back on the flank of the 
 battery we didn't get it very hot. But about 
 2 P.M. there was a great volume of enemy artillery 
 fire, the crackle of our musketry came nearer and 
 nearer, and I knew that we were being driven back. 
 My battery received orders to retire to a position 
 to cover the retreat of the other batteries. The 
 infantry began retiring past us, the cavalry helping 
 to cover their retreat. Jolly well they did it, too 
 they were everywhere. Acting the part of a stage 
 army, dismounting, putting in a few rounds rapid, 
 then into the saddle and starting the same game 
 somewhere else, so as to give the enemy the impres- 
 sion of our being in greater strength than we really 
 are. That went on till nightfall when the battery 
 received the order to retire, which we did, wagons 
 leading so as to be ready for 'action rear' at any 
 moment. But a lot of the infantry were still be- 
 hind and our Brigadier ordered us to halt for them 
 to catch us up, in order that we might take as many 
 as possible on our limbers, for they were dead beat 
 and dropping in their tracks. We took them up, 
 eight to twelve on a carriage, all clinging to each 
 other like tired children to prevent their falling off", 
 and nodding, nodding, nodding their heads like 
 
THE CROWN OF THORNS 57 
 
 clock-work dolls. That halt was nearly fatal be- 
 cause the rest of the column had gone on ahead of 
 us; the night was dark, the road unmetalled, and 
 they had vanished out of sight and hearing, like 
 ghosts. 
 
 "I felt pretty uncomfortable, I can tell you, for 
 that had happened once before and I had heard of 
 columns taking the wrong road and marching straight 
 into the Germans and never being heard of again. 
 I had no instructions as to the route and all the 
 country people seemed to have fled. And there was 
 I, with the tail end of the column at a place where 
 five cross-roads met. I legged up a sign-post, 
 flashed my torch on to it, and hung on there per- 
 plexed and profane, with the moths fluttering in my 
 face, when, as luck would have it, up came Gen- 
 eral , our Divisional G.O.C. with a staff officer 
 
 of his. He put us right. He told me to stop 
 where I was and see that all the column followed 
 the correct road toward a certain place and then to 
 ride along it and report if the whole of it was closed 
 up and of what units it was composed. 
 
 "It was a strange business, uncanny you might 
 say. The night was dark and the order had been 
 given that there was to be no smoking or talking in 
 the columns. One heard nothing but the steady 
 tramp, tramp, tramp on the road as the shadowy 
 frieze of tired men marched past in a cloud of dust 
 like a river mist, silent and half asleep. Every 
 now and then a man would pitch forward on his 
 face and lie where he fell as though struck by a 
 
58 , GENTLEMEN AT ARMS 
 
 bullet. I was half asleep myself, but woke suddenly 
 as a cockchafer came straight at me and with a 
 buzz hit me in the face. The faint whisper of the 
 poplars gradually grew louder, the wind rose, and 
 rain began to fall. Every few yards I pulled up, 
 in order to identify the units, and called out 'Who 
 are you?' At that some sleepy O.C. would pull 
 up his horse, halt the column, the men, who held 
 their rifles at 'the carry,' would suddenly come to 
 the 'on guard' position with the bayonet, and the 
 O.C., ranging up beside me and peering into my 
 face with his hand on his revolver, would say 'Who 
 the devil are you? What do you want to know 
 for?' The whole of 'em would be suddenly most 
 unpleasantly wide awake. Oh! they were topping! 
 You see I wasn't a staff officer, and for all they 
 knew, I might be a German spy such things 
 happened more than once. I had many altercations 
 but I always satisfied them or I wouldn't be here 
 now. Once or twice my horse stopped dead, throw- 
 ing me forward on her neck, and shied at a dark 
 object lying motionless on the road. I peered down 
 and saw it was a soldier fast asleep. They lay every- 
 where as they had fallen out, sleeping like corpses. 
 
 "I'm telling you all this so that you may under- 
 stand what the tension of that night was and 
 remember, there had been several nights like it 
 before Le Cateau, and some of the men, as you'll 
 hear in a moment, were not so lucky as these were, 
 but had got strayed far from the column and were 
 wandering through hedges and ditches far away to 
 
THE CROWN OF THORNS 59 
 
 our left with the Germans on their flanks. It was 
 worse for them because they were away from the 
 batteries, and it's wonderful how the sight of a 
 battery will put heart into an infantryman it 
 makes him feel he's being looked after. I collected 
 reports from practically every unit, though there 
 was one derelict battalion without its O.C., and, 
 what was stranger still, quite ignorant of what had 
 happened to him. I then rode ahead of the Column 
 to report to the General and found him in a cottage 
 with the rest of his staff. A staff officer sleepily 
 pointed to an inner room. I knocked; there was no 
 answer. I gently opened the door and saw the 
 General in a chair with his head resting upon his 
 arms which were extended on the table. He was 
 fast asleep, and from a tallow candle burning limply 
 in a bottle the hot grease dripped upon the back 
 of his hand and stuck there. I coughed loudly but 
 the General slept on. Then I deliberately kicked 
 over a chair. The General raised his head and 
 stared dully at me as I saluted and made my report. 
 Before I had finished he was fast asleep again. 
 
 "I could find no shelter of any kind for myself, 
 and the men lay in the streets many of them with- 
 out overcoats amid the rain which was now driz- 
 zling steadily. They did not even pile arms, every 
 man slept with his rifle beside him, and of course no 
 fires were lit. Each unit had been ordered to pro- 
 vide its own outposts one or two officers and from 
 ten to twenty men posted on the high ground on 
 each side of the road. I lay down against a hay- 
 
60 GENTLEMEN AT ARMS 
 
 stack (or was it a shock of corn ? I can't remem- 
 ber) in a stubblefield, but the night was so cold 
 that, tired as I was, I could not sleep. So I got up 
 and walked about and masticated bully beef to get 
 some warmth into me. I shall never forget that 
 night the mysterious silence, broken only by the 
 steady hiss of the rain, the statuesque figures of the 
 outposts, the recumbent forms of the men, some of 
 whom now and again turned and muttered in their 
 sleep, and far away to the north the glare of burning 
 homesteads lighting up the sky. At 4 A.M. the whole 
 
 column got the order to move toward . We 
 
 fed and watered our horses, and every man in my 
 battery found time to shave and was as spick and 
 span as though we were on parade. And the in- 
 fantry marched off in column of fours in perfect 
 step, singing 'Tipperary' as 'though they hadn't a 
 trouble in the world. And this you will remember 
 was after days and nights of marching and fighting 
 with not more than a few hours' sleep on a pavee 
 street for a spring mattress. D'you know, I've 
 come to the conclusion that the English soldier's 
 always at his best when things are at their worst. 
 There be three things that are too wonderful for me 
 the way of a Tommy in a hole, the way of a Tom- 
 my up a tree, and the way of a Tommy in the midst 
 of a rearguard action. Selah! . . . 
 
 "Where was I ? Well, now, my story really begins 
 where I personally leave off because it's concerned 
 with the fortunes of the missing unit (or what was 
 left of it) and their O.C., whom the night had 
 
THE CROWN OF THORNS 61 
 
 swallowed up like the vasty deep. But I've had 
 to tell you all this in order that you might realize 
 what that night must have meant for them. Trying 
 as it was for us it was much worse for them because, 
 as IVe said, they'd got hopelessly lost and were 
 practically isolated away on our left in the direction 
 of the Germans. It was only afterward that I 
 learnt what I'm going to tell you never mind how! 
 They'd got away from the battle, the men being 
 thrown into 'artillery formation' to reduce as much 
 as possible the risks of shrapnel, and somehow the 
 file that some of them were following, led by their 
 O.C., got separated and they lost their connection 
 with the main body. They halted at a village at 
 dusk and snatched some sleep for an hour or two all 
 of them except the O.C. who was afraid to go to 
 sleep as he had no one he could rely on to wake him 
 up. He'd been walking arm in arm with his adjutant 
 (before he lost sight of him) like two drunken men 
 the two of them having agreed on this as the likeliest 
 way of keeping each other awake. That O.C. had 
 been, if I recollect rightly, without sleep for five 
 nights perhaps you know what that means. And 
 he had no horse; his horse had gone lame. Well, 
 they marched more or less throughout the night, 
 steering south by the compass, and fetched up about 
 midday in a certain place of which we are hearing a 
 good deal just now. There'd been much coming 
 and going of our staff in that place, but by the time 
 the O.C. and his men got there everybody had cleared 
 out, for the Huns were reported in great strength 
 
62 GENTLEMEN AT ARMS 
 
 in the neighbourhood. Shells had been falling on 
 their right some distance outside the town, and as 
 they crawled into it a motorcyclist, hatless, livid, 
 crouching over his machine with the throttle opened 
 out for all he was worth, shouted to them that he'd 
 been chased by Uhlans who had cut up a French 
 civil guard. Also other things most of them unin- 
 telligible but all of them bad. Then he disappeared. 
 The O.C. halted his men in the station-yard and 
 made inquiries about trains. There was not a sign 
 of a R.T.O. and no one in the station except a dis- 
 tracted station-master who informed him that there 
 wasn't so much as a trolley left. A panic-stricken 
 French civilian rushed up, beckoned, pointed vag- 
 uely toward the northeast, and shouted * Alle- 
 man s 9 ; then ran, hell for leather, out of the deserted 
 station-yard. 
 
 "The O.C. was at his wits' end to know what to 
 do. He told his men to stand easy while he went 
 off to the mairie to find out how matters really stood. 
 The maire, who was tearing up and down the room, 
 running his hand through his beard, looked at him 
 with eyes full of terror. 
 
 {(( 0h, mon Dieu! c'est finiT he cried at the sight of 
 the officer, and, taking him by the arm, he drew 
 him toward the door and begged him to clear out. 
 
 "But why?' said the bewildered officer, who could 
 not understand why the sight of a British uniform 
 should be so unwelcome. 
 
 "'Oh, mon Dieu! we are all undone if you stay. 
 Go! Go! Leave us, I beg of you. The Germans 
 
THE CROWN OF THORNS 63 
 
 surround the town. Hark!' The windows rattled 
 in their frames as the thunder of distant artillery 
 reached their ears. 'You do not understand no? 
 If the Germans find you and your men here they will 
 destroy us all. You have heard what they have 
 done in Belgium yes ? Oh, mon Dieu I think of the 
 women and children. If they find you here, they 
 will say it is not "an undefended town." They will 
 burn our roofs over our heads, they will shoot us, 
 husbands and fathers, against the wall and then ah! 
 apres ! Think of the women and little children.' 
 
 "We will defend you,' said the officer with a 
 confidence he did not feel. 
 
 "You! How many men have you got?' shrieked 
 the mayor. 
 
 "'About two hundred,' said the officer. 
 
 "Two hundred! It is a jest une mauvaise 
 plaisanterie. The Germans they are an army 
 corps.' 
 
 "The officer went back to the station-yard. He 
 looked at the men who lay sleeping on the cobbles. 
 They had cast down their packs, and many of them 
 had taken the boots off their blistered feet. 'They're 
 done up, sir,' said the sergeant-major, and it was 
 pretty obvious. What was the O.C. to do? It was 
 doubtful whether the men were capable of marching 
 out of the town or whether, if they were, they were 
 physically capable of putting up a fight when they 
 got outside. On the other hand, if they remained 
 under arms where they were, their presence would 
 give the Germans just the kind of excuse which, as 
 
64 GENTLEMEN AT ARMS 
 
 you know, they are not slow to seize, an excuse for 
 wreaking a fury of lust and slaughter upon the 
 unoffending inhabitants. The O.C. decided that 
 the only thing to do was to wait until his men 
 had slept off something of the deadly fatigue which 
 drugged them like an opiate and in the mean- 
 while Well, there's the rub. Now Fm not 
 
 going to defend what he decided to do. No! I'm 
 not. There are several things he ought to have done 
 first he ought to have sent out a party to recon- 
 noitre and discover where and in what strength the 
 Germans really were. He ought never to have 
 signed that paper, or, at any rate, he ought never to 
 have put in those words about 'unconditional sur- 
 render' but more of that in a moment. He ought, 
 at the worst, to have sent out a flag of truce and put 
 a bold face on it, and bluffed the Huns with talk of 
 terms as though he were in great force. He ought to 
 have done anything but what he did do. Still, it's 
 easy for me to say all this after the event, sitting in 
 a club arm-chair, after a good dinner and a night 
 between linen sheets. Oh, yes! Well, he ordered 
 the N.C.O's to fall the men in and he then began 
 a short speech. He told the men there was no 
 chance of escape and that to attempt to defend the 
 town would merely provoke a massacre of the in- 
 habitants when the Germans arrived. Then he 
 asked the men if any one of them would 'like' 
 'like,' mind you to fight their way out. When 
 an O.C. throws the reins on the neck of his own 
 men like that, well, things are in a pretty bad way 
 
THE CROWN OF THORNS 65 
 
 it's uncommonly like abdication. What could you 
 expect ? The men stared at each other, not knowing 
 what to make of it. Some said 'Yes,' some said 
 'No,' others said nothing at all, wondering what 
 was coming next. 
 
 "'Well,' said the O.C. after a pause, 'you're pris- 
 oners of war. You must disarm,' and he ordered the 
 N.C.O.'s to stack the arms in a shed. The men 
 were restive at this, the N.C.O's. took counsel to- 
 gether apart, and at last one of 'em spoke up and 
 said something about what was the use of stopping 
 there and getting their throats cut. The O.C. 
 pondered on this, and at last he said it was all right, 
 he would see that everything was in order and have a 
 paper ready for the Germans telling them it was a 
 formal surrender. The men had the most implicit 
 faith in their O.C., and they had to be content with 
 that. And mind you, that O.C. was one of the 
 bravest men who ever wore the King's uniform 
 Oh, yes! There's no doubt about that. He didn't 
 care a brass farthing for his own life, but he cared a 
 great deal for the lives of the women and children 
 in the town; and tired, dead tired, faint and drugged 
 with want of sleep, perplexed in the extreme, he 
 well, there's no more to be said. Perhaps he hoped 
 to gain time to secure a mental armistice for the 
 conflict of ideas in his brain, until he and his men 
 were fit to march and could relieve the town of their 
 compromising presence. 
 
 "Anyhow, he went off to the mairie to sign that 
 paper. Never mind what was in it the less said the 
 
66 GENTLEMEN AT ARMS 
 
 better. Enough that there were two words that, as 
 it happened, could never be blotted out, and those 
 two words were 'unconditional surrender/ 
 
 "The hours dragged on. The sun passed its 
 meridian, the shadows deepened in the yard, and the 
 men lounged about without their arms, some of 
 them washing, some of them asleep. The O.C. 
 sat in a room that looked out on the square, only 
 half awake, when he was startled by a clear young 
 voice outside. 
 
 "'Now then, you men, what the devil are you 
 doing there? Turn out! Come on! Get your 
 arms. Fall in!' 
 
 "The officer sprang to his feet and rushed out. 
 
 "There was a young cavalry subaltern only a 
 boy, faced by a group of sullen men now reinforced 
 by an O.C. old enough to be his father. 
 
 "What d'you mean by ordering my men about?' 
 said the O.C. 
 
 "I never learnt the name of that young cub, but 
 I must say he was a topper. He faced the O.C. 
 without turning a hair and said coldly: 'Where 
 are their arms?' 
 
 "It was a deadly thrust. I won't repeat all that 
 followed it was pretty painful. Let it pass. The 
 O.C. tried to explain. The explanation was hor- 
 ribly like an apology, and this from an O.C. to a 
 subaltern in the presence of the men! The subal- 
 tern turned his back and once more ordered tke men 
 to fall in. I suppose that brought the O.C. out of 
 his trance. He stepped forward and told the men 
 
THE CROWN OF THORNS 67 
 
 that the situation had changed and that he would 
 march out at the head of them. 
 
 "'But what about the paper?' said a voice. 
 
 "'The paper. What paper?' said the subaltern, 
 fixing his eyes on the O.C. And then the whole 
 story came out. The subaltern said nothing, but 
 when the O.C. said he would go to the mairie and 
 destroy the paper, the subaltern followed him. 
 They walked there side by side in absolute silence. 
 When they arrived the O.C. asked for the paper, 
 but as the maire held it out, the subaltern stepped 
 forward, seized it, and put it in his pocket. 
 
 "'It is my duty to keep this for the G.O.C., sir!' 
 he said quietly. 
 
 "The O.C. said nothing. What could he say? 
 
 "A few minutes later the men limped out, their 
 O.C. at the head of them, followed by a string of 
 carts carrying those who were too lame to walk. 
 When they had gone about three miles and were 
 safely on the right road, the subaltern reined in his 
 horse, saluted, and said, 'I think I can be of no 
 further use, sir I will push on to H.Q.' 
 
 "The O.C. returned his salute, and, after a mo- 
 mentary hesitation that must have been unspeakably 
 painful to see, put out his hand. The sub. was 
 surprised, as any sub. would have been, at this 
 civilian gesture. But I guess he understood what a 
 hell the other must be going through, and leaning 
 down from the saddle, he shook the outstretched 
 hand. Then he put spurs to his horse and vanished 
 in a cloud of dust." 
 
THE A. P. M. 
 
 A A. P.M. has more acquaintances and fewer 
 friends than any officer in His Majesty's forces. 
 It is his duty to know everyone wisely but not 
 to know any one too well. He should never accept 
 hospitality, and rarely offer it, unless it be a lodging 
 for the night. If he offers you this form of entertain- 
 ment you cannot refuse. He has to know all about 
 etiquette; if he asks an officer for his name and regi- 
 ment he must be careful to have his armlet on, and if 
 he enters another A.P.M/s "beat" he must be equally 
 careful to have it off. He should know a lady when he 
 sees one. He may ask an officer for his belt, but he 
 should not ask him for his "slacks." He should 
 never swear, except at a court-martial, and then not 
 profanely. It is never safe to ask him the way, as he is 
 naturally suspicious and may think you know it but 
 cannot walk it. The fact that he is called Assistant 
 Provost Marshal does not mean that he is meant to 
 assist officers home, though he sometimes offers to do 
 so. When he does that be sure you ask for a medical 
 officer as soon as you get there, and say you don't 
 feel at all well. The A. P.M. has few equals and no 
 superiors. He can ask any officer he likes to go for a 
 walk with him, though it is a mistake to suppose this is 
 
 68 
 
THE A. P. M. 69 
 
 a compliment, and it is unwise to refuse. He is privi- 
 leged to attend executions, which he does with a 
 pocket-handkerchief, but not to blow his nose. He is 
 very fond of exercise. He takes other people's 
 pleasures sadly. He has a profound distrust of 
 human nature but he is seldom indignant and never 
 surprised. It is very difficult to make him see a joke 
 especially a practical one. His manners are, in- 
 deed, more subdued than jovial; he will sometimes 
 touch an officer on the shoulder, but he rarely slaps 
 him on the back. He is fond of frequenting estaminets, 
 especially after 8 P. M., but this does not mean that 
 he has convivial tastes. He has the insatiable curios- 
 ity of a child without its ingenuousness his curiosity 
 lacks charm. 
 
 From all of this it will be gathered that an A.P.M., 
 although invariably a man of parts, is usually more 
 feared than loved. He is a lonely man. 
 
 Now there was once a young A. P.M. who feared 
 neither God nor man always excepting the P.M. 
 who is a Brigadier and has power to bind and loose. 
 He was zealous so much so that the zeal of his office 
 had almost eaten him up. So when he was not 
 posting road-controls and instructing examining posts, 
 or parading his "red caps," he would sit and meditate 
 on spies like the harlot in the Book of Joshua. In the 
 matter of spies your Intelligence Officer is the plain- 
 clothes man and your A.P.M. is the policeman; the 
 Intelligence picks up the scent but the A.P.M. does the 
 kill. Now this young A.P.M. longed with a great 
 longing for a bag. So far he had had no luck. It 
 
70 GENTLEMEN AT ARMS 
 
 never seemed to come his way as it came the way of 
 other fellows he knew. There was Wetherby in a 
 certain home command, who had had a glorious stunt, 
 capturing the commercial traveller with a valise of 
 saturated underclothing which had yielded the most 
 surprising results in the hands of an analytical chem- 
 ist; there was Chipchase, A.P.M. to a Division, who 
 had located the sniper under the tombstone just behind 
 our lines; there was Ledger who had caught a female 
 of disarming ingenuousness at a certain base as the 
 result of a train of induction which began with no 
 other data than the fact that in knitting she always 
 looped the yarn over the forefinger of the left hand 
 instead of the right, and in eating laid her knife and 
 fork parallel across her plate, which is a way they 
 have in Germany but then Ledger had had a Ger- 
 man governess and his bag was luck, pure luck. Still 
 these things_showed what could be done by observa- 
 tion. 
 
 One morning as he was sitting in his office making up 
 his weekly report, the orderly entered and placed a 
 buff-coloured envelope in the "In" box where it lay 
 until such time as the A.P.M. , glancing up from his 
 papers, chanced to observe that it was marked "Confi- 
 dential." He languidly ripped it open with a bored 
 intuition that some officer had been over-staying his 
 leave or having a difference of opinion with Mr. Cox 
 about the principles of banking. Then he suddenly 
 sat up in his chair as he caught the head note "From 
 
 the Commander of the Naval Base to the A.P.M. 
 
 of the District." And this is what he read: 
 
THE A. P. M. 71 
 
 Lieutenant Commander of the'Night Patrol reports 
 
 that about 1 1 P. M. on the 25th, he observed intermittent 
 lights on the coast some 500 yards from Winstone Point. 
 They appeared to be signals in the Morse code addressed 
 to some ship at sea. We have no signalling station at that 
 point. Lt.-Commdr. was unable to read the mes- 
 sages in full, owing to the signals being apparently ad- 
 dressed to someone lying nearer in shore. The only 
 words he succeeded in detecting were "Yes"; "No"; 
 "Repeat." There has been considerable activity of late 
 on the part of J7-boats along this coast, under circumstances 
 w r hich seem to indicate precise knowledge of the sailings 
 
 from harbour. It will be remembered that on the 
 
 25th a tramp steamer which had cleared from the har- 
 bour about 10 P. M., while following the course indicated 
 in the Admiralty sailing instructions, and showing neither 
 port nor starboard lights, was torpedoed about midnight. 
 I should be glad if you would keep this locality under 
 strict observation, please. 
 
 The A.P.M. read this through twice. There might 
 be nothing in it, of course he had known more than 
 once what it was to get on a false scent. And he felt 
 alternately exalted and depressed. The coast was well 
 patrolled and all approaches to the beach were pro- 
 hibited by an order issued by the C.N.A. under De- 
 fence of the Realm regulation 28 A, closing them nightly 
 at 6 o'clock. Besides, the Morse code seemed a 
 little too obvious, and the A.P.M. had a passion 
 for the obscure, not realizing that the most success- 
 ful deceptions are always the simplest, and that 
 monosyllables like "Yes" and "No" may, in a cipher, 
 
72 GENTLEMEN AT ARMS 
 
 stand for other things than mere affirmatives and 
 negatives. 
 
 The A.P.M. had read a great many detective stories 
 which is a very bad training for a detective. Life is 
 never so elaborate as fiction. In the spy stories of 
 fiction there is usually a master mind who erects a 
 scaffolding round a house in a perfect state of repair 
 and employs six secret agents as bricklayers, merely 
 in order that one of them may drop a brick from his 
 hod on the head of the detective as he passes by; he 
 hires a powerful Rolls-Royce to procure his death by a 
 street accident; or he watches his movements by aerial 
 reconnaissance from an aeroplane; and he invariably 
 uses a cipher language so obviously obscure that it 
 shrieks for elucidation as loudly as a cuneiform in- 
 scription. You must have noticed this if you are in 
 the habit of reading detective stories. But the real 
 spy never does anything so melodramatic or so sug- 
 gestive; he usually journeys by tram or motor-bus, 
 eats buns in an A. B.C. shop, travels in Dutch cigars or 
 cinema films, and is nothing if not unobtrusive. He 
 does not use numerals for letters or transpose the 
 alphabet; he sends transparently simple messages 
 about invoices, or contents himself with posting a 
 catalogue of cigars or a newspaper. It is only your 
 trained "Intelligence" men who will guess that the 
 commercial correspondence, the price list of Havanas, 
 or the stop press space may have a secondary meaning. 
 The art of espionage consists in making the primary 
 meaning so obvious that a secondary meaning will 
 never besuspected. It is theart of the double entendre. 
 
THE A. P. M. 73 
 
 The A. P.M. knew nothing of all this. He was not 
 an "M. I." man and had never worn the green tabs 
 of an intellectual life. Consequently his first flush of 
 certitude was succeeded by a cold fit of doubt. The 
 situation seemed to lack colour. A restaurant in 
 Soho, a suite of rooms at the Ritz, an alcove in the 
 National Liberal Club, an opium den in Whitechapel 
 such romantic surroundings, he felt, were the 
 proper mise en scene for a real spy stunt. At that 
 moment the orderly entered with a telegram. The 
 A. P.M. opened it, and as he read his heart went 
 "dot and carry one." For this was what he read: 
 
 "TAHW ECIRP EMBARKATION DRAFTS RETTOR MA 
 DEF Pu ON DOOG ATAT. 
 
 "DECENCY LONDON." 
 
 Decoded this ran: 
 
 Suspect embarkation drafts sailings are known to 
 U-boats please set a watch upon coast in vicinity of 
 harbour. 
 
 Then he knew his chance had come. He spent a 
 restless day counting the hours till dusk. About 
 8 p. M., after a deliberately frugal meal, he girded up 
 his loins with his Sam Browne belt, slipped his Mark 
 Webley into its holster, and set out on foot for Win- 
 stone Point. As he proposed to begin with a recon- 
 naissance he decided to go alone. It was a warm 
 night, but there was that brooding apprehension in 
 the air which seems to portend a thunderstorm, and 
 
74 GENTLEMEN AT ARMS 
 
 low down on the horizon Orion, the herald of troubled 
 weather, shone with a baleful light. 
 
 Winstone Point is a bold headland on the west 
 side of which lies a small fishing village. The Point 
 is the limestone termination of a long greyhound- 
 backed down which runs inland for many miles and 
 is covered with short, crisp turf and creeping cinque- 
 foil. It is intersected by a winding track strewn 
 with flints chipped into sharp and minute splinters 
 like thorns by the chisel-like feet of flocks of sheep. 
 The A.P.M. carefully avoided this track as he 
 climbed the down, and finding a small dew-pond like 
 a shell-hole, which commanded a view of the whole 
 ridge as it ran inland, he crouched against its grassy 
 slopes. The night was dark save for the feeble light 
 of the stars, and as he glanced at the phosphorescent 
 glow of his wrist watch he could just make out the 
 position of the hands they were at 10:30. His posi- 
 tion was about a mile due north of the spot where 
 the ridge terminated in an abrupt cliff, some four 
 hundred feet above the sea, and he was facing 
 northeast. For a long time nothing happened as he 
 lay there listening to the beating of his heart and the 
 faint chafing of the sea upon the distant beach. 
 Then he suddenly saw a flash about a mile and a half 
 farther inland, where the down attained a greater 
 altitude. It was followed by a sequence of short and 
 long flashes, and he realized that someone was 
 signalling in the Morse code. He made out the 
 words " ANSWER," "GENERAL ANSWER." Then a 
 pause. Then "No"; "Y E s"; "REPEAT"; "No"; 
 
THE A. P. M. ; 75 
 
 "YES"; "109 BATTALION"; "JUNE 4." Then the 
 signals ceased. 
 
 He lay on his stomach on the turf waiting for their 
 repetition. Nothing happened. Reflecting that his 
 prey might use the track on his right for his return 
 journey, he continued to wait, oblivious of time. 
 Meanwhile the sky, long obscure, grew black above 
 him, the air curdled and thickened, not a breath of 
 wind stirred the sultry atmosphere. Something cold 
 as dew hopped on to his hand, and as he moved 
 jumped suddenly, so that his heart jumped with it. 
 It was a toad. The sheep grazing on the brow of 
 the hill had disappeared. The furze bushes were 
 suddenly shaken by a violent convulsion, the clumps 
 of young heather rustled like tissue paper, and every 
 bent of grass trembled. At that moment a shaft of 
 light cleft the sky downward from zenith to horizon, 
 and in one trenchant glimpse he saw the whole sea 
 for miles, and outlined upon it, like the silhouettes in 
 a naval textbook, the shapes of the patrol-boats 
 black as ink against a background of burnished silver. 
 The heavens opened their batteries, and as the thun- 
 der crashed the rain descended in torrents and smote 
 the hard, dry earth like hail. Another flash rent the 
 sky, and by its blue corrosive light the A.P.M. saw 
 the whole ridge and every furze bush upon it. But 
 not a living thing stirred. The mysterious signaller 
 had vanished. Drenched to the skin, with runnels of 
 water down his back, the A.P.M. rose stiffly. All 
 further quest was useless that night. He took out 
 his knife, cut a branch of furze, and digging a small 
 
76 GENTLEMEN AT ARMS 
 
 hole in the earth he planted it upright in front of 
 him. Then he drew back some two yards, and plac- 
 ing his walking stick in a line with the twig on what 
 he judged to be the point where he had last seen the 
 signals, as though he were bringing the sights of a 
 rifle to bear on a given object, he planted the stick 
 firmly in the ground. An hour later he was in bed. 
 
 He was trying to read a signal of baffling brightness, 
 when he awoke out of a troubled dream to find the 
 sun shining full upon his face. He rose and dressed 
 and, after a hasty breakfast, determined to visit the 
 scene of the night's operations. Before leaving he 
 gave orders that the sergeant of the military police 
 with a picquet of three men should join him at 2 
 p. M. at the fishing village on the western slope of 
 Winstone Point. 
 
 He went armed as before, but this time he took 
 with him a magnifying glass with a handle such as is 
 used for reading print by persons who suffer from 
 myopia. He had purchased that magnifying glass 
 some months earlier as the result of a careful study 
 of the operations of a classical detective whose name 
 is a household word as the discoverer of the Inductive 
 Method. He felt that the time had come to use it. 
 
 He left his horse at the village inn and ascended the 
 down. He discovered the two sticks without diffi- 
 culty, and taking a compass bearing he found that 
 they were aligned on a point due north northeast. 
 He walked slowly in the direction indicated, keeping 
 a sharp eye on the turf after he had covered about a 
 mile. He suddenly came to a halt at a spot where he 
 
THE A. P. M. 77 
 
 saw a number of matches. Examining the ground 
 more closely he thought he found traces of trampled 
 grass which the rain had not wholly obliterated. 
 Then he went down on his hands and knees and 
 scrutinized every blade of grass with his magnifying 
 glass. At the end of half an hour he had gathered the 
 following: 
 
 (1) Nineteen burnt matches. 
 
 (2) A piece of burnt paper. 
 
 (3) A pipeful of tobacco only partially consumed. 
 
 (4) A small piece of sausage. 
 
 Then he sat down and applied the Inductive 
 Method. He tried to reconstruct the personality 
 of the suspect from these apparently insignificant 
 trifles. At the end of half an hour's deep meditation 
 he had arrived at the conclusion that the man had a 
 tooth missing in the centre of the upper jaw, was 
 one-armed, probably careless of money, and very 
 probably a German. How? By a simple process of 
 ratiocination: The serrated edge of the half-eaten 
 sausage revealed the marks of an even row of teeth, 
 but in the middle of the perimeter there was a gap. 
 Nineteen matches had been expended in an attempt 
 to light one pipe there was no trace of ashes beyond 
 those of the half-consumed wad of tobacco and each 
 of the matches had only burnt to the extent of an 
 eighth of an inch; this showed that they had been 
 extinguished as soon as lit, a contretemps so unusual 
 as to be only explicable on the assumption that the 
 
78 GENTLEMEN AT ARMS 
 
 smoker had been unable to use his left hand to shield 
 the match held in his right. The waste of tobacco 
 costing njd. an ounce pointed to an indifference to 
 considerations of economy; an application of the 
 method of Observation and Experiment to the 
 tobacco by first smelling it and then smoking it had 
 convinced the A.P.M. that it was a choice blend of 
 " John Cotton." The nationality of the suspect was 
 more difficult to establish; the sausage suggested 
 German nationality; but the A.P.M. would have felt 
 more assured if he could have detected in its composi- 
 tion traces of those cubes of onion and garlic with 
 which the maker of Delikatessen tickles the coarse pal- 
 ate of the Hun. But an examination with the magni- 
 fying glass yielded no assurance on this point. Still 
 it was a working hypothesis. 
 
 Then he turned his attention to the scrap of paper. 
 It was a piece of ordinary writing paper some three 
 inches by four, but on holding it up against the light 
 he failed to find any traces of a water-mark. He 
 scrutinized the written characters and saw at a 
 glance they were in a foreign tongue. He did not 
 know a word of German although he knew that the 
 language was not French. But he was struck by the 
 prevalence of words ending in the letters "ch." 
 Although the characters had been partly obliterated 
 by the rain, he could make out clearly the words 
 "bach" and "hoch." His pulses quickened as he 
 reflected that the German tongue was notoriously 
 a language of gutturals. Then he caught sight of the 
 word "Strafe," and persuasion became a certainty. 
 
THE A. P. M. 79 
 
 Theifragment of sausageyinconclusive and insignificant 
 in itself, added nothing to what was now a conviction, 
 but undeniably it strengthened it. He descended the 
 hill with a light heart. 
 
 He knew that stern things lay ahead of him. For 
 the uninterned German who chooses to play the part 
 of spy an ignominious death is the inevitable penalty, 
 and the man would in all probability sell his life 
 dearly. But the A.P.M. was not a man to flinch. 
 He telephoned through to his office, giving orders to 
 the sergeant that each man was to bring his revolver. 
 Then he went to a chalk-pit some hundred yards from 
 the village and fired the six chambers of his own 
 revolver in succession to test the trigger-pull; the 
 weapon was in perfect trim though the pull was a bit 
 heavy, and he regretted now that he had not, as he 
 had long intended, had the pressure reduced to six 
 pounds. Only one thing remained to do and he 
 did it. He sent off a code telegram to "Decency, 
 London." It contained the following message: 
 
 "HAVE MATTER WELL IN HAND. IMPORTANT 
 DEVELOPMENTS. WILL REPORT TO-MORROW." 
 
 This was not strictly necessary, but you must re- 
 member that the A.P.M. was young and zealous. 
 And youth does not like to hide its light under a 
 bushel; it prefers to let it shine before men. It is a 
 venial fault. 
 
 During the afternoon he rehearsed his plans for the 
 night. He despatched his four men by different 
 
8o GENTLEMEN AT ARMS 
 
 routes, avoiding the beaten track, with orders to 
 assemble at a stunted beech tree which was within a 
 few yards of the place of his discoveries. They were 
 instructed to keep completely out of sight, taking 
 all possible cover so as to escape notice by any one 
 who might be keeping the open spaces of the hill- 
 side under the observation of a pair of field-glasses. 
 The A.P.M. himself approached the rendezvous by 
 the most open route like any casual wayfarer. They 
 met at the appointed place at the end of half an hour. 
 Each of the men reported that he had seen nothing. 
 They had carefully observed their direction and the 
 A.P.M. felt confident that forty minutes would 
 suffice for the night's advance. He therefore timed 
 the start for 10:20 P. M. - 
 
 At the appointed time the four men, who had been 
 disposed in such a manner that they formed an ap- 
 proximate circle with the beech tree in the centre, 
 slowly converged on their objective and halted some 
 hundred yards away. The A.P.M. had arranged to 
 simulate the plaintive cry of a peewit as the signal 
 for closing in. They lay there for what seemed an 
 interminable time until a rosy flush in the east 
 heralded the approach of dawn and a lark rose in the 
 morning air. The A.P.M. began to fear that they 
 had been observed. 
 
 He decided to remain where he was all the next 
 day, keeping the men with him so that no movement 
 of theirs on the hillside should be visible to the 
 secret watcher. One man was detailed as a ration 
 party to crawl down the hill as unobtrusively as 
 
THE A. P. M. 81 
 
 possible and bring back food and water. It was a 
 tedious vigil. The sun beat down fiercely upon their 
 heads, the flies tormented them like the seven plagues 
 of Egypt, they had a most amazing thirst, and as he lay 
 on his back the A.P.M. reflected that the attractions of 
 a detective's career are greatly exaggerated in fiction. 
 The sun set at last, sinking in a ball of fire below the 
 horizon, and within less than half an hour one man 
 crawled in from his observation post a hundred yards 
 away, and reported the approach of four men. The 
 A.P.M. was a little taken aback at the number. He 
 drew his revolver out of its holster and waited. 
 
 His men had orders that no blood was to be shed 
 except in case of extreme necessity; it was important 
 to capture the spies alive, for they might be the 
 means of eliciting valuable information. The new- 
 comers were slow in arriving, but as they approached 
 their voices grew more distinct. They spoke a 
 foreign tongue full of strange gutturals. And at 
 times they uttered the letter "1" in a curious way as 
 though they were clearing their palate with a view to 
 expectoration. The A.P.M. despatched his man to 
 relieve another who was stationed nearer the doomed 
 men; the other reported that their conversation was 
 unmistakably German he had distinctly heard the 
 word " Strafe," though the rest of it was unintelligi- 
 ble. The four spies clustered together, and one of 
 them suddenly flashed a lamp. 
 
 At that movement the military policeman by the 
 side of the A.P.M. tried to distract his attention in a 
 hurried whisper. " Hush ! you fool," said the A.P.M. 
 
82 GENTLEMEN AT ARMS 
 
 testily, and pursing his lips as though he were draw- 
 ing at a pipe he uttered the shrill cry of a peewit. 
 The A. P.M. and three of his men rushed forward 
 noiselessly over the turf, the fourth unaccountably 
 lagging behind. It was beautifully done. Each mili- 
 tary policeman closed with the man nearest him, the 
 A.P.M. catching his man with either hand around the 
 ankles and bringing him heavily to the ground. He 
 fell with him and as he did so received the impact of a 
 huge fist in his eye which make him see flashes such as 
 are not recognized in the Morse code. 
 
 "Blast!" said his victim, and as he struggled he 
 poured forth a torrent of invective. Most of it was 
 unmistakably English, but unfamiliar words like 
 "Duw" and " Diawl" caught the A.P.M.'s ear and 
 the accent was foreign and peculiar. Therefore the 
 A.P.M. , giving himself the benefit of the doubt, 
 tightened his grip on the profane man's windpipe. 
 
 "Let me go now, look you. Yes, indeed," said a 
 voice near by, as though the owner was trying to 
 agree with his adversary quickly. "You have got 
 your knee in my guts whatever. There's foolish 
 you are, man. I was have a belly-ache. And for 
 why ? Duw anwyl ! man, stop it, I tell you." 
 
 "It's the South Wales Borderers, sir," said the 
 fourth policeman who had betrayed such indecision 
 at the last moment and who now came up panting. 
 "And I think they've been doing signal practice. I 
 saw the answering signal on the hill t'other side of the 
 bay just now, sir. And I tried to draw your atten- 
 tion to it, sir/ 5 he added with gloomy satisfaction. 
 
THE A. P. M. 83 
 
 The A.P.M. relaxed his hold, and the combatants 
 rose to their feet. He had nearly strangled the life 
 out of a sergeant of a crack Welsh regiment. The 
 others rose also, including a military policeman who, 
 having been an ostler in private life, had been trying 
 desperately to sit on his opponent's head, and was 
 surprised to find that he still kicked. Serious things 
 had been done upon the earth that night. The 
 penalty for striking a superior officer on active ser- 
 vice is death and the sergeant had struck, and pain- 
 fully. The penalty for an officer who strikes a sol- 
 dier at any time is dismissal, and the A.P.M. had in- 
 curred it. Four military policemen had committed 
 an unprovoked and aggravated assault on three 
 inoffensive soldiers engaged in the performance of a 
 military duty which is a tort, a misdemeanour, and 
 also a statutory offence under the Army Act. 
 
 The British army is a wonderful thing. The ser- 
 geant of the Borderers gravely saluted the officer to 
 whom he had given a black eye, and the A.P.M. 
 returned the salute with no less gravity. The ser- 
 geant, with his windpipe still somewhat contracted 
 by the pressure from his superior officer's fingers, 
 proceeded to offer an explanation with the mechanical 
 precision of a soldier giving evidence at a court- 
 martial: 
 
 "At 6 p. m. on the 24^, I wass ordered by the signall- 
 ing officer of the loqth Battalion the South Wales Bor- 
 derers to proceed to Winstone Point. I wass arrive 
 there at dusk ." 
 
 "That will do, sergeant," said the A. P.M, smiling 
 
84 GENTLEMEN AT ARMS 
 
 bitterly. "I think I know the rest which I can 
 explain better than you can." And he did. 
 
 As the A.P.M. retired down the hill with his 
 picquet he thought deeply this time deductively. 
 The major premiss of his syllogism does not matter, 
 but the conclusion was depressing. He could not 
 stand the sergeant of the Borderers a drink; in an 
 A.P.M. that would be conduct exceedingly "prej- 
 udicial." To offer him the price of one would be 
 worse. But a little gift in kind there would be no 
 harm in that, just to show there was no ill feeling. 
 When he got back to his billet that night his eye 
 (the uninflamed one) lit on a book which had been one 
 of his dearest possessions, but which he now regarded 
 with a hostile air. He had had it specially bound in 
 tooled morocco. He packed it up and posted it to 
 the sergeant with his compliments. Its title was 
 "The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes." 
 
 The sergeant of the Borderers held his tongue for 
 obvious reasons. But one of his men must have 
 talked. And as the sparks fly upward, the story 
 spread from hutments to the orderly room, from the 
 orderly room to the officers' mess, from the officers' 
 mess to Brigade H.Q., and from Brigade H.Q. to the 
 H.Q. of the command, till it was noised abroad from 
 Dan even to Beersheba. I have already said that 
 an A.P.M. is more feared than loved, and that he is 
 apt to be a lonely man. The A.P.M. was no longer 
 sure that he was feared but he was certain that he 
 felt very lonely. He has applied for a transfer. 
 
VI 
 
 NO MAN'S LAND 
 
 THIS story was told me by Kennedy as we sat 
 one night over the fire in my billet in France 
 in a little town which serves as the Head- 
 quarters of the Second Echelon. You can make of it 
 what you please. Only let me tell you that Kennedy 
 is not an impressionable man but neither is he 
 obtuse. He has read much and thought more. He 
 is forty, an age at which a man is either a fool or a 
 philosopher. Kennedy is not a fool. And philoso- 
 phy, as a wise man has remarked, begins in wonder. 
 He might have added that it also ends there. 
 
 I had read out an announcement on the front page 
 of the Times, which told us for the first time that a 
 friend, whose fate had long been the subject of pain- 
 ful speculation to us both, was "Reported missing; 
 believed killed." It reminded me, and I reminded 
 Kennedy, of the story of an old grandmere I had met 
 in one of my billets whose only son had been reported 
 "missing" at Gravelotte in 1870, and who still, in 
 this year of grace 1916, watched and waited, as for 
 forty-six years she had waited and watched, for his 
 return. 
 
 "Mad, of course, poor thing," I had added, as I 
 finished my story. 
 
 85 
 
86 GENTLEMEN AT ARMS 
 
 "Don't be so sure of that," retorted Kennedy, and 
 then, seeing my look of surprise, he said quietly: 
 "Who knows? He may still be in No Man's Land. 
 No! It's a land you'll never find on any staff map. 
 But I see you think I'm talking in riddles. Well, 
 you've told me a story, I'll tell you one. 
 
 "It was at my billet at , the H.Q. of the th 
 
 Corps; about a month ago before I was shifted here. 
 The house has a good deal to do with the story; so 
 I'll have to begin with that. I'd been home on sick 
 leave, having been knocked out on the Somme by an 
 H.E. shell, and they'd given me a staff job in the *!' 
 branch. I arrived late at night, the leave boat hav- 
 ing been held up while the mine-sweepers were out, 
 and the first thing I did was to make tracks for the 
 Camp Commandant's, of course, to get the usual 
 billet de logement; on it was inscribed the name of a 
 Madame Doutrepont, 21 rue Royer-Collard. He 
 told off an orderly to show me the way it was a 
 perfect rabbit warren of a place and dark at that. 
 A French town under etat de siege is none too well 
 lighted. We went stumbling along over the cobbles, 
 and, after what seemed an interminable journey, in 
 the course of which we met nothing but wailing cats 
 we found ourselves in a kind of cul-de-sac and at 
 the end of it was a blind wall with one of those huge 
 double doors like the 'Gate' of an Oxford College; it 
 had a kind of wicket in it. 
 
 "It was black as pitch and I had to pass my hands 
 over the door, like a blind man feeling the contours of 
 somebody's face, until I found a bell-pull. As I 
 
NO MAN'S LAND 87 
 
 pulled it, there came from far away a long, echoing 
 sound like a bell at the bottom of the sea. The 
 wicket door opened noiselessly in response so noise- 
 lessly that I fell over the threshold as I leaned against 
 it. Odd, isn't it, the way those French doors 
 open automatically? I never quite get over the 
 surprise of finding no one behind them. Well, we 
 found ourselves in a kind of covered courtyard 
 which was even darker, if anything, than the street 
 outside, and then an inner door opened and I saw a 
 woman standing in the doorway holding a lamp in 
 her hand. 
 
 ft Quest-ce Id? 9 she called out in a startled voice. 
 But her alarm changed to irritation when I tendered 
 her my billeting paper. She scrutinized it closely 
 and then looked long at me, holding the lamp above 
 her head so that its light fell full upon my face while 
 her own remained in darkness. A dog barked fur- 
 iously at his chain on the farther side of the court- 
 yard. 
 
 Tiens,' she said to him angrily, and then to me, 
 'C'est la guerre? as she motioned us in. 
 
 "That was all the welcome I got. Still, what can 
 one expect ? I always feel like a beastly bailiff when 
 I quarter myself uninvited upon a woman 'con- 
 formement a la loiy as the billeting paper puts it. 
 And they only get half a franc a night for it. It's 
 treating their place like a doss house. 
 
 "As she put down the light in the hall I saw that 
 she was a tall, sallow woman of meagre figure, but 
 with abundant, thick, black hair done up in heavy 
 
88 GENTLEMEN AT ARMS 
 
 folds. Her face wore a curious, apathetic expression 
 and her eyes had an introspective look as though 
 her mind dwelt wholly in the past. 
 
 "She conducted me upstairs, the orderly thump- 
 ing after us with my valise on his shoulder and 
 making the shadow a hunchback on the wall in the 
 flickering candle-light, until we had mounted four 
 long flights of stairs and got to the very top of the 
 house. She threw open the door of a room without a 
 word. It had rather a musty smell as though it had 
 been long disused and there was no window in it, 
 which was pretty beastly, but opening out of it was 
 a kind of small dressing room. The dressing room 
 did have a window, fortunately shut, of course. 
 Having thanked the lady and dismissed the orderly, 
 I unpacked my valise. After some trouble I suc- 
 ceeded in unscrewing the window-bolt and getting 
 a little clean air into the room. Then I looked 
 round. In the wall of the dressing room on the far 
 side, opposite the folding doors and commanded by 
 my bed in the other room, was a big cupboard reach- 
 ing from the floor to the ceiling; it was locked. The 
 only furniture of the room was a table and a chair. 
 I looked out of the window but could see nothing. 
 The air of the courtyard had a curious smell, pungent 
 but not unpleasant. And there was a continuous 
 sound of running water. 
 
 "I slept soundly that night, for I was tired. In 
 the morning, as I was going out to breakfast at the 
 mess, I met Madame Doutrepont and passed the 
 time of day. She was a trifle more gracious than 
 
NO MAN'S LAND 89 
 
 the night before and volunteered the information 
 that her husband was at the war, at Verdun, that 
 she lived all alone except for a bonne who came in 
 every day to clean up, and that she managed her 
 husband's business in his absence. The business 
 was a tannery, it adjoined the courtyard and was 
 worked by a water-mill. I tried to make friends with 
 the dog as I passed out, but he only snarled and 
 crept into his kennel. So much for the house. Al- 
 together it seemed to me that the atmosphere of No. 
 21 was not exactly sociable. 
 
 "I put in a hard day's work over the maps and 
 things, and after dinner in the mess I decided to take 
 my work home to my billet. It was like all 'I' 
 work, highly confidential, and the things I took with 
 me were worth their weight in gold to a spy. I had 
 a staff map showing our new lines, a large-scale oil- 
 paper tracing of the positions held by the th 
 Division, two or three of those buff manuals issued 
 from G.H.Q. and marked 'not to be taken into the 
 trenches/ and so on. 
 
 "I sat up working until after midnight with my 
 maps spread over the table in the dressing room and 
 about 12.30 A.M. I extinguished the candle and went 
 to bed, leaving the folding doors of the dressing 
 room wide open. In five minutes I was asleep. 
 How long I slept I don't know, but I was suddenly 
 awakened by the sound of footsteps in the dressing 
 room. They seemed to come from the window. I 
 lay awake listening, being in some doubt whether I 
 was not still asleep, and watching the dressing room, 
 
90 GENTLEMEN AT ARMS 
 
 the floor of which was plainly visible from my bed as 
 it was now moonlight. 
 
 "Now the dressing room was very small and its 
 window, which was on the left, disproportionately 
 large, and the shape of the window was clearly sil- 
 houetted in a pattern upon the floor. And it struck 
 me I must be asleep after all, and dreaming, be- 
 cause nothing obscured the squares of pale light upon 
 the boards. Yet all the time there seemed to be 
 feet shuffling across it in a curious, uncertain way. 
 I was still stupidly pondering this when the footsteps 
 stopped apparently by the cupboard, and I heard a 
 scratching sound it was just as if someone was 
 passing his fingers over the panels in the dark. 
 Only it wasn't dark. I could see the cupboard in the 
 moonlight almost as plainly as I can see you. I 
 raised myself in bed and stared hard, but I could see 
 nothing. And yet by this time I felt certain there 
 was someone in that room. I felt sure of it with 
 the assurance that you feel someone behind you in 
 the street. But there was this difference: in such 
 cases you have only to turn round to have your 
 intuition confirmed by your sense of sight, whereas 
 in this case my sense of sight gave the lie to my in- 
 tuition while my sense of hearing confirmed it. 
 
