I
It came suddenly when it did come,
it may be remembered. Every one knew it was
coming, and yet it was all so impossible,
so incredible. I remember Clive Draycott looking
foolishly at his recall telegram in the club he
had just come home on leave from Egypt and
then brandishing it in front of my nose.
“My dear old boy,” he
remarked peevishly, “it’s out of the question.
I’m shooting on the 12th.”
But he crossed the next day to Boulogne.
It was a Sunday morning, and Folkestone
looked just the same as it always did look.
Down by the Pavilion Hotel the usual crowd of Knuts
in very tight trousers and very yellow shoes, with
suits most obviously bought off the peg, wandered
about with ladies of striking aspect. Occasional
snatches of conversation, stray gems of wit, scintillated
through the tranquil August air, and came familiarly
to the ears of a party of some half-dozen men who
stood by a pile of baggage at the entrance to the
hotel.
“Go hon, Bill; you hare a caution,
not ’arf.” A shrill girlish giggle,
a playful jerk of the “caution’s”
arm, a deprecating noise from his manly lips, which
may have been caused by bashfulness at the compliment,
or more probably by the unconsumed portion of the morning
Woodbine, and the couple moved out of hearing.
“I wonder,” said a voice
from the group, “if we are looking on the passing
of the breed.”
He was a tall, thin, spare fellow,
the man who spoke; and amongst other labels on his
baggage was one marked Khartoum. His hands were
sinewy and his face was bronzed, while his eyes, brown
and deep-set, held in them the glint of the desert
places of the earth: the mark of the jungle where
birds flit through the shadows like bars of glorious
colour; the mark of the swamp where the ague mists
lie dank and stagnant in the rays of the morning sun.
No one answered his remark; it seemed
unnecessary, and each was busy with his own thoughts.
What did the next few days hold in store for the
world, for England, for him? The ghastly, haunting
fear that possibly they held nothing for England gnawed
at men’s hearts. It would be incredible,
inconceivable; but impossible things had happened
before. Many must have felt that fear, but to
none can it have been quite so personal, so hideously
personal, as to the officers of the old Army and the
Navy. To them it was as if their own honour were
at stake, and I can see now a man opposite me almost
sobbing with the fury and the shame of it when for
a while we thought the worst. But
that was later.
“Time to go on board, gentlemen.”
Almost as beings from another world,
they passed through the noisy throng, so utterly inconsequent,
so absolutely ignorant and careless. One cannot
help wondering now just how that throng has answered
the great call; how many lie in nameless graves, with
the remnants of Ypres standing sentinel to their last
sleep; how many have fought and cursed and killed
in the mud-holes of the Somme; how many have chosen
the other path, and even though they had no skill
and aptitude to recommend them, are earning now their
three and four pounds a week making munitions.
But they have answered the call, that throng
and others like them; they have learned out
of the book of life and death; and perhaps the tall
man with the bronzed face might find the answer to
his question could he see England to-day. Only
he lies somewhere between Fletre and Meteren,
and beside him are twenty men of his battalion.
He took it in the fighting before the first battle
of Ypres . . .
“I call it a bit steep.”
A man in the Indian Cavalry broke the silence of
the group who were leaning over the side watching the
coast fade away. “In England two days
after three years of it, and now here we are again.
But the sun being over the yard-arm what
say you?”
With one last final look at the blue
line astern, with one last involuntary thought “Is
it au revoir, or is it good-bye?” they
went below. The sun was indeed over the yard-arm,
and the steward was a hospitable lad of cosmopolitan
instincts. . . .
II
“It is impossible to guarantee
a ticket to Marseilles.” So the ticket
vendor at Folkestone had informed them, and his pessimism
was justified by future events.
The fun began at the Gare du
Nord. From what I have since learned, I
have often wished since that my mission in life had
been to drive a fiacre in Paris during the early days
of August ’14. A taxi conjures up visions
too wonderful to contemplate; but even with the humble
horse-bus I feel that I should now be able to afford
a piano, or whatever it is the multi-millionaire munition-man
buys without a quiver. I might even get the
missus a fur coat.
Every living soul in Paris seemed
obsessed with the idea of going somewhere else; and
the chances of the stranger within their gates approached
those of an icicle in Hades, as our friends across
the water would say. Finally, in despair, Draycott
rushed into the road and seized a venerable flea-bitten
grey that was ambling along with Monsieur, Madame,
and all the little olive-branches sitting solemnly
inside the cab. He embraced Madame, he embraced
the olive-branches; finally in despair I
believe he embraced Monsieur. He wept, he entreated,
he implored them to take him to the Gare de
Lyon. It was imperative. He would continue
to kiss them without cessation and in turn, if only
they would take him and his belongings to the Gare
de Lyon. He murmured: “Anglais officier
anglais”; he wailed the mystic word, “Mobilisation.”
Several people who were watching thought he was acting
for the cinematograph, and applauded loudly; others
were convinced he was mad, and called for the police.
But Monsieur God bless
him! and Madame God bless her! and
all the little olive-branches God bless
them! decided in his favour; and having
piled two suit-cases and a portmanteau upon that creaking
cab, he plunged into the family circle.
It was very hot; he was very hot;
they were very hot; and though Draycott confesses
that he has done that familiar journey between the
two stations in greater comfort, he affirms that never
has he done it with a greater sense of elation and
triumph. The boat train to Marseilles, he reflected
complacently; if possible a bath first; anyway, a
sleeper, a comfortable dinner, and
“Parbleu, M’sieur;
la Gare de Lyon c’est fermee.”
Madame’s voice cut into his reflections.
As in a dream he extricated himself
from to-night’s supper and three sticky children,
and gazed at the station. They were standing
six deep around the steps a gesticulating,
excited mob; while at the top, by the iron railings,
a cordon of soldiers kept them back. Inside,
between the railings and the station, there was no
one save an odd officer or two who strolled about,
smoking and talking.
Mechanically he removed his baggage
and dumped it in the road; mechanically he re-kissed
the entire party; he says he even kissed the flea-bitten
grey. Then he sat down on a suit-case and thought.
It was perfectly true: the Gare
de Lyon was shut to all civilians; the first
shadow of war had come. As if drawn by a magnet
the old men were there, the men who remembered the
last time when the Prussian swine had stamped their
way across the fields of France. Their eyes were
bright, their shoulders thrown back as they glanced
appraisingly at the next generation their
sons who would wipe out Sedan for ever from the pages
of history. There was something grimly pathetic
and grimly inspiring in the presence of those old
soldiers: the men who had failed through no fault
of their own.
“Not again,” they seemed
to say; “for God’s sake, not a second time.
This time Victory. Wipe it out that
stain.”
They had failed, true; but there were
others who would succeed; and it was their presence
that made one feel the unconquerable spirit of France.
III
The French officer in charge was polite,
but firmly non-committal.
“There is a train which will
leave here about midnight, we hope. If you can
get a seat on it well and good. If
not ” he shrugged his shoulders
superbly, and the conversation closed.
It was a troop train apparently, and
in the course of time it would arrive at Marseilles perhaps.
It would not be comfortable. “Mais,
que voulez-vous, M’sieur? c’est
la guerre.”
At first he had not been genial; but
when he had grasped the fact that mufti invariably
cloaked the British officer, en permission,
he had become more friendly.
He advised dinner; in these days,
as he truly remarked, one never knows. Also,
what was England going to do?
“Fight,” Draycott answered
promptly, with an assurance he did not feel.
“Fight, mon Colonel; ca va sans
dire.”
“C’est bien,”
he murmured, and stood up. “Vive l’Angleterre.”
Gravely he saluted, and Draycott took off his hat.
“Mon Colonel, vive la France.”
They shook hands; and having once again solemnly
saluted one another, he took the Frenchman’s
advice and went in search of dinner.
In the restaurant itself everything
seemed normal. To the close observer there was
possibly an undue proportion of women who did not
eat, but who watched with hungry, loving eyes the men
who were with them. Now and again one would
look round, and in her face was the pitiful look of
the hunted animal; then he would speak, and
with a smile on her lips and a jest on her tongue
she would cover a heart that seemed like to burst
with the agony of it. Inexorably the clock moved
on: the finger of fate that was to take him from
her. They had quarrelled, sans doute who
has not? there had been days when they had not spoken.
He had not been to her all that he might have been,
but . . . But he was her man.
And now he was going; in half an hour
her Pierre was going to leave her. For him the
bustle and glamour of the unknown; for her the
empty chair, the lonely house, and her thoughts.
Dear God! but war is a bad thing for the women who
stop behind. . . .
And on Draycott’s brain a tableau
is stamped indelibly, just a little tableau he saw
that night in the restaurant of the Gare de
Lyon. They came, the three of them, up the flight
of steps from the seething station below, into the
peace and quiet of the room, and a roar of sound swept
in with them as the doors swung open. Threading
their way between the tables, they stopped just opposite
to where he sat, and instinctively he turned his head
away. For her the half-hour was over, her Pierre
had gone; and it is not given to a man to look on a
woman’s grief save with a catching in the throat
and a pricking in the eyes. It is so utterly
terrible in its overwhelming agony at the moment, so
absolutely final; one feels so helpless.
The little boy clambered on to a chair
and sat watching his mother gravely; a grey-haired
woman with anxious eyes held one of her hands clasped
tight. And the girl she was just a
girl, that’s all sat dry-eyed and
rigid, staring, staring, while every now and then she
seemed to whisper something through lips that hardly
moved.
“Maman,” a childish
voice piped out. “Maman.”
He solemnly extended a small and grubby hand towards
her.
Slowly her head came round, her eyes
took him in almost uncomprehendingly; she
saw the childish face, the little dirty hand, and
suddenly there came to her the great gift of the Healer.
“Oh! mon bébé, mon
pauv’ p’tit bébé!” She picked
him up off the chair and, clutching him in her arms,
put her face on his head and sobbed out her heart.
“Come on.” Draycott
got up suddenly and turned to the man he was dining
with. “Let’s go.” They
passed close to the table, and the fat waiter, wiping
his eyes on a dinner napkin, and the grey-haired woman
leaning gently over her, were talking in low tones.
They seemed satisfied as they watched the sobbing
girl; and they were people of understanding.