 "I was trying to puzzle out this contradiction of 
 my senses when I saw the cupboard doors move. 
 They moved slowly outward and I heard them 
 creak. But stare as I did I could see nothing. 
 There were those cupboard doors slowly but per- 
 ceptibly advancing toward me as if they moved of 
 
NO MAN'S LAND 91 
 
 their own accord. For a moment I was really 
 afraid afraid of myself, intimidated by the inco- 
 herence of my senses. I remembered reading in a 
 morbid phase of mind, when I was recovering from 
 shell-shock and fancied I had the symptoms of every 
 disease I could lay a name to, that there is such a 
 thing as 'mental blindness/ It occurs when a man 
 has suffered some lesion of the nerve tracts connect- 
 ing the occipital lobes with other centres that's 
 how the book put it. A man sees but doesn't see 
 right. He can't classify the optical impressions his 
 eyes receive and he'll call a clothes-brush a pair of 
 spectacles. Or he may have mental deafness he'll 
 hear a bell but be powerless to recall what a bell 
 looks like; he'll say he's heard a drum. His senses 
 play fast and loose with one another until his mind 
 capitulates altogether. It's often the first stage in 
 delusional insanity." 
 
 Kennedy paused for a moment to gaze at the 
 dying embers of the fire. 
 
 "I think what kept me sane," he resumed, "was 
 the conviction, a kind of psychic conviction, that 
 there really was someone there. I felt its presence 
 far more than I heard it. And then in a flash I 
 remembered my staff maps and Intelligence papers 
 and with an effort I quelled the insubordination in 
 my brain. Some spy, I felt assured, was playing a 
 trick on me to take advantage of my confusion. 
 The thought of it aroused in me a wholesome anger 
 and from that moment I had myself well in hand. 
 
 "I debated with myself what to do. Not only 
 
92 . GENTLEMEN AT ARMS 
 
 were all my confidential papers in the dressing room, 
 but so was my Webley revolver, which I had left on 
 the table. If I so much as turned in my bed, the 
 visitor, whoever he was, would be able to seize it 
 and cover me with it from where he was before I 
 could reach the dressing room. What was I to do? 
 I have acquired the habit of prompt decision you 
 learn that out on patrol and it didn't take me long 
 to decide that my best course was to lie still and 
 wait till he tried to pass again through my room, 
 for he could have entered no other way. He must 
 have had a key of his own, for I had locked the door 
 from the inside before I went to bed. But how 
 had he managed to unlock it and enter without 
 awaking me? That puzzled me. 
 
 "There followed what seemed an interminable 
 interval of silence, during which I could hear my 
 wrist-watch ticking as loudly as if it were an eight- 
 day clock. Then I heard the footsteps recommence. 
 They started at the cupboard and approached my 
 room. I seemed to be listening with every nerve in 
 my body, and, as they approached, it struck me that 
 there was something very odd about them. They 
 were not so much a walk as a shuffle, and one foot 
 seemed to be reconnoitring before the other as if a 
 blind man were exploring the floor. They ap- 
 proached my bed. I lay rigid with my head on my 
 pillow and with my eyes wide open, but I could see 
 nothing no! not so much as a shadow. The man 
 seemed to be holding his breath all the time. It's 
 curious when I come to think of it I never once heard 
 
NO MAN'S LAND 93 
 
 him breathe. I was waiting my chance to leap out 
 of bed and spring on him from behind, as soon as I 
 should hear him fumbling with the bedroom door, 
 when I suddenly felt the touch of a hand at the foot 
 of my bed. It touched the outline of my feet and 
 then drew sharply away as though the owner were 
 startled; the next moment it began groping the bed- 
 clothes. I felt it through the counterpane travelling 
 up my body. But it didn't feel like a human hand 
 at all. It was more like a claw; it seemed to be a 
 hand without any finger-tips and it moved with a 
 kind of stealthy uncertainty. You know how a dog 
 paws your bed? There was something hypnotic 
 about that touch; I tried to shake it off and I 
 couldn't. I was paralysed. I felt again that 
 strange insubordination in my brain, and that I was 
 losing all control over my senses. For my eyes 
 were wide open and I could still see nothing. 
 
 "How long I lay like that I don't know. I could 
 hear the valves of my heart beating against my ribs 
 and there was a cold feeling down my spine; my 
 throat was dry as a furnace and my skin crept. Do 
 you know the kind of nightmare in which you dream 
 you are tied down to two lines of rails with a train 
 approaching along the track and you strain and 
 strain to break your bonds till your heart seems to 
 be going to burst ? Then you wake. But I couldn't 
 wake, or if I was awake I couldn't move. As the 
 hands travelled up to my chest I made a violent 
 effort to break the spell and sprang in a cold sweat 
 from my bed. There was a startled shuffle of the 
 
94 GENTLEMEN AT ARMS 
 
 feet, as though the owner had sprung back from the 
 bed, and they scuffled back toward the dressing 
 room. I hurled myself after them, hit out wildly 
 in their direction, and bruised my knuckles against 
 the folding doors. There was nothing there. My 
 hands were tingling with pain, but action had re- 
 stored my circulation and I rushed into the dressing 
 room. I didn't want to strike again I felt a sudden 
 sense of pity; I didn't know why. But I was deter- 
 mined to corner him. The footsteps were retreating 
 toward the window; I tried to intercept them, 
 but as I did so I felt a cold blast upon my face, the 
 window suddenly shut to, and the footsteps ceased. 
 
 "I opened the window. The night was still; 
 there was no wind, nothing but the soft sighing of 
 the poplars. I could see nothing. But as I stood 
 at the window, listening to the beating of my own 
 heart, I heard the dog whining in the courtyard 
 below, the rattle of his chain like an anchor-chain 
 drawn through a hawse-hole, then a pause, and then 
 the rattle of the chain followed by another pause. 
 This went on for several minutes and I knew that 
 the dog was wildly pacing to and fro to the very 
 limit of its tether. I called to him, but instead of 
 barking furiously at the sound of my voice, as he 
 usually did, he merely whined. 
 
 "The dressing room itself seemed undisturbed. 
 Indeed what puzzled me more than anything else 
 was that the cupboard was shut, and when I tried 
 to open it I found it was locked. And then I re- 
 flected that the fact it was locked was the most 
 
NO MAN'S LAND 95 
 
 reassuring thing I could have expected. I must 
 have had a nightmare after all! After that I felt 
 more cheerful and I determined to have a pipe before 
 turning in again. I filled my pipe, struck a match, 
 and was about to light up when I suddenly caught 
 sight of the cupboard door in its flickering glow. 
 On the jamb of the door was the impression of a 
 thumb and four mutilated fingers. I stood staring 
 at this with the match in my hand until the flame 
 burned my fingers and I let the match fall to the 
 floor. It went out. I stood staring at the cupboard, 
 unconscious of my blistered fingers, conscious of 
 nothing except that mark upon the door." 
 
 Kennedy stopped in his narration and gazed into 
 the fire, as though he could see some image there. 
 After a long pause he resumed: 
 
 "Mechanically I reached out my hand for the box 
 of matches, never taking my eyes off the door, and 
 tried to strike another, but I struck so hard that the 
 head of the match came off*. I struck again, lit the 
 candle, and held it up to the cupboard. The marks 
 were still there: the very cuticle of the skin was 
 clearly traceable in a dirty pattern, as though a dusty 
 hand had left its imprint upon the door. The 
 thumb was clearly outlined, so was the hand, but 
 the fingers stopped at the knuckles as if they had 
 been amputated. I stared at them for a long time. 
 
 "Had I delusions? For a moment there came 
 back to me the awful days I had gone through when 
 I was on sick leave and heard unfamiliar voices 
 coming from great distances and was afraid to be 
 
96 GENTLEMEN AT ARMS 
 
 alone with my own shadow. I asked myself the 
 question: was that baneful image really impressed 
 upon the door or was it a projection of my own dis- 
 ordered brain? I tried looking at the walls and the 
 ceiling; it was not there. I then looked at the cup- 
 board doors again; it was still there. I reasoned 
 with myself that if it was really there it would reflect 
 itself. I took the mirror from the dressing table 
 and, standing at an angle to the door, I held it up 
 so that the door was reflected in it. The image 
 appeared in the mirror. Finally, to put the matter 
 beyond a shadow of doubt, I took a piece of oil 
 paper, such as one uses for map tracings, and having 
 heated it slightly over the candle I held it firmly 
 for a few seconds against the marks upon the door. 
 Then I held it up to the light. There was a faint 
 anthropometrical impression of a thumb and four 
 mutilated fingers upon it. I put the paper down 
 and thought a long while. Then I locked it up in 
 my attache case, and taking up the candle I went 
 down on my hands and knees and explored the planks 
 in the floors; they were firm. I tapped the walls; 
 they were solid. I studied the ceiling; the plaster 
 showed no crevice. I tried the door of my bedroom; 
 it was locked. My papers I had seen at a glance 
 were undisturbed. 
 
 "I looked at my watch. It was 2 A.M. I then 
 put a chair against my bedroom door and sat down 
 upon it with my Webley across my knees cocked, 
 with my finger upon the trigger-pull. The candle I 
 kept alight beside] me. I waited and watched until 
 
NO MAN'S LAND 97 
 
 the moon paled and dawn broke, but I heard noth- 
 ing except the sighing of the poplars, the trickle of 
 water through the sluices, and the dog feverishly 
 paying out his length of chain. Perhaps I dozed a 
 little. I got up shivering with cold and crossed the 
 room to look at the cupboard door. All trace of the 
 hand had gone. I unlocked my attache case and 
 looked at the oil paper. It was as blank as the door. 
 I held it up to the morning light; the impression of 
 the skin had entirely disappeared, but I thought I 
 could detect the periphery outline of the thumb and 
 the four stumps of fingers. 
 
 "I felt worn out and irritable, but my tub and a 
 shave refreshed me somewhat, and after dressing I 
 went downstairs to breakfast at the mess. On my 
 way down I encountered Madame. She looked 
 even paler than usual, but said nothing except a 
 languid 'Bon jour, M'sieur. 9 I looked straight at 
 her and, watching the effect of my words, I said: 
 'Madame, is your house haunted?' 
 
 "I thought she was going to faint. Her face 
 turned an ashen gray and her fingers fumbled with 
 her dress. 'Mais non, M'sieur. Certainement, non. 
 Oh, non, non.' I couldn't make her out. Her 
 answer was more in the nature of a petition than a 
 denial. I had a sudden suspicion that she was 
 concealing something from me. But I merely 
 bowed and passed out. 
 
 "I worked hard all day to escape my thoughts 
 and went home to my billet early. On entering my 
 bedroom I was surprised to see Madame in the 
 
98 GENTLEMEN AT ARMS 
 
 dressing room in front of the cupboard, the door of 
 which was open. As she heard me behind her she 
 hastily shut the cupboard door and, murmuring some- 
 thing about lingerie, she brushed past me and dis- 
 appeared. I didn't like finding her in my room but, 
 after all, it was her house, not mine, and I had al- 
 ready taken good care to remove all my papers 
 back to the office. After she had gone I went to 
 have another look at the cupboard, and I suddenly 
 noticed that in her haste and agitation she had left 
 the key in the door. I turned the key and threw 
 open the cupboard. It was already growing dark, 
 and in my hurry I didn't think about a light at first. 
 I could see the outline of something with four legs. 
 Then I remembered to strike a match. It was a 
 child's rocking-horse! 
 
 "And yet when I recalled the experiences of the 
 night and Madame's agitation in the morning, to 
 say nothing of her excuse about lingerie, I wasn't 
 altogether satisfied. That cupboard was certainly 
 no linen cupboard. For one thing there was no 
 linen there, nothing but this plaintive plaything. 
 For another, the cupboard was thick with dust and 
 the horse caparisoned with cobwebs. French house- 
 wives are much too particular about their linen to 
 house it in a dusthole. 
 
 "Nothing happened that night, but next morning, 
 much to my surprise, Madame asked me, with some 
 diffidence, if I would take a cup of tea with her in the 
 salon. I assented. There was nothing remarkable 
 about the room. It was like most of the salons in 
 
NO MAN'S LAND 99 
 
 ( French middle-class houses a parquet floor, a 
 gilded radiator like a row of organ-pipes, a gilt and 
 marble clock in a glass case, and so on. Over the 
 mantelpiece was a portrait of a child a boy of 
 about ten years of age. After pouring out the tea 
 Madame took up some knitting and began clicking 
 her needles; she explained that she was making a 
 tricot for her husband in the trenches. I thought it 
 was a pretence to hide the agitation of her hands 
 , curious, isn't it, that a European reveals his agitation 
 in his fingers, an Oriental in his toes, and I noticed 
 that she perpetually dropped her stitches as she 
 talked. What did she talk about? Oh ! every thing, 
 but she always came back to the war and casualties. 
 Were they very heavy in our armies? How many 
 did I think they were? I drew in my horns at that 
 it is one of the first things a spy is concerned to find 
 out for obvious reasons. And yet it seemed to 
 me that she had something on her mind and was 
 more anxious to speak than to be spoken to. She 
 seemed to be speaking to gain time. You know 
 how a person speaks when all the time they are 
 thinking of something else ? But anyhow she never 
 got her guns laid on the register, whatever it was, 
 and after an hour or so I got up and went to bed. 
 She made no further approaches after that. But 
 one thing struck me. I noticed every night as I 
 went up to bed that her door which at first she 
 had kept locked was always slightly ajar and a 
 light burning in her room. 
 
 "A week went by and I had begun to forget all 
 
ioo GENTLEMEN AT ARMS 
 
 about my strange experiences when one evening as I 
 got back to my billet I saw a gendarme and a woman 
 enter the house just ahead of me. I hastened my 
 steps, and as I entered the hall I heard someone 
 sobbing in the salon. It sounded like Madame's 
 voice and I pushed open the door and walked in 
 without ceremony. The gendarme and a woman in 
 black were standing with grave faces in front of 
 Madame, who was sitting in a chair gripping the 
 arms convulsively. The gendarme held a piece of 
 blue paper in his hand. For a moment it flashed 
 through my mind that it was a warrant for her 
 arrest. But the idea no sooner entered my mind 
 than I dismissed it, for on the gendarme's face and 
 the face of the woman who accompanied him I now 
 recognized her as a neighbour was a look of pro- 
 found pity. 
 
 "Fotre mari etait un heros, madame, 9 the gen- 
 darme said softly. 
 
 "Then I understood. You know they never send 
 telegrams in France as we do. The announcement 
 is always made personally by the maire or a gen- 
 darme, and a neighbour usually goes with him. Yes, 
 they're not so prompt as we. are, but I think they're 
 more merciful. There is always a touch of ceremony 
 about these things in France, you know. 
 
 "I don't know how it was, but the sight of me 
 seemed to give the poor soul some comfort, though 
 Heaven knows my thoughts had been uncharitable 
 enough. She turned her stricken face to me, still 
 clutching the sides of her chair, and cried: 'Ah! 
 
NO MAN'S LAND 101 
 
 monsieur le capitaine, c'etait lui, c'etait lui[! I know, 
 I know. I heard him that night.' 
 
 "My eyes must have betrayed my astonishment; 
 
 I thought her sorrow had turned her brain. 
 
 "'You do not understand, non? But it : was his 
 room, your chambre a coucher. He used to sleep 
 there. And the little room with the cupboard it 
 was the toy-cupboard of le petit, our little one whom 
 we lost. Mon mari, I sometimes the one, some- 
 times the other, sometimes the two used to go to 
 the cupboard to look at his little horse. It was all 
 of him we had left. One must have something, 
 m'sieur le capitaine. C'etait luij C'etait lui!' 
 
 "As I mounted the stairs I heard her still repeating 
 her litany of pain. 'C'etait lui! C'etait lui! 9 
 
 "'Was it he?' I said to myself. 
 
 "The next day I went back to my billet earlier 
 than usual, determined to atone for all my un- 
 charitableness with such words of comfort as I could 
 offer her. I thought her strangely composed. Per- 
 haps she divined as much in my eyes. 
 
 "'Ah, m'sie'u' le capitaine,' she said simply, 'there 
 are some things worse than death. There is life. 
 Had he lived he would have been blind,' and she 
 handed me a letter. It ran as follows : 
 
 "Chere Madame, Votre mari etait mon camarade et 
 avec grande douleur f ecris pour vous announcer qu'il est mort. 
 
 II etait frappe par Y eclat d'un obus et il a mis les doigts 
 devant les yeux pour les proteger et les doigts sont brises et les 
 yeux rendus aveugles. II est mort d une heure et demi 
 
102 GENTLEMEN AT ARMS 
 
 apres minuit dans la poste de secours le mardi, octobre le 
 troisieme. . ." 
 
 "I read no more. I turned my face to the wall 
 and pretended to be studying the crayon drawing of 
 the dead child. I was afraid she might read in my 
 face all that I had seen and heard on the night of 
 Tuesday, October the 3rd. With a few hasty words 
 of condolence I left the room. That is all." 
 
 We gazed a long time at the fire while the rain 
 beat against the window panes and the ashes fell 
 softly in the grate. 
 
 "But," I said. 
 
 "Yes," interrupted Kennedy. "I know what 
 you're going to say. No! I can't explain it. 
 Do you remember those words of Pascal, 'Les e spaces 
 infinis m'effrayent?' I thought of them to-night 
 when I looked up at the moon riding the heavens. 
 The moon and the stars and the heavenly bodies 
 are not more removed from us than we are removed 
 from one another. If each of us is separated from 
 one another by such vast solitudes in life, why 
 should there bef any greater separation in death? 
 Sometimes I think the dead are nearer to us than 
 we are to one another. You know those lines of 
 Matthew Arnold : 
 
 Yea in the sea of life enisled 
 
 With echoing straits between us thrown. 
 
 "Sometimes I can't even hear the echoes. And it's 
 when I'm farthest from my fellow creatures in life 
 
NO MAN'S LAND 103 
 
 that I feel nearest my fellow creatures in death. 
 D'you remember the old regimental mess? where's 
 the C.O. ? where's the major? where is Guppy? 
 and Trelawney and Haig-Brown? I am the only 
 one left." 
 
 We were both silent for a long time. At last 
 Kennedy rose to go home to his billet. "Perhaps 
 you understand now what I mean by 'No Man's 
 Land,'" he said quietly as he bade me good-night. 
 "Sooner or later all of us have to go 'over the top' 
 and sometimes we return." 
 
VII 
 
 "HOT AIR" 
 
 E' her go ! " said the Lieutenant. 
 She went. At one moment I had been 
 looking into the faces of the men around the 
 car; at the next I was looking down upon their heads 
 and could study the parting of their hair they had 
 their caps off and were in their shirt-sleeves. Only 
 a drag-rope now anchored us to earth and that rope 
 was very taut; the balloon seemed to have suddenly 
 developed a personality of her own and was obviously 
 impatient to be off. I suddenly felt extraordinarily 
 volatile; there seemed to be nothing under my feet, 
 and nothing there was except some basket-work 
 barely an inch thick. I felt that I was made of 
 india-rubber, and that I might bounce at any 
 moment which is a nasty sensation, for it makes 
 you feel a wild desire to bounce over the side of the 
 car and see what will happen to you. The Lieu- 
 tenant cast off the rope. We rose with amazing 
 rapidity; the earth rushed away from us; the white 
 faces of the crowd looking up at us behind the 
 fence lost all their individual features; the ecstatic 
 shouts of the children died away. I suddenly felt 
 very queer. 
 
 No! I didn't like this. I didn't like it at all. I 
 
 104 
 
"HOT AIR" 105 
 
 have "proceeded" in the Army you never "go" 
 anywhere because that might imply you came to 
 rest somewhere, and there is no rest in the British 
 army to some objective or other in nearly every 
 form of transport known to the two Services, and 
 of all of them I liked this beastly toy the least. I 
 have flown in a Maurice Farman in a 3<>mile gale 
 at six thousand feet and felt nothing but a surprising 
 absence of feeling except when the bus "bumped," 
 or when she began to volplane down and I felt 
 as if I were descending a gigantic staircase with a 
 rather long leap from one stair to the next and no 
 banisters to hang on to. I have helped to steer a 
 tank, looking after the brakes while the tank com- 
 mander performed like an organist with his hands 
 and feet, peering through the visor as though he 
 were reading a piece of music, and have reflected 
 that this, too, was very unsensational except at the 
 moment when we came to a crater and our great 
 leviathan paused irresolutely on the edge, as though 
 she were afraid of it, until she made up her mind to 
 it, after which all you feel is that it's uncommonly 
 like flying with an occasional "bump." I have 
 looked on in a submarine while it submerged in the 
 disciplinary silence that is the rule on those occasions, 
 and have stood by the coxswain as he worked the 
 plane-controls and wondered, as I watched the tell- 
 tale bubble and the pointer of the depth-gauge, 
 why the submarine didn't make a little more fuss 
 about it. A hunt for a submarine in a naval drifter 
 when the wind began to freshen yes! this was 
 
io6 GENTLEMEN AT ARMS 
 
 this was uncommonly like that. It was distinctly 
 sensational. There was the same feeling in the pit 
 
 of my stomach. Was I going to ? I looked 
 
 over the side of the car. No, it would be too dis- 
 graceful. Another outrage upon an inoffensive civil- 
 ian population. 
 
 I looked up through the ring into the open neck 
 of the balloon and saw to the very top of the yellow 
 interior it seemed uncommonly empty; I studied 
 the diagonals of rope-netting the ropes seemed 
 remarkably thin; I looked at the clothes-basket in 
 which I and the other three stood it was desper- 
 ately small. I looked over the side, which reached 
 no higher than my waist, and hastily withdrew my 
 gaze. I looked at the coil of rope and the bags 
 of sand at our feet and thought I had better sit 
 down. I looked at my three companions and I 
 thought I had better not. For all three of them 
 were sitting nonchalantly on the edge of the basket 
 like performing monkeys on a trapeze, their arms 
 embracing the stays overhead. One of them was 
 swinging a long leg over the side. 
 
 "It's it's a fine day/ 5 I remarked, desperately, 
 
 "You'll feel better in a moment," said the Lieu- 
 tenant pointedly. "It's the gas, you know. It 
 always affects one a bit at first." 
 
 "I rather like gas," I said, insincerely. "But I 
 don't like it quite so fresh from the meter." 
 
 "There's the river!" said the Lieutenant, whom I 
 will call the pilot, for such he was. The other two, 
 each wearing a single * 6 pip" on their sleeves, were 
 
"HOT AIR" 107 
 
 "learning the ropes" more particularly the valve 
 rope. 
 
 I began to sit up and take notice. I looked over 
 the side. I saw quadrangles, polygons, circles, also 
 buildings leaning back at various angles much as a 
 house appears in a badly focussed photograph. 
 
 "What a city to bomb!" I said involuntarily. 
 
 "Yes, isn't it?" said the pilot. "One always feels 
 like that at first." So this was sensation Number 
 Two. 
 
 "We did bomb her the other day," he resumed, 
 "with sandbags. We'd got over Battersea and 
 found ourselves suddenly coming down and likely to 
 get a cold tub in the river. So I said Toop off some 
 ballast' to a fellow who was learning the ropes. 
 And before I knew what he was doing the silly fool 
 had thrown out half a dozen bags bodily. Of 
 course, you should always shake out the contents 
 slowly like a sower going forth to sow. They 
 landed like bombs bang on the skylight of a factory 
 or workshop or something of the kind. I saw 
 them go through. As we rose, I saw a crowd of 
 people rushing out into the street like ants when 
 you've kicked over an ant-heap. They must have 
 thought it was a raid broad daylight, too. The 
 last I saw of them was a fat man shaking his fist 
 
 at us." 
 
 We rose to about 800 feet and, as we ascended, 
 the several noises of London were merged into one 
 diapason hum, but out of it certain individual 
 sounds retained their identity. They were cab 
 
io8 - GENTLEMEN AT ARMS 
 
 whistles. The whole city seemed alive with them, 
 and one could hear each and every one. 
 
 "The whistling for a cab, the barking of a dog, the 
 crowing of a cock," said the pilot in a literary style 
 faintly reminiscent of the Book of Proverbs, "these 
 are the last sounds one ceases to hear." 
 
 As we travelled over the north of London a dark 
 mist blotted out the great city, but the white trail 
 of smoke from railway engines showed through it 
 clearly like streaks of cotton wool. It was raining 
 below. The houses were invisible, but railway 
 tracks gleamed through the mist with a curious effect 
 as though we were gazing at their reflection in water. 
 My destructive mood returned; I felt at that mo- 
 ment that I longed of all things to drop a bomb on 
 that railway track. Which suggests that there's 
 something very impersonal about bombing a city. 
 I think of all lethal enterprises aerial bombing must 
 be the least demoralizing to the character. You 
 don't think in terms of men but of targets, especially 
 structural targets. 
 
 Thus meditating I took out my cigarette case. 
 
 "Put it back, please," said the pilot hastily. 
 "This isn't a smoking compartment." And he 
 pointed overhead. There was nothing to see over- 
 head except the delicate fabric of the balloon. And 
 then I suddenly remembered that gas. I had no 
 desire to go up to heaven or down to earth in a 
 chariot of fire like the prophet. So I put it back. 
 
 "We haven't got any parachutes, you see," he ex- 
 plained apologetically. He spoke as though it were 
 
"HOT AIR" 109 
 
 the most natural thing in the world to take a leap out 
 of a balloon with a closed umbrella that might never 
 open. " If anything went wrong we should be done." 
 
 This interlude provoked him to a most unfeeling 
 strain of reminiscence: "When I was learning 
 
 flying at the W aerodrome before I got my 
 
 transfer to the Balloon Wing there was a Russian 
 chap, a learner. He went 'solo' and had a smash. 
 They took up seven basketfuls. The difficulty was 
 to bury him." 
 
 "Why not a sack?" I said. It sounds a callous 
 conversation, but after all there's only one way of 
 looking at it if you want to keep your nerve. You 
 must laugh at it. 
 
 "Oh! I don't mean that. I mean the Burial 
 Service, Rites of Holy Church and all that kind of 
 thing. You see a Russian can't be properly buried 
 without incense and no end of ritual. Well, they 
 discovered a Russian priest in the uniform of a 
 Canadian padre. At least he said he was. Perhaps 
 he was anxious to oblige." 
 
 "But what about the incense?" 
 
 "I'm coming to that. Some bright youth said 
 he'd look after that which relieved the C.O. 
 mightily as he was anxious to do the correct thing 
 and impress the fellow countrymen of the deceased. 
 Very important to keep on good terms with Russia 
 just then, you know! . . . There was a great 
 turn-out. The padre chanted away like a gramo- 
 phone and an N.C.O. duly lighted the sacred fire. 
 Everybody sniffed. There's something very famil- 
 
i io GENTLEMEN AT ARMS 
 
 iar about that smell/ whispered the C.O.tome. 'Very 
 familiar.' And he sniffed like a fox-terrier. 'I have it, 
 sir/ I said, 'it's tobacco.' And so it was. The 
 N.C.O. had also contributed some packets of wood- 
 bines like the widow's mite which was rather 
 decent of him when you come to think of it. And 
 before the padre had finished I heard the sergeant 
 say in a stentorian voice 'Collect the empties.' " 
 
 "It sounds a bit blasphemous/' I remarked. 
 
 "Well, anyhow it was a good brand," said the 
 pilot piously. "It was John Cotton." 
 
 The air seemed fresher. I looked at the aneroid; 
 we had risen to 3,000 feet. The little red bubble in 
 the statoscope looking like a drop of coagulated 
 blood or what the bacteriologists call a "smear" 
 which alternately solidified and liquefied, was 
 crawling to the right; a sure sign that we were still 
 ascending. Periodically one of the learners shook 
 out the contents of a sandbag which descended like 
 pepper. We had a steady southeast wind behind us, 
 and we made out our course by observation of the 
 roads and railways, checking them off on our map 
 with the aid of a compass. The mist had cleared 
 and I saw that we had left the city far behind us. 
 We passed over woods and forests, their tops looking 
 like a bed of asparagus; we sailed over growing crops 
 of cereals, still green (it was early August), resem- 
 bling, after the heavy storms, nothing so much as a 
 cushion of green plush all rubbed the wrong way. 
 "Barley," said the pilot. "And that's corn"; he 
 pointed to a beaten field; I seemed to be looking 
 
"HOT AIR" in 
 
 down at a rough plaster-cast in yellow clay. From 
 far below us came a continuous hum and a large 
 beetle appeared to be racing along the road at a 
 tremendous speed. 
 
 "A motorcyclist," said the pilot. Again I felt 
 that lethal instinct. To aim a bomb at a rapidly 
 moving target "short!"; "over!"; "hit!" Undeni- 
 ably there was a sporting element in it. 
 
 "We're beating him," said the pilot. Yet our 
 motion was imperceptible. We seemed to hang in the 
 ether like a lonely planet. 
 
 We picked out one feature after another with the 
 aid of our map. It was like doing a puzzle. Aerial 
 observation has a fascination of its own. Introduce 
 an element of camouflage into it, such as a screened 
 battery, and you're back at the old nursery game of 
 "Puzzle, Find the Woodman." There is much to be 
 said for an aerial life. It's clean, which is more than 
 you can say of the trenches, and invigorating. And if 
 you get "knocked out" well, it's all over in no time. 
 
 "It's about tea-time," said the pilot, and he 
 pulled a rope. I wondered if it was to summon the 
 waiter. Then he let go. There was a loud clap. 
 
 "The valve," he explained. It may have been, 
 but more of that later on. A shower of tiny chalk- 
 like crystals descended on us from the interior of the 
 balloon, as though some chemical change was going 
 on up there. Sometimes the valve-rope catches. 
 Then you climb up inside the ring. At least you 
 do if you can think of nothing better. Personally, 
 I would rather not. 
 
ii2 GENTLEMEN AT ARMS 
 
 He pulled again at intervals, and one of the others 
 paid out some 300 feet of drag-rope. As we de- 
 scended, the rope touched the ground, and I watched 
 the deep furrow it made in the grass the aftermath 
 of a hayfield. There was something uncanny about 
 that rope. As we crossed a park of elms, having 
 thrown out ballast to clear it, the rope rose from 
 the ground, jumped the park fence, climbed the 
 trees, and followed us across their fan-like tops like 
 an animated thing. An enormous serpent seemed 
 to be following us with diabolical persistency, hissing 
 as it brushed the trees. We passed a gabled manor- 
 house with tall chimneys and having cleared the 
 park threw out the grapnel. By this time the 
 smooth, full cheek of the balloon was beginning to 
 crinkle and pucker like a rubicund countenance 
 that has suddenly been stricken with senile decay. 
 The pilot pulled the "rip" rope, opening a panel in 
 the top of the balloon, and we came down with a 
 bump. 
 
 We bounced, bumped, and bounced yet again. 
 I found my head and shoulders caught in a snare of 
 collapsing tackle with the balloon heaving like a 
 wounded bird above us. 
 
 "Will you take tea or coffee, sir?" 
 
 I looked up, like a mouse caught in a trap, and I 
 found myself staring into the face of a housemaid 
 in cap and ribbons who was peering over the car in 
 a state of wide-eyed excitement. 
 
 "I think we'll get out first," I said, struggling like 
 Samson with seven green withes. I was not yet 
 
"HOT AIR" 113 
 
 feeling quite terrestrial and I had a vague idea that 
 the waiter had answered the bell. 
 
 "Her ladyship saw you coming over the park/' 
 said the housemaid, by way of explanation. "And 
 she sent me out and said, she said, 'If they're not 
 Germans, ask them whether they'll have tea or 
 coffee? But if they're Germans, send for the police 
 at once.'" 
 
 "Be they Germans or bain't they?" I heard a 
 masculine voice behind the housemaid. "Because 
 if they be- 
 
 "Put that gun down, you silly old ass," shouted 
 the pilot, with his head in a noose. "What the hell 
 do you damned well mean by 
 
 "They be English all right, Jarge," said another 
 voice reassuringly. "Cassn't thee tell by the way 
 they talk? That's good edicated English." 
 
 "Aye, 'tis, Jacob; depend on it, 'tis. No German 
 Hun could talk such beautiful English, I'll take my 
 gospel oath on it. The gentleman hev' a very 
 proper gift of speaking." 
 
 A number of heads seemed suddenly to appear 
 from nowhere in a circle around us. An aged man, 
 holding a gun, looked over the side of the basket 
 as though he were inspecting pigs in a netted cart. 
 
 "Beg your pardon, gentlemen," he said, in a tone 
 in which he strove manfully to conceal his dis- 
 appointment. 
 
 "Don't mention it," said our pilot, politely, as we 
 extricated ourselves and clambered out of the 
 basket. "Got a horse and cart anywhere? Good. 
 
ii4 GENTLEMEN AT ARMS 
 
 You men, there, you can help us flatten her out. 
 No, no, like this. Start at each end and roll her 
 up." 
 
 They all set to, kneading the collapsed balloon as 
 they squeezed the gas out of her billowy folds. 
 
 "It do just seem like holding down a pig at 
 killing-time," said one of them pensively. "What 
 a girt chitterling it be!" 
 
 "It's the way mother makes dough," whispered 
 one child to another, as she stood looking at 
 us with a finger in her mouth. The men rolled 
 the fabric over and over, crushing the pink clover 
 and sulphur-coloured toad-flax beneath it. In a 
 few ^minutes our balloon was packed up in a green 
 canvas hold-all little bigger than a kit-bag, to the 
 no small astonishment of those who had witnessed 
 her descent. Canvas bag and basket were hoisted 
 
 into the cart with directions to drive to H , the 
 
 nearest railway station, some six miles away. 
 
 "Thank you, madam, we'll take tea," said our 
 pilot as we entered the house. 
 
 "I'm afraid it's a little strong," she said, gra- 
 ciously. "It's been waiting some time for you." 
 
 I remembered that the pilot had pulled a myste- 
 rious rope about "tea-time." 
 
 I'm not in the R.F.C. But I hear that their 
 methods of aerial communication are very wonderful. 
 
VIII 
 
 A DAY ON THE SOMME 
 
 I WAS engaged in studying the scheme of mural 
 decoration in my friend's room at the H.Q. of 
 the th Corps. The furniture of the room 
 
 was designed for us and not for ornament. It con- 
 sisted of those ascetic deal tables, chairs, and chit- 
 boxes which are turned out daily by the sappers with 
 no other assistance than a hammer, a saw, and a 
 plane. The south wall was covered by one of those 
 chefs d'ceume of the 1st Printing Co. R.E., in which 
 the leading principle of composition is a gridiron and 
 the mind of the artist seems obsessed by an enthu- 
 siasm for geometrical design which may be helpful, 
 but is certainly monotonous. None the less, that 
 map was an unfailing mental stimulant to my friend, 
 
 Colonel X , and he returned to its contemplation 
 
 again and again with the same feeling of proprietary 
 pride as that with which an art collector might return 
 to the study of an Old Master. And as is the way 
 with all works of art, the more one looked at it the 
 more one saw in it. Not only did it show the position 
 of every culvert, well, quarry, -and ditch behind our 
 lines, but it also bore upon it certain conventional 
 signs indicating the exact location of our trench rail- 
 ways, supply dumps, and observation posts. 
 
ii6 GENTLEMEN AT ARMS 
 
 These things were freely and boldly figured in 
 somewhat the same manner as the maps of the old 
 voyagers and merchant adventurers body forth the 
 fauna and flora of vague continents with elephants 
 standing in lagoons and negroes reclining under 
 palm trees. Certain coloured lines of an irregular 
 tracery indicated the course to the nearest decimals 
 of our front line and support trenches, and they 
 were corrected to date. From all of which it may 
 be inferred that the Germans, who are great col- 
 lectors in their way, would have put their last shirt 
 on the chances of adding that masterpiece to their 
 collection. 
 
 I was still admiring the bold freedom of its nomen- 
 clature and weighing the uneasy significance of 
 "Flea Trench," "Acid Drop Copse," and/'Stink 
 Alley," when my friend the Colonel put^his fore- 
 finger on a point in one of the rectangles, and said : 
 "That's Brigade H.Q.; Battalion H.Q. will be 
 
 about farther on; we'll leave the car behind the 
 
 wood." The point may be described, with deliber- 
 ate ambiguity, as A.2.c.b-3 to use the masonic 
 language of operation orders. 
 
 "You can leave that behind," said X , point- 
 ing to my revolver, a Mark VI Webley, which is a 
 pretty heavy weapon. "It isn't as if we are going 
 up by night, and in any case we shall have a guide. 
 Besides, it'll be heavy going and we must travel light 
 when we get beyond that obscene wood. But you'd 
 better take one of these." And he handed me a 
 shrapnel helmet. 
 
A DAY ON THE SOMME 117 
 
 "Also this nose-bag. It's the new pattern." I 
 took the canvas bag and slung it over my right 
 shoulder. It contained one of the new gas masks 
 known colloquially as "emus"; they give the wearer 
 the appearance of a passionate attachment to a 
 baby's feeding-bottle. I have heard a blunt soldier 
 describe them as "slinging your guts outside"; 
 they certainly do suggest that the wearer has only 
 remembered at the last moment to take his alimen- 
 tary canal with him. The bag also contained a 
 field-dressing and some morphia tablets. 
 
 Thus equipped we entered our car, taking two 
 other officers with us, one of whom beguiled our 
 journey by telling us a story of a certain divisional 
 commander and a gas- helmet. 
 
 It was a good tale, and some day, with God's 
 grace, I will tell it. 
 
 Our car was taking us through undulating country 
 of chalk and gravel with harebells and yellow toad- 
 flax still in bloom; the slopes of the downs were 
 scarped with those traces of primitive husbandry 
 which in the south of England are known as "lyn- 
 chets." The shocks of corn were still bivouacked 
 among the stubble, but the sheaves were black with 
 rain. Here and there a solitary peasant was driving 
 the plough, and the nodding horses left a gleaming 
 ripple of brown earth behind them. A slight mist 
 was breaking into diaphanous wreaths under the 
 morning sun and the air was full of an autumnal 
 softness. Small parties of men in dust-coloured 
 uniforms, with low flat heads, projecting ears, and 
 
ii8 GENTLEMEN AT ARMS 
 
 under-hung mouths, passed us at intervals. A 
 peasant paused at his husbandry, and, regarding 
 them, spat upon the ground. They were German 
 prisoners. 
 
 As we approached F we were caught up into 
 
 the tide of war, an interminable procession of moun- 
 ted men, limbers, lorries, and columns of infantry. 
 One has the impression of some gigantic power- 
 house sending out steams of energy and, in that 
 great current of men, horses, and guns, we lost all 
 sense of our own identity. And as we mounted the 
 hill ahead of us where four or five other roads met 
 our own at acute angles, we could see four or five 
 processions converging upon our own, the tail of each 
 procession fading away into the distance and the 
 mounted men diminishing into small black objects 
 until it seemed as though all the ant-heaps in the 
 world were in migration. The nearer we approached 
 the larger the figures became until they resolved them- 
 selves into thousands upon thousands of mounted 
 men, each man carrying panniers of shells on 
 either side of his saddle, as though the baskets were 
 huge holsters. And before and behind the horse- 
 men came and went batteries in column of route, 
 their teams straining at the traces as the wheels 
 sank into the mud and their drivers raising their 
 short whips to the salute as we passed. Upon the 
 heels of the guns followed huge motor-lorries. The 
 multitude and variety of heraldic symbols upon the 
 tail-boards of those lorries told me that nothing less 
 than an army was on the move, for each division, 
 
A DAY ON THE SOMME 119 
 
 and each supply column within a division, has its 
 own device. Here was the fish, the butterfly, the 
 cat within the circle, the greyhound rampant, the 
 thistle, the shamrock, the three legs, and the inverted 
 horseshoe. As all these processions converged upon 
 the cross-roads it seemed as if nothing but inextri- 
 cable confusion awaited us. But at the meeting of 
 the ways was a road control of the M.P., and the 
 columns of men and horses and guns writhed in and 
 out with the rhythm of gun-teams in a musical ride 
 and so went their appointed ways. 
 
 On the sky-line funnels of black smoke uprose 
 from the earth, expanded into voluminous bouquets, 
 and then disappeared. They were German 8-inch 
 shells. As we turned sharply to the left in their 
 direction we passed our own "heavies," each within 
 a stone's throw of the next, and with not so much as 
 a fig-leaf to hide their nakedness, firing at a few 
 paces over our heads we felt the shock as we passed. 
 
 "They might be firing salutes in Hyde Park," said 
 the Colonel contemplatively, "for all the trouble they 
 take to hide their light under a bushel. The fact is 
 the Hun has given up spotting. His flying men 
 never come over here for a change of air now. Our 
 own fellows drop cards on 'em every day, but they 
 never return the calls. Beastly impolite, I call it. 
 There's the wood; let's get out/' 
 
 He pointed to what looked like a row of gibbets on 
 the sky-line about a mile away things that looked 
 like everything but a tree: gaunt, twisted and bare, 
 and resembling not so much a wood as a scaffolding 
 
120 GENTLEMEN AT ARMS 
 
 in collapse. To reach it we had to pass on foot 
 through what had once been a village, but was now 
 merely a muddy waste with here and there a patch 
 of brick and stone embedded in the mud. There 
 was not so much as a gable-end left standing, and I 
 saw nothing to convince me that the place had ever 
 contained a living thing except a woman's red flannel 
 petticoat trampled in the mud, a child's wax doll, and 
 the leg of a dead German projecting from the wall 
 of a communication trench. Truly our guns grind 
 exceeding small. ' 
 
 We entered the wood, and as we entered it, we 
 seemed to leave all life behind us. Whether it was 
 one of those tricks of acoustics by which the con- 
 figuration of the ground or the relative density of the 
 atmosphere creates a "pocket" I know not, but once 
 in that wood we seemed as isolated from all auditory 
 intercourse as a signaller whose wires are suddenly 
 cut. And we were quite alone. We knew the guns 
 were speaking, for behind us we could see orange 
 flashes of flame and in front of us brooding black 
 clouds. But in the wood itself there was, or seemed 
 to be, a deep and sepulchral silence. It was or 
 had been a wood of fir and beech. I recognized 
 the trees by their trunks as an anatomist might 
 recognize some extinct mammal by a bone, for these 
 were mere skeletons of trees to which not one leaf 
 adhered. Some were cut clean at the base as though 
 by a woodman's saw; others were rudely pollarded 
 at the top; many were shivered as by a blast of light- 
 ning. It was October, and in the valleys below the 
 
A DAY ON THE SOMME 121 
 
 beeches and poplars were still in full leaf; yet in this 
 stricken wood not a leaf nor a blade of grass nor 
 even a patch of moss appeared. Our progress was 
 slow and painful, for the ground was scooped and 
 moulded into circular pits of a surprising symmetry, 
 so close that one could leap from one to the other, 
 and so deep that they reached to our shoulders as 
 we stumbled into them. They were shell-holes, and 
 from each of them as we slid into it there arose 
 an angry hum, swelling into a diapason as clouds 
 of large black flies rose in agitation. They rose 
 from shrapnel helmets, and as they rose I saw that 
 these helmets, upturned like a pudding-basin, were 
 full to the brim and dreadful to look upon. The 
 wood was a shambles: dark crimson masses of pulp 
 lay on all sides of us, and what at first sight looked 
 like sea-shells white concave objects half em- 
 bedded in the ground, their gleaming surface still 
 covered with a thin integument of blue and red veins. 
 They were skulls. 
 
 We groped our way amid an immense litter of 
 broken rifles, bayonets, kit, pickaxes, spades, gas- 
 masks, field-dressings, Lewis gun cylinders, Mills 
 bombs, and cotton wool, with here and there a packet 
 of cigarettes. A peculiar sickly smell suffused the 
 wood. 
 
 "Fifty thousand dead here, I should think," said 
 the Colonel meditatively as we dropped with a 
 splash into a disused communication trench. " Don't 
 lose sight of me whatever you do or we may never 
 find each other again." And we wormed our way 
 
122 GENTLEMEN AT ARMS 
 
 between the sticky walls of the trench, brushing 
 against ghastly objects and obscene which pro- 
 truded like the roots of a tree. 
 
 The soft porous mud clung to our boots like treacle, 
 and we were glad when the trench debouched upon 
 the open ground. Our way to Brigade H.Q. lay 
 across a slope covered with strands of rusty field 
 telephones and pitted with shell-holes. As we came 
 in view of a low ridge, some six feet high, khaki- 
 clad figures gradually detached themselves from the 
 brown background and the holes of the Brigade dug- 
 out appeared. 
 
 At about a hundred yards distance from our 
 objective I was surprised to see a khaki-clad figure 
 crouching in one of the shell-holes with his rifle in 
 his left hand and gazing fixedly toward the ridge. 
 One does not usually do outpost-duty in the rear. As 
 we came up to him I turned to ask him what he was 
 doing there, but as I opened my lips to speak I saw 
 that his body was strangely rigid, the hair under his 
 helmet thick with flies, and his ears black as ebony. 
 He was dead. 
 
 The brigadier greeted us at the entrance of the 
 dug-out, where sat a sapper under a tarpaulin with 
 the receiver of a telephone at his ear and a kitten 
 between his feet. "You want to get on to Battalion 
 H.Q.? Right, you'll want a guide. Here, can 
 you read a map?" he added, as he turned to a man 
 wearing the blue and white brassard of the signallers. 
 
 "No, zur, but I knows the way." 
 
 I knew that accent, and I turned to look at the 
 
A DAY ON THE SOMME 123 
 
 Speaker. He was a well-built youth, with a broad, 
 homely face, honest gray eyes, straw-coloured hair, 
 and a large, good-natured mouth. He carried as his 
 only weapon a long staff about five feet in length. 
 You can you could see many such as he keeping 
 sheep in Pewsey Vale. My surmise turned out to 
 be correct we came from the same county and 
 from that moment my guide became colloquial. 
 He was shy at first, which was not surprising, for 
 he was a private and I was a " brass hat." But that 
 wore off, as you shall hear. 
 
 We topped the ridge, the signaller doing a pole- 
 jump and stopping to give me a hand. A sequence 
 of H.E. shells were falling again and again in a cloud 
 of earth and black smoke upon a corner of a road 
 about four hundred yards to our left, while at some- 
 thing the same distance on our right 5.9 "univer- 
 sals" were bursting into low clouds of snow-white 
 fleece. The ground we were crossing was a perfect 
 snare of wire, and as I studied my steps I noticed 
 that the clay in the shell-holes we skirted was black 
 and the clods newly turned. The Colonel called 
 over his shoulder, "Watch me, and do as I do." 
 
 "There's a girt big church over there, zur," our 
 guide remarked to me confidentially, as he pointed 
 with his staff at a spire peeping out between the 
 trees on a wooded ridge about four miles to our left. 
 "It be a mortal big " 
 
 There was a sibilant hiss in the air ahead of us. 
 The Colonel had disappeared. The next moment I 
 saw him lying flat on the earth a few yards in front 
 
I2 4 GENTLEMEN AT ARMS 
 
 of me and pulling his helmet, which hitherto he had 
 carried in his hand like a bucket, over the nape of his 
 neck. I dropped, and as I heard a dull thud and 
 the patter of falling stuff all around me I was dis- 
 agreeably conscious of having the largest spine of all 
 vertebrate beings. "It be as big as Zaulsbury 
 Cathedral, zur, I do think." ... I looked up 
 from under my shrapnel helmet as a tortoise looks 
 out from under its shell and saw the signaller looking 
 down at me. He had remained upright and had 
 never moved. I saw the Colonel rising to his feet. 
 The Colonel now broke into a quick trot. He has a 
 cool head incidentally he's a V.C. and never 
 runs without a purpose. What is more, he knows 
 the whole octave of shell-music and the compass of 
 all the diabolical instruments that produce its weird 
 harmonies. Wherefore, when he ran I ran. The 
 air overhead was now producing the strangest 
 orchestral effects, in which were blended sounds like 
 the crack of gigantic whips, the pulsations of enor- 
 mous wings, the screams of frightened birds, and, 
 more often than not, a reptilian hiss. 
 
 "They do say as Zaulsbury spire be the girtest 
 spire in Hengland," continued the signaller imper- 
 turbably, "parson told I so. ... It be all 
 right, zur," he added after a pause, as he waited 
 for me to rise again, my attention having been 
 diverted by the Colonel again prostrating himself like 
 a Moslem in prayer. The Colonel's posture was 
 sacred, but his language was profane. "He hev only 
 caught his foot in a wire, zur," my guide added with- 
 
A DAY ON THE SOMME 125 
 
 out the suspicion of a smile, as I rose to my feet. 
 "Churches do seem to come natural like to me. My 
 feyther he be sexton. He be a hancient man and 
 zays as he hev a buried the whole parish in his time. 
 The only thing that do worrit 'un is that he won't 
 be able to bury hisself when 'a turns up his toes. 
 He can't a-bear the idea of being buried by zum- 
 m'un else. It do make 'un quite low-spirited at 
 times. But he be getting childish. He do worry 
 about my not getting Christian burial out here. 
 Not that he ain't a very good feyther to me," he 
 added apologetically, "but you see, zur, it be his 
 profession. But I tell 'un 'what mun be mun 
 be.' . . . And anyhow I ain't dead yet," he 
 added cheerfully as a shell hissed overhead. "This 
 be the communication trench. It be all we 'ave 
 at present." He spoke like a host apologizing for 
 an indifferent hospitality. 
 