“Pauvre petite,” muttered the
waiter as they passed. “Mon Dieu! quelle
vache de guerre.”
“My God!” said Draycott,
as they went down the steps. “I didn’t
realise before what war meant to a woman. And
we shall never realise what it means to our own women.
We only see them before we go. Never after.”
IV
Half an hour later he encountered
Monsieur lé Colonel once again, and suggested
that they should split a bottle of wine together if
he could spare the time. It was then nine o’clock,
and the three hours till midnight loomed uninviting.
His only hope, as he told him, was that the train
at present standing at the platform was not going to
be typical of the one he was to embark on. It
seemed to be of endless length, and presented a most
enticing spectacle. Four fortunates in each
compartment had got the racks, otherwise the passengers
stood: on the footboards, in the corridors, on
the seats. If any one opened a door the pressure
was such that at least six people fell on to the platform,
and in one carriage a small poilu was being
squeezed through the open window. In the end
he went suddenly like a cork out of a bottle,
and the human mass closed up behind him.
Draycott laughed, the Colonel laughed,
and went on laughing. He laughed unrestrainedly,
even as a man who enjoys a secret jest. At last,
with some difficulty, he controlled his mirth.
“Monsieur,” he remarked
gravely, but with twinkling eyes, “I fear your
hopes are ill-founded. This is the midnight train.”
“Under those circumstances,”
Draycott murmured, with a ghastly attempt at mirth,
“the wine is off. I must go and secure
my sleeping-berth.”
Have you ever seen a fly-paper which
has come “to the end of a perfect day”?
Lumps of glutinous flies drop off on one’s head,
and still it seems as full as ever. It was the
same with that train. Lumps of Frenchmen, permanently
welded together, fell out periodically, unstuck themselves,
and departed, only to return in a few moments with
the long thin loaves of France and bottles of wine.
Sometimes they got in again, sometimes they didn’t but
they were happy, those poilus. What matter anything,
bar killing the Boche? And that was the only
thing in the air that night. . . .
In every carriage it was the same,
until suddenly there came salvation. A horse-box,
with two horses in it and some grooms singing the
Marseillaise, loomed out of the darkness, and into
it the fed-up wanderer hurled his bag. Yet again
did he embrace every one, including the horses; and
then, overcome with his labours, he sank into a corner
and laughed. And it was only when they had been
under way for two hours that he remembered his two
other bags, sitting alone and forlorn at the Gare
de Lyon. . . .
It was a great journey that.
The heat was sweltering, and they stopped at every
station between Paris and Marseilles generally
twice, because the train was too long for the platform.
And at every station the same programme was repeated.
Completely regardless of the infuriated whistles
and toots of the French conductors, absolutely unmindful
of the agonised shouts of “En voiture,
en voiture! Montez, messieurs,
lé train part,” the human freight unloaded
itself and made merry. As far as they were concerned,
let the train “part.” It never did,
and the immediate necessity was the inner man.
But it was all very nerve-racking.
At times there were forty Frenchmen
in the truck, at others none. Whether they fell
off or were pushed Draycott knew not: they simply
occurred periodically. One man disappeared
for five hours, and then came back again; possibly
he was walking to stretch his legs; there was plenty
of time. But to those who travel in trains de
luxe, let me recommend a journey in a cattle-truck,
where, if one is lucky, one gets a front seat, and
sits on the floor with legs dangling over the side;
a bottle of wine in one hand, a loaf of bread in the
other, and a song when the spirit is in one.
No breathless rushing through space: just a
gentle amble through the ripening corn, with the poppies
glinting red and the purple mountains in the distance;
with a three days’ growth on one’s chin
and an amalgamation of engine soots and dust on one’s
face that would give a dust storm off the desert points
and a beating. That is the way to travel, even
if the journey lasts from Sunday night to Tuesday
evening, and a horse occasionally stamps on your face.
And even so did Clive Draycott, Captain of “Feet,”
go to the great war. . . .
V
Marseilles has always been a town
of mystery the gateway of the East.
Going from it one leaves European civilisation if
such a thing can be said to exist to-day and
steps into the unknown. Coming to it through
that appalling Gulf of Lyons, beside which the dreaded
Bay of Biscay seems like the proverbial duck-pond,
Notre Dame de la Garde holds out a welcoming hand,
and breathes of fast trains and restaurant cars, and
London. It is the town of tongues, the city of
nations. It is not French; it is universal.
And never can Marseilles have been
so universal as in the early days of August 1914.
Usually a port of call only, then it was a terminus.
The ships came in, but did not leave: there
seemed to be a concensus of opinion amongst skippers
that the Goeben was a nasty thing to meet alone
on a dark night. And so the overcrowded docks
filled up with waiting vessels, while Lascars
and Levantine Greeks, Cingalese and Chinamen, jostled
one another in the cafes.
The other jostlers were principally
Americans of fabulous wealth: at least as they
thronged the shipping offices they said so. Also
they were very angry, which is where they differed
from the Cingalese and Chinamen, who liked Marseilles
and prayed to remain for ever. But the Americans
desired to return to God’s own country they
and their wives and their sons and daughters; moreover,
they expressed their desire fluently and frequently.
There is something stupendous about an American magnate
insisting on his rights on a hot day, when he can’t
get them. . . . It cheers a man up when he is
waiting and wondering and England is still
silent.
It was just as Draycott had made the
unpleasant discovery that no longer did the weekly
boat run from Marseilles to Tunis and thence to Malta,
and was debating on the rival merits of a journey through
Italy, and thence by Syracuse to the island of goats;
or a journey through Spain to Gibraltar, and thence
by sea with luck, that a railway magnate
entered and gave his celebrated rendering of a boiler
explosion. It appeared when every
one had partially recovered that he was
the proud possessor of ten francs and three sous.
He also admitted to a wife suffering from something
with a name that hurt, and various young railway magnates
of both sexes. It transpired that the ten francs
and three sous had been laboriously collected
from his ménage only that morning; that the
youngest hopeful had wept copiously on losing her
life’s savings; and further, that it was the
limit of his resources. He had letters of credit,
or something dangerous of that sort, to the extent
of a few million; he was prepared to buy the whole
one-donkey country by a stroke of the pen, but in
hard cash he had ten francs and three sous.
. . .
It was pathetic; it was dreadful.
An American multi-millionaire, one of those strange
beings of whom one reads, who corner tin-tacks and
things, and ruin or make thousands with a word, reduced
to ten francs and three sous.
For not another cent piece did America’s
pride obtain; not another sou to add to the three.
Politely, firmly, a harassed clerk shooed him away.
No, he could not tell him when the next boat would
sail perhaps to-morrow, perhaps in a fortnight.
He did not know, and he did not care how he proposed
to live during that period, and he had no intention
of furnishing him with any money to do it with.
He had definite orders from his firm: no cheques
cashed under any circumstances whatever. He
was sorry the gentleman didn’t like Marseilles,
or war, or France, or him personally; he regretted
deeply that the gentleman’s wife liked peaches
with every meal, and hoped he’d manage all right
on his ten francs; he And then
came the interruption.
They crowded to the door, and watched
them coming. Occasionally a cheer rang out,
but for the most part they came in silence, passing
through the ranks of people that lined the road each
side. Half way down the column a band blared
forth, and every now and then the Colonel in front
lifted his right hand gravely in a salute. They
were small men, the poilus of that regiment; but they
marched well, with a swing, and the glint of white
teeth. Sometimes they waved a greeting to a
girl on the footpath, and she would smile back, or
throw them a flower or a kiss. And like a ripple
going down the lines of spectators, men took off their
hats suddenly. The Colours were passing. . .
.
Almost dazedly the American took off
his hat as the ripple reached him; then he put it
on again and turned to Draycott.
“Hell!” he remarked tersely,
“and I’ve been worry in’ over a ten-franc
note. I guess I feel a bit small.”
He turned and followed the regiment, with his hands
deep in his pockets, and his shoulders squared.
VI
It came through the following afternoon the
news they had been waiting for; and now for a certain
period the curtain of discretion must be drawn.
I gather that Draycott has dim recollections of a
stout field officer endeavouring to stand on a small
marble-topped table, with a glass of beer in each
hand. He was making a speech chiefly
in Hindustani to the frenzied mob of cheering
Frenchmen around him. Then he came to the point
when the best people say “Vive la France!”
He remembered he had a hat on; he remembered he ought
to take it off; he did. The only thing he forgot
was the beer. But as he said later when they
sorted him out, it was an old suit, and England didn’t
declare war every day. . . .
The following night they left in an
ancient old cargo boat, skippered by the type of man
who has since made our mercantile marine the glory
of the world. His job was to get his peculiarly
odoriferous cargo home to his owners as soon as possible;
beyond that he either failed or refused to look.
The entire German Navy might have been waiting outside
for all he cared; he merely consumed a little more
whisky, and conducted morning prayers. He would
give them no assurance; they went at their own risk,
but, if the boat got there, he would land them at
Gibraltar. And having thought the matter over,
and realised that firstly a journey through Italy
might result in their being kept as prisoners of war;
secondly, that a journey through Spain would probably
take a fortnight at least; and thirdly, that any way
they could do neither as they could get no money,
Draycott and his friends embarked with the patent
manure, and watched the lights of Marseilles growing
fainter and fainter till they dropped below the horizon
astern.
It was an uneventful voyage, and never
for one hour after the first day were they out of
sight of land. It was the only concession the
skipper would make for the safety of his boat; and
so they jogged along at a peaceful ten knots and watched
the sun set each evening in a blaze of golden glory
over the rocky coast of Spain. For the first
time since leaving England a week before, they were
able to think. In the rush to Paris, in the
horse-box to Marseilles, in Marseilles itself, they
had been too busy. Besides, they were outsiders.
. . .
Now, England was in it; the thing
which they had known in their hearts was coming, ever
since a kindly senior subaltern had first taken it
upon himself to shape their destinies, had actually
come. And bitterest thought of all they
were not there.
“It can’t last more than
three months.” A pessimistic garrison gunner
from Malta, who was playing patience, cheated savagely.
“I tell you no European country could stand
it.” Undoubtedly the fatuous drivel of
certain writers had influenced even the Army itself.