 It was barely eighteen inches wide, it was not more 
 than five feet deep, and it was not traversed. It 
 had been hurriedly thrown up, for we had only just 
 captured the ground. As I looked over it to my 
 left I saw four figures marching in a direction par- 
 allel with our own, but toward our rear. They were 
 marching over the open ground as steadily as if 
 they were doing stretcher drill in a training camp. 
 As they drew nearer I saw that they bore a stretcher 
 high upon their shoulders; the feet of the patient 
 were bare except for the white bandages, the loose 
 ends of which fluttered in the air. 
 
 "That poor chap's got it bad," said the signaller 
 
126 GENTLEMEN AT ARMS 
 
 as he drew my attention to the red label. "And 
 'ere be the walking cases," he added as men in twos 
 and threes with white labels depending from their 
 buttonholes began to squeeze past us, some of them 
 very pale, and one, whose lips were blue with cyano- 
 sis and his face livid, muttering with trance-like 
 repetitions in a kind of soliloquy, "Been'* buried 
 three times this morning three times I been buried 
 it's me chest." 
 
 ; "That fellow looks pretty bad," I remarked over 
 my shoulder to the signaller. I got no answer. I 
 looked back. The signaller had dropped behind; 
 he was loosing the straps and braces of the man with 
 the blue lips. "They do hinder 'spiratory haction; 
 it be the fust thing to do, zur," he said to me a 
 moment later as he panted after me, lifting his feet 
 in the mud. 
 
 We found the Battalion H.Q. in a dark dug-out. 
 It had no boarding, merely a few pit-props to hold 
 up the roof; the floor and the walls were of the earth 
 earthy. The O.C., with three days' growth of 
 beard and a huge and indecent hole in his breeches, 
 sat on an oil-tin studying a trench-map with the aid of 
 a pungent tallow "dip" stuck in a bottle. My 
 friend discussed with him the strengthening of the 
 position; there was talk of strong posts and saps and 
 how to consolidate. 
 
 "Yes, it's pretty lively just now," said the O.C. to 
 us. "I lost ten per cent, of my stretcher-bearers 
 yesterday." 
 
 I left the O.C. and my friend engaged over the map 
 
A DAY ON THE SOMME 127 
 
 in that dark hole, like two conspirators, and dragged 
 my feet along the trench, carrying about three 
 pounds of ochreous mud upon each of them. The 
 men not on lookout duty were sitting down in the 
 mud stolidly eating bully beef as though it were an 
 occupation rather than a meal. But as I elbowed 
 my way round a traverse I hear the cheerful sound 
 of animated chatter and loud laughter. The sound 
 is not so common in the trenches as to be unnotice- 
 able. It is only in the music-halls that life in the 
 trenches appears to be one uproarious farce. That 
 is a stage convention the imperiousness of which all 
 soldiers cheerfully acknowledge. It would never do 
 to allow the civilian to feel depressed. 
 
 "He-he-he!" "Haw-Haw-haw. It do do a bloke 
 good to have the likes of you to talk to," said one of 
 these voices. "Whose 'elmet did you say it was, 
 mate?" chuckled another. "Blimey, if the orficer 
 'ad a pinched mine, wouldn't I 'ave copped it? 
 Not arf! Why I uses mine ter. . . ." (The 
 speaker lowered his voice to a whisper and I could 
 not hear the rest.) "Well, so long, young feller, 
 and thanks for the Woodbines." As I came round 
 the traverse I ran into the signaller. 
 
 "I hope you and the Colonel ain't been kep* 
 waiting, zur. It do cheer the chaps up to talk to 
 'em a bit and pass the time o' day." 
 
 It never seemed to occur to him that he ran greater 
 risks than they. Every day he was in the habit of 
 crossing the ground between Brigade H.Q. and the 
 first-line trenches, and everyone knows that, except 
 
128 GENTLEMEN AT ARMS 
 
 when the enemy are about to attack, such ground is 
 infinitely more unhealthy than the front line itself. 
 
 As I rejoined the Colonel at the entrance of the 
 Battalion dug-out I heard a low droning hum over- 
 head and instantly every face in the trench was 
 turned skyward. One of our biplanes was returning 
 from her reconnaissance, flying straight as a crow. 
 A number of woolly skeins, black as ink, suddenly 
 appeared one after the other around her and she 
 changed her course to a series of giddy spirals, like 
 a snipe. Every eye followed her. "Time to get 
 back," said the Colonel, "we'll do the whole way 
 back across the open. It's quicker. That com- 
 munication trench was a delusion and a snare. It 
 doubles the time without halving the risks. We're 
 within machine-gun range, of course, but I doubt if 
 the Hun'll think it worth while." And without 
 another word he clambered out of the trench. 
 
 The signaller and I followed. As we gained the 
 open a small black shell about six inches long fell 
 vertically and without noise about five yards in 
 front of me, as the hum of the aeroplane grew more 
 distinct. "A dud," said the Colonel dispassion- 
 ately, "they'll never hit her," and we hurried on. 
 
 "It do knock the stuffing out of a chap, zur, when 
 he do see what warfare really is," ruminated my 
 guide. "There ain't much room for pride and vain- 
 glory out here. And it do seem as though one be- 
 comes like a little 'un again, a hearing of the collects 
 and the catechism. Them things do kind o' come 
 back to one. Every marning as I goes over the top 
 
A DAY ON THE SOMME 129 
 
 of the ridge I thinks o' them words, 'Defend us thy 
 humble servants." 
 
 His speech was good homespun English; he often 
 spoke dialect but never slang and between the two 
 there is all the difference in the world. It was a 
 well of English undefiled in which there were no 
 impurities. He was an unlettered man and his speech 
 had no literary quality, but he used naturally and 
 unaffectedly the diction of the Bible, for it was the 
 only diction he knew. And there is none better. 
 There are combes and uplands in Wiltshire in which 
 men still talk as he talked, and I recognized his 
 speech and felt as I walked something of the exhilara- 
 tion of the air off the Wiltshire chalk. Also that 
 he and I were of the same folk. 
 
 All this time his eyes were always on duty, and now 
 and again he called to the Colonel, "Bear to the 
 right, zur" "Mind thuck maze o' wire, zur." The 
 Colonel had a theory, which was largely sound, that 
 if you have to go through a "strafing" the simplest 
 and safest plan is to get through it as quickly as 
 possible. He did not fear shells barring the sig- 
 naller, I think he is about the most fearless man I 
 know but he respected them. His trained ear 
 seemed to have the most extraordinary acoustic 
 properties, and to watch him waiting for an 8-inch 
 shell to burst was like watching a setter point. My 
 throat was parched and there was a painful stitch in 
 my side; also at times I felt as if I had been beaten all 
 over. I was feeling something of the same fear as I 
 felt when I first flew over London in a Maurice 
 
i 3 o GENTLEMEN AT ARMS 
 
 Farman and we occasionally got into a "pocket" 
 and dropped like a stone only to pull up with a 
 sudden luxurious security and find ourselves "as 
 you were." It was the same after each explosion; 
 the feeling of relief was only equalled by the tension 
 which had preceded it. And always there was an 
 exultant feeling that we had scored again. It was 
 absurdly like a game. 
 
 Meanwhile the signaller continued to talk, and the 
 more vigorous the strafing the more animated he 
 became, until I found myself elaborating a theory of 
 sympathetic connection, which I am sure is totally 
 devoid of scientific support, between brain-waves 
 and shell trajectories. As we glanced toward our 
 
 right at the churchyard of G where the Hun 
 
 shells were busy at their ghoulish task, his talk took 
 a fresh direction. It was occasionally interrupted, 
 but never seriously disturbed, by the necessity of 
 lying flat in the mud, nor was it discountenanced by 
 the fact that I now rarely returned any answer, my 
 whole attention being earnestly concentrated on the 
 Colonel in front whose premonitory symptoms had 
 an almost hypnotic effect upon me. But the sig- 
 naller never lost the thread of his discourse. 
 
 " . . . It do seem to I as the ancient Britons 
 were god-fearing men in a manner of speakin' 
 . . . though parson do call 'em heathens as wor- 
 shipped graven images. They did some tidy bury- 
 ing in them barrows up on the Downs, which do 
 seem a Christian thing to do I allers buries a poor 
 chap if I 'as time and an entrenching tool. . . . 
 
A DAY ON THE SOMME 131 
 
 Do seem to lie easier like," he added, as we 
 passed a grave in the open with a wooden cross. 
 "I ain't up in the burial service like feyther, what 
 can say it backward, but I do say the Lord's Prayer 
 as the next best thing. D'you think it matters, 
 zur?" 
 
 But by this time we had gained the ridge and the 
 comparative security (it was very comparative) of 
 Brigade H.Q. Our way back was now clear and our 
 guide's task was done. He abruptly ceased to 
 talk and his whole bearing changed. He and I were 
 no longer two wayfaring West-country men but 
 private and officer, and he stood sharply at atten- 
 tion. He was quite incapable of presumption. 
 Had his friendly musings been designed to beguile 
 my attention from the dangers which beset us 
 or were they merely the naive speculations of a 
 mind as simple as it was brave? I shall never 
 know. 
 
 The signaller saluted us and my superior officer 
 returned his salute. He stood looking after us, 
 holding his stake as though it were a quarter-staff; 
 the sun fell upon his cheerful, homely face and 
 glinted on the brass letters of his shoulder straps. 
 There came into my mind that feeling of perplexed 
 recognition which sometimes attends the casual 
 encounters of life. Surely, I speculated, I had met 
 him somewhere before. And in a flash I remembered 
 the first book I had ever read. I saw once again the 
 Hill Difficulty and the Ground of Enchantment, the 
 thunderbolt that smote Mr. Not-right, and the 
 
i 3 2 GENTLEMEN AT ARMS 
 
 snares, pits, traps, and gins over which the stout- 
 hearted guide took the pilgrims with fortifying 
 discourse. And then I knew that I had met our 
 signaller before. 
 
 His name was Mr. Greatheart. 
 
IX 
 
 THE HUSBANDMEN 
 
 THE Musketry Inspection Officer of a Home 
 Command was sitting in his room at Head- 
 quarters turning over a file of that feuilleton 
 literature with which the War Office thoughtfully 
 beguiles the little leisure we have by providing us 
 with material for light reading. Of the making of 
 Army Council Instructions there is no end, and 
 much learning of them hath made many a "brass 
 hat" mad. The room in which the officer sat was 
 superbly appointed. It contained a deal table 
 with an improvised penholder of corrugated brown 
 paper, a pad of fawn-coloured paper such as grocers 
 use to wrap up Demerara sugar and the Stationery 
 Department issues for writing inter-departmental 
 "chits," a copy of the Army List, two uncomfort- 
 able chairs, and a telephone. 
 
 The scheme of mural decoration was the harvest of 
 a dutiful eye. Over the mantelpiece was a diagram 
 of the Lewis machine-gun, resembling in its struc- 
 tural complication a naval architect's plan of a sub- 
 marine. It was flanked by a list of landscape tar- 
 gets, a table of the number of men under training 
 for drafts, a roll of range superintendents, and the 
 plan of a Solano target. These artistic efforts were 
 
 133 
 
i 3 4 GENTLEMEN AT ARMS 
 
 all in black and white, but a touch of colour was 
 afforded by a map of rifle and field-firing ranges 
 picked out in violet ink, and a large-scale ordnance 
 map showing the rifle ranges on a vast tableland 
 which has been the training ground of troops ever 
 since primitive man hammered out his arrowheads 
 of flint and the Roman Legionary practised the 
 throw of his javelin. On that ordnance map par- 
 allelograms of yellow marked the location of the 
 classification ranges with their "danger areas," 
 while similar geometrical designs in drab showed the 
 field-firing ranges, each range within the parallel- 
 ogram being marked in blocks. 
 
 It was the room of a man whose only distraction 
 was his work and a tin of tobacco. 
 
 The officer was turning over an A.C.I, as to the 
 use of drill purpose and emergency rifles, when the 
 telephone rang at his elbow. He took down the 
 receiver. 
 
 "Who are you?" 
 
 " Range-warden of No. 27, sir. I rang up to ask if 
 I can change from G range to A and B." 
 
 "That's for the Musketry Officer. Ask him." 
 
 He put back the receiver and resettled himself to 
 his work when the telephone rang again. 
 
 "Damn it!" said the officer wearily, "I might as 
 well be in R.E. Signals as a staff-officer third grade. 
 Well, what is it? Who are you? . . . John 
 Leighfield of Littlecote Farm! Fm afraid it doesn't 
 convey anything to me, Mr. Leighfield. . . . 
 Farm six hundred acres, do you? I congratulate 
 
THE HUSBANDMEN 135 
 
 you I wish I did. . . . Short of labour? 
 Yes, so am I. ... Oh! I see. Well, you must 
 apply to the C.O. of the nearest Depot. He'll supply 
 you with men; there's a new Army Council instruc- 
 tion to that effect. . . . What? suspend field- 
 firing for fourteen days! It can't be done. There's 
 a war on. Where are you situated? . . . Lyd- 
 iard Deverill? Wait a minute." 
 
 He put the receiver on the table and rose and 
 studied the map. Then he returned to the telephone. 
 
 "We'll give you six days. Right oh! Good- 
 bye." 
 
 He rang off. Then he returned to the map and 
 stuck a small flag in one of the parallelograms. 
 
 The sun was at its meridian and the foreheads of 
 the toilers of the field, stooping among the bronze- 
 coloured grain, glistened with sweat. The wheatfield 
 was bordered with a hedge wreathed with bryony 
 like a vine, and the field itself was brilliant with a 
 pageantry of purples, blues, reds, and golden tints, 
 where knapweed, cornflowers, poppies, and yellow 
 ox-eye gleamed among the yellow stalks. The 
 grain drooped with a "swan's neck" a sure sign 
 that the wheat was ripe. Some days before, the 
 farmer, having anxiously considered the heavens, 
 had surveyed his ten-acre field and sampled the 
 ears of wheat, plucking a stalk here and there, and 
 rubbing the grain between the palms of his hands 
 like two millstones, to test its quality, for he feared 
 it might be milky in the ear or stained by the recent 
 
i 3 6 GENTLEMEN AT ARMS 
 
 rains. He had found the grain hard and firm; a day 
 or two more and it would shed itself. The experi- 
 ment was decisive, and without further hesitation 
 he had given orders for the field to be "opened" by 
 hand with the bagging-hook, to cut a track for the 
 "binder." 
 
 The workers were stooping to their task, each 
 holding the wheat back and away from him with his 
 left hand while he cut in with his right. The man 
 nearest the hedge, a sinewy labourer of middle age, 
 named Daniel Newth, having progressed a few 
 yards and left the cut grain standing, now worked 
 back again, and using his right foot as a lever, he 
 rolled the wheat into a sheaf. Plucking a few straws 
 from the sheaf he knotted the ears together, and 
 using them as a string he tied the sheaf round the 
 "waist." Then he rose to his feet and mopped his 
 brow with a red handkerchief decorated with large 
 white spots. 
 
 "Time to eat our vittles, neighbours," he said, 
 stretching his back. "And I could do with a drap 
 in my innards I'm mortal dry." 
 
 A number of heads rose from among the corn like 
 hares popping out of their "form"; the women 
 adjusted their sun-bonnets and shook their skirts; 
 the men stretched their arms. Among the latter 
 were three soldiers in regulation shirts, breeches, 
 and puttees, who, as they stood upright, performed, 
 by way of easing their muscles, a variety of mili- 
 tary exercises in which an Army Instructor would 
 have recognized a satisfactory reproduction of the 
 
THE HUSBANDMEN 137 
 
 "Rest," "Bend," and "Stretch" positions. A mo- 
 ment later the head of a fourth soldier appeared in 
 close juxtaposition to that of a girl in a lilac sun- 
 bonnet. The owner of the sun-bonnet was flushed 
 with a glow which may have been due to the heat of 
 the sun, but may also have had a more emotional 
 origin. A coil of auburn hair had slipped from under 
 the flap of her bonnet and hung distractingly on the 
 nape of her white neck, and as she rose she surrep- 
 titiously put it up. 
 
 The little party moved to the shade of an elm 
 beside the hedge and sat down to their meal. One 
 of the women produced a bottle of "small beer" a 
 cottage brew of nettle, clytes, dandelion, and other 
 herbs, more cooling than invigorating and poured 
 it into a cup. The man who had spoken uncorked 
 a large jar of yellow earthenware, and handed it to 
 an old man at his side, who, holding it unsteadily 
 with both hands, elevated it to a horizontal position 
 and drank with earnest concentration. The other 
 men watched him with a look of studied disinterested- 
 ness. He then wiped his mouth with the back of his 
 hand, and passed the vessel to his neighbour, the jar 
 circulating among the members of the group like 
 a loving cup. 
 
 "It be a neighbourly way of drinking like Holy 
 Communion," said the old man, "but I could do 
 with a half-pint mug. It don't get no head on it." 
 
 He was an old man of fourscore and upward, and 
 his years carried with them the prerogatives which 
 age always commands in a rural community domi- 
 
i 3 8 GENTLEMEN AT ARMS 
 
 nated by oral tradition. His knuckles were shiny 
 and swollen with rheumatism, his arms brown as a 
 kippered herring and mottled, and the skin on each 
 side of his neck hung in loose folds a chronology of 
 age as unmistakable as the rings on a cow's horns. 
 His blue eyes had a lustreless watery look, and when 
 he laughed which he did with difficulty, for his 
 maxillary muscles had lost their flexibility the 
 wrinkles round his eyes were multiplied till they 
 added another ten years to his face; his nose drooped 
 toward his chin, and his nut-cracker jaws revealed, 
 as they parted, a solitary tooth which hung at the 
 entrance of his mouth like a stalactite in a cavern. 
 But he was wise with the wisdom of his years, was 
 learned in a homely meteorology and in agrarian 
 history, and could tell you the exact year in which 
 the bagging-hook gave way to the binder and the 
 scythe to the mowing machine as instruments of 
 husbandry. He spoke a dialect which was pure 
 Anglo-Saxon, enriched by the opulent vocabulary 
 of the Scriptures and the Book of Common Prayer^ 
 although he could neither read nor write. Also he 
 had that dignity of manner which is the reward of a 
 placid old age, and of a life spent in the calm, un- 
 hurried tillage of the soil. 
 
 For some minutes the party ate contemplatively 
 and no one spoke, until the old man's eye alighted 
 on the wooden leg of William Tuck, late of the Wilt- 
 shire Regiment, now discharged under the King's 
 Regulations from His Majesty's Army as perma- 
 nently disabled. 
 
THE HUSBANDMEN 139 
 
 "A tidy piece of carpentry, that leg o' yourn, 
 William Tuck," said the old man. 
 
 "It be that," replied William Tuck, contemplating 
 his anatomy with a feeling of distinction. "But it 
 be strange at first, very strange it be. D'ye know, 
 neighbours, when I gets a touch o' rheumatics in me 
 thigh I can feel it below the knee in the leg as isn't 
 theer." 
 
 They pondered this statement in silence, until the 
 old man, fixing William Tuck with his eye, put a 
 question. 
 
 "That's a ghostly leg to have, a ghostly leg it be. 
 Say, young William, did they give that leg o' yourn 
 Christian burial in France?" 
 
 "No! they've no time for the likes of that." 
 
 "Then take my word for it, William Tuck," said 
 the old man solemnly, "that lonely leg o' yourn be a 
 haunting ye. If thee doesn't write to Government 
 asking for that mournful leg o' yourn to be buried 
 with th' sacraments of Holy Church, that leg'H 
 haunt thee to thy dying day. Thee'll have to account 
 for him at Judgment Day to thy Creator, seeing as 
 He made thee in his own image." 
 
 At this the whole party stared at William Tuck as 
 though shocked by his callous want of natural feeling 
 toward the departed member, and, conscious of their 
 scrutiny, he attempted to divert the conversation. 
 "I done my bit anyhow," he said, with some irrele- 
 vance, \" which is more than Jacob Fox hev done," 
 he added as he caught the eye of that delinquent 
 fixed upon him with a look of horrified fascination. 
 
i 4 o GENTLEMEN AT ARMS 
 
 "Shame on ye, William Tuck," said the old man 
 magisterially. "How can ye cast stones at that 
 poor natural? Jacob Fox, tell the folk what the 
 medical gentleman said to 'ee. Speak the truth, 
 young feller, and shame the devil/* 
 
 Jacob an anaemic-looking youth who had a way 
 of moving his hands uncertainly as though they 
 did not belong to him now finding himself the centre 
 of attention, blushed with nervous trepidation. He 
 had a prominent Adam's apple in his long neck 
 which resembled the "bubble" in the clinometer of 
 a field gun in being a kind of index of his equili- 
 brium, so that whenever he was about to speak in 
 company it could be seen to wobble agitatedly 
 through his skin. When, after some ineffectual 
 attempts of its owner to swallow it, it returned to 
 the horizontal, Jacob found speech. 
 
 "I went into a room a girt room as big as Far- 
 mer Leighfield's barn, and I zeed a lot of young 
 fellers there all standing naked wi'out so much as a 
 fig-leaf between 'em, and I thought as it was the 
 Judgment Day. And there was a officer gentleman 
 as was a pinching 'em and feeling 'em as though they 
 were fat ewes in a pen on market day and 'e a gwine 
 to buy 'em. And a soldier called out my name and I 
 say: 'Here, begging your pardon, sir'; and the 
 officer gentleman says: 'Jump that form!' and I 
 jumps 'en. Then he says: 'Hop on your right 
 foot', and I hops. Then he says: 'Open your 
 mouth', and I opens it. And he looks at my teeth 
 and I says: *I be twenty-two, please sir,' seeing 
 
THE HUSBANDMEN 141 
 
 as I thought he was counting my years of wisdom 
 in my mouth like a hoss. And he looks at me 
 with eyes like a sparrer-hawk's and laughs, and 
 then he holds a thing like a cider-funnel to my 
 chest and says: 'Say Ah', and I says 'Ah-h' so be 
 as if we were in church, and he listens with his head 
 on one side to the works of Nature in my innards 
 as though I was a watch and he wanted to see if I 
 was still a-going. I felt mortal afeard. I do b'lieve, 
 neighbours," added Jacob Fox, looking round with 
 homeless eyes, "as that man could read a body's 
 unlawful thoughts like the Almighty so I tried to 
 think of the Lord's Prayer whereby he might not 
 catch me in carnal meditations." 
 
 "A pious thing to do, and prudent, Jacob," said 
 the old man approvingly, "though I never could 
 mind anything but the 'Churching of Women' when 
 I tries to repeat them holy things." 
 
 "And when I'd got to 'Thy Kingdom come' he 
 took away his weapon and began to tap all the bones 
 in my chest, one after t'other, same as if he was a 
 bum-bailiff taking a hinventory, to see if they were 
 all there. And I says: 'Begging your pardon, sir, 
 I might not have the lawful number, seeing as I was 
 born two months afore I was expected in the world." 
 
 "Aye, that you was, Jacob Fox, I do well remem- 
 ber it, and a mortal tribulation you was to your poor 
 mother. It was nigh six months afore she wur 
 churched." 
 
 "And the medical gentleman says: 'What's 
 that, my man?' sharp, like that and I says: 
 
i 4 2 GENTLEMEN AT ARMS 
 
 'Yes, sir, my mother and the neighbours do say that 
 that was the reason why I get the falling sickness and 
 am so afflicted in my intellects/ And then he looks 
 at me hard and questions me. 'Cross your legs', he 
 says, and I crossed 'em and he fetched me a clout 
 on the knee-cap. Yes, that ah did. Lordy, the 
 liberties that man did take with my person, neigh- 
 bours, ye would never believe. And at last he writes 
 something on a piece of paper and the soldjer with 
 the stripes says: 'We shan't want you, my man'; 
 and he gives me a paper." 
 
 "And was that all he said, Jacob Fox?" 
 
 "Yes, it were. But I did hear him say as I was a 
 wonderful chap," Jacob added proudly. "He said 
 as I was the most half-wittedest fellow as ever he'd 
 zeed." 
 
 "Aye! that you be," said the patriarch, looking 
 round for approval as though this were a compli- 
 ment paid to the whole parish. "Yes, we do all 
 know as you be wonderfully half-witted." 
 
 At this they all stared at Jacob Fox with a kind of 
 communal pride, whereat Jacob blushed con- 
 fusedly, and, astonished at having held the centre of 
 the stage so long, retired hurriedly into the 'wings, 
 taking refuge behind the broad back of Daniel 
 Newth, the patriarch's son, a hale youth of about 
 fifty-five, who in his father's opinion was still merely 
 adolescent. 
 
 "It do mind me of Scriptures," said the old man 
 reflectively, "this recruiting do. One shall be 
 taken and t'other shall be left. It do all seem like 
 
THE HUSBANDMEN 143 
 
 the Last Day, it do. It were never like this before. 
 I mind how they'd 'list fellers in the old days the 
 recruiting sergeant 'ud come round with his cap 
 full o' ribbons and talk pleasant like about the won- 
 derful life a soldjer 'd hev in foreign parts. Lawk- 
 a-massey! how that feller could talk like a parson 
 aw could make ye feel as proud as Lucifer telling 
 ye how His Majesty had taken a partic'ler fancy to 
 ye as a likely young feller to stand before kings and 
 golden thrones. He got hold of poor Jarge Kibble- 
 white that way and giv 'en three ribbons of many 
 colours like Joseph's coat poor Jarge as was killed 
 at the Battle of Alma. That recruiting sergeant 
 used to come round at hi ring-fair, Lady Day and 
 Michaelmas he come round, and if he'd see a likely 
 looking young carter with the whipcord plaited 
 round his hat he'd go up to 'en and charm the soul 
 out of 'en like witchcraft." 
 
 "D'you remember the Crimea?" asked one of 
 the soldiers. 
 
 "Ah, that I do, young feller. I remember a mint 
 o' things afore you was conceived in your mother's 
 womb. I be an old man, the oldest man in the 
 parish, bain't I, neighbours?" 
 
 "Yes, grandf'er, that you be. You be a terribly 
 ancient old man." 
 
 "Yes, I be. I've a-buried three wives. And 
 I've never once been on the parish. Yes, I do 
 mind the Crimeer. There was thirteen men went 
 from this parish and all on 'em passed save one. 
 It was just after our Tontine club had its 'break- 
 
144 GENTLEMEN AT ARMS 
 
 up,' and we walking two and two with red staves to 
 the 'Goat and Compasses/ All of 'em was in the 
 Wiltshires except Jude Teagle as joined the Holy 
 Boys, the same regiment as sold their Prayer-Books 
 for playing-cards, which was a sinful thing to do. 
 It was a terrible big battle the Battle of Alma. 
 I do mind as we had a song at harvest home that 
 year after we'd carried the last load. 
 
 "There's old Jacky Rooshian 
 
 And a million o* men. 
 And there's poor John Bull 
 W : ' dree score and ten. 
 
 "I do forget the rest. They shot down our men 
 like sparrers till we scaled the hill, and then they run 
 like flocks o J sheep away from 'em they do say as 
 it's the same now and Old Boney, who was their 
 head man, as was brought up to see 'em drive us 
 into the sea, says, 'Men, we're beaten.' And beaten 
 they was." 
 
 "Why didn't you do your bit along with them?" 
 said one of the soldiers mischievously. "You must 
 have been a tidy young feller," he added, as he 
 gazed with a wink of his eye at the bony figure of 
 the ancient man gnarled, like an old oak. 
 
 "Young feller/' said the old man solemnly, "I 
 was a married man wi' dree childer, and the 
 quartern loaf cost a shillin' and more. Hov 'd I find 
 vittles for 'em? There warn't no separation al- 
 lowances in those days, there warn't, and no sol- 
 
THE HUSBANDMEN 145 
 
 diers' wives living on the fat of the land an* love- 
 childer a-getting it too same as if they was born in 
 lawful wedlock. No, that there warn't. But I hev 
 attested now and be ready to come up when called 
 upon if the King be so minded." 
 
 At this all four soldiers laughed incredulously. 
 
 "It be true, I'll take a gospel oath on it," said the 
 old man's son. "It was when they had bills stuck 
 up on the school by Lord Derby, calling on His 
 Majesty's subjects to attest like men. And afore 
 we knowed what he was gwine to do, feyther goes 
 up to squire and says: 'I be come to attest, sir, 
 and do my bit against those ungodly men.' And 
 squire says: 'You're too old, Jarge, you're an old 
 ancient man.' And feyther comes home and sits in 
 chimbly and never a word says 'e to any on us. And 
 he won't touch bite or sup, and sits there a-fretting 
 and won't speak to any one, as though he were turned 
 into a pillar of salt. And we calls in the doctor as 
 examined him and couldn't find nothing wrong with 
 'un, and he says "E's got summat on his mind/ 
 And at last he gets it out on 'en, and feyther tells 'en 
 as squire says he be too old and the grasshopper's 
 a burden and desire do fail and feyther says as 
 he'll never go out of the house again except veet 
 voremost, and it ain't no good hoeing and hedge- 
 cutting for squire, for if he be too old for a soldjer 
 J e be too old for labour at a shillin' a day, and 'e 
 don't want no charity. And squire, when he heerd it, 
 sent for feyther and you tell 'em what squire said, 
 feyther." " 
 
146 GENTLEMEN AT ARMS 
 
 The old man wiped his forehead with trembling 
 hands. 
 
 : "E said to me, 'e said: 'Jarge, I made a mistake, 
 I did. We'll put you in group one hundred and dirty 
 dree to be called up if so be required/ And he 
 give I two shillin' and nine-pence and said : 'It's the 
 King's money, Jarge, and I congratulate you. 
 You're a credit to the parish and an hexample to the 
 younger men." 
 
 "Aye, that you be, grandf'er," chorused his 
 fellow-parishioners. 
 
 "Well done, old sport," said the soldier who had 
 interrogated him, "we'd sooner have you in the 
 battalion than any of those cold-footed, conscientious 
 objectors any day. Lord love me, we would." 
 
 "We would that," said another. "We'll make 
 you our mascot." 
 
 "Mascot," said the old man, "what be that?" 
 
 "Pride o' the reg'ment," replied the soldier la- 
 conically. "We've got a bull-dog. I guess you're 
 one of the same breed." 
 
 The old man ignored the compliment. "This war 
 be a deep and fearful thing, neighbours," he said 
 solemnly. "When I did last hear parson read the 
 Commination Service I did think of that there Kay- 
 ser at the Last Day, when the sea gives up its dead, 
 and all the drownded babes and sucklings and the 
 women with child and the poor chaps that hev died 
 in torment a-calling on their mothers do rise up and 
 point the finger of accusation at 'en and do say: 
 Thou art the man!' I tell ye it do make my old 
 
t THE HUSBANDMEN , 147 
 
 bones like water when I think of the wrath of the 
 Almighty and what He hev in store for that misbe- 
 gotten man." 
 
 "True, most true, and well-spoken, Jarge. It were 
 better a mill-stone were hung round that man's neck, 
 it were but 'tis time to put these sheaves up, 
 
 sonnies." 
 
 They rose to their feet. 
 
 "Now, my lads," said Daniel Newth tutorially to 
 the four soldiers, "you just bide a bit and zee how I 
 does it." 
 
 He took two sheaves and embracing one mater- 
 nally in each arm he stood them upright upon the 
 soil so as to get the butts about a yard apart. He 
 then sloped them toward one another so that they 
 made an isosceles triangle with the ground. This 
 done he took a second couple and placed them 
 against the first, but not quite parallel, so that they 
 stood at an angle to it, stacked together like four 
 rifles. "It makes 'em stand easier," he explained, 
 "and packs the ears better." This done the shock 
 was complete. 
 
 "Now my lads, ye zees as I've a placed 'em in 
 fours. That's so as they'll get more air and dry 
 quicker, though the sheaf to the north won't get 
 much sun. Some folks shocks em lengthways in 
 sixes with the ridge running north and south. Well, 
 that's to get the best of the sun on 'em and to make 
 'em stand against the wind better. But they don't 
 dry so well that way." 
 
 "It's like filling sandbags and consolidating," said 
 
i 4 8 GENTLEMEN AT ARM. 
 
 one of the soldiers reflectively. "You wouldn't 
 think it, mister, but there's a lot of science in building 
 a parapet. You've got to fill yer sandbags only 
 three parts full, beat 'em with yer entrenching-tool, 
 and then slope 'em so as they are well and truly 
 laid." 
 
 "Aye, aye, it be the same with thatching. It be 
 wonderful what a lot of science there is in the works 
 of man's hand. There's a right way and a wrong 
 with everything." 
 
 As they talked, a burring sound as of a gigantic 
 insect was heard behind them and two horses ap- 
 peared driven by a girl in a "smock" and breeches 
 who sat gracefully in the tiny saddle of a low iron 
 vehicle. Below the axle was a row of sharp steel 
 knives like a shark's teeth, and at the side of it 
 "sails" of painted wood revolved like the arms of a 
 windmill with the progress of the machine and, re- 
 volving, pressed the wheat on the near side of the 
 driver against the knives and then carried the cut 
 grain over the driving-wheel by means of an endless 
 web of canvas. A curved arm, threaded with twine 
 like the needle of a sewing-machine, encircled the 
 bundle of grain, tied it, cut the twine-band, and the 
 sheaf was then thrown off the machine. 
 
 The chariot passed on, leaving a swathe of sheaves 
 of yellow grain entwined with a garland of lilac 
 scabious, pink and white convolvulus, scarlet pim- 
 pernel, poppies, and all the hectic flowers of the corn- 
 field. A hare bolted from her sanctuary in the di- 
 minishing wheat and was pursued with shouts of 
 
THE HUSBANDMEN 149 
 
 Kamerad by the soldiers till she made her escape 
 through the yarrow in the hedge. 
 
 They returned breathless from the pursuit, and 
 as the machine, which was steadily reducing the 
 rectangle of the standing grain to smaller and smaller 
 dimensions, returned, they gazed on it, their atten- 
 tion divided between its human-like gesticulations 
 and the girl who drove it. 
 
 "Tanks ain't in it with that old windmill," said one 
 of them. "It'll begin to talk next, like a blooming 
 gramophone." 
 
 "Its a binder," said the old man; "they came in 
 in ninety-two. They be mortal clever things and 
 can do everything but talk. But they don't bind 
 as tidy as a man do they don't keep the butts 
 together." 
 
 "There ain't no flies on that girl," said another 
 soldier as he watched this new Persephone gathering 
 the flowers of the field with the finger-beam of her 
 docile chariot. 
 
 "I don't hold with 'em," said the old man du- 
 biously. " I don't mind wenches a-binding sheaves 
 it's like holding a little maid against a woman's 
 bosom and tying her pinafore behind her and 
 women can do it tidy. But this driving of bosses 
 it's men's work. The world's getting topsy-turvy 
 with maids a-doing the work of men. It's against 
 Nature. 'Male and Female created He them/ 
 I say." 
 
 The day wore on to its close, the shadows of the elm 
 deepened, and the sun began to sink like a ball of 
 
i 5 o 'GENTLEMEN AT ARMS 
 
 fire over the downs. A light breeze flickered among 
 the stalks of uncut grain and brushed the surface 
 with an invisible caress so that a ripple passed over 
 the drooping ears of grain. 
 
 "Time to be getting home-along," said Daniel 
 Newth. 
 
 The toilers rose and straightened themselves. 
 There was an unmistakable sound of amorous salu- 
 tation behind one of the shocks of wheat and the girl 
 in the lilac sun-bonnet emerged, readjusting the 
 strings, her face a deep crimson. She was followed 
 by a soldier wearing a look of studied unconscious- 
 ness. His comrades gazed at the pair with a morti- 
 fying conviction of lost opportunities. 
 
 "They do say as kissing goes by favouring," 
 said the old man reflectively. 
 
 Five days later the Musketry Inspecting Officer, 
 sitting in his room at the Headquarters of the Com- 
 mand, was interrupted by a ring on the telephone. 
 He took down the receiver. 
 
 "Hello! What? Harvesting finished, did you 
 say? Right oh! We'll open the field-firing range 
 again." And he rose and removed a flag from the 
 map. 
 
X 
 
 THE OLD GUARD 
 
 "Notre armee avait recuelli les invalides de la grande armee 
 et Us mouraient dans nos bras, en nous laissant le souvenir 
 de leurs caracteres primitifs et singuliers. Ces hommes nous 
 paraissaient les restes d'une race gigantesque qui s'eteignait 
 homme par homme et pour toujours" DE VIGNY. 
 
 THIS is a plain tale the tale of a West- 
 country regiment and how it carried on in 
 the first three months of the war. It is 
 the regiment with a hole in its soup-tureen, but I'll 
 tell that story another day. They went into the 
 first battle of Ypres with four companies; they 
 came out of it at the end of twenty-one days with 
 rather less than two. During those three weeks 
 they never took their boots off, but one of their 
 officers believes he once had a wash. 
 
 But I must go back a bit. Their transport cast off 
 her moorings and cleared a certain harbour on 
 August 14, 1914, at the going down of the sun. 
 The quays were black with crowds who had come to 
 wish them God-speed, but as the ship backed away 
 the drum-fire of cheering which followed them sud- 
 denly fell to a dead silence, and the spectators held 
 their breath; the stern of the great ship was within a 
 
152 GENTLEMEN AT ARMS 
 
 hair's breadth of crashing into the bows of another. 
 The Captain ran to the telegraph. At the same 
 moment a clear tenor voice from among the crowd 
 of men on deck broke into a song; with the second 
 note the whole battalion took it up, singing very 
 softly and in perfect time. The song rolled away 
 from the ship, echoed against the tall warehouses 
 on the quay and died away upon the upper reaches of 
 the river. It was "Tipperary." The crowd lis- 
 tened in silence, hanging upon every note; a woman 
 sobbed hysterically; the waters churned with the 
 thrash of the propeller, and slowly the transport, 
 as she answered her helm, described a great arc until 
 her bows were pointing toward the open sea. She 
 glided down the river amidst a flutter of handker- 
 chiefs, and the subdued cheers of people who had 
 suddenly grown thoughtful. They watched her in 
 silence as she diminished to the size of a ship's buoy, 
 faded into a wreath of smoke, and finally sank below 
 the red horizon. 
 
 Within a week they were at Mons, and on a Sun- 
 day afternoon under a blazing sun they found them- 
 selves on the far side of the canal, where they put out 
 outposts and dug themselves in. As they watched 
 the white road in front of them, small patrols of men 
 in field-gray uniforms suddenly appeared upon it 
 and, not liking the look of them, scuttled back. At 
 four o'clock a solid mass of the enemy advanced 
 toward a point which the battalion had carefully 
 ranged on to be precise, it was "500"; the battalion 
 lay very still, each man with his eye on the sights of 
 
THE OLD GUARD 153 
 
 his rifle and his finger on the trigger, looking back 
 occasionally at the platoon commanders who were 
 standing up behind them, which is a way platoon 
 commanders had in those days. There was a shrill 
 whistle, a crackle of musketry, and, amidst spurts 
 of dust, the gray mass ahead of them suddenly 
 dissolved like smoke. The remnant of a German 
 battalion fell back in disorder, and told a strange 
 tale of the English "swine-dogs" having massed 
 some hundred machine-guns on a front of a few hun- 
 dred yards. The enemy believed that story for 
 quite a long time, until they discovered that they 
 were up against the finest marksmen in the world. 
 
 After that they were busy, learning many things 
 among others not to put their heads up, and that 
 this wasn't manoeuvres after all. Of the next ten 
 days they have no very clear recollection, except 
 that they lost nearly everything except their wits 
 their horses and first-line transport having been 
 badly "strafed" at Le Cateau. They beat all 
 records in somnambulism, but when the Germans 
 trod on their toes at Crepy they suddenly showed 
 themselves most disagreeably wide awake This, 
 I think, was also on a Sunday, and long after that 
 the men would bet any odds every Saturday night 
 on there being quite a big "scrap" the next day. 
 
 During those days they led a vagabond life, 
 quite unlike anything they had ever known in bar- 
 racks. It was very much to the taste of Private 
 John Yeoman, the black sheep of the regiment, 
 whose conduct-sheet covered six pages of flimsy. 
 
154 GENTLEMEN AT ARMS 
 
 "No guard room, no orderly room, no morning 
 parade a bit of allright." Yeoman has succeeded 
 where ambitious men of letters have failed; he has 
 described the Great Retreat in a single sentence. 
 
 On the third Sunday, at Tournan, they quite forgot 
 themselves on parade when the C.O. read out a 
 Brigade Order, of which they only heard the first 
 three words: "Army is advancing. . . . The 
 rest, which does not matter, was inaudible, and 
 Yeoman threw his cap into the air. He was always 
 a little premature. 
 
 The next thing they knew was that they were 
 picking up the trail. They followed a hot scent and 
 pungent the ashes of the enemy's bivouacs were 
 still warm and they stank like dung-heaps. Yeo- 
 man, who had often incurred extra fatigues and pack- 
 drill for appearing "dirty on parade," drew the line 
 at offal and broken bottles, and he wondered what 
 kind of enemy it was who could smash a child's 
 toys and throw them into the street. There were 
 other things at which he drew the line; it was near 
 Fere-en-Tardenois, and the mother who had given 
 him a glass of v in rouge showed him the body of her 
 little daughter, with whom the Prussians had done 
 their worst. Yeoman was a hard nut, but he wept. 
 He emptied his pockets on to the table and bolted. 
 They had halted there, and this made him late in 
 falling in, for which he got "crimed" to the tune 
 of three days' F.P. No. I. He did not think it 
 worth while to explain. 
 " During those days they spent most of the time 
 
r THE OLD GUARD 155 
 
 dodging in and out of thick beech woods and climb- 
 ing steep chalk cliffs, driving the Germans who were 
 uncommonly strong on the wing before them like 
 a line of beaters. They were advanced-guard and 
 had to feel their way, with the result that they got 
 into a very hot corner where they were held up by 
 German wire and badly enfiladed. It was here that 
 Yeoman lost his pal; having no crape he blacked 
 the second button of his tunic and made certain 
 resolutions, which may account for his getting the 
 D.C.N. but that comes later. 
 
 The sun was very hot and the German dead lay 
 where they had fallen some days before; and for the 
 first time he realized the meaning of the words he had 
 as a boy often heard in the parish church before 
 he fell from grace and went "mouching" on the 
 Sabbath words about a "corruptible body." He 
 began to associate war with beastly smells. Most 
 of the time he lay very flat on his stomach, clicking 
 his bolt and emptying the magazine; at intervals he 
 heard the order "Cease Fire! Advance"; where- 
 iiDon he advanced in short rushes and again lay 
 on his stomach with his cap on the back of his neck 
 to keep off the sun. He had a most amazing thirst, 
 and sighed often for a pint of bitter. 
 
 It was at this stage that he realized that the wants 
 of man are really very simple, and although arti- 
 ficially multiplied by civilization may be reduced to 
 four: cover, drink, victuals, and sleep; later, in 
 Flanders, he found there was a fifth which was 
 warmth. Women he had always regarded as a 
 
156 GENTLEMEN AT ARMS 
 
 luxury and unattainable, and on the last sheet of 
 his Pay-book, opposite his M.O.'s certificate that 
 his inoculation was complete, and below the words 
 
 "IN THE EVENT OF MY DEATH I GIVE THE WHOLE OF 
 MY PROPERTY AND EFFECTS TO. . . ." he had 
 
 written: " Hannah Honey, whom I hereby appoint 
 my next-of-kin," which was magnanimous, seeing 
 that Hannah had refused him thrice. He some- 
 times wondered whether she knew about his conduct- 
 sheet. He did not know that it was Hannah .who, 
 recognizing the tenor voice when he struck up "Tip- 
 perary" on the transport, had sobbed hysterically, 
 for, with all his faults, which were many, he was a 
 simple soul and had a very poor opinion of himself 
 which he felt sure was shared by the whole battalion. 
 
 He did not know that his C.O/s sense of values 
 was also undergoing a revision, and that just as 
 Yeoman had discovered that on active service there 
 were only four wants, so his C.O. had discovered 
 there were only four virtues truthfulness, courage, 
 fortitude, and unselfishness. All these Yeoman 
 had, and although he did not know it, there were 
 some who were beginning to take note of the fact. 
 
 On the night of September 9th, having run clear 
 out of ammunition, they withdrew three-quarters of a 
 mile, and the platoon sergeant called the roll; there 
 were many who never answered it. Here they 
 learnt for the first time that there had been a big 
 battle and, with some astonishment, that they had 
 been in it. The men themselves called it a "scrap"; 
 and as it did not happen to fall on a Sunday they 
 
THE OLD GUARD 157 
 
 stuck stoutly to the opinion that it was a very 
 minor affair. They were told later that it will be 
 known to future generations as "The Battle of the 
 Marne," but in the battalion it is always referred to 
 as "the scrap at Montrool." "The place where 
 I got stopped all them days' pay for losing my 
 pack" gave it the dignity of history in the opinion 
 of John Yeoman. 
 
 Up to this time the enemy, being in a hurry, had 
 only got his field-guns in action, and they had 
 encountered little but shrapnel, which, although 
 surprisingly indiscriminate and deadly enough, is 
 nothing like so intimidating as lyddite, and much 
 cleaner. Most of the men were under the impres- 
 sion, difficult to explain and hard to eradicate, that 
 big guns were a private affair between opposing 
 batteries; as Yeoman put it, "it bain't 'warfare"' 
 to use heavy guns against infantry. He still cherished 
 vague ideas that war was like a football match, 
 and that somewhere in heaven or on earth there 
 was an umpire who saw that the rules were observed, 
 although he was fast coming to the conclusion that 
 the Germans were generally (t off -side" and that 
 
 occasionally they did a "foul." But near M , 
 
 after they had crossed the Aisne on pontoon rafts, 
 they were undeceived. 
 
 It happened about nine o'clock on Tuesday morn- 
 ing, while they were waiting in the village in close 
 formation for our artillery to open fire on a hill 
 which they had been ordered to attack. A Taube 
 flew over the heads of the men in the village, and 
 
158 GENTLEMEN AT ARMS 
 
 just half an hour later the church tower crumpled 
 up suddenly and men were lying on their backs all 
 over the street amid blocks of masonry, a cloud of 
 yellow smoke, and showers of white dust fine as 
 flour. Yeoman, more fortunate, looked round an- 
 grily to see who it was had suddenly hit him in the 
 back. He coughed, wiped his nose, and thrust his 
 knuckles into his eyes; he saw that he was white as 
 a miller from head to foot. From that time for- 
 ward he began to associate war with sights no less 
 than smells, and equally beastly. 
 
 Later on in Flanders these assaults on his 
 senses were multiplied; his ear-drums rattled like a 
 tambourine, his eyes smarted as though someone 
 had thrown pepper into them, and his palate tasted 
 the extremes of pineapple and chlorine, which is 
 rather like almonds. Also his tactile sense was 
 offended by lice. All this, however, was to come. 
 
 The next five minutes gave him a glimpse of hell. 
 The whole village was tumbling to pieces about him, 
 and the streets were a shambles. He heard an 
 order, "File out by companies! No doubling!" 
 Each company waited its turn with stolid equani- 
 mity. Later in the day on the hill above the village 
 they got their own back. Yeoman was better at 
 making history than at writing it; all he could ever 
 tell you about the Battle of the Aisne was: "It wur 
 where I got a punch in the back from a German 
 gunner bloke dree mile away hitting below the 
 belt I calls it." 
 
 For five days afterward they led a woodman's life 
 
THE OLD GUARD 159 
 
 in a forest where they lived in wigwams made of 
 faggots and waterproof sheets. When the shrapnel 
 came whining overhead they made a bolt for their 
 "splinter-proofs," and lay in the burrows for what 
 seemed an interminable time, after which first one 
 head would pop out and then another. The weather 
 was dry, the soil gravel, and the bracken made good 
 bedding; later on, in the wet clay of Flanders, they 
 looked back to those days on the Aisne and idealized 
 them as a blithe pastoral. Here Yeoman set snares 
 and caught rabbits, which rather raised his reputa- 
 tion in the battalion. They got to know the Ger- 
 man ways pretty well first a salvo, then a dead 
 pause for five minutes by way of enticing the un- 
 wary out of their holes, and then five or six salvoes 
 again. This taught them another lesson, which is 
 that there is such a thing as psychology in war or, 
 as Yeoman put it, "There bain't no vlies on Vritz." 
 One night when they were standing by for an 
 attack, the French put up a "strafe" eight miles 
 away at a place called Soissons, which they knew by 
 its tall crag of a cathedral tower. There was the 
 roar as of a thunderstorm in the air and the sky was 
 one great conflagration so that you could read your 
 watch by it and see the whites of the next man's 
 eyes. At this stage they began to realize that the 
 war was going to be rather a big thing, and that it 
 might not be over by Christmas after all. 
 
 The leaves had hardly begun to change colour on 
 the beeches when their trenches were taken over by 
 the French, and they were on the move again for 
 
160 GENTLEMEN AT ARMS 
 
 an unknown destination away up north. They did 
 a great trek of 150 miles by way of Abbeville, where 
 they stopped for the night; a journey chiefly mem- 
 orable to Yeoman for the fact that there he got into 
 trouble for being found by a prowling "red cap" in 
 an estaminet after the hour of 8 P.M. This led to his 
 being "told off." The C.O. asked him if he would 
 take his award, and when Yeoman, who was of an 
 obliging disposition, said, "Yes, please, sir," as he 
 always did on these judicial occasions, he was 
 astonished to be merely told not to do it again. 
 
 "Sorry to disappoint you, my man/' said the CO., 
 with a mysterious smile as Yeoman waited for 
 something more. "By the way, your platoon 
 commander says you showed up well at Montreuil. 
 I suppose you're one of those fellows who are always 
 looking for trouble, and so long as the Germans pro- 
 vide you with it, you're content for the time being." 
 Which was true. 
 