“Peace will be declared before Christmas.
An’ I’ll have sat on that cursed island,
and whenever I see a ship I’d like to poop at,
the searchlight will go out, an’ I’ll
be bitten by sand flies.” He glared morosely
at Draycott; until, suddenly, a dawning look of joy
spread over his face. “It’s coming
out. I swear it’s coming out!”
“You cheated,” remarked
an onlooker cruelly. “I saw you with my
own eyes.”
It was then that he burst into tears. . . .
Shut off as they were from the outside
world the old tramp had no wireless they
could only wonder, and wait, fuming with impatience.
What had happened? Had the fleets met?
Had the wonderful day which the German Navy was popularly
supposed to be living for had it arrived?
And if it had what had been the result?
They could only lean over the stern and try and grasp
the one monumental fact war. And what
did it hold in store? . . .
Visions of forlorn hopes, visions
of glory, visions of the glamour of war rose unbidden
in their minds. And then, when they had got as
far as that, the smell of that patent manure obtruded
itself once again, and the dreamers of honours to
come passed sadly down the gangway to the Levantine
villain who presided over the vermouth and the gin.
Which might be taken as the text for a sermon on things
as they are. In this war it is the patent manure
and the vermouth which dominate the situation as far
as the fighters, at any rate, are concerned.
The talkers may think otherwise, may prate of soul-stirring
motives, and great ideals. But for the soldiers,
life is a bit too grim and overpowering for gloss.
After a spell they come for their vermouth, for something
to help nerves a trifle jangled, something to give
a contrast to stark reality, and having had it they
go back again to the patent manure; while the onlookers
see visions and dream dreams. I suppose it’s
a fair division of labour! . . .
VII
It was the distinguished-looking gentleman
in blue who came alongside just after they dropped
anchor at the Rock, who brought the glorious news.
He ascended the gangway with great dignity, and disappeared
into some secret place with the skipper. After
some delay and a slight commotion, various flags were
hoisted, and he majestically appeared again.
It seemed that the hoisting of the flags had apparently
been successful. Suspicion had been averted
by this simple act; there was no longer any danger
of being made a target for enthusiastic gunners.
And, what was more to the point, the distinguished
gentleman was now free to impart his great tidings.
“The German fleet, gentlemen,”
he remarked genially, “has ceased to exist.”
“Who said so?” asked a doubting voice.
“It is in all the Spanish papers.”
The Admiral, or whatever he was, eyed the speaker
compassionately. “A great action has taken
place in the North Sea; we have lost nineteen big
ships in addition to destroyers, and the German fleet
is wiped out.”
“It doesn’t seem good
enough, does it?” murmured a graceless member
of the group.
“But if it’s really authentic?”
Draycott turned to him doubtfully. “And
there must be something in it if it’s in all
the Spanish papers.”
“On the contrary,” returned
the graceless one. “It is precisely that
fact that makes me believe there is nothing in it.”
The remark seemed conclusive; and
yet so detailed was the information all over Gib,
so definite the lists of vessels sunk on each side,
that even intelligent Scorps as the inhabitants
of the place are known were impressed.
Strangely enough, exactly the same detailed lists,
with just sufficient difference to make them credible,
were in all the Italian papers at the same time though
this only transpired later.
At the moment nothing much mattered
but the time of the next boat going East: it
was their own little personal future that counted.
A naval battle yes, perhaps; nineteen
ships down the German fleet as well; fifty
or sixty thousand men gone, finished, wiped
out. And yet it was the next boat they wanted
to know about.
Callous I think not; merely
a total incapability to realise a thing so stupendous.
It has been the same all through the war: the
tragedies have been too big for human minds to grasp.
It is the little things that tell; the isolated thumb-nail
impressions that live in one’s mind, and will
go with us to the grave. The one huddled form
lying motionless in the shell-hole, with its staring,
sightless eyes; the one small, but supreme sacrifice:
that is the thing which hits hits harder
than the Lusitania, or any other of the gigantic
panels of the war. The pin-pricks we feel; the
sledge hammer merely stuns. And the danger is
that those who have felt the pin-pricks may confuse
them with the sledge hammer; may lose the right road
in the bypaths of personal emotion. War means
so infinitely much to the individual; the individual
means so infinitely little to war. Only it is
sometimes hard to remember that simple fact. . . .
VIII
It was from the top of the Rock that
they watched their evil-smelling boat depart, to plug
on northward up the home trail, unperturbed by naval
battles or rumours thereof. And it was from the
top of the Rock they first saw the smoke of the P.
and O., outward bound, on which they were destined
to complete the journey. Below lay the bay, dotted
with German and Austrian ships caught on the high
seas at the outbreak of war; a destroyer was going
half-speed towards the Atlantic; a cruiser lay in
dock, her funnels smoking placidly. Out towards
Algeciras an American battleship, with her peculiar
steel trellis turrets, was weighing anchor; and in
the distance, across the Straits, Africa, rugged and
inhospitable, shimmered in the heat haze of an August
day.
“So long.” The gunner
subaltern waved a weary hand from his point of vantage,
where he was inspecting life with a telescope.
“There’s your barge, but she won’t
leave till to-morrow. If this goes on for much
longer, my nerves will give way under the strain.
The excitement is too great.”
It appears that Draycott had forebodings
even before he got on board that P. and O. Since
then she has become almost historic amongst those
of the Regular Army whose abode at the beginning of
the war was overseas. Save for the fact that
no one was playing the harmonium, or any other musical
instrument, the appearance of her decks as they came
alongside was reminiscent of one of those delightful
pleasure steamers on which one may journey, at comparatively
small cost, up and down the Thames. A seething
mob of people, almost exclusively composed of the
male sex, glared furiously at them and one another but
principally at them as they came up the
gangway, and departed in search of the purser.
All the stairs down to the dining saloon were occupied
by morose passengers, and an enlivening altercation
was in progress between two elderly gentlemen of ferocious
aspect anent the remnants of what had once been a
cushion. A mild-looking being, closely clutching
a tired deck-chair, was descending to the dining saloon,
where infuriated men were loudly thumping the tables.
“Good heavens, gentlemen! what
do you want?” A haggard purser peered at them
from his office. “Berths!” He broke
into a shout of maniacal laughter, and then pulled
himself together. “The fourteenth stair
leading to the engine-room is not taken, but there’s
an exhaust pipe passes under it, and it becomes too
hot to sit on. There is room for two in a coal
bunker which should be empty by to-night; otherwise,
the hold, if you can find room.”
“But what’s all the trouble,”
they queried peevishly. “Surely ”
“Trouble!” The purser
swallowed hard. “We have on board eighty-four
generals, two hundred and twenty colonels, and one
thousand eight hundred and ninety-one what-nots of
junior rank. They have all been recalled from
leave; they have all come by this boat. The eighteenth
breakfast is now being served perhaps.”
With a dreadful cry he seized the brandy bottle,
while they faded slowly and sadly away. There
are things too terrible for contemplation. . . .
It was a wonderful trip that
final stage to the Half Way House of Malta.
There was the dreadful incident of the short-sighted
subaltern who got into a full Colonel’s bed
by mistake, when that worthy officer had just gone
down on four no trumps redoubled. In vain to
point out the similarity of engine-room gratings in
vain to plead short sight. The subsequent scene
lingered in the memory for days.
There was the case of the sleep walker,
who got loose in the hold, and ambled heavily over
four hundred infuriated human sardines, till he finally
fell prostrate into what was apparently the abode of
spare china.
Last but not least there was the dreadful
Case of the Major-General’s Bath. Of this
Draycott speaks first hand; he, personally, was an
awe-struck spectator. Now the question of baths
on that boat was not one to be trifled with.
The queue for the pit of a popular play was as nothing
to the procession that advanced to the bath in the
morning. And the least penalty for sharp practice
with regard to one’s turn was death.
Into the bathroom, then, prepared
for him by a perspiring Lascar, the Major-General
stepped. At the time Draycott did not know he
was a Major-General: he was just a supreme being
resplendent in a green silk dressing-gown. The
door closed, only to open again at once.
“I have forgotten my sponge,”
he announced. “I shall not be a moment.”
He gazed directly at Draycott, who bowed, choking slightly.
It was inconceivable to imagine that the resplendent
one thought he might to put it in the vulgar
tongue pinch his bath. By nature he
was a timorous individual, and that green dressing-gown ye
gods! perish the thought.
It was while he waited humbly that
the catastrophe occurred. Advancing magnificently
came a second being, still more resplendent, in a purple
dressing-gown; and he was complete, with towel, sponge,
and soap. His eye would have impaled a London
taxi-driver, and, scenting trouble, the Lascar made
himself scarce.
“It is preposterous to keep
people waiting in this manner,” he boomed; “perfectly
monstrous.” The next moment the door was
shut and bolted, and Draycott followed the Lascar’s
example just in time: green dressing-gown
was returning with his sponge. In official parlance,
a general action seemed imminent. . . .
It opened with the crash of heavy
artillery in the shape of strange and loud expletives
of an Indian nature, to be followed immediately by
an attack in force on the hostile position.
This resulted in a sanguinary repulse, and the attacking
party hopped round, apparently in pain, nursing a
stubbed toe. The temporary set-back, however,
seemed only to raise the morale of the force;
and after a further heavy bombardment of a similar
nature to the one before, a succession of blows were
delivered in rapid succession at all points along the
front, which suddenly gave way and the victor was
precipitated in some confusion, but triumphant, upon
the floor of the captured position.
How true it is, that great utterance
of our hand-books on war! “Every leader
must bear in mind the necessity of immediately consolidating
a newly won position, in order to resist the counter-attack
of the enemy, which sooner or later is bound to be
launched.”
In this case it was distinctly sooner.
With a loud shout the defending troops arose from
a recumbent position to wit, the bath and
with deadly accuracy launched the contents of a large
bucket of hot water upon the still prostrate foe.
“What is the meaning of this
monstrous intrusion?” The battle cry of the
purples rang through the quivering air.
“You s’scoundrel! you impudent s’scoundrel!”
With a loud spluttering noise the
greens got up and assumed a belligerent attitude.