 Eleven days after they had left the Aisne they 
 found themselves in a flat country where not a 
 beech was to be seen, but pollarded willows grew 
 thick as nettles. It reminded Yeoman of Sedge- 
 moor, but he had never seen women in wooden 
 shoes with towing-ropes round their waists before. 
 Also the beer was thin as nettle-beer. It was a bad 
 country for artillery observation, and for infantry 
 it was heavy going, for the soil was clay and clung to 
 the soles of your boots like yeast. At Bethune he 
 gave his coat to a Belgian refugee, and got "crimed" 
 for "losing by neglect certain articles of clothing, 
 
THE OLD GUARD 161 
 
 to wit one overcoat." It was commonly said of 
 Yeoman whose father had been a poacher in days 
 when a West-country labourer was expected by the 
 gentry to bring up a family of ten on nine shillings a 
 week that he did not know the difference between 
 meum and tuum which may have been true, for 
 he never could keep anything of his own if he thought 
 others were in need of it. He sometimes "pinched" 
 in the old days, when in the society of his pal, but 
 he did this largely from an adventurous appetite 
 for mischief; he never indulged in the meaner form of 
 larceny, which is solitary theft. Moreover, since he 
 had seen what the enemy could do, in the way of 
 loot, he had ceased to take any pleasure in being 
 light-fingered; he had a vague feeling that fellows 
 who stole might find themselves doing worse things. 
 Which in its way was an ethical discovery. 
 
 On the first day they took up a position facing 
 north, but that night they changed it, and in the 
 morning they found themselves facing the sun. 
 The division was, as a matter of fact, engaged in 
 wheeling round with its left, swinging on their right 
 as on a pivot while masses of French cavalry were 
 operating on their left flank in an attempt to roll up the 
 German right. It was the beginning of "the great 
 sweep," and their objective was to cut the German 
 line of retreat on Lille. It failed, as everybody 
 knows, and from that moment their long thin line, 
 extending away north up to Ypres, was stretched 
 to breaking point, for they had no reserves. They 
 pushed forward and got astride the Estaires-La 
 
162 GENTLEMEN AT ARMS 
 
 Bassee road; it was the extreme point of their 
 advance. They were brought up against a wasp's 
 nest of a sugar factory full of machine-guns. They 
 could not see anything to fire at, and they dare not 
 move to dig. The next morning their left company 
 suddenly found themselves between two fires; the 
 Germans had rushed the regiment on their left and 
 driven it in. They knew this from a survivor who, 
 covered with clay from foot to head as though he 
 were a natural feature of the landscape, crawled in a 
 little later. They had just one platoon in hand 
 and this they rushed up. It checked the enemy's 
 advance, who may have mistaken the platoon for a 
 battalion. There was nothing theatrical about 
 the old B.E.F., except that it was always on tour, 
 but in one respect it was a stage army. It was 
 always pretending to be bigger than it was. 
 
 Yeoman remembered that village as "the place 
 where I lost my blooming pipe," which is all he did 
 remember. He felt rather annoyed about it. 
 
 Then came a night which those who survived are 
 not likely to forget. 
 
 But at this point I will let Borlase take up the tale. 
 After all, Yeoman was in his company and he knew 
 him better than I did, for Yeoman had poached in 
 Borlase's preserves in the old days before he took the 
 King's shilling, and he had always had hopes of him. 
 
 "The enemy made three attacks that night, be- 
 ginning at seven in the evening and repeating them- 
 selves at intervals of about three hours. Their guns 
 
THE OLD GUARD 163" 
 
 -> 
 
 were busy all the time, first shrapnel in bursts of six 
 or eight, then H.E. I was kept pretty busy dodging 
 the shrapnel as I had to negotiate that street several 
 times during the night was adjutant just then 
 to get down to the signal office, and send messages to 
 Brigade Headquarters. I didn't mind the shrap- 
 nel; it was the H.E. that troubled me. You know 
 what a 'strafe* with heavies is like. You seem to 
 be taking a long breath between each shell and 
 you've no sooner ceased wondering where the first 
 is going to burst than you start wondering about the 
 next. Also you feel as if the enemy guns had all 
 got you specially 'registered' and were concentrating 
 on you personally. Which is rather egotistical 
 when you come to think of it. Of course, one gets 
 over that obsession after a time, and you make up 
 your mind that some inscrutable Power has long ago 
 determined that you're either going to get hit or 
 you're not, and that whether you loiter or whether 
 you hustle it'll all be the same in the end. 
 
 "The air above us seemed alive with frightened 
 birds first a flutter, then a scream, and then, as 
 the enemy began to shorten their fuses, we got the 
 shell-bursts right in the middle of the village 
 followed by a roaring landslide of falling masonry. 
 And all along the line stretching right away up to 
 Ypres the same thing was going on. A brick landed 
 on my foot from nowhere as though thrown by a foot- 
 pad. I must have looked like a ghost, for my face 
 was running with sweat and the white mortar settling 
 on it formed a sort of plaster-mask. There were 
 
164 GENTLEMEN AT ARMS 
 
 hayricks and barns in the village, and as these caught 
 fire one after the other, each rick glowed like a 
 thousand red-hot needles. One patch of the street 
 would be light as day, the next dark as night, and 
 the 'walking cases' rushed the one and then paused 
 to take breath in the other. Their figures made 
 monstrous shadows against the wall as they hurried 
 past. But there was really no cover anywhere, 
 and along our line every man who moved was a 
 mark for a German rifle. Looking down the trench 
 it was, as a matter of fact, only a shallow furrow 
 you could see a row of gleaming bayonets, and oc- 
 casionally a white face, as a man emptied his maga- 
 zine and fingered his pouch for another clip. There 
 was a most infernal orchestra of sound machine- 
 guns going like kettle-drums, the buzz, the crack, 
 and the twang of rifle-bullets like stringed instru- 
 ments, and at quick intervals the tremendous bass 
 of the artillery and the crash and roar of falling 
 houses. The only sound you never heard was a 
 human voice. Odd, isn't it? The more resolute an 
 English soldier is, the more silent he seems to be- 
 come. The men must have had a raging thirst 
 you know how dry one's throat gets at these times 
 they had long ago emptied their water-bottles, and 
 it was impossible for the ration parties to get up. 
 
 "It was in one of these journeys that I met 
 Yeoman. He was coming down from the firing-line, 
 and when I saw him the lower part of his face was 
 covered with blood he looked just as if he'd cut 
 his throat. As a matter of fact, half his left jaw 
 
THE OLD GUARD 165 
 
 had been shattered and the bullet must have just 
 missed the jugular vein. I fancy it was a flat-nosed 
 bullet. His left wrist was shattered, too. He'd been 
 sent back by his platoon commander. I didn't 
 take much notice of him there were too many other 
 things to think about. 
 
 "I looked in at our First-Aid Station, just beyond 
 Battalion Headquarters where the M.O., half-dead 
 with exhaustion, was working by candle-light in 
 overalls amidst a strange smell of blood, iodoform, 
 methylated spirit, and hay. It was a big barn; a 
 row of men were laid out like mummies on the floor 
 awaiting their turn some had given up waiting! 
 with the soles of their boots upturned. It's odd 
 how expressive a pair of feet can be you heard 
 very, few cries of pain, but I noticed the boots of 
 more than one man beating together while the rest 
 of his body lay as still as a statue. 
 
 "About an hour later I met Yeoman going up to 
 the trenches again, his face swathed in bandages. 
 I asked what on earth he was doing up there, and 
 hadn't the M.O. sent him down to a Casualty Clear- 
 ing Station ? I suppose he thought he was going to get 
 'crimed' again for disobeying a lawful command, and 
 he was horribly apologetic about it. I say horribly 
 because he spoke thickly like a man who's forgotten 
 to put his false teeth back. As a matter of fact, all the 
 teeth on the left side of his jaw had been knocked out. 
 
 ' Thorry, thir,' he ' said, 'but I heard we'd no 
 rethervth left.' 
 
 "He went back to the firing-line. He was hit 
 
i66 GENTLEMEN AT ARMS 
 
 twice again that night, but he carried on and only 
 retired with the rest at four in the morning, when 
 we were relieved not much relief about it by the 
 K.O.S.B. and went into support. He must have 
 lost a lot of blood. 
 
 "In that one day or rather night we had four 
 officers killed, eleven wounded, and rather more than 
 three hundred N.C.O.'s and men killed, wounded, 
 and missing. You know the rest. The long dreary 
 winter near Richebourg. By the time spring came 
 there were just fifty men left in the Battalion of 
 those that embarked on August I4th at Avon- 
 mouth. The rest were all new drafts. Yeoman? 
 He got the D.C.M. Also he got a stripe as lance- 
 corporal, and what is much more extraordinary he 
 kept it Eventually he became platoon-sergeant. 
 His ch* r acter quite changed No! it developed. 
 He found himself. Perhaps he'd never really had a 
 fair chance before. He'd had a rough time before he 
 enlisted, poor as a church mouse and as hungry. 
 
 " Do you know, G , I've come to the conclusion 
 
 that there's something wrong with our social values 
 in time of peace. We give a brute who kicks his wife 
 a fine with the option of a month's I.H.L., and the 
 man who pinches a pheasant gets three without any 
 option at all. Why is it that the law of England 
 has always been so damned tender to offences against 
 the person and so 'shirty' about offences against 
 property? Why is it that if a man steals a loaf of 
 bread he gets 'crimed/ while if he grinds the faces 
 of the poor by profiteering he gets well, knighted for 
 
THE OLD GUARD 167 
 
 a subscription to party funds? My men brought 
 nothing into the world and it's quite certain they 
 took nothing out. The nation gave them a shilling 
 a day and valued them accordingly, but, my God! 
 they repaid that shilling paid it with usury. 
 They're all dead. Or else they're maimed and 
 broken for life. And there was a time before the war 
 when not a damned potman would serve 'em in 
 uniform; perhaps it'll be like that again! 
 
 "What is it Kipling says ? 'Oh, it's Tommy this 
 and Tommy that, and chuck him out, the brute/ 
 'Militarism,' you know! I'm not saying that the 
 men hadn't their faults, but you know what a 
 'New Model' the old Army became after the Boer 
 War. There were very few 'bad hats' in it, and 
 even Yeoman wasn't a bad sort in fact, he was 
 a damned good sort. You know I often think that 
 there was something wrong with a society which 
 could offer nothing better to chaps like him than 
 twelve shillings a week with rheumatism and the 
 'Union' at the end of it (unless he reached seventy 
 and got a beggarly five bob) and which could give 
 him nothing better_jn the long winter evenings than 
 the village tap-room. Perhaps that's why he 
 poached and enlisted. It always seemed to me 
 that he felt life had never given him what he wanted 
 and had a right to ask, and that he was always look- 
 ing for something. He found it at last." 
 
 "What? Where?" 
 
 "On the Menin ridge. A bullet. He died in my 
 arms the same night." 
 
XI 
 
 THE BATMAN 
 
 AWE turned into the road to Cosham, our 
 car met a "W.D." wagon, and the driver 
 of the wagon dropped his right hand smartly. 
 
 "When I first put this uniform on," said the 
 subaltern with a faint reminiscence of Gilbert and 
 Sullivan, "I was saluted in succession by a police- 
 man, a commissionaire, a boy-scout, and a member 
 of the Women's Emergency Corps. I felt very 
 embarrassed. What ought I to have done?" 
 
 "The first two had probably been soldiers, the 
 third hoped to be one," said the Major. "You 
 should have saluted all three." 
 
 "But what about the girl?" 
 
 "Kiss her, of course," said the Major, gravely. 
 "A kiss is a salute. There's scriptural authority 
 for it." 
 
 "I never thought of that," said the subaltern wist- 
 fully. 
 
 "What a target!" exclaimed the Major as a 
 platoon in close formation appeared on the sky- 
 line. "Tangent-sight at eight hundred I think." 
 
 "But supposing she boxed my ears?" persisted 
 the subaltern. 
 
 "That's all right; the penalty for striking an 
 
 168 
 
THE BATMAN 169 
 
 officer on active service is DEATH," replied the 
 Major. "You could explain that to her. She 
 can't have it both ways." 
 
 "By jove! that's true," said the subaltern. He 
 began to look thoughtful. 
 
 "That reminds me" . . . said the Major, 
 meditatively. "Eyes RIGHT," he said suddenly as 
 he caught sight of the subaltern exchanging glances 
 with a buxom wench on the left of our car as we shot 
 past. 
 
 "It reminds you," I prompted. 
 
 "Of a batman a fellow I had in the South African 
 War. Such a batman! As a rule, if a batman's 
 honest he's not intelligent, and if he's intelligent he's 
 not honest. This fellow was both. He made my 
 buttons shine like stars, he polished my boots till I 
 could see my face in them, and he never once forgot 
 to call me in the morning. When I was sick he nursed 
 me like a like a " 
 
 "Like a woman!" said the subaltern enthusias- 
 tically. 
 
 "Well, yes, like a woman. He made tea that was 
 neither black as ink nor sweet as syrup. He did not 
 smoke, neither did he drink. He took as much care 
 of my horse as he did of me. He never told a lie 
 except once. And he never whistled." 
 
 "His name, please!" I said, taking out my pocket- 
 book. I have had two batmen one honest, the 
 other intelligent. I am looking for a third. 
 
 "That I can't tell you. No, I don't mean I 
 won't, I mean I can't. I don't know it I never did. 
 
i;o GENTLEMEN AT ARMS 
 
 I can give you his address, though, if that's any good. 
 'Galveston, Texas/ at least that's the post-mark. 
 
 D'you think if I knew his name I'd But 
 
 I'm putting the cart before the horse. Well, I'll 
 tell you the story. I had a commission in Trelaw- 
 ney's Horse they gave me a commission in the 
 regulars afterward which you may remember was 
 a well-known unit of irregulars. And a very 
 hefty lot they were. A very scratch lot, too 
 colonials, mining engineers, remittance-men, soldiers 
 of fortune, and so on. South Africa was swarming 
 with levies of that kind, each one differing from the 
 other in arms, kit, formation, and all the rest of it. 
 They were enough to make an R.T.O.'s hair stand 
 on end. But, as I say, a hefty body of men and not 
 one of 'em but knew how to sit a horse as soon as 
 look at it. 
 
 "Well, one day a likely-looking youth with an 
 American accent you could cut with a knife came 
 into camp and said he guessed he'd join us. There 
 wasn't much attestation red tape about Trelaw- 
 ney's Horse; if it comes to that I daresay half of 
 'em could have been court-martialled for fraudulent 
 enlistment. All a recruit was asked was: 'Can 
 you ride ? Can you shoot ? ' and if the troop-sergeant 
 was satisfied no one asked any more questions. 
 In fact, it was about as tactful to ask a man in 
 Trelawney's Horse about his past as it would be to 
 ask an officer under arrest about his future. It was 
 a case of Omne ignotum pro magnifico which, you 
 may remember, in the revised version means, 'If 
 
THE BATMAN 171 
 
 a man's conduct-sheet is lost, his character is ex- 
 emplary.' 
 
 "'Can you ride?' said the sergeant. 'I can that/ 
 said the Yank. 'Oh, you can, can you?' said the 
 sergeant. 'Very well, let's see you put that mare 
 through her paces.' 
 
 "The mare was a stiff proposition, too stiff for 
 most of us, and Trelawney's Horse gathered round 
 expecting to see some fun. So did the mare, I 
 fancy, for the moment the Yank got on her back she 
 started bucking for all she was worth. She reared 
 and plunged, and, finding that no use, tried to bolt. 
 She had a mouth of iron. Well, to cut a long story 
 short, in half an hour that mare was like clay in 
 the hands of the potter. She was all of a lather 
 and butter wouldn't melt in her mouth. After that, 
 Trelawney's, who knew a good horseman when they 
 saw one, all crowded round the Yank and offered 
 him smokes and drinks. 
 
 "'I don't smoke and I don't drink,' he said. 
 'Well, what the hell do you do?' said one of 'em. 
 'I ride,' he said quietly and walked away. 
 
 "I liked that chap, and when I heard that he 
 knelt down and said his prayers every night in the 
 tent and there were six men to every tent I liked 
 him all the more. I wanted a batman and one day I 
 offered 'Hop' his name was Silas P. Hopkins, but 
 we called him 'Hop' for short the job. He hesi- 
 tated at first, which rather nettled me, the more so 
 as it meant he'd draw five bob a week extra pay. 
 
 " 'Well, if you don't like being in my service ... / 
 
i;2 GENTLEMEN AT ARMS 
 
 I began. 'It isn't that, sir,' he said he always 
 said 'Sir,' and generally saluted, which was more 
 than most of 'em did 'Well, I'll take it on.' 
 
 "And he did. 
 
 "I soon found I'd done a good stroke of business. 
 Never man batted like that batman. For one 
 thing he used to think, which, you may have noticed, 
 no batman ever does as a rule. I never found a hole 
 in my socks, for the simple reason that Hop always 
 discovered it before I could darn it. I never lost a 
 shirt button, because as soon as it got loose Hop 
 sewed it on tight again. And you must remember 
 that the Boer War wasn't like this war, when if you're 
 'deficient in articles' you can send a chit to your 
 hosiers or your tailors in the West End and get your 
 order executed and the goods delivered in France 
 inside of a week. No ! we were up country, far from 
 railhead, with our lines of communication con- 
 stantly being cut, and our supply columns looted 
 by brother Boer, some of whose commandoes hadn't 
 one whole pair of trousers between them. So they 
 always raided our columns, if they could, whenever 
 they wanted a change of underclothing, and we often 
 went short. I remember a picnic outside Pretoria 
 but I'll tell you that another time. 
 
 "Well, the result was that Trelawney's Horse were 
 eventually rigged out like a fancy-dress ball, and 
 were decollete enough to satisfy the producer of a 
 theatrical revue. But I myself never wanted for 
 anything shirts, socks, and so on Hop saw to all 
 that. I never asked any questions as I half 
 
THE BATMAN 173 
 
 suspected he pinched 'em, and I didn't want to be 
 c.-m.'d as a receiver of stolen goods, 'knowing them 
 to have been stolen,' as the charge-sheet puts it. 
 All I knew was that my kit was like the widow's 
 cruse of oil there was always petrol in the tank. 
 
 "Then he was as punctual as zero. He always 
 called me to the second, and while I was sponging 
 myself down in my collapsible tub he'd be busy about 
 the tent laying out my shaving kit, and shaking the 
 sand and locusts out of my things, until he'd say 
 'Anything else, sir ? ' 
 
 "But there was never anything else he'd always 
 seen to that. As you may imagine, the fame of my 
 batman got noised abroad for, like the virtuous 
 woman, his price was far above rubies. Every 
 brother officer wanted him, and some of 'em tried 
 to bribe him into their service until, getting wind of 
 their fraternal designs, I told him I proposed to 
 double the five bob. He wouldn't take it. Tm 
 quite satisfied, sir,' he said. 
 
 "Naturally, we got rather friendly, and I got to 
 treat him more and more as a warrant officer than 
 an ordinary trooper, and sometimes I tried to get 
 him to talk about himself. But he always headed 
 me off. All I could learn was that his father was a 
 big mule contractor in Texas, and that he'd been 
 sent over from New Orleans with a cargo of mules 
 to Durban and, after unloading, had thought he'd 
 like to go up country. He always rather kept him- 
 self to himself. 
 
 "He was certainly a wonderful chap with horses. 
 
174 GENTLEMEN AT ARMS 
 
 You know what delicate beasts Argentines are; well, 
 he cured mine of a bad attack of sand colic and he 
 was as particular about preparing my horse's bran 
 mash as he was about my breakfast which is saying 
 a good deal. And no coolie or black boy or up- 
 country Jew storekeeper could ever take a rise out 
 of him he used to do all my shopping. Well, one 
 day we were in for a great Boer drive near Harte- 
 beestefontein, the whole squadron being strung out 
 like a paper-chase. We'd crossed a drift and had 
 come out on some flat country all pimpled with ant- 
 hills, when we sighted a Boer farm and the usual 
 kraals in the middle of some blue gum trees. The 
 next moment I heard the 'plip-plop' of a Mauser, 
 and my batman, who was next me, suddenly gave a 
 kind of shriek and I saw him fall over his horse's 
 neck like a sack. We soon rushed the farm and 
 cleared it out, and I then turned my attention to my 
 batman. Fortunately, the horse hadn't bolted and 
 let me come up to him. I caught hold of his rider 
 in my arms and laid him on the ground. He was 
 a very light weight and rather slender. By that 
 time he had fainted. There was a dark stain on 
 his tunic, the colour of port-wine; he'd been hit in 
 the chest. I unbuttoned his shirt, and as I did so I 
 noticed two little bright rods of steel stuck through 
 it. I wondered what the devil they were for. Then 
 I cut away his singlet and you could have knocked 
 me over with a feather. My batman was a woman! 
 "So that's how I was kept in new socks!" was the 
 first thing I said to myself as I looked at the knit- 
 
THE BATMAN 175 
 
 ting-needles. And I kept on saying. 'Plain and 
 purl! Purl and plain!' As you know one gen- 
 erally does say something idiotically trivial like that 
 when one gets a big shock. I suppose it's nature's 
 way of keeping one going until one's mind recovers 
 its balance. Perhaps you'll think I ought not to 
 have been so surprised, and you may think me an 
 ass. But telling a story's one thing, living it is 
 quite another, and the story I'm telling you was 
 spread over many months, in the course of which I 
 had many other things than Hop to think about. 
 
 "Well, my first thought was how to get him I 
 mean her away, and my second how to keep her 
 secret, for my sake as well as hers. I should never 
 have heard the end of it in the regiment if it had got 
 about. Of course I couldn't leave my troop, but 
 after much trouble I got hold of a Cape cart and got 
 Hop fixed up in it and sent back one of my men 
 whom I could trust as escort, giving him a con- 
 fidential chit to the M.O. in which I explained 
 matters and asked him to do all he could for the 
 poor girl. 
 
 " By the time that I had completed these arrange- 
 ments she had recovered consciousness and told me 
 something of her story. It seems she had been 
 brought up on her father's ranch, and when her 
 brother fell sick and couldn't take charge of the 
 consignment of mules she offered to go in his place 
 disguised as a teamster and went. We hadn't 
 much time for a pow-wow, and when she'd finished 
 telling her story it was time for me to get a move on. 
 
176 GENTLEMEN AT ARMS 
 
 'Good-bye, Hop . . . and God bless you/ I 
 said. 'My name's Lucy/ she said with a look I've 
 never forgotten. I sometimes think but no matter. 
 And it was only when that cart had disappeared over 
 the veldt like a ship at sea that I suddenly remem- 
 bered I'd forgotten to ask her her surname and her 
 home address. And I never got to know it. By 
 the time we got back from our drive of the Boers 
 and I was able to communicate with the Base, I 
 found she'd been evacuated and sent back to the 
 States. I tried hard to trace her but it was a wash- 
 out. But once a year, on the anniversary of the 
 day she entered my service, I got a card without any 
 address and only two words on it 'From Lucy.' 
 That happened every year until two years ago I 
 have heard nothing since. I sometimes think " 
 
 The Major stopped abruptly and gazed straight 
 in front of him at the wind-screen. There was 
 something almost wistful in his look. 
 
 The subaltern broke the silence. "Women are 
 topping," he said. 
 
 Neither the Major nor I made any reply. The 
 subaltern is very young, and, as is the way of youth, 
 he sometimes thinks his discoveries are new. 
 
XII 
 
 THE ATTACK 
 
 -(July i, 1916) 
 
 I 
 
 HE BELONGED to the bombing party of No. 
 I Platoon, A Company, of "the Springers." 
 You will not find them under that name in 
 the Army List, but in the Sergeants' Mess, where 
 oral tradition dies hard, the long-service N.C.O.s 
 never call the regiment anything else and thereby 
 keep alive the memory of a great day in the Pen- 
 insula when the regiment cleared a six-foot wall in a 
 bayonet charge. No one ever "writes up" the 
 Springers, for they do not wear kilts and are not as 
 the "tin-bellies" who sit mounted at street corners, 
 spreading broad their pipe-clayed phylacteries. 
 They are merely one of those unobtrusive line reg- 
 iments which go on from generation to generation 
 adding fresh laurels to their colours and saying very 
 little about it, for they are men of few words and 
 they speak a dialect which is unintelligible to any 
 one except a West-country man. They have " Penin- 
 sula," "Ferozeshah," and "Sobraon," on their 
 colours, and they can now add the most coveted 
 name in military annals, for they were at Mons. 
 They have their own libretto for the bugle-calls; 
 and when they talk of Defaulters' Call they do not 
 
 177 
 
178 GENTLEMEN AT ARMS 
 
 speak of "Angels' Whisper." Also they have a feud 
 with a certain Irish regiment, dating from the day 
 when they arrived in Dublin and lowered its colours 
 at "footer." Their homespun speech is pure Anglo- 
 Saxon, the same as their fathers spake when they 
 broke the Danes at Ethandune. It is a soft speech, 
 like honey in the mouth; those who speak it are slow 
 to anger and of great kindness. But they are very 
 unpleasant when they are roused, and though they 
 can give quarter they never take it. 
 
 John Knighton had kept sheep on a hillside, one of 
 those bold escarpments of the North Downs where 
 the chalk breaks into greensand, falling away into 
 the great dairy-farming plains of coral rag. When 
 the war came like a thief in the night his mental 
 horizon was as bounded as his physical environ- 
 ment; he knew a great deal about sheep-dip and 
 could tell you all about the healing virtues of the 
 rest-harrow, but France was for him merely a geo- 
 graphical expression, recalling painful hours over 
 a primer in the village school. But he knew many 
 things that a town-bred teacher did not know; he 
 could tell the seasons and the time of night by the 
 stars, and when he looked at Orion he needed not the 
 Pole Star to tell him where the true North was. He 
 knew where and in what season to look for the 
 bat's-wings of Cassiopeia and the ;great square of 
 Pegasus. But he would have been incredulous if 
 you had told him that the same stars looked down 
 upon the fields of France. 
 
 One day in April, 1915, when the lambing season 
 
THE ATTACK \ , 179 
 
 was over, John Knighton walked into the nearest 
 recruiting office with a few chattels tied up in a red 
 handkerchief with large white spots and announced 
 his wish to enlist. If you had asked him his reason 
 for this momentous decision he would have given 
 you every reason but the true one, which was that 
 
 Major S , late of the Springers, now on half-pay, 
 
 but still a foster-father to the regiment, had come 
 to John Knighton's village one day, and at a recruit- 
 ing meeting in the village schoolroom, with the 
 squire in the chair, had told them things which set 
 John Knighton's teeth on edge. 
 
 In his lonely night-watches on the Downs, where 
 Neolithic man had fashioned his arrow-heads of 
 flint and the Roman auxiliary cast his javelin, he 
 had pondered deeply on these things, and though 
 he could not have told you where Belgium was on 
 the map, he knew that there or thereabouts evil 
 stalked upon the earth. And thinking upon these 
 things it seemed to him that he, John Knighton, 
 must go forth to combat it. He was a likely-looking 
 man, tall and deep-chested, and, although he did not 
 know it, he came of a family which, five hundred 
 years before, had done mighty things with the long- 
 bow at the village butts in a field which to this day 
 is known as the "Butt-haye." He had the terra- 
 cotta skin of perfect health, and the M.O., as he 
 watched him jump the form, and hop round the 
 room on his left foot, and then on his right, felt that 
 he could dispense with the usual tattoo upon his 
 chest-bones. 
 
i8o GENTLEMEN AT ARMS 
 
 The mazes of platoon-drill troubled him at first, 
 but at observation he had nothing to learn, and on 
 the range he soon turned out a first-class shot. He 
 was even as good with the bayonet pitching hay is 
 quite a good apprenticeship and there were few 
 who could show better form on the assault-course. 
 Thus it was, that after a few lessons in bombing he 
 found himself No. I bayonet-man in the bombing- 
 party of his platoon. And one day the company 
 orderly sergeant read out his name from the nominal 
 roll and he found himself warned for an overseas 
 draft. 
 
 II 
 
 "It bain't comin* off, I do think," said John 
 Knighton, as he "stood to" one rosy morning in 
 June in a chalk trench upon the Somme. He had 
 come there after months of duty in the trenches in 
 Flanders, followed by a stimulating interlude in 
 carrying "spit-locked" trenches at a kind of dress- 
 rehearsal of an attack behind G.H.Q., at which a flag 
 did duty for a barrage and a tape indicated the 
 objective. He liked the rolling hills of the Somme, 
 for they reminded him of his native Downs. But he 
 chafed at a delay the reasons for which were wholly 
 obscure to him, and although every time they were 
 relieved he saw behind the lines an increasing accu- 
 mulation of "dumps" and timber and hobbled horses 
 and a mighty concentration of guns and limbers, his 
 incredulity grew upon him. 
 
 "Thic year, next year, zumtime, never," said his 
 
THE ATTACK 181 
 
 comrade Jacob Winterbourne, as he blew upon 
 imaginary petals. "It'll be about hay-making 
 time zoon, in Broad Hinton, John. Wonder whether 
 any on us 'ull ever see the wold place again?" He 
 wiped his mouth with the back of his hand as he 
 finished his rum ration. 
 
 But at that John Knighton said nothing. 
 
 The colonel of "the Springers" had his own 
 opinion as to the date of the opening performance 
 for which there had been so many rehearsals, but he 
 kept his own counsel. He had attended a seven 
 days' course of lectures at the Army School about a 
 week earlier, hearing many things which he already 
 knew and a few which he did not. And four days 
 later he had attended a divisional conference of 
 battalion O.C.'s and brigadiers, while a major- 
 general from "Operations" at G.H.Q. had talked 
 intimately with a pointer in his hand before an 
 enormous map. The "I" summaries had also been 
 more than usually explicit of late as to the strength 
 and location of the German units opposite the line, 
 their inquiries being assisted by a large collection of 
 shoulder-straps, a mild inquisition of the "third 
 degree," and a collection of belles-lettres, the trophies 
 of some carefully-organized raids. The A.D.M.S. 
 had also been mobilizing his field ambulances, and an 
 order had gone down to the Base to evacuate and 
 prepare many thousands of beds. Also the direc- 
 torates of Supplies, and Transport, and Water, and 
 Railways, had been doing heavy night shifts, and 
 their caravans covered the face of the earth. And 
 
 
182 GENTLEMEN AT ARMS 
 
 the Divisional A.P.M., who had been nearly worked 
 off his head with traffic controls, had doubled his 
 examining-posts and worked out a scheme of posi- 
 tions for "battle police." And all these vast forces, 
 thus set in train, although they knew nothing of him 
 nor he of them, were converging upon John Knighton 
 like a pressure of the atmosphere, and were dark 
 with the fate of him. 
 
 These things were talked over in whispers by staff- 
 officers with blue, and red, and parti-coloured 
 brassards at Brigade and Divisional and Corps 
 Headquarters, until one night at the end of June the 
 A.A.G. at the Corps H.Q., after looking behind him 
 to see that the mess-sergeant had closed the door, 
 turned to the Camp Commandant and whispered 
 something in his ear. 
 
 "Damn it!" said the Camp Commandant, "and 
 to think we're here right at the back of the dress- 
 circle. I wish Td been able to pull the leg of my 
 last Board. But they wouldn't pass me for any- 
 thing but light duty. And to think my old regi- 
 ment's up there. Well, here's luck!" 
 
 Ill 
 
 It was ten o'clock. The men had been numbered 
 off from the right and one in three posted for look out 
 duty. The night was calm, but the air drowsy as 
 though thunder were brooding over the earth, and 
 the illusion was heightened by sheets of flame which 
 flickered incessantly in the sky. A battalion runner 
 arrived from Brigade Headquarters with a message 
 
THE ATTACK 183 
 
 for the Colonel in his dug-out. He opened the sheaf 
 of papers and saw the words "Operation Orders." 
 He took one glance at them and then sent an orderly 
 to summon the Major and the company commanders. 
 Meanwhile he took out a map and spread it upon 
 the table. His adjutant took four tallow candles 
 stuck in bottles, lit them, and placed a bottle on each 
 of the four corners of the map. The map was covered 
 with irregular lines which in places tied themselves up 
 into knots like congested veins, and double lines of 
 red crosses marched with them. Here and there 
 were clusters of red stars and occasionally a blue 
 blot. The stars were craters; the blue blots were 
 unexploded mines. He was still poring over this 
 chart when the company commanders arrived. 
 
 "We attack to-morrow," he said quietly, as they 
 saluted. 
 
 "At what hour, sir?" asked one of them with 
 studied nonchalance. 
 
 "I don't know," said the Colonel, "soon after 
 dawn I expect. I have not had 'zero' yet. Now, 
 gentlemen, this is the Divisional objective 20 x A 
 83 to 20 x D 72." And he moved his pencil across 
 the rectangle. "The compass-bearing on which 
 the battalion will march will be 73 magnetic. The 
 first and second waves will take the German first- 
 line trench; the third and fourth waves will take the 
 second-line trench. The bombing parties must 
 bomb their way up the communication trenches 
 east of Nose Switch, and A company must occupy 
 the trench behind them." 
 
i8 4 GENTLEMEN AT ARMS 
 
 The Colonel and the Adjutant, together with the 
 Major and the four company commanders, peered 
 at the map, their heads, which were close together, 
 throwing great shadows on the walls of the dug-out 
 as the Colonel explained in detail the nature of their 
 respective tasks. Finally the Adjutant wrote them 
 down in duplicate on a "Message and Signals" form, 
 and gave each officer his copy. Then they went 
 their appointed ways to confer with their platoon 
 commanders. There were many things to do, but 
 every one of them found time to do another that 
 was not in his Operation Orders they each wrote 
 a letter home. 
 
 The Colonel sent for an R.F.A. subaltern com- 
 manding the Stokes guns. "Your barrage will 
 commence at minus eight minutes and cease at 
 zero," he read out, explaining circumstantially that 
 they must establish the said barrage from the right 
 of trench A 7/ 1 to the left of trench A 7/2 with a view 
 to covering the enemy's machine-guns. And he 
 handed him orders which told him how many rounds 
 his sub-sections were to fire in the first minute, how 
 many in the last, and how many in the six minutes 
 intervening. 
 
 Two hours after midnight the runners arrived with 
 another message. It was as brief as it was fateful. 
 It told the Colonel that "zero" had been fixed for 
 6.30 A.M. 
 
 The men were called in at 4.30 A.M. for "Stand 
 to," and paraded in sections by the corporals. The 
 rum ration was served out and every man was given 
 
THE ATTACK 185 
 
 100 extra rounds of ammunition by the company 
 sergeant-major. They moved off by platoons up 
 the communication trench to the assembly trenches 
 which extended in straight lines, without traverses, be- 
 hind the fire-trenches, the trenches being about eighty 
 yards apart. Every infantryman carried two empty 
 sandbags stuck in his belt like a pair of gloves, a 
 bomb in either pocket, a pick or a spade upon his 
 back, a gas-mask depending from his neck, and he 
 held his rifle at the "carry/* At the head of each 
 platoon marched the bombing parties carrying their 
 little barrel-shaped bombs in a nose-bag attached to 
 their belts. The Lewis gunners carried their guns 
 at the slope, each man with two "drums" of cart- 
 ridges strapped over his back. Every man wore a 
 vivid patch of coloured cloth upon his shoulder, 
 and on the back of his tunic was a small piece of 
 burnished tin which gleamed in the flashes that ever 
 and anon lit up the sky. For the most part they 
 marched in silence up the long ravine, but occa- 
 sionally they chaffed one another; some of them 
 smoked cigarettes with great rapidity, throwing 
 them away before they were half-consumed. 
 
 As they lined up in the assembly-trenches John 
 Knighton, who was on the extreme left, pulled a large 
 tin watch out of his pocket and shaking it solemnly, 
 peered at it in the pale light of dawn. The watch, 
 which he had bought for five shillings one market- 
 day at Marlborough, was a subject of many pleas- 
 antries in his platoon, for it never kept time. But 
 John Knighton treasured it above rubies and was 
 
1 86 GENTLEMEN AT ARMS 
 
 accustomed to check its idiosyncrasies by the stars 
 and the position of the sun in the heavens. The 
 hour and minute hands were at six o'clock. 
 
 " Bist gwine to have yer old ticker synchronized by 
 the signalling-officer, John?" said his neighbour, 
 nervously fingering the safety-catch of his rifle. 
 
 "Did ye leave yer hairloom to yer best girl in yer 
 pay-book?" asked another. "Lawk a massey, 
 look at that girt 'un!" 
 
 There was a gurgling sound in the air overhead 
 and a 9.2 shell burst on a "strong point" in the 
 German lines, sending up a geyser of black smoke 
 which, as it drifted away, slowly formed the pattern 
 of a gigantic weeping-willow upon the sky. All 
 through the night a sound as of someone knocking 
 at a door had been coming from behind the lines, 
 and the air overhead was never still. "Fix 
 bayonets," said the platoon commander suddenly, 
 as he looked at his watch, and with a clink fixed his 
 own in the socket. 
 
 The hands of the platoon commander's watch 
 were at nineteen minutes past six. The tbombard- 
 ment died away. There was a lull. 
 
 IV 
 
 At that moment the subaltern in charge of the fire- 
 control of a battery of field-guns some three thou- 
 sand five hundred yards back, was waiting with a stop- 
 watch in one hand and a megaphone in the other 
 at the elbow of the telephone orderly just beside the 
 battery. The Operation orders had been given out 
 
THE ATTACK 187 
 
 the night before; the fuses had been set with the 
 fuse-key, and the corrector put at 148. A pile of 
 shells lay banked like drain-pipes under a tarpaulin 
 painted in a mottled pattern of greens and browns. 
 Each gun-layer sat beside his gun, and the other 
 men of the gun detachment knelt behind, some 
 stripped to' their waists, others with their shirt- 
 sleeves rolled up exposing their sinewy arms. At 
 the other end of that telephone-wire, some three 
 thousand yards in front of the battery, were the 
 Battery Major and the F.O.O., established in a low- 
 turfed emplacement like a grouse-butt. The tele- 
 phone orderly suddenly answered the Battery Major 
 through the telephone: "Yes, sir," and as he did so 
 turned his eyes . toward the subaltern. Then he 
 began repeating each monosyllable of the O.C.'s 
 message one by one as they came through. "Ten, 
 nine, eight, seven, six" the subaltern was strangely 
 conscious, as he listened, with his eyes on his stop- 
 watch, of a scene on the tow-path at Oxford two 
 years ago when he had sat leaning over an oar with his 
 feet planted firmly against the stretcher and his 
 heart thumping a response to the coach's measured 
 tones "five, four, three, two, one. Fire!" 
 
 "Fire!" shouted the subaltern through his mega- 
 phone to the subalterns in charge of the guns. 
 
 The storm burst. Forward in the assembly- 
 trenches it buffeted the ears of the men a mighty 
 knocking upon great doors, but this time it was as if 
 
188 ; GENTLEMEN AT ARMS 
 
 blows were being rained upon all the doors of all the 
 houses ever built with hands. It had broken on 
 them with a sound as though the sky above them 
 were made of a huge canvas suddenly torn and rip- 
 ped asunder. A thousand field guns were firing 
 from sixteen to twenty rounds a minute, as fast as 
 the sweating gunners could open and close the breech. 
 The sound grew more and more insistent, and each 
 man in the assembly-trenches looked at his neigh- 
 bour with a wild surmise, shouting to make the other 
 hear. The shells went spinning overhead with a 
 long metallic scream. They were H.E. shells with 
 "delay" fuses, and, as they burrowed into the Ger- 
 man fire-trench, they threw up spouts of black earth 
 like waves upon a promontory, and black smoke rose 
 at even intervals above its parapet and drifted along 
 horizontally as though it screened a line of locomo- 
 tives travelling up a cutting. At the same moment 
 the trench-mortars in our evacuated front line began 
 to give forth their dull thudding note, increasing in 
 frequency as the first minute passed. In the sap 
 in front of it, two machine-guns, traversing the 
 German front line with a "two-inch tap," added 
 their rapid knuckle-rapping to the brazen fury of 
 the storm. 
 
 "The orchestra's tuning up, mates," shouted one 
 man with a nervous laugh; "Programmes sixpence 
 each." But no one heard him. The speaker 
 glanced upward. A white cloud, soft as lamb's 
 wool, appeared above the trenches and he suddenly 
 collapsed into the bottom of the trench. At the 
 
THE ATTACK 189 
 
 same moment there was a patter like rain on the 
 earth around them and something rattled on men's 
 helmets like hail. All eyes were fixed on the platoon 
 commander, who was looking at his wrist-watch. 
 Each man put his left foot in a foot-hole cut in the 
 wall of the trench and, reaching up, firmly gripped 
 a stake in the parapet above him. They leaned 
 forward with their chests against the earthen wall, 
 straining like hounds at the leash. 
 
 "Now, men," he said quietly, "remember we're 
 the Springers, don't lose your heads, and " (a 
 whistle sounded) "over you go." But no one 
 heard this. John Knighton could see the officer's 
 lips moving as he shouted, but that was all. He 
 saw also the platoon-sergeant shouting into this 
 officer's ear, but again no sound reached him. They 
 took their cues by sight and not by hearing. They 
 hauled themselves up, and with a spring were over 
 the top. John Knighton, looking back over his 
 shoulder, saw three other waves behind him rising 
 up out of the earth. He advanced at a pace that was 
 neither a walk nor a run, but something between 
 the two, and made for one of the planks thrown at 
 intervals across the fire-trench. As he crossed it he 
 saw the Stokes gunners in their emplacements in the 
 trench beneath him rapidly taking their gun to 
 pieces to join up with the fourth line; one man 
 already had the barrel over his shoulder as though 
 about to perform a "turn" with a stove-pipe. 
 
 Slipping through one of the gaps cut overnight in 
 the intricacies of the "double-apron" wire, he heard 
 
190 GENTLEMEN AT ARMS 
 
 above him the thin whine of shrapnel, and tongues 
 of flame appeared in the air overhead, followed by 
 scrolls of white smoke. There was a soft patter 
 as the dispersing bullets struck the earth, and he saw 
 men to the right and left of him suddenly fall out 
 of the line as though they had forgotten something 
 
 and, falling, lie very still. "It do seem " said 
 
 his neighbour, Jacob Winterbourne; the sentence 
 was never finished. John passed on. His throat 
 was dry as a furnace, his nostrils were filled with the 
 reek of burnt powder, his eyes dazed with dust, and 
 the sweat ran down his face. Only a moment before, 
 the gun-layers back at the batteries, working to time, 
 had turned the sight-elevating gear of their guns un- 
 til the range-drum recorded another hundred yards. 
 The German front-line trench was clearly visible; 
 the "tail" of the creeping barrage had lifted. Be- 
 hind that trench smoke-shells, each exploding as it 
 fell in graceful stems of smoke embroidered with 
 thousands of tiny sparks of burning phosphorus, 
 expanded into ostrich feathers of white vapour, 
 which merged into a screen of mist. The next 
 moment he had leapt into the German trench. 
 
 The trench was pounded into the semblance of a 
 dried water-course, and here and there lay the bloody 
 debris of what had once been men. It flashed 
 through his mind that this debris looked curiously 
 like the scarecrows he had seen in a Wiltshire corn- 
 field dismantled by the storm. He heard groans 
 and cries and savage oaths to the right of him, as, 
 turning to the left, he advanced at the head of his 
 
THE ATTACK 191 
 
 little bombing party. They bombed their way 
 round a traverse as the second wave with the Lewis 
 gunners on its left leapt into the trench. Pallid men 
 in dirty gray uniforms crept out of holes in the earth, 
 held up their hands, and gibbered for quarter; they 
 were bundled over the parapet and ran ridiculously, 
 with arms above their heads, through the oncoming 
 waves of the third and the fourth lines. 
 
 In a few r minutes the trench was won. Someone 
 set a signal alight on the parapet where it glowed 
 like a great red carnation. The signallers were talk- 
 ing confidentially to the aeroplanes whose droning 
 hum came nearer and nearer as they circled overhead 
 and "banked" at an angle of forty-five degrees. As 
 they came lower their drone changed to the whirr of 
 a saw-mill, and, looking up, John Knighton could dis- 
 tinguish the airmen and every rib of their planes. 
 Filling their empty sandbags in a fury of haste the 
 men turned to "consolidate" the parados while the 
 Lewis gunners emptied their trays of cartridges over 
 the top at the German second-line trench. 
 
 John Knighton, turning up a communication 
 trench, heard a loud uproarious cheer as the third 
 wave, carrying their rifles at the short trail, leapt 
 across the trench, some ahead, some behind, like men 
 in a hurdle race. He noticed a machine-gunner 
 carrying the tripod fantastically over his shoulders, 
 as a shepherd carries a lamb, with two legs in front. 
 Behind the fourth line the carrying party, consisting 
 of D Company with spare bombs and coils of wire 
 slung on poles, were coming up. Far as the eye 
 
I 9 2 GENTLEMEN AT ARMS 
 
 could see, the whole countryside was alive with men 
 advancing like beaters in a heath fire. On the left 
 an enemy machine-gun was holding up the bat- 
 talion advancing on that side, until it was shrouded 
 in smoke-bombs out of which, as they alighted, 
 wisps of smoke, emerging like genii out of a bottle, 
 uncoiled themselves into sulphurous clouds. 
 
 The bombing-party advanced stealthily up the 
 communication trench, John Knighton, as bayonet- 
 man, leading the way with the safety-catch of his 
 rifle forward. Behind him was No. 2, with his 
 safety-catch back, and then came bomb-thrower 
 No. i, with a bomb-carrier in turn behind him. 
 The trench suddenly widened. "Island Traverse!" 
 shouted John Knighton, and stood still with his 
 rifle "on guard." Bomber No. i took a little 
 barrel-shaped object out of his bag, slipped a ring 
 on to a hook of his belt, and with the palm of his 
 hand firmly clasping the lever against the bomb, he 
 pulled out the pin. He held the bomb against his 
 hip, and then with a mighty overhand throw he 
 launched it over the " island" of sandbags. There was 
 a loud report, and a cloud of woolly white smoke rose 
 behind the traverse. "Fifteen yards, five yards left," 
 shouted the N.C.O., and the bomber threw again. 
 Then John Knighton rushed round the traverse with 
 the rest of the bombing party on his heels. The 
 Germans were bolting like rabbits with a ferret 
 behind them. Ten yards behind the bombers a 
 subaltern was squatting with a Stokes gun between 
 his legs and popping off at a "pocket" of the enemy. 
 
THE ATTACK 193 
 
 They were getting on. Half an hour later the 
 Major was telephoning remarks to the Colonel, 
 punctuated by frequent gutturals: 
 
 Bombing attack is going very well AC. AC. The 
 artillery fire and M. G. and L. G. from my post at the 
 Mound are very effective, enemy keep bolting from 
 trench across the open AC. AC. I require more S.S.A. 
 for men and L.G.s AC. AC. The latter have expended 
 approximately ten magazines and have done good work 
 AC. AC. At least fifty of the enemy have been forced 
 out of the switch trench and for 200 yards east of the 
 
 Nose AC. AC. Lieutenant A has orders to occupy 
 
 the German trench immediately behind the bombing 
 party AC. AC. Will you arrange for artillery to lift off 
 the Nose ? 
 
 But there came a lull; something had held up our 
 left flank. Our left was "in the air," and John 
 Knighton and his bombing party found their way 
 blocked by enemy bombers rushing up a lateral 
 trench at its junction with the communication 
 trench along which they were forcing their way. 
 He saw a man in front of him raise his hand from his 
 thigh and swing his arm over his shoulder; there 
 was a loud report, a sheet of violet flame, and he 
 knew no more. 
 
 VI 
 
 He lay where he fell while the battle surged over 
 and beyond him. Many hours later some stretcher- 
 bearers picked him up and carried him back to the 
 
194 GENTLEMEN AT ARMS 
 
 regimental aid-post. He was given a hasty injection 
 of 500 units of anti-tetanus serum, and then passed 
 on in a hand-cart to the advanced dressing station 
 of the field ambulance where surgeons toiled all 
 night in their overalls under the pallid glare of an 
 acetylene lamp. His wounds were dressed, a water- 
 proof envelope was tied to his buttonhole, and he was 
 put on one side for despatch to the Casualty Clearing 
 Station. The envelope contained a Field Medical 
 Card and its red-coloured border told its own tale to 
 the orderlies who passed him on. But of what was 
 written on that card he knew nothing. He was 
 unconscious. 
 
 He awoke in hospital at the Base. As he opened 
 his eyes he felt a slight pressure on his wrist and he 
 saw the R.A.M.C. captain, whose hand was upon his 
 pulse, incline his head. At that a nurse softly 
 opened a screen at the foot of his bed and shut out 
 his view of the ward. His nostrils were filled with the 
 penetrating smell of methylated spirit and iodoform, 
 and in his ears was a rhythm of crashing waters 
 followed always by the multitudinous scramble of 
 pebbles on the beach. It was the beat of three 
 succeeding waves upon the shore that last pul- 
 sation of a rising tide as, under a full moon flooding 
 the room with her cold silver light, the great waters 
 heaved and the cables of the lightship out at sea 
 grew taut. There was a sudden lull; the tide was 
 on the turn. He gazed at the screen and pictures 
 passed across it as though his brain were full of 
 lantern-slides. He saw a thatched cottage, dressed 
 
THE ATTACK 195 
 
 with flints, and a red brick wall covered with ivy- 
 leafed toad-flax; he heard the tinkle of sheep-bells 
 upon a green down, and in his nostrils was the scent 
 of wild thyme. Then the picture faded away before 
 the pattern of a gigantic weeping willow outlined in 
 black crayon upon the moonlit screen, and his face 
 grew troubled. The eyes in the motionless head 
 followed the movements of the nurse by his bed and 
 she saw a question in them. 
 