“You m’miserable villain! that is my
bath. How d’dare you how d’dare
you throw w’water over me. D’do
you know what I am, sir? I am a Major-General,
sir, and I shall report your infamous c’conduct
to the captain.”
“And I, sir,” howled his
opponent, “will have you put in irons; I will
have you chained to the crow’s-nest, if they
have one on board. Keel-hauled, sir, amongst
the barnacles and things. I, sir, I am a Lieutenant-General.”
Draycott was still slightly dazed
when he landed in Malta.
IX
Thus did he reach the Half Way House
on his journey to the Land; and at that Half Way House
he was destined to remain for a short space.
It may be that there is a harder school than forced
inaction; if so, I have no desire to become a pupil.
“Those are your orders; there is nothing more
to be said.” Only too true; there is
nothing more to be said but thinking is
a different matter. . . .
And what brush can paint the indescribable
longing of those who were fitted for it, who were
trained in its ways, to get to their goal to
get to the Land of Promise. For it was a Land
of Promise; it was the land of the regular soldier’s
dreams. And in those days there was no thought
of the dream becoming a nightmare. . . .
So Clive Draycott and those with him,
in that little rocky outpost of Empire, carried on
as cheerfully as a wet sirocco wind and an ever-present
heart-burning to be in France would allow, and waited
for deliverance.
Perhaps they suffered more acutely
than even those who were in the Great Retreat.
Out of it, as they thought, out of it. Would
they ever be able to hold up their heads again?
And then the worst thing of all:
that awful day when the news came through the
news which England got one Sunday. Fellows kept
it from the men as far as they could; they covered
up places on the map with their hand, unostentatiously;
and when they had found Compiègne they folded the
map up, and told the men everything was well.
It was that evening that Draycott and a pal watched
the sun go down over Gozo from St. Paul’s
Bay, where the statue stands in the sea, and the shallow
blue water ripples against the white sandstone.
“My God! it can’t be true!”
His companion turned to him, and his eyes were tired.
“It can’t be true. We’re b ”
And his lips would not frame the word.
Only, in their hearts they knew it
was true; and in their hearts a dreadful hopelessness
wormed its bitter way. But crushing it down
there was another feeling stronger and more
powerful. England could not be beaten,
would not be beaten; the thing was impossible,
unbelievable. Triumphant it arose, that great
certainty. It arose then, and has never died
since, though at times the sky has been black and
the storm clouds ominous. They knew that all
would be well; and now after three years all
is well. Their faith has been justified, the
faith of the men who waited their call to the work.
Only a small proportion remain to see that justification
with their own eyes; the Land has claimed the rest.
Ypres, the Marne, Neuve Chapelle,
Festubert names well-nigh forgotten in the
greater battles of to-day in each and all
of them the seed of “a contemptible little Army”
has been sown. Thus it was ordained in the Book
of Fate.
But at the moment there were just
two men, sick of heart, watching the sun, in a blaze
of golden glory, setting over Gozo. . . .
X
Draycott’s deliverance from
the Half Way House came in three or four weeks.
With the men swarming in the rigging, and the Territorials
who had come to replace them cheering from the shore,
the transport moved slowly down the Grand Harbour
past the French and British warships that lay at anchor.
It would indeed be pleasing to record the fact that
the departing warriors sang patriotic songs concerning
their country’s greatness; and that the officers
with a few well-chosen words improved the shining
hour, and pointed the moral of the great Entente with
special reference to the warships around them.
But being a truthful or, shall we say,
comparatively truthful historian, I regret
that it cannot be done.
Such songs as did rise above the medley
of catcalls and gibes of a dark nature which passed
in playful badinage between the sister services were
of a nature exclusively frivolous; and the conversation
of such officers as were not consuming the midday
cocktail consisted entirely of a great thankfulness
that they had seen the last of an abominable island,
and a fervent prayer that they would never see it again.
The relief of it the blessed
relief! They would be in time for the end of
the show any way, which was something. They were
not going to miss it all; they would be able to look
their pals in the face after it was over. A
few, it is true, shook their heads and communed together
in secret places: a paltry few, who looked serious,
and spoke of a long war and a bloody war such as had
never been thought of. Avaunt pessimism! war
was war, and a damned good show at the best of times
for those who were trained to its ways. The
Germans had asked for it for years, and now they had
got it and serve ’em right.
A good sporting show, and with any luck they would
get the fag end of the hunting at home after peace
was declared.
Thus it was, nearly three years ago;
thus it has been, with slight modifications, ever
since. A nation of sportsmen going merrily forth,
with the ideal of sport as their guide, to fight a
nation of swine, with the ideal of fouling as theirs.
And so the world wags on in its funny old way, while
the gods laugh, and laugh, and laugh. . . .
XI
On the boat Draycott hardly realised.
For the first week of the three he spent in England
he hardly realised he was too excited.
He was going out; that was all that mattered; until
one morning his eyes were opened to his personal case.
It is easy to see things where others are concerned;
but in one’s own case. . . .
He was at home on three days’
leave, and the girl was there too.
“Good Lord!” he remarked
at breakfast; “Jerry Thornton gone too.”
His eye was running down the casualty list.