 "What is it, sonny?" she said, as she stooped over 
 him, smoothing his pillow and looking down at the 
 leaden glaze upon his face. His thumb and fore- 
 finger were plucking softly at the coverlet. 
 
 She seemed very far away. "Cassn't thee tell I, 
 lady, whether we've a took thuck trench?" 
 
 She did not know. But she knew that John 
 Knighton, who had kept the faith that was in him, 
 had finished his course. His race was run. 
 /' Yes," she said. 
 
 The troubled look died out of his eyes. He sighed 
 with deep content and, sighing, fell asleep; and, 
 sleeping, went out with the tide. 
 
I 
 
 XIII 
 
 FIELD PUNISHMENT 
 
 SEE the brutal and licentious soldiery are get- 
 ting it in the neck again," said my friend, Colonel 
 
 K . 
 
 He had dropped his newspaper, and was staring 
 reflectively at the horns of an ibex. The ibex with 
 other trophies of migratory members adorned the 
 walls of a well-known service club in which we were 
 sitting after dinner. I knew that expression of his. 
 K. has been in the army twenty years, and the 
 sudden change in the public temper at the beginning 
 of the war from habitual depreciation of the service 
 to one of impassioned flattery had left him surprised, 
 but incredulous. Wherefore, when the sacramental 
 words about "the military caste" made one of their 
 inevitable appearances in a newspaper leader, the 
 Colonel always went one better and penitentially 
 referred to himself and all officers as brutal and 
 licentious. 
 
 "Well, what have we been doing now, sir?" I 
 replied. 
 
 "Field Punishment," said K. laconically. "Some 
 fellow in the newspaper says it's the mark of 
 the beast. 'Militarism,' you know, and all that. 
 It reminds me," and he measured the length of the 
 
 196 
 
FIELD PUNISHMENT 197 
 
 ibex's horns with his eye. "That soldier was a holy 
 terror," he added inconsequently. 
 
 "Go on, sir," I said, encouragingly. I knew he 
 had a story at the back of his mind. 
 
 "So I will in a moment. But, talking about 
 F.P. and particularly F.P. No. i. I see they 
 say it's degrading. Perhaps it is. But is there 
 anything half as degrading as being cashiered eh! 
 what?" 
 
 "I have yet to hear of it," I replied. 
 
 "Well, what's the penalty for an officer being 
 drunk on active service? Cashiering, or dismissal 
 which amounts to much the same thing. And then 
 FINIS. He's a marked man ever afterward black- 
 balled in clubs, ostracized in society, an object for 
 the contempt of some and the pity of others. And 
 what's your private get? Eighty-four days F.P. 
 and forfeiture of pay rarely more, usually less. 
 And who's the wiser? His field conduct-sheet isn't 
 public property. He's got to square the account 
 with his wife, of course when she writes and asks 
 why her allotment has been stopped which he does 
 by telling her some cock-and-bull story of having 
 lost his haversack and being 'crimed' by a brutal 
 court-martial. And then the local M.P. is got at 
 and puts a question in Parliament: 'Whether the 
 right honourable gentleman's attention has been 
 drawn to the vindictive and degrading punishment 
 inflicted on Private John Jones by Field-General Court 
 Martial, and whether he will take steps to put a 
 stop to the brutal and barbarous practice,' etc., 
 
198 GENTLEMEN AT ARMS 
 
 etc. Faugh! Fetch me an ounce of civet I mean 
 a liqueur brandy. Waiter! Damn that boy! 
 
 "And then as to being drunk. If a private's 
 drunk he's drunk. But if an officer's taken quinine 
 and gets dizzy, if he's had shell-shock and gets ex- 
 citable, if he's taken morphia and gets dazed, if 
 there's a lack of muscular coordination well, the 
 Lord help that officer if he's taken a single glass of 
 whisky that day, for the A.P.M. won't! In the 
 army there's only one rule for the officer he's 
 either sober as a judge or drunk as a lord. A court- 
 martial recognizes no intermediate shades of dis- 
 tinction. None of your police-surgeon's tests about 
 the 'British Constitution,' no trials of tendon re- 
 flexes, and all the rest of it. 'Sentence promulgated, 
 accused to be handed over to A.P.M. at Boulogne, 
 notice to Messrs. Cox and Co.' And then as I 
 say FINIS. Very necessary, of course. Many a 
 poor lad's gone that way, and for a first offence, 
 too." 
 
 "Yes," I remarked, "dismissal from the service 
 is death to an officer, but discharge with ignominy 
 seems to be meat and drink to a certain type of pri- 
 vate or it was before the Military Service Act and 
 the cancellation of discharges. But that doesn't 
 stop some of 'em trying to get to Parkhurst all the 
 same. I remember a Tommy saying to me the other 
 day: There are fellows who say "distance is better 
 than cover" and commit these crimes so that they 
 will be sent to prison.' Cold feet, evidently." 
 
 "Well, of course. Why, if you'd been in the army 
 
FIELD PUNISHMENT 199 
 
 as long as I have, my friend, you'd know that 
 getting 'crimed' and jugged was one of the favourite 
 dodges of a man with cold feet. Do you know the 
 reason for the rule that an accused is not to wear 
 his cap when in court?" 
 
 "Ceremony, I suppose." 
 
 "Ceremony be damned. It was to prevent his 
 throwing it at the president. That used to be a 
 favourite dodge with cold-footed wasters who were 
 afraid the court-martial would acquit 'em. Yes, 
 I mean it. Look here, my friend, lawyers may talk 
 shop till they're blue in the face about Jeremy 
 what's-his-name and theories of punishment the 
 reformative, the retributive, the deterrent, and all 
 the rest of it, but there's only one theory in the 
 army, and it's the preventive. You've not only 
 got to prevent crime, but you've got to prevent 
 crime committed as a means of punishment. You've 
 got to punish the criminal in the way he least expects 
 or most dislikes see? Now, field punishment is 
 punishment in the field. D'you follow me? Con- 
 sequently, the fellow who commits a crime in order 
 to get jugged should not be jugged he should get 
 P.P. And as you can't give C.B. in the trenches 
 you must give P.P." 
 
 "Yes," I said, "but why P.P. No. I? Why not 
 P.P. No. 2? Why tie him up? Why not put him 
 on extra fatigues ? " 
 
 "Why, because every man's doing extra fatigues 
 in the trenches as it is; it's the daily round, the com- 
 mon task, latrines included. And you can't put 
 
200 GENTLEMEN AT ARMS 
 
 him in a guard detention-room. There's no guard- 
 room in the trenches even if you could spare men to 
 look after him. Besides, the chances are with a 
 real bad hat that he wants to hit the sergeant in the 
 eye just to get jugged. Oh! yes, I know the penalty 
 for that. Death! But it isn't often inflicted and 
 the men know it there'd be a holy row in Parlia- 
 ment if it was!" 
 
 "Well, but what about the new Suspension of Sen- 
 tences Act ? " I interjected. " A confirming authority 
 can suspend the sentence the moment he confirms 
 it and keep the man in the trenches. Doesn't that 
 dispense with the necessity of F.P?" 
 
 "Not a bit of it. Quite the contrary. Supposing 
 you've suspended the sentence, and the fellow is 
 one of the kind who doesn't want to retrieve his 
 character; in fact, an old offender or a cold-footed 
 rotter who doesn't care a damn for your clemency, 
 and he goes and commits another offence, where are 
 you ? You've got to send him to gaol after all unless 
 that's where F.P. come in." 
 
 "Your counsel is as the counsel of Ahithophel," I 
 said. 
 
 "Not mine. It's the A.G/s bless his holy name. 
 He thought it all out. You see, you've got to stop 
 up every earth. As to F.P. No. I. they call it 
 'crucifixion/ It's sometimes a thief on the cross, I 
 admit some fellows think nothing of pinching a 
 pal's belongings but there isn't any cross. I've 
 never seen one. I've known a fellow pegged out 
 once and that was because he tried to kick the 
 
FIELD PUNISHMENT 201 
 
 provost-sergeant in his vitals. But the only F.P. 
 I ever inflicted when I was a O.C. was tying up 
 by one arm. Why, damn it! A fellow must wipe 
 his nose, you know. 
 
 "Of course, there are limits to F.P. If a fellow's 
 made up his mind to get jugged to avoid service, 
 jugged he'll get, sooner or later, and if his conduct 
 in prison is ingeniously and scientifically bad, then 
 you can't send him back to the trenches under sus- 
 pension. So he gets out of the army or rather 
 out of the trenches and to a certain kind of man 
 and his class Wormwood Scrubs or Parkhurst is no 
 disgrace. Mind you, I'm not saying they are 
 typical. Most of the men in the army are first- 
 rate fellows, but you've now got conscription, and 
 that means you've got the worst as well as the best. 
 But there's no such way open to an officer if he should 
 get cold feet, for the simple reason that prison to 
 him is a stumbling block and cashiering foolishness. 
 In other words, the only way of leaving the army, 
 open to an officer, is closed to him to put it para- 
 adoxically. He can't resign his commission." 
 
 "No," I said. "I remember when I asked you, 
 just after I was gazetted, how an officer could resign 
 his commission on active service, you said 'the only 
 way you can be sure of doing it is to go into the 
 orderly-room and hit the adjutant one in the eye." 
 
 "Yes," said the Colonel, "it's never been known 
 to fail. But it isn't often used." 
 
 "You were going to tell me a story," I said after a 
 pause. "About a holy terror." 
 
202 GENTLEMEN AT ARMS 
 
 "Was I? Oh, yes! Well, there was a fellow in 
 a certain regiment who was absolutely the limit. 
 A general practitioner in army 'crime,' in fact. He 
 wasn't so much vicious as intractable. His ten- 
 ancy of the guard-room was so frequent, continuous, 
 and exclusive that I sometimes wonder he didn't 
 get put on the register as a voter in virtue of an 
 occupation franchise. That fellow's regimental con- 
 duct-sheet was quite unique. He'd have given the 
 recording angel writer's cramp. You know how 
 zealously conduct-sheets are kept in the army, and 
 that fellow's record extended over twelve years. 
 'Absent from tattoo parade when on inlying picket 
 6 days, C.B.'; 'Absent from defaulter's roll-call 
 at 2 P.M. 1 68 hours.'; 'Absent until apprehended by 
 the police at 6.30 P.M. 2 months' I.H.L.'; 'Dis- 
 obedience of Battalion Orders, fastening his kit 
 with coat-straps 8 days' C.B.'; 'Drunkenness- 
 fined 2s. 6d.'; Tutting his head through a pane of 
 glass in the guard-room stoppages of pay'; 'Dirty 
 on parade'; 'Quitting fatigue without permission'; 
 'Irregular conduct on Church parade'; 'Improper 
 language to a N.C.O.'; 'Pulling the leg of the regi- 
 mental goat'; 'Singing "Onward Christian soldiers" 
 at punishment drill,' and so on. 
 
 "Well, when the present show started, he went out 
 with the rest of his battalion and the leopard didn't 
 change his spots. Very good fellow in a scrap all 
 the same. And I must say the O.C.'s bull-pup had 
 a high opinion of him and I've never known that 
 dog make a mistake. He had nursed the pup 
 
FIELD PUNISHMENT 203 
 
 through a distemper. One day in the trenches he 
 was brought before the O.C. in his dug-out and 
 charged with giving the sergeant lip. 'Do you elect 
 to be tried summarily?' said the O.C. 'Yes, please, 
 sir,' he said. 
 
 "As you know every man who is tried for an 
 offence involving forfeiture of pay (and P.P. always 
 means that) can elect to have a court-martial. But 
 he was a downy bird knew the Red Book from 
 end to end, though he'd never read a word of it and 
 he knew that an O.C. can only give 28 days' F.P. 
 at the most, while a C.M. can award as much as 90 
 days. 'Very well,' said the O.C., after the hearing 
 was over, '14 days' F.P. No. I.' So the sergeant 
 took him back to a dump and lashed him to a wagon 
 by one arm, making it extra tight with a double 
 knot, for he knew his man. That was for a two- 
 hour shift, which, as you know, is the maximum dose 
 per diem. 
 
 "Well, a few minutes later a Taube came recon- 
 noitring over our lines. It soon spotted the dump 
 and signalled to the enemy batteries. And then 
 the Hun began pitching heavy stuff over 8-inch. 
 First short, then wide, but always getting nearer the 
 spot until that dump was as black as a Man-of-War 
 coaling her bunkers. The O.C. and two or three 
 company officers were watching the display from 
 the trenches near the O.C.'s dug-out in the support- 
 trenches, and the company officers were exchanging 
 odds on the chances of the Hun's getting a direct 
 hit. 
 
204 GENTLEMEN AT ARMS 
 
 "Til bet you two to one the next's a dud,' said one 
 of them who was bored stiff. 
 
 "'Done!' said the other. 
 
 "Of course, everyone had forgotten all about the 
 holy terror the O.C. had many other things to 
 think about. And suddenly the O.C. said, 'Good 
 God!' and scrambled over the parados and made 
 a bee-line for the dump. His officers no doubt 
 thought he'd gone off his chump. And the O.C.'s 
 bull-pup, who was getting fed up with the trenches, 
 went tearing after him. Well, he made tracks 
 over the open ground unhealthy place, and the 
 surface like a Gruyere cheese and after doing the 
 mile in record time he got to the wagon. There 
 was the fellow, still tied, covered with black earth, 
 the veins on his temples standing out like whipcord, 
 and yelling Til be hit Gawd's trewth, I'll be hit.' 
 He was not a coward by a long way, but by that 
 time his nerve had gone. The bull-pup, who had 
 no nerves, began leaping up trying to kiss his dirty 
 face. 
 
 "The Colonel whipped out his knife, and in a trice 
 cut him loose. He had to be pretty quick. 'Now 
 follow me, my man,' he says, and they made a sprint 
 for the communication trench. It was rather quaint, 
 as the dog kept running from one to the other, 
 thinking it all a huge lark and being frightfully 
 pleased because, for the first time in his life, he 
 was being taken out for a walk at one and the 
 same time by the only two men he cared a cuss 
 for. He'd always been trying to bring them together, 
 
FIELD PUNISHMENT; 205 
 
 not being very well up in military etiquette. 
 When they'd got a few hundred yards they got 
 a bad dose of shrapnel. And as luck would have 
 it the holy terror got hit in the leg, which 
 flopped as though he'd got locomotor ataxia 
 tendons smashed. 
 
 "Tm done, sir/ he said and collapsed. So the 
 O.C. picked him up and 
 
 "What a splendid thing to do," I said impulsively. 
 
 My friend snorted. "Not a bit of it," he said. 
 "The O.C. had had him tied up what else could 
 he do but go and untie him? You don't suppose 
 he was going to leave him there. He'd never have 
 been able to look his dog in the face again. Oh, no! 
 Damn it! Can't leave a fellow like an Aunt Sally 
 for Huns to shy at. 
 
 "Well, now, would you believe it, that fellow 
 turned over a new leaf from that very day When he 
 was evacuated and returned fit for duty he was a 
 new man. Talk about the penitent form at a 
 revival meeting! He's a company sergeant-major 
 now. And he'd have licked that O.C's boots if 
 the O.C. had let him; he had to content himself 
 with blacking them as his batman till he got his 
 stripes." 
 
 There was a pause. The Colonel studied the 
 ibex; I studied the Colonel. 
 
 "I say, sir, what was the name of that O.C. ?" 
 I asked. 
 
 "Fine pair of horns that," said the Colonel. "I 
 
206 GENTLEMEN AT ARMS 
 
 remember when I was shooting buck in South 
 Africa- 
 
 " Excuse me, sir, but what was the name of the 
 O.C.?" I persisted. 
 
 The Colonel seemed annoyed ; he coloured slightly. 
 "I I forget," he said. / 
 
XIV 
 
 THE LOST PLATOON 
 I 
 
 IT WAS a warm August night, but there was a 
 fire 'in the guard-room. It's a way we have. 
 The hands of the clock pointed to twenty-five 
 minutes to ten. Six men in khaki uniform lay on as 
 many beds, most of them on their backs with their 
 hands clasped under their heads, and gazing con- 
 templatively at the whitewashed walls. The cor- 
 poral of the guard was sitting up reading an evening 
 paper by the light of his own tallow "dip," stuck in 
 an empty bottle, from which depended a stalactite 
 of grease. He read most of the time in silence, but 
 occasionally he whispered a long word, dwelling on 
 each syllable as though to give it due weight, and 
 glancing inquisitively at the sergeant. The ser- 
 geant was sitting stolidly at a deal table making 
 entries in a buff document. He tickled the bottom 
 of the ink-bottle with his pen as though seeking in- 
 spiration therein. Then he inclined his head to one 
 side, protruded his tongue athletically, squared his 
 elbows, and proceeded to write. 
 
 "U-1-t-i-m-a-t-um! I say, sergeant, what is a hul- 
 timatum?" 
 
 "Wait till I've finished this blooming' guard re- 
 
 207 
 
208 GENTLEMEN AT ARMS 
 
 port," said the sergeant, adding to himself: "De- 
 faulters one." 
 
 There was silence for a time, broken only by the 
 scratching of the sergeant's pen, and the purring of 
 the kettle on the range. 
 
 "Bank-rate ten per cent," read the corporal 
 confusedly. "What the 'ell does that mean? What 
 did you say a hultimatum was, sergeant?" 
 
 "I didn't say it was anything," retorted the ser- 
 geant, cautiously. "Here, lemme see the paper." 
 He studied it for a moment. "It means," he said 
 resolutely, "get out or get under." 
 
 "Well, why can't they say so?" said the corporal 
 grievously. "I passed the fifth standard, but these 
 jaw-breaking words give me the hump." 
 
 He glanced at the sergeant, and seeing he was 
 resting from his literary labours he felt encouraged 
 to proceed: "When the orderly officer came round 
 to-day he sez to Private Whipple what was on 
 sentry, he sez, 'Give up your orders!' and Private 
 Whipple repeats his orders like as if he was saying 
 the Lord's Prayer, and when Vd got to 'No men- 
 dicants or persons so-soliciting ahms to be 'llowed 
 within the barrack-gate,' the orderly officer sez, he 
 sez, sudden-like, 'What's s-soliciting ahms mean?' 
 and Private Whipple sez, 'Trying to pinch rifles, sir/ 
 and the orderly officer smiles sarkastic-like and told 
 me to see as Private Whipple understood his orders. 
 What do soliciting ahms mean, sargeant?" 
 
 "If you gives a copper to a bloke in the street 
 . . ." explained the sergeant. 
 
THE LOST PLATOON 209 
 
 "Not me," said the corporal apprehensively. "I 
 ain't such a mug. One and eightpence a day is all I 
 gets, and there ain't much change out of that." 
 
 "If you gives a copper to a bloke in the street," 
 persisted the sergeant, "and he asks you for it, 
 he's soliciting alms off you." 
 
 The corporal gazed at the sergeant with respectful 
 admiration. "You must 'a studied hard in your 
 time, sergeant." 
 
 "A tidy bit," said the sergeant loftily. "That's 
 the way to get on, young feller." 
 
 "'It is is expected that the German Ambas- 
 sador will be 'anded his passports,'" read out the 
 corporal slowly. "Now what might that mean, 
 sergeant?" 
 
 "It means," said the sergeant, as he blotted the 
 guard report, "as he'll go on furlough. And maybe 
 he'll get his 'ticket.'" 
 
 "D'you think as there'll be war, sergeant?" 
 
 " Guard, turn out ! " It was the voice of the sentry 
 outside. The six men sprang from their beds, stretched 
 their arms, pulled their tunics straight, and made 
 for the rifle-rack. Each man took down a rifle 
 with bayonet fixed, and filed out of the guard-room. 
 The sergeant took down a rifle without a bayonet, 
 and followed them. As he reached the doorway 
 he shouted: "Sound ten o'clock." The Guard 
 fell in. On the tenth stroke of the gong the notes 
 of the "Last Post" rang out over the barrack square. 
 
 A well-built man with the Royal Arms on his 
 sleeve walked up smartly. It was the regimental 
 
2io GENTLEMEN AT ARMS 
 
 sergeant-major. He had a well-arched chest, the 
 clean, sloping shoulders of an athlete; his deltoid 
 muscles rippled through his tunic, and he moved on 
 his feet with a quick, resilient tread. In every move- 
 ment there was a suggestion of suppressed power; he 
 was like a coiled steel spring. As he saw the com- 
 pany orderly sergeants, he shouted: "Staff Parade! 
 'Shun!'' 
 
 "A Company!" called the sergeant-major. 
 
 "Present, sir." 
 
 "B Company!" 
 
 "Four absent, sir." 
 
 And he rang the changes on the companies, the 
 band, the drums, the signallers, till he reached 
 "canteen." 
 
 "Closed and correct, sir." 
 
 Which being done, the sergeant-major turned to 
 the orderly officer. The latter stood by him in mess 
 kit, with sword and cap, the light of the lamp over 
 the guard-room door gleaming on his glazed shirt- 
 front. 
 
 "Staff parade present, sir," said the sergeant-major 
 with a salute. 
 
 "Staff parade! Dismiss!" said the orderly officer, 
 and he turned away. 
 
 At that moment an officer in mess kit, but without 
 a cap, walked into the light. It was the Adjutant. 
 He carried a telegram in his hand, and his face was 
 grave. 
 
 "Addison! Sergeant-major!" Officer ' and ser- 
 geant-major turned and saluted. 
 
THE LOST PLATOON 211 
 
 "Yes, sir," said Addison. 
 
 "Look at that, my son," said the Adjutant, and 
 he handed him the telegram. It contained a single 
 word. 
 
 Addison gave a low whistle. "So it's come at 
 last?" 
 
 "Yes," said the Adjutant slowly ,[" it's come at last. 
 The regiment's got to mobilize. This means war." 
 He turned to the warrant officer. "Sergeant-major, 
 have the officers' call sounded. And the orderly-ser- 
 geants' call. And I want a cycle orderly to go down 
 to the Colonel, quick!" 
 
 "Yes, sir. I suppose the reservists'll be coming in 
 in a couple of days?" 
 
 "Yes! "The Adjutant was thinking rapidly. "The 
 colours must go to the depot. The regimental 
 mess plate will be taken to the bank but the mess- 
 president will see to that; the plate of the sergeants' 
 mess had better go with it. Sergeant-major! Have 
 the gymnasium and the church open to put the kits 
 in. Get the church orderly warned at once. See 
 that the officers' call and orderly-sergeants' are 
 sounded." 
 
 The sergeant-major saluted and disappeared. 
 
 The notes of the two calls floated over the bar- 
 rack square. 
 
 "The ord-'ly-sergeants are want-ed now ord-'ly 
 sergeants to run!" hummed the orderly officer me- 
 chanically. He was trying to think. 
 
 "Well, Addison," said the Adjutant reflectively. 
 Neither spoke for a moment. Each man was think- 
 
2i2 GENTLEMEN AT ARMS 
 
 ing of a woman and wondering how she would 
 take it. 
 
 "Well," said the subaltern, "no shooting this 
 
 autumn." 
 
 "No! nor cubbing, either. I'm going to sell my 
 hunters for what they'll fetch." 
 
 "I wouldn't do that. This show will be over by 
 Christmas." 
 
 "Will it, my boy? I wonder! If I know anything 
 of the gentle German his lamp is trimmed. Tisn't 
 sense to think he's asking for a licking. Oh, no!" 
 
 "Well, the regiment couldn't be in better form. 
 The men are topping. Don't tell me the Germans 
 could beat our men at the butts. Why! the returns 
 for recruits' firing Part III were up to ninety point 
 three last week. I'd put my last shirt on 'em." 
 
 "I know. I know. But what kind of 'predicted 
 area' are we going to bump into out there? Mind 
 you, Addison, I'm not grousing. Our army's not 
 large, but by God it's good. And soldiering's a 
 very different thing from what it was. We've 
 sweated the last ounce out of ourselves over training. 
 These staff rides! why, I know every bit of cover 
 round here from a dandelion to a copse. We've 
 mugged up strategy and tactics as if we'd been back 
 at an army crammer's. And the men! Topping, 
 I agree. Their conduct-sheets show that. As for 
 the sergeant-major he's never once let me down all 
 the time I've been adjutant." 
 
 "Yes. He's a jolly good sort. He's taught me a 
 lot. D'you remember the fight he put up when he 
 
THE LOST PLATOON 213 
 
 was runner up for the Army championship? My! 
 That left of his was . . ." 
 
 "Orderly-sergeants all present, sir." The sergeant- 
 major had returned. 
 
 "Thank you, sergeant-major. Right! I say, 
 sergeant-major." 
 
 "Yes, sir." 
 
 "You know what we're in for?" 
 
 "Y-yes, sir. Germans, isn't it?" 
 
 "Is is the battalion all right, d'you think?" 
 
 "Yes, sir, I think they're all right. Thanks to 
 you, sir." 
 
 "Well, you've had a hand in it, sergeant-major. 
 I suppose we've all done our best. All right, good- 
 night. Serg Wait a minute, though. There'll 
 
 be the men's pay-books to be issued. The quarter- 
 master-sergeant will see to that, of course. There's 
 a form for making a will on active service on the 
 last page. But the company commanders will 
 explain all that to the men. Yes, good-night, ser- 
 geant-major." 
 
 "A good chap that, Addison!" said the Adjutant 
 as they moved toward the orderly room, "a very 
 good chap!" 
 
 They disembarked at Boulogne and within a few 
 days found themselves at Mons. There on that 
 fateful Sunday they held the salient of the canal 
 against overwhelming odds and, holding it, decided 
 the fate of the world. But of what mighty issues 
 hung upon their resolution most of them knew little 
 
214 GENTLEMEN AT ARMS 
 
 and boasted not at all, and those who survived will 
 to this day tell you nothing except that it was very 
 "warm." They were badly cut up; Addison dis- 
 appeared, and when the roll was called at the end 
 of the first day of the retreat not a man of his platoon 
 was there to answer it. Months afterward the Ad- 
 jutant (by this time a Colonel) picked up their trail 
 by a painful induction from the lists of "Prisoners 
 died of wounds," which filtered through from time 
 to time, and adding them up he could account for 
 twenty men. It struck him as something curious 
 that nearly half a platoon should die of wounds at 
 such long intervals after their capture but he left 
 it at that. Of Addison and his fate he could discover 
 nothing at all. And then one day, some twenty- 
 one months after the event, he learnt that the regi- 
 mental sergeant-major had been repatriated as a 
 disabled prisoner of war. He took advantage of a 
 few days' leave to get in touch with "Records," 
 and at last he found himself on a hot scent. It 
 ended at a big stone building on a lonely down in a 
 southern county. 
 
 II 
 
 The medical superintendent glanced at the card. 
 "Show him in," he said. 
 
 An officer entered. It was the Colonel. He took 
 in the room at a glance he noted a row of books 
 with the names of Hughlings, Jackson, Ferrier, and 
 Clouston on their backs and saw on the table the 
 corrected proof-sheets of a typescript with the super- 
 
;THE LOST PLATOON 215 
 
 scription, "The Localization of Cerebral Disease." 
 Then he glanced again at the medical superintendent 
 and suddenly encountered a pair of eyes which seemed 
 to be looking right through him. It was not the 
 colour of the irises that arrested him but their visual 
 intensity they seemed to see things invisible to the 
 ordinary eye of sense. You will often see that look 
 in the eyes of an alienist. It is a lonely look. The 
 next moment the doctor's eyes had changed their 
 expression. They were masked by a homely look of 
 bland and sociable enquiry, and this so suddenly that 
 the Colonel wondered whether he had been dreaming. 
 
 "I have come to enquire after a man of my regi- 
 ment, a sergeant-major. George Smith. Wounded 
 and captured at Mons, I believe. I heard he'd 
 lately been repatriated from Germany. Records 
 inform me that he was sent to D. Block at Netley 
 and then here. I should like to have a talk with 
 him, please." 
 
 "I see," said the medical superintendent, pen- 
 sively. "I see. Won't you sit down?" He seemed 
 to hesitate. 
 
 "Perhaps it's not your regular visiting day," said 
 the Colonel. "I'm sorry, but I'm on short leave." 
 
 "No," said the medical superintendent. "No, 
 it's not that. But he wouldn't know you and 
 perhaps you wouldn't know him." 
 
 The Colonel smiled incredulously. "Not know 
 me! I was adjutant to the battalion and he was 
 regimental sergeant-major. Surely his case is not 
 so bad as that? Look at these cases of shell shock. 
 
216 GENTLEMEN AT ARMS 
 
 There's nothing you doctors cannot do in the healing 
 line. Why! I knew a man " 
 
 "You do us too much honour," said the doctor, 
 deprecatingly. "Shell shock is primarily a physical 
 shock. The disorders it produces are functional, 
 not organic unless of course there's a predisposition 
 to insanity. A brain lesion's another matter, you 
 know. I've given much thought to his case much 
 thought." He looked out at the garden, brilliant 
 with the early flowers of spring, and gaudy with the 
 meretricious hues of Dutch tulips. "Those daf- 
 fodils reminded me of it just now. Ever heard of 
 chromesthesia? No? Ah, well, I won't weary you 
 with psychiatry. It's not a thing to take up as a 
 hobby. Let us look up the case." 
 
 He crossed the room and taking down a large 
 leather-bound folio turned the leaves rapidly. At 
 the head of each page were the words "Medical 
 History Sheet!" followed by a man's name and a 
 number of entries in chronological order. In the 
 middle of each page was pasted a photograph. 
 
 "Smith Alfred, Arthur, Charles," muttered the 
 doctor, "George! Yes, here it is. Sent here from 
 Netley. 'Discharged from the army under 392 
 (XVI) of King's Regulations. Permanently unfit. 
 Delusional insanity/ They sent us a copy of his 
 military history sheet. Long-service and Good 
 Conduct Medal, I see. Yes, yes, 'quite so. A clean- 
 living man, I should say. No traces of syphilitic 
 trouble. His pupils respond to light. His weight's 
 improved, I see. He was ten stone when he came 
 
THE LOST PLATOON 217 
 
 here and anaemic. Starvation, of course. He's up to 
 thirteen now he'll recover his normal weight in 
 time. That's his photograph. We always photo- 
 graph them on admission." 
 
 The Colonel looked at the photograph. He looked 
 at it for a long time in silence. 
 
 "Well," said the doctor. "Do you still wish to 
 see him? Very well," and he pressed an electric 
 button. 
 
 "Bring No. 1101 here," he said to the attendant. 
 "I suppose he's dressed. If not, tell them to dress 
 him." 
 
 The Colonel was looking at the view commanded 
 by the doctor's window a training camp under 
 canvas, and, behind the bell-tents, mile upon mile of 
 rippling down crowned with spinneys of beech. 
 The long shadows thrown upon their green slopes 
 by the fleecy clouds travelling across the sky chased 
 one another till it seemed as if the downs themselves 
 were in ecstatic motion. And he felt it was rather 
 good to be alive. 
 
 "I think I know what the Psalmist meant when he 
 said 'the mountains skip like rams/" he mused. 
 "He must have been thinking of the South Down 
 country on a sunny day in 
 
 The Colonel turned at the sound of shuffling feet. 
 He saw at the door a patient in loose gray clothes. 
 He stared a long time. What it was that he saw I 
 never have been quite able to understand, for when 
 he told me the story weeks afterward he could remem- 
 ber nothing clearly about the man's appearance 
 
2i 8 GENTLEMEN AT ARMS 
 
 except that the hands moved continually and fum- 
 bled with the clothes. 
 
 The Colonel advanced a step to speak. As he 
 did so, the patient recoiled and raised his arm in 
 front of his face as though to ward off a blow. 
 
 "Well, sergeant-major/' said the Colonel ten- 
 tatively. "You remember me? Come, come." He 
 felt as if he were coaxing a child. "You remember 
 your old adjutant." 
 
 At the sound of his voice George Smith drew his 
 heels together and saluted vaguely. He turned his 
 head in the direction of the voice and listened in- 
 tently. He seemed to be trying to locate the 
 Colonel's voice. 
 
 "Is he blind?" 
 
 "Not exactly. There's no sensory blindness. He 
 sees you but doesn't recognize you, and your uniform 
 conveys nothing to him. It's what we alienists call 
 psychic blindness. D'you follow me?" 
 
 "Not quite. If he doesn't know my face how 
 does he come to recognize my voice ? " 
 
 "The visual memory's gone, but the auditory 
 memory, though impaired, remains. How? Well, 
 I suspect some lesion to the nerve tracts connecting 
 the optic centres with the centres for other ideas. 
 To be plain with you, I think he's had a blow on the 
 head he may have been treated to the butt-end of a 
 rifle from one of his guards. It's a way they have, 
 you know. The sound of your voice I mean, the 
 crude acoustic effect has awakened something, of 
 course, revived some auditory impression stored up 
 
THE LOST PLATOON 219 
 
 in the cells of the brain. Yes, yes. His brain is like 
 a dark room in which his mind is trying to develop 
 a negative. The negative is the image conveyed by 
 the sound of your voice. But who can see into a 
 man's brain? I've been trying to do it all my life. 
 All I know is that the mental photograph that's being 
 developed at this moment in George Smith's brain 
 will probably be hopelessly blurred." 
 
 "D'you remember the Delhi manoeuvres, sergeant- 
 major?" said the Colonel suddenly as he leaned for- 
 ward on his chair. "When we were up at Paniput? 
 No! he doesn't poor chap! Remember when the 
 huts at Blacktown caught fire and the tug-of-war 
 teams put the rope round the huts on each side of the 
 mess and pulled them down and saved the mess plate ? 
 Surely you remember that ? It was your notion 
 that. And how we got the mess-sergeant to call you 
 in after dinner that night and all drank your health? 
 No! D'you remember Mons? The slag-heaps! No!" 
 
 The Colonel reflected for a moment. Then he 
 drew his whistle and sounded it, watching the man's 
 face. The patient's lips moved. He trembled 
 violently. Then he began to speak. 
 
 "Hold your fire! Wait till I give the word. 
 Three hundred! Steady! Let them come on. At 
 the enemy in front five rounds rapid FIRE! Oh! 
 Very good. Christ! the place's alive with 'em. 
 Where's our flank? They're on our right now 
 they're enfilading us. Where are our supports? 
 Never mind! Give 'em hell, boys. Where's Mr. 
 Addison? Sir?" 
 
220 GENTLEMEN AT ARMS 
 
 The Colonel leaned forward eagerly and was about 
 to speak. The doctor held up his hand. "Don't in- 
 terrupt him," he whispered, "it won't help matters." 
 
 "Where are our supports? Where's the runner? 
 No! No! mustn't retire. Where's Mr. Addison? 
 How many? About thirty? Thirty, did you say? 
 Out of fifty-five! See that chimney-stack! Three 
 hundred! Yes, three hundred. Recruit are you, 
 my lad? Only just off the square. Never mind! 
 Remember old six o'clock. Get tip of foresight into 
 line with the shoulder of the U of the backsight and 
 aim at bottom of the stack! That's it. I don't 
 know. Well! We've got our iron rations. After 
 that it'll be a case of 'March Past.' How many of 
 us did you say? About twenty-one! Twenty-one 
 out of fifty-five. They've outflanked us! It's a 
 wash-out. We've no ammunition left. We've the 
 wounded to think of. But I never thought it 'ud 
 come to this. Where's Mr. Addison?" 
 
 "Fifty-five!" said the Colonel quietly to himself. 
 "Yes, it would be about fifty-five. We were up to 
 full strength." The voice had stopped. The Colo- 
 nel, glancing at the doctor, saw that his eyes were 
 narrowly watching the sergeant-major. The ser- 
 geant-major was gazing fixedly at the desk in front 
 of him behind which the doctor sat. The doctor 
 leaned forward and very quietly, very unobtrusively, 
 placed his hand over something lying on the front 
 of the desk, grasped it, closed it with a click, and 
 put it in his pocket. It was a penknife. 
 
 The stealthy look died out of the sergeant-major's 
 
THE LOST PLATOON 221 
 
 eyes and the next moment he had resumed his 
 monologue: 
 
 "Don't club him like that! He's hit in the leg; 
 he can't. He can't, I tell you. Christ! Call 
 yourself a soldier. Where's your officer? 'Pris- 
 oners!' I know we are. But we're men same as 
 you. How would you like . . . Oh Christ! 
 leave me alone. You dog, leave me alone . . . 
 I can't carry it any more, you've broke my arm. 
 It's your pack! No! I ain't got anything to give 
 you, my lad. They've been through my pockets, 
 too. Rations! They've taken mine, too. No! I 
 ain't had anything for forty-eight hours. How does 
 it go 'Come to the cook-house door, boys, come to 
 the cook-house door." 
 
 "It's the men's way of putting the cook-house 
 call," whispered the Colonel to the doctor. 
 
 "No! it's mouldy. How many? Fifteen did 
 you say out of fifty-five? Yes! They've clubbed 
 five of us because they couldn't keep up. A horse 
 tent. Yes, they've bedded us down with straw. 
 Look at the straw it's moving. It's alive. Christ! 
 Don't they itch? Something cruel. They say it's 
 good enough for English swine. How many did 
 you say? Fourteen! Fourteen out of fifty-five! 
 Yes, he died of hunger, poor chap. How's it go? 
 'Come to the cook No! I can't remember 
 any more. There ain't any cook-house here, my lad. 
 No! don't give in. Spat in your face, did they? 
 Tell 'em to go to hell! Your shirt itches, do it? 
 Throw it away then. Took yer kit away, did they? 
 
222 GENTLEMEN AT ARMS 
 
 Christ! ain't we deficient in articles! The O.C.'ll 
 take an inventory when we get home same as he 
 did with deserters an'll order us to be put under stop- 
 pages to make good. The Adjutant won't like it 
 
 The Colonel was gripping the arms of his chair. 
 He muttered something under his breath. The 
 doctor toyed with a pen, his eyes fixed on the patient. 
 The latter now clenched his fists convulsively. The 
 attendants moved a pace closer. 
 
 "No towel! Use your shirt, my lad, mustn't be 
 dirty on parade. Soup like sewage, ain't it! 'Straf- 
 baracke? What's it mean? Means 'in clink,' my 
 lad. Yes! fifty pfennigs a day for fatigues. Ain't 
 this baulk of timber heavy? Offering you bread, are 
 they? No! Don't take any notice; they'll only 
 snatch it away again to get a rise out of you. Blast 
 them, they ain't human. Tighten yer belt, instead, 
 
 my lad. How does it go? 'Come to the ' No! 
 
 I can't remember it: I'm that hungry. How many 
 did you say? Eight. Eight out of fifty-five. It's 
 the typhus done it. Where's the platoon? Not 
 even a section! Never say die, boys. . . . 
 How many did you say? Three of us poor sinners 
 left. One on us left not enough to mount guard 
 now. . . . They're going to tie him up to the 
 post, he was a sergeant-major, he was. 
 
 "Tie him up to the post! Yes! All night, and 
 it's snowing. Jesus! The wind's something cruel. 
 What for ? For giving back answers ! Why did they 
 call him an 'English swine' then! Yes! a double 
 knot. Round the ankles, then round the knees, 
 
THE LOST PLATOON 223 
 
 then round the shoulders, then round the wrists, then 
 a slip-knot round the tree. It'll be about tattoo at 
 home now, it will. Tell 'em to go to hell . . . 
 tell'em. . . ." 
 
 "What about Addison ? Ask him about Addison," 
 the Colonel entreated. But the doctor shook his 
 head. 
 
 The sentences grew more and more confused. He 
 uttered substantives without verbs and verbs without 
 substantives. He faltered, stammered and stop- 
 ped. The brain had run down like a clock. 
 
 "Like spirit-rapping oh! most damnably," was 
 how the Colonel put it afterward. "And not a 
 trace of feeling, no! Not a flicker on the poor devil's 
 face. And there were we talking over him as though 
 he were a dog or a horse like two Vets/ And those 
 attendants standing beside him like two damned 
 deaf mutes. As for him, you'd have sworn he was 
 talking about someone else. A brain without a 
 mind, you know. Ever noticed how the tape clicks 
 out the Exchange telegrams and then gives you 'the 
 right hon. gentleman said x x x x x?' All noughts 
 and crosses, you know. It was just like that." 
 
 The Colonel put this to the medical superintendent 
 at the time. He urged him to help him find a cue 
 to play the prompter to that darkened brain. 
 
 The doctor shook his head. "We alienists are 
 still groping in the dark," he protested, with his eyes 
 still on the vacant face of the sergeant-major. "We 
 can observe much; we can experiment but little 
 or not at all. Tear not them which kill the body* 
 
224 GENTLEMEN AT ARMS 
 
 you know the rest. I cannot cure the soul. I 
 have been asked that question before oh! too often. 
 
 "Canst thou not'minister to a mind diseased, 
 Pluck from the memory a rooted sorrow? 
 
 "Would that I could! You know at times he 
 thinks he has committed an unforgivable sin and 
 that he's condemned to stand forever on his toes 
 tied to a post in the snow. What did you say? Oh, 
 yes! An auditory impression, if sufficiently reso- 
 nant, will sometimes stimulate the other senses. A 
 good deal's been done that way in cases of hypno- 
 tism take a tuning-fork, for example; if sounded 
 close to the ear, it will sometimes increase the acute- 
 ness of vision. One can even conceive of its ren- 
 dering first-aid to a defective memory. But these are 
 mere conjuring tricks. What's that ? " 
 
 Through the open window there floated upon the 
 air a single silvery note. It was followed by another, 
 tentative and tremulous, and then a series of volatile 
 trills and flourishes. In the larch tree outside a 
 thrush, piping its morning call, stopped inquisitively. 
 The listlessness died out of the sergeant-major's face; 
 he listened, his head on one side, with the painful 
 effort at location of a new-born child. Upon the 
 green hillside, half a mile away, a happy bugler was 
 practising his calls. He broke into the "pick-me- 
 up, pick-me-up" quavers of the sergeants' mess-call, 
 changed suddenly into the "drummer's knock," 
 blew a few bars of the "last post," and then sounded 
 
THE LOST PLATOON 225 
 
 a plaintive sequence of three notes which came and 
 went as in a fugue. The sergeant-major started to 
 his feet, put his hands to his temples, stared at the 
 Colonel's uniform, and, suddenly coming to atten- 
 tion, saluted. 
 
 "The orderly-sergeants' call, sir ! " __ 
 
 The Colonel watched him breathlessly, waiting for 
 a resurrection that never came. 
 
 "We've got to mobilize to mobilize to mobilize. 
 Send the colours to the depot. Open the church for 
 the men's kits, orderly. The reservists will be here 
 to-morrow. Quick!" And he made for the door. 
 
 Strong arms clasped him in a grip of iron. He 
 struggled in the embrace of the attendants. 
 
 "Let me go! Let me go!" he shouted. "I'm the 
 sergeant-major! Where's the Adjutant ? Damn you ! 
 Let me go!" 
 
 "No," said the Colonel to me afterward. "I'd 
 had enough. The last I saw, or rather heard, of him 
 as I left that horrible place was his voice from down a 
 long corridor as they led him away. There is a 
 peculiar timbre about the voices of the insane you 
 may have noticed it ? . . . When I think of the 
 old regiment the old regiment marching up from 
 rail-head, the advanced-guard like a spear-point, the 
 connecting files, the column of fours, and the ser- 
 geant-major up in front with the C. O. and me, all the 
 men with marigolds in their caps and singing, singing, 
 "Tipperary" in the heat and dust and then that ! 
 What? Addison? No! I never heard." 
 
XV 
 
 DRAFTS 
 
 THE O.C. who accompanied me on the tour of 
 inspection was as proud of his Base Training 
 Camp as though it were the family estate 
 entailed on him and the heirs male of his body law- 
 fully begotten. I told him so. 
 
 "Hum!" he said reflectively, "I hope I'm not 
 tenant for life of this place. I'd like to get back to 
 my old regiment some time. Still, it's a pretty 
 place, eh, what?" 
 
 I looked round. Far as the eye could reach was a 
 wilderness of sand dunes among which clumps of 
 elder, sea-nettle, and couch-grass maintained a 
 desperate struggle for existence. Occasionally a 
 light wind played over it, changing its contours in a 
 second, and depositing a thousand grains in our 
 eyes and nostrils so that I sneezed and winked alter- 
 nately. Our walk reminded me of the walrus and 
 the carpenter. 
 
 "It makes me weep," I said, with a handkerchief 
 to my eyes, "to see such quantities of sand." 
 
 The O.C. regarded this as a reflection on the capi- 
 tal value of the estate. "It's dry," he said argu- 
 ment atively 
 
 "I'm sure it is," I hastened to agree. ._"I'm not 
 
 226 
 
DRAFTS 227 
 
 crabbing it. You've done wonders." And he had. 
 "We've got our plans for demobilization well in 
 hand; we might do worse than begin to consider the 
 realization of these assets. Only an advertisement 
 would express all I feel. 'For sale by private treaty, 
 a highly desirable sporting estate, with mine craters, 
 strong-posts, assault-courses, bombing-trenches, hut- 
 ments, and an open-air theatre with oil-drum fau- 
 teuils the whole in an excellent state of preser- 
 vation. Inspected and thoroughly recommended.' 
 A cinema-film manufacturer would make a fortune 
 out of it." 
 
 "Well, G.H.Q. might do worse than take an 
 official film of this show. It might convince the. 
 people at home that the Army knows how to organize. 
 We've several 'stunts' on we're rehearsing the 
 Somme battle next week with ten thousand 'drafts' 
 as supers and no end of black powder. Unfor- 
 tunately G.H.Q. won't lend us any live Huns." 
 
 But there appeared to be a multitude of inani- 
 mate ones. There must have been a Kadaver factory 
 somewhere in that camp, for in every trench for 
 bayonet and bombing practice there lurked an 
 obscene figure of straw and sackcloth individualized 
 as Hindenburg, or Fritz, or Kamerad, according to 
 the taste of the artist. The illusion was a trifle 
 obvious, but it seemed adequate to a party of t dis- 
 mounted Bengal Lancers at bayonet drill on our 
 right, who, as they lunged, gave a homicidal grunt 
 of satisfaction and showed their teeth. 
 
 The O.C. suggested a gas inspection, and we 
 
228 GENTLEMEN AT ARMS 
 
 climbed a slope of sand swept smooth as a glacier by the 
 wind. I stopped for a moment as I came to a party 
 of men reclining on their elbows on the sand, chewing 
 bents of grass with bovine content while a sergeant 
 discoursed colloquially on the art of taking a trench. 
 
 "When you goes along a trench, don't pass any 
 one. It ain't good manners to cut a Hun dead 
 not in a trench. If there's a German lying there, 
 stick him. If he's dead, he won't feel it. If he's 
 alive, he's no business to be there. And never leave 
 a dug-out so long as there's a moan or a groan." 
 
 The rest of this lethal discourse escaped me for we 
 passed on. A bombing class was being put through 
 its paces, and, as we drew near, the O.C. thought it 
 discreet to take cover in a caged trench in the rear, 
 for they were practising with live bombs. The 
 N.C.O. was a realist and had apparently disdained 
 such precaution for he kept his pupils posted in a 
 shallow trench in front of us with no other cover 
 than a few sandbags grouped round the bomber who 
 was about to throw. The bomber drew out the pin 
 with the thumb and forefinger of his left hand, keeping 
 the lever firmly clasped against the barrel with his 
 right. 
 
 "Now this 'ere bomb is as full of T.N.T. as a egg 
 is full of meat," explained the N.C.O., "and the 
 meat in it is pretty high. If you waits more than 
 five seconds after you let's go the lever, you well, 
 the bomb won't wait for you see?" 
 
 The bomber stood rigid as a Greek wrestler, his 
 right arm held against his hip. 
 
DRAFTS 229 
 
 "That's it. Now remember you stretches your 
 arm as if you was bowling in cricket, and you don't 
 hook it up as if you was putting the weight. You 
 just throws from the hip. It gives you an ache in 
 the back like lumbago at first, but you soon gets 
 used to that. Steady on there, my lad," he said 
 sharply as he saw the bomber relaxing one of his fin- 
 gers. 'Don't do that. A bloke what did that last 
 week, he's got a white cross now. He's what you 
 might call 'missing.' Now then." 
 
 The bomber threw. The bomb pitched about 
 sixty yards ahead a good throw. For an appreci- 
 able space nothing happened; and one or two eager 
 spirits stood on tiptoe craning their heads over the 
 sandbags. 
 
 "Keep yer blooming heads down! A chap what 
 put his head up last week is in Blighty now." 
 
 As they ducked, there was a report like that of a 
 6-inch howitzer, a sheet of flame, and a cloud of 
 woolly white smoke. 
 
 "It's not what you might call King's English," 
 said the O.C. to me as we did a half-right; "but these 
 N.C.O.'s talk sense, and you can't possibly mistake 
 what they mean." Which is true. 
 
 We skirted a sand-dune and came upon a company 
 drawn up in ranks some ten deep listening to an 
 exhortation from a corporal of painfully scientific 
 attainments on the properties of noxious gases. I 
 suspect that corporal of being a Bachelor of Science 
 in private life, perhaps a University Lecturer. He 
 was much too good for this savage world. 
 
-230 GENTLEMEN AT ARMS 
 
 The men, who were standing easy, glanced at him 
 suspiciously from time to time as though they 
 thought they were being "had." 
 
 "Never breathe into your mask," the corporal 
 was saying, "or you'll get it full of your own," 
 the wind carried his voice away for a moment 
 "di-oxide." 
 
 "That bloke don't know what he's talking about; 
 Vs balmy," muttered a man with a Cockney accent 
 a few yards away as he examined his gas mask. 
 "It ain't oxhide; it's flannel." 
 
 "He means the gas what you breathes out of your 
 inside, Bert," said his neighbour helpfully. 
 
 The speaker stared sullenly. "I don't breathe 
 any gas out of my inside," he retorted combatively, 
 "I ain't a blinkin' sewer." 
 
 "Stop talking in the ranks," shouted the sergeant. 
 
 "Use the tube and breathe gently through that," 
 continued the lecturer in a refined voice. "Don't 
 take deep breaths or you'll get some gas in. It's 
 owing to officers and men moving up and down the 
 line and breathing hard that they get slightly gassed. 
 Don't exert yourselves too much." 
 
 "Now he's talking sense," said Bert approvingly, 
 "what price fatigues?" 
 
 The O.C. and I had withdrawn to the shelter of 
 a clump of elders to light a cigarette as the lecturer 
 digressed to the subject of gas blankets and ver- 
 morel solution. Occasionally, as he raised his voice, 
 some of his sacramental words such as "cyanosis" 
 and "pulmonary epithelium" reached us, followed 
 
DRAFTS 231 
 
 always by a profane commentary from the furtive 
 couple behind the elder. 
 
 "Ammonia inhalations from the capsules should 
 be immediately given by the stretcher-bearers," said 
 the lecturer. 
 
 "They'll have to give the poor bloke first-aid with 
 a dictionary if they talk to him like that." 
 
 "I will now proceed to say a few words about 
 tear-shells. Tear-shells look like 'duds.' They don't 
 explode at first; the fuse only burns enough to set 
 the gas going. The gas is phosgene. This induces 
 irritation of the lachrymatory glands " 
 
 "What's 'e getting at now, Bert?" 
 
 "I dunno. I fink he means it makes yer do a 
 weep." 
 
 "I wonder whether it 'ud make a Jock weep," 
 ruminated the other doubtfully. "Funny chaps 
 the Scotties. I know a chap what knew one knew 
 one, mind yer. He used ter say as it took two years 
 to know a Scotty, but after that Vd eat out of yer 
 hand." 
 
 "Ah! The Hun's a funny blighter, Alf. He's 
 always 'off side.' His notion of starting a fight is to 
 begin by kicking you in the guts. . . . Say, Alf, 
 if you met a Hun wot put his hands up and said: 
 'I've got a wife and ten children,' what 'ud you 
 do?" 
 
 "I should say: 'Yer oughter be ashamed of your- 
 self.' But I dunno. I might give the blighter a fag 
 and tell him to 'op it. And I might not." 
 
 "Shun!" shouted the sergeant. "The company 
 
232 GENTLEMEN AT ARMS 
 
 will now march in single file into the trench begin- 
 ning with No. I of the rear rank. Right about 
 t-u-r-rn. Quick Mar-rch ! " 
 
 They filed into the revetted trench, some forty 
 yards in length, in which a small flask had been 
 placed. It was a decanter of phosgene of the choicest 
 vintage. We moved up to the exit of the trench. 
 I caught a whiff of something colourless, pungent, 
 and sweet as pineapple, and my eyes smarted pain- 
 fully. At that moment No. i emerged from the 
 ordeal, the others treading on his heels. They wept 
 copiously and with hilarity as though they had all 
 been attacked by a fit of hysteria. But a very phleg- 
 matic hysteria. It would have disappointed the 
 Hun. 
 
 "Genuine sorrow, I calls it," said one. 
 
 "Like pepper," commented another. "I ain't 
 wept like that since I was a nipper." 
 
 "I'm feeling that bereaved I fink I could bury 
 some pore chap, Alf. What price that blinking 
 corporal ? " 
 \ "Fall in," shouted the sergeant. "'Elmets on!" 
 
 Each man carried in his hands one of the old- 
 fashioned gas helmets of flannelette, soaked in a 
 solution of glycerine and caustic soda, which you 
 slip over your head like a sack. But there are 
 different ways of doing it. Some held it as though 
 it were a nose-bag and began mouth first, tossing 
 it over their heads like a horse determined to get 
 the last oat. Others put it on as a child puts on a 
 paper cap out of a 'cracker/ carefully pulling it 
 
DRAFTS 233 
 
 down on both sides as though afraid of tearing it. 
 They all proceeded to tie the strings demurely under 
 the chin like a dairymaid with a sun-bonnet. From 
 each helmet protruded a snout of gutta-percha, and 
 as they breathed heavily little drops of saliva glis- 
 tened on the end of it. They then turned and 
 glared at each other through the goggle-like eye-holes. 
 Here surely was the fraternity of "The Black Hand." 
 They looked like a secret murder society. 
 
 "Fancy that coming at you in dead silence over 
 the top with the point of the bayonet!" commented 
 the O.C. 
 
 They filed off into a subterranean chamber with 
 an emergency exit where a retort lay in wait for 
 them with a gas of eight atmospheres or a pressure 
 of about 1 20 Ib. to a square inch. As the man in 
 charge turned on the tap the fog-coloured smoke 
 escaped in little wisps through the chinks of the 
 chamber, and giving it a wide berth we strolled 
 away. A whiff of that gas and you feel as if the 
 blade of a knife were going down your lungs. The 
 corporal was adding a few belated platitudes to his 
 hooded pupils about the advisability of reserving 
 your gas helmet for use against gas. 
 
 "That fellow seems to alternate between the 
 obscure and the obvious," I remarked to the O.C. 
 as we walked noiselessly down the sandy slope. 
 
 "True," rejoined the O.C. "But there is some- 
 thing in what he says about gas helmets being meant 
 for gas. The average soldier thinks they're meant 
 for a Wolseley valise. You know the story about 
 
234 GENTLEMEN AT ARMS 
 
 old S , the G.O.C. of my Division? No! I 
 
 thought that story was all over the front, from Dan 
 even to Beersheba. Well, he had a passion for gas 
 helmets. Every G.O.C. and O.C has a bee in his 
 bonnet I daresay I've got one myself and it 
 buzzes at times. With some it's machine-gun 
 emplacements, with others it's dumps, with others 
 
 it's buttons. With old S it was gas helmets. 
 
 And when there was nothing doing and he got fed 
 up with divisional routine orders, he'd come stalking 
 about the back of the trenches seeing if he could 
 catch any one without his gas helmet. Well, one 
 day he came up and he suddenly discovered he'd 
 forgotten his own. So the first soldier he met he 
 stopped, took his gas helmet, and slung it over his 
 arm. And the next moment whom should he meet 
 but one of our subs without a helmet. 'What's 
 the meaning of this?' he fumed. 'Where's your 
 helmet?' The sub stammered something about 
 having left it in his dug-out. 'I don't believe you 
 would know how to put it on if you had one," said 
 the G.O.C. 'Take mine and show me how you 
 put it on/ So the sub took it, and opened it, and 
 out fell a pair of dirty socks, a still dirtier towel, 
 a packet of woodbines and an obscene postcard. 
 . . . 'What did you say? Oh, no! We never 
 got strafed about gas helmets again. Yes, the cor- 
 poral was right. Mind that wolf-hole my men are 
 enthusiasts about wire." 
 
XVI 
 
 THE CANADIANS 
 (April, 1915) 
 
 IT WAS a warm April day so warm that it 
 might have been midsummer but for the 
 anemones and the wild hyacinths which 
 gleamed in the patches of woodland. The drab and 
 gray monotones of the winter landscape of mud and 
 low-lying mist had changed in a few days to a scheme 
 of primary colours in which the blue of the skies, the 
 green of the young grass, and the yellows of marsh- 
 marigold and lesser celandine startled the eye with 
 their sudden improvisations. It was one of those 
 days when the spirit of spring takes on a visible 
 incarnation and the mysterious force of life is felt in 
 the air and in the blood. In the thrust of the tiny 
 crumpled leaves on the trees, emerging from the 
 buds like a butterfly from a chrysalis, one could 
 almost see the secret impulse that animated them. 
 
 The red roofs of V glowed in the afternoon 
 
 sun. The front and back doors of every house stood 
 open and on the cobbled pavements the dogs lay 
 with their heads between their extended paws open- 
 ing and closing a drowsy but watchful eye. Except 
 for two company orderly-sergeants who stood at a 
 door smoking in intimate silence the street was 
 
 235 
 
236 GENTLEMEN AT ARMS 
 
 deserted. The estaminets were empty although it 
 still wanted four hours till closing time. The ser- 
 geants had discarded their belts and presented the 
 neglige air of men who are "resting" in billets. 
 
 "Some day!" remarked the taller of the two, 
 economically. 
 
 "Jake!" replied the other. "Guess you'll owe me 
 a dollar to-night, Jack. The machine-gunners will 
 knock spots out of them." 
 
 "I'll make it two to one, if you like, Bob," said the 
 first speaker confidently. 
 
 "Done!" said the other. And they relapsed into 
 silence. 
 
 They fidgeted occasionally, as from time to time 
 loud shouts were borne upon their ears from the 
 direction of a field outside the village. They ap- 
 peared to come orchestrally from a crowd of men all 
 shouting at once though now and again a powerful 
 voice was heard above the rest and its nasal note 
 repeated the same theme at intervals as in a fugue 
 "Take-him-out-of-the-box!" . . . "Take him- 
 out-of-the-box!" The cry was repeated from time 
 to time in notes which alternated between menace 
 and entreaty. 
 
 The origin of these sounds was to be sought in a 
 field hard by the village. In this field was a crowd 
 of officers and men who had posted themselves on 
 two sides of it in such a manner as to form with their 
 backs outward an angle of ninety degrees. The men 
 composing one side of this V-shaped formation were 
 cheering lustily while those on the other were fero- 
 
THE CANADIANS 237 
 
 ciously silent. In the centre of the V four gray- 
 shirted men in khaki trousers appeared to be engaged 
 in a physical attempt to perform the mathematical 
 problem of squaring a circle, or circling a square; 
 they were dashing madly round from one point to 
 another, touching, as they went, four white bags on 
 the ground at the corners of a square and having 
 apparently as their objective the bag nearest the 
 apex of the V. An untutored mind might have 
 mistaken their efforts for a variation of that un- 
 authorized form of army exercises known as "whip- 
 ping to the gap." Far out in the field a breathless 
 man was trying to pick up a ball and seven other 
 men, gloved as to the left hand, adjured him with 
 many imprecations to "get on with it." A ninth 
 man, his face covered by a steel-barred mask and his 
 left hand hooded in an enormous leather glove, stood 
 by the corner bag. 
 
 In the centre of the field was an officer with the 
 peak of his cap at the back of his head; his languid 
 demeanour and the spare ball in his hand marked 
 him as the umpire. Three of the runners had 
 reached "home" at the corner and the fourth was 
 straining toward it when there was a flash of white 
 and the clean smack of a caught ball, which was no 
 sooner caught than it was thrown to the masked 
 keeper of the "home" base. The latter pirouetted 
 on his feet as he caught it and, stooping with a half 
 turn, quickly touched the shoulder of the runner who 
 at the same moment dived headlong for the bag, as 
 though seeking sanctuary. Was he diving or had 
 
238 GENTLEMEN AT ARMS 
 
 he dived? He lay prostrate, with the catcher up- 
 right beside him, while all eyes were turned from 
 these two to the umpire. No imperial gesture decid- 
 ing the lethal issue of life and death between two 
 gladiators could have been more anxiously awaited. 
 Without a word the umpire jerked his thumb over 
 his shoulder. The runner was "out. " 
 
 At that, the sullen silence of the crowd of specta- 
 tors on one side gave place to delirious cheering 
 while the exultations of the supporters of the "in" side 
 were transformed into howls of execration and dark 
 threats against the umpire, who was freely accused 
 of "graft" and other corrupt and illegal practices. 
 
 " Safe a mile, " yelled a voice above the rest. " Use 
 your eyes, umps! Wait till you come to me with a 
 bullet in your liver! I'll show you what 'out ' means, 
 you astigmatic rotter." 
 
 It was the regimental M.O. He shook his fist at 
 the umpire as he uttered his maledictions. 
 
 "Go it, Dickie," urged a company commander at 
 his elbow, encouragingly; "you haven't begun to 
 warm up yet." 
 
 "Kill the umpire," yelled the M.O. with lethal 
 fury. "Kill him! Scalp him! Tar and feather 
 him! Tickle his feet!" 
 
 "Dry up, Dickie," said a subaltern beside him. 
 "He was out all right." 
 
 "That doesn't cut any ice," retorted the M.O. 
 "Can't I have a yell to myself! The umpire's got a 
 glass eye and a cheap 'un at that. Take him away! 
 Give him 'medicine and duty.'" 
 
THE CANADIANS 239 
 
 His soliloquy fell on deaf ears. The umpire, who 
 had maintained a massive silence, suddenly looked up 
 as another man took the place of the vanquished at 
 the "home." As the newcomer grasped the bat, he 
 was hailed with loud entreaties to "knock the ball 
 out of Belgium " on the one hand, and, on the other, 
 sinister assurances that if he did his life would 
 hardly be worth living. Meanwhile, the pitcher 
 some twenty yards in front of him and the catcher 
 a yard or two behind him seemed to be engaged 
 in mysterious intercourse in a deaf-and-dumb alpha- 
 bet of their own. The pitcher was juggling with the 
 ball as though not quite certain what to do with it 
 while the catcher was patting his gloved and un- 
 gloved hands together as though inviting him to join 
 in the ancient game of pat-a-cake. All this panto- 
 mime would have been very disconcerting to a ner- 
 vous batter. It was meant to be. In baseball 
 everybody does his best to put everybody else off his 
 game. This is useful, for it teaches you self-con- 
 fidence. Also courage, for you will get no encour- 
 agement. The next moment the pitcher suddenly 
 brought his hands together over his head, whirled 
 them round in an ellipse, and suddenly hurled the ball 
 in the direction of the batter. 
 
 A shell whined toward the field and dropped with 
 a roar and a great spurt of black earth and blacker 
 smoke some half a mile away. The spectators 
 ignored it. The Captain, who had been urging the 
 M.O. to still more inflammatory efforts, happening 
 to glance in that direction, noted curiously a figure in 
 
2 4 o GENTLEMEN AT ARMS 
 
 yellow baggy clothes and a red tarbush advancing 
 across the field. The figure alternately ran and 
 stumbled. He noted, too, that the gun-fire to the 
 northeast had swelled to a loud, continuous roar. 
 A click recalled him to the game; the batsman had 
 hit the ball to centre field and, dropping his stick, 
 ran desperately toward the first base about ninety 
 yards to his right. The ball was fielded by the 
 centre-field with incredible velocity and thrown to 
 the baseman as the batter measured his length on 
 the ground. Loud shouts of exultation arose from 
 a group of field ambulance men under a row of 
 poplars on one side of the field as a third machine- 
 gunner entered on his innings. The new batsman 
 fingered the "bat" nervously. 
 
 "Don't be afraid of it. It won't hurt you," 
 shouted the ambulance men encouragingly. "It 
 ain't septic." 
 
 "Who's bought you?" shouted a man with a mega- 
 phone darkly at the pitcher. And he proceeded to 
 make a number of defamatory remarks, chosen with 
 extreme care, upon the age of the player, his deport- 
 ment, his choice of a career, and his private morals. 
 If you are of a sensitive disposition you had better 
 not play baseball; it is very bad for self-esteem. 
 But it is uncommonly good for self-control. 
 
 At that moment a man, belted as on duty, thrust 
 his way through the boisterous crowd and, approach- 
 ing the umpire, saluted and gave him a bit of paper. 
 The umpire took the message and, having read it, 
 suddenly turned his cap peak foremost. He raised 
 
THE CANADIANS 241 
 
 his hand. "The game's called/* he announced in a 
 clear, slightly nasal voice. He turned and, nodding 
 toward the menacing roar in the northeast, added 
 with a faint smile : "on account of the rain ! ' ' 
 
 Silence fell upon the crowd as he paused for a 
 moment. Men turned one to another. Explosions 
 of light suddenly appeared in the northeast suc- 
 ceeded by three coloured stars one above the other, 
 which scintillated brilliantly like gems for a minute 
 and then went out. Two company sergeants 
 appeared on the edge of the crowd, wearing their 
 belts; they were panting with exertion as though 
 they had been running. A soldier from a Belgian 
 working-party with a shovel on his back emerged in 
 a patch of blue from the crowd of khaki and, talking 
 excitedly, pointed over his shoulder in the direction 
 of the church. The crowd was like a field of oats 
 suddenly set in motion by a breeze each individual 
 member of it seemed to be flickering to and fro 
 although the crowd as a whole remained stationary. 
 
 "The battalion will fall in at once," said the sub- 
 altern suddenly in a changed tone of voice. "Heavy 
 marching order." 
 
 The breathless sergeants became articulate. 
 
 "A and B Companies stand to!" shouted the one. 
 
 "C and D Companies! Back to billets, boys; 
 kits on and fall in," shouted the other. 
 
 "What is it?" said the Captain to one of the 
 o rderly-sergeants . 
 
 "The Germans have broken through on the left 
 flank, sir." 
 
242 GENTLEMEN AT ARMS 
 
 Our bet's off," said one man to another. "Tell 
 you what, mate, I'll take you in three to one on the 
 M.G.'s next time." The odds were accepted. 
 
 They streamed back to billets, discussing the 
 match as they went. The orderly-sergeants were 
 everywhere at once on their flanks and in their 
 rear rounding up the argumentative laggards like 
 sheep-dogs on a hillside. On reaching the village 
 they fell in and awaited orders. They found the 
 
 streets of V choked with a stream of men, 
 
 women, and children on foot, on horseback, in 
 carts, in perambulators, all with their faces turned 
 toward the west as though intent on some desperate 
 pilgrimage. Incredibly old women and bedridden 
 old men borne limply in wheelbarrows or carried in 
 handcarts, with their atrophied legs dangling help- 
 lessly over the sides, were being pushed or dragged 
 through the crowd. The Captain, glancing^at these 
 human derelicts, noticed curiously that one ancient 
 paralytic reclined in a barrow with his hand cease- 
 lessly twitching while his body and members re- 
 mained rigid, like a poplar whose trunk and branches 
 are still while the leaves at the extremities flutter 
 ceaselessly. Young women carrying babies at the 
 breast and with children clutching at their skirts, 
 their twinkling feet taking three steps to the mother's 
 one, stumbled forward with the same set look upon 
 their faces. Some were bent double with the 
 weight of large feather mattresses; others held 
 bird-cages, clocks, cats, caskets in a close embrace. 
 Now and then there was a scream as some cripple fell 
 
THE CANADIANS 243 
 
 and the crowd pressed on and over him. And from 
 this surging crowd there arose a single cry as though 
 it possessed but a single voice, swelling into a loud 
 diapason " Les Boches viennent !" 
 
 There was a sound of wheels and a clatter of 
 hoofs on the pave behind, and the crowd turned in 
 terror at the pursuit. They broke into a furrow and 
 through them galloped French gunners on horses 
 with the traces cut, followed by other mounted men 
 driving limbers without guns and mercilessly lash- 
 ing the "leaders" whose mouths were white with 
 foam. And they also cried "Les Boches viennent" 
 and passed on. They were followed by men on foot 
 wearing red fezes; their livid bluish faces, their lips 
 flecked with froth, their hands fumbling at their 
 throats, their gasps for breath added to the terror of 
 the crowd with which they mingled. 
 
 The Captain eyed them with feelings in which 
 anger and pity strove for mastery. "They've got 
 the wind up and no mistake," he said to a subaltern. 
 "But what the hell's the matter with them? They 
 haven't got a scratch." 
 
 "Their uniforms are as clean as ours," speculated 
 the subaltern. "They can't have been buried. 
 I've never seen that look on a man's face before." 
 
 "That pitcher weren't no good," said a man in 
 the ranks. "They oughter have taken him out of 
 the box long ago." 
 
 The men who had been standing easy now fell out 
 and fetched their rifles, packs, and ammunition. 
 Water-bottles were filled, nominal rolls were 
 
244 GENTLEMEN AT ARMS 
 
 checked, and for a few minutes the company quar- 
 termaster-sergeants were incredibly busy. The men 
 squatted on the ground, wearing their equipment, 
 with their packs lying on the " kicking-straps " be- 
 side them. They debated freely the respective 
 merits of the two sides, the fielding, the pitching, 
 the catching, and the prospects of a game that, as it 
 happened, was never to be resumed. 
 
 "Comp'ny!" shouted each company commander. 
 
 The men scrambled to their feet, and, putting out 
 their cigarettes, put on their packs. 
 
 "Comp'ny! "Shun! . . . Form fours! Right! 
 At ease, quick-k march." 
 
 The short spring day was drawing to a close, the 
 air grew cold, the shadows deepened. They marched 
 along the Ypres road, thrusting their way through 
 the refugees and, turning off to the left near the 
 asylum, crossed the canal just north of the 
 doomed city. Clouds of white and black and red 
 dust rose above it, as shell after shell crashed down 
 upon it and died away in crayon upon the evening 
 sky. In the west the sun was going down in a great 
 conflagration. The air was still dry and clear, but 
 to the northeast there was a faint greenish haze 
 lying over the fields like a river-mist in the cre- 
 puscular light. In the fields on either side of them 
 horses and cows lay dead on their backs in uncouth 
 attitudes with their legs sticking up toward the sky. 
 A vast desolation brooded over the landscape. 
 They were alone. Not a living man or beast was 
 to be seen. Dead men in bleached uniforms lay 
 
THE CANADIANS 245 
 
 about in contorted attitudes their faces livid and 
 on their lips little bubbles of foam. Except for the 
 intermittent roar of the guns the air was still as 
 death. In this vast mortuary not a bird sang. 
 
 The road dipped into a hollow and, as the column 
 descended, the advanced-guard began to cough, then 
 the connecting files coughed, and these phthisical 
 sounds were gradually taken up by the whole 
 column. Night had fallen, and in the dark solitudes 
 these hollow sounds were as loud and distinct as 
 the hooting of owls in a wood. 
 
 "Silence in the ranks!" said the Captain, and then 
 he began to cough. His eyes watered. He sniffed. 
 
 "This place stinks like a damned latrine," he 
 said irritably, as he blew his nose. 
 
 "It's like chloroform," said one subaltern. 
 
 Another wondered how long it was since he had 
 tasted almonds. 
 
 As the column emerged from that sepulchral hollow 
 and breasted the rise they breathed more freely. 
 
 As they neared the cross roads at B shells 
 
 began to whistle over their heads and the night air 
 was full of strange and sibilant voices. They 
 crossed the canal and at that moment a shell fell 
 in the middle of the column. The men in the im- 
 mediate vicinity stopped dead while those in the 
 rear continued to march until, treading on the heels 
 of the men in front of them, the whole column was 
 pulled up like a horse that is suddenly thrown on 
 its haunches. Confused voices were heard, and the 
 groans of wounded men. The M.O. was down on 
 
246 GENTLEMEN AT ARMS \ 
 
 his knees beside the prostrate forms flashing an 
 electric torch upon them while he masked its light 
 with his Burberry. The shell had wiped out a 
 machine-gun team. The M.G. officer lay dead 
 where he had fallen. The wounded were picked up 
 and placed on the wheeled transport and the battalion 
 resumed its march. No one knew whose turn 
 would come next. But they continued to march 
 steadily, each man's eyes fixed on the pack of the 
 man in front of him. 
 
 At midnight they halted by the side of the road 
 
 due north of St. J and waited for dawn. They 
 
 found some deserted gun-emplacements and estab- 
 lished their Battalion Headquarters therein. They 
 put out outposts and dug themselves in, after which 
 the men snatched an hour or two of fitful and un- 
 easy sleep under the stars. 
 
 The morning broke cold and clear, and with the 
 first flush of dawn the men were on their feet, stamp- 
 ing to keep themselves warm. In front of them was 
 a dark wood and in the middle distance a farm and 
 its outhouses. It was a small wood and if you 
 look for it to-day you will never find it, but its 
 name will go down in history. From this moment 
 the battalion was split up; C and D Companies were 
 ordered to march off in the direction of the wood, 
 where they were to join up with the Third Brigade. 
 As they marched off* by platoons in file they waved 
 their hands in salutation to their comrades; it was 
 the last the latter ever saw of them. 
 
 As the sun came out the air grew warm, but not a 
 
THE CANADIANS 247 
 
 lark climbed the heavens. Of the two companies 
 that remained one was ordered to move straight on 
 its trenches in open order by platoons; the other 
 was to advance by sections toward the farm whence 
 they moved out by platoons. They raced forward, 
 and as they approached their objective the German 
 guns got the range and opened on them with shrap- 
 nel and high explosive. A dark gray mass of men 
 was clustered round a farm about nine hundred 
 yards away on their left front and, as they drew 
 nearer, this mass opened on them with rifle fire. 
 Bullets licked the earth all around them, throwing 
 up spurts of dust, but the shooting was poor and they 
 advanced steadily. The Captain, who was sig- 
 nalling officer and was in the rear, watched the 
 waves of two other battalions advancing on the left 
 to attack the ridge and as the German machine- 
 guns got to work on them he noticed that the first 
 wave grew thinner and thinner. It struck him 
 that it was extraordinarily like a cinema film; he was 
 looking all the while at the same picture and yet 
 it was never quite the same. There was the wave, 
 always there, but from moment to moment gaps 
 appeared in it; flickers of flame came and went 
 above it; little white clouds appeared from nowhere 
 over it, hung about, and disappeared as though they 
 had never been. But with each cloud another gap 
 appeared in the line. Now and again it was wholly 
 obscured by great patches of coal-black smoke like 
 enormous ink-stains, and the earth shook. As 
 the smoke cleared away he was almost astonished 
 
248 GENTLEMEN AT ARMS 
 
 to see that the men some of them were still 
 upright and still advancing without haste and with- 
 out rest. 
 
 "This is going to be some hell, to-day, eh, what, 
 Dickie?" he said to the M.O. who was on his way 
 to a farm, to get it going as a regimental aid-post. 
 
 "That's so," said the M.O., cheerful at the pros- 
 pect of having something more professionally ex- 
 citing to do than look at men's tongues in billets. 
 "I guess I'm going to do quite a lot in the general 
 practitioner line to-day. Say, old man, if you 
 come my way I'll patch you up beautifully. I've 
 quite a good bedside manner." 
 
 The M.O. had a disconcerting habit of envisaging 
 everybody else as a possible casualty. Which was 
 rather premature when you came to think of it. 
 
 "Get along, Dickie, you old body-snatcher. I'd 
 sooner die a natural death," retorted the other. 
 "The Boche has slain his thousands but you M. 
 O's. your tens of thousands." 
 
 "I'll never be slain by the jawbone of an ass," 
 said the M.O. pugnaciously. 
 
 "Now, Dickie," laughed the signalling officer 
 good-naturedly, "you're getting riled. You're bet- 
 ter at giving chaff than taking it. You just hike 
 away to your consulting-room." 
 
 The M.O. "hiked." And for no apparent reason 
 they shook hands. But you could not help liking 
 the M.O. and one of them felt it might be the last 
 time. 
 
 They were busy after that. The Captain ordered 
 
THE CANADIANS 249 
 
 field-telephones to be laid out from the farm which 
 was to serve the double purpose of aid-post and 
 Battalion Headquarters. They were laid out to 
 the lines of unfinished trenches which had now been 
 occupied by the waves of infantry. It was neither 
 open warfare nor trench warfare but a curious com- 
 bination of the two a contest of positions which 
 were only half entrenched while the German in- 
 fantry hung about in clusters like loafers at a street 
 corner apparently uncertain whether to advance or 
 not. The truth was they were puzzled. They 
 felt that by all the rules of the game the Canadians 
 had no business to be there. The latter had one 
 gun and no aeroplanes; they were being drenched 
 with shrapnel and submerged with high explosive; 
 their left was in the air and their allies had bolted 
 the day before in a wild sauve qui pent before a new 
 and sinister weapon which the Boche knew to be his 
 own peculiar and nasty secret. And yet here were 
 these verdammte Canadians coming right up to them 
 and making themselves extremely unpleasant with 
 nothing better than two or three machine-guns and 
 their rifles, though, to be sure, the rapid and accu- 
 rate fire of those rifles was something to reckon with. 
 The Boche, who had had things all his own way the 
 day before when he bayoneted inanimate men half 
 suffocated by his poisonous gas, didn't seem to 
 approve of this at all. The Boche is like a large 
 unhealthy fat boy who does fearful execution in 
 pulling off flies' wings and thumping very small boys 
 but howls tearfully and cries " Kamerad" when 
 
250 GENTLEMEN AT ARMS 
 
 tackled by a boy who, though half his size, is a match 
 for him. From that moment he began to hate the 
 Canadians. He thought of him as a mechant animal. 
 "Quand on I'attaque il se defend" When he got the 
 chance and found a convenient barn door he cruci- 
 fied him. The Canadians duly made a note of this 
 and, after that, many Germans wished that they 
 or the Canadians, preferably the Canadians had 
 never seen born. 
 
 During the whole of that day a storm of iron beat 
 upon the farm and the position in front of it. Shells 
 ploughed up the trenches, burying men where they 
 stood and leaving not a trace behind. Some men 
 were blown to dust, others were killed without a 
 scratch; it seemed as if not the engines of war but 
 some mysterious force of nature were blasting them 
 out of existence. The survivors fired again and again 
 at their fitful targets, until their rifle-barrels grew hot, 
 their nostrils were filled with the reek of blood and 
 burnt cordite, their ears stunned with concussion, 
 their eyes half blinded with showers of black dust, 
 and their faces running with sweat. Shells formed 
 huge craters round and about the farm, shaking it 
 to its foundations and bespattering its walls with 
 the filth of the midden-heap. 
 
 The signalling-officer found himself wondering 
 how long it would be before the Battalion Head- 
 quarters would be wiped out. As he sat there with 
 the C.O. receiving and transmitting messages he 
 felt as though he were dwelling in a haunted house. 
 Soot fell in showers down the chimney on to the hearth- 
 
THE CANADIANS 251 
 
 stone, windows rattled, doors opened and shut, pic- 
 tures fell from the walls, and plaster pattered on to 
 the floor. Voices shrieked and whimpered overhead. 
 And all the while he was conscious of waiting for 
 something to happen something was surely bound 
 to happen! Would it be the next or the next but 
 one? No! that was a "dud." Short! Over! . . . 
 
 He got up and went out. There was a lull. Then 
 the storm burst forth again. He began to count 
 the shells falling in or near the farm and the trenches 
 occupied by A and B Companies. He counted for 
 fifteen minutes by his watch; he found at the end of 
 that period that he had counted no fewer than ninety 
 high-explosive shells. 
 
 Night brought little or no respite from shell-fire, 
 but the enemy's machine-gun fire died down and they 
 were able to get stretcher-bearers and ration parties 
 with water up to the trenches. The M.O. worked 
 all night in his overalls, dressing the wounded, 
 injecting morphia and anti-tetanus serum, and evacu- 
 ating them on empty limbers and supply wagons. 
 When dawn broke the signalling officer was ordered 
 to occupy a disused trench near a private road on 
 the right, facing the wood. He had not been 
 there long before it struck him that something was 
 happening in that wood. Shells were raining on it 
 at intervals and, in the pauses, he heard the rifle- 
 fire of C and D Companies who were holding it. 
 But each time the rifle-fire diminished in volume; 
 it grew more and more fitful, dying down like a 
 fire of twigs that crackle and consume. 
 
252 GENTLEMEN AT ARMS 
 
 Meanwhile he was busy collecting "details" and 
 organizing the supports. At intervals an order 
 would come in to supply "two N.C.O's and forty 
 men" to some hard-pressed position and he had to 
 start reorganizing all over again. Cooks, batmen, 
 signallers all were impounded. A military police- 
 man passed on to him every straggler. Derelicts of 
 every regiment in the Divisions Scottish, English, 
 Canadian came drifting in, and in that curious 
 medley, drifting together like fallen leaves under a 
 breeze after the storm has momentaril}'" spent its 
 fury, he saw only too clearly the evidence of what 
 had happened the day before. There was no need 
 to ask any questions. A morose Highlander, a 
 company sergeant-major who had lost his battalion, 
 volunteered the information that he was "fed up." 
 He seemed dazed and was argumentative in a dull, 
 slow way like a drunken man. 
 
 "I thocht this was a war, d'ye ken, sorr?" he said, 
 thrusting his face close to the Captain. The latter 
 noticed that his eyes were tired and bloodshot. 
 "It iss not! It iss a bluidy massacre. And the 
 Jair-mans call us mercenaries! As if there was siller 
 in it! How many bawbees d'ye think I'll be taking 
 as company sergeant-major, now, sorr?" 
 
 But the Captain had suddenly put a field-tele- 
 scope to his eye and was gazing hard in the direction 
 of the wood about a thousand yards away. "Here, 
 sergeant-major, stop jawing and look through this," 
 he said, thrusting the telescope into the hands of the 
 N.C.O. 
 
THE CANADIANS 253 
 
 The effect was magical. "A cop, sorr; a fair cop. 
 It's a sicht I dinna expect to see every day. Eight 
 hundred, do you think, sorr? Five rounds rapid 
 will be enough to lay them out, I'm thinking." 
 
 What he had seen through the glass was a gray 
 mass of men hanging irresolute about the corners of 
 the wood. They had spiked helmets. The Cap- 
 tain gave the word of command, the company 
 sergeant-major repeated it. The improvised platoon 
 with their sights at 800 burst into a splutter of 
 rifle-fire. The Captain looked through his tele- 
 scope. The gray mass had disappeared. 
 
 But the Captain was uneasy. Something must 
 have happened in that wood for the Germans to get 
 through it. And it struck him that for more than half 
 an hour silence had brooded over it. Not an enemy 
 gun had played on it; not a sound of rifle-fire had 
 come from it. ... What had become of C and 
 D Companies ? He was still revolving that question 
 when he saw a man without a cap running from the 
 direction of the wood, bearing away to the right to 
 avoid the Canadian fire and taking such cover as 
 the ground afforded. As he drew nearer the Cap- 
 tain saw that he had bright red hair. 
 
 "By God, it's G !" he exclaimed. It was the 
 
 lance-corporal who had had charge of the telephones 
 of C and D Companies. 
 
 "I've managed to bury it, sir," said the fugitive 
 as he arrived, breathless and exhausted. 
 
 "Buried what?" 
 
 "The telephone. I'm the only one to get through. 
 
254 GENTLEMEN AT ARMS 
 
 C and D Companies were cut off and enfiladed. 
 Sixty per cent, casualties. All their ammunition 
 exhausted. They were just snowed under. Could 
 you lend me your water bottle? Thank you. sir." 
 He took a long drink.. 
 
 Overhead a Taube was circling like a hawk over its 
 prey, flying as low as 200 feet, so low that they could 
 see the observer looking over the side. He dropped 
 a smoke-ball and a few minutes later a "coalbox" 
 landed just short of the trench and threw up a 
 spray of loamy dirt which covered them from foot 
 to head and filled their eyes and nostrils, half blind- 
 ing them. At that moment a runner arrived with a 
 message from Battalion Headquarters. They were 
 to fall back. The German line which had been 
 concave before the enemy had taken the wood was 
 now convex and was thrusting forward in a great 
 bulge. 
 
 As they approached the farm, upon which A and 
 B Companies were retiring, a shell landed on the roof. 
 When the pillar of cloud cleared flames were seen 
 coming from it as from the heart of a volcano. 
 The barns, filled with straw, were blazing fiercely. 
 
 In the farmyard stood a figure in overalls, bare- 
 headed and with arms bare to the elbow. His 
 overalls were splashed with blood, his face was black 
 as a nigger minstrel's with soot out of which his 
 white eyeballs glared with a fierce glow in their 
 irises. He was shouting orders, directing stretcher- 
 bearers, and rushing in and out of the burning barn 
 carrying the limp bodies of wounded men in his arms. 
 
THE CANADIANS 255 
 
 He was about to rush back when the signalling 
 officer caught him by the arm. He tried to shake 
 him off but the other held him in an iron grip. 
 
 " Blast you, M ! Take your hands off me or I'll 
 
 trepan you," and he raised his fist. "I've got men 
 in there, I tell you. 5 ' 
 
 "I know, Dickie," said the other softly. "I 
 know. But look! You've done all you can, old 
 man," and as he pointed to the barn the roof fell in 
 with a crash and tongues of fire and smoke burst 
 from the doorway, scorching them where they stood. 
 
 The M.O. stood for a moment like one dazed. 
 He shook his fist in the direction of the Germans. 
 He was a master of language, but for once in his life 
 words failed him. He uttered a choking sound and 
 turned away. 
 
 The next moment the farmhouse itself caught fire. 
 There was a sound like the popping of corks and 
 brass-caps flew freakishly in all directions as though 
 a swarm of bees had been disturbed. The S.A.A. 
 had caught fire and was going off in a fusillade. The 
 signalling officer and his men rushed to and fro, pull- 
 ing out the boxes of ammunition and throwing them 
 into the mud. 
 
 They fell back and dug in again. There they 
 held on. As the day drew to its close, the sky be- 
 came obscured with clouds, and before night rain 
 began to fall. It fell in a steady drizzle, wetting 
 them to the skin as they hung on without flares, 
 without wire, without sandbags, waiting every 
 moment of the night for an attack which never 
 
256 GENTLEMEN AT ARMS 
 
 came. Two days later they were relieved by rein- 
 forcements, and retiring by sections they marched 
 back to billets by the light of the moon. Out of the 
 two companies that remained only 170 men were 
 left. Of the four machine-guns they had saved but 
 one. The machine-gun officer who had umpired at 
 the match was dead. Of the eighteen men who had" 
 played the game of Machine-gunners v. Ambulance 
 men only eight survived. 
 
 As they passed "Suicide Corner" the Captain 
 caught sight of a somnolent sepoy sitting against 
 the bank on the side of the road, his face curiously 
 gray in the moonlight. 
 
 "Lost his unit!" he said to himself. It was a 
 common occurrence. He went up to him and, 
 seeking to wake him, pulled him gently by the neck 
 of his tunic. He fell forward stiffly against the Cap- 
 tain. He was dead. The back of the man's head 
 was gone and his face was merely a mask. 
 
 They reached V at dawn. The men unslung 
 
 their rifles and packs and threw themselves down 
 heavily without taking their boots off. And for the 
 first time for five days they slept. 
 
'XVII 
 
 THE HUSBANDMEN II 
 
 "One generation goeth and another cometh, but the earth 
 endurethfor ever." 
 
 IT WAS one of those late autumn days when the 
 "windfalls" of the orchard are gathered into 
 the cider press, and the farmyard is filled with 
 the aroma of the pomace; when the last sheaf of corn 
 has been harvested upon the staddles and the final 
 speke has been driven into the thatch; when the 
 " lands " are ploughed and cleaned of couch under 
 the teeth of the drag, and the earth is dressed for the 
 sowing of the winter wheat. A red sun shone 
 through the autumnal mists of the morning, dyeing 
 them to a flagrant glow; in the far distance the 
 fan-shaped elms stood out in a sharp black silhouette 
 upon the gray screen of vapour. The fall of the 
 leaf was far advanced, but tufts of old man's beard 
 still hung on the hedgerows like fleece; a few leaves 
 of briar decorated the intricate pattern of twisted 
 elder, pallid ash, and spiked hawthorn. The one 
 touch of bright colour came from the hawthorn 
 berries, which glowed with the dark crimson hue of 
 blood upon the hedgetops. 
 
 It was eleven o'clock in the morning. An old man 
 
 25? 
 
258 GENTLEMEN AT ARMS 
 
 was turning the handle of a swede-cutter in a gabled 
 barn whose high roof was supported by oak rafters 
 and tie-beams festooned with cobwebs. The open 
 doorway of the barn commanded a view of the fields 
 which sloped upward from the edge of the farmyard. 
 One of those fields was marked by deep furrows and 
 salient ridges of newly-turned earth, all cut with a 
 straightness of line that marked the work of a 
 skilled ploughman. A man was advancing down the 
 middle of one of the "lands" with a cradle-shaped 
 box slung against his waist in front of him; he dipped 
 his right hand into the box, and describing with each 
 step he took a semicircular movement with his hand 
 he scattered the seed in front of him. With just 
 those gestures bygone men had sown these same 
 fields for a thousand years before him. There was a 
 slow, even rhythm about the movement of his hands 
 and feet as though he were measuring out paces on 
 the land. 
 
 The old man at the swede-cutter paused a moment 
 to watch his progress. "It be loike ancient toimes, 
 sowing wi' hand," he said, reflectively. "This 
 casualty weather hev made the ground too hard for 
 the drills. And them tractors I don't hold wi' 'em. 
 They be no good on wet heavy soil they kneads it 
 loike dough. They be all very well for the light, 
 brashy soil up Faringdon way. But give me that 
 boy Dan'el and his two harses, hey, thatcher?" 
 
 The thatcher, who was mounted on a ladder against 
 a rick just outside the barn door, looked down. 
 
 "True, old Jarge. It be the zame wi' thatching. 
 
THE HUSBANDMEN II 259 
 
 I don't hold wi' these new tin sheds. If ye wants to 
 keep a rick warm, there's nothing like a good thatch 
 and the work of a man's hands. Here, William 
 Tuck, hand me up some of those 'elms. . . . 
 Aye, but I forgot that wooden leg o' yourn. It be a 
 clever piece of carpentry, but it can't climb a ladder, 
 I'll warrant." 
 
 He descended the ladder and gathered up some 
 fabrics of combed straw, each piece a foot wide and 
 three feet in length, and carried them up the ladder 
 in a forked stick known as a "shuttle." Arrived 
 at the top, he proceeded to lay them flat against the 
 sloping roof of the rick. For some seconds nothing 
 was heard but the tap of his mallet as he drove in 
 his "spekes" of cleft hazel at regular intervals into 
 the rick. He was laying the "yelms" like the tiles 
 of a roof, each one overlapping the other. 
 
 The old man watched him. "Eli Riddick do 
 know his job and mun make dree pound a week at it 
 in these toimes. Thatchers be so scarce. But mais- 
 ter never ought to hev left thuck rick unthatched all 
 this time. 'Twas tempting Providence and the 
 justices. I heerd on a varmer as was fined twenty 
 pound for 't t'other day." 
 
 Meanwhile, the object of his original meditations, 
 his son Daniel, a stout "boy" of fifty-five, was 
 ploughing the field next to that in which the sower 
 pursued the even tenor of his way. He had placed a 
 stick in the middle of the far end of the field, and 
 returning to the near end had hooked in his team to 
 the plough. He had "set" his plough somewhat as 
 
260 GENTLEMEN AT ARMS 
 
 a carpenter sets his plane, having by an adjustment of 
 screws and bolts got a distance of nine inches hori- 
 zontally between the right wheel and the coulter, 
 and another distance of four inches vertically between 
 the coulter and the bottom of the wheel. He then 
 shifted a bolt in the iron head-draught of the plough 
 to correct the "pull" of the off horse. This done, he 
 took a handle of the plough in each hand, together 
 with the reins, and, with the light touch that was 
 neither a push nor a pressure he guided the plough 
 straight ahead with his eye on the distant observa- 
 tion post. The turn-furrow of the plough threw up 
 a ripple of brown earth, which, as it turned over, 
 showed an iridescent gleam where the pressure of 
 the steel had polished it. As the nodding horses 
 and the ploughman diminished toward their objective 
 they were followed by a flock of rooks and star- 
 lings, which swooped down upon the creeping things 
 disinterred from their home in the earth by the action 
 of the plough. 
 
 "The boy do plough a straight vurrow to'ard and 
 vrom'ard," said the old man. "Though aw never did 
 win prizes as Fve a-done. I mind I won a silver cup 
 against dirty-dree ploughmen in the year vivty-vive." 
 
 No one heeded these thrice-told tales of his former 
 prowess, and he relapsed into an old man's silent 
 reveries. He turned the handle of the swede- 
 cutter with slow revolutions, his shoulders bowed, 
 his chest narrowed, and his right foot advanced. 
 His breath came short with each turn of the 
 wheel, so that he stood like one of the Fates spin- 
 
THE HUSBANDMEN II 261 
 
 ning each moment of his own existence. There was 
 something marmoreal in the concentration of his 
 pose, as though man and machine were one. A 
 shambling, ill-constructed youth named Jacob Fox 
 was engaged in feeding the hopper with its supply of 
 purple roots, which he did at irregular intervals, 
 first trimming them with a knife, so that the recep- 
 tacle was sometimes full and sometimes empty; the 
 ancient man, unmindful of these gaps, continued to 
 turn blindly like an old woman who drops her 
 stitches. 
 
 William Tuck, who sat on a milk-stool splitting 
 hazel-sticks with a bill-hook, rose and looked down 
 at the heap of hairpin-shaped "spekes" he had pre- 
 pared for the thatcher. He stretched his dorsal 
 muscles and emitted a low whistle. 
 
 "Extra fatigues I calls it," he commented. "I 
 wish I was a soldjer again. I can't abide the vittles 
 ye folk gets at home. This war bread be like the 
 prodigal son's it be full of the husks that the swine 
 did eat." 
 
 "Aye," said the old man, meditatively, roused 
 from his mechanical trance. "There'll be a mort of 
 pig-killing this year, I do think. There ain't no 
 offals for 'em. And where 'ull us get our bacon 
 arterwards?" 
 
 "True, old Jarge. The Germans 'ull have a sight 
 more o' pig-meat than us, I'm thinking." 
 
 "And how do ye figure that out, William Tuck?" 
 
 "They'll eat one another." 
 
 At this Jacob Fox turned a horrified look upon the 
 
262 GENTLEMEN AT ARMS 
 
 speaker. The latter noted it with mischievous 
 satisfaction, and proceeded to enlarge upon his 
 theme. 
 
 "Yes, they have a corpse factory where they boils 
 all the dead corpses down into dripping to make 
 lardy-cakes. But they always keeps the spare-rib 
 for the officers." 
 
 "That be an ungodly thing to do," said the old 
 man. "I've heerd that eatin' live frogs is good for 
 the consumption but to eat mortal man come, now, 
 William Tuck, thee cassn't belave such things. 
 . . . Though I do remember a miss'nary from 
 the cannonball islands as did say something of the 
 kind. Be the Germans black men, William Tuck ? " 
 
 "Aye, when they're dead in hot weather. 
 Sometimes they turns green." 
 
 "Ah well, dog eats dog. You must 'a seen a mort 
 o' dead corpses, William Tuck." 
 
 "Aye, that I have. Hunderds. Thousands. 
 Stuck my entrenching tool into 'em same as I might 
 this bill-hook into Jacob Fox here." 
 
 "Let him bide, the poor natural. Cassn't thee see 
 he's all of a twitter? . . . It do mind me o' 
 when I wur a-digging up on Longb arrow Down for 
 a party of gentlefolk with glasses on their noses, 
 what were studying heathen laming. They were 
 all round us with their tails up, same as if we were 
 digging out an old vixen and they a-waiting for a kill. 
 I strikes a sarsen stone with my pick, and lo and 
 behold ! there was a skellington a-sitting up a-waiting 
 the Day of Judgment. And he had a lot o' flint 
 
THE HUSBANDMEN II 263 
 
 tools with him to help him cut his way out when aw 
 'eers the Last Trump. It did seem an un-Christian 
 thing to disturb the poor soul. I used ter double 
 lock my door for a month of nights after that, thinking 
 he was outside asking for a lodging. I never would 
 do any more digging for those ould 'newsy* folk 
 a-poking their noses into other people's sepulchres. 
 There be lots of 'em up there, Romans an' Britons 
 and other heathen folk all a-waiting. I do often 
 think what a lot of 'em be waiting like that out in 
 France poor souls. Do they give 'em Christian 
 burial, William Tuck?" 
 
 "Zumtimes. They has 'em all registered like par- 
 ish clerk if they can find'em." 
 
 "I once peeped over churchyard wall and saw 
 parson a-burying," interrupted Jacob Fox, as though 
 anxious to show that he, too, had assisted on such 
 ceremonial occasions. "Aw wore a white surplus 
 and aw said: 
 
 "'Ashes to ashes, dust to dust, 
 
 1 If God won't have ye the divil must!'" 
 
 "True, most true, and well spoken," said old 
 Jarge. "But I do think ye've got it a bit mixed up 
 in that mazy poll o' yourn, Jacob Fox. Not but 
 what it b ain't a very pious sentiment. . . . 
 Death and the powers of darkness do seem to be 
 abroad in the land. And signs and portents. I do 
 mind me as the very night avore Abigail Hunt got 
 news of the death of her youngest lad in the war, I 
 
264 GENTLEMEN AT ARMS 
 
 was a-zitting up and I suddenly 'eers a bat tapping 
 at the winder. And I looks up, and behold! there 
 was a winding-sheet in the candle. And I knowed 
 as zumone was took." 
 
 The conversation was interrupted by the entrance 
 of the toilers of the fields. The head of Levi God- 
 behere, a gaunt, sinewy man, appeared in the door- 
 way. He was a silent man soured by domestic 
 strife, and he placed his seed-lip down on the ground 
 without a word. He was immediately followed by 
 the thatcher, who was reputed to be a "warm" man 
 with a Post Office Savings Book, and was respected 
 accordingly as a great authority on high finance. 
 Each proceeded to pull out of his capacious pocket 
 a large spotted handkerchief, which, when unfolded, 
 disclosed thick slices of bread and cheese. The 
 thatcher J s rations were further distinguished by the 
 presence of a piece of fat bacon. Each of the others 
 in turn produced his midday meal and they all sat 
 down, slowly masticating their food like a cow chewing 
 the cud. 
 
 This ritualistic silence was broken by the entrance 
 of Daniel Newth, who proceeded to remove two 
 large incrustations of loamy brown soil from his 
 boots. They remained on the floor bearing an 
 exact imprint of his hob-nailed soles. 
 