“Whole battalion must have taken it in the
neck five officers killed, fourteen wounded.
I wish to heaven ” He looked
up, and the words died away on his lips.
“I didn’t realise what
war meant to women.” His remarks at the
Gare de Lyon hit him like a blow.
For he had seen the look in the girl’s eyes;
he had seen the look in his mother’s. Blotted
out at once, it is true; effaced the instant they
had realised he was watching them; but too
late. He had seen.
“Was that Major Thornton, dear?”
His mother was speaking. “The one who
shot so well?” Her voice was casual; her acting
superb. And God! how they can act these
women of ours.
For a moment something stuck in his
throat. He saw just such another breakfast room,
with a woman staring with dull eyes at the laconic
name in the paper: a name which so baldly confirmed
the wire she had had three days before. Stunned,
still dazed by the shock, she sat silently, apathetically;
as yet she could hardly feel the blow which Fate had
dealt her. In time perhaps; just now well,
it couldn’t be; there must be some mistake.
Other men had died true; but not
hers. He was different; there must be some mistake.
. . .
For each and every name in that list
Clive Draycott of a sudden realised the same thing
was occurring. And then he saw it personally;
he felt it personally; he realised that
it concerned him personally. Those
other women had looked, just as had his mother and
the girl, a few weeks ago. Those other women
had laughed and joked and asked casual questions to
cover their true feelings, just the same. Those
other women had been through it all and
“We only see them before we go never
after.” In the theatre, at the restaurant,
playing the fool with us, dancing with us then
we see them; afterwards when the train
has gone and we are looking out of the window or talking
with the man opposite, then, we do not see them.
And it is just as well. “Mon Dieu!
Quelle vache de guerre.”
. . .
Something of all this did Draycott
feel at that moment; something which caught him and
shook him and mocked him. Something which whispered,
“You ass, you wretched ass! You think it’s
you who will suffer; you think it’s you who
will be acclaimed a hero. Fool! Your sufferings,
your achievements, whether you live or die, are as
nothing to those of these two women. You may
wear the cross for a moment’s heroism: they
bear it all the time. And they get no praise;
they just endure.” . . .
Yes; something like that struck him
for the first time as being personally applicable
to himself. And having looked thoughtfully out
of the window for a moment, he laughed gently, and
then he spoke.
“That’s the fellow,”
he remarked quietly. “An’ if the
tea ain’t cold I’ll take another dish.
Three glasses of the old man’s port, Dolly,
is enough. I had four last night.”
XII
A week later he sat in a mud bath
at Havre, which went by the name of a rest camp; the
Way to the Land was nearly trodden. Thousands
of others had sat in that glutinous mud before him;
hundreds of thousands were destined to do so after.
And each and all of them were thinking men; wondering
in a greater or less degree according to the size and
activity of their grey matter what it was all about.
To some the Unknown gave the prospect of sport, and
they thanked their stars they were nearly there; to
some it gave the prospect of Duty, and they trusted
they would not fail. With some the fear of the
future blotted out their curiosity; with others curiosity
left no room for fear. But in every case they
had something to think about even if it
were only the intense discomfort of their surroundings.
And in every case the woman over the water had nothing.
By cattle trucks and carriages, by
so-called fast trains and unabashed troop trains they
left in batches big and small; and others came and
filled the gaps. The Land was calling; the Seed
must not be delayed.
“You’ll have to wait till
it’s dark.” A weary Quartermaster,
wandering through Ypres, met Draycott and stopped.
“Thank God! you’ve come. We’ve
got three officers left and a hundred and twenty men.”
“Where are they?” he demanded. “How
shall I find them?”
“Very likely you won’t.”
The other laughed mirthlessly. “I’ll
take you up to-night we walk the last bit
to the trenches. If a flare goes up stand
still; there’s no other rule.”
“You’re about done in,
Seymour,” said Draycott, watching him keenly.
“What’s the trouble?”
“The trouble is Hell.”
The Quartermaster passed his hand wearily over his
forehead. “Utter, absolute, complete Hell.
The boys have been in the front line for twenty-one
days; and” he spoke with a sudden
dreadful earnestness “the end is not
far off.”
“My God!” muttered Draycott, “is
it as bad as that?”
No trenches, no dug outs, no reserves.
Ceaseless German attacks, rain, mud, death.
And then, three or four days of icy coldness, with
the bitter Arctic wind cutting the sodden, tired,
breaking men like a knife. Fighting every hour,
with rifles and bayonets and fists sleepless,
tired out, finished. Only a spirit which made
possible the impossible supported them: only the
glory of their traditions held the breaking line of
Old Contemptibles to the end. And at the end they
died. . . .
But their spirit lives on, undimmed,
untarnished. It is the spirit of the New Armies the
Civilian Armies of Britain. They were training
back in England when Clive Draycott went to the Land:
they were learning the message of the old Regulars
from New Zealand to Yukon. It is not learned
in a day that message: there is much
watering and weeding to do before the seed can reach
perfection, but the Land would not wait. . . .
It was greedy then as now; the only difference
was the amount of grain available. And when
Clive Draycott went to it there was very little.
To God Almighty the praise. What there was,
was very good.