 "Well, neighbours," he said, sociably, "toime 
 to hev' a bite and sup. Let's eat, drink, and be 
 merry, for to-morrow we tightens our belts. If this 
 war goes on we shall all be turned out to grass. There 
 won't be nothing else to eat. We starves the beasts 
 
THE HUSBANDMEN II 265 
 
 and they'll end by starving us. There's mighty little 
 oil-cake for the cattle, and no barley meal for the 
 pigs, and next to no maize for the poultry. There'll 
 be as girt a slaughter of beasts as there is of men, 
 and what then ? Hey, neighbours ? " 
 
 "A solemn thought, Dan'l. A solemn thought, 
 'tis," ruminated the old man. "There's Blackacre 
 Field as hev' been under roots these seven year, and 
 is now given over to whate, and what 'ull the cattle 
 do for winter vittles then? Die they must loike 
 burnt offerings 'tis a sacrifice, sure it is. It do 
 mind me o' the old toime, when I saw meat only 
 once a week. But there'll be a powerful lot of bread, 
 there will. Varmer be ploughing up pasture. 
 There's 'little Scotland' field as was laid down in 
 '79 the year o' the great blight when corn fell to 
 vorty-dree shillin' a quarter, and the cattle rotted 
 in the fields. A terrible year that was! It rained 
 vorty days and vorty nights and the corn sprouted 
 in the shocks, and cows and sheep got the vluke in 
 the liver and wasted away, like a maid in a decline. 
 And half the varmers in the parish was sold up. 
 'Once bit, twice shy,' says t'others, and they turned 
 all their arable into pasture. And now they've got 
 to plough it up again. Well, tis' an ill wind as blows 
 no one any good. It'll be a tidy toime for plough- 
 men. There's Dan'el as gets twenty-nine shillin' 
 a week. I've a-ploughed a hacre a day in my toime 
 with two horses and only got twelve shillin' for it. 
 And Oi could drive as straight a vurrow as any man 
 in the parish." 
 
266 GENTLEMEN AT ARMS 
 
 "Aye, that you could, veyther," said Daniel 
 Newth, propitiatingly. "We do all know as you 
 could." 
 
 "Yes, and zow, too. I do mind as how afore these 
 seed-drills corned in I've a-zowed eleven acres of 
 rye, which is eleven sacks, in a day. Rye takes 
 some zowing! short steps, and a full handful from 
 the seed-lip for each step. . . . Ye've an easy 
 job ploughing this year, Dan'I, after the roots. 
 Those roots have been hoed clane of charlock and 
 clytes and couch, and ye've no skim-ploughing to 
 do. Them lands are as clane as my hand." 
 
 "Well, there'll be a good time coming for Eli Rud- 
 
 dick," said the ploughman. "He'll be thatching 
 
 day in, day out, next year. Ye'll be buying housen 
 
 zoon, Eli. Ye must have saved a tidy bit. What do 
 
 ee put it in, if I may so ax ? " 
 
 "I lends it to Government," said Eli Ruddick, 
 shortly. 
 
 "Well, it be better than laying yer talents up in a 
 napkin," said the old man reflectively. "But what 
 I zays is, 'Spend it as quick as yer can.' 'Tis the 
 end of the world coming, sure it is, when all earthly 
 things 'ull pass away. Or lend it to the Lord. I 
 did put an extra penny in the plate last Sunday." 
 
 "A good hinvestment, old Jarge," said Levi God- 
 behere, gloomily breaking his long silence. "A 
 good investment it be. Ye gets a hundred per cent, 
 on it. I do mind that hymn they sings in church 
 when the sidesmen comes round with the plate all 
 looking t'other way, and pretending not to see the 
 
THE HUSBANDMEN II 267 
 
 trouser-buttons what some folks drops in. How 
 do it go? 
 
 " Whatever, Lord, we gives to Thee 
 Repaid a hundredfold shall be 
 
 "Well, us brought nothing into this world, and us 
 can take nothing out. Though I suppose the 
 Almighty 'ull allow William Tuck to keep his wooden 
 leg. . . . How be getting on wi' that leg o' 
 yourn, William Tuck?" said the old man, for whom 
 the soldier's wooden limb had an inexhaustible fas- 
 cination. 
 
 "It be a useful tool to hev! A very useful tool. 
 Oi can plant taters wi' un. . . . Them doctors 
 can do most wonderful things. They'll graft and 
 prune ye like a rose bush. I know'd a chap as had 
 half his face blown away, and one eye gone to 
 kingdom come a terrible sight he wur. Thje birds 
 could ha' flown in an' out of his face like an old 
 ruin. And they builded 'un a new face wi' a glass eye 
 so as his own mother wouldn't a know'd the difference. 
 They could cut up Jacob Fox here like butcher's meat 
 and put 'un together again, if they had a mind. And 
 make quite a pretty man of 'un, too." 
 
 "How much do 'ee think they'd charge a body for 
 doing it, Mr. Tuck?" said Jacob, who had been 
 sadly ill-favoured by Nature. 
 
 "Jacob Fox," said the old man, reproachfully, 
 "Doan't 'ee brivet about that headpiece o' yourn 
 so. It's a gift of God, and ye mun make the best 
 of it. We do all know ye be a wonderful ugly 
 
268 GENTLEMEN AT ARMS 
 
 man, the ugliest man in the parish, hain't he, 
 neighbours?" 
 
 "Aye, that he be," they all echoed, studying his 
 homely features with critical attention. "You be a 
 wonderful plain-featured man, Jacob Fox." 
 
 "Well, Oi do mind a horse as took quite a fancy to 
 me," said Jacob, desperately. "It wur thuck gray 
 mare of maister's. She would follow Oi about like a 
 bitch." 
 
 "YeVe a wonderful soothing way wi' horses, 
 Jacob, there's no denying it," said Daniel Newth. 
 "I never zeed such a chap for coaxing 'em into a 
 halter." jj 
 
 "Well, neighbours," said Jacob, tremulously, 
 "it do seem to Oi as dumb animals be more human 
 than men. Meaning no offence, friends and neigh- 
 bours all." 
 
 "How do 'ee figure that out, Jacob Fox?" said the 
 old man, magisterially. "It be a heathen thing to 
 say." 
 
 " Because ye never see animals a-slaughtering and 
 making war on their own kind. Except rooks." 
 
 "That be a deep saying, sonnies," said Daniel 
 Newth, reflectively. "A deep saying it be. The lad 
 do think deep thoughts at toimes." 
 
 "Howsomever, killing do seem to be a law of 
 nature," said the old man. "The hounds kill the 
 vox, the vox kills the vowls, and the vowls kills the 
 worms. . . . William Tuck, have ye ever slain 
 a German Hun wi' your own hands; smiting 'un 
 under the fifth rib, so to speak?" 
 
THE HUSBANDMEN II 269 
 
 "Aye, that I hev. I've a-spit one with my bayonet, 
 right in his innards. Aw did give a kind of grunt." 
 
 "It do seem a fearful death. But I'd sooner be 
 bayonitted than hung. I mind when I was a little 
 'un I went to Hang Fair, at Zaulsbury, to see a 
 woman hanged as had poisoned her lawful husband. 
 And my veyther held Oi up over the heads of the 
 crowd to see her zwinging. I mind well as 'er had 
 clean white stockings on, and 'er kicked off one shoe 
 wi' t'other. It did give me quite a turn. Still, it 
 were a sinful thing to kill a husband. Being an 
 offence against Holy Matrimony." 
 
 "True, most true, Jarge," said Levi Godbehere 
 darkly. "Marrying be like dying ye can't escape 
 it, and ye never knows what 'ull come after it." 
 
 "Aye. But ye can only die once," said the old 
 man, significantly. 
 
 "True. I takes yer m'aning, Jarge. Ye've ha' 
 buried drew wives, as we do all know. Ye oughter 
 have dree gold stripes for it, like the chaps that 
 have been wounded. There was a fellow in Win- 
 terbourne Parish, Abraham Love was his name, 
 what buried four wives. Buried four wives, aw did. 
 Aw had a beautiful headstone stuck up in church- 
 yard for his virst, and when t'others died, he had 
 their names all carved like a nobleman, one under 
 t'other. When he'd buried the fourth, aw died 
 hisself and there warn't much room for a subscription 
 left. So they just put Also Abraham Love, hus- 
 band of the above. At Rest.' A very proper sub- 
 scription 'twas." 
 
270 " GENTLEMEN AT ARMS 
 
 "A very proper one. I never could understand 
 how King Solomon could 'a put up wi' all those 
 hundreds of wives, all at once. I figure he must hev 
 had a girt dorm-it-ory for 'em, same as they hev' for 
 old folks in the workhouse." 
 
 "I do like to hear about King Solomon," said 
 Jacob Fox, emboldened by the success of his last 
 observation. "Aw wur main fond of animals." 
 
 "What be the lad got into that head of his'n now? 
 What do 'ee mane, boy." 
 
 "Well, neighbours, it says as he kept dree hundred 
 concubines. I expect as aw liked stroking 'em. 
 Though aw must hev' had very horny hands. I 
 saw two on 'em in thuck travelling menagerie as 
 come to Marlbro' last year. They had prickly quills 
 all over like hedgehogs." 
 
 "Ye stun-pool, ye do mane porcupines. They 
 bain't concubines. Concubines be wenches." 
 
 A loud sally of laughter greeted Jacob Fox's ex- 
 cursion into Biblical history, and blushing to the 
 roots of his yellow thatch-like hair he retreated into 
 the shadows of the barn. 
 
 "Matrimony be destiny, depend on't," said the 
 thatcher as the laughter subsided. "There was 
 Liz Rumming as hung her shift inside-out on a 
 gooseberry bush at Midsummer eve and sat up to see 
 the form and features of her fated husband, as maids 
 do at such times. And about eleven by the clock, 
 she hears footsteps in the garden. She peeps through 
 the buttery window and zees zumone in the dark a- 
 tearing her shift from off the gooseberry bush. She 
 
THE HUSBANDMEN II 271 
 
 tiptoed out all of a tremble, and lo, and behold, it 
 was one of the shorthorn cows out of the pasture." 
 
 "There bain't much sense in that," said the old 
 man. 
 
 "Bain't there, though, Jarge!" retorted the 
 thatcher. "Inside of twelve months she married the 
 
 cowman." 
 
 "Well, it mid have been the finger of fate," the old 
 man conceded. "I do belave in witches and sooth- 
 sayers. Ye finds 'em in the Bible. Tis allowed to 
 larn things to come from searching the Scriptures. 
 There's this attacking of Jerusalem. It be very like 
 the Second Coming. I heerd from parish clerk as 
 can read the newspapers as soon as look at 'em 
 a clever man that, sonnies as this godly man of 
 war, Lord Allanby, is to be greeted wi' loud hosan- 
 nas as he enters the Holy City riding on an ass. A 
 man from God, sure he be. And there is some as do 
 say that we Englishmen be the Lost Tribes, and 
 Chosen People, so to speak." 
 
 "Sure, 'tis strange things be happening," said the 
 thatcher. "There's lads as hev' never been outside 
 this parish all their lives as be now in the land of the 
 Pharaohs, a-making love to princesses, and in ancient 
 Babylon a-worshipping strange gods, and in Africa 
 a-riding on camels and laming all manner o' new 
 
 sins." 
 
 "Well, I do hold as it be the end of the world, 
 neighbours," said the old man. "There be wars and 
 rumours of wars, nation rising against nation. 
 There be fire and brimstone. There be engines o' 
 
272 GENTLEMEN AT ARMS 
 
 torment in the heavens above and in the deeps be- 
 neath. My son Dan'l here wur a-reading Luke the 
 twenty-virst to me t'other night, and it be all there 
 as plain as the palm of your hand. Famine and 
 pestilence and fearful sights. And Jerusalem en- 
 compassed with armies." 
 
 "True, most true," said Levi Godbehere, darkly. 
 "I mind them holy words. It do say 'tis to be as in 
 the days of Noe folks eating and drinking, marry- 
 ing and giving in marriage. And so they be. 
 There's more banns called in this parish this last 
 year than I can iver call to mind. 'Tis the separa- 
 tion allowances, maybe. But 'tis a sign and portent, 
 all the same." 
 
 k "'Tis a thing to turn a man's thoughts heaven- 
 wards," said the old man conclusively. "A deep and 
 fearful toime it be. But ye can see by the sun 'tis 
 past noon, neighbours." And he arose and wiped 
 his mouth with the back of his hand. 
 
 The thatcher took up his shuttle, the sower slung 
 his seed-lip against his chest, William Tuck took 
 down his bill-hook from the nail on the wall. The 
 ploughman hooked in his team again. Each went 
 his appointed way. And nothing was to be heard 
 in the barn save~the clank "of the swede-cutter and 
 the patter of the orange-coloured slices as they fell 
 into the bushel-measure below. 
 
XVIII 
 
 A FARM IN ^FLANDERS 
 
 THE air was drowsy with the scent of the 
 flowers of the downland wild thyme, hare- 
 bell, eyebright, yellow bedstraw, and creeping 
 cinquefoil. A "Lulworth skipper" opened and closed 
 her orange wings upon the golden petals of the rag- 
 wort as though fanning herself in the swooning heat. 
 Between the chalk cliff on which we lay, and the 
 Purbeck limestone of the opposing headland, the 
 coast curved inland in a sickle-shaped bay whose 
 "waters gleamed blue as sapphire in the July sun. 
 The surface of the channel was smooth as molten 
 glass, save when the propeller of a patrol-boat left 
 a furrow of white foam behind her. The complete 
 absence of motion combined with the transparency 
 of the air to give Nature something of the fixity of 
 Art; we seemed to be looking at a water-colour paint- 
 ing. Borlase and I lay at full length on the down, 
 smoking our pipes and enjoying the view with the 
 proprietary pride of two West-country men and that 
 sensation of unlimited opulence which seduces 
 every officer on leave, a sensation which is wholly 
 subjective and has nothing to do with the state of 
 one's account at Cox's. In fact, it often leads 
 to overdrafts. And like the enchanted disciple on 
 
 273 
 
274 GENTLEMEN AT ARMS 
 
 the Mount we talked of building tabernacles after 
 the war. 
 
 "No building for me!" I said. "I will buy me a 
 certain manor house, whose walls are as jasper 
 walls of old red brick sun-ripened like a peach, gabled 
 roofs, mullioned windows, oak panelling. . . . 
 Damn these flies!" 
 
 "And I," said Borlase meditatively, "will buy a 
 farm in Flanders." 
 
 "A farm in Flanders! Not you, my son! Don't 
 I know them! Cold tiled floors, walls of mud 
 and timber, a courtyard whose chief decorative 
 feature is a midden-heap, a landscape of pollarded 
 willows and slimy dykes with an obscene estaminet 
 in the middle distance. And no cubbing, either!" 
 
 "I didn't say I should live there," said Borlase 
 slowly. " But I shouldn't like to feel it belonged to 
 any one else." 
 
 "Where is it?" I asked languidly as I watched a 
 golden-brown fritillary fluttering ecstatically. Bor- 
 lase was gazing out to sea, beyond the white cliffs 
 of the Needles to the distant haze which masked the 
 coast of France. 
 
 "D'you know the bit of country between Riche- 
 bourg and Festubert?" 
 
 "Do I not?" I said feelingly. "I lost my way 
 there once and all but walked straight into the 
 German trenches." 
 
 "Well, it's there. The last time I saw it and 
 jolly glad I was to see the last of it it was mostly 
 dust and ashes; a Jack Johnson knocked it endways. 
 
A FARM IN FLANDERS ., 275 
 
 It was our headquarters and was back about three 
 hundred yards behind the trenches very unhealthy. 
 The Huns used to 'search' up and down on either side 
 of us with their smaller howitzers, first up one side 
 of the road on which our house stood, then down the 
 other, as methodically as a gardener with a watering 
 can. I used to watch their black and yellow bursts 
 creeping nearer and nearer with a kind of ugly fas- 
 cination and wonder whether the next would get us. 
 We had no cellar and didn't like to bolt to our funk- 
 hole across the yard for fear we should give the show 
 
 away. They got T that way I found his 
 
 boot afterward. . . . We moved into that 
 sector at the end of 1914, having been in the whole 
 show from the beginning at Mons. We'd done our 
 bit, too, in the big sweep of October when Smith- 
 Dorrien tried to roll up the German right resting on 
 La Bassee. We were in that eleven days' fighting 
 round the sugar-factory at Lorgies and after that 
 were moved up and down the lines in a sort of game 
 of "General Post," acting as reserve to the division 
 one battalion to a division! That was what was 
 meant by 'reserve' in those days. We'd trek after 
 a week or ten days in the trenches and settle down in 
 billets and get the camp kettles going for a hot tub, 
 and within a few minutes, along would come the 
 
 order: 'Be prepared to start for at half-an- 
 
 hour's notice.' And we'd start. 
 
 "That went on till we settled down more or less 
 at the spot I've spoken of. We found fairly good 
 fire-trenches when we took over, but that was all. 
 
276 GENTLEMEN AT ARMS 
 
 There were no communication trenches we relieved 
 by sections over the open ground no support- 
 trenches and no reserve-trenches. And here, like 
 Caesar, we went into winter quarters, except that 
 Caesar rested and we didn't. No one who has not 
 gone through that first winter out there will ever 
 realize what the Old Army endured. We had no 
 wire at first, and consequently had to post extra 
 sentries at night. We had no flares till we inven- 
 ted that stunt of sodium in jam tins. We had no 
 trench boards, and no pumps, and when the water 
 got into our trenches it rose steadily till our men 
 stood more than knee-deep in a compost of icy mud 
 and water, which gradually stiffened round their legs 
 like concrete. Our company sergeant-major lost 
 both feet that way. There were no four-day reliefs 
 in those days; we were relieved about once every 
 ten and even then at least half the battalion, and 
 sometimes the whole of it, were kept up in close 
 support all night in case of a sudden attack. We 
 were always on the defensive and the Hun knew it. 
 Raids were out of the question we hadn't the men 
 to spare and, as you'll remember, raids were never 
 thought of till the November following, when the 
 New Army had taken the field. Besides, we had 
 no bombs. 
 
 "But we couldn't take all the taunts of the Jager 
 battalion opposite us lying down, and it was then 
 that we started experimenting with the 'jam pots' 
 made by the sappers. We used to call our bombers 
 Tickler's Artillery,' and if they didn't terrify the 
 
A FARM IN FLANDERS 277 
 
 enemy they certainly succeeded in terrifying us. 
 You remember the kind of thing ? one of Tickler's 
 jam tins with a little gun-cotton priming in the 
 middle, a fuse which one lit with a match like a pipe, 
 and for a charge pounded crockery, belt-buckles, 
 shirt-buttons, ten centime pieces; in fact, anything 
 we could lay our hands on. It was the best we could 
 do. ... Of course, we had none of your por- 
 table Lewis guns, only the old heavy machine-gun of 
 gun-metal weighing fifty-eight pounds, and only two to 
 the battalion at that. As for trench mortars, no one 
 had ever heard of 'em except the Hun, until the sap- 
 pers sent up their improvised stove-pipes five out of 
 six were duds, and the sixth gave the show away. 
 
 "And night and day the Hun pounded us with his 
 artillery sprayed us with shrapnel and blew us up 
 with H.E., and there were our howitzers behind us 
 eating their heads off for want of stuff. When 
 things got a bit too warm we'd telephone back pray- 
 ing the C.O. of a battery of i8-pounders to dust the 
 Huns up a bit, and what constantly happened would 
 be something like this I'd spot some Huns with my 
 field-glasses about six hundred yards away making 
 an M.-G. emplacement at their leisure; I'd ring up 
 the battery, and they'd put in four shells, two short, 
 two wide, then a dead stop; I'd ring up again and 
 the answer would come: 'Sorry, we've fired the 
 ration Four a day is all we're allowed/ Then the 
 Hun, after waiting a bit, would proceed to concrete 
 his emplacement at his leisure, and after that there 
 was the devil to pay. 
 
278 GENTLEMEN AT ARMS 
 
 "I tell you it was heartrending we were like 
 Dervishes with spears up against a machine-gun; 
 our men had nothing except their courage and their 
 musketry but they never once got the wind up 
 and they put the fear of God into the Huns. It was 
 just as bad for the gunners. I remember old Haig- 
 Smith, the C.O. of the Battery, showing me once, 
 almost with tears in his eyes, his boxes of ammuni- 
 tion: all the duds saved up like talents in a napkin 
 since the South African War and marked 'Sing- 
 apore/ 'Hong-Kong/ Terth, W.A.,' and the Lord 
 knows what else. That battery was put on low 
 diet and for some unexplained reason it had to be 
 taken like medicine once every twenty-four hours; 
 if the gunners saved it for an emergency they had to 
 return it like an unexpended Treasury balance; so 
 they used to fire it off after tea on principle if it 
 wasn't wanted earlier. Comic! wasn't it? 
 
 "This went on for weeks, and week by week I saw 
 my pals fellows who'd been at Sandhurst along 
 with me, men I'd played poker and hunted with for 
 years knocked out one after the other, also my 
 best N.C.O., who'd taught me all I knew, the men 
 in my company all knocked out. I remember in 
 one morning we lost ninety men killed or mortally 
 wounded when about fifty yards of trench was 
 wrecked and B Company split into halves, left 
 half being cut clean off from the right where the 
 communication trench joinH the front trench. 
 There the wounded lay and rotted. You see that 
 damned M.G. emplacement of theirs commanded 
 
A FARM IN FLANDERS 279 
 
 the whole of it, so it was certain death to try to get 
 the wounded away. 
 
 "I tell you that when I considered the heavens in 
 the fire-trench at night and watched the eternal 
 bombardment of Ypres like a blast-furnace in the 
 sky, I used to ask myself what the old country was 
 doing, and whether it had completely forgotten us. 
 We used to read of strikes in South Wales and on 
 the Clyde, and speeches by stipendiary M.P.'s in 
 the House jawing about 'militarism' and threatening 
 revolution if the Government ever dared to introduce 
 compulsory service, and I tell you I felt sick. 'Mili- 
 tarism!' It was militarism we were up against, evil 
 
 incarnate. D'you remember the girl P found 
 
 near Richebourg after the Germans had done with 
 her? D'you remember what we found in Warne- 
 ton? D'you remember but, of course, you know. 
 How much does an M.P. get? Double the pay of 
 a company commander, isn't it? 
 
 "We heard of 's new army, of course, but 
 
 hope deferred made our hearts pretty sick, and it 
 used to be a standing joke with the battalion to say: 
 'It's rumoured that Italy and the New Army are 
 about to abandon definitely their neutrality.' A 
 silly joke, I admit, because we might have known 
 that the authorities at home were working night 
 and day to get a move on and succour us. And at 
 last, like the dove to the ark, there came two Ter- 
 ritorial regiments attached to us for instruction. 
 Topping fellows they were, too! And, then, as 
 winter gave way to spring, and spring to summer and 
 
280 GENTLEMEN AT ARMS 
 
 the floods subsided in our trenches, the New Army 
 began to arrive. We could hardly believe it at 
 first. And it grew and grew like a grain of mustard- 
 seed. And all kinds of fancy things came with it 
 Stokes guns, and Mills bombs, and Lewis guns, and 
 stacks of shells. By that time I could cheerfully 
 have said nunc dimittis, for I knew we were saved. 
 I felt old, very old, like the Johnny in the Bible, 
 but like him I could have said, 'Now lettest Thou 
 thy servant depart in peace.' I tell you I could 
 have wept for joy as if I'd sniffed a tear-shell. But 
 by that time " 
 
 Borlase stopped and gazed out to sea in silence. 
 He was silent for so long a time that at last I gave 
 him a cue. 
 
 "Yes, I know," I said. "I've been there. But I 
 can't see why you want to buy that filthy farm. 
 You know you said it was all dust and ashes by now." 
 
 "So I did. But you see all my pals are buried 
 there." 
 
XIX 
 
 THE ALLIES 
 
 DOOZE oofs, see voo plaise ! Compronnay, 
 madame?" 
 Marie Claire's lips parted and displayed 
 two rows of teeth. They were filbert-shaped and 
 very white. 
 
 "Oui, Je comprends very well. What you call 
 it ? Twelve eggs, yes ? " 
 
 "Non, dooze," said the sergeant stoutly. And he 
 held up two fingers. She noticed that the skin of 
 the inside of his thumb and of the middle joint of 
 his forefinger displayed a hard abrasion like a cob- 
 bler's. It's the trigger that does it. 
 
 "Ah! deux! Ecoutez! 'Un c'est 'one'. 'Deux' 
 c'est 'two.' Dites: 'deux'. Comme fa!" And she 
 expired the monosyllable from her lips as though she 
 were blowing a kiss. 
 
 "Do !" said the sergeant. 
 
 "Non; 'deux'!" 
 
 "Dew. 9 ' 
 
 " Bien ! Tres bien. Voild !" and she produced 
 two eggs from their nest in the crate and laid them on 
 the counter. 
 
 "Combien, madame ?" 
 
 " Fingt centimes. Mais 'madame' ! pas encore ! 
 
 281 
 
282 GENTLEMEN AT ARMS 
 
 ' Mademoiselle 9 ; anglais, 'Mees'. Voyez." And she 
 displayed the fingers of her left hand as though it 
 were a parade inspection. 
 
 The sergeant looked at them. With a sudden 
 movement he placed his hand upon them as they 
 lay upon the counter. 
 
 "Non!" she said coldly as she hastily withdrew her 
 hand. "Fini! Bonjour!" And she turned her back 
 upon him. 
 
 Sergeant John Lawrence put his twenty centimes 
 on the counter, took up his eggs, saluted, and walked 
 out of the cremerie without a word. He felt hot 
 and uncomfortable. 
 
 On the afternoon of the next day he came again. 
 Before he could open his mouth Marie Claire had 
 placed two eggs on the counter. She looked at him 
 abstractedly as though he were a piece of household 
 furniture rather the worse for wear, which might 
 soon need replacing, and said indifferently: "Vingt 
 
 centimes" 
 
 This done, she turned to a shelf behind her and 
 began moving the jars of confitures, occasionally 
 pursing her lips to blow away the dust. These 
 expirations grew louder as he lingered until their 
 blasting effect upon him emotionally produced the 
 kind of functional paralysis associated with the 
 effects of high explosive. He stood rooted to the 
 spot, his eyes fixed on the back of her neck. He sud- 
 denly put down the purchase money, pocketed the 
 e gg s > and walked out. After proceeding a hundred 
 yards with knit brows he stopped and ruminated. 
 
THE ALLIES 283 
 
 Opposite him was a dead wall, the gable end of a 
 house. He put his hand in his pocket, drew out an 
 egg, took a short run, like a man practising on a 
 bombing-course, and throwing from his hip hurled the 
 egg at the wall. He noted with gloomy satisfaction 
 the protoplasmic effect, and taking the other egg he 
 hurled it after its predecessor. And he resumed his 
 walk. 
 
 Four days succeeded one another and each day 
 Marie Claire rehearsed a frigid reception for Ser- 
 geant Lawrence. She rehearsed it in a newly-ironed 
 blouse and after carefully washing her hair. Each 
 morning as she rose from petit dejeuner she prepared 
 herself to resent his appearance; each evening as she 
 sat down to diner she felt unaccountably annoyed 
 that he had not appeared. She began telling herself 
 that it did not matter two sous to her whether he 
 appeared or not. She told herself this very often. 
 
 One evening toward dusk she was sitting behind 
 the counter engaged in knitting a tricot. Her needles 
 clicked mechanically as she gazed abstractedly at 
 the wall and occasionally she stopped to count the 
 dropped stitches. She heard a footstep and looked 
 up. Sergeant John Lawrence was standing at the 
 counter. Before she had time to collect her thoughts 
 he had vanished vanishing as suddenly as he had 
 appeared; so suddenly that she began to doubt the 
 evidence of her senses. But on the counter lay a 
 rose. She stared at it for some time and then sud- 
 denly took it up, burying her nose in its petals as she 
 inhaled their fragrance. It was a Marechal Niel. 
 
284 GENTLEMEN AT ARMS 
 
 She examined it, pulling back the petals as though she 
 were peeling an artichoke. But there was nothing 
 there. It was simply a rose. She sat with her chin 
 upon her hands trying to conjure up the appearance 
 of the man who had laid it before her and wonder- 
 ing what it was about him that had seemed so un- 
 familiar. And as she mused, it dawned on her that 
 he had a rifle slung over his left shoulder, a pack on 
 his back, a water bottle on his hip. She rose and 
 looked at the clock. 
 
 "Marie Claire! Marie Claire! Diner, Norn de 
 Dieu ! J'ai une grande faim. La soupe est froide !" 
 
 She ignored this plaintive remonstrance which 
 came in a stertorous voice from the parlour behind 
 the shop, and, slipping a shawl over her head, she 
 stole out into the street. It was curiously empty. 
 
 She crossed the Place, already steeped in shadows, 
 and having covered some four hundred yards, she 
 stopped. Ahead of her in the middle of the street 
 were a number of soldiers drawn up in long lines 
 two deep. They were in full marching kit and in 
 front of the nearest platoon a sergeant was calling 
 the roll. It was Lawrence. He held a roll-book in 
 his hand and as he called each name, the owner 
 shouted, "Here"; the sound was taken up in a 
 series of repetitions which, as they collided acousti- 
 cally with the same sounds from other platoons farther 
 up the street, produced the effect of a prolonged echo. 
 Having finished calling the roll Lawrence went up 
 to the platoon commander, saluted, and made his 
 report. The company commander took over. 
 
THE ALLIES 285 
 
 "Form" Fours! Right! At Ease Qu-i-i-i-i-ck 
 March!" There was a shuffle of heavy feet and 
 the long lines dissolved into columns of fours. 
 The men's feet went "clip-clop clip-clop" on the 
 pavement with the rhythm of a pendulum. The next 
 moment the street was empty and Marie Claire was 
 staring fixedly at the tail of the column oscillating 
 like a tuning fork from right to left as it receded in 
 the distance in a cloud of dust. 
 KT Sergeant Lawrence having cleaned his teeth with 
 his army tooth-brush stood in front of a mirror and 
 studied attentively a fixed smile a smile which he 
 produced and reproduced with the reflex movements 
 of his maxillar muscles. It was a serious smile with- 
 out mirth; being intended, like the capacious smile 
 of a "chorus" lady, for purely exhibition purposes. 
 Dissatisfied with the result, he went over his teeth 
 again with a piece of charcoal until their lustrous 
 whiteness convinced him that art could do no more 
 for Nature. For some days he had knocked off 
 cigarettes owing to their discolouring effect on the 
 enamel; he had also been at pains to remove, with the 
 aid of a piece of pumice-stone, a large stain of chem- 
 ical brown on the inside of the middle finger of his 
 right hand. His face glowed with the application of 
 soap and hot water; his buttons shone and twinkled 
 like the stars of the firmament. 
 
 At the end of an hour of these ministrations he 
 pronounced him'self "clean and regular" and, taking 
 a small cane in his hand, he walked with an air of 
 studied nonchalance down the street, a prey to a 
 
286 GENTLEMEN AT ARMS 
 
 secret obsession that he was a subject of morbid 
 curiosity to every passer-by. As he reached the 
 corner of the rue Gambetta he suddenly ran into 
 Sergeant Robert Chipchase. 
 
 "Hulloa, Jack!" said the other. "Going for a 
 stroll?" 
 
 "Y-yes," said John Lawrence. 
 
 "I'll come with you," said the other, sociably. 
 
 Lawrence hesitated and was lost. He fell into 
 step beside his companion. He walked some dis- 
 tance, replying to conversational overtures with 
 monosyllables. 
 
 "Qot the hump, Jack?" said the other suddenly. 
 
 "N-no," replied Lawrence. He stopped dead. 
 "I've forgot my handkerchief." 
 
 "Strewth! I knew you had something preying on 
 your mind like. Why didn't you say so before, mate ? 
 Here you are use mine." And he tendered first aid. 
 
 Lawrence gazed at the handkerchief abstractedly. 
 
 "Anything wrong with it?" said the other, sensi- 
 tively. 
 
 "No! No offence, I hope," said Lawrence. 
 "The fact is, Bob," he went on breathlessly, taking 
 each full-stop at full gallop, " I-can't-walk-as-well-as- 
 I-used-to I-think-I've-a-touch-of-trench-feet-you'll- 
 excuse-me-old-chap-no-no-I-can-get-back-to-billets- 
 all -right -don't -let- me-spoil-your-walk- Bob." He 
 paused to take breath. "It'll do you good," he 
 added, earnestly. "So long, old man." And he 
 turned on his heel. 
 
 His companion gazed after him. He walked 
 
THE ALLIES 287 
 
 slowly at first, but his feet appeared to recover their 
 circulation with remarkable rapidity and he was soon 
 lost to sight. Sergeant Chipchase soliloquized. 
 
 "Sits in a corner of the mess mugging up * French 
 and How To Speak It.' Says a man ought to 
 improve himself. Looks at a pal as if he wasn't 
 there. Dreamy like. Never passes the time of day. 
 Asked me if I heard a blooming nightingale. . . . 
 Christ! It's a woman!" And, having finished his 
 train of induction, he went on his way, whistling. 
 
 Meanwhile Sergeant Lawrence, having turned the 
 corner of the Place, had arrived at the door of the 
 cremerie. He reconnoitred it from outside and. 
 seeing two soldiers at the counter, he retreated. 
 He walked up and down once or twice, advanced to 
 the door, and again retreated, until seeing the eye of 
 a military policeman on the opposite side of the 
 street watching him with professional curiosity, he 
 walked straight into the shop. At the same moment 
 the two customers emerged from it. 
 
 Behind the counter was Marie Claire. A wave 
 of colour swept over her face as she saw him. They 
 stood looking at each other. 
 
 "Bonjour, M'sieu' Douze-ceufs," she said at last. 
 
 Sergeant Lawrence's eye caught sight of a rose in 
 a vase on the shelf behind her. It was a languid rose 
 with drooping petals, long past its first bloom, but he 
 thought he recognized it. On the counter lay a 
 small book with the words 'Francaise-dnglais' on the 
 cover. He suddenly had an inspiration. 
 
 "Madame " he began. 
 
288 GENTLEMEN AT ARMS 
 
 "Mademoiselle," she corrected. "Encore made- 
 moiselle. " 
 
 "Mademoiselle Marie Claire" (she wondered 
 where he had got hold of her name) "voulez- 
 vouse me donner-lessons French pour un franc?" 
 
 "Moil" 
 
 "Oui." 
 
 She hesitated a moment. 
 
 "Mamanl hi!" 
 
 There was a sound of heavy breathing. "Maman" 
 appeared. She was large and round and so richly 
 endowed by Nature that her chin seemed to melt 
 into her neck, her neck into her bosom. Where 
 other people display joints her body exhibited noth- 
 ing but creases. Her bosom rose and fell contin- 
 uously in short respirations and the purple satin of 
 her blouse rose and fell with them as though it were 
 a natural plumage. A large dimple appeared on 
 either side of her mouth, giving the spectator the 
 impression that she was smiling. The "smile" 
 was perpetual and afforded no index to the state of 
 her emotions it was one of Nature's tricks of 
 camouflage and served to mask a variety of moods 
 ranging from lazy benevolence to active rapacity. 
 It was useful in business. If any one objected to 
 Madame's terms she always dismissed the objection 
 with "Les affaires sont les affaires," and continued to 
 smile with the same impassivity. She was a typical 
 bourgeoise. 
 
 "M'sieu' " began Marie Claire, turning inter- 
 rogatively to the sergeant. 
 
THE ALLIES 289 
 
 "Lawrence John Lawrence," said the sergeant. 
 
 "M'sieu' Lorens wants me to give him lessons in 
 French, maman," said Marie Claire to her mother 
 in her native tongue. "He offers me a franc a les- 
 son," she added quickly, seeing her mother hesitate 
 and fearing a prohibition of such intimacy. 
 
 But Madame was not pondering the proprieties. 
 
 " Deux francs !" said Madame with a smile of bene- 
 diction which expressed a genuine conviction that 
 it is more blessed to receive than to give. 
 
 "Oh y Maman!" protested Marie Claire. 
 
 But Sergeant Lawrence jumped at the stipulation. 
 "Done! Bong! Bien!" he exclaimed hurriedly. 
 Had Madame made it ten francs he would cheer- 
 fully have acquiesced. 
 
 Then commenced for Sergeant Lawrence a course 
 of "French Without Tears." It was intensive 
 training, for he knew that the battalion's "rest" in 
 billets was short and he took two lessons a day. 
 They were given in the parlour behind the shop with 
 Maman always in attendance except for brief and 
 occasional absences when a customer claimed her 
 attention. During these absences the conversation 
 took on a less Ollendorfian character; they ceased 
 to ask each other whether the gardener's mother-in- 
 law had the paper-knife of the tailor's step-brother, 
 and Sergeant Lawrence found himself speaking 
 English, as a language more naturally" expressive 
 of the emotions. 
 
 "Mademoiselle, will you come for a promenade?" 
 he said suddenly in one of these truant intervals. 
 
290 GENTLEMEN AT ARMS 
 
 She hesitated. "It is not convenable." 
 
 "Why not?" he pleaded. 
 
 "In France we do not go for a walk unless we are 
 what you call it? 'engaged* fiancee." 
 
 "Then let's get engaged," he said, decisively. 
 
 "Parbleu! To go for a walk?" Her eyes were 
 full of mirth. 
 
 "No! To get married," he said. 
 
 She coloured but said nothing. He leaned for- 
 ward and seized her hand. This time she did not 
 withdraw it. 
 
 "In France," she said at length, "it is not conven- 
 able to ask a girl that." And seeing his look of 
 astonishment, she added: "You must speak to 
 Maman first." 
 
 "Bon! Right away!" he said. 
 
 "Have you asked your papa?" she said as they 
 waited for Maman 9 s return from the shop. 
 
 "My papa!" he exclaimed. "You mean my old 
 governor? Lord, no! Nor my grandpapa." He 
 remembered there was a Table of Affinities in the 
 door of the church porch at home, proclaiming to ail 
 that a man may not marry his grandmother, bt 
 could not see what that had to do with it. 
 
 "In France," explained Marie Claire, "the chil- 
 dren do not marry without the consent of their 
 papas and mammas. The garqon asks his papa and 
 his papa asks the papa of the demoiselle. Then 
 there's a conseil de famille." 
 
 "Lord love me! It sounds like an inquest. 
 . . . Madame!" he said, rising to his feet as 
 
THE ALLIES 291 
 
 Maman returned, "I would like to marry your 
 daughter, Marie Claire. I I love her," he added 
 simply. 
 
 " Bleu," said Madame, with the eternal smile. 
 
 He thought she said "Combien?" and added 
 hastily, "I'm a platoon sergeant, my pay's two 
 shillings and tenpence a day, I don't chuck 
 money about, and I've got 50 in the bank. I've 
 a clean conduct-sheet, Madame. You can ask the 
 adjutant." 
 
 To all of which, uttered in hurried English, 
 Madame made no reply but continued to smile. 
 For Madame knew it all already. How? By 
 a series of judicious enquiries conducted in 
 many quarters. She had an instinct for these 
 things. 
 
 Lawrence did not tell her that he had the 
 D.C.M., that he had been at Mons, and that, if 
 the Fates spared him, he would one day wear a 
 medal with many clasps which would record 
 "Mons," "Le Cateau," "The Marne," "The Aisne," 
 "Ypres," and many another tale of epic battles. 
 After all, these were not things that a fellow talked 
 about. 
 
 And Marie Claire put up her mouth and received 
 his first kiss. Maman looked on with a mercenary 
 smile, being engaged at that moment in a rapid 
 mental calculation of how many francs there were in 
 fifty pounds. Sergeant Lawrence wondered whether 
 it was not " convenable" to kiss one's fiancee except 
 in the presence of her maman. He wondered also 
 
292 GENTLEMEN AT ARMS 
 
 whether he ought to have kissed Maman first. He 
 even wondered for one brief moment whether Maman 
 had ever looked like Marie Claire, but he peremp- 
 torily dismissed this unbidden thought as treasonable 
 and a temptation of the devil. 
 
 Sergeant Lawrence had an interview with his C.O. 
 and the C.O., having satisfied himself, in the spirit 
 of No. 1360 of the King's Regulations, that the lady 
 was a virtuous woman and precious above rubies, 
 duly notified the D.A.G., 3rd Echelon, who in turn 
 communicated with the Officer in charge of Records. 
 Which being done, the C.O. was dully informed that 
 there appeared to be no just cause or legal impedi- 
 ment in the way of the marriage. And John Law- 
 rence went before an officer who was a Commissioner 
 of Oaths and made a statutory declaration to the 
 same effect. He also produced a birth certificate. 
 All of which solemn declarations the C.O. forwarded 
 to the Procureur de la Republique of the arrondisse- 
 ment who thereupon communicated with the maire 
 of the commune. 
 
 All these things took time, and Sergeant Lawrence 
 had to go into the trenches again before the marriage 
 ceremony could be celebrated and Marie Claire 
 spent many sleepless nights trying to dispute a 
 fixed idea that all the enemy batteries had got 
 John Lawrence personally "registered" and were 
 laid on him. But he came out all right, and one 
 day Marie Claire and her Maman, with an amaz- 
 ing retinue of relations, illustrating all the de- 
 grees of affinity, who accompanied them, met Ser- 
 
THE ALLIES 293 
 
 geants Lawrence and Chipchase at the maison de 
 commune. Maman introduced him to a beau-pere 
 who was not beau and a belle-sceur who was not 
 belle, but he reflected that the French are nothing 
 if not polite. It seemed extraordinarily like a 
 lesson in French as the step-father was a cordonnier 
 and the brother-in-law was a charcutier and they 
 all got mixed up in the most approved Ollendorfian 
 manner. 
 
 Lawrence had obtained a certificat de coutume 
 from the consul at the Base to the effect that 
 in English law the consent of the father is not 
 necessary to the present marriage, and this being 
 duly read by the maire adjoint, whom Chipchase 
 called the adjutant, Lawrence again solemnly de- 
 clared that there existed no just cause or legal 
 impediment. 
 
 Whereupon the " contracUint*' John Lawrence in 
 English and the " contract ante" Marie Claire in 
 French declared their wish to take one another for 
 spouse. 
 
 And the Adjoint declared them united in marriage. 
 And Maman for the first time lost her smile and 
 wept. And all the relations to the number of two 
 score and three wept likewise until Lawrence felt 
 more than ever that it was like an inquest. But 
 Marie Claire's smile reassured him. 
 
 And the Adjoint having recited his entries in the 
 register of the etat-civil wrote down "Lecture faite," 
 repeating the words like a litany, and held out his 
 pen. Whereupon John Lawrence and Marie Claire, 
 
294 GENTLEMEN AT ARMS 
 
 his wife, and her Maman, and a great cloud of wit- 
 nesses duly signed their names. 
 
 "You're married, right enough, Jack," said Chip- 
 chase as he took his turn with the pen and gazed 
 at the nine signatures which preceded his own. 
 "It's like a Summary of Evidence you'd better 
 take the old adjutant's award." 
 
 And John Lawrence gave his wife a nuptial kiss 
 before them all. Whereupon Sergeant Chipchase, 
 seizing the youngest and prettiest of Marie Claire's 
 girl friends, kissed her also, explaining that this was 
 the "custom" in England and that the validity of 
 the marriage might be gravely imperilled in English 
 law if this ceremony were omitted. This obiter 
 dictum was so well received that he promptly 
 kissed all the others, thereby wiping away all 
 tears and putting everybody in the greatest good 
 humour. 
 
 I knew Lawrence and was in fact in France at the 
 time of the wedding, but it happened in 1915 and I 
 had forgotten all about it till one day last summer 
 when I was spending a few days' leave in Dorset. 
 I had just heard that he had got a bar to his D.C.M. 
 And as chance would have it, my walk over the cliffs 
 took me in the late afternoon into a village church- 
 yard within a stone's throw of the sea, where I sat 
 on the thick turf in the shade of the cypresses, 
 watching the swallows darting to and fro in curves 
 of eight each silhouetting a fleur-de-lys against the 
 sky. And while I mused in the declining rays of the 
 
THE ALLIES 295 
 
 sun my eye fell on a tombstone opposite me. I read 
 the inscription. 
 
 To the honoured memory of 
 SERGEANT WILLIAM LAWRENCE 
 
 (of the 4<Dth Regiment Foot) 
 Who after a long and eventful life 
 
 In the service of his country 
 Peacefully ended his days at Studland 
 
 November n, 1869. 
 He served with his distinguished regiment 
 
 In the war in South America 1805 
 
 And through the whole of the Peninsular War, 1808-13. 
 
 He received the silver medal and no less than 10 clasps 
 
 For the Battles in which he was engaged 
 
 ROLEIA VIMIERA TOULOUSE 
 
 ^lUDAD RODRIGO 
 
 BADAJOS 
 
 (In which desperate assault being one of the volunteers 
 For the Forlorn Hope he was most grievously wounded) 
 
 VITTORIA PYRENEES NIVELLES 
 ORTHES TOULOUSE 
 
 He also fought at the glorious victory of 
 
 WATERLOO 
 
 June 18, 1815. 
 
 While still serving with his regiment during the 
 
 Occupation of Paris by the Allied Armies 
 
 Sergeant Lawrence married Clothilde Clairet 
 
 at St. Germain-en-Laye who died September 26, 1853 
 
 and was buried beneath this spot. 
 
296 GENTLEMEN AT ARMS 
 
 I got up and walked round to the reverse side of 
 the tombstone. On it was inscribed the words : 
 
 Ci-gft 
 
 CLOTILDE LAWRENCE . 
 Nee at Saint-Germain-en-Laye (France) 
 Decedee a Studland 
 le 26 Sept. 1853. 
 
 Was it merely a coincidence? I do not know. 
 
XX 
 
 THE POWERS OF DARKNESS \ 
 
 UNDENIABLY, Charteris had a long nose. 
 There was no getting away from the fact, 
 especially when you saw that nose opposite 
 you in your dug-out day after day and heard it 
 droning away night after night. Jefferies resented 
 that nose. It was, it is true, not infrequently con- 
 cealed by a gas mask, but the mask only seemed to 
 Jefferies to accentuate the objectionable feature, 
 and the gutta-percha, chisel-shaped snout merely 
 substituted a badger's nose for something more 
 equine. (Jefferies forgot that he also wore a mask at 
 times.) 
 
 It is surprising how prominent a feature in the 
 human face even the most unobtrusive of noses may 
 become if you consider it attentively. And Jefferies 
 considered Charteris's nose very often much too 
 often. He also considered his laugh; most people 
 rather liked Charteris's laugh Jefferies had liked 
 it himself at one time, though he would have been 
 hotly contentious if you had reminded him of this 
 but Jefferies now thought it affected and almost as 
 obtrusive as the nose. Jefferies had an idea that 
 when Charteris laughed he was laughing at him 
 he could not conceive what else there was to laugh 
 
 297 
 
298 GENTLEMEN AT ARMS 
 
 about. After all, to be planted down with a R.G.A. 
 battery in a mud emplacement in Flanders for 
 months, with no other outlook than the triangle 
 formed by your battery as the apex and a ridge of 
 mud as the base, is not exactly a jest. Gas shells 
 are very unpleasant, especially when they necessitate 
 your wearing your respirator for fourteen hours at a 
 stretch; watching a Taube hovering over you for a 
 nice spot to drop its eggs on is worse; and to wait 
 while the unseen battery, which you can't locate, 
 behind the ridge is ranging to get a direct hit on you 
 is the very devil. Also, it is very annoying to be 
 detailed to check the reserve of ammunition and 
 indent for supplies when you never know what per- 
 centage between 20 and 75 of what you indent for 
 will reach you, owing to the pack horses getting 
 knocked out on the way up. In indenting for am- 
 munition you must always proceed on the Oriental 
 principle of asking for twice as much as you expect 
 to get. But this is harassing, and takes time to 
 learn. 
 
 Jefferies could not see that there was anything 
 funny in all this. Besides, he had no time to laugh; 
 there were so many details to attend to. There were 
 the duck boards. They formed a long track, un- 
 rolling itself like a strip of corrugated brown card- 
 board from the dug-out to the battery, and it was 
 very important not to miss that track at night. 
 One of the bombardiers had missed it; Jefferies 
 identified his hand the next morning, as it protruded 
 from the mud like the root of a tree; the man had 
 
THE POWERS OF DARKNESS 299 
 
 always worn a ring on the little finger of his left 
 hand. After that, JefFeries found he could not 
 traverse that duck board without counting every 
 plank in it which he did with extreme care, some- 
 times retracing his steps to make sure he had not 
 missed one. When he got to the guns he would 
 count the minutes on the dial-sight; he could not 
 feel sure that they were numbered right. He al- 
 ways made a point of touching the doorpost of the 
 dug-out when he emerged from it; he would some- 
 times go back to do it if he was sure no one was 
 watching him. 
 
 One night he had a dream. He dreamt he was 
 standing in a large, bare room without cap or belt, 
 with an officer by his side, and five other officers 
 seated at a table facing him. And the five officers 
 each rose and kissed a book one after the other and 
 promised to administer justice without partiality, 
 favour, or affection, and the senior officer then read 
 out a document which recited that he, George An- 
 thony JefFeries, was charged with misbehaving before 
 the enemy in such a manner as to show cowardice 
 
 in that he The officer recited this through his 
 
 nose in a curious droning way, and JefFeries was 
 about to object to the constitution of the Court on 
 the ground of the nasal intonation of the President, 
 when he awoke in a cold sweat and realized that the 
 droning sound came from the ground-sheet opposite 
 him in the dug-out. It was Charteris. After that 
 he disliked Charteris's nose more than ever, and he 
 also secretly found fault with his lisp for Charteris 
 
300 GENTLEMEN AT ARMS 
 
 lisped. He brooded over that lisp, and when Char- 
 teris said "Anything wrong, old man?" he disliked 
 him all the more. Also he made a point of exposing 
 himself rather needlessly when he went forward to 
 the O.P., being under the impression that the men 
 were looking at him. This went on for some time, 
 until one day the Major commanding the battery 
 sent for him, and suggested he should take ten days' 
 leave. This convinced Jefferies that the Major thought 
 he had got the wind up, and he refused. That 
 was a mistake, seeing that he had had no leave for 
 eighteen months. 
 
 One morning, Charteris relieved him at the O.P. 
 They exchanged no words, Charteiis having given 
 up speaking to a man who never answered him with 
 anything but black looks. An hour later a message 
 came down by runner the telephone dug-out had 
 been blown up that Charteris had been killed 
 by a 9.2 shell. They buried him the same day, and 
 the C.O. wrote a letter to his young widow, saying 
 how much they would all miss him, what a gallant 
 gentleman he was, and how his cheerful, indomitable 
 laugh was the life and soul of the battery which 
 was true. And Jefferies, lying awake in his dug-out, 
 suddenly remembered that Charteris had once been 
 his friend and that he had been most damnably 
 rude to him. All this his death brought home to 
 him, and, as is the way with death, it made Charteris 
 more real than he had ever been in life, so that every 
 intonation of his voice, every gesture of his hands, 
 the fleeting smile that played about his lips, sud- 
 
THE POWERS OF DARKNESS 301 
 
 denly acquired the vividness of a tableau vivant. 
 Conversations with Charteris, long forgotten, were 
 now remembered; words which had seemed written 
 in sand were now discovered to be graven on marble. 
 Jefferies' memory had become a monumental brass, 
 and on that brass was an epitaph of Charteris. 
 
 One starlight night, about one o'clock, Jefferies 
 was walking up to the O.P., picking his way care- 
 fully over strands of rusty wire. He was glanc- 
 ing up at the starry mist of the Milky Way when 
 something seemed to snap suddenly in his head, 
 there was a strange singing in his ears, he seemed to 
 be rushing through space, and then everything was 
 blotted out. He found himself in bed, and, to his 
 amazement, he saw that it was a real bed with white 
 linen sheets. He put his right hand above his head, 
 expecting to touch deal boarding, and was surprised to 
 encounter nothing. His sense of touch having failed to 
 controvert the evidence of his sense of sight, he looked 
 about him, and saw other beds in a row with men lying 
 in them, and in the middle of the room for indubita- 
 bly it was a room, and remarkably free from mud was 
 a glass-topped table with swabs and nickel instruments 
 upon it. He realized, at last, that he was in hospital. 
 
 His first instinct was to move his limbs. He 
 moved his right leg and his right arm; then he tried 
 to move his left leg and his left arm he had an anti- 
 cipatory image of the sensorial consequences, but 
 he was conscious of no sensation. For the moment, 
 he had a horrible intuition that the limbs were miss- 
 ing; then he drew down the bed-clothes with his right 
 
302 GENTLEMEN AT ARMS 
 
 arm, and saw that his left arm was there, though 
 curiously inert. He drew his right foot up; it en- 
 countered his left leg, but the left leg was insensible 
 to the encounter. He stammered when he spoke. 
 He laughed often and inconsequently; and for the 
 first time in his life he lisped. 
 
 They evacuated him to England. A medical 
 history sheet accompanied him. He did not see it. 
 On it were the words: 
 
 "Shell shock. Left hemiplegia and anesthesia. Left visual 
 field contracted. Reflexes normal. Speech imperfect. Lisps, 
 but not known whether this is congenital" 
 
 The medical report said nothing about insomnia, 
 though Charteris could have enlightened them on 
 that point. He was sent to a shell-shock hospital 
 for treatment and observation. The functional dis- 
 orders gradually disappeared under electrical appli- 
 cation, and he recovered the use of his limbs. 
 After that he was given two months' sick leave at 
 home, with orders to report to a medical board at 
 the end of it. Outwardly, he seemed his normal 
 self, but his mother noticed a curious introspective 
 look in his eyes. He lisped slightly. 
 
 His people were wise in their generation; they did 
 not ask him questions about "the front." Instead, 
 they took him to theatres to distract his thoughts. 
 The experiment was singularly unsuccessful. They 
 sat in the stalls, but the players always seemed to 
 him as remote as if he had sat in the topmost row 
 
THE POWERS OF DARKNESS 303 
 
 of the gallery, and their voices were an immense 
 distance away. So were his own people, who sat 
 on either side of him; so, indeed, was himself. When 
 he spoke which was seldom he could hear his 
 own voice, always with that lisp, whispering ven- 
 triloquially from the wings, the boxes, the dress- 
 circle, everywhere but from himself. He had an 
 almost irrepressible desire to get up in the middle of 
 an act and walk out; at times he nearly screamed. 
 When he was in the streets he walked with feverish 
 rapidity, and the sauntering pace of people in front 
 of him infuriated him beyond measure. He was 
 always in a hurry to get somewhere he did not 
 know where. 
 
 His mother had been in the habit of coming into 
 his room at night; but he now put her off, and locked 
 his door with extreme care. He sat there alone, a 
 prey to an increasing fear as one o'clock approached, 
 starting at every jsound, and jumping up from his 
 chair. One night the tyre of a motor car in the 
 street burst with a loud report. He dived under 
 the bed. How long he crouched there he did not 
 know, but he remembered distinctly the next morning 
 that he had afterward thrown himself on his bed in 
 his clothes, determined not to take them off, and 
 with the light burning. He awoke in the morning 
 to find himself between the sheets in his sleeping- 
 suit and the light extinguished; his clothes were 
 nowhere to be seen. After a long search he found 
 them neatly folded up in the wardrobe. He had a 
 bad headache, and he saw in the mirror that his 
 
3 o 4 GENTLEMEN AT ARMS 
 
 face was flushed, his pupils dilated, and his tongue 
 furred and coated. He examined the door of his 
 room; it was unlocked. He looked at the water- 
 bottle; it had been full over-night. It was now 
 empty. 
 
 At breakfast, he was silent and morose. He 
 stayed up in the smoking-room till after midnight, 
 unable to face the prospect of entering his bedroom. 
 He ascended the stairs three times, stopped irreso- 
 lutely on the landing, and then descended again. 
 The fourth time, by a tremendous effort, he entered 
 the room, and, as he entered it, turned round and 
 locked the door sharply, feeling he was just in time to 
 shut it in the face of someone who was following him. 
 He looked at the window; it was shut. He took the 
 candle, and, raising the valances, he peered under 
 the bed; there was nothing there. He turned to 
 the hearth; a fire was burning in the grate and a 
 large arm-chair stood in front of it with its back 
 toward him. He approached the chair and sud- 
 denly stopped. There was someone sitting in it. 
 The right arm of the sitter hung over the right arm 
 of the chair; he could not see who it was, but there 
 was something familiar about the attitude. Then 
 he saw that the sitter had thrown his left leg over 
 the left side of the chair the leg terminated in a 
 muddy field-boot; the figure seemed to be asleep, for 
 it never moved. He advanced irresolutely. In the 
 chair sat Charteris. Jefferies stood rooted to the spot ; 
 his mouth open, his throat dry, his right leg quiv- 
 ering from the hip downward, his hands clenched, 
 
THE POWERS OF DARKNESS 305 
 
 and his body cold as ice. All the while he could 
 hear the steady swing of the pendulum of the 
 grandfather's clock in the hall as though it were 
 at his elbow. In a flash, he understood. 
 
 So it was Charteris who had taken his clothes off 
 and hidden them in the wardrobe while he lay asleep. 
 It was Charteris who had doped him with brandy 
 and drunk the contents of the water bottle. It 
 was Charteris who had unlocked the door every 
 night. But how had he got the key? And that 
 voice with a lisp coming from a long way off whenever 
 he spoke it must have been Charteris mocking him 
 as he had so often mocked Charteris. Who else 
 could it be? He himself had never had a lisp. Yes! 
 Charteris had come to get his own back. He looked 
 at the shadow behind him on the wall, enormously 
 elongated so that the head and shoulders were 
 projected on to the ceiling; it seemed to gesticulate in 
 the flickering firelight. Perhaps that was Charteris's 
 shadow, not his; he remembered that he and Char- 
 teris were about the same height. He felt a wild 
 desire to escape from that presence before it awoke. 
 He retreated toward the door, trying to walk on 
 tiptoe, but his left leg dragged, and he moved with 
 curious and crab-like movements from one piece 
 of furniture to another. He kept looking over his 
 shoulder, but the figure never moved. His journey 
 seemed interminably long; but at last he reached 
 the door. His only hope of salvation lay in unlocking 
 that door with as little noise as might be, opening it, 
 slipping out, and then closing it on the sleeper, and 
 
306 GENTLEMEN AT ARMS 
 
 locking him in. But at the moment he reached 
 the door, spent and out of breath, he suddenly forgot 
 where he was; his mind became a blank. When 
 consciousness returned, he found himself still stand- 
 ing by the door. He looked over his shoulder at the 
 chair. It was empty. He turned to the door; 
 it was open. The sleeper was gone, but at any mo- 
 ment he might return. He slammed the door with 
 difficulty; it resisted his efforts as though there were 
 someone behind it. He turned the key in the lock, 
 and with frantic haste seized the end of a heavy chest 
 of drawers and tried to pull it toward the door. His 
 breath came with difficulty, and in gasps, his heart 
 thumped against his ribs, and his brow was moist 
 with sweat. He got the chest of drawers against 
 the door, exhausting himself in the effort. Then his 
 legs gave way under him, and he fell senseless to the 
 floor. 
 
 They broke down the door in the morning, and 
 found him asleep in his clothes on the floor. There 
 was complete loss of function in his left arm and left 
 leg, and anaesthesia on the left side. The pupils of 
 his eyes seemed contracted and curiously dark. 
 He was conscious and could articulate, but his speech 
 was confused and the lisp was more pronounced 
 than before. At times he laughed darkly and with- 
 out mirth. 
 
 In Harley Street that tragic rue des pas perdus 
 there lives a physician famous as a consultant for the 
 treatment of mental diseases and neurasthenia. 
 
THE POWERS OF DARKNESS 307 
 
 They sent for him. He listened attentively to the 
 story told him by Jefferies's mother and asked a 
 good many questions about the patient's childhood. 
 He seemed especially concerned about the lisp he 
 wanted to know whether it was congenital or ac- 
 quired and then, with apparent irrelevance, he 
 asked if Jefferies had "exalted" notions. "Oh, I 
 don't mean, 'is he a saint?'" he added, seeing the 
 look of surprise on the father's face. "Far from it. 
 I mean, has he what we physicians call ideas of 
 grandeur; excessive conceit, in fact ? No ? So much 
 the better. Well, I'd better see him alone, if you 
 please." 
 
 Jefferies was on his guard. But the doctor talked 
 to him about everything but himself about horses, 
 books, golf, especially golf until Jefferies thought 
 him an expensive fraud; any fellow could talk that 
 kind of "tosh," especially if he were paid so many 
 guineas an hour for talking it. He did not know 
 that the doctor's irrelevance was deliberate, and was, 
 as a matter of fact, pure diagnosis, being directed 
 to finding out whether the patient could talk ra- 
 tionally about common things, and, in particular, 
 as to whether some uncommon thing was lying am- 
 bushed in his consciousness like a footpad waiting 
 to dart out in his speech. At the end of it all, he 
 put a few questions about sleep, and the secretive 
 look came into the patient's eyes again. No! he 
 couldn't sleep, he was afraid. 
 
 "Afraid of what?" 
 
 "Oh, nothing!" 
 
3 o8 GENTLEMEN AT ARMS 
 
 Jefferies was determined that no one should know 
 about Charteris; they would only laugh at him 
 think him mad, perhaps. That was all very well 
 for them, but who was it unlocked his door from the 
 inside? That was a facer such a facer that he almost 
 yielded to a triumphant impulse to give it the doctor 
 like a straight left. The doctor switched off, and 
 began to tell him how he'd holed in three at the 
 ninth hole at Denham. What a soporific bore the 
 fellow was! What was that he was saying? Look 
 at him; well, why not? 
 
 Jefferies was suddenly conscious that the irises of 
 the doctor's eyes were brown, and his voice rather low 
 and musical a good baritone, in fact. Relax his 
 limbs? Well, why not? It was rather refreshing 
 after all this "gas." He obeyed with his right leg. 
 The doctor was holding up his watch in his right 
 hand, and its ticking seemed enormously distinct. 
 He heard him saying: "Yes; yes, that's right. 
 Now go to sleep; go to sleep; go to sleep." 
 The words were carefully modulated like the swing 
 of a pendulum. . . . 
 
 "Now! wake up! Yes, wake up. That's right. 
 I've just been inducing a little sleep. You'll feel 
 all the better for it. I'll come and see you to- 
 
 morrow." 
 
 The doctor took his departure. He had already 
 discovered a great deal. Jefferies did not know that 
 for a quarter of an hour he had been talking freely 
 to him about Charteris, and how he unlocked the 
 door of his room and doped him in his sleep, and 
 
THE POWERS OF DARKNESS 309 
 
 what a beast he, Jefferies, had been to him, and how 
 he'd only got what he deserved, seeing that if he'd 
 been at the O. P. Charteris wouldn't have been there, 
 and would never have been knocked out, and it all 
 came of his not counting the planks in the duck 
 board. Also he was quite unaware that he had lifted 
 his left arm and crossed his left leg over the right, 
 and, stranger still, that during that quarter of an 
 hour's unconsciousness he had been speaking without 
 a lisp. 
 
 That night, about eleven o'clock, he suddenly 
 fell fast asleep. He awoke with the sun streaming 
 into the room, and was astonished that he could 
 recall no apprehension preceding sleep. The door, 
 too, was still locked, his head was clear and his 
 tongue clean. He said as much to the doctor later 
 in the day. He was beginning to think the latter 
 rather a decent sort. He felt half inclined to tell him 
 all about Charteris. 
 
 "Was it about eleven o'clock you fell asleep?" 
 said the doctor. 
 
 "Yes," said Jefferies, and wondered how the doctor 
 had hit upon the exact time. But Jefferies had never 
 heard of post-hypnotic suggestion. 
 
 At the end of a fortnight he was a different man. 
 The sleeplessness had wholly disappeared, so had 
 the motor symptoms, and the lisp with them. The 
 doctor assured him that he would stake his pro- 
 fessional reputation on his being his old self within 
 an appreciable time, and such assurance is infectious. 
 Jefferies did not know that the doctor had been 
 
3 io GENTLEMEN AT ARMS 
 
 studying with considerable satisfaction that morning 
 the laboratory report of a pathologist on his blood 
 serum. It read: 
 
 " Results of Wassermann test: Blood negative. 
 
 Cerebro-spinal fluid negative." 
 
 " I thought so," said the doctor to himself. " Nega- 
 tive results are not conclusive, but in this case they 
 corroborate. I knew that young man had led a 
 clean life. But I didn't like that lisp at first it 
 might have been incipient G. P. I." 
 
 He never had mentioned the name of Charteris to 
 Jefferies, but one day he asked him if he had ever 
 known a man of that name. 
 
 "Yes," said Jefferies, without a trace of self- 
 consciousness. "A topping fellow. One of the 
 best." And he talked freely about him, though not 
 quite so freely as when he had talked on without 
 knowing it. Had he any people? Well, yes, he had 
 left a widow and a baby six months old, he believed. 
 Jefferies suddenly felt rather ashamed he had not 
 looked her up; he had been best man at the wedding. 
 
 "Why don't you go and see her?" said the doctor, 
 suddenly. "Yes, I mean it. Go and cheer her up. 
 It's your duty. Yes, and it's to your interest. 
 Think of others it's not a bad recreation. You've 
 been thinking too much about yourself. Don't 
 seek sympathy give it. Sympathy is very bad for 
 you. I've never given you any" which was both 
 true and untrue. 
 
 He went. He found her in a tiny flat in West 
 Kensington; the pension of the widow of a second- 
 
THE POWERS OF DARKNESS 311 
 
 lieutenant is not opulent, and she had little else. 
 She was in black, and the long oval face with its 
 grave gray eyes, clear complexion, and masses of 
 fair hair, had the charm of a Gainsborough portrait. 
 
 "Oh, I knew you'd come," she said in all sincerity. 
 She took him to see the baby. It was very like 
 Charteris even the nose, and yet the nose seemed 
 quite normal. Only he had never seen Charteris 
 put his toes in his mouth. 
 
 He looked down at the baby and the baby looked 
 up at him. He put out his forefinger, having a 
 vague feeling that the correct thing to do was to 
 stroke them like a pup; four small fingers and a 
 thumb closed upon it. The clasp of those little 
 fingers affected him strangely; he felt as though their 
 impulse came from beyond the grave. He looked 
 round at the tiny nursery, neat and clean as an 
 operating theatre; but the flat was cheaply furnished, 
 and it suddenly occurred to him that life must be 
 rather hard for her. 
 
 "I want you to be his godfather," said the mother 
 softly. "You were his father's best friend." 
 
 She was chastising him with whips, though she did 
 not know it. He turned to the window with a gulp 
 in his throat, and tears came into his eyes. 
 
 "No; I was a beast to him," he said. 
 
 "Oh, you mustn't say that! It isn't true. He 
 always said in his letters that you were 'such a good 
 chap/ and did not know what fear was." 
 
 "Was that all he said?" he asked, with his face 
 still averted. 
 
GENTLEMEN AT ARMS 
 
 "All ! I think he once wrote that you seemed rather 
 worried about something, and that you wouldn't tell 
 him what it was. Oh! yes, and that he thought he 
 must have offended you without knowing it. Only 
 that. Oh, do promise! He's so small, you know." 
 
 He turned round. Undeniably he was small; 
 it was very odd how small babies were. And the 
 baby was looking up at him looking at him with 
 the unwinking stare of infancy. He was horribly 
 afraid it was going to say: "Well, old thing, what 
 have you got to say for yourself?" 
 
 He suddenly seized both her hands in his. "I 
 promise," he said. 
 
 He stooped over the cot, and the baby made a 
 grab at his finger, missed it, grabbed again, and this 
 time caught it firmly. At that she laughed. And 
 he laughed. And the baby, who mimicked every- 
 body he saw, like a variety artist, laughed also, 
 whereat they laughed the more. 
 
 Jefferies did not quite know what the official 
 duties of a godfather were, but he did his best. He 
 bought hideous golliwogs, hirsute bears, volatile 
 monkeys, and a "Child's History of England," 
 having the vaguest ideas of the mental attainments 
 of an infant in arms. Most of these the baby 
 accepted with a regal air as though receiving the 
 adoration of the Magi, and then threw them on the 
 ground. He screamed lustily till Jefferies picked 
 them up, whereupon he threw them down again. 
 Jefferies again picked them up. The strange thing 
 was that he enjoyed this almost as much as the baby. 
 
THE POWERS OF DARKNESS 313 
 
 Jefferies impounded a friend as second sponsor, 
 and one Sunday they attended with a very youthful 
 godmother at the font to be sworn in. The whole 
 ceremony seemed to Jefferies extraordinarily like 
 going bail that the baby would come up for judgment 
 if called upon. He had to promise as "surety" for 
 the infant, for the remission of whose sins the parson 
 had already prayed with great unction, that he would 
 renounce the devil and all his works, the vain pomp 
 and glory of the world, and all covetous desires of 
 the same which seemed to Jefferies rather gratui- 
 tous and uncommonly like an innuendo. After 
 which he had to give a solemn undertaking that he 
 would call upon his godson "to hear sermons" (he 
 registered a mental reservation as to this) and to 
 learn various holy injunctions "in the vulgar 
 tongue." And, being thus bound over, and having 
 a vague feeling that his recognisances would be 
 estreated if he failed to produce his godson whenever 
 the parson wanted a "deadhead" for a matinee 
 sermon, he left the church with the mother and the 
 baby, who uttered vigorous but unintelligible com- 
 ments on the whole performance in a very vulgar 
 tongue, whereat the church cleaners aged females, 
 whom Jefferies called "the moppers-up" said to 
 one another: "My! ain't the biby a picture; the 
 little dear." 
 
 "Well! what does the Board say?" said the doctor 
 to Jefferies, one morning in his consulting-room, a 
 few weeks later. 
 
3 i 4 GENTLEMEN AT ARMS 
 
 "They've reported me fit for light duty, sir. I 
 expect to go out again in a month. But I'm really 
 quite fit for general service, as it is." 
 
 "Don't be in a hurry," said the doctor. "You're 
 a different man, I can see that. I see you've got the 
 Military Cross. I congratulate you. I met the 
 C. O. of your battery the other day; he says you 
 thoroughly deserved it. Cold feet? Nonsense! I'll 
 admit you were afraid, but not with that kind of 
 fear. Your trouble was that you were afraid of 
 being afraid. That's not the stuff that cowards 
 are made of 'undue regard for his personal safety,' 
 as they call it in the Army. Your fear was moral 
 fear, not physical. A physical coward's never afraid 
 of being afraid; what he fears is being courageous. I 
 have yet to meet the man who knows no form of fear; 
 he must be either a beast or a god. After all, fear 
 is the oldest of the emotions. What is it the Latin 
 poet says? Primus in orbe deos fecit timor. All 
 religions begin in fear. A man who fears nothing 
 will neither fear God nor regard man. I've called 
 your fear moral, and so it was; some might call it 
 psychical, and so it may have been. The shock of 
 the actual shell that knocked you out was merely 
 the medium of a psychical explosion of a growing 
 fear of being afraid. 
 
 "Blame you? My dear fellow, who am I that 
 I should blame you? I've not looked death in the 
 face day by day and hour by hour, and seen my 
 friends obliterated one after the other. ... If 
 you'd remained insensible to all that well, you'd 
 
THE POWERS OF DARKNESS 315 
 
 V 
 
 deserve to be shot not for cowardice, but for callous- 
 ness. We're beginning to learn. So is the Army. 
 Why do you suppose that we've been asked to supply 
 a neurologist to every army corps at the front? 
 Why, to give every poor devil who finds himself 
 charged with desertion or cowardice a sporting 
 chance. There is a certain G.O.C. I know never 
 mind his name who, before he relinquished his 
 command in the field, always made it a rule never to 
 confirm a death sentence if the man's medical history- 
 sheet recorded a wound. Why? Because he said 
 a man was never the same afterward or, what 
 amounts to the same thing, that you could never be 
 sure he was. I take off my hat to him. In laying 
 down that principle, he won an even greater military 
 victory than in winning the first battle of Ypres. 
 Ah! I've told you who he is now but no matter. 
 
 "You want to know about your own case? Well, 
 there's no harm in telling you now. I knew you 
 were afraid of something, and my first task was to 
 investigate the history of the fear. I did never 
 mind how. Your fear recurred toward midnight 
 the time when you were knocked out. It was a case 
 of traumatic revival. The lisp? Oh! that's easily 
 explained. Neuro-mimesis the unconscious imita- 
 tion of another person to whom one is attached 
 is quite common in cases of shell shock. Then you 
 had that hallucination about Charteris sitting in the 
 chair. No! there's nothing to be alarmed about in 
 that. Most people have an hallucination once or 
 twice in their life; the danger is when they don't 
 
316 GENTLEMEN AT ARMS 
 
 recognize it as such. You didn't, and you were so 
 obsessed by remorse for your behaviour about Char- 
 teris oh, yes! you told me all that that when you 
 'saw' that irrational apparition you began to ration- 
 alize it. That was the crisis. It's when a patient 
 begins to rationalize the irrational that the signal's 
 at danger. You see, once grant the major premise 
 of a delusion, once accept it as a reality, and all the 
 rest can be made to follow logically oh, perfectly 
 logically. The logic of the mentally afflicted is the 
 most irrefutable of reasoning. There's never a flaw 
 in it. ... That's what makes it so deadly." 
 
 "Yes," said Jefferies. "I see that. But who was 
 it unlocked my door and undressed me?" 
 
 "Yourself. Your other self, if you like. You 
 were in a condition of somnambulism. It was your 
 subconscious self that unlocked the door and went 
 downstairs to the brandy decanter. Yes! I asked 
 your father if he'd noticed a difference in the load- 
 line; he had. He suspected the butler, and his sus- 
 picions were confirmed by the butler's talking about 
 ghosts. Ghosts don't drink brandy, though I 
 believe Sir Oliver Lodge says they drink synthetic 
 whisky. I hope they don't take it on an empty 
 stomach. I don't know. I'm not interested in 
 haunted houses or tables that do the tango; I'm 
 only interested in haunted men." 
 
 "Yes, sir; but what do you mean by my other self? 
 You speak as if a man had two selves." 
 
 "Of course I do. It's the first thing that every 
 student of psychology learns; and a doctor's very 
 
'THE POWERS OF DARKNESS 317 
 
 little good if he's not something of a psychologist. 
 Look at me; I'm copying out a long prescription, 
 and I'm talking to you all the time. My subcon- 
 scious self is doing the one, my conscious self is 
 doing the other. But my two selves are on speaking 
 terms, whereas in hysteria and masked epilepsy the 
 two selves may be total strangers to each other. 
 Have you never read 'Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde'? 
 We've all got a Mr. Hyde in us. The great thing is 
 to know it, and keep him under lock and key; he's 
 always trying to steal the key and dope Dr. Jekyll. 
 Why, I've known a case in the Salpetriere clinic 
 where a doctor put a woman in a trance and raised 
 a somnambulic self in her that had been 'dead' 
 twenty years and a very ugly self it was. Your 
 secondary self got the upper hand and robbed the 
 primary self of its functions. I made it give them 
 up. Have you never seen a lady patient under an 
 anaesthetic? No, of course not; most improper. 
 But I have. They all swear like troopers every 
 one of them. Where do they acquire the vocabu- 
 lary? They don't not consciously; but their sub- 
 conscious memory does. They hear foul language 
 in the street like everybody else, and their subcon- 
 scious memory registers it. Switch off the will, 
 side-track the conscious self, and the subconscious 
 self 'the self below the threshold,' someone has 
 called it surges up; and a very ugly monster it 
 sometimes is sleeping lecheries, lurking fears, dark 
 'throw-backs,' all the primeval self that each of 
 us carries within us. The Beast in the Jungle, in 
 
3 i8 GENTLEMEN AT ARMS 
 
 fact. But he has a keeper, and men call him The 
 Will." 
 
 "I should rather like your profession," said Jef- 
 feries, musingly. 
 
 "No, you wouldn't. It's all very well to study 
 it as a hobby, to read Janet and Ribot how de- 
 lightfully those French fellows do write it's another 
 thing to study it clinically. If it wasn't for my Sun- 
 day round of golf ah! I bored you with that, 
 didn't I?" said the doctor, with a smile as he looked 
 at his watch. 
 
 Jefferies rose, and took his cap and stick, 
 
 "Sir, I can n-never thank you enough for what 
 you've done for me," he said fervently. 
 
 "Don't thank me, my dear fellow. I regarded 
 you as my colleague not merely as my patient. 
 You learnt to forget yourself; you 'called up* your 
 will. Without that reinforcement, I should not 
 have succeeded. How's the godson? And Mrs. 
 Charteris? No, no. No more thanks, please. 
 Listen to me the words are not mine; they were 
 uttered two thousand years ago by the greatest of 
 physicians. 'Thy faith hath made thee whole. 
 Go in peace.' Good-bye. God bless you." 
 
EPILOGUE 
 
 THE FAITH OF THE SOLDIER 
 
 "What of the faith and fire within us 
 
 Men who march away ? " 
 
 " Every soldier, when not prevented by military duty, will 
 attend divine service" THE KING'S REGULATIONS. 
 
 I HAVE read somewhere of late statements by 
 two Army chaplains one, I think, a Wesleyan, 
 the other an Anglican to the effect that the 
 ministrations of their Churches had failed to "reach" 
 the soldier. Whether this confession of failure was 
 a reproach, and, if a reproach, whether it was di- 
 rected against Church or against Army, I do not 
 know. But the conclusion itself is indisputable. 
 Yet the Churches have not wanted for advantages. 
 Their chaplains have been given commissioned rank 
 and a spiritual hierarchy is recognized under military 
 forms. The soldier is classified according to his 
 religious profession, and once his election is made, 
 the secular arm is called in to punish him if he is 
 late on Church Parade or neglects to "follow the 
 drum." A prayer-book figures in the inventory of 
 his kit, and to be without it is to be "deficient in 
 necessaries." His religion is stamped on his identity- 
 disc, and is recorded in the nominal roll of his company 
 returns, with his name, his number, and his rank. 
 
 319 
 
320 GENTLEMEN AT ARMS 
 
 With all these facilities for access to him the 
 Churches, according to lists from officers, have failed 
 to "reach" him. In an earlier age when, as on a 
 wet and gusty morning at Agincourt, the priests 
 shrived the archers and men-at-arms as they formed 
 up in order of battle such an admission would have 
 meant not that the Church had failed, but that the 
 Army was damned. But in those days men were 
 more exercised with the problem of how to die than 
 with the question of how to live. To-day if a man 
 has solved for himself the latter, he may well be 
 excused if he ceases to trouble himself about the 
 former. And in that sense the soldier has a faith and 
 by that faith he is justified. 
 
 This may seem to some a hard saying. The soldier 
 is sometimes ribald, often profane, and always ironi- 
 cal. He does not sing hymns on going into action 
 like Cromwell's Ironsides or accompany reveille with 
 a morning psalm. He has been known to put the 
 tune of "Onward, Christian Soldiers" to base uses. 
 The name of Christ is often on his lips, but as an 
 imprecation rather than a prayer. He will make a 
 jest of a "white cross" as though it were a new 
 Army decoration. The language in which he 
 speaks of death is, in fact, often picturesque, but 
 it is rarely devout. A pal may have "gone 
 West" or "stopped one" or been "outed"; he 
 is never spoken of as being "with God." Death 
 is rarely alluded to as being the will of God; it is 
 frequently characterized in terms of luck. A sol- 
 dier on going into action is much more exercised 
 
THE FAITH OF THE SOLDIER 321 
 
 about the condition of his rifle than the state of his 
 soul. 
 
 There are, of course, exceptions, but the average 
 soldier does not seem to feel any confidence that he is 
 in the hands of a Divine Providence; he is fatalistic 
 rather than religious. After all, if you have looked 
 on the obscene havoc of a battlefield, as the writer 
 has done, and seen the entrails of men torn out, their 
 heads severed from their bodies, and all the profane 
 dismemberment of that which, according to the teach- 
 ing of the Church, is the temple of the soul, you find it 
 rather difficult at times to believe that the fate of 
 the individual, whatever may be the case with the 
 type, is of any concern to the Creator. For the sol- 
 dier who ponders on the realities of war, the judg- 
 ments of God may be a great deep; what he feels to 
 be certain is that they are past finding out. 
 
 As to whether this agnosticism is real or assumed, 
 transient or permanent, the writer offers no opinion. 
 But he will hazard the conjecture that it is not with- 
 out its sublimity. To go into action with a con- 
 viction that your cause is everything and yourself 
 nothing, to face death without any assurance that 
 in dying you achieve your own salvation, whether vic- 
 torious or not, is surely a nobler state of mind than 
 that of the old Protestant and Catholic armies in 
 the "Wars of Religion," equally assured of their own 
 personal salvation and of the damnation of their 
 opponents. The religious soldier of history may 
 have been devout, he was certainly fanatical. And 
 as he was fanatical, so he was cruel. Regarding 
 
322 GENTLEMEN AT ARMS 
 
 himself as the chosen instrument of God, he assumed 
 he did but anticipate the Divine Judgment and 
 incidentally ensure his own salvation by giving no 
 quarter to the papist or the infidel." The morning 
 psalm ended in the evening massacre. 
 
 The English soldier is not cruel; though he can, 
 and does, take a terrible revenge for treachery. He 
 certainly despises Fritz but he rarely hates him. He 
 believes in "getting his own back" but he does not 
 give himself religious airs about it. His view of 
 death may be light, but, at any rate, it is not morbid, 
 neither is it egotistical. I am no theologian, but it 
 has always seemed to me that the religion of the Eng- 
 ish Churches, with its profoundly Calvinistic colour- 
 ing, has always been inclined to a certain egotism in 
 its emphasis on personal salvation and its attainment 
 exclusively by admission to the congregation of the 
 elect, whether by baptism, confirmation, or profes- 
 sion. The literature of English religion, especially 
 in the seventeenth century, is full of an extraordinary 
 preoccupation, sometimes a morbid preoccupation, 
 with the state of the individual soul and a frantic 
 desire to escape a damnation which was regarded as 
 the common lot of men. "Save yourself" was its 
 burden, and the official professors of religion exhorted 
 others to join them in a kind of spiritual sauve qui 
 pent. "Save others" is the creed of the soldier: 
 all his military education is directed toward making 
 him forget himself. He has, indeed, no time to think 
 of himself; all his time is given to thinking of others 
 to "doing his bit," to holding a line of trench, keeping 
 
THE FAITH OF THE SOLDIER 323 
 
 up a covering fire, getting up rations, delivering his 
 "chit," for fear that otherwise someone else will be 
 "let down." Self-effacement and not self-assertion 
 is the rule of life in the Army. 
 
 It was well said by De Vigny that the virtue 
 which characterizes the good soldier is abnegation, 
 and that his is a cross more heavy than that of the 
 martyr: and one which must be borne a long time in 
 order to know the grandeur and the weight of it. 
 The renunciation of the pursuit of gain, the surrender 
 of one's liberty of thought and action, the acceptance 
 of the duty of implicit obedience, the certainty of 
 punishment in the case of failure, the uncertainty 
 of reward in the event of success, the contraction of 
 ambition, the repression of emotion these, indeed, 
 are great abnegations. They might, perhaps, seem, 
 like the vows of the early religious orders, more 
 calculated to cramp the character than to develop 
 it, were it not that the soldier, unlike the monk, lives 
 a life of action, not of meditation: that this long 
 abnegation has for its object, however remote, some 
 definite achievement and that it carries with it, in 
 the case of our own nation, no imputed righteousness 
 and few or no prerogatives. 
 
 Except in rare moments the British nation has 
 never "spoilt" the British Army, still less has it 
 glorified it, and the disabilities of the soldier have 
 been far more obvious than his privileges. Pacifist 
 writers may fulminate about militarism, but there 
 never was a less "militaristic" army than the old 
 British Army: and if ever there was a job that the 
 
3 2 4 GENTLEMEN AT ARMS 
 
 British officer hated, it was being called in to "aid 
 the civil power." He knew it would never bring him 
 any credit, while it might often involve him in irre- 
 trievable disaster. If he took counsel of the King's 
 Regulations, the only thing he found was that what- 
 ever he did was almost certain to be wrong. His 
 military character invested him with no sanctity, but 
 it often exposed him to much obloquy. The soldier 
 took his oath of attestation, and the officer accepted 
 his commission knowing full well that he sacrificed 
 far more than he gained. He joined a great frater- 
 nity, but he did not become a member of a caste. 
 He accepted these sacrifices as incidental to his 
 choice and in that act of voluntary abnegation he 
 consecrated them. 
 
 It is this spirit of sacrifice which animates the 
 soldier of to-day. For this army had that character 
 stamped upon it in the first two years of the war and 
 it has never lost it. Never in any country in the 
 world had there been anything like that great 
 crusading rush to the colours: and by the time the 
 rush had begun to spend itself the character of the 
 New Army was fixed for all time. If ever men dedi- 
 cated themselves to a cause these were they. Long- 
 service N.C.O. instructors were astonished at the 
 enthusiasm with which the men learnt their duties, 
 often learning more in the new fourteen weeks' inten- 
 sive training than the men had learnt in a year in 
 the days of the old Army. 
 
 The abnegations of a military life may make 
 a man or they may mar him; it all depends on the 
 
THE FAITH OF THE SOLDIER 325 
 
 spirit in which they are accepted. If the original 
 impulse is compulsory, as in Germany, they will 
 enslave him; if it is voluntary, as in England, they 
 will exalt him. The British soldier has learnt how to 
 extract the best out of military life to see that, if 
 rightly regarded, it offers every day such opportuni- 
 ties for voluntary sacrifice as are to be found no- 
 where else; you have only to read the awards in the 
 Gazette to find the proof of it, and when you read them 
 remember that for one deed that stands rewarded a 
 thousand go unrecorded. 
 
 Every nation gets the army it deserves, and in the 
 British Army, as in no other, one seems to find the 
 solution of the problem which has so often per- 
 plexed philosophers how to reconcile liberty with 
 authority. The spirit was always there, for it was 
 native to the English character. There never was 
 any army in which respect for the individual was so 
 strong. It was always bad form for an officer to 
 punish a man "with his tongue" it was enough 
 for him to say "Will you take my award?" and it 
 was absolutely fatal to his career for him to lay his 
 hands upon him. The very first thing a subaltern 
 learnt when he did his day's duty as orderly officer 
 was that his first thought must be the comfort of the 
 men: and an Army Order reminds him, if he is in 
 danger of forgetting it, that he must put it before 
 his own. The recruit is quick to discover this and 
 perhaps not more quick than surprised. Also he dis- 
 covers that he himself is "his brother's keeper." 
 He learns that everything he does or does not do 
 
326 GENTLEMEN AT ARMS 
 
 involves others besides himself. This is a war of 
 platoons, and the "specialists," bombers, rifle- 
 bombers, Lewis gunners, learn to work together 
 and with the riflemen, like the forwards in a 
 football team who "feed" each other with the 
 ball. 
 
 It is the same with discipline as with tactics 
 the man who goes "ca canny" or defaults soon 
 discovers that others have to suffer for his derelic- 
 tion as well as himself, and if a corporal neglects to 
 see that the rifles of his section are clean at a com- 
 pany inspection, he may be the first to hear of it, 
 but assuredly he will not be the Itfst, for the 
 platoon sergeant and the platoon commander will 
 hear of it, too, and all of them "get it in the 
 neck." In the Army the fact that you expiate your 
 fault does not mean that others may not have to 
 atone for it. 
 
 In an army thus constituted, a soldier finds a rule 
 of life and a theory of conduct. It is not in itself a 
 religion, though it may easily become one if he is 
 inspired by an ideal in submitting himself to it. 
 It bears the same relation to that ideal as dogma 
 does to faith. One may have the dogma without the 
 faith; one may be disciplined merely because one is 
 docile. But the acceptance of a dogma sometimes 
 generates a faith, and the soldier who joined the 
 Old Army merely because he liked it, and strove to 
 keep his conduct-sheet clean because he knew that a 
 "dirty" one obscured his chances of promotion, 
 was in the process of becoming a good soldier, well 
 
THE FAITH OF THE SOLDIER 327 
 
 on the way to becoming a good man. To tell a 
 falsehood is a military offence; in learning to avoid 
 it he was in a fair way of discovering it was a moral 
 offence. There are, it is true, military offences 
 which are not moral offence, and there are moral 
 offences which are not military offences. But, 
 generally speaking, in the Old Army a bad man made 
 a bad soldier, and a good man a good soldier. In 
 the New Army most of the recruits had a faith before 
 they learnt the dogma. Many of them joined for 
 the sake of a "cause," all for the sake of an emotion, 
 but it was an emotion whether patriotism, pride, 
 emulation, or love of adventure which had little or 
 none of the impurity of ambition. Most of them 
 accepted the discipline without any great enthu- 
 siasm for it, and probably with some aversion from 
 it as a thing foreign to their civilian habit of mind, 
 and were surprised to find that it had a meaning and 
 even embodied a theory of conduct. In their impulse 
 to join there was an emotion; in the discipline to 
 which they subjected themselves there was a mo- 
 rality. And if it be true, as someone has said, that 
 religion is morality touched with emotion, then these 
 men were assuredly religious. 
 
 t How far the introduction of conscription altered 
 this character, and whether, indeed, conscription 
 as a permanent system was compatible with it I 
 am not concerned to discuss. But as regards the 
 British Army during the years of 1914-1916, and 
 more particularly the Old Army which leavened it, 
 it is sufficient to say that by their works ye shall know 
 
328 GENTLEMEN AT ARMS 
 
 them. Kitchener never wrote anything finer than 
 the allocution which he addressed to the old B.E.F. 
 when they landed in France. It breathed the very 
 spirit of those Articles of War which Henry V 
 issued to the host on the landing at Harfleur. The 
 men were worthy of it and they lived up to it. Dur- 
 ing the first eight months of the war, there were 
 only two cases of offences against the inhabitants 
 of the country. The British soldier showed himself 
 to be what he was a gentleman. The French were 
 prepared to find him that; what they were not pre- 
 pared to find was that he was gay, witty, tender, and 
 debonair. His playfulness with children delighted 
 them; his tenderness to animals astonished them. 
 British gunners and drivers often show extraordi- 
 nary devotion to their horses, but after all horse- 
 mastership is part of their training and "ill-treating 
 a horse" leaves a black mark on a soldier's conduct- 
 sheet and has to be expiated by F.P. That, how- 
 ever, does not account for the passion of a battalion 
 for making a pet of a dumb animal, nor does it 
 explain the spectacle, very stupefying to the Italians, 
 of a fox-terrier marching at the head of a rifle bat- 
 talion and giving himself the airs of a second-in- 
 command. 
 
 There is a sort of lyrical temperament in the 
 British soldier; you discover it in the way he sings. 
 The French rarely sing on the march; the British 
 often. It is true the German sings but he sings 
 to order. Nothing is more characteristic of the 
 difference between the British and the German 
 
THE FAITH OF THE SOLDIER 329 
 
 armies than the fact that a song book doubtless 
 passed by the censor figures in the German soldier's 
 list of necessaries and is absent from the English- 
 man's. German officers have been known to strike 
 a man across the shoulders with the endearing ex- 
 hortation : " Singen Sie! " The English soldier makes 
 his own songs and sings them or not as it pleases 
 him. I have even seen in the early days of the war 
 a fatigue-party of soldiers, under sentence of F.P., 
 marching to their unsanitary tasks singing "Keep 
 the Home Fires Burning" a spectacle which would 
 produce a fit of apoplexy in the German mind. I 
 often think that, whatever else the British Army 
 has or has not done in France, it has destroyed 
 forever on the Continent the legend of a dour 
 phlegmatic England, hostile to cakes and ale. 
 It has restored the old tradition of a "Merrie 
 England." 
 
 But the British soldier has something deeper than 
 gaiety or wit; he has humour. The former are tran- 
 sient; the latter is permanent. Wit is a thing of the 
 intellect, but humour has its roots in the character. 
 The British soldier is not witty when in the trenches 
 no one is but he is humorous. Like every other 
 natural trait this humour is largely unconscious. 
 It is an attitude, not a gesture. As for example, 
 the two men who when out one night in No Man's 
 Land lying in wait for a German patrol that was 
 long in coming their way were heard by a friend 
 of mine, their Platoon Commander, whispering to 
 one another: "I hope they haven't come to no 
 
330 GENTLEMEN AT ARMS 
 
 harm, Bill." These men were characteristically 
 humorous, but they were not attempting to be 
 funny. There is much fortitude, some naivete, 
 and a good deal of irony in the humour of the British 
 soldier. The irony finds expression in his endearing 
 nicknames for "unhealthy" places, and there is a 
 kind of fortitude in this irony as though in stigma- 
 tizing a danger you depreciated it. There was 
 irony, too, in the way the soldiers no sooner learnt 
 that the Germans called them "contemptible" than 
 they accepted the adjective with delight. So, too, 
 when they heard that they were "mercenaries"; 
 as soon as they grasped the meaning of the term, the 
 idea that they endured what they did, dazzled by 
 the opulence of a shilling a day, struck them as a 
 really priceless jest for which the Boche deserved 
 every credit in anticipating them. 
 
 This same soldier cheerful, humane, sardonic, 
 engrossed in learning how to live the military life 
 and to do his bit has not troubled his head about 
 how to die. That is, I suppose, why when it comes 
 to the point he is so little exercised about it; not 
 having sought to "save" his life, he is hardly con- 
 scious that he "loses" it. 
 
 He is as one 
 
 Who in the heat of conflict keeps the law 
 In calmness made, and sees what he foresaw 
 
 I remember reading some words of that fine sol- 
 dier, Donald Hankey, in which he speaks with 
 
THE FAITH OF THE SOLDIER 331 
 
 something like indignation of the attempt of a 
 desperately well-meaning chaplain at an open-air 
 service the night before the men went into the 
 trenches, to "frighten" them with the prospect 
 of death. They refused to be frightened and the 
 chaplain's bag was very small: I have seen many 
 soldiers die. I do not know what, if anything, 
 they would have said to a padre. I only know 
 that all I ever heard them say was "IVe done my 
 bit"; "What must be must be"; "It wur worth it"; 
 "It bain't no use grousing"; or "I'm all right I'm 
 topping." I've often thought that the secret of 
 their fortitude was that they had done what they 
 could. 
 
 What the soldier might teach the Churches is 
 that there is only one thing that really counts, and 
 that is character. In the army it is the only chance 
 of distinction a man has, and nowhere is it so quickly 
 grasped. The soldier is less concerned with whether 
 a man's beliefs are "true" than with whether he 
 truly believes them. He has no respect for the 
 sacerdotal character as such; what interests him 
 is not the priest but the man. He is not interested 
 in religion as a science but he has some respect for 
 it as an art. If a padre is a good fellow and sincere 
 the soldier will accept him as such, but he will not 
 tolerate the attitude of a man who assumes that he 
 and his alone possess the keys of heaven and hell. 
 It is only when the priest secularizes himself that 
 he can command a sympathetic hearing. The 
 Church will have to renounce all its worldly prestige, 
 
332 GENTLEMEN AT ARMS 
 
 forget its hierarchical character, and go forth like the 
 Twelve without gold or silver or scrip if it is to get 
 hold of the men after this war. 
 
 I often think that it was an immense mistake ever 
 to give the chaplains commissioned rank, for it is a 
 case of rendering unto Caesar the things which are 
 not Caesar's. It puts a gulf between the chaplain 
 and the soldier which is never bridged and it is al- 
 together anomalous, for a chaplain has no discip- 
 linary authority. He is with the men but not of 
 them. The regimental officer who lives, works, 
 and fights with his men may, and if he is the right 
 sort he does, get to know them, although even then 
 the men never talk with quite the same freedom 
 as they do among themselves. But this communion 
 is denied to the padre. I have, indeed, met chaplains 
 in the fire-trenches and have known of one or two 
 who, in defiance of orders, went over the top. Their 
 willingness to take risks is not in dispute, but that 
 is not the point. The point is that they are only 
 spectators and privileged spectators at that. If 
 the clergy had been allowed to join up and to forget 
 their sacerdotal character in the ranks, they might 
 have achieved great things. There are some 20,000 
 priests in the ranks of the French Army as soldiers. 
 I am not arguing for the application of conscription 
 to the clergy, and I daresay its application in France 
 was anything but disinterested it was, I believe, 
 a political move of the anti-clerical, but it has 
 operated to strengthen the Church instead of 
 weakening it, for the anti-clerical forget that in 
 
THE FAITH OF THE SOLDIER 333 
 
 destroying a caste they were creating a brother- 
 hood. 
 
 One chaplain I knew was, indeed, remarkably suc- 
 cessful. But then he was far more convinced of 
 the salvation of the men than he was of his own. I 
 suppose he was very unorthodox; he was certainly 
 dying to fight. Also he had no brotherly love for 
 the Boche at all; he hated him. I forget his creed 
 if indeed I ever knew it, for he was the last man to 
 obtrude it. He never tried to improve the occasion; 
 if a dying soldier wanted religious consolation he 
 gave it, if he did not want it he was content to sit 
 and hold the dying man's hand and it was no 
 bad viaticum. The men respected him as a man and 
 loved him as a brother. He was quite ready to take 
 another chaplain's duty and, what was more remark- 
 able, to let him take his, for he never seemed to be 
 exercised as to whether the chaplains of other faiths 
 than his own had "grace," and I don't suppose that 
 he ever vexed himself about apostolic succession. 
 Like the Galilean fishermen he was of lowly birth 
 and he had the humility of Him who washed the 
 disciples' feet. I knew just enough of his religious 
 beliefs to know that they were the religion of the 
 Sermon on the Mount. He got his way at last and 
 went up with a draft to the front. I never saw him 
 again, but I heard afterward that he was killed when 
 dressing a wounded soldier under fire. 
 
 I often think that in his own way that chaplain 
 was a born soldier. It was not so much that the men 
 had his religion as that he had theirs. Theirs is a 
 
334 GENTLEMEN AT ARMS 
 
 religion which has never hardened into a creed; it is 
 the religion of humanity. 
 
 Give unto me, made lowly wise, 
 The spirit of self-sacrifice. 
 
 It is the spirit of the gunners and drivers in the 
 retreat from Mons who got off their horses and 
 limbers and walked in the heat and dust, in order 
 that the weary infantry might ride; the spirit of the 
 thousands of nameless and unremembered men who 
 have crawled out into the open under fire to rescue 
 the wounded and been sniped for their pains; the 
 spirit of the gunner captured at an observation post 
 who, though scourged, buffeted, and despitefully 
 used by a German officer, broke his instruments be- 
 fore his face and refused to betray the position of 
 his battery; the spirit of those lonely exiles who 
 held their heads up and never flinched when spat 
 upon and kicked through the streets of German 
 towns in the long via dolorosa that leads to the hell of 
 a Defangenenlager and often to the grave. 
 
 It is on those exiles, and their proud, indomitable 
 spirit, that my mind most often dwells when I think 
 of the faith of the soldier. They were not happy in 
 an opportune death on the field of battle; they were 
 wounded not only in body but in spirit; they were 
 scourged and mocked and starved in an alien land 
 in which the very spirit of humanity seemed dead and 
 hope deferred enfeebled the heart. But they re- 
 fused to be cast down. The Germans robbed them 
 
THE FAITH OF THE SOLDIER 335 
 
 of everything but their self-respect. That remained 
 and it endured to the end. Of such as these a 
 great Englishman must surely have been thinking 
 when he wrote : 
 
 This man is free from servile bands 
 
 Of hope or rise or fear to fall; 
 Lord of himself, though not of lands; 
 
 And having nothing, yet hath all. 
 
 THE END 
 
